The River Rapids

Long before I begun my battle with the snow clad mountains, I had gone on a white-water rafting ride with a bunch of adventure seekers from my University. The destination was the ravaging Indian River located in the midst of the Adirondacks, a pristine isolated mountainous region in the far north of upstate New York. The plan was simple, camp out the night at the top of the mountain and once refreshed, take on the might of the Indian River. At that point of time I was still a student in Binghamton and had absolutely no prior experience of either camping nor white water rafting. As I found out much later, neither did anyone else.

Now, our trip was planned for the Memorial Day weekend, which occurs at the end of May, not yet the start of summer and hence not completely warm. Binghamton itself had warmed up the the extent that I didn't need a jacket to go outdoors. But while packing for the overnight camping trip, I didn't realize that 1. Adirondacks is way North, higher up and way way more colder & 2. staying out all night in a tent exposed to the elements is a completely different experience weather wise as compared to staying indoors in an apartment. So armed with just a flimsy thin fleece jacket, I set out with the others on this journey.

As soon as we entered the Adirondacks after sunset, it felt as if we were entering a world yet undiscovered by civilization. Cell phone coverage was non existent and it remained so for the rest of our stay. It soon seemed like we were the only one traversing the secluded pitch black road, my friends in the other cars had passed us long back and were unreachable by phone. Not aware that the rest of the journey would be through a region completely isolated, we hadn't stopped for dinner earlier. As the road rumbled on through the dense jungle, our stomachs started to make noises that would have scared away wilder beasts. Just as we had given up hope, we passed a bar with a bright red neon sign that said "open". Salvation in the form of a watering hole, in the middle of the jungle. The only eatable item on the menu was "buffalo wings"; they were unbelievably delicious and absolutely out of this world; the best I have ever had.

Moving on, we finally encountered the rest of our gang waiting for us near a field where we planned to camp out the night. Setting up the tent in the dark turned out to be easier than I thought. Lack of camping experience and preparedness meant, there were 4 humans for every blanket. As the night wore on, the cold started to set in and I soon found myself shivering. The only solution that I could think of was to sleep in the car. Thank god for car heating. We would crank up the heater, wait for the car to warm up, turn it off and go sleep till the car got cold again; at which time we would repeat the entire process. Somehow I made it through to the morning without transforming into an ice sculpture. A large steaming cup of hot chocolate and a delicious garden omelette at a nearby Diner helped me thaw myself back to normal.

Soon it was time for the adventure. The Indian River possesses among the best natural rapids in these parts, and spring is the best time to battle these rapids because the snow melts in the mountains and adds to the ferocity of the river taking it to a gut wrenching Level 4; which works great for a bunch of people rafting for the first time in their lives. Unlike the mountains of doom in my ski-trip, the rapids were fun, more fun than any roller coaster ride I have ever been on. At some point during the ride, when we hit a rock in a treacherous part of the river; and I was thrown off into the gushing cold rapids, the entire experience was that of sheer exhilaration. That was my high point of the entire journey. I fell right beside the raft and was picked up in less than a minute. One of the other memorable experiences was climbing atop a rock in the middle of a calm stretch of the river and plunging Tarzan style into the pristine water below. However the experience wasn't so pleasant for a friend of mine, a dude called "He-man" who apparently forgot to mention that he couldn't swim before he jumped. We pulled him back into the boat when he started flapping around his hands in desperation. After tirelessly rafting for almost 6 hours, the journey finally came to the end at the bottom of the Indian River.

As we took the bus back to our camp at the top of the river, I felt tired and cold but sad that the adventure was over. It was such a wonderful experience that I hope to take on the might of the Indian River again someday.

IPL 2 - Rise of the Sponsors

Recently the second edition of IPL took off in South Africa and I have been religiously following the travails of the Mumbai Indians who have moved on from being the early title favorites to being second to the worst. Although I have followed most of their matches on cricinfo, I did get to watch a few matches live. The fierce on-field battles were accompanied by a bunch of mediocre ex-cricketer now turned commentators going way way over the top to praise their IPL bosses and to find more and more imaginative ways to mention the tournament sponsors.

The genius who thought that a Six should be called a "DLF Maximum" should be forced to face a ferocious Lasith Malinga without a bat, helmet, shoes or other kind of protection. This along with the ironically named "Citi - Moment of Success" (coming from a Bank that is desperately surviving on Government Bail-out money) and the strategic Time-out (strategic only for the sponsors) got me thinking about how things could get worse from next year onwards.

Imagine a cricket tournament with a sponsored name for every conceivable delivery, shot or run scored. Sample this commentary. Shane Warne takes a couple of steps and bowls a mesmerizing "Google googly". Sachin counters this by fetching the delivery from outside off, "Flickr flicks" down to "Hanes LongLeg" fielder and scampers thru for a "Shaadi.Com Single".

The Umpire who's dressed up in a dazzling white coat sponsored by "Surf Excel" signals the end of a "Kingfisher 6 Pack Over" by breaking into a Calypso dance with the West Indian players. Adam Gilchrist gets on strike and is clean bowled first ball. As he walks back in gloom, a Mirinda commerical starts playing, "Mirinda Bowled - Jor Ka Jhatka Dheere se Lage". Dravid who walks in next, is unfortunate to get out LBW to the next ball and is promptly followed by a commercial of "Lux - Fair n Lovely Legs" featuring the King Khan himself. Not to be outdone the next batsman plays a couple of defensive strokes before hitting straight into the hands of the bowler. This time the commercial that plays features a man and his unshakeable shadow with the tagline, "Caught - Yeh Fevicol Ka Majbut Jod Hai".

The match itself goes down to the wire and Sachin wins it for Mumbai. Sachin is unanimously declared the "Complan Boy" and is presented with a mug full of refreshing chocolate milk by Kapil Dev himself. Just before the camera zooms out, Kapil and Sachin smile into the camera and say "I am a Complan Boy".

With all these "sponsored" changes, the cash registers will tingle all the way for Mr. Modi and co. And soon they will be swimming in a pool of money like Uncle Scrooge. :)

Man versus Mountain

This winter has been one of the harshest winters in the last 3-4 years and this weekend I will undertake a journey to the cold mountains of the North to renew my old battle with the elements of a frigid winter. The last time I was there 3 winters ago, was the first time I had faced these white slopes of terror armed with nothing but a pair of skis. I was accompanied on that mission by Dee, a hardened veteran of these slopes; Miss LJ, a terrified neophyte; Mister AK, an overconfident garrulous not-so-experienced dude & the invincible AJo, a fellow novice willing to take on the toughest of challenges.

I could feel a chill up my spine as we approached the mountain of doom and my knees started knocking against each other. I realized later that the shivering was caused by Mister AK turning off the heater by mistake. Dee led us to a sled where we were given the equipment we would need to take on this enormous challenge. As we dragged ourselves out to the slopes wearing unwalkable boots and carrying heavy skis, I realized that the slopes were filled with people of all ages, even waist high kids who zoomed by me as if they were born with skis on their feet.

Humbled, I put on my skis and pushed myself across the snow hoping that people would not notice that I was a beginner. Maybe I could be one of those wonder stories, of people who were natural at skiing the first time they tried. So far so good. Horizontal skiing seemed easy enough to learn. Dee kind of assumed that I had done this before and beckoned me to follow him up the slope. All you had to do was to hold on to your rope and get dragged up the slope. Seemed easy enough. As I held the rope, my skis somehow managed to get entangled in each other and before I knew it, I was flat on my back with my feet pointing up to the sky. I fell right beside the rope, so there was a huge line of people waiting for me to get out of the way. It was then that I realized its not so easy getting back on your feet when you have skis on. I felt like an over-turned turtle trying to turn over on a slippery block of melting ice. I also realized that on a relatively warm day, the snow is not really as soft as you think it is and hence the landing not so much fun.

It was finally when I got up and moved elsewhere that I noticed what my friends were up to. AJo the invincible was sitting alone at the extreme right of the slope beside a line of trees and a ditch trying to drag himself inch by inch to the bottom, took him close to an hour. It is a mystery to me how he got there in the first place. Miss LJ kept falling down in spite of not even trying to move. She must have fallen down at least 15 times while covering a total distance of 10 feet the entire duration that we were at the resort. Half the fun was watching her predict that she would fall and then topple over with progressively increasing levels of hilarity. Although I don't believe she found it as funny as we did. Mister AK in turn had the unique ability to fall down at the exact same spot at the top of the slope every time that he went up there. It seemed to us like he had met his Snowloo(read Waterloo).

Dee finally managed to teach me how to ski and took me to the top of the slope. The moment I pushed off from the top, I remembered that he had not taught me how to brake at the end of the slope. Ahh. If I had more friends like him, I wouldn't need any enemies. I went crashing into the net below, designed solely for crazy untrained beginners like me who did not know how to stop. Took me a couple of increasingly decelerated crashes into the net before I finally managed to brake to a halt successfully.

I should have known not to take training from a dude like Dee who had decided to tackle a Diamond slope the first day that he learned skiing. All he managed to do on that slope was to crash into a snow bump and get tonked on his head with his own ski. I wish someone had captured this you-tube moment.

That brought to an end my first skiing experience on the slopes of New England. The mountains had bellowed and shook but although bruised and rattled, we had survived the test. This time around 3 out of 5 will not be around, but the great AK is still there and I hope he entertains us with his unique falling skills yet again. Dee is far away in a land more famous for its shape shifting sand than snow. However his sister might be around and I will make sure that I don't ask her for any skiing tips whatsoever. Miss LJ suffered such terrible emotional trauma from her last skiing experience that there is nothing in this world that could get her near a snow mountain, not even the threat of Dee singing "Kuch toh Log Kahenge" non stop for 3 days into her ears. This time around the mountains shall tremble with the sheer speed and force of our ski blades.

Jai Ho.

Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan !!!!

Recently T-Raj, decided to tackle his pet issue of Mumbai being off-limits for non-Maharashtrians by chairing a secret high powered committee to lay down the rules for a new and more Marathi Mumbai.

Fortunately for us, yours truly managed to sneak into the meeting and prepare an exclusive and explosive report on what was actually said. Here is the list of rules that the committee decided to lay down for us Mumbaikars.

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1. Mumbai IPL/ICL & Ranji teams shall only feature Marathi players. It's time we bid adieu to Jayasurya, Pollock and the talented Rohit Sharma. The committee was of the opinion that with Sachin still around, Mumbai does not need anyone else. The Mumbai Indians team will now be re-named the Mumbai Marathas.

2. Bollywood movies shall feature only Marathi actors. This means that, all movies henceforth will star either Ritiesh Deshmukh or Shreyas Talpade and will be directed by Amol Palekar. Pros: There is no shortage of gorgeous Marathi actresses (Madhuri, Sonali & Namrata). Cons: The item girls (Rakhi & Mamta) were banned by the other Sena for vulgarity.

3. Dalal Street will be renamed as Pandurang Marg and will rid itself of all Gujjus & Marwadis. The Stock Market itself will be closed for a couple of hours in the afternoon so that the brokers can get a poli-bhaaji lunch and catch a well deserved afternoon nap. Needless to say, the market will be closed for 10 days during the Ganesh festival and on both days that Shivaji Maharaj was supposed to have been born.

4. The Tatas, Birlas and Ambanis will have to change their surnames if they want to continue doing business in Mumbai. The Ambanis will now be the Ambekars, the Tatas will be the Thattes and the Birlas will be Birladhyakshas.

5. Udipi restaurants shall serve only Thalipeeths, Sabudana Wadas and other delectable Marathi delicacies. Dosas and idlis are henceforth banned in Mumbai. So are dhoklas and Undyu. Punjabi and Chinese restaurants will be given special permission to stay because the party bosses are fond of Mutton Biryani & Chicken Lollypops.

6. Outsiders will be allowed to reside in Mumbai only if they successfully clear a TOMFL (Test of Marathi as an Foreign Language) and TSM (Test of Spoken Marathi). These tests will be offered at centres all over India, except in UP and Bihar. Permanent non-marathi residents will be required to memorize and recite the complete works of Pu La. People who do not know who he is, will have their faces blackened and will be forced to leave the state on a donkey.

7. The dress code for men in Mumbai will be an ironed Dhoti and an immaculate white long-shirt. This can be topped off with a colorful pagadi. Women should wear the traditional navvari saree. "Ram Ram" is now the official greeting of the state and people are requested to use the same to greet each other.

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People who do NOT follow these rules will be forced to watch 5 back to back Dada Kondke movies with English subtitles AND/OR be forced to get down at Andheri station from a Virar fast at peak time. Repeat offenders will be forced to travel in the maal-dabba of the local train with the macchi-waalis every day for the rest of their stay in Mumbai.

Any satire detected in this article is completely un-intentional and is but a figment of the reader's imagination.

Jai Mumbai !!!! Jai Maharashtra !!!!

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God - Tussi Great Ho

Of all the people that I met at Binghy, the omniscient Dr Saheb was one of a kind. He was the star research student of the University and the scope of his research transcended the boundaries of every department. Professors never seemed to get enough of him while his peers simply referred to him as GOD.

His popularity was such that there would always be a line of eager students standing outside Dr Saheb's research lab awaiting his darshan. The lines were longer than the peak hour line at Dickinson Dining Hall and half as large as the hysterical line of girls standing outside Baldwin, the then residence of Mr. Jogi Kat.

Dr. Saheb is a one man Printing Press and has printed out more pages(for his research papers) than major publishing houses. At one point, his demand for ink was so high that HP opened up a factory in Binghamton pandering exclusively to his demands. NYPL in turn built an extra floor underneath so as to accommodate his research papers. They are planning ways to expand further in 2009.

This high usage of paper has left vast acres of forest land all across the North East completely devastated. The West Coast faced similar problems, when he moved there. The trees there have a saying that goes: "If the Forest Fires don't get you, Dr Saheb will". Appalled by the thought that his research would soon run out of paper, Dr Saheb immediately presented a paper on writing more papers to resolve the issue.

Dr Saheb was once so inspired by Anil Kapoor's look in Musafir (or maybe because it was rakh-lee's fav movie) that he refused to shave for a month and sported a messy hairstyle. In the end he had to relent when his concerned research adviser threatened to cut off the power supply to his printer.

Dr Saheb was also quite charitable towards his friends and would gladly lend his car to his good friend Jogi who used it to impress the PYTs and drove them around town.

Once when I was with Jogi in Dr Saheb's lab, our eyes fell across the output of a program that he was running. The first line read, "Thus, Man has been Created". There it was, the program to create mankind. This would have been perfect proof that Intelligent Design was the key and not Evolution. No wonder he was called God. Unfortunately before we could read further, Dr Saheb turned around and with a magical wave of his mouse stopped us mortals from reading the rest.

Dr Saheb is now a world traveler, attending conferences all over, from Scandinavia to the remote islands of French Polynesia and working on projects that would benefit mankind. He also has known associations with some of the most eminent noble prize winners and scholars of our generation.

In spite of his brilliance, he is a completely down to earth individual, a nice guy and a really good friend. However his KoBra roots often lead to him viciously dasaofying innocent victims such as yours truly and another simple friend of ours, called Vishari.

I guess thats all for now. After reading this, I hope he doesn't write a Research Paper on 1000 different ways to bash me up. I wish him all the best for his Marriage and fervently hope that fewer trees are cut down after he gets married. Adios.


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Wall Street 08 - The Jogi Story

A lot has been said about the recent collapse of Wall Street. Sub-prime mortgages, high risk mortgage securities, 700 billion dollar bail-outs, record bankruptcies; been there seen that. The market has never had it this bad since the "Great Depression". It is in such time that one of our top reporters(yours truly) went underground, lived dangerously and uncovered one of the biggest shouldered cover-ups of all time, the real reason behind the Wall Street crash of 08.

For the uninitiated, before I delve further into the report, let us talk a bit about a really good friend of mine, Mr. Jogi Kat. Jogi is a legendary Casanova with boldness, charisma & oodles of charm that would make even James Bond dark green with envy. His dancing in the now notorious Rathskeller (alias "the Rat") has left thousands of wannabe Kats dancing in his shadow trying with great fervor to match even the most fundamental of his many steps. Girls flock there in the fervent hope that they would find some souvenirs of the man once known as Vin Travolta. His female fan following has been and will always be unprecedented in the history as well as the future of mankind (his closest rival George Clooney has long since given up).

And if the killer steps and dazzling bold personality were not enough, Jogi also has one of the most envied physiques ever known to mankind. Mr. Mor once described Jogi's massive shoulders to be a colossal mass of pure solid muscle. The closest thing to Jogi that special effects could conjure up in a motion picture was the Incredible Hulk, but even the Hulk at his angriest just seems like a toned down version of Jogi. Jogi, once had to return a new jacket from JC Penney just because it just couldn't fit his massive shoulders. Since then, his jackets are specially ordered from a factory in some remote part of China. Mr. Mor in another of his colorful quotes said, "those aren't just shoulders, they are humongous boulders".

To give you a better idea of the charm that he possesses, here is a poster that one of the premier clubs in Manhattan posted all over the city, when Jogi announced his intention to move to the city from Binghy. (This poster is by courtesy of Mr. Mor)

Jogi already has 2 famous landmarks in Manhattan dedicated to him, the famous bull on Wall street is abstractly modelled after him while the statue of Hercules on Fifth Avenue, shown to be holding up the world is symbolic of the impact that Jogi's shoulders have had on the rest of the world.

Anyways before we digress further away from the topic at hand, let us get back to the breaking news regarding the real sequence of events that brought Wall Street crashing down to its knees.

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1. Jogi gets married in March 2007.

2. Girls all over the world get despondent.

3. They stop shopping in depression.

4. Shops and markets are affected.

5. Girls' dads stop building big houses with wide passages & doors.

6. Housing markets also take a hit.

7. In 2008, there is news that Jogi is applying for MBA in NYU.

8. Girls in financial firms, quit jobs en mass to apply to NYU.

9. Guys in financial firms lose motivation after girls quit.

10. Financial markets suffer complete breakdown.

11. Hence economy down.

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I hope that Jogi is busy enough with his courses at NYU that he does not end up reading my post. I pray to god to keep me safe from those immensely massive boulders. A mere twitch could send me into an infinite orbit around the earth.

In spite of all his qualities, Jogi remains a completely down to earth and a great guy to have around. He has always been quite sporting about the tons of fun that we keep having at his expense. I wish him all the very best with his MBA.

That's it for this post. Peace out.

Desi Pink Panther

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1. Pink Panther

Recently I watched Peter Sellers play the bumbling French detective Inspector Clouseau in the classic "Pink Panther" series. He is undoubtedly one of the most comically gifted actors that I have ever seen. Steve Martin has done a tremendous job too in the recent remake of Pink Panther. While watching Awara Pagal Deewana yesterday and seeing Paresh Rawal drive everyone crazy by messing up their names, a thought crept up in my mind, "What if they remade Pink Panther in Bollywood". Most of the so called current "comedy" directors Priyadarshan, Bazmee and David Dhawan would massacre/defile the revered classic, but let us assume for a minute that we have a good director for this script.

Paresh Rawal would play an absent minded bumbling Gujrathi Policeman who considers himself to be a brilliant detective. He drives criminals as well as his superiors crazy by the sheer buffoonery that he is capable of and also by his innate ability to forget names. Johnny lever would be perfect as his assistant Kato who has been told to attack him at all times so as to keep the detective more vigilant. Chief Inspector Dreyfus could be played by Boman Irani who is eventually driven by Clouseau to such complete insanity that he ends up being admitted to an asylum after he tries to assassinate Clouseau himself. This could be a laugh riot if handled properly.

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2. Indy is Back

Also watched the latest version of Indiana Jones in the theatre, first day first show. It was an "out-worldly" entertainer though not as good as "Raiders" or "Last Crusade". I was all of 10 when I last saw Indy (Last Crusade) in a movie theatre in Singapore. It took me almost 19 years to see the famous Fedora and Whip back in action. I ended up humming the familiar movie tune all the way home. Welcome back Mr. Jones.

The last couple of years, the movies coming out of Hollywood have re-kindled some old memories. First they made "Transformers" (one of my all time favorite cartoons when I was a kid) into a movie. Then there were the sequels to "Die Hard" and "Indiana Jones", some of the most memorable films of the 80s. Now they have just released a movie version of "Get Smart" a hilarious old TV sitcom that had a bumbling "Agent 86" called Maxwell Smart" trying to outsmart a criminal organisation. In addition to all this, an aged Rambo and a retired Rocky were back for more action, the Joker will be playing mayhem in Gotham city and Superman has a new younger avatar.

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3. Central Park

After living in the NY city vicinity for more than 3 years, I finally managed to explore beyond the 5th avenue corner of Central Park. I had no idea that there was so much to do in Central Park. They have beautiful lawns, lakes and large green meadows filled with throngs of people in the summer playing ball, flying kites, throwing Frisbees or just plain lying on the grass tanning in the sun. And all this activity is right in the middle of the city. Sigh, when will the honorable city planners of India ever learn the importance of green space.

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