Bhangra sequel…

We continued our dancing antics on Saturday… this time at a club in Boston. And if a bunch of desi mundas and kudis doing the *tree of unity* dance wasn´t fun enough, a bunch of inspired videsis decided to join us this time around…

 Bhikku Mhatre ki jai!

Munde Bhangra Paunde…

Am still stuck at NJ, and missing out on diwali this time around. But then, the Kulhaadi gang is around, and is making up for some of the missing festivities.

Blemiph got us on the guest list of this club called Pacha in NY. So, after a sumptuous dinner of Haleem and such meaty delicacies at a Pakistani restaurant, we walked into Pacha while the night was still young. No clue what a flat-footed gorilla like me is doing getting into a disco club? – believe me, after seven shots of tequila, you don’t need to have clue! I guess the concept of a singles club is not something that needs a lot of explaining – the idea is pretty simple. You get in, spin a few moves on the dance floor, and aided by talent, lady luck or liquor, you might land a date. Not fertile ground for flat-footed gorillas you might say, and you wouldn’t be far from the truth! Well anyway, without lingering too much on my extraordinary salsa capabilities let me get straight to the best part of the night.

At some point in time, after ´waltzing´ about the dance floor to the point of near exhaustion, the kulhaadi gang decided that diwali night’s festivities wouldn’t quite be covered unless we threw in a few Mumbaiya maneuvers. Within moments, much to the amazement and amusement of the denizen of Pacha, we had broken into a series of near synchronized sequences – all the classics were covered including the Patang and Phirki, the Adivasi routine, the Bacchan routine and of course a liberal dose of Bhangra! I’m not sure if the entire Pacha crowd appreciated our antics, but this I can honestly say – our African American brethren, who truly understand the essence of music and dance, were cheering on heartily. And anyway, the stage effect was beyond the point – just the whole idea of dancing away Bhikku Mhatre style in a club in New York was exhilarating enough!

Well, if you know the kulhaadi gang, none of this would surprise you… if not, perhaps they warrant an introduction, cos I have spoken of them in at least a couple of posts by now. The kulhaadi gang is my group from back in college – a bunch who believes in whole-hearted volunteerism. This is what the name stems from – every now and then a member of KG comes up with a really weird idea, and walks up to the rest of the gang saying, “public, I’ve got this axe, and I want to strike myself on the foot with it… anybody interested?” The initial response would be varied – Maybe / Not really / Sounds Dangerous / Are you sure you want to do that? But the initial response would almost certainly be followed by a unanimous – “So, when do we do this?” No surprises that you never have a dull moment when this bunch gets together.

ps. Mom/Dad… if you happen to read this, can you pls send in some money? Apparently my firm doesn’t want to pay for gorilla tactics and tequila shots

Cheers Mr. W and Mr. J

One of the things I love about my work is that it provides every now and then the opportunity to visit nice places and meet nice people. Find myself in New Jersey these days, on business, and its been a livening experience so far. Finally got an opportunity to meet RW in person, and he introduced me to a Japanese restaurant in town yesterday. Delicious cuisine that, but the highlight was the conversation more than the food.

RW is a staggeringly senior techie, who’s been around in this industry for over two decades now, and has lived through three generations of computing evolution. Stuff that most people have read about and revered in college textbooks is just the kind of stuff that RW has worked on – punch cards, first generation telex, you name it. The fact that his know-how makes him an engaging conversationalist is perhaps obvious. But what was so livening about talking to him was that it reminded me of conversations I typically have with HJ back home. RW and HJ are very different people with very different professional style and inclinations, but have one thing in common – in spite of their obviously high degree of expertise in their areas of choice, personally you find that both are rooted firmly to the ground, something that perhaps makes them pragmatic and effective mentors.

So, it has been a nice trip thus far – especially the last day. Nice lunch (the salmon was absolute ambrosia), followed by a nice drive to Newark, and finally flew to Boston for a much belated get-to with limbu, tattu and blemiph. Well, plenty more that I could write about, but we plan to go sailing now, and the river with some red winds beckon in earnest…

Brazil 1 – Germany 1

What time is it when you wake up on Sunday, and are greeted by the clock striking one… its a pretty good time you bet, cos it usually means you’ve had a good Saturday.

Got an unexpected call from AR yesterday… hadn’t spoken with her in some time now. She was trying to reach someone else who shared my first name, and called me inadvertently. Well, my gain entirely, cos as it turned out she had two tickets to Omkaara, and an absconding roomie… and so I got a treat of a pretty good lunch and a decent movie.

Talking about friends I haven’t been in regular touch with, RS is another one… which should be surprising, cos he and I go back a long way. We’ve been good buddies since we shared the back benches back in junior college.

So why am I talking about AR, RS and the like… well, that’s cos I realize that the best of friends I’ve made in my lifetime are people I’m not compelled to keep in touch with. Really good friends can drift away into their own personal lives, meet after virtual eternities, and still pick up as if they’d just met yesterday.

Karram fits that category too of course. He and I are more frequently in touch these days though, cos we are roomies now. Funnily, in spite of being roomies, and almost conforming to my statement about really good friends, very little our lives overlap even today. There was an ironical example of this today. Karram just came back from a 3 week vacation sometime this morning… I haven’t seen him yet, cos he went out before I woke up (remember, 1 past noon) and the only reason I know he’s back is cos I see his effects lying around

Now, before I drift completely out of sight of the original subject of this post, let me just admit that I finally parted with that Brazil t-shirt, and it is now in Bhikku’s possession. This sacrifice however had very little to do with the fact that I consider Bhikku a good friend, which I do, and more to do with the fact that one t-shirt wasn’t worth risking invites to sample Mr. S’s cuisine.