Dhi’s cell phone rings. Its from Person A.
Dhi answers the call, and hears a gasp of surprise/shock from the other end.

Person A: Sorry, I was planning to call someone else, not you. Mistake.
Dhi: Oh, hmmm, okay.

End of conversation.
Dhi brands himself a loser in certain aspects of life.

Change of track.

I got back from Chennai (had been there for my visa application).
If you are an Indian and want to be treated like a refugee from some “untouchable” community, visit the US Consulate in Chennai. The only thing that was missing on my side was that I wasn’t in my prison uniform.
Anyway, Chennai was hot. But I really liked it there. Great late lunch at Pizza Hut followed by coffee at the hotel. Interesting moments. Very.

Reached Bangalore on some obscure morning at around 4:00 am.
Heard Foo Fighter’s Learn To fly after a very long time.

Dhi Only One is still alive.
Back from a trip to Pune.

Day 1: Started for Pune at night 8 from Bangalore. Second class travel in train after a very long time. And it was good fun indeed!! Now, Vivek and I had tickets for different compartments.
So we started scouring the reservation lists in both the compartments, to try to get some good company during the journey. From the two lists (one of S4 and one of S2) we decided to go to S2.

Tip: Names of travellers on a reservation chart do not convey anything. Not even remotely.
With that tip, further description is not necessary.
Then there was the tomato soup, loved it and it burnt our tongues (Love life and it does the same to you).

Day 2:
After dinner, the next day was spent conversing with this guy who had a lot of knowledge on almost anything Indian. (Including the VAT, the geographical resources of different areas etc.). I realised that by reading the Economist or NGM doesn’t really guarantee you relevant knowledge!
His view on McDonald’s and KFC was amusing and noteworthy.

Anyway, the train halted at Pune at about 4:00 in the evening.
After standing at the reservation counter for over an hour (to cancel a ticket), we finally arrived at our place of stay – The Ritz.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we stayed at The Ritz hotel (of The Ritz hotel fame).

Dinner was a full-fledged Gujrathi Thali. Oh so awesome! I loved it. Unlimited fulka, bajra roti, 3 types of sabzis, dhokla, aam ras (mango juice) and buttermilk. Not to mention the side dishes, around 10-20 of them.
We guys couldn’t do justice to it, since we weren’t all that hungry. Still, we managed to stuff ourselves as much as possible. This was lovely food; unlike the falsely proclaimed Gujrathi thali that you get in Bangalore, which is no where near to Gujrathi food.

Day 3:
Early morning breakfast and coffee, again at the Ritz
Working and reworking on the presentations. Deciding what to say and what not to say.

Then the all important meeting! Good fun, great energy and a lot conveyed.
Lot of interest shown! 2 hours of meeting and presentation. Followed by nimbu paani.

Pune is very similar to Mumbai, and probably thats why I liked it so much.
After that I was off to a family friends’ place. Their home was located in a very posh area of Pune.

Aunt had prepared an amazing finger-lickin’ good dinner with similarly attributed chicken.
Then we and this friend of mine got out on his bullet at around 11:30 in the night. 350 cc of sheer power. I drove it around at full throttle, zipped past Pune’s wide roads and little flyovers.

Went to a health centric dessert joint, then we went past Osho’s ashram (it was a bit too late for us to enter) and the ashram was guarded by a very pretty looking foreigner in a red robe. Looked quite out of a Victorian royal relaxation room.

Day 4:
Drove around till about 1:00 am.
Got to Pune station, caught my train at 2:45 am (it was 15 mins late), bid a goodbye to my friend and his brother.

Then there was this huge gang of people from a software company travelling along with me. Bunch of very enthusiastic people. Lot of pretty girls in their company I must say.
Anyway, so they start playing DC and I get involved in it when I guess Shawshank Redemption.
It was too tempting for me to blurt out the answer and no one was getting it.
After that, I too got into the game and we had a lot of fun.
One of them got into a conversation with me, and she turned out to be a kathak dancer as well. This entire bunch of people was quite talented as well. One guy played the guitar very well, and one of the girls sang very well. It was good fun.
Then they all got off at some obscure station and I was all alone!
No point writing anything after that since it is of no interest to anyone

I actually loved being alone, sitting there and looking out of the window. 5 cups of tea within a span of 1 hour made the tea vendor’s day.

I dozed off and one of the cleaners woke me up when Bangalore station arrived.
In a dazed state I managed to carry my bag, get out of the railway station, catch an auto and reach home.

Train journeys can be good fun. Train journeys can be boring. Train journeys can teach a lot.
Back in Bangalore, Dhi only one wishes to find his track.

Indian Railways is simply an amazing organisation.

Back from a wonderful trip. My mind gets filled with so many thoughts that even if I want to write about my trip I am unable to do so since so many other things have crept up and occupied prime-time on my head.

I glanced through the cover of Lance Armstrong’s book. When he learnt that he was afflicted with testicular cancer, he put all his efforts in his one single passion – cycling. The stamina that made him win the Tour de France was more mental rather than physical.
That made me think, if I were to be suffering from a similar time-bomb disease, what would be the one thing I would put all my efforts into?
Sadly, there was nothing that I could think of.

How many of us have our own “Tour de France”s to focus on?
If asked to accomplish the only thing you ever wanted in life, what would it be?

I just couldn’t get any answer and stopped the line of thought right there.
The closest I got was to think of trying to set up a theatrical performance of the highest caliber.
But then, artistic ventures just cannot be measured in terms of success or failure.
In a cycle race, you have a start line and a finish line and you win if you cross the finish line before anyone else does.
In art, there is no such measure.
So is the case with life.

You gain glory in the eyes of some, you gain notoriety in the eyes of some, and you gain obsolescence in the eyes of some.
That brings me to another point: Would I like to be measured in terms of success or failure? I am not too sure about that.

I am going to try and find my own focus in life, lest I should be gone before having realized what would give me a complete sense of fulfillment.

I heard the roar of a tiger while I was in the middle of a dense forest. I heard the reactions of the monkeys and saw the sudden flurry of activity that commenced immediately after the roar.
I heard the roar twice.

Concrete jungle, though frowned upon by many, is embraced with both arms by Dhi only one.

I am leaving for Kudremukh tonight.
Click here to view pictures of the resort where I shall be staying.
Seems like a nice little quiet place.
Let’s hope it turns out to be a nice little quiet trip as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, dhi only one shall return on Saturday night (Whigfield style, or whatever her name was)

Dhi Only One wishes every woman a Happy Women’s Day.
Commemorating their strengths, their weaknesses, their grit and determination and of course, their ability to handle men.

What I would really like to do now is this:

Gather the gang and buy a second-class railway ticket to Sikkim.

If there were no direct train to Sikkim, I would go to Delhi or Calcutta and then take a bus.

Effectively, I would want to do the longest train journey possible and which touches or atleast passes through a major portion of the lands of India.

The best things would be:

Sitting at the door, the breeze blowing in the face, sipping on the railways’ tea ( something that Barista can never match).
Joking around with the gang,
Discussing some serious stuff,
Watching the Indian landscape,
“Worshipping and launching”,
Relishing on the never ceasing fare of Indian food available only on a railway platform.

Listening to the beggars sing their voice out,
Observing reactions of other travellers towards these beggars,
Buying a newspaper from the newspaper stand,
Buying Bisleri from a “junction”,
Brushing with the hard water,
Not shaving,
Climbing up the top berth,
Climbing down from the top berth,
Switching on and off the black coloured fan that generates a ton of sound and a little bit of air as well,
Dangling a piece of cloth outside the window,
Getting drops of water on your arm due to someone in the next compartment having thrown water outside,
Eating the soiled packet of biscuits and chips,
Someone losing their footwear overnight,
Gazing at interesting passers-by whose existence is as momentary as that of a cigarette in the Devil’s hand,
Deciding whether to go to the Western-style toilet or the Indian-style toilet every time the call beckons,
Checking signal on the mobile phone every now and then,
Getting off at obscure stations in the early morning hours,
Getting off at obscure stations in the late night hours.

I would definitely want to do and be a part of all this.
Soon hopefully.

Dhi only one has for now left this platform.

It’s a bitter sweet phase of life currently.
Reminds me of Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve.
Beautiful song, classic video.
Incidentally, the lyrics were written by M Jagger (of the Rolling Stones fame).
Performed in conjunction with the London Philharmonic orchestra. Beautiful indeed.

Lot of introspection in my way of dealing with life’s different facets.
Facets that were unveiled only in the recent past.
You always carry a pandora’s box with you right from the time you were born.
Life makes you open it at one point of time; and then life’s never the same again.
A full-bodied impact hurls you across walls and blocks.

Ladies and gentlemen: Coke and Lays make a very good combination.

Dhi one with a permanent scar calls it a day.

American culture and the way it treats its “losers” in life.
This article drives home a very interesting point.

One of the more interesting attributes of this article is:
“how exactly should a hyper-competitive society deal with its losers? It is all very well to note that drunkards and slackers get what they deserve. But what about the honest toilers?”

The honest toilers. What if you end up as a loser in life? A failed business, a failed marriage, a failed education?
In such a case, is it the society’s responsibility to work towards creating an environment that makes its losers feel comfortable?
Inspite of the fact that the honest toiler was branded as a loser because of failing to adhere to that very society’s norms?

Does the society, after branding someone as a loser, still owe something to that loser?

A line from a song by Beck:
I am a loser baby,
so why don’t you kill me.