Back To Bangalore...... And God Bless the Alphonsos!

I am Back from Ireland :) !

Am back at my good ol' seat, back to the after lunch office campus rounds and the 8-9 am occasional before office swimming sessions at the community pool close by ..

Back to the late evening fruit platter at office, and the afternoon lemon squash, back to colgate smiles for the foreign head of office (read dignitary) visits, to the constant chirrup of payscales, who's left, who hasn't, who will and who wont, also back to the calculations of increments, taxation, to ICICI Direct and the can-I-speak-to-you-for-a-second calls for lifetime credit cards, pension and jobs :)

I reached Bangalore just past midnight into Sunday. The travel experience was good for a change and if you ask me, Lufthansa services are far better than the NorthWest or Alitalia ones that I have had a chance to fly before; and tho it might be because they have far lesser flights, but one would be impressed at care for small details that they seem to have taken. Services were far better, flight timings were on the tick, the hostesses served with a smile and there wasnt a single crack or tampering of my luggage. Pranay, my friend picked me up, and I was more than thankful to him, cos the drizzle when the flight had landed had developed into steady rain by the time I passed the airport gates. Also got a chance to talk to him about a lot of things and update myself with the current affairs of the city.


Back here the TOI still has Sania and Tendulkar hogging the limelight, The papers are still rue-ing the lack of infrastructure in Bangalore, the increase of crimes, the crippling of the city whenever the rains come and the trees fall, and the papers also have a fair share of state and country wide politics. A train has derailed, Advani has resigned after a not so good comment about Jinnah being secular, something that could have broken the basic political strategies of his own party and also that of their Pakistani counterparts.

It feels good to be back in Bangalore and back to homeland. As always.I am catching up with friends and relatives, I have a trip to Calcutta the next week, where I get to meet most of my relatives, since they are also sposed to assemble during this time. So , am looking forward for a good 5-6 days ahead of me, without any project workload, with proper Bengali cuisine I have been deprived through most of the last 4-5 years,with lovely places to visit, weddings to attend, basically to revisit yet another city that I love with all its beauties, its absurdities and with all its idiosyncracies.

I got the chance to see the histrionics of Bunty and Babli ( a humorous take-off to Bonnie and Clyde) at the Innovative, Marthahalli, and it was a nice change from the constant Clint Eastwood, Humphrey Bogart movies, that Irish televisions used to dole out all the time. Abhishek is refreshing, he is outrightly funny, with all those costumes and the UP accent, he looks pretty skilled at witty humour. Rani on her part is funny, surprisingly doesnt have much problem with whatever Punjabi she has to speak and is tremenduously attractive at the same time, she is anyways poles different from the ravishing yet steely cold Faye Dunaway.. in Bonnie and Clyde. I wasnt impressed with Amitabh though, I felt he was underutilized. You could see him literally panting in the Kajra Re song, to keep pace with his son and aishwarya. Though maybe almost all will disagree, I think Kajra Re , as a song deserved a better picturization. The song is too good, but the filming, yes with Aishwarya and all , not quite.


For the summary of what all I could do in Ireland

Visited Dublin, the city and its shops and its car parks, the National art Museum, the Natural History museum, the major parks, roads, Wax museum, the Banks of River Liffey. Missed out on the James Joyce memorial since it was out of the city. I loved the city, especially the street bands, who would play song after song with huge enthusiasm with passers by cheering them on, requesting songs, clicking photos, dropping in a couple of coins and hearing them for hours..

Visited Glendalough, a charming valley with a heaven like beauty. Dark blue lakes, lush green hills, small curvy trails, and low lying clouds, Also Wicklow, a small town in West Ireland. It too had some lovely cliffs and a green carpety golf course beside the sea, Visited Carlingford a historical town on the Ireland Northern Ireland border, with its small and dirty ships standing listless beside the pier and an old but majestic fort.
Dundalk the place where I stayed, worked for my company for these 2 months is a small town. There were many places you could walk and visit, though to me the biggest structures apart from a 19th century church was the main TESCO shopping campus and the university buildings. My colleague crashed our rental car in the parking lot, which gave us some problems in commuting for a couple of days, but then the rest of the days went by just the same.
The Irish, from what i have seen, are a boisterous yet cheerful lot, love their potatoes, wine and beer. The countryside is fresh light green, and you can stop your car anywhere in this "emerald isle" and always catch something remarkably picturesque.



I am finishing this post from my Office cube,. and it will be time to go home in a couple of hours.. so am already taking it easy :) It rains pretty frequently nowadays, the weather is pleasant. People say I have escaped a notably hot summer and that I think is a relief. But what I also realize I have missed out on is a whole half season of ripe juicy , mouth watering mangoes with a lung filling smell that can attract humans and flies alike from 50 meters away :) . The first day, I reached here , I was treated to a bunch of awesome mangoes by my house landlord. He gave me 3-4 options, and offcourse I took Alphonsos. This might be "exotic fruit" for one of my Irish colleagues, but its one of the many small things, that once of have an experience of, make you yearn to be in India and stay here for as long as you can.


Currently On the Jukebox
"Cats in the Cradle" - Ugly Kid Joe.