Time to take a break...

Few more Bollywood movies added to my collection:
- Guru (Great theme, but it somehow felt unreal. Still dont know why.)
- Mumbai Meri Jaan (This is a must watch for anyone who hails from Mumbai. It gave me jitters. And if you are considering moving back to Mumbai, then I recommend it even more.)
- Om Shaanti Om (YUCK! YUCK! YUCK!)
- Before the Rains (I fail to understand the character played by Rahul Bose in this movie. Watch it only if you have loads of time on your hand)

...and that essentially means a Bollywood overdose. 9 movies in about a week.

Time to take a break... but its been good.

The week that was..

A lot has happened in my life this week. I found a couple of Pakistani places in Hong Kong. One of them is a grocery store, which also sells Bollywood DVD's @ HK$15 a piece (roughly INR 110/-). The supply gets refreshed within a week of any movies release in India. And what more, its just about 10mins walk from where I live. This was a very significant event, because prior to this, I had not seen a Bollywood movie "properly" since I moved to HK (I saw Chak De India, but that was on YOUTUBE.. Part 1 to Part 11.. spread over 3 days. None watched on a DVD or in a theatre). Even when I was in New York, I think Lagge Raho Munnabhai was the only Bollywood movie I saw in the 2 years I spent there. I obviously have a lot to catch up on.

Anyways.. so the 2nd Pakistani place I found this week was a road side curry shop, which also made some "great" parathas. This place is again about 10mins from where I live. I started of with some chicken curry for lunch.. and fell in love with it. There was nothing stopping me from going back to that place for dinner. This time I ordered a Banana Paratha.. which was SOAKED in oil. It was delicious. No, seriously! Only problem was that next day morning, I woke up with a sore throat... and a day later, I was having viral fever!! I left Mumbai about 4 years back.. and since then I have had fever only once when I was in New York. So this was again a very significant event! And what timing.. just a day before Christmas. I suspect that dude was recycling oil which was about 2-3 days old.

Fortunately for me, it was a quiet week on the work front. So I took 2 "half-days". (I still had to work on 25-Dec because China, Vietnam and Taiwan were open!). With so much time on hand and fever which kept reappearing every 6 hours or so.. there was nothing stopping me from watching Taare Zameen Par (yeah, I had not seen this one yet), Wednesday (mom's recommendation - the recommendation had its routes in the recent terror strikes in Mumbai), Dostana (I had to pick between Dostana and Rab Ne Bana Di.. picked the former because I like Priyanka Chopra and I hate SRK), Sorry Bhai (great performances by Boman and Shabana Azmi) and lastly, Oye Lucky Luck Oye! (the best of all!)..

I havent stopped here and am looking for recommendations.... so please send them over to me. And did I say, Australias loss to South Africa at the waca has made this week that much more eventful!? :)

Merry Christmas! (圣诞快乐!) and a Happy New Year! (新年快乐!)

Mission insanity accomplished

We hit Tai Long Wan beach at mid night (roughly a 1.5 hour walk from Sai Wan). It was a full moon night, and a CLEAR sky. At 1:45am we started for Sharp Peak... and were on top of the peak by 3:30am. Thats pretty good pace for a night hike on one of the most slippery and by far the steepest accent in HK. 14 people turned up for this hike. 7 headed back on the treacherous trail at 4am... and 7 of us decided to stay back for sunrise. This was not the safest of night hikes. I personally found it difficult to come back down even in day light (thanks to the morning dew which made it a bit extra slippery. Not fun at a couple of spots where you are walking right on the edge of the hill)

Anyways, the BEST part about this hike was that from 3am until sunrise we were in clouds. We could not see anything beyond 20 to 25 meters. It was as if we were in heaven. Occasionally, the clouds would clear and we would gaze at the stars. And then we played a bit of rock... kicking it off with Comfortably Numb... and ending it with Stairway to Heaven. Perfect. Sunrise was scheduled at 6:06am. We missed that because the clouds did not clear off by then.




I am interested in doing this again. So if you are up for it, give me a shout and we will organize one (the HK Trampers will not repeat this hike any time soon, so I need some people). Couple of short videos taken just before sunrise.

Mission Sharp Peak

Its going to be a full moon night this Saturday. And its going to be mission insanity. The Hong Kong trampers are going to start off at about 10pm from Pak Tam Au for Tai Long Wan beach.. camp there until 3am, and then head out to conquer Sharp Peak - equipped with a torch, a full moon, hopefully a clear sky and yes - a little bit of courage. We aim to make it to the top just in time for sunrise.

Visit HK Trampers for the exact timings and meeting point and please read the disclaimer.

A YouTube video of Sharp Peak in day light:

Day 2

So today was session 2. I did really well with the bat. Was probably more aggressive than I should have been. So next week its going to be all about controlled agression ... ;) Bowling was a LOT better than last week as well, but I still need to work more on it.

Anyways, there is a bigger problem. I strained my lower back today. There is a good 3 more weeks of training and am not sure how I will manage to bowl next Sunday. We'll see.

Cricket in HK

I bowled just about average. Despite being extremely apprehensive before I started, I surprising hit the right line and length with my first few deliveries, got excited by that, tried to bowl extra quick and lost it all! But the good thing about bowling in nets is that even when you bowl shit and/or the batsman plays a cracker of a shot, the ball still remains inside the nets and the psychological impact is not that bad ;) ... I mean, it still hurts... but not as much as seeing the ball fly out of the stadium!

This was last weekend at the Hong Kong Cricket Club

The teams are comprised of mainly Aussies and Kiwis - and some Brits. These are expats who have played professional cricket of some form before moving to HK. There are about 90 active players in the Hong Kong Cricket Club which form the 5 teams that play against each other every season. And these training camps have been organized to finalize the teams for this season.

I will be there again this Sunday, with a much stronger bowling arm ... and much better foot work. I got embarrassingly clean bowled twice. I think I will get rid of the helmet in tomorrows session. Lets see. Still 3 more sessions to go before the selection process is complete and I am not giving up yet.

Flash back mode

Earlier this week I was checking photos from VESIT days. Time flies and a lot has changed since 2004. Just a handful live in Mumbai... many are married/engaged or are on the verge of it. Things have changed.. but memories do not. So I felt like going into flash back mode and yes, it was nostalgia at its very best! Read on...



- Trip to Mahabaleshwar in 2001 with Chitnis, Annu, Suyog, Sari, Jaimin, Hande, Raghu. "Enlightenment number 1,2..." , the "proposal", Anjane Kyon....
- The dreaded Mechanics Sem 1 results. I had attempted 47 marks. 40 were required to pass. And I scored 52. And that summarized Mumbai University for me!
- The "Dil Chahta Hain" Goa trip in 2002 with Harsh, Gerry, Jaimin, Suyog... Biking across Goa and the stomach upset!
- Those crazy hours spent in the library and canteen 2 weeks before exams with Harsh, Suyog and Jaimin. 9am to 8pm - non stop and then the transit back home. It was always a question of life and death in those last 2 weeks and sem after sem we would curse ourselves for not starting a week earlier.
- Daily train commutes from Mulund to Kurla with Vibha, Suyog, Jaimin, Raji, Mamta in the first 2 years... and then the bike rides with Suyog, Jaimin and Vibha back home in the last 2
- Birthday surprises and night outs.
- IEEE events, meetings, night outs, parties, interviews (!), marketing drives throughout 2001-04 with Suyog, Abhi, Yash, AK, Shanks, Apu, Neelesh, Sandesh, Smruts, Pillu, Shubs, Jayesh, Rohan, Sari
- Matheran Class of 2004 trip.
- The deserted movie hall where we danced to songs from "Yeh Tera Ghar Hain Mera Ghar"...... Crappiest of movies like "Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hain" and "Main Hoon Na" were so much fun. The marofication of dialogues and scenes in such movies was so ruthless, that it would put the makers in some serious state of depression.
- The Praxis 2004 core ("chor") committee music session...... SE lab music sessions
- Final year project night outs with Jallu, Vishy, Apu.
- KGB (RIP) lectures. We finished all our assignments in his lectures.
- Somehow managing to get > 70% attendance despite missing the first 1-2 lectures almost everyday!
- And the best of it all - Suyog and Jaimin fighting/competing over girls. No, it was not funny then.. but the best part is that both of them will laugh it off today - embarrassingly ;) ....

I do not have a lot of photos from these days... but I have tried to compile an album of what I have (most of them thanks to Jaimin, who always managed to carry his camera, while the others either did not have one or never carried one 24X7 like Jaimin did)...

The "Clueless in Sai Kung" Hike (20 July, 2008)

This was one of my more challenging hikes. It was a fairly long one - we started at 10am, ended at 7pm. We have done longer ones in the past.. but it was a really hot day (35 degrees celcius), and for the first time I found myself out of breath and dehydrated on a hike. We were on a steep and uncovered trail. (Sharp Peak is one of the steepest in HK) . Psychologically, the heat made it a killer of a hike. To make it a perfect script, we got LOST for a good 2.5 hours on our way down to the peninsula. We just kept ending up at gorges. And yes, the heat was not helping all this while!

This was also my first major hike since I hurt my knee in January earlier this year.. and I think I did well not to hurt it again. All in all - this was an awesome experience - but only because we made it back safely! Enjoy the pics!



View Larger Map

Top 20 Rock Songs

I started listing my top 10 and found that 7 of them came from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Who, which left just 3 more spots from roughly 60 years of rock history. Hence a change of plan, and here goes my top 20.... which now has 5 Pink Floyd songs in it! And NO, I am not biased ;) .... I further realized, that it is not really possible to "rank" these songs beyond my fav 3 at best. So while # 1 through 3 reflect my top picks in the order specified, the others do not.

1. Comfortably Numb (P.U.L.S.E version) - Pink Floyd
2. Stairway To Heaven - Led Zeppelin
3. Coming Back to Life - Pink Floyd
4. Highway to Hell - ACDC
5. Teenage Wasteland - The Who
6. Keep on Rocking in the Free World - Neil Young
7. Sweet Child of Mine - Guns and Roses
8. Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
9. Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
10. Imagine - John Lenon
11. You cant always get what you want - Rolling Stones
12. Dont Stop Believing - Journey
13. Hotel California - Eagles
14. Purple Haze - Jimmy Hendrix
15. Hey Jude - The Beatles
16. Time - Pink Floyd
17. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
18. We dont need no education - Pink Floyd
19. Eminence Front - The Who
20. Wonderwall - Oasis

Comfortably Numb - P.U.L.S.E. Version : The best song ever, from the best concert ever, by the best guitarist ever!