Little above a year back, a young man of 20 something, having finished a year at his new job, received the good news of his secondment to London. In preparation for his six weeks in London, the young man set out to a few shops in the city to buy the necessary attire for the new job profile that he would be in.

On 3 May 2010, this young man took his first long haul flight from Bangalore to London. As he walked out of the airplane and took the cab to his apartment, he fell in love with the city and hoped that those six weeks would be a lot more. Little did he know that his wish would come true. However, his work was recognised and he was given an offer he could not refuse. And, he didn’t.

The six weeks turned to six months and the six months turned to nine, as he waited for his visa. After a brief visit in Bangalore, he packed up his belongings and returned home to Mumbai. In Mumbai, as he struggled to adjust to the time zone difference, he tried to put his affairs in order and met a few friends. He was back to London in early March to begin his new job in a role where his friends would refer to him as “Banker”.

I don’t need to tell you that the young man is me and am happy to say that I have completed my first year in London, in a job I grew to love!

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. This isn’t the case with Ajay (yes, sad joke!), who is perfectly at home at his work place. But, I do go out and have my share of fun and this included a wardrobe improvement with the help of his new found friend Sveccha (introduced by the great Idea-smithy.

We went to Westfield mall, which is one of the largest malls in Europe (view on Google Maps). I picked up a few shirts at the T.M.Lewin store and at Marks & Spencer, a pair of shoes and something that makes me smell real good!

Some Vietnamese food, pastries and Starbucks completed the rest of the day. This was the first day of the long two weekends, the Easter weekend and the Royal Wedding weekend, most of which were spent in the confines of my super sexy apartment!

What use is a good, well furnished kitchen (courtesy Tesco Direct), when you don’t put it to use. Met up with Sveccha on Saturday and we decided to cook at home. She did the cooking and we did the eating. The prawns turned out to be super awesome and the rice and the dal were yum! Need, I say, I need to take up cooking as a hobby!

And, work continues as usual…

Christmas is the time of the year I’ve always looked out for. This year has been a very fulfilling year, which I shall write about in a future post. I took my core leave from 18 Dec to 3 Jan, which is the longest duration of leave that I have ever taken till date!

Had booked the tickets in August itself, so it was only the matter of getting to the airport. Unlike last time, where my cab arrived early and the plane was late, I reached the airport at 10am on Friday. They have become a lot stricter at Bangalore airport. I wasn’t allowed to even take my bottle of water past the security!

The flight was on time, but I didn’t get my usual row of seats. Was stuffed somewhere at the back, but the leg room isn’t that bad.

The flight was quick and I was home rather quickly and the first thing as usual was to reactivate my internet connection at home. This time my laptop is out of commission since I don’t have a spare internet connection.

Lil white mouse came over in the evening to spend some time with me.

On Saturday, I met up with Sneha, who had complimentary coupons for the ITC, where we feasted on a really good buffet. I ensured that I sampled all the meats and many of the deserts. (No vegetables for me!)

Went over to see the ENT in the evening. Have been suffering from a bad ear ache in addition to my usual nose trouble, so it was high time I got this checked. Also need to visit an ophthalmologist this time.

Went over to Lil white mouse’s place on Saturday and we watched Avatar on Sunday. Had booked the tickets for the 9.30am show at PVR, since they were a lot more affordable than the normal shows!

Returned home via Bandra. Got a lift from her and her family, who were on their way to Bandra. We took the Bandra Worli sea-link which was my first trip on the new bridge. It has been done well and looking up at the suspended portion at night is beautiful.

Spent the entire day at home today. Had a visit from Swagatika, who I met after nearly two and half years. Have a lot of catching up to do with a lot of friends!

After a quiet two days at home, I finally ventured out on Sunday evening for mass. I?ve realized that I can spend days at home without evening stepping outside and not even think twice about it. Pizzas always get delivered, don?t they?

Anyway, Sunday the 4th also marked the 28th Wedding Anniversary of my parents and since Dad isn?t here I decided to take Mom out for dinner. However, she chose to order home and so be it.

Dinner was Chicken Manchurian, Prawns Masala and Chicken Fried rice. We tried a smaller new restaurant near my place instead of the regular one I ordered. While the chicken was good, the prawns was terrible. Note to myself. ?Do not order sea food from small places?.

Monday and Tuesday were normal days. Aditya was in Mumbai yesterday on placements work and dropped in after that was done. Took him to InOrbit, Malad whose sheer size had him all amazed.

Got back home, bid farewell to him and got ready for Seema?s birthday party. We were at her place gossiping and chatting till post 10.30pm before I drove back home. Had no energy to make any of the blog posts I had originally planned. Had also decided to make my way back to Pune and so needed to get some sleep.

Caught the second Volvo to Pune. The last time I was on my way back the bus tire was punctured and the driver and cleaner spent a good hour fixing that. Fortunately, today I didn?t face any such problem, though the bus that I missed by a minute broke down on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. After our driver lent a hand, we were on our way.

Reached here in the morning, met up with friends and then got down to making those blog posts. The count of unread posts in my RSS reader is slowly mounting. As is the case of my Gmail inbox which seems to be locked due to Google detecting unusual activity. Now, me not checking my email for 20 hours is characterized as unusual Hopefully, this gets unlocked by tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a long day with a lot of lectures scheduled. We also have a so called Finance paper to work on tonight.

I’ve tried to make it a point that I spend my birthday in Mumbai (except last year). It usually isn’t a big affair. I normally celebrate it with Lil white mouse whose is on 15th. The same was the case this year as well.

Went over to her place a little before lunch. The Bus No. 39 is a blessing since the route is from Seepz to Worli Depot. Lunch was not simple, as is usually the case

Was able to grab some sleep after lunch amidst all the preparations that we were involved in for the small evening party. Unlike last year, the party this year was a small, quiet one.

Lil white mouse had few of her friends over. Lil white mouse had baked her birthday cake, which was an extremely delicious chocolate cake with a white chocolate topping.

Dinner was chicken cheese and macronic bake, Ceasar’s salad and spinach pie, all of which were extremely yummy. This was washed down by liquor.

Did I mention that I munched down on tonnes of snacks before that

Dinner was followed by a trifle, which was put together by yours truly. Let’s just say that I ate well

Had plans of staying over at Lil white mouse’s place itself and so, at 12 o’clock we brought in my birthday by cutting the cake. Chatted quite a bit and finally crashed. Woke up late into the morning, which has become kind of custom for me, and which I desperately need to change!

Spent the rest of the day with Lil white mouse who came over to my place to spend time with me and my family.

Sunday was the quiet day spent at home. Watched something on the computer and got my bags packed for the return journey, which was extremely painful and long!

For those interested, I’ve updated my Flickr account with photos of the birthday, freshers’ party and some photos of us in the Admissions Team.

The last week has just flown by with most of my time was spent not studying.

Wednesday – Party 1

On Wednesday, we were singing for a Silver Wedding mass. The mass was held at Atma Darshan and the reception was at Le Royal Meridien, for which the entire choir was invited.

Had just dorned my normal formals for the mass, so went home to pickup my blazer as well as drop off the bike (Never drink and drive my mama said )

U. Conrad picked me up and we were among the first to reach the reception. Ate, drank, danced and feasted on food and desert.

Got dropped home a little after 1.30am and came home and crashed into bed.

Thursday – Dinner 1

Spent the entire day at Melody‘s house working on her blog. Convinced her to add adsense (which is performing really bad overall for me currently). Also added some internal pages and top CSS navigation bar (I’m getting good at this).

We went out for dinner to 5 which is near Yoko’s in Santacruz. The place is posh and the food is good, however the service is simply pathetic. It took us 10 minutes to find someone to take our order and then it took another half hour to get served. In addition he messed up the bill, by not informing us for an extra charge. At the end of it we were pissed off.
Expensive places!

Friday – Party

Saakshi threw a “Welcome Home” party for Melody and invited a good amount of the junta from the Indian Bloggers’ scene and their friends. Met a few of them for the first time, while others for the second… well I’m not a regular.

My phone came handy to click a few photos, though the quality wasn’t too great. Anyway, here are a few: Knocked off on request.

Saturday – Lunch and Dinner 2

Met up with Krupa, my ex-office colleague for lunch and a movie. We went off to watch Life in a Metro which tells the tale of several people in Mumbai. The movie was rather slow. Can’t say it was great, can’t say it was bad.

Watched the movie at Chandan in Juhu. It has been several years since I have been to Chandan. The theatre remains the same, but the area surrounding it has developed a lot!
We went to Pizza Hut in Juhu for the late lunch and got a drink free because the guy forgot to put it on the bill.

Lil white mouse came over after work and she stayed for mass. After mass, the two of us went to Lucky’s for dinner. It has been a while since I visited Lucky’s. Tried some different dishes this time which were yummy.

And then there was Sunday

Lil white mouse came over today for lunch. Mom seemed to outdo herself today. Lil white mouse left in the evening and I got down to getting some work done.
Tomorrow I study.

The last few days have been rather hectic. Really slogged quite a bit for my XAT paper that was yesterday. The only break I did take was to go for two wedding masses in church on Saturday.

Turned out that both the masses were inter-religious weddings; the first case the girl was non-Catholic, while it the second it was the boy.

One thing I observed and apprciated in both cases was the importance that both the weddings and especially the non-Catholic partners took towards the nuptials. In today’s world, I believe many of us Catholics give little importance to the nuptials, with only the reception being top priority. We forget that the most important part of the wedding is infact the nuptials and not the reception. Kudos to the few that remember.

I skipped our usual snack after the singing so that I could get home and hit the books. Didn’t want to exert myself too much after the paper.

The XAT paper was different. I’ve given three mock-XAT exams before the main paper and the paper yesterday was totall different from them. For one there were five choices instead of four. English has lesser number of questions than Maths which seldom happens and these questions were also a lot tougher. Ohh… btw… my center happened to be the famous St. Xavier’s college. And I hated travelling all the way to town, especially by train. (Those who know me will be really surprised to read this!)

After looking back at my performance I believe I stand in a mid-way range. I really do hope I get some calls.

I dashed back to Andheri so that I could make it in time for the Mock-CET. I reached in time and gave that. I’m not too happy with the performance. I still suffer badly in speed and I really need to improve that before FMS on 21st.

Got the results for SNAP today with a measely 65.5/200. I was expecting a lot more. Chances of calls from SIBM or SCMHRD seem to have dwindled. Am in a really dicey situation right now. I really could do with lots of prayers.

I did have a good end to the evening when I met up with my college pals Nikhil, Vidyasagar and Paresh at the Barista in Lokhandwala. It’s been two and half years since I met any of them and we spent a good two hours chatting about our engineering college days and catching up on the last two and half years as well!

Time really flies and memories are still so fresh

Never explain — your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

- Elbert Hubbard
US author (1856 – 1915)

Friends of Women:

A wife was not at home for a whole night. So she tells her husband, the very next morning, that she stayed at her (girl) friend’s apartment overnight. So the husband calls 10 of her best (girl) friends and none of them confirm that she was with them.

Friends of Men:

A husband was not at home for a whole night. So he tells his wife the very next morning, that he stayed at his friend’s apartment over night. So the wife calls 10 of his best friends and 5 of them confirm that he stayed at their apartments that night and another 5 are claiming that he is still with them!!

Yesterday was “Let’s be Friends” night at Wellingdon. Anjali had invited me for it and since besides her family other common friends were also there and cause my new craze is dancing, I decided to go along.

After a really tiring day at work, where we left only at 6.30 and really really very horrible traffic on the way home resulted in me reaching only past 8.30pm. Got ready and left immediately and made it to Santa Cruz in under 25min in heavy traffic!

Had been informed that it would end by 10pm so wasn’t expecting to get much. However, the program took place in the hall upstairs and so was able to continue well past 12am!

Danced quite a bit as usual and played a few games (many of which were senseless). Met up with Anjali’s cousin Andre who is down from Canada.

Have plans to go out in the evening as well. Let’s see if they materialize.

Was so zonked this morning that I just switched off the alarm and went to bed. Mom woke me up around 7.10am and I had to get ready in 15minutes

There has been a major water problem in my area for the past few days. Got reports of a rasta-roko yesterday resulting in temporary supply. However, people are getting rather irritated by the whole deal. Sometimes, I think our municipality sucks!! But isn’t that the case all over X(

Spent the day with Madam C watching movies. Had lunch. Well, I’m not well stocked for the next few days!
Dropped her home in the afternoon.

Filled petrol on my way back home. My pulsar is giving me 52Km/litre which is really sexy for a one year old 150cc bike

Spent the day watching movies that my Dad sent. Got some Friends episodes on DVD but they throw up an incorrect region code on my player. Will have to watch them on the comp