I still remember the way it started. One fine day, I got a mail from Harsh asking about whether anybody wants to participate in the drama. At that time, initially I had almost deleted the mail, thinking it as another junk mail. Later while cleaning up my mail box, I stumbled across it again and I sent a mail to harsh asking about details. Just like a that it started.

Later we finalized the script, started practising, and I got the responsibility to handle the music. I gathered all the required music pieces, arranged them and got the final required music pieces in required order. Since we all were mostly first timers, we did mistakes, and we learnt a lot from them. There were moments, when we thought of pulling out, there were moments when I had a low moral but collectively we held on.

The natak is based on Marathi people coming to bangalore for jobs in software industries. About the funny situations which occur with them. The attitude of rickshaw drivers, the near fatal roads in bangalore (you need to find tar from potholes), the driving of rickshaw drivers, the concept of house agent or broker, the attitudes of house owners, surroundings in the company and finally how they settle in bangalore inspite of criticizing almost about everything initially.

Yesterday, we got the results of the contest, We in all got three awards, "Nirmiti Karandak" for best experimental play, "Critics Award" for actor
(chandrajeet), and "2nd Best Nepathya" (me). I still remember the way it started and looking at it's end, it was a pleasant journey.

Now looking back, looks like doing everything in just 15 days wasn't possible. We did many mistakes, we learnt a lot, and hope in the future we will improve upon our performance by fair enough margin. "Yuva" group helped us a lot with the music, light arrangements and with many other minor things. Bangalore marathi junta, expect something from us in the next couple of months.

If you happen to visit corner house for quick refreshment (a cup of
ice-cream), try out the new arrival "Impeached". It's great. It is basically
a combination of vanilla ice cream, peach, mango pulp and strawberry
sauce.

What a match it was !! The ICC Final between the much lower rated West Indies and England was spectacular. England batted well scored enough runs that can be defended by their bowlers. In reply, West Indies got the dissastorous, rather a forgettable start. Needing 218 runs to win, they were reduced to 147 at the loss of 8 wickets by the english bowlers. Another wicket and that's the end of west-indies. Bradshaw and Browney then out-batted the English bowlers to create a legend for West-Indies. It was a stunning and spectacular display of their determination and their ability to bat. Tough it is difficult to expect a bowler to bat well, but these two bowlers batted better than other batsmen in their side. They looked calm and confident and were hitting the bowl very well, some of their shots were spectacular. Bradshaw was correctly adjusted man of the match though he scored only 30-34 odd runs.
Looking back at the ICC champions trophy, Perhaps, this could mark the rise of west-indies cricket. But that's too early to predict, as they still are the unpredictable team as pakistan. England looks like they are getting their form back and currently playing good. They need to improve their batting a bit more. South Africa did well, but Lara and Sarwan saw that they are out of the tournament. It looks like australia's bowling attack is getting weaker now. They looked completely ineffective against england. And speaking about India, they need to improve everything. Bowling looks good, but nobody's batting now.

Since past week, I am terribly busy and I think so it will continue for another week or so. Many things happened during past week and I didn't had any time to write these off. Let me summarize few of the things that I feel are worth mentioning.

First of all, at the start of past week, we had an general quiz in the office. My colleagues came and asked me to participate along with them. So I ended up participating in the quiz along with 83 other teams. The quiz was based on general and current affairs. At the time when results were declared, I had gone out hoping that our team wouldn't be there in the final considering how we had fared. Later I came to know that we had a dream start and landed right in the finals. Till now I was never bothered about results, but suddenly I became very much conscious. I don't think there is any need to write about the results (we lost almost by double margin). Anyway what has started up as fun and timepass activity ended up in a good note. Now few days after, I got a mail from the quizzing organizing community, that I help them in organizing a good question bank for the quizzing fraternity. I almost laughed and felt like telling them "Hey I don't even know capital of all the states in India, Forget about remembering dates I don't even remember names after a week and you expect me to help writing a question bank". But I am now currently in the middle of this and I can't argue with them also as I ended up as finalist and now I am looking for a way out. Anybody with a suggestion, feel free to write a comment.

Since past couple of weeks, I am regularly attending practice for a marathi play titled "Sadashivpeth te Chamrajpeth". The Natak is set to make it's appearance before public on 19th (this month) during the ganesh festival. You all are invited. I will write later about venue and timings as believe it or not I am as ignorant as you about them.

Yesterday, I had been to bakery and I remembered the following incident happened with my colleague.
[ He wanted to buy some things. ]
Colleague: Wohh (pointing to) Veg patties garam hai kya ?
Baker: English illa Saar (For those who don't know Kannada, I don't understand english).
Colleague: Are these veg patties hot?
Baker: Haan Saab.

He doesn't stop here; theres further more.
My colleague wanted to buy egg-less pastries. There was an egg-less cake kept on the display which was cut into 10 equal pieces.
Colleague: Complete Cake ki kya price hai?
Baker: Rs 230 Plus Rs 30 extra, as it is egg-less. Total 260 Rupees Saar.
Colleague: Aur Ek piece ki kya price hai.
Baker: Rs 23 Saar.
Colleague: Thik Hai, Mujhe 10 piece pack karke do.
Baker: OK Saar, 230 rupees ho gaye aapke.

I alongwith ajit, jaydeep, vishal and rohit had been to pondicherry this weekend. It was a wonderful trip, but I rather add little hectic. We reached chennai on saturday morning, and then took a state transport bus to pondicherry. The chennai state transport bus was pathetic (I better need not explain it here). The climate was very hot and humid. Since not being used to such weather conditions, It was vexing.
The road to pondicherry from Chennai is very good. Especially the East-Coast Road (ECR). The East Coast Road runs parallelly along the eastern coast of india with sea and beaches continuously on one side of the road generating a magnificent sight.
Most of the tourism in pondicherry is because of sri-arbindo ashram. That's the first thing people visit when they arrive. Auroville is an international city, as they like call it, is basically developed by Sri Arbindo with the concept that it does not belong to any nation. Any individual from any country of any race and religion is free to come at this place and will be able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of auroville is to realise human unity. Read more information here.
The beach at pondicherry reminded me of marine drive of mumbai. The road runs parallelly with the bay of bengal on one side and magnificent buildings on other side. In the evenings the road is closed for traffic so that people can roam around freely. There was a band on the roadside playing music. The city architecture is mostly influenced by the french culture. You will find roads with name "Rue di nehru", "Rue de Mahatma Gandhi" etc.
In the end we had very less time, but there is nothing much to see except auroville and beach.
The snaps of pondicherry trip can be seen here.