Friday Night

The team building exercise involved having lunch at China Club in Gurgaon (excellent) and watching Rush Hour III (crap).

"Jalebi Cartel" was playing @ laidbackwaters today. Usual crowd. D did not show up. Hmmm . Dont know if i should read anything into this.
But .. called up Richa. She was all enthusiastic and showed up to see me. I love this girl. You get to see her wild side sometimes, and it is very cool. Niki, R and I mosied on to Elevate later (i just had to ask her once .. she was all ready to go ! see what i mean ..) Music was slightly crappy, but heck, we did not have to pay money to get in !
I am glad Niki was there with us at Elevate. For multiple reasons.

A desperate search for anda-parantha at 4 AM. Ended up at 24x7. Pre-packaged chicken tikka. Better than parantha .. i think. In terms of healthy food. Not tastewise.

Traffic Sightings

2 cute (?) girls in the car behind me , on my way back form Gurgaon. They were behind my car for a good 15 mins. Either they liked me a lot, or the traffic was really bad. I prefer the first explanation.


Another sunset pic .. again from my car .. again while driving. I am getting good at this.

Karaoke

Went for karaoke night. D was there too. She is quite cute. And she knows all the hindi songs. I think I like her a lot.

BTW .. we signed our first major deal with the Le Meridian hotel. We are in business.

Kawariye

Secularism in India means that all religions express themselves at the expense of the common folk ! National Highway 8 (NH8) connects Delhi with Gurgaon, and is one of the busiest highways in India. A sect of devouts carry water from the Ganges river to their homes, and walk along this highway. So about 1/4 of the highway is cordoned off in places to allow these folks to walk in safety. Screw the normal traffic. This is secular India.


Now one of them was struck by a truck (hooray .. that rhymes !), and the truck driver fled. The devouts gathered together, blocked the highway for 6 hrs, burned 3 buses and 2 police jeeps. Why ? because they thought that the police was in cahoots with the truck driver and was sheltering him. And oh .. BTW .. 2 more were killed when police rushed in to control the situation.

I took this picture from my car while driving. Not very safe. But then .. nothing is safe on the NH8 !

First day at work !

Drive to Gurgaon was painful. Office was like any indian office .. with people ready to call me "sir".

So we are trying to recruit experts. For "walks" in Delhi. A walk can be a historical, cultural, food (well), photography ....
Met 4 "experts" today.

• A photographer named Phantom.
• A woman who has taken Brangelina, Will Smith, Condy Rice etc on walking tours of Delhi and Agra, who claims that she is an "intellectual" first and foremost. She had some very interesting anecdotes, and some extremely bad jokes. I laughed at all of them. I was following Animesh's lead.
• A food critic for a leading newspaper. We are trying to put together some food experiences. We wanted her opinions on the best non-indian foods in Delhi. Seems like there are quite a few. I think i did influence her opinion on a seafood restaurant i went to yesterday (more on that later)
  

I must admit that Animesh (my partner) has a knack for dealing with people. And i did not know that he was a big history buff. He had the intellectual expert eating out if his hand.

Went to Naraina village to check on some brochures we are getting printed. Very dilapidated looking building. But it houses some of the most modern printing equipment in India. And some people who are really good at their job.

Came back to eat with Ruchi and her friend at Benigan's in Saket (yeah, same one). CRAPPY food. Had to get a shawarma on my way home from there.

PVR Saket at night :

Gypsy King

Had the first business meeting today. At Cafe Coffee Day. Animesh came over to see me in the evening. Then Varun (the third partner) joined and we continued discussions at home.

At night, went to a seafood restaurant called Ploof with Ruchi, Niki and Indeep (Gypsy King) (Indeep drives a Maruti Gypsy, and officiates in the Raid de Himalaya). On Mondays and Thursdays they have wine (not just indian) at "theka" rates. (Theka is the nickname for a boooze shop). Spent about Rs 6000 on some average food, although the prawn curry was kinda nice.

This is Me, Indeep and his girlfriend (?) at Ploof.

Philosophically Speaking ...

I changed the time zone on my laptop today. And the time zone on this blog