Jambo!

Its been more than 6 months since a post i think, the first one this year. God, the last post holds true perpetually i realise.

It's a thrusday evening in Nairobi. Listening to some music, sitting in the most uncomfortable chair in the world and pretending to work. This has been pretty much the summary of my 3 odd months here. Thanks to a wonderful risk management tool that I'm supposed to be implementing here, which doesn't work, and thanks to the fact that most of the buggers at the bank prefer to talk politics & make loud noises off and on, work's been rather interesting.

I'm not exagerating when I say that my job here, except for the setting up of the tool which doesn't take too much time, has been coming up with reasons on a daily basis why the tool doesn't work. Now, these excuses have been becoming lamer and lamer by the day, but thankfully the guys here don't seem to bother too much because they have a much bigger issue on their list now. Phew.

By the way, Kenya's an extremely pretty country. I wasn't expecting to see so much of green when I got out of the airport. I don't think I have seen so much of beauty in open spaces anywhere (except for all the sand in Saudi, which wasn't all that pretty anyway). Been lucky enough to go on a couple of safaris over the weekends. The first one, being the first one, was breath taking. And we were lucky in spotting a lot of animals, I have to confess. The mother of all safaris, the masai mara, is still pending, and I can't find anyone to go with! The migration from the serenghiti to the mara is sometimes considered one of the wonders of the world. People flock from all over, and I can't find anyone interested here!

Anyway, I will get back to work now, and hopefully get back to post something soon.

Laziness

I’ve been thinking about posting something for too long now. Jordon’s been my home for about a month now. I got to spend only little more than a week in Bombay after the Arabia trip. But I knew this place would be better off than the previous one for sure. However, thanks to Ramadan, life here’s also been quite painful.

To start off, the country’s really pretty and the people are even prettier. I’ve said this way too many times, but to reiterate, the women here are nothing less than models. But as luck would have it, the ones we know here belong to the 0.01% of non-models. Damn.

I made sure that I’d do the touristy trip here. We went to Petra (my first seven wonder, I know, I never went to the Taj!), dead sea and Jerash. So that took care of 2 weekends. I’m not going to bore anyone who’s looking at this blog with painfully granular details about them trips. I can blabber about them sometime over a beer.

I was supposed to be on my plane back to India today. No I didn’t miss it. Last minute changes meant that 2 of us would stick on for another week. So that would mean that we would stay here for the whole month of Ramadan. !!!!! There’s 1 small drink of whiskey and 2 small drinks of vodka left now. Will have to wait for someone to come into Jordan soon for some alcogol (as the people here call it). Talking about the people, haven’t met friendlier people in a long time. Compared to the Saudis these guys are angels.

Life’s not too bad, but then again, this whole staying away from friends is not the best part. That was yet another birthday with work people. This time I had to drink alone, shop for groceries & iron clothes, and the last time I woke up the next day with a scar on my forehead in Aurangabad. So looking forward to some excitement in the coming days, may be in the form of a Goa trip or a really really long awaited trip to Singapore.

The Gods of Rock

I’ve been a big fan of Metallica for a really long time. I remember playing my first Metallica songs on my guitar and getting extremely thrilled. Those guys were easily one of the best live acts in their genre. Hetfield on stage gives me goose bumps even now.

Now that its been established that I don’t hate Metallica, let me divert your attention to the lyrics of one of their songs. This is the opening track on their 1986 album, Master of Puppets.

God knows how they got down to write this shite down.

Lashing out the action (is this porn now?), returning the reaction (what? I mean, what?)
Weak are ripped and torn away
Hypnotizing power, crushing all that cower
Battery is here to stay


Smashing through the boundaries
Lunacy has found me (ya that’s true)
Cannot stop the Battery
Pounding out aggression
Turns into obsession
Cannot kill the Battery
Cannot kill the family (!!!!!)
Battery has found in me (come on man, what is this?)
Battery
Battery


Crushing all deceivers, smashing non-believers
Never ending potency
Hungry violence seeker, feeding off the weaker
Breeding on insanity


Circle of Destruction, Hammer comes crushing
Powerhouse of energy
Whipping up a fury, Dominating flurry (flurry? Seriously?)
We create the Battery (Metallica when they were working in Duracell)

Bye Al Khuzama?

It's saturday night and i'm sitting in my room, after a few episodes of That 70s Show and getting excited when limewire manages to leach onto hosts to provide me with entertainment in the form of Scrubs. As a friend put it, Kelso and Fez have been the high point of my last few days. However, thanks to another friend, who happens to be very enterprising, arabia has turned into a land of possibilities. Quote the right price and one can land up with things you never dreamed possible on this side of the Arabian sea (and no, I'm not talking about anything related to women, please). Anyway, due to this dear friend, I have managed to be happy for the past few days, and god willing, will remain so till my remaining days here (which I think are coming to an end pretty darn soon).
 

Come to think of it, now I have second thoughts about the excitement attached to a trip back to Bombay. That city man. A lousy house (which hopefully we'll do something about soon), the horrible train rides (which no one can do anything about), the never-stopping thunder showers & auto drivers who will take you only to places that's at least 10 kms away (yes, again, no luck in these two cases as well). Yuck. To give up a great villa, ironed shirts lying in the closet, an aircon cab ride to work, food waiting for you when you get back from work, a Jacuzzi, blah, blah. Damn.

I’ve been getting too used to the land of no intoxication. I wonder, could this be because of my industrious friends? All said and done, if one manages to subtract the dumb arabs, the fact that wine and women are part of your wildest fantasies & that one’s in a desert, this place is aint half bad.

Back in the Gelf

I’ve been meaning to jot down something for sometime now. Anyway, now that I’m back in the desert, I have found time to do this, once again. Luckily, thanks to an expiring visa and a company that feels sorry for employees who’re stuck in the middle east for too long, I was in Bombay for a week. And, yes, I made sure that I made utmost use of each and every second I was there. Regularly indulged in inebriation and other sorts of intoxication on very very regular basis. Managed to make sure there were more than two nights when I had no clue how I came back home, and oh ya, even ensured a drunken entry into office at 4 p.m. on the last day. All the things that I was looking forward to so badly, the rain, the Bombay crowds, friends, intoxication, etc, etc, was enjoyed to the fullest.

Got back to Riyadh on Sunday morning, and needed 2 days to get used to the fact that I was back here. Damn. Life’s fallen into the same ole groove now – early morning work, lunch at the mallu restaurant, evening football and pretty much nothing else. So I was decided that this time around, I’d go around the city and have something to say about the city when people asked me about the damn place. Following along these lines, all of us headed out to Al Faisaliyah today, the second tallest tower in Riyadh. A massive construction that doesn’t look half bad, although when I found out that the shape of the building was inspired from a ball point pen I was amused.

So we walk in in our casual sort of clothes and check out some extremely rich Arabs and their extremely hot wives (or whoever), and yes, we did manage to sneak peeks through the burqahs  Anyway, it was decided to check out the restaurant at the top of the tower inside the ball (of the ball-point pen remember). The view from the top was breath-taking, obviously, and then I realize I forgot my camera at home. Damn. Kept cursing myself for a long time and then found out that dinner would come upto 5 grant per head. And that’s without any alcohol. What the hell. so we grumble and bitch a bit about the Arabs and enjoy extremely expensive gourmet French food (consisting of a pina colada with no alcohol, crab caniloni and a wagyu beef {apparently one of the softest and most tender in the world} steak) looking down on a city that was lit up quite beautifully. The most upsetting part was that I was with 7 guys and not my non-existant girlfriend. That behind us, we decided we’d be laying low on the shopping / spending front for quite sometime now. Although, I have to say, it was definitely a spectacular experience.

I have one day left during the weekend, and I cant think of exciting things to do. As you can see, the Bombay spirit’s still a bit alive inside me. Looks like I should be stuck here for another month or so. Let’s see how this works out. I’m sure even the pessimistic me can pull through this with a little help from Mr. Marlboro and the (very) occasional arrack.

The EXTREME Kingdom

Thanks to a visa that lasted only for a 15 day period, I went to Bahrain for 2 days this Wednesday. Through the week we, 2 friends from work, were building up to the trip, a long road trip. The drive was, obviously, extremely boring. Lasted for around 5 hours or so. The worst part was the scenery, the lack thereof. It was just open spaces separated by more open spaces. One could spot camels, carcasses of cars, oil wells, and cops once in a while. The desert was real pretty though, the red sand on the horizon was pretty similar to the preset wallpaper on windows xp. And obviously, again, it was really really hot. The customs checks were a farce. They didn’t even check who the passport holders were. The King Fahd Causeway was quite a sight in the night. Anyway, we got to our apartment at around 9. Aptivaa already has around 5 ppl staying there. The extravagance of the city was quite evident in everything one saw there, including the Ferraris, Porsches and some super-sexy cars on the streets. We headed out to get some preliminary drinks at a lounge. Beer in the desert after 2 weeks of any alcohol at all. It really hit the spot. Lingered around for some more drinks there and moved on to a club called F1. Its got nothing much to do with racing, as I found out. It was a pick-up joint where the Filipino women outnumbered the old horny American by a ratio of 4:1. we couldn’t stop laughing at the whole scene there. Thanks to us looking not as rich as the American buggers, the women stayed away. Sooner than later, we got bored and headed home for some teen pathi, where I managed to lose almost every single game. Damn. The next day started off with some blissful shawrmas followed by a visit to the Seef mall, the biggest apparently. Oh and we were driven there by a mal driver, obviously. The mall was extravagant alright and filled with some of the best looking women I’ve ever seen, I’m not kidding. They were heavenly beauties and they didn’t mind flaunting what their mammas gave them. After some shopping, we headed over to some alcohol shopping. Got back, headed to the pool on the roof with our beers and spent a good 2 hours. When we got bored with that, we went down for more alcohol at the apartment. That’s when I managed to spill alcohol on my comp, and now half my keyboard’s sticky. Yuck. After getting nicely high, we went to get some dinner at a nice fancy restaurant with a live band playing good jazz music. While the crowd was clapping solemnly and sipping on their wines, we were acting like hooligans, 3 of us, the initial 3 I talked about. The party then moved to a club which was full of black dudes and European women. One particular extremely drunk chick was talking to me when all of a sudden a really huge black dude walked over and proclaimed he was her boyfriend. That was when I decided to move along and hit the dance floor. Yay. Got really wasted there with the all-you-can-drink deal. After my friend got thrown out of the club because of some reason none of us have been able to remember yet, I went to an Indian dance bar (!!!!!!!) to use the restroom (!!!!!!!!!!!!). the chicks were real hot and the stage had fluttery bollywoody props and wind machines. Old rich horny guys, as mentioned earlier, were having a ball. We had to call it a night after that. Started the return trip to the land of no intoxication with tears in our eyes around noon. Don’t think I’ll be doing this again as long as I’m in Riyadh. And somehow we managed to have enough fun to compensate for the 2 weeks of abstinence (partial). Well, now its back to work on a Saturday. Damn.

The Land of No Intoxication

so this is one of them travel blogs.

the trip started off with one hell of an international flight, my very first, and that too in freaking business class. it rocks!!!! don't know how else to describe it. and this is thanks to the fact that economy is full of people who would usually travel the unreserved compartment in our trains. good enough reason for me though :) the first sight of the country i got form up there wasn't very pleasing, just desert stretched across with absolutely nothing to look at in particular. well, i knew right about then that that was something that i had to get used to. the scariest part when i reached the Riyadh airport were the announcements reiterating the death punishment for drug possession. creepy it was. and when i reached immigration, i kept thinking there would be some weed lying around in my bag somewhere. paranoia. anyway, there were no issues there, except for an extremely long line of ppl who didn't know how to fill out forms.

the taxi that waited for me brought me to my lavish villa in the diplomatic quarters. and once again, there was no scenery on the way. damn. now, lavish is the word for these villas. the entry is restricted by a freaking huge machine gun manned by scary terrorist looking arab dudes. and the guards are mostly mal.

they were happy to see me. the villa... man they're huge. our company;s got 3 of them rented for around 15 odd people. huge structures all set for one hell of a party that i could picture the second i saw them. so my drinking friends were anxiously awaiting my arrival with the hope that i would save them from the lack of alcohol. a short conversation with the mal guard gets me through to a bottle of charayam - arrack - made out of , guess what, dates. and all this happened real fast. had to make small talk with the guy though. 100 riyals for a bottle. 700 for johnny and everything else. saudi fucking arabia does have alcohol my friends. expensive alcohol. we were obviously slightly paranoid about consuming the said liquor though, thanks to the potential threats in drinking arrack and also due to the freaking country's stuck-up-ed-ness. but we go ahead nonetheless. it wasn't half bad. finished a huge plastic bottle by the evening and didnt feel much then. but we knew it was on its way. oh it was fun.

so we head over and play some pool. make complete fools of ourselves. by around 7 in the night, we decide, its time to hit the jacuzzi. woohoo. spent bloody 2 hours in it. heavenly is the word. adding to these, there's a tt table (played a bit today), a swimming pool, darts (!!!!), a sauna, bball court, football on the bball court, a tennis court and a gym that looks real fancy from outside. have to venture inside ASAP. cos the food scene here is a bit too good. a cook makes dinner and lunch. the fridges are stocked with juices and fattening material. tonight, i headed towards the city centre for dinner. saturated fat was consumed shamelessly. its scary when i think about all the weight i might put on if i sit on my arse and do nothing.

anyway, its 0030 now and i shd get some sleep. tomorrow, ya a saturday, is my first day at the bank. mornings are early here, have to leave by 8. damn.

hoping to stay alive and hang on to all my limbs and bodily organs till i return, which i think could be a month and a half later.

P.S. did i tell u the ex-pats stay in the villas around us which means a decent population of scantily clad women at the pool? well, at least that's what I'm hoping for.