christmas

My earliest memories of Christmas comes from when I was in school and one of our teacher would dress up as santa and distribute toffees to the students.

This had become a ritual and also it would be the last working day before the school would close for the winter break.I still remember my dad would get a chocolate cake for us on Christmas.

My most memorable Christmas was perhaps in pune in the final year.

It was also a break time for us as the college had closed and we were all lazing around at our homes.

Our great house “ avdhut” was blessed by the benign presence of his lordship Mr. Amritesh Singh.

Amritesh had become an icon for us mortals!

His routine was something we all wished to ape.

It went like this :

Get up at 2 PM in the day.

2 Pm !! except for my sisters wedding when I was up all night I don’t ever , ever remember sleeping till 2 PM!!

So after 2 PM the first thing that waas done was to light up a light….

And then followed by a grand Breakfast cum lunch at Happy Guys café in the campus

Or at home, courtesy Ramesh our cook.

Once all this was done it was Barista time.

Every single day no matter what we would sit at barista….and have café mocha

My god….the amount of business we must have given to barista during those days.

So 25^th dec 2004 was no different either….

After gazing around at the hot crowd in barista for a few hours we decided it was time to go.

We headed for Café Down Under….our favourite hangout place in MG road.

What I really liked about that place was that not only it was reasonably priced , the atmosphere was just like I were at some local country bar in far away America .

After a couple of beers suddenly there was a loud noise.

To everyones wonder and amazement our Mr Goel was lying on the floor, as he had slipped from his chair !

Seeing this , much to the fun of every one around us , I realized it was about time we headed back home.

But now the situation was really out of hand.

Mr. Goel wouldn’t give me the keys of the bike.

Any attempts to get the keys were futile as he would just keep on running away.

So Mr. Goel started to run and I was after him.

First he went around Barista towards east street and then opposite georges restaurant.

All the while he was shouting , pointing towards me “ He is Gay , He is Gay and he is trying to catch me”

Finally I put in all my running efforts to grab him and loaded him on the bike and we were back home.Finally dinner was followed at our favourite terrace.With the view of the city lights and our favourite butter chicken from Saurabh .

My last memorable Christmas was in US when we went for Priyanka’s department party in Buffalo.

I still remember shopping in boulevard mall during Christmas time and how much fun it used to be!

I still have pictures of all of us shopping.It was my first and  last Christmas in the US !

 

My Bike

My earliest memories of riding a motor cycle in pune was when udit,my room mate, bought his passion when we were in the second year. I still remember that night, it was pretty cold at night.

So we went on a long drive to a lot of places.I as usual went in my shorts, a decision I later regreeted, as not only it was quite cold, I also burnt my leg on the silencer!

At that point of time I didn’t really know how to ride a bike, which I learnt very soon, courtesy all the new bikes my friends had bought.

I still remember how I borrowed Himanshu’s bike to go and meet Hamu, my israeli friend .

Boy wasn’t that one adventurous night!!

But my wait was finally over in the summer of 2004 when I finally bought my CBZ!!

It was my good companion for all my remaining days in Pune.

I still remember the first female who adorned the bike!!

It was a foggy , rainy night…..quite romantic!

Soon to add to our collection was aditya’s bike , another CBZ , same colour.

The last time I rode a bike in pune was last year  , and the best part was that it was raining

All the time.Riding at night all friends together was something I remember a lot.

Don’t see that happening again offcourse.

So with pretty much everyone you know in college you have some great memory

To share and cherish , of where you went and what you did on your bike!!

 

 I finally sold off my bike before leaving for the US.

Alka picture hall

Watching movies at alka would soon become my favourite past time !

So I , aditya and udit , my two dear room mates went for a movie for the first time , in Sep 2001.

I clearly remember  the evening as it was ganpati visarjan.

So we 3 boarded an auto and headed for Alka.

Alka, is a unique movie hall, old style, 25-35 Rs ticket and the latest English flicks.

The movie we saw was “ Hannibal”, which still is one of my fav movies!

Another memorable trip to Alka was on Aditya’s birthday in March 02.

We first went for a burger at our favourite at that point of time “ Burger King”

Burger King was also one of our Favorite places to hangout , esp I must have eaten

So many Jumbo Chicken Burgers of Rs 40!!

The movie that we saw was A Jean Claude Van Damme starrer : “Inferno”.

But the interesting thing before that was that we first went to Sarangi a restaurant on East Street, found it too expensive and had to escape!

Next big movie that I can Remember at Alka was “ Lost in Translation”

The amazing thing about this movie was I and udit saw it..and for the first five mts there were just two people in the entire theatre…me and him!!!..later on there were some 4-5 more people….

But it still was an amazing experience…..and on top of that the movie was such a strange one..

It left me quite depressed actually.

Another landmark movie that I saw in alka was “ scooby doo”

So nothing spectacular about the movie offcourse…..

But I saw it after shaving my head , perhaps this was in the month of April 2004.

I don’t remember which was my last movie at Alka, but all in all……it holds some of the sweetest memories for me of college time.