Author Archive for Rinchen

The lunch that wasnt

Published
by
Rinchen
on November 20, 2008
in Life as it happens
. 2 Comments

A friend called me for lunch yesterday. It was some holiday so it was also a wednesday off from work. I had no plans and was looking forward to a day of pleasant nothingness. Lunching at her place meant a two hour travel but I thought, what the heck - she’s called me early in the morning (at 7:30 am to be precise) and kept asking me to get there as early as possible AND that she’d make lunch. I’m game for free lunches as much as the next person so sure, I was in.

Reached her place by 12 noon and started chatting. Drank two cups of tea (in huge mugs) and was thinking - its nice to catch up after ages. Thats when two of her cousins arrived and she walked off to talk with them.

Leaving me alone, sitting and waiting for a long time AND feeling slightly neglected. Also start feeing hungry around the same time.

“What do you want to have for lunch? Noodles or roti?” asks my friend emerging from nowhere.

I am hoping either of them are already cooked since the last time I looked at the clock, it was already 1 pm.

“Noodles will be fine.” said I. “Its meat noodles, isnt it?”

“Oh you wanted meat, huh? Okay, I’ll tell the cook to chop up some”.

Again, the last time I checked, I was and still am a pure non vegetarian.

So while the cook gets busy, I start wondering whether my friend really mentioned about her making lunch previously or not. This is one of the reasons I do not like sleepy conversations.

The cook finishes his leisurely chopping but the actual cooking seems to have left his agenda way back.

After half an hour of sitting alone while my friend chats on with the cousin in the next room, I am finally fed up and tell her I’m leaving.

“What!! Why??? The cook has already chopped the meat and is about to cook lunch!”

“I dont know… its going to take a lot of time to finish cooking and all…”

“Well, its not as if you tell him to cook and he’ll produce an instant meal in 5 minutes. These things take time!”

***

Well, yeah. Lunch takes time. I know that. I’ve known it all along when I’ve had friends visiting and spent long hours of the morning cooking and cleaning and delivering magnificient five-course meals for them.

But when you travel quite a distance to meet a friend who DID SAY that she’d have lunch ready, you expect her to spend time with you rather than what just happened.

I then made a hurried excuse about visiting my sick aunt in a bid to leave the place without hurting any feelings. (Quick rewrite: Since we’re being honest here, I might as well admit that by this time, I’d made up my mind to catch Quantum of Solace, matinee show)

Its not about the stupid lunch.

Its just that I didnt feel wanted. Maybe she had a lot of things going on which had distracted her already. Maybe she wasnt in a mood to entertain people. Whatever be the case, I didnt write about it to blame her. Plus, I dont want my other friends reading this and me risking the chance of never being invited to any lunch cause I crib about the bad parts in my blog later.

Its just that if you dont want to talk to people, dont call them. If you do, then better treat them as though the Pope were visiting, only with more alcohol offered. Or else, it isnt really worth it in the end.

P.S. If that friend of mine’s reading this (which’s a long shot but you never know), please do remember that I love you and I care a lot for you to be thinking of skinning me alive the next time I visit with - yes, the same cook’s knife!

Why the 30 year old had a bad morning

Published
by
Rinchen
on November 10, 2008
in Musings et all
. 14 Comments

images

One of my best friend turned 30 today. I gave her a wake up call and asked her how to feels to be THIRTY. She in turn called me mean and said something about not having a heart. I gloated about being 29 while she already turned 30, hahaha. How does it feel to be on the old side of the age and so on. 

She has promised to get back at me when my turn comes. Yeah, right! As if her old grey cells would live to tell the tale!

Happy birthday, Rikzing. You’re really and truly old now. I love you nevertheless and please dont kill me if you ever read this.

Dear Karuna

Published
by
Rinchen
on November 2, 2008
in Musings et all
. 14 Comments

You were my favourite senior in college. I thought you were the coolest girl ever who was so nice to everyone around you. I admired everything about you, be it your linguist skills or your absolutely gorgeous smile.

You know, I discovered the game of Word Challenge in Facebook couple of weeks back. When my friend, Priya had a high score of 9153, I personally thought she was a being of much higher dimension with equivalent intergalactic word powers. The reason being - the first time I played the game, I scored a measly 2000 something which left my ego hurting for days. I felt like a Word Retard; someone who couldnt even unscramble six alphabets to make as many words as humanly possible.

I played the game for days, weeks even - I dont remember. I neglected everything around me and concentrated on getting a better score even if that meant the dog sometimes having to eat her dinner at 12:00 midnight. Yes, I didnt give up at all.

Slowly, my scores improved. I started averaging around four to five thousand and once even made it all the way to eight thousand; a day that my spirits soared and I felt vindicated for all the countless wasted hours, not to mention eyeballs about to pop out of their sockets.

And then it finally happened! The day I had been waiting for a long time. Out of the blue, I managed to score 10112! Oh, you cannot imagine the over extended fist pumps that repeated itself long into the night. Little joys of my life.

That is when I made the mistake of inviting you to the game.

I thought we were friends but then you went and scored 28000. Yes, I did get the zeros right and incredibly so did you. A feat that I thought was Unbelievable. 

And as if that wasnt enough, you went on to score 38105. You know something else? The little girl host of the game occasionally pops in to give me this message - Do you know your friend Karuna has scored 38105? I didnt know she had the vocabulary of an Amazing Cyborg!!!

Well, neither did I. I accept defeat. If you’re thinking of scoring even higher than this, oh great Cyborg - our friendship is highly in danger please consider teaching me how you manage to score this high.

With love,

Your envious enemy junior

Rinchen :|

While we celebrate diwali

Published
by
Rinchen
on October 29, 2008
in Making it better
. 8 Comments

One of my friends wondered - as to why the festival of light is confused with the festival of sound. I agree wholeheartedly with him. Now, dont get me wrong - I love diwali, who doesnt? The lights, the sweets, the merriment and most importantly - some days off from work. I might as well add festival bonuses too while I’m at the subject. The only thing that I dont like about it is - yes, the noise.

Some of my married friends say that their kids love bursting crackers so therefore cannot completely opt for a noise-less diwali. Good point there. We as kids too loved all the magical fireworks so naturally I can understand their, i.e., the kid’s point of view.

What I’m not down with is the totally inconsiderate cracker-bursting spree thats rampant on the streets, localities and almost everywhere one walks past by. Like last night when we went out to buy some sweets, people were bursting crackers right in the middle of the highway as well in the market. 

One fool of a kid burst a particularly loud cracker (that one’s called a chocolate bomb here - I dont what its called in your city) right in front of our moving car - we had to hit the brake all of a sudden and ended up swerving the car a bit. Thankfully, the street was empty or else there’d have been an accident. Stupid, idiotic kids who dont have anything better to do.

Then, when we finally reached the market, I opened the door to get out and BANG! goes a cracker right at my feet. I get a near-heart attack and end up cursing the kid with the small brain who was responsible.

Why I’m talking about this now is because when a friend of mine wrote about this same topic in her blog a few days back, I didnt really think much about it. I was more like - well, if people want to burst crackers, what’s stopping them… I’ll have wool in my ear anyways - But after yesterday, I feel strongly about people at least being responsible for supervising kids bursting crackers. 

Besides the rant, happy diwali to everyone. Hope you dont get assailed by treacherous crackers out of the blue and may you not have to visit an ENT doctor the day after too.

30th All India Governor’s Gold Cup

Published
by
Rinchen
on October 26, 2008
in Sikkim
. 23 Comments

Photograph by: Shital Pradhan

Sikkim’s all about football frenzy. Went to watch the final of the Governor’s Gold Cup yesterday where the match was scheduled between Army XI and Three Star Nepal. I’m not a football buff or anything neither did I watch the earlier games. But I missed last year’s final too so I wanted to watch this time for sure. 

The stadium was packed and the first thing that I thought was - God, I hope no one’s planted a bomb or anything. Yeah, I know I was being paranoid but couldnt help myself. After the cultural programme ended and the match was about to start and I was still alive, I relaxed a bit.

I wasnt paying much attention while the team announcements were made so when the match starts, I dont know which team is which. I nudge my aunt, sitting next to me (who’s The football buff) and she doesnt know either. I dont think she cared much; she was busy cheering most of the time and gossiping with the other lady sitting next to her anyway.

I wanted to ask the other people sitting around me but I think - what the heck, I’ll figure that soon enough once they start playing. And thats how by the time the match reaches near half time, I still dont know which is the Nepal team so I can cheer for them! By this time, its too late for me to ask other people for fear of appearing extremely stupid! I look closely at the blue team and catch the words ARMY on their jersey - then went, aahh… All this when the Nepal team was playing in its national flag colours of red and blue.

In the meantime, a kid sitting behind announces - Mama, I feel like going for toilet number two. I felt sorry for the poor mother who had to miss a most exciting start by obliging to her son’s bowel movements.

Somewhere behind me sat the most negative man in the world. He started cribbing when the Army XI players played very well in the first half of the game. He critisized the Nepal players for lack of ball control, slipping and falling on the grass a number of times, playing out long, drawn out injuries and wasting time and so on.

His best comment was - Surely this player doesnt have to run with the ball so much along the entire breadth of the field!

I was initially partial to the Nepal team, just like any other person there but ended up cheering for Army XI, which I felt was the better team except for one inopportune goal which led Nepal to victory. 

More photos of the match here: http://sikkim-himalayanreview.blogspot.com/2008/10/photo-features-of-30th-all-india.html

 

Bhutan

Published
by
Rinchen
on October 20, 2008
in Wanderlust
. 14 Comments

I want to visit Bhutan. My friend did last week and she said that the people there are very hospitable, friendly and helpful. She talked about huge, red apples being sold for 30 rupees/kilo and the hotels being run by local families. When they asked for the bill at checking out time, the owner said - How many plates of food did you have? Its okay, just pay an approximate amount. Quite unbelievable.

Almost every business in Bhutan is run by women. It is a very safe place to visit. The cops are extremely smart and incapable of bribes. And also , Bhutanese people know hindi and are major Bollywood fans!

I then got a copy of a Bhutanese movie called Travellers and Magicians which deals with a young government official, trapped in a remote outpost - harbouring a dream to escape to America. Loved the movie and fell in love with this wonderful place called Bhutan. Want to go there soon.

Disadvantage in my car

Published
by
Rinchen
on October 16, 2008
in No good
. 12 Comments

My one year old Blaupunkt Maui CD player went kaput. CD Error, it kept displaying. All this while, I kept thinking - perhaps those cheap CDs were the reason. Finally when I told the friendly dealer about it, he said it was a company lens problem and asked me to bring it back for replacement with any other equivalent CD player. Thank god for warranty period.

So I go and choose a Sony X-plod. Dealer says, sorry cant let you switch over from Blaupunkt to Sony. Those are the rules.

I exclaim - but you said ANY OTHER CD player!!!

Dealer apologises profusely but stays adamant. I have no other choice but to select from about 10 models of Blaupunkt, each crappier than the next.

I fret and fume but am sure that this time, I want a CD player with USB because I was sick of writing CDs to death before. Every time I downloaded a new song from the net, I had to go through a whole process of CD writing. It was too much work.

I chose one with USB and by the time I finished pointing, the mechanics are already half way through installing it in the car. The demo goes well till I insert my 2 GB USB and then - gasp - USB ERROR!! 

I cringed inwardly, oh no - back to square one.

The dealer unconvincingly tells me - it just doesnt play 2 GB, thats all - see it works perfectly fine with a 1 GB USB. I feel like wringing his neck.

I dont want a new replacement which has USB size issues after which the dealer tells me (politely though not explicitly) to take it or leave it.

I eat his brains for about 3 hours, trying and testing all other models and eventually ending up with the one that gave me a USB error for 2 GB. 

By this time, the smile on his face’s been wiped out and so’s mine. We’re both feeling slightly hostile towards each other.

As I drove back home, I realized - maybe its okay I at least got a new replacement. The old one had completely stopped playing CDs and was only capable of FM. Have been using the new CD player and it works fine fine fine except for 2 GB USB.

Now I’m confused whether to feel happy about the replacement or to be unhappy about the entire problem to begin with. Or maybe Blaupunkt should change their logo of The Advantage In Your Car to the one in my title.