Conversations over chai and over just anything.

I was sitting up on my most hate full day again. The weekend. Yeah the dreaded weekend. People should rejoice about the weekend not the friday. Fridays are just evil. They make you think that the weekend is here with loads to do. With sleep to catch up on but its just that false hope. Fridays are just evil. Yes FYI i hate fridays. Incase you happen to read this without knowing me from work or twitter keep that registered. I have a love affair with mondays and i HATE fridays. I do, with a capital H.

This love affair with mondays shall be spoken about in another post cant use up all my ideas on this post can I? Considering i have woken up my lazy fingers to put this long post up.


And so yes i wake up saturday morning with that hideous song stuck in my head. Thank you Mr Vikram Bondal i shall kill you soon; played The songs from The Offspring to get it out. Worked to a large extent. And then i get a ping the usual "what you upto", "what plans you got" from a dozen of friends who have nothing else to do in life but ping me and make me feel miserable about my hate for weekends. Then this journalist friend pings about her cool job. Yes i get jealous. And guess what she makes my jealousy increase by inviting me to a play reading session.


And my lazy sleepy self gets that moment of adrenaline rush and i was off to meet her. With initial hesitation i decided its about time i do something interesting than the cleaning of the house or the aimless wandering around. Hail an auto (note to self blog about the auto drivers) the guy was extra nice. Its been long since i got an auto where i did not have to bargain and where he striked a conversation that was more interesting than my evening i think. He spoke about the different places in blore and how fast this place has evolved.


He shared his views on how rare does he find people speak kannada. Even the kannadigas have stopped appreciating the language. And then i get to the venue. The auto driver was surprised that a building like this has plays out of concern he even asked me if he should wait. I sent him off with a cheesy dialogue in kannada about how women from this soil can tend for themselves. He laughed and moved on. I wonder if he laughed at my broken kannada or did i really make sense.

The place where the play reading was to take place did not look any artistic or theatrical. Met my friend and we went upstairs. Saw a couple wit a cute chubby kid and i wondered maybe these guy are off to the same session as ours. And they were indeed. Me and my friend sure looked out of place in that tiny room filled with artistic and intellectual people. I felt like an intellectual outcast suddenly. But then we got introduced to the group. This theatre group do these play reading session's informally just to keep in touch with each other and basically have chai's samosa's and talk about plays and ideas. Garma garam chai they are called. I did not see the presence of chai or samosa's and i was craving for them.

We started of reading the play Dimetos by Athol Fugard. (p.s. Am posting this through my phone cant seem to post the link. But look it up and read the play. Its just beautiful.) I was assigned the role of Lydia. The reading began. And story took an amazing turn that i was not ready to stop for the chai i had been craving for. We finished the play and i was in love with the character of Lydia. I fell in love with her and with Dimetos. Lydia for her innocence and Dimetos for his insanity and with Athol Fugard for the beautiful play of words that kept me smiling throughout the reading. I did not care about the cute chubby kid crying in the background. Or that noisy fan creeking or the noises in the other rooms. I was in that play and could almost visualise it on stage. An enriching experience indeed.


We discussed and went into the nuances that showed up in the play. The references to apartheid, to recluse, to progress etc. Athol Fugard's play of words when talking about hands. All this put me into a different world. I knew i'd come back again. Not just for the greasy oily samosas. :)

From there i tagged along with this journalist friend to a Maloya music concert at the Alliance Française. (again pls look it up. Cant post link to tell you readers whats Maloya music is all about). The moment i stepped there i felt i was in a different world. I could hear drum beats and conversations in a different language, french of course. I felt like i was not in my country any more. The music just took me to a different world. I ended up getting sound bytes for this journalist friend. And being like a pseudo journalist. Interviewing the artist and his members.

There were a bunch of photographers sitting next to me. One did look cute. And i striked a conversation with them thats when they told me that they were having this stop over before going out to hessargatta for a night photography session. Now ain't that an interesting thing. Got them out of that concert and it turned out they were planning to go to this lake near hessargatta tonight and click pictures of the moon at the lake. All without the fear of the supermoon phenomena where the moon could cause weird occurences. With fears thrown to the winds these three musketeers were off to capture the moon at its splendid best. And it was my day to meet interesting people.


And that was how my random saturday went. With random conversations and interesting people in my day. Like Fugard said in the play every story has a Beginning, A pivot, and an End. I would not call this an end yet. I did not want to call it an end. Like the juggler i prefer to keep it on loop. But then like a case of a bad hangover i got my end at the busstop. A disappointing end.


Standing there late, all alone waiting for my bus,two men walk up near me and stand by me.
One guy asks "do buses from majestic start from here?".

I stared at him as though he was stoned. "This is mayo hall" , i said.

"ah right, but domlur buses start from here?."

"yes they go from here"

"you sure they go via here

""yes they do"

"you sure right?


*Omg yes do I look like some liar who wants people to stand next to me and ask what route buses take. *


"yes 335E goes there and Am getting into the same bus "

Acted busy on my phone, but the bugger wont stop. Almost wanted to show a krav maga move on him and make him shut up

."so are you working? Or studying?"


Did not have to answer that. The bus came and i hopped but damn it! forgot they were gonna hop into the same. The two buggers stand right next to me

. "so are you working for software?"

"No am not into the IT field"

Am so sure this guy is an engineer at some low paying company. I had to make that stupid judgement. Cause i was getting really annoyed by that idiotic stereotypical mentality these men have.

"So where do you work?"

"at an investment banking firm"

"Ah so you did your engineer and then your mba" #facepalm dude like seriously what is with you men?

" not all women in blore are IT professionals and MBA holders"

"No i just assumed cause am an engineer working in an IT firm"

"Yes i can very well assume that. And you proved it by asking me if am an engineer. Cause all engineer grads assume that the whole world is filled with engineer grads with high paying jobs at IT firms. If not they just end up doing MBA's and working in banks"


*also your conversation skills are that bad i so know that you are some topper in your batch and now you want to tell people how cool bangaloreans are who make random conversations with you*>>>i so wanted to add on and tell him this. :p but then the look on his face before i could add on was just worth it
. My blessed phone saved me when it lit up with a call. That buggers bus stop arrived i was in the mood to make him miss his stop and have him suffer but that would mean enduring him for another journey. Told him his stop was here and got busy chatting on the phone. I saw him turn back. Damn i wish i could capture that moment. That *am such an idiot look* he had on his face .


Saturday indeed was strange interesting conversations with interesting people and also some boring random people. Thats what my day's highlight was about. The beginning The pivot The end. In my case like a rotten end.