When CWG & Cheese Made My Sunday!

When you have a crappy day, life does give you a good day too. I have had crappy 10 months and cannot wait to begin my awesome 10 either. For now, let me just give you an account of the one good day that I had after a super-sucky Saturday.

After some decent sleep after several days, I woke up around noon this Sunday to be ready in time for my lunch appointment with Ridhima and Swetha. The two women I literally lived with for the past two years. I was seeing them after six months. I am tired of saying that time flies, but yes, it does.

So, CP, the central place was inaccessible and kinda closed because of the CWG cycling event and we had to find another location to meet. I forgot that I had sworn to not visit the Rajouri malls on a Sunday and agreed to meet them there for lunch. I then waded through to the West Gate Mall to see them at TGIF. I don't know why, but I had never visited that restaurant earlier and had an impression that it has good ambience. Well, that wasn't true but the food certainly did not disappoint.

It was good to see the girls after so long. We talked, and could have gone on for the rest of the day, but I had more plans for the evening. But before leaving, I did shop for a rather smart sweater with them. :D

Ridhima and I took the same train towards CP. She was going home, and I was headed towards the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium. We boarded the women's coach, a first for me. It felt a little odd, but was certainly more comfortable than the rest of the train. While I did not get space to sit, at least I got to stand in peace. Then I switched the train at CP, and then at Central Secretariat. At C. Sec, there seemed to be no directions near the platforms regarding how to make the switch. It took me a while and a few more clueless people to figure that I should move one level up if I want any information at all. I finally saw the new platform and got shoved into the train thanks to the maddening crowd. It seemed like the whole world was going to the same stadium to watch the same event. And I was not wrong. The stadium with a capacity of 60,000 was almost full. Most people used the Metro to get there. I do not want to criticise, but the well-managed venue missed the metal around my leg. The Metro guys had missed it too today. Yep, loopholes.

The packed stadium

I was there to watch some athletics with two of my cousins. While we were walking in to find a place to sit, the noise was unbelievable. Of course, had to be an Indian doing well. At discus throw this time. The sport might not be exciting, but with that kind of numbers cheering together, everything becomes exciting.

With Daksh, Bhrigu and our make-do phone camera

There were many events running simultaneously. India was doing well in men's discus throw, and women's long jump. We got a silver in both. But the loudest cheering happened for Tintu Luka who won an 800 m race. It was one of the heats, but her margin was supercool!

Men's 400m hurdles

Women's 200m final

Parasports

A very rare but heartening sight. The picture is blurred, but people stood for every nation's anthem every single time.

We were there till around 8:30 pm. We kept hoping for a chance to hear our own anthem, and long jump did seem promising for a gold until almost the last jump, but we were not in luck. So we decided to move for dinner. This time at Flavors in Defence Colony. That's another place which never disappoints with its food. Nice, authentic-ish, Italian stuff. And for the perfect end, we shared a perfect chocolate mousse.

Blurred long jump in action :)

These last two pictures are from Friday's weightlifting event that I had managed to attend with Daksh again.

A day well spent.

Unstable

My stomach is stupid and slightly twisted in the head.

I was born and brought up in Delhi. Lived there for 21 years. But my stomach never got used to the food in the city. Last six months spent in the city were particularly awful. I was worried what would happen when I'd come to Pune (a new place with new food).

I moved to Pune a little over a year ago. My stomach was the happiest living being on earth. I could eat whatever the heck I wanted to. There wasn't the slightest cry from in there. And now? After all these months here... one little new thing I eat, and bam! There it goes for a toss. Just like it used to be in Delhi. It does not matter whether I eat from the streets or at a fancy restaurant. It's all equally painful.

So tell me, some enlightened soul! How does immunity reduce instead of rising?

Did ya just turn over?

What follows is something that I wrote yesterday but could not post it.

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Semester I ended at 8:00 pm on October 11, 2008 after having conducted three exams in one day. That was also a new way of living academia that I experienced. From the average of 5 days that we used to get before every exam, and the 45 days before exam season for 'advance' study, here it was an average of 8 hours for two exams each day. A rather strange week for sure.

Stranger still - we used to get 2.5 months before the beginning of the next session. Here it was not even 24 hours. Semester II from 8 (oops, that was 9) am on October 12. Professional courses, I tell you! :P

But you have to be part of such a system to understand the good and bad things about it too. Also, the jokes.

So frustration levels were running VERY high last night. I wanted food. Good food. Or maybe ANY food other than what this 'mess' offers. Was kinda tired too, I had sneezed enough to lose 20K+ calories through the day, but a walk down the hill to a small dhaba for FOOD (yea, you knew that, didn't you?) was reason enough to gather strength. Food was the standard sweet and spicy mix, but I was all right. Got Dairy Milk and Slice too. :D

There is going to be Art of Living workshops through the week for the burnt out junior batch. Apparently there are five things we have to abstain from - alcohol, cigarettes, tea, coffee and non vegetarian food. Ha! I do not need the word abstinence for these. Let's see how this turns out to be.

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I am through with two sessions of art of living. Guess I will write about it all together at the end of it.