The one with the 'Cheese-less Royalty'

So here I was, walking on a deserted street with Pranav and Tushar (co-internees), and some stray cattle for company. We had been walking for the best part of an hour, after having a sumptuous dinner at "Ghazal".
For the first time in two weeks, I ventured out of the campus hoping to get some non-vegetarian food and booze, both of which are banned inside the premises. This sudden trip, however, was fueled by a culinary disaster.
The canteen food so far had given us nothing to complain about, but the tables turned on Sunday as they served an absolute shocker.
The Royal cheese (Shahi paneer) had its royalty diminished with the absence of any cheese, and the Potato peas (Aaloo mutter) was more of a 'tease' than a 'please'.
Also, it was Pranav's birthday the day before, and as usual, i forgot to wish him. :D

The perambulation of the city made me realize that i had made all the wrong assumptions. The place where i am staying is not the city of Barnala, but just a suburb. Not that the city itself is a paradise on earth, but at least we could find some restaurants and a market there.
I hereby also wish to bring out the flawed etymology of the word "Bar-Nala(h)".Agreed, it has a slew of nalahs spread all over the place, but BAR, no, not a single one. :(

We had a surprise meeting with the unit head the other day. He had sent a worker to search for us in the workshop. The worker struck gold and found one of us there, which if i may add is a
very rare sight. We discoursed about many loosely connected topics ranging from the quality of mess food to the threat to the spinning industry from China.
One of his questions, however, caught us completely off-guard and left us tongue tied.

Unit head: "Job karoge yahan par"?

I looked at Tushar, Tushar looked at Pranav and Pranav looked at me, all in the hope that someone would say something. Eventually, Tushar did blurt out something on the lines of 'depends on the whole package...', but i had feeling that the head expected this response, or the lack of it.
Anyhow, we have gotten wiser since then and now we know what to say and what not to, thanks to the crisis meeting we had that very evening.

Television is the favorite pass-time as of now, especially the assortment of sporting action on air these days. While the 'terry-ble' miss gave all ardent Manchester United fans much to cheer about, Dada's innings last night was pure magic.
Sorry for taking a dig at John Terry, though he was fantastic for Chelsea throughout the season, but the year belonged to Ronaldo, who ensured that his much publicized kiss with Bipasha Basu didn't go to waste, winning Man. Utd. both the Premiership and the Champions league. Maybe that was the 'kick' he needed.
Some food for thought for the cricketing fraternity (read BCCI), eh? :D

My project work is chugging along nicely, I've been given the freedom to do whatever i want, which i don't seem to mind one bit. But the incessant grinning of the workers here is really pissing me off. I still can't figure out what is so amusing about a person wearing a mask and standing beside them with a stop watch in hand. Yes, that's pretty much what i am supposed to do.

That's it for now, toodle-oo!

PJ

The First Week

My first week here, and it hasn't been as bad as i expected it to be. 'Things ' are a lot hotter in Delhi though;pun intended. :D
We really haven't had to sweat much for anything. My two basic requirements have been more than met, the accommodation has been good and free, and the food, free and good. :D
A word or two about my workplace; most employee are locals or from nearby areas. The company makes yarn,
so ok,
what does a mechanical engineer have to do with it?
Well i am in the process of figuring that out myself, so later. :D

The labor class are predominantly girls from the neighborhood, young and innocent i think, but why do they keeping staring at me??
My project involves a lot of interaction with the workers, which am not at all comfortable with, for one they cant help laughing whenever i ask them about something, and secondly their answer almost every time is "Haan".

me: "Sirji, is machine se material machine no. 2 par jaata hai kya? "
worker: "Haan"
me: "Kahin machine no. 3 par toh nahi jaata? "
worker: "Haan, haan".

huh??????

And the millions of strands of yarn fiber hanging in the air, doesn't make things any better. Wear black at your own peril. Though we've been provided with a mask, but my nose has taken a special dislike to it. Add to that the heat and the sweat and now you can picture me, can't you?

But thankfully, i don't have to spend that much time there, my guide is a good man you see. Though the workers he lambastes everyday may have a different story to tell. Just the other day, he flayed one of them holding him by the collar, but the worker had it coming, i mean, who the hell bang on the desk of his boss, specially when he is double your size. :O

The first place we were taken to was the "BLOW ROOM", and i started giggling at its mere mention, my co-internees from iit Delhi though, looked rather bemused, unable to fathom out what was so hilarious, damn! i miss my pack. :(

* Swaying to the tunes of "fear of the dark" *

I must say somethings about the females here, not too different to iit Delhi, maybe another 5 kilos to the average and add to that the heavy Punjabi accent, i call them the FGOWH. Try cracking this one, fellas ;)

My evening are taken care of by The IPL and some random 1970's Hindi movie aired on zee-cinema etc. I plan to start with my GRE preparation soon.

Thats just about it, keep checking this space.

Cheers,
PJ