For Nalini

For Nalini,

Who is still attempting to decipher Vamsi's statement.... This is not a descriptive on how that statement came about... that would be self explanatory....

I hope you've been to hyderabad sometime... if u were, I am sure you would have noticed these....how do i describe them??? these small restaurants... i wouldnt call them that... indeed,if you forgive my romantic idealization of hyderabad, they are like the cafes of paris... nice wonderful places where you are served flavoured tea -"maska maarke"... I doubt if bangalore or any other place in India has an equivalent of hyderbad's irani chai or irani tea stall...

These are the places where blue collar workers, labourers, bill collectors and all the bhadralok ie proletariat of hyderabad converge, in the hope of tea, smoke and entertaining conversation... It is not a place for us white collar types... I doubt if any one in my family ever had tea in an irani tea stall... or would even approve of the fact that I did it... We white collar bourgiouse(alright I am weak with spellings and the french are terrible with theirs....) prefer our tiffin centres, restaurants(tiffin 330-7 pm only) or as has beeen seen nowadays, the I am too hep for you because i work in an IT company and I make less then the Irani stall owner kinds always prefer CCD, Barista...(tea costs 55 bucks there...wtf!!!!)... I guess the wonderful thing abt it all - wrt us - is that we are supposed to belong to the white collars... not the bhadralok( its a bengali term for the proletariat!) and yet there we were, drinking tea, smoking fags (people at home, I doubt, still dont know abt it :D) and of course - discussing SPSS and Excel....

I guess this rag tag picture of amusing anecdotes could not have been complete without our mode of transport - A 4 lakh car!... I believe it is like some kind of rock music isnt it? the jarring sounds have a beauty of their own and become music... the hilarity and outright ridiculousness of the whole incident is wat makes it so wonderful!

Hope you could understand....

-ani