The B'ful ones!!

Ladies

1.       Nandita Das-I met her and she is awesome

2.       Laura Linney-I would like to meet her so that I can put some more words on how great she is…..

3.       Kate Winslet-if the list suggests I am into older women, then hell “yeah” …I loved her in Titanic and I still adore her…although I would prefer if she doesn’t get naked frequently on screen……but I wouldn’t mind if she has to..its her life and who am I to judge.

4.       Waheeda Rehman-She is probably the most beautiful women ever graced silver screen

5.       Manisha Koirala-The natural beauty…know how people have list of actresses where they compare the actual look and on screen look…I still have to find her on the list.

6.       Scarlet Johansson- I wish I could be this guy without being “gay”

7.       Konkana Sen-very difficult for me to keep her out of the list coz she is from my college and I have seen her in person…i have been ragged (hazing as people in US call it) pretty badly in school however I have a regret that it wasn’t her…

Dudes:

1.       Robert Deniro-The true angry young man who never gets old unlike some people who are either forever old or old ungracefully……he has been my favorite from the days of “Mean Street” to “Everybody is fine”

We belong together

1.      Titanic :  Jack Dawson and Rose Dawson..probably one of the best looking on-screen couple

2.      Beauty and the Beast: Belle and Beast- what a love story!!!

3.      Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:  Joel Barish and  Clementine Kruczynski- the most romantic movie and one of the most real couple in the most unreal situations.

4.      Starsky and Hutch: David Starsky and Ken Hutchinson “In Bay City, when you cross the line, your nuts are mine.” What more is there to say and love!!!

5.      Anchorman: Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone

6.      Shawshank Redemption: Andy Dufresne and Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding-Most inspiring movie followed by a lot of thinking and further followed by hope…if you show the poster of the movie to the middle America they would not take time in saying “GAY”…having said that while watching movie you don’t feel an Oz of that thought

7.      Toy Story: Woody and Buzz “lightyear”…”classic”

8.      Wall-E: Wall E and Eva-“Robots in love” it can’t get more romantic than this

9.      Mary and Max: Mary Daisy Dinkle and Max Jerry Horowitz-“True gem”

10.  Garden State: Andrew Largeman and Sam-“you have to lose everything to find that one thing which keeps you going”

City visit with lab folks.

Last week Boss man was away from the town and hence we decided to take advantage of that. The plan involved the lab outing on a weekday. Finally after long deliberation and planning, we decided to to make a visit to the city last Friday. It was a lot of fun. We ended up eating and walking around the city. First stop was famous Halal cart (56th & 6th). Delicious chicken and rice. We all enjoyed the spicy tinge to it except J who ended up gulping down two bottles of Gatorade. Anyways after food we started walking towards a bakery store to try some cupcakes. By the way it was freaking cold that day. I would say the first cold day of this winter. Anyways after cupcake it was time to sit and relax a bit. So what could be a better place than central park. Daisy and B decided to leave us guys in the park. Daisy went for her dance classes and B for her favorite activity in the whole world "Shoppinggggg".

Halal cart 

 Buttercup

 Battery Park 

Ethiopian Food

Guys decided to head down to battery park, After hanging out there for some time we started walking uptown. Its always fun to walk in the city. We made a stopover in chinatown to try some dumplings at "Tasty Dumplings". Moving on we walked all the way to 47th street & 10th ave. There we met Daisy. Ended up trying some Ethiopian food for dinner. It was absolutely delicious. J headed to party with his friends in the city and three of us to stony brook.

Over all it was great outing despite the cold weather.  

The wanderer is back!!

After a long hiatus I am back to where I belong. Hiding behind the array of words. Past couple of months have been really interesting to say the least. After the New Orleans trip, I was mostly surrounded by work and job applications. Things have been moving smoothly. Trying to experience life as it comes.

Coming thanksgiving weekend I will be off to Columbus, Ohio and then to chicago. Thanks to Aroop & Dawn for inviting me to their house for the dinner. Friday and Saturday I will be in Chicago walking around with my lens doing my favorite thing. I will be staying with Rujanee, artist and teacher, so hoping to have a wonderful time. I hope it doesn't get too cold. On Sunday Aroop and I will be driving back to the city. I will write about it once I am back.

Winter is almost here. Dreading the day when everything will be covered in snow. I do enjoy it partly but after some time it gets too boring and depressing. Here's one from last year.

New Orleans during Tropical storm

This post just because I didnt write anything this month and today is 30th.Beginning of Sept I had a chance to visit New Orleans. It was plain awesome.....here's one picture.

NYC with friends under the pouring rain

A long planned weekend visit to city seemed to fizzle out as any other plans but at the last moment it worked out fine with the generous help of D and her sister N who gracefully allowed us to bunk our drunk asses at her place.  A long 2 hr train ride took us to NYC, a bit gloomy but cool and breezy. So plan included eating a bit and walking around the city. After a long confusion on where to eat, we eventually ended up in bustling and lively Greenwich village. After a long discussion we decided to stop by Kathi Roll place to hog on to some of the best and delicious lamb and chana masala rolls. The next stop was "3 Sheets Saloon". It was loud, kind of very damp and close bar. Anyways we just had a beer each just to get us going.

What we were looking for was an open seating bar and little quieter place. It was kind of difficult to find such place especially it started to drizzle by then. Anyways we made a stop by a bar which looked a bit less noisy.  So after few drinks we decided to move our asses to South Street Seaport (Pier 17). I have mentioned a lot about this place in my previous posts. Its an awesome place next to river with a nice view of Brooklyn bridge. We  got ourselves a drink and sat next to the river. It was nice and soothing talking there in absence of any noise and under the open sky. Midst all this fun we forgot to realise that the place from were we bought our drinks was closed and we couldn't pay for our drinks. Anyways who doesnt like free drinks. After the drinks  it was time to get some cheap and simple food and hence we grabbed some chicken sandwich and Philly loaded with Jalapenos. Thank god we left at the right time coz it started to pour like anything right after we left. Unfortunately we got cought in rain anyways. Not drenched but we were wet on our walk from the subway station to the house. Trying to run away from the rain I slipped and fell miserably right before the main door. It really hurt. I still have the bruise.  Anyways we had good night sleep with bucket full of rain pouring outside.

The plan of kayaking the very next morning was thwarted by the continuous rain. So it was the perfect opportunity to have a long and lazy breakfast at Le Pain, thanks to D for taking us there. It was awesome with different kind of bread, jams, belgian waffle with berries and soft boiled egg, and not to mention all organic. It was long lazy and delicious breakfast something that I rarely relish.

As we couldn't do much outside, the plan was to enjoy matinee show of The Rise of the Planet of apes. After India this was the first time watching a movie from balcony, something that I rarely got to do in India coz my pocket never allowed the luxury.I thoroughly enjoyed  the movie, engrossing, sensible script, appropriate character development, honest casts and intelligent treatment of the story, nothing too overboard. And obviously Caeser. Alan Serkin as Caeser was awesome. Despite CGI, his eyes conveyed a lot of emotions. Especially the scene in which he draws the window in the sanctuary was heart wrenching. Overall, this is how you make completely entertaining movie with lots of sensibility.

After the movie we walked to whole foods next door to grab some biscotti and coffee for some snack. And soon enough it was time to part our ways and get back to the land of no fun and work with a wishful thinking of doing it again soon.

Bea(it)ches and water

It was another of those stint with friends. A drove to stony brook to have get his dose of good ole long island. Evening spent drinking, smoking and catching up with tits and bits. Oh yeah and we accompanied D to see the last of harry potter. It was tough to follow what was going on but was filed in by A and D that Harry is trying to kill the "Villain" whose life is hidden in different objects. I have never followed harry potter even though the world was going berserk. May that was the reason why I never felt the interest. If I remember correctly, D was successful enough to drag me for a previous Harry potter movie too. But to her or for that matter my surprise I slept through most of the movie. First time ever in my life. Well you can imagine how much of a fan I am. Anyways the special effects were great. A was watching it for the third time. Kudos to him.

Evening at portjeff

Next day we drove to Greenport (another tip of LI) and took ferry to get to Shelter Island beach. It was kind of cloudy and a bit colder than usual. Not a great time to visit beach for a dip. Surprisingly, water wasn't too cold. In past six years of living in US and 4-5 visits to beaches, this was the first time I actually took a dip in water. It was scary, cold but at the same time a lot of fun too. Oh by the way did I forgot to mention that we spent freaking 40 bucks on a beer and two gin-tonic. It was a big rip-off. SO a sane advice please avoid any drinks/food by the bea(it)ch.

We spent couple of hours in water and rightly so decided to return back as it started to rain by then. We stopped on our way back at Mason Ole to have mexican food, A's favorite. Alas we were deeply disappointed with food except Bean soup. However we had a good laughter due to the following picture..."look at the hand".

Other than the disastrous food, the trip was awesome.

Few more random pictures:

I don't know what they were thinking when they named this dorm.

D with Rascal: he is having time of his life.

Google, Jelly beans and finger tips and tabs

So the question is what would I do without Google? nothing but feel crippled all along.

Google definition: A search engine that takes you to wikipedia.

Now that we are at this topic, here's the list of the websites needed for my survival:
1. Google
2. Wiki
3. Gmail
4. Youtube
5. Scifinder (only reason coz there's only web version available)
6. TFCU (coz they don't really have a good app)
7. Pandora/Grooveshark
8. Letbob (watching movies/showes)
 Now that we are at it I am gonna list some of my fav

1. Google (what would I do without it)
2. Wiki (oh I love spending times here recently I read about Rwanda civil war)
3. Cricinfo (Bleed blue)
4. Hindustantimes (entertaining and keeps me in touch)
6. NYtimes ( I love their editorials, book review and Food/travel section)
7. Gmail (Keeps me saved from O's wrath)
8. IMDB (Cinephile)

Jelly Beans incident happened way back in 2007 when India toured England. In one of the matches, English players tried to crack some joke (as they called it after the incident) by throwing some jelly beans on the pitch. This really pissed the hell out of Zaheer and assuming that it was KP he raised his bat at KP asking him to be in his senses. The commentators didnt actually know the reason being Jelly beans for his outrage. Umpires intervened but nobody knew who threw the beans. Allegedly It was Alestair cook who still has to go past the score of 10 in this test series. Michael Voughn, then the captain of England team  tried to downplay the incident. However, this really pumped Zaheer and propelled him to go for a match winning bowling figure. To my surprise theres no video of this incidence on youtube however there are plenty of print material. Heres a picture of the incidence for you.

Dumplings and Rascal

A long awaited trip to city dragged me to theater to watch over hyped Delhi Belly. And to be honest the movie lived up to the hype. It was hilarious, quirky, fresh and a bit too daring although in a good sense. For people who have been exposed to Guy Ritchie kinda movie wouldn't be too shocked to see the film. It has shades of "Lock stock and two smoking barrels" and "Snatch". Having said that its an honest piece of work with groundbreaking dialogues, music and direction. Imran, Kunal (my namesake),Vir and Vijay have given a stellar performance. A must watch for people who don't carry pseudo bag of morality on their head and watch movie for the sake of entertainment. Kudos to the Censor board for coming out of the redundant old rules, appreciating the creativity and passing his movie without any cuts. I am glad people are maturing for good. Here leaving you with the DK Bose phenomenon.....I bet after hearing this song you would want to forget about the morality and hummmm this song...

After the movie I walked to a famous dumpling place in chinatown called "Prosperity Dumpling". They serve some of the best dumplings in the city and are extremely cheap. You dont need to carry anything but 2-3 dollars and a severe appetite and you wouldn't be disappointed. A must visit for dumpling lovers.

I have found a new friend in Rascal or should I say crazy rascal. I did put up his picture in last post. He is D's new pet cat. He is absolute delight to watch. Absolutely crazy. Here's a video which will tell you all about his craziness...

Some more wandering and unknowns

At Princeton with two of my favorite people

Banana cupcake with pineapple topping at Tommy Sweets 

Shrimp pasta with Alfredo sauce and beer, egg and garlic toast-A home cooked meal with buddys

Cooper beach in southampton

Montauk light house -breezy and cold

Tonks: (Dawn and Aroop)'s new toy

Nashville-some country music concert hall

Oh yeah Bridgestone Arena

Nashville downtown area: inside of an ice-cream place

Honky Tonky Bars: downtown nashville

Another Honky Tonky

Country music suckers

Biscuits at Loveless Cafe: must place to visit

Fried chicken: one of the best I have ever had

with Mashed Potatoes, gravy and pickled cucumber and onion

I don't remember exactly what the hell it is but looks like a shoe made out of jute. Looks cool though

One of the best memories of Nashville: A no gun sign out side all public restaurant/bar

Ferris Beuller's day off

Evening in NYC right before 4th of July fire works

Rascal: D's new toy

And finally Fourth of July Fireworks

This sums up the last few weeks of my wandering. Oh and it was my B'Day a week back. It was fun.

Visit to Montauk and Nashville

Its been almost a month since I last posted. There's lots of things that happened in the meantime. My friends came down to Stony brook and we went for a little stint to Southampton and Montauk. It was a wonderful drive to Montauk through Hamptons. We stopped by at Cooper's Beach in southamptons to take a dip at the best beach in NY. Spent there quite a few hours before we headed to the tip of Long Island called Montauk light house. The drive as I mentioned before was really serene and adventurous. The view of the endless ocean from the light house was gorgeous to say the least. We walked around the light house in the dense foggy weather. It was a bit chilly so if you are going there please don't forget to carry warm clothes.

The next stop was Nashville. My friends have been asking me for a long time to visit Nashville. And now that I am doing nothing, i thought I wouldn't get a better chance than this. So I packed my bag with bare minimum and headed to Nashville for a week. So my flight was at 6 in the morning from LGA. So I had to take the last train (11:32 pm) from Stony brook. I was a bit scared of going through queens at that time of night in bus and subway. To my surprise it wasn't that bad at all. At around 2 in the morning, waiting at the Astoria Blvd for M60 was like waiting at any other time of the day. The place was bustling with people and traffic. Anyways, the flight was peaceful and a bit tiring as I hadn't slept properly. That day we just stayed at home and caught up with missing time and lack of sleep. Next day we went for a drive-in movie and watched Green Lantern and Hangover II. This was my first experience ever and I thoroughly enjoyed it, not the movie but the atmosphere. Next day was a going away party for Aroop so another lazy day with friends and poker. The day went by cooking pizza bites with pineapples, hotdogs and cheese and cards.

Sunday was the day to have some taste of southern food and we rightfully reached famous cafe called "Loveless Cafe". A motel back in 1960s which is now converted to a cafe which serves authentic southern food and it is especially famous for the biscuits. I ended up having Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fried green tomatoes and pickled onions and cucumber. To tell you the truth this was the best fried chicken ever. It was juicy and you could taste the chicken with little bit of smokey flavor. It was just delicious. We were in food coma by the time we finished with our food and our body needed a nap. The evening was spent at famous Grand Ole Opry, famous concert hall and the hotel. The hotel has different islands which is more like gardens with  various fountains. It was just awesome experience to visit the park with so much of lights. Fascinating to say the least. The next couple of days went by wandering around the Nashville downtown making stops at one of those famous "Honky Tonky" bars. In short it was an awesome trip and how that week went passed didn't even realize a bit. Pictures on the right.

Now I am back in the stony brook which sucks like hell. There's nothing to do and now I have started to feel so useless, especially when you have people around you all busy with their shit. I can't even try different things like cooking and all coz of shallow pocket. Lets see how long do I have to wait before I get my employment authorization card. The flip side of it is that I am gonna miss this free time when I start working. Nobody is happy at any time.

Ciao

Good Old days part I and Princeton

So its been a while since I last posted. Its been a wonderful couple of weeks with friends around in the city and Princeton. Princeton is a beautiful campus with old castle like buildings all over the campus. The other good thing about the university is the downtown area. A place where you can find everything, starting from branded clothes to different kind of restaurants (cheap and chic), and bars. Even though it was summer time, you could see plenty of people walking around enjoying the sunny day. It was great few days that I spent there walking around the campus and enjoying the atmosphere. Here are few pictures from the trip.