Mumbaichi Porgi in Surati Ishtyle!!!

Till date there have been in-numerous stories of people from smaller cities migrating to bigger metros and the way they have to adjust to the sudden culture clash. But has anyone ever thought that there is a similar culture clash/ shock in a vice-versa scenario... Well, actually it aint similar , it's hilariously worse!!!

Im sure I must have mentioned this before too, but here I go again " Im a hard-core mumbai-ite" The humid air, the sweaty local train's crowd, the traffic jams (even at 2am at night) all are a quintessential part of my life... Atleast, they were till I got transferred to Surat.

I was happy about being able to see a new place, sad about leaving mumbai behind, Anxious because i knew no one in this new city. So, with such mixed emotions, i reached Surat.

Stepping out from Surat station, well, this was the first thing that welcomed me!!!



'RIXA' Stand!!!

You must be wondering " hey, isnt this supposed to be an official government sign board??"... well, of course it is!! do you doubt that??? So if u really doubt that, let me tell you this is just the beginning ;) ;)

A few kilometers from the station, u hit the first flyover and here lay a new learning for me!!!



NO BULLOCK-CARTS ON THE FLYOVER!!!!

I racked my brains for all the road symbols I had learned before my driving test (okay, the truth is I had given just one glance to that sheet on road symbols that my instructor had given me), I am pretty sure this wasnt on that sheet.

My excitement: Wow, this symbol actually exists!!! And even if it does, do bullock-carts actually follow road symbols???or for that matter traffic rules??? Where do they get this training from??? Just wondering!!! :D :D :D

A lot of things changed as I started living in this city.

Hollywood movies suddenly became desi!!
‘The Storm Warriors’ suddenly became ‘ Toofani Mahasangram’
‘Inception’ became ‘Chakravyuh’
And here is the latest addition to the list!!!



'Glocalisation'!! Isnt that wat we marketeers call it?? :D :D :D

It was not only movies. Fashion also got a new name!!!



AND...



WHOEVER S HEARD OF 'Allen Solly' and 'Lee Cooper' ;) ;)

Suratis, as they so lovingly call themselves, have their own way of being trendy!!!



Oops... sorry, TRANDY!!! :D :D :D
No wonder, some Punjus feel very much at home in Surat!!! ;) ;)

Some shopkeepers make themselves very clear in the name of their shop itself!!!



SHOP & GO!!! : U better not crowd here!!! :P :P :P



Brand extensions!!! anyone??!!! :D :D :D

This city sure has it's own sense of Style and Fashion!!! ;) ;) ;)

So long for Fashion... i spotted this food joint with an interesting name too!!!



RAM Bharose!!! So, everytime u eat here, u know whom to blame for any stomach condition!!! " Eat at your Own risk!!!" ;) ;) ;)

With such beautiful (yeah right!!) , awesome (Oh, Really??!!) places for entertaiment, Suratis have their own personal favorite hang-out place. Every Sunday evening you'll see half the city park their bikes/cars here and sit down with their family and friends for a good round of 'Snakes' (the true Gujju style!!)

So what place is this??? Scroll down to see!!!



THE FOOTPATH!!!!
And fyi, this footpath is right outside a garden named 'Lake View Garden'
Amazingly, suratis just love to sit here and eat, with vehicles zooming past them on the road!!! The service lane and the adjoining footpath is the best picnic spot for a sunday evening!!! Call it "Making full use of Public Infrastructure" :D :D :D

Been almost six months here, and i have tried quite a few gujarati delicacies. Everytime i treated myself to tea, coffee, gujarati dal, dhokla etc etc etc... I would ponder over just one doubt...

Do people here get Sugar for FREE???

Adjustment aint easy when the transition is from Mumbai metro to a city like Surat. There are times when I am amazed by the business acumen and times when I cant digest their ignorance to the outside world.

But there was this one time around Diwali when the city said "LIGHTS" and I said " CAMERA!! CLICK!!"

Bollywood goes Hollywood Ishtyle!!!

Living in a place like Surat (where English movies are rarely screened in English), you get to see a lot of English titles translated to Hindi. The creativity here generally knows no bounds.
So ‘The Storm Warriors’ suddenly becomes ‘ Toofani Mahasangram’
‘Inception’ becomes ‘Chakravyuh’
And Spiderman gets a new name ‘Makadi-Maanav’

Well, if this can happen in a relatively small town like Surat, there would surely be places where Hindi movies would be screened in English. (The Englishmen should also get some bollywood masala in life ;) ;) )

So today I decided to just sit down and try my hand at some Hindi-English translation.

DDLJ : The Hearty People will take the Bride away

Kuch Kuch Hota hai: Something Something Happens

Hadd Kar di Aapne: You have Exceeded the Limits… (Oh really??!!!)

Hum tumpe marte hai: We Die on You

Humara dil aapke paas hai : My heart is with You.

Khoon Bhari Maang: Blood flooded partition on head.

Hum dil de Chuke Sanam: Honey, I have already given my Heart…. (wtf, who is that B$#%h!!!)

Ajab prem ki gajab kahani: Weird Story of weird Love.

Rang de Basanti: Paint it Saffron …….(Alright,This one is official name that was taken to the Oscars)

Dil toh pagal hai: The Heart is mad.

Awaara pagal deewana: Vagabond gone mad and crazy

Dil pardesi ho gaya: The Heart became foreigner

Main prem ki deewani hoon: Im crazy bout love…..(Im sure a lotta guys would looove this title ;) ;) ;) )

Mujhse dosti karoge: Will you do friendship with me….. (This one s dedicated to all the anonymous orkut/facebook requests that you get) :) :)

Dhai akshar prem ke: Two and a half alphabets of Love.... (eh?? doesnt the word love have 4 alphabets!!!)

Na tum Jaano na Hum: You don’t know and even I don’t know

Andaz apna apna: Everyone’s Own Style.

Salaam Namaste: Greetings in Urdu, Greetings in Hindi

Kya kehna: What to say!!

Khullam Khulla pyaar karenge: Make Love Open Openly

Jeena sirf mere liye: Live only for me……… (How selfish!!!)

Chal mere Bhai: Walk My Brother

Rab ne Bana di jodi: Heavenly Made Couple.


That’s all Folks!!! Hope you enjoyed that!!!
I could go on and on … But kya karein, jyaada angrezi hazam nahi hoti….kyunki

After all, The Heart is Indian [ Phir bhi Dil Hai Hindustaani ] :D :D :D :D

It happens only in the KITCHEN!!!!

Okay, here is a declaration!! "Im the laziest person when it comes to doing work!" As long as things can be done by a small 'please' or an order of authority or plain outsourcing, then why torture yourself??!!!

But today i managed to surprise even myself. N im sure all of you will also be, once you finish reading this note. Staying away from home, and arranging for your own meals is an altogether different experience than staying away from home in a hostel. After one point of being lazy to cook, your taste buds stop watering at the thought of McD's or Pizza Hut or even Dominoes.

So this morning ven i enter the kitchen to check out wats in for lunch.... i find very few options that could interest my taste buds n also, not disturb my lazy soul at the same time. :) :)

OPTION NO. 1: Legendary Maggi noodles
This is one thing that people living alone never miss out on stocking. Awesome arrangement for my lazy soul but not so enticing for my taste buds. The trouble being, I generally dont like Maggi. Its always my last option, something like in an absolute emergency when nuthin else can be arranged for the growling stomach.So one look at maggi , n that was probably the last look that i gave it.

OPTION NO 2: Lauky/ doodhi ( call it watever you want)
nice vegetable!!! I know how it looks ven it is raw n how it looks ven it is fully cooked, but wat happens between these two stages??? That im totally unaware of!!!
Oh yes, i cud have called up mom n like a newly wed grahini chic, i cud have got a live feed of the recipe for lauky. But nah, maybe some other day!!! No mood to get into that stage yet! :D :D ... So, time to search for another option!!!

OPTION NO. 3:. Alu/ bataka (thats wat they call it here in gujju land) / batata (aamcha gud ol' marathi style)/ potato (Angrez ki aulaad!!! ) :D :D :D

Oh yes, the gud old ALU! An essential ingredient in Punjabi food. You ll notice every sabzi comes in combi wid alu eg. alu gobi, methi alu, alu mutter, beans alu, etc etc
Have seen mom cook alu, n i kinda knew how its done. Plus, masala was ready in the fridge (thanks to momsee), "So, Curry wale tamatar alu toh jhat se ban jayengi" - was my thought!!!

So i set out to cook tamatar alu. Thought process??: well, very simple, first cook the alu, aur agar yeh success ho jata hai then i just need to add the tomato gravy into in. After all, it was my first experimentation at cooking alu!!!

But then as it happens with all first timer experiments... the final product was very different from what i had thought of making it! The tomato gravy went directly into the rice to get 'Tomato rice' and alu turned out into a dish called as ' Jeera Alu' !!! :D :D :D

Here s a glimpse of it for all of you... ENJOY MADI!!!! :D :D :D :D

Whole is always less than the sum in sales!!! :) :)

All ye ma friends who are in sales would be very familiar with this truth. On second thoughts, every person who has ever participated in target setting exercise for each member of his/her team and forwarded a single target of the team to his/her boss would acknowledge this universal truth that THE WHOLE IS ALWAYS LESS THAN THE SUM (of each individual targets) :) :)

The process is very simple here. Suppose my boss gives me a target of 40 tonnes. Now its upto me to break up this number of 40 TONNES as a target to each member of my team as per his capability. So according to calculations if four members of the team are to get a target like 8T, 13T, 7T and 12 T ... I end up giving gud-looking fully rounded numbers like 10T, 15T, 10T and 15T respectively. Now how i reach these final numbers is due a quality called 'Rounding off to the nearest higher integer of 5'.... [ God only knows why and how this number 5 gets so much importance ;) ;) ] ....

Thus the team's total target actually looks like 50 TONNES :) :) but if you ask the boss, he would say the team s targeting to achieve 40T ... now doesnt that prove that the WHOLE IS ALWAYS LESS THAN THE SUM OF INDIVIDUALS

Im sure the boss would also have done the same thing while telling me that my team's target is 40T... Going by the same law the actual number would have been somewhat like 37 or 38 T!!!??!! ;)

In management we might call this 'Bull-whip effect' (to some extent)... psychological experts say this works because "You should always aim higher" n blah blah blah...

But we sales people know this phenomenon by "Boss pata nahi kaise target set karta hai!!!" :D :D

... So next time (if in sales) u feel your target looks as if it s just landed from Mars... try working it backwords!!! ;) ;)

Punjab!!... From d eyes of a FARZI PUNJABI !!

For all those who dont know, my mother tongue is punjabi and my dad's ancestors hail from a small town in punjab called Nabba. So ven my sales stint in kelloggs brought me to ludhiana, d only positive i cud see was atleast now ill learn to speak my mother tongue.
My predictions have still not come true but almost a week here, n i can tell u many things dat ul find only in ' Sadda Punjab' :)

1] U just need a few 2-3 hrs of rain to get d roads of d city blocked and 'office se CHUTTI' !! :) :)

2] D state transport buses here are fully equipped wid horns dat sound like d 'Dhoom' movie's theme music... N d drivers spare no chance of giving u d privilege of hearing it! Esp if two or three or more buses get stuck, dey can cure anyone's deafness!! (stability of d brain - not guaranteed!!)

3] Every second guy here has his hair spiked in every possible direction... How cool na!.... Yeah rt ;)

4] Every third youngster u meet here wants to go abroad ... U know to Umreeka or Caney-da

5] U know u r in Punjab ven instead of a CCD in every corner of d town, u find an IELTS coaching and english speaking coaching centre.

6] U never need a watchman in Punjab!! Ur neighbours wud know even if a fly entered ur house and trust me, dey wud know it all bout ur house and family much before u do. :) :)

7] Inspite of d fact dat Punjabis are famous for d amount of chicken dey eat, every second dhaba here is a 'vaishnav dhaba' albiet a veg dhaba.

8] U know u r in Punjab ven u r drivin alongside d banks of a river, n people are bathing in it n a lil ahead along d flow of d river people are drinking d same water. (this one s dedicated to all you Hygiene lovers there ;) ;) )

PUNJAB- D land of d Golden Temple, Bhakra dam, Jallianwala baug.. !!... All said and done. dis is how Punjab looks like from d eyes of a FARZI PUNJABI!! :) :)