I am kidding of course.

So, I got married last month to Manasa and it has been a wonderful journey from the time I met her first till date. Without getting into too much details, it was a simple Kannadiga wedding at Hyderabad. But the wedding invite though went through a ton of iterations before we could put it out.

I am not talking of the wedding invite that parents prepare to send out to all and sundry. I was referring to the wedding invite that we wanted to create to send it out to our friends. Manasa has this serious out-of-whack humor touch which she wanted to bring to the wedding invite. So, we ended up creating a funny (or so have our friends told us) wedding invite which encompassed two aspects of any hyderabadi (and we both are hyderabadis). One, Hyderabadi Hindi and two, Telangana Telugu. We created a presentation as an invite including these two aspects (the idea and the artwork was hers, I was only the scriptwriter). Although its too late now, please do find attached a link to our invite. May it spawn a thousand more, and a million times funnier invites going forward.Funny Wedding Invitation

2) The wedding went off very smoothly. Except for the photographer.

So, what is the deal with these photographers? I can understand their enthusiasm in instructing us to pose in different angles. What I don’t understand is their eagerness (maybe sadism) in asking us to smile for 2 continuous days with that mercury light that is held by his chamcha in our eyes. Absolutely ridiculous.

As an example, I’d like to take you back to the morning of my wedding day. We all got up drowsily at 4am, and the photographer switched on the mercury light and asked us to smile while we were walking towards our suitcases. He also says ‘Sir, you are closing your eyes..please don’t’. What the hell dude? This was torture, and we were paying him for it.

3) I have a couple of updates regarding my writing –

1. I write a Value Investing blog here. I started this about 6 months ago to document my learnings in investing in the stock markets. It has picked up decent traffic though and I thought of letting you know on this domain.
2. I am also writing for a commercial start-up in the investing/financial domain. I have written about 4 articles now (although I had promised a lot more). So, if you have the patience, please do go through them. Here are the four articles – Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Article 4. The promise was to write one article every week. I have not kept that promise till date. Hopeful to keep up to the promise going forward.
3. My blog and I have been quoted in Times of India on some ‘Voting’ related article I had written a couple of years ago last to last Sunday. Please hold your head high, now that you have a celebrity writer amongst you I had no clue on this as I was away on vacation. Good friends of mine mailed in and fb-ed me of the development. So, thanks to all of you.

4) Our honeymoon was in Mauritius and Dubai. The next couple of blogposts would be travelogues on these two wonderful places.

It’s been an eventful 3 months in UK. Learnt a lot of things – both personal and professional. My cooking skills have dramatically improved, learnt ice-skating, my badminton is much better than before, visited quite a few places (you can find all the pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/dkirand), learnt different types of trekking but much more than all of this is the fact that I made some great friends – each with his own individualities and quirks, but great fun all the same. And to top it, I had my best friends out there in UK which made the trip all the more memorable.

I need not reiterate how a fun crowd can ease off whatever pressure you are under, and the crowd at my place was exactly that. JT with his one-liners and MTV loveline, JK with his amazing skill at map-reading and directions, VS with his god-enthu for Rajni and Tamil movies and VA with his culinary skills (one of the best I have tasted) and fun-loving nature. Couple this with the fact that I was also spending time with my best friends – I was having the time of my life!!

3 months and it passed like a moment. It’s already been more than 4 years since Engineering and as I was chatting with my friend, it seems yesterday. I guess the same feeling pervades across every one of us. Nostalgic, yes but then as one of my friends frequently used to say ‘This too shall pass!’ – we always have something better to look forward to everyday and currently I just see a hectic one week ahead of me .

P.S -
1) I am currently addicted to ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ and ‘Two and Half Men’, thanks to the past three months. I have no idea how will I cope without these serials everyday!! (I assume that Star World in India doesn’t telecast these sitcoms).

2) Was just wondering as I peeped out of the window of the plane – I saw huge thick clouds just before the plane descended and when the plane landed, I just saw a clear sky above. Now I understand why the top management always has a clouded view of the details below them and vice-versa .

3) Wrote this post in a real hurry coz I know that once I land in India, I would possibly lose this strange feeling and secondly, am getting late to catch my flight!! Grammatical and Spelling mistakes – my Apologies .

Bangalore – Hyderabad

Well, this was Kingfisher Airlines in the evening. Known more for its style and panache, Kingfisher did not disappoint at all. The passenger sitting beside me was an Iraqi – huh, great start I thought. He was a consultant in Iraq, helping Iraqi students get education abroad – from counseling to ticketing. We had an interesting conversation at 30000 feet about different food habits in Iraq, post-Saddam Iraq and the way Indian economy was becoming stronger by the day. He was fluent in Arabic and German (that is what he claimed) but was not in English. So, we had a kind of Morse code going on about some words he could not utter. The air-hostesses were pretty and they were taking kisses on their cheeks from all the little babies around….ahhh..I wish…

I digress.

If Bangalore runway was pathetic, Hyderabad was even worse – felt like some speed breakers on the runway (interesting way to stop a plane though J). I would not be wrong if I claimed that the Bus station in Hyderabad is far cleaner and better than the airport. Most of the trolleys don’t work and pre-paid autorickshaws are a misnomer. End of the first-trip on an Aeroplane was exhilarating, watching the land, lakes and the clouds from 30000 feet. Conversation with an Iraqi made the trip even more memorable.

Hyderabad – Dubai

The best flight of the three – flew in Emirates. Very comfortable – seating, food and entertainment. All fell in place. The only complaint was that every announcement was made in English as well as Arabic – so had the funny pleasure of watching every advertisement and hearing every announcement twice. Watched Rocky Balboa and Bollywood Calling again after an hour of admiring the grandiloquence of Boeing and the takeoff it made. Enjoyed them thoroughly. The landing in Dubai airport was near perfect and to go along with it, there was a superb runway and an excellent airport. Had McDonalds and Coke for Lunch which cost me 15 Dirhams. Hopefully my company reimburses this too J

Dubai – Birmingham

Emirates again. Worst of the three. Bad food, Bad entertainment and a 7 hr flight. There were no choices in movies like the earlier Emirates flight. We had to watch what they played. They played ‘Don’ (SRK) which I watched and some arcane Priyanka Chopra movie which I didn’t – didn’t have the courage must admit. The view from the plane over Alps and other rivers was breathtaking. That was the only salvage point of this travel. At the end of 7 hours, was tired, hungry and frustrated. Immigration authorities were kind enough to let me through within 5 minutes. Picked my luggage and took a taxi to Nottingham. The taxi was extremely comfortable – was at my destination in an hour and a half. Charge – 90 pounds. (huh!)

Airplane travel…ahhh..well, it would be great if the travel doesn’t exceed 4 hrs at a stretch and there is good food. Otherwise, it is quite boring. Train or even bus travels are much better.