It all started with a friend of mine rhapsodizing about some gals in her company doing regular “girls nite out” at random places all over the city.. how cool, how much fun, etc etc.
Carried away with all her stories, we 3 friends, in the company I work in, planned a similar venture. Had initially thought of calling a select few friends, then the 2 others made faces at me, and called me “prejudiced”, and “bitch” and a variety of such other loving names.
So, we threw it open to all the girls in the office, with an edict to “come if you can, no issues either way”..
And got the SHOCK of our lives, when dear “Sec to the Pres” happily told the Pres, and HE wants to join us, thinks it’s a great idea, specially that his dear wifey is out of town. And now we learn, he is bringing some of his sleazy (I’ve met them before at office party) friends aong.
This is one of those silent “WHAT????” moments. I mean, if this isn’t the HEIGHT of ass-kissing (by the Sec), I don’t know what is! If I would verbalize all the swear words, that I’m feeling right now, the page would catch fire..
Thus, now, in sheer desperation, we have opened the invite to a lot of other guys in office, as 1 President with 20 women, on a drink-dance-and-make-merry outing would be just too strange..
What a situation!! I could KILL that woman, I swear!!
Mood – really bad, ass-kicking, pissed off
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Glimpses of a City
What the Lonely Planet says of Nairobi:
Nairobi is a spirited city with a hint of danger.
Kenya's capital is cosmopolitan, lively, interesting and pleasantly landscaped. Its central business district is handily compact and it's a great place to tune into modern urban African life. Unfortunately, it's also a great place to get mugged. Security, especially at night, is a definite concern.
Originally little more than a swampy watering hole for Maasai tribes, Nairobi grew with the advent of the railway and had became a substantial town by 1900. Five years later it succeeded Mombasa as the capital of the British protectorate. Today it's the largest city between Cairo and Johannesburg.
What it DOESN’T say (whatever I remember, in random order):
1. Nairobi looks like a city out of a developed nation, not a developing one. Tall gleaming building, sparklingly clean sidewalks, little cafes where one relaxes over coffee and croissants, and multiple-shades-of-pink faces everywhere. Its only when one really looks hard, that we see the non-white ones. An overwhelming impression I carried with me from Africa, to be honest, are of the whites there, throwing around their money. The blacks are still serving them and calling them “sir”, but this time, they are extracting the full dollar for it. And more power to them, too!!
2. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there are forests! In the middle of the city. Rising tall and dark, on either side, as we drive down from one point of the city to the other. Beautiful shades of dark green foliage, little streams flowing with burbling sounds, birds flitting from branch to branch trilling to each other. These forests are carefully maintained, i.e., no cutting is allowed. It grows wild, within a particular area.
3. It’s a city of a million dichotomies. There are either the extravagantly rich or the exceedingly poor. There is practically no “middle-class” at all, unlike other cities. Villas are passé, and Mercs and BMWs and Pradas the cars of choice for the affluent.
4. People who don’t travel in aforesaid Pradas and Mercs, travel in Matatus and City Hoppas. I assume the words are derived from the words Matador (van) and City Hoppers, respectively. Both can happily be called “angels of doom”, and one can totally understand why, when you see these wildly careening around corners and screeching to a halt in front of the bus stands.
5. There are huge slums in Nairobi. But these are contained, not scattered about few houses at a time, like in India. And they’re CLEAN. If I hadn’t been told Kibera was a slum, I wouldn’t have recognized it for one, while passing. Neat little 1 bedroom houses, whitewashed and gleaming, form which people come out in droves and head off to work.
6. The common man, on the road, is so well dressed, that they beat us hollow, any day. The men walking out of the slums, wear blazers. As Joel, my sister’s chauffer (and our guide around Nairobi) put it, “people might be lazing the whole day, not doing anything, but from 9am to 9pm, they’re perfectly attired”. Women go to shop for groceries, dressed to kill. Little fashionable skirts, colored and braided hair, and they are off wheeling trolleys through the aisles and picking up groceries. Jaw-dropping sight, really!!
7. Consumerism is at its height in Nairobi. Nowhere else, not even in India, where pre-teens are doing the moonwalk to Channel V blaring out its discordant tunes, or truly believing that “they don’t need no education”, have I seen a 15 STOREY tall poster, proclaiming Coke to be the drink of the future.
8. Nairobi has no industry at all. Their main income comes from tourism, and they have taken that to a fine art. Each and every little thing shows it, from the level of hygiene maintained at all times, to the cuisine and the shopping. Money also comes from the freight industry. The huge industrial buildings in Nairobi are only used to “put things together’, i.e., trucks, et al.
9. The “Little India” in Nairobi, is chock-a-block, stuffed to the gills, crammed with…the Gujju community. They are about 20% of the population there, and control 80% of the city finances. Big cars, full of youngsters dressed in the latest MTV hip fashion, roll in, to have chaat and tikkis at the “Bombay Choupatty”. Sunidhi Chauhan looks smokily and seductively down from stalls selling tapes of Hindi films, and remixes blare away. However, and sadly, the Indians everywhere are dirty. The place is immediate recognizable, since it’s the only place where people flick personal dirt around the place.
10. Nairobi is a very laid-back place. I saw people on a weekday, lazing around and sleeping in parks, while lovely and exotic looking birds pecked the ground around them. The newspaper vendors sit and happily read those papers themselves, without bothering to sell their wares. At the garden cafes where one has lunch, people sit for hours with a beer and a book, on weekday mornings.
On a side note, these cafes were brilliant. Excellent food, great locales, people serving you, with lovely smiles lighting up their faces. . Best of all, they allow pets in the garden. Imagine.. a chilled beer, a good book, the sun warming your back, and a dog sleeping at your feet. That, I think, is my idea of near-perfect bliss.
Nairobi is a spirited city with a hint of danger.
Kenya's capital is cosmopolitan, lively, interesting and pleasantly landscaped. Its central business district is handily compact and it's a great place to tune into modern urban African life. Unfortunately, it's also a great place to get mugged. Security, especially at night, is a definite concern.
Originally little more than a swampy watering hole for Maasai tribes, Nairobi grew with the advent of the railway and had became a substantial town by 1900. Five years later it succeeded Mombasa as the capital of the British protectorate. Today it's the largest city between Cairo and Johannesburg.
What it DOESN’T say (whatever I remember, in random order):
1. Nairobi looks like a city out of a developed nation, not a developing one. Tall gleaming building, sparklingly clean sidewalks, little cafes where one relaxes over coffee and croissants, and multiple-shades-of-pink faces everywhere. Its only when one really looks hard, that we see the non-white ones. An overwhelming impression I carried with me from Africa, to be honest, are of the whites there, throwing around their money. The blacks are still serving them and calling them “sir”, but this time, they are extracting the full dollar for it. And more power to them, too!!
2. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there are forests! In the middle of the city. Rising tall and dark, on either side, as we drive down from one point of the city to the other. Beautiful shades of dark green foliage, little streams flowing with burbling sounds, birds flitting from branch to branch trilling to each other. These forests are carefully maintained, i.e., no cutting is allowed. It grows wild, within a particular area.
3. It’s a city of a million dichotomies. There are either the extravagantly rich or the exceedingly poor. There is practically no “middle-class” at all, unlike other cities. Villas are passé, and Mercs and BMWs and Pradas the cars of choice for the affluent.
4. People who don’t travel in aforesaid Pradas and Mercs, travel in Matatus and City Hoppas. I assume the words are derived from the words Matador (van) and City Hoppers, respectively. Both can happily be called “angels of doom”, and one can totally understand why, when you see these wildly careening around corners and screeching to a halt in front of the bus stands.
5. There are huge slums in Nairobi. But these are contained, not scattered about few houses at a time, like in India. And they’re CLEAN. If I hadn’t been told Kibera was a slum, I wouldn’t have recognized it for one, while passing. Neat little 1 bedroom houses, whitewashed and gleaming, form which people come out in droves and head off to work.
6. The common man, on the road, is so well dressed, that they beat us hollow, any day. The men walking out of the slums, wear blazers. As Joel, my sister’s chauffer (and our guide around Nairobi) put it, “people might be lazing the whole day, not doing anything, but from 9am to 9pm, they’re perfectly attired”. Women go to shop for groceries, dressed to kill. Little fashionable skirts, colored and braided hair, and they are off wheeling trolleys through the aisles and picking up groceries. Jaw-dropping sight, really!!
7. Consumerism is at its height in Nairobi. Nowhere else, not even in India, where pre-teens are doing the moonwalk to Channel V blaring out its discordant tunes, or truly believing that “they don’t need no education”, have I seen a 15 STOREY tall poster, proclaiming Coke to be the drink of the future.
8. Nairobi has no industry at all. Their main income comes from tourism, and they have taken that to a fine art. Each and every little thing shows it, from the level of hygiene maintained at all times, to the cuisine and the shopping. Money also comes from the freight industry. The huge industrial buildings in Nairobi are only used to “put things together’, i.e., trucks, et al.
9. The “Little India” in Nairobi, is chock-a-block, stuffed to the gills, crammed with…the Gujju community. They are about 20% of the population there, and control 80% of the city finances. Big cars, full of youngsters dressed in the latest MTV hip fashion, roll in, to have chaat and tikkis at the “Bombay Choupatty”. Sunidhi Chauhan looks smokily and seductively down from stalls selling tapes of Hindi films, and remixes blare away. However, and sadly, the Indians everywhere are dirty. The place is immediate recognizable, since it’s the only place where people flick personal dirt around the place.
10. Nairobi is a very laid-back place. I saw people on a weekday, lazing around and sleeping in parks, while lovely and exotic looking birds pecked the ground around them. The newspaper vendors sit and happily read those papers themselves, without bothering to sell their wares. At the garden cafes where one has lunch, people sit for hours with a beer and a book, on weekday mornings.
On a side note, these cafes were brilliant. Excellent food, great locales, people serving you, with lovely smiles lighting up their faces. . Best of all, they allow pets in the garden. Imagine.. a chilled beer, a good book, the sun warming your back, and a dog sleeping at your feet. That, I think, is my idea of near-perfect bliss.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
November
So I’m waiting for this test to end,
So the lighter days can soon begin,
I'll be alone maybe more carefree,
Like a kite that floats so effortlessly.
But I’m about to give this one more shot,
And find it in myself,
Ill find it in myself. -Azure Ray
We’re shifting.. AGAIN!! To be more precise, we’re being shifted..
It all started when our Dearly Beloved Clients (from now on, called DBC) ran out of budget spectacularly, at the end of October. And thus, DBC decided to suddenly pack up shop. One balmy Monday morning, we found a “termination of services” mail in our inboxes, effective from next year February. As if Monday-morning-blues were not bad enough..
Thankfully, this doesn’t mean that the whole team is dissolved out of our own company. It however means that now our team is amalgamated, willy-nilly, into a bigger (note, not better) team.
This is scheduled to happen in February, after the current contract was dissolved. Lightning bolts struck us when we were told we would be shifted by end of this week, into the new setup. Which really, is hideous, with less space, bad light, no facilities set up yet, et al.
Yes, ok, so I’m grumbling. Add to it, the groans, the moans, the whines, the whimpers…
If my team was despondent about the client thing, this is probably the final nail to the final coffin. None of us want to leave our spaces behind..more importantly, leave our friends in this office, behind.
I know, speaking from prior experience that we WILL settle in just fine, shake our feathers down and fit right in. I should know, us having changed 3 buildings in the same office, over 3 years.
The only really happy people are my friends who are already there, and are looking forward to us being there too.
On my to-do list right now:
Think positive
Remain calm
Let the games begin!!
So the lighter days can soon begin,
I'll be alone maybe more carefree,
Like a kite that floats so effortlessly.
But I’m about to give this one more shot,
And find it in myself,
Ill find it in myself. -Azure Ray
We’re shifting.. AGAIN!! To be more precise, we’re being shifted..
It all started when our Dearly Beloved Clients (from now on, called DBC) ran out of budget spectacularly, at the end of October. And thus, DBC decided to suddenly pack up shop. One balmy Monday morning, we found a “termination of services” mail in our inboxes, effective from next year February. As if Monday-morning-blues were not bad enough..
Thankfully, this doesn’t mean that the whole team is dissolved out of our own company. It however means that now our team is amalgamated, willy-nilly, into a bigger (note, not better) team.
This is scheduled to happen in February, after the current contract was dissolved. Lightning bolts struck us when we were told we would be shifted by end of this week, into the new setup. Which really, is hideous, with less space, bad light, no facilities set up yet, et al.
Yes, ok, so I’m grumbling. Add to it, the groans, the moans, the whines, the whimpers…
If my team was despondent about the client thing, this is probably the final nail to the final coffin. None of us want to leave our spaces behind..more importantly, leave our friends in this office, behind.
I know, speaking from prior experience that we WILL settle in just fine, shake our feathers down and fit right in. I should know, us having changed 3 buildings in the same office, over 3 years.
The only really happy people are my friends who are already there, and are looking forward to us being there too.
On my to-do list right now:
Think positive
Remain calm
Let the games begin!!
Olé!!
So, if you remember, I went on the “African safari” thing. The entire fun and frolic of traveling on these safaris are the jeeps. These are vehicles, where there are seats only on either side, beside the windows, i.e., the rest of it forms a long aisle. This allows all people freedom of movement and peaceful viewing. Also, the jeeps have the tops neatly scalped off, and set at a higher level, on hinges. This allows excited populace to peer over them, and point to, say, the lions, in thrilled sibilant whispers, while the lions look back dreamily and contemplate “what if I could eat that one?”
Then of course, we have the drivers, who think they are grand prix drivers. Ours, in particular, thought he was Michel Schumacher’s long lost kin. That would have been good, if the roads we traversed, were smooth highways. However, this was through the savannahs, so there were NO roads at all, just a lot of bumpy terrain. So, there we were, tearing through scrub and bush, without a thought for our bones. Rocky Road will never be “just another ice-cream” again, for me.
Our jeep members consisted of mom and myself, and 2 Spanish couples. These two sets were the strangest, and really, the unfriendly-est Spaniards I had ever had the misfortune to encounter. Not only did they not speak to us (they couldn’t, knowing minimal English, and we having as much knowledge of Spanish, as we had of Greek), they didn’t speak to each other as well, if they could help it. Thank god I have some really wonderful Spanish friends, or else I would have been put off that race, for life.
However, one couple, who had come to honeymoon in sun-burnt-lobster like bliss, offered endless amusement to us. The jeep did not allow them to be joined at the hip all the time (they made up for it, whenever we were not in the jeep, though). So, they decided to be joined at the hands, to make up for it. Now, the jeep having that aisle, hubby dearest had to stretch over and hold his wife’s hand. Thus, whenever our driver would swerve to avoid a huge rut on the road, or some not-so-unassuming piece of shrubland, he would fall off his seat with a large bump, and say “OLA!!”
He never learnt from it, though. Up he would get, wincing a bit, and the same thing would commence. For 6 whole days. Hysterical really…
Then of course, we have the drivers, who think they are grand prix drivers. Ours, in particular, thought he was Michel Schumacher’s long lost kin. That would have been good, if the roads we traversed, were smooth highways. However, this was through the savannahs, so there were NO roads at all, just a lot of bumpy terrain. So, there we were, tearing through scrub and bush, without a thought for our bones. Rocky Road will never be “just another ice-cream” again, for me.
Our jeep members consisted of mom and myself, and 2 Spanish couples. These two sets were the strangest, and really, the unfriendly-est Spaniards I had ever had the misfortune to encounter. Not only did they not speak to us (they couldn’t, knowing minimal English, and we having as much knowledge of Spanish, as we had of Greek), they didn’t speak to each other as well, if they could help it. Thank god I have some really wonderful Spanish friends, or else I would have been put off that race, for life.
However, one couple, who had come to honeymoon in sun-burnt-lobster like bliss, offered endless amusement to us. The jeep did not allow them to be joined at the hip all the time (they made up for it, whenever we were not in the jeep, though). So, they decided to be joined at the hands, to make up for it. Now, the jeep having that aisle, hubby dearest had to stretch over and hold his wife’s hand. Thus, whenever our driver would swerve to avoid a huge rut on the road, or some not-so-unassuming piece of shrubland, he would fall off his seat with a large bump, and say “OLA!!”
He never learnt from it, though. Up he would get, wincing a bit, and the same thing would commence. For 6 whole days. Hysterical really…
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