The Illegal compartment day.

Hahahahaha.
We'd left to get Raph, Amelie and Keenon admission in ruia. Shailee was going to meet us in college and Ams the Pams wasn't well, so me and Raph took the Star bus or whatever. Which is pretty awesome. Mais, il fait trop froid dans le bus. We reached and then went to college. I tried to get my ID card, but they asked me to come between 2 and 4. I was obviously too lazy to wait. :D Then I showed Raph around. And then Maithili, Keenon and Shailee were there. The Principal was out of station, so, we couldn't get to him. We decided to collect our visiting cards (YES. :D) and the flags and pins and stuff from the Rotex people instead. So, Shailee drove to Bandra. We went to the girl's place, got our stuff, drank coffee, ate biscuits, spoke to people, forgot that Sukriti was waiting in the car downstairs, then remembered that Sukriti was waiting in the car downstairs, then ate real fast, and left. We ate some more at Subway after that. Outside Subway though, we saw a couple of eunuchs. Raph had an obvious doubt about their.. let me put it this way.. appearance. Then we explained to him some gruesome details, after which he thought it was asbolutely necessary to say the world out aload a zillion times in public. Shailee and Sukriti wanted to shop after that, so me and Raph decided to take the train from Sion station. This is where the fun part starts. We waited for the train. Then, I made sure we were getting into the 2nd class general compartment(the worst of the lot) and sat down. After a while, I realized that it just didn't quite SEEM right. The seats, the emptiness. It was all bothering me in a way. The seats were in pairs of 2, and there was only 1 man in the compartment. What added to the discomfort was the way they were looking at the two of us. Like, "don't you think you're just a BIT too.. out of place?". Me and Raph just couldn't help but laugh. THEN, out of nowhere, Raph was pointing at something below and saying "dead man! dead man!". When I looked below the seats in front of us, this is what I saw:




Yes. A sleeping, as good as dead man. We could not miss the opportunity of clicking pictures. We got plenty. :D Then, at some station, a guy tried to get in the compartment and the man already inside made him go away. That's when I asked what was wrong with THIS compartment. The man replied saying, "Yeh illegal compartment hai". Raph asked me what that meant, I said "This is an ILLEGAL compartment." and then paused to get a reaction. Like I had expected, both of us burst out laughing. We laughed SO much. We got down at Ghatkopar station. Then, Raph gave me his classic, "Its RIDICULOUS" look and asked me, "So, it's like that? Ladies 1st class, ladies 2nd class, General 1st class, general 2nd class, illegal compartment.. blah blah?"

I was like, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
:D
:D
So, that's it. This was when me and Raph got out safe, sound and alive from an illegal compartment. I now have a folder on my pc with pictures saying "Illegal compartment day". Now that THAT'S done, it's one thing off my "Countless things to do before I die" list.

The walk home.

This is the post in which I'm going to tell you about our walk home. Our walk half way home actually. It was a salsa night. Different strokes dance classes, which I attended for salsa lessons organize a salsa night once or twice a month. Its usually held at sprint in Vihang Palm Club, and is a whole lot fun IF you enjoy salsa.. and IF you have an idea about it. Watching people dance is entertaining, no doubt, but being able to do it yourself is a completely different thing. Which is why Raph didn't start enjoying until he started dancing himself. :) Salsa is honestly, very easy for girls. If you know your basic foot work well, you have to leave it to the guy. The guy leads, and the girl follows. Yes, the harsh reality of life. But it still is enjoyable. And from personal experience, I can say that it makes you do wonders. There have been times when I had no idea what to do, but I blindly trusted my partner, and then its magical.. You surprise yourself. You do a lot of combinations of moves, stop for a second, look at the partner and gasp, "What was THAT?". The best part is, the girl turns, the girl does all cross body moves, so viewers obviously are in awe of the GIRL. You do almost nothing, and steal the show. Thats salsa for you. :) Its not ALL that easy, you have to have heels on, you have to have a good sense of balance, you have to make sure you don't fall and get embarrassed. Thats the most important part, cause it is highly probable. Especially when you are not at all used to wearing heels and WALKING even. Dancing gracefully is real far fetched. The best part of salsa is the music. You can dance on almost anything and everything. This salsa night was dedicated to the God of Pop, Michael Jackson. We danced to the tunes of "Thriller", "Beat it", and even "They don't really care about us." Je trouve le musique du salsa trop romantique. Lets get back to what WE were up to that night. Me, Jhelum and Raph left home at about 8 and then waited for Shailee and Amelie FOREVER. Finally, when they arrived, we were dancing. You can't really refuse when people come and ask you to dance, so, I was having a nice time. And Raph was amazed by how well people were dancing. Amelie was trying to teach him a few basic moves. And he even got them right. He gets EVERYTHING. So, then he was having a nice time too. Jhels the Pels got to dance too. :P Soon we all got exhausted.. It was midnight, and we had to get home. We got out, and not a single rickshaw. So, we had to walk down. I remember how it hadn't rained for two days in a row, but we were out on the road, at midnight, wearing feet killing heels, exhausted, hungry, with a tight schedule to keep up with the next day, desperately trying to get home. So it HAD to rain. It was obviously, completely necessary. We reached the samatanagar gate, and then gave Tejas a call to pick us up. We waited, drenched and tired. Then we did the routine. Clicked pictures. Isn't that what we all do when there is nothing left to do? Anyway, Tejas was there after a while, and we got home. The walk though, I will never forget. :)

The "P" language.

Let me tell you about the "P" language.
Mind you, it is the awesome-est language EVER.
Steps that should be followed to achieve complete control over this beautifully sculptured language:

1. Think about what you want to say well before you start speaking.
2. Now think about each individual word.
3. Say each word followed by the "P" form of that word. The "P" form is when you replace the first letter of any word with "P".
4. For names, you can abbreviate. Like, Raphu the Paphu for Raphael.. And Ash the Pash for Ashwini. Or the very NOT appreciated, Jhels the Pels for you-know-who. :D
5. When you say the entire sentence, each word followed by its "P" form correctly, your goal my friend, is achieved.
6. For example: Sru the Pru and the pand Ash the Pash invented the pinvented this the piss language the panguage and the pand i the pie love the pove them the pem for the por this the piss. Muah the Puah!
   

This is about it. May sound manageably easy, but I'm sorry to say that it needs a lot of effort.
And no questions on why the letter "P" was chosen will be entertained. :D
So, keep Practising and Propagating.

*Peace.*

Rotary picnic '09

Honestly, I wasn't very excited about this. And I didn't even remember the last time I attended a Rotary picnic. Probably was in the prehistoric times or something. But I am NOT hesitating to say that this one was one of the best Rotary picnics that I have attended, EVER. (Okay, there weren't many in the first place, but, you get the point right?) Somewhere in Bhiwandi. Yes. I know how that sounds. And I reacted in the exact same way when I first heard of the venue. But here's what I learned. When you have a pool, rain dance equipments, some awesome music along with awesom-er people and food, WHERE you are, remains hardly of any importance. We were exhausted when we started off from Kachrali talao in two heavy buses early that morning. And Raph had rightly decided to get some sleep on the way so he'd be fresh, but that was obviously impossible with fifty people screaming in his ears. And then we reached. And then we ate. And then we danced. And then I got pushed into the water. Then I got THROWN into the water. Then I jumped into the water, and so on. We ate again. And danced again. Ate, and danced. And then got tired. We were so tired.. But for some reason, out of all the teenagers who had the potential to play that game, I was chosen. And I wasn't even allowed to debate. The game went nowhere, all participants were equally low. So, we just skipped the games part and went ahead with the coffee. And then we left. On our way back, we did sleep. Me, Jhels the Pels, Raph and Ams. All four of us. ONLY the four of us. Others still seemed charged. That made me wonder. Don't some people ever get tired? Or is it like the suck all your energy and refill their own tanks? I must not mention names for security reasons, but some people just can't seem to get a hold of their mouth. They HAVE to talk. All the time. Even if everyone they know is wanting to just find a bed and SLEEP. At the end of it, we were all black. And still are. No wait, Raph and Ams are pink. But I know everyone one of us will agree to the fact that it was all worth it. :)

French etiquettes.

There are loads and loads of them. If I were to sit and have lunch on the same table as that of a French family, I'd sure want to keep a rule book open. Let me now enlighten you.

• Never open your mouth while chewing your food.
• Never open your mouth while eating.
• Never talk with something in your mouth.
• ALWAYS sit straight and eat.
• Once you serve yourself some water, make sure you ask everyone on the table for the same. EVERYONE. Otherwise you're just rude. Raph said he actually remains thirsty sometimes.
• Always use a fork and a knife. Even if you're eating crabs. Yes.
• If you want to leave the table, be courteous and ask for permission. "Je peux quitter sil te plait?"
  

These are just a few, but also the principle ones. There are extremely minimal chances of my survival there. But that doesn't bring any change in my excitement levels. Woohhhhooooo!


And notice in the picture how when everyone is being well mannered and sophisticated, Raph is letting years of frustration out. :D

Raphu's first day/night out!

We did go out before, like to CCD. :D Raph's first party in India was Srushti's 18th birthday. On the 17th of July. Now Raph, like me, SLEEPS. He doesn't sleep, he SLEEPS. There was this once when he slept at 10 in the night and managed to be up at 1 the next afternoon. He is way ahead of the great avuncular one even. :P So, I asked him to sleep the whole day in order to be in for some late night stuff. We first went out for dinner to Goa Portugese. Now, it was obviously a bit too spicy for him. But he was still okay. Even I find stuff there a little spicier than usual. It was amazing though, the food. 1 advice, never order chicken there. Not that it's not awesome enough, just that it's GOA PORTUGESE. You go there for sea food. Even if you don't like it, stuff it in your mouth, it'll grow on you. Stuff stuffed crabs. They're the best. Me and Ash managed a cake some how, but wasn't the best, I must admit. And we weren't secretive about the cake surprise even. I shamelessly asked the guy to get us the "box"(my only attempt at hiding the surprise) in front of Sru the Pru. :D So we leave from there, and go to Play. There, it was CROWDED! So crowded, that I couldn't step on a piece of land without a human/hooligan occupying it already. And if we DID try to get a place, people around stared at us as if we were going against the law. Sheesh. But it got better, nice music, dance, stuff. Raph was enjoying except for the crowd part. For him, he manages place anywhere. Even in the crowd at 7:30 pm at Thane station. It's because of how tall he is. He is.. wait for it.. 6'2. Yes. 6'2. I'm 1 foot shorter than him. 1 whole foot. Anyway, thanks to that advantage, he stood high and strong in the crowd, and kept dancing. All in all, it was fun.. Srushti is now 18. Goal achieved. Success is ours. Victory, forever. *Glorious music.. some more.. and more* I think its time I stop watching Captain Linger videos on Youtube.

The early days.

Since Raph has arrived, there hasn't been a single day that has NOT been eventful. Except today. Which explains why this is my second post on the same day. With Raph, there is another exchange student from Belgium, Amelie. She is staying with Shailee, and Shailee will be going to her district in Belgium.
Since Amelie and Raph, both speak French, they very understandably get pleased to see each other. In their first week, they attended their very first Rotary meeting. Me and Shailee had to introduce Raph and Amelie respectively. So we did. They had to talk a little something too.. And they did. They made us proud by speaking two Hindi sentences as well.
"Namaste, mera naam Raphael hai. Main ek French student hoon. "
Today I added one more sentence to his list. Now it goes like,
"Mera naam Raphael hai. Main ek French student hoon. Mujhe khaana do." :D
After the meeting, we went out for dinner to Barbeque Nation. One of my favourites.
Amelie still finds Indian food a little spicy, but fortunately, Raph enjoys everything thoroughly.
Particularly Dal. Yes. Dal. Oh yeah, he detests idlis. Rickshaws interest him immensely. We have a folder full of rickshaw pictures only on our pc. And since Amelie has told him she spotted an elephant on the road, it has been his ambition to get him and an elephant which is on the road in the same frame and click a picture. Raphu the Paphu I tell you! Tres mignon! :)