chaikidukaan.com

Category: Personal

  • You can’t be my friend if you are “NORMAL”

    I just got thinking of people that I am the closest to, and they reciprocate well… to realize that…I have a friend who drove 4000 kms to relocate
    I have friend who gives me credit for all the chichorapanti she does
    I have a friend who frowns because it takes more muscles to frown than smile and that is his way of working out
    I have a friend who is critical about use of English irrespective of how and when it is used
    I have a friend whose enthusiasm about what all she wants to do after her Ph.D can be intimidating at times
    I have a friend who one fine day just leaves his job and goes back home without a plan in place
    I have a friend who works with an NGO over any other career options because of the small difference it would make to the world
    I have a friend who believes in the not so obvious more than the rest of the world I know
    I have a friend who I connected with after a gap of 10 years like it was just yesterday and is a brilliant pastry chef
    I have friends who get pleasure out of making my life miserable and really not in the “i will take care of him once he starts crying” types but “let’s make him cry for life” types
    I have friends who would fight like crazy over who has more Calvin and Hobbes
    I have friends who treat potty as religion

    Are you normal? sorry you do not qualify !!!

    Here is something to celebrate friendship

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY_1EbACr9I&w=500&h=405]

  • Next Few

    • A Royal Enfield – Thunderbird Twinspark (reminds me of allspark from Transformers) or a Machismo 500 (I don’t like the split seat though)!
    • A Tata Safari Dicor, and
    • A Fiat Punto or a Hyundai i10

    Needs planning (can do), Time (have loads) and money ( umm! 🙂 have to get all of it )

    and all of this while I am trying to find out, how I am going to manage

    • a macbook pro 15″ (that seems to be insight though)
    • a canon 5D M2 or a Canon 7D

    ab kya karenge bhaiyya
    ab kahan jayenge bhaiyya!!!

  • Wake me up when September ends!

    Knowing how much I love Radha, it would be a shame if I would not write about a milestone in my relationship with her! right?

    thank you Vaishali for pointing that out!

    There are so many memories that have been associated with her that I would not even know where to start and end…

    • The first time I saw her, I knew she was going to be mine
    • The extreme personification of something that a lot of people would call just a car
    • The fact that most people who know about her call her Radha too!
    • That I was using a Rs. 250 radio to listen to music for the first few months because I was totally broke after I got the car
    • That I feel the most secure when I am driving around with her
    • That she probably has one of the best audio quality that I know of… what else do you expect from a combination of Sony, JBL, and Blaupunkt?
    • That it has saved my family from an accident which would have been a nightmare in any other car
    • That she is one of the finest machines, one of the safest cars and of course one of the smartest looking cars that runs on Indian Roads
    • That she is a perfect example of what friendships should be like
    • And that she still looks as beautiful as she looked the first day I met her 🙂
    and a lot more!


    This September is a special month for me! a lot of things happened including Chai ki Dukaan celebrating 5 years, some things and thoughts moving at the personal front, and my EMIs for the car getting over! now I can start saving for the Enfield I have been eyeing for a while! 😛

    Speaking of cars, this weekend I drove the largest SUV I have been in, so far! A Toyota Sequoia. It was a 4.6 litre, 32 Valve V8 engine which produces a mind boggling 310 bhp@ 5400 rpm! The pictures below should tell you something about the size too!

    Title courtesy : Green Day
    Photographs with me in them, courtesy : Pritam

  • …

    Its good that at times, some not so nice things that happen to you, clear the vision so much!

    I am glad that looking at things from a different perspective is something that I can manage often!

    might not respond to any comments on this post!This is just a note to myself

  • Shall we…

    and then I saw a few rain drops
    the roads took a turn to something green
    I rolled down the window

    and the raindrops reached the ground after they kissed me
    the air was flowing and brushing against my smiling face


    Lets call it romance!

    Shall we!

  • Chai ki Dukaan is 5 years old today!


    and I am glad!!!

    Though I have always maintained that I write for myself, it would not have been possible to complete 5 years if it was not for the support and encouragement that I got from everyone who reads, visits, has read or visited Chai ki Dukaan!

    Heartfelt thanks!!!!

  • for the lack of a better word, lets be friends!

    I find it hard to digest that some people have “good friends” too many too soon… you know someone for a month and (s)he is a good friend, and then there is one more and one more… I mean how many good friends can one have?

    I think this word is being used a lot and without much meaning to it these days… too bad!

    I can count my good friends on my fingers, and my friends, well, maybe twice on my fingers… anyone else, and no offence please, is someone that I know or someone who knows me through Chai ki Dukaan, or my flickr page, or through someone I know through chai ki dukaan or my flickr page, or through someone who I know through someone… but com’on!!! friends? its takes something to be called a friend or to be a friend! is it not? or I am just plain stupid?

    For me 1 incident, or a couple of them between two people do not make or break friends… its takes time! and something more than the verbal or written or visual to be a friend of someone… a connection that makes you open up and share, and it HAS to be two way!

    and I see on blogs and comments and other places, sentences like I love you all, thank you friends, and all that… I find it crazy!

    On second thoughts, what is a different word for friend? Are there more words like it which can be used? Is it offensive to admit that you do not treat someone as a friend, but just as someone you know? I personally feel its ok, I would know my place and space and if I don’t I should…

    Maybe I am just going crazy! well! never mind!

  • A tag for a tag!

    Its been a while I have been tagged or I did one… here is one, that Wishes Galore tagged me for!

    Justify FullLets talk about the rules first :
    Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real …. nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can’t use your name for the boy/girl name question.

    And now the tag:
    1. What is your name: Prashant
    2. A four Letter Word: Pure
    3. A boy’s Name: Prem Pratap Patiyale Wala
    4. A girl’s Name: Premvati
    5. An occupation: Priest
    6. A colour: Purple
    7. Something you wear: Pajama
    8. A food: PaniPuri
    9. Something found in the bathroom: Paste
    10. A place: Pangong Tso
    11. A reason for being late: Phone call
    12. Something you shout: Pencho
    13. A movie title: Pran Jaye par Shaan na Jaye
    14. Something you drink: Passion Fruit Iced Tea
    15. A musical group: PINK Floyd
    16. An animal: Puma
    17. A street name: Pappu Singh Marg
    18. A type of car: PALIO
    19. Something scary: Poisonous Snakes 😛
    20. Ice cream flavour: Pink wali icecream

    Enjoy a bit of yesteryears with this ad…

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xep4RftkRdo&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]

    There is something about this simplicity that is getting lost slowly…. thank God for Youtube that it can be revisited at times 🙂

  • Feels like a son !

    Picked up Ma Pa from today… their maiden flight from India to Chicago !!!

    Milwaukee suddenly looks like home !!!

    My second biiiiiig gift after the success of 30on30 🙂 Life is great !

  • To be or (K)not to be !!!

    I kept thinking about it, and at the end of the year, I had “TO BE” 30 years old… could not do much about it… so here I am on the other side of the decade… in my “Thirties” now 🙂

    The photograph is not really relevant except that the the title of this post is the title of the photograph as well 🙂 But in case you can get some analogy going with the shoes, the knot, the years, you are more than welcome… but please don’t come up with the “tie the knot” thing… its too predictable !!!

    I like quiet birthdays and on the contrary when I was a kid the birthdays were FAR from being quiet… Mom used to invite all my relatives home and the mornings used to be Havan time and the evenings a cake cutting ceremony… I used to love it, mostly because that was one day of the year when the entire family used to be together… all my chachas, mamas, grandparents, cousins… fun times !!!

    But over a period of time, things changed, the way birthday was celebrated changed, the family gathering reduced to phone calls, SMSs, Facebook and Orkut wishes, and ecards… Friends became more important than relatives, and evening dinners with friends took the priority over family dinners…

    and then another phase kind of took me away from these as well… as of now, I like quiet birthdays, silent, peaceful, with either my parents or with just the friends who understand how I feel within… and not driven by social networking obligations… I like those few calls from “parts of my life” far away from me, and I like waiting for them too… and Aro you ass, you did not wish me this time !!!

    This birthday was different and full of loads of fun !!!

    • Midnight drive to search for Perkins and have pancakes
    • Not finding anything open at 1 in the night
    • Cutting a Apple Pie instead of a Cake
    • Conversations that were put to a forced stop at 4 in the morning
    • Getting late for all planned activities
    • Driving to 3 different key “what to visit when in Milwaukee” locations and not getting inside any
    • The amazing poori, matar paneer, aalu sabzi dinner… Thank you Deepak, Sapna for that effort, and ofcourse Deepali for the utensils 🙂
    • Me driving Pritam’s SUV for atleast 150 miles in 3 days
    • The live music at Mo’s Irish Pub
    • Deepak’s confession, which is now recorded on the camera 🙂
    • Some conversations to laugh about for a long long time ! including what happens to a deer if you hit it with a car in Wisconsin 😛
    • Getting Choclates and a CD from Canada (Thanks Jas)
    • Getting Tea cups from India (Thanks Swati)
    • Tricking Pritam into giving his iPhone to me when the new version comes out sometime this year (Thank you Pritam 😉 )
    • Gifting myself a flash(not sure how much I need it, but I am sure I will put this to good use) and a macro lens (finally)

    I have a lot going on in my mind these days… need to get some thoughts out, some things done, some tasks completed… one at a time !

    side notes…
    I am going to stop commenting on posts, blogs, photographs where the writer/photographer conveniently writes “thank you all”, “thank you folks”, “thank you friends”, “thank you peeps” etc etc… I have seen that there are times when people ask questions or have something specific to say, and even if not, they spend time, a minute or two writing a comment for you… and its unfair to not address that comment personally… spending any time on such pages is only a waste of my time… I don’t think it matters anyway to the author