:: naazita ::

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 at 14:17

My Hero Blogs

Happy Days! The Dilbert Blog is here!

Scott Adams says in his latest address to Dogbert's New Ruling Class (needless to say, I'm one of the 475,000 elite)...

"When I see news stories about people all over the world who are experiencing hardships, I worry about them, and I rack my brain wondering how I can make a difference. So I decided to start my own blog. That way I won’t have time to think about other people.

People who are trying to decide whether to create a blog or not go through a thought process much like this:
1. The world sure needs more of ME.
2. Maybe I’ll shout more often so that people nearby can experience the joy of knowing my thoughts.
3. No, wait, shouting looks too crazy.
4. I know – I’ll write down my daily thoughts and badger people to read them.
5. If only there was a description for this process that doesn’t involve the words egomaniac or unnecessary.
6. What? It’s called a blog? I’m there!

The blogger’s philosophy goes something like this:

Everything that I think about is more fascinating than the crap in your head.

The beauty of blogging, as compared to writing a book, is that no editor will be interfering with my random spelling and grammar, my complete disregard for the facts, and my wandering sentences that seem to go on and on and never end so that you feel like you need to take a breath and clear your head before you can even consider making it to the end of the sentence that probably didn’t need to be written anyhoo.

If that doesn’t inspire you to read my blog, I don’t know what will."

Sunday, October 23, 2005 at 12:47

Beep beep'm beep beep yeah

Baby you can drive my car
Yes, I'm gonna be a star.

at 00:25

Sat a Day

I had sworn yesterday was to be my day of rest & relaxation, and the idea was to do nothing but chill out at home. Apparently, that plan didn't go too well. Good start to the day at the peluqueria, with a good karma hair cut from my very good-looking gay hairdresser. The gay hairdresser I learnt is part of the Hare Krishna cult, is vegetarian, studies Sanskrit, likes gulab jamuns & samosas, has pictures of Hindu gods on his business card and yeah, well, we hit it off pretty good given I'm Indian (wish I could've answered more of his questions about what Mayapur is like and what not, oops)

Headed off to the Autódromo in the afternoon. Last time I was there for the Moby concert, this time to watch the races. Generally I have zero interest in auto racing, couldn't tell you who won the last F1 and can't say I care much. But being there watching the races live was quite cool, I have to admit.

Couple of images from the 2000cc race & the beautiful track, an hour north of Bogotá

The hot Venezuelan papasito who won the race, in his gorgeous zippy blue car. Didn't manage to get a picture with the winner, but did get this picture with the car that came in second (oh yeah, we snuck into the pits)

Not a bad end to the day either. Hanging out with some of my favourite Colombians, lots of aguardiente (for them not me, hehe) and laughter. Oh, and we had Ricardo 'Gato' Perez hang out with us for a bit (extreme right, denim jacket) - celebrity footballer, plays for Bogotá's Millonarios team, also famous for stripping on the TV show 'La Isla de Los Famosos' ; )

Friday, October 21, 2005 at 18:03

Shine On

I just discovered one of the funnest things to do with 1500 pesos (0.65 USD) in Colombia. Roadside shoe polish. What fun. Now my sexy boots are back to looking sparkling new. Wonder why I never got one of these legendary 'boot-paalish' things in Bombay. Guess cos I spent most of my days there wearing 'osho chappals' and what not, so there really wasn't the need. And I'm sure I could get a week's worth of boot-paalish in VT, Bombay for 1500 pesos, which is all of 30 rupees!!!

Main man Juan Díaz, a veteran with 52 years in the shoe shine business. If you're ever around El Teatro Castellana in Bogotá, look him up. Quite a comfy joint too, seating and all.

Oooh oooh bigfoot has finally got some sparkle

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 at 17:54

Los Llanos

So after two weeks of serious work hard-party hard (or at least as hard as one can party given its Ramadan), I was ripe for the 3 day weekend in Villavicencio, a town couple of hours from Bogotá, off to the east & down from the dizzying mountain heights. Where the Andean Eastern Cordileras drop right off into endless plains that strech all the way to Venezuela.

To summarize Villavicencio as I saw it: you'll probably love Villao if:
1. You appreciate generous leavage displays
2. You dig potent alcohol, specifically llanero aguardiente
3. You are not vegetarian
4. You do not care much about ethical treatment of animals

These llaneros (the folks from the 'plains', as they're called) party really hard. We were at a club called Los Capachos on Saturday, and it was crazier than any party I've seen in Bogotá. And don't get me started about the women. I wouldn't be exagerrating if I said I was taken aback by the amount of cleavage I saw the whole weekend. I would have attributed it to my Indian sensibilities again, but hey, I was hanging out with Thad, a gringo, who was equally taken aback (perhaps more pleasantly than me) by all the cleavage. (and no, I did not go around taking cleavage shots, so don't ask!)

And the llaneros are as carnivorous as it gets. Let's just say typical llanero food looks like this (no pansy BBQ this):

The annual Festival del Coleo was on, yet another crazy Colombian festival. The Coleo is a traditional contest, something about cowboys racing on horses, chasing cows - the point is to grab the cow by the tail (ouch!) and literally yank it off its feet and flip it (360 degrees and I'm not kidding) two times around. Watched one round, and decided to sit out of the remaining 29 or so. Way too cruel for my Indian sensibilities. (Wonder what PETA has to say about this?)

Fun three days, now I need a real holiday.

Monday, October 03, 2005 at 18:45

Magic Bus

Let me introduce you to yet another funkadelic Colombian concept.

The Chiva Party. 'Chivas' are these big mama traditional Colombian buses, and at some point, some 'visionary' group of people came up with the idea of the Chiva Party. What the junk boat is to Hong Kong recreation, the Chiva is to Colombia. Just a LOT more mad and out-of-control. The concept is thus. You ride around on of these big colourful party buses for a couple of hours, music& aguardiente in tow, and try to dance, but it's awfully challenging, cos the bumpy ride throws you all over the place, or then again, you've probably just had too much aguradiente shoved down your throat. The traditional Chivas come with a band of musicians, vallenato or some other traditional stuff. We skipped the band, and just had regular music, since we needed the additional space for the 45 mad folks on board. This was by far the most hilarious party I've been in.

That was our Chiva. 'La Paisita'. How cute.

It's open from the sides (a wonder no one dropped off) and painted pretty crazy.

This is what you want to stay away from :) Cartons of aguardiente doing the rounds and being shoved down your throat. Trouble.

Paito... who in addition to being a really cool gal, also got my vote for best dressed... in traditional chiva gear!

I did try to take a lot of photos, but most of them turned out like this :) A lot of blurry random crammed body parts. This image is pretty much what I remember, just a sea of heads, regularly being whacked around the low ceiling...

What can I say? We're a happy, happy, happy bunch of people.

at 17:56

Damelo

Can't not write about the Juanes concert last week. In summary, pre-concert, wasn't a big Juanes fan, now I am. It was worth every peso (11500 in all) spent. Despite having to go and brave the mad crowds and the 5 hour wait alone, since my friend Sandra was stuck at work and left me to queue up by myself. The queue was an interesting experience in itself. When not immersed in my book, I was entertained by the parallel economy the Juanes concert generated outside the stadium. Vibrant enterprise with any number of products & services on offer - from Juanes ponchos to newspaper vendors to big mamas offering to guard your cameras & umbrellas and all the stuff they wouldn't let you take. Ilona opened the concert, a talented petite Bogotana. Nice voice, nice music, but low on energy and well, afterall, if you do open for Juanes, there's hardly a chance you'll match up. Juanes came on and stuck around for two hours, every minute of which was magic. If you haven't heard his music, you should. And if you don't speak Spanish, you should :) I knew every song he played, except for two. Cheap thrills, being to sing along to the odd chorus. And I guess I know now why he's such a star in this part of the world - he's got a great voice, good songwriting, catchy tunes, fantastic stage presence and I'm beginning to think he's quite hot as well.

Interesting post-concert anecdote. Got on a bus to go home, crowded as hell, as you would imagine. Before the bus even got going, the engine starting fuming like crazy, and everyone went paranoid. For a moment, the paranoia got to me and I was almost saying my goodbyes to the world (It didn't help that the damn bus was parked in front of a gas station). Half the bus broke down the windows in a desperate attempt to escape, and someone literally threw me out of a window. So yeah, basically, I jumped out of a broken window on a bus. Now there's a first. Thankfully, nothing blew up, but what a lot of excitement I say. When I look back, it all seems quite funny, and my friend Sandra is still laughing her head off about me jumping through the window.