Back from the Agra

Just returned from Agra, and I'm dog tired and the food that I ate last night just did not agree with my stomach. I wanted to make this a long and elaborate post, but I just wanted to say that I didn't see the Taj. Well, I did stay up till pretty late last night and watched Chelsea whup Bayern's ass and the AC-Inter game was good too. And there was some Teacher's Highland Cream in the mix as well. Microsoft knows how to take of their guests well, and even though I was the only journalist around, I didn't really miss the tribe. But of course, I should be cynical and point out that MS has margins exceeding 60-70 percent on their products. Don't you just love software patents. However in defense of MS I did learn and hear a lot of interesting pointers at the conference. Got to hear Pandit Jasraj, and even though I really am not much into these things, it was great to hear a maestro perform. It was not nice however to hear Leslie Lewis and watch his jingband of uncoordinated dancers. Oh well, maybe I'm just a biased a**hole who hates Indipop and everything it stands for, well, I don't mind the virtually nekkid chicks though.
The road from Delhi to Agra is beautiful. Its smooth and despite running into virtually all the combine harvesters there are in Northern India on the way back, we still did great time. I just wish I had a Ultima GTR for the drive though. Talking about cars, Fat Ron, (yes I have no right to call others Fat, but this is Ron we're talking about, he redefines Fatness) is getting married (Note to self, never attempt to visualise Ron and wife at it). And though I sound bitchy, which is just me, I'm happy for him, his mom found the chick and he is being a good boy listening to his Mom. Which I will never be, even though I also have a Bengali Mom.
Of course, talking about Ron reminds me of a very weird instance in the Thar Desesrt way back in 2003. We had gone down for the Mahindra Great Escape, which involve driving down 70 degree sand dunes, not for those with bad stomachs. Anyway, the night before the day we tried to kill ourselves somewehere in the desert near Bikaner, a series of tragic incidents took place. Fat Ron was in love with a girl, who incidentally also came along for the trip. Girl had used Fat Ron to get her stories written etc, etc, but was romantically disinterested in Ron. She flipped for balding Bawa dude from Mumbai, who Ron did not like, but chick could care less, as could I. All this time I was busy making friends with Signature Whiskey along with Joy (another friend, wonder where he is now?), and Ron decided to join us. Now drinking when you have just been rejected by a chick is bad idea, I should know. And both Joy and me kinda knew what was going on (as did Thamma, not the real one, just adopted, more on her later), so we tried telling Ron to chill, but when a big man swings hand at you, the momentum itself is scary so we laid off.
To cut a long story short (and skipping my escapades with a another chick) walking on loose desert-y sand is not easy. So while I was trudging back through the sand with at least three-quarters of a bottle of Whiskey inside me, I see Ron on all fours in the sand, struggling to move. The man must have had almost two bottles of various alcohols inside him, which would have killed most ordinary people, but Ron had the requisite amount of weight to offset that problem. Anyway, I managed to lift Ron up and put managed to take him back to our tent. Needless to say, I blew my high and the exhaustion was killer. Then I spent the second half of the night seeing stars with Thamma and Ron's love. Such a bastard I am.
OK, I'll skip night two of 'Not a love story in the Thar' but I will share some nuggests of knowledge with you. Needless to say sharing a room with a drunk fat man is a bad idea. Particularly if he is drunk. But, I qualify myself as a friend here and I had to ensure that the man lived through this trip. Which he did. And he's getting married now, with Rolls Royce Limo and motorcycle outriders and all. We'll have to do a bachelor party with Russian/Ukrainian/Khazak/Uzbek strippers and all. Which we'll have to do for Shades and Monks as well. Fuck, everyone is getting married even Jimbo.
(Make note to self : DON'T GET MARRIED, at least not yet, not that Friendgirl wants to)
This was supposed to be a small post, man I'm addicted to this blogging thing.