Game-For-Life?

Ok, well, I have been a fan of the Mumbai outlets for a very very long time. And I knew they opened up in Bengaluru, but I was surprised to find them in Gurgaon I was catching up with a friend after a very long time in Gurgaon, and it was an apt place to look out for to settle in, have an experiential meal and chatter up!

The location was slightly hard to find, because it is not on the main Mehrauli Gurgaon Road and tucked away into a sidelane without any markers on the main road directing towards it. But once you make you way, you are in bliss heaven.

We made it there on Xmas day. The whole place was full of christmas cheer, people catching up on a “kebabish” Christmas Brunch and the works…. The place had a nice decor with 2 floors, a basement floor and a mezz floor on top of that. We went into the basement floor, and for a walkin on a hol, we got a nice quick response.

Going on, my lunch partner was not very hungry and got a very courteous explanation from the staff about the Barbeque Nation buffet concept. They also informed us about complimentary drinks for the day - a slew of drinks and one drink per buffet pax was free. The food is a good 500 bucks per pax wth unlimited buffet and starters…Both of us, then walked into the food with our eyes open! They have the flag which u can turn down to stop them from serving u any more starters.

Going over the list of the servings of day, they served us some of the kebabs on the nice grill setup in the middle of the table (also doubling up as an Angeethi (heater) for my friend to keepp herself warm!) and some directly into our plates. The helpings were generous, and I love all the food there always anyways. When I asked for a Veg platter for the day, they replaced my black plate with Green to signal that I should not be served anything non-veggie even by mistake. Kudos for the little things you do to ensure people have a good time

Well, there were 14kinda starters served, so i cannot remember all the names, right? They were all good. In the food, since we were already stuffed on starters, we had some bites of the food. I took some chana and laccha parantha and some salads, and then some desserts… which were kind of getting cold as maybe they were wrapping up for the afternoon!

overall a great experience, very roomy and nice. And at the end of it all, they gave us a christmas plum cake because they were celebrating christmas. i still wait reviews from my friend and the family as to how the cake was, but it looked delicious!

Would love to come back some more!

PS: Check out more delhi reviews by me at Burrp!

Have a look at this TV Grab. TV Channels are falling all over each other to get soundbytes that they would show just about anything~~

ok, so for the first time in eight months i am back on the blogosphere. It is 1045 pm approx and I just landed up in the queue to meet Lalbaghcha Raja, the most famous of the Ganpati mandals in Mumbai.

on my way here, i realised a few humbling things in life. The most queer of them forms the caption of this blogpost… Ganpati season is when mumbai meets. I’ve been in this city of Mumbai about four years now, and i’ve seen this year on year and slowly becoming a part of it..in ganpati season, mumbai turns into one big harmonious community (it always was, but this part of the year…it shows). Everyone has a ganpati bappa at their home or at someone close to their’s home. People visit each other, perhaps more than they do in the diwali season, and they all make merry. Its a feast, with mumbai roaring to the auspiscious chants of “Ganpati bappa Morya”…

i walked about 1/2 an hour from the Lower Parel station to join at the end of the queue, and will spend most of the night here. And there are several ahead of me, waiting it out for the entire night just to worship the God. So the rich and poor all come together here….thats the second realisation over the years, that Ganpati bappa is a great equaliser. Everyone waits to meet him here and greet him, no exceptions

The third realisation is the economic aspect of the festivity. I am right now standing at perhaps one of the biggest and most famous pandals in mumbai. A newspaper trivia said that there were perhaps more than 1500 pandals in the city itself. All over maharashtra look around, and you’d perhaps see much more of them. So this is seasonal income for the artisans, the florists, the electricians, the security industry and so on and so forth. Let me try and figure out a number from somewhere and add that for your reference here later…but you do realise that by the grace of Ganesha, the resident god of Mumbai, there is a whole festive economy which feeds millions not just that, overnight, there turn up hundreds of roadside food and beverage stalls selling everything from the famour Vada pao to the filling Pav Bhaji to tonnes of other gastronomic delights. All that, to ensure while you are Queing up to meet the Gods, you are tanked up to see through the day.

Seeing the faith in Lord Ganesha, one thing i am convinced with is that India is a land of believers, where faith is not lost. If we could all combine our faith into one big melting pot and concentrate on making ‘India Shining’ well, is a different thought altogether.

Here is three cheers to the spirit of Mumbai…”Ganpati bappa morya, mangal murti morya…agley varshi jaldi aaaaaa”

PS: The ardous task of getting to see the God was fulfilled at about 9 in the morning when I finally got access to the main area right in front of the idol for a minute. It was gigantic, and smilin at you. The wait was worth it…… this post is not capitalised too much or may have spelling errors, but it was posted from my e90 … so excuse the same!

Its really been one of those leisurely sundays i have looked forward to for so long, and so for once, thanks to the rains. Serious!!! Ever since I have returned from my Delhi trip /Vacation, there has really been really too much of work happening. Saturdays were full day works mostly and sundayused to either go off sleeping or out on the roads.i had a long wait last night at the airport.. waiting for an afternoon inbound flight from Delhi to land. Trust me, for something supposed to come in at 15:15 hours, it landed only 00:15 hours… All thanks to the AI fiasco. The Airport Authorities (or the lack of them??) actually managed to get a whole big Jumbo 747 - one of those big huge things to get off the runway. And then they blame the pilot for it. I take his side for managing to avoid a disaster.. or maybe he just got lucky!So they tell me the plane was roaming around up there for an hour or so for no reason but a landing slot. Maybe we could look at getting our most frequented Airports - Delhi and Mumbai a facelift. There are days when I have travelled between the two, and there is absolutely no place to sit, just good enough for passengers of say, one flight to wait! And they do like more than 10 flights take off per hour atleast (conservatively!) ?

Today was a late day… Woke up late only to realise that the rains had already dismissed my plans for the day! Made a couple of calls to confirm the fact and then it was just chill chill just chill. A lawyer in the making called, raving about the facilities at the country’s best Law School - NLSIU. Coming from a family of lawyers, I did know of them but not so much than after I heard out the entire description.The day was sleep and laze! Not too much on the phone, like I usually am these days, and not too much of the Internet too. Went out for lunch nearby and came back drenched in the rain. Later, watched a movie (XXX2), not so gr8, but a good timepass. A walk to the market ensured I stocked up some essentials. Kal ho na ho is the spirit that holds these days! And everyone better be safe than be sorry then!

Back home, the guys had plans to drink. The poison for the night was going to be flavored Vodka! And much as much they told my bro to drink, I was told to be out of the home so that I could not see the happenings ;). And me and my big mouth!! I told them to drop me off wherever they wanted to! Considering that they were already on their 2nd or 3rd drink by now, they got into full action! I was picked by my arms and knees and taken till out of the building into the parking lot till I was brought down on earth again !!! He He! But all done in good spirit.

Coyote Ugly, on of my favs was airing tonight, and I managed to get to see some of it. But now that all of that is done, time I went to sleep.. I dont know if I am supposed to go to work tomorrow but then, no one else knows too!

Okay.. I was planning to have some food and go to sleep, but an old friends call kept me awake. I am thinking, and while I am thinking, I thought I might as well make good use of the time to tell you all about the rest of the happenings. The 27 hours of grit were over, but the next few were about to start now.As i entered home on Wednesday evening, I realised there was some more real Reel life stuff happening. the first one seemed to be a scene from a thriller or a horror flick. as soon as they open the door for me at home, i see a single solitary candle flickering in the middle of the room, and there were all the guys and girls sitting around the candle on the couch. it seemed they had all come together for some kinda black magic, or like one of those ceremonies they talked of in The Da Vinci Code.

Prabh, Siddharth, Sachin and Anshuman (my flatmates!) were all there already. all of them had reached at different points of time, and all had their offices closer to home than i did. Also there were Sonali and Supriya, next door neighbours and the owners of the solitary candle. All the talk was about the same stuff that seemed to have engross all of India for the past day or so.

No candles in the market, and we supposedly had the last 3 bottles of bottled water from our neighborhood store. The candle burned out, and we were left groping in the dark. The night seemed endless with only a torch-cum-FM reciever to help you make it through the night. The rains were slowing down but the red skies made us believe it would be going on full throttle again. And we took some good piece of advice.

All of us managed to eat something to survive. The water was too contaminated to even think of cooking Maggi in it, and there was no way we were going to order food from a restaurant.

It was one of those times when talking each other out was the only way out. Being one of those ground floor residents, we took adequate caution. Just incase we were about to float, we’d be ready to run. And the run would come easy when we had our most precious belongings on us. So, the iPod joined the mobile phone(s) and the laptop and other important documents in the bag that held me in good stead in these testing times!

I took calls from home on mobiles offered to me,with full charge from the office of people who were lucky to have them nearby. They were the only ones updated on me. I did not want to spend precious charge on others waiting to hear from me, who all were, i never even knew as of now.

Dropping off to sleep in a windy and dark night, I prayed to God that He’d see me through this. And he did. Next morning was clean, but the power supply was still cut off. I did not have to go to work, and hence, I carried on in bed. Woke up around noon, and by late afternoon electricity was restored.

Maggi seemed to be survival strategy. To get some cash, I walked to the nearest ATM .. which was predicabaly shut down. All of them around home were. My legs were killing me but cash, or the lack of it might have posed problems ahead. So, I took the bus to the station and hunted for a working ATM there. Lucky for me Citi had got its ATMs up and going, but the silly problem was there was not enough cash in there. It showed the grand amount as funds in waiting. So, gingerly I had to fish out another ATM card and withdraw cash from the bank, give them some service charges too! After all, they were the only ones holding me in good stead in times of need!