Living outa a suitcase..

Well....i have heard ppl saying that they live outa a suitcase....just realised what it feels like!!!...i havent stayed in one place in the last 10 months for a duration of more than a month!!

Im currently reporting straight from the Etihad lounge on Abu dhabi airport and its 30 mins to boarding my flight to Riyadh....needless to say..im having my last sips of alcohol in the lounge before i head to the dry country.. its 2 beers and 2 gin and tonics down...rest assured, the air crew will not have a very active harit to take care of...

Well, my first time in abu dhabi and i absolutely love this place...a walk on cornice reminds me of marine drive..but is much better!!..the culture is a perfect blend of middle eastern traditions and western amenities...and well.. dont even get me started on the HOT women!!

anyways, just got a call for boarding ....more posts and pics soon...

another update?..i have put on 8 kgs in 3 months due to the damn arab meat!! goodbye skinny soni....hello hale and hearty harit!!

Cheers and beers,
Harit

Weather proof!!

-36 degrees before windchill in Ottawa 6 months back...
+40 degrees with 100 percent humidity 3 months back in Mumbai...

........+52 degrees here in Riyadh today!!



I have officially seen the extreme ends of the thermometer where homo sapiens exist!!... Put me in any place on the face of the earth and u wont hear any complaint of bad weather cos ill just be thinking of the ppl in the places above!!

A detailed post on the exciting life in the Arabian peninsula will follow soon...

Its over...

The beer mugs are dry...the Tellie is quiet....there is only a faint echo of the cheering and shouting that filled the room during the late night matches...

Argentina is out and even Brazil bid adiu...

Its official.....World cup 2006 comes to a close for me. ...and im contemplating protesting like THIS !!

On a different(and more festive) note, i wish my second home -- Canada, a very happy birthday !!!

Happy canada day to all the canadians spread around the globe!!!!... i know..a lil late ..but hey im in IST- Indian strechable time...or as they say out here in namma bengluru.. Solpha adjust madi !!;-)

Finally an update...

Hola!!...

The tirade of abusive emails start flowing in again and i realise its time i updated the darn blog!!
a lot has happenned in the last 1 month.....

1. Induction in Goa.

First and foremost, workwise.. its been more than a month since i have joined KPMG and its been awesome-- The Indian firm of KPMG is young but growing by leaps and bounds. It has a young workforce with an average age of 27 years, which ensures lots of fun mixed with HARD work..

Ohkie, imagine this... You join a consulting firm in a challenging profile. You walk into the office and have a half day introduction to the firm and then you are given a return ticket to the party capital of india with awesome beaches and a booking in one of the best resorts out there ( Marriot, Goa) for 1 week. Yup...thats how i got inducted into the firm along with 50 other ppl from all over India.

KRIS( KPMG Risk advisory services Induction School) was as close as it gets to an AIESEC conference, which wasnt very surprising considering the fact that out of the 50 fresh graduates and young professionals, 10 of them, including 3 AIESEC trainees, were Aiesec alumni!!..some old friends who i hadnt met since a long time and some newbies who i got to know..

The funniest thing by far was when i started talking to one of the interns from Hong kong on the last day, Mavis, we found out that we were in the same AIESEC conference in Montreal ( she representing UBC and me the MC) and we didnt even know it till then..now thats what i call a small world!! I guess i also relived the canadian experiences in Goa partying with the ukranian Vadim drinking gazillion litres of Vooddka( is that how you would pronounce it ,Max?)

BUT well, it definitely wasnt all party.. It was hard work in the mornings learning the nitty gritties of consulting and sessions on strategy with challenging case studies..

All in all, it was work hard, party harder with 13 hours of sleep in 6 days in Goa with some rememberable experiences..

...Huge pranks being played on everyone including the senior managers..
....singing sad russian songs abt a betraying girlfriend at 4 in the morning with no ukranian around!!
...drinking insane amounts of alcohol
...sleeping on the bathroom floor the whole night and your roomie walking into the bathroom in the morning to find you there
...Making a presentation to a partner 45 mins after that !!:-)
...Having "Opus dei" meetings on the beach
...Making some really good friends from all over..

2. Niece visits...

My brother along with my niece is shifting to manila from paris and they are down in Bangalore on their way there..so i get to see my niece again!!

The last time around she would cry if i were in a 10 mtr radius of her...This time around she laughs everytime she sees me and calls me kaka(Uncle in Gujarati) !!... I never liked kids too much till the time they start speaking cos it impossible to know what they want !!....but my niece is the cutest thing ever !! She has a 2 year old japanese Bf and she keeps kissing him everytime she is around him!!... and i thought i had a gf early !!

3. FOOOOOOOOOTBALLLLLL..

It has been football fever at its best!!..and its been lots of evenings slotted with beer, buddies and football!!... I am not rooting for 1 team but 2... its has always been Argentina or spain for me.. it was a sad day yesterday..I saw the fall of the spanish armada last night at the hands of the stupid frenchmen!!

But well now its Argentina all the way... i dont care jack shit about the ronaldo's..zidanes or Klose's.. The men in blue and white stripes are taking the cup away in style with maradona in the stands waving the flag like a maniac with his cute daughter in tow..

4. Next Adventure..

Work has been good with interesting projects and fun people, lotsa travelling. The next adventure of mine is gonna be in the middle east..

Im going to be working on one of the biggest consulting projects in the Telecom sector that KPMG India has and this means going to the exotic land of Saudi Arabia, Dubai and other places in the Middle east for around 2-3 months.

i just started feeling settled in Bangalore but i guess the life of a nomad beckons again..

Come 12th July, my address is gonna Riyadh, Saudi Arabia- The land of mecca, medina, extreme Islam, the hot sweltering desert,awesome beaches, public executions ..and NO ALCOHOL......!!...If any of you nomads are around the area, Holler out..

But before that the trip to the holy land, im gonna be in Goa again from 7th - 9th July for a KPMG Retreat..This time around, itll be more work and less of partying.. but who cares.. the evenings will definitely be spend on the beach front with a cold beer in hand!!

The next post will be from Riyadh....till then .. ill be drinking beer and rooting for Argentina!!

A Love Story.

I was introduced to sushi 1 week into my stay in Toronto.

Heres how the story goes...

1st meeting:


so what are we eating?.. raw fish and rice??.. are you serious?...i need foood.. where my buter naan and paneer tikka?..Ohhkie.. less less try it out anyways..

so whats this green thing..wasabi?.... looks like chutney..ahh.. at least it'll add some taste to the food!!well.. the "chutney" turned out to be way hotter than expected !!.. the closest it ever feels to breathing fire is to have abt a teaspoon of wasabi !!

First impression: THIS THING SUCKS!!!

2nd meeting:

A month into Toronto and i go the nearest food court and meet this really sweet japanese lady !!... she looks really sweet.. i had had too many pizza and Mcdonald lunches.. so i thought what the heck lets try sushi today!! (i had forgotten my first traumatic experience by then!)

so this time there was no fire breathing... and by the end of a delectable meal which included 4 pieces of sushi and a falafel, it doesnt look so bad!!

Verdict: Hmm..its not so bad!!

3rd Meeting:

A week later, i came across the sweet japanese lady again(her name is ayako)... this time she manages to sell me a big box of sushi containing 12 pieces and gives me a 15 % discount when i tell her i just came down to canada from india a month back.

So this time around, i try out the whole gamut of sushi.. Maki..Futomaki..Inari and Sashimi.. Felt like heaven!

Verdict : sushi is the best!!!!! I declare in the AIESEC Canada office that im in Love

So it definitely wasnt love at first sight(or should i say "first bite"?) ..... but we had a 4 month affair having lotsa of lunches and dinners together.

we bid a tearful farewell to each other at an all-you-can-eat sushi place in toronto!!..and boy was it a passionate affair or what !!

Im back in India and finally after much research, me and a close friend jeetu found this article online, talking abt this place called Harima. It is owned by a japanese expat.I cant wait to meet my beloved once again... so we make that trip.

Any jap restaurant which is always full of japanese ppl is always a good sign..The great reviews from people were well-deserved. The place is awesome and a sumptous meal followed..complete with sashimi, maki,futomake, Inari, Nigiri ...accompnied by great green tea and finshed up with sake.. Apparently they import the salmon from Norway and rice from Japan. Cost of the meal?.. an unbelievable 550 rs per head(US $ 12.2 )...

So from now on, i have a date fixed every 15 days.. Just me and sushi!!!...and we'll make sweet love ..indian style!

The affair continues....

But sometimes i do miss those days of all-you-can-eat sushi spent in Toronto with her...*Sigh*

<- Doesnt she look lovely?

*----*----*-----*----*----*




Other updates:

Im joining KPMG consulting in Bangalore next monday..but before that im heading off to Pune and Matheran for a long weekend...trekking in the western ghats with a couple of friends.

Also, i heard word that my induction meet is going to be held in Goa.. The sun and sand beckon ..Go Goa!! 

Amor del vuelo

My airplane is quiet, and for a moment still an alien, still a stranger to the ground, I am home. — Richard Bach

Man has wanted to fly in the air since time immemorial...

In the olden days, he wanted to fly because of a desire to triumph over nature and achieve what humans arent designed for...

Today, some fly for faster transportation....some do it to bomb cities...some do it for scientific purposes....I wanna fly cos its a passion and for the pure thrill and exhilaration of hearing the wind blow past your ears while you fly like a bird..

Hi, i am Harit and i am an adrenaline junkie !!...and to get high on it, i have done everything from Bungee jumping to Paragliding...but the quest for the ultimate still continues!!.

Last weekend, me and a couple of friends made a trip down to mysore(50 kms from bangalore) to check out Monsieur Vrata's microlight plane hangar and fly there because of the fact thats its way more easier to fly from mysore airport than the buzzing bangalore airport. Good day trip with the french(vrata) family and american(Q) , visiting the chamundi hills and big bull ..but besides flying the X-Air microlights, the trip was also to try out this hi tech contraption called Paramotor.

Now this is how the paramotor works:

1. Take the 20 kg bag which is full of assembly parts out of the car (25 Kgs is the weight of a fully fueled paramotor)

2. Assemble the paramotor from its components in 5 easy steps ( 15 mins)

3. Put the assembled fan on your back , Place the parachute assembly in front of you and fire up the motor.

4. Make a run of around 20 meters to get the parachute in the air and place the weight on your back for the required thrust from the outward facing fan to get you off the ground...

5. Voila!!!..up you go in the air flying reaching an altitude of 2000 feet in about a minute.

Now, The most impressive thing about the paramotor is that you can take off and land anywhere where you can find a stretch of flat ground of around 20 mts!! It has a highly refined motor design and it runs on normal petrol with a max ground speed of 120 kmph.

Imagine having a 20 kg backpack which mutates into a big fan and parachute ..enabling you to take off from the terrace of your house... flying at 3000 feet above air..land at a patch of grass or gas station 300 Kms away .. fuel it up ..and you are ready to take off again!!..Sounds like a james bond meets indiana jones scenario?...well , welcome to the present- Its real!!

The perfect trip?.... Travel around africa with just a backpack and a paramotor. Fly around the continent and enjoy the scenery from the air landing in an area which might look interesting from the air.

Ill tell you how the trip went in 2010..!!

I technically dont have a license to fly the microlight but i am nearly there to have enough hours which would allow me to fly solo... just waiting to get enough time and moolah to clock flying hours for the coveted license

Besides the paramotor, flying in the X-air microlights is always awesome... Its definitely not as free and liberating as a paramotor but the feel of the control stick accompanies a mind numbing adrenaline rush, which very few other things can provide.

Watching a crimson sunset in the Horizon on a warm evening while you gently glide the plane down on the runway is a truly divine feeling...














Can the magic of flight ever be carried by words? I think not. 

Busy.. busy .busy.. Bangalore today .. gonna be travelling around the country for the next few days .. More on that soon..

Funny stuff i was just reading..

A Secret Service agent is standing at the bottom of the stairs as Then-President Bush is leaving Air Force One, and can't help but notice that the President has a pig under each arm.

The Agent salutes and says, "Welcome back, Mr. President. Nice pigs, sir."

Bush Sr. smiles and says, "These aren't pigs. These are genuine Arkansas Razorbacks. I got this one for my son, and I got this one for Laura."

The Agent says, "Good trade, sir." ....