Monsoon Fever!

The return of the innocence

Greeting ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and enemies alike. My name is Peter and I am back with writing my daily life after being absence for about 4 month, writing nothing and posting nothing to this blog except some poems I wrote. Since I came back to Pune, from Malaysia, to continue the second half of my traineeship with Forbes Marshall, I had decided to give up writing on my daily life, the people I met, the event that took place, the books, the movies, the parties, my train of thought, poems and songs on weekly basis, which I used to enjoy doing.

The main reason I gave up writing 4 month ago was because the life and its excitement I found and experience during my first four months was gradually subsided. The feeling fun of discovery was kind of stagnant. Daily life becomes stagnant, repetitive, routine and sometime dull- even though it may be a fun thing to do in most eyes, like farewell parties and going out at night, but when it become routine, it becomes repetitive. When thing become repetitive, then basically there isn’t nothing much to write hence the giving up.

But nevertheless, some meaningful events happened in between, during my absence to the blog, which I expressed through my poems. Some of them were happy moments, some of them were sad moments, heartache, headache, stomachache, self-discovery and all the jazz.

Part of the reason also because I stopped travelling. So, nothing to report and write. My travelling in and around India is still very much insufficient. Therefore, in April, I already told myself that I am going to finish what I am destined to, and do the things and visit the places I want to, no matter what, come high or water, with or without anybody, I will still go and my life will goes on. Nothing will stop me from travelling- at least I hope, nothing big enough or nothing catastrophe enough to bring me home without laying my eyes on those God-gifted, endowed, beautiful and serendipity landscapes of India and its amazing people. Because of my clear travelling plan, I vow myself to live a budget life, meaning less of going out, less of clubbing, less of expensive dinner and all that stuff. For months, I live my life sufficiently, not suffering, with little money- all in the name of travelling. I cooked very often, or even if I were to order meals from outside, I will order from the cheapest place possible like the one nearby apartment, which sell chicken fried rice for only 25 rupees. That run-down place is "Lucky"

The limited budget never failed to stop me from buying books. Throughout the budgeted months, I still spent money on books. The latest I brought was Paulo Coelho’s "The fifth mountain", "The Zahir" and the soon to be adapted into a major film, starring Johnny Depp and Halena Bonham Carter, "Shantaram" written by Gregory Robert, based on his true story.

The reason I choose to write again, went against my initial thought is because I can, again, feek the energy of the past. I thing that the entire happening thing in the past, especially my first three months, is coming back to me.

Monsoon fever in Pune is indeed a time to revisit the first quarter of my traineeship. Monsoon ushered two new trainees, whom arrived unexpected, in short span of 24 hours. For the past few days, we had a tremendous fun, with parties and new trainees (7 more to come in 2 weeks time), just like the good old day. With all that, plus my upcoming travelling, I feel like my life is back on track, hence the writing and the update.

My Travelling

Like I said in some of my email to you, I was supposed to travel with Erin initially. Erin is a trainee, (not an AIESEC trainee) from Louisiana, United States. We were submitted to the plan of travelling together. We couldn’t be less enthusiastic and excited about it. We started our trip much earlier and both were eagerly and anticipating the moment to come and take us away. But strange thing is, when we were starting to plan, something deep inside me, or at the back of the mind told me that travelling with her somehow will not take place, for whatever reason it may be which in later part turned out to be true. Of course it didn’t matter much to me. The strange thing is, why the feeling? Was it because she is from America and the fact that Americans don’t travel much? I don’t know why, maybe it was just a voice of my soul.

Anyway, as expected and as anticipated from the voice at the back of my head, she ditched the whole plan and pulled out without a solid reason. It didn’t affect me much, just that I need to revise my budget again now that I will be travelling alone.

One fine morning, she woke up and something deep inside her told her that she got to go home. The feeling was so strong, so she ditched the plan, just like that. Well, I am not mad, but for whatever that it may be, I respect her decision and thankful that she told me of her suspected depression or possible breakdown, rather than forcing herself to come travel with me through India- because honestly I don’t prefer to handle ugly scenes during travelling, if you know what I mean.

To cut it short, my brother and friend might be travelling with me halfway through. We might be meeting up in Jaipur, the same place I will be meeting up with Hui Lin and Bonnie. Erin’s place is being replaced by Gemma, also another trainee with a private company, from Spain. Somewhere along the way, I will also be meeting up with other individual travelers, known and unknown.

New Trainees

One fine evening, I came back from my work as usual and to my surprise I saw a huge luggage by the side of the table. It surprised me because we are not suppose to have any trainee until mid of August to early September and we were not suppose to have any returning trainee, be it from travelling or whatever.

The mystery answered two hours after that. The new trainee has arrived, unexpected, just like most trainees in the past including me. Her name is Zoya. She is from Toronto, Canada. Now what I like about her is first, she reminds me of someone I really want to meet in my life. Second, she is outspoken, cheerful, always active and smiley, hyper, sociable, lively and all that funky jazz. After recalling hard whom she resembles, the moment finally paid off. Her smile, her look, her hair, her body, her height, the way she talks, the way she does everything is exactly like Kate Hudson. This is not my opinion. Everybody agreed with me she look like Kate and some think sort of. She just graduated in HR and will be working here for one year.

The second unexpected trainee arrived the morning after. His name is Julies, from Germany. He is very un-German which is very good. If you look at him from the side, he looks like Brad Pitt. Of course, this is only my opinion and I don’t have the gut to ask other’s opinion because I wasn’t sure.

Back to Kate, since Andreas, my German friend/housemate whom I always goes running with, whom I dance naked in the middle of the night, on top of our roof, welcoming monsoon rain some weeks ago and I, is a big fan of Kate Hudson, particularly Kate in the movie "Almost famous" directed by Cameron Crowe and its main song, "Hold me closer tiny dancer" by Elton John…we just couldn’t stop playing the song and just looking at her sweetness dreaming we were looking at Kate Hudson a.k.a Penny Lane.

With the newly arrived trainees, come with hell lots of parties, as well as farewell. It is like Hello to this one and Goodbye to that one.

Last Friday was also a farewell party for Andreas. Co-incidentally, it was also a welcoming party for Kate Hudson. I asked him 4 days before what would he plan to do for the farewell? And not to my surprise, he said nothing much, just ordering chicken friend rice, chips and some beers for the guest. I said it was pathetic and soon after, I got myself into big trouble. Because of friend that we are, I offered him my service to cook for his farewell- for 25 invited friends.

So, I started to prepare to cut and slice the vegetable on Thursday night. It was quite tiring but was paid off by songs of Poetic Amno and Van Halen through our big speakerbox, specially transferred to the kitchen.

I completed the night with a cigar and round of chat with Kate Hudson while she unpacking all her stuff.

Friday night was fantastic. I started cooking at around 6.30 pm and done around 9pm. So, what did I cook?

I was the assistant cook to Barekhat, Jamaican friend, during Anita and Diana’s farewell some weeks back. But for Andreas’s farewell, he was my assistant.

I cooked about 1.5 kg of noodle. I named then Malaysian Hakka salty noodle. Secondly, the 2 kg of steam rice, cooked by my assistant- we named the dish "Yellow rice from Jamaica"

And then there was crush chicken goes to Bollywood. It was my specialty. Crush chicken meat, marinated with soya sauce and black pepper, fried along side with 3 eggs, onions, butter and little bit of sugar. This is eaten together with the noodles and the number fourth dish, which I named it Lucky 7 (our apartment) tomato gravy club forever. It was mixture various type of vegetable namely carrots, tomatoes, onions, papitas, cucumber etc. Gravy was a mix of real tomatoes and tomato ketchup with black pepper. It was great.

Number 5 dish was lemonade-fried salads, garnished with steam salty potatoes. Kate Hudson had the privilege to name the dish, which she named "Fucking Salads".

Last but not least, the best of the best, which goes well with the yellow rice, was Chicken Hyderabadi. 2 kg of chicken, blended with potatoes and the spices use are from the state of Hyderabad, India. I tiredly and passionately prepared it, which in the end- praised by the guest (which is not the thing that prompted me to cook in the first place). Most important it was appreciated by Andreas. At around midnight, I took up a bottle of beer bottle and make a toast. I made an opening and impromptu farewell speech to him, followed by Martin, the dead drunk Japanese Yoshi (always) and others.

We proceeded to a round of shisha. Prior to that lots of beer and vodka had been consumed, as well as cigarette and cigars. I was quite stone already and little bit of high. The finest point was when Xabi, the Spanish guy, mixed the shisha’s tobacco with weed and the usual junkies came around and smoked away the night. And the new junky was Kate Hudson, which when she smoke make her look even cuter.

I woke up dehydrated, but not hanging. That morning was arrival of Brad Pitt’s cousin- Julies. In the evening, there was another party- this time it was at Erin’s house, which situated 45 minutes from my place. It was a welcoming party for a group of 27 Thais people (TATA’s trainees) as well as Erin’s unofficial farewell party.

It was a crazy party and the group of Thais was a great young bunch of party animal. One of the girl, which is very sexy and pretty ( nama aku dah lupa dah…) cooked us "Tom Yam Kai" which means Chicken tomyam. It was great and it was absolutely fantastic. I ate until my stomach almost burst. And again, lots of vodka and beer.

Just like Andreas’ farewell, the usual kitchen people- meaning people who dominate the kitchen during the party time, was Kate, me, Martin and some others. I am sure you know why kitchen it the best place to hang around…

That is just a beginning. I can sense that the cycle of trainee paradise- just like when I firstly arrived 9 months ago, is coming back. My time here is almost up and I am waiting to travel to the north of India. After that, we will meet again- IshyaAllah…

Kindly regards

Peter