A Bowl of Elusive

Every time I tell people that I have a degree in Hotel Management, they inevitably ask me why I'm working in retail and not in hotels. It's been eight long years since I made that switch and now the narrative has boiled down to simple facts like work-life balance being shitty in Indian hotels and hotels being bad paymasters. But the actual reasons, while including the aforementioned points, go beyond that. In this post, I'm gonna delve deeper into the several reasons I had not to continue in the hotel industry. To do that, I'll need to take you back to my college days and outline what the course is all about and what kind of job prospects the candidates have after passing out from a hotel management college. This might be a dreary subject for some of my readers, but I think a lot of my college peeps will actually relate to this post. So many people have this misconception that hotel management is all about the kitchen and food production. That's a rather laym...

I read this article on Psychology Today that states that humans "carry the biological imprint of polygamy, the opposite of lifelong fidelity to one mate." The article also goes on to state that "80% of early human societies were polygamous." The article goes on to speculate that later societies adopted monogamy just to better raise children, and also because maintaining harems wasn't cost effective for men who weren't sultans. (Here's the link to that article if  you're interested to read it.) Now this article and various other like it got me thinking about monogamy and its relevance in today's time. You talk to single men and they'll tell you how many women treated them like options and women seem to have the same opinion of guys. Makes you feel like monogamy as a concept might be a myth or redundant for that matter. While the idea of finding "the one" is still quite revered, the means can be pretty flexible. What with ...

Guys, have you ever noticed how a lot of our life revolves around our relationship with women. Whether you're a player or a lost-in-love kinda guy, women seem to take up a lot of your time and energy. So its but natural that so many movies are made on the subject. But movies seldom get it right, do they? Women are either portrayed as saintly or vamp-like in Hindi movies, but in real life, women are just as complicated and diverse as men are. So, in this article, I won't generalize women at all. I'll only talk about a certain kind of women. It can be argued that all women have, at some point in their lives, been the kind of woman I am gonna talk about. The "thankless" kind. I know the word sounds harsh and judgmental, but it has to be read in context to be understood better. My colleague Rishabh (name changed) talks about his ex-girlfriend, who went to another city to pursue a degree course, made Rishabh pay a part of the tuition fee and then grew distant an...

Eclairs - The Pavilion, ITC Maurya, New Delhi The mere fact that I'm writing about this should tell you how passionate I am about my food. I order in a lot. Like a lot. And I've been doing that for the last 11 years. So my relationship with food delivery is a long standing one and of course, I have a type when it comes to food delivery places. Now, what I look for in my meals and subsequently in my food delivery experience may differ from occasion to occasion , from day to day, depending on the following things - how hungry I am, what I'm craving for and what time of the month it is. You see, I'm a big guy, like literally, I am around 6' 2" tall and I weigh nearly 100 kilograms. So naturally, I have a really healthy appetite. So quantity is a big factor for me. Most of my disappointments with food delivery joints arises from the fact that they have a pathetic portion size. I don't mind paying more than average if the serving size and the quality of...

Those three days were the toughest three days of Ray's life. Laurie had gone out of town to meet her folks and Ray had made things awkward before she left. He had always been a bit of a mess around her, maybe because he liked her so much and her hot/cold reaction towards him made him insecure about the whole thing. They'd been seeing each other for a few months but Laurie still wasn't very sure about Ray. Ray did understand Laurie's apprehensions and he was adamant about making those apprehension's go away. He wasn't a quitter. But he wasn't very cool either. Laurie and Ray weren't similar people but they'd clicked well ever since that first date. Laurie was this carefree, whirlwind of a person, who'd had a tough childhood, was unapologetic and spoke her mind. Whereas Ray was a tame teetotaler trying to be tantalizing and of course failing at it. Their first date was stuff of the legends, smooth, effortless and just right. Even though it h...

Raunak happens to glow in the dark. Rather brightly. Its a medical condition and very little is known about it. I won't bore you with the details or the name of the condition as that's not relevant to my story. Just know that Raunak starts glowing as soon as its dark. He glows like a bulb and sometimes he is hard to look at. So my question is, how is he supposed to find love? You see Raunak, like any other guy of his age, yearns for romance. He wishes he had someone he could fall for. But the harsh truth is that it is very hard for a glow-stick to find love. And he has tried. All dating customs seem hell bent on sabotaging Raunak's plans. Dates are usually dinner dates. Those don't work well for him. Oh, how he wishes people went to morning dates. The last time he managed to ask a girl out, they met for lunch. He'd been upfront about his condition and she seemed to be genuinely cool about it. That is until it got dark. Once it did, she started taking ...

Waqt pe saath nibha na paye, aaj wafa ki ummeed karte hain... Mere humraah bhi ajeeb hain, bewafai mein rehnuma ki ummeed karte hain. Bhula diya hai humne bhi saari un alfaz-e-mohabbat, un bekaar ki baaton ko... Kahaan aap banjar sunsaan galiyon mein aake mehfil-e-aab ki ummeed karte hain. Khairiyat se rahein aap, ye dua bhi maang lenge kudrat se... Ab ajnabee hain hum, begaane naqshon pe akele safar karte hain. Aapke aage jahan aur bhi thi, ye ilm to tha tab bhi humein lekin... Aakhirash jab bicchde to ehsaas kiya ki hum khudse bhi kaafi mohabbat karte hain. Humse bayaan-e-haal  kis ummeed se karne chale ho, ai ajnabee musafir... Aapke awaaraa kadam kab se humare khushiyon ka khayaal karte hain?