15 June 2015

Bradley's Bicycle

May be the thought had occurred to him because he used a picture of Bradley Wiggins in one of his presentations that morning or may be the cobwebs on the bicycle reminded him that the bicycle needed some action. Whatever the reason be, Raja decided to take his rusting bicycle out of the bath tub for a spin by the canal. The bright round, red and yellow sun reminded him of the many bright round, red and yellow pizzas he had swallowed the previous winter.

The canal was a sight to behold. A flock of swans swam gracefully along the length of the turquoise river that snaked its way under a canopy of trees. The otherwise glum and green algae shone in sunlight radiating new found delight. The beautiful Victorian cottages and their little crimson paddle boats adorned the other side of the river.

The little man mowed his lawn using an unusually large lawn mower. He shoved the lawn mower against a giant tree on the edge of the canal to ensure that every blade of grass was of the same size. May be his wife was a perfectionist. Or may be he was.

As he dug against the tree, the lawn mower caught itself against a mighty stubborn root that lifted the lawn mower with the man and slung them into the tranquil river, scurrying the swans and creating never ending ripples.

The scene sent Raja into ripples of laughter as he pedaled along. The little fly that must have also crackled at the comic scene did not realise that it was flying straight into the roaring Raja's mouth; causing him to veer into canal to the delight of a now uncontrollably chuckling little man still holding his unusually large lawn mower.

23 March 2015

An excuse

I have been looking for an excuse to write and for a long time now have only been creating excuses for not writing. I have eventually found an excuse to write – my trip to China. My expensive MBA requires me to do an international assignment for a week as a pre-requisite for completion of the course and I am going to China for it.

China is far far away; at least from here – I guess that is probably why they call that part of the world Far East.

Rather than visit China just for the assignment week, I have decided to land there a week in advance and explore the land that I fondly viewed in Jackie Chan movies on most Saturday mornings as a kid.

Apparently Chinese people do not speak Chinese. They speak languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese. I remember coming close to calling someone stupid when they asked me whether I spoke Indian. I am glad I would not be making that mistake in China. Language is going to be a problem though. To help ease that problem, I have bought myself a picture book. So for a good two weeks, I would be pointing!


I do not know much about China and the Chinese culture until now. And I am confident that I would not know a lot more than now when I get back from China. But I do hope that my bag pack, a camera phone, the picture book and an unconfirmed itinerary would make this trip an adventurous and fun filled one.