Last post of 2008.

I write this post in the last hours of an amazing year. Elation fills my heart as I recap the events of 2008 and make the joyride through memory lane. A lot has happened, enough to fill pages and pages, with more of good and less of bad times! And I’m glad that it is such. Life could’ve been a hell lot better than it were in the year but I’m very happy to have formed a baseline of sorts to base my future on.

A brief list of what happened:
1. Ru (though it began a lot earlier, the last few pages were written in 2008)
2. Maiden U.S. Trip (Just in time)
3. Preparing for exams…
4. Pre-professional exam (1.5 months!)
5. Professional exam (1 month)
6. Results out… Now a doctor… what??? YES! a DOCTOR.
7. And yes, a lot of parties!!!!
8. Oh! and, the blog reached 10000, 20000, and 30000 visitors marks in 2008.

Hope all of you have an exciting, amazing, hope and fun-filled, and prosperous new year!
Love,
Arpit

Dr. WHO?

December 30, 2008: 3:15 PM

Results are out.

I passed.

Now a doctor.

Dr. Arpit Rao

It’s Getting Popular!!!

This sure feels like sitting in a Mercedes SLK 500 and going from 0-100kmph in just 4 seconds… Well… may be not… but it sure comes quite near!

Visitor Map for NtB

What am I talking about??? As I type this post, my counter would tick to 7000 8000+ visitors!!! This blog (atleast a part of it) has been a hit with visitors around the world (see the visitors map from the tracking website that I use) and I’m glad to see myself figuring in the top 10 searches for Arpit and Arpit Rao apart from many others!!!

Jet…. Set…. and RRRRUUUUUUN!!!

To catch a flight at 8:30am, you would normally wake up at 4:30, get ready and leave your place at 5:30AM. Then, as the system is everywhere, dial a number, call the cab and reach the airport at 6:00AM. Check in by 6:30 and wallah! your on your way to the destination. Simple, isn’t it?

But, when you are me…. in New Jersey…. awake chatting with ur bud till late the night before… things are bound to get… well… ummm…. pretty fked up!

So, I woke up at 430AM alright AND got ready well in time… but decided to take a short walk to nearby cafe to have a snack and WALLAH!!!!! we got so fuckin delayed…. we reached the airport at 7:45AM. So what? Just in time! right?? yeah, they said I could check in, but they had stopped checking in the luggage… toh I was practically suggested to goto the city of angels, dressed like one… (with just once pyjama in my backpack!!!)

Many emotional requests later, the sweet and kind-hearted lady at the counter rescheduled my non-transferable, non-refundable, booked a month in advance (well… in other words, cheapest-available) ticket to the next flight (in the evening)! All this while, I stood there with a sad face, drenched in sweat waiting for the good/bad news.

As soon as I got the boarding pass for the next flight, we came out of the airport and breathed the cool air! What followed was a sequence of events beginning with us getting back to Ankit’s house, leaving the luggage and going out to the city…

The first half of the day was spent in search of a second-hand mobile (just to make-do) and finally, I got hold of an okeish mobile for  60 bucks. After a quick bite at the Indian Street in Jersey, we rushed back to Ankit’s house.

Cab took us to the EWR airport at around 4:30PM. I checked in and then spent 45 mins with Ankit doing chit-chat. I boarded the flight at 6:15PM and after a short announcement by the captain, a shaky-looking plane took me to the sky!

Next Stop: LA a.k.a. Los Angeles a.k.a. City of Angels a.k.a. My home for next 7 weeks!

Next Stop: The Times Square!!

We boarded the train to go the the NY Penn Metro Station on our way to New Jersey, Ankit suggested the idea of going for a walk at the Times Square which is in Manhattan, NY. So, it was decided and we got off the train at the nearest station to Times Square. With two large bags (total 60kgs) and a huge back-pack, we climbed two staircases to reach the ground level. We exited and I found myself standing at the Times Square. It was an amazing sight with XXL Billboards and XXXL Buildings and not to mention the fact that every single THING was lit up with endless no. of bulbs. This was the condition at 2:30 in the night. We walked on the 42nd street. I saw what I had been hearing about for years… Broadway theater, Madam Tussad’s (Wax) Museum (With wax statues of Nicholas Cage and Opera Winfrey in the window displays!!!), Ripley’s ‘Believe it or Not!’ building and ofcourse, Mc’Donalds. We had a snack at Mc’D and then walked to the place where America welcomes its New Year (remember those visuals on your TV from NY showing thousands of people gathered for New Year?). We saw Macy’s and Virgin Store and mind you, we had walked for almost a mile to reach the (end?) of Times Square (this square is biiiiggg!). It was really irritating to walk back all that distance to reach the Metro station to New Jersey. But, so we did! I was tired but nevertheless, it was a great feeling to be sitting at the underground metro station at 4:00 in the night, waiting for the train and with the visuals of Times Square in the head! The train came, we boarded and an hour later, we were in Jersey (the garden state). A quick cab ride brought us to the doorstep of Ankit’s house at Mulock Place in Harrison.

We dragged the luggage to the second floor apartment and all I could possible do at that point was to get a good sleep. And so I did.

More on how my time in Jersey and NY was spent in next post…

Helllooooo New York!

Finally, the announcement was made. We had been flying over the outskirts of NY when I woke up. All I could see was an endless array of light bulbs glowing as if a billion lightening bugs were neatly stacked in blocks of varying sizes! The expanse of New York City was something that I had neither seen nor imagined. It was 1145PM on 03/Mar NY time. Our flight landed at the John F. Kennedy International Airport 5 mins later. Seeing the JFK made me realize that the Delhi Airport needs another 100 years to even come close to what JFK is today!

Anyways, we walked through the corridor towards the immigration counter, only to find a line for immigration. As I stood there waiting, I could feel my heart race with excitement about how I was finally here in US, my plans for the next two months and a million other things!! The gentleman at the immigration called out for me, asked why I was here and a few questions later, I was stamped for a max. stay of SIX months in US!!

I had to wait for half an hour for my luggage to arrive, the reason for which, as one could imagine, was that my bags would’ve been placed perhaps at the bottom of the whole stack as I was one of the few people on the flight who were flying from New-Delhi to New York. All that time was utilized in thinking and drafting an emergency backup plan in case my bags didn’t arrive at all!!! (hehe!) Guess what… it takes $3 (Rs. 120) for luggage trolley!! (All I could manage for this was… wtf!!)

I then reached the customs counter, which took away a pre-filled form, asked if I was carrying any food (No points for guessing the answer) and then, I was finally in the USA. I took an AIRTRAIN to the Howard Beach Station. It was an awesome experience riding in a train (slightly smaller than Delhi Metro) which runs on an elevated track (almost making you feel as if in air and hence the name). My friend (Ankit) had come to pick me up. It was getting late (around 1:30AM) and we decided to take a train to reach his house in New Jersey.

More in the next post!

Delayed by FIFTEEN HOURS!!!

(Continued from the previous post…)

So, we boarded the next flight from Abu Dhabi to JFK, New York. The time was around 2:00AM. Just as the captain gave instructions for the crew to prepare for take-off, the window on my side became fogged up. I could barely see the outside. The camera on the In-flight entertaiment system showed heavy rain and dense fog which had suddenly appeared in a span of a few minutes!

The next announcement was made half an hour later which told all the passengers that there has been an unexpected storm at Abu Dhabi and that no flight could take off till the weather clears. So, we were asked to deboard the airplane and wait at the airport.

When the chart for rescheduled flights was displayed, we were shocked! They had, beyond any reasonable imagination, delayed our flight by FIFTEEN hours! So, now we could only take off at 5:30PM on Mar 03, 2008. I was…. what can I say (in most civilized manner i.e.!)…. aghast! Anyways, this time, the a**h***s from Etihad were least helpful and had NO answers to any of our queries and NO solutions to our problems!! We were told that the accommodation will be arranged at 7:00 in the morning. Meanwhile, we were given an option of having snacks in a 4star restaurant at the airport. So, after the snacks and hours of waiting, I received a room at the AIRPORT HOTEL (which, to my surprise, turned out to be a five-star and a quite luxurious one at that!!). We were offered complimentary lunch (which was okeish!). We boarded the flight at 5:30PM and the captain welcomed us onboard. The plane headed to the taxiway, all set to fly the skies of New York..

More in my next post… STAY TUNED!

::Cheers::

Stars and Stripes!

This is my first post during my trip to the United States. To some it might come as a surprise as I had managed to keep the preps very low-key but anyways, I apologize for not informing on an individual basis.

I’ll write more soon…. stay tuned!!!

Cheers… Adios!

Seasons Change…. Life goes on!

In this journey called life, you meet thousands n thousands of people. But very rarely do you come across a special few who make an impact… who change your world… who change the way you perceive your life. It is them, infact, who give you a reason to smile, to be happy and in a broader sense, to live.

But on one turn, you realize that it is time for the final goodbye (For those who have lost their loved ones, it is not too hard to imagine all the things that I’m writing now.. please forgive me if I hurt any sentiments). And it is never easy to say the final few words… those few moments feel like eternity.. you can hear the breath, you can feel your heart pounding.. you look into his/her eyes and get that sinking feeling. You try to hold on.. to stay afloat.. to breathe.. but to no avail. There are so many things you want to say but no words come out. All the times that you spent together flash in front of your eyes. This sadness knows no bounds. Just then, your time runs out. The voice fades away, those eyes close forever to your sight, the comfort that you got from holding hands turns into a cold painful sensation. He/she is gone… yes, gone forever but it takes you a while to realize the impact of this sorrow. But, you feel it and it hits you hard.

But I’m not here to make you sad, right! So, seasons change, the memories fade and so does the pain. And LIFE GOES ON!

-Arpit

Coming Soon on Ntb>>

No, I’m not dead.

Yes, I’m still writing. There are atleast a couple of ‘things’ that I’m currently working on.

1. ‘the end to misery’ – No, it’s not a love story. Its about a dead husband and a hysteric wife and three cops trying to figure out what happened and how? It’s about a radical and sensitive topic not many men would like to discuss. Any further details will give away the soul of the story, so please be patient.
2. ‘Misfortune Cookies’ – This one’s an article about certain spine-chilling realities and is based on a recent newspaper story that (did not?) shake the world.

I’m putting in my heart behind each of these articles. Considering the no. of visitors that I’ve started getting to my blog, I’m motivated to deliver something better each time.

As usual, both the above pieces are based on true events.

Happy surfing!

::Cheers::

Arpit @ Ntb (Naam-to-Batao)

नमस्कार! – Blogging in Hindi

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