It's not easy being a vegetarian! Ask them for a fried bird, a baked animal, a marinated limb...a breast in sauce and they'll promptly get it. Ask them for "something vegetarian" and they'll first serve you a look of surprise, then a look of "uh, now we have to figure something out specially for this one" and then... pity because they know whatever they have managed to throw on your plate isn't even appetizing to them... leave alone your vegetarian taste buds! No surprise then, that I was very excited when we decided to take the show to Chennai, where I'm told a vegetarian has enough to choose from. I love south Indian food! Its another matter altogether, that my description of south Indian food begins and ends at dosas. Anyhow... I was excited. There are things I knew about this city, even before this travel. I'd stopped over several times in (the then Madras) on our way from Port blair...

Its three letters that turn an advantage into a DISadvantage. Three letters that for many can become a life long struggle... but the guys I met in Manipur seem to have found the art of turning, perhaps, their biggest disadvantage into an advantage... Here are the things I was told when I first landed in Imphal. -To avoid crowded places. -To order atleast two hours before I wanted to actually eat a meal because the kitchens take too long to prepare a meal. Something I can now testify! - to deal with the fact that Manipur is a dry state (I was only to happy being a non alcoholic.... Feeling sure my colleagues would not drink! Only to my utter dismay they found of getting liquor in black from nothing less than the army itself!) - to be prepared for missing all hindi entertainment channels. (wow! Escape from smriti irani and ekta kapoor's endless sagas!) - and lastly about...

There we were. Surrounded by some seven thousand girls. In a women's college. Having challenged the girls Volleyball team for a match, Qais and me were just about beginning to realise we'd clearly bitten off more than we could chew.. The college in question, was the Govt. Women's college in Srinagar. Qais, is a friend I met on a previous trip to Srinagar. Funny how a delayed flight, some bad air hostesses and a moment when we were certain we'd die.. got us talking! Any other way to start a conversation just isn't as dramatic! Anyway, the girls were from a vollyball team, that we later realised had many feathers in their hat. Or in srinagar, I'd assume a monkey cap (ok, bad one!! ;) Funny how this team made a statement by just playing the game. And yet somehow.. what they wore while playing it.. went against everything they were trying to prove to begin with! The Games, the outdoor activity,...

“But how can they be ok with not wearing Jeans to college?!” The Bombay boy in me just refused to see how, just how, the students of Christ college in Bangalore were ok with the imposition of this dress code. I mean, here I was. Not being able to imagine my peer group without their faded jeans. Not being able to imagine what they would scribble on when an unbelievably boring professor refused to shut up in class! I couldn't’t imagine, just how I’d bring myself to getting my trousers washed ever so often, if I wasn’t allowed the luxury of wearing jeans to college…that can go unwashed for weeks together. Months sometimes, if they manage not to stink! And yet somehow, there were these students from Bangalore, who couldn't’t understand what the fuss was all about. They couldn't’t get my sense of revolt.. and I couldn't’t understand their, almost warm acceptance, to this “No jeans” dress code. I mean,...