Sunday, September 03, 2006

The Bookworm

I have know this guy for about 2 years but the short time that we were room mates was when I actually came to know about him and it sure left his mark on me.
Why do I call him book worm ... I guess there is no doubt. Afterall I think he spent most of his free time with his head dug deep into books. He has a great appetite for books and usually I found that I name it and he has read it.

As expected given the nickname he got excited when I took him to the Richmond Library. For an Indian non fiction fan, seeing a section full of non fiction books is like a dream. Thus our bookworm entered his dream world. I had to done the drivers cap as he didn't yet have a Car and I couldn't say no to him whenever he asked me to take him to the library. Afterall I owed my driving skills to his patience and strong heart.

When I wasn't quite sure how to drive in the USA, this guy took the risk of sitting by my side and teaching me. I have to say he did shout every time I braked at the last moment or threatened to crash into other cars while changing lanes. But he did have the patience and the strong heart to sit by my side even as I scared the living day lights out of him by my driving prowess. In that sense I owe my now honed driving skills to him.

Besides being a book worm and one of the better drivers I have known, there are some other traits in him that do impress me and I wish those have brushed into me. For one he had a lot of patience for some one so passionate about his work or his personal space. Talking about passion, I think he is one the most dedicated and passionate people as far as their jobs are concerned. He also had a great knack of building up relationships with our clients and that's a quality which I myself had to work hard on despite the fact that I count communication as one my strengths.

Having showered a lot of praise I think it is important that I mention some of the not so appreciated qualities as well. In that sense he is a competitor to me. He has been one of the laziest persons I have known although I think he isn't as lazy as yours truly. He has a great taste for alchohol and for PJs. His PJs continue to be very competitive to mine and I guess the next time we meet, we might be up for a PJ challenge. In that sense we both used a lot of dialogues from the popular hindi comedies like Andaz Apna Apna, Jaane bhi do yaroon, Hera Pheri etc.

His taste for alchohol was something that became evident to me when we both went into the liquors section in one big retail store (I think it was COSTCO). He got excited in quite the same way as he was excited in the library. He ended up giving me the taste of Heinekin beer. However the best of his alchohol acts was when he prepared rum chicken. The idea was to prepare chicken as per a recipe pulled of the net. However he started the preparation with a peg of rum in his hand. The start was ok but by the time we reached the mid, we both weren't quite sure what to call the chicken or what its contents should be. We both suspected that some of the rum also had spilled into the prepartion. Thus we decided to rechristen the Chicken as "Rum Chicken"

As I write this blog, our book worm is busy studying for his post graduation and I think his addiction to book will take him places. However I'll always remember him for the "Rum Chicken"