Photobucket had recently changed their policy and now all the images from my 650+ blog posts are disabled. I am slowly editing them by moving my images to my own server at AWS, but it will take time. In case there is a particular old post you want to see the images of, kindly drop me a mail at mizohican@gmail.com and I'll keep that at a high priority. Thank you.

Thursday, January 31, 2019

Chp 748. Mystery Rooms - LOCKOUT


If you're not aware of what a "Mystery Room" is, it is an extremely fun and challenging puzzle game where you are physically locked in a room with your friends and you have to solve all sort of clues like riddles, ciphers, codes, encryptions etc. which will lead to the next clue and so on until you get out of that room. It's all about team work. Victoria Concordia Crescit :)

Two years ago, my friends and I, all hardcore gaming geeks, went to "Mystery Rooms" here in KP and tried out the "Hurt Locker" package. I blogged about this incident here. It was an extremely fun event and we managed to escape from the room in the very last minute!

Last week, we had some visiting consultants in office from the US and we all decided to participate in a session of "Mystery Rooms" again.

The package we went for this time was "LOCKOUT - The Prison Break Challenge".


You and your friends had been wrongly convicted of a crime you didn't commit and imprisoned for life. As it is National Day, the Jail warden and all the other jailors are out celebrating for an hour. You have exactly one hour to escape from the Jail before they come back!

Ooooh. Such an intriguing plotline indeed.

What made this experience even more fun was because of our two visiting consultants, who are legends in the gaming world. There's Dave Rohrl, who had more than 25 years experience in the gaming industry. Some of you who played "Plants versus Zombies" might know of that "Crazy Dave" character who kept popping up on the screen... that character was based on him!


And then there's Jenna Miller who had worked at leading Gaming companies like EA, Glu, Zynga, TinyCo, Digital Chocolate, Playdom and GarageGames and was recently the lead designer of "Farmville 2".


Now I'm not going to lie. We had a very impressive team line-up, and with my buddies Roshan and Hackr joining us as well, we were sure to crack the case. But unfortunately... we failed. We reached till the very last clue that would have given us the key to escape, but we were unable to solve that in time. :(

To be fair though, we did perform quite well, solving most of the difficult puzzles quickly, but we wasted a lot of time trying to fetch the bloody key to our jail cells that had, unfortunately for us, dropped and bounced too far beyond our reach. Jenna had to improvise and used our Jail mattress to retract the key, which I'm sure wasn't a part of the plan :D

Other than that, I am not going to reveal anything else that we did in the Jail, as it would be a spoiler for those looking forward to try this. Trust me, you won't regret it, do go for this really challenging package.

One thing I'll mention though, I really love how we were made to role-play the part of the game. As soon as the game started, we were told to wear our Prison uniforms and handcuffed. And then the "Jailors" shouted at us and abused us, ordering us to standing in line and look down as we were marched into our cells. We all played our role to perfection. And the game started from there onwards. Great time indeed.

Here is us after we failed to escape.



Still, what mattered was the amount of fun we all had. So in case any of you have never been to a Mystery Room (or sometimes called Escape Rooms), do gather your friends and try to solve the puzzles. Great time pass too.

Cheers for now.


Friday, January 25, 2019

Chp 747. Mizos and Feet


My dream start to a fantastic 2019 is to sit by the shores of an idyllic beach and sip on Mai Tai while watching the sun rise, as a beautiful Polynesian lady gently gives me the best foot massage of a lifetime :)


Ahh… It's never going to happen, but at least I dare to dream about it :)

I really love a good 'ol foot massage. Sometimes, I think I love it even more than a body massage. It is such a stress relieving factor after a hard day at work (or at the shopping mall).

And speaking of feet, I know how much our Mizo community is obsessed about foot hygiene. Among my Mizo circle of friends, it is sacrilegious to have dirty feet or cracked heels or God forbid, dirty toenails. :D

That is why a lot of my Mizo friends don't like coming over to my pad much because I walk barefooted in my apartment, and it kinda makes them uncomfortable to remove their shoes. Of course I always insist they don't have to remove their shoes, but when the host himself is walking around wearing nothing, I mean, without any shoes or slippers (stop picturing me naked), they feel bad not to follow suit.

Here's the thing about our Mizo community - If you're meeting a Mizo girl for the first time, the first thing she'll do is look at your shoes to see if they are clean. She'll judge you by how clean you maintain your shoes. And if you are wearing sandals, she'll study your feet to see if your toenails are clipped and kept clean etc. That is the first impression you'll make :)

Once she is satisfied with your feet situation, then only will she move on to other lesser important features like your face, your character, your vices, your humor, your maturity and your responsibility to act as a fatherly figure and provider for a future family setup. :) :) :)

That was the only reason why my friend TBC Vaiva managed to find a wife. He has really clean feet.

:D

You gotta admit though, a flawless clean feet is sooo sexy and such a turn-on, but before I start delving into the kingdom of foot fetish, the point I'm trying to make here is to take good care of your feet :)

And so, last week I went and treated myself to a nice Pedicure session at Cologne Spa & Salon here in KP :)



Just a walking distance from my apartment, this spa is located at a very quiet part of KP. I love this spa because a lot of my friends work here and it is one of those few spas where no shady business takes place, if you know what I mean. Everything is clean and professional here.

My dear friend Rini who works here hadn't come back from Mizoram yet, and so I set up an appointment with Rosy, another friend of mine. Only my close friends are touching these feet of mine :P

Ahhh what pure bliss.


It was the perfect lazy Saturday afternoon to pamper myself. The scrubbing, the filing, the smooth gentle rubbing and the cleansing brought me one step closer to nirvana. The weather was also just perfect, with cool gust of wind blowing across my face as relaxing ambient music softly filled the evergreen lawn.

I ordered a healthy detox drink made from various vegetables and herbs, making me feel rejuvenated like I was just born yesterday.


The place also served sushi and other delicious snacks. I love what they had written on the menu board below -


"Our Sushi rolls are of the same size regardless of how cold it is outside". ROFL! :D

After a splendid and much enjoyable foot therapy session, I decided to continue pampering myself and went to "Effingut" next door for lunch. Yeah it was a date with myself because nobody wanted to go out with me, but as the popular saying goes, "Instead of considering how other people treat you, treat yourself well first", and so I decided to treat myself to an awesome Caesar Salad :)


Yummy indeed. I followed it up with a scrumptious Mac n Cheese Bacon main course served on a steaming hot skillet and it was Heavenly!


And of course, being at "Effingut", it would be a waste not to try out their micro-brewed craft beers, and so I went for the "samples of the day".


Yeah it was hard trying to take a selfie of yourself fake-sampling the various beer! :D


In an alternate world, this would have been such a picture perfect moment of your better-half taking your picture and giggling with no holds barred, but in reality, being the loneliest Mizo bachelor in Pune, this was just another solo journey as usual.

I did select my beer, but I really can't remember which one I had selected now :D I am sure it was one of the stouts…


As I sat there sipping on my beer, a part of me couldn't help fantasizing on an imaginary date, and so I drew this beautiful girl on my phone using PicArt app…


:D

Ah… jobless indeed. Well, at least she won't be breaking my heart...

Anyway, at the end of it all, it was really nice to have such a wonderful moment at the spa and a clean pedicured feet :D


Not that I am saying I hope Mizo single women will now consider me to be a little bit more eligible, but yeah, this is me, with very very clean feet, standing at your doorstep asking if you'd like to spend the rest of the evening with me listening to Kimkima's "i zun ngaih lunglen vangin" on loop as we sip on Mai Tai's by an idyllic beach while watching the sun set in the distant horizon together… :)

Cheers for now everyone. Have a great weekend.








Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Chp 746. Moirai


After a long and exhausting business meeting from 8 in the morning till 1 in the afternoon, the young corporate executive decided to have a quick cigarette break before heading to the office cafeteria for lunch.

As he walked down the steep stairs leading to the smoking section situated on the ground floor, his phone rang. It was an unknown number. Nonchalantly, he answered the call.


"Hello?"

"Good morning, Sir. I'm calling from Bajaj Insurance. Do you require a Health Insurance…"

"NO I DO NOT WANT A DAMN HEALTH INSURANCE!" He screamed back furiously before hanging up.

He was extremely irritated to receive a spam call while he was so preoccupied with what was discussed in the meeting. He looked at his Truecaller app in disdain, wondering why it didn't identify the bloody call as SPAM. Distracted by his phone, he took one misstep and tumbled down 20 flights of hard marbled steps and steel railings.

As he lay on the ground floor groaning in pain and bleeding profusely from his head with two fractured ribs and multiple torn ligaments… he really wished he had health insurance.


Friday, January 04, 2019

Chp 745. PMCF New Year


Happy New Year to all of you!

So here is my first blog post of the year, and what could be more apt than writing about how we spent New Year's Eve and Day with the Pune Mizo Christian Fellowship (PMCF). It was a day of Mizo function and Church service followed by a very merry Mizo feasting here in Pune.


The New Year celebration started on 31st December night, 8:30 PM, at Bible Centre, Salisbury Park. Various items were performed on stage and everybody had a ball. We were treated to lovely songs performed by Teresa, John, Lalrindika, Benjamin, Joel, Florence, Lalruatfela and Lychhi.



The dance item by the Nuvalai group was super cute and funny. Everybody laughed so much.



Other items included Duet dance, Puppet show, Birdie dance, One direction skit, One man band etc.




And then there was the main event of the night, which was hilarious - the Mister PMCF contest! :D


The lovely Fatu volunteers of the night - BSa, Duati, Ruati, Mazuii, Zualteii and Bridgette.


For midnight snacks, they made and served us these delicious Chicken lollipops, yummmm!


I was feeling a bit under the weather because I had spent the past two days helping Sanga pack and send his entire belongings back to Mizoram as he was leaving Pune for good. Carrying heavy objects from the 7th floor to the ground floor a hundred times (because using the elevator to transport household stuff wasn't allowed at his housing society) was by no means an easy task.

Hence, even though the PMCF program was such a fun event, I was feeling fatigued and occasionally shivering on my seat. And so I left the event with Nitin and Teresa at around 11 PM as they were also leaving early to avoid the mad midnight traffic rush.

I really wanted to stay till 12 to wish everybody there a happy new year, but alas... age got in the way :(

I asked Nitin and Teresa to drop me at my home where I was planning to make some eggnog and wish myself a happy new year in front of my bathroom mirror at 12 midnight and then go to sleep alone, but they were having none of that!

Aaaah... friends. :)

They forcibly took me to their house and the three of us sang a couple of karaoke and at midnight we all wished each other a happy new year. Togo, their adorable dachshund, also joined us in our celebration. After that it was all about replying to all the messages on WhatsApp and looking at the story updates of my friends who were out partying at various clubs.

The three of us then sang some more classic rock hits, and finally I crashed at their place. What a wonderful time indeed. Ahhh, this was how I preferred spending the New Year now, in complete contrast to how I used to spend it years ago. NKOTB lied when they sang "Age is just a number" :P

The next morning, I left their place and went home to get ready for Church. My friend from Mumbai Chhantea who had just moved to Pune came to my house along with Nitin and Teresa, and the four of us headed to our PMCF New Year service.

Since Teresa was going to sing, she didn't want to be late, and so we ended up reaching the Church half an hour early. Thanks to her, we ended up sitting right in the front.


Church-fie with Chhantea and Nitin.


The New Year Church service was really good. We were introduced to our visiting ordained minister Rev. V Biaknunsanga who had just arrived in Pune, and he delivered a really good sermon about the way we should live our life this year. He reminded us all that just because most of us were away from the prying eyes of our parents, it did not mean we should do whatever we wanted, and that we always have the option to live this year righteously or do something we'll regret for eternity here in Pune.

He was indeed a fine orator. What I liked the most about his sermon was how he was keeping his messages very neutral and not denomination specific, since he was a Baptist pastor and he knew our Fellowship consisted of Mizos from every denominations ranging from Baptists to Catholics to Salvation Army to IKK to Pu Ziona pawl (*looks at Vanzama*), along with the fact that there were still many of us Presbyterians in the PMCF who hadn't moved to the newly formed PMPC (Pune Mizo Presbyterian Church). He wished all of us, those in the PMCF and the PMPC as well, a very happy New Year.

The attendance that day was 11 children, 123 women and 110 men, coming to a total of 244 (Our PMCF treasurer Pari is currently in the hospital but she still managed to send me this detail, praying for her quick recovery). The collections came up to ₹ 44,000/- A very good turnout. We were fewer than our Christmas function, but less people always come on 1st January service because many people have already started their jobs and classes again.

After the wonderful Church service, we all headed out for refreshments, and it was photo time after that. I met these two lovely ladies outside and they told me their names were Genevieve and Jacqueline. I asked them what they were doing in Pune and they told me they were working in Pune as Instagram models, and so I decided to take a photo with them :)


Jokes aside, they are my very dear friends and since they were not helpful at all in telling me the names of the people I don't know featured in this post, I am going to roast them in this post :D Debbie and Remruati on the other hand were very helpful in telling me the names of the people I don't know, so I won't be roasting them :)

My cousin Pi Madiki, Pi Baby-i, Pi Mateteii, Pi Zosangi with her two sisters, and Hruaitea.


All this while, the Fatu volunteers were busy cooking the food for our feast at Isaac's house.


Under the leadership of Fatu leader Zorema, they put up a good show.

For the New Year feast, we had beef as well which wasn't there at our Christmas feast. They cooked 30 kg of Beef, along with 45 kg of Pork. The menu also included Brinjal and Beans Bai, Salad, Dal, Paneer, 1 kg of Fish and 50 Eggs. Unlike the Christmas feast when they cooked food meant for 250 people and more than 400 people turned up, this time, they were all ready to cook extra food in case that happened again, hence a lot of Fatu members were appointed. Fortunately, it wasn't needed and everything went as planned.


The awesome Fatu volunteers who sacrificed their early morning sleep and Mizo Church service just so that they could cook for the rest of us.


Standing left to right: Awpa, Zorema, Khihai, Solo, James, Isaac's batman, Joshua, Cross-a, Kislon, Ahneh, Tema, MC-a, Remruati, Debbie and Liantea.

Sitting left to right: Thara, MK-i, Fakawma, Lalmama, Zonuni, Sarah, Malsawmi and Machhani.

Thara was just there because he was feeling lonely and heartbroken. While cooking the dishes, he volunteered to cut all the onions by himself, so that he could blame his overflowing tears on the sliced onions. :D

I asked Genevieve why she didn't volunteer to be a part of the Fatu team as well since she and Debbie and Remruati were all in one circle, and she told me she didn't volunteer because she was not an unknown child. I asked her what she meant by that and she said Fatu in English means "Fa" = Child, "Tu" = Who, "Fatu" = Unknown Child. I was like, mmmkhaayy...

:D

Soon the food was ready to be packed and delivered to the Church.


The food finally arrived at our Church around 6 PM.


Mahlua, who refused to be in any photograph, highlighted in these two pics below :)


As the saying goes, eligible bachelors do not simply want to be in any random photographs just like that, because they are tlangval luck. Mahlua is the epitome of tlangval luck. :)


Fatu leader Zorema with Remruati, Debbie and Ahneh getting ready to arrange the food.


Nuteii, Lawmi, Miriami, Nunui and Nancy were already standing in queue even before the food was even set up. Note the empty table in front. Tsk tsk, so shameless :)


Fatu members keeping themselves warm over the stove.


Some of the food needed to be heated again first before they were served, and so we had to tell Lawmi and her friends to please go away and sit down for some more time :)


Yum yumm the food being displayed. Drooool!







Finally the announcement was made that the children could start lining up for food.


Genevieve and Jacqueline right in the front of the queue, shameless indeed. :D Genevieve knocked down two kids and made them cry so that she could stand in their place...


Here are some more pictures of the queues.


Puiteii and friends, without Maveni, lolz.


As I have mentioned in my earlier blog post too, you can click on any of these photos to enlarge at a new tab and download it, so Thara, please DO NOT screenshot the photos for your WhatsApp story update again, please click them to get a much better high resolution image that you can easily download. All the photos on my blog are hosted on my own personal server at AWS Amazon, and I am paying a high maintenance fee on bandwidth usage just so that you all can download a good quality picture, so please, no screenshot. That is like an insult to me :)



Rev. PC Lalropuia at the queue. My dear friend Nuteii stood with him in the hope that he might make her look devotional too :D


Gosie was also one of the early birds to line up and right behind her were Zoremi and Benjamin.


I love the smile on the girl in red jacket above, but unfortunately my friends didn't know her name.

Food serving in action...



I'm not an abstract art fan, but there is something really beautiful about this pic I took... Can you see it too, the blending of light and colour with the tree's bark is kinda mesmerizing…



On the serving side…


Our PMCF treasurer Lalropari. The moment she saw that I was going to take her photo, she kept some of the rice on her plate back in the bowl :D


Pi Zosangi, who smells of cakes and cookies all the time :D


Ruby, Lawmi, Nancy and Nuteii happy that they got to take their food while I was still stuck with the task of taking photos of everyone :)


Puiteii with her large plateful of food.


Genevieve and Jacqueline, the first adults to get their food, getting ready to eat while the rest of the adults were still lining up.


Poetry in motion, Isaac acting in a natural pose while Lydia slept in Madiki's arms. Poor little Lydia, she wasn't feeling well that day. Rumour has it that she still hadn't fully recovered from that "Teresa incident".


Those of you who want to know more details about the "Teresa incident", PM me. Teresa, if you don't want me to tell others about that incident, invite me for dinner :D

The kids happily enjoying their meal.


Meanwhile, others were still standing in queue.



Funny incident though. Since I've been a single bachelor for far too long, I was hoping one of these lovely ladies would exchange their phone numbers with me as I went around taking their photos… Finally I was indeed approached by someone and we exchanged phone numbers. Unfortunately, that person was Rev. V Biaknunsanga :D :D


Nitin, Noel and Chinmoy waiting for their turn to line up. At the far top left corner, I spy Pi Baby-i :D She's kinda eating like there's no tomorrow :D


Pastors eating food :)


Annie and her friends too were too busy eating to look up at the camera.


Gosie with her friends Zoremi and Nunui happily enjoying their meal.... and then there's Miriam sitting in the right corner :)


Of course Miriam wanted a special single picture of her eating, and so I took this of her. Notice the amount of paper cups she took with her. She was the reason why the PMCF ran out of dispo cups and we had to send out guys to go and buy extra cups in the last minute.


The Fambawl sisters Maveni and Puiteii with their friends Esther, Mercy, Engi, Lalnotei and Faktea.


Pari with Pi Rami and Professor Ravi Kant.


Those who had eaten.


It was great seeing MSa again after such a long time. He's special. He managed to survive on his own from the moment he came to Pune and was even the first among his batch to land himself a very lucrative job. Women call him "lady killer" and every man in Pune is jealous of him, while secretly wishing they could be him. He also paid me 100 bucks to write all that on my blog.

Sitting left to right - MSa, John Lalramthara, Samuel Dintea, Ruatsanga, Ngodali and our PMCF Chairman Pu Chawnghminga.


Ahneia kept everybody entertained on the mic the whole time.


Actually, I don't think anybody was listening to him, but he really enjoys speaking on the mic, so let us act like he was entertaining us :D

Finally, the end of the queue appeared and it was time for me to eat too.


In the above photo, Terasa held Nitin's hand firmly because she's afraid she might fall down again :D

My plate! :)


The last to eat, Isaac and Madiki. The wonderful couple at whose home this entire food was prepared.


I really enjoyed my meal. Once I was done eating, I went and washed up. Later, as I roamed around to take a few more photos, guess what? My friends Genevieve and Jacqueline were still eating!


Apparently, they went and refilled a lot of times. I really don't blame them because I know Genevieve very well and this was one of the few times she gets to eat pork. The next time she will be eating pork again this year will be at the PMCF Christmas 2019 feast, so I totally understand why she was eating so much that day.

In fact she was eating so much that the PMCF had an emergency committee meeting, and finally Zorema the Fatu leader was appointed to come and serve the extra meat to her instead of her having to walk up and down to the meat counter many times because her feet were getting blisters.


Here is Zorema on his task of serving more meat to Pu Danny...


With Puiteii and Maveni. Even though we are great friends, the only time these two ever messages me is to ask for their photos I took from my phone. :D


Finally, once everybody ate and Genevieve had kept her plate for wash, the entire Fatu volunteers swept in and ate. Once again, I thank them all for their great sacrifice.


Look at them enjoying the awesome food they made.



I... really have no idea why Miriami came and sat down among the Fatu members to pose for a photo like this, like she was some Vogue model or something, but I guess the Fatu members were happy she was in the picture...


Or maybe because she was just happy to sit next to Mahlua? We don't know, only time will tell, wink wink :)


Speaking of "in the picture", here is the lonesome Thara enjoying his dinner too.


I asked him if his day went well and whether it was worth it, and he replied, "Check out who is sitting next to me, totally worth it!"

"Terrific!" I replied, congratulating him.

Thara looked at me and said, "No, it's... Thara-fic!"

After dinner relaxation time. Our PMCF Assistant Secretary Ahnei posing with the Rev. V Biaknunsanga's family.


As people started leaving, our PMCF and PMWA leaders along with some volunteers started cleaning up the place and clearing the space. Duhawma and Tetea in action.


You gotta understand, some of the chairs were very heavy :D



And so, that was it. Great food with awesome people, a wonderful End to a beautiful Start. May you all have a very prosperous year and wishing you all the best in all your endeavours.

God bless you all.

Mizohican out.