Shopping @ Alishan

Alishan is one of the oldest fabrics stores in the city. I have been hearing the name from the Milind Soman days. Though Milind had no six packs, he was called a super model. Ad agencies were mad after him, until a big controversy hit him and another 90's model Madhu Sapre, when they were filed under for posing nude in a shoe Ad. He has been spotted in movies like "16 December" and one of Alisha's hits "Made in India".
Alishan has the tag line "of Men, by Men, for Men" similar to a quote by on of the need-no-intro guys, Abraham Lincoln. The only good thing that is going to happen to you there, is that you wont get to see much girls there, so you can decide and make a good purchase.

The store has lot of good brands, including top players Turtle, Louis Phillipe, Allen Solly; along with new comers like Swathe. I wouldn't describe what I got for myself as it isn't going to interest me or other readers. Whenever you visit a showroom, you get to see all kinds of people there. Even you see some guys who have lots of free time to waste, and come here to try at least 16 trousers but make no purchase at the end. Its not new that you get stuck in traffic, though not that long in Bhubaneswar, on a rainy day. Same was the case that day, but the reason wasn't a huge trolley or an accident.
Guess what, it were buffaloes. Not one but a herd was having a kitty party right in the middle of the freeway, leaving just one lane free for people. Looked like they had booked the other two lanes from BMC for the party.

People managed to drive through that single lane. Even all the horns in the city roaring at once, couldn't move the buffaloes. I got down to take pictures on my phone, as I always do when I spot unusual things. I waited a while to see who would the first person to drive away those buffaloes. No one came. I didn't disturb them either. Came back home, logged into twitter and updated my status "Bhubaneswar is one of India's cleanest cities".

Cock Fighting

It isn't everyday that you start a new blog with such a topic, with most visitors thinking "other things" seeing the word cock in the title :) Well, I know what a cock means - male chicken, who do not lay eggs if I'm not wrong. The only way I thought humans used them was selling meat for 120 Bucks and the price rising by 10 bucks every Sunday.

Well, today I found cocks are also used for a colloquial sport called "Cock Fighting". Its as simple as letting 2 cocks to fight in a place and tear each other apart with spectators (mostly humans) applauding and cheering. Some people are lucky to even earn a few rupees by laying bets on the cocks, much like cricket betting. Cricket betting has been the theme of a couple of hit movies. Well, the difference in case of cocks is that you cant 'fix' a match as in cricket, even if you tried to, cocks wont get what you speak, even if they knew your language they wouldn't do such thing for money, and even if they did it, there are no shopping complexes for cocks, to spend the money. So, cocks wont agree to fix the match. Today I accidentally landed at a place on the city outskirts with my friend, who had just taken a ride to an alien place. My cellphone showed just one network bar and that showed the remoteness of the place. Stopping over by a large ground with a group of people gathering around something, we noticed there was some exciting thing going on there. It was the cock fighting tournament in action, with people shouting and cheering as if India was going to win the world cup.
"Haven't seen anything like this before, have any idea?" my friend squeaked from behind. I had pushed myself a little forward to have a view of the thing. "Me too, man what kinda sport is this? And why the heck are the people shouting?" We waited for all this to end. Well it did end and even much before I'd expected. A big man came out with people following him, as if he was the mayor distributing iphones in a slum. He was distributing money in return for tickets to those following him. Within a few minutes people had stopped surrounding him and he was now alone counting money and occasionally glancing at other people. Meanwhile, some others had clung to refreshment stalls selling local junk food.
My friend walked towards him like an FBI officer does in Hollywood movies. "Excuse me sir, I want to know about all this happening here." he delivered in a slow monotonous tone, enough loud to make the man put his money into his pocket and turn back to answer. "Are you press guys?" "No. Do we look like the press?" we said in unison. "Well how do I confirm?" "We have no cams, nor microphones. We are just students, here's my id" I said. Well now, I could do anything to know about this stuff. The big man now smiled, and explained the system to us in short. Well I didn't keep my words of not being the press. I am writing this in my blog and I'm definitely doing what the press does.
People bet money on the cocks and they even have named the cocks as in horse races. If the cock wins then the guys who had placed the bet get good money, else they go back home and hide their faces from their moms. This isn't a new sport as the big man said. This has been around since years, well it was only your luck that would decide whether you'll win. Intuition wont let you go far...