partily heartily

Last night was the first annual [mumble-nameofcompany-mumble] Asia Pacific Big Ol' Party with Dancing and Food and Booze. It was so much fun!! It took place at a hotel down the street from work. Traffic was so bad at 6:00 that the people who decided to walk arrived faster than those who left earlier in cars. However, it being monsoon season and all, the ones who drove arrived much less, how you say, totally drenched. Gina was thinking of having a wet tee shirt contest, but only because she was a shoo-in for first place:


Our colleagues over here are a hoot. Some of them seem pretty demure in the office and then you get them on a dance floor and LOOK OUT. I was enlisted for some prolonged swing dancing moves by Godwin, our office manager (the Daniel T. of AP, as we refer to him). These photos aren't from the swing dance interlude, but you get the idea:




I sooooo do not know how to swing dance, incidentally, but it turns out that apparently only one member of the couple needs to know what he or she is doing.

Extensive hypothesis testing throughout the course of yesterday evening allows me confidently to assert that paneer tikka is nature's perfect food. (Because in nature the cheese comes straight out of the cow and directly into a bath of tasty spices and then falls into a tandoori oven and is served with coriander chutney...do I have this right? I don't leave the city much.)

Apropos of, um, well OK nothing (unless maybe he also loves paneer tikka!?), I will also report that I have a major crush on someone:


I watched The Namesake on the plane the other day (along with 17 other movies...damn that's a long flight from JFK to BOM) and I fell in lurrrrve with a certain Irrfan Khan. The double R is for Rrrrrrroww! I like to think of him as the Indian Jeff Goldblum. Casey says he has bug eyes, to which I say (a) what's your point, and (ii) you are just jealous now leave me alone with my screen saver please.

Oh, and speaking of people who are "the (other nationality) (so-and-so)," meet Vikram, our party emcee, a.k.a. the Asia Pacific counterpart to SF's T-Todd:


Vikram's nickname around the office is Big Trouble. And there's Priya with her gorgeous naturally curly hair in the foreground. (I am on a campaign to convince her that her curls are a major feature, not a bug. Seriously, people: girlfriend has some sexy hair.)

Oh! And also yesterday we had our first Hindi lesson. Poor Don and Priya had to be in a class with three linguists who kept turning to each other and saying things like "So Hindi is SOV, then?" and "Ah, it's a flap," and "Cool, postpositions!" and "I got yer velar fricative right here."

Hum khush karmchari hain! (We are happy employees!)