Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

It has nearly been four years since I last wrote to you. I read my last entry and realised how good and virgin my life was then.(Don't laugh on my use of word virgin). But I was a student then and life was like being in the Beatles’ Strawberry Fields where everything was unreal and there was nothing to get hung about . But then I changed three cities after that to finally write to you in this cold December night in the Ghalib's city of Delhi.

I won't bore you by talking about my past four years of life. About how I have grown and matured or how stupid I have become. I will talk about this moment as I had told you before that nothing, nothing exists outside the moment.

I finished reading Murakami’s Norwegian Wood few days backs. You would be surprised to know that there exists a book after the lovely Beatles song but the book is titled such because in the book the protagonist remembers about his girlfriend after hearing to the song Norwegian Wood. The book is good, Murakami is a nice weaver with a good description sense as he makes his characters so uncanny that u start loving them. I loved the character of a girl called Midori the most. She was an outgoing girl, the kind of girls I like, you know. The protagonist asks her about love and what sort of guys she liked. And she replied that she liked being selfish in love. She would ask her boy to get her a juice and he would run down 5 floors of stairs and climb back to get that juice for her and then she would throw that juice down saying that she didn’t need it anymore . And then he would apologise to her for being late and she would ask him to get some coke and he would again run down 5 stairs and climb back again with the bottle of Coke and she would again throw it down and when he would say sorry, she would hug him and make love to him. Such a selfish type of love she needed.

Anyways, I am searching for a new place to dwell in. And it seems like all landlords hate us. They show us the shittiest of places and tell us that thats where bachelors live. And then they hate us further because we have jobs in Times of India. And then Brokers would show us houses and highlight the fact that owners didn’t live in the same building and hence we could bring our girls and have parties with them. We feel so foolish then, I can't even tell you.

Oh okay, you are getting bored so I will tell you a fact I stumbled across. It says that some people actually believe that if they eat makeup they can be pretty on the inside too.

You know I miss Bombay at times. And right now I am missing Bombay and specifically Andheri station platform number 4 and 5 where I used to catch 9:11am train to Churchgate daily. Thats when an old man would play flute on the station and we would throw money on his green towel. I used to board that train but then the wind would still carry those sad lonely notes of that flute. I miss those sad lonely notes of that flute the most right now.

Anyways tomorrow is Monday. You know no wonder how beautiful a tone I set it to, Monday’s alarm is what I hate the most.

I promise that I would write you often and sorry for the dust collected on you.

With Love,
vC

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Kundera, a consultant, Friday and an ideal girl!!

My friend stores in his cellphone only the photographs of his ex-girlfriends. And of only those girls who were externally beautiful (I can't comment on the internal beauty because I am not aware of it).By externally beautiful I mean they had nice features, large eyes, pointed nose, pouted lips, thin-long neck,good jawline etc.
And every time he met a new girl he showed them the same photos of all his ex-girlfriends. I asked him why did he do it? Why did he show those pics to those beautiful girls. Every time he had the same reply that " You fool, Kundera says that girls don't go for guys who are handsome instead they go for guys who once had beautiful women!!"

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I miss my school days- and the part which I miss as well as silently laugh about was being a proud love consultant ..Probably thats wat comes easy to each one of us- love consulting, solving (or further-complicating) friend's love issues (however we may suck when it comes to consulting our own love issues)...And due to absence of phones and e-mails, love letter writing was an integral part of consulting... I, like an adept love consultant, used to imbibe the likes and dislikes of my client's girlfriend in the long letters... If she liked DDLJ i made sure to include quotes like "bade bade sheher mein chhoti chhoti baatein hoti rehti hain" or if she had finer tastes like Casablanca I ensured quotes like " Here's looking at you, kid".

But one day, one of my naive friends did not understand the importance of my role (that of a love consultant) and he wrote a letter by himself and that too without consulting me..He pushed down his choice of Titanic down his girlfriend's neck by addressing her Rose..and then and there the "love" ended in a fiasco!!

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Thanks to the corporate life,some people have stopped seeking money or happiness or love or peace or truth..In longer run they might seek anything, but in a shorter time span, they all seek is a Friday evening...Some of them even orgasm at the idea of a Friday evening..If u ask a person abt his short term goals he will pop up the same crap of wanting to go up the corporate ladder by contributing to the organisation but trust me all he will seek is a Friday evening when he can actually go and relish a perpetual escape of Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love....

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Few days back I had blogged about my ideal girl..But that was more in a lighter vein or to say that was meant to be relished by a different target group.
But now the places have changed, I have lost so much and gained so much..my perception about an ideal girl has "evolved" to wat Kundera describes about Eva:
"Eva is a cheerful man-chaser. But she doesn't chase them to marry them. She chases them the way men chase women.Not love but only friendship and sensuality exist for her. So she has many friends: men r not afraid she wants to marry them, and women have no fear she is seeking them to deprive them of a husband. Besides if she ever married her husband would be a friend she would allow everything to and demand nothing from."


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Everytime I go home

Hailing from a small town is just another thing, but visiting it after long is an experience -a hilarious one though. You witness the slow pace of life compared to the cities, the bondage amongst the people and the vast growing urban-rural divide.
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Everytime I go home, my mom takes me to an astrologer who has a poster of John Lennon hung on a wall. He seems to have lost interest in money making rat race of the cities and chose to follow his passion of astrology. But I donno how correct he predicts things as everytime I meet him, his predictions change and the maximum change occurs in the prediction of my wife-to-be. Earlier she used to be a nagging, arrogant woman and now he predicts her to be a rural simpleton.

Everytime I go home, one of my dad's friends would bring his son for career counselling and I would have to behave all polite and as a genuine role model of the youth of my town. He would ask me open ended questions like "How to crack CAT" or "How to crack IITJEE". And I would start my preachings about dreams and motivation which I am sure would put all the self-help book writers to shame.

Everytime I go home, in a train I would meet certain people who would be more interested in what others are doing. They would come and have a look at my novel and ask for which competition exam I was studying or would comment on the price of the book.

Everytime I go home, one of my dad's friend would get his son to be examined from me as in where he stands on the path to be an engineer. And then I would ask a patented question from him which would be like "A 100-metre runner accelerates for first 4 seconds at the rate of 6 metre per second square and blah blah. Find the distance covered" And he would go all ballistic on the question and use all physics formula and end up with some vague answer or would say the data is incomplete. And I would say to read the question again as a 100-metre runner would run 100 metres. The mantra being to study smart. I know thats a foolish assumption that a 100 meter can only run 100 mtrs, but as long as people buy it, it works.

Everytime I go home, a relative aunty of mine or a neighbour aunty would come and brag about her role in my genteel upbringing and how much I used to loved her when I was a kid. She would say about all the kiddish stuff I used to do when i was little (which I am sure all kids do),making all the faces and would laugh out loud on my otherwise bored face. And now her only dream would be to play with my kids on her laps. Blah.

Everytime I go home, all the uncles would ask for my package. And after listening to my real package, they would comment "so less. one of my nephews is in merchant navy and he earns far more, wat was the use of IIM" or "in the newspapers they say that IIM grads earn in crores, seems like u did not study much"..
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Above all of it, home is the best place to go. The comfort, the pampering, the care, the royal treatment, the role model personification makes it all a heaven.

PS: All the above sentences beginning with 'everytime I go home' has been purposefully hyped to bring some laugh in your otherwise morose life.

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Lifting the veil of Delhi

So like all other arranged marriage, I have finally unveiled the ghoongat of the city of Delhi. Yeah I have started liking the city. Beneath that too-much-of gaudy and that ugly bridal makeup, Delhi is a beauty. All it needs to do is to shed so much of that cosmetic make-up and try the simpleton way.

On a serious note, I found that beneath all that flashiness, Delhi has a big and tender heart. The people are accommodating and nice. The sense of humor is great here. No city other than Delhi has that a big heart to laugh on itself.

There has been a smooth transition from Bombay to Delhi. Like so many other Delhites, I have also started to love drinking inside the car by that roadside tandoori shop and the loud punjabi music by the car-stereo.I have begun to love the old monuments and the lovely food and have learnt to ignore the errant drivers, the shallow, verbose and insolent fellow city dwellers, the duping rickshaw-wallahs and the lack of sea.

While Bombay was more like a love affair to me, I had to pass thru the tests of all the phases- that love at first sight, then running after her, toiling hard to amuse her, even giving those expensive gifts, proving her that u r the man ready to behold her above all, bear all that nautankis and then u finally get her. But Delhi has been more like a typical arranged marriage,u hate her for all that gaudy bridal make up, and then u slowly unleash each other's beauty, and slowly discover each other types.

As of now i have still not converted from that Bombay-loving-self to Delhi-is-better but somehow Delhi exudes a romance which Bombay may never be able to exude in its money-making rat race.

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One who teaches learns the keenest of lessons

His life continued getting harder, the corporate world started taking a toll on him. It gets harder all the time, he once said. Harder, yet easier. One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be hard as hard can be grows harder yet.

Every saturday, he and his girlfriend taught some under-privileged kids in a small basti across the river Hindon passing Noida. He used to drive his Thunderbird to that basti and she used to be his hugging pillion rider. A nice couple they were, they looked good together, always jovial, happily ridiculing each other in their own world. He was an MBA and was in the sales team of some fancy beverage company while she was a doctor. But ironically he was more empathetic and social service inclined while she was more nonchalant and corporate types.

Their point of contact in the basti was a small guy who was just 18 years old and was quite talkative. The small guy told them that he was on facebook and that they should add him as a friend and hence cause an increase in his miniscule list of friends. She asked him how he felt about being the only boy in facebook from the basti, and he told that he was not happy. Facebook made him aware of things he could never achieve. It made him conscious of beautiful places in Africa, about posh malls, about gadgets while earlier he was happily ignorant.

The couple taught 16 kids and she mostly taught them English and Hindi while he taught them maths and other subjects and later told them stories to motivate. He used to love their belief that they would one day be rich if they studied hard. The kids liked him more than her because he was a storyteller and could de-metamorphose himself into a kid. He used to enact,mimic, lower his pitch and baritone and do all kiddish stuff. They used to enjoy his sessions and he used to love it. He was never aware that innocence of kids could have such an unwinding effect. It was a win-win situation for both the kids and him.

He loved to teach because it provided him peace of mind; also because it taught him humility, brought it home to him who he is in the world. While his source of enjoyment was direct, hers was moreover indirect. He enjoyed playfully teaching the kids, she enjoyed that bike ride to outskirts but above all she relished that peaceful look in her boyfriend's face.....

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Being Stupid

Off late, the world has left me feeling stupid for so many reasons that I prefer not to reveal my choices, about what I love and what I hate, about what I enjoy and what I detest. I fear to be mocked down (Of not having liked Bodyguard, of not having watched the Twilight series, of not having followed that American TV series, of not supporting the Anna movement,of not able to tolerate the series called MTV Roadies, of advocating the beauty of not having things than having them).

The recent spate of bollywood hits like Bodyguard and Singham has bestowed upon me me an inferiority complex of not being able to appreciate the beauty of these movies. Probably it hallmarks me of not having quite a taste or not being a connoisseur.So many people watched and loved these movies that I wonder I can openly call them in public as bad movies. I could avoid Singham but I could not avoid Bodyguard just because of the lovely mass marketing done by the coterie formed by all the channels (and the leader being the news channels obviously). My belief of being a a stupid was provoked further when I could not find those jokes funny to which the entire hall was laughing at.

Delhi gives me further more reasons to feel stupid. Why don't I love hanging out at malls? Last time it was raining I took a halt at India Gate in order to enjoy rains with some equally ecstatic people. I used to do it in Bombay. When it used to rain I used to walk on the marine drive and get a heightened feeling at the site of ocean changing colors and simultaneously watch people enjoy rains. But to my dismay I found the entire India Gate road empty although the rain was not in flurry but was just like kissing your face types. The only people I encountered there were cops who questioned me to what was I doing alone in rains in India Gate. I replied that I was just walking by and it isn't that heavy a rain.

Another reason for being stupid these days is people's take on photography these days. When a random cow's portrait clicked by DSLR is considered as good photography. Where the better the camera one posseses, better the photographer one has become.

I hope by now, you must have started sending your bouquet of sympathies to me.

"yun hi rakhte rahe bachpan se dil saaf hum apna....
Pata nahi tha ki keemat toh chehro ki hoti hai, dil ki nahi..."

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May be its best to end it this way

The problem with her was that her fellow friends, female or male, never realised the importance of her company. But when she was gone, they missed her, and missed her badly. She was adept in filling the gaps in their discussion, the void in their laughter and even the vacuum in their silence. Her presence was negligible but her absence was huge.

He, who was no different than her friends, could not recognize the beauty of her presence but was bulldozed under her absence. He missed her and missed her much more than loved her. Probably missing someone should be at a higher pedestal than loving the same someone.

It was last time he was meeting her, unaware of the transience of their liaison. But she was aware of it, because she knew that she could never hate him. She still loved him, until she figured out that it hurt a lot less to just not care.
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PS: I know the above piece is random and incomplete, but I sat for 3 hours thinking wat to write further but could not think of anything. So I decided to finally publish it considering my absence from this writing world for so long. May be its just the Delhi airspace which hit my writings barren or may be its best to end it this way.



Dear friend,
I had always liked to tell myself that you were something abstract, a legend and a myth, but now I knew that behind the poetry of these words hid an entirely unpoetic truth: that I didn’t know you; that I didn’t know you as you really were, as you were in and to yourself. I had been able to perceive (in my youthful egocentricity) only those aspects of your being that were turned directly to me (to my loneliness, my captivity, my yearning for tenderness and affection); you had been nothing to me but a function of my own situation; everything that went beyond that concrete situation, everything that you were in yourself, had escaped me.

-mE (inspired by Milan Kundera)

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Letter from Noida

Dear friend,

Now that I have reached your city, not specifically your city, but your ugly cousin named Noida, I am sure you would want to read about my experiences here. Well apart from food, friends and winter I have never liked Delhi much but thats ok because I haven't liked any city apart from Bombay. But then it had been too much of Bombay that the nomadic me needed to break free from it.

Here, I don't go out much, I haven't even taken a mobile number here. I don't even like going out here. I tried walking on these roads but I feel lonely. The roads are well built but there are no people but only cars. Thanks to the bundle of books I brought with me that I confine myself to it. I am reading a lot and also playing FIFA on my laptop a lot as well. In my constant attempt to stick to one-touch football, I still lose playing against the laptop.

About my new office, I told you I did not expect much from it. So I would not be able to tell you much about it except that I don't have to wear formals for 6 days any more. You know how much I hated those black shoes and those neatly ironed trousers.

I miss Bombay alot mostly when those auto waalas ask for the fare double the amount I last paid for the same route. I miss Bombay a lot when I feel claustrophobic in Delhi metro with nothing to do footboarding on. I miss khao gali which those bastards so gruesomely bombed. I miss marine drive the most because here after office I have nothing better to do than to return to the same room and go back to reading. Of course I can't go to those malls (which are in plenty here) and sit there and observe people getting a kick out of a 20% rebate on something when the shopkeeper is actually fooling them with a higher price tag.

I am still looking for a new place near my office to rent in. I will prefer living alone this time. I would like to keep my things my way. I will hang that big black and white Gateway of India framed poster on my wall. I will buy some more posters and hang it there.

Oh by the way I am reading English August and its real kick ass stuff. Its pampering me to the hilt.

With love,
vC

Droll thing life is- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself – that comes too late – a crop of unextinguishable regrets.

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Oh Bombay, u will be missed..

Oh Bombay, u will be missed. The city which takes everyone and makes them its own..The city where I earned my first bread and butter.

The city where I lost and discovered both at the same time. Where I lost my nonchalance but discovered the beauty of struggle called life. Where I lost my piece of mind at the office but discovered solace at the sea. Where I lost friends to distances but discovered the bliss of solitude. Where I lost my blackberry but discovered the courage to handle the loss again. Where I lost seven umbrellas and discovered the beauty of rains without umbrellas...

Being one of those missing kinds, one who misses and delves in nostalgia every bit of time, Bombay will be the one to be missed all the time. The city for which I had fallen in love at first sight and then perpetually fell deeper and deeper...

I will miss-

~That struggle to board that morning fast local train and then unboarding it even before the train comes to a halt else being pushed back inside...
~Those walks down Colaba, movie at Regal, beer at Mondegar, whisky at Gokul, cakes at Theobroma..
~The daily Marine Drive walk after office,passing through those couples' neck gnawing and face swallowing until the sun went down and judging them as good kissers or bad kissers and finally sitting on those rocks at the end and having a monologue with it..
~That rush to grab that 9PM squash court at Andheri Sports Complex..
~Those perfunctory walks from Mumbai Central to Haji Ali and then listening to those combined music of sea waves and the novice Qawwali and finally giving up to the temptation of the delicious Sitafal Cream or the Anaar juice at Haji Ali Juice Center..
~That scramble to reach Prithvi theater on time but ending up sitting on those stairs (best seats according to me)
~Eating at Crystal and eating at Khao Gali with so many people that eating it seemed like eating in a fair daily..
~That special cutting chai at the BEST canteen, that yummy butter pao bhaaji at Khao Gali, that delightful keema pao at Mondegar, and that omnipresent vada-pao.


And then so many eventful days happened during my stay at Bombay:
~I got my shirt torn while boarding the local at Andheri and had to rush to Peter England show room to buy another one to office.
~The famous dance on the streets of Bombay the very day India won the world cup.
~The day I tendered my first resignation and felt that whip of freedom.
~I turned 25 and 26 both in Bombay only to realise that you get older faster than you get wiser..

Anyways, there is so much more I cud write to it. I know its more of me and my love for this city in this post and many of you have already made me feel miserable about leaving Bombay.

Good bye Bombay, you will surely be missed!

I read this somewhere...
"mil hi jaayegi manzil humein bhatak kar hi sahi,
gumraah toh woh hai jo ghar se nikle hi nahi..."

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The Psycho Boss!

**Here is a blogpost which has abusive language. There are certain people who may not be comfortable with the abusive language and hence are advised not to read further.


On his B-school farewell day, he was fully sloshed. He went on the stage and halted the DJ from playing the music. He picked up the mike and on a drunken tone he said "main shapath leta hoon ki main kabhi kisi chutiye se order nahi loonga life mein"(I swear that I will never ever take orders from a chutiya)..Rest of the drunkards clapped in unison..But the non drunkards pulled him down back to the dance floor and asked the DJ to continue.

Few days later he joined his first job and was introduced to the most fine looking gentleman as his boss. But all of that fine looks went in bin when the gentleman gave the welcome speech. The boss said "I have picked stones in my life and see where have I reached and I am sure none of u will hesitate picking up the stones for me. We are the best company in India and you are the luckiest person in the world to get a chance to learn from me".

One day in a meeting with big investment bankers, he sat with this laptop in the meeting room. He had deliberately forgotten his notepad which according to his boss was a necessary accessory in the meeting room. But he enjoyed deliberate poking of his boss and seeing all the histrionics of his psycho behavior. And then during the meeting the boss asked him to open his notebook to take some notes. He instead opened the notepad in the windows and seeing that the boss went beserk. He shouted "you retarded chutiya, half gaandu, why did not u bring your notebook. When I was of your age my boss used to hit me with a duster and I think I should do the same with you". Those investment bankers were astonished by the abusive language of the boss. But then the boss had the money and the money is what is important.
During the meeting, while taking notes on the Microsoft notepad, there was an utterance of a name with a title Chidambaram, and in a hurry he typed the spelling wrong and the boss again went beserk " You retarded chutiya, half gaandu, you even don't know the spelling of finance minister of India, this is wat they taught u at an elite B-school"

And then with all courage our victim could muster, he stood up and told the boss "you retarded chutiya, you half gaandu, Mr. P. Chidambaram is not the finance minister anymore he is the home minister and in B-schools, they have better things to teach rather than the spellings of some minister "

Our hero who had once vowed never to take orders from a chutiya was fired then and there only!!

****This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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The Rain and the ambulance

If only I wish I could explain you how much of an antidote to everything miserable is getting drenched in this constant, unabashed rain which is lashing out in front of me on this Marine Drive street. Suddenly everything has turned so beautiful.
The designer dogs are also getting drenched in the rain and their euphoria could be seen with that fast wagging of their jazzy tails. Old men seem to smile remembering their young days and trying to re-live it through the wonderful rainy memories. But amongst it all the eye candy right now is the made-for-each-other type looking couple sitting in the rain and sharing that smoke with their wet lips. Please don't pester me by asking what makes them look made-for-each-other types. And to tell u amongst it all, the most majestic look is that of this mystic, enchanting sea.Its huge and behemoth changing colors, playing hide and seek. I just sit and wonder and crave that it must drizzle at the evening after office too so that I would go and drench myself out of this mundane life.
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I donno whether God has plans for everyone but on that Ganesh Visarjan day, I was appalled by what I saw. The crowd was dancing and the mob seemed all hallucinated. There was this huge idol of Lord Ganesha to be submerged in the Arabian Sea. But behind this mob was an ambulance with the blue light on the top and that large screeching sound which went unnoticed. People were all merry and inebriated dancing to the dhol. The sound of the dhol was much more reverberating in the air than the ambulance's. The ambulance driver tried to scheme through the crowd and the idols but all was going in vain. I wonder whether Lord Ganesha really blessed that soul in the ambulance..

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How I ate my first egg.

This story is of the year 1993. When I, a small town Brahmin Bihari guy had just made a foray into an English medium boarding school in the elite hills of Mussoorie. I was not good in English, specially the verbal part. When people used to speak in English I used to translate it to Hindi and then think the answer to it in Hindi and then translate it back to English. It was a lengthy process and a confidence-lowering one. I had this huge fear of being laughed at because of my wrong Bihari-accented English.

I felt so out of place and so scared. It was a school where all teachers spoke in English and few of them were heavily accented.
When my dad dropped me on my first day of school, he gave me a golden advice. He said- "Son, if you dont understand any instruction, just do wat the majority of people are doing".

So when I went for my first breakfast, the teacher-in-charge shouted in her heavily accented English "Vegeterians in this queue, non-vegetarians in the other queue". I was like i-donno-wat-the-fuck-she-means(but in hindi). And then I applied my dad's mantra and stood in a line where majority stood. Finally I found myself sitting on the table with two eggs in a plate. I was like shit-no, this is so anti-religion(god wud punish me) but then I was so ashamed to explain to madam in english the reasons why I could not eat it. So I asked for mercy from god in my own way and gulped an egg.
But then wen I ate it I was amazed and found it to be tasty. I was missing such a tasty item because of my religion.

Vegetarians eat their first non vegetarian food because of many reasons. I know of many guys eating it because they find it difficult to lose a girl for not eating an egg. But mine is so memorable.

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PS: If you like the story, give the credit to Chinmayee because it was she who asked me to blog it after I narrated it to her over three mundane glasses of lemon ice tea.

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Such is Bombay

On friday morning I was going to office on that usual fast local train. Things were not great at office and in the morning at about 4am I was constantly being woken up by strange sounds, my neigbours were making across my wall. It was as usual all sweaty and crowded in the train. The type which makes you feel why-am-i-doing-all-this. Suddenly a guy (P.G.Wodehouse would have called him a dude) was listening to a song on his radio slash ipod slash music player slash some gadget. The dude started to sing aloud unaware of the crowd around. Such feelings you get when u listen to a good song and you just want to sing along. The dude was a good singer. Then three four guys started singing along and I did not realise I was also singing along. Song was a Kishore Kumar oldie prolly mere sapno ki rani. I dont remember typically which song as all the later songs were also Kishore's. The whole compartment tagged along and all those who could spread their hands also clapped. Some old people refrained but merely gave a toothless giggle. But the atmosphere had changed from sweaty and gloomy to still-sweaty but lively. I wished my destination station never arrived and we kept singing in the train loud and merry.

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There are so many good eating joints in Bombay but one place I really enjoy eating is the khao-gali (food lane) near Opera House (near my office). One place where you can go alone and eat because there is so much crowd that it takes over and never lets you feel lonely. I generally dont have lunch with office colleague because all of them are married and have dabbas(tiffins) delivered. So I walk alone and join the crowd at Khao gali. Its one of the most crowded lanes in Mumbai. The food is cooked on coal and the delivery is amazing fast. If you love people, you will love eating at Khao-gali for sure.
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On the day of Ayodhya Verdict (when the land was very diplomatically divided in to three), there was a huge alert for riots in Bombay. Fortunately such a thing did not happen. So when after office I was going home, Andheri streets were having a deserted look. I usually prefer to walk from the station to my home. But that day I preferred an auto. Suddenly the autowaala asked me about my views on the verdict (on having the land divided into three). I refrained from giving any views. Then the guy said "sahab galat hua, hindu ki zameen thi hindu ko dena tha" (sir, it was wrong, the land of hindus should have been given to hindus). I just said to him "wahaan mandir bane yaa masjid yaa kuch bhi bane, usse teri auto zyada tej to nahi chalne lagegi, woh ayodhya mein hai tu bombay mein hai, tujhe kya fark padega" (either a temple or a mosque is built there, it would not result in your auto running fast. It is in Ayodhya, you are in Bombay, how does that matter?" Suddenly that auto person stops the auto where 4-5 people were standing and started telling watever i said in a very hostile fashion. I got scared. I screamed "auto chalao"(start the auto). Suddenly one guy came near and slapped the auto person and told him "saab ko ghar lejaa jaldi se" (take him home at the earliest).
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Its been an year now at this grotesque and fascinating Bombay and what a ride it has been. It has come with a realization that two things namely love and job are not meant for me. They seem to take freedom out of the freebird I am. I am not a love hating person or a career hating too, its just that love is not my cup of tea and about career I am still to figure out what I wanna do. I guess its normal because more than half of the people I know are facing the same crisis.

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A rendezvous with a fruit-seller.

Whenever I look for inspiration, my first month struggle at Mumbai always comes to my help. I was new to Mumbai with limited idea of human skins clashing in Mumbai Local trains and the daily struggle for basic amenities.

When we (me and my roommate from IIM Kozhikode) arrived at Mumbai, we were duped by an agent and were made to stay in a claustrophobic room by a very busy street in Goregaon. The fan in the room was so slow that the May heat and sweat left us feeling miserable. Every time we tried to open the big window to get some fresh air, a cat used to crawl in and shit in our dirty floor. So to avoid the cat shit, we used to sleep with all doors and windows closed.

For me being unable to sleep, in such conditions, I used to tire myself further so that the sleep would come easily. Mentally I came back tired after dealing with a very difficult boss, but that was further a deterrent to my sleep. So I would try walking miles to get that physical fatigue so that when I laid on the bed, my physical stress would not let the combined mental stress of a difficult boss and the heat in the room come between me and my sleep.

So this story is of one of those walks, when I heard a beautiful song from the movie Umrao Jaan on the radio on a footpath. Some people were sleeping on the footpath and I recognised them. They sold fruits on the fruit shop below my room. You know footpaths in Mumbai are used for walking in the day, as street shops in the evening and sleeping beds in the night.

I sat down there and initiated a talk with one of the guys listening to the radio. His name was Gokul Naresh Yadav. He was from Faizabad in UP. People in his town called him Pagla for his crazy dreams and crazy talks. So here goes the conversation:

Me: Gokul teri shaadi ho gayi hai? (Gokul, are you married?)
Gokul: Haan, Aarifa se (Yes, with Aarifa)

He shows me the photograph. A beautiful girl in a saree and our Gokul Naresh Yadav.

Me: Aarifa?? Ye kaisa naam hai? (Aarifa, what sort of name is that?)
Gokul:Muslim hai. Shaadi kiye hain. Love marriage. (She is a Muslim. I have married. Love Marriage)

Me: Ye kaise? Woh bhi Faizabad mein? (How come? And that too in Faizabad?)
Gokul: Kya bataayein? Hum football khel rahe the. Teen ladkiyaan humein burqa pehne dekhne aati thi. Jo sabse lambi thi use maine bola burqa hataane..usne hataaya..chaand thi woh..humne apne sapne ke baare mein bataaya..use acchaa lagaa.(What shud I say? I was playing football and 3 girls clad in burqa used to visit us.. The tallest one, I asked her to lift her burqa, she removed, she was like moon..later, I told her about my dreams..she liked them)

Me: Cricket nahi khelte ho? (Dont you play cricket?)
Gokul: Arre nahi, hum bahut accha bowling karte the..baad mein pata chal throw phekte the..bahut koshish kiye phir se..(No,I used to bowl very well..but later I realised that I used to chuck the ball..Later I tried hard)

Me: Shaadi mein koi baadhaa? (Any objection in marriage)
Gokul: Shuru mein sab hasne lage..soche pagla hai..kuch bhi bolta hai..par humne shaadi kar liya mandir mein..ladki ko ghar se nikaal diya..meri maa bahut royi ..par baad mein maan gayi..boli tu laaya hai tu hi khilaa..isiliye bambai aaye hain (Initially they all laughed thinking I was mad. They said I speak crap but I married her in the temple. She was thrown away from her home. My mom cried a lot but later she accepted her. She said, u brought her, u feed her. Hence I came to Bombay)

Me: Bahut maante ho Aarifa ko? (You like Aarifa a lot?)
Gokul: Ek wahi hai jo humein paagal nahi samajhti..Ek naseehat dete hain-usi se shaadi karna jo aapko aapke sapne ke liye pyaar kare, naaki aapke vartamaan ke liye..(She is the only one who doesnot think i am mad..One advice I would give you-Always marry a girl who loves u for your dreams.. not for what u are today...)

Me: Chhutti par kya karte ho? (What do u do on holidays?)
Gokul: Chhutti milti hai kabhi kabhi, phal bech kar. hum goregaon se churchgate kaa local pkadte hain aur marine drive par jaa kar baith jaate hain. bahut shaanti milti hai..samundar ajeeb cheez hai..gareeb ameer mein koi fark nahi kadti. (I get holidays rarely. I catch a local to churchgate and go and sit on marine drive. I get peace there. This sea is very strange. It does not differentiate between rich and poor)

(True.now it reminds me of Tsunami in Japan. It did not differentiate. The wrath or the peace,the sea treats us the same)

Me: Bahut bolte ho yaar? (U speak a lot)
Gokul: Saab bechne waale log hain...bolenge nahi to khareedega kaun? (Sir, we are salesmen. If we don't speak, then who would buy from us?)

The next day, I gave Gokul Naresh Yadav my phone and asked him to use it and talk to his wife in lieu of the beautiful story he had told me the previous night.

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PS: I would like to dedicate this post to the 15 day old baby Aarya. The most beautiful line in this post has been quoted by her mother.

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Those great examination days..

Well if u r an engineer, u will value your examination days the most. The craziest things are done during these days. I used to love them for they were the most happening days of the academic life. Songs used to sound more melodious, food tastier, gossips more engrossing and playing games a luxury.

We were a bunch of 4-5 guys of electronics engineering who used to study together but only during the last night and just go and puke the over-night-learnt-knowledge on the answer sheet. Probably all engineers in India are made that way.

There was this Raghav Mathur who used to mug up everything he thought was important and even if the questions asked were different, he used to put everything he had mugged-up on paper. He used to take on extra sheets and extra sheets, and wrote some electronics crap on it. I am sure he used to pass just by boring the professor of the crap he wrote, but he ensured that all that was written was electronics and pertaining to the subject. Although he had failed in subjects like Digital Signal Processing where the professor used to ask one word answers and Raghav gave a crap of minimum 250 words.

Then there was this Siddharth Malviya, who used to get bored of studying the last night and quit mid way assuming that the next day some one will help him pass. We used to try and pass him answers but if not done, he used to fail and he was ready for it.He was also caught once exchanging calculators(answers written on it) with Nirbhay, who had never before cheated in his life. Siddharth had so many suppli-s to his credit. But if u think our Siddharth was any less smart, let me tell u he has just got a great percentile in CAT and has got calls from all the IIMs (rest process is awaited).

I would love to mention Shubhendu, whose xerox copies we used to mug up and later even approached him at last moments to tell us the last moment important questions.
I am sure even if we didnt learn electronics we learnt the art of risk taking.

We used to play cards during these times and promising each time that this is the last half hour of our playing cards. In the evenings we played volleyball, we played Counter Strike too and Fifa just half an hour before exams was considered to be a good omen.

I am sure we were not only the selected few, everyone does the same. Living on the edge thing. Each student has his/her own cool story about his/her exams. I just mentioned mine.

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When doctor met the patient..

"I am a walking contradiction. I am often complimented on my honesty, yet more often than not I am lying. I talk a lot, yet nothing is ever revealed. I mock people whose goals and ambitions aren’t clear while changing the topic when mine are questioned. I spend most of my time fantasizing about the life I missed out on and the opportunities I’ve lost, yet still refuse to accept who I am and the life that I lead. Truth be told, I have no idea who I am. If I were to meet myself in street one day, I wouldn’t even know. After introducing myself I’d walk away thinking, ‘that was one strange individual who is nothing like anyone I’ve ever met before.’ Worst part is, I’d finally be telling the truth."
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And then he met his school time girlfriend now a doctor, someone's fiancee and far more beautiful than she was in the year 2002. They both met at a shopping mall and realized that it was not the right place to go in nostalgia. So they headed towards the sea, for the sea breeze would facilitate the contemplation they were about to endeavour in.

Then they both talked about the present. Of how his physique had grown as in his school days, he was all bones. Of how that nose ring she adorned looked great on her.

They talked about future. Of how she is going to London to her fiance after she gets married. Of how he would love to open his own hedge fund one day and be the master of his own soul and the captain of his own fate, above all not being bossed by anyone.

But above all they talked about the past. How they had met in a competition at a school where neither of the two studied. She was all nerves about her dance performance and he had calmed her down. She in return had gifted him a book which contained the short stories from Ruskin Bond. He still remembered the stamp of the bookstore which said English Book Depot, Ashley Hall. They had gone to one of the most beautiful places on earth together-Dhanaulti.They preferred not roam about the Mall Road because of fear of him being spotted by any of his teachers. They would instead head to the Landour Side.

Everytime he used to bunk his school, he would hitch-hike down the Rajpur Road and they would meet near the Parade Ground.They used to bet on even a trivial matter and they knew even anyone loses, it would lead to them meeting each other and the stake would be sponsoring Falooda at Kumar Sweet Shop near the Ghanta-ghar.

She used to send cards at every occasion, while the miser he was, he would just write mushy letters to her. They both knew that childhood love was no love, it was just some immatured, calf love where they would just boast about having grown up.

People want pretty much the same things: They want to be happy. Most young people seemto think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while older people believe they lay in the past.

It was evening and the sun was about to set down the sea. She attended a call from her about to be mother-in-law and lied to her that she was meeting a patient.LOL- A Patient! Then she rushed to her car after the hug he very well deserved. She started her car and turned on the radio where he heard the receding sound of:

"Joh naina karoon bandh bandh beh jaaye boond boond! Tadpaaye kyun, sunaye geet malhar de...!"

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**This post is dedicated to all those people in whose hearts live the mountains of Mussoorie and the valley of Dehradun....Here's to my adolescence.

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A hell of a random night.

He had got high on an illegal substance and later went to Colaba to have a brownie at Theobroma. There,a certain conversation between two girls struck in his ears.
Girl 1: "You know Divya there are 1000 guys for every 933 girls in India. Bullshit. No?"
Girl 2: "Ha ha where did u get this from? I am sure ki tere liye koi nahi hai..Vodka kam pad gayi kya? "

The dope reduced his shyness and he went onto striking a conversation with the two
"Hi, perhaps I am one of those 67 guys, one of u were talking about for whom there is no girl"

He joined the two and then they ended up listening to each other's life stories.

All three spoke and spoke and he realised how similar each and every person of his generation was. They all talked about the same facebook, twitter, Coke Studio, movies, books, city life and etcetra.

He realised that he was the one who was talking most on the table. They all listened to him. He was a great story teller. They all loved the concept that he had lived on his own since he was eight. He had been independent, he took all his decisions.

He loved the idea that the two were jovial, outgoing, random girls ,similarly goofed-up and messed-up in their own ways.

They left Theobroma and entered Tantra T-shirt shop and the 2 girls chose a T-shirt each for him. Divya chose him a Bob Dylan T-shirt while Vidushi gave him T-shirt with a fancy Indian tr-color in it. He paid happily for the two T-shirt.

Then they headed for Marine Drive, where they sat for hours and talked about how stupid all three were. The common thing between them was they believed that self depreciationg jokes were the best kind of jokes. They laughed on each other's stories. They competed who was the most stupid of the three. They talked about their own embarrassments. Inebriation helped them talk freely. They talked about how they had ended up loving and losing. How the universe is so indifferent. One point they all agreed was that like pain, stupidity can also not be compared.Out of the blue one of the girls cracked this:
"Zindagi ek Chahat ka silsila hai,
Koi mil Jata hai koi bichhad jaata hai,
Jise Maangte hai hum duao mein,
Wo kisi aur ko bina maange mil jata hai."
The rest two clapped and she giggled.

Later the same girl also played on her mobile phone a song from Coke Studio " Chal dil mere". The three sang in unison with the mobile speaker.


They talked and talked and realised it was dawn. And then they watched participants and onlookeers for Mumbai Marathon gathering up. All three wondered what the people were running for. Fitness, peace,love,solidarity, showbiz?

Finally he left for Churchgate station and the other two for VT station but all agreeing to the point that it had been a hell of a random night.

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Please excuse the sorry state of story-telling of this post because it has been hampered by the sleepless night the blogger had.

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The four fables.

I
He had quit smoking, long back. Love had made him do so, atleast he thought that way. Love makes people do ridiculous, crazy, beautiful things. There was a time he could do anything for her. She just asked him once to quit smoking and he did it. That was not the toughest thing he had done for her because letting-her-go was the toughest.

II
They were a bunch of thirteen people. Out of the world. Engineers. They were not like usual engineers like those who spend half of the time on facebook or orkut. They preferred playing football on the rooftop of their hostel in the rain or volleyball in the mud. They were so much of a great company to each other that they did not miss a thing. Time passed and then they had to leave. Now they face the hardships through the memories, the photographs and the songs they sang together.

III
He loves the open sky. The free air, how much polluted it may be. He often sneaks out of his office and goes to the beach nearby and watches the excitement on the face of the tourists catching the memory in a camera. He was not a tourist to Bombay but he loved observing the zeal on the first timers.
He even stole the keys to the rooftop where the Society he lives in has made it forbidden to go. He sneaks in the rooftop and watches the stars. Star gazing had always been his favourite hobby.

IV
So the new year had come and he was still wallowing in the last one. Only the calendar had changed? But with each day he was more in love with the city he lived in. In his ipod played the song by U2 "You love this town...Even if that doesn't ring true...You've been all over...And it's been all over you"- Beautiful Day.
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PS: This post is dedicated to Anurag Lal Sinha, one of the 13 engineers mentioned in the post.

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