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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