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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