3 MONTHS…

Hi Tiya,

You turned 3. Well not 3 years but 3 months. And that is like 30 years in baby years. Phew. Things have gotten better but there’s still a lot to go.

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Years ago, I wrote this post which was a fictional blog post written by my future child. It was a boy I assumed then, but then as the great Mahavir Singh Phogat has said , “Apni chori koi choro se kam hai kay”.

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Anyways the point being, I remembered that post today and now having spend 3 short months with you, I was wondering whether you would really turn out to be the one I described earlier. But girl i described an evil kid back then. Reminds me of the movie the Omen. Should check you head for any evil marks now.

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I am digressing again. I just wanted to put something down to preserve this memory. It is easier said than done though, what with one hand on the phone (where i type this) and one hand trying to keep you upright and not crying. You seem like the curious kind baby, as long as you are satisfied in your tummy.

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There’s a mischief in your eyes darling. A mischief that turns into innocence when you want to get what you want. You will melt the hearts of countless guys my princess, with those big killer eyes.

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Your lips, they make that shape that makes you hold on to your nerves, to wait for those precious syllables to come out and then they curve into that naughty naughty smile. Oh baby, you will kill countless people with that smile of yours.

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Your hands, with those long fingers, when they go over my face as if in search for something, baby I swear I just wanna keep running a loop in time there like that  Dr. Strange did with that time stone. Awesome movie it was. Time stones and shit.

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You don’t like to lie down all the while now. You now like to be held up on your feet. You wanna see the world even though you don’t understand any of it now. And why would you. The world is a complex place and people turn into complex creatures when they grow up. You represent what the world should be. Simple innocent, brooding yet full of curiosity and most importantly without any tricks. We will try to keep you that way as much as possible and as long as things don’t spiral out of our hands like you are beginning to do so with that big head of yours.

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Baby, over the last three months I have begun to realize the meaning of what the ancients said about having their life in their pet parrots. You my darling are my pet parrot. My life is in you. And I cannot tolerate the slightest harm or even discomfort coming your way.  There are people who love you and care about you and then there are others who just pretend. The former are important people, and you must love them back. The latter, well try and forget them.

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You are three months now, and before we blink you will be 6 and then 12. But these moments that we ( your mom and I) have spent with you will always be precious. These are painful moments mind you. You don’t let us sleep properly, you constantly beg for food and you always want our attention. But all that pain is erased by just one little smile of yours that feels like a glass of 25 year old scotch after a long and tiring day. Cheers to that.

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Love you my baby.
Keep on rocking.
PS: I am gonna kill those bastards (mosquitoes) who dare to taste your blood.

STATUTORY WARNING: Although everything i have written above is true, these are just the rosy details, which they show you in barjatya movies and we believe them like fools. But, I  will leave all the gory details to my wife and her articles.

 

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WELCOME TO THE WORLD, MY PRINCESS !!!

Welcome to the world, my princess !!!
To be frank, we were all shocked for a wee bit, when the doctor came out and said, “Congrats it’s a baby girl”. All the signs and all the world’s wisdom said it was gonna be a boy. But it had to be a little angel. We weren’t disappointed by any chance dear, just positively shocked. And then the love poured in automatically.

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When they first showed you to us, you looked so angry as if someone had woken up from your peaceful sleep and you looked at all of us with such an annoying face. You were so cute. Right there I fell in love with you baby.

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The next few days were a blur of activities. Your grandma stayed with you and your mom at night, while me and your maasi stayed during the day. Your grandpa came to visit too. You were unaware of all this of-course, mostly sleeping blissfully, occasionally peeing and pooping. We just loved watching you sleep, watching you taking your tongue out from time to time and stretching your cute little arms and legs from time to time.

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You had long fingers, the kind that pretty girls with cute nail polishes have. No one in my family has such fingers. Your nose was like me and your grandma, a bit flat but cute nonetheless. You had eyes like your mom, a tinge of brown in them and the same sparkle as hers. Your skin was like your maasi’s. You had hair like me, at least it appeared so. You had a face like me, but your maasi said it was like your mom’s. We shall see to that. Your feet were flat like me and your grandma’s, the kind that make wearing ballerinas difficult. But you will wear gladiators my princess , so that’s fine.

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We soaked you in sunlight every morning to avoid getting jaundice. You looked so cute in your grandma’s arms while you soaked the morning sun. All this was so new to you.

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We got discharged soon (which in hindsight was not a very good idea). Your mom was fine. You did not give her much trouble except a bit during labor. But she is a strong girl, your mom. Much more than me. Hope you get her strength of spirit. Next few days we enjoyed you in our arms at our new home. All this was so new for all of us. It was pretty painful at first. Our hearts skipped a beat at the tiniest sound you made. Your cries were agonizing. But when we saw you sleeping or looking back at us, it made us forget all our pains. You my dear, were most important and precious suddenly.

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There were a few hiccups. You cried a lot one night and we had to get you to emergency. You had a few hiccups in passing urine, so we had to get you admitted and get all tests done. All tests were negative. You were perfect my dear, in each and every way. But the doctors kept you still for 2 more days. Your grandpa was angry. But it had to be done. You just had to be naughty.

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This is just the first week. There is a whole life full of happiness and a fair share of sorrows in front of you and us. But the ride would be fun. I know your mom will be the stricter one. I will be the one to pamper you, so remember that. But however we treat you baby, do remember always that we will always love you unconditionally. You can fly as high as you want, and we will always be there watching your back. We love you so much, even though it’s such a cliched line.

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PS: We are calling you Tiya, and still debating on the name front. We’ll let you know as soon as we write that down.

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4 YEARS IT’S BEEN

Gosh, how time flies really. Exactly 10 years ago, i was 20 years old. I know that’s just easy maths, but the realization behind that maths is actually pretty serious. Coz 10 years before that, i was just 10 and not capable of doing this math. Anyways, so 10 years back i was just 20 and was gearing up to finish my college. I was lazy just like everyone else at college, but i also knew i was unique, just like everyone else at college. But that was college, and everybody at college thinks the world will dance to their tunes in life. Life of course has other plans.

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So, i was 20. Getting ready to clear college. There were so many things that life threw at me. Some bad like breakups, low-paying jobs, recession etc. Some good like a new city, awesome new friends, and lots of booze to forget all the bad stuff i mentioned earlier. Thank god they invented  booze. Have no idea what all the alcoholics would do, if there was no booze.

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But really, in the journey of these last 10 years, there was one significant milestone. Somewhere along the way, i happened to meet this girl, whom i simply ignored in all earnestness in my first encounter with her. Love at first sight screws a lot of people, and i never fell prey to it. Love still screwed me a lot in life, but that’s another story.

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So, there was this girl whom i met and i ignored. I think that was  9 years ago. I ignored her for 2 or 3 more years, till she shouted back at me. That was because we all wasted a lot of her time and she could only pass the DFSS exam in 3rd attempt. That’s another story.  But slowly and steadily, we got to talking. That turned into fights. That turned into more talks and somewhere along the line the talks turned serious.

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I proposed. She rejected. I was like – OK, lots of other fishes in the ocean. In fact i was already hanging out with a new fish. That got her jealous or some such thing. So she came back and proposed. I was like, GREAT !!.

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Seriousness doesn’t come easily to me (perhaps that’s why i lost my previous love of my life). So she had to beat the shit out of me to get serious.  But after 3 years of ignoring her and another 3 years of making up for it, we got married. And that’s the milestone i wanted to talk about today.

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Its been 4 years today. We did not know what marriage meant when we got married, at least i didn’t. We were already having fun, and there was no reason to stop. Marriage did not stop that, and i am glad. Today it’s been 4 years of togetherness. And trust me, i have not regretted a single moment in these 4 years (except when you cooked that horrible food that day). It has been fun. It has been weird but in a good way. We did everything the way we wanted and often set trends for others to follow. And we were bloody good at that.

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Life would continue to throw surprises to us. And we would keep on getting surprised and then laugh at it later. We are at the start of another journey and 4 years is just a speck in the dust of time. But if we are together, we will continue to rock just like always.

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Thank you for everything. 

 

 

 

 

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DEATH…

“Death is a great leveler”…. was something i had read and heard while growing up. Personally, i never could  understand the meaning of this statement. I mean, sure when people die, they are reduced to ashes and returned  to the very elements that they are made of. But what about this statement, philosophically. It was beyond my intellect, or perhaps i never paid too much attention to it. Well, until now that is.

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This weekend, i attended the cremation of yet another colleague of mine. Someone whom i had become close to, despite being only just over an year in my new office. Well, time doesn’t matter, does it ? When you meet some people, you connect instantly. There is a friendliness, a familiarity which you can’t really lay a finger on, but you know you can talk to this person, trust the person. And she was like that.

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“S” was like that. Office is a place where we spend almost 8-9 hours of each working day. That is easily 45 hours a  week. A week that has only around 100 hours of active time (including weekends minus sleeping time). That’s a lot of time. So an office colleague whom you trust and connect with, is almost like family. A lot of people don’t have such families in offices, places where people are more professional or simply don’t care. That was not the case here. To me, she was almost like family. I could talk to her, and i could trust her. And often she would reassure me, about things in life in general.

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I am not gonna go into the history of what happened to her, but sometime this September she fell ill. What seemed like a regular backache, turned out to be a case of recurring cancer. Things got worse, and in two months she died. We visited her in critical condition on a Friday, and we cremated her on Sunday. That fast. And this after, i had talked to her a week before, and we had decided to meet up at her home for some chit-chat. She was bored of the illness. Perhaps she knew her fate, but she never gave up. She was still cheerful whenever we talked to her, me or my team-mates, never for once giving the impression that she was suffering from something more than just a minor flu. All the time, till she stopped talking. And there wasn’t much time after that.

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It’s a great loss. But that’s an understatement. Such losses cannot be measured. She has a husband and a young girl (in class 5th), who was very attached to her. She has parents who have now seen the death of 2 out of 3 of  their only daughters. One cannot even begin to understand the loss.

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Something similar happened 2 years back in 2014 too. Yet another colleague of mine, a guy named “C” died of  tuberculosis. We had both joined our previous job together, straight out of college, and hence there was a friendship. Even though our thoughts didn’t match much. But all of a sudden he fell sick, and before we or our office-mates could even realize the severity of the situation, he was almost in ICU, then on Life-support and then death, within a span of 48 hours. We were there for a large part of that last 48 hours. But he could not be saved. A lot of it was pure negligence though on his part, but that is all in hindsight. He left behind a newly married wife and a new-born son who he could not even hug once in life. How do you even come to terms with that?

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We, at office did everything we could that time. Arranging from money to transportation of the dead body to his native place. The family went away and it was over. But a person who was alive was now dead. How do you even comprehend that? Funny isn’t it, how we say dead body once a person dies, while he has a name before death. Death robs us of the very thing which we spend so much time and energy building, when alive.

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Nevertheless, i left that city and that place shortly after that. A mutual friend of mine had urged me to write something then, but i could not muster the necessary words. But now, nearly 2 years after that incident, another one of my colleague is now dead. She sat beside me and worked. And now she isn’t there. One can argue over what she could have done for herself, what her family could have done to save her. But that is all in hindsight. Nothing brings her back.

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There on the cremation ground, while we cremated her, it was then that it hit me really. The meaning of it all.

“There are different kinds of people among us. There are rich people and poor people. There are good men and bad men. Some may be clever and others foolish. There are happy men and unhappy men. But all these distinctions and specialties last only as long as we are alive. Once we are dead all must certainly crumble to dust. Death has no distinction between the good and the bad – The poor and the rich – the kind and the beggar. Death comes to everyone one day or the other. That is why we are called mortals. In a way, death can called the great leveler as one that levels all distinctions. There is no way by which we can prevent death. All get defeated by death. People run after glory, power and riches without remembering this. They fight over silly little things. A man may be a great fighter. But he is fighter only as long as there is life in him. Once that life leaves him, he is turned to mere dust which everybody tramples on. Death makes all of us equal.”

Life moves on…

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SADABAHAAR NAGME…

Short Story..

Normal household. Typical Monday morning in the winters. The sun is out. The husband is lazing around in his “Lungi” on his favorite “Charpai” in the sun. Eyes half-closed as if in meditation. The wife is preparing tiffin, in the kitchen, slightly annoyed.

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She shouts angrily at the husband

“Aji sunte ho, kabse bol rahi hoon. Paani garam ho gaya hai. Thanda ho raha hai. Jaake naha lo. Main dobara paani garam nahi karoongi. Kabse susta rahe ho bas..”

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The husband wakes up from his slumber, with a sudden burst of inspiration.

“Arre bhaagwan, ruk jaao. Abhi abhi ek taaza taaza inspiration aaya hai. Woh bollywood director saala kabse 5 gaane maang raha hai. Ek bhi nahi diya hai ab tak. Zara ek kagaz-kalam to pakdana..”

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Wife – “Khud le lo, dekh nahi rahe ho khana bana rahi hoon. Paani thanda ho raha hai.”

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Husband – “Tum bhi na bhaagwaan…ruko accha….5 minute me yeh ek gaane likh loon, fir jaa raha hoon nahane. Ek cup chai le aao bas jaldi se..”

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And that is how the world got the song…

“..Hai Love Mera Hit Hit Soniye
To Phir Kaise Khit Pit Soniye
To Baby Badi Fit Fit Soniye
Na Kar Aise Khit Pit Khit Pit..”

Cheers..

Short Post i promised..

 

 

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LAKSHYA…

Why did i chose this title ?
Well, you’ll know.

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On a crazy 4 day weekend (thanks to Ganesha Chaturthi and a rain-shortened day), there were 3 stupid people who decided to scale a local neighborhood mountain. I call them stupid because no one in their right senses, decides to wake up in the morning on a holiday, go to the edge of the city and even remotely think of climbing a hill. Hell, the mountain was not even in the neighborhood, it was some 40 kms away from the bed, the soft and comfy bed, the bed which is the next best thing to heaven, on earth. To make matters worse, after procrastinating the silly event for 3 days of the weekend, they decided to do it on the last day, the Sunday, the day which even God intended to do nothing but laze around in the winter sun, catch some akashvani and get high.
But then, i guess they were insane.

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So, these 3 stupid people wake up on this fateful (more like hateful) Sunday morning. 6 AM was the designated time. One of them was able to stretch this to 7 AM using his charming morning inter-personal skills (read coaxing the other people by repeatedly saying -“abe, so jaa yaar, abhi to andhera hai bahar“). But 7 AM was one of those 3 morons decided that enough is enough and there’s a mountain to be climbed today. I don’t know what sort of a sadist person takes personal pride in climbing a f***** mountain. But then, they were all sadists i guess.

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So, 7 AM, they get up, get ready. They pack up all the equipment for the expedition (read jackets and caps and water bottles and snacks), and get going. A quick morning selfie to mark the beginning of the trip, and that’s enough rituals done. The sun is peeking now from the clouds now, and they realize that the sooner they leave, the sooner they return and sleep again. So off they go.

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Its a fucking 40 kms drive. Half of the road towards the end is not even good. There are potholes the size of martian craters. In some places , they don’t know if the road was built that thin or was it just eroded to leave that thin patch. Nevertheless they walk on. They reach the base of the mountain.

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Now for some stupid and intensely passionate and pessimistic reason, they decide to walk the last of the 3-4 kms to the base of the mountain, despite the locals warning them against it. “It will be good warm-up“, one of them said. The trio decide in favor of that, with curses muttered under the breath.The stupid warm-up lasted 3 kms. At least the sun wasn’t out, so it was pleasant. But then, even the wind had decided for holiday, so it wasn’t that pleasant. At a distance, in the upward direction, they could see the top of the mountain, where they had to reach. Everyone let a lump down their throat, but no one said anything.

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They reach the base camp. Next was what, Everest ? Let’s concentrate on this for now, they decide. Then they start climbing the trek. The trail is made of stones and its not an easy path really. 5% into the trail, they think whether to move ahead or enough of trekking was done. By a vote of 1 in favor of moving ahead to 3, they decide not to turn back, enough said.

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And so they climb. They walk and walk and walk. They walk at angles they never knew existed outside the treadmills. They walked at 10 degrees, 45 degrees and even 80 degrees at some points. There were no shortcuts. Well there were a few, and they miss them all. There are no shortcuts in life, they say. Whoever said this was such a loser they think. Who doesn’t love shortcuts. But they keep climbing.

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At one point they ask a person coming down, “How much more?“. He says 60% with a wry smile. They were a bit thrown back, but they thought that can’t be. They could see the mountain top in front of them. Hell they could even see the small colored birds , perched near the top. “Huh, we will be up in no time“, and they keep moving. There are numerous pit stops on the way. They eat all that it is on offer. But there were more pit stops than things on offer, so at point they just start ignoring them. Well, if that lazy-ass hrithik roshan can climb the mountain and kill those bloody Pakistanis and hoist the Indian flag, they can definitely do this. They are now pumped up. They turn on the mobile radio, hoping to hear the song “Lakhsya to, har haal me paana hai…“. Instead they hear, “Ae ante amalapuram..“. Damn the radio. Never helps when needed.

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So, they keep climbing. There’s no wind. Not a leaf moves. The water in the dam below can be seen now, and it seemed they had climbed where no man had gone before. Then they see a cow a bit ahead of them. Embarrassed, they keep moving.

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It started getting tougher. Maybe the air was getting rarer. They were out of breath. The pit stop frequency had increased. They notice a person coming down. Hell, it was the person who had started with them at the bottom. “How much more sir ?”, they ask. He says 1/3rd more. They look up again in disbelief. “Ah, we can see the road at the top“, they say. Those aren’t birds at the top. They are people moving up. Damn, they are still some distance from the top.

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There is no going back now. Limbs are tired. Sweat does not evaporate any more. They either climb up all the way now, or just die there. With a last remaining effort of will, they move again. The slope gets steeper now. They slip at places. But they keep moving up. Lakshya is all they remember. And then, the last few feet. The toughest few feet. They crawled up as slow as possible. And then they reach the top.

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The top. Its 1 PM in the afternoon. Its a lovely view from the top. Someone had once philosophically said ,”The Top is always empty, its always crowded at the bottom“. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of crowd at the top. Some were watching us climb the last few feet and enjoying. Shameless people. But they were now on the top. No more up to go. Next is what, Everest ? “We’ll scale that too. We need to be a bit more prepared for that“, they say.

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There’s cold wind at the top. There’s the clouds too. They march to the inside of the mountain fort, built by Shivaji. Someone in the crowd shouts, “Abe itne upar kaun kambakht aake banaya bey quila“. One of them keeps thinking of that saying, once he heard at Comedy Circus on Star Plus, Morning show,
“Khudi ko kar buland itna, ki himlayaon ki choti pe pahunche..
Aur khuda tujhse pooche , abe gadghe, ab utrega kaise…”

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Well, they have a sumptuous lunch at the top, of the local cuisine. The food has great taste. Or perhaps they were just too exhausted to question the taste. They roam around the fort. The wind is cold and refreshing. The view is breathtaking. The slight drizzle is enjoyable. They spent some time there. Also there’s cellphone network, so they update the achievement on Facebook with a few pics as proof. And then they come back. The journey is played in reverse till they reach back to the comfort of their home. Another tired selfie is taken in the end to mark the end of the journey. It is 5 PM in the evening now. It was a stupid thing to do on a Sunday morning. But then, they were proud of themselves. It was journey of tears and sweat and blood, but they had done it. The Lakshya was reached.

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And then they dragged themselves to the beds.

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PS: They were later told, that they had climbed a total of 5 kms up the mountain, and had walked to total of 9 kms from the starting point till the end.

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KISSA HAMAARI SHAADI KA… Volume 1

 

Well, i guess you all enjoyed my last post. It was me rambling about life after marriage and all that. When you start watching episodes of “Qubool Hai”, “Kitni Mohabbatein”, “Ek Hasina thi”, “Kumkum bhagya” and what all, it gets tough for the mind to differentiate between reality and virtual-reality. So now when you open the door for your wife, you do it like three times, and feel strange that there is no background score. Now when your wife tells you something, you ignore it oirst attempt, because you think in your mind..”oye chill yaar, ad break ke baad repeat karenge fir se”. And you expect a thrilling suspenseful background music, when your “saali” calls your wife, and tells, “…aaj pata hai kya hua..”. The real problem in life is that it does not have any background music.

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But this is not what i am here for today. Today, after a few peg too many of that last remaining Old Monk Gold Reserve, what i really wanted to spill out was the unusual story of my wedding. Ji Haan, meri shaadi ho chuki hai, aur meri ek pyaari si honhaar aur susheel biwi bhi hai. To those of you, who feel that this is a repeated statement, remember that you too shall be married, and i too shall laugh then. What goes around, comes around ( i never quite understood the real meaning of this statement, but bolne me accha lagta hai).

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Waise to meri shaadi…sorry hamari shaadi ki kahaani, is like any other wedding. For details of the marriage, you can watch the video that we have. Its a long painful video, watching which can be more painful than the real thing. I mean its got all the people in it who are eating their heart out at other’s expense, its got the dancing people, and a shit load of other trivial details, which when you see now you think…”uiee maa, yeh sab kab hua”. Anyways, for this piece, i would just go over the top few crazy items that happened at the wedding, over the course of around 15 days.

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1) Kissa Train ke dibbon ka
Well it so happened, that we (the groom side) were all accumulated in the city of Kanpur. The wife side was in Nasik, some 1100 kms away. We were 12 brave souls who had voluntarily agreed to go on to this mission to bring the girlfriend back as the wife. It was not as easy as it seems, so don’t think so. Ab 12 log flight me to nahi jaa sakte (simply too expensive), so we had booked 12 seats in a train, woh bhi sleeper class me. Now they say its sleeper, but sometimes, sleeping in a sleeper is itself a battle. The problem was 6 of us were in S10 and six remaining were in S12. My uncle, who loves his wife a tad too much, took the lead and arranged us in battle formations on the platform. “Aisa hai beta, tum, tumhare papa, unke dost aur badi mausiji…aap log S10 ki line banao, aur chunni-munni ki mummy, tumhare bua ji log aur choti mausi aur unki beti, idhar S12 waali line me aa jaao. Mere peeche rehna, aur sab theek se chad jaayenge. Samaan bhi divide kar lo do group me”. I was like, “Uncle, paani le lete hai pehle”, to which he gives me a look as if i was breaking his formation and the entire mission was doomed thereafter.

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Anyways, the train came, and we were able to board the jam-packed train, thanks to our pre-train exercise. But the two groups were cut off for the night thanks to a hostile bunch of people in every nook and corner between S10 and S12. The blankets were in S12, so the S10 guys (which included me) had to sleep in the November cold without cover. The small bottle of Royal Stag was also left in S12, any attempts to retrieve it were largely unsuccessful. The next day, in total contrast was hot enough to make us forget about last night’s cold. Uncle had called “chunni-munni” ki mummy at least 10 times by the next noon. Eventually we reached though. We also ate the famous bananas of Bhusaval, but we had to survive on a strict diet of just food and water. This was just the beginning of a long mission.

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2) Kissa toote hue car seat ka
Well, the wedding in Nasik happened to be pretty uneventful. The pre-engagement party , the pre-sangeet party, and the pre-marriage parties, were all immensely fun with all my friends around. For a moment i thought, “yeh to main roz kar sakta hoon”. Scary thought that was. Anyway, so the marriage was done, and we came back by train to Kanpur. This time the seats were in AC, and we did not allow aunty to talk to uncle so much over the phone, so everything was pretty calm. Problems surfaced next day, when we arrived in Kanpur.

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Apparently mom had booked the “shaadi waali car” for the next day onward. So, there was no car available for that day. And, me and my wife had to enter the house , fully dressed as wife and groom. And there was no car. Ab biwi ko auto me to nahi laa sakte ghar, izzat ka maamla tha. So, me and my bhai, we go out in search of a car. Now this being the marriage season, getting a car for hire was like was almost as impossible as  getting sharhrukh to dance at your wedding. After about an hour of effort, we could find get a maruti omni van, which after dropping the school kids, was going for another assignment. We stopped the car, gave him some money and captured it for the next half hour. So, finally, me and my wife , fully dressed in sherwani and lehenga, along with my mausiji and chachiji and god knows who, stuffed inside that car, started for our home.

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Now it still not clear, that whether the weight was too much or the seat was faulty, but no sooner than the car started, the seat that me and my newly-wed wife were sitting, collapsed on the car floor with a huge thud.  It took us a while to realize what had happened. We were fully dressed, the car was moving at a frantic pace and was stuffed to the brink. So we could only manage to sit there on the car floor, till we could reach our home. At home, only after performing all puja and stuff, we could board down from the car. It was pretty embarrassing, with all the neighbours looking into the van for the newly-wed “bahu” only to find the “pati-patni” sitting on the car floor in a broken seat.. I quickly stuffed a 500 in the driver’s pocket, asking him to stop giggling and repair his car seat. Main nahi chahta tha ki yeh haadsa kisi doosre couple ke saath bhi ho.

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To be continued…

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KHUSH-HAAL SHAADI-SHUDA ZINDAGI KE GUIDELINES…

It is said that inspiration can be a great thing. It can make people endure pain, leap over obstacles and
do incredible stuff like climb the Everest, swim across the English Channel or sit through “Qubool hai” ( Its one of the numerous soap operas that run on colors or zee or star plus or some such channel i don’t remember exactly now). So, today after watching 3 episodes of “Qubool hai” on TV, i have found my inspiration to come back to this dark and dusty place, and write some bit.

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I know that the last post i wrote was way back in May 2013, and even that was just a lame-ass attempt to make fun of my own wife , at my own risk. The only comments that i see now on the side of this blog seem to be spammers who seem to love everything i once coughed up in those early morning hours of drunken stupor, and nothing made much sense at all. Sometimes i wonder if they are just coded messages , trying to sell me something. Maybe the CID can help me with that. They have that software called Neuro, which has a database of all known criminals. Maybe that might be of some help. Holy fucking crap, i have been watching too much of that TV.

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But then, inspiration to write can often be like Salman Khan’s Revital. No one believes in it, but people still try it out. So, i realized that it is my duty to share with mankind, things which can help them gear up for the biggest challenge of their lives – Being Husbands. Being Human is easy – you just buy a Salman Khan T-shirt. Being Husband – well that even Salman could not master.
A word of caution though, practice everything i preach, at your own risk. The Indian Marital Research Center after 23 years of research, could not satisfactorily prove that what works in one household, will work in other household equally.

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GuideLine 1: Never forget to make the bed.
Long time ago, when i used to be a bachelor, making the bed was a task just like taking a piss. You did it, only when you needed to, and not out of habit. Arre jab raat ko usi bed me wapas jaana hai, to theek karne ki kya zaroorat. That’s like logic. Even CID would agree to that, hai na. But NO. Once you are married, making the bed is something you are expected to do every morning after getting up. Don’t do this, and your sanskaars will be questioned. This is a sin, an absolute “gunaah”. And “gunaah” we all know is a greater thing than “paap”. And “paap” is asking you wife to do so.

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GuideLine 2: Never ever argue with the Wife.
Well, this is looks like a vague statement, but trust me it is not. For all discussions with a wife, are actually arguments. And in arguments at home, the winner has to be the wife always. You see, men have this stupid tendency to think over a matter practically and logically. This they realize after a marriage is totally over-rated. Logic and practicality are not the deciding points in any argument. It is the wife. So, you can speak all you want, but you cannot win. You cannot shout though, because that’s her right. You cannot throw things at her too, because that also her right. As men, the only right you have is to present your points in a gentle voice and then shut the hell up and listen. Listen but please, for if you don’t do that, it can lead to a secondary argument which totally deviates from the primary argument , till you start wondering ki “lad kis baat pe rahe the hum ??”.

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GuideLine 3: Nothing comes in between the wife and her serials.
People don’t often come to terms with this fact. But it is actually a blessing for the husbands. It is the only time of the day (except when you are in office), when you can do whatever you want. You can eat what you want (secretly). You can watch what you want (secretly on your laptop). You can even sleep peacefully if you want. They wouldn’t notice. The “shaajish” happening on “Kitni Mohabbatein” is much more engrossing for any of your tantrums. Come to terms with this, and you will be happy everyday. Plan your life around that, for a happier, more meaningful and satisfying life.

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GuideLine 4: Show some bloody care/emotions.

I know that you all do love your wives a lot. You endure shopping sprees with her, you endure emotional hindi-movies with her when all you want is the hero to punch the villain as hard as he can, and all because of your endless “pyaar” for her. But you will realize after marriage is that pyaar is an abstract thing. You feel it, but you need to show it too. So, if she does get a minor cut on her finger accidentally, what is important is that you show some emotions, shed a tear or two, maybe wash the cut with your tears too if possible. Just getting the band-aid is not enough. Maybe order her favorite food to afterwards just to make everyone happy. Likewise, if she does bump her car/bike, do not simply ask about the bike first. Its about her first, even is she is perfectly fine. Go ahead and shed a few tears. Later order some of her favorite food , just to make everyone happy.

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Well, likhne ko to bahut kuch hai abhi bhi. But as you know, the more you endure, the more you learn. So, i will stop now. I am willing to give more lectures over more secured channels like a public STD booth (not on mobile,whatsapp or gmail chats, they are all not secure as the world thinks they are). But just in case this piece of blog is ever produced in a court of law, save yourself the trouble. Yeh sab to maine aise hi timepass ke liye likh rakha hai (as i was really bored in office). I am drenched in marital bliss, and my wife doesn’t have a problem with making beds, cares a hoot about any argument, loves me more than her serials and is always understanding of my emotions. It’s all good. Shaadi-shuda zindagi maze me chal rahi hai, aap logo ki dua se. Dua rahi to aage bhi chalti rahegi, and i will write more…

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“Laal mere dil ka haal hai….lagta tumpe kamaal hai “….

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“ARAKU TRIP” …A guest post

NOTE: This is a guest post. Its by my girlfriend, who had this sudden epiphany on this trip described below, to start a travel blog. Wether she does that or not in future, is out of scope here. But, this is a hilarious piece of writing about an equally hilarious journey, that 3 of us had the nerve to undertake in the very peak summer of Hyderabad.

Well, Read and Enjoy… 🙂

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It was almost 5 year in hyd  and local ppl used to suggest only place in AP to visit –ARAKU…I asked my friends everytime but somehow nobody showed the interest… finally one fine day ashim agreed…but the next challenge was to convince friends…and we succeeded in gaining Vaibhav and Yugesh in agreement.

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On one fine night in Mar 2013, we sat to book the ticket…I nvr liked to travel by AC but becoz of maximum reverse action, I decided to go for Garib rath..Finally the ticket booked like Hyd ->Vizag->Araku->Vizag->Hyd…we planned for 3 days trip… I and ashim took the charge of planning out the trip meanwhile vaibhav and yugesh starting thinking the reason to put for the unplanned leave…

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Just one day b4 thr trip, Gr8 yugesh came up with his confession of upcoming wedding and started backing out for various errands.(but the main was he wanted to have party with his dear friends :P)..so he ditched us..A huge melodrama started…vaibhav started to back out..so do ashim…I made a statement that “I WILL GO ALONE AT ANY COST”…Finally all agreed except yugesh (but we spoke /remember yugesh thru out the journey).

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So we started the journey from hyd on Friday and headed towards secunderabad station. After having a proper dinner at cumsum , we boarded to our coach and their my boring AC journey started.. Unlike sleeper , no one talk in AC ..my super duper partners were involved in playing games on mobile… As a habit, I started locking my bag by chain…vaibhav got surprised with so much of curls in that chain and awesome safety locking; he thought that even thief will think that bag has some precious stuff inside: D

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Finally we reached next morning to Vizag….opposite to hyd..the weather is humid there…and the most interesting there the auto are bigger in size so we three were able to sit comfortably :D….our auto guy helped us to get a room…in order to crunch the expense we  decided to take only one room….Apparently room turn out to be decent one;….

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After having brkfast at daspalla we started roaming in market..while crossing the road I don’t somehow one of known people saw me and to enquire the chain went thru his mom to my dad . Thank god I informed my dad b4 otherwise it wud have been a huge issue :D…

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First we headed to sub-marine…but we reach at lunch time so didn’t get chance to c it (unfortunately we went their thrice but we cud nt c it-second time was no power…3^rd time no visting day L)…then we went to kailash giri via roap-way…I was astonished to c vaibhav and ashim in scary mood during roap way journey… @hill we roamed around and chit chatted…

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Then we chose to go to harbor..omg for the 1^st time I saw so many sea fishes just thrown on the road..i was caught by fish smell (means I was liking) and the exact reaction was for Vaibhav… we went for sea ride (again I was affected by sea effect…started dizziness )….

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Oh god after coming back from there we had bread-omlette and garma-garam chai ( these guys owe thanks to me)….then we chose Rishikonda  beach to visit…but by tht time we reach it was dark and these monotonous  guys didn’t come in water….after having scary walk to haritha  resort, we decide to revert back to our room asap…the funny was we took six seater from there till RK beach and from there a personal auto…That idiot fellow dropped us at city center not at central (which strikes us later)…we walked for almost 3 km but no sign of central….and finally stopped thinking of saving money we took another auto…had Frankie and doze off ….

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Next day early morning we had to catch train from vizag to araku at 7 am..we reached statio at 6.15 only…and these guys were so much into finding the platform tht I missed my morning tea ..i cursed them internally :D….this time we had SL class…becoz of tiredness we all took nap in the train…

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The most amazing thing of this journey that actually the train goes from one side to other side by crossing a mountain..we went till actually up of the mountain range..and wenever the tunnel used to come all people used to scream a lot ..

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As soon as we reach to Araku , we encountered a cab driver ..and we didn’t know he ll be our companion for next 2 days..we reached to our already booked Haritha resort… but they annoyed us not arranging the room b4 hand…not giving the tv remote and making us to stay in a room for couple of hours…After having proper lunch , our driver took us to bora cave, few points and coffee plantation.meanwhile he told us abt the tribal area and the films which got shooted (some chiranjivi’s movie, I love you Bengali movie :D)…

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Bora caves was one time watch..but really its one of the naturally formed cave…and the train by which we came to araku actually goes above that cave… While returning back we encountered a lady who kept on talking even though realizing that we are nt getting the language. I  realized her pain since she was left alone in this whole world.

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After that visit we came back to our room and started watching match…night we went to tribal market and realized no one like to sell their stuff…we went to chocolate factory and they were giving one piece for 10 bucks..even for demo /taste purpose…next handicraft shop I saw one peculiar banner “ We will give discount when a 99 yr person comes along with his father” I was nt able to figure out that it means no bargaining for few minutes…

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We ordered dinner in the room and started watching IPL match..and Vaibhav called his manager and informed that he had come to banglore to his one of his friends:D..the funny part was their conversation..

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But really tht view from our room was amazing…and apparently we were very few in tht big resort…morning we just look around that resort and went for breakfast..we took brkfast which was booked for yugesh (since they didn’t cancel his booking)….Our cab driver Dharma (how I got to know his name-his hello tune say “Dharma ko call karne ke liye dhnyawad)..After getting worst service in haritha , we asked for feedback form which they refused to give and after giving tip they just ignored out talk also

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Luckily we had araku siteseeing one day b4 becoz on Monday they had strike in that tribal area… I don’t know suddenly Vaibhav got an idea to have TADI there and eventually they bought for home…

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Since we reached at 2 pm in vizag , we decided to watch “Chasme badoor” only to sit In the AC… The worst part was we had to keep our bag in the open area..(kept tht TADI bottle in ashim’s bag)…The people are so velle there that Monday afternoon show was housefull ; not only telgu movie but hindi too…movie turned out to be hilarious and we enjoyed. The moment we came out we realized that the whole gas from that TADI bottle leaked out and its smelling badly .Just avoid that we went to central and bought deo. After having supper at one of the food courts in central we again went to RK beach…and same I went to water and these guys stood outside.. we enjoyed the dinner with the sea breeze…

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Now was the time to get back to station to catch train at 8.30 pm..Thus our journey ended and we came back to Hyd next day early morning and got back to our normal office routine life…

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Overall the trip was awesome…Actually we were at the border of AP and Orissa …And I realized one of my cycle bathroom->eat->sleep 😀 (as vaibhav says )

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KANPUR CENTRAL…

“Tere chehre me woh jadu hai, bin dor khincha jata hu

jana hota hai aur kahee, teree oar chala aata hu…”

The song played in the background as i was coming back home, from a friend’s place, in a Tempo. It was raining outside. Not heavily though, slightly more than a drizzle. There had been an unexpected change in weather that day, and it had become real cold and dark. There was a cold breeze blowing from door to door, across the partially opened vehicle, so much so that the driver and his aide had to wrap a piece of cloth around their faces, while i sat cozily sandwiched between them. The song erupted from the vehicle’s audio system, and it was somehow lighting the otherwise dark atmosphere outside.

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This was in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, for those wondering. And for almost all people outside of UP, the vehicle i was talking about, the Tempo, does deserve some explaining. You see, it’s a strange sort of a vehicle. Its for public transport, and by far means, the most popular means of transport in Kanpur. Its got 3 wheels, but its quite different from the more conventional autos. They are all CNG operated in Kanpur, and easily carry 11 people including the driver and his aide/side-kick, who sit at the front of the vehicle, along with one more passenger sandwiched between them. Then there are 8 passengers at the back, perched on 2 bench like seats, meant for just 3 people each. Its a strange vehicle, least efficient but highly viable, and something that identifies the city itself.

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Nevertheless, this piece of writing is not about the Tempo, but about the city itself that it identifies with. The city of Kanpur. You see there is an old saying that goes as, “Change is the only constant”. Well, whoever said this, definitely did not visit Kanpur. Because, nothing here changes at all. Roads are constructed with enthusiasm, and de-constructed with more enthusiasm, just to leave the city in the same state as before. The same holds true, for buildings, shops and all that is worthwhile. The road from Lucknow airport to Kanpur city, roughly about 70 kms, has become much better now. But as soon as you enter the city, via Koylanagar(yeah you heard that right), you see that nothing in the city itself has changed. There are some under-construction roads and fly-overs which seem to be there, every time you visit the city, at precisely the same places.

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Then you come to my area, which is called Kidwai Nagar Chauraha(Interesting fact: There is a Kidwai Nagar in the US too). This is pretty much the heart of the city, and a very big area. You won’t see the road though, as the entire area is but a huge Tempo-stand. Tempos standing, Tempos waiting and Tempos broken. You need to tell people, that there is actually a road behind them all, leading to my house.

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Around this area, nothing has changed at all. There used to be this samosa center  called Janwadi. Hugely popular since last 10 years. Still the same. The prices have gone up though. The boys selling samosas, still the same, have now grown up. The barber shop where i got my first haircut, is still up and running. I cried a lot that time. The man is old now, but he still does a decent job. Diamond Shoe Palace, where we used to get all our shoes for school and outside, still the same. The owner still the same. Huge, hunk like, but now with grey in his hair. Still a great seller. The jalebis of Krishna, still as delicious as ever, on Sunday morning breakfasts. Triveni Market has still failed to expand since last 20 years. There are more shops in front of it now, than inside it, and still it is hugely popular. On the other hand, the other market called Chaalees Dukaan, literally meaning 40 shops, has survived riots,fires and everything worse, and has still managed to look the same. Even the Falooda shop, on the road opposite, is the same. Its the same Falooda, which we used to enjoy so much in our school days. Still bloody same.

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A bit far from my place(4kms, which is a big distance in a small city), things are still the same. The Govindnagar shops, the road bridge, still as crowded as ever. Fazalganj still has the same sardaar selling tyres, the shop is big now. Devki Cinemas, still plays B-Grade Hindi movies. And all around it, are coachings of all sorts, from IIT-JEE to CPMT and what not. This was where we came everyday for 2 years, 10 kms from where we used to live, in our school days to prepare for IIT-JEE. We had so much fire in us back then. We thought the world would dance at our feet. But now, the only fire that still burns, is the Holi Fire, every year, on Holi Eve, the festival of colors  at various places across the city. The enthusiasm to play with colors has gone down a bit, but you can still see children enjoying the festival of colors with full gusto, and childhood rivalry.

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Then there are some things which totally bring a smile on your face. The JK Temple, which is pretty much the only place to must visit in the city, still stands tall, and pristine white. It brings a sense of pride each time you pass it. The zoo, which was always more of a botanical garden than a zoo, still boasts of the same feat. The city has become richer over the years. Cars like Volkswagen and Renault have made it to the city. But the city has this strange urge to spell everything in Hindi  So the Volkswagen showroom spells something like “falkwagan” in Hindi  And that was hilarious. The city never stops amusing you.

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The song in the Tempo changed to

“Tum hum pe marte ho hum tum pe marte hain…“.
I was close to my destination. The rain had almost stopped. It was cold now, but the wind had receded to a gentle breeze. My chain of thought was broken and i quietly started walking towards my house. Nostalgia is like a dream. You eventually do come out of it. The next day was hot and humid again.

It was time to leave the city once again.

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INCH BY INCH…

DISCLAIMER : This Post of mine has nothing to do with my own Office Life. This is just a piece of literature, and in no way represents my own feelings towards my own office life or career. SO please do not misunderstand this post, and simply enjoy it. Thanks

I don’t know what to say really.

Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives…
…all comes down to today.
Today’s your performance appraisal day.

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Either we heal as a team…
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch…
project by project…
till we’re finished.

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We are in hell right now, gentlemen
Believe me ..
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
We can climb out of this shit job.
One inch, at a time.

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Now I can’t do it for you.
I’m too old.
I’ve spent way much time here than i oughta’ have.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a young man could make.
I uh….
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me,
anyone who has ever offered me a better job.
And lately,
I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.

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You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
Your position in your job…
goes to that new face who always smiles at the boss.
That’s, that’s part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is your fucking job.
Because in either game
life or your fucking job
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don’t quite make it to that top rating.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don’t quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in every break of your daily job
every minute, every second.

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On this job, we fight for that inch
On this job, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that’s going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.
between that TOP RATING and NEED IMPROVEMENT.

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I’ll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The 21 inches of monitor in front of your face.

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Now I can’t make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch before you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice you for his job
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.

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That’s how our job is, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That’s our job guys, our daily, frustrating hell of a job.
That’s all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?

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OF DRINKS AND PARTIES…

It was a pretty shitty Sunday afternoon. It had rained the whole of last night and now the sun after the cold rains had been piercing each and every hole in the apartment in a particularly fierce way. The room itself had been spinning wildly ever since eyes opened in the morning. There had been one crazy shit-hole of a party last night at the apartment, one that had started at 9 pm the night before and ended at 9 am in the morning with alcohol still pouring in and crazy men still standing. The room could not take it all and as a result had been spinning crazy for most of the men.
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The Saturday before had been a particularly long and slow and boring and stretched. Even when it started at 9 am..it still stretched beyond the usual standards. Jarvis had to be taken to the RTO for its registration. Thought that would take a lot of the day…but it was done in two hours. They checked Jarvis and noted down its body details and we were OK to come back. It had rained on Friday too and Jarvis shone with its garnet red pride in the bright yellow sun. The number came in by the evening as dark clouds hid the sun again. Dan and Vanessa had gone for a leisurely stroll in the evening leaving Jarvis back to rest for the night. It was cold dark and windy and there was a party being planned at the apartment. Pretty usual Saturday night stuff. No one knew that the night had something else in mind
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When Dan came back to the apartment..after kissing Vanessa good night..the party was just starting. Bottles of blue liquor lay sprawling on the floor and the smell of fried-chicken filled the air. It was going to be one hell of a party, Dan thought. Now, most of the people who were at the party were friends with Jack, who shared the apartment with him. And Jack had this awefully huge social circle of juniors, ex-flatmates, and crazy office guys. And against popular wisdom, Jack had invited both his group of college juniors and his group of office colleagues to the same party. No one thought much of it at that time, but in hind-sight that was the single biggest mistake of the night.
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Of course there were other mistakes as well. Like finishing up all the liquor by 2am, and then going out to bring more bottles of liquor. Like going up to the roof top and shouting on top of their voices. And like, breaking into a fight when all was well and the party was in full swing.
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No one exactly remembered what had really happened that night. Some were drunk and passed out. Some were scouring the kitchen for whatever food they could get at 3am. Some were still craving for more liquor. And amidst all, some were arguing. The voices had been high the whole night, so no one really paid much attention initially. Until, they heard the bottle break. Everything seemed to stop for a moment, as pieces of shattered glass spread in the air. There was a loud shattering noise, and the next sight that everyone saw was blue-black blood oozing out of the head of one the guys. The guy, who had hit him, still had the broken bottle in his hand, and his eyes were fixed on the bleeding half-dead guy, still in a fit of rage, venom spitting out of his mouth in the shape of foul words. The guy who took the hit, was a junior and he just dropped on the floor, with his head turning the whole floor into a pool of blue-black blood. As for the others, they were just spell-struck for a few moments. Almost as if, time froze.
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I broke into a cold sweat. I was in my room, on my bed. I was severely dehydrated. And when i saw that black and blue blood, all over on the floor, i woke up screaming. It was a terrible dream, i thought. It was Sunday afternoon and the sun was piercing each and every hole in the apartment in a particularly fierce way. The room was still spinning wildly. The dream just seemed so real, until, i got up and walked outside to the drawing room and saw that terrible scene…

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WHEN PEOPLE LEAVE…

Well, when people leave, they leave. What prompted me to write this was the fact that today, one more of my colleague, is leaving my team, to pursue his career somewhere else. While its not at all a bad thing to do, it does leave behind this strange emptiness, which i cannot really explain. I know from tomorrow, the guy on the opposite side of my open-cubicle wall will no longer be there. While i wasn’t particularly close to the guy, we did share the occasional tea, coffee, evening snack, a game of Table Tennis, more recently a game of carrom, and of course the usual bitching about our bosses, and i know that from tomorrow, he will not be there to share.

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The person next to me, is leaving too. Come mid of June, i will have another empty chair and a powered-down terminal next to me. I was more fond of this guy, as he belonged from UP NORTH, from where i belong, and had the same good-natured-humour that i think i have. It would be really cruel when he leaves.

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And its not that people haven’t left before. Our team strength when i joined around 4 years back, was as much as 26. We wouldn’t fit into one meeting room. Some had to bring their own chairs, some had to stand. Now we are down to almost 9. No one has to stand now. But people are still leaving. And its getting cruel now.

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Come to think of it, people always leave. People leave in a relationship. People leave in a friendship. People leave in an organization. People leave life. People always leave. When a person leaves in a relationship, it ruins lives. It ruins individuals. When people leave in a friendship, it is depressing. The world gets lonely. When people leave life, well we move on slowly. When people leave an organization, well we still move on. We forget people. That is one of the most amazing gifts that mankind has. We forget people. We forget anyone who is not infront of us for some time. And that is important. Or else we would have never moved on with life.

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Life is hard, especially when people leave. For the people, who are left behind. There’s a void. It will be filled eventually. But it will be there staring at you for some time.

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Will there be a void when i leave?

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The organization?…..i suppose not.

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Life…..well maybe.

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To be clear, am not really depressed or anything. These are just thoughts that are in my mind, while i wait to go lunch now and i know, there will be one person less today.

Adios…

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THE DAY THE WORLD STOPPED…

I woke up to the buzz of people outside my window. It was a Saturday morning, and the sunlight was filtering through my window and warming my pillow. I picked up my cell phone, near my pillow and looked at the time. It showed 10. Well, I had gotten up early on a Saturday morning, at least for once in life today I thought. I rubbed my eyes, and tried to figure out all the commotion. But I was too sleepy-headed to decipher anything. And also, there was this lingering headache, which I guessed was the stupid hangover from the drinks I had last night. My head hit the pillow before I could think any more.

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I got up again. No idea, how much time had elapsed. Quite funnily, the cell phone still showed 10. Maybe I was dreaming I thought. But then, my hand was burning in the sunlight from my window. So I wasn’t dreaming definitely. Maybe, I had read the time wrong, the last time I woke up. Nevertheless, I woke up and washed up my face. Then I opened my laptop, to see if the DEXTER Season 4 had been downloaded. I was disappointed to see the download stalled at 2.7%. It had stopped at 10pm last night and never resumed. Instinctively, i tried to open google.com. It wouldn’t open. The router was on. But there was no connection. No internet. What the F***!!, I thought. This time, I would be strict in complaining to the Airtel guys about this. 4th time in a year now. But first, I needed some food.

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There was an eerie silence in the whole locality, as I was brushing my teeth. Pretty unusual for a Saturday morning, I thought. The newspaper and the milk were delivered near the window, and I picked up the milk to heat it. Today, at least i will read the newspaper, what with no internet and all. I brushed my teeth, and the milk was ready by the time. I poured some milk, and the honey-almond-favorite corn flakes in a bowl, and went to the drawing-room. I was kind of enjoying the loneliness of not having my room-mate in the house for the last month. I switched on the TV. Something good must be on, I thought. But the Satellite TV just showed blank. I swapped a few channels, and all were the same – blank. Strange I thought. This had never happened before.

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I finished my corn flakes though. I thought,lets first get the internet fixed. So I went to my bedroom and picked up my cell. It still showed 10. I was a bit surprised now. Nevertheless, I dialled. And then, I realized, that the phone had no network at all. Now this was surprising. I restarted my phone, but still the same. I was afraid now. It was a 13K phone and I didn’t wanna spend money fixing it. The clock in my cellphone still showed 10. But now that i looked, it showed 10PM and not 10AM. Which meant, it had stopped working last night itself. I never realized it, while drinking my regular scotch glass in the balcony last night. I was a bit angry too. 6 months into the phone, and it’s already gone bad.

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For the first time that morning,I tried to assess the situation. No Phone. The phone was a piece of metal now. No Internet. No TV. God, i was back in stone age I thought. I was supposed to call mom today, but I couldn’t now. Mom must be worried, i thought. But then, I wondered, how could this happen to me alone? This thought stirred me. The commotion i heard in the morning, suddenly came to my memory. I went outside to talk to my neighbors. They had the same story to tell. And they were surprised as well. They had realized it much before me though.

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I came back inside, still trying to comprehend it all. It was then that the newspaper caught my eye. It just had a blank first page, on which was written in bold letters, “THE WORLD HAS STOPPED”. And then slowly, the gravity of the situation sunk in.

No Cell Phone.

No Television.

No Internet.

No Communication.

The World indeed had stopped.

And I didn’t know what to do, except let a gulp down my throat.

TO BE CONTINUED >>>

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NOSTALGIA…

Nostalgia is a very strange word. First of all, its got nothing to do with the feeling you get when you get nostalgic. And second, its got nothing to explain the feeling itself at all. Why i write this? Because, last evening I texted this to my friend, “Too much of Nostalgia here”. The reason. I was walking down some roads, where I last went almost 3 years back, to where I had spent some good old times. The people who lived there, do not live there anymore. But walking down those lanes, made me nostalgic the same.

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3 years back, when I first came to the city, it was a new experience. The city was new, and so was the weather, which I think was rainy when I first came here. I was excited enough to post some posts about the city , on this blog. Not sure,if anybody read them. I write nevertheless. It was at that time, that I befriended these 2 guys from my new workplace, who got settled into a not-at-all-wonderful penthouse, not so far from the house. The rooms were as far from being called a penthouse, as sreesanth being called the king of bowling. But no one knew, that I was to spend some good time myself in those living quarters.

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While I myself took up residence in a slightly far away locality, this location being on my way to office and to home both, and also because of new-found friends, became a frequent hangout spot. Sharing a common interest in exploring the city and hanging out-doing nothing, we bonded well. Particularly with this huge guy called G.

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For the first few months in office, we were almost inseparable. Not like lovers though. But like good friends. More so, because we both needed each other. Again not as lovers, but as friends in a new city. So, for the first year or so, we did a lot of things together. We could not come to office together( for he was the early bird, and I came office only at 11 ), but we made sure that we left the office together at 6pm. We even had lunch together. Sometimes we even had dinner together. The occasional alcohol was also there. We explored the city together. We took, whatever the city had to offer to us. Once his bike came into his hands, we explored places outside the city as well. We went to far away lakes that no one had heard of, and to far away hills that no one had climbed before us. Some of these places, no one knew even existed. We met with accidents and injuries, particularly the great 26-JAN-2009 Accident. Lucky to survive them, we never gave up. We continued our life of adventures and misadventures, alcohols and hangovers, food and well more food, in the same spirit. Well for the first year or so at least.

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Gradually, we met more like-minded people. Some who shared our enthusiasm for travelling and doing weird stuff with weird hills. Some who just shared our love for the food and the drink. We took them all in. The group grew, and the so did the fun quotient. And so it continued for another year or so.

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We knew that life would not be the same forever, but we were willing to ignore it. But we realized this the day, when this guy, came back from home, and told us he was engaged and to be married in the next 6 months. We went on to drink to that, and drank all the more heavily, all in pure celebration for the next 6 months. January this year, we went to attend his marriage, and we drank to our merriment at his wedding too. In a dry state. 4 days of blissful ignorance, where we were happy to see our friend getting married, and happy to ignore the fact that he was to leave us soon.

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And then, everything seemed to go reverse. Our parties decreased. Our closeness too, in a good way though. And soon, on one fine day, he packed his bags, and left for his family. I did not realize all this , the day he left. But that day, when i went to his old home here, to make some enquiries on his behalf, and then sat in the juice shop nearby and ordered a mango shake, as I sipped on the shake, all of this came in front of my eyes. Nostalgia they term it. It doesn’t even come close to explaining what I felt at that time.

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Adieu.

🙂

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LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Employee Class of 2011,

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Drink coffee. If I could offer you one tip for the future, coffee would be it. The long term benefits of coffee have been proven by scientists, engineers and countless HR managers who gave up their lives in search of healthy office food. Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis or reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

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Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind, you won’t understand the power and beauty of your youth unless you have been working for 18 hours a day for 18 straight days without any break, but trust me in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you could have been if the background of at least a few of those pictures weren’t the office cubicle. You are fatter than you imagine.

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Don’t worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to meet a deadline which should ideally take 10 people 10 days, all by yourself. The real troubles in your life are the ones which are outside the office walls: the kind that blindsides you at 11 pm while returning home from office. And they will never be solved by sitting in front of a computer, and will always involve other people. And people are unpredictable sons of bitches.

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Do one thing every day that scares you. Make an excuse and don’t go to office. Or bunk office to watch a movie.

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Sing. Sing your own praise. Sometimes that’s needed in your organization. But sing well.

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Don’t be reckless with other people’s work; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.You never know, when the work might be of use to you.

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Jog.

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Don’t judge yourself by how much money you make. Someone you know is always making more than you. (And no good comes from knowing who that is.)

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Record all the review comments you ever get in your career. Especially the inaccurate, pointless, biased and vague bits that made you wanna kill the reviewer. This will help you when you eventually review somebody yourself.

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Keep a copy of all your old resumes. When you are stuck in a deep existential crisis of faith, flip through them in chronological order. Do the same with resignation letters.

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Decide.

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Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life.  People who kept thinking what they were meant to do in their life, never really did anything. You will find various amounts of meaning and satisfaction in various things. Choose your compromises wisely.

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You’ll like the job a little better if you like the office food.

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Take chances when you’re young, single and don’t have loans to repay. You’ll take larger chances when you become a manager or the president. Large chances are more fun than small ones.

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Be nice to people for the heck of it.

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Maybe you’ll retire when you’re 45, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll get an 20 year outstanding service Award, maybe you won’t. Maybe you will marry the office hottie, maybe you won’t. Whatever happens, do not forget those probability lessons they taught you in school. Things tend to even out.

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Whatever you do, don’t forget to party once in a while. But don’t party too much. Your money can be saved for better things, and so can be everybody else’s.

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Dance. But keep it classy. And not when you are in the office party. Chances are your dead nanny could dance better.

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Read the directions (even if you don’t follow them). You never know, when you might be charged for using illegal softwares on your office machine.

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Avoid reading engineering or business books. However feel free to write them.

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Get to know your parents; they will always be better than your bosses.

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Understand that colleagues at work come and go, but what a precious few should hold on. Work hard to  stay in touch with them, because the more experienced you get,the more you need these people for forwarding your resumes.

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Travel light. Don’t be ashamed to ask the company president to give you a lift home.

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Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, and your salaries would not in the same proportion. You too will get old; and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, and your salary could have been better and you could have saved money for a house.

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Don’t expect your organization to support you. Maybe you have a life insurance, maybe you’ll have a wealthy wife, but you never know when either one might run out.

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You will most certainly face difficult choices. In most cases it helps to think of what choice maximizes output and minimizes efforts, instead of agonizing over issues like quality.

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Invest in a good suit, pair of shoes and get a shave. Thanks to society’s shallowness, your return on investment will be considerable.

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Calm down.

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Let people give you advice. Develop the art of looking interested even if you are not. Pay attention to advice from people who have a stake in your happiness, and not a stake in your success.

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Please stop listening to Pink Floyd. You are not in college anymore.

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But forget everything else.

Quickly go get a cup of coffee.

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P.S. I know you’re thinking that this is a complete rip-off and I am merely doing this to update the blog without actually putting in any effort into writing an original post. You are thinking very correctly.

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P.P.S. However when i read this again, its not as bad as it looks. Plagiarism be damned.

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Also listen to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ

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THE MEETING….A DELAYED NEW YEAR POST !

Well, sorry for the delay in posting a new year post. It has been a tradition(almost sort of), and i didn’t really want to break it. But then, i was stuck in a meeting. And all i could manage was to look out of the huge window, at the brisk traffic, and almost keep myself from sleeping off.

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Meetings and me, are like a Polar bear in the Sahara Desert. I mean, i come in almost reluctantly. When i enter the meeting room, am almost panting and short of breath. And then, 20 minutes into the meeting, i have the bewildered look of an animal who will do anything just for survival. And finally, i hibernate and get lost. And that is when i get those crazy ideas, some of which have the potential to change the world around us.

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Meetings today, in today’s corporate offices, are all “physical” meetings. I mean, all team members and also some invited non-team members, gather together in small room, for a stipulated period of time, and discuss stuff. Don’t ask what the stuff is. Most of us don’t know that, and that can lead to a huge debate. The entire meeting however is done in a very orderly manner and follows a strict protocol.

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Since Corporates today are huge advocates of the Gandhian principle of “Do your own work”, Bosses rarely hire secretaries. But given their demanding work, and work commitments, generally a team member is assigned the duty of arranging his team meetings. This in the words of the boss, is the assigned person’s contribution to the team. This in the words of the team member, is a huge-unrewarding-headache.

The first task is to find a conference room free for a time slot of 1 hour. This is a task, that can take anything from 30 minutes to one full day to complete, depending on the organization’s activity that week.

The next step is to send out the meeting invite once a meeting room has been decided upon. This is a particularly simple task, as it doesn’t involve interacting with people much and can be done from the solitude of one’s own cubicle. The plan is simple, send out an invite and then forget the outlook for the next few hours to avoid any angry declines and tentative maybe’s for reasons as petty as ill health on the day of the meeting.

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Finally on the day of the meeting, reminders need to be sent to all the invitees, confirming their participation. This is a 4 stage process which involves,

If these don’t work then finally security is dispatched with angry faces to hunt down the employees, and escort them to the meeting room. And so the meeting begins, after a 15-20 minute delay. The rest of the team members are already hungry and demanding a free lunch by then. The boss in a typical nonchalant way, says there are no budgets.

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Finally after the eventually 10 minute meeting, some another poor chap is assigned the work of writing the minutes of the meeting and uploading it on the team server.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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AND that is where my idea comes in. Well, that was what i was thinking when i was looking out of the meeting room window. It was a true “out-of -the-box” thinking that led to this idea.  For in the world of technology and Social Media and Web2.0, meetings should be held only and only on the web.

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The solutions are many. Enter Technology.

No Conference Rooms Available. No Problem. Lets meet in a virtual world. The place can be anything. From the beaches of Australia to the streets of Paris. Time can be from a convenient morning breakfast to a lavish evening dinner. And it would be much more fun.

But a lot of corporate offices have firewalls and other such securities, which don’t really allows real world in office, leave aside virtual worlds.

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No problem. Use the latest thing thats in. I mean Facebook. Offices all over the world are infiltrated by Facebook. And it can be an exciting new way of having team meetings.

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Most people just laugh on my ideas. A lot of those ideas are on this blog itself. It doesn’t really make me a genius. The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Nevertheless, feel free to use this idea of mine, liberally to misinform and confuse employees in your firm about the serendipitous architecture of viral participatory wisdom of crowds that is Internet and the web 2.0.

And btw, Happy New Year 2011.

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2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,900 times in 2010. That’s about 9 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 19 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 65 posts. There were 60 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was April 15th with 144 views. The most popular post that day was THE GIRL IN MY OFFICE….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, indiblogger.in, orkut.co.in, mail.google.com, and blogger.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for stick people clip art, mirror99, exhale cold air, the gift of the magi, and roller skating clipart.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

THE GIRL IN MY OFFICE… April 2010
25 comments

2

ORANGES AND LEMONS June 2010
18 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

3

JUST SAY THAT YOU LOVE… May 2010
35 comments

4

‘BOUT ME August 2007
1 comment

5

BEATEN AND BATTERED… February 2010
24 comments

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WE…THE NOT SO “UNPRIVILEGED” !

Well, first of all I should warn you all, that this is not a discourse on how privileged we are, and how unprivileged the poor kids in ‘Uganda’ are, which they might still be, but that is not what I want to speak about. What I want to tell you all, is an incident that happened a couple of days back, which to me seemed important and significant in some ways. How was that, I shall tell you, but in a while. First, the incident.

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I am not exactly a religious man. In fact, i believe that I am more of an agnostic , rather than an atheist. To me, it means, that i believe in energies and shit, both positive and negative, and I prefer to believe in them rather than in a superficial GOD for my own benefit. Consequently, I am not a big fan of temples, especially for the general purposes of worshiping.

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However, it’s just my own view. And i have got  nothing against people/friends who DO believe in GOD, and hence go to temples occasionally/regularly to ask favors from GOD/worship GOD.  So, a few days back, i simply accompanied two of my good friends to the temple. For me it was just a casual visit to a place, with two friends. Temples just don’t evoke that respect or sacred feeling in me.

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It was a Hanuman Temple and we reached at the time of the Aarti. We were happy for that. My friends were happy ’cause they came at the right time. Me because it meant, we were about to get prasad and damn, i was hungry and could swear i could eat 100 people’s prasad alone that very moment. But that was only after a brief session of worshiping by the pujaris , and we folding hands and bowing heads in some sort of sacred sentiment. I am not exactly very good at that, and have a tendency to become unusually restless in such ultra-peaceful situations. There was the incident when i was called out as a “spiritual terrorist” by a pujari of  some temple here, for not much of my fault. After that i preferred to stay outside and smoke pot with a couple of sadhus, when we visited another famous temple. Those are different stories though and lets just focus on the present here. My friends were probably conscious of my particular restlessness and were keeping a keen eye on me from a corner of their eyes, noting any signs of anything stupid that could happen.

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In any case, the worship session was soon over without any nuisance, much to the relief of myself , my friends and also the temple authorities secretly. The prasad was what interested me more. Of course the real prasad came only after being offered sacred fire and sacred water. But i swear by god, it was of some wonderful taste when it finally came. Now I don’t exactly remember what the first two items were, for they were gone into my stomach faster than they came on my plate, so i did not exactly notice what they were. The third item was flavored rice and this i could notice , a bit relieved of my hunger by now. And then i saw them.

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It’s a common sight at any temple in India. The sight of those small roadside children, flocking to the temples for the prasad. For many such children that is perhaps the only nutrition they get in their entire day, or perhaps even for the entire week. And so, they flock to these temples to get whatever good food they can get for food. And they are just kids. Small children who don’t really know what GOD is, and what a temple is. All they know of and care about is the food that they get there, and for them perhaps that is much more important than temples and gods.

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What stuck me, even shocked me, was how the person who was distributing the prasad, was ignoring the many outstretched hands of those small perhaps dirty, but hungry kids, and was more eager to distribute stuff to the so-called civilized people out there, to the “not-so-unprivileged” people. As far as I was concerned, those kids deserved the food more than any of us out there. They should have been the preferred ones and we should have been made to wait till after them. And only when they are done and their hunger satisfied, should we be given any of it.

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But instead, they were being ignored. Even shooed away, scolded , frowned upon with disgust with an air of nuisance. In my eyes, that was not what a temple should be. In my eyes, a place where you don’t respect a human being, where you don’t respect the hunger of a small kid, and instead chose to stand with hands folded and heads bowed in front of a stone idol, should not be a temple. And it stuck me.

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I was just standing there, wrestling my own hunger and also these thoughts, looking at those children and the people distributing the prasad, in mute amazement. I was half-wondering whether I should give my own share of food to those kids. Not as an act of kindness or anything like that, but more out of guilt. But i was only thinking all this, when the most amazing thing happened in front of me. Almost as if reading my mind, one of my friends actually proceeded to give her share of food to those children. She gave her share of prasad to one of those kids, who did not really thank her, and it wasn’t even needed. He was more busy in collecting more prasad, from whatever source possible. Of course, after that, we also gave those kids our share of prasad and all that is not important here.

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What’s important here, is that how i simply kept on thinking, while someone else actually did the act. What’s important here, is at that moment, i developed a certain love and respect for my friend which shall never go away. What’s important here is that, for a brief moment I felt, I did something good by coming to the temple that day and was better than the other not-so-unprivileged people in the temple.

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We then came out of the temple, and went on to satisfy our own hungers. And I had a story, I wanted to tell desperately.

 

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OPINIONS WELCOMED…

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Well , this is a graph which has been drawn with a lot of valuable thought, a lot of wasted time, and a lot of other stuff…

And i am not going to explain the graph. Its pretty self-explanatory if you see, except that a lot of self-explanatory things do not really explain themselves.

So, what i am gonna do here is, invite opinion, thoughts and criticism on this particular piece of wisdom.

So please do so, in the comment section of this post of mine. And am sure, you all will have opinions.

 

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ALL IN DAY’S WORK – 2

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ALL IN DAY’S WORK – 1

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GRAPH THEORY AS APPLIED TO MODERN-DAY RELATIONSHIPS

ABSTRACT – Applications of graph theory are primarily, but not exclusively, concerned with labeled graphs and various specializations of these.Structures that can be represented as graphs are ubiquitous, and many problems of practical interest can be represented by graphs. The link structure of a relationship between a boy and a girl could be represented by a directed graph: the vertices are the boys and girls having some degree of inclination for each other, available for an open or closed system and a directed edge from a boy B[i] to a girl G[j] exists if and only if both B[i] and G[i] have an equal or almost equal inclination toward each other.

 
In the mathematical discipline of graph theory, a matching or independent edge set in a graph is a set of edges without common vertices. It may also be an entire graph consisting of edges without common vertices. Given a graph G = (B[i],G[j] for all 0

 

A vertex(a Boy or a Girl) is matched (or saturated) if it is incident to an edge in the matching. Otherwise the vertex is unmatched.A maximal matching is a matching M of a graph G with the property that if any edge not in M is added to M, it is no longer a matching and the system becomes unstable. In other words, a matching M of a graph G is maximal if every edge in G has a non-empty intersection with at least one edge in M. The whole system has got maximum stability when each vertex(Boys and Girls) are part of one and only one Matching M, with no intersection at all with other Matchings. In simpler words, if each Boy B[i] has an inclination for only one Girl G[j] and vice-versa. For maximum stability, i should be equal to j, for all i,j=Z+.

 

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PROPOSAL – Modern Game Theory has always been used to predict the stability of a system having multiple forces, taking into account the behaviour of other points in the system. A Simple Boy Girl Relationship can be expressed as a directed graph, with each vertex representing a Boy and a Girl, inclined towards each other. Such a Directed Edge, in the absence of any other third isolated node or any other unmatched graph, is the most stable system possible.

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AXIOM 1 – A single Node(A single Boy B[i], or a Single Girl G[j]), is stable for the time interval in which it is isolated. In the presence of other single nodes, such an isolated node will eventually form a directed graph with some other node, which may be isolated or part of a matching graph.

AXIOM 2 – As stated earlier, a directed graph consisting of only two nodes, one of which is a boy B1, and the other girl G1, with equal inclination towards each other, is the most stable system possible. All complex systems whether stable or unstable, strive to attain this most stable system by various means.

Corollary – If this directed edge between B1 and G1 is a part of a set of B[i] and G[j] as shown below, and B1 and G1 do not have equal inclination towards each other, then there is a possibility of B1 and G1 forming the maximum stable system with rest of G[j] and B[i] respectively. In case of even number of total nodes, the whole system still remains stable because of smaller stable sub-systems. In case of odd number of total nodes, we have a highly unstable super-system with constantly shifting stable sub-systems and one always isolated node.

 

 

AXIOM 3 – A system with two B[i]s and one G[j] or two G[j]s and one B[i], is a highly unstable system, also known as the Classic L Triangle. The system constantly tries to attain stability by B[i]-G[j] pairing, but there always exists a single unstable B[i] or G[j] at any point of time, resulting in an overall unstable system.

THEOREM : The Degree of instability of a system, is defined as the number of isolated B[i] or G[j] nodes , divided by the total number of directed graphs in the system. Consequently, a system with higher U-score tends to be more stable than a system with lower U-score.

The U-score for fully stable system is Zero.

The U-score for the classic L-triangle is 1.

AXIOM 4 – For systems with 3 or more nodes, as stated earlier, the system tends to form stable sub-systems consisting of directed graphs between B[i]s and G[j]s. The U-score of the system decreases with the number of directed graphs in the system and increases with the number of isolated nodes in the overall system.

A system consisting of only G[j]s or only B[i]s , has a U-score of infinity and is highly unstable.

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CONCLUSION: Thus we see how Graph theory can be applied for Modern Day relationships to get some logical analysis. The systems considered above are but ideal, and the following assumptions have been made, which may deviate from a real case scenario.

1) Each B[i] and G[j] is assumed to have the same inclinations towards all other G[j]s and B[i]s. In Reality, the L-Bond between no two B[i]-G[j] pair is equal in strength,

2) It has been found after extensive study, that B[i]s and G[j]s also interact among themselves and have a tendency to form directed graphs amongst themselves, often in the absence of nodes of the other kind. However for the above study, such interactions have not been considered.

3) As per Classical Game theory, each B[i] and each G[j] has multiple choices at any point of time. The overall stability of the system, ultimately depends on the choices made by these nodes. Hence a detailed study of the application of game theory also needs to be considered for the above problem.

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With these assumptions in place, it can be safely said, that Mathematics can be used with proper care, to explain something as random and chaotic as Modern Day Relationships. As it’s always said, “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

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CARE FOR A SMOKE ?

It’s a sunny morning and the weather outside is generally hot. A guy comes to office and settles down in front of his desktop. Switches on the monitor and begins surfing through his mails, almost drowsing in the process. Suddenly a chat box comes up on his window and he opens his half closed eyes to look at the chat window….which said “Dude…”

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Guy1 : 10:30:45 AM : Dude

Guy2 : 10:30:49 AM : Hoy

Guy1 : 10:31:05 AM : Smoke?

Guy2 : 10:32:00 AM : Yups (almost sleepily)

Guy1 : 10:32:38 AM : Meet at Reception, 2 mins

Guy2 : 10:33:00 AM : OK

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And then two guys, in two different corners of the office get up from their seats, to take a break from their much busy work schedule , and to get a smoke outside office. On the way, they call and pick up any other guy who is interested to join. Most of the guys they ask, do join them, except the guys who have been coming from there already. Sometimes those join too for another round of cigarettes. A group of normally 4 and at least 2, then proceeds down the fire escape to go out for a round of smoke. A typical sunny morning it is.

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Thats how a typical smoker’s club looks like and functions in any modern office these days. A small group of people, who know each other’s weaknesses for the addiction and who are willing to smoke any time , any moment. And in today’s much stressful loves of people, such clubs are but a norm and an increasing one too.

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So the guys head down the fire escape, slowly, almost as if in a trance. Most of them are bachelors and slept lat last night , so had to rush to office in the morning with a lot of leftover sleep in their eyes. One of them ventures out a question in the open, almost meaning it for the others, “So, did you drink last night too?”.  One of them picks up the question and says, “Yeah, a half a bottle whiskey before sleeping off at 5am. I was talking to this girl , you know over yahoo and just kept on drinking. In between , had to get up and go get myself a pack of cigarettes at 1am. Man, am so screwed…need to quit doing all this”. Others don’t really give their opinion. They don’t offer advises when sober and never so early in the mornings.

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One of the other guys says however, “Last night we and went to this pub man, awesome place, excellent rock music and good food. The liquor was a bit expensive but it was so totally worth it man. You guys should have seen this hot reception chick. And those girls singing karaoke man. Incredible. You guys should have been there. And those idiots charged me 250 rupees for a 100 rupee cigarette pack. What about you ?”

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The first guy who has been mostly listening till now, says, “Me? Well i had some work to finish off, so i went home late. Drank a bit at home only. I just had 2 cigarettes and found no shop open at 2am. I smoked two as soon as i got up this morning man. Do you have cigarettes or do we need to go out?”

“Nah….” the others say out loud.

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So the group of half-asleep-half-awake people, make it to the cigarette shop opposite the office building on the other side of the road and ask the guy selling cigarettes in the hot sun, under an umbrella, “4 cigarettes, 3 milds, 2 gold….and do u guys want tea??…..4 cups of tea too”.  And then they go to the one side and smoke up peacefully. There’s the usual chit-chat , about how each one’s bosses suck, how they never get a promotion in spite of working so hard, how the foreign trip got cancelled due to visa reasons, how the new girl in office was, which pub played what and served what….and other such issues of local importance. They smoke for 15 minutes, a couple of them smoke multiple cigarettes in the same time while the other just refrain in an effort to save their failing healths. 20 minutes later, they pay up the cigarette guy and move back to offices. It’s almost 11:10 am now. Meetings to be attended. Important work to be done. And lunch time coming up.

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And that’s how such clubs meet. They meet almost everyday, almost after every 2-3 hours , as and when their schedules and health permit. Often they meet more than 5-6 times a day, and spend up a lot of time in these club meetings. Nothing useful ever comes out of these meetings. Once the group for the club is formed, there isn’t much networking opportunities either as a lot of people believe. Yet, they are so much the norm these days. Evey corporate thrives on many such small internal clubs and if you have one small supplier close by , it’s a flourishing business.

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For men will smoke for no apparent reason. Addiction is how they term it. But addiction itself is such a vague term as most people would say. It’s just something, which you do so much, that it becomes a habit and then you just can’t get it out of your mind. For men, they’ll smoke anytime. You just need to ask these smokers…

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…Care for a smoke??…

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13 RANDOM PIES



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ORANGES AND LEMONS

Well, to get a good perspective of this attempt at story-telling of mine, i would prefer if you go through the earlier story-parts written by me a few years back. I tried to pick up the same characters and continue from where I left.

A  STORY  LITTLE  LESS  ORDINARY – PART 6

A  STORY  LITTLE  LESS  ORDINARY – PART 5

A  STORY  LITTLE  LESS  ORDINARY – PART 4

A  STORY  LITTLE  LESS  ORDINARY – PART 3

A  STORY  LITTLE  LESS  ORDINARY – PART 2

A  STORY  LITTLE  LESS  ORDINARY – PART 1

NOTE: All characters in this story and the previous stories are fictional. They have no resemblance to any one single person. I would however like to thank all those, whose life-stories i used to create my own story. But it is all dramatically modified and may not indicate the true state of situations and people.

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She started making letters on the coffee table, with the powdered sugar that he had spilled all over the table. First she made an A. Then a S. Then a M. Then other such alphabets. He on the other hand, just sat across her, observing her, trying to look into her eyes which were focused on the table. He wanted to see in her eyes. He wanted to know the truth in her eyes. But she kept making those stupid alphabets, playing with the sweetener spilled on the table. He started getting irritated a bit. Angry too perhaps. “Why you doing this?”, he suddenly said. “What?”, she looked up finally and said. “Not what you are doing to me, why you doing this with the sugar?”, he said. “If you are getting bored hearing me say nonsense, you might as well just get up and leave. I won’t mind at all. I’ll settle the bill and go away too. You wanna eat something one last time?”.

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3 years had passed by since the last heartbreak that Dan had. 3 terribly painful years of his life. He had gone from being a man-on-top to a man who had to take anti-depressant and sleeping-pills to make him sleep at nights. He had gone from being a supremely confident man to a man who could not trust anybody now, the least being himself. He had lost his air of confidence, his flamboyance, his ability to bring out the best in himself and others almost at will, and a lot of other things. 3 years it had taken him to shake Lily off his head. 3 years it had taken him, each of which year seemed to bring out all the old memories of Lily and haunt him till death.

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It had only been in the last 6 months that he had been able to discover his own remains in his own ruins. He had started gaining back his confidence. He had started gaining his attitude and a much cooler one now. He had started getting his mental peace back. For the first time in 3 years, he spent more than a month, not looking at Lily’s pictures, or reading her old messages. For the first time in 3 years, he felt that Lily was now a phase that was long gone and that her pictures were sepia-tinted like some very old memories. And for the first time in 3 years, he had finally gone into Rehabilitation. It was one month of Rehab, without any alcohol or drugs whatsoever. He had been forced to do it by his best friend Robin, but for the first time in 3 years, he actually felt like doing that.

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That was when he had met Vanessa. Vanessa who joined the organization with him, was one of the girls whom no one noticed when she joined. There were other girls more charming to the eye when she came in. Dan did look at those girls at one glance. He even tried talking to them. But there was no willingness in his heart. He was too involved in his own memories, which were killing him slowly and steadily. He didn’t care much. Death to him seemed peaceful. But he knew, he wouldn’t die. He knew that at heart.

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As time passed, Dan developed a friendship with Vanessa. As time progressed, he developed a fondness for Vanessa. It was all unknowingly, unwittingly, without any intentions and without any pretences. He never realized that he was able to pour his heart out to this strange girl whom he had befriended. That he was able to confess things to her, which otherwise ate his heart from the inside. That he was able to speak about his past to this crazy girl, which he hadn’t been able to speak to many. He never realized that he was getting comfortable around her. That he was making her a part of his life. That he had started caring for her. And That he was making the same HUGE MISTAKE once again.

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He was making the same mistake once again. He had learnt from his past, not to do that. Never trust anyone with yourself, he had told to himself the last time. Never give your unconditional love to someone who didn’t realize its importance, he had learnt that painfully. And yet, he was making the same mistake again. Once again, he was harboring thoughts of love. Once again, he wanted to trust someone. Once again, he was getting ready to hurt himself.

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And that was what he did exactly. One fine day, Dan told Vanessa that he loved her. That it was she, who had made a difference in his life, which had been meaningless for the past 3 years. That it was she, who let him get over his past. That when he talked to her, he wanted to keep talking to her forever. That when he was with her, he wanted to just be there forever. That he would give up everything just for that. Just to keep talking to her. Just to be with her. Just to feel safe around her. Just to feel the warmth that her presence exuded, to escape from the coldness that meant her absence. And that, was the mistake he did.

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For the past 2 hours that day, he had been trying to let out those feelings in front of her, in the coffee shop. She just hadn’t thought of Dan in the same way. She didn’t feel about Dan the way she wanted to feel. Dan just smiled. He knew in his heart, that there was nothing called feelings of love. That’s just a fancy word for expressing love. Love, which is but just a feeling of mutual appreciation and respect, just the comfort that two people draw from each other and don’t want to lose. And he smiled more. He laughed at himself for making the same mistake once again. He laughed at himself for he had repeated the same mistake. He had yet again, hurt himself and this time quite knowingly.

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As Vanessa sat across the table, making alphabets out of spilt sugar, he realized, that it’s so easy for you to love someone, but it’s so difficult for you to get someone who loves you. While life hands out lemons to us, we always go out in search of oranges. And then when the oranges turn out sour, we don’t have the lemons any more. The lesson to be learnt was, make lemonade when life gives you lemons, make orange juice when life offers you oranges. Try making orange juice from lemons, and you destroy it all.

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“I think, I need to go back now”, Vanessa said softly. Dan paid the bill and they got out. It had been raining outside the whole time. Dan never realized that. He never realized anything on time. Dan and Vanessa finally parted ways, never to cross paths again. This time, he couldn’t smile any more.

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MY FIRST TOASTMASTER SPEECH – “MY STORY”

“Well this is my first Toastmaster Speech and frankly speaking I am Nervous, a little. Over the last couple of days I have been trying to think of the best way to start this introductory speech. The icebreaker session as they call it. Turns out, I couldn’t think of any decent way to do so. It was a bit weird, considering the fact that i am actually a blogger, and one who write stuff on his blog, which a lot of people read, enjoy and appreciate. But still, my mind just went blank for this.

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So, let me just start the conventional way. I am not really the quiet guy who doesn’t speak much in a group, but i am also not the speaker who delivers an inspiring speech. I was born on the 15th February of 1987. And i just so love the month of February. Spring is in the air, and I am in a cheerful mood. Also since its 15th, it’s the day next to valentine’s day. So, often my friends do end up celebrating my birthday on the 14th itself.

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Well, i am a Bengali. Not the traditional types though, as i was brought up in the city of Kanpur in UP, and so most of the time, i am just a Kanpurite who can stammer in Bengali. I was born in West Bengal though. But that’s about it. That is as close as i ever got to West Bengal.

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Well, most people say i have the temperament of an artist. Endlessly curious, weirdly detached, essentially unfathomable, brooding yet childlike, transient, abstract and an ample generous spirit, a bit of altruist too.

And I generally don’t deny it. I am an artist, not a famous one but yeah, I am. In fact, I love to call myself an artist. It’s a gift mostly i got in inheritance from my grandfather and father. I am sort of Child Prodigy, having that magic touch. Thats what people tell me actually. I just play along.

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My art, which is more of a classical type, you know pencil sketching and color painting, got highly appreciated in college. I got critical appreciation, awards, and also was made the president of the Fine arts club. So, then i had to organize this national level arts exhibition in my college, for artists all over India. It was something i liked, and did with passion. It was more than just a hobby for me. As i grew in confidence, I also took up bigger projects like frescoes, and stage backdrops. I still remember, doing this huge 8mt x 10mt stage background, which took me more than a month. That is my biggest work of art till date. All that I did in college and I never did it for money.

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It might be a bit surprising to you, i guess, since i am actually from an IIT, actually IT-BHU, where i was supposed to be studying electronics engineering. I did that too, and to a moderate level of success. I did never did care about ranks, but i still managed to remain in the top 5 ranks.

I was more into exploring myself in College. And i did that exactly.

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College ended soon enough. And then I got into GE. Well, I don’t need to brag on the Brand Name of GE. It took me a bit of time to settle down here.

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But now am close to completing 2 years here. In the last two years, I have managed to grow a slight tummy here, nothing to be proud of though. I have contributed in whatever way I could to this organization, with my intelligence and my passions both. And I hope to continue the same.

Ohh I forgot. My Name is “Mirror99”  and that was my story.

Thank you. “

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POWER OF ONE AND OTHER SUCH NONSENSE…

WARNING : Extreme blasphemy ahead. Not for children and for people planning to join an organization and who are happy about it. Alcohol and Drugs might be needed to tolerate some words.

Read at your own risk.

And don’t bloody blame me…..

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Sometimes when you are in corporate, you know the big multi-national companies which think that they pay you a lot which they do not really, and expect you to perform miracles for them in work, and that too following concepts like “First-time-right” and “Sense of urgency” and “Continuous Improvement”, you get a lot of shit thrown at you. You know, the big words which all those leaders at the top pass on you, I never quite understood that. I mean those things are definitely important and all, but then i am freaking tired of hearing that stuff over and over again, and that too when I am listening to all that in a 3-hour long “ALL-HANDS” (fancy name for just-another-crappy-meeting)  and I have a deadline to meet in the next one hour. I mean, I just don’t tolerate all that.
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Now, my Organization (i hate to use this word because nothing really is organized, but then its better  than saying company), is having this “Power-of-One” initiative over the span of one or more month . It’s just one of those stupid initiatives that the HR and the Communications Team launch in the organization(again that damn word), to ignite those feelings of unity and spirit and such things among the different cross-functional teams (more crossed than functional) on premises. Of course, its much easy to launch an event than to actually execute it. And that is where we come in. We morons, who are expected to work together(with other morons) to make this event a success for our own team, at the same time meeting all deadlines and continuing to perform miracles at work. The funny thing is, not all morons are engaged. Only those whose names, our bosses remember less for our work done and more for our engagement in any activity that is non-engineering, are chosen. And that is where, I come in.
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Over the last couple of months( more like a year or so), i have been involved more with the communication manager than my own team manager. I mean, we sit, have some chat, crib a lot over useless stuff, have some coffee and sometimes bitch a bit too. You know, productive stuff. We generate ideas and then implement them. Not the sort of ideas my boss would want though. He would ideally want me to design and assemble a full Gas Turbine Panel, all by myself in our lab here in office. I cannot really comment if that’s easy or tough, for I know as much about a gas turbine as a class 2nd student knows about integration and differentiation.

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So when it came to Power-of-one (it’s really weird that a team-event has a name power of one), i was chosen over other morons. I let out a few curses under my breath, as of all the people in the organization, i am the most lethargic and least bothered about all these things. It’s just that people believe that I am the best at it. Which is really strange again. Anywz, so we all meet together to decide what needs to be done. It’s really pathetic how we have meetings for every god-damn thing. And then follow-up emails and follow-up meetings. It really irritates me to the core. I attend the first meeting nevertheless, with the most disinterested of faces though.

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So we had to come up with a series of god-damn events which we can conduct or something, on a given day. The COE Boss (COE is short for Centre of Excellence and it really took me a year to gulp down this fact, am still unable to digest it though), decided to have the event, you know the Power-of-one one, on a friday evening, as he thought people would be free to attend then. The up-side I realized was, for the employees obviously, that they could just leave for the weekend without having to go through the painful rituals of another corporate event. Of course, the homeless could stay behind, and the starved ones could stay back for a free dinner, but that’s more like it. They didn’t realize that, you know. I did, but i was not a smart guy to say it loud. Sometimes, I am a moron. I love being so. Especially at company expense.

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Anywz, So the boss decides that we should all wear the same dress or something on the given day. We said, we all don’t have a common dress. Also in any case 150 people in the same bloody dress, is more like a circus parade or something rather than a team. But the boss thinks that’s unity and all that, you know. I personally wanted it to be a theme party and we could have chosen a beach theme for the summers. But then, corporates cut me out. They never approve of my ideas. Not that i say them out loud. A beach part would have been unity , or whatever the boss wanted. I may be wrong. Who cares.

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Anywz, so the boss decides we should be given shirts to wear on the day. Bloody homeless losers, they jump like jokers at that and then throw the burden of arranging for the shirts on me. I didn’t mind much though, as it was still better than to be actually involved in the god-damn event. But it was still a pain, more when i saw those crazy people in the meeting so excited about the whole god-damn affair. Some of them even have crazy weird voices and all, like rats squealing or something. It just pains my heart when i see these mendicants in such offices.

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Anywz, so i had to arrange for some 150 shirts, 20 odd bags for the girls(who don’t wanna wear shirts. Good decision. I would have taken that too had I been given a choice. But no, men had to look like jokers that day) and some 25 gifts for the losers who would win something that day. Losers so like to win. Give them something and say that they won, and they would be on cloud 9 or something. I frankly don’t care much. I might be a loser too. But I don’t wanna win lame gifts. I think that just makes me a bigger loser. Still, i don’t care. I am not a loser. I might be but i am definitely not.
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So, over the next few days, i contact a vendor for all the above stuff. This vendor is supposed to be an official one, but he gave me such a pain in the ass. Deciding on type of shirt, colour of shirt, logo to be printed, sizes of people who didn’t knew it themselves, type of bags and cheap gifts, getting all these, bargaining, getting quotes, satisfying the bosses and the employees with everything, raising requests from finance, getting approvals, all of this i tell you, it killed me. I enjoyed it thoroughly though. It’s good to do something for the losers sometimes. They get happy and all, you know. Fancy stuff dude, fancy stuff. It still killed me. The vendor was a total ass, and he gave me some real pain in my own ass. And on top of it, I didn’t even care. I think that made things worse. But i thought, even the vendor didn’t care much about us. So, it was just a reciprocated feeling, I guess.

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Anywz, the stuff is all done now. I mean ordering and all that. Hopefully, we will not get the shirts on time, and save ourselves from looking a like total asses for one full day. Its funny though, in a weird way. The event itself is this friday. And am totally not looking toward it. Maybe, I’ll take a half day leave or something. Bloody hypocritice losers. Anywz, i was playing with a few circles on ms paint, and suddenly i came up with this. Thought I would share it with you.

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NOTE: This post is meant as a satire to the above-mentioned event and other such corporate events. Please don’t take it personally and take offence. It might not be an actual indication of things as they are.

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JUST SAY THAT YOU LOVE…

LOVE, this 4 letter word has eluded me the most in this world. I know, it would be a bit weird for you guys, hearing me speak about love and such serious stuff, when all I have done throughout my blog, is make you laugh with nonsensical humour which all of you appreciate like foreigners appreciating the Taj Mahal in India, without quite comprehending the emotions or anything behind it really. But I have always written what I felt like writing, even when someone said to me, “Hey Dude, write on this topic” or  “Hey, I want you to describe this event in my blog, it’s just so awesome”  or “Hey, you write good, why don’t you promote my company?”. And so shall I do now. Although believe me, it’s not such a boring topic actually. Bear with me, I would say. All the good things come to those who wait, they say. Of course they also say that all the better things would have already gone by then. But still, bear with me.

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When I was a child,I had a feeling that LOVE was what you get from your parents when you stood first in class. Whenever you stood first in class, you would get whatever gift you would wish for. If it was outside budget, you would have to throw in some tears and tantrums, but you got it nevertheless. You even got a dinner outside. Of course, standing third in class would never do the same thing because then you know,  you would have scope for improvement and all, and LOVE would diminish. So, for the first 18 years of life, LOVE had a totally different meaning for me. Academics took precedence over everything else and there was no time to understand LOVE of any other type. Friends, girl friends, stupid yet precious relatives, all took the back seat. Till, I entered college.

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College for me was the definitive life changing phase that i went through. Not because I was independent of sorts for the first time in life. Which I obviously was in college. And that gave me the time and energy to delve into the other meanings of  LOVE. You see, when you have been in the same school for 12+ years, its more like a family. So when you leave this large family and go to college, there are strings attached. You remember your stupid school friends. You remember the girls you spent time with in school. You remember that one particular girl in school, whom you loved. But life moves on in the same old way. And now you are suddenly in the midst of this weird group of students from all corners of the damn country. It’s the same feeling for the other student too, I bet. It’s really surprising, how all of us think our own lives are so different and unique from everyone else’s, while it’s actually more or less the same as everyone. The characters are different, but the plot is mostly the same.

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Anyways, so you soon get over the girl you loved in school. The girl who loved you in school, must have done the same. So you soon start looking out for new people. Soon you go out on dates. Soon you are wooing the stupid college girls. It’s that silly college love thing you know. We all fall in love with someone or the other in college. Although we just think, thats love. Of course, a lot of dates turn out to be disasters. A lot of affairs are whirlwind romances, beginning each semester and ending before you even pass the semester. Some turn out to be good friends though. Some not so good friends. It’s the whole college thing you know. Very Very typical. It’s all stupid. What’s not stupid is the fact that we somehow ,almost never realize the one who actually loves you and whom you should actually have loved. It’s all stupid. Also ironical. But all in all, you never said “I LOVE YOU“, enough to all those who really mattered to you, and made your college life what it was.

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After 4 years of paid holidays, in which you also learn something, lessons in life and all, you come out of college into what they call the real world. The ruthless, merciless, world where every man is for himself. That’s where i am presently. And its lonely out here, I know for a fact. Mostly the nights you know, when you get weird thoughts in your head, and you write such stupid stuff that you all are reading presently. Anywz, it is in this peace of the night, i realize, that i didn’t say those three magic words enough. And i feel, life could have been different if i would have done that more.

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I never said, “I LOVE YOU” to my mom, when I said good-bye to her, while leaving for college. Instead i chose, just standing there, a model of self-control and all, trying to show no emotions at all. It was very childish. I mean, not saying those words to my mom. I should have said that, at that moment.

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I never said, “I LOVE YOU” to the girl I liked in school. I should have. I kept on thinking, i would say this after this exam, or after that exam, or on the last day of school, or in the school farewell party. And i never said it. I just never did. I just didn’t have the guts. Or the right sense. Now, all of you reading this blog, don’t you ask who that girl was. It was just a childhood love and i am very sure, that all of you must have loved someone at that stupid age. What i am saying is, i didn’t say those 3 words. I didn’t say I LOVE YOU to someone whom i should have, just to tell out my feelings and all you know. Neither did I say, I LOVE YOU to any of my friends back in school. I think I should have.

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In college, I never said “I LOVE YOU” to the girl I first dated. I should have. I mean not as in I LOVE YOU and I-WANT-TO-SPEND-MY-LIFE-WITH-YOU kinda way. But just as a mark of affection. The first date was a huge disaster in any case. Don’t ask me the story. I’ll tell, when I want to tell. But I was also a huge jack ass for I didn’t even tell I LOVE YOU to the girl I actually loved. That also was a huge disaster you know.

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But the worst part is, I never said “I LOVE YOU” to the friends i had my life. I should have you know. Maybe that is why i never got those 3 magic words myself. I mean, nobody said that to me too. And that is what made me realize how important those damn words are. Those three words said by anyone, can mean the world to a person. It makes a person feel wanted, loved and good. He may be the worst person on earth, and an epitome of evil, but those 3  magic words said to him, makes him feel good for an instant. It’s that powerful you know. Too powerful.

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So, I said a lot of stuff up there. What I really meant, as soon as you stop reading this god damn post, don’t just drop a comment and say good-bye. Of course, comments are welcome. In fact compulsory. But what i really urge, is go and say those 3 god dam magic words, to all those people who have made a difference in your life. I know, there are a lot of such people. And each of them, deserves to be told I LOVE YOU. I bet, you’ll feel good just saying so, and so will the other person. So say it to your mom. Say it to your dad. Say it to your friend from school or college, whom you have forgotten now.

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And most importantly, say it to all those around you, who mean to you. Who lighten up your day. Who care for you.

Who are making a difference in your lives right now. You might not get a oppurtinity to say it to them later on. So go on and say it. Trust me on this, you will feel good. Give a nice warm hug to all of them and say those three magic words, sincerely. For anyone in this world, that the best feeling one can ever have. And then, those 3 magic words will come back to you and make you feel good too. It’s really a stupid thing to do, but sometimes stupid things make more sense than all the intelligent things you know. Its the god-damn human heart you know. Its really pathetic, in that sense.

Oh, and btw, I LOVE YOU all too, all my readers of this blog. Thanks for your patience and all you know, if you have read this whole long post. Have thrown in a few random pictures too, just to stress out what i said.

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THE GIFT OF THE MAGI…

Well, decision making is an art. An art, which everybody has to learn, sometime or the other. For at every turn of life, we need to make decisions. Life is full of tough decisions to make. Decision to choose betwen heaven and hell. Decision to chose between heaven and a  better heaven, or hell and a deeper hell. All those decisions are tough, and ordinary mortals like us, are often not capable of making those decisions. Of course, we learn. The wise ones learn from the mistakes of others, while the fools learn from their own mistakes, but we all learn nevertheless……….the art of decision making.

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And one such difficult decision is how to chose an appropriate gift for a person. More so, when its a collective gift given by a bunch of friends to one single individual, who is giving a party to the bunch of hungry shameless idiots , for his newly done-and-over-with marriage. Trust me, its tough. Even for me who is generally believed by ‘many girls’ as to having a certain degree of domain-expertise in the art of gift giving. Its still tough, even by my standards.

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So when Abdur da got married (an office friend cum mango-chachu cum mentor cum party buddy) , and he decided to give us a lunch party, at a famous restaurant in city, the inevitable question came up. “What should we gift the married couple ?”.

And this was how we decided. We forwared chain mails with this agenda. I’ll give you a sneak peak into the chain mail conversation that flooded the company mailboxes yesterday afternoon.

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Mail to all who were invited ( Me,  Shital ,  Gupta Prashant ,  Suman , Sohom ,  Prasanth , Rupali , Nitika , Radhika ,  Gaurav , Prakash , Kafilul , Sangram , Chirag , Bishu )

Shital : Hello ppl…Think fr the gift today only ….

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Reply-all by all those who got the above message.

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Sohom : How about some assorted gifting…….Say a good bouquet, a big card, some plant pots for room decor,
dinner/tea set,  purses for both, decorating sculpture…….

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Gupta : Well that seems to be a nice idea but problem is that these items are highly personalised. It depends on their liking…

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Suman :  A suitcase, he is going france on this official trip.

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Shital : Shut up!

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Gupta : Yaar I guess here is the list:
1. Dish TV.. Nice option, they anyway need it.
2. Any kitchen item.. Food processor, mixer grinder etc..
3. Crockery set.
We cannot give gas stove as he has to buy it anyway whenever he gets  govt. gas connection, so it will be a  waste. I guess I summed it all, no personalized gifts I guess is a better option.

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Shital : No I didn’t like the dish tv idea..it wont last forever… I m really sorry 2 the idea generator.

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Me : How about a PS2. They both can play with it. Later on their kids will play with it too.

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Gupta : PS2, why will they play PS2 when they got better things to do.

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Me : Even then, a PS2 is a good idea. We can also play it sometimes, when we visit them.

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Shital : Shut up. I guess anything related to kitchen ware seems 2 b gud…
IPOD and all it depends whether they really use it to the fullest…
Decorating stuff depends upon the home interiors…abt which we r totally unaware…..

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Me : All you girl want stupid kitchen stuff……. Lets give something cool…….like a PS2 maybe . Ok, I have no idea what I am saying here…….  🙂

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Bishu : Choose anything good stuff yaar and pls don’t reply to all.
Please contact Pagi(Prashant).
Thanks

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Me :  ALL THE GIRLS PLEASE GO SHOPPING TODAY/TOMORROW AND GET WHATEVER YOU WANT….
AND PLEASE DON’T TAKE BOYS WITH YOU
YOU KNOW WHY…
REGARDS AND BEST WISHES….

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Chirag : Kaam dhaam nahi hain kya!!!
Pls do not reply all !!!!
Instead have a group chat on SAMETIME ….
Decision will be quicker and may be unanimous ( very less probability by seeing such variety of ppl there)

End of chain mail.

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The chai mail method failed. It was a lot fun thought. But we were still undecided. So, we then started a group chat on sametime with the same agenda. The idea of having a physical meeting was thought of, but the wise men of the group thought that it could be a case of violence at workplace in the end, and so decided to have a group chat.

Meeting Attendees : Me , Prashant Gupta , Prasanth Sivaprasad , Sangram , Shital , Suman.

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Gupta : Lets discuss the gift to be given, once and for all.

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Me : Hello, bhai logon!

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Suman : Ashim, mere bhai , kitne dino baad mil raha hai.

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Me : Suman, mere bhai. Bachpan me kumbh ke mele me khone ke baad, aaj mila hai tu. Am close to tears.

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Suman : Kaisa hai re tu?
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Gupta : Abe, tum log BC band karo.

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Prasanth : What’s goin on?

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Gupta : So as we were saying, we shud give that dish TV set connection with 3 years of bangla channel subscription, to abdur da as gift.

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Shital : Its fine….from my end.

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Me : What end, shital has no end. Shital is endless.

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Suman : I agree with ‘Mirror99’….Shital is endless.

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Sangram : Lets Vote.

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Gupta : Maybe , thats a good idea. Lets vote.

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Sangram : Vote for……”Shital is endless”

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Me : Count me in, one vote from my side for ‘Shital is endless’

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Suman : I agree ….One more vote for ‘Shital is endless’

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Shital : All you guys, just go to hell.

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Gupta : Bakwaas band karo tum logo.

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Me : Shital , suna tune…bakwaas badn kar.

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Shital {in a separate chat with me} : abe oye, seedhe se baat kar tu.

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Prasanth : Jab shopping pe jaana ho to mujhe bata dena. Time waste mat karo abhi mera.

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Me : Send shital for shopping.

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Shital : I don’t have any problem with that.

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Me : alone, without any boys

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Suman : I agree, send shital for shopping.

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Sangram : Vote for…’Send Shital for shopping”.

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Me : Count me in, one vote from my side for that.

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Suman : I agree, One more vote for ‘Send Shital for shopping’

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Shital : I have no problems, At least i will bargain.

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Me : You should get at lease 2000 off on whatever you get.

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Shital : Give me your car keys and your credit card then.

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Me : Prasanth, give shital your car keys and Gupta, give her your credit card.

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Gupta : Tum log, bakwaas band karo aur decide karo , else i am off.

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Sangram : Shital, you will get salary today, why do you need Gupta’s credit card ?

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Me : Yes, shital will be ameer today.

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Suman : Yes, i agree. Shital will me ameer today.

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Sangram : Lets vote for …’Shital will be ameer today’

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Me : Count me in, one vote from my side for that.

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Suman : I agree, One more vote for ‘Shital will be ameer today’

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Gupta : Haramkhoro

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Shital : Go to hell, when you need me, you will come to me.
Gupta offline
Shital offline

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Sangram : I need to go. Weekly team meeting.

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Me : Abe yeh to batao, ki decide kya hua?

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Suman : I agree….yeh to batao ki decide kya hua ?

Me offline
End of chat.

So after two days of email conversations, cafeteria gossips and group chats, we were still undecided. The party is tomorrow. So a gift has to come. The decision has to be made. Its a tough one to make.

Reminds me of the story i once read in school….”The magi, as you know, were wise men–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi. “.

What i really wonder is, did the magi, what with the wise people they were, did they have the same problems as us.

I wonder….

About the Gift of the Magi……

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THE GIRL IN MY OFFICE…

Well, first of all let me get this straight. This post is not about my totally hot communication leader. She is pretty hot though, i must write something on her too. But this is not about her. Also, this is not about the girl whom i loved and confessed my love(sort of). I already have written a post on her. Also, this is not about the girl whom i liked and never confessed. Both of them left the office, you know. So, anywz, this is not about all those girls. So people expecting all that might just stop reading here. The rest of it might disappoint you, you know. For this post is about a pretty ordinary girl in my office(who thinks otherwise though). Sometimes people just ignore her and she goes ignored. But she does not really cease to exist, you know.

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I remember that incident when we all had just joined the company. That was some 2 years ago. Well, at that time, there were just two girls whom people noticed really. I mean amongst the new joiners you know. And none of them was she. Yet she was always somehow found around one of these girls. Well, on such day when the two of them(a much-noticed girl and TGIMO) were walking towards the two of us(me and my friend), and we were totally engrossed in noticing the much-noticed girl, that we totally did not notice that TGIMO was actually waving hello at us. Well her frantic waving went totally unnoticed and so did she. The much-noticed girl did not notice us though. We thought that was rude of her. Not that we were really worth noticing. But we learnt about TGIMO and how she went un-noticed , just a few months back. Well things had changed by then, and i was about to be beaten up badly for that. It was pretty bad on our part though. I mean, i am sorry and all, but it wasnt really something i could help. Typical boys, i tell you.

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So that’s the extent of which she went un-noticed you see.  Well that was 2 years back.  She did pick up herself remarkably well, in two years. Now we can’t really not notice her. Mostly because we’ve started talking to her. A lot infact. And now, she might just beat us up, if we do so. She has got these swift moving hands you know. Mostly she uses them to pinch us, and slap us. Not on the face though. I don’t tolerate that. But she does pinch pretty hard you know. I have been on the receiving end a lot. In fact it’s almost a daily affair now. And i havent really reciprocated equally. I could actually hit her only twice. And even then there were no witnesses in my favour.  I did hit her though, twice. Once was this morning. I must watch out for revenge now.

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TGIMO is sad these days, as she had to switch places. Earlier she was at this prime location, just at the entrance to the office, where people coming in or going out, would inevitably notice her. Some came in to drink water from her bottle. Some even came to talk to her. For most of us, i mean me and my friends, it was more of a recreation centre. I just went there, when we needed a break from our stupid work. It was fun. I got the cold water. That too free. Well, not really free. I did have to talk to her. It would have been pretty rude otherwise though. But it made her happy. I mean she did smile and laugh and talk to us. It was worth seeing her happy, you know.

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Well, TGIMO is sad now. She has shifted location to a pretty remote corner in the office. I hadn’t really gone to that corner in the  last 8 months or so. That was when the last guy in that corner left the company. No one really goes there. Except that now she sits there. So people are getting used to it.  A lot of people don’t really know she has shifted. A lot of ones who knew that, did not know, that such a corner even existed.

But no one can really miss where she sits. I mean you can see the place distinctly, you know. Mostly because it looks like a huge gift shop. There’s a horse. A straw one. There’s a stupid butterfly. There are some gods and all that. And a lot of other gifts. A lot of stupid boys gift her stupid stuff. I havent really gifted her anything. Well, i did gift her once. But that was her birthday and all. (That does not mean, you should not gift me stuff, TGIMO. You know, i love gifts so much). She keeps asking me for gifts, you know. She also has a lot of key chains. She also had a pretty good pen stand, which i stole from her actually. It was good. I keep my stuff in it nowadays.  (Please let me keep it TGIMO, and also please don’t hit me for this, ok).
Anywz, so TGIMO is a bit sad these days. She’ll be happy soon enough though.

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But serious stuff aside, TGIMO has actually become a very good friend in office. And not just to me, but to the whole group of we idiots at office.  Of course, she is the biggest idiot of the group. She has got this pretty girlish habit of wanting to hear her own praise. But she is a girl you know. Sometimes, i ignore this fact and then she beats me again. It’s not really fair you know. Some people even give her that. I mean praise her. I hear a girl called her cute today in office. Well, the girl who called her cute, is herself quite cute, as said by many. And i wasn’t there when she called her names. So you can never be sure. I personally cannot call her cute. Cute is for cats you know. I mean i love cats. Cats are just so cute. Just like pretty girls you know. So i don’t really call her cute. She takes great offence in this. To the point, she even tried to strangulate me today. But she isn’t that strong really.  Pretty skinny girl. She should eat more. I always tell her that.

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You see, the thing about TGIMO is not that whether she is cute is or not. Like i said, i know of a lot of cute girls. But then, all those cute girls are not my friends. Where as , TGIMO is my friend. And am not shy to say, that one of the best i found here in  Hyderabad. I wont describe her as cute or beautiful or all that stuff which some people say to her. Its her character that strikes me the most.  A free spirit she is. Always cheerful enough on the front, even though she might be torn apart inside. Childish demands for paani-puri, and tantrums thrown at you for almost anything. Her silly mis-quotations, and her stupid maratha pride. Her constant abusing and more constant punching and pinching.  But you know what. It’s all worth it. For when she does all of this, she seems to be happy. And it shows on her face. For a girl, who many would simply ignore at one glance, she shows a surprisingly happy face. A stupid I-Don’t-Care attitude also. But i wouldn’t have minded that, if i were her. I love her for what she is.

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She makes a difference to the company. At least my company. I mean she gives us company in whatever things we pull her into and when she does, she totally entertains. When she’s not in office, there is an awkward silence in the office.  Well, it happened once like that.  But then, many people were on leave that time. It was hauntingly peaceful then. Is hauntingly a word? Never mind, it was.

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By the way, she asked me to make a sketch of her. I managed this. Pretty Realistic it is. 

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Anywz that’s all about TGIMO for now. I might get some beatings tomorrow morning. But i guess, its worth it. I told you why. I won’t repeat. Oh, i just learned today that she’s like worth some 28 lacs. I mean the money that her father would pay to the guy who takes her away and all. Pretty impressive. Its a lot of money.

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OFFICE DAYS – II

A MODERN DAY TRAGEDY

ACT TWO , SCENE ONE

Its 10:48 am in the morning. A hot summer morning.  Some people don’t consider 10:48 am as morning. It’s nearer to noon they say. The sun is on top however. A young boy, dressed in a blue un-ironed shirt, which has turned all wet probably due to the sweat , is standing by the road side, desperately trying to hail a cab to office.  There’s a tree nearby for shade, but too many people are standing under it, so the boy has to stand in the sun. The pollution from the cabs and buses is coming on to his face, and he curses under his breath. He can feel a narrow stream of wet sweat running down his back. He is pretty flustered now. It has been 6 minutes now waiting for the cab. Oh, by the way, that young boy is me, myself.

10:51 am

A cab finally stops in front of him. The fare is decided upon. It’s a mere 10 rupees, but he is willing to fight with the cab driver if he demands 1 rupee more than that. The boy hops in. A bit of relieved from the heat outside. Ready to go.

10:56 am

Struck in a traffic jam. The cab driver has taken the longer route in the hope of getting more passengers, and now the cab is stuck in a traffic jam. A beggar nearby, not at all crippled and in surprisingly good shape, is asking for money, more like demanding for it. The boy turns his face in the other direction, to avoid the beggar. Its getting hot, and frustration levels are increasing. He wonders if the other people in the cab are thinking the same. Its getting late for office.

11:03 am

The traffic jam finally clears, and the cab starts to move again. Its 25 minutes to office from now, considering no more jams. Boy lets a sigh of relief. Adjusts his posture.

11:28 am

Thankfully no more traffic jams. Boy reaches his office building. It’s just on the other side of the road.

11:31 am

The boy is still on the same side of the road. Too much traffic. The boy is unable to cross the road and reach the office building which he can see in front of him. For every 2 steps he takes forward, he takes 3 backwards. It’s frustrating to do so in the hot afternoon sun. No trees nearby.

11:32 am

Finally enters office building. It’s very late to office now. He generally arrives by 11 am at max. He wonders if the manager has arrived or not. Also searches his brain, for any particular morning meeting. He doesn’t remember any. But still, its late. He fastens his pace a bit now.

11: 33 am

The boy is just about to enter his office, when he sees the totally hot Communication manager coming down. ( He has been working with this communication manager, on internal communications for the company.  And the new girl is totally hot , universally accepted so by all male employees of the organization. Ever since then, the boy has been a cause for jealousy , for all employee friends, male and female. Some would even kill for his position. ). The Communication Leader(CL) , smiles at him and signals “food” to him. The boy flashes a smile in return, as he forgets everything else. He  forgets that its late to office, as he accompanies the CL to the coffee shop.

11:54 am

Stupid chit-chat and a lecture by the CL to the coffee-shop guy over cleanliness and hygiene, took a lot of time. But the coffee was good and so was the sandwich. Maybe it was just the company he had.  They both now start for office.

12:00 pm

Finally reaches his cabin. The AC is on, and he feels relief now. He logs on to his system. He doesn’t switch on the lights. He prefers working in the dark. On his system, there are 5 blinking windows. There are 2 announcements for report submissions and other deadlines. He realizes the deadlines are already dead an hour ago. There are 3 other chat windows, all asking the same question…”Hi , Where are you?”. One is the manager. One is the irritating senior whom he works with. And one is th CL with whom he just had coffee downstairs. The boy relaxes and opens up his mailbox. 6 new messages in GMAIL since last night. 5 people have commented on his status message on Facebook. He smiles with pride. 1 mail is from a college junior asking for vacancies in his organization. There aren’t any, and he is too lazy to just search for any. Logs onto Facebook and reads the latest updates since last  night.

12:20 pm

Finally opens the outlook for emails. There are 16 mails. Most of them are stupid corporate announcements, which he just marks them as read. He doesn’t like to keep unread messages in his outlook. There are a few reminder messages for deadlines which elapsed while he was having coffee with his CL. Was his manager angry, he wonders? Quickly dismisses thought. There are also 6 emails, which are a chain of random gossip doing rounds in office, among his group of friends. Apparently some girl has stated a quotation wrongly, and now all the boys in office are just making merry, doing “Reply to All” with their witty comments. Useless girls and useless boys,he thinks. He catches the thread and joins the fun. (His comments are always more fun than the others).

12:40 pm

Senior pings again. Same question, “Hi, Where are you?”. This time he replies , “At my desk”. Senior wants the report which he was supposed to give her last evening. (But last evening, it was IPL between Mumbai and Hyderabad, and since the senior had already left, he thought he could do the report the next day morning, that was today) . Oops, the boy says. He quickly says, “Sorry” and tells the senior the report would be ready after lunch . He can sense the irritation behind the chat. Nothing to do but . It’s almost lunch time now. Checks the Facebook messages once again.

1:oo pm

Its lunch time now. He isn’t hungry , because of a late-morning sandwich and coffee. But he doesn’t want to say that to the guys he goes out for lunch. It would be a unneccessary topic for gossip and he knew, such news spread like wild fire. So he just accompanies the guys to lunch. Takes a juice and explains that he isn’t feeling hungry at all. The guys eye him with suspicion( he was known for his large appetite and insuppressible hunger). But they are hungry themselves and don’t bother much. Usual chit-chat follows.

1:45 pm

The boys return to office. They have their lunch in the cafeteria in the building next to theirs. And in the hot summer noons, going and coming back, tires them a lot. The boy enters the first cabin he sights, in search of water. The cabin incidentally belongs to one of his dear friends. (A stupid girl,who keeps on emailing stupid messages to all friends. No one complains though, as its such fun to participate in comment threads with the sole aim as to get on the nerves of this girl. Sweet girl really. Not so much bold or fearless as she thinks herself to be, but an integral part of his friend circle, and also a very good friend of the boy in office anc the city in general). The boy finally gets water and satisfies his thirst. And then he gets into a discussion with this girl and his colleague (They talk of pretty useless stuff, like the comments on her email,the comments on his blog, the dress that she wore to office that day or the day before, or what all “draupadi” had to bear as the wife of 5 husbands from the latest book he had been reading).

2:oo pm

Boy gets a phone call, from the manager. There’s a meeting on and the whole team is waiting for him. He hasn’t really shown his face to anyone in his team since morning. He hasn’t even done the report he was supposed to do last night. The boy is a bit worried now. He excuses himself from the girl, goes to the coffee machine, pours himself a cup of a dark-brown-syrup they call coffee in office, and hurries to the conference room. Which conference room did the manager say??……

End of Act Two Scene one

To be continued….

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OFFICE DAYS – I

A MODERN DAY TRAGEDY

ACT ONE , SCENE ONE

Its 8:45 am. A home in Hyderabad. There’s a bed in one corner. On the bed sprawled is a half-naked(its the summer season) innocent looking creature(thats me obviously). There’s a laptop next to him on the bed itself. There are some books too(you know what kind, wink!! wink!!). At the table next to him, is a cell phone. Next to the cell phone is the TV remote. Both these things are perched on top of a pile of newspapers, which have yellow stains on them indicating that  they have been used more for dining and less for reading. The fan is rotating at full speed, trying desperately to cool the hot room.

8:45 am

The alarm in the cellphone rings. The ringtone is highly highly irritating. (Interested people can contact me for getting the tone). There is a painful expression on the face of the roommate next room.A hand shoots out from the bed , searches for the source of the noise. Gets the cell and presses the buttons, still in sleep. The alarm stll blares on. Opens one eye to see, that he has been pressing the tv remote. He curses himself, makes a mental note to keep the tv remote away from the cell phone, and snoozes the irritating alarm .

9:00 am

The alarm rings again. The boy continues sleeping. The room mate in the next room is highly irritated.

9:15 am

The alarm rings again. The boy continues sleeping. The room mate in the next room is more irriated.

9:30 am

The alarm rings again. The boy continues sleeping. The room mate in the next room cannot control it this time.He comes and kicks the boy in his protruding ass. Boy wakes up startled. The alarm still blares on. He tries to sleep again, but is pulled down on to the floor by the evil room mate. The alarm finally gives up and goes into snooze mode again.

9:34 am

Boy realizes its late for office. He jumps up, wide awake now. He must brush his teeth. (The other day, he forgot to do so in the morning rush. He didn’t remember until the boss asked him, what had he eaten for breakfast. He knew he forgot to do something that morning, just what he couldn’t remember). The toothbrush is found quickly. Its the one with the pink handle. The orange handle one is of room mate, and he remembers room mate had threatened to kill him, if he used his toothbrush ever, even in his sleep.

9:36 am

The toothpaste cannot be found. There’s an old tube there, but the new yellow tube which was bought a few days back cannot be found. He checks the bathroom. He checks the other bathroom too, which he does not use. Still no clue. Its getting late for office. Briefly considers skipping brush. Evil thought. Discards it soon. Frantic searching continues.

9:45 am

The toothpaste is found underneath the pile of newspapers on the table near the bed. No one knows, how it got there. Room mates shake heads with wide eyes, claiming innocence. No time to argue now. Happy to get the toothpaste. Proceeds with brushing teeth. He does not like the taste of this new toothpaste. The red one was better, he thinks.

9:55 am

Boy thinks, he is almost ready. Will be in office at the right time, the first time since joining. A quick shower would take just 2 minutes. He steps under the shower. Feels the warm water on his body (There’s no geyser, but the water at 9:55 am is quite hot in the summers). And just as he rubs the soap over his body, he feels the water from the shower trickling. The trickle dries up soon. He is irritated now. He lets out an irritated shout to his room mate, to switch on the motor downstairs.

10:00 am

Boy gets outside the bathroom. Soap all over his body. Goes to his room mate, who conveniently tells him, he didn’t hear him shouting. The boy is frustrated now. He tells room mate to switch on the motor now. Room mate calls to the other room mate to do the same. For a few minutes, both room mates fight over, whose turn it was to switch on the motor. Meanwhile boy just stands there, dumbfounded, shivering a bit.

10:07 am

The dispute seems to be settled. The motor is switched on finally by the first room mate. The shower is running again. Boy takes a quick shower this time.

10:13 am

Boy searches for a wearable shirt for office. Hopes of reaching office early fade away like everyday. The blue shirt is not ironed. The red one has a dirty chocolate stain on it. Curses the maid under his breath. Rest all the shirts are demanding a wash, desperately. Room mate looking at the boy from the corner of his eyes. His wide eyes, warning boy against wearing his shirts. Boy finally decides on the blue shirt. No time to iron it. Its getting late.

10:20 am

Its already late. Boy realizes he cannot reach office before 11 now. So he decides to switch on the tv for a few moments. The latest movie song is quite catching. Must watch the movie. What happened to the cricket match last night, he remembers. He surfs the tv, trying to find the sports channel. After a few minutes of searching and another few minutes of advertisements, he finally learns the score. Satisfied, the boy switches to the music channel again.

10:38 am

Oh, shit! Boy realizes he is screwd. The socks are a bit smelly. He drenches the socks with his deodrant and wears them in a hurry. Then the shoes. Shoes need a wash desperately. He has been playing cricket on weekends in the same shoes. The black shoes are now almost white. No time for nonsense now. Makes a mental note of things to do and rushes out of home(Forgets the keys and the company id in the hurry).

End of Act one Scene one

To be continued….

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24

The other day , I was returning from office. It was around 9 pm. The usual time. Also the usual mode of transport when i am not being dropped by my friends or when i am not being picked up by my room-mate. But it wasnt such a usual night after all. I was on a phone call when i boarded the cab. Surprisingly,  there was no one but a single girl in the back of the cab. I thought the cab driver beckoned me to join him at the front, but i was on a call and didn’t notice much. Besides the girl at the back made room for me and i just made myself comfortable.

Half way through the 30 minute journey back to home, I felt this girl drowsing. She seemed to be swaying like a dandelion in the gentle breeze that blew in from the sides. But she didn’t seem drunk. Hell, i have travelled drunk in late night cabs, and i knew the feeling. But she didn’t seem drugged either. But she was high, definitely high when she fell asleep on my shoulder in a short while. I was still on my call, and i didn’t really know how to shrug her off. So i let her rest there.

Soon enough, i was at my drop-off point, the usual. But as i got down from the cab, i turned around and asked the cab driver, whether he knew the girl at the back. I caught a glimpse of the girl for the first time, in the penetrating street light, and for the first time that night I saw what she was. A simple girl, early twenties, possibly late teens, not the rich dolls( rich dolls don’t travel in common cabs), who had a strange alarm on her face as i asked the cab driver about her. The driver of course nodded in agreement and before I could enquire further, the cab just sped away. But not before I could catch a glimpse of the same girl, waving good-bye at me, Smiling  now.

I couldn’t really make out anything from the whole incident. I stood there for a few moments, pondering and staring at the full moon in the sky above, before i started moving again. And it was then that it hit me. There was no particular reason why i felt so, at such an unusual moment, but it hit my mind with the full force of a speeding truck.
I was 24.

My birthday was on 15th of february and this particular night in question here, was i suppose the 17th, 18th perhaps. I was no longer a kid now. I was a grown up now. For a brief moment that night, i thought i could have done more for this girl who perhaps acknowledged my selfless enquiry about her, but wishing for more at the same time. But i didn’t do anything.

Over the next few hours and also the whole of that night, my whole life kind of played in my mind like those books you know, which when you flip the pages at some speed, the stills convert into a story of sorts. Like that.

My birthday is on 15th. Which means its on the next day of valentines’ day. Which means, it just loses its significance to a more lets say popular thing. Not that its bad in any sort. I mean, people remember my birthday because of it and valentine’s day doesn’t seem to be so bad, the years when i don’t have anyone to share it with. But then it loses its significance too as you grow old each year, one at a time. You don’t realize that time’s flying out. I don’t know of others, but for me it’s definitely the case, more so because of this peculiar birth date. Not this year.

I am not going to bore my audience(if I can call them so), by going through my life story here. Frankly speaking, i find that too difficult to express in words here. All that i see everyday, all that i have seen and all that I did see when i was in Kanpur this time, for a brief vacation. I cannot express all that i saw, in words capable of capturing the attention of you all , in the same  way those visions did mine.

But, the journey doesn’t stop here. It’s still a long way to go. There are still a hell lot of things to see and witness and be a part of, even for those who think they have seen too much of life already. Only Death can stop this journey short, that is if you believe so. Personally, i do think that death can only kill the body and not the thought. But that’s a totally different subject we are dwelling here.

Anyways, There’s this immensely  popular poem, which says “Miles to go before i sleep” and all. I think you can dig that up on google or something. Robert Frost i believe the poet/writer whatever. It’s hugely philosophical and too mature for the kids to whom it is actually taught.

What i am saying is, i don’t know why i remembered that poem of all the poems i studied when i was a kid. I did remember it though.
And yet, i am 24, just 24 or omg 24, am still unsure, but….
…24!!

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BEATEN AND BATTERED…

How many of you have never ever got a beating in their whole of life. Beatings from your teachers when you were in school, beatings from your parents when you were still not ready to go to school or whatever sort of beating. And, all those who are nodding their head silently or jumping with pride ,in response to the above question…GET OUT. Stop right here, close your browser windows and do not dare read what’s written in this sad sad post of mine.

My life has been an exciting one, mostly before school and during school days. 4 years of college were also pretty exciting. And although i was universally known and accepted by my parents and my teachers and professors as some sort of a genius and that too an intelligent one at that, i have always been involved in a lot lot more tragedies, got more beatings and scoldings, than other intelligent guys of my age generally got. 12+ years of school were full of painful beatings from i guess at least more than half the teachers i had at school. In fact, there was a time in my early childhood, when i thought that my registered name was either “GET OUT” or “SHUT-UP”. My teachers it seemed knew me by only these names.

Like when the English teacher hit me on my knuckles with a wooden scale. I think it was class 3rd. And this particular English teacher had a reputation for hitting on the knuckles of juvenile kids with a wooden scale. Rumor had it that she had broken the hand of one such kid, and although no one had ever seen the broken kid, we were all terrified of her. She even looked like a devil, i thought.

So one fine day she walks into the class, tells us to open our registers, and goes on to dictate four topics, one for each page. They were pretty trivial topics, you know the postman and the milkman types. I got a bit over-involved in sharpening my new pencil or something (we still wrote with pencils those days), and by the time i was ready with my pencil, registers were shut and textbooks were open. So i had to quickly just note down the topics and open the textbook for study.

After school i went home and after a rather short period of play, sat down for homework. So i opened the 4 topics, and stared at them for some time. 4 topics, one on each page, i wondered. Then i stared at the wall in front of me. 4 topics, what was i supposed to do with them, i wondered. The teacher definitely didn’t tell us to do anything. So i just continued staring at the blank wall and the 4 blank pages interchangeably for about an hour, till my mom intervened and broke the silence, with a piercing yell. After that i just closed the register and did my other homework.

Next day, English class, Teacher walks in. “Open the 4 essays”, she roars. “What essays?”, i squeal to my partner who sat next to me. She was too terrified to speak however, but i got the hint, that the 4 topics were essays to be written as homework. And then, i got a few wooden scales on my bare knuckles with only a couple of other dim-wits in class, followed by a “GET-OUT”.  How does that not come under child abuse, pray tell me. I was only in class 3rd then.

Such beatings continued over the years. I got beatings from the child-hating teachers and the peace-loving teachers as well. I managed to get a few tight slaps in Sanskrit too, generally believed to be the most peaceful of all subjects. I hadn’t done my workbook, as i had a few doubts. But i had already been slapped right and left, before i could even tell my doubts and a high-pitch “SHUT-UP” thrown at my face. I totally forgot all doubts after that, and i got a few more slaps for that too.

Even the games teacher with an obvious drinking problem, got to clear his hands on me. It was a cloudy day outside, so we were having an indoor session. And obviously kids will do mischiefs when left to do so. Next, this teacher comes to my seat, bends me down, and delivers a full punch on my back with a bang. For a few minutes, it was total darkness, and the stars seemed brighter than the moon in front of my eyes. One solid punch it was. The class fell silent after that. I guess, that was his intention after all. Unfortunately i was the chosen one for the experiment.

One major beating that i or we got, came in class 7th. You see,there was this rather tall, hunk of a teacher whom we generally referred to as Peter Gomes – The Killer (named after a rather cruel Englishman who supposedly did a lot of atrocities on indians, in a popular sitcom back then). So his reputation always preceded him everywhere. In a way it covered up the fact that he wasn’t such a great teacher of mathematics at all. But no one dared to question him, leave aside stand up to him. He had his own torture methods, like pinching hard in the armpits, slapping us hard in the face as he would ask us kids,”Kutub Minar dekha hai?” and making us run 3 laps of our huge playground in the name of fitness. So you see, we all simply dreaded him and to top it all, he was my class teacher(which meant i had him for more time than the other sections). But the worst was yet to come.

One fine lunch period, i and my group of friends, brought  a pack of WWE Trump cards, a huge hit those days, to school. We were pretty excited and we played it the whole 30 mintes of lunch period. We were just kids then. But tragedy struck, 2 periods after lunch. We were in the middle of an English class, when in walked The Killer. Along with him was the guy whom we had refused to let play with us, in the lunch period. So,  the 4 kids(including me) who were involved in our innocent trump card game were summoned to the front of the class, our charges were read out to us and we were sentenced to an undecided punishment. It started off with a few slaps from the English Teacher whose class it actually was. Of course, The Killer gave us everything he had, slaps, pinches, all of it. We were then taken to each of the 4 sections of our class, and were given beatings from all the teachers whom we found in those sections. We were then made to kneel down in front of our class, and our class teacher(The Killer), ensured that evey teacher who passed our way, did give us atleast one slap. I think , all 5 of us got at least 20-25 slaps each, that very day. Those slaps are still fresh in my head, my cheeks rather.

The class girls , ofcourse had to tell everything to my mom who came to get me after school, even before i could reach my own mom. So, a few more slaps were received. One of the worst days of my life till date.

So, beatings continued. English-Hindi-Science-History-Geography-Maths, i scored everywhere. No wait, i think the History teacher was in love with me. She kissed me too. It was embarrassing though back then. But the other teachers continued with their beatings on me. I even got one tight slap from one senior most Maths teacher in the school, when i was skidding and rolling on the tiles of the floor with my friend, on the way to the toilet. I later learnt, that i was the first junior kid to ever get a beating from that particular teacher. Quite a distinction.

The last slap i got was in class 11th, when i had gone to call someone from the other class. In a particularly jovial mood, i had joked with the teacher present in the class, who turned out to be in a not-so-jovial mood. I got one slap, and the girls spread the news like wild fire to all other sections by end of day. Is that called being famous, or notorious. Anyways ,So, you see, i grew up in a rather tough environment, where each day was a challenge for me to survive without a beating. I failed on most days. The next task then was to ensure than mom never learnt about what happened in school. But thanks to the stupid girls of my school, i failed at that too on most days. But i guess, i grew tougher and all after each such beating.

That was how my childhood and school life got shape. Or rather lost shape, i would say. Life was tough for me, i tell you. And one of the biggest advantages of being a grown up is that you don’t get beaten up by your teachers by any stupid thing you do. You may be laughed at, mocked at, teased, scolded, but never beaten. That’s the charm of growing up. Or is it? So all grown up dudes and dudettes, all those who had the right to read this post, share with me the worst beating you ever had in school. I bet, that would be fun.


So what are you waiting for. I am waiting to hear your stories…

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A GUEST POST BY MY WIFE…

YEAR 2022

Why?

Why on earth did i ask my wife(read dear darling wife), to write a guest post for my Blog. It seems as if she had been waiting for the exact opportunity, to vent out her frustrations, and lower my image in front of my blog readers. I now understand, why she had been so all praise for my writing and my thoughts, all of a sudden in 8 years, the last couple of days. She had a plan. It was all a trap and i walked straight into it. Women, i tell you. One wink of the eye, one sweet smile, one word of praise for anything you love, one morning coffee, and men will be ready to jump from their balconies, all smiling. I deliberately took the first floor flat, would get some broken bone and bed-rest at max. She has now threatened me, to publish this post on my blog, without any editing, or else i would have to sleep in the garage outside for one month and live on left-overs. Considering its winters, and we don’t really have a cozy garage or even a garage, i had to submit.


So here, is what my wife(read dear darling wife), wrote. Please don’t take all that’s written seriously. I am not that bad a person to live with.
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TO MY LOVING HUSBAND…


Greetings to all the morons in the world, who read my husband’s blog.
I am sure none of you is a woman, for i believe women have far better and important jobs than reading self-obsessed blogs.
But if by chance, if any of you is indeed a woman, i would be really curious to see how you look like.


Men are such emotional fools, i tell you. And my husband would easily be the king of all those fools, unanimously. I happened to read my son’s blog 2 months back, and since then, i have been waiting to reply back. And what better way to reply back on my husband’s blog itself and use his readership to my purpose. I so so tricked him, and so easily too. I didn’t even have to go to my plan B and C.  It’s so much fun to play with him. The other day, i brought him the morning coffee(put some extra sugar into it), and told him that i read one of his very old posts…..HAPPINESS 99.9999% pure. He sat bolt upright in his bed, hugged me, gave me a kiss and burnt his tongue in a hurry to drink the steaming coffee. There were tears of happiness 99.9999% pure in his eyes that moment(he thought it was happiness but it was only because he had burnt his over-used tongue). All that i had to do next was tell him, his favorite pasta was for breakfast and he was ready to bring me flowers from the moon. I only asked for a guest post on his blog. My plan, successful.


First of all, you moron( referring to my husband here), it was not  your idiot son, but i who wrapped a blanket around you that night. Your son was just smart enough to take the credit for it. And if you would had the common sense to observe, that was our bedroom blanket and not your son’s. All men are idiots.


And i also heard about your son’s infamous English teacher. I now understand why you are always keen to go to the school for PTAs, while not showing the slightest interest in the fact that your son has hit 3 straight zeroes in mathematics for 3 consecutive exams. Enough with you and your interest. From now onwards, i am going to your son’s PTAs and that english teacher better get transferred in the next few months to some other planet.


And please, have you ever seen what your son is becoming. The other day, he punched  D’s son so hard, that he cried for one full hour. I thought D was your best friend, wasn’t she? So it’s up to you , how you handle D and your son. I think, you have been the single most bad influence on you own son’s life till now. I know you don’t  want him to be an engineer when he grows up, but he is always making weird designer paper planes , at home and in school. God, even his favorite song is “paper planes” by M.I.A., its 10 years old. And by the way, Did you know, that he lost his pencil-box to his classmate, over a game of “teen-patti” that you taught him. He was suspended from school for a  month, if you noticed. You thought it was the winter break.
It was the middle of September for god sake.


Lets come to you. In fact lets come to you and your stupid friends. Your friend R, the single most useless friend, a guy can ever have. All he does is, giggle and pass comments. And your friend T. Half of the time, he’s here in my house, hanging out with you. The other half of the time, it’s the other way around. T’s wife has the same thing to say, and if you both don’t get straight now, we will be forced to take some strict actions. And i just have this weird feeling that you won’t like our actions.


You know, what, i am sick and tired of you.
Sick and tired of you.
Remember what you were 10 years back?
Oh, wait, of course you don’t , because you are still the same.
Dude, get a move in life. Be a little more serious, at least towards your family.
10 years back, you were this all careless and free-willled guy, and i thought you were so cute.  And when you loved me, i just wanted to see your cute face, each morning, for the rest of my life.
And remember, you once lost a stupid NFS game to me and you spent the whole night in the rain, outside my house, just because you lost a bet. You know, what, i did use a cheat code to win that race. You were not the only smart ass that time. I took help from a friend of your though. It’s such a stupid game anyways. But it was so cute, when you sang “She will be loved” for me the whole night outside. Well, at least until you didn’t start sneezing and get the pneumonia. That was when i knew, i could not love anyone else but you.


But dude, that was 2012. Its 2022 today, 10 years have gone by. And you are still the same. I mean, i still love it when you love me. But there’s so many things apart from love darling. For God’s sake, we have a kid now. And you keep forgetting his name. Don’t you think, he should have some manners and all, and don’t you think that’s your responsibility as a father to him. And don’t you think you pamper him a bit too much. I mean, when you spend the whole day playing NFS with him on his Playstation, have you even seen the number of CD’s in his room. It’s more than the number of books you have in your library. And do you know, half of them have been won in bets of “teen-patti” and other such useless bets. Even you have lost a dozen bets to your son.


So, please stop pampering your kid, if u remember his name. And please don’t brag about your achievements at home, on your blog. There aren’t any. I do keep track of what you write, so don’t have any misconceptions.
And please grow up. Be a little more serious in life, as you promised 10 years back.


Lets make a deal, say. Why don’t you be a bit more serious and responsible, and i won’t make you eat boiled broccoli and other boiled vegetables.
I would even make you, your favorite cheese pasta once a week.
So, what do you say??


PS: By the way, its ok to gift me a huge kiss and a platinum ring , on my birthday, but it’s not OK, to wish me HAPPY BIRTHDAY, 2 days after the actual date. Get a pocket calendar, idiot.

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Comments : 11


R said : F*** your wife, dude. Oh, wait, Ok, don’t do that anymore.

T said : I understand why your wife says so for R. But we? And my wife too in the conspiracy?

D said : Dude, i knew you wouldn’t change, hehe. I knew it, when it first met you 30 years ago. And btw, my son is taking karate lessons now, and will beat the hell out of your kid, next time.

Your Son said : Mom, Good job. Dad, poor job. And btw, my name is Bond, James Bond. And you give me the latest NFS now.

Shital said : Hehehehe

English Teacher said : Whoa, you never told me you had a living and roaring wife? You asshole.


T’s wife says : Good post, friend. We will, we will teach them a lesson.

Wife’s friend says : I told, you not to marry him. I never liked him.

Wife’s other friend says : Hey don’t listen to others. He’s so cute. If you plan to leave him, tell me first thing . I am still single.

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NEW YEAR MUSINGS…

OK….so finally we have come into 2010. That is 2 years to the end of the world, if the story of the movie 2012 and the many rumors and e-mails surrounding it are to be believed. The year itself has been quite a good one, more on personal front actually, you know self-realizations and stuff. Burying some old relationships finally, and looking forward to get some new ones, coz the bitch called life moves on, with or without you. Some more friends suffering break-ups and some forming new relationships this year. Some getting jobs , while some settling down into jobs this year. Too many events in general.

The end to the old year was something to remember. Again there were some good self-realizations ,on the very last day of the year. But 31st December 2009, will be more remembered because of the rains. But hold on, don’t be fooled. These were no ordinary monsoon rains. These were no winter rains. These were indoor rains, and it wasn’t raining water , but BEER. Yeah, you heard it right. It was BEER RAINING, inside our favorite hangout bar, the EXTREME SPORTS BAR. Well, there was whiskey and vodka also thrown about generously, but beer was what it was mostly about. And with poor drainage system inside the pub ( I guess, they never thought there would be drainage problems inside a bar), we were in knee-deep in a pool of beer( A bit of exaggeration, but its true still). And then after having a nice swim and a nice beer bath, we sat on the road and wished every passer-by HAPPY NEW YEAR, till we passed out.

A Night to Remember, and we are awaiting the photos, to fill in the missing details.

SO, a very very HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you bloggers and readers of my narcissist and useless posts. But before you get too happy and start partying again in the new year, i wish to ask a few questions, the answers to which i have found a bit tricky. Like,

• When you order food for 2, at a restaurant and you cannot eat it full and you return it, is that a wastage of food and a moral sin?

• When you get a change from your cab, and the nearby beggar opens his palms wide open, and you walk away ignoring him, is that a moral sin?

• But that is because you have once been fooled by such a beggar, does that justify your behavior to the other beggars?

• Does, giving huge donations to temples in the name of religion, justified, when you can can help a poor instead?

• When you spend 1500rs, on an overpriced jeans, and there’s a charity box at the counter, and you ignore it, again is that a sin?

• Personally, is one-sided love really right?

• What if you find out that a person loves you more than anything in world, is not giving him/her a chance, justified?

• What are best friends ? How do you define Best-Friendship ?

• And finally how does each one of us define LOVE, and how many of you are really looking forward to fall in love this year?

So, do think over these questions, mail me back or reply back with answers to some or all of them. In any case, enjoy the new year sun, make some new year resolutions, break them as soon as possible, party harder, get drenched in some more rains, try the monsoons this time for real, do some charity, feel good for yourself, get some meaning of life and remember to live life, like a LEGEND !!!

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VCC CRICKET CLUB

The following is an article my boss told me to write about the cricket sessions we have been every Saturday morning, over the last one month. I wrote something up, but now i am in a moral dilemma, whether i should show this to my team in office or not.

But viewers here do read it at least.

Maybe you all can decide if it can be shown to my boss…

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VCC CRICKET CLUB

More like Very Chaotic Cricket than Validation Cricket Club.

Cricket they say is a game of the gentlemen.

So who were those 12 people who gathered on that playground, that Saturday morning at 7 o clock, with a large bag that resembled a cricket kit, and lots of balls (no pun intended). A few were practicing catches. A few were practicing holding the bat in years. A few were simply yawning, as it was still too too early for them. They were anything, a strange mix of adults ranging from 24 to 48, but gentlemen…. doubtful if you saw them at that instant.

Ok, so that was when we first started playing cricket. By we, we mean, we the HTC Validation Team. India started playing the same game a few centuries back. We somehow lagged behind, what will all the innovation at work, and the deep-technical-help-world stuff, in the labs of our offices. But we did manage to come out in the sun that day. And needless to say, it was a pleasant feeling, at least for the nocturnal team members.

So, that was how the equation stood that morning. 12 members. 2 teams of 6 each. Each member had to field for both teams, needless to say honestly. And so the 12 odd, cranky bones, fidgety legs, nimble limbs got into action, for a game of cricket which they all believed was a big joke anyways. But, men can be competitive i tell you. And men hate losing, they simply abhor it. And the casual cricket game got the better out of them.

Pretty soon, we were cheering (sledging). We were diving to take catches (falling with no clue at all). We were trying to hit sixes (with no idea where the ball was). We were bowling with full speed (with no idea where the stumps were). We were running between stumps (with no idea why to run at all when we can swing bats). And it was pure bliss (chaos theory put to practice). And that was the first match. Loads of fun with a winner too.

Of course there were some totally awesome players, like Abhishek whose balls had the fury of hell and the aim that would embarrass sharpshooters. There was Abhik, who was the best of the swinging-bat-at-ball people. There was Giri, whose leg side pulls made you totally forget there was an offside too. And we also had the Manager, whom we had to bowl over twice, before the play could progress any further. There was Sanjeev, whose shoaib-akhtar-length run-up totally defied his age and a potbelly. We had Chirag, who put his heart out to put speed into his balls.

But then we also had a manager who looked confused; each time the ball came towards him, as to whether he should play cricket or his favourite sport football. The ball however took advantage of his confusion and raced to the boundaries each time. There was Kiran, whose lazy attempts at hitting the ball with his bat, made even the bat yawn out of sheer laziness. And these were bowlers too, bowling at 6-foot wide stumps mostly. Some of the slow balls delivered to confuse the batsmen, were so slow that some batsmen thought of taking a nap before hitting the ball actually. They definitely broke the record of the longest spell by any bowler, thanks to the wides and no-balls. But then there was also a wicket keeper, who had the courage to stand up to these challenges with no protection at all. He took some blows, he fell a million times, but each time he stood up and continued with the game.

There were visitors too, i guess. Like the guy who climbed on top of the coconut tree to have a top-view of our wonderful game. Even the kids who were scampering across the field in pure enthusiasm. And the buffaloes too, though they didn’t disturb us much. The matches were interesting for various reasons. The drinks at the end were refreshing enough.

And after 4 hours of play, we return back to our homes, with aching limbs and dirty clothes, to the regular non-happening life.

Now run a loop of 1 to 3, and run the entire above thing for 3 iterations, and we have now got a team which can surely take on the Indian Cricket Team.

We would lose of course, by a huge margin too, but that’s not the question here.

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MY KID’S FIRST POST !!

YEAR 2022

ME SITTING IN MY CABIN IN MY OFFICE, WORKING !

I have been idling away at office for quite some time now. When you are in a managerial position in a Global company, there are only two phases of life in office – meetings and in-between-meetings. I was in one such meeting, randomly browsing the web, when i stumble upon this piece of blog, which turns out to be the first post of my 8 year old son on his blog. I suddenly beam with pride, as my son has followed my legacy of blogging and started so early, unlike his dad. Heavens, he even chose wordpress for his blogs, its got to be in the genes. I have to tell my dear wife, this. She always complains about my son, how he never reads and writes. And even when he writes, its mostly jibberish. Anyways, before calling my wife, i decide to read the post. My wife gets really annoyed when i call her from office , everytime something significant happens like India winning against australia, or the new coffe machine spitting totally crap coffee, or even when a totally hot new girl joins my team. I mean you got to understand me, instead she just makes those angry noises  which make me think twice before going home the evening.

Anyways, so i start reading my son’s post.

Ohh, by the way, i excused myself from the meeting i was in. They gave me such a weird look at that. I see in my diary now, that those people were there to discuss their pay scales. Weird.

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MY FIRST POST IN WEIRDO WORLD

Posted Nov 21, 2022 by “A Piece of Mirror99” |Edit

Hi,

To all peepal all world…no wait.

To all childs all world…no wait.

To all childs who are not grown up now all world.

I am not righting all this, because i am some righter or something. Frankly, Dad thinks he is some great righter or something. But i have read the comments on his so called blog (i don’t understand it at all, though it was first thing dad showed me when i was birth) and i know, he forces people to read what he rights, and sometimes “bribes” them too. I know “bribes” is that playstation CD that he give me when he don’t want me saying somthing to mom. So, i know Dad no great righter. But he thinks so. And so he thinks i too become great righter. But i am not. But i am righting.

I am very angry today. It is november. And where i live, november is winter. And mom made me bath in the morning at 7am. Frankly, bath taking is a totally useless invention. I got to ask T uncle who invented it. I mean, it is a total useless waste of time and water. I can use that time to complete my game of warcraft. But no, mom says i have to take bath. Today morning, i confronted mom. I said to her, that why do you make me bath everyday when dad does not do so everyday for office. But my mom gave my dad a dirty look, my dad gave me a dirty look, and mom gave me beatings and pushed me into bathroom. I got a feeling, i will get a playstation CD today evening. But i don’t like mom beatings. Bathing is useless.

Then today in school, i was standing in assembly and this dick who was standing next to me, was making a aeroplane and wanted it to fly. But he was making it all wrong. So i took the paper from him, and show him how to make aeroplane and make it fly. The aeroplane landed near principal and she gave me beatings again. She even remembered my name this time and i was impressed by this. But i learn later from my friend, that dick had fooled me. So, i am angry today. He is a big guy. But i not afraid of him. I will make him get beatings also.

Then in class, i did not find my homework notebook. Then i remembered, dad had taken it for noting down scores of the cards-game he was playing with friends. He said “teen-patti” , but dad’s maths is so screwed up. There were 10 pattis in his hand. But my teacher not beleive me. She says, she wants to meet my father. I know this will make dad so happy. Why i don’t know really. But my english teacher also very happy with dad. Last time, only my Dad came to PTA and then Dad and my english teacher totally forgot that they had to discuss my zero in class tests. I was very happy. Dad also gave me a playstation CD that day. He told me , not to tell mom anything. I was happy not to tell mom I got zero.

Also my other friends in class are also not good. They always use me up. In the art and craft class, the guy next to me said his scissors not working. It did not even cut hair. What crap i said. I cut the pony tail of the girl in front of me and said to him, “SEE…” . But the bitch in front complained and i got beatings again. My teacher never believes me. It was a beating ful day, so i was very angry. But in the last class of the day, this girl was teasing me. I was annoyed and i beat her up. And again beatings from teacher. Life is not fair to me in school. Dad showed me this prison movie last summer, and i thought my school resembled the prison in some ways.

After a beatingful day, i came home. I played my favorite video game with my friend. He was about to win the race, so i switched off the system. Then the weirdo started fighting with me. I punched him hard in the stomach and i laughed. But that sissy , went and complained to D aunty. Then my mom was angry and she gave me beatings again. I vowed never to play with the guy again in life and i cried.

But Mom loves me so she came and patted my head and called for dinner. Later i learn that even my mother cheats me. It was broccoli for dinner and she knows i hate it. I glared at mom, but she glared back so i keep quiet. Dad always praises mom for her food. Mom went in to get more broccoli , so i asked,

“Dad, are you afraid of Mom? “

Dad : “No way son”

Me: “Then why did you throw away the broccoli when you said it was good ? “

Mom entered at the precise moment. And then no more broccoli. I was happy. But Dad gave me beatings this time. No Playstation CD. Not a bad day, i thought. Atleast no broccoli. But i am angry still.

Anyways, its 11:00 PM now.

Dad is sleeping like a horse, in the sofa outside. I go and wrap him with blanket. He is a good dad. He gives me playstation CD. He does not fuss about my zero in english and other subjects. Not a great righter. But he makes me laugh…

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Comments: 5

Dick said     : “I totally fooled you in assembly today morning. Beware boy”

Rohit said   : “I knew my scissors were working. I so fooled you. That was for you locking me in toliet”

Shital said  : “You son of a bitch…you cut my hair. I will screw you”

Neha said   : “You moron, tomoorrow i will beat you”

Vivek said : ” Hahaha …i can beat you in NFS any day any time”

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I have a frown on my face now.

I think for a moment.And then i add a comment to it,

Dad says : “I am proud of you, my son. And so It was you who gave me the blanket. I got to teach your mom a lesson. And you ,Go kick some ass. Don’t kick mine though. Remember, you still want that latest Playstation8 right?”

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MOMS AAJKAL…

The following is a conversation (one of many on the same topic), which i had with my mom, just the other day. I just wanted to share the words with you and see if you can possibly relate to it, maybe find more moms like this.

I take out my cell(N73 mind you), dial the top most number on my dialled numbers list, the phone rings …..tring tring…

MoM: Heylo…

Me: Hi, Wassup ?

MoM: What was that again?

Me: Ok, Hi! How are you?

MoM: Am fine. The same old boring life you know. What are you doing?

Me: Oh, am just returning home from office. Too much work at office these days you know. Deadlines have to be met

and…

MoM: …and obviously you have been partying around when you should have been working and now you have  to stay late and work.

Me: It’s not late MoM, its only 11 pm now. More than an hour to midnight. And we anyways have dinner at midnight. You see, dinner at midnight is actually auspicious in a way.

MoM: OK , Don’t act smart with me. Did you have your dinner?

Me: Is my voice clear on that side? I just said am returning  home from office.

MoM: Duh!! You gonna eat out again or you gonna cook now? Don’t eat out so much. It’s not good for you.

Me: I think we gonna cook something up. I don’t eat much outside.

MoM: I know what you eat and how you love eating out. Anyways, are your roommates back yet? What are you gonna cook?

Me: Ok, mom..stop! I haven’t even stepped into the home. God knows, whats going on inside. Will answer this tomorrow ,ok?

MoM: Do as you wish! Remember, there’s no one there to take care of you.

Me: I know that. (regretting the call now). Can we talk something else. After a tiring day at office, you don’t help much.

MoM: Ok, So where were you over the weekend? You were supposed to call.

Me: Ohh…weekend eh? Friday night i went for a movie with friends. 2012 you know, end of the world and stuff.

MoM: I thought you said, you had work?

Me: Yeah, but that was friday night, and all my friends were going?

MoM: So when did you return?

Me: Umm…lets see…around 2am ( Scratching head to come up with an appropriate time , it was 3 am when i had returned)

MoM: Aah..am fed up of you and your late night parties. 2am you said?

Me: It was not a party. Just a long long movie.

MoM: Duh??

Me: Ok, so i overslept till noon on saturday. Then we had lunch around 5. Then i wanted to call you , thought would do that at night, but went to a friend’s place and stayed till late.

MoM: What friend??

Me: Ok, i went to supriya’s place. She called. I went. (I can’t tell her of the  drinking party, and supriya’s place is the safest place in Hyderabad. Oh, btw, sup is my very old school friend, so you see…trust and all )

MoM: Tell me, do you smoke?

Me: MoM???

MoM: It’s pretty cool. I mean you might just do it for maaroing style, in front of those girls of yours.

Me: I don’t have any girls of “yours”.

MoM: yeah, yeah, i know…thats what you said in college too. And each time you came back home, you had a new girl to talk about.

Me: First of all, i did not have a different girl each time. And secondly MoM, they were all friends of mine.

MoM: Accha, then what of those heartbreaks?

Me: Ok, not all of them were friends…so what?

MoM: Speaking of which, what’s that girl doing these days….you know who?

Me: I don’t wanna talk about her, you know that.

MoM: Hehe, its fun teasing you.

Me: (totally irritated now) Are you done then?

MoM: Ok , sorry. So what else? Any girls you going around with these days?

Me: No One, there’s none in hyde.

MoM: Does that mean you have girls outside Hyde. Is that the reason you went to Delhi for 4 days, last time you came here.

Me: MoM……noooo. No girls anywhere. I went to see Rajat , you know that. Wanna talk to him?

MoM: Yeah, do give me his number. Also i called your friend Tauseef.

Me: And i know what you asked him.

MoM:  Hehe, ok so at this supriya’s place?…were you alone with her?

Me: No, she has 2 room mates and a friend too, a Bengali mind you and before you start over, i don’t like Bengali

girls.

MoM: I know that. So these other 2 girls, how are they?

Me: MoM, i know what you are getting at. The answer is No, i am not hitting at them.

MoM: You know, you are a useless guy, can’t get one girl for yourself in what 2 years now.

Me: It’s actually 1.5 years, and i am happy the way i am.

MoM: You are wasted, you know that? Tell me, do you drink…soemtimes maybe? Does supriya drink?

Me: (Almost crying).…..Noooo Mom, i never even go near drinks. And supriya’s a nice girl. Mom, please maaf kar do.

MoM: Hmmmmm

Me: And why don’t you set me up with some girl. Surely there must be some beautiful girl of some of the many

useless friends you got back there.

MoM: Why should i? You find a girl for yourself. Next thing, you’ll curse me for setting you up with this totally wrong girl.

Me : Oh, i won’t…promise, i won’t. Set me up? Give me a phone number or just an email-id. I will take care of the rest.

MoM: Isn’t your home reached yet?

Me: Am at home already.

MoM: So, go and eat something first you moron. Girls can wait for you.

Me: Am so going to be a single ready to mingle guy for my entire life, ain’t i ?

MoM: Hehe, Yeah totally. Now put the phone down. And yes, before sleeping , please recharge my phone with 100 rs, through your internet thing. I need to talk to some relatives back home.

Me: Duh, didn’t i do it last friday itself?

MoM: yes, but you didn’t call me over the weekend. And i had to talk to someone.

Me: Mommmmmm…

MoM: Go and eat something. Good night and Buh-Bye.

Me: Hmmmmm

Me..thinking….aajkal ki mummiyan.

Mom..thinking…aajkal ke bacche…

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MY FIRST TIME…

“The first time, they say, is always special.
The first time, they say, is always memorable.
The first time, they say, is the best.”

 

Once upon a time, when i had just entered college for the first time. It turned out to be a year of “lots of firsts” . The first time i had given JEE , the first time i had cleared JEE(and am not proud of it at all, i sincerely think i could have done better things is life, like become some artist/painter/writer and earn millions in one shot). Also it was the first time i had to go out of my home in 18 years and live in a hostel for 4 years. So you see a lot of first, and some were totally unexpected.

Now, the first semester in college is generally a strange one. It’s like we have being promoted from school to college now. So, its like all of a sudden we have being given total freedom , to which most of us are not really accustomed to. In fact, in the first semester, its home that we miss most, in spite of the fact that home gets synonymous with a prison of gold when compared to college. So you see, most of us are like this complete bunch of losers in the first semester, getting up early in the morning, taking an unnecessary bath, and then forming a queue to visit places like the hostel mess and the classroom. We obviously learn to win soon. While in our hearts, we all just wish to get back home , at the first vacation possible.

So, one such vacation, i am back at home. All excited about college and answering the curious questions of parents and relatives , which makes you feel like you have just returned from a trip to the amazon, without food or water. And then an exhausted me, decides to take a stroll down the streets which i have missed for some 3-4 months now.

My house is a rather shady place, perched up on the first floor, with a narrow stairway leading to it, which has been the site of numerous accidents for everyone who has attempted to climb it up. We generally advise the old people not to attemp to climb it. The kids generally, we go and pick them up from the bottom and bring them up with us. The others are advised to climb at their own risk. So, as now i wanted to visit the neighbourhood streets, a lot to the amazement of curious neighbours who have been wondering where has this boy been who has been the local terrorist of the nighbourhood…i get down the stairs, pretty quickly (am now an expert in it).

So i come to this verandah below, where the neighbour’s kid (more of the infant kinds) is playing. The verandah itself is not so heavily guarded, with just a not-so-high brick wall around it and a not-so-high iron gate at one end. As a kid, i never quite understood the reason behind those walls. Even as a very small kid, i could find it quite easy to jump over the walls and so did the other animals of the neighbourhood, you know..the multi-coloured stray dogs, the agile cats and of course the other kids of my gang. It almost became a habit so much so that the presence of a locked iron gate hardly mattered, much to the annoyance of the neighbour.

But now i was a grown up. I mean i was in college you see. In a few years, i would be doing what i am doing right now( that is writing about old times in my office hours, on my office PC, where i am supposed to work for which i am to get paid at the end of the month). So i was now a more responsible local boy in my own eyes. So i suppress the temptation of jumping over the wall somehow, and decide to take the gate itself. I am sure my neighbour would have blessed me for it. Anywz, so i open the gate, get out (trying not to make much noise, i had almost no experience with iron gates), and just when i am about to close the gate behind, this little creature who had been playing in the verandah for some time now comes up to me and said…

” Can you please open the gate for me ……….uncle ?? “

I look deep into the eyes of the kid.

“The gate….Uncle….??”

More stern glances and lots of silence.

“Uncle…….?????????  “.

Next i turn around and close the door, cursing the kid under my breath.
“Why don’t you just climb the wall your dad built ?”….i said, and walked away from the scene

“The first time, they say, is always special.
The first time, they say, is always memorable.
The first time, they say, is the best.”

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CONFESSIONS OF AN INNOCENT ADMIRER…

A year ago, i came to office. It was GE, not that its significant to the story, or even otherwise. GE is somehow always thought of that great bulb making company, whose bulbs can be seen nowhere around us. But believe me , Bulbs is not the only thing it makes. Ok, am getting carried away. So where was i ? Yeah, so a year ago, i joined this office.

Now its a totally guy thing, so all of my audience should take no offence whatsoever. So, the first thing that any NORMAL guy does when he gets into office( or for that matter any place where there are lots of people of different species), is scan the premises for the species called girls (better known as chicks in the ABS i.e. the ALL BOYS SOCIETY ), and then categorize them into sub-categories which go by different names which i won’t delve into as i am sworn by an oath of total secrecy by the ABS. Ok, so i am again deviating from the topic.

So where was i ? Yes, i was in a meeting. I was totally bored and was scanning the vicinity for chicks (only because I am fascinated by the “why did the chicken cross the road?” question and I feel the way to get to the bottom of the mystery is by watching chicks…after all they say catch ‘em young). Ok, Bad joke maybe, but not what next i saw. I was sitting next to the white screen on which the projector was throwing some light. And i was craning my neck to see the white screen, more so because my manager was sitting right in front of me expecting me to do or say something, than out of curiosity. But it was a frantic effort and my neck was paining now, so i just decided to sit straight and see whatever was down the long table. AND there she was.

There she was across the long meeting table. In an ocean blue dress, she looked like some demi-god or something. (OK, i don’t remember the colour of the dress she wore that day, but i insist on blue so just take my word for it). With wide eyes, she was watching  the big white screen intently. For a moment our eyes met, but then she quickly glanced away. I couldn’t help a smile, as she put the end of the pencil she was holding , in her mouth and continued staring at the white screen. It was that precise moment that i fell for her, totally head over heels.

The meeting ended, and i was all curious to know, what this girl was. But she, it seemed had disappeared suddenly in some corner of the office, and i being the new guy in office didn’t really venture much. I was waiting to see her next. A week passed, and then there was the team meeting again. And there she was. In a beautiful green dress. Big green and silver earrings. A silver bangle sorta thing in her wrist , as she sat with her pencil and notebook, taking notes for the meeting. In between, she would take a sip of water from the nearest bottle and then promptly resume her work. I just loved it. Her handwriting was neat and mostly illegible as it was so small. But i loved it too. I found it difficult to concentrate on the manager’s speech as i was too distracted. She would look into her mobile from time to time, her curious eyes waiting for something on it. And i loved it too. She spoke less, and i even wondered if she was hired only to take notes. Her big eyes and her warm lips, didn’t give away much. And i loved it all.

Time flew like anything and very soon i was no longer a Newby in office. But when it came to her, i was still nervous like the kid who has just had his first kiss. The only details i had figured out about her, were where she sat in office, where she lived outside office and when was the day she came into the world. Some more research also, taught me where she belonged to, even the name of her school. But i was still far away from talking to her, forget knowing her. Of course, we met sometimes in our ways, our eyes met for a few moments but soon drifted apart, leaving behind a smile on my face and a sigh in my heart. Don’t really know what it did to her. But a year into office, i was still at ground zero. As a guy, who had dated several girls, and who had never had any problem talking to any girl, she certainly overwhelmed me.

Some more time flew. I could only let out a sigh, when i saw her in office. Sometimes in that black and red polka-dotted saree, sometimes in her white top and blue jeans, and mostly in her exclusive salwars and kurtis, i swear she looked gracious in whatever she wore(Ok, maybe she looked a bit fat in jeans, but was just awesome in all other attires, especially the pink saree she wore on traditional day) I even saw her once outside office, crossing the street with her friends. She turned around to look at me, and i swear my heart skipped a beat right then. She was laughing with her frndz, and her smile didn’t disappear when she saw me, and i swear that one of the best smiles i had ever seen in life. With her large eyes, her lips just added to the glow that her face seemed to radiate. Or maybe it was the street lamp behind her, but whatever.

And then, came the day when she announced her marriage to the team. It was one of the most disappointing day of my life. I didn’t go to eat the sweet she brought, although i knew that could very well be the face to face talk that we never had. But i wanted my heart back. And i knew it was broken. The next few days, i didn’t confront her much, except in the stairways where she could be found spending time with her mobile phone. Time was flying, and i knew there was nothing much to be done. And then one night, i finally had that talk that we never had.

I was at my sister’s place, far away from office and the city. It was 2 am and i couldn’t sleep much. So i came up online, and don’t know somehow, said a hi to an online her. What followed next was mostly a ramble of words, which i didn’t even know made much sense. But i am pretty sure, i delivered the message i wanted to deliver. Did i convey my feelings properly or not? For that i would have to dig up that chat from my mailbox’s history. But i cursed myself for not really allowing this chat to happen one year back. And that was my last thought as i slept a peaceful sleep that night.

That was all the past. Since then, she has now left the company. Gone to some far away land, and is now happy with someone else. Of course, i couldn’t be more happier for her. She still comes online on my friends’ list. I smile quietly when i see her. But that’s about all i do. At least i got a story out of it.  And then you know, there’s this other girl who has just come into the company ….

NOTE: The whole story above might be missing in details and also might be a bit exaggerated. So don’t really jump onto me. Girls, you can love me. Boys, don’t bother please.

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INTRIGUED…

There’s something about life,and about mankind in general , that intrigues me deeply. I can’t lay a finger on it and say , what it is, but i know it’s there. Often not so dignified or note-worthy , but it’s still there all the time. Now there’s this thing i have come to believe in over the course of my last few years, that we as the mango people, “aam-aadmi” as they say, come across other mango people in our day-to-day lives. Each of us, has a story of our own, and then when we meet others, their stories get mixed up with pur stories, to create new stories and the game goes on. More like ripples on the surface of a lake. Some such stories go on to become great stories, which we read in books and try to get a lesson or two from, and in turn get connected to a lot many other stories. Others just disappear amidst thousands other such stories, never quite affecting many stories. But nevertheless each of those stories which build and vanish each day, are great in themselves , and often more learning in itself than the big stories. For i have always believed that you learn more from the common man than the people who have already achieved greatness.

 

Now, there are many intriguing things that life throws at us. Love is definitely one of them. And i am not talking about just romantic love, which i know is the first thing that comes to our mind. I am talking about all forms of love. Brothers and sister, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, uncles and nephews, and of course friends. And i find it highly intriguing, often mystifying. Because, we as the mango people that we are, are always in search of love. When the new year ball drops, we comment on each other,”how lucky they are to have someone to kiss at midnight”. When valentine’s days arrives, we comment on each other,”how lucky they are to have someone to give a rose to”. And when Raksha Bandhan arrives, we again comment on each other,” how lucky they are to have a sister who loves them”. But then, when we do have that love, we never feel satisfied. Often take it for granted. And often don’t value it for what is, and instead go out in pursuit of something greater. The love they always search for, is right there, besides them. Yet they often choose to ignore it. Now isn’t it most intriguing?

 

Success is one more thing that eludes me. For people today run after success like stray dogs running after cars. It’s a mad race, and one in which we hardly stop to think , about our bearings at all, even the direction in which we are moving. Of course there is no planned approach to success for that would be ridiculous. There are just the ingredients you know, for a recipe you still need to prepare. But when in the process, how many of us even think of what they are doing. I see people around me , coming to work each day at the same time, working diligently the whole day and giving their best shot to whatever comes their way, in hopes of getting that elusive “success” in future. We sacrifice good food, good living, for “success”. We even tend to forget friends, parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents on our way to success. Of course we buy them gifts when we visit them once a year. But the race to success continues. The question here is, is that what is needed for success? And even if that’s what is needed really, who are we going to share the “success” once we get it. The world they say is pretty crowded at the bottom, but then it gets pretty empty at the top. Now isn’t that most intriguing?

 

Now another thing that also beats me totally is lost love. Love is of course the most beautiful thing in the world. When you are in love, everything around you is beautiful. You feel like you can conquer the world, if only you have your love by your side. But LOVE i believe is also the most destructive thing in the world. For a lost love can turn a person insane, break him down more than any possible weapon, hurt him in places where it pains the most, and there is no ground breaking cure for it. I have seen some of the strongest(mentally) of people , cry like kids in front of me for a love which had tricked them, for a love which was pure and yet not worthy. And i had nothing to say to them. And belive me, thats the worst feeling i had ever. And that made me wonder again. What is it about love that makes it the most lethal weapon , which can create the world as well as destroy the world , all in one sweep. Isn’t that most intriguing?

 

Ofcourse there are many other trivial things in the world which are very intriguing as well. Like alcohol and how its the best painkiller in the world. Like how people can commit suicides. I myself have tried cutting my hand on more than one occasion, mostly out of sheer curiosity and i have never been able to press the cold knife though my hand. Personally i belive eating a whole bottle of sleeping pills is the best way to commit suicide. Painless and effortless, of course you must lock yourself properly first. But thats not what we are discussing right now.

 

That brings me to the most intriguing thing i have felt. Its DEATH. It’s like the most inevitable and natural thing in our lives and yet we wonder, conduct research and do meditations just to know the whole truth behind it. Personally i think it’s a amazing thing, this thing called death. No, am not pessimist or anything. Also am no philosopher. But think of it once and you will realize how awe-inspiring thing it really is. Just a minute ago you are alive, all breathing and talking and eating and stuff. Just a minute after, you are lifeless, no more breathing , no more talking, no more eating. Isnt it just intriguing. It’s like “THE-END” you see at the end of a movie. It’s like “pikchar khatam, ab aur pickchar nahi bachi”. No more of worldly things to worry about, of love, of success, of office, of wether you should have told the girl in college you loved her, of whether you should have talked her back to love you, of whether you should have made your will , of whether you should have made love to your wife one last time or not, of whether you should have eaten your favourite chocolate one last time, of whether you should have treated your parents better, or whether you should have invested in satyam shares or not and made a fortune, or whether you should have gone to the strip club once in life. I mean none of it is no longer there to worry about.

 

And that i find the most intriguing of all.                                                                                                                                                           Isn’t it ??

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WHEN YOU ARE NOT HERE…

Dear Boss…aka Manager…aka ATM.

Just a small mail to say that , I know that you totally deserve this 1 week of holiday , and also that your family too deserves 1 week of you (not sure of the kids though), but its been 3 days of office now without you , and frankly speaking what seemed like a very exciting coming week, when you announced your vacation plans last friday , has now become a drag and quite dull frankly ( the weather contributing to that ). I know that you have family responsibilities and all, but you belong here, and this is where you are needed.

Let me just tell you some of the happenings in the office while you are away.

• The work that you assigned to us before going on vacation is progressing at an awesome rate. The team members who have not gone for vacations, have worked together in a very efficient manner, assigned 80% of the work to people who are on vacations and doing the rest of the work quite diligently. They are still brainstorming on how to get work done with more and more external help.

• Some of the seniors in the team who are still not on vacation , are quite serious in work these days. They have not assigned themselves the ordinary work , but are seeing moving around from place to place , in great hurry, the whole day. We sometimes also see them punching in lines of codes into the computer, although for no more than 5 minutes.

• ‘S’ comes to office at 12 in the noon, and leaves at 5. He says he loves working under the new “flexible” work hours. Others are also searching the local Intranet for labour guidelines at the company.

• We are not having any meetings this week. That leaves us with almost no work at all. That also explains why i am taking so much pains in writing this letter, on my office computer.

• The IT guy has complained that there has been a sudden surge in Web traffic, due to our team , over this week. We have tried to explain it to him , that managers of other teams are also on vacations, so it could not be us only. But he refused to take our word for it. So we had to deal with him in other ways. The “violence-at-work” policy came in handy , in the whole thing. Also, some people i saw, put in your SSO ID in the username field. Am sure, it must have been a mistake.

• Also i must complain that, some of the guys have threatened to hurt me, and one of the guys has tried to strangle me too. I was just trying to maintain some discipline in the team , by sneaking in from behind and checking out what websites they were surfing. They got annoyed and told me not to impersonate you , in your absence. They also swore names and cursed me. I got confused as to who exactly were they cursing.

• I think we are already missing your jokes. It’s weird, because i swear that the entire team was pretty much distressed and horrified with your poor jokes, just a week back.

Finally it has been a long week. I have come to understand how difficult it is for you to manage a team of 20, most of which are absent-minded while the rest of them are just happy to come-surf the web-go home.
So boss, please come back soon.
I promise, we’ll behave more responsibly in the future.
PS : Don’t screw my EMS.

Thanks and Regards
Themirror99

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THREE MEN IN A HOUSE AND OTHER DISASTERS…

WARNING : EXTREME BLASPHEMY AHEAD !

Ok, its easy to guess the post from the title itself. But trust me, you don’t know how disastrous it really is…when three wild pathetic guys live together under one roof,  and try to be something which they never were in college, that is decent and sober and everything good that one can think of.

So you see , this is the story of 3 guys, more of a real-life play, who have just completed one year of jobs in a city which is far far away from the homes of all of them. They live in a rented house on the 2nd floor of a big house owned by an old lady on the first floor, who appears to be sitting on a big heap of money. The house itself is worth crores, and the guys have contemplated murder and property capture, on more than one occasions. They have the guts , but no real will power. Except the shrewd cat like eyes peering into you from behind those circular glass frames each month when she asks for rent, and a daughter so black it often makes them doubt her genetics, everything’s just about fine with the family. There was also a niece who came to stay for sometime, and had a brief affair with one of the guys, all thorough the eyes though. But those eyes are gone now.

Their next door neighbours are a family, which consists of a man, a woman, a tiny child ( i think they call those creatures infants) , and a sister to the man. They are supposed to be living there, from much before the boys started living there. The boys now enjoy a good morning wake up call, when there are some strange sounds of loud pitch, right in the morning , at a time, when boys like them actually get some sleep. The boys have now vacated the room which has a shared wall with them. One of the guys is anyways stone dead when asleep, almost as if he has sold some horses or something.

Ok, so these are the central characters of this play.

Oops, i forgot the maid. So there , we have this “suguna” . I think it means “jewel” or something , but the guys i don’t think have ever thought of such a trivial thing. Although everybody gets screwed at work , and though the guys themselves are no shiney ahujas or shakti kapoors themselves, yet its a common unsaid thing between the three of them, that shez quite a babe. She has been such a integral part of the household now, that she takes the guys for granted, often to the annoyance of the guys themselves.

So, that makes the character set of this play called “Three men in a house And other disasters”.

And yes, there was a very wicked aunty on the ground floor, who had a dog which they all hated for it kept barking the whole night, crying out in hunger. The only reason the guys tolerated her, was because of her totally hot daughter, who would sometimes come out, to give a glimpse, with the dogs obviosuly. The family moved to an independent house, and with that the only real beauty in the otherwise ugly house, was gone. But now, they have a newly wed bangali family downstairs, and the boys tell me, the girl is smoking hot again. Good compensation they beleive.

There are some minor characters too, but they mostly come and go.

Ohh…and the disasters, will come to that in the coming scenes.

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TRUE LIES…

There’s this question i have been thinking now for quite some time, why
do we lie. By we, i mean we human beings who have been given this
ability to think, reason and speak. Since a lie, is essentially the
opposite of truth, is it a fault in our reasoning brain, or is it
something that comes out naturally from reason. But then, is the reason
itself justified, since the natural outcome of it is something which is
not essentially TRUE.

I myself have been a liar, i think. And a big one at that. I lie all the time.
Maybe that’s become a habit for me now. I cant remember when did i lie
the first time. As far as i can think, it was way back when i was in
class 4th or something. It was a GK test, and i was not particularly
good in general knowledge. Plus, they asked me what was the first animal
in outer space. I had no idea of outer space, inner or outer,at that
age. And they sent an animal at outer space. Boy, that was new thing to
me. But, what was that animal, was something out of my scope of general
knowledge. But then,i had this boy genius next to me, who turned out to
be the GOD of GK. All i did was peep into his paper, and i managed to
make out the words, LAIKA, a bitch. But that was my first time, and the
boy was a bit over-smart and he caught me red-handed. Next, he asked me
, did i cheat from him? And there i was, shaking my head in a big NO,
opening my eyes wide open, to add to the dramatics. That might be my
first lie, and it was self-defence. And yes, even a culprit has the
right to self-defend.

Growing up over the years, i told many many lies. Lies to my dad, when i
said i didn’t touch his expensive chinese pens. That again was
self-defence, against my dad’s wrath for the pen was broken and disposed
off too. Lies to my mom, when i said i have done my homework, or there’s
no homework for the day. That was laziness, insincerity for which
childhood is famous.

A few more years. A little more growth. I still lied. Lies to my dad,
when i said i hadn’t touched his purse at all, didn’t even know how it
looked like. That was necessity, a necessity to treat friends in school,
something which he would have never understood. So, i lied. Then i lied
to my mom, when she asked me , with which girl i was with after school.
That was one fine day when i came back late from school and she actually
asked me this over lunch. I obviously lied. But that was embarrasment..maybe a bit of fear too. The food got stuck in my throat.

A few more years. Again, a little more growth. In college i lied again.
I lied to my dad, when i told him, i need money for course books. I
never bought those books, and the money went in parties, no sooner than
the came. I lied to him, when i aksed him to raise my monthly allowance.
The money went into making new (girl)friends, over the phone, long
hours. But that was youth. And in youth, you cannot really speak truth
to your parents. Then, i lied to my mom, when i said am studying the
night before the exam. The bottle of vodka, on the table was testimony.
That was again youth..part fear too.

A few more years. NO MORE GROWTH. Am in a JOB. Great isn’t it? Except
that it isn’t. Life sucks when you are in a job. And the lying increases
manifold. For example, you cannot tell everyone, your job sucks. You
need to be happy. And that happiness itself is a big lie. Then to find
the true happiness, you go to places far and wide with friends. And then
you again lie to your mom, when you say you are sleeping in your bed,
when you are actually drinking beer by the pitcher, somewhere ,
someplace. Thats …. i don’t know what is is. You might suggest.

I have got this theory that if you lie and you are creative enough,
lying comes naturally to you. And noone can stop you from doing that.
Some people call me creative. So, you see i lied. Maybe i lied about my
creative abilities as well. Maybe i lied about my lies as well. Maybe
all i am is a guy , making this all up, and am no more than a figment of my own
imaginations. Or, maybe , this is the first truth i have ever said.

If you do believe me however, there’s one truth , i would like to say.
Inspite of all the lies i have ever said, i have never lied to my
friends, the closest and dearest ones, the ones i love. For them, i try
to be the most truthful guy , in the world. And that’s just how i am.
Lies i have said many, but am also proud of saying truths, when i could
have easily got off with a lie. Like the maths class, in my college
second year, when my next-bench guy was caught laughing at a “cartoon”
drawn by me. The teacher threw him out of class, obviously, but i who
had a certain repute with this professor, walked out too. And that was
just me.

And of course, i could be lying about all this.
I read it somewhere,

“Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens
the frictions of social contacts.”
– Clare Booth Luce

Wonder how true it is…or is it also a lie…??

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WHEN GUYS COOK…

Enough of super-serious stuff on my blog now. I thought I was writing
some pretty kool stuff, but then I got comments which accused me of
being “obsessed” and “guilty” and “nostalgic-fool” and “whining-baboon”
, I guess it shattered my own self-created image of my own writings.
Some friends even went on to say , “BABA sab theek kar dega… “. Only 2
questions for them,  1) Who’s the BABA here ? There are numerous ones on
TV these days. My mom was a follower of ASHARAM BABA sometime back, and I still remember those morning fights over the TV remote , in my school
days , when this freak show coincided with the morning telecast of the
WWE. [ Mental note : Me and my mom, still haven’t come to a decision, as
to which was the real freak show ] .

2) Secondly, what will he cure me of ?  Its not as if am having AIDS or
something, and that can’t be cured anyways, so the BABA need not bother.
Apart from them, I only suffer from headaches ( caused by irritating
people at work ) and chest aches ( when the headaches force you to smoke
cigarettes each time ), and those are but minor issues , for which the
BABA should not be troubled.

Anywz, I hope I get the answers to the 2 questions. However, I would
like to make a legal statement here (hope, at least one of readers is a
lawyer or something ), that all my posts ( mostly the serious ones ) are
all cooked up. Cooked up by my own mind. Please don’t take them
personally. Or don’t make them personal for me either. They were never
intended that way. They were COOKED UP. And I am a guy, single,
unmarried, without a chef / bai / maharaj at home, and without any
formal education in the art of cooking. If you still don’t get what am
trying to say, then maybe Shilpa Shetty talking about cricket in IPL
2.0, is still smarter than you.

Speaking of which, I think I can make a post out of this very topic,
hehe. After all, I have been living here on my own ( with two other male
friends, in a very STRAIGHT kinda way ), for 10 months today (as another
friend pointed out today itself ). And we have been COOKING on our own
in our houses. And by COOKING, I mean proper meals, and not maggis or
disfigured omelletes, or home-made cheese sandwiches. And it’s a very
interesting exercise , as it turns out to be, particularly when you give
cooking your own food, higher priority than just going to sleep after
flushing the corner-shop burger down your throat with a large sip of
coke/beer/whatever , after a long tiring day at office.

COOKING you own food, in your own kitchen, is indeed a fun thing, and
fairly simple, once you keep in mind some very important DO’s and
DON’T’s.

• Remember, it’s necessary to have a kitchen first, then a gas stove, and finally gas in the stove.

• Remember, it’s necessary to have utensils too.

• Don’t try to skip the above two points, or work your way around as engineers are trained to do. They are absolutely necessary with no workarounds.

• Remember, Cooking is not Chemistry, though both start with C, both talk of proportions, and both are equally dangerous.

• Remember, Cooking is not recommended in the morning when you are still trying to get over the last night’s hangover, especially when it involves cutting things using knives, and more specially when the knives are still sharp.

• Remember, wine and whiskey , is not to be put in every non-veg dish that you cook. It does not always enhance the taste. It might only get the chicken drunk, and that’s also a rare possibility.

• Remember, washing hands is not enough. You have to wash the rice, the daal, and the vegetables too. Also, this doesn’t mean, you can skip the hand-wash, especially when you have been spending some alone-time with your laptop, just before cooking.

• Remember, to search for the match first and then turn the gas on, and not vice-versa.

• Also remember, to check out the ingredients needed first, and then put the oil to be heated.

• If in any case, you need to go the grocery, in the middle of your cooking, don’t stop for a SMOKE, after getting what you want. There might be a lot of smoke , in your kitchen when you get back.

• Remember, watching a movie or something of greater interest on the computer, is not a great idea when you got something on the stove, specially chicken. A burnt chicken is not so good to eat.

• Remember, not to ask your girlfriend ( existing or potential ) to learn to cook from you or otherwise. It might not be good for your relationship ( existing or potential ) with her.

• Remember COOKING is a dangerous sport. It might involve fire and burns. So don’t try to practice cooking , while in state of near undress because it’s a hot and sweaty job.

• Remember, water is needed to cook daal. And also, the daal has to be according to the rice you cook. Its supposed to be daal-chaawal, not soup with rice in it.

• Remember, don’t try to make rotis, unless you have an expert by your side.

• Remember Boling the egg, is not so simple, as it sounds. You need to pour water into the vessel first.

• And, its always better to ask someone beforehand, how to recognize the egg when its boiled or not.

• For cooking rice, a pressure cooker is the best thing. But don’t try to save money for beer , by getting a cheap one.

• Also, putting the lid on the pressure cooker is tricky. Remember, the lid is made in that shape, its not defective.

• Remember, salt is a necessary ingredient in a lot of food. And food, without salt can be a little tasteless.

• Remember, breaking the egg is tricky. Its supposed to fall inside the glass, not outside.

• Remember that egg shells don’t walk themselves into the dustbin and that the stink in the house is not a dead rat but the egg that had fallen under the refrigerator last week and is now peacefully decomposing under the fridge.

• Remember to cleanup after having your food. It does not clean up on its own, and annoys the maid a great, the next morning.

• Remember, newspaper is not the best thing when it comes to cleaning up spilt liquids.

• Also, if the spilt liquid is beer/vodka/whiskey , trying to put it back into the bottle is also not a very bright idea.

• Remember, having a DOG is not a solution to the above four problems.

• Remember, to have maggi in your stock always. You never know, when you might need it.

• Remember, you are doing it for fun. You are going to get married anyway, and hopefully she might know how to cook better than you.

SO, the above scenarios may seem weird, but are very normal when GUYS do COOK. And if you write down these rules on a piece of paper, laminate it
before you wipe your hands with it, put it up on your kitchen wall, and follow them , you are bound to get a fabulous cooking experience.
NOTE: The eating experience cannot be commented on however. 😉

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LIFE’S MOVING TOO FAST…

Its the end of MARCH almost now. And its 2009. Its my 24th year of life. And truly speaking its been a very very fast life. I was just looking into some of our college days’ pics posted on orkut by our friends, and also some videos posted on utube by th emost notorious guy of our college batch, and i realized that it wasn’t such a long time back after all.

And yet , now all of us are in jobs, in different cities of India, reminiscing the old blissful college days. We are almost one year into our jobs, and it doesn’t seem far when we think of college.The occasional chain mail on gmail, brings all of us together for a few moments, even though its only for BC. The occasional college photograph or the grainy video, takes us back in time, and then then next day, we are back to our offices, working for a future we don’t even know exists.

The song that’s playing on my player right now , aptly sums up the present situation…

” Look who’s alone now

Its not me…its not me…

Gotta ask yourself the question,

Where are you now ? “

And yeah what started off as a dream to achieve something really really big, at the start of college, moderated into getting out of college with a high-paying job by the end of second year,  further moderated into getting out of college with at least a job by the end of the third , finally ended up with the hope of getting a paying-job at the end of college, and it has finally led us to the hope of surviving through life with enough money to just hang out there, what with all the cigarettes and the beers and the vodkas and the whiskeys, which are so needed now , just to keep us hanging on to dear life.

Its been a remarkable journey so far. There have been joys and sorrows. There have been merry dates (which ended up you paying a huge bill for food you didn’t even eat but ordered) , and painful breakups. There have been new friendships and uncool fights ( even gangwars). There have been the mess food (read messed up food ) and the aahaar-vihaar parties ( read lots of awesome chicken and gallons of beer ). There have been the cold-drink bills in the canteen and there have been the alcohol budgets. There have been terrible hangovers and there have been total blackouts. There have been night-outs and there have been day-light sleepovers. And we have survived all these somehow.

And now, all of us are on our own in totally new cities, once again. And it seems that we’re just hanging on. Searching for the smallest of joys. Searching for the lost aim of our life. Trying to imagine the future we. And so , we’re drinking. We’re smoking. We’re tryin to squeeze out happiness from every little situation…as much as possible. Its almosts as if, we are drinkin just to hang in there, and not to fall off from the train called life, which is moving too fast and we are hanging in it, half-in half-out, ready to fall-off any moment.

And there we stand now.

Asking to ourselves….WHAT’S NEXT  ?

PS: These are  the pics of an awesome place we discovered in hyderabad, by a lake behind our offices, totally a cool place to hang out in the monsoons, very few know about the place at all….you get cheap drinks, some awesome snacks, a personal bartender ( since very few people do come by ), and some blissfull solitude blessed with a gentle breeze.

SOMETHING FISHY….

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DETRIMENTAL SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR…

Now, i happen to read this book, “You are here” , on a particularly ironical train journey ( the irony will come out later ), and i came across this particularly interesting piece of her book…

“ … behind their sprawling houses, lavish lifestyles and Porsche convertibles , lay a sad truth. Each of these people , used to being told by their parents from early infancy how wonderful they are, needed the same kind of bond with their friends. If it didn’t , they spent their whole life desperately forming obsessive emotional attachments, which would ultimately be detrimental to their social development. That’s a nasty thing to say. …On the other hand, i must admit that there is a grain of truth to it all….   “

And being the only child to my only parents, it got me thinking. Is it the truth. Is my life too caught up in the same vicious cycle mentioned above, or is it just some random observation of some psyched up writer who himself hasn’t been sure about his own life as much as the life of others.

You see, i have always loved my friends far more than they loved me, and though sometimes i do get a certain disappointed , i always thought that perhaps that was just the way i was, that it was my role on this planet, to be more loving than loved, to give more happiness than to get myself.

I have some very good friends, and i am really proud of them. I have T whom i can trust for all matters. I have D , who will bear all my nonsense, cursing me in her mind, but still giggling at the end of it all and saying , “idiot ho tum”. I have R whose advice when it comes to some real decisions i always prefer. And then i also have DEE, my world-best sis , who knows it all about me, and to whom i can go for anything at all as a best friend. And then i have a whole lot of cool friends, with whom i love to talk, to hang out, who may not know me in the same intimate ways as DEE,T, D or R, but am still proud of them nevertheless.

All my friends are  a mixed lot, and i suppose they all like me a whole lot,most of them anyway, but i don’t think they love me in quite the same way as i love them. And so , sometimes a slight from them, is like betrayal for me. Maybe that’s what the writer meant by “detrimental social behavior”.

Now, the thing is , that’s who i am. That can be controlled, but that cannot be changed. The point is, what exactly  is the reason behind such a character. Is it mere human nature , perhaps a bit unique one, or is it the result of some special upbringing, where being the only child in a nuclear family does make you so as you grow up.

I personally , am the only child to my parents, and we live thousands of kms away from my other brothers and sisters of our great family. And so, the importance of relationships was known to me at a very early age. Emotional attachments were made with several people, some turned out to be best friends, some more than friends, and some just faded away. There have been times when i have hated every relationship, and there have been times when i have loved all relationships. But since there haven’t been much people to turn to in the family itself, it always resulted in my loving my friends in a much more intense way, than they loving me.

So you see, that’s a very odd perception i have got of my friends. I think a lot of people out there , will agree to me. And for all my friends, i would want you to think of this, once for yourselves and then once for me. For i would like to see your perceptions.

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THE OLDEST MEMORY…

I was sitting with my friend, watching this movie BEAUTIFUL GIRLS on TV, when all of a sudden a question props up of nowhere, “What’s your oldest memory of childhood ?”, my friend asked me. And this question took me to some really old memories. Memories which i didn’t even know did exist. For a moment i just stared at the blank wall in front of me, but then i could see some visuals forming on the wall.

Ohh, the question. Coming back to it. As i searched for some clarity in those blurred visuals, i was surprised to find a lot of things. It was of a period , before i got admitted to DR. V.S.E.C., the school which became a family for me for 12 long years. Before i got admitted to this school, i basically had gone through 2 other small next-door schools. There was this one english medium school and another a hindi medium one, even before that. I think, one of them was called S.T.D. or something like that. It must have been the english medium school, and i distinctly remember a blue tie with that abbreviated school name on it, hanging down my neck. I think i even have a photograph of me wearing that stupid tie [ Mental note : Got to search for  that photograph ].

Anywz, the period is almost a blur. But there are distinct events scattered here and there, which i still remember. For instance, i still remember that stupid stupid “jalebi” race that we had in one of those schools. We had to grab on to a hanging “jalebi” using only our mouths, and then rush back to the starting point. And i still remember, how i fell short of the hanging “jalebi”, and was almost jumping up and down with my tongue hanging out like a hungry dog, till some teacher had to lower down the “jalebi”  (unfair it was, i know), so that i could finish the race. And i also remember that, somehow there wasn’t any “jalebi” with me when i reached the starting point.

Then, i still remember the only neighborhood friend i had in those days. Its a pity that i don’t even know, where he is at this moment, or where he was just an year after we left the neighborhood. But i still remember the courtyard in his house, where we played cricket. I still remember his grandfather who lived in a garden by the courtyard. It was a big house, and we spent a lot of time there, destroying the garden and the house too.

I still remember , how that mad cow once chased me in the locality. I hid behind a pile of bricks, which came tumbling down on my foot, as the cow rammed its horns into it. I think i was on my way to school then, with my mother. Don’t remember if i took a leave or not for the day. But i remember, i got hurt.

I still remember the “bhabhi-ji” below my house , who used to teach me some subject i don’t remember. Mom says, it was she who saw some invisible spark in me, and insisited on getting me admitted to some better and costlier school, much to dad’s annoyance and mom’s satisfaction.

There are many such memories , of that time period, all of which is a complete blur of good and bad memories. I remember a lot of them, to my own surprise, and i came to know this only today. Its a good thing to relive those moments once in a while, if only in your thoughts.

So, these are my oldest memories. There are several other, and though the ones i have mentioned are very inconsequential ones, yet they somehow make my childhood or perhaps my pre-childhood phase, worthwhile…at least for me.

So, look down your memory lane, dig out some old memories, and tell me, WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUR OLDEST MEMORY OF CHILDHOOD?

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POSTS THAT MOVED ME – 3

BY ashish @ http://akjlucky4all.wordpress.com

 ” Here i am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed from a maverick college life to strict professional
life……

How tiny pocket money changed to huge monthly paychecks
but then why it gives less happiness….

How a few local denim jeans changed to new branded wardrobe
but then why there are less people to use them

How a single plate of samosa changed to a full Pizza or burger
But then why there is less hunger…..

Here i am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed…..

How a bike always in reserve changed to bike/car always on
but then why there are less places to go on……

How a small coffee shop changed to cafe coffee day
but then why its feels like shop is far away…..

How a limited prepaid card changed to postpaid package
but then why there are less calls & more messages……

Here i am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed…..

How a general class journey changed to Flight journey
But then why there are less vacations for enjoyment….

How an old assembled desktop changed to new branded laptop
but then why there is less time to put it on……….

How a small bunch of friends changed to office mate
but then why after 8′o Clock it always feel like getting late….

Here i am sitting in my office @ night…
Thinking hard about life
How it changed….. how it changed.. “

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WHEN WE WERE KIDS…

It was just this saturday morning when i was doing some early morning marketing , to get myself a breakfast. The previous night had been a wild one, and after pouring in 6 mugs of beer down my throat, all i wanted was a breakfast of cereals and milk. It was then that i saw him.

I was paying my bills at the counter, when my eyes got diverted to this little kid, by the chocolate desk, pointing out excitedly at a cadbury, to his mother who was standing nearby listening to the child’s innocent ramblings. Their language wasn’t familiar to me, and i wasn’t very clear in my head too, but my vision was clear and i could see the mother, first trying to refuse the child his piece of chocolate, but finally succumbing to a child’s tantrum, or maybe to a mother’s love. It cost her 10 bucks, i had bought it for 1 buck only.

But that was 15 years ago. It was just 1 rs. back then that i had demanded. My mind drifted to myself some 15 years back when i was at his place, standing by the chocolate stand in my half pants and demanding my mom, the same thing, and getting the same reaction more or less.  I had a childhood too , and not much differnt from the one standing beside me then.

When we are kids, the world is just so new to us. Life to us is like this huge  box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get out of it. Each day, is like none other day.  Life is such a routine, what with getting up every morning, going to school, getting daily tutions, doing your homework and finally sleeping after gulping down a much hated glass of milk. And yet each day is new for us. Each day, we pray to grow up soon and get rid of the boring studies. We see adults around us, doing whatever they want. They roam about freely, go out at leisure, watch the TV at will, and never study anything except the newspaper or the occasional magazine, and everything about their lives seems so much fun. And we just pray to grow up soon as we go into our daily routine each day.

And now we are adults. We are free to do everything we dreamt of when we were kids. We are free to roam about freely and we only search for places we can go, without actually being able to go. We watch the TV at lesisure, except that it no longer interests us in any way. And we never study now and yet wish we could stay back a few more years in school and college. And now we look at the kid by the chocolate stand and wish we were that kid again.

So i walk back to my room with my breakfast, and all i can think of now as an adult is, ” when we were kids… “.

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A DANGEROUS GAME…

Well, i stumbled across this article in this newspaper i was reading today in my lunch break, and just couldn’t resist posting it online. Its called…                     “HOW TO MAKE A WOMAN HAPPY“.. a simple game in which you earn points and rewards just like in a normal family game. Mind you , its hilarious but a real painful game, once you get on with it.

There is only one single objective of the game , “Make the Woman HAPPY“. Do something she likes and you get points. Do something she dislikes and points are subtracted. You don’t get any points for doing something she expects. Sorry, that’s the way the game is played.

HOW TO PLAY : Some of the moves of the game are listed below , along with how they score ( points in brackets ).

SIMPLE DUTIES :                                                                                                                                                                                                           

You make the bed (+1)

You make the bed, but forget to add the decorative pillows (0)  

You throw the bedspread over rumpled sheets (-1)

 

You leave the toilet seat up (-5)

You replace the toilet paper roll when it is empty (0)

When the toilet paper roll is barren, you resort to Kleenex (-1)

When the Kleenex runs out you use the next bathroom (-2)

 

You go out to buy her extra-light panty liners with wings (+5)

In the snow (+8)

But return with beer (-5)

 

You check out a suspicious noise at night (0)

You check out a suspicious noise and it is nothing (0)

You check out a suspicious noise and it is something (+5)

 You pummel it with a six iron (+10)

It’s her pet (-10)

 

SOCIAL ENGAGEMENTS AT A PARTY :

You stay by her side the entire party (0)

You stay by her side for a while, then leave to chat with a college drinking buddy (-2)

Named Pooja (-4)

Pooja is a dancer (-6)

Pooja has implants (-8)

 

HER BIRTHDAY :

You take her out to dinner (0)

You take her out to dinner and it’s not a sports bar (+1)

Okay, it is a sports bar (-2)

And it’s all-you-can-eat night (-3)

It’s a sports bar, it’s all-you-can-eat night, and your face is painted in all of the colours of your favorite sports team (-10)

 

Ofcourse, there are infinite other moves, as there are infinite number of ways to solve any given problem ( i hear someone great quoted that ). Anywz, you are free to design and implemEnt your own moves. The Objective remains the same. So now the question is….

ARE YOU GAME FOR THIS ?

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STAND BY ME…

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we’ll see
No I won’t be afraid, no I won’t be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me.

 

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no I won’t shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me .

 

Whenever you’re in trouble won’t you stand by me,
oh now now stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me.

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MEANING OF LIFE..

What is the meaning of life ?

BY Ps @ http://justamotheroftwo.blogspot.com/

 

” To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.

What is the meaning of YOUR life? Ever thought about it? “

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I AM THE FUTURE !

YEAR 2021 : SCENARIO 1

Am sitting in my office, in front of my virtual screen. There are images displayed on my screen, images from my past…which seem more like history now. My Picassa web album has now become almost 1 Tb in size, thanks to Google which has now replaced Microsoft at the top, and technology that now allows us unlimited storage in the cyber space. So much has changed in the last 13 years. We no longer have LCDs or TFTs or even big bulky CPU’s. Everything is virtual nowadays. The screen i see infront of me, is nothing but a projection from a miniscule projector, hidden somehwere on my desk.The keyboard is also a mere projection. Only the CPU ( called the RPU these days [RPU for Remote Processing Unit] ) remains as the only solid piece of hardware. And as with technology, we too have grown. I am 35 years old now, living a life which we all shunned from the mere onset, when we were still 21. But then, “20-22 saal ki umar me to sabko lagta hai ki, duniya unke ishaaron pe naachegi”.

Last month i visited T. He’s living a happy life, with his ‘begum’ in mumbai….at least i think he’s happy. He was the darling of all girls, in his school and college days. But miyaan was perennially confused about his girls, or for that matter about everything else too, about his career, life…everything. Now he’s living happily in mumbai, working for some big company which makes the french fries and burgers, that i eat everyday in breaksfast. He’s got a beautiful wife, who greets you with a smile and a glass of water , each time you visit him, while i can only stare at her beautiful reflection in the shining marble floor below her feet. And ya, he’s got two children too…in the very first year of marriage. Thankfully, they know who i am, if not as the uncle who brings them chocolates every day, then atleast as a friend to their father. T’s my closest friend till date, and we have been like this for the last 20 years.

Speaking of children, i now rememebr that even i have one of those. Its not a big surprise actually that he slips out of my open mind every now and then, for he can be hardly located at one particular place. More like Heisenberg uncertainity principle. In any case, he’s 5 years old (atleast thats what i remember) and has already broken the front row teeth of the last row guy of his school, tied the hair of the girl who made the mistake of sitting in front of her, in such a mess that she actually had to cut her hair, cracked open the LCD teaching board of his class in a way which even the garhical designs teacher had to admire…and is on the verge of being thrown out of the school. Its all his mother’s fault actually who blames it everyday on me however.

R called me up over the internet, today morning. He’s nicely settled in Texas ans still cribs about his job , and how he isn’t able to devote time to his family , which he doesn’t have really. He’s 35 too and still cursing girls like people curse the common cold. And then ofcourse, he talks as if i were the bill gates( People don’t remember him now, but i am a man of old habbits) of richness and he’s the struggling software engineer , when its actually the other way round. In any case, he’s has somehow miraculously survived as the third leg of our gang. At least we were a gang some 15 years back…what was it called…ATR??…RTA??…RAT??…oh yeah..ART !

And then, he asks innocently about my wife, which made me remember that today’s her birthday. Oh shit, its 7pm already and i haven’t even thought of a suitable gift. I better be dead than alive now. I still rememebr how last year, i had to spend the night at my friend P’s house. It was actually fun. P is my colleague at office who is in this age long mission to lose weight, which is virtually impossible unless he stops eating junk and not thinking about his weight too much. In any case i got some good food for a change. Ofcourse , i never told that to my honey.

Its not like my sweetheart is some devil from hell or something, but she definitely deserves an award for tolerating all my tantrums and mood swings for yet another year and not killing me instead. I still remember how i met her. I was still young and still in the misconception that i could get any girl i wanted. It was she who slapped me back to reality, and i just couldn’t let go of her after that. Of course, she doesn’t dominate me at all…we have an unsaid understanding between us, so that when she’s angry, she generally doesn’t utter a syllable and am left to wonder, like a bihari watching a tamil movie. Oh shit, the GIFT.

I have no idea what to gift her this year. I don’t even remember what i gifted her the last year or the year before. D must remember…its genrally she who does all these important decision making for me. D is my best friend cum childhood buddy. She is my first friend on earth, and we’ve been frndz ever since then, which is some 30 years back. She’ happily married now, works in some foreign bank ( i have a house loan from that bank too ), and is always ready to solve my problems ranging from common cold, to uncommon amnesia. Her husband sometimes eyes me with the eyes of a hungry vulture, but except that, everything’s just about normal. Oh shit, the GIFT.

I rush to the nearest Archies store, my car key in one hand and my cellphone in the other, almost avoid a collision with a pretty girl, and go straight to the corner where D tells me what i should get over the phone. What an obvious choice of gift. Its a big “I AM SORRY but I STILL LOVE YOU” card. Sometime i really am an idiot these days. As it later turns out , i had also ordered a beautiful diamond ring for her, which i forgot to pick up that day.

13 years have passed since i was only 22. I see those days only in my web album these days. I was wild, pathetic, full of energy those days. I wanted to take on the world, do whatever i wanted to do, maybe become some great painter, or a great writer, so that i no longer have to work my entire life. I still have that dream, but the hopes of turning those dreams to reality have vanished. I work in this big international company, which has its own set of responsibilties. I have a family, a wife whom i love the most, a child whom i don’t know what to do with, a mother who still doesn’t really trust me (20 years now and she still thinks i have done all the wrong things in the world for all the wrong reasons), a dad who still speaks as little as possible in a great effort to conserve energy i guess, and also a deedee who still fights with me for all the wrong reasons, cries a lot and then accepts me finally with all the warmth of love. This is now. 13 years back, it was all different.

With a great sigh, i finally open the door to my house. Its 10 pm in my watch, and there’s my wife standing in the ominous family hall, expecting me to comprehend the unsaid understanding between us. I realize now that its all over and go straight and plant a kiss on her cheek, “I AM SORRY dear but I STILL LOVE YOU” !

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LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT !

Last night i brought her home

She was there, standing under a tree , just beside the magnificent black car..shivering in the cold. Her skin seemed to radiate in the yellow light of the street lamp. Her deep blue eyes, were so intensely fierce. They had a spark of mischief in them, almost as if they were entrances to hell. One look was enough to fall in love with her.

She was there, all alone, all by herself..maybe waiting for someone to rescue her. The weather was cold and wet, thanks to the rainfall all past week. And her beautiful brown and white fur coat didn’t help her much either.

Her eyes seemed to have mesemerized me. All i wanted was to take her home, to feed her, to watch her eat, to cuddle her, to love her. She was so inncoent, so pure, so lovely. It was a decision in a flash, and i knew , i wanted her to be mine. She protested a bit at first, even tried to use her nails when i held her hand, but gave in finally. Our warm house, was far far better than the place under the tree, and i just wouldn’t have taken a NO for an answer last night.

So, i brought her home. Food seemed to be the next logical question. There was nothing present in the house, and i was actually on my way to the grocery when i had found her. I opened the refrigerator, and dug out a pack of milk. I offered her some warm milk, which she gulped down as if she had been hungry since ages. I knew, she wanted some food when she looked up at me with those deep blue eyes.

It was fortunate…or maybe sheer coincidence, that my flat-mate arrived at the precise moment. Next , we had a kingly feast of chicken, liver and bread, after which she slumped on the bed. She seemed to thank us, in a whispering voice, but her eyes were already haf-closed and i couldn’t much make out what she said.

We made her a makeshift bed. Not comfortable, but warm to say the least. It was late already, and our eyes too were sleepy. exhausted, we decided to call it a day, and finally fell onto our respective beds.

An hour passed away in the dark. Around midnight, i was surprised to feel something crawl up my legs, under the covers. It was very dark in the room, and i was too sleepy. But then, i saw those eyes…those sparkling deep blue eyes. For a moment, i was just too astonished to react. She snuggled in close to me under the covers, and squealed something feebly. And i just couldn’t separate her from myself. I allowed her to just lie there close to me, while i gently caressed her head and closed my eyes.

This morning, i opened my eyes to find her sitting at the top of my bed, just near my head. She didn’t say anything as she just sat there, looking at me in my sleep. But she ran away to the other room , as soon as our eyes met. i could still feel her warmth , where she had been on the bed last night.

We were getting late for our offices. She had to stay alone in the house. For a moment, i felt like skipping office, but it wasn’t college anymore. Somethings just needed to be done. But before those things, we did one last thing this morning. We gave her a name.

She was to stay with us now.

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And she was to be called MYAYUN .

..MYAYUN, the cat..the cute little brown and white cat!

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LIFE IN A METRO …A QUICK POST IN A FAST CITY !

For the first time in my twenty-something old life, am actually in a metro city of India. And i guess, a brief description of the city is really itching to come out of my head now

The thing is, i won’t take any names in my narration here ( It has been actually found out in surveys in the US that, NOT taking names in a narration , stimulates the curiosity of the human mind , after which it doesn’t rest till it gets its answers ).

To start with, the city is full of hills. So much so, that i actually have to cross 4 hills on my way to the office from my temporary residence ( “Apna bhi permanent address hoga kabhi na kabhi” ). I can’t remember one single stretch of flat road or even a street, however hard i try to imagine. Flat roads in this city are as rare as Gold medals for India in the Olympics ( India however did win a GOLD in 2008 olympics yesterday , thus breaking its own record of longest period of time in sports history without any gold ).

Then, there is the rainy season of the city. Somehow , i have landed in this city at the same time as the Indian Rain God. Next, all i see is rain and rain and more rain and yet more rain. I would like to mention here, that i am not a very fond admirer of the rains, even if it is a drizzle as harmless as KHALI when he’s not angry. And then, its like the rain god testing me with torrential rains, every day at precisely the same moment, when i get out of my office for home, or vice-versa. For the past 2-3 weeks, my life has been caught up in a vicious cycle of cursing the rains, getting drenched and cursing again.

Then, no mention of this lovely city goes without a mention of the city auto drivers. The auto-drivers of this city can be broadly categorized into three main classifications. First there are the ‘ONES’ that go ‘RESERVED’. These are the ones that wait patiently for their victims, and then charge inexplicably high prices for distances as small as virender sehwag’s footwork on the crease.

Secondly, there are the ones which travel the city on ‘SHARING’ basis. These are the ones, that roam around the city from stop to stop like a door-to-door salesman, and manage to deliver a person to his/her destination in the smallest of delivery spaces.

And Finally, there are the ones, that go ‘NOWHERE’. Broadly accounting for more than 40% of the total auto drivers of the city, these are the ones, that refuse to deliver you, even if you feign a severe chronic heart attack in front of them and blame them for it.

Somehow, with a little bit of intelligence, luck and money on your part, the city transport is in real good shape , promising 99% on-time deliveries of people from one corner of the city to the other.

BUT, if i combine the above points, add the poor water management system of the city, put all of these into a mixer-grinder, i get a fabulous ripe-juicy city, where the cool wind will refreshen you at any time of the day, where the water running with full force, down the sloped streets will give you the impression of a city living under a huge waterfall and where walking up and down the slopes is the best work-out that anyone can have. Its a city one would love at first sight.

Every city has its shortcomings, yet it is home to thousands of people who wake, live and sleep in the same city everyday, much oblivious to any negativities. And when a city captures your heart, in the very first few weeks of landing, such a city speaks for itself.

Yet, I HATE THIS RAIN.                         

      I HATE THIS RAIN!

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POSTS THAT MOVED ME – 2

THE X-FACTOR   

When meeting the XY’s X….

BY sunshine @ http://www.sunshinenjoy.blogspot.com/

” I have been thinking of a bunch of futile questions for quite some time now, the origin of which can be traced back to the seemingly redundant and deceptively non-innocuous subject of how to deal with the ex. Your ex, your boy friend’s ex, the ex of the person you are romantically interested in, your ex’s wife, your ex’s ex, any relationship you can conjure with the word “ex” in it. Of all the permutations and combinations you can concoct, this is the situation eating up my seemingly important time right now-

How do you come to terms with the ex of the person you like, especially when the person is around in a social setting? Are you supposed to feel anger at the ex, jealousy that she was entitled to things you wish you had when she was not an ex, or simply happiness and relief at the notion that she is an ex, and thereby you stand where you stand? Are you supposed to face her squarely, or supposed to hide around in the party behind the curtains? Are you supposed to drown your sorrows in a glass of drink? Are you supposed to be vigilant at the person you envisage a relationship with in future, looking for telltale signs of lost and found chemistry to gauge where you stand? Are you supposed to make friends with the ex’s present, thereby trying to break the ice in the process? Are you supposed to dress boldly and defiantly to get you the extra bout of confidence you so very desperately need? Are you supposed to skip the party, for the sake of your peace of mind, so that you don’t spend the next day at work chewing on your pen and wondering what happened and what could have happened and what did not happen? Or better still, are you supposed to forget the screwed up romantic lives of the people around you and just enjoy, as if there were no ex’s and no presents and no pasts?

Relationships my friends, especially the unsuccessful ones, are still things too complicated for me to handle. And this I say not just from personal experience. For people meet and people bond and people break up and go their own ways, leaving poor souls like me to live in the aftermath of their belligerence.

Just my thoughts.

sunshine. “

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A STORY LITTLE LESS ORDINARY – part 6

I thought part 5 was the end of the story, but upon popular request, i see myself writing a part 6. Hope you like it, connect with it, whatever….

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It was the spring season again. Nothing new about it, except the fact that this time, there was no more college.
After four years of a journey called life, it was finally all over. But it was not only college. Many other things were over now for DAN. And many other things he wished to be over now. But then there’s always a bitch called life.

Last evening, he was siting on the roof of his house. It was a dangerous place to be in, but somehow since childhood, he had always loved to just sit there, brave the howling wind and watch the kites up in the sky. There were memories of his childhood there. One wrong foot, and he could always land up, 3 storeys down, without any parachute. But he never had a wrong foot till date. That day, he just wished he had one, for a moment. It was one of those wild impulses, every sane person gets once in a while.

Yesterday, it was just like childhood days. It was the same old position on the same old porch. It was the same old wind, that greeted him. And it was the same old sky dotted by a few adventurous kites. Dan had his eyes fixed on a red kite which seemed to be of a mischeivous yet innocent kind, soaring in the skies like a truant school boy , cutting through other kites as if they were no match for its potential. Somehow, that kite made him remind of himself. 4 years ago, he was like that kite. Innocent and full of mischief. Just wandering about, never knowing what to do but always excelling in whatever he did. And he was happy. 4 years down the line, he was back again on the porch. He had seen a lot, heard a lot, faced a lot. Now he knew what he had to do. His vision was clear now. But he wasn’t happy. He wasn’t innocent. He wasn’t mischievous either. Most importantly, he wasn’t excelling.

And he wondered, if all this was right after all. It was a question that haunted him every moment these days. And then, he noticed the red dot again, no more soaring, but sailing across the sky now. Some distance ahead, he could see a group of kids, antcipating the downfall, waiting to tear down what would be left of the kite.
That was last evening.

Today, he just sat at his window, enjoying the view outside. He could see a group of kids, playing in the park across the street. For a moment, he actually imagined himself with those kids. They played, they fought with each other and went home swearing. There was a friendly love in all of it, and it din’t hurt anybody, however hard they fought. He longed to be there. It was his childhood there. But then a cricket ball bounced off his window frame, and it jolted him back to the present. He realized he could never go back to his childhood now, no matter how much he wished.
He was now a adult, whether he liked it or not.
He had now seen LOVE, whether he liked it or not.
And he now, also had a future , a job, which for some time now, had been troubling his thoughts.

Being in a good college, gives you the advantage of getting some good offers for a bright future, while you are still in college. He basically had two offers, a lucrative research position in a big multi national firm, which promised a good brand value, but low cash inflow. The other, a local firm, that had achieved huge success of late, aimed the sky, and promised good work as well as money. So what, if the job took him to a city , where Lily would also be residing , now that she too was out of college. It was a big city, he thought. And if he could just be a bit careful, avoid mutual friends and social parties, ignore her everytime they bumped across each other down the street or the local malls or any other place, he thought he could just lead a perfectly happy life. The plan sounded simple enough for him.

Only he didn’t knew, if he really wanted to avoid her at all. Was this plan, only to keep himself from breaking down or was he really over her. It was a difficult question. A part of him, did want to see her. There were things he wanted to say to her, which she wouldn’t listen. There were things he wanted to explain to her, which she wouldn’t understand. He always choked infront of her. He could never express his feelings, in front of her. Now that he thought, he couldn’t really express his feelings in front of anyone. It was something, he never excelled in.

There was this other part of him, that wanted to get over her. Avoid her forever. Forget her like some bad dream. Erase her from his memories. But everytime he thought he had finally been able to do that, there she was, painfully reminding him of her existence and how it mattered to him. Not totally her fault though. Sometimes, on occasions called birthdays, we sometimes do remember once-upon-a-time friends.

Basically, the two parts were pulling him apart, right that moment. He couldn’t decide, if he should have this small-upcoming-company job, which promised a better return for his knowledge if he could only avoid Lily, or if he should have this big-name-company job that would allow him to escape from everything, maybe even start a whole new life, establish a whole new world.
The second option had been making a whole lot sense lately.
But it was a tough decision.
What would it be ?
Then there’s always that bitch called life, to screw things up for you.

– TO BE CONTINUED

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POSTS THAT MOVED ME – 1

A REASON TO SMILE

BY sakhsi @ http://www.mavericksmusing.com/

” Its past midnight, almost 3.45 EST and I just kept the phone down. A tired, hungry and grumpy male just wanted to do nothing else but crawl into his bed after working almost 36 hour shift. And yet, he called me the minute he got out of work, in response to my rather dramatic text. Just to hear me ramble about all that happened. To calmly say, we will work it out. And then proceed to ease my fears by talking to me for the last hour. To let me now sit and write this post with a smile.

While recently a lot of things have gone down hill, I have still not lost the reason to smile simply because I have people who care. And who show it in every little thing that they do. Its at times of crisis that you separate “Keeper friends” from “Oh, I know/chat/talk with her friends.”

These souls say the normal comforting things but at the same time help you provide a solution to the crisis brewing in your life. They take time off their work to rummage through craigslist to find an apartment to rent or to sit with you and work out a feasible solution to watch the cricket match on your apple. They send you songs to cheer you up or even better listen to you quote horrendous poetry. Or send you salacious messages, just to make you blush. Or take time and really flirt with you because you are feeling down and completely unsexy. They let you speak freely, insisting that your politically incorrect statements bring them great joy. They accept your sarcasm, knowing it is your defense and your offense, and knowing which one you use against them.

They make you talk, listen to your crummy excuses and smack you on the head to make you see reason. They are enraged on your behalf when you tell them what is bothering you. They shake you up and ask you to see things clearly. They tell you things, in detail, despite the fact that it hurts you to hear it. They refuse to let you be delusional. They make you face all these dreaded things and then hug you, comfort you and tell you that you are made of sterner stuff. They cheer you up by telling you things about yourself that you never knew – just to show you how much you have achieved. They help you regain that faith in yourself.

They are there when you are sick. Holding you. Sitting with you while you catch your breath again. Worrying over you, fussing about your eating habits, making sure you pour that extra cup of coffee you are drinking down the drain, but at the same time letting you figure out your own strength.

They are there in your happy times. Taking pride in the smallest of your achievements. Making you feel like a queen (no, not that kind!). They stop you from berating your self, make fun of your perfectionist attitude and then help you laugh at yourself.

This lot, worries over you while all the while calmly assuring you to go and live life. To take chances. Since they will always be your safety net.

This journey has been easier, I realize since, I am blessed with many such loving people. Who take the time and effort to show they care. Its a great feeling to not feel alone. Even better to feel loved. Unconditionally. Without holding anything back. Without expecting anything in return – except may be your love.

Its great to be loved. But its nicer to sometimes hear the words. And know that it is sincerely meant. ”

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A STORY LITTLE LESS ORDINARY – part 5

It was 11 o clock in the night, when Dan finally opened the door to his dark room. But he was too distracted to notice the fused bulb in his room. He searched for his bed, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness. He hardly cared. There was a table lamp, on his table, which he hadn’t switched on in ages. A spider, ran for the darkness, as soon as he switched on the lamp. He had nothing else to do tonight, but he didn’t want to spend yet another night, fighting off sweet memories. He absent- mindedly , picked up the nearest notebook, he could manage, and a pen. He didn’t know what he had in his mind. Flipping through the pages, for an empty page, all of a sudden, he came across this page. There were words on it, true words, words he remembered he had written down, the night he had tried to call up Lily.

He didn’t want to read those words, but still he read those lines, which read :

• There’s no point explaining anything to her.

• There’s no point telling her , that i miss her.

• There’s no point telling her, that all i wanted was, to be completely honest with her, by showing her the truth.

• There’s no point telling her , that i am all fucked up , just because she was supposed to be my closest friend, who left me without even quoting a reason.

• There’s no point telling her , that it was i actually, who was hurt by her words, on that fateful morning, but i never said that to her.

• There’s no point telling her , that i am drinking hard , as much as possible, just to flush her down my system.

• There’s no point telling her , that i am smoking, just to get her out of my mind.

• There’s no point telling her , that i have changed, and that its she who induced the change, something which she had telling me all the time, but i had always ignored.

• There’s no point telling her , that i no longer smile or laugh at even the most funniest of jokes, things which set a whole room full of morons, rolling on laughter.

• There’s no point telling her , that i can never like any other girl, the way i liked her, unless i completely hate her.

• There’s no point telling her , that i can never hate her, as much as i might wanna do that.

Just random points, which seemed to have no real meaning . According to her, he should not depend on her. Yes, that was what she had said that day, one of the things , which had stayed in his mind. Is friendship really a dependency, he thought ?. Are friends there for the support, or maybe one should not depend on his friends. Someone’s got their definition of friendship all screwed up. Someone is wrong in their notions, and he couldn’t tell who it was.

But, He knew, that what he wanted really, was not wrong. To renew a friendship, could never be wrong. To renew a relationship, could never be wrong. He realized the fact, that Lily might never be back. But, the day she would be back, he swore to himself, he shall be what he always had been. A simple guy…who enjoyed life, and who had that characteristic smile on his face, that his friends could actually mention in their essays.

Dan swore to himself, that night, that, that day would see, his last sip of alcohol, his last puff of cigarette. The day of course, might never come. And realizing this, he closed the notebook. Then he closed his eyes, and merged into the darkness of his room.

– TO BE CONTINUED

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A STORY LITTLE LESS ORDINARY – part 4

The next day was Sunday. A beautiful, cold Sunday , to which Dan woke up on a winter morning. A cold puff of air , came in through the crack in the window, instantly chilling him, painfully making him aware of his harsh existence. But then, there was a freshness in the air, which he could smell. As the sun rays streamed into his room, from the same crack, he could see the particles in the air dancing about in a new light. For a few minutes, Dan just lay back in his bed, mesmerized by those particles, transfixed. It was a dance of joy, almost as if those insignificant particles were thanking the sun, for bringing them out of their dark existence. And then there was a smile on Dan’s face as he got up. What was gone, was gone. He knew his future.

That evening , it was a birthday. Not his, but of one of his most dearest friends in college. Chuck, had been a very good friend here in college, ever since he had come to know him. They were not exactly “perfectly-matched” when it came to their ways of thinking, but they liked to hang out with each other. A deep, highly-driven desire to live each moment of their life to its fullest, was the only thing that bound them, and it was one of the most strongest of bonds that bound their friendship together. Today was Chuck’s birthday.

So, they went to this not-very-well-known restaurant by the river-side, famous more for its excellent view, than for its food. For Dan, it was the name itself that fascinated him – Dolphin. For others, it was an excellent party spot, quiet and serene. It was a roof-top restaurant by the river, that provided a breathtaking view of everything within a 10 km radius. And it was beautiful from up there. That evening, it was almost 9 pm when they got there and as Dan stood by the edge of the roof, he could sense that calm. He could sense the cold air, hitting his face. Below him, the river water ran amidst a silence, broken only by the water striking the stones by the side. Except that, everything was quiet. And he just stood there for eternity, trying to clear his mind. Then Chuck, came from behind and offered him a cigarette.

The next few hours passed in merry-making. Th usual food, the usual talk about everything and nothing, the usual birthday toast and the usual round of drinks. Everything seemed to be “usual”. Sometimes back, all these outings had a charm in them, something special. Now for Dan, they were just usual, just another birthday, just another party.

So, as everybody , sipped the sparkling red wine, from their wineglasses, Dan withdrew, and went across to the edge again. Below him, the water still ran quietly, in the same direction , with the same force. The entire area was lit brilliantly by the tall lights. But the light just shone on the surface of the water, not penetrating it. That darkness of the water, was impenetrable.

There by the side of the river, some distance away from him, he could see a couple, no more than his own age, enjoying the night, by the river. The girl was chasing a group of goose, trying to catch one of them, as they ran away from her. She wanted to get a picture of her with those goose maybe, for he could see the camera in her boy-friend’s hand. The boy too was trying to get one of those goose, but was less energetic. Then there was sudden flash in the darkness. The girl had finally held one of the goose, and while the others of the group flocked at her feet, the boy had managed to capture the scene finally. It brought a smile on Dan’s face. He could almost see himself and Lily, in place of them. Two years ago, when they were still just kids, it was the same river, it was just another night like this, and it was the same group of geese. And it was Lily , who had wanted a picture of hers with those animals, and it was he who had to do this task. She had two more friends with her that day, and it was a wild goose chase. Now that he remembered that event, he thought, it had actually been fun. he had never thought , that such a trivial incident would be so fresh in his mind, two years later. It was as if the whole incident had been replayed before him, by two new characters. Dan just smiled there, lost in his thoughts.

Chuck and the others, had finished with their round of drinks and were calling him for another round. It was already 11 pm, so they could only had a quick sip, and were off to their places. On their way back, Dan caught a glimpse of those geese, now left alone. The couple was nowhere to be seen. But, everything that had happened two years back, when Lily had come here for a few days, now seemed to rewind in his mind.

– TO BE CONTINUED

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A STORY LITTLE LESS ORDINARY – part 3

It was his third year into his 4-year graduation course. He was an engineering student, who at a certain point in his early life, had secured admission into one of the most prestigious universities of the country, by virtue of what some had said luck, others hard work. He didn’t however think much of his discipline or his qualification. His interests lay somewhere else.

Lily, too was an engineering student of the same discipline , in another prestigious university of the state. But apart from the fact, that her college was nearest to his own, other coincidences didn’t really matter much to Dan.

Tonight , as he lay on his bed, trying to close his eyes, all he could remember were those exam nights, when he had duties to perform. How had it started after all, he thought now. And then he remembered it. Basically, it was during one of those one-hour-or-more long phone talks, when after one full hour had elapsed already in small talk and nonsense, that Lily had come up with this out of the blue idea.

Her exams were coming up, and she needed to study, what with professors expecting so much from poor souls. But after a long tiring day of classes, it was tough to study late at nights, especially since she was used to sleeping at 10 pm. And then she had asked him to check her out at midnight, if she was sleeping. Not much of a problem, Dan had thought then, for he hardly slept before 3 am. He just never found enough time for himself, what with endless late-night parties and other random activities.

So, this makeshift arrangement had continued for a few days. He had always wondered, how she was always awake at midnight to receive his call when she was used to falling off by 10. But then, improvisations followed. And soon the midnight call, had transformed into hourly calls after midnight, till she dozed off by say 2 or 3. It had never gone beyond that however. And this arrangement had continued for full one month. So much so, that sometimes, it was Lily who called back, if he was ever later by even 5 minutes. It had been fun however. It was like someone utilizing the time that he had been wasting.

And then, Dan’s own exams had come up. It was the fifth semester of college, which meant the exams were on cold, chilly, December-winter mornings. And when he partied or say studied late into the night, he had never been able to get up the next morning in time for come-what-may. But this time, he too had his own plan, something which included Lily. He now had a smile on his face as he thought about those days.

Basically, it was , Lily’s turn to return the honors, by waking him up, in time for his exams. So at 7 am every morning, for full 3 weeks of exams, Lily had woken him up from his slumber, kicked him on the phone itself, and sent him rushing to the exam center, with some last minute words like best-o-luck or you-are-an-idiot-of-the-infinite-order. Now that he thought about all those days, he realized , it had a two-fold advantage. He was able to give his exams almost on time. But most importantly, it was just so heart-warming to start a day with her voice , on a cold winter morning. Sometimes, when he was actually accidentally awake the whole night, he had still feigned sleep at 7 am, just to hear her voice on the other end of the phone.

Exams had been the biggest disaster since 9-11. But he still felt good. He knew, that if she remained there for him, as she was then, he would never lose. He would never stay behind. He would never be discouraged. He would never be down. And now, into his last year of graduation, she wasn’t there for him and it was for the first time in 4 years now, that he had actually been behind guys, who never even thought of coming up to him, leave aside overtaking him. And it was not only a matter of academics, it was the same with his life as well.

And as he thought ,about his life now, the smile disappeared. Those were good days, days when it seemed that nothing could ever go wrong, nothing bad could ever happen. But things did go wrong. Things did change. And he didn’t like it. He wasn’t happy. He just couldn’t be. The late night parties were still there, but he never had the heart to enjoy them now. Those random activities were still there, but he never enjoyed them now.

Only sleep seemed a good option as of now, to him. So he just closed his eyes, turned over his side and feigned sleep once again.

– TO BE CONTINUED

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A STORY LITTLE LESS ORDINARY – part 2

It was Saturday morning. And it was cold. The clock read 11 am. 11 am on a cold February morning. Such a good feeling. Dan pulled the covers over his head, trying to snatch a few more minutes of quick sleep. But then he remembered he had a task in hand, for the day. As soon as Lily came into his mind, he could no longer sleep. Wearily, unwillingly he had got up. Took a brush and stood in front of the mirror, trying to remember the conversation he had with his best friend Nate, the previous night.

Last night, after months of contemplating, he had finally told Nate about Lily. Nate knew lily, one of the reasons he hadn’t really told him about her, before. But, now since whatever there was between him and lily, was over, he had needed someone to talk to. Nate was the best option, and also his best friend. To his surprise, Nate took the piece of information, really well. Perhaps he had already known that, just waiting to hear it from him. But it was good. Letting go of whatever he felt, in front of a friend , it was as if a huge burden was lifted.

What had he said actually, he thought. ” I think i liked her, loved her, and will probably never be the same without her “, these were the words he had said as far as he could remember. It was a downpour of emotions last night. And Nate took it really well.

And then, it was Nate who had suggested, to give her a call. To tell her, what he felt. To let out everything he had, in front of her.It didn’t prove to be such a good option , after all.

As all these thoughts crossed his mind, he was still in front of the wash room mirror. A glance at the mirror and he could hardly recognize himself. An ugly looking black beard seemed to sprout out of nowhere. When did he last bathe, he had thought. Nevertheless, he washed his face. The water was cold and it hurt his face, but he hardly cared.

He rushed back to his room. With trembling fingers, he had dialed her number. It seemed so strange, that of all the phone numbers in the world, he had her number at his lips. He didn’t even remember his home phone number. But her number was like deeply imprinted in his mind. The phone rang for a while. No one picked it up. Another try, still no answer. He gave up. She won’t talk, he knew.

It was 12 noon now, time for lunch. But now, after this phone call, he didn’t want to give up so easily for the day. Food, was a nuisance. He needed to concentrate. He needed to think what he had to say. He even tried to write down his thoughts, so that he could just read them out to Lily on the phone. He frantically tried every trick in the book, trying to brace himself for a much desired conversation. But the next thing he really remembered was waking up at 6 , to the sound of “love is all around you”, on his desktop.

He got up, stopped the player, trying to regain his chain of thoughts. Pieces of paper lay all around him, frantic words on them. He ignored them, and dialed her number once again. No one picked up on the first try. he let the phone ring for another time, hoping against hope. And then he had heard her.

Sitting in the cafe, nibbling away at the cold sandwich, he tried to remember what had followed next. What were her first words, what had he really said, how long did they talk, and what exactly did they talk, each of these questions simply drew a blank. All he could remember were those last words of Lily, and suddenly his mouth turned bitter. Perhaps the first real taste the sandwich had to offer after all, he thought. He left the cafe, with a bad taste in his mouth. Paid his bill quietly, lighted another cigarette, and walked away briskly towards his quarters.

As he lay back on his not-so-soft bed now, it had been softer some time back he thought. So, after a long day , an unfruitful conversation, a tasteless sandwich, he was basically back to where he was the day before. 10 months now, he had basically been dying to hear her sweet voice. Hear but anything from her. Only she wouldn’t talk. What had gone wrong after all. After more than 2 years of friendship, of knowing each other, what could have gone wrong. It was true, he hadn’t been the best of guys. But he had been always like that, non-serious, perhaps idiotic too. Why did she judge him? He never judged her, so why did she.

Then his thoughts drifted to the night , Lily had her exams, and she had this trouble with her sleeping habit.

– TO BE CONTINUED

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A STORY LITTLE LESS ORDINARY – part 1

“… I have already told you, not to depend on anyone. Don’t depend on me. And, please, don’t say such things to me again “, were the last words of lily, as the phone went down. The already dark moonless night, just got all the more darker for Dan. He hadn’t had a single bite to eat since morning. Thinking about what to say to lily, had taken away all his appetite. It had been 10 months, since they had last talked to each other. And even , today, the phone call didn’t exactly went the way, he would have wanted. He looked at his watch. It showed 7 pm. Or was it 8 pm. He couldn’t be sure in the dark. He couldn’t focus.Was it the darkness after all, or was it the strange dizziness in his head. He couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure about anything these days.

He tried to take his mind off lily. FOOD…he thought. Not that he was hungry, but it was a good excuse to get rid of his present chain of thoughts. This wasn’t how his life was supposed to be, he thought, not like this, just because of some girl he liked, a friend who left him without quoting a reason. This was not how it was supposed to be.

He should not be weak. He had always been weak. But now, he must be strong. He needed the energy, emotionally as well as physically.With these thoughts, playing with his mind, his eyes searched for some place to eat. He didn’t realize he had already walked some 2 kms . But his legs weren’t tired. Still he needed some food.

He saw a small cafe ahead. The brilliantly flashing red and blue and green neon lights, throwing rays of light, trying to light up the dark, in the absence of the moon. An effort in vain. As he looked up at the sky, he saw there were no stars either. Just a clear sky, devoid of anything. The moon always made the night beautiful, he thought. You could see things around yourself, in a new light. It was such a beautiful feeling, relaxing , peaceful tranquilly. But there was no moon tonight. There had been no moon, for almost 10 months now. And he couldn’t see things around himself.

Another 10 minutes of a lonely walk, and he is finally sitting in the cafe. It was mostly empty. On any other day, he might have thought it strange. Today, he didn’t even notice it. He was too distracted, to even notice the cheese burger, which had turned cold on his table. He just stared outside the window, into the dark.

He lighted up one of his cigarettes he had bought from the shop outside. The smoke eased his mind. Calmed him down. What had gone wrong after all, he thought. All these 10 months, he had been haunted by this question. He just couldn’t find the answer. It was somewhere out there, but he couldn’t see it. He seemed to had everything. A good life, a good friend who inspired him, motivated him, gave him advice which he valued, guided him when he was misguided, calmed him when he was excited, nervous, edgy.
He didn’t need a cigarette back then. Just a phone call. A text message. Just a few words from lily, were enough to end all his worries, and bring a smile on his face. She never actually saw that smile, but it was there, every time, he talked to her.

And now, he was smoking. Disgusting he thought. With a frown, he threw the half smoked cigarette, outside. For the first time, that night, he noticed the sandwich on the table. He took a bite into the cheese. It was tasteless. Tasteless food. But it stirred up his mind. The events of the last 2 days flashed in front of him….

– TO BE CONTINUED

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THE FIRST JOB…

Well,  i wrote this down, the night i got my first job…on campus.  It was preceded by a small string of failures, so it actually meant a lot to me…..

Here’s what i wrote….

” I remember that dialog by Boman Irani in BLUFFMASTER, to Abhishek Bacchan  ( ROY), when he tells him, to realize those few ecstasies of life, the first bicycle ride, the first job, the first salary, the first girl….and other such once in a lifetime things, which make your life, what it is.

and though my “first bicycle ride” age is already gone, and my “first girl” event is yet to happen……i can really feel the feel of what’s called “the first job” of an engineer.

It may not be one of the best, it may not be enough of money but what it brings with itself, is a sense of relief, a sense of confidence , a sense of joy….and somewhat motivates you to aim for the sky. and that is what i feel today.
and maybe i will never ever forget this day.
its GE, the least expected of all…but still GE…
its imagination at work…
its me at work….
and now its time for the sky…..just wish to conquer the world one day…
and that too, very soon…. “

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COLLEGE LIVING…

NOTE : NO OFFENSE MEANT BY THIS POST TO ANYBODY (LIVING OR DEAD)

As i pushed open the door to what was supposed to be my new “home” for the next 4 years, i realized it was just a dead end. A plain white wall stared back at me .But that was impossible, right. The warden had said, it was “my” room. And he must be right , i thought. Quickly adjusting my eyes, i saw that there was actually some space between me and the opposite wall, the same space in which two guys ( me and my room mate ) were supposed to be spending an year or so.
And there i was !

That was my first day at college.
And am now into my last days of college.
Not that am all sentimental, and emotional, and like all tears and all. But still, Thinking about college, your college life, your 4 years on your own in a whole new world…its actually fun.

Now, i know colleges are supposed to be centers of higher learning, places where the kid from school undergoes his transition into the man who faces the world, times when he learns from his own mistakes, his own experiences…..and blah blah.
There’s much much much more to college than all that.

Now, there are people, for whom college is like “nothing special”…just another 4 years in their dull and dreary lives. Called “nerds”, this species of college population, has its own set of rules ( most of which are the exact opposites of the rules of the contemporary “normal” college society ). It has its own set of definitions for everything , from academics ( read “life” ) to recreation ( read “unholy” ).
PS : For more details on these concepts, watch American PIe – Beta House , the movie.
This post is not for them.

This post is a view of “college living“,
my view of “college living” ,
just another view of “college living“…and am sure, most of my fellow college guys would agree to this view. All those who agree , can raise their hands in support, and maybe can send me a picture of themselves in that position, on my personal email id. I would really appreciate the effort.

So no ladieshhh and all gentlemann, here i present

THE IDIOT’S GUIDE TO THE BEST 4 YEARS OF COLLEGE LIFE :

• Choose a college.

• Choose a room.

• Choose a bar in town.

• Choose stealing slippers from your friends.

• Choose not to buy your own toothpaste.

• Choose to share one bucket with 10 other people.

• Choose to take bath once in every 10 days.

• Choose crowding the TV room for an India-Australia cricket match.

• Choose to love your computer more than anything else.

• Choose to talk online to the guy next door.

• Choose living on cheap beer and instant meals.

• Choose blowing your money on night outs , dhabas and alcohol.

• Choose to sell your cycle and books for the quick money.

• Choose parties at any time of the semester.

• Choose to sniff your clothes to see if they are still wearable.

• Choose being out every time the mess manager calls round for the bill.

• Choose staying up all night writing the assignment which you should have been working on for the past three months.

• Choose dating the college hottie.

• Choose giving cheap gifts to girls.

• Choose making the girl pay on a date.

• Choose to avoid the girl’s parents at all costs.

• Choose falling asleep in lectures.

• Choose not to sit on the first two benches in class.

• Choose to sit on the bench farthest from the teacher in class.

• Choose to appear interested in the class when actually you don’t have a clue.

• Choose not to have breakfast ad then actually have it.

• Choose asking your parents for money.

• Choose never cleaning the room.

• Choose doing all the things your parents warned you not to do.

• Choose twenty four hour cramming sessions the day before the end sems.

• Choose befriending the class nerd for their notes.

• Choose a drinking buddy.

• Choose the cheapest night outs you will ever have, when you don’t have enough money.

• Choose waking up at completely unexpected places after getting over drunk.

• Choose sleeping at dawn and waking up in the afternoon.

• Choose starting the weekend two days early ( and seven days early in the final semester).

• Choose long holidays and flexible deadlines for the last time in your life.

• Choose taking bags of dirty laundry home for your parents to clean.

• Choose studying for three years then appear clueless in front of the interviewer.

• Choose a study partner, with whom you gossip more than you study.

• Choose sleeping around everywhere except your own room.

• Choose getting high and talking bullshit.

• Choose new friends you won’t speak to within a year of leaving college.

• Choose a new lover to replace the one you left at home.

• Choose to increase your alcohol tolerance level.

• Choose the best time of your life….

• CHOOSE YOUR FUTURE…

• CHOOSE COLLEGE LIFE….

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A DEPARTMENT IN DARK…

DATED: SUNDAY,JANUARY 13TH 2008

Well, its about last night, and its a crazy story.
i know, we all do crazy things sometimes….and last night was the one for me, i guess.

You see, i had this bottle of BACARDI RUM in my room , for the last three days, and was just searching for the right moment to empty the bottle down my throat. So, while i was watching GODFATHER 2 on my computer, i suddenly had this not so unfamiliar urge to drink, and so buzzed one of my friends , lets call him S.

Now, since the last 2 days, i had been a bit dizzy, and had a strange headache in my head, which was partly due to the previous rum and partly due to some other unknown reasons ( am saying this because alcohol normally doesn’t have that kind of affect on me unless am really really over drunk, which has happened to me only on 2 occasions before and both had turned out to be classic events ). So , i thought, i would just drink another shot, and get all rum-my and sleep on my tum-my afterwards ( so much for the rhyme ).

But, then we two realized that, we were hungry and at 1 am in the night we had only one option, the rajputana canteen. So after debating a bit on whether we really needed to go out in the cold, we finally decided to just go for it. The gates of the hostel were closed however, and we could force our way into the canteen only after some pleading to the gatekeeper ( damn first year hostels ). I felt sorry for the dog who was left to shiver on the outside, while we got in.

Anyways, after getting some late night snacks for a late night party, we started to return back, and thats was when it all started. I suddenly had this out of the blue crazy idea, of drinking under the open sky somewhere in the haunted places of the college. S wasn’t so enthusiastic about it, but he gave in. And so, after stuffing all the necessary things in our pockets , we set foot from our hostel, in search of a nice place , back there somewhere in the college.
We had in our pockets :
1) one bottle of BACARDI WHITE RUM…one “addha ”
2) one packet of brtania chocolate cookies
3) one packet of haldirams snacks
4) two glasses stolen from the mess.

And we set towards our academic area, towards our department, the electronics one. It was ironic, for we hardly go to our department during the day time, but were so eagerly moving towards it in the night time. Anyways, after noticing a few changes in our own department over the last year or so ( which somehow, had escaped our eyes in the daytime ), we went ahead and finally rounding off the mechanical department, settled in the civil department.

I poured each one of us, a glass full of the precious liquid, and den we decided to take a stroll , as we sipped. Our stroll , took us to the OAT , just a little distance ahead, and this was where we finally came into the open, under the star lit sky ( i don’t remember any moon though up there ). And here, we sipped rum, under the sky like two carefree souls ( we were on the constant lookout for the proctor’s patrol or else, we could have landed in jail for the night ).

There on the OAT, we shouted on top of our voices to hear the sound of our own echo. We sang our favorite songs, in the most terrible of voices. We swore aloud , planned revenge on all those crazy bastard professors who had tortured us the 4 years. We played football with those 2 glasses, till they finally broke. We tried to break the telephone wire, but when we followed it to its very end, we found it was just too high for two drunken idiots.

Then we came back to our department, hugging the bottle of rum to our heart. And we placed the bottle on top of our department for all of us to see on Monday. We however had to climb up a window to do so. And then when we were just about to leave, i had the craziest of idea for my devilish mind was at its best. We opened the electricity box, and pulled out the CUT-OUTS, and plunged the entire department into darkness. And then we heard the night-watchman’s whistle, and we just ran at top speed leaving behind an eye-witness to our crime. It was just an innocent sweet-looking lizard inside the electricity box, and we just couldn’t convince myself to kill the witness.
( maybe just walked, i don’t really remember, hell i don’t even remember the whistle ). From the distance we could only see a large spot of darkness, amidst the brilliantly lit academic area, and we just couldn’t imagine the face of PC (our HOD) on Monday.

And this is the story, of the night, when two drunken friends plunged a whole department into darkness. We even planned to do the same for the entire academic area, but were just too drunk to implement that i guess.
And today afternoon when we realized what we had done last night, and went to check out the scene, the bottle of rum was still there, sitting proudly on top of our department. The lizard was gone though.
And we finally had a souvenir from college.
The CUT-OUTS…
I think i’ll encase it and put it on my wall or something….but that has to wait till the matter gets cold a bit….

PS : I think i also remember some conversation i had with ashish rajan when i came back to my room around 3 or something. I need to check out what all i blabbered.

And know what, for the first time in months, i felt like i was back, back to the old care-free self with a devilish mind, back to being someone who got lost all this while, though it was only for the night.

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TOO MANY DEATHS…

Well, i wouldn’t normally have written this post. But this morning, mom calls me up , to ask about the recent death in my college, which i hadn’t told at home and which she came to know from some outside sources ( i know the source, its that father of the son , who is in my college, and whose father does all the talking for his son ).

Anyways, the point is , i had in fact begun writing about the first death in my college, this academic year. Somehow, that post ended up in my list of unfinished “drafts” , never quite making it up to the blog.
You see, the 4 years of my B-tech life, has been quite free of casualties. We all have had many harrowing experiences , but none died till now. We all somehow survived.
But now, in this academic year of 2007-08, there have been 3 deaths already.

First there was that student ( name forgotten ), who died on campus, as his high-flying bike, rammed into some tree or something, at about the speed of one of those googlies of anil kumble. The googly took his life though, after a fruitless day at the hospital where he tried to recover from multiple organ failures, and a collection of money from the students to aid his recovery. Nevertheless, he died a “hero” ….and the matter was soon forgotten.

Then just a few days ago, some research scholar of some physics department , died in another road accident. Who, when, Where…..i don’t have the slightest clue, but that was another death.

Then, just 2 days ago, a student , 2nd metallurgy, Raj, died in another road accident, outside campus. I suppose, from what i hear, he was returning, from a movie, on his bike, which for one second, overtook a truck ,and the next second collided with another. On the spot death. Instant relief ( i know, am a pathetic soul , with absolutely no respect for the dead ).

So, that makes it 3 deaths in my college.
Then there’s the death of Bhattacharya ma’am, which was a real shock, for all the VSECians. I won’t go into details of that death.
Then i guess, a brother of a 4th year mechanical guy, died in bangkok or something., while delivering a presentation or something.
That makes it 5 deaths in all.

Can’t remember any more this year. In any case , its not a thing to be remembered. We gotta show some respect for the dead. Now, that bikes will eventually be banned in college, it will be a real pain for the students.
And, then with all my history of being involved in all sorts of accidents, in college….my hopes of getting a bike for myself this year, also goes up in smoke. I can even smell the smoke.

I hope there are no more deaths while am still in college. There’s no point in arguing whose fault it was. There’s no point in even talking about it. Thats what prevented me from writing about this earlier.
But anyways……too many deaths.

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THE LAST WINTERS…

Now by last winter i mean, the last winter of my college life. I mean am not dying or something , and i hopefully will live through many many more winters in life ( hope you get the double meaning ). This last winter of my life has somehow lasted almost an year now and i wish it would end soon.

It rained the whole of last night. The morning was cloudy and without any sun , which this time around had made December( otherwise intensely cold ) seem like mild February. A cold wave was really necessary for the winters of north India to live up to its reputation, reputation of a spine-chilling, intense, blood-freezing cold. I mean it can sometimes be so cold up here in this area, that once you die, you hardly need any artificial preservatives at all. So, finally that much missed cold wave has finally hit the city today morning. The next few days , would be the days, when we would actually realize the worth of sun to us. When we would actually realize how lucky we are to have a life like us, as we sit in front of our computers and hear news about people dying out there in the cold outside. When we would curse the winters for slowing us our work.

As of me, i have always loved the winters. Mostly because, i can wrap myself up in a warm blanket ( i don’t like wearing much on my self ), grab some hot tea/coffee, some snacks and sit in front of my computer and watch some stupid serial, and have nothing else to care about of the outside world, Now , its actually luxury as many would say.
But i actually love it, like of course many other people. And yes, i can skip the bath too.

One good thing about home is, you’ve got your mom to do all the stuff, like bring the blanket, light up the fire, and give you the food. Hostel on the other hand , doesn’t have such facilities. I mean with independence comes great responsibilities, like feeding yourself, making yourself warm, and getting out of the warmth of the blanket, for even the most smallest of things like opening the door to some moron who might be knocking on your door just to say “WASSUP!”

Its the last winters out here. Next year, i might be spending my winters , somewhere down south, where i don’t even think you can differentiate between seasons. Its raining outside , a light drizzle, and the scene outside my window is like awesome,, except that i cant keep it open long enough for the cold thats outside. You know, how ” coldness flows from cold body to hot body , whenever you give it a chance to do so “. The smoke is finally starting to come out of my mouth this year. I was actually a bit worried about it, but now am not. I have a packet of smoke, on my table though, just in case.

I have being hearing the scrubs soundtrack all this week, and some of its songs, like ‘superman’ , ‘hallelujah’ , ‘beautiful world’ , ‘hooch ‘ etc. are really good. Not winter songs, but then i really don’t find much winter songs. I mean, when it comes to songs, the monsoons really seem to have that edge. The winters however , seem to have that edge when it comes to love and romance. In any case, if anyone out there, know of good English winter songs, kindly suggest me. I would be very obliged and might actually send you a card or something in return.

Lets have an exercise for you all. By you all , i mean all those who somehow, maybe upon my own requests or otherwise, happen to read this post. I mean, WHAT’S YOUR IDEA OF FUN ON A TYPICAL CHILLY WINTER DAY ? For me, leaving aside , the warmth of my blanket and my room and some good food, I would really love to see it snow. I would love to see the streets covered with snow as white and pure as the moon light.
I would love to lie down on that snow, and stare blankly into a cloudless sky, maybe spot some constellations or something. I would love to see my breath, emerging from my mouth in a cloud of smoke, and disappearing into the sky above. I would maybe, just love to be there.
Maybe that’s my fantasy.
BUT THEN, WHAT’S YOUR FANTASY, FOR SUCH A LOVELY WINTER ?

Just drop in your comments and answers. The best answers might get a free one-way ticket* to the the Bahamas or something.

*conditions apply !

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THE KITE RUNNER

I’ll make this a very short post, mostly because its already 3 am in the morning and am no expert in judging films. But as i finished watching this movie “THE KITE RUNNER ” based upon the book by the same name by Khaled Hosseini, there are these thoughts bouncing off the inside of my head and i don’t really wanna lose them tomorrow morning.

You see, i did like the movie. I admit its well made. But it made me realize that a book is always far far better than a movie based on it. Maybe a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes its those thousand words that matter more to you than a single picture. Mostly because those thousand words give you the freedom to draw your own picture, to fill your own colors and to interpret it as you want it to. A picture is more forceful in that aspect.

Why am saying this?
Because instances in the movie made me realize this.
maybe i’ll share some of my insights….what i felt.

1) One of the most interesting things about the book is that its set in Afghanistan. Am pretty much sure that any other country might not have been able to bring up such a story. But while the book is a literary treat for the above mentioned reason, i don’t really get the glimpse of Afghanistan from the film. i didn’t see the traditions , the culture of the country, the hazaras and the pashtuns. I didn’t see the lake where the Amir jaan went to picnic with hassan. I didn’t see the tree in the courtyard, where the two young boys played. I dint see th game of Bushakshi which was typical of the country. There are only occasional glimpses into a country so vividly described in the book.

2) I don’t really feel the urge to sympathize with the proud father of Amir jaan, when he loses his honor to a soviet invasion. I don’t see the pain and suffering he endures to get his son safely out of the country, while fleeing from his own home, his own country, in an oil tanker.
Its something that seems to have been done in a great hurry in the film.

3) I don’t see Amir jaan growing up in america. I don’t see his father selling his buick and giftng his son a $50 Volkswagen on his graduation. I don’t se his hardships in a foreign country. It all seems to come so naturally and with ease to the Agha, in the new country, something which was not actually.

4) I don’t see the relationship between Amir jaan and his beautiful wife Soraya jaan. I don’t see their despair at not been able to produce a son. Most importantly, i miss those words of Amir jaan for Soraya…
” Make morning into a key and throw it into the well,
Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.
Let the morning sun forget to rise in the east,
Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly. ”

5) Finally , i just don’t get to see enogh of Sohrab, the young kid of Hassan and the nephew of Amir jaan. I don’t see enogh o his transformation from a shy, frightened little kid to a confident one under the parenthood of Amir and Soraya, in America.

The only thing i see in the film is Amir jaan. The story just seems to revolve around him, whereas the book does proper justice to all characters. In doing so, the film however paints a very good picture of an Amir , ridden with guilty conscience for being a coward not able to stand d up for himself and his hazara friend hassan. And he really impresses. And the sad thing is , no one other than him does.

All in all, a good move, but then i told you, am writing this review, not because am an expert, but because i wanted to prove my point. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes those thousand words are much better.

But i like that line of Rahim khan…
“…..there’s a way to be good again. ”
And i myself am searching for some such way….
….to be good again.

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HAPPINESS….99.9999% pure

I’ll begin the post, by summing up the last 24 hrs. For that i first need to recall, where exactly i was , 24hrs in the past. ya, i remember, i was in my room ( silly thing to say, really). My 7th semester exams had ended yesterday, and trust me it was the biggest disaster in the history of mankind ( restricting myself to the engineering lot here ), since 9/11. 7th sem exams, am told are always like this ( did they say disastrous ??). I recall someone told me that our seniors last year ( what with the great bonds they were), could manage to get only 2, 8 pointers and the rest were happy with 6 pointers. In that retrospect, i guess, i should be HAPPY.

Nevertheless , after coming back from the last exam yesterday, and that too half an hour earlier ( i had absolutely no clue, as to what was asked in the paper), i dedicated some of my time in drawing a graph of my performance this sem, and was very surprised to find it resembling a Gaussian distribution ( damn me, am really pathetic na ).Anywz, after spending the afternoon, drawing this stupid graph, then taking a bath at 3 pm( as soon as the bathroom was free, somehow everybody wanted to take a bath today ,almost as if to wash away the smell of exams from their body ), and doing a saawariya special Ranbir kapoor style dance in the privacy of my room, i was ready to conquer the world and so i settled down nicely in the comfort of my bed.

And there i was 24 hrs back.The night was pretty ordinary ( had a vegetarian dinner ) and slept a 12. This morning woke up at 11, to find Pakistan reeling a 150/5 and i literally jumped out of my bed to go run see a bit of the LIVE match ( one of the privileges i enjoy, with the TV room next to my room). Another Monster-in-law movie and am writing this post.

And i feel like “the kings of the worlds ”
OK, that’s probably SRK dialog, but hez got no copyright over it…lolz.
But guess what am HAPPY…indeed happy.

Now, the meaning of HAPPINESS has somewhat eluded the mind of the average Indian young mind. When I was in school , people told me happiness is getting 90% in board exams. We know that , kid ( guess maybe because they themselves never got so much ).When I got those 90% , they told me happiness was getting into a top engineering college…they called it IIT and i had no clue about it, i mean the oxford dictionary had no such word in it at that time. When I did that , happiness was defined as getting out of IIT and earning a salary which is in seven figures. Arre 100% happiness yehi hai . “USA mein researchers bhi yehi kehte hai. ”

Now When I have done that ( its six figures for me though) , happiness is ?
Hello ! What is it nowwww ? Oye kake, ab bata bhi do.
So ladiesh and gentlemans , now that the world has been telling me what to do , this is what I have learnt – all the above stuff is important( or else you’ll end up telling your sons and daughters, and your grandsons and granddaughters and also other people’s bachchas the same crap you’ve been hearing) , BUT happiness is something they don’t need to tell you about . It is something you feel . And only you decide what makes you happy . When others don’t know where you want to be , how can they tell you how to get there ?

Like , for me , HAPPINESS is…..
On a lazy Sunday , I get up with the sound of my favorite song playing on my computer, i complete a fabulous work of art, watch India winning a test match, eat an awesome lunch , and watch a roller-coaster comedy movie or a romantic one or a sci-fi one.

When am sitting at the ghats with the water flowing at my feet, under a clear moonlit sky , no lights around me and a complete nothingness in front of me ; and i call my best friend just to describe what i feel.

When ma asks me to get up and take a bath and I just pull up the covers over my head when its almost 10 in the morning and say to mom, “Chill , ma. Itni subah kaun nahata hai, can i have a cup of coffee.”

And when mom does give me that coffee cup and i get up and sip that morning coffee.

When I say stupid things to someone who would not think “Huh? This guy is a crazy bastard.”

Talking to someone who understands me , and accepts me even when I am all boring .

Playing carom with Papa , and beating him at it too . ( We don’t do that anymore , it was really hard beating him).

Caring for someone I want to care for.

Loving someone, I want to love.

Meeting a bunch of friends in an empty house on a lazy morning and crack pathetic jokes about our college professors and why worst guys get the best girls and of course gossiping about each other, often taking sides.

HAPPINESS is just , being me .

So you see , what makes me happy is stuff I have not achieved , but stuff , which , I already have , had all the way along . So I know I need to achieve things , but hey , there is no hurry . Because I need to achieve things to survive , but to be happy , not much is needed . Some music ,a dear friend to talk to and my favorite food, will do just fine for now.
Basically that’s my idea of 99.9999% HAPPINESS.

WHAT’S YOUR IDEA OF 99.9999% HAPPINESS…? comments are welcome….lolz.

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You Don’t Need Me Anymore…

You say you don’t deserve the place
That I would like to give you
But I’ll always say what I say
Cause whatever I say is true

The truth is I don’t belong
And you don’t need me anymore
I wish I could be, but
I can never be there anymore

I am the past, I don’t exist
I might have been your imagination
But i was the child, I was naive
and I couldn’t stand seperation

When there was nothing
Then there was a false hope
And I haven’t learnt to live
And still have to learn to cope

You don’t need me anymore
And all the words are futile
Still I wish I could be there
And be a part of your smile

Wish I could make a better difference
And wish I could see your eyes
And then I wish I don’t
The fool, wants to be wise
—————————————————————————————————————–

hey don’t get mistaken, am not the poet , just something i found on the internet.

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I Can See The Pain

I still see your face in my dreams
It hurts and it doesn’t help at all
I still want you in my life as crazy as that seems
I want you to catch me when I fall

I still remember the first time we met
There was something so different about you
Your friendship was something I wanted to get
That smile when you said hi to me was so new

Out of no where you called me on the phone
I wanted to sit there and talk to you forever
You were so new, so crazy and unknown
I just knew that our friendship would never sever

Two years and we are barely holding it together
What happened to the way this all used to be
I never wanted you out of my like ever
I sat there for a long time pretending not to see

We decided to go out and make it all all right
It didn’t work out of course we knew it couldn’t
We couldn’t even really stand each others sight
It shouldn’t end this way but it did and I shouldn’t

I miss you and everything you were to me
Ten years from now we will look back on it all
We will be older and finally be able to see
That love will stand the test of time and never fall

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Friends Don’t Always Last

am not a poet, but do absolutely love poetry………

————————————————————————————————————-

I try to be nice, but you just laugh.
I’m not fitting in anymore, what can I do?
You don’t realize, but it’s starting to hurt.
When everything’s just right, it always turns to dirt.

Help me, what am I doing wrong?
I don’t understand, I’m there when your not strong.
I try to be happy most of the time, but it’s getting harder now,
knowing your friendship isn’t mine.

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FIRST LOVE….MP3 YOU KNOW !

POSTED : 5TH SEPTEMBER 2007 .

FIRST LOVE…….the very idea of first love is as romantic as the thing itself. Think about it and all of a sudden, there’s spring in the air, a friendly warmth in the atmosphere around you, a cool breeze kissing your forehead and ruffling your hair. I mean this is what we all imagine , is it not?
And now i am about to break this notion, because first love is nothing like this.
In fact first love is more of a painful story than a wild fantasy.

One thing’s for sure, everyone does have a first love. But there are really a very few who actually get their first loves. For most of us, FIRST LOVE is the girl next door, or the girl next seat in the class, or the girl he talks to on the phone for hours without even realizing that, or the best friend whom he always took for granted.

And out of those, very few have the courage to actually accept the fact, first to themselves and then in front of the world.
And out of those, very few have the luck to actually get their FIRST LOVES.
but…not without some real pain.
And believe me, for all those who have watched MP3 and are thinking of proposing to their loves under the Eiffel tower, believe me, the real life is very different from what u actually see.

For starters, lets sort out the differences between MP3 the movie, and MP3 in reality..

1) Dudes, Eiffel tower is in Paris….know Paris??….Italy…Europe….ring a bell ??
The important thing is….far away from India….ok…somewhere in the heart of Europe.
So playing truant and escaping to Paris…spending 40,000 ( 4 with 4 zeroes after it ) of your dad’s hard earned money….is just not so fascinating.
Its more foolish, than romantic.
You know, there’s a very fine line between foolishness and romanticism.
So, running away to Paris, like its the “nukkad waala chai ki dukaan” or something…is more on the other side of the line….the foolishness side that is. Of course, the idea is utterly romantic…something that would lead to spluttering of eyes on the totally blushed face of the girl, and she might even implant a kiss on your cheek in return…..but a 40,000 Rs. kiss ( 4 with 4 zeroes after it ) is actually a bit costly, by any standards…i mean even when the dollar values are falling.
So, the advice is….wait for her return to India…
Thats a bit more real.

2)Girls…and girls…please don’t think that boyz dance about in their bedroom to the sound of rock , with some hair band on their heads. I mean thats absolutely not true. Ok, all normal boyz, love rock ( some soft, some hard)….and many normal boyz like to have long hair, but we definitely don’t dance about in our pyjamas, in our bedroom, in front of loud music , in our own houses when all our family is but in the house and not with any hair band in our hair. So, girls might as well drop this picture, if they ever thought something even remotely close to this.
That would be more close to reality.

3)One more thing, i wish my father was so considerate to give me 2500 Rs cash and a chauffeur driven car, for my first date. Please, thats not true in reality. No father would do something even remotely similar to such a thing. For most guys and girls, the first date is more of a secret…something which only close friends know about.I can’t even imagine the scene, if somehow our parents come to know that, we are spending money on some girl , when the money was actually borrowed for buying course books.
You know, how fathers are in India.
Picture them now, and that would be more real.

4)MP3 the movie, ends when the painful stuff starts. first love is not a very pleasant thing. You are confused in your mind, You are distracted in your work, You can no longer concentrate on your stuff…and things like that….and believe me, it drives you mad. and the thing is, it always ends. LOVE
ends soon enough and then it leaves behind memories which tend to haunt you forever ( i mean until you find your SECOND LOVE that is)  and SECOND LOVE is a very elusive thing actually. i won’t go into the details of second love here.
But the point is , this is more closer to reality.

So, you see, MP3 is a movie to be enjoyed and not believed ( though it has lotz of true facts too about boyz and more about girls).
FIRST LOVE….is not quite the thing they show in movies.
i mean the spring that they show, the breeze that they show…are all artificial.
There’s no such thing in real life.
There’s no “Eiffel tower proposing” in real life.
Finally the notion of FIRST LOVE is only a wild fantasy of the crazy human mind.
And for those of you, out there who oppose me, feel free to leave a comment.
And for those of you, who actually believe the above bullshit….ping me on some messenger….we will join forces…and start some war or something.

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DEV-DEEPAWALI……IN BANARAS !

POSTED : 6TH NOVEMBER 2006

Well…last nite ..i witnessed wats called dev-deepawali out here in banaras…..dont hav a clue as to why’s it so called or why the hell is it celebrated in the first place…i mean diwali’s gone only 2 weeks i think…..
but i think its related to old customs..and the sun and the moon… (it was a full sun day and a full moon nite last nite) and all the planets in the solar system( which are always invisible to me)…..
and perhaps the receding waters of ganges….(the water level was real low last nite ….)

anywyz…last nite it was me, pandu and dat rohit..(who makes a fuss about evry god damn thing in the beginning but eventually listens)..we three went to the ghats aftr dinner at abt 9pm.
now i had already done my circuitry for the lab today..so was a bit relieved…and so were they…as we went…
with a chocolate which we bought on the way,we seemed to be the only ones goin towards the ghats at such odd hours…wen the whole crowd seemed to be comin the opposite way…
….guess we dont follow the crowds ….

Anywyz we did reach the ghats, and there was still a lot of “bheed” out dere….
we walked down the steps, to the water, den drank a cup of the special tea…which the special shop dere makes….and den started movin towards the oder ghats by the river…now i had no idea where we cud go by that way….and it so turned out ..dat we actually went on to ..dashashwamegh ghat in godowlia…all the way thru harishchnadra ghat…..( the dead burn here)…
the path was decorated wid diyaas on the sloped embankments( now dats a real gud word i jst remembered)….most of which were already out….at
such hours..but still we cud alwyas imagine the scenes….
and den some firangis were launchin rockets from a rooftop….but i think they forgot…that those were surface-to-air things..and not surface-to-surface things…for one landed some distance from us…and which made us run from there..before any such further attack. i was wondering, at wat cost wud dey have purchased dem..i think 10$ a piece…they r always robbed, but always so happy being robbed in india.

Now there was a real crowd at the last ghat( i cant say the name again)…at godowlia….where….some bhojpuri singer , pandu identifies as manoj tiwari…..was singin songs…well the words were gud i think..i mean the ones i understood….dat is..at least it was better than reshamiya’s out of place crap at the oder ghats…
but boy..it was some crowd at godowlia..

WE enjoyed some moongfalis( pndu’s money) and some bhelpuri( rohit’s money)…..dont think am money minded…it was i who had paid for the chocolate and also some rabri later on…jst kiddin waise to…
anywyz..(man, hav been using this word with the frequency of eye blinks now)…but still anywyz…we had already walked some 5-6 kms..i think..and i really wanted to hav a boat ride to assi( where we had started)….i hav always wanted to have a ” chaandni raat me nauka vihaar”….an esaay which evryone mite hav been forced to write, at some point of his career…but wen the chap ..the driver of the boat( thats not the rite term…i know dat..)..told 300 fr th whole boat..we all unanimously agreed that..”chaandni raat me pag-yatra” was a much better option.

AND so we walked bak the full 5-6 kms..watevr it was..again through the “dead burning” place..and this time we actually saw two bodies burning..must be dead i suppose…for we jst rushed thru with our aching legs….
SOMEHOW as pkm says..somehow we reached assi…and then not findin any god damn rickshaw..we again somehow..i repeat somehow reached lanka….and i think we all had been walkin some 2 hrs non-stop…and had walked at least 15 kms….rohit was i suppose encouragin us with his ” cadet karan shergil” lectures from lakshya…but we were neither cadets, nor karan and not even “sher-dils”….so wat he was sayin was all crap to us….and we wud hav beaten him up..had we not been tired.

well we finally got one rickshaw..the poor soul took some pity on us..and we finally reached bak to our hostel….where my lab circuit was waitin desperately for me…and i had to wake up till 3:30.

ANYWYZ…focusin on the event itself…i wud say..that dev-deepawali had been something we had alwys seen in pics of varanasi bfore this..so witnessin it was somethin…
the lights on the ghats did work magic on the scene…and the whole episode will alwys be remebered by us.
and fellow bloggers…if u ever happen to come to banars..mayb u can give a thought to …..visitin these special ghats..on such special occasions..for i think .these ghats to the special river…are the best things of VARANASI.
(enjoy the pics)…

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ONE DRINK AHEAD ….

POSTED : TUESDAY, 19th JUNE 2007

ONE QUESTION :

WHY DO BOYZ DRINK….???
is it some deep driven desire of the immensely convoluted human mind…or is it the sheer pleasure of the act itself…..or is it because people have got this wrong notion..that it is actually a medicine to ur emotional diseases….

now this question did come into mind…last night when was talkin to *********…
and then it again came up when i found out this blog..by a certain iitk ‘ian….vinod khare…
good stuff …i must admit…

anywyz..coming bk to the question….
why do boyz drink….

i think i dont quite know…why boyz drink.
i think..most boyz start drinking……like kinda they wanna try out wat the stuff is. venturing into uncharted territories is something which boyz always brave themselves for. anywyz, i myself tried out my first beer, in my 4 semester, ……..i think it was more of 3rd semester, and it was ZINGARO.
anywyz, it was good, i tell you. and i drank full half a bottle.
i ‘ll tell u an inside tip – u’ve got the making of a great drinker if you like your very first sip of whatever you drank ( beer/vodka/whiskey/rum/gin)
and the moment , i had my first sip, i knew it….though others realized that a few microseconds before me.
it was good…
but the question was, why did i drink that day….
another tip – the first drink always has a reason, a damn good reason.
i too had a reason, though i wont tell that here. it was ridiculous and stupid of me….i mean the reason and not the drinking of course.

ok, so i had finally got into the forbidden territory, like many other boyz.
and then , for those who do not like the taste of the malt, there is a return train to safe waters.
but for those like me, who have the making of the greatest of sober drinkers…..like the greats of ummm…..( ok…i dont remember any great drinker, but i guess einstein must have drunk, to stir up his crazy mind). …for those like us, there’s no turning back.

i never realized , when the beer mug got replaced by the KINGFISHER STRONG bottle…
when the bottle got replaced by the WHITE MISCHIEF PEG…
when the peg got replaced by multiple (5-6) pegs of IMPERIAL BLUE & SIGNATURE whiskeys….
and i dont even remember when i started goin to these bars in varanasi….to have some exclusive cocktails, and some other drinks, like, SCOTCHES, RUMS….GIN…etc.
and its the same with all boyz..i know this.
while the transformation from a non-drinker to a drinker , takes ages of sheer grit and determination, and some immense pressure ( maybe emotional)…the transformation form a novice drinker ….to an addict is like in the blink of an eye.
u never realize that u are now an addict.

now, there’s a brand new word….ADDICT…
addict…now when do you know that , you no longer are some recreational, vocational, party drinker stuff……and now alcohol is more of a necessity than a mere pleasure.
i think, when 5-6 glasses of whiskey (neat or otherwise) can no longer take care of you, you can partially assume that.
and i think, when every 15 days or once every week, u ask ur frnd (or he asks you..watever)……to go out to a bar..or to bring in atleast a small bottle (those 90ml ones…they are the cheapest you know, something we engineering students can afford on a weekly subscription basis..i guess) of vodka ..WHITE MISCHIEF( 35RS.).or SMIRNOFF(65RS. ) or ROMANOV…or whiskey….( dont quite know the exact prices here)….its then an engineering student in his last years can safely assume that he is quite an ADDICT now.

so, who am i ? I am not bond, got damnits…i am an ADDICT maybe..not bond…never…
I like to drink, and i miss it every 15-20 dyas now. i constantly encourage my frndz to drink…and have been really successful…in converting some non drinkers into drinkers….though i had to be careful with them ( the main fun , with them, is that…while you serve them only two drops in the name of holy water….you actually get to drink the entire bottle….hehe)…

another divine thing i notice, is how people behave once they are drunk.
most people think of alcohol, as a nice little excuse for saying things which they would never say in their senses, so that if something goes wrong, they can always claim “….they were drunk, dont remember anything, and dint mean anything…and other such stuff ..”….the next day when they are sober.
ask me, i think its all bullshit.
even when drunk, you have perfect control over your tongue……and your head…it might be spinning at a top speed of 100kmph…..but it still is stable enough to keep your tongue in check.
so next time, you see a drunk person apologizing to someone….for saying something which perhaps he should have never said……
trust me its bullshit…pure and simple bullshit.
and its amazing how boyz use this same method, to say horrendous things about girls….to their frndz…and sometimes..to the sheer horror of the girls themselves…..directly to them.

guys, guys , guys…drink for the sheer pleasure of it…
drink for drowning ur sorrows in the bottle of wine….
dont drink to grief others……

Morpheus said to neo in the MATRIX…….” have you always believed , that there is something inherently wrong with this world, never quite realizing what it was….and yet so sure about it ”
man….morpheus should have asked me….and boy….i would have jumped up and down in joy, right in front of that grim faced morpheus, and that sexy trinity……crying out to myself…” yes…yes…i knew it…i always knew it .”

bill gates said in his famous speech to some god damn university…..that the world is not a right place…not a fair place actually.
was it bill or steve jobs….nevertheless…one of them said it for sure.
so you see, now that two greats ( am actually counting morpheus as one of them ) have accepted that the world is not right….they have just corroborated my belief.
so you see the world around me, is not quite a very right place to live.
and thats why i drink….
….drink for the pleasure….drink because someone else might get your drink if u dont drink ,moron.

wait a minute….
what am i doing…..??

here, i am , twenty something old male…..quite a drinker…not quite happy with life…..bloggin about, why we drink and all such bullshit.
so what……who cares what i think…who cares what i say…..people dont trust me..and they should not either….

i read somewhere….” BEER IS PROOF THAT GOD LOVES US”…..
so dear guys….and any girls maybe….
DONT DRIVE THE CAR OF YOUR LIFE….WHILE YOU ARE DRINKING…..
because….YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY SPILL YOUR DRINK !!
REMEMBER TWO THINGS…ITS GOD’S GIFT…AND second….AM NOT AT ALL DRUNK..WHILE HAVE WRITTEN THIS BULLSHIT.

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CHEENI THODI SI KUM !

POSTED : SUNDAY, 24th JUNE 2007
its almost 3 am in the morning..

that smell, oh that smell. it s the smell of those shampooed hair. its the smell that emanates from the hair of a girl, when she has just come out of the shower, when she has just shampooed her hair, and when she tries to dry them with her towel.
the notion itself is a romantic one…
though the same smell , here seems to be emanating from the hair of the girl infront of me.
maybe she just came from a quick shower, to catch this late night show.

oh, i forgot to tell, where i was. actually, went to watch this movie CHEENI KUM, the 4 of us….
we got these 4 last row seats of the last show….”11pm – 2 am.”show. and then there are these 4 absolutely ” yokozuna ki mummy” types 4 female species…in the row in front of us( for those who dont know who yokozuna is, i think they can remember any of those ladies from this freaking tv show, hosted by sunil shetty these days on some private entertainment channel…..which shows all these multi-multi-multi over weight men and women, fighting out among themselves, for the biggest loser title……god knows , how these tv people come up with such crazy ideas, and how they sell too…).
ok, anywyz, so there are these 4 “multi-dimensioned” ladies,..who were in the row in front of us.
actually ..thinking, they were 3 of those ” multi-dimensioned” ones…..one of them was ok..the one in the seat in front of me that is.
and that was from where that divine smell was emanating from.

coming back to the movie,…CHEENI KUM…am not about to give a filmy review over here….
have actually seen people givin damn review of films on their blogs…….when they dont quite have the expertise to comment on a film.
its only personal opinion , that you can state, and for that matter, the movie last night was sweet.
CHEENI KUM, is a sweet , cute , ” zara hatke types” movie, which am sure any one would have liked.

the best part, was that little girl, ….what was her name….yes..”SEXY”…
sexy name, i must say……for a girl, whose foreknowledge of her soon impending death, makes her mature way beyond her years.
and then , each word coming out of her little mouth, just touches your heart….
so much that…noone can actually live without her.

while the rest of the movie, is just pure guuud…i would be happy to remember the movie , for that small girl, whose each word was so damn true, and so touching, coming out of her mouth.

what did she advise……”.BE HAPPY- SAD..and not SAD-SAD”.
she asks..and then answers herself…..”…hum sad-sad kyun hote hain?…kyunki humare mann ko kisi ne hurt kiya hai…..hum hurt kyun hote hai?…kyunki jab hum unke saath hote hai, tab hum happy hote hai…to agar hum abhi sad hai…to matlab hum kuch der pehle happy the………to we should be HAPPY-SAD…and not SAD-SAD…..”
now it was something like this, ok…i dont remember it exactly….
but watever it was..it was very very effective.

and then this girl , infront of me, made me remind ****.
****************************************************************************************

****************************************************************************************

now before i get a bit too, much into the skin of my own words, lets change gears…
i have been thinkin sometime now, of writing a book…..
i dont know, am damn damn lazy to do such a thing….but with each passing day, the impulse is just getting stronger.
maybe i will write it , when the impulse is too much…..
but am definitely thinking about it.

the conpulsive confessor has just completed her 3 years of blogging.
and its almost 1.5 years myself.
have matured as a writer…..and have defintely matured in my view .
blogging does help there a lot….as u do become a keen observer of the much smaller than life things around you.
i have proof of that…….
have anyone of you, who have actually watched this CHEENI KUM….
have any one of you ever wondered , why the K in the movie title is actually RED……while the other words are just plain white against a pitch black background.
hah….i know, very few would have observed that…
and when i ransacked my messed up brain, for an answer to this question…..the only thing i could think of was…that the red stood for passion…the passion of love.
the sugar of romance may have been less..in the movie…but the passion of LOVE, was nevertheless present.
that was what that red stood for….isnt it??

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A LITTLE MANHATTAN TALE

POSTED : MONDAY ,18TH JUNE 2007
and 19th june about to dawn……

this post is yet another of those funny, maybe true, excursions of my random mind.
thoughts that came into my mind….when i was watching this movie ” LITTLE MANHATTAN “….on a cloudy, rainy sunday afternoon.
thoughts that for once made me reach out for my cell…..and i had almost **************************

what was this thought??
the movie “LITTLE MANHATTAN” is actually a sweet movie about the love story of a 11 year old kid…..who falls in love with this girl down the block,
only to find out that love can be actually quite a painful affair.
and as i saw the movie, i thought.
i realized, that LOVE…that four lettered word is basically the same everywhere.
its the same across all countries, across all ethnicities….
it’s maybe a bit late in india than in the west….but when it comes, its the same.

it still has all the seasons, like everywhere.
u like someone, u love someone, then you fight and lose each others’ trust, break each other’s hearts…..and then all ridiculous things happen.
u see her face in every other girl u see down the street.
every romantic movie, makes u remind of her.
u see her hair on every girl’s head.
u imagine her smile all around you.
u imagine her name everywhere around you.
every other guy’s story suddenly seems connected to you..in some absurd way.
and u experience all ridiculous things…….till u go mad.

and then…then before the good things happen.
LOVE ends. it has to end…..comes winter……
your hearts get frozen….
you still remember her, miss her the most……crave for her desperately….and still you stay back…
stay back..because it hurts….
it hurts to go outside in the cold….
it hurts to go out and sort out ur differences….for you dont want another winter.
but even inside this frozen heart….there always remains a fire….
the fire which burns….and continues to burn…despite all winters….because she shall always remain thy first love…

and people out there, this is not my story….this is the story of LITTE MANHATTAN.

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THE “RICHSHAW WALLAH” !

POSTED : 14TH JULY 2007 

well after some holiday posts, which i published now after coming from noida ( trust me, i haven’t edited them in any form, they are as they were when i first wrote them )…..i am now fresh from training , into my fourth and last year of engineering in my college.
and its odd….
its odd because, all of a sudden , i am the senior most batch student of my college.
its odd because, all of a sudden , i see faces in my college, which i don’t recognize. every group of 4-5 students seems to have only 1-2 faces which tag them to be of my college, or else…its like a whole new set of students out there. maybe i’ll get used to it….old frndz are slowly meeting up now…

but the start of this last year of college was definitely something i’ll remember, if not for anything else…then because of that rickshaw ride, from bhu gate to my hostel, the very first day in college.

now, it was what…10th july 2007..yeah..
morning hours….ok..about 7 am.
my train is quite a train i must say…
have been using it now for 3 straight years…and trust me when i say this…( the railway authorities might be interested ), each time when we wanted to come early morning, to attend an important morning class, this damn train would never enter the holy city before 8, when its right time is 6……
and each time, when there has been no hurry , no such rush as to arrive early, it has been bang on target….standing on platform no. 1 at sharp 5:30 or 6am….so much as sometimes, we are still asleep till the chai wallah shouts musical “chai-chia” in our ears.
so u mite guess, that this time too, the train did threaten its passengers, to arrive before time.
some unforeseen red signals, but still it manged to hit the platform at 5:45 am.
now this is early morning, by any standards, even for the early risers.

to prevent the train now from stealing the show now, i will censor some stuff….and finally am on this rickshaw , on my way to my new hostel….a journey from bhu gate to a hostel.
this story is about the rickshaw wallah….
…a typical old man, white shirt and a white untidy beard,…..but unlike others of the same age, i noticed something in his face. it was a certain childlike innocence, it was like as if hez so happy and satisfied with this job, never complaining, never ruing on his misfortunes, but accepting it as a means of spending his life, gracefully.
and i noticed it only after a while.
initially , i was like so surprised by the speed of his driving, that for a moment i considered , pullin him on his vehicle. thought that would be an experience, and den i would even do the old man a favour.
Some passers by looked at us, first at the oldie, den at me, and i was almost compelled to jump off the rickshaw, and let the old man sit. i finally dropped the idea, thinking, i would just take in the morning bhu air, as the oldie would cetainly reach my hostel by the next day.
am a pretty stone-hearted guy sometimes, in these aspects.

And then the climax. my rickshaw stops suddenly. i think, the man is not so guud after all, he might have cruel intentions on his mind, while he took hi time driving slowly.
ok…i dint think all this….at that time..but he stopped..
and before i could ask him why, he just went back a bit, stooped down , picked up something on the road, and came back promptly with the object in his hand.
and it was a mango, an aam “aam”, a small one, cracked slightly to reveal its yellow interiors, and then i looked up at the man’s face. and i saw a smile, as he flashed the mango in front of me…..and i saw his happiness, that of a child, who has just stolen a mango from the restricted tree. and i had never seen it before.
and the next moment, we were on our journey again, with the small mango at my feet on the rickshaw.

i dint speak for the next half an hour, as my mind kept goin to the oldie pullin the rickshaw.
and then next thing i saw was my hostel.
i gave this old man, 15 rs….( the fare was 10, or 12 maybe)…but i could not say anything when he returned me only 5 for a 20 rs note.
hehe , i get generous too a few times..
anyways, so that was the short story for you all….
hope you liked it.
i will, i guess never forget the face of that rickshaw wallah…his smile and his happiness…and his “aam”.

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FIRST DAY ON A NEW BLOG !

So here i am , again in a new avatar… this blog shall be for the world….and while i have assumed the pseudo name of “useless” on the cyber world….

i will adopt a new name here….”themirror”….

Won’t say much today…..would have done this task last night itself…..but i already had enough beer for the night to make my head go dizzy and then it was almost 2 am at night. had classes in the morning, which i desperately needed to attend, for want of attendance.

From my classes today i remember ,one of my teachers (KPS) actually asked me to introduce myself to the class…hehe …it was after all my first class…and he was really pissed…

but i guess he was really funny, when he said…..”dude…do i know you, i mean do u belong to this class?? “..

Then was late again for the lab, of KAK sir, who is already notorious for his strangely ” looking through your very soul ” kinda looks , from beneath his glasses…

but damn, since i have done a bit of a project under him…(ok a full fledged one without the slightest clue as to what the damn project was )…. he tends to mentally harass me through his sentimental talks…meant only for me..

The last time he called me alone and said…”bete, tumhe ho kya gaya hai…?”

well i thought ..”mujhe kuch hua hai kya, kamaal hai mujhe pata hi nahi…”

then he said, “tum aise to nahi the pehle..”

i thought….”hehe, u bet”..

and den he said..” compare ur class 12th copy with ur lab journals now, do u see the difference..??”

and dis time i thought..”dude, do u know me from before…somehow?? “..

ok, there is a hell of a difference between my lab journal in class 12th and now in college.

The biggest difference, not going into the intricate details that is….was that my class 12th lab journal had at least a name tag, and a few scientific words written in it….while my present lab journal has proudly withheld any pen’s attempt to destroy its purity and sanctity till now. that is quite an achievement i guess, considering that am almost 2 months now into my last year of college.

so u see, it was a long tiring day for me today.

Then i cant find my cycle today…i have two keys now ( by that, i mean i own them, not that i have them)…but my cycle is nowhere to be seen. i have asked a few guys, as to whether they saw my cycle, but no one was sure. in any case, it will resurface in a day or two. its not the first time afterall.

So, after a long, hectic day…am finally in my room, starting this blog finally.

had promised , i wont say much….so thats all for today..

ENJOY MY EARLY LITERARY WORKS, which i shall be reposting here from time to time..

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