Jab Deep jale…….

The forgetable note which I found lying under my shelf. Actually this used to be posted eariler….anyway enjoy the most exulting and awaiting festival of India(The Land of Festivals…..)

There are few times when life gives you a breather, when you can look back at your life as you walk and drop quietly into an uncovered manhole in the process. For me, these three days away from office have been just that – A time to break away from the comp and mails reflect on the direction my life is heading in (Which, I discovered, may be heading right into a smelly pile of cow dung), and in a rather unusual moment, grab a ‘pooja ki thali’ so hot, my fingers still smolder like the venue of a fresh nuclear test.

And , of course , celebrate Diwali , the biggest festival of North India . It may leave the street dogs terrified. It may make people blow up crackers which cost half the entire GDP of Botswana . It may have burned down Mrs Chopra’s garden , as it did the year before last . But then, an year without Diwali is like a three feet deep bungee jump . Safe but no fun.

You know Diwali is around the corner when all the ladies in the colony arrange themselves in pairs and start discussing how to please the ‘kaamwali’ this year.

A typical conversation between Ma and Mrs Kapoor , our neighbour , a day before Diwali..

Ma:Aapne soch liya ?Kapoor : Main to soch rahee hoon aadhi kilo milkcake aur ek saaree theek rehegi . Kyun ?

Ma:Cotton ?

Kapoor:Haan .

Ma : Ab , aap dekh lo . Pichle saal Mrs Malhotra ne cotton saree dee thee shobha ko ..agle din hee bhaag gayi thee unka bone china collection chori kar ke..

Kapoor : Accha ? ! Chalo theek hai , silk kee le deti hoon ….milkcake to theek rahega na ?

Ma : Haan Haan , fresh hoga na ?

Kapoor : Bilkul ! Shital ke papa personally jaakar laayenge..in maamlo mein I can not take a risk na !

Ma : Bass fir chinta kee baat nahi . Chalo abhi main jaati hoon , pata chale ki Mrs Chopra ne kya diya hai to batana ..

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The exchanging of sweets with friends and relatives is another domain which calls upon the recycling resources only a woman can possess- Chaudhri Ji gets the ‘burfi’ given by Jain saab. The kurkure gift pack from Chaudhari’ finds a place in Chauhan Uncle’s house. Dhakad’s are the lucky recipients of ‘something’ we got from the Sharmas – did not open up the pack , so don’t know what. But a logical thinking mechanism is indispensable here.If possible , a diagrammatic representation should be used here. Because one little lapse of concentration can be very hard to accept for the Parmars who ended up getting a ten pack set of Real Juices from us , which they had gifted to the Kumars .

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Also , firecrackers are an integral part of Diwali . It’s all good , unless your Chachaji’s daughter burns the corner of her skirt during Diwali 2005 and your mother takes it too seriously.

Not withstanding my mother’s views on the world destroying capability of fire crackers , and in a stance very much in conflict with my age ( I was referred to as ‘Navin Uncle’ by the seven year old kid of the Yadavs when they visited us two days back . Saale Yadav , apni aulaad ko control kar !) , I decided to get firecrackers this diwali.

A day before diwali , I walked upto my mother as she stood in the kitchen , and in a tone generally reserved for declaration of independence and such historical moments , declared – “Ma , Iss baar patakhe laaunga.

”Ma- "Chup Reh ! Yaad nahi do saal pehle Ishu ke saath kyun hua tha ! Bechari jal hee gayi thee almost ! Chup Reh !"

Me- "Ma ! Uski skirt ka corner jala tha !

"Ma- "Chup Reh !"Two words which kill off any scope for negotiations, pleading or begging. Especially if they come from a lady who has three types of kitchen knives within her reach. The permission was gained only when I promised to wear one of those inflatable dresses members of bomb defusing squads wear, keep at least four buckets of water placed next to the site , not fire a single rocket which is not perpendicular to the ground and to get married to a girl of her choice.

Note - I have no idea why the second rocket I fired this Diwali changed direction as soon as it left the bottle and zoomed downwards to end it’s eventful journey with a sharp thwack on the windshield on Mr Khosla’s car.. I think Khosla should look at it with a positive outlook – I mean , it could have hit his seventy three year old father . Ask Mr Sharma. Unke papa ne mere fourth rocket ka kya bigaada thaa..

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The ‘Aarti’ is a rather noisy affair at our home , with the collective prayer singing led by my father , who considers himself just a shade higher than Mohammed Rafi during his crooning of ‘om jai jagdish’ . My mother , who sits besides him , tries to keep out his booming call to the gods out of her ears and my sister keeps busy trying to keep the prasad out of my reach till the aarti ends. This year too , everything was regular , until I decided to pick up the ‘aarti ki thali’ placed neatly before the idols , shimmering diyas and all . Not realising that it is slightly hotter than sun , I reached for the plate and grabbed its edge with my right hand . My sister is having trouble hearing since then . It is her fault she was sitting so close when I yelled ‘Aaowww’.

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Vaah kya ad hai !!!!!!!

Waise to no one is chillaying "naveen , kahan gayab ho gaya tu !! Maloom tere bin roti nahi khayi jaatee thee mujhse !! " , but main ultra deluxe besharmo jaise bata deta hun , I had been busy with my upcoming exam last night . Anyway , forget that , abhi tu apni bike utha , go to the nearest magazine stall , buy the latest edition of 'Business today'. Turn around the cover page .You will see my color fotu with my right arm around Priyanka Chopra and left arm around Esha Deol and Mallika Sherawat holding up a table fan to my face and Lara dutta dangling Black Grapes over my head and Amisha Patel standing some feet away with a "Swami jee , mujhe bhee apni seva karnne dijiye na please" expression on her tiny face . Hai allah , me and my rangeen dreams.

Anyway ,if you turn the page , You will come upon an advertisement for a cellphone.

I mean , bhaiyya , the ad says that it is a cellphone . Though it looks like a 4 inch mercedes. I thought the "uee ma , main gayab ho gaya !" wala gadget Anil Kapoor found in Mr.India would be the most complex gadget to be invented. Now I do not. The cellphone in the advertisement has these features - Direct to TV output 2 mega pixel flash camera , 262K color QVGA TFT-LCD , expandable memory slot ,Dual speaker 3D sound , music player ( MP3 , AAC ,AAC+), camcorder and video messaging ( mpeg , h.263 ), piscel document viewer , bluetooth wireless , pictbridge printing and GPRS quadband. Hey raam , yeh fone hai ya mini satellite. Thinking of phones , mujhe flashback yaad aa raha hai bott zoro se.

My dad has clicked a three year old me splashing happily in a little orange plastic bathtub where I have this "I am nanga !! But who cares !!" expression on my face. He has clicked a six year old me holding the receiver of our phone to my left ear with a "hey sonali , what are you doing this evening ? Let us meet over a couple of lollipops" expression on my stupid face. I remember the phone in our home at that time. It was black. It had that coiled wire connecting a big banana like receiver to a base heavy enough to outweight Riya Sen .It rang sometimes , with a simple 'Trrring Trrring'. Mostly , it was my mausi who used to chat with ma about Indore wali aunty's new jewellery set or some recipe for a 'never-seen-before' variety of halwa. In spite of these culinary disaster plots , those were telephonically peaceful times.

Since then , a lot of contaminated paani has flown under the bridge. Kai Mausam guzar gaye , kai sardiyan guzar gayi , kai garmiyan guzar gayi, kai patjhad guzar gayi , kai spring guzar gaye , meri colony ke mr.taneja guzar gaye , and mere jeevan se kai cellphone guzar gaye . But I still got a very normal cellphone with no inbuilt megapixel cameras or inbuilt juicer-cum-mixers or inbuilt water dispensers or inbuilt flat screen televisions or inbuilt AK 47s. I dont even recall what is the model number of my handset for sure. For the 'features' part in my masoom gareeb cellphone , it has got a phone book , sms facility ( jispe airtel guys tell me that i can be the next indian idol or have lunch with shahrukh khan by sending L U N C H to 123 ) , and also no FM radio . I plug in the headphones when I feel the work is too boring or when I want to look a "subhan allah , what a music diggin cool dude ! Yo maaan ! " types guy. And the phone can make and receive calls too.

I look at it and then at this advertisement before me. It seems I am some stone age animal , born in some stony cave with dinosaurs roaming around in the backyard , and me wearing deer skins as chaddis in routine and tiger skins as party wear chaddis , and using a normal cellphone when the world is moving onto this bhayankar gadget which they call a cellphone. But I think I will survive with this one. Atleast , When I sit down with it in my trouser pockets , it has no 'Bijli ka Khamba' sized antennae to visit awkward places .

Safar

Last week , as I sat at my desk , tapping away on the keyboard and trying to look as involved as if I was three keystrokes away from finding the cure to Limfusarcoma of the intestine , a colleague walked by.

Noticing me , he exclaimed in a rather cheerful tone generally reserved for pretty secretaries..

"Hey Neo , I hear you are getting married !"

Now as u people would have noticed , I am a very shy boy , steeped in tradition and "samaajik maryada". Hence I merely let out a coy smile , lowered my eyes till my eyelashes brushed the keyboard and nodded a delicate yes .
At this point of time , I was expecting a little congratulatory pat or something . But the colleague shook his pumpkin head sideways , murmured a "Yakeen nahi hota" and walked on.

Now , people would believe it if I said I ordered a tomato soup last night and found Himesh's cap floating in it , but nobody has been ready to believe the fact that I am getting married . My underdeveloped brain , which has helped me flunk many maths exams , offers possible reasons: and it is that ki i look too young to be a married man . I just ambled past 26 , and to make things rosier , I have been told by perfectly sane people that I still retain a bit of the boyish charm which deserts a normal indian male in the early twenties . Some have mentioned that I am a male version of the santoor girl , who captured our imaginations with "meri twacha se meri umra ka pata nahi chalta".


My canine instincts warn me a lot of readers would like to raise their left eyebrows , smile a slanted smile and pose the "Who is She" question to me now . This time it irritates me(yaar plz let me also who is she, hvng such a brave heart to say yes , to a person like me). Anyway it was just a rumour that has been spread all in the office without any sense of truth in it.Yeh u can call it a prank. Infact , the same has been done by me sometimes when I feel like to do it. On the last valentine on the way to my home town, a 'hi-society-well-dressed-confident' types a young guy, of mine age was sitting besides me . I had noticed him boarding the train with a lot of luggage ( A travel bag , a backpack , and a cardboard carton carrying the V day gifts .So some fifteen minutes into the journey , I asked him ..
Me : lot of luggage..eh ?
Guy : Uh..yeah..a lot of stuff for family n freinds..he he..
Me : friend or girlfreind?
Guy : gasp..oh no..I was trying to be a little amusing..never mind
Me : What's in that cardboard box ?
Guy : Oh that ? Well..actually it contains all the gifts I bought for my fiancee..
Me : I see..that's sweet..
Me : So , you are going to buy her things next valentines day too ?
Guy( proud as a soldier ): Of course ! I am quite a handful when it comes to out-of-the-box surprises for the people I love !
Me : Trust me , dear . Next V day , you wont do it .
Guy ( with a simmering rage in my eyes ) : Oh no man , I wont change !
Me : No . Its not about you . Next V day , after an year of taking her out for shopping and eating out and movies , you wont have any money with you to buy all this.
It was then when he realised that i was in the process of doing great damage to the confidence of a dreamy to-be-married young guy. I did not encourage any conversation with him for the rest of the journey.