Who needs a title .

Things have been happening at work , in personal life , at home . Two months back , there was the same domestic problem at my home – my sister’s iPod has been stolen . Now , under normal circumstances , if anything goes missing in my home or in a radius of 20 kilometers around it , my mother just walks up to me and says “Where is it ? Bata kalmoohe ! Tell me if you want to get dinner ! ”

But this time around, I am clean, because when the thing went missing, I was busy with my freinds. So after re-watching the six CD collection of Byomkesh Bakshi and stung by the prospect of having to live a life without music, my sister declared that it was the ‘kaam wali’* who has stolen the iPod. Not me , not the postman , not the milkman , but the most important person in the history of Indian womankind – The KaamWali .

*Kaamwali= The maid . You know , the lady who cleans up your home , washes the dishes and is loved by your mother more than you are .

Now, all of you have hopefully grown up in Indian households, and it is an insult to your intelligence if I start telling you how important a peg a ‘kaam wali’ is in the workings of the world and your household , in particular . Just to provide an illustrative example, my mother once threw a five year old me off the balcony because I called the maid a ‘moti’. And she actually was so fat .

So coming back to the case of the missing iPod, my mother has taken an immediate offence to my sister accusing the kaamwali, and if my sister was still a child, she would have been flying out of a balcony too. Ma has refused to question the kaamwali and has warned anyone in the household against doing so with drastic consequences including self immolation and totally screwed salt amounts in food. Infact just the next day of the mentioned incident, my sister claimed the kaamwali was humming ‘KISS ME’ while doing the clothes , which was placed suspiciously on the iPod’s playlist too . But protected fiercely by mom , the kaamwali continues to roam around the house unfettered and my sister continues to hope she will have her revenge some day .

On a personal front , I guess things are never supposed to be smooth for a guy who is 28 and is staring at a future which is still as clear as the climax of an art movie (I don’t know about you , but I rarely understand how these art movies end . I mean , when ‘The Namesake’ ended , I was like “What ? Why are they turning on the lights ? Where is the rest of it ?”) . Things have been kinda intense on the personal front , but every time I think I know what I want and what will be good for everybody , I flip out two days later.

I mean, how do you know who is the ‘right’ person to be share a life with , or , as they say , marry ? I know I have already got a ‘Anti-Neo Women’s Cell’ going all over the nation due to the emotional mess ups I have been through , but nobody understands that my own heart too looks like it was crossing a road and a truck hit it right where it hurts. Knowingly or unknowingly, I know I have hurt people, but it’s an emotional battering for me too. People , including those the closest to me , may dismiss it as a ‘Oh-it-happens-to-everybody’ , but I have had my share of dark clouds and I think I need to move someone to the center of my world (Right now , I got my parents ,brother,bhab and sister there) and build my life around it , make people happy , create a good life for everybody , you know , rainbows and butterflies . But before that, I need to decide who that person is, and that makes all my college exams look like little walks in a park.

About situation at work , after almost two and a half years of corporate world including ‘Another one , and you are fired’ as well as ‘Great work , so unlike you !’ emails , all I can do is offer a big brotherly advice to those who are yet to order their business suits – Love your work .At least try to love it . But remember you are just a guy filling a job profile for them . The day you don’t punch out the right result , they are going to help you pack your stuff and take it home in a cardboard box . So know what is important.

Anyway, it’s a Sunday , and it’s time I check out what’s on HBO . I anyway need to move from here because the kaamwali needs to sweep this room, and she just gave me the ‘Move-you-unbathed-jerk-or-I-tell-your-mom-you-called-me-moti’ look. I don’t want to be flying out of a balcony anytime soon.

Kuch tum kaho kuhc hum kahe

Back when I was in school, maybe 7th standard, the teachers were always trying to “Develop My Personality”. For some reason, they believed that everyone should be an “all-rounder”, and my complete lack of mastery in even one of their standard fields (marks-scoring, drawing and a bunch of other inconsequential fields) must have been worrying them.

So, when it was the time of the annual school fest, the teachers tried to persuade me to join the debate competition, and when I resisted, “volunteered” me to participate in it.
There was little I could do to resist it at that point, and found myself up on stage with 4 other participants. I was bored as hell, but the teachers had also forced the rest of the school to sit there as audience to watch the showdown. Making kids sit down silently when they all want to go play cricket, and making them listen to 4 kids argue about things no one has any clue about. Oh, this was going to go very smoothly.

The moderator opened up some slip, and read out the topic “What is the best way to stop pollution?”
Predictably, the other 3 kids got hyper, and starting fiercely arguing amongst themselves:
Kid #1: “…and the buses are spewing out black smoke. If I were the Prime Minister, I’d ban exhaust pipes in vehicles. No exhaust pipe, no black smoke…”

Kid #2: “My esteemed friend makes a very good point there, but river pollution is a bigger problem. The oxygen levels have fallen to 2% over the last few years, and the fish…”Me: *yyaaaawwwwwnnnnnn*

As the kids started discussing whether small fish can swim fast enough to avoid the sharks, who had apparently come to the rivers because the seas were getting polluted too, I was slipping deeper and deeper into sleep. To fight off the urge to lie down on the stage and sleep, I thought it a good idea to speak up in the debate.

Me: “The real problem is some kids that fart all the time in class. The farting is an enormous source of air pollution around the school”
The audience let out a collective gasp. For a second, everyone was silent trying to figure out if I was being serious. Everyone started looking at me. This unexpected attention, for some reason, charged me up even more, and I felt like continuing to talk…

Me: “That’s right! I don’t want to take names, but some people whose names rhyme with Dakshay should be questioned every morning about what they’ve eaten, and if…”
Some kid, presumably Akshay, screamed out from the audience:“Well, it’s better than wearing stinky socks everyday!”Now this remark was clearly aimed at me, but Kid #1, who was well known for stinky feet took it personally, screamed back, but this time at the audience instead of his fellow debaters: “At least I take a bath everyday, unlike my esteemed friend Rajesh, who…”At this point, the debate became enormously interesting, with the introduction of a flying shoe into the scene. The flying shoe originated from somewhere deep in the audience, and the previous owner undoubtedly did not regret loosing this shoe because it was really really stinky. It landed right on Kid #1’s podium and knocked it off. But instead of going on the backfoot, he jumped out of his podium and went to face the audience head on… “Ha! Your socks stink so bad that even your shoe can’t stand the rotten smell!”

No sooner than he’d finished saying this, another 100-page notebook was hurled from somewhere deep inside the crowd. The teachers sensed trouble at this point, and one of them came out on stage to try to control the rapidly deteriorating situation, but the damage had already been done. Several water bottles, class work books and homework books were hurled in the general direction of the stage, with the owners of these books only too glad to get rid of them.
The event was talked about for days later in a very negative light by the teachers, but I thought it was a great success! The entire audience got involved in the debate in the only way the knew how: By throwing crap at the stage! They should have declared me the winner!

Someday……

Someday...i would like to climb mount everest and looking at the thick blanket of clouds below, see sunrise from the top

Someday...i would like to be a new born baby and start it fresh all over againSomeday...i would like to join back perfectly a broken glass

Someday...i would like to swim in the blue ocean and play with dolfins

Someday...i would like to fly like a bird on vast unending land, then cross borders without passport and visa, and think what i had lost and gained being human

Someday...i would like to go to the moon, point my finger towards beautiful earth and say "do u see that blue planet?.... you know i have been there..."

Someday...i would like to go straight, take left then go straight, take left go straight, take left go straight and then wonder how i reached the same place again

Someday...i would like to live in a jungle, get wet in rain and then drink hot fuming tea

Someday...i would like to grow very very old, and then sit in a chair and tell big...big...stories to small.. small.. children

Someday...i would like to sit relaxed in sand, sipping orange juice listening to the music of waves

Someday...i would like to become a crow and join weekly meeting of crows on our terrace, discussing about rain conspiracy, 'Yeh saajish hain boondonki...'

Someday...i would like to become a music director, deremix® 'oooo hoozoooooor...' and make a new album on gramophone

Someday...i would like to discuss with Albert Einstein about solution on corruption and see all his hair standing up straight

Someday...i would like to run alone in olympics, and win first second and third place at the same time

Someday...i would like to dive deep into ocean where Titanic sank and find the diamond necklace dropped by Rose

Someday...i would like to lie down below clear open black sky on a cold night with a blanket, counting stars, wondering how small we are...

Someday...i would like to find the key, open the door and run through vast open grass field and shout, 'i.... am...... free...'

Someday...i would like to know, why HE made me?...

Tanha tanha yaha pe jeena…..!!!!

I have been staying in all alone in an ajnabee shehar , in a land where I am thousands of miles away from a single soul who actually cares , in a place where I am no more than a north indian novelty who speaks gibberish . And if all this has taught me one thing , it is this - Do not take the 'saath' of your family for granted . Yeh jo aapke ma , daddy , bhai , behan hai na , inn logo ka saath ek saaye ki tarah hota hain , jiska ehsaas tabhi hota hai jab aap dhoop mein nikalte hain .For many of you , it would be so normal to hear your mother calling for you with a "Aao beta , khaana kha lo" . It would be so normal to watch a cricket game on the telly with your dad sitting besides you .

But all this seems as precious as RBI locker ka password once you move away from home. Beta door yahan vada paav ke desh mein jab office se wapas ek 'kabristaan sa sunsaan' kamre mein aaoge , when no one will be around to care if you are seven minutes away from dying a maut due to starvation , when you have to watch every cricket game alone and when Dhoni hits a six , even do the little bhangra alone , then you realise what a family means .So while you are with your family , relish every moment , walk into the kitchen and try to pick up a hot aloo ka pakoda while your mommy scolds "Uff ! Thanda tho hone de ! Yeh ladka bhee na bass !" . Watch every match with your dad and argue if sachin should have left that ball outside off stump alone . Fight with your sister over every chocolate she eats . Because kya pata , kal ho na ho .......

But some good things have also popped out of this tanhayi tanhayi ki mp3 which has been playing in my life over the last twenty eight months . Umm..like I have read more books than I ever had . The most intelligent piece of literature I had read before coming to Pune was "Super Commando Dhruv aur Pratishod ki Jwala" . ( It was the one where "Grandmaster Robo" kills Dhruv's mom and dad when they strayed in Robo's garden playing chupan chupai , which in turn , forced Dhruv to turn into a "Super Commando" from a nanha munna boy who used to watch Pogo all day ).But now I have read books which involve more than parental murders and revengeful kids . Also , I have learnt to be comfortable with myself .

Anyway , chalo mere gol matol desh wasiyon , main ab thoda padai likhai kar lu. So all righttttt..gud nite n tk care..:p

“Bill”- ey, ki jaan khatare main!!!

Well , I know , I know . It’s been almost a month since something breathed on this blog. Struck by an acute case of ‘I miss him’ , around a dozen girls all over the country have killed themselves , another seven are being rushed to hospital as we speak , and I can’t even count the ones who are out on Sunday shopping for nylon ropes and rat poison pills right now . But here I am , so chill , breathe and smile , for I am still single and confused.

Anyways , a lot of water has flown under the bridge since I last wrote ( I know , my usage of English idioms is exemplary . Zabardast. ).

The next time Bill gates is addressing a press conference , a guy wrapped in a smelly old brown shawl may just spring up from the crowd , run up , jump over the stage while the security personnel run in , and plunge a gleaming knife in Mr.Gates’s heart followed by a cry of ‘Microsoft Word murdabaad’. Of course , then the security guys are going to capture me and mommy can see me on CNN and Punjab kesri . Infact , till last week , my class 8 history teacher topped my '50 people to kill before I am 40' list , closely followed by Kareena Kapoor. And I thought Bill Gates was a good guy . But after I spent a good part of my weekend creating my CV on Microsoft word , Mr.Gates has climbed to the third spot and is sniffing the back of Kareena’s neck . Page setup. Margins. Headers . Footers . Indents . Tabs . Yaar yeh line lambi kaise ho gayi ? Ohteri , yeh extra currics wale section ki bullets kahan gayi ? Hey raam , why dint I save it before the computer crashed ? I swear on your left leg , it was pure torture working on MS Word .

But on the better side of life , I caught some great movies over the last few days – 15 Park Avenue , 'main meri patni aur woh' and ' Sookhi nadi mein behti laash'. You need to be a miss india to fall for the last one .

It’s like a chapter of my life is coming to an end . The chapter which started when my ma walked away from me on my first day of school while I checked out the little girls sitting in the class . School . Abraham maam whose name still reminds me of maggi . The terrible school choir which justified the invention of ear plugs . The weirdly strict teacher , who used to slap me so much , she almost made a fingerprint album of my cheek . The exams which were great till the results came out . My computer engineering which made me realise how much far I m now. My bike which was my first true love . The beautiful microprocessors teacher who was again my first true love . The makkhan marofying to the lab assistants . The entire student thing is come up to the end 2 years back. All in all , I look back at my student life as a time well lived , having its share of achievements , disasters , fun , tears , cheating , determination , laziness and laughs. The work life calls out to me , but the echoes of this life I am leaving behind shall remain.

When I was a kid , I wanted to grow up so that I don't have to write exams . But now , after having my PG and working for a good Company with lot of sunhare sapne(jo honge pure…..) make me realise the actual meaning of life. So I pause , and think , and realise that I should not think but just quote Aamir in rang de basanti -

"College ke andar hum zindagi ko nachaate hain , aur college ke bahar zindagi hum ko nachaati hai … tim-lak-a-lak-tim-tim-lak-a-lak!"

Dance or no dance , only time can tell . But Bill gates shall pay for his sins . Someone get me a one éclair yaar…sorry make it two.

Sagai hai Sagai !!!!

There are some moments in life when your mind feels like the inside of a salwar kameez store full of Punjabi ladies during the annual discount store . There are some moments in life when you wish your leg was flexible enough to curve back and land a sunny deol-ish kick on your own behind bad enough to render your morning rituals ineffective for three months . There are some moments in life when you wish you could rewind life and clean up all the mistakes you did.

She sent me a very comforting “u have 2 come on my engagement, navin” on phone some time back and I blurted out ok ‘I wil let u know dear!’.

I know I sound like I have done something as bad as becoming an unwed daddy of twins , but what I have done is worse than that – I cudnt make it to A’s engagement.

For those of you ‘jinhone apne TV set derr se khole ho’, A’s is a friend so close, infact the word ‘close’ seems as weak as an A K hangal when it comes, actually she means a lot to me as a sweet freind. she is one of those very few people who I hope will be around all life(being in contact….tring…. tring). And even as I type this , I can’t believe how cud I say the big ‘NO’ to her, I know it hurts the way I said sorry for not coming. And even though I can write her a mail about this , I want this blog to know how a good freind she is.

A****, I know I have been as insensitive as a paralyzed cucumber at times , but you are among the one with whom I share too many fond memories. First conversation through the wrong attempt of sending sms…thank you airtel for such a good friend(hope ki airtel people should gv me atleast life time free calling facility). The aimless chatter over phone (Kitna pakaya tujhe..) . The beautiful thoughts we shared during our telecon .Your insistence of not sharing ur feelings too sepcifically( I am still waiting…..) .Proposal to u for lunch and movie……the two eclairs ,still I didn’t get(again waiting….but plz make a note its 2).And obviously , all the eating stuff I hv called up for are pending from ur side. I guess i can write atleast twenty episode soap opera about our discussion on this.

So now to make it up to you , I will get the date of your wedding tattooed on my arm in permanent ink even if it makes my arm look like a reminder pad, so that it reminds me of ur wedding . I will go around telling everyone you are a Miss India finalist even if you put on weight . I will buy you a huge exotica pizza and that disgustingly fatty ebony and ivory ice cream even if you don’t want to eat . I will be there on every special day of your life from your next wedding(sry tu to ek hi karegi…..) to the weddings(oouch….i mean to say wedding) of your grandkids even if I have seven meetings lined up on the day . I will tell my wife your smile is dazzling enough to light up all the metro stations in Mumbai even if she goes green and calls up her lawyer. I won’t regret writing all this even if G rearranges all the bones in my body.

And I am so sorry for being so stupid even if you say you are not angry.Congratulation dear from depth of my heart….May god bless u both for ur upcoming and awaited life….wish all the best for your future endeavors.

Chakde!!

Stepping out of the hall, I casually asked my mom , “Kaisee lagee ?”.

Usually, asking such question after a movie tells me how it is going to end up doing at the box office. She says “Acchi lagi. Sacchi mein dil kar raha tha ki humari team jeet jaye!” , she exclaimed, almost as excitedly as a teenaged boy in the middle of a dinner date with Rajnikanth.

That was the moment when I knew this movie is going to be a hit. I mean, when a movie can make a 50 year old woman, with a spirit burdened by the strains of bringing up a son like me, say something like that, it sure can cause a young India to pump out adrenaline enough to fill up all the overhead water tanks in my colony.

It was only after my sister explained to me that I was turning into one of those work junkies who spend their lives changing column sizes on excel sheets and are finally found dead slumped on the keyboard by the office boy one morning, that I decided to take my mother and sister to ‘Chak De India’ at Metropolitan Mall in Indore part.

I attribute it to my innocence and ignorance of the female mind that I expected shopping would not be a part of the outing. When two Indian ladies step into a mall, evading shopping is like a cyclist trying to avoid being hit when caught in a race involving PMT buses. My consolation remains that in spite of a season ending sale on at most stores in the mall, there was enough space in the car for all of us and the shopping bags on our way back.

But coming back to the movie, I think King Khan underlines the fact that he can deliver a powerful performance with an unshaven face and without the overexcited romantic antics. It was refreshing to find a bollywood movie sans the girls-rotating-on-steel poles and muscular- guys-with-guns routine .It could have been a shade better if the guy sitting to my left could have used a more society friendly deodorant instead of the one he was wearing which smelt like the underpants of a pizza delivery boy on a hot sticky day. But notwithstanding that, I enjoyed the movie.

The story is as much a secret as Paris Hilton’s night life, so you don’t spend the movie all twitching in your seat and biting your nails till they cease to exist. But the pace of the movie, the normality of the team characters and the sheer spirit of an underdog taking the pants off their disapprovers carries it through.

No wonder that when our girls hit the winning stroke, many in the hall leapt to their feet, whooping in joy like schoolboys who find out the next class is not happening because the teacher has been diagnosed with chicken pox*(See Note).I suspect some of the overweight middle aged Punjabi aunties threw up their flabby arms too. Even the strange smelling guy next to me let out a gritty ‘Yesss’ , though that does not enhance my respect for his tastes in deodorants in any way.

*Note-Talking of unavailability of teachers, my fondest experience remains when our standard VII chemistry teacher got pregnant and the school could not find a replacement for us. For three happy months, we guys spent chemistry classes talking about girls and playing trump cards when we should have been memorizing the periodic table. Seldom has the birth of a child marked the death of happiness for so many children.

I particularly liked the part when the girls beat up a bunch of eve teasers. Due to some unexplained reason, I feel good when I find a girl beating up a guy. Though not that good that I would not walk up to a girl and say “Hey, please punch me. I have not felt good since morning!”.

Also, It must be particularly tough on the guys playing those eve teasers, even if it means starring in a Shahrukh movie. I mean, I can imagine the guy’s proud father watching the movie and pointing out to the people around him ‘See!See! That’s my son there! No, not the one being kicked by that bunch of Manipuri ladies. My son is the one in the yellow shirt, who was just thrown across the table by that Punjabi girl!’.

So even though I doubt the movie will spark off some kind of revolution and seven year old kids all over Punjab will start selling off their toys to buy hockey sticks, it is a decent experience. Dhoni posters will still sell like hot cakes and kids will still believe a hairstyle like Dhanraj Pillay’s is a punishment . Wishing three hours would revive a sport is as ambitious as wishing I would act in Dhoom 3. So nothing great in here,but maybe you will like it. My mother did.