ArBit MuSInGs

OF INDEPENDENCE DAY AND BLOODSHED

2006-08-16T03:01:00.000+05:30

So ! we are finally into our 60th yr of independence. Its past midnight and all the I-day enthusiasm and hullabaloo seems to have faded. Looking from the terrace I see lights ... a bright metropolis , the high rise buildings indicative of aspirations of the people of this country.But things aren't as serene and placid as they seem.

Mumbai is a city living each day under the darkness of terror.The recent blasts have left a deep scar on every mumbaikars's (or for that matter every indian's) soul.Our "'leaders"" yell rhetorically after such blasts , but i seriously doubt if any of them has a conscience at all. Have they realised that these blasts have much more meaning hidden than just terrorise people and kill innocent citizens? I happened to watch Black Friday recently and it has spawned up many a questions in my mind.These blasts are symbolic of the anguish one communtiy faced ...its a way(as they believe) to vent out steam, to hit back and equalize in this grim communal vendetta

But what neither of the groups realize is that there are innocent people at the receiving end.Be it babri masjid - mumbai 93 blasts, gujarat diabolical or the recent Mumbai blasts.Thousands have suffered. Hindustan Times has been publishing the profiles of the dead eversince the blast, and believe me there can be nothing worse than starting the day with all this.We always see a very small picture of the entire story. We know what happened in gujarat. We know that the contrite Indian state boasting to be a secular identity has reneged as far as the security of the minorites is concerned. The babri masjid issue... how on earth would it matter if a mandir or a masjid is constructed on that place? Our ""leaders"" sure need to look beyond vote-bank politics.

Even in the context of the western world , the appaling incidents that have been taking place,be it 9/11 london blasts or for that matter Afghanistan issue ... all indicate that we have not acted responsibly in the past.Only when an individual learns to respect another in ""totality"" would earth be a better place to live in.Coming back to India, I see a very disturbing trend with regard to the minority community,Very often the perpetrators belong to the mainstream.We have had a doctor , a professor and young lads running small businesses.Does this mean that the discontent has penetrated deep into the mainstream and educated people are taking these initiatives?If yes,then we are in deep trouble! This certainly is not the kind of India our freedom fighters envisaged and laid their life for.

My ramblings might seem highly incoherent but whenever i think of this issue I am filled with so much rage and discontent that i tend to ponder hours upon this issue.Both sides need to clearly behave in a more responsible and restrained manner ... we can never understand the agony of a person who has lost his beloved but death brings grief and pain equally to both sides....be it a Hindu or a Muslim."Mumbai is back on its feet !" quipped a news reader the day following the blasts.. excuse me its not ..that Mumbai nagariya rukti nahi nahi , people actually don't have any choice, especially when u have a family to feed, kids to educate, parents to look after. These people are living death everyday !

The need of the hour is that instead of gaining political mileage (like the BJP who sent in Mr Modi to Mumbai immediately after the blasts ... c'mon could anything be more exasperating than this?) our ""leaders"" need some introspection ... a realization from within, that if they want their children to be born in a world free from terror, there is a lot of work they need to do. Also, Mumbai lacks a strong political leadership ... a Rudy Giuliani ...who can rise to the occasion ..someone people can look upto for strength and courage.Mumbai is the face of India . It is the city of dreams .. a melting pot ..a foundry where the India of tomorrow is made.It was a city the nation was proud of .... its now a city sitting on communal bomb waiting to explode.

Finally I wish everyone gives this issue a serious thought as i remember the lyrics of the theme song from Black Friday... "arre ruk ja re bande ...are tham ja re bande""

ps: Also up at http://www.ndtvblogs.com/ramblings

BEING TAGGED

2006-08-02T15:31:00.000+05:30

Well here i am after a looong break ... so long a break it was that people started to enquire about my well being ... some others threatened me of dire consequences if i did not give in to their evil intentions and complete my ""TAG"".

I sometimes wonder how much sadistic pleasures can one derive by tagging poor souls like me and asking them to enumerate ""weird stuff"" about themselves.Its a real taxing exercise for a non thinker like me.So after a lot of R&D here goes the list of my weird habits.

1. People say i can imitate others quite a bit (note the humilty in the sentence).
I kept screeching like a leptosaurus after watching jurassic park until one day
i tried it on the streets and was chased half a mile by stray dogs!

2. As mentioned earlier i love cooking and am also deft at managing household chores ( see i have an ideal matrimonial ad in place... ladka sushil hai aur grihkarya me daksh hai !)

3. I have this incorrigible habit of checking locks much to the ire of ppl accompanying me ( a more subtle way of saying that i suffer from OCD .. for the uninitiated . .. use google ).So the next time u see a well fed out of propotion guy tugging frenetically at a lock or a scooter handle ... you know who you've just bumped into :)

4. I have the best sleep just the night before the exams.While ppl are mugging like hell i can coolly manage to go of to sleep sending all wrong signals.

5. I can have a very satisfactory sleep even in 6 minutes (yeah thats true).Can get up all fresh ..fully charged.

6. I can sit hours looking at people (and thats irrespective of the gender or type ..for all you filthy minds)observing their behaviour.I hence seldom get bored.

7. I invariably drop off to sleep in class when i have a good night's sleep while after a nightout (obviously doing non constructive wrk) i am wide awake...no amount of boring lectures can put me off to sleep.

8. I am often mistook as a gulti aka mallu aka south indian anna (looks can be deceptive u see).I love STRONG coffee bole to itna ki it would even put a mallu to shame.I am a major time rice eater with special tie ups in allepey .. hence anyone would think i belong to to the Telegu Desam party.

I guess thats enuff for today more weird stuff later.I have a lot of things to write about my trip home.Till then watch out for the stray dogs barking on the streets ...there might be a leptosaurus bugging them.

OF PINK SHORTS AND COOKERY SHOWS

2006-07-01T22:28:00.000+05:30

Its raining like hell in mumbai, and i am in my all grumpy I-hate-rainy-season mood.More so becoz i had to venture out in a heavy downpour just to deposit some cash in the bank becoz the **ranting** canteen guy refused to accept cash! And i, by default am in a bankrupt state. So collecting all the change i had and rounds of begging - borrowing -stealing and breaking my pigibank i finally managed to collect some money.

How i hated to set foot outside my cozy lil room.I wonder how these mumbaikars manage to remain happy after being completely drenched ... to the CORE ( yeah u know what i mean ... the mere thought of it makes me feel sooo sick).And the best part is that i have seen many guys wearing socks under floaters! Why on earth wud someone want to do that? And its not just winters... even during rains and scorching summers.

Talking of the mumbaikar's style of dressing you can most certainly make out a mumbaiiya in a kumbh mela.If we restrict the discussion to the younger folks, you'll invariably find them in obscenely loose illfitting jeans - a disaster in the waiting !Accessories include a matching belt that sadly does not serve its purpose, a cross bag, a gaudy wristband and a loosely dangling bright colored tee with a pair of earphones jacked up!

Speaking of bright colored clothes.. i remember i once owned a pair of verry sexy pink colored shorts.Well ! life is all about compromises even when it comes to things like shorts (you have the size not the color...u have the color but alas the size).. I wonder what made me nod when my mom was getting them for me.It aroused all kinds of feelings in my wingmates .. lust, disgust, et.al ... I was even assaulted in the lift with ppl tugging at it and having a feel of my very ""ahem"" kinda shorts.
Disgusted, i took them back home and dumped them into the deepest corners under my bed so that no one ever finds them!

Ah home! ill be going home this week.I can already imagine myself all cozy in my blanket wid the remote in my hand, mumma beside and me chomping all thats available at home and watching sanjeev kapoors khana khazana.I just love watching cookery shows.Just that i dont get a chance to watch them here in the hostel .. with all these football maniacs let loose .. they just cant stand anything else on the tv.And with them moving in herds ...i dont think it would be a good idea to play bully bully :D .But yeah once i am home nobody ... nobody dares to disturb me when i am watching these cookery shows.... sanjeev kapoor here i come !

OF AASMAANI KABOOTARS AND OVERGROWN REPTILES

2006-06-23T21:31:00.000+05:30

Its that time of the year again ! The starry-eyed asmaani kabootars are here.Clean bespectacled,happy for having cracked jee ...their movements all guided by mummeyjee and papajee ..u can make them out from about half a kilometer! The entire campus looks like a tourist spot ... with ppl strewn all over forming groups, discussing furiously the prospects of different branches.Any iitian in sight is mobbed, and what follows is worse than a police interrogation ! From questions ranging from job prospects to swimming pools from free net to mess food they are concerned with everything except the course content of the branch they are opting for.

My wing happens to have some vacant rooms and so a couple of them have been put up here.My room hence has become a wildlife sanctuary and myself a live exhibit belonging to an extinct species ..there are people who shamelessly peep into my room examining everything from top to bottom ... i feel as if i am being spied upon.I am forced to keep my door closed and choke to death ! This has led me to contemplate wearing undies and go around ..atleast that would keep them away...well mebbe :(

There are all happy faces in the mess clean bathed, oiled hair, well ironed clothes and here i am all shabby droopy eyed .... unkempt hair, as if i katrina just paid me a visit in bed, hogging the bland mess food and gulping down litres of coffee to stop me from dropping down on to the table...aahh never mind they'll all end up this way some day.

edit: by katrina i meant "hurricane" katrina ... some of my friends have threatened to tell my folks back home that i indulge in lewd writings ...so here goes the explanation :D

And with my internship coming to an end i am looking forward to going home .. oh! talking of home ill be meeting haria, kadam,shinde, lallan, sher singh,and asad on the way.... nah nah these guys are not my friends they happen to be vendors at dadar station platform no 5. Well, given the no of trips i make home in a year these guys are now contesting to be my best friends.I am responsible for about 60% of their turnover .. and did i mention the train driver? Well but there are still two weeks to go :( .

So in anticipation i cleaned up all the mess in my room this sunday.. so that it does not get spookier by the time i come back.With help from a workforce of three from the housekeeping staff i completely redid my room which was slowly turning into a reptle park! I found a lot of my old stuff in the excavation so it wasn't all that bad ... given that my mom had been pressing me for this for the past one month suspecting that some day some overgrown reptile might come out of the bed and swallow me up!

Talkin of reptiles, i have been watching a lot overgrown reptile movies for the last week - godzilla,jp trilogy and the like.Ah ! nostalgia .. how i enjoyed them with my mama :) simply amazing. He happened to be the only person at home who would take me to these kind of movies! Of all the few that i have seen in a hall most were with him... the lays chips the frooti the pepsi !Those memories will always be cherished! Love u mama!

OF BOOKSTORES AND MUMBAI RICKS

2006-06-04T11:06:00.000+05:30

Has been a long-sullen-dull weekend ...especially with bucketful of rains pouring down heavily ...damn i hate this weather.With nothing much to do in life i decided to go for a stroll at hiranandani gardens with the intention of checking out some books at crossword .. with none other than my cibophobic friend.Man how i wished to own them all ... if only i had the time and resources (yeah yeah i know i sound like a looser .. but then those books were costly)

Browsing thru the racks i saw some extreeeemely maggu looking junta all engrossed in reading weird and unpalatable stuff ! All set to invade their privacy the bogue investigateur within came alive and i started snooping around .. and got some really nasty get-lost-or-ill shoot-you looks! Well the book i was looking for was out of stock ... (it usually happens ..and the staff has come to believe that i go there just to kill some time asking for out of stock books)

With my friend half dead ..we decided to take a rick ..and man what a ride we had!Firstly these ppl in mumbai turn a bloody deaf ear if u address them as ""bhaiya""..even if you hold them with both your hands and look into their eyes they would refuse to acknowledge the fact that you are trying to tell him something ... you call them ""boss""and pat comes the response...so the next time a mumbaikar happens to be standing(read stamping) on your foot or you have to make way to get down at a local station DO NOT call him bhaiya! Well talking of autowallas .. invariably all autos that i have traveled in mumbai have been fitted with the state of the fart ..er... i mean state of the art moojic shishtem Its thru them that himesh reshammiya earns his bread and butter ! From the agonizing oooooooo hoooozoor tera suroooooor to aa aa ashiqui me teri ...he played them all .. killing two two dogs who happen to pass by and causing my friend severe epliptic convulsions.

These guys have this inborn killer instincts ..they just cant see a pedestrian walk peacefully on the road they'll swerve their vehicles to scare the poor chap to death ..follow no rules and fall just short of MiG pilots(now u know the reason why they crash this often !) What an eventful ride that was .. i coud not hear anything except a faint hissing sound fifteen minutes after getting down .. (the hi fi system had a problem with its treble knob :( .. ) And psst ...i have a secret to share i still have'nt completely understood the way mumbai auto meters are read ! ( i know thats kinda dumb given the fact the dumbest of my friends ..who has to look for the zipper to figure out if he has worn his pants the right way, has perfected the art of meter reading!) Mebbe some day ill learn ! Till then happily njoying amchi mumbai :)

Of Shopping Malls And Contemplative Moods

2006-05-23T20:21:00.000+05:30

Well ..it has been a busy fortnight ! I've been running around like a blue-arse fly and finally i get this much awaited break and return back from my internship early.We flee to the nearest shopping mall to have some fun, vent out the stress and to just laze around there and grab something to munch upon.Now u would say ""A SHOPPING MALL ! "" Well i love shopping malls .. blame it on the dearth of quality malls on my side of the world of just the fact that i am a ghare-loo baccha.

So after strolling aimlessly in a huge departmental store and with the staff giving us looks as if were guys from taliban looking for some contemporary american punk, we were forced to grab a bag and drop in a few items just to assure them that we had no ulterior motives.And the things we brought would put any A.I (average iitian) to shame .. a toothpaste! a soap ! a family pack of pens :) . The neatly packaged food stuff there set my digestive system bells ringing ...while my cibophobic buddy tried hard to dissuade me from entering the food court , i decided to check out the new "ma ma mia italiano jointo" (just realise i am trying to be as authentic as the joint claimed to be). Now this friend of mine hates italian stuff right from sonia gandhi to quattrochi ..he has this ""italian food sucks"" record ready on the hit list. Well its not just italian that he hates ..he'll blow up any chinese, french, mughlai or rather any food joint in sight. Bas khana sada ghar ka khana ...wahi chahiye use. So that pretty much explains my poor physique!

After throwing all tantrums i picked up from "Tarzan" (c.f my previous post) he finally let me go for one dish as he waited impatiently as if there were a thousand ants up in his pants.The guy at the order counter there , said in a typical Paresh Rawal style "" Aga bai penne pasta magta hai"" I hesitantly said yes wondering if i had come to the right place. A short wait and a waiter brought me something i prayed that should not be what i ordered .

On a quarter- plate he brought me some pasta and four slices of preshrunk garlic bread . I felt i was being fed Baby Food! Well now that it was there i chomped on it in a manner that would clearly qualify me for the mid day meal scheme. As my friend stared at me in sheer disgust refusing to even drink a pepsi i went on shamelessly.

It was nice to see little kids in bright fluorescent frocks and pony tailed hair having a good time. no tensions no worries.I overheard a lil kiddo saying " arre mamma kaha ja rahe ho mujhe kuch dilwaoge nahi kya" That was so cute! These are some of the magical lines we always await like "beta bolo kya chahiye!" I am lucky i still am asked these questions back home and there are many people to ask me this.At the same time ...i think its a wonderful experience to take a kid to a shop and ask him/her bolo apko kya chahiye..the gleam in their eyes ..the smile on their face is just amazing .

` The other day i was into one of my those contemplative moods with the title track of " Kal Ho Na Ho" in the backgound ..i tend to go into these cycles quite frequently nowadays.Questions like where am i headed? where do i see myself 10 yrs down the line? What am i living for?What are the things that matter most to me? Wht do i do after i graduate? go for an MBA mint obscene amounts of money ... live and die in office become a workoholic head a fortune 500 company ? then what ?By the time i am home most of my family is asleep I cant meet my mom my kids no healthy discussions over dinner.. just a swanky mansion and deafening loneliness.

On the other hand there is the typical 9-5 kind of "sarkari" job maybe in the PSC or in a PSU ..with ok types pay packages... but atleast i get to go home and be with the people who matter the most to me.At the end of the day its my life and I need to decide what kind of a tradeoff i can afford. Haso ...khush raho ...muskurao - Kya pata Kal Ho Na Ho.I think I' d enjoy a cornetto with my family rather than paying my kids money to go for an icecream at a five star.Memories are ones most cherished possessions... nothing can exceed them in value. The golden moments that me and my mamma had together are invaluable.

I may sound weird but thats the way i am srating to be. Thats the way i would probably like to live my life!

Of Mumbai locals and wierd neighbours !

2006-05-09T18:27:00.000+05:30

Hmm so back after a long - never ending ordeal called exams. Talking of exams, I would ahem ...take this opportunity to thank the holy soul who invented the "" jherox"" machine ....well atleast thats what they are known here ...they sure saved the day for me ""ekzham time pe jherox machine ke sshtaal par bahut gardi rehti hai"" uuggh ...what am i doing ? mebbe the exams have taken their their toll ... came down too heavily on me ... i guess. But talking of the peculiar mumbaiya ishtyle of pronouncing words ... they sure can be funny! Take the railway stations for instance ... its not uncommon to find a sizable chunk pronouncing it as "" tesan""...And then there are the T-rex sized hoarding for TYBC, SYBC .... kyu caunk gaye na ? na na tis not the name of any bank but third yr bcom ,second yr bcom.... blah blah ...

Talking of locals I remember this incident when i first set foot mumbai !

me : (meekly) bhaiya kanjurmarg aane me kitna time lagega?
the grizzly guy next to me : (no reply .. don't bother me i did not hear anything)
me: (mustering all available courage i had and mildy tapping him)
the grizzly guy next to me : teen tesan chodke
me : (happy ! ) thank you.
the grizzly guy next to me : (""as if i cared if you dint thank me ""look )
me : (looking at ppl rushing towards one side of the door) station kis side ayega?
the grizzly guy next to me : ye baju girega
me : (OMG ! kaun girega? .. but then with the exceptional mental calibre that i possess it took me no time to figure out he was talking about the station coming on that side)

restless 15 minutes wait .. fidgeting with the handles, my luggage ...wallet and what not

me : abhi kitna time aur lagega?
the grizzly guy next to me : main bolega !
me : (sigh) ok
after 5 mins
me : abhi kitna time aur hai?
the grizzly guy next to me : (giving me a stare as if i had just been caught dating his wife) MAIN BOLEGA !
me : [thinking !]....(i better shut up.. one more time i ask him this question and he throws me out this train)
3 mins after this
the grizzly guy next to me : salaa salaa tesan ala

the best part is that he even helped me get my luggage out!

aisa hi hai mumbai ! may look rough and rude on the outside but very soft and helpful within.

so much for my first experience of locals.

Talking of trains ... had just been home and boy ! what a ""vacation"" i had ... hoped that i had never gone there there in the first place ... rahu ketu aur unki poori team mere peeche with a vengeance !

I land up early in the morning ... and dear mumma brings a lavish b'fast on to the table for famish me and "" ting tong "" goes the doorbell. I go and open it .. and there our chotu neighbour ! ""bhaiya tarzan ka sir foot gaya "" tarzan -- bole to uska aur chotu bhai.

Now this guy is a chalta firta frankenstein with all cuts and bruises ...he has the entire map of india on his face ! He is as old as the number of stiches he has on his body.Over enthu and agile as he is ... this time after a bath the dude thought of playing tarzan over the dining table chairs but alas .... ! So then it was me to te rescue! up ... up...and away .. rushing to the hospi ... and three hours later the number of stiches exceeded his age !

That chapter over .... there was lots more to come ... flat tyres ,terrible heat, dead fone ,and what not !and finally my chutti ended with just very little time for mumma. :( . Anyways now that i am back and have vented out some steam i hope to plan another trip and this time hope to spend more time wid mumma.

OF WORK VISITS AND WEIRD NEIGHBOURS

2006-03-28T19:49:00.000+05:30

Just back from a "works visit" ...so could'nt help writing this one as soon as i got hold of my computer.

Hmm it all started as an academic committment and ended up far-far away.Two truckloads of overzealous nerds left iit honking past the crowded highways.I was in bus-B (the letter is not indicative of the type of ppl onboard...it was purely coincidental..and even if it was, with ""all"" girls on the bus it didn't hurt too much !).

Now ..i had no hard feelings for Kumar Sanu...until that day ... when the driver a die hard fan of "ashiqui" played recursively all numbers at twice the normal speed on a cassette player stolen from a junk dealer... it sounded as if a constipated kumar sanu was tryng hard to get his job done!.In the meantime our junta too turned enthusiastic and started antakshari in a typical rajshri productions ""HUM SAATH SAATH HAIN""manner..and with the conductor securing the doors of the bus i couldnt even jump off !

With multi ethnic,multilingual talent on board we could have well pulled off a "mile sur mera tumhara" on bus-B.As the night progressed the songs swithced from soft mushy numbers to hot'n happening raunchy ones with outstanding performances from our one and only ""O.J"". After having yelled ourselves hoarse ppl tried desperately to get some sleep...littering all over the bus!Some of the ""priviliged"" ones( read those with cameras in their cellfones) set out on their prowl for some candid snaps.and even managed to get some like these!

Sorry for the xtra large pic..technologically challenged ...as i am I could not reduce the size ...and no thats not me!

After being delayed at "check nakas" we all wondered if would ever manage to get to surat and under the "able guidance" of our dear navigator who made the driver encircle the city twice in pursuit of the the right way we were literally at the mercy of the panwallaha and auto wallahs to show us the way!

Finally my strong faith in god paid off and we did manage to reach ongc colony ! all of us rushed into the "flushless mansions" like hostages just freed from the IC-814 in afghanistan.Inside was a fight for survival ...with just three toilets amongst 40 ppl ...i was reminded of my jee days! it felt like taking jee all over again.

After a sumptuous bfast we set out for RIL ..this time we did not employ the services of our navigator as we were in no mood to go for a tour of the city!After the days visit (I am sure you wouldnt want to go into details of it :P )we returned back to our base.With the girls encroaching upon the first floor, 40 creatures cramped up in a 16 x 10 room we felt like chickens ... ready to be slaughtered!

Given the fact that i have a natural flair for smashing mosquitoes in mid air, i had ample work to do there at night!,while ppl hunted for hangouts around the cly only to find themselves indulging in some b grade movie theatres.

Next was essar and ongc...about which ill write later .... just becoz my flow has been interrupted by this nasty neighbour of mine who plays ulti crappy U.P type panwallah songs on his desktop speakers at full volume ... btw i dont have any hard feeling about this guy just that when i showed him pieces of iron i managed to smuggle from essar, he gave me the look as if i was a salesman trying to sell contraceptives to a bunch of monks!and as he switches songs from "sarkailo khatiya jaada lage" ... when its scorching hot to "honey honey ha ha honey honey" i feel like tying him up on the hot rolled steel slabs at essar ......

ill continue with this post later once i get a chance to sabotage this guy's speakers and get some peace of mind !

Kyunki har e-mail id kuch kehta hai

2006-03-25T12:00:00.000+05:30

cool_hunk_barry: hi ! 

sweet_strawberry4u: hi

cool_hunk_barry: asl plz

Sounds familiar ?

“Kyunki har e-mail id kuch kehta hai”

Its four in the morning on a weekend … my friend is busy enjoying a chat session with his “chat” friend typing in all sorts of crap mentioned above! This is a quintessential example of today’s youth. With the onset of the new fangled internet revolution came in the age of dual personalities ….the real one, and the cyber one ! (who knows, this cool hunk barry may be your neighbour Badri Prasad !).

Have you ever realized how “entertaining” email ids could be ? Some could be very piquant as the examples mentioned above while others may well reflect the hidden aspirations of people. Whatever be the case, however preposterous these email ids may seem they are certainly not just a façade ..they are the reflection of something that lies deep within.

Most people have a tendency to boast of their achievements and this well reflects in their ids…be it their college name, degree (yes I am talking about all those engineers ....er_vipul…or whatever). Others are poor souls who have been “suggested” by yahoo or rediff to take up alpha-numeric ids. Then there are the wannabe ids of handsome hunks and princesses…(you know what I mean) that may be miles …thousands of miles far from truth! But who cares ! as long as they manage to grab attention. Some come up with bizarre ids – kunalkapata (to be read as kunal ka pata), silence_of _the_lambs (I wonder if this guy is a psychopath), pankajonu (OMG!), its_not_for_use( ….hmm cant be), trash_male(…amazing self esteem),turbo_mech(sounds like a diesel engine !)…and so on. Some just make exotic ids(inspired by extinct species of birds and what not), so that ppl atleast turn up and ask what their id means. If you are lucky to have a college id then the authorities will make sure that it is left unpalatable with you year, course code and all other details thrown in .With growing corporate culture the underscore has given way to the “dot”. We now frequently see the corporate insignia attached-. badri.prasad@somefartucompany.com., or the more pseud
b.prasad@anotherfartucompany.com. There is another rhetoric class that indulge in verbal blasphemy and it would be inappropriate to discuss them here :p. We also have some extremely despo mail ids…some of which can be really ludicrous and most of which are strewn with horrible spelling mistakes… (cmon all you guys its friendship not frandship ! )

So junta beware ! the next time you go in for an id, make its real whacky …kyunki jabtak attention mil rahi hai tabtak BADHIYA HAI !

HAMARA BAJAJ

2006-03-02T21:13:00.000+05:30

Sigh...!People say life is a pain ...and i completely agree with them...rather in my case its even worse ...I am treated under the "frequent screwer" programme akin to the airlines wherein i get an extra bonus of pains....delivered at my doorstep ....at no extra charge...urrggh.

Ever since I trespassed into IIT, I believe my pains have grown exponentially like a chain reaction...its been like "get-it-where-you-want-it" and also "get-it-more-where-you-don’t". Traversing the long endless roads of IIT seems no less than an intercontinental marathon and with the authorities ensuring that we get the best lake side view at the farthest limits of the campus, there is just no way you could manage to get to the 8.30 lecture in time.

Life limped in the first two years as did i carrying tonnes of flab on my body from hostel to class to hostel to lab. One fine day I decided I had enough of this loose shunting and I need to get some means of transport to make life easier.

With the resources at hand I could just manage to get my good'ol rickety "bajaj scooter" from home.... so as long as it saved me the travails of trudging along the never ending roads it was ok with me.

After getting past the the sleepy "bhaiyas" (read clerks...who use their pen to dig into every open hole at sight....I wonder what they search for ..is it gold or something?....whatever) at the booking office in LTT and saving our skins from the "give-me-all-you-have" dalals ready to rip you off all your belongings, we finally chugged away to powai, soon to realize we were short of fuel(see i said i get trouble delivered at my doorstep !) so after dragging the metal chunk on wheels for around half a kilometer...we finally spotted a petrolpump. Ah! it felt like an oasis in the sahara with arabian dancers ready with a platter of fruits and exotic wine all set to to do the "habibi" for us.

We finally managed to reach powai after a long and perilous ride thru the highway. People gave me the look I would soon be accustomed to .... at that point it felt like I was dressed like a zulu tribal racing along the highway on a huge wild boar!

We finally reached IIT ..'Bas yahin se shuru hoti hai meri zillat ki kahani" ..The first day i took it to class saw many of my fellow students being startled at the mere look of it ..cmon at college you were supposed to ride swanky bikes with a cool babe on the pillion (sigh...i had neither ! )..and here I was on my dear hamara bajaj with my friend !

Many a names began to be coined for me ...papa ...uncle .....dada...and what not.!People on bikes gave me wicked smirka as if i had bought my scooter from a grey market in Sudan.Everytime i have an important class and i happen to be running late(just becoz i unfortunately scheduled my occasional bath that day) my scooter would definitely hurl mechanical abuses at me refusing to start (there comes my pain overdose again).After a lot of cajoling and bending this side - that side I finally get the thing running. As i see my classmates zipping away on their SU Flankers i have this piece of contraption waiting to buckle under my load:(

hmmmm...... tragic...is'nt it?