OF INDEPENDENCE DAY AND BLOODSHED

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

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

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

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

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

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 !

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.