Ashley Giles, poor Ashley Giles!!!
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Interesting, in particular, is—ummm what shall I say--a very interesting word. It has got different meanings—ranging from one end of the spectrum where it might mean virtuous and groovy to the other end where it may also mean spoilt and ridiculous.
“You are actually a very interesting guy,” alleged a stranger whom I had met barely half an hour before when I apprized him that I was a big critic of Amitabh Bachchan’s contemporary works. For an avid fan of Amitabh that he was (he loved his every film--even movies like Mrityudaata and Boom), listening my statement was almost an offence and he wanted to call me names which I had never heard before. He, for some mysterious reasons beyond my mediocre intellect, opted for the softer choice of calling me interesting. I couldn’t decide if I would have liked him calling me names more, for I struggled to decipher what he exactly meant when he tagged me interesting. That was mental harassment.
The word interesting is also used when one struggles to find a suitable adjective to describe a particular person, thing or event—something like what I did at the
beginning of this post (if you haven’t noticed yet). It also buys you time when you are not quite sure about the quality of something. “It’s an interesting tactics,” says a commentating Rameez Raza whenever he isn’t sure why the captain made a particular field placement. If the very next ball produces a healthy result, he would quickly replace the adjective with a more absolved one and say—what a splendid tactics by the captain. He surely has got a thinking head over his shoulders.
Similarly, this word saves you from public embarrassment if what you think is in complete contrast with the ideas of masses. Even if you think that Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is a pure tragedy of art and complete shit, you can save yourself from being abashed if you arc your eyebrows, curl your lips and call the painting interesting first and then pass priceless comments upon how Da Vinci could have made minor adjustments in the picture to make it look a bit better. You will invariable be tagged smart and a pundit in the field of painting. Now you know how certain journalists who don’t know the basics of a subject cleverly write half-a-page long columns in the newspapers and once you end up reading it, you feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed because you couldn’t understand what he actually wanted to say. The melodic theme is that he never had anything to say.
Words having blurred and vague meanings always create an atmosphere where the speaker is invariably uplifted to the position of a great thinker and his listeners who couldn’t understand a single word discuss his profound greatness among themselves. Such is the power of obscurity. It sells. Things that are less understood have more magnetic power than their obvious counterparts.
I am again tempted to use the word interesting—with some caution and ingenuity. It surely is worth trying. Interesting is indeed an interesting word.
As a kid, I learnt the eight parts of speech of English from my English teacher. I was told that adjectives held an enormous power--much more than any other part of speech--within themselves. After a decade and a half, when I was virtually forced to write a testimonial for someone for the very first time, I understood why my English teacher called adjectives the powerhouse of English. They indeed serve the purpose of pleasing others.
When I was first introduced to Orkut, I found it anything but captivating. I was in fact hesitant to join it at the first place. But one of my mates sent me an invitation to join Orkut and despite my unwillingness, I joined it just for my mate's sake. I was doing more or less fine with a long list of friends in Yahoo Messenger. And hence, I hardly bothered to check my Orkut account on a regular basis. I never added anyone in my Orkut account, despised each and every community and people felt blessed if they received scraps from me. I never understood why people were so concerned about the number of scraps they have had. "To know the value of invaluable scraps, you need to use Orkut, mate. The unwritten rule of Orkut is--the more you use it, the more scraps you receive. Scraps are earnestly precious. Lesser mortals like you won't understand the addiction," said someone to me. The two words that caught my attention in his speech were 'lesser mortals'. How dare he call me a lesser mortal, I thought. By the time I satisfied myself by knocking him a punch or two in my imagination (of course), he was gone. What the heck! I could have hit him in reality as well. It's a different matter altogether that I would have received many more long-lasting bruises in return.
Today, one and a half years after joining Orkut, I check my account innumerable number of times daily, keep refreshing the page in hope of receiving one more scrap and I yell when I find that no one has scrapped me in last ten minutes or so. "How can people do that to me," I often ask myself. I haven't found an answer yet. These days, I am on a spree of writing testimonials. I have actually mustered a huge set of oh-how-sweet adjectives and I often use them while writing testimonials. Girls tell me that I write testimonials that are lovelier than teddy beers while a diabetic had once said that my testimonials were sweeter than artificial sweetener. As a matter of fact, I am yet to write testimonials for alcoholics and terrorists. I wonder what kind of comparisons they would make.
Believe it or not, the real charm of Orkut lies in the fact that its scrapbook acts as open email ids--open for all to view the contents. A cheesy scrap from the opposite sex can be invitation to disaster if your friends somehow take a look at it. But then, it can also serve as a means of enhancing the number of scraps. Consider the case if a girl proposes you on Orkut. Your friends will surely send you 100-odd scraps asking who she is. And your scrapbook is almost flooded on the eve of your birthday. People don't mind faking their birthdays in order to enhance the influx of scraps. And the number of fans you have had is considered as the only parameter to gauge your popularity.
ATTENTION READERS-- the crux of the article is that if you want others to honor you, enhance the number fans you have, even if the means of acquiring fans is cheesy. Third law of Newton says that every action has equal and opposite reaction. So in order to gather scraps, send more and more scraps to your friends and also to their girlfriends. You can send scraps to your own girlfriend(s) as well if you find time after watching your friends' girlfriends' albums. This is indeed a battle of mustering scraps and fans. And everything is fine, as the cliché goes, in love and war.
And yes, I won't mind lending you my sacred book of adjectives if you are about to write a testimonial. Till then, bye bye. And don't forget to add me as your friend. My identity on Orkut is Full Throttle...! See you on Orkut.
These days, a guy with hair long enough to shroud every square inch of his face and a strange beard on his chin (if his hair allows a glimpse) roams on the streets of IIT after midnight. He is not seen in the day because alcohol, doping materials and drugs generally take over him during daytime. He wears jeans that can accommodate the thick legs of an elephant. To make matters worse, his jeans is at least two feet longer than his own legs. Body builders holding mikes are printed on his every shirt. The back side of his shirt reads—I love Metallica. The body builders on his shirt have looks of a monster that would tear you apart if given a chance to come alive.
During night, the guy listens to rock music at full volume on his Altec Lansing 5-in-1 speakers and 1500 watts woofer, doesn’t let his neighbors sleep and occasionally comes out of his room to have a round of cigarettes and iced tea. That is the only time his neighbors manage to sleep. He is a rocker, I was apprized by one of my mates as we sipped cold coffee. Now I know why he looks so strange, I replied back with arced eyebrows and narrow eyes. Perhaps overwhelmed by the eminent praises he received from me, the rocker stared at us with eyes more close than open. Not interested, bhaisaab, we felt like saying. He kept staring. No words, nothing. Silence. Time refused to move forward. But irrespective of the ideas time had, I needed to move forward. Backwards, I mean. Time can wait. Scared by the look that was anything but polite, we hopped away from him. Looked like a beast. Didn’t he, I said after gaining a fairly safe distance from him. He looked more like a statue to me, my mate said. My heart was still pounding. They all look the bloody same, I was informed again. Thank you for the information. Hey, I spilled all my cold coffee, I cried with sheer pain. That rocker owes me some cold coffee rather than that cold stare.
I have never had a chance to know what rock music was before I entered IIT. I had heard that rock is another form of music—very lusty and magnetic. I dreamt of listening to rock during my pre-IIT days. I got through JEE and got my chance to know more about rock. By the time I listened my first rock, I despised why I dreamt such a nightmare. Man, you need to develop a taste for rock, my seniors who rendered immense love for rock, told me. OK, I will try to develop such taste, I thought. Three and a half years after listening to my first rock song, I have strict reservations against calling it music, let alone lusty and magnetic. I often see rock lovers playing virtual guitars, waggling their heads and extracting pleasure from it. Their fingers move so fast on their virtual guitars that they can put world’s leading guitarists on shame. The wagging of their heads is so severe that their brains come under serious threat of being blown out of the skulls. While listening to rock, they get as animated as a bull at the sight of some red cloth. When I asked one of the rock lovers if he really understood the lyrics, he answered—It’s not about lyrics, man. It’s about feeling. I am, perhaps, too numb to feel rock. My inability, I accept. Most of the guys who take pride in saying that they are lovers of rock music fail to understand the lyrics on their own. It is only after finding lyrics on internet do they understand what the singer is actually singing(singing or shouting??!?). I understand that love for a particular kind of music is not a slave of any particular language--An American, for instance, who might not know a single language other than English can find Ugandan folk music awesome. But for a person like me--naive and foolish if one finds joy in stating--an effort won't be made to love something. There are certain things that come naturally to people and mustn't be imposed. Music is one such thing.
I came across the same rocker the other night on the same place. He won’t spare me today, I thought. Hello man, how are you, he asked. I somehow managed to capture a glimpse of smile of his face enshrouded by long, dense hair. I am fine, I flinched. Want some cold coffee, an invitation from the rocker. Rockers are actually not so bad, I found my lips whispering.
“Daddy, I want a new cellphone,” an eight year old kid demands his decently rich dad. “But son, you had recently bought one,” contends his decently rich dad. “The latest model that arrived in the market yesterday has a 10 megapixels camera. Moreover, I bought my last phone six months ago,” he says with all his effort to make six months sound like six decades. “OK, we will get a new one tomorrow. And give this old one to our gardener’s son. He was also saying the other day that he had got bored with his cellphone. And he wants the one with MS Office.” World in 2009.
Mobiles phones are as basic a necessity for the younger generation as controversies to Rakhi Sawant. If you don’t own a cellphone, the general notion would be that you are a son/daughter of an unemployed or something. His family conditions must be really miserable. He can’t even afford a mobile, you would hear someone saying. And if you don’t know about the latest trends, you are tagged ancient. You haven’t even heard about Nokia N60? You must be living in Stone Age, you will inevitably be informed with raised eyebrows.
For most people, buying their first cellphone brings a delight with itself that can only be compared to Bill Gates handing over his empire to you. As soon as the phone is bought, the urge of letting others know that you have actually got a new cellphone takes over. The easiest way goes something like this. You go to one of your pals who seems relatively free and talk to him for a couple of minutes, bring out your cellphone, (pretend to) watch the time and say—Oh God, I am late again. I am doomed. I will call you later. Hey I have lost your phone number. Give me your number again.” “Nice cellphone,” he would invariably say despite knowing that you would never call him. You are delighted. Mission right on track!! As long as he keeps mentioning that your cellphone looks cool, you don’t mind him calling you the ugliest creature in the world. “Thanks, bought it yesterday only.” Then you go on talking about all the features it has got. Fifteen minutes pass by. The guy in front looks anything but involved. You sense that. Now that your mission is accomplished, you tighten your tie, keep the phone in your pocket and leave in hunt of another soul who would call your cellphone great. After a week or so, everyone in your family, office and friend circle gets to know that you have got a new cellphone. Meanwhile, one of your friends apprizes you that a new phone with superior features has been launched. Now the cellphone no longer remains new to you!! Can I afford to buy a new one, your cellphone-obsessed-mind thinks. Next day, you stand in front of some cellphone showroom and ask yourself the same question. The next salary-day isn't very far away, you remind yourself.
Now a days, it's difficult to guess whether a cellphone includes camera or is it the other way round. A cellphone is now a multipurpose device---camera with all sorts of zooming facilities, FM radio, mp3 player, MS Office, palmtop and yes, I almost forgot to mention that it includes a phone as well!! The level of facility of course, depends upon the depth of your pocket, with the facility to call others being the minimum one. Wonderful. Sounds like magic. To me, at least!
There are guys who know almost everything about cellphones—the latest models, models introduced in US but yet to arrive in India, their elusive features, their prices, their reliability, their battery life—virtually everything. Living cellphone encyclopedia, in short. And you can find such guys everywhere. They might possess the most ancient cellphones but dare not question their knowledge in this particular field. If one is about to buy a cellphone, he need not surf the sites or decide right at the cellphone shop. He just needs to meet one of those guys and give him the price range. The living encyclopedia would put his index finger on his chin, look towards the window pane, calculate something in his mind and then tell you--- Nokia xxxx is your best deal. You can trust his divine words blindly, go to the shop, ask for Nokia xxxx and come back gladly. No site-surfing, no decision-making! What more—such guys are always ready to company you to the cellphone shop. Angels, they are.
My cellphone is my lifeline, people are often heard saying. They just can’t imagine taking their hands off their phones. They might be right in front of their homes but they would still call their moms and say—‘yes mom, I am coming. I hope my food is ready.’ Some of the cellphone users have lots of money in their wallet (may be in their dads’ wallet) and they would participate in every contest that needs sending an option by sms. By the end of the day, they discover that they have sent 50-odd messages with no success in those contests. And there are people who call their mates whom they had talked in person 15 minutes ago and usually the chat goes on till eternity as if they hadn't talked to each other for centuries. And there are few (like me) who keep cellphones just because they are asked to. They don’t actually need them but they use them as clocks. Yes, clocks!! They often forget to carry their cellphones with themselves, put their phones in silent mode while going to sleep and calls they miss embarrassingly outnumbers those they attend. Someone calls to one such person and says—hi, what’s up? And the inevitable reply is something like—“Nothing’s up, everything is down. Come to the point. Why did you call?” These are the kind of people whose phone bills struggle to cross Rs. 100 mark per month. Telecommunication service providers try their best to allure such people to use their cellphones more often but they just refuse to talk. For them, cellphones are strictly SOS messaging protocol. When one of such persons (read: Abhieshek) goes to pay his sub-Rs100 bill at the service provider’s office (in case, it’s post paid), the bill collector almost bursts into laughter and is tempted to ask—‘How much did you actually spend to reach our office? I reckon it was threateningly close to your monthly bill. Wasn’t it?’ Thank God, the bill collectors are polite and understanding enough to refrain themselves from asking such mortifying questions. I love bill collectors!!
zameen nahin, main aasmaan nahin
tinkaa nahin, main jahaan nahin
khush nahin, main khafaa nahin
dariya nahin, main hawaa nahin
jeet nahin, main haar nahin
nafrat nahin, main pyaar nahin
prashna nahin, main hal nahin
vada nahin, main chhal nahin
dur nahin, main paas nahin
dhadkan nahin, main saans nahin
mook nahin, main awaz nahin
zaahir nahin, main raaz nahin
jal nahin, main aag nahin
sur nahin, main raag nahin
jalaa nahin, main bujha nahin
ujdaa nahin, main sajaa nahin
kundan nahin, main kaath nahin
dhan nahin, main raakh nahin
jashn nahin, main shok nahin
mukt nahin, main rok nahin
manzil nahin, main raah nahin
hassi nahin, main aah nahin
behosh nahin, main ehsaas nahin
zinda nahin, main laash nahin
chalaa nahin, main thamaa nahin
prithak nahin, main ramaa nahin
ujala nahin, main raat nahin
tanha nahin, main saath nahin
bas ek pal mein simta hoon
aur fir, yaad nahin, main yaad nahin...
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”—Juliet says Romeo in Shakespeare’s arguably the most famous play, Romeo and Juliet. Had Shakespeare’s soul not departed for some romantic sessions with beautiful angels somewhere in the heaven above, today—in 2006--he would have certainly acknowledged the importance of names. Names of different shades of colors, in particular.
People have time and again made me believe that I am hopeless when it comes to distinguishing subtle variations in colors. Wait a minute. You are not assuming me to be color blind, are you? To clear the fog, let me tell you that I can perfectly distinguish black from white. OK, OK, I know even the color blinds can do that. (I was just testing your general knowledge for a change.) But I can even distinguish red from green and blue from yellow. See, now you know that my eyes haven’t deteriorated a bit. Though it’s a different matter altogether that I find it difficult to differentiate between Sky Blue and Persian Blue.
“I like this red color of you sweater. It’s my favorite color,” I told one of my female friends over a cup of coffee. 
I didn’t know I was asking for trouble. I should have rather said—“I like this color of your sweater. It’s my favorite color.” (Almost) Everybody knows how particular females are about colors. Sadly, I had never come across any such universal fact. “It’s not red, it’s Crimson,” she almost roared back with a how-dumb-you-are look. “Whatever!” I whispered, trying to divert her attention towards the cup of coffee. “You don’t even know what color this is and you say this is your favorite one! Now that’s ludicrous,” she said with an overwhelming delight on her face. I knew instantly that she had not had someone for last few days to make fun of and somehow I found myself imagining how helpless an about-to-die deer felt as it saw a hungry lioness pushing it into a corner. Needless to say (but I would still say), my position was not any better than that of the almost-dead deer. “What’s in a name, what’s in a name,” I flinched. I just hoped that she had had some amount of respect for Shakespeare and his sayings. She went on to count different shades of blue and red on her fingers and wanted me to learn at least a few of them. But how can she expect a guy to learn hues of colors who often struggles to recall his mobile number? Too much of an asking.
People generally have one and only one color as their favorite. But he may not choose everything around him painted in that particular color. For instance--Someone like me, whose favorite color is red (may be crimson!!!) will not like his formal trouser or shoes to be red-colored. Going a step further, I won’t like my hair tainted red either. Similarly, no matter how crazy a person is about blue (say Persian Blue, to be very specific), she won’t like her lipstick blue. But there is no shortage of frenzy creatures in this world. You will see them every now and then. Anyway, let’s go ahead.
I had seen people around me wearing kurtas of different colors (now don’t ask me the particular shades). I found that cool. Even I am a human being (oh yes, I am!!) and I also have desires. So, the other day, I went to a shop to buy cloth piece for my kurta. The shopkeeper showed cloth pieces of different colors and shades. I didn’t like any. More colors. No success yet! I had seen someone wearing a blue-colored kurta and wanted something like that. More colors put in front of me. But I am a difficult person to please! After rejecting some genuine, honest effort from the shopkeeper, I could sense frustration in his eyes, as if saying –For God’s sake, will you now leave? He was about to cry as I insisted him to make one last attempt. “What exact shade do you want?” he finally spoke as he wiped sweat along with all his patience from his forehead. Now that was one hell of a question for me. I could calculate the rate of mass transfer in a packed bed (IIT says I am a chemical engineer, though I have never accepted!!) but shades—not my cup of tea. “Something in blue would do fine,” I told hesitantly but politely. I didn’t want to make that poor soul cry. By the time I collected the receipt, the owner of the shopkeeper had made me learn that it was called Ultramarine. I felt embarrassed. I recalled the giggling face of that friend of mine. I have decided to teach Shakespeare a lesson (read: kidnap all his angel girlfriends) if and when I happen to visit heaven. There’s surely something in the name, I tell you. Don’t believe the words of that 16th century ancient guy. He bluffed all of us. A rose in 2006 called by some other name may not smell as sweet.
I receive an amused look whenever one meets me for the very first time. Though people try to conceal their awry sense of joy, I have got so used to that particular subtle look on their faces that I invariably catch those glimpses effortlessly. It’s not that I am unbelievably good looking or I possess attractive physique that introduces a smile on their faces but the fact that I possess an embarrassingly slim body structure makes them do so. 
To make matters worse, an abnormally large face rests over my shoulders and a pair of hands that can be detached by applying minimal force hangs below the shoulders, imparting me the looks of an alien. If you have no idea how an alien looks, do watch some movies like ET or alien v/s predator and if you are a die-hard Bollywood fan, you can always watch Koi Mil Gaya. Now if you are through with the movie, you can move on with the post. No, no let me tell you that I don’t look exactly like an alien if you have already started painting my structure in the canvas of your mind. But I must confess (I am almost into tears!!) that most of my features do resemble those of an alien. Similar height (just managed to cross 5 feet a couple of years ago), similar large eyes with pupils adamant to come out of the iris, voice difficult for others to understand and an above-average intellectual mind (that’s what I think)!! To add to that, my sense of dressing isn’t very different from that of aliens. Can you imagine my structure now? People often ask me what I generally eat in a day and they get an idea what not to feed their kids to save them from attaining alien-esque features.
Some of the people who really feel sorry about my physical features often suggest me to eat properly. They regularly let me know that if I continue like this for few more years, I would inevitably vanish. They suggest me to eat the amount of food in one meal that I generally have in 2 days. What they fail to understand is that a small belly lies in a small body. Enhancing my appetite is something that is beyond my control. I love food but I can’t eat much (Drops of tears are falling on the keyboard!!).
Most of the people I regularly come across are well built, possess height around six feet and hence, they see it as a moral responsibility (towards me, of course) to make me realize of my gradual drift towards un-human physical features. Every time I see a well-built person, the first thought that comes to my mind is--can I afford a fist-fight with him? The second thought that crosses my mind is—-I can’t!!
But I was not the same during my childhood days. Though I was born with a relatively bigger head than most other children, my good enough physique--firm arms, strong calves-- reconciled with it. But as days passed by, my weight refused to increase while the rate at which the size of my head increased knew no stopping. Result is in front of you. These days, with hardly any serious work to do, I amuse grown-ups and scare kids. That is one job I am really good at. If you can’t recall the last time you had laughed, do meet me. Your days of laughter are not far away.
During the ongoing Champions Trophy in India, Harbhajan Singh misjudged a catch and just when it looked that he would
drop the catch, he somehow managed to hold the ball in his hands inches inside the boundary rope. Incidentally, two old foes Tony Greig and Geoffrey Boycott were on the air commentating. “Harbhajan Singh has got under the ball. Ooo…he seems to have made a mess of the catch…. I think he has dropped the ball…Or has he caught it?? Thank god, he…” said Boycott. “Harbhajan Singh has taken a blinder. One of the best catches one would have seen in the recent past,” screamed Tony Greig on the microphone interrupting Boycott. “But he made a simple catch look spectacular. Didn’t he?” yelled Geoffrey. “But he did manage to make it look spectacular,” argued Tony Greig with a chuckle.
Cricket commentators are a different species altogether. They come in all shapes and sizes-- their accent and use of words making them popular or unpopular. They always try to come up with something new every time around. Some fail while some of them do succeed in entertaining their listeners. The addition of females is the latest development in this fraternity. Commentators who talk sense are the most popular. Unfortunately, someone like Navjot Singh Sidhu who talks a lot with a handful of non-sense submerged into it also get popular. Let’s study the characters of these entertainers. To start with, people like Ravi Shashtri and Barry Richards stick to the happenings on the field and read the game wisely and hence, they give the listeners a better picture of the game. Their enthusiastic approach and smart analysis make them popular among listeners. Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Chappell, Harsha Bhogle and Sanjay Manjrekar also form a part of this group. Richie Benaud is one commentator who holds a special place for himself in the commentary field because of his great knowledge of cricket and composed voice. Then arrive the likes of Tony Greig, Mark Nicholas and Mike Haysman who have actually shifted their focus on making the art of commentary entertaining. These are the people who have actually made commentary an interesting job. They exaggerate events and tend to infuse fake exuberance into the listeners. Interestingly, their inspiring voices do tend to succeed in doing so. Cricket is after all a means of entertainment!
After all these men comes Geoffrey Boycott who is a die-hard fan of technique---be it batting, bowling or catching! If you ask him, someone like Sehwag is an ugly scar on the beautiful face of cricket. During India’s last tour to Australia, Sehwag played and missed quite a few deliveries outside the off stump. See what Boycott had to say. “This lad has got a rubbish technique. Even my mum would play these deliveries better.” When Sehwag played crunching cover drives on the next two Brett-Lee-deliveries, Boycott says—“Ha ha, this guy has made a mockery of what I told a couple of minutes before. He has got great hand-eye co-ordination. He doesn’t need any coaching book technique.” In the very next over, Sehwag comes out of his crease to a MacGill-delivery and gets stumped. Boycott says—“Just hand-eye co-ordination can’t take you too far in such a competitive form of the game, son. You need to learn quite a bit about batting. Crickeet is no child’s play.”
Then there is a whole bunch of other English commentators that includes David Lloyd, Ian Botham and David Gower. They have a special liking for their national team. If debutant Robert Key scores a century against a hapless West Indian attack, they start seeing him as a potential threat to Mcgrath and Warne in the next Ashes series. There is no cricket more important than Ashes for this group of commentators. And by the time Ashes ends, players like Robert Key are seen packing their bags with face-hiding batting averages of 15 in the series.
And then there is a man called Navjot Singh Sidhu who speaks nothing but non-sense. When he had initially arrived in the commentary field, he did a decent job with his catchy one-liners. But as time passed by, his one-liners became an overdose and irritating. In the recent one day game between India and England, England was bowled out for mere 125. During the break between the innings, when asked how much chance England had actually had, let’s see what he said---“England faces a deep, dark tunnel in front of it and it has no other option but to walk that tiresome, painful path towards the end of the tunnel where a slow, inevitable death with bright, cruel teeth waits for it. Sorry my dear friend, miracles are called so because they don’t happen too often. No matter how hard England flocks its feathers, it can’t escape defeat in this match.” When Charu Sharma asked the same question to Ian Chappell, he answered with his typical Australian flair—“I don’t know why Sidhu said so much about the probability of an English win. For me, the simple answer is zero.” Sidhu was embarrassed. Dean Jones has tried to give Sidhu a run for his money in the field of non-sense commentary and has succeeded to some extent as well.
Michael Holding is better known for his Caribbean accent more than anything else. “Adaam Gilchrist is playing just the kind of innings Australia wanted at this juncture” seems to be his favorite sentence. He is usually so obsessed with the pace quartet of the West Indies during the early 80’s that every other fast bowler looks mediocre to him.
Some commentators have special liking for some players. ‘Saurav Ganguly—the prince of Calcutta’ is Boycott’s favorite despite his horrible technique while Sachin Tendulkar must thank Tony Greig for helping him acquire semi-God status all over the world. Jacques Kallis owes Mike Haysman a can of beer for enhancing his popularity and Imran Khan always has a sea of praises for Younis Khan.
The two female commentators from South Africa seem to talk sense in the microphone. One can only hope that they would add a new dimension to commentary. People like Rameez Raja, Jeff Thomson, Arun Lal and L Shivramkrishnan don’t have anything special about their commentary skills to talk about. They are paid just because they know the game and speak a bit of English.
Commentator, as a group, surely form a nice spectrum with different colors in it.
As I write this post, I feel more or less determined to hold moderators and owners of certain yahoo groups by their collars, drag them to the court and ask My Lord to allow me to hang all of them for their grievous crime. And since My Lord would inevitably say that he might take a minimum of 10 years to come up with any sort of decision (as Indian courts usually do), I feel like teaching those moderators a lesson in my own surreal ways. They have catered me several sleepless nights by sending enough scary invitations for joining their absurd yahoo groups. If that wasn't enough, I often find myself waking up suddenly in the night as I pull myself out of a dreadful nightmare(if at alI I manage to sleep), thanks to the role these moderators have played during last six months or so. Now I know what people called mental molestation.
Though I consider myself a strong enough character (mentally and certainly not physically as everyone points out) to handle issues on my own, these frequent invitations to join matrimonial groups have certainly taken a toll on me. 
There is no greater elation when I open my yahoo messenger and it says 'you have got 1 new mail'. The frequency at which I check my mail doesn't allow yahoo messenger to state that I have got more than one mail. And there isn't any more deplorable moment when I open my yahoo mail only to find a matrimonial group invitation. It's like end of the world for me. The names of these matrimonial groups are as irritating as their contents--agarwal2agarwalmarriage group, Letsmarry, MarryBigBeautifulWomen etc etc. I don't know why they think that I am an Agarwal! And if the lady is so beautiful, why would she marry me? I possess neither Bill Gates' money nor Tom Cruise's looks. Apart from all that, though I am legally eligible to marry as I have already achieved that coveted landmark of 21 years of age, I am currently not in a mood of marrying, you know. (Blushing)Lolz!! I have just started my life and I have no plans to ruin it so soon. I still have some sense left in some corner of my brain.
When I told some of my mates about this farcical and equally derisory problem that I am facing these days, they all laughed at me saying that I must have given my email id to one (or more) of these groups . But I am more certain than an Australian victory over Kenya as I say that an idea as weird as pasting my own id in any matrimonial site can't even come close to my periphery of thoughts. Though I must confess that I have certainly given some fake ids for getting some pirated softwares from internet. "Pirate, he is a bloody pirate," I can listen some software engineer screaming somewhere in Bangalore. None of my concern though. I have much graver issues like matrimony-case to tackle these days! I even tried to block these addressed and called them spam but these addresses somehow manage to breach spam protectors and chafe poor users like me. If any of the moderators of those groups is reading this post, 
I urge him/her to look for better candidates to send your unsolicited mails. I am genuinely not interested!! For those who don't know, this is my favorite one liner! I had once used it when a girl had proposed me. O yes, you read it correctly---A girl proposing a boy! Now you know that it doesn't happen only in movies. Real life, as they say, is much more exciting than reel life. Anyway, do I need to tell you what the consequence was when I told her that I was genuinely not interested? I leave it for you to guess!!
There is something peculiar about bloggers that I have failed to understand since the day I was introduced to blogging. Very similar to the case with any other form of addiction, the addiction of 'blogging regularly' brings a certain amount of insanity with itself. When a blogger runs out of topics to write upon, s/he tends to look all over the place for an issue or two. The best source of topics that strikes such a one-post-a-day blogger is newspapers and news channels. No matter how ignorant a blogger is about a particular hot topic, s/he always tends to post something related to it on his/her blog. 
The one case that was in the cauldron few weeks ago was that of Pluto being stripped off its coveted status of being called a planet. Now how the hell does it matter to a common person whether Pluto is a planet or not? But bloggers have needs of their own. They tend to pour in their views and opinions over anything and everything. Very similar to what I am doing right now--pouring my views over insane bloggers (with I myself being one of them). Anyway, coming back to the topic, I came across scores of blogs which talked about what exactly being a planet means, which parameters essential for a piece of rock to be called a planet are and blah blah. They went on writing pages over the history of Pluto and how dramatic the discovery of Pluto was. Bloggers showed their immense love for this ex-planet and urged the scientific community all over the world not to snatch away the planetic title from Pluto. Poor Pluto must be feeling deeply indebted to all its protagonists out there on the earth. She ought to visit the earth just to know how her popularity has peaked up during last few weeks.
Second such case was that of a person called Steve Irwin who eventually died doing what served as his means of living. Blogging community all over the world paid tribute to him and his heroics with 20-feel-long crocodiles. Bloggers showed such deep concern over the demise of this man that it actually made me wonder if Steve Irwin was one of the terrorists US government is looking for. 
When I googled to know who he was, he turned out to be a person who fought with crocodiles. People cried lakes on their blogs writing how eagerly they waited every week to watch his show, how popular he was among their friends and how interested they were in their combat with crocodiles. I tried to visualize the excitement on people's face as they watched that cowboy trying his best to defeat a gigantic crocodile!! I failed. Their fake concern over the death of his crocodile hunter was nothing but an honest attempt to satisfy their hunger to update their blogs. As far as I am concerned, all those bloggers cried crocodile tears!! Didn't they?
By the way, I did manage to write a post without having anything particular or serious to talk about. Kudos to me.
Sculptures of Raavan, Mehnaad and Kumbhkaran were erected hastily on Dussehra afternoon. By the time, the day drifted towards its end, the three sculptures were set to fire one by one with Raavan being the last casualty. Crackers installed inside them made deafening noise, huge spheres of smoke gained height above the burning sculptures, sparkling chunks of burning paper floated between the layers of air and baneful smell of gunpowder diffused into the atmosphere. A large crowd entertained itself by being a part of this evil-burning ceremony. With Raavan turned into ashes, the mob retrieved back discussing how harmful the rays coming out of crackers are and how polluted Delhi-air has become over the years. Two women talked about how their in-laws have made their lives miserable. Children accompanying them, oblivious to their talk, were glad with the sight they witnessed and asked each other who the two sculptures on either side of Raavan represented.
Raavan, despite being such a learned creature, an avid Lord Shiva devotee and a conqueror of entire cosmos, fell prey to evil and eventually couldn’t save himself and his family from fiasco and the wrath of Lord Rama. Today, we remember Raavan as the face of evil. What did those Vedas, Puranas, Upnishads teach him? Virtually nothing! That is perhaps why education has evolved over the years just as a medium of reading newspapers and getting a good job. It is only attitude that can help you gain some good name. Education— philosophical, religious, spiritual or any other form---is useless unless you don the right attitude.
nainon ki mat maaniyo re
nainon ki mat suniyo
nainon ki mat maaniyo re
nainon ki mat suniyo
nainon ki mat suniyo re
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge
jagte jaadu phukenge re jagte jagte jaadu
jagte jaadu phukenge re neenden banjar kar denge
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge
nainon ki mat maaniyo re
bhala manda dekhe na paraya na saga re
nainon ko toh dasne ka chaska laga re
bhala manda dekhe na paraya na saga re
nainon ko toh dasne ka chaska laga re
nainon ka zehar nasheela re - 4
baadalon mein satrangiyan bonve
bhor talak barsaave
baadalon mein satrangiyan bonve
naina baanvra kar denge
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge -2
naina raat ko chalte chalte swargan mein le jaave
megh malhaar ke sapne dije hariyali dikhlave
naina raat ko chalte chalte swargan mein le jaave
megh malhaar ke sapne dije hariyali dikhlave
nainon ki zubaan pe bharosa nahi aata
likhat padhat na rasid na khaata
nainon ki zubaan pe bharosa nahi aata
likhat padhat na rasid na khaata
saari baat hawaayi - 2
bin baadal barsaaye saawan saawan bin barsaata
bin baadal barsaaye saawan naina baanwara kar denge
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
nainon ki mat maaniyo re
nainon ki mat suniyo
nainon ki mat suniyo re
naina thag lenge
jagte jaadu phukenge re jagte jagte jaadu
jagte jaadu phukenge re neenden banjar kar denge
naina thag lenge - 2
thag lenge naina thag lenge
naina thag lenge thag lenge naina thag lenge -2
naina
When you are badly looking for something during an hour of utmost need, it is almost inevitable that you would not find it. Someone enters your room, asks for the CD you had borrowed from him the other day and you feel lost. ‘What CD?’ you think and suddenly realize that if you don’t recall which CD he is actually talking about, he would hit you on your face and could possibly break your head as well. You hastily look at every possible corner where you might have thrown his CD with no apparent success. You give him a pleading look and say that you would return it to him as soon as you find it out. The person, feeling perhaps disappointed and certainly furious, leaves saying fine. He, in fact, thinks—“you better find it out otherwise….” You avoid thinking what he might do if you don’t actually hand him the CD over to him.
So, the man leaves, planting a job in your mind. And you start your damage control job. Since you are a technical guy, at least you think yourself to be, you plan your quest for the million-dollar-CD in a contrived way. You, at first, try to mark out the places in your room where the probability of finding it is maximal. After damaging you brain cells for good two minutes, you eventually infer that the probability is exactly the same at every point in the room. Your past experiences say that it is better to look on the floor below your bed first where you had dropped your friend’s twenty-thousand-bucks-cellphone yesterday and then in the cupboard where you had kept your friend’s shoes the last time around. Happens with every guy, nothing to worry about!!
You do not find anything on the floor and you look inside the cupboard. The things that you find inside leave you nostalgic and of course, make you feel guilty. You see a Rakhi, sent by your sweet seven-year-old cousin, which you never bothered to tie around your ankle on the pious occasion of Rakshabandhan. When she called you last time around, you had lied that you indeed liked the rakhi and tied it on Rakshabandhan. You frown. You imagine your cousin’s innocent, smiling face in front of you. You find a birthday card you had bought to send to a friend whom you haven’t met for good three years. You kept postponing the job of posting it for a while and then you eventually forgot to send it altogether. You recall how tense he was, just before the result of your IIT JEE. You wish the days could somehow be retrieved. You find some prasad, carefully folded inside a piece of paper, which your mother had given you the last time you had been leaving home. She had asked you to put small pieces of prasad in your mouth every time you went out to write an examination. You had reluctantly put it in your bag saying that these things added to the weight of the bag. You feel guilty. You vow that you would indeed follow your mother’s instructions from now on. You find the laudatory recommendation letter your wonderful, ever-smiling professor had written for your work in the UK last time around. You think about the aesthetic seventy five days you had spent in the UK last summer. You wish to visit that place again and meet her. You find yourself smiling. A small cupboard can bring so many emotions out of you. You had never thought like that before. Never.
Meanwhile, the same guy visits you again and asks if you actually found his CD out. You look horrified. Yet another emotion!!!
The much awaited Delhi University Students’ Union Elections (for Delhi University students, of course) are over and the results are out as well. Last year’s results have almost repeated itself, just that the vice-president’s post managed to hop from the grasp of National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) to Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP). Rest three posts were secured by NSUI. Reasons for ABVP’s debacle and NSUI’s thumping victory are not too tough to predict---The support of in-power Congress government (home and state) led by Sheila Dixit to NSUI respectively played massive and in fact, critical role in their overwhelming success. The nod of Sheila Dixit to enhance accident insurance for all the DU students and better residing facilities for the students of north-west campus, which forms a major vote bank, ensured NSUI’s victory.
On the other hand, BJP-RSS-fed-ABVP never looked like winning any post at all. The only consolation they received was a nail-biting finish in an eventual triumph in the tussle for vice-presidency post---that too by a whisker; a margin of mere 35 votes. How close the decision for this post was can be rendered by the fact that as many as 85,000 students study in DU.
The seriousness of this Delhi University can be felt by the involvement of the biggies of the political parties like BJP and Congress. Forsooth, the ruling party in the centre has always played pivotal role in DU elections. Candidates for the posts are wisely chosen keeping the castes of the candidates in mind, each and every movement of the opposition activists are closely monitored, piles of money flow for securing every vote, foul games are played, and then after careful planning by the leading names in Indian politics, the activists campaign (in form of their candidates’ posters being pasted on every bus stop, candidates making personal visits to students who can influence other students, forcing and in some cases, bribing students) for their respective candidates to transform all the sweat, used (and misused) money into eventual success. DU forms a massive students’ community with a population of 85,000 which, by any standards, is a colossal number. Even 40% polling attendance this year meant 34,000 votes were cast!!
The victory of Congress-backed NSUI somehow corroborates the fact that anti-reservation movement has failed to hit DU. The mass movement is, in fact, restricted to professional courses like medicine and engineering. The chief Congress players of this election are tirelessly boasting that the victory of Congress-backed candidates has confirmed that students are glad with the decision of the government to move on with the quota system. They see as a major triumph among the students’ community. Rubbish, all rubbish!!!
The involvement of the political parties substantiates, on the first hand, that foul games would be played and unfortunately, the worst-hit people in this diplomatic game are students. A very small community of students is actually interested in what happens during these elections. The issues handled by these winning candidates are too superficial to carry on elections on such a mass scale. Electric voting machines are installed which have been introduced in our Lok Sabha elections only a couple of years ago. Yes, the students are surely given the right to choose their candidates but what these candidates are supposed to do is still enigmatic. College-bands is a usual affair during election days. Students are virtually forced, in one way or the other (read: emotionally and financially), to vote for a particular candidate. Some succumb to the pressure and eventually play the role of puppets in the hands of the activists. Most of the students who avidly take part in these elections are not really students but stay in colleges just for these election-seasons. Not surprisingly, the true winners of these elections are the political parties. It is their way of rendering who holds the key of youth-power in Delhi. Certainly a very sorry state for the Delhi University students.
You reach your home after a tiresome day in the office. You throw your bag and yourself on the wooden chair and cozy sofa respectively. (Few might be doing the other way around as well, none of my business though) You send your eyeballs on a walk for searching TV’s remote control; you, as usual, can’t find it at the proper place; you ask your wife to hand over the remote to you. She comes out of the chicken…err.. I mean kitchen, lifts the remote from the same place where you had just explored, gives you the remote with a furious look; you desperately avoid looking at her; you turn the TV on and the drama starts!
Your cable operator gives you the privilege of enjoying hundred-odd channels. The actual number of channels you actually go though can be counted on fingers. Anyway, so you surf the channel to watch the live action of India versus West Indies One day cricket match at St. John’s Park, Antigua in the Caribbean. The match is, as usual, delayed by the frequent thunderstorm there. You watch Arun Lal and Laxman Shivramakrishnan fighting over why Dravid should choose bowling first in overcast conditions if and when the match starts. Suddenly, Sanjay Manjrekar intervenes and says that they would be right back after a short break. a sigh of relief for everyone. You hate the face and voice of Arun Lal and L Shivramakrishnan. Disappointed by the delay in the live action, you use your remote again---this time to Aajtak where you see a villainous face talking about a ghost in suburb of Assam who arrives every time he listens to a Himesh Reshammiya song. You curse the channel and your finger plays again on the button of the remote control to surf other news channels. You discover that the story is not so different in other news channels either. Just the faces of the villainous reporters have changed but the basic news remains unaltered. Star News talks with Madan Lal Khurana who lost his pet dog recently while reporter in Zee News is busy trying to settle the divorce issue of a couple. You can’t handle it anymore. You move on. In between, Star Plus and Zee TV arrive. You hastily pass through them without rendering any interest in learning whether it is Tulsi or Parvati who is crying lakes, whether it is Komolika or xyz (sorry I don’t know names) who is plotting yet another deadly plan to snatch away the leading lady’s husband. It is actually fun for the show’s leading man who seems to be in a to-n-fro motion from the vamp’s arms to leading lady’s!!! Time taken for this shift is about 50 episodes which is more or less constant for every Ekkta Kkapoor soap opera.
You think of turning the TV off but since you don’t want to face your leading lady who happens to be your wife, you keep TV on. You spend some time guessing what you can watch on TV. Suddenly, a brilliant idea strikes you and you start searching a channel that shows advertisements! Oh yes, ads are the best shows on the TV. Hilarious and short!! One can develop a full story in a 20 second ad which Ekkta Kkapoor might fail to do in 20 episodes of Kkahaani Ghar Ghar Kki.
You watch a proud semi-nude Shah Rukh Khan in a bathtub surrounded by actresses from every age group—right from Hema Malini to Kareena Kapoor. He opens his arms to let his audience know how great he feels while using Lux International. The ladies around him pass contrived smiles. And they want us to buy the soap. Great show SRK and the ladies.
There arrives Virender Sehwag in Reliance’s ad. It still remains a mystery whether his explosive batting or this ad makes him more (un)popular. Let’s see this one. Sehwag is on the crease; six runs to get from the last delivery of the innings (I am not so sure how many times he survives to face the last ball in the innings). Anyway, Sehwag looks tensed, not because he can’t hit a six but because of the monstrous physique of the bowler. He badly wants to win the game for his team but doesn’t know how. Meanwhile, his mother is tensed as well. She sends a call to his sweating son. He doesn’t have the cellphone but someone throws the phone from outside as if it were a cricket ball. The cellphone is good enough to maintain itself in one piece despite being thrown. Sehwag picks it up, listens to some inspiring words from his mother and hits the bowler out of the ground. His team wins, everybody is happy and Sehwag wants us to use Reliance Mobile…why?? Because it helped him win the match!!! Fantastic ad.. Hats off to the composer of this ad. I would like to meet him just to make sure he doesn’t live anymore to create such bizarre ideas.
But forsooth, the two ads which stirred Indian television were Dabur-lal-dant-manjan’s and Lijjat-paapad’s. A young boy, Raju, is in his classroom. The teacher asks him how his teeth shine like pearls. “Arey raju, tumhare daant toh motiyon se bhi tez chamakte hain?” The boy replies—“Kyon na ho masterji, main roz dabur lal dant manjan se jo brush karta hoon.” Raju then sings—“Daanto ki kare hifazat moti sa chamkaye...dabur laal dant manjan se mukhada khil khil jaaye.” It is one of the first few ads people watched on the TV screen. It actually enhanced the sales of this product many folds.
The ad industry which actually needs to work on rendering how a product can make one’s life better and how it is better than its rival companies is working upon showing celebrity faces in the 20 second space! I wonder how much it actually works. Anyway, no matter how poor these ads might be, the fact is that it still is a better idea to watch commercial ads than those shabby soap operas on the screen. Enjoy the show!!!
P.S This is the lighter version of The Ad Effect. I would come up with a much serious version in a couple of days. Till then, enjoy the show!! Err…I mean ads. On your TV, of course.
There were quite a few interesting happenings in my life during last summer, if only I could call them interesting at all. Bachcha log, you do not need any parental supervision while going through this post. It contains nothing suspicious. Suspicious is the word parents usually use for vulgar ‘items’, lol. Sounds good. Quite acceptable. Anyway, let me initiate the tale. The Cock Tale.
Summers have always been relentless in our country, irrespective of the zone. Be it
By the time I used to return back to my hostel, every joule of energy was sucked out of my skinny body. The only plus point of my stay there was that boys and girls shared the same edifice (not the same room though). Most girls being Biharis. It took me 21 long years to discover that even Bihari gals are cute. I always thought that only one girl in
On every single morning at
I woke up at nine. The corpse was not there. It was the beginning of a new day for me with the same old job. I went to the steel plant. I came back at five in the evening only to find the cock hopping around with a band-aid sort of thing rolled around its neck. I was again happy and sad. Happy because the cock hadn’t died and sad because I would have to resist its creaky sound again. Yet again. In the night, the butler was asking guys in the mess if they knew somebody who hit its pet. I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. When being intrigued, the butler revealed that THE cock was its pet and someone hit it. He even asked me if I knew that bloody guy. I considered myself no lesser than Satyawadi Harishchandra. So, telling lies was not my job. When caught in an insurmountable problem, pretend!! Someone tried to kill your cock?, I asked as if it was my dearest pal. He nodded. I didn’t reply to him anymore and hastily changed the topic of discussion.
Days went by. The cock wasn’t crowing anymore. I was rather surprised by its silence. I had got used to it in one way or the other. That silence didn’t let me sleep. I asked the butler the next day if his pet cock was fine. He replied me woefully that he himself killed his pet cock because its health was degrading. He served its flesh to us only, he said wryly. What an excuse to kill somebody, I thought. But the hero was killed. He was no more. May its soul live in peace in heaven. And the villain was still roaming freely.
I was happy and sad, again. Yet again.
Though I was born in a small town called Giridih in Jharkhand, I originally belong to Madhupur, a suburb, countryside area, about forty kilometers away from Giridih. My ancestors lived there for a long, long time. My grandmother and my two paternal uncles still reside there. The home where they live is basically a four-room hut. The cemented floor is broken at a number of places, making sure that it projects an ancestral look. There is a large courtyard in front of that hut which gets extremely swampy during rains. Since my father had earned a job in Giridih, he moved out of that place. After working for ten years in a government owned bank, my father owned a decent house at Giridih.
Even though we have moved out of our ancestral home, we visit there every now and then. Our visits happened to be more frequent while I was a kid. We went there every year on the eve of Durga Puja, our prime festival and then, during summer vacations. The gathering during the Durga Puja used to be the best five days of the year. There used to be a sense of sacredness in the air. The large idols of Goddess Durga were worshipped on several streets of the town. People waited for months to celebrate this grand festival. I waited for weeks for the start of my Durga Puja vacation to buy new clothes, to go to Madhupur, to be a part of melas with my cousins and family members, to join my bare hands in front of the Goddess of power.
The stay during summer vacations used to be lengthy, usually ranging between a week and a fortnight, thus giving ourselves enough time to mingle with grandmother, uncles and aunts. During those 10-15 days, I, as a kid, was obviously more interested in being in the company of my cousins in my age group. The summer afternoons did no harm to their reputation by keeping the mercury level soaring high. Since electricity is not a 24*7 resource in our part of the country, hand fans were the only respite. The sun beat hard on the soil. Water disappeared from the wells as if it were put on fire. I, along with my cousins, waited for the sun to be merciful as the day gradually progressed towards its end. Arrival of the evening marked indispensable reprieve from cauldron like environment.
The evenings were particularly special for us as they invited vendors who sold ice-cream in their big containers on wheels. The containers were partially filled with solid ice to keep the ice-cream in good shape. The ice-creams were nothing more than small cuboidal pieces of ice in ripe, green mango flavor and others in coconut flavor with thin wooden sticks attached to them. The mango flavored ice-cream cost Re 1 while the coconut flavored one was worth fifty paise.
The vociferous shout of the ice-cream vendor infused astounding energy in our sweating bodies. After acquiring few coins from our mothers, we always rushed barefooted towards the main wooden door through the soil-laden courtyard. The touch of the bottom of feet with the blistering soil acted as sweet pain experienced while journey towards a historic achievement. The coconut-like taste and sourish flavor of ripe mango filled us with joy. Every bite of ice and every drop of flavored cool water (formed by melting of ice) was delight to the tongue. The trace of coolness that ice provided on the inner part of the cheek and the teeth was nothing less than divine elation. We tried to last our ice-creams as long as possible. And if our part of the ice-cream came to an early end, we used to ask for small bites from others. We tried every trick in the book to gain a part of others’ share. Sometimes the tricks worked, sometimes they didn’t.
These days, I live in
Deepawali is the prime festival in this prime city of
Since grass on the other side always looks greener, people from all parts of the country visit this city to earn money and then, to spend it if they succeed to earn any, against every odd. I, as a student, am yet to enter this race of earning money; and then more money. I just spend money that is sent to me by my parents residing at that small, unknown town. It’s just that the denomination in which I spend money these days has multiplied several folds; may be hundred-odd folds. A simple, far-from-extraordinary cold coffee or cappuccino costs around fifty bucks in Barista. A decent meal in a decent restaurant costs above hundred rupees. A vegetarian pizza costs around two hundred bucks at Pizza Hut. I have started visiting these coffee shops and these decent restaurants since last couple of years, thereby increasing my monthly expenditure to an alarmingly high amount; amount that I, as a student, am scared to think of.
But the saddest part of the story is that I don’t find these 50-bucks coffees and 100-bucks meals even half as tasty and satisfying as those fifty-paise and one-rupee ice-creams. Ironically, the cost of the bread doesn’t (and can’t) determine its taste. Money, as they say, can’t buy everything…
But, who knows, I might also become a part of this demeaning city with the passage of time...I can only pray to Goddess Durga to shield me against all evils of this only-money-matters city.
Definitely not a happy summer (vacation!!!..err I mean training) for me, I would say. Since I was only a couple of hundred kilometers away from my hometown, I usually managed to visit my home every now and then. Most of my friends were enjoying their vacations there but there was a serious scarcity of cards-playing-members in our group. So, during one of my visits, we decided to play cards. 29 is the name of the game of cards which almost every Bihari (and Jharkhandi as well!!!) knows. But playing cards is considered a serious offence in our families. It’s a game made for Juadis, they would always say. What to do??? Guys want to play 29 and parents won’t allow. An issue of grave concern! So, three of the most dedicated players, all of them being IITians (including me), sat down to discover a decent enough place to play. Since ours is a very small town and people know each other very well (especially we IITans, lol), it seemed quite a difficult job. Several places were talked about, analyzed, scrutinized and eventually discarded. At last, one of us came up with the weirdest idea of all…The Crematory Place!!! Hardly anyone alive visited that dreadful zone. A nice, quite place on the bank of the monsoon-fed river with few half-burnt corpses waiting for us. I was quick to say yes. The third guy hesitated for a while but the urge inside was so menacing that everything else appeared secondary. So, the grand casino for us was decided. It was just a matter of finding the 4th player. But that issue hardly bothered us. The 4th guy was at a phone-call-distance. One of us had a pack of cards in his house. All problems solved! We all agreed to meet in the evening.
Evening arrived and so did we. The 4th guy was ringed at his home. Unfortunately for us, he was not at his home. It is, indeed, criminal to expect finding people from our group at our respective homes during summer evenings. So, we waited and waited for someone to arrive. We always gather at a pre-decided place so that none of us is left roaming on the streets finding others. (See, we are quite methodical and always plan things wellJ.). Time flew by and we were left wondering when the fourth ‘card-playing-member’ would arrive. It had started getting dark. Finally, the fourth one arrived and we quickly moved towards the abode of non-living lives.
A really captivating place for we Juadis. A Peepal tree, cool breeze blowing, a thirsty river, green fields on the other side of the river, a boundary wall good enough to separate us from the rest of the town, a cemented mundane and most importantly, not a single known and alive face other than four of ours. Perfect scenario! Our eyes lit up with excitement. Good choice, we said to each other with an element of satisfaction over the time we spent planning the diligent space.
We sat down on the dusty, cemented zone. The handkerchief was taken out and spread. The cards started slipping on the handkerchief with crisp perfection. One aspect that separates a classic-cards-player from other players is the panache of letting the cards fly away from his hands and the ease with which cards slip on the surface. If you play cards, you must know its elegance. We were miles away from reaching our peak when the darkness in the environment called the end of the play. We wished we had brought a bulb with us.
Nevertheless, we were glad that we, at least, got the feeling of the smooth cards on our palms. We came out of the crematory talking about the indifferent nature of the stock market during those days, the companies which were relatively safe to bet upon and the way we performed at the grand casino!!! End of a more-than-happy rendezvous with non-living lives. I hastily left for my home as it was time for my early dinner.
Sorry folks, it has been long since have I have scribbled. But what to do!!! I am tethered to such a place where finding internet is as easy as finding penguins in Sahara. I'll continue this blogging as soon as I get back to Delhi....
Life sucks, it truly does....trust me:(
Life, as they say, is full of many more surprises and eldritch events than those in the most enthralling fiction one would ever come across. Just when we think that it is the end of the richest and most eventful experience, life promptly throws one more opportunity to attend something new, something unexpected. On the similar lines, when everything seems to be going right and we feel ourselves to be the best and luckiest person around, Someone makes sure that we know that dreadful times can be just around the corner. A great leveling act…isn’t it? I need to meet this equalizing person (person???).
We always gauge life in terms of victories and defeats, gains and losses, good(s) and bad(s), successes and failures, love and hate, and what not! But the subtle difference between the above mentioned terms is that while all other terms are relative, love and hate are always absolute, to say the least. There are zones beyond the periphery of gains and losses, beyond the boundaries of good and bad, beyond the fringes of success and failure. But everything and everyone seems to lie within the set of love and hate. Right from the first look, we tend to form a certain degree of respect (or disrespect) which gradually changes as we come across it thereafter. The scale of respect (and disrespect) can always be modified into that of love (and hate). Where shall I keep that equalizing person on this scale? Never thought about it! See, I am (of course, pretending to be) too busy a person!!!(lol)
Anyway, coming back to the topic of surprises that life presents, the weirdest of all is the microscopic amount of time (microseconds???) one needs to change his view about something. Knowing the kind of moody (read insane!) person that I am, one can easily guess how quickly my finger moves on the love-hate scale. And delivering no surprises, I woefully inform that the worst hit person in my game of pointing-finger-on-scales is none other than yours truly. Can’t help! Rules of the game are fixed and the show must go on. Casualties are part and parcel of the game. No matter if the injured (or killed) person is the mentor himself. That’s what the audience enjoys. Entertaining the world at one's own cost has a delight of its own.
"That’s the spirit my boy!!!", Someone whispers into my curious ears every now and then.
There are phases in one’s life when empowerment of speech becomes the most appreciated gift of God to him and he just seeks acceptance of one last wish, which, according to him, is as important as the gift of speech---the presence of one such person who can listen all his thoughts, all his feelings, all his plans; that too without making any comment, without yielding any solution, without rendering any appreciation, without pointing any flaw. He solely wishes to read all the remarks, solutions, admirations and transgressions through the medium of continuously changing emotions on the face of the silent listener. Those births and deaths of different horizontal lines on the forehead, those narrowings and widenings of the eyes, those frequent changes in the curves traced by the lips of the trusted listener are supposed to generate indispensable, invisible words that the speaker’s eyes can easily decipher. The idea of transferring thoughts from our own mind and heart to someone else’s using audible words as protocol and then deriving response in the form of facial words brings holy peace to mind and soul…Trust me…
It is just a matter of finding one such person! Easier said than done...:)
We live with ourselves 24 hours a day and we still struggle to define ourselves. We find it difficult to guess how we will conduct in a given situation. We live in an environment where we need to prove our credibility, our potential, our transcendence every now and then. And the worst part of the job is that we always need to establish ourselves in the eyes of those whom we love and believe in. We are constantly gazed at by the eyes of our community and surroundings. We are always on trial!
At times, this scenario makes life difficult and repressing as well. We are usually scared of what our loved ones would think of us if they come to know the literal human being inside us. In order to confront this arduous job of pleasing others, we generally wear masks and feign to be virtuous in front of others. In fact, the masks continue to change as we encounter different people. And continuous compliance to this pretence for a certain period of time buries our original face somewhere deep inside us. We tend to forget and sometimes, ignore what we actually are made up of.
In such a play script, some of our inherent feelings get submerged and are often not allowed to come out. There are certain forces and urges inside us that are blocked down for the sake of shamming. The posture of a rebel, a maverick and an outspoken person are asked to take a backseat for maneuvering this delusive task.
Why are we always asked to alter ourselves in order to shift into the comfort zone of the society? Do we constitute the society or is it the other way around? For how long shall we live pretending ourselves to be benevolent towards the wily society?
We ought to discover our actual character before we completely lose ourselves. But knowing ourselves is generally as difficult as detecting water in a desert. One way to let the dormant energy inside us pop up is by arguing with ourselves in rugged situations. Let us be honest to ourselves; fight against ourselves; and even be cruel to ourselves just to know what steel we are made up of. Character is defined by what we do when left alone. And we must adopt the same rules while being constantly stared by vicious eyes of the society. Let everybody know what we actually are. No fear, no pretence, no hiding. If you love me for what I am---Great. And even if you hate me for what I am---Great!!!
49.5% - This number has succeeded in bewildering and to some extent, scaring masses over the last couple of weeks. Though I wished to write about it just after the declaration of this vicious reservation policy, I took my time to hunt the pros and cons assorted to it. I googled and came out with some interesting but blue results.
Let us first see what exactly this reservation policy holds in its core. I will not reserve myself just talking about 27% reservation for what they call OBCs but include few issues related to 22.5% reservation for SC/ST category as well. This highly-talked-about idea of reservation of seats in different institutions handled by government was first pronounced by Dr. B R Ambedkar, the creator of our constitution. It might be an interesting fact for few people that Dr. B R Ambedkar himself was a part of the backward section of the newly independent Indian society. He had probably witnessed the problems that the people of his community suffered with and hence, thought of erasing those problems by aiding them with this reservation policy. When this policy was first implemented, it was decided that it would be ceased once those socially backward people come at par with the non-backward section of the society.
No problems till now! Indian society moved on with this reservation policy and the backwards went on enjoying the reservation and slowly we reached the stage while V P Singh was enjoying his few golden years of his life as the PM of the largest democracy. Mandal commission had submitted its report about the socially backward and uneducated class of the society in 1980 and based upon it, reservation was supposed to be implemented during V P Singh’s era.
Let us see what Mr. B P Mandal had to say about Indian society. According to him, there are as many as 3743 castes and communities belonging to the OBC category which constitutes 52% of the Indian population. Moreover, it was already declared that around 25% of Indian population belongs to SC/ST category. So, class 2 Mathematics says that around 75% of Indian population is backward%, oh yes you read it correctly, 75%. Fantastic result! Isn’t it? There are few more such antic results to follow. Carry on.
There are 11 indicators which form the backbone of the results of the Mandal Commission. They are subdivided into 3 categories—Social, Educational and Economic. The 11 indicators for deciding OBCs are:
Educational
Economic
Though these indicators may sound perfectly normal at first look to many people, it has a number of loopholes which can be (and are!) easily exploited. Few of the above mentioned points are quite acceptable but some of them are very hazy and hence, controversial.
In 1990, the amendment in the constitution for 27% reservation was proposed in the Parliament but it broke the backbone of the government and Mr. V P Singh had to eventually resign.
Everything settled down. No reservation for OBCs but SC/ST categories continued enjoying the gratifying 22.5% reservation. 2006 arrives and this time, Arjun Singh comes up with a similar proposal for 27% reservation for OBC students in government educational institutions including IITs and IIMs. Here again, furor and protests rose from every corner of
Let’s see the crux of the problem. A generally-category-student scores 75 marks in a highly competitive entrance examination only to lose the seat to a reserved-category-student who scored mere 55. Result—that general-category-student will never be satisfied with this policy of undue inclination towards a reserved-category-student. It will obviously germinate the seeds of hatred against students obtaining preference over him. Moreover, the institution has to admit a student who is less meritorious than few others students who wrote the examination. The only gainer seems to be the student who enjoys the admission in the dandy institution just because he belongs to SC/ST/OBC category. Talking about the profit of the nation, it gained a student who is far less meritorious; it gained the hatred against reserved people and thus, disunity! Nation got richer!!!
But, is that the end of the story? No, not at all! Let’s confer what that student confronts once he enters the high-profile institution. He is asked to keep pace with those students who scored around 90 in the entrance examination. The result is quite obvious. He finds it difficult to match the demands of a cruel environment and generally falls behind. In some cases, he even struggles to secure the degree in the specified duration. Is this the kind of progress they look for??? I wonder!
The scenario is not very different in other fields as well. Even in jobs, they scramble against people who are much more meritorious. But, there is an interesting result to follow. Among people having annual earnings more than Rs. 50,000 in government jobs, the average salary of a SC/ST category person is nearly twice of that of a general category person, thanks to ultra-quick promotions through reservation policy. Though it contributes to better lives for reserved people at the expense of general category people, what nation loses is the service of people who are much more meritorious.
The problem is that the fruits of this policy never reach the section of the society that really needs it. It is always enjoyed by the richer section of the reserved class which has the capability to earn bread on its own. The poorer class is always deprived of the yields of this policy and thus, its condition never changes. In fact, it always shifts from bad to worse.
But the million dollars is question is—what is the solution of this problem? How can both these issues be taken care of? We can’t ignore one of them for the sake of other. It is a well known truth that merit is not the sole property of the forward section of the society. If given a chance, the backward class can also gain the skills needed to match shoulders in different spheres. So, there should be certain reservation for the economically backward people (in form of certain seat reservation and free education) at the primary level, say primary schools, so that they get equal opportunities to read and write and learn and as the person moves to the higher levels, the reservation should be gradually diminished so that it results to absolutely zero reservation when it comes to job prospects. This option serves the socially and economically backward section of the society without the interest of the forward class being hampered. Moreover, the nation will also gain the best hands to serve it. I sincerely hope that such an environment shapes up where every person of the society, no matter which class or creed or section he belongs to, gets fair and equal opportunity and that will be in the best interest of the nation.
