beingdesh

Category: Flashback

  • Positive thoughts?

    Life has been a bit off colour lately, as if what happened last month wasn’t enough here I am at home, for the past two weeks, eating boiled food and fruits and sleeping like kumbhakaran throughout the day. In the past few days I have developed love for idlis and extreme hatred for daliya, spinach, hospital and medicines. In a lazy weak format, deprived of all the chutputa food and chutputy bakar in the world here is a man just lying in his room, and bored. And uff, this needle on my hand bugs me.

    Given I sleep so much I am having my fair share of dreams, and they have been mostly horrifying. From playing with my worst fears and flirting with my weirdest nightmares they have ensured that I don’t sleep that soundly. To fight with them, I go on kickstart my own train of thoughts, those lovely memories which have kept me happy over the past few years now.

    So everytime I wake up from a bad thought here is what I do, I close my eyes, take a deep breath and think of:

    Omlettes: Of the lovely ones I had in Goa, or on that Trihun trek (with a chai sipper, choc eater, and great driver), ones which are so videshi with minimal spices and loads of cheese, ones with all the masala tones of green chilies and kanda. World’s best anda bhurji at Andheri station, or that decent one which I used to have at SP mess to help me go through with the food, or the egg biryani be at Raj Palace, or be it at Paradise Hyderabad. And those lovely Gadar Andes I cooked along with Abhishek at Gurgaon with loads of Jeera.

    Indori Food: Well I have talked about it so many times, but aloo ki kachori at lal balti/GSITS, poha/jalebi anywhere, sawariya ki sabudana khichdi, namkeen (double laung), Sarafa ki galiyo main Jaleba, shikanji, vijay chaat house ki batla patties, joshiji ke dahi vade, bhutte ka kis, garadu, gurukripa main bhojan, aur ghar pe mangode aur daal baafle. Did I mention mawa baati, shikanji and ASPI? Indore mahaan hai.

    Lazy trips: With mostly nothing to do apart from changing CDs in car, pepping up the greatest driver in the world by offering him cans of Red Bull, eating dhaba food, enjoying the scenery, talking to other car-mates. Jannat.

    Dosa: I have never tasted Dosas better than Bangalore or Korba’s Indian Coffee House. Both of them stand out. Bangalore’s Vidhyarthi Bhavan being my favorite, enjoyed with Atishay Bhaiyas khilkhilati hasi and Ananda’s coffee gulping on the day when India beat Aussies at Perth post the monkeygate match. Or the World beater Benne Dosa or Paddu served at that small shop on the way to Basvangudi, or staple on treats (just 11 rs back then) of which I had 11 in Davangare once.

    Aloo Parathas: I fell in love with them in Shimla, they were like Sharmila Tagore of Aradhna, young, hot, shiny with all the makkhan on them, I was like Kaka eager to fall in Love and make the haseen galti of munching those daily morning before I started my day. For one and half month everything in Shimla bored us, Aloo Parathas were our only hope. I tasted the ones at Moolchand once, and for me the taste is still there on some part of my tounge.

    Naturals: More than ice cream Natural’s was a remedial place, I used to take hopeless friends there, enjoy the first cup listening to them (grunts which I mostly ignored) and the second talking crap to them (which I enjoyed). There was seldom the third one (with just one exception with whom chances of fourth came up) but I loved the place. 28 Rs. bought them a malai or a tender coconut and more than that peace of their mind. Lokhandwaala one with its shoftu couch was better.

    These were a few positive thoughts, I need more, help me. Maybe I think its just the overdose of spinach and lauki speaking here…

    ————————————————————————————————————————————————–

    If down, how do you get back to thinking positively?

    ————————————————————————————————————————————————–

  • Main meebo hoon…

    Eeeeee…it hurts. Its so strong, so bright, so yellow. And he closed the eyes. He tried again.

    Ufff…too much. I will wait.

    He was sitting, he had opened his eyes for the first time and found it difficult to just keep it like them. The sun was just too strong for him.

    He opened them again, it was beautiful, it was all green now, all that was yellow had turned into a deep orange hanging somewhere on top. He felt happy. He tried to stand, he fell. He couldn’t stand, his legs were just too weak. But he sat there, he felt comfortable in the greens around him. He was sitting next to two white long rods, on the other ends he saw some beautiful colors dancing around, blue, red, pink, black, lots of colors. A little later they all went away, and it started turning black, the beautiful orange amongst the blue was gone. He was scared and he closed his eyes again.

    He woke again, too tired, his throat was dry, he needed something, he tried to stand again and this time he stood, and stood there for sometime. He started moving away from the pole and he fell. He tried again and it worked this time. He was walking.

    He started walking, he saw a spray in the middle of the green, he went towards it, a bit of that went into his mouth. He felt good. He had more of it, and he felt even better. He felt he was ready to move. All this time he was missing something, he didn’t know what, but he was missing something for sure.

    There was a pool of that liquid created on the ground, and the sun was shining brightly on top of it. And he saw someone in it. He was scared, so he walked away, and so did the someone. He realized that it was him, he had seen himself for the first time, pale, four legs, weak, two ears which stood up, and slightly yellow as that light which he had first seen. But not that bright.

    He started walking towards the end of the grass, there were green trees on top he crossed a sort of a mound and heard a few screechy sounds…”bow, bow, eeeeeeee….” suddenly a similar voice burst out of him, maybe they were the ones he was looking for, they were the ones missing. He started running towards the sound. He saw two of them much larger than him being dragged into a wooden box, and there two more, exactly looking like him being dragged into a wooden box by two tall brown people. They were shouting, but they moved inside a blue big box which whizzed away on the clean grey roads.

    It all seemed grey, maybe he knew who they were, but maybe he will never know them, and he didn’t know who he was, all that he saw was grey in front of him and he felt a growing heat under his feet so he started walking. He found trees around him and on his left he found a path which was white he moved onto it.

    It was nice and cool there, there large white and cream colored structures on both his sides, and pavement which was fitted with white and brick red tiles, on the three way he took a right and walked. There were tow large buildings on both his sides and he saw green again in front of him, he jumped there again and he closed his eyes.

    ” Dekh dekh, waha amisha aur uska boyfriend hai, arre unhone dekh liya, bhaago”

    This noise woke him up, it was dark already and there bright lights all over him. The trees were hardly visible, he saw three guys running from there, and then he saw two people sitting on bench, one with long beautiful hair and the second, a tall guy. Both of them were very close.

    He thought he will walk so he started going ahead on the pavement and took a right, he thought he again came back on the greys, he was tired and weak again, so he slept.

    Thuck. He woke up.

    It was bright again and someone had thrown a yellow long something at him, it smelled good, he licked it, he felt a nice sensation in his mouth he saw lot of beautiful bright colored people walking around. On top they were black and light brown, below they were of multiple colors, as he had seen earlier on the greens. People with long hair, people with short, both distinctly different.

    He was still missing something.

    And then he started walking along with them, he was not scared, but all of sudden he thought were they the same people who had taken those who were similar along. As he was thinking someone threw things at him, he felt a pain and they started making loud sounds, he was scared. But then he felt something on his back. It was that thing which was missing, it was the touch of someone who cared.

    He looked at her, he felt amazing, she was so nice. He started walking with her, and kept walking. And then she picked him up and took him to a huge hall. It was huge and bright and there lot of brightly colored people. One of them in blue with shiny black hair came and sat next to her and asked “Who’s this?”. She told ” He’s nice na, think of a name”. The guy told “Meebo”.

    “Meebo!!!”. He smiled and felt happy, he knew what he had missed, he had seen all colors and smelled beautiful things and tasted some nice stuff, but he had missed the sense of being with someone who cared. And he had finally got it.

    He looked at both of them, they were looking in front now, and she gently patted her back. He finally knew who he was.

    “Main Meebo hoon…”

  • Scooter ki Sawari

    Scene 1: I was behind him, on 4th gear but always afraid to go a bit faster, my foot always flirting with the foot brake, and then something strange happened. Bhippu was sitting behind him, and he the fearless Jubhash riding his bottle green some plain looking bajaj turned back, and said namaste. All this while the scooter kept speeding ahead of me.

    Scene 2: We were standing at our regular adda, doing bakbak, and the girl passed. The girl on the pink ladybird (well there were so many of them during those days), and Jubhash again went mad, he picked up Seepak’s awesome hulky looking cream LML and went behind her, I don’t know why but he went behind her. His best buddy Taanu accompanied him.

    He came back after 10 minutes, and then something strange happened, he stopped the scooter, and raised his hand, the clutch came out and he gave it to Seepak. He drove it for half a km without a clutch in place!!!

    Scene 3: He told me to release the clutch dheere dheere, and move the accelerator up at the same pace. Unlike making him run while learning the bicycle this was much much relaxing, and I learnt it in one day. He told me about his first scooter, a Vijay Super (made by UP government factory to capitalized on the growing demand and limited supply by Bajaj) which was bought by my dadaji.

    Putting it on stand and locking the scooter took maximum time to learn.

    Scene 4: Me and him and his Jijaji’s scooter. It was a very pale looking Bajaj, well past its prime, but we roamed around the empty roads of Gandhinagar on that, eating paratha shaak, sipping Trupti lassi and Gh-0 soda on the way back. All my bank work, taking people to Civil hospital, going to R-World, everything was done on that. It just went on and on, and I think finally it died a silent death, although much used it was, and it had a painful life. I wish we had treated it in a better way.

    Scene 5: I entered from the Kaveri Vihar end, parked the scooter there, and my friend used to enter from the Yamuna Vihar end, parking the scooter there, I always used to take aloo-pyaaz in the end, he used to buy it first. Subzi market in the township was the place where one realized the true power of a scooter. It was so easy to carry tonnes of it near your feet, and you can always show a thenga to bike guy on the Tuesday and Friday, days when weekly subzi market was there.

    Scene 6: It was my birthday, and it was bhoko’s birthday. Guys from NTPC were brilliant, they drove scooters, guys from MPEB had one thing in common, everyone drove Sunny, that plastic bag covering a m-80 which used to be present back in 90s. Tiddu thought he would drive bhoko’s Sunny and thrashed it to an electric pole.

    And then some one took a condom (one gifted to us on our 16th birthday!!!), blew it, and put it behind someone’s scooter, and they drove it away, wonder what happened next!!!

    Scene 7: Both of us went for back to back movies to R-World, it was strange and very rainy day and we were walking back. When we reached the highway, there was no auto, no tempo, no truck giving lift. We walked to the corner of the road to take a leak, I still remember the scene, lightening, empty roads, and everything very very wet. So both of us started emptying our tankers near a set of empty drums. He finished and started walking, I was about to and then something strange happened, someone screamed from within that pile of drums,

    “Kaun hai be, bhaag jaao”

    And he started running, and I followed holding my loose jeans, and we kept running and running (it was my first interaction with the supernatural and it literally took my pants off). We stopped after some 10-15 minutes and it was still raining loads. And then came a guy on scooter and offered both of us a lift. Was he a god, trying to save us from the evil?

    10 minutes later the scooter stopped, he asked us to push it, it didn’t work. We checked the tank and the petrol was over. No point now. Then he laughed and laughed. And then he and his Scooter started and whoosh he went. Both of us were scared, but we walked the next 8-9 KM and somehow managed to reach the beautiful DAIICT.

    ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

    The post title is inspired from the Sudarshan’s classic Cycle ki Sawari. They were just my experiences with scooter, the best vehicle I have driven till date, adventures, racing, supernatural etc. Do you have any interesting scooter stories to share?

    ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

    Featured image from my instagram feed

  • Block 83

    When you leave school for college, a million things run in your mind, staying away from your family for the first time, the kind of people you will end up meeting in college, who will be your roommate, will the newly earned freedom be at the cost of something etc etc.

    Cut back to 2002 when a few innocent souls stepped in dusty sec-7 of Gandhinagar, a Colonel with shiny bald head and a glowing moustache showing us the not so impressive facility, and curly haired friendly gujju guy showing us our rooms. We were nervous, most of us were accompanied by our parents who were equally concerned if not more.

    So I entered the wing on the 2nd floor, very jarjarr apartments, seemed like they will break down soon, decently sized one room apartments with wooden cupboards and loads of dust. First thing which most of us bought there were plastic buckets. My room mate was Kamsi Vrishna but he had moved out to some PG in Sec-2 looking at the hostel condition with Dagar Sas. So I was alone in the room.

    In front of us used to lived Kayur with pea-cockish hairstyle, always stuck onto the metal seat, his roomie Panabesh, sainik school import, reminded me initially a lot of the lafoots in townships :), front door had Ghaitanya and Saveen (famously known as Charra later on). Other inmates were Copolla a distant relative of the francis ford coppola khaandaan and an extremely religious guy in the first year , so was his roomie Gaibhav Vupta.

    Then there was my awesome roomie Sajeev, oily haired bespectacled simpleton from Vizag on his way to be a changed man (four years down the line…kaafi change :)), who escaped from the neighboring wing as his room mate was an abusive chap. He came in and we both got the honour of being each other’s roomies for the next four years.

    Then there was a quite room, of Jrateek and Pandheer, mostly busy educating themselves I assume, quite simple I was the least interested in padhai in the block.

    But then there were few whom were brainwashed by me, Jaran Kaine with his beautiful legs, Sajjwal Ungal with his already faded Pepe jeans (asking our hotel supervisor for happening places in gandhinagar), a self proclaimed rock music bhakt Krinal and Jineet Vain with his shaggy doo like walk and ability to call da as ra.

    Frequent visitors included Sabhishek who used to dance his hear out in the wing with Saveen ( and our neighboring old uncle almost had an heart attack due to the hulla), LKP for aalasya, Grasoon at times, Nand, the 82 block gang including gex suru tonu, mhinav abhishra, Kakshat etc. Also we had a lot of visitors in Panabesh’s room which included Jarun Vain, and all.

    Just thought would remember all of them today, lost contact with many of them, but awesome days they were.

  • Desi Ud

    Its been a long time since I wrote about a movie. But Udaan is something which certainly deserves a “writing”.

    Udaan reminded me of a zillion things, although I am always nostalgic about one thing or another, Udaan certainly brought a lot of those memories in picture. Few striking memories were of Banu and Jubhash’s adventures at Mohan talkies with Bhishra sir (names changed to hide identities); me and my friends visiting chattan (we could view chimneys from there, sitting in peace, and that was a place few friends actually tried out chimney smoking too :)); just roaming around the township with its beautiful gardens, well manicured lawns, nice big houses with garden and jhoola; doing stupid kaands in school; a self-destructed diary with good amount of writings and many more. Lot of things which stay in my conscious but I generally don’t talk about also came up. But every thing in a good sense.

    Like Rohan even I am confused, and so are most of us, but the age is different. At Rohan’s age one had the chance to take a decision, we are past that, its mostly too late for anything radical now.

    About the movie, I just loved it from scene to scene, Rohan’s performance, his kid bro and that of chacha Ram Kapoor. But what I really liked was Ronit Roy’s anger puffed stern looks, I always thought of him as a successful businessman with a hit romantic (Jaan Tere Naam, awesome songs) and then a big TV star (Mihir 2, I am cutoff with TV post Mihir 1, so didn’t really know about his acting that much), but never knew he could come up with such a brilliant one.
    The setting of the movie is pretty authentic, take apart my nostalgia, it really is real, and then there is the end which was good again. My favorite song from the movie is Azaadiyan, but I really love all the songs and they just keep playing on my playlist all day long.

    Another development with the movie is that few of my friends came to know about me watching this movie alone. Alone and You they said. Few inquired about my tabiyat, few about my mental state, few asked that am I happy with work or not, I just said maybe I have grown older :). Well I should say that it isn’t that boring to watch a movie alone, just that you cant finish the PopCorn alone (I certainly can’t). Too much of a shock for my new shauk of watching movies alone!

    Its late at night now, and I am working, felt sleepy so thought would write this down in the break. That day when I ran off for this movie I was stuck, mind wasn’t working the right way, the movie helped me be fresh, feel positive and super happy sorts after a long time. I felt a connect with Rohan and the settings, quite simply I felt there was just too much of me in the movie.

    About writing, have lost a few, have thrown away a few, now considering should I be more serious about them? Lets see, quite a simple trigger I received during the movie.

    And I think its time to get back to work again, too much of sitting and working nowadays and too much eating too, I think I will become MotuMaster soon :).

    But I should be lighter, otherwise people won’t raise their fingers when someone says “Desi Ud” in the cult-game “Chidiya-Ud”, surely time for me to fly.

    Right now, it would be back to work and then some sleep.

  • Left Behind Part 2

    Down there, next to the hot fish plate and shiny gravels, she just lies there, she belonged to someone stupid, someone ever so simple, disturbed, but happy at times, someone who always loved the smaller nuances of life, someone who cherished the company of people being around, someone had been changing recently, someone who had changed forever.

    Between those blue shiny covers, and the plastic bound ringlets, were 200 pages, around 180 off of them inked with someone’s thoughts. Someone knew that he is going to have a few missing ones in his life soon, and he was prepared for it, the blue notebook was his way out, of keeping all of them together with him forever.

    A a half eaten pack of jalebis & some other rotten food is on the same track & is close by the blue notebook, she is unphased by the million flies which surround the neighboring jalebis, & she is still buzzing with a million stories which was part of someone’s life till a few days back.

    Not long back was someone confused, now he had sort of realized what his mind was upto & he knew its going to be difficult as few missing ones dominated the blue notebook, much more than others, & some of them might permanently go missing, despite how hard he tried.

    But loosing them was his mistake maybe, why did he throw the blue notebook off and left her behind.

    Blue notebook feels sad for someone, & is happy that she was left behind, not long back when someone hardly used to sleep and used to be stressed out, he used to read her at times, and used to poke her sometimes pen, but then after going out of the place, someone never left the blue notebook alone. Blue notebook was always tired as someone never left her alone, and continuously browsed through the memories of the missing ones. He felt a jolt of happiness at times, but notebook mostly saw a sad face, which she wanted to run away from. She feels ok now on the track, even if she is in the middle of nowhere.

    As for someone, he has lost his track & hopes that he finds his direction again. Although he won’t mind being lost too.

    [Left Behind Part 1 was on something else… but I really like that post]

  • Bachpan ka Hawww, Bani Jawani Ki awww…

    Remember when we were kids and,

    • Someone fired an abuse like the dreaded S Word
    • Someone’s pant dropped by mistake
    • Someone choked up after going on stage

    Or when we were even smaller kids,

    • Someone wetted/soiled their pants
    • Someone forgot the multiplication table of 6

    we all used to say Hawww…followed by a handsome serving of shame shame, and even pappi shame.

    But as kids become older, and become much more mature, and much more facebook-ish, they found newer avenues and awww… came into being

    Awww… for me and a few others is the most irritating expression ever invented, it smells, sounds & looks very artificial. My first tryst with awww… came during the much forgettable days at vyapaar school, where ever pic on facebook was celebrated as an event of great victory & awww-ness.

    Then there were always those awww… girls, or awww… sisters as someone called them a few days back, they connected with a bond which ran through their cheeks, all the pics were loaded on facebook, cheek to cheek, neck slightly tilted, and a firey grin to top it up, and then followed up with a zillion aww-full comments. I think this is something which runs across all the b-schools as I have recently noticed.

    Awww moments are not only female centric, they can be a male phenomenon as well, where supposedly cute n hot girls click pics with sincere and honest guys (our yearbook describes everyone in the batch like that), and then people post the same aww-some comments.

    Some people like it, some dont, I certainly don’t, its sometimes like the screeching sound of thermocol, or that of fingernails on blackboard for me, but everyone is free to use whatever they want to, people might the same about my pet MAHAAN, so its ok.

    I am just trying to point out a trend, that’s it…awww…kay.

    p.s.: name is inspired from a famous writing which shows quite a lot on the wall paintings from Gwalior en route to Delhi on Indian Railways 🙂

  • Being Chintu


    /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

    Its strange. Its strange because I never wanted it this way. But after SP it sort of became quite prevalent, especially among few around me. Self discovery is some call it, LMA is something which we used to call it earlier (Leave Me Alone). Even I succumbed to it at times.

    I am too much a people people person, something which have been re-emphasized with my second entry in Mumbai, and it has just taken me a week to realize that I am in between a set of awesome people, some people who resonate with my areas of interest (56873 on last count)…

    So there is the lonely state, and the people people state, and I obviously prefer the latter, the kind I have been for most of my life.

    But this time around there is a Chintu state I have to deal with. Chintu is short for Chintan, the mode in which I enter nowadays, mostly when I am alone, or sometimes even between striking some awesome conversations something puts me into Chintu orbit. I just shut down and get into my chintu mood.

    I want to be just the people people kind again, Mumbai part-2 offers an opportunity to achieve that with a set of good nice people around & few old ones who are simply too awesome, but some things just keep moving me to being chintu.

    So what are the other options I have, maybe nothing as of now, but time will make things easier I believe. The only thing I know is I don’t want to be chintu, I just want to be like the old times again, pattu are you hearing?

  • The Times of Holi – Edition 1

    Sometime in 1996, somewhere in Chhattisgarh

    “Bhaiya kuch fugge (balloon) dena, arre yeh nahi, who paani waale”

    “Lo Beta, 5rs ke 100, rang wagera chahiye”

    “nahi bhaiya, who le liya, Thank you”

    Tomorrow is Holi time, this time it has fallen in between the exam, but we will play. Holi requires hell lot of preparations and we are all ready for that. I have my entire arsenal ready,

    • 2 packets of Gulaal– my favourite- Yellow and Violet, the weirdest of combos
    • 2 packs of water waala colour, 1 Solid (choti bottle), one regular in both red & green
    • This year I have given away with pichkari, no use, small streams of water are of no use, metal pichkaris as shown in Sholay are not good too. Me and my friends have come up with a set of plastic bottles, cut & twisted to form nice pichku devices with maximum impact
    • Fuggas which need to be made into chotu hand grenades filled with water color
    • A set of old clothes, the only festival in the world where o0ne wears that. Although on television nowadays they show people wearing Super White clothes on Holi I think it’s a stupid idea. Every year this was the day when we dispatched our worst clothes (mostly torn by EOD). Although one of my friends use to wear the same trouser every year for holi (something which I tried on later)

    I woke up early, and we did a small pooja at home. Post that I applied Parachute Nariyal Tel on my body & face and hair. A yucky feeling but its ok, as everyone says it will help in removing the colour later on. And then I move out of C-655 Kaveri Vihar.

    Apart from Patricks, there is no one else, so we put some gulaal on each other and moved to the row behind. This row has been amazing for my childhood, where I have played everything from Racetrip when electricity goes, to pitthul, kabbadi and obviously cricket. So we played holi here with everyone with our entire arsenal. All my grenades were transferred to a terrace and fired from there.

    Although as always there are two types of people everywhere, Good and Bad. We were obviously the good lot, and the bad ones use on Holi day are the ones who use Silver Paint, Grease, and play with even Gobar at times. Also they whistle and say bad stuff when didi log from our township go around on holi. All dirty people…

    After the first round we reload our arsenal and move towards Nucleus club where the whole of township assembles. Everything is arranged, from drums full of colour, pipes throwing up chilled water and water tankers supplying hell lot of it, holi style dhinchak music, jalebis and bhaijyas, my friends from all over the township, thandai (2 types, one for us, one for uncles with something called bhang in it which is like alcohol I heard). It ends with food packets.
    After playing for a long time, its back home and then the efforts to wash off the colours, and its bad if someone has put some paint or grease on you, bad people. Next day in school everyone would turn with pink cheeks and multicoloured hands. Holi also brings a lot of tiredness and a nice sleep on that day.

    Also the sad part is like Navratri it always either falls on sideline or in between an exam. Horrible timing for such an awesome festival, but I will always enjoy celebrating it.

    Never better than at Korba…

    This year I didn’t celebrate it after quite sometime, hoping this never happens again and keep on enjoying my favorite festival.

    Hope you have read the Navratri collection,

  • कहानी २५ पैसे के बोरकुट की

    On all those cycle journeys back from school me, my namesake and few more friends spent most of our time chit-chatting, drinking water from my Milton bottle and taking numerous stops. Strangely each stop and its activity was the same for years.

    The school was some 15 mins from our home Krishna Vihar in morning (or even at 10 mins at times), but in afternoon it took us half hour or more. We had 3 stops, first in Yamuna Vihar (water drinking and discussion on girls and on latest Kaands in school stop), Kaveri Vihar Market (detour from our route, chedu’s pravachan, his our fascinations of kimberly drummond (different strokes) & ms. winslet of titanic and experiments with sanskrit :)), and finally the borkut stop :D…

    Borkut stop was our final frontier of freedom, 1Re coin helping us buy 4 of them, we were usually 3, so one for each and then carefully splitting the final pack in 3 parts. Or mixing borkut with aamkut and imlikut just at 25p :). Borkut is btw a pachak product made from Jungli Ber’s power along with chatpata masala (like hajmola). Aamkut is amde form raw mango and imlikut from dried tamarind.

    Those were the days were a rupee bought me that much pleasure. Jalebi in those days was Rs. 40 a kg and we were full in 5Rs.

    And yesterday whn I stpped out with another of my namesakes we spent 98 Rs for 2 pieces of Jalebi and 2 Pieces of Gulaabjaamun. Oh I forgot 5ml of Rabdi which accompanied it. Felt bad, but world has changed.

    And so have we…