beingdesh

Category: Friends

  • A Very Long Walk to Freedom

    There is a continuous buzz in my ear, but I neglect that and keep running. I see him clearly, the colors are crystal clear, Hi Definition, and beautifully bright, even in the pitch black darkness of night. I can see the rolling ball at his feet, about to leave them, but still hesitant, like a first-time school going kid. I can’t see him now, I can just see the ball as it starts curling towards me, wait curling away from me! I dive and snatch it out of the sweaty, seafood-smelling air. I stopped a certain goal. But now it is my head which is curling.

    I am high. I think I am on a beach. A few hours back I was on my campus writing my final examination. I can’t recollect events post that, but I can piece together a sequence of images- phone calls, a run towards Bandra Terminus, a ticket bought for Vapi, lots of beer and whisky picked up on the way, a bottle of beer breaking. Oh yes, I remember now. I am in Daman.

    It is new years eve and a group of football-loving, women-hating young men (or the so called losers) have accompanied each other on a short trip to Daman.

    And yes, I am on a beach. There is sand. There is a small shack cooking chicken and frying fish for us. There is a small campfire. There is music. There are a billion bottles of beer and a trillion empty pegs of whisky. There are people- my good friends, my acquaintances and few unknowns.

    But where the hell is water???

    All of a sudden I shudder. Am I actually on a beach? I am walking on a thin rope between the real and the surreal, and I am afraid of falling, just that I don’t want to be on either side.

    I do the normal checks by pinching myself. I go ahead and slap one of my friends and he abuses me back with his favorite abuse. Oh yes, maybe things are real. I am actually on a beach with no water. Is it possible?

    The clock is about to strike 12 and I am feeling awkward about things. I corner a couple of my friends and ask them have they thought about the no water on the beach thing yet? I see a look of negligence on their faces, maybe they have known it all throughout, even they are walking the same rope. Their look changes to one of curiosity, their eyes burning with inquisitiveness. We look at each other. Let’s go and find the bloody damn water!

    We start walking towards the pitch black horizon. It is a moonless cloudy night, with minimal tinges of shiny sprinkles on the pitch black sky. So there is no reflection on the seabed. We do feel the wet sand touching our feet after walking some distance, but there is water yet. No sound of tides. No boat on the distant horizon. I still think we all are dreaming.

    Three of us have left our friends far behind, the sounds have died, the fire we had lighted on the beach is slowly smoldering now, it’s all in the past. We are standing in the middle of nowhere with a wet feel on our feet, and see a sea of nothingness in front of us. My ear is still buzzing. I think it’s the alcohol. But I hear water. I look towards my friends, and even they heard it. We start running towards nothingness.

    Splash.

    One of my friends falls tripping over a small puddle of water. We have found some water and there is hope to find much more ahead. We keep running. We have left everything behind, our friends, our fears, our inhibitions, and maybe ourselves.

    A few seconds later our feet start touching the foamy beginnings of the sea, and we are there, in between the saltiness, and gushiness of sea-water. We jump into it. All three of us. The water is cold, cold enough to take the heat of alcohol from our brains and the buzz from my ear. A sense of freedom creeps in, a freedom for all what we feared of. I know it is all real.

    After regaining some sense we know it was a low tide day and the water had receded quite far away from the shore. As we are sitting in water, we can listen to the sounds of our friends rejoicing, few fireworks go up in the air. It is the start of a new year. It is a new beginning.

    As we begin our long walk back towards the shore laughing at ourselves, we leave behind the darkness and move towards a bright, hopeful new year.

  • Spicy Hot Summer, Served With Buffalo Dip

    There are summers, and then there is that idiotic summer.

    I was interning with an organization studying tribal arts in the Rathwa tribe dominated Chota Udaipur region of Gujarat. In a constantly sweltering Sun, which was seldom in mood to bend itself below 45 odd degrees, we roamed across villages exploring styles of Pithora Paintings and scouting opportunities to work on other tribal art forms.

    There are summers, and then there is that romantic summer.

    I remember squeezing out time to go through multiple books at the same time. I fell in love with Arwen from Lord of the Rings and the landscapes of Shire as described by Tolkien, before the book eventually consumed me. I fell in love with villages, with the way Indians lived, took pride in our deep heritage and diverse art forms, and developed a significant admiration for tribal women with their shiny skin and confident demeanor.

    There are summers, and then there is that delicious summer.

    From the 10 year old kid who took me behind his hut at night to mix Gin for me in a earthen pot, to the old uncle who showed me the distillation process for Mahua made liquor, I discovered the existence of Alcohol. I remember taking the first sip, and it was hot, as hot as the Sun on top, it burned my food pipe for a second, but left a deliciously hot aftertaste. Then there was my new found addiction for soft-drinks (the one I always regretted), to unbelievably and brightly colorful Re. 1 shaved-ice candies, popularly termed Jaundice flavored candies by my Professor. But the taste which stayed for me forever was having Huge Makai Rotlas (Maize-Flour Bread, almost 10 inches in diameter), served with spicy hot red-chili garlic dry chutney.

    There are summers, and there is the one that comes alive.

    “You look like a Yamraj”, my friend shouted.

    “I am one, bwhahahaha”, I replied.

    Here I was on one of those idiotic summer days sitting comfortably on a buffalo-back, rekindling my romance with my sense of freedom, with a couple of delicious drops of water flying from the pond and vaporizing of my parched tongue.

    Earlier in the day we had helped our host in the village with some clean-up of his house and then offered to help him take his buffalos for a cleanup. But as I cleaned the buffalos in the village nahar, I slowly soaked in the mood, and didn’t even realize when it became a little adventure involving me and my friend, our host’s son, his friends and the friendly buffalos. We all took a dip in the small pool which had formed at the side of the village stream, saving ourselves from the occasional burst of energy by the head banging buffalos. It was even better with them laying in pool with us climbing on backs, playing “desi” cowboys, or enacting Yamraj and feeling awesome about acting stupidly.

    And suddenly in that one moment everything I did that summer came together, all those images of intense summer heat, beautiful paintings, the earthen pot distillation unit, that spicy chili garlic chutney. And my summer came to life, with a bit of spice, and lovely Buffalo dip.

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    Have you ever gone dipping with Buffaloes in a village pond? Or Elephants, maybe?

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  • The First Sip

    Years ago when I was a kid, I had accidentally discovered and realized the existence of Alcohol. I had stumbled upon a bottle of Whiskey, while looking for something in my Father’s wardrobe. Till that point of time I had seen people drinking on-screen, but I certainly couldn’t imagine my father doing the same. There was something different about that moment when I held the bottle in my hands. Excitement, curiosity, or guilt? All I knew was that I will never drink alcohol when I grow up. There was something extremely repulsive about it back then.

    Slowly things around me were changing, I started noticing the bottles of VAT 69 more prominently than Helen Aunty’s cabaret numbers while watching a 70s movie; I realized that the reason Murali Bhaiya made those brilliant appetizers at Nucleus Club parties – the taste of those egg cutlets and smell of that fish fry still lingers vividly in my memory; I realized that drinking alcohol can be fun, can make uncles go mad in New Year Parties, can lead aunties to talk about behaviour of those uncles and can lead to kids getting excited about it. There was always that bit of excitement in class whenever our Chemistry teacher threw out the name of C2H5OH from his mouth. Few of my friends had taken up smoking and chewing tobacco but drinking alcohol was still faraway.  Alcohol in those days to me was a distant dream and I told to myself, I will never ever smoke. But drinking, yes will consider that for sure.

    Few years later engineering college presented the first opportunity to breakaway for many of us. Of course the stupid cinema of 90s had coloured our thoughts to such an extent that many of us still believed colleges to have sprawling lawns, a healthy sex ratio, more pyaar than padhai and those amazing costumes (girls wearing frocks with puffed shoulders and flowery belts and guys wearing tight jeans with Action shoes). Fortunately (much more than unfortunately) I landed up in a dry state. Although the presence of  lawns in my college was evident, I would rather not comment on the rest of parameters mentioned above.

    Gujarat has been a dry state because Gandhiji was born there. It would have been much more interesting if Gandhiji would have been born in Punjab, very very interesting.

    Despite being a dry state, in Gujarat alcohol is easily available. Be it petrol pumps, paan thelas, soda waalas, almost everyone is a supplier or claims to be one. During my engineering years I still thought about drinking sometimes, but the phattu me (or the law-abiding me) was scared to take the plunge. Maybe I was waiting for the right time, maybe I just found spending money from home on drinking an inappropriate thing. As always I was confused to take a call.

    It was in this state of confusion, (just before the placements, end of 3rd year) we set out on a trip to Abu. I had read about Dilwara temple in school textbooks, and heard stories about Abu Road station’s brilliant omlettes and rabdi from Delhi junta boarding the Ashram express. Although I had never realized that Mt. Abu was flocked by Gujarati tourists for another major reason, to get DRUNK. Legally that is.

    The trip was a memorable one for many reasons. 17 odd guys (and healthy ones) going for a trip packed in one Tempo Trax from Ahmedabad to Mt. Abu; one of my friend showing his ability to sleep anywhere, from railway station platform, to roads, to bus floors; visit to Dilwara temple on the final day of trip; all of us running out of money and a saviour coming up with 1000 Rs. But I will always remember this trip as the one I had my first sip. And what a sip it was!!!

    We gathered some money to buy a bottle of White Mischief (yes almost the cheapest Vodka available), a couple of bottles of Sprite, some lemon and Lays American Cheese and Onion chips. 8 of us sitting, 7 of them have had their first sips, and I was the only debutant. Visibly nervous, I was being constantly lectured by my friends about both the goods and bads of drinking. I was in no position to think that much, my motive was just to go for it. It was a mixture of emotions. Excitement, curiosity, or guilt?

    My friend passed me the glass, adding the caution, tera pehla hai, chota banaya hai. As I held the glass in my hand all those memories and thoughts which I have mentioned earlier passed before me. The strongest vision being of Dev Sahab drinking a Vat 69. Cheers they said and I gulped it.

    All I felt was warmth. I could trace the path through my oesophagus all the way to my stomach. I didn’t feel the sprite, neither did I feel the lemon, it was all warm. And I have had it in one shot.

    Hold the drink they said.

    And I kept on gulping them until I was four down. I was feeling warm in a so-called hill station. Slightly dizzy too. People were talking, and as always I was also talking. It was my first sip, and honestly it wasn’t anything special. It was something very normal. Not a big event as I had anticipated it to be. They asked me to go out for a walk so that I could feel better. But I told them I felt good. Or maybe I still didn’t know how I felt like.

    Was it excitement, curiosity, or guilt?

    As I recollect now this wasn’t actually my first sip. I had Mohua (an Indian liquor produced in tribal areas) at the end of first year, but it was a non-significant event, just had a bit in a dona.

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    What is your story of your first sip?

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    Featured image by Prasoon Gupta

  • The Curse of the Ring

    It was my first winter in Ahmedabad. And a cold winter it was. I remember very few things from that period, maybe there was hardly anything worth remembering. Not from that winter, and not from the few months which followed it.

    Although I do remember the irritating smell of fresh paint in the new hostel, the constant playing of Sayonni by two lovely seniors, who were never awake in mornings, and who hardly wore anything more than a lal chaddi. And yes, I recall sleeping a lot, waking up to my roommate singing Kishore Kumar songs. I remember him slowly breaking out from his pre-college cocoon, ready to fly, but confused how to flutter his wings. I remember the dingy and dark classroom, so much different from the first semester, when things were brighter, when gardens seemed greener, and people around me seemed so cheerful. I recall the guys not taking a bath, and I certainly recall guessing which girl had n0t taken a bath. There was a new food court in plans to challenge Brijwasi, putting my new found weight loss to test, a 15 KG miraculous loss was unsustainable few said. I remember me evolving from a small town slightly confused person, to an extrovert and loud, but still a confused person. Film club, cricket club, elections, cultural festival, joy, fights and sorrows, the second semester in DAIICT was about everything, other than studies.

    I remember that it was around this time that I started reading a lot. Past couple of years had been spent in flipping through thick volumes of PL Soni and Morrison and Boyds of the world, but it had still not killed my childhood passion of exploring books. More than gaining knowledge and killing time, reading at DAIICT was about walking together with a brilliant flock of students and faculty who also read a lot. I remember picking up classic fictions from friends, few biographies and short story collections from library, and also at times fiddling with Asimov and HG Wells after which I decided to stay away from Science Fiction as I found it slow-paced and inconclusive.

    It was during these times that I encountered Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in my friend LKP’s hands. LKP (read la ka pa) always used to carry it around with pride and laziness. A torn book with yellow brittle pages and green cover had been a subject of two recent blockbuster movies and innumerable discussions (although nothing beats the amount of discussions on Matrix during that year) at hostel. Quite naturally I went ahead and borrowed the book.

    It was a slow start to the book, as I progressed I flipped back and forth to have gaze at the Elvish key and the map of middle earth. The initial journey and formation of the fellowship was still not arousing the level of interest I had expected.

    And then Chicken Pox happened.

    It had been spreading in the hostel, I got it, missed 4 weeks, missed the mid-terms, screwed my academics, who cares, this semester was not at all about studies.

    A lot of home-care, further weight loss, and few neem baths later I was back to college. I tried to get a grasp of the acads but they were too distant now. Trying to complete Frodo and the fellowship’s journey was of much more interest to me than exploring shortest path algorithm or breadth first search. So it was a week before the final exams that I picked up the book again.

    And then Viral Fever happened.

    The exam and its results are something which I don’t want to discuss. But over the next couple of months I went through an intriguing journey of discovering rural India and its tribal populace with one of my favorite professor and a bunch of inquisitive teenagers. Even during this period I read a lot and discussed my readings with friends and professor. After the rural internship and vacation I was back on campus again, the bright semester had started (somehow I felt, the odd semesters were always brighter and better, the even ones despite the fests were somehow marred by something or the other) and I decided to pick up the book again and start reading.

    And then conjunctivitis happened.

    People close to me know that I am a bit more than the usual superstitious fellow, and the next thing I did was to give the book back to LKP. A few months later I went ahead and saw the movies, and I have seen it hundreds of times since then admiring each and every piece of what Tolkien imagined and how Peter Jackson articulated his imagination. But it has been extremely difficult for me to order that book. In fact I have never dared to touch a copy of it again.

    The small yellow pencil, wearing a friend’s wrist watch, putting on the same jeans for each and every exam, the timing of a haircut, sitting at the same place or doing the matchstick trick during a cricket match, eating the same breakfast on important days, not drinking on certain days, scratching the forehead before an important meeting etc. etc.

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    Is it only me who is afraid of superstitions or do I have others around for company too?

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  • Return to Korba

    Over the past 2-3 years I have travelled across various parts of the country. Most of these trips were planned and executed around a friend’s wedding, and given I have had so many friends getting married in the recent past, and at locations such as Indore, Dhanbad, Raipur, Kerala, Rajasthan, Interiors of Maharashtra, and Delhi, these trips have resulted in experiences worth mentioning. On some trips the destination overpowered the entire wedding experience, and at some the wedding was an event to remember. Needless to mention I have also returned gastronomically satisfied from most of these trips, learning a lot about the diversity across Indian food preparations, wedding delicacies and food on the road, rail, air and even water.

    But out of all the trips the one which I made this weekend holds a special place, simply because of the people and place involved. And yes as always slightly because of my flirtations with food on the trip.

    I was going back to Korba after about 9 years, a period in which I have moved away significantly from what I was at Korba. A relatively simple person who was mostly immersed in books, gully cricket, and mostly lost in his own thoughts went on to talk, travel, eat, make friends, and talk a lot. I became more expressive and confident, adapted new habits – both good and bad, met a lot of people from different backgrounds, slowly started spending more money and became more experimental about life in general.

    It is interesting to note how roles change once we are back in Korba, whatever we have done in the past so many years, when my school friends get together, we behave as we behaved for all those 14 years in school. Surprisingly, they are the only ones who know how to make me sit quiet. Very rare! And for us everyone is still the same, no one is a Doctor, MBA, Engineer, CA, or a businessman; everyone is just the same old DPS Korba student they were, and I am still the Pattu they met in 2002.

    Korba has changed, the township hasn’t. The city seems well maintained with brilliant roads, shining shopping complexes and even a flyover! Although all the forests around the city have disappeared and all I saw on the road from Churri towards Korba and beyond were just power plants.

    The township remains the same, all our addas are still there as we left them. But I heard that the kids are gone (after 6th most of them are packed away to a IIT/Medical coaching location), people hardly come out, there are no fights in club for badminton courts or on Mansarovar to play cricket, and those community gatherings and activities which gave the township its life have become rare.

     

    Random pic about Korba

    Oh, by the way I also tasted the famous Chhattisgarhi Daal Wada with the spicy brick red chutney (a cross between a schezwan sauce and a pickle masala), my favorite Indian Coffee House Cutlets –potato and beetroot stuffed and shallow fried tikkis (although I tasted them in Nagpur as I knew I won’t have time in Korba), 4 different dosas (one outside the CST subway, value for money Butter Sada; second from Nagpur Coffee House, now Rs. 40 as compared to Rs. 14 back in the days of school; third at a friend’s home at Bilaspur, simple homemade dosas served with a spicy peanut and dal chutney; fourth on the return journey at Bhusaval junction, a regular dosa with a Jeervan like spice sprinkled on top, hot and fresh), and some good food at the wedding. But for me the cutlets stood out, and to benchmark them I even had the railway cutlets (https://beingdesh.com/2010/04/the-story-of-indian-railway-cutlet/), but I would say the Coffee House ones win, again because of the memories attached to it. On the healthier side we munched onto tonnes of Oranges and Sandwiches parceled in Raipur. The craving for sweets was satisfied through Spongy Rasgullas, Flavored Dry Fruit Bites (a sweet which according to me is the true competition to my other favorite, Mysore Pak), and Santara Barfi (a petha style sweet, flavored with orange juice).

    As always I have deviated from the core discussion around Korba to food, but then things have been this way since back I was child, food has always been a key component of my discussion, at Korba, or after that.

    In hindsight moving out of Korba was probably good for me, as I understood life and India in a better way and become truly Desi. But still Pattu remains a part of me, and I hope it continues to be.

  • 11 memories of 2011

    1. Watching Sachin at Bangalore scoring 100 in a World Cup match in Feb. If I would I have jumped from the stands at that very moment, it would have been a great death. And also at the end of it all we won the cup, the cup which mattered the most on April 2nd.
    2. Sitting comfortably on a slowly moving houseboat in Kerala backwaters. Amazing trip to Kerala followed by loss of my costliest cellphone ever and a wonderful wedding of a wonderful friend.
    3. Silence of the noise party at Palolim Goa, and the story of why it never happened. The most amazing of trips with my bestest friends…
    4. Losing a dear friend. Yesterday night as we drove past Lonavla, Naresh was the only person I could think of. Sachin’s birthday, the online world, DAIICT bakar and watching Katrina Kaif songs will never be the same again.
    5. Sitting on Sam dunes and watching the sun set. Nothing else, just so so peaceful and nice.
    6. Gaining weight, gaining a lot of weight, losing a LOT of weight and then putting some back again. The year when I was struck by Jaundice which led to a month of salary lesser than my maid and no holidays leading to no Ladakh for another year.
    7. Dancing at weddings. Too many weddings this year, although I did plan it well enough with some tours. I guess I danced pretty madly at Katti and Dhari’s wedding, Ankit and Apeksha was relatively sober.
    8. Meeting pretty girls randomly. A Brazilian Chef, few Danish linguistic students, an international affairs student interested in mahabharat, a  playwright, a lawyer with an amazing knowledge of tennis and cricket, a journalist who could have better been a food critic, a marketeer with love for wines and cheese and a few others. But as expected this just resulted in more stories getting added to my database. Swear.
    9. Consolidating the REAL friend-list. Hardly any additions to the new friends category, people who were close kept coming closer. Few who were distanced kept going far away. Very few recalls from the past and accidental meetups with old buddies.
    10. Idlis, dosas, upmas and vada. South Indian was the cuisine of the year, if my countless visits to Matunga’s Madras Cafe with Harsh and other friends is anything to go by. The Hyderabad Chutneys Sambhar was one of the best things I had during the year. Also idlis and dosas gave me company during the most food deprived time of my life, Jaundice.
    11. Sutts and the amazing bakar around it. The chai-sutta breaks at office led to really engaging conversations covering all aspects of life with the office gang (I was a pretty active passive smoker this year). Just that the participants kept going down every month.

    Featured image by Harsh Mehta

  • Rattu ka Dabba

    He could feel a few giggles right behind his back, he knew it was gone. Again!

    As Rattu turned back and put his hand into his bag’s tiffin box pocket, he felt plastic and not the usual steel, infact before the lunch break this is all Rattu did with his tiffin, as he always scared to eat it before lunch. He kept feeling his steel lunch box between the classes, and almost every day, he would find someone else’s tiffin box in his bag. A yellow colored plastic one, from the one for him (as declared by all his friends). His dabba was always swapped with his supposedly the one’s dabba which usually resulted in uncountable hours of leg pulling (aahhh…who would touch those beastly legs, like Wodehouse said long time ago) and Rattu going mad throwing his Milton water bottle all over his friends.

    But Rattu really liked what Vaifav Ghar usually did with his tiffin, mostly an omlette sandwich, it was always munched during the history period. Ghar used to stand as our history teacher looked somewhere else, showed the omlette bread to everyone, used to take a bow towards our history teacher and start hogging. Everyone giggled as the teacher talked about 3 points for 3 marks, 6 points for 6 marks and so on.

    Lunch break was always a nice time, there were different kinds of people, firstly the looteras. Loot lo iska dabba they said, and started running behind the ones with their dabbas intact. There was always a gang for whom lunch breaks meant playing leg cricket, it had been going on from very junior sections till almost Class 12th.

    As everyone did this Rattu with his group of friends usually used to enjoy our dabbas, saving them from the looteras on the open terrace. The paratha subjis, maggis, sandwiches, idlis, all of them being shared over general chit chat of cricket, entrances, studies, girls, new possible couples, boring classes, good classes, the smell from chemistry lab etc etc.

    Although there was always one weird thing about the lunch break, the girls were always quite. They used to finish off their dabbas, quietly, nicely sharing the stuff among themselves and then go back to the class mostly. Very peaceful. And unlike the boys they never had yellow oil stains on their uniforms.

    Talking of stains almost every bag had a very oily patch in the area where lunch box was kept. Speaks volumes about our Parathas, Subjis and Achaars.

    And then there was the case of Dabba not brought, which was then given to Dutta Bhaiya on the school gate later by the parents, and delivered in between a classroom by Dashrath Bhaiya.

    Rattu’s school never had a canteen once which was closed after cockroaches were found instead of aloo inside samosa.

    Post lunch break was the time for a nap, a slight nap. It was a deadly period to take for a teacher I assume. Much more challenging than anything to keep students awake at that time. Somehow Rattu never fell asleep in school, never ever, even after a nice lunch break. School was always so much fun.

    And so were the Dabbas.

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    Do you have any memories associated with school lunch box?

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  • 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…

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

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  • Remembering Her

    As everyday I reached the school gates on a cold winter morning in Korba. The rush of students, tens of buses (the one which stood out was always the Coal India township buses, white covered with layers of Coal dust), kids with their hair well-oiled, the sight of green blazers all over (a few scholar ones-red and blue), and the pink lady-birds and the black MTBs which had become so popular on those days welcomed me. As always Dutta bhaiya was on top of his voice, screaming on the gates and always giving that awesome smile when I entered the gates. That day I had not entered, I was standing at the front-gate with few of my friends, a green FIAT halted near the gates. Her green fiat is something which I distinctly remember, just like her red-shawl (which wa snever to be missed during winters), her commanding voice, and her accent which was very unique and just stays on with us. She got off the car and said, “Deshpande, clean your blazer properly before you come”, and she walked away.

    I was a four year old when I appeared for an admissions interview to DPS Korba, I vaguely remember a young handsome Thapar Sir (very little imagery, but I think its mostly constructed from the conversations I had with her) accompanied by her. She was the in-charge of junior sections and the interview was held at the Pragati Nagar campus. I was asked about my favorite cartoon character and I had danced all over the place like HE-MAN, and the panel had a nice laugh. I was given chocolates and an entry to DPS Korba- 8810 it was.

    I met her last in 2004, she had lost a lot of weight, well that was the only thing which had changed, she looked the same, her eyes were still as expressive as always. She had made coffee and as she was talking about her new home at SADA and the change from the Yamuna Vihar home she suddenly mentioned, “Nowadays you don’t watch He-Man, they don’t show it anymore I believe?”.

    She was like that, she would recall the tiniest bits which would have happened, and bring them back to conversations. It was strange that despite being for my entire life in school I never got a chance to be her student. But I was fortunate it happened during my last year in school, Class 12th, it was just a coincidence that it was her last year too at the school. And as expected she was awesome, it was fun attending her classes, her voice modulations as she went through the English Literature stuff was brilliant, I vaguely remember the details, but it was a great feeling.

    And in that year came a forgettable day, where for the first time she became so angry at us (I don’t remember what had happened), she made the entire section stand and then she went and started punching back, this was not like her, she had become very angry with the behavior of few students in my section. Then as she finished the first column of benches, she came to one student and then she stopped (I believe it was Shameek or Swapnil) and then she cried. She then apologized for her actions, but conveyed how bad she had felt about the entire thing. Our entire class was not able to face her directly for a few days to come after that.

    She was strict, but she was much more loving than that. Her touch was extremely special, she knew everyone’s family in and out. Once in a while she would catch hold of me and ask me about home, about how my sis is finding the place, and am I enjoying my studies. She kept a tab on my studies as well that of 1000s others. I remember in Junior school Shameek used to be her favorite (or at-least that is what we presumed) and everyone wanted to be good in front of her. But she was never biased, she loved every student and really cared for us through all those years.

    Also few things which I have memories of are that of her speech during Annual Function (she used to present an update of Junior school), she leading the assembly in case B Singh sir was absent (or later our other Principals), her screaming out for Kalpana Didi and Dashrath Bhaiya (that was actually funny, both of them were always scared when they reached her), her annual trip to U.S. and stories from her trip during assembly (I remember her talking about Yellow Stone national park, and Disneyland).

    The last I had a really long conversation with her was in Dec, 2001. I was along with my family on a trip to South India and met her on Raipur airport. She was on the same flight with us to Mumbai (from where she was supposed to catch an international flight to Qatar maybe) and I took a seat next to her. This was my first flight ever, the first time I ever sat in a plane and I was lucky enough to experience my first flight with her. She talked about her trips, the years passed by in Korba, about her family in U.S. and a lot of other things. Even that was winter and she was wrapped in a red shawl.

    I sometimes feel that over the years I should have tried to connect back with her, I think I called her once in 2006, to tell her my engineering was done and I would be joining job at Bangalore. Be it the meetups with school friends, or teacher’s day or sometimes just like that, I would remember her and think that I should contact her. But I didn’t do it for a few years, something which I would always regret.

    We would all remember her, always…

  • Wedding Bells!!!

    This weekend came with a strange feeling, its not that I haven’t attended a few weddings offlate, but this one was different. I have spent a considerable part of my life with him, those childhood days, stupid teenage discussions, my weird spin bowling and his super quick pacers, and just staying next to each other for so many years. And then we moved to different places, but those letters (one of which almost got me into superbig shit at school), STD calls, mobile calls, mails, and then reuniting properly after so many years at Gurgaon last year.

    I don’t think I will ever think about stupid concepts which have been introduced to the friendship lingo off-late with him, like having personal space, having a connect or a disconnect, the need to meet each other every other week, or to discuss the same old crap, it just stays simple and nice as it always was.

    And I was nervous, I don’t know why, but from the time he climbed the ghodi I suddenly had this feeling of how much things have changed, he is getting married, we have grown up, things have started changing. And even during the wedding when I was with him, we just needed a couple of words to convey whatever is going on, I hope it stays so nice and uncomplicated with everyone around me. The period between the jaimala and phere was full of nostalgia, lot of thoughts, tonnes of pineapple juice and mega tonnes of awesome Indori food.

    And by the time it ended, I had realized maybe its time to change gears, maybe not marriage, but something which as we discussed brings isthirtha to life.

    I don’t know, with so many people around me getting married, how much more will I think, maybe Feb’11 in Kerala would be another such affair, I am clueless about the changes happening around me, maybe its the age for change, maybe its just that one desires a break from the routine, or maybe its just the way wedding bells have been ringing all around which makes me think. I meet a few people around me and I feel there life is changing, the topics of discussion are changing, and they are changing for the good. They have moved a couple of steps ahead in life, I am as always on the same page.

    Whatever it is, its a fascinating and a happy period for me and my loved ones, and I hope it stays forever happy.