beingdesh

Category: Friends

  • Of things Artificial, and those Natural

    Love being Natural?

    Yes you would say, but are we ever natural!

    On an auto ride with my friend in Delhi we debated the artificial vs. natural thing like never before, especially in the context of Delhi, debate continued at an engg. college friend’s home party.

    We have two sides (we is generalized by people coming from smaller towns & cities), one is natural, likes meeting people, sitting with family and friends, enjoying nice street food, being part of festivals, going to temple sometimes, roaming around and having a nice relaxing evening followed by a movie on TV and some nice sleep.

    The other side, goes to Pubs, drinks the hell out of oneself; multiplexes: buys popcorn worth 70 bucks (within 44 Rs. I used to enjoy pop corn, a movie, cold drink and a two way bus ride to city during school days), watches a movie a week, walks into a mall: window shops, really shops and just keeps on spending through the clutter of restaurants, food courts and ice cream parlors.

    And after moving to cities (and especially after we started earning), we sort of have started living more like the latter than former. Although the joy of living life this style is hardly long lasting.

    For a city, you would consider Gurgaon the best in India, super awesome roads, beautiful buildings, so many malls. My first day here I wanted to buy some innerwear, and I told my friend, so my friend asked Levis or Nike store? A city where people think of malls even while buying chaddi baniyaan!!! Its not their fault, this place is the pinnacle of consumerist culture and show-baazi, a practice linked to most of North India. Although I am not accusing all of this, there have been strange exceptions right from UG to PG days and they are all dear friends. But mostly a region characterized by slight rudeness in the way people talk, slight aggression, and a fascination to show that one can splurge money.

    Compare that to the long walks I had in Old Delhi near Redfort through Ramlilas. Regular people, enjoying with families, having fun and a great time, & contrast it too hardly-anything-wearing-girls in GK or South ex at night, have seen a bit of all in the past few days. From the aloo chaat & paani puris in Old Delhi to 70 Rs dosas in Gurgaon fort, a nice mix of Artificial and natural awaits us everywhere we go.

    Its on us and only on us, that which path we choose.

    Many here want to fake it to make it, but I think they would be just fine if they just try to make it…

    Right now for me I am trying to balance the two, somehow unsuccessfully

  • The Times of Navratri- Edition 4

    Sometime in 2008, Mumbai J

    Midterms, horrible they are. I always thought the worst gets over after coming to a b-school, this is over and above worst. Midterms are on and Falguni sings daily next to the hostel, well Navratri used to be different earlier.

    This Navratri hasn’t been great, it had been just Okay, before it turned slightly awesome. Till now just one day it felt like Navratri as I kept a fast and went with one of my friend to Vrindi to have sabudana vada. Apart from that it hardly feels like one, b-school surely kills all the festivities and festivals.

    So our midterms ended and a senti Ajayjeet cribbing about not being at home on Durga Pooja for the first time in his life told me about Lokhandwaala Pooja. (senti Ajayjeet and Tommie had also tricked one of the profs using this sentipanna to get a deadline extended J). By being as dramatic as Ajayjeet can get, he convinced me. Another option to celebrate was that few of my friends were heading for the Falguni garba.

    Garba- well childhood and Gujarat I had lot of it but Durga Pooja, haven’t been to one for many years now. Ajayjeet’s pitch of having khichdi, mishit dohi & bong sweets finally had me in. Although he also pitched about Bong Girls (arguably amongst the best in the country), but that was a point of parity in both the options (Garba Costumed girls giving them equal, if not more competitionJ)

    So I, Ajayjeet, and lot of us went for the durga pooja, few of them also opted for Garba.

    As I entered the pendal, it was time to get nostalgic, the beautiful pendal, the sound of shankha, the dhol & the beautiful idol of Maa Durga. We had a few sweets and then Ajayjeet with couple of guys met Abhijeet- the Singer. Awesome guy he is, talked nicely to all of us and arranged entry passes for the Euphoria show, for all 28 of us!!!

    So we entered, danced, singed and enjoyed that night with Palash & co. One disappointment was the fact that the crowd was short on bong girls, or maybe I didn’t spot them J, ajayjeet does that too well 😉

    Not an elaborate celebration, but enough for b-school days, more than enough.

    p.s. – I have forgotten about episode 3, i.e. the Bangalore days, sadly didn’t visit Mysore Dusshera, but don’t remember anything at all on what we did?

    Technorati Tags: Navratri

  • The Times of Navratri- Edition 2

    Sometime in 2002, somewhere in Gujarat

    Hostel life, weird quizzes & scary electronics course make up my life nowadays. Although I am enjoying riding cycle daily to college and me and my roomie Sajeev have been losing weight, and lots of it. I enjoy programming, and lot of bak bak we do in hostels. But midterms are coming up.

    Bored by studies me and Prajjwal were thinking of only one thing, Navratri. Apart from my memories in childhood and Prajjwal’s quest of finding cool places in city another motivator was Vishal- our hostel supervisor. His story of condom sales spiking up 10 times during Dandiya season in Gujarat & all nooks and corners of building being occupied by couples doing you-know-what was enough to fuel… fuel us to goto Garba.

    So we tried to convince everyone, starting from our dear 83 block. Puneet & Krunal; the lovely legged Sainy, simple Sajeev, tanabesh & his peacocked roomie. Prajjwal asked a few girls, but given the midterm was on, no one was ready for it. So me and Prajjwal begin our journey towards the nearby Sector’s garba.

    Rs. 10 entry was well within our budgets, although it sounded insane to me that people paid for entering garba (of course later on I came to know about paying 1000 bucks for entering it J). As we entered it was a mix of nostalgia, teenage fantasies and bhakti bhavna all packed into one.

    Well we entered and kept on watching junta dancing, and we kept on watching and watching.

    Garba is the bestest form of dance ever I thought, and Prajjwal agreed, still trying to look for his favorite Dilli-ish girls. But he too lost interest and then we just immersed into the excitement of dance & music. We didn’t enter the arena, firstly we didn’t wear proper attire and secondly we were too shy to dance in front of these awesome performers.

    We were standing and we found our ever sweating- rock music loving- calculus prof. Nice Guy he is. So we chatted with Prof. Chatterjee on a zillion things. An awesome night where we were mesmerized by dance, the devotion for Devi Ma & and slightly disappointed at our Prof. not offering us a cold drink.

    And the initial thoughts, well in teenage days they are never gone, but still parked for sometime J

    2 years later

    Garba time in college, the arena is ready, guys dressed up in Kurta-Pyjama, girls shining in their traditional attire. That day most of them had taken a bath it seems ( a popular perception within my batch that like guys, even girls were lazy enough not to take a bath J) and sort of put some make up too. A rarity again J

    Well we danced and had loads of fun, this time it was post the midterms too.

    Few days later

    Chachu said, yeh ek aitihaasik kshaan hoga, jab hum Ravan ka dahan karenge. So all of us started from a few Bamboo frames, loads of Fevicol (everyone smelled of it that day), crackers and whole loads of masti constituted the process of making our college’s first ravan. Painted black and around 15 feet tall, it was constructed on the A-D wing junction and carried to the ground. The night was fun as the Ravan caught fire and Chachu set up his famous havan later.

    But us raat sab Pyaase hi soye the J

    Final Year

    Puneet still believed in the first year Vishal theory, and he insisted that during our final year we try out the Hot Shot Garba at Karnavati Club. For a Rs. 200 entry it was worth the no. of well tattoed backs we saw, and heard a 3rd/4th runner up Indian Idol singer. All of the city’s super rich were there and it seems lot of so called setting is done there. Still this one didnt beat the simple garba of sectors near our college.

    And Puneet still remains, well he remains… 🙂

    Technorati Tags: Navratri

  • The Times of Navratri- Edition 1

    Sometime in 1998, somewhere in Chattisgarh

    Navratri is the best time of the year. Like yesterday I left from home at around 5 PM. After our customary cricket match at the abandoned tennis court we cycled to the Pooja Area. The Bengali Samiti in township begins the Durga Pooja ceremony on Shashti and so the preparations were on for that. After that me with few of my friends moved to Santosh Chaat Bhandaar near Indra complex. After a few paani puris we visited the Navdurga Pendal next to Ambedkar Auditorium. Here the Devi there for all 9 days of Navratri.

    After that we moved to the house of Ayush, next to his house in a Badminton playing area Chauhan uncle organizes Garba. We didn’t dance but went upto the terrace on Ayush’s block and were just looking at Garba & especially our new found interest of ogling at girls. Well Nipunjai says that there are couple of nice girls on the other end of the circle so we watched there, and then we watched a whole gang of them. Also behind them were the so called lafoots of the township. The difference between us and them, well we move around on cycles, them on motorcycles; we hide and watch girls and at max giggle post that, but they are quite visible and vocal in the way they WATCH.

    Anyway after lot of bird watching we moved to Jagran program at Navdurga Pendal. Its very peaceful and the best part is almost everyone from the township is there.

    Today I woke up late. The best part about this navaratri is that this one is after the exams, when it happens before the exams it kills the fun. Well today is when the Durga sits in the Mandir complex so should get ready for that.

    After the morning pooja there is Bhog. All the Kids are supposed to help in serving the Bhog to all who come to eat. Again the whole community is here to pray and have Prasad. So we served everyone and btw did I describe the Prasad.

    A sweet, but well that wasn’t the attraction. You have Khichdi & chutney. Superbly awesome Bengali khichdi cooked in Desi Ghee, and along with that Chutney made of Khajoor and Papita. Awesomely awesome…

    All who helped to serve get Extra Ghee as reward!!!

    4 days later…

    Another Navratri ended L. Dusshera was awesome yesterday and so were the Durga Devi visarjan in the morning, we went on the truck to the lake and danced a lot on the way. After that in the evening I watched the Dusshera from the balcony of Indian Coffee House munching on Special Masala Dosa and Frooti (felt like sitting in Royal Box at Wimbledon). Dusshera is like a mela, everyone from everywhere on earth assembles on the KV football ground. And the fireworks were awesome.

    Now school will start again, boring…

    Technorati Tags: Navratri

  • Last Week

    I have worked for two years, but sometimes a week can be heavier than that and much much longer than that. Some happiness followed by tonnes of feedback, mostly not so good about whatever you thought you were always good on, coming mostly for people who are not that relevant, but sometimes they are too.

    Then an odd day when you don’t have anything to worry about, you had the whole bunch of people you like so much to worry about. All of them with their sunk faces was hardly encouraging.

    And then there were submissions, exams and some scribbling on forms and papers as always.

    All of it is hardly joyful, dissonance resonates here, (and as one of my friend here tells me, all this effect is getting cumulative, lost and getting further lost) and I need to get over it. And at the end of it all, being high on a bit of Vodka remains the only bit of bliss I had.

    Looking forward for a happier week ahead, but I hardly remember what being happy was, those moments are hard to find nowadays.

  • Speaking as someone else…

    Every new stage in the life introduces you to lot of new things. This one has brought an environment cultural shifts, a maturity level in establishing relationships, mood swings arising from a hectic schedule. And as everything else in this program, it fails to be consistent.

    People swing from extreme forms of conservatism to the radical, and hardly any stand is conservative. Stupid-Dumb to the extremely intelligent, laziness to diligence, I fail to understand most of it.

    And people it, from giggling on everything “Sensual” shown in class, to justifying the rationale behind “sex sells”, I hardly find a strand of conviction. One second they are the all progressive kinds, hailing from metros, the other they cant digest petty things here, leave alone someone’s freedom of expression.

    I still am caught in the small town idiosyncrasies of conservatism and rigid thinking, but I think its sometime better than switching so much….

    And Respect, well I have my biases, which everyone has, but atleast something is left.

  • Influencing People and all the other things…

    It can be an extremely simple act, you want people to do what you want, to induce yourself in them. All of you which is Good, Bad or Ugly tries to penetrate them. We need a mirror everywhere, we want to see self in everyone.

    And the preys, well they are freely available, vulnerable souls waiting for someone to take control.

    I sometimes wish I could be a prey, but I am not at all that types, I sometimes tend to be blatantly expectant and try to be the hunter.

    Leave me though, I am not relevant. I see the few influenced ones around me, and just wish that they were better off. Changing patterns in their life keeps them away from normal, way away.

    Let things be simple and normal. Again.

    Simplicity would be the way to happiness, maybe not eternal bliss, but just to keep things normal.

  • कॉमिक्स और हमारा बचपन

    लुईस कैरोल की एलिस को कल्पना के उस अद्भुत संसार में जाने के लिए खरगोश महाशय के घर का रास्ता नापना होता था लेकिन मुझे (याने जब में बच्चा था) या मेरे जैसे कई भारतीय बच्चो को अपने घर के कुछ आधे किलो मीटर की परिधि में कोई सोनू या मनोज लाइब्रेरी ढूंढनी होती थी | उसके बाद तो बस अपने कल्पना के संसार में डूब जाने के लिए हम आजाद होते थे |

    नागराज, ध्रुव, परमाणु, भोकाल, तौसी, हवालदार बहादुर, बांकेलाल, चाचा चौधरी, बिल्लू, पिंकी, साबू और ना जाने कितने ही किरदार जीवन का एक हिस्सा बन गए थे | अब जब में पीछे मूड कर देखता हूँ तो यह सोच कर ख़ुशी होती है की भले ही चोरी छुपे या लड़ झगड़ कर भी मैंने कॉमिक्स पढ़ी है तो अच्छा ही किया है, वरना जीवन की ये यादें कभी नहीं बना पाता |

    जहाँ तक मुझे याद है कॉमिक्स पढने की खुमारी गर्मी की छुट्टियों में सर चढ़ कर बोलती थी | और कॉमिक्स खरीदना तो काफी महंगा सौदा था इसलिए लगभग हम सभी मित्र किसी ना किसी लाइब्रेरी के सदस्य बन जाते थे और किराए से कॉमिक्स ले आया करते थे | उन चौबीस घंटो के समय में सभी दोस्तों को एक दुसरे की भी कॉमिक्स ख़तम करनी होती थी तो बस फिर क्या कॉमिक्स लाइब्रेरी से ली और पढना चालू एक आधी तो घर पहुँचते पहुँचते ही ख़तम हो जाया करती थी |

    शुरूआती दिनों में जहाँ से मुझे याद है कॉमिक्स का किराया होता था पचास पैसे और डाइजेस्ट का एक रुपैया लेकिन हाई रे महंगाई बाद में किराया तय हो गया था कॉमिक्स के दाम का दस प्रतिशत याने ८ रुपैये की कॉमिक्स ८० पैसे में | कॉमिक्स न सिर्फ आपकी कल्पना शीलता को एक नया आयाम देती है अपितु व्यवहारिक ज्ञान में भी वृद्धि कराती है | जैसे आप देख ही सकते है की कभी न कभी तो आपने अपने किसी मित्र के साथ साझेदारी में लाइब्रेरी खोली ही होगी, और कुछ चव्वनी अट्ठनी का मुनाफा कमा कर खुश भी हुए होंगे | लो जी बन गए आप उद्यमी (entrepreneur) !

    लेकिन इन सब से बढ़कर बौद्धिक विकास में सबसे मददगार साबित होते थे मित्रो के साथ कॉमिक्सों पर गहन विचार विमर्श ! जी हाँ कौन सा नायक किस नयी शक्ति के साथ आया है, किस नायक को सबसे मुश्किल खलनायक से जूझना पड़ता था, यदि ये दोनों नायक साथ में आये तो ज्यादा अच्छा कौन लडेगा इत्यादि | बिना शक्तियों के दुश्मनों के मात देने वाला सुपर कमांडो ध्रुव मेरा पसंदीदा नायक हुआ करता था | और ध्रुव के खलनायको के ऊपर तो विचार विमर्श मैंने देशपांडे के साथ माइंड ट्री में रहते हुए भी किया था | उदाहरण के लिए चुम्बा, बौना वामन, चंडकाल हाँ लेकिन ध्रुव के दोस्त भी हुआ करते थे जैसे किरिगी, धनञ्जय, येती |

    अब तो कई सालों से किसी की भी सुध नहीं ली है | पर मुझे अभी भी यकिन है की ये सभी नायक अपनी जान की बाजी लगा कर आज भी विश्व को बड़े बड़े खतरों से बचा रहे होंगे और इसलिए आप भारत में या यूरोप में या अमरीका में चैन की नींद सो पा रहे है !

    A mail by my friend Kapil. I think so many of us would identify with the same. Plus I love his hindi writings (read a couple of his entries secretly in Bengaluru along with Mathuru ;)). Till he has his own blog, this one will be kept by me :).

    Also for my friends doing MBA, this is what a Dimdima should feel like, so maybe something like this would have determined your pitch for selling Dimdimas.

    Although this is a thinking of a kid 15 years back, things have changed now.

  • A Part of me Died

    Dada, Dada will never ever play again. After the post lunch victory, reality has just started sinking in. It has been eight hours after that historic victory but I have no other thoughts other than Dada in mind right now.

    I almost ran into tears as I went through this article Losing my Religion. Its one the best articles on Cricket I have ever read. As Siddhartha Vaidyanathan narrates his story me and all my friends across India felt that he is telling our story. I thank him for writing such a great article. As I looked at this phrase in the post, a part of me died, I felt the same. All these cricketers have been as indispensable to me as my body parts and as they go slowly I feel a great sense of loss and sadness. Its almost the formal end of my childhood which lasted so long due to these great players and the day Tendulkar goes life would never be the same again. Just today I said to someone that almost 4 years of my 24 year life has gone in thinking, watching, playing and talking about Cricket, and these guys made it possible.

    I don’t know what to write, Dada has been a Dada for me, as a Big Brother he has given me and so many other Indians great moments which we would cherish throughout our life. 1996 when he and Dravid came into the team, I missed his first test hundred. I heard that there is this new guy who is king of off side, bowls some nice swingers too and is very similar to David Gower. His elegant off side drives gives me fond memories of my childhood, after Dada every kid in my township started playing strokes on the offside (generally it was considered that leg side is more scoring with a tennis bowl). Almost invariably when he used to open with Sachin and take first strike he would hit a sweet boundary through the off side. I vaguely recall him hitting Pollock many a times through the off side, the bowl slowly travelling to the fence, and Boycott all praises for the Prince of Kolkata.

    As I came from class 6th in 1996 to the 2000’s 10th board, Dada had become a prolific run getter in one dayers, I had remained the same students, in the years had passed an unsuccessful world cup, The God becoming the captain unsuccessfully, azhar going in and out of the team, a World Cup where Dada scored a brilliant 183 at Taunton, a World Cup in which I didn’t sleep at night and and went into tears momentarily when South Africa lost in the semis, lot of Coca Cola cups at Sharjah where Tendulkar and Dada were killing all bowling attacks, a Sahara Cup where Dada set himself as an all rounder, a period of change in Cricket when Wills ended its sponsorship with the Indian team, Jagmohan Dalmiya headed the ICC, and above all a disgraceful India South Africa series. And then it was Captain DADA.

    Although I was a Dada fan but it was after he took up captaincy my respect for him increased, as he and his side with few new players started winning it was a different feeling altogether. Dada positioned the Indian Team as an aggressive unit, for the first time in history I felt that Indian Team was doing something like this, change which Dada brought about was zillion times more than Obama used the word in his campaign. Change we need was brought and it was just amazing. The Great Eden victory still comes in my dream, and the Natwest one, or India almost ruining Steven Waugh’s farewell in Australia, and the 2003 World Cup and so many others.

    Lot of memories, but sadness is blurring most of them today. Some not so good ones of Dada’s spat with Greg Chappell and him being dropped after the Zimbabwae tour, some of prayers which we did for his return to Cricket, some extremely funny like me saying Jai Dada aloud in front of a Dada poster with 20 people standing around before my XAT exam last year in Bangalore, some drunken memories of me and my friend dimpy, patrick and sussu drinking and praying for Dada to score during our tragic loss to Bangladesh in last year’s World Cup, more drunkard ones of me and the quark and the enginerd and Ati-Say supporting Dada, and Sandy and Mathuru and Mandu supporting Dravid and Barve as always confused :), some meoments where I cursed Greg Chappel like had none other in my life, two historic moments when I watched Dada Live on stadium, him hitting a Six to Vettori during a Test match in Ahmedbad, him winning in the IPL opener at Bangalore this year, never saw him in one days, some more cursing for Bucknor when half the times gave pathetic decisions to Dada and many a times helped the cause of getting Dada a ban, some moments which I was ashamed of as Dada’s Pepsi ad, and another million memories.

    I hope Dada finds happiness in whatever he does next, he enjoys life and cricket and some time with his family.

    I am happy that I can tell my kids 20 years from now that Dada was there, because I don’t think they would ever see a player like him again, they will ever feel the emotions of the game we all love in the same way as we did, but as Siddartha pointed out in his article we belong to this generation and for all of us its a very sad day. Hope is what I have and I hope there will be many more greats who will play for the Indian Cricket Team. In the current lot I don’t have that feel for anyone other than Sehwag or Dhoni. Lets Hope.

    So finally this is it, as the Quark would have told me in his favourite singer Jim Morrison’s words, this is the end, beautiful friend, or debu would murmured his Darkness filling up the room dialouge, one thing I know, I have lost something which is irreplaceable.

    God give me the strength, I would badly need it on the Day when Tendulkar retires.

    Technorati Tags: Sourav Ganguly, Dada, Cricket, India

  • Dreaded S-Word

    1993

    two kids from class 3 fighting as Abhishek watches on (still be christened with any of the present day nicknames).

    bippu*- saale kutte kahi ke???
    ritesh*- shocked and about to breakdown
    Abhishek and rest of the audience- Haaaaauuuuuuuuu……
    ritesh*- full-tu crying, I will complaint this to Ratnam Mam [My fav teacher in school, bestest teacher ever, will write about her sometime)

    Pumped by anger, insult and what not ritesh decided to complaint and bippu got punished, junta was obviously shocked at bippu’s behavior and happy that bippu got punished.

    1999

    All of us on the playing, tiddu*-famous for not blurting out any bad word till date fires one on pattu, pattu laughs like hell and so do the others, tiddu rages and starts a bat-beating session on pattu, pattu and others still laugh and welcome another member to the gang.

    [*Names have been changed to confuse identities]

    Gone are those days, in primary school using the S-word (something similar to a Brother-in-law too, your wife’s brother, I don’t know why it became an abuse in the first place) meant that you were the full-time rowdy in class, other kids parents wanted their kids to stay away from you, and it was not at all good public behavior, you were the big time culprit of every wrong deed done in class. Slowly though, with secondary and higher education an Indian student gets graduated in profanities too.

    Nowadays when I see kids using the F-word is much more than feeling, its mostly going away from our culture of using the S-Word to perfection. Although lots has been said about girls not using it but I know a few who use it nicely. But lets not get into gender aspects as of now.

    Although the Hindi/desi equivalent of the F-word is considered quite crude in its usage but I don’t know why people consider the formers usage as much more decent (relatively). Both are the same, a conservative may say that they are bowing to western culture, but I think its much more to do with the popularity of such terms in Hollywood, its counter-part Bollywood has been not so liberal in usage of abusive language.

    I picked up foul language sometime in mid-school, when we passed school there was only one or at most two boys still away from its active usage. In my college I found only one among 200+ boys (but he had his own versions of curses, which went quite above everyone’s head). The good things about using foul language are,

    • Good way to throw out your anger and frustration, go and shout from a roof/hill top, or do it after getting drunk.
    • Gives you a good time cursing your bosses, peers, any boy who roams around with good girls or mostly anyone.
    • Comes for free and is quite relieving, much more than dhyana or yoga.

    The only things about it which is not good and I don’t like is when its done in a seriously serious manner. People start fighting over it and makes matter stupid. When I and most of my friends do it, its mostly for fun, although we know making fun of other people is a serious crime, but everyone does it, and criminals are bound to use some foul language here and there. Some serious misapprehensions which are associated with this are,

    • it slows down with age- I think this skill mellows with age, the usage becomes more or less perfect and less hurtful to others.
    • you shouldn’t say it in front of girls- ???? pointless

    Although in front of parents and relatives better don’t use it. I mean you can but better don’t. You might have noticed it, sometimes when you are at home, and things haven’t rubbed off from your tongue you feel like shouting sometimes, do it in a bathroom, safest place to do it.

    By the way some unique ones which I have come across in my life are,

    – Indi-Poi Indrapal- used by a schoolmate, he considered this to be the mother of all profanities
    – Dusht Bijuke – Bijuke is Pure hindi for Scarecrow, my friend in college made it quite popular.

    I am not mentioning lots of them which would like a bit indecent on my blog.

    Whatever be it, never ever use it to hurt anyone, as long as its for fun, use it…

    And for all those like the F-Word, try using the S-word!!!