beingdesh

Category: Uncategorized

  • 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.

  • Simple Things again…

    Its awesome, the feel of having simply cooked jeera fused daal & chawal after a week of nonsense eating. Pizzas, subway, manglorean style chicken gravy, dosas, chinese stuff, ice cream and a bit of C2H5OH. But nothing gave me as much satisfaction like today.

    Simple things, like cleaning up my closet, washing clothes, reading a book, cooking food, having a nice simple chat with my friend yesterday night are always the stuff which keeps me going, still I wonder why I run away from it.

    Simplicity from work to food to other things in life, is the way to go. [Ref: Hrishida movies :)]

    For the past year or so my association with things simple were with something else, although in a different form, that simplicity has gone, now I need to be back to what simplicity originally meant to me.

    And hope all things simple which I like will fall in place too.

  • 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


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    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?

  • Sorry to say but they surely are…

    During Hero Cup I liked them but Sachin ended them in that historic over;1996 I was fascinated by them: by Jonty, by Cronje, by Donald, but Lara did them; 1999 they were surely the best, and I cried with millions others when Klusner was run out, Steve Waugh did them; 2003 they were the home side lead by the brilliant pollock, but Duckworth Lewis did them; 2007 they did themselves limping out in semis; T20-1 they played awesome but didnt qualify after loosing to Indians and for the first time I stopped supporting them, I started believing what they were labeled as was true, 2009 and 2010 the pakistanis helped us to prove that the South African Cricket team is well and truly:

    “CHOKERS”Me and many like me have stopped loving South African Cricket

  • The Story of Indian Railway Cutlet

    Have you ever noticed Bhartiya Railway- “Aapki Sewa main” (Indian Railway- In Your Service) written in small circles on the berths in railway coaches. The only noticeable aspect of this service is their catering, captured in the quintessential Railway breakfast, Cutlets!!!

    Those small patties, covered with bread crumbs, deep fried, cut in various shapes (circular in west, heart shaped in east, other shapes which I have seen include a rhombus, small squares etc.) are part of the morning happenings of any train journey. After experiencing (primarily experiencing the sense of smell) the aromatic railway toilets in morning (usually flooded, soiled and you know what all) and a quick brushing of teeth standing alongside variety of people, many a times with finger (as one forgets the brush 9 times out of 10) the smell of these cutlets is the first welcome thing which invigorates all senses, especially “the smell” which ends all smells. The smell of railway cutlets is unique, much unique than that of soil after first rains, or that of Chanel no.5 . Any other smell which comes closer is that of railway window railings, purely metallic and very very unique. Another smell which was equally unique was that of Duckback raincoats, leathery and nice.

    These cutlets are mostly made of potatoes with a few seasonal veggies, mostly peas, carrots etc. Although the best ones always have that bit of beetroot in them, they always have. They are nicely packed, well wrapped in aluminum foils, in fact there is a bit of sogginess which seeps in along with the crispiness due to the foils which creates a unique taste. One is always served two cutlets with bread butter (2 slices only, never ever more than that). I always make a sort of a sandwich out of the first and then slowly munch of the second one to get lost in its taste. One can’t forget the contribution of ketchup here (cheap version, enriched with Pumpkins for thickness). This tomato ketchup is always packed in those small plastic sachets, bright red in color, it always adds to the flavor of cutlets. Although nowadays one tends to get branded ketchup at times.

    Cutlets taste best with the watery coffee (which is much better than the watery tea). Although if one gets tea of the quality of Chaudhry Chai waala (a famous tea vendor, near Nandurbar station, en route Ahmedabad to Nagpur) one shouldn’t miss that.

    Cutlets compete for stomach-space with Omelets in morning, but in my books there in only one winner when it comes to breakfast on Indian railways. Cutlets also get an enhanced version in Rajdhani or Shatabdi where they are accompanied with fried green peas or a some pieces of French fries at times. But the basic taste remains the same.

    I just hope I keep traveling, enjoying my journeys on Indian Railway and keep enjoying the wonderful moments it brings along.

    Long Live the Indian Railway Cutlet, one of the best breakfast in this country…

  • Missing Ones…

    6th Oct 2010

    My birthday in 2 days, Hyderabad (maybe not) has been a nice good city, minus few of things which were an awesome part of my life few months back.

    Like loosing things in room and getting scolded for that, or looking at bargaining skills all through the day, or his awesome vishnu bhagwaan like sleeping position. All that taane which he gave me.

    Or the touch of her hands on my ears, or the sound of puchuk, or just watching her staring at that laptop, and getting disso with her.

    The burrpy giggles he used to throw up once in a while, sharing the asexual tag with me, and such a calming influence he always brought to me.

    Her awesome influence on me, her electrifying presence in placom room, the way she handled things and the way she cared for me through all the toughy times.

    His gossips, me and him discussing our chai-biscuit grihasthis :), his awesome pics which truly represent what a person is, removing all the fakeness from them and bringing out what they actually are in his signature style pics.

    His love stories, his hugs, the time we spent in DOCC, his presentations, and his voice, he caring for me and me cribbing about his GK, his love for all things non veg.

    Her awesome teeth flashing smile, her caring touch and exciting voice, her energy levels which always kept me going through those bad days, her dance moves which I would die for, we talking nonsense sometimes and so much of sense most of time, her gujju jeans , our discussion on small town stories and our so called ganwaar attitude when we sat together, me pulling her leg over she eating fish-head and being bong for the rest of her life.

    His love for all things sweet & chocolatey, his mood swings, awesome sense of knowing what I am going through, we forming the profanity expert gang, me cribbing about him never studying, him talking in sleep and running away from all thing academic, and our natural partnerships, and indori dicussions.

    His slender legs n wicked smile, his fingers rolling over cellphone with infinite speed, he combing his hair and looking like a nursery kid, him being the most mature persons around irrespective of opinions, his happiness in achieving what he always wanted, his sincerity like of which I never saw, his voice which was irritating but necessary for me to hear whenever I felt sad.

    His love for Old Monk and his weird discussions on FMCG, half of which I skipped listening, but they are so difficult to live without now, him shouting at times, but being caring all the time, his enjoyment plans which I was scared about, his relaxation plans which I loved to be part off. Me enjoying sometimes abusing him for weird reasons :), him cribbing about things but being so focused in his life, and for the infinite time we spent together.

    Her zillion attempts to declare me incompetent of ever patao-ing a girl, her multizillion attempts to prove herself as kamini, which always bombed as she was so simple, the simplest of them all, me feeling guilty about not knowing her better earlier, to being very lucky to know her so well, just sitting with her and get to listen to her, noticing her fake smiles which were easiest to comprehend and just told me what she thought, and her real smiles which made me more happy than anything else here and for the infinite time we spent together.

    Missing ones in my life, hope they don’t go missing forever.

  • 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,

  • What Having Fun was… What it is?

    Comes from my conversations with few buddies… mix of their and my incidents 🙂

    As a Kid having a cold drink was fun. I still remember the time when my dad used to take me to Indian Coffee House, ordered a Special Dosa for me (with one Kaju, costed 14 Rs. then). He would order a filter coffee and watch me munch on the dosa. And then came the cold drink. Ahaa, that straw and that first sip was awesome. From Gold Spot to rarity of having coke, it was all fun. And yes The Green Boxed Frooti (Rs. 6) was awesome too.

    As a kid I loved having an ice cream. Didn’t we always dream of a chocobar or a vanilla cup. It was so awesome when I went out with my family to have that. Maybe once a month, maybe once in 2 months. But it was awesome. Arun Ice cream’s vanilla cups were the best 🙂

    As a kid I loved ice cream. The best thing was Nirula’s. Chocolate was simply the best. They used to give me one after I showed them my report card, and I also got coupon for my birthday 🙂

    Those were the days. Sipping Beer, or whisky at Banshankari’s famous hang-outs. Seshgiri or its not so far sister concern (codename: 3 gigolos :)). We got drunk, had chips from some HOT CHIPS, cold drinks from the same store, and then we talked…

    and talked

    and talked

    a movie used to play, a guy used to enter kop-bhavan, 2 guys were always coding something on a red laptop which was hotter than a frying pan, and we ended up playing karaoke with Golmaal or discussing Nihilism, science fiction & indian cinema.

    And there are moments which me, and a few others dont like that much, but it gives some sort of fun to others. Like, loud music, dark discos, late night drinking and talking sessions etc etc.

    But then like today, there are awesome mornings to cover them all up, from disc-asur to Idli-esh. We had the best breakfast one can ever have to start the day, filter coffee, 5-6 types of idlis, 4 types of dosas, podi with oil, benne (white butter).

    I know what kind of fun is best for me, and I will be back soon, as soon as this 2 year thing comes to an end.