Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Guy in the Mirror

Earlier this day , I was having a conversation with a friend.Since I was a part of the conversation , it was of shameful intellectual standards .I was talking about the haircut I got yesterday . ( I think I look cute after the haircut. A little girl looked at my head and pointed at it and said 'Chee' . I guess that means she found it cute ).
Suddenly , in an awful display of veering of conversation , the talk moved onto a rather philosophical plane. Within a matter of minutes , the haircut talk developed into an animated discussion and my friend asked me this

" Have you ever thought what kind of person are you?".

I promptly coughed , murmered something about durban test , and then started talking about the weather in Calcutta .The conversation ended soon after. ( Itne heavy questions poochega to end karni hee padegi na ) . But then I got back to my room , jumped in my bed , drew my bedsheet over the eyes , stared into the darkness and thought
"What kind of person am I?"

Now I am as confident as a Shane Warne bowling to Sonu Nigam when I say that around 4 people on this planet would be interested in knowing about the person I am , assuming my family would be interested in that . But I guess thinking about oneself once in a while clears up things , and then why should only celebrities get to talk about themselves and their favorite colors and favorite dishes ? ( Tanushree Dutta says her favorite is Rajma Chawal . I am learning to cook rajma chawal now . Things I do for Tanu.). So now , the winces and yawns and death threats notwithstanding , I talk about what I think of myself as a person .

Once when I was thirteen , I was sitting at the school library . During a particularly intense browsing of Femina ( Or was it Cosmopolitan ? Cant remember now..was something equally nice ) , I chanced upon this quote by some old Moroccan vegtable seller -

"The most uncomfortable person in this world is a person who is not himself."

I tore away the page carrying this quote and stuffed it in my back pocktet . I went home , and pasted this sheet on the wall of my room . Later that day , mom complained to dad about me putting up photographs of white girls in my room at the tender age of thirteen . Some people just cant ignore a scantily dressed girl in the page background and focus on the quote .

But over the years , I have tried to practise what this quote said . So I have learnt to listen to myself . I have learnt to develop a sense of self security so I dont need to do things which make me 'cool' or 'happening'or 'smart'. So I don't drink or smoke , even though guys around me gulp gallons of alcohol and call me 'sissy' and 'mama's boy' while I sip a lemonade . So I dont stand around the boss during the office party and exclaim 'Excellent Idea' when the boss describes a business idea even a beauty queen wont approve . I wont play a rock number on my winamp just because every cool dude with colored hair says it 'ossssssssummmmm man' . Improvement is something that belongs to my priority list , but pretending to please your senses is not exactly on my things-to-do list. In short , I am uncool , stuck-in-old-times , and strange to a lot of people , but I have learnt to be myself .
Also , I am a bit out of sync with the Ludhiane-wali-aunty who says "Oye , IIM te munde croro kamande hain". ( For the gareeb bhai behan who don't watch Punjab Doordarshan , it means "IIM graduates earn crores") . At a basic level , Ludhiane wali aunty represents the general mentality of society which puts a lot of unnecessary judgements on an IIM graduate . Just because I got to IIM doesn't mean that I am supposed to live a life of working overtime at office till my kids confuse me for an uncle who comes home to sleep with their mommy . I am not very ambitious professionally , and may end up a lot less 'successful' than my peers from IIM . But then , I have my goals , and my aunt doesn't influence much of them.

And a contract killer is more spiritual than me , and I dozed off on the second shloka of Bhagvad Geeta , but as the years pass me by , I am beginning to understand the importance of searching for happiness in the right places . Achievements , salaries , accolades , shallow relations serve as a rocket fuel for the ego , but an ego boost is as different from happiness as an Ostrich from Lara Dutta .
I am learning from life , that things change , people change , and clinging onto anything is selfish and as useless as Mohammad Kaif's batting.

Anyway , talking about oneself in words is like trying to fit in Inzamam Ul Haq and his family in the black catsuit Aishwarya wore in 'Crazy Kiya re' . I have already destroyed every limit of self indulgance tonight by talking about myself so long , so I wll wrap up now.
Have a lovely 2007.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Your fantasies can come true

I walked over to the reception of the hotel I am staying at , placed my elbow on the counter poetically , and asked
" Hi . Is there any cyber cafe around this place ?"

Generally , the answers travels along the same lines , telling me that I need to swim across seven oceans , hop across a couple of cheetah infested mountain ranges and fight some dragons on the way to get to the nearest cafe . So when the lady at the reception looked up and said " Oh yes Sir , in fact we have a business center right here in this hotel with round the clock internet access" , I had a genuine urge to fling myself across the counter , hug her and shout "You are an angel ! Where are your wings !" till she passes out from the smell of my cheap china made cologne .
And I spent the last week at Bombay . And in an event rated to be as big as Adnan Sami's thighs , I saw Sunjay Dutt at the Siddhi Vinayak Temple there . And not the type of "seeing" where people stick out their head's from each other's armpits and find something moving in distance and mistake a lampost for Abhishek Bachchan . Sanjay Dutt was barely 5 feet away from me while shouts of 'Munnabhai' rang across the temple .
But on a more Sushma Swaraj-ish note , Marine Drive shocked me in the same way a rusty old room cooler did when I tried to fil it up with water when I was eight . I mean , I am no Pandit Gangadhar Panduraam Shastri whose delicate sensibilities will be offended by an exposed ankle . But the way young couples choose to do 'things' not exactly in alignment with All India Mummy Papa Association over there was a little 'not-so-relaxing' for me to watch .Arre bhai , video dekhna hain to ghar mein dekho na , multiplex mein public screening kyun kar rahe ho ?
And the good part about being out of Kerala is that instead of asking "Kaunsi movie lagee hain ? Hindi ya Malayalam ya English ?" , I can ask "Kaunsi movie lagi hain ? Hindi ya English ?" ( Yeah . I have almost forgotten how Mammooty looks like . Mohanlaal is still fresh in my memory , but I am sure I will get over him too ). So over the last couple of weeks , I have watched "Kabul Express" and "The Covenant" . KE ( MBA hoon . Abbreviation banana accha lagta hain bachpan se .) was good enough. But when me and a couple of friends walked out of the "The Covenant" , we had definite plans of kidnapping the director's daughter , wife and mother ( In case any of these were unavailable , we planned to pick up his sister-in-law . After all , saali hain.) and asking for the ticket's refunds as ransom.Without saying more , there were nine people in the hall when the movie started . Including the projector guy . And five walked out during the intermission . One kept sleeping in his chair.
And in keeping with my entrepreneuring ( Angrezo ko pagal dinosaur kee poonch se baandh kar ghaseetna chahiye . itne mushkil words banate kyun hain yeh log ? ) spirit , and long tortured due to the lack of height , me and some other guys at my workplace have launched a club called SPOIL . It stands for 'Small People Of ITC Limited' . All the 'vertically challenged people' ( notice how I play with words to avoid the words "Short/dwarf/midget") have come together and have decided to stand up for each other whenever one of us is threatened by a bigger guy . A couple of days ago , one of the SPOIL members even climbed on another member's shoulders and punched a taller bully in the face . SPOIL has decided to handle the medical bills for both of them .
Chalo yaar , mere bheje ki dukaan se to aise kuch kuch rockets niklate rahenge and I will keep typing it . So abhi main chalta hoon . As for the post title , it was just to keep you perverted minds reading till the end .
Chow . ( MTV pe VJ ne bola tha . Tabse main bhee bolta hoon . )