Kutto ki Rang Birangee Duniya

Hello Jee , kee haal ? Aap to aajkal ghar aate hee nahi , kabhi bhai sahib ko lekar aiyye na…ab to bacche bhee bade ho gaye honge..bittu kaunsi class mein aa gaya…ok ok sorry , wo Diwali par uncle aunty logo ke beech Hello jee ke baad inti saaree baatein hoti hai ki main emossnal ho gaya tha . So shareef logo jaise , hello jee .

So , October is such a rapchandooos month nahi ? So many holidays , my boss must be singing “wake me up , when October ends..” . I am in another long weekend and while I have been undergoing international level transformations at both professional and personal levels ( Mera kunwarapan apni aakhiri saansein gin raha hai aunty ! ) , I still find enough time to ruminate about deeper issues such as what happens after death , why has my cellphone been smelling like a masala dosa lately , and the spelling of czekoslovacia…czhekoslovakkia…checho..watever !

But my ears perked up when I read about an article which said they are capturing stray dogs in Malaysia and deporting them to an island where the environment is harsher than the inside of Himesh Reshammiya’s bathroom . ( Accha , agar uska bathroom scary nahi lagta to imagine a naked Himesh singing “Aye Huzoooor” in a shower . Ab laga darr ? ) So coming back to the biting topic , I think it is pretty bad that stray dogs are being put through this .

I mean , come on yar , they are itchy , lie around in drains , bark at insane hours setting off the car alarm and do susu on the front tyre of your pink scooty , but phir bhee yaar , stray dogs form a part of our society , just like that tiny beggar kid who sells plastic goggles at a traffic signal or a lazy cow which chooses to dump in the middle of the street a never seen before version of the aloo ke paranthe she ate. I , for one , think it is a kuttapanti to hate stray dogs like this and given a chance , I would bite such people in the leg ( Shit man , I hope I don’t start wagging my behind when I am happy ! ) .

In fact , if I float down in the world of stray dogs , I think there are various kinds of stray dogs . I mean , no offence to any dog , each dog has a personality and a favorite color and a favorite film star of his own ( Which, I feel , is never a Dharmendra ) , but still , in my opinion , there are some variety of stray dogs :


1.The lazy ones – “Sone de na , kutte !”

These are the ones which were born ( By the way , would a dog mind if you call him a SOB ? ) to sleep . Ye paida hote hain and the first thing they do is to crawl under a white maruti swift parked nearby and sleep. I seriously envy these guys man . I mean , these guys can sleep like angels in the drawing room of the Deol household , which as per research carried out by Brainy Kuttas association of the world has been ranked as the most dangerous place for kuttas in the world . Kyun ? Abbe baap kutto ka khoon peeta hai pineapple juice ki maafik , ek puttar ka dhai kilo ka haath hai aur doosre puttar ke to baal dekh kar hee kutte darr jaate hai .

I mean , If there were beds made for dogs , this bunch would be the gold card customers for the doggy carpenters . I can imagine what these guys would yell at a loudly talking human being who disturbs their sleep as they sleep on a pavement – “Sone de na , kutte !” . The only thing which can make them crawl from under that shady charpai is hunger , which brings us to the next market segment of kuttas.

2.The bhookha ones – “Main to haddi ka pujareee..mujhe haddi chahiye”

I mean , a typical specimen of this market segment can be visualized like this – Dirty brown , with a tongue hanging out like an extra large bedsheet hanging out from the side of a bed , and eyes that scream “Khaaana!!!” . These guys are found in trash bins of all the eating places. Nirulas , Mcdonalds , KFCs , TGIFs , they are like print outs of google maps to all the eating joints in the town . You can ask any one of them “Bhai Saab , yahan se McD ke liye kaise jaana hai” and they will tell you all you need to know !

But the kuttapanti of the situation is that while these gentlemen eat all the time , they are also the most skinny . Most of these dogs look like imports from Somalia and weigh almost equal to a polythene bag.


3.The Vaasna ke Pujari Kutte – “Aao rani!”

Think Prem chopra in a silk gown Combined with Ranjeet in a tight baniyan topped off with a little bit of Amrish Puri . Now think all of this in the form of a dog.
They don’t care much about sleep or food or running after every car they see ( Waise dogs don’t chase Tata Nanos . Kutte confuse ho jaate hai ki yeh car hai ya two wheeler ? ). All they care about is the pushpas and Kamlas of their neighbourhood.

They smell them , chase them and create the most disturbing scenes in the middle of public places which are questioned by kids using innocent questions “Bhaiiya , yeh doggies aise ajeeb style mein kyun khel rahe hai?”.

I mean , just these guys are reasons enough for institutionalization of dog police.

4.The cute “Ui ma , look at him” types !

Technically, these guys should be on the back seat of a silver Corolla , in a little green sweaters and sunglasses perched on their pink noses . But galat community mein paida ho Gaye . So even they are cute and little girls want to bring them home and keep them in shoe boxes, they end up scratching themselves in places they should be wearing nylon jockeys. Although they form a very little percentage of the total stray kuttas market , they are like the only dogs who look like they have ever used cosmetics in a world which is populated by dogs who look like they have only been to a drain. The Ranbeer Kapoors and Imran Khans of doggies.

5.The “Gaadi chalaunga!” ones

Sacchi Sacchi batana , how many times have you raced your bike against that dog who chases you everytime you cross that street ? Mujhe to bada maza aata hai. I turn that corner around that pastry shop , and as I shift down to third gear , I see him . Eyes focused , teeth showing , with his body taut and ready to chase me down.

I put the bike back into fourth and create a distance between the bike and him as I pass him . As if jolted by a gunshot , he sprints off like a cheetah and comes after me . He generally gives up by the time I cross the the flower shop further down that street. But then , if this bunch of dogs could talk , I guess most of us would want to ask them “Peecha karta kyun hai be ? Aur agar pakad leta to karta kya ? Bike chalata ?”.

So uncle Charlie , kutte to aur bhee tarah tarah ke hain . Lekin iss Rang Birangi Kutto ki duniya ko aur nahi soonghte abhi . Kuch kaam shaam kar lete hain . Weekend khatm hone ko hai , phir kaam ayo re . Sigh , yeh office kyun jaana padta hai yaar ? Yeh life bhee badi “kutti” cheez hai re pushpaa…take care, and don’t bite anyone !

Of death , movies and other regular stuff

So , the last time I wrote something here , was a time when Kapil Dev was in polka dotted diapers and dinosaurs used to prance around the earth with gay abandon . Ok , that’s a slight exaggeration about the extent of my absence , but you get the drift.

Absenteeism reasons , though I assume you care more about the dirt stuck under the nail on your left little finger than my absenteeism reasons , range from being busy with a domesticised and less grandiose version of that part of Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Ghum where Bacchan Saab tells SRK that he must not marry Kajol ( Oh yeah , now this is the part which makes my female friends go "oh wow ! Bata na Bata na ") , to , settling in a job where the best part of my day remains hitting the coffee button on the sputtering machine or discovering the OS on my laptop has crashed.

But this being a late weekend night when I rest with a un-full tummy ( you know , with the advent of better preservation gadgets , my mom has really minimised cooking now ) and nothing much on the TV , I think I will talk about something , which is totally unaligned with the kind of person I am . I mean , considering the kind of person I am , the deepest conversation I should be having should be about some elephant with a real bad digestion , but I say with the unflinching honesty of a Vinod Kambli on Sach ka Saamna , I am not trying to seem like the next Aristotle here . All I am trying to do is talk rather pointlessly about something which has been hovering in the back alleys of my mind since this morning with the feeble yet significant buzz of a mosquito trapped in your ear canal – Death.

Death , you know . That part of life which ends it . Considering that I have not yet not died though many sensible people have tried to eradicate me , I don’t know how it must be after death , but I do imagine it to be very quiet , relaxed , solitary and chill after death . I am not sure if there is a heaven for the good guys and a hell for the bad guys , and as a result , I am not very concerned about the old woman I pushed off the stairs last week . I mean , you understand how annoying it is to be not be able to rush down the stairs because a 67 year old ahead of you moves slower than a sofa , don’t you ? But the fact remains that I am going to die someday , wether it happens when I am digging into a hotdog ( I hope I have finished the most of it by that time , mommy says food should not be wasted ) or it happens when I am wedged between the rubber tyres of a DTC bus , whether I am going to be regaled by Arabian dancers in some heaven , or be served as supper to hungry devils in a green tubelight-ed hell .

And you know , what I am thinking about is that moment , that moment which is sitting delicately at the end of the road called life as it ends , yet opens up into the unknown chasm called death . That moment , when I will be on the verge of being lifted by death , and I will know in my heart “Shit yaar , yeh end hai , ab picchar baaki nahi hai mere dost” . Now no “Dawa ya Dua” can save me ! No people , no movies , no cars , no boss , no relationships , no money , no smiles , no Himesh Reshammiya , no fights , no competitions , no career , no TV , nothing , after the event called Death .

That moment , when I will know in my heart , that irrespective of my willingness to go or not , I would be gone next moment . In that moment , I imagine myself to feel guilty about the heart I broke , happy about the smile I brought on a face , sad about the moment I should have told my mother I loved her but did not , proud of the moment I believed in someone and stood by her , happy about the times I spent laughing with my friends , grateful for the moments somebody knew me as I am and accepted me , heartbroken about being a son lesser than a son I should have been . And just experiencing a little of that moment by writing about it , I am shocked by how easily do I forget what really matters . Kitni choti choti baton par senti ho jaata hoon main ! I mean , how easily do I forget that I am going to die and a lot of stuff doesn’t really matter . How easily do I forget that however blind I may try to be to my reality , that moment will thrust the sum of deeds in my face without leaving me with an escape route . How easily do I allow myself to lose perspective and be drowned in the useless ego fights , pointlessly hurting the very people I love , choosing not to express my love just because I am too proud to do so , not taking that stupid seeming but heartfelt leap because I never have . How easily I forget the impending arrival of that last moment , and as a result , how easily I forget what really matters during the moments I have between now and that moment . How easily do I let myself be scared by the insecurities of a life unknown and continue to suffer a situation I don’t enjoy when that moment will snatch away whatever fake securities I build around myself . How easily I shut up my heart and listen to all the voices around me , when in the end , the only voice I will have to hear is the voice of my heart . How easily I forget death , and thus , how easily I forget how to live . I mean , sometimes I really need this perspective check and get out of the holed up thinking and view life in a more cool manner . Saala khul ke jeena bhool jaata hoon yaar . I mean , I act like I have a lot to lose and get all scared and calculated , when hai kya mere paas khone ke liye ?

I know you are either confused , or bored , or both and would label the drivel above as some cheap regurgitation of some pocket book sized Geeta I recently read . But you know , I am just talking to myself , like those bollywood-ish village crackheads who roam around the village mumbling to themselves with their overgrown and uncombed hairstyles and are taunted and stoned by the half naked village urchins .

So chill , don’t walk out of this blog feeling all suicidal and kill yourself by smelling your own feet . Aise hee baat kar raha tha kakke . And the movie season kicks in pretty soon now , with Wake up Sid and Do Knot Disturb released today , and I really need to spike up my movie watch counter this weekend . If any of you stays around Palam Vihar and needs company over a movie , I am totally in , though don’t think I am running some shady “frandship club” with those heart shaped ads in hindi newspapers. By the way , watched "What’s your Rashee” today , and even though the end is a bit “Hain??” types , the movie did seem pretty delightful and 'feel good' to me . Moral of the story - Harman Baweja is not that bad an actor . I mean , he is a bit wooden , but not exactly teak . Second moral of the story - Just because I noticed Harman does not mean I am not straight !

And before I go back and cook some maggi for me ( Oh yes , it’s 11.48 in the night and I am really hungry , courtesy the fact that mommy offered me “kal ke raajma and parso ke chawal” for dinner) , please see the stuff posted below , which is about a Brand Management course for Designers being offered by ‘Brands of Desire’ , a Strategic Brand Consultancy and Design Company based out of New Delhi . I can vouch for it that if you are a student of design or a working designer , the course can help you learn some pretty useful things about further upgrading your skill sets . Mail uboweja@brandsofdesire.com to know more.

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