Chartbusters Unlimited - Volume 1

In spite of a cricket team which plays like a bunch of arthritic grandmothers, I really like being an Indian at times. I mean, what other country would give me a day off for celebrating the birthday of a guy who may have never existed? I wonder how many of us really strap up cardboard conical caps to our heads and shout ‘Happy Birthday Krishna’ on Janmasthmi, but I am sure a lot of us get a day off to lie unbathed , download songs and type grammatically horrendous blog entries. Perfect country for a guy like me, I tell you.

Anyway, earlier today, I decided to renew the songs on my system. So I delved into my hard disk, into folders that had been long forgotten, lying untouched since ages like your old bicycle which lies dumped in the attic once you grow up. Folders that had been lying embedded deep in the disk like abandoned Umrao Jaans. Folders that contained songs which once made my heart dance like a drunken monkey who just gained entry into a hostel housing young female monkeys. So I rediscovered some old classic songs which were once played at every tea shop in this country.

Songs which define the times I grew up in. Songs which contained the gut wrenching grief of a lost love , the cute joy of a blossoming love, the mischievous naughtiness of a lover’s wink. Songs which embodied the emotions which fill the developing heart of every Indian boy when he is growing up. Songs which shaped my thinking when my mind was still impressionable. Songs which have made me the man I am. So ladies , gentlemen and Bobby Darlings , not wishing that these gems ,which have played such an important role in the making of this sophisticated , refined and tasteful young man go unrecorded on this blog , I give to you , a few of these life changing creations -
~~

“Kahan Gir Gaya Dhoondho Sajan

Button meri kurti ka”

English translation, for the benefit of my overseas readers ( Yes , I have one from Bhutan . A girl from Uganda visits sometimes,too.)

(Where has it fallen , please search Darling ,

The button of my shirt )

This extremely naughty and imaginative song sensitively captured the anxiety and terror of a young girl who, due to a unskilled tailor who used a cheap thread, has lost a very crucially located button on her shirt. To make matter more intense, she is dancing dangerously close to the young hero of the film, the purpose of whose existence is to tease the young girl and belt out bone bending pelvic movements at the same time.

It doesn't take much to notice the anguish on Mamta'a face

.You gotta be anguished when you got Mithun with you and your shirt button is missing.

Hey Saala ! Teri Jaat ka paida maaru ! Mamta meri hai , kya !

The song was picturised on a well fed Mamta Kulkarni along with a clearly uncontrolled Mithun Chakraborty ,who looked as dapper as ever in his wet swept back hair. Now you know why Mamta was so terrified. On a personal note, the song left a huge dent on the contents of my skull , and taught me a lot about what to do when life presents you with a lady who has lost a button on her shirt.

~~

Hero-

Angana mein Baba , dware pe Ma

Kaise aau gori , main tohre ghar maa

Heroine-

Khet gaye baba , bazaar gayi ma

Akeli hu ghar maa , tu aaja saajna

(

Hero-

Your dad is in the courtyard ,

your mom is at the door

How do I enter your house , oh fair one ?

Heroine-

Dad is (defecating?) in the fields ,

mom is in the market

I am Home alone , come in Darling .)

If the previous song carefully brought out the menace of cheap buttons and improper tailoring , this song points its finger at the age old problem faced by every young couple – Parents. The song starts off on a touching note where a troubled Govinda is itching to enter the residence of a rather conservative Shilpa Shirodkar.

But at the same time , Govinda is concerned about his physical safety as he believes Shilpa’s parents are at home too . As the song progresses and tightly captures the longing of Govinda , the mood is relieved when Shilpa coyly informs him that her father is in the fields and her mother has gone to the market to avail the 60% discount on Ajay Kunwar Sarees.

In a shocking display of modernity , she not only informs but invites Govinda inside her home . What followed after his entrance his beyond the scope of this post , though of deep interest to the author of this blog. On a parallel note , I strongly believe that Shilpa’s father went to the fields to defecate . Being a resident of a (Gur)Gaon myself , I have been a traumatically close witness to the happenings in a field , and I can confidently claim the purpose of Shilpa’s father’s visit to the fields.

On how the song affected me , it was a clear indicator that if I ever love a woman , I will make sure there is a saree discount sale on around her home and her home does not have a toilet.

How do I enter Silpa'a House ?

Shilpa , the girl whose father went to the fields.

~~~~

"Tera kale kale lambe lambe naagin se baal ,

Dekho Ankhiyon se goli mare ladki kamaal"

(Your hair is dark dark , long long and like a cobra

Look , The fantastic girl shoot bullets from her eyes)

A trend setting number of its times, this track was the first of its kind which made a girl sound like a weapon of mass destruction .Govinda , who sported a dress which was strikingly similar to an art gallery , first compares Raveena Tandon’s hair to a serpent of deadly virtues – The Cobra .

As the audience lies stunned and little babies in the hall start wailing, he proceeds to bravely declare that Raveena has the ability to fire bullets using her eyes . A totally novel and unique concept , this became a talking point across the nation and the Indian Military ranks .

A few days after the song swept across the country , cheap tabloids reported that some very excited Officers from the Indian Military had invited Raveena at their Weapon Research Laboratory .What happened in the dark confines of the Lab remains a mystery , but Raveena was never the same chirpy girl again. Reports pour in to this day , with recent news being Raveena has been posted at the military base at Leh border with a bulletproof vest and no guns , except her two eyes.

Govinda sings about Raveena's shooting abilities joyfully , just before the Military picked up Raveena.

So , my fellow music conoisseurs, these were just three of the gems which have offered so much to our lives , to my life . I have laughed , cried , chuckled , sobbed and done a lot of strange things listening to these songs . I hope to showcase more songs soon . But for now , I just have to sway to “Jab tak samose mein rahega aaloo..”.

Chak De !

Stepping out of the hall, I casually asked my mother , “Kaisee lagee , ma?”.

Usually, asking my mother this question after a movie tells me how it is going to end up doing at the box office. She says ‘Theek Thaak’ and the movie is an average grosser. She says ‘Tu hamesha bekaar picchur hee dikhaata hai’ and the movie is a flop.She says ‘Chal iski ticket ka refund maangte hai’ and the movie is a mega flop with a high probability of the director's wife leaving him soon.

Getting back to the question posed earlier this day. “Acchi lagi. Sacchi mein dil kar raha tha ki humari team jeet jaye!” , she exclaimed, almost as excitedly as a teenaged tamil girl in the middle of a dinner date with Rajnikanth.

That was the moment when I knew this movie is going to be a hit. I mean, when a movie can make a 52 year old woman, with a spirit burdened by the strains of bringing up a son like me, say something like that, it sure can cause a young India to pump out adrenaline enough to fill up all the overhead water tanks in my colony.

It was only after my sister explained to me that I was turning into one of those work junkies who spend their lives changing column sizes on excel sheets and are finally found dead slumped on the keyboard by the office boy one morning, that I decided to take my mother and sister to ‘Chak De India’ at Metropolitan Mall in Gurgaon. Of course, my sister predicted other details like how no girl would agree to marry me if I continue to neglect human relations, but then , let us skip the gory part.

I attribute it to my innocence and ignorance of the female mind that I expected shopping would not be a part of the outing. When two Indian ladies step into a mall, evading shopping is like a cyclist trying to avoid being hit when caught in a race involving blueline buses. My consolation remains that in spite of a season ending sale on at most stores in the mall, there was enough space in the car for all of us and the shopping bags on our way back.

But coming back to the movie, I think King Khan underlines the fact that he can deliver a powerful performance with an unshaven face and without the overexcited romantic antics. It was refreshing to find a bollywood movie sans the girls-rotating-on-steel poles and muscular- guys-with-guns routine .It could have been a shade better if the guy sitting to my left could have used a more society friendly deodorant instead of the one he was wearing which smelt like the underpants of a pizza delivery boy on a hot sticky day. But notwithstanding that, I enjoyed the movie.

The story is as much a secret as Paris Hilton’s night life, so you don’t spend the movie all twitching in your seat and biting your nails till they cease to exist. But the pace of the movie, the normality of the team characters and the sheer spirit of an underdog taking the pants off their disapprovers carries it through.

No wonder that when our girls hit the winning stroke, many in the hall leapt to their feet, whooping in joy like schoolboys who find out the next class is not happening because the teacher has been diagnosed with chicken pox*(See Note).I suspect some of the overweight middle aged Punjabi aunties threw up their flabby arms too. Even the strange smelling guy next to me let out a gritty ‘Yesss’ , though that does not enhance my respect for his tastes in deodorants in any way.

*Note-Talking of unavailability of teachers, my fondest experience remains when our standard VII chemistry teacher got pregnant and the school could not find a replacement for us. For three happy months, we guys spent chemistry classes talking about girls and playing trump cards when we should have been memorizing the periodic table. Seldom has the birth of a child marked the death of happiness for so many children.

I particularly liked the part when the girls beat up a bunch of eve teasers. Due to some unexplained reason, I feel good when I find a girl beating up a guy. Though not that good that I would not walk up to a girl and say “Hey, please punch me. I have not felt good since morning!”.

Also, It must be particularly tough on the guys playing those eve teasers, even if it means starring in a Shahrukh movie. I mean, I can imagine the guy’s proud father watching the movie and pointing out to the people around him ‘See!See! That’s my son there! No, not the one being kicked by that bunch of Manipuri ladies. My son is the one in the yellow shirt, who was just thrown across the table by that Punjabi girl!’.

So even though I doubt the movie will spark off some kind of revolution and seven year old kids all over Punjab will start selling off their toys to buy hockey sticks, it is a decent experience. Dhoni posters will still sell like hot cakes and kids will still believe a hairstyle like Dhanraj Pillay’s is a punishment . Wishing three hours would revive a sport is as ambitious as wishing I would act in Dhoom 3. So nothing great in here,but maybe you will like it. My mother did.

Happy Belated(Ouch!) Birthday!

There are some moments in life when your mind feels like the inside of a salwar kameez store full of Punjabi ladies during the annual discount store . There are some moments in life when you wish your leg was flexible enough to curve back and land a sunny deol-ish kick on your own behind bad enough to render your morning rituals ineffective for three months . There are some moments in life when you wish you could rewind life and clean up all the mistakes you did.

It hit me when she sent me a very comforting “I will kill you” on gtalk some time back and I blurted out a ‘Shit!’ so loud , all the babies in the neighborhood soiled their chaddis.

I know I sound like I have done something as bad as becoming an unwed daddy of twins , but what I have done is worse than that – I forgot Sunshine’s birthday.

For those of you ‘jinhone apne TV set derr se khole ho’, Sunshine is a friend so close, we get any closer and the Shiv Sainiks will go berserk. I mean , the word ‘friend’ seems as weak as an A K hangal when it comes to what she is to me . Along with my family , she is one of those very few people who I know will be around all life. And even as I type this , I can’t believe I forgot her birthday. And even though I can write her a mail about this , I want this blog to know how special she is.

Sunshine , I know I have been as insensitive as a paralyzed cucumber at times , but you are one person with whom I share too many fond memories. Meeting up at the Rabindra Sadan metro station. The aimless chatter over pizzaz (Kitna khaati hai tu..) .Your mock proposal which still makes me blush. The day we spent in the science park watching a 3 D underwater movie and huge clay dinosaurs . The CD selling plan we chalked out in that park .Your insistence of not taking a cab and my insistence on not taking an auto ( You gareeb..) .The ‘NDTV’ office on campus. Nandan cinema ( Wasn’t bad..) .And obviously , the timeless classic “shey jey…!”. I guess they can make a seventy episode soap opera about our time together.

So now to make it up to you , I will get the date of your birthday tattooed on my arm in permanent ink even if it makes my arm look like a reminder pad . I will go around telling everyone you are a Miss India finalist even if you put on weight . I will buy you a huge exotica pizza and that disgustingly fatty ebony and ivory ice cream you like when you come to India even if you don’t want to eat . I will be there on every special day of your life from your next birthday to the birthdays of your grandkids even if I have seven meetings lined up on the day . I will tell my wife your smile is dazzling enough to light up all the metro stations in Calcutta even if she goes green and calls up her lawyer. I won’t regret writing all this even if G rearranges all the bones in my body.

And I am so sorry for being so stupid even if you say you are not angry.

Happy Belated Birthday !!

Sawaal Apke , Jawaab humare

So , a blogger called Aparna tagged me . And you know me , I am the sort of 18th century quixotic chivalrous gabru jawan types guy who would challenge the entire deol family to "do-do haath" if a lady asks me to do that .And completing a tag is much simpler than protecting my physical well being against Dharam 'Garam' Paaji , Bobby 'Soldier' Paaji and Sunny 'Dhai killo ka haath' Paaji , so here I go.

1. Pick out a scar you have , and explain how you got it .

Mar jaawa mirchi kha ke , these guys are talking about painful memories right away . I have a strong belief that any decent young man without a history of police encounters or public beatings should not have any scars on his 'jism' ( Waise compared to the word 'body' , the word 'jism' sounds as cheap as the fromt row ticket of Sonia Cinema Hall na ? ) . So after a prolonged examination of the wonderland that my body is , I proclaim I have no scars on my body . I know the question demands I find a scar and even talk about how I got it as if it's the world cup trophy , but then what do I do if I have no scars ? Ab blog post ke liye I won't go around asking people "Bhai saab , please stab me thoda sa , I need to write about the scar in my blog ."

2. What does your phone look like ?

Whoever designed this tag must have been a girl . And when I say girl , I mean the 100% girly girl , who screams 'Cho chweeeeeeet' everytime looks at a baby ( Itni excite ka 'cho chweeet' bolti hai ki baby diaper mein susu kar deta hain) . I mean , no male , unless he is under the influence of alcohol , would ask a question like "What does your phone look like?". But anyway , my phone looks like..umm..surprise...a phone ! . If you are still amazed , it has a keypad and a screen too ! . And it is as black as Janet Jackson. Chalo ho gaya. Ab phone ke baare mein aur kya documentary banau ? Phone hai ustaad , global warming nahi hain.

3.What is on the walls of your bedroom ?

Yaar yeh sting operation paltan tho bedroom tak chale gaye . Arre miyan , shareefo ka mohalla hain yeh , ek jawan ladke ke bedroom ke baare mein poochna kahan ki sharafat hain ?
Aaj bata detein hai bass , dobara mat poochna ( Oye yeh tho chlormint ka ad ho gaya.) - I have on the walls of my bedroom the face of an AC sticking out , a plastic mickey mouse smiling stupidly , and framed photographs of Pooja , Naina , Tara , Tina , Julie and Rita . A sensitive lad like me would always keep the pictures of his ex-girlfriends . Yaadein . Meethi meethi yaadein.

4. What is your current desktop picture ?

Arre ab kahan wo zamaana . If you had asked me this question when I was at hostel , then you would have got a rangeen reply . You know what kinda desktop pictures we keep when at home - sunsets , palaces , gardens , monuments , waterfalls etc etc . Waise right now I see my dad smiling at me on the desktop . Hi Papa .

5. Do you believe in gay marriage ?

Huh ? Oye gay marriage hain , koi UFO thode hee hain jo pooch rahe ho "Do you believe ?". I believe a marriage is a union of two minds , who then commit to tread the path of life together , facing all adversity and celebrating all joys together , and helping each other grow in the process . Gay or otherwise , the essence of a marriage is unaffected by such trivial issues . Subhan allah , ekdum miss world waala answer diya na !

6. What do you want more than anything right now ?

Watch Die Hard 4 . Looks like all my friends are either married or committed to find time to go out with me . All boys outings ka tho zamaana hee nahi raha . I am planning to take my mom to the movie after convincing her it's a comedy movie starring Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan . ( Yeah , my mom loved 'Mujhse Shaadi karogi' ).

7 . What time were you born ?

On a mildly cool afternoon that fateful day in October , 1981 , I was delivered into this world , with no indication of the fact that I was to grow up to become the wonderful and charming young man I am today . Within seconds of my being born , a pretty nurse with big eyes wrapped me into a soft white blanket . As she was turning back to get something else , I suddenly gripped her finger with my tiny palm , pulled her towards me and squeaked in my newly discovered voice - "Aunty , time kya hua hain ?."

You actually think all this happened ? Nahi na . So how am I expected to know what time it was when I was born ?

8. Are your parents still together ?

Oye ! Abbe western culture ke poster , humare India mein parents remain together . They are very much together and have no dangerous plans . Shaadi mein fevicol khaayi thi mummy papa ne , mazboot jod hain , tootega nahi.

9. Last person who made you cry ?

Me . I believe no one else can make me cry . Tears arise out of what I do with the thoughts in my head . ( Kaafi profound hain yeh jawaab , samajh na aye tho koi nahi )

10. What is your favorite perfume / cologne ?

Yaar main koi Page 3-socialite-fashion designer types hoon jo itna perfume conscious hunga ? Apna 100 rupye mein axe deo lekar use karta aa raha hoon saalo se .Ladkiyan tho ad mein hee attract hoti hain . Real life mein tho 'Namaste Bhaiyya' hee kehti hain.

11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex ?

Am a very adjusting and easy going person . You ask about the colors , even a lack of hair and eyes is totally cool with me ( Jyada bol gaya emotional hokar , maybe I won't be totally cool with a girl who looks like a blind Anupam Kher )

12. What are you listening to ?

'Bol na Halke Halke' from 'Jhoom Barabar Jhoom'. The first time someone told me there is a song which goes "Bol na Halke Halke" , I thought it was about a couple of engineering students whispering answers to each other during an exam.

13. Do you get scared of the dark ?

Not if there is Amrita Rao in the same room .

14. Do you like pain killers ?

Like ? What's there to like or dislike in a pain killer ? If there is pain , I take the pill . You don't expect me to 'like' pain killers and yell "Mummy ! Aaaj lunch mein aloo ke paranthe aur pain killers bana do ! Bott din ho gaye accha khaana khaye hue !."

15. Are you too shy to ask someone out ?

I am as 'besharam' as a C grade tamil movie . Aati kya Die Hard dekhne ? Ab bolna tho "aati kya khandaala' chahta tha , but abhi khandaala jaane ka mood nahi hain.

16 . If you could eat anything right now , what would it be ?

The guy who put so many questions in this tag . With some tomato ketchup.

17. Who was the last person you made mad ?

Mummy. I do that with alarming frequency.

18. Is anyone in love with you ?

Ladies , this question is for you. Aaju baaju mat dekh , baat dil ki bol daal.

Chalo abhi I need some help . If you are involved with any Pharmaceutical / Biotechnology company in or around Delhi , please let me know. Mail me at abhinavj8008@gmail.com . Thanks !

Title ka kya achaar dalega ?

Idhar ruka tha main rajasthan mein , standard note karo ladke ka.
I found this on my disk . I clicked this some seven months back in Kerala.Creativity note karo ladke ki.

Abhi bheje ke engine ko garam mat kar , iss dard bhari tasveer ka logic baad mein samajh ayega lollipop singh.

Last week when I reached office , a brown envelope was placed on my desk . Ab aajkal tho it is the zamana of e-mail , and passing around paper letters qualifies you for a place in the stone age , so I was like "Yaar yeh kya akbar ke zamane ka item rakha hain". Scared that they might have found out I have been stealing mousepads from the office and hence were firing me while asking for the mousapads back , I tore open the envelope along an edge and pulled out a neatly folded letter. It said that I had completed one year in the company and congratulated me for that.Abbe ek saal hee tho complete kiya hai , congratulate tho aise kar rahe hain jaise main kunwara baap ban gaya hoon. But anyway , the letter sure made me go like - "Uee ma , ek saal ho gaya mujhe office mein free ki coffee down karte hue?." It sure doesnt feel like one year since I walked out of the gates of IIM as a confused guy and walked into the corporate world to confuse everybody in there. But an year it has been , so all you funky people out there , raise a toast . Waise ab toast kahan se laoge , so raise a pakoda , burger , samosa , parantha , jo bhee fridge mein available ho.

And I got my dad a Nokia 6300. Now my dad is the kind of guy who would keep a cellphone till its keypad falls off , its screen disintegrates and the Archeological society of India takes it away and places it next to the pottery found in Mohanjodaro , so I just decided to get a new cellphone for him . I think the model looks pretty good , and slim bhee aisa hain jaise teen mahine se kuch na khaya ho. When I gave it to my dad , I expected him to turn to my mom and say "Dekh humara beta kitna mature ho gaya hain , ab is kee shaadi kar deni chahiye." , but he said something which was on the lines of "Humare bete ko money spend karne ki sense nahi hain , is kee shaadi abhi nahi kar sakte."

And talking of shaadi , my family recently took me to this purana filmy temple . The type of temple which is talked about by ghoonghat clad women in villages , you know the "Tumne suna nahi bahin ? Uss mandir jaakar jo maango mil jaata hain." types wala temple. So while coming out of it , they saw this Pandit Maharaj who sat outside with some books and a sign that said something like "Shri Guru Maharaj Astrology Centre." And cutting short all the gory and kaali details that followed , he announced that any attempts to marry me off within next three years would be as dangerous as Mika at his birthday party. So looks like panditjee has destroyed any immediate plans of "hum do humare do" for me , and I will continue to be the most eligble bachelor in my colony.

And recently I went to Rajasthan in 'kaam ke silsile mein' ( Kitna manager type lagta hai na sunne mein ) . I stayed in this hotel which was a palace Maharaja Ummed Singh had leased out . In fact , I was told the royal family still stayed in the part of the palace which had not been leased out . So this place had corridors adorned with black and white photos of the Raja Sahib and his gang of underweight and ever grinning chamchas . The Raja dude had snaps with a foot on the deadbody of almost every animal I have ever seen at the zoo - Lion , tiger , cheetah , wild boar , crocodile..photographer ke paas thoda aur time hota tho earthworm ke upar bhee joota rakh ke foto khinchwa letein Raja uncle.But the one thing which had the most bura asar on my masoom dimaag was the washbasin in my room . I mean , now you know what that gadget in the picture at the top of this post was .

For half a day , I did not wash my hands thinking this thing would blow up if I ventured within three feet around it . Apparently , this was some ancient style faucet which had been carried over from Raja's time to add that heritage touch to the room.But jo bhee ho Raja Sahib , aapka plumber kaafi over-excited ho gaya washbasin ke faucets design karte hue...

Chal yaar michael , it's 1.30 in the night and mommy always says 'Soja nahi tho Richard Gere aa jayega' , so I must sleep to avoid any kisses now.And haan , yeh tho sun lo , I am going to Kashmir very soon ! I hope udhar aise washbasin na ho.

Some more help needed ( Yeh blog hai ya help desk..)

I will sure try to get the recording from the station so those who have not yet fallen in love with my voice can do so . Thanks for the appreciation and saying things like "Your voice is so cool". My mom listened to the show and she still asks me "Why did they call you on a station for girls? ". I guess that's one insecurity every mother of a rich ,cute and modest guy faces.

Now for some help I need . I have worked out a thing with Pizza Hut where Bingo shall be delivered free with every home delivery Pizza Hut makes in Delhi NCR . Should run for around a week more. If you order a Pizza , and don't get a Bingo , just shoot me a mail so that I can fix up things . We will together sue the Pizza people and end up making a couple of millions ok ? Ok , no suing but do let me know so that I that I know the thing is running all over the place.

Also , if you are involved with any kinda college fest , mela , haat or any public event in Northern India where you need sponsorship ,we can work it out . I am involved with ITC brands like Sunfeast , Bingo , Ashirwaad , Candyman , MintoFresh and all in North India , so keep this in mind . I know it sounds kinda depressing to talk about work on the blog , but then , I love my job . Chal yaar , abhi nikal leta hoon . I will make sure I get that recording . Else the way I am going , I guess I will be in movies soon eh ? wow , my modesty is dead.

I am on air !

Whoever said life is not fair was damn right . In spite of me being totally uncool , some people think otherwise and have asked me to be on a radio show.

So Delhi kee junta , catch me on Radio Meow (104.8 Mhz) today , between 5 to 6 pm.

Totally Random

The needle on the speedometer flirts with the 90 mark. The car cruises down the broad road which spreads out before me like a neatly ironed silk ribbon .Mustard fields dotted by yellow specks of flowers sway gently on either side. And I , going back to Delhi after spending five days in Ludhiana, sprawl on the back seat , watch the fields glide by , and wonder – why do senior guys in the corporate world wear suits all the time ? Though technically I should not care, because I am not one of the senior guys yet, and can attend office covered by Banana leaves ( Waise in that case , what will the people at office say on a day I look good ? Nice leaves ? ) . But I find all this suit-wearing as ridiculous as Upen Patel. All these VPs and CEOs must have ponds of sweat formed in their underwears by the time they get back to their homes.

And when I checked into the hotel I was staying in , the receptionist smiled and asked me “Would a room overlooking the swimming pool be fine , Sir ?”. I had instant visions of ladies looking strikingly similar to the Miss India contestants splashing in the water on a 24/7 basis and blurted out “Yeah sure ! I love water so much , people mistake me for a submarine !”.But all through my stay , the only things waddling around in the water were overweight uncles so hairy , three sweaters could be made out of just the chest hair of the cleanest uncle. No wonder our nation has not been able to produce any good female swimmers. No girls seem to be practicing.

And if you thought god exists, here is proof that even if he exists , he is not guiding the Indian Music Industry . One fine day, Shekhar Suman woke up , switched on the TV to catch a promo of Aap ka Suroor , and thought – “Here is a short , unshaven guy who is respected only by the member of Indian Cap Manufacturers Association and sings with a very wrong part of his body . And by god , he is a movie star now ! Given my personality , I should be playing the lead role in Spiderman 4 , but I will start with a music video for now !.” So if you haven’t caught the spectacle by now , watch out for a music video with Shekhar swaggering down a beach with a guitar , sunglasses and a girl who should be addressing him as Shekhar Chacha .

And someone should launch ‘Indian Idol chaap tissues’ urgently. You would think someone of national importance has died if you happen to watch an Indian Idol show. The hosts , ( Mini Mathur in a sleeveless dress , and some guy I don’t care about ) , would thrust a microphone in the face of a girl who has just been told her singing sounds like a noisy table fan , and Mini would ask – “Kaisa mehsoos ho raha hain ? Dukh ho raha hain ? Mummy ko kaafi ummeed thee kya ? Unhe takleef hogi ?.” I mean , what is the girl expected to say – “Bott mast mehsoos ho raha hain ! My heart is dancing like a peacock ! A million flowers bloom in my heart ! And mommy ? She is already buying carrots , she is preparing gajar ka halwa to celebrate my being kicked out ! Yay !”. If the show would have been a little more permissive , Mini would have been grabbing even the judges and shouting “Ro saale ! Warna kal se full sleeved dress pehan ke aaungi !”.

And have you ever been informed by your mother that the comments on your last post include two ‘I love you’ statements and one ‘mmuuaah’ ? My family knows about this blog , and it is their belief in charity that they are letting me stay at home after such comments . ‘I love your blog’ and ‘I love you’ are statements as different as Bappi Lahiri and Rajpal Yadav , and while one with a terrible reading taste can love my blog after reading it, one needs to know me in my entirety to love me . Nobody hates attention , but every emotion of yours is priceless , you should invest them in a deserving guy you know , not in a unknown guy who writes a blog once in fifteen days . And writes it using terrible grammar .

And I really appreciate your giving some feedback on Bingo . We marketing managers are used to being blasted . So tell me your neighbour choked on Bingo , your dog attacked a cow after being fed Bingo , your girlfriend left you after you fed her Bingo , tell me anything as long as it is honest . Because consumer feedback is an intergral component of the Iterative loop of Product improvement . I learnt the last phrase at IIM.

Chalo yaar , now I shall get back to watching the fields glide by as I cruise on this road which spread out before me like a neatly ironed silk ribbon , flanked by yellow fields on either side . The ipod plays some song called ‘Beete Lamhein’ ( From Train ? ) which sounds good. Though any other song would sound like a grammy winner once you listen to Shekhar Suman sing.

Truck Truck Truck !

choI feel John Denver must be in a very brave mood when he crooned “Country Roads, take me home” . Because in around twenty days since I moved back to home after three years , I notice that adjusting to home is not exactly as easy as singing a song . Though with a voice like mine , singing a song is not easy either.

Of course, I need to be a politician to deny the good things with coming at home .Round the clock food , a car to drive, and a TV remote which can be procured after a briefly violent argument with sister are the perks which come with it. But in this entire exercise , there is one entity which considers me stupid , careless and in urgent need of a attitude restructuring – Mum.

If all the things mum tells me could be written in a book , these days she is writing a big chapter called ‘Abhi-The worst and most rash driver in the world’. Whenever I slip in the driving seat with mum buckled in the seat next to me , I know I am in for a lecture on how to drive , from a lady who incidentally , doesn’t know driving herself . I would be cruising down the road as smooth as a Katrina’s leg , when she would suddenly pip up “Munnu ! Truck Truck Truck !”. I would hit the brakes instantly , the car behind me would swerve and the driver would give me the ‘I-will-eat-your-kids-next-time-you-do-that’ as he passes me by , and then I would turn to my mom and ask “Where is the killer truck !”. “Did not you see such a monster , it just zoomed away !” , she would say pointing to the road on the other side of the divider .And so my mom would keep imagining all the truck drivers in Delhi are paid to fly over the dividers and crush us to a road painting and since I could not imagine that , I am a the agent of death when it come to driving. I mean , while we are watching the TV together , she would suddenly start shaking her head and say “I still can’t believe how you almost killed that cyclist this morning” , and I would silently wonder ‘Cyclist ? Who cyclist?”.

And she has warned me that if I eat any more maggi , she would tell Dad how I once burned his tie as a kid . Now , when a single guy stays away from home for three years , you can be sure he is deriving half of his nutrition from Maggi , the other half coming from booze and dope. And suddenly mom wants me to give maggi up and get back to the world of aloo mutter and chapattis . I can almost visualise the strands of maggi crying out "Nahi munnu ,after all that we have been through ,tum aise nahi jaa sakte!" , reaching out to me valiantly as my mum pulls me away from them mercilessly.

And of course , then there is the precious question most mothers start to consider once their sons start bringing home boxes of peanuts known as salaries – When should I get him married ? In my case , to add to the colors , I have already been through a marriage which almost happened before things got wrong , so she has some added side-questions to consider .

Anyway , I will leave my mum to the noble task of turning me into a safe driving , aloo mutter eating husband and get back to striking things off my To-Do list for today . On a personal note , life has been a collage of to-do lists , planning how to boost sales for Bingo , managing things at home in absence of Dad , and trying to watch Star Movies when Mom wants to watch Star Plus and sister wants to watch Sony .

So I am off to the market for some work now .And mom , do not worry , I am not taking out the car , I will just walk down.

Help me fool god

I am such a wicked guy , they should lock me in a cage with Mike Tyson and Altaf Raja , with Altaf making sure I die a slow and painful death in case Tyson spares me , high on some Gandhian theory he read on the internet . I mean , I once pushed an old lady off an elevator just to see if she lands head first or feet first . I regularly plug chewing gums on car doors and recently , I dumped my neighbour’s little dog in a trash bin because it did not stand up on his hind legs when I told him to.

So now , just to fool god into thinking I am not such a bad guy , I need your help.This is serious now.

I want to sponsor a girl child , but -

-> Given the nature of my work , I cannot make regular visits , hence I intend to extend help , financially and otherwise, through correspondence .

-> I do not want it to be a mechanical cheque writing exercise , I want to know about the child , her progress , her life on a regular basis . I want to know her as a child , not as an address I send some money to.

-> There are many such programs on the internet . But I want the kid to be actually helped , hence it would help if any of you has been involved with any such work or can guide me to a program which achieves what it promises .

My experience with any such thing is zero , to be precise . But I definitely want to make a start now , and I do not know anyone who can guide me . If you can , please do mail me at abhinavj8008@gmail.com. I would be grateful.

Ordinary Sunday musings

It’s amusing to watch TV on the day next to a world cup final. Apparently, all men who had ever been near a cricket bat had been shaken out of their beds , shipped to the studio , offered free coffee and salted biscuits and told by the director “Ok guys , now just talk , but do not pick your noses .You are on TV.”

So there was a man with a cumulative experience of seven minutes (Including a drinks break) in being on field in international cricket , clearing his throat , scratching his left ear and saying “Well..ahem..based on my experience as a player , I would say Australia is the best team right now .”

Not to be outdone , and with a burning desire to impress all the ladies from his colony watching this show , the other guy on the panel who could not tell a cricket stump from an electric pole to save his wife , commented ‘Yeah , and trust me when I say this , Gilchrist’s 149 played a huge role in this victory .”


So while these men who think a leg cutter is some ancient chinese torture mechanism spent the day discussing things my three year old nephew could tell , I spent the day reading a book , cleaning my apartment , doing dishes and watching MTV on the telly . I know the part about cleaning my apartment and doing the dishes would have appealed massively to the ladies reading this blog, so yes, I am pretty much husband material.

In another incident , recently a friend told me only ‘Creeps’ go to a movie alone . In fact , she being a girl , did not say ‘Creep’ , she said ‘Creeeeeeep’ , reaffirming my faith in girly pronunciation .

So , if her definition is to be believed , I have been a creep , and a double creep . For the second time in a week , I went to a movie alone . But blame it on a disturbed childhood or too much FTV , I actually enjoy being alone . Just to wait in the café outside the hall with the ipod and a cold coffee for company , it is like watching a range of different lives . There would be young couples who come only to sit on the corner seats , whisper things , giggle and say things like Hehehe,Sshhh,Abhi nahi , chodo bhee , haath mat pakdo . There would be fully loaded families which are a dream for Suraj Badjatya and a nightmare for family planning commission with the Dad asking loudly “Sabke paas ticket hai na ?” , the ladies trying to count the kids while the kids appear all happy and say “Mummy ! sabse aage wali seat lena !.” There would be the college boys who laugh loudly , check out anything that moves and resembles a girl and laugh again .

Not wanting to detail it too much , watching so many different people , with their different lives , needs , attitudes as they walk into that hall is interesting to me , maybe , in a strange way .

Coming to the movie – TaraRumPum , I went pretty numb by the intermission due to a storyline which seemed like a desi remix of The Cinderella Man . To make sure I walk out with no faith in humanity , the guy sitting next to me decided it was perfectly legal to stick out his elbows till I was sitting in a space a coke bottle wont fit into. And I won’t even mention I could not find a single auto after the show and had to walk 4 kilometers with unshaven , scratchy men commenting on my curvy legs.

Anyway , no self respecting young man blogs at 2 in the morning , so will I wrap this up now . I admit I need to reply to comments , and I shall not rest till I do that . Starting from this post , I shall reply to all the comments . I knew I said the same thing when the last post went up , and I myself say my photo should be included in the official definition of procrastination.

And one last thing . Earlier this day , while browsing the net for something young single men generally browse in their free time , I read that Mandira Bedi has apologized for wearing a saree with the Indian flag featuring below her waist . For those who were not too busy drooling at Katrina Kaif in Namastey London , in a scene from the movie , the wind blows away Rishi Kapoor’s lungi revealing his underpants made out of the Union Jack , the national flag of UK . If the British shared even half of the nationalist fervour we Indians exhibit , by now the British army would have cleaned up Rishi Kapoor ( with emphasized damage to what was underneath the union jack ) , Akshay Kumar , Katrina Kaif ( Or maybe , they would have taken her to Charles ) , and the rest of the movie unit , down to the last spot boy . I mean , we Indians really need to find something to do , or we will just keep harassing girls who are brave enough to host a cricket show without knowing anything about cricket .

Naya , naya, naya , teeveeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

If you read the last post here , and more importantly , since then did not undergo some ‘bada hee bhari sadma’ which took away your ‘yaddasht hamesha hamesha ke liye ’ , you would remember that there was something wrong with the sound of my TV at my apartment . I mean , the sound of the TV had gone poof . Star movies dekhne mein tho problem nahi thee , because I did not understand what they were saying anyway , and the himesh videos actually felt better without the voice , but I was missing out on all the hindi movies .

So the owner of my apartment took away the telly to get it repaired. It had been three long days and three long nights without a TV for me when I unlocked the door and walked in after office today. And there it was , a gleaming Philips 52 inch flat TV sitting proudly on the trolley in my living room.( 52 inch hee lag raha hain , kaafi bada hai , Adnan Sami and Arjuna Ranatunga dono saath saath iske andar reh sakte hain ). So it was like , a Bunty who entertained himself by playing saanp seedi had been given a Xbox. It was like a nerd who had last talked to a girl in 1984 had suddenly found a Sridevi sitting on his bed , complete with the ‘haldi wala doodh’ ka glass on the side stool . So all those reading this , please pause for a moment , close your eyes , look up at the stars ( Oye , eyes close karne ke baad stars ko look kaise karoge ?) , and send a little thanks to the owner of my apartment .

And after a long time , something went perfectly fine in my life . After spending almost an year in Kerala , where I ate so much dosa sambar that during the last blood test they found sambar in my veins and the nurses saved it for some flavor during dinner , I have been transferred to Delhi . So all you Delhi guys , lock your girlfriends in refridgerators , for the hottest guy in the country is coming to your town . ( Abbe sacchi , you should have met me when I caught that 103 degree fever in 2003 , I was so , so , hot .) And as I type this , I see the South African team is struggling like a Mahima Chaudhary surrounded by the izzat looting trio of Amrish Puri , Gulshan Grover and Shakti Kapoor . At 98-7 , these guys need to be Shaktiman clones to beat the aussies from here . So considering a Aussie-Lankan final this time around , I will be rooting the Lankans . Australia tho itna door hain , Sri Lanka tho ekdum India ke bajoo mein hain . So I will be hoping our friendly neighbourhood Lankans take away the cup. Apne paas biwi nahi tho kya hua , padosi kee biwi dekh kar hee khush ho lenge na.

Ayyyyyyyyyyyyye Huzoor , pehchana mujhe ? Nahi ? Arre , samjho na , kuch tho samjho na . This is me , Himesh , before I threw away my shaving razor , put on a topi , and decided to show the bilady kuttas of my colony that they are not the only ones who can howl . Ab main bhee aise howl karta hoon ki mohalle ki sabse pyari bitch bhee attract hokar ghar ke saamne aa jati hain .

And one thing I am awaiting as desperately as Engineering students await the kissing scene in a Emran Hashmi movie , is the biggest blockbuster of the year , which is going to blow away the ‘cap’ from the dark and brooding ‘mohabbat ke zakhm’ his heart carries , is Himesh Bhai’s - “Aap Ka Suroor”.

( Abhi ticket book kara le bhai , early bird prize hain ek shaandaar leather topi autographed by Himesh bhai himself )

The country may laugh at him , there are endless jokes about his topi , people imagine everything from a tattoo saying “mera sar takla hain’ to a size 10 footprint under his cap , and his voice sends the colony dogs into a frenzy who fear a new entrant into their territory , but in spite of all this , I am sure a lot of people will go and watch his upcoming movie , even if just to have fun at his cost .And that brings in the moolah . Thus , underneath that tattered white cap which says Banana Republic on the front , I see a very astute and smart brain .

And last week , for the first time in my life , I watched a movie alone – The Namesake .(Haan Haan I know that sounds creepy , but Kerala mein akela rehta hoon tho movie saath jaane ke liye kya Priyanka Chopra kee wax statue lekar jaun ?) . The good part about watching a movie alone is that nobody bothers you.When the heroine and the hero are looking into each others eyes searching for eye infection and slowly moving their lips closer , there is no friend on the next seat who pokes his elbow crushing three of your ribs and whispers “Abbe kasam banana wale kee , kissi aane waleee hain !” and you say "accha ? Mujhe laga badminton khelne wale hain". So when alone , you can watch the ‘kissi’ in silence and wonder why the hero needs to be paid for doing such scenes .

Abbe gudgudi singh , MTV pe Himessss Bhai is crooning “Tere binn dil naiyyo lagda” with so much pain in his eyes , I feel like pushing a couple of pain killer tablets under his eyelids .So bhaiyon aur behanon , abhi main bhee apna dard apne dil mein samet kar log off kar leta hoon .And as a friend told me , I think I will resume replying to comments from this post onwards .But now , it’s time I enjoy the extreme machine my new TV is. Bhagwan mere apartment owner ko Himesh ki movie ki do tickets dilaye.

Karate that Racist Dog !

What would you do if after a tiring day of minimizing solitaire windows and installing yahoo messenger at office , you get back home at 8.30 in the night , ring the doorbell of your apartment , and the apartment caretaker ( who , by the way , is a mallu . Racist me.) answers the door with an expression which is on the lines of ‘hai-mai-lut-gayi-barbaad-ho-gai’ and says..

“Saar..TV..speak..go.”

If you are a 6’3” broad shouldered north Indian ‘tired-after-office’ guy , you yell “What the duck are you trying to say?” , and without waiting for the answer , smash his nose with your laptop case just like Sunny Deol , and walk in as he lies on the floor clutching his nose and screaming ‘aiyyoo’.

However , since I am almost as tall as a sitting Rani Mukherjee , I chose to murmur a “Eh..ok..that’s wonderful” and walked in without any bloodshed when I faced this situation this evening . Soon I discovered that what my profoundly verbose caretaker was trying to say was that the sound in my TV had conked off. Now I am real good at lip reading , but just could not do it as well as I would have liked when I tried to watch what the judges on American idol were trying to say during the four minutes I tried watching the TV without its voice , so I decided to get back to good ol’ racist blogging tonight.

Now , lately , a lot of people have been pretty angry with me on this blog , accusing me of being racist . People have quoted clippets from Indian Penal codes supposed to make me go “Mommy!I don’t wanna go to jail” . Comment after comment has labeled me a jerk as insensitive as a paralysed elbow . Little pink Kids all over North East are being trained in Judo to grow up and take revenge from the racist and wicked blogger Abhi. ( See , with such sarcastic statements , I still can’t stop being wicked ).

Now , initially , I was amused . I was mesmerized by the innate ability of people to dig out a national issue out of a blog post .I mean , I was like “Wow. When were these guys born ? During some riots ?”.I was like “These dudes are really concerned about this country , such passioned emotions about four lines on a web page ?”.And to be honest , I still am . I mean , honestly , it takes a huge amount of passion , vocabulary and free time to write such focused comments , dissecting me , my sexuality , my sense of belonging to this nation , and my significant contribution to the scum of this country .But somewhere , a little bit of irritation took me over too . I mean , it’s not everyday work for me to be blasted apart on a public forum.And then , sometimes I don’t think clearly ,like when faced with such disparaging remarks after a hard day at office. So during one such moment , I allowed myself to get irritated over this .

But now , after eating a full dinner of a steaming bowl of Maggi ( and watching four minutes of soundless American Idol ) ,as I sit on my bed , with the ipod crooning a dreamy lucky ali’s voice in my ears , I know it was my fault . It was my fault because I expected people would not judge me .I expected perfect strangers to see the world the way I see it. I expected some unknown guy I would never meet to keep aside his self-importance for a little while , for over the three years I have been writing this blog , I have laughed at the cost of myself , my as-high-as-a-side-stool height , my as-low-as-Amrita-Rao’s-neckline grades , my as-outdated-as-a-fossil cellphone , my as-crashed-as-a-MIG 27 relationships , my as-twisted-as-a-roller coaster life. And in writing this blog over the last three years ,from a lazy engineering student to a more lazy manager , I learnt to laugh at myself , but perhaps , I forgot that people still judge me here . I forgot that people judge my words, they judge me . Now I can’t change the attitude of anyone who reads my blog , hell , I have trouble changing my socks ( I have been wearing the same pair to office over the last three days ) , forget a person . But still , all I ask you , is to lighten up . Life is too important to be taken so seriously.

Now before anyone screams “He is still so racist , bring out that Indian Penal code book please ! ” , let me log off now , wait for “She hates me” ( Kinda situational , isn’t it ?) on the ipod to finish off , and then watch reruns of Friends on the laptop . Much better trying to lip read what that black judge on American Idol was saying . Oh shucks , did I say ‘black guy’ ? Am I into apartheid now ?

Ps - Anyone working with TOI/HT/NDTV/any of media houses ? Need some help for a friend .Please mail me. Do not worry , mailing a racist isn't a legal offence.

Main aisa hee hoon

A couple of days ago , as I stood before the mirror trying to decide if I look like George Clooney or Matt Damon , my cellphone rang . I glanced on the number as it ran across the screen . It was a friend , and a female friend at that . Never the one to turn down a girl's call , I picked it up , flipped open the phone and said a seductive 'Hi' . Now she is not the kind who would wake up , clean the mandir , water the tulsi plant and then proceed to sing Anoop Jalota's bhajans all day . So I wasnt expecting her to recite anything too religious from her , but as soon as I said a 'Hi' , she exhaled loudly and said -

'Munnu , tune apne last blog pe comments dekhe ? Duniya walo ne teri le li !.'

Now , for all engineering students and other spoilt people , I dont need to explain what 'duniya walo ne teri le li' means. As for the beautiful minded people of this nation , it means , well , that the people did not like what they read , and I am very polite when I explain it that way.

Now , I need to be somewhere in about an hour , so cannot explain much , nor do I need to , but sach , I am beyond the stage when the admiration or abuses affect me . So bhookh hartaal karo , buses jala do , tamaatar maaro , jo karna hai kar lo yaar , good or bad , this is me .

Main noodle ka stall kholna chahta hoon

I have trouble speaking english . At school , my english teacher used to taunt me regularly . In a moment of seclusion in a lonely corridor , she even tried to suffocate me while screaming "Itti gandi english bolne wale to jeena ka koi hakk naheeee." I still keep a pocket sized edition of Rapidex English Speaking Course in my backpack for emergency situations like interacting with english speaking pretty girls.Hence when I share such an uncomfortable relation with a universal language such as english , it is downright unfair on the part of blogger to expect me to work with dutch.

When I logged into my blogger account some eleven minutes back , I discovered that due to some reason , my blog language settings have been changed to dutch . As I type this , I see two buttons below the tying area . One says - Als Entwurf Speichern. The other says -Veroffentlichen.Ab this is like my mummy saying to me "Munnu Beta , aaj tinda khaoge ya gheeya ?." Ab I dont know which means 'Publish Post' out of the two , but if you are reading this , veroffentlichen means "Publish Post". Dekha , baithe baithe dutch seekh gaye na. Ab holland jao tho seena thok kar bolna veroffentlichen.

And why are there so many north eastern people in Bangalore.Yesterday , as me and a friend roamed brigade road and wondered why every pretty girl has a nasty looking boyfriend who looks like a cross between Crime Master GoGo and the african striped Owl , it suddenly struck me -

Me : " Oye , yahan noodle ka stall khol lete hain."

Friend : "Kyun be , tujhe sapne mein hanuman jee ne yeh aadesh dia hain ?"

Me : "Abbe mamta kulkarni ki kasam , dekh kitne saare bruce lee jaise log hain yahan , meri bijness sense cheekh cheekh ke kehtee hain ki a north eastern food stall is the next big thing on this road."

Friend : "Haan yaar , yeh tho sach hain . Aisa lagta hain china ne attack karke brigade road ko india se cheen lia hain."

Me : "Sacchi . Tho abhi 'Bruce Lee memorial noodle corner' kholne ka business plan develop karte hain.Baad mein ek 'jackie chan memorial karate coaching center' khol kar aur paisa kamayenge."

I have suddenly noticed a north eastern guy sitting on the next computer.He has long hair and a tattoo on his biceps says "Born to Kill" with dragons on both sides. And I dont enjoy the vision of me being karataed into seven pieces by him , so I will save further details for a later date.

But saugandh ganga maiyya kee , I will have to hand it over to Bangalore when it comes to the 'Dude and Dudette' quotient of the city . Pata nahi , maybe it is because I have been in Kerala over the last nine months or maybe because I am as much as a dude as Rabri Devi is a Dudette , I look around in this city and say "Mar jaawa khatta kha ke ,inn sab ka janam beauty parlor ke waiting room mein hua tha?". I mean , guys have bulging biceps , long hair , tattoos all over.The same "duniya mere baap ki hain" expression on their faces. Girls look like shrunk versions of Bollywood extras .Their clothes are so tight . I mean , I can visit Vaishno Devi and get back and I bet a girl would still be struggling to get into that oh-so-tight low waist jeans.I mean , theek hain bhaiyya , 21st century hain , cable TV generation hain , india shining hain , but phir bhee , are we out of girls who have a mind of their own and are self confident enough to wear a salwar suit because they want to , even if the girls around her go around looking like vamps in their haltar tops and mid riff exposing jeans?

Now all you dont jump around screaming "Bloody shiv sainik" and write me death threats . It is just my opinion , and I said it. I somehow admire a girl more for her strength to be herself.I mean , chill yar , mujhe kya farak padta hain .Mujhe thode hee chote kapde pehnkar aur baal khol kar bhangra karna hain , I am cool anyway.

And yeah , I deleted the last post because half my relatives and friends read it and concluded I was seven minutes away from a suicide and just needed a strong nylon cord to facilitate the process.I agree , the post came out thoda dark dark and all , but when my sister called me with a "Munnu ! Kya hua tujhe ? Dekh , sambhaal apne aap ko" and my ludhaina wale mamaji called me with a "Dekho beta , aatmahatya karna paap hain" , I thought "Abbe hatao iss post ko , warna meri condolence meeting ka card bhee chap jaega".So all you who wrote to me, thanks , and chill , I am the kind of guy who can run over three guys with my car and then brake to see if my car has a scratch.So I was sad , but now , I am all fine and ready to make others sad .

Help kar do uncle

Gaon walo , I need a little help . I need to get a little , rajpal yadav sized questionnaire filled . Only 5 questions , no personal questions concerning your sly nose picking habits .If you have ever been near a keyboard , it wont take you more than three minutes and seventeen seconds to get over with it . So if you got three minutes and seventeen seconds , please mail me right now at abhinavj8008@gmail.com and I shall send it across . Harr help karne wale ko dee jayegi ..umm..abb I can't offer you a three days and two nights all paid trip to Mauritius ( Lunch included ) , so I will just offer you my thanks.

Tanhayeeeeeeee Tanhayeeeeeeeee

Abhi iss foto ko dekh kar life mein tension mat lo , aage padne pe samajh ayega aapko ki iss foto ka iss post se kitna gehra taal-lukk hain melordddd

Abhi kuch der pehle , as I was practicing my moves to "Crazy Kiya Re" ( Arre shaadi aa rahee hai bhai , piraktice naahi karenge tho thumka kaise maarenge ) , one of my old friends buzzed me on Gtalk . Now , when I say old , it does not mean that he was born before the steam engine was invented , but I had not talked to him over the last atleast two years. So overcome by jazbaat and emotions , we talked about old school days , the teachers , the lady teachers , the kashmir mudda , undergarment industry of Japaaan and other such heart warming issues ( A lot of issues and topics have been beeped out . Bahu betiyan bhee padti hai na yeh blog.).

We talked for about forty minutes . I could have talked more but then his dad is not yet into smuggling charas/brown sugar/garam masala and he very clearly said "Chal saale.Ab fone rakhne de.Isse jyada baat kari tho pappa meri khaal utaar ke dubai mein bech denge." Not very pleased with the thought of my friend's skin being sold in some flea market in Dubai with a stallwaala yelling "Indian khaal Indian Khaal , sirf teen rupye per square metre , le jao le jao", I agreed .

But long after I kept down the phone , one question which he casually posed to me during the conversation kept goonjing in my ears -

" Yaar Abhi , tera jaisa banda akela reh kaise sakta hain ? Tujhe dekh kar tho lagta hai jaise tune paida hote hee nurse se gappe maarna shuru kar dia tha..tu akela rehta kaise hai kerala mein ?"

Now , the guy does have a point . Aaj main mika ke baalon ki kasam khaake admit karta hoon that it has not been an easy time for me in Kerala over the last nine months ( Ek tho yeh nine months bada hee khatarnaak time frame hota hain , sunte hee mind mein bacche ke rone ki awaaz aane lagtee hain ). The boy who landed in Kerala on the 20th of June 2006 was possesed of nothing more than seven minutes of cumulative experince in the kitchen , had ironed a total of three shirts , seven chaddis and one handkerchief in the 24 years 8 months of his life , had no sense of a biological clock and did not know how a man in a lungi looks like.

And today , on the kaali amaavas ki raat of 21st Farvareee 2007 , I can proudly smirk and claim to be a man who can prepare maggi , sandwiches , neembu paani and an occasional thick brown liquid which I call coffee . Mujhe pata hain aap mein se kuch kaafi shakki mizaaz ke hain , unke liye maggi ki foto bhee chipka bhee dee hain .bilaady disbelievers.And I have ironed enough baniyans , shirts ,trousers , chaddis and other chote chote kapde to get a wildcard entry into the All India Dhobi Association of Kerala . And now I know how a dark wiry malayali man looks wearing a lungi which is threateningly high and revealing . And trust me , that is one sight you don't want to know about .

I have been staying in all alone in an ajnabee shehar , in a land where I am thousands of miles away from a single soul who actually cares , in a place where I am no more than a north indian novelty who speaks gibberish . And if all this has taught me one thing , it is this - Do not take the 'saath' of your family for granted . Yeh jo aapke ma , daddy , bhai , behan hai na , inn logo ka saath ek saaye ki tarah hota hain , jiska ehsaas tabhi hota hai jab aap dhoop mein nikalte hain .For many of you , it would be so normal to hear your mother calling for you with a "Aao beta , khaana kha lo" . It would be so normal to watch a cricket game on the telly with your dad sitting besides you . It would be so normal to find your sister eating the last bar of chocolate in the fridge and attack her with a "drop that bar and put your hands in the air you vahshee bhooki !!! wo main khaaunga !!!".

But all this seems as precious as RBI locker ka password once you move away from home. Beta door yahan lungiyon aur sambar ke desh mein jab office se wapas ek 'kabristaan sa sunsaan' kamre mein aaoge , when no one will be around to care if you are seven minutes away from dying a maut due to starvation , when you have to watch every cricket game alone and when Dhoni hits a six , even do the little bhangra alone , then you realise what a family means .So while you are with your family , relish every moment , walk into the kitchen and try to pick up a hot aloo ka pakoda while your mommy scolds "Uff ! Thanda tho hone de ! Yeh ladka bhee na bass !" . Watch every match with your dad and argue if sachin should have left that ball outside off stump alone . Fight with your sister over every chocolate she eats . Because kya pata , kal ho na ho .( Uee ma , karan johar mujhe sue karne aa raha hain , bachao ).

But some good things have also popped out of this tanhayi tanhayi ki mp3 which has been playing in my life over the last nine months . Umm..like I have read more books than I ever had . The most intelligent piece of literature I had read before coming to Kerala was "Super Commando Dhruv aur Pratishod ki Jwala" . ( It was the one where "Grandmaster Robo" kills Dhruv's mom and dad when they strayed in Robo's garden playing chupan chupai , which in turn , forced Dhruv to turn into a "Super Commando" from a nanha munna boy who used to watch Pogo all day ).But now I have read books which involve more than parental murders and revengeful kids . Also , I have learnt to be comfortable with myself . I can spend 120 years in a dark dungeon locked up all alone now , although the company of Sushmita Sen would not be a problem . And I have learnt to eat stuff which is called "Mutter Paneer" but looks more like Fried Ostrich balls ( Eyeballs , you insensitive animal hater ) floating in the blood of Jackie Shroff . ( You dont believe me ? Theek hai , iss mutter paneer ki bhi foto chipkaaunga agle blog mein ).

Anyway , chalo mere gol matol desh wasiyon , main ab apna pallu tuck in karke wapas "Crazy Kiya Re" ki dance moves practice karta hoon . Yeh blog tho maine apne personal "Nach Baliye" ke commerical break mein hee likh diya . So all righttttt..3..2..1....Crazy kiya re aha aha..:p

Of wedding plans and head banging music

This little girl was in the train I took last week ( Haan Haan IIM ke ladke train mein bhee ghoomte hain . Gareeb hoon main.). Due to some reason , she kept looking at my face and laughing at pretty regular intervals . Abb bacche bhee mera mazzak udaane lage .

Last week , as I sat at my desk , tapping away on the keyboard and trying to look as involved as if I was three keystrokes away from finding the cure to Limfusarcoma of the intestine , a colleague walked by.

Noticing me , he exclaimed in a rather cheerful tone generally reserved for pretty secretaries..

"Hey Abhi , I hear you are getting married !"

Now as people with inadequate exposure to this blog would have noticed , I am a very shy boy , steeped in tradition and "samaajik maryada". Hence I merely let out a coy smile , lowered my eyes till my eyelashes brushed the keyboard and nodded a delicate yes .

At this point of time , I was expecting a little congratulatory pat or something . But the colleague shook his pumpkin head sideways , murmured a "Yakeen nahi hota" and walked on.

Now , people would believe it if I said I ordered a tomato soup last night and found Himesh's cap floating in it , but nobody has been ready to believe the fact that I am getting married . My underdeveloped brain , which has helped me flunk many maths exams , offers possible reasons:

1.I look too young to be a married man . I just ambled past 25 , and to make things rosier , I have been told by perfectly sane people that I still retain a bit of the boyish charm which deserts a normal indian male in the early twenties . Some have mentioned that I am a male version of the santoor girl , who captured our imaginations with "meri twacha se meri umra ka pata nahi chalta".

2. The second , and a very real reason , is this .It defies all common sense and laws of intellect that some girl has actually agreed to marry a guy like me. Deviod of any "dude"-ish qualities , and as boring as a wooden chair , sometimes even I find it hard to digest that I got someone to say a yes. But then , to err is human , and she has erred big time.

My canine instincts warn me a lot of readers would like to raise their left eyebrows , smile a slanted smile and pose the "Who is She" question to me now . But I would like to refer to the second paragraph where I mentioned me being immersed in the bucket of "saamajik maryada" and hence would like to save the story for a later date. All I can say is , that to know the person with whom I am going to grow old , to know the person who is gonna be a witness to my life , to know the person who forms one of the reasons for my existence now , is humbling and satisfying and pleasing in a very calm and fulfilling way.And pampered she will be .

Infact , if you have a memory which is anything better than simply unbelievably pathetic , you will recall that at the top of this post , there is a picture of a little girl who giggled at me all through out a train journey as if I was wearing a red nose and singing Baa Baa Black Sheep . So during the journey , a 'hi-society-well-dressed-confident' types old lady with a head full of white hair and numerous questions was sitting besides me . She had noticed me boarding the train with a lot of luggage ( A travel bag , a backpack , and a cardboard carton carrying the V day gifts I had bought for the lady who is going to tolerate me in this life ) .So some fifteen minutes into the journey , the old woman asks me ..

Old woman : lot of luggage..eh ?

Me : Uh..yeah..a lot of stuff stolen from the hotels..he he..

Old woman : Really ?

Me : gasp..oh no..I was trying to be a little amusing..never mind

Old woman : What's in that cardboard box ?

Me : Oh that ? Well..actually it contains all the gifts I bought for my fiancee..

Old woman : I see..that's sweet..

Me : Blush . Blush .

Old woman : So , you are going to buy her things next valentines day too ?

Me ( proud as a soldier ): Of course ! I am quite a handful when it comes to out-of-the-box surprises for the people I love !

Old woman : Trust me , son . Next V day , you wont do it .

Me ( with a simmering rage in my eyes ) : Oh no maam , I wont change !

Old woman : No . Its not about you . Next V day , after an year of taking her out for shopping and eating out and movies , you wont have any money with you to buy all this.

It was then when I realised that she was in the process of doing great damage to the confidence of a dreamy to-be-married young guy. I did not encourage any conversation with her for the rest of the journey and quietly watched that little girl in the picture laugh at me.

Moving on to other issues ailing the society , I have been as busy as mother of nine lately . I keep my cell in the bathroom when I take the shower , I exchange around 35 official mails everyday and after office , I tune the telly to MTV and work on office stuff well after midnight .Sometimes , I wish I was back to college , when I had the time to watch three movies in a day (Sometimes four.Dont tell mommy), the time to sleep till my tummy growled for lunch , the time to reply to all the comments you leave on this blog.

And as a direct result of watching MTV after office , I am particularly concerned by the behaviour of Asha Bhonsle . I mean , problem kya hai inn aunty ko ? It seems like she is on a spree of making music videos with anyone who is free after lunch and can sing slightly better than a monkey with a penguin stuck in his throat . If her videos with Sunjay Dutt and Brett Lee made me feel like banging my head on the nearest wall just once , her latest video with Urmila Taang-tod-kar makes me feel like banging my head on the nearest wall till I lose all memory of the video , Asha Bhonsle , Urmila and the entire production unit of any movie with Urmila in it . Now Asha Ji is coming up with a video of something she did with Robbie Williams ( I mean a music video , you sicko ) , and watching Asha butt in on Rock DJ is going to leave me with suicidal tendencies , I am afraid.

But one song I got playing all day is "Sun re Sajaniya" by a pakistani guy called Ali Zafar . A light , peppy song , it leaves me feeling like "Yeah.life is good.in spite of Asha Bhonsle , that old woman in the train , and kids who laugh at me."

This reminds me , if someone out there can mail me INXS's Afterglow with a scaringly big eyed Indian singer called Sona in it , I would be grateful and would promptly courier him/her a copy of Asha Bhonsle's album as a mark of gratitude. Also , I need "You are beautiful" by James Blunt and "bad day" by daniel powter . In fact any good music is always welcome .So there. No , seriously , send me the songs at abhinavj8008@gmail.com if you can , I wont send you anything as dangerous as the Asha thing.

Anyway , now that it is out there in the open under the blue sky , I believe you guys will have stories of more challenge and pain to hear . The adventures of a guy with limited social ettiquettes , rudimentary dance moves , and a whacky attitude when faced with the giant called the Great North Indian Wedding and the seven ( or were they eight ?) ceremonies before it , sure sounds as full as a Yash Chopra movie .

In fact , the first symptoms have already started to show , with me gradually limiting my presence on orkut ( Note - I just found Yaari.com , which has been started by a friend . Much neater .) , learning to use a spoon and fork and planning to brush up my dance moves . And no , I dont want "afterglow" for that reason .

Oops , I got to jump off this bed urgently , leap across the table and bang my head on the wall opposite me now . MTV is again playing the Asha Bhonsle - Urmila thing .

Be good . Work hard . And believe me when I say I am getting married .

First Abhishek , now me

A wall painting of MohanLaal in Kottayam which growled "Meri foto mat kheench"

So finally , I decide to switch off the telly and spend some time tapping down on the blog . Star movies is anyways playing ‘The Waterboy' , and I have watched the movie thrice already , so I watch it again , and I can tell you the names of all the extras which worked in it . Also , now that I have a laptop with internet access with me all the time , I think it’s the cry of the hour to pull this blog out of the elite “guy-got-internet-still-no-post-for-23-days” blog club . Coming back to the sleepy little life of mine , over the last two months work took me on a traveling spree which has reportedly doubled the revenues of Kingfisher Airlines . Air hostesses recognize me and some of them give me the disgruntled “Aap ? Fir se ?” look when I amble into a plane these days . It is also heard that to honour me for this contribution , these guys are planning to name one of the aeroplane toilets after me ( Shri Abhinav memorial Hawai Shauchalaya .Pisses me off. ) . Anyway ,after zippings bags , unzipping bags , stealing hotel towels and shaving kits through Bangalore , Ooty , Bombay and Calcutta , I find myself back in the land of semi naked white tourists and moustached film heroes – Kerala.

It was almost seven months ago that I first landed in Kerala to start my first job . As you might have known if you watch TV (I am told I feature pretty regularly on Animal Planet ) , I grew up in Delhi and Haryana , so it was like a Rocket Launcher had been shoved in the bony hands of Mahatma Gandhi . However, since then a lot of water and sewage has flown under the bridge.( For hamare Hindustani Bhai who are wondering “yeh bridge kahan hai bhai?” , English mein figure of speech hain ). I have learnt to iron shirts , cook maggi and my malayalam vocabulary has grown to a healthy four words now ( One of them is an abusive word . Self defence ke liye collection mein rakha hain ) . So things are not so bad now , I can actually hold a conversation with a mallu for a minimum of seven seconds using my highly developed sign language skills and leg movements .

But it is only two more months in Kerala for me now , so I better soak in all the beauty this place has to offer before I get posted to some city which is as pretty as L K Advani’s legs . As a part of the same “Kerala-dekh-lo-bhai” philosophy , I also went to some backwaters a couple of weeks back .

I hired a wooden canoe type boat which looked like it was ten minutes away from doing a titanic and set out in the waters with a skinny mallu oarsman who seemed to ooze the ‘no fear’ school of thought . To make things more interesting , it was soon noticed that his knowledge of Hindi or English was as developed as a gorilla’s knowledge of the vedas . Effectively , what it meant for me was that even if I was down in the water till my ears , throwing my hands like a penguin on fire and shouting “Bachao” , he would not understand what I was screaming and just stand there wondering what this gibberish speaking north Indian guy is fussing about .

Mar jaawa Khatta kha ke , I just remembered I need to submit a report at work tomorrow . Considering that the guy I need to submit this report is as not exactly a believer in the power of forgiveness , I better end this and start that now . I know this post is ending as soon as it started , and I have done the proverbial "Bachpan mein hee gala ghot diya" to this post , but then , work is worship .

Oh , and before I go . I want to say this , I think this blog which has seen me on my journey from a lazy and casual student at an engineering college to a lazier and casual-er ( angrezi mein problem hain yar ) manager at a big marketing company deserves to be a party to one of the biggest and prettiest things that has happened to me . But my lips are sealed , my fingers are tied , and all I can say is what the title to this post says – Sorry ladies , first Abhishek , now me . And for me , she is way better than Aishwarya .

Tension de Basanti

I am no social scientist. I am no 'intellectual-awakened-liberated' youth specimen who holds an opinion on everything from the tattoo on Rakhi Sawant's shoulder to Mongolia's nuclear policy.I am not the kind of driven youth who would lie awake at nights , look at the stars and think of ways to double India's GDP.I am a guy with views as superficial as John Abraham's acting skills and my understanding of social trends runs as deep as the neck line of a nun's gown. But lately , I am beginning to notice the subtle extermination of a rather happy social species - The Single male .

When I was a kid , having a girlfriend meant two things about the guy :

1. The guy ranks somewhere between Matt Damon and George Clooney on the looks index.He walks by a women's college and the girls trample the professor in their hurry to run out and catch a glimpse .

2. The guy ranks somewhere between Mukesh Ambani and Richard Branson on the financial standing index. He frequently uses a hundred rupee note to wipe his nose and his bank needed to hire an extra floor to stack his cash deposits.

But now , not having a girlfriend says two things about the guy :

1. He is gay.
2. He is definitely gay.

I mean , I look around and see even convicts serving life sentences in Tihar going around in the jail premises with the female convicts from the ladies ward. Guys who aren't even close to respecting a woman have girlfriends . Even Mika has girlfriends - two of them. To be as short as Ayesha Takia's skirt , I guess most of the Indian guys in the age group of 16-30 have a girlfriend.('Tell-me-why' query - Can someone explain to me why having a girlfriend is termed "going around" ? Does it originate from the hindi films wherein Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh spent countless hours running in circles around trees , bushes and water fountains ?).

And this social development confuses me and poses an intriguing question - When everyone around me is "going around" , and I am single , and not gay , why do I feel a girlfriend is a pretty ( or not-so-pretty) friend who eats up personal independence and hikes up phone bills ? To make things more rational , let me imagine I have a girlfriend , whom I shall call Basanti as a mark of respect to the evergreen Hema Ji. Now let me see how 'going around' with Basanti can dent my life.

1. "Kis se baat kar raha tha ?"

Basanti calls me up and finds my number to be busy .And even though the pre recorded Airtel voice says "The number you are trying to call is currently busy . Please try after some time" , Basanti hears " The guy you are trying to call up is highly cheap . He is talking to Shruti right now and is expressing is undying love to her . He may claim he was talking to his mother. Dont trust him . "

Soon after I disconnect the call to ma , Basanti calls me up and before I can say a hello , yells a "Go to Hell ! And take Shruti along with you !" shattering my eardrum. The insecurity of Basanti . Sigh.

2." Wo kutta pack kar deejiye"

So it is second anniversary of the day me and Basanti first had Pav Bhaji together and she expects a gift . It's not just a gift , but a sweet 'nishani' which carries the perfumed memories of that lovely day , she says . So I go over to the Archies gallery and look at stuffed dogs and overweight teddy bears , while in my single days , I would have spent the same time watching 'I see you' at pvr. After a couple of hours , I finally buy a pink and hairy dog which costs me more than the price of an island in the maldives. All the gifts a Basanti demands/requests/expects.Sigh.

3. Sniff . Sniff .

A fine lazy Sunday afternoon . I lie on the couch flipping between espn and hbo. The phone rings .

Me : "hello ?"

Basanti : "Sniff . Sniff."

Me : "Abbe kaun hai ? agle saal bolega kya ?".

Basanti : " Sniff . It's me , Basanti.Sniff.".

Me : " Oh ok . You have a cold ?"

Basanti : "I am....crying..sob.sob."

Me : "Oh . It sounded just like a running nose though.And I saw Bhagam Bhag yesterday.The movie got so boring towards the end , even the chairs wanted to leave the hall."

Basanti : " You will never understand...sniff...sniff..."

The emotional intelligence and "understanding" a Basanti needs from me . Sigh.

4. "Mouth close karke kha !"

Me and Basanti are digging into a pizza at the Pizza Hut . While trying to balance a pizza slice on its journey from the tray to my mouth , a particularly big onion piece slides off its surface and lands on the table with a plop .

Basanti :" Chee.Theek se kha na.Table manners !".


I scoop up the onion piece from the table with my finger , put it in my mouth and say cheerfully :

" Table manners gaye bihar , pizza khane de yaar"

Basanti : " Sheesh. You are disgusting".

While in my single days I could ravage a pizza splashing ketchup all over my shirt and chew as noisily as a tractor engine , now I need to take care I don't embarass the great manners ki dukaan , Basanti . The silly changes a Basanti demands from me . Sigh.

5. Abhi dinner ka jugaad karna hain.

Sorry for the abrupt speed breaker , but chal wapas real world mein aa ja .This has nothing to do with Basanti. Now I gotta go and find dinner . I cooked the maggi I had at the apartment for lunch so I need to buy some food now . So abhi main Aishwarya jee ka "barso re megha megha" over hotein hee iss R world se kat leta hoon.

About Basanti , I have around 236 more points I can write against her . But still , saara zamaana , girlfriends ka deewana , so there must be something good about Basanti. Just that I don't see it.