Main aisa kyun hoon ?

I am beginning to crib about the number of coffee machines at office , worry if I am spending too much of my salary on cellphone bills , and loving dilbert strips. So I guess I am a typical indian working guy by now .And when a typical indian working guy is required to take out time from his killer schedule just to complete a tag , you can't blame him for cursing the guy who tagged him . Displaying no trace of humanity , it's Sudipta who has tagged me this time . The tag is called 'weird' tag . I need to write down 5 'weird' things about myself . Now the very concept sounds confusing to me .Like I said earlier, eating with hands is the real happening thing here at Kerala . So I go to this eating joint called 'Unnikrishnan Hotel' and order a veg meal . The waiter comes in and places a big thali before me with a lot of stuff in it . Just as the waiter is turning around to go back to the kitchen , I say 'Chetta* ! Spoon ? ". The waiter almost drops the jug of water he is carrying , his mouth opens enough to let in a couple of mopeds and he looks at me like I just asked for his wife's saree . So while my asking for a spoon is 'not weird' for me , my asking for a spoon gives him serious doubts about me belonging to a species called the homo sapiens. So you see the entire problem about defining 'weird' ? However , I guess I will take a chance and put down things which will make my mom go 'Uffffff !!! This boy needs a wife to take care of him".

* Chetta = Brother . See , now this blog serves as a 'Complete idiot's guide to learning malayalam' too .


1. I am very absent minded . Things are improving though . It was very bad when I was a kid . Once we went to a temple . I was 11 years old maybe . Like any hindu guy with no contacts in bajrang dal , I had to take off my sandals before entering it . Later , I come out of the temple , put on my sandals , walk upto the car , slip off my sandals , get into the car , and dad drives us home . And those were real costly sandals . Our family skipped dinner for a week and my dad worked overtime and mom came close to selling off her mangalsootra to buy me those sandals .Now I wear a pair of reeboks which cost dad seventeen hundred bucks .And my dad sends four well fed men with me whenver I wear them to a temple.

2. Now , my parents are doctors . So I have had a childhood where I was given red and yellow capsules to play with when I cried for toys . I still undergo blood tests and all the stuff with such alarming regularity that every diagnostic lab technician in gurgaon knows me as the 'bloody' guy . At home , our dinner table talk features more of blood transfusions and wound stitches than 'pass the pickle , please' . And defying every expected trait of a doctor's son , I faint at the sight of blood .I see blood and my head starts spinning , building up speed till it gets dark and I go down . And a couple of months back , this thing entered the realm of fake blood . I was watching 'million dollar baby' and as a particularly flowery gash opened up on sandra bullock's* nose , I felt dizzy and had to switch off the movie and lie down . I hope the 'disease' doesnt spill over to other things that look like blood , else you may find me sprawled near the tomato ketchup racks in some supermarket .

* Remembered later , thanks to surrieal - It was Hillary Swank and not Sandra Bullock. The things work does to your filmy memory. Atleast I remember it was Aamir khan in DDLJ.
3. I can't tie shoe laces . Plain and neat . Ask me to marry Himesh Reshammiya , but dont ask me to tie my shoe laces . I guess god gave me real fine fingers which are meant to paint , type , pull a trigger , tap , scratch , point , and do every decent thing a finger can do , but not tie shoe laces . Atleast five times a day , I am told 'Hey your shoe laces are untied , you may want to tie them up' and I say 'I just had a real complex back surgery and am not to bend down . So this is the way my laces stay these days . You can't fight your body , eh ? '. My dream world would have chappals , floaters , sandals , hunter boots , but no shoe laces .

4. I have embarassingly low hair density on my arms . And to make things worse , I am a guy . Actually , I think it's unfair . Girls make their dads take up smuggling to pay for their daughter's waxings while we guys need to have a minimum of hair on our arms and legs . I mean , if a clean arm looks good on a girl , why should a guy's arm look like a porcupine's back ? People throw phrases such as 'chikna' or 'You sold your arm hairs?' or 'You need more testosterone , man' at me because of my arms . I plan to marry a real hairy , bear like , anil kapoor-ish girl someday , so that one day , my son will be able to put up his hair carpeted arms and say ' Anyone needs some extra testosterone ? '.

5. I can mimic quite some people . Shahrukh Khan . Saif Ali Khan . Amitabh Bacchan . Prithiviraaj Kapoor . Sunny Deol . Even a bit of Hema Malini .Not that I can call up Gauri Khan and she will say "aaj shooting se jaldi wapas aana , maine gajar ka halwa banaya hain' . But still , you will know I am trying to mimic Shahrukh when I am trying to do that . I guess I just have a more than average control over my vocal chords .Recently , I have learnt to do this telebrand thing where the naked firangs say things such as 'Pehle mera wazan bahot ziyaada tha' , 'Fir mere dost tony ne mujhe is kamaaaal kee masheeen ke baare mein bataaya' and stuff in a deep hindi drawl . I just need to polish up the Mamooty** voice now , and the kerala girls will be going crazy over this hot delhi dude with the voice of their favorite hero , and on a more honest note , with the looks of their favorite villain.

**Mamooty = You stoopeed northie ! He is one of the top actors of Malayalam movies ! Personally , I think his face looks like a well mixed blend of Kader Khan and the lift operator at my apartment .No offence to his fans , but my heart cries for the heroines he cuddles with in his movies .

I guess this is it . I guess I have to tag 5 people who haven't done this already , but I am not a cruel guy by nature . So now I will sprout my little angel wings , release some white doves towards the horizon , flutter my eyelashes and whisper , 'If you are reading this , have a decent internet connection , fingers in working condition , no nose picking cyber cafe wallah leaning over you , and enough coffee to keep you going , you are passed this tag'. I got Mother Teresa's heart in my chest , eh ?

Shahrukh out . Mohanlaal rules.

Life has a mind of its own , and a pretty crazy mind at that . Just when I thought I should pick up a few table manners for the larger good of the society , I find myself at a place where it's the tradition to eat with hands with the sambar dripping off the left elbow . Ernakulam . The name may sound like something founded by a drunk monkey choking on a bone , but the place actually is pretty .The view from the living room balcony is a harbour complete with a big ship which is stationed there over the last three days . And I mean a proper ship . Like the one in Titanic , with the deck and the rooms and the name on its side and a flag and all that . Yeah , the language is a problem , but I bought a 'Learn malayalam in 30 days' pocket book today . That should help me out in real emergencies like trying to shout 'help' while drowning or asking the way to the nearest public toilet . And in here , you may not know daddy's first name , but you cant escape this actor called mohanlaal . The roads and magazines are crazy with his posters and hoardings and photographs . I half expected to find his life sized cut out in the apartment's bathroom .By the way , the apartment I have been given is really cool . Three air conditioners . Washing machine . Microwave oven . All that jazz . In fact , my mind is all muddled up right now with so many things to say that I am like "Do I write about the christian shopkeeper I met yesterday or the gang of schoolgirls who giggled to see me struggling to utter a bit of malayalam ?". So I guess I will get up and fish for dinner now . Basically , this was just to let my friends know that I still remember I used to blog once . I need to go out and find some hotel for my dinner now . And this time , I plan to start eating with my hands .

Pappa ! your car is in the bageecha !

In 15 days , I will leave home to start my first job . On June 7 , I take the morning flight to Calcutta and land at ganguly-land in two hours , along with the in flight magazine I always smuggle out to my boost my 'Yah I am a baddd boyyy' component of personality. Just received a big parcel from the company . The courier guy was like "What's in this parcel ?? Inzamam ul haq ???". For the first 10 days of my induction , I will be staying at a 5 star deluxe hotel , so I better start knowing a sweet couple called Mr.Fork and Miss.Spoon . Right now , a video involving my table manners can be nominated for the top 10 most disgusting videos of the decade , just below a mms involving Paresh Rawal in a shower scene .

And yesterday was a jet black day in the history of my driving . Early in the day , I was reversing the car out of our house and I barged into the hedge around our garden . Dad was like "Shucks !!! All those scratches !! Looks like a crocodile used my car door for her manicure . " and ma was like "Ullu !!! You killed my jasmine plants !! Their fragrance was so lucky for our home as per vaastu shastra !". Last heard , dad was telling ma something about getting my class VIII wali bicycle cleaned and repaired .

In fact , I have been getting a lot of 'Be responsible' talk from my parents . I swear on Kareena Kapoor , I don't want to increase their problems , but I don't know what to do to come across as 'responsible' ? wear a space suit ? Talk about the war of 1971 with them ? Maybe I should give in to the fact that the atmosphere at home is a pretty no-nonsense types . Like this morning , as dad was getting ready for office , he remarked " My employers may post me to some other city in a few months . If this happens , I will resign ".

And I said " Yeah do that . Then Rohit Bal's son will say 'My dad is a designer' and I will say 'My dad is a resigner' ". I don't even know if 'resigner' is a proper word , and I know , my financial accounting book's index is more amusing than what I said , but I thought it was better than a simple "Yeah , ok". But my dad just blew up and declared I can never be serious in life . I don't know what to say . I guess it takes a lot to understand why a guy slips on a banana skin and gets up and curses every banana in the world with frequent mention of the banana's ma and behan. And why another guy slips on a banana skin and gets up and grins sheepishly . Most of us have the same circumstances , the same mix of 'kabhi khushi kabhi gham' , but it's the attitude which defines our lives .

And I have been hitting orkut lately . One thing I don't get is that why people put up pictures of filmstars as their profile pics . I know my picture can induce bed wetting in kids upto eleven years old , but putting up a Salmaan Khan pic as my profile pic is like saying "Ok . This is me . I know the guy who starred in Hum aapke hain kaun resembles me ."And I sure won't look at some girl's profile pic and say "WoW !!! Laetitia Casta is on orkut !!". I know you guys would be looking at the hitler's passport sized foto staring at you from the sidebar on the right , but hey , that's not me ok ? I need to visit Shehnaz hussain for three years to look that good .

I am listening to 'Aankhon mein tera hee chehra' from the aryans right now . It came out sometime when I was in school , class XII maybe . It was like the 'teenage love anthem' for me at that time , a song which was like the background tune everytime I came across anything resembling a female . Man , I feel as old as a banyan tree remembering all those days , to think that I am turning 25 this year . It's another matter that I still ram cars in garden hedges . Hata saawan ki ghata.

Go regret it

There is something about the 'Kal ho na ho' title song . It makes me fall into a contemplative mood amazingly fast . It's like :

Me : How can the pepsi people be stupid ? Do they eat stupidity pills in lunch ? how could they create something as intellectually challenged as Pepsi TV ?

* Somebody in next room switches on the TV . After a jumble of sounds resulting from violent channel surfing , such as 'Bharat aaj vessht endeej mein..' , 'Nahi !!!! Kehdo yeh jhooth hain' , 'And datz a sixx' etc etc , the person settles on a channel and the soft sound of kal ho na ho floats in *

Me : Why am I born ? Reincarnation happens ? Do I have spirits watching me right now ?

I mean , you get the idea . Songs like these take my mind off the small things in life . Like Pepsi TV and my maid's family plans and the shining new potato peeler ma just bought . Songs like these make me slow down , pause , step back a little , look at my life , and say "Hmm.Maybe I should have done this ? This could have been better ? Should I do this ? Am I happy ? ". Songs like these make me look at my life as a whole , and not the insignificant and hurried things that clutter life . And whenever I do that , a bunch of little slimy green creatures scratch the inside of my skull with their little pointed claws and say " Hi ! Remember us ? We are the regrets you have " . Now I am not a guy who mulls over my regrets with the devotion of a teenage girl choosing a lipstick shade . I don't take them to heart . I hardly think about the bulky lady I pushed off the elevator because she was putting on a very irritating and fake angrezi accent . But still , there are things I wish I had ( make that a red sports car with three blonde models sitting cramped on the backseat and the frontseats stuffed with smelly wads of dollar notes . Make that four blondes if you are in a real helpful mood .) , things I wish I could do ( Breakfast with Priyanka Chopra , Lunch with Rani Mukherjee , Dinner with Aishwarya Rai , followed by an informal meeting with all three ) , things I wish I did not do ( Ok , maybe , I should not have pushed her off the elevator .Maybe .).

Like I wish I had the good looks which would make me get up every morning , look into the mirror and say "Phew . You should be in a movie , boy ". Right now , I am like "shit ! Which shithead invented mirrors ?". Especially in a place like Delhi , where every second guy roaming in a mall looks like he just slipped off the Lakme Fashion week ramp . I hope the ITC people post me to some remote village where every male looks like an accident victim , so all the 'gaon ki choriyan' go crazy over the shehari babu . My filmy knowledge tells me every rural romance starts with the guy asking the lass for some water from her matka , so I guess I will hang around the village well with all my rugged looks .

And I wish I would not have caused so much hurt to people . To make a promise and then break it comes naturally to me . "I will call you" , " I will send over a gift" , "I will take out your dog for a walk" , I keep saying things only to discover I am watching star world when I should be doing these things . I really have disappointed a lot of people , with rather violent repurcussions . I promise I will get a 'Highly unreliable' tattoo one of these days , so that people know .

And I can't dance . While the rest of the people scare away traffic with their gravity defying dance moves in a 'baraat' , I shuffle around nodding and smiling at relatives I last saw in the stone age . Even my dad would jump in and do some real disturbing jig with kids half his age , but I just don't have the rhythm to pull it off . The only creature around who may come to understand my pain is the horse , what with a well fed groom perched on his back , a thousand watt band blaring in his long ears , and a road full of dancing maniacs facing him .

Anyway , this is just a very superficial skimming of my regret bank , the proverbial 'tip of the tuft of hair on the top of a fly sitting on the top of an iceberg' . I haven't even started about the bigger and whackier skeletons in my cupboard which when let out can make for one big week long round of discussions over cups of coffee and rounds of cheese sandwiches . I am talking about my little teeny weeny mosquito bites when I can talk about the seven bullet shots all over me . And I don't even want to talk about them and plunge you into a 'dukh ka saagar' lest you spend the rest of your lives gulping anti depression pills .It is just that this song makes me go all dreamy and sigh-sigh and I type down stuff which is a disgrace to any trace of logic , grammar and sense . I guess I will just switch over to some raunchy remix number now , and go back to the million dollar and thirty three cent question - How could they create something as stupid as Pepsi TV ....

Hum sach dikhate hain

Like most mornings , I checked my mail today . Till now , I got the usual 'get bigger' mails .Now , I guess my credit card guys have been selling my email address to diamond dealers in Senegal . There was this mail in my email inbox with a subject line ' I need your help to relocate my diamonds from Miss Chisolu Fodeh' .So , Miss Chisolu Fodeh , agar aap yeh post pad rahee hain to please batao na heere kahan hain . And there was this mail from a particular person :

Hey Abhinav, why didn't you reply to my messages? Its true that you would be a hell lot busy and have no time for losers like me, but then for god's sake don't project yourself as a nice guy with a no ego, who's out to help others as you mentioned in your last post. I looked at your blog, n I'm like so finally heres a nice guy specimen who claims he has no ego and he will talk to me(n others) without being snobbish n all. I wonder if you are after all a hypocrite like all of us and befool others by writing sweet things.(after all ur from IIM, so ur hell lot intelligent and know exactly what people need and thus create a blog that gives it to them and thus earning u comments, popularity n all). I'm sorry to say all this, maybe u really didn't get the time, its none of my business poking my nose into ur matters, but then u turned out like all of us( that includes me).

I am not explaining why I did not reply to this person . This is just so that you know what I may be like . You know , it's like the 'reader feedback column' in magazines where mails like 'Your magazine sucks , your columnists have horrible grammar , and your editor's daughter is ugly' are published . Kinda clears up the heart . Comments disabled . Don't ask why . Miss Chisolu Fodeh se diamonds laata hoon ab .

Tussi IIM se ho ?

Free time offers a nice opportunity to reflect on life while putting on weight . So ma woke me up at 5 this morning . She says I should go on morning walks with her. She has this neat way of waking me up . She came over , ruffled my hair , and said "Bete , sone ka mann kar raha hain ?". Ma , I need to be undergoing labour pains to not feel sleepy at that hour . Anyway , I don't hate morning walks with ma , but the walking part irks me . But while returning ma stopped at the mother dairy and I made her buy me a Amul Kulfi . It was so pleasant with a cool breeze , ma and the thandi thandi kulfi .Looks like I have found a motivation for my morning walks .

And in view of my driving skills , my parents are getting me some kinda insurance policy . An insurance agent came over to our home yesterday . I will put in some money from my salary every year and will get a big amount when I am forty five . If I am dead by then , my wife will get it. ( To all you girls , I am dropping hints , silly ). The insurance agent made me feel good , without touching me , I mean . He was filling out this form about my details and asked "Bete , padayi kahan tak kari hain " . I was like "Jee , abhi mba poori huee hain" . So he asked "Oho , kahan se" , and I was "Jee , IIM calcutta..umm...calcutta mein hee hain" . For the next three minutes , his entire being was immersed in announcing to anybody in sight that I will be a rich guy and have three cars longer than the Nile river and a microwave oven and all the things rich guys have , illicit kids and all .

You know , that's the good part about coming out of IIM . Over there , I am with a batchmate and I think "ok , I will brag now" and say "Know what ? I got a percentile of 99.74 in CAT ( The entrance exam for IIMs )" and he would say " Oh , bad luck happens . Another answer wrong , and even my percentile would have been that low". But when I get out of IIM and have not many IIM guys around , people look at me and think "Ooh , he is from IIM ? He must know everything about why gold prices are rising." while I try hard to calculate the square root of 1 .

At the same time , we IIM guys have this image that we guys have bricks of extra ego strapped to our heads . It's like I don't call this friend because I was in a coma and then I wake up and call him and he says " Oh yeah , thanks for calling , you inflated ego-know it all-consumer robbing golden owl from IIM."

And once I was to meet this girl . I was like totally out of clothes . I had a choice between wrapping my ashwarya rai poster around my torso or wearing an IIM tee shirt. Considering the ashwarya initiative to a little anti social , I met that girl in a dark blue IIM tee . And she was like "shucks , you know what those waiters are talking?" . And I was "I guess about Govinda's role in saajan chale sasural" and she was " No . I know . They think I am with you because you are from IIM . I know" . I was like "Someone stuff this masala dosa up my nose . I want to die" . The rest of the evening was spent in my trying to scrape off every mention of 'IIM' from my attire . I never did wear anything with as much as an 'I' on it with her after that , and she is a nice friend now . ( Oye , If 'you' are reading this , I din't mind that ok ? It was natural .)

And the social interactions get a lot more predictable coz of this IIM thing .It's like I should have a '9th fail.10th fail.11th fail.12th fail.CAT crack kariye' sticker pasted across my front . I give a lift to this guy and he is "I wants to get to IIM . Tell me how or I will yell you just tried to kiss me". Imagine everyone asking you 'What do you say about Italy's transport minister's nose digging habits ?' . Because answering it is as 'umm..err..ahem' as answering "How did you crack cat?" for me . Frankly , I still get up in the middle of the night and go " man , what was it ? a mix up in the answer sheets ? Did the hundred bucks I placed in the answer sheet did it ? ". It's not that I don't like people asking me this . I am just stating what happens to me , not judging it . People helped me when I was preparing , and I not passing on the knowledge will ensure me a double bedroom apartment in hell . And hey guys , I know some of you have mailed me asking the same . However guesswork it may take , I hope to answer them soon .

Yeah , being from IIM , things look good on the professional front . at 24 , I have a found a job in a field I love and I have got a pay package cool enough so that I can say to my kid " Ok buddy , you can buy another butter scotch and give that to the girl you like , I can afford that for your girl" ( Ladies , this pay package thing is hint no 2 , in case your IQ dint let you notice ) . And you read about IIM guys all over the newspapers and think "All right , for a guy who won't find a place other than the obituary column before IIM , my chances for being in the papers some day look better now".

And the expectations shoot up and go through the roof and then the ozone layer . I have a distant cousion who did his MBA from IIM C some six years ago . And things like "He still doesn't wear Armani ? You sure it was IIM ? Two I's and M , right ?" are said about him .

Anyway , I can be like typing till the 22nd century about this , but then I may look like another of those IIM bastards with their bricks of extra egos strapped to their heads , right ? So I will just stop now and get back to deciding which model of mercedes to buy once I start getting my salary . ( Ok , this is it , miss , this is hint no 3 ) .

Note @ all the ladies : Don't take this seriously . Don't contact me . And don't complain about me to your brothers .

Oh no ! These are tears !

Has it ever happened to you that you just cry without knowing why ? Infact it's not crying . I mean , not the sort of crying I indulged in as a kid when Dad punched in a banana sized injection in my butter bottoms . Yeah , this injection thing happened a lot . That happens a lot when your mom and dad are doctors . You know , it was like this when I was a kid :

I hear the car horn , fling away the he-man toy I am playing with and run towards the door yelling "pappa aa gaye , pappa aa gaye".

I would run straight into dad , cling onto his pants , look up with expectant eyes .

Dad : " Bolo munna , pappa aaj aapke liye kya laaye ? "
Me : Ummm !! Chocolate ???
Dad : " Nah ! Guess ! "
Me : " Ahaaaa !!! Ice cream ???"
Dad : " Nahi munna !"
Me : " Oho ! Batao na pappa !"
Dad ( Pulling out a fresh smelling pink and green pencil sized packet ) : " See ! Pappa got a state of the art , fresh off the shelf , just launched hepatitis B vaccine for munna dear. "

I got so many vaccine punctures in my body , I can be substituted for the sieve in your kitchen . Anyway , that's not the point , or nariman point . The point is that I am not talking about the crying I did when this injection entered my body . I am talking about a more silent and confusing kind of crying . A couple of nights ago , as I tried to sleep , it happened to me . I was just looking up at the ceiling and tears just started flowing down . I swear on every one of jeetendra's dance steps , I could not fathom the reason . The tears just kept breaking away from the eyes , finding their way across my cheeks and merging silently with the pillow cover . I just lay there as confused as a monkey in a playboy photoshoot . I was like "man ! Am I crying ?? You sure this isnt a optical hydraulic malfunction happening ? ".

And a couple of posts I typed down have got published in Jam again . I am not the kid with a football sized ego who walks around with the 'My dad owns a sports car' tee shirt , but I am telling about this Jam thing because a couple of guys thought I had copied the post from the article in Jam .

And I had this real thick wave of a 'End this blog' emotion last night , and it was only a timely intervention by neetie which stopped me from rolling up this blog , put it in a doggie bag , cut it up into chote chote chote chote tukde , and feed it to my paaltu kuttas in blue blooded filmy style . It was like , I wrote the last post about the mahajan thing , and someone comments "Seriously abhi , you could have done far better". I mean , I have got myself in a position where everything I write is judged . Even if I am choking on a bone , some guy will stand up and say "Naaah , the way you fell on the floor all gasping could have been funnier ". I know I have created things to be this way myself , but chill yar , give me break . I am just a guy who writes a blog like millions out there . Just let me be . As if I haven't had a tough life already . Try counting the injection punctures on my body someday .

Ps : I need to reply to the comments on the last post . Will do that soon . And one of the comments was by a lady who was expecting a child within a week ! I hope a little angel has entered her life by now . Congratulations to her ! :-)

Added later , after a deep introspection of life , three hours of watching pogo , and forgetting all the introspection results :

I realise the above post was written in a dark greyish maroon kinda mood inspired by a terrible breakfast and my cable operator taking star movies off the telly for a day . The breakfast was much better this morning and to make things better , no one commented on my table manners . I feel creepy about the stuff I wrote yesterday and advise you to ignore all of it . And with such nice people commenting here and mailing me , I am amazed you guys dont have the angel wings on your backs . Have fun . And Thanks .

Bhai bana khooni

I really respect the media people . When I know these guys can to ruin this birth of mine by sending out one bulletin announcing some guy called hitler's soul is allegedly a 'videshi taakat' planning to blow up all the ladies toilets in the capital this independence day , I got to respect them. And lately , I have started to develop a real nice feeling about these guys . I mean , when I get bored of burning my sister's barbie dolls , I just need to flip on some news channel to keep myself busy till the next barbie burning session .

A couple of days ago , a guy called Praveen Mahajan pulled out a pistol and went boom boom boom . When the smoke cleared , we had a Praveen Mahajan thinking 'Shucks , I knew I should not have watched so many violent movies as a kid' , a Pramod Mahajan thinking 'Huh , is this heaven ?' and thousands of journalists , correspondents , TV presenters and newspaper boys around the country thinking ' Wow , now this is some masala for the next ten days '.

Sidenote 1 - For those stuck in some remote tropical forest of Nicargua , with no internet , newspapers , television or even a radio set around , Pramod Mahajan is a big guy in Indian Politics and he was shot at by his younger bro two days ago . On a personal note , he has never interfered in my lazy and dreamy life , and I had almost forgotten of his existence before he was almost wiped out of existence by his brother .

Sidenote 2 - In a dramatic move , Dharmu Jee has graciously accepted to be the first ever President of the yet to be estabished Hitler's soul's blog patrons association . More on that later .

So I was lying on the cool floor of my home and wondering why they put three blades in the ceiling fan over me when my sister came in from the drawing room and announced 'Pramod Mahajan has been shot by his bro' with the solemnity of a pope.

I quickly concluded the presence of three fan blades was a mere coincidence and went over to the TV . There was this young lady , around twenty six , wearing a sharp business suit , light pink lipstick , and the perfect 'Main lut gayi , barbaad ho gayi' expression on her face .

Lady presenter ( excitedly panting ) : 'Abhi abhi praapt soochna ke anusaar pramod mahajan par unke hee chote bhai dwara badi bedardi se teen goliyan chalayin gayi hain . Aaiye taaza samachar ke liye chalte hai hamare samvaaddaata Deepak ke paas , jo ghatnasthal par maujood hain'.

The camera stays on the presenter , instead of moving onto a emotionally shaken Deepak . The lady is visibly uncomfortable because of this . She tries to smile , remembers Pramod has just been shot and quickly recaptures her 'my house is on fire' expression . She focuses on the tip of her nose while secretly hoping that the technical guy will soon come back from the toilet and connect to Deepak , which he does after coming back from the toilet , smoking a ciggarette , and a quick call to his wife .

Deepak is standing with an even more intense 'My house is on fire and even my pants are' expression . A big iron gate can be seen in the background . A few wide eyed people jostle each other in the background and look directly into the camera , trying hard to contain the joy of being on TV.

Voice of lady presenter : Deepak ! Humein batayein wahan kya ho raha hain !

Deepak : Rakhi ! Main iss waqt pramod mahajan ke apartment ke theekh neeche khada hoon . Subah se yahan khade khade taango mein dard ho gaya hain . Teen baar pepsi pee chuka hoon . Andar jaane ki koshish lagaataar chal rahee hain , but baar baar yeh sasura security guard pakad kar danda lagaa deta hain . Main sochta hoon ek baar fir jaakar pepsi pee loon.Rakhi.

Rakhi : Oh . Aur pramod jee ke baare mein kuch ?

Deepak : Umm . Jee . Ahem ...rakhi , Yahan subah kareeban 8 baje goliyan chalayin gayi Pramod jee par . Suna hai kaafi dard hota hai goli lagne par . Goli ki awaaz se yahan ke stray dogs abhi tak dhahshat mein hain .

Rakhi , the lady presenter quicky realises that Deepak is woefully short of anything sensible to say and makes a mental note to send him an abusive sms after the telecast . Meanwhile , Deepak has tried to grab Pramod's neighbours , milkman , plumber , and beautician to express their opinion on the incident , and has successfully grabbed Master Deenanath , who taught Mathematics to Pramod Mahajan in class IV .

Deepak ( Victorious tone , sarcastic smirk directed at Rakhi ) : Aur hamare saath ab hain master deenanaath , jinhone pramod jee ko class fourth mein mathematics padayi thi .

Camera zooms to a frail old man , shaken at being jolted out of his bed abruptly and trying hard to remember who Pramod Mahajan is .

Deepak : Master ji !!! Yeh jo ghatna ghati hai aaj subah , aapko kya kehna hai iss baare mein ?

Master Deenanath : Beta iss umar mein mujh buddhe ko yoon bistar se kheench laana , kaafi sharmnaak aur chintajanak ghatna hai yeh .

Champak : Jee , hume afsos hai masterjee , but leaving that aside , yahan aapka ek poorv chatra , pramod mahajan , zindagi aur maut ke beech jhool raha hain , uske baare mein kya kehna hai aapko ?

Master Deenanath : Beta agar yaad aya ki yeh hain kaun , to zaroor kuch keh sakunga .

And even when Deepak decides to take a break and go to the nearest wine shop , special half n hour bulletins called 'Maut ka taandav' , 'Bhai bana khooni' , 'Khoon ki Holi' and such other names are being beamed across news channels since the day Praveen Mahajan decided to spoil his big bro's breakfast . Now that they have dissected Praveen , his mind , his motives , his childhood bedwetting memories , his dog's eating habits and his driver's family plans , they have been getting all kinds of doctors on television who pull out big human body charts , splotch three big red dots on it and say 'Goliyan yahan , yahan aur yahan lagi hain'. I hear a particularly elaborate telecast about the function of liver in the human body , especially Mr.Mahajan's , is coming up this evening .

Anyway , it's not that I don't want Mr.Mahajan to get well . Like any other human being , he should live a healthy and fine life , and I hope he recovers soon enough . It is just that I am a little amused by the way media is chugging away at this . For all the Mahajan Fan Club activists , I am too relaxed in my life of mindfulness ( Am getting serious about this Vipassana Meditation thing ) , reading ( Am reading 'Many lives , Many masters' , a true story about reincarnation . Fascinating. ) , watching TV ( Am watching particularly educative late night shows ) and avoiding a bath , so don't heat up on me please . And don't talk to the media people about me . Am no videshi taakat . The ladies toilets in Delhi are safe .

Ek bangala bane nyara - club remix

It is past midnight and this is the time there is no airtel lady or sabjiwallah or mummy to disturb my rangeen thoughts .Since the day I have landed home , everybody has been telling me that I need to be more mature and responsible .Today I was walking down the street with a friend and we see this auto . So as we are passing it , I decide to talk to the auto driver .

Me : "Haan bhaiyya , khaali ho ?"
Driver : " Haan , kahan jaana hain ?"
Me : " Nahi jaana nahi hain , khaali ho to aao milkar ludo khelte hain."

The guy reacted with the seriousness of a lung cancer patient , and remembering it , now I really think I should mature up a little .

Anyway , without my computer connected to a hostel LAN brimming with anything from bhojpuri movies to documentaries on mexican goats , I feel as helpless as a cockroach lying on its back when I have to spend 14 minutes to download a single track.I downloaded 'Ari Ari' by bombay rockers last night and according to ma , it sounds like some haryanvi carpenter calling out for his tools .The song playing on my system right now is 'You are beautiful' by James Blunt.I think songs like this and aadat , which are about heartbreaks and longing tend to do better than others because almost every guy who lacks a red convertible and the looks of a hrithik-abhishek combo pack has some kinda heartache. Next up on winamp is 'Sexy mama' by Bombay rockers again . I have two mamajis and I need to be a rhino with a dozen viagra shots to find any of them remotely attractive , so Bombay rocker's mama ji must be something . Actually these two years in the hostel have made my ears addicted to music . My room there was like a non stop music station with my winamp almost reporting me to the software welfare commitee for overuse. But please , I am not one of those intellectual and artistic souls who would give up their wife's ovaries to support some music band and eat the kids of the guy who won't . I have bumped into guys with egos the size of a camel's hump hanging from their heads who argue and fight over things such their favorite music band being the best in the world or some pop star being a complete disaster born during the halloween . Apna funda to ethanoic acid ke formulae jaisa simple hain , I like the sound of some song , I like that . And if I don't like someone , I don't go around slitting the thyroid glands of those who do .

Like I guess every guy over 60 and some grandkid to get hold of will do so and muse 'Arre hamare zamane mein hote the singers , jaise K L Saigal , unhe sun kar kidneys jhoom uthtee thee" , but I have some emotionally disturbing memories of his singing . When I was a kid , my dad got all excited during a shopping trip and barged into a music store and bought an eight cassette collection of K L Saigal . That night , after dinner , he got together me and my sis .

Dad : "Aao mere nanhe munno baccho , aaj main tumhe asli gaane sunaata hun . K L Saigal !! yeh aajkal ke sonu nigam monu nigam kya hai iske saamne ".

Me and my sis look at each other and think 'Mummy to bach ke nikal gayi'.

Dad puts in the first cassette in our shaky BPL player . After a couple of minutes , a voice sprouting directly from the cold victimised nasal tracts of some guy flow out of the speakers ...

"Ek bangala bane nyara
rahe kumba jis mein saara
Sone ka bangala chandan ka jangalaa"

Me and my sis exchanged looks and suddenly burst out laughing .Saigal mamu jaan , yeh gaana hai ya kisi sharabi architect ka bura sapna. I hear Dad gifted the Saigal collection to the Chaddas on their wedding anniversary after wrapping it in some thick gift paper .

Chal rambo bhai , ab main so jaata hun . I have started to get bored at home and need to arrange for some company and tie up a trip for some movie or something soon . And this time , I better be serious with any auto driver I talk to. Last song of the day before I hit the khatiya - Something Something by Mika !!! How exciting .

Kya gaon mein bijli ayegi ?

I don't know if it has been on discovery channel , but now I know for sure what occurs within eight minutes of a 24 year old boy landing a job - planets , comets , asteroids and a number of defunct satellites arrange themselves in a mysterious pattern in space which leads to a cosmic energy burst infusing thoughts regarding the boy's marriage in the minds of anyone having a mind remotely aware of his existence .

Now I am just 24 , a very innocent 'kacchi kali' level age where I drool all over in my sleep , think pink frocks look cute , drop half my ketchup on my tee shirt and have this tendency to suck my thumb under acute psycological pressure . But strangely , from the day I have been back at home , thoughts of my marriage are being considered as normal as a sardaar in a joke.

Papa has been sneering me with a 'Beta abhi shaadi hogi to pata chalega world war ke time kaisa feel hota tha' followed by the traditional evil laugh .Sister has been raising her left eyebrow disturbingly high with a sly smile everytime I talk of a female friend . And ma asks a "kaun thee ? " whenver my telephonic conversations with any girl exceeds three seconds . In short , while a month ago I was supposed to jump behind the nearest flowerpot at the sight of a girl, clutch the hanuman locket around my neck and remind myself that I need to study and get a job , these days no one is going to subject me to a round of honor killings if I keep walking and say a hello .After all , ab 2-3 saal mein shaadi to karega hi . Koi khud hee pasand kar le to problem kya hain ?

Now I have never been a guy who does the conventional thing , else I would not have spilled hot coffee over my crotch just to see what happens when I was thirteen ( And never , I mean never ask me what happened .Stirs up too many burning memories). So am not going to marry because every Indian guy is supposed to marry between the age of 24 and 30 .Instead , I need to think and decide if it's a good idea to marry at all.Of course , my parents expect me to marry in the next 2-4 years and show them the thobda of a fat little grandkid in 5-6 years , which , incidentally is a thing completely independent of marrriage in my noble opinion .

I am always imagining things .In class , I used to imagine the professor naked with a string of wriggling lizards around his neck to keep awake . So maybe I should imagine what my life would be like if I marry / I stay a kacchi kali ( or bachelor in more under 18 level terms) .

Scenario 1 :

I marry .

Now , due to an itch behind my left ear and a lack of decent names , let me name my imaginary wife , bijli devi . Like any husband in a hurry , I will address her as Bijli , or maybe Bij if I am in a real hurry . But you think of her as Mrs.Bijli Devi , she is not your wife after all .

I know how attractive I am . Like I was telling a friend recently , when I was eleven , my kaamwali left our work when I proposed to her and I am still viewed with suspicion if the present kaamwali threatens to leave work . So mine would not be the case where bijli first spots me as I kick start my yellow scooter in the parking lot of my office and thinks I look very macho when my foot comes down and falls in love with me and thinks about me everytime she hears a scooter's vroom and proposes to me the next time I am kicking my scooter and sparks fly and end up in our marriage . Even If I like someone , I am the sort of guy who feels all right after ten minutes of reading dilbert , a very "Theek hai yar , wo kaunsa mujhe pasand karti " kinda lad . So it is not very probable that I am going to propose to any prospective bijli either . So bijli shall come and electrify my life through an arranged marriage . Hopefully , bijli will like me as any wife likes her husband . She will ignore my emotionally disturbing table manners , an absolute disregard for 'log kya kahenge' and the seven inch scar across my left cheek . I will also try to keep her happy . Kids will happen and unwarned shit and piss will happen . Me and Bijli will fight sometimes , maybe , but I won't hit her , atleast not on the head . She will also hit me , and that's fine unless she uses the flowervase or the chair .But if she hits me on the head , I don't promise I won't hit her on the head . In short , me and bijli and our kids will be a nice little family . A happy family is more important for me than anything else ( except aishwarya's legs maybe ) , so I will try to keep my family cool . Keywords : Bijli . Kids. Kid Shit on sofa . Kid Piss on keyboard . Love . A little fighting . Smiles . Kid's fees . Bijli's beauty parlor expenses . A taj mahal sized RESPONSIBILITY .

Scenario 2 :

No shaadi . No Bijli.

My parents won't be happy . An emotional moment when I declare they are grandparents to a kid I had from some business trip to bangkok won't make them happy either . In short , my parents won't be happy with me if no bijli flows into my life's lamp . They will blame all the spiritual stuff I read and all the bearded guys in saffron alive . As for me , I don't have much idea about what kinda activities , apart from taking my secretary out , I shall be indulging in . Maybe I will retire from work at 35 , sponsor a kid in the meantime , and spend the rest of my life touring exotic places around the world ( Bangkok being one of them . What a machine I am. ) .I really don't know . I read about the meaning of life and think about it and try to read wisdom stuff , but don't know how I can use that by staying out of relations . Keywords : Freedom . Little responsibility . Unhappy parents . Early retirement . Financial ease .Meaning of life . Bangkok. Visits to buddhist monasteries . A little more of Bangkok.

So these are the options before me . I still have time before I come to the stage when I have to make a decision . Of course , life is like my cooking , I can put in a lot of masalas and flour and sugar but can never be sure of what comes out . Maybe I will move onto a higher level of awareness and life without marriage . Maybe I will feel the need for some bijli when I am 40 and get a '40 but in showroom condition' types matrimonial ad printed in the papers .Maybe I will find bliss in unconditional and unpossesive love I will hold for bijli and our little sparky kids . Maybe bijli will be very angry at the way I giggle when her dad pronounces lion as loin and hit me . And if she hits me on the head , I bet Bijli shall be subjected to an electrifying revenge .

Jaldi se naha lo

After a delayed air deccan flight with its 'Asuvidha ke liye khed hain , deri ke liye kshama chahte hain' slogan and a delayed bharti televentures guy with his ' Arre bhai kal piroblem mein fans gaya tha , aaj shaam laga dunga na internet' , both me and the internet have reached our home in gurgaon .

People at home have a different perspective of things . At the hostel , a room fire would have been given the imprtance of a stray dog by me . But it was almost a national crisis scenario when ma declared "Aaj paani ki problem hain ! Jaldi se naha lo sab " an hour ago . My transition from espn to the bathroom was swift . There were so many lizards watching me whenever I bathed in the hostel bathroom , I feel strange without any company in the bathroom here . Also , I have been watching a decent amount of cricket on the television . Commentators on channels like espn and ten sports and espn are so correct , they are almost boring . Give me doordarshan's bumbling Maninder Singh who screams 'Sundar stroke !' as the batsman is clean bowled.

Some years ago , when Kapil Dev smacked his big lips and said "Yeh ball kuch jhuki jhuki huee daali hain fleming ne" during the commentary for a one day match , I fell in love with hindi commentary forever. I mean , a Geoff Boycott has to be in real good touch to provide what these hindi commentators do .

Maninder : "Jin darshako ne apne TV set der se khole ho ( TV mechanics ? ) , unko main bata dun ki iss waqt bhaarat aur jimbaabvhe ke beech khela ja raha yeh match kaafi romanchak mod pe khada hain " ( See ! Maninder got my adrenaline pumping now )

Yashpal : "Jee maninder , aur main yeh samajhta hun ki iss waqt bhaarat ke ballebaazo ki koshish yehi rahegi ki kuch run banaye jaye ." ( That is an eye opener . I thought the batsmen are gonna wash clothes with those bats )

Maninder : "Bilkul Yash , lekin mera yeh maanna hain ki agar yahan bowlers 8-9 wicket chatka dete hain to match jimbhabvhe ki mutthi mein aa jayega" ( Maninder overlooks the fact only six wickets remain )

Yashpal : "Jee .Isi beech over ki samaapti , pakistan ka score chaar vikket par ek sau do run."

( During the commercial break , Rajesh , the scorer , informs yashpal that it is not pakistan but India , and the score is not 102 but 201 )

Also , have been reading some spiritual literature . 24 year old . Fresh IIM passout . Starts work in two months . I guess with these conditions I should be reading something like '101 ways to utilise the last sixty days of freedom , with a special pullout on how to propose to the colored hair neighbourhood girl you have always admired ' . But I have been reading a book which has a mist covered tree on its front cover and words like mokhsa , nirvana and enlightenment between its covers .I have just read about the theory of karma . It says my internet connection in this birth of mine is slow because during my last birth , I was a dog and chewed on some optical fibres to deprive an entire colony of internet . My ma checks on me during the night to see if I have bought a kamandal and hopped on the train to the nearest mountain peak . In fact , more than what I know , the way I think is more important to me . I have often been found to be as intelligent as a mosquito repellant machine , and I still get confused between left and right , so I am trying to make up for that by reading stuff which will make me more wise , if not intelligent .

And if ten years from now , the only guy staying back in India is a bazooka toting , pakistan bashing and angry Sunny ' Indian' Deol , I won't be surprised . One part of me has always wanted to wear caps and tee shirts which say 'Mera Bharat Mahan' , but the way politicians in urgent need of rapidex engliss speaking course are messing with insitutes such as IITs and IIMs in this nation , I am not sure if my kids will have the money to wear any kind of tee shirts . The OBC reservation announcement is genuinely the second most super duper export quality stupidity to happen to IIMs , the first being my admission . Being a general category student , I know it takes years of hard work , an incredible romance with lady luck , a lot of cash pumping into coaching institutes , and quintals of 'aashirwad' from our parents for us to get that one seat in an IIM . And then I switch on NDTV and learn that a bunch of politicans who need calculators to find the square root of nine and pronounce shanti as saanti just swooped away hundreds of such seats under their perfumed dhotis . I mean , one fine day in 2030 AD , I imagine a Ipod listening - spiked hair dude coming into my room as I lie on a chaarpai and asking me "Hey dad , I just cleared my engineering after flunking thrice , do I try for the six seats these IIM people got for us general category students ?". But this is not the time to panic , all the general category students affected by this move should remain strong and united and find the nearest OBC certificate printing shop where we can place our orders in bulk . Saste padega yaar .

Blogging from home as its advantages . You get a clean table with no coke glasses and half eaten biscuits lying around and you don't have to climb down three floors to the mess , you can keep sitting and yell 'bhookh lagi hain' and mummy tells you to shut up . But it has its disadvantages too . Like saira , our kaamwali asking me to get up as she has to sweep the floor under my computer table . So I guess this is it for now . Waise bhee , I think ma wants me to fill up some buckets before the water runs out . Paani ki problem hai na yaar .

Looking around while blowing bubbles in a coke

My dad lands here this evening and I have my convocation tomorrow . You know , I thought I shall write something with a 'puraani jeans aur guitar' ,'nostalgia ho raha hai mamu' theme just before I leave this campus , but I really do not want to dwell on that right now.

Recently , due to some unexplained celestial movements and a friend with no regard for punctuality , I found myself in a pizza hut with nothing to do over the next half an hour . I settled down at a corner table , plugged in my headphones , ordered a little something and casually looked around . Being an MBA , I have to develop this inborn tendency to analyse a sneeze , so I used that half an hour to categorise the type of crowd that visits Pizza hut.

1.The loud and happy "hum saath saath hain" family

With ekta kapoor and her silk pallu - scorpion bindi-saas murdering brigade of women , this breed is soon going to be listed with the "Akhil Bhartiya endangered species protection board" , just below the zimbabwean gold faced owl . Everybody looks happy here . Daddy jee jokes with the kids and makes funny faces at them . Mummy jee is satisfied as pappa jee just convinced her the lipstick marks she found on his shirt was mosquito blood . Kids are happy because they know that in spite of their dad making stupid and outrageous faces at them , he is going to order ice cream after pizzaz and garlic bread . The kids are allowed to push their fingers in their noses and run off to show what they pulled out to the couple seated at the next table . The eating is ruthless and this is one of the more noisy tables of the hut . In case it is a joint family , frequent peals of laughter accompanied by table slapping is evident . In case it is a sardaar joint family , frequent peals of roaring laughter accompanied by table upturning slapping is evident.

2. The coochie coochie "Kuch Kuch hota hain" couple

Now this is the karan johar sponsored couple which is usually a boyfriend-girlfriend combo pack. Just married couple who are yet to fall in the where-is-my-shirt-you-pick-kids-from-school' trap of married life may also qualify.

They prefer to sit in remote corners of the hut , well hidden by flowerpots or pillars , leading to problems for waiters who have trouble finding them . They sit as close as siamese twins , may eat from the same plate ( rather unhygeinic) and the only time their hands are not holding each other's body parts is when they are holding spoons or forks . They don't laugh the typical 'balwant-singh-chappar-faad-ke' brand of loaring laughter. It is more like twittering accompanied by whispering into ears . In short , both of them are in complete bliss . For the girl , bliss ends when daddy finds out his daughter has been visiting pizza hut instead of the maths tutions . For the guy , bliss ends much earlier , when the waiter brings the bill.

3. The "shehar ki ladki" tribe

The table which challenges every sound barrier with its shrieking and excited occupants . High school girls maybe . Even college girls , if they are slightly low on maturity . Usually , there is an occasion , which usually , is the birthday of one of those ladies . Shrill and sharp pizza-toppling cries of 'wowwwwwwwwwwwwww' , 'Howww chweeeeeeeeeeeet', 'Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww' escape from this gang . A lot of ribbons , gifts and greeting cards may also be passed around , leading to delight of the birthday girl and a certain archies gallery owner. Noise levels , boy's interest in pizza hut and daddy's credit card expenses rise dramatically due to this set of young women.

4. The "kya kool hai hum" boys.

This is the symmetrical opposite of category 3 above . But boys being boys , the sounds they emit are much less shrill and much more unrestrained in terms of their colorful vocabulary . 'Abbe ****** , pizza kaunsa mangwaye?' , 'Ganguly to G**** hain' , '**** ***' , 'Check her out' , 'Pooja se baat karun kya?' are some examples suitable for an under 18 audience . Their table manners are in urgent need of upgradation and cleaning these tables is the kind of work responsible for salary hike demands by Pizza Hut Waiters Union . Any delay in getting the food on table may lead to heated reactions by these boys , unless there is enough of category 3 around to keep their minds off food . The payment is the most tense and crucial moment , when frequent references to previous 'saale-tujhe-mere-200-dene-hai-pehle-ke' lendings are made.

5. The "na tum bolo na hum" couple

I am really confused about this variety.I mean , if a man and a woman don't want to talk , what kinda gunpoint threat got them together at pizza hut ? But I have always noticed the table as silent as a graveyard occupied by a couple who look as close as kabul and barbados. These people avoid eye contact with each other , smile with the comfort of a nun in a nightclub and keep looking out of the nearest window with the classical philosphical expression . The most elaborate conversations they strike up are about the temperature of the soup , which last for about thirteen seconds , including the sighs and coughs.

6. The 'tanha tanha yahan pe jeena' organism

Primarily , these are people in wait for their friends/girlfriends/boyfriends/blind dates/dates who can see . The waiters eye them suspiciously , clearly distressed by the person's sipping a single coke over the last forty minutes . The fellow passes his time by sipping the drink with the hurry of a super slow motion vision stump camera , blows bubbles in the glass , spends time by memorising every name in the menu card , or just looking at other people.

Yeah , there are other species too , but right now , I need to catch the India-England match and then I need to pack my bags and I need to burn all the movies and music and pictures on CDs . I fly off to home soon , and this is probably my last post from this untidy , unkempt room at New Hostel , IIM Calcutta .I am gonna miss some people , and they know who they are. But then , every end is a beginning of something new , and nothing lasts , which is one of the fundamental truths of life . I may leave this place and the friends I made here , but the memories shall remain . And I know I have to talk about these people and these experiences , but in my current state of mind , my immediate thoughts are about the CD of 'Tom n Jerry' I need to copy from Nishant .Hata saawan ki ghata and chill maar yaar . Life is good.

Pachycephalous ka naam Pachycephalous kyun hain ?

Yeh hai IIM C ka Dramatics Cell . I am the guy with the yellow arrow near his chin . I was the light boy ( I called myself Illumination manager ) for English play and played the role of a tomato plant in the Hindi play. Ok , majjaking , I played the role of a normal homo sapien in the hindi play . Completely unrelated bakwaas ahead.

~~~~~~~~

Since the day I got placed , I have been going around Calcutta with the desperation of a postman . That's pretty natural when I have access to time ( MBA over hai pappa !) and money ( job lag gayi na pappa !) . So I thought it would be another day involving hot pizzaz , ice tea , smiling at Pizza Hut girls , metro rides , garlic bread , a movie maybe , a lot of joking and careless talk when I met up with a friend as a part of my "Main-delhi-ja-raha-hun-mil-le" process.

"Abbe oye , let us go to Pizza Hut."

"Nah , we are going to Science City."

Science City ? I had sudden flashes of NCERT books , water cycle diagrams , beakers , a resounding zero in a particular class 7 physics test , and the reproductive system diagrams we used to look at with interest and confusion as young boys . Science City ? I confirmed , half hoping it would be 'signs' city atleast , something more removed from water cycles . Nopey dopey , Science City it was . Mild protests from my side , including a sigh longer than Shoaib Akhtar's run up and a self immolation threat were conveniently ignored and we hopped into a cab to head for Science City .

Now , just the look of the place is enough to send one into bouts of serious introspection over the utility of your being alive if you are not a scientist . A planeterium with a shape so complex an average guy would spend a major part of the year searching for its entrance . Trollies move across hanging from high cables . One of the buildings is in the shape of a Huge Dinosaur where people enter through its mouth and exit from the , well , umm , the opening meant to emit stools I guess ( not the stool you sit on ) , given my rather limited knowledge of dinosaurs and their shitting process .

One of the first things we hit was the mirror maze . It is this hall where we enter a maze made of mirror walls . If I have to compare it to a very filmy concept , its like the proverbial "Jurm ka daldal" , jahan log aate to apne marzi se hain , but wapis nahi jaa paate ( add the wicked laugh yourself ) . We spent quite some time trying to get out of there , but kept running into deadends and walking into mirrors . What with so many mirrors around me , I was surrounded by atleast four specimens of myself at any time , which is real terrible and un-photogenic company to be with . After a lot of yelling "abbe left le yahan se !" , "Uee ma , yeh to wahin aa gaye" , "Bhai sahab , bahar kaunsi sadak jayegi ?" , we managed to find our way out . I have never been so glad to not see me .

Then she took me to the Space Theatre . I took the tickets from the counter and the counter guy said "4 baje ka show hain". I half wanted to ask him "Heroine kaun hai dada ? " followed by a sly wink , but considering the name "space theatre" did not exactly smell of a traditional bollywood movie with its share of skin and blood , I dropped the idea . I don't know what happens to you , but my intestines twisted in a desperate sigh when the big screen burnt bright with a huge "Dr.James Kuch-to-tha presents - SEASONS. " For the next thirty minutes , Dr.James Jo-tha-woh-kyun-tha showered us with gyan on why seasons change and why winter comes after autumn and why polar bears have a lot of fur . Thankfully , my 'science-is-fun' friend tore open a pack of chocolate covered cashews , which was blissfully munched upon by me while extremely disturbingly close pics of grasshoppers and their mating habits were explained in detail by Dr.James Jo-bhi-tha-accha-hua-ab-nahi-hai .

We came out and I was determined to do something more human and routine this time around . I suggested we buy ice creams and enjoy them sitting on one of the benches lining the lawn. "Arre nahi munnu , time nahi hain , 3D show shuru hone wala hain !". Before I could run away and seek solace in the ice cream wallah's arms , I found myself sitting in a dark hall with a blank screen before me . A guy who had the "kya-re-tu-bhee-ban-gaya-murga" smirk came in and handed us big plastic glasses which were supposed to create 3D images out of a flat screen . In five minutes , the hall resembled a blind school classroom , though my personal opinion remains I looked more like a 1970-ish-Rajesh Khanna and Raamdulari did not look like a 1970-ish Dimple Kapadia in those oversized plastic goggles . A lot of skulls and snakes and rats jumped out at us from the screen and the kid sitting a couple of seats to my left screamed every time that happened . Now I really like kids . So much that in spite of my latest plan to never get married , I intend to adopt a boy or maybe go in for a test tube baby where my kid will be born in a laboratory amongst a lot of beakers and apparatus with scientists shouting "eureka" instead of the boring "ladka hua hain". So as the crowd filed out , the chacha Nehru in my woke up and I patted the little kid on his head , raised my eyebrows till they touched the back of my neck and said in the most round mouthed bengali I could imagine "Majo aabo ?" ( My imagined bengali for "Had fun ?") . The kid gave me a look reserved for a guy in immediate need of a plastic surgery and a 15-day bengali speaking course and walked away . I tried to salvage some pride by smuggling out the plastic goggles but even that was thwarted by the alert bengali public.

We also had a ride in a toy train where we had to wave down the train and get on it . We went into that dinosaur shaped building through its mouth lined by yellowed sharp teeth which suggested Mommy Dinosaur did not know of Pepsodent at all . Inside the entire evolution thing was depicted by way of dinosaur models which moved , growled , burped and if that was not a speaker placed at the wrong place , farted . My friend explained why Pachycephalous was called that , which effortlessly lapped up the best 'oh-yeah-yawn-im-listening-yawn' moment of the day' award . Towards the later part of the day , we even walked around the Fish house where we saw a lot of fish. One of the fish was called Tiger Fish . My friend told me it was a cross between a tiger and a fish . The next tank contained Horse Fish and the one next to it had crocodile fish . I extended the "tiger fish=cross between tiger and fish" logic to all of these and gasped at the extent of fish community's loose character suggested by it .

But to be honest , all in all , I look back at the day with a lot of fondness and warmth. I have been to Pizza Hut , Inox , Tangerine , Teej and a lot of other bustling places over the last week , but to have a day at the science city with a close buddy had an unassuming beauty of its own . Even if such places look a little nerdy , I walked away with a feeling of comfort and warmth no multiplex or mall evokes in me . Maybe it's just because when I was a kid , Dad used to take me to the Nehru Planetorium in Delhi and we used to sit in the theatre and he used to point out milky way and the constellations to me while me and my sister fought over less celestial things such as popcorn.Even if there are no bowling alleys and no dolby sound four screen theatres around , sipping a simple ice tea while sitting on a bench on a breezy evening seems a lot more relaxing to me .Even if there were not many eyeliner-gloss-lipstick types girls around , I did learn why Pachycephalous is called that.

Heartfelt thanks.

There are some moments when you move on from one page to the next one in your life book . Like when I was a baby who had to crawl under tables and skirts to move around , I was on the page titled 'My life as a crawling person ' , however creepy that may sound . Then one day my parents had this Maneka Gandhi-ian brainwave and they took me to the delhi zoo .They took me to the various enclosures .They decided to take a break in the lawn right outside the camel's enclosure .So my ma spread out a sheet on the grass and put me down as she took out the stuff she had cooked for lunch.While she looked around in the bag , I checked out the camel , had a surge of some real wild baby hormone , and took my first steps ever .My ma let out a chuckle in surprise and let go of my hand .My dad clicked this .So the page titled 'My life as a person who can walk' starts with a photograph of me with the 'Doctor ! Main chal sakta hun !' expression on my face staggering towards a camel who has the perfect 'I don't care about your walking , kid . I am real constipated' expression on its face .

In the same way , yesterday I switched over from the page titled 'My life as an unemployed youth with a huge affinity to the ATM card provided by Dad and considering an alternate career in terrorism' to the page with the topic 'My life as an employed youth with zero formal dressing sense and still a rather strong affinity to the ATM card provided by Dad'.

You know , this is the problem with guys like me.

I need to go to the toilet but I don't say 'Excuse me' and go away . Instead I start with a story about the time when a two year old me pissed in my aunt's lap so hard she almost suffered from multiple thigh fractures .Then I continue to talk about my aunt and her husband who worked in NASA and somehow the entire talk ends in stuff like 'Is there life outside earth' and I completely forget that I need to go to the toilet . So I will rephrase all that I have so stupidly said - I got a job at ITC Limited . I think I got into one of the bigger and better companies with a strong marketing involvement , which is in line with my goals .



A real thanks to all the people who left the good luck messages on this blog , or dropped offliners or mailed me for the same .I really wish I could compress some kinda treat into a zip file and mail it to all of you and you could download it and double click on it to find it's a virus actually. Nah , sacchi , more than the job , this post is about being grateful to all those people who had the wonderfully nice hearts to wish me luck .There have been some very special people who kept me going - and these people know how much it means to me .

Anyways , so what faces me are last 12 days at IIM C with not much to do except burn all the pictures and movies and music on CDs and burn all the books in the hot and actual sense . Since the ITC headquarters are at Calcutta , I shall be coming back to this city again .

I would really like to thank you guys for listening to stuff as weird as Lux chocolate variant over the stay I have had at IIM -C . Infact that reminds me , someone actually mailed me saying that I have always been spelling 'weird' as 'wierd' on this blog .I actually thought it was 'wierd' , which reflects on my spelling skills in a rather weird light .

I have been typing all this stuff over the last 20 minutes or so while sitting on my bed and I haven't got out of it since waking up this morning .So now I need to get out and brush my teeth.Between , it makes me remember the time I was on a train and I had no toothpaste and had to borrow it from this lovely girl and how we got talking about Toothpastes and dental structures and how she thought Kashmiris have better teeth due to all the apples they eat how that led us to the Kashmir Issue and Pakistan's role in it ....Uee ma , here I go again with my random thoughts .

I need to brush my teeth .I just need to shut up.

Of sanskrit teachers , a great game , and selling CDs

Well , there are some things that remind you of some people . There was this sanskrit teacher who slapped me real hard in class VII . And it wasn't a slap in the traditional sense . She actually rained slaps like she wanted to slap my face into a chapati .Left.Right.Left.Right.So whenever I think 'slap' , I think 'Sanskrit teacher and a packed class watching me in pity'.

And I just discovered this. I am shaken to see so many ladies recount what they went through . I find myself thinking of my sister , female friends , cousions , and I am sickened by the thought that they may have their stories too. It must be so tough being a girl . Living a normal day as a girl . When just walking down a street is a fight to protect oneself .A simple trip in a public bus is fraught with violations .When simply being a woman is an invitation .And the worst part is that I don't see how anything can change .

In more real and terrific news , to the utter wonder of almost everyone except my parents , teachers and other people aware of my intellectual capabilities , I am still unemployed . At the end of the first day of placements , a TV channel van came over to the campus . Those guys filmed the students with perfectly formed teeth and high grades and glorious job offers in London and Hong Kong and telecast it to homes around the nation , including my aunt's in Indore and another aunt's in Patiala . So aunts and uncles who talked to me sometime when Jesus Christ was still a kid are calling me up and deeply regretting the fact that I am jobless in spite of being at IIM Calcutta . To keep their wonder meters going , I tell them I still have chances at a firm which is into painting traffic signs.

Infact I have applied to 40 companies . 34 of them are yet to visit the campus. Hopefully , the curious calls will subside the moment I get placed in one of them . Some folks understand that the entire placement thing is a process which lasts longer than a pulse polio advertisement . But the moment some people see the words IIM and placements together in a newspaper , they imagine me in a sleek and black business suit attending boardroom meetings in a glass building at New York and playing snooker over rounds of martini after office . But that's all right. In a land where some fifty year old man with fat enough to inspire 500 kilometers of jogging tracks , can yell "Gadhe ko khelna nahi ata !" at a shot played by Sachin on TV , any other misconception is almost negligble . But this entire placements process is something which is much beyond the screaming headlines read by people over cups of coffee . Some other time.

And if you thought the first day first show audience of Neal and Nikki was the unluckiest bunch of homo sapiens ever , change that to the bowlers community of Australia and South Africa.The most unbelievable game which could have made a lamp post scream out in excitement .

Have got the entire game highlights on my disk.If I don't land a job soon , am gonna burn the game on CDs and sell them at Palika Bazar in Delhi .That should earn me enough to send my kids to a decent english medium school with no sanskrit teachers around. Much better than painting 'Slow down , school ahead' road signs for a living .

Cold and beautiful

Personally , I don't like dark things , except Nandita das maybe . I know people have problems , but reading about them leaves me depressed and suicidal .So I don't really like poems about heartbreaks and music videos like "Accha Sila Diya" and movies where people have some type of cancer .I like funny stuff like watching Ganguly bat or reading my college gradesheets.However , sometimes I come across stuff which is dark , but in a consuming way . Something which is about death , yet very alive in its intensity. Something which is so brutally cold , that it just grips you.


When I was a kid , I went to a toy store with my dad and when he asked what I wanted , I pointed at the ugly guy who was a helper at the shop.So my tastes actually suck.But whatever , I loved this article :

Dark-page-from-her-diary

Also , I hope I find a job soon . I am not really in an emotionally relaxed and free state these days . I haven't watched a movie over the last four days and haven't even replied to the nice people with a lot of time to waste who left comments on the last post .My career is at an amusingly crucial stage and my mental state , though relatively cool , compares well with a father of seven who has just been fired from his job , robbed on his way back , and informed of his wife's next pregnancy on getting home . I hope to get back with some good news soon.

Fat kid in the mirror

Speaking in officially cold terms , I attended the last class of my academic life recently . Of course , I hear Gandhi-ian phrases about learning continuing till the last breath . But the classroom thrill of watching the brown haired pretty girl sitting on the first bench and then noticing the dark mallu guy sitting dangerously close to you is unique . And the feeling of learning without a pot bellied professor as my personal sleep inducer shall not be the same.

After the last class ,we guys celebrated by doing some emotional stuff for the camera . Me and Himanshu felt it would be a complete insult to pass out of college without being involved in the filmy 'couple-in-the-lawn' situation . We searched for a quick girlfriend but with that not happening over the last 24 years, we had to do this ourselves for the camera . Damn the shiv sena members .

I am the guy lying down . The guy over me is himanshu. We were just grinning at each other behind the International marketing book and yelling to nishant 'jaldi photo kheench ,sacchi mein koi paap na ho jaye'.

Also , a couple of evenings ago , I attended the farewell party the juniors put up for the Dramatics cell . It was a nice evening . The girls pleasantly ignored me. When people got bored of looking at each other and saying "Party is nice na" and "Ice cream is nice na" , they asked me to do a little stand up thing . I did the telebrands thing . The thing where tall , blonde and well muscled guys dress up in underwears and say stuff like 'pehle mera wazan bahut jyada tha.Fir mere dost Tony ne mujhe iss machine ke baare mein bataya.Kamaal ki machine hai' to sell exercise equipment on TV. People say I can mimic that thing well , without being tall , blonde , well muscled and wearing more than an underwear . People laughed when I did that telebrands thing . So I think I could enact that , unlessthey were laughing because my fly was unzipped all the while.

In other news , due to some wonderfully terrible luck , I was inside a clothes store twice over the last week . My ma will have a eighty feel tall exclamation mark springing from her head if she gets to know this . She knows I hate shopping . And as if a gas chamber wasnt fun enough , I was in a gas chamber with a suicide bomber . In more direct terms , I was in the shopping thing with a lady . You give a thirsty woman dying in a desert a choice between a chilled coke and 40% discount sale on raamdulaari saaris , and she will take the latter gladly . So the only way I survived it was to plop on a cushioned seat and pretend I was brain dead while she went around the shop with the confidenceof a stoned Shahid Afridi.

Clothes stores are amazingly bad places for me to be in . First , my interest in clothes compares well with Sunny Deol's interest in the telecom industry of Jakarta . Not that I belong to mallika's say-no-to-clothes school of thought , I just don't like shopping for them . Secondly , I am very scared of that little cubicle in the corner called the 'Try room' where people get naked and try clothes without having to pay for it . Along with maths test results , Try rooms remain the worst memories of my childhood.

For the cause behind this psycological scarring by try rooms , I need to admit something . I was a short and fat kid .I am still short ( Four months ago , I went to a clothes showroom , and the polite sales girl told me the kids section was upstairs ) . But being a kid , I was shorter andbeing a very hungry kid , I was fat.

I used to hate the trips to clothes stores then . I dreaded the moment when my dad held out a little pair of trousers to me , pointed to the try room and growled 'try these trousers' . My dad can inspire a dozen nervous breakdowns by the sheer steel in his glares . It is said he once he strangulated one of his patients with his stethoscope because the guy asked if he should seek a second opinion . So I dragged myself to the try room when he told me to . My self confidence was blown into bacteria sized particles the moment I turned in there . Roof to floor mirrors surrounded me on all sides . To make sure I dint miss anything fat layers , lights bright enough to hold a one day match in the tropical forests shone on every part of my bloated body . For a fat kid to look at himself without trousers under bright lights is one of the most effective ways to develop an amazing inferiority complex . Somehow I huffed and puffed my way into the trousers which were loose enough to fit in an ethopian athlete . I defied all physics and textile engineering lessons to button up the trousers around my tummy . At the end of it all , I was left wincing wearing a trousers with atleast 5 inches of length sticking outside my feet like dolphin fins . I would open the door slightly and try to gesture to dad and call him to check out the agonising fit . To make sure no traces of self esteem remained , he gestured back to me . Which meant I had to walk all the way from the try room to my dad . So in a store where every kid was slim and smart and looked like Vandana Luthra's illicit child , a fat and short me flopped my way to my dad , who then touched me all over and declared I needed to try a size slightly larger . A large part of my low sense of self worth can be attributed to the time I spent without trousers in a little room.

Anyways , all that is history now. I am trying to build my life anew , changing clothes in dark and mirror free rooms.

And I am loving this song . I found this lovely track called 'Aankhon ke sagar' by Fuzon . The voice , the words , the music come together to create a dreamy and almost trance like state . If you have ever liked a two eyed girl for reasons other than her rich dad , this song may evoke some memories . And they would be a lot better than those stirred up by Try rooms .

Wo dundhli see tasveer...

Chalo Baccho , Photo Photo time ! Yeh hai mere hostel wing - 'azad pankh' ke kabootar . Can you guess main kaun hun inme se ?

My bed . Kaun kambaqth kehta hai ki I sleep alone ?

Yeh dekho mujhe JAM se cheque mila ! Abb main babu ji ke liye kurta pajama , ma ke liye saari , and behan ke liye dahej ka jugaad kar sakta hoon.

Jumman miyan , yeh hai hamara kampooter. Yehi hai saari musibat ki root. Pichle 6 saal se hamare saath hain.Sochte hai 2-3 saal aur rakh lete hain , uske baad museum wale khareed hee lenge yeh bharat ki darohar.

Single bells

I think I got fever.My parents gave me medicines and capsules enough to cure Somalia but forgot the thermometer.Also , I am in the process of reducing clutter from life these days.It's been like three days since I have watched a movie and am beginning to forget how Angelina Jolie looks.Instead , I am reading books.I am the guy who grew up reading phantom , mandrake , chacha chaudhary , mahabali shaaka , super commando dhruv and till last year thought Sidney Sheldon was a lady writer who lives in Sydney.So me reading books is like Manmohan Singh being an MTV VJ.But I am liking it .And I found 35 mb of more than 3000 dilbert strips.A guy ten minutes away from a suicide can laugh his diaphragms out reading that stuff.And here is the stuff I typed for Jam.Looks like I am getting into a huge despo single guy stereotype here.

http://www.jammag.com/valentine/art13_desperate_single_guy.php

I feel like typing more.But I want to sleep.I feel feverish.I think I will type more tonight.And I did not meet that crossword lady on the 14th.The desperate single guy thing moves on.Aapki bahu betiyan abhi bhee safe nahi hain.

Of orange shorts , pav bhaaji and V day plans

I am starting this post because I don't feel sleepy . I will just type out stuff about my evening. I hope to fall asleep on the keyboard doing it . I hope you too fall asleep reading it . Make sure you don't drool in your sleep . The saliva may screw up your keyboard.

This evening , N came to my room . He had to go shopping for some clothes . He asked me to accompany him . I think he asked me because I am short . It's a simple relative theory . A guy is
alone . He looks ok . A guy is with a short guy . He looks tall . I refused N and told him I had to work on an assignment of top priority. He promised to pay for my pizza if I went with him . It took me seven seconds to get ready.

So we went to crossword . It's a nice bright bookstore with a lot of books . Middle aged women in khadi kurtas sit around on low stools and pore over books discussing ways to rekindle the fire in married lives . Little kids noisily run around book racks and their mothers threaten to burn their toys if they don't shut up . Young girls are around the fiction racks . I think most people found in a bookstore are fat . Maybe it's because they spend a lot of time sitting and reading books on weight reduction . I picked up 'Tuesdays with Morrie' and went to the billing counter .

The billing girl at the counter looked at the big flaming red ferrari logo on the front of my black sweatshirt and gave me a smile . I think she liked my sober taste in clothes . And as I went away , she again smiled at me . I could feel it . It wasn't the 'please visit again' smile every customer gets . I think she liked me in a cute way . If you work at Crossword next to INOX kolkata and met that short cute guy in the black sweatshirt with a red ferrari logo , just know that I still think about you.

We got out and we went into a reebok store . N kept checking out the price tags of all the stuff there . He made a peculiar whooshing sound with his breath every time he did that . I think it translates into 'Why dont I have a rich dad who is into smuggling ?' . I did not have to buy anything . So I was pretty relaxed and tried on all the caps while he went around looking for something which had the price of a matchbox . He bought a pair of orange shorts finally . Reebok people don't have the right marketing guys . It is a blunder to have that dark bengali guy at the billing counter . I felt a strange creepy chill the way he smiled at me . I know short cute guys are the prime targets for these kinda men. I will never go to that store again.

Then we went to food court to eat something . Never trust anyone . Just do not . People promise to pay for your pizza and back out then . And you can't do a thing because they have already bought the obscenely orange shorts and got your company while doing it . It is a hard world . And then you realise you it is harder . I was not even carrying much money and had to settle for pav bhaji . I wanted to empty the ketchup sachet in N's nose . But a short cute guy can't just fill someone's nostrils with ketchup and not be beaten thereafter . I controlled my anger.

On our way back in the cab , N's girlfriend called up . I screamed 'Don't touch me N !' followed by 'Leave me N !' in the most girly voice I can put on . He spent the rest of the call explaining to his girlfriend there was no girl around him . You don't give me a pizza . I tear apart your love life .Fair and simple.

It's past five in the morning now . But I still dont feel sleepy. I think I will start reading 'Tuesdays with Morrie' now . The book reminds me of the billing counter girl . I think I should visit crossword on the 14th .