The Window

'There's something about the window', Chotu always thought. It was so difficult to be one. I mean, who has the patience to wait all night long for the sun to rise, so that all the dew droplets collected on it could get evaporated? Or who has so much stoicism so as to look at the roaring storm outside with so much silence, when all there was inside was cosyness and warmth? Who has the perspective to hear simultaneously the cacophony of children playing cricket outside, and the TV churning out news after boring news inside?  
As he opened his eyes, Chotu saw a sparrow sitting on the window pane. Sun had risen hours ago, and was staring at him, as if making fun of him. Very reluctantly, he got out of the bed. He wished he was a window instead. 'It would have been so much more fun', he always thought. Afterall, Life for an EIGHT year old is no fun, right??!
He reached school ten minutes late. The Morning Assembly had begun. He was so scared. It was for the first time that he was so late. Generally, he managed to be inside school premises just as the morning prayer started. He looked at Lallu Bhai, the school Peon, as if trying to bribe him into letting him in through his innocent looks. But Lallu Bhai, having been working in the school for the past eleven years, knew each and every student like the back of his hand. Chotu didn't get any concession, and was made to stand outside the school till the assembly dispersed. Then, after being done with getting scolded by the teacher-in-charge of the assembly, he made his way to the classroom.

The teacher had not yet arrived. There was the usual hullabaloo that is there in a typical third graders' classroom. As he entered the class, the usual sight of two sardar boys beating up a timid looking chap greeted him. He shouted,'Sandeep Mandeep, leave him alone.' But the command, or pleading rather, got drowned in the noise. Before he could muster the courage to try to save Nirmal, the teacher entered the class, and everyone sat in their places. As he sat next to Vinaya, he felt annoyed at the teacher yet again, for making him sit next to a girl. I mean, how can you sit next to a girl!! They were so organised with their homework, were teacher's pets, and always made him look like an idiot in front of the teachers. Just as he sat, Vinaya smiled and said,' Can you write my name on this sticker?'. He was always asked to write people's names on their stickers, coz he had a fairly good handwriting. Suddenly, the annoyance vanished, and he wrote her name with a special flair, adding a wiggly tail to the V. 'Girls are not so bad, afterall!', he realised.

The Maths class got over uneventfully. Next was music. Chotu always wanted to sing. Everytime a new music teacher came to their school, he made sure to approach him to get inducted into his list of students-who-can-sing. But everytime he appeared for an 'audition' for the same, he was just asked to do one thing. 'Beta, Sa lagao' . And that did him in. He never understood the difference between the Sa the teacher sang, and the Sa that he sang. 

So, in every music class, all that he did was go out and play cricket with all the other boys of the class who were left to play outside with the justification by the music teacher that 'these boys don't have it in them to understand music'. Who cared though? Getting to play cricket during school hours. What more could you ask for!!

After having spent most part of the class fighting over whether the ball went directly out of the fence, which was an out, or did it touch the fence, which would have made it a six instead, and having soiled his sleeves by wiping his face on it, the shorts-clad boys returned to the class. The teacher had just left the class, and yet the girls were still flocked around the table. Chotu wondered what was going on. As he reached the table, he was surprised to see a sparrow on the table. It was frantically trying to move its wings, but he was shocked to see that there was blood on one of the wings.

'This bird was outside my window in the morning! What happened to it?' he exclaimed. 'Don't be silly. All sparrows look the same. How do you know this is the same one? And it hit the fan and came crashing to the floor just as Upasani Sir left' said Vinaya. Chotu realised his silliness immediately and covered it with a 'Can't we help it?'. 'Help?', said everyone. 'It'll die. Once a bird came in my home. It died and my Mom buried it in our backyard', said someone. 'Why? So that many such birds would grow from the one buried?' said somebody else. 'Arre baba, it's a bird,not a plant'. 'But what do we do about this one?It's still alive.' 'Eww,I am not going to touch it, it's so hairy'. 

Suddenly, Chotu thought of something and rushed to the Biology Lab upstairs. The lab attendant, Rana Sir, was busy with some mounting work, when he barged into the Lab. 'Arre, what are you doing here?', he asked. 'Sir, I saw that you store snakes and frogs in bottles. There's a bird in our room. Can you store that too? Otherwise it'll die', said Chotu. Rana Sir heard the full account of what had happened, and accompanied him back to their classroom with some first aid stuff he had with him in the Lab. 

After cleaning the wounds of the bird and applying some antiseptic, the bird started to chirp a little, which amused the children so much that few of them decided that they would keep birds as pets at home. 'But birds are not to be kept in cages. They are beautiful only when they are free', said Rana Sir. Hearing this, Chotu took the bird in his hand and went near the window. The bird was chirruping very excitedly, as if dying to go outside. Chotu looked back once, at the other students who had gone back to their seats and were waiting for the teacher to come, and threw the bird in the air. Like a paper aeroplane, the bird took a trajectory, but unlike one, it  actually took a flight and vanished in the sky within seconds. And there was Chotu,standing,feeling contented, as if someone had gifted him a Five Star, smiling to himself for no apparent reason, and gazing at the sky through the window, the window that he always wanted to become...

A Random Bakar

The other day, a long lost acquaintance pinged me on Orkut, asking me about my well being, and the usual 'how n where r u?'. Quite happy to hear from him, I replied rather enthusiastically that I was at Pune, working with IBM and so on. A few days later, I received a reply which said that he was 'sad' that I was not working for an Indian firm, and was helping a phoren country flourish by working for it! 'WTF' was my first reaction. I mean, who cares yaar, if I am working for an MNC. I am not adding to the so-called Brain Drain. Or, am I?

When we were in college, we used to have a lot of discussions(back then, it was aptly called Bakar, or Non-Stop-Non-Sense for the uninitiated) . Here's how one such Bakar session went on. The setting is room number AG-1, Hostel 9, NIT Surat. Time is 11.30 in the morning. Oh, by the way, the next day was the second test of the ongoing End Sems. And yes, a Disclaimer: Names of the involved persons are withheld to protect their privacy!

The Talkative Guy(TTG) or Lambu: So, as I went to her with that 'OMG-you-are-so-pretty-and-I-am-so-lame' look, I suddenly realised th...

 Fundu: Arre yaar, cut it. Nobody's bothered about you and your rickety love life. And anyway, she's gonna go to US after engineering. So stop pestering her with you lame looks, and us with your stories of 'conquests'..

 Me: Hee hee, sahi bola yaar. By the way Lambu, why don't you too give GRE? That way you atleast have some hope of getting into the same college as hers. See, you'll have two more years to waste time and money over her.

 Small Timid Guy(STG) or Chotu laughs 

 Lambu: Ha, Ha, very funny, as if I would go to US just for some girl.

 Me: You wouldn't? strange!

 Fundu: Waise seriously yaar, if any of you get an opportunity to work or study in US, would you go?

 Me: I wouldn't mind going.

 Fundu: Chotu, you?

 Chotu: Me, am not sure.

 Me: Typical Chotu. And Lambu, what about you?

 Lambu: I won't ever leave my country to work for some other nation. Never!

 Fundu: Easy man! Load mat le. Waise, don't you think there are more opportunities if you work outside India?

 Lambu: Who cares? I won't leave my country. And waise bhi, opportunities may be less in India, but if everyone plans to pack their bags and leave, then they will be even more less.

 Me: Point hai boss. But I feel that in life, the idea is to be flexible. If I get a good offer, I don't mind working all my life for this country. But, if not, then I wouldn't mind going abroad either.

 Fundu: But that's not correct na. You should have some perspective atleast.

 Me: I have one. It's called The Middle Path.

 Chotu laughs again.

 Fundu: After I am done with my MS, I'll find a job there and will try to settle there itself. India is not worth working so hard for.

 Lambu: Oye, what the hell do you mean?

 Fundu: Calm down, am just saying that the competition in India has reached maddening levels. What I achieve here, I could have achieved far better had I been in a country like US.

 Me: Yup, I read it in One Night @ Call Center. They say that the IQ of a 35 year old American is same as a 10 year old Indian. Mast na?

 Lambu: (Ignoring me) C'mon man Fundu. Why don't you say that you want to run away from competition?

 Fundu: Coz am not. Am just a cattle who is using its brains and finding a turf where the grass is greener and other animals lesser.

 Me: Ya, but in the process, you are also blaming your home turf for not being so green, which, I don't think, is right. 

 Chotu: I agree.

 Me: Chotu, you actually spoke? Am honored!

 Chotu (smiles shyly): I feel Tiwari is right. You shoud not comment on what's wrong with India if you do not intend to correct it.

 Fundu: You may be right, Chotu, par the fact remains that there are problems with India. If I don't speak out, somebody else will. Remaining silent is like hiding your face in sand on seeing danger. 

 Lambu: Very true Fundu. But speaking out aloud without actually planning to do something is of no use either. 

 Fundu: So what do you want me to do? 

 Lambu: I don't know. Don't contribute to the Brain Drain any further, maybe?

 Fundu: Oh, the Brain Drain thing again. Why does everything have to come to this?

 Lambu: Because that's what everything is all about man. Nobody wants to work for this country, and then you say that India is going to the dogs.

 Chotu: Hey guys, look what I found. I jus Googled for Brain Drain, and it says, 'A brain drain or Human capital flight is a large emigration of individuals with technical skills or knowledge, normally due to conflict, lack of opportunity, political instability, or health risks.'

 Fundu: See, it says '...lack of opportunity'. That's what am talking about.

 Lambu (dishearteningly mumbles): That's the problem man. You are only talking.

 Me: Waise, it also says, '...with technical skills or knowledge' . Why are we fighting then? We don't belong to that category!!

 Fundu(ignoring me and my joke once again): Achcha Lambu, tell me. If you get a job offer from an MNC to work in India, will you take it?

 Lambu: Yes I would.

 Fundu: But won’t you be contributing to some other country’s growth then? Tell me.

 Lambu(confused): I don’t know. I mean, I would be spending all that I earn in India. So, I would be contributing to India’s economy, not theirs.

 Fundu: But by working for them, you are providing them with cheap labor, which is a benefit to their economy na.

 Lambu: But atleast I would be here, seeing the problems posed here everyday, and would try to find solutions to them.

 Fundu: What’s the logic? I can work there and still contribute in solving India’s problems.

 Me: You know Lambu, Fundu has a point. You see, he would be more financially able to do so, what with Indians getting paid much more there than here.

 Lambu: But Tiwari, isn’t that like its the...

 Somebody shouting out in the corridor: GPL,GPL, Jackson ki GPL. Come one, come all...Exams ka frustration nikaalne ka ultimate solution..

 Chotu: Oye lets go. That Jackson git always gets away. It’s his birthday today. Won’t spare him this time!!

 Me: Easy Chotu. Chal Lambu, Fundu. Shall talk about this some other time. More pressing matters at hand!!

 

So people, this was a bakar session we had back in college. And as with all bakar sessions, it was the same too- random in starting, abrupt in ending. I don’t know if we would have actually arrived at a ‘solution’ had we carried on. What I do know is, we surely would have flunked the next days’ exam in that case! I don’t know if any of this seemed sensible to you. What I do know is, its worth more than just a random bakar session. Signing off now. Stay beautiful.

 

Remixed Religion

If you have ever travelled by train (Tell me you haven't, and I'll tell you about someone who hasn't seen India in all its glory), you surely would have seen and heard small street children, with stone pieces in their hands, striking them together in a way so as to create percussion, and singing Shirdi waaaaale, Sai Baaaaaba at the top of their voices. This is a common scene in almost all train journeys I have ever been a part of. And all those children,hailing from different parts of the country, sing the song in the same nasal tone and accent that I sometimes wonder if there actually is an 'Association of Shirdi-Wale-Sai-Baba Singers'(ASS ??). 

Anyway, the point is, that after having heard this and many such songs of devotion since we can barely recall, these songs have attained cult status in our memories. Everytime there is any religious gathering or Jaagran of some sort, these are the songs that we invariably come across. 

There is another genre (if I may call it that) of such devotional songs that has suddenly cropped up in the past decade. The funda is simple- take a hit bollywood number, like Bheegey Hont Tere( Mind you, this is not a random example, I have actually come across this one!) substitute its lyrics with that of devotion, and behold! The song's ready. Sundar, sasta aur tikau. The idea is sheer genius, the reason being that the music is famous among the junta and so attracts attention instantly. 

But the icing on the cake is the new trend that I came across after coming to Pune. Last fortnight saw Ganesh Pooja being celebrated across Pune with quite a fervour and passion. Every society or building had its own Lord Ganesha's idol setup. In the evening, children from the nearby areas gathered near the idol, and there was quite an infectiously high-spirited atmosphere around the idol. The only thing that was really out of place was the music being played as part of the evening Aarti celebrations. You actually do not have any other choice but to believe me, that Mungda Mungda, Ye to Bata Dekhta hai tu kya, Doorie sahi jaye na, and Billo Raani were some of the few songs that I actually heard blaring out of the loudspeakers! And going by her 'track record', I won't be surprised if I switch on the TV some day and find Rakhi Sawant claiming that she is the one actually responsible for the sudden spurt of religious awakening in youngsters today!

I sincerely hope to find a logical explanation to this observation that I and one of my friend made during the past few days. I mean, you can very well imagine the condition one would be in, when after a day's hard work, you return from office, and on your way back, you see Ganesha's idol, smiling serenely at you from a distance. You find yourself walking towards Him to thank Him for the day that passed. You close your eyes, and suddenly, out of nowhere, you imagine Bipasha Basu dancing her way to glory. 

Signing off for now. Stay beautiful.

P.S- The image, dunno if there's any relevance. Just felt like putting it up.

Bombay Rains,Bombay Girls

Before you get any ideas, let me explain. This is not a discourse on Bombay and its girls drenched in rain (though that would have been an interesting area of discussion). It's the name of a book written by Anirban Bose, a doctor by profession and writer by passion.
There would only be a handful of the so called Youngistaan who have not read Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat. If you are one of them, kindly don't shower me and my stupid blog with so much of affection. Go read that book first!
But if you are among the masses who have read it, you'll probably find Bombay Rains.. on the same lines. Freshers into a college (this one medical), getting ragged by seniors, playing mischief in class, the protagonist finding the girl of his dreams, him making friends who are all as different from one another like chalk and cheese, their masti, their discussions on everything and so on.
But after reaching almost midway, the book ceases to be a copy of Five Point Someone. Actually, it's not exactly a copy, frankly speaking. It's just that after having read that milestone book, each one on those lines seems like a copy.
Anyway, as I said, halfway through, the book takes a different turn, and you find yourself far from the fun and thrill of college life. It is then that the actual motive of the book(trust me, there always is a motive behind each one being written) surfaces. I won't be giving out any spoilers, so go read it. You may love it, you may not. But you will surely take something away from it.

Stupid Common Man

'India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters...'

This is the opening line from the school pledge most of us must have repeated umpteen times back in school. Back then, it was just another ritual which was to be performed in the morning assembly.Now I wonder...

Woke up today to the newspapers screaming about the serial blasts in Delhi. Times of India's first line on the article says,'It has become nauseatingly familiar'. I guess that very much explains it. Five blasts over a span of fifteen minutes, and life for hundreds,maybe thousands, would never be the same. 

After every such incident, and there have been quite a few in the recent past, our reactions range from shock, fear, outrage to indifference, in that order. The question is, what next? Is forgetting things and moving on the only way out? Can we, the Stupid Common Man, do something about it?

Saw A Wednesday. And yup, the title's from that movie. Everywhere I go, be it in the office, the malls, on Orkut, I hear many of my friends say that A Wednesday is actually what is required in India today. They may be right. I don't know. It was a movie afterall. 

'We are resilient by force, not by choice', Naseeruddin Shah says in the movie. But is it really so? I mean, all of us, we have been taught to adjust in life. If Ariel is not available, Surf Excel de do. If we don't get admission into engineering, we adjust and take a diploma instead. The point is, we have been taught that adjustment is the only way out. And that I guess is one of the many reasons we have become so resilient. We say to ourselves,'Another blast, OMG, I hope everyone I know is safe', and then we adjust the incident in our memory like some piece of cheap cargo stashed into the corner of a cargo van. We are resilient because we think we do not have any other choice. And people are taking advantage of this mindset of ours. But what these 'people' are  forgetting is that, just like the incident, this cargo is also a bomb, ticking, biding its time...

Anyway, Ganesh Visarjan processions doing the rounds in the city today. Pune is on high alert, owing to the incident in Delhi yesterday. By the way, came to know from Mehul, my flatmate, college mate and one of the few guys who actually love reading newspapers, that the Ganesh Pooja ritual was formally started in India by Bal Gangadhar Tilak as a means to unite Indians during the reign of the Britishers. Nice but strange, isn't it? That a religious ritual like this was used as a tool to unite Indians. Afterall, in present day India, religion is simply modified, mutilated and reduced to the bone of contention for almost all issues concerning the country, political or otherwise. 

Anyway, the question remains unanswered- Can the Stupid Common Man do something? I tried to ask this to myself, but am as unsure and confused as always. Signing off for now.

Weekend..Finally!

Woke up at ten today. What used to be just another day back in college has now acquired a coveted place in all our lives-Weekend! Afterall, unlike college, it's not everyday that you get to wake up at such a leisurely hour, and continue to while away the whole day successfully.
Prepared Khichdi last night. Actually, for those who don't know, there are four of us sharing 'A-701' here in Pune. And since we have so far succeeded in failing to find a cook or a proper tiffinwalla, we decided to take matters into our own hands,literally. Till last fortnight, we actually cooked food at home, and we fared well I guess!
But for the last two weeks,since we had to work from an office located 25kms far from our place, we switched back to Choice, Pune's very own Klassic. The food is reasonably priced, the service is fast, and the food's great. So, as I said, truly Klassic!
Still waiting to get a project. Half of the new joinees have been allotted one, and the rest of us are expected to get one on Monday. There was a sudden rise of tension in most of us, the reason being that there were speculations that few of us would have to relocate to Kolkata for our projects. And then ensued a list of fears and suggestions and consolations and what not. 'Dude,Kolkata is so cluttered','Food there is so cheap','Flats are so cheap,you won't face a problem there','Man,Bong girls!' and so on. But the point remained that after having stayed in Pune for almost three months now, nobody wanted to start from scratch at a new place. But things seem to have cooled down a bit, what with somebody coming up with the news that there are projects lined up in Pune as well, peace seems to be prevailing for now. Lets see..
For all sufi music lovers, there's Bulle Shah from the movie A Wednesday. The song's awesome, and so is the movie. Also, a song I have started loving suddenly is All I Want is You from the movie Juno. Again,beautiful movie as well as the song.
Reading a novel called Bombay Rains,Bombay Girls by Anirban Bose. It's about a medicine student hailing from a small town in Bihar coming to study in Bombay, the city of dreams. Just begun with it, so watch out for a proper review in a few posts.

Ah-Sick Banaya...

Most of you must have guessed what am talking about. Yup people, its Himesss. And he's back, to vasool his Karzzzz. Atleast that's what his new flick is called. By the way, the title of the post, it's from somebody back from college. 

As I see it, last year saw the ultimate dip in the standard of Hindi Music, what with Himesss having arrived with his box of infinite songs, each one almost identical to the other, like penguins. Some people always argue with me that he's actually good. Afterall, his music tops the charts. Point taken, par the point remains that too much of anything is bad. Initially, when he came up with his first movie album in which he lent his voice, people, including me, found it quite ok. But after that, he literally deluged the industry with songs sung by him. 

Also, when we have got fundu people like SEL,Rahman,Vishal-Shekhar, Pritam(his original numbers are actually great), that should ideally leave very less space for Himesss. Anyway, as they say, 'India is a democracy'!!

By the way, talking about SEL, you seriously have got a problem if you haven't listened to Rock On yet. Awesome music. And like SEL puts it, 'It's pure unadulterated rock'. Listen to it, and you'll realise that there's still music left for us to enjoy and get lost in.

Also, there's one album called Ada-A Way of Life by AR Rahman. The movie din't create any waves, and that's why probably the music din't. But listen to Hawa Sun Hawa, and you'll realise what am talking about. 

Anyway, whatever you do or say, Karzzz  will surely create pandemonium, the movie as well as the music. It's like rain, you can't help it. But Gandhiji had long said something which I dearly  hold on to-See no Evil, HEAR NO EVIL, Do no Evil! Ciao