Spoons

Akka(Didi) ho gaya. I am done Akka, i have had enough...She so very sweetly put some more RICE in my plate after hearing something she didn’t understand and i started with the rice after hearing something which i didn’t understand. All this happened with smiles all around. This is an altogether a new situation for me, not the not understanding part, no, i have had enough vivas for this where i don’t understand what is being asked of me and when i answer the prof doesn’t understand what is being told to him and mind you only the prof is stupid, what is new is the mutual smiling. I have never been pampered so much in my life neither at home nor away as i m done here. After every morsel i am asked- how is the food, did u like it??? With smile on their faces and sparks in their eyes, these people are indeed very proud on their culture, which i am sorry to admit but we north Indians lack. Neway my answer is always the same, nice, delicious, tasty, new. And don’t think that the answer is out of fear of being pulverised by my friends and co-interns but the food actually is nice here. After being famished on the mess food for two years with the same taste (bad taste) and the same smell (the MESS smell) i can very well appreciate the spices’ aroma and taste in the food here. The weather is nice and the people are nicer. I haven’t paid for my lunch for the past three days straight!!! The confusion which i face after bath as to me being wet due to water or sweat is ofcourse a small price to pay for all these incentives. The fabled old Hyderabad still seems to be a weekend away from me though. Never ever have i enjoyed more working as much as i do here in my intern, integration and enthalpy calculation was never more fun. Next time i meet you i bet i can explain all what u wanna ask through sign language which is very rapidly becoming my third fluent language.

This land where restaurants are called as Tiffin Centres and where people love to make toung twisters out of their names and put extra ‘H’ in them has just started feeling home.

**dedicated to my flight to Hyderabad in which i drank atleast 4 glasses of water and learned that the air hostesses go alternate when summoned ;-) :-P

The Last Good

Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent...No, m not talking about rating girls out here, infact m talking about women, elderly women at that. You may be but i certainly m not a pervert so stop thinking in that direction. Neway back to the point to all those women who have taught me when i was in school. Remember we all must have come across teachers with different copy correcting abilities some always wrote 'Good' after correcting every chapter, some wrote 'Fair' and so on. They were the nice teachers, the always smiling ones, the chilled out ones as we used to call them then and there were those who were vicious with their pen, red marks all over the note book, encircling the spelling mistakes, underlining the whole sentence for the grammatical errors quite not unlike the modern day MS Word. These teachers, the evil ones, the sulkers as they were called they gave 'Good' once or twice in an year. And it was a matter of extreme pride for any of us to have that in our note books. That 'Good' was usually the deciding argument in any fights when we used to measure each other's 'strengths'. If you ever noticed the general notebooks of that subject in the class used to be a lot more neat & clean in comparison to others.

We received our last 'Good' when we were in class IX after that teachers stopped giving us 'Good', now i don't know whether our and especially my results dropped due to the lack of 'Good' or it was the other way round. After coming to college i have seen a lot many of our profs don't appear as if they care about us which of course is not their job yet i do feel that a few Goods can do a lot of good to the junta. Remember Newton's first law??? I guess appreciation is the external force required to change a person from his position of rest. We might have become grown ups and people say that ur glorious goals should motivate you enough but the irony is that the goals, glorious they might be, they don't smile even when they look Good.

P.S- Dedicated to all my Teachers and especially to my class XII chemistry teacher who although never gave me Good but looked the best of the lot :-PPP

1625 in the afternoon

It was when i was going for my squash practice that i realised even though i love the game i never feel elated by the mere thought of going for the game. The practice has become a part of my schedule. Amidst all this so called newly acquired, 'on my own' freedom feeling i have had to pay something very dear. I couldn't possibly go to the court with my brain in this 'does my life suck' mode, so i put a brake to my ride, sat beneath a tree and dived into my portable personal pensieve. All memories of my homework doing flushed my mind. The scale and pencil in hand, eye on the time piece, ears aching for the shout o' my mates', brain forming the football strategies and heart already savouring the jubilance of another victory. My favourite question- Maa if i could do my HomeWork later plzzz, followed by her condescending question, and the reason for that is???because Maa its 1630. This was out daily regime and no conversation in those days could lift my spirits more or make me feel better. Smug if we won the game, explanations & reasons, accounting the instances of  'cheating' when we lost it. Fatigued yet contended but dreading the feel to return home after 1900 and recounting every kick and save to Maa while eating excruciatingly slowly the bread with Bournvita milk coz i knew what fate awaits me after that on the study table. And again contemplating about the game for another half hour before Maa comes to have a peep in.

Gradually the habit of asking for permission morphed into merely informing her and our conversation got lost in time. Sometimes i still try reconstructing The conversation with my roomie but the condescending tone is missing in his voice.

**dedicated to my Maa

An Afternoon Coffee

There are all kinds of people who go to a coffee shop. The lucky ones are those who go there with an eye candy, the unlucky ones are those who tag along with the lucky ones and finally there are the posh, swanky and aristocratic who go alone and only for the sake of coffee, like me. And this third category is not a cover up for those who r not in the first category and still have enough honour to not be among the ones in the second category. I have always heard, cherished and sometimes even envied the phrase-enjoyed over a cup of coffee. The conversation going well, u remain intrigued only by the talks, the conversation going foul, who cares for the damn coffee.

I am a big fan of coffee and it really pains me when, forget about the lucky ones even my 'unlucky' friends do not know how to drink coffee. I mean what other things have they to do in a coffee shop if not the coffee. As far as i am concerned i enjoy the coffee without sugar, the sugar alters the taste of the coffee, don't forget to take in and ponder with close eyes on the all important aroma. Start doing this and i m sure coffee will cease being just a something to wake up or may be the thing over which you enjoy your conversations. Drinking coffee is similar to drinking wine, its not just the manufacturer who instill in the taste but u also got to play an equally imp part i.e learn how to drink.

I m not being paid to advertise coffee, no, its just that i wanted to stand in defence of the movie 'Dhobhi Ghaat' which many of my friends have condemned for being boring and unintelligible. Its a matter of perception as i found all the three stories to be blended in the movie very smoothly like the blend of steamed milk, milk froth and coffee in a cappuccino. Watch the movie all alone one afternoon and you can enjoy the tingling feeling, long time after the movie concludes similar to (even The Aamir Khan can't make a coffee substitute) the case of a coffee without sugar, a lingering titillating taste on the tongue.

P.S.- Although of course don't always delve in too much for the taste otherwise you will definitely hurt your chances of finding yourself lucky again.

**dedicated to all my friends especially Bharat Kumar, the man who given a chance will choose coffee over women.

Mining for Gold

Unity in diversity has become a thing of past out here. May i have your phone number, will u come for coffee, shall i walk you to hostel, common lets celebrate your birthday, is it alright if i txt to inform you when, where and how i'm gonna pee or jerk, Can we have a relationship??? The answer is always the same, unified- Are u Nuts??? I wish i had answered it yes, but alas i was a kid back then who had two left feet(I CAN’T DANCE) so i didn’t know the perfect answer and hence always denied of me as a nut. It is widely appreciated that gals out here don’t go for looks, physique or talent, otherwise they would have come to us instead of their desperate search for nuts. But it was not their fault, no. The problem was on our part, we always let our lust come on the surface(nutty ppl don't show their EMOTIONS), the basic condition which made us unfit for the most popular brand of friends for gals, the JUST brand. I dunno why almost all boys hate being JUST friends when there is a plethora of silver linings in it-

• pocket friendly- you can go to what is every boy's second best date, the shared date though you'll have to compromise your privacy with others and also others won't stop hitting on your JUST friends afterall you all are JUST friends.
• freedom- there's no compulsion for you to call back or msg back immediately anddd you can flirt with others openly too as your JUST friends are suppose to help you out in this lusty feat of yours.
• if you are NOT PERVERT- JUST friends are allowed to have their hands held and occasionally put around shoulders(only :-P) and waist, well these physical tremors does help keep you wanted and dancing.

So next time folks if you DOn't want to be labelled as a nut, keep your eyes six inches above to where they are now while you talk to a girl(try to look into her eyes and not into...sicko). Gals don't have their eyes in the back, have your chance to size up them then, like they(???) do and most imp envy won't take you anywhere so LEARN from others.

**dedicated to all my friends who don't want being APPLIED to nuts :-PPP

Still Spinning

                                The first time ever did i ask a girl for a dance. She was in my arms, i could feel the warmth of her body, unlike a raging, arousing fire it was a soft soothing one like that of a glowing ember. Her gaze burning deep into me wanting to ask a thousand questions, i could tell that she was feeling shy due to the close proximity of 'our' dancing parents. But for me, i didn't notice them i was too busy fishing for my reflection in those two magical brown orbs, her dance was having a grace reserved exclusively for the feline family, her physique so dainty and so delicate i felt my hold might bruise her. I could smell her shampoo and never ever did i love 'pantene' more...
                                 The music stopped nd she ever so gently made aware of this, standing on her toes to reach my ear her warm breathe the only thing that could have and which eventually did awake me from the trance. Something was stirring in my heart for the past two days and all i was left with was a spinning totem in my breast pocket...

**dedicated to all those people with impressive memories :-P  ;-)

The Phone Ring

                                On receiving the news of the arrival of the boy's parents we all were standing outside  in the corridors, anticipating big tears and loud cries or atleast some 'action'. There was none. We expected our hostel warden would be hackled or physically manhandled but there was no such commotion. She lost her husband to the country early in her married life and he was her only reason to be alive after that. With perfect features of his father, she found her beloved husband smiling through his mischiefs. His thinking, his reasonnings were all well ahead of his age and thus he managed to wiggle out of a tight corner if he was ever caught for a mischief. Excelled in studies, did well in sports nd finally got through 'hell' and came here to iit.

                                She had always had her fair share of altercations with god, born with looks unfit for her family's economic background, an attitude unfit for her orthodox parents and loved by a man whose parents considered her unfit for all the above reasons. They thus ran off and married, no honour killing this time though. They had started living a happy life with each other. Her life shifted an upward gear with his arrival and just as she started to have second thoughts about her enimocity with him that she received a phone call. A funeral later she had stopped beleiving in him altogether and also made the 'little him' an atheist. If she was blessed it was just with an indefatigable heart. She started picking up those bits and shreds and just as she was about to make a b'ful collage she again got a phone call...

                              For three days and three nights she sat on the ganga ghat for the divers to find his body, for three days her hopes were alive to find him there, somewhere. Strayed might be but safe and sound. On the fourth day the divers succeeded but the god failed. She didn't identify the body but meekly surrendered to it. He was given a funeral along with all his belongings and then a splash later the phone again rang but no one was there to pick it this time, no one...