Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Tarot-mania

Have you ever had a close friend who was a tarot zealot? My friend, I remember, used to do almost everything in life as directed by the tarot-woman and I was amazed by her steadfast belief. So if my friend did not get along with someone, she ascribed it to having a problem with that person in some previous life that wasn’t sorted out back then. Though I never criticized my friend for this, I did find it a little awkward. And mind you, she was one of the saddest people I’ve met. Initially I thought it was just a phase, but realized overtime that she was wading through the endless quicksand of misanthropy, spawned and nurtured by her beliefs.

The paradox is that my friend is pursuing a career in higher level scientificresearch I’ve decided to be more vocal about people in sciences following such practices। I wonder what they’ll take to their lectures when they become professors; a deck of cards and a parrot?!!??

…otherwise I find parrots quite cute, and in future I’d rather befriend a parrot than such a person, for the latter are as heartless as they are brainless. Now that “suddenly” we’re strangers, I’ll try not to think too much about “what the hell did I do? Fight with you six thousand years ago in some previous life?”

Phew! I guess in the parrot world there’s no room for reasonable reasoning; you just gotta do what the parrot tells you to.

Friday, November 30, 2007

The struggle has gone to the dogs

17-oct-07

Feeling low about leaving a job, the kind that might never head my way again, I wasn’t exactly elated, but that voice inside told me to chase my dreams while I have the energy to do so. In the evening I was listening to the CDs that were presented to me as a farewell gift by my colleagues at Pearson Education. I must say I’m not one who goes bananas over gifts but when I opened the wrapper and saw the CDs of ABBA and The Beatles, I went pumpkins!! The lines go like this “It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog…” and listening to them, I tried to meditate on these particularly, preparing myself for the toiling headed my way.
After being sure that the amplifier had become very hot indeed, I switched off the music and headed for the TV. I told ma that it was time to change from Star Plus to something else or the TV would leave the house for being tortured. Reluctantly ma handed the remote control to me while her eyes remained glued to the screen to watch that last bit of popular trash being mass-produced and aired non-stop one after another, before I switched to National Geographic Channel. Mother is as much baffled by my extreme fascination for wildlife as I am by her love for the dreadful Hindi soap operas. In these operas everybody are stinking rich, some people suddenly disappear and reappear after 20 years in someone else’s body, everyone has affairs with other people’s spouses (and even bear illegitimate children), they even die…but somehow return, they’re always contriving something sinister or trying to undo the effects of queer misunderstandings that normal people cannot have. Their children grow up and have more such affairs and bear more children…it is so complex that if a geneticist were sit down to sit down and carry out a pedigree analysis of these people, it would look like a spider’s web rather than a lineage chart. And I tell you one thing all these people have tasted water from the fountain of eternal youth, the grand-mother is as young as a girl of 25. Maybe that’s why women dig it; I’ll never understand some things about women. So my mother is a normal 58 year old lady and I am an abnormal 28 year old man. It’s not that bad you see, I’ve made it through these 28 years, I’ll make it through a couple more; just enough to do something interesting. Besides things are improving, at least a few people in the world know my name now…unlike in the school days when I woke up half-expecting that even my father would look at me and try to recall my name with a great difficulty.
Let me tell you what I saw on NGC, it was a program on wild dogs in some park in Botswana. There was this big pack of WDs with lots of healthy pups, all but one, a weakling by the name of Niyuki. Poor Niyuki hardly ever got a chance to suckle. Soon the pups were weaned and graduated to meat eating and Niyuki remained underfed and weak. WDs feed their pups by regurgitating pieces the meal they ‘hunt down and eat alive’ (…just one of the things my mom frowns at, while I watch with tears of joy and amazement in my eyes.) This scientist followed the dogs and studied their behaviour over a couple of years. He thought that Niyuki would probably be the first one to die in case any tragedy struck. Tragedy did strike; lions attacked the pack and killed 4 cubs. Lions actively ambush and kill wild dogs, cheetahs, leopards (if they are ever able to ambush one) and other carnivores to eliminate competition of food (they have to think 10 times before doing the same to hyenas…and hyenas never leave any opportunity to attack lions). Guess who survived; Niyuki! Then after some months, the scientist discovered that the dogs started dying. Unexplained, the dead-bodies were found scattered, not a single dog was alive in that area. It was surmised that they probably died due to rabies contracted from the domesticated animals in the vicinity of the sanctuary. Talking about domestic animals, it is legal for the farmer to shoot down any wild animal that strays out of the park into their farm and most animals understand that, ones who don’t, don’t live to learn. So our scientist bro roamed around in the vast park but there was no sign of a single dog. After around 2 weeks though, he saw fresh WD pugmarks. Guess who!! It was Niyuki and his mate (from some other area). A full grown WD, Niyuki was big and healthy now. The two committed the blunder of starting a family; pups in a big pack have a better survival rate. So they had a couple of pups for whom they had to forage (actually they were on mum’s milk, but the mum’s eating requirement grew by leaps and bounds). So mum and dad went hunting and they walked and walked but found no game and strayed too far away from the pups. Out of desperation, they went…guess where!! out of the park into the farm. The farmer spotted them and fired his gun, Niyuki and his mate ran for their lives but just they reached the fence to enter the park, another shot claimed Niyuki’s girl’s life. Niyuki stood there stunned; out of fear he crossed the fence into the park, waited for a whole day for his partner. With head hung low, he returned home to pups that died by dehydration. Niyuki was desperate to find a new home so he started following another pack. He followed them for weeks but never went near for fear of being attacked. Finally Bell — the alfa-female—allowed him into the group (Tikolo, the alfa male, wasn’t pleased at this but tolerated him). Gradually love blossomed between Bell and Niyuki (because Bell was in estrous) and one day they mated while the other dogs went hunting (Ok Ok there’s some masala in my serials too…it’s not just very pleasant to look at…they call “that” love!! Poor Niyuki shivering under the effects of testosterone). Tikolo didn’t let Niyuki anywhere near the pups; Niyuki was only tolerated because of his hunting skills. Over time, Tikolo became more tolerant of Niyuki and allowed him to meet the pups…and what a sight it was when the real dad met his babies and fed them regurgitated meat. As the pack shifted base, they moved towards Niyuki’s original territory, he took over a dominant role in hunting. It was a sight to behold, how a WD chases its quarry for miles at a stretch at high speed. Even the swift impalas can’t match the speed and stamina of wild-dogs and as they slow down, the indefatigable dogs gain more speed and literally finish eating the rear of the impala while it is still alive and wondering where he disappeared from front limb down. It was a treat to watch Niyuki chase the impalas, he was like an arrow released from a bow, so swift and for soo long that the cameraman couldn’t keep pace, neither could the other dogs and nor could the impressive impala. Niyuki knew the terrain well and knew where to find water, impalas and even places where lions were most likely to ambush them. One day after a hunt, a lioness headed towards the pack, the dogs chased her away. Little did they know that she had a backup of numerous other lionesses and a large male lion. The dogs were ambushed and attacked mercilessly, they ran for their lives but almost each one bore the brunt, two of them died (one being Tikolo). As Niyuki headed home with the other mauled dogs, I was moved on seeing his lacerations; his body, especially the front region was bore deep gashes by the razors in the lion paws...as usual, Niyuki received more than his fair share of beating and was the most severely injured dog alive. Despite this, on reaching home, he dutifully fed the cubs. Niyuki managed to live on (God know how his wounds healed) and became the new leader—the new alfa male.
In the end, our teary-eyed scientist bro narrated the last few lines of the tale. He said that later on in his life, Niyuki once again strayed into the farmland and was never seen again. What a life for a pup that was least likely to live! A survivor, a leader! Our scientist bro said that he couldn’t understand how in the world of the fittest, Niyuki ever managed to grow up in the first place and how in the world did he stray away from his pack just before the disease wiped out every dog!! Niyuki, the weakest pup, had survived and lived through it all.
Chance perhaps, perhaps destiny…perhaps just one of the things that we cannot explain! Hats off to Niyuki!

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Lucy’s dead

8th September 2007

Our dear stray bitch is no more. Only last night I was petted and caressed her pretty face. The friendliest dog I’ve ever seen, the most resilient fighter of hard-times I have ever known, Lucy lived a long life and seemed quite alright the night before God called her. She was loved by all and fed by many.
Surely, if angels don’t look like humans, they’d look like Lucy; her round skull, slender snout, droopy ears, wet black nose and beautiful brown eyes were adorable. When she wagged her tail, her whole body gyrated along and I’ve never seen anybody be as happy to me as Lucy always was.
She was a great mother and took care of all her babies with utmost care. She gave birth to many litters but they were all taken away by the MC. Only once in the past 10 years were her puppies spared to attain full size. One of her daughters was her replica, but was bolder and much bigger than our Lucy. She and her siblings teamed up with their mummy and formed a great pack; Lucy was middle aged then and quite strong; she seemed genuinely busy and happy. The neighbours never seemed to mind them, however the MC took them all away and after 2 months, Lucy was the only one who returned. I felt sad but was relieved to see her alive.
On more than four occasions, I’ve seen Lucy reach the brink of death due to disease, and of these, she disappeared for more than 3–4 months on around three occasions. The first time it happened, I was sure she was dead; she reappeared, fully recovered. The other time it happened I was skeptical of her being alive; she reappeared all healthy and hearty. The other times it happened I just waited for her to return; she did not fail me. I began to think “this life was interminable.”
But in the past few months, she started to grow feebler by the month. Though she was being fed regularly but she kept losing weight and looked frail. Through all this, the gentle expressions on her angel-like face remained. Today morning when I was at work, one of my neighbour friends called me up and told me about Lucy’s death. “She was lying peacefully in the middle of the T-junction” I was told. Riti covered her body in a white cloth till the time she was buried in the ground in front of our house. I don’t know where she got her name ‘Lucy’ from, I never used to call her Lucy; I used to call her Phoenix. Anyway, what’s in the name! She was a pleasant mortal to have around…our Phoenix will not rise again and we will all miss her.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Fatality

I was hit by a car at the traffic lights of sector 20 a few days ago। Like a good citizen, I proudly stopped my wasp ‘behind’ the pre-zebra crossing line—I always do that and always feel good about following the traffic rules; apart from the fact the pollution-check certificate of my wasp expired months ago—I was waiting for the light to turn green when suddenly something happened। For a fraction of a second I was air-borne, my wasp took off without me and in another fraction of a second, came crashing down on my guitar। Lying stunned on the zebra crossing, I looked at my scoot that was resting on my guitar a few steps ahead of me—“Had Jesus returned” I thought to myself. Maybe he took me with him, but then just remembered something bad I’d done and threw me back. I sat there and gazed heavenwards for 3–4 seconds, not realizing that everyone around was staring at me. I was too stunned, to realize what had happened. Then I turned around and looked at a girl standing next to her car, she was shivering like a leaf and was continuously mumbling “I am so sorry.”
Oh! So it wasn’t as bad as I was thinking, I had just taken a hit on the rear by a woman driver, rather, she had driven into me; I was relieved. She helped me pick my wasp up, all the while she kept saying, “I’m so sorry.”
Then I realized that my brand new, hi-end acoustic guitar had taken a hit and that was it, I lost my temper. I roared at her “that is a very expensive guitar miss, you’d better wish its safe” as I took the guitar out of the cover. The guitar was badly grazed; thankfully it wasn’t broken and its neck was in place—good quality pays off. She kept saying “I’m so sorry” so many times that I couldn’t think of anything. The wasp’s clutch lever broke and the left shield got buffed by the road. Only one thought stopped me from letting my anger out—I’ve been teaching a friend how to drive lately, I wouldn’t want anyone to be nasty to her, if she were to be in the same situation. In anger and frustration, I could just utter these words in a very threatening tone with clenched teeth, “you better get lost from here” the message was conveyed. She obeyed and in a second, was nowhere in sight.
Onlookers stared at me—many of them in amazement—that I had let my assailant go so easily and quickly, without asking for any kind of compensation. I just picked my broken wasp, grazed guitar and a slightly grazed right arm and rode back home!
Today I got my scoot repaired and for a few hours, it performed like a hot knife slicing through butter…and then….the new clutch lever broke…I don’t know why…and my wound is going from bad to worse…it refuses to heal! Now I am really angry at that woman.

I just remembered a dialog I heard in the movie Titanic, “Women and machinery don’t mix।”…listen to the guy, he wasn’t joking!! At least quite a few of them don't.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

What have we become?

At school, we read of the revolt of 1857; we read of the world wars; we read of the various revolutions. We also read of the various architectural marvels of the modern, medieval and ancient world.
Let me conjecture about what our children will read in modern history:

They’ll probably read about Kanshi Ram’s imposing statue in UP; Mayawati has clandestine plans to capture some area and build a statue of Kanshi Ram (a few inches bigger than the statue of liberty). Where’s her sanity? Where is the sanity of the people who adulate such politicians and elect them to power? UP already has a surfeit of statues and foundation stones laid by previous politicians in power! We Indians don’t understand UP, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and others are not independent countries but a part of one country. Lets face it; most of us are not die-hard nationalists (not even moderately so)…what have we become!

They’ll probably read of the time when the muslim world declared war or other faiths (and in many ways vice-versa). Hey, the crusaders were just as bad. Hope fully by that time all the faiths of the world would have made peace with each other by then and there would be other more grave problems facing humankind as a whole. Tomorrow if a substantial portion of the world’s population is wiped out by some disease, you’ll probably forget that I’m black and you’re yellow, white or purple (unless you’re one of ‘those’ types); all faiths, creeds and races will join hands to counter a problem like that…why do we have to ask nature for such a calamity to bring some sense into our heads? There are ample of ‘more important’ problems facing us even if we give fighting and wasting away because of the differences in ideologies. Why don’t we look at the bigger picture right now? Why not create beautiful and purposeful things now so that we’re ready. Why lead a wasteful, superficial and a negative life? We’re growing in numbers and so is our fear of each other. What’s wrong with us? What have we become?

We’ve always been like that; history vouches for it. Now we need to evolve in to better beings. Someday we have to leave this planet and move elsewhere. But you probably don’t see that coming…do you?

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Maxi oh Maxi…and this one is not a feminine garment.

A few days ago, I saw an advertisement on electric scooters in the newspaper. I sat down to do some calculations about saving money (the kind I was oblivious to only a month back). The E.S. runs at a cost of 10 paisa per kilometer; that means commuting to and fro from my work would cost me 2 rupees a day! My present wasp (Vespa-Italian for wasp) gives an efficiency of >40Kms/litre. Consequently, I spend roughly 23 rupees a day (+2 rupees parking charge!! OH GOD! This cannot be me!). If I take the local bus, it’ll cost me less that half that money (10 rupees) and if I buy an electric scooter, it’ll cost me one-tenth what the wasp costs me. That was it, I had to buy the ES and it sure looked nice in the advertisement.

Today I went to have a look at it myself. The only one worth giving a look (even once) was the top end model named Maxi. I wasn’t too happy about this, but I still asked for a test drive. I asked him to start it, he answered that it was already “on”…no sound, why would there be any!!
I sat and pushed the throttle, it had a surprisingly peppy pickup. MAN!! It was weird, the thing just jumped forward…I was expecting it to be much more dead than this. One problem was that it was a bit too small for my legs which blocked the handle from moving in any direction but straight. The sales guy suggested that I shift towards the back to accommodate my legs…heck! By the time my legs were comfortable, my ass had reached the rear seat and I was holding the handle with my outstretched hands like they do in chopper-bikes.
Maxi is powered by 4 batteries, each of which costs 1500rupees and last for ~ a year and a half, i.e., an expense of Rs 6000 roughly every year (only if you take good care of it, .i.e., no overcharging or undercharging.) and there’s a possibility to incur this expense sooner if you’re careless even once. The insurance charges are Rs 700 per annum). That brings us to a running cost of Rs. 700 per annum (electricity cost…incase the electricity charges do not increase and I do not move around too much on the ES) + Rs. 6000 (batteries…there’s fat possibility that I’ll screw the batteries before one year…I cannot be accurate about its charging all 365 days a year…so this expense could actually range from 6000-12000rupees or even more in a worst case scenario) + Rs 700 (insurance). This brings us to a total of Rs 7400 (best case scenario). By using the ES, I had planned to save Rs 6000 per annum (when I had only considered the running cost of 10paisa per kilometer). Considering all the aspects, it turned out that this was going to be an even more expensive proposition that my good old wasp.
Then came in the final blow, the guy told me that the top speed of the ES was 25kms/hour!!!!!!!!!! WHAT? “Are you kidding me”, I almost shouted in disbelief. The salesman explained that since the vehicle didn’t require registration, it was deliberately given less power. Less Power? That’s no power at all…what the use of that entire pickup if it’s unable to take you beyond a limit; the limit being so limited. I just shrugged my shoulders and came out. I looked at my wasp with a new found respect.
As an experiment, I decided to go all the way home at a speed of 25Km/hr to have the ES experience (the whole 10 kilometers). I realized that my wasp would not go any slower than 30km/hr on the 4th gear; this was faster than the ES’s top speed. I went on and on and on…and almost slept off. It was difficult to manage some turns with the heavy traffic, but I stuck with my commitment of 30 km/hr. The distance between 2 roundabouts seemed unending, but I didn’t dare go faster than 30 km/hr. Scoots, mo-bikes and cars (and even bicycles) whizzed past and overtook me. By now, I wasn’t the only one feeling humiliated, even my wasp didn’t like it. After ages, I reached home and for the last 50 meters, revved up the wasp to its max. Oh! What a relief! I thought I’d grown old, mature and slow, but I guess 27 is not the right age to be traveling at 27km/hr; I’ll do that when I’m 97.
With all my dreams of helping the environment and my pocket, gone down the drain, I’m seeing the Bajaj Avenger 180-DTS-I with a new found interest; a cruiser is surely something that’ll look good under me. India is probably the only country where they have a fuel efficient cruiser. Avenger (the stronger reincarnation of the Kawasaki-Eliminator) is a wonderful combination of good-power, moderate-fuel-economy and fantastic-styling; it has been on my “gotta have it” list for a long time now…and I will have it in another 6 months time. No my friend, I can’t travel at 25km/hr, my life will pass me by in the time that it’ll take to reach home from sector 17…I choose the Avenger and would rather go at a 100km/hr!!

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Information is a form of energy!


The other day I was reading about entropy. Most people would know that it is a term that studied in thermodynamics and describes the randomness associated with system/surrounding. Second law of thermodynamics states that spontaneous processes tend to move in a direction that takes them to a state of greater randomness.

We also study in biochemistry that living systems maintain an ordered state (less entropy) in their bodies by increasing the randomness of their surrounding.
Here’s the interesting part that I wasn’t very familiar with; “information” is a form of energy! This has been wonderfully and succinctly explained in the text book of Lehninger Biochemistry and I suggest you read it. If I take all the letters used in this passage and throw them into a state of randomness, they’ll make no sense at all. To make sense of it all, I need to place them in a particular order so that the reader understands the idea I’m trying to get across.

Quote from Lehninger Biochemistry:
“In fact the branch of mathematics called information theory, which is basic to the programming logic of computers, is closely related to thermodynamic theory.”

Wow! That lights up another bulb in our heads, doesn’t it?
Like I said in a previous post “it’s about perspectives, of vision and thoughts.”
Another nerve pathway formed corresponding to a fresh perspective…further decrease in entropy!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Insomnia-the sequel

23April2007
2:50am

Who in the world can feel jet lag without even travelling between any two given timezones; it me, it me...who else! Its 4:00am and I'm almost awake; I never went to sleep i.e. I went to bed at 2:00am convincing myself that I was very drowsy but after half an hour of staring at the "glow in the dark" moon, stars and planets on my ceiling, I was convinced that either I was awake or having an out-of-body experience. Though the latter would've been an exciting experience, the possibility of not being able to get back into my body made me think twice about it. Then I counted to three and sprang out of the bed to check if I was semi awake (in which case I would crash) or wide awake...it was a perfect landing...yes batman doesn't sleep at night...he writes posts for his blogs!

Sometimes I feel like I've been cursed; Chandigarh's dust thou art and to Chandigarh's dust shalt thou return. This city makes me claustrophobic and emetic. I have reasons to dislike Chandigarh; because of the average citizen of this city. Chandigarhian apathy is as sickening as its charlatanism and its paradoxes.

They wanna cut pollution but the MC employed staff are on a wild spree of burning dry leaves every morning. The traffic cops challan scooterists while the smoky truckers/autorickshaws ply fearlessly (circumstantial evidence...if they really were so hell bent on cutting pollution, they'd be tackling the latter more seriously).

They want less accidents but they allow wine shops to spring up every half a kilometer...if you have contacts, you needn't worry about anything except for killing your ownself...others?...you couldn't care less!

They want health but they can't stop stuffing their face with fast food...then they spend money on gymnasiums and "slimming centres"...where else do they throw the money afterall, there has to be some way!

They want to be educated but don't realise that most of their schools are nothing more than breeding grounds for dunces. Creativity is predominant...in the negative sense.

They "appear" to be cultured but the reality shows up every now and then.

They want to be blessed so they throng religious places (and turn into saints for that much time) but when they return they get back to their repugnant ogre selves.

They generously throw alms to the satiated/professional beggars in a hope to improve their own Karma and in the process permanently deny a few people the right to know the fruits of labor. Ask most tip-top Chandigarhians to spend some time with orphan kids and they'll be too worried to get their expensive clothes dirty...or have a party to attend anyway.

In this part of the country the mantra is "Do what you want...but don't get caught." ...of course a few months before a girl is about to be "fixed up" by her parents (for an arranged marriage), they abrupty give up everything and turn into pious nuns (after all the grooms family will get the girls background checked because they all want chaste virgins for their virtuous sons).

I want to go to better place than this freaking city of uncouthed zombies. The flora here is all manicured and non-native...that's why some idiots planned to plant deciduous trees around the whole city...so that they shed leaves twice a year and a big army of men can then be hired to sweep the roads and burn the leaves...afterall not till you have ample of problems can you demand money from the Centre...so they thought it was a good idea to create some.
But then maybe I need to look in to my own self before pointing fingers!
Hey I needn't be so upset...afterall it is the CITY BEAUTIFUL of our country.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

A time to connect

18th april 2007

Yesterday’s evening was particularly a restless one for me. Two of the elder boys of the children’s home were beaten up and verbally abused by some rowdy boys of the area. They narrated the incidence to Riti n me. I was thrown back into the past and felt an adrenalin rush; I remembered the time when I was young and faced similar situations. Many forgotten old wounds were opened as I listened to how the other kids treat the kids of the children’s home. They’ve been beaten, made fun of and called names (“anaath” “orphan”) by the more previliged kids. I've been discriminated against as a kid; now if I see it happening in-front of me, it gives me murderous impulses.

I have an idea about rivalries between groups that start very early on in life and might turn into a sort of gang rivalry with serious repercussions as the guys reach adolescence and beyond. “My gang” no longer exists, they’ve all dispersed far and wide…how I wish it was like the old days and “we” would take these guys down happily…besides, I’m too grown up to be thinking of living a life I lived 11 years back. The evening was spent in trying to convince myself that if I retaliate with violence, I’ll actually set a bad example for the kids at the children’s home and who knows the situation might go out of hand. The better plan seemed like talking to the parents of these unruly juveniles; but then, had they had good parents, they wouldn’t really be beating up bunch of poor kids. Restless and writhing in the hurt from the past, I just sat and tried to empty my head of those dirty moments. Only recently had I resolved to not let it affect me anymore, right now I’m just sitting and making a list of the people I have to get even with. Aren’t we just animals inside…there must be something more to a man than this!

The other day, Sister Annie was appreciating our spending time with the kids and I wondered what the big deal was. Today I realized why she felt that way; there are many children, adults and all in between that abhor giving a touch of love or extending a hand of friendship to these “apparent” orphans. 22 of these buds go to school, do their homework, bathe and wash their clothes, do gardening, watch TV, eat whatever is given to them everyday with thanksgiving in their hearts (they’re all very well aware that they’re living on charity). In many ways they have a better schedule than most children with busy/undisciplined parents, yet when they step out of their shelter, they’re made to feel unwanted and are ostracized. I hope it doesn’t backfire on this apathetic society; I hope Guddu, Ankit, Rinku, Suraj, John and others don’t grow up and decide to pay back those villains in kind. I hope they grow up, are well educated and responsible citizens and leave the bad memories behind….This sounds so rhetorical! We all must do our bit to ensure that this world becomes a better place.

Of men and mice

16th April 2007

Going through a book on ecology, I found something interesting that I’d like to share with you. I’m writing a succinct account of the actual text.

A lab experiment was designed by Calhoun et al (1962) to study the effect of overcrowding on population of rats. 32 rats (16males and 16 females) were kept in a specially designed enclosure (designed for 50 rats) keeping all conditions conducive. At the end of one year, the population reached and was maintained at 80 rats by removing newborns after being weaned.

There were some dominant males that maintained a harem of 5 females each who proved to be successful mothers. The newborns of other females had a survival rate of only 20%, because they lived in stuffy regions, failed to build proper nests and abandoned their young ones early. There was increased fighting amongst some males while others showed total inactivity, oblivious to the presence of other rats. Some rats showed homosexual and hypersexual behaviour and cannibalized the young ones. Abundant food was being provided to sustain all the 80 rats, still they developed ulcers and became immune compromised. Overcrowding completely broke down the rat’s normal social behavior.

Can we extrapolate these results to human society?
Perhaps we’d be tempted to say “yes” and not so without good reason. Industrialization is leading to the mad competitive “rat race” amongst humans; heart attacks and ulcers have become as abundant as the population of human beings. No matter how much we have, we always have less! On the flipside, unemployment may lead to overtly aggressive behavior or complete inactivity.

This however is just too simplistic a conjecture.
After all who can live in “frugality” when the other person has that little bit extra? After all most of us in today’s world strongly believe that a human is not complete without a car (the better one), cell phone (the better one), clothes (better ones), partner (the better one…the search never ends while people keep hopping from one to another…unsatisfied forever).

Let’s look inside ourselves and try to remove the “filth”…hey I’m trying…its working! All the best for your endeavors…because if we’re gonna have to live in this throng, let’s hope we get to bump into pleasant people.

Elementary my dear Watson (actually, he never said that in any book)

29 March 2007 2:00am-3:00am

Half an hour ago, I heard a loud crash from outside. I was studying and half asleep. The sound was so uncanny that I thought it was worthwhile to investigate. Wearing short on my lower and a bunch of mosquitoes on my upper body, I went and stood in the balcony. I saw the mongrel “Lucy” barking at a large branch of a tree that had fallen on Dr. Sachdeva’s car. The dog’s braking was relentless; in fact there was another dog that was barking from the opposite side. I noticed some movement in the fallen branch. I’m quite sure of that because it was a weird sight, there air was still and there was no breeze at all, so why was the branch moving. Why were the dogs barking? There was somebody/something in there for sure. After staring at the branch some more and having noticed it shake a little more than twice, I thought about taking an appropriate action. Whatever was in there probably must’ve seen me looking towards it from my balcony as I was appropriately illuminated by the streetlight next to our home. Lucy saw me and wagged her tail and continued barking at the branch. I looked around but couldn’t see a single watchman. It was cool outside and not a single soul in sight. I rushed in and called Ricky from my dad’s cell phone, surprisingly he picked the phone immediately. He had heard the crashing sound (the scene being much nearer to his home) and called Dr. Sachdeva to inform him about the fallen branch. Then I told him to come to the balcony, I saw Amar (Dr Sachdeva’s son) standing a little distance away from the branch with a hockey stick wondering what to do next. The next minute, Ricky, his dad and I reached the spot with iron rods. We tried lifting the branch, it was very heavy and I noticed that it had broken from the base. That was odd; why would a branch snap like that from the base…unless it gave way under a heavy weight. While we conjectured about the possibilities, one fact was evident; no watchman had arrived at the scene as yet. Considering that I heard the sound sitting in my room with the doors and windows shut, it was a loud sound; why the heck hadn’t any watchman reached the spot yet…there are a good 4-5 of them that take rounds…it was not possible that none of them heard the sound. Finally a watchman arrived, appearing quite oblivious to what had happened and not even showing any surprise as to why 4 men armed with rods were gathered at the corner of the road; I found this conduct to suspicious. I didn’t join in the conversation, I just observed. The watchman went and sat at the iron grill in front and kept trying to assure everyone that there was nothing suspicious. I noticed Lucy and the other mongrel, their focus had now shifted towards the ground in the direction that led towards the road…a dark unlit area and the only possible safe getaway route…both the dogs were barking in that direction…and Lucy intermittently stopped, looked towards us, then looked in that direction and started braking again. I felt that the animal was trying to communicate with us. Finally, I quipped into the conversation and said “the dogs raised the alarm initially and are now braking in a particular direction now”…the watchman quickly interrupted “no no they’re just trying to locate other dogs.” (which I thought was not impossible but these dogs had been barking relentless at the branch when I first came to the balcony and when we all came down, they were with us and were almost pointing, looking back at us, then looking in that direction again and barking…looking back…barking…same pattern). And for some reason, the watchman’s behavior was odd. I didn’t say much to anyone (YES!! I’ve finally learnt to keep my mouth shut and keep my feelings and hunches to myself). Rick’s dad seemed apprehensive about someone being on that branch so he finally said that it just happened on its own…”I don’t think to uncle” I said with confidence. I wanted to go ahead and let the dogs lead me but it wasn’t a great idea considering that no one was interested in pursuing the trail with me.

OH! Why do I feel so titillated by this commotion?
Why do I so desperately want to nab the creature behind all this? Why do I want to solve this mystery?

I think I know! I’ve been watching a lot of Sherlock Holmes on the History Channel lately…Jeremy Brett I love you (no no I’m not gay).

I want play that part. I want to investigate and romance with reasons. I want to prove how timid you are in drawing conclusions, chide you for your silly reasoning (as Holmes does to Dr. Watson).
I want to observe everything, meet the leading ladies and not have any interest in them apart from their statement (even intimidating them by being skeptical about their part of the story…on the outside that is!! While the real deal is kept to myself till the end).
I want to be loud, fearless in speech, I’ll appear to be lost in a myriad of thoughts but all this while I’ll be observing everyone around me.
Yes my friend there could be a million reasons for strange things that happened around us but let me enlighten you about how the villains did it…and let me leave your jaw hanging.
Oh!! I surely am the alter-ego of Sherlock Holmes!! It’s gonna pay off someday…all I need to do is keep distance from women, they blunt down my keen reasoning while they’re around (well! Actually I’ve only found one or two to be that interesting…but dear God, thank you for saving me…I would’ve destroyed my own self)…at least I need to keep away till the time I can let them not affect me at all…
….BINGO…!!
I’m ready!!
Lucy, you’re the only female I like in this world…alas! You too do what females do best…BARK! BARK!! BARK!!!

Friday, March 30, 2007

Of readers and writers

30th March 2007

Of late I’ve experienced solitude like I’ve never experienced before. I have a premonition of impending doom on my life. There’s a reason for it and that in itself is paradoxical; knowing the reason should be a good enough reason to change the path leading to disaster. Sitting alone at my home, I’ve realized that I have little control over my bad habits. I will not delve into the niceties of how they eat up my time, but would like to quote something said by someone, sometime ago “temptation normally comes in through a door that has deliberately left open”. Sometimes the past haunts me while I’m trying to understand the principles of rotational motion behind centrifugation and my mind spins out of control. Then I start reasoning as to what happened in the past and why it happened while the chapter of centrifugation is snapped shut in frustration. But then I reopen it and say to myself "....I gotta do research buddy...I have to explore and discover and invent...I can't waste my time like this."

I’m not a student of literature but I do like reading once in a while. I do not like most self help books and most fiction novels (I do not really need to read an extraneously created fiction…there’s enough fiction stored and created every now and then in my brain…makes life difficult for me).

I love something else though; short stories, essays and sometimes, poetry. The other day I was reading a short story by Leo Tolstoy, “Three Hermits”, a wonderful creation and I strongly suggest you read it if you haven’t already. We all need to do a lot of introspection and you’ll realize what I mean when you read it.

Then I read Stephen Leacock’s “the awful fate”. I remember another one I read by Leacock a long time back “my lost dollar” and another one "my financial career" in which a guy has a phobia of going to banks. I just love the way Leacock creates funny situations on people who can not express themselves aptly and create difficult situations for themselves while clinging on to waning hope that others would understand them. By the time I finished reading “the awful fate”, I was hysterical; I couldn’t stop laughing (and almost empathizing) at the character Mr. Jones.

I also find Jim Corbett’s work (Of course! not the one he did with the gun) very interesting and while reading a collection of his stories in the book titled “Temple Tiger”, I was transported to another world. The fear and the adrenalin rush I felt as I read the book were surreal.

It’s 2:00 am in the morning and I’ll end it here. But before I do, I’d like to say one thing about “The metamorphosis” by Kafka. It deeply affected my psyche. It is so sad…WHY DID GREGOR DIE…why? Boo hoo hoo!! Why couldn’t he have metamorphosed back into a human and had a good life…why oh why? I read this story only recently…say 3 months back…and I’m still sad (even though it ends on some kind of a positive note.) Why is the world so cruel and why do people you love turn their backs on you and even try to harm you…WHY?? (OH DAMN! WILL I JUST STOP RELATING EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD TO MY PERSONAL LIFE…I just hate myself for this)

Last but not least, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created a character I absolutely adore (I’m sure I’m just one of the millions).

now we use SEX to SELL COOKIES and other stuff

“Is it really that big?”
Rediffmail advertisement. The double-entendre is quite apparent; a woman putting on lipsticks while she tells her excited friend in a sultry manner about Raju’s “thing” being that big, does make me laugh…lips and “thing”…ho ho ho!! She even claims to have seen “it”.
Then they show a surd who is not ready to believe that Raju’s is that big.
Then they show Raju, a guy of short stature and a baby face, peeing in the loo. A man next to him greets him while looking at his “thing”… [Now this is really a very DIRECT hit about what they’re otherwise only stating implicitly. This really spells out what they have on their mind…tell me something guys, you don’t pee using your e-mail account, do you? What the heck was that man staring at Raju’s lily for while he peed? And he even gives a smile while looking at his…]
Finally the secret is revealed “it’s not big. It’s unlimited”; it’s Raju’s e-mail account.
NOW TELL ME SOMETHING!!
Why would any guy be so interested in knowing about another guy having a huge “thing”? Tell me, has nature been so miserly with them that they find themselves so inadequate and small OR are they just homosexuals.
The ad ends with the line, “big enough for anything”. OOOHHHH MANNNN!!! If you consider the primal-hint that the ad gives in the beginning, what the heck are they talking about…? I understand that these days some women have become really greedy but this is ridiculous…Why a “man” at all, a horse would do better in that case!
You Rediff people are absurd. As always, please excuse.
Thankfully, at the end of the ad, they show that people were actually misunderstanding the size of Raju’s e-mail account for the size of his “thing”…and we do thank God for the fact that it wasn’t an ad about 6£^[$ enlargement (like the freaking spam mails that we keep receiving these days) like it hinted in the beginning.
SHOCK VALUE SELLS!! SEX SELLS…There are other ads that initially look like ads for an aphrodisiac and/or condoms …but they’re actually advertisements for COOKIES!! [MILANO and DARK FANTASY if you remember!!]…now you need sex to sell food!! Lame Man!!
The ad world is so mixed up that if I’m watching an advertisement for a condom for the first time, more than half way through, I’m almost sure that it’ll be an ad for a bloody new cookie…not till the time they say it loud…Kamasutra or Moods…or whatever…am I ready to believe that it’s a condom’s ad…cookies and condoms, soon there’ll be a technological breakthrough and there’ll be no difference between the two.
But tell me something, I’ve had a rediff account for the past 5years and I have hardly deleted any mails from it. It would take me a whole day or two to go through all of them and the stats show that I’m using only 14% of the total 2Gb assigned space)…So wasn’t it unlimited already?…bloody publicity gimmick.
If you still disagree and say that now you can send huge attachments… tell me something sister/bro, have you ever tried to attach a file of size around 3-4mb? It takes not less than 15-30mins on a broad band connection. Who the heck will be bold enough to try and attach a bigger file?
So it really doesn’t matter if it’s unlimited now…it’s still the same.

DISCLAIMER- No one can hold me personally responsible for whatever trash I write on my blog. I mostly start writing after midnight…at that time of night, it’s no longer me…it’s the “MONSTER”…this is a sobriquet bestowed on me by an alien!

Waver no more

23rd March 2007


They said one day, it would all disappear
All, to me that was once dear
I stand alone in the balcony and stare at the moon
I wonder if the approaching minute brings doom.

I recall your face and I see a stranger
I feel no love, affection or even anger
The moments we spent together
Now seem weightless like a feather

As I am caressed by the breeze
Your memories start to freeze
I stand alone and look at the dark sky
The stars fill me with strength to climb high

Then thoughtless and for sometime, blank
I wonder if I have any memories left to rank
Sometime back, there were many I had of you
Now there seem to be none, not even a few

I have no reason to stay stuck in the past
I have all the reasons to move ahead and fast
I’ll move on and annihilate my adversaries
One of them happen to be your memories

I’ve had eclectic experiences, therefore
In the game of life, I’m not an amateur anymore
I finally see what needs to be done
Now I see why this war needs to be won.

So I cast your memories away
I know I’m walking on the right way
This heart will not be stirred again,
And if it ever does, it won’t be in vain.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Thou shall not steal !!!

I’d like to write something from the past (again) .
I remember the day I stole something…(hey
I’m not a kleptomaniac ok...I was just a kid back then)...
I was in 8th standard, dad and I used to stay together, mom lived away. Dad was (is) an exxxtremely logic based person (by the way such people make good analysts but have generally poor imagination. I’m definitely not his alter-ego, rather I’m just the opposite …reasonably imaginative and highly illogical most of the time). That digression was necessary to explain what follows. I asked him to buy me a cap. After much explanation about the need for one, I was given one…an ugly one…I hated it…it was white with a coconut tree and beach painted and across it was written “Sands”…GRRR GRRR!!! But to dad any cap was cap. Technically it solved the purpose but aesthetically it sucked. I wasn’t planning to have a discussion about a contentious issue like “beauty” with my dad. As a school kid, I was never in a mood to abnegate my wishes, but that was something that “inadvertently” I always had to do… (Renounce yet another wish!! C’mon man! The only thing left to do was to wish that I would stop wishing. C’mon dad, either get me a good cap or put me in some other school…see, that might sound illogical to you…I understand!).

I used to go for basketball coaching (5 hours everyday after school…basically that’s where I lived my life) in those days. All the anger and frustration used to be vented out on the basketball. So one holiday evening I was fooling around in the court, I saw a cap hanging on a hook. The stadium was rather empty and there was no one in and around the basketball court. After getting tired of all the exertion I looked at the cap and then looked away. I looked at the cap again, it seemed to be saying to me, “hey boy!! Look at me, am I not pretty? Look at me…feel my soft fabric…put me one and now take me away, I’m all yours!!” I knew it belonged to one of the people inthe stadium and a strong voice inside me told me not to look at the cap at all...but there was another voice that said to the cap “YOU’RE MINE HONEY!! GET READY TO BE KIDNAPPED” And in a rush of adrenalin, I picked it up and and walked away. I was excited to finally possess a smart cap, though I felt guilty ecerytime I looked at it. I was very well aware about the fact that I had labelled myself as a thief in my own conscience. Slowly, the guilt overpowered me but I had no idea about how to undo it. The next day one of my classmates saw the cap and wanted to have it. He sat and explained to me for a long time that the cap didn’t suit me and looked great on him and that if I gave it to him, I’d be doing a favor to the cap. Actually I didn’t believe him completely and thought that he looked like a freaking “skinned fowl with a nicely beaten boxer's eyes” wearing that cap…it accentuated his eyes and his eyes were a shame to the optic aesthetics of humans…PHEW! Anyway, it didn’t suit me either, I was wafer thin in those days (I weighed 50kgs back then...now I weigh 82Kgs and people still call me skinny so you can imagine...of course I was a wee bit shorter than I am now) and when I put the cap on, it gobbled most of my face…it looked more of a face mask than a cap on me besides I was feeling bad enough about having stolen it, so I gave the cap to him.

Cap-less and content without one, I was going up the stairs late one evening when I saw a stranger come out of my house and leave with a big smile on his face. OUCH!! That was the owner of the cap…somehow he had tracked my address (someone who knew me as well as him had seen me with his cap and guided him to my place). Later I learnt that dad paid him Rs200/- that he asked for in return for the cap that I stole. When I entered, dad was standing in a corner in a state of shock and disbelief. He saw me and the emotions turned to something I was more familiar with (bloodshot eyes!! High blood pressure!! Veins popping out of his forehead…Run baby run baby run!!), “you bastard, now you’ve started stealing people’s stuff! Is that what I’ve taught you about life” he roared almost blowing my eardrums out. “No time to get emotional” I thought to myself and retraced my steps out the door and down the stairs with full speed as my dad reached for his leather belt that he so generously used with the full force of a grown man to “teach” me about life ever since the time I was 6 years old.

As I raced up to the market place, I had a practical thought in my mind, “Where am I going to spend the night? There’s no way I’ll go back home, the old man will skin me alive and sell my skin to the tanners”. Lost in thoughts of regret and survival I walked on and on. After much thinking I realized that I wasn’t familiar to any place except the stadium. So I reached the stadium, jumped the wall and entered, it was pitch-dark inside. I crossed the basketball court the jogging-track and reached the seating area that was made of bricks. I sat there in quiet darkness thinking what I was going to do next; I was hoping that dad wouldn’t track me down to the stadium. I wasn’t crying, I was just terrified…terrified of my dad, terrified of the cap owner, terrified at the thoughts of my class mates, terrified at the thoughts of my school, terrified at the thoughts of my team mates, terrified of the people on the street outside…terrified of the notorious pack stray dogs living in that area around the stadium. In fact so terrified was I that night that the cold, rough, hard earthen surface I was sitting on, the pitch black surroundings and the black cloudy sky (I remember I couldn’t see any stars) actually felt very comforting. There were millions of thoughts going on in my head, then after sitting and thinking about random stuff for a long time I felt sleepy. I stretched my limbs on the sitting area and dozed off.

Droplets of water and thunder woke me up (I did not have a watch with me so I had no idea what time it was); it started to rain. I thought “why don’t I go back home, I’ll sleep near the stairs and dad will probably let me in, in the morning. Better to be running fever and found outside home than be running fever and walk all the distance back home in the morning…where else would I go?” The sound of the thunder was unpleasant enough and lightening flashes illuminated the wildly swaying trees that were now looking like giant monsters with ominous intentions. I ran up to the wall and jumped out of that eerie place. I ran as fast as I could (thankfully I was wearing shoes not slippers). Home was around 1.5 kms away from the stadium; I covered the distance pretty quickly. Running in all that rain wasn’t a very nice experience but fortunately the rain kept the stray dogs at bay (they would’ve never forgiven me for trespassing…they got quite aggressive as the night approached).

My “maturity” told me that dad would probably be sleeping soundly in his bed. When I neared the park in front of the house, I saw a silhouette some distance away from me. It was my dad calling out my name, thinking I was hiding in some corner somewhere nearby (my home range was much larger than he thought). His cries were subdued by the loud sound of thunder and rainfall.
“He’s not asleep? I thought he’d be happy to have finally gotten rid of me!” I thought; I was genuinely surprised.

I went near him and as the lightening flashed, I saw his expressions change from that of helplessness to relief on seeing me. In a calm voice said “ghar chalo” (come home). I followed quietly, we walked homeward in the rain; there were neither hugs of joy (though I could see that he was relieved on seeing me) nor the dreaded beatings (there was always a possibility of that happening). He walked ahead of me, I was expecting to be roughed up on reaching home but that didn’t happen. He opened the door for me, gave me a towel and told me to dry up and change clothes. He was poker-faced all this time and I couldn’t really decipher what was going on in his mind. I changed and went to bed; it was 2:00am in the morning.

I went to school the next day on time and it passed like any normal day, I didn't talk much to anyone, another evening at the basketball training (that was the only place where I experienced freedom...as it is, I was claustrophobic) and another few minutes spent with dad at the dinner table…all in an uneasy silence...but I was inside my house...I was thankful for that!

The clocked ticked and I dozed off in my bed listening to it.


Friday, March 16, 2007

Hey Jesse, there’s hope out there…

Before leaving for Delhi on the morning of 14th March 2007, I picked up the newspaper and scanned the pages for something interesting. I came across this small article that I scanned (inverted the colors and rotated it…y’know to give it the effects!!!), for I felt that it was inspiring me…to write something (oh man! Not again!). I could’ve done a better job but you know sometimes it’s better to write just the simple thoughts that come to your mind (yup! If I delve too much into my thoughts…I come to terms with the fact that I’m an alien…and then I feel like going back to my planet…though I can write tons and tons of stuff in that state of mind…much of which has a grave potential to offend zillions of people).
Phew! I digressed again!! Why am I so self obsessed…maybe it’s been the effect of company of the recent past. STOP STOP!! U A£$& hole…you’re doing it again!! They were good people…”good” being a relative term…STOP IT!!

Yes there is definitely “too much of a good thing”, and its better not to overdo it. Ask me! It just flips around, shows its ugly head (one you thought didn’t exist) and stares you right in the face…you mumble, you fumble, you tumble and in the end you grumble…GRRR (Arre oh Samba…bahut aag hai iss bheje mein ..ha ha ha ha haaaaa haaaaaa)

By the way, I thoroughly enjoyed this trip to Delhi. I was on my toes all the time, I was enervated at the end of the day but I came back with sounds and images in my head…of a live, vibrant and a downright huggable city. The hustle and bustle charged me up like I’ve never been charged before. Though I don’t dislike Chandigarh, I believe I’m not that open minded because of the slow pace of this place…I wonder what I would been like had I been brought up in Delhi…UMMM!! maybe Mumbai…ummm Maybe New York…oh the usual “would’ve, coul’ve, should’ve” shit…Man is never satisfied). The fatigue was only felt once I sat on the bus to head home. JNU too was great…I hope I can get through the entrance…and this time, I’m not just hoping…I’m working my ass off for it…if I still don’t make…BOOOO HOOO HOOO…I wanna stay in DELHI…then Mumbai, then New York…then Stockholm…then Berlin…then Paris…finally the Himalayas.

Here’s a li’l poem I wrote, inspired by the li’l article…

Brothers, sisters and “others”
Children, fathers and mothers
See whats new in the brain-world.
All those abuses, at you that were hurled…
You need to remember them no more.
Kick those memories out that open door.

Selectively, all those memories they’ll erase…
How would they do it? Who cares!
Lover’s promiscuity or a prospective one’s denial ;-)
Now you can forget all the stuff that’s vile.
A friend’s deceit or an enemy’s assault…
Now they’ll collect it all and throw it in a vault.

Will I ever be the same again?
I’m tempted to believe it won’t be in vain.
With a preponderance bad recollections…
Who wouldn’t want to get rid of the dejections?
But shall I not consequently forget the lessons I learnt…
…that taught me about life; one’s that bruised and burnt.

Why not accept the truth and move on?
That sure was hurtful but now it’s gone.
Let’s break the pattern by which we dig a ditch…
…and happily fall into it…let’s repair this hitch.
Forgive and forget; to walk, that’s a tough mile.
C’mon people do it, for this is THE COOL style.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Wake up you idiot!

11th March 2007
2145 hrs

It’s amazing how quickly God answered my question.
In the morning, I was asking, “HEY! WHERE’S GOD? Where is He?”
I was returning home from Imtech in the evening today (Sunday) when I met Riti on the way, she gestured me to stop.
“Hi, I’ll be coming over to your place in sometime. Are you going to be free?” she enquired.
“Yes”, I replied.
“Are you free now?” she asked
“Yup”, I replied.
“Come along then, I have to show you something.” She said
So I went home, parked my scoot and went upstairs to drop my stuff in the room. Then we both started walking towards the market.
“So what do you think it is that I wanna show you?” she asked.
“No clue”, I replied, “is it a new shop? Is it a new food court in our sector?”
“Nope”, she replied.
“Then I don’t know. I’ll just wait to find out” I said.
Then we crossed the AWHO Park and she said, “Yesterday I went out for a walk and I crossed this small rather unkempt building behind the market.”
“The homeopathic clinic? I’ve been seeing it since I was a kid. What about it?” I interrupted.
“It used to be a homeopathic clinic, now it’s being used as a children’s home by Don Bosco society.” She said.
“REALLY!” I exclaimed.
“Yup, n I got to meet the kids that stay there. I also took Joy (Riti’s golden retriever) along so that they could play with him. A few are orphans but most are from extremely poor families that gave them away because they couldn’t afford another mouth to feed.” She told me.

We reached the little red building. Riti knocked the backdoor and a young helper-lady opened the door and greeted Riti with a big smile. The backdoor opened into a small but long kitchen. When the kitchen area ended, we entered a room lined with bed on two sides and a rug in front where around 8 or 10 kids were sitting and watching TV. It was minimally furnished(it wasn’t very big) …rather just the beds, a small old rug, a simple curtain on the window, a TV rack with TV and a couple of plastic chairs stacked one on top of another but most importantly, it was clean. When they saw Riti, their faces lit up and it caused a little commotion amongst them. We were then greeted by two nuns. They all seemed so happy to see us. Riti surprised me; I didn’t know she was so good with kids. She instantly connected with them it was just the second time she was meeting them. They all remembered Riti’s dog’s name but no one remembered her name. She suggested to the kids that they could call her “Riti” since “Suchreet” was a little difficult for them to remember. She also introduced me to them and then cross questioned them, “What’s his name?”
“JESSE BHAIYA”, all the kids shouted in unison, it was almost deafening. WOW! They didn’t call me uncle.

The nuns offered us chairs to sit and asked the kids if they wanted to interact with us (or wanted to watch TV which they were doing when we entered). They all cheerfully agreed to switch the TV off; I was quite surprised…how often do you get to meet kids who’d give up a fav TV show to meet you.

Now about the kids, they came in various shapes (thin to plump), colors (very dark to very fair) and sizes (tiny to tall…i.e. as tall as any 5th grader) and their names went from extremely Christian to extremely Hindu. They eldest was in 5th standard, the youngest one was in pre-nursery (she was a tiny angel). I don’t remember their names but their faces are still dancing in front of me. Riti started off by asking their names…hullabaloo…man they all spoke at the same time…always…and they were LOUD. Riti handled them well and got them to make less noise (intermittently for few seconds) so that she could hear everyone individually…they all introduced themselves by speaking aloud their names, their classes and sections and the schools where they read. I was surprised to know that they were all being sent to good schools…St Xaviers and Sikhiya. They all had different ways of speaking, all of them introduced themselves in English…a little broken though but they were all so sweet. Some were confident and some shy. All I could do was sit and watch in amazement while Riti did her thing with them. I was quiet for a long time. Then we spotted a boy (his name was Odil) who was rather quiet and almost in tears. Riti asked him to come to her, he did so reluctantly. Odil was healthy, dark boy with a little broad nose he must be 6-7 years old, he had a constant frown and teary eyes…this was a genuine expression of emotional stress (trust me I know this look very well). He never looked at either of us in the eye but fixed his gaze on the floor. We gently asked him a few questions, he did not respond…did not even nod. All this while the rest of them were creating a ruckus, jumping around and interrupting our attempt to talk to Odil with their funny antics…then one of them tugged at my jeans and told me, “bhaiya, iska bhai kal ghar chala gaya thaa, isliye yeh dukhi hai.” (his brother left for home yesterday that’s why he’s so sad). So Riti just brushed her hand on his cheeks and let him go.
Suddenly I had a strong urge to interact with them…till then, I was too lost to be saying anything. So I asked them loudly, “what’s your favorite dish?” to which many replied together, “Sab kuchh!” (Everything)… “Wow! I can ask stupid questions!!” I thought to myself (after all how many different dishes must they have had). But then different answers started pouring in,
“Mooli ka parantha”
“Gobhi ka parantha”
Then came in random answers…
“Meat”
“Chicken”
“Fish”
“Milk”
“Eggs”
And then I realized that they were just naming the different types of foods that must’ve been mentioned in their text books. But they all loved one thing…SAMOSA!! That was stated unequivocally. Then one of the boys (his name was Rahul) came near me and shouted “mujhe to aap acche lagte ho” (I like you) and started doing bhangra…
“wah! aaja beta, kha le mujhe.” (wow! Son, come and eat me.) I replied…they all laughed.

Many of them wanted to perform…they kept taking each other’s name…
…“bhaiya, yeh gaana accha gata hai” (he sings well)
…”didi, yeh dance karna chahati hai” (she wants to dance)
Then there was a guy who claimed that he couldn’t do anything, his name was Simon, a quiet boy…right then, someone announced that he was good at drawing. Simon ran to the other room and brought his drawing notebook along. He showed us his drawings…we appreciated his work and cheered him.
A few of them sang songs, some danced. What I was amazed at was that apart from their rhymes, they knew complete lyrics of all the bollywood songs that they sang.
There was tiny guy, his name was Ankit. He was hyper active, I called him, “Ankit idhar aa!!” (Ankit come here). He sprang up and came running towards me.
“Show me your feet little buddy” I told him
He obliged, and the others asked “why were you seeing his feet bhaiya?”
“I just wanted to know if he’s fitted any springs under his feet. He jumps around so much.” I said and they all laughed…Ankit could not stop dancing…he was so happy and cheerful.
Then I asked them, “bare ho kar kya bannaa chahte ho?” (What do you wanna be when you grow up?)…you know the usual stupid question to be asking a kid.
As usual they all shouted together…
Teacher
Pilot
Doctor
Hero
……the variety was huge…then Rahul jumped up and said, “Main to Amitabh Bachhan banunga.”
Ankit did a little summersault and said, “Main Akshay Kumar banunga.”

Now the tiniest of them all (the little angel, I forgot her name), broke into tears. Riti took her in her lap and snuggled and talked to her. Then one of the nuns said to us, “if you show too much affection, they’ll all start crying.” I was deeply moved by this statement.

Then they all told me about their favorite cartoon characters…as usual all of them shouted together…the din was extreme.

At least they’re being properly cared for, educated (in good schools) and fed here…where would they go and what would they do if these people weren’t there to take care of them? What’s the least we can do…spend sometime with them…what’s the max we can do…something tells me…we’ll know when the time comes.

Then after an hour or so, it was time for us to leave. So Riti said “Kids we have to leave now.”
I was surprised by what followed, “NAHI…aap log abhi nahi jaa sakte” (you people can not leave now) they all shouted and they all became serious. They strongly insisted that we have dinner with them…I was taken aback by this. They had a fun time with us and therefore didn’t want us to leave (not that they were sad kids…they seemed to be generally happy people). But we had to go and we promised to come the next weekend…so it was time to say bye bye.
They all shook hands with us (maybe 3-4 times)…then Rahul put his hand up towards me (I realized that he was asking for a high-five)…so I gave him a high-five and this excited all the boys who gave me high-fives for a good 7-10minutes…they were all so happy. I saw the surprised faces of the nuns and felt pretty proud. The nuns thanked us and asked us to come often.
As we left, I had much to thank Riti for…for bringing me to that place and showing me how to connect to the kids.

At the end of the day, I must thank God again

“HEY! WHERE’S GOD? Where is He?” I asked in the morning.

He’s right here, next to me, teaching me about life and answering my questions.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

ONCE BITTEN TWICE “HAUNTED”

I genuine sweet smile….on a girl’s face…Oh God! Yeah, I remember seeing that…a long time ago.
”What’s such a pretty smile doing on a girl’s face?” I thought and laughed a little. I’m so used to my lady colleagues (sister’s sorority) that I forgot that women can even smile. They happen to have elevated levels of adrenalin in their blood…I don’t like fighting with girls but here it’s about self defense. An attack without provocation is always at hand and over the months I’ve begun to feel like a ringmaster who’s been let into a cage of mad lionesses. I’ve learnt to survive in this hostile environment and even learnt to intimidate and tease the fairies and keep myself safe at the same time.
We all do have a great time but I still never get to see WOW! Smile from my sisters in arms; yes, a loud, blaring, cacophonic laughter when they’re making fun of random people is definitely something someone (with even an underdeveloped sense of hearing) can’t miss. Now I spend almost the whole day with them, consequently whenever I look at these ladies, I either expect one of the following:

A smile (a shrewd one)…
one that says, “I need your ice box dear brother”

An even bigger smile (this one’s scary…remember Glenn Close as Cruela Deville in 101 Dalmations)…
It says “brother, my brother, I forgot something somewhere…why don’t you run down the aisle and bring it for me.”

A still bigger smile…(I mean this one extends beyond the face)
It says, the lunch was pathetic…lets go have some chocolates.
A shrug in disgust (when I’m walking towards their ice box with DNA samples in my hand)…
a look that says “I don’t share MY ice-box with anyone so get some ice of your own…I hardly know you, how can I possibly share my ice box with you.”

Poker face…

It says “I am here but my soul is elsewhere”.

A teeth baring snarl (after they’ve fought with their parents or boyfriend or whatever)…
it says “I am a witch, you better beware or I’ll turn you into a cockroach.”

Head down on the desk…
boo hoo hoo hoo the world’s so nasty to me…go away or I’ll gobble you down.

Standing next to me (while I’m using the computer) getting impatient…
”I need the bloody computer so move your butt from here…I’m expecting a mail from my aunty/friend/blah blah…it has the marriage photos…so move it and let the sisters take control). [Damn! How many acquaintances of theirs are getting married…millions of them man!!]

A scowl
The “I hate men!” look

Fortunately there are other ladies in the campus who’re always ready with a genuine (if they’re faking it, they’re veterans at this) beautiful smile…oh it just lightens up your burdens (at least for a fraction of a second). Oh what a pleasure it is to smile back at them with the same flow….mmm…mmm…here cutie cutie!!

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Chiki in wonderland

After a month long trip down south, Di, Dan and Chiki (Sarah Ruth Rajkumar) arrived in Chandigarh today. Chiki of course has grown bigger than the last time I saw her (Diwali 2006). Now she walks, runs and expresses herself much more clearly that she did when she came home the last time. Well it was another reintroduction time…the li’l lady (now 16 months old) remembered no one (Ma, Pa or me). It was funny the way she stared at me for a long time with unblinking eyes and finally gave a shy smile and buried her face into di’s sweater. However she was apprehensive about coming near me.
Anyway, I’d like to describe the night’s events:
After feeding her at night, Dan and di were singing lullabies to Chiki. From my room I heard Dan humming the tune, di singing softly and Chiki humming (and singing a few broken phrases…rather saying a few words in between) along with them. I was amazed at the li’l baby’s ability to hum “in tune”. I switched off my room’s light, opened the door and peeped into the other bed-room. Dan and di saw me but I gestured them to not look at me (for Chiki hadn’t seen me and I wanted to watch her without making her conscious of my presence). In the dim light, I watched her antics while her tired parents sang for her. She kept rolling around and turning, all the while humming “twinkle twinkle li’l star”, “baba black sheep” and a plethora of others I’m oblivious to (di knows them all by now). Danny slept off while humming, di kept yawning now and then while singing while the li’l one enjoyed the songs. Her tiny fingers were dancing to the tune, so were her bums, her legs and her toes as she kept changing positions after every 20 odd seconds. Sometimes she would stare at the ceiling, sometimes she would bury her head into Danny’s hands, and then roll over towards di and start humming again. I watched her in amazement, she’s so little and the bed is big enough to accommodate her gymnast like movements (I envy her for that…I’d love to do that). Chiki kept talking to di in some alien language (which only the mother and daughter could understand.) Then she climbed on top of my half asleep sister and started giggling. Di jumped up and started tickling Chiki; she laughed uncontrollably but got irritated in just a few seconds. Di’s motherly response was an affectionate hug. Chiki hugged Di and in a few seconds (just like that), fell asleep. I kept watching all this and was amazed by this. How can somebody just fall asleep in a second (I have a bridge period in which I’m half asleep thinking of all the shitty things and shitty people in life and trying to convince myself that it’s a waste of time…this last quite a long time…I’d say an hour maybe or maybe longer…I’m quite an angry man by the time I sleep).
I can’t believe that my parents would’ve showered affection on me at some point of time when I was little…they definitely would have, I have a few blurred recollections. We grow up and have our own perspective about the world. I judge my parents ruthlessly (oh! I do), many a times I feel estranged towards them, many a times I dislike being around them…but I do love them. They did the best they could for me…i.e. the best in their sight, my perspective could be different. The story would probably repeat when I have children. Though I fiercely defend my right to choose my partner (nope no interference form any corner here), to believe in whatever I want to, to go wherever I want to without my parents interfering, but after tonight (after watching Chiki and didi), I do love my parents a little more…for Chiki just fell asleep…she’ll never know how she fell asleep…she didn’t know that her ma sat up straight in the middle of the night (despite being sleepy and tired from a long journey) to provide for her daughter a comfortable place (her own body) so that her daughter could fall asleep in the blink of eye. And this has been happening for the past 16 months and will probably continue for sometime.
I returned to my room quietly but felt a little heavy hearted. When Chiki grows up, she’ll not remember this…how she fell asleep…just like that. When she’s a young woman, there’ll be times when she’ll disagree with her parents, dislike them or even fight with them (inevitable)…but will she remember this…what I saw standing in the darkness…no! I don’t think so.
So I presume that I too don’t remember or recall the many sleepless nights my parents must’ve spent when I was unwell or cranky or…just sleepy…for they must’ve just made the environment conducive enough for me to just sleep off without my realizing that the hands that worked towards making me feel that way were theirs.
So dear ma and pa, I still am fiercely defensive about some aspects of my life (and I know that you respect that), I just want to announce something…
I LOVE YOU Ma
I LOVE YOU Pa
THANKS FOR EVERYTHING.
THANK YOU GOD!

Cavalierly yours

Denizens of hell are pleased
When words, from your mouth are released
Your caterwaul causes ear drums to shatter
Your frequency exceeds any other clatter
Your soft lips spew out lava and poison
That causes the sun to rush down the horizon

You’re so full of hatred and so jaded
why is your world is so drab and faded
Your pride can put a queen to shame
Every mortal to you is game.
Your equivocations seem mean and evil
You judge like God and punish like the devil

They say “what goes around comes around.”
Beware on those grounds
You’ll burn out and turn to ashes
With the same pride on your face that flashes

I walked on…

8th February 2007

Today was the first day after 24th December 2006 that I felt alright. It’s sad that at times we hand over the reins of life to someone (sometimes without them asking us to do so.) When he/she’s gone, we grope around in the dark to have him/her back and its worse when we find out that the person’s gone and so are the reins that we so willingly handed over to them. It’s tough to keep a happy face jump around and try to mix up with more people than you normally do, just to get over the thought of somebody. But why does this happen in the first place?
Maybe it’s the pheromones making a fool of you.
Once you’re out of it (like I am now) you say, “Man! What was I thinking?” Well now that I’ve been there and done that, I’ve resolved to not let it happen again. Today is the first day that I’m able to think normally about it and forgive myself for getting into such a situation in the first place. If people have certain notions about themselves in their mind and are hell-bent to prove it to the world, they have a serious issue. In time we all figure out how we wanna live our lives. You might suck and still say “hey! No one can sue me for that.”…no sir I can’t and I’ve learnt that it’s none of my business.
Also I’ve resolved to keep my pheromones under tight security and scrutiny now. All this really blinds your perception of the world; the bliss of it all is “maddening”.

Anyway with this not-so-brief introduction (that happens to be rather unrelated to the rest of the body of this post), I shall proceed with writing about the events that occurred late in the evening today (8th Feb 2007). I’ve been doing some free hand exercises lately; when I felt that my triceps were too stiff to be exercised anymore, I thought of going out for a walk. It was cool and breezy; I started off feeling rather high (owing to the muck that I just washed off me). Hardly had a I walked a few paces, I saw two figures walking some distance ahead of me on the faintly lit street, they were holding hands and talking rather loudly. As I neared them I got little confused as they both seemed to talking at the same time; it didn’t seem like they were having a conversation with each other…”who else were they talking to? Was some ghost friends accompanying them??” I thought. On crossing them, I noticed the blue tooth ear phones on their ears; they were both on the phone. What a sight! Holding each others hands yet busy in their own different worlds. I decided to observe them for sometime and see how long they would talk on the phone; after 15 minutes, I went my way as they had no intention of letting the blue tooth rest…at least they were holding hands. This act of holding hands means a lot to me. In retrospect, there have been times when I’ve locked lips with some ladies but never held their hands and vice versa. I must say the one’s I deeply felt for were the ones whose hands I held…though there was a mild regret about not kissing a few of them. Thankfully I don’t plan to do either for a long time to come. Anyway I looked back at the couple once (rather just their held hands) and walked on. What a small act, yet it says “you’re special and I’m there for you, no matter what.”
Next stopà marriage party at the community centre. In the multitude of many beautiful and not-so-beautiful creatures, there was one that caught my attention, the mare. It was wearing an embellished head-gear with a not-particularly light-weight bridegroom on its back. While its owner led it through the maddening crowd, its unsure, hesitant steps gave away its real feelings. Its head was stooping and once in a while, it would try to jerk away from the people who were moving in too close (to her nose and eyes). The loud cacophony generated by the band players must have caused her to lose her faculty of hearing a long time back. If there was one creature there that positively didn’t want to be there, it was the mare; it would only get to eat the dry husk at the end of all this torture. I suppose it’d worked the whole day pulling cart loads already; poor girl. I walked on; I looked around to find my mad man, he wasn’t there; “he’s probably foraging”, I presumed “or maybe looking for a less noisy place to sleep.”
I walked on; the shopkeepers were calling it a day. Then there were two girls (maybe college going) standing in the park’s parking under a street lamp. I’d noticed them as one of them seemed to be intensely involved in counseling the other about something, “Stop doing this to yourself!!” I heard her say loudly to her friend and then hush up on realizing that she was too loud.
Then a couple of boys in their early teens crossed me, discussing loudly about parts of the female morphology, they didn’t really care that people could hear them; it reminded me of my old days.
Then a car dashed by with some young men inside trying to find the limits of the vehicle; it reminded me of the old days.
On reaching sector46 market, I turned back towards home. Two guys raced past me, they were howling and yodeling loudly; it reminded me of the good old days.
Then in the market place that was almost completely closed, I saw a man sitting in his car with a bottle of beer from which he would drink every now and then, all the while staring blankly into oblivion; that reminded me of…nothing…I’ve never been in such a situation…maybe worse ones.
I crossed the community centre, the baraat was still in frenzy and the bridegroom was still seated on the not-so-royal steed; poor animal. On reaching the park I saw the two girls I’d seen before still standing and talking, when I crossed them I looked at the one facing me and she smiled; what a sweet smile. I smiled back and walked on.
Most of the women that I’ve come across feel a kind of a responsibility on their part to spread the gloom into the lives of the men they are acquainted to. The reasons could be many but for the paucity of your time, I’ll forgo the details. Pardon me for digressing, it always feels good to smile at others and receive it. So if you’re reading this, I’m smiling at you right now, please smile back and take my word, that’s your best expression.

I took a detour towards the less traveled road. I gazed into the darkness around me and realized that the place was very lonely indeed. Like a constrictor traps and squeezes the life out of its prey, thoughts pulled me back to the time when I was walking with her, discussion silly little things, whiling away time like we owned it, the time when I was living in a mirage; the time when I was happy. Its strange how attached we get to someone even after knowing so little about them (or maybe we try to overlook their short comings all the time). I’ll never be able to explain to her what I felt for her and why (though, it would be easy to explain the “why”.)

I got lost in thoughts…then these thoughts spat me out into the real world; it was dark, cold, and breezy and I was alone. I looked around me left and right; there was not a single soul in sight.
I wished for a miracle à that I’d see you coming towards me as I turned around.
I turned around, you weren’t there…I turned around again, you weren’t there. Sanity started to move away slowly. I jerked my head and tried to bring myself back into reality; she’s dead, she can not come back…I must move on. I turned around for the last time and with my eyes shut but turned back again without opening them.
God’s just putting me to test; he won’t test me beyond my capacity. Maybe I’m unaware of my own capacity.
I said a little prayer, I asked Him for strength and courage. At least He’s never let me down. I’ve let Him down a million times but He’s never paid back in the same coin. “He loves me” I said, “He loves me selflessly; I’d do this for Him.”

I was alone but no longer was I lonely. I turned back and headed home.
I walked on.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

its cheap n funny so I had to put it up!!!!

Jay Leno is a funny man I must say....
here's something he said on his talk show...

According to a survey, 87% women said that if their dog would've been a man, they would've married it.
According to another survey, 100% men admitted that if they would've been dogs, they wouldn't need a female companion.....
WHY?
......Coz then they'd be able to lick themseves effortlessy !!!!!! (LOLZ!!!)

Friday, February 23, 2007

Of all the things in the world...

Of all the things in the world, one stands out as downright repulsive....Spineless people...men as well as women...
There are people that you love, respect and look up to...and then they turn out to be pretenders...
Just another moron...just another bitch!!!
Probably that's why you shouldn't look up to mere mortals as your role models.
I don't have that much of a capacity to forgive...help me God!!...for given a chance, I'd like to eliminate them myself!! First of all help me to not be so judgemental!!..............
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...............
................
Hey stop!!
Look at the man in the mirror first....I can't be like my spineless friends...

Monday, February 05, 2007

now and forever

4th February 2007
2300hrs
Last night, I was still trying to get over the spilt milk but it was somewhat different since yesterday; I surrendered my life to God (again!!!), this time for good. So I said a little prayer and thought of the things that Ashish said to me the night before; “we should not live a self centered life, we have responsibilities towards others. Once we realize that, our personal problems will seem but trivial.”Still feeling somewhat lonely after saying a prayer, I thought of doing something like helping someone or even bringing a smile to someone’s face.
Suddenly I remembered that there was an old bed sheet lying in my cupboard that I had planned (a year back) to give to a poor man , a lunatic that I’d seen sleeping at the bus stop. Many a times during my late night winter walks, I’d seen the mad-man burning leaves and discarded cartons to keep warm in the extreme winter cold; he’d then cuddle up under the cemented bench into a kind of sphere with the least possible surface area exposed to the chill. In that state it was difficult to distinguish whether that sphere was just a pile of dry leaves covered with a ragged cloth or a human being trying to keep warm. It wasn’t the first time I had seen such a pitiful sight, I remember the time in Bombay when I was 10 or 11 years old, I’d seen a wretched man begging on the railway station, one of his leg was possibly gangrened and the necrotic flesh was maggot infested. The sight had such a strong impact that I compared every miserable fellow to the guy I saw in Bombay, and every time I’d walk away feeling sad but saying “he’s not in half as bad a condition as that guy”. Never having been denied food for more than a few hours in my life of 27years, I'm quite oblivious to pains other than the ones caused by deceit, love, ego and other similar causes. Those are the ones that usually cause me to lose sleep, become spiteful and have other effects like stress related hair fall.I thought it was high time that I gave a warm cover to the mad man, that is, if I could still find him at the bus stop. I was extremely attached to this bed cover; it was a handloom product with a recurring pattern that looked like jewelry design from Rajasthan. A central oval core with a periphery covered with tendril like projections. It was multicolored, i.e. longitudinal strips of red, blue and green each with the aforementioned design woven in. The periphery of the bed cover had a pattern of long threads knotted together. It was heavy and I remember my mother used to complain about the weight every time she washed it. I loved sleeping on it, it was soft, not smooth like satin but it gave a feeling of a warm hug every time I lay down on it. It had faded now, it was old, it was bought around 23 years back. I was 4 or 5 years old then; I loved it from the first day. It was probably the only article left over from the time when I was very young, when my grandmother was around. Secretly I smuggled it into my cupboard many years back when my parents were planning to give it away to the house maid. Once in a while, I’d spread it on his bed and sleep on it. I could never find another like it. But it hadn’t been used for the past 3-4 years and on seeing the man at the bus stop one night, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to give the sheet to him; my parents wanted it out of the house.
So tonight would be the night I thought to myself. It was around 7:30pm, I picked the bed sheet and took a good look at it, it had faded over the years but surprisingly there was not a single hole in it. I constantly caressed the cloth as I walked, feeling it for the last time and committing the feeling to my memory. Opposite to the bus stand was a marriage party being conducted at the community centre, many beautiful and not so beautiful people talking loudly and smelling of sweet perfume adorned the road between the bus stop and the community centre.For some unknown reason, I felt that I wouldn’t meet the one he intended to. I was wrong; as I walked closer to the bus stop, I saw the disheveled figure crouching in a corner and staring with blank eyes at the happy people in front of him and at some distance lay some dry leaves, grass and empty cartons. On the bench lay another human being, crouched and fast asleep, I wondered how the man could sleep with the blaring bhangra music playing a few yards away; I didn’t want to think too much about it. I half unfolded the cloth and took it towards my man, he stood up (he was not particularly short) and came towards me, I was a little apprehensive for a second (twice, I’d seen the guy charge at unwary people). He gently took the sheet from me, opened it and covered himself (as if I brought something that belonged to him) with it and returned to his previous position. I wanted to say something but nothing came to my mind, he took it as if he was waiting for me to bring the sheet to him, as if we’d talked about it before. I had a strong urge to say something so I did, something that could’ve made a mad man retort back at me, “are you mad?” I asked, “yeh kaam aegi?” (Is this of any good to you?) The very next second I thought to myself, “the guy’s all covered up in it, what kind of a question was that? He used it the very second he took it” I really wanted to tell him that that sheet meant a lot to me so I made another stupid statement, “yeh mere bachpan ki bed sheet hai, mujhe bahut acchi lagti hai!” (This is a bed sheet from the days of my child hood and I’m very fond of it.)…the very next second I wondered who was a lunatic of the two of us; surely me. He looked at me and stuttered, “main wapas kar doonga.” (I’ll return it). I was taken aback and stuttered “nahi nahi, apne paas rakho.” (no no keep it with yourself). He was staring at something in the community centre, I looked in the direction where he was looking; FOOD. I thought to myself, this is it; I’m NOT getting him food now. I walked on, the whole market place was involved in some activity (of course…religious!!) and there were two huge tents pitched in and there was a “paath” in progress in one and “langar” in another. People were flooding the gates of the langar tent, I thought to myself, why don’t I take some food from here for my mad-man. But that wasn’t the way they served food there, you were supposed to be seated. But all this I just presumed and walked on listening to the shabads and chants of “wahe guru”, I walked in between the crowd, feeling very lonely and helpless; I wanted to get some food for the guy (C’mon man it was for free, I could’ve gotten some). Then I returned to the langar tent with the intent of asking the co-ordinators if they’d give some food for a mad man sitting at the bus stop. By now the crowd was becoming unmanageable and the ones managing the scene seemed to be losing their temper; I decided not to enquire anything lest I was driven away or shouted upon by the angry men. But this too was a presumption, I walked back and crossed the bus stop, I couldn’t see my mad man. I paused and looked carefully; I saw my bed sheet, it was enveloping my mad man lying under the bench. I doubt if someone had given him any food. I felt sad, but I walked back home. If God was testing me by putting me in this situation; I failed but something in me was shaken out if its slumber. If I would’ve asked for some food, maybe I would’ve been given some or maybe I would’ve been shouted upon but at least I could’ve tried. The fact is that there was a hungry man there and plenty of food some distance away and there was a guy that saw them both but for some reason, chose to walk back home with his head hanging low. Anyway the good part is that since then, I’ve been wondering, “My personal problems are not so big after-all, are they!!”Right now, I’m feeling extremely hungry, I thought I’d stay hungry to feel the pain of hunger to a small degree; I can’t, I’m going to the kitchen.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

A must watch...

Thanks Ashish, I couldn't help but get this link on my blog too.....it's simply hilarious...
Everybody should watch this christmas carol "indian-parody-version"....LOLZ!!! I laughed so much, I fell off my chair listening to it.
here goes..
VIDEO