Swades Mera (Part 2)… India - An enigma of metamorphosis

Yunan, Misro, Ruma sab mit gaey jahan se

Ab tak magar hai baqi nam-o-nishan hamara

Kuch baat hai ke hasti mit-ti nahi hamari

sadiyon raha hai dushman daur-e-jahaan hamara

What was Iqbal thinking when he wrote these lines into the Tarana-e-Hind. Was this poetic catharsis a result of the metamorphosis he felt happening to once what was widely accepted to be the greatest nation on the face of the earth? I have always been intrigued by these lines, for our country has always been synonymous to a golden bird always happily chirping even while having countless enemies. We have charmed many and still continue to, far-away travelers of the yore like Hieun Tsang, Ibn-Battuta, Mannuci, Tavernier who went back, came again and wrote extensively of the beauty and diversity of this country. We have fought off invaders from the River Tigris to the Indus valley and even taught the kings of Mesopotamia and “Great” Britain a lesson in humility over the last 2500 years. Still the country stands today well on its feet, still smiling with folded hands in humility and in state of constant evolution. Yes, we are the “developing” nation and that tag has rather become a sobriquet for India given we have stood up to the incessant plundering of wealth by foreigners and still been gracious enough to provide home to many of them – the Mughals are one just example.

A few days ago while sitting with a few foreign businessmen a friend asked them “Why don’t we get more investment from USA into Emerging India?” To which came the instant reply - “Half the US doesn’t know where your country lies on the map!” Isn’t this very ironical for any citizen of the nation that was discovered by a man who had set out to find India! Probably since he could never find it, the Americans have continued his legacy for another 500 years.

Also ironical to a biologist’s interpretation, sixty five years ago two parts of our country was severed on the pretext of it being the genesis of better for a certain race and of which one has now become cancerous for our very own existence. Were it the wings of Icarus, that were to soar into prosperity but landed in failure?... ironically still, the poetic lines once composed for our one nation were erased by Iqbal himself to be recomposed for the other (Tarana-e-milli) but the rhyme remains well etched in our minds ”Saare Jahaan se achcha Hindostaan hamara”.

The more educated can keep thumping the tables arguing for better governance, a higher rate of GDP or countering terrorism and corruption, while forgetting that this nation has survived the greater tragedies and follies in history. As a larva does struggle inside the cocoon into its becoming, so is our nation, we have had more than our fair share of struggle to which history stands witness and some we will continue to experience. The metamorphosis shall continue, the beautiful butterfly shall emerge, the world shall see…but not yet…

The Sounds of Silence

Remember the acoustic feel of the Simon & Garfunkel hit of the ‘60s? The compelling music draws you to it and makes you listen again... and in silence. Silence is related to in many ways and forms. For most silence is often correlated with solace, stillness, unhappiness and punishment and for some it is a way to seek enlightenment and self-realization. The world we live in continually moves towards noise so much so that it’s deemed pollution. In fact the silence of one person threatens the peaceful existence of the society. Even the observation of silence at unfortunate events becomes discomforting to many. The truth is that both Silence and the absence of it can be accepted only intermittently, the continuity creates a disturbance.

Try walking into a Bahai faith temple and the ubiquitous silence in the hall reveals itself differently, the mind apprehends the vacuum and the changed environment makes you think – here lips are motionless but the thoughts reverberate inside your cerebellum. The vow of silence by Anna Hazare recently created more than the combined cacophony of imposing opponents. The silent approach to the execution noose by Saddam Hussein left people thinking. The “Silence of the Lambs” is actually about the numbness of not being able to scream or cry oneself in a moment where you would want to. Two mute people use the medium of hands and expressions to speak to each other in existence of silence. Thus the sound inherent in the silence becomes the noise and challenges the very notion of “Silence”.

Silence belies the meaning and the reason behind it. You may be attracted to silence but once you are subjected to the state of silence you would probably scream out loud. You shut off the idiot box because you can’t tolerate the rambling on a channel, only to switch it on again when silence engulfs you. You want silence around at your workplace, but the sudden lack of noise as you walk in over to your desk makes you think “Is something wrong around here?” Silence becomes some thing that we long for but we don’t know what to do with, much like the dog that chases each passing car.

…And why so serious?! While you may judge if silence is good or bad, wanted or unwanted, it actually depends on the situation and the subject. Does a stock broker really want silence on the trade floor? His life and wage depends on the incessant clangor, silence would mean a Black Friday!! Music too inherently depends on silence in some form or another to distinguish other periods of sound and allow dynamics, melodies and rhythms to have greater impact. Does it imply that silence too is a sound? Think aloud in your silence….

"IF"

“If” - The beautiful poem on the entrance of Wimbledon courts by Rudyard Kipling.

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it...

“IF” is most likelihood the most exciting word in true sense that comes out of the dictionary. “If” rides in with such possibilities that otherwise may create nondescript landscape. What if the word “if” and its reason never existed? We would have lived a life without options, alternatives, retrospect, introspect, and maybe any thought into the future. Our actions would never be evaluated and there would be no judgment. Statisticians like me wouldn’t have existed because the entire concept of probability rests on the two letter word “IF”. Now that opens up the bag of thoughts, let me leave aside myself for a moment (when I am maybe only a proton in size compared to the larger scheme of the universe) and think WHAT IF the following never happened:

WHAT IF God had not created Eve…?
WHAT IF both earth and sun revolved around each other…?
WHAT IF you could sleep and wake up at your will…?
WHAT IF you could travel time and see the future…?

Doesn’t life suddenly become eventless, unexciting and predictable? Because there is an “If”, we live with endless possibilities and boundless energies. The last question is most often heard of, and if you ask me it is a waste of thought, the reason being if you could see your future you would try to correct it now and change its course but if that’s possible then the future you saw initially was never true. Why would you want to believe in the future you see when you know you could change it…? If we get to see the future perpetually then we would never look into it. It’s just like a toy a child wants badly until he has it, once he gets it the enigma is solved and life with it becomes uneventful.

WHAT IF I could be perfect? Sounds wonderful but perfection isn’t valued for long, it is the eccentricity and idiosyncrasy in world that defines it. We exist to make things happen, my friend’s 5 year old son once asked his mother “What if all the students score the same in the class examinations, who comes 1st then?” I cannot explain and find a reasonable conclusion. The dilemma wins the war over the clarity of thought. A single instance of putting a “What if XYZ event in the history of the world happened differently” can steer the entire sequence of events into a new universe of possibilities. “If” is indispensable because it brings us into the face of reality, at the same time “If” moves us into a diverse range of potentials. Place an “If” before your future actions and not before your past actions… live in the moment, rise to the challenges “if” poses to your being. WHAT IF brings worry, caution, fear, sadness when you reason but explodes you into an enchanting realm when you dream…. Realize the madness and happiness even if unrealistic and temporary it brings…

Dream today, “what if” tomorrow is not the one you want to be in….
And seize the day, “what if” tomorrow never comes!!

Difficult seas of diversity here….

The diversity of India is seldom only spoken of than realized; it is only when you travel the length and breadth of the country that you truly acknowledge the fact. Well diversity itself can be interpreted in several ways - we are a diverse country by means of culture, religion, region (linguistically decided), wealth and even sexual orientations. What is truly amazing is the fact that all of these diversities seem to coexist and cohabit in such a labyrinth that it is difficult to distinguish them apart, you may find yourself to be a color blind person looking at the rainbow, while you notice some differences you cannot really distinguish.

Past few weeks were spent doing a lot of things that I wanted to – like going out with some underprivileged children to a picnic, going back home to Delhi, reading, visiting the popular places of worship in Mumbai (a long pending task), donating blood etc. As time permitted I could do all this and more, for which I was quite self satisfied in the end.

I started with donating blood at the camp organized at work; after almost a year it actually felt nice as the blood went down the tube into the bag. It was my 12th donation (or 13th including an aphaeresis donation) and I felt as nice as I could have. What did not go well was the experience with the Bombay Hospital doctors and staff who had come over, they arrived late and packed up half hour early leaving more than a dozen expecting to be donors disappointed. No amount of requesting and convincing to stop them even five more minutes. In all my experience of organizing blood donation camps, I never have seen such an instance. More than anything I was disappointed that a lot of these people had mustered the courage to come forward to donate the first time, something now they would not want to try again after being turned away.

Next on the cards was the picnic to Nehru Planterium and Taraporewala Aquarium with the underprivileged children from an NGO A nice day spent together, which enriched our minds with knowledge, and rejuvenated us in the company of these young growing minds it was time to head home. Maybe what will change for these young minds will be the way they will gaze and try to read the patterns in the night sky. One good lesson the narrator conveyed was the humbleness to be felt in each of us after acknowledging the granular existence we have in the world of galactic proportions. The day long trip completed the panorama with the sky above, the land we live in and the sea beneath.

Just before leaving for Delhi, I had long day to finish with nothing to do so me and my room mate packed our luggage and headed out to a pilgrimage to the famous worship places in Mumbai. We started with the dargah of Haji Ali, a serene place to spend your time away from the haggling crowd of people and constant pushing. We also sat on the sea rocks and collected crab shells. The cool water surrounding the dargah is quite relieving. What made me a little unhappy was the commercialization outside the dargah, which had caused garbage littered all around. Next stoppage was Mahalaxmi mandir which was a 1 hour long wait in the sun to reach the temple gates, and in the this time the queue was at the mercy of the Mumbai police who were slapping innocent visitors to make sure the queue was a geometrically straight line. I made sure the havaldar kept his hands away from me.

Similar experience of waiting in lines at the next stop at Siddhi Vinayak temple, though I could have paid 50 bucks to arrange for a smaller VIP queue but chose to be a simpleton. Had a small quarrel with a shopkeeper outside who forced me to buy a basket of offering to the deity saying “This is mandatory, you cannot go inside without it”, seemingly constant bribing thrives here. I was not conforming to the ethos so felt a little untrue in the eyes in my love for the god. I wasn’t poor but there could have been a poor person in my place who called off his visit to the temple incase of a mandatory 51 bucks offering. Anyways after 20 mins of queuing up behind almost 2000 people I had moved about 15 feet and a long zig zag way to go, the priests declared that the mandir was to be closed for cleaning so they removed all barriers and asked the people to rush in for darshan. A queue that would have otherwise taken 1.5 hours was cleaned up in fifteen mins flat, and as I entered the bhavan for about 30 seconds the priest once again declared that one was responsible for their belongings such as purses and ornaments worn. All those 30 seconds I was either thinking out how to keep my purse safe or trying to take back the Prasad from the offering I made to the deity.

It is needless to now express how I felt after it, just looked at my watch it was 5:15 and I had to rush back to the airport. A Taxi – local train – autorickshaw later I was sitting in the aeroplane ready to fly back to home, to family and to another such diverse land. From 27 degrees heat to 2.7 degrees in cold and in less than 2.7 hours, such is the diversity we speak of. All through I retired myself to a book “India – A million mutinies now” by Sir VS Naipaul which is a great work on this subject. I hope I travel more to many a places and experience a little more.

Today..more intriguing than any reality show?

Finally 4 months after landing in Bombay I do get time to start over blogging once again. Mumbai (or Bombay) is a very similar city as compared to Delhi, only slightly faster and the fact that it sleeps lesser than its political sibling. If Delhi is the City of Dil-wallahs then Mumbai is the city that never sleeps. If delhi is home to the politicians then Mumbai is no less housing the stars of bollywood. Never-the-less Delhi will always be home for me, and home is where heart is.

Bollywood city always reminds me of TV, and the numerous reality shows that have started crowing on the various channels. Sarkar ki Duniya coming on a channel named Real. Nice way there, maybe they should pitch in to make the channel for reality shows only. I don’t know why but Ashutosh Rana looks really devilish, if I’d ever watch it would be to add on some new hindi vocab from Rana impress my Hindi teaching mum. Sach ka Saamna picked from a similar concept from the west is another show that made the headlines in the past few weeks or so. Looking so similar to KBC, only difference is that questions are so beautiful that if you do not want your life to ever be peaceful, then go ahead be a part of it. Every Tom who looks like your next door neighbor Harry turns out to be Dick on the other side of the show. Damn it, the host gets so ridiculous when somebody actually walks out with cash and without ruining his/her life. I guess Rakhi Sawant should be brought on the hot-chair and asked a few quick ones, and the prize should be a nice 200 volt if you get it wrong and money if u can manage the truth. Rakhi made a sure shot donkey of the poor fellow from Canedda (it’s a part of our beloved Punjab much like Southall). I am sure he’d be raising kids on TV next. Anyways enough fun has been made on her, on MTV already and Ilesh is already bald!

Then there are some catty shows like Splitzvilla, which is possibly based on a concept synonymous to inflation. Too many boys chasing too few good looking skinny girls. Psycologists need to figure out a solution for Anorexia amongst North Indian women, my fellow madrasi flat mate always can find chubbier and better looking actresses in his vernacular movies. Another show is about selecting a couple of pit-stoppers for dear mr. vijay mallaya’s Force India F1 team, I am sure if they are going to conduct such national level screening for selecting these girls the entire race track would stop. If some manage to hit the gas pedal, they’d be up in flames before they know. By the way, Mr. Mallaya when is the next Kingfisher Calendar coming out?

And finally there are some dudes and dudettes battling it out for a chrome Pulsar bike doing all sorts of stunt mania to impress kiddos. I say come to West Delhi, or to DND flyover at mid-night and you can see GODS racing..Arre nahi bhai! its not Indraji racing on his elephant but Group of Delhi Super-bikers. Every possible stunt fails when they claim to reach Jaipur from Delhi, have breakfast and come back all in six hours on their vrooming Honda’s and Yamaha’s. What a waste of time, trying to win a bike by trying all death defying stunts, ask your mum and dad to get you a tri-cycle instead.

Jungle Raaj hai!... finally Is Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao scores over the rest. Once again copied from the west. I am really not sure and possibly support every person who thinks that the show is shot in either Sunderbans in Bengal or in the Veerappan jungles of Karnataka. No ways they’d go to film 10 donkeys yelling at each other, eating crabs and snakes and insects in Malaysia. They can’t even go hunting, had they been in a true jungle, they could have atleast butchered a baboon or atleast a teetar-bater. All the failures on the Tier-2 shows on TV come to participate for money, which they eventually don’t win. The truth is “Jinko Koi nahi puucchta unko reality show wale bula lete hain”.

Anyways, don’t you think I am loser following these shows on the Idiot box. It just that you cant escape from brief moments while switching channels at night, while the other truth is that every other channel has one such show running incessantly. If not then you can see repeat telecast with detailed analytics on any News Show. Thanks specifically to Rajat Sharma’s India TV, which is more entertaining than the antics of Mr. Bean.

Seize the day… make more reality of your life than watching some one else’s reality because while you can never figure out if the other person is actually faking it or not, you definitely can draw some sense into your actions.

Slipping Sands of Time...

If you noticed the anguish in reading my last few blogs and now didn’t get anything to read like that, then the reason is that I was home for the last two months. Nah! I wasn’t given the pink slip on day 1 at JPMorgan, my joining got delayed so I happily got to stay at home for 60 days. These holidays gave me a lot of time to think about family, future life and need to work. No matter how much I slept back at IBS here I had a schedule, woke up at 7 in the morning and slept at 11 pm. Frankly even a Slumdog feels like a millionaire when home, two square meals cooked by mum is more than any Oscar or Bafta…

One of the best things ever happened in my life happened just as I quit IBS and came back…I got an i-lasik done to remove my long distance vision. I am no longer handicapped with a pair of glasses shielding my corneas. The operation took about 8 minutes and just as I appreciate the small things in life, I could appreciate the beauty of clearly pointing out (to my awe struck parents) the number of holes an electrical socket had with my bare eyes. And don’t you try wondering if I had taped eyes for days and I couldn’t see for the first few days…I could see right after the operation and neither did I yell “Mirindaaaa” on seeing my mum, well she wasn’t in a orange saree either…I was awake throughout the operation and only my eyes were numbed, I spoke to the sardarji doc (he was a Padma Sree awardee) and could move my hands and feet while the laser beam did its work. So powerful is the technology today I wondered…it is mighty no doubt. I wondered can a laser beam modify the contours of Taliban infested Pakistan just as it did for my eyes.

Another new thing that appeared in my book of life was I started stock trading…Having spent a magnanimous amount on my education and the following surgery; I was lent a sum of 10000 bucks to try my luck. It wasn’t a free economy I traded in, I mean it was heavily regulated by my experienced mum and dad who would look into what I planned to buy in the intra-day….at times the opportunity was lost while communicating my intention and getting their approval…never mind I managed to retire with a decent profit (read ROI, man I am a financial analyst) of about 30%. Still cant be compared to many folks back in college who could churn up ten times each month...Frankly it requires a lot of courage, and if any Security Analysis student of MBA feels its equivalent to Moneybhai.com then he should try shitting in a glass walled toilet and say it feels the same…

Goodbye to IBS wasn’t tough at all finally, I managed to graduate with a fairly decent CGPA though I was unhappy with my final semester marks given my efforts…I managed an A on my dissertation which was very pleasing. Atleast researching Carbon credits got me something better than the rest. I heard about a lot of folks still being in campus till mid-april trying for placements. I wish them luck and early departure from Hyderabad…

Rendezvous with Mumbai begins in ten days and I am all anxious to peep in the new kaleidoscope, smell the fresh vada-paos and swim in the famous rainfalls. Delhi 1-99 (not only 6) will have to wait for me for quite some time…I wish the Dariba’s paranthewallas and jalebi wallah, the kachchoris and chhole bhature of Kamala Nagar a tearful goodbye… You can only wish the people you love a teary goodbye for the ones its bilateral you can only smile and say I’ll be back soon…Words have deeper meanings which at times are best left unexplained. I wish I had a pause button on life but cant help it even SRK promoted Dish TV cant give me what I want…I could have stopped Shoaib Akhtar from dropping the ball and the Black knight running in the gymkhana but what cant be stopped is the tiniest granules of the sands of time that slip more the harder you grasp them….Peace to one and all…Jai Ho!!

The Last Goodbye!

Just about a week away from my final semester exams here at IBS Hyderabad nee Dontanpally, and a fortnight away from possibly leaving this place to never see it again. 21 months in to the MBA program, and let me tell your frankly I am not going to reminisce these days save for the enormous sleep hours they gave me. Someone here may call me insane, but if so insanity has been my virtue all this time here and surprisingly brought the most unbelievable changes. I have found myself to be transformed from a fun loving, extroverted and cheerfully well behaved boy to an anti-social, bookwormish grizzly looking man. Ask me what I’d miss most when I go back home from here or to Bombay, and I’d say two things – fresh air and the looking into a million starred clear sky each night. Possibly you may have counted me into being a cynical idiot by now and frankly I do hope that this piece of blog is not read by my employers to be.

I have grown much fatter than I was before coming here, a realization that only happens once a couple of days when I decide to bathe and look into the mirror. That’s purely thanks to my regime of no exercise, frequent trips to bingers bliss and to the canteen and precisely with thanks to RKHS - the greatest mess caterers in India. I can survive on biscuits, cake, and bread and cheese every meal of the day which frankly that makes me the most suitable candidate for a job in the western world. I wear possibly the worst lot in my wardrobe, most of the good part has already been kept away in suitcases and almirahs back home for better days and better occasions.

And to talk about celebration would be a simple joke as I had decided to abstain myself from any months away when I had come here. I do not wish to carry any memories of a wrong decision on my way back to where I came from. What I have gained here are three initials that I may use after my name having purchased them on a 12% bank loan of a million rupees. I am to go back precisely where I came from, to what precisely I would have been had I not come here. Surprisingly I have not attended a single birthday party, the college fresher’s welcome, the two annual fests, my farewell and other festival celebrations excluding a single Diwali when someone threw a cracker bomb on me and caused my departure in less than 5 minutes. Finally I strongly believe that I wouldn’t be here for my convocation ceremony as well. As can be said “There’s going to be no looking back”….

To this point one must be finding all faults in me, and the truth is that even I find myself to be a natural failure here. Like an American president once said “Ask not what the system can do for you, but what can you do for it”, precisely I haven’t done a wee bit to make these two years a better part of my life. I have cursed and cursed every element and entity surrounding my existence here not purely because I despise them but for I despise the relationship that was built on a regretful decision. I have been extremely temperamental and pugnacious in my behavior. This blog was made during my time here, so I find it to be a place to keep the blatant thoughts ploughing my cranium for long. I am thankful to my family for standing by with me at all times of my desperation, and hope to give them a better and a more considerate me from now on provided the head on my shoulders finds peace, respect and trust within. I have changed to be a person of a quiet taste and high aspirations, doesn’t mean I do not like to speak so opportunities like this come along every now then when I find a blank word sheet. I am a ship anchored on the shore raring to hit the seas again; Thomas Edison once said “There’s a great virtue in failure: You get to start all over again”, maybe I just need to make peace with myself and gear myself up for the tides would never stop coming.

I am also thankful to this place as the fresh air and sleep gave me enuff time to structure myself in peace, its like chiselling the wood finely to bring forth a beautiful sculpture. Often before i sleep i would listen to the song from Guru:

Jaage hain der tak, hamein kucch der so lene do
Thodi si raat aur hai, subah toh hone do
Aadhe adhure khwaab jo poore na ho sake
ek baar phir se neend mein woh khwaab boune do

Finally, I feel like a 8 year old who packs his bags and waits for the school bell to ring so that he can shoot off his desk and run to his home. Farewell for once isn’t a difficult word to say! For myself, I would only say "I am going to Kiss the World". Cheers to Life, Goodluck & Godspeed to fellows at IBS.

Redemption in the Pursuit of Happyness

Often have I felt my grip loosening over the thing I have wanted the most for the moment. What we call as fate or destiny most often comes forth once the failure happens. Last one and a half years I had been living a life completely reliant on fate, but to be true with time your faith in yourself reduces so did mine. The things I thought I was much capable of were now turning to look alien to me. My outer self projected a confident personality but within I was a scared individual who was waiting for opportunities. Now opportunities mean results in the end, and what I was most scared of was failure as I am sure most of us are. While most of my colleagues at the b-school were reading through newspapers, magazines and economic journals I was preparing myself mentally. I did not hesitate in sharing this with anyone I knew in return for some general knowledge; the exercise was always good as the other party felt mentally strong while I had figures and numbers to talk of. When I saw motion pictures like "The Pursuit of Happyness" or "The Shawshank Redemption", I felt motivated but the truth was that I wasn't in the protagonists shoes.

One thing I had judged from my past experience in appearing for interviews was that the panel looked for smart talkers who could be trained and molded as per their requirements. The more I entered the room the more I knew what made a perfect disposition. I could pleasantly say no to things that I wasn’t aware of, and possibly diverting their interest to things that I was more confident with. One question I always asked myself before entering the interview room was “Am I supposed to know everything??...” If the answer ever came “Yes” then I told myself that I have no reason to be here….I came here to learn and will learn for days and times to come. I recalled what my boss during my summers always said “It’s not about putting forth the right answers, it about asking the right questions”. And to be truthful I stuck on to this, while my peers learnt answers I prepared myself for asking the right questions.

This alone did not mean that I wouldn’t ever lose. Infact to my utter dismay I finally wasn’t selected in my first application to one of the most coveted i-banks of the world after several rounds of selection process. The first response one gets from everyone he/she knows after the failure is “there are better things in store for you”…were there or not I wasn’t sure, but definitely I wasn’t dying and there was another day and another battle. This time around I was to appear for the strongest and the biggest bank in the world. I took a cue from the Director of the company who came for a brief talk, he said “Most of us can get away from the hardest situations if we know how to speak and how to react”…It was again learning till he said “but not here in our company”…. I wasn’t sure if I would succeed given this time the battle started with a situation where I considered myself weakest. None the less after 10 hours of process and constant pep talk by other interviewees I was able to convince myself to settle for nothing but the best. The announcement of success was not at all scintillating; I sat on my seat, no tears of joy or no shouts in excitement. The glitter was more felt in other's that in mine. Probably I was just numb, well I wouldn't say that I could not absorb the success…I had but certain times in life you just fail to equate what you lost to what you regained. Redemption is not all that easy…In my heart I thanked my family, I thanked my girl and I thanked all who believed in me but yet I guess there are there are more mountains to climb, more chasms to jump across and more dreams to relive before I rejoice this moment. Good luck to all my friends and peers who still await a worthy challenge…

Life goes on...simple isn't it

What is your favorite tea time discussion topic? I have always believed that no matter how faint hearted a man is, he comes up with the most gut wrenching intense topics to discuss over a cuppa. Be it polical issues like Should Sonia be considered Indian?, should Kashmir succeed to Pakistan? Or slightly lesser intense topics like if Sachin should retire, or the Bombay train blasts, Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty…it never ends and the numerous arguments one can give never suffice to bury the discussion. You don’t believe me, then take a few minutes off and search a road side tea vendor and sip and cup of tea. And just listen to the news he has, or the men have who for god knows what reason are always found at his shop. I guess their appetite for tea is bottomless. No wonder our country has been identified with Tea as a geographical indicator.

I find the city life very interesting not only because I have spent 22 years living in the capital city but more so because now that I sit in Dontanpally which is an unknown little village 40 km away from Hyderabad main city. It is here that I have learnt to appreciate the beauty of a city. Well you could for once say that I am saying this as I am starved of urbane exposure, but nah! I guess it’s because now I understand that what it is to like stop in the middle of the road and wait for traffic, what it is like to wait for the electricity to return after a power failure. The only difference between a city and a village is time, time that separates them and also its availability. Once I asked my parents to send me a parcel through Speed Post (courier boy finds it unprofitable to deliver here), since the parcel was large I had to go into the village to collect it from the post office. Now for city grown up lad, Post Office sounded to be a modest establishment with a few workers. I negotiated my way and was directed to a brick and mortar hut shaped house which doubled up as the postman’s house and also the post office. And I waited for the post man to come and give me the parcel, it took him three hours to return and on being asked why he said simply that I had gone to deliver posts and I ride a bicycle. Had I been in my home waiting for a courier boy to deliver an expected package, I might have called its office atleast 10 times in 3 hours but here I was just thinking how clean and simple life is without motor driven technology like a mobile phone or a scooter. I loved the serenity and simplicity of the moment.

It is often said that a city like Delhi never sleeps, life never stops…no matter what. I remember when there were a string of bomb blasts in Delhi, Mumbai and more recently Hyderabad some time back. I got numerous calls enquiring my stay and safety but did I stop. One can stay off the roads for an hour or two but not for days. I shudder when my father tells me that the day Indira Gandhi was assassinated there was no public transport, the roads were deserted and he had to walk back 20 km from his office in the evening. So what stops…a few hearts that were ticking moments ago shut down by the exploding splinters that possibly were Alfred Nobel’s most unwanted invention. Tears dry up after a day or two, smiles go off the faces for a day or two but memories never go down. Blowing a few buses or planes or trains off stop the transport system and more importantly it doesn’t stop the mankind. Communal tensions would always but that doesn’t stop me from going into the lanes of Chandni chowk to savor Karims delicacies. I asked my best friend from school who visited Lahore several times during his graduation days – whats the best about the city? He said that the best would be the fact that it’s very much like Delhi plus the people are very helping. I ask myself now How many people would not want to go to such a city after listening to such an answer…The greatest thing I have learnt from any city in our country is simply “Fight…Fight back….don’t stop” . No wonder if you enjoyed reading what I said you would enjoy this song….

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=6INOamqU7xs

Irony of life...Beauty in the beast

Isn't it strange that we all live in the world which faces irony in each of its facet. We can observe the diversity of life and the myraid opinions people have about its creations - living and non-living. I listened to this song "Gin Soaked Boy" by Divine Comedy in 1994 when I was a small school going lad, I fell in love with it for times to come. Though in those days I couldn't comprehend much of the sense it said or the meaning it conveyed, the music and the B&W picturisation appealed. The last line "Who am I?" left a lingering mystery to the lyrics and began to add lines to it...It was never a difficult song by the way as I could always add few made up lines which were ironical. The rediscovery of the song happened a few years back with all credits to the man who invented the necessity of Youtube. Here are the lyrics that I hope would ensure some self reflection to every person who reads/listens to them:


Im the gin in the gin-soaked boy
Im the ghost in the machine...Im the genius in the gene...
Im the beauty in the beast..Im the sunset in the east...
Im the ruby in the dust...Im the trust in the mistrust...
Im the trojan horse in troy...Im the gin in the gin-soaked boy...

Im the tigers empty cage...Im the mysterys final page...
Im the strangers lonely glance...Im the heros only chance...
Im the undiscovered land...Im the single grain of sand.....
Im the christmas morning toy...Im the gin in the gin-soaked boy...

Im the world youll never see...Im the slave youll never free...
Im the truth youll never know...Im the place youll never go....
Im the sound youll never hear...Im the course youll never steer....
Im the will youll not destroy...Im the gin in the gin-soaked boy...

Im the half-truth in the lie...Im the why not in the why...
Im the last roll of the die...Im the old school in the tie...
Im the spirit in the sky...Im the catcher in the rye...
Im the twinkle in her eye...Im the jeff goldblum in the fly..

Who am i?


for the benefit of all, here's the link to the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXP1oLtPyDA