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

For you, a thousand times over....

Friend….I wonder about the magical meaning this six letter word carries in our lives. More than often this word outweighs the four letter word “Love” in more than one ways. I know you may not agree as the two are so very intertwined but the fact remains I have always loved my best friends and always tried to find a friend in the person I love. I remember my childhood as not a very colorful one but one in the company of people I called friends and my family called friends. The three such people I associate the oldest memories of my life carry a lot of meaning to me. I don’t remember saying them to ever that they were my best friends or are, I don’t know if they feel the same for me but I do know that I have them etched permanently on my heart..

I have always believed the best lessons in life come from books (and movies inspired of them). One such book I recently went through was “The Kite Runner” written by Khalid Hossieni, heard now there’s a movie on it too. The story set in the rugged lands of Taliban infested Afghanistan, is more a story of two friends who inherit a part of their friendship in legacy. One ‘Amir’ the lad of a rich man and the other ‘Hasan’ the boy of his Hazara servant, growing up together they discover their friendship and the loyalty the latter has towards the other. Towards the later half, the grown up Amir traverses half the world from the US to Kabul to search for Hasan’s son Sohrab, as he discovers Hasan was not his servant’s(Ali) son but only the illegitimate son of his father from the servant’s wife. He decides to go back to Kabul and fetch Sohrab and make sure what happened to Hasan does not happen to Sohrab. Amir himself being childless does all he can to bring back the boy and succeeds. In end comes the most heart melting part, when Amir runs a kite for Hasan’s son and says “for you, a thousand times over”…a phrase that Hasan used to say to Amir and probably overwhelms the audience completely. And the movie does give a nice picture of the Afghan Community in the USA..

It’s one of the most beautiful stories I have read in my life and probably the reason is that we all at some point in our lives wait to say this otherwise so common sentence “for you, a thousand times over”…It’s like telling someone you mean the world to me. I am thankful to god that I have people in my life to say these lines to. We have all grown up on a diet of Best friends stories, of Jai & Veeru of Sholay and more but this book goes out to say much more – a mixture of emotions that can be evoked by Love; love for one’s motherland, a partner, a friend, a parent, or a your child to say the least the book is all full of them. Hasan named his son 'Sohrab' - the name of the character liked by Amir, again it was an unsaid dedication to their friendship. In essence the book also captures the timeless nature of friendship. You may not meet or talk to a friend so often but feelings are beyond words and meeting…so just hang on to your emotions.

I have always wondered what if the person I call my best friend met me on a small journey of 10 hours from Delhi to Lucknow, life would probably have been very different that what you see as of now. We say our destiny is already written “Makhtub” but then every man on the street says “Insha-allah” – If god wills, are we not trying to ask god to erase a few lines off our life books and replace them with our own?

As a philosophical theory, man is always wanting to be loved and wants to be in company of people who love him so desire for friendship is incessant. Life is a short one so make as many friends as you can but remember the number would never matter what would matter to you most is to how many can you turn back in life and say “for you, a thousand times over”…..To all the people not only friends you love - express your feelings now…there’s never been a better day than today…….Godspeed.

Leave no man behind..

The reason why I write seldom is because it is only once is in a great while that you get to see something that evokes your thought, makes you listen or stand up…..Of all the easiness we spend our lives with living off Bacardi, Levi’s and behind Honda wheels we fail to acknowledge that infact our craniums have been pillaged of every gottdamn grey cell that could make us feel for the unprivileged sections of our own society.

Humans are by nature social beings but how much of a society is quantifiable in his nature. I was watching a movie “Black Hawk Down” which is about the US forces going into Somalia to counter internal terrorism, and Eric Bana (Aussie Actor) when asked what makes him go back again into the war site even after being injured replies “It’s about the men next to you”…..Is it only about that?

Lately I saw a very different Hindi movie “Summer 2007”, starring Gul Panag amongst a few other new actors. The movie is about five close med school friends – Mother T, Rahul, Pepsi, Kats and Bangani who are in the final year at college. Rahul plans to escape with his friends so as to evade the ongoing elections by taking a 1 month rural stint near Goa. The idea was to purchase their training certificates from the center incharge and then speed off to Goa for a month. However the story takes a very interesting turn after they meet Mukhya (Ashutosh Rana) – the incharge who wants ten grand a head to let them off. The five smell troubles brewing in the village, and themselves get a flavor of it time to time. Though it takes time they get to know that the villagers are pillaged and their women folk raped for not repaying petty loans taken from the village lender. The revolt churns up as a Bengali man Sankhya comes to the village to educate the poor villagers of the concept of micro-finance and the fact that they pay as much as 3000% as interest p.a. on the principal to the lender is purely a tact to keep them paying till eternity. Sankhya is often targeted, beaten up and at one point interacts with the five friends. It is then that meds understand the work Mukhya & Sankhya are upto, and start helping them. Finally, they manage to save Sankhya at the cost of Mother T’s rape, Mukhya’s death and four murders by Rahul (whose life changes forever). Infact the last twenty minutes sting the audience and as conclusion the movie tells the number of people committing suicide or being forced killed due to hefty loans and the torture by moneylenders.

For the odd bloke in the movie hall, this may seem to be only a drama to assess the potential of Micro-Finance, a concept by Nobel Laureate Md. Yunus however the impact that lingers on our minds is that there’s a different story behind every grain that goes down our food pipe, a tale of misery behind every rural produce. It’s not always naxalites, LTTE and Maoists who kill sometimes people who are educated like us kill for the greed that takes us nowhere. So simply said “A man comes with nothing and leaves with nothing” is an intricate theory to be memorized by us, no one asks you to give up material desires but flame within a desire to help mankind which starts with “the men next to you”….Lets make a change….Lets kill the tumours in our heads that cause more violence and terror than any arms or ammunition known to man….

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

My first day......at IBS Hyderabad

Following is what I wrote last year after spending my first day at IBS...a lot has changed and a lot will never change....I relentlessly pursue my destiny and as they say its written "Makhtub" ...

Having given up all desires to pursue a corporate life without a management degree, abdicating from the royal throne of a research analyst in the world finest consultancy firm, my walk to Hyderabad began….more so only to discover it as a modest Dontanpally village. The rubric sands determining the campus could only make me feel more docile, having been separated from all familiar civilization. Standing on the giant doorway to the IBS campus, far from appreciating the beauty and silence of the surroundings, I went about probing myself if I had been too much an optimist. My senses came back with the loud appearance of the taxi driver who asked if I wanted to left inside to the hostel, I mumbled the obvious answer while keeping an eye on the gigantic suitcases that undermined my herculean powers. The campus looked like a morose construction site, years after having buried the desire to be an architect I felt as if I was here for it. Realizing my qualification as a B.Sc., I shrugged cursing the factors of judgment in life. I had wanted to be a Bus conductor collecting cash, a pilot soaring skies, an armyman and the more realistic engineer. None became of the above choices when I ceded to fate and pursued statistics in degree. My mind went back to the board that I read in the cantonment while on way “ There are no better judges in the world than guns”, I felt I could have made far better decisions had a brigadier installed a 0.33 mm bore rifle fully loaded on my temple.

Signing heaps of sheets of instructions that provided me against destroying any minutest detail of this hostel, I walked towards my room pondering over such possibilities but the strong smell of the veneer coating constricted my nose and thoughts. My parents always said that often our pleasure is derieved from the most insignificant of things in life; I could feel overjoyed noticing the paint color in the hostel room was the same as at home, probably it sparked a nostalgia that made me feel humble. The room had a metal chair, study table and a cot and the USP of the hostel “a balcony”, surprisingly all 2000 rooms had one. Didn’t I tell my father there were great prospects for an architect! but he felt that the initial struggle as a draftsman wasn’t worth it. I felt lethargic and dizzy having spent 26 hours in a sleeper compartment of the train and 2 hours in the rickety autorickshaw, except for a couple of hours of suburban viewings more the time was spent watching the rural India – diversity at its best. Not to forget the road to Dontanpally, which took me back to physics class learning the crests and troughs in a frequency curve, the subtle relation was crazy as there could be no way Thompson or Hertz could have designed the contours of this village. Unbundling the mattress drained of all possible glycogen storage and I retired to sleep dreaming of consuming Idli, Vada and Rasam all square meals but the thought made me feel overdosed. For an evening walk I decided to explore a cent of the 100 acre, over to the academic block where the only population could be found in the IT room trying to find the opportunity to connect with friends and family. I went over the “White House” (No goras no Bush only phone connections and cold drinks) to purchase a local sim finding a gecko on the mango tree gazing at me..I sped away to my room now to find a couple of crickets bordering and guarding my balcony, I muttered and squashed the mortals under the seemingly divine powers of my new rubber slippers. I was reminded of a cousin who had a nightmare of a cockroach crawling up his nose, bah!!

A day was over …but the journey had just begun and this time it was to be for a huge 700 days. I had read a hindi novel “Jungle me who do din” and much did I want to christen the memoirs of my stay in IBS on the same lines, I felt the difference was a little too much. My discoveries were to progress with knowledge expansion, I was here to be an MBA those words did sound big and going by the reputation IBS enjoyed I felt much greater. With many plans, dreams, desires and visions the fairy godmother put me to sleep till dusk….