8 by 52

Bye Bye

2008-11-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

She fed me fish pulao.

She brought us all ice-creams on Saturday night after the edition had been released.

More than anything, she made me speak to Vivek Oberoi. For 4 minutes and 35 seconds, at a time when I was madly in love with him. He wanted to help out a handicapped woman and told me I could text him anytime. I was over the moon. When I handed the handset back to her, I was pretty much jumping up with joy.

I don't think I was ever introduced to him. But yeah, I had seen him and I most definitely knew who he was. We always used to tease R about him, I am slightly foggy about this-but I think she had a crush on him, or he did, or people thought so either way.

M called me today morning to tell me that he is no more. He was killed by terrorists at Cafe Leopold, the same place which I have walked past hundreds of times, the place where S and I kept comparing rates for 10 minutes with Mondegar next door and the place where M, T and I went to the last time we were in Mumbai and gorged on all the akoori and the butter.

He was supposed to get married next week. His fiance and he had set up a wedding site and I saw out their pictures, read the story of how they met and fell in love, even checked out their wedding venue back home in Ranchi.

I woke up to read how Malayesh had been mercilessly killed at Leopold and read the TOI anchor on Sabina too.

The string of SMSes she had exchanged with her friends and family made me shiver on this cold, cold morning. They are in my bathroom, I am hiding under the bed, I can hear the gunshots.

M called me day before to ask me if I was safe and not in Bombay by any chance. And then said, "Why do we end up talking just every time there are blasts?"

Because they seem to happen every other day now, Mona.

So which city will it be tomorrow?

2008-07-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

There were eight blasts in Bangalore yesterday. And 16 in Ahmedabad today. So which city is it going to be on Sunday?

Delhi? Mumbai? Goa? Vizag? Hyderabad?

I don't have any answers.

It's scary. These may be low-intensity blasts meant just to scare people, but they are killing people. May be not as many as a normal high-intensity blast would kill, but they still are...

It reminds me so horribly of the Diwali blasts in Delhi which occurred in 2005.

There were three of them: Paharganj, Sarojini and Okhla. There were reports of another one at Kotla, but thankfully it didn't happen.

I remember that evening distinctly. I was sitting at my desk when Nidhi came in and said there had been a blast. I rushed to the maindesk TV and saw the news flash. I ran to LNJP first for some strange reason. Then I remembered that they must have gone to LHMC and rushed there.

The cops wouldn't let my auto go up to the gate as the chief minister was expected. That's Delhi for you.

Somehow, I ran to the Emergency. Only to be greeted by the stench of dead bodies. People were not allowed to enter. So all of us journos stood with our noses plastered to the glass panes trying to see what was happening and framing our Page 1 stories.

What we saw was a sight I am never going to forget. One person dying and his body immediately making way for an injured one. People breathing their last in front of our own eyes, the beds just a foot away from the windows. Orderlies throwing out loads and loads of blood-soaked cotton through the Emergency doors in order to keep the Emergency clean. One such cotton pad came and hit my foot. I was wearing my grey slippers with red bands. The grey material soaked the blood from the cotton ball. I wanted to puke.

Huge trolleys of medicines were wheeled in with orderlies literally running with those trolleys. One injured man was brought in a wheel barrow. Anu clicked a picture on her new Motorola phone. The images are still clear in my mind.

The next few days were a blur. They were spent in getting as many exclusive stories as possible. The first day I came across a couple who were going to meet a woman whose seven-month-old son had died. I had come across Yash's name in the official records.

I followed the two and met Yash's father. He looked calm, composed even. I would go to the extent of saying he looked cool. He was probably too shocked to look anything else. "Haan, humne subah use jala diya," he said. I think I stopped breathing for a few seconds after that. His wife was in the hospital with 80% burns. She had never wanted to go out that evening as it was time for the municipal water supply. Her neighbour wanted to buy bangles so she and Yash had accompanied her. The neighbour survived.

The next day was as bad. A mother who had not been told that her daughter had died. Two sisters who had gone out to buy kerosene, struggling to survive.

The day after that was Diwali. That night as I sat in my room, I cried. And cried and cried. It hurt me so much when no one from my family was even remotely involved. It gave me so much grief just to see those people. It is unimaginable to think what a man feels when he loses his seven-month-old child to terrorism. And the terrorists know that.

Amidst all the gloom, there was hope too. Nisha had been engaged to get married to a guy. She was injured in the blasts, but he insisted that he wanted to marry her as he could not see himself breaking his promise. He said he always liked her smile a lot. And so a little more than a month after the blast, the two got married on November 12.

I called them up next year and their marriage was going strong.

Hope. It's such a wonderful thing.

Party anyone?

2008-07-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

We had a party at college today.
And as always, I was in no mood to attend. I have never liked parties, be they at office, at college or worse, at a relative's place.
Why do I never feel excited about them like the other girls? Why do I never want to dress up for them? Why do I never even manage to locate the solitary lipstick that I have at least for such parties? And why do I never ever feel like dancing at these parties till I am dead drunk?
I wonder.

The end of an era

2008-06-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

Why is that each time I go to Mumbai they close down my favourite theatres in Delhi?

In December, they closed down Chanakya which was for most Delhiites nothing short of an institution and no comparison to those drawing-room sized overpriced garish monstrosities called multiplexes.

This time, as I discovered the other day in Nehru Place, they have closed down Paras. My Paras. A theatre where if at 3.20 I decided I wanted to watch a movie, I could actually leave, catch an auto, reach the theatre, buy the tickets and the popcorn and be seated in time for the movie to start at 3.30.

A theatre where a balcony ticket still cost you Rs 60.

A theatre where the staff was so caring that when I went to watch Rang De Basanti the day Nana came back from hospital, they ensured that I got a seat next to ladies and was seated comfortably as I was watching the movie alone.

Between the two of these theatres, I must have seen just about every Hindi movie that I ever saw in Delhi.
Let me count.
Paras. Hmmm...
Aitraaz
Kisna
Hulchul
Paheli
Rang De Basanti
Shaadi Se Pehle
Karam
Khakee
Yuva
Bunty aur Babli (twice and on consecutive days)

Oh, and that Godawful rip-off of Anger Management where Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar dance in grass skirts.

And many more.

Chanakya, much lesser but nonetheless...
The greatest Hindi film ever made Neal N Nikki
The Rising
No Entry
Taxi number 9211
Goal
Khoya Khoya Chand
American Desi (that's the first movie I saw there)
Dhoom
Fida
Chak de India

Many of these movies I watched alone and no one ever bothered me.

Now, the shutters are down on both of them and my last hopes are pinned on Sangam where I have watched
Munnabhai MBBS
Dhoom 2
Phir Milenge
Lageraho Munnabhai
And a few more.

Chanakya is going to be razed and the NDMC is planning to replace it with an ugly multiplex. And Paras may re-open but I would not count on it. Sangam may be closed down any time to make way for a multiplex.

Makes me feel nostalgic and sad. The only thing that could make me feel better is the taste of the popcorn that they used to serve at Chanakya washed down with a bottle of Catch Clear Blackberry/Black Currant flavoured-water.

Alas, it's all gone. Never to return.

Payday

2008-04-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

The paycheque's here! After nearly two years... Damn excited. And already planning a huge list of things to buy.

Mumbai

2008-04-13T04:57:00.000-07:00

Have been in Mumbai for about a week.

Have been wondering...How long before I can take my own decisions?

Some transitions are never meant to happen...

Time for a break

2008-03-23T08:47:00.001-07:00

The first year's over. Another few months after the summers and it will be time for placements. Parhai will finally be over and done with.

Meanwhile, am off to Mumbai for the next couple of months for my summers where I hope to blog a bit more. Lappy dearest has stopped functioning and the irritating three-day break means I just have to make do with this ramshackle keyboard in the basement computer lab. And the phone company has been kind enough to block my outgoing. They need lessons in how not to treat their valuable customers.

So, yetserday afternoon as we werewaiting for the pizza guy to arrive, we came across this Tanzanian guy who had flown in straight from Dar-es-salaam, had been dumped at the institute and had no clue in the world as to how he would get to Gurgaon. "But what if someone falls sick today, what are you people going to do," he kept saying.

"I haven't rested in 24 hours, I just wanna get to my hotel please," the poor guy kept explaining to the guards. All the taxiwallahs at the nearby stands were drunk. He looked as if he would start crying any minute. I mean here he was- this huge guy in his 30s and ready to shed tears. We called the radio cab numnber,they said they would take 90 minutes. So we made him wait in the hostel. Only the dispensary was open, so I made him sit there.

"Oh, it's the right room for me, I am a doctor," he kept saying. Finally the cab arrived at 5 pm. He got in and kept on thanking me over and over again.

The incident really made me wonder. For all the talk of metropolitan India heading towards a 24X7 society, the reality is completely different. Any major festival and the entire city comes to a standstill. Good Friday, Holi and Sunday have meant that the banks have been closed, the institute office has been closed, my lappy cannot be repaired, hell- I didn't even have any place to eat yesterday except for those horridly-overpriced pizzas. All this even as we revel in the glory of our multi-cultural secularism. Food for thought. (Or FFT as a certain teacher here would say).

ek tankak ki aatmakatha

2008-02-14T23:14:00.000-08:00

It has been the third straight day that I have had to do an all-nighter, typing away to glory.

So I feel like what in Ranchi was called a Tankak- which is Hindi for typist.

Last night, I started typing at 2.15 and to my amazement had typed 17 pages by 5.30, all formatted and ready to go.

The few hours that I do get to sleep during the day are usually spent in dreaming that I am using the lappy's optical mouse.

I bathe only on alternate days (shucks, I am ashamed of myself). And the bath usually takes place sometime around 4 am.

I keep losing my water bottles and I think I have been thirsty for more than 24 hours now.

And yes, I think I have developed the carpal tunnel syndrome.

I hate to do a post full of so much self-pity, but I realllllly am tired.

Kashmir ka cauliflower (the opposite of Kali)

2008-01-19T12:09:00.000-08:00

Food for thought: Does there exist a Kashmiri man who is not a software engineer from Maharashtra?

It's almost as if a few years back, God circulated a new notification:

1. In order to be a Kashmiri man, you must be a software engineer.
2. You must have studied in Maharashtra.
3. To be a really good Kashmiri man, you must have studied software engineering in Maharashtra.

Thus the prototype was born and soon, this was the only type that could be found.

And the sub-headings in the notification may have been thus:

1. You shall not be an interesting man to know.
2. Your main target in life should be to get to the US.
3. You shall speak bad English. Repeat. This is a very important point.
4. You shall still want to marry a woman who will cook Kashmiri food for you and wash your undies, but this woman should now have a full-fledged job.
5. You shall consider the above-mentioned woman intelligent only if she too is an engineer, preferably from Maharashtra.

Really. This is true.

Zilch's in

2007-11-28T15:24:00.000-08:00

I walk up to the ATM at IIT Gate and something tells me the cheque will not have been deposited.

Balance: Zero

Not quite, actually. It was 24 in one account and 11 in the other. God knows I could do even with that money right now, but ATMs never spew out anything less than a Gandhi anyway.

Zero seems to have become a way of life for me these days.

The number of scraps in my Orkut scrapbook:0

The number of marks that I have been repeatedly getting in my quizzes:0

The number of marks I will be getting in last term's exam:0

The number of marks I exepect to get in my this term's exam:0

The chances that I will actually get to go someplace decent this December holiday:0

There are many more, but these will suffice for tonight.

Oh, and the number of comments on my last two posts:0

Please help me remove this one zero at least.

Death

2007-11-12T00:30:00.000-08:00

Death is like a convincing con artist. If it were a human being, it would perhaps be like Charles Sobhraj, conning people at will, regardless of time, age and country of origin.

I took ill a few days back. My body temperature soared to 104.5 degrees and refused to come down. One night, I had a terrible shivering fit. My entire body was shaking, I just couldn’t will it to stop, memories from my entire life flashed in a blur. I was scared, what was happening?

My blood counts were low, my white blood cells were at a stage where doctors said I could acquire any infection easily. I was diagnosed with dengue and admitted to the hospital. Horrid visions of blood transfusions gone wrong played out in my mind. Just how many stories had I done on the ‘window period’ in blood transfusion which means that no blood can ever be guaranteed to be safe? Plenty. And loads of others on patients dying from dengue. I felt too well-informed for my own good.

But while these visions were playing out in my mind, Death was waiting to strike someone else.

R and S came to see me in hospital on the first day. They had come to see me at home too once, bringing me flowers and chocolate. They fooled around, trying to cheer me up.

The next day, they were supposed to get K, T and other people with them. R called in the afternoon, I thought he was just telling me they had left college for the hospital, but no, he said his father had suffered some kind of a paralytic attack. By evening, he knew it was brain haemorrhage. Ten days later, his father passed away. He never came out of coma.

The entire week before, his mother had been unwell. His father had no hypertension history, but that day, his blood pressure was at 220/140.

It always seems to happen that way. When Nana took ill last year, we had all been worried about Nani and a couple of falls she had had on the street. We had doctors run the entire battery of tests on her and then the next thing I knew, on a chilly winter morning, I was rushing him to hospital with half his face collapsed and his sugar level at a measly 25. Thankfully, he survived.

I was having lunch when news of R’s father’s death arrived. He was on the phone, crying. S started crying too and ran off to the monastery nearby.

The entire week after that, I kept getting reminded of the incident which happened while I was working. One night, I was returning home in an auto when P called. I could barely hear her, but I think she said something about her month-old niece having cancer and that she had been rushed to AIIMS. I made the necessary calls to help them out and sat back and wondered. A month-old child with leukaemia? What about all those theories of lifestyle and pesticides and carcinogens in food etc? You carry a baby for the full term of nine months and the next thing you know it’s got one of the deadliest diseases possible. And medical science has no clues about it.

I was too scared of asking P about the baby for the next couple of days. Finally, I did. She said she had passed away on Karva Chauth day, soon after her mother broke her fast. It still makes me shudder with fear.

When an elderly person dies, Nana always calls it ‘lifecycle completion’, a term I really appreciate, for it so beautifully conveys the meaning of a life fully lived. But what do you say to a person when he loses someone still very much in the process of fulfilling his responsibilities? Life, and the events thereof teach you that there are no such words.

So even though my Diwali this year was dull as usual and quite boring, I decided that I had a lot to thank God for. I had recovered from dengue without needing a blood transfusion and the hospital stay was much better than I had expected it to be. Yes, I hated the IV drip and was absolutely helpless when the dengue rash started appearing. My body was so bloated that I couldn’t even get into my bra and I still find it difficult to climb stairs. But yeah, I am alive and more than thankful for it.

Random rubbish on Diwali eve

2007-11-08T04:41:00.001-08:00

It's the day before Diwali.

I am quite bored. I have no money and yet, I have an amazing urge to splurge. I just went and saw Jab We Met. All alone; which is some kind of a Diwali tradition with me. One year, I saw Mughal-e-Azam, another year it was Veer Zaara. And so off I went today. The moment I realises OSO tickets were available, I bought one of those as well for tomorrow.

Then I had a large popcorn in the interval. What's a movie without butter popcorn! While walking out, I picked up a Rs 20-burger as well. Came back to my room and wanted to order a pizza, thankfully the pizza guy refused to honour the coupon I had.

So, in my desperation I took the two tomato ketchup sachets that McD's had given me and started trying to tear them. I managed to have the first one (for the uninformed, I never ever have ketchup, but this is what hard times do to one). I couldn't tear the second one. I used my hands, then my teeth, then the two in combination, looked around for scissors couldn't find them, tried using my watch, didn't work. After 15 minutes, I succeeded.

I suspect it's the dengue which is making me do all this. First thing in the morning, I want water and lots of it. I feel like having juice all the time. And I want to eat meat all the time. And while the wishlist is on, I don't want to have anything to do with studies.

For those of you who don't know, I was in hospital with dengue for about three days. Missed college for about 10 days. But had the most amazing food there; loads of pineapple, pasta, Chinese, platefuls of chicken and yummy potatoes.

I had planned to read all the ET copies that I missed while I was sick. Instead, I have been gtalking, yahoomessengering, blogging and watching Friends on the lappy.

Time to get prepared for Diwali tomorrow. My annual Diwali routine consists of taking out the ghagra-choli that someone got me from Ahmedabad and wearing it on Diwali evening- each year, without fail. That's the only time I wear it actually. And then I pretend to enjoy lighting the crackers which my grandparents get. It entertains them. At 9 pm, we have dinner and then we go to sleep by 10.30. And yet another boring Diwali comes to an end. It makes me want to go back home and have a gala time like we used to when we were kids, but some journeys are rather difficult to undertake...

Kya aap shauch karte haiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin? (To be sung in the Close-up ad syle)

2007-07-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

He walked into my life exactly two weeks back. And since then, life has just not been the same.
Three days a week, I get up at 5 am just so I can meet him at 6. He's my yoga teacher.
And his idea of greeting us each morning is by asking us if we have done shauch (translated it means- have you shat?)
Understandably no one raises his or her hands on being asked who all haven't shat. He doesn't buy that. "Dekhiye aap sharmaiye mat. Pani pijiye aur peeche rest room hai, wahan jaake rest kar ke aayie." That, of course, is the best excuse for many of the guys to just get up and leave the session and turn up at the end, claiming to have utilised all the intervening time to try shauching.
It doesn't stop at that. Towards the end of the session, he makes us do shavaasan, which ensures that most of us sleep-deprived people just doze off. So that when he asks us to get up, half of us are snoring away. At which point he will walk up to people and say, "Oh Devdas utho bhaiya utho."
One fine day, he decided to undertake the responsibility of making all of us clear all the snot out of our systems. For this express purpose, he told us to purchase a khukki-wala lauta- a container with a spout. The deal for the lautas was brokered by him and he got us a price of Rs 30 for each lauta. No, I don't know how much his commission was. Students, of course, have their own style of dealing with him. Two weeks later, no one's yet paid for the lautas.

A new life

2007-07-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

My life's changed.
For one thing, I have moved on from playing with words to actually drawing up balance sheets. And that deserves to be a part of the seven wonders of the world! Apna keemti vote SMS karein 0000 par, turant. Lucky winner ko milega ek balance sheet.
Also, sleep is no longer a necessity for me. I don't think I have gone to bed before 3 am even once in the past fortnight and the latest that I have got up is 8. That, of course, is possible only on days when there is no early-morning yoga class.Today was one of those yoga days and so, i am actually sitting and writing this post at 7 am, after the yoga session. In my previous life, I had never known that this time of day actually existed.
The good thing is that after several years of studying and working in fields populated mostly by women and after having spent a considerable portion of my adult life asking other single women, "But where have all the men gone?", I have finally discovered the answer. They have come here. For an MBA.
There are a 100 of them as opposed to 17 of us. I wish I had learnt this secret earlier.
And oh, I finally have a laptop. Makes me feel hi-tech and all even though I still don't know how to write a proper report on MS Word.

Memories

2007-04-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

Mom and I got stuck in the lift on Wednesday evening. We had already reached the ground floor when there was some fluctuation in the voltage and the lift decided to go below the ground level. We remained there for more than 20 minutes. Fellow buildingwalas who wanted to use the lift started coming in and smiled at us through the windows. We smiled and waved back. There was something incredibly funny about being stuck in that void. For one thing, everybody seemed a lot taller (coz we were half-way down, but height is a permanent obsession with me). The second and more important thing was that it was one of those unforgettable Ranchi moments for me. It prompted me to think of a few more. These are not in any chronological order, nor are they all particularly hilarious, but will always mean to me the most indelible memories of the city that I was born in and where I spent the first 17 years of my life.

1. This one has to be the first. Power cuts have always been of a longer duration in Ranchi than power supply. One such power-less, muggy and mosquito-filled night when we were missing Chitrahar, I was standing in the balcony with my elder brother and his friend Manish. I was barely four. At that point of time in our life, power was a commodity essentially regulated by the man in the generator room, meant for the offices and streetlights. The room was separated from our buidling by a maidan. That night, we had had enough and we decided to take things into our own hands. Manish stood in the balcony, cupped his hands and shouted,"Generatorwale light de de." And immediately, the lights came on as did Chitrahar. For quite some time after that, we would often stand in the balcony and shout our lungs out in the foolish hope that the magic would work again.

It never did.

A few years later, Manish died in an accident.

2. This is about the day all of us in the building got (minor) electric shocks. Early in the morning, my mother complained that she had received an electric current while cleaning the washbasin. Within a few minutes, it was the kitchen sink. Then, the slab. Neighbours had received it from their clotheslines, some from their refrigerators, radios and other household appliances. Never having got one in my life, I too ventured into the kitchen and within a few minutes, my nerves had been jangled enough. All of us gathered in the corridors; an electrician was summoned and an hour or so later, we were told that there had been an 'earthing' problem. Phew!

3. We were the first ones in our colony to get a private telephone line in 1992 (what a historic year that was!) Till then, all important information related to births, deaths and marriages was conveyed to everybody in the buidling through Doctor Uncle's phone. Since he was a doctor, he had been provided a company phone. Sometimes, of course, we would go all the way up to the GPO to make STD calls.

Anyway, as soon as we got our phone, our neighbours decided that they had taken enough favours from the doctor and now it was our turn. One day, when I returned from school, I saw a call bell on a switchboard inside our house. I pressed it out of the curiosity and it started ringing three floors down- on the ground floor. Mom came running out and informed me that Suri uncle had got the bell installed so that each time their relatives called long-distance, we just had to press the bell. Of course, since we were power-less most of the time, we had a lot of stair-climbing to do.

4. Water was not as much of a luxury as power was, but it had its days. Tankers would come to our place. All of us kids would queue up with buckets and have a lot of fun, splashing the rationed water around.

5. A couple of weeks after I was done with my Class X exams, S called to ask if I would join H and him for a quiz. V and A were my usual quizzing partners, but I decided to go anyway. The quiz ended around lunch-time- we came second, I think. It was open to everyone so my brother was also there along with his college friends. The prize distribution was in the evening. I called up mom and asked her to pick us up in the evening. H and S went off to the latter's place nearby and my brother wnet off with his friends. I was sitting alone when two of my brother's female classmates came up to me. They introduced themselves as Abha and Rohini and we got talking. Abha, then, took us to her place for tea. As soon as I reached there, I realised that my chums had started and then began the great search for a sanitary napkin.

I, of course, didn't have any. Abha's mother was out and she had locked the cupboard that stocked the napkins. I had no money and they didn't have enough to buy a new pack, which used to cost more a decade back than it does now. So we headed out onto the streets, wondering what to do. I was raving and ranting. Abha decided to take me to the Mecon hospital. We went into the casualty. To ask for a napkin. No, they didn't have any. We were then directed to a stack of gauze and cotton by one of the nurses. I was confused and stopped short of telling them that I wanted a napkin, not raw material for a stuffed toy. Within a few minutes, however, Rohini managed to fashion it into something useable. I don't know if I ever thanked her enough.

6. Anthony sir taught us geography. He had a fun style of teaching. The Tropic of Cancer passes through a place called Tagore Hill in Ranchi. He wouldn't say that directly. Instead, he would dramatically narrate, "Children, yesterday, one of your seniors went on a picnic to Tagore Hill and started digging there for the Tropic of Cancer. After half an hour, he found a piece of wire and cam erunning to tell us he had found it." Almost as if on cue, we would all laugh. And the lesson had been learnt.

7. Saturdays were LPG cylinder days. A truck would arrive with hundreds of cylinders and we would all queue up for hours before that. Since it was my day off from school, I would take the empty cylinder and a piece of chalk with which we would distinguish our cylinders and head for the queue. On days when there was no chalk, we would used old rakhis for identification. Sometimes, whem mom or dad took forever to replace me, I would sit on the cyliner and read Nancy Drew.

8. Rekha Sahay (ever heard of her?) used to act in Circus those days. She also happened to be the wife of Jharkhand politician Subodh Kant Sahay, who was the I & B minister then.

One fine day, she came to our colony to campaign for him. A huge crowd gathered to see her and moved around with her as she delivered speeches. I joined them too. Everyone was taking her autograph. I had neither pen nor paper and I was barely tall enough to reach her waist. I handed her a paper with her hubby dearest's poll manifesto which she refused to autograph. Someone from the crowd took pity on me and handed me a piece of blank paper. She signed it: Love, Rekha Sahay. That's the only autograph I have taken in my life.

Hi

2007-04-14T00:53:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone (S, since you are the only one who reads my blog, everyone=you). I am in Ranchi and I have been meaning to do a post on it, but I feel too lazy. It feels good to be back home after a couple of years. Just sitting back and enjoying the lovely weather. I have been trying to study a bit, but it just feels weird to do so after a gap of four years. And the idea of having no income for the next couple of years is scary.
That's it, for now.

Growing Up

2007-01-04T03:23:00.000-08:00

Tears come naturally to me. I have cried in school, in college and yes, in office too.
I was in Delhi when my Class XII result was declared. I was staying with my uncle who had just shifted base from Pune and they were yet to get a landline. So my mum had rung up my aunt's place and then both my aunts arrived, with the result, to my uncle's place in the evening. They handed me a Post-It with my marks on it and I don't think I had gone beyond the first line before tears started rolling down my cheeks, thick and fast. R, 11 years younger, was the only person with me in the room and she held my hand and kept on saying with the innocence only a child can possess, "I will never study. I will become a dancer."
Despite her efforts and later my parents' over the phone (Uncle had returned from office with his cell), I cried for the next seven hours. In the morning, my eyes would hardly open, the left one having swollen to a potato's size. Dad, who was also in Delhi then, but at a different place, arrived around 10 and hugged me and told me not to worry.
I cried every night for the next two weeks. I was only 17 and staying away from home for the first time. Since I didn't have any privacy there, I would wait for everyone to fall asleep, then softly cry into the pillow.
My relatives didn't make it any easier with their comments. "Why don't you take up Home Science? That's the best subject for girls." Or "Why don't you join some translation course at IGNOU?''
Somehow, however, things worked out. I cleared the cut-off required to take the English entrance test at a decent college by a tiny margin of 0.25%. I got through.
Something similar happened yesterday. I surpassed my own expectations in two sections of an exam, but the third section was absolute disaster which just pulled my total down. When I first saw the marks, my heart sank, I could feel the tears welling up. I left my job, stayed at home for six months and now, this? I knew I was about to disintegrate.
But something happened as I was making my way up the stairs from the cyber cafe in the basement. I told myself that I would talk to my parents first without crying. I did. I spoke to my brother. I spoke to S, giggling and laughing.
I met up with S. She asked me if I had cried, I said I would probably do so at night.
At night, I reached home, told my grandparents amd then went into my room. Chatted again with S and M, discussed Hindi film songs from the 80s with the former and Kabul Express with the latter.
I finally went to bed around 1.30, but the tears didn't come. I thought about everything that had happened, I thought about my future, but I didn't cry.
And then I thought, perhaps, this not-so-good result may have done what 25 years of living hasn't- made me grow up.
I thought about what Mum said. You did your best and that was important. S said giving my job was a risk I had to take if I didn't want to have any regrets at 50. And Dad asked me to have faith in God. I do.

36,000 shaadis and God alone knows how many barbaadis

2006-12-08T23:10:00.000-08:00

Reports suggest that 36,000 weddings will take place on a single day in December in Delhi this year. Chew on it.
That means out of a population of 1.1 crore, 72,000 people will get married in Delhi on that day which entails 36,000 X 5 = 180,000 pre-and-post-wedding functions during that week (after all what's a shaadi in Dilli if it does not hasten your downfall towards bankruptcy!) And if an average of only 200 people attend each function (that's a rather small estimate), it will mean that 72 lakh people will be out on Delhi's streets on that day- which pretty much seems like a recipe for utter chaos and confusion. Commercially, even if each wedding costs only Rs 5 lakh, that would mean an expenditure of Rs 18 billion. Mind-boggling.
If you ask me though, the figure seems highly exaggerated and only a great figment of imagination of both journalists as well as that new breed of wedding planners who seem to be invading this city.
Newspapers report such stories with alarming regularity each year in the last week of November or early December. The intro to all such stories is the same, it inevitably starts with, "It's that time of the year again." Once they are through with explaining the wonderful alignment of stars which is the cause behind all those unions, they spin hyperbolic yarns of ghodis doing triple shifts, trotting from one wedding venue to another, of pandits being caught in traffic jams long after the mahurat is over, of the likes of Ambika Pillai making up 500 brides in an hour and other similar tales.
The number of weddings is suitably increased each year, in keeping with the media's penchant for exaggeration. When I started my career in 2003, one fine evening around 5 pm, I was told that the city would witness 14,000 weddings. When I asked some wedding planners, how they had arrived at that figure, they said it was an estimate arrived at by Chawri Bazaar traders since a majority of weddings cards are printed at this Chandni Chowk paper market. The bazaar traders, however, offer no such figures. Next year, someone decided to increase the figure to 17,000. The year later, they came up with two dates, on both of which 15,000-odd weddings were apparently held in the city.
This year, of course, will see the mother of all shubh mahurats with 36,000 weddings. But really, is that even possible? Does the city actually have so many people of marriagable age? And if so many people are getting married on that day, why are all my friends single?
Oh and for the record, I haven't got a single invite to a wedding on this mother-of-all-auspicious days...

Hernia's Hot But Periods Are Not

2006-12-06T04:46:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to write this for a while, but have been busy with other things. I suppose in some ways SR, it supplements your post on feminism. While most males (to the best of my knowledge) are rather uncomfortable with such issues, I would love to know what they think about it. So if anyone of you reads it, do send your feedback.
Good girls don't talk about their menstrual periods or the extreme pain quite often associated with it, and specially not in male company. Growing up, it's something you are always taught to hide. So much so, that nobody, not even schools, where adolescents spend most of their time, ever bother to ease the discomfort that puberty brings along for girls.
And so, even as girls start their chums at an increasingly younger age (9-10 is becoming the norm in metros like Delhi), many sadistic schools continue to persist with snow-white uniforms all through the year. It doesn't matter if you are bothered more about staining your skirt than about your classes during those four-five days, no one cares-after all, boys don't chum, do they?
The male reproductive system, on the other hand, is considered good material for polite dinner-table conversation. Men don't think twice about unburdening their prostate and hernia woes even when complete strangers are around (and I am not blaming the world at large, I have seen men in my own family do it), but when they have to refer to female reproductive ailments, an absolute hush descends on them.
All diseases exclusive to women are euphemistically referred to as "female diseases". When a woman has fibroids in her uterus or she suffers heavy bleeding, poor soul she has a female disease. When she suffers a miscarriage or undergoes an abortion, many just say,"Usko gadbad ho gaya hai," instead of referring to the condition.
Sanitary napkin ads are not to be viewed when elders or kids are around (even though they have come a long way from days of yore when Renuka Shahane of Surabhi fame used to embarrassedly tell us mujhe aapse kuch kehna hai, kaise kahoon?) It's not porn, is it? And it's not even as if either my grandfather or I are unaware of this process, but no, neither of us is comfortable watching it in the other's presence. I suppose it is a result of centuries of internalising certain ideas not something that will go away in a day.
Nothing, however, can explain why many families, even today, insist on keeping women out of religious areas and ceremonies and in extreme cases, even out of the kitchen when they are menstruating. So you don't want the entire world to know you are chumming, but when everyone's visiting the Durga Puja pandal, your mother will subtly signal you to stay back. Does anyone get anything out of this except embarrassing the poor girl/woman to death? I suppose in earlier days, women were considered "impure" while menstruating and hence, kept out of religious areas. But really, will God punish me just because I dare to worship Him (or is it Her?) while my body performs a perfectly normal function?

Long Road to Paradise

2006-12-05T03:49:00.000-08:00

Srinagar saw its first snowfall yesterday and a picture of people walking in the snow against the backdrop of the picturesque Zamran mountains has been carried on the front pages of both TOI and HT today. Looking at the pictures early morning transported me back to that Christmas Eve when I was finally able to visit Srinagar after almost 15 years.
I may have made bitching about my job my part-time profession, but there are some things I would never have been able to do without it - and visiting Srinagar was definitely my most memorable experience as a reporter (even though I never filed a story after the trip).
Four of us set out on a rather ill-organised trip arranged by the J&K government to the city of my origin on Christmas Eve. The Delhi sky was thick with fog that day and the flight was delayed by almost four hours. I was anxious- except for a brief two-day trip that my parents undertook in 1999, without telling any of us, no one from my family had dared go back to Srinagar since 1989.
The flight finally took off in the afternoon and we reached Srinagar in the evening. Getting down on the tarmac itself gave me an absolutely electric feeling. Now all I wanted was it to snow. Soon we were on our way to Sonmarg, which is a level below Gulmarg. As we moved through the city, I tried hard to recall memories from what seemed another era, when we would all come down to Srinagar for our summer vacation and spend a month there. Staring at those half-burnt houses, I wondered which one of them had once belonged to us.
But fifteen years is a long time. Was this the road which led to my house? Was this the lane which we used to go down to take those matadors? Is this the route which we took to the Mughal Gardens? Unfortuantely, there was no one to answer my queries. How I wished dad had come along!
At Sonmarg, my wish finally came true. As we got down to change vehicles to begin the long climb up the winding road to Gulmarg, it started snowing. I promptly put on my gloves and jumped into the snow like a little girl, much to the embarrassment of the others. Despite wearing several layers of clothing and a six-feet long overcoat, I was completely frozen. As it was getting dark, my snow-adventure had to be cut short.
Halfway through the climb, our vehicle almost skidded into the ravine. We stopped and tried to get out of the car. Unfortunately, sports shoes are no good in such weather. We kept falling and slipping on the snow. Finally, we made our way away from the edge of the road. The driver struggled with the vehicle for a along time before declaring that we could go no further. He had forgotten to put chains around the tyres and without the chains, we would slip into the ravine within seconds.
Stranded on that mountain road, halfway between Sonmarg and Gulmarg, a thought occurred to me. May be I was destined to die in Kashmir. Gulmarg was still a couple of kilometres away and it had taken us 10 minutes to just cover the width of the road. Our driver left us there with all our luggage and went off. Using all my rudimentary Kashmiri skills, I tried to get somebody to take us up to Gulmarg. But all these years of terrorism have made Kashmiris a suspicious lot. Everybody refused. The four of us tried to walk but in a situation where one just doesn't know where the ground beneath all that snow is, we made slow progress. Without any cellphones and with everybody around looking at us supcisiously, we just didn't know what to do, except drag our suitases and ourselves in the snow.
Suddenly, a car with an official who had earlier refused to help us and gone down the road to Sonmarg about 15 minutes back, returned and offered to take us to Gulmarg. I was, afterall, not going to die on Christmas Eve.
Gulmarg seemed straight out of a pictrure postcard. There was just snow, snow and more snow. And even though from a distance it's an awesome sight, trying to walk in it, is absolutely not. We trudged up to our hotel on a hilltop and quickly changed for the official dinner. We inched our way down to the ski slopes where the skiiers were ready for take-off. Each one with a flaming torch in his hand, whizzed past us, down the slope and into the dark Gulmarg night. Looking at those tiny dots of light in the vast emptiness of the snow-clad expanse seemed just surreal.
Soon, it was tiem to head back to our hotel where I requested the waiter to get me some Kahwa and sheermal (sweet kashmiri bread). Sitting back in my room, enjoying the combined warmth of the coal bukharis and the electric blankets, I stared at the pine trees outside. No cellphones. No landlines either with the entire region being cut off due to some fault. No TV. Just snow all around and some wonderfully hot kahwa and sheermal in my hands. So what if I almost died on my way up there, I truly did experience paradise on earth that day.

Tagging along

2006-09-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

Essar absolutely insists that I respond to her tag so without much ado, let me start...

I am thinking about...
A lot of things actually... About Shashi Tharoor. Not because of this entire UN hungama, but because of one of his short stories from 'Five-Dollar Smile'. The story talks about a writer and how he writes about all the people he interacts with, the friends he dines with, the women he has relationships with, the doctors who treat him, etc and how people end up becoming wary of interacting with him. Of late, each time I have a converstaion with AB and Essar, I get the same feeling: that I will next read about it on a blog. So, one of these days, and the day will come very soon (both of you be warned), I am going to blog about the conversations you have with me. AB, that includes the SOS messages I got from you yesterday and SR, I don't need to tell you what I am going to blog about (1-17, in case you still didn't get it!).
Am also wondering about a piece on mass hysteria that I read in HT the other day. It started off by talking about the Mahim meetha pani controversy, briefly touched upon Delhi's monkey man menace a few years back among other things before moving onto something called the Kuru (or Buru or some such epidemic) some decades back in the Far East. Men, ahem, were led to belive that a certain important part of their anatomy would shrink into their bodies as a result of the disease and the year 1937 saw hundreds of men rushing to doctors with their equipment held up by chopsticks to prevent it from shrinking into the body. Are people actually foolish enough to believe such a thing? I don't know, but I wonder.
Am also thinking about some of the wonderful serials starting on TV. The other day, I saw thsi hoarding at Nehru Place which declared 'Ladke vansh chalane ke liye hote hain aur ladkiyan seelai machine' , an ad for some new soap. Arrey bhai, ladkiyan sirf seelai machine chalayengi, to it's highly unilkely ki vansh aage chalega. Itna bada poster lagane se pehele soch to liya hota.

I said...
All men are bastards. I don't think the men I say it to appreciate my sentiments very much.

I refuse...
To do the same old ghisa-peeta stuff that people have done before me.

I want to...
Take a vacation, eat prawns, become thin and have more hair on my head than on my chin...

I wish...
I could go to Italy next week.

I hear...
Every little thing that people tell me, but I do only what I want to do.

I wonder...
If I could have been brought up in a different city... Would that have made a difference to what I am today?

I regret...
Lots of decisions but I have learnt my lessons from them.

I am...
Very different from what I am usually perceived to be.

I dance...
Only when I am at home. The music usually plays out in my head and then I dance...

I sing...
Rarely.

I cry...
Whenever I feel sad. And whenever I have a horrible argument or fight. Instead of getting aggressive and shouting my lungs out, I usually start crying coz I just hate to lose my temper.

I make with my hands....
These days, it's only Sunfeast pasta. And I have promised myself to go back to all the embroidery and knitting I used to do one of these days.

I write...
Apart from work, rarely.

I confuse...
Between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon though they both are no longer in the news (or at least as much as they used to be earlier.)

I need...
A DVD player (Yes, yes, I am a practical person). So AB and Essar, pool in and buy me one for my birthday. After all, we will not even be in the same city this time, next year.

Dhoni aur meri kahani (!)

2006-08-10T05:44:00.000-07:00

Mahender Singh Dhoni and I were batchmates at school. I discovered that he too passed out of DAV-JVM in 1999 after reading an interview of his. But then there were 5,000 students in that school and I was there for only two years so I never saw him (after all he had neither long nor coloured hair at that point of time).
It was a surpise then when I happened to catch up with a batchmate after seven years and she told me that she had met him outside her home. He stays in Mecon which is where DAV-JVM is located. So she tells me, "Remember how all of us who were short of attendance used to have these extra classes close to the Board exams? He was also with us in that class." He was? I have no such recollection. She had been very unwell that summer and had missed the entire first term. Dhoni had been too busy with his cricket and I had just been plain lazy and hence, we were all short of attendance. The one constructive thing I could have done while sitting in those awful classrooms (since studies were not really my cup of tea) was too have struck up a friendship with him, par woh bhi nahi...
Dhoni has to be the only redeeming feature of that school where each one of the teachers was quirkier than the other and where students got good marks despite the teachers, not because of them.
The school's philosophy was simple. It was at that time just about the only school which had Classes XI and XII affiliated to the CBSE. So it would short-list all the students with 90% and above (and put them in with all the nincompoops who had studied there since KG) and at the end of two years claim, what wonderful students it had produced.
A post will perhaps not be able to do justice to the quirkiness of the teachers there, each one of them worse than the other, but I must attempt it. Here goes: Let me start with the principal Ram Iqbal who was never quite there. In my two years there, I saw him only a handful of times. He looked more like a sarkari babu in his safari suits than an educationist, but that's how things were there.
Next in line was D R Singh who started the assembly with a juggling act in one of my first weeks at the school. For a few mintes, I was left wondering if I had joined a new school or come to the new circus in town.
There was S N Thakur, whose girth would make boys discuss endlessly if he was carrying quintuplets. His son (don't remember his name) used to study with us and was the dumbest guy I have ever seen. His pet name was Mithu and that's what most teachers would call him (Come to think of it, he looked like a parrot too, but alas unlike a parrot, never ever opened his mouth).
Then, of course, there was S Roy who would walk around the entire class like he had a pendulum in his body and just say, "Shallow! Shallow! Your knowledge is very shallow.'' He never did anything to make it deeper, but then...
His namesake Ms S Roy was slightly better but only used to talk about Rockefeller's daughter having married a butcher (she could have married a gay man, frankly, do you care? I didn't and still don't.)
Our class was rather unfortuante in having children of two teachers among us. Apart from Mithu, there was Deepika, Chaubey's daughter. Chaubey is immortal. As is the apocryphal stories about how he had once told a student, "First you were lying with principal, now you are lying with me." Unfortunately, even when he let out gems such as, "Open the windows and let the atmosphere come inside,'' we couldn't laugh as Deepika darling used to sit right in front of us.
So, seven years after having left DAV and having tried my best to forget every single memory associated with that school, I suddenly find myself trying very very hard to remember which one of those guys was Dhoni. But try as I might, I have only a vague recollection... Even so, I am happy to finally have one positive memory associated with DAV.
I went to school with Dhoni and these days, that statement seems to command a lot of attention. I am not telling anyone that I didn't see him there (and you guys keep shut too, ok?)...

Tol mole ke bol

2006-08-05T23:22:00.001-07:00

Moles are in news these days, thanks to Jaswant Singh's Call to Honour. And the brouhaha over the entire issue has brought moles of a slightly (actually, vastly) different kind into focus for me. As a child, I used to love them. I would sit and count them and get really excited whenever a new one would make its appearance. I had about 14 of them to begin with, and I would keep on praying to God to send some more.
And send, he did. By the bucketful, if I may say so. At last count, I had 27 of them on my face alone.
When I was about seven, I got one on the index finger of my left hand and everyone would tell me how that would make me rich. I was quite excited at the thought of a mere mole bringing in the moolah. Experience, however, has made me realise that the theory is not quite true. I probably have more moles per square inch of skin than anyone else in this part of the world and yet, my finances (or the lack of them) are nothing to write home about.
I never really paid much attention to them as an adult, but the other day when a photographer sent me my picture, I realised that moles are all I could see. Now, I have been thinking about them for quite some time and am wondering how to make them diasppear. Yesterday, a column by a new-age guru which said that people with moles were highly-respected in ancient societies caught my eye and so it was with a great deal of expectation that I started reading it. There has to be some comfort to compensate for their over-abundance, I thought.
After going through the entire column, it turned out out I have them all at rather insignificant locations. The one on my finger too has begun to fade so whatever little hopes I had nurtured of its resurrection, have also got to be given up.

8 by 52 or is it?

2006-06-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

Of late, I have had a feeling that my blog name may well end up being redundant. I don't feel I belong to this world.
8 * 52 seems to restrict me to a strangely incestuous world of mediocre people where everybody knows everybody, is married to somebody but is seeing somebody else and where anybody who is half-way decent is a nobody.
I think I have seen enough in my three years as a journalist and I feel an urgent need to move on, before life passes me by.
There used to be this restaurant in CP (it still exists I think) called 'Don't Pass Me By', tucked away behind one of those buildings which stand between Shivaji Stadium and Janpath. It used to sell Chinese. I had passed it by several times as a college student. One day as I was wrapping up some work in CP (which consisted of my friend Ninon augmenting her collection of MBs), we passed the place again. This time, we couldn't pass it by. We went in and had chowmein - she had chicken and since I used to be vegetarian back then, I had veg chow. For a neat sum of Rs 30, both of us had a sumptuous Chinese meal.
A good six years later, that place seems to haunt me each day as I head to office, still debating with myself whether I should give up my job as a reasonably well-established journo and pursue further studies or just continue here (It's the brand, people will tell you, the name sells, how can you just give it up?). Gradually, however, I am beginning to feel life will pass me by if I continue and suddenly, one day I will be 35 and still running after peons of pompous bureaucrats, begging them for an appointment. Will I want to do it at 35 or 45 or 55? Will I have the stamina, the energy or the drive to do so ? I don't think so. My enthusiasm seems to be flagging already and whatever little English language skills I have, seem to be getting eroded with each passing day.
The daily grind of churning out something newsworthy also seems to be taking its toll.
And so, I have decided that I need a break. And that it's time I gift myself one.
So, it's bye-bye to the world of 8 * 52, at least for now. Will I make a comeback? I don't know. Will I actually be able to go ahead and sever my ties with what has been my world for more than three years now? Frankly, I don't know that either.
What I know is that I want to get back to a normal life, where I can get up at an earthly hour, leave office well before a time when there are only dogs on the streets, stop commuting all over the city so much so that autowallahs now give me special discounts, switch off my cell phone, at least during the night and not take official calls at 2 am.
I want to have an off on a Sunday and I want to enjoy my life. That's not too much to ask for, is it?

Of falling hair and canine nomenclature

2006-06-08T05:30:00.000-07:00

I went to a haircare expert yesterday. A friend had recommended her to me, telling me in great detail about her tonics and hair packs. And in my mind that led to the creation of an image of this diva with Rapunzel-like hair, running a hair-spa in the posh environs of Safdarjung Enclave.
I finally reached there and my impressions were shattered. My entry was marked by great whoops of joy from a 60-something woman with completely unmanageable curly hair. Apparently all the women in her family are as tall as yours truly. The accent was as Bihari as it gets. She repeatedly said chau instead of che or six. She also kept on referring to her servant as baua, which is Bihari for a kid of the male kind. Her teeth were paan-stained. If there were any doubt in mind, half-an-hour later, it was removed with madame telling me that she hails from Darbhanga. Her husband from some other sleepy village closeby. Btw, he wasn't present because he was away in Sitamarhi.
As I sat there with my hair looking as if an oil-slick hit it, a dog arrived out of nowhere. Now, I have a morbid fear of canines and I immediately raised my legs onto the sofa. And heard Bihari aunty say, "Cookie, nooooo...'' Apparently, she has another one called Dan.
And that set me thinking. Why is that most pet dogs in India have such anglicised names? Is keeping a pet still looked upon as a privilege of the upper middle class and therefore it has to have an angrezi name?
Or is it coz of the umpteen Bollywood movies with dogs called everything from Johnny to Tuffy? Or is it because calling them Om, Virk and Hari instead of Tom, Dick and Harry is just not the same thing?
My thoughts took me back in time to Ranchi. The year was 1990. My mom's cousin had arrived there in 1989 and they used to live near our place. Their landlords, the Prasads, used to live on the ground floor while my uncle used to live on the first floor. In 1990, they decided to keep a dog and the name given to it was Rocky. Raaaaaaaki, Prasad aunty would sing.
As a child, of course, I hadn't quite internalised the concept of all dogs must have English names or that several English names are looked upon as exclusively canine.
So one day, sitting at a neighbour's place, I turned to my parents and told them that I didn't like my name. And that I would really like it if they renamed me Tommytikki. I thought that was a really cool name (In my defence, I have to say I was only four). All the adults present there, naturally, thought otherwise.
Anyway, after a long, rambling and a pretty-much meaningless post throughout which I have been thinking really hard, I have finally managed to recall one pet dog with an Indian name.
It was the last dog my neighbour's got. It was called Chuk-chuk and I think that made it sound cuter than all the Tommys I have known in a quarter of a century of my existence.

Aaiye sunte hain mausam ka haal

2006-05-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

It's as old as the dinosaurs. The latter may have been wiped away from the face of the earth ages ago, but the Met office continues to function out of its prehistoric setting next to the defunct airport.
Essentially, the office makes do with three forecasts for the entire year. It can either be a
- partly cloudy sky with chances of duststorms/thunderstorms and squalls in some areas or
- mainly clear sky. Maximum temperature will be around 40 degrees Celsius or
- cloudy sky. Mist/fog in the morning, minimum temperature will be around 10 degrees Celsius
The temperature outside may dip to 0.2 degrees Celsius as it did on January 8 this year or soar to 44.5 degrees as it did only last week, but don't expect the Met department to forecast anything to that effect.
The day they forecast rain, you can be sure as hell, it won't.
So that the next day when you call up, they will always tell you that it was a 'sudden' development. Never mind, if the BBC and Yahoo websites seem to get it right weeks in advance, sitting a few continents away.
That, of course, happens only when they deign to talk to you. On an ordinary day, you will have to call up those bunch of semi-literate paan-chewing men at least five times before you can get through to the duty officer (their names are more secret than state secrets and are not to be revealed). The perennial favourite among DOs is Mandola ji (Sorry ji for making your name public). DOs don't drink water. They only have chai. "Madame, yahaan canteen nahi hai. INA jaake chai peeni padti hai, itni thand/garmi hai, kya karein,'' is the usual response. By the end of it all, you are left wondering if the man has a couple of gallons of tea each day.
On some really exciting days, I actually get to go there. It's nothing short of a pilgrimage. It always starts with the weatherman (Mr Singh, I swear to god, we love you) smiling at me and showing his golden teeth. That always leaves me wondering about them for the rest of the meeting - does he paint them? Do his teeth have gold caps or is it just Babool toothpaste gone bad? (I secretly wish he sits and explains this mystery to me some day). Just as he has painstakingly told me about western disturbances and upper air cylonic circulations, which are apparently the only two meteorological phenomena that occur in India. In winter, everything - the cold, the rain and the fog is thanks to the WD. And in summer, everything- the heat, squalls and storms - is because of the saisar (short for cyclonic circulations, bet you didn't know that!) . For everything else, it suffices to say that the weather is a very dynamic phenomenon. What it certainly isn't is scientific coz these people have only one run-down comp and all the work is done manually.
Of late, however, things have not been too great between me and sweet Mr Singh. On Holi, we carried a story on rain and one of my bosses added a 'notorious' before the weatherman. Mr Singh is fuming. He thinks notorious is a gaali so what if he can't even pronounce the word properly (notororious is how he says it). Two months later, he still isn't talking to me.
So these days, I go by what my instinct tells me. If it's slightly cloudy, I go for the first forecast and if it's sunny, I go for the second. I am glad to report that I am as (in)accurate as they are because as you know by now, the weather is a very dynamic phenomenon.

Men and dogs not allowed

2006-05-06T02:16:00.000-07:00

There are several apocryphal stories related to the legendary rivalry between St Stephen's College and it's so-called poor cousin across the road. Each year, around the admission season, they are back in circulation. One of the annual favourites is the story about how when Stephen's put up a notice which said dogs and Hinduites not allowed, Hindu responded by saying dogs allowed, but not Stephanians.
Though I am no great Stephen's fan, I am beginning to feel an urgent need for carrying a similar placard around wherever I go. Men and dogs, stay away.
Since it's quite cumbersome go gallivanting around the city and meet sundry sources while carrying such a placard, alas, I am unable to convey my feelings to the world at large and to men in particular.
So this past week, everybody - from colleagues in office to perfect strangers - have thought it their moral duty to ask me about my marital status and more importantly, my plans of acquiring one.
Starting with a senior colleague who SMSed me last Saturday telling me that a fellow journo, who happens to hail from the same state as I, wanted to meet me. But we met at a colleague's wedding, I said. That's why he wants to meet you, explained the colleague. Verrry nice guy, decent too and from the same state. Thanks, but no thanks, I said. What followed really got my goat. Shaadi ke liye fit hai...You must give it a thought coz I am telling you and I think well of you...
A man saw me at a wedding in December 2004, exchanged one line of conversation with me and then proceeeded to puff away and 18 months later, he thinks he has (but naturally) progressed to becoming The Chosen One. Anyway, I managed to wriggle out of this somehow.
Only to have another colleague ask me two days later when I was planning to get married. Not right away, may be a couple of years later, I said and thought the matter would end there. But no, the said guy, who happens to be four years older and is still nowhere close to getting hitched proceeded to lecture me on how when I want to get married, I will find only dirty, old men.
That night when I got into the office cab, an acquaintance who works in the same building, started telling me about the spanking new car that he's bought. All downpayment, no EMI, blah... So when are you getting married? Well, hello, I thought we were talking automobiles. I was completely exhausted by then and had absolutely no reply to offer. So I pretended to look out of the window and act as if I am deaf in my left ear... I am glad to announce it worked.
It didn't end at that. I was on an assignment on Friday and needed a doctor's help to get into a ward. Said doctor also turned out to be from the same state. Helped me get in, I got the details, thanked him and was about to leave when he started off... Actually, the guard was asking me about you, so I siad you are my fiance, he declared. Dream on, bastard, I felt like saying, but couldn't (my sense of propriety crops up at the most inopportune moments). What followed was a nightmare. Are you married? No, I screamed. Why don't you have some coffee with me? No, I have realllly got to go, I said and hid myself behind some OB vans (Thank heavens for Aaj Tak and its huge vans).
Is it a surprise then that I want the men to stay away, miles and miles away?
And oh, about the dogs - I think I am allergic to them. But lesser than I am to men.

Yesterday, once more

2006-04-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

It's not every day that I wake up at 4.45 am. Well, today happened to be one of those rare days (rarer than a blue moon, I can assure you). I was required to speak to a whole lot of schoolchildren and that took me back to the time when I was a school girl myself. When I inevitably used to miss my bus as my hair took forever to plait (my parents never let me get it cut. In fact, women at beauty parlours would refuse to touch it saying it was too thick. Alas, now, it is no thicker than a rat's tail). Most days, my mother would be still combing my hair when the bus would start honking. I clearly remember this winter day when I was late again and I just put on my scarf over my hair which had been plaited the previous day. Despite all this, however, school was fun. Loads of fun. In fact, the last couple of years were the best. We had a favourite tree which we used to swing from every day. It was near the Kho Kho ground and soon it became the Kho Kho tree for us. Before our farewell, I climbed pretty high on it and made a fool of myself by posing on the tree and getting photographed. My other favourite corner was the one with the huge old pipe which we used to enter from one end and come out at the other and shout our lungs out while doing that. Then there was Manghi - our school peon - none of us can forget him. We would request him to ring the bell early and he would pretend to oblige. Every time he came in with a notice, our hearts would swell with the anticipation of another surprise holiday. We used to have a picnic each year when we used to head off to the most wonderful places like Panchghat, Triveni, Sico and Horap Forest. In Class X, we headed out of the state and that was some fun. We went to Orissa for four days during which time I spent a princely sum of Rs 25 to buy a huge hat. That's it. That was the only thing I bought from Orissa and yet I was on top of the world for days after that. Things have changed. On an ordinary weekend in Delhi, I spend anything in excess of Rs 500-Rs 1,000 yet I seldom feel happy. I miss my family, the friends I grew up with and the city I was brought up in. And Manghi.

But how can you?

2006-04-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

Is it too big a deal if I quit my job without having got another? Frankly, to me, at this age, it isn't. I plan to study some more, get a decent job where I am able to interact with people who have a measuarble IQ and earn some big bucks. Not remain stuck in a place where I have to deal with people who think marital and martial are two words that can be used interchangeably. Or where some sub-editors have been known to ask questions like - what is load-shedding? Ahem, it's what happens to you when you join a weight-loss programme at VLCC. Or better still - It's a pubic disgrace- god, somebody forgot to put in a much-needed 'l'. But in my three-year career, I think this one's the best. There was this guy called M Rama Jois. One fine day in 2003, he was made the governor of Bihar or Jharkhand, don't remember which one. A woman at a newspaper I earlier used to work for changed the copy received from Bihar and referred to the former Supreme Court bigshot as a woman all through the copy. The next day she got a note from the editor which asked a rather simple question. Who's the ignoramus who performed the sex change operation on this man? That had the employees scared for a while till the next blooper of Jackie Chan, the great 'marital' expert came to town. Is it a wonder then that I want to quit this profession, job or no job? I guess not.
But every single person I talk to asks me, "But how can you think of doing that without another job in hand?" Today, I had a major argument with a superior and though usually I am the most calm person around, I really lost it. And screamed at him. Really SCREAMED. And am feeling much better now. But I think this has pretty much made me make up my mind. If I don't get a job within the next couple of weeks, I am going to quit anyway.

Open Wider Please

2006-04-10T04:47:00.000-07:00

So I got braces at age 24. Yes, I feel as if my mouth is full of marbles every time I talk. And I do end up creating a lot of artificial rainfall (meaning saliva showers) whenever I open my mouth. I can have only cornflakes for breakfast (that takes me back to horrid school days when I had to have milk and cornflakes at 6 am before running out to catch the bus with only half my hair plaited, but I digress). For lunch and dinner, I can have only have rice with curds. Bad enough I don't have access to anything that requires the least bit of chewing (God, that rules out chocolates, popcorn, chips, biscuits - how am I going to survive?) and my colleagues only make it worse.
I had my superior asking me for an exclusive story - apart from your braces, he said and laughed like a donkey. I had others laugh away at me when my teeth were hurting like hell and my lips had become absolutely sore.
Over the weekend, I felt I was getting used to it and was feeling much better.
And now today, my silly colleagues tell me that my braces have gone yellow. "They (your yellow braces) are a shock," said a colleague helpfully. I said may be, it's the haldi in our food, can't help it. It will colour the plastic. I noticed it too, said anotehr, but I didin't say anything. Great, I said.
So here I am in blogland looking for a shoulder to cry on, to help me through the next 6-12 months that these devices will be in my face.
I suppose I could turn around and tell my colleagues that my braces may look yellow, but your teeth ARE yellow and a very deep shade at that. But that wouldn't be me. So I guess I will just keep shut and wait for the day when they come off. And hopefully then, I will have the last laugh, pun totally intended.

Panditji Bataye Na Byah Kab Hoye?

2005-10-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Bhojpuri films are in vogue these days. Staying in south delhi, where you need to cough up Rs 150 each time you want to catch a fillum, I hadn't quite realised that. Today, I had to go to Shahdara. And as always happens with my trips to east Delhi, I was transported to another world. Where there is an entire township underneath the two-kilometre flyover over the railway line. People live here, use punctured tyre tubes as swings, sit and sell khaini (tobacco) and then go and watch Bhojpuri movies in the evening. The world is a flat place, yes, and nowhere is it more obvious than in the complete Biharisation of the world. So most of the people living in Shahdara sport an accent straight from Laloo-land.
Anyway, as I was trudging along in that two-hour marathon auto journey, I came across some interesting film posters. Daroga babu, I love you was one of them (for the uninitiated, daroga refers to a cop). Another gem: Panditji bataye na byah kab hoi. The latter had Naghma, she of Saurav Ganguly fame, as one of the lead actors. Ravi Kisshen, who flopped miserably in Hindi films, is apparently minting money in Bhojpuri cinema and is the lead actor in Panditji...
On returning to office, I happened top go through the latest issue of Outlook. A story on Bhojpuri in the magazine made me feel as if Bollywood will soon be rechristened Bhojpuriwood. Aby's baby is acting in one. So is Hema Malini. Dileep Kumar is producing one. AB himself will do a guest appearance in another.
Remember how Sujit Kuamr, that flop Hindi film actor found his calling in Bhojpuri cinema? After having been the butt of hundreds of jokes all these years, perhaps, he will sit back now and have the last laugh.

The Story Unfolds

2005-10-02T05:41:00.000-07:00

I must explain the alphanumeric term that's the title of my blog. I am a reporter with a newspaper and have the slightly unenviable task of bothering what to churn out for the eight columns and 52 cm of newsprint each day. Of course, I get paid for it, so I had better not crib.

On the other hand, let me think of some really exciting times I've had as a journo.
1. Interviewing Mallika Sherawat when she was a nobody: Well, actually I went to interview Himanshu Mallik, thr rather unfortunate hero of Khahwish who couldn't do much for his career despite kissing her 17 times in the movie. Judging by my slightly awkward manner, he realised I had not been at it for a very long time. Asked me how long I had been in the profession. Me being me, counted audibly on my fingers and said, "12 days". He didn't know what hit him. I mean the number of kisses in his movie was more than the number of days my short career had seen.
Ms Sherawat turned up, fashionably late, and asked me if i had seen the latest copy of Elle. Well, I hadn't so for my benefit she was carrying it. They have compared me with Bridgette Bardot she gushed. I tried to look suitably awe-struck. It was my first-time at a 5-star hotel, but I had a bad tummy. And I ended up having tea (which i don't ever have under normal circumstances) with them.
PS: What made my day was when Himanshu picked up the lemon slices which were wrapped in some kind of a net and thinking them to be cookies tried to nibble at them. ha Ha. So much so for professing the joys of having lemon tea.

2. My meetings with the company chairperson: Have always been eventful. The first time, I was asked to sit away from the chairperson because I had a cold. The assistants constantly pushed my chair back till I thought I was sharing space with the plaster in the wall behind.
The second time, I was asked to interview a man who was 228 years old. So I was asked how many spiritual personalities I had interviewed. For want of a better answer, i mumbled Rani Mukherjee. It didn't go down too well. I thanked my stars I hadn't blurted out Mallika Sherawat.
The third time, I was asked if I was able to understand the proceedings of the meeting. After I nodded, the chairperson thoughtfully proceeded to ask me if I was a communist. I looked bewildered.. Ummm...Excuse me? The assistant expalined: Coz u r wearing a red top. Is it any wonder then that the state of newspapers today is what it is?

3. Interviewing Barfani Baba: He's 228 or so he claims. Well, in all my innocence, I decided to believe him. And proceeded to ask him about his experiences of the 1857 revolt. May be I could beat Ketan Mehta and produce the real story of the Rising in double quick time with thuis guy's help. No reply. Sir, did you see Rani Laxmi Bai ever? No reply. Well, Mahatma Gandhi. Not quite. Where did you spend all these years? "Actually, the training that he acquired was at this virtual school in Tibet, you have to meditate hard to get there,'' explained an assistant.
Well, these are the top three. There are so many more that I can think of, but they will have to wait for another day. Perhaps that's when I shall regale you with stories of going to Durgapuri (believe me it's in Delhi) and trying to watch out for tigers at Ranthambhore with a toothless and weaponless guard, or taking a tonga ride to the station, or being handed a two-rupee coin by a photographer to use the sulabh shauchalaya at Bharatpur. Aren't you jealous already?

Chapter 1

2005-10-02T04:04:00.000-07:00

As I take my first tentative steps into the blogging world, I am reminded of Bappi Lahiri's daughter Reema Lahiri. Her debut album Little Star was released sometime in the 80s. It was one of the first cassettes I possessed as a kid. And proud papa Lahiri introduced his daughter lovingly and said, "Sangeet ki duniya main ushka poila kadam...Aapka aashirwad dein...'' People did showers their blessings by the bucketful one assumes because Reema went on to sing beautiful songs like Old Mac Donald had a farm eeya eeya o, o ho ho, o ho ho, o eeya eeya o. And displayed a lot of humility by screaming I am a Little Star, little star, Main hoon little star... Oh and one more: Garmiyon ki chuttiyon main ghoomne ko jaayenge, papa ne promise kiya, kashmir woh dikhayenge, pa pa pa, pa pa pa.

I hope I get the requisite aashirwad from you people and I certainly hope my blogging career lasts slightly longer than her singing career did.

PS: Did you know she has brother too? He's called Bappa Lahiri and trust me he's definitely a chip of the old block. Also, Reema happens to be Bollywood queen Rani Mukherjee's childhood friend and got married last year to some firang Bong. She's not little anymore though. Twice my size and I am 80 kg.