Jee ka Janjaal

Anshu recently uploaded this picture in her album.
Of course, most of u have guessed right. I am at bottom left. With the face made like that,
many feel I haven't changed over the years. Even i don't feel so. The only ting that changes in me is sometimes my cheeks are semi-chubby and sometimes they are fallen. I guess my worst look was 2004-2005, and thankfully not many pictures were clicked that year. Hehhehe, this is fun, narcissism as nobody ever reads this stuff.

Anyway more about the picture in question. Its taken in 1985, annual function of Shishu Niketan, my KG school. I was in KG 1, around 3 years old. It still surprises me that I remember so many things about it. The song was "Jee ka Janjaal mora bajra layo re". I can actually go on singing quite a bit but i don't remember a word or 2 in every line.
Envy was something i had developed form that time only. I still remember, the dance was like each pair of boy and girl are standing in a 'C' shape in the stage and one pair was in the center. That was the girl in red and white and Kunal (top right). I think i envied them.
Also I was very proud of the headgear. It was a flower made of stick and paper. Of course, I did have an eye on the girls headset also, a bunch of bangles, done like a buddha type knot. Wonder how our teachers got such wierd ideas.
I used to dance well till I was 5-6. Dad n mom tell me, I was so impressed in the Tanjavur or Madurai temple complex that I had actually started dancing much to the embarrassment of my bro, who was 8 then and I was 3.
It also makes me sad now as to what I have made of me. I had been a good dancer, I sang for a winning group song team (Nanha Munna Rahi hoon), I have done numerous plays, won many prizes in poem recitations. I even did well in athletics till 3rd 4th standard. There has been a steady decrease in my interests in pursuing them, much like an RC circuit discharging graph, or is it just y=1-x. God, what remains in my life is justa bunch of mathematics :(




Ooops, i thought i would end the blog on a sad note, but then I really don't like to end things badly. So here we go, I promise i will do some creative stuff in future. (Not writing more blogs and reading more books) because this is what is left in the hobbies field for me .

UP Elections

Haah. Finally I may be one of the first ones to voice my opinion about the UP elections. Well not exactly the first, because I guess the best one is Sagarika Ghosh's. I hope my other favourite, Bachi Karkaria also comes up with something equally witty.
But here is what I think. I observed this in National elctions 2004 as well and now here. Isn't exit polls really messing up with the mindset of people? Showing early leads in the first rounds of eletions surely affects the minds of the voters. Who will want to vote for a loser. So the end may be either they vote whoever is gaining, or they just don't vote, both way hampering the performance of the losing party.
Well does not mean that I am an SP or BJP supporter. Absolutely not, on the other hand, a party who's second in command get himself busy over a wedding, don't deserve to win. Worse was the way elections were won, religion and castes. I mean even elections in Northeast, orissa and West bengal (well ofcourse the 3 geographies have their own meaning, North east or their virtual disconnectivity form the rest of India(sadly though), Orissa for their backward west region and west bengal for teh reason that they dont need to fight there, it is a one party state) are fought fo developement. In Karnataka, AP, they fought it for agriculture and all. In gujrat, they fought for developement, didnt even try to appease the minority. Even Bihar fought for developement. But the UP one, really disgusting.
Anyway, better spend more time on teh Sagarika blog than this :)

This and that

Something terrible is happening. It has been 4 times since I attempted writing a blog but all 4 times I stopped halfway. I thought of writing about some incidents during my brother’s marriage, thought it was personal. I thought of writing about the Abhi-Ash wedding, but then everybody was writing about it. I thought of writing about koffee with karan, but the rakhi sawant episode really put me off. Finally I thought about just writing some random things coming to my mind, but really nothing came to my mind.

Seriously this time also, I really have nothing to write, and am not a person who keeps on writing just for the sake of it, but still I felt better write some crap than be totally out of touch.

Anyway let’s see what things have kept me engaged at least a tiny part of it, which are not academic or professional. Past few months my mind is full of academic and professional worries which I of course don’t want to discuss here.

The world cup was a disaster and me no connoisseur of quality cricket, India being out was the end of the cup. I liked all that happened thereafter. The god-like perfect Sachin finally made a mistake. ( I won’t call it a wrong doing, because talking against Chappell can’t be wrong) But this was not expected out of the man who has mastered the art of PR more than the art of cricket over the years. This just showed that even gods commit mistakes.

Other thing was of course THE WEDDING, but then channels overdid and the people found pleasure in saying “I don’t care about the wedding”, but secretly seeing all the yellow dress pictures of the wedding.

Also started following the European football a bit, thanks to my roommates. Its fun watching the game, mostly because of the time it takes (just 90 minutes) and the fact that Man U is in good form, though sadly lost in Champions league. Don’t know why I support this team but it feels so authentic English.

But the thing that really shook me was Nandigram. I am speechless. I still don’t understand who is right and who is wrong. Rather now I don’t care. But the quality of people I saw in a video gave me such a grim picture. All the dead were covered in cloths saying which party killed them, and the other party made an issue out of it. I had always thought death is something beyond all worldly things, but this just shattered me. This even the uneducated nomadic tribes won’t do. Unless they have been brainwashed over generations. And that can’t be a single party.

Anyway on this slightly sad note, I stop writing.

Bachi Karkaria

This is a tribute to the woman whose writing style I like the most. The best is her line of thinking on which her articles are based.

Well before writing about her, I was so confused about so many things. Firstly it was contradictions to the sole idea of my blog. It was supposed to be a musing. But here it’s hardly one. It’s just keeping on blabbering about a person about who already so much is written. And second was the fact that I have to be so much correct in my grammar and word usage because I am writing about someone who is excellent in this department. I even checked whether we can call it a “tribute” if the person is still living.

The person I am talking about is of course “Bachi Karkaria”.

Long time in my 9^th -10^th standards, I thought that she is the Bunny Jug Suraiya always mentions about as his wife, because bunny is also a humorous character. And I think I am not alone in thinking this. I have found 2-3 more people who also thought the same.

It so turns out that its quite the different. She is a totally different person on her own and more importantly she is not just a writer, which I think is still the best thing about her. What I like about her writing is the simplicity of the topics and which are so relevant and almost 80% of the times exactly what I want to think about. Like her latest article in Erratica about what she thinks is actually happening but which people may think is a part of the April fool day.

Just googling about her, I came across another wonderful article of her in BBC about the neo-Hinduism. For a moment I thought is she turning anti-Hindu etc only to revert back my views. It was again as always exactly what I thought of it. The Neo-Hinduism is same as it was 30 years back, accepting Hinduism from the west.

She is I guess the mother of what we now call – Blogging. Her articles are so so natural that it always falls in the musing category, which half the bloggers always claim to do and mostly giving away their strong views about a person or event. But throughout her articles which I have always made a point to read since standard 10^th, never did she take any sides.

Anyway here are a few links.

1) Her Page “Erratica” on ToI website.

2) Her biography on ASHA page.

A few notable things from her bio which appealed to me.

· Graduating with Honours in English Literature from Loreto College, Calcutta, Bachi then received a diploma in journalism from Calcutta University, ranking first and being awarded a gold medal.

· Prior to her present assignment at The Times of India, Bachi was Resident Editor of the paper’s largest and prestigious New Delhi edition.

· In 2003, she was invited to join the high-profile Board of the India AIDS Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

· Earlier, as Senior Editor of The Times of India, Bachi edited the Sunday Times of India, turned around the Bangalore edition, making it rise from No.4 to No. 1 within the year, and, before that, conceptualised and edited the path-breaking Bombay Times.

Hoo Haaa

And now, I can see many gtalk status messages of similar nature as the title above, I realized the fact that I have nicely kept out of this whole world cup syndrome. I wanted to act different from the regular bloggers about how india is featuring, the usual sad for pak etc etc. And I did it.
I know its not a big achievement or something but I like to derive small pleasures form least expected quaters. The one below is just one more like that.
If any of u disheartened, see this wonderful cartoon (courtesy:London times) and copyrighted by them. (Hell, how do u get thru these legalities?).

Of restrooms

Warning: The post below may not be upto your taste. So please refrain from readinig further if you are uncomfortable with these kind of discussions.

Somebody recently said I observe things too apart from just observing human behavior, and hence the post. I know it’s a very disgusting topic but then off late I have been reading many famous bloggies and if people like amit verma and greatbong can write, why can’t I?

Let’s start this with a nice kiddo joke. Somehow I always felt why are kids so obsessed with restroom kind of jokes, but its good to see the genuine laughter they have after the joke. So here it goes, it’s a marathi joke. “Pata hai Japanese eat ‘Soo Shee’”. Hahhahhahah. I don’t know, people may raise eyebrows saying “was that a joke?”, but I too laughed a lot when I first heard this.

Earlier I thought I will do a detailed analysis of restrooms in India and US , pros and cons and analyze about how in India you really don’t have to bother about a restroom in the middle of a jungle but here in US you have to, but then, I am not doing a PhD on restrooms. So here are a few restrooms worth mentioning.

Firstly the ones in the NITK hostels. It was stinking would be an understatement. You can imagine what happens to the stink if people are fed gobhi 10 times in 14 meals a week. But as we had no other option, chalo woh bhi chalta hai. I did have a picture with me with a toilet broom in one hand mixed with the picture of a dirty pot. That was a good picture to make people run away from my room. But sadly that picture is lost.

Continuing further, I would mention the Sultan Battery toilet in Mangalore. When I had gone, it was full to the brim. I ran out immediately. Wonder how did the cleaner go about it later. And more so, how could it be so full until multiple people went to the same dirty one. Eeeiks.

Next is not a toilet in particular but an action which me n my friends did. We had a handicam and were making a movie (good old college days kind of) and we went to a posh rooftop restaurant called Kadal in Mangalore. There we shot the toilet which was empty(thankfully, and yes, dont get any wierd ideas about what we shot, it was plain tiles and gadgets and no human) and then we were showing it to other friends in the dining table. All shrieked. I don’t know I get a great pleasure in talking this kind of dirty in dining table and like the way people literally shriek and run away.

Mangalore won’t be complete without mentioning this special restroom in Surathkal College ka shiva temple restroom. It’s behind the temple which is on a rock, there is this cemented Indian style pot which is entirely open on all sides. Nobody uses it and don’t think anybody used it ever. Makes me wonder, was it made for Gods? Kudos to the person who made it and especially the location he chose for that.

Now moving to Bangalore, the weirdest restroom is in the heart of the city, MG-Residency road crossing. Near the bus stand, opposite Bangalore Central. Well this was courtesy Sudha Murthy and her foundation desperate in making Bangalore a cleaner place. Thanks Mrs Murthy for such a thrilling experience. As can be expected, its half Americanized and half Indian. Anybody would think it’s the best of both worlds. But no, it’s the worst of both. Generally in India, people would prefer peeing with wall on 3 sides. But this one is ulta. It faces the road and the heavy traffic of Residency road and has wall end at shoulder height, so people on the road can actually see who is inside. To add to the nightmare, instead of having it dry, they have a constant flow of water. It feels like u r on a river. Readers are left to imagine what you would feel like there.

Lastly I would like to mention about the portable restrooms of US. Should I say I had the privilege of bumping into one during my South padre trip last weekend. Anyway, that is a unique way of having absolutely no smell in a waterless restroom. They have some chemicals below which constantly degrades anything that falls in there and there is strong disinfectant smell. So you really don’t feel smelly there ever.

Well that ends my analysis sufficient for ME final project. If you do want an MS thesis or a PhD, do let me know. :)

My art skills

Thanks to this website, i could create a face of mine. I think it does resemble me in certain aspects.
What say you?

My mobile

Mera Pyaar.. Samsung N500. It doesn’t rhyme. But it doesn’t matter. And the name does sounds like some medicine, Vicks action 500. But no, its my ex mobile phone.

I know it may sound crazy. With handsets like RAZR, N-series and the new in line, Apple i-phone in the market, who will care about Samsung N 500. I bet, even in jan 2008, when I change to a new plan, definitely I will go for some new and trendy one that time. But my first love will always be N500.

I don’t know, why people in India are so obsessed with Nokia, agreed its hardy. But then its keys are so different for each model. There is no unity. And looks, forget it, they are the worst looking handsets. Even when you press the green button, it just shows either last calls or missed calls or received calls and never all of these together. But still people like it. And I know why. Its hardy and it has strong signal. That’s why when mom asked me to get one for her; I too went in for a Nokia only.

But this time during my India trip, when my mom told “ei dekho tomar pocha cell”,(see your rotten cell) I really shouted at her. But alas, she was not alone. Many were laughing at my N500 and when I showed it to one of my dearest friends, and told, see the best cell ever created, I just got a pity smile in return.

Let me brag about N500 a bit. Consider only the non polyphonic, single colour display mobiles. I think there is nobody to beat it in that league. Even the color phones minus cameras. This phone has absolutely no sharp edge. Rather it doesn’t have an edge at all, and that gave it the winning edge which nobody except the users of N500 understood.

It has a multicolor keypad and will put even aurora boreal to shame when it glows in the dark. There is white light, blue light, green and red. To add to it, what they call the service color. Its an small LED in a corner just like the “Kahin nazar na lag jaye” tika. Only thing is that it’s not the black tika but it gives u a choice of 6 colors there also.

Believe me, it has got the lightest battery too.

And how can I forget the ocean blue background color of display? It’s the best blue possible. I remember once I had lost my cell (actually I had left it at a restaurant and Umesh took it without telling me). I was in tears for almost 5 hours after which when umesh gave it to me, and the blue color came up n the screen, it was a joy I can’t express in words.

The only close second in that range is Panasonic GD 92. It had the same great blue colors, the keys are just the same and it has unique 4 background color option which people can match with their moods. And it was long and has the smallest cross section and it shape resembles ….( ask the people who use it)

Now my N500 lies, in some tiny drawer in my Barasat house, covered with a coat of dirt. But I have still scratched it at places and brought out its true color. When you try to make a call from that, you have to hit it on its head. But still it’s the best and I will never ever loose it for anything.

India shining

Let me start this post with a big sorry. I can’t post the bro’s marriage details as promised. For two reasons. One is it’s taking too long to finish and second one is it’s getting either too personal or too superficial. So, let the memories stay with the happy couple and all those who witnessed.

Moving on to India shining. I was divided. The discussion had long started, way back in 2002, when me and my brother were discussing this and we had come to the conclusion that if Surathkal represents entire India, India is surely shining. Else not. It so turned out that Surathkal was an exception and public voted out the people who coined this term.

Well the mobile revolution came, people started talking about it again. Internet penetrated even deeper. The IT slowdown ended and the industries picked up again. All my friends, who were in IT, changed jobs and salaries made anybody wonder, India is really shining. But it was just one sector. They had terrible spending power and they did make it look like India is really going ahead. The papers were gaga over this, the rising living index and 8 percent GDP growth were everywhere. Most surprising for me was Govt of India coming p with quarterly results.

Then I came to US, for higher studies (ahem ahem). Initial days was really missing India and compared to the sleepy small town of College Station, surely the Indian cities were much better. But soon the comforts of life dawned upon me. How simple life is it here. Its not that it makes people lazy but its what one should have. I began to understand what we don’t get in India. And India lost its shine. Add to it the articles by all news channels. India doing this, doing that, Putin praising Infy campus, some Tom,Dick Harry firangi person saying India is the next big thing were always the headlines. I really got fed up.

Soon the Mumbai and Srinagar blasts happened, India started performing bad in cricket, the reservation row, Manmohan Singh lost his charm and became a puppet again,… Nothing was looking right. The only thing that was going good was Bollywood movies and I was taking full interest in that.

I went to India, nothing had changed. There was no improvement in the living condition of general people neither were the roads looking any wider or cleaner. To add to it, the pollution made me sneeze and cough all the time. I thought what’s wrong with my country.

But after coming back, I know I am feeling so very homesick, and I am missing India.

But all that apart, I really think there s a weather of change coming up there. Thanks to the giants moving in the retail sector. I have a feeling that the general condition of farmers will improve a lot. The middleman problem will be gone. And may be the middlemen will suffer. But I really don’t care for them. And for all that we need so much infrastructure. Houses, roads, rail tracks are being built. Cars are increasing on the roads. The metro cities are taking up big plans. Now the only hurdle that remains is the manufacturing group. Its good that they are coming up in large numbers and doing good business. But I feel they don’t pay the workers well. But with the wind of change in agro and service sector, can manufacturing be left far behind. May be the right word is not India shining, but as rightly said by ToI (for a change) INDIA POISED. Its getting ready for the big leap. But ya, it hasn’t taken the leap yet.

Concluding my views, here is the article that made me think again. And especially these lines by Mukesh Ambani:

“For employers to attract and retain talent, India has to be almost as attractive as the US. So I have to provide for the cost of living -- housing, shopping environment and everything else exactly like the US, but at an Indian cost.

We have a big talent pool in the US and they are coming back with huge enthusiasm. For our agri-business, we are now bringing back a lot of talented Indians from the US who have worked in Wholesale Foods, Kraft, etc.

We offer to protect their savings in a job here. If you earn $100,000 a year there, you also spend $80,000 and save $15,000-$20,000. We say, if you work for us in India, we will ensure you save $15,000 dollars a year and are part of something exciting without a loss to you.”

My Brother's Wedding- The preparations

Well the highlight of my India trip was my brother’s wedding. The preparations had started long back. When I went, the invitations had already started. Initially even I was a part of it, but then I moved out because of my hectic schedule of god knows what. But was damn busy throughout my stay. Mom and dad were very tired at the end of every day of invitations and especially by the amount of mithais u have to eat in each house. And this is one thing about marriage, which you can’t outsource. Rest everything you can.

Anyway another thing that bothered us till the last day was prawns in the menu. For those who don’t have any idea what this is, let’s say serving tiger prawn in marriages have become real rare coz of the whopping rate of Rs 500/kg. Here is more about how important food is in Bengali marriages. Guess you all know who Bankim Chandra Chattopaddhay is. May be you people also know his famous novel Devi Chowdhurani. It was far ahead of times. Imagine somebody discussing women dacoits in 18^th century. Well now do any of you who have read Devi Chowdhurani remember why she became a dacoit? Well it was because they were poor and so though they managed to feed the groom side guests properly, the neighbors were given just rice and curd. This angered the neighbors, who complained to the father-in-law, who angrily broke the marriage or something like that nd feeling sad devi becomes a dacoit when lost in jungle. The point is, shaadi ka food can even make dacoits. Back to our story, Mom didn’t mind the cost but wanted to have at least 1.5 times the quantity required. Dad won’t do that. The size matters a lot too. We wanted 18 pcs per kg; they said they may have to serve 22 pcs /kg ka size which were not what we wanted. Anyway, thankfully everything worked out in the end with loads extra much to my mom’s delight. But there were many sleepless nights with the prawn. My joke about how the marriage has shifted its importance from bride, groom, jewelries and invitees to prawns was enjoyed by many.

Well jewelries remind me of more stories. As it was quite obvious, jewels are a crucial part of the wedding. And this time I was involved. This is how. My mom wanted to give some of hers as it is, without remodeling. And then obviously she had to decide what to give my wife at the same time coz last mein kuch nahi baaki raha tho? I guess it was a crucial decision for her considering how finicky I am. But I salute her judgment. She did the right thing. Same thing happened in case of Nani. She wanted to give similar things, so had to buy at the same time. So I got to see my wife’s this jewel also. It was damn good. This paragraph has been specially written ki koi tho ladki yeh padhke mere nahi tho use milne wale jewels ke pyaar mein tho mere paas aa jaye :)

Ok moving to some serious things now. Everybody kept telling me, ki bhai ki shaadi hai, u will have load s of things to do. I denied saying that actually nothing much. Coz after all, I don’t know the local people, whom to call for catering, whom to call for decoration and lights, but I was wrong. The wedding days were really crucial.

Amidst all this, mom bought a whopping 36-40 sarees one day. For all the near and dear ones. That came as a shock to me. Anyway, work was nicely divided in the household. Jewels, dresses, puja ki rasm was to be taken care by the ladies, and decorations, lights, food was guys department as usual. But I was amazed to find mom keeping a careful watch on everything. I found that really cool. While all this was going on, as u can see, I kept a close watch on everything. One day while there was a discussion about increase in the flower decorations cost which mom thought was useless ( me too). I made this comment to dad. “ See there are only 2 important things in a shaadi. We all knows, rasams will be one ok. There are only 2 areas where people may complain. 1 is if food is less and the other is that if somebody is unhappy with her saari. Coz both is a matter of shame to us. So both are equally important. The women kind of work as well as the guy work.” I don’t know if I have explained the point correctly here but it’s a truth. After shaadi, nobody remembers whether all rasams were done or was there one flower or one light less in theh decorations. They all care is was the food good and was the return gift good. So then obviously these 2 things become the most crucial in marriage.

But I guess this didn’t go very well with my dad.

More about the marriage days in next blog!