The Rocking Chair

We used to call her Pabbi , a name whose origin I didn’t know and neither did she. We called her that, well because everyone else did and so did we and moreover we didn’t know better. To the world she was just another octogenarian who spend most of her day sitting in her rocking chair on the veranda. But to me she was a “grand” – mother who had given me love of both a grandmother and mother.
Being a motherless child, she was the only source of love that exists between a child and his mother for me.My mother passed away in childbirth before I could even place her image in my mind, before I could even open my eyes to gaze at her and it was Pabbi who had taken care of me since I was a toddler feeding me, cleaning up after me, putting me to sleep and of course telling me all those bed time stories. She had come to stay with us soon after my mother passed away as there was no one to take care of me. People used to say that she would have looked exactly like my mother at her young age, well I guess she must have after all I had no living proof to refute that claim.

My father’s job made him travel across the country throughout the year and the frequency of his travel increased more after my mother’s death. I believe he wanted to keep himself preoccupied with work, somehow he never got over the loss of his wife. Friends and family had suggested that he remarry but he had brushed the idea away. I always felt a distance between us. It seemed to me as if he held me responsible for the untimely death of his loved one. So during my childhood instead of sitting on my father’s shoulder I got to sit in Pabbi’s lap, instead of playing sports with my father , I used to make that angel of a women fetch the football after I had kicked it without realizing the pain that she would be enduring with those arthritis ridden knees. Well in my defense all I can say is at that tender age I was not aware of the cruelties of old age and thus found it surprising when I found her out of breath within 5 minutes of playing with me.

The feature I liked most about her were her eyes, there was something enigmatic about them that made them seem so young and full of energy on that wrinkled and chubby face of hers. Their was a mystifying twinkle in them that I really can’t put in words. They looked so pious and placid and at the same time mysterious as if they carried some deep secrets of the era gone by. And then there was her smile, most natural and refreshing one that I have ever come across my life. It was as if god had permanently fixed that smile there like in the case of “bottle nosed dolphin”. In all those years I spent with her I had never seen her angry or upset and had never seen the tranquility of her smile disappear from her face.

Loquacity being a common trait in both of us, we used to loose track of time during our sessions and many a times they stretched even after midnight. She didn’t use to tell me childish stories about a lion and a mouse but about historical events, historical facts, things of the past, events and experiences of her life, pre independence era, the things that she had seen and witnessed with those hypnotic eyes of hers. She was the one who had sown the seeds for my interest in History at a very young age which later on helped me pursue my career in it. So since my childhood I had developed a great appetite for knowledge in whatever form it came and when most kids used to run away from studies I relished the whole experience of it.

She was a bit hit with all my friends in the neighborhood and this usually resulted in a house packed with screaming kids who just jumping here and there. Such was her charisma that even at her age we found a compatriot in her; such was her ability to gel with younger, mischievous minds. Some came to play with her, some to devour her cooking, which I must confess were truly heavenly. She was an instrument of sport amongst the kids of my neighborhood with girls doing her plait, putting kajal or some make up on her. The absence of a strict elder in my house made it a perfect get away for all the kids and the spacious surroundings and garden gave ample space to play around. So my house was the den of the neighborhood which made me feel important. Little did we care in those times about the mess we created and about the person who had to clean up after us. She was a part of most of our games and frolics that did not involve her to get up from her rocking chair.


It was one sunny Sunday afternoon many moons ago the events of which have left such a mark on me that I have a very vivid memory of that eventful day. Being a holiday me and my friends were playing hide and seek in and around my house. The ample foliage, trees and my old British raj bungalow provided plenty of places for us to hide and we made the most of it. While we kids were amok, Pabbi was sitting docilely on her rocking chair with a rosary in one of her hands.

It was my turn to seek and I was going about checking the usual places where my friends usually hid. I was having trouble finding my friends so I thought of cheating, which I at times did and which incidentally was not difficult for me as I had my spy planted on the veranda who usually saw and thus knew where the kids were hiding. Yes, Pabbi had many a times helped me whenever it was my turn to seek. As I could not ask her aloud we had devised a code, all I did was look at her and tilt my head upwards and the direction in which she turned her head would give me a clue about the hiding place of my partners. We had also devised some hand signs for the common hiding spots.
It had taken me lot of coaxing to convince her to be a part of my ploy but in the end my persistence had won me an ally.

This time too I thought of making use of my asset in disguise and so I nonchalantly walked towards her and to make my move. She was sitting calmly in her chair and staring at a distance. I whistled in a low tone to attract her attention, No response! This did not surprise me as she was in a habit of sleeping with hr eyes open. Now what to do I thought, I could not openly call out for her help. So, I casually called out to her to ask her the time, even though I knew she was wearing her wristwatch but I just wanted. to awaken her. When even that did not arose her from her siesta I thought of letting it go and went on to look for my friends alone. After some initial success I was soon tagged by one of my friends and so lost. As it was getting pretty late in the afternoon we all thought of calling it quits and heading to our respective homes for lunch.
So I walked back to mine with a swollen face so as to confront Pabbi for not helping me.
She was still sound asleep, I walked towards her to wake her up. As soon I touched her face the coldness of her flesh sent a chill to my spine. I knew something was wrong, out of instinct I put my ear to her heart as I had playfully done many a time to listen to the rhythm of her heart beat. But today I was greeted by an eerie silence. I shouted and ran back, I don’t know why, perhaps I was afraid, afraid of loosing the one that I loved the most in this world, perhaps my little mind sensed that something was not right I really don’t know but I just ran.

I turned back to look at her before crossing over to our neighbor’s yard and saw the smile still there, the twinkle still present and the chair still rocking.

Working with a start up

Working with a start up
As an aspiring MBA, I had always dreamt that as a MBA grad my first job would be in a big MNC, a plush office, a laptop, a blackberry, onsite visits, a P.A(Ok! That might have been over imagination) but rest all was well within my limits and capabilities. But as destiny would have it, the final placements in my college coincided with the global meltdown resulting in cancellation/ reluctance on the part of recruiters/firms to come for campus placements. Although banks across the world collapsed and became evanescent they still formed the major chunk on companies that came and the IT sector which was my sector of choice remained quite elusive till the end keeping me high and dry till the very end of placement season.
Being stubborn bastard (comes naturally to Leo’s) and my aversion to BFSI I finally landed in a situation when just one month of college was left and I had no job in hand. This is when I decided to take a plunge, lower my expectations about a big firm and a big fat cheque and decided to join a any firm that came my way, although I still didn’t want to compromise on the sector.
So I joined a small company which was primarily into Engineering services (CAD, CAM, CAE etc) and a little bit into software domain also. After my interview in the company my mind was in quite a dubious state, due to lack of infrastructure and professionalism in the part of my future employer. Well what I mean by lack of infrastructure is – a rented bungalow, 10 PC’(with an inch of dust on each,2 dessert cooler, 10 employees,people removing their footwear outside the door etcetera, I guess have conveyed a fairly good picture in the readers mind.
It was nothing like the company of my dreams and nor of my nightmares. At the same time after the talks with the directors who were employed with a TATA motors my imagination was running amok, they had explained me what the company did and also about some of the big projects they had done for a couple of OEM’s and had offered me the post of Marketing Head. So I would be the one who would be responsible for entire marketing/sales related activities (lead generation, presales, sales, account management, marketing communication etc etc!) and in turn was indirectly responsible for running the company. Also I also had a stake in terms of percentage in whatever revenue I got for the company.
A normal person in my state would after considering the dilapidated state of the company would have made up his mind instantly as to not join the company. But that night my mind was thinking in the entirely different direction it was filled with thoughts of how I would transform the company, changes I would incorporate, this and that, I already had imagined that once I get the company up and running smoothly, I’ll invest my capital in it and take up a stake in it ask them to shift to a better location and blah blah., I could see myself meeting with CIO’s across US and Europe. So basically without even moving a muscle I had imagined myself to be a CEO/MD in an upcoming IT firm. Wow so much for the efforts of Narayan Mutrhy, I would be the next big CEO in IT. Talk about fool’s paradise, I was actually settled in that paradise with my imagination giving me food for thoughts. When I think about that night and the subsequent one’s I think of hat a big fool I was and actually: what the hell was I thinking? I have only just shared few of the thoughts running around my mind that night as to what all I was thinking till 4 in the morning even I do not recollect, all I know is that was pretty fool hardy.
With this beautiful picture in mind I sent a confirmation mail to the HR stating my willingness to join “my future” company. Little did I know things aren’t that easy in life and that the reality is way different from day dreams and a fool’s imaginative thoughts.
Well I was with this firm for exactly 2.5 months (Cough! Cough!), so much for the Rembrandt in my mind. In the initial month I actually thought that I could make a difference and did work diligently with whole honesty. It must be kept in mind I had absolutely no guidance from any one else what so ever and whatever efforts I made were my own, be it approaching other people who had knowledge in this matter, blogging heavily on LinkedIn, attending conferences on start ups and much more things. When I look back at what all means I used to get the business it actually embarrasses me, to have done so many menial things during the course of my stay there.
I totally accept that I failed in that job big time and I actually didn’t work much after the initial month. I didn’t use to go to office, use to say I am on filed and use to cut corners in whatever way I could, didn’t use report to my superiors at all. And finally it happened, they had to let me go as a company of their size and in dire states could not afford to keep a non performing asset.
The question is, why did I fail? I know it is always easier to blame others but in my case I actually had others the blame that’s the founders of my company.
1. One day they wanted me to sell one of their software products which in all terms was a cheap rip from an open source code without actually giving me a proper training on the same. They had no marketing plan, cost plan, feature plan, or any god dam things. They made a brochure after I gave them the material. They thought that with their “wonderful” product I will just approach the clients and they will hug me saying “we were waiting for you for so long”. Sorry that is not how the market was, it was filled with competitors with better products better strategy and better everything.
2. The next day they wanted me to run around the auto ancillaries and get some projects from them.
3. The third day they wanted me to find buyers for one of the products whose reseller ship they had taken.
4. The fourth day they wanted mw to get some web development or application development software projects. When they did not have a single person in their team who had a little bit knowledge of how a code is written, most of them just worked here as the company was near their home and they were so bad that no one else would have wanted them.
5. The company didn’t even have a god damm decent functional website, a 10’th grade with a knowledge of HTML could build a better website than theirs. I had to actually give them the links of some reference websites to develop a better website for the company.
To summarize they had no strategy, no technological expertise, no functional expertise no infrastructure no plan no nothing and on the top of that they did not wish to spend a single penny on anything to boost their sales or to explore some new horizons. So heir motto was “No investment, only returns”.
I know I am cribbing a lot here but every word of what I wrote above is true and theses are only few of the things highlighting their in competencies. Twice it happened when some how I had got them a project and these losers could not even deliver. When I had a requirement for an immediate proposal to be send to client they took their merry time to respond to it. There was a big gap in my strategy/outlook for the company and that of the founders. You can imagine for yourself as I met with them only 5-6 times in 2.5 months.
So, to end it all my experience with a start up was so pathetic that I vowed that I would not work with one if I could avoid it. I know the independence and responsibilities look lucrative in a start up but you have to compensate for that with more work and less pay. I guess it all boils down to an individual as to what he/she want form their life. For an engineer/techie I would say start up is a decent option as they get to learn a lot, they get a good exposure and there is no bench time. But for MBA’s a no no, trust me on that.

Mumbai Local Trains

My guess is that, most of us living in India are well aware of what Mumbai local’s(suburban trains) are and the challenge that they present to humanity(In my definition of humans, I do exclude people who commute daily using Mumbai locals, as they are not humans but super humans as per me.).
My first experience of locals was when I was of a vibrant age of ten and nine. I had come over to Bombay ooops Mumbai (better change that before MNS issues a fatwa in my name) to meet a cousin of mine who was working there. Being a vagrant, hot blooded teen I actually dared the ticket checker on the whole trip by travelling without ticket in the first class. As to what I was thinking when I was doing that I am yet to figure out, all I know is that was the period when I sought thrill and adventure in whatever form I could. In those times consequences was something I didn’t care about and definition of “macho” meant doing something stupid. I took that trip more as a challenge than a routine and used my fists to my advantage while travelling in locals.
Lately I had the misfortune of again using the services of esteemed Indian railways in Mumbai. Having lost much of my youthful energies, being more mature and having grown old (Yes! 24 is old, kids now call me uncle, damm!) my experiences were different as I looked at predicament differently and it gave me better perspective of this whole thing considered the life line of Mumbai.
Let me start by saying, I hate travelling in locals! Wow that was brief. But I mean it I absolutely detest the abomination called locals of Mumbai. This is one of the major reason for which I have taken a vow to never work in Mumbai if I could avoid it. Call me a cynic or whatever else you want to for my honest opinion, but prefer to have a space wherever I stand or sit for that matter. I do not like sweaty, greasy bodies of the men sandwiching me, pushing and shoving me, no thank you I rather walk, if that was an option. I am also not a Homo for whom I am sure the experience in locals would be like that of a kid in candy store and he can grope and grab as many arse’s as he wishes without anyone raising an eyebrow at him.
If you think that ladies compartment/bogie is any better than my friends you are sadly mistaken. In fact to call those women ladies would actually not be correct, as Oxford dictionary describes a lady as “courteous and genteel woman”. Gentle is the last thing that they are as their punches would give Mike Tyson a run for his money. If you are a newcomer and you accidently board the bogie reserved for women, then boy you are deep shit as you will be greeted with a slew of choicest of jeers.
But you don’t escape the womenfolk by simply avoiding the reserved bogie. At times women accompanied by their male counterpart’s board the general bogie too. Now Indian women are known to prim and modest especially amongst men. But this notion doesn’t apply to womenfolk travelling in locals as they do not mind rubbing their bodies with men, get their buttocks and bosom squashed for gaining an inch of space. I am especially very wary of such situation as you never know when a woman may allege that you tried to make a sexual move at her even though that woman may be such, that a sexual thought for her would not cross your mind even after spending 20 years in a secluded island. But knowing Indian masses a woman’s word has more weightage than a man’s. And women use this mindset of hordes to their advantage wherever they can to nudge simple folks like me out of their way.
During the course of one of my travels aboard the abomination, when I was helplessly dangling between stinking armpits I heard an old gentleman convey to a youngster that he was travelling in the locals for the past 35 years. Wow! That fact was actually making that “senior citizen” proud as if it was some great achievement. Well I think it actually is an achievement to have accomplished what he did. Could I ever achieve that, nopes never, not in a million years. I would rather prefer to go back to my ancestral village and till the land, than use this abomination for locomotion.
Such is the pride associated with travelling in locals at peak time that many a times my friends living in Mumbai actually compare the difficult tasks in life with travelling in locals at particular time and route. Ex: “You know this one time I was so pissed with my boss that if it was upto me I would have put him at peak time on a local from Andheri to Dadar.” Boy do you believe that, the travel is actually a way of inducing torture to your enemies.
Here are some of the facts that I will like to point out about this whole system:
1. A person(mostly a newcomer) may sometimes think that he would let this one local pass as there were too many people ready to get on board and there is lot of rush in general. Fool, enjoy your 5 minutes of heaven because before you know when the next local is scheduled to come you will find an equal number of people surrounding you again ready to jump in if not more.
2. It does not matter if the local that is coming on to the platform empty, because people will still run and push each other to get on board. I mean I have actually seen this, one time while I was sitting in my bogie(that’s a rare occasion my friends trust me, sitting wow, like a dream come true) the train came to a halt at one of the million station. I am not kidding their must be at least 20-25 empty places and the 6-7 odd guys who boarded the train at that stop jumped in as if this was the last train to heaven. This phenomenon I must confess is not limited to Mumbai but is prevalent all across the nation. For an observer who’s just sitting casually on the platform the whole sight is like dogs chasing after a car.
3. If travelling in this death wagon was not enough, the sheer confusion of on which side the platform would come makes many a novice’s like me to shuttle between the two doors while people are just pushing you away on either side and miss the destination many a times.
4. It was here that I actually realized the importance of time, when I heard a passerby say he intended to catch a local scheduled for of 1.37 pm. 37 are you serious, such odd digit was never in my travel dictionary. It can be 1, 1.30 at max 1.15. But 37 what hell! One good thing that this system has done i.e made the people punctual.
5. For an individual to travel on a local with some luggage at rush hour is truly a feat appreciated by gods. Having experienced it let me tell you my friends it is not a pleasant experience but one that will haunt you. Your bag out of your sight lost ion the hordes of legs with only the last bit of your muscle clinging on to it and giving you a hope that its still is their.
6. There is no point ironing your clothes here, after all with such a multitude of individuals pushing and pulling, you can’t expect your crease to be intact and neither do you expect the fragrance of your new AXE deodorant to last as that fragrance is overcome by the stench of a thousand different types of sweat.
7. For a guy who’s not very tall sometimes the situation becomes very suffocating, especially if you are trapped a bit far away from either doors and on top of that in the event of discharge of flatulence, only the lord will be your savior.
I remember watching “The Amazing Race” on TV once, in which one of the couple participating had an option of choosing between travelling in locals and some other task. Poor simpletons they ignorantly chose to travel in locals without having a clue of what they were getting into. Well it resulted in the poor lady disembarking in the very first station that came after she boarded the train with tears in her eye, filled with fear and clinging to her hubby. Well what do expect when a hundred hands grab your butt and squash your assets.
I know I make it all sound scary but that’s how it is, with people precariously dangling on the doors, crossing tracks when the trains are approaching etc. Believe you me this whole affair is dangerous with occasional deaths taking place every now and then.
So the question the bottom-line is that if it’s as bad as I describe, why do people and even I still travel on it? Well the answer is pretty simple, there is no other fucking option. I hate to say this but locals are not only the cheapest but the fastest way to travel in Mumbai. This 5km distance on car may take 2 hr in some parts whereas 5 min in Locals. So you have speed and you got economy, the golden words that define the criteria for the selection of a mode of transport. No wonder everyday millions travel in Locals. So basically people do not have much option with them, I mean there are buses which are equally cheap but the time constraint is their. Although I hate to admit this but yes they are the best way to travel in Mumbai, only if there were not so many people.
Although I have said a lot of negative things about my experiences with local trains of Mumbai, but there are some good point’s associates with the human beings on boards these. Firstly I have seen and experienced this that at times when the train has pushed of from the station and you are still struggling to get on, people help you to get in squeezing their asses here and there. Also for a newbie like me who is not sure which train will come at which platform and when a particular station would come and on which side, one of the persons around you would be surely willing to help.
Hmmm, to conclude all I’ll say is I salute the people who travel in locals daily and till scientist device a mechanism for human beings to fly, locals would remain the “life line” of Mumbai.

My Experiments with Food-1

I love eating! Well who does not, everyone like to eat tasty food. Still, I do consider myself a foodie as I like to eat different genres of food all the time many a times at the cost of my pocket and at times at the cost of tummy. When I some dish that was alien to me so far, I am tempted beyond nature to sink my teeth in it. Although being a Northie my favorite is of course “Dal Makhani” & “Butter Chicken”. Many a times my food adventures become misadventures. Here I narrate one such incident that made me cry, literally.

One fine morning as I picked the morning newspaper from the doorstep, a leaflet fell through. It was the menu of a newly opened Hyderabadi restaurant in the vicinity of my home. A quick glance through the menu gave me an idea about the rates which were phenomenally reasonable. It only took me a couple of seconds to make up my mind to conquer this place in the afternoon with my fangs.

I reached the place in the middle of the afternoon and my first impression itself was bad. Standing for 5 min with no one to attend to the spices got to my head and I shouted. Seeing an angry customer at hand I was immediately ushered by one of the staff to a table. When I had come to the place I had thought of trying out the “briyani, there. But my foodie instincts insisted on trying something new this time. So I thought of trying something that was truly South Indian and distinct. We all have gad dosa idli, vada the typical south Indian delicacies. So I thought of trying the Andhra thali this time.

Well the order came and it included a big plate filled with rice and then the waiter came and put 1 spoonful of dal, vegetable, chutney and rasam and moved on. I was shocked, did he actually expect me to eat that humongous amount of rice with that much dal. I know southies can have a pound of rice with a cup of dal, but I not me. So I gave the waiter a bad stare and said “what do u expect me to do with this”. Well my experience so far was proving to be bad.

Anyways I started my meal and although not great I was munching through, 5 minutes down and I realized that the food was really spicy/hot. It also refreshed my memory that in Andhra they eat the most chili compared to the rest of India. Wow, how soon had I realized this fact. Still I though as I had paid for this so I might as well finish it, but with each bite it became more and more though. My eyes and my nose both were pouring down gallons of water and I was so embarrassed of my condition that I was keeping my head down so that the other people eating/relishing their food there did not see my pathetic condition.

I asked the waiter to get me a cola or a juice, but I guess it just wasn’t my day as he had none. So I had to be content with the luke warm water that he had kept on my table and risk jaundice. I thought of taking a break and to let the burning of my tongue die down and stated fiddling with my mobile and pretended I was doing something important and that’s why was ignoring my food. But misinterpreting my idleness the waiter thought that I wanted more supplements to finish my rice and poured dal and rasam in my plate.
It really wasn’t my day, with great reluctance I started of again cursing the very moment I had decided to come, cursing the entire clan of people who eat so much chili and finally cursing god for making me suffer. I took a couple of more bites and then decided I had had it, I could not endure this slow torture. So I suddenly got up and proceeded to the cashier leaving my food unfinished. When the cashier saw my face he was horrified, my eyes were bloodshot and watery, my nose was running and I looked like a actor in a opera doing a tragic scene of death and misery. Giving him no time to comment , I threw the money at his counter and dashed out to find the nearest sweet shop to douse the flames ignited in my mouth. The funny thing about this state is it makes you so helpless that you cant even talk.

So, this foodie experience turned out to be a disaster. I really wonder how that guy in “Man Vs Food “ does it, really respect that dude.

EDDFEST

It’s the dream of every metal fan to attend a concert of his/her favourite band once before they die. For us Indians this is a bit hard chiefly because most of the bands that we listen too(not talking about Boyzone,Britney, Beyonce) have ceased to exist or if they are still performing, India is never on their tour map.

So it was with great shock and delight that I received the news from my friend that my favourite band “Iron Maiden” will be performing in Banglore, India. India…were they actually coming here, “holy fuck” was I delighted. Metal freaks throughout the country were agog with the news and every one waited for the “E” day in great anticipation.

Tickets @1500 per head were a bit expensive but something I could afford for Maiden along with the traveling expenses. Leave from work was also not an issue, will simply fake illness, simple. Everything was planed tickets both train and concert were bought now all we could do was wait and wait and wait.

Finally, the day came, I was accompanied on this metal journey by my 2 seniors from college who shared my passion for the band. We boarded the train at night and soon realized we weren’t the only fans on board the train. In fact the train was packed with them. It wasn’t hard to identify people going for the concert, they had 3 distinct features disheveled appearance, long hair and black T shirt of some rock band . Of course there were some working professional like us whose outer features weren’t so distinct but from inside they were equally crazy.

The night in the train was spent chit chatting , pulling each other’s leg, discussing some lingo’s and abuses that we had invented their and then and the usual guys talk. I was experiencing some discomfort in my throat but that did not stop be from shouting at the top of my lungs while gossiping. Morning came and I realized I was developing some sort of throat infection, great I am going to a concert to howl and head bang and I develop problem in my throat. By evening this infection had brought with its cousin the fever.

Being the usual thoughtless dudes we had no medicine with us nor the great railway stations where the train stopped at times had anything to offer in terms of medicine and food both. On top of that their was no pantry in the train, we cursed the guy who had made reservation on this fucking train, we had no food not much water and I was fucking sick….literally sick. The best part isn’t over yet, we thought of informing our friend with whom we were supposed to stay to arrange for some medicines for me, but voila of the 3 phones we had 2 did not have roaming facilities and mine’s battery was dead. I send a desperate SOS to our friend and my phone’s battery breathed its last, unaware is the message will be delivered on not.

We reached bagalore/luru at 11pm and took an auto for our friend’s place. I was visiting this city after almost 12-13 years it did look changed; the city was more crowded the traffic was more fucked up the smell of LPG filled the air.

The autowalla was a true bastard befitting his clan and dropped us at the wrong place, so at midnight and in a tired fucked up state I had to walk about 1km to locate our friend’s place. It was a relief to finally settle in the apartment and to know that my mobile had not failed me, I popped in few medicines and rested while the others drank beer and had pakora’s to my discomfort. Wow, what a trip I had come here to enjoy and had fallen sick like an asshole and while others drank and sang songs I picked up a magazine. I tried joining the party, but when it was evident that my voice could not be heard by anyone despite my full efforts I thought of going to a corner and sulking.

The morning was a little better but I still had a sore throat and slight fever. What disappointed me the most was I would not be able to shout and cheer the band for which I had traveled so many miles. Nevertheless, we thought of spending the time we had at our hands to explore the city. After roaming for some time we thought of checking out some good rock pubs in the city. We finally decided on “Styx” and here we saw many fans who had accompanied us on the train enjoying the music and pounding their legs on the floorboards.

What I am going to tell you next you might not believe but it is the truth. Being I lover of alcohol I did not want to miss my chance of enjoying with my friends by not drinking so I ordered some whiskey for me. Two large down and I was fit, hallelujah I was cured and was singing along with the music from the speakers. Who says booze cant cure problems.
So, a little tipsy and with my voice restored we left the pub for the show with elated hearts.

We reached the concert grounds after once again being cheated by the fucking auto guy. Damn these guys really know how to fool outsiders. Anyways, we gleefully reached the entrance where the bouncers were checking the tickets, I put my hands in my pocket to retrieve and what do we have here no ticket. This was really like a scene in a movie and color drained from my face, I mean now of all the ties I lose the ticket it was with me at the pub. The news was equally shocking for my friends, suddenly I was filled with questions “What will I do now?”, “Should I climb the fence and crash in?”, “Can I still buy a ticket somewhere?”. Occupied in these thoughts I started to retrace my steps , I must have walked about 300 meters when I found shining on the ground my ticket. Man, what are the chances of this you lose a ticket and then find it also amidst a so many people who were walking through the same path. If there was a time I thanked god with my whole heart it was this.

We had to punish our ears by listening to three bands before maiden started performing out of which Steve Harris’s daughter sucked the most and got the maximum boo’s from the crowd which was 20,000 strong. I can’t describe the feeling when Bruce popped up the stage and the band started playing “The Tropper”, I was mad with joy and was shouting and head banging like crazy. Being in the 4’th row from front I could see the band clearly it was once in a life time feel, you have to be a rock fan to understand it.
To describe the show I have no words, it was simply fantabulous a experience worth the pains that we had taken for it. To end this narrative by saying and we all lived happily ever after would not be right as the actual fun starts now. If our journey to Banglore was bad, our journey back was even worse.

We had initially decided that we could spend the night in the “waiting room” at the station as our friend’s apartment was pretty far and we had an early morning train to catch. It was with great difficulty by changing buses and walking like lost souls that we finally reached the station. There was hardly and activity in the platform and it looked like a scene from an old western classic. We located a dingy restaurant near the station where we had our dinner at 12.30 am. We were so tired, exhausted and hungry that no one had a heart to complain about the food.

We reached the station and tried to locate the waiting room, but since “Lady Luck” was smiling(with her fangs out) on us there was no waiting room on the station. We cursed the friend who had made the travel arrangements, no problem we said we will spend the time chit chatting. Easier said than done, in our state we could barely talk for long and soon sleep overpowered us and we slowly started to drift of to sleep and would have been successful in that only if there was a place. The wooden benches on which we were lying so uncomfortable that only a dead body could rest on it. On top of that since it was February so it was cold and we had no sheets to cover ourselves with, smart boys.

By 3am when I could take it no longer I got up and sat on the bench, to my surprise my other 2 friends are snoring to glory and I am awake like a dumb fool. Suddenly a thought struck me, while we were trying to sleep on the benches the train on which we were supposed to travel had come on the same platform where we were sitting as it was supposed to depart from the same one in the morning. An idea came to my mind and I thought why not sleep in the train as it will be warm there. I tried opening the doors of few of the compartments but they were mostly locked, so I finally found open the door to the general compartment which again had wooden seats! I tried sleeping there but thanks to the numerous mosquitoes sleep was something I could not get.

By 4am while I was still twisting and turning I heard the voices of my friends, they too had woken up and were thinking of sleeping in the train.We somehow tracked our bogie and occupied our seats which were reserved by us, finally I thought I could sleep. Even though the seat was covered with a thick layer of dust, it did not matter to me, I could have slept amongst animals at that time. But my joy was short lived as some cleaning staff informed a railway constable and he asked us to vacate the seats as they needed to clean and do some shit with it. Again we were out in the cold staring at each other with puffed up eyes which were burning like coal.

By 5 am when the cleaning staff had done their due, we finally reoccupied our berths for good and the next thing I know is the shouts of a tea vendor by mid day. The others were already up and were planning for breakfast, why planning you ask, well simply because we were on such a wonderful trip that on this train also their was no panty moreover the train was not stopping at many places and wherever it stopped the stations were to small to have something good to eat and the stoppage time was fucking less. Around 2pm when the train stopped at a god forsaken place one of my friends got down, we were expecting some goodies on his return, but what he could muster in that time was , 3 idli’s and 1 packet of parle biscuits which I feed to dogs, wow it really was not our day. We nibbled on whatever we had but the thirst was still an issue. It felt as if we were hiking on some mountains with no supplies but in realty this was a simple train journey. Around 4pm the train once again stopped and this time I along with another friend got down. I located a decent shop and bought a bottle of water, I thought of buying some bananas as it was the only edible thing there, but before I could overcome the language barrier and tell the guy what I want the train started moving, I threw the money and the guy and rushed back with bananas in one hand and bottle in other. The train had already picked up speed and I literally threw myself inside with no free hand to grab the bar for support, half my body dangling outside the train. Phew!, that surely was a close shave. Finally had water after 14hrs.

The rest of the journey wasn’t as eventful but if you think that my miseries ended their, you have another things coming. We reached Pune around 2 and after some haggling convinced an autowalla to take us to our homes, since we lived in different places after dropping my friends the guy dropped me about 300 meters from my apartment. I just couldn’t wait to feel my bed after this gruesome trip, but I had half a dozen howling dogs between me and my bed. I had to wait for about 30 min for the dogs to disperse, during I tried to look for various alternates routes to reach my place but found none. Finally after half a hour I managed to reach my flat and thanked my stars for still being in one piece.

To say on this trip I experienced more than I bargained for would not be an understatement.

Visit to Sabarmati Ashram...

This time when I went back home to Ahmdabad, I chanced to visit “Gandhi Ashram” that is located on the bank of river Sabarmati in A’bad. Hold your horses, before you jump to any conclusion…..No…I repeat No ..i am not a fan of “The father of the nation” nor of his ideology, “Ahimsa” what bull crap. In fact I thank “Mr Godse” for what he did from the bottom of my heart. But being a history buff somehow my feet automatically took me to the said place.

First impression was as I had expected; a serene and quite place with lot of trees providing shade to visitors in this hot Indian summer. I started my visit with a small museum dedicated to the man, displaying his works, old photographs, letters etc.
Then I moved on to the hut where he had stayed , his belongings which were almost non existent, no wonder people in states auction his belongings as they are surely missing from the place where it should have been. We only have our government to thank for this.
Also saw the famous seat, table and charkha that we use to see in doordarshan when we were kids.

It was after visiting the hut that something’s kicked in and some things that I saw that made my mood bitter and have made me share some of my thoughts. I am devil to the core, descendent of devil himself but I have certain ethics, I respect a place that has historical significance, I respect a person who has historical significance in this case the person who is given the status of father of our nation which is a big deal. The youth today might not agree with his beliefs but in the by gone era their were people ready to take a bullet for him and yes whatever ways he might employed he was a freedom fighter , he was a leader, he did play his part in the freedom struggle.

Now if you’re wondering why I am being so vocal about the chap is for the following reason. The sheer disrespect, lack of common sense and vulgarity displayed by my fellow countrymen present in the ashram just pissed me off. For starters people had made this place of such historical significance where pre independence dignitaries from all over the world came to meet Mr Mohandas K. Gandhi, where big decisions in regard to freedom struggle were taken into a “fucking” picnic spot. Excuse me folks, but I do not think this is a place where parents should come with their children to play ball and laugh and be merry. It is not a public park. This place is a part of our history, a symbol of our nation and you are only mocking this symbol by this crude and callow behavior.

I would not have minded had this been a singular incident, but there was more to follow. There was a sitting statue of the Gandhi in the middle of the park and people were getting their pictures clicked along with it. Perfectly fine, no issues but at least don’t pose by sitting on his head which was precisely the case with one kid and his father who had equal amount of brain as his kid was merrily clicking the picture. I mean seriously in Cartman’s words WTF. You don’t sit on someone’s head and in this case not on the head of a person of this magnitude. The bald head may look a tempting place to sit but its not, at least the parents should understand that much.

Just when I thought that this was the end of my horrendous experience, my excessively broad spectrum of vision made me spot two love birds pecking, and I don’t mean birds.
Ok, I am a very open mined guy and this necking is completely expected behavior according to me even in public place but for fuck’s sake spare this place. I am positive that the said couple would not have come here to see the place but to sit in their corner and enjoy their youth. This must be a regular meeting place of many more like them who would be flocking the ashram to have their private corner. Once again I have to say WTF man.

The above disturbing seen actually made me think that do we Indians give a “rat’s ass” about our past. Their were foreigners who had come to see the ashram and were behaving in quite a dignified manner and showed genuine interest in their surroundings but we the “people of India” had once again proved that we don’t care about our heritage. With couples engraving their name on buildings of historical significance. With youths playing football in this tranquil place and urinating in the open the list of our misdoings is endless.

All this makes you think, have we failed as a nation to teach our kids or even adults for that matter to respect all that that belongs to us our past, our culture, our heritage, our history. Why do Indians respect everyone except themselves. We are the folks who make spit on the walls of “Takshila” or”Nalanda” but who will marvel at the sight of “Harvard or Yale”. So the question is do we suffer from inferiority complex and don’t appreciate our own things when the whole world does. Well, I guess so!

A Tale

As he sat in a desolate corner of a suburban bar, licking the dripping froth from him beer mug, the events of the past few days began to unfold in front of him. So much had changed in those couple of days, what he had done would shape the rest of his life, he knew that. Although in the last year of his teen hood he looked mature for his age, something that he was proud of. He wondered if it was necessary to take that man’s life wouldn’t it have been alright just to let him go. But, he argued with himself “the man had tried to impose himself on his girl”, no one messes around with his girl he said aloud and took a large sip from the mug.

He remembered the sweet smile she gave him as he squeezed the trigger, a smile that was almost sadistic in nature. He remembered how she had battered the skull of the man with the pistol’s butt long after he was dead. This had surprised him a lot, but he thought not to think about all this. He didn’t want to remember her like this. He just wanted to remember her as the sweet little innocent girl that he loved so much. It had been just three weeks but he knew she was the girl for him, it was only by chance that he stumbled upon her through his junkie friends. His friends had thrown a party at a farm house and like many others she too was drawn by the thought of free booze and drugs.

At first she had appeared to him as another lost soul, but their was something in her eyes that galvanized him. Soon they started talking, firstly just small talk but eventually he realized that she was much deeper that she appeared , their was something mysterious in her that fascinated him. He was pained to see the puncture marks on her arms, where she had happily injected herself with her poison many a times. As to why it hurt him to see her like that he didn’t know, but it was then and there that he decided that he would be the change in her life.

Slowly she began to be sober more often, she liked his company, it was first time in her life that she had someone dedicated to her. She was aware of the control she had over him and this delighted her. But for him she had become everything her thoughts enveloped his mind day and night. Even in his dreams she was present in some form or other. So he wasn’t surprised at himself when one day he told her “I can do anything for you”. She had laughed then, ruffled his hair and called him cute which made him blush and made her laugh more. But he had meant those words.

So when she came to him that night in a distraught state with her clothes torn at places and her face scratched, he just uttered three words who, when, where. He knew where his father kept his pistol, he was only ten when his father had taught him how to use it.

They waited for the man to leave the restaurant where he was dining, this wait though agonizing had its soothing effect, as he decided against killing the man just a few punches here and their would be enough he thought.

At gun point they had taken the man to an isolated corner of a street where he had begged for her forgiveness, but she had only laughed at this. “Kill him “she had shouted, he tried to reason with her but when she said “kill him, if you love me”, he knew he had to do it.

He could still hear the echo of the gunshot ringing in his ear, as he sat there sipping his beer, the glass was almost empty now. The noise of the gun had drawn an emaciated beggar to the scene but he hadn’t given much thought about this until yesterday when he read the newspaper headlines “Brother of local mafia boss slain”, the picture of the man there appeared vaguely familiar to him. It was then that he fully understood the gravity of the situation, the thick muck in which he was. But he was confident that his identity would not be revealed. He drained whatever was left in the mug in one big gulp and decided to head home. As he stepped outside he was greeted by the midnight chill, he rubbed his palms and started walking. It would take him just 15 minutes to reach home 10 if he took the shortcut. A cold gust made him pull up the collar of his overcoat and he decided to take the shortcut.

As he started walking he soon realized there was another person taking the same route as his, he looked back and saw a man in mid forties smoking a cigarette. It didn’t appear to him then that the man was following him and had been given a contract on him. It was only when he neared his home and the man was still behind him did he suspect that something was wrong. He could have dashed and been safe inside his home, but something in his mind stopped him from doing that, he didn’t want the man to know where he lived. So he ran in another direction away from his home, as he ran the man followed. For his age the man was a good runner and the boy found it very hard to get him off his tracks. The cat and dog chase went on for a while until the boy made a wrong decision, one of the many wrong decisions he had taken recently.

He turned into an alley, a mistake he soon realized when he saw the wall at the other end staring back at him. He turned back to get in the open, to make another attempt, to run further but the assailant was standing at the other end with a smirk on his face, he knew the chase was finally over. Physically the man was much weaker than the boy, but the gleaming colt in his hand gave him the advantage. So this is how it is going to end the boy thought. He had seen such things happening in movies, people dying with an unknown bullet to their name, but you just could not believe that it could happen to you too. It is true he thought, when people say that your whole life flashes past you as your about to die , he could see everything clearly now his childhood, his family, his friends, the stupidities of adolescence, the first smoke, his first kill……. His chain of thoughts was broken by hot metal piercing his heart, the “tut” of the silencer came afterwards. The bullet ripped his heart and got lodged in the rib cage. He fell down with a thud on his knees, this would have hurt normally but the numbness had already crept in. As he lay there like a tree whose stump has just been cut, he smiled as everything became lucid to him the girl, the love and the betrayal.

The shooter was a veteran of many kills, he had seen too many people die, most of them he himself put in an early grave, they mostly shout and shriek when they died. There was eeriness in the silence of this boy, the calmness with which he had accepted his fate seemed quite strange. He took a few steps towards his victim with the sound of his boots reverberating in the alley. They both looked at each other, lot of unanswered questions in the boy’s mind; the man was a professional, this was his job.

The silence was finally broken by the executioner “ok kid its time to die” the first words spoken by either one of them in the past half an hour, the line was one of his favorites, he had picked it up from an old western classic. He placed the revolver on the boy’s temple, the gun coughed again and the boy fell sideways with the smile still there and the eyes wide open.

The man bent down and closed the boy’s eyes , open eyes of a body was one thing he didn’t like , bodies ask too many questions why, what, who……the answers to which he never had.