Welcome, friends...

Welcome, friends, to my place-

No matter how busy you are,

You’ve chosen to spare some time

To roll back the calendar together.

You’ll travel several miles,

Braving the heat all the way-

To make it to this place this summer,

To be together,

To re-live the moments we lived,

A year back.

Again in my room shall we meet,

Chat non-sense all night,

Pull one another’s legs,

And laugh like hell over insignificant things,

Like we did,

A year back.

I’m sure you can endure the city heat,

But the warmth in this heart-

Will you be able to stand that?

The Ship

Waiting for the vessel in the sea

To pick me up-

From where the water is shallow,

To let me embark,

And be a part of the voyage I so desired!

O Captain! Do you hear me?

Take me with you wherever you go-

Far from the shore,

Where I needn’t worry about the chores;

Where I can cry

Until my throat runs dry,

Without worrying where my tears got lost.

Here comes the ship loaded with passengers,

All to the same destination;

Mine is different, Captain,

Drop me off where the water is deep-

Into the abyss.

The Leaf

Fallen leaves on the soiled ground,

I like the only one in green, with shreds of yellow spots;

‘Cause it’s green and stands out bright-

Immature it is- a misfit in the current lot.

As I stooped to pick it up,

A gust blew it away,

As all others stayed in place.

Am I dreaming?

Did it defy the laws of nature?

As if in intoxication, I kept chasing it,

Following like a mother separated from her baby,

Pausing to convince me- it’s illusive.

There are dreams I am chasing,

Which come with laws that are dissenting.

Am I dreaming or should I keep chasing?

Or am I following a leaf from the Bodhi Tree?

What’s in the Dabba?

Last night, when we were deciding on which movie to watch, we had narrowed down our choice to Ragini MMS and Amole Gupte’s Stanley ka Dabba. The reason I shunned the former was Ekta Kapoor! It turned out to be a right decision.

Had it been just the first half, the movie would have been a waste. It was very light-hearted and portrayed all the typical elements that Bollywood is fond of showing in a children’s film, with a school as its background- except that the director took extreme care in depicting vividly and at the same time plainly, the life of a fourth-grade kid in a school. You will most certainly be reminded of your own school days- the popular guy in the class, the tiffin-break, the classrooms, the teachers, the chorus “Good Morning” and “Thank you”, the crush on the beautiful teacher, the khadoos teacher (khadoos in his/her own way in every school) and so on.

The “lunch break” reminded me of how we shared our tiffin- the joy in eating from other tiffin-boxes irrespective of whatever special dish your mother packed for you. When I look back, I realize how the nature of the tiffin we carried was determined by our family backgrounds. Thank God, kids don’t worry about all these social differences- or are they made so “mature” that they can afford to overlook them? I wasn’t particularly happy when Stanley alone was gifted a chocolate in front of the whole class- I’ve been through similar situations in school and I know kids don’t like it at all! Of course, Stanley was generous enough to share it with others.

Not everything was the same as my school-days: a notable difference was a child carrying a mobile-phone to school. Then, thankfully, if I can correctly recollect, I didn’t have to prepare a “project” when I was in standard-four. I pity the current sate of affairs!

I was reminded of Taare Zameen Par several times: the punishment scene, the caring teacher and the kid washing his face in tap-water.

I was really taken aback by the use of Tagore’s “Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake” at the end of a concert Stanley participated in. These words held so much meaning in the context of the movie towards the end (I won’t spoil your movie experience by telling ‘how’). Stanley taught how to smile in difficult times. I cannot resist myself from quoting Reuters’ review: ”Stanley Ka Dabba for the most part doesn’t hammer its message home. So that when the message does hit home, it hits pretty hard.”

Hold on- I didn’t reveal the crux of the story- the message that was so playfully sent to the audience. All I wrote wasn’t a spoiler in the real sense. So, what are you waiting for?

Hindi Hai Hum

Learning a language can be difficult- and one like Hindi can be a nightmare- as has been for me for quite some time now! As far as I can remember, I wasn’t that bad in Hindi a year back- I can produce mark-sheets that bear testimony to this fact. But I know, report cards can be deceiving (I have repeatedly proved that by consistently getting high grades in subjects I feared and faring terribly in the ones I was passionate about). Today I let the secret of the trade out: I avoided, by all possible means, gender (dis)agreement while framing sentences in Hindi.

I wasn’t doing really badly until I was posted in a Hindi-speaking state. Only then did I realize that what I could avoid while writing, I could not- while conversing. The gender disagreement started getting more and more obvious in each of my conversation. To make matters worse, people around me started pointing out how miserable my Hindi was! So every time I spoke, I got more conscious; I didn’t want to make mistakes- and that only made me make more mistakes- stupider than ever!

I am grateful, though, that most people patiently corrected me; also ungrateful as none of them could successfully teach me as to what determined the gender of a non-living entity. Most people retort, “It comes naturally” and I give a confused smile- pitying the state of Hindi grammar, thinking- “Oh, you knew it the moment you were born- there are no grammar, no rules, huh?!” (I can see, all my Hindi-speaking readers are frowning- but I really can’t help unless you come up with a logical explanation). My latest achievement has been- I could incite a group of Hindi-speaking people to debate over the use of correct gender with something as simple as Dahi; they couldn’t reach a conclusion and resolutely stuck to their respective point without any logic whatsoever- let alone convincing ones!

After this episode, all I can say is-“Dimag ka Dahi mat banaa!”

PS: This article shouldn’t be looked upon as my irreverence towards one of the most widely spoken and official language of this great nation; it’s only my inability to find a good Hindi teacher!

A Moaner

High-speed fan, still not enough air, is the ceiling too high?

Ahh, the warm gust-they rightly call it the loo- Boo!

Cover your faces, have shakes and juices, but get sick and weak;

I am tired…when will this summer end?

Damp and gloomy, incessant showers- will it ever stop?

Waterlogged lanes, splashing water, soiled clothes!

Carry an umbrella, wear a raincoat, but get to work all wet;

I am vexed…when will this monsoon end?

Numb with cold- blankets, sweaters, gloves- enough?

I need to get up early- Oh, please, let me sleep!

Wake up, get ready, but get pale and get late;

I am lazy…when will this winter end?

I neither like the summer nor the winter, is the monsoon any better?

Half the year is so terrible to live;

I am a moaner…when will this whining end?

Reflections at an airport

Oh, I think I deleted the original one I had penned down while waiting for my flight at the Delhi airport a few weeks back. But…never mind; given my memory is not worth relying on, a half-forgotten story will let me let loose the noose of imagination! Hopefully, that will lead me to exaggerating a few facts and turn them into no-longer-facts. But, if you are reading this, you obviously have nothing better to do and I can afford to deceive you to the extent that doesn’t affect you greatly. And I promise, it won’t!

What worried me was the difference that lay on either side of the walls of this huge airport building. Wait, I’ve evidences favoring it! I’ve seen a family that half-followed the same route to the airport as I did. They got down from a bus at a place I was waiting for an auto-rickshaw. (I had, in fact, the luxury of travelling to that point in a cab in which one of my colleagues generously offered a place). And as I embarked on a breezy auto-rickshaw ride, they decided to board a taxi. Well, the ground rules seem to be- if you plan to travel in an airplane (I had written ‘aeroplane’ and MS-Word drew that squiggle underneath- ha! these Americans!), you are supposed to reach the airport in a taxicab (in fact, at least four wheels should drive you there instead of three, as in my case), whether you can afford it or not, more importantly whether you at all need it or not (especially when it’s not summer and the sun hasn’t set). Call me a miser; I didn’t feel the need to use a taxi that day.

That was more or less all until I got past the main entrance security. And as I did so, the only question I asked myself was- Do people save the best piece of clothing from their wardrobe for an air-travel? Women, in general, were in their gaudiest of outfits. Surprisingly, men followed trends- they tended to display the rich brands of tees and jeans they sported, as well.

As I uncomfortably loitered around, I found a spot where I could sit- two empty chairs next to a man who had his laptop on his lap- I chose the one away from him. He was using the Internet. My bad! I overlook the device connected on the other side; I asked, “Amm…do we have Wi-Fi here?” He looked at me and politely replied back, “I don’t know, I have Tata Photon+” (And yes, he emphasized on “+” probably because he had a faint idea I would be able to appreciate the fact that the one with a “+” was better than the one without). So, I had to take out my laptop. Now I realize- anyone who like me, never ceases a chance to criticize people would say- “See, after all his sermons, he is flaunting his notebook”. Had he known it was a corporate one, he would have added-“... not even a personal one!” I have my own excuses- I had mails to check and more importantly time to pass (waste?). The airport unsecured Wi-fi system was working fine (and would be valid for an hour- enough to keep me busy for some time), thanks to people like the one next to me who were using their own means of connecting to the cyberspace.

With the boarding-pass in my hand, the security-check stamp in place and the digital clock in the lounge telling me I still had an hour to go, I kept myself busy watching people, updating Facebook friends that I was doing so and typing down notes on my observations. What amused me was- people tend to speak softly inside an airport; the same gentleman who would shout at his wife and children outside the general store tries to be gentle and gracious in order not to attract undue attention from fellow onlookers- every man thinks in this way and recursively, silence is maintained! The same guy who spits chewing-gum on the road now searches for a dustbin. Call it his trepid nature or the strict enforcement of law at an airport; things are in place- more or less the same way we want India to be (some optimists say, in 2020!).

I wish life was same on either side of the wall. For an individual. Of course, if you want it to be good, don’t forget to subtract the ostentatious nature from those well-mannered ladies and gentlemen!

Change

(Dear Reader,

I couldn’t cut it short- in fact, there still remains so much to write!)

Years back, I had chanced upon the English daily The Statesman which was undergoing some format changes; the editor had written-“Change is the only constant”. It left me an impression that I carry to this day.

Whatever it is- for the better or for the worse, you’ve got to accept change! You can’t stop the tick-tocking of the watch you are wearing or the clock that hangs on the wall- not even if its battery is drained! We all change with time- physiologically, psychologically, socially, culturally, economically, politically and less often religiously (our views change, of course).

As a kid, when we live with parents under their aegis, we have little options but to believe in the same religion as our parents do (more importantly because we don’t know why some other religion could be better); when we hear elders discussing politics, we tend to be biased by their political ideologies; we live in the same house as our parents do, eat the same food, go to the same parties, wear the dresses they buy for us. At school, we study several different subjects without knowing the need to study them; we get to meet new people, make friends, learn about them and try to compare their ways of living with ours. But we have little scope to change things our way.

As we move to high-school, whether we still live with parents or not, we acquire interest in certain subjects, start playing certain games, hang out with certain friends (mostly not the same ones), become curious about the opposite sex, raise our voice when we don’t like the clothes our parents buy for us, develop newer habits (mostly bad) and start telling lies!

By the time we get to college, we usually stay away from our parents; that’s when we feel the air of independence- we make new friends, sometimes play newer games, stay up late at night, again  devise innovative means to draw attention of the opposite sex, engage in activities that exceed our own expectations (without caring if the good-boy/girl image that was so delicately structured since childhood would be blemished), lanky ones try to put on some weight, the chubby ones try to lose them, both visit the gym more often, listen to rock-music, lose interest in most subjects; criticize the education system, the socio-political system, etc., start questioning the conservative views and trying the unconventional ones (for many, just to look ‘cool’).

But just when we start to feel we’re soaring and had enough experience in all aspects of life, we are pushed into this abyss where we feel like a total stranger- most of us need to stay away from the caring parents and comforting friends. With financial independence, satiating unfulfilled desires become easier and we exhibit change in behavior. We start to act and speak diplomatically; again make new friends all of whom would ‘smile’ at you when you pass by and most of whom would backbite you as soon as you’re gone!

If we look back, we’ll most certainly find that our interests changed with time- from the songs we listened to, the books we read, the subjects we found interest in, the games we played, the movies we preferred, the people we idolized, the TV channels we watched, the food we ate, to the company of friends we thought we couldn’t live without! If change hadn’t constantly been part of our lives, we would have lived a boring, predictable life. So, I say, like it or not- Change is good!