Jeene Nahin Doonga

Summer of 69

2006-07-19T23:49:00.001-07:00

Today was like any other day. Any other day apart from one small detail. An email on the IIT Yahoo group just reminded that seven years back, we stepped out of IIT Kharagpur. Yes, it's the seventh anniversary of our graduation.

Frankly speaking, I don't want to remember those days. Simply because it reminds of such good days, such optimism, such confidence and such passion to make our mark that remembering it seven years later inevitably raises questions of whether we have lived up to them. As Rekha croons in Umrao Jaan:

"Tamam umra ka hisaab, mangti hai zindagi...
yeh mera dil kahe to kya, yeh khud se sharmsaar hai..."

(The life asks for the account of all the time spent, my heart is speechless, for it is guilty deep within)

I do not know but I hope most of my batchmates don't feel the same way - but I am afraid that that's exactly what they feel.

I still remember the opening speech, the day we entered IIT. "There are two types of engineers in this world, those who are IITians and those who wish they were", our dean thundered from the welcome podium.

The sentence stuck. So did so many other experiences - each and every minute of the day, throughout those four years, the system injected a feeling of empowerment. I am special, I can do whatever I want, I can change the world, I can create my own world.

I still remember a couple of sentences spoken by our English teacher in the first semester, "IITians die hard", "IITians take the bull by the horns". We were naive to believe them and feel good about ourselves then. With years, the naivette gone, the honest optimism of adolescent became prey to our own lack of courage to stand out on our own. Many of us now feel we are betraying that potential - that we are not living upto it.

Make no mistake, we are not doing bad by any standards. Most of us are working in very interesting jobs, in very well known companies. Many of us are profs in big Ivy League Universities in the US, many of us handling senior positions in the corporate world globally. But where is the peace, satisfaction and mental calm. Where is self-actualization, where is the feeling that we are operating at the best of our capacity in the best direction suited individually for each one of us. Swanky cars, corner offices, US addresses etc. are ok to prove to the world that we are successful - but have we proved it to ourselves. At least I have not, at least not yet.

The trap is that many of us are actually fighting battles ordained for us by others. Since we are competent and can fight, we are doing well in even those battles - but where is the empowerment. Why should a very fine intellect, a strong urge to excel, an intense capability to persevere be unable to take control of its own life, pick its own battle and create its own universe.

There are a few of us who have taken the perpendicular path. A batchmate of mine, Rohit Gupta shunned the corporate sector within 6 months and went away to do his own thing - to become an author. Read somewhere that he survived through extremely hard days - sleeping on the benches and not having money for tea - but is now doing well - has won rewards and recognition finally.

Point is not winning awards and accolades that much - the point is charting out our own path. I know so many of us could have been great musicians, great writers, great photographers, great painters, great entrepreneurs but are currently doing coding for Microsoft, Intel, Texas Instruments in their offices from Santa Clara to Seattle to Bangalore simply because in their 10+2 they were extra good in Mathematics and Physics and Chemistry. That is sad. Why should one's goodness be the harness in his own neck.

I know many of us are still not at a stage where we can say enough is enough and break out of the rat race and become a tiger in their own right. I know many of us will do that in the near and distant future.

The sad part is, some of us won't ever.

Learning and Comfort Zones

2006-05-30T02:36:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the first time you drove a car. From the nervous start to the fidgety gear shift to jumbled up clutch brake equation to sweat all over your brow. "Heavy traffic ? No, thank you. I am happy at my 15 kmph on the service road near Sector 29".

Cut to 15 days later, you'd be zooming around the bylanes of Delhi, thriving in the midst of all those foul mouth drivers and (ok, only the more enterprising types) even matching them twist for twist and word for word.

Or the first time you looked at your class twelfth mathematics books. "Ohh my God, trigonometric equations with unending streams of tan and cot and coordinate geometry of obscenely twisted figures and that weird symbol meaning integration". A year later, most of us are able to use those weird symbols and grapple with those undending streams of trigonometric ratios. In other words, we become comfortable.

Or the first time you went out to play cricket. "Bhaiyya, ball slow dena" (slow balls please!). You are extremely uncomfortable at the prospect of the red ball zooming in towards you at what you perceive as high pace. Three months and you start hitting the same bhaiyya over the top.

Or the first time you smoked a cigarette. Extreme discomfort at the smoke getting inside you while a couple more days and you look like your grand dad modelled for Marlboro lights 70 years back.

The idea is not that smoking is cool or all of us did finally learn to hit our friendly neighbourhood bhaiyya to huge sixes. Interesting is this transition from an extreme feeling of discomfort to being completely at ease, and in this process we ended up learning something new.

Now think of any instance where you learnt something new. It can be cooking a new dish, painting, singing, dancing, playing a sport, a new language, a new subject, anything. With each instance, you can clearly identify three distinct stages - a) the initial stage where you are extremely uncomfortable doing what you set out to learn, b) the transition and c) the final stage when it becomes second nature.

Infact, if your comfort level with something is the same before and after the learning process, it is safe to say that you haven't learnt anything.

Learning, in this sense, is always associated with moving from being uncomfortable to being comfortable, or expanding your comfort zone to include the earlier out of bounds areas. The direct corollary is that we only learn through stepping out of our comfort zones.

This is very interesting. We only learn through stepping out of our comfort zones. Still, so many of us go to extreme lengths to avoid having to step out. At times, yours truly too has been guilty of this offence.

While we are kids, we are systematically and even uncosnciously asked and required to step out of our comfort zones. The parents, education system, peer pressure, even our own instincts. We are still uncontaminated by the negative inputs the world incessantly gives us - the quagmire of limiting thoughts - it doesn't seem like a big deal. But ask us grown-ups (am not too sure if you can call 28 years all that "grown-up") - many a bright kid has lost the spark just due to hesitation to venture out of the comfort zones. At times, even I am afraid, if I will be able to preserve it.

Hesitation is the number one enemy of endeavor, comfort of comfort zones is the arch rival of learning. I want to believe that I never hesitate and never feel the trepidation in breaching my confort zone. If only, it was true always !!!

मेरी पहली हिन्दी इन्टर्नेट रचना

2006-05-16T01:22:00.000-07:00

भाई लोगो, मज़ा आ गया। जीवन में पहली बार हिन्दी में कम्प्यूटर पर लिख रहा हूं। थोडा मेहनत का काम ज़रूर है पर इस मेहनत में भी अपना ही रस है।

धन्य है वो प्रोग्रामर जिसने ऐसा महान साफ़्टवेअर बनाया है।

Pretty Woman

2006-03-29T00:28:00.000-08:00

She made my day.

And for the first time in my life, she almost forced me to sit writing about a beautiful woman. Never ever done that, not in any of the past relationships. Come to think of it, my relationship with her is only of four minutes.
I saw her today after lunch, infact was asked by a couple of friends to look at her, who too were doing the same, standing outside the office and ready for a post lunch stroll. She was there, on the balcony of the first floor of the neighbouring office, walking back and forth and talking on her cellphone.

The first glimpse of her was her reflection in the black glass facade of my office and I couldn't control myself from then on. I crossed over to the other side of the narrow pass from where I could see the actual her, and not a reflection.

She was taller than average. Hair neatly tied in a ponytail hanging loose upto some length beyond shoulders. The complexion was a resplendent shade of the Indian fair, very soothing and had an innate ability to attract. Her eyes darted just like a small money jumping from branch to branch with juvenile abandon. Her pretty lips were talking animatedly to someone on phone.

The age must be early twenties. I could not resist the temptation to give her silhoutte a quick scan. The body was perfect, a man's dream, something which takes effort to create - either by God or by the heiress to which it belongs. Her grace of movement had a certain captivating capacity which would not allow you to turn your eyes from her. She could easily have qualified for some of the umpteen modelling contests being held every where these days, from Sitapur to Siliguri and from Bangalore to Betia. But that's not the point. The point is that she can make any man go weak in his kness. There sure is a power much beyond the oft touted money and muscle - and women are the sole privy to that.

I climbed up a slightly lower balcony of another office nearby, where I could get a better view and took out my phone - a call on a cell was the perfect alibi to keep watching her for as long as she would allow. I didn't call my fiancee because that would somehow create a moral issue - how can I use talking to the love of my life as an excuse to ogle at another very beautiful woman. I called my dad.

So there were we, both of us on our cell phones, talking and walking and I watching her. Our eyes met and we held each others stare but kept on pretending to talk. I couldn't clearly see the color of her eyes but knew that they were the flag bearers of the exciting story that was her. Damn, why did I wear this old Tshirt to office today !!!

Even her clothes seemed to tell a story. Her washed denim jeans fitted nicely and comfortably on her - the good thing about a good body is that you don't need to go out of your way with your dresses to look sexy. And she topped it up with a brownish black top with a v-neck. Just the tantalising amount of skin beneath the fabric covering her exquisite proportions. An important characteristic of an extraordinarily attractive body is that it creates a separate identity of its own, very distinct from the prettiness of the face. In some sense, infact, a pretty face may actually be thought of as an antithesis to a pretty body simply because while the classical beauty worships delicate, sharp and even fragile facial features, for body, it has to be firm proportions. I mean a sexy waist to hip ratio is deifnitely not in the same fragility-league as a very delicate face cut - but think of what would happen when both a pretty face and a prettier body compete with each other to create what cannot really be described in words.

The color of her top blended very well with the yellowish brown walls and grey-black iron of the balcony. The slanting sun rays highlighting a part of that yellowish brown wall, while the remaining part displayed a darker, browner black seemed to create the perfect canvas for the live animated artwork that she was.

There are some women who can make you do anything - and I know its vain, illogical and probably unethical too. But had I not been so madly in love already, I'd have definitely done any and everything possible to have my chance with her.

They didn't include Kama along side four pillars of life (Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha) for nothing.

And she was hot, exquisitely and breathtakingly hot in a peerless beauty mode.

May God make her happy.

How long does a toy live ???

2006-01-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

How long does a toy live ?

It seems like an innocuous, infact sufficiently vague a question - I mean what is the toy we are talking about, what does it do, who plays with it etc. etc.

But if we look closely, its sparks off a very interesting exploration of human nature.

I still remember, it was 1987, I was a typical grade six kid. Get up in the morning, get cajoled or scolded to study, get ready for school, come back, finish lunch, study or watch TV, go out to play and then come back by the time darkness falls. We had a group of 5-6 guys in our locality who would play together, anything ranging from cricket to hide and seek to flying kites to cops and robbers to just loitering around.

Those days, if God had come down and asked, "Son, ask for something and that is the only thing you can ask for", I'd have gone for a cricket bat. I had seen it only too often that the guy who has the bat in the locality, calls the shots. He gets to bat first, bosses around and can always throw the trump card, "If I am out, the game ends here" and then walk away with his bat.

Moreover, a bat that I used to see everyday in the show case while passing through "Sangam Sports", a sports goods shop on the way to school had exactly the same logo, "Power", as the bat, Kapil Dev held in one of the stickers I had. Kapil was my hero and if only I could have a bat which in some ways looked like the willow he weilded.

I would frequently dream of holding that bat and hitting all those bowlers in my locality for huge sixes in a true heroic fashion - dancing down the pitch and hoisting above the bowler's head.

As luck would have it, I stood first in my exams and mom asked me the same question, "Son, ask for something".

The bat had come. The "Power" sticker was very much there. The smell of the willow, the new rubber handle grip, the edges - it was intoxicating. The shopkeeper had told me that usually, bats break because their handles break and that happens if too big boys play with kids' bats - so do not allow big guys to play with your bat.

For the next week, I'd religiously go out, be extremely careful to see that no body hits any stone or gravel pieces with my bat, no big boys play and no body treats the bat with disrespect. I was the king and the bat was the sword - and the king was fiercely protective of his sword.

Two months down the line, kite flying season started. I started having dreams of the new charkhi (the spool on which thread is rolled), Monu Bhaiyya had - it was so smooth and fast and you did not even have to worry about the knots coming in the thread and it getting entangled. The kids who had a charkhi were always respected more than the ones who just rolled their threads on a stone in the form of a gulla or a thread-ball.

The bat, ohh, I shoved it beneath the huge trunk in my bed room because if I kept it behind the door in my room, it would fall every fifteen minutes and make irritating noise.

Cut to 2005. Having a good camcorder had always been my desire. I did an extensive research on semi-professional camcorders - wanted to have a camcorder as close to the real pro-ones as my pocket would allow and was willing to loosen my pocket strings much more generously.

Finally, after three months of research, I finalized on a model. The piece was ordered on the internet. The site said, "3-5 days for delivery". I waited for three days and started expecting a huge box with my nirvana in it - despite the fact that two out of those three days were Saturday and Sunday and hence only one business day had passed.

My impatience was surging. When the store guys called me on the third working day to confirm the order - I was heartbroken, "These buggers, taking three days to just confirm the order, when will they ship it and when will it reach me". Every day since then, I keept calling the store to enquire if they had shipped it, when were they going to do it and why were they taking so long. That stopped when after two days, I was told that it had been shipped.

Now, I stared looking at the parcel status provided by the carrier quite morbidly - how else would you describe checking the status every 70 minutes ? After three excruciating days, my parcel had landed up in California, just 59 miles way from me. The carrier said they'd deliver on the third day and I thought, "Well, these guys give a very conservative estimate, after all, it can never take 3 days to cover 59 miles, I am sure they'll deliver it before that".

For the next three days, I waited for the UPS van with increasingly baited breath every successive day, even intercepted the UPS guy in the next building to ask him if he had a parcel for me and bugged the lady, on the reception, by my hourly queries of whether she had received any parcel for me, so much, that after a while, she would not even wait for me to speak and would smilingly tell me that she hadn't yet received anything.

I had gone crazy and I had become a kid.

The day finally arrived. I received the parcel. Went home and started playing with it - read the manual cover to cover, plugged in the battery, shot videos, stills, picture in picture and what not. Explored all the functions and options it provided. Didn't even cook that night and didn't even call my girlfriend. I was possessed.

Two days, took out the camera, did some nature shooting.

Today, the 12th day, I haven't touched the camera in the last 9 days and don't exactly remember where I kept it.

A toy lives only as long as you don't have it.

Hum Intezar Karenge....

2005-12-21T13:48:00.000-08:00

"Hum Intezar Karenge, Tera Qayamat Tak,
Khuda Kare Ki, Qayamat Ho, Aur Tu Aaye"

(I'll wait for you till the end of the world. May the dooms-day come soon and so do you)

No. I am not saying this to my girlfriend. Not even to the next raise. Not even to the next sleazy movie from Meghna "Hawas" Naidu or Yash Raj Films. Not even to the cab, or the next holiday season.

I am saying this to my UPS parcel, the status of which, I have been checking every half an hour for the last 3 days.

To be true, the date given by the carrier is still one day ahead. Most probably they'll deliver when they said they will. No cribs but the agony of wait.

To make matters worse, they told me that the parcel had landed up in San Pablo, about 59 miles away, two days back. Assuming they deliver the parcel tomorrow, I won't have any grounds to crib - they'd be delivering when they promised. But why on earth should 59 miles take 3 days to cover?

They say rattlesnake is the most dangerous serpent. Probably true, but let me assert that "WAIT-le snake" is no less. It bites, it chews, it munches and it eats. And it is heartless.

I mean, almost all of us have waited from something or the other. Infact, more than that, all of us are presently waiting for something or the other. Some for Friday, some for the next product release, some for the next meeting with the VC, some for Christmas, some for the next Indo-Pak war, some for peace and happiness, some for enough money so that they can actually start doing what they really love and so on.

Wait makes one anxious as well as creates anticipation for future - but the darkest part of wait is that it takes the focus away from the current moment in time and space. You start living in an imagined future while letting go of the present, forsaking the pleasures the present has to offer, refusing to learn the lessons present teaches and saying no to life in the here and now. Whereas, the only truth is that here and now is all you have got.

After all, no one in Hiroshima or WTC would have ever thought that the next Friday will never come for them.

The Great American Customer Service and UP Bhaiyyas

2005-12-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

Back home in India, I was constantly bombarded by the stories of how customer service sucks in India and how, things are so professional and great in America. This continuos programming coupled with the usual tendency to blame anything bad on our Indian-ness made me really believe that the customer service would be great in the land of the free trade, a perfectly capitalistic economy where if you don't treat your customers well, there is always another guy to acquire them.

I believed in American customer service; but then, I also believed in genies, and Santa Clause and snow fairies once..

The experiences yours truly had in the last three odd months range from having to call the MD of the cab company to complain against rude drivers and customer service agents to cancelling my online order for electronics due to irresponsible order handling, intrusive hard sell and outright discourteous behavior.

In the beginning, I was dismissive, "Probably that's the exception, probably, they are the bad fish". However, when the experiences repeated with alarming consistency, I had to reset my views.

The point is not leftist anti-America rhetoric. The point is that level of professionalism, like so many other things, is also individual. A person in Chinchpokli may be more responsible and professional than a person in Cincinatti - its got to do with the person - not the country.

The parallel is discomforting:

a) When the seller says you will receive the delivery in 3-5 working days, it means nothing - you will receive it when you will - this 3-5 working days is just a place holder - something that just looks good without any meaning. For that matter, they would take 4 working days to just ship the order.

Similarly, in India too, if an online seller said they'll deliver in 3-5 days, I'll know that it means the delivery will happen only when the Gods want it. He is just being polite when he says 3-5 days.

b) When the cab company says the cab will reach in 5-15 minutes, it actually means 15-35 minutes.
I believe credibility of a cab guy in India would be slightly more than this.

c) When you call customer service, be prepared to tour through 10 minutes of audio menus, make 13 selections, listen to weird music for a good 15 minutes and then hung upon. Try again and if you are lucky, you'll get to talk to a live person in the third try.

I have certainly had much better experiences with call centers in India.

d) I will not be able to breath easy if I order something worth Rs 50,000 in India over the internet till the time I actually receive it in decent condition - the same is happening with me in the US - despite my efforts to not let it happen.

There is no difference. There are thieves in India, there are thieves in the US. Everybody is not a thief in India, everybody is not a thief in the US.

We North Indians (esp UP-ites) have an interesting instinct built in us - we are always on our guard - the basic assumption is that everybody around is after your money and your belongings. Some sort of battle readiness always exists and one is always ready to face some unscrupulous guy who'd run away with your bag or someone who'll try to sneak out your wallet.

I always thought there would be some place on the earth, where I will be able to completely shed this constant state of red alert. There could have been no place better than America - the land of the free, the home of the brave, open markets, professionalism, integrity and what not.

But it doesn't seem to be happening. Integrity and professionalism and bravery are individual virtues having nothing to do with country. If there are people after your money in the badlands of UP, there are people after your money in the vast lands of California. No difference.

As a true blue UP bhaiyya, these days I am again all set to face anybody who would even try to go after my hard earned money - be it Gupta Ji of Kumar General Stores in Sitapur or Michael of B&H Photo Video in New York.

The God Men of America

2005-12-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

"Jitni sachhai suraj ki kirno mein hai, utni sachhai hai ek naam mein - Ajmeri Baba. Hum mein se har ek pass Ajmeri Baba ka number hona chahiye kyonki (hold your breath) ek sukhi jeewan par haq hum sabhi ka hai"
(As true as the sun's rays is the name of Ajmeri Baba. All of us should have his number for all of us have a right to happy life..!!!)

OR

"Tantrashastra mein har samasya ka samadhan hai (Tantra has solutions to all problems). Contact Chamunda Swami for marriage problems, health problems, business problems and stress management."

OR

"Are you infested with evil spirits or black magic. You want to marry someone and he is drifting apart, your business is losing money blah blah - contact Pir Syed Sahib."

OR

"All your love problems, mrriage problems, business problems, immigration problems - call us at Pandit Maharaj who is a well known God knows what"

If you thought I was reading out ads in a Dadar-VT local train's compartment or Lakhimpur-Mailani 192 up passenger train's toilet or seventh column on the fifth page in Punjab Kesari or several three feet walls in and around Amroha when you enter Moradabad on a train - you are wrong.

These are excerpts from the prime time offerings on Hindi channels in the Silicon Valley, USA. The way the numbers and addresses point to New York and UK, you can assume that the situation would be the same throughout US and UK - Canada too will only be the most logical extension.

The way these ads pop up every 15 minutes - it shows that they make money. The market exists, people watch these ads, call the numbers and pay.

What's amazing is that despite being a part of a very practical culture in America, there are people who fall for such other worldly cures for their worldly problems.

Such healers and treatments do exist in India - infact every little town or hamlet will have an Ajmeri Baba of its own - but announcing it on prime time television - well, I am not sure even channels like Astha etc. would do that.

Even the ads that we see in buses, train toilets, cheap magazines mostly promise to cure your sexual problems - if your Johnson is too small or too big or sleeps early or gets up late - even they don't promise to banish the evil spirits which are plaguing your company's top and bottom lines in 72 hours.

The usual reaction of even a moderately educated person would be to scoff at such treatments which is assumed to be the domain of an older generation which was less educated, less enlightened and with significantly little access to the news of the world and wonders of technology.

I know, all of my friends laugh at these ads and most of the Indian diaspora would be doing the same. However, the fact remains that they are a regular feature on TV and there must be some people patronising them.

The question sticks. Someone who is running a business in America or is facing immigration issues will not, in all probability, be someone who has to mark his thumb impression instead of signatures. We can't even say that they are more religious or conservative than their counterparts in India - most of them are quite liberal and accomodating when it comes to religious practices and beliefs.

I believe, the answer lies somewhere in the inner game.

As a first generation immigrant, one has his job, his wife and children and his immigration issues as the sum total of his universe. The career is usually comfortable though can be stressful at times. There are internal belongingness issues which linger, esp if one has spent his first 27-28 years in India, and usually take the form of ghosts haunting on quite a regular basis.

The support system of extended family, friends, friends of friends is non existent. If a man despairs or feels hopeless at some point, all he can do is seek solace in his wife or alcohol. Wife also, more often than not, is having her own demons to fight and as such can provide little help. I mean, what does a man do if his business starts losing money and he needs some support and solace - all he can do is ask his wife for support who herself would be as vulnerable - because if he loses money, she would be the first one to be affected - with no fall back in sight. The neighbours and your community will be as aware of your existence and problems as you are, of mine. What does a man do in such a situation.

A likely outlet would be turning towards supernatural. He needs a psychological rock to hold on to which is promised by these pirs and swamis - with an inherent promise that the problems will actually be solved with the interference of heavenly powers.

Its amazing and poignant at the same time. Indian immigrants worldwide are a saga of neurons and toil and sweat - and great success but at times, there is a significant psychological cost attached to it too.

But yes, do remember Ajmeri Baba's number, for YOU too have a right to happy life.

An interesting perspective....

2005-12-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

.......on the most talked about religion of recent times...

http://www.faithfreedom.org/

The man is quite articulate and brings forth his points well and makes for interesting reading...make your own judgement though...

An old Travel Story - On an Enfield Bullet to Lansdowne

2005-12-02T06:56:00.000-08:00

Under Water
It had now been close to three hours that we had been sitting, or rather, half lying in that mountain stream. Me and Sudip or Doma, as we called him. Nice idyllic afternoon, a small shallow stream flanked on both sides by hill ranges, with my 350 cc Royal Enfield Motorcycle parked in the grassy meadow by the side of the stream. A couple of buffaloes grazing there added to the effect. I remember with amusement, how the buffaloes ran helter-skelter when I descended my bike from the hilly road down to near the bank of the stream. Whether it was the majestic and somewhat demonic dubba…dubba…dubba of an Enfield or the sight of two heavy guys sitting on a heavier machine that led to the panic in the animals was undecided.

We didn’t discuss politics, for that is hardly a subject that interests young hungry MBAs. Doma and me had been very close since our IIM Ahmedabad days and we were doing a sort of character analysis of each other. Those were the moments of intense introspection, openness and sincere efforts to give and receive feedback.

All of a sudden my mind ran to the verbal thrashing that lay in store for us from Maggu. His parents named him Praveen but Providence destined him to be called Maggu. A very dear friend from my IIT days, we were introduced to each other some eight years back, and developed an instant mutual admiration. Today, though we have left those days of running from hostel to hostel and book to book to complete Electrical Machines’ assignments far behind, our admiration for each other has grown only stronger. He has done extremely well professionally and that hasn’t surprised me. I always knew he had this fierce streak of always being on top in whatever he does. He has this insatiable need to be the numero uno and it is not limited to just work. Even when it comes to his passion for his motorbike and his love for adventure, it’s not easy to beat him. He is the guy who went all alone to a bike trip to Badrinath when all the “sensible” people thought it was too risky or too bizarre for normal people to do.

At this moment, however, reading his paeans were the last thing on my mind. It had been close to five hours that we split and Maggu had asked us to wait at Kotdwar. We did wait for him there for close to one hour but had left when we could not contact him on his mobile. The reasoning was simple, and very logical. The mobile didn’t get signals once you were past Kotdwar, since the mountains started from there and there was no mobile connectivity in the mountains and because we were unable to contact Maggu for the last one hour on his mobile, it was clear that he had left Kotdwar much before we arrived there and was now up in the mountains. Thus, having convinced ourselves that the other part of the contingent, Maggu and Bharat had left Kotdwar, me and Doma started on our journey from Kotdwar to our final destination, Lansdowne. On the way, we saw a pleasant water stream flanked by a grassy meadow, decided that since Maggu and Bharat would anyways reach before us and book a room for us, it didn’t matter whether we were late by half an hour or a little more and took the first available path down from the hilly road to the stream. And here we had been for the last three hours.

Four Brave Men
It all started last night. We were having a party at my place. Me, Doma, Maggu and Bharat. As for Bharat, he is a cool calm charming kind of a person and we have known each other for the last four years. He is also the most sensible guy of the lot, the kind any girl would take to her mom. Sometime during the party, Maggu suggested why not lets undertake a bike trip to Lansdowne. It is a small hill station, not trampled by too many tourist feet and has been able to preserve the old world hilly charm. It was close to 250 kms away from Delhi and it promised to be a hell of a ride. Doma and me jumped at the suggestion while it took us some convincing to prod Bharat too, to join us. More so, because his bike was not in the best shape. Finally, it was three machines, my 350 cc Royal Enfield, Maggu’s Hero Honda CBZ and Doma’s Bajaj Pulsar and four daring men. We packed our bags hurriedly, tied them on to our bikes, and Bharat threw his on his shoulders. The contingent left my place at 3 am and the plan was to have some tea at the nearby stall, withdraw enough cash, fill our tanks and set out.

When the rubber met the road, it was all excitement and high spirits. Maggu zooming along on his super racer, which he believed was the fastest bike on Indian roads till then. Doma moving at an easy pace enjoying each and every moment and I along with Bharat on my mega machine of a bike thumping along. Though it was very early morning, close to 4 am and we had to drive with the headlights on, it was much safer than I had ever imagined. More so, because you are constantly fed on the tales of drunken truck drivers who never care about who or what comes in their way, but actually they are the most sober and sensible lot on a highway.

The highway was full of potholes till Modinagar, which is close to 25 kms from Delhi, and at times all I could do was to hold on to the handle of my bike tightly. When you see a 1.5 feet wide pothole approaching you at 80 km/hr at a distance of 2-3 feet, theres not much else that you can do. Bharat, sitting pillion with me was the one bearing most of the brunt of those jumps, more so because pillion seat is not all that comfortable and he was carrying a bag too.

The ride was to be completely straight till Meerut, which is about 60 kms from Delhi. Meerut had to be our first stop where we would gather and then start out together. Only Maggu knew the directions and though I had been through Meerut once before too, my pathetic direction sense made that experience completely useless.

Both Maggu and Doma were ahead of me when I approached a fork on the road, on the right was a curved road, which led to Meerut city, and the left was the bypass. I took the bypass route for I vaguely remembered that that was what Maggu had told. But the vagaries of the human mind, doubts swarmed my mind about the authenticity of my direction and I stopped at a highway restaurant. The mangled remains of a Maruti 800 passenger car, which had met an accident last night, greeted us. It was indeed a disturbing sight. Just then I received a call on my cell. It was Maggu who started with the choicest of the expletives. It seems he was waiting for us at the fork and even shouted at us but we didn’t notice him and had taken the wrong direction.

We had tea at the restaurant, a fresh dose of directions from Maggu and decided that all four would meet just outside Meerut city on the Meerut Bijnore highway. Maggu and Doma were together and the responsibility of the remaining half of the contingent was mine. I ventured through Meerut city, some 5-6 stoppages for directions and a full one-hour later, we managed to cross Meerut.

Birds, Trees, Muddy Roads and Songs
The day had dawned and Maggu was cribbing about how slow we had been driving. Bharat was quite tired of sitting pillion and his backside had literally given way. He almost pleaded to all of us to let him drive for sometime. A re-alignment of forces occurred and Doma offered to sit pillion with me and Bharat would drive his bike.

We were again on the road and as before, Maggu led the way. The feel of cool morning breeze on the face, hair blowing away in the wind and the road dust flying off the sides. It’s a feeling you can know only if you have done it. After a while, we realized Maggu had purposely taken us along the proverbial “road less traveled” for the vehicles. It passed through innumerable villages and was narrow, rough and muddy. But that only added to the charm. After a while I noticed that Doma and me were singing quite loudly. Now though I am no accomplished singer, I like it. A dozen songs later, we crossed that muddy stretch and came down to a junction where the mud met the concrete.

The road from here was proper Macadamized, concrete road, quite broad and though the morning traffic had sprung on the roads, it was not yet painful. Doma had had his fill of being a pillion rider and we traded places.

The ride up to Bijnore was quite peaceful and though we didn’t have the site of the other two bikes, Doma and me were having a great time. We traded places again once we reached Bijnore.

All four were supposed to get together in Bijnore, Maggu called me and asked me to meet him at the curve on the highway where the road led to Najibabad. I had to drive straight down till we reached a small bridge and then take a left to reach that curve.

Mild sun, cycles, rickshaws, scooters, motorcycles, bullock carts, fruit vendors all sharing the same road and Doma and me discussing some incident from our IIMA days. Some 10 kms would have passed this way and then we realized that we had missed the bridge from where we were supposed to take a left. I stopped and asked for directions and was directed to a path that would supposedly take us to Najibabad. I called up Maggu again, told him that we’d miss the curve where we were supposed to meet and would meet them at Najibabad.

Narrow lanes, Chickens and a Telephone Exchange
The drive to the outskirts of Najibabad was quite uneventful and when we got a call from Bharat saying they were waiting for us at the Telephone Exchange, we heaved a sigh of relief. It was important to move together from here because mobile connectivity was patchy here, to say the least and beyond Kotdwar, about 40 kms from Najibabad, even that patchy connectivity would vanish.

We entered Najibabad, stopped at a corner and asked which way was the Telephone Exchange. We were pointed in a direction. Some 10 minutes later we again asked, and were again told a direction. With each “stoppage for directions”, the road was getting narrower and narrower. Enfield, which is quite a heavy and unwieldy bike, is quite difficult to maneuver on narrow roads which offer no room and whatever little room existed, was being shared by small children running across, some chicken flying from this side to that, some cycle borne vegetable vendors and an occasional scooter. The fact that the guys on bike were Doma, an almost 6 footer weighing about 100 kgs and me, a 6 footer though with a much modest weight (about 70 kgs) didn’t help matters.

It was getting hotter, we were hungry, had been in that maze which refused to end for the past half an hour and that Telephone Exchange was nowhere to be found. I told Doma that I suspected these guys were playing some trick on us. One’s sense of humor is the first thing that forsakes him when he is sufficiently worked up. If this were the case, we decided we’d shout at them to our hearts fill. Sending someone on a heavy bike, with a heavy rider to a chessboard of narrow lanes, which don’t seem to lead anywhere is no means of having fun.

I asked Doma to call Maggu but the mobile network also seemed to be laughing at us. The voice broke so badly we could hardly talk. We kept wading through that mesh of crowded narrow lanes stopping for directions at every junction. The God however, exists. Doma finally managed to get to Maggu and asked him what this chaos was all about. He asked us to forget Telephone Exchange, move out of the city and meet on the highway. The Telephone Exchange bit was the result of some confusion that Bharat had. I was livid, his innocent confusion had led us into a huge and excruciating mish mash of roads, streets, lanes and all things animate and otherwise that can inhabit a small Indian town. But the smarter thing than whining would be to get out of it. So we concentrated on that.

Again junctions, stoppages, directions, narrow roads, potholes, scantily clad children, dogs and puppies, chicken and hen and full 40 minutes through them we managed to touch the road. Kotdwar was some 30 kms and I called Maggu to tell him to move towards Kotdwar and we’ll meet at the exact junction where mountains start. As both Maggu and I had been there, we knew the junction pretty well and there was scant chance of confusion.

Gateway to the Mountains
By the time we were in Kotdwar, it was already one in the afternoon. We were tired because of no sleep last night and also because of the rigors of the ride. Having located the junction where we had decided to meet, we looked around for the other half of our troupe which was nowhere in sight. That was quite strange because as per our calculations, they would have been ahead of us and would wait for us at this junction. We parked the bike and ordered for something to eat at the nearby stall. We tried calling them, but their mobiles were unreachable and that was strange, because that implied that they had moved ahead. I knew that no matter how angry Maggu was, he would definitely wait for us at this junction. We enquired with the nearby people and none of them confirmed that they had seen two young guys on two bikes pass by, and this only added to the confusion.

We decided to wait. After two or three rounds of tea and with our fervent attempts at trying to connect to them ending in “This number is unreachable…” messages, I began to get convinced that possibly I underestimated Maggu’s ire. He must have been livid at us for having driven so irresponsibly, having spoiled the coordination and would have proceeded from Kotdwar. The fact that his cell phone was unreachable confirmed that he was up in the mountains.

At around two we too decided to move on.

Under Water Revisited
Ride up Kotdwar was very scenic. Treacherous mountainous roads, sharp blind curves and thick vegetation all around. At times we met sharp inclines and I felt a strange sense of pride when my bike effortlessly went up despite two of us being quite heavy people. I was sort of relieved too that since Maggu has gone ahead, he’ll book a room for us and though he’d give us a piece of his mind, it won’t really matter. Maggu is such a darling.

It was then that we chanced upon that mountain stream, took the bike down the road, scared the buffaloes, located a rock in the middle of the stream and sat on it. The weather was pleasant, the sights divine and the stream was quite slow and shallow. I decided to venture inside the stream and rested my head on a rock, the rest of my body underwater.

Time seemed to have stopped. We discussed everything that came to our minds lazing in that stream. Each other’s personal life, professional life, love affairs and what one thought of the other guy – the topics kept popping up. Once in a while, the guy attending to the buffaloes would emerge from nowhere, utter some un-intelligible noises and then vanish away. The buffaloes would change their grazing spot once every half hour and apart from that, the only movement was the steady flow of water. At times you actually wonder whether a fatter pay package, a bigger car and a corner office is more important or just lying down in a stream, surrounded by mountains and thick vegetation with a friend and two buffaloes for company.

Mountain Fog Scare
At around five in the evening I realized we also had to join our contingent up in Lansdowne. I cajoled Doma into getting up and it indeed took some cajoling for he was enjoying the slow current of the stream and was quite reluctant to leave the place. It was important to leave because the darkness was falling, there was a hint of thick fog descending and also, we had been separated from the half of the team for over five hours now and it was high time we located each other.

In five minutes, bike was up on the hilly road but the visibility had been greatly compromised. The fog converted into mild rains and with that came a sharp coldness. We didn’t have any raincoats and jackets and the sense of adventure soon gave way to a slight taste of torture. Fog falling on your face, typical hilly terrain with blind curves, very limited visibility and a sense of guilt that we should have behaved more responsibly, that we shouldn’t have stopped in the middle of nowhere while the other part of the contingent was possibly waiting for us, all of a sudden overwhelmed us. I asked Doma to give me his sweatshirt which would protect me from the rain and since he was the pillion rider, he was anyway shielded from a large part of it.

At around six in the evening we reached Lansdowne. It’s a very small town with a central roundabout. Most of the shops and hotels are situated around it. Apart from that it has a nice resort somewhat down the road. I knew it for I had been there once and it was obvious that Maggu must have booked the room at either of the places. I took the bike straight to the central roundabout. I asked all the hotel people about two young guys on bikes who might have booked rooms there. They said they hadn’t seen any. That was strange but then Maggu has quite regal tastes so most probably he’d have booked the rooms in the other, bigger and better furnished resort. I asked Doma not to get worked up and we went to the other place, by the name Fairy Dale. I felt the first sense of shock when the people at Fairy Dale told me that they hadn’t seen any such guys.

Slowly, it started dawning onto us that possibly, all was not well. Even if we were wrong in assuming that they were ahead of us when we left Kotdwar, some four hours had passed since then. And they could have reached Lansdowne in four hours from practically anywhere. I tried to keep my mind clear, trying hard not to imagine any of the terrible things. We tried desperately to connect to their mobile phones but they were unreachable. We had talked to them when they were in Najibabad and that they had been unreachable for the last four hours implied that they had crossed Kotdwar some four hours back. And there was no way you would not reach Lansdowne from Kotdwar in four hours.

I cursed myself and Doma, himself. We should have stuck together, all four of us. Since these guys had not yet reached Lansdowne, it was clear that something was wrong somewhere. What if something terrible had actually happened? Even if nothing too bad had happened, it is always better to have four people to face a situation rather than just two. It was due to our irresponsible behavior that we had split. We had our own set of reasons though, it was our first bike trip, the enthusiasm was uncontrollable and Maggu being the expert biker that he is, can always be trusted to tackle any situation single handedly but if they were into some trouble, I’d have wanted to be with them whatever the reasons.

It was, however, no time for self-condemnation; the immediate task was to locate them. We tried hard to keep calm and think logically.

I called up a friend in Delhi, asked her to note down Maggu and Bharat’s cell numbers and SMS them that I and Doma had reached Lansdowne. A cell would receive an SMS the moment it came to a place where there was reasonably strong network signal.

The darkness was falling and we didn’t have too much time. Something needed to be done fast. I kept considering all the options, of which, we anyways didn’t have too many. The rain and fog added to the gloom and didn’t make things easier for us.

Another 15 minutes passed, the fog thickened. There was only one way that we go down Lansdowne, towards Kotdwar and look for them. Having thought over everything once again and being convinced that that was the best option, we got on the bike and left the roundabout.

Our hearts were heavy and anxiety ruled. The fog had almost covered everything in its cold, white veil, it was almost dark and it was amply clear that the ride is not going to be too easy now. We hadn’t left Lansdowne yet when at a roundabout I instinctively asked Doma how would we feel if all of a sudden these guys appeared. I knew how would Doma react, and I could almost predict his dry smirk. But, we were in for another shock. Just when we least expected it, these two guys emerged from behind the curve.

Reunion
I can’t describe the relief I felt. All the heaviness and all the anxiety evaporated in a second. But then came the curiosity. Where had these guys been for so long?

Before Maggu could say anything, I noticed the sullen look on Bharat’s face. I sensed something was wrong. The next moment I saw the bike he was on. The headlight was twisted and the speedometer was hanging with a wire. It gave an impression of Schwarznegger in Terminator with one of his eyes popping out.

Something was definitely wrong. I felt a strange surge of emotions. I hugged Maggu and Bharat and gave them the mild friendly rebuke of having scared the hell out of us. All of us started talking and asking each other what happened.

Two hours later, in the warm and cozy room in Fairy Dale the whole story became clear to us. Maggu told us how Bharat’s bike got punctured twice, they had to locate a puncture repair guy twice and then while on the way to Lansdowne from Kotdwar how Bharat’s bike slipped and he got bruises on his arm. While Doma and me were lazing in the mountain stream, Maggu and Bharat were running around looking for a puncture guy and then driving the “broken” bike at a very slow speed to Lansdowne.

It was my first major bike trip and it taught me the value of coordination when on such trips. One of the very important things the road teaches you is that don’t take any moment for granted and since you never know what you could meet at the next curve, the best option is to be prepared.

An Anthology of Pain

2005-11-28T21:41:00.000-08:00

What is pain ?

The online dictionary defines it as "An unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease, or emotional disorder". However, I am sure this definition is not exhaustive, for several times you feel the pain despite not being afflicted by injury, disease or emotional disorder.

Probably, its easier to define it relative to pleasure. We do need to be careful here, though, because absence of pleasure does not automatically mean presence of pain. There is an intermediate stage of tranquility too, squeaky white in color, when you feel neither too elated nor dejected.

However, the question we set out to answer was pain, its identity, its genesis and if possible, a cure.

We may start with a working definition of pain as the uncomfortable emotional response to external and/or internal stimuli. The key is emotion level response because we have seen people not feeling pain when their physical condition would require them to, simply because their emotion level response dictated something else. How else would we explain people dying for the other person, sacrificng their pleasures, comfort and even lives for others. By extension, we may say that you feel pain when you want to and in that sense, pain becomes kind of self inflicted.

That's what Victor Frankl states in his, "Man's Search for Meaning". That's what a lot of writers and wise men state that in any given condition, a man is free to choose his response to his circumstances. This is important because this is our only hope too. Whoever thought he could always control his circumstances was probably hallucinating, or God Himself.

However, this doesn't cover all that is to pain. Another significant characteristic of pain is that it is transient. You may feel extreme despair at having been away from your loved one for too long but the very next moment, you may feel the warmth of her touch when you will ever meet her. The key probably is the hope for resolution in future, but even hope is relative. One person's hope may be another's despair. The focal point however, is hope because survival instinct of humans is such that as long as there is some hope, we pretty much endure all that the circumstances throw at us.

Yet another intriguing characteristic of pain is that expression, in some ways, soothes it. The circumstances may not have changed but just the fact that you have been somehow able to express it, whittles away at least some of the intensity. The mode of expression may vary widely, at times you may confide in a confidante, at times you may converse with your God or at times, it may come out as a couplet. That probably is why the best poetry comes out of a sad heart. It actually is expressed very beautifully in the following verse:

"Viyogi hoga pahla kavi, aah se upjaa hoga gaan,
nikal kar aankhon se chupchaap, bahi hogi kavita anjaan"

(The first poet would have been one, separated from his lover and his silent tears would have formed the first verse)

Pain is, as long as life is. You can't decide your situation but you can decide your response which means you are free to decide how much pain you have to feel. Also, expression is the primary means of taking the pain out of pain.

As a final word, therefore, make sure you either have some very good friends or you are a poet.

Thanksgiving and Papaji Kanpur Wale.!!!

2005-11-27T07:58:00.000-08:00

Circa 1987: One cold morning in Lakhimpur, the sleepy little town in UP, India.

Yours truly was a bleary eyed, grade 6 kid who had to get up, out of the coziness of a warm bed to sit on chair and solve some algebra problems. If your mom was a teacher, you'd know that life as a kid is not always easy.

The doorbell rang, it was the newspaper guy. I ran to pick it up but what caught my attention was a funny little pink colored pamphlet, with broad headlines, "Papaji Kanpur Wale ki Loot Maar Saree Sale" (loosely translated as, "The big brother from Kanpur organizes a grand sale for sarees").

Circa 2005: Night of Nov 24, Thanksgiving eve. Santa Clara. Time: 10.55 pm

Three friends bent over a laptop screen finding out where the best deals were and where do you get a laptop at throwaway prices. Two of them sifting through a 7 inches thick pile of newspaper pamphlets advertizing the deals. Some offer 40%-70% off and some offer digital cameras for $10.

Just then, another chum joins in. He immediately pounces on the laptop and opens his mail account. No body objects for he has just received an excel spreadhseet which lists all the deals(and they were some 2000 of them, gathered from newspaper cuttings). All of us watch intently. It indeed is a spreadsheet with deals organized by stores. We perform all sorts of MS Excel jugglery to find the best deals and zero in on a couple of stores we might want to attack, even as I wonder how much effort would it have taken to build the list.

The morning after is a mad scramble. After 10 minutes of incessant shouting, buddies manage to wake me up and all of us jump in a car to raid the store we decided a night before. We come to the store and we are heartbroken, the store is not yet opened and the queue outside is no less than a good 500 meters and I am not exaggerating.

In the end, we do manage to get some good deals, though, I am sure several others got better than us. But what existed was a festive spirit, a kind of mild competition to grab the deal before the other guy and a sense of triumph when you do manage to buy something cheaper.

Two days later, the spirit is gone but the feeling lingers on. When sanity returns, you understand that there is no difference between Papaji Kanpur Wale and Thanksgiving. While Papaji narrates his story of how he suffered severe export losses and how he has to dump everything at dirt cheap prices and how the city is lucky to host him and how this sale will only last 2 days (which invariably gets extended to 10 days but never in instalments of more than 2 days), with thanksgiving, its much more organized. Imagine all cities and towns of India hosting Papaji Kanpur Wale on a single day and the government declaring a holiday that day to enable people to raid him. That would be Indian Thanksgiving.

And then the people. I always thought that only middle class women would be interested in Papaji Kanpur Wale, but that can be explained by the fact that Papaji only sells sarees. If Papaji diversifies into selling DVD players, TVs, Camcorders, SD Memory cards, Laptops etc., I am sure enthusiasm level in India too would transcend sex and age boundaries.

In the end, there is no difference. People are the same be it in Sitapur or in San Jose. Vendors are the same, be it Papaji Kanpur Wale or Walmart (and I know it sounds weird).

Sky is blue, wherever you look at it from and blood is indeed red, wheresoever it flows. Feelings, spirit, everyday concerns, daily struggles, dreams and aspirations have a universal color and vibration. You find cadence and resonance everywhere.

Thanksgiving shopping for your lady love ain't easy..!!!

2005-11-25T21:40:00.000-08:00

I have no intention to counter Freud when he says that the toughest thing in this world is to understand women. However, I want to contend that shopping for dresses for your girlfriend is no less. All the women in various stores in Gilroy, the huge shopping complex in California, who I pakaoed endlessly to help me get the right fit are witnesses.

First of all, you have to contend with the fact that she is not there with you when you are shopping and every time you walk into a ladies section, at least some people do get swayed by how closely you resemble Daku Malkhan Singh and wonder what are you upto in a ladies section. I know, most of them would be saying, "This bugger, he looks like no sane girl would even want to be caught dead with him, what is he doing with girls' dresses all around. I am sure he is a transvestite, didn't you see the weird grin on his face".

Then comes the fit hurdle. I know I need to get a trousers with waist size 28. Now, how on earth am I supposed to know which American size means waist 28, esp if I have never bought women's clothing in the land of milk and honey. The resourceful bugger that I am, I walk upto the nearest lady and ask her to help me out with locating what size means waist 28. She was a well meaning lady, middle aged sweet auntie. She tried hard to understand what my problem was and I tried hard to understand what was so complicated about it. Ultimately, she summoned her teenaged daughter and asked her if she would know whether waist 28 meant size 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 or 8. The daughter was a sweet kid and as usual, sweet kids are nice to talk, they may even solve your profound, existential problems but this one was a bit too concrete. She too, could only laugh at my predicament.

I then approcahed a pretty, young, smart woman who I thought would be too much into buying trousers and would know. She was a flat, "No clue" and I was like, "What the hell do you do in such stores then?"

Undaunted, I went to the shopfloor assistant. She was like, "Probably 6 or 8 or....ummmmmm...". I scratched my head, thanked her and went out to have a smoke.

But then, men in love die hard. I came back again. This time, I caught another salesgirl. She referred me to the woman near the trial rooms who supposedly had a conversion chart. I went and saw the chart, ok, its size 8. Cool. Triumphant.

Size 8 didn't have anything quite upto my high standards in the Lee showroom. So I tried another.

Again those, "I know he is a cross-dresser" and "Ahh, here comes the newest rapist cum serial killer" looks which I ostensibly ignored and walked unfazed through the ladies section. Somehow, I wasn't convinced by the size 8 theory and there was a sales guy around. I told him I needed a lady's pants which would fit this waist size. He came up with a gem of a respone.

"Hmmmm.....is it for a boy or a girl?".

I gave up, "Can you get me a measuring tape"

"Yeah but 28 is different for boys and girls"

"I know, but the measuring tape is the same, right. I'll take a size 5, 6, and 7 and see which one would fit waist 28."

Somehow, he understood. In two minutes, he came back with a big grin, "We don't have a tape, but I enquired with the store manager and she says it should be size 1"

My jaw dropped. Size 8 and size 1, how can both of them correspond to waist 28?

But then, in the true Americans-are-great-sales-men tradition, he got a jeans whose waist was 28, matched seam to seam with the pants I was holding and convinced me that the correct size was 1. I quickly unlearnt all that I had learnt in the Lee store.

Then came a pretty sales girl asking if she could help me. I caught her and narrated my tale of how I was hopelessly in love with a girl back home in India and how I hopelessly wanted to buy her a pair of trousers and how I just knew the waist size. She smiled, one of the sweetest smiles you'd ever see.

"Mine is 25 and I wear size 0, so 28 should be 3".

My jaw dropped again. "Munde munde matirbhinna", "Many heads, many opinions", as they say in Sanskrit.

But she was a charming girl. So I again told her how she was making my life difficult by once again confusing me. From 8 to 1 to now 3. I had been convinced of 8, had seen it in the chart; re-oriented and got convinced of 1, had seen it match the waist of jeans for 28 waist size and now 3!!!

I even told her that she ought to know as some of her friends would definitely be waist 28 but she thought I was flirting with her and again gave me her sweetest smile. However, there was some ferver in her insistence that 3 was the right size. In the meantime, her male colleague even went to a lady customer who, he thought had a waist size of 28 and asked her about her size. He came back saying that probably 3 was the right one.

In part due to a looming sense of a give-up, in part due to the salesgirl's sweet smile and in part due to effort of the sales guy, I decided that 3 was the right size and went ahead and got some of them.

Now I pray to the Lord Almighty that 3 was indeed, the correct size. As it is, with my aesthtically impaired tastes in dresses, I am not too well poised to be a great gifter and now, if I don't even get the fit right, I wonder for how long will the mother of my prospective children continue playing the gracious recepient of gifts which would only serve to increase junk in her room.

God, save me and Jaan, please bear with me.

I love you.

Mr. Amarjeet Singh

2005-11-18T11:05:00.001-08:00

Today morning I saw Mr. Amarjeet Singh standing by a truck half loaded (or unloaded, depending on which side of the clichéd table are you) with household stuff. No, he is not a new entrant to this society, I still remember the heated exchange of words some ten months back that followed his protests to the noise coming from my house – we were just having an all singles drink and curse party at home.

He sounded reasonable then, a typical family man, who has the courage to confront a group of four drunk guys at midnight but doesn't want to create too much of a consternation. He could easily have replaced the courageous but pragmatic heroine’s father in a Bollywood potboiler – he knows what’s wrong and he protests too – but makes sure he doesn’t ruffle too many feathers.

Actually Mr. Amarjeet Singh is a fictitious name; I don’t know his real name. I used this one just because was too embarrassed at the beginning to admit that I didn’t know the name of my immediate neighbor even after one year of living next door. Alice, any one?

Let’s persist with the fictional name. It doesn’t matter anyway. More so for I am sure even he doesn’t know my name. We are square.

I saw him supervising the loading truck in the morning while I was dressed in my last nights vest, lazily going through the ritual of brushing my teeth in the balcony. Good habits, they pain at times.

Two hours later, I got down the staircase, with my laptop hanging from my shoulder. At times I feel hanging is the best option. You exercise no choice, you make no decisions, and you go through no pain. Or is just hanging a big pain in itself. Laptop doesn’t speak, so he can never confide.

Just as the flight of stairs ended, I was face to face with a beaming Mr. Amarjeet Singh. His eyes caught mine – we shared that slightly uncomfortable moment of no-action. As if deciding whether to smile, whether to say hello. Ahh, now that’s a pain of exercising choices, at times saying hello becomes a big decision problem.

But I did the hanging job this time. Mr. Amarjeet Singh decided. He greeted me with a "Hi", much more enthusiastic than what I had expected. The decision was taken. I too shook hands.

“You are leaving”, I said.

“Yes, moving to Chandigarh”.

“Took up a new job there ??”, I continued; he nodded.

“Where did you work”.

“Cadbury’s”

“And where have you shifted ?”, to which he mentioned a company which I forgot as soon as I heard of.

I shook hands “Good luck”. His warmth was unfailing. The gleaming eyes and the beaming smile. I proceeded to my car.

All the way to the office, I was thinking of Mr. Amarjeet Singh. He was a warm man, would have been a nice man to know. And I missed out. He is leaving today, would have been a great friend. Its now that I remember his expectant eyes when our eyes had met more than a couple of times on the same staircase, or in the same locality and I had chosen to look through. That was his warmth and I too consider myself to be no less warm. But I was cold.

It’s easy to blame the work stress, the mad scramble, the unfavourable celestial oritentation, tsunami or earthquake or the hills and rivers – but something in me is dying.

Sure, I am decaying. Antiseptic, anyone?

Alcoholic's Menopause

2005-11-18T11:05:00.000-08:00

Well, the term may not be the best - but it does convey the idea. Called it menopause - because it signifies a change - a sudden change of heart in which a person completely voluntarily loses all interest in bachhus' syrup. Its not exactly too gradual and it is unmistakable.

Lets not get into how it starts - simply because if you've had more than a couple of drinks in your life time more than a couple of times - you won't believe that its coming. The initial decrease in your propensity to lunge for alcohol will be dismissed outright. You'd have far too much faith in the inherent charm of ethanol and its resonating capacity with your body vibes.

And then you'll be in for a shock. After the initial phase of,"Oh...I'll drink tomorrow", you'll move to the phase of "I won't drink today" and then you'll be outright opposed to the idea of a date with the bottle.

Sill, you are not unduly alarmed. At times you do wonder if you really are the same guy who used to be nominated in the annual awards at your college for drink-and-throw-up exploits. Those were the days when you'd drink till 7 in the morning and be completely alert in the class at 8 and you'd even manage to ask seemingly intelligent questions regarding the case under discussion and even articulate your analysis (allow me the luxury to use high sounding words). This amazement, however, doesn't set off an alarm and you are quite chilled out.

Until, the unthinkable happens. You, amongst the biggest bootleggers wherever you've been, life of all the drunk parties ever since you jumped in the fray - be it the sophisticated corporate cocktail parties or extremely noisy-Friday evening-all bachelors-Old Monk-Haldiram Bhujia parties, manage to get sick on a couple of Margaritas !!! That's when you get alarmed but by then its too late.

After all, even viagra doesn't turn the clock back on menopause.

101 Ways to live through corporate presentations

2005-11-18T11:04:00.000-08:00

Try to take notes – though no matter how hard you try, you’ll be lost in no more than 10 mins.
Finish as many caffeine cups as you can.
Move your toe inside your shoe as a form of some oriental exercise to improve blood circulation, concentration and blah blah.
Look at the executive you hate from across the room and imagine how you’d want his stomach to be fried.
Look at the pretty lady sitting a couple of seats from you and admire her anatomy while still pretending absolute involvement in the proceedings of the house.
Look at the ponytail of the sales guy from Antarctica and wonder how long will it take you to grow it and whether you’d resemble a simian or a human.
Mumble your favorite swear word in your native language.
Fantasize about the exquisite dinner of daal-chawal that you’ll have to cook once you reach home and the pots and pans you’ll have to wash before that.
Feel smug while looking at the obscenely overgrown pot belly of that sales guy from God-knows-where.
Anticipate when your boss is going to look at you and look like most absorbed at those precise moments.
Compose and post your newest entry on blogspot.
Plan for the weekend that’ll start as soon as the current god-forsaken exchange of ideas finishes.
Savour the really good speakers that take the stage intermittently.
Meet, look and sound excited and indulge in small talk with the guy sitting next to you – though you don’t know if he sells in Timbuktoo or Chinchpokli.
Curse yourself for starting this post with the promise of 101 ways while your ideas seem to get exhausted at 15 (if you do count this one).

Well, that's pretty much what I am able to gather right now. May God throw me into more and more presentations and may I keep finding more and more creative ways to live through them.

Amen,

Lallan.