The Act of being Good

The set was all set. Yeah... it was just like a talk show, but was quite different; there was no host, no cameraman, no producer but just talkers, with different opinions and different footholds. Some were adamant, some were suspicious, one was curious, another defendant, and another a forward player.

One of my friends had come for a mid-week holidays to Chittor for three days. We had not been able to meet on first day of his arrival. The second evening was when we decided to go out to dine to one of the rarest kind of places found in my hometown, a restaurant. I am not kidding on this one, there is no place actually we can call as a Restaurant, and I’m not either exaggerating things. Well, there were four of us around the rectangular table: he, his friend (RJ), my wife and I.

With the various chats on our lives and all, we started to discuss on the topic, I think my wife and I will never stop discussing on. But yeah the chat-launcher was quite different. It started with the food, which had already landed on the table, soup and paneer tikka (by order it was, but by preparation it was paneer pakora). Well expected out of the soup and the starter, the chat was obvious to burp out.

The food (or rather starters) was awful, forcing my friend to condemn the whole Chittor (this is what happens practically too: if you make a small mistake, the whole of you is reviled as a wrong-doer). We started it with the food he gets in Gujarat (or rather Ahmadabad), insisting Gujjus are real fond of living life(this is also what happens practically too: if other person has a good taste in a certain thing, he/she is commended for everything you sought for). It was just for food that Gujjus had been fond of. Even I don’t deny this, but asserting Gujjus live their lives worthily was something as though reprimanding my place, my people, my community and above all me.

I hesitated on this but my friend with a strong thought reconfirmed his input, said, “You gotta agree on this that Gujjus live their life better, they don’t just save but spend also. They spend so much yet they believe in saving, they have more spending power.” I object your Honour (your Honour ...what bullshit), I objected stating spending power comes with the money. He insisted saying who said there is no money in this state. I rephrased my words saying, business opportunities are better in Gujarat, they have more resources of water, power, transportation and support from Govt, etc. A few exchange of words and I went into my own thoughts.

The real problem with my home town is not this that there is no money for people to spend, or people at my hometown are less willing to spend. But the problem is something no one actually ever thought on.

My state is well-renowned as ‘The state of hospitality’, and the hospitality starts from our people then to the people outside. We are so much attached to each other that we never realize when it starts to interfere in their world, and as a result we compel ourselves from doing things we like to do. In this place, every second (or maybe the ratio is yet less than I am stating) person know another, and every second person (no maybe here, surely the ratio is much lower than what I am stating) is also hunted from something which is socially-inacceptable. To avoid being seen by the known, they choose enjoying those (alluring) things with lower risks and hence prefer to go out for a weekend and fulfil his/her desires. This is the reason why no one has yet been able to set up a good Restaurant/Theatre/recreation place in my hometown, because people mostly go out of the town and have all these recreations there itself, when meeting his desires.

But this is not the reason I am writing a blog on the issue that I think I want people to know I have reached to the root cause of less business opportunities, more brain drain (and lesser friends of mine) in the place I am staying now. I am writing it because I am searching for an answer to overcome this issue. The issue is simple, solvable... yet I am helpless to find remedy to this problem. And, I am employing the best way to get an answer, putting it on my blog.

My friends, readers of this post, please provide your support to make my life(and many others’) a little easier. I am sure of it to move out of this place but till then I want not just to spend the life as others are spending, I want to make this place better. Whatever your thought is, your suggestion is... it would be very precious to me.

The Time that's gone

A flash player. It's Adobe Flash Player or even better, better than any player available and there is a flash file being played, don't know what the creator of the file had named it, may be "Don’t worry It happens to everyone, to you too". There are pictures, hazaar of them, there are videos having people moving things here or there, there are abrupt changes from one slide to another. I feel this was the life I had spent, more than this I feel I want to spend that life again, again all throughout my life.

I don’t know whether something of this sort had happened to you or anyone, but it keeps happening to me. I keep catching the glimpse of the time that I have spent. I think this is some kind of a disease I am having, as the Dyslexia Ishaan had in TZP, (you don’t think it’s same? This way it will sound same: he was a normal child but only some tuning of brain was required). I have the similar case or maybe not. It has prolonged so much that the condition is now out of control.

The above mentioned sequence often used to cover my sight whenever I used to take a break and sit( or stand(or walk(or lay down)))(3 closing braces required!!! Lemme check! Yeah.) idle (uff... it doesn’t give continuity... please read sit as sit/stand/walk/lay down)... so I write it again.... The above mentioned sequence often used to cover my sight whenever I used to take a break and sit idle. I see myself moving in the streets of Basvangudi (FYI, location of my first rented flat in Bangalore) or eating in the restaurants of Indiranagar, or buying popcorns in the theatres of Kota, or staring the cemented basketball court of DPS Adityapuram while my teacher is scolding me or banging ceramic cups with friends in room no 61 of my college. There was time I often used to live in the past and come back to the present. But now, things are getting worse. I often find myself living in present while I am still living in my past.

My ignorance had mended the way for the disease to grow more than I ever expected. Now I see the images everywhere, every time and in everything I do, whether I ride on bike, whether I type this or that, whether I listen to music (music is one big player in it... I don’t know how this thing works but even sound of a string makes me nostalgic of the old times) , whether I jump into an old friends profile, whether I read scrap conversation of two people or whether I see myself in the mirror. The frequency has just got higher and still raising high.

I thought writing this would help me but... but it has made it worse. What do I do? I want to be normal, enjoy my present as I enjoyed my past. I don’t want to regret later in life to have missed this time. Am I not happy with my life that I am remembering those days of my life, but I remember all days, both good and bad ones? Or is it that I want to make amendments in my past life to make all those days to good ones. But the reasons are not the issue here. Or maybe they are, as I want to destroy the reasons from the root. I am confused. I should not write more... it’s a bad thing to show everyone you are confused. I am not writing further, but I am still writing. It should not end abruptly, but this is how things are in reality and so is this post, ending....

Well

i just realised there are so many "Well"s in my previous post. Well, I am not sure why I have put so many "Well"s in my that post. But I wanna get rid of it. Well, so what do i do about that. hmmm... well lets see... no more "well"s now... wats happening to me... why each of my sentence is begining with the same crap "well". oh God help me... Well i know i will only have to do something about it. But i can't do anything about it. Well, but you can obviously. avoid reading those "well"s until I get a way to fix it.

Mere mahaan Desh ke A-Shisht Naujawaan

For a change I tried to come to office a little early. I somehow managed to wake up at 6ish… got ready… and left from home at 8:35. But it didn’t make much of a difference, as I reached office at 9:15. Thanks to the traffic in Bangalore. Though I reached office a little before I generally come.

I had been thinking a lot, whether it is ‘cuz the drivers of the auto-rickshaws and the public buses are all uneducated, and don’t have traffic sense. Those huge buses will enter into the roads just enough to fit themselves, making a huge queue behind them. The auto-rickshaw drivers… my favorite topic of discussion. Auto-rickshaw driver are just what you say reverse sensed aliens on the road.

The general behavior when we take a turn is, we give indicator, look back and sideways and then turn… now the rick-driver’s way… turn, look back and sideways, and then finally peeking out their arm to show they had turned. I mean they do everything required but there is something called as a sequence… (same as when a mother asked a girl what does she wanna do when she grows old, and the girl replies, “I wanna become mother, become graduated, and get married.” The mother shockingly says, “do whatever you want to do but please do it in a proper sequence”)

Well, if I want I can talk and talk about the rick-guys… but that’s not the reason I decided to write a blog on the Bangalore traffic.

Today, I was just dazed to find out another reason for traffic problems. What I saw has changed my whole idea of taking things about being a professional.

When I reached at the first signal (actually a crossing controlled by a traffic police man), the opposite lane was moving. The motors on my side had to wait. I had to take a right turn, like most of them. I stopped my bike behind a vehicle just to the left of the yellow line(in India where the roads are very tight, there are no divider, just a yellow colored line, dividing the traffic flow.) within few vehicles, both four-wheelers and two-wheelers stopped to my right, crossing the yellow line. The result… the opposite moving lane stopped as the road got blocked… and my lane was anyhow not moving.

It took ten minutes for that mess to get cleared…On next signal(an actual traffic-light operated crossing), I had to again stop for the other lane was moving. But I saw a blinking light on the traffic signal, marking free left turn. I had to go straight. So I stopped between the left and right lane(in India there are very few roads with central-lane, as the width can accommodate only two.) I saw many people in the left still waiting. For a second I thought they are dumb not to go ahead as free turn but I realized it soon they didn’t have to take the left turn. But ‘cuz of ‘em those who had to go to left couldn’t go. I could see the frustrations on those poor fellas. But no use.

Well, I forgot to tell you that a couple of those standing at the left actually didn’t even intend to go straight but rather they wanted to take a right. I was completely freaked out. What is the need to stand in the left if you want to go right. There were many behind me, who could have crossed the signal, if those two drivers would have considered struggling through the crossing lane as a “Stupid Act”.

And yes, all those who have got this opportunity to have their mentions in my blog were all well-educated, with an odd of 7 to 9 were carrying laptops(a sign they were cultured), most of them were softie guys, and cent percent youth of “Buland Bharat”.

We are in an urge to grow the traffic sense on the road at least in these people. If we can’t follow, being refined, how do we expect outta those megamoth buses and those inverse-minded rick-drivers.

"sher sabke andar hota hain....

... bas ik ungali karne waala chahiye..." this was a dialogue in a movie I watched on this weekend. Surprisingly I have been very much influenced by it. It had been throughout my mind over the weekend and the days ahead.

I had been thinking how true is this statement. To some extent it is.

As we had seen in the India’s performance in this year ICC Cricket World Cup. It lost its first match with a team, it was least expected to get defeated by. Here comes the “ungali” part… so the “sher” inside the Team India awakens. and it gives an incredibly wonderful performance against Bermuda. I agree that defeating that team was “no big deal”. But be it any team, scoring a massive figures of 413 runs is huge… and defeating by such a wide difference (257 runs) cannot be ignored by anyone.

But then the “sher” goes back to the “invisible mode” and India lost its very next match, and team India packed their bags to return to home. So what do we believe about the saying? True or false?

I am still looking for more examples… real life incidences to come to a conclusion… as in my own life, I haven’t yet bumped into the ungali-guy or ungali-gal…or ungali-incidence.

Anyways whatever it is… it is definitely well said… “sher sabke andar hota hain…”