I wish I could...

Splash some sea on the hedonist sun,

Grill some happiness with a toasted bun,

Humble an eagle for a friendly ride,

Watch the universe from the other side.

Pushing the wall...

Munch and drool and spit out the pain,

Drench my soul dry in a far-fetched rain,

Kick the wind to a resounding applause,

Play a Beethoven with an eternal pause.

Burning the ashes...

Ran like hell in the streets of wisdom,

Stumbled upon a few solitary kingdoms,

Steered my life with a fantastic crew,

Loved, and loved by, a precious few.

I pushed the wall and burnt the ashes.

Dubloo Mess: 2 Life Changing Experiences

It was in 2002, if you follow the Christian calender, when I landed at 18 degrees latitude and 79.58 degrees longitude on the face of the earth. You guessed it right, I was in Warangal, abbreviated as W (read Dubloo), at the uber-popular (ok ok, quite popular) National Institute of Technology Warangal, lovingly abbreviated as NITdubloo.

It was my first outing away from family, and boy - what a place for outing!! It was the Gulti-est place in the world (if you know what Gulti means, that is). And apart from introductions, missing girls, ragging, bragging and 132 other such things, there was one thing which bothered us the most during those initial days - Mess. This word - 'mess' - came into popular usage from 'a messdeck aboard ships' where military personnel used to socialize and eat, possibly leaving a literal mess for janitors to clean-up. And hence the ritual of keeping the place filthy and obnoxious continues all across the globe, probably on other planets too.

There are a few things special about any mess – 1: The odor inside is always consistent no matter the time or cuisine. and 2: The faces of boarders and servers (not the computer server) never change in 100 years. 2-Corollary: The way people eat in a mess also doesn't change in 1000 years.

Usually, discussions about any college mess can be consummated into a book, and NITdubloo mess was no different. However, there are two personal life changing experiences from our mess that I’d like to talk about – The Sunday Palak Paneer and The Sqaure Cut (which is incidentally a proof for 2-Corollary above).

The Sunday Palak Paneer: There is something about Indian paneer that people never seem to get bored of. And if you are in NITdubloo, you seem to eat its new breed every Sunday. Every Sunday afternoon, we were served with a bowl full of what they’d like to call as palak gravy. But wait, there was no paneer in it. You see, paneer is such a precious commodity that only the worthy are served with. It’s like the Nobel Prize which you earn and value as a prized possession, all 2 pieces of it. Yes, after proper deliberation, police verification and background check all done by the mess supervisor, we were served with 2 pieces of paneer, cuboids in shape with dimensions 10mm x 10 mm x 30 mm. 30 mm comes last because you treasure it so much that you are never able to finish it. And if you reach late, you don’t get any, just like Nobel Prize, which is never awarded posthumously. Though nobody liked it, fights often ensued to grab each other’s share. Spongy like the Flubber and cooked in filthy grey-colored grease, those paneer pieces made us realize the worth of good food and millions of students like us who live without it. It left me with so much penitence and grief that I pledged not to eat paneer ever again.

I continued my pledge for four years, thanks to the equally bad paneer at IMT, though of a different genre. I have started eating paneer again recently after I joined Infy.

The Sqaure Cut: Witnessing 2-Corollary in NITdubloo was the second life changing experience for me. The Square Cut, as we code-worded it, was a peculiar style of eating rice, patented by none other than the Gultis (also known as Madrasis in north India). The Gultis rarely eat Roti, never if it is served in mess like ours where Rotis (known as Phulka in our mess) were made once a month and stocked till they last. Gultis love rice, in all flavors and colors – yellow, white, green, purple, black, brownish-red, magenta et al. And they eat it as if no one is watching. Put lot of rice in the middle of plate, pour 1 jug of sambar, 1 jug of rassam, 2 bowls of curd, fold your sleeves till shoulders and attack. Even with so much of viscose stuff flowing around, a true Gulti manages to make it into a ball, rolling and tossing it around, and then gobbling it. He continues the process with learned concentration. Then the moment comes when there is no rice around and plate is left with unsolicited yellowish semi viscose fluid. With long practiced perfection, the Gulti spreads his hand straight as an arrow, elbow at 90 degrees to the shoulder with palm facing west and places it on the plate. With one master stroke of right speed and momentum, the Gulti caresses his hand capturing the fluid in hand and dropping it in mouth with lightening speed. He doesn’t even spare the unapologetic drops of fluid dripping down the arm and lick it right up through the palm. The whole process takes a nano-second and would put Dravid’s square-cut to shame. This age old method of finishing rice is many times rumored as the inspiration of Sqaure Cut in cricket - and hence the name.

Grieving with my inability to perfect this technique, I pledged not to eat rice with hands ever again. Thankfully, God made spoons and saved me the embarrassment. I eat rice only with spoons ever since.

Story of ‘Spoon’

Another nonsense story. Leave your IQ aside and read on…

One fine day, Kumma woke up to an unfamiliar voice. As he stepped out to check, he saw a transparent angelic creature, strangely draped in too many clothes, running away. It left no footmarks but dropped something with dangling sound. It was metallic, with a small oval end and a long stick attached to it.

Kumma was a prehistoric man living in Kuku tribe in Africa. Kukus were sure of one thing: everything in the world is either created by their ancestors or God. And God had ways of gifting them new things, He always sends such angels to deliver them. So just like earlier gifts, this too must be special.

It was still pitch dark outside, so Kumma went back to sleep. And as expected, God appeared in his dreams to tell something important: This new article is titled ‘Spoon’, has five uses, and it was Kumma’s assignment to figure all of them out.

Kumma woke up with a puzzled mind and a heart laden with responsibility. “Five uses! This must be God’s greatest creation”, Kumma felt special. He went straight to the Head Of the Tribe (HOT) who, though a little scared of the Spoon, performed the mandatory rituals. Now Kumma must get down to the task immediately. And until he’s done, nobody else should touch the Spoon.

The first use came instantly. As he was looking it from all sides, flipping up and down, front and back, he suddenly saw a reflecting figure. He held it upright, looked closely on the concave side of the oval. He could figure out that he’s watching himself, though inverted. “Voila! That’s one down. Now we don’t need a pitcher or go to the pond to look at ourselves”, he was excited. He turned it upside down expecting to see his face correctly, but alas! It wasn’t so. The Spoon had magical powers.

He hung the Spoon from the roof so that he has his eyes on it at all times. Passing it by one day, Kumma carelessly glanced at the oval from the convex side. “Dear God, what a fool I’ve been. The second use was just a flip away but I was so ignorant. Now I know that the Spoon can be used to see myself straight and inverted”, Kumma told himself. “I must carry it always if I have to find the other three uses”, he agreed.

One day he took it to lunch expecting some new discovery. Kukus used the darker side of their fingers to lift food and put into mouth. “Can’t the Spoon work as my fingers?” he quizzed himself. And with just a little difficulty, he was able to load the food on the convex side and push it into mouth using the handle. “Great, that must be the third use. Just two more to go.”

A few more days went by with no more discoveries. Kumma was getting restless. He went to the HOT asking for guidance who condescendingly called on the spirits for intervention. After the rituals, he asked Kumma to keep his doors open in the night and the angels will come to his remedy. The same night Kumma was awaken by a startling noise. He opened his eyes to find a wild cat standing on his belly. He quickly moved his hand searching for a weapon and shoved the first thing he got his hand on into the cat’s neck. The cat died, bleeding on the floor, with the Spoon piercing her neck. “The fourth use: a killer weapon. This was a tough one”, Kumma felt relieved.

Days-weeks-years-centuries went by but nobody could find the fifth use of the Spoon until someone found out that it can be used to drink from the concave side. Though we only know the fifth, the legend of four uses discovered by Kumma lives on.

"क्या लगती हो "

(एकदम original है, और फ़ोकट में पढने मिल रही है.... इसलिए पसंद आये या ना आये, दाद ज़रूर दीजियेगा :) )

पलकें उठें तो दिन, जुल्फें गिरे तो बारिश,

News channel पे मौसम की जानकारी का program लगती हो |

Party पे बाहर जाने के लिए जब बन-संवर के आती हो,

तो December के महीने में Gateway of India की शाम लगती हो |

Office से थक के घर आने पर जब प्यार से "ए जी" कहके बुलाती हो,

शाहरुख़ की film की mantinee show ticket का इंतज़ाम लगती हो |

गुस्से में तंतानाये हुए बड़ी-बड़ी आँखें दिखाती हो,

तो IIT-JEE में Mathematics का exam लगती हो |

मेरी आदतों से तंग आकर जब छोड़ जाने की धमकी देती हो,

तो निर्दोष मुजरिम पर लगाया हुआ झूठा इल्ज़ाम लगती हो |

आधी रात को जब अँधेरे में romantic गाने सुनाती हो,

तो विविध भारती पर चित्रमाला का program लगती हो |

और जब सामने बैठे घंटों मीठी-मीठी बातें करती हो,

तब क्या कहें, बस दिवाली पर दस-हज़ार लड़ी वाला bomb लगती हो ||

Friends Forever

I would start with a few candid confessions about the IMT farewell on 3^rd March 2010. On the lustrous night, I was feeling sad on multiple accounts. Firstly, I was sorry to myself for not having a girlfriend to dance with. Secondly, the grief was accentuated by watching a bunch of single girls dancing within themselves without eve noticing us hopefuls. Thirdly, I felt sad for my inconsequential abstinence from hard drinks which could have otherwise helped in subsiding the pain. However, friends come handy particularly in such moments of pain and you realize that the sadistic pleasure that you derive out of watching the equally hapless faces is otherwise impossible. And you appreciate that boy-friends are equally good dance partners and can amuse you in multiple other ways (though not exactly the way a girlfriend can). So we danced, and danced like crazy, since nobody was watching our footloose. And I must confess, that all the feelings of sadness and remorse of distantness from the fairer sex fainted as the night progressed.

Though, a new set of even more excruciating thoughts began to sting the bodily organs; the truth that this party would be the last of its kind, not only for this year or for the MBA but for our whole goddamn life remaining on this planet. We will have many more separate fun filled parties in life, no doubt, maybe with even more grandeur and fanfare. But the joy and comfort, of being surrounded by a crowd feeling the same clumsy vicious pang in their hearts, would be missing. The sense of belongingness, almost palpable, as if you can easily wade through your home with closed eyes, would be missing.

The scene in 3 Idiots where Farhan Qureshi’s father says “Mera beta engineer banega” the moment he is born shows a toned down version of the celestial expectation most of the parents have from their kids. They decide the destination all right, but leave us upon a merciless path to achieve glory. And they push us in a world of annoying competition where men kill men for survival and sometimes even for pleasure. But as we sail through, we drop anchors and cast webs like a Spiderman. And we entangle a few beautiful creatures in these webs creating bonds much stronger than nuclear bonds. This creature, which we call friend, does strange things. He mocks you in front of girls, kicks you hardest on your birthdays, tries to kill you with worst PJs, takes your embarrassing pictures and upload them on the net, encourages you to get an ugly haircut, never wants you to study hard, takes money from you and donates to charity, make you do all the assignments for him and links you up with the ugliest girl in the class.

But this same creature does even more strange things sometimes. He likes your bogus status messages on facebook, sends you lewd messages when you’re feeling bored, invites you to surprise birthday treats, writes exaggeratedly wonderful testimonial for your orkut account, introduces you to his girlfriend’s friends, faces questions thrown at you during class presentations, answers your quiz questions when his own time is running out, brings you medicine even when you don’t tell him you’re really sick and stands by you when you’re worried about placements. He is like a firefighter who enters your burning house when everyone else is running out.

These webs that we cast upon transcend the three spatial dimensions, almost telepathic. It has an enemy though, the fourth dimension i.e. time. Time weakens the bonds, and a decade ago only the strongest could stand the test of time. But cheers to communication technologies, the tests have become simpler and easy to pass. All we need are a couple of active accounts on social networking websites, a permanent mobile number and the best intentions to keep these bonds intact.

To some sophisticated individuals, the aforesaid thoughts would seem too bland for its dragging content. But a Michael Collins can never tell how Neil and Buzz would have felt stepping on the moon. And as long as these thoughts resonate even with a few fellow beings and bring smiles on their faces, I am happy to call them friends forever.

Downside Up

Today morning, as I stepped out of my room, I saw a guy walking upside down, hanging from the ceiling. Rubbing my eyes in disbelief I was unsure if it’s a dream or for real. I turned back and picked up the newspaper lying on the floor. There was a similar picture of people walking upside down along with an article titled ‘Gravity loses ground’. I quickly ran through it to find that some German scientists have proved earth’s gravity to be a farce. They proclaim that every object has a tendency to rest on a surface, and for most part it just chooses a surface below it rather than above it. The scientist said, “It comes as a-matter-of-fact if you look closely without preconceived theories. Why do the branches of a tree grow upward rather than bending down? Why do lizards choose to hang upside down from our ceilings while birds perch up-straight on trees? That’s because plants and animals haven’t heard about earth’s gravity while we unfortunate humans have, thanks to Galileo and Newton. Humans believe in it so superstitiously that even if we tried to walk on the ceiling, we have to fall down to confirm to this blindly held farce.” The article further talked about a debate over global acceptance of this new theory and its effect on habitats of birds, monkeys and lizards.

Before testing it myself, I decided to move around just to make sure. In the washroom, a guy was using the wash basin with the tap turned up and water reaching up to his face two feet above. I was not sure that if I pissed, will it go into the sink or the sink will throw it back on me; so I simply avoided the morning chores for the time being. My neighbor had already shifted his bed to the ceiling and was hanging with his hands resting from the ceiling. I couldn’t say if he was standing downside up or was practicing Yoga upside down. Whatever it was, it all seemed so creepy.

Without crinkling my brain further, I went to attend classes as scheduled. But the scene inside the classroom was too much alleviating. Till yesterday, students had the choice of sitting in the front or the back. But now they had four options, front or back on floor or ceiling. To avoid challenging my already constipated bowels, I chose to sit upright as usual. And I also decided to put my chair on side wall from tomorrow onwards just to be unconventional while have fun with this new opportunity.

During the lecture, the marketing professor drifted away from the topic and talked about the possible implications of this new anti-gravitational theory on marketing. According to him, it will be a boom for retail industry since they will now have both floor and ceiling area to doubles their shelf space. But it will be a bane for realty and construction since people will opt for smaller houses with adaptation of natural bunker beds facing each other. However, all this will be short lived since land and property prices will also double in due time.

Other than these, I saw one clear and immediate advantage for us. Now we can put tables on the ceiling in our mess to avoid overcrowding. Also, the future generations will be rescued from studying Newton’s laws of gravitation. It also removed one of the greatest fears of humans – “Will the lizard on the ceiling fall on my head due to gravity?” – now we know it won’t unless it specifically chooses to. Hitting a six in cricket will be a lot easier while hitting down the ball will be difficult in volleyball. Also, gymnastics will not be so awe-inspiring any more. Spiderman will no longer be a hero and terrorists will threaten to destroy the moon with a hijacked plane.

As a student of marketing, I thought of making the best of this opportunity and come up with an innovative product to cater to the anti-gravitational aspirations of hitherto grounded humans. But marketing is not about creating new stuffs, which must be left to scientists and researchers. We marketers only create the perception of a great desire, for an absolutely crap and useless product, in the minds of the consumers. So I pondered upon ideas to resell an existing product with a new name. “How about a Wall-resting TV to replace a Wall-mounted TV?” I asked myself. “Sounds great. But why is my alarm clock ringing on the middle of the day. Darn, it must be morning and I must be dreaming all along.”