I-Trash

This publication is a release of all feelings personal and should under no circumstances be equated to being a negative feedback. The fact that I am spending a substantial amount of time I am supposed to be freewheeling, goes on to speak of my appreciation for the things I am about to portray as evil.

The exaggeration - An average 24 year old working Indian earns something around $1,000 every month, spends 35% (I started off with 30% but then got reminded of the recent petrol price hike) of it on basic living, 30% on luxury, 20% on family and the final 15% on things I call I-Trash. Now some of my American or European friends may find this 15% an over exaggeration but most of my Indian friends, who share this unconditional love for all things that help them realize their alter ego, would agree.

The lucky critic - Without questions I accept the fact - "I am from the stone age". I live off an $50 phone that's been running for the last 2 years and argue in favor of the fact that cell phones are used only for calling people and sending that occasional text message. But lucky  me!! I have all it needs to be the critic. My 6Ft, 200 lbs Americanized flatmate breathes "I", which means I get to play with The I-Pad and The I-Phone !!

The I-Pad - [Paad'] in Hindi means fart and I dare not call it The I-Fart

Purchased : 2011 ; Usage : 5 - 10 hours a week for reading news feeds, face booking, playing angry birds (personal favorite) and Asphalt ; Damage : $1,000

Almost an year into its existence, the shiny silver white still glitters, the touch pad shows not a scratch and not a sign of lag. But then, flipping through e-paper and and delicately predicting the projectile motion of the angriest of birds isn't supposed to wrinkle or scratch glass, is it? Some call it quality, others credit the owners as I foolishly question the usage. Again, on retrospection what else could it be used for? I-pod plays good music, laptop takes care of the news and the birds (and does a lot more too); essentially, helps me earn. Around the same time I got introduced to the "Pad", I had gifted my mom a gold ring which looked slightly tarnished the last I was home. They have started adulterating gold, should have gifted an I-Pad instead!!

The I-Phone -Unfortunate, Hindi doesn't help me with the analog neither does Mandarin. But I-Respect

Purchased : 2012; Usage : 1 hour a day, taking pictures, uploading Instagram images, setting reminders, talking and texting ; Damage : $1,000 again

Thankfully, it has got the normal voice dialing capabilities. Just when I was starting to wonder why I never received a call from the I-Phone, my flatmate finally managed to get it configured. 6 weeks after the pack was opened, it was finally about to fulfill its primary purpose. Think of this. You are filthy rich, you just lost your phone, you are being chased by goons and you run into an I-Store, buy an I phone and realize it takes ages to get this thing to make a call !! The camera's brilliant and so is Instagram but I could have gone professional with that kind of money. For everything else there was always the I-Pad and the $50 phone.

Not that I hate the I's or the corporation that's gone ballistic by selling things which do nothing but make people look rich and decorated. My sole problem, even if a lot of people think like this : http://www.motoringcrunch.com/news/mobile-tech/10788-siri-iphone-4s-steve-jobs-ad , I would have been glad to see Siri helping the blind rather than my flatmate to set up a reminder.

Cheers !!

P.S. Friends of the I-Freaks, nothing to lose, laugh out loud!!

I-freaks, food for thought!!

Fear !!

You walk down the alley.. The dark moon rising.. Fading embers from a blown out fire.. You can feel life forms in the darkness but can’t see a thing.. You try not to see and run away to freedom.

You trust they won’t harm.. The murderous rage.. Fading love from a long lost brotherhood.. You know you were one of them but the trust won’t last.. You try not to trust and beg for your life..

You ask for a little help.. No one cares.. Fading joy from the last of the golden hearts.. You can feel the shades of love through the cold but the feeling doesn’t stay.. You try not to ask and cry your heart out..

Chariot of the Gods..

You go crazy, cry out loud, get down on your knees and whisper to your heart "I love you baby". Ahh now do not draw in your syllogisms based on the rhetorical discourses you may have come across about me.
You can curse me for posting this crap (having wasted your precious time just before Valentines day when you could have been reading posts on love, lust, luck what ever) but dare not go any further if you are looking for a romantic post (wrong place mate ).
End of part one, end of the disclaimer, end of the crap.
Lazy day, lazy evening, lazy coffee at a CCD. In comes a mere mortal (I will hate him all my life) on the chariot of the gods. Go guessing my motorhead friends. I will help you with few names that I imagined could be second to the chariot:
Porsche Panamera: If only my last name was Gates or Ambani, I could have one of them but not sans a driver coz daddy won't let his little boy go crazy on it.
Mercedes CLS 550: If only I were to be deported to a country with great roads and signed on by Manchester United as there star forward. I wont own one even if I get the riches here coz then I will have to make my own racetrack too.
Pagani Huayra: The Schumachers are my 1st cousins. I get free access to tracks all round the globe. They even give me lessons on high speed driving.
Awful imaginations. Cut the crap again.
Lazily sipping coffee again. In rides on to the pavement "Mr. X" on his chariot. A Black Harley Davidson Road King. My mind goes astray, I can think no more, all I am capable of is continuing with the blatant stare..
A minute, I regain my senses and start watching the world react for the next 15 minutes.
A teenager on a bike (my bad, cycle) : Shocked. Skeptical. Almost ready to be run over by the truck behind him, trying to fulfill his uncontrolled urge to keep watching.
Father and son walking by: Dad walks past, my guess he did not notice. Son stands back, gapes and gapes and keeps on gaping. Dad is now almost 50 meters ahead, turns back and calls out. Now as the son walks dad takes his turn.
A young couple (walking hand in hand): The guy takes his chance to rub his palm against the leather as he walks past, but by then he has lost his girl who stays back.
Two young men(A & B) and a man (Z) in a Ford Ikon: Z parks his car strategically so that he can have an unobstructed view. A and B, pushed in to a state of ludicrous daze start jumping around the Harley snapping photographs in every pose humanly possible and every angle obtainable. Z disturbed by the childish monkeying of two responsible looking adults starts honking his horn trying to steer his car as close to the Harley as possible.
KP & I walking out of the CCD: I was still rambling about my dreams of growing rich, getting myself a chariot one day and KP blabbing out something (attention !), slowly walk to the Harley ogling at every bit of the beauty. We come across a girl who was jumping around mindlessly, hiding not any bit of the sense of her ecstasy. I remember me saying "Its a beast !" but I do not think anyone listened.
And now for the last hour, while I have been writing this, I have been dreaming. I dream one day I will get myself one of the chariots, I will take a couple of months off from the world and go riding all over India , my ear phones blasting "Highway star" and "No woman no cry" into my ear drums and the sun setting across the blue sky as I stop to feel the water rush down my parched throat. I have been wondering how I will "Forgive the unrelenting Indian summer heat", "Forgive the roads", "Forgive the government" and "Forgive Mr X". Until then Mr. X, I will envy you like I have envied no one before and pray to the gods "they give you the strength to protect the chariot".



PS: My friends say I am from the stone age (I am happy with a cell phone that can do nothing but make calls when they play around with the droids) and there are very few things around the world that invoke wild responses from me. I have seen the Road King's lesser brothers and half brothers from Harley Davidson on Indian roads but the Road King is all so different.

The blind side..

Almost every literate soul today is at least aware of "The Zeitgeist Movement", if not influenced by it. I just finished watching their most recent presentation (that is what I would prefer calling it) on the crises in Egypt. Governments bashed! Wikileaks and right to information hailed! Sheer brilliance!! Is it not?
Now lets roll back a few years down our own lives. Back to school I should say, to a time when you and me took pride in being made the class monitor, being called a great footballer or being hailed as one of the brightest students in the class. Is it not, that behind every success story that you and I have, there is some small dark secret. The class monitor who never reported his mischievous best friend, the super footballer who pulled off a great act to get his school team a penalty or the brightest student of the class who scored a couple of extra marks because he accidentally walked into a friend in the washroom.
I wont compare this to the ABSOLUTE CRIMES that leaders around the globe today commit. I detest them as much as Julian Assange and the founders of the Zeitgeist Movement do, but for a moment, lets think of the effects the a Wikileaks would have had on our class monitor, super footballer and brightest student in class. A mini disaster in the life of the young leader???
I am not drawing any analogies but is it not that "The Zeitgeist Movement" very well contradicts its own theories that our world leaders try to show us what they want to? Do the leaders of Zeitgeist have a soul so cleansed that they are not corrupted by power? Is not that they try to show us what they want us to believe in?
Harmony is a long lost dream of the past when homo sapiens did not walk the face of the earth. But since you and me were born, like the billions before us, let us for a moment stop dreaming of the idealistic world that would have been. Would it actually be possible to rule a nation without secrets? Is it any more real than the heavens and gods to be dreaming of a world with free information flowing through humanity yet not destroyed by it. Is it possible to control the devil in every soul, enlightened with information on how the world is run, how each nations armed forces protect them?
Then again we come across the human race so much betrayed by the people they want to trust, its so much certain that they trust anything that raises its arms against the governments. And in there is something that I believe fans the fires that helps people rise against each other, helps a Julian Assange and a Zeitgeist movement rise against the governments.

PS: This is a personal view blinded by the lack of adequate knowledge but driven by a complete trust in human nature. The very psychological state that you and me started to carry the moment we we had our five senses working.

In our eyes….

During my last visit home I went to my village to see my week old nephew (Anshu : that’s what we named him later). I had seen a few photographs and I was told he was a cherry. Perfectly fair only to turn red when he was hungry. I remember I had rushed into my cousin’s room to take a look at the baby. And there he was lying by his mother, so beautiful I couldn’t help but say he will grow up to be a very fair and handsome young man. Out of pure ecstasy I had failed to notice an elderly woman in the room. And all of a sudden there she was saying ‘naa baba he will probably get darker as he grows old’. I was stunned at the straightness of her words and the confidence in her voice. I could see my bhabi’s face grow a bit pale and the giggle from her face vanish, which all the more infuriated me. By now I was red and then again she said ‘baba you were the same colour when you were born, see how dark you have become’. Me and bhabi both broke into a laughter and I said I remember from my photographs of those days, my skin was the colour of milk.
As a kid, when I was like three or four I used to visit my village a lot. Something about playing with sand and running around with the other kids fascinated me more than the wonderful toys I got to play with at home. So my trips to my village would often start with getting dirty from head to toe, a few bruises here and there and then me being locked indoors and asked not to play with those kids in the dirt. Trips passed by and my stint with the village kids grew shorter with the same story being repeated all over again until some day, I for myself had decided those kids were dirty. By the time I was in 5th or 6th grade, when I went to my village, I won’t even go to play cricket with the other kids in a grassy field, although back home I would rush out to play in the dusty lanes immediately after school.
I remember I loved reading the news paper by the time I was twelve or thirteen. That was vaguely around the time when acts of terrorism were on a rise around the world. Almost all terrorist attacks were organized by Islamic terrorists and the Indian media left no stone unturned in linking all acts of terrorism to Muslims. They were the ones from the planners, to the financers and the petty suicide bombers who carried out the final step. And again there I was caught in the crossfire, my immature mind led to believe all Muslims to be evil, and the effect so devastating that even when I was around eighteen I would look up in suspicion whenever I crossed a bearded man in a kurta. 
I was nineteen, in the first year of my life as an engineering student. I dare say it’s around this age most of us think of trying out a few new things and I could generalize the new things into alcohol, cigarettes, and girlfriends. Girlfriend, it was never an issue as far as I was concerned ( ahem!! I am still single) but alcohol and cigarettes, they led to me being branded as a bad boy. Every time I walked around with a cigarette or my mouth smelled alcohol I was lectured on by people , I was explained the ill effects ( like I was illiterate) and worst of all I was branded an alcoholic although I have a drink not more than once a month. By the time I reached my third year every time something wrong happened in college it was obvious that people would blame it on some one who drinks alcohol rather than on one who doesn’t. I even remember one incident when I had to fight saying ‘common he may drink his peg of whiskey but he is no trolley waala’.
Now I am twenty two. For probably the last three weeks I have been following the attacks on Indians’ in Australia. Its been a very sad couple of weeks I can say, young , intelligent and successful as I would brand those Indian students there in Australia were rather brutalized. And yet again the Indian media has glorified Australians as racists. As far as I remember it all started with articles like “Indian attacked in Australia" slowly turned into “Racist attacks on Indians’ in Australia” and today most newspapers read “Racist Australians attack an Indian student again”. I do firmly believe the attacks were directed at Indians, but does that mean we brand the whole of Australia as a promoter of racism? Or do we turn ourselves against every Australian who visits our country.
 Had I been fifteen or hot headed as some of my friends I would have hated Australians with all my might, may be I would even kick an Australian to his coffin should I get a chance. And all this thanks to the way our vision has developed over the years. May be the same elderly woman who said Anshu would grow up to get darker was standing besides my mom and had predicted the colour of my skin correctly but I do hope ten years from now Anshu grows up to be a really fair dude. I do hope someday I get the courage to walk down to the village cricket field and play a match although now its more about not having any friends in my native place cause I chose to avoid them. Sometimes I wonder if I was myself prejudiced to the extent that I cast a doubt on every Muslim and at others I think if ever the people who call me a drunkard would look up to me as one of them who has a occasional drink just to freak out. Considering the prejudices I carry after my eyes have seen only twenty two years I don’t really expect the Australians not to be branded as racists but I hope our prejudices don’t turn us into the same bloody racists we hate. Everyone of us has seen the anger in our hearts grow,  may it never go wild.

Evenings and coffees

Thanks to my dad, I know a bit about coffee. Presently with the market facing a gross short supply and investors pumping in billions into the commodities market a kg of clean coffee beans cost around 180 rupees. A bit of help, and fifteen minutes later adding up the cost of the milk, the sugar, the cream and even a small rent on the mug, my king sized mug of coffee doesn’t cost any more than Rs 13.55(cant help it ,the figure on my calculator screen). Add the services, the cushioned chairs and whatever, my mug served steaming hot will now at most be Rs 20.
After spending a month of my summer vacations in front of the modest ‘paan dukkan’, sipping in ‘garam chai’ at not more than Rs 3.00 I, for once tried to explore the reasons that made me visit the up market ‘café coffee days’ and the ‘baristas’ where a cup of cappuccino cost me no less that rupees forty only. As idiotic as you may find me I did find half a dozen reasons.

1. The pain in the ass: Sitting on a wooden plank or the seat of a bike is no way as comfortable as the plush chairs of a CCD. I now have to stand up every fifteen minutes to relieve my ass of the pain. I simply loved those chairs. A definite and valid reason to pay the extra 20 rupees on every cup!!

2. The incentive: In a group of six you didn’t always have to order a mug. You could take your day off and enjoy a sip from every other mug, only to face the awful eyes of the waiter who keeps on asking “anything else sir?” until you lose all your shame and say it loud and clear “nothing for me!”
3. Hassle free smoking: Every time I go smoking, the fear of being caught is more than the fear of dying from cancer. So often it has to be behind a bush or behind the paan dukkan itself. CCD did give me a quiet corner to have a smoke with my friends’ and no, smoking wasn’t banned in public places before 2nd October 2008.
4. Walk in, find a friend: No calls made or received, its 5:30 in the evening and I walk straight into a CCD. No surprises I find a group of friends and the evening was gone. Paan dukkan and the chai have definitely contributed to my increasing phone bills.
5. The dude thing: “Hey mate! Where are you?” this is probably the first line in every call I receive after 5 in the evening and buoy CCD sounded great for an answer, now it’s the paan dukkan behind some big hotel.
6. The treat: Okay I cant miss this. Sizzling hot coffee and a sizzling hot chick (on the other table of course)!! That was a deadly combo. CCD’s do give my dried up eyes (study where I do , and you’ll imagine the Bedouin’s are better off) the biggest treat.

The coffee joints in town have definitely given me their best for years but this summer I suppose it was time for a change. May be I was bored watching the same ladies who took the same table in the corner every evening, or the monotony of the identical taste of the cappuccino. Good bye CCD, bbbyee Barista.

Through the smoke..

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide

At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world
                                         High hopes (Pink Floyd)

We were boozing, we were high and of course we were rejoicing the end of yet another year in our quest to become engineers. Tumult now started to accompany the smoke from the burning sticks of nicotine as the highs and lows of the year gone by was rewound to the last detail. This happens every time people like us sit down to have booze but I would like to brag, our group’s a bit special. We almost try to visualize the whole world from those dizzy heights. There’s always the politics, the economics, literature, sciences, social issues, careers and almost everything else under the sun(all this apart from the usual girlfriend, love, best friend, die for you friends blab la….). All this interspersed by brief moments of silence during which the realizations take shape.
About two hours in to the session, tired from the nonstop blabbering, by then the moments of silence had overgrown the tumultuous periods. As we lay on a double bed forcible pushed in to the small room to accommodate all of us, the silence this time around was broken by a murmur. A kid from the hostel dinning room had come asking for empty bottles of soft drinks. “No bottles in my room” said the voice of the owner of the makeshift pub, then a very brief silence and then a question “why is it that kids are forced to clean up our dinning tables?” , “can’t we be doing something?” “can’t we stop wasting money like this and may be help them out?” (I still hate myself for that). What followed, I ain’t got the vocabulary to describe that, but all I can say is, it lead to the longest debate I have ever been in.
The friend explained a number of things we could do for them, someone even gave us the calculations. You may call me a pessimist or even an evil soul (even I have questioned myself) but I did ask “What would the kid’s family do? Most probably they survive on whatever he earns!” “What can we do about his brother who probably gets his daily bread because this guy is leading a life of misery?”  
Plagued with these we continued to fight on what we can do. Reasoned and unreasoned for hours that followed and finally our exhausted brains reached a consensus (a soul or two still disagreed) on the point that we were probably not in the right stage to help out and we can do it may be a couple of years later when we were settled. 
From those dizzy heights we had seen our dreamed of world with our eyes wide open. The only thing that disturbs me now is the fear of sleepwalking back on this dream. Hope we will someday, in the near future, when we are more capable, work for its realization. I have for ever believed in my self, hope this wont be the reason I will regret that fact. 

(My sincere apologies to every soul in there with me that afternoon for not being able to put this as all of you would have liked.)

The stairway to Hell !!!

(Some called it cold blooded plagiarism, others laughed their hearts out but I for some reason enjoy this more than anything coz I have fallen in love with the periodic cycle of exams that brings out this supernatural burst of creativity in me.)

She’s the lady who’s sure,
She can make me to cry,
And she is buying me a stairway to hell.
When she gets to me she knows
With a word she can kill,
Ooh she’s buying me a stairway to hell.
There’s a knife through my brains,
But she wants to be sure,
Cause she knows , sometimes people can have two lives.
In a room by the hall,
There she sat for the kill,
Sometimes all of her thoughts are so unforgiving.
Ooh she just made her kill.
Ooh ooh she just bought me the stairway to hell……

                                                 To be continued..

“Dedicated to the tyranny that exams bring on in the lives of engineering students”

The Fake IPL

 (This blog is only a manifestation of my thoughts. It doesn't intend to accuse or defame anyone. )

While most young people like me were busy following the original IPL in South Africa, some thing much more dramatic was happening back home. So dramatic, and mesmerizing, it could beat the hell out of the original IPL from the Indian drawing room discussions. But one thing that has remained is that the INDIAN POLL LEAGUE (Fake IPL), like always gives me reason enough to Laugh Out Loud. Considering my shallow knowledge of the fake IPL (blame it on the real one) I will talk only about the most publicized of our great leaders.
VARUN GANDHI (The front runner): The Preamble to our constitution may give a special emphasis to SECULARISM but he really gives a F*** about it. The Gandhian on the other bank of the river, may yell out as many anti Muslim slogans he can or he even may kill a couple, but this country really knows how to forgive and forget. Cheers VG, Cheers Pilibhit!!!
MULAYAM SINGH YADAV(The veteran): The list of accusations of misappropriation of funds and corruption in his name will definitely need more pages than the Mein Kampf but the voters of Mainpuri wont care as long as it’s from the tax payers pockets. The winner for almost two decades from the constituency does know how to please the people who make his fortunes. Long live MS.
NAVJOT SINGH SIDHU(The superstar): “You may bowl me the Yorker or spin the ball from outside my leg stump, but you cant take my bells off”. The charismatic cricket commentator (that was much better than his cricket) who couldn’t control his anger on the streets and was charged with culpable homicide is all set to become a member of the parliament. Chak de phatte!! Expect a few flying chairs in the house.
SASHI TAROOR(The long distance runner): I did sympathize with him when he lost the office of United Nations Secretary-General, but didn’t any body tell him “gentlemen like him were better off saving the face of the nation outside”. The dude from India at the UN will now have his job cut out when he takes his seat in the parliament. Hats off to you!!! May you serve the nation with all your might..
MOHAMMAD AZHARUDDIN(The dude): He played his cricket with his collars flying high, even fixed matches with the flying collars and now has managed to fix his place in the parliament. The “dude” who tainted the face of Indian cricket has now been given an even more responsible job. All hail the Indian voters!!!! Don’t you ever watch cricket or were his opponents bigger criminals???
 And the matches, leave them!!!! They were stated to be much more interesting with contenders like Mayawati(The Tigress), Narendra (The “run” Rioter) Modi , L K (The slogger) Advani and our dear Manmohan (The fair play winner) Singh running for the captain’s cup, but all was spoilt by the Gandhi’s again..