The Wheel of Time.

There were many things Ayush did for the first time during his school trip to Delhi. Playing  ‘Teen patti’ (flash) was one of them. With Rs 30/  he won 370 in one deal, and treated everyone with  boiled eggs on a thela. Other secrets I could not dig as he had a friend waiting on Skyp and then various tests he had to take in his coaching classes as well as in school."Bahut mauj kaati", (enjoyed a lot) he said in the local lingo and left me unpacking his soiled clothes. I could relate to every moment he was going through.

The wheel of time seemed to stare at me saying, "See how fast I move."

It does seem long back when after returning from Allahabad, State level games our frends came back to college and three of them had the same expression on their faces.They blurted to each other,'You also know?" Then began a live show by three stand-up comedians at the basket ball floor of MKP College.. Laughter was already in the air.

In their basket ball team some of the girls were from other schools. In the train a mind-blowing session of  songs and dance  was  a ritual .Suitcses used to be one of the main musical instruments.I wonder if RD Burman knew abt it, as he has used desks in one of the songs in Kitaab. Very late at night,in the Link Express,when the orchestra died down, girls went to their berths and boys went to the seperate compartment.

When everyone went into deep slumber,a boy entered and came to a girl. The girl ws nervous.But the boy told her tht all ws well.She whispered the names of all the three girls who, had berths around her.Assured of their privacy they must hv carried on..It must have been difficult for the 3 kids to supress their giggles.I wonder if they pulled her leg when they met her in some other tournament.

MKP was known for its hap and bold girls who had come from different elite and other schools of Dehrdun.The uniform was all white,shalwar-kurta and dupatta.A famous one liner goes like this: seeing them in all white a boy said,
"MKP ki saari lardkiyaan vidhwa ho gayi hai'
Immediately came the answer, "Haan DAV ke saare lardke mar jo gaye hain"

Once we were standing in a circle and talking to our games teacher in the winter sun.Suddenly we spotted a man near a small gate which opened to  a lane.The lane was called love-lane. Not many students used it. A pervert was standing and making obscene gestures. It was quite a distance otherwise one of us would have hit him with a real big stone.We were seething with rage.A girl shouted "tod ke haath main rakh do", eveyone looked at her, then she completed her sentence....:iske daant".(Break his teeth and put it in his hand)
Without deciding anything, they just ran behind him.One of them, a tall Sikh girl  had a hockey stick with her.They chased him till the market but in the crowd he could escape.They came back without thrashing him.But no such incidence was repeated there.

Thinking about my college days and trips, I asked Ayush, "Who won the maximum money in Teen Patti?"
"Arundhati", she won Rs 700/.

Uniform Trouble

The school uniform was introduced in India by the British. I never cease to thank them for that. As a mother I realize that I might have spent a fortune on branded clothes for my kids, but I found them most dashing in their white uniform.

Growing up in Dehradun, a city famous for its schools, I got to see beautiful uniforms. The most chic I found, belonged to Welham Girls' School. White lower (salwar) and white kurta with blue bug shaped dots and a thinly folded dupatta. IMA (Indian Military Academy) also gave the locals, the pleasure of gazing admiringly at the young recruits in their uniforms, even at the places like restaurants and bazaars.

I wore blue, green and white uniforms during my different schools and college. I loved to wear my uniform and even iron it, which used to be a salwar kurta or a tunic. When I joined teaching, things began to change. My first boss was a Russian. He introduced a multi coloured scarf, representing different Houses. Though it saved them from the burden of wearing a tie, I found it unnecessary. Many newly opened schools experimented with a light coloured shirt and dark coloured lower, i.e., shorts, pants or skirts. All the schools came up with lovely combinations.

  Wondering about the school uniforms in the rural India long back, I asked my 75 year old father about his uniform in school. Uniform for them meant  just a white cap or Gandhi topi. The moment he used to see the sun rays hitting a particular rock he used to grab his topi and rush to school which was located by the river Mandakini, a tributary of the Ganges. After standard five he came to Dehradun.  He wore his first uniform, khaki shorts and white shirt, in a school run by Jansangh. Most of his classmates were refugees from Pakistan, their differences vanishing under the garb of the uniform.

My house at the IIT Kanpur Campus, is surrounded by different schools, a kindergarten, a primary school and a KV. I meet many of my ex-students while going and coming back from the school where I teach now. One day I ran into a KV student whom I had taught in DPS. She was not very eager to meet me and was trying to hide behind another girl. Since she happened to be the daughter of one of my colleagues also, I stopped to ask her how she felt about her new school and why was she so shy. She wished me with a grin. As we came closer, I observed her uniform. It was a pair of trousers and a full sleeves knee length kurta with Nehru collar. She also wore a waist coat, at 2 in the afternoon, on a humid July day.  Later her mother told me that how much she disliked her uniform. Senior boys also wore a big blue and red check with red collars and some more designing with red. Wonder how the KV students in the hotter places are coping up with this change.

KV has changed the uniform as a part of a ‘facelift’ to celebrate its fifty years. The ministry of textiles and National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) have designed the uniform. I have yet to meet someone who liked the uniform. The good old navy blue and white is missed by everyone.

                                        

The Naming Game

When I see Dhirendra becoming Dhiren and Atindra becoming Atin, I realise that there are many who hate their names.I was happy to change a student's name from Devgiri to Mayank in the new session. He'll not have to carry the burden of an unwanted name throughout his life.

My sister is one of the victims.While enjoying a long drive in the lower Himalayas, once she told in a grave tone, " I wonder how could grandpa, a veteran astrologer with a sound knowledge of Sanskrit, give me a name as petty as Meena? Meenakshi would have suited me so well." I tried to console her by saying that it means, 'a colourful gem' or a fish (meen), which is not bad. Her disappointment multiplied manifolds when one of the kids in the car spotted a signboard on the way stating, 'Meena Bar.'

I have always been at ease with my name, though during most of my school and college life I was known by my different nick names. My games teacher who knew me for two years, stared me with wide eyes and asked, "You are Vandana, not Vandy?", while giving  the certificates for some event.

I was also convinced that I didn't have a very hap name as my friends had, like Anindita, Parul, Shalini etc. But I sympathised with  my Sikh female friends who had very masculine names as Upinder, Harjinder and even Rajender. On the other hand I loved Simran (before DDLJ), Mehar and Divjot Kaur.

As a child whenever I could get to watch a movie, I used to have this secret wish that the main character was my namesake. But it never happened, not even during the Doordarshan days. Then Youtube happened and I could watch all the movies I wanted to. I was so happy, for old time's sake, to see in one of  the super hits of Indian cinema, with Rajesh Khanna in the lead and gorgeous Sharmila Tagore sharing my name in Aradhana

Ganga Mela: A unique Holi celebration

Life in a Non Metro-3

When  for the  rest of India  Holi, the festival of colours, is a thing of bygone week and celebrations and Gujhiyas ( a sweet) are over, Kanpur is ready for the second round of  Holi  on Ganga Mela, with more fervor and enthusiasm.

Ganga Mela falls on Anuradha nakshtra, which is three to seven days after Holi.This Holi doesn't have the colour of mythology but of nationalism. The objects of worship are not our Gods but the heros of  National Movement for freedom during Quit India Movement.

During The Quit India Movement (1942) the freedom fighters  hoisted the tricolour on the day of Holi, declaring India free. It infuriated the British administration and the freedom fighters Ghulab Chand Seth, Hamid Khan, Shyam Lal Gupta (lyricist of ‘Jhanda uncha rahe hamara’), Amrik Singh, Raghubar Dayal Bhatt, Bal Kishan Sharma, Pitambar Lal and many more were arrested. 

The city which had witnessed Mutiny of 1857 was furious. People stopped playing Holi and demanded the release of all the freedom fighters. Seeing the protest, the British had to release them. The day of release coincided with the planetary position called Anuradha Nakshatra. Overjoyed people of Kanpur celebrated the festival the whole day and in the evening met at Sarsaiyya Ghat, on the banks of holy Ganges. The tradition is still followed with the spirit of patriotism.

The Campus I live in, has nothing common with the city it belongs to. When we came to Kanpur to settle down I didn't know about this post Holi celebration. It was just a bonus holiday for me, a working mom of two school going kids. But now I feel like urging the people to smear a little Gulal (colour) and take a dip in the ganga on my behalf too, as I salute all the heroes of our freedom struggle.

Sarsaiyya Ghat, Kanpur.

Circle of Desire: My entry for the Get Published contest

The Idea:

This is Vaishali's story. It begins with her journey of romance with life. Life gave her everything on a platter. I invite you to be her guest and walk through the meandering trail of her stream of consciousness and relate to her narrative, if you too are a woman and a dreamer. What does a woman want in a man? Would she be happy if she gets one? This is about the romance which bloomed during the pre-internet and Facebook days. When long distance relationships also worked. When Rudre's just a glance weakened her knees and created a storm in her chest. Why she worshiped Rudre whose only reality was his palette and brush and his career as a painter? His charisma was  intoxicating, which had a firm foundation of honesty.

And then there is a third corner of the triangle, Dhruv...

What Makes This Story ‘Real’?

Next morning, she was at the railway station with the team manager and the other girls. She saw Rudre coming towards her. She was not exactly waiting for him but was delighted  to see him. They talked for a while till it was time to part. They exchanged phone numbers and addresses. “Only to my pen-friends”, she had told when he asked her, “Do you write letters?”

She knew that he would make a wonderful friend. He too felt something similar. Looking outside the train window she laughed at herself, wondering how she could even like someone who wore a gold chain around his neck and was barely taller than her. Jewelry was a feminine thing and boys had to be tall like her brothers.

ndnote: This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs from Yashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India.

Gifts- Then and Now

Love is the most clichéd and googled word, especially in the month of February. A month which has two or three days less than other months for the lovers to gaze at each other’s eyes. When I see the advertisements of diamond jewelry in the context of love and romance and the women fluttering their eyelashes, I think of my mother’s expressions when dad gave her a gift and our family including a few of our neighbors were ecstatic. Which was followed by the peels of laughter.

I was in class V and was preparing for a test to get admission in a prominent convent school in Allahabad. A city which was known for good schools and education. The campus (PHQ, Police Headquarter) we lived in had well maintained play-grounds, badminton and tennis courts, clubs, gardens and mango and tamarind trees. Life was good. During the summer break dad got a promotion and the transfer order. We were transferred from the Gangetic planes to the lap of Himlayas. Life changed drastically. We were too young to realize that how it would adversely  affect our education and career in the long term, but mom was heart broken. We missed our campus life and friends.  

The house we got to live in, though spacious, was neither cozy, like traditional a pahari house nor  charming like a British bungalow. Soon the tough mountain life kept us too busy to complain and get bored.

Without any domestic help, after the tedious chores mother could squeeze some time for her hobbies, reading and gardening. She loved to read magazines like ‘Saptahik Hindustan’ and ‘Dharmyug’. For gardening, she could use as much land as we could, because there was no boundary wall. Just a hedge had to be there. She used to keep us updated about the  new blooms and shoots in the garden. Once she showed us a variety of pumpkin which looked more like a bottle guard. The pumpkin grew day by day, on a clreeper which had only a few leaves.

One day, we reached home from school, tired and hungry after climbing  2 kms of steep trail. While serving hot parathas, mother said with a wry smile that the Pumpkin was lifted by someone as it lay near the hedge. Same evening, we were chatting with our neighbors, about the lost object. We were also  cracking jokes about the ‘stolen’ veggie when father reached home from the office and heard her woes.Before she could finish her story father produced the same pumpkin and shocked all of us.

He used to walk home from office. While coming home he stopped at a vegetable shop and glancing through all the veggies, he saw that familiar Kaddu. Haneef, the shopkeeper told him that ‘it’was fresh from the garden. That morning only a village boy sold that to him.

My little Management Gurus

When I sat to write a post on the initiative (write a letter to a ten year old) by Blogadda.com, I thought of some of my students I taught in the last eight years.

Ten year olds are in class five or six.

When I taught class Prep, which is just before class 1, I used to be with my students for 3 hrs everyday. The time-table I was given to follow was like: After assembly a written work (Eng, Hindi or Maths), recess, one more written work and activities like story telling, drawing etc adjusted in between. One day Samarpan (Sam) came to me and told, "Ma'am, after recess and outdoor activities we don't feel like writing, So can we have two 'Writing' periods consecutive and after recess only outdoor and other activities?" He gave me some other genuine suggestions also.

A few years later I was the class teacher of class 3. My class was a mixture of  the kids of ultra rich, rich and neo rich parents. On Teacher's Day one of the parents sent a big cake with a lot of icing and a cherry on the top, which made me shudder as dividing and distributing it among 42 children was a messy job. No matter how affluent the family child comes from is, he would always want the biggest piece and the cherry. While I was drawing imaginary lines on the cake, Nupur, with her cherubic smile came and asked me, "May I ?" and gently took the knife from my hand. First she told everyone to take their seats and patiently cut the cake and called the kids, one by one. She instructed them to pick a paper plate  before coming to her. Within no time my work was done.  Not that two monitors and some other kids  were less capable but they let her do everything, without giving any 'expert's comment'. I wished we grown ups also could learn to run our institutions, state and country so amicably.

In the same class, Jhanvi, a shy new entrant, came to me during recess and told that she was unwell and wanted to go home. I told her to go to infirmary where the nurse  would decide if she could go home. In the fifth period I was shocked to know that Jhanvi was neither in the class nor in the infirmary. Only a fellow teacher would know my plight. I was about to do the needful when Akarsh, a hefty and active child checked Jhanvi's bus number from the attendance register saying this is the time buses ply for primary children, she must have boarded  hers, and ran down from the 3rd floor to the main gate.There he waited for the particular bus among many similar buses. Finally he spotted her. My heart sank when I saw him coming alone to the class. He casually informed me that he had dumped that silly girl into the infirmary. If she would have gone home in the bus that day, the bus conductor would have got the pink slip and  I would have been in a difficult situation.

Pranjali, aged 9, made me smile when she wrote "I want to be famous. I love to dance . I want to be an actor and win many awards. I am ready to work hard for it." Who doesn't want to be famous but only few have the courage to say it. Then she wrote she wants to be a doctor also, back up plan? She is very good in studies too.

There are many students who are close to my heart for being intelligent, street smart, with tremendous presence of mind, mature and  my little devils! I have faith and confidence in them. They don't need our preaching. We just have to nurture them with love and care.

The Best Things in Life are Not Free.

Best things in life are not free, We have to pay a big amount for them, which depends on the value of the object and what exactly is the best. 

First of all, the best things are not things but moments which we also call bliss. For each of us bliss is different. For a woman who is fasting for nine days during Navrati, the first morsel of spicy and tangy food is bliss. It is not free. She has earned it by creating the appetite  for nine long days.

See a mother gazing at her child while breast-feeding. It is her moment but didn't she pay for it beforehand, waiting for the nine long months and then labor pains which is of course a small price but  she did pay for the bliss.

Sunrise, one of the wonders of nature which reminds us that we are part of the vast universe. It is an amazing sight to behold especially if like me you too are a highlander. We can see the sun suddenly rising above the mountains. We can see its first ray travelling and gently hitting us. To enjoy it we have to have a mind free from all the tensions. If I  have one then it means I have earned this moment by being economically stable, being healthy, by living a disciplined life. Above all I'll have to get up early that day which is also a big price to pay for many of us.

Love, they say is priceless. You meet someone you like and you find out that  the other person also likes you a lot. Then you get pampered, admired and worshiped. You found your moment of bliss. After sometimes something happens and you part ways. Anyway those moment will always remain with you. Was it free? No. Won't you pay for it for a long time by carrying the burden in some corner of your heart?

I too have my best moments. My evening walk is one of them. The day before, it was karwachauth, When all the married women and girls in Northern India were waiting for the moon to appear to start the rituals and puja which they observe for the well being of their husbands, fiancés and boyfriends. I found the full moon following me during my evening walk. I also played a little game with it by suddenly stopping to dodge and see if it also stops with me. The full moon, behind the trees winked and seemed to say, "You can't dodge me." At that very moment on FM, Kishore Kumar joined us and sang this song: Chanda oh chanda,kisne churai teri meri nindia..( Oh! dear moon ,who has robbed us of our sleep)

I can't call it free as I paid its price when I felt the moisture in the corner of my eyes..

 For me bliss would be when we, who are  tiny part of the whole, would reunite with Him and become one (as our scriptures say). Like a river that runs hundreds of miles and becomes one with the vast ocean. But then the river too pays the  price by covering the distance and continuously struggling and longing to meet its origin.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

Repeat after Dr Kalaam

I'll fly and fly.
I'm born with potentials.
I'm born with goodness and truth.
I'm born with Ideas and dreams.
I'm born with greatness.
I'm born with confidence.
I'm born with courage.
I'll defeat the problems and succeed.
I have wings.
I have wings.
So I am not meant for crawling.
I will fly.
I will fly.
I will fly.

Dr APJ Abdul Kalaam.
Oct 25 2012.
IITK Kanpur

Tamarind City (Chennai)

TamarindCity: ( audio) Where the modern India began.

Tamarind city is the second book by Bishwanath Ghosh, a fellow Kanpurite settled in Chennai.

I moved to Chennai in 1996. I had only begun to marvel at the things it had to offer when I had to leave it, for my husband got an offer from IIT Kanpur and it being near to my hometown scored over Madras. This left a desire to explore Chennai and know more about its culture. Maybe this is why TC was a fabulous treat for me; leaving my desire well satiated. It gave me a second chance to walk down the streets I had  seen  and the ones I hadn't.

The Book starts with a metaphor which calls Chennai a charming old lady who met Robert Clive when she was 18 and calls him, “a very moody fellow." I wish my history teacher would have taught me in this way.

Exploring the city in the company of the author had its advantages as I could know about the city from the people living in it. Common people to celebrities all are his guests in the book. They include a primary school teacher, a palm reader at Marina, owner of Ratna Cafe, station master at Royapuram, Saroja Devi, Jemini Ganeshan's daughter Dr Kamla Selveraj, sexologist Dr Narayana Reddy, S.Muthiah, and many more including the man behind those illustrations in Chandamama, a magazine for children. Then we meet a yoga teacher who charges a measly sum for teaching this dynamic and challenging form of yoga saying she is not doing it for money.

 Some of the observations are so apt and well expressed that they surely would be quoted in future to define Chennai. One of them is, "Tradition is a day-wear in Chennai.While in other big cities it stays mothballed in trunks and taken out only during festivals or weddings, here tradition is worn round the year."

I am no historian so I believed what I read in the book that Chennai is known as conservative and orthodox yet almost every modern Indian institution — from army to judiciary, medicine to engineering — traces its roots to Madras’s Fort St. George, which was built when Delhi had just become Mughal India’s capital and Kolkata and Mumbai weren’t even born. But for those who beg to differ, Ghosh clarifies in one of his Facebook updates, "A couple of reviewers seem to have problems with my calling Madras India's oldest modern city. But that's an indisputable, historical fact."

I think, people from Chennai as well as outsiders would enjoy this book. At the book launch function in Delhi a young software engineer said: “Previously, when North Indians talked about Chennai they used to say: ‘Are you mad? Why would I move to Chennai?' But now I am thinking of moving there.”

(From EYES, our campus magazine)

Kishore Comedy Kumar

Kishore kumar sang 'kabhi Alvida na kehna' (never say goodbye) and how we obeyed him by never forgetting him for a moment. Someone somewhere is always celebrating life with his songs.

There was a flood of columns, blogs, articles and tweets on his 25th death anniversary. A few were as melodious as his songs and others harped about his eccentric nature. Funny or humorous would have been more appropriate.

I eagerly clicked this link which I got at twitter, an interview of KK by Pritish Nandi. I thought he would be more comfortable with a fellow bengali. I enjoyed the interview and realised that KK used to get irritated very easily but didn't lose his temper and then he would create some silly answers which he would give with seriousness. I wonder why these journalists couldn't see fun, humour and sarcasm in that, for example:

KK: Then, there was this interior decorator-a suited, booted fellow who came to see me in a three-piece woollen, Saville Row suit in the thick of summer- and began to lecture me about aesthetics, design, visual sense and all that. After listening to him for about half an hour and trying to figure out what he was saying through his peculiar American accent, I told him that I wanted something very simple for my living room. Just water-several feet deep- and little boats floating around, instead of large sofas. I told him that the centrepiece should be anchored down so that the tea service could be placed on it and all of us could row up to it in our boats and take sips from our cups. But the boats should be properly balanced, I said, otherwise we might whizz past each other and conversation would be difficult. He looked a bit alarmed but that alarm gave way to sheer horror when I began to describe the wall decor. I told him that I wanted live crows hanging from the walls instead of paintings-since I liked nature so much. And, instead of fans, we could have monkeys farting from the ceiling. That's when he slowly backed out from the room with a strange look in his eyes. The last I saw of him was him running out of the front gate, at a pace that would have put an electric train to shame. What's crazy about having a living room like that, you tell me? If he can wear a woollen, three-piece suit in the height of summer, why can't I hang live crows on my walls?

I don't think he would have said all this seriously. I also play pranks, answer sarcastically and exaggerate things to prove my point and then  laugh with friends till our ribs ache. I think it's normal as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. It's sad that he didn't have a friend with whom he could laugh.

Leather City

Life in a Non Metro-2
Oh Kanpur!

Just like Mumbai is 'Maximum City' and Calcutta is 'City of Joy' I too felt like giving a sobriquet  to my city which I had visited as a child with my parents when my mother had come here to appear for an exam. I also remember watching Bobby in one of the theatres in this city. I grew up wearing Chappals made in Kanpur which my father bought whenever he came here on official visits.

After twenty five years I again landed here to stay. As a kid also I might have thought of the  name "Leather City" because of the leather footwear connection. But now for me leather symbolizes something warm, strong and flexible.

Kanpur, has a glorious past, but  now has all the negative adjectives given to it by anyone visiting it. The worst is the tag of 'the 10th most polluted city in the world.'. This article on Kanpur titled Denizen of Darkness also depresses me a lot, but they have genuine reasons and data to prove. People who come here to work also keep comparing it with their home towns/other metro cities and condemn it. I could never say anything against it because, like many others,  who condemn it, I too chose to live here.

I live on a  beautiful campus which has nothing in common with the city it belongs to. Last Saturday when I was feeling frustrated to see the pics of  some of my friends on FB, living near and far, having fun and here I was getting bored to death, I got a call from a friend to join a small get together she had arranged at her place. I don't drive so promised her to be at her place if I get a driver. Luckily I got one. I shampooed my hair changed my look and mood and  was on my way to be with my friends for the evening.

We crossed two crowded Railway crossings (no flyovers) and a stretch of bumpy road. After a turn ( at Gurudev Palace) the road was smooth and had less traffic.. We were driving along the Allen Forest (Kanpur zoo) I had just started to enjoy the ride when the car hit a big block/brick of concrete and cement,which was a part of the damaged road-divider. After a jolt the car stopped slowly. One of the tyres was punctured. Alok, my savior changed the tyre in no time. As we were about to resume, I stopped him and asked him to go and remove that block from the road. He got down,walked for a while and came back. I could see from the car window that someone else had already removed it from there.This is the Kanpur I love, after all it's the people that make the city. It made me happy and I thought of the  comment I read  on the article  Denizen of Darkness, appeared in The Hindu

"The writer  sees us "Kanpurias" as "denizens of darkness", I wonder why he did not see a vibrant city of 4 million plus and their indomitable spirit to succeed despite years of political and bureaucratic neglect. True the large textile mills have shut down, perhaps for good, but other sectors like leather, plastics, chemicals are doing well, and for your information, Kanpur ranks at number 10 in terms of GDP. We are thriving and successful, because in the words of Iqbal:-

"Kuch baat hai ki hasti mitati nahin hamari,
 Sadiyon raha hai dushman Daur-e-Zamana hamara."
- Avinash Gupta

One more comment from a blog:

 'Thank you for the information about Kanpur. My son is at IIT Kanpur for the summer from rural Northern Vermont, USA. It’s a bit of culture shock for him but after three days he is adapting nicely and finds the people amazingly hospitable.'

Future Perfect

In the last period, I had to teach a new chapter to a class of 9 yr olds. And the story was about a nice but lazy man who sleeeps in the forest and awakes  after 20 long yrs.

A method had to be devised to make the students interested in the class. So I asked them what if they went to sleep and and woke up after 20 yrs. What is the one change they would like to see in the world or how different things would be?

To warm up the discussion, I started with saying that I would like to see all of them well settled in the professions they wanted to be in, like dress designer, pilot, scientist, writer, etc. 

Now everyone wanted to say something and the response made me convert the 'literature' period into a 'creative writing' one. Most of the responses were about hi-tech gadgets, cars and airplanes.

Some others were the following.

- I would like to see my city neat and clean.

- Unpolluted rivers specially the Ganga which runs through our city.

- A corruption free India.

- I want to see my niece and nephew (which made everybody laugh, knowing that the would be father is in class three right now).

The one who won my heart was a boy who said:

 I want to see my mother. How would she look, ma'am.After TWENTY years?

Cycle Trip Songs

A typical day can be different for each of us but the night brings peace to all. We are closer to ourselves. Most of us are in our comfort zone. Some in front of the TV sets after finishing the chores, others sipping whiskey and working on their computers or curled up in their beds with a book.
The night surrounds us with a calm, telling us, 'Take your own time.There is no hurry." It allows us to enjoy a few more pages, an extra peg, some more channel surfing, talk a bit more on the phone or chat. Which is not the case during the day. It allows me one more round of cycling and a few more songs.

My rendezvous with myself begins after supper. I brush my teeth, put on something comfortable and start my forty-minute-long cycle ride. My campus gives me the liberty to glide on the well tarred roads at any hour of the night. After every few metres there is a guard who respects my privacy and assures my safety.

My earphones in place and radio on, my trip  begins. Radio/FM gives you the thrill of either discovering a song or going back to a forgotten one. The one which might bring back a memory, smile or lump in your throat but pleasure is guaranteed.

This is the time when there is nothing between me and the singer.This concert is just for me. I meet Sahir, Gulzar, Shalendra,Yogesh, Shakeel Badayuni and Neeraj to name a few. I wonder how 70 yr old Anand Bakshi could write for 21-year-old Rahul and million others of the same age group, who could relate to the songs of DTPH and DDLJ. And his  other songs which enthrall all age groups.

In the times of earphones  I still love any piece of music lingering in the air even better if I hear it passing by, which was so frequent during my school days. During mid-'80s, we lived in Pauri, Garhwal. The place we lived at was away from the city. We had to climb down quite a distance to reach the school and then climb up the same distance to get back home by foot. Coming back took a lot of time. So slowly climbing up I used to read a book, usually comics like Madhu Muskan. On the way there was some construction work going on. Bihaari migrant workers were employed there.Their  transistor used to be on whenever I passed by.Wondered how much they spent on the batteries. One day  I heard Hemlata's melodious voice and the song was from the film Ankhio ke jharokhon se I loved the song though I could hear only a few lines.
After around 20 years when Youtube happened, this was the first song I searched for. Somehow I never watched it in Chitrhaar.

Back to my cycling, I reached back to the gate of my house but there was still a song left in the programme Aap ki fermaaish. I thought of calling it a day but do you know who asked me to accompany....Hemant Kumar with the song Bekaraar karke humme yu na jaaiye...

Of Stars and Gold

   

Our craving for gold in London Olympic reminds me a couplet I read in class X in Hindi.

सुवर्ण को ढूँढत फिरत कवी, व्यभिचारी,चोर .
A poet is always looking for a good word                          (su varn)
An adulterer looks for someone with a good complexion ( suvarn)
A thief is always looking for Gold.                                     (swarn)
                                                   ************ 

In the  zero period there was a pact between me and my students (class IV) that if (we) Mary Kom wins a gold medal then every student of the class would get a Red Star on the Star Chart.
May they get a red star now and always.

Come on Mary !!

Friends

 My favourite 'friends' from the world of literature:
Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Lucas.
-Pride and Prejudice.

Who are yours?

Questions

Shabbir Bhatia sold Hotmail to Bill Gates and became rich and famous. He was at a loss of words when his mother asked him what should she tell his Web-challenged old aunts at Gurudwara that how he became rich overnight.What exactly did he sell? Tussi ki Vicheya?

Like those aunts I too was intrigued by different questions at the different phases of my life.
During my kindergarden days, I heard elders at home talking something like,"Everything depends on the government  (sarkar) I asked my father, "who is  she (sarkar) ? I don't know what he answered but sarkar remained a huge sphinx like structure in my little world of imagination for quite sometime. 'Stock Market' and 'sensex' was fine but a few questions   remained unanswered.

* Why, in my city the roads are digged for sewer maintenence  just after many years of waiting they are repaired and well tarmacked? There must be some communication between two departments.

 * Why was Syyad Modi killed brutally?  His wife,a smart modern gal, could have simply divorced him.
 
* Is the founder of IPL,one of the huge Sports events in the world,
who enthralled  cricket lovers and managed everything related to the tournament well eg bringing the new talent, advertisers (remember Jetking Coaching), gave social messages, did charity  etc really guilty of the allegations he is charged with?

*Dev Anand, the evergreen hero with innumerable fans.What was going on in his mind when he was making a film called 'Censor'.and 17 other movies which were laughable and had no sense at all..Ditto for Manoj Kumar who directed and produced the movie 'Clerk'. I know someone who couldn't sit through the film and left the hall even when it was raining cats and dogs outside.

*Why Tumbler is fulll of the sobbing though lovely quotes from girls only

*Why dumped word is used in the context that the girl is being dumped.Advance Learner's Dictionary gives this example, "Did you hear? He's dumped his GF". why not other way round?

Mumbai terror attack 2008. I watched  the dramatisation of the unfortunate event on TV. The terrorists were firing at ppl who were attending a wedding at The Taj . At one point there were few ppl who were told to turn around and face the wall.Then he shot them all.Why some of them did not attack them back They could have thrown a chair, vase, show piece, a piece of crockery at them. All of them could have pounced on one of those terrorist.
The case of the girl attacked by the mob in Guwhati is different.The poor girl was helpless.

And the list goes on...

Of Rajesh Khanna

A-B-C-D-E-F-G

Usme se nikle pandit ji.

Panditji ne khaya ganna.

Usme se nikla Rajesh Khanna.

Rajesh khanna ne khai supari.

Usme se nikli Meena.......etc etc

....

This is the hindi equivalent of 

"In-Pin-Safety-Pin-In-Pin-OUT. And 'Inky pinky ponky, Father had a donkey.

Rajesh Khanna is an idiom in India which means charisma.

 I switched on the TV after ages when I heard about  the sad news of RK's demise.

  As it was expected that all the  News Channels were flooded with the songs of his films.And the first sentence I could hear about him was that he as so popular that during 70's it was said that

 "Upar aaka, Neeche Kaka" ( God up there and RK down here) I didn't know I should laugh or cry.

I came back to Net to read something genuine about him on Twitter or FB. I was curious how some of the columnists I read would react to the great loss.

Next day while browsing the newspapers I was wondering if I could read something by  Deviyani Chaubal who wrote during his heydays and I got it in Jayanti Ranganathan's column where she quoted Ms chaubal :

" Rajesh khanna was no less than a star even before he started his acting career"and "  Kaka only knew how to be loved he could never give love.He is not as romantic as he looks on screen.He expected his girlfriend to treat him as a star only".  "He often used to repeat the dialogues from his films in dramatic manner."

Shobha De' also quoted one of  RK's ex flames, "She smiled and shook her head, “Kaka was incapable of loving anyone. He was only ever in love with himself!”

 Hema Malini's tribute was also interesting. She wrote, "He didn't like retakes. He could remember long dialogues in hindi easily and could deliver them with perfection.For a south Indian actress it was awesome." She also mentioned how he started using the same gestures and style of speaking  in real life also the way he did in his films.

 Sharmila Tagore hated the way, such a poignant dialogue, "Pushpa, I hate tears." has become a joke.

I always knew him as a male chauvinist  and literally prayed for Dimple's success when she made a comeback, thinking God please help her and let her have the last laugh.

RK belonged to my mom's generation.I got acquainted to his talent only when I watched his lovely movies on Youtube.Somehow I don't remember his movies on Doordarshan.

Coming back to columnists, let's see what  Khushwant Singh writes in his column on RK.That I would know tomorrow only.

Under the Writer's Spell

My Dehra visits are incomplete without a trip to Mussoorie. Not that I like going there but it just happens. A friend or relative persuades me and I usually comply. While I drive up the steep road to Mussoorie, I hope to have a glimpse of Ruskin Bond, one of my favourite writers.
 He wrote 'The room on The Roof" when he was eighteen, I read it when I was the same age. And  the bond never withered. I read most of his non fiction , where I knew about his life as a  bachelor, his foster family, the way he writes, his likes and dislikes, Dehra of his childhood and mine too. I see Mussoorie from his eyes. I look for the Tehri Road where he could see an ocean in a small stream.

Do I want to meet him personally? Do I want to hug the child in him who had lost his father at the age of 10 and who chose India,the land of his and his father's birth and not England? No, not because I know that he doesn't like to meet the curious visitors who knock at his door now and then, but because what would I talk to him about? That I know someone exactly like uncle Ken. I'm his fan? Would I share with him the moments when while reading his books I'd smiled or was moved and had blurted 'Good", "Ha ha"."Great", "exactly","right" "sahi","he writes so well! "

A writer pours his innermost feelings and sometimes his secrets in his writings. Most of the times we relate to what we read. Then does physical presence matter at all ?

Back from Mussoorie, I woke up early  at a guest house in Delhi and stood at the terrace and could see the lovely view of  tree tops. Later I visited the hundred year old building of IP College and saw lots of hornbills and scampering squirrels there. I could almost hear Khushwant Singh whispering to me, 'Do you know Delhi is one of the most green captital cities in the world.? Khushwant Singh's coulmns and books I find interesting, informative and full of humour.
I thought of Gulzar also who directed a wonderful TV sereal on Mirza Ghalib, the great urdu poet who lived and died in Delhi.

Last month I was in Uttarkashi. I was sitting on the steps, by the Ganges. Ganga aarti was being sung.Ganga was flowing like a good piece of writing. I thought of a blog I follow.

Then there is the great Tulsidas who wrote Ramcharit Manas. He is always with me since my childhood.Thanks to my father who always preached and sometimes consoled me by quoting some couplet or other from this great epic. Some day, lazy me would finish reading it, though I started it many a times.