Overcoming Fear and Prejudice

I just watched 8, a play directed by Rob Reiner and written by Dustin Lance Black. It was broadcast live on YouTube on 3rd March. The interesting part about this play was not its star cast (a veritable who's who of the top brass of Hollywood), but it's subject matter - the landmark Perry vs. Schwarzenegger case where United States District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker deemed Proposition 8 as unconstitutional. In a nutshell, Proposition 8 aims to prohibit same-sex marriages. Though Proposition 8 has been overturned, there is still a stay on the ruling pending further appeals, during which time same-sex marriages would still be considered illegal.

8 is a powerful piece on the fear and prejudice that run through society against anything that the majority consider abnormal or against the "natural order".

India is still far away from the day when same-sex marriage will even be considered a legal right. Even though the Delhi High Court had decriminalized consensual gay sex, there are still a number of fearful and prejudiced people fighting against the ruling. Their arguments that decriminalizing gay sex would lead to the breakdown of society or even to the rise in HIV/AIDS has no real proof. If the incidence of HIV/AIDS is high among gay people, then it is because of the stigma attached to it, which causes them to follow unsafe sex practices. In fact, by decriminalizing gay sex, society would be able to provide a safer environment in which to follow safe sex practices.

But in reality, that is easier said than done. We all know that even though Section 377 has been amended, the majority of Indians look upon same-sex relationships with abhorrence. A survey carried out by Bangalore Mirror found out that more than 50% of Bangaloreans do not agree that a homosexual relationship is a "valid form of relationship".

Putting homosexual relationships aside, majority of Indians today still do not accept inter-caste or inter-religious unions. They are still caught up in "What will society say?" "We will be ostracized by our family and friends!" "Will she be able to adjust to our customs and food habits?" and so on.

For someone at the receiving end of the above comments and struggling to get married to her boyfriend since the past year and a half, 8 really resonated with me - because at the end of the day the plaintiffs, Kristin Perry and Sandra Steir, and Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo just want to be a family, to enjoy the legal rights that are a part of a legal union, to not refer to their significant other as their "partner", but as their "wife" or "husband", to live with dignity.

It saddens me that as the earth grows older, we as a people are not becoming any wiser. We are still narrow-minded, prejudiced, fearful, bigoted, knocking down anything or any person who is seemingly different, not giving people a chance to live as they wish to.

At the end of the day, how does it matter if your neighbours are a same-sex couple raising children or if your son is in love with a girl from a different religion or caste? You might be surprised to learn that you share the same child rearing beliefs as the same-sex couple, or the girl belonging to the wrong religion might surprise you by trying her best to adapt to customs she was not raised with or introduce you to an entirely different world, which might be similar to yours in more ways than one.

Intolerance Only Breeds More Intolerance

"If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children." - Mahatma Gandhi

The Bajrang Dal seems to have taken Gandhi's words in a quite literal, but skewed manner. It holds an annual week-long training camp in Delhi to teach young boys and men to "protect Bharat Mata" from the Christian and Muslim "infidels".

If you read the Tehelka article cited above, you would see how well the Bajrang Dal and VHP fundamentalists are succeeding in brainwashing these young boys and men. They are told to beware of the "six Ms... Muslims, Missionaries, Marxists, Lord Macaulay, foreign Media and Maino [UPA President Sonia Gandhi’s middle name].”

Ladies and gentlemen, this is how religious bigotry is spread through the veins of a people. The policy of catch 'em young seems to work wonders for religious zealots. Islamic fundamentalists are doing the same thing, preparing their young men for jihad. I have not really heard of any Christian groups indoctrinating their young to be prepared for a "holy war". But I guess one could say that the Bush administration had filled up that position pretty neatly.

All religious fanatics think that their religion is under attack from other religions. The Hindus think that Muslims and Christians are up to no good and are ready to destroy their culture at the drop of a hat. Muslims feel that all Christians and Hindus want wipe them out; and many Christians seem to have a morbid fear of all things Muslim and Hindu.

(I'm talking about just these three religions because they are in the news more than any other!)

I'm not going to profess that I know everything about these religions, but I do know that none of these religions preach hatred. They do not ask their followers to go out and bomb innocent people, just because they do not pray to the same god.

Religious text is open to interpretation. This, I feel, is one of the main causes of religious bigotry. Certain 'holy men' claim to understand religious text, but they are interpreting them in a manner that they deem fit. They preach their hate messages to a populous that does not know any better. Of course, political agenda also plays a big part here. Politicians target vulnerable populations and promise voters that they will keep them safe from the fearsome Hindus/ Muslims/ Christians.

Christianity and Islam have a common ancestry - Abraham/ Ibrahim, Moses/ Musa, Jesus/ Isa Masi. How many Muslims and Christians acknowledge this fact? And even if they do, does it really make a difference to them? Does it give them more food for thought? How can two races who share a common ancestry not see how similar they really are?

Strip away the religious identity of any group, and what you will get is a bunch of people with similar dreams and aspirations. Everyone wants to have a family and enough money to provide for that family.

Why do people have a need to wear their religious identity on their sleeve and condemn those that belong to an allegedly opposed religion? When scripture asks you to "believe in the one true God" it is not asking you to denounce all other gods. Why should your belief in a certain god, a certain way of life be better or greater than another's? You practice what you want and I'll practice what I want.

It is sad that more people would rather abide by intolerance than try and have an open mind. It is difficult to have someone come up to you and tell you that what you have believed in all of your life is not true - not all Muslims want to kill Hindus and vice versa. But to try and change your point of view is an even more arduous task. And I think despite hate camps, like the Bajrang Dal one, there are people all around the world who are waking up and smelling the coffee for the first time in their lives. May their tribe increase!

Autorickshaw "Travails"

I have lasted a whole year at my new (and first) job! And what an eventful year it has been, in more ways than one. I have met loads and loads of interesting people, some who have become good friends. But this post is not about these interesting people; it is about some other “interesting” people that my friends and I have come across – the ubiquitous Auto Rickshaw-wallahs!

Most of us have to travel by auto to office, and in doing so, we have come across some of the most colorful Rick-wallahs, and I am not referring to just their clothing!
My office was earlier located at Hiranandani, Powai. So a bunch of us used to meet up at Kanjurmarg station, and try and get a Rick-wallah to take us to Hiranandani. And that was no mean task! Sometimes we have had to wait for 15 minutes, trying to persuade a Rick-wallah to agree to take us to our destination. And in the process we have received some of the dirtiest looks from many a Rick-wallah! It’s like they are thinking, “How dare you even ask me that question?!”
Or some put on a really pensive expression on their face, trying to decide, I guess, upon the pros and cons of taking us to our destination! And in the end, most of these “Mr. Pensives” shake their head regretfully and zoom away, leaving us gagging on the fumes! One of my friends, RT says that it’s like we are asking them to marry us, and that’s why they have such ponderous expressions on their faces!
Some also give us explanations for why they would rather not take us, “Nahi mai-dum, wahan bahut traffic rehta hai. (No ma’m, there is too much traffic in that area).”
But the craziest incidents have occurred when the big bosses of our company decided to change the office location to SV road. It has to be one of the worst areas in Mumbai! It is tiring just getting to this place because of the massive traffic jams, which we have to endure every single day.

Anyway, two of my friends, JJ, RT and I decided to meet up at GTK station every morning to “rick” it to office. As usual most of the Rick-wallahs would either give us dirty or apologetic looks, or just ignore everyone trying to hail them down and speed away. Most of the times the Rick-wallahs who agree to take us to SV road, have never heard of it!
And getting back to GTK station is just as bad! One Rick-wallah had actually said, “Woh manhoos jagah kaun jayega?! (Who will go to that god-forsaken place?)”

An “incident” occurred on the very first day that we took this route. All three of us were talking non-stop. When we had stopped at a signal, the Rick-wallah, a rather thin, stern-looking man, suddenly turned around and to our utter shock said, “Aap log kitni baat kar raheein hai! Thodi der ke liye chup ho jaeeye, sab dekh rahein hai!! (You people are talking so much! Please be quiet for sometime, people are looking!!)” We were left speechless by this outburst! I actually looked around to see if anyone was actually looking in!
JJ was the first to recover and said that we can’t help if people look, and we continued our conversation, but in lowered tones.

Another incident occurred after we had discovered a less congested route to SV road. It is simply referred to as Pipeline road, as a huge pipe runs down its entire length. It is quite narrow and passes through a market place. So we would direct all the Rick-wallahs to take us through this road.
One time, as usual, we told the Rick-wallah to take the Pipeline road. He turned to go towards the place, but overshot the tiny opening of the lane. We all shouted, “Bhaiyya (Brother)! Pipeline road! Left turn!” only to have him brake hard. He looked resolutely ahead, shook his burly head and stated, “Market se to main kabhi nahi jaaoonga (I will never go through the market!” We tried to convince him saying that we take this route everyday and that it is always traffic free. To which he demanded for us to get out! He was behaving like a petulant child and I was convinced that at any moment he would jump out of the auto, stamp his foot and throw a tantrum!
So we just sat there for a few seconds, after which I said, “Ok, at least turn around and take the other route.” He sullenly turned around his vehicle and we trundled down the regular route. But he seemed to be quite angry and began driving quite rashly, as if to punish us for our impertinence! But we did reach office in one piece!

Another time a really funny incident occurred. This time we were going back to GTK station from office. The Rick-wallah this time looked barely 18 years old. My friend RT, who is (or rather was!) a big Abhishek Bachchan fan, was a bit upset that he had gotten married, and stated that he should not have "done the deed". The Rick-wallah piped in just then and said, “Par Abhisek ki saadi nahi huyee hai (Abhishek has not gotten married).” All of us were quiet for a while, and I wondered if I had heard right. As RT and JJ weren’t sure of what he said either, JJ asked him what he had said. He once again said, “Par Abhisek ki saadi nahi huyee hai”. So JJ said, “Yeh log Abhishek Bachchan ki baat kar rahein hai (They are talking about Abhishek Bachchan)”. To which he reacted as if he had had an epiphany, “Ohh! Aap Abhisek Bachchan ki baat kar rahi hai! Mera naam bhi Abhisek hai, aur meri saadi nahi huyee hai! (You are talking about Abhishek Bachchan! My name is also Abhishek, and I am not married yet!)”
At this I dissolved into giggles, especially on seeing the look on RT’s face! She looked like she had been slapped! Abhisek Rick-wallah had left her speechless, which is an achievement in itself!
Sadly, since the past few months our little auto misadventures have all but stopped. The office has started a bus service. JJ has moved to another city, while RT is going to leave for another country soon. I’m going to miss these two girls and our auto rides...

Mahabaleshwar New Year III

This is the last installment of my Mahabaleshwar Odyssey, which had taken place about 3 months ago! Talk about promptness!! I have not been blogging regularly this year, unfortunately. It’s all got to do with working, not having Internet connection at home, and of course, plain laziness on my part!! After this blog, my next few blogs are going to be about my favourite Hindi phillumi songs of 2006. And I’m gonna try to keep those blogs coming in regularly! :D

Ok, in my last post, I’d spoken about Day 2 in Mahabaleshwar. Now I’m going to talk about Day 3, i.e. 31st December, New Year’s Eve. On this day we went to a lot of ‘points’ around Mahabaleshwar. The first one that we went to was Echo Point.

We saw some really beautiful views of the lake and the green, rolling hills.

P and J had a rollicking time screaming out our names and various other names making all of us collapse with laughter. We were acting like a bunch of teenagers! Heehee!

A five-minute walk away from Echo Point was Elephant Head, a bolder in the shape of, what else, an elephant’s head! :D It was quite an interesting sight!

Next we visited a Strawberry farm, where an enthusiastic kid explained the finer points of strawberry farming to us.

We had some delicious strawberry and cream there. We had had strawberry and cream every single day there. It was quite addictive!
We then made our way to Lodwick’s Point. An avenue of over hanging trees covered the road leading to it. I thought that it looked beautiful, something out of a Gothic romance novel! :) I’m just sad that I did not take a picture of this tree-lined avenue. I’m sure it is one of the scariest looking places at night!
Anyway, we arrived at what we thought was Lodwick’s point, but our surly driver informed us that we had to walk a small distance to actually get to this point. So we started walking, and were in good spirits, and I was quite happy to see that a tree-lined avenue also covered this path.

But soon, our happiness turned into misery, when even after walking for about 20 minutes, uphill, Lodwick’s point was nowhere in sight. Says a lot about our level of physical fitness! But anyway, we huffed and puffed our way up, and by the time we reached there, I had some very colorful terms for it!
We decided that making us walk so much was some sort of revenge on the part of our driver, who didn’t seem to like us much, and was always in a hurry to get rid of us! Talk about conspiracy theories! Heehee!
At Lodwick’s point we found this ledge sticking out into the valley below, and took turns climbing up and posing for the camera.
With Lodwick’s point, our Mahabaleshwar darshan came to an end. We then had our lunch and retired to our rooms, anticipating a fun night ahead!
Oh yeah! We got hold of this taxi driver in the market who promised to pick us up at our guesthouse, and to drop us back too. So we were quite pleased with ourselves!
At around 5.00 PM, the lights went out. So N and I just lay on the bed and chatted about this and that. When the lights didn’t come on till 7.00 PM, I began to worry a bit, as the driver said that he would pick us up by 8.30, and it does take me a while to get dressed! Turns out that it takes N quite a while to get dressed too! :D Well, the lights came on at 7.30 or so and N and I tried to get dressed as fast as we could manage!
Our taxi came to pick us up by 9.00 I think. We were all quite excited and raring to go and party! When we reached Hotel Fredrick we confirmed with the driver that he would come to pick us up when we called him (we had his cell phone number with us). To our horror he stated that he would come only if he woke up, as he planned on going to bed by 11.00 PM or so. We were a bit mad at him, but decided to go and enjoy anyway.
So we made our way down to the lawn where the party was being held. We sat around for a while, listening to the music.

We then left our handbags with a family sitting around a fire and went off to the dance floor to boogie! We sure did have a blast dancing to songs ranging from “Dil Mein Baji Guitar” to “Hips Don’t Lie”. At about 11.00-11.30 we began to feel hungry, and went in search of the snacks, which we had been promised would be inclusive of the tickets that we had bought. Well, guess what? All the snacks were over! All that was available was ice-cold cashew nuts and cold drinks. So we bought a plate of cashew nuts and bottles of Mirinda and sat down to eat our ‘dinner’. At quarter to 12 we once again made our way to the dance floor and swayed somewhat to the music, our spirits slightly dampened. At mid night we saw a wonderful display of rockets and hugged each other and screamed “Happy New Year!!” at each other! We danced a bit more energetically now, getting into the whole “New Year” mode again.
But after a while we decided to call the taxi driver, but he did not pick up his cell phone. We wondered what to do, and made our way to the gates of the hotel. Ms. Matron had told us earlier that there would be taxis waiting outside the gate, but we saw none. We did see a middle-aged couple leaving the party at that moment. We ran behind them, P shouting, “Uncle! Aunty!” When they turned around we asked them if we could walk back with them to their hotel. They agreed and we heaved a sign of relief! On our way we came across a lot of guys zooming around in cars and on bikes. One guy drove his bike quite close to where P and I were walking, and his buddy who was riding pillion made a grab at P, but as I was walking right behind her, I pulled her away. Some men can be just so disgusting at times! But that’s a rant for another blog…
Anyway, we reached Hotel Rajesh where the middle-aged couple was staying (J hobbling the whole way because her shoe strap had broken!), which was about 15 minutes away from our guesthouse. We were wondering how to get back and decided to stay back at Hotel Rajesh, when the man, Shaukat, offered to give us a lift to the guesthouse. We will be eternally grateful to him and his wife for driving us to the guesthouse! They were quite a delightful couple, pulling each other’s leg all the while! :)
So when we got back to the guesthouse, we decided to go to bed at once, because we were to leave the next afternoon. But we were all still quite hungry. So we got out some snacks that we had, and drank the last of the vodka and Sprite. Later on when we recalled our adventures to our friends back in Mumbai, N insisted on telling everybody what exactly we ate for dinner in painstaking detail! LOL!!
We stayed up till about 4.00 AM, just talking and laughing the whole time! I don’t even remember what we had chatted about that had made us laugh so uproariously!
The next day we got up a bit late, had our lunch and caught the bus back to Mumbai. The bus driver was some kind of an idiot! There was a traffic jam on the way, so he drove on the wrong side of the road to cut ahead. And he kept on driving on the wrong side for a few kilometers! P and I saw some openings, where the bus driver could have cut back on to the right side, but he kept on driving on the wrong side! He had to stop at last when he came across a tunnel! He then reversed all the way back till he found an opening to get on to the other side! P and I wanted to get off our seats and give him a piece of our minds!
Because of all his shenanigans (plus all the traffic jams that we encountered) we reached Mumbai late. We were all a bit sad that our adventure had come to an end. This has been the best New Year’s ever! For the first time in my life I wasn’t sitting at home with my parents, watching insipid shows on TV. And for making this the best New Year’s ever, I would like to thank my buddies, J, N and P! We sure did have a fantabulous time! :D

Mahabaleshwar New Year II

I’m updating my blog after eons! I still do not have Internet connection at home. I’m typing this out at home, then will copy it to a pen drive, and upload from an Internet café. What all one has to do to keep on blogging!!! LOL!!

Anyway, I will continue with my Mahabaleshwar Odyssey now. :))
I’d stopped the last time at the end of our first day in Mahabaleshwar. The next day we went to Panchgani.
Before I go on, I have to mention that all of the conversations that we would have, would always inevitably, come around to the point that we had nothing to do on New Year’s Eve, as the guesthouse where we were staying had nothing planned at all. We thought that we should check out any of the other hotels in Mahabaleshwar, which had some event planned. Everybody liked the idea, but then we wondered how exactly we would come back, as the guesthouse was a 15 minutes walk from the market place and a great deal more from the other hotels that we had seen.
On our way around Mahabaleshwar we had come across Hotel Frederick, which had a banner displayed up front announcing that it was hosting ‘The Wildest New Year’s Eve Party’. So on our way to Panchgani we stopped there and decided to enquire about the ‘Wildest New Year’s Eve Party’. We were met at the reception by a very matronly looking woman, who made us all feel as though we were back in school and had broken some sacred rule, and were to now receive our punishment! Ms. Matron told us that the party was only for couples, then looking at our despondent faces, asked us if we were only a group of girls, when we said ‘yes’, she decided to grant us the tickets to the party. We were quite excited and decided to purchase the tickets there and then.
We went back to our car and after the initial jubilation died down, began to wonder once again about how we would go back to the guesthouse after the party. We thought that we could ask the driver who was ferrying us around Mahabaleshwar, or maybe ask the guesthouse caretaker to suggest some alternative. So having to a conclusion we then had a delicious breakfast of corn cutlets and corn pakodas. They were terribly yummy and just melted in our mouths!
En route to Panchgani we stopped at ‘Parsi Point’, which offered a view of the green hills and lake.

We then reached the Panchgani ‘Tableland’ and were at once beset by a tangawalla and a ghodawalla. After working out which would be the cheaper option, we decided to go with the tangawalla. P sat upfront with the tangawalla, while N, J and I sat behind in the buggy. As soon as the horse took a few steps forward he reared up! All of us screamed, or maybe it was only I who had screamed! Hehe! But that was one scary experience! And throughout the ride the horse kept on acting funny, he would run just a bit too fast and I was really scared that he would keep on running over the edge and take us along with him! All of us were holding on to the buggy rails as tightly as possible!
We saw some 6-7 ‘points’ on the Tableland.

One of them being the footprints of the Paanch Pandavas. Apparently they had visited Tableland while they were on their Vanvaas.
The roller coaster buggy ride came to end at last and the tangawalla told us that if we wanted we could go down and check out a cave close by where we had stopped. I was quite gung ho about visiting a cave, and dragged the others along too. It was quite a steep climb down to the cave. There was a little restaurant being run in the cave, which offered modest fair like tea, coffee, samosas etc

. The cave was quite cool, literally and figuratively!

There were quite a lot of monkeys running around too.

After we finished our Tableland tour, we visited two Mapro factories. Mapro manufactures jams, squashes and some other stuff. I bought a bottle of mixed fruit jam for my grandma and a bottle of green apple squash for my brother and myself.
We then went back to Mahabaleshwar, had our lunch in the market place and went back to the guesthouse.
We lazed around in our rooms and this time decided to start out earlier for the market place than we had done the last time, when we had had to walk in the dark and pretty much freaked out!
N decided that she wanted to buy a skirt to wear to the party as all the rest of us were wearing skirts. She bought this gorgeous white skirt with sequins. We then fell upon this tiny shop that sold some very interesting jewelry. A lot of brightly colored stones were used. I bought myself two pairs of stone earrings, which I simply LOVE! :D I also bought two interesting looking necklaces. Then we went to this shoe store, and N bought a couple of pairs of shoes for herself. We even bought nail polish for the ‘Big night’! You can say that we really went all out! Hehe!
After we had shopped to our heart’s content, we stopped at a bakery for dinner. It was terribly crowded, and as there were only two tables to sit at, we decided to pack some burgers and pizzas and eat them at the guesthouse itself. So while I was standing in line for the food coupons, guess who walked in? Shaimak Davar and a bunch of his friends! So we gawked a bit, but as discreetly as possible! Most of them looked as though they danced in his troupe. One of the guys from the group was standing at the food counter and he just could not stand still, he kept on moving to the music that was blaring in the bakery. And the music that was being played was stuff by the Backstreet Boys, and Enrique Iglesias, and Ricky Martin – all the hits from my school days! :)
Anyway, our order took ages to come, and as soon as it did, we made our way to the taxi stand and rode back to the guesthouse . After dinner we decided to turn in a bit earlier than we had the previous night. So after playing one or two rounds of UNO, N and I went back to our room and fell asleep at once. And that’s where Day 2 in Mahabaleshwar comes to an end!

Mahabaleshwar New Year

First of all, let me wish all of you in Blogosphere a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I've been unable to post a blog or even visit all of my favourite blogs in quite a while now. And that's because I was completely swamped by work. But now a project has just gotten over, and I feel free! I won't be for long is my guess, but I'm gonna try and make the most of it! :D

This New Year's weekend I went to Mahabaleshwar with three of my friends, J, N, and P. This has got to be the best New Year's I've ever had! Till now all I'd ever done was sit in front of the TV with my parents and get bored out of my brains! And I felt that I just have to celebrate my first year of financial independance in style! :)
All of us at office were sitting and wondering what we could do on New Year's eve, when J stated that she wanted to get away from the Mumbai crowds. I jumped at the idea at once. Then we had to decide where exactly to go. A lot of places were thrown up like Matheran, Lonavla, but we finally decided to go to Mahabaleshwar. I had been to Mahabaleshwar when I was in school, and had fond memories of the place, memories that invovled eating fresh strawberry icecream and corn patties! :D So I was quite excited to go back there.
P booked rooms in a guest house for free (I was extremly pleased about that!!) and I booked the bus tickets to Mahabaleshwar.
28th December, D Day arrived and I was terribly excited! What I did not know was how adventurous this trip was going to be!
Anyway, our bus was supposed to leave at 10:30 at night, so we had all decided to meet at J's home, as she stayed closest to the pick up point, which was in Chembur (an area in Mumbai). So all of us reached Chembur by about 10:00 PM. We waited for our bus, and waited, and waited, and waited some more. It was about 10:45 and there was still no sign of our bus. We went to the bus counter repeatedly and asked them when the bus would show up. The guy there kept on saying that it was late.
It was about 12:00 AM now, and the bus had still not come. Most of the shops had closed down, and everybody else around us had boarded their respective buses and gone. And there we were, four girls, sitting on our bags on the pavement in the middle of the night! J and P then went up to the guy and demanded to know what was going on. Even he was left scratching his head, and stated that the bus was never so late. He then called up the Dadar office, from where this bus was supposed to have started, and also called up the bus driver. The bus driver said that they had completely bypassed Chembur and were on their way to Vashi, a distant suburb in Mumbai. And he told us to go to Vashi to catch the bus! We were like, "What the @#%$?! is going on??!" We would now have to catch a taxi to get to Vashi. The man at the counter assured us that we would be refunded the taxi money.
Just a while ago J had mentioned that she had never been to Vashi, and wanted to visit it sometime, well she got her wish alright! LOL!!
We then caught a taxi, whose driver first said that he had no idea where exactly the place was in Vashi where the bus would be stopping. We looked at each other and just hoped that we would be able to find the place. We were in a hurry, but the cabbie decided that he just had to fill up his tank at that very moment. Don't know what he was doing before, when he was parked on the road side!
Anyway he filled up while we fumed and told him to hurry up. And after the tank was filled, suddenly a light dawned in his mind, and he said that he knew exactly where the bus would stop!
We reached Vashi at about 12:45, and got down near some bus stops. There were hardly any people around, and we could see a lot of creepy men standing around. So after P fought with the the guys at the bus counter to get re-embursed for the taxi fare, all of us stood near the bus stops. We must have waited for about 10-15 minutes and boarded our bus at about 1:10-1:15 AM! All I wanted was to sleep. But I knew from previous experience that I could never really sleep in a bus, and would be semi-conscious at the best.
"Apna Sapna Money Money" was being played in the bus, and save a few scenes that were chuckle worthy, most of the movie was quite yucky! But I must say that Ritesh Deshmukh does make a pretty girl! LOL!
Anyway, I tried to go to sleep, but these two women sitting behind would not shut up! They kept on chatting with some man behind them till 3:00-4:00 AM, and I was really ticked off!
We reached Mahabaleshwar at 6 in the morning. It was pitch dark outside and really, really cold! A taxi guy saw us and hurriedly put our bags in his car and took us to the guest house. He dropped us off at the gates of the guest house, which was on this desolate stretch of road. The entire place looked like a scene out of a spooky movie. On one side of the road there was this forest, and on the other we could barely make out the outline of a big forbiding looking bunglow beyond the gates. I just wanted to get inside and escape from the darkness and freezing cold.
P tried calling the caretaker of the guest house and after a few mistrials caught him at last. J then tried pushing the gates, and we realized that it hadn't been locked at all!
We were then met by an old woman who was bathed in the yellow glow of light emanating from the room behind her. How Hitchcockian could it get? :))
We were then taken to a room, where N and I collapsed on the beds. So J and P decided to take the other room that was booked for us. We slept till about 8 o'clock and got up to freshen up.
The tourist guide attached to the guest house then came calling, and we fixed up the schedule for the next 3 days.
We decided to visit Pratapgad Fort first.
We hired a guide there, Umesh, who claimed to be a descendent of a soldier from Shivaji's army. He sure was passionate about the fort and its history. He explained every aspect of it in detail. He was much better than any boring history book that I had read. The fort was quite fascinating, and we climbed up and down some 400 odd steps. Our friend, N, is rather short, so she had some trouble climbing up really high steps, but she sure did conquer them all! :))


Pratapgad fort is made up of rock, lime (chuna), milk and jaggery, and most of the structure is still standing tall!

The views from the the fort were quite amazing, rolling green hills everywhere!


There was this really interesting tunnel there. According to Umesh, if enemies ever entered Pratapgad, the army would escape through this tunnel, and sneak up and attack the enemy from behind.There was a short staircase that lead down to the tunnel after which there was a steep drop down the hill.

These people sure did lead an exciting life!


The last point that we visited there was the Punishment Point, from where criminals were thrown off into the valley below, wrapped in gunny sacks. I contemplated throwing some people off of there too! Hehe!
Opposite Punishment Point is a staue of Shivaji that was installed by the government..

After climbing up Pratapgad, we returned to Mahabaleshwar and had our lunch in the market. The guest house that we were staying in did not serve any food, so we had to have all of our meals in the Mahabaleshwar market. We ate at this place called Tinkler's (God knows why!) at least 3 times, and each time they insisted on playing songs from "Vivaah" and "Jaan-e-man"! So we heard "Mujhe Haq Hai" while eating breakfast and also during dinner! :D
When we got back to the guest house all of us were so sleepy that we decided to have a quick nap and then walk out to the market again for dinner. The quick nap stretched into 3-4 hours and I awoke at about 7:00 in the evening. We then decided to go to the market, which was a 15 minutes walk from our guest house. It was awfully dark outside with not a single street light in sight. As I'd mentioned earlier, the stretch of road on which the guest house lay is quite desolate, and in the darkness it just appeared more foreboding. Somehow we did make it to the market place.
After dinner on our way back (we decided to go back in a taxi) N suggested that we should get ourselves a small bottle of vodka to help us (ahem!) keep warm! ;)
So that night we played a few rounds of UNO and had vodka heavily diluted with Sprite and Limca. And contrary to popular belief, I did not get drunk!!! :p
We had a lot of fun gossiping about people we knew, and also people whom we didn't know that well! I've not laughed so much in a really long while! :)
Thus our first day in Mahabaleshwar came to a delightful end! And I will continue our further exploits in my next blog.

Song in My Head

I always have a song playing in my head. No matter what I'm doing; whether I'm working, or reading a book, or eating, or travelling to and from office, or talking to someone, or just lying in bed waiting to fall alseep or to wake up as the case might be! I always wake up with a song playing in my head. Right now, while typing, "Aaj ki Raat" from "Don" is playing in my head.

While growing up I always thought that everybody has a song playing in their head like I do, that everybody is programmed like that! But I have recently (pretty late, I must admit!!) found out that that is just not the case! I have met quite a few people who have debunked this theory of mine! Some people seem to have these long conversations going on inside their heads at all times, while others have nothing going on.

It is quite an entertaining thing to have a song playing in my head at all times, especially now that the radio on my cell isn't working!! :(( I don't have to try too hard on trying to bring a song into my head, one (or sometimes two-three) is always playing in my head. It also comes in handy when I'm stuck in boring company! ;) Of course, it can spell trouble when I zone out while a meeting is going on!! LOL!!

I guess I have a song playing in my head at all times because of my passion for music. I cannot imagine living without music! In fact my favourite quote is by Friedrich Nietzche, "Without music, life would be a mistake". I strongly believe that. Well that's about me and the goings on in my head. What usually goes on in your head?? I'd sure like to know that! :)

On an aside, I watched "Dhoom 2" last week, and was thoroughly entertained! It was a totally masala movie, and you just have to sit back and enjoy the proceedings and not question some instances that just don't add up! Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai have completely stolen show. I'm not a fan of Hrithik at all, but man! did he look hot or what?!! Both my friend J and I drooled over him throughout the movie! LOL!! Another friend of mine put it quite aptly when she said that he looks like a Greek God in "Dhoom 2".
Aishwarya has once again gotten bad reviews, but I thought she carried off her role with much aplomb! I did not expect Aishwarya and Hrithik to share such an amazing chemistry!
Uday Chopra was also kinda cute!! He was really funny with his "Mummy" refrains!
I thought that both Abhishek Bachchan and Bipasha Basu were wasted in the movie and deserved a meatier role.
And apart from all of these good looking actors, what I loved were the stunts carried out with flair and style by Hrithik. Those were quite mind blowing!
In fact I found them so mind blowing that I'm gonna watch the movie again ! :D

Brand New Day

A few people were wondering about why there was such a long gap between my previous two posts, Koval-ummm and Kanyakumari. Well, the thing is, I have gotten a job! The timings are from 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM. So all this while, my entire system has had to rearrange itself and get used to waking up at 6:00 AM in the morning, every single day! Thank God I get the weekends to myself. But all I do on weekends is to sleep, sleep, and then sleep some more! :D

And that is the reason why I could not blog as much as I wanted to. Now I’m somewhat used to this new routine.

During the last few weeks of my post-grad course I was quite worried about what I was gonna do once the final exams were over. I thought that I’d most probably be sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. So I decided to put up my resume online. And then one day I got a call from this company, asking me to come down for an interview. So I wrote my last exam on 16^th May and went for the interview on 17^th May, and got selected after a short test and an interview. To say that I was euphoric would be an understatement!! I just couldn’t wait to get home and tell my Mother!

As most people know, I have done Clinical Psychology. My current job profile is slightly different. The company where I work is all about Usability. We make websites and other electronic gadgets user-friendly. So at first I wasn’t sure what exactly I would be doing here.

I’ve completed exactly seven weeks at work now, six of which were spent in training. And they have been wonderful weeks! We are a bunch of 14 trainees. As a part of our introduction at the office, we were asked to put up a play. So we put up this silly play, which was about usability in a very filmy context! We were sure we’d be booed off the stage, but thankfully most of the people were laughing really hard! I played (very reluctantly, I might add!) the role of a law enforcement agent who was a cross between a Charlie’s Angel type and a bumbling havaldar! The best part of this experience was when my role ended! LOL!!

After the play was over, there was this big jam session, where our CEO played the guitar, and a bunch of other people began banging on drums, dholaks and other beatable instruments! I too got a chance to play a drum. The noise levels were really, really high, but it was just sooooooo much fun!!! And I must add that our CEO has to be the coolest of all! He’s terrific!

Last Thursday was our certification test, which all of us were quite tense and nervous about, as the passing grade was 70%. I hardly ever externalize my stress, but it eats me up from the inside, and I keep on picturing the worst-case scenarios over and over again! But, we passed! And now I’m even more ecstatic!

These past seven weeks have made me realize something. I was unhappy for the past two year. There! I’ve said it! I never thought I would be able to admit this to myself! Back then it was a sort of self-preservation thing, I suppose. If I’d admitted to myself that I was unhappy, then I would really have been unable to be even a tiny bit happy!

And a lot of the happiness in my life has got to do with my fellow trainees. At last I have found people who I can relate to, who share the same brand of humour as mine! The girls in my college were quite nice, funny even, but it was rather hard to connect with any of them, save one-two.

It’s a different story at work. I’m grinning like an idiot most of the time, so much so, that I catch myself grinning even while walking or sitting in the train on my way to work or going back home! I’m not even the angry lout that I’m most mornings! I’m not a morning person, you see, and am pissed off in general, whenever I have to wake up early!

One time last week, I was going back home by train, and I kept recalling this really funny incident in which this guy at work was imitating someone (and doing a brilliant job of it!). I found it really hard to stop myself from bursting out laughing. So I tried to just look out the window and smother the laughter by pressing my hand down on my mouth, but a few giggles escaped along with a lot of shoulder shrugs!!!

I thought to myself that I was glad that there weren’t too many people in the compartment at that moment. But then I happened to look at this girl sitting before me, who was looking at me with some alarm! She started giving me strange looks, and having decided that it wasn’t safe to sit anywhere close to me, picked up her bag and sat at the other end!! :))

I’m actually laughing out loud (and scaring my grandma in the process!) while recalling this incident!

I feel so blessed! Blessed to have landed this job, but most of all to meet such wonderful people!

Now I just hope that I will continue having fun even after I’m assigned to a project…

Over, Done, Finished, Completed!

I cannot stress this enough! At long last I’m over and done with my damn case file!! I’ve never ever worked this hard at anything else in my life or had panic attacks about anything else in my life!! Before I had started I couldn’t even sleep at night as all these worst-case scenarios would keep on running through my head… if I’m unable to finish on time then I’d fail the second year and do the entire 2nd year all over again, and then my mother would be so disappointed, not to mention my own disappointment in myself!! Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
Now all I have to worry about is the marks I’m going to receive, and I’m hoping that my prof doesn’t go through it with a fine toothcomb!
I never wanna go through something like this ever again! So I’ve decided that procrastination does not pay, and the next time that I have to do any project I’ll start doing it well in advance. Now I really, really hope that I can stick to my resolve!! :D

Last Saturday I’d gone to the Navjote ceremony of my cousin’s children. To those who are unaware of this ceremony, in short it is a ceremony that all good little Parsi children have to go through to be initiated into the Zoarastrian religion. All of us go through with it when we are 6-10 years old. It’s celebrated on as grand a scale as a marriage.
So anyway, first of all we were late for the ceremony because of yours truly! We were going to start off at 5:30 PM, and I left JJ hospital at 5:45. So instead we started out from home at about 7:00 PM, as any self-respecting girl, I do take some time in getting ready! :))
Anyway, we got there and it was the same old boring do, where I hardly knew anyone at all. My mother was having a nice time chatting up some old buddies of hers. So I spent time arguing with my brother over silly things, and also gawking at all the diamond jewelry the women were displaying. Some of it was really breath taking!
And when we sat down for dinner, guess who I saw??!! Cyrus Broacha! At first I thought it was just someone who looked like him. But the more I stared the more I was sure it was him! Even my mom and brother were like, “That’s Cyrus Broacha!!” He was wearing a pink shirt and gray suit. He had his serviette tucked into his collar, and was tucking into the food with great relish! He actually looked better in person than on TV. Of course, suffice to say, I kept on staring at him all through dinner!! I’m a big fan of his! He’s so hilarious! Most of his jokes are quite silly, but the way he narrates them is too funny!
After dinner we met up with some relatives of my mother. You’d say that I might as well have said “some of my relative”, but the thing is I hardly know anyone from my mother’s side, so it’s hard to think of them as my relatives! Anyway, here was this couple and the woman started speaking to me and was like, “so how are your computer games going?” I gave her a half-blank-half-silly-smile-on-my-face look, and repeated like a goof, “computer games?” For the life of me I couldn’t place this lady at all! I was so completely embarrassed, but went on confidently, “Oh! All that has stopped! I was very busy this past month.” Then she asked me about some online games website that I’d given to her when she had come home. That’s when it hit me who this lady was, and I remembered her at last! Hehe! I’m sure this has happened to the best of us some time or the other!
After this slightly embarrassing encounter we moved onto another group of relatives who I at least know by name and face! Once again, as my mother chatted with them, my brother and I exchanged insults.
Then at last Ma decided that it was time we left, so we made for the exit slowly and painfully, as at every inch there was someone or the other who had to have a word with Ma or Grans. And just as we were leaving the yester years actress, Bindu, walked in with her husband. She sure is tall! She looked really big!
And guess what? We met the father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, cousins of the two boys whose Navjote we had just attended, eaten the feast and were now leaving; but we never actually met the two boys themselves! :))

The Most Amazing Thing!!

Today the most amazing thing happened on the way to college!
I now have to take the 9:31 or the 9:34 local, as my classes start at 10:00 am. These two locals are always, but always jam-packed! By the time it makes its way from the suburbs to Dadar, there is only standing room left in the ladies compartment. So I have to stand all the way till the end of the train’s route, which lasts for all of 15 minutes, so it’s not that bad. The bad part is being crushed from all sides by women of all shapes and sizes!
I always listen to my tiny portable radio, tuned into my favourite radio station, GO 92.5 FM. But today as soon as I got into the crowded compartment, a blast of static assaulted my ears, and I had to switch off the radio. The static never really went away, so I kept the volume low, hoping that the radio would somehow catch a signal.
I was standing near a bunch of seated middle-aged ladies. Suddenly I heard singing; and thinking that the radio had miraculously picked up a signal, I turned up the volume, only to feel like my ears had been sucker-punched! I quickly turned down the volume again. That’s when I realised that someone was singing inside the compartment! I turned to my right to see a middle-aged Maharashtrian woman with her eyes shut tight, singing! My first reaction (regrettably) was, “What a kook!” And I turned my head away.
But then her voice pulled me towards her again. I switched off the radio completely and I tried to listen to the words of the song she was singing, but as much as I strained my ears, I could just about make out a melody I had never heard. Then the train stopped at a station, and I could hear the words. Unfortunately I could not make out the meaning, as she was singing in Marathi. Now I noticed that her eyes were closed as if she was concentrating all her energy on the song, a soft smile playing on her lips.
After she finished her song she opened her eyes and smiled at a woman sitting beside her. I caught her eye and smiled at her. She seemed to be pleased to have a little audience of her own. And she broke out into a second (or third, or fourth) song.
I then looked around at the women standing and sitting around this Train Songstress. Each and every one of them had a smile on their faces. This scene is not what one usually gets to see in local trains, especially during the peak hours. Most people are in a foul mood, including me (or more accurately, particularly me!). Once I even witnessed a 23-24 year old abusing a much elderly lady for allegedly pushing her on to the platform!
But today, we had a reason to just smile and enjoy the train ride due to this very unexpected blessing of sorts. She didn’t have the most perfect voice I’d ever heard, it was sweet but a bit high pitched, but she didn’t seem to care about such things as the quality of her voice, she just sang! It truly takes guts to sing in a compartment full of strangers! I’m pretty sure (make that very sure!) that I would never be able to do any such thing! But looking at the woman, I wished that I could be as free and as brave as she was in that moment!

Of Colleges and Train Journeys

Got back from Hyderabad just a day before college started. I thought that on the first day, the professor would just give a brief orientation class and then tell us to come back next week. That’s what had happened last year. If only wishes were horses! *Sighs*
On the first day itself our professor started off with a two and a half hour class! The only saving grace was that it was very, very interesting! Am doing clinical psychology and am going to start my internship this August. So hopefully, this year will not be as horrible and boring as it was last year!

This time my journey to Bombay from Hyderabad was kind of interesting. I was on a side berth as usual, and there were six friends in the cubicle opposite of mine – three guys and three girls. They looked to be about my age. They were having so much fun, playing dumb charades and antakshri! They got me going down memory lane and reflecting on all those class excursions I had gone on with my schoolmates. They were always soooo much fun! We would stay up the entire night in the train playing antakshri, or just talking and having a good time!
We had gone to Aurangabad in the eighth grade. I had bought a purple stone pendent for myself from one of the roadside stores there. It was about an inch or so big and was cut in the shape of a teardrop. I just fell in love with it as soon as I saw it!
Anyway, on the way back to Hyderabad in the train, a few of us were still up and talking at 12:30-1:00 AM. We were in a second-class bogie. I was on the upper-most berth, my best friend, Parikrama (not her real name. Am not going to use their real names. Don’t think they’d like that too much!) was on the upper side berth opposite to me, another friend, Amelia, was on the upper-most berth opposite of mine. Below Parikrama, was Arjun. In the cubicle on Amelia’s side Sohan was sound asleep on the upper-most berth. And another guy, Samar was standing below on the ground and we were all talking, and giggling for no reason at all.
I was leaning over the edge of my berth and talking, when suddenly the pendent that I’d bought came undone from around my neck, and fell to the floor, from where Samar picked it up at once. I asked (more like demanded!) him to give it back, but he refused to do so. I tried to grab his hair and pull it, but was unable to do so, and I was too lazy to go all the way down. I thought he’d return it sometime, and wasn’t all that bothered.
Samar chuckled wickedly and disappeared into Sohan’s cubicle. He then came back laughing uproariously. I asked him where my pendent was and he said that he had jammed it up Sohan’s nostril! I didn’t believe him at all and asked him to give it back. Parikrama who had a good view of Sohan’s cubicle said that she had indeed seen him put it into Sohan’s nostril! I was completely horrified! My beautiful purple pendent! Apparently the poor guy had woken up with a start to find a foreign object lodged in his nostril, removed it, and went right back to sleep!
Samar was now dangling the pendent from the black thread attached to it. I snatched it from him, and stalked off to the basin outside, where I held it under the water for a good 20-25 minutes. Then I just put it away in my bag.
Try as I may, I couldn’t get myself to be truly angry, as I was a bit tickled too by this gross act! Teenage sure is a weird age! :D
When I got back home in Hyderabad, I even steeped my pendent in boiling water for about 30 minutes or so!
My poor pendent from that day onwards was dubbed the “booger pendent” thanks to the ingeniousness of Samar!
Each time I wore it to school everyone would have a gala time pointing and laughing and screaming, “booger pendent”! That still did not deter me from wearing it. I just loved it too much! I wore it so often that the black thread got so frayed that it just snapped one day! I just went out and bought another black thread and I still wear my lovely purple pendent!

Sushi, Cheese and the Greatest Movie of All!

At last my exams are over!! YAHOOOO!!
They did get over quite a few days ago, a week to be exact, but the reality is just sinking in. This always seems to be the case; I feel free from the burden of studying only after about a week has passed since my last paper.
Anyway, lets move on to happier topics!
A few weeks before my exams my brother, D, celebrated his 25th birthday. Mom and Dad were also here, for their annual summer holiday. So it was decided that we would go to a nice hotel to celebrate his birthday. So we went to a hotel that had recently opened.
My entire family, especially Mom and I, are very fond of buffets, so we went to the coffee shop, which served a fabulous buffet (incidentally, is it pronounced ‘boo-fey’ or ‘buh-fey’?).
As soon as we were seated at the table, Mom, as is her wont, went off to inspect the food that was laid out. Dad, D, and I were sitting at the table, taking in our surroundings, when suddenly Dad asked, “What’s the name of this place?” D turned around towards me and went, “The name of this hotel is…” I, for my part, just gave each a blank look, and remarked, “Well! How nice! We are in a hotel, and we don’t even know the name!” and burst out laughing!
Mom arrived and we all turned to her and chorused, “Ma! What’s the name of this hotel?” I just knew it that Mom would know the answer (as she usually does!), and I was right! But for the life of me, I just cannot recall the name; it was something to do with Central. But that’s all I can remember!
Anyway, one of the things that were available was sushi. When I’d first heard about sushi and what it was made of, I almost barfed! But later as I heard about what a delicacy it was, I often wondered how a roll of boiled rice and raw fish would taste. So I didn’t hesitate in placing one of the sushi rolls on to my plate, and poured quite a lot of the sauce that accompanied it on top of it.
The only other person in my family, who had the guts to try it out, was of course, Mom! She was the first to pop it into her mouth and declared that it was “different, but quite nice!” So, I very gingerly placed the entire roll in to my mouth. At first, all I could sense was the bland taste of boiled rice, and then a bouquet of flavours burst in my mouth, and I almost gagged! There was a fishy flavour, a bitter flavour and some others I could not place! But I thought I’d be brave and swallow the damn thing, thinking that the taste (or tastes, as the case was!) would grow on me, and that I just had to get used to it. But as it turns out, sushi is not something that you fall in love with at “first bite”, so to speak! So I did the next best thing: I ran to the restroom and spit out the offending morsel on some paper napkins. A woman happened to walk in just then, and seeing what I was up to, turned around and walked right out!
Now, I don’t know if sushi usually does taste so bad, or it was just this one. I’ve even learned that there are different types of sushi. So maybe I just got a bad one! And I’m still game to try out any other variety of this popular Japanese delicacy, after all, millions of Japanese’s (as well as other nationalities’) taste buds cannot be dysfunctional; and sushi is of course supposed to be an acquired taste, just as caviar is. Though I don’t think I’ll be trying out caviar any time soon! That’s fish eggs for God’s sake!
This entire episode got me thinking of people and their different tastes. The saying, ‘One man’s poison is another man’s meat’ is so true, even in it’s literal sense! The vegetable I hate the most is cauliflower; I just cannot even stand the smell of cooking cauliflower. This one time, I was sitting around with my friends and I referred to cauliflower as “yucky!” and some other choice words, only to be chastised by my friend, F, who said that just because I hate cauliflower does not give me the right to refer to it in such a manner, as it still is food, and all food should be respected alike. Wise words indeed!
Most of us do have a predilection for weird food combinations! I love eating pineapple with chocolate sauce, but just hearing these two words uttered in the same sentence makes Mom want to throw up! When I was a kid, maybe five or six years old, I would grate cheese and then add spoonfuls of sugar to it, mix it up and eat this “treat” with much relish! An aunt of mine reminded me of this a few years ago, and said that she had asked me then, “But who likes to eat this?!” And I had very proudly replied, “I do!”
I haven’t tried the above combination in ages, but I can still remember the taste: cheese and sugar, who can not like it?! :D

On an aside, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge has completed 500 weeks!! That is 10 years! It is one of my most favourite movies, and I’m going to watch it in a theatre again! Quite a few theatres in Bombay are showing DDLJ to celebrate 500 years of the movie running to full houses every single day!
I remember Mom and I had gone to watch Sarfarosh in this theatre in Bombay called Maratha Mandir. We were waiting in the lobby for the morning show of DDLJ to get over, and Mom was wondering why they were still running this movie after so many years. “Who would still want to watch this movie?!” she had remarked. And I had said defensively that there are a lot of DDLJ fans, who would love to watch the movie again and again and again… I was right, and how! As the movie got over and the doors opened, droves of people walked out of the theatre! Even I was dumbstruck that so many people would still want to go to the theatre to watch DDLJ. I begged my mother to take me to the next screening of DDLJ, but she flatly refused.
But now, I insisted that this movie needed to be celebrated in its 500th week! I need to celebrate this movie that has made me smile, laugh and cry for ten whole years!

Where is the Stepney?!

Last night my aunt had invited us for dinner at her place. I actually wasn’t very keen on going because I’ve a ton of college work to do. But my brother D said that we better go because we haven’t seen our aunt since she fractured her backbone. So I decided maybe I should take a break from my non-stop record writing, give my right hand a rest and go out for a change.
So we went. And we were late as usual. And D was freaking out as usual about the time I take to get ready!
We had a good enough time. Lots of jokes were cracked and lots of laughs were shared.
It was about 11:30 and D decided that we better get going as he had a 5 am shift the next day. Then my cousin A said something about some Canadian Indian, and he asked us if we would like to see a clip of some sort. We said, “yes”, and were taken to the computer. The clip was about a Canadian Indian who was a standup comedian. He was hilarious! He did accents so well! Chinese, Indian, Jamaican, African etc. etc. after half an hour or so D thought that we really should be going, and A offered to drop us home in his jeep (later I found out why exactly D wanted to rush home – he’s sitting and talking to his girlfriend right now!!).
The jeep was cute looking (D and A would freak out if they read this :D). But the ride was anything but smooth! It was terribly bumpy. I was feeling nauseous in the front seat and D echoed my feelings from the back seat. We were just 15 minutes away from home when a car passed by and a guy in the passenger seat leaned out and shouted something. I didn’t get it, but suddenly A shouted, “the tyre must be punctured!”
We got out of the jeep and saw much to our dismay that the tyre was indeed “punctured”! In fact, it was so hot that the rubber had melted in a few places! A did not know much about changing tyres and I knew naught about the whole business! But thank God my brother; D knew exactly how to do it. He asked A if he had a jack and a stepney. A replied, that he had no idea. They checked the jeep and found everything that they needed. Then they set about changing the tyre (thank God there was a spare one!). It was about 12:30 now.
And while the guys were changing the tyres, what did I do? Felt foolish is what! That’s because I had no idea at all what was to be done, and the guys seemed to have had everything in control, and there really wasn’t much for me to do anyway. But yet I felt kind of silly just standing there looking at them working at changing the tyre. Just then I received an sms from a friend, and began replaying to her what was happening. She replied, “Maybe a good-looking good Samaritan would come by and help you out!” I replied that D and A seemed to have everything in control, and that we were in an area, which really did not boast of “good-looking good Samaritans”!
But a taxi driver did come up and tell D that he should place a rock in front of the jeep so that it does not roll away once the rear tyre was lowered. I pointed out to a rock I saw lying on the pavement, and that was the extent of my contribution to the whole process!
After about 15 to 20 minutes the tyres were exchanged, the nuts bolted on tightly and the jeep was mobile once more! When A started up the jeep we could hear the voices of some men coming out of the speakers. I was wondering which radio station we were tuned into, when I suddenly recognized Sanjay Dutt’s voice. A then realized that the ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ CD was playing (yes, the jeep is equipped with a little screen on which CDs could be watched)! All of us heard Sanjay Dutt’s voice asking, “Was that a tyre bursting or a gun shot?!” D started laughing from behind. How coincidental is that?!
By now we had reached home and we sat in the jeep for sometime watching the movie, till I asked D whether he intended to sit in the jeep the entire night. He suddenly realized that he had a 5 am shift (more like, he had to call up his girlfriend!), and we got down and walked up to our apartment. And 20 minutes later, after having changed my clothes and brushed my teeth, I’m sitting on my computer, typing out this whole daastan!

This is the last entry that I will be posting for sometime now. I couldn’t post anything before too because I do not have the time to do anything except write in my record book. My practicles are in two weeks time, and I still have so much to write, and my exams start in a month’s time and I’ve to start preparing for them too! How I hate studying! Even if the subject is interesting I don’t like studying for it! :( What a bother!
Anyway, I’ll definitely post my next entry as soon as my exams are over. This is goodbye for a while now! :D

ME ME ME!!!

“There you go! You are acting just like your father!”

“Where did you get that particular trait from? Definitely not from this side of the family!”

“That expression of yours is so much like your aunt’s! You are like two peas in a pod!”

How many times in a day do most of us have to hear such comments? And how many of us want to scream bloody murder each time we have to hear such comments?!
I for one do belong to this group. I’ve been hearing such comments from the time I could understand language! So probably such comments were being passed even before my verbal “enlightenment” had dawned on me!
Since the day I was born people have compared me to my father’s sister, saying that I resemble her a lot. I never could make out the resemblance. Where the heck was it? She has a rectangular face, I’ve an oval face; she has straight hair, I’ve wavy hair; she has “chinky” eyes, I’ve medium-sized NOT “chinky” eyes! Our mouths are different, eyebrows are different, builds are different, and everything else is different God dammit!
As time went on, this comparison used to drive me absolutely nuts! And people (mostly my brother and Grans!) picked up on this, and tortured me endlessly by comparing me to her. I would actually walk out of rooms when anyone said anything that remotely went like, “Isn’t she similar to…” I would literally walk out of the room (much to the embarrassment of my family members) when guests made such observations! Then one time my aunt was present when I staged a walk out, and later she came up to me and asked, “Why do you hate being compared to me? Do you think I look ugly?” I think I blushed all the way till my roots and mumbled something to this effect, “Uh… I… don’t…think… no…” and ran away like a stinking coward!
For years I didn’t even think of this incident, when all of a sudden it hit me: I wasn’t angry that people constantly compared me to my aunt and father because they were ugly or horrible people, or whatever. The thing was I didn’t want to be compared to anyone! I was ME and I wanted people to just look at me as me, not as a caricature of someone else.
I’ve thus realized how important my identity is to myself! I don’t want to be known as a copy (a poor one at that) of someone else, I want to be treated on the basis of myself, my own personal characteristic quirks! ME ME ME!! I want to be known as ME!! Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is! I’m sure no one is going to stop comparing me to various family members anytime soon, so nowadays I try to take all these comparisons with a pinch of salt. Who am I kidding??! No I don’t! I still get angry, mad, annoyed, irritated, aggravated, exasperated, frustrated, infuriated, irate, livid, incensed… I think I’ve run out of adjectives!!