Category Archives: Life

Every morning she waits…

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Another old post from my old blog, am just getting nostalgic and lazy! This one was written back on Feb 15, 2006

Every morning at 7.55 AM my office shuttle(another word for bus) starts from JP Nagar First Phase taking the turn to the East end main road and finally reaching BTM Layout…

I have a particular seat which is in a way my seat on the left side of the bus, just for the simple fact that 4 minutes into the journey to my office I would be passing in-front of the “Brand and Bargains” showroom and around 8 AM I would witness ‘her’ waiting like everyday for her bus.

I don’t know where she works, I dont know who is she but all I know is that I wish to see her everyday, in a way a lucky charm for me! She ain’t the prettiest girl, but then she is different…she could be working anywhere maybe Infosys, Wipro, TCS or anywhere…

Its already more than a couple of months when I am sitting at my seat in the bus waiting eagerly to have a glimpse, and then move on without thinking of her till the next day, the probability is that I would never know her in person, I may never know her name even…

She might never know about my eagerness to just have a glimpse of her, but it doesn’t make any difference…this relationship, if i take liberty in calling it one, is different. In a way I don’t wish things to change, there is this hidden beauty in all this…and I wish to retain it.

Its a routine that I wish to continue…to see her waiting every morning for her office bus right at 8.

Note: I never talked to this girl back then as expected, funny I don’t even remember the face now!

Lunch Box

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Wrote this post back in 2006 on my previous blog, it was apt to migrate it on Mother’s day(got delayed by a few days):

Its 6.45 AM today, a Monday morning. As I struggle to get ready in time, my stomach rumbles reminding me of its demands for a breakfast. Time is short, and I am yet to get ready for work, opening my larder I discover that I don’t have anything ready to eat, thankfully a few slices of bread and jam come to my rescue. While I am exercising thin layers of jam over the slices, my mind went back to my school days, barely 5-6 years ago when mom used to prepare the school lunch and breakfast for me.

It seems a different age now, but I do remember those delicious savouries which she used to cook just for me all those years, getting up early to prepare them to my liking. I never ever bothered to thank her for them, perhaps we all never do. Every morning while waking her sleepy son she used to give a choice between this or that, some days it could be as simple as the jam-bread and on others it would vary from aloo paranthas or cutlets just to my liking. Today I am on my own, living in an Alien city where thousands of people get up – work – return home and loop again like zombies. Nobody seems to care whether poor old me is getting the right breakfast, or am eating at all. Guess what! this was the Independence or job life which we waited for all those years in college….

Before I forget…I thank you Ma for all those 12 years of early morning breakfasts and school lunches, which today seem to me a princely feast in comparison to what I can cook and eat….

Table for two please..or four?

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“Get a big TV, don’t buy a small one. Get a 3 burner cooking range, two burners is too small”, with these instructions my daily phone call to Ma comes to an end. Its been less than 3 weeks since I moved to the new city and found myself a pad. Of course the place is empty and its been upto me to spruce it up the way I want it.

Equipped with a shoe string budget and purely functional needs in mind, I scoot off every now and then to the nearby home stores to add bits to my shack. At the end of each such visit I report back to Ma about my purchases and how it fits in well! Unfortunately Ma always has a different view, while I look at smaller furniture, small TV, small refrigerators…her demands are for the big stuff. Its unspoken but well understood that she wants me to buy everything according to how the needs shall be when I am married. It annoys me to no end but I always stop just short of explaining it to her, for I guess she may not comprehend it too well.

When I buy smaller stuff it gives me a comfort that I am still single, not getting sucked up into the family life just yet. Anything family size makes me aware that this freedom might end soon, its almost like marking my territory by buying things which are meant a single person to use…ay! even a dual burner seems to be an overkill in my kitchen! Constant trips to attend weddings of my friends who are now a part of this epidemic(as Barney said in HIMYM) doesn’t do me any good either, for she now thinks that I am ready to be domesticated.

For now I am winning the battle by citing financial constraints(which are partially true as well) but I know one day she’d have it her way, it would the day when Ma would visit me for a few weeks and change the landscape of the house buying comforts for her imaginary daughter-in-law whose name, arrival date, and whereabouts are still unknown.

*** Disclaimer ****

The house in the image isn’t mine(flicked off the net) and I am not getting married! So please don’t congratulate me and scare the bones out of me! :-)

Leaving Maximum City aka Mumbai aka Bombay

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There is a silly line which I mutter every time I get down on the VT station (okay! CSTM for the MNS and SS) with my friends. Watching the crowd, I’d quote innumerable hindi films:

ये है मुंबई शहर. सपनो का शहर. यहाँ सबको जल्दी है. खाने की जल्दी. ऑफिस जाने की जल्दी. पैसे कमाने की जल्दी. जीने की जल्दी. रोज़ यहाँ हजारो लोग आते है अपने सपनो को पूरा करने..

I arrived in Mumbai around 6 months ago, for my job required me to. I had always believed that if one could survive in Mumbai one could survive anywhere. I had been here before, but always as a visitor, an outsider just for short trips. But this time, I was meant to stay here and live the place.

Within a week of my landing here I ended up living in Dadar. Oh yeah! I was living in the townside as a Mumbaikar would say. For them anything ahead of Sion is a part of the suburb! I guess I had well avoided the most stressful activity for any newcomer, of finding a ‘decent’ place to stay, thanks to an old friend.

Like Morgan Freeman once talked of life being institutionalized my life started oscillating between the 8.41 AM Thane Fast from Dadar and the 6.27 PM CST Slow from Thane back home. Within 15 days I was the champion of the Central Line with a good awareness of surviving Western and Harbor too. I could tell you how much time in exact minutes it takes between point A to point B. I could lounge myself or squirrel through crowds to get in the trains. You could quiz me for any station sequence and I’d ace it!

In between work and trains, the endless stream of people and constant acitivity at any time of the day made it so alive…nothing like the sleepy towns I have been to. Between the extremities of lavish homes at Khar and the people living off the city streets I was amazed by the ‘in your face’ nature of life here.

Hundreds of Mani’s Dosas(What! you never been to Mani’s Cafe in Matunga?) and Filter Kapi fueled my mornings enabling me to be a corporate labor each day, with Mani never realizing how he was fueling India’s GDP through an able manager like myself!

Marine Drive and Nariman Point

Our weekends were sprinkled with our Foodie desires and frequent visits to the Marine Drive. That stretch of Queen’s Necklace would continue to be one of the favorite places of the city, almost an oasis of peace in bustling city. It was a part of my first evening here and I hope it shall be a part of my last evening here too.

Did I love the city? Do I want to leave it? These questions keep coming, but I feel they are irrelevant…afterall the choice has been made, my preferences do not matter. But, I do know for sure that this city allows one to dream and pursue them…it is both kind and ruthless to people….Like Sinatra once sang:

“This town is a lonely town…Not the only town like-a this town…This town is a make-you town…Or a break-you-town and bring-you-down town…This town is a quiet town…Or a riot town like this town…This town is a love-you town…and push-you-’roundtown”

I survived Bombay…and I know I can now survive anywhere.

When Terror came calling – German Bakery, Pune

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It was just two days ago I was in Pune for some work. It was nice to be back in the same place where I spent two years as a student…visited all my favorite joints on the FC Road. Relished the breakfast at Good luck, dosa at Vaishali and what not.

Incidently had crossed German Bakery but just didnt get the time to stop by and grab a bite, it was the perfect western eating joint at KP. A day later, on Saturday 13 February evening, we got the news about the blast at German Bakery.

I was shocked at the news, recalling that I had wanted to visit it. But the real shock came after an hour when we got the news that 4 of my college friends’ were amongst the injured in the blast and that one of them wasn’t traceable.

What followed was an agonizing hour of waiting for any news with networks being jammed his phone was not reachable. Thankfully he was found and had escaped with minor injuries. Thankfully all of them were safe with no severe injuries, but 9 people had already lost lives there!

I for one, had never imagined this could happen to any of us. I never felt that terror could hit people I knew. Had I stayed back in pune for the weekend, I would have been a part of the meetup too!

Maybe we focused too much on the movie release that police couldn’t focus on other things which mattered.

I don’t know the answers, but it has made me realize that this is real…any of these days we could just become a statistic….a casualty. With that our dreams and hopes to make a mark on this world could just end, for no fault of ours, for reasons we cannot comprehend.

Fear wouldn’t solve it, only action would.