Tagged: Life

May 05

Table for two please..or four?

“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! :-)

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Posted in Life, Thoughts, funny

Mar 25

Leaving Maximum City aka Mumbai aka Bombay

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.

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Posted in India, Life, Thoughts

Jan 18

The Charge of the Life Brigade

Not tho’ the soldiers knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:

The lines above have been taken from Tennyson’s The charge of the Light Brigade. The very same lines are a part of my GTalk status for a few days now. They reflect very well a soldier’s duty to follow orders without questioning them even if these very same orders may lead to their doom!

Most of us admire and envy a soldier’s life filled with discipline, honor and valor. A soldier’s life and the life of his fellow men often depends on following orderswithoutfail or deviation. For people like me, who love to question each decision/order in order to understand the big picture; an army career would have been a difficult choice.

But, just putting the same lines in the perspective of life and replacing the decision maker as God, i suddenly feel that unwittingly all of us just ‘do and die’. Whenever unfortunate events occur in our life, people comfort us by telling that something better is in store and that we should not question it for it is the part of God’s big plan.

But what if, Some one had blunder’d, and the big plan is but a false dream? Then of course, we are just doing and dying only to be forgotten in time…

PS-Apologies if this is a very philosophical and confusing post to read!

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Posted in Life, Thoughts

Jan 12

Mumbai Local

Everyday, my local train leaves Dadar station at 8.41 AM to reach Thane at 9.10 AM Precisely at 9.08, we’d all get up from our seats and lineup on in such a way that the incoming rush at Thane station doesn’t kill us.

As the train draws to a halt, a swarm of screaming people glides in…hurting unsuspecting individuals standing at the door, for they thought that the crowd would allow them to get down first. Its terrifying at times, people can get seriously hurt.

Having lived most of my days in not-so-cluttered environs, I fail to understand why would people risk their lives to reach to theirworkplaces in time. Is work that important? Probably, India’s Got Talent could pick a few gymnasts from the mumbai local horde!

Okay, having scared the reader enough of the local train crowd, i’d bring back today evening’s incident which made me feel different about the same people who seem so mad each morning.

On my return journey tonite, the train stopped at Vikhroli…a blind man was trying to find his way on the platform…almost bumping at the pillars or the seats. Every now and then a passerby would guide him…and save him from hurting himself. Every few seconds i felt that he might hurt himself…but someone always was around to help him out…While my train started moving on, a passerby justheld this man’s walking stick and guided him all the way out.

These are the same people I am afraid of each morning in the train; and now I respect them each day too.
Someone was absolutely correct when he wrote:
Aye dil hai mushkil jeena yahan. Zara hat ke zara bach ke. Ye hai bombay meri jaan

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Posted in India, Life, Thoughts

Mar 04

Extraordinary

There are days when nothing seems to go right, right from the moment you are out of bed to the nightfall moment of slumber. Its when you question life, your existence and perhaps your utility in this world. Contrasting, there are days when you feel invincible, when nothing goes wrong, when everything seems to be happening for your happiness and achievement.

Many of us hope to achieve things extraordinary, being a face in the crowd, doing something which may awe everyone. Its this desire which gets lost amongst the truth and harshness of everyday life.

I may have hoped to be someone extraordinary, but already into my quarter life, its been just flashes of genius and a whole lot of average-ness. Maybe its early to pass on a judgement on myself, but the inertia and the lack of knowing what is to be done next is missing. Its everyday reality to me, to be average, to be a part of the crowd, moving ahead in a single mass.

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Posted in Thoughts

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