Preface to "Of love,marriages and money"

Preface

A story being inspired by the times when I didn’t have a single credit card, and of times when I have too many of them, may because of the fact that I never had one or may be because of the sweet voice and coaxing of the girls which credit card companies or bank employ, who, however never come to collect documents from you, something which you look for.

I still remember it afresh when I had to go home for the first time after I joined my job with ONGC at Mumbai, how I had struggled to get a ticket to home, any way by Air or by road, by water was just not possible as Delhi, my homeland is a landlocked place, which most of you know, or have visited or travelled to. Seniors and colleagues, at that time, had lectured me that if you book a ticket using credit card of someone else, than that person’s presence is must when you check-in at the Airport. I have until this time booked so many tickets for friends and relatives but was never required to be there with them, as because for the uninformed, Airline tickets are prepaid properties. I had joined on 11^th September and hence only got Rs. 18500/- as salary, 40% of which I had to eventually spent on my one way trip to home, the festival Diwali had been the reason to go home.

The story also draws upon my understanding of love and affection of different kinds, with and of different people, who I met or was born to during my journey of life till date. Marriage though has been the ultimate desire and destination of couples in love, but is not always the case, helplessness and understanding being the reason for the voluntary aberration, sometimes.

This piece of writing is also influenced by my readings of novels written by American or Indian American writers. American culture by far has been the most popular culture in the world and the ubiquitous Pepsi, Blue Jeans, Dominos Pizzas, Hollywood movies and American English, all stand a testimony to it.

Last but the most significant thing is, that, it is here in Mumbai, that I found someone vey special, someone who is, has been and will always remain close to my heart. This story is, in particular dedicated to her.

Degeneration of Social Values in New Generation!!

Well after a long gap I am writing again. Today something so happened that I am kinda compelled to write this experience and share it across all of you.

These days as soon as the clock says it's 6 PM, it's time for me and Mohit( Mohit is my ex-classmate and now colleague) to leave for evening walk.This is the only thing I am sort of doing these days apart from lots of sleep, rest, marking attendance on the duty and eating. Around 15 days before, clouds forgot their way and accidently it rained here in this city of 3 Ds [for the uninformed 3Ds are Dhool(Dust),Dhunwaa(Smoke) and Dhokha(Cheating)].Well, here it's problem always, if it does not rain it's hot and sweltering, if it does their is a WWE( water water everywhere) situation.On that day, as usual me and Mohit left for our daily evening walk session, in a street near to our flat we saw kids throwing stones in the stagnating water, I requested them not to do it, but they continued and even threw a stone very near to us. We kinda cursed them and moved along. Today again there was an encore, rain, WWE, kids and stone. All those naughty and nonsense kids were from nearby houses and their was none to ask them to stop it. I just do not know Why the hell parents like this give birth and add on to the problems of a more than billion people.

During our daily evening walk session, we normally visit two parks one very near to our flat and another a bit far away, both of them falling in sector 9. Today when we were taking a round in the nearby park, a girl, around 5 years old, hit me with her cycle, I got a little bit angry and was about to scold that girl for it, but Mohit asked me to stay cool. The girl and her mother sitting nearby on some bench didn't feel any need to say sorry or anything. As we were moving along, she came from behind, crossed me and started saying "Dekh kar nahi chal sakta"...This is the way kids are behaving these days, reason is very simple no one to take care about all these things. Life has become fast and furious 5, parents do not have time, fathers busy in making money, mothers busy in gossiping, back-biting and kids busy in doing their own tings and their own way.

In our second park, there was another case of our encounter with not so good kids. There were two three groups of kids playing cricket here and there, me and Mohit because of our obsession with cricket were watching them. Suddenly, there was a quarrel in one group and a kid started beating another mercilessly, kicking him continuously with his shoes without caring for anything. Mohit mediated and things started to cool down and become normal. All of a sudden, another kid from the same group came to us and threatened us like " Khattanna hun main, mere bhai aa jayenge na to tum dono bhaag jaoge yahan se"....can you imagine a small kid, around 8 years old talking like that, can we imagine anything like that 8 years ago. Things have changed a long way, more than for bad than for good. Then the same kid, followed us and sat along with us on a bench and told us about their big house, and kept on mentioning the name "Kahttanna". He also told us that his father has two industries, they have two VIP numbers being brought for one lac rupee each, his paternal aunt is mayor of the city and they are very close to MLA. For all this while his tone was intimidating, showing pride our the money they have got, it was not at all mild and sweet, as expected from a kid. Change is inevitable, but it should be for good, atleast for kids, as they are the future. It was astonishing for both of us to hear things like that from a small kid, he was talking ten years ahead of his age. Amazing, innocence is slowly moving out of kids, they are turning alarmingly stubborn, violent and rude. We all need to think about it, atleast kids should not be voilent and intimidating like this. In this era of everything moving so fast we are forgetting value and behavior, we should think upon all of this and should try to make things better.

Recession might be over soon..read below to find why

Fig1: The HJB Hall Mess, Furniture Layout,Top View or Plan


Fig2: HJB Hall Mess,IIT Kharagpur in 2007, Actual View

Fig3:Dining Hall, Christ Church College, University of Oxford

Today I saw a shaker line behind the dark clouds of recession,the original line is like.."there is a silver line behind every dark cloud".The private managers of HJB Mess purchased some new salt shakers, and it was off-course, at least for me, a delight to see the new guests in the mess. As we all know we are living through the economic slump these days, shares' prices plummeting, goods being piled up in godowns because of supply and demand mismatch, layoff by companies as cost cutting, economic boost by governments, world leading economies like USA, Germany and France recording negative growth rates, GDP growth being revised in India every fortnight, IITs recording there lowest placement stats,auto makers world wide struggling to keep factories running, big companies going for mergers, special loans being announced,Real estate prices coming down are few things being mentioned which are going in a direction opposite than the intended.And as it was there, we found a good excuse for everything in it, some being very hilarious like students not performing well at the spring fest ;reason -Recession, only four kavis(Poets) at the Kavi Sammellan,;reason -Recession, train getting late; reason again -Recession.Lets talk about messes now..when we talk about messes..the quotation "the other side of the grass is always greener" seems to be the most truthful sentence.We always compare and curse, like some IIT Bombay has best mess among IITs, some including the author say IIT Kanpur is very good, here at KGP the guys say that RK hall's mess is best because of the healthy donation from its world famous alumni Mr. Vinod Gupta,for the information of readers, Mr. Vinod Gupta is an IIT KGP alumnus who is the former chairman of infoUSA, the company which he once started in US, and is very near to former US president Mr. Clinton, he has by now donated more than $8 million to IIT KGP.We do not know about the best one but HJB's is certainly among the worst.All the negative adjectives are used to curse it,the furniture is tacky and old fashioned,the layout is uncomfortable(see fig.1) the food is unhygienic,tasteless and looks ugly,and the menu is very illfully designed, everything has potatoes in it, here we have to say to the icecream walas and cake walas that "Dada, aaloo flavor nahin hona chahiye".[For a better understanding, lets see fig 2 at the top, the picture being taken by Author when he joined in 2007,by his Sony Ericsson K750i, 2MP autofocus camera,and also see the fig3 just below it, the dining hall at Christ Church College,University of Oxford, which was in news around one year before when Benazir Bhutto, former pakistani president was assassinated in December 2007, Benazir's son Bilawal Bhutto who is now president of Pakistan's People Party, who studies history there].And top of it, Mr. Ashutosh Shinde convinces,persuades and almost compels everyone to say that "quality of food is good or improving",bloody one year before when he was not the Vice-President , back then he never realised this "white lie", for heaven's sake stop doing this sin Ashutosh.HJB mess is like that only since its inception in 2000 but recession came recently and I thought its only because of recession that there are too few a Salt Shakers in the mess and despite of feeling very frustrated because of it I kept quiet waiting for the recession to end and then the mess authorities may have enough money to raise tenders and then to do vendor selesction and somehow the arrival of new shakers seemed to be a thing which was not looking plausible till 2009 end.Now have a look at the picture at top, its depicts the way the furniture is organised in the mess. The number of tables outdo the numbers of shackers by almost a half(see fig1).For eleven tables, there are five shackers, I have always felt great frustration for it, mind you here in HJB mess you are bound to feel that only, no one listens, everyone is busy counting money that is going to various pockets in a covert way.Yesterday to "roti hi khatam ho gayi" waise hi itni achachi quality hoti hai, jaise hoti thi wo bhi nahi rahi, kuch din pehle sambhar mai frog dance kar raha tha, there is lot much to mention but that will divert us from the main topic, "The Salt-Shakers". Because of a wide disparity in number of tables and number of shakers,because salt is always lesser than adequate in Dal and curries and because of different tastes of people the salt shakers are most sought after and mobile thing during the meal times.I used to think that does it cost so much that we are waiting for Mr. Vinod Gupta to visit campus and some how he discovers it and give some donation to purchase new ones, does a cheap but important thing like salt always need a revolution as big as Dandi March of 1930, being led by hon'ble Bapu, but that was a diffrent time, we were ruled by the British and there was too much tax on salt,but situation is hell-heaven different now.With "nothing could change here" thing in my mind, we waited patiently for the recession to end and to have new shakers.But todays morning I was sweetly surprised as the long awaited saltshakers had arrived, being neately placed at the side of table in front which holds the Tea-Urn and the glasses.The numbers of shakers outdoing the number of tables for the first time in last two-years, I can't say how it was before it as I joined only in 2007.I could not believe it,it was hard to do as I never thought that its possible until we were here atleast.Like in Obama a new change came to USA on November 4,2008 a new change has come to HJB Mess in new saltshakers,people world over are believing that with Obama recession will be over soon, similarly we can hope the same thing to happen here, the placement stats may improve, best of luck Guys.

The Ant charmer chair

It was on night of 22 July 2007,Sunday, when I boarded train number 2802,Down, Purushotam Express on my way to the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, to take up higher studies after an academic gap of two years.On Monday around 1 AM I reached Kharagpur station, travelling for 26 hours and covering 1480 Kms, and a couple of minutes later I landed my first step on the longest platform in the world,1052 meters in length.Soon I boarded a taxi and directed the driver to take me to MMM(Madan Mohan Malviya) Hall at the IIT Kharagpur premises, though its cheap to hire a Rickshaw,a rickshaw for the same venue had costed exactly half of taxi fare, that is Rs. 40, but somwhow in Rickshaw I always find reminiscents of slavery or I do not know the exact reason but I do not like it.It was around 1:30 AM when I reached MMM Hall.I found three people sleeping in front of the hostel office, I asked them for the accomodation, they in turn asked whether I had been allotted the same hall or not, when I replied in no, they said you can stay in common room for the night and in morning you can go to the hostel that have been allotted to you.Somehow I spent night in the common room among a number of unknowns,but ofcourse we all faced the paucity of space.
Next morning, I woke up early, took my baggage and left for HJB Hall at 6:30 AM.The hostel was newly constructed, in 2000, very clean, with a small open play field in the front.Soon the hostel manager arrived,he was a tall, slender,bespectaled man,who walked with slouch and with a cap on head and white sneakers with a formal trousers, a sort of untypical bengali, and started allotting rooms on a two persons per room basis.But the room on ground floor were allotted in singles, I decided to go by the single room, soon reversing my decision because of the condition of the room,it was very damp from inside.Without any serious thoughts I teamed with Amol, a fat moustached guy around 5'10" tall in formal black trousers and Bata shoes who looked distressed with long journey but unlike the manager he was sort of half-typical marathi.(Amol is my present room-mate, an awesome guy, terrific friend and a lovely human).Together we reached our room, Room N0. D-320, on second floor, D block.Nobody had erstwhile believed that soon that vary room will be at the helm of the affairs of the hall, with the Author in lead and Amol acting the political and administrative advisor.Since the room was originally designed for single, we had to reshuffle the furniture and to set it according to our comfiture.In a short time of three days, we found an optimal layout, with only two beds in room which were to be assissted by a single table,which was to be placed on the bed side of Amol , we put the lone chair at the room back-side and till date have never demanded a second table or a second chair.The chair had,since the day it was put outside, been an alien to the room.Only visiting the room on two occasions, one when Shailesh visited us for the first time and second when our fan was repaired.The panorama at the backside is not good at all, with two used close-up tubes being thrown, a plastic water bottle founding shade under the chair, two rags, a small iron pipe and a bucket and a mug inside it which are normally seen sitting comfortably on the chair.The chair being treated as an alien and an outcast by us, has now found an intriguing way to avenge.She has now befriended Ants, which are always found on the bucket's interior and exterior.Earlier I used to blame Amol for it, by claiming that he puts something interseting for the ants in bucket, just to trouble me.But yesterday only I realised that I was wrong,when Amol put the same blame on me, it was only because Amol used to bath after me so that next day I was the first to discover ants. Now I had to under take investigations into the matter, after pondering for a day, I think its the chair, which has developed some super natural power to attract ants and somehow direct these ants to our bucket, which is indespensable in winters, as we have to take warm water for bathing from the water heater, unlike the summer season we cann't bath Kingfisher style, singing "oo lalla la le o, o lalla la lalle o".I think we need to give some respect back to the chair and need to grant her with the pending chairship.

Personal

Flatter me, and i may not believe youcriticize me, and i may not like youignore me, and i may not forgive meencourage me, and i will not forget youlove me, and i may be forced to love you

This is what is say to myself

She says

Here I lie in Pain and God knows the truth

There she comes and says I flirt eternally

Its a frankenstein as only I conveyed it to her

I never lie was what I had to say ultimately

She is missing him, but I went to gym

lifting the weights after a while

She fought with her sis,

and now searching for a smile

What could I do,

when the distance is in mile(s)

Looking at the clock,its 2:02Am

I am just waiting for the sun to come

No beep-beep,she may be asleep