Uncle!

I went to Care Banjara Hospital yesterday to submit some of my reports and met a doctor whom I hadn't met for the almost 1 year. Here is how the conversation went

Doctor: Hello

Me: Hello Sir

Doctor: Kya bhai! French beard. You have put on weight. No walking. No Diet-control.

Dad nahi hain....! Total change!

Me: (pissed off at the weight comment) Arey weight kuch hain.. I appear hefty just because of this jerkin!

Doctor: Acha.. par yeh to baahar nikal raha hain . ( he said that patting my tummy)

Huh! Not again! This is happening a bit too frequently now. It reminds me of the hair dye ad where a guy hears the word "Uncle" echoeing his ears. Just a couple of days ago, I happened to pose for my style photos in a marriage. I put one of the photos as my profile-pic in Orkut, ultra-pleased with it. ( Glam-boy dikh raha Main.. was my feeling). As expected there were a couple of scraps about the changed pic in orkut.

Hello, Abu Salem!

Hi...yeah Uncle photo kya hain! Since when did you start wearing those glasses?

I was shocked when I read those. I immediately changed the pic. Alas! I, in my best pic now look like an uncle. Uncle ! Uncle ! Uncle! The words still echo in my ears. Reflecting further on these lines, I now understand why Mom n Dad ask me if they should start searching for my better-half every other day. I do look to be in need of one. The french-beard is my only armour. It makes my chubby cheeks less obvious. Rishi Kapoor, the bollywood actor started sporting a French beard after he was 40. And I just turned 26.( By mistake, I happened to typed it as 46 a moment ago :( ). I believe that people put on French-beard when their face has nothing else to offer . There are some who put it on just to sport a "new" look. The later was my reason earlier but now the former seems to be a more appropriate reason.

Realization Aftermath: Abu Salem seems much better! He seems to occupy lesser space and didn't have the puffy face :(

Jog! Run! Yoga! Gym! What next? Ask me this question at 7:00 am in the morning and my answer would be "Arey, i'll get going from tomorrow!!"and Tomorrow has never happened till now :)

Abu Salem pic - Courtesy - www.tribuneindia.com/.../spectrum/main1.htm

Bday eve Blues !

Pepe Jeans, Spykar and Brand factory. I spent a good 2 hours roaming around all these places. Par saaala Ek shirt nahi mila ! I just wanted a 'simple sa' collared short T-shirt for my birthday. But I couldn't find any to my liking. Of course I wanted to buy a trouser as well. But I had made up my mind that I would buy one only I found a good shirt and that never happened. Me wearing formals made things worse. For once, I agree with Kiran who hates freaking around on Wednesdays in those Tie-Full sleeves - leather shoes formal wear. Well, today I happened to wear a checks shirt , which when not tucked into my trousers is too big for for me.

Start-Flashback! Aah.. it all started around 15 years ago when Dad realizing that I was a Complan boy growing fast and rapid bought a T-shirt of a bigger size than mine. I looked good in it ( parents always think so and i didn't know that then ) and it lasted long. I was never comfortable wearing anything tight because that would not sync with my flexible body which at any given point of time was either in a bowling or a batting pose. Thus started the "Thoda bada size lele" funda. When I was in high school, wearing Dad's shirts for me was a cool option. It continued even while I was in college. Hmm.. in fact it never mattered in college although the short-shirt fashion had just begun. Then came the job. I now had my own money and shopping with friends was more than a one-off event. The usual comment from my friends as well as the salesman would be "Wait!! Isn't that too big for you?". A few shoppings later my heart started feeling the same and thus started the "Wear what seems to fits you " revolution. The word "seems " assumes significance because some of the shirts don't quite fit you, but you go ahead with them for that is the latest fashion. Just a few days, I found a shirt in my cup-board that I used to wear during my final year and I was like "God! It's sooooo big. How did I ever wear it?" ( And that was supposedly one of favorite party wears !). End-Flashback!

Since I have been working only for the last 3 years, I have quite a few extra large shirts and most of them happen to be formals. Today happened to be one such formal day. With the formal shirt on, none of the trousers looked good! The moment I wore the jeans my the loose shirt would divert my attention. And when I did finally remove the shirt, my paunch would grab my attention. Huh! So I needed a good shirt for the trouser to look good but that never happened.

Frustrated,I started home. On my way back, I came across a Kwality ice cream hawker. "Yummy! I need some ice cream", I thought and stopped. I wanted to have Chocobar but as luck would have it, that was missing. The hawker urged me to take a "Choco-feast" but I refused since I wanted to have something less sugary." Hmm.. Ok... Give me a Mango bar"I said . He had it and it was Rs 15 but neither of us had the change. I searched all my pockets and found Rs 4. I wanted a rupee more and continued searching, hoping that I would find one. Finally seeing disappointment written all over my face, the hawker let me have the Mango bar for Rs 14.

I came home and opened orkut. And this is what I saw:

Today's fortune: Your luck has been completely changed today

"Oh...how true", I thought shaking my head in disbelief!

And all fell down!

This has not been the best of times for Hyderabad. After the twin blasts in the city on August 25th, the Punjagutta Flyover has collapsed today killing at least 15 people and injuring several others. I called some of my friends and sighed relief when I found none of them were near the flyover at that time. I feel sorry for the innocent victims who were near the flyover. I wonder how feeble the construction was! How could the fly-over collapse because of the rain? Aren't these basic things taken care of, when a masive fly-over at one of the busiest commercial centres in the city is being constructed. Luckily it was a weekend. There would have been greater damage inflicted if it was a week day.

The below picture was taken when the construction of the flyover had just started. I thought that I would share this picture with my friends once the flyover was ready , proclaiming myself to be the first guy who set foot on the Punjagutta flyover. Sadly, I was not only the first but also the last.

Ragging Mana hain!

I happened to switch on the TV just in time to watch The Ragging debate on CNN-IBN yesterday. The news is that ragging is now considered a criminal offence and any junior who is not happy with his seniors can lodge a complaint against them. So the situation has now taken a complete 180 degree turn with the juniors doing the masti and the seniors walking around the campus keeping a safe distance from the juniors.

Rings & Hallucinations. It's flashback time now. Yours truly was in the first year of college. I remember it all. It was my first Sunday in college and I was having a very "healthy interaction" with my seniors. I wanted to make an impression ( what a wrong choice) and started asking the names of the seniors around me. I found quite a few seniors staring at me. Just then a senior whom I knew since school days walked in and I lost no time in greeting him "Hi Shankar, How are ya!!!". Awwwh... I didn't know that the as per college rules ( senior rules) a junior should address a senior only as "Sir" or "Madam" and not by their name. The seniors found a bakra in me. And the quizzing errr I mean healthy interaction went on till 12:45 in the night. As I was about to leave, one senior told me his room no and asked me to wake him up by 6:00 am. Huh! I thought. I went to my room and lied down on the bed. But I couldn't just sleep. till about 4:00 am. The alarm rang at 5:45 am and woke me up. I went to my senior's room ans woke him up. He didn't wake up instead he asked me leave. I came back to my room but couldn't sleep again. That day was just the beginning. In the next few days, we marched round the campus, measured distances using a 1 rupee coin, counted the number of steps at every place steppable place ( I mean a place with steps), gave impromptu dance/singing performances and what not. We also did a Fashion show, draped in bedsheets ( a saree replacement) posing like the sexy babes on FTV. And at the end of the event there was a Miss Boys hostel as well :) . All this lasted till the Freshers party where we had a DJ ( my first and the best) which lasted till early hours of the next day morning.

Although I do remember instances where I really got fed up, I thought the overall experience of ragging was fun. It made us know our seniors and more importantly helped us shed our inhibitions. Most of us there were shy, introverts ( who had cleared a tough entrance exam and hence had the "studious" image hanging around) who preferred staying in their own rooms. We could no longer do that once a senior had asked us to shake a leg or strain our vocal chords.

What's happening right now in the universities of Delhi seems to be the exact opposite. Of course one can always say that "Ragging should not be taken to an extreme. It should be within limits". But guess we can only imagine or else at best blog about such things. Once the freedom is provided, there seems to be an equal chance of it being taken to the other undesired extrme . It is unfortunate that ragging has now become a criminal offence. Ragging mana hain aur students ko yeh maan na hain!

Huh! I can only hum the Pink Floyd anthem " We don't need no education ..!" shaking my head in disbelief.

The Static and The fleeting

Ha ha Hasini! I finally managed to watch the telugu movie "Dhee" today. I wanted to watch this movie since a long time, ever since I saw the pics of the lead lady "Genelia" on one of the idle filmy sites. I have gazed at her photos a hazaar times since then. How couldn't I when she was on every wall of my life- in my room, on my computer and on my cell-phone. And then she would appear on the TV screeen every now and then. I couldn't just wait to watch her on the 70mm screen. So when one of friends called me at 5:45 pm asking me if i could join him for a 6 pm show, life seemed to ooze of out the dead Mainframe screen. 2 mins later - Log off, Shut down. 4 mins later- I started my bike.15 minutes later , I was at the theatre and in front of me on the big screen stood the beauty.

Two and half hours later, I wasn't exactly mesmerized. Naah... the quality of the film had nothing to do with it neither was the fact my dream girl lacked the brains and fell for that dumbo hero. I remembered that I had seen her films earlier. But it wasn't then that my Dil went mmmmmm... it was only when I saw the pics. After some amount of R & D ( office mein zyada kaam kar ne ka effect) , I have come to the conclusion that Genelia is a static beauty. Hee hee.. Let me explain. These static beauties are very photogenic and make maximum impact in the pictures and when one keeps on gazing at them in a single pose. Although they are beautiful and look cute even otherwise, they wouldn't quite make the same impact when set in motion. ( yeah, I studied some Physics at the +2 stage). So a fan like me would end up wondering why the female who looked like an angel on his wallpaper, teasing and mesmerizing him appeared just like another heroine in the movie. Well, remember the "Static beauty theory".

The exact opposite of this is Piper Perabo, the girl who plays "Violet Sanford" in the hollywood movie "Coyote Ugly". I happened to catch the movie around 2 weeks back on Star movies and when I stopped swapping the channels once I saw Piper Perabo on screen. She seemed to have the perfect smile, the most natural smile that I had ever seen. Post-movie, I found some images of Piper Perabo on the net ( I didnt even know the name till then), and much to my disapppointment the spark was missing in her pics. The reason was simple. Any picture in the world would be able to capture only a particular instant of that lovely smile while the smile would continue for the next few seconds. And one can appreciate that only if one sees the complete smile from the moment when her lips start widening to the moment she flashes her teeth. The effect is not about a single moment. It lasts a few seconds and hence no photo can capture that. A fleeting beauty you see :)

Special thanks to:

Google Picassa for the collage

Genelia pics: www.idlebrain.com, www.raagalahari.com

Piper Perabo: http://www.wallpaperbase.com

Damn time

Naa...you heard it right. I was not meant to be "down-time". There are certain phases in life when everything goes against you no matter how hard you try. I went through one such phase a couple of weeks before I finally got a job. Now after 3 years the time seems to have come again. The "damn time"!!!

My net connection has gone kaput for the past 20 days thanks to the network-card which refuses to work. I bought a new one yesterday but that didn't help. Now the LAN icon has disappeared from the control panel altogether. My phone-battery went dead ( well.. quite apparently) last week. I bought a new one but after 2 hours it refused to work. I took it back to the dealer only to hear the "Goods once sold will not be taken back " funda from him. Nope I wasn't willing to buy his argument. Thanks to one of my friends aiding me in the verbal Dhoom-Dhaam I managed to get back the Rs 750. Irritated and frustrated ( err.. both mean the same .. right? ) I gave my phone to my Dad who promised me that he would get it right that very day. He did it and how easily? He just switched it on and started charging it and lo... it started working!!! "You lack the patience, my boy", dad said for the "Hazaar" th time in my life. My reaction was a helpless shrug indicating that there was nothing that I didnt try to make it work. Lesson learnt: My mobile can get as moody as I can get.

Not having the net and phone was like being deprived of food and shelter. Thankfully I had my clothes on. Touch Wood! Perhaps I didn't bother to say that and the next day I lost my valet when I went to a night show. It was weird for I realized that I lost it within 3-4 minutes. I had opened it to pay the money for the cool drinks and I guess it feel down when I removed the note. It struck me just a couple of minutes later but guess some lucky ass had already picked it up. Gone with my valet were my debit card, driving license and some cash( a good 500-600 :( ). My immediate concern was to get the card blocked. I finally did it yesterday afternoon and thankfully there were no transactions . ( Oh.. I am still worried. Let me call the customer care and check once again!!!). What about my driving license? I am not too sure if I have a xerox copy of that. Boooh....hoooo!!! If by any chance you happen to be reading this post and you happen the guy who found my purse, please return it to me. ( well... I am an optimist of the nth degree ). I promise to let you have the cash. I just want my card and driving license back.

All the above events have been interspersed with minor irritating events like me pushing Dad's Activa up the hill for 1 km after the engine refused to start. I seem to be hit pretty hard on the ideological front as well. I have been reading "Atlas Shrugged" for the past few days and I have come to the conclusion that I am neither a Hank-Rearden nor a James Taggart? Worse still I am neither a Devdas nor a Romeo. Gals no longer bring the same amount of excitement nor do they cause any pain as was the case not too long ago. My job doesnt excite me neither does it cause the threshold amount of frustration. Argh.. Huh.. Hmmm... there is nothing much to do I guess. I am just waiting for the fairy to come along!

Grrrrr ... Grow up Kiddo!

Huh !!! The Blush. Will I ever grow up? Will I ever stop getting passionate and emotional about the fairer sex?

Time : 6:00 am

What I was supposed to do : Sleep like a log on my cozy bed

What I did: Got up suddenly and was searching if someone was online

Mom's expression: Ah.. My kid ... He has got up so early .. He is becoming responsible. Work in the office.. work at home. Ah .. my kid!!

After 5 mins : The heart is quite disturbed that "she" is not online. A message is passed to the brain to shut down the comp and give some respite to the weary eyes. The body pulls the rug and goes back to sleep.

Mom's expression now : Oh.. he has slept again. Wonder why he got up at all?

I am not too concerned about what Mom thinks but I am about how passionate I get about some silly girl . ( This concern is very relevant because I silly girl doesnt have any idea about this nor is she passionate about me) . I usually have a sound sleep and it requires someone to put quite a bit of effort to wake me up. But the moment I get this thought of meeting this gal, the heart seems to take over. It makes sure that the brain is activated and wakes up in time. Wish I could do this before the bloody Computer Networks exam in the 7th sem. It wouldn't have flunked and would have freaked out in the 8th sem without repeating the course.

Others guys seem to have matured quite a bit after college. They are either steady with someone or are busy with their work. I still seem to be the same confused soul . Flash back ... My thoughts when I was in the 3rd year ( Titled "In Love with love")

It was my first day of my long summer vacation. I was just out of school. I saw this girl moving into our opposite house and in a la "dil to pagal hai" style I was mesmerized as the lines "Somewhere, someone is made for you" came to my mind.It was love at first sight.(or second I don't exactly remember). I found that she was younger than me and so to befriend I used my "senior" tag. I started helpimg her academically and in whatever other way I could. Her interests started becoming my priorities and her birthday became the most auspicious day for my resolutions.This continued for one year. However she was as hard as kitply and did'nt respond.

I was now in my second year. I started to like a girl in our college who was of the traditional bholi type girl. (So what happened to the first???) After some time I felt that this girl was made for me. (First girl overwritten). Even the girl started liking me. But once after entrance exams were over we got ranks wide enough to separate us.(yeh u guessed it !!!she got a huge rank.Don't forget I am in a premier Engineering college ). As days passed by I got the feeling that this girl did'nt deserve me.

In the engineering college it started again!!! What?? what else?? The same "Somewhere someone..." feeling. This time around it was a case of "I came here ,I saw her and she conquered me". It was'nt love at first sight this time though.It was only after many sights at many sites (places) that I felt the need to sight (look for) her. ( I was more experienced ) But then life is not a bed of roses. This girl was like diamond not only in apperance but also at heart(hardness). She completely ignored me. Unlike what most of you would expect I did'nt turn Devadas with a bottle in hand. Rather I turned Kalidas with a pen in hand and began to write whenever I felt sad and depressed. Although I should confess that as a incurable Romantic and eternal lover I always keep waiting for a dramatic turn or an unexpected twist.

Now don't dare to say that you have heard this somewhere before. Believe me ,it is not a plagiarised version of "mera naam joker". It is my own story,(I mean life).These girls taught me quite a few things . (I learnt many the hard way). The first time around I realised that it is mistake to expect too much out of anyone how much ever you might love them. The next experience taught me that hasty decisions only make you regret later. The last girl(will she be the final one????) brought out the writer in me and made me tougher in life. The greatest and perhaps the most important thing that all these girls made me realise is that I was "In love with love".(and not with any of them). Any listeners???

Listeners!!! Forget it . I don't even listen to myself. If I were to re-write this again now , it wouldn't change much except that the number of girls would be 8 or 10 instead of 3 . ( And each one of them would teach me some lesson but the final lesson remains the same. (In all of these cases it would be pretty one-sided with me playing the "one".) But I don't learn I just write). "It takes much more sense to be passionate about an "idea" or a "thought" rather than a person". This I believe is conventional wisdom. For me the idea still seems that of the "silly gal". Grrrr ...Grow up Kiddo for this idea will never change your life.

After-thought: The Bollywood remake syndrome seems to have effected me too. I never imagined that I would use something that I wrote 5 years ago.