Need a push

I am kinda giving up, little by little...
A sudden fall here, an unexpected slip here, a stumble there...
I am kinda falling apart, I am kinda pushing myself...
I am kinda passing the time, I am kinda unwilling...
I am kinda dragging myself...
I am kinda counting days...
I am kinda missing the force from within, the will from within...
I am kinda waiting to start, I am kinda waiting for it to end...
I am kinda waiting to fall, to bounce back high...
I am kinda waiting for a miracle to take me high up in the sky!!!

The Delhi tomato tadka appetite

Much as I love to say everything and anything against Delhi, I don't seem surprised that I do get new things to say anyway! This time it's the food and when it comes to food, Delhi has got many an option. But, but the fact of the matter is that you can't escape a Punjabi style, tomato tadka added to every food and that's where I would rather stay home and eat my favourite 'daal bhaat' sans tomato tadka.

Okay, here we go! Delhites will add onions and tomato to each dish they cook, you will literally see the oil floating and red chilli flakes swimming in there. And what's every Delhite's favourite dish, well it's Rajma Chawal of course. The pride they exhibit when they cook this dish or the excitement they feel at just the mention of rajma chawal is beyond all kinds of imagination. What's the next favourite dish? It's curry chawal ofcourse; oh what joy!!! And let me not miss 'Chole chawal'. Ok, that's the choice of dishes they have, well well, there is also a paneer speciality which I don't mind actually.

That's far as what Delhites cook, but let's come to what Delhites eat. They basically eat what they cook. They have not developed or will never develop any taste for any other food. When my mom or my sis-in-law prepares something special and we share it, the kind of reaction we receive from these few neighbours is as though they rather not look at it. It's such a pity! The other day someone at work said no to a dish simply because the looks didn't attract him. He even refused trying, pity isn't it how they refuse to come out of their shell?

Once we happened to visit Shirdi with some of these people who never want to change anything about themselves and though the rest of us wanted to taste Poha, these guys spent their morning hunting Paranthas. And you will not believe me when I say that once in an international flight, I have come across a family who demanded paranthas for breakfast.
And that's not it. When they cook Pasta or when they cook Dosa, they will not forget adding a tomato tadka and change the taste forever!

Another tale from the yesteryears

Have heard countless tales of partition from grandparents, stories of how they owned vast lands and how they had to leave all that and come and settle in Shillong. My grandma often told us how her father was a zaminder and that they had to leave all those, she always had an air about herself, a dignity that never died and the pride of being member of a zamindar family even when everything else was lost.

People from Sylhet fled to Shillong and people from Dhaka and neighbouring areas fled to Kolkata. There they were given rehab lands and some money to start everything a fresh but most importantly the pain of leaving everything lived with them for ever.

They told us of incidents where burning hot water was poured over people who were migrating, of people massacred in moving trains and buses and other such horror tales. They lived the political blunder of those days, the government gave away the land to the other country but the people could not live there due to the atrocities committed on them and they returned to India and settled here and there. This is the story of the Sylhetis and we live in pride till this day because we have been displaced, we have started from scrath, built new homes, built new dreams and again only to suffer on similar grounds whether in Assam, Meghalaya or so called West Bengal. It is the irony of all times that we feel ourselves at home in any other part of the world but not in West Bengal and East Bengal is lost for ever. We are proud because inspite of all these, we have a bond, because we succeed wherever our feet and destiny takes us to and we still remember who we were!

How Delhi has taught me to be rude

Among many other life's lessons, being rude is what Delhi was taught me to be. I don't know if that is good or bad but it's the general Delhi person's characteristic and I want to give them back to them in what they excel the most.

Whether its on the roads, on the metro or shopping or eating out, you can't escape. Not that I have not met good people, but exceptions are always there!

My most recent experience is that of someone who's busy with the IPL bets and everyday asks for my mobile to check on scores. Because of my inborn sense of decency and decency that I have inherited, I allowed that and that was the mistake I made. He used my mobile as though it was his own and allowing me some calls and even telling me to finish fast with my calls and messages. So, last week when I allowed him to browse the score while I was on the cal and used a headset, he wanted to scroll quickly and he was in such hurry that he forgot that I could also click on a link. It was then I had to give him a piece of my mind and tell him that the phone belonged to me. He returned it to me without any sense of apology and made me feel as if I had erred.  Delhites for you please...handle with care!!!

The Fixing Part II

In my endeavour to prove those who believe there is too much of honesty and see what their eyes see and pretend not to notice the obvious, I bring here my thoughts about the Chennai - Pune IPL match last night.
Well it would have been most people's gut feeling that Chennai as a team was much better than Pune and winning that match would be a cakewalk. But as I saw the wickets crumbling I saw that a lot of effort was spent in losing those wickets, an effort spent at losing the match. And Pune won so that it could be read clearly that Chennai was capable of losing too and the other match they won a couple of days back was a hard fought victory.

All the same we still watch, we still sit through midnight to see the madness, to see the celebration...

The New Delhi Navratra

  No no, I won't go into the details explaining what Navratra is all about however for the sake of those uninitiated, this festival is celebrated by the Hindus across India for nine days and twice a year! It is during this period that the Mother Goddess is worshipped, she who is the symbol of strength, of beauty and purity is worshipped in different ways.

My Delhi experience of Navratras makes me want to laugh! Everyone or more specifically almost all the ladies keep a fast and the manner is hilariously unique. They prepare all sort of dishes made of special ingredients and they munch these whole day. The entire concept of fast, that is resting your internal systems gets nullified even if we talk about the physical fasting. And God forbid my mention of spiritual gain by means of fasting, well the whole day most of these ladies do is think about food, pray tell me where God is?

IPL - Chennai Vs Bangalore Saturday match

Well, my gut feeling was Chennai for this IPL match but somehow I thought Bangalore had a fair chance considering how Gayle and Kohli are both in good form. But anyways I wasn't going to support team Dhoni and as I sat up awake at night, I just had this hope of Bangalore winning! And it seemed to be happening till Dhoni came to bat and hit a few beyond the fence! But the drama continued till the last ball  when 2 runs were required off it. And what appeared to have been a catch and Kohli momentarily celebrating turned out to be the winning run as it was a no-ball. So Chennai did it at the last momenti n what appeared to be a nail-biting finish!

But alas I somehow have forgotten the concept of nail-biting finishes, I miss those days when matches were real! These days every match seems made up and so did this no-ball. A deliberate no ball it seemed and though I don't know why or how RP Singh became the scapegoat but I believe it happens at a bigger level and who gains or loses is not the point here as I think everyone benefits in some way or the other.
There is another theory that I heard about around the same no ball and it was that the relay was delayed to show a made-up no-ball. Smiles!!!

But to me the entire episode of last ball drama is made up, no they did not want to do a super over this time, so they created a new twist in the tale by making it appear that Bangalore had won and then the mother of all twists, a no -ball! All for TRP, lots of money may be and the drama available to a cricket loving nation which alas cannot accept the fixing bit because they all like to believe in their super-heroes be it Tendulkar or Dhoni!!!

Grandparents' tales - II

I don't remember much of this story however I will try to recall as best as I can while I write! This is one of the stories told by my cousin's grandma and I thought I will include this as well. I was staying at their place in Guwahati and I remember how one afternoon me and my cousin sat listening to this story.

As with the case of most old people of my childhood days and specially when it is in Shillong or Guwahati, the old ladies and gentlemen would go flower stealing. Now what is flower stealing? Well our granparents are/were people who believe in pujas and part of our daily pooja even today means offering flowers to the Gods and Goddesses in pooja alter of our homes. And when there weren't many flowers available in our own homes, they would wake up early in the mornings and get flowers from the neighbours' houses. And since it would be early mornings before most people woke up, they would carry a stick or an umbrella to chase away the street dogs. Now this stick or long umbrella would serve two purpose, one chasing the dogs and two reaching for the distant branches which held the best flowers.

On one such morning, my cousin's grnadma as she claimed lost her away in the near darkness. Every turn she took seemed to take her to a dead end and she had no clue how to get to her home. It continued for a while and she told us that she was possessed by a ghost. She eventually managed to get back home and I will disappoint the readers when I tell that I don't remember if she had done anything special to get out of that spell!

Send her Home

How can I not write about it? It's been years but this incident brings me smiles even today. However as I am writing this now, it makes me a bit sad too because the person in question has gone home literally. She has left this wordly home and gone for ever, to her celestial home.

Well, 'Send her Home' is a phrase one of our teachers PD coined and we used to laugh uncontrollably when we talked about it. It use to so happen that after we finished school each day, we would spend 10-15 minutes at every turn when we said bye to a friend. Our school used to be at walking distance from our homes and we would stop at the turn of each by-lane. Now, PD's cousin lived in the house just next to my friend's and he would visit her often. And he would notice each evening that we had endless stories and so one day as we waited at the turn and continued with our gossip, he said 'Send her home'. And our friend had started blushing since we started teasing her saying that he wants you to be at her home and not gossiping on streets. Now I know I am not able to bring the humor nor can I justify what was so funny in it but even today the scene comes flashing before my eyes with all the clarity and preciseness. We talked about this at our homes, when we met, in our school and wherever we met.

Thinking about this today makes me wonder about human life, to think that she is no more and then we had shared such happy times. I don't even know where PD is and probably he would not remember us as well.
Talking about PD and my friend, I also remember that he had once asked my friend to take his copy and give it to his cousin. That copy or diary was usually referred by him as the 'red book' and it was used to jot down the defaulter's names, people who didn't behave in class well. We could be potential defaulters in his case  and even though my overall track record was very good somehow I never took him seriously. So, me and another friend accompanied her just to deliver that diary as though she was not capable of doing it alone. And on the way, we opened it from the polythene bag tied with a rubber band, ensuring we didn't break the band and then checked the 'red book' to see if there was indeed any defaulter's list. And all the while we made several variation of potential 'Send her Home' stories. There was none to our relief but 'Send her home' laughing syndrome remained with us for a long long time!

Grandma/Grandpa's tales - 1

Oh, how I wish I could remember all the stories we got to hear from our grandparents when we were kids. I remember these in bits and pieces now. Ofcourse grandpa would narrate the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and tell us tales from there and I would ask questions he would perhaps be embarrased to answer. I realize this years later, on how he changed the topic or answered something vague so as to divert me from the original question or at least convince me with the answer! Once I had asked him if it was possible to have children without getting married in the middle of some story from the Mahabharata!

Grandma's stories would be woven around her domestic chores. She would tell me often how she got married early and picked up tasks from her mother-in-law.

There is one major difference which I remember and will always remember is how they each treated 'fear'or the 'unknown' factor. When I was very young, very very young, I remember that the lights had gone off one evening and me and my brother sat with our grandpa waiting for our parents to return from work. I somehow said that I was scared of the dark and then what grandpa said has stood with me since then. He said 'fear' is what is in your mind, the so-called ghosts are your servants and when God resides in your heart, there is nothing to fear.

Contrary to this, my grandma asked me once (and I was much older then) if we were not scared when the old lady who lived as a tenant in our house had passed away! I didn't understand the question then and said 'but why'. She then told me how the soul remains in and around and she kind of introduced the concept of 'ghosts' in a closer way. No, it didn't scare me as I always stuck to what granpa had said about God being in your heart protecting you!