A Burday Tale

There have been many a planned birthday parties....but this unplanned set of events before a friend's birthday were one of the most interesting in quite a while now.
 
Day before birthday:

11:02 pm:Returning from some other Birthday party treat, Saki Naka
 
11:10 pm:Let's eat Ice-Cream at Amul's JB Nagar
 
11:30 pm: In Front of Amul Ice Cream JB Nagar...Arre plan change, have to drop someone at her house
 
11.40 pm: Teaching the Birthday girl how to ride a bike
 
11.50 pm: Everyone walking towards Main Road, me and my friend on a bike ride, 'discussing life' 
 
11.51 pm: Arre Dude, Lets Bring a cake! Kya Bolta hai...
    Arre Par Bada Party toh Kal Dopahar ko hai nai, 'Surprise Wala'
    Aur Ek Cheez, Fact of life, Nearest Cake Shop, Merwans Andheri -25 Minutes, Powai 30 Minutes. Middle of Nowhere

Dude.

11.52 pm:Chal Round Marte Hai, Amul Shop ke Aaspass Kuch Khula Rahega to....Nahi toh Ice-Cream layenge, Ice-Cream Birthday.

11.53 pm: Friend Calls, kaha gayab ho gaye tum log.
Arre Bike thok diya maine, Do minute lagega ruk aate hai.

11.54 pm: Amul Shop, Just closing, No luck...Arre Saamne Hi Baskin Robbins Hai. Sahi.
Baskin Robbins...No Pastries.

11.55 pm: Samne wale General Shop Mein Cadbury lete hai(tradition) General Shop is half shutter down at this moment. One more friend calls, 'Baad mein phone karta hoon'

30 seconds later, Are yaha plum cake bhi hai, Utha lete hai.
Picked up a Dairy milk.

11.56 pm: Someone tells Baju wale Ice-Cream Shop mein cake milta hai.
Run to Ice-Cream Shop. No Normal cake available. Ice Cream Cake is there. 
Chalega, Ice-Cream cake. Flavour Doesn't matter.
Cake 15 minutes mein pighal jayega.....(15 minute kiske paas hain!)
Kaatega Kaise....
Do Chammach Utha ice cream ke...

11.57 pm: Phone:'Arre tum log kaha ho?, ham aa rahe hai'
Axis Bank Ke Samne. Aaja.
Phone Cut
Where the heck is Axis bank? Arre, yahi kahi hoga re, tu chal.

11.58 pm: Police Stops bike.
'Licence Dikhao'
I am searching for license hoping that I am carrying it!
'Kidhar ja rahe ho'
'Friend Cha Birthday aahe, Ithech Challo ahot'
'Ja'..

11.59 pm: Woh dekh saamne Axis Bank hai. Apne Punter log udhar hi hai.

12.00 am: Happy Birthday to you!

A few more things.

Number 1:The Cake was the best I have had in a very long time. Tired of 'Oreo Cake' in US and 'Black Forest' in Mumbai, this was something new.
Number 2: It was Vanilla Ice-Cream in centre surrounded by Chocolate at both end. It was terribly delicious. 8 people almost finished the entire 1 kg cake in no time.
Number 3: No Knife, just hath maarke, Engineering days rewinded.
Number 4: The cake was freezing cold in a Box of thermocol that said, "happy birthday - bhai' in crude handwriting....

Something different, something new, something memorable.

PS: Buy an Ice-cream cake whoever hasn't had it. It is great!

Escaping the bubble

(Warning: this post has nothing to do with any personal experience, it's just a work of fiction)

He was pressing his ear hard against the wall trying to hear everything he could. Feeling a bit sad that his own friends were gossiping about him, saying bad things. A few days ago, he used to be on the other side of the wall. He used to be one of them. Gossiping about everyone around while staying up all night. It was fun, it's always fun when the joke is on someone else and you are the one who's having a roll. But now, things have changed.

He's bored of the gossip. He's bored of the non-sense trivia. He's bored of staying in the bubble. Individual ambition sometimes takes over the group spirit. Actually, the group spirit is also weakening. He sees people secretly fulfilling their selfish interest, while he has been faithful all this while. He has seen the group divide into fragments yet pretending to be one.

Slowly, but steadily since then, he has isolated himself from the group. He is no longer interested in the politics, the back-biting, the silly jokes and all. The jokes that once upon a time entertained him have become boring and repetitive. The once enthusiastic group was clearly past its prime. He was tired of taking the initiative every-time. This task was becoming increasingly difficult. It wasn't worth the effort anymore. He couldn't go alone and  do the things he liked as it would mean breaking the group spirit. 'Group Spirit' - Huh, he knew no such thing existed.

He is no longer enjoying life in the bubble. He wants to venture out. Go out in the open; do things on his own. He wants fresh air! New activities. All his social life had died in the bubble. It was a great chance to revamp it. He knew that he would end up gaining more than he was about to lose.

The next day, he hears his name faintly. He starts walking towards the 'wall'. He stops there, something has changed! Stands there and smiles. Doesn't want to listen to what's being said at the other side of the wall. His new world is so beautiful that he ceases to care what's happening inside the bubble.

Night-out

First Sunday of the year, I was standing amongst hundreds of people waiting for a chance grab a seat in any of the Mumbai bound bus at Pune station. After a prolonged waiting period, I somehow managed to get into one of Igatpuri bound bus which had a halt below the Vashi flyover. Now, this bus dropped me near the Vashi flyover at 2 in the night and I was the only one to alight there.

Late for the last local, too early for the first one and apart from the fast speeding cars, I couldn’t see a single person around. I started walking towards the railway station. The Green Day song lyrics that I was listening to made perfect sense…’I walk a lonely road…….’ Nobody in sight till the station arrived. As the station was nearing, I could see around 5 people sleeping next to the closed ticket window. I printed an electronic ticket and was about to enter the platform where one of the security guards prevented me from going in for safety reasons. So, I had to wait staring at the indicator saying 4:00 ST and next to it, the time 2:14.

Instead of staying put, I decided to roam around the place a bit. Outside one of the call centre office, I saw a chaiwala cum omlet-wala. I thought it would be a good idea to converse with him over a cup of tea and omlet. New year has not started on a brighter note for him as most of the BPO employees are on holidays and his business has gone down from 500 cups of tea a night to 50 cups, most customers being mall cleaners. I consolidate him saying his business will prosper soon, not knowing that soon would be too soon!!!

There was a group of around 100 students around my age, walking towards the Vashi station, some of them stopped for having tea. They seemed very friendly; one of them asked me what I was doing alone at this part of the night. He said that they are a group of last year B-com students from Shillong who were on a 3 city trip of Mumbai, Goa and Kolkata and were waiting to go to CST to board the early morning train for Kolkata.

Pretty soon, I found myself talking to many students from the group. They were talking about their trip experiences, the places they saw, the culture difference, the good things the bad things et al. I felt like being a part of the group. I asked them a lot about Manipur, about the North East and they were eagerly telling me about the places to visit, food to eat, ways to travel and lot more. They say Shillong is as safe as Mumbai, if you travel at the right time of the day and that the people considering North-East unsafe is to a great extend untrue.

The topics shifted to songs. After a while, we were singing famous Hindi and English somgs together, out loud. Variety of range from Bryan Adams to Sunidhi Chauhan. It’s 3 in the night, I’m surrounded by 30 unknown people in the wide open space outside Vashi station singing songs and having a good discussion. When does life ever give you such wonderful experience? I had 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, but the songs and the discussion kept me wide awake.

I asked them did you like Mumbai. ‘Fantastic place!’ came the uniform answer. However, they had some minus points as well. They said that people see us as foreigners wherever we go. They are considered more Chinese or Nepali rather than Indian. They are cheated moneywise while paying for the auto fare etc. ‘Why should we be treated as foreigners in our own country’, said one of them. Many of the girls experienced eve-teasing a lot more in Mumbai compared to North-East.

These students were quite different. Normally when you are in a group, you almost never talk to the people outside, but they never made me feel like an outsider, I felt like being one amongst them. They were the people who cared more about the result of confederation cup final between Shillong and Mohun Bagan than Leeds vs United. How quickly time passed and we boarded the first train. On the train, they gave me another reason to visit Shillong. They say they have a student group in their college who arrange jungle trails in Meghalaya. Do visit, it would be the nicest trip of your life, one of them said.

‘One day surely’, I said.

Of Blackouts and Plunders

Warning! Long post ahead!!

Yesterday night, there was a blackout in our area. It brought to my mind my childhood memories; those were the times when blackouts were quite frequent. They were associated primarily with all the children hitting the streets and playing games. Something which came by as complement was robbery and many interesting tales of robbery. But this post is all about the one incident that I’d never forget all my life.

I was studying for my History paper next day. Boredom was taking toll as the clock neared midnight. Someone felt pity for me I guess. The next moment all the lights faded and cursing the text, I ran out towards the street, relieved. My other friends had similar relieved expressions on their face. Studying was out of question, so we thought playing something would freshen us before the exam next day. Dog and the bone was the game we chose.

It’s so true that sport makes you release all your troubles, be it temporary, so what! Nobody cared what time it really was and no-one wanted the blackout to end. Meanwhile, my friend saw something strange. “Dude, someone’s trying to break through into Ishan’s(name changed) house” he whispered into my ears. Earlier that day, after playing cricket Ishan had told us that he is going to Ahmedabad in the evening with his family and will not return until next fortnight.

It was a moment of horror, but we knew that we shouldn’t panic. We needed to do something wise. What to do? Call the police or call all the colony residents or maybe fight with the thief ourselves and be superheroes of the colony for next few days. Lots of options flooded our mind, not knowing what exactly to do. Finally four of us friends decided that we’d hunt him down ourselves. Childhood plans, immature as most of them are!

Now suddenly all four, although a bit frightened, were resolute on doing the task without any help. Three of us took a stump each and the fourth one with a wooden stick. We had to avoid doing something stupid; we had to have a plan. If anything went wrong, it could well go down to our lives.

We examined everything. There was the window near the kitchen left open by the thief; we decided to get in through it. One of us had a doubt as to why would the thief leave the window open. The others just shut him down by saying that he probably needed fresh air.

Taking care of three things was essential. Firstly we had to avoid making noise otherwise it would alert the thief and he would attack us with anything he has, probably a knife, could be anything. Secondly, he had a torch and we didn’t b’coz again the thief would be alarmed if we used the torch. Thirdly, we had to track his exact position before getting in.

Thinking about all possibilities, we saw the position of the thief from the window and made a plan of attack. The thief was on the mattress eating cucumber. This was assumable since if he came out with his loot and try to elope, people on the streets would come to know and probably attack him together. So now was really not the time for him to get out. Now was the time to eat cucumber.

Boldly we stepped inside the house without making slightest of the sounds. One of us who carried the stick cautiously approached towards the thief from behind the cupboards and dining table. We followed him with our stumps. As he was about 2 feet near, he hit the thief severely on the knee. Next moment the robber went speechless and numb. Till the other three of us join, he realized he had to do something, that too quickly!

He started running away from us and shouted, calm down, I’m Ishan’s uncle, what the hell are you doing? We froze there, thinking how foolish our act was.

In the meantime, two other stupid things happened. Firstly, someone called the cops. Secondly, someone called up Ishan’s Ahmedabad place at 1.30 saying there was a robber in their house. Next worst thing due was the history paper, which was due in 5 hours.

Feeling Guilty

Few months ago, I came across a funny article in Air France’s In-flight magazine. Although my knowledge about French is minuscule, somehow I managed to decode most part of it, partly with the help of friends with better French. I don’t remember whole of it, but here’s the English version of whatever little I recollect. Take it with a pinch of salt. These are not my views, but I agree to most of them.

God, I really feel guilty. For a lot of things I’ve done in life.

I’ve been a Businessman all this time, somewhat different than the regular ones. Long time ago, I started a business, with no capital. With a very small workspace and no work experience at all, started something which would help me earn thousands in minutes. A business which has no fixed retirement age, no educational qualification restrictions, no selling of door to door goods, no publicity via phone calls.

A bit about my clientele. They are from all walks of life, all professions. The rich and also the poor, people from the metros as well as from the village. Something more interesting, even if I change my base, my business will be unaffected in terms of numbers. Recession has sunken me, oh no, but in fact, in a small way it has helped me. I believe that I’ve lived a life which is every budding successful entrepreneur’s dream. You’re probably wondering, am I doing something illegal, something anti-social. No I’m not. I was an astrologer.

Failing in the 11^th grade for the second time, my life was a mess, until I saw a small paper ad about this business. They have coaching classes for everything back there in India, and there was a coaching class for this too. One course of a year’s duration did me more good than 15 years of school education. One thing was also certain, I had no death until people stop caring about how their future would be.

I was trained for every situation. Each individual horoscope has a good part and a bad part attached to it. Adapting to every client, I had to come up with different stuff. Not that I had to tell false interpretations, but I had to come up with partial truth. Explaining which stars and planets are in the wrong position ( People come to me only when something’s wrong or the want something in life, not when everything’s good) that you’ve landed up in a mess. Next thing, point to a time in future where all of the stars get in the favorable positions. Give the client a ray of hope. Lastly, tell them that this science is not 100% foolproof, but in most cases it turns to be quite right. Don’t worry; people still will keep coming to you, and if not previous clients, new ones. As people kept worrying about their future, I was side by side securing my future through their money!

Going back to the first line, about me feeling guilty, let me straighten it out a bit. I feel guilty for plentiful reasons. For breaking the hearts of several couples who couldn’t marry because their horoscopes didn’t match. For changing people’s names and making them believe this would bring them fortune. I feel bad for the people who had to reject perfectly wonderful apartments just because the entrance was facing a particular direction. I feel terrible making people buy expensive rings that would brighten their future. For making people perform ridiculously expensive rituals at home to supposedly bring peace and prosperity.

I feel more terrible for doing something without actually knowing the basics. Doing something which I had no idea where it came from and how it developed. Later when I studied more deeply, I got to know this was more of a statistical science rather than pure science. Its foundation lies from the study of people over the years with reference to position of stars and planets. It’s based upon the observation that people born on similar planet positions share similar fortune. It’s a collection of observations of scholars for over a long period of time written in form of scripts. To add more, different set of Astronomy scholars have different ways of inferring from the horoscope. It’s by no way foolproof.

I am still amused as to how there can be the same set of fortune for a beggar born on the same date and time when a successful businessman was born. My belief also says that you have more command over your life than some planets and stars which are a million miles away. One more thing, even if I tell you everything correctly about your future, how’s it going to benefit you? If something it is going to happen, it’ll happen anyways, knowing about it wouldn’t help you change it!

Lots of questions I still ponder in my mind while sitting on this comfortable fully reclining chair in my Bungalow on the Paris - Nice road. I happily retired a couple of years ago, but the business back in India is still strong thanks to my disciples in India. I see the cyclists running from my window for the second most prestigious Bike race in France. Life’s good, but somewhere in the corner of my heart, I feel something wrong.

I’m guilty.