AS A MATTER OF FACT……

It was the first time that a Prime Minister didn’t attend the Republic Day Parade. Never mind , our Defense Minister, the man responsible for showing the powerful muscles we have developed to bust our neighbors out attended it, more likely he deserved it. And the parade went off well, though shortened to 90 minutes, the parade was filled with all the bravery, the gallantry, the valour, it was like a tabloid that was used to convey , that here we are facing the old world, creating the new world , and as Nandan Nilkeni said,”The playing fields are leveled” .
So, India, technically, became 59 years old, can say it like this that it became 59 years of self dependent. We got so much on this day, and we can’t forget and neglect the “ides of Aug.”, when we licked , tasted and enjoyed the freedom for the first time. We owe a lot to these days, though quite truthfully speaking they are not celebrated but, ……. . And my pen stops, yes , they are not celebrated…..oops….sorry not celebrated ….so what do we do, we hoist the flag , sing the national anthem, abuse the british, eat a “laddoo”, then again abuse one Briton, watch a movie thereafter, and a puff of abuse again reiterates. At the end of it all, a voice comes , “Had British not come here…”.
After throwing this voice in the mid air , one turns on the heater and goes to sleep, the voice , though, lingers down in the ground, craving for an answer. Last night, I saw the dying voice under my bed, I quickly arranged some medics for it, and then when it laid in the bed, I went to search for the most important medicine of all “ it’s answer”. And I was amused , exasperated, not because I could not find the answer, but because I had found one. It was as under….
Had they not come , India would…, oh sorry, there would have been no India then, small petty, states glued to each other. What would have Mahatama Gandhi done then. Ooh …shit, why Mahatama Gandhi would have come. My thoughts were going on a roller coster of a ride. No 1857, no struggle, no Mangal Pandey, nothing , every thing would have been a vacuum. Our NCERT based History books would have been half as thick.
Then I turned my attention towards the partition, ok so now , had British not come, we (India and Pakistan, would have been one. So no India Pakistan matches, no 1971 war, no Kargil, no “ Border”…I was now in the gallows of my thoughts. We would have been neighbours of Afghanistan, thus tormented by Al Quaida (and US) all the more. Jia-ul Haq and Parvez Musharraf would have been our patriots.
The language , ummmm…English was out of the question, so what, Hindi, for that half of India had to be cut, urdu, tamil, …. It was hard for me to assess that ,especially, when India was the best English speaking county of the world. As India then, would have been about a thousand of states, so, there would have been no IAS, no PCS, thus, no dreams. My adventurous journey was now tainted by fear.
The architectural paradise of India , would have fallen short of a few bricks, bricks of the likes of …Rashtrapati Bhawan, Victoria Terminus, and as I was thinking about the other names , I thought the list would be too long. There would have been no Mall roads, no Shimla, no Nainital.
In that January cold , a tiny drop of sweat went out for a walk on my forehead which helped to divert my attention towards that ailing friend (that voice) of mine. It was smiling now. Perhaps it had got the proper treatment it needed. Me too, gave him the most stupid of my smiles, laid down in the bed , this time not abusing, but amused , by the fact that ..” Had they not come……”.

CHATter CHATter AS WE FLOW

The answer sheet landed as smoothly as the flight 1549 did on the Hudson. And then….with all the agony that I guess Antony would also have fell short of ,(after Ceaser’s death of course) , our algorithms’ teacher told that lonely student…….,” Who , in the bluest of all hell do you think I am, I teach you the big ‘a’ ,don’t try to show me this scorn lang. otherwise I ‘ll whip you’re ‘a’ ….understand”. The lecture got over and a flock of “WE , THE ENGINEERS” got bizzark to see that acclaimed answer sheet. The answer sheet went as follows:-
“NP Completeness is a f9 teknik. T study is still goin on. But it’s just gr8. :). V’re gonna c tat v will not b able to do ny further if v don’t follow t heirarky. :( . Bii….c ya….tc…..gn…..sd…..”. so we were laughing , rolling on the wooden chairs of the lecture theatre…with a feeling of jubilation as we had understood the situation …GTalk had done the trick again.
We , in our hostel are deprived of some good things, in fact great things …..eg. cell phones …television…and many more so we developed a passion of exercising our vocal cords. We used to chat in our rooms for long hours. About mom , dad, girl friend…and what not. Chatting was an ultimate friend, a philosopher in disguise…and a guide to follow. So last year the management found out the tiresome hectic schedule of our friend and gave him days off. And we got a new present….Wireless Fidelity…oops sorry …WI FI.
During the first few days of that Wi FI, our H.O.D. met all of us and told ,” Make google your best friend “. Who knew, I would repeat it again, WHO KNEW that the assistant of that google ..GTALK will be our life , our soul…to an extent that as I write this thing out …a chill surmounts my spine.
My laptop was a few days old when I saw a horde of people, requesting for my ID…AND YES ,only gmail ids were allowed. I , to be very frank, was a bit amused, firstly because I didn’t understand what they meant and secondly , I was a Yahoo man throughout. I don’t know I had an affinity for yahoo, my first ID was on it , I had learnt Emailing through it….Gmail …..yucks…..it sucks. To satisfy my amusement I went to the rooms of my friends.
Well, what to say , they were all glued to that TFT…as if that white and blue backdrop of gtalk was some kind of a midas’ touch. The fingers were running on the laptop as if some kind of 100 meters sprint for the fingers were organized. I was …..forget what I was doing….all of them were talking wireless. The vocal cords exercised only when some fairer sex came online…” hey man..she has come…go get her…only for 5 minutes”. One faint sound of running footsteps would then come from one end.
“What a heck of a thing …a big hell to GTalk…I am not of this sort.” Two days later idofvarun@gmail.com was ready to shower the bullets of the words, that too , WIRELESSLY. So now started our grand journey that started from the tips of my fingers kissing my Compaq lappy…. to the eyes of the he or she whom I was in acquaintance with. Those were the days man….no football….no assignment…nothing…she is typing….i am typing….we all were typing.
It was 2 -3 months now with that wi-fi. Chatting was now in our blood. One lappy….one off white window in it…and a green light flashing was all one needed for life. Life became all the more beautiful when a girl came…peeping through that window carrying that same old green light. One night I was strolling in my lobby ..one faint voice came from behind….”hey dude I told her what I felt for her…so from tomorrow…5-6 ..Coffee”. I asked in amazement, “Man , how can you, c’mon you,ve been down with loose motions for last 3 days…how can you just …”. As I was asking him , my eyes caught hold of his fingers which he was moving artistically in the air …and I got it – Gtalk was the trick. We used to nickname guys…that was funny,now a new trend was started , guys and girls were referred to by their ID. Those who had found their love through chatting used to blush while hearing their e-name.
Everybody was enjoying ..sorry njoyin life. Life had become narrow, but we enjoyed, lovers used to sit for hours alone, with the green light in search of their counterpart light from the other side. Some other place, one green light used to deal with the other one and every dialogue was the result of 100 advisors who were hidden. The guy with that answer sheet was quite happy last night saying that he has increased his typing speed through GTalk.
I guess this chatting thing did have an impact on us. It’ll be wrong (esp for introverts like me) to say that it is just a waste of time. Although people boast of the length of the chat they do and how fast they do the chatting ….stilll at least at some places it proved miraculous. Some found friends , some found relationships,some discovered relationships, the others rediscovered relationships(some even dumped it!!!!). Considering my experiences and of the others I guess if cyber world has developed any thing emotional….it’ll be this chat machine. Thanx buddy…tc.

When it was the first time to Disco…..

(Words start things , they are the one that ends it…so women like those words are referred by A ,B ,Z…)
That teady beer was costly…..I have to say..But neverthless,I liked buying affluent gifts especially when you are invited by a girl…esp when it’s the first time a girl has invited you. She was quite courteous when she said, “Tommorow I’d like you to drop at my place….it’s a small party..a DJ party.”
Those words were like Wordsworth’s nature tour, which I was witnessing in that Darjeeling toy train, but,.those last three words were like …like an old LaPlace equation, I tended to solve in the choked steam engine.
But , I the great one, had to solve that equation , I had to dance, so I at 5 on that day of judgement , with 6 of my friends ,in a white short shirt and 1 of my neckpiece was all set to move a foot in Z’s birthday.
I call her Z…..as Z’s the the word after which explaination,narration everything ends there is just a picture, an undefined ,faint, unexplainable pic…..so was she.
So me , my 6 friends , teddy bear and Jovan Musk on my sleeves, reached her place at about 6.
Now ,that teddy thing was dealt upon, during that course whatever was done with that teddy by her…I swear ,for the first time in my life wanted to be…guess what….a teddy!!!. Such was my envy with that teddy that I forgot that my vow to be footloose was to be tested.
So I came in, saw it all, and I ……..went out. I was startled , those dazzling lights, that shiny floor and those girls….those girls who were there in salwaar kameez in college, dancing to the tunes of BJTs and OPAMPs were there wearing clothes….moving….umm…..startled.
Slowly like that sand dune, I collected all my strength, I dragged myself back there , dragged , because I was walking as if I had gumboots frozen in ice , forget about being footloose in the first place.
I saw those girls and thought …..no matter... what I thought ......in the end came the voice ,” God is great!!!!!”. The song changed....... the moves changed before that. Hey there was A ….a sweet girl …well….she was jumping, don’t know why ..But she was jumping
My eyes became my enemy. They were all dancing. they were doing something I couldn’t do. Every move of theirs was like a demon eating me making me all the more weaker.
“Why do they keep DJ parties??”. I was about to answer this self imposed question when B met my eyes. She was looking hot …..hot enough for that ice on my feet to melt. Those black hair stuck to that ever so glossy sweat around her lips was enough for me to cover the distance from my chair to the dance floor.
So I was there, in the middle of it all. So many processes started happening inside me that I got hung for sometime and my mouth could only move and deliver , “Ooh Shit!!!”. I was looking all around where to go. B’s hot face with sweat transformed into a cold one with blood all over her eyes. Everybody dancing was 1 step away from kiling me and those who asked me to dance were already kiling me. I was used to see the crowd of the debates, that mob was making me mad. So I started running, don’t know…just ran. During the second sprint a distant voice came, “ Look , he has started a train, let’s join him” and suddenly I became the messiah. I was leading a dance group. I wondered whether running is a dance ,but as long as I was applauded, I didn’t care. I ran 20 rounds all the others followed me.
Now I got the confidence . I started shaking my head; my legs were moving swiftly as Maradona’s. I was moving such ….that it was hard to recognize me in one go. But I didn’t care nor did any body because I was submerged in that. All through my razzmatazz , my moving body, the DJ lights the floor, the floor,A,B….were all teaching me that DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, DO JUSTICE TO YOURSELF, DANCE TO TO THE TUNES OF YOUR LIFE AND THE WORLD WILL FOLLOW YOU…..so now it was the time for disco.

SLEEPLESS NIGHTS ( REALLY!!)

"HELL DOWN UNDER!!!...yess Hell down under, now this will be on Orkut “ , Nits was euphoric about it, it was not a place to be euphoric as we were lying down in my bed , chained with each other , through our arms and legs (we’re not gay.....it’s just the ”cold” we can’t resist )
Orkut , the so called superset of all the community sites has always been.....umm.....an emotional outburst.......well....you see like that borosil test tube (Gosh!!! they were expensive,orkut’s free ) which solemnly, subtly executes the reaction of our emotions .....emotions,our life processes bieng the reactants, those ultimate scraps being the catalyst , and finding the 100+ odd friends as the need for the reaction, the gaseous exothermic products are formed as the dashing punch lines, about me’s......
So from the wires of the main server of the orkut....to room mo. 38,my bed ,Nits’ head....”Hell Down Under” was being celebrated by relentless clattering of fingers , by that obscure sound from the mouth, as if that slimy water of mouth was having a boxing match with the inner furnishing of the “not so white teeth “ .
Now, if you don’t mind .....let me shift your attention to the other side of the bed .....that..was ME, who just 2 minutes before that impeccable creative deluge by Nits ,had got a premonition that the rest of night’s going to be sleepless.
Actually, HELL DOWN UNDER.....was....the.....the fruit....of the tree....of the news ..that....one big MNC Simplesoft had got the placement freezed.
It was 10th Aug 2006 when I started engg as a dream... of a dream which was quite an incredible dream (yes it was not credible , I may say so now ). An year later the blue walls of our placement cell were constructed which came as a rescue of my watching helplessly those red walls of our college's lover’s point. With that rescue also came, let’s say a target of......of getting a job, emerging from those blue walls to end the blues of oneself, of one’s family, to give those 4 years a name , a post, a location. But Satyam’s ordeal with fate is now eating out that credible blue dream of our’s ( mine, nits’ and many more) like anything.
Now I guess that “Hell..............” thing might have attained some weight for you. This line that from the next day was going to be the punch lines of Mr. Nits Gupta’s profile , was the punch lines of our life, our dream for a month. We were able to feel and experience the shrillness of the pitch of each word as it came to our ears...H...E......
Newspaper which, for some was a white thing with a black design,a scoreboard of Man U, or a treat of raunchiness personified was now a devil....a devil with white suite with black bullets up it’s sleeve.(the latest being Satyam).
Birthday bashes are a big thing for our hostels. My friend P G is 22 years old today. What I am thinking and he too, must be , with all those dance moves that he is 22 years OLD (without a job!!!).
But the dance will continue to make our bodies move, the music will continue to make our souls thrive and as I am seeing the b’day cake cut into pieces, I can assess that that last candle which is about to finish is burning brightly as....it has to burn more.....don’t know where .....but..Somewhere.