Rumaal(Handkerchief)

It's holiday times. Semester has end. Everyone is already gone home. I am also on my way and would probably reach tomorrow(seeing the condition of the fog, nothing yet can be predicted). Today, while packing my stuff, something very strange happened. A feeling struck me in a surprise. Doesn't it happens sometimes? A thought, a feeling, a fact hits you very sharply and after that you cannot get rid of it for hours. It keep revolving inside your head for quite an amount of time.How differently and randomly it happens though is a completely different issue we are not going talk about today.

Why don't I give a little bit of backdrop so that you are familiar with what we are talking about today! I had to buy a pack of handkerchiefs because I am falling short of them. Or to be very precise, I have none of them. And like every other work, buying some handkerchiefs also remains pending(Exams I tell you!). I still don't have them, because of the lazy ass I have become.During the last holidays(the Diwali one),I asked mum(mom) to keep some of them in the packing.After I came back and emptied my packing,I searched for handkerchiefs in my almirah, but found none. May be she forgot to keep them. But that rarely happens, happened never in my case. Well, seems like her old age is now showing effects. Wake up! Flashback ends!


Back to packing my bags today,while packing in some t-shirts which were buried now for almost a month inside my cabinet(you rarely use them in winters), I found a group of handkerchiefs between the t-shirts with my initials written with on them with a permanent marker.Immediately i got carried away by a wave of thoughts. I said it never happens in my case! I was so overwhelmed by the thought that I couldn't stop my self from writing this. The love a mother can shower on her kid is in-measurable by any scale probably made on earth, if a scale to measure love does exists anyways! And after a long and tiresome and gruesome day, here I am, in the front of my computer screen after so many days, not watching a movie or listening songs (or you know..), but doing what i love to do the most - Write!


Adios! :-)

Badlaav(Change)

It's vacation time again, as Hindu festivals are popping up around! Too bad I am not going home on Dusshehra (but would sure do on Diwali). Well, all those who are shocked at this decision, I must tell you that I have to travel too far(almost 1000km from Delhi) to reach my home unlike most of the other guys around. Anyhow it doesn't really makes a difference now, because I have been studying in a boarding school since I was in 7th Std.(Don't you know that? Well, I have got to make some confessions yet!) Yesterday night I got a call from my old school mate and got a bit nostalgic. And, as I have nothing better to do now a days, I was thinking about how life has changed over the course of time I have lived. Lets compare.


Living -


Earlier I was in an all-boys hostel with a no day scholars school. And there were as many as 'TWO' girls in the class of almost 100 people(data not precise and who the hell cares anyways?!). To top it off, no access to the outside world. Now that is some punishment. But still, since the school was made midst hill stations, lovely scenery and awesome weather soothed to the very extent they could.Plus, the awesome crowd of all type of boys from nerds to hunks to umm.. gays(Hey girls I am not one of them!), and the amount of extracurricular activity one got to indulge in was superb! I even watched my first Porn there(I said I would make confessions ;) ) and learnt about 'all good things' (haah!).


Hostel in college was different(I no more live in the hostel of my college). Even though it was an all-boys hostel, we sure got female access during the classes and outside(and if you ignore the beauty quotient, the rank this time was better). Also, we got access to the outside food which was not possible earlier! Mess food is common everywhere (sucking too the core), and whatever, let us talk about more tastier umm.. important things. If we talk about environmental beauty, sure Greater Noida is good, but nothing in comparison to Ranikhet(my Alma Mater). Crowd is good, but most of them suck to the core. And my campus sucks big time. No extra curricular activities too. So that makes us even on both sides. Yet!


Fun -


Fun earlier had a different meaning. Bunking one class in a month was like winning an Oscar. Eating a samosa or two and getting a sip of Coke in someones 'Bithday Bash' was like touching heaven.Talking with parents was the most lovable thing I have ever experienced there. We were allowed to talk on phone with parents only once a week, on a fixed day, and that too just for five minutes.Those five minutes were the most beautiful five minutes of my whole week! Nights were crazy. Eating tucks, celebrating, beating the shit out of anyone who is having a sound sleep(Lol!), listening radio of every match that India played, making Maggie in a boiler or eating it raw(Emergency saw the use of tap water too! Ha ha!) and casual chats for long hours. During days, shouting in class, playing pranks, cursing and abusing the shit outta everyone and anyone, stealing someones key and make him cry for it,and god knows what else happened! Playing sports was like performing day day to work. It was fun.


On entering this age what I may call is the 'College Age', the meaning and methods of fun change! If you don't believe me,come visit my flat (seeing is believing baby!). Soft drinks are replaced by beers,cycles are replaced by bikes, sleep is replaced by night outs, dancing.. well dancing never changes, slapstick is replaced by witty, Maggies made in boiler is replaced by Maggies bought on stalls, a 100 rs. pocket money which felt enough earlier is replaced by some thousands which still looks less, Nokia 1600 is replaced by Nokia N8 or Blackberries, small manageable fights turn into riots and a helluva lot of changes take place(if I count each and everyone, then who the hell will read my blog?). And anyhow, you need not read them because you know them already.


We are still even.


Friendship -


Now this radar will strike some beeps. Friendship earlier was simple, filled with innocence.When someone called you to have a spoon of Maggie, he really meant that by heart. It wasn't just a formality. If you got sick, everyone of your class would stop by (many to grab the tasty food we get in hospital but still, they did). Chatting time was endless. We can talk for as short as 15 minutes in recess and still prove a point, or we can get a gossip stuck even though we talked for whole night and realized P.T. teacher(read Mr. Bankoti) is all eager to eat our assess. Leg pulling and bullying was the hottest thing around, still when it came to unity we were together, like a 'family'.


As we grow mature, friendship finds newer meanings. Some friends that we make are purely benefit based, some are only greeting based most of whom we don't know just recognize, and some are friends for soul. The third one are the toughest to find. I am saying this because till the time we reach this age, we learn 'comparison'. Comparison on any shitty base one can't even imagine of.Be it money, cast, creed, place, college, branch and what not. On top of that, I personally feel that the lot of good, 'real' people are running short of this world. They don't make good men anymore, as my father would say. Between that somewhere, the essence of friendship is crushed heavily. But still, we do find friends that are for keeps (although hard it may sound). As I always say, quality matters, quantity doesn't. Innocence is lost way before the virginity does.


So, here's the end result.Though I make my Ranikhet period of life win, my College life is in no way less.There I made the sweetest memories of my life, and here I am learning the toughest lessons that growing up brings.


This one to all my boarding pals -

कुछ यादों के तोहफे


कुछ यादों के तोहफे उठा के चला हूँ , उठा के चला हु कुछ बोझ रिश्तों के,

कुछ लम्हे चुराए हैं मैंने हसी के, कुछ पल भुलाये हैं मैंने आंसुओं के,

कुछ गीत हैं याद जो गाया करते थे संग,कुछ रास्ते हैं भूले जो चला करते थे संग,

कुछ छींटे रंगों के अभी भी बदन पर हैं, कुछ घाव शब्दों के अभी भी ज़हन में हैं

न मै भूल पाउँगा चाह कर भी, न मै भूलना चाहता हु भूल कभी

वो दिन, वो रातें

Adios! :)

Baarish! (Rains)

I don't know what is it about rains that makes a human heart feel so ecstatic! Is it the breeze that accompanies the rain drops or the smell of the mud that follows? Well for me, apart from everything else, it is the sound of falling and flowing water that makes the bloody difference. It feels like the flowing water has the language of its own that only few blessed mortals can decipher. Mortals that Love!Yes, Rains and Love are distant relatives. 
And who else than Bollywood shows it best? The shying heroine, the ever so brave hero that embraces her every time clouds thunder with a heavy sound and the romantic ambiance. Beautiful isn't it?

Rains here in Greater Noida are quite frequent, thanks to all the 'Greenery' around! Even on the first day that I came here, it rained. During the first year rains here felt stranger to me. But now, during the second year, they are all over me. May be I have become very close to them. And why not? They have seen me in every possible shade of emotion I have felt. Every time I was sad, they soothed me with their touch. Every time I cried, they made me feel I was not alone, God too is crying with me. Every time I was overjoyed, I had clouds clapping for me.The list, I think, is endless.

Rains in India are nothing less than a celebration and everyone has his own way of celebrating it. Be it our very own classical chai pakora combination, or a peg or two of whisky combined with old Hindi songs, Rains never seem to disappoint. People complain about muddy roads and the filth rain brings, but nobody cares to see the positive side of it(perhaps we all have settled in too much of negativity in there!). I do! If I have to celebrate a rainy day, I call it a day off, bring in a good old Friend and grab some Samosas with Coke. Then we talk philosophy while fagging(you know how men are, don't you?) and then follows our very own rain dance cum bath, as we rarely do take bath(I am not completely serious mind you!). You know, the shitty rain dances we do in parties are nothing when it comes to dancing in a natural rain on a completely random 'undancable' song. Latter is a lot more better than the former one. You can at least be yourself and never think about who is watching your 'flying kite' step. Hell Yeah! It can't get better. How do you celebrate rains? Write in your comments and I might get something new to do. And yeah, If you haven't tried mine version, you must try it hands down and as soon as possible. 

But today, on 5th Sept. 2011, I am celebrating Rain in a completely different manner. After a long day of work(that included a lot of sleeping and eating and playing cards) that I did yesterday, that was Sunday, I felt exhausted and thus took a bath in the night. Then finished off a movie and just when I was about to sleep, electricity was cut(India I tell you!). Chickenshit! I went out to grab some fresh air(time - 2:00 a.m.) and guess what? It was raining. Hell Yeah! What timing God! You know, If the man sitting on God's place must be given some other job, it would hands down be that of a Special-Effect Guy! I mean how does he knows human emotions so easily? Have you ever felt that it rained the night you fell asleep sad or a cool breeze just starts blowing when you need some calm or the day turns out to be its sunny and shiny best when you needed some inspiration. Quite a good job there God! So yeah(where were we?), it started raining and within ten minutes I started feeling so good that I forgot I was exhausted. I grabbed my camera, did some clicks and the electricity was back. But. I was in no mood to sleep, Rain my muse was still on and I wanted to celebrate it. And thus I found my self sitting in front of my computer writing this for you guys because I wanted to share how sometimes in life little things like these bring such a joy that no big thing can bring. Such is life at its best, uncertain.

Rains aren't my favourite season but they are as necessary to me as winters(my favourite season). Thus I would like to conclude by saying -

ऐ बादल तू जाता कहा को है, ज़रा चल तू ठहर के

एक संदेसा  लेता जा मेरे महबूब के लिए

और कुछ ऐसा बरस मेरे यार के बाघ पे,

के उसके बाघों के फूल खिले और मेहकें

और मेहकें ऐसा की मेरा महबूब भी तडपे मेरी याद में

की बातें कई उससे कहनी हैं, तेरी बूंदों की जुबां से

और तोहफे में देनी है मिटटी की खुशबु

पर तू देना उससे राहत ज़रा रिम-झिम बरस के

क्युकी यार मेरा, अकेला है, तनहा है ||