God of Small Things

‘Anthropological bipedal Homo sapiens’ or simply put ‘Human beings’ are a very complex phenomenon and generations after generations have put in loads of efforts to decipher it and understand it better. However, to me that’s a very Aristotelian or may be philosophical way of looking at things. I for once am interested in small things in life and would like to explore it in detail as it would unfold in next few lines.

Talking about small things, quite often in life we come across situations wherein you have to act or not act in a certain way. Then there are some scenarios wherein you need to follow etiquette and don’t know the nuances while following those etiquette and you eventually end up committing a faux pa and then looking for an excuse to cover it up, if you know what I mean. Alright, so I thought why not compile a list of such situations/life events which are often harmless but does leave one (especially if the one is the one at the receiving end) pondering over it for quite some time and may alter his/her life for better or worse depending on the situation again. A note of caution – not everyone would identify with all the situations I am going to list out as I don’t expect my idiosyncrasies matching up with everyone’s wavelength as otherwise that would mean an ideal world from my perspective! So here it goes –

1. Whenever I have to enter a room full of people be it a waiting room at a doctor’s clinic or a social party/gathering, I always get goose bumps as do most of the others in such situations. So what do I do – if I am walking in along with a group of people, its an easy way out as you just hide yourself behind a few other brave souls and you would soon find yourself in the most obscure corner of the room (safest haven in such social dos where I feel absolutely safe and secure from the afflicting xenophobia). But if I am walking in alone, my strategy is different. I will try to look as calm as possible, I often even start chewing a bubble gum so as to look ‘kool’ or look absolutely cold and phlegmatic so that no one gives a second look at you for obvious reasons. Once this part is conquered, the second biggest challenge is to find the right place to park yourself (or your derriere if you allow me to be a little risqué) in such a do. Here I utilize my glancing skills to the core as I throw a cursory look all around taking utmost care that my eyes don’t collide with others (and if they do by serendipity, it should ricochet off in a nano second!) as that would mean reciprocating back the gesture. If the other person is smiling when the eyes meet, then you need to as well, if he/she frowns/is cold/don’t give a damn, then you need to immediately cut out the flitting eye connection pretending you never saw them and so on…basically a very tedious game to play which I hate really. Having done that, I analyze the most deserted spot in the room and head towards it again taking care that I don’t look at anyone else unless there is really a good looking face around which is a different story altogether and need a separate dedicated blog. Once I am seated or standing in the corner I just made my home, I try to look around for things I can kill the time with. If a magazine is lying around, I will start reading it or at least pretend reading it but these magazines are mostly dead boring. I mean at a doctor’s waiting room, you would find something like ‘Medical Journal - Gastroenterology and its advances’ which you in all likelihood might want to keep till your next divine reincarnation. If I don’t find a magazine, my best bet is my mobile phone. Hold the mobile in your palm and look extremely busy making faces while staring at the gadget. It gives an impression to others that you are engaged in something very important. Reality is that the mobile is running Tic Tac Toe and I am enjoying it to the fullest! However at a social do, it’s not a good idea to look so aloof and disconnected, so I try my best to find a known face and while away some time with him/her. If that fails too, I just hang around with my better half (they ain’t called better half for nothing!!). As a last resort when nothing works, I just make a quick exit of course after having the seven course meal and satisfying my carnal appetite l!! One often recurring instance which happens with me is – somebody approaches me with all warmth and says hi, hello etc. The problem is the fact that I somehow am not in a position to recall his name though I know I have seen the person before. For such awkward situations, I often ask for his email id which then gives me some idea as to who he is. Pls note that this never happens with a female face since that’s how men are designed to work!! Another problem I face often is the kind of topics I can talk about with a person whom I have met say just once before. So the conversation revolves around weather, food (in the party) and at most politics which I usually avoid if the person is now well acquainted. All in all, I hate going to parties. My bigger fear now is that someone with not so close relations reads this blog and I ran into him in a social do!!
   

2. When I have to dial a telephone/cell# manually, I have lot of trouble when the entire number containing around 10 digits at a minimum are placed closely (juxtaposed!) to one another without any gaps…I mean on one hand you are dialing digits on the dial pad, then you have to look up the number to check next digits and there exactly lies the pain! You have to literally strain your eyes so much to see which was the last digit dialed in and then pick up from there. Really a strenuous job since I also have this phobia that if I delay in keying in the numbers, the phone might hang up or may mal function. I am just waiting for the technology revolution which will make voice dialing a common feature though I know it still would require me to read out the number aloud and that is equally painful!
   

3. Colour blindness – First of all, let me straighten it out – I am no colour blind. But then as my opening line of this blog mentioned - we anthropoids are a complex creature. I mean cant we keep it simple when it comes to colours? I can just about deal with the basic color god created - red, blue, green yellow etc. the ones we were taught when we were in Kinder. All my life I was under blissful belief (or ignorance as some would call it) that this is what all one should know about colours in life literally speaking. My simple world came crashing down when off late I realize how little I know about colours. Let me start with my struggle with a colour known as ‘Purple’. Is it light violet? If so, why name it differently as ‘Purple’? I mean c’mon keep things simple – that’s how men are designed for life and I have no doubts left in my mind that these extra terrestrial colours were coined and invented by women – Pls, can you ever put a stop to this brutality? Back to my story – Purple is also called ‘Lavender’ – WHY? Why on earth you have to name the same colour differently? Crimson – dictionary defines it as ‘deep purplish-red’. Amazing!! Isn’t it? Wait, the torture has just about started. How about ‘Peach’ colour? Its light pinkish yellow as of a peach. If you have to name a colour after a fruit, then why not follow similar rule for all colours? Call yellow as sun, red as strawberry or Mars (red planet), green as leaf and blue as sky. I just wish there is an international forum like ‘International Chroma Association’ governing the rules and regulations around colour naming and colour invention and everything related about colours. Well, let’s not deviate here and let me now take you deeper into the world of colours with no mercy. White – simple pure colour signifying peace and tranquility. Let me shatter it now – Ivory, Magnolia, off-white, cream and the list is endless. Another instance - Pink – a very romantic colour to me. Now see how the romance is killed when you hear – Fuchsia, Magenta, carmine pink, coral pink and what not. Some more random colours to wreck your brain (pls do not faint if you fall in my category of colour blindness) – Burgundy, Vermilion, Amber, Tangerine, Maroon, Sepia, Mustard, Olive, Saffron, Chartreuse, Emerald, Aqua, Turquoise, Denim, Sapphire, Mauve, Orchid and the list is serpentine. Honestly speaking, if you could relate even 25% of these colours, you qualify to be a genius for me. When I did some more research on colours, I was baffled further to see that the dictionary defines excruciatingly niche words just to describe the properties of these colours. Words like shade, tint, hue, saturation, contrast and so on really got into my nerves and I decided to call it peace and dwell no more further. When I was about to sign off from my lappy, I came across this line on the net – “Additionally, computer displays have somewhat limited gamut, so many colorful pigments cannot be represented on screen at all, and computer simulation of the natural world is at best a rough approximation.” So basically I am not sure how many colour I do believe I know are really the ones I am looking for.
   

As there are many more such small things in life which are vying to get some space here on this post, I thought I would pause here and would keep updating this post as and when I get disillusioned by them.

Tum Jiyo Hazaaron Saal...!

Yeah, its exactly a year that the little monster made a dashing entry into this world and before we could blink, he is already 1!! Time flew by so fast as it seems just yesterday that the news was broken at around 2.20PM in a sunny afternoon by the elderly maid in the hospital…’Ladka hua hai bai’ (that’s how its uttered in typical Bambaiya hindi). Those first few words of the news didn’t draw any expressions on my face as I didn’t know how to reciprocate to it though I was subconsciously trying to convey to myself the enormity of the news but to no avail! Probably I was too preoccupied with the well being of both the baby and the mother and the fact that I was expecting a baby girl all along. I took a deep breadth and told myself – Mr.D YOU ARE A PAPA NOW !!. When Chiku was first brought out of the theater room, I was too afraid to hold him as the tender and delicate appearance of the baby made me too conscious to touch him and vulnerable to my own fears of harming him inadvertently. After briefly holding him, out came the cameras/ video cam and I started taking the first few shots of the new born. Cell phones started ringing incessantly with congratulatory messages from near and dear ones and things were never the same again. For this one reason, Mumbai would always remain special for me and all.

The following days would be remembered for a lifetime since it was a totally different experience witnessing a baby’s world first hand and watching him grow, sometime him holding my fingers and sometimes me holding his little fingers. Along with all the tensions and apprehensions that come with the package, what touched me the most is the innocence a baby brings along with him and how he transforms your life even without you realizing it at all. I was so apprehensive about all the responsibility that a baby would bring along and I was so unsure how things would turn out to be. But as they say, nature is so naturally designed that you just fit into it seamlessly and the not the other way round! The cherubic smile that creases across his face when I get back home after a hectic day long work is simply ethereal and can not be described in words.

The first year as now I look back would be cherished for the sheer joy he brought in what with his antics and the histrionics getting doubled/ trebled with each day passing by. The list is serpentine - the day when he started rolling side wise (we had to then start building a pillow castle around him), the day when he started sitting up with mother’s support, the day he started imitating the surroundings be it his mom’s voice or be it my sneezing action, the day when he started to crawl (we started putting mattresses on the floor around the cot just in case he falls from the bed and he actually did once!!), the day he started standing up with a support (he would start basking in the glory of this big achievement of his own!!), the day he started walking without support with his hands up in air as if balancing himself on a tight rope looking at us in anticipation of a big applause, the day he started playing football with his first kick sending the featherweight balloon ball up in air to everyone’s cheers and finally the day when his first girlfriend Anna kissed him on his tender cheeks and he staring back at the little girl who is just a few months older to him in utter disgust (Chiku badly needs lessons here in this area from his papa!!).

Even though I know this is just the beginning of more exciting times to come, I just wish that he continues growing up at his own pace and experience the world the way he would like to.

Here is wishing you a very happy B'day my son!! Cheers...

Desultorily Yours !

Writing an article and that too for Darpan is a thought that dreads me the most. I mean I can write just about anything on some other platform like my blog or scribble on the floor for my 9 month old where I need not worry for being judged for my writing skills. But in Darpan, the ever wonderful and ‘professional’ audience makes me conscious of the fact that whatever I write is being read by an elite group so to speak!! So here I am with yet another attempt at writing something meaningful which falls in the category of ‘Elegant and meaningful writing’ as the purists would like to call it. But suddenly, I feel a rapid surge of revolt engulfing me from deep inside and questioning me as to why we always need to toe a predefined line of being right or wrong? Why the writing has to be ‘good’ always? Why can’t there be a separate category of literature dedicated specifically to ‘bad’ writing, something which does not meet the stringent standards set by those so called self proclaimed puritanical pundits? I surrender to my inner voice and decide its time I take up cudgels in my hand and do the impossible – write something real bad. Well, with bad I don’t mean indulging in some kind of blasphemy or writing in Chinese fonts. I would rather tweak the usual motif in writing and attempt at something random, something desultory – literally that is.

When I was in school, there used to be a competition wherein you are required to speak for 2 minutes in front of an audience on just about anything without pausing even for a second – the catch being the rules of the game that the sentences should be complete and grammatically correct and that there should no repetitions of any of the lines spoken already. I thought why not try this out in writing. But then, a sane mind would ask what’s the fun in attempting the same in writing when you have all the time at your disposal and you can double check anytime to ensure you meet all the rules and guidelines of the game. So I thought why not make it interesting in terms of its content if not the conventional rules. That’s true – I would attempt at writing complete sentences but with one condition – they should be as desultory as possible in terms of the meaning they are conveying and should take you for a ride literally. So here I start. (I know I would never get an invitation for writing an article for Darpan after you read this but I am not complaining!!).

Once upon a time, there was a king and he did not posses a Bluetooth device with him. To makeup for it, president Bush went for a vacation in the Prairies and the Steppes, parts of which are in Wyoming and Montana states. The first book he read there was not Casino Royale since he doesn’t like reading. Prairies and Steppes have counterparts in Deccan and Malwa and the Vindhya range in the south, though the list is not comprehensive. A comprehensive list can be found in Yellow pages wherein you generally find phone number which you are not looking for. And coming to talk about it, who coined the name ‘Yellow pages’? Why not red, blue or purple? I have never been able to recognize purple color in my life and I am not color blind genetically even though we have the complete map of human genome which unfortunately can not be found on yahoo or google map. Google does offer notepad functionality that can compensate for my color blindness which I strongly deny having it. So basically what I am hinting here is that yellow pages can be stored in Google notepad though the limitation is one’s ability to lookup the right phone number and that can be truly tedious as happened in case of Star fisheries and Star garage. Which movie was that? RGV’s Aag and the sequel to RGV’s Aag should be called RGV’s Aag’s Dhua!! Dhua means smoking which is harmful for health and putting gory pics on Cigarette packets won’t deter them anyways. Whom you are kidding Mr. Health Minister? And the reason Uttappa played so well is because he did not watch RGV’s Aag which conversely means that he doesn’t smoke. Bluetooth, Bush, Prairies, Casino Royale, Malwa, Yellow pages, Google, RGV – all these terms have one thing in common. Nope, I am not referring to the fact that they all are random in nature but the fact that they all are proper noun if you remember Wren and Martin’s torture called ‘Grammar’. I have typed in exactly 765 words so far and I am not done with my definition of randomness. But in the larger interest of society, I am calling it peace and inviting you to the World Military games in Hyderabad to be held sometimes in 2007 A.D. which I bet could not have been foreseen by Nostradamus. Nostradamus could not have foreseen a stupid article like this one too since he had no idea about escape velocity. But then it wasn’t his mistake as the king did not have a Bluetooth device in the first place.

PEACE!!

PS - Darpan is an office magazine which was initiated when I was in TCS.

Black and White!

Sometime you are thinking about writing something which you believe in strongly and which has been there in the back of your mind since forever and then you come across some writing on the web which matches verbatim with your school of thought. You rejoice with a reason that there are a few like minded people out there, the conviction gets stronger and you go to sleep peacefully. So here is a post, a bit philosophical in nature(the hedonist type may leave the post right away) which falls in the above category and would like to reproduce it here.
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This is right, that is wrong. This is how it should be, that is how it should not be. This is how it works, that is how it should not work.
I have come across quite some people (make no mistake, very good individuals) whose view point towards anything in life is black and white - its either right or wrong. But however hard I try, I can NEVER understand that view point. In my opinion, how can life be plain black and white ? Life has myriads of colours, it is really not possible to categorize everything in life into two buckets. Well, cutting the branch on which you are sitting can be classified as wrong :-). But those are the 0.1% of things in life which needs "classification", for the remaining 99.9% of things in life which really doesnt gain anything from this taxonomy of "right and wrong", why bother, why waste precious thought cycles trying to put everything that you see into two buckets ! Why not just enjoy the colours and try to see the millions of possible variations around ! I absolutely cannot tolerate the "right and wrong" attitude in people :-(.
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Aisa Desh Hai Mera...

I got this mail from my bro who is settled in Australia. Relives some of good ol' memories...those were the days!!
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Wish you all Happy 60th Independence Day!! As I write this email I am getting nostalgic remembering all those school years when it was such an important day for us kids. Our morning used to start by watching flag hosting at Red Fort and parade on TV. And then all the excitement of reaching school for the Independence Day celebration at Pavan Krida Ground. Parade by senior school students used to charge me most. I still remember thinking of joining Army someday while watching that parade. The flag hosting, various cultural programmes followed by Bundi Ke Packets...they are still fresh in my memory...and then back home I and my brother will do our own version of flag hosting. It involved tying towel to one end of a long bamboo with some flowers in it and tying it loosely with a rope. And then with a salute we used to pull the rope and the flowers used to fall on us with towel representing our tiranga!!! I miss them so much...

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom..."

Something worth viewing...
A R Rahman's National Anthem Version (a must see)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftD3gDA-5S0

Incredible India's promo version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erlj8c5A8JY

I am so proud to be an Indian!! Once again Happy Independence Day!!
Cheers,
Girish
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Salaam Mumbai

When I would grow old(hey I am still young) and look back retrospectively, I guess my tryst with Mumbai would mark an epoch in the initial sculpting and chiseling of my life. Yeah, I used those piquant verbs intentionally since I liken my stint in the dream city as a potpourri of sweet and bitter experiences. To be very candid here, it was an excruciating journey that lasted a full 9 years (well almost) and left behind scars as well as love bites to put it that way. The intention of this post is not to enumerate how good or bad the city is since that would be too judgemetal and I hate being one. I just thought to pen down a few thoughts as a farewell note to the city that never sleeps.
I landed in the city on November 15th 1998. The scenic beauty enroute Mumbai from Trivendrum(after my initial training period in my first company TCS) was I guess nature's way to enrgize me for facing tougher times ahead. The first two years were really afflictive and inconsiderate - how could I forget the famous(or infamous) Mumbai locals and the daily grind I endured through for close to two years. The exact sequence was - catch an auto to Malad station, catch a local to Borivali (without alighting there since the same locomotive becomes a Churchgate fast on its return journey), reach Churchgate in 70 minutes around, catch a share cab to Cuffe Parade in Colaba and report to office at 11th floor(2 hours almost since the start). The return journey was even more painful since now you had to literally wade through an absolutely phlegmatic and cold crowd to catch a Borivali slow, never mind risking your life for it. Mumbaites call this circus as the indomitable spirit of the city(which basically refers to the common man getting back to work after any tragedy which strikes the city every now and then). Though I do salute the Mumbai janta for this so called 'spirit', I really would like to ask this question to the Mumbaites- a clerk who resides in Virar and has his office in Churchgate - does he really have a choice but to report to work the very next day after such a tragedy? Dont try to equate spirit with helplessness of common man. I may again be sounding too judgemental here but lets not try to fool ourselves. I guess I can go on and on but I am calling it peace here since I feel it really does not make any difference beyond a certain point(Mumbai has gone past this point way too long back).
Back to my story, I do feel proud being associated with Mumbai inspite of all the above. Infact, this very uncanny charm is something no one has been able to decipher about this big bad city. The sheer size of the city and the fast pace of life dwarfs you and makes you feel special even when embraced in its badly littered streets. The first 2 years is when I got acquainted with the length and breadth of the city(courtesy the nature of my job!) and was convinced that in a likely scenario of loosing my IT job, I would surely be able to have a career as a city guide!! Raheja township in Malad and J B nagar in Andheri were couple of my addresses I stayed at. A turning point came(and so did a break from the grind) when I was deputed to the States for around 2 years. When I returned back in 2002, the city hadn't changed much(the JVLR link road was still under construction and it still is, I guess its completion would coincide truly with India being declared a 'Developed' nation). This time, I made Thakur village as my home. I guess I will always have a special liking for this place. Its a city within a city and its hip population gives you a high naturally. I guess I would miss this place the most in Mumbai. The next 2 and 1/2 years were memorable for 2 reasons - I spent good amount of money(since I had it in excess for first time in life !) on friends/socializing (even though I am not a a very social person naturally). I remember I once took an impromptu flight to Banglore during a weekend to catch up with a bunch of old college buddies...wow those were the days!! And the second reason is an obvious one as its this time in my life that I got married and started life on a new note. Together as a couple, we got a chance to explore lot of places in and around Mumbai - Daman(the return journey from here would best be forgotten), Goa(delayed honeymoon), Khandala, Lonavala(the company guest house here is the most romantic place in the world), Pune(a good city to visit), Sanjay Gandhi National park(hehe, I almost got thrashed for the last one!!) etc. I did start liking the city atlast!! I got another break from the grind when we went to US of A for a long term deputation. It was almost after 1 and 1/2 years that we were back in Mumbai. The trip would always be cherished by both of us.
The post US stay(Jan 2006 onwards) in Mumbai was a busy one since it brought in a lot of new experiences in life including Chiku and life was never the same again. We left Mumbai after a lot of deliberation as to whether the move would be worthwhile and whether we would ever feel at home in any other city as we did in Mumbai. But I guess the writing was already there on the wall. Several factors including monetary ones made us take the final decision of calling it quits and we bid a tearful adieu to the city of dreams in July 2007, after 104 long months!! We made some of the best friends for life, met some of the most amazing people, had some of the most memorable and cherished events of life and matured up learning some of the toughest lessons in life in the eventful journey. The city would always find special place in our hearts and who knows may compel us to come back to it at some of time in future. Till then, all I can say is - 'Salam Mumbai!!'

Baby's Day Out!!

Just goes on to show that we(netizens of my age) were TRULY born in a wrong generation..!!

The story goes like this - Our maid servant tells us in typical Mumbaiya hindi(itna paisa milenga to itnaich kaam hoenga!!) that there is a film shootin going on right in front of the society's main gate. Archana always wanted to see a shooting(though something very commonplace in Mumbai, she never got to witness one)..so I drop her off on the main gate and I myself pushed off for office.

Archana then calls me up at office describing that the shooting involved the hot Amrita Rao doing an action scene...well I, for one regretted going to office without checking the details about the shooting. But the story doesn't end here...Archana was standing at a very close distance to Amrita(though behind the society fence) ..she turned towards Arcahana casually..she spotted our cute Chiku and said an equally cute 'Hiii' to him..!! I have spent close to half of my life and no one except my 'dear' wife has said such an endearing hi to me(off late, I have stopped receiving that 'you blink and will miss' hi too!). Coming back to Chiku, I wonder if this is the sign of things to come...(I mean c'mon he is just 6 months ol' and has already managed to woo Amrita Rao!!) Oh how I envy him at the moment!!

Memoirs of a Lost World

The advent of Television era (the idiot box!) was a significant development during the initial years of my life. It all started with the priced Black and White television sets occupying the most sacred place in one’s house (the most common brands were Dynora, Wilson, Videocon, and some Japanese companies), color TV sets were still a distant dream then. The eon started with the ubiquitous Doordarshan channel (for the nescient younger generation – this is a government owned channel and is still available as part of standard cable package) being aired for limited hours during evening time. The telecast timings were expanded subsequently to include morning and afternoon hours which was an achievement in itself for the government at that time (I mean c’mon they were inching closer to serving non stop infotainment which was a kind of huge favor for the dumb Indian audience). Speaking about the quality of programs DD served during those days – I would say it was a mix bag. Here is a complete low down on the history of Indian television(read Doordarshan) as viewed by a youngster.

The culture of never ending soaps started way back then(1980s) with serials like ‘Buinyaad’(Lajoji, Haveli Ram) and ‘Humlog’(Basesar Ram, Nanhe). I am sure E(K)ta Kapoor had started taking lessons in soap since then itself. Indian sitcoms made an extremely successful beginning with serials like ‘Ye Jo Hai Jindagi’ (Rakesh Bedi was absolutely hilarious), ‘Wagle Ki Duniya’(the Indian bourgeois population would still identify itself with the protagonist Wagle played by Anjan Srivastava) and Rajni(not sure if you remember the intimidating Priya Tendulkar). Then there were serials meant for children like ‘Dada Dadi ki Kahaniyaan’, Vikram Vetaal(I still can visualize Vetaal with long white curly hairs being carried over by Vikram on his back with Vetaal saying wickedly ‘Vikram, Tu Bola To Mai Chala…HAHAHA…’), ‘Malgudi Days’(the character of Swami and the title tune would stay in my heart forever), ‘Nukkad’ (the camaraderie depicted and portrayed in the serial has no parallels till date) and the first Sci-Fi serial ‘Sigma’(Jakakhu, Tara) which I guess was responsible for building up my interest in science stuff. ‘Katha Sagar’, ‘Neem Ka Ped’, ‘Tamas’, ‘Circus’, ‘Fauzi’(FYI - SRK featured the in last 2), Udaan(Kavita Choudhry), Air Hostess(the beautiful Kittu Gidwani), Karamchand(the first ever detective serial played out by Pankaj Kapoor to the ‘T’), Vyomkesh Bakshi (another detective serial and was an instant hit), ‘Ek Do Teen Char’(saturday afternoon after the half day school), Siddhart Basu’s Quiz show(Derek O Brien came much later folks), ‘Turning point’(a science show anchored by Girish Karnad who was simply flawless and the IISc’s Prof. Yashpal who became a sort of celebrity), Prannoy Roy’s ‘The World this Week’(he coined the idea of starting a separate TV channel from there) are some of the other cherished serials which would remain etched out in my memory for eternity. Speaking of Doordarshan, how could I forget the daily news (Samachar that is) which used to be a mere 20 minute affair (8.40 PM till 9). Salma Sultan, Sarla Maheshwari, Ved Prakash were household names then (I wonder where have they disappeared today). And last but not least, there used to be just 2 film songs based programs – Chitrahaar every Wednesday and Chayageet every Thursday – those who are used to 24/7 music channels today would have no idea about the craze these two programs generated in those days. The era of mythological epics (Mahabharata, Ramayana) being aired on DD came in mid nineties which also set the stage for the invasion of cable TV. I personally liked Mahabharata more than Ramayana for its compelling depiction of all the mythological characters- Bhishma Pitamah was an instant hit and so was Arjuna and Krishna.

The programs I hated most were countless – the local program in Marathi ‘Aamchi Maati Aamchi Mansa’ – a horticulture based program topped the list. I mean who was watching such programs? The intended audience viz the poor farmers did not have access to television anyways, so effectively the urban populace was being trained and specialized in agriculture!! Then there was the most awaited Hindi movie slot - once every week on Sunday evening. The movies shown were either pre Alam-aara period or at best some flop movie featuring Rajendra Kumar!! And we were supposed to feel lucky for that. Then there was those government sponsored messages (Child dioherria, child marriage, family planning, anti smoking/anti drinking and so on). The intention was not wrong but the message ads were so tasteless and poorly shown that it left you with no option but to leave the room and go for a walk.

Moving on, the DD TV saga would not be complete without the mention of advertisements being aired during that time which had a class of its own. I would start the interesting journey with ‘Nirma’ ad. Yes, this ad should actually be given the longest running ad award for not changing its ad tune(though due credit should be given for at least changing the visuals!). When Pepsi was launched initially in India, it was called ‘Lehar Pepsi’ and the ad featured the pop singer ‘Remo Fernandis’ who made the punch lines extremely famous – ‘Are you Ready for the Maqgic?’ and ‘Yahi hai right choice baby, ahaa!!’. The Pepsi ad later featured Aamir Khan with Mahima Choudhary and the sensual Sanjana (yeah, you all guessed it right – she was the blue eyed Aishwarya Rai Bachchan – all of sweet 17 at that time!!!). Then there was another ad which featured a beautiful lass and I kept wondering for years about her identity. The ad was for Khatau sarees and the damsel who appeared in it was none other than Raveen Tandon who did it when she was in 12^th std! (as per one of her interviews). Then there was that Bajaj bulb ad which had the punch line ‘Jab mai bilkul chota tha, badi shararat karta tha…’. Bajaj scooter had the ad song as ‘Hamara Bajaj – Buland Bharat ki buland tasveer’. Bombay Dyeing ad had the hot Lisa Ray featuring in their promos (she could have become a better and bigger model I feel). I can also recall the Rasna ad which was made very endearing for their cute child models. The Jalebi ad(for one of the oil brands I guess) was one of the classic ones. One of the most innovative ads ever done is Amul. They kept changing the punch line almost every month mostly capturing the flavor of the month. Recently, I heard that the brain behind all those funny one liners has left the company for the good. Hats off to such a creative mind.

Other ads which come to my mind from that era are – Prestige(Jo biwi se kare pyaar, wo ..blah blah), Boroline, Iodex(ooh, aah, ouch), Surf, Lipton tea, Mysore Sandal soap, Bournvita, Cema bulbs, Parle G, Farex baby milk powder, Cibaca tooth paste, Hipolin washing powder, Rin(Bahenji ad done by Kavita Choudhary), Titan watches(the romantic ad wherein the fiancé gifts the watch to his beloved in a hotel backdrop and the violins being played out by the band), Dabur Lal dant manjan(‘Kyu na ho masterji, mai Dabur lal dant manjan jo istemaal karta hoon), ‘Ek chidiya Anek chidya’ depicting unity in diversity by Films division, Rexona and many many more.

I guess the Doordarshan era defined and shaped a generation, a generation unaware about the MTV culture and the 100 channel confusion. Good or bad, the DD legacy would be difficult to forget if not impossible.

PS - Special thanks to my better half as she was the one who helped me recall/recollect most of the above details with amazing clarity.

Creepy

It seems the Virginia Tech massacre took its own toll on me. I mean I agree I do come across such daily news involving heinous crimes almost regularly(bane of modern time I guess), but this one in particular had a little more than the deserved melancholic effect on me. It really made me wonder where we are heading after all. Agreed every society will have some psychopaths in its pack of cards but doesn't get to comprehend a crime of this nature and magnitude. I even thought of reading the banned book 'Rage' to understand the deranged mentality of a loner but then thought it wouldn't really serve the purpose.

What caught my attention was a poignant story of a Mumbai girl Minal who died in the shootout. It wasn't really the fact that she was killed cold-blooded, but more so to discover that she had an online Orkut profile and it was flooded with consoling messages from all across the world. I mean it was eerie, as strange as it can get to see the scrapbook of a dead person who was all alive just a few hours back and getting thousands of messages about her own death. Netizens who were leaving the bereaved messages knew that there is no one at the other end to read those messages and the fact that the owner of that profile is never going to return back ! Later I discovered that the profile was deleted by Orkut but it left me with a bizarre feeling in my mind and a bigger question to ponder over – what happens to the online identity of a person(including email, blogs etc) when he/she is no more and are there any international rules/regulations governing the issue.

My heartfelt condolences to the Panchal family and also to the family of the Indian professor who was a victim in the shootout.

Peace.

I came, I saw, I failed

It took me a lot of courage to actually pen down what I term as 'the biggest setback/failure of my life'. I mean c'mon how many of us can actually document and share one's own failures, leave aside even to mention about it to others. I bet many of us dont even share our own failures with ourselves (for fear of being sounding demeaning/embarrassing to oneself). You dont agree? Consider this - you commit a faux pas in a social gathering (say you were using the damn fork in the right hand in an elite dinner party with some of the most sophisticated and hypocrite people around(yeah, the sophisticated are always hypocrites)). You really dont realize this until the next day when one of your close pals points it out to you (he was actually nudging you all along in the party and you thought he was trying to direct your attention, as if that is required, to the most gorgeous babe in the party wearing that red hot..okay okay I guess I should stop here as my blog might be read by some of the 'sophisticated' people too!!). So in short, it takes guts to write about your own failures on the world wide web which currently is being surfed by 3.142857 billion populace (even if a fraction of it hit my blog site, you can appreciate what I am getting into here!).If anyone of you wants to challenge that statistical figure of 3.14ish, the logic is simple -
the world's populace is spread around the circumference (C) of the planet and since world wide web is used by us homo sapiens across the diameter (D) of the globe, the ratio C/D is always constant and is given by the famous mathematical irrational constant pi which equals 3.142857 (see, we never understand mathematics, we just get used to it, so pls dont wreck your brain to understand the logic here. The WWW is indeed surfed by 3.14ish billion people, if its less, some of them might be offline now, and if its more, some of the new surfers might have joined in into the big bad world).

Alright, back to the topic - my biggest failure in my life is (pls dont throw the mouse or the keyboard) - not being able to fly a kite. Yes, that’s a fact and I confess to the entire world (not just to the 3.14ish people) that I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO FLY A KITE. Right from my childhood days, I have been fascinated by how a kite flies and flies so high. When I reached a boy's age (as defined scientifically), I attempted many a times to fly the damn thing but all in vain. My object of envy was my big bro who seemed to be a born kite flier. He would merrily ask everyone to come to the terrace to watch the show as he would fly the kite (I was always the one who used to hold the kite for making it take off in the sky with the other end of the string, the real control panel of the kite, in my bro's hand). In my desperation, a couple of times I sneaked out and tried to fly the UFO (well, for me it was a UFO as it was mysterious, unconquerable and no one ever spotted it flying ...with me on the other end that is!). All my juvenile attempts were met with unequivocal disaster with each time the flying thing heading down towards the ground (as if the gravity had suddenly tripled and the wind forgetting it exists). The only high points in my kite flying venture were the fleeting moments I used to get to hold the control panel (along with the high tech chakri that holds the ubiquitous manja) and getting directions from my bro as to how to maneuver the kite in the sky(the thrill you get when you hold the manja of a high flying kite is indescribable what with the high tension in the thread giving you the feel that you actually are in control of a Sukhoi like fighter aircraft).

So here I am writing about the agony, the childhood trauma (pls dont shrug it off, it's really that way for me!!). But in spite of my limited vicarious memories about the flying experience, I have not given up yet. I would be going for my nth attempt to fly the thing and if I ever succeed, let me declare it in writing that it would be the most ‘flying’ event of my life.
Amen!

I wish I could….

A few days back, I had this extremely animated discussion with a couple of my close colleagues (they are a wonderful couple and are a dear family friend of mine). The discussion started casually with me stating that I will have my baby do all those things which I couldn’t do in my life(Just to add some drama to the discussion, I also pointed out the scene from DDLJ where Anupam Kher tells SRK ki ja agar tu apni jawani se uub gaya hai to meri jawani jeekar aa!). Quoting a quote I said ‘Men regret those mistakes which they did not commit when they had the opportunity!’ Dwelling deeper into specifics, I mentioned that I may not have had enjoyed the earlier years of my life as much as I could have had OR rather I should have had. I felt that I took life too seriously (from school time to college life to pre marriage days) and that I missed out on many ‘kool’ things which characterize a typical adolescence/juvenile life. As a counter argument, I was reminded by my friends that I may not have come so far in my life (careerwise so to speak) if I had committed all those mistakes which I regret not committing now. To a great extent I agreed with them and drew a conclusion that may be I was not given a choice in the first place to explore a little wilder side of my life. I mean I don’t really regret for it now in the sense that I am enjoying my life to the fullest now, I have a wonderful life, a beautiful son and a wife(in that order that is !!), I indulge in rash driving occasionally(so what if it’s an 800 cc car, I can still derive the same devil pleasure from it you see!), I have been to some of the best places in the world(courtesy company deputations) and I own some of the mean gadgets which I take pride in. But then, we are missing a point here - I started having all these worldly pleasures(I am not that hedonistic by the way, this is all just for the argument sake!) when I was around 25 or 26. What happened to the golden period of one’s life called adolescence and the start of youth(14 to 24 years), wouldn’t it have been great if I had a few of the above fun during this time frame(substituting wife/kid with a couple of girlfriends if I am allowed to be little naughtier here!!). There is no harm I feel if we accept a few hard facts of life, I just wanted to confront them which I did in the above discussion with my couple friend and thought to share it here in the blog.

A few days later, I came across an interesting thing – an interview with SRK by some news magazine. I have reproduced the relevant part here. It kind of vindicated my stand that I did miss out something in my life.

But hey that’s life. Infact if given an opportunity, I would like to be reborn with exactly same parameters of my life as I have them now - not a single variable varied in anyway!

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SRK....."In some strange way, all that I've done in the last 17-18 years through my work is to speak to the youngsters. I've never spoken to anyone else because I understand their language and emotions. I've been a youngster who's had to grow up too fast because of the (early) death of my parents. I missed out on my youth. At the age of 16, I lost my dad. By 20-21, I had to start getting more responsible than I should have been. By 25, I was completely on my own with a sister to look after. I think I missed on these 10 years where I could have had a chance to be youthfully wild.

I wish I can afford my kids to have a wild youth. When I say wild youth I mean flights of fantasy, have fun. Have no worries. Go wrong because there's a long life in front of you to rectify them. Do things your heart tells you to do, otherwise for the rest of your life you will be doing what your boss tells you to do.
I could never do it. I had to take up a job as an actor and I'm glad I did. I could give a huge speech to youngsters, because I really feel like that. I am re-living my youth now after having achieved a level of comfort where I think I can be on a flight of fantasy.
When I was 34 I said, listen, I am good enough now to go back to being that age between 17 and 27 in my head because I don't have to worry about my future anymore.........."

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What’s there in a name..!

Shakespeare didn’t have an iota of idea about the importance of a ‘name’ when he wrote the above. Well, no offence meant to the legend but I realize how important it is to have a good name for anything and everything – animate to inanimate objects in today’s politically correct world, well so to speak.
Since the time baby arrived, I was shouldered with the task of finding a good name for him. Just to give a little background here – I was expecting a baby girl all along (oh I am crazy for a baby girl but seems God had different plans) and had thought of several good names, really sweet names but all for a baby girl. Some of them I can recall being Riya, Risha, Aanchal, Kangana, Palak, Mahak, Khushboo and a few more. Now when a baby boy arrived instead, all my calculations went for a toss literally. So there I was – looking real bad for a good name. So how do you define a good name in 21st century(I have to mention this as my own name really belongs to some historical/mythological time you see!) - A good name for me is one which should be short, sweet, easy to pronounce (even in phoren land!) and last but not least – should be unique. A few names which were doing the round but extremely common were Aditya(god knows whats with this name, every second child had this name), Adi, Adwait and many more starting with the letter ‘A’. I didn’t like any of them. So now its almost 3 weeks since the baby’s birth with no good names in sight. Some of them which we could dig out were good but not really good! To mention a few- Rishabh(short, sweet but common place), Yash(very royal but again a little too common), Rajat (an old name), Shourya(unique but little old fashioned) and finally Arjun (there was almost near unanimity for this name but somehow I was not too sure about the fashion quotient of this name when my baby turns say 20- Imagine him with the name Arjunsingh wald Devendrasingh Rathor in 2025 A.D.- infact it might turn out to be a BIG turnoff for all his prospective girl friends!!). Alright , so now its one month now and still no name being finalized.
A few months back I had my life insurance done from a local LIC agent. He is a good person by heart (infact he is the only one who religiously keeps track of all the important dates of my life be it my b’day, anniversary and so on and makes it a point to wish me on all such occasions without fail!). I just happened to run into him when he related a story as to how one of his couple client named Tanuja and Manish named their child ‘Tanish’ which is an interesting combination of their individual names(just like Raveena is derived from Ravi and Veena). I kind of instantly liked the name for some reason. It was short, sweet, unique, easy to pronounce and stylish as well, so basically meeting all my CTQs(that’s Critical to Quality for the uninitiated). I bid him good bye but the name had got etched into my sub conscious. Back at home, I told this name to Sonu and everyone else and after a little bit of canvassing, got a complete unanimity on the name. And so the name game was atlast done with but really had all of us wondering ‘Whats there in a name after all!!’