Crusade against Emotional Attyachar

The following material is the ultimate reply to all the unwanted and uncalled for questions and comments which were shoved upon us and so far left unanswered. We pledge that this set of remarks will not see the light of the day by the turn of the next Genx.

Background : You are preparing for your board exams, tired and weary, you feel like giving up. So the best way to keep us motivated....
They Said : This is the last time and after that the world is yours..
We realized : "One Last Time" what a joke!!!! For many of us this one last time never seems to end, be it the certification courses at office to keep us updated or the management degrees. The world is not mine yet.

Background : You have friends from your same batch or class residing nearby, under the very nose of Theirs....
They Said : Look!!!! his/her doors are shut, he/she must be revising for the nth time..what's your status?
We know : That guy is not revising, he/she must be dreaming about his/her's latest crush, or reading the latest Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew novel hidden right between the pages of their academic book. We know people can be very pretentious.

Background : On a lazy Sunday afternoon you are lazying around....
They Said : At your age i used to support my entire family and yet study, you people have got all the comforts in this world..
We chuckle : And remember the joke and wish we could say something similar
Father to Son : "You should be ashamed,When Abraham Lincoln was of your age, he used to walk ten miles every day to get to school."
Son to Father : "Well, when he was your age, he was the president".

Background : After a heated discussion....
They Said : We never had the guts to reply back..
We are at our wits end : What, we are supposed to do if you guys didn't have the guts or were born without it. In fact we were not present then, to vindicate your claim. But aren't you happy that we don't have an organ missing.

Background : Any occasion....
They Said : Come, seek your elders blessing by touching their feet..
We wonder : how this can be scientifically proven, that blessings and well wishes traverses via the medium of touch and only through feet? but luckily like everything else around us this process is being marginalized, whereas in earlier days(Mahabharat times) the point of contact used to be the feet of the sender and head of the receiver where the victim had to lie on the ground, these days the contact has shifted to the senders knees so much less stooping for the receiver. The day would soon come when there will be touch less transmission, which many believe has already started.

Background : You are spending some valuable time on your laptop/PC ....
They Said : You guys are not at all socially and physically active..
We try to reason: What does being socially active mean? meet up with like minded people after work, discuss other people's woes and their short comings, or wrong govt policies..No Sir!!! we are happy with our virtual social networking. As far as physical inactivity is concerned, this may be not entirely untrue, but gyming is a good alternative, is it not?.

Background : The recession is on and there are unconfirmed news of sacking across the industry ....
They Said : Why didn't you apply for a govt job? You could have got pension later..
We forgive them : For their relative ignorance over the current job scenario. We are not the ones who started the fire. And pension!!! as if the sole purpose of job is getting a pension.

Background : The last one is only for bachelor men ....
They Say : If it is like this now, I wonder what will happen once he gets married..
CUT THE CRAP!!!! : Stop this barrage of Emotional Attyachar, but it is you who want us to get married.

Truely Inspiring

Just watched the movie Invictus, *ing Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as the captain of the then national Rugby team Francois Pienaar. The movie is based on how Nelson Mandela used Rugby as a unifying bond to bring the people of the Rainbow Nation together post the apartheid. The movie is directed and produced by one of my favourite Actor and Director, Clint Eastwood.

Invictus means the unconquerable and the movie gets its name from the poem by a famous 19th century English poet named William Ernest Henley. Just before the start of the World Cup, Nelson Mandela gives the captain the poem to inspire him, just as it did to the president during his prison days. I heard and read about 'Invictus' for the first time thanks largely to the movie. As i was reading the poem, i found its uncanny resemblance to another great poem by one of India's greatest, 'Where the mind is without fear' by Rabindranath Tagore. Before the day ends, I hope to get a double dose of inspiration which we all need, as i read the poems once more all over again.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

Rabindranath Tagore

Mind your Language..Mumbai Ishtyle!!!!

What is the significance of the fourth year? It is after every four years that we wait eagerly for the next presidential election..i mean the US President, anyway does anyone care for who his Indian counterpart is? It is after every four years that we hope that India climbs up the Olympics medal tally or excels in the cricketing field. On the fourth year i look up to the next Maradona to emulate the GOD, but end up disappointed. Why is that we only have four year degree courses and at the end we long for more. The truth behind the 4 year plan may not be known but 2010 brings with it an important year in my life, completion of four years in Amchi Mumbai.


My stay here in the Maximum City has come with its fair share of bitter and sweet memories spent mostly within the confinements of my office space. As i look back, this city has instilled in me a lot of its features most prominent among them being the love for the Cutting Chai and Vada Pau and the very popular Mumbaiya Hindi. This special brand of Hindi can be heard anywhere, from the road side tapris(stalls) to the boardroom meetings.

My education had started from the very first day, when i thought of reaching my office in a red colored B.E.S.T bus, the cheapest mode of transport here. As i boarded the bus, anxiously i kept on enquiring about the stop to get down at from the conductor, to which the irritated public servant soon reverted back saying 'ghari ghari kya puchta hain'. I always knew that ghari was a watch but here was another way of using the word. True to his word, the conductor soon returned to tell me that we are nearing Vikhroli where my office is and its time that i start approaching the front exit door. As i pushed and shoved my way saying 'side dena bhaiyya' ,the fellow passengers gave me a very mean look. I later came to know that in Mumbai we call that particular brand of look as 'Khunnas' and also the reason why i was at the receiving end of the Khunnas was because i had said bhaiyya a title synonymous with the people from the northern states.


This brand of hindi soon became a part of my daily vocabulary be it in office or outside it. Almost anything was soon being referred to as Item, be it the contents of the restaurant menu or a P.Y.T. I started to ask questions like 'Aur Kya Bolta Hain' a multi purpose question which can mean how's ur health? or hows ur luv life? in general anything concerning you. Soon tujhe became tereko and mujhe became mereko. Instead of saying Yes or haan, i started saying barobar. Pagal hain kya? became Alibaug se aya hain kya? Alibaug being the place where the nearest mental institution is located.

One thing I realised very early, and that was When in Rome, do as the Romans do. So a statutory warning for those people who are well versed in shud hindi. If you use words like Asambhav,Nishit,Zaroori..then please take it out of your system before you become the laughing stock, as a certain colleague of mine came to know of it the harder way. I can go on and on with the wide range of words and their usages that i have learned over the last four years, but i guess its much more fun saying it than writing about it. So before i leave here a few words and their utilisation , which can be very helpful for people who are new in the city.

• Dimag ka dahi -- means i am really irritated and please don't bug me anymore
• Waanda -- Minor problem, Watt -- Major problem
• Gochhi, Jhol -- a mistake
• Shaana -- clever, cunning
• Mandivali -- any sort of bargaining
• Tang dia -- you have been ditched
• sumbdi -- quietly
• Shendi lag gaya -- fooled, bakra.
• hakal diya -- kicked out

GOD!!! I can't Stomach this....

Dear GOD,

Hope you are doing good and as always keeping an eye on your subjects. You must be wondering what tragedy has befallen him that finally he had to get back to Me. So "Ajj khush to bohut honge tum" , but let me get things straight I am not here to plead for anything. I am here just to tell you that Yes I believe in YOU.

Yes i do whether u believe it or not. I admire your ideas and your superlative imaginative power. Hats Off to you for creating such wonderful things around but let me tell you if I have to choose one of your creation that stands out, it has to be the MAN. An exemplary work of a sheer genius. How did u you conceive this? Were you in a shower or in your bath tub when it struck you? And the parts that make a Man..wow!!! The brain that differentiates us from the rest of the animals, a unique soul per individual and the senses. This is undoubtedly champion stuff. You gave us Eyes to see all of your other creations. A Nose to smell the aromas that mother nature has to offer, the smell of the wet soil after the first showers. Ears to listen to music of the trees, rivers, the chirping of the birds. A Tongue that fuels our taste buds so that we can relish all the cuisines. But then there is just one but major blemish that could have been done without. What made you come up with the idea of the Stomach?

If there is one root cause to all the evil in this world, its the stomach. An entire life could have been spent happily in search of knowledge, wisdom , joy but due to your this decision the life span of an man is spent in search to stuff himself with this basic necessity. I am sure you didn't foresee this tragedy, but how could you? Can you just imagine how our lives would have been different if we had an empty tummy with no stomach in it?

New born babies, toddlers would always be smiling with no pangs of hunger. A world would have been a different place with no crying babies around. Young children could have spent their entire childhood enjoying their innocence without the necessity for schooling and joining the Rat Race to earn a living. A world where young adults always were merry,enjoying their new found senses and would readily get settled in life as he never needed to worry about feeding another stomach. Adults would always be at peace without any worry for that Roti. But Alas!!! this is not to be.

If all these were not enough, there are other side effects to the evil of the Stomach. First you earn a living to meet the needs of the never ending demands of it and to add to that Mr Stomach can sometime betray you and fall sick. So now you have to spend the rest of your earning to pacify it and make it work normally again so that it can suck your blood once again. Then one cant eat and feed the stomach more than what it needs,else its a cardinal sin, its Gluttony. GOD you must be kidding right when you pronounced that gluttony is a sin. And what about sweating it out to get back into shape after one has over indulged himself.

I can't stomach this anymore and finally i am on my knees and I plead....yes yes you heard it right, i am pleading and asking you for one favor, not for myself but for creatures of the future.

"GOD, if in future you decide to end the lives of your most loved creation, which i am sure you will and plan to make a similar kind of being in some distant land, please don't add this heavy burden for them to carry. You will see how they will appreciate the fact and won't look up to you only when they are in need as we do."

Yours Loving and faithful,

Admirer