I-day memories

I'll pick up from where I left in the previous post.

The program was good. it makes me very nostalgic. It reminds me of all those dances I was a part of in my school life, especially in the Independence and Republic days. I think the best of all was the one I did in 2nd standard-Aye Vatan, aye Vatan. It was my first dance performance of school life and easily the vividest of all others that followed every year since then.

There were some speeches that stirred us with patriotism and some that gave us a lot of time for idle talk :D
The flag was hoisted at 7:00 AM sharp, which meant that we were to be present latest by 6:30 AM. We had to wear our P.T(white) uniforms, and not the regular navy blue and white on that day. Prayer, pledge, a very inspirational thought, news and then the ceremony would begin. Flag-hoisting, rashtra gaan, a few more patriotic songs,house-wise parade, P.T, a few dance performances, speeches, history of freedom struggle, a few deshbhakti poems. And we sat on the dry ground under the scorching sun, playing with the sand and wishing desperately for the torture to get over. We groaned and sighed when the speech we thought was the closing speech turned out to be yet another intermediate speech. And then..the yellow pendaas :)
Such was a typical I-day at school, which I wished to believe then I would never miss. But that wish has not been fulfilled. I miss it.

Had just been watching those special programs on T.V where they take celebs to the border to meet the jawans. In one channel they took Abhishek Bachchan to the Tiger Hill, where the batttle of Kargil was fought and in other they took Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh to meet the NSG commandos. I watched both the shows. Listened to the gut-wrenching tale that journalist Barkha Dutt told about a major who was the first one she ever interviewed and the also first one whose obituary she ever reported. The way some of the families of the martyrs had pulled themselves together, the way some still cried foul at the slightest mention of their names even a decade after they got slain.
Defence people- the personnel as well as their families are a different race altogether. A very very brave race.

In one channel they brought back a lot of messages to the border from the jawans' families and it was indeed an emotional moment. Even their family members seem to be made up of a different fibre. Fibre of sheer grit, valor exuding from every word that they spoke. And even after watching their families after months, even though tears wetted their eyes, when they spoke they were quite stable and firmly repeated that-"lekin desh zyaadaa zaroori hain". And one of them when asked-"Kya aapko yahaan border par apne parivaar ki yaad nahin aati?" answered with a smile-"Mujhe desh ki zyaadaa yaad aati hain".

Then in the other channel they showed some of the drills of the NSG commandos. And I have no words for expressing my awe. I'd read somewhere that the rejection rate in NSG is more than 95%. No wonder the ones who are there are so fit! Then some of them shared a few incidents from the very recent operation Black Tornado. The spirit of friendship that and responsibility that led one major to engulf the bullets that were meant for his subordinate. The way they forgot everything about food and water let alone their personal lives during the operation that went on for two days. I remember a clip where after receiving adulation from the crowds after successfully completing the operation one of the commandos remarked-"This is the real reason why we chose to become a commando".

I have utmost respect for defence people. I know everybody has. Everybody should actually. And the more I learn about their gallantry the more I hero-worship them. It's not just about the physical fitness. It's mostly about the fervor with which they serve the motherland. One would think that patriotic dialouges are delivered just in movies. But the truth is that even the actors in movies cannot emulate this super human passion and commitment. Imagine being away from your family for a major part of your life, putting the nation before your loved ones, living in a sub-zero climate with modest facilities, braving the bullets, doing every possible thing and sometimes even the seemingly impossible ones by jeopardizing your own life so that your countrymen can sleep peacefully. If this is not the epitome of selflessness and bravery then what is?

They had a very good reason to coin the phrase 'Jai Jawan'.

Vijayee vishva tiranga pyaaraa

वीजयी विश्व तिरंगा प्यारा,
झंडा उंचा रहे हमारा.

सदा शक्ति सरसाने वाला,
प्रेम सुधा बरसाने वाला,
वीरो को हरषाने वाला,
मात्रभूमि का तन मन सारा.

वीजयी विश्व तिरंगा प्यारा,
झंडा उंचा रहे हमारा.

इस झंडे के नीचे निर्भय,
रहे स्वाधीन हम अविचल निश्चय,
बोलो भारत-माता की जय!
स्वंतंत्रता हो ध्येय हमारा.

वीजयी विश्व तिरंगा प्यारा
झंडा उंचा रहे हमारा.

आओ प्यारे वीरो आओ,
राष्ट्र ध्वजा पर बलि-बलि जाओ,
एक साथ सब मिलकर गाओ,
प्यारा भारत देश हमारा

वीजयी विश्व तिरंगा प्यारा
झंडा उंचा रहे हमारा.

शान न इसकी जाने पाये,
चाहे जान भले ही जाए,
मानव मातृ मुक्त हो जाए,
तब होवे प्राण पूर्ण हमारा.

वीजयी विश्व तिरंगा प्यारा,
झंडा उंचा रहे हमारा.

(नोट: यह गीत श्री. श्यामलाल गुप्त "पार्षद" द्वारा १९२५ में रचा गया जब कानपूर में भारतीय कांग्रेस अधिवेशन की बैठक हुई थी.)
We used to sing this song in chorus while at school. And today, like every year, the colony people are playing the entire collection of all the most popular patriotoc songs!
All these songs are so evocative!

Chhodo kal ki baatein, Nanhaa-munhaa raahi hoon, Aye vatan, aye vatan, Aye mere vatan ke logo, Mere desh ki dharti, jahaan daal daal par sone ki chidiya kare basera, saare jahaan se achha, vande mataram, yeh desh hain veer-jawaano ka, aao bachcho tumhe dikhaye jhanki hindustaan ki, insaaf ki dagar pe bachcho dikhaao chal ke...I love all of them!
But the best of all is the Rashtra gaan of course :)

Anyway, I'm running short of time. Need to go down to watch the flag-hoisting and the programs that would follow. More on India and Independence on the next post.

Naya khoon hain, nayi umange, ab hain nayi jawaani
Hum Hindustaani, Hum hindustaani,
Hum Hindustaani, Hum hinduataani. :)

Jai Hind!

PS: This incidentally happens to be my golden jubilee post. And what better day or topic to bring it up!

beginning of the close & Hema and Kaushik.

All the while I was getting drenched in the heavy downpour, my umbrella handed out to friends who didn't want to get soaked up,I was half thinking about it-thinking how would I put all this up in the blog.These thoughts however were ephemeral. Why? Because I was too busy jumping around splashing water all over my friends,that's why. :D

This is the first time I'm putting a blog title that in fact is a combination of two titles which were meant to be used for two different posts.The reason I'm acting like the public transport system of india-accommodating more than there's place for- is because I'm hell tired today, there are angry red rashes on my palms as a result of being subjected to incessant rains for about two extremely wet hours. And also because I desperately want to write about both of these and know that if I defer either one, it would remain in the drafts indefinitely just like those two unfinished posts that have been housed in there for more than a month. *yes,this post is going to be a painfully long one-long,even by my standards!*

I begin with the first one- beginning of the close.

Now, I really didn't want to grumble about college on the very first day of the last year. But they don't even seem put an effort to placate me,do they? By the time I was in my fourth semester, our department had got a brand new block.We were happy to move out of our old block. The new block was so beautiful that for one full semster we had cut ourselves out from the rest of the college. No frolicking around in the canteen block, no wandering about the rest of the blocks.We just stayed where we were,the place that made us happy! When I was in my fifth semester, one fine day it was declared that the iit-g'nagar would start functioning from our college till their campus gets fully constucted. We were excited.They arrived.We gave them a very warm welcome. All this plummeted when we were forced to give them our beautiful,airy classrooms with a superb view of the surrounds, compromising with our old block.But that was OK,we thought-the proverbial atithi devo bhava being fixated in our minds. But what happened today has led to pure resentment. They have now added up a fresh batch of students for a new academic year. And because it is a-more mouths than you can feed-situation, they've now taken up our old block as well. And we have been shunned to the block that we used when we were freshers. It sucks! Being in that block sucks! I hated first year. I hate every memory attached to it. And being there is evoking that gloomy past. It doesn't affect others much. I'm told they loved the first year. But I feel asphyxiated there. And the fact that ec dept is closer by doesn't raise my spirits either.

Anyway,sitting in that classroom had its instant effects. Like dumb driven cattle-a la first years-we attended each and every lecture, even the bogus ones.Labs of course are the reason we go to college.It's tough.We've been out of practice for two full sems. Bunk the fruitless lectures,go to labs,spend the worthwhile time in doing your sem projects.It was much more filling and self-satisfying. But today, I sat down in the very first lecture trying to drink the words of a veteran who seemed to regard every moment sans questioning students as a moment wasted. And ironically enough discourages wrong answerings! He says wrong answers get him more irked than no answers at all-the only teacher in my hitherto student life to say so. So, with every passing second I felt more and more stupid. Other lectures and lab followed. A few new names in the time-table had me sighing-"yeah right! that's what we need. Some more fresh out of college when-will-they-grow-up lecturers..huh!"Still I didn't open my mouth to complain until I noticed my time-table, carefully for the first time. Only B2 batch- two saturdays a month :x .What in the name of the holy mother of lord am I supposed to have done?? And then the rains. I know I've been cribbing for a month but then nothing in excess is well received-even by people who asked for them. Getting playful for a while in the showers is one thing and- being stranded twenty kilometres away from your home in mud-spattered,waterlogged roads in the unending rains accompanied with the thuderstorms, no mode of transportation in your visual range, with vision that gets increasingly hazy and shivers that the chill rain water brings as an additional obnoxious gift-is quite the other. I don't know how I managed to reach,but I did.Oh, I hope this darned hair gets dried up soon. Oh,dear god four days till the weekend...sigh.



Hema and Kaushik-

When I was reading Unaccustomed Earth, I saw that the last story had an interestingly simple name-Hema and Kaushik. It fascinated me. But I always read books in a serial fashion-unless I'm cramming for uni exams. Within two days I was done with all except this one. And I didn't want to read this anymore. I'd read enough of Jhumpa Lahiri to guess that like all her stories,this too will have a tragic end. Not exactly tragic-but let's just say that she's a very very practical author and consequently all her characters are also very real and have very practical lives. Whatever be the case, I didn't want this one to have a 'practical' ending. I'm not exactly a sucker for romantic novels. To be honest, mushy talks make me very uncomfortable. I've never read a Mills and Boons or a Love Story, I don't intend to read them either. But due to all those fairy tales I read as a child, all those movies I watched as a teenager, one phrase has gotten cemented in my mindset-the one that I've come to regard as axiomatic- 'and they lived happily ever after.' This should not be violated, says my inner self. This condition must be fulfilled...by life. Which is why I didn't have enough courage to disagree with myself. I thought it would shatter my inner belief.

How wrong I was.

For some stories need not have a happy ending. They need not have an ending at all. That real life is not quixotic, because it comprises of real people, not the ones who're spun out of the imagination of their creators and who live within the dreamy chapters of frayed old books. Perfect endings, I think are just a state of mind. We never exactly let our desires end,do we? What matters in the end is neither the beginning, nor the ending- only that lies within.

These two names in the book also bring out some of my personal memories out of the book.Very different memories-very different indeed. And yet they are of no consequence to me.



Hema, oops! Hema ma'am was our teacher at school. And she probably is one of the most beautiful woman I know. Tall, svelte with most carefully carved features and a skin that shone. Back then I hoped to grow up pretty like her. I wanted to wear my hair long and straight just like her. I wanted to wear all those lithe and lovely sarees that she wore with matching bindis. She was my first class teacher at school and also the first teacher who told me that my handwriting was very small-like little messed up ants crawling.Of course I improved-and all thanks to her my legible, flowing writing still stays even after the deterioration by the generation of ball pens. She chose me as a house captain for her house, and we won in almost every competition. But as I grew out of primary and secondary my association with her decreased great deal. After a while it was only Goodmorning/afternoon ma'am if I ever bumped into her in the corridors. And no contact after I left school. But I've been told that she no longer nurtures her long tresses which she has cut short like a crop. Nevermind her,I'm growing it. I still want it long and straight.



I met Kaushik on orkut almost three years ago. It was one of those initial phases when people used to accept friend requests from anyone just to increase their friend count. I didn't. I was rude in my 'about me' section. I had written something about how jaded I was with all those frandship requests and that I wouldn't humor any,if sent. He didn't send me any.Eventually of course I did,but after a lot many pleasant conversations. As I said those were the early days when people didn't wish to hide their profile visits. I assume he found me having visited his profile. I must say,I was intrigued-to the point of intimidation. I logged in one day to find his scrap. I replied back,and the conversation started streaming. It didn't take me long to notice that I was talking to a very chivalrous man. Someone who was very generous with his compliments, evidently very knowledgeable, exceptionally insightful and wrote an English of the most refined degree. I was not even eighteen then, already a decade younger than him. What I began to think of him..it's very obvious,isn't it? Oh,how conscious I would get! I would take no less than five minutes to reply to his scraps. I weighed my words, rephrased sentences many times, checked for spelling errors/grammatical errors if any. I just didn't want to be imperfect.It was all meaningless though, because he was someone who would never make fun of anybody's mistakes,nor of their ignorance. He gave me a word called floccinaucinihilipilification(I hope I've got the spelling right) and asked me to find out it's meaning. I did, and asked him in return to find the meaning of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-and he did. I think the last time we scrapped was on the day of Saraswati puja, two and half years ago. That was also the first time he typed in Bengali instead of English. Something about theism, atheism. he didn't come online a long time after that. Then about a week before my first university exams, one of his friends scrapped to inform about his demise. It was then I came to know that he was battling blood cancer since long and was in his last stage. I was in as much loss of words then as I am now. Never once could I sense a tinge of sorrow-never. I don't visit his profile. I can't. All those R.I.P scraps flooding his scrapbook even now..scare me. I don't know what else to write...how I wished I'd got to know him more.
Hmm..I think my longest post till now.

I'm lovin' it :)

I've been having soooo much fun since yesterday!! It was after a long long long time I laughed so much that my tummy still hurts :)
I realized two things, things that I knew all along anyway. A.) The spur-of-the-moment meet ups are much better than the pre-planned ones. Nothing in this world can beat spontaneity of actions. And, B.) The reason I keep criticizing the rather repulsive guys back in college is because for twelve long years I've studied and practically grown up with people who can only be described as the height of cool. Now I know, my opinions are obviously going to be biased,but chinky agrees too. She has not studied with us, she is oblivious to the myriad class/school incidents that we reminicse and then laugh our guts out and yet she laughs with us with equal mirth. Not because she's too polite (which btw she is), also not because she'll laugh on absolutely anything but because- they're actually funny, and the ways in which they're narrated are funnier.

The plan yesterday was to meet Debanshu only and that too for a couple of minutes,I didn't know that Hemant and Aniruddh would be accompanying him. Again by a stroke of pure luck Parth happened to be at Vikki as well. As we stood chatting,we didn't know that ten minutes later we'd be speeding down the road zip zap zoom. And there was actually a moment when we thought we were lost,but it turned out that the 'Driver' (:D) was only trying to get us panicky. Which of course we didn't get-we were too busy laughing at Debanshu's regaling medical tales (:P), his digs at the kathiawadi accent( too bad,I think it's sweet!), and not too mention his filthier versions churned outta the devil's mind that he has at my and chinky's rather innocent statements! And just as we were about take a stroll,grab a bite perhaps Shobhit called to inform that Karn was at a'bad. Subsequently we went there and the rapturous hours ticked by. Today again was so much fun. Sanju and Priyanka didi were new additions today.And although today's events were planned, yet they were good. The bowling (in which I miserably lost to Shobhit. The only time I managed to get the ball on target was at the last ball when the guy at the score board took pity at me, grabbed my hand and did it for me :P ), the movie, the lunch, the time spent afterwards chit-chatting, laughing, strolling, laughing.

It amazes me! I remember so much about school even now. And it's not just me, the whole lot of us do. That's all we talk about actually. Just a few regular updates- how's college life?( urrghh..eeeuu..blah blah..urghh) , got lucky or not? ( hey,single and happiest!), a few more boring questions here and there and then- back to school! :) And it isn't as if we talk about a certain bunch of incidents all the time. Every time something different and progressively hilarious comes up. School talks are blissfully inexhaustible. :)

It also amazes me that the things that used to be so ordinary back in those days have now somehow become extraordinary. It's not like I don't have fun in college or I'm subjected to pangs of gloominess. No,none of it. Infact I have met some of the most wonderful people there, who continually keep me in high spirits. It's a different brand of amusement, but that too is good.
Sometimes however, I miss my old life a lot. But the good news is that no matter howsoever far our lives drift apart, no matter if we meet after one day or one year, when we get together we become what we used to be in school- playful, mischievous and extremely talkative school kids :)

It struck me last night that our class reunion last year was also on 8th july!

PS: As I was thinking of a suitable title for this post, this was the first thing that sprang up in my mind ( McD calling? :D) and I'm going to keep it as a respect to spontaneity!

PPS: I'm lovin' it is wrong english. Love as a verb never takes -ing form, also I'm no fan of american english( hypocritically enough I use a lot of it!) but ki fark painda hain :D

those were the days

Today was great.I was very flustered at the beginning of the day due to...some reason.But I feel sooo gooooood now :).I talked to Uttara for almost an hour this evening and to Debanshu for another hour just now.Two hours of school talks,which implies two hours full of undiluted laughter!! :) I am in such a jovial mood now..tra la la la :):):)
God! every time I talk to school people,I can't wipe that grin off my face for at least a day :)Debanshu was a classmate for twelve years.Most of us in the class had sticked around since first class.We've all actually grown up together,so it goes without saying what an amazing comfort zone all of us have.We still chatter like school kids at our reunions..about how Nair mam fell off her chair (:D),how Vishakha's dad came to school to register a complaint against Jagdale mam,how apurva had asked ruba if she was a boy or a girl(wtf! :D),about that infamous Verma mam's incident in 9th,about how everybody was paired up and subsequently how Mita mam said-"your class, it seems is very romantic"(:P),how our stupid the music classes used to be,how we used to sulk at the prospect of mass pt,how Gautam sir used to crack his poor jokes and the boys pretended to laugh their guts off,how we used to be sorted in four houses,how we used to practice like mad for those cca activities..ok i gotta stop.If I keep typing about my class,I'll probably take up all the cyber space! I loved my class,class people.I know everybody does, but then I'm sorry to declare that no class could have possibly been as amazing as ours was.We were the best class in this whole wide world :).I am so thankful to god that I was destined to meet these people.Such vivid memories! School life rocked big time-I get so elated reminiscing those moments that I don't even feel bad that college life sucks by the same magnitude.But I am not going to talk about college or college people when I'm in such a good mood. Uttara was not a classmate.She was a senior at school.But because we lived in the same colony and also because we used to share an amazing rapport with our seniors I address her and all of her class people with the hindi pronoun tu ( which my friends would say is a very big deal-coming from me, as I am an extremely pro-formal person).Nobody...nobody can crack PJs like Uttara does god..oh..god :D. Me,Uttara and Palla had actually contemplated to lanch a PJ magazine back in those days.It was so much fun,sharing silly jokes,making up sillier jokes.I remember those b'day parties where she was asked to entertain people with her jokes and I was invariably asked to mimic all the teachers..and I used to graciously oblige :P. The way I,uttara and chinky used to go for our regular rounds of walk,the way we used to share the minutest of details(we still do-only now on phone),the way all three of us had a crush on the same guy(yes yes I finally admit,I did like him for some goddamn reason :D),the way we had come up with code names(hahahahaha!!)-It was all so tremendously magical. Where are those days gone? Lost perhaps..in the bend of life.Growing up is painful.Teenage was beautiful.School days were...the english vocabulary is failing me.Let's just say,it would be my dying wish to relive those days again..:)

ps: Two posts in a single day.man,I'm addicted to blogging! :D