My little heart’s first day at school

My little heart has turned 18 months on my birthday. And we have decided to enroll her for daycare with the hope that she gets to spend time with other kids and learns to eat and sleep by herself, to the least. And also her mom gets a chance to go back to work. After a lot of search and research we have finally enrolled her to a nearby Montessori for half day, means she would go by 8:30 am and by 12:15 we would pick her up.

She would start from coming Monday and we were making ourselves prepared for that day. That Sunday was one of the most unpleasant Sunday ever. Everything was gloomy and there was a subtle guilt constantly pestering finding no words to express. The more it pestered me the more I was at her disposal. The night went past anxious, giving me no sleep and when I woke up from bed it was time for us to make her ready and leave for school.

The little sweetheart of mine all dressed up, excitedly pointed towards her shoes and said, “shooze” indicating that she is ready to wear her shoes and step out. Stepping out of home is always fun for her, she always waits for that opportunity.

We left our house and entered the school right at 9:00 am. When we entered her class it was time for them to go to the ground for playing. Kissing her cheeks I put her down from my lap. The little girl of mine held her milk sippy cup in one tiny hand and water sippy cup in another and walked towards the teacher. The teacher welcomed her and asked her to join other kids and walk towards the ground just outside the door.

Seeing her innocently walk towards the new life touched my heart. The way she was holding her sippy cups in both her little hands and walking away from us choked me completely. The little innocent soul has just stepped into the real life, a life that is not always going to be fun and sweet, unlike the last 18 months. Life will just become a routine and race here onwards.

Dear life, please be easy on my little heart. Give her abundance of happiness, give her plethora of love, give her good health and make her a wonderful, compassionate, kind, generous, loving and caring human being.

Rakhi? But I never thought of you that way!

On the day of Raksha Bandhan no guy should be allowed to go out of their home. You want to celebrate it? Sit at home and celebrate but trust me you should not step out of your home. It is a big threat to friendship. I never had this feeling until second year of my college.

Let me go a bit into the past to give a better context.

There was this girl in my college in her final year, her name was “Kyun Batau”(lets assume) and I was in second year. We were good friends. After college we would go to the nearby food stall to grab some fast food, soft drinks/tea and would keep talking for ever. On weekends we would meet for lunch or at times shopping. There was something I used to like about her. Her simplicity? Her innocence? Not sure what was it but those moments we spent together used to be merry. And like most of the guys(if I may say) I assumed.

Back to the story-
It was Raksha Bandhan that day. I was in class. A friend of mine came late, sat next to me and said “I met your Kyun Batau outside our class and she has asked me to pass you the message to meet her after the class. I think she had a rakhi in her  hand. Good luck man.”
For a moment I felt deaf, I felt numb. I was just blank not able to relate things. Why would she try to meet me with a rakhi in her hand! I have never seen her that way, like a sister! I thought. I was thankful to my friend to have given me advance notice of the situation.

The lecture got over and I really had to attend nature’s call, so urgent it was. But the very thought of Kyun Batau waiting for me outside the class made me so nervous that I preferred to test the elasticity of my bladder over facing her. She became a horror story for that moment. So I decided not to step out of the class and continued with the next lecture. In that  lecture I learnt some precious lessons of my life.
– On the day of Raksha Bandhan you should drink less water
– On Raksha Bandhan you should always bunk college
– Few things should always be clear between “friends”
– The simplicity, the innocence are misleading traits to notice in friends

The list is endless but then comes the time when the lecture gets over. Now there is no escape from this moment I thought, but escape seemed the only option than facing some reality. I have to win a gold medal in the 500 meters sprint today, which involves a straight porch and some 150 stairs and then some more straight path to reach the gate of the college. No one can actually stop me today unless I take a loo break which was more than a necessity at that point but not feasible considering the circumstances and priorities.
I along with the whole gang of classmates walk towards the door, my eyes wide open looking for her, like how in a movie the hero looks for his heroine. The only difference was, I was looking for her so that I can hide myself from being spotted and win the gold medal in my upcoming sprint. There she is, standing at the corner. I could see her and in my head goes “On your mark, Get Set, Go”. I start running through the crowd, the porch – done, the stairs – done, the straight path to gate – done and phew, I was out of college gate.  Gold medal? Yes! And also some curses and gibes from the crowd who got pushed.

Next day I went to college, in no mood to face the reality. I just wanted to avoid any contact with my friend I mean friends. Absolutely no one. But few things are just inevitable. Kyun Batau got hold of me in break. My enthusiasm toward friendship faded.
She asked, “So, why did you not meet me yesterday?”
“I was not well yesterday, so bunked college”, I replied.
“I saw you running in the crowd, I even called you twice!”, she exclaimed.
Little did I know that her telescopic eyes could spot me even in the crowd.
“I mean I was not feeling well in the second lecture, So I bunked the remaining day”, I manipulated.
“Whatever! I actually wanted to tie rakhi so was looking for you.”, she said with a smile on her face. Her smile did not appear innocent to me any more, or it still was.
“Well next year may be”, I knew next year before rakhi she would complete her college and hardly there is any chance of meeting, unless of-course she wants to make me her brother so badly. But I wanted to clear some thing between our friendship.
“I have never seen you that way”, I confessed and fled from the forcible brotherhood.

Prayers without loopholes…

I am a very logical person by nature, at least that’s what I think of myself. Everything goes by logic in my life. And for every action of my life I always try to have an answer ready so that if I am being questioned tomorrow for it, I have a proper logical explanation. Eh? Weird? May be!

It was during my college. Semester exams were nearing and I did my part of job of studying to top the college, well university actually, as I have always been targeting and always consistently ended up just clearing all subjects with a bare 60% marks. Anyways, so there is another party involved in this case, God himself. I would make prayers to him with my target and He would bless me to fulfill them. And He remains liable in both the cases.

It was second year second semester exam. On the day of first exam, I went to temple to take His blessings so that I hit the target right on. I kneel down in-front of him and here starts the prayer of my logical mind.

“God, bless me to get 60%.”
My logical mind thought immediately, that was not a statement God might understand! There is no clarity at all in the statement. If I don’t get 60% today, I might come back and question God for why he abandoned my prayer and didn’t help me to get 60% in that paper irrespective of me offering my prayer! And then Narad Muni might interrupt and say “Narayan Narayan! When did you specify that in your prayer? Huh? You never mentioned you wanted 60% in your paper! You just said 60%! It could be anything like 60% sleep or 60% savings of your pocket money or 60% discount on Pantaloons on Men’s trousers!”

Only Narad Muni could think like that!

“But today is my exam, it starts in 30 minutes and that’s the only thing on my mind right now and He knows it very well, why do I need to mention the specifics?“, I argue with Narad ji.

“Narayan Narayan! What makes you think He knows everything about you and your thoughts? He has his own life dude! He watched Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham yesterday and He is still in a shock of why He watched it!“, replied Narad ji.

“I know, right? How stupid Karan Johar could be to make such a movie! No but that’s not the point. The point is…phew! You are truly a Narad Muni.“, I lashed out!

So I rephrase my prayer, “God, bless me to get 60% in today’s paper“.
Again interrupted Narad ji. “Today’s paper? Narayan Narayan! Newspaper? or what? Life is a paper too. Every moment you are being tested dude. Where do you need 60%? Be clear, be precise!”

I give him a death glare and rephrase my prayer, “God bless me to get 60% in today’s paper, Digital Electronics.”

“Happy now?“, I taunted nerdy Narad.

“What is today? Narayan Narayan! If He sees your prayer tomorrow it will still be today for Him. Duh!” Replied nerdy Narad.

“You are unbelievable dude! The world has so much of problems just because of you, know that?“, I vented out in rage.

Narad ji irked. “Dude! mind your language!”

But I had no courage to take any risk with my paper so I continued paraphrasing my prayer, putting every detail that I could to make it concise, “God bless me to get 60% marks in my second year, second semester paper, Digital Electronics, which is today, 16th of May 2001, Wednesday, at 2:00 pm IST.”

I had 10 minutes in hand to complete my prayer before I enter exam hall. I looked at Narad Muni awaiting next loophole to be pointed in my prayer, but seemed he was satisfied with the complete statement I made and found no loophole. Or he just excused me for I was running out of time.

And since then, I got this weird habit of making my prayers crystal clear before putting them across to God so that Narad Muni doesn’t get a chance to find a loophole in them and God doesn’t really get a chance to abandon my prayers. Yes many a times I rephrase the statement in my prayers n number of times ensuring that all the conditions, logic, variations are met and they are precise and concise. Weird? May be!

My mind’s conspiracy!

Client calls aren’t always that easy. Especially when the project has severe issues and you need to report that as a risk to the client when you are mid way through with the delivery. Happens all the time though. This was one of such cases where I needed to report some issues to the client and I knew he is not going to take that lightly. I knew at the end of the call I would be real frustrated. So I was little nervous about the whole episode that was going to follow.

I joined the webex meeting online and saw my manager’s manager Sunil(named changed off-course) was there and it was only him who had joined till that point of time. I was thinking how to introduce myself. Should I say, “Hi Sunil, this is Suv” or “Hi, this is Suv” or “Hi, Suv here”.

While I was trying to figure out how to introduce myself, my mind in the meantime have actually decided it and made myself say it already.
What I have ended up saying is “Hi Suv this is Sunil”. Yes that’s what I just said on the call.

Sunil, hearing this chuckled and said “Suv I am here on the call”.

I didn’t know what to say, was not able to find words. To make things lighter and not make myself sound stupid I replied, “Sunil I was checking if you are awake”.

A keyboard without a ‘P’.

It was my first computer class that day. I was in first year of my college. Yes I never saw a computer in my life before that. So there was little excitement inside me because I heard a lot about this box which can compete with human in many ways and tasks. We entered the lab, there were computers in each desk, one for each student. I got mine. Took a long look at it.

Ma’am asked us to write the program that she taught us in lecture. It was a program for the computer to say “Hello World“.

I manage to go to the screen where we were supposed to type in the program. Took help from few fellow programmers and some struggles by myself. Now I am all set to type. I try to find each letter in the keyboard in a duration of a minute or so and press it and check in screen if I got it right. It works! I am all amused with the way my first computer interaction is going. I keep typing using my right hand one letter at a time.

And then comes the bummer! I can’t find the letter ‘P’ in the keyboard. I checked all the keys in all the rows but no where to be found. My mind started making all sorts of conclusions in the meantime, the person who invented keyboard should not have kept the alphabets random, keeping them in order would have made programmer’s life much easier, programmers would not find it hard to find the letter ‘P’, I should probably go ahead without ‘P’ and just type “rintf” instead of “printf” and so on and so forth. After a long scrutiny of the whole keyboard I came to the conclusion that there is no ‘P’ in it and it is a faulty keyboard. I have even concluded that my college buys all cheap stuffs and thus these defective pieces. So I went to ma’am to report about the defective keyboard which does not have the letter ‘P’.

Me: Ma’am, I have a problem with the keyboard.

Ma’am: (still looking at her monitor) what problem?

Me: Ma’am my keyboard is a defective one, it does not have letter ‘P’ in it(I have this habit of concluding things, so the conclusion was communicated)

Ma’am now looked at me, she looked little puzzled but giggled. I wasn’t sure of her reason to giggle. She must have been reading some jokes on her monitor, but that’s not correct I thought. This is not ethical on her part to read jokes while she is taking a class. And moreover when her student discovered an issue with the infrastructure in her lab she should take that seriously rather than giggling on a joke she just read!

Ma’am: why don’t you go back to your desk and check again if you find it.

(I could see her trying to hide her face to have a big laugh.)

Is she kidding! She thinks the key is playing hide and seek with me! Or does she know some kind of magic and she has placed the letter back in my keyboard! I felt so frustrated, not because I didn’t get a solution but because she was not helping me and was busy with her joke. 

So I go back to my desk, all furious looking at the keyboard and trying to make some more conclusions on keyboard manufacturing, recruitment of lecturers, problems with discounted gadgets, college ethics, and….and….Eureka! Eureka! There it is! There it is! The ‘P’…The ‘P’! I found ‘P’! Sounded like I met my brother that I lost in Kumbh mela. I took a deep breath and the conclusions that I was  making, all started taking a U-turn! The keyboard manufacturing still a valid conclusion, why so random! The college ethics is still a valid conclusion, why would a lecturer read jokes and giggle while she is talking to her student! And then all of a sudden comes a realization out of no where just to make me feel how embarrassing everything was. Now I could really connect all the dots and see what was so funny in the whole episode. I could not look anywhere other than ‘P’ for the rest of the period.

While leaving the lab at the end of the session ma’am asked me if I found the letter. I was so embarrassed to even reply to her.

My First ‘First Date’

I was in second year of college. Those days we used to spend substantial amount of time in cyber cafes chatting, mailing, surfing. There was this instant chat messenger that we used to use a lot. You didn’t have to create an account to login to it. You just needed a user name and password to use it. So easy it was.

It was Saturday. After the college was over, my friend Arjun and I went to cyber cafe and we both got busy in our chatting world. No, not chatting to each other, chatting to strangers around the world. That’s fun at times, isn’t it?

All of a sudden I get a ping from a stranger, “Neha19”. The user name sounded Indian, 19 probably is her age. Just perfect! What a Saturday!

Neha19: Hi

Suv: Hi. ASL?

(ASL = Age, Sex, Location. Explanation for those readers who never used it in chatting)

Neha19: 19, F, Pune. Urs?

(I just looked up and gave Him a Hi5.)

Suv: 20, M, Pune

Neha19: ok

Suv: What do you do?

Neha19: I am in SY BE.

(Means second year BE – for readers)

Suv: me too. Which branch?

Neha19: ENTC

(Electronics and Telecom– for readers)

Suv: you gotta be kidding me! Me too in ENTC! What a coincidence! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Such strangers are made in heaven especially for you, I am telling you. Why else would so much of coincidence happen! Anyways! The conversation went pretty well and we decided to meet on Sunday morning at the Archies Gallery next to our college at sharp 11:00 am. Wow! What a Saturday! I am gonna date someone for the first time. My first date! All excited I logged out and came out of the cafe.

Arjun asked me, “any luck on chatting?”

I was like “any luckkkk? Dude! I am going on my first date tomorrow! Her name is Neha and we are meeting at the Archies Gallery tomorrow at 11”.

Arjun was very happy with my current status, ‘Would-be-dating-tomorrow’.

I was too excited about my first date. There were too many thoughts coming in my mind and overshadowing it.

How does she look? What would we talk? How would she find me? What should I wear? I need to shave tonight. Thankfully I got a haircut last week, so no time would be spent on that now. From Archies where should we go? Movie or lunch? If I like her when should I propose? How should I tell my parents about her? Will they accept her? If not then should we elope? I think I have a set of ironed clothes. But the Tee shirt is maroon. Will it be too jazzy for first date? Lot of people elope these days and later on parents do accept them. No big deal. But I know my parents will never go against me when it comes to choosing my life partner. I can wear the white shirt too, that will look good with the denim. What about her parents? Won’t they have problem with the fact that I am a Bong? Maroon is definitely not that jazzy.

The more I was trying to clear up my mind, the more I was getting into thoughts. After all it’s my first date! I am sure Romeo also had gone through the same when he was going to date Juliet after their first chat on instant chat messenger. What? There were no chats in their love story? Oh I see!

So the night was spent being restless, Arjun and others pulling my leg, discussions around what to wear, dos and don’ts etc. etc and etc.

Next day morning woke up with a grin on my face. The D day has come finally. It felt like my lips were pulled towards my ears constantly by some force. By 10:00 am I got ready for the event that was going to change my life. Yes the maroon tee shirt. Arjun got his imported cologne and sprayed some. He was so adamant to come with me and see the dating couple from the ICICI ATM placed opposite to the Archies Gallery. I could not stop him although I was little uncomfortable. So 10:45 am we were at the ICICI ATM waiting for the second hand of the watch to tick for another 15 minutes. That was the moment when I discovered that the second hand of the watch moves slower than the hour hand. We all had been living with the wrong fact all these days! After nearly 2 hours the watch was still showing 5 minutes to 11:00am. So I thought to leave my discovery aside, cross the road and make history by entering the Archies Gallery. My face by that time all oily being a species belonging to oily skinned ones. In that hot weather I could easily fry a piece of fish by just putting it on my face. Never mind! A dab on my face with the hanky(which was tampered with some face powder, very convenient to use in such situations where you do not want to fry a fish in the middle of crowd) and my fresh look was back. All set to enter the arena to write history for myself.

I entered the Archies gallery, the chimes at the door sounded so soothing. And equally un-soothing was the loud ‘lub-dub’ sound my heart was making, obviously I was nervous. The lady at the counter gave me a warm smile. Instead of greeting her back my eyes got busy looking for some beautiful girl who might be just waiting for her prince charming. A glance through the whole store but none to stick my looks onto. My mind consoled myself saying she is yet to reach. So I made myself comfortable, walked till the greeting card section and got myself busy there. That is the best place in an Archies Gallery to kill time and wait for your date. So I started browsing through the cards available there. I discovered that you get cards even to convey your condolences on someone’s death!

For every girl entering the store I used to judge if she is the date I was waiting for. If there is any girl who has this “who-is-the-guy” looks on her face. But till that point to my dismay I didn’t find any girl with that look. Everybody entered the store and made themselves busy looking for the stuffs they wanted to buy. And I was off course neither there to be sold nor on anyone’s list. The lady at the counter started giving me some “who-is-this-guy” looks which was making me uncomfortable. Little did she know that there is something called “Dating” where the prince in a maroon tee shirt finds his princess in a Archies store and they live happily ever after.

I read cards right from congratulating mothers for their newly born kids to congratulating grandparents for golden jubilee celebration of their wedding. By now I made another discovery that the hour hand moves faster than the second hand of the watch. Now the question is how do the hour hand and second hand decide the moment when one should run faster than the other? We will resolve that later.

The watch read 12:30 but my date wasn’t there yet making me wait for her for endless moments. I was getting restless and disappointed but I was sure she would just make it and apologize to me for I was stood up for so long. By now I had moved to the gifts section where there were teddy bears, soft toys in the form of heart, animals, frames, coffee mugs and everything else which a dating store, err, Archies store could possibly posses.  I was done inspecting all the items in the store and yes they were all in good condition.

My date still didn’t make her presence felt. After a long hiatus I thought to give up and go back to my room withdrawing myself from the date thing. How can someone be two hours late!  If someone doesn’t know the value of time how can she help in resolving the hour hand and second hand puzzle that I ran into some time ago! Good that she didn’t turn up as this would refrain myself from going against my parents and elope with a stranger. Good that she didn’t turn up, I get another chance of having a first date. So with a heavy heart I came out of the store, took out my hanky, dusted the powder from it and wiped my face(this time it was not dabbing).

I went to my room, all embarrassed and humiliated. I was all set with my story to abstain myself any more humiliation. Arjun and other friends eagerly waiting for me and were all laughing out loud the moment they saw me. I started thinking why are these guys guffawing even before I opened my mouth? I didn’t get any chance to narrate my version of the story. By the time I came back my date became a hit story amongst my friends.

By the way, when there are too many coincidences, not necessarily they are made in heaven. They could be made by people around you to play prank on you.

The story was hit, the prank was hit. And I was all prepared for a real first date.

Diplomatic confession

In our childhood this was instilled in our mind that as cow is holy for Hindus we should never eat beef. So this inhibition was always there when ever it came to trying beef. At different occasions I wanted to taste it but my inhibition never allowed me to do it.

During my college days once my roommate ordered some beef delicacy and it was looking really scrumptious and savoury. I was in a dual mind, each one showing me the pros and cons of why should or shouldn’t I go for it. After a little fight within myself, one mind was defeated by the other and I could manage to overcome my inhibition thereby indulging myself in having a bite of it. The taste was not that great probably because it was blended with a tinge of guilt arising from inside triggered by the defeated mind. So I thought to confess this to my mom. I called her up the next morning and our conversation went like this.

I: Hi mom, how r u?

Mom: I am good.

I: Did you sleep well yesterday?

Mom: Yes beta.

I: You have headache this morning? (Just to ensure the time is right for the confession.)

Mom: No beta. Why u asking all these?

I: Nothing really. You had been complaining these days of not getting proper sleep, so asked. Is everything alright at your end mom?

Mom: Yes!!!!!

I: Mom I am so happy today…my exams are over and I think I did well.

Mom: Good beta. God bless you. You did work hard for it. And I also prayed a lot for you.

I: Mom I ate beef.

Mom: What!!!! What did you say? You know I don’t like these kinds of jokes!

I: Mom, I think I will get first class.

Mom: I am sure you will get. Your hard work and my prayers will bring colors for sure.

And we ended the discussion never to rake it up again.

My job was done by confessing it to her candidly. But she refused to face it and believe it. I also did not want to make the revelation sterner to her by adding more details and discussions around it.

My inhibition was gone, confession was done and my guilt was washed away.

A doctored plan…

My dad always wanted me to be a doctor and I always wanted to be an engineer. He wanted it so badly that even after 10 years of my profession as an engineer he still thinks how bad idea it was for me to choose engineering as my vocation.

Well the decision making was not so easy for me. Although I knew it from the very beginning that I will never study medicine but sustaining the pressure from my dad and finding a way of convincing him was very difficult. But to my fortune the sequence of events turned to my favour.

So it all happened like this.

I ranked average in the entrance exam that happens after 12^th standard, both in medical and engineering. My medical rank was much ahead of engineering.

Dad and I attended the seat allocation for medical studies. The allocation was going on smoothly and I kept on praying to get the seats over before my number comes. I didn’t want to create a scene when they call my number. I was thinking of all possibilities of how I can avoid this because I knew I cannot mug up the names of 206 human bones. Come on! 206 names! This is crazy! And then playing with a dead body! As a child every time I saw a dead body I could not sleep for 2 nights! I could not eat for 1 complete week after I did dissection of a rat in biology lab!

So by the end of the day, all seats except the last seat were allocated. And all numbers until my number were called. And the session ended for that day. That meant the last seat was left for me. Next day the first name called would be mine. Sigh!

So dad and I went back home. Later that evening dad got a call saying some higher authority visiting his school the next day for audit and he had to be there in school at any cost. Yippee! Did He just answer my prayers? Did I just get a tinge of hope of escape?  I guess it was a ray of hope!

So the next morning dad asked me to go and take the seat by myself. I, like the most obedient boy said, “sure dad”.

I badly wanted to watch the movie “Sabse Bada Khiladi” especially for Mamta Kulkarni’s sleazy song “maang meri bharo…”

So I called few friends of mine, went to watch “Sabse Bada Khiladi”, roamed around after the movie, had a gala time and came back in the evening with a sad face. I entered home with a gloomy look pretending something bad happened.

My dad was sitting in his chair. He saw me entering and our conversation went like this:

Dad: What happened today?

Me: I didn’t get the seat.

Dad: Oh really!

Me: Yes dad.

Dad: And why was that?

Me: You know there is so much of politics in the education system these days. They must have sold the seat to someone else.

I could not look into his eyes, but I could sense his reactions were not going as per my plans. Something went wrong somewhere. An unknown fear encircling me. I was still trying my best to be the smart kid taking his dad for a round.

Dad: And why were you not there?

Me: what do you mean I was not there? I was there in the….

Dad: Because I was there waiting for you, you had all the documents, they won’t listen to me without the documents you moron, you lunatic dumb!

Me: But dad, they didn’t call my name….I was…

Dad: You donkey! You think I am a fool to run to school early, handover the important task to someone by risking my job and run to the seat allocation to find out that the idiot for whom I was doing all these things did not even bother to be present there! And then you want me to listen to your bullshit story! $$#@%#^&@^@%%#

I had no other story to make up. In such situations how much ever intelligent you are, you cannot dare to make another story because you have the fear of opposite party using their limbs on your body to create some unusual sounds. And believe me those sounds if made do hurt badly.

This discussion was followed by some high decibel verbal discussion which would have been banned by police if it happened after 10:00 pm because of noise pollution. And by the way that discussion was not at all interactive. You could just hear and not make any interruptions. No queries or no raising hands. I was all my ears, patiently hearing the noises, happy that no bodily interactions happened, no sounds causing pains to me. And moreover I was all excited about going to bed with Mamta Kulkarni fantasies….”bharo…maang meri bharo….”

Finally the session got over…only for that night. The session followed for next few weeks pretty frequently. Then over a period of time it stopped but the grudge prevails till date, at times subtle, at times intense.

I doctored the plan of becoming a doctor and see how happy and healthy you all are today. 🙂

Regret found and lost…

I got down from my office bus at my stop. I walked towards the restaurant from where I used to get my dinner parceled. I saw an old lady, sitting at the gate of the restaurant, with lots of trash bags around her(probably her belongings which looked like trashes), her white hairs all shabby and scattered, her dirty sari all torn, she was talking to herself. The moment I saw her, my selfish inhuman being started thinking of how she will beg for money and I will have to just walk past her ignoring her plead and enter the restaurant. I started looking at all other directions but her just to avoid any eye contact, to avoid the plead and to avoid a penny getting out of my wallet. It’s not that I don’t give aids to people asking for it at traffic signals or at stations or at temples. It’s just that I had always been hesitant about it. What if the person doesn’t accept my aid? Is it sufficient amount to pay in aid? So, although I was avoiding any eye contact with her, my attention was somehow totally hooked to her. And then I walked towards the entrance, entered the gate, my ears all active to hear someone pleading for aid.

A voice came by that broke my attention. “Hello Sir, how can I help you”. That was the waiter at the restaurant. I was still not able to believe that the old lady sitting at the gate was not in need of any kind of aid! Or she was so lost in her world that she didn’t bother to have any needs!

I got my food packed and went home.

Next day I got down from my bus, and again saw the same lady sitting and talking to herself. This time I wasn’t scared of an eye contact. I knew she won’t ask for any aid. I watched her from distance for a while. She was totally lost in her world, talking, smiling, counting something in her fingers, looking for something in her trash bags and again smiling.

I thought to offer her a ten rupee note in aid. But my confused mind started debating. What if she doesn’t accept it! What if she doesn’t even bother to look at my aid! What will she get in just ten rupees! How about buying her some food? But again same questions, what if she doesn’t need it? So while I was finding answers to all my questions, I already got my food parceled and went home. Still had no answer in my mind.

Next few weeks were the same. I was still finding a solution to my queries. Everyday my so called “generous” heart would think of helping her with some aid, but my hesitation never allowed me to do it.

That night I got down from my bus and started walking towards the restaurant. But something seemed different that night; something was missing from the usual plot. My eyes were looking for some familiar face but were not able to locate it. The old lady was missing! That old lady whom I saw every night since last few weeks, whom I was supposed to give some aid, was missing! That old lady with whom my mind connected in last few weeks, was missing! A sudden feeling of sadness encircled me. An unknown regret of not being able to accomplish something cladded me from top to bottom.  I started blaming my hesitant mind for keeping me refrained from an unknown happiness that could have occurred. If it was not the hesitant mind of mine, I could have helped a destitute with a meal to the least!

The rest of the night was routine except for the regret that just got added and was pricking me every now and then. The whole night I was so restless thinking, what could have happened to the lady? Had she left for heavenly abode adding a regret in my life for not being humane? Had she changed her location because people at this location are not compassionate and are hesitant? Had she been taking a test to check if benevolent human beings still exist in this world?

Whatever it is, I failed to prove myself as good human being. I always wanted to help her in some way, but could never come out of my hesitation to meet it. My regret made me look inferior to my own self. With a guilty heart and a huge regret I went to bed, struggling to sleep.

The next day in the bus I was eagerly waiting for my stop to come. Probably I could get a chance to get rid of my regret. But, to my dismay I wasn’t given another chance.

Next few days I kept on looking for her but she was gone for never to be seen again! A regret she has given me which I can never do away with.

One night I got down from my bus, bought few apples and bananas for myself. Then I was heading towards my regular restaurant to get my dinner. Suddenly I saw something which made me so happy that I felt on top of the world for a moment! A smile of satisfaction drew a long curve on my face. The old lady is alive and she is back! She gave me a chance to get rid of the regret that was a burden on me for a while! She was as usual busy talking to herself ignoring the passers-by. For some reason I knew that she won’t ignore me today or probably I will make her not ignore me today.

I went inside the restaurant, ordered my regular stuffs and added a biriyani. I came out and handed over the apples, bananas and the biriyani to the old lady. She did not hesitate to accept them. She gave me a smile that was purely priceless. A smile that I still remember even after 5 years of the incident.

An unknown satisfaction engulfed me. An unknown happiness occurred to me. The regret that I carried for a while was buried somewhere at that very moment. The regret of not being a compassionate, benevolent human being was lost.

An unknown connection brought me a regret in my life. The same connection helped me get rid of it.

DDLJ – A movie close to my heart!

Statutory warning: The author might digress from the story every now and then to give you better visibility of the context and you might need to use GO TO and RETURN statements quite frequently. 🙂

I studied in a residential school from 6^th to 12^th standard. And in our school we were not allowed to step out of the campus without permission of teachers who were appointed as house masters for respective houses.

Me and my best friend Arup, were big time fans of the then Bollywood heartthrob Kajol. We used to collect posters and pictures of her, gift each other those pictures, have cut-outs from magazines and what not. We both simply used to admire her for her looks, acting, stardom and she clearly used to stand out from the rest of Bollywood heroines, especially for both of us.

It was 1995, the all time favorite movie of Bollywood, DDLJ – Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge released. The songs were heard so many times in infinite loops and appreciated so much that the movie was a MUST WATCH. And finally it released by breaking free all the waits. It was Sunday. Arup came to me and asked, “let’s go to the town and watch DDLJ.” I felt like he spoke my own words. We both went to our respective house masters and took permission to go to the town to do some stationery shopping which was a must as exam was nearing and we were running short of stationery items. Got permission in a jiffy.  House masters never doubted our intentions as we were the most sincere students in the class.

Now the planning part. We decided to catch the matinee show(3:00 pm). Our school was located at a very remote place. So if we use public transport we will traverse around 10 kms to reach the town which involved a lot of walking, wait for public transport and no flexibility. But taking a shortcut would help us reach in 45-50 minutes. And the medium was – bicycle. We used to get bicycle on rent there. Another problem, the bicycles available were the ones having 24 inch wheels, which I was comfortable riding only with myself on it. Double seat was a dare-not thing for me. But Arup was an expert. So no issues. He would carry me to and fro. Planning done.

We left from school after our lunch by around 2:00 pm ish. Hired bicycle. Me on front and Arup riding. We were extremely happy out of school campus, going to watch our Kajol on big screen, the heart already beating fast with excitement.

And halfway though our merry journey, comes rain. We were adamant not to allow the rain to stop us from watching our heartthrob on big screen mesmerizing us with her smile. In fact we were determined to fight any odds coming our way that moment. Even Yamraj himself would have failed to stop us from achieving our goal. We kept on moving ahead. But then we thought why not take a small break and cheat the rain for a while since we had ample amount of time in hand. So we stopped by a shop, where we had lots of others accompanying us. They probably were taking shelter to save themselves from rain, but we? We were trying to cheat the rain. Our plan was to let him rain for some more time and then when he is tired of trying to sabotage our plan, we will hit the road again. We were smart. 🙂

But the rain was equally competitive and determined. He won’t surrender. Neither would we. So after a wait of a long while we decided to move ahead because we did not want to miss the beginning of the movie. I never like missing the beginning of movies, right from where they show the certificate and all. 🙂

So we started again, this time the pouring was very voluminous and so was our determination. We should not miss the beginning, praying started, all the Hindu Gods already got intimation in the form of prayer to help us not miss the beginning of the movie. And we reached the theatre at 3:15 pm. Got into the queue, got tickets. Hurray! But due to heavy downpour the show was postponed by 30 mins. See Gods do really listen to your prayers when they are real and come from inside your heart.

The show started at around 4:00 pm. Both the heavily drenched friends oblivious of our states, ogling at the screen, not to miss a single scene. Here ends the long wait to see her finally. A breeze comes and takes her hair away from her face and she smiles. Wow! My heart just skipped a beat. Then comes the song “mere khwabon mein joh aaye” where Kajol gets drenched in rain, my mouth was so widely open that a full motichur ka laddu would have easily gone inside. It was an awesome movie. Awesome story, awesome songs, awesome Kajol, awesome everything. There was some bleating sound throughout the movie though and I guess that was Shahrukh Khan. But never mind.

Suddenly my mind had a thought. Our dinner time in school is 8:00 pm, and if we are not present in dinner table, our house masters will come to know about it and we might end up in danger. Now tension ran through my whole body because we again have to make the same journey in this night, through the rain, through the dark, thought the wet and muddy roads, cross a river using boat which might be unavailable if we don’t reach before 8:00(the boatman used to be there till 8:00 in the night) and then we also had to make ourselves present in the mess during dinner. Arup was totally lost in the screen and I started perspiring thinking of all the odds that we would face that night.

While Kajol was pleading to her dad, “babuji jaane do, please mujhe jaane do”, I started pleading to Arup, “Arup please chal, humein chalna chahiye, we will get late”. Kajol and me were in same state for some time, pleading to convince. Both were trying to fight against odds to make their lives happier. Thankfully in sometime Ambrish Puri left her hand and let her go. And so did Arup. He also let us come out of the theater. Oh well by that time the movie did show, “THE END”.

And then we back again on another adventure. This jet black night, the drizzle, the slippery and muddy roads and the target of 8:00 pm. There was an abandoned old airport which spanned across around one kilometer and we had to cross it to get the main road. We lost our way there, wandered around for some time to find if we can see something which can lead us to the actual road. And believe me I also saw some spirits moving around in the dark, which I didn’t want to mention to Arup because he was a brave boy and I didn’t want to break his determination of taking us out of that despair. But fortunately those spirits didn’t cause any harm to us because they don’t like to trouble some crazy Kajol fans who were  already in deep trouble. That was also the time when my knowledge about Hindu mythology was tested. I could easily remember thousands of Gods to whom I posted my request to help us on our way to return safely and more importantly, before dinner starts.

After lots of walks, cycling’s and again some walks and some cycling’s we finally reached the river which we needed to cross. Luckily the boatman was available to rescue the two crazy Kajol fans, who were out in this night while everybody else preferred to stay at home. We hardly saw any human being on the way. See I told you Gods do listen to your prayer when it is real and comes from inside your heart. While approaching the boat, all three of us, Arup me and the cycle, lost control of ourselves on the river bank and fell, it was so steep and slippery. During the fall my trouser tore off from its right thigh, the cycle was in water and Arup just landed easily without any damage. We all got into the boat and finally crossed the river. From there school was 10 minutes away. We cycled from there and reached school in no time, thanking everyone who made this a successful and memorable journey. We reached school on time and made ourselves present in dinner. We faced our house masters with a big smile on face. After dinner Arup and me sat together with few more friends and we narrated the whole adventurous story that we had just lived that day. The story was so dreadful yet so exciting, thrilling and delightful that I remember each and moment of that night. I was watching DDLJ on TV today and I lived every moments of that memorable day and thought to pen it down.

DDLJ truly is the movie which will stay close to my heart for good for all the adventure and thrill associated to it. And for you Kajol – you definitely rock.

🙂 🙂 🙂