3 Idiots-A Review

3 Idiots-My Rating: *****

The best movie I have seen in last one year and perhaps for many days to come.. Far from being a desultory act, the movie sets a spirit of déjà vu in the audience when it starts, when it progresses and when it ends! This movie will be remembered for its polemic rather than its entertainment. The movie sends a very strong social message without compromising on humour!

First of all hats off to Aamir..what is he? I mean he does just one movie per year which alone breaks all the rules and records to hit the audience where it matters the most. At Heart. Yes. And he succeeds yet again. He has again hit the nail at its top. This time he has brought up another major issue in the Indian education system and social hegemony that surrounds it.
Have you ever wondered why does India lag far behind other nations in technical innovations and patents despite having the World's largest pool of talent?(XAT-2006 essay!!) Why is it that almost every engineer wants to do an MBA? Why is it that big multinational companies, despite having their back office operations in India, are still reluctant to open their R & D centers in India? Why is it so that India’s youth is foisted upon to join a rat race of competing against one another to secure admissions to best engg./medical colleges of India even if they are willing to do photography? Is it due to the burden of vox populi? Have you ever thought why is “marks in a subject” more important than “learning” in India? If any of the above questions puts even 1% “tring tring” on your grey matter, then this movie is for you. In fact, I believe every Indian should watch this movie be it parents, professors, students or relatives, even if they have read Five point sm1, the novel by Chetan Bhagat, the master mind behind the concept of this movie.

Coming back to the movie, excellent performances by all the 3 idiots, Rancchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad (Aamir Khan), Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi) and Farhan Qureshi (R Madhavan), who made no room for a peccadillo in making the characters of the novel alive. And another actor, who steals the show with his Einstein getup and demeanor, is Boman Irani. Watch out for him and you will think twice before cheating in your next exam! A typical “frustu” professor who had become the director of the college!

And yes, you will keep on laughing till the end on the speech given by a typical “rat-race champ”, Omi, the bengali friend of the idiots being talked about. Watch out for his chamatkar turned balatkar speech! Go with your family and watch this movie and don’t waste more time reading its reviews..:)
BBye for now.
Aal isz well..

Coming up next: The story of Universe

Bhutan's Happiness

I read this article some time back by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar on why is Bhutan so happy. How come its GDP growth is 21% in such a deep recession? How come its per capita GDP is double that of India.

Read here to find out.

The Darkest Night

At 5:00pm, I lay on the stretcher and bade the final good-bye to my ma, papa and sister. The spot boys pulled the stretcher and took it from the private ward to the Operation theatre (OT) No.2 that marked the incipient to one of the most difficult evenings of my life. My heart filled with trepidation, my lips started incantation. They left the stretcher in OT and vanished away leaving me on it and waiting to be attended by the surgeon.

I had seen the operation theatres only in histrionic bollywood flicks which had always portrayed an OT containing a glut of cotton, a big light bulb, various surgical instruments, gloves etc. These items are usually filmed as harbinger of a doleful twist in the movie. This was the first time I was breathing with them in person.

After a few minutes, an assistant doctor came and asked me why I was there. I answered her. She tried to divert my attention by asking various questions about my engineering, about DCE, about my company etc. so that I could assimilate the environment. Instead, I realized that the surgery was imminent. She put me on drip for at least 10 minutes before the surgery.

As I didn’t want to bear the ramifications of the surgery, so I entreated her to give me complete anesthesia instead of local which only prevents the transmission of nerve impulses without causing unconsciousness. But she declined saying there was no need to make me unconscious. (I couldn’t find a reason cogent enough to persuade her!!) Then she took the syringe and a never-seen-so-long needle which she pierced through the skin under the spinal cord to a tyrannical depth and infused the anesthesia into my body. I wondered whether I took the right decision to go for the surgery or not. Should I have searched more for the non-surgical treatment of this disease?

***

Flashback: 2 weeks ago at Dr Juneja’s Allopathic Clinic:-

Dr: “So, How are you feeling now?”
Me: “Not so well, sir. Swelling is still there. It has been almost two months since I started your medicine. How much more time can it take?”
After diagnosing, he finally uttered the most dreaded words which I had more or less anticipated long ago.
Dr: “We will not continue with the medication. Though there is no exigency as such but just one option left now, Surgery. The surgeon will remove the whole of affected mass from your body. Don’t worry, beta. We tried our best but couldn’t go against the Almighty’s wish.”.

I was dejected.

After coming back home, I searched on internet in the hope of getting any possible cure of Pilonidal Sinus on this planet other than Surgery but all in vain. In fact, doctors don’t even know the correct cause of this disease. The most widely accepted theory is that an infection and abscess formation occurs in the small pits due to the suction of keratin and hair into the distended follicles which appear in the visible pits in the midline of the natal cleft. And it is said that chronic Pilonidal sinuses are best treated with wide excision and secondary healing.
For the next two weeks, I tried Homeopathy and ayurvedic medication but none of them ameliorated the condition of cyst by even point one percent. I finally decided to get rid of it ASAP and hence went for the surgery.

***

Today, July-6-2009, 5:20pm at SLJ Hospital

I lay down with my stomach facing the stretcher and my buttocks facing the roof. The surgeon was then ready to practice his hands on me. I was already given local anesthesia by the assistant doctor. Later she also injected a cryptic tranquilizer to make me semi-conscious. Within 10 seconds of the vaccines, I realized I was not able to move my legs. I felt as if I was physically handicapped of them. To refute my apprehension, I tried to touch my legs (Thankfully, my hands were not unconscious!) with my right hand. It was like I was touching a rubber tyre that had just been taken out of a refrigerator. My legs seemed impalpable as if they had plunged into ataxia. I felt lacerated.

Me: “Sir, I am not able to move. What on Earth are you doing with my lower body?”
Surgeon: “Don’t worry bachche..that is the affect of anesthesia..you will be fine in 2-3 hours”

I heaved a sigh of relief exonerating him from a peccadillo, which I thought, he had committed.

In the midst of all these thoughts, I remember that I continued incantation even in the somnolent state of my mind as if I was haggling with the God for life. I tried hard to sleep but couldn’t. Every minute seemed like a year. 5 minutes gone.. 10 minutes gone.. 15 minutes gone…

I was not only fighting against the time (remember Waqt, the race against time!) but also against the brain and its vindictive instincts.
“Why are they not starting the operation? What’s wrong? Are they waiting for another surgeon? Or are they waiting for an auspicious time to start?” I thought. I was obfuscated by the fact that even after 15-20 min., I still hadn’t felt any sensation at the back.

Suddenly a loud voice traversed thru my ears into the intricate alleys of my brain that brought me back from the nebulous sight of a pugilist fighting alone a battle to a state of slight consciousness.

“Its done, beta”
“What….?????”
“Yeah, its over..”
“Itni jaldi..but I didn’t feel anything”
“You weren’t supposed to”, said the surgeon.

I was extremely happy with the way surgery was conducted. I didn’t feel the sensation of even a prick.

They all helped each other and rested me on my back and made me face the roof. My body was under observation in ICU for another half an hour after which I was transferred to my private ward where my parents and other well-wishers were waiting for their Olympian of tonight to arrive!

They put me down on bed facing the roof with a drip on right hand. A nurse then told me 3 things:

1. “You should not raise your head even by an inch”
2. “You would use this tub to answer nature’s call”
3. “You must try to sleep as much as you can”

Then, there started the time of the darkest hour. I was shivering with cold which was due to the (glucose + painkiller) drip and room AC. I was tired of lying thru the back but couldn’t move by legs to crouch on either side. I touched my legs once every 5 minutes with my unimpeachable hands to see if the “rubber effect” was mitigating or not. Out of affliction, I jerked my leg so hard once that the dressing got loosened and blood started deluging out of my back. Though I didn’t feel the pain but this itself was excruciating in a way that I knew my blood was getting squandered and I was helpless. As I was not able to speak properly, somehow I gestured mah parents of the same and they called the doctor.

After few hours, everybody left except my father who was to stay there for whole night. As I was not allowed to raise my head, I pissed for the very first time but could do only a little. But later I realized that some liquid was still left in the large intestine!

I tried hard to sleep but couldn’t for I was relentlessly thinking about not to strain the drip. I passed the whole night looking at the roof of my ward and struggling with the superfluous piss getting generated incessantly in the large intestine! At around 2:00 am, a nurse came to change the drip. It was at that time when I realized that I was now able to move my legs and slouch towards one side on the bed. I regained my consciousness which also brought some kind of pain with it due to the slightly diminishing effect of the pain killer. But this pain was better than no pain!

Slowly the night passed.. and I finally stood straight on my feet at 6:00am when the spot boy delivered a bed tea. I was burning with alacrity not because I stood on my feet but because the dreaded night had passed. The night, that took me through the lives of physically handicapped people for which I had no poignancy earlier. The night, that tested the endurance of my brain and my body to the fullest. The night, that kept me solicitously insomniac. The night, that was indeed, one of the darkest nights of my life.

Lust at first sight

It was perhaps lust at first sight. She was sitting right in front of me. And I must confess that I ogled at her for the first few minutes of the journey. She was wearing a purple sleeve-less churidaar suit with yellow border and dupatta which resembled the flowers of the plant Lantana. She had a prolific top with long curly hair which she had tied fastidiously in a knot. A pair of small lumps from this knot was inexorably kissing her at her dimples on either side of her face. Those lumps were giving a tough time to my heart bumps! But she was looking really cute with them.

I coud hear this song in my subconscious sense:
“Aankhon mein teri..ajab si ajab si adayein hain…dil ko banade jo patang..saaanse se teri..woh hawayein hain..”

I got inebriated in her eyes. They were encompassing a complete Universe in them having two blue planets in the middle surrounded by the glints of white sunlight all over the periphery that covered 2 meter to attack me in less than 8.3 seconds! It was as if the Aurora Borealis had chosen her eyes to spread its color across that compartment of this Delhi bound train. Her cheeks were quite fluffy as if she had confiscated a Bengali Roshogulla between her jaws. Her lips were coated with a light-purple lipstick which resembled the marijuana leaves coated with ready-to-serve hot chocolate fudge. She smelled lovely. She looked bhhheauuuutiful. Laconically speaking, she was, perhaps, a magnum opus of the almighty.

By that time, I didn’t know that whether it was lust or love. See, if lust was taken on negative X-axis at -5 and love was taken on positive X-axis at +5, then I was vacillating between -2 and +2.

“Aayi aisi raat hai jo..bahut khush naseeb hai…chahe jise door se duniya..woh mere kareeb hai..”

I really wanted to confabulate with her. I wanted to know more about her; sit close to her; caress her; hold her hands and embrace her (-2 side of X-axis!).

***

Wait. Now, before you prejudicate me as a lewd and prurient soul, I would like you to vindicate me of these censures because I was certainly not gaping at her for the sole purpose of X-raying her and fantasizing her salaciously. In fact, I hate those people who do that and I wonder why they stare at a girl so incessantly that makes her feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. Rather, I was just listening to my heart on which I had gone unbridled.

Let me elaborate a bit more here. I believe that there is no such thing called love at first sight. I mean, how you can love a girl without getting yourself acquainted with her soul, her feelings, her disposition, her conscience and her values. And these things can’t be understood (or noticed) in first sight or even first meeting. An attraction towards a girl, at a first sight, can only be attributed to her tangible beauty and the way she carries it. Though, one can find oneself struck by the cupid anytime after that! Anyways, I will take up this topic (or issue!) some other time. For now, let’s go back to the Rajdhani Express.

***

Suddenly, an inner voice, perhaps of my conscience, came somewhere from inside the soul which brought me back from the unbridled fantasy to the reality. I had lost total control over my senses but not over my morals and values. The spiritual side of my soul reproached the materialistic side of it. I apologized to god and vowed not to look at her like that anymore (+2 side of X-axis!). I removed my eyes from her (though only for next 20 seconds!).

It was 6:30 in the evening. She was lost in her own world, squinting through the window of the train. And I was busy in cooking the “initiation line” to talk to her.

“Kitna kuchh kehna hai fir bhi hai dil mein sawaal kahin….sapno mein jo roz kaha hai who fir se kahun ya nahi….”

Though, I had advised many of my friends on how to approach a girl and initiate a discourse with her but I had never thought that I would be requiring some of them ever in my life. And believe me when I seriously hankered them, I was nowhere. I went total blank. After all, who would want to get bowled out at the very first ball?

Hi, I am Rahul..I am going to Delhi…what about you..?? ..Naaaaaahh

Hi…My name is Rahul….going to Delhi…you? ..Naaaaaahh

Hi…Main Rahul…naam to suna hoga?..Naaaaaahh

Hi..Are u going to Delhi? If she says “yeah” then ask “gr8…me also going to Delhi..I am Rahul, You..?” ..Naaaaaahh

“Aap bhi Delhi Ja rahe ho??” ..Naaaaaahh

I was busy juggling with the lyrics when a loud voice, seemingly of a middle-aged man, who was sitting on the side-lower berth, pierced through my ears.

“Excuse me”, he said scratching his groin, “Are you going to Delhi?”
I replied, “yes, you also?”
“Yeah”
“Great.. so, you are going on a tour or what?” I asked him, still thinking about the pending initiation step.

He told me that he worked for the technical team of Star Anand news channel and was going to Delhi near to his family forever as he got transferred from its Kolkata centre. Lets call him MAM (Middle aged man). I could see MAM’s bliss in his eyes.

We became silent for few minutes. There were just three of us in that part of the compartment. She was still looking out of the window as if she was craving for her Superman to come and take her away from this world to a separate planet with one tenth of Earth’s gravity on a witching space shuttle. There she would be living alone with him and they would be enjoying their life ever-after. Could I become her superman? First thing I would do is hug her and take a jump in one tenth of the gravity to remain in the sky for more than 3 hours (so that I would relentlessly look into her eyes and she would not push me away for 3 hours!). Uff…again started…I realized, I was sick!

I was waiting for the MAM to go out (may be for a piss or whatever!) so as to avoid any eavesdropping while I would converse with her. (Actually I wanted to protect myself from embarrassment if I would do something silly there!!) And the almighty heard me, right then. He went out and I pitched in!

“Hiii…You going to Delhi?”, I asked her without fumbling even once.
“Yes, u too?”, she said showing a bit of inquisitiveness in her voice. She looked interested.
“Yes.. Hmm.. you are from Kolkata only?”, I asked her, noticing her bare hands which had the shade of Bengali-color (neither too black nor too white but dark enough to seduce anybody).

“No. I am from Bangladesh. I am on a trip to India. I have already visited Kolkata and now want to visit Delhi”, she said as if I were a tourist guide and I would help her with the roadmap of Delhi. Though I was ready to become one for her!

She continued, “I have my mom with me. She is currently in different compartment. Could you help us out with the travel plan and sight-seeing in Dee-h-li?”.

“Yeah, sure why not”, I said sensing an opportunity there to create an impression.
“So, finally, I got a tourist guide”, she giggled demurely. I could see my graph moving towards the +X-axis. Yeah, it’s true that I was attracted to her by her beauty but her voice and her etiquettes seemed to compete fiercely with her beauty. My lust was transforming into love.


Then, MAM came in after sometime and lolled about his leg on his berth. I noticed him staring at her. I wished I would kill him after stabbing his eyes. He tried to join us but we almost effaced him. After all, his presence was superfluous to us.

For us, it was as if there were just two of us in that part of the compartment. We talked on life in Bangladesh, difference between the two countries, bollywood, cricket, etc. Her favorite player was Sachin Tendulkar. (Look, how close we were in our thoughts. Sachin was my favorite too!)

Now, there was one thing about girls which I didn’t used to like much that when they would go on babbling, they would never stop easily. They would describe a “simple” thing in a grandiose and awfully complicated way. But that day was an exception. Or perhaps, she was an exception. She told me deliriously about her stay in Kolkata and I was enjoying every bit of it. I was listening to her like a dumb. I was diving in her mellifluous voice and well-bred demeanor, hoping that she would never stop speaking and we would never reach Delhi. But whenever she stopped, I started so that she would not feel bored.

“How do you look so Indian when you are a Bangladeshi?”, I asked wondering about her Punjabi suit.
“Actually, my mom is a punjabi and my father is an Italian. They hitched-off against their parents’ wish and then settled in Bangladesh where the major client of my father used to live. That is why we are an ultra-modern family. And, we love everything about India, its dresses, its cuisines, its festivals, its movies and…”
“And what about its people?”
“Yea…of course….its people too!!” she chuckled looking into my eyes. Yes, for the first time our eyes met for more than 5 seconds. I was on cloud nine.

Then she decided to show me some photographs. She slouched towards my side (and I became nervous!). She raised her hand to adjust a small lump of hair towards the back of her ear. I was just going to say, “You are looking cute with them. Don’t do that”. But I refrained from saying so for some reason. She opened the album.

After 5 min., I was dead silent. I was the most doleful person on the Earth. I got up from there, went to the gate of our compartment and stood there. I felt like whimpering blatantly. How could that happen to me? I mean, why me? What bad had I done? It was excruciating. It was my first ever lust-transformed-love after all. How could it end like that? She had shown me her marriage photographs.

Epilogue

Later she told me that she hitched-off to Sunil almost a year ago. After 8 months of their marriage, he got a contract in Spain and he was working there since then.

I pretended that I was still listening to her. “Whatever…”, I grunted. I didn't have the courage to look interested anymore. Might be, I still had some feelings for her (and that would continue to remain,perhaps!). I cursed myself for all those thoughts that started coming to me after my graph moved to +5 on X-axis. But that really didn’t matter any more. The fact was everything was over no matter what I felt then. I just wanted to reach Delhi as soon as possible.

But I did think, why did it happen to me? “Perhaps that is my comeuppance for my lust..”, I answered my mind.

***

(Disclaimer: All the characters in the story are real and belong to my journey in Oct 2007 from Kolkata to Delhi. Though its a work of fiction whatever is written about that girl and my feelings for her. Any resemblance of this story to anyother person is purely coincidental.)

CSC hits a half ton!!

CSC turned 50 today!...Yes, Its an auspicious day for all of us out here. And it’s evident in our mood, attire, and our cubicles. These otherwise monotonous cubicles are today adorned with red and white balloons in line with the CSC’s logo. Right from the 9:00 am, our mailboxes are flooded with the congratulatory mails from our senior management who eventually never turns up more than once or twice every year. Nevertheless, we were supposed to gather in our cafeteria in the evening to celebrate this day with them! The managers as usual gave some instigating speech about the company but the fun was when we got to know that there would be a quiz also that would be based on their speech!! God, couldn’t they have told this thing to us before commencing their speech??

For me, well, I indeed don’t know how to express my feeling on this day as I am almost blank but I am really feeling good for the company which has grown from a mere 100 dollars in April, 1959 to 17.1 billion dollars now with 92000 employees in 80 countries! And what’s adding to my bliss is even in the times of recession and firing, CSC has doled out Haldiram’s Sohnpapdi to all of its employees!! Does that mean that the financial status of company is secure and there will be no pink slips here at least??

Well you never know.. Albeit, I’m loving it whatever it is and whatever it will be..jo bhi ho.. CSC rocks!!

Incongruity over Kasab

Sometimes, there are certain instances in your life when your heart and your mind speak different dialects and you find yourself confounded and hence indecisive. Kasab’s case is one such case where my mind says that he should get a lawyer and my heart says that he shouldn’t. Let’s try to be fair to both of them one by one.

India is a country which is known for its infallible democracy. It has always been fair to every one as long as he is a “human” being. Consider the case of Satwant Singh, who was a Sikh militant involved in Indira Gandhi’s assassination. He was given a fair trial even though there was no dearth of evidences against him. He was later sentenced to death in Tihar Jail, Delhi in1989. Same was the case with the assassins of Rajiv Gandhi who were given an unprejudiced trial and convicted in 1998 by our Indian courts. These cases prove that we should have faith in the Indian Judicial System and let the lawyers handle the case of Kasab. He will be definitely prosecuted. There is no use of dragging the “issue” for so long. The acts of factions like Shiv Sena, who attacked Anjali Waghmare, few days back for agreeing to take up the case of Kasab, will only delay the legal proceedings. This is what my mind says.

However, on the other side, my heart says that Kasab doesn’t deserve a lawyer in the first place. As Mr. Rahul Narvekar, Shiv Sena’s legal advisor, pointed out yesterday on CNN-IBN that “A fair trial is deserved by a person who actually deserves it..”
Atleast Kasab doesn’t deserve it. He has allegedly taken the lives of various innocent people. Not only this, consider the moral, psychological and economic loss which he and his accomplices have done to India (esp. to the tourism sector). His accomplices have got the punishment. So should he but not at the pace of Indian Judicial system. After divulging out all the “needed” information from him, he should be hanged as early as possible in the prison if not in front of the people otherwise he may also get away with the capital punishment in line with various other culprits in the past. Remember what happened in 1998 when a TADA court in Chennai gave death sentences to all the 26 culprits found guilty of involvement in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. However, because of the protests by the various political parties and fingering by the human rights groups, only 4 out of 26 paid the “ultimate” price. Rest all were let to live. What a democracy!

And what a snafu! Again befuddled, I am. I don’t know what’s right and what’s not, but if finally asked to choose from one, I would perhaps prefer to go with the latter. Perhaps..

The soul refuses to grow: Childhood-philia!! or just a Fantasy??

(Disclaimer: This post is not for light-hearted people. All the characters in this story are real and belongs to my childhood.. Any relation with the reader is purely co-incidental)

Today, my soul cries.. It refuses to maturate.. It hankers for a time machine that will take it close to the words like Innocent, Innocuous, Pure, Virtuous, Naïve, Sober. These are the words I have not visited anywhere for a long time now. These words epitomize my childhood. Yes, I want to go back to my childhood. The precociousness has mired me into this materialistic world. But I want to get out of it. I am tired of my maturity. I am losing my patience. I am frayed by the responsibilities. It is not that I am a chicken-hearted, pusillanimous being but it is just that a few hours back, I saw the frail images of the sheer bliss which has been missing in my life for some time now.

Perhaps, nostalgia has wounded me once again. Yes, last night, the beautiful memories of my childhood once again instigated my heart. They made me realize that how stale this hard-mass has become.

I want to go back to “my era”. The era in which, I used to get more attention; attention of my parents; of my relatives; of my neighbors (and of their daughters!!). Also, in school, I was the favorite of almost all gorgeous teachers whose faces, I still remember and my first crush, a 17 year old English teacher from Mumbai, is the tenderest example of it. She really loved me when I was in class ---^th and she once said these beautiful (now seducing) lines:

 “Rahul, you are my favorite student, I will not leave you!!” (Though, she perhaps meant to say that she would not leave me if I would not do my homework!)

I am not flaunting here but believe me I was almost as popular as a teddy bear among the fairer sex in school! They liked to play with me but tended to forget me as we collectively grew old!

I really don’t want to grow old.

I just wish for a time machine that would drop me back to the intriguing era of the fantasies…where I would deal with the talismanic tales of Vikram Betaal and Alif Laila (I never got to see Laila though!) and the beautiful fable of Chandrakanta (Ahh, I loved her so much!!). And how can I forget, the “chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai walaa” boy, Mowgli in Jungle Book; baah! his wonderful Tarzan acts and his friendship with Bageera. This was a semi-decade when Sunday used to wake me up with the ever-refreshing songs of Rangoli and put me down with then countdown of Superhit Muqabala! And the best part was that Ekta Kapoor was still in her nascent stage and there were no saas-bahu soaps to cook our bheja fries!! Most of the serials were comedies which eventually addicted most of the people, including me. Dekh Bhai Dekh,  Shrimaan Shrimati, Zabaan Sambhal Ke, Flop Show, All the Best and lately, Small Wonder were a few of them. Apart from these, a few thrillers like Byomkesh Bakshi and Aahat were also successful in making me glued to their chronicles. What a fun that used to be.

This fun was not restricted to the TV serials only. In fact, the volcanic eruptions of Saabu in the comic Cha Cha Chowdhury, the birbal like acts of Baankelal and the beautiful stories of Champak were also some of the fables which I really enjoyed to navigate through. More or less, each of the stories used to exemplify what I had read in the panchtantra stories of the victory of good over evil at my school. My mind was drilled there with these “values” with the courtesy of various books and TV serials like Ramayana. Indeed, the sense of “achievement” and “gratification” that used to come in at that time whenever Arun Govil killed one of the evils was inexplicable. It was much more pronounced than whatever of IT would come when I would solve a (dictated) error while coding!! But now that satisfaction and the energy is perhaps dispersed in the prism of “material”.

The amount of energy in that era was at its peak. It is perhaps comparable to the energy which releases when a space shuttle takes off from the Earth. I used to see myself in place of big-time discoverers! Even Newton would have blushed after discerning the number of experiments I performed at home. I unassembled my black and white TV while I was in class 5^th (though never bothered to reassemble it!). I made one IVRS at home for conversing between different rooms of my small house. I even recorded numerous audio cassettes as a radio jockey (Now you get a fair idea why the name of this blog is NjoyTV!!). My family still plays those “memories” sometimes whenever they feel so. And indigenously, I made one mini-dish antenna also at home to “catch” the cable from the nearest cable-line!!

All this and still used to get away with my parents' admonitions just because of my “good” results at studies! Securing an excellent rank of 4 (out of 30-35) in the class used to sound like an “abuse” to me and my parents! The sense of competition in me to succeed was more than what Dhoni boys have in them now. I can easily recall one incident when I secured 77 marks in Sanskrit and then also I was scolded by my parents as the “other” child had scored 90 in that. (Though, they were again happy when in the final exam, I again secured 77 but this time the “other” child scored less than me, what a consistency!!)

And if you have done well in your exams then who stops you from playing your sport? Most of the times I used to play cricket only until I was dragged into the really virtual world of the video games. I remember that I started off my journey with the dragon stages of Mario!! A feeling of strolling on a different planet would come while moving the jockey of the video game. Apart from this, cycling used to be my favourite past-time where I gave tough competition to almost all my friends. That too especially in the rainy seasons of  yeh Dilli hai mere yaar, among the whistles of cool breeze called monsoon winds, under the darkness of cumulonimbus clouds, in the deafening sound of thunder storms:

ZZBhuuuuuuuuuddooooooooooooooommmm ZZBhuuuuuuuuuddooooooooooooooommmm Zuuuuuuddoooooooommmm Zuuuuuuddoooooooommmm

…

…

Rahuuuuuuuuuuul….o… Rahuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuul….Please get up. Office nahi jaana kya..

 And suddenly this sinfully blatant sound pierced through my subconscious sense and broke apart my sleep-sealed eyes. I looked at the clock that showed thirty past seven. Oh… no… the f**** Monday has come yet again..Got to get up from bed now… That means the culprit was my soul, my subconscious sense that was (desirably) playing the beautiful images of my past somewhere on a little screen in the intricate alleys of my brain!! but what about the cycling which I was going to do in the wet air….Alas! the bicycle has been replaced by a car and the monsoon winds are now replaced by the ersatz air of my car’s A.C…Abe yaar..

Anyways..time to be practical now..Hope I have not made you too nostalgic with the narration of my “fantasy”. But believe me, I thought to put it in the way I saw it. Now, leaving you with the memories ..this is me, signing off.

 (After almost all the fact-based topics, this is my first attempt at writing on an abstract topic.. Please ignore the structural and grammatical mistakes, if any. Suggestions for improvement are always welcome)