Ink Stained

   This year I've written no letter for you, this year I didn't buy you a gift, this year I didn't buy the cake(that was by mistake though) but this time, I've just given a thought far from the real realm and seen what life would've been without a second dad dangling around.     Well, first of all,  I would've had all Maggis and chocolates alone. I would've never met with that accident, the scars of which still remain. I would've never faced the humiliation of not scoring an equal enough marks from hussain ma'am and the likes. But this side of the seesaw is on the upper end. What's on the other heavier side is much more in quantity and quality.       I would've never learnt how to ride a bicycle or the scooty; I would've never gotten two birthday gifts in an year(yours and mine if you remember); I would've never got an upper hand in maths or computers; I would've never been in a safe and happy environment without a hostel; I wou

     When we first met in the spring of 2011, we hardly knew what each others background was,  or motives were, or even names for that matter. Then,  I don't know how, we struck off so well,  and today, our names are more often called together. This post is dedicated to my best friend and my brother for all intents and purposes, Shivanshu, who turned 21 in reality today and 20 on papers.     Shivanshu is just like an elder brother to me. Whenever I was confused, infuriated, mad, sad, sick, he was there. All the fun exploring of Delhi I've done, I've had this bus-pass-buddy with me all along. Or chronicles are so vast and diverse and interesting that if one goes in to write a book on it, it would definitely sell better than "the monk who sold his ferrari". I mean the instances were so insane that only he, or I could've only beared them. I remember this instance, just four days before our exams, we stood on the bus stand in front of the college and a bus came

Once there was a Veeru, and her freind Jai, they were  both best freinds,night and day, both studied,studied forever, we never saw any of them gay. Both came to school together, sat and ate together, went back home together, from our common alma mater. Veeru liked talking to people, Jai always kept introvert, Veeru always adviced Jai, to talk and now convert. Even in exams often,they would sit beside, we often cried jolly, "Rab ne kya banai hai jodi" This was the scene wen all was right, till that girlish man came upright, this was the entry of a villain, we called him "Chikna Gabbar" This man looked as smooth, as Sir Lancelot's helmet plume, his face had no strand of hair, and was in colour much fair. And he had a huge bulging tummy, seemed as overloved by his mummy, this man liked our Veeru, and like turned,by the end, loving Veeru. One sudden day, stealing from everyones fray, Gabbar proposed our veeru, and she t

        The hilarious yesterday was so much influential that it left traces of giggles and smiles on the today too and along with those giggles, this post. The morning article in Delhi Times yesterday about the mocking of the custom of "karva-chauth" was quiet and mocking one in itself, accompanied by examples throughout the day. Girls and guys, fasting to show their love to their spouses is the sickest step one could take in love I guess(or there could be others too, I really don't know).          My friend who stays in a hostel in Gaziabad, told me the scene which was created in her hostel in the evening, which made me laugh to my intestines out. Out of 98 girls in the entire hostel, 70 mad women were fasting. And how they broke off their fasts you ask, the technology slams the answer to your face, video chat. I mean how foolish could one really become.          I was just about to close my wide laughing mouth and get back to studies(well my exams are just few inche

      Today, Mommy added a new ingredient to my chowmein. In our home, or in fact in most of the Indian homes, we always try and keep things alive by adding new flavors to them. We crush and mould the original recipe in such a way the every time we introduce them to our tongues, they(our tongues) find them strangers. But this ingredient was a bunch of strangers in itself.       She added Bari to my noodles. For people who don't know what Bari is, it is an indigineosly made ball of typical Indian spices, dried and hardened. It is usually crushed and made into a dish along with potatoes. But, my mother is my mother. In every mouthful of delicious noodles, smeared in Indian and Chinese spices, bitter and very bitter, I got pieces of long, elaichi, kali mirch, and don't know what(all ingredients of a Bari). Eating it was very much like diffusing a bomb. You don't know what next would come in between your jaws and spoil the entire mouthful. But what made me write a blog post on

       Have you ever wondered what state of mind do the people deeply involved in a war are before and after? Though we hardly have wars now, are we away from it? Are we just at peace because we were born in a pleasant decade? When we see it through their eyes, we don't conclude the same.         You don't have much to look around after a battle. Or I should frame it this way, there are not many things you like to see after a battle. Winning or losing are just consolations for what one has lost. It doesn't matter much when you look at the mayhem the battle left behind. Rottening body parts scattered here and there, the mud, which has attained a wet red form, is there all around your shoes, your body, your armour; the cries of men, some of joy, all of agony. The only water you get to clean yourself or to drink has got blood mixed in it.         Just before the battle, the soldiers look at the flag and salute it from the heart, as it be the last. They see their brothers, ea

    I often play this game with my mates, on evening walks, or on drinks, or as a filler on card nights.  We one by one tell the other players that one thing which we didn't find in our origins and found it in Delhi. This could be anything. Anything material, spiritual, emotional or any-nal... We get a lot more of the things we don't know about and even the sentiments those things have attached to the players. I being a big foodie, always start with the very famous and tasty chola-kulcha. Though this game is a light one, this very often helps people loosen their heavy hearts, a bit atleast. This blogpost just compiles my inferences on the kinds of people there are. Though not all kinds, but a few. And since I play this only with people I know more than enough, this is best to my knowledge.       The examples I've got till date are so diverse that I think there couldn't have been more languages in India. There are people who give Pind Baluchi, Parathe wali gali, chole k

    While standing on that airy bridge on the Yamuna bank last evening, I kept on watching the fast moving traffic, their shining headlights, their honking, their zooming noises. Just when I turned to the other side, to rest my eyes from the glitter of the headlights, I saw a road silent, dark, clean(i don't know how) but it was alone. No one took it. What, had no one to go there? Had no one to take the road not taken by many? Had no one any interest, had no one any adventurous desire to explore, to go get lost and then found? Had no one had any time to???       Our lives have very much become like the roads in the evening. Going with the flow, much like the traffic towards Laxmi nagar, the traffic coming from Akshardham, the rush, the counting of minutes of each hour and the seconds of each minute. We're so busy getting ahead of one another, on the same road, honking for sides, silently and violently overtaking. The only thing different between us is the vehicle we are travel

     The issues we talk of in cities in colleges, of love and of hate, of money and of fame, are these of any importance when at the same time more vital issues, more delicate ones, like death due to poverty remain hardly untouched. Today we saw a documentary, "Nero's guests", a film on P. Sainath's, rural affairs editor of The Hindu, coverage of the farmer suicides in Vidharba and the likes. We sat there, hardly blinking, hardly smiling, reacting to each subtitle, reacting to each farmer case, reacting to ignorance of media. The silence is heard after the show, I don't think I ever heard that before.          The government didn't turn their heads when farmers in large thousands turned their sweating lives into bloody deaths. When the toll,earlier slow accelerated from one or two a month to two or three a day. Farmers, who had a family to sustain and loved doing that, who gathered funds to educate their sons, who gathered funds to marry their daughters, to fe

      I wrote this poem long back in year 2009. What's the fuzz about '09 you ask? Well that was the year when certain big changes occurred in our lives. We moved in to a new house, a house which was beautifully made but in quiet silent a place. I had to change the school. The school which I always thought to be my family, I was not a member anymore. Friends became distant, new school had aliens in it. And Dada moved to college.       With Dada moving, I was left all alone, in a big house with not many familiar faces around, in a school with adamant mates. I don't know whether it was the loneliness I experienced that one night or was missing him, I picked up the pen and started rhyming on a piece of a torn paper. Earlier, I never came to this pondering side of mine. Earlier whenever I experienced these fits of loneliness, I had this one companion with me, but now he too left me to rot alone.        Now the cricket matches we played in the evenings were suspended permanent

Will those days ever come back? When love I didn't lack. Dada and I-fought over little things, Over food, toys and his belongings. That jumping over beds, cushion-fights, And late horror movie nights. His worst of worst singing, And my always falsely complementing. The same school and the same teachers, Who sometimes made me face tortures. As I was not as good as him in studies, And we also had common buddies. And now that the times r changing, So are our hearts and our feelings. He is completely settled in DU, So will someday, I and you. But this is not the end, There will be many curves and bends. As the whole life and future awaits, to open new opportunities and gates. I never had a shortage of friends, but one like him was friend of friends. We  will never become children again, To jump and play in rain. No, those days will never come back, When love I didn't lack.                                                                    

         In the past week I've been keeping so busy that I totally forgot to give my mind a thought on a thought and time to my blog. And when today something struck, I planned to sqeeze my schedule a little and scribble a little here .         Today, definitions have evolved. Being selfish is no more a vice, being arrogant is the new pride and so on. One such alteration to the classic Oxford book is the modification to the word spelled "modern" by the one spelled "western". I mean there are people in today's time who call themselves modern just on the context of a few characteristics like eating fast food, following latest fashion trends, buying rich brands of clothes and hi-ing to elders or the smart shrinking of the texts. The clothing today is supposed to be an indicator of ideologies.           But people need to learn that mind and clothes are two very very different areas of the body. When we open our minds and accept the freedom from the right atti

       Going by the situations and the way I was brought up, I always thought the society is equal for boys and girls. The school, where boys and girls were equal, the society, where all kids played together, the movie stars, men are as great as women. But as my racehorse-view widened, I could see the world with colors different than what was shown. The equality is still only on paper.       Just yesterday I was attending this all college meeting for gender sensitization with a female friend of mine, who opened up the world to me so badly that I had to stop her midway. Women however free they feel, there is a patriarchal society driven constrain on her. Right from the way she dresses to the way she walks; from the way she talks to even the way she smiles; from the time she leaves home to the time she's bound to reach home; from the amount she's allowed to drink to the amount she's bound to open up; from the age she needs to start realizing to the age she's allowed to

                  When I was at my place in Lucknow, I remember my mother running after my life with a glass full of chocolate-flavored-bournvita-powered milk in the early hours. A fresh hot chapati with butter and milk was compulsory with it too. and while I finished it with great difficulty, she was standing with my heavy lunchbox of 5 chapattis and and a disproportionate amount of sabzi in it. When i came back, an orange flavored cold glucose water awaited me. while i took bath, she was again ready with the lunch just cooked which i ate in front of the television. After an hour's sleep, i had a snacks meal with tea and some other thing. and of course, the dinner.                   I ate so many a times and at so many abrupt hours that I couldn't even name those meals if I am asked to. But all that is history I guess. I would never be able to get my mother chase me with that bournvita milk. The only things I get now is a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, a bad-stinking-oily chol

     It has been more than two years I've been living in Delhi and I think I still don't know many a things about it. There are certain questions bouncing in my little head just as a bouncing pinball in it's closed fancy closet . There are few rational answers to them, but few I just like keeping unanswered.         An example to the first kind was "why do all people live in flats". I mean of course we all know the most probable answers to this kindergarten question. The property price hike and all. But an example to the latter kind though is little more fascinating. "where are all the rickshaw pullers?"          Here in Delhi, I've lived in three very different colonies till date. A mediocre Malka ganj, a bad chandraval, and an above average saket. But in neither of the colonies I could spot a school rickshaw. A rickshaw in which a wooden bench just widened the space for kids to sit, in which kids with fancy school clothes went on blabbering

are you happy daddy? I am not your obstruction anymore, neither am I a burden anymore; actually, I was never. Never did I come your way, I always did what you said, I even cleaned those stinking liqour glasses you left; but I was always a prey to your fray. why you used that belt on me? oh,it pains! your rough hands on my cheeks one after the other, oh,it pains! I could never figure out what my fault was. I know I wasn't good in studies, I know I couldn't cook food that well, I know I couldn't wash those clothes that clean; but were these faults that gruesome? I knew not how other children felt, I knew not how they could smile, and laugh; I knew not how they could study, and play so well; I knew not how a normal heart did beat. the only things I was familiar with, were your angry words, my swollen red marks, my swollen eyes, and two fluids,your sweat, and my tears. I don't remember my eyes ever dry at home, or ever fearless at school,

           My brother, I have never seen him as a Guardian, or an elder brother, or a dad; even though he is three years elder than me. I've always seen him as a friend. A friend who got me into trouble sometimes, and got me out of troubles most of the times; a friend who knew I'm eating paper then too couldn't say no; a friend who was with me when my biggest accident took place, just behind me. Cutting short, he's just like a best friend.         But this is not about my relationship with my brother, it's of the constraints that i deny on his being elder. It just happened yesterday that I had to tell him a joke(which was cracked in college between friends, a typical non veg one) and I had to say the hindi word for male part, and it couldn't come out from my mouth.            I'm not trying to be noble by saying that i couldn't use typical abusive language, which we used to use in schools amongst friends in front of my brother, but this is strange eno

It just happened an year before when we started with normal greetings, formal greetings to be specific with it; when some leg pulling sparked in between us. That kind of leg pulling which slowly and gradually turned into grave fights; the kind of fights that happen between a younger sister and an elder brother. But she's just like a honeycomb; full of sweet honey, but you have to go through stings to get that honey.                   She was the one who took an hour minimum of everyday when I was struck with a bomb(read typhoid) and endured my nonsense, told me rest, covered up for my fake assignments, got me fake marks, but never with a genuine smile. everytime, with a cliche. The time seems to be so fascinating at times. two years before, we barely knew each other. Then we got to texts, then to whatsapp, then to legpulling, then to fights, and now to a relation.            I was not very sure of this idea as i always have been against this very idea of mocking customs li

              It most of the times happen that we are not able to judge ourselves, not able to decide upon what our personality is like, what we like, what we don't, or it just happens with me.              On looking at street children knocking each car window , begging for pennies in rags, we sometimes feel pity, pity on their innocent faces, the faces which plead for lot more than their words say. These children, who lose their childhood in begging and collecting rags, are so very cursed. But one day seeing them smiling, you wonder what could be behind that smile. What could be the story behind their dirty but shining eyes; what could be behind the u.s.p.a. worn out shirt that that child is wearing; what could be the most happening thing that brings joy to these faces. This feeling is not pity.             Reading about big personalities and watching movies based on their lives, on one day you feel so inspired, so zesty, so passionate, so ambitious, and when that movie fades

    R eaching the Dosa shop this evening, when I placed a huge order of three dosas, I expected the bhaiyya standing there to give me extra sambhar and the red beloved chutney. Or if not the extra sambhar, the red chutney had to had to be kept. But quite contrary to my expectation, he just kept three sambhar packets and no red beloved chutney. When I asked for it, he started crying off the inflation in tomato and onion prices. Then i remembered and now fully understood the headlines today, "City cries onion tears".               Today's post is a small one as everyone who reads this blog, must be familiar with the soaring high inflation in onion prices and tomato prices; the rain which spoilt the crops and thus raised the prices equivalent to precious gems. Being an economics student, I need to now the inflation and other important economic news, but being a taste fanatic, I still need that red beloved chutney.

                  How often it happens when you're travelling in a bus and a few people, at a far distance, who seem to have no other work than talking irrelevant stuff(for them at least with a very little knowledge) of nation and political scenario, start off a story. A story of their past, of they being caught in a bus hustle, of being caught without a ticket and how they made an escape, of how rude the conductor was, or of how mad the driver was, or how they struggled for a seat and that turned out to be a "reserved for ladies one"(my favorite). Very often. This sometimes is fascinating and amusing. Most of the times people talking to each other hardly know the fellow being, but this is India. We all know each other. what if buses are most prone to thievery, what if  most of the times we don't even find a place to place our feet, we are the people who live.                   And why only buses, our conscious is manufactured in such a way that  that we are always

           It has been more than a month when I started hunting for bhagwad gita. people knowing me would rather laugh at me again as I always keep blabbering about my atheism. I won't deny my being an atheist(though i fear being called that) but that's how it is. But i wanted to read gita, not as  "gita", but rather as just a book. Just yesterday when we people were roaming about in JNU( we call it roaming but basically we went there for 'supersubsidized food') and we reached it's library, I got what I was searching for and that too for just 100 bucks.              But in a country like India, you can't read a mythological anywhere you want, at any time you want, in any posture you want or  in any state you want(by that i mean bathed or not). When I went for my coaching this afternoon( my m.a. entrance coaching which came to face after weeks long dilemmas), i took a metro as i was already getting late. I thought why not read my introduction and star

         Ever since I was a kid, I mean ever since I started hating studies, I've always found myself at constant war. A war between sleep and tension, a war between dullness and schedule, and (not very proudly though) I've won most of the times to the bad influences.           This one holiday, I planned up up with assignments, reading almost-impossible-to-read EPW articles, the plan from the morning to the evening. But quiet usually, I missed one meal (not because I was too busy studying, but because I woke up at the time of lunch). And adding cherry to the day was the awesome weather which held my view and my pen again and again to itself...         Though the funny part was we got this holiday after putting up a great fight against the teachers and the administration on grounds of we-need-more-time-to-study and we-are-grown-ups-now. But as they say, a holiday is always a holiday...