People

These days whenever I travel by trains, I really don't have much to do - no papers to read, no music to listen to (thanks to my cell sans its display - which resembles a landline now - just can call and pickup calls..zero display :P)
So I don't have much choice to pass the time - except stare, and stare some more at the people in the train...and this post is the result of all the staring and "people-studying" I have lately indulged in...
Not a character sketch or something, just an outline of the various people I came across...
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A lady who sells khaman dhokla and sev papdi. I had previously written about her here I just love it when I get to see her in the compartment..although I still haven't bought anything from her...
She makes me super nostalgic somehow...

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A vegetable vendor cursing her 3 yr old daughter and blaming her for nearly everything under the sun - from the crowd in the train to the fact that the vegetables were rotting for lack of customers.

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A blind couple who boarded the same train as mine and supported each other throughout the chaos on the platform and journeyed together - every single day.

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A lady who used to be in my train when I went to VESIT and used to ask me where I had been, every time I resumed college after the vacations...

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A lady who had her head covered with her pallu - only to reveal her 70 earrings - (35 per ear! - and I am not kidding!!) to the bewildered people seated beside her..
and went on to tell them about her entry in the Limca book of records.

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A group of collegians doing last minute train revision, through notes heavily underlined in ink of various colours,and an old lady advising them on how they better use pencils for marking the notes...

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A lady when troubled by a road-romeo, hurling abuses at him and threatening to call the police fearlessly. (We don't see many of these even though we claim on being fearless and liberal!)

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A lady selling ayurvedic powders and facepacks.Never missing a word out of the mugged up advertisement of her products and relentlessly goes into the detailed benefits of each of the products. I almost know her entire ad by heart after listening to it 8-9 times now!

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Different people different tastes,languages, religions - yet all of them have something in common - they all have dreams, aspirations, fears, grudges, tensions, payments to be made, taxes to be paid, and loved ones eagerly waiting for them to reach home - which makes them the same as you and me...

PS: Wanted to title it "We The People", but restrained myself from copying titles again! :P

The perfect seat

She badly wanted to attend the concert...it was the performance of her favorite singer and she didn't want to miss it for anything in the world.
She attended the program before the concert to ensure that she had the best seat...She was ready to spend an entire hour listening to some political honcho ranting about the opposition party just to make sure she didn't miss the chance to listen to her favorite singer - which was the program just after the political honcho's speech.
As luck would have it, she entered and found a seat!!
At first she was happy...happy that she had managed to secure a seat directly in view of the podium...so what if it was the last row? It didn't matter as long as she was able to "see" her favorite icon...
Then slowly as she settled down, she noticed many of her friends who were seated in 4th or 5th rows...and she started feeling queasy..."I should have come earlier..I should have asked them to book a seat for me..." and she started to look out for a better seat in the front rows..
The political honcho was in the middle of his speech and she prayed that at least some of the people gathered there may leave after he had finished (although she knew that they all had come for the singer's concert) and make room in the front rows..
Suddenly, a few people got up from their seats...her heart skipped a beat...her prayers might have been answered!! But alas! they had just gotten up for a break and their belongings safely declared that the seats were still occupied...
Finally, after much craning around to spot "just one seat", one guy got up..she almost ran there, stumbling along and managed to grab the seat. Finally!!! she had managed to secure an "almost front row seat"!!!As she looked around gloating at her conquest...her heart sank again....She realized that she had gotten the seat just behind the place where the cameraman would stand...making it next to impossible for her to see the stage...and she again embarked upon the conquest of a "perfect seat"....

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Why does it always have to be somewhere else that is more happening, more intriguing and more inviting than where you actually are?
Why is the grass always greener on the other side even if you know the water bill is going to be high too? (Ok...i dhapofied this from some status line! But it does sum up the emotion very well) Why are we always in the "pursuit" of happiness?
Why is satisfaction always eluding ? Why is there always "that one thing" which will make you happy? Even if you manage to get it, why is there suddenly "just one more thing" which you badly, truly, really want before you'll be happy again?
Why???


PS: A series of events have happened...making me rave and rant on the blog...Hopefully the next post will be more entertaining..Pardon moi for this outburst! :-)
PPS: Another of my posts having an anonymous person..promise that the next post's subject will have a proper "name" :-)

Fortune, Fear and Faith

You are standing at the edge of the precipice..you look down and see the deep dark blue river...you know you have to jump..you can feel the coldness of the water and a shiver runs down your spine...
You have to jump to get across, there is no other way...

You look down again and wait for the whistle to blow - the whistle is your cue to jump. The wait feels like eternity...
You take one more look down at the water and feel a lurch inside ...your courage trembles, your feet get wobbly and you suddenly become uncertain of your ability to swim...

You know that when you jump in the water, it will be cold, it will be deep...and yet jumping is the only way through.
You know that once you jump, you will have no control over your actions...the current will sweep you in its flow...it could land you in one swift wave to where you wanted to go. But then, it could even pull you away from where you had thought you will go and push you towards where you did not wish to go...but you have no choice...

It is then you realize that, the only thing you can do is keep swimming...not in any specific direction, not against, but with the tide - no matter where the river takes you, you have to keep swimming.
You have to keep swimming - and have unwavering faith...faith in your abilities, faith in the river below and faith in the sky above...and ultimately you will reach where you were destined to...
Amen!

PS: Written in a fit of desperation, ignore if you find it meaningless and out of context :P

A Prayer

A prayer that is extremely close to my heart...had read it somewhere and suddenly came across it today. Couldn't help posting it here...


जे टाळणे अशक्य, दे शक्ती ते सहाया
जे शक्य साध्य आहे, दे निर्धार ते कराया ॥
मज काय शक्य आहे, आहे अशक्य काय
माझे मला कळाया, दे बुद्धी देवराया ॥

Translated it means,

Give me the serenity to accept the things which cannot be changed
Give me the determination to change the things that I can
And the wisdom to know the difference...

Amen! PS: Although I had read the original in Marathi, the English version is credited to Reinhold Niebuhr

The Missing button

He was excited! He so badly wanted to wear his new shirt and brag about it to his friends! It was one of his most favorite ones...and as he took it out to wear, he lovingly gazed at it, marveling at the turquoise colour and the flawless finish...He ran his hand along the rim...the shirt was perfection itself...nothing was amiss.Until, he noticed that one tiny missing button.....
He wondered how he could have missed noticing it before...the even line of shiny silver buttons was broken. Nothing that would stand out from a distance, but something that was very obvious once you looked closely...
Once you looked closely, the absence could not be ignored...it was there - in stark contrast to the otherwise perfect piece of fabric - as if teasing him on purpose, and reminding him of all the things he was missing amidst his almost perfect existence - loved ones, lost dreams, forgotten promises, broken vows - and his eyes moistened as he put on his jacket to hide that missing button...

PS: Dedicated to everyone who has a shirt with a missing button...

Action Replay!

The other day, I was in a train taking me back home...as usual I just put on my headphones, turned on the music player and settled comfortably in my (window :-)) seat. The player coughed up one of my all time favs - "Yuhin chala chal raahi" from Swades...ahhh...heavenly :-)

A fortnight of slogging, coding, writing and nightouts might have made me a bit wonky...but never mind...this is what came to my mind then...and I want to pen it down, so here I go...

The song said "Jeevan gaadi hai samay pahiya..." and I thought "Wow! That's so true...Life is a train...time is(are) the wheel(s)" (forgive the grammar ;-))
What this means is that every event, rather every day, every moment in our life is lke a station...a station which, once we pass through, we can never cross it again... Life's train knows only one direction - the forward one.

So what if we do want to re-visit a station, I asked myself? (Well, I already said I was a bit wonky, so this might not make much sense!) Isn't there any way out? "Well, yes there is...we call them 'memories'". "But if life is indeed always moving forward, how can we have memories? How can we re-visit previous stations?" "Hah!" my (wonky) self answered, "That is because life is a train with a CCTV camera! " ;-)
How smart...and convenient! Revisiting a station means just playing that station's tape in our mind...all the while being aware that life's train is still moving forward...even as we are busy reminiscing over this video...these images from the past...

Well, since I am already in the mood to philosophize, I want to share just one more thought that popped up in my mind...something that might help glide over those Monday blues...If memories are indeed tapes which we play in our minds (voluntarily!), and if memories are capable of making us sad, angry or even depressed (which they indeed are capable of), why not use this fact wisely?

Whenever we relive a sad memory, and feel blue then it's almost as if we are watching a tragic movie and complaining that we are feeling sad, or cribbing that we are scared while watching a horror flick, isn't it?! And the solution is really simple...just switch off the flick and put in another tape with a comic movie...switch off the tape with the bad memory and put on a tape with happier memories! Well, happy memories need not always be (rather they seldom are) big events/days/achievements in life...often they are the simplest videos starring our friends and family :-) (and the star of course - us!)

So, the next time you feel down in the dumps...don't forget..just change the tape!

Signing off!

PS: Of late, I have taken to stealing titles, which is kinda sad...hope I get back to having original titles for my posts!
And before I forget to cite...this title is chorofied from the upcoming Ash movie "Action Replayy"

My Experiments with Food - I

A few weeks ago, one of my best-est friends treated me and my family to a sumptuous dinner - cooked entirely by her...It all began innocently enough, when her granny asked me, "So, what all do you cook?"
I nearly choked on my "sol-kadhi", and replied "Err...ahem..well, lets see, tea, coffee, Bournvita(that counts as cooking since you need to know the milk-bournvita ratio!), Maggi (Noodles as well as Soup)...err...ahem..."
My friend Anu, as always, came to my rescue and said, "She stays in a hostel, she doesn't have much chance to cook there!" and I took the opportunity to hastily change the subject and ramble about the virtues of "home-made" food over "hostel-mess-ka-khana"....Whew! That was close...

But the conversation (my brother's teasing not withstanding) encouraged me to try my hand at cooking too! :-) Well, to be honest, I have tried cooking the standard Upma-Poha-Sheera, but my culinary skills have taken a backseat for the past 3 years...since hostel-life happened...

My Mom often says "Those who love to eat, also love to cook!" and I couldn't agree more..
A self-confessed foodie and a die-hard food-aholic, I decided to try my hand at making pav-bhaji this weekend...

Well, I must confess, I did not make it from scratch per se, since my mother had already bought the necessary paraphernalia and had also cut up the veggies before I reached home on Saturday evening.Ah! All that I had to do now, was to cut up tomatoes and onions..and since I take pride in my "fine-chopping"-onion skills, it felt like a piece of cake...at least until mother handed over the "Veeli" to me...

"What's this?? Where's the knife??" I asked, bewildered...and got to know that our friendly-neighbour-next-door had borrowed it for the day...Bang went my plans of the "finely-chopped-onions-and-tomatoes"... Now, most of you must have seen a "Veeli", you might be calling it by different names, but here's a pic to show you exactly how it looks...(and how difficult it must be to cut things using it!)
But since I had promised I'll be cooking, I had no option but to try the "Veeli"

"Do what you can, with what you have and where you are" rang in my ears and so I spent the next half an hour huffing, puffing and literally "tearing" the onions across the "Veeli", all the time wondering how my granny still manages to do it so effortlessly!

I was not-so-happy with the gigantic-onion-and-tomato pieces, till..."Aha!! You know what, I am making "Khada Pav-bhaji!!!" I suddenly declared grinning from ear to ear :-D
Well, (thankfully) my brother had never eaten "Khada" pav-bhaji @ a restaurant, and so I was free to call "my-version-of-pav-bhaji" as an authentic "Khada pav-bhaji" ;-)
"You see, it's that version of pav-bhaji which takes less effort+less time (since the veggies are nor finely chopped) + more price(since you can actually see the veggies and the chef can't fool you with adding just lotsa tomatoes+onions)" I declared knowledgeably... ;-)

And so began the actual cooking...Sautee the onions until they turn pinkish, then add the tomatoes, add the masala and keep stirring, mother said.
Well, the onions seemed to take forever to turn pink and so I decided to help them by turning the gas to a higher flame :-)
"Cooking needs patience, like most other things in life...!"
"Food cooked on a low flame is tastier than one cooked hastily on a high flame" mother said, sensing my impatience.

Side by side, I started mashing the other actually finely-chopped(by mother) veggies, cutting up and baking the pav...and got so engrossed in doing it that I totally forgot about the mixture kept on the flame..Heck, it had just started turning brownish! :-|
That's when I realised "Cooking is all about multi-processing and multi-threading!" OS matters!

I added the red-chilli powder and salt in the correct proportions and finally, after much ado, instructions, simmering and garnishing, the "Khada pav-bhaji" seemed ready to eat! :-))

The people who dared to eat it declared it "Pretty good" and "Hmm...hmmm...hmmm" (No points for guessing,this was my brother :P) and it did taste nice if you ignored the huge-onion-tomato pieces popping up in every bite! ;-)

This ends the story of my first try at making a full-fledged meal...

Until next time,
(I will) Keep cooking!

PS: I do intend to try lots more dishes, hence the "Part-I" in the title..
PPS: Speaking of titles, and being Prof.Siva's student, I can't get rid of the itch to "cite" it ~\cite{The title is blatantly chorofied from a column of the same name that appears in DNA Sunday} and the picture of the "veeli" is taken from "www.fivetastes.com"