In Washington state this story would have been called - Jobless in Seattle

My first job came pretty easily to me. Managed not to break an egg while dropping it from the first floor. Said that Jenson Button was my next favorite driver after Michael Schumacher and drew a few relative permeability curves. Two days later I had a job. I still had one whole semester to go before I graduated.

As the Chinese say:

‘You’re lucky that the Yin has come to pass

Coz now the Yang will come and kick your ass’.

They don’t really say that but then again if they did I wouldn’t understand it.

But it did. And it all started when that senator from Illinois walked into the White house. In all fairness, it started a while back when I signed the admission acceptance from UT and quit my job. But all this detail is chicken and egg. Everything gets scrambled eventually. So this person became the 44^th president of USA and started twisting the arm of the companies. The basic premise was – ‘ If I see you hiring non-Americans, I’ll take away your tax break so fast that you’ll think that time-space has been warped’.

And so no organization was foolish enough not to heed to this and started checking your passport before hiring. At this point even developing an accent didn’t help either. I don’t blame the companies. Tax break is such a lucrative thing that it can make Aston Martin develop a hybrid that looks like a Pokémon. And we are talking about millions here so with passing time the resumes started getting rejected just coz I hadn’t seen McDonalds until I was 15 years old.

So I was about to graduate out of grad-school in about a month time and the metaphorical tunnel was pretty dark. Internship result hit a brick wall. Applications kept getting rejected to the point that I thought that I could write ‘To be able to find the end of a rainbow’ as the objective in my resume, as I believed that one read it anyways. A month went by and on the fateful day of my graduation, God brought the dangling carrot a bit too close and I took a bite. I got a job offer. Now that was a double whammy! I walk tonight wearing the black and burnt orange robe and now I have a bearing on my future. What could be a better timing! 3 hours later I was walking out of the Frank Erwin Center with the tassel on the right side. I had gotten in and out of UT, Austin successfully.

Incidentally at this very moment my kryptonite was taking shape. In 1757 the British had fucked the Indians. This time they did it to a single person. BP drilled a well that popped like a champagne bottle and the contents spewed all over the Gulf of Mexico. The worst oil spill in the US history was just starting. And the POTUS threw the spanner into the gears again. Ban oil drilling for 6 months. Remember how there were no flights in the air for half a year after 9/11. No? Exactly. Because it never happened. By gross extrapolation the muck-up of one company was used to cripple the entire oil and gas sector. Honestly I didn’t care that the pristine white sand beaches of Alabama and Florida were affected. I lost the job offer that I had. With no drilling happening, the industry was like a neo-natal ward in an impotent world. Nothing to do.

So I was back to looking up websites and applying. I began to like living in this state of suspense, where I wake up every morning to check my email and see if I have any more rejections. No news was good news at this point. I was living with a couple of my friends now and the constant company helped dilute the despair a bit. The high point in my day was biking along the 10-mile Lake Austin trail. The water, wind, gravel and the spandex-girls helped me put my mind at ease. Sitting beside the water, listening to Keane, I spend hours reading. Should I be liking this lifestyle? It was a conundrum. Here I was living in Austin, one of the most beautiful cities of US, not having to worry about a thing in the world. No coursework, no logs to pore over, no excel spreadsheets to look at, no meeting to report to and still I was wishing to move to Houston, the city which can only be described as the land of four seasons- almost summer, summer, still summer and Christmas. But I don’t really care about all that right now. All I want is to get a job, put my masters degree to good use and start saving up for a M3.

The best laid plans of mice and men often do go astray but all I’ am asking for is that Mr Obama stop being such a hard nosed democrat who thinks that all of his actions will be immortalized in the history books. When gas hits 10$/gal even your presidential entourage will have to stop for a refuel. And if you ever read New York times, listen to Thomas Friedman for once. An advanced degree should come with a green-card coz all I want is to make a life for myself, and a good one at that and it does not help when a recruiter tells you marry an American.

But..

I see the blue swimming pool stretching in front and my moist feet rests on the side of the 5ft end. Any person who hasn’t surrendered oneself to gravity before does hesitate; after all we aren’t hard wired to plunge. I took a breath and left the ledge and hit the water at a pretty obtuse angle. Slap! So that’s what Tom feels like when, during the unsuccessful chase of Jerry, he lands face first on the water and breaks into a dozen pieces. It was just the start of endearment.

It was some million summers back and I rushed upstairs to our second floor bedroom and closed the door behind me. I went into the bathroom and locked the door shut. I took out the cell phone and dialed the number. I was sitting on the toilet seat. The phone at the other end rang and she picked it up. On a Richter scale my heartbeat was over 10 now.

I said something like ‘hey it’s me’ followed by some blurb. The bathroom tile was reflecting my face and honestly I looked sick. ‘There is thing I’ve been meaning to tell you since a long time’ was the prelude to the spiraling disaster. I was wanting to say I love you but eventually I hung up without saying those exact words and it was a good thing being where I was. I might have peed my pants. Trivial things are forgotten. She even asked me to come over to talk things out but I took a rain check, flushed and went down for lunch. Chicken is better than a face-off.

Few years later in Mumbai, it was day before Christmas and the mall was lit up. A gigantic tree reached up to the ceiling and was adorned with muted lights and confetti. We were having dinner in the food court and I remember watching the people streaming out of the last movie screening. I looked at my watch and it was around midnight. We walked past the bookstore towards the escalator and I glanced around to see the display window showing some bestseller. We went down one level and we turned around to go down to the next.

‘Listen can we talk?’ She knew it and there, moments which seemed like ages later, I said it. Ok, so there is this rule of grammar that the school, for a reason I can appreciate, never teaches you. In a situation like this if you ever hear the words ‘but’, ‘although’ and however’ it’s time for a beating retreat. It was Christmas by now and the kids were cheering at the base of the tree. ‘Have fun while you can’ I murmured to them under my breath and walked out. Took an auto back home and on the way deleted all the texts on my cell phone. Therapeutic effect.

Years later and a few time zones to the left. UK gets really cold during the month of November. It hadn’t started snowing yet but the wind was biting and the days had grown short. We were all sitting in the lecture room poring over our laptops and trying to figure out something immaterial and boring. The instant messenger however was buzzing with activity. She was sitting next to me and we were chatting. The window was an overpopulated mess of smileys and emoticons. I had made some joke about Richard Branson getting the opportunity to go into a virgin everyday and was feeling really stupid about it when this overpowering urge gripped me.

I glanced over to my left and saw her. Looked down on my keypad and typed ‘this might be inappropriate but I’ am getting this feeling that I like you’. Return key. She was staring ahead at the blackboard. Darn it, look down. She eventually did and a smiley appeared on my screen. Oxford was a really nice place.

The water gushed against my face and filled up my mouth. I surfaced. The dive had hurt me but then in all probability I had jumped in wrongly. I swam to the edge and came out of the pool. Dripping, I stood there rubbing my chest, which I had bruised.

‘Headfirst, Headfirst, Headfirst’ I repeated, a deep breath, closed my eyes and took the plunge again.

Pecten in the Sand Box

The spring was over and summer was on

Austin was hot and the streets had gone

Parched and shimmery. May was here and

When the pecten called, Denver was my new land.

 

The drive was long, through hills and dirt

El-Paso was mid-way and my back began to hurt

Miguel was happy that Le-Bron had scored

The one sec shot and Orlando was floored

 

The Mexican flag flutters nearby they said

We turned right and I-25 stretched ahead

We passed Santa Fe n other New Mexico sights

The 8 o clock horizon showed Denver city lights

 

The house was fine though the parking was tricky

And sleeping on someone else’s bed seemed icky

At first but exhaustion took its toll

Next it was 5 in the morn and I was all set to roll

 

Drive to Shell to short and swift

5^th and 14^th Stanford Place. Took the lift

to the front desk. “Hi I’ am the new intern in drillin”

Just a sec. Lemme fetch you manager Chris Hakulin

 

A tall, lanky Finnish gentleman came and said Hi

Took me around the floor and after a while I

Was sitting at my desk with million forms to complete

This is what they call on-boarding. Frikking Sweet!

 

By the end of the day I had met and known

Andrea Boock, Jose Santiago and Jess Malone

My buddies for the summer interning at Shell

For some reason I heard a voice ‘this is gonna be swell’!

 

A happy hour at Lodo’s or a dollar taco at Lime

Saturday mornings at Wash Park never realizing time

Flew swift. Hiking up the Rockies or Pike’s peak by cog

Weekends went snap and come Monday, the same ol’ jog

Studying directional tendencies in Pinedale

is my project and effectively it boils down to ‘all hail'

MS Excel. Some head and some toil later, I can

Now safely say that Peter Voser is the man!

 

HR is rarely praised but I would thank them now

Houston and New Orleans was just a tad short of wow

Watched LSU knock off Texas’s baseball crown

And made up for the grief by owning Houston Brown

 

24^th floor room at W. Mississippi streamed the view

And for a strange fuzzy reason that night my heart beat anew

Bourbon St, Vampire Tour were merely some crazy means

Of enjoying the dark and soulful city of New Orleans

 

And while all the flights and hands of clock ran

Continental and United had a rather demonic plan

“Sir you can’t check in online” their moronic website says

Solamente porque su nombre es Jose Gomez

 

Back in the mile high town an untaken road

Was treaded. The power of ’10^-9’ was showed

To the wise and all keen tech nerve centre of Shell et al.

I would have jumped on but the wagon was too frikking small

 

Engrossed in smart fields I kept time at bay

Shooting out 20 mails was my target for the day ;)

Nonetheless 6 weeks passed and I was half-way through

So much had been done so far and yet so much to do

 

The story remains unfinished. So much more to tell

This was but a blink in the intern-life at Shell

Few answers are still pending. A lot depends on the few

A promise to you my dear friends, I’ll get back to you. 

Fifty stars and the lone star

This post is dedicated to my friends: Ashu, Miguel, Angel, Gandhi, Lauren and Drea 

When somebody uses the term ‘fresh off the boat’ I don’t mind the cheap shot but please at least respect your own Boeing.  Well admittedly I’ am not that fresh anymore. It’s almost a year now and on this 4^th of July weekend when none of my friends are here with me, I find time to reminisce.

After a 22 Hour flight you land in the same weather you had taken off from. Welcome to Texas. I drove from Houston to Austin on the first night and the place was so desolate, dark and quiet. Damn Youtube! I had such a different image it mind.  The next morning I woke up with a weird feeling of isolation, like a dog-eared page in a book, distinctively different yet a part of the herd.

Morning also brings another feeling. Although I had been to the US before there was one thing I respect about the French that I despise about Yankees and Brits. Toilet paper. Why kill trees or worry about recycling when you have Atlantic on the right and Pacific on the left??

Austin took quite sometime to grow on me but when it did it was malignant. The place that had looked quiet on the first night had life blown into it and was brimming with colors, sun, cars, hotties, cap-metro, cyclists and so many people I’d come to know as friends. Just the confetti was missing.

UT itself was imposing and it blended so well with the city that it did not look like a university per se and walking from one end of campus to another was a feat for the quadriceps. Classes began, moved into a new apartment, commuting on buses began and life started switching gears.

Going grocery shopping was like embarking on an adventure. Hop off the bus in front of H.E.B and then do a couple of lunges and squats. Warm-up before a workout. The place was so massive that a fly coming in would think that it was a new planet. Finding a carton of juice in those gazillion aisles deserved a same elation as Marie Curie’s radium find. Except that I didn’t die after drinking the juice. The way back was an ordeal, as I had to lug four 15-pound bags from the bus stop to home. That is when you appreciate the value a car and the fact that every American has two hands and four wheels.

When I applied for a driver’s license I rented a car and that night was the first time I was driving a left-hand drive and believe you me, it’s not easy. It’s like walking on your hands when you lose your bearing. I got fifteen honks on the very first day but did make it safely back home.  Americans say that Asians are good at math but are poor drivers. I say why don’t you come to India, you’ll be good at neither.

I got my first car, a Honda Accord EX Coupe with the money I had saved up from my fellowship and I’ am really proud of the five scratches that it has till date. I’ am pretty comfortable driving on the right side of the road now but I’ am skeptical about driving my dad’s car when I go back home. One scratch and I’ am disowned!

I had worked for an oil field service company before I came here to the US and after a year of studies I got a chance to work for an exploration and production company as an intern. I drove from Austin to Denver, a total of 1800 miles along with my friend. I had a throbbing back pain for a week but was an awesome experience driving thru the hill country, desert and along the Rockies. For some odd reason being away from Austin made me sad. I had begun to relate to it.

My intern began and I came to know and like people and gradually with their help eased back into the life of corporate world.

This one year has given me a lot. I’ve taught myself how to get a feel of the weather on the internet without going out of the house, talked my parents through the yahoo messenger setup, played softball and ran towards the pitcher with the bat in hand, seen snow at 14000 ft, gone hiking and seen a snake creep over my feet, learned to dabble in Spanish, drank half a gallon of milk in day and loved my life like never before.

Aquí está a la vida y a los Estados Unidos.

It's a Brand new joke !

“Yeah can I see those headphones?”

“Which ones sir?”

“Those .. there on the right .. the umm.bmmm..ymm”

“What? I couldn’t hear you .. do u mean the Bhattacharya ones ?”

“Yeah .. those .. give it to me” 

Lucky dog. This guy Amar Bose. Being a electrical engineer would have had no use for him had he been born Amar Bhattacharya. Who in the world would buy a sound system by that name? Can you imagine calling up the service center number of this company and they go “Welcome to Bhattacharya Corporation .. press 1 for technical assistance .. press 2 for placing an order” I would laugh for an hour if I heard that someone did name his company such. And I’am also not saying that Gupta Corp would name a good name. Even if it did manufacture fissile material shielding it would still sounds like a grocery store.

Some brand names just get lucky. If Steve Jobs had worked at a banana plantation and Beatles had not named their record “Apple” (yeah that’s the reason why Jobs called his corporation so) the story of i-Pod and Mac would have been different today. Imagine a white glowing, peeled, half eaten banana shining on the lid of the laptop. Except for monkeys no one would like that. “Hey did u see the i-phone?” “Yeah.. the one that Banana launched right”

No offense to you Banana Republic, your brand name stinks and so do your over-priced clothes.

And what is the deal with the brand- Tom Tom? I wouldn’t care less if they had named it Knock Knock. It sounds like a horse beating the African drums with it’s hoofs. No complaints about the GPS they make. It does a perfect job but couldn’t you think of a better name. Navigator? Path-Trak? Blip? Opto-Route? See, it took me 2 mins to think of four humane names. How hard can that be?

Snickers, it sounds more like a brand of under-wear than a candy bar. 7-up, sounds like 7 naked men surrounding a woman. Subway, unless you are selling turkey and chicken bred in the dark underground alleys, you have no right to retain such a misleading name. Once in Mumbai I asked a guy in the street “Excuse me, do you know where is the nearest Subway?” and his look changed from blank to bewilderment to contempt as if I was trying to make fun of Mumbai and said “Andheri Station is around the corner” but when I elaborated he said “Sorry, I don’t know”.

Axe, nice! For a male range of products you couldn’t think of a more masculine name than that? RPG’s, machete, hombre, sledgehammer huh?

Canon, add another ‘n’ and the camera can blow your mind. Literally. Why such a hostile name?

ASUS, ha ha ha ha ..really? That name?

Even in the automobile industry few names are very credible like General Motors (not that the company is credible anymore!), Ford Motors and even Honda and Toyota to some extent. But what’s with the tongue twisters and acronyms? Volkswagen (voks-va-gun or volk-sva-gun or vaulk-sva-gun or wyaaaa-wyaaaa-barf) and Lamborghini (don’t care how it’s pronounced but what is with the yellow color!) and the king of it all Porsche (phor-sha or por-shey or when I can’t afford one why the hell should I know how it’s pronounced). BMW just makes do with an acronym – Bring Me Woman but Broke My Wallet! and don’t even get me started on Volvo.

Brand names attract a lot of slur but I guess that the acid test they go through make them market-proof but then again the H₂SO₄ I carry around is of a slightly higher concentration. Skeptical or not, some of these do offer a laugh in the boring aisles of Walmart or HEB.

“Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha”

“What happened there?”

“Nothing. I just found a pack of frozen vegetable called Apetits. If that’s how they call it” 

The digital marijuana

Do not smoke they said. I said fine. Never do drugs. I said yes of course never. Never drink alcohol. I crossed my fingers and said yeah. No one said anything to me about Facebook.

The rage of social networking sites hit me in the junior year when I was hooked onto Orkut and took extensive pains creating my profile, putting in all the info with intense quality control and, I have mixed feelings as I say this, my circle of friends grew. I even bumped online with some long-lost people who were now on my ‘Friend’ list. Gradually Orkut expanded it’s umbrella and became more flexible in usage. People began to use it as a dating engine and two friends of mine (wonder why all this happens to my friends and never to me!) found their potential match on Orkut. In one case the potential wasn’t strong enough to drive the current and it went phut!

That being that, 2 years later I was sitting at my friends place in Andheri, which used to be my weekend getaway, when I saw him logon to Facebook. It was a totally cluttered website with too much information to fathom in one glance. If Orkut was a showroom, this was a warehouse. Stickers, notes, maps, quotes, gifts, trivia, ads, red boxes, white boxes, yellow boxes. It was as if Ronald McDonald had thrown up after eating a box full of crayons. Finding what you were looking for was like an Illuminati Trail and there was no Robert Langdon. In all, it was confusing. I was also told that this wasn’t for Indians i.e if you live in India. If you are in US, that’s a different matter altogether. The inability to understand the logic and messiness of the site got me hooked. And the occasional lack of work in Schlumberger helped. I joined the network, went through the ritual of filling the info, imported contacts and I was in.

If the intrigue got me hooked, the search reeled me in. I went to every box, fiddled around, moved it and at the end of to days I was bored. I rarely logged in again but that was until I moved to US for my studies. Here the network was so widespread that if it had been prevalent over 50 years back Roosevelt and Hitler had been on each other’s friend list. The US Constitution should add an annex to it’s free speech clause about the liberty to post at anyone’s wall. People from all age group are active on it. I once went to a friend’s graduation party and later that night I got friend requests from her mom and her aunt! Let alone people, even dogs have facebook accounts. But I’am sure they would just pee on a laptop if they saw one. It must be the owners.

Over time the clutter was taken out too and the interface became much more simpler. The population here was too much active. So much so that Facebook recently changed it’s “What are you doing now” to “What’s on your mind”. That makes more sense since when you are logged onto facebook, chances are that you have pretty much nothing else to do.

As I kept bumping into people around campus the parting question would often be “Are you on Facebook?” and thence on a single face to face stumble would grow more personal. Facebook has become like an obsessive-compulsive disorder for me. I sometimes even clean up my wall to make it look like less used! Even while writing this blog I must’ve logged in 20 times at the least.

Initially I was just involved with it. Now I’am totally committed. It’s like the egg and ham breakfast. The chicken was involved, but the pig, my dear friend, was totally committed. 

Nothing worse to learn about !

Circa 1994 when I first heard the ‘F’ word and thence on the learning curve has been steep. It’s true that that they don’t teach curse words at a sex-ed class but then we did not have those either. Indian education system boasts of high standards and rolling out geniuses but when it comes to birds-n-bees we have to rely on street talks, friendly banter, the shady shop around the corner and after hour television.

I was in 5^th standard and we were playing soccer on the field outside school when there was brief scuffle and as it broke apart a boy, I knew was in the same class as me, shouted “Take that you @##$@@@%!^@#*”

Ok that’s a new word for me so I later went upto this guy and asked him “You just uttered something a while back which did not sound Hindi to me. What was that?” And he told me that he was sitting in his Dad’s shop two days back when he heard some customer use that word hotly and that’s how he picked it up and that’s how mostly all of us do. No one sits you down and writes on the white board for you spelling out the phonetics, you just take it off the airwaves. But that is not where the learning stops. It gets worse or should I say exciting.

I’ am in the school bus riding back home when a guy, who’s 4 years senior to me, is talking to his friend about something called a condom and from the auxiliary information I can make out that it’s not a term in physics and neither in chemistry and to say biology would be to a digress a lot. So when I get back home and I ‘am having lunch with my mom I ask her “Mom, what’s a condom?”. I swear to God her hand stopped midway to her mouth. “Where did you hear that?” “Just some guys in the bus were talking about it” “It’s something you do not need to know about now. You need to grow up”. And the matter was buried. RIP.

Years progressed and I kept assimilating information with which I had no idea what to do. When I learned about Faraday’s law I knew that I would need it when I studied turbines, when I leaned Pascal’s law I knew I’d need it n fluid dynamics but when I learned the F-word, the C,P,G,L, and what not words I was at a loss of what do with this information. Clandestine information was exciting but overwhelming. And later when I learned that birds do it, bees do it and even educated fleas do it my floodgates were creaking already.

If it only had been the ending to it. Internet hit India big-time during the late 90’s and my knowledge bank surged and by surged I do mean phenomenal, exponential and tsunamial. Few years later I entered hostel life and then I hit the freeway. No u-turns and full speed ahead.

15 years later it seems like I have nothing more left to learn. People keep saying that you are always learning. True! Very True! But about science, finance, current affairs, Obama’s deeds, Pak’s misdoings,  Dow Jones crash but not anymore about “Bad Stuff” that you need to stow away under lock and key until you are an adult.

That’s what adulthood snatches away from you. A twisted, grey but really awesome childhood. 

Lost in Translation

This is for my friends who miss understanding the beautiful song ‘Jai Ho’ .

It does sound like a slaughter of the actual lyrics but then that’s what lost in transation is !

 

Jai Ho !  

May you win !

 

Aaja aaja jind shamiane ke tale 

Aaja zari waale neele aasman ke tale 

Come Come ! Under the alive canopy 

Come under the blue brocade sky

 

Ratti ratti sachchi maine jaan gawayi hai 

Nach Nach koylon pe raat bitaayi hai 

Ankhiyon ki neend maine phoonkon se uda di 

Gin gin taarey maine ungli jalayi hai 

Bit by bit I have lost my life 

I have danced the night away on hot coals 

Blown the sleep away from my eyes 

Burned my fingers counting the stars

 

Baila! Baila!
 

Dance! Dance!


 

Ahora conmigo, tu baila para hoy
 

Now with me, you dance for today


 

Por nuestro dia de movidas,
 

For our day of moves

 

los problemas los que sean
 

whatever problems may be


 

Salud! 

Cheers



 

Baila! Baila!
 

Dance! Dance!

 

Chakh le, haan chakh le, yeh raat shehed hai 

Chakh le, haan rakh le, 

Dil hai, dil aakhri hadd hai 

Taste it. The night is sweet as honey 

Taste it and yes, keep it 

The heart is the last resort.

 

Kaala kaala kaajal tera 

Koi kaala jaadu hai na? 

Your black kohl lined eyes 

Do have some black magic in them. Ain’t it ?

 

Kab se haan kab se jo lab pe ruki hai 

Keh de, keh de, haan keh de 

Ab aankh jhuki hai 

Aisi aisi roshan aankhein roshan dono heerey hain kya? 

How long have you had this on your lips 

Say it. Say it. Now that you look down 

Your eyes glisten like diamonds

 

Chorus and end

8 PM to 8 AM

There is this traditional thing that I have been missing on for the past two years because of corporate life being ignorant about the term ‘winter vacations’ but this year again I had a chance to do it.

Three friends (Nitin, Bhoopi and Myself) do a night-out @ Nitin’s place, in the first week of January and reminisce over the past year. Sounds like a dumb thing but given the fact that we rarely get to catch up with each other the 12 hours is like a Hoover Dam collapse of information, bickering, dogging (if there is a male equivalent of bitching), flaunts and more-or-less all the cargo of our train of thoughts minus the quality control!

So the three of us are eating at Dastarkhwaan (a totally down-market but awesome kebab joint in Lucknow) when we decide to continue where we left off. So I call up Mom to tell her that I won’t be coming home.

“Are u guys drunk? Is that why U are not coming home?” Her first reaction.

“Yeah that’s right! So I thought that instead of making a scene in front of you I’d rather do it in front of Nitin’s mom” My response

“Ah! Ok. See you over breakfast tomm then”

Sometimes providing too much info to parents can come back and bite u in the ass.

Nitin had recently gotten his bedroom renovated and it’s jazzy blue walls, surround sound, a plush floor spread were few of the reasons why this hangout was chosen but more so than any other was the fact that the floor plan permitted us to laugh out loud, use expletives generously and make lewd comments without waking up his parents.

Bhoopi was engaged, to be married next year so the starter of the night was his tale of chivalry and madness at courting his ladylove. By the end we clapped and told him to consider auditioning for MTv Roadies. Raghu too would surely be floored.

Nitin had a habit of downloading songs from every possible Hindi Movies from www.mp3hungama.com (for those who give a middle finger to ‘Stop Piracy’) so was DJ’ing for us and his surround sound was thumping away. Whenever he enqueued a Ghazal in the playlist, he got kicked in the butt. After all it was 02:00 in the night and we did not want a sedative.

Precisely at this time we felt an urge for a cup of chai. I’am not a big fan but tagged along. We crept to the kitchen, careful not to make a noise. Bhoopi who had recently flaunted his chai-making skills to his would-be-in-laws took the kettle in his hand. Chai-patti and Cheeni was added in measured quantities and the pot was boiling. I was crushing the ginger and making some corny joke when Nitin’s mom came out of the bedroom rubbing her eyes.

‘Tum log itni raat to kar kya rahe ho?”

“Aunty chai bana rahe hai. Main adrak koot raha hoon. Aap ko ek cup chahiye?” She went back to bed laughing.

Later we dared each other to do a bottoms-up with the tea but in Vinay Pathak’s terminology of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, nobody was ‘Macho’ enough to do it! 

Two hours later, we washed the cup and drank coffee in the same.

I wish I could give an excerpt of the conversation, not that I give a damn about secrecy clauses, but I’ am too immature to be able to make sensible statements out of 12 hours of garbage talks.

Next day Bhoopi was leaving for Delhi and thence to Purdue. Nitin would get back in the rhythm of his job and I had just one more week at home. Our stomach hurt from laughing and the effect of coffee was wearing off. We pulled the sheets and wished – maybe some day again.

 

Shawsh'ankle' Redemption

Only this time I wasn’t faking it. About 11 years back when I was in eight standard, or somewhere there, I was asked by my teacher to play a part in a play. I though that I hadn’t done any great things so far so WTH (H=Heck not Hell. I love God) I’ll do it. Rehearsal began and as it turned out I wasn’t suited to play a Doctor. I’ am sorry, as I 14 years old, it’s odd that I do not know how to hold a stethoscope.  So after 2 days of practice I was downgraded from a Doctor to a guy running a grocery store!

That’s like going from being in Mathematics section till 10^th and then being told to switch to commerce for 12^th! My soul threw up. I thought of showing my teacher how good a doctor I was by breaking her Femur! but I did not and my report card vouches for it. I decided to ditch the play and I needed a plan to get out of it.

I used to ride a bike to school and I decided to center my script on it. So here’s how it would go. I go out on a ride, stumble across a rough patch on the road and take a hard fall, sprain my leg and end up with a bandaged leg for at least a week and I’ am out of the play. Not in real. I may not be qualified to play a doctor but 'Am not stupid. But I couldn’t walk to school with a normal gait and then wrap a bandage on my leg in front of the school gate so I had to involve my Mom/Dad in this too. This was tricky. I would me limping 24 hrs! So my cycle crash occurred at an audible distance from home and I made my debut at acting the ‘painful’ look and bailed out from the play. And that’s the story of how I had my shot at stardom and how I blew it by inventing a lie of falling off a bike when all I did was dismount, sit down, well up and shout!

11 years later on Thanksgiving Day, I’ am walking to a friends place for a dinner. No buses are running on campus so Ashu and I walk the way. ‘Boy the campus is so crowded today because of the A&M game and look at all the.. aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh’ and I flipped over, my specs fogged and flew out and I was lying flat on the grass. Apparently I had stepped into a hole, a size of a bear trap and twisted my ankle as badly as a toffee wrapper . I was in a total holiday mood and in no way was I gonna let this minor, aaaaaaaaahhhhhh, incident put a damper on my plans. So with Ashu’s help I trotted a mile across campus walking as if Pinocchio was suffering from a severe case of Termite attack! With every step, the crunch and internal aaah alarm went off. I managed to get there but with dinner the plans for the night were not over yet. It was Black-Friday and I could not allow by ankle to come in the way of the awesome threesome between my credit card, 50% sale and my shopping fetish!  It was the first time in my life that I did a night out and for what an honorable cause. Wardrobe re-style!

All this while I was walking like the hands of clock at 17:30.

So here are the 3 morals of the story

1. Never fake an accident because it come back to haunt you in real 11 years later.
   
2. Tylenol doesn’t make pain go away. ‘Did you find everything ok? Your bill is XXXXX, please swipe your card’ does.
   
3. England you suck at cricket. India you rock! ( It has nothing to do with the story but I just wanted to say it )

    

    
   

The Night the crowd came out

To my friends – Ashu, Miguel, Angel, Cagri, Andres, Gilberto, Karina and Federico 

It was as wild as Bugs Bunny on an aphrodisiac. On a fornicating spree. Only it wasn’t Bugs Bunny, it was the UT Students. It wasn’t aphrodisiac, it was sheer madness and ‘spirit’ and it wasn’t a fornicating spree. It was Halloween!

I had heard the stories of the crowd going berserk on the 6^th Street but I was about to discover it first hand today. You know when I go grocery shopping and I buy too many vegetables that exceed the size of the crisper, I stuff it in somehow, squishing the tomatoes, twisting the gourd and pulping the lemons. I totally empathize with them after this night. I open my fridge and the tomato looks up and says “Aha! Been there, seen it! Do you get it now how it feels to be groped my fellow species!”

My non-Indian friends had celebrated Diwali with me so I decided to go for Halloween with full steam. I was dressed as a County Cop with a badge, goggles, shoes and everything. Just my Allen Solly belt was a dead-giveaway! Now I couldn’t wear my regular glasses so I put it in a friend’s purse and I was walking with my prescription shades on which made the dark night ever darker and me half-blind. But then, in the crowd bumping was unavoidable anyways. After all it beat the Mumbai Local Trains hands down.

I must admit that Americans can be creative in the weirdest ways possible and they do put in a lot of effort to make that creativity come alive. Some of the funniest, spookiest, LMAO and gross costumes I saw –

5 guys dressed as blocks of Tetris who managed to carry 5 ft high blocks and sat interlocked on the street. So many Sarah Palins that if indeed they were republicans then McCain need not worry. A guy dressed as an Investment Banker with his wife in front of him and a board on his head “On Sale For 1000$. Sell everything. The market is crashing!!“. The famous Batman and Joker duo at times seen with the entire crew of Justice League. So many girls dressed to the point of endorsing ‘sluts are us’. Fred Flintstones and Welma, entire cast of Loony Tunes, guys dressed as playmates, incredible hulk and there were some other cops too beside me. At one point I even crossed some real cops who were patrolling the area. Whoopsy Daisies ! I asked one of them for a picture and he said ‘sure’. Also the grossest of costumes (but I did laugh my heart out) was this Guy dressed as a huge dick down the minutest details. Who makes that stuff !! “Oh yes Sir. Please stitch me a weeny. Yeah 6 foot long. That’s right. Don’t forget the pockets!” If that’s isn’t creativity then Osama is really dead.

And in all this hustle I lost sight of my friend who had my glasses and I was stuck with my shades with which I was seeing white as grey and without which black. We went into a pub and the doorman asked me to take off my glasses inside to avoid stepping on someone’s toes. “Buddy without it I’ll walk OVER someone and not know”. Eased my feet after miles and hours of walking and it was 02:00 soon. Took the bus back to campus, which was now looking like how it would look when civilization is wiped out. Totally deserted. My flatmate Ashu, was guiding me along. “Here, step up to the sidewalk. Lookout, there’s a pole. Dogshit! Oops! “  I reached home unscathed.

This was my first taste of American Festivity and I can’t say that I did not love it. It was wild and lively and I slept a drunk, jay-walking, unruly cop tonite. 

Shaken and Stirred : Life isn't a Martini

There are many ways to tell this.

A child who gets a new toy, gives up the old one he had and loved for so long, just to play with the new one for a while and realizing that it’s not what he actually wanted tosses it away, goes back to the old one and loves it even more. Or a man who doesn’t bother enough to care for his new car drives over a steep bump and is shaken to his soul, realizes that all it takes it one bump to break apart his car unless he takes care of it and he does it really well eventually.Or a simple matter of changing breakfast cereals for a change and then after a while realizing that it’s not suiting your palate go back to your old and faithful choice and promise to stick to it.

Well the crux of the matter is that it takes a very small transition to make you realize that what you have at hand is really important and that, my friend, is what you really want and not the transitory gatecrasher. 

Ah that is nice, let me see,

Oh what a wonderful life it might be

With this thing in my heart

Life is as wonderful as yellow is Bart.

But then alas, a choice to make,

Which to keep and which to bake,

O! this one for sure. Or maybe that.

Thomas Friedman isn’t sure that the world is flat.

This one it is. I know I love it.

And you there, just for a while, just go and shove it.

I was glee and my thirty-two showed,

But I was sad for the one who was mowed.

Tough call buddy. Had your chance.

Time for us to shake booty and dance.

We had our moments and things looked swell.

Then choices were re-thought and sub-zero went hell.

Karma is bad thing. Came around

And kicked me in the arse right when I found

Two days of joy and a year of tears.

God said. You have a problem son. I’am all ears.

I tucked away the space and time,

Walked far away from the scene of crime.

Going back to the old and faithful is the best thing to do,

Who, despite being told to shove it was standing by you.

We become in life by the choices we stick,

Voldemort or Harry. Take a pick.

Thanks for the time that you had showed,

Wherever you are, remember the bump on the road. 

Quintessential Uttar Pradesh - Haasil

28 states and a supply chain type working of Bollywood production houses ensures the fact that at some point in time, movies are bound to be dedicated to a certain state.  The “bhaiyaas” of UP have been a perennial subject feeding the pipeline and producing movies like Omkara, Main Meri Patni aur Wo and some trashy ones like Tashan. But if I’ am asked to single out one I’d (without batting an eyelid) say Haasil.

With an IMDB rating of 7.7 this movie owes it’s 6 (out of 7.7) to Irfan Khan. It was the favorite “Wing-Film” in the hostel (competing with Gunda, neck-to-neck) and its dialogues were thrown about in the mess to completely unaware people who stared at us blankly. Here’s the CD, go watch it.

It opens up on the terrace of the Allahabad University with the goons of Gauri Shankar chasing Ranvijay Singh.  Our lady (Niharika) makes an entry for an unapparent reason and Ranvijay borrows her hair-band for making a desi-bomb. Now the dialoguebaazi that ensues went down in the history of our hostel wing. Ranvijay is caught and bashed up, but not before he has used the bomb and reduced one guy to tears. 

"रणविजय आज जो है तुम्हारी कहानी है ख़तम"

"पंडित, तुमसे गोली वोली न चली, मंतर फूँक के मार दो, और तू चिल्ला का रहा है बे, एक और बम बनाये का ?"

And then enters Gauri Shankar, the current university president. 

"अरे ओ निशानची, हम आ रहे है हम, गौरी शंकर, तोहरे बाप" 

He props Ranvijay up from the floor and sometimes I use the same dialogue to wake up my flat-mate in the morning.

"चलिए उठिए, हाँ, क्या दामाद बने पड़े है यहाँ, हा चलिए"  

I have never been to a state university but growing up in Lucknow, I can vouch for the fact that the nail was being driven right into the head.

The next scene is a dilapidated cinema hall which is a hangout for Ranvijay’s gang. They are watching a scene from the movie Nayak where bullock carts are being blown up. Their level of IQ is revealed when they discuss the funda of "बम्बैया बकैती" "माडर्न सोसाइटी" until Ranvijay enters to discuss their war-plan against Gauri Shankar. When advised to run away as everyone is on his look out Ranvijay retorts 

"काहे भाग जाए बे !! मारे लप्पड़ तोहरी बुद्दी खुल जाए. फौज ज़्यादा है तो भाग जाए. वोह सरकारी गुंडे है, हम क्रांतिकारी है. गोर्रिल्ला वार किया जाएगा. गोर्रिल्ला वोर्रिल्ला जानते हो की नहीं " 

And then everyone explains his knowledge of Gorrilla warfare. One even goes onto say that he resembles one.

Aniruddh (our hero) is practicing Hamlet on the stage when he meets Ranvivay and he becomes a fan of his धाकड़ acting.  

Gauri’s younger brother, Badri, who is contesting the University elections confronts NIharika and says, possibly, the funniest lines of the movie. That too in English.

“I’ am Badri Shankar. Younger brother of carrant prreshident of Ooniversity. You gibhe me vote and I can gibhe you ……… Claash on time, eggjamination on time. Neat and clean Ooniversity” 

One of the best scenes in the film is when Anni and his dad go to a garment store and his dad insists on buying the same “check” cloth for both him and his son. Ranvijay who is meanwhile taking refuge on the first-floor of the shop summons Anni to meet his gang. 

"यह अनिरुद्ध है. कौन है ?" "बहुत जबर एक्टिंग करता है. इसकी एक्टिंग देखोगे न तो तुम्हारी ................ हालत ख़राब हो जाएगी" 

And then one “nouveau -urban” guys in his gang bears the brunt of humiliation.

"यार तुम इसको सिखायो. टोपी शोपी ! आए हाय मेरे राज्जा ! टोपी पेहेन्ने से नहीं होता." Ranvijay asks Anni to have a beer so that he’ll be ठंडा ठंडा all day. But then his dad comes up and Ranvijay introduces everyone around as Anni’s college-mate, even though their appearances deceive it.

"यह तौफिक है. BSc की BA बे ? " Taufiq looks down, takes hi cap off and disappointedly says "BSc कहाँ ! BA "

Meanwhile elections approach and also in a parallel story line, love is blossoming between Anni and Niharika, who is supposedly the only good looking girl in the entire university. Ranvijay finds it out and laments about the fact he does not have a love in his life. 

"नज़र का ही तो खेल है. दिल तो साला हमारा भी साफ़ है" 

But he helps Anni out by finding a place for them to meet secretly.

Gauri Shankar pissed off by the antics of Ranvijay, sends out goons to kill people in Ranvijay’s village. The Chief-Minister surveys the scene of tragedy and then, to display the irony of law-and-order in UP, gives a ride home to Gauri Shankar and his men in his white-red-light ambassador. A policeman who tries to see what is going on is reprimanded. 

"आप ज़्यादा phantom ना बनिए. सर सर करेंगे. डांट दिए जाएंगे. " 

Ranvijay hits the roof on getting this news and pledges to finish off Gauri Shankar on the thirteenth day of mourning. And that he does. He also wipes off the confederates of Badri, who loses the election after his brother’s death but spares Jackson, whom he plants in Badri’s team to provide insider information. Now Ranvijay shifs focus to Anni and Niharika who are secretly dating but what Anni does not know is that Ranvijay also likes Niharika and wants to get him out of the way. Damn the girl again!! He leaks information of the dating venue to Niharika’s family and her brothers promptly bash up Anni. Now Ranvijay instigates Anni is one of the ‘motivational’ scenes of the movie to go and seek his revenge. 

"लड़की के सामने मार खा जाने से लड़की को लगता है की लड़का प्यार तो करता है पर सुरक्षा नहीं दे सकता" "बाप को तो छोड़ दो पर भाइयों से हिसाब बराबर कर लो" Hands him a gun. "यह लो. बस दिखाना. फट जाएगी. दौड़ा दौड़ा के मारना" 

Anni, in the heat of the moment, lets out a shot and hurts a guy. Police try to hunt him down and Ranvijay helps him elope to Mumbai where we are introduced to another character, Chutkku, who is a total nut-case but manages to conk out Anni. Ranvijay meanwhile plays his cards and convinces Niharika’s dad for his wedding with her. Asshole !

Annis wakes up in Mumbai two days later and promptly rushes back to Allahabad where he realizes what Ranvijay’s plan actually are. He manages to elope with Niharika and takes shelter with Badri, who believes in “a foe of a foe is a friend”. Meanwhile Ranvijay who has secured a sensitive tape of the Chief Minister, blackmails and admonishes him (by hitting him with a slipper!!! A CM being hit by a slipper !!!) to force Badri to hand over the girl  to him. The deal is set for the next day at Kumbh Mela where gun-fire ensues and everyone except for Anni and Niharika is killed. Ranvijay is shot by Anni himself. The CM brushes off all the charges and the couple is free !! 

What a movie ! After coming to Austin, I miss speaking and listening to Hindi a lot and especially the tone of the typical UP Hindi.  Where else, but this film, can I listed to the distilled version of the “Bhaiya” hindi and it is one of the reasons I love this film and also because of Irfan Khan who has done a stupendous role as Ranvijay. 

"भइया धाकाद पिक्चर है. ज़रूर देखना. समझे ! "