Monday, July 24, 2006

Delhi metro's matchless passengers..

Though I stay at the extraordinary ( hmm for beginners extraordinary::1: entities/people which/who possess extra qualities as compared to the ordinary variety of their respective species; 2: entities/people which/who possess ordinariness in extra quantities) hostels of Delhi College of Engineering, I have to make frequent (twice a week) metro rides commuting to and from home during weekends. These metro rides gave me experiences that, perhaps , 3-4 years down the line, will traumatise me when I sit down to write my gmat exam. But don't you think I 've grown into distress already, because u see, it pains far lesser when the blood is still hot. I now feel like sharing my experiences and observations of the types that grace the metro. By the way , before I forget, it was the definition no.2 of extraordinary I was talking about, I knew you'd have guessed it already.

Here I go then, take your pick.

1. the just-out-of-gym-hunks : hmmm they are generally a busy lot, not having much time to talk to strangers. In a crowded metro though, they might arise a few wrinkles on your forehead my friend, as how packed the metro may be, they do and will take as much space as required to flaunt the right cuts, the exquisite formations and to present the most macho appearance to the girl sitting in front of them ( and reading 'history of cherrapunji') .
The song they sing ( those of them who have an equally good voice …rare though ) : " kuch hum mein aisi baatein hain jo sabme hain kahan"……from , u guessed it, the one and only, the stupendous 'Aap mujhe achhe lagne lage'.

2. the super-sophisticated-Stephen's-studying-lass : so I just wrote about miss 'history of cherrapunji' girl in the first part. Yess, she's the one I'm talking about now. This species while going till vishwavidyalaya has something about it that catches my imagination every time. They are either 'very confident of changing the society for the better' or 'let the society go to hell with all its hypocrisies' types. When some no-harm-intended-fool like me approaches them, scepticisms galore in there mind of such magnitudes that the CBI wouldn't have doubted chhota rajan's intentions so much, on second thoughts, infact I dun think CBI doubts Rajan at all. Coming back, at perceiving a faint sound of 'hello' from people like me, their eyes roll up in disgust, as if asking,' I know what u r upto, u cheapster from shyam lal evening college … reach college in the morning itself …keeping your parents in darkness'. And then after a moment, says, 'whats the matter'. The last time it happened I said, 'someone just lifted ur purse' she, at first, was more upset about me using the word purse and not handbag, until she realised a few seconds later what she had Lost.
Their song : must be something in english, but this evening college cheapster doesn't know many of them. Sorry, make it 'any of them'.

3. the newly committed 20something duo : invariably prefer the 2 seat set next to the train doors, where there's nobody else close enough to poke his/her nose. Clearly discomforted by the sheer number of commuters, they hardly look in any direction other than each other's face, apart from an occasional stare at the lafadi they notice has been staring at them for five minutes. There advice to the rest of the world , 'live and let live', pretty noble hmm.
And now for their song : ' yeh armaan hai shor na ho bas khamoshi ke mele ho, is duniya mein koi nahin ho hum dono hi akele ho', and yeah its from kamal hassan's 'Sagar'.

4. the security person : though seen in the metro trains just a little more often than camels in the Himalayas, I was among the select ones to witness them, as the security had been tightened considerably after the diwali terrorist attacks in a few Delhi markets. Leaves the task of observing passenger behaviour to lafadis like me, too much immersed in his own domestic problems. A 5-yr old kid sitting adjacent to him, suffering from loose-motions was persuading his father to get down at the next station, for obvious reasons. The yelling of the kid annoys this security man and he stares at this innocent in ashutosh rana style. Father jumps in to rescue, says, 'aahhh bete ko loose-motion hai'. Security man smiles quite mysteriously as if askin himself , 'should I be more worried about his loose-motions or my piles', and after further thoughts, says, 'I'll pray to god gimme his illness'. Kid's dad was all tears for his kindness.
And his song…..'mere pyar mein…mere intezar mein…sach sach kaho tumne kya kiya' from 'ram lakhan'.

5.the lafadi (include me here)- with nothing better to do, no muscles to flaunt, no books to read, no gf to be busy with, no illness to fight, these keep themselves busy with observing people and commenting on them to fellow lafadi. As there self proclaimed representative, I can proudly say we're the ones with the least problems. The only one I face in metro is people staring at me as if I am some militant when I board the metro with the cylindrical engg drawing sheet case ( luks as if it contains asla barood), and (this time not their mistake) the gun shaped drafter in its cover……..
Their song ? The Jagjit Singh classic…'samajhte the magar phir bhi na rakhi dooriyan humne'

6.7.8…. Aur bhi types hain agli post mein bataunga…..

Chalta hoon phir

Friday, July 21, 2006

"keeping in touch"

Just recently I joined Orkut where a classmate of school days asked me with whom am i still 'in touch'... the question sort of agitated a sleeping portion of my mind and I began thinking of a sometime-best-friend, with whom I became friends playing cricket for hours , who went to varanasi 2 years back for studies.

So, do I keep in touch with him..... read this ( you can all it poem..I'll be happy)

a phone call a year,
in which ur friend, u do not hear,
but you hear his mother,
or mebbe his father or brother,
but not actually ur friend,
and it's almost become a trend.
his mother says,' hello, my child u dare not spoil'
and i'm like :'aunty! to hear this did i toil,
into this, me, u do not drag,
i did not call my friend to brag,
but listen now, its him who spoiled me first'
hearing this, into anger then she burst!!!
but why am i writing this bakwaas,
i haven't even seen much of bahu-saas,
now i seriously think I've gone nuts,
calm calm, here my mouth shuts !

restarting blogging....

Hi I'll be posting regularly on blogger now ! (what was the need of the exclamation mark, I've pledged it umpteen times before, and as if anyone reads this)...but this time I'm optimistic ( yeah i know I was last time too, but this time I am more), and I intend to stay..hopefully.....

who knows I might be ninth time lucky.

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

My friends at TAFS

Though I am not all that reflective or nostalgic about my days in TAFS, where I spent more than a decade, as some of my friends, but some memories do recapitulate in my mind on some occasion or the other.

I made some very interesting friends at TAFS, vivek and abhishek were the first friends I made. I enjoyed their company not so much because I found their ideas and opinions interesting but largely because they were pretty happy considering me the best of all and unquestionably accept it when I used to tell them that I could fight and also defeat twenty boys at a time. That I could overpower both vivek and abhishek in "panje ladana" only added weight to my ridiculously untrue claims. All this, I am talking about the time when I was six years of age.

For seven - eight years then, my best friend was pretty undoubtedly this amazing boy called Naveen Tanwar. It was in his company that for the first time I realised that I am not the ultimate one with might to compare with the almighty. he was probably better than me in academics as well as sports, I was a quite better at extra curricular activities. But being such an admirer of his ways, in due passage of time he somehow convinced me that extra curriculars are nothing but wastage of time. I do not know to this day what prompted me to accept his view. From what I have learnt from a common friend, he will soon be heading robotics section of iit Guwahati annual tech festival. whew!!! So now he leads me in the "extra curricular" as well. Its not that I didn't gain anything from him, else I wouldn't have stuck with him for so long. To him I owe a part of my resilience, never-say-die attitude, and keeping heads high and lips smiling in times of hardships and scarcities. Well, my association with him didn't meet a happy end as he, with growing stature, grew in ego, alright, but I had a little of it too.

In class eleventh due to shuffling of sections, I was placed in a different section than his, facilitating the final demise of our association. New friends made. Most memorable among them, for me, are Abhishek Chugh and Sanchit Garg. Chugh for his sheer brilliant sense of humour and sanchit for the wholesome personality that he had. Adding at this point is must, that Sanchit achieved rank 51 in iitjee.

Vikas and tripathi were two friends with whom I grew closer to during the iitjee days. Both of them were amazingly grounded, close to realities and pretty introspective by nature. Amidst all their good qualities, tripathi had a superiority complex ( when I told him that’s what I feel, he agreed wholeheartedly), while vikas was somewhat the opposite. Quite pessimistic fellow. And he agreed too when I communicated this to him. Strange..

In all these friendships I shared some wonderful moments, some inspirations, some lessons and some 'khinchai'. But one friendship that stands out is one I had and still have with this lad Vipin sharma. Compare with the academic and careerwise performance of sanchit, tripathi, naveen, myself, vikas etc, he'll be rated pretty mediocre. But only if academics had been decisive in friendships. They never are. I fooled myself on some occasions trying to be friends with people who were deadly brainy but had hearts as soft as corundum. Vipin for all his intellect could never achieve the level of academic excellence he deserved. But does that make him a lesser person? Surely not. And quite the opposite infact. In his company I gathered the courage to spill out my valued secrets, my deepest wounds, my ambitions, my thinking, my passions and everything else. Someone with whom there is never even an iota of communication gap. This state, I bet has never been experienced 'with' other friends, has never been experienced 'by' other friends, and probably you wouldn't have experienced it either.

Bye for now.

Monday, June 26, 2006

School days… before T.A.F.S

I did my schooling from three different schools, though the lion's share of my school life was spent in The Air Force School (TAFS), Delhi only. I started going to school a the age of three when I joined St.Mary's School in Ranchi. The school, I believe laid firm foundations for my academically inclined mind. Though I do not remember the names of any of my fellow classmates except one Vinod ( he was the monitor, you see I've always been in leadership vicinities if not always being The Leader), I really think that the standards they had set for themselves and hence for us were really first-rate. This I realised when I came to Delhi at the age of five and took admission in a certain 'Hycinth School'. It was a pretty mediocre school according to me but well I had to get admitted as it was mid session and admissions in most schools were closed.
Although I should have entered K.G class, but since I cleared their pretty absurd admission test (after two years already spent in education they asked me to spell kamal, madan, raman, chaman, bhavan…...{<-- these were in hindi},good, bad, up, down, yes, no, if, but and what not) meant for one hour in ..what…..10 minutes ( Ripley's believe it or not - its true ) , the convinced my parents of getting me admitted to class 1 and so it happened. There I made two friends - Anish and Tushar, with both of whom my rapport today is just about that occasional hi-hello when we happen to cross each other while roaming about in my locality (even that is not de rigueur, I find myself lazy for even that little gesture. Ok..mmm ....they are lazy too, I shouldn’t be giving myself airs. there is already enuf of it in my stomach....

Saturday, June 24, 2006

TOP Rated Comedy Flicks

The Phenom rates the following as the finest comic movies of bollywood :

Andaz Apna Apna

Tell me one character in this movie from raj kumar santoshi which does not induce laughter. stellar performances from both aamir and salman. not to forget the evergreen paresh rawal.

Hera Pheri

This film solely brought the brilliant comic nuances of akshay kumar and paresh rawal to the limelight. and priyadarshan became the new king of comedy genre films.

Hungama

situational comedy at its best. the film weaves laughter by means of funny misunderstandings. laughs so much that'll ache your stomach. but don't worry for the stomach, go ahead watch it if you haven't. the sheer enetertainment will 'more' than compensate for the stomach ache.'far more'.

Padosan

evergreen movie with immaculate performances from sunil dutt, om prakash, kishore kumar, mahmood and saira banu. truly marked the coming of age of comedy in indian cinema.

Golmaal

golmaal hai bhai sab golmaal hai! watch it as many number of times and you will only appreciate it more every time. amol palekar and utpal dutt create magical chemistry.

Deewana Mastana

A quite underrated film. Has powerful performances by govinda , johny lever, juhi chawla. Anil Kapor rarely does comedy but when he does, its always awesome. recent example - no entry.

Angoor

superb performances by sanjeev kumar- devan verma. Based on Shakespeare's 'comedy of errors'.confusion due to twins and more twins and more twins ( and more....) is not new in indian comedy films. but this is the movie that dealt with this scheme originally is angoor. copycats include a-not-as-good-as-original 'Bade miyan chhote miyan' starring big b-govinda, an immensely forgettable mithun-johny lever starrer, and also one shekhar suman starrer t.v. serial.

Chupke Chupke

In this film , the acclaimed filmmaker hrishikesh mukherjee charms you with his middle class lierate sensibilities meets humour meets arms length accessibility. a beautiful and subtle product from the master director.

Mujhse shaadi Karoge

a total Akshay kumar movie. This hunk at his best can make you laugh like no one else can. salman and priyanka complement well.

Jaane bhi do Yaaron

Though this movie cannot be put in the core comedy genre of films, it has some brilliant laughter moments that will definitely chuckle your funny bone. naseeruddin shah and ravi vasvani both are too good, though I must add that the less celebated ravi vasvani was better at the comic angle.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

yeah i m goin to dce


The results r out.

aieee - qualified mid rank
iit - qualified - bad rank
dce - qualified - chemical engg -> prod&ind engg
vit - qualified - computers - but not interested in vit
pec - qualified - mechanical engg

yeah most probably i will be goin to dce. though the results put up a serious question mark on my abilities and dedication, iwould like to believe otherwise. first lemme tell u abt myself a little bit. i hav been gettin sort of top ranks all throughout my school days. when i was 15+ yrs of age in class 10 , i studied abt 12 hrs a day on an average. 4-5 in 11th, 3-4 in 12th, 2-3 hrs in my drop yr. that makes me believe that i have it in me to clock 12 hrs a day to study, since i hav already done that previously. but in the next 3 yrs to my 10th standard did i not try to do that again. of course i did. but couldn't. so has the grit died down? i dunno. no, i suppose. i really dunno. but still things aren't flowing the way i would want them to. is it just a point of low in time for me? ok but should it have lasted for the 3 most crucial years of my life. or is 3 the right figure , mebbe it'll last for some more time. mebbe. mebbe not.