Jet Black

He looked out his cab window in the darkness. There was something familiar about the roads, even in the darkness. It suddenly started drizzling. A drop of rain fell on his spectacles and started making its way down to the rim. As the layer of water washed down his sight, the outside world seemed to change. He felt as if he was back.

It was drizzling that night too. He wasn’t in a cab but getting drenched in the rain. Rain drops lashed against his face as he drove his bike at full speed. But he didn’t care. Not today. Not now. A red signal, a policeman’s whistle, an overturned car. Normally he would have stopped or at least slowed down. But not today, not now.

He reached at around 10:05 PM. He just dropped his bike and ran into the station. The train was already on the platform. He looked frantically from left to right, up and down the platform. In the train, on the benches, in the stalls. Searching everywhere for a trace of her jet black hair. She was no where to be found. He started asking people in the train, the coolies, the vendors. But of no use. A shrill whistle and the train starting moving. Slowly at first but soon picked up speed and disappeared in the darkness.

He had lost her. Maybe she hadn’t left. Maybe she was still there. Like all those Hindi movies, she would be standing there on the platform, giving her beautiful smile. Waiting for him. But there was no one there. He started going back. Alone.

Ting Ting Ting – Bangalore se Mumbai jaane waali express train platform kramank 3 par aayegi. Bangalore Mumbai Express is arriving on platform number 3.

He ran towards the stairs. Up the stairs, across the tracks and down the other side. By the time he reached the platform, he was out of breath and barely standing up. He strained his head up and tried to find her in that crowd. People had started moving towards the track as the train made its way. Just then he saw someone on the bench, as the biscuit vendor parked his stall in front of it. He ran towards the stall, hoping that its her – he saw a red suitcase, then a green salwar and finally her jet black hair. He had made it.

It almost seems as if it was yesterday. The rain had stopped as quietly as it had come. So did the cab. He had reached the hotel. She asked, “Are you okay? You seem a bit lost”. “Yeah I am fine. Just a bit nostalgic”. She kept her head on his shoulder as he kissed her on her forehead. A bang of golden brown hair tickled his nose as he did so. They took their red Samsonites from the boot and went into the hotel.

Back to the Future

Why WordPress? In true kerala spirit, “Zimbly”. On a serious note, I just wanted to check out how it is? One fellow blogger(a famous one albeit) told me that wordpress is a lot better than blogger. As i love trying out new things(however crappy they might be), I decided to take the plunge. Hopefully wordpress may get me addicted to blogging again. I might also someday have my blog url on my status message! I might even buy a domain!! You never know? That was the bad news. The good news is that there is no more bad news. Yippee. 

I actually wanted to end the post here, but because of traffic, I havent reached home yet. So my banter continues.(Isnt this a sly way to showoff that I have a laptop or maybe a blackberry/pda. for all you know, I am typing this from an internet cafe and have 5 minutes left and want to use up the entire hour). So if you have any suggestions on what I should blog about, please do leave a comment. I will make sure that some other blogger writes about it or find someone who already has.

Thats it for today. Phir milte hain. alvida.

PS  - I dont give interviews or drink coffee with strangers.

Woh Kagaz Ki Kashti

Yesterday I was listening to a Jagjit Singh song(oh dont worry I aint depressed in life). The song is titled “Woh Kagaz ki Kashti”. Its one of my favourites and the lyrics go something like this ..

Ye Daulat Bhi Le Lo, Ye Shohrat Bhi Le Lo
Bhale Cheen Lo Mujhse Meri Jawaani
Magar Mujhko Lauta Do Bachchpan Ka Saawan
Wo Kaagaz Ki Kasthi Wo Baarish Ka Paani

In English, it would mean something like

“Take away my wealth, Take away my fame,
Even take away my youth,
But please return the spring of childhood,
Those paper boats, and the monsoon rains”

Man i didnt know that the song sounds so lame in English. Anyways this started me off to think about the various other things that I miss about my childhood. And since everybody is in the list mood, I too have my own nostalgic list of childhood. So here it goes,

• Waking up late by the smell of mom’s cooking
• Eating my lunch while watching “Chutti Chutti” on Doordarshan
• Disturbing my sisters just to irritate them
• Listening to Jagjit Singh songs, complaining that he is such a bore and blaming my sis for forcing me to hear his songs.
• Pretending to be more sick for that extra pampering from mom
• Gobbling up packets of biscuit while mom is not around
• Waiting for that trip to Dairy Den and have my favorite Chocolate Chiffon icecream
• Going out on dinners and concentrating more on the ingredients than the right column
• Racing to the classroom after finishing the lunch
• Doing PT exercise as fast we can so that we can go and play football
• Shouting “Lapetiya” out of the school bus whenever we overtake other buses
• Playing cricket with cardboard and napkin ball in school after exams
• Roaming around on cycles and making up stories for each house that we see.
• Have the time of our life because we had all the time in the world.

And now as we grow up and time is slipping through our hands, we have responsibilities far heavier than cleaning the room. We have ambitions far bigger than beating Raju in the race tomorrow. We have lives far more complicated than the spring of childhood, devoid of those paper boats and the monsoon rains.

आज हमने सोचा कि

आज हमने सोचा कि ज़रा देखे तो कि येह हिंदी मैं ब्लोग लिखते कैसे हैं। और क्या येह मैं ही हु कि सबको हिंदी मैं पोस्ट लिखने मैं अजीब लगता हैं। ऐसा लगता हैं कि जैसे हिंदी मैं लिखने कि आदत ही नहीं रही। और उससे ज्यादा अजीब बात येह लगती हैं कि मैं हिंदी मैं सोच रहा हु, इंग्लिश मैं टाईप कर रहा हु और हिंदी मैं अक्षर आ रहे हैं॥ ह्म्म्म ॥॥ ऐसा लगता हैं कि लगातार बिन्दु लगाने से, लगातार पूर्ण विराम लगाए जाते हैं ….. या शायद नहीं ॥ ॥ ॥ … ओक। सिर्फ दो बिन्दु हो तो ही॥
येह लोग मुझे श्लोक लिखनें के लिए उकसा रहे हैं॥
॥ कर्मंये वाधिकरास्ते माँ फलेषु कदचना ॥
॥ मा करमा फला हेतुर भुर्मतेय संगोस्त्वा अकर्मानी ॥
Tadaaaaaaa

Mysore Trip

This is going to be  a long post . Sorry reader(s) .. On 26th Jan 2007, early morning(hey 7 am is early by my standards) , four dudes left on an epic journey which changed the world as we know it.. Naaah too dramatic.. So anyways we(yes the four dudes includes the author) left for Mysore at 7 am from Bangalore. With sleep in our heads(except the driver, phew!!!), hunger in our stomach and excitement in our heart, we left from Richmond circle in a brand new Maruti Alto(thanks to Mr Topathalein) . The sleep took over the back benchers of the car pretty soon. But few screeching brakes and curses from Mr Topz, brought them back to life.
Soon hunger took over, and the omnipresent Kamat restaurant was spotted. With a trio(excpet Topz) shouting “Right,Right,Right”,  the car was taken to Kamat’s “Drive in” restaurant”. But the crowd was so much that it became a “Park out , eat in” restaurant.  After not finding a place to sit, we decided to parcel “protein rich” olige. Thats when Lord “Kamat”eshwar had pity on us, and Ramz found a table for four. After having an idly roll, wada, we hit the road again.
We reached mysore at around 11 and went to the Mysore Zoo.(yet another one!!!)  This zoo was lot better than the Bannerghata zoo with more exotic birds and animals. But after a time, we were looking at the animals, just because we were supposed to. Photographing them just because we were supposed to. Roaming around the huge zoo with herds of people, just because we were supposed to. Heck, we had paid 25 bucks for it. 
Next point of attack was Chamundi Hill. Even after pleadings from Pvt Ram not to waste our time on a stupid hill, we decided to take over chamundi hill. On reaching the top we realised that, there was only one huge mahishasur and a temple with a huge crowd waiting to go in. Utter waste of effort.
Finally we went to KRS dam and brindavan gardensI(sacrificing Mysore palace). Beautiful fountains, beautiful flowers, beautiful lightings. Beautiful Brindavan gardens. 
Then we returned to Mysore, and searched for a place to rest our tired bodies. Only to find all places booked. We were recommended a lodge by an old friend of ours. The place looked like some old age retirement home, or some kind of “Mumbai chawl”. We cursed our friend. But luckily that place was full and we kind of were happy that we dont have to stay there. While returning from the reception. we just noticed the parking lot. Mercedes Benz, Toyoto Corolla, Skoda’s , just to name a few. Shockkkk.
Finally we got the last room in another hotel. It was a great room.(had to be.. It was an A/C Suite!!) Now the problem of dinner. And the only place open was the restaurant in the lodge that we had rejected(or it rejected us, same thing). We went there , only to find that everything was almost over. We somehow got some leftovers and went back to our rooms for a long and much needed sleep.