Matches made in Hell...

I hate marriages, I hated them as a child and with age it has only increased. Well you need not jump in shock and kill some 1000 innocent germs under your feet at this statement of mine. I can give you 10 good reasons why I cannot stand them. Ok that later first let me narrate the marriage that I attended yesterday. It wasn’t a marriage actually but one of the 101 pre-marriage functions that take place in a typical Sindhi family marriage. This particular function was the mehendi and lada, for those who are not aware of the second term it stands for LAdies DAnce function (well what in heavens name happened to gender equality I mean why are the guys not supposed to dance). Anyway as I reached the hall I realized I was the only person around, no there were others actually but they were leaving from the previous function. The fact is that we sindhis have a habit of starting our functions late and the later into the night the function goes the better it is supposed to be…anyways coming back to the function, I was alone and bored. To make things worse the food hadn’t started yet. Luckily I found a juice counter at the corner of the hall and from then till the end I gulped so many glasses of juice that the juicewala bhaiya seemed to have become sick of my face and I was actually getting worried that he was mixing something in my juice so that I never come back, but unluckily he did not get respite. After sometime some starters were being served, I guess the caterers took sympathy to my innocent always hungry looking face. So I helped myself to some pakodas, but the cameraman kept focusing his camera on me time and again as if I was some Osama bin laden in Abhishek-Aishwarya wedding. Well not his mistake considering I was the only guest around and he needed to do some preparation before shooting the actual bride and groom, but a camera on top of you is a very discomforting feeling especially when you are eating or may I say hogging big time. So there I was alone again and this time not even eating anything…

Well you would think that as the guests started coming in I would feel better, but that was far from true. As more and more people entered the hall, I started wondering if I had come to the right function as it was hard to recognize most of them. This could be attributed to 2 reasons: one that I do not attend too many family functions and two I have a pathetic memory especially when it comes to names and faces. So I had to face many situations where fat uncles and fatter aunties came up to me and asked in very apnapan type voice “pehchana kya??” for those who have been in this situation before I need not explain how tricky it can be, anyway what my 1 year of MBA has taught me I suppose is to bluff easily and this came in handy even during such times as I confidently would reply “haa aunty aapko kaise bhool sakte hain” the trick is to say it with 100% conviction and eye contact and run away from the scene immediately to avoid any further cross-questioning. One good thing about marriages is the pretty girls around and especially Sindhi females are known to be beautiful (well I was considering use of some not too decent word in this context but then my blog being a karan johar movie type family blog I would keep away from such things, promise!!). but then again the problem is most of the girls I don’t even know. For those of you who know me well would know for a fact that I am such a shy and innocent boy (ikdam meri mummy mere saath rahegi types) that I would rather sit alone and watch a documentary on Doordarshan rather than start conversation with a girl I do not know. So we are back to square one, I can only look at the girls and with my family around I better not stare continuously, come on yaar I have a reputation to keep up.

Well what follows is the part that I can not stand at all. This is when the music starts and people start dancing. Dancing comes as naturally to me as English comes to our Laloo Prasad Yadavjeee. But the thing is my cousins love me a lot so they cannot se me standing in a corner of the room twiddling my thumbs, so I am forced into the Akhada time and again to show my skills. Now what follows is some display of motion so complex and so visually unexciting that would make Sunny Deol think of himself as Miachael Jackson. For those of you who haven’t seen Sunny Deol dance, just try the following step and you know what he does: lift your left foot bring it to the side and stamp it on the floor so forcibly as if you were killing some deadly lizard, now repeat the same with your right leg and now about the hands …well who cares about the hands when the legs are doing so much already. The most important thing is your facial expressions which should be a cross between extreme anger and extreme constipation…that’s the Sunny Deol dance perfected!! Anyways coming back to yesterdays function, I was being shy at the beginning, but then a couple of beers later the feet started moving by themselves, not to mention the after effects of my little jig were 2 ladies getting badly punched in the mouth and a few others suffering from indigestion and sleeplessness after seeing my awkward movements.

After dancing for sometime, I started feeling hungry again. The food was so oily that I struggled to find the paneer pieces in the plethora of oil. Well I am not one of those calorie conscious persons who would freak out on seeing the smallest amount of oil. But this was getting a bit too much, plus the food was hardly anything but delicious (I hope my cousin whose marriage it was is not reading this and if she is then let me also add that the ice-cream was really awesome sachhhiiii). Then my uncle sent me to get a cake which he had already ordered for the function. It was one of those huge cakes which had 3 layers hence required me to carry 3 huge boxes. The difficulty I had in handling those huge boxes on the way back reminded me of Saurav Ganguly facing Shoaib Akhtar on the pacy Perth pitch. Lucky bastard Saurav at least he had pads and a helmet. The only good thing was that the girl at the cake shop was kinda cute and she smiled at me and before u say anything, no I was not wearing torn pants neither did I have anything funny written on my face to make her smile. It was a genuine smile, ikdam dil se!!! so then I came back and we cut the cake and after a lot of pushing others and abusing I managed to get really close to the cake which ensured that for a change I am not left only clapping while the ones at the front end up eating the cake. I am one of those who believe in having my cake and eating it too (this is the silliest phrase ever, if you have a cake why the hell would you not eat it) Anyway by now my torture had ended and we were finally headed home. Home sweet home yay!!! But jyada khush nahi honeka because this was just a pre-marriage function the real event is yet to follow, I cannot help but feel that if I enjoyed the net practice so much, the match would be nothing less than spectacular.

My mommy greatest!!!

So you must have guessed from the title what this post is gonna be about. Normally I am not one of those people who will write some deeply philosophical stuff or stuff that will make you think. But sometimes life throws up situations which make you think, which make you introspect, which make you see the bigger picture.

I was just having a discussion with my friend as to how do I go about spending my first salary. She told me to buy gifts for my family and I thought it was a brilliant idea. Then I decided mentally what gift I should possibly give my dad, my bhaiya and bhabhi. But when it came to my mother I was clueless. So my friend told me “think what does she like?”. Now this question hit me real hard as I had no clue about what she liked. I mean come on here is a person who is possibly the most important in my life, whom I claim to love the most. But I don’t know what she would like for a gift. Whoaaaa that was a shocker. I don’t know anything about her is what I felt as I pondered over this more. What could possibly be the reason for that? As I tried to think more I realized how over the years the relation that I shared with my mom was always centred around me. It was always my problems, my successes, my failures, my dreams, my happiness, what I liked, what I disliked, everything was about me. And im not saying that she did that to make me happy, that’s what made her happy as well….her happiness, in fact her existence somehow always had to do something with her kids. I cannot remember if she was ever asked or whether she made any choices be it about which restaurant to go, which movie to see etc etc. these might seem to be small things but the point I am trying to make is how her life was almost always driven by what her sons felt, thought and decided. So we never managed to know her as a person. Come to think of it before she gave birth, she was a normal person with her own life, but ever since we buggers (me and my brother) came into this world its as if mother is the only role she has been performing. I almost feel like singing the following line “Will the real person who is my mom please stand up, please stand up” ok don’t blame me if u thought the song was a bad idea, but seriously that’s the state of my mind right now. I want to know my mom, I want to spend one full day with her where there is no talk about me or my brother or my father, where she is the only topic of discussion. I want to know what is it that makes her happy, whats her favourite dish, whats her fave movie, which places does she like visiting, what are her dreams, how was she as a kid: was she naughty, did she study as much as she makes us do, did she clean her room as regularly as she does ours. I want to know something in fact lots of things about Kiran Menda the person as a whole and not just my mom. I want to know about her life beyond her 2 sons and beyond her family.

Do u guys think I will be successful in this quest of mine? More importantly will I be as good a son as good a mother she has been? Nah, I think that’s too much to ask. Its said that a mother’s love is the purest thing in the world. no matter how much I love my mom it will always have a bit of my ego, my happiness quotient; whereas her love will always be selfless. In love you desire only the happiness of the loved one and nothing else, going by this definition, mother’s love surely puts any modern day romeo-juliet to shame. Love now for us has become so much selfish, its never about the other person its always about us. I know that selfless love is a very difficult thing to practice, but that’s the only way our moms know love to be, that’s how it comes naturally to them, isn’t that great!!

Around a couple of years back my mom had this really nasty accident which had her bed-ridden for close to 6 months. I remember how it completely shattered me to see her in that state and how helpless I felt in not being able to do anything for her. It also made me realize how dependent I was on her for the smallest of things. Its almost as if she was taken for granted. I felt really close to her then. But then again as I see myself over the past few years I realize how my career, my dreams have somehow put her into the background. I don’t remember when I last prayed for someone other than me. But today as I close my eyes, I really have this strong urge to pray for my mom, to pray for her happiness, and most importantly to pray that I never drift away from her and that I conquer this world for her, I know this may sound filmy but right now this is what I really feel like doing. Also I pray to god that this feeling never dies within me because I know how easy it is to lose sight of this vision as I go back to living my everyday, practical life. Also a small request to everyone who is reading this blog, please go back and thank your mom for everything she has done for you, and as you go pursuing your goals and making your life, do not forget that she is always there with you, feeling happy at each small victory of yours, feeling proud at every small achievement of yours. Go make her happy, show how much she means to you, she really deserves every bit of that and a lot more. And as I write this post its 4-45 am, my mom just woke up and she sees me typing something on the computer. She is really mad at me for being up so late and as expected I get a mini-lecture on sleeping early and waking up early. But somehow her angry words seem so much sweet now, I cannot help smiling and almost shouting out “My mommy greatest!!!”

The mystery of the unknown B-school

There are times in life when u feel bad, there are times when u feel worse and then there are times when you feel like killing the next person you see on the street. The third situation is one in which I find myself often, especially when I have to explain to random people that I am doing my MBA from a college the name of which is XLRI. Well most of the corporates and the MBA aspirants know of the fact that it is one of the top 5 b-schools in India. But its not these people I am talking about here, it’s the aam junta which is the bone of contention (well theres no bone literally its just a phrase if u are still wondering). These are the people whom I meet on a regular basis, like the neighbourhood aunty whose only source of entertainment is kittie parties and the enigmatic K-serials (no offence to such people I love ekta kapoor and ive always had a secret desire of visiting one of these kitty parties, just that I don’t look like a woman from anywhich way). So to say I was shocked when Kokila aunty who stays on the 11th floor burst into peals of sarcastic laughter when she heard of Jamshedpur would be an understatement, what she also managed in the process is to psyche out my mom completely.

Jab mummy ko doubts aane lage mere xlri jaane pe toh papa kaha se peeche reh sakte thee. So there was this friend of my dad who was kind enough to give my dad the expert opinion that maybe your son is not good enough to do an mba from Mumbai that’s why hes going to Jamshedpur university, and I was like “Hello im not going to any Jamshedpur university I am going to xlri”…. But dad was skeptical for days, convincing him was like bhains ke saamne been bajana, he finally relented…though I still doubt how highly my dad thinks of my mba.

The last category of people are the ones who think that I am working in some tata company in Jamshedpur (I know its ridiculous but in a country where ganpati idols “drink milk” and people watch it on national tv with folded hands anything is possible). These are the people whom I have stopped explaining out of frustration, but the comedy doesn’t end here, when I came back for my summer internship with some phoren bank for only 2 months they were shocked to say the least, giving me looks like “what the hell are you doing finally and kid its time you took control of your life rather than constantly shifting here and there!!!”.

So in a land that is obsessed with the IITs and the IIMs if you are doing MBA from xlri or from some tilak maharaj school of business I guess you will be given the same sympathetic reactions from people around, the sympathy only increases if u r fortunate enough to go to some fancy place like Jamshedpur. So now whenever someone is kind enough to ask me about my college, my strategy is to blurt out the letters X L R I within a second and walk past him, if he knows about the college I suppose he will call me back, if he doesn’t then I don’t give a damn. To be frank I do give more than a damn but don’t wanna put in so much effort in explaining him, though I might rethink if the person is a girl and one who needs to know that after 2 years i would have money enough to take a brand new car and my own apartment in south Bombay, that might make a walking talking disaster like me somewhat attractive to the her wont it???

While ending this post I would like to thank all my admirers who sent in their notes of appreciation after reading my first post, just a small request if you could reduce on the amount of expletives (u know my mom sometimes read my mails and I don’t want her to know how much her son is loved by the people). Otherwise you guys rock and those guys who asked me what was my 1 good thing for the day as I had mentioned in the last post, well I finally cut my toe nails, which by now had become weapons of mass destruction looking at their size, so you see I am doing my bit for the cause of humanity!!!

My first post...About nothing

Umm… words are difficult to come by…..have been wanting to start my own blog since long. To begin with I have this intense hatred for Microsoft word (thats where i am typing right now). The green and red underlines below every word can get irritating after a time especially for people like me who like it clean (stop thinking dirty you perverts I meant clean looking text window). So right now as I proceed there are already more than 10 corrections that it has suggested right from saying that blog is a spelling mistake and then some stupid grammar which I don’t really care a damn about, come on yaar I am not writing my standard 5 english paper.

Ok now I cannot really think of some good topic for the first post, so lets discuss a burning issue : measures to curb the green house effect and melting of polar ice caps. Any ideas gentlemen and ladies…if u cant think of anything shame on you, at least think of how I can fix my water geyser which for some reason never heats the water when switched on, but sometimes does it randomly, I always felt that electronic gadgets have a mind of their own, but this is amazing and frustrating to say the least. So if anyone of you unlucky souls have hit upon my blog and to top it up are still reading it, you must be wondering about the peculiar name of my blog (and I am wondering who the hell are these people!!!) Anyway the reason behind the name of the blog (about nothingg) is 2-fold. Firstly it’s the punchline of my fave sitcom Seinfeld, which I think is the greatest ever creation on TV. Secondly the title is what the blogs topics will be mostly about: about nothing!!! And before you think the extra ‘g’ is an indication of my fascination with numerology (for the ignorant its what ekta kapoor uses in all her serial names) then ill clarify its just because the original title was already taken by someone and I am not that creative enough to think of another title…

As I end the blog, (I cant write more than this so am really starting to doubt if blogging is the right thing for me) I request all you guys to do 1 good thing daily. This could be as simple as giving a lift to some needful person, or helping your mom with the house work. And if you thinking of abusing me for spoiling your day by writing such a crappy blog, you can do that as well. That would suffice as your good cause for the day….lol