Jamuns and a change

There is a Jamun tree in my house. Actually it is in my neighbour's house. But since 80% of the jamuns fall in our house, I like saying that it is in our house. I have spent 25 years of my life in this house and I remember eating jamuns from the time I was a kid. I remember my brother and I used to go and collect the jamuns, wash them under running tap water and eat them. We even used to get warnings from mummy and pappa as the jamuns usually had sand particles or some other dirt attached to it. But we didn't use to pay any attention to those warnings and enjoyed colouring our teeth and tongue purple by eating them.

We hardly collect them nowadays.

Today, two kids, Ajay and Gopal, made me recall those days. Two of them were sitting on the wall outside my house. As soon as my eyes met theirs, Gopal asked me if they could come inside and collect the jamuns. I looked at the ground full of jamuns, thought of something and invited them. But I told them not to jump from the wall but come through the gate. They came in and started collecting the jamuns. I asked them some basic questions like their name, where they lived, whether they go to school or not and the class they studied in. But they seemed to be engrossed in collecting as many fruits as their hands could hold and so I didn't question them any further. I suggested one of them to put the jamuns into their pockets and then continue collecting them again. They followed the suggestion and soon i could see a bulge hanging down the pocket of Ajay. I even got them a plastic bag in which they could keep the jamuns.

But as I stood there observing them, I could observe a change in myself. Till some years back, when such kids would climb the wall and ask us for the jamuns, we used to straightaway say no. We made sure that they left and waited for sometime to see that no one returned. However, today when the two kids asked me to come and collect the fruits, I just had to think for a second and I knew the answer. I know the answer for any such kid now onwards. It is a sign of change in me and I am happy about it.

After they left, I too bent down and tasted a few jamuns :) They still are the same, covered with sand all over but very sweet and purple from inside.

Do you know?

Do you know what you are doing?

Do you know why you are doing what you are doing?

Do you know if you really want to do what you are doing?

Do you know if you want to do something else that you are not doing?

Do you know why you want to do that something else that you are not doing?

Do you know how you can do that something else that you are not doing?

I do not.

Bang@lore

Dogs, hoardings, one ways, collegians, pulsars, stylish individuals/streets/buildings, amazing weather, tea/coffee shops, book stores etc would be the tags that one would use for Bangalore. I have been here since ten days now and have seen a lot of Bangalore (by chance :)) It is an interesting place. I would like to share some of the interesting experiences/learnings I have had here.

1. Follow the crowd. When driving in Bangalore, the best way is to follow the crowd. This will help you not getting trapped in a wrong side one-way. Because otherwise it is only after turning towards that side (that your smart, intuitive brain had suggested) you realise that you cannot go any further because the rest of the people on that road are already returning! (Find some of the most common road signs at the end of the post.)

2. Ask an autowala (at your own risk). It is useful and useless, both at the same time, to ask about a direction or a landmark to an autowala. They will say go straight and turn left. Ok. So you, an obedient soul, go straight and discover a left turn. Before you can decide whether to take a left turn or not, the vehicles behind will honk and honk and honk and you will decide not to turn left. The same thing will happen after 5 seconds that you will discover another left turn. And another. If you are lucky, there will be only one left turn. But immediately after you turn left, there will be a V and you will have to wait for another autowala to guide you. The autowalas are most of the time right. We have to go straight and turn left….but what they don’t reveal is how much straight do we need to go before we can take a left turn!

3. Let’s never eat here ever again. I have eaten at many different places in the local area here (Please do not ask me about Baristas/Pizza Huts/etc.) and can easily tell you where not to eat what. There are a plenty of restaurants in the city. But the cooks hardly know how to cook. Normally, I don’t know what the different dishes in the menu mean (apart from idli, dosa, sandwich, cutlets, bhel, bhaji pav, vada pav and a few more items). I can’t even differentiate the taste between two Punjabi vegetables (don’t tell me that even you cannot!). But still, I can tell you whether the food tastes good or not. And the experience here says, try eating the local, south Indian food, if you are really hungry. If you are not, just try and explore a few places. You will definitely find a good/reasonable place by the time you are extremely hungry. (Not to say that I didn’t like the food at all. :-l Thanks for whatever food I have digested in the past 10 days.)

4. Rain or no rain? The weather over here is simply superb. Just that it tries to fool you almost everyday. Everyday, in fact all the time it seems as if it is going to rain (heavily sometimes). But, it hardly rains. In the last 10 days, I have not seen rain more than thrice…four times maybe. But I have said, ‘Lagta hai abhi mast baarish hogi” almost everyday. This doesn’t mean that I am complaining. I like the weather in this city the most!

5. Books! Either you should know which book you want to buy or have enough time that you are ready to spare in a bookstore here. Because most of the bookstores here have a good collection of books and it’s highly likely that you will get lost in a shop full of books.

6. Kutte! Bada ajeeb sheher hai. There are just too many dogs, of different breeds, barking almost all the time (irrespective of whether its AM or PM). Average number of dogs per house in this city would be around 0.5. This means, per every two houses, you are likely to find a dog. And by per house I mean inside and not just on the road. I haven't seen any city with people so crazy about dogs. No doubt cost of living is high in this city! :)

7. Coffee shops/tea shops. This isn’t new anymore for a city. But the unique thing about Bangalore is some really good coffee/tea shops. Have been to only two of them, but both of them have been impressive. First one, Infinitea, a tea place which serves you a Variety of teas. The ambience and feel of the place will make you go there again. Second one, Indian Coffee House, a small coffee shop run by the co-op society of the workers of the coffee board of India. An old place, but extremely neat. Old posters on the walls promoting coffee written in the old font and waiters in a clean uniform with a paghdi on the head, really add charm to the place.

8. Respect Kannada. If you don’t know English but know Kannada, you will still be able to recognise any international/national brand. Whether it is Reebok, Nike, Barista, Café Coffee Day, Pizza Hut, ICICI Bank, Baskin Robins, Sony, Canon, Samsung, Compaq, Sun Microsystems, Educational Initiatives or Shivajinagar Bus Stand, you will be able to recognise it in a fraction of a second, provided your Kannada is good. I haven’t seen such kind of love and passion for the local language in any other city.

9. Tashan. It’s a highly stylish city – whether it be a car, a bike, a road, a hoarding, a showroom, a poster, a babe, not a babe, the city is full of styloos. Cool! Yeh Bangalore ka style hai re.

10. Chicks! How can I not mention them!? Did find a few here and there. But otherwise, the style market makes almost all wear the same mask and hence there is no point researching more. What you will really discover are true, pretty faces among these not-so-really pretty faces.

Most common road signs @ Bangalore -

Climax!

"TGIF!" Yes. That was what I felt on Friday, The End of an extremely exhausting week. None of the deadlines were met. Targets weren't fulfilled. But still, the satisfaction of having worked hard (in fact harder) throughout the week was somewhere floating in the mind. We had already planned to go for a movie, Aamir, on Thursday and had even bought tickets in advance. 8 pm, Fun Cinemas. Honestly, we were trying to save some money by not going on Saturday or even the last show of Friday because from that show, till the last show of Sunday, the weekend rates are applicable – Rs. 250/- and maybe more. The cost per our ticket was Rs. 140.

Initially we had decided that if the work gets over by 6.45, we would go to the famous tea place, Infinitea, just opposite the theatre. But as expected, the work didn’t get over. At 6.50 I told the boss that the work we had to complete that day was 95% done. He laughed at me saying that we should cancel the movie J I knew he was kidding. 7.15 pm, and we packed our bags and left. Having harassed some 2 3 autowalas and a few other people at the signals, we reached the Fun Cinemas. As Ekta added a person in one of the lines at the ticket counter, I stood behind and started doing what I generally like doing at such places – observing people (and chicks :)). A few married couples, a few unmarried couples, a few single men and women and a few…etc. turned up. As I was observing them, I heard Ekta’s voice, slightly louder than the normal she would have had if asking just for the ticket/show timing/total price. And so I went there. I discovered that the guy on the other side of the ticket window was slightly confused. He told Ekta to show her the SMS she had received from them, confirming the advance booking and the booking number. He entered the number and asked us if we were sure we had booked the tickets for the movie – Aamir. He told us that the comp was saying it was for the movie Mere Baap Pehle Aap and not Aamir. Ekta told him that we were sure and she even told him that we could show the email we had received from them. He invited us inside his cabin. We went in and Ekta opened her mail box. She showed him the email where it was clearly written Aamir. He told us that the 8 pm Aamir show had got cancelled from that week and was surprised that we hadn’t received any email from their side.

It appeared as if he was trying to cheat, by giving us tickets of some other movie. But then he even offered to arrange tickets for any other movie that night, even if it meant the show was houseful. It was 7.30 and the next show was only at 9.30. Ekta was sure that she didn’t want to see movie in that show and so we had the option to take 2 tickets of any other movie or cancel all the 3 tickets and get the refund. We decided to watch Sarkar Raj. He happily gave us 2 tickets. The total price of the 3 tickets was Rs. 420 (incl. of taxes). He gave us Rs. 200 back saying that the price of the 2 tickets was Rs. 220. We collected the tickets and the money and left. Now that we had met the deadline (of collecting tickets) 2 hours before time, we went to Infinitea J I must say it was an interesting place (details later).

We finished the tea/snack/chat and went back to the mall. Ekta left for home and we climbed the 4 floors to the theatre. It was 9.15. The show was supposed to start at 9.30. We went towards the screen that was going to show the film. We were a bit surprised to see not a single person outside even before 15 minutes of the show. We asked the doorkeeper the time at which the show would start. He said something in Kannada pointing towards the screen. We didn’t understand much from the way he said apart from the fact that we should rush to the screen. I literally started deoing gaalis to them as we climbed the dark stairs of the screen - “Saale 15 minute pehle chalu kar hi kaise sakte hai…ajeeb city hai!”

Seats I2, I3 – just in front of the last stair. We saw one of the seats empty but on the other one a child was sitting. I requested the child to move to his seat as that was our seat. His father just stared at me as I told him. After around 15-20 seconds he told his son to move to the seat next to him on the other side. We sat down. Big B’s dialogue indicated that Shankar (onscreen name of Abhishek Bachchan) was dead. Aishwarya’s tears were rolling down her cheeks. The scene ended soon. I found that a bit odd because in part 1 of the movie, he wasn’t dead. But then I thought that the movie would take us to a flashback. Next scene and an elderly guy, Rao sahab, entered Big B’s room and soon he was shocked to see a boy dead in that room (later we discovered that he was Rao sahab’s grandson in the movie). I don’t know what made me think that but I just shouted, “Yeh kahin climax toh nahi hai?” And Kaustubh ran outside to ask what show was going on. I just heard him shout, “Get up!” And we went out.

5 minute pehle jahan ek bhi bandaa dikh nahi raha tha, achaanak se 20-25 dikhne lage! Kaustubh just could not control his frustration and so disclosed the suspense loudly, “Abhishek Bachchan marr jaata hai end mein!” And everyone was looking at both of us. I just could not believe that. Tab pata chala ki woh bachcha, jisko uski seat pe se uthaya tha, uska baapu humein ghoor kyu raha tha. Woh bhi soch raha hoga ki gadhe hai, baithne do.

Waise bhi pata tha bore karega Sarkar Raj aur oopar se climax bhi pata chal gaya tha. I didn’t know what I would do in the 2 hour show. Anyways, will end over here by saying that –

1. Beware of doorkeepers at theatres who speak in some other language.
2. Confirm twice before entering a movie screen if you are already in time, especially if they say that movie has already started.
3. If you find someone else sitting on your seat, ask him to get up. But if he/she/they give you a surprised look for some time and then get up without saying a single word, check the timing of the show.

PS:
1. We discovered in the end that 1 movie ticket was actually worth Rs. 220 and so the total price was Rs. 440. But because of that guy’s mistake, we saw the movie in half the price!
2. Apart from some powerful performances in the movie, didn’t really like it. One thing that I will remember is a girl that I discovered while waiting outside the screen. Kehna padega! - She had an Amazing smile!

Kahin toh hogi woh

I think I heard this song for the first time last week. I heard it again yesterday and liked the serene tune of the song. That made me listen to it today again and now I am in love with the song, especially the lyrics. Sharing it here -

Film: Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na
Music: A. R. Rahman
Lyrics: Abbas Tyrewala
Playback: Rashid Ali, Vasundhara Das

Kahin toh, kahin toh, hogi woh
Duniya jahaan tu mere saath hai
Jahaan main, jahaan tu
Aur jahaan bas tere mere jazbaat hain
Hoti jahaan subah teri, palkon ki kiranon mein
Lori jahaan chaand ki, sune teri baahon mein
Jaane na kahaan woh duniya hai
Jaane na woh hai bhi ya nahin
Jahaan meri zindagi mujhse
Itni khafaa nahin
Jaane na kahaan woh duniya hai
Jaane na woh hai bhi ya nahin
Jahaan meri zindagi mujhse
Itni khafaa nahin

Saansein kho gayi hain kiski aanhon mein
Main kho gayi hoon jaane kiski baahon mein
Manzilon se rahein dhundhti chali
Aur kho gayi hai manzil kahin raahon mein

Kahin toh, kahin toh, hai nasha
Teri meri har mulaqat mein
Hothon se, hothon ko
Chumte rehte hai hum har baat pe
Kehti hain fizaa jahaan
Meri zameen aasmaan
Jahaan hai tu, meri hansi
Meri khushi, meri jaaan
Jaane na kahaan woh duniya hai
Jaane na woh hai bhi ya nahin
Jahaan meri zindagi mujhse
Itni khafaa nahin
Jaane na kahaan woh duniya hai
Jaane na woh hai bhi ya nahin
Jahaan meri zindagi mujhse
Itni khafaa nahin

Shrushti - Hai koi sawaal?

Though I was actually meeting Srushti for the first time, it didn't show up on her face when we met. In just no time we were friends and we started talking. I had a constant smile on my face as I talked to her. Even she had it but not as much as I had it :) It was already half past 11 and I realised she should go to sleep. I took her on the terrace and lifted her. I was curious to know what she was thinking!

(To make the interaction we had as close to the actual one, I am writing some parts in Hindi.)

I looked up and asked her pointing towards the stars, "Yeh itne saare dots kya hai?" She replied, "Yeh dots nahi, starrrrssss hai!" :D 4 year olds are not as dumb as we think they might be. Yes, Shrushti is a 4 year old cousin of mine who had come home :) I replied, "Par yeh stars hote kya hai?" For a fraction of a second she looked at the stars. But in another fraction she looked at me and asked, "Kyu tumhein nahi pata? Pehli baar dekh rahe ho kya?" Waah beta! Maar diya pehla chaata bahut jald hi! I said, "Haan pehli baar hi dekh raha hu. Tu bata na, yeh stars hote kya hai?" She replied, "Arey yeh woh Twinkle Twinkle little stars mein aate hai na woh hai." Le, itni si baat nahi pata thi!

Koi baat nahi. Hamari jholi mein bhi koi kam questions nahi the! Stars ke baaju mein hi clouds the. So i asked, "Achcha, aur yeh white white kya hai?" She said, "Cloudssss" I said, "Par clouds hote kya hai?" She said, "Clouds mein baarish hoti hai." I knew the reply and so responded in a flash, "Par baarish neeche kaise girti hai?" I never knew she also knew the question and responded equally fast, "Clouds hai na, upar neeche hote hai..aise aise (moving her inverted palm up and down)..aur isliye unmein se paani bahar gir jaata hai." And I just could not control my laughter. It was one of the best naive logics I had ever heard! Hats off to Shrushti!

So we moved to another corner of the terrace now. Behind our house is a huge neem tree. I pointed it out and asked her, "What is that?" She said, "Treeeeeeee" I asked her, "Achcha. Par kaisa hai na tree...Hum log kaise chal sakte hai, ghum fir sakte hai. Woh kyu nahi chalta? Woh kyu ek hi jagah khada rehta hai?" She responded, "Tree toh kitna bada hota hai. Kaise chal sakta hai? Chalne jaega toh gir nahi jaega?" My questions, which I thought could have been top scorers, got bowled out by her responses one after the other.

I just looked at her and laughed out loud! Even she did the same this time. But probably not for the same reason :) She had perhaps discovered the first fool in her life (and that too in 4 years) who was desperate to prove himself a fool by asking her questions, the answers of which she already knew!

Why the hell can't we understand such simple things - that stars toh wohi hote hai jo twinkle twinkle poem mein aate hai. Aur stars shayad bane bhi isiliye honge taaki koi poet yeh poem likh ke famous ho sake; agar koi vessel oopar neeche ho ke paani bahar gira sakta hai toh clouds kyu nahi? Why do we HAVE to maaro the evaporation/condensation fundas!? Roots pakad ke rakhta hai tree ko aisa kaun kehta hai. Woh toh waise hi bechare badnaam kiye jaate hai. Asli reason toh tree ka weight hai. Kahin chalne gaya aur gir gaya toh 10 aur logon ko le marega! Par itni baat hamare dimaag mein kahan ghusegi.

Jo bhi ho, I just can't describe the fun I had with her. Shrushti might be thinking, "Hai koi sawaal?" Par Shrushti ka, hai koi jawaab!?

Sunita

(This is an old post that I had posted somewhere else on 3/8/07. Shifting it here since I am closing that one.)

Today I planned to take some food with me and so carried some bananas. As I was taking the bag out of the dicky, she looked at me. She realized that I had something to give them and so she kept looking at me. I called her. With her came another girl.

As they came to me, I opened the bag and gave both of them a banana. The other girl asked me to give two more as she also had a brother and a sister who were at home. I told her that the banana was for her and she should eat it. The other girl was quiet and was listening to what I was saying. I went on to distribute the bananas to other people.

While I was returning, I saw the quiet girl next to her mother. Her mother had a half eaten banana in her hand and was already chewing something. It must have been only around 30 to 40 seconds by the time I came back. So the chance that the girl had the opportunity to eat the banana was very less. I knew that this would be happening with most of the kids. They were just being employed by their parents. I was a bit frustrated as I could not get the child eat the food.

While I was returning back, the girl came and stood in front of me. I could not stop myself and so just ended up asking her why didn’t she eat the banana. She gave me a smile which made me even angrier at her mother. I told her that I knew she had given it to her mother. I asked her why she didn’t eat it and why she gave it to her mother. She had no answer. She just had no answer. But, she had a very pretty smile on her face. I asked her her name and she replied, “Sunita”. I asked her where she lived and who all were there in her family. She had two sisters, one of them had got married and had a child, and they lived near the river bank. Her father was no more alive and she had also lost one sister. When asked about her mother and what she did, she said that she begs. I knew it wasn’t her mother who really begged. It was her children whom she made to beg.

I asked her what she did through out the day. Unlike our society kids, who will have a stylish answer to such a question, she didn’t know how to answer it and so kept smiling. I asked her if she went to school. She said that she didn’t go to school but her sister’s kid went to school. I asked her if she knew how to count. She didn’t! She had such a lovely smile on her face that I just could not stop myself from talking to her. I told her that next time when I go there with banana, I will see to it that she eats the banana. She didn’t even say yes to that but instead, just kept smiling. I knew what it meant. I waved my hand and said bye to her.

I realized that the only thing that these kids need is some affection. The atmosphere they grow in is too noisier to have space for care and warmth. I wish to intrude this space of theirs with a hope to make them smile for whatever little time I can!