Cashmere

The beauty of the northern end of my country is far fetched than what the finest lens in the world can capture. The beauty that would make writers fall short of words. But how can man leave something so beautiful uninfected by his greed. It has been strangulated by the realms of political gimmicks since the time I can remember. The political map of my country I saw during my geography assignments in school looks quite different from what it appears to be in a lot of places now. Even though on many occasion a common man is still referring to the older version, a few are aware that the revised one has already been accepted globally; the version in which the Line of Control has slashed off a part of our head.

Only when my Para-Commando brother-in-law recently got posted in Sonmarg, Kashmir, that my sister gave me an account of her personal experience about the life people lead in that part of the country. With the recent uprising owing to another political acid attack mixed with religious sentiments had made the situation there even more sensitive and critical. The local residents hoisting flags of the neighbouring enemy nation is not quite a sight that would make a patriot army personal comfortable, but their code of conduct to follow orders no matter what they are, bounds them from securing a clean solution to the problem which has been lingering on for past 61yrs; the problem which the diplomats in the government haven’t been able to solve till date.

How could our leaders term it as complete Independence in August, 1947 even when a month later Jinnah launched a war on the valley despite the negotiations with Nehru and the Maharajas in the presence of Britain as the fourth party on the table? Since that point in history, our neighbours have capitalised on every opportunity to seep through the cracks for taking over the valley at the cost of peace and harmony in the entire nation.

In a latest poll survey conducted by a print daily, the figures clearly surfaced the reality about what people in different parts of the nation have to say on this issue. Jammu was the only city which clearly stood out in complete favour of letting Kashmir free from the jurisdiction of India, as opposed to the entire nation. The other city that caught my attention was Bangalore, where more people had their views synchronising with those in Jammu as compared to the ones who opposed this notion. In an attempt to terrorise and threaten the entire nation, numerous terrorist groups have successfully implemented their master plans and bombarded the cities in the country which had never been victimized in such a fashion.

One cannot expect much from politicians who couldn’t even punish and execute the convicts behind the bombing of the Indian Parliament. They will continue to talk about peace to score extra brownie points at the UN and impress Uncle Sam even when there is no peaceful way of settling this issue. In fact the solution to this problem is not the kinds that would need the finest diplomats from either ends sitting in a round table conference with Manmohan Singh popping anxiety pills before he puts his point across to big guns. Even peace loving Musharraf made it clear that a status quo on this issue was not an acceptable solution.

On the other hand it is not easy to implement the model being proposed at conferences encouraged by Washington. The model states that Kashmir should be delinked from Jammu and Ladakh, making it autonomous or quasi-independent, while India still gets to retain Jammu and Ladakh. Even though the Human Rights perspective favours that the Kashmiris should be granted their wish, there is no way one can blindly execute this without overlooking the major uncontrollable implications this action can have on the entire nation. There would be numerous independence movements sparking in different parts of the country namely Punjab, Gorkhaland, the North-East and the South.

So would this mean that our country would have to deal with a fate similar to Kosovo in the Balkans? People also raise fingers over the fact that Kashmir hasn’t been given their fair share of attention from the center. But I completely disagree to this allegation, as they have been consistently enjoying attention since the time of independence. If someone really has to complain about being neglected, then it has to be the North-East part of the country and not Kashmir. But we cannot expect any peace with our neighbours till the time we don’t strengthen ourselves and give up the vulnerable impression we have been putting up with over the years.

Peace doesn’t mean, being cowards and not understanding the value of the lives we lose in form of army soldiers combating terrorism and in form of a common man who becomes the victim of serial blasts. Even though we have had a legacy of being the Brand Ambassadors of Peace ever since Gandhi won us freedom, we shouldn’t forget the fate he met with was similar to what Bhagat Singh did. The only difference being, the former dint chose it, whereas the later accepted it as his choice.

Gandhi said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. It’s the right time and issue where the authenticity of this wise thought would be put to test in the new era.

The FORBIDDEN Fruit

I was sitting in the office canteen amidst the rising clamor, having a conversation with my colleague. While savoring the fruit plate lying in front of me, the thought of apple popped up in my head. The moments to follow were like a massive blank canvas and after a pause; I was splashing different coloured thoughts all over it. I finally broke the silence and barged out of the self contemplation mode. “You know, we should award Apple with some trivial title” I said. My colleague quite familiar with my whacky ideas dint pay much head and said “Go ahead, enlighten me with the thought process that went behind that statement”.

It all just came so spontaneously to me and I began “As per the Book of Genesis in Christian religion, Eve had coaxed Adam to share the Apple with her and this event in turn was held responsible for origination of entire mankind. Since this fruit got stuck in Adam’s throat, the larynx in human throat got the name Adam’s apple. Apple was considered as the forbidden fruit and its interpretation in Latin was quite similar to that of the word Evil.”

“This tale of Apple continued to stick on for ages, until another horrid incident took place in the pages of history, where an extremely intelligent or geek scientist named Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree in Cambridge and one of its fruit fell on his head. From that day on, now did HE rest until he discovered the term Gravity and nor did he let the generations to follow till date live in peace without being forced to memorize his work and not cursing him at least once in their lifetime.” I said.

“And, until recently a guy named Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer Inc. in 1976. The American multinational, took the consumer market by a wave with its amazing electronic products and softwares. You wouldn’t find a techii nerd without an IPod, and entertainment and multimedia pro without a MAC and a gadget freak not ogling at their IPhone, all of which are products of this company named APPLE.”

I kind of amazed myself with the spontaneous thoughts that were incepted on that coffee table. We had a good laugh on the theory behind my proposal to give a prestigious title to this fruit. Later on, trying to search for some more facts on this fruit over the internet, I discovered that the apple tree originated in Central Asia. This brought another whacky thought to my head “Does this mean the tree plantation had spread all the way to Greece before Adam and Eve fell on Earth? If not, then this proves that they both were Chinese, which is like a slap to all the famous painters who are already dead now, but had never portrayed Adam and Eve as Chinks :D”

Raj Thaceray, Where art thou?

He is a typical example of the most degraded tactic used by a politician in the country. Our constitution boasts of secularism and unity despite extreme diversity across the nation. But after 50+ years of independence, there comes a man, who openly makes the most senseless statement in the public to gain publicity and win votes from the masses. He stated that due to the presence of non-indigenous population in the city of Mumbai, the natives are not being given the due respect they deserve and seemingly they are losing opportunities on various fronts to people who don’t belong to the city.

Who is this guy to make such a statement? And how come after so many years of living in this city, he came up with this issue? Was it because he was not getting pampered enough by the affluent? Or was it because he saw this as one of the tools to gain attention of the native population? The moment I heard that the city was getting worked up by this statement, I said to myself “What the f*** in the world is wrong with this moron?” And soon some people in their party who bought this idea or probably were paid to buy it, came down on the streets, pulling out innocent, poor and hard working cab drivers from other states trying to make a living here and bashed them up atrociously in front of everyone. They ramped up their campaign a little further and specifically pointed at people coming from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as the rodents spoiling the crop.

What has this guy done in the city which makes him so proud and boast up to a limit to call it “HIS”. Just because over the years its been the heartbeat of the tinsel town, or because it has gained an important status as being one of the most important ports in the country. Just because people come from other states in hunt of opportunities and at the same time adding to the growth of Mumbai, doesn’t mean that one day when you reach the seventh sky, you would shrug them off your shoulders and take the credit of touching the milestone entirely by yourself. Why do we overlook the fact that on a global scale, this is what INDIANS are doing in other countries? Do they not leave their country for Uncle Sam or the Queen’s land for greener pasture and better opportunities? How many of them spend even a day without resting their ass in the comfort of a convertible and abusing their motherland for its pathetic state?

How many of them even come back and make an attempt towards the betterment of nation? Yet, we complain about the discrimination we have to face in foreign land, when we don’t even make an attempt to identify a similar situation we are facing on the home ground. When we can’t empathise with the scenario at home, we definitely do not have any right to blame the foreigners, whose countries we are breaching into for making a living for ourselves. I have seen the most educated people in the society falling prey to this trap he had set. Some of them came as a real surprise for me too. What makes him say that we do not respect the local customs and traditions? Somebody should ask him, how many outsiders try to abandon the biggest festivals like Ganpati and go ahead celebrating Durga Puja or Baisakhi with more enthusiasm?

And on the very basic note, what does he even mean by the people who belong to Mumbai? What is the criteria for a person to be tagged as a native of this city? Should he have a family tree leading originating from a member who was born and brought up in this city? What about the people whose earlier generations came down from other places and settled down here? What about the people who were born and brought up here only to leave the city and settle down in some other place? This man doesn’t have the slightest clue of what he is doing and the entire crux of the issue he has raised. He is just not sure whether he wants to deal with this issue on the base of region or on the base of cast.

And what does he have to say about the accused in the recent series on nine bomb blasts in the city of Jaipur? He too had come down all the way from Mumbai to execute this tyrant operation. Wouldn’t the moron go ahead and dig deeper to find out if the accused is TRULY from Mumbai or is he too some outsider and hence shouldn’t be associated with this city? Whatever is the ugly reason behind this political move, but he is definitely a black spot on not only humanity and also on the people living in Mumbai. Wearing a white kurta and a holy tilak on forehead cannot purify one’s soul. If one’s character is full of shit, then it would someday rip apart the masquerade and foreground its true self to people.

Life of a DOG!!!

My brother in law was shooting a documentary for Essar Group. For this purpose they had to visit one of its industrial plants in the state of Gujarat. Essar group had been using a cute little Pug in commercials for promoting their entity in telecom sector “Hutch”, now taken over by Vodafone. The script for the corporate documentary required the presence of that Pug for a few shots. Everyone in the crew, right from the spot boy to the line producer was keen to have a look at it.

The all woke up early morning to get the set and equipments ready for the shot. Once everything was in place, all that was missing was the Pug. The crew waiting under the scorching sun was soon informed that there would be a delay in the arrival of the celebrity. The urge or curiosity was much stronger than the pain caused by the uncomfortable weather conditions. Finally someone hailed at everyone resting under the shade “Aa gaya”. The next moment everyone rushed from their seats as though it wasn’t a pug, but it was Monica Belluci coming straight from Italy.

A sleek luxury car entered the gates and drove towards the set. It halted right next the crowd of crew members. The gates opened and the owner of the pug stepped out with tons of attitude puffed under every inch of his skin. Probably he lived under the illusion that he was the celebrity and not the dog. But the fact remained, he held his neck high in the air to even notice that people around had their eyes fixed on the pug in his arms and not him.

My bro in law was lucky, that he got to hold the dog in his arms and carry it to the set. The owner walked and swayed like Karan Johar next to my bro in law. With a little stern yet fragile accent he told him “Please try to finish the shot soon, he is not used to such strong heat and temperature.” My bro in law cared less about that gay mumbling next to him. The crew moved fast and got the camera rolling in no time.

After a few minutes when the shot was almost done, the hanky panky saw the pug rolling out its tongue and palpitating. He jumped out of his seat in a mixed emotion of grief and anger and rushed towards the director and said “Oh my god!!! He is tired, the heat is catching up with him, I need to carry him back to the a/c van” he ended the statement with his trademark cross handed posture. The director was caught unexpected and he gave a strange look back to the owner and said “It’s almost done.” But the faggot just dint move. “If you don’t mind, we need to get this done soon. Would you please mind stepping back for a while?” said the director.

The shot was soon over and the “Shattered Ego” came down, picked up his pup and yet again with loads of attitude, did a catwalk on the red carpet back into his pseudo-limousine. The crew members on the either side of the imaginary rag kept their glance fixed on the pug for one final time. Soon the car was speeding out of the gates and everyone got back to packing up the set. The spot boy made an ironical statement to his crew members around “Its better to have a life of a Dog like that, than to be born as a human like this.”

Matchstick Men

Try picturing Tarzan now: Over 6 feet tall, 30” waistline, 50” chest, 22” biceps and just when you have your jaws touching the ground, your eyeballs slide down a little lower to spot his matchstick legs. What a put off that must be. Probably the same reason we always see Salman Khan without a T-shirt, but never without his jeans. But, in one of the stage performances in a continent outside Asia, the foreign crowd really cheered for him when he tore off his T-shirt, not cuz there weren’t guys in neighbourhood with a better body, but what they were witnessing was an iconic figure in the second largest film industry in the world. It seems he got really charged up by the response from the audience and the next thing we saw him do was pull down his jeans. The moment he did that, the crowd went completely silent as they couldn’t relate the contrasting image of a human figure they saw in front of their eyes. It seemed like a combination of upper body belonging to a 100m athlete, while the lower body was gifted by a marathon runner.

I have observed people in fitness centers and gymnasiums; they religiously work hard in the wrong direction all the time. The ones heading in the right direction are engrossed focusing only on their upper bodies, be it arms, chest, back, shoulders or abdomen. They would let the legs workout to be taken care of by the professional body builders. I wouldn’t entirely blame the lack of knowledge the instructors hold, but the fault lies on personal fronts. Legs workout is probably the most tiring of all the body parts. One needs to be sure to give proper rest to the legs muscles the following day, in order to see them develop to their maximum capacity. It’s really hilarious to see the regular builders in the gym occasionally entering the arena wearing shorts, exposing their legs which appear to be suffering from malnutrition.

For me, I love the weekend in gym, cuz that’s when I have scheduled my legs workout. We have a brotherhood formed of people who don’t neglect working out these muscles below their torso. In a way it puts me in an advantageous position, as hardly anyone tries to flock around the area in the gym where machines specific for legs workout are positioned. It’s hard to describe the mental and physical feeling of liberation one experiences after this tiring hour of workout session. Squats with 220 pounds, leg extensions with 130 pounds, leg press with 475 pounds and calf raises with 110 pounds give me a good enough adrenaline rush. That’s the beauty of legs workout, thighs constitute as one of the biggest pair of muscles in our body, other than chest and back and have the potential to withstand a higher range of weight than any other muscle. Yet I see some guys dishonoring them by doing squats with hardly 22 pounds of weight.

One of my friends at the gym is a young intern doctor, who without any doubt understands the chemistry of our body more than any of us. I had taken a break for a minute before hitting the final set for squats, when he stopped by on his way towards the men’s room. He asked me “I don’t understand, why Indian men neglect legs workout as though it’s a social crime or something”. I took a sip of water from the bottle, smiled at him and said “Probably because the Indian women pull their men’s T-shirt off before sliding their trousers down”. We had a real good laugh but hardly did we realize that some ladies around overheard this sarcastic comment. They gave us such aggressive glare sprinkled with some cyanide as though they wanted to kill us that very moment.

But who cares, I have already achieved a state of Nirvana and I can’t let some ants wriggling around, psyche me out.

Healthy Socialising

Probably the title must be attracting you to discover the healthy side of socializing, but wait till you find out what it truly stands for. Till the time I was in college, I never paid any heed to this side of socializing. For me gym is a place to work out and share some good laugh, which I believe is good for health too. If I was able to push for a morning walk or jog, I would pat myself proudly and smile through the day. But recently when I altered my work out scheduled and picked up morning walk for some days, I came across a variety of people and experiences.

There were some old couples who religiously woke up every morning and pushed themselves for a walk to stay healthy in that stage of life. They were the ones taking cautious baby steps on the sidewalk. You would hardly find them conversing to one another throughout the way. To be honest that’s a nice practice, after all peace is good for our mind, body and soul hehe… But they wouldn’t refrain from fixing their glare on gals let loose on the roads early morning doing catwalk for the street dogs.

Then there was this bunch of college kids who would have probably seen Sylvester Stallone film last evening or had Arnold Schwarznegger surrounded with hot chicks on California beach in their dream. They would push the accelerator to its limit right from the word “Go”. If you have to jog for good 45 minutes to increase your stamina and shed some considerable calories, you definitely don’t shoot like Roger Banister from the starting line. Alas! They would learn it with time. You would spot them with utmost enthusiasm at the starting line on day one and hardly anyone would be visible on day two.

Next in the queue is the streak of beauty pageant participants. They deck up so well at the wee hours in the morning just to get out of the home in perfect colour combinations and in sync with latest trends in the fashion fraternity. Morning walk for health is not their concern, till the time they can blabber about it to their other gal pals and use it as a tool to flatter the guys “Oh, I wake up early morning for a walk. I am very health conscious you see” flickering their eyes at a speed faster than their walk. But I like this category, they serve a good dose for everyone’s eyes early morning, including the street dogs and news paper vendors. But one needs to be lucky, did you notice me use the word beauty anywhere in the description? Hehe…

Then there are these foodies, who are pushed out of their homes by their spouses or tailors or probably doctors who get them face to face with a mirror reflecting reality. They are the sweet lot, dedicated to walking without looking left and right. They would swing their hands to extreme as though it more of French Legionnaire march than morning walk. One should appreciate their commitment and enthusiasm which they show early morning and throughout the day by hogging everything that comes in their way. Someone needs to tell them, that they need to control their diet as well, for they complain about not losing weight despite so much hard work, cuz they are doing nothing about their food habbits.

Coming to the point is the next category: the uptight and lousy socializing cockroaches. They are the ones crawling through the streets with their tentacles flying high in the air, transmitting their actions to their comrades. To them it’s more important to have a Nike Swoosh on their T-shirt and the Reebok streaks on their tracks, while their shoes settle with Adidas stripes. They would hardly walk for a considerable distance, but would have the log of every person on the street with a detailed description right from scratches on his shoe to the no. of times they repeat their clothing in a month.

Even though they have matchstick legs, they would wear athletic shorts to reveal them. They don’t care about the bulging paunch making them look fit for labour, but they would wear a skin tight T-shirt and walk as though Tom Cruise is back into business. They just walk on green grass to go back in the society and office and show off their high health conscious quotient. Get a life people; hit the street for a walk with a meaning. Wear what you want to, do what you want to, walk where you want; but don’t at least walk over the very essence of walking for fitness.

The hunt for Radio Jockey

Recently a RJ hunt was organised in my organisation for an in-house Radio Channel. The participants who got selected in the last leg of this talent hunt were asked to be the judges for this round. No wonder they had their own versions of expert opinion as though it was a real time RJ hunt for the most popular radio station across the country. Anyways, they asked us to speak on World Environment Day for just a minute and we had to stuff our sweet introduction into it too. How could someone make fun out of such a serious issue and wrap it up withing a minute. Halloooo !!! We aint professionals, one shouldnt be expecting so much creativity from a technically geek industry. Give us some concession. I erased the time limit off my head and came up with my version which would stretch across the room from one end to another. Here it goes:

[Start]Wake up!!! Wake Up Guys!!! Its just been an hour and a half since post lunch session; you should have been done with your afternoon nap too by now. Anyways, now that I have your eyeballs and earlobes glued to me, let me introduced myself. My natural name for the day is Siddhant, suffixed with a pathetic and stale nickname as punch line “The Nature Boy”, but it does hold significance today for we celebrate this special day as World Environment Day.

The moment I read that I was required to present a small session filled with a lot of “HAHAHA”… humor on an important and serious issue like “World Environment Day”, the first thing that stuck my mind was, whoever came up with this idea definitely had a pathetic appraisal this year. He needs to make a shift or avail the stress management sessions being organized at Capgemini.

I dint have too much time on hand and the big bunch of bushy hair on my head were blocking the free flow of creative thoughts. So the moment I left from office, I rushed to my regular saloon close my home. I told my barber DJ Akeel, now .. m not kidding … his name is actually DJ Akeel and DJ are his initials and don’t stand for Disc Jockey. So I told him “Akeel Bhai … Bahut garam ho rahela hai … uda do inko”. He got really excited as he would get to experiment something new today and asked “Kaunsa Karoon dost, Tashan ka Akshay ya Gajhni ka Amir?” I said “Jo Tumhe theek lagta hai kar do”. Hence he began his work with lot of excitement.

I dunno what came into my mind and I asked him “Akeel bhai, Vishwa Pariyawaran Diwas sunkar aapke dimaag mein kya khayal aata hai”. Even before I could complete the second half of the question he interrupted me “Ek minute sir, mein abhi aaya”. He dropped the machine on the deck and rushed out of the shop. I looked around to the other barbers and they were busy in their work. I was trying to figure out, what did I say to make him rush out of the shop.

I pushed my chair back to see where he went. He crossed the road hastily. The moment he reached the other side, he nailed his feet wide apart next to a shady tree and without looking around, he unzipped his trousers. The next thing I saw was a stream of gratitude flowing between his legs as a tribute to mother nature, quenching the thirst of the already dead tree. I could eventually gauge his feeling of content and relaxation from the body language as he jerked off the last few drops and came rushing back to the saloon.

He entered inside and smiled “Kya karoon, control nahi ho raha tha”. I am so glad that he had the courtesy to wash his hands before he rubbed it on my head. I kept glaring at him in amusement to his sudden reaction. He picked up his machine to get back on the job and said “Haan Sir, ab boliye, aap kya pooch rahe they”. I just took a deep breath and nodded “Kuch nahi Akeel Bhai”.[End]

And the judges said "The content aint too interesting", "Go in more depth about your introduction which would help us understand what kind of a person are you", "You have a nice voice, try to cut this into a minute" .... Damm .... its like asking Goliath to cover himself by a mere handkerchief and then complain that he is promoting nudity.

Shadows

Whose shadow is this?
Follows me wherever I go
Seems like a familiar figure,
But why doesn’t it let me go?
Walked it through the light
But during darkness,
It was out of sight.
Protected it more than myself,
But in the end,
It thought only about its own self.
We took every step together,
Deceit is what one gets,
By being good to others.
There is no heaven,
There is no hell, they say,
For all our sins
In this life, we pay
Time is the biggest healer,
I have heard,
But has the ripped flesh
Ever felt the same?
Heal it with time,
But the scars still remain.
Who other than you can tell,
The turmoil inside you,
Causing the pain.
They think you are weak,
Just cuz you wanted to speak,
You don’t need their pity,
You don’t need their sympathy
You can fight for your own dignity.
Chase your shadow,
And find yourself left in shreds.
For it’s an illusion,
That causes the entire confusion.
If you see it again,
Don’t pay any heed,
Cuz you know it now,
It will desert you in the time of need.