Baby's day out - our nightmare!!

Photo Courtesy @ Subhashish Sarkar

I’m sorry but I do not like bratty kids!!

So sue me! But why do I need to apologize? I really do not like kids that are brats! Isn’t it really my choice? Why do I need to feel guilty for exercising my choice? Call me selfish but when I’m out to have a perfectly enjoyable evening with friends, I do not appreciate the screaming, yelling, and often running between the table devils, that people lovingly call kids!

Though I would lay the blame if not equally then more so on the adults accompanying the kids, who quite calmly look the other way as if they are not even there!

Don’t get me wrong! I do not have horns on my head or anything, but If I have paid a neat sum to enjoy a certain ambience etc, why should I let somebody play truant with it! Whoever it be! I know, staying in Delhi there is another devil to deal with! People talking loudly on their mobile phones...Restaurants, movie theatres, malls, every where you look, the omnipresent devil is there! Its as if the entire world around them has just faded away, nobody else is there but the person on the phone, hollering away, however disconcerting it may be to everybody around him/her!

But as usual, I digress....I get dirty looks if I insist on a seat in a kids free zone in a flight! My equivalent to a kid’s free zone being at least 3 rows in front and 3 rows at back free of kids! My luck with the Railways is stuff that legends are made of! I nowadays confidently lay bets with my friends that come what may; I would invariably be surrounded by a screaming hollering bunch of kids in the immediate vicinity!

Yeah yeah, I know, I’m a horrible person! But I don’t care. I would still rather have my sanity around me than lose my cool!

Why can’t the parents nowadays teach their kids some discipline once in a while! I remember getting whacked with an umbrella once when I was young! That too for an innocuous little thing like sneaking out and going to a friend’s place while my parents were chatting across the fence with some other parents in the Air force camp. How the hell was I supposed to know that it would turn into a full fledged panic situation with the entire Air force camp looking for me? Add to that the military police being involved! Well, I still don’t know what that hullabaloo was all about? It was after all an extremely high security area! (My dad was posted in one of the border areas at that time!), the camp was closed from all directions, where could I have vanished? I still maintain till date that that was one of the times my parents overreacted! There were many other instances ofcourse during the course of my growing up..Like my getting slapped every time I sat down to learn math from my dad! It resulted in my detesting that subject permanently! Oh, and of course the one where I was kept out whole night because I was late coming back home! Late was 11 O-clock! Coming back home from office!!! I felt like telling my dad - get a life! But I wouldn't dare! While that was taking discipline to a different tangent altogether, my point was why can’t parents of nowadays enforce discipline in their children once in a while!

Look at me! I didn’t turn out too bad! And I am sure a lot of my friends who have gone through the rigours of similar discipline in their younger days, agree with me here...Almost all of them have beautifully mannered kids!! No coincidence there!!

I was an extremely meek child! Add to that the discipline of a defense household, I’ve had an extremely controlled and disciplined upbringing! When our parents went for parties, all kids were left at some officer’s house with an ayah attending. No questions asked! There was no question of being tagged along with the adults! IT JUST WAS NOT DONE! There was a certain unwritten code of conduct; you just followed it unquestionably! It wasn’t the law of the jungle or something! It was just a structured way of doing things.

It is exactly this upbringing of mine that wants to see a semblance of sanity in today’s children, or even in their parents!

Well to give credit where it’s due, not all kids are brats! Some are so well mannered and sweet that it melts your heart just being near them! To hold them! To hug them!

Here I was rambling on and on about how much I dislike bratty kids, and then it suddenly struck me – after all what is their fault?? They are but pure as mirrors! They will only reflect what they see at home or imitate what they see their immediate society do!

I have always been of the opinion that if you can’t manage kids, please do not have them! Just don’t use the poor guys as fillers for your deficient lives! No seriously! I know of a couple who while going through a rough patch, decided to have a second kid!!! And this, while they could barely devote enough time to their first child! Both being working parents, the poor kid shuttled from maid to maid for years before getting peddled off to a boarding school. A couple of years later he was brought back home again to the care of another maid! The sweet kid that I once knew, I believe ( I have heard) has turned into an attention seeking, tantrum throwing, rebellious brat! I shudder to think of the fate of the second kid!!

But then my problem remains! Even though a lot of times, the kid throwing tantrums and creating scenes at social places belongs to extremely thoughtless and uncouth parents who must have had bad upbringing themselves and see it as a completely normal behavior, it is still left to the likes of us to suffer in silence the unruly behavior of the brats who sadly don’t know any better and who have not been guided any better. All this while a perfectly pleasant evening goes waste!

Lost and never found!

Photo Curtsey @ Subhashish Sarkar

I think I should get a medal for consistency! I am as regular as clockwork! If I were a woman, you know what that would mean!? Well my 'period' is a little stretched out! I do it roughly about once a year! But I'm getting better now....My latest being 2 months!!!

Oh, shut up dirty minds! I'm talking about losing phones! Or atleast managing to get them incapacitated! Maybe I should get a copyright on the phenomenon..Why not? People do associate me with it! I could get famous for it you know! There is nobody that I know who does it as beautifully as I!

I have a sister  who religiously manages to lose all her contacts from her phone every couple of months! Now when a quiet little status appears on Facebook asking for friend's contacts, none of her friends even bother raising an eyebrow! Its as if everybody has been somehow expecting it! I tell her its her genetic programming! Her husband, my brother-in-law says its in our blood, hence the same pattern! But that is where you are mistaken! Each of our skills is vastly different! I have perfected my art over countless lost phones! As has she over numerous losses! I bet that she can now loose all numbers with the touch of a button, even in her sleep! While we each are talented in our own way, it is improper to club together our contrasting talents!
My last phone, a reasonably expensive black berry bold, I managed to pour coke over it!! And no, as a lot of people have suggested, there was no alcohol in it!!(Maybe then I would have been better coordinated!)
A couple of phones before this one, I managed to leave it behind in a pub! Though I went back immediately within 10 minutes, it  had vanished!
The one before that had gone into the the swimming pool with me...Well ofcourse I hadn't deliberately jumped in with the phone , but had got pushed into the pool fully clothed!! With my phone, handsfree, wallet, car keys etc everything on me! My only fault was that I had ended up at the party late as I had a meeting to wrap up, and by the time I arrived, everybody else was drunk!
Do you see the pattern here? How destiny has been quietly conspiring away towards my achieving greatness?

Anyways...the one before that had accidentally, And I insist 'accidentally' fallen in the pot in the loo! As contents of the pot were yet unaltered I had picked up the set and bravely tottered out! ( I admit I was a little inebriated). As I was closing the door to the loo and narrating my sad story, I hear a shriek! The hostess, a very dear friend from kalkaji insisted that I go right back and "flush that thing down"! No amount of cajoling would pacify her and she would not let me join back at the game of cards unless I had flushed my poor phone down and had gotten myself literally fumigated! Well, sufficient to say I did manage to smuggle it out from under her nose under very perilous circumstances!

I think the one before that conked off on its own! I was being a cheapskate, and had picked up a fully loaded Chinese phone from Dubai. A couple of years back, if any of you had seen me hanging out from balconies, sticking my head out of cars, with my phone attached to my ears, that would be me on my Chinese phone,  trying to catch a bit of reception! In that phone, every conversation was a like jigsaw puzzle! Every sentence had 3-4 words dropping out, so I had to fill it up fast to make sense of the conversation!! I think it added a new dimension to my personality! It sure does come in handy now when I'm drunk! All I need to hear is a couple of words and I can piece together an entire conversation!!

Before the Chinese handset, I think I had a flip phone, which had a very unfortunate accident! I don't exactly remember the details but this I do remember that it had ended up in two different pieces! Maybe I had sat on it when it was open....I don't remember.

There were a couple of them more in the middle somewhere, but I'm sure you get the drift by now! You do see that its been destiny and not me that has been shaping up these events!
Right now I have bought the cheapest handset I could find, and about to give my blackberry for repairs! So come on destiny! Now is the time! Hit me! Take me to greater heights!

Saddi Dilli, Dil, Fraandship and more...

Photo Courtesy @ Subhashish Sarkar

You know, I recently replied to one of my aunt's blog regarding a Delhi vs Bombay discussion, and that got me thinking! I thought why not indulge in that thought for a little while more.
Well, specifically the sense of belonging you get from a place, even though you are not originally from there...in my case - my adopted city - Delhi.
I have of course shamelessly copied parts of my own reply to my aunt...but in my defence, I did want to continue with the same train of thought.

To begin with, I have lived in Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi for various time frames, before settling down in Delhi for the past 8 years...There is no indifference or standoffishness of Bombay here...But somehow this city gives you a kick on the backside and gets you ready to take life head on! Yes, it is aggressive, yes it is loud and crass, Yes its' language liberally peppered with BC's and MC's takes a hell of a lot of getting used to, yes there is a culture shock, yes it has men scratching balls on every street corner, yes it's retrograded views on women makes you want to hang your head down in shame, but somehow, in-spite of it all this city kind of makes a survivor out of you! Now that I have lived here and survived, I feel literally invincible! No, seriously! I love being here!

When I first went to Bombay to work, it made me feel like a lonely blob of cork bobbing up and down in the vast sea of indifference...I was aghast that one had to take time to go meet friends!! Coming from calcutta, that was the ultimate travesty! We bongs are used to the "adda" culture. Friends are extensions of our own selves. We consider it our birthright to drop in on any friend unannounced or at extreme short notice. Come on...Isn't that what friendship is all about? We don't go - hey, are you free next weekend? No? What about the weekend after that? lets catch up sometime! Of course I do have friends who have great social lives in Bombay - as my Aunt puts it The "Muah Muah" air kissing brigade! Naah...not for me! I prefer the real thing!

As a bong one is literally brought up on the evils of "foreign land" from a very young age, or at least I was! Especially regarding Delhi - Its "unfriendly" and people are crass and aggressive to "there is no culture" to everybody in the city has only one outlook - to hoodwink you out of your precious possessions! to nobody gives you correct directions - people will lead you in the opposite direction etc...I had heard them all!
So when I shifted to Delhi, you can imagine my apprehension! But you know...from day one the city just kind of took me in its arms and said welcome home! I know I sound filmy and melodramatic but it was kind of life changing...Complete strangers welcomed me into their lives and homes...have been the best of friends with some of them since then and made scores of new friends too! And funnily, not once have I got wrong directions in my 8 years here nor has it been somebody's life mission to dupe me!
Of course I met a lot of different kinds of people....and still continue to do so... I met and made friends of the Saptamber and Fraandship variety too, and sorry to sound prissy and judgemental but I would cringe internally everytime I would be in public with them and they would open their mouth! ! But hey...some of them were/are really nice people!
Oh and then funnily there was this "Delhi"girl I met at a party a couple of days back! Born and brought up in Delhi! We were having a get together at a friends place and some more friends had dropped in...She was along with them. She looked perfectly sober but after the evening was over, to my utter amusement, she did not know her way back home! Numerous direction attempts and countless lefts and rights later she still was completely clueless!! In fact I remember her asking me when I told her to take the first left - "How will I know that's the first left?" And no, she did not have dyed hair! But that was indeed a pure blonde moment!

Then there are also people who have come here from outside, stay here and still crib about everything in this city....If its so bad, then why don't they just go back to where they came from! Usually, and in my experience about 95 % of them from are Calcutta. Or maybe I get around Bongs more...Oh, don't get me wrong..most are seniors, pretty successful in their careers....and there are no jobs or money in Cal is there? Everybody knows that!! Why risk a good thing? Hypocrisy? Sorry, what's that?
But mostly, it was pure gems all the way...

Funnily, it really irks some of my friends from Calcutta, that I get a sense of belonging here in Delhi rather than in Calcutta. As if it is some kind of an ultimate betrayal! This is home! I found my groove here..I mean our discussions have literally bordered on crazy getting on downright ugly about why there shouldn't be more a sense of gratitude towards Calcutta from my side! Why? No really, why? Only because I have stayed there a number of years? It really gets my goat when people try to force their opinions down your throats! These are also friends who would not be happy with your moving on in life and insist on dragging you back to the mud pit. For some all Delhi people are about "flaunting brands" and are all "classless" people! I wonder what gives them the misconception of being very classy when they are clawing at others? Somehow I get the image of a smelly dirty alley cat trying to claw its way into a nice comfy room and then lashing out at not being able to get the door to open! Anyways, I guess I haven't been able to embrace my Delhi spirit completely, else I would have not given a damn!

Though like any other delhiite, I guess I too indulge in my fair share of bitching about certain aspects of the city...Traffic sure is a favourite one! But then I remind myself, think hell holes like Calcutta and Bangalore and thank your stars!
I have not seen most of the city yet, And I am yet to take a bus ride(Though the autowallas have been a nuisance enough thank you very much!), Still awaiting my first metro ride, ....So much to do , so much to look forward to....And I definitely plan to do it here....they say na home is where your heart is...maybe my soul belonged here!

Yes, this city has definitely given me the aggressiveness to take life head on, the courage to always speak my mind, and the strength to live life on my own terms!

That said, I still think that there is something in Calcutta that Delhi has a long way to go to catch up!! And that's the Calcutta biriyani! I've done Karims, Saleems, Deez, Chote Miya, Bade Miya, and handis from almost everywhere in Delhi, but baby, it just don't match up! Till the time the Cal guys keep that rocking I guess I shall keep going back for a fill...

Singularly me!

Since my youth, I have noticed an interesting viewpoint! Why it has taken me this long to finally put this in perspective is something that I’ll have to figure out later.

Somehow, I have noticed that marriage or being married tends to give you respectability!!! And I don’t mean it in the typical Hindi filmy way!! It is not that I am not up to my ears of people asking me when am I getting married or why am I not yet married! I am and I’m fed up! I feel like telling them it is none of their business! Please excuse me for having the wisdom of knowing beforehand that I was not meant for that kind of commitment or simply that I don’t want to!

However successful one might be, whether monetarily, or career wise etc, if you’re single, you tend to get that glassed over look in most conversations! And I’m sure it happens far more frequently than in the confines of my social circle!

That indulgent smile that says “Of course you think like that… But that is not so!!!” And the eyes would get glassier and the smiles would deepen.

My younger cousins, my really younger cousins, who earlier would not have gotten a word in edgeways in any family discussions, post marriage, suddenly get to have a say in most matters!!! What infinite wisdom has marriage bestowed on them suddenly that they have crossed over that invisible line and gone over to the enlightened side!

Why?

And it is not my family only that behaves in this peculiar way! Some of my friends are no exception – and I just might be going out on a limb to say that society in general behaves in this fashion!

Couples tend to invite couples to their houses! “Who will my wife talk to?” or something equally silly is the common refrain! Believe me – somebody had actually told me that when I was planning a party!! As if single people have absolutely no social skills when it comes to talking to married women! While single women are absolutely welcome to both the halves, it is us men who are more discriminated against!

Every single married friend of mine has repeatedly bemoaned his/her married state to me! Every single one of them has at sometime or the other has pleaded with me not to get married! Not that I was even considering! You see, this is one instance, where the grass really is greener on my side!

But I do wonder why singles make married people uncomfortable?

Is it because, they are reminded that the control they once had over their lives has gradually slipped away like sand from a fist? Or is it because you obviously are better managed financially, emotionally, than most of your married friends? Or is it because you have more time to read, go out with friends, single married or otherwise, watch movies whenever you want to, go out on trips, basically live life on your terms?

Or maybe it is because you can talk to any woman without the fear of you wife throwing a majestic tantrum! Oh Come on! Every single married guy has this listed as his biggest bête noir! Unless of course, he is the regular philandering kinds, then he would know how to juggle his twin lives! And thankfully I don’t have any of those as my friends! Not that I’m judging, of course, but I really don’t have those kind of friends.

I recently met up with two of my closest friends in school. We met up in Jaipur and had a grand time sitting on top of Nahargarh Fort overlooking the entire Jaipur city looking like a bejeweled carpet at your feet, drinking up and catching up on the last 20 odd years! Funny how suddenly meeting up with people from your past really charges you up and puts things in a sharper perspective! Especially if they are very close friends with whom you had lost touch. While the catching up was great, every third line often did revert to the usual question! Fortunately, since they are good friends, the issue was quickly put to rest, unlike my relatives – with whom it seems to pop up in every conversation!!

I have now almost given up hope of ever being “respectable”. I am beyond getting redeemed in the eyes of a married person. I am after all better than that! There is bound to be some hard feelings! Maybe some jealousy too! But my relatives and my married friends take heart! At every stage of my life henceforth, you shall be in my prayers! I shall not treat you to the same standards of pettiness as have been meted out to me, but to a far higher standard of awareness and happiness and being that I have been fortunate enough to witness as a single person!