Lessons from traveling

I would love to say that I am a travel junkie, oozing with wanderlust or, in buzzfeed-speak, one whose life is made of #travelgoals. But, besides these descriptions being highly vague and stilted, they would be impossible to factually substantiate in my case. 

However, in the little I have traveled, there are some important things I have understood - lessons which have only been reinforced with every single outing. And I would like to share them - mostly because this is my blog and I share things here, and also because some of these lessons came back to me in my recent trip to a couple of countries in Europe. 

A group pic from Gokarna (2013) just because!

• Pick close friends whom you bond with (or family) as travel companions. Unless you are some maniac who gets thrills from the likelihood of being let down. If there are no such people available, go solo (actually going solo might just trump everything, but that's a topic for another day)

• Do not aim to make the entire group happy, even if you are with close friends. Traveling in a group doesn't mean the individuals need to be glued together. If people differ, let everyone do their thing and regroup only when you find a common agenda which, if you follow the previous point, you will.

• Draw a broad list of must-do's and optionals and make sure everyone largely agrees to these in order to save future heartburn. Even if you are 'backpacking'. 

• Don't follow the herd. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, if you visit a famous tourist spot, and are standing in a long queue to buy a ticket, there is likely some place right next to it which packs hundred times the wonder and brilliance, is free and has nobody checking that out.
  
  My earliest recollection of this is from the time when I was eight. My family chanced upon a godforsaken zoo in Mysore, laughed at a decrepit board reading 'Penguins', and lost our minds when we found a huge group of frickin' penguins waddling in a pool of icy cold water, in the Indian summer!
  
  More recently, I experienced this while walking the roads and community parks in Prague and Vienna, where I found magic in the most uncanny of places (the picture below shows at least a 100 people huddled in a 15 by 15 m area to watch a renowned hourly clock tower ritual which was quite a damp squib. Meanwhile, just a 100 m away, what is happening the video was happening)

• Talk to people and ask about things you don't understand. This could range from asking directions to asking if something you are wearing or doing is proper in a culture, to inquiring fellow travellers/ locals if some place you are planning to visit is worth it.

• Wiki travels is awesome. And so is google maps. Also, not that it is something that I learnt recently but only realized the full use of in my last trip is GPS! Honest. Just load a google map of an area and you do not need the internet (which is a problem on some trips) and never get lost.

At the fag end were the graves of Beethoven and Brahms!

• Walk. If you are an aam aadmi like me, your feet may hurt. A lot. Carry one of those pain relief gels. And keep walking. 

• Go absolute crazy. Or do something that your instinct is wary of. Trust me, this need not involve alcohol. Like walking around in one of the largest cemeteries in the world after twilight. With not a soul around. Or perhaps, with some around.
  
  Because stories are never made of the mundane. And one can buy all the fridge magnets they want. But it is only the stories that stay with you. Forever.

Of stories that walk. And breathe.

We are all but walking stories. Some dramatic. Others not so much. Some happy. Others a wee bit sad. Everyone of us is a writer of stories, albeit only some may be passionate raconteurs. We are the protagonist in most of the stories we write. And in thousands of instances, a mere character in somebody else's. 

Our life's central discourse is largely shaped by our interpretations, our interactions and our interpretations of the interactions with 'reality' - and not by 'reality' itself (if there is such a thing). What we are today is a sum of the stories we wrote on the way, the stories we chose to tell and, in no mean manner, the stories we let fade into oblivion.

Stories are both a function of time and place. One place becomes the stage for many stories at different points in time. And of course, at the same time, innumerable stories are taking shape in a variety of places. I often feel that the three elements of stories - time, place and the characters end up being like the Horcruxes in the Harry Potter series.

Alright, let's not call them horcruxes. However, these story capsules are everywhere - an artist's masterpiece, a dying mother's baby, a monument touched by various travelers, or in a loved one's gift. A story that others read and re-read while the writer is writing more, and even after the final chapter of his story is long done.

While we may be unwittingly embedding our stories in everything we touch, our own mind does a less than pleasing job with remembering them. The perception of 'how was Friday night?' could take a number of forms over the course of the next week. And the wry smile you received from that female at the bar counter could gradually transform into a coquettish grin, if you wish to remember it that way. Our memories always remain shrouded in a blanket of our social milieu, our secret desires and fears as well. 

As we move ahead in life, the stories that we create on the way remain a part of us. We can allow them to be the fetters that hold us back or let them be the wings that help us soar. Yet, it is imperative that we must write. And write relentlessly.

For your deeds may raise you to Heaven, or banish you to the gates of Hell. But make sure, as you stand there, you have a great story to tell.

Turning 28 and other silly things

I am not a huge fan of birthdays.

Truth be told, it is really just the successful completion of a free trip around the sun without getting yourself killed. The added nuances of another increment to one's years are tough to negotiate with. And when it is one in the late twenties, it gets even more tricky.

Yesterday was one such day for me. Before I go on, it is good to be out of the 27 club. Hey! I am no musical prodigy but one can never know. But club 28 isn't a bed of roses either. There is a lot of utterances of the M word. Or the Sh word if you are in India. Entirely maddening. Everyone is watching Game of Thrones. Everyone tells you you've got to watch it too. Everyone's getting married. Everyone tells you you should too. Except that the latter would last till S69E1080. 

I remember the listicles that spurred me on a couple of years ago, and realize I am barely at halfway mark on the 25 things to do before 25. And perhaps, there are three more on that list now that I don't even know about. I scroll through nostalgic videos on Facebook which talk about the life of a 90s kid and, to my sheer horror, it registers that I am, technically, not even a 90s kid.

But, I am done with the book I was planning to write. No wait, I am actually done with it - like the idea itself. So, now I need new inspiration. Read more to write more, they tell you. I am lagging behind by almost 50% on a very modest Goodreads annual challenge. So, that doesn't look very good either.

And then there's work and the larger career goals. Where is this going? I totally think the crazy race to make it big and be all sorted in your twenties is insane but it's real and it's happening. So, either one gracefully exits the race track or else you run. Of course, at 28, I still have a fair shot at all those 30 under 30 lists. LOL, JK.

But amidst all this, you come home to a fabulous home-made cake, a hand-made card and loads of smiles and hugs. Your friends take out time from their equally crazy lives to wish you. And make sure they do their bit to make you feel special (even if that ends with a lot of cake in your hair).

And you know you will live through this and live well. 

Zen and the Art of housefly termination

When it comes to evading capture/ death, houseflies are like the Charles Sobhraj of the insect world. Houseflies, it turns out, see the world in slow motion. As one researcher puts it, houseflies evading swats are like Neo evading those bullets in the Matrix. It has also been studied that they are capable of banking at 90 degree angles almost instantaneously, making evasion of contact lightning quick. 

It is not a trivial matter at all. Numerous stories/ movies highlight the herculean task killing a housefly is. Who can forget the brave little tailor who killed seven in one blow? Or Mr. Miyagi talking about focus while trying to capture a fly using chopsticks. Or the most hilarious and telling references in Eega by SS Rajamouli (or Makkhi in Hindi) where the hero reincarnates as a housefly and wreaks havoc in the villain's life. If you haven't seen this one, you must. It is probably the third most played movie on TV after Sooryavansham & Jaani Dushman (not the Sonu Nigam one) - so, you won't have to wait too long.

This pursuit of flies has driven humans to engineer some extremely innovative (and some ghastly) means of singular destruction. 

Didn't see that coming...

The fly swatter - This thing is a work of bloody genius. I remember the introduction of the fly swatter to me as a young kid, and it totally blew me away. All those years of fruitlessly slapping our hands together, sometimes knocking items over, and in comes this harmless looking spatula that is a 100% times more successful. 

It took me some time to understand that not only does the partly flexible design help the swatter act like a whip aiding a quick and sharp swatting action, but its pores also create a suction which draws in the fly during approach. Imagine the WTF moment this must have caused for the first fly who bore the brunt of this. And since I don't really believe flies have a very organised social system wherein they would discuss threats to the species, the fly swatter would have been the cause of last minute bewilderment for a lot of flies.

Game. Set. Zap.

The bug zapper - Nothing, however, compares to the brutality of a bug zapper. Have the PETA ever spoken against this? I am not sure, and I am amazed considering how some of their concerns are rather ludicrous. This device is pure evil.

It's the fly equivalent of getting the chair. And although I have personally relished being Sampras and Sauron rolled into one, and zapping a whole school of flies in one go, it is disturbing that that has been recreation for a lot of us. 

There's the big box version of this too replete with purple-white tube lights - the metallic Mareech who draws the playful flies with its glittering appeal and then becomes their nemesis. 

Unaided assault

What if you do not have any of the above devices and are infuriated, annoyed and almost over the edge with that one single fly zooming from one corner to the other? There is hope. However, first you must breathe. Rash swatting hardly ever wins over a housefly. 

There are a few things one needs to be careful about. Flies, as mentioned earlier, have a heightened sense of perception (as they are seeing things in slow motion) - so, a change in lighting is sure to be sensed. This fact is useful in determining the direction of approach especially in unaided palm attacks. The diagram here shows what to and what not to do.

What else? Remember, thanks to their perception of time, the fly is a fraction of a second ahead of you. So, you do not plan to kill it at t = t* (where t* is the moment of impact) but at,

t = t*+α where α is ~1/30th of a second

Contrary to common perception, flies travel at 4-5 km/h which is ~1m/s, so this amounts to covering 3-5 cm of the region around impact.

If all this math fails, our last resort is to call Vidya Balan and let her talk the flies into submission.

Walking, Fast and Slow

I think I was in the seventh grade at this time.

I was walking from one end of my school to the other. We were days away from some school event and there were a lot of 'things to do'. Suddenly, I had this impulse to jog, and when I say jog, I mean more of running lightly than walking quickly.

My mind quietly told me that jogging, instead of ambling along, could actually turn out to be a time saver. It almost sounded ridiculous to one part of me but I jogged nonetheless.

Over the years, this turned into quite a habit. And I am anything but an athlete. Let me try to define this whim of mine. I jog when traversing a path from A to B such that,

distance (A, B) <= 50 meters.

An incident last year bore testimony to how deeply rooted this habit was. I had barely recovered from a knee dislocation and was standing at my table when someone called out to me. Subconsciously, my limbs commanded me to sprint. I almost tripped before my voluntary controls took over and slapped my reflexes shut.

Cut to yesterday. In one of those reflective shower moments, I found myself asking, "Could this really save any significant amount of time, ever?"

A depleted Android pedometer app and good old Google came in handy to look for an answer.

My pedometer tells me I register ~5000 steps on an average working day (I am discounting weekends for this exercise since walking activity is bound to be more erratic on those days). I can be sure I do not have my phone on me for ~20% of my walking trips on the office floor.

Therefore, average steps per day = 6000

* assumptions/ facts in blue, calculations in black

I am assuming I can (and do) jog half of the times I need to displace myself. So, our calculation base will be 3000 steps.

Average comfortable walking speed of an individual = 3 kmph (this is stated to be 5 kmph here but my experiments with a pedometer point towards this average)

Moderate jogging speed (that which looks socially acceptable) = 5 kmph (lower end of what the internet calls as jogging speed)

Average step size = 70 cm (some adjustment done)

Thus, Distance traveled = 3000 * 70 / (10^5) = 2.1 km

Time saved by jogging = (2.1/ 3 - 2.1/ 5) hrs = 17 mins

Weekdays in a year ~=  250

Time saved in a year = 250 X 17 = 4250 mins = 71 hours

To put this into perspective, let's see what use I could put these additional hours to.

• Indulge in a marathon of the seven seasons of Game of Thrones. Nah, I haven't and I don't want to watch the Game of Thrones. BOOM. There, I said it.
• Go around 3/80th of the world if I were Phileas Fogg.
• Spread these 4250 minutes cautiously over the entire year and snooze the alarm by 10 mins every frickin' day!
• Watch Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar 24 times, which is still five short of the number of times I have seen it already
• Play Justin Bieber's Baby 1140 times on loop which is merely 1,391,730,521 times less than the number of times it has actually been played on Youtube.h

Or, write about 140 of such pointless posts!

The delicate art of posing

Regret over the past is the largest source of human misery. And there are few things that bring more pangs of regret than revisiting how one looks in old photo albums.

That weird hairdo. That ill-advised colour of footwear. That awful gesture that seemed cool then.

The camera catches just a single instant (unless it is an iPhone 6s). And that's mostly a bad thing because, as Murphy would have it, at least one of your body parts will choose that precise moment to go out of whack. Mastering your limbs not to desert you in these instances is an art. And an intricate one at that.

The nuances of posing for photographs vary as per your stage of life.

Aww, so cute! That's Hitler, btw.

Till about the age of ten or so, you cannot possibly go wrong. Everything you do can be passed off under the garb of cuteness/ innocence/ playfulness. Both 'awful' and 'awesome' are spelt more like 'awwful' and 'awwsome'. Really, even if you are an ugly kid, no one would dare tell you that. This is the phase of photogenic bliss.

This, of course, changes drastically as puberty strikes - a complete anti-thesis of stage one. No matter how hard you try, you end up looking awkward. This can be blamed on the rather sudden sense of self-awareness. The minute you see a camera, you start getting bothered by where your hands are, or if your toes are pointing where they should. You worry and you start getting creative, and there lies the pitfall.

As the awareness of your loosely hanging hands dawn on you, your instincts tell you that 'doing something' might make you look good. And this is what happens.

   

Good luck on how you
feel about this later

V for 'Very awkward'

And don't even talk about the struggle that is having braces on one's teeth. Even if you stand next to Barack Obama, the centre of attention in the picture will always be those shining metal braces. And no, trying not to open one's mouth while smiling only makes it worse. You totter across your teenage years in this quandary but you believe in the Lord and tell yourself that this, too, shall pass.

And then you rush into the twenties. You are the center of your own universe and, needless to say, nothing says "I love myself, b**ches!" like an appropriately hash-tagged selfie.

The rise of the 'Selfie' and other (unrelated) trends 

Web sources say there are a million selfies taken everyday. Logic would say that this number must be understated since a lot of people are closet selfie-tards. Even if we assume each selfie takes 20 secs (which, as I would go on to point in the next paragraph, might be a conservative estimate considering the nuances of it), this amounts to over 230 man days. Basically, between your waking up today and the time you land up in bed again, the world aggregates almost a year of ego-clicking.

I, for one, have never figured my way to a proper selfie. It is just a lot of things to do at once - ensure your whole is visible, that the camera is not excessively close to you, that you are looking straight at the lens and not squinting, and press the 'click' button after that. And somehow, this has to capture the background well enough to shout, "I was here!".

Moving as per life stages, I am now tempted to talk about pre-wedding and wedding photo shoots. However, at this precarious stage of life, broaching that topic might not go down well with a large segment of my friends and acquaintances. All I would say is that, in my opinion, doing pre-wedding photo shoots is like listening to Honey Singh songs. You laugh at everyone who does it and keep claiming you are too cool for it, but, you will eventually do it, and quite willingly.

Needless to say, photographs are memories. Most of us remember ourselves looking super dapper in our memories. And we do not want the printed memories to testify otherwise. So it is understandable that a lot people go out of their way to look good in pictures. Meanwhile, some others go pout of their way to do so.

The perfect playlist

My mornings bring with them a thirty minute drive to office. Thirty minutes fly by in a breeze if filled with music I like. To ensure that, all I need to do is cull out my favourite songs and create a playlist. Simple.

I thought of doing this over six months ago but still haven't. This unreasonable delay annoyed me no end and I thought of writing about this playlist creator's block two months ago. And it is today that I got to finish the less demanding of these tasks.

Believe me, creating this playlist is important for me. The airplay on radio channels is disappointing at best, and soul-crushingly repetitive at worst. There are four to five songs that have constituted 75% of the music I have heard on these channels in the past two months. However, music is only a very small part of what plays on the radio. Mostly, there is a bevy of builders who want me to buy a house in their complex, and a bee-line of online grocery providers who want to ensure I never need to step out of it. RJs spend most of their time cracking bad jokes, doing impressions or pranking people. Basically, RJ wale babu does everything but play mera gaana.

And it's not like I require a million songs. I drive for roughly an hour a day. Accounting for the fact that I would mostly not listen to the entire song, average song length is ~3 mins. It would suffice to have, say, 3 days' inventory of non-repeating stuff which makes 20 songs/ day X 3 = 60. I'll be extremely indulgent and tailor full size lists for sombre, calm, upbeat, party moods - totalling to 240 (60 X 4) - and replicate these for both English and Hindi racking up 480 songs.

Well, damn, that's quite a bit. But manageable.

The problem, however, put succinctly, is that I want this to be the 'Perfect Playlist'. And a perfect playlist eludes perfectly.

I am the kind of person who will laud the great BB King one minute, and let Britney be my sweet little angel the next. Hold it against me, if you will. November rain reminds me that blue hai paani paani. And my usual retort to 'Don't turn off the lights' is battiyaan bujha do ke neend nahi aati hai. I am usually at a loss when someone asks me what "genre/ kind" of music do I like. I like some songs for their music, some for their poignant lyrics, some for the sheer energy they bring, and a number of them because they remind me of a phase of life gone by.

Add to this the factor of my 'current mood' and making sure the song I would want to listen to at any particular instant is in the playlist becomes nigh impossible. For one, if I were to keep a buffer for those one-off song cravings, I would be exposing myself to the judgement of any co-passenger on the kind of trash that I listen to. Secondly, the existence of a lot of music urges is unknown to you till they actually surface. One would never recall Suchitra Krishnamurthy crooning 'Dole Dole' till one fine day you actually feel like drowning yourself in a bucket full of the 90s. And you have to have the feels to remember why Lobo singing 'I'd love you to want me' appealed so much to you.

Pondering over this makes me realize why gifting someone a mix-tape was such a thing especially in the Hollywood movies from a decade or two back (handing someone a flash drive just doesn't carry that kind of romance, perhaps). Considering how difficult it is to put a finger on one's own choices, it is truly remarkable to have figured out someone else's with even a fair bit of accuracy.

Anyone reading about this quandary might think that the plenty of music apps out there are a fix to this problem. Indeed, to a certain extent. However, the delight of the music player surprising you by playing the song you wanted, almost before you even knew you wanted to listen to it, is unmatched. Technology is magnificently close to bringing out systems like these.

I'll probably be asking for the RJ-like randomness and the human-touch that day. Human nature, innit?

Solving the Khan-undrum

The three Khans of Bollywood - each a superstar in his own right. Each having dominated the industry for so long that despite the rise of, arguably, better acting Khans like Irrfan and the long standing Saifs of the world, the trio doesn't need their first names for identification.

Battle lines have been drawn among the three on numerous occasions with a each of the Khans drawing a rather equal share of accolades and his own fair quota of brickbats. Yet, the question of who's the best of the three Khans has always got both Bollywood pundits and the audiences scratching their heads or each other's faces.

In such cases, I believe that the word of ten people holds more weight than that of one, and that of a hundred even more. So, indeed the opinion of thousands should hold enough weight to lead to some conclusion. Where will I find this, I thought. IMDB. The folks at IMDB have been kind enough to put up an updated copy of their database here - which in its excel form is extremely tough, yet not impossible, to sift through.

After a painstaking few days poring over excel sheets, I found what follows in this post. A lot of it is hardly surprising and merely proves what most of us have already believed. But quoting our flamboyant turbanator Mr. Sidhu (who was probably quoting someone else), "I use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamp-post; for support, not for illumination".

Here's a quick glance of the line-up:

It is tough to find a set at such similar stages of life and career. Let's dive deeper with some very basic metrics.

The ratings table (cleaned up voice-overs & appearances as child-actor)

Salman & SRK have about double the number of movie as compared to Aamir. No surprises there - Mr. Perfectionist has always been more frugal with his role selection. In terms of the number of votes cast, Salman comes as a bit of a surprise (Note: That says quite a bit about the Salman fan base; it is not composed of a largely IMDB visiting populace). On this count, Aamir pulls away with some dazzling numbers: Just the votes on 3 Idiots, Taare Zameen Par, PK and Lagaan are equal to the total votes cast for Salman's 96 movies.

Sometimes less is, indeed, more

Aamir wins hands down on quality of votes as well with the average rating on his movies almost an entire point above that of SRK. The chart on the left should help by drilling down further into their montage of films.

Check out how SRK has done an equal or, perhaps, higher number of well-rated (7 & above) movies than Aamir, However, doing a lot of sub-par (< 5.0) movies hurt him. Salman, of course, went full throttle in that bracket and undid any good work he had managed to dole out. Interestingly, Aamir & Salman's highest rated movie is the same: Andaz Apna Apna (1994) with a rating of 8.8. Salman had to wait over 20 years to deliver another 8-above with Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) while Aamir dished out 7 others in the same period to take his total of 8-above's to 9 (Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander in 1992 was another one)

SRK also has attained the 8-above marker an impressive 8 times. However, our analysis has yet not laid stress on recency: an important factor in an actor's current value. All 8 of SRK's 8-above's came prior to the current decade with 4 of them in the last millenium. Aamir, keeping in mind the niggardly fashion in which he went about his movies, has done better to have all of these but 3 in the 2000s. This cumulative rating average over the years chart should help you picture this fact better.

Cumulative rating over the years shows Aamir's steady rise

But it might be too soon to discount the Bhai fanaticism...
One glance at the ratings table in the beginning of the post tells you Salman garnered the lowest average rating. Yet, the moment you start weighing the average by votes everyone jumps up a rating point. The percentage jump, however, is the highest for Sallu bhai - an indicator that his fans are far more likely to vote when they like a movie than otherwise. This could be called higher fan intensity.

Who is the most versatile (or experimental) of them?

Who would've thought Salman would be the most diverse?

Apart from just the objective rating scores, I felt it was important to see the diversity of movie genres each of the Khans has featured in. Each movie on IMDB is likely to have more than one genre mapped to it. Since, it was nearly impossible to assign priority weights to each genre based on prominence in the movie, I have split weights equally (e.g. if a movie is listed as Comedy, Romance & Drama, that gets counted as 1/3rd of each genre).

Comedy and Romance find a larger place in Salman's portfolio of films than any of the other Khans. Remarkably, the King of romance SRK is lagging both the Khans in % of movies under the 'Romantic' genre. He, however, as expected, takes the cake as far as 'Drama' goes.

Lastly, to get who was the most diverse, I relied on my favourite statistical measure - the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index - taking the percentages in each genre for each individual only to find that Sallu bhai emerges as a winner in this round.

I also chanced upon some exciting tid-bits, a few of which are listed on the left. For the record, Salman has played 'Prem' 12 times so 'Prem - naam to suna hoga' would have been more apt. Also, the only tele-drama all three Khans have made guest appearances in is.. wait for it... Diya aur Baati hum.

I would, of course, not venture a claim to the 'Best' Khan for two reasons: 1) 'Best' is highly subjective and, 2) I have no intent of being lynched by the mob whose favourite I do not consider or get run over by a car.

Nevertheless, this analysis did prove quite a few things:
1) the money a movie/ star makes has absolutely no correlation to its rating,
2) being picky helps in improving quality of work, and
3) you can get data to talk in any way you please!

Such concrete. Much jungle. Wow.

Engaging in conversations with kids, especially the ones in the post Power Rangers and pre- Asimov age range, has never been my forte. Just the other day, placed in a similar situation with my 12 year old nephew, I resorted to the non-polemical "What's happening at school?" question. With a face that, unsurprisingly, did not betray a sense of enthusiasm, he recounted the rather long list of 'home activities' assigned to him - one of which was to write a 500 word description of the 'Road to my house'.

Though our conversation soon drifted to sports and movies, this seemingly unexciting task of describing the road one takes everyday transported me to the sights and sounds that greet me during my half hour drive to office, meandering through the dusty lanes of Gurgaon. No two days are the same - something that prevents any account of the experiences from being exhaustive. Yet, there is one peculiar element that makes its presence felt every single day, with unequivocal non-chalance.

Who can forget the pug that diligently followed his boy-master in those old Hutch ads? And who can forget Babe - the non-conformist, adorable pig? Or pictures of neat, well-fed cows grazing green pastures and lovingly staring out of Social Studies textbooks?

The dogs, the pigs and the cows on the streets of Gurgaon look nothing like them. 

The canine members go about looking ill and lounge about like algae. So much so that, at times, their inactivity in the face of my approaching wheels makes me believe they have a latent suicidal urge. The pigs are quite the boar (homophone joke cue), playfully flaunting their tar-dipped coats. And the cows' stare at you as if you just told them that Chetan Bhagat is your favourite author. To top it all, the number of these creatures on the streets is such that if I had a penny for each of them, I would replace every single one of the characters on Big Bang Theory. They, of course, make up the cream of the 'Gurgaon is safe for..." pack.

The real cattle class has it way easier than Tharoor's

There was a time I wouldn't have had this kind of vitriol, especially not so for pigs. That, however, changed on a fateful Wednesday morning about four months ago. As I was happily driving to work, overdosing on the radio airplay of Arijit Singh songs, and hurling abuses at mindless drivers and pedestrians with my windows conveniently rolled up, I saw a black dot dash across the other end of the road and fling itself into the air. I heard a thud on my front bumper and barely regained my wits to look into the rear view mirror to see a hideous pig shake off the impact and walk off the road. My car's bumper wasn't as fortunate. When I recounted this incident to friends and colleagues later, it amused me that nine on ten responses included the words "Did it die?" and "pork", mostly in the same sentence.

That day, I went back home and played Angry Birds for two straight hours. It was satisfying.

As someone has rightly said, "To driv-err is human, to misgive is swine".

Up the social ladder

Nervous parents queuing outside - some chanting prayers, others biting their fingernails, waiting as their children exit the room in a steady stream. There is a mix of emotions, ranging from the morose to the ecstatic, the deluge of tears to the jubilant dance. Joy. Sorrow. Anger. But most importantly, hope.

Though a sight eerily similar to the one outside any competitive exam in India, this isn't essentially one of those. This time the whole nation is watching. And these kids are competing to become the next big singer/ dancer/ movie star.

Now, I am an unabashed fan of talent shows as simply viewing people pushing themselves, and pushing the limits of human excellence, excites me like nothing else. It is, of course, infinitely mind boggling with kids - confidently facing the heat from the likes of Simon Cowell or bravely facing the train wreck that is whatever Anu Malik says.

Though, it is fascinating to see the passion some of these kids have towards the art they are pursuing, at times, one is led to believe that a large number of them are living the unfulfilled dreams of their parents. It is not uncommon to see kids and parents break down, either on failure or describing how they went through hardships. It is remarkable how the stories of hardships get maximum footage while the display of skill flashes in small spurts. Misery sells. And how.

With their proliferation across the smorgasbord of channels, talent (and game) shows have become the new means for upward social mobility. Academic distinction in certain exams has, since long, been the way to uplift one's social status. This is especially true of developing economies which have tasted the fruits of advancement but suffer from huge disparity within sections of society, separated by intangible yet very rigid boundaries of caste and ancestral wealth. The JEE for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology was (and to a lesser extent is) one such exam. While the aristocrats in the newly formed India could afford to send their children overseas for higher education, for the teeming middle class, the institutes provided a passport for the new dawn Panditji had promised at the fateful stroke of the midnight hour.

Our not-so-friendly neighbour China has a (surprisingly) far more draconian form called the gaokao. Ghastly images of sleepless, ill-fed aspirants, rummaging through huge tomes, residing in decrepit  buildings have, from time to time, surfaced on the internet. This is after some of the parents have spent their life earnings in getting them the necessary training - offering us a preview of how critical that one selection could be for them and, possible, their generations to come.

These tests are purported to be the greatest leveller. Because, merit is the sole criterion.

Higher education tests in the US, present a significant contrast. While the state has been successful with secondary education, the university system is still dominated by private schools. These private schools increasingly favour candidates who can pay the entire fee for the course. Even the 'well-rounded' standardised tests with their emphasis on vocabulary and writing inherently carry a bias for a upper class upbringing. Standardization of tests, as is largely seen in systems like that of the US, promotes an inherent bias in testing.

It is fascinating to see how societies evolve. How the privileged become the privileged, then erect barriers for outsiders, and how the oppressed find newer means of breaking through the glass ceiling and challenge the status quo again. 

Education and talent will always remain powerful tools for the ones left behind to break from the accepted social order. The interplay of classes and the struggle to rise up the echelons will continue to occur till human stupidity ensures the annihilation of the entire race.

Gurgaon, Bad Gaon

It's been just over three months since I packed my bags and moved from the city of dreams and Bolly-culture to a city where the Kingdom of dreams is the closest thing anyone has seen to culture. I would have been glad to present an all-informed viewpoint on the perennial Mumbai vs. Delhi debate. However, in my three month stay in NCR, I have been to Delhi as much as I ventured north of Bandra in my two years in Mumbai. Once.

Still, Gurgaon was surely something I could and wanted to talk about. Gurgaon is a quaint, dusty town in most parts. It is a steel and glass laden metropolis in the rest of the pockets. My initial attempts at describing the city in verse had only shaped thus...

Not far from the heart of India,

Thrives a city rising on its feet.

Few verses ever tried to capture its colours,

Time for one such ’tis meet.

Towers of concrete mar its skyline,

Clouds of dust loom in the sky.

A rattling metro threads across it,

Its teeming millions it does tie.

... when I realised that the poetic form was way too romantic for what the city stood for.

Romance is music. Music in G-town (sounds cooler, innit?) is limited to the cacophony of blaring car horns and giant drillers. If you happen to be riding in the midst of the traffic, the roads will make sure you dance to the uncanny rhythm as well. This, however, is only till you meet the party pooper standing right ahead of you, complete with a peering gaze that forces you to stop in your tracks. That of the wandering cow. You might be alone but they rarely are, their tongues playfully running over the other's face, subjecting you to a PDA you never asked for.

Something like this is what I am talkin' bout

And this is during the day. It is hard to describe the Gurgaon roads in the night time. As per the holy texts, in the Beginning, God said, "Let there be light", and it does seem that the municipal council of Gurgaon are the most disobedient of atheists. What makes this situation even more ridiculous is the number of tree trunks that keep popping up from nowhere in the midst of crowded roads. 

And it is the contrasts that are discomforting. There are places where one can enjoy the most delicious of world food in the most luxurious of environs, yet the approach to them is a road indented with craters the size of Deepika Padukone's ... courage. 

Central Park(ing)

A lot of the above is the fault of each and every inhabitant. The utter disrespect for rules and apathy to the common good is mind numbing. I clicked this picture on the left on a bustling evening. The spate of cars one can see is actually a passage in-between the dividers which the car owners thought was fine to park in and block. Their car is parked is all they could care about.

A massive shift in scenario is difficult in a social milieu where the men climax by thrusting their car keys to the sound of whirring engines, and the women (those who get approval to come to being) either keep their mouths shut or blind themselves in a heady mist of rouge and talcum powder. 

However, all is not lost. Gurgaon is still more of a town eyeing the future of a city. The elements of transformation are at work, every single day. And change is slowly, and surely, brewing. Or rather, micro-brewing.

Kitaabein bahut si likhi hongi tumne...

The last few days, more like the last couple of months, have seen the pillars of the nation - the government, the bureaucracy and the judiciary descend into a veritable kitty party. In the beginning, everyone is eating, drinking and hi-fiving and all that. The moment the crowd wraps up, the sly ones take to bitching and totally irrelevant slanderous talk.

Yes, grumpy old men and women, at times, behave alike. And if this blog were any popular, I would be joining the ranks of Airtel, sitting on the National TV and participating in a debate one-sided fireball slinging match with the Goswamis and the Dutts.

But, I digress. It is amusing how everyone is clamoring for their last bit of flesh from the Congress carrion. Indeed, the rise and fall of the Indian National Congress has many valuable life lessons. Besides, of course, those of not letting your sons dope too much, and arranged marriage.

One must, however, note that Natwar Singh's latest book might be the sole proof of RaGa ever having seen a task through. Convincing his mother to take such a big decision is especially commendable since he did nothing that Indian kids are supposed to do - like scoring more than Sharmaji's kid, finding a homely bahu and not throwing tantrums and tearing paper and jazz.

Soniaji's remark in the face of crisis was astounding. "I will write a book too.", she bellowed. Theek hai!

It bewilders me how the book is a revelation anyway. If you really thought the reins of the country were in the hand of Manmohan Singh or bought the 'inner voice' rant of Ms Gandhi, you must be the kind of person who believes that WWE is for real, and that Santa Claus is imaginary. No! shut up. I dare you. Ahaan? But my stockings were full last Christmas!

In all of this, the only person I feel for is poor old Mannuji. Maybe, after a decade of silence, he will write a book too. Or better, someone writes a book and tells how the PM we saw was a robot and we find good ol' economist Mannuji gagged up in a cellar. And like he freed our economy in the 90s, the thankless billion go and set him free as well.

P.S. I feel sad for having one-sidedly bashed the Congress, esp. as I am no BJP fan. But I fear the age-old expression - what was it again? "Shah, aur Maut"!

It's a bird, it's a plane. No, it's a pizza!

Drones. They are here. Only this time they are not playing big brother in war ravaged deserts but playing postman waale bhaiya. And surprise, surprise, it's not Bezos but some bozo from a lesser known Pizzeria in Mumbai who has stolen the thunder with the successful aerial delivery of a - Pizza. Which, of course, is apt since it might not be a great idea for anything of Italian origin to be on the Indian roads these days.

Pakistan aaj se tumhe "Flying Pizza"
ka khitaab deta hai

The technology had been in the works, and had been a subject of great hullaballoo among internet junkies, who were obviously delighted by this further reduction in human effort. There is no doubt about the fact that this is a game changes, and quite literally so as it changes a very fundamental and quintessential aspect of our lives. The Chidi Udd face offs.

The novel experiment, however, has already ruffled a few feathers, with the Mumbai police now seeking an explanation for doing this without their permeesan. Terror strike and all that threat via the aerial route. Little do they know that years of enmity has already been avenged by unleashing Ramiz Raja's commentary on our hapless cricket-watching souls.

There are obvious troubles that need to be tided over before the technology comes to daily use. Birds, for instance.

Imagine this drone peacefully sailing over the rooftops carrying a sinful Meatzaa. Right next to it is this part confused, part elated vulture going, "Freakin' flying dead meat! w00t w00t!".

And then there are other problems peculiar to India as well. Let's face it. Despite all the regulation, effort required and actual risk from it, people actually steal electricity from poles. Who is to say the same people won't man their terraces with a watchful eye, see a poor little drone carrying food fly by and batter it to submission with something as innocuous as a rolling pin?

Well, for now, this is an exciting attempt. Will this technology actually deliver? Or will it remain as it is now - up in the air? Only time will tell. But remember, drone't panic.

Strictly not-an-election post

I have been on a blogging break, the one-off movie review or rhyme aside. It's not like I haven't been writing during this hiatus - mostly in solitude without sharing it with anyone else - a lot like the break I took from sex a little over 25 years ago.

There has been a utter lack of inspiration. This condition was exacerbated by my clarity on refraining from voicing my ideas on The Great Indian Political Juggernaut - mostly, because anything you say antagonizes at least one section of my minuscule readership, and also because *skhruff* *khuaahh* death!

Gilli gilli goom!

It is mind-numbingly, nut-crunchingly suffocating. I pick up the morning paper - there he is peering through his broad glasses, gesticulating in every random way possible - a distorted victory symbol, abracadabra hand twist and something which couldn't be anything but Fleming's left hand rule (or perhaps, the 'right hand rule' in this particular case).

Then there's the folded arms guy. Come to think of it. There is a reason he is made to stand in the centre of all those people in the posters. If he were on one extreme, the advert would simply be ignored as another fairness cream campaign. Growth se no growth tak. Now in just 9 years. 

Mannu ji is more difficult to escape. Even if everyone just kept quiet, you would be reminded of him.

Then there is the army of revolutionaries, or as I fondly call them, 'The Cough parade'. The perennial victims. Like that studious kid, with possible noble intent, who wanted to top the class, be class monitor and all that. Always running to the headmistress - not because he thought he deserved more, but mostly because he wanted to present the other student's answer-sheet and get marks deducted. Or, he would just put his head down and whine.

Yet, no, they are not the poorest victim of this election episode. That would be my FB Feed. 

Yes. It is exciting time. It is an annoying time. It is an excitingly annoying and annoyingly exciting time. 

  

Love, New meanings

Sorry blog, for having made you feel neglected. Not sure if it was lack of inspiration, preoccupation of the mind, or plain and simple lethargy. However, here I am and I can be sure that makes you happy.

Yes. I talk to my blog at times. It has been a good listener and this quality of (it?) has lent great balance to our relationship because, as my more animate friends would testify, I love to talk a lot. In the last month and more of ‘blog’livion, I have made acquaintance with several hitherto little known (to me, at least) forms of what we like to call ‘Love’.

Fortunately or unfortunately, all of them have come from vicariously living through the experiences of characters on screen, and not out of personal experience. So, the last three movies I saw, namely ‘Dedh Ishqiya’, ‘Her’ and now ‘Highway’, talk of love. Uplifting, passionate, head in the clouds kind of love. Of feelings that are cheerful, heady and gut wrenching at the same time.

I feel proud when I see that a significant set of people involved in the art of movie-making have started to think beyond the realms of puppy love. Well, it is still a sort of puppy love, what they create in their films, but not between your regular twenty-odd year olds. Dedh Ishqiya tells the tale of a 60-something goon with the heart of a poet falling for a much younger (and much troubled) beauty. Then there is ‘Her’ which, in a rather soul-crushing manner, tells you of a man who is in a relationship with his sentient OS (who, by the way, has the plus of having Scarlett Johansson’s perfectly sensual voice!). And on an extremely different tangent, we have perky, innocent Alia (with a lot of Daddy issues, strictly in the movie) finding her mate in her kidnapper, in ‘Highway’.

If there is one common thread in all these, it is the connection that two souls feel. They say, opposites attract. And it is true, a lot of times. Yet, there are times when all it takes to press the button of your heart is someone who has been through similar experiences, talks about the same things; has the same amount of wonder, and the same amount of disdain. Alia and her kidnapper find their kinship in their desire for freedom from the invisible cage of society. In ‘Her’, an artificially intelligent OS, which is programmed to be a good companion, does not choose to be the owner’s opposite but becomes very much like him. Naseer and Madhuri also enjoy their fleeting moments of romance over their shared interest for art - poetry and dance - which are much the same in essence.

That, perhaps, has been much intense for the beginning of the weekend. Hoping to see more such lovely work from India and abroad, here I am. Clink. Clink. Clink. Raising a toast to the movies.

Look up I did, and beheld the tree above.

To a homeless bird it lent its cosy bark,

Rests its head in the dawn's quiet, but Hark!, 

Do ye not hear the Lord's song of Love?

The Wolf of Wall Street: the Ad Hominem fallacy

I saw the Wolf of Wall Street this weekend. No surprises there. I believe almost everyone who is one or has kids whose coming years could be scarred by the sequences in the movie did.

Firstly, the movie release in India was delayed - something that has become less frequent of late. Then, I did not get the opportunity to watch the movie on Friday night itself. Evidently, by the time I set foot in the movie hall, my expectations were as tall as Deepika Padukone's legs. A tinge of disappointment was hard to avoid even though I found it to be a very fine work, rife with flamboyance, and delivered in rather astute fashion.

However, there was little about it that blew your mind, in my view. Interestingly, if one were to tell me to comment on a expectations vs. delivery chart, I found a lot of similarities in the output of the movie in question, and another much-awaited series bit from 'Sherlock' which came out almost at the same time as well. Both the pieces were carved out to deliver a spectacle, prove that the creators are not just unafraid of deviating from the usual but take great pains to do that, all the while paying little heed to the narrative.

They are part of the ilk of things wherein if you don't like them, it is assumed that you could not understand the profundity of what the creator was trying to convey. It's always like, "Did you see the the incline of the shadow of the third leaf in the fourth tree in the last scene? What, no? Well, it was in the direction of the 4 o'clock hand in a clock which is precisely when some obscure freedom movement zillions of years ago started! Gosh, how exhilarating!"

Ok, seriously, for those of you who have read the likes of Shakespeare in school/college or, in a context more related to this post, saw the 'intellectually loaded' movies, have you not ever felt that a lot of interpretations of movie visuals, sounds, camera angles, merely a concoction of vastly idle (albeit creative) minds in the audience? Just because these people were great thinkers implies every work of theirs will have layers of meanings that the aam aadmis will then take years to unravel.

Take for instance this review of WoWS, in no less a publication than the New Yorker. Now this guy has this pretty convincing opinion on how Scorsese played a masterstroke in the last scene of the movie by showing the blank faces of the audience, in the process letting the movie audience see a reflection of themselves in awe of the filthy rich, sleazy druggy Mr. Belfort. A rather haunting observation. I have no reasons to say this was not the case. But what if all Mr.Scorsese said was, "Oye chote, camera angle peeche leja. Fufaji ke bacchon ko screen pe dikhna hai."

Well, I am sure Farah Khan showed scenes of the audience watching 'Om Shanti Om' in sequences of the movie 'Om Shanti Om'. I am sure there were people in there going 'Dafuq just happened!'. No one ever said, "See, the audience is being presented a reflection of themselves".

The same with Sherlock, and innumerable other texts, poems, movies in the recent, long back and ancient history. All these writers (and I respect a whole bunch of them for their exquisite words) have at times received undue credit just because someone reading their verses, hundreds of years after they were written, took his creativity a step further, eked out some outlandish derivative of the author's words and exclaimed, "So ahead of his time, bro. So very ahead."

In this category, my favourite is that guy who wrote this beaten to death story titled, "The Lady or the Tiger". That lazy ass thought up this ingenious scheme of free-riding and leaving the conclusion to the reader. More than a century later, poor Indian kids are wondering why the tiger did not gulp up the author himself.

There are times when I believe that a all a lot of people in the world need to is relax. Not make too much of things, because well some things just happen, some people just say stuff or write stuff just because.

Sit back. Enjoy. Get up and, like always, go back to work tomorrow. At times, life and all that there is to it is rather ordinary. And that is perfectly OK!

Why Ranbir Kapoor should not be allowed to marry Katrina Kaif

I am sure this topic or its like has been written about, and for a moment I thought I must check and avoid redundancy, if it be. Yet, if one starts going by that logic, writing would become really tough or rather impossible because people these days write about everything. So I passed.

I will begin by giving credit where it is due. The genesis of this 'theory' lies in a light hearted conversation which transpired as we sat staring at the idiot box, and nibbling at what was left of the 'chicken lollipop', in our living room. The exponent happens to be our newly joined flat-mate, who we shall call Newton, because, as you will come to understand, what he said might be far more critical than the knowledge of F = m.a.

Our friend Newton seemed to be having a quiet, happy meal till he abruptly stopped in the middle of a noodle, and uttered these fateful words... 

"Ranbir Kapoor should not be allowed to marry Katrina Kaif."

(which, thanks to lack of creativity is also the title of this post)

Though, for a flurry of different reasons, we agreed with his premise, being products of a generation spurred to be curious by the likes of Arnab Goswami Albert Einstein, we asked, "Why so?".

This is the point where I shift from the narrative to the descriptive, and would demand complete attention of the reader to a theory, the non-acceptance of which could have drastically hurtful socio-cultural consequences.

Assumptions: 

1. If one has read H.G.Wells' Time Machine and those of its ilk, mankind or author-kind has always feared a dystopian society wherein the class-divide has reached gigantic proportions. That, invariably, leads to bitter resentment and an ultimate clash and an end of the world as the society of that time knows it. We shall assume we DO NOT want to push our world to such a state.

2. We will assume Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif to be "good-looking" to the way above average extent. And limit our perception of the individual to that of physical beauty.

Clause:

It is often seen that people of equal beauty or the lack of it (strictly by the rules of the world) end up engaging with each other, and eventually marry, have kids and all that jazz. Now, we remain concerned with this system.

Without wasting my time with more words, I will explain this with the help of pictorial representations.

See what this is leading to? Weirdly lumped pockets of extremely high and low entropy. Things will, eventually, shriek and call out for equilibrium, or annihilation. It will be a brutal war - and mind you, the mascara pencil is not mightier than the sword. 

There is still time. The rules must be laid.

Suggested solution

I am certain there are standard beauty metrics which have been designed by jobless driven purveyors of science. So, use them. Form a world governing council and hand them the task of being judges. When children reach the age of, say, fourteen, they must be presented to the council and rated on a scale of 0-10 (also called the Rakhi-Jolie scale). Fourteen, well, because if one can look beautiful at the onset of puberty, they must be asked no questions.

Then order by decree that no nuptial knots shall violate a sum of 15. Problem solved. In a few years, everyone will have one less thing to worry about. 

No Troy shall burn for Helen!

Short story: Helping hands

Although the most cherished day of the week for most people, Sunday never managed to cheer Omi up. The prospect of returning to work the following day seemed to drain the enthusiasm out of him.  It was tough to blame him. A gut-wrenchingly monotonous drone, it was, his routine on weekdays. Being in a rut was not Omi’s concern, though. He was not one who craved for adventure or excitement, nay, not even a bit.

It was on one such Sunday afternoon that Omi received a call from his old-time friend Kabir. After mustering the energy to extricate the phone from a pile of clothes, Omi channeled the rest in sounding sociable enough.

“Hello!”, he shouted.

“Boys! Guess what, I am getting married.”, Kabir animatedly spelled out in one single breath.

Considering the innumerable wedding invites- some earnest, some not so much- that he had received of late, and the never ending stream of gawd-we’re-so-happy honeymoon pictures on his Facebook, this should not have come as a shock to Omi. Yet another friend taking the bait, right? This, however, seemed different. Omi knew Kabir from school, and when one doesn’t meet their school friends too often after their paths diverge, the image of the school bag carrying, puberty stricken teenager is hard to shake off.

After a few incomprehensible mutterings which might have loosely translated to ‘Wow!’ in some east African dialect, Omi let out a joyous “Congrats!”. He was, really was, delighted for his friend, especially as Kabir’s excitement was almost abrasively palpable even with the hundreds of kilometres separating them. 

Kabir had left a lucrative job and stationed himself in a small village close to his native place where he co-managed an NGO which was trying to promote education for the girl-child. His co-manager, it turned out, was the one he was entering into companionship with. And with the cause-driven couple, Omi was not entirely surprised when Kabir announced that the wedding would be held in the same village as per his to-be’s wishes; “brimming with tradition”, as Kabir had put it.

“Aha! Destination wedding.”, Omi jibed, eliciting a flurry of expletives from the other end.

“How do I reach there?”, Omi followed it up with another question. 

“Ok! So the roads are rather intractable. There is only one train from Delhi…”, Kabir paused, “… which passes by the village station. It slows down a trifle, so you can jump off and that’s that.”. Kabir had to wait longer than usual for a reply.

“You’ve got to be kidding me”, was all Omi could manage.

At this juncture, it is only meet that we get to know a bit more about Omi, and why this rather doable action plan seemed so preposterous to him. Omi was not immensely athletic. Well, perhaps, that is putting it too mildly. His always-ready-to-fall glasses, well-rounded paunch and uncannily slow reflexes made sure he excused himself from any activity that required more physical rigour than one’s morning chores.

“Well, you’ve got to move your vegetable self for this!”, the other end of the line shot back. Meanwhile, Omi was busy trying to think of alternatives - pulling the chain seemed to be one.

“Don’t even think about pulling the chain.”, Kabir continued, almost mysteriously reading Omi’s mind. “It is a small station but, for some reason, has a lot of police. They will harass you no end with questions and are even more suspicious of city lads like you. It’s no big deal. Get off as soon as the platform starts. As mentioned it is a short strip, and has a bridge adjoining so there is no getting off after the train crosses the station, where it picks up speed quickly too.”

“Oh well! Exactly what I wanted to hear.”, Omi shot back. Then he realized it was better not to spoil the moment any further, and with a dangerously sharp twist in tone, said, “I will manage.”. Kabir let out a few exultations of joy and hung up, crazily blabbering about the zillion calls he still had to make with little time at hand.

Soon after, Omi immersed himself in booking a ticket on the train Kabir had mentioned. A part of him was excited, for the wedding of course, and he could not help but feel a tad thrilled about his impending adventure. Yes, one must reiterate that his routine had turned extremely dull.

He spent the next few days finishing off work at office, getting his own clothes and a suitable gift for the couple to-be. And before long, the day of the journey had arrived. 

The train was supposed to cross village Dhawarval at 3 pm, which just gave him less than two hours to get dressed and make himself available for the ceremony. The journey was rather uneventful during the initial part. However, Mr. Murphy seemed to have woken up  from his slumber and stirred into action during the second half. 

With a hundred kilometres left, the train halted abruptly. Looking out of the windows, there seemed to be no station in sight. The murmur within the passengers paused with the appearance of the ticket teller. “There is a small group of farmers protesting on the tracks. So, we are in for a slight delay”. A collective sigh of dismay shot through the compartment as the teller hurried away before further questions were doled out to him. 

Omi instinctively began his tete-a-tete with the almighty beseeching him to keep the delay to the minimum. To his own surprise, he gathered himself rather quickly, and thought it might be a good idea to talk to a few of his co-passengers, hoping some of them might be regulars and may be able to comfort him about his plan of action. Thinking so, he cleared his throat, perhaps a bit too loudly.

As he already had the attention of the travellers in his vicinity, he passed a sheepish smile and introduced himself. He received a few nods in return but little response otherwise. He continued anyway and talked about how he was supposed to get off at the village station, and was not entirely looking forward to the same. Here, almost as if on cue, a young portly man with an amusingly wavy moustache jumped into the conversation.

“Oh! That is no big deal, sir. The village folk do this all the time. Caution is always recommended, for a first timer, surely. I will help you, if you so wish.”, he spoke without pause, the excitement in his voice almost making him sound delirious. Somehow, the offer of help from a self-proclaimed veteran seemed to comfort Omi who replied he would be happy to have help. The feeling of comfort suddenly spread itself across the compartment as the train began to chug, and within a few seconds, they were rattling along to their destination again.

With the renewed chatter, it was not too long before they entered a vast tract of arid land which lay right before the Dhawarval platform. Omi’s new found well-wisher indicated that he should ready his belongings and position himself at the door. “Timing is key, my friend”, he quipped and laughed raucously as he saw Omi’s face tense up. Now, both of them moved to the nearest door. It was a curious sight - vast expanse of land with no habitation whatsoever, trees few and far in between, and the abrupt appearance of a stray animal from time to time. Looking out made Omi feel dizzy though, so he turned back and exchanged smiles with his stranger-turned-saviour.

Seeing Omi’s anxiety, a few more passengers had joined in to pep him up. The platform was now in sight and the train had slowed down considerably as Omi readied himself like a man on the battlefront. His fellow lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, and when the time approached, blurted, “Now!”. Omi lurched forward without much delay as the on-lookers beholded the sight with bated breath.

“Keep running and sustain the momentum or you will fall”, he remembered from his textbooks in school. They also advised against jumping off moving vehicles, but that ship had sailed already. Admirably, Omi landed with precision and maintained his running step with amazing dexterity. His co-passenger broke into a brief applause which Omi gratefully acknowledged by waving and letting out little shouts. The train was steadily gathering speed now. Omi, out of sheer excitement, was still running, with a trolley bag in tow and one hand in the air, partly waving and partly celebrating the success of his endeavour. A few hours from now he will be all dressed up and dancing at Kabir’s wedding.

Wait, who was this grabbing his shoulder? He looked up in alarm and saw two men leaning out of the hastily speeding train. They had steady hands, and he was now stuttering along, his resistance to their pull paling every second. The men had innocent smiles and one of them kept shouting, “Don’t worry, sir. You city folk, I tell you. We do this all the time. Take a big stride forward and jump in”. Omi’s bewilderment had turned him into a brick. His momentum and the men’s gigantic grip was now pulling him aboard the train. 

“Careful, you will get caught in the gap.”, one of them shrieked. Omi woke up from his daze to move his feet off the gap, and, with little choice, onto the train’s risen pedestal. With one last pull, the group of men got him onboard. A cackle ran through the group, with innocuous jibes about how the city’s comforts makes pansies out of men.

Omi stood staring at them blankly. As the train hurried onto a bridge overlooking an aberration of a rivulet in the midst of the parched land, irony seemed to be pervading across the elements.