I

Marvin, IC tagged me again. And though he didn’t expect me to complete this one, I found it quite interesting to do so. Ah, how I love these tags! Not the substitute for the real good stuff I should be coming up with, but who cares.

I am for whom the bell tolls. At least, that’s what I like to believe.

I think alarmingly more than one should think.

I know a lot many sad PJs.

I want roses in my garden when I do have one to call my own.

I have something really special in me. What it is exactly, that I’m still trying to ascertain.

I wish I had ideas to write on and not just be completing such tags for time pass.

I hate the man without a purpose.

I miss my old grandparents’ house where I used to spend my summer vacations as a kid.

I smell good most of the time. People can’t normally tell even when I haven’t bathed for a week.

I crave for the simple rice and dal meal I used to have at home.

I search myself in everyone I see, and eventually end up disappointed every time.

I wonder if God exists, and if yes, whether he has a conscience.

I love my grandmother. She is the strongest and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

I care a lot for my brother and sister. But I can never tell them that. I hope it shows.

I ache for rain all year, only to have it for a little time.

I am not many things that people think I am.

I believe in the principle ‘Live and help live’.

I dance only when I’m feeling silly. And only when I’m alone.

I sing quite well, but not many, like my mother, agree with me.

I cry “Pushpa, I hate tears. They are nothing but saline water.”

I don’t always mean to be rude but often am.

I write pulp fiction.

I win in almost all that I attempt. Because I often only attempt things in which I know I’ll win. And I know it’s wrong to be that way.

I lose my ‘usually dependable reasoning powers when I’m romantically trapped’.

I always end up confused. (Had to copy Marvin on this one)

I listen to Dire Straits when happy, The Doors when sad and Floyd when just myself.

I can usually be found on the bed, idling away effortlessly…na…effortFULLY.

I am happy when watching a Satyajit Ray movie.

I imagine myself as something incredibly grandiose in the distant future. Not that I’m going to tell you.

I tag Calvin and Jezuz yet again, though they haven’t still completed the last one I sent them.

Nai Dilli

Let me start by saying that when Marvin, IC tagged me some time ago, I wasn’t very keen on penning down a flashback on my home of many years - New Delhi. For the simple reason that it’s close to impossible trying to write about something you have been so closely related to, and for such a long time. At least not without letting your emotions get the better of you. But as I’ve been suffering from the Dearth of Ideas syndrome again of late, I thought I might as well give this a try. If nothing else, it would make the old man happy.

Hmmm.

When I first set foot in the capital, I was about 4-5 years old. I was then staying in a little town called Sindri in Bihar and had come on a visit to my grandparents’ place in Saket. Within a few hours, I urged my maid to take me to the park opposite the house. Slides are meant for sliding, one might slip and things might happen. The recollection of what happened in the park then is only a blur in my memory. All I do remember is that there was quite a lot of blood, a few stitches and a little boy crying, shouting, cursing the city, saying repeatedly – ‘Ab dilli kabhi nahi aayenge!’. Later, when my grandmother had moved back to Patna and I to Delhi, and I wouldn’t get to see her often, she would tease me and say – ‘Look. You said you’ll never go there. And now you have become a permanent Dilliwala!’

Around two years after the incident, my father left the job he had in Sindri and as was the trend then for all ambitious, moved to Delhi. After a one-year stint in a particular flat in Vasant Kunj, a place of which I have no real fond memories, we then moved to another a little distance away. This was to be the place where I would spend the next five years of my life.

One of the first things I remember noticing about the place was that the flat was on the 3^rd floor, the steps were steep, and so everyday, coming back from school, with the big heavy bag on my shoulders, I had a taste of how Edmund Hillary would have felt trying to climb the Everest. That was perhaps the only disagreeable thing about the place, as the rest was perfect – a balcony with a view of the entire colony from it and a huge park just opposite our flat with swings, skating rinks and a whole lot of empty space to play cricket on.

My first introduction to how Delhi was different came through the neighbourhood. In Patna and in Sindri, every flat had the same sort of people, all like you, middle-class, friendly, always full with unnecessary smiles when they saw each other. Delhi was different. It was the proverbial big city – hustling-bustling, busy, always in a hurry, smiles - yes but twisted, the sort which never encouraged you to start on a conversation. Unlike Sindri, not many uncles or aunties came to your house, not many asked you which school you were studying in, whether you could recite a poem or sing a song for them.

The difference was also in the variety of people. Before, I had only encountered people from Bihar in my life. Delhi, on the other hand, was a zoo of different-looking people. In the flats below us lived two Bengali families (loud and unclean), and in the ones opposite lived a family from Punjab (financially better placed than us, I remember thinking), one old South Indian lady, who looked rather lonely, and therefore friendly, and a Nepalese couple on the ground floor (they scared me every time I saw them. Even to my little mind at that time, they looked the sort of people who would be making explosives and stuff, a belief strengthened when they later covered their windows with black chart paper). Our apartment was a mini-India in itself, I still remember thinking.

The routine all throughout my stay there was rather fixed. School till two, lunch on the floor consisting of rice, dal and mashed potatoes, a brief study period, getting milk from Mother Dairy using coupons (which fascinated me no limit at first), off to the park for a two-hour cricket session, returning home like a weathered soldier, another brief dash at homework, dinner and sleep. All this may sound mundane to the reader but there are thousands of memories intertwined in this daily drudgery – like playing cricket from six in the morning to one in the afternoon on Sundays till our bodies ached and heads reeled from the heat, fighting ferociously with one of my best friends over a controversial run-out till I tore off his T-shirt resulting in he giving up and running back home crying, being mistaken by the man at Mother Dairy for a servant, shitting in my pants at school and being slapped by my mother when she discovered so at the bus-stop, being hit by a gunda called Shakal (what a suitable name, I thought!), kicking him back impulsively in return and running away, waiting for Shri Krishna on Doordarshan desperately on Sunday mornings, thereby watching the whole of Krishi Darshan also in the process, and the best of them all - mixing water colours in the terrace tanker on Holi with my partner-in-crime.

Then, when I went to Class 6^th, we moved to Chandigarh. But Delhi was what we would eventually return to, and so we did in a couple of years, again taking shelter in Vasant Kunj. That was the start of another six years in the capital. But I wasn’t a kid anymore, rather a boy trying to act like a man. Reading and writing overtook cricket, surfing the net overtook the mythological serials, listening to George Michael and Queen, to an extent, overtook idling away with friends.

Love also entered thoughts somewhere. Falling in love with someone and then falling out in a month was the usual trend. It is amazing to think now how I got myself deeply infatuated with every second girl in sight, and ruminated over her for hours continuously, and then due to mental exhaustion, in the end, forgot her entirely. It was almost as if January to December, there was someone new every time, like the Flavour of the Month at an ice-cream shop.

With time also came an increased emphasis on studies. And the final three years of my school life were absorbed in wanting 80 when I got 70, 90 when I got 80 and so forth. First there were the 10^th board exams, then coaching to get into ‘THE IIT’, and then the 12^th board exams again. Being the reluctant science student that I always have been, the coaching proved to be futile with me failing miserably in all competitive exams. Result – while my friends got busy with their first year at college, I had to stay at home and drop a year.

I would be deceiving myself if I say that the last year of my stay in Delhi wasn’t the worst of my life thus far. Coaching continued, and also my awareness of the futility of it all. In January, helpless, I moved to a flat in a place called Jia Sarai, which I fondly refer to as The Shithole. The move was supposed to help me concentrate better, away from home and between fellow students. But it hardly helped; the four months stay there was slightly better in terms of studies, but was accompanied by long late-night walks to Hauz Khas or Munirka to keep my sanity intact. The desire to leave Delhi, the city where I had grown and the city which I had loved, was overwhelming and it was no little relief when I did so finally in August 2005, putting an end to the eleven years that I had lived in the capital.

Three years have passed since then. The family has moved to Gurgaon now, a place so self-sufficient that Delhi seems like a part of the past. Trips to my old home are made only to meet up with friends at CP or to the railway station to catch the train to Gandhinagar. Delhi is always so near but always so distant, not just in terms of distance but also in terms of years, and in terms of memories - some good, some bad - but as a whole package, strangely warm.

I am not an expert on Delhi and Delhi life, nor do I claim to be. My association with the city has almost entirely been with only its southern and central parts, and there is a lot, as some have pointed out, that remains to be seen. But this was how I knew the city, and the city knew me. Maybe someday I’ll return and see the capital in its entirety. Maybe. Someday.

To carry on the string of tales, I tag Jezuz and Calvin.

P.S. - And now that Zinque is with us, I invite her as well to tell her story. After all, small, insignificant places deserve a mention too ;)

Tag, aur kya?

As I simply have nothing better to do, (exams might be around the corner, but that doesn’t count), I have been tempted into accepting the tag by Marvin, IC. Here it is. Mast bak hai!

Last Movie Seen in Theatre Jodha Akbar. I had been waiting for it for a long, long time. And though it disappointed most people, I found it an entertaining watch.

Too long? Don’t care.

Historically incorrect? Don’t care.

Book Being Read None right now. Exams coming up. Plan to start with Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude soon after that.

Favourite Board Game Has to be Ludo! I’ve played Monopoly and Carrom as a kid, but nothing beats the sheer unpredictability and senselessness of Ludo. Ready for a game anytime!

Favourite Magazine Imagine a cricket-crazy kid who can tell you with unbelievable precision how many runs Dravid scored in the post-tea session in the 2nd test between India and Australia in 2001….that was me till around five years back. Thanks to Cricket Samrat and Cricket World and Wisden Cricket and the rest.

Then one day, I found myself looking at Alfred in the mirror, pulling my front teeth out and saying “What, me worry?” and its all been pure MADness since then.

Favourite Smells Nothing like wet earth. Without the shadow of a doubt.

And yes, the ‘smell’ of idle summer afternoons.

Favourite Sounds The rhythmic sound of drums and bells played together at Durga Puja. I wait for DP every year so that I can just close my eyes and for a moment at least, forget everything but that one sound.

And one more. OK. It’s a very ordinary, commonplace sound, I know. But I’ve always been in love with the sound of ceiling fans. Might have to do with my fascination with summers again.

If I think about it, those big, noisy coolers sound nice too.

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up? Simple. How can I get back to bed?

Worst feeling in the world Many of course. Hard to pin-point one. But being ill and alone at the same time has to be somewhere at the top.

Favourite Fast Food Place McDonalds. McVeggie Burger with cheese. Affordable and fulfilling.

Future Child’s Name You know what? I’ve been silly enough to actually decide on one. Not that I’m going to tell you.

Finish this statement, “If I had a lot of money I’d…” be confused about what to do with it.

Do you drive fast? Sometimes. Rarely, in fact.

Ek baar bahut zor ki potty lagi thi, tab kasam se bahut tez gaadi bhagayi thi!

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? No. Of course not. Happ!

Storms - Cool or Scary? Dumb Question.

Do you eat the stems on broccoli? Zara hindi mein samjhayyega.

If you could dye your hair any colour, what would be your choice? Black. So that it amounts to not dyeing my hair at all.

All towns/cities you have lived in Patna, NewDelhi, Patna, Sindri, Patna, NewDelhi, Chandigarh, NewDelhi, Gurgaon, Gadhinagar. I wish Bombay is next.

Favourite sports to watch Cricket. Nothing like spending the whole day on bed, watching a test match day from morning to evening.

Football and Tennis are a good watch, but only if there are big names involved.

One nice thing about the person who sent this to you Dumb Question.

What’s under your bed? Two brooms, a discarded pair of floaters, countless number of thrown biscuits and chocolate wrappers, and a whole lot of dirt and dust.

Would you like to be born as yourself again? Yes. Weighing this against that, yes.

Morning person or night owl? Morning, for me, is the most dreadful time of the day. I think you have your answer.

Over easy or sunny side up? Ya Ya…

Favourite Place to Relax My grandparents’ house in Patna, with time suspended.

Favourite Pie Yaar main to ek hi pie jaanta hoon. Chocolate Pie. Wahi favourite hoga.

Favourite Ice Cream Anything with chocolate. Like Vanilla and Strawberry too. Free mein mil raha ho to koi bhi chalega.

And now, because most of the people I could tag have already been tagged, I invite only Calvin and Alien to carry on with the crap.

Also, now that Jezuz has shown signs that he is still alive on Blogger, I tag him too ;)

Simple Things

Sid dear had been very kind to tag me in his last post. And as I’ve nothing better to write on right now (going through a dearth of ideas, as the sophisticated novelist would put it), I choose to elaborate on his crappy topic. I choose to make it even crappier.

Be sure to refer to his piece before you have a look at mine.

http://sleepingtablets.blogspot.com/2007/10/you-got-tagged.html

If you don’t do so, you might end up taking me for a bored, sadistic idiot, something that I might actually be but something I would rather not confide to you.

So here it is!

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At the age of 21, you are neither a kid nor a man. You are somewhere in between those two states, unsure about yourself, about what you must retain and what you must change. Self-obsessively lost in your endeavour to make this transition peaceful and coherent, you forget the little things that you used to do earlier, things that gave you great joy in the past and those which you might be embarrassed to execute now. Now, that you are unsure.

Well ‘Keep It Simple’, as the old clichéd saying goes. In an attempt to do the same, I shall now make a list of small things that you might have loved doing in the past and which you must try doing from here on -

1) Fight with your kid sister – Ah! Remember the last time your sister and you tried pulling each other’s hair out, and having been frustrated doubly by your eventual inability to do so, satisfied your desire to inflict pain with a big thump or two on the back? Deeply satisfying, wasn’t it? You’d never realise how much so it was, but once you start doing it again, you’ll relive the same boundless joy you felt the first time. After all, this was your personal home version of the Fight Club!

By the way, you can fight with your kid brother as well, if you don’t have a sister. The joytitude would be almost the same, I presume.

2) The Knock-knock bluff – This is something I used to do a lot as a kid. On days when we friends didn’t get the bat and ball to play with, to pass time, we rang the bell of any house in our locality and then disappeared into some nook or corner waiting for the response of the person who opened the door. More often than not, the flat chosen was of the Uncle or Aunty who was the most khadoos (the ones who scolded us before giving the ball back when a sixer reached their terrace) and it was immensely satisfying watching him/her annoyed at finding no one at the door. Also, if the person was someone who had actually never returned a ball that had reached his/her terrace, we rang the bell multiple times till each one of us was convinced that that particular ball-eater had been given ample punishment.

3) Mixing colours in the water tanker – This is something you can attempt during Holi. After four or five hours of mutual decoration, when the people in your apartment have retired to their bathrooms to wash their vividly colourful selves, you and your friend can go to the terrace and pour colours into the water tanker. People dying to get the much needed bath would be aghast to find red, blue and green coming out of the taps. I’m sure that would annoy the Uncles and Aunties no limit, which is again something that is sure to give you stupendous joy and satisfaction.

That’s just three. The Dearth of Ideas Syndrome again. Well anyway, you can add an idea or two of your own here. The rule is simple and easy to remember: Anything that gives others agony will give you joy! Do such simple things and you would find yourself becoming a child again, happier and less caught-up.