Exams and all…

Those who know me well, or those who have read my blogs know that I have had an unusual kind of relationship with exams; some of you may term it as ‘complicated’. Now, for some time I was living in a state of bliss, believing that my trysts with exams are all over, and that’s what I thought, but now it has returned to haunt me in the form of my lads’ struggles.

As my boys struggle and break their head with their version of aliens, Miss. Manga Malayalam and Mr. Jhandu Hindi, I am dragged back into my very own fear zone. In many ways, I fear that I will end up becoming my own parents, or the parents of my close friends, whose acts I largely despised. Remember their acts of going to the terrace and turning the TV antennae in the wrong direction, so that we lost signal reception, or their act of hiding away the VCR, the audio cassette player and our Tinkles and Amar Chitra Kathas, and then telling our playtime friends in typical Malayalam accent “o nehi aa segtha … o pedh reha hai… thum jaao ….ooska exham hei”. This writing is just to tread past that fear by making it all sound comic and insignificant to myself.

Until last year, the exam pattern in CBSE schools was so very convenient. Kids had to just study the portions for a particular trimester and then forget all about it after the exams. Now the shitty guys in the Centre have gone back to that same archaic system that traumatized my generation, and it just gave me a shattering current of déjà vu down my spine, when wifey informed that the lads will have to study the whole book for their final exams! Set aside that shocker, she only added salt to the wound, when she said that, maybe Mr. Jhandu Hindi won’t go away after one finishes Secondary School, and that he will stay on to haunt the family through the kid’s Higher Secondary schooling. I am crestfallen; feel roasted, shaken, stirred, abused et al, some of which are unmentionable here.

As the only adult male in the house, I took it upon me as my moral responsibility to find a solution to this problem that has besieged it, and was also working towards making a robust counter attack plan,  but it so happens that I have been asked by the High Command ‘not to interfere’. More shaken, more stirred and more what not! But on second thoughts, I think she was right. What counter attack plan can you expect from a man who tutors his son about the ‘Desi Maals of Bhojpur’ when asked to teach ‘Decimal System of Mathematics’ or form the guy who until recently thought that the feminine gender of ‘Pea-cock’ is a ‘Pea-pussy’.

Yes, academics is not my forte, and beating the juggernaut of exams convincingly is not one at all. I can tell this with conviction recalling my many humiliating encounters with it in the past. My 1^st semester exams in Engineering gave me a whopping 6 back papers, the ordeal of back papers continued through until my 7^th semester, where at one point of time I was sitting proudly upon a pile of 14.

In many ways I have polished my skill in writing by scribbling fiction in my answer sheets. Sitting through exams for Science, Management and other such descriptive subjects were easier and pleasurable too, because it gave me a lot of scope and space to write. I have made some marvelous discoveries, inventions and written some profound, yet rib tickling and thrilling short stories in some of my Science and Management answer sheets, alas all of those papers are now lost. One incident that I can recall in particular is when I was doing my Masters in Ahmedabad. In my hostel, we were preparing for our Project Management Exam which was due next day, when my Brother-In-Law dropped in, and suggested me to join him at his place promising that he would drop me back the next day just in time for the exam. Now, since his newly wed wife had asked him to go and get her brother, he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and on the other side, my friends and classmates advised me against it, and wanted me to stay back and prepare for the test. My BIL threw in his final bait, the ram-baan, or should I call it a Chapatti shaped Sudarshan Chakra. He said that my sister was making phulkas for me, and by God, let me tell you, no one makes better phulkas in this world than my sisters. I had to bite the bait, although my jealous roomies tried to hold me back, I left. Next day the exam went well. As usual I wrote all that I had learnt and filled the pages with the right Project Management theories, rationale, doctrines and what not. I was really happy with my work, and even went on to poke my jealous friends’ envy bones describing the soft fluffiness of the phulkas, and the feeling of bliss one experiences when one relishes those tender, succulent chicken pieces right from the warm rich, spicy, aromatic chicken curry that my sister had prepared and had my mom’s trademark seal all over it. My mouth still goes watery when I think about it, but let me tell you, on that day, when the answer sheets were distributed I watered not only from my eyes, but also all the unmentionable places in my body as my professor and classmates had a field day discussing my revolutionary Project Management ideas in the classroom. On that fateful day, my love affair with Miss Phulka died. Although I have remained a foodie, I haven’t looked back at that bread with fondness ever since.

  

My worst enemies were always Mathematics, Analysis or anything that had to do with complex engineering calculations. Most of the times, my Mathematics, Mechanics and Structural Analysis answer sheets returned with zeroes all over them. It is a fact that I have contributed more zeroes to Mathematics than the great Aryabhatta or Brahmagupta or Bhaskara or any other great mathematician that has walked the Indian soil, but whatever, I have never let those achievements corrupt my humility and humbleness. I think, and I believe that it is one of my greatest rewards and God’s appreciation of my great valor and fortitude that my lads are finding dealing with numbers and complex formulae a cakewalk. My wife however has the funny misconception that this is her lineage and tutorage. How silly of her!

Now, it is not that my very own tortuous affairs with exams ended with my college days, I did face some big exams after that and I must humbly inform that I did come out with flying colors out of them, although I know that my examiners must be now regretting their decision to pass me. J The first one was when I passed an unwritten test, and a silly girl finally agreed to marry me. Later, with a lot of help from my friends and colleagues, I did clear two online exams for professional accreditations. As of now, I am already due to take one more such accreditation exam, which I have already procrastinated for 4 years. Now hey, it is not that I am scared or anything, it is just that I want to give this test its due time. I am planning to take that exam by the end of this year, and when I do that, I am planning to take a week off from work and everything else, shut myself in the store room on the top floor, throw off my mobile phone, shut off the wifi in my house and ban friends and family from my life. You know drastic times require drastic measures.

But frankly, it is my opinion, that whoever you are and whatever your age or gender be, exams, its preparation and its results must not flutter or fluster you. It must not disrupt your normal life. It pains when I see these little lads and their parents going through all the stress, and it hurts when I see that they have to sacrifice their precious ipad, TV and play time, confined to a desk and a chair, behind a pile of books, with the only sight of a fuming, overzealous tutor of a parent in the front. This sight is really disheartening.

Life must go on as normal. We must play, we must engage in our routine sports, we must do our extracurricular stuff, we must party, and we must have our family gatherings, rituals and functions. These things must not stop or be discontinued or even take a break because of some routine exam. That reminds me, we are invited for two parties this weekend, and both are sure to have lots of exotic spicy Indian food, awesome company and both the invitations come with unwritten assurances that the night will be totally laced with ghee and glee. Of course, we won’t be able to make it; we will be busy confined to our desk and chair, hidden behind books, preparing for the exams.

Lament of the group chat leaver.

mohabbat karne waale kam na honge

teri mehfil mein lekin ham na honge

-               Hafeez Hoshiarpuri

Translation:

You will never be short of people who love you

However, I will not be there in that gathering anymore

For the past few days, this above couplet from Mehdi Hassan’s smash hit rendition has been stuck somewhere in my heart, and keeps oozing out of my lips and ringing in my ears. Just like an adamant child throwing a tantrum, it does not budge off from there, follows me wherever I go, and I tried hard, but it just does not just go away. I think, this has to do with an old habit, and since old habits die hard, I know this one will not go away without taking a part of me with it, and when it does, I know it will end up hurting me badly.

Many moons ago, in one of my earlier lives, when the world was kinder and I was a just another wise old fakir, whose blabbering went unnoticed, I had, in an extinct language, once said:

“The bruises on my feet tell the story of all those beautiful places that I have visited,

and the bruises in my heart tells the story of all those beautiful people whom I have betrayed”

How true that saying was then, and how true that saying is even today!

How true, though I do not think anyone heard me that time, and maybe that is why no one used to judge me by my utterings. It must have been late in the evening and I was probably walking in a dimly lit deserted street with that quintessential bowl in my hand, singing my heart out, wastefully entertaining people with my muse; people who probably had better things to do, than to listen to my gibberish. Nevertheless, I kept doing that, while humbly accepting, thanking and blessing my almsgiver for not throwing their leftovers into the bin, but into my bowl.

Although that old fakir has died long ago and although his soul has changed bodies, gender and moved on, the core of it has more or less remained the same, albeit with time and along with the depletion of the ozone layer, this soul too is a bit adulterated. I must admit, that in this birth, I may sound suave and look classier, but I am also sillier and crasser than ever before. What I have gained in my appearance, I have lost in my outlook.

Earlier, I used to walk along the streets in my haggard, torn unwashed one-piece cloak, singing soulful couplets to naïve ears, while allowing them to accumulate punya in return to dropping a morsel of their leftover food into my bowl. I used to be stoned, mocked at and forbidden for my dirty cloths, the odor and those dread locks. No one paid heed to the words of wisdom that I poured out.

Nowadays, I strut with stylized swag, my face glows with artificial radiance, shampooed tresses sway in the air, and a fake scent gives credence and acceptance in this worldly place. I entertain my frenemies with my wasteful creative banter, and whatever is remaining of my dying cherub on the various online chat groups. I provide these so-called sensible and mature, friendly enemies with just the right amount of gentle banter to keep them cheerful during the drudgery called workday; load their weekends with juicy supplies of my antics to gossip on my back, all this; all while knowingly getting myself labelled immature, crude and lacking in etiquette.

I was never accepted then, and I still am not.

I guess it is time to take refuge in the first line of my long lost couplet. It is time to move on. Move on to another beautiful place, where again I will entertain people, just to end up ridiculed, punished, stoned, crucified and ultimately be praised and resurrected in absentia.

Yes, it is time to move on, not because I like it, but because my soul says so. My soul asks not for redemption, but for more pain and I ought to give it what it seeks, because only I can suffice my need for pain, no one else.

As I leave and go without any explanations, I know my chat buddies will brand me an absconder and accuse me of being a betrayer. Little do they know that a betrayer goes through more pain than the one who is betrayed.

If you are the betrayed one, the whole world around you, including time comes to your rescue; empathizes with your situation, helps you fight the pain, applies remedies to your bruises and carries you to healing.

At the same time, how harsh life turns out for the betrayer! How harsh, that the world that was once your friend whom you entertained and performed for, this same world now gathers on your back, gossips about you, mocks you in their little private parties and discusses stories of your leaving while you are left fighting your demons all alone, in solitude. It is harsh, because not only those exes, but your own soul, your own conscience, and the passing time, puts you to test; it fills you with guilt, kills you from inside, keeps the scars alive, just to remind you of your betrayal. How harsh. How so very harsh!

Time to leave. Time for more pain.

And it’s gone!

Dil ki choton ne kabhi chein se rehne na diya

Jab chali sard hava mei ne tujhe yaad kiya

 

Excuse no: 1 - FEAR

It has become customary in our house that every night after we say our prayers in the master bedroom, my wife and lads leave to the kid’s room. There my wife reads a story to the boys, and as soon as the story telling session is done, my lads run down back to the master bedroom and fling themselves on to the bed, over me like freestyle wrestlers, pin me down and fight each other to smother me with good night kisses and wish me sweet dreams.

Usually during the gap time, when the story telling is happening in the adjacent room, I am engaged with my iPhone, doing one of the many things,  which are; crushing candies, putting words on scrabble, making raunchy dubsmashes, clicking my semi-nude selfies, watching Bhojpuri Bhabhi videos or typing crap on whatsapp! Yesterday night, I decided to do something new.

During the earlier weekend, I had bought myself a new beard trimmer, and I thought this was the best time to try it, and so I headed to the bathroom with it.

Few moments later, as I was working with my beard, I heard my lads run into the master bedroom and throw themselves on to the bed, laugh loudly at not finding me and then leave trying to figure my whereabouts. My younger lad Yo though was a little bit more inquisitive. He decided to peep into the bathroom, and in his inimitable style, he kicked open the door. He stood there stunned, all agape, with his eyes as big as mine are when I watch those junglee padosan videos on YouTube’s Bhojpuri channel, and mouth as big as he usually makes it when he sees his favorite Tuna Sandwich coming his way.

For some time, under the backdrop of utter silence that was punctuated with  a little creak from the door, droplets of water trickling down the tap and a faint fart that I ejected, we both stood there staring into each other; I into his mouth and he on to my chin. There was a sparkle in his eyes, dimmed by a tear perhaps, which seemed to pose these two questions: What have you done to yourself? Why have you done this?

I took a step closer to him, put down the toilet set and sat down on the closet leveraging my left hand on his right shoulder. He took two baby steps closer to me without breaking his line of sight from my chin, and I told him the reason in a heavy hush voice.

“Look son, I know you loved my beard. I loved it too, but I could not take any chances. Next week it is bakri eid, and I had to play safe” 

 

Excuse no: 2 - FREEDOM

Long long back ago, when people used to live predominantly in the villages, and footwear was a luxury item, a wise old man once said that “if you want to find out where all a person has travelled just look under his feet” and that was true, and still holds true in many cases. On the similar lines, I’d say, that if you wanted to find out what all a man’s lips have tasted, all you need to do is check out his beard.  

Come closer and just sniff the beard, and you could make out what toothpaste was used for brushing his tooth, if he had coffee or tea in the morning, and if the sandwich that he had from Kauser Cafeteria was cheesy or spicy or both.

If you do not believe me yet, let me suggest you this test. Go to Old Delhi or Lucknow or Allahabad or any other such city in UP, and catch hold of any stray mullah walking around in the street. Chop off a part of his beard and smell it. I bet it would emanate the scent of the betel leaf masala that he regularly chews, so much that you could conclude if the mix was Banarasi or Kalkatti or whatever.

If you are an experienced paanwallah, I am sure you could just smell the beard and make out the recipe of the paan with the exact measure of each condiment of this customer’s liking. I have read somewhere, in some imaginary ancient book, that this is what exactly some of the connoisseurs in pan chewing actually do. They just go to the kiosk of their favorite paanwallah and stand there pointing their bear tips to his nose, and the paanwallah extracts all the info required. And in some extreme cases, if a person has the nose of a dog, this scent could also take him to the kiosk of the paanwallah from where this beard owner had his last chew.

Now, this is just about a betel leaf, this same thing is applicable to beer, cigarettes, hookahs and any other unmentionable thing or location where a man loves to put his lips and tongue.

I agree that it is difficult for a woman to find out if the beer or hookah was had at a pub or a friends place, and if the friend was a male or a female, but you cannot cheat a woman when it comes to the scent of a woman. I hope you understand what I mean.  

So the question, should a man risk revealing all his secrets just because of this beard that looks good on him? Or, should he not just leave his chin clean shaven and live a carefree life above all suspicion?  

This man chose the latter.

 

Excuse no: 3- FILTH

Just read this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3067622/How-filthy-beard-Study-claims-facial-hair-contain-faeces-dirty-toilet-not-experts-agree.html

After reading this article, I decided to shave off my beard.

 

The truth: MISTAKE!

As each of the above three header reads, they are nothing but excuses, just simple excuses. The real reason why I shaved off my beard is that I shaved it off by mistake. Yes, by mistake. I used the wrong number for blade adjustment and the wrong side of my new trimmer and so inadvertently shaved off my goatee, leaving a shaved patch at center of my jaw, and then I had to take this extreme step of cleaning it off.

I really feel so naked and unprotected without it.

Stroking the beard was my favorite accompanying activity during pondering and now I feel totally at loss of thoughts.

Huh! All I can do is wait for it to grow back.

So, while I am waiting, let me use this time well. Let me call the cafeteria to pack me a take away of my secret cheesy spicy sandwich that I can have on my drive to home. I can always mask its scent by chewing a sorbitol gum.  

Or, better still, should I call my friends up for a session of beer, some tequila shots perhaps followed by some hookah and Sex on the Beach. Anybody coming?

Death of a Pilot

This is to inform every one of the sad and sudden demise of a very close someone who was not just a friend, but more of a family member. He was also a Pilot.

The incident happened last month. We were proceeding for our vacation, and he had just dropped us to the airport and was taking around a few of our friends on a late night ride when the car met with a fatal accident. He was like that, he used to love taking friends and family out for long rides and he loved touring. Well, ‘Touring’ was his middle name!

He was a real big guy of Japanese-American descent and yet, he was so selfless.

How many times did he drop me to work and back?

My boys really loved him, he would help them fill air in their bicycle tires and footballs, take them for their football and swimming classes, and what not?

And how many times did he help my wife with her weekly shopping and her visits to the beauty parlor (Especially when she wanted to keep those visits secret, just to find out if I noticed and see if I complimented her for the change when I came back from work)?

And yes, those beautiful songs that he would play for us when he took us out on those long late-in-the-night drives?

I cannot forget those days. His memories keep haunting, not just me, but the whole family.

He will be sorely missed, again, not just by my family, or me but also by some of my office colleagues, whom he used to take out on those weekly lunch out every Thursdays.

On that fateful night, a local lad in one of those big American pickups (Yes, that ugly one with big protruding bums) drove in recklessly from the incoming carriageway, jumped the median and crashed into them. The crash was cataclysmic, if I must say, but luckily my friends who were with him are safe. They were taken to the hospital, and after preliminary observations and medications, released the next day.

He was a fighter; he did not let his soul depart right away. He fought until the last moment. Unfortunately, every car comes with a value tag, and as time passes this value depreciates. Sadly, for him the estimate placed on table by his specialists were more than what the insurance guys thought his worth was, and so, with a stone on my heart, I had to let him go.

Last week, I finished all the police formalities and got his death certificate. Last Thursday, during lunchtime I went to the insurers’ office and collected a cheque, which had a figure that was way less than what he was worth actually.

Since that incident, my wife has been relegated to driving a rented sedan.

The boys find it crammed; they hate it when they cannot play their in-car war games jumping from the second to the third row and back shooting at each other by taking cover behind the seats. Sadly, there is no third row in a sedan! However, the lads, as I found out are quite accommodating. Now they just sit on the back seat and kick each other, and are busy creating a ruckus of sorts. According to them, the rear seat size is so small, that when they sit next to each other, each feels like the other is kicking.

I am back to driving my old faithful, my nine year old Nissan-Tiida. On the highway, when a big four wheeler follows me and flashes its lights, I humbly move out and give way. I drive slowly in the second lane, sometimes third. No more ego trips for me.

Yes, no more ego trips, but in fact, I am feeling much better now.  I live in an area where my little house is nestled amidst huge villas owned by big Sheikhs. These Sheikhs have four wheelers that are bigger than some of those chawls in Mumbai, and yes, all of them have drivers too. Of which, most, if not all the drivers are handsome, young lads from Malabar. One of the advantages of driving a small car in this locality is that Grocers, Tea Vendors, Take away joint waiters and even lonely Qatari women won’t mistake you for a driver from one of those houses. For them, at last, I could be a genuine malbari who does a decent job for a living, and now they even believe me, when I say that I am an engineer who works on one of those huge construction projects.

 Jai ho!

NB: Please pay your tributes here >>>>>> Shraddhanjali

 

All these Facebook peoples, I say.

FB is a great place to stay in touch with your friends and relatives.

In fact, FB has become an integral part of my life, especially since I found most of my ‘BFFs’ from my school and college days and started socializing with them. In the last 1500 odd days since I moved on to FB from Orkut, I have made many friends, some of whom are related to me, and some others who are linked to my past life in some or the other way. 

This is my analysis of the 10 types of people they have ultimately become:

1.      The Dead People:

They seem to be dormant, but are actually active, very active. They do not interact openly, they do not post anything about themselves nor do they like or comment on your posts, but they are reading everything. They are around; they are watching your every move.  The worst is when you meet them in person; they come up with “I see you all the time on facebook. Very active ahh?”

2.      God’s Agents:

They share religious pictures with the instructions “Like under 10 seconds and get blessed” or “share and experience his holiness”. Most sensible people on FB do not approve of these, but some girls do like and share them anyway, out of fear that their Aunt who has posted this may think that her niece is an atheist and may not help her in finding her NRI groom.

3.      Quote Aunts

They spend their whole day searching for quotes. Every day they share at a minimum ten quotes, most of which are not applicable on them while dealing with their husbands, also, they do not remember sharing these after two days, and so it repeats.

4.      The Day Spoilers

They post all the unwanted stuff and the best you can do to yourself is ‘hide’ their posts. Some of these people post pictures of unwell kids and ask you to like them, some post pictures of gory accidents and missile attacks. Some others try to force their political views up your ass.

5.      Game Worms:

Not satisfied with playing games on their androids and ipads these guys log into FB to play games. What is worse is that they repeatedly keep sending you invitations for games like Farmville, Criminal Case, Train station… blah blah blah.

6.      The News Agents:

They share all sorts of weird and sometimes obvious (like cricket scores and election results) news from here and there and everywhere as soon as it is published on one of the news websites. Some of the news they share is also fake.

Then they have their expert panelist friends, who go to youtube and wiki, do their research and come up with a comment like “Do you remember that match in 1985, at Lords. This knock reminds me of that.”

7.      Religious Advertisers:

They are always on a mission of promoting to the FB junta that their religion is the best, that their scriptures have all the solutions to your problems and that their deities are the most pious of all. Invariably all their post will share a picture about their religion. Apart from posting these pictures, they are also most active on their specific religious FB page.

8.      The Next Gen:

They are the ones who have more than thousand friends on FB. They painstakingly tag each pic of theirs with as many friends as they can. Although I would call them the next generation of FBers, they are pretty old generation in terms of technology awareness. I say so because their comments and posts are full of compressed words. For example, who writes ‘avn woful tym a ma frns BP’ instead of ‘having a wonderful time at my friend’s Birthday Party’. The only reason why they write so is because either they are using their parent’s discarded basic mobile phone or they do not know how to switch on the spell check feature on their system.

9.      The Hot Pie:

Anyone who has secret admirers falls into this category. Age, race, sex do not matter. This could be a young person who posts stylish drool worthy pictures, or could also be that boyfriend/girlfriend you couldn’t have while you were in college. Any damn thing that this person does is almost always liked or commented upon by you.

10.  Useless Buggers:

They are always on FB. They give an impression that they do not have any other work in their workplace. They are all the time chatting with someone or are busy posting waste comments on their friend’s wall, which continues through the day, and even while at home sometimes until very late in the night. 

Some of these people even write blogs on unimportant topics and share it on FB. And then, there are some other Useless Buggers who spend time reading it.

Holi me.

Our elders and our Bollywood movies have told us that Holi is the festival of joy. That Holi breaks all the social norms and barriers of age, gender, status and cast. That on this day, words like polite, well-mannered, refined, cultured, sophisticated, courteous, respectful etc etc are blurred out from the dictionary. That on this day it is acceptable to flirt with (even touch) any girl that meets your eye. That this definition of girl extends to include your sexy middle-aged neighbor, your friend’s curvy wife and also your boss’s bossier wife.

Really?

I’ve just realized that all they said and showed on the screen, all that flirting, teasing and dancing while singing ‘jo jee mein aaye tum aaj kar lo, chaho jisey inn baahon mein bhar lo’ is not entirely true. Look at me, I am the living example of a person who tried this and failed on the Holi day. All that I did was poke a girl on Holi and that too not in real life, but on FB. And, would you like to know what happened next? I got unfriended.

Yes, yes, yes. Yes I got the boot.

I know this news comes as a shocker to you guys, but that is the truth, and since what has happened has happened, and since life should move on, I’d Just ask you to stop staring at the screen agape, shut your mouth and read further.

Well, that was just one FB friend leaving, but I am thankful to the others who stayed, and more importantly those who responded by poking back, which felt great. Indeed, I am touched! Some of you even kept poking back repeatedly, which kept giving me goose-bumps. Some, who thought that liking my status message or posting a comment on it openly was not appropriate, did send me their secret private message. Thanks for that. Now my wife will never know who all I played Holi with! ♥

Sincerely, I am extremely grateful for the pokes, which made my day special, especially since all this happened while I was in the office, faking work and pretending to appear serious in the official meetings. I had my own share of shy smiles hiding behind my computer screen. Thank you.

I have been suffering from allergy induced Asthmatic Bronchitis from a very young age, and therefore, although my palms were ever itching and ready to rub gulal on a few rosy cheeks, my movement on the Holi day was strictly restricted. The only Holi that I ever played was during the four years I spent at CREC. Rest of the years, all that I was allowed to do, was to watch the local lads play Holi from the ramparts of my balcony and of course watch TV as much as I could, which mostly aired Bollywood Holi numbers.

However, times have changed and thanks to technology, I have now found new ways of amusing myself.

I am no more jealous of my friends who can actually play Holi without falling sick.

A few pokes on FB are all that it takes to play Holi, and the best part is that I can play it even with my distant friends.

Thanks to MS Paint, I now also have my very own Holi pic.

 

To make my Holi livelier, all that I had to do was to play a raunchy youtube video on Holi while poking my friends online. Gone are the days of Rang Barse and Aaj na chodenge, here are the top five Holi numbers for this year from my private chart. Just move the cursor over the list and view the song on youtube and enjoy.

5. Khelenge Holi Fevicol Se
4. Bajaave Saare Launde Hai Seeti
3. Lagao Ragad Ke Gulal
2. Faad Di Meri Choli Re
1. Rang Special Layo
 

The bandh that was not.

Whoever claimed that the bandh was successful was lying.

Because….

70% of India that lives in its villages was unaffected. Life in most Indian villages went on as usual. There was no improvement in their lives.

In the city, where 30% of the remaining India resides, this was the scene:

Women, who are at least half of the adult population, did not stop working. In fact, they worked overtime, preparing tea, snacks and nibbles for their spouses and his cronies.

Senior citizens did what they do every other day; women pretended chit chatting in their verandahs while spying over the illicit lovebirds in their locality and men watched Fashion TV as the Kamwali Bai was on leave.

The working class did not stop working. They worked from home on Facebook. Some men even took a break from Facebook and watered their neighbor’s plants.  

Infants still shat in their diapers and danced to Psy.

Kids, as usual played on the streets.

Telemarketers still harassed people with their strange offers, one of which included giving away free suitcases with every Credit Card for the spouse.

News media kept bombarding the Cell Phones with irrelevant news updates.

Single people who were career oriented, made good use of their time viewing webinars on www.viewmynaughtywebcam.com. Some even performed for unknown friends far away.

The shop with the red light was bustling with activity the whole night, so much, that the CVM outside ran out of stock and customers were asked to make their own arrangements.

The police slept.

In short, no one stopped working. No one!

Apparently, the only people who suffered were the College going teenagers. They had no class to bunk!

Killing Tanhai

For most gelf mallu men, the months of July-August are the most trying of them all. It is vacation time for the schools and the (un)lucky ones have their families packed away for a rain soaked lazy staycation back in Gods Own Country.

Sending away ones family does bring in an illusion of freedom that one always wanted to have, but as it does, even this illusion of freedom comes at a price. And the current one brings along with it tons of loneliness, longer days with shorter working hours (due to Ramadan), and a scorching sun followed by humid evenings which forces you to confine yourself within the four walls of your house. You cannot venture out due to the heat and no restaurant or movie would be operational before evening as it is Ramadan. Which means you’ll be forced to cook and watch soap. What can be worse, now you have to do your own dishes, wash-dry-fold-iron-fold (again) your cloths, polish your shoes, sweep and mop the floor and to make matters worse, you wife’s BFF, Mr. God might just put your patience to the test by breaking the AC.

Loneliness is a bane if it has to be endured, and the best way to kill loneliness is the obvious. To not be alone! So here’s my set of five which can surely rescue you. Pick one that suits you:

1.    Set up a booze party

I guess most of the mallus, who are I possession of a liquor permit have made the best of QDC’s quota hike for the last month and have now stored more than a month’s quota of liquor in their bar. So, it’s just the right time to set up a booze party with your other forced bachelor friends.

Experience freedom first class as you go about tippling the whole night without the fear of expecting your wife’s calls on the mobile “Where are you man? It is past midnight!”

Better still, next day when your head reels under the hangover and you sloth away in the cosiness of your bed dreaming about Sunny Leone and her Jism no. 2, you can be rest assured that there will be no interruptions in the form of urchins jumping in between or the old witch spanking your ass screaming and informing you that it’s already past noon.    

2.    Take up some sport

Team up with a sports oriented friend and get fitter in the real sense.

Especially in Qatar, there are many places where one can play indoor games during the day time. Try any of the clubs, where you can play Squash, TT or even badminton. Play Tennis in the evening till very late in the night. Playing Tennis in the floodlights has its own charm.

Go on a fishing trip during the weekend. Fishing cruises (with fishing equipment provided) are available at www.qatartourism.gov.qa and if you are a team of four, the cost works out less than QAR 500 per person.

Again since you have all the time under the sun, why not enrol into a gym. The PTA meeting in most schools is scheduled in September, which gives you guys just enough time to shape up.

3.    Explore your culinary side

Why not try your hands on cooking?

Try a new dish without the risk of having to subject others to taste it. Invent a marinade of your own using one of your stocked liquors.

Post pictures of the food you’ve cooked on a networking site. And while you do so, just like those celebrity chef’s on the TV, act as if what you’d cooked was actually tasty.

4.    Pursue your academic goals

Again, with your wife and kids away, you are suddenly endowed with a lot of disturbance free time. Make good use of it. Enrol yourself into a course and pursue an academic dream that you always wanted to achieve.

Get a LEED or PMP or Six Sigma or whichever certificate that you’ve dreamt of holding.

If you are not one of the academic types, go ahead and learn to play a musical instrument.

This is the right time. Do it now, or you’ll have to wait for another whole year.

5.    Get tangled in the web

If you are someone who wouldn’t venture into any of the above, chances are that you are a simple down to earth mortal being who is skewed more on to the carnal side.

I’d recommend you guys to get a membership of an online dating site named Tagged. Needless to mention, this website is banned in Qatar. However, if you are keen and discerning, you’ll find a way to bypass the system. Out there, there’s enough material available to keep you busily engaged for the whole month and even longer.

Here you’ll find desperate women looking either for love or just plain money and also some African men trying to illegally sell gold and diamonds. Choose what you want.

My reliable sources say that this place is filled chock-a-block with desperate Asian single females willing to share anything as long as you treat them to a peg or two of Jack Daniels and bucket of KFC!

If you are of the high class types, you can hook up with a professional who’d fly down to live in for a month. All you’d have to do is, spend the money for flight tickets, a month’s maintenance and just a paltry $5000/- as a parting gift. Ah! That’s too much for a mallu to handle!! Now we know why these western expats are so highly paid!! ;-)

Tanhai – Urdu word for Loneliness.

Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness, yearning distress and solitude resulting from inadequate quantity or quality of social relationships (Courtesy – Wikipedia). 
Frankly, I never knew the problem was this serious, until I read the wiki. :-p