Desi Ud

Its been a long time since I wrote about a movie. But Udaan is something which certainly deserves a "writing".

Udaan reminded me of a zillion things, although I am always nostalgic about one thing or another, Udaan certainly brought a lot of those memories in picture. Few striking memories were of Banu and Jubhash's adventures at Mohan talkies with Bhishra sir (names changed to hide identities); me and my friends visiting chattan (we could view chimneys from there, sitting in peace, and that was a place few friends actually tried out chimney smoking too :)); just roaming around the township with its beautiful gardens, well manicured lawns, nice big houses with garden and jhoola; doing stupid kaands in school; a self-destructed diary with good amount of writings and many more. Lot of things which stay in my conscious but I generally don't talk about also came up. But every thing in a good sense.

Like Rohan even I am confused, and so are most of us, but the age is different. At Rohan's age one had the chance to take a decision, we are past that, its mostly too late for anything radical now.

About the movie, I just loved it from scene to scene, Rohan's performance, his kid bro and that of chacha Ram Kapoor. But what I really liked was Ronit Roy's anger puffed stern looks, I always thought of him as a successful businessman with a hit romantic (Jaan Tere Naam, awesome songs) and then a big TV star (Mihir 2, I am cutoff with TV post Mihir 1, so didn't really know about his acting that much), but never knew he could come up with such a brilliant one.
The setting of the movie is pretty authentic, take apart my nostalgia, it really is real, and then there is the end which was good again. My favorite song from the movie is Azaadiyan, but I really love all the songs and they just keep playing on my playlist all day long.

Another development with the movie is that few of my friends came to know about me watching this movie alone. Alone and You they said. Few inquired about my tabiyat, few about my mental state, few asked that am I happy with work or not, I just said maybe I have grown older :). Well I should say that it isn't that boring to watch a movie alone, just that you cant finish the PopCorn alone (I certainly can't). Too much of a shock for my new shauk of watching movies alone!

Its late at night now, and I am working, felt sleepy so thought would write this down in the break. That day when I ran off for this movie I was stuck, mind wasn't working the right way, the movie helped me be fresh, feel positive and super happy sorts after a long time. I felt a connect with Rohan and the settings, quite simply I felt there was just too much of me in the movie.

About writing, have lost a few, have thrown away a few, now considering should I be more serious about them? Lets see, quite a simple trigger I received during the movie.

And I think its time to get back to work again, too much of sitting and working nowadays and too much eating too, I think I will become MotuMaster soon :).

But I should be lighter, otherwise people won't raise their fingers when someone says "Desi Ud" in the cult-game "Chidiya-Ud", surely time for me to fly.

Right now, it would be back to work and then some sleep.

Simple Things again...

Its awesome, the feel of having simply cooked jeera fused daal & chawal after a week of nonsense eating. Pizzas, subway, manglorean style chicken gravy, dosas, chinese stuff, ice cream and a bit of C2H5OH. But nothing gave me as much satisfaction like today.

Simple things, like cleaning up my closet, washing clothes, reading a book, cooking food, having a nice simple chat with my friend yesterday night are always the stuff which keeps me going, still I wonder why I run away from it.

Simplicity from work to food to other things in life, is the way to go. [Ref: Hrishida movies :)]

For the past year or so my association with things simple were with something else, although in a different form, that simplicity has gone, now I need to be back to what simplicity originally meant to me.

And hope all things simple which I like will fall in place too.

Left Behind Part 2

Down there, next to the hot fish plate and shiny gravels, she just lies there, she belonged to someone stupid, someone ever so simple, disturbed, but happy at times, someone who always loved the smaller nuances of life, someone who cherished the company of people being around, someone had been changing recently, someone who had changed forever.

Between those blue shiny covers, and the plastic bound ringlets, were 200 pages, around 180 off of them inked with someone's thoughts. Someone knew that he is going to have a few missing ones in his life soon, and he was prepared for it, the blue notebook was his way out, of keeping all of them together with him forever.

A a half eaten pack of jalebis & some other rotten food is on the same track & is close by the blue notebook, she is unphased by the million flies which surround the neighboring jalebis, & she is still buzzing with a million stories which was part of someone's life till a few days back.

Not long back was someone confused, now he had sort of realized what his mind was upto & he knew its going to be difficult as few missing ones dominated the blue notebook, much more than others, & some of them might permanently go missing, despite how hard he tried.

But loosing them was his mistake maybe, why did he throw the blue notebook off and left her behind.

Blue notebook feels sad for someone, & is happy that she was left behind, not long back when someone hardly used to sleep and used to be stressed out, he used to read her at times, and used to poke her sometimes pen, but then after going out of the place, someone never left the blue notebook alone. Blue notebook was always tired as someone never left her alone, and continuously browsed through the memories of the missing ones. He felt a jolt of happiness at times, but notebook mostly saw a sad face, which she wanted to run away from. She feels ok now on the track, even if she is in the middle of nowhere.

As for someone, he has lost his track & hopes that he finds his direction again. Although he won't mind being lost too.

[Left Behind Part 1 was on something else... but I really like that post]

Bachpan ka Hawww, Bani Jawani Ki awww...

Remember when we were kids and,

• Someone fired an abuse like the dreaded S Word
• Someone's pant dropped by mistake
• Someone choked up after going on stage

Or when we were even smaller kids,

• Someone wetted/soiled their pants
• Someone forgot the multiplication table of 6

we all used to say Hawww...followed by a handsome serving of shame shame, and even pappi shame.

But as kids become older, and become much more mature, and much more facebook-ish, they found newer avenues and awww... came into being

Awww... for me and a few others is the most irritating expression ever invented, it smells, sounds & looks very artificial. My first tryst with awww... came during the much forgettable days at vyapaar school, where ever pic on facebook was celebrated as an event of great victory & awww-ness.

Then there were always those awww... girls, or awww... sisters as someone called them a few days back, they connected with a bond which ran through their cheeks, all the pics were loaded on facebook, cheek to cheek, neck slightly tilted, and a firey grin to top it up, and then followed up with a zillion aww-full comments. I think this is something which runs across all the b-schools as I have recently noticed.

Awww moments are not only female centric, they can be a male phenomenon as well, where supposedly cute n hot girls click pics with sincere and honest guys (our yearbook describes everyone in the batch like that), and then people post the same aww-some comments.

Some people like it, some dont, I certainly don't, its sometimes like the screeching sound of thermocol, or that of fingernails on blackboard for me, but everyone is free to use whatever they want to, people might the same about my pet MAHAAN, so its ok.

I am just trying to point out a trend, that's it...awww...kay.

p.s.: name is inspired from a famous writing which shows quite a lot on the wall paintings from Gwalior en route to Delhi on Indian Railways :)

Being Chintu

Its strange. Its strange because I never wanted it this way. But after SP it sort of became quite prevalent, especially among few around me. Self discovery is some call it, LMA is something which we used to call it earlier (Leave Me Alone). Even I succumbed to it at times.

I am too much a people people person, something which have been re-emphasized with my second entry in Mumbai, and it has just taken me a week to realize that I am in between a set of awesome people, some people who resonate with my areas of interest (56873 on last count)…

So there is the lonely state, and the people people state, and I obviously prefer the latter, the kind I have been for most of my life.

But this time around there is a Chintu state I have to deal with. Chintu is short for Chintan, the mode in which I enter nowadays, mostly when I am alone, or sometimes even between striking some awesome conversations something puts me into Chintu orbit. I just shut down and get into my chintu mood.

I want to be just the people people kind again, Mumbai part-2 offers an opportunity to achieve that with a set of good nice people around & few old ones who are simply too awesome, but some things just keep moving me to being chintu.

So what are the other options I have, maybe nothing as of now, but time will make things easier I believe. The only thing I know is I don’t want to be chintu, I just want to be like the old times again, pattu are you hearing?

Sorry to say but they surely are...

During Hero Cup I liked them but Sachin ended them in that historic over;1996 I was fascinated by them: by Jonty, by Cronje, by Donald, but Lara did them; 1999 they were surely the best, and I cried with millions others when Klusner was run out, Steve Waugh did them; 2003 they were the home side lead by the brilliant pollock, but Duckworth Lewis did them; 2007 they did themselves limping out in semis; T20-1 they played awesome but didnt qualify after loosing to Indians and for the first time I stopped supporting them, I started believing what they were labeled as was true, 2009 and 2010 the pakistanis helped us to prove that the South African Cricket team is well and truly:

"CHOKERS"

Me and many like me have stopped loving South African Cricket

The Story of Indian Railway Cutlet

Have you ever noticed Bhartiya Railway- “Aapki Sewa main” (In Your Service) written in small circles on the berths in railway coaches. For me the service by Bhartiya Railway is represented by the quintessential Railway breakfast, Cutlets ?

Those small patties, covered with bread crumbs, deep fried, cut in various shapes (circular in west, heart shaped in east, other shapes which I have seen include a rhombus, small squares etc.) are part of the morning happenings of any train journey. After seeing (or smelling) the great railway toilets in morning (usually flooded, soiled and you know what all) & a quick brushing of teeth along with junta, many a times with finger (as one forgets the brush?) the smell of these cutlets is the first welcome thing which invigorates all senses, especially "the smell" which ends all smells. The smell of railway cutlets is unique, much unique than that of soil after first rains, or that of Chanel no.5 . Any other smell which comes closer is that of railway window railings, purely metallic and very very unique.

These cutlets are mostly made of potatoes with a few seasonal veggies, mostly peas, carrots etc. Although the best ones always have that bit of beetroot in them, they always have. They are the mostly nicely packed item which Indian Railways provide, well wrapped in the aluminum foils, in fact there is a bit of sogginess prior to the crispiness of these cutlets due to the foils which adds to the taste. They always serve two cutlets with bread butter (2 slices only, never ever more than that). I always make a sort of a sandwich out of the first and the second one I just get lost in its taste. One can’t forget the contribution of Sauce here (enriched with Kaddus ?) this tomato ketchup is always packed in those small plastic sachets, bright red in colour, it always adds to the flavour of cutlets.

Cutlets taste best with the watery coffee (which is much better than the watery tea). Although if one gets tea of the quality of Chaudhry Chai waala (near nandurbar station, en route Ahmedabad to Nagpur) one shouldn’t miss that.

Cutlets compete with Omelets in morning, and from the look on the faces of people who buy omelets one knows who wins ?. Cutlets also get an enhanced version in Rajdhani or Shatabdi where they are accompanied with fried green peas or a bit of French fries at times. But the basic taste remains the same.

I just hope I keep traveling, enjoying my journeys on Indian Railway and keep enjoying the wonderful moments it brings along.

Long Live the Indian Railway Cutlet, one of the best breakfasts in the country…