An ode to the BB

I often feel I have this ability to get immensely attached to crap, few times people, but mostly things. So like most people of this generation, my phone is , well, a priced possession. The difference is, in my case,the love is not so much for the new swanky,oh-my-God-I-dropped-my-phone, but for the one I gave up...willingly!

It may not have been the smartest of smart phones, but it never tried to be smarter than me. It never dared correct what I wanted to say. So when I wanted to say ‘Swet Mamaries’, it did not make it all boring and proper ‘sweet memories'. It let me say what I want, merely suggesting, just like the very modest MS Word. It understood that sometimes I talk like a retard or a meme. It knew I could never be wrong, inappropriate may be, but never wrong.

I’d like to think I’m a writer, well, I could be one. The BB knew it, it let me type, type type type.the laughter, the anger, the awwwws...I’m such a typer. I like to type, not swipe.

Last but not the least; it gave me the one thing I treasure most-conversations.

The world of snide status messages, mooching off cute, funny display pictures and all those special dedications, why bother with Facebook when you have BBM. It was my private little world of my people, where I could ignore everyone and anyone who didn’t belong. The most random, insanely crazy, exasperatingly emotional, absolutely ambitious chats and anal arguments.  The future plans, the nostalgia and that one off conversation that you could read over and over again and it still wouldn't m make any sense. No Whatsapp will ever be close to what you were BBM. I can;t relate to an instant messenger without a biggg hugg emoticon.

I now have embraced the new world of technology and not seeing a waiting sign every two minutes makes me want to be here right now.So until I drop and break this new glossy glass....

P.S This one is for all my fellow ex and current bbmers and BB loyalists.

A beginning...an end!

I can’t remember every story, there are just far too many to try.
Sitting next to you in class, eating our ‘tiffin’ together, I know I lost every pencil &‘rubber’ (eraser) I borrowed from you.
Buying SRK & Sachin postcards outside school, how we’d managed to sneak out just to watch India win.
The bus rides, the long walk back home and endless phone conversations that followed.
Back rest defined where we sat around the campus, not food and boys.
We made the local our house of madness, we really did love our train.
We were the eternal strategists, who only ever took one bad call.
We ‘loved’ our jobs and gave long lunches a whole new meaning.
The beach, a few cocktails, endless laughter and some fries made for a good life.
The perfect evening meant more than one cup of chai.
Every Friday night was a special occasion.
Drinks, music and places which felt like our own.
We devised theories on almost everything, and all of us now have a PhD in thinking,
There was singing, dancing, movies and all the drama.
12 AM calls, SMS, gchat, BBM, nothing was ever close to enough.
We’d laugh with everyone but I also cried with you.
I finished your lines, you read my mind.
We always knew what the other is going to say.
Once we had the wine, everything was absolutely fine.
Coffee and conversation worked on all other days.
We walked the talk, donuts, gelato...and some more walk.
Times have changed and things are different now.
We were great once but we may not always be the same.
At every stage of life, we leave something behind, only few will pass this test of time.
If everything has a start, it probably has an end.
Why are we so obsessed with forever and eternity?
It's about time we learn to say goodbye.

P.S: mot of my people are part of this in some way :-)

Invisible Ears

When you say what you mean,
When you write what you don't say,
When you try to prove you are right,
When you know you messesd up,
When life is just so blahhh,
When you find the courage to face your darkest fears,
When you just about manage to fight away your tears,
When you blast the music just before the silence starts talking,
When your frustrations are louder than any car honking,
When you have a whole conversation in your head and not utter a word at all,
When that heart-felt smile says it all,
When you hold on to the phone and wonder what should I say,
When you believe I'm ok and keep everyone at bay,
When you pray for one but truly want another,
When you know what you should but you don't anyway,
When the heart and the mind are in one crazy race,
You may think all of this is just within,

But little do you know, I'm always listening.

Someday...

Someday the block will clear.

Someday grey will be the colour of the day.

Someday things will not always stay the same.

Someday right or wrong will be just words.

Someday decisions won’t be tough.

Someday life may not seem so rough.

Someday traffic will be a breeze.

Someday a sport will be just a game.

Someday we’ll be at peace with the self.

Someday we will not shy away from help.

Someday we’ll have all the answers.

Someday lyrics will conquer.

Someday the system will crack.

Someday there will be no more attacks.

Someday peace will be a reality.

Someday we’ll know when to let go.

Someday we’ll want to hear “I told you so.”

Someday they will understand.

Someday we’ll have quality time on our hands.

Someday we’ll go back to writing.

Someday talking will take over typing.

Someday phones will be just phones.

Someday pictures will be more about caring than sharing.

Someday we’ll tell someone we are not ok.

Someday a laptop will not sit between us.

Someday we won’t need a video to laugh.

Someday we’ll go out and buy a greeting card.

Someday : and ) will stay only on the keyboard.

Someday there will be no need for interpretation.

Someday we’ll stop using those nicknames.

Someday we’ll know the ones who matter.

Someday the hundreds will just be a number.

Someday, we will know we are sorted.

Someday patience will pay.

Someday someday will be here to stay.

Vijay Dinanth Chauhan or Satya? #sameguy: Film- Agony-Path

Now I’m not one to write mean things about Bollywood movies, I love them, but when I read people raving about a film which only deserves criticism if anything, I get a little pissed. If #Agneepath is trending, it should only trend due to the agony it must have caused several people who spent more than Rs.200 and three hours of their lives watching it. Damm.. I missed the Nadal- Federer match for this film. I like quite a few KJo movies and I love Hrithik, but this one.. this one’s an exception!

We all saw and loved the original; no one can and should even try to copy it, thankfully this one doesn’t either. I won’t totally spoil it with every little detail, just the parts that bothered me. So the new Agneepath starts off well, young, curly haired kid does alright to show both anger and emotion, very Vijay Dinanath Chauhan. The first half, in fact, is engaging where Vijay’s father is framed, humiliated and hanged in public by Kancha and Vijay and mother are forced to leave Mandwa and move to Mumbai. Enter Rishi Kapoor (Rauf Lala), the ‘abbajaan’ of Mumbai who hates Kancha and becomes Vijay’s godfather types.

We are still interested. Basically Vijay wants to rule Mumbai so he can get Mandwa from Kancha and avenge his father’s death. Ok, understood. So he gets Lala’s son killed, Lala gets a heart attack or whatever and boom.. Mumbai ka King kaun.. no..no..no.. not Bhiku Mhatre, Vijay Dinanath Chauhan!.. We are watching Agneepath not Satya.. Oh wait..or are we??

Hmmmm, come to think of it, this Vijay Dinanth Chauhan of Agneepath and Satya...#sameguy. Satya is Bhiku’s right hand man, Vijay is Lala’s. Satya is obsessed with his love interest, Vijay with Mandwa. Both Satya and Vijay stab one of the bad guys during Ganpati Visarjan! I am telling you, #sameguy!! Hmmm...Ram Gopal Varma will not be happy when he realises this... if ever he does!

But to be fair to RGV, Satya was brilliant, Agneepath.. well...this will help you make up your mind:

So the police cannot stop the public auctioning of a girl, incidentally Vijay’s sister, but obviously Vijay and his eunuch friends can.

Vijay‘s only motive in life is to get Mandwa and after he strikes a deal with Kancha for it, he kind of forgets about it. He comes back home, you know, chills a bit, re-unites with his family,gets a little married, the usual soap opera stuff. After all, what’s the rush, it’s a three hour longggg film!

In the end, Vijay obviously goes to Mandwa to kill Kancha, so obviously he has bombs and all to blow up the place, but obviously, he does not have a gun, not even a knife. I mean, why does he really need it anyway, Kancha ke liye toh uske haath hi kaafi hain!!

Imagine this: big man Kancha has stabbed Vijay four times and dragged him on rocks to take him to the same Bargad ka Ped where he hung his father and Vijay, miraculously still alive, suddenly gets up, in almost full power!! How you ask? Simple, the very symbolic Bargad ka Ped!! In true Ekta Kapoor style, a hat-trick of flashes of the tree and It’s all coming back to me (courtesy Celine Dion), Vijay lifts Kancha up and throws him down while all the villagers cheer him in the background. They are just an audience, they can’t help..itne paise mein itnahich milega ok!Now remember Kancha is much older than Vijay, so he has weak bones and all so he gets hurt and then minutes later is hanging from the same dam tree!!

Priyanka Chopra is also in the movie yes, I think this movie has done complete justice to her. This is the exact amount of screen time and dialogues she deserves to get in every film. Hrithik is well Hrithik, you have to love him, especially in the Ganpati Visarjan scene. Sanjay Dutt does a good evil laugh. Chikni Chameli is awesome! They somehow forgot about Om Puri towards the end and rightly so. Rishi Kapoor is evil and kind of lecherous, very well done!!

If only people tweeting about Agneepath would stop trying to turn Twitter into another Times of India, a Bollywood buff like me, would not have to resort to this.

The Long Winding Road...

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

- Alice in Wonderland

I don’t know where I’m going; I don’t even want to know at this time. All I see is a long winding road and I walk to somewhere, somewhere unknown.

A long path this is, with a few twists and some turns. I know I’m going to have to find my way.

The thought of a mysterious destination excites me on a bright sunny day, the long journey to get there may exhaust me but I don’t care.

I stop and think several times if I really want to make this trip. My bright sunny day has seen clouds on this trip. Is what lies at the end of this never-ending quest worth it all? Is there indeed any light at the end of this tunnel or will darkness cover all?

The surprise element keeps me engaged, I cannot wait to discover, confused by some of the signs, thrown off -course several times, I walk undeterred on my path, I have the will to find.

My hair sways with the wind, I face the sky. Evening brings on its calm, the wind around me settles down. My mind is now working faster than my feet. The element of surprise is intimidating, all exclamations are questions. The result is all that matters, calculations overpower determination.

Motivation is lost somewhere as self doubt makes its debut, insecurity is now a state of mind and confidence is just a faint memory. The beautiful long winding road is now an uphill climb, who cares about what lies at the end, as long as there is an end in sight.

I don’t want no mystery, no surprises, no challenge; all I want is to know for sure that there is something for me at the end. All I see is pitch black, I need some help, a map, a navigator, just want to know where to go, when to stop.

I finally make it to the end, or so I think. It is pleasant and comforting, just what I want. I think, I know it is. It has to be. But is it? What else could it be now? My tired imagination can walk no more but my heart refuses to agree.

I muster up all that I have left and start again, my mind wanders, wonders if my imagination is indeed a true friend. I have been betrayed, betrayed by my own, how could my friend let me believe this is it, when he knows I could have done so much more…

The sun creeps up on the darkness, each step forward is like a new ray. Two way signs stare me in the face. The end might be close or it may take another night, all I know is, someday, I’ll find the right map.

The Time of Your Life

A hot, sunny afternoon, daily mundane work shit and suddenly a breakthrough!!

Like all the super pissed off, stressed out Gods just got sorted and are at peace now. A calm sets in...like the silence before the storm. You wait and wait...till that first lil droplet brushes your cheek and disappears in your palm.

A smile, a twinkle in the eye...blue turns grey, brown to green

A breath of fresh air..geeli mitti..soft music..one cup of chai.. vada pav and bhajjis..

Those few times when going out for a cup of coffee does not mean going for a drink...

Times when you roll down the car windows and let the wind mess your hair, let the drops peck your face.. .

The only time I would want to light up...

Wish you had your gumboots from school to splash all around...

Sitting at your window in the morning and staring into space...

Standing at the footboard of an empty train compartment..the wind in your face, the rain on your fingers.. you wish this train never stops.

Soon it’ll be time for traffic, potholes, dirt, muck... oh yuckkk....

Humidity, wet shoes, damp jeans blah blah blah...

Till such time....rain drops keep falling on my head...Sighh!!!!

P.S : Cause we love you Mumbai rains!!

As Per Plan (APP)

I thought I had the perfect plan.. I came up with it in all of 5 minutes while travelling in a local cab from a client’s office back to work. Amidst the traffic, hunger pangs and lack of conversation, it came to me like an amazing scientific discovery. (Some of you who will read this know of that plan.. the others don’t need to know just yet) So while i thought that the perfect life plan (though may be a bit too optimistic for someone like me) might work out some day, as time went by, it seemed more of a long shot and is now nothing more than entertainment value.

All of my life plans have met a similar fate, gone with the wind before they could see the light of day. Now I’m an analyst at heart and anything you do or say around me, I will analyse. I will not judge but I will scrutinise in my head and how...Some of my closet friends suffer from similar disorders, but we all believe we are better off this way.
They say 'Great Things Come In Simple Packages'. I say “Great Learning comes through Simple Conversation. “
This evening I had one such simple conversation.. one of the longest and nicest in a longgg time,... (Different time zone does make it a little difficult to keep in touch) during which, it dawned on me that my life has not gone APP...EVER

I don’t know how much this is true for everyone but speaking from personal experience, I’ve spent half my life planning what my life should be and am spending the other half wondering why This Life hasn’t turned out quite the way I wanted it to be RT@ Nickelback.

What if life had gone As Per Plan? (Err.. first of all, which plan ) May be I would’ve been a shrink today minting money somewhere counselling freaks in some foreign land.. or may be I would’ve been a happily married mother of one or may be... well.. I’ll never know..This APP funda is more like a myth to me.

Why do we indulge so much in planning our life that at some level we forget to live it?
Are we that afraid of what’s out there or is it just a way of consoling ourselves saying.. "May be All is not so Well now but All shall be Well eventually". & when these life altering plans fall flat right in front of our eyes, we make e a bigger, more unrealistic one.
The smarter ones among us make more foolproof life plans, those that involve a backup or what we call Plan B (you know who you are..... :) )

Such is life & such is hope..As long as there’s hope, there will always be a plan and as long as there is a plan, there will always be hope that it works. It’s a vicious cycle I tell you, you just cannot get out of it.

When i planned in real time, at 17 I wanted to be a psychologist, at 19 ,an Economics major, at 20 I wanted to study at TISS & at 22 I wanted to service Cartoon Network. At 24 I wanted to pursue an MBA and at 25 I wanted to be anything other than a PR professional...If life had gone as per plan, it just wouldn’t have been my life.
At almost 27... I need a new plan.

P.S : This one’s to all those simple, fabulous phone conversations I wish I had more often

FRIENDS NOverdose

It’s a hot Sunday afternoon and you are chilling at home after a nice lunch...As you switch on the television, 9 times out of 10, you’ll end up watching the 100th re-run of FRIENDS (mostly for lack of a better option).. and you will find yourself laughing your heart out. still...
FRIENDS is almost everyone’s favourite. Everyone has watched it and everyone continues to watch it.
As I sat aimlessly this Sunday afternoon and watched the episode where everyone shows up late for Pheobie’s birthday dinner, I wondered what is it about this show that keeps us coming back for more??
Is it just the humour or the characters?? Or is it the setting or just the concept??? It is one of the very few cult shows everyone can relate to in some way or the other.
Just like all of us who have a group of girls (This holds true for all my girls) always imagine ourselves as the Sex and the City girls with our long lunches and cocktail dinners, all of us, somewhere, somehow know a Ross ( i sure know one ). While some of us might relate to Daddy’s girl turning independent Rachel, all of us have definitely met a Chandler and a Joey..Most of us indentify with at least one of their traits.. be it the sarcasm ,the commitment phobia, casual flirting or love for food
We have all at least once in our life said ‘Ohhh My Godd” ..
We have definitely wanted to sit on the couch in a coffee shop (Coffee shops have couches now thanks to FRIENDS)..
We even nickname people as adjectives ala Ugly Naked Guy.( I & the girls had nicknamed people Creepy Crawly and Jack in the Box in our bitchy days)
We would’nt think before telling someone, “God, Could you be anymore like Chandler” and expect him to understand what we are talking about.
Episodes, incidents and dialogues are top of mind recall for us
We all say we've had enough of FRIENDS but we still do watch it if it's on.. whatever the reason might be and crib about movies like Jab We Met which are on TV almost every week.
If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t have both our English programming channels run FRIENDS for us day in and day out including weekends.
We quote FRIENDS like we would quote Shakespeare..
We even take quizzes on FB to test our FRIENDS IQ and anything less than a perfect score is a shame.
FRIENDS , a show that has captured the imagination of generations and continues to do so with its marathon re-runs.. A show that has become part of our lives, kind of like a real life Friend.
A show we might never ever get enough of.
My guess is, sometimes, it is all in a name.

P.S : This one’s to everyone who still loves FRIENDS like me.

Why grow up ??

As I listen to Nickelback sing, “Time is going by so much faster than I...”.. I cannot help but wonder.. When exactly did it just pass me by?

When did the innocence of a school kid get lost somewhere in the search of a street smart teenager, when his curiosity got lost in the fear of sounding ignorant? All the toys and games lost to the charm of television & telephone...This was the coming of age..

A time when working on projects all through the night was fun...

When you did not know friends could be categorised...
When mass bunking was in the league of a dream come true...
When petty fights started and ended on the campus...
When what you understood of politics was a class of 100 students trying to mug up Articles...
When anything that cost under 20 bucks was a delicious wholesome meal...
When there was a term called ‘healthy competition’...
When people broke bottles in the canteen foyer only to be applauded by the rest of us...
When the worst thing that could happen to you was a pimple on your face...
When the Xerox guy was the ultimate life saver...
When you could stand in the sun for hours to cheer your team on without cribbing about the heat...
When Xavier’s not winning Malhar was the biggest crisis on the planet whether you were part of it or not...
When stress meant not having enough attendance in a particular class...& a bad day was when someone could not give your proxy...
When you did not mind getting up early on Saturday if you had to go to college...
When you were sure your Prince charming was out there... maybe even on campus...
When the stock market was just a bunch of numbers and the newspaper was where the crossword was...
When you only needed to know the answers to only 6 of the 10 questions..
When coming back home was the last thing that you ever wanted to do...

From the thrill of sneaking out of the house to go for a drink to planning a house party when your parents are not in town, I have lost a huge part of who I was to become what I think I want to be

P.S - This one's come after a long time for all those who can relate to the nostalgia