Raju  :   “Abey Panda.. Rasgullaa”!   (Hey Panda.. “Rasgullaa”)

Panda  :  “Muh mey hai be”! (I have them in my mouth)

Rourkela had always been a cosmopolitan town; pardon me for using this word more in a national sense than international. Probably you wont associate cosmopolitanism with an Indian town, it has always been more of a “city” term. But Rourkela like most steel townships in the country, always had a mix of Indians from all walks of life and all parts of the nation. We definitely had the diversity if not the population to match any other big city.

A gang of 5 students,consisting of a mallu, a bihari, an oriya, an assamse and a bong, met after school. As usual they were planning the program for the rest of the evening. Those days we had a lot of time after school and homework. The TV bug hadn’t yet become the widespread malady that it is today. You spent your time with real friends and not TV characters.

The preferred mode of transport used to be Avon, Hercules or Atlas. Some of you might be wondering what they are. Well, they were the top brand bicycles, the pride possession of most of my genre. The rendezvous for the evening was decided to be Madras Canteen, situated at the cusp of Sector-16 and Sector-17, made famous by its delicious idlis and dosas. I am not sure whether this small hotel (that’s what we used to call a restaurant) still exists. Somebody from Rourkela can confirm. Soon five bicycles flew towards the destination at full steam.

Their vehicles safely parked, the boys entered “the hotel” and took seat at the front table, the one next to the cashier’s corner. They ordered the usual stuff, Masaala Dosa and Chutney. That was all they could afford with the meager pocket money that they managed to eek out of their parents.

These food places always had a glass cabinet, next to the cashier, which served both as a display corner as well as the storage area for sweets and confectioneries. The sliding glass door at the back side was the only access to the cabinet. The gang was seated right next to the glass door of the cabinet, with Panda closest to it.

Rourkela, for all that I can remember, was always plagued by “load shedding”. For those unfamiliar to this term, it meant that sections of the township would have no electricity during different parts of the day. Late nights were the most preferred time slot, but sometimes, some sections may get affected during evenings as well. That evening the lights went off at Madras Canteen. Pitch darkness.

Raju, suddenly realized the humongous opportunity at hand. The whole cabinet of sweets was at our mercy with nobody to see, as it took at least five to six minutes for the petromax to be activated.

That was when I heard Raju’s hoarse, camouflaged but stern directive to Panda (the one mentioned at the beginning of the post).

Later, on our way back (having paid only for the Masala dosas), Panda narrated how he had managed to devour at least 10 rasgullas, in the 5 minutes, before the pertromax spread its light around.

Though the rest didn’t get to taste any rasgullaas, there still was an overall sense of achievement and satisfaction.

The moral of the story - Great minds think alike and at the same time as well. :-)

What do you say?

...TED

Reading VT's latest blog reminded me of this incident.

The Rex movie theater on Brigade road in Bangalore. A bunch of college lads rush through the gates, eager to occupy their seats. I was one among them. It doesn’t take us much time to settle down, after the usual yelling (at the top of our lungs), for the fans to be switched on.

We lean back with chips and drinks all in place, ready to have a great time. A bunch of girls suddenly appears on Tuhin’s radar. Soon the rest of us are also tuned into the same frequency as Tuhin. The Mt Carmel angels move into their seats, a couple of rows in front of us. Surprise! Surprise! There is Priya, the girl our own Vicky was courting or pataofying.

How could we let Vicky miss such an opportunity? So one of us walks down immediately to negotiate with this guy who occupied the seat next to the girls. The idea was to let Vicky sit there and then somehow manage to get Priya to sit next to him. Don’t ask me the logic behind all this; at that age we are damn sure that such moves always work.

However it was not to be as easy as we thought. The guy just wont heed to our appeals and adamantly refused to move from that seat, even though we were offering him a better seat, couple of rows back. He just wont budge, in fact by now he was gripping the seats with all his might, just in case we yanked him out. For him, this was probably the culmination of years of tapasya (penance) and missed chances; he had finally got to sit next to the cool babes from Mt. Carmel, that too, at a movie. He wouldn't have swapped that seat even for a balcony position. Commenting from a neutral standpoint today, he was absolutely right (what say VT?). But at that moment Vicky’s interest was paramount to us.

Soon the negotiation entered a heated phase with the poor guy getting a few whacks and a flurry of choice words which I rather not mention here, to maintain the decorum of this blog. Real hooligans you may think; blame it on the guy who wrote “Everything is fair in love and war”. In such situations we could not be remorseful of our actions. There are certain unwritten code of conduct that apply in male friendship, which only guys can understand. A friend in need is a friend in deed; isn’t that what another great person averred about friendship? So then, Vicky needed our help very much, period.

As the battle ensued, we didn’t notice that Priya, realizing the real reason for all the hullabaloo, had quietly slipped out of the pack and got herself out of the building and probably to a much saner environment. By the time we came to know about it, the damage was done. Little did we realize that there was more awaiting us outside. After Priya left, we were no more interested in pushing our case with the guy, so we left him alone and moved back to our seats.

Just around interval, Venky, who had been to one of his innumerable toilet breaks (we never figured out how a human being could piss so much), came rushing back. He looked as if he had just seen a ghost in the toilet. A pale and trembling Venky informed us that the guy whom we had manhandled, was waiting outside with few burly guys, all set to do unto us what we did to him. “Do unto your neighbors what you want them to do unto you” another great saying which we had forgotten about before our act. “Vinaasha kaale vipreeta buddhi”,  right?

So with danger lurking right outside the theater doors, what do you think we did?

-- TED

Yaaron ke liye to sau khoon bhi muaaf.. that used to be the attitude..

Kal raat chaandni thi gum,

Maine sab se poocha, hua kya.

Ungliyaan uthi mere yaar par,

Shikaayat hua husn-e-dildaar ka.

Karta kya chaand bhi tera muqaabla,

Chupna hi usne bajaa samjha,

Na samjha kisi ne teri maasumiyat magar,

Tujhe hi sabne dushman be-wajah samjha.

Chaand kya cheez hai, suraj bhi dhundla pad jaaye,

Bas ek baar agar tum hans kar pardaa uthaa dey.

Kaise samjha-oon is ahal-e-mehafil ko lekin,

Ab tum hi mujhe apna koi misaal bataa dey.

...TED

Soz-e-aaftaab (sun’s heat) mein jhulase tan ko,

Jab choo jaaye baad-e-nasiim (breeze),

To samjho tujhe meri yaad aayi.

Zamaane ke thokar se magmuum (hurt/sad),

Jab ho kisi hum-saaya (neighbor) ka ehsaas,

To samjho tujhe meri yaad aayi.

Bhari palkon se tapakte tapakte,

Jab achaanak aansoon tham jaaye,

To samjho tujhe meri yaad aayi.

Do-pehar ki dhoop se ho pareshaan (troubled),

Jab be-waqt (untimely) saawan (rain) laaye sukoon (comfort),

To samjho tujhe meri yaad aayi.

Ruumaani hokar nashe man se,

Jab choomogi takiye ko sharmaa kar,

To samjho tujhe meri yaad aayi.

--- TED

There are times when you don’t find words

To express what you are going through.

People cross your path, things happen,

But you move on, oblivious of everything.

Friends, I am going through such a phase!

I might have met some of you without a greeting,

Visited your dwelling and said nothing,

Sat with you for hours without a conversation,

Promised you something and didn’t keep my word.

Please forgive me, for I know not what is happening!

I want to write but the words won’t come,

I want to express but the feelings won’t emerge,

I don’t know whether its my circumstances to blame,

Or is it me myself who is creating this cocoon.

I don’t have a clue what the reason is!

**********************************************************************

Kar liya hoon khaamoshi ko is tarah akhtiyaar,

Dil bhi ab dhadke hain yaaro bin aawaaz.

Chehera sangmarmari, us par phisalta paani,

Zulf ghaneri, us mein khila hua tabassum,

Absaar nasheeley, maano chasm-e-mayaguun, (intoxicating eyes)

Kasam us jism badamast ki,

Woh sar se paanv talak thi, bas Qayaamat hi Qayaamat.

Honth dabaey huey the daanton tale,

Ungliyaan bhi dupatte mein the uljhey huey,

Tehalti to jaise baad-e-sabaa mein ithlaati daali,         

Kasam un shokh adaaon ki,

Woh sar se paanv talak thi, bas Sharaarat hi Sharaarat

Phir na jaane kab yeh dil mera, kaafir ho gayaa,

Mere bas se nikal kar, uske paas bas gayaa,

Dil ko kosoon ya khush-kismati manaoon, yeh na jaan paaya

Kasam us dil fareb samaa ki,

Woh sar se paanv talak thi, bas Mohabbat hi Mohabbat.

                                    ….TED

Is tarha mere yaaro,

Humein bhi pyaar ho gaya,

Aadmi the hum bhi kaam ke,

Pal bhar mey bekaar ho gaya…

Kyaa karoon aisa dard-e-nasha chaa gaya,

Na chaahkar bhi zubaan pe ek aah aa gaya,

Hoton pe hansi lekar chupaaya jis fasaane ko,

Nazron se umadta sailaab woh bayaan kar gaya.

Jaa, mat baat kar zaalim tu humse,

Tujhe kya pata hai khaamoshi ka sila,

Yeh humse poocho jisne is dil mey,

Dafnaaye hain laakhon hasratein chup chaap.

Kehti thi hum par jaan-o-tan karegi fanaa,

Pyaar mey sarabor ek zindagi ka bhi tha waada,

Is tarha phir rukhsat hui woh zindagi se humaari,

Ke chalakte nazron ka bhi na humse poocha sabab.

Lut ta hai yeh sapnon ka kaafila har din,

Phir roz sajaata hoon ek armaano ka kaarwaan,

Tum na sahi, lekin dastak de hi jaata hai is dar koi,

Lootney ke bahaane, phir woh koi luteraa hi sahi.

                                                                       - - - TED
Na poocho ab is dard ka sabab mujhse doston,
Aaj bhi khaamoshi ke siva koi jawaab nahin mere paas.

Pardon the gestation period for my blogs. They may soon beat the elephant at its own game. Well, continuing from where I left last time…

Around 4:00pm in the afternoon, I got in touch with Maddy, to check if our date was still on. He confirmed a time between 5:00 and 5:15pm. Raghu (Maddy’s younger brother) was also going to join us. More the merrier, I thought.

It was 4:50pm and I had posted myself right in front of the vendor’s office gates on Sterling road; the mutually agreed meeting point. I usually am early to a friendly meet; call it punctuality or simple unbridled excitement of getting together with friends. The same happened here as well. The afternoon sun was a little uncomfortable, but the anticipation just took away all the discomfort. The clock ticked over 5:00pm and slowly crept past 5:05pm, no sign of Maddy yet.

My patience had started to give in and I was already SMSing him. Came the reply, “I am on my way, just 2 minutes away”. Having spent ample time around marketing/sales professionals, replies like “2 minutes away”, “round the corner” usually meant that the person had just started and was nowhere nearby.  So I revised my expectation to 5:30pm as the earliest that I would get to see these guys. Waiting was now becoming a little boring and I was becoming an object of intrigue for the passer by. I am not sure whether the reason was my disposition or my dress (I guess wearing a lounge coat and standing under the hot Chennai sun must be something unusual). Sharp at 5:15pm, a car pulled next to me and a gentleman alighted from it, with a smile and a quizzing look in askance “Are you the one that I am looking for?”. I too probably carried a similar ex-pression.

Well, our individual hunches were right and Teddy finally met Maddy. A warm hug and some exchange of pleasantries later, we were headed to my hotel, so that I could dress down a bit. Moreover it was too early for any evening activities. Soon Maddy and me were chatting up, while Raghu for most parts played the silent participant. I am not sure whether me and Maddy were too engrossed and he felt a little left out in the process.

I realized that Maddy looked different from the original picture that he had on the iLand, the one with the thick moustache et al (he has a much younger version on iLand these days). The gent I met was clean shaven with a boyish charm and eyes that crinkles at the edges when he flashes his charming smile. The hair was cut short and the gone were the curls that we saw in his original iLand photo. His well rounded personality could have easily earned him the Teddy Bear tag. He comes across as a blithe spirit who speaks from the heart, i.e. there is no mental editing happening to his sentences during a conversation. I like such people and I try hard to be one like them. But I have not yet mastered their art. I often mentally filter my conversation to ensure diplomacy and decorum, in other words avoid the ‘foot in mouth’ situation. Probably the requirements of my job has made me that way or I just don’t possess the skill or temperament to speak freely and still say the right things, a talent which Maddy seems to have in abundance.

We were soon at Park Sheraton. I had shed my coat and was feeling a bit more comfortable. In the meanwhile Maddy was telling me about all the wealth that Raghu was amassing and hiding away somewhere. As a Private Wealth Management guy he has now tasked me to find out the whereabouts of Raghu’s booty. I told him that probably it is under some “Numbered A/c” a term used in the PWM world for anonymity.

The focus then shifted to family and Maddy is one lucky guy who has his siblings and parents, all staying in the same city as him, a rare phenomenon these days. From his conversations I could see that he loves his two cubs (since he qualifies to be a Bear) a lot. The way Maddy is, I am sure he enjoys a fabulous relationship with both his sons.

By the time we had finished one round of discussing family and our own personal details, it was already around 7.00pm, time to leave for dinner. Maddy and Raghu took me to this fabulous place called ‘Malgudi’. The food was authentic South Indian (all states included) and fantastic in taste. I recommend this place to those who plan to visit Chennai.

Over dinner Maddy told me more about his business. For your information, he is an entrepreneur who is planning to make it big in the world of publishing. He already has done quite a bit in this realm and I guess his is a brand name which is recognized at least in this part of the world. Given his enthusiasm I am sure we will hear a lot more about Maddy and his company in times to come. Dinner finished, the brothers brought me back to my hotel and we parted wishing good night, promising to meet each other again whenever I was in Chennai.

Keeping with my promise I met Maddy again during my next visit and this time I got to meet his wife and kids and also got to see his office or should I say Den. I will write about it in my next edition, whenever that happens.

PS – Maddy has his own views about blogging during company time, which many of us do.

Here comes a lot of LUV and a BIG BEAR HUG  to all my dear iLand Friends.

For the past couple of months, I have been totally inactive on the iLand, from a contribution point. I am aware that quite a few missed me  and for some it was good probably riddance  but I am back again . 

Blame my absence on my job. This new assignment has been exacting to say the least. It is consuming a lot of my personal time, which otherwise used to be spent with family, and that includes all you great people out there.

Working hours have become crazy, add travel to that and bingo! you have the perfect recipe for stress disaster. At office, for hours, attending seminars, meetings, dinners and then sitting in a hotel room, away from family, staring at the ceiling and the lifeless artwork around, just not my kind of lifestyle. It sucks, to say the least. Lahore was so much more interesting than Geneva and Zurich. Kasam Se!

But the silver lining among all that gloom has been my recent visits to Chennai (on work off course). It has provided me with the opportunity to meet one of our favorite iLanders, PK Madhavan. I met Maddy first in Feb and then again recently a week ago. I had wanted to write about it since, but time proved to be a spoil sport.

I arrive at Chennai on a Sunday in Feb. Having suffered quite a bit of the traffic chaos in Mumbai and B’lore I was expecting something less stressful in Chennai. I soon realized that Chennai was to be no different. The traffic bug has hit Chennai too, you can’t get across from one place to another without waiting endlessly at about a million traffic signals, which makes you wonder about the utility of these signals. Aren’t they suppose to improve the flow of traffic and not otherwise. Somehow I always feel that in our country traffic signals are made at the wrong place for the wrong reasons. Recently I heard that at Bannerghatta Circle in B’lore, after building an underpass and a flyover to remove a perennial traffic bottleneck, the road authorities have now installed a traffic signal on the flyover. Now that seems to be an extremely innovative idea. Doesn’t it? I guess, planning doesn’t exist even as a concept, in our Public Sector institutions. Sorry, the pent up frustration made me digress from the main topic.

Back to Chennai.

My previous acquaintances with Chennai was mostly limited to the Rajaji Salai stretch, more towards the Clive Battery end, adjacent to the port, where my uncle used to live in a company accommodation. My brief Chennai visits during those days were mostly spent walking about the small shops that litter this part of the Rajaji Salai, starting from Paris Point until midway to Clive Battery, selling various imported (not sure whether original) goods. This market place used to have a name, can't remember now, Moor market perhaps.

A walk on the Rajaji Salai would usually cover you with a visible layer of black soot like substance, which I was told is coal dust. However the vicinity of Park Sheraton (a.k.a Adayar Park) at Nungambakam and my route to the vendor’s office at Sterling road, was a far better experience, compared to Rajaji Salai one. The pollution around this area was not that bad and the nearby Ispahana Center (I guess I got it right) and the City Center provided ample opportunities to spend an evening.

I found the Feb weather to be quite nice as well, especially during the early part of the day, which was a pleasant surprise, because Chennai to me was synonymous with sultry conditions. The Park Sheraton, where I was holed up is a beaten down structure of a  hotel, when compared to all the cool ones in Mumbai, which includes the Sheraton Grand Maratha and Sheraton Central. The strong mushy smell of moisture laden fabric, the not so spic n span toilets and the drab upholstery did not seem to be too promising for a comfortable stay. Now I am not trying to be too uppity here, just demanding the quality that the price deserves. Within the first hour of stay, I had made up my mind that I wont be staying there again, little knowing that there was more inconvenience to follow.

The Lufthansa flight crew who happened to be sharing the same floor with me, decided to let their hair down just around midnight. These guys and gals got themselves into one of the rooms and just went berserk, yelling, shouting and doing what not. Given that CET is about 4.5 hrs behind IST during Feb, for them it was just the beginning of a great evening, but for poor me who was already 2.5 hours behind in sleep time (Singapore vs IST), it was too much to bear. Frantic calls to the reception fetched nothing but the standard response of “We are looking into it Sir or We are sending somebody there right now”. The din however didn’t ebb and I guess whoever went up to stop it, perhaps ended up joining the gang.

Bleary eyed, the next morning I went down and lodged a strong complaint with the management and they had the balls to say that they were not aware of such an incident. So much for customer care and service. As India embraces consumerism, customer service still leaves a lot to be desired. But I am hopeful that we will improve.

I was planning to meet Maddy urf PK Madhavan later that day. A phone call later we decided to meet in front of my vendor’s office on Sterling road at 5:00pm.

Holding back my excitement was going to be difficult. Whoa! I was going to meet another iLander.

PS - I noticed that PK M has tagged me. I will be responding to the tag once I have finished my Chennai piece.


To be continued...

Hello iLanders...I am in Chennai on a Biz visit 26-28 Feb...staying at Park Sheraton...

Pls let me know if anyone of you would have the spare time and patience to meet up with this friendly Bear.

TED