That pinch of salt in curry !!

It was supposed to be my last meeting with her. It wasn’t that i was going to border or something but that was the general feeling my mind had perceived. Neither was i willing to think of this situation in any other way because even though it was just a perception of my mind deep down in my heart i knew that it was very close to reality. I meet her at Kanjurmarg station and although its a slow train station the place is always busting with people. Probably the station wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for IIT Bombay. 

And it is the closest connecting station to Powai. I saw Powai 5 years back when i came to Mumbai for the first time on my own, and had dreamt of living in hiranandani complex since then.  She was a colleague of mine at my first job. I don’t quiet remember how we manage to stay in touch with each other once both of us left that job. But somehow we did held on to that string, which at time was as thin as thread.

Being from a Punjabi family the only apt way for me to give her a farewell was by hosting a dinner for her, and it was for this purpose that we were heading in an auto back to my rented 14^th floor apartment overlooking my office which was just a walking distance away.

“So this is why you get time to cook?” she asked.

“Oh come on!! Cut that weird American accent one me... i know how crappy your English is.”

“Achaa!!... then you need to find a better excuse for avoiding this question”. She replied

“I am not avoiding anything, and what would you do now even if I did tell you?” I said.

I noticed a small hint of disappointment and her smile shrinking.

“but yes... this... this whole set-up.. this everything you see around me allowed me. And it is not a big deal.” I replied

 

“to live i need to eat... and to eat i have to make...whatever i can” i added

“you really need to work on your emotions young man” she replied and laughed.

“and you can laugh all you want when you will miss this home food out there” i said

I never realised her importance in my life all the time when she was around. Some might say that i did acknowledge this fact but couldn’t convey it. Some might even say that i didn’t convey it because of day such like this. But if you ask me i did convey it sometimes. Although it was tough initially but with practise and few more attempts it did came out the way i wanted it to come out.

But somehow between my chase and her running things just faded out. There was no specific reason, there were just these two things. One pulling me and other pushing me, both in different directions. and then one day she asked me “What am i in your life?”. And i had no answer. In that push and pull i guess i was lost.

“my god you do know how to cut onions.” She said leaning against the kitchen door as if teasing me.

“i hate backseat chefs....but i might make an exception for you, coz i don’t get many guests here.”

“really??... i might not like you making an exception for me.” She replied

 I understood the sarcastic tone in that sentence.

“I wouldn’t  say that if i were in your place, Especially now that you would be flying to America in a few weeks time with that crappy accent of your” I said so to dilute the situation with a wipe of fun.

“FYI it’s not America it Canada... waterloo, Ontario Canada my friend, and i bet your cooking wouldn’t be any better than my accent.”

“Then why dont you help me with the salt in fish curry for starting?” I asked her with an open jar of salt in one hand and spoon on the other. And instantly she knew that I had lost the argument then and there. She added a pinch of it in the curry and somehow it tasted.

“Perfect!!!... Now get out of that stupid apron and lets eat... I am hungry” she ordered.

                                  -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--.-.-.-.-.-

“Mr Lewis, you do cook better that my expectations” she said after taking a few bits of fish curry on dining table.

“Yeah?? don’t like it too much, I know you are going to miss it in ONTARIO CANADA....hahaha” i laughed.

“Itna bhi miss nahi karugi....” i again sensed a hint of sarcasm in her voice. I just couldn’t understand why.

She helped me wash the dishes with a promise that in turn i would help her get a Taxi. But this sarcasm of her kept poking my mind.

“You know once you had asked me ‘what were you in my life?’ Sometime back..” I asked her while we waited for a taxi.

“Yes and I also remember there was nothing that you said back then” she replied.

“Because I didn’t knew it back then”. I answered.

“So do you know it now?” she again asked with an attitude in her stance and sarcasm in her voice.

“Yes” I replied.

“And what is that?” she asked with a blade of sarcasm which i felt she had perfected since last time.

I answered “that pinch of salt in curry”.

Remembering that you are to be Forgotten....

A walk towards shadow.

Ek arsa ho gaya tujhe mohalla chode,

Aur hum kha-ma-kha zamane se rushwahiyat nibhate reh gaye.

(readers discretion advised)

I don’t know whether it’s the right title to what I am willing to write here, but it is just something that I had to do. Not because I hadn't posted anything here for a while, nor because it feels like ages that I hadn’t written anything deep down from my heart but because something had happened that triggered this idea. In the frenzy of my book and my super cramped up life i had almost forgotten the reason why I initially started falling in love with writing.

It is said when you are able to explain everything in words it’s time for you should have a very high level of discretion in you writing. Here another attempt by me to write something without any discretion in thoughts but in words.

“Its has been a long time, it’s not like that everything has remained the same, but even if I did say so it would be a lie. In a way a lot has changed and in a way I am still trying to change a lot. Not only around me but within me as well. If I say I had forgotten you it would be a lie flat on my face but yes I have become habitual of not remembering you. There is no way in which I could ever wipe you out but keeping you in my mind has now become more of an estranged memory. I have tested your memories against the flow of time, and to be honest they haven’t decided to let go of me. There is no possible reason for me to look back to see myself in you. I also don’t want to stare back at what you where in me. Because there would be a bunch of lies and some of them are the ones that even I don’t want to accept.

I know there would be a hell lot of people not happy about me writing this and posting it but they are people and their views are up to their discretion. I don’t want to be arrogant with this also but there are few things that you should not do. And then there are some that you just can’t stop yourself from doing it. This is one of those things.

Its is not that I miss you but even though I trying so hard to forget you either there is something in me that isn’t allowing me to forget you or there was something that you have left behind in me that is not permitting to forget you. But i am very sure that it’s not love, but something way beyond that. You already knew what i mean with that. But this time it’s neither about love or nor about memories.

I remember how I realise that i love you. If I say that it wasn’t planned would be a lie as well. Because trying to manage a movie on a working Tuesday is next to impossible. But that the beauty of surprises. It is something in which I became an expert with you being around.

In an empty multiplex theatre watching ‘Rockstar’ I saw you sobbing in tears after watching Jordan meeting a sick ‘heer’ in a Prague. You see that vulnerable and fragile look in her eyes indicating her surrender and you although equally vulnerable within tries to put up a stronger self up front. She hopes that it’s in your hug is where she is safe, where as you want your hug to be strong as well as comfortable enough so that she could sleeps in them without a second thought.

And once you gave your soft delicate hands in mine I was sure to hold them as long as i could.

But why now? Why are these things coming back? Coming back into my mind. We promised each other to walk back without turning back. So why is it that i felt like tracing your footprints on the shadows of sands dunes? Why is it that even without the faintest of idea about how I am going to end it I am still kept writing it? People say you don’t look back because it’s not the way you are going.

Because something had happened, to a friend of mine, in her family. The biggest loss is the loss of life. Especially when you know that person so well that really takes more than once effort to convince you of it. I don’t know how to exactly frame it to you but it’s not about it.

It’s about one of those feeling that you get when you see a person in distress and think of the people that you care then. It not about love, or compassion, or old time sake wishes. But it’s about caring. I know  very little of you, I know that you are strong, i know that you want to be tough, I also know that you want to be ignorant about it as well as if you don’t care anymore.

I also wish that I could give you back what you expect from me with this behaviour of yours, but my conscious just doesn’t permits it. A friend of mine lost her relative but to my surprise you were the first person to come in my mind out of worry and care.

Strange na.....

I know a lot of my friends wouldn’t like me this posting here, some might kick me, swear me and some wouldn’t give a damn about it. Its isn’t that i am walking back, its just that i want to know that from the point when we decided to walk without turning back you just lost me and no one else since. I had made a promise to stand with you in your bad times if not in good once. Because i know very few people stand with you in your tough times. I had made a promise to be one for you. Not to do anything or to say anything or to understanding anything..... but just being there.

Just making one soul into two and just being there.... thats it.

Sometimes just being there is all that matters. I don’t wish to be amongst those many people who have that one soul whom they hate. A soul that was once a part of them.

There is no super high expectation that has driven me to write this but i guess its that something that is left in me by you that is fuelling me to say this question.

How are you? I just hope and wish and pray that your family is alright. Especially your mom and dad.”

I had promised not to give-up, and I am still living by that promise in every walk of life. It is this promise that is making me to ask you to get in touch with her with only the above said question. Without a single word less if not more.

 I hope all my friends would forgive me just this once because this walk back to present is not for a stupid reason.

Buzdil nahi hai hum, jo piche mudh ke dekhe...

Hausla chahiye saaye ki zimmedari banne ka...

A Holi..... I Wish

“Train kitne baje hai?”

Her sweet cattish loud voice echoed in this relatively quiet cafe outlet. The cafe was fairly filled with customers some were even foreigners. I was never a fan of such places, probably more because it made me feel suffocating and it forces you to control your voice decibels. This was a habit I was never able to adapt to as most of my hangouts were chai tappirs and roadside stalls back in Nagpur. And i being a Nagpurian just could handle this controlled and Hippocratic environment.

Especially if you are sitting and talking in a place like Starbucks it was like breathing without oxygen. As simple as chocking out and dying was what i felt in such places a reason why i didn’t like to visit such places. But she was habitual to such conditions maybe because she had more experience about such places than me. She once told me that she lived in Mumbai as long as she remembered, and was the only reason why i did eventually come to such places and waste my time and money. But i really found it worth sometimes.

“What?” I said as she threw crushed tissue paper at me to interrupt my memory.

 “Aree... Train kab hai tumhari?” she again shouted.

“It’s at 9:50 pm tonight from Panvel”. I hurriedly replied trying to get back to my memories while playing with my mocha coffee trying to look busy.

I was pushed back to past with her question. I recall the last time when a girl had asked this question to me. It was a long time back and I never thought something as silly as this could trigger anything.

Woh koi aur thi...and she almost had a mental break-down after this. All the more because that time too my answer was very similar to this. She busted into tears and was uncontrollably sobbing in the middle of a coffee house. I can’t tell you how embarrassing it was. It made me look like a villain at an Indian coffee House outlet in Sadar Nagpur. It is one of the oldest coffee houses in Nagpur. A place were senior citizens and intellectually sound people would gather, talk and discuss on all the unimportant issue to that didn’t affect them in anyway. And in the middle of their discussion they heard a girls crying and a funny guy sitting in front of her did manage to turn a few head towards us. I was been looked to as crime master Gogo type convict by them.

It was one of those weird situations when a certain company call you to join in 3 days and you are so messed up getting the documentation done that you forget everything else. More so if you are waiting for an opportunity, as a matter of fact any opportunity to get a job.

This was such moment and in excitement and frenzy during which I forgot to tell her.

“You are leaving tonight and you are telling me now??” she said.

I could barely understand what she was trying to say.

“See either you talk or you cry, you sound like an ape when you do it together” I said and her cries grew a bit louder. I tried to control my laughter and barely managed to do so.

“Now you sound like a older ape” I said but by the end of it just couldn’t control my laughter anymore. Both our voices were just loud enough to again turn a few head towards us.

“You always make fun of me” she said wiping her nose.

“Yaa especially when you cry... hai na?” i said

“Hmm” she replied.

“Do you mean I bully you always?” I asked.

“You never tell me anything and you always bully me and make me cry” she said and again started another round of crying.

“Aree meri maa....cry slowly...pitwayegi kya aaj mujhe” and again laughed.

This was the last time I had seen her. After that I never got a chance to get back to Nagpur. I don’t remember much of that conversation. Someone rightly said ‘if you knew a meeting would be your last you would surely remember it for a long time’

.........................

Suddenly this forgotten bit of conversation that reminded me how funny i was at times brought an unexpected laughter on my face. Now I was again fired up with this question. The face was different even attitude and nature was different.

But now the unwanted attention we were receiving was not because of our voice but because of our because of our appearance, we were all clobbered up in colour and the spirit of holi was shouting out of us out loud.

“Does that coffee looks funny to you?” the present lady asked me. It was really amazing how these Mumbai girls behave. Sometimes they behave like most graceful and well cultured lady even while standing at a ticket queue and sometimes they make a lavish Starbucks cafe ambience look like their living room.

She asked this question with her eyes popping out of her bluish, greenish and pinkish face.

“Not as funny as we are looking right now”. I replied and we both giggled out.

After a few steers to my coffee i said “after a very very long time someone has asked me this question, kisi ladki ne ... ki train kitne baje ki hai?”

“Why? I shouldn’t have asked this question or what?” she asked

“The more important question now is should we be here right now ....like this” I said with a naughty accent.

Following to which she leaned forward on the small coffee table on which we sat facing each other and said

“Husne ke gamm ko rang me na chuppa, Nigahon ke rang hal-eh-dil bayan kar denge...

Gunah jhoot ka humse kar loge but khuda-eh-mirror ko kya explaination doge???”

She banged the table as she completed it like a professional.

“What the hell was that? You totally ruined it? Shit yarr that pathetic....is that the best you can do?” I replied.

“Ok Mr. Expert beat it if you can” she leaned back on the chair as if she tossed a challenge to me. Suddenly something my mind recalled. Something that I had said last time in a similar situation, something that I had somehow forgotten, something that when I uttered filled the listener to whom it was intended with faith and happiness and stopped her from crying making her believe that all thing do eventually come back in your life. I know what the lady sitting in front of me now was trying to do but it just didn’t clicked.

I took me sometime to remember the exact words but I did eventually recall it.

 I copied her build up and leaned forward on the table and while maintaining a straight eye contact said. Something I had said long time back to a crying girl.

“Meri nigahon se khud ko dekh fakir,

Feheristh-eh-dua me tu he sarparast hai.”

 I ended up facing a stunned girl.... Again.

It’s rightly said sometime all it takes is a sentence and sometimes even a life time is less to convince your love.

Hope this Holi fulfills all your dreams and wishes. And do wish me Happy Birthday on 12th.
feedback and suggestion are welcomed.

MANN KI BAAT.

(with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and USA President Mr. Barak Obama)

Although I am supposed to be studying right now for my last 3rd sem MBA exam tomorrow, I still felt that I should do what I am doing right now. Its after a very long time that I was fascinated by the how easy it is for any individual to get connected with radio and how one can easily open up his self chained thoughts over it. Hereby attached are few of the interesting transcripts from the recent radio broadcast by president Barack Obama and PM Narender Modi.

(*) the first and the most significant highlight was how they called each other. The direct reference of once first name surely tell a lot about similarity and congruency amongst  them. 

(*)the opening by Mr Modi which defined the meaning of Barack in Swahili as ”the one who is blessed” and his reference to the traditional African Ubuntu tradition and its similarity with traditional Indian culture was how he welcomed Pres. Obama on his first ever radio broadcast on Indian Air

(*)President Obama was very inspired by women empowerment and education initiative by PM Modi and how his daughters were very much fascinated by non-violent independence movement by Gandhiji, something that transpired into the civil rights campaign by Martin Luther King. He also mentioned that although his daughters wanted to come along but due to their exams they couldn’t accompany him.

(*)how Mr. Obama was concerned about the economic and global health of the world due to obesity and diabetes in children and how first lady Michelle Obama was working towards it.

(*)PM  Modi recalled an incident when he had last time visited the White House. That time Pres. Obama gave him a 1894 published book of Swami Vivekananda which was a compilation of his speech at World religion council. Not only that but also turned on to specific pages to highlight significant quotes showing that even he had read the book which PM Modi felt very dear to him.

(*)on a question weather you imagined of being where you are right now in childhood? Mr. Barack replied that he had never imagined about it. More so because he had a humble background and was brought up by single mother. But he emphasized that there are millions of children with potential but not all are lucky to get an opportunity . he said young people should succeed and opportunity should be availed to them indiscriminately. On the same question PM Modi replied that even he had never imagined doing so. He quoted  “Kuch bhi banne ka sapna maat dekho,…. kuch karne ka sapna dekho”.

(*)on the question on what should be the approach of leaders to tackle todays youth. Pres. Obama  replied that in the age of technology the governments and leader cannot just have a top down approach of ordering. Reaching out to people and engaging them is more important and he also emphasized on importance of democracy stating that even though it might be tough at times but though information and debate that productive results come out. And it can only be achieved with an OPEN INFORMATION SOCIETY. On the same question PM Modiji Quoted a famous communist Ideology “Workers unite the world”. For the same he re-quoted “Youth…come unite the world”.

(*)someone asked PM Modi  which American leader inspired him the most for which he initially replied saying in his childhood he was inspired by Kennedy after looking at his pictures, but real inspiration was obtained from the life of Benjamin Franklin. Although he never became a president of USA but his multi-dimensional personality really touched him.

(*) the last question of the show was one of the most personal and most touching. Someone asked “what makes you smile after a bad day at work?” to which firstly Pres. Obama replied that usually the problems that come to him are the once that no one can solve but even in this foreign diplomacy and domestic issue often daily he comes across some individual who tell him that he had made a difference in their life. He also quoted a story about how a mother came to him and thanked him because his health care bill helped in diagnosing an early cancer to his son which ultimately saved his life. Often people thank him for thing that he doesn’t even remember doing. To summarized he quoted “Getting things done brings me more satisfaction” and that “service can be done by anyone”.

To the same question PM Modi replied by recalling his days as a Sangh Pracharak during which he travelled extensively. He remembered a incident when a poor man always kept asking him to come to his place for dinner, but since the man was very poor he felt that he might be a burden on him. But the man insisted so much that he had to ultimately bow down to him and accept his humble invitation. Upon reaching his small hut the Man served him with BAJRE KI ROTI and some milk. The poor man had a small kid who kept starring at the bowl of milk as if he had never tasted milk since tasting her mothers milk. He was so moved at the look of the child that he gave that bowl of milk to the child and the child drank the milk in matter of seconds. This indeed made his parents angry but It made him realize that they had went beyond their ability by serving him milk. I conclusion he said that if these people can go so much beyond there capabilities to serve him than even he should dedicate my life to them if they feel like this for him.

The last question was really one that motivated me to get his speech noted down. the answer given by both the leaders proves why they are so similar to each other. Why neither of them heisted in bending some protocols and breaking some rules. By putting the needs of others before comfort of your own (be it the arrival at Raj path in the BEAST by Obama or PM Modi going himself to welcome Obama to the airport).The fact that to be the leader of the masses one should be acquainted with every individual and to rise high one should know the depths.

Humbleness and attitude can neither be measured by the height of stature nor by the power vested upon you. All it takes are some simple questions and free willingness to answer them.

Broadcasted on VIVIDBHARTI & ALL INDIA RADIO

27-01-2015 20:00 hrs.
INDIA.