Thursday, July 23, 2009

Life wasn’t going to be great after that too, although I was really hoping badly that it would, since I kicked out my roommate, I decided to take up a new place and in hope of that took a ridiculous place near my college and shifted my stuff for the second time since I moved to Delhi. But the day I was supposed to move in that place I found out that somehow my room got mysteriously filled up with water and my entire luggage was drenched in it. So, that meant I had to shift again, let me remind you for the third time, I went to another place in Perladpur and moved in with my friend Gaurav. This place wasn’t my dream place either and although at first sight it might seem to you that you might be able to camp in for sometime but believe me the nightmare only begins after you have moved in. But since my luck with the places that I have chosen earlier didn’t turn out exactly or rather remotely close to what I had hoped, I had given up all wish to decide and I just wanted to move in wherever possible. This might also be because so many things have been happening to me since I moved in to Delhi, maybe I had lost faith in my decision making abilities for the time being. So, I moved in Perladpur with Gaurav and within a few days I had grown bored of that place to, which was mainly because of the lack of accessibility in that place, I mean nothing seemed to be available there and more it didn’t even feel that I was living in Delhi, it was more like I have come out of my hometown and shifted to a village. College on the other hand wasn’t going that great either and I began to loose all my interest in attending classes, I ran into problems with the administration every now and then because of the kind of attitude they had towards us and seemed to me that they felt as if this was a social work they were doing instead of a job. The faculties that were provided to us were even worse, most of them didn’t have a clue what they were teaching, then there was Alok sir who again was busy intimidating the students and consequently increasing the number of students bunking his lectures and making me wonder if that’s the only reason why he bagged the job in the first place. Then once when I was in Didi’s place she suggested that I should get out of all that and take a place of my own and like a lightening it hit that maybe that was what I needed to do, I need to get myself a place to “LIVE” and think of everything later. So, with courage in my heart and money in my pocket I went out next day to look for a “home” and not a “house”, dodging questions about my religion my marital status and my place of birth I finally managed to get a place. Classes continued in the college I rarely found interest in attending them and very soon news broke in that we are supposed to go for our summer training( yeah right !! summer training in Delhi imagine that). Companies began to come to college everyday and there were loads of interviews being carried and the students behaving as if this was their last and only claim to fame. I on the other hand being the kind of guy that I am didn’t bother to get into the rat race and more so because the kind of companies that were coming in the college were mostly insurance BULLSHIT!! And so I took my time and found out an opening in Nokia for a summer internship and got into that along with a few of my other friends who followed my league. The summer training for Nokia was an interesting experience, it was a 45 day ordeal, all we had to do is to get to out outlets everyday at 4pm and stay there till 9 pm and help out the customers with the phone they chose to buy(which was really nothing). But me and darn old luck’s affair continued and I was given an out in Mahipalpur, which took me more than 2hours to get there and eventually the same time to come back, which meant that for a 5 hour job I had to travel for almost 5 hours in Blue line buses—add to that the NTP( by NTP I mean the 46 degree Delhi heat). I remember the very first day of my summer internship, it was one hell of an experience. I walked into my outlet and asked for the concerned person( Anil bhaiya….i call him bhaiya now!!) and there was this haryanvi guy who didn’t seem too amused at my query and said that he Anil and asked me “ who the hell are you?” in a pure haryanvi accent and a voice only to be heard to be believed. I suddenly felt a twist in my stomach, there were others who were in the shop too and they all looked at me as if I have entered some restricted territory or might have broken some kind of a covenant or something, as it turns out the highly efficient guys at Nokia didn’t even bother to inform them that I was coming( as if they wanted it to be a birthday gift or something for Anil bhaiya). After the initial awkwardness I got a seat and some confidence, then I was introduced to Sunil bhaiya who was Anil’s brother( as if I would have never guessed even with their rhyming names). They asked me a series of questions which momentarily reminded me of my first day at school( the little that I remember), initially I thought that these two would give me the hardest time of my life but I was wrong completely wrong, as it turned out they were both super cool and very gullible people, and I began to thank “whoever is up there” for being able to have met them. The summer internship after that was a piece of cake, I enjoyed every moment of it.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Due to my extremely brave and heroic act I had to spend the month of March at DiDi’s place. Although I did try to go to college (amidst reports that my friend was leaving college and going back to Silchar for good!!) but after a few days the swelling increased which made it necessary and extremely important for me to bunk classes. Speculation did arise among some of my classmates about my broken arm, while others were busy writing their names on my plastered hand, but I put them to rest saying that it happened while I was trying to save a HIGHLAND LASS from a bunch of fiends. To tell the truth the first few days were not that bad infact they were great, I was getting attention( well deserved !!!) again and my slightest of request was carried out with the utmost precedence. But after a few days when the initial surge of anger had settled in I started to look at things from a different perspective. Suddenly smashing my hand in the wall for a looser made no sense at all and although I didn’t exactly cry over the fact that I had broken my arm, still I was sure I won’t do something like that ever again in my life even if I have to kill the other bustard. Since I had broken my right arm I found it very difficult to do two very important things in my life 1) Eating and 2) Cleaning my ass after poopy time( there I said it happy now!!!). My friends living back home or in other parts of the country had come to know about the incident and though they seemed unanimous about one fact that only I could have done something like this, they were also happy that I didn’t end up in jail. That was probably the first time I thought that my life though ordinary still encounters some extraordinary events in it and I should start keeping an account of them all, although writing a blog about it was not in my mind and only came to me at a later part of the year when suggested by my friend Sourav(ghosh). After three weeks I was almost down to begging for this to get over, the days had become weeks, the house a torture cell and the plaster in my hand a curse from an old witch whose daughter I might have fucked. Then came the dreaded day when I was supposed to get rid of the bloody plaster and once again would have my arm back all to myself but would you believe it, me and my darned luck, the doctor took an x-ray and told me that I was yet to recover and that the calcium deposit on my bone was not enough so he can’t open my plaster. I was asked to wait for another two weeks but after four days I became too restless so me and my jij(my brother-in-law) decided to open the damn thing ourselves, we took scissors and blades and used warm water and after a lot of scientific research and reasoning we finally managed to get my arm out of it. I noticed my arm had reduced to half its size, there was very little sensation in it, I felt even more uncomfortable without the plaster and felt as if I had lost a limb!!!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

The month of February had a very singular incident that needs to be mentioned cause it helped me to know two very important things (1) That I am fully capable of hurting myself (2) That there are people who can make me hurt myself. Have you ever encountered people who really PISSED you off? I am sure you did a lot and so did I, in my lifetime I have met many people who have managed to piss me off BIG TIME but the person that I am going to talk about now is perhaps the king of all the incompetent clever BASTURDS that ever existed on earth and by the sheer virtue of this quality he can make you go insane. Although he was never my friend but yet after my graduation he came to me and pursued me to take him along with me to wherever I would do my MBA. He followed me to Delhi and took admission in my college and I knew from that very moment that my bad luck has started. From day 1 that we started to live together he began to piss me off and it only increased exponentially. While I would go to college he would stay at home everyday coming up with newer and better names of diseases to bunk classes but that is only the beginning of it, at first I didn’t complain cause I thought that this was the first time he had come to Delhi and may be he needs a little time to settle in but things just kept getting worse and his incompetence in every matter grew in a geometric progression. Very soon I found myself doing his homework, cooking, buying grocery and listening to his worthless point of views- basically I was baby sitting him. After about two weeks I saw that the situation was not improving and he was becoming more and more homesick and that is when I decided to explain to him in my ESPECIAL way( which is not a very nice way and believe me you don’t want that explanation). Although people have always agreed to my explanations in the past yet this obnoxious fool seem to have a different set of genes altogether. He would not go to college, not go out or bother to do any work at home and his incompetence just kept on increasing along with my BP. Then came the dreaded day that it all happened and I completely lost my temper. Although he had not been doing any work or studies or anything worthwhile I was still adjusting with his incompetence, mountain of artificial sickness and his poor company but what happened that day made me do something that I never thought I was capable of doing. We had come from my Didi’s place and she gave us our dinner, which had been the usual custom for a few days since she knew that I was doing all the work so she helped me a bit every now and then, I realized that we needed some grocery so I ordered the stuff and within minutes I found that the delivery guy was here with the things. I told my roommate to please go down stairs(we were living on the 2nd floor) and get the things but he gave me the i-would-not-do-any-work look and then followed it up with a how-dare-you-ask-me-to-work look. So, I had to go downstairs myself to get the stuff and that is when I found myself saying what the F***( F means fuck but this is a family blog so I have to be conscious) and suddenly like a nightmare it came to me that what was I doing, how can I let this mother f******(family blog mind you) son of a b**** do this. I realized that it was enough and I had done enough, I have taken crap and more crap in my life but this amount of crap was just too much for me. I went upstairs and began feeling a cold rage inside me and I never felt such way before, I knew I had to do something. I entered our room and said ”you mother F****** son of a B****, you bloody swine you won’t live with me you F****** A**HOLE you get out of my house” saying this I punched my hand thrice in the wall only so that I could control my anger and went out on the terrace leaving him in utter shock and dismay. Now why did I hit the wall and not him because in that cold rage too I knew that if I had hit him instead of the wall he would definitely end up in a hospital with cardiac-arrest, broken jaw and a ruptured eye and I would end up in Noida police station. I was still angry when I touched my hand to see if I had caused any injury to myself and discovered that I had broken one of my metacarpal bones. I did not worry about it at that time and quietly put on my sweater and went out to the nearest hospital. He(my roommate) tried to follow me but I warned him and said I would beat him to death if he followed me, on the way to the hospital I called Didi and told her that I have broken my arm, she was in gurgaon attending her friends birthday party and needless to say on hearing the news she gave out a cry that would put to shame even Nirupa Roy and other Ekta kapoor drama queens. I went to Prayag hospital and the receptionist was even more shocked to see me so calm and composed even with my broken arm. By the time Didi came to the hospital from gurgaon the doctor had already plastered my hand giving me about 400 pills to eat in the next seven days along with the dhai-kilo-ka-hath of Sunny Deol. I later came to know that my roommate had called Didi and was crying and too scared of me after witnessing me in such a volatile state. I gave no importance to that story cause I was still pissed off at him and no amount of tears from his eyes could change that. I came back to Didi’s place that night, she called everyone back home and lied for me saying that I had fallen off the stairs( god bless sisters) and broke my arm. I went to bed that night and was fast asleep because of the several shots of painkillers and sleeping medicine that were given to me. By the way for those interested to know my roommate’s name is Rajdeep Purkayastha…….and I was glad to get rid of him!!!!!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

The classes started after our so called Orientation program and the first few days were very exciting and I felt very enthusiastic as if someone had pumped into me a gallon of adrenaline in one shot. All of a sudden the ball-freezing Delhi winter had no effect on me and I felt like Superman without my underwear over my pants. I began to imagine the kind of landmarks I would create, my unimaginable success, my impregnable speeches and all that I would do in the coming years that will come as a rush of fresh blood to the country and make me the NEXT BIG THING!!! But it was not very long before my idea of making it big and ruling the roost were punctured by my increasing disinterest in the course. The plans that I had and the hopes that I had developed for myself all of a sudden seemed so distant. I started hating the course and I did not like what I was taught because frankly speaking most of it was plain old BULLSHIT!!! Some people have this instinct they can identify bullshit when then see some and I have that special gift. The whole thing about being an MBA and working in the corporate sector was made such a hoax with faculties coming everyday and trying to scare the shit out of us. The students of our class were 80% introverts and the faculties did a pretty good job of intimidating them further, so much so that they began having second thoughts only after a week. Although I have to say that apart from all the crap that I was fed everyday I was happy to be here. I had come to Delhi several times in the past but have never been here during the winter and everything looked very beautiful to me. The atmosphere was amazing the days were cold and the nights were chilly and although I did not have any source of entertainment with me in my room I used stay up late and read a lot. We were given n-number of assignments during the first few weeks and having bunked classes all my life in G.C.College and never attending lectures, forget about assignments, I found it to be a bit hectic initially but then got used to it or I guess I thought it was pointless to complain. I have a real problem with names of people and I tend to forget them no matter how beautiful or unusual ( I would have said ugly but it would sound inhumane) their names are!! So everyday I made newer acquaintances with my classmates and kept forgetting their names with lightening speed …….but I was hopeful that in the course of the next 2yrs I would at least be able to remember 22 names of the 122 students in our batch. And while I was struggling to remember the names of my classmates our course on the other hand was advancing on full throttle!!!!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

I went to college on 26th Jan for the first time for our Orientation Program (HELL!! I still don’t understand what that means) where we were introduced to the various faculty members at the start and then began the endless and painful process of introducing ourselves to whoever came in. The students started introducing themselves to whoever entered the class irrespective of class, creed, gender, position or utility. And this process continued for months to come and I began to feel like I have been admitted to Kindergarten all over again and I have to tell my name, my father’s name and most importantly why I thought of ever being born on this earth. The first day was clueless nobody knew what was going or what we were supposed to do but just carried along. We were given complementary lunch that day which tasted like horse food ( N.B :- I have never tasted horse food but it must be that way). Among all the faculty members that we have had one person needs a mention and he is none other than Alok Anand, he used to teach us PPM, and why he needs a mention is because of the sheer way he dealt with the students. I have in my short time on earth seen very few people who can truly intimidate others and Alok Anand sure could and he left no stone unturned in doing that, he would make you feel insignificant like anything and make you question your existence his motto simply was (1) If you are wrong then you are definitely wrong but (2) if you are right then you must be wrong (I hope get the idea). Our orientation program continued for three more days and we were given lectures by various visiting faculties from different strata’s of life sharing with us their experiences, ideas, thoughts and to give us a glimpse of the kind of work they have done. During these three days there were several other activities most of which I could not get the hang off because of the limited ability of my brain, there were activities like the coffee drinking competition, graffiti making and a few other I dare not remember, and by the end of the third day I guess everybody was quite happy that it was finally over. The fourth day was scheduled for what they called “ Delhi Darshan” and I could make it as I decided that sleeping more on that day would be a better idea then going for Delhi “darshan” and anyways I couldnot understand what that has anything to do with our course( not that anything else that happened in the past three days did ). Later I came to learn from some of my new classmates that my decision to sleep wasn’t such a bad idea afterall !!!!!!!

Sunday, July 27, 2008

On the way back home me and Jij spoke extensively for about four minutes and for the rest of the way I just kept staring at the busy night life of Delhi while at the back of my head I began to compare it with the stand-still life of rural India that I had witnessed in the past 36 hours of the journey. Delhi is a very charming city and although I haven’t seen any other capital of any other country I still felt that this city is very special in many of its ways and I have always had a special affinity towards it. I reached Didi’s place and found my sister more happy and jubilant than she ever could be to see me and thought of the very unlikely kind of a farewell I had back home but anyways everyone seemed happy on both shores and I was just happy to get some home made food. I found that my didi had kept a couple of girls as PG in her flat, both of them students of Amity studying microbiology or was it biotechnology who cares, which meant I wouldn’t get my usual room but I was just too tired to feel bad about it …..I could have slept on the dining table. The next morning I woke up late, real late, so much so that I joined everyone for lunch. My Didi lived in Noida and since her marriage I have been here more than half a dozen times but still I find Noida a very lifeless place that is very different from Delhi and it may be because here everything seems so planned and perfect whereas Delhi with its imperfections is just perfect. I still had few more days before my college started and I thought of making the best utilization of it by …..well watching TV, sleeping and eating a lot. I also made a call, somewhere in between all that hard work, to my college to make sure that the day of commencement of the classes were still the same as said and that’s because when you have been living in India for almost quarter of a century you get used to these unscheduled delays!!!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

….contd
I went to bed and though I was tired like hell I just could not manage to sleep. I was not thinking much or probably didn’t think at all, only abstract thoughts. I saw as the night turned from pitch black slowly to a bluish morning sky and then when the first glowing rays of sunlight pierced into my room I knew it was time for me to get up. I got ready and didn’t even bother to think about breakfast I had a train to catch. I went to the station and having traveled in these routes for many a times now I didn’t need to ask anyone. I found my compartment, kept my luggage, and since there was still time for the train to leave I got down to grab a quick cup of coffee. I had a reservation for sleeper class but just to be extra sure I thought I would check out the list outside my bogie and found my name missing. I didn’t panic cause I knew exactly what had happened as this was not the first time. The Indian Railway started this new system of upgrading passengers from sleeper class to AC section if the seats were left empty. This happened to me the last time while I was going from Delhi to Guwahati and it happened again what can I say luck was on my side and I was not complaining. I took my berth and thought of what kind co-passengers I would have to deal with and didn’t have to guess much as I soon found out. An aunty with her daughter and her brother hopped in and started having the robust of all discussions I have heard in my life. The girl was very exited as she was about to get married and her mother just couldn’t seem to get over the thought that her only daughter could manage such an accomplished groom(I began wonder what was wrong with the girl) who is a navy officer and earns Rs.21,000. And how did I know all of that well they spoke or rather shouted so much that it was tough to ignore and I have every possible reason to believe that even the driver knew about her marriage. To my relief though they got down at NGP station and I could not help but thank God. The new dwellers of my compartment were a Bhutanese family, whose daughter had met with an accident breaking one arm, fracturing both her legs and her spinal cord and was undoubtedly in a great amount of pain. I had my dinner and spoke with the father of that girl asking him how it all happened and came to know that while riding her new bicycle she came across the edge of a cliff and forgot to pull the brakes. I went to my berth and got into a slumber only to be woken up by a half hearted shout and found my next compartment swarming with police officers. Some passenger’s bag has gone missing and the GREAT INDIAN POLICE instead of helping the poor guy and trying to find out the baggage was pinning the whole matter onto him for not being too careful and by doing so they wasted enough time and lost all possibility of a search. I tried to speak to the guy who seemed devastated as if he had lost his wife but I found out that the bag didn’t have any valuable thing in that except his mobile and the numbers along with it. I didn’t sleep after that and as day broke I managed to get a news paper and found that the Left was still opposing the nuclear deal. All day long I kept on watching the hundreds of kilometers of farm land and once spoke with an air force officer who seemed very upbeat about the fact that the government was about to come up with the sixth pay commission. As they sun began to set and the fields looked more golden than ever I saw the farmers slowly returning and could not help but think what exactly were they thinking at that point of time. It was January and after dusk the air became more and more chilly, I switched on my cell, we were entering New Delhi Railway Station. My brother-in-law(I call him Jij) had come to pick me up. I helped the Bhutanese family to get their daughter off the train and was on my way to Didi’s place.