The sting

Yesterday while observing the people around me in the Metro train and looking for a story to put here, a sudden thought struck me. Considering the fact that I have been solving a lot of love-related problems over the week, I think I have become quite a pro. So yesterday I was merely thinking, what exactly is love. Pop comes the answer—it's a sting operation.

Just when your defences are on the lowest, it attacks you and that too at the most sensitive area—the heart. Just like in a sting operation, the journalist attacks a personality when his defences are at the lowest and at the most sensitive place—his fame, love does the same. The sting scars the personality's fame, love scars the heart. The heart bleeds and the fame bleeds.

One look at your face betrays the fact that you are in love; one look at the personality's face betrays that this is the bad guy. And you know that once you are in love, the news is sure going to leak—if not now, then at some other time, and you are gone. Same way, the news that you have done something wrong is going to leak any way. So an interesting comparison also crops up: LOVE=BAD GUY. And when you are a bad guy, the sting is deemed to follow.


And both—sting operation and love hurt. Both give you sleepless nights and both give you illusions of happiness. When the sting takes place, the celebrity feels happy as they have got a victim, you feel happy as you think you have found someone who may love you. But when reality dawns, life gets hell, and you go mad.

So beware, beware of the sting of love. And protect yourself.

Song that celebrates life

Ever heard of this song from Hum Dono. This is a Sahir Ludhianvi creation and can best describe the way life should be led.

Main Zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya... Har fikr ko dhuen me udata chala gaya...

A song that conveys the essence of life. One shouldn't let worries bog us down and continue to live life as if nothing happened.

Barbadiyon ka soudh manana fizool tha... barbadiyon ka jashn manata chala gaya...
Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya... har fikr ko dhuen me.....

This is how you should take failures. One shouldn't let failure distract you from the real goal. Like sucess, failure also teaches us something and thus, should be a cause for happiness as well.

Jo mil gaya usi ko muqaddar samajh liya... jo kho gaya main usko bhulata chala gaya...
Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya... har fikr ko dhen me....

This is how you should losses. There is nothing on this Earth which is worth crying for; nothing without which you cannot live. Even if you loose something, that pain shouldn't keep you off from trying to attain greater heights.

Gham aur khushi me fark na mehsoos ho jahan... main dil ko us muqaam par laata chala gaya...
Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya... har fikr ko dhen me....

This is how you should handle happiness and sadness. One should't feel too elated in happiness and too dejected during times of distress.

However, this doesn't mean that you start living a mechanical life. One can be still human enough without letting small things bother us. Just remember nothing can be greater than life itself.

In want of something

It’s just today I felt like writing something. Unable to find a real topic, I really don’t know what I am doing. It’s just this feeling of being able to write that gives me a high. But suddenly this feeling engulfs me—there are people who are unable to read and write, people who are still in the clutches of a disease called illiteracy, people who are still unable to get a high that I derive from being able to write. Even after we have entered the 21st century, even when we go on and on about India being on the brink of being a superpower, I see those kids clutching a bag full of rags, shivering in the harsh Delhi winter.

The government is trying, but what about us? Are we doing anything about this? We do feel outrage at the sight of these kids and people, but that feeling of outrage ebbs away when we step back into our own lives, we forget all about them as the humdrum of our lives gets too loud for us to hear the questions that their eyes ask of us. That feeling of kindness slowly and steadily gives way to indifference. We move away because by that time our ears have been rendered a little deaf by that loud noise of our life; but only a little as we can hear the noise not the whisper.

And then there are the complaints. The complaints about not having enough to lead a comfortable life; ask them what it means to be comfortable. For them it means being able to eat two decent meals, getting proper clothes to wear and a sound roof on there heads. Even that we haven’t been able to provide these people.

Okay, it seems the writing fever is wearing down. And me, it seems am slowly getting back to my old self; to that daily humdrum of life, too deaf to listen to their silent pleads for help and care. Back to my old guiltless self now.

P.S. It seems I finally found a topic to write on.

That Wretched feeling

Sometimes this feeling of worthlessness creeps in your heart, casting a chill on all the other feelings. It makes you feel dreadful; it makes you feel negative and unable to understand anything that is going on in your life. You are unable to concentrate and get over it. Something or the other consistently bogs you down. And you… you just want to run away. Run away from everything and everyone who does that you to you; run away to a place that offers you the warmth of friendship and laughter. You long for a friend to come to your rescue and take you away to a place where nobody makes you feel uncomfortable, nobody discourages you and makes you feel wretched. Is there a place that can take this refugee and provide all the comfort and warmth, just to make her little heart feel a little less dreary?

A few questions...

Where do you belong… I mean which state? What’s your caste? What religion do you belong to? These are the first questions that one is asked.

How does it matter where I belong? Is it really important to know which state I am from? How much does my religion play a role in my being a good or a bad person? Why does my caste matter so much? I have often seen my mother bobbing up and down whenever someone mentions that they are a Bhatnagar, she seems so happy just to meet them as if they belong to her family. I feel a pang of pain whenever she says that she won’t give her daughter to a Saxena family. Heaven forbid if I fall in love with a Muslim or a Scheduled Caste. She doesn’t look amused whenever my dad even jestingly says that he will marry me to a Scheduled caste as that would be a quite advantageous for my kids.

People say that India is the most discriminating society in this world. And I seem to agree. We may all rave about the tolerance levels of our country, about how secular we are, about how India is a country of unity in diversity, that how so many cultures are blended within that Indianness, that how we are one; the truth is that we may be one but that one betrays the many decimals that make that number, the cultures may have blended but there are people who seem to know just how to disintegrate that blend, there may be unity but sometimes the diversity defeats that unity, our secularism betrays signs of pseudo-secularism, and the tolerance levels are nothing to rave about. Gujarat witnesses small communal riots on a daily basis, which largely go unreported. Malegaon in Maharashtra is a communal tinderbox.

Why is it that today every Muslim is looked upon with a suspicious gaze? Why is it that many Christians do charity in the name of their religion? Why is it that Hindus are treated as second-rate citizens here? Why is it that vote-bank politics as well caste-based politics is still practiced in India? We get the leaders that we deserve and today our politics and politicians are playing politics of hatred, then we are to blame. We do vote on caste and religion lines.

Why? It is time, perhaps, that we ask ourselves these questions before it gets too late. Too late for us to be called a nation.

A Crazy Saturday Morning

Sitting at the back and listening to a crazy woman speaking, can be like hell. But yes, being a devil, I am able to take things pretty comfortably at this point of time. That is beacuse, I am not really listerning to whatever crap she's belting out.

The crazy woman is talking about attitude, speaking all wrong English. I am trying to control my urge to go ahead and correct her. Hearing someone using all sorts of cliches like a glass of water half empty or half full, can seriously get you. But the fact that I am able to write without her noticing it, has come something as a fresh breeze of air. As it is the weather outside is so very 'sexy' (as my good friend Priyanka describes), I am really restraining myself to ask her to stop blabbing away.

She's asking me to bear with her, but I think that I really can't grant her that privilege. She's a nobody for me, and I don't think I can love her as a teacher because this God damn course has made me give up my weekends. And I hate anyone and anything that makes me do that. I love my weekends and giving them up is a pain in the most uncompfortable part (I think you know what part am talking about).

As another of my uncle-cum-classmate walks in, I wonder what made me crazy enough to give up my weekends just to let this shit of a woman spoil it by chattering her heart away. On this crazy Saturday, I can do nothing except repent at my foolhardyness

The villain

Say villain and the first image that comes to the mind is:
Gabbar Singh saying, "Kitne aadmi they."
And then, Amrish Puri. "Mogambo khush hua."
Gulshan Grover. "Bad Man."
Shahrukh Khan. "K-K-K-K-Kiran" (Uff, the stutterer)

The last example is something that is very true to all love stories. Where is a love story, there is a villain. All the problems that occur in the love story are because of that villain. The vilalin will surface after the honeymoon period is over and leave behind a tale of destruction, agonies and loades of tears. (Sniff... Sniff... Pass that tissue please... The villain will leave behind a trail of trissues too.)

In Munnabhai MBBS, the villain was +(no, you guessed it wrong... it wasn't Boman Irani) Dr. Suman's love for her father.
In Page 3, it was the guy's ambition and his unscrupulous ways who were the villain.
In Darr, it was Shahrukh Khan.
In Padosan, it was Bhola's inability to sing.

Moving on to the world of books. In Romeo and Juliet, the lovers' families were the villains. In Harry Potter, it is Harry's destiny. In Othello, it was Iago who was the villain. Closer home, in Ramayana, it was Ravana who was the villain. (O a personal note though, I would rather have Ravana than three mothers-in-law.) In Devdas, it was the caste system that was the villain.

In my world, there have been several villains too. Although I have never been the protagonist of the love stories (more of the extra character), I have seen things going horribly wrong. The villains were: the physical distance between the two, the tendency to lie, libido, a troubled past, family.

Wonder who would be the villain if I am the protagonist of a love story. Hmmm hmmm hmmm. Eureka!!! I know it. It;s gonna be the devil and that's me, me, me.

A dangerous game may soon begin... (Abhishek Bachchan's dad. Oh! I love Abhishek Bachchan. Now if only I get him, I promise not to play villain.)

The dadi ma of traffic

Cars and motorbikes. Trucks and buses. They all whizz past this gajagamini at a speed hardly visible to the naked eye. The gajagamini moves steadily and almost smilingly to herself as if it were the dadi ma of the traffic. Old, yet stable- almost like an old wine and now-a-days in a new bottle. After the IITians decided that rickshaw-walla bhaiyas would be better-off using these specially designed light rickshaws, these new bottles have been fastly replacing the old bottles in the by-lanes of Delhi. You'll find yourself lucky to find the older versions of cycle-rickshaws in Delhi today. May be in Purani Dilli.

With great impatience, I approached Hari, the Bihari rickshaw-wala bhaiya who hailed from Sirsa. Hari, his red T-shirt matching the red seat if the gajagamini, insisted that I pay him Rs 7 as he had to pay Rs 30 instead of the usual Rs 20 as the rickshaw rent. Moreover, with August 15 appeoaching, policemen had increased their pestering activities.

My growing impatience with the Universe (I returned home only to find it electricity-less. Hell! The Universe is out to get me) and the mounting interest in him persuaded me to give up my cribbing sessions of having to pay Rs 2 extra and to mount myself on the chariot. My Krishna (coincidence to the Mahabharata Krishna purely co-incidental... But hey!!!! I didn't notice that Krishna and Hari are the names of the Makhan-chor) started talking. "These policewallas are making life more and more difficult. If we get caught, we have to shell out Rs 600. After paying all sorts of rent, we are left with hardly Rs 100-125 in a day and Rs 600 comes as a big shock for us. We have to pay at least Rs 900 per month as rent. I live with 3 other people", he keeps on talking, like the Chameli of the movie Chameli, pointing expressedly to the policemen standing nearby.

"Don't you live with your family?", I goaded him into talking more. He shakes his head violently and goes on, "My family lives in the village. But there are several people here who live with their families." "So, when do you visit your family? Near Chath? (Chath is an important festival in Bihar. It is celebrated to mark the visit of Sri Ram to Bihar after he returned to Ayodhya from his Vanavas.)", I inquired. "Yes. I catch the North- east from New Delhi Raliway Station", he replied taking his eyes off from the road for a moment to look at me, eyes wondering why on earth this girl is asking so many questions.

"Do you know how to read and write? Till where have you studied?", my journalistic instinct had told me to loose all shame and ask more questions as it had the makings of a perfect little anecdote. "Yeah. I know how to read and write. I have studied upto class V. But I know only Hindi. I don't understand English", he adds sheepishly, almost ashamed. But he adds defensively, " We weren't taught English at that time before class VI. But today, even the little kids are taught English." He repeats the last line 2-3 times to strengthen the arguement that it wasn't really his fault that he didn't understand English. I agreed and mumbled a few incomprehensible sentences in agreement which Hari really didn't listen as he was already well into his story. "But I read the newspapers. These roadside vendors know me well." He puufs his chest, looking as proud as Aishwarya Rai while poiting at the newspaper vendors sitting by the road.

I noticed that it was time that I got off my stead and proceed towards my divine electricity-less abode. I ask Hari to stop the rickshaw-cum-dadi ma near the bend and climbed down clumsily. (Eating too many potatoes has turned me into a couch potato, I observe silently.) I pay him Rs. 7, never really feeling the Rs. 2 pinch as I had got the story that was much worth the extra 200 pasie I had to shell out.

Journalism is a dog's business, I conclude (Sorry, a bitch).
{But really, you guys should rather not repeat the last sentence. Remember, am a devil, out to get everyone.}

Crossroads....

Yeah, this is what happens in life... Life moves on and sometimes... no... most times leaves a lot to be desired... You are forced to move on in life, leaving the people you knew, behind... Move, move and move.....

I believe the first time when you encounter a crossroad is when you leave school, the langotia yaars, the school teachers who have always protected you and guarded ypu from dangers... School offers a very protective environment which you surely miss when you move out into the real hell... You are afraid of the changes and yet excited... sad too at the thought of leaving behind your friends, you are sure that you will always stay in touch with them... Only later do you realise that this wasn't as easy as you had thought it would be...

Enter the next crossroad of life- College... New friends and new found freedom... Ego clashes and losses... Fun and growing up, tensions of getting into a new life... Trying to find a love for yourself and felling frustrated when you don't... thinkimg that perhaps the fault lies with you... But still managing to have a lot of fun... enter the third year and you are in doldrums at having to loose these friends of yours as by now the school experience has taught that it is really difficult to re-live the memories of the previous mile-stone... you leave college...

The next big crossroad- Job... You land up with a job, people start looking at you with exoectations, your family starts behaving differently... Complainimg that you don't have time for them and things like that... saying that your attitude has changed and you hav become too conceited now and selfish too... When in reality it is not you has changed but it is the circumstances that have changed....

The crossroads come and go and leave ypu with varied tastes in mouth, you want to move and yet try to take that past with you... But time is like sand, it slips from your hand without your knowing that it has moved away leaving you mesmerised, shocked, pained and yet happy

That's life

The Night Sky

The Photograph is churaya hua... But I have always loved it... DT taught me how to upload the photograph... so i decided this photo must go... No one should have any problems...

World's like that- Part II

People may wonder at the bullshit I talked about in my last post. Why I call the world a hellish place and things like that. They may think that I don't love this world, they may think that I am fed up of this life. The fact is that I love living in this hell. It is full of devils like me and that's why I like being in my (for the want of a better word, I am forced to use this) biradari. Oh yes, they stamp on your foot to get in front of you, but they say sorry as well. Oh yes, they end up hurting you, but they make you learn tyo stand independently and lick your own wounds, to bear that pain and misery and seek solace from ypurself and from Him.

This hell has different colours- colours of love coupled with fears, with hatred and jealousy, colours of care along with flashes of selfishness and ego, anger along with love and violence at the same time... It's a funny place actually. It makes you laugh and cry at the same time, it shocks you and teaches you, it's fun, dangerous and secure too. It's simple yet complex.

There are people out there out to eat you up whereas there are people who help you sustain that pressure, then there are people whom you love and there are those who love you, things can be vice versa. You need to be selfish and at the sane time unselfish too. And the first thing you need to do to understand this world is to understand yourself.

I hav accepted myself as a part of this unovese, someone who is a bit about everything, confused yet quick at taking decsions, insecure yet aggresive, foolish yet clever (call me shrewd if u want u, I will never call myself that), selfish yet sensitive...

I am like that only; even the world is like that.
Be what you are and do what you want to because those who mind do not matter, and those who matter do not mind...
Don't walk this world as if you own it, walk as if you don't care who does.

World’s like that

Sometimes, this world can be like a black man’s left ass- neither right, nor fair. Yeah, I know I’ve stolen the line… So what? Half the world’s ideas are stolen things… If Hedgewar hadn’t stolen Hitler’s idea of an army, would there have been an RSS… No. Simple isn’t it… However, m not here to discuss religious sentiments or the apparent lack of it… Even though I am thinking of plaguing you guys with that. But this is not the right time to do that…

I will though and I promise you guys that… And usually I am firm on my promises (usually i.e.). Anyways, so I was talking about the world. Yeah, the world is a rotten place to live in… People here change at the drop of the hat, and usually that change pricks you at the most inappropriate place… and you are bang on target in thinking which place am talking about.

U guys must be thinking, “It seems the devil has been pricked by someone today.” Here I will gladly inform you that it isn’t the case. I had a perfectly happy day at office… It was just today I was standing near the window of the Metro absorbed in my musings, that a thought suddenly entered my mind. Why am I a devil- a devil that doesn’t belong to any1 neither does it want to belong to anyone… What made me a devil like that?

I suppose I got the answer… My becoming a devil has everything to do with this world, which is becoming hell-ish day by day. And angels don’t survive in Hell, you need to be a devil to survive in Hell. So, I decided to evolve into one as well (Darwin’s theory of Evolution comes into the picture here).

Yeah, I know u wud say that I am pointing my finger at the world and forgetting that four are pointing towards mine… Yeah I know that… But ever thought why I am ready to pick up a fight with everyone? Because today everyone is fighting for their existence… U move in a Metro, there you have to literally fight with people to get out because on the other side, there is a huge wave of people coming in from other side, which doesn’t care that you have to get down. That’s why I am so competitive… I have to be… Otherwise, I am dead (Darwin’s survival of the fittest comes in here).

Yes, Darwin I fully agree with u… Darwin Zindabad.

marriages made in hell

yeah, I picked this title from Today...
but the thoughts are mine... ok?
My friend Siddharth Sharma was disappointed with my first post... i see that he wants to know more abt me... well, Mr. Sharma, it isn't so easy to know so much about me in a very short span of time... U need to try harder...

Now about marriages... Marriages may be made in heaven, but they become hell on earth... oh yes, they do... There is nothing like they lived happily ever after.... That happens only in movies and let me tell you it's nothing but a bit of crap... A sucker for happy endings is telling you that... So you ought to believe me... And you better believe me... otherwise.... U know what to expect...

You start off your marriage expecting everything is gonna be hunky-dunky-enter-the Honeymoon phase- You laugh, laugh, feel happy and think now that ur love is near you everything is going to be well... You think it's cute when he asks for that towel that he left behind, you think, she's cute when she says that you do not know how to cook...

Two months later-enter-the real phase- You start arguing... You feel irritated whenever he asks for that towel, you feel insulted when she says you do not know how to cook... Hell breaks loose.... And then u have kids and your life turns into a shit... The romance goes down the drain and you end up worrying about the kids' future, their studies and their career....

After that you grow old... thats the whole story...

So, man go out and flirt... Have live-in relationships... enjoy the honeymoon period and then when the real period starts... Leave... HAVE FUN

P.S. but i would like to go through all this hell.... And why- DEVILS RESIDE IN HELL

what about me

Yeah this is my first post, so you would do better not to criticise it... And before I write any more, I would like You guys to know that i like writing full words... I hate using words like m and u for am and you... And even if I use them, u people have no right to complain because this is my blog and I am gonna do exactly what I want to...

By now, you would have guessed it that am a dictator... Ok yes i am, what can you about it... As far as I am concerned, nothing... I am used to getting my way often but now and then I do relent and let other people have their way... So, am a bit of a mad dictator... So, am not really like Hitler... And don't even try to compare me to him because if u do, I can kill as well...

So, what else is left about me to know... Ok what do I do... Well I was born with a perennial blue pen in my hand... I have a fetish for finding faults with others and have made a career out of it...

And there is one thing that I just can't stop thanking God about... That the stork delievered me on time... Had it not, I would have been born on Fools' Day and made a fool out of myself... Now it is the other way round... I make fools of others....

By the way, do you guys have nothing to do? Going through a mad devilish sub-editor's blog... Oops, I let that slip... Well whatever, I did that deliberately...

So, I was saying that do something else, u won't find anything better in this blod except mad rants and raves... And if you plan to read my future posts as well, I would like to say, don't ever criticise me... And remember the apostrophe... Never insult an apostrophe in front of me!!!

Because I am a devil who belongs to no one... I AM NOBODY'S DEVIL