Friday, May 25, 2007

The story of Lost shoe...

My shoe died. I dont complain, it had a fair bit of adventurous journey starting from US (my friend had got it), and it had been to sakleshpur trek and to Karwar, bombay, delhi, baroda, pune, hyderabad. The left shoe had kind of given up and I had to keep three of my left foot fingers at a particular angle else they would just come out of the shoe. And it became too embarrassing to wear it anywhere, because of the fear that the slightest stress and the figers would pop up.

So off I went yesterday with one of my friends, to great old Marathalli to buy a pair of nice shoes. After a lot of looking around at the astronomical pricing of the Reeboks and Adidas, I finally settled for one nice and cute looking Levi's canvas types of shoes. Did not cost whole lots, and was quite decent, dung colour, long shoelaces (the longest that I have seen).

It took me about ten minutes to buy the shoe, and you wont believe how much more time we took to buy a shirt for my friend, hopping from one shop to another, trying to match the colour, buttons, neck, fit, collar, sleves, print, length, fabric, texture, and dont remember what more and after two hours my friend could not find the desirable combination of all of them, and we decided to call it quits. (this shopping is another experience all together, will write about it sometime later)

Exhausted we took the rick back to go home. Wanted to go to a particular shop and it was closed, then my friend wanted to buy the cake for some birthday and wanted to buy it from Swe-chei(Sweet Chariot), and we could not locate it. It was getting late and little bit of drizzle, it was getting little chaotic but finally we just managed to locate one Swe-Chi. We were having a small debate as to who to pay the auto bill, (sometimes I act nice), I lost the debate and had to pay the bill. Got down, paid, went to shop only to realize that in all the confusion had left the shoe in the auto.

So depressed, one K, down the drain. At all these times I always feel this pinch of guilt, because I start thinking about my parents, and how they have saved each and every penny to raise us. Even ten rupess means a lot of money for them. And here I was throwing 1K, just like that, by being nothing but purely careless, there was no excuse for this. Among this big guilt thought, there were these other small thoughts emerging as to when to go again to buy the shoes, if to buy the same ones or the other pair, and how long I will have to keep wearing floaters in office which I so hate because of all the dust and mud that gets in to between my fingers. Furthermore I was embarrassed at the my declining impressions over my friend, (this was the second time it had happened, last time I had lost the helmet, and then the bike key, all on same day, but found everything).

My friend suggested that I run along the road, and look for the auto guy, but I put off that idea, because there was no point running around the road looking for a particular auto, considering that all the autos look same, and I had not paid much attention to how the auto guy looked.

Thankfully though we got the cake, but would you believe it, as soon as we were about to step out of the shop, and there on the other side there was this auto-guy, he U'ed and came to our side of road "Sir, aap bag bhool gaye", We were so happy. He even did refuse to take money for the extra round that he might have had to put. I got my shoe back (am wearing it now). The auto guy disappeared, and lost himself among other autowallahs. I absolutely like the auto guys in Bangy, they rock.

So the story of shoe ends here.

Yesterday incident really made me happy :D. It was a perfect ending to a near chaotic evening.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Robert Clive..

In one of those after lunch film making sessions, when I was feeling terribly sleepy, all of sudden, I hear some discussions on some Robert Clive commiting sucide. The named looked very familiar, mentally I tried to locate where I had heard the name, thinking about any suicides that had been featured on CNN-IBN. Was he some music band guy or something, no movie star as well, perhaps a political guy.

I blurted out in class "Kaun Robert Clive yaar?",

"How did you pass out, Robert Clive, who established British Empire in India?",

Ooops, everything came back, Battle of Plassey, Siraj Ud Dullah, and so on. And he committed suicide, I did not know that. The guy who I would assume, had everything name, fame, money. He killed himself !!!

As the story goes, (I did not know most part of this story, maybe you all may know it), he was the spoiled brat, was expelled from multiple schools. He was sent of to India at the age of 18, to get rid of him, because at that time survival rate in India was only about 50%. He was posted at Madras as a clerk. It is said that he was totally depressed there and made a failed attempt to suicide.

He was considered lowly character by his fellow British, because he spent lot of time with locals, boozing, and doing all kinds of shitty things. But this is where, he developed lot of those contacts with locals, and where he discovered the way of getting things done by bribing.

It is also said that the "Great battle of Plassey", (that I used to imagine was a big fierce battle) hardly lasted for more than an hour. There was no attack from the opposition, Clive had bribed Mir Jafar (head of armed forces of Siraj Ud Dullah), and in the final battle, Mir Jafar refused to move. And the battle got over. Siraj Ud Dullah, fled, but was later captured and killed. Mir jafar became a puppet Nawab of British.

Clive returned to England, with all the glory, but was severly criticized for making lot of money in unfair ways, and he was as it seems in state of depression. He was levied with charges of corruption.

At 48 he commited sucide. It seems there was even a controversy over his burial. And after a life of establishing a British empire in India, his grave was unmarked and remains so.

The gloriouis Robert Clive, abandoned by his family, and almost like expelled to India, looked down upon by fellow people, ended up changing the face of history, but personally had rather a sad life. Almost feel sorry for him.

What you see is now always what it is!!!

I guess before you start cursing me, of this uninvited history lessons, I will sign off.

PS: Wikipedia says that "mirjafar" in Bengali is still used as synonym to traitor. Wonder if it is true.

One more PS: What I wrote above is as narrated by our film making instructor, but verified from wikipedia, seems true.