One more bit...Childline

Last time I wrote the bits and pieces post but forgot to add one thing for which I had started that post...

If you have a office/home party/marriage/function and you have lot of excess food left... which you want to give away.. you can call 1098, childline, they will come and take the food away. Childline is a child welfare organizations, and has links to most of the orphanages in all major cities.
You may say that it does not look right to give away the left food for kids, but I guess that would be much better than the bland food that they might otherwise get.

Cheers.

Bits and pieces...

First bit... something which i really liked to read...

"You should not fret too much about writers's bloc or artist's bloc or whatever. If you are looking at a blank piece of paper and nothing comes to you, then you go do something else. Writer's bloc is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the weird idea that you SHOULD feel the need to say something.
If you have something to say, then say it. Else enjoy the silence for the while"


Ofcourse I did not write this... I read it from the creative writing link that I sent earlier. I wonder how many read it, but if you have not read it, read it for the fun of it.

Another bit
The difference between socialist and capitalist
(My friend was discussing this with me yesterday)
Socialist will GET a cake and distribute EQUALLY among everyone including himself.

A capitalist will make sure that he is able to CREATE a very big cake, and will keep HALF of it to HIMSELF, and distribute the remaining, but still everyone would end up getting more that what they would have otherwise got.

I am not making any judgement calls on socialist and capitalist..... but just it was a something to think about..

To all the girls out there... A humble request

Excerpt from a Secret Dairy of a Secret Guy...

Discliamer: Any resembelence to any person living or dead is purely fictitious.
"
The one thing which I dread and am really afraid of is when a girl tells me that I am like a sweet brother to her.... God I hate it, fear it and have wild dreams about it... I wonder why girls are always interested in making brothers, even after they grow up, I wonder what faults that they see with their real brothers that makes them go out looking for more brothers, and even more brothers. I do hate more when most of my sisters' friends or friends' sisters start addressing me as "bhaiya", it becomes kind of default thing to use, and it irritates me. I wish they would ask me my name. And imagine if I turn back and start calling them bahenji, would they not take offence. Girls are funny and they are.

The other set of girls who are not going around forming brothers have one other deadly weapon "I cant look at you in that way", wonder what that is supposed to mean. And thats it, next day I keep looking at myself in mirror while shaving, and wondering if that has got to do with the way I look, the way I have my hair or it has got to do with her vision. And in general girls dont want to argue and discuss this subject, while it is so obvious to them, it seems latin-greek to me and leaves me totally perplexed. The only thing that I get out of them is that I dont appear to be that serious. But the problem is that if I start talking serious stuff then I dont even get this far, I mean then girls will never be interested in me. Because girls like fun-loving easy-going guys. So you see it is vicious circle. and I think the key is to identify the point of transition when I have to change myself from easy-going to hard-tuff, from talking about guitaing and the latest Johny Depp movie to talking about future career prospectus and the real estate pricing.

But the most funniest thing that I find is that the same girl (I mean the same girl who tells me that I am not serioius), when she goes out to meet the guy that parents have chosen for her, by default start seeing him as perspective husband, even though most of the times I find him as idiotic as myself.

I guess you girls have to understand that life is difficult for guys with the competition so high and you have to be little considerate. I guess on an average a girl might get proposed 5 times in her bachelorhood... (I have no data on how much on married girls), whereas a guy like me might die to get proposed even once. Now when I have got to think about it I dont think any of my boy-friends (somehow calling boy friends looks little shady, I mean my friends who are guys) have ever got proposed, atleast no one has ever told me about it. And trust me guys also have very little threshold of falling in love, and they pratically fall in love with any girl, I think if guy meets a girl for ten times he would surely fall in love. This is especially true if the guy comes from some testosterone intensive college like IIT.


So please all you girls dont take it very seriously if I ask you out for a cup of coffee, I am just looking for a harmless cup of coffee. Dont make any character based assumptions about me. And I have a very nice and cute sister and I love her. I dont think I can handle more than that. And please dont treat me as agony uncle and start talking about the antics of your new boyfriend, about how he does not pay any attention to you or whatsoever, because I hate your boyfriend, I genuinely hate him. I might listen with lot of enthusiasm but inside my heart breaks, and please dont do it especially when I cam sponsering you a cup of coffee. And if possible do let me know when is the transition point, rather when you would want to see me as hard and macho man.

Cheers.

RaNDom ThOUgHT

"If I try I will risk failure, If I don't I will ensure it!"


I borrowed RaNDom ThOUgHT thing from Sucharita blog. The thought is different but the idea the same.. :D

Sheer brilliance of NOT-Working

I was train`ing to pune last week, and was nicely sitting by the window berth wearing above tshirt
and was reading the following book..



And there was this gentle man sitting right in front of me and he all of sudden asked me "How are you going to change the world by Not-Working?"


For a moment I did not quite understand it but then it struck to me that he was referring to my tshirt.... It was funny... Then he went on to ask me if i had changed the world and how was I going to change the world, he was sort of rediculing me.. and I hated it...I wanted to ask him point blank what has he done to do anything in his life... but as it turned out he had done lot of work related to orphanages, he keeps visiting childrens homes and orphanges and does something about them... finally at the end of it.. it was a nice conversation.


I think I should travel more often by train, there is nothing better than a nice evening by the window with a book in hand and reading looking at all the sunflower fields and all the stations and all the people. And mostly always you always end of meeting someone very nice and interesting to talk to.

About the book: Actually the name may suggest that it is a self help book, but actually it is not so. It is a book is a collection of stories about simple and ordinary people who have done something great to bring about a social change with creativity and determinations.

Cheers and adios...

CreATiVItY

"Everyone is born creative, everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten, then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra.. etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “Iʼd like my crayons back, please.”

Quoted from "How to be creative" by Hugh MacLeod.

I loved this essay... It is a good reading..

Dancing...

I have been here in Pune (pimpri), in a marriage of my cousin..

I have been dancing my heart out for last three days and my feet are aching bad because of constant jumping.... It is not like a bangalore party dancing... it is like dancing with grannys, the long lost aunties whom you see only in marriages, dancing with all the chotu kids of cousins with whom we used to play in summer vacation way back. It is very different and fun. I dont know what happens in other communities, but at our place there is something called sangeet.... (which is not restricted to fairer sex), and it starts with traditional songs and then goes on to all the hindi dance numbers ... (English music is not popular at marriages). Actually I am not that good at dancing, quite bad in fact (find it very difficult to move gracefully), but if there are aerobic kind of dance steps... like "Lets' go party tonight", "Kya mujhe pyaar hai", types then I guess I can take over..

I shall write more about it with some pics when I am back to bangalore....

Cheers

Blabbering on 50th post

This is my 50th post, and I feel happy that I have come so far, thanks to all the guys who read this....

Nothing specific to say today, but I will just put down the rumblings in my mind on the way to office.

One of my collegue has a 8 year old kid, and he communicates with his father on Google Talk. Amazing... I think he plays with Xbox (or whatever that is called). I wonder if this kids mature much faster in life?

That made me think about my days back then in baroda, I remember that the only appreciable toy that I had for a long time was a bus, a metal bus with wheels, not the "chaabi wala", but the one which you have to drag. And I used to go around our veranda, day in and day out with it. I used to envy my neighbours kid, because he used to have multiple busses and sometimes he used to let me run them as well.

Another thing I guess which was quite facinating was to play "Ghar Ghar", and I remember that I had a blue color plastic cooker, witha yellow color plastic gas stove. And we used to play that endlessley, never getting tired to repeating the same routine each and everyday.

Sand, that is another thing that was heaven, there was the excitement when some construction used to start nearby, and thats all was needed for me and my sister to run away from home and run and fall and make sand castles, in hot sun, rain, anything.

I wonder if today the kids play the same games, I think it is quite out of fashion these days to play "Ghar Ghar".

Sometimes I think that our generation was the best time to grow up, because most of us coming from small towns have seen a mammoth change in out life. From kerosene stoves to microwaves, from vivid bharti to radio indigo, from struggling to get a line to make std calls to cellphones, from postcards to emails, from gud (jaggery) bajara roti to pizzas, from the Bata canvas shoes to the Nikes, from the much awaited sunday movies on doordharshan to hundred channels. I guess because of the massive changes we are able to relate to the hi-fi glamour world and also slow paced life of our towns.

I think enough rumblings, for the morning....
Cheers and happy times ahead..

By the way out of my all 50 posts my favourite post has been this.

Did you see RDB?

Not long time ago,
I went to cancel this ticket,
It was not a simple reservation,
but a tatkal train ticket,

TC said said go here,
Clerk asked me to go there,
Went almost everywhere,
but no sucess anywhere

finally had to go to railway inspector,
but he was not on seat for an hour,
finally he came, was arrogant, rude
and said it is not possible

All angry I was and frustrated,
When I met this gentleman down,
On relating everything to him
He asked, did you see RDB?

Either you shout and go home,
Or you go and put a complain,
Choice is yours,
For this country of Ours.

PS1: RDB is RangDeBasanti
PS2: Dont have patience to sit and rhyme it.
Hold on one more
Last PS: It was a tatlak, waitlist ticket so liable to be cancelled.

Surprise gift from faraway....

While travelling back from Hospet couple of months back, I had met this french gentleman, Antione in the bus, and I helped him in a lot in getting a auto, explaining him bus routes and other such stuff. Couple of days later I went around with him to do some shopping for his family because he was going home. That was november.

Out of the blue, couple of days back he called me again and said that he was back in india and that he wanted to meet him, and yesterday when i met him, he has got for me a Frech Wine and some amazing home made choclates (not the kisses kinds, but marmalde with choclate coating). It was such a lovely surprise and I have been feeling happy happy since then.

You can come home for some good wine, but as far as the choclates are concerned, it is anybody's guess where they have dissappeared... :D

Notes of 2006...

--> The easiest way I ensure that the auto guy does not cheat me, is that I start talking with him as soon as I enter the auto, trust me it makes a huge difference.

--> Gyming everyday for about 20 minutes makes you feel good for next twenty hours and give sound sleep for rest of hours.

--> Lot of times, last year I kept wondering and fretting how could he/she do this to me and so on. But I realized that it is worthwhile putting myself in his/her shoes and analyzing . I think that everyone is resonable and good in their own way.

--> When quarelling most of the times I forgot all the good things that happened to relationship and only remembered the last bad thing that happened.

--> I think our mind has infinite capacity to do things, the moment I start thinking that I cannot do this or this is not your cup of tea I think I am getting older. And I dont want to. (Wanna be 18 till I die)

--> I hate when someone discourages me, and now I dont care to be polite also, I ask them to f*** off.

--> Munna bhai and Roberto Benigni (of Life is beautiful) are my heroes. and RDB is my inspiration.

--> Have realized that only during the times when I am down and broken that I have ventured forth to do some thing different.

--> I did some creative writing course, sounds funny. But to me it was the course which opened a whole new world of poems, haikus, screenplay, dramatics to me.

Messe Thimmaiah......

Dont think that many of us would know the man in picture. Well he is Messe Thimmaiah. He was a traffic policeman, who used to stand at GPO signal (in Bangalore). While on duty he was run over by a overspeeding vehicle and he died on spot. This was somewhere during sept 97. Quite long time back actually.

But when I do ask some oldies of Bangalore, they tell me that they quite remember this guy. He was a commanding personality, smiling and helping poeple to cross the road and all that stuff.

I heard about him on some quiz on radio city and was really toched on hearing his story. I thought everyone should know about him. It took me quite an effort to get his picture. That is another story all together. Can write a full blog on it.
I was so touched by his story that I even went and interviewed couple of traffic policeman. It sounds little crazy, but I do believe that traffic police'ing is one of the worst jobs in Bangalore. And I just wanted to take a peek in to the life of traffic policeman. (I am putting the interview of the traffic policeman in the next blog).

This fellow whom I interviewed was estatic with the fact that someone wanted to talk to him. I guess it makes a huge difference if you just spend couple of minutes and talk to someone about them.


All thanks to Lohith for making this all possible. First to find me the picture, and then to act as a kannada translator.

Interview with Traffic policeman

How long have you been working as a traffic police man?
I joined in 1979, and have been working ever since. After 19 years got promoted from constable to head constable.

How does the hierarchy go in the department?
It goes something like this, constable, head constable, sub inspector, inspector, and so on.

What are the working hours?
Generally there are two shifts 7am to 2pm and 2pm to 10 pm. The shifts keep changing.

How are the positions assinged?
Positions keep changing weekly. It does not matter which positions we work. more traffic or less traffic is the same. We have to work nevertheless. Even when rajkumar died, we had to work. We cannot escape.

Why did you join traffic police?
Not really by choice, there was the advertisement in newspaper, and i went for the interview and joined the job.

How many holidays that you get?
Generally we have to work seven days a week. Even the ragpickers get off on sunday but we do not get off. But we get around 60 days off. But the bad thing is that you dont get off when you want to. It is really subject to approval.

Are you happy with the job?
Pay is very less, after almost 26 years of service I earn around only 11k. Even the security guy in accenture gets around 10k with all the additional benefits of PF and all. Here no benefits. Initially when I joined I used to get a 250 rupees and now I get around 500.

Regarding job satifaction?
We cannot spend lot of time with family. the workign hours keep extending. Even though we get official off at 2pm, but that is not always the case. It takes quite long to get a promotion. when i joined one thousand people joined. and each year 100 people get promoted. But I am proud of the job that I am doing public service. and I am happy that I can manage my family and parents.

What about your kids?
I have a son and daughter. Son just cleared his 10th with distinction and he got some merit seat in shesadripuram college. My son had asked me to get whatever he wants if he gets good marks, but I feel sad that I cannot afford that much.

Where are you from?
Karwar but have been in bangalore for a long time

When asked about the best and worst times of job?
Not anything, everything is the same, we have to come and stand here irrespective of anything. When ministers come and all our time is extended. We have to work more for their security. Our heads just ask us to work without checking our personal commitments.

PS1:There was lot of sparkle in eyes when he said about his kids
PS2:I have also actually made quite a nice friends with this guy (name undisclosed at his request)

Parachute Jumping

When travelling back from delhi, last week, i was reading one of the supplements which was talking about Shital Mahajan.

From what little I read, she is from pune and she has taken a parachute jump over the Geographic North Pole on 18th April, 2004, from 2400 feet, in minus 37 degree celsius, temperature condition. Further she is planning to take a jump over south pole in antartica.

I always wonder, how do people get such off beat ideas about their careers and then they have the guts and determination to follow them. Growing up, I guess my most'est Weird'est idea about my future was nowhere close to it.

Hats off ......

You can read
Pune times report
She has a link to her home page as well, but now it is not working

Hand to hold.....

Another attempt at poetry,

Running for the bus,
Running for the train,
Rushing all the time,
For I have a lot to gain,

But One day when I paused
Too tired to run anymore,
Found myself standing naked,
Tired, weak, cold and sore.

In a hurry to reach somewhere,
Left some behind, some went ahead,
For some had no time to spare,
Some had even from memory fled,

Life is short, move on they told,
But now I wish, had a hand to hold.

Ten Nine Eight

On sunday I read this story about childline and Jeroo Billimoria.

Childline, as the name suggest is helpline for children. In the cities they are present they have a toll-free telephone number 1098 (ten, nine, eight), on which any child who needs assistance can call. Calls are received by childline representatives, who are trained to take these kind of calls, and they take appropriate action, like providing medical assistance, or performing a rescue operation, or just give some emotional support.

When I was coming from Hospet, and I was waiting at the busstand. There was this, small girl about 13, and her mother (I presumed she was her mother), was forcefully taking her somewhere, and she was wailing like hell. From the clothes I could figure out that they were very poor. I did not have a nice feeling about the whole thing, but I ignored it. Probably I did not care, or I just did not have balls to interfere. Had I read about childline earlier, I would have probably given a call to 1098.

So as childline website puts it

• Call 1098 when to see any child in distress

• Tell every vulnerable child you see about CHILDLINE 1098

By the way childline is very much present in Bangalore...

Flying Kiss

Yesterday night I was waiting at the Hospet Bus Station to catch a bus back to Bangalore, it was quite late and there were hardly any people at bus-stand. I had brought a orange with me, because i like eating oranges when I travel. I was sitting all alone on the bench, when I saw this very old begger, walking towards me, looked very hungry, and was making the signs, you know the way beggers do when they are hungry. I felt sorry for him because he was quite old and really looked hungry and was walking with the stick. So I extended my hand and gave him half the orange. He took the orange in one hand and then with the other hand, he put two fingers on his lips and started moving them in front of his lips as if giving me a flying kiss. I got really alarmed, All of sudden I started feeling afraid, probably that person was a Gay, and there was hardly anyone at the busstand, probably there were some other people too, and I had lot of luggage and could not break for the run, I was also all alone on the bench, and I did not want him to come and sit next to me. Neither had my bus come yet, which meant I could not go anywhere else too, crazy thoughts started running. I was also getting embarrassed at myself being frightened by this very old man.

Not knowing what to do, I just looked away from him, started observing the flooring for the heck of it, hoping that he would disappear, and later when i looked up thankfully he had already past my bench, and felt glad. But when the trumoil in brain had subsided, a little thought with clear mind, I realized that he was probably asking me if I could lend him a smoke because it was also a very cold night. Anyways I dropped his thoughts, and started thinking of something cheerful.

But after couple of minutes or so I again spotted him, he was sitting somewhere in corner, eating a orange and with a "bidi" in one hand. Probably some smart enough fellow had understood his flying kiss...

Back from home.....

My blog has been silent for a long time, but had such a good vacation back home.... that did not find time to blog.

Nothing interesting, except that when i was taking an auto to station, I happened to talk to this auto guy (this has now become my habit, as soon as i get in to auto, I ask "Bhaiya aap kahan se ho?" and then it goes on...). This fellow studies in college and autos in the evenings to get his finances. He did not even charge me for extra luggage, and his attitude was amazing. Inspiring. I wish I could have got his phone number.

I really feel sad when I hear people cribbing about autowallas. Most of the autowallas I have come across have been really nice poeple. I think we completely miss the point that it is very easy to be good mannered and nice to people when you earn 30k a month sitting in AC office, but I guess it would difficult to be nice and cool when you are earning harldy 10k a month and driving all day on bangalore roads, getting harrassed by traffic police man and what not.

Give them a break yaar..Smile..Talk and the auto'ing experience would be nice..

Cheers

Something more about MEEEEEEEEEE...

Dude prasanna tagged me to write something about myself....

• The earliest vivid memory that I have of myself, was my very first day at school. Pa had left me and disappeared somewhere, and since there were more than one rajesh in our class, teacher was asking me my surname. And I did not know it. And I was feeling so afraid and imagining all the dreadful things that might happen to me. Was getting so angry at my parents for not telling me my surname and sending me to school to face this. I dont remember what happened after that..
  

• After 10th I qualified fora railway recruitment board exam, according to which i was to undergo a diploma in railway college in mumbai and then i would get a job as a booking clerk or a TC. Everyone in my social circle was like you wuld get a government job at 18 cool, and that my life is set and so on. Even I was happy. BUT there was no hostel available and I was supposed to stay in Bombay alone, and this was not at all agreeable to my mom. So I stayed home, did 12th appeared for JEE and so on....Now I feel so glad about it.

• I was a very sober guy in my hostel days, known only to my batch mates and wing mates. But there only sprouted the PJ devils in my mind. Our room was called a PJ room. I remember once when someone came to our room

"Do you have scissors?" he asked
"Do you want small scissors or big scissors" back went the reply
"Big ones" he said
"We dont have it"
"ok give small ones"
"that also we dont have" went the reply

• Ofcourse IIT hostel was fun, but then after IIT, moved in to bangalore and started staying at Mulani Mansion. That was awesome fun for two and a half year which included going for long drives on outer ring road (airport road was great in those days), and late night teas at IISc teaboard, also police catching us for putting TV at high volume. The christmas party that we had staged there just before we were leaving, was a grand conclusion to a memorable stay.

• As a kid I played a lot of "Ghar Ghar" with one of my cousin, wherein we used to act as couple. Till today we share such a nice bond, feel happy seeing her.
  

• I hate my name rajesh, i wish i had amore funky name like ronit, rohit, rahul etc. I love GOLI instead. Somehow Goli seems to have some personality and Rajesh looks commomplace and bland.

• My earliest heart throb was some girl in my school, she used to be the "headgirl" and I "headboy". So we did lot of things together. Before entering IIT, I had this sweet dreams of marrying her and so on, but first semester in IIT, I got so engrossed in the world of brotherhood and homohood that i completely forgot her.

• I do feel that for me always right things have happened at right times, I have been very lucky. I have made great friends, even though lots of times I crib about people and things, but at the bottom, I have always had friends doing lot of nice things for me and lot of nice things to feel happy about. :D.

Now to propogate things further, would like to tag the following
anant : He writes/quotes lot of nice urdu stuff and I absolutely love his blog.
Prits: I guess noone can beat him at the frequency of blog. There is always something nice to read.

Memory Speaks : An autowallah about Bangalore and girl from Baneras

"I have been driving auto from last foury years. There was no signal in bangalore during those days. Around 1970 the first signal came at corporation. Minimum fare during those time used to be 40 paisa, and used to have the turn over of about 10-12 rupees per day, house expensewas about 5 rupees.

In those days education was not considered important so i studied only till 5th class, and whatever I studied i did fine, but spend my childhood doing nothing, just played, therefore had no other choice but to drive autos. I still regret that. We used to go for movies once in a while and wahida rehman was my favourite heroin. Apsara was the first airconditioned cinema in bangalore.


Got married at 22, but i did have an affair with one girl, she had come from baneras and used to stay next door. She used to sing very well and we used to sing songs together. Never got to kissing her. We used to hold hands and roam in a park in bysandra. This itself was a big thing in those days. She left for baneras one fine day and then we used to communicate via letters, there were no phones then. She used to write in hindi, but i did not know hindi (I only know urdu), so i used to get the letters read and written from one of my friend. But slowly it died down. Eventually I got married, my wife found out those letters after marriage and burned them, but I have kept one photo preserved. The funny thing is that the girl returned after 20 years and now she stays quite close to my place, she also has her kids and I also mine. But we dont talk about the past.

I still cherish the time I spent with her, woh baat hi kuch aur thi,

Have got my son to study in english medium, because i do understand the importance of education. And he is doing a job in government office now.

"
There was a glow in his face when he was talking about his lost love and lot of pride when he told me about his son doing a government job. And when finally I got down from the auto near my house, he took my phone number. He said "I do come for a hair cut at the shop next street, when I come next I will get her photo, and you can take a look".

I could not help but smile at him. Went home feeling happy. :D