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Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts

23/03/10

Nani

I was in Meerut last night, and the expression and body language that my Nani had, when I told her that I am ok with getting married and would try to get married soon, was priceless!

Just one of the moments, which will make my marriage worth it I guess!

10/02/09

The journey begins !

Fill up the reservation form... look at the train numbers, plan your start and end or midway points and refill the form

Stand in line at the reservation counter hoping to get the tickets for the train which is your first choice

Those 10 minutes at the counter talking to the person at the other end getting the best route

The lack of change... how on earth am I supposed to get the three 10 rupee notes, and the two 5 rupee ones, and the other change !

Anyway, the ticket is in my hand now ! The white grey dot-matrix printed Indian Railways ticket ! Hey, but I cannot read it properly... what time is my train? and from?

oh wait, it has been printed on the line just above !! OK, well, the information is there... Coach S4, Seat 30 (wonder who would be sitting next to me)

I wish its a beautiful girl :) and without her parents or the boyfriend!

Last minute Auto rush !!! and the bugger is driving so slowly that I could walk faster to the station.



Anyway, I am here now... which platform? The board is not working, hey, the Kuli ! Let me ask him... they always know !!! Yes sir I am right... its platform 12, darn, the other side of the station !!! Run !!!

Sir ji, late hai train !!!

Oh thank Gawd !!!

take it easy !!!


A nice stroll up the stairs, on the overbridge, with people and more people and some more in the space left... walking, looking around, rushing for their platforms, anxious because they are late, or early or excited about meeting someone, or just being...



But hey, where is the train?

Oh, they are still shunting the bogies... will be here in a few minutes... and there it is !!!

A1, A2, .....A4, S14... what the fkk... now run !!! S4 S4 S4 S4 S4... uncle sambhal kar zara...

S4 S4... haan yehi hai s8... peeche likha hai...

S4 S4 S4... saali itni lambi train...

S4... kaash ye wala S4 hota.. this group of girls would be sitting somewhere near me then...

S4... arre auntie jaane do...




phew !!!

The reservation chart finally....

So lets see.. how many girls in my compartment today...

F
F
F
F
F
ah !!! F - 56 --- darn !!!

F
F
F
F F6... sweet...

F
F
F
F
23.. ah... Vaijanti Devi !!! crap !!!

F F
F
F
F
24 Kalpana Arora... hmm...
M27 Aakash Arora... inki to !!!

F
F
F
F
F...

uff.. sabse sada hua dibba mera !!!! CRAP !!!!

anyway !!!

Lets just get on the train !!!


Auntiji ye meri seat hai !!!
Oh !!!

Wahan baith jaoge beta?
umm... ji...

Mera bag hata do wahan se... idhar de do.. aaram se baith jao !!!
ji auntiji

bleddy hell... inko kaise bolun I wanted the window seat !!!! I WANTED THE WINDOW SEAT !!!


anyway... that probably means I will sleep better at night.. the top berth is not that bad afterall !

So the bags are sett, the walkman is out !!! the tapes are out too ! what do we listen to? Wait... save the battery !! aise hi baitha reh abhi...

Magazine !!! haan.. get some !!!

Chai? haan ek cup wo bhi ho jaye!!!


Auntiji main abhi aaya...
haan beta

ok... , chacha chauhdhary, billu, pinky, archies, apna bhavishya badlein, kismat aapke haath mein, competition success review, manorama, sarita, manohar kahaniya, limca book of records, reiki kaise karen, phew.. too many... just pick up a few random ones...

oh.. paani ki bottle... ek wo bhi... aur biscuit? haan parle ji... do packet...

chalo beta bhago before auntiji calls the police thinking you left a few bombs in the train !!!

back on the seat... all set with magazines, food, music, a lost window seat, people...

A Journey Begins....


05/08/08

A Burrito of Thoughts...

I have loved the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", every time I have seen it, which should be about 10 times already so far!

And I so wish that I erase the memory of a few people from my brain, because anything about them just brings back the pain that I went through, with them, because of them, when they were there and whatever crap... Even the mention of their name is painful at times !!! Actually not pain, its the wrong word to use right now, but for the lack of a word, worse or better (wondering what !) then this one, I will let it be !

Anyway, the good part is, that the movie is wonderful and Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet can be seen doing something which is unusual for their typical style of acting... The movie has been directed the unusual way too, or should I say the "Pulp Fiction" or the "Memento" way... (This basically means that you have to add two more movies in addition to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in your must watch list)

Had mexican today for lunch... (wish i could rewrite it like this - had a Mexican girl for lunch today, but I guess she would fit better for dessert I guess :P) anyway....

so this Mexican Girl.. no, Mexican GRILL, yea that's right, Mexican Grill, called Panchero's serves all sorts of food (Deepu, Subbu, Bindiya, Aro, you have a lot of love here as I heard that the non-veg is great at this place) but I managed with a Veggie Burrito... which was both very tasty and filling... I am going to refrain from speaking the name of the place too much, because it sounds more the common sentence filler in Hindi ;)

वैसे हिन्दी में बोलें तो, मैदे की बड़ी सी रोटी में, राजमा, चावल, सब्जी, और चटनी भर कर खायी !!! और काफ़ी स्वादिष्ट भी थी...

First time experience of Mexican Food... and I guess, we can put this on the menu in the Chai Ki Dukaan too sometime later :)

Oh and btw, this weekend has offered me a series of first time experiences, which I am going to write about later... Till then, its for you to guess!

And the people who know it already, please do not spill the beans, I might use them in the next Burrito that I eat !

05/01/08

Those Were The Best Days of My Life... so far :)

The first memories of being on stage go back to class V or VI when I was a part of the dance team which performed on Boney M's Its a Holiday... This was my first ever english tape as well.. Boney M's 18 greatest hits and I still love those tracks...

Remember practicing during the not so important classes and enjoying it... Vicky was my partner in that song, however I wanted some other girl to dance with me :) but then, li'il I could do about it... Nice white shirt and the black trousers... I am sure I kept that dress for a while before I moved on...

and then a lot of years of stage-o-fobia...

Until one day, when I was in class IX... I had to climb up the stage to fill in for a few people who ditched us in the Independence Day functions... my first stand up comedy stunt :) it went pretty well for the lifelessness I felt in my legs and the dryness in my throat in those 10 minutes...

Another few years of stage silence, before it was broken in the form of Mughal'e'Aazam in my first year of college... PGDAV was no great college, but the kind of friends I earned there, the life that I lived there is something that no other place could have given me... I loved those 3 years of my life...

I still remember that the entire team had practiced on my terrace for a day and by the time we had finished the entire play was changed... We laughed our asses out because of the changes that were made during the entire day... Ankur Wahal had written and directed the play and he was flawless with his work... Today he is a brilliant Corporate Lawyer and no one is going to believe that he once used to rock the stage with his amazing performances...

His entry in the play on that yellow tricycle... mine with that 8 inch sword and the loose pyjamas... Tushar as the Kaneez... Karan Bindal, our 6 foot tall Laila... and Ankur.. the short Majnu....

The play was a super hit second year in a row, and that 800 strong audience enjoyed it as much as we did who were on the stage at that time... Ankur and Taru had hosted that year's Aaghaz...

I was a part of the Cultural Committee now, and in my second year.. we were looking for people who would join the group... This is when I dragged the freshers Nimisha Bhagat, Sandy, Vandana etc into the group... Ankush joined, Gaurav Marwaha joined, Meghna Jain came in... along with a few others and we had a brilliant team of people doing everything they could... This is the year when I got an award for winning the maximum number of prizes in an academic year too.. 18 prizes I won in various individual and team competitions in Delhi University that year... MY year of glory...

Ankur did not host Aaghaz that year... I followed his footsteps and was responsible for managing the show for about 7 hours and with me was Virat Vikram Juneja... and both of us created a riot... I loved it... it was the kind of feeling that nothing else can even come closer too... NOTHING...

Third year of college... Cultural Society at its best... The dance team from my college won almost every single competition that they participated in.. Gaurav Marwaha and Ankush were leading the pack here... Ankush focusing on the dance team, which needless to say, had some of the most brilliant dancers I have met till date...Gaurav worked his sweat out to get the sponserships and managed more than we expected... he did work too hard... and I managed the theatre part along with Meghana and a few others... Ankur, Patrick, Nimisha etc were our western music champions.. this is the time when our Rock Band Nakshatra also revived itself... Some ex students came back to play with us too... the green room below the stage in DAV always used to have something or the other happening...

This is the year when Kapil Sharma who used to be a DAV student sometime also came back to college and taught me and other most of what I know and remember today about Theater and stage... Getting out of home at 0700 hrs and coming back at 1700 hrs.. even later.. and spending most our time reading scripts, discussing plays, acts and learning and talking was a life well lived... I both smile and cry at times for those times... I still remember the song from Chupke Chupke we used to sing... the one with Amitabh and Dharmendra... we used to rock !!!

Aaghaz again was my baby this year with me on the stage for about 6 hours and with Virat again... A repeat of the last year... Laughter, comedy, fun and the feeling of being on the top of the world... the only difference being that this year we did the show in Army Auditorium, Dhaula Kuan... what an evening it was... bad throat by the end of the day but smiles that would not stop for days to come.. because every time you entered college you would have some eyes who would recognise you... some people would even come up to you and tell you how good you were....Even Ashish bhai, our canteen wala guy said to me one day... Arre tu to wohi hai na Stage wala !!! I just smiled and said haan woi hoon.... :D

The making of posters, the winning and loosing competitions, the bunking classes, the professors refusing to even know you at the end of the year when you requested for attendance, the understanding and the misunderstandings, the certificates, the sitting on stage stairs and singing or talking or just being, walking up to the srinivas puri market to have tea and keep sitting on the stools there for hours, Out of the Gate, across the Road down the street was our favorite spot... during the festivals, the entire cultural society dancing together in jam sessions... I don't really remember seasons changing for some reason... every day of the year was as bright and sunny as we thought it should be or wanted it to be...

I moved out of college... thankfullly was in Delhi itself... Jamia Millia Islamia... and not too far away from DAV... though the classes were many, but I still used to go to DAV at times... meeting people in person was the only way to keep in touch.. that is when we did not really rely on Text messages and Mobile Phones or emails to keep in touch... so a typical routine used to be... I would finish my classes in Jamia, rush to DAV, find someone in the green room... talk for a while or wait for classes to finish and then come back home together...

For some reason the team back in DAV did not find anyone to host the show, and they asked me to do it... I was not sure if I could because I was already out of college but they insisted and I agreed... I wanted Virat to do it with me again, but he was not ready... after a lot of begging and requesting he agreed... and Prashant and Virat did it again in FICCI this time... third year in a row I was there... could not have loved it more... my professors who used to look so serious all around the year laughing off their seats, the people who i did not know responding to every line that i said on the stage... it was a dream... a dream i lived... my then principle Bhatia Sir, who had taught me mathematics in the second and third year also came upto me and said, Inko tujhse achcha koi aur nai milega :)

By the end of next year, things settled down... I was now looking at how am I going to earn a living... Nimisha was busy with her studies, Meghna wanted to do her post grad in NID, Virat started assisting his dad and his work in Faridabad, everyone from the dance team got busy somewhere or the other, Ankur was already doing his LLB... We all moved and Time too....

Its like I lived a life in those few years and lfe that no more there.... but I know that something has not died inside me... its still there... Thank you God Uncle for letting me live and not just exist !!! You are the best !!!