In Memory Of My Mitra Akhil

Pappa, Pappa. See, I have written a small story, said a kid, about 6-7 year old, so excited at his work, that he is almost shouting, as if he made a discovery of 'Eureka Proportion'

Father replied with a cheering tone, Good, very good !!

Don't you want me to read out its content ?? Kid asks his father

Which language its written in, he asks, seemingly unconcerned about the content

Its written in Hindi Pappa, came the reply.

Hindi !! exclaimed the father. As he starts developing 'that' heavy-headed-feeling, he goes down on his knees, holding his head with both his hands.

What happened Pappa, Anything wrong ?? Are you not feeling well ?? A somewhat worried kid rushes to his father.

As he hugs his son, father says, No, no, I am OK, son. But I am having headache because of your writings. Can't you write in any language other than Hindi,Son ?? Don't you know about the current state of our "Mother-Tongue" Hindi in our own country ?? Do you still want to lead a miserable life of a hindi poet/writer just like Varmajee, BuchhiBabu and SinhaSahab did, after endorsing Hindi all their lives.

PS: This is a shameless ripoff of a similar story originally written in Maithili by one of my true friends, Akhil Anand aka Praveenjee. Just substitute Hindi in place of English and Maithili in place of Hindi, you almost have his version. I remember his story bit-by-bit, even though more than a decade has passed by since I last met him. So no credit to me for this blog, please, except for the translation-part !!

Downloading the CPU !!

I am Back !! Well, almost !! (Not sure how many of you have been waiting for this day)

I will be the first one to admit (albeit a bit hesitantly) that I myself have been a silent spectator to my own blog,which was written nearly four years ago with such an enthusiasm and which somehow managed to attract rave review comments from its few-and-far-between readers. Plenty of water has passed by under the bridge, ever since I started blogging. Back then, I wanted to prove a point to some of my critics that despite being a solid Bihari (no mixing-up with other state cultures) coming from an all-Hindi background I was still good enough to write and write good in English. Now situation is a lot different and I have (probably) nothing to prove in terms of my language credentials, having been able to survive , rather thrive , in the corporate environment for more than 4 years and I am sure you will agree, communication (oral as well as written) plays a significant role in your career-growth.

Even though I have been leading a decent life(At times painfully-slow in terms of monetary and professional gains) during this time-period, few of my friends (most notably Ritu and dear friend Shivraj) have told there are still enough ebb-and-flow moments in my life, warranting a documentation of sorts. So after deliberating for a while, I decided, probably its high time I should resurrect my blog. So here is a piece directly from my old college days

A normal chit-o-chat is going on inside the class-room. I have been a witness to so many of them being a back-bencher all my life. We are in the middle of a 5 minute break, guaranteed to provide some sort of respite to helpless students, who are preparing themselves to tolerate their not-so-favourate teacher for next one hour. The teachor himself is busy, sipping a full cup-of-tea during the break and occasionally going through the cheat-sheet that he brought along with him, when he entered inside the class-room. All I could make out of this conversation is "Internet is coming at door-steps of each and every individual" staying inside the campus, goes without saying only those chaps who already own a PC :). Trust me there are not many falling outside this class..After all only a fool would say no to an opportunity of buying his life's first Personal Computer at half its original price (half of the cost was to be generously borne out by its rich Alumnus members and two of the PSU banks, having branches inside the campus, are more than willing to finance the rest-half)

Ever since this news broke out inside the campus, this has been the talk of the town, finding mention almost everywhere, be it inside the institute-campus, hostel-wings, class-rooms, college-canteens and even during defecation in toilets, when students patiently wait in a queue for their turn (You may find it surprising, but back then we didn't had too many of them, probably 1 or 2 per floor accommodating about 30 odd students)

Here is a verbatim script of this conversation which lasted about a minute of so.

Rajesh: You know within 2-3 weeks time all of us should be able to access internet sitting inside our rooms.

Suman: Really !! (He is probably unaware of WWW mystery and find this hoopla surrounding computers and more specifically Internet, somewhat amusing.Since he hadn't had any encounter with a computer key-board till date, We forgive him for his naivety.

Abhi: Yes, I also heard that from some of my seniors who are involved in this project, that it will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days an year.

Rajesh: WoW !! This is unbelievable. Life will be so easy for us with internet at our doorsteps, wouldn't it be ?? No more standing in the queue outside CIC(Computer and Informatics Centre) rooms, waiting for guys to hang up inside(who are busy doing all sorts of unproductive things that you could possible do with Internet)

Abhi: Haan, we should be able to download and play our favourte songs, softwares we always wanted our computers to be loaded with, newspapers/magazines (including archives) we wish could be available to us anytime we feel like reading, computer games that always fascinated us.

Rajesh: Yes, the only thing missing from our armoury would be a CD-Writer. If we can have that, we will have almost everything in our arsenal.

Suman: Are Kuchh nahin, Internet rahega to CD-Writer bhee download kar lenge (Nothing to worry about folks. If we have internet, we should be able to download a CD-Writer from Web !!)

Abhi: Haan aab tum kuchh dinon mein CPU bhee internet se download karna (In few days time, you go ahead and download CPU using Internet !!)

As the entire class-room burst into laughter, Suman is left somewhat confused, wondering if he passed off any foolish remark or said anything wrong !!

PS: Suman is an IIT KGP Computer Science Grad, who was in his later half of 2nd yr UG, when 'this conversation' took place. Presently he is working in India's own Silicon Valley Bangalore for a Fortune 100 company based in California. Back then he was wet behind the ears, but is now confident enough not to be afraid of locking horns with IT industry vetarans.

Ohh, By The Way Don't tell his employer, about this episode, for his employer may find this a strong enough reason to hand him a pink-slip during these slow-down times !!!

What a Touching Story !!

Hats off to Jagran for the following piece !!!
http://in.jagran.yahoo.com/sahitya/?page=article&articleid=713&category=1

(Before navigating to this page, please download the Hindi font from jagran website )

After a long time I came through a really nice piece of hindi literature on web, fully relevant in today's fast-track materialistic rat-race world. After reading it I
really got emotional about my parents and relatives (I am pretty sure you too will feel the same way) who want your time, company more than anything else(Read money).. Believe me I am shaken deep inside because whatever has happened in the aforementioned story, I don't rule out the possibility of happening the same in my family too, if I keep on doing the same thing, whatever I am doing right now(working in the software industry),for the rest of my life.

The story ends like this
Having realized that all through his life He ran, ran and kept on running. But finally when he sees his 'chachi' flying to heaven in a flash, he realizes his mistake and finally just repeats a poem, his chachi used to tell him during his childhood days

Hirla Jhool Ge Sajni
Bihan Hato Pawani

(Oh, my dear, my beloved friend, let's enjoy and have fun, tomorrow is the festival (but you mayn't be alive to witness it !!!)

PS : I am back to my blogging ways :):)

Attending A South-Indian Marriage

Whenever you think of a marriage(Not your marriage off course!!!) there are only two things that comes into your mind :- One is the different kind of people(read nice good-looking girls) and the other is the delicious food waiting for you...(Ummmmm..That is too tempting...I am already licking my lips on the prospects of attending a marriage back home in September)

But pretty recently I have had a very contrasting experience regarding the marriage but "unfortunately" it was a south-indian marriage(Tough luck south-indian guys!!). And i would love to share my "experience" with you all.

I leave my place Bangalore with my battery fully charged up for the marriage..Ohh marriage..So many people..So many pretty girls to watch out for..Who knows..Apna Bhee Sikka kahin Jam Jaaye..Apna Taaka Phit Ho Jaaye...So I reach the station well before time, take the train and leave for the "destination". Next morning I reach "the" place. Although I have a well-drawn map and complete address of the place where I was supposed to go, but then my geographical skills are so poor that sometimes I am confused whether sun rises in east or west!!

And to beat it all I was supposed to go to a place named as WadaKancheri not WadaKaancheri(Plz Note the subtle difference between the name of places!!!).There is only one letter difference between these two places although they fall on either side of railway station around 20-25 KMs apart. So you take the the bus, you miss the pronunciation(Either your tongue deceived you or your accent didn't come out properly....or You are feeling dizzy...or whatever) and U can be sure that you are in for some serious trouble....You will be in a place which has got "almost" the same name as your desired place but u are only 40-50 KMs away from the place u would have been!!!!

But then God is there to help out poor souls like me.While being in the train I built friendship with a guy who happened to be from the same place as my destination and has been working in Intel for 2-3 years. I was impressed with the knowledge that he possessed about some of the software tools that are used so frequently inside out organization. We had quite some topics to discuss and we hardly slept through the night. In between, he offered an assurance of sorts that I won't be lost on this heaven-on-earth land. So at least now I was certain that I will be able to attend the function in time.

Then comes the food....In our college days we used to take Idli and all the junk stuffs quite fondly...But after coming to south I really doubt whether any one of we north-indians has got still the same liking for Idli and all?? Here u struggle to swallow(swallow is the most appropriate word for these south-indian shits!!!) even a bit of Idli but at the same time you see people finishing off 10-12 idlis in a flash taking it in big gulps as if it's some pious !!

Disclaimer: This piece is meant only to hurt the individuals esepcially the south-indian ones and if your don't feel hurt by the same while still being a south-indian(I think i am talking of a miracle) then feel free to give me the feedback regarding the south indian marriage !!!

This is not finished yet, hope to complete this one very soon. I hope I am done in by my memory as this marriage took place more than 4 years ago. Watch out this space for more

Taste of a South-Indian Cup of Tea

This piece is dedicated to few of the die-hard TEA-Fan Club members.Take for example mine...You can offer me a cup of tea anywhere anytime, I will gladly accept that. But the only condition is you can offer me either a good cup of tea and if not a good cup of tea then at least hot water will do (which I will be happy to take assuming that it will deliver some goods for my sore throat) but not a South-Indian Cup of TEA!!!!! You might have estimated the ammount of "love" I possess in my heart for the south-indian tea!!!! LOL...Guys,You come to south india to take a glimpse of the tea being served here.I bet You will forget how does a cup of tea taste like!!! You will even quit your habit of taking tea during your stay in south.....

My experience over here suggests that here in south india tea sounds more like a homogeneous mixture of water,milk,sugar,tea-powder, although sometimes they put ginger into it also..but you won't have anything on the TEA-part. I mean to call this so called homogeneous mixture as TEA will be an insult to the word TEA!!!! You take tea and such is the beauty of this south-indian tea that within a fraction of seconds u will come to know of all the constituent elements of tea!!!You will feel that Oh This is made up of Milk..Ok this contains water too....There we have sugar too and..and....finally tea powder too......Wowww grttt...but then this doesn't taste like a tea at all....this is real sh** man..What is this yaar.....This is tea man, tea..a typical south-indian cup of tea.....South Indian Tea...My a**....Finally u curse the person who "advised" you to order tea, pay the bill(which is not cheaper either by any standard but the quality is indeed pathetic to say the least) half-heartedly and decide not to take any more tea in future from a south-indian hotel!!!!! Guys i am telling you this is not a problem with south-indian hotels i have been to one of my friends' home there also the story was not much different....I asked what's wrong with the tea in south india the lady says like this There might be something wrong with the tea-powder being sold here in maket..Does that mean Lipton Tajmahal and all have a different-2 flavour for north-india and south-india!!! May be who knows....But after being to bangalore(which is also south only) i have successfully found out some places where you can hang-out and will get a grand cup of tea....No prize for guessing that these shops are owned by north-indians!!!!!!

I have even tried to prepare tea using the same south-indian tea-powder in my room..Believe me it is as tasteful as the one i used to get at my native place and at Chhedis (One of the most visited n highly adored hotels/dhabas in world!!!!!). Does that mean these south-indians don't know how to prapare a cup of tea?? I think we know the answer.

Disclaimer: This piece is meant only to hurt the individuals(who "may" be liking south-indian tea) especially the south-indian ones who may find ways to support "their" tea, but these opinions are solely mine(Although i can safely bet any north-indian tea-liking person presently staying in south india will give you more or less the same or may be an even worse :):) compliments). And if you don't feel getting hurt by the same while still being a south-indian(I think i am talking of a miracle) then feel free to give me the feedback regarding the south indian tea!!!!