Monthly Archive for April, 2006

Rendezvous with New Delhi

Published on April 27, 2006 in Life etc. and Wacky Humor. 10 Comments

It took 15 years for me to surpass my record. Now New Delhi is officially the northernmost place I’ve visited.

I went to New Delhi to get my visa. All expenses were borne by my company. After finishing my day at the company, I went home, packed and had some light food. By that time, my car had come. At that time my cellphone rang.

“Sir, we are calling from Indian Airlines. We regret to say that your flight has been delayed by 30 minutes.”

I would bet that these Indian Airlines chaps would have the Guinness World Record for the highest number of regrets. I’ve never seen an IA flight departing on time.
You may be asking me why I took an Indian Airlines flight then.
Fate!!! (Didn’t get tickets in any other plane)

So I went to airport and waited, gaped at some Kingfisher airhostesses who were walking, pulling a strolley gracefully. Looked like the VIP ad. Somebody apparently thought that onlookers should be given a heavenly feeling when the airhostesses are around, because suddenly we were covered in thick white smoke. (Remember the old purana-based serials, where they always show heaven filled with knee-deep white smoke??)
Two foreigners who were sitting beside me were looking awestricken. They asked me what that was. I replied that it was a desperate attempt to ward off the mosquitoes. (That was one rare time when I didn’t lie)

Aboard the plane, I was again reminded of the Kingfisher airhostesses. There was an aged lady among the cabin crew. She reminded me of another “granny” of Doordarshan. There was a news reader in DD called Salma Sultan who was quite a granny, but always came with dyed hair and red lipstick which looked awful. I mean, there’s no problem with old ladies, but why do they dye their hair and put lipstick?

I’ve heard a joke about Air India (which is no better than Indian Airlines). Their punchline is “Warm and motherly affection”. By “warm”, they mean that the AC doesn’t work. By “motherly”, they mean that all the air hostesses are about your mother’s age.

I reached Delhi…Well, not exactly!
I reached the airspace above Delhi and was hovering there. The pilot kept going in circles for about half an hour above Delhi. Drat!

When we were about to land, they announced that the temperature outside was 35 degrees. I insctinctively looked at my watch. Was it 12 noon or 12 midnight? Then I realised it was Delhi and it was summer.

Finally, I got down. I found my driver. He took me to Maurya Sheraton. I got a nice room. But I couldn’t sleep. At the time of check-in, they had swiped my card for some five digit figure. Not that I had to pay that amount. But I felt guilty spending so much for a night’s stay.

I didn’t get a feel of the real Delhi until noon the next day. That was when I stepped out of the AC in the hotel. Hot is not the word. It was scorching.

I saw from my car that Delhi was good. Good roads and well-planned flyovers. I had read from some blog (I don’t remember) that Delhi looked ugly. I’ll have to disagree. It looks better than Bangalore at least. Maybe I hadn’t visited the uglier parts of the city. But whatever I saw was top class.

My interview was at 1230. I had to stand in the queue outside. I didn’t feel better until I got inside the airconditioned room. I got my visa without much difficulty. I didn’t have much time, so I couldn’t visit any place. I was unlucky.

I returned to hotel and had a good sleep for 1 hour.

As I was packing before checkout, another phonecall came.

“Sir, we are calling from Indian Airlines. We regret to say that your flight has been delayed by 1 hour.”

History repeats!

Banaras

Published on April 17, 2006 in Stories and Wacky Humor. 7 Comments

Disclaimers:
1. This is *not* a review on the movie, so don’t be dejected.
2. This has nothing to do with the movie except that both took place in Banaras.
3. The Bengali words in this post are from the minuscule vocabulary I have acquired from watching Bengali movies (with subtitles, of course). So please excuse me if I make a mistake in Bengali.
4. These are based on actual experiences of my uncle. Some names have been changed; others I made up because I don’t know.

They were four friends from four corners of India – studying together in the multicultural atmosphere of IT-BHU.

Bored with the intellectual routine of their engineering life, they decided to visit the outskirts of Banaras over the weekend. Their plan was to see the “Ramlila” – a kind of drama based on Ramayan.

On Saturday, they all got ready to travel. Ravi and George were packing their bags when Soham came and asked,

“Lokhan kothoi”

Ravi stared blankly at Soham while George mumbled, “There he goes again.”
That sounded like Bengali (they guessed from the lot of O’s) and by the tone of it, it looked like a question. But they didn’t understand what he had meant.

George said, “Talk in English, will you? How in the world do you expect us to understand every time you talk in Bengali?”
Soham said, “Oh…I asked where Lokhan……Lakshman is”
“#$%^!@. Talking to us in Bengali is worse enough for us. Do you have to change names also? Man. You’re impossible.”
Ravi said matter-of-factly, “So you call Lakshman as Lokhan…What do you call Lakshmi then? Lokhi?”
Soham sneered.

*

Soon they set off to their destination. That evening they watched Ramlila. It was a small stage in a large ground. The stage was “well lit” with a few tubelights but there was no microphone. There were quite a few people among the audience and all were watching so silently that you would hear a needle fall.
It was the scene where Hanuman and Raavan were talking before Lankadahan.
Raavan was saying one gargantuan dialogue about 100 words long.
Suddenly the lights went off. Power cut. All they could see now was the silhoutte of the actors in the pale moonlight.
Anyway, that didn’t stop Raavan as he went on with his talking.
Suddenly Hanuman interrupted,


“Ek minute roko” (Wait a minute)

Then he sprinted towards the side of the stage. When he came back, he was carrying a petromax light in his hands.
He casually told Raavan,


“Ab batao” (Go ahead now)

There was a moment of silence, then the four friends started chortling from the audience. They were laughing not because of the few sentences that came out of the blue into the drama, but because the naive villagers were still quiet, listening to every single word with intense devotion and thinking that whatever Hanuman did now too was a part of the script.

George gave a loud audible groan and laughed hysterically. The result of that chuckle – they were chucked out of the grounds and asked not to insult the Ramayana.

*

They were to stay for the night in the only house with a RCC ceiling in the village. That was the house of their friends’ uncle’s wife’s brother’s acquaintance or something like that. They were greeted rather curtly. The owner offered them a nice and plush bedroom. The bed room was the open terrace, which had no stairs. They had to climb to the terrace using a ladder. The terrace had no parapets, so it was a huge threat for George who usually would roll in his sleep and wake up in Delhi if he slept in Madras. Another good thing was the “mouth-watering” smell of the buffalo dung which was wafting around. The buffalo shed was just beside the ladder.

The owner told them there was a loo outside on the corner, in case they wanted to take a piss in the night.
They thanked the owner for the hospitality. (George murmured something which sounded like a pretty nasty swear word)

Ravi woke up after a few hours. He had no idea what time it was. He had to go to the loo. But he realised that it was going to be a Herculean task because he could not see anything. The moonlight was of no help. He went towards the side of the terrace and precariously stepped on where he thought the ladder was before.
He didn’t feel anything solid coming in contact with his feet. But before he could realise that the ladder was not there, it was too late, and he was on his way down. In the few seconds it would take to go down a height of 10 feet, an amazing number of thoughts passed through his mind. He visualised his friends carrying him to the hospital. He had a broken backbone, several compound fractures, a broken nose, a badly bruised face and loss of that heartthrob look.

Veering off topic, I’ve heard a nice PJ somewhat related to this.
Q. What is the difference between a person falling from the first floor and a person falling from the 10th floor?
A. For the first person, it’s THUD! AAAAHHH!
For the second person, it’s AAAAHHH! THUD!

He came back to the real world when he found that he had landed on something cushiony like a couch. Before he could thank God for that, he was in for another scare. A lazy snort coming from his behind and the swish of what felt like a tail. It suddenly dawned on him. That couch-like thing was the back of a buffalo. He had fallen on a buffalo, which, for reasons good or bad for him, was tied outside the shed.
He was totally freaked out that he didn’t move a muscle. A few seconds later, he realised that the buffalo too was not moving at all, in spite of something so heavy falling on its back. That day he realised the meaning of the popular Mallu phrase, “Pothu pole uranguka” (Sleeping like a buffalo).

By that time, the lights came on. The noise had woken everyone up. Ravi felt a jolt of pleasure when the owner too woke up.
When everyone came out to see what was the noise, he slowly got up from the back of the buffalo, gave a wink as if he had just pulled off a nice stunt and went to the toilet without much ado.

One evening in Pune

Published on April 7, 2006 in Life etc. and Memoirs. 14 Comments

It was almost the Northernmost point of the world I was travelling to. (If you don’t consider one trip to Bombay while I was in 2nd) I was feeling okay. I could survive. Having studied in the multi-cultural atmosphere of REC, I spoke Hindi, albeit with a little stammer here and there.

After an eventless journey aboard the train, I reached Pune. The first day was in Naru’s brother’s home. The next day we moved to Woodlands. It was the last evening we would be unemployed (Because, the next day we would officially be “Infoscions”). We decided to roam around places that evening. The nearest hang-out was, of course, INOX.

We went there, walked around the theater complex.
Naru suddenly said, “I’m going to find a girlfriend.”
“You mean from this crowd?”, I asked.

We went to the ticket counter. “Gayab” was the only movie which had tickets available. (Please don’t feel sad for us =) ) We bought two. 45 minutes until the movie starts. We decided to go into Barista. Somehow, we weren’t interested in McDonalds.

“Vaa. Lets have a coffee”
But there was nothing by the name “coffee” in the menu. I knew about Cappuccino and Espresso and other stuff (I mean only the names), but had only tasted Cappuccino. Naru had no idea what these were. So I suggested Espresso as a bit of an experimentation. We ordered two Espresso and “waited and waited with bated breath”.

10 minutes after we got our Espresso’s, we came out. The cups were still full on the table. I swore never to drink Espresso in my life again. Such a bitter thing. How do people manage to drink it?

Outside, we heard some movie-ishtyle dialogues from a youngster. It looked like a car had hit him lightly in the driveway to the theater. He kicked the car, threw a stone and said to the driver, “Apne baap se bol ek plane khareed laane ko….aur us pe ch***”

Naru said with an evil grin, “Enikkishtaayi” (Means “I liked the whole scene”)

After some time, we got into the theater. I still don’t understand why we were desperate enough to waste 100 bucks on a movie like “Gayab”. But the fact is, we did waste the money.
10 minutes into the movie, I wished I had spent those 100 bucks for some food.

Halfway into the movie, there was a song where Antara Mali was showing her skin. I commented something to Naru. He didn’t reply. I turned to look. I was shocked to see him snoring in his seat. His face was pointed upwards and his mouth was wide open. If it was out in the open, it would have been the perfect target for crows to practise their shitting. In the middle of all this noise of the Dolby sound?? Unfortunately, I didn’t have a cameraphone to capture that once-in-a-lifetime scene.

Espresso in Barista – 50 bucks
“Gaayab” at INOX – 200 bucks
A peaceful slumber in the middle of a movie – Priceless

There are some things money can’t buy….for everything else, there’s Mastercard.