Twinkle twinkle little star

Ishan Awasthi is a dude. He knows how to have fun. He doesn’t mind dipping into the gutter and fishing out ugly Guppy babies. He loves to play Superman with his head sticking out of the front window of the upper deck of a double-decker BEST.

He is the kid in every one of us. The atom that wants to get out and explore, that wants to feel free, wants to fly but fears what the world will think. The kid is trapped within the grown-up, in the pincushion of the adult’s apprehensions, his prejudices, and the pictures in his head.

Left to his own, he’s a happy soul, painting pictures of his dreams and with nothing to worry about.

He is not scared. He pumps his fist in a “Yes” when thrown out of class, moonwalks in the corridor, feeds his exam papers to the dogs and also cleans their ears for free!

Wouldn’t all of us want to be a little destructive when really pissed at something? Little Inu does exactly what Jim Carrey says about impulses in the Living Colour, “Why can’t I just stick my fingers into that table fan?” or “Hey, there’s Jerry. What if I just kick him in his balls and say hi instead of shaking his hand?”

Ishan couldn’t stand the sight of cute, dainty, neat, potted plants at the door of his enemy. He makes them look un-cute, un-dainty, un-neat and non-potty.

It is important to have fun in whatever one does. I don’t know who said it but I go it from a professor in college. He says there’s nothing more important in life than having fun.

The idea of ‘fun’ is also so very subjective. It can’t be copied like trigonometric calculations or complex chemical processes from a book to a journal. It is not the same for everyone. One needs to ask the baccha inside what it is actually seeking- his/her idea of fun.

Aamir Khan surely had lots of fun making the film. And it shows. (His kids must’ve loved it.) The otherwise reclusive personality is so much in touch with the child that it is tough not to crack up at his antics.

Whether truth or fiction, the potshot at Abhishek Bachchan was hilarious!

I don’t know intricate details of the feud between Amole and Aamir but I’m glad Aamir potted the clay into a shining taara.

P.S: The post-film visit to the loo revealed quite a few damp eyes and sniffles.

On the path of self-actualisation

I had lost a very valuable part of my attitude. One of the few things I shared with my former classmates is a generous amount of something that would generally be termed as a ‘lackadaisical attitude’; so much so that, all of these classmates were labelled into a group called ‘Chaltaye’ in my yahoo chat list.

SSR has been quite effective in moulding this ‘Chaltaye’ attitude, his train of thought being that one must let nothing affect one’s mood, creative process et al, that there’s nothing more important to grow while having fun, not to let anything bother you. It is but a totally tangent story that he himself would get irked by too much of ‘chaltaye’.

I was a big believer of this theory. I would seldom get angry. It wasn’t like salt in my curries like it is now. Not that I wouldn’t sulk then. Now, sulking is like breakfast, a routine that I must do for the poor sun to set in the west. My mood swings could easily conquer any lady’s monthly 3,4-day depressions. Generally, a verbal tiff with someone who means the world to me would mean that my day has gone for a toss, nothing would go right then onwards and I would be data-transferred from whatever mood I’m in at that moment to Sulkland. I turn into that 35-year old grump Facebook said I am. ‘Have fun’ adieus sound like curses. When in a crowd, I suddenly duck to avoid meeting recognizable faces, who, I’m sure would stop to ask me the customary queries of what I’m doing nowadays and how come I’m still in my last year of graduation etc. And the number of taxis that want to run me down on such days! My my!

Today was different. We had had an exchange of simmering words in the morning. Even as I hung up abruptly, I was thinking what would become of my day. Would all the effort from the day and the previous one go into the crushed aluminium foil of sulk sulk?

But it didn’t! Today was one of my most memorable days in college. It was Bazaar Day and the theme was ‘South India.’ Despite the confusion between medu wada and batata wada, everything was just perfect. Elephants and kathakali dancers in place, cutouts of course. Others had got leaf decorations and plantain leaves. A pookalam was designed with flowers. We were selling idlis, wadas and rasam. And…we won it! We bagged the first prize for the stall, first for the decorations and stood second in the food section. And how we squealed and rejoiced and hugged and danced when we won! And I had just had the time of my life, dancing away, getting people to buy our items- ‘kaanvaasing’ I called it…all of this while dressed in perfect ethnic costume.

So I guess, ‘chaltaye’ is back or am I sulking right now? I just want it to stay, now that it is here and help me mend things that have gone wrong and go on and be that happy ‘chaltaye’ Hari I used to be, for I care and I love. Her.

'Redding karte hain'

A hairy Hari Chakyar gains a very valuable gender reality experience at the barbershop

I got a haircut today, a close-to-the-scalp-cut that most people would associate with Akshay Khanna. Not that it is much of a deal, but the whole experience came with another free experience. Towards the end of the trimming process, realization struck. All the effort women take to look good and the pain they undergo suddenly dawned upon me.

The haircut was done, but I wasn’t satisfied. I could see jagged ends and unfinished poky cuticles sticking out here and there. I told the razor-wielder to shave ‘em off, so the new haircut would look less like a shaved moth. He dutifully whipped out his razor, but after a few miniscule strokes here and there, he said, “Redding karte hain.”

It was incomprehensible…I did not get what he said and impulsively responded, “ain?” “Dhaaga chalate hain,” he said. *A moonbeam suddenly made its way to earth* “Ah, he means threading,” I thought.

“Hey, wait a second, ain’t that what girls get done to their eyebrows just in time for a function or boyfriend-meeting ceremony?” *Head whirls*

By the time my pea-sized brain had reached this point of thought, the barber had a spool of string in his hand, like glass-dipped maanja. He held one bit of the thread between his teeth and held two other parts in his two hands and went at the remaining hairs.

The thread made a trayon trayon trayon trayon sound as it went as I held my eyes shut tight and cringed and cursed myself as to why I had to put on my spectacles and catch those errant strands, when I could have just avoided this painful humiliation! I seem to have this kinky fixation for pain, but this was ridiculous!

I bet there weren’t as many hairs there on my cheekbone and on my temple as that guy made them out to be! When wielding the all-powerful thread he just went berserk, ‘redding’ imaginary hair while I said “yeow yeow” and thought to myself, “F***, this hurts!”

But the end result is kinda good, so I think the effort was worth it. Precisely why I think women go for it. What the heck, it looks good! Don’t get me wrong; for I say this only in jest…I think now I’m a little more aware and sensitive about women’s issues!

Piggy on the railway, gone to commit suicide

Resilient and compliant that I am, like all my fellow pigs, it has been quite a few years that we’ve adapted ourselves to the perennial no-power situation. We have been convinced that there’s acute shortage of power in the state and that we would have to part with power for a considerable number of hours every day, so that our richer brethren in the city can relish their afternoon siesta peacefully in their air-conditioned bedrooms.

As for us- pigs, we don’t really mind not having electricity in our homes for anything between six and nine hours. Our television sets have become showpieces and we’ve been busy trying to find things to do when blessed with the lovely power cuts.

Recently heard, there are going to be power cuts in the New Bombay region too, which had somehow managed to hide behind the CIDCO building, when they were making the erratic timetable to fatefully deprive the Central suburbs of power.

Wasn’t that region supposed to be the next region to be ultra-developed after areas like Andheri? Weren’t major business and service industry offices planning to move base from the present congested Mumbai town to Vashi and Nerul? How then will those regions undergo power cuts?

I think I know how. Don’t label me as cynical. All of us have risen to a level higher than that and have attained something called nirvana of patience.

Look at this, the way I look at this. They continue with their plan of moving their offices to New Bombay, Indian Express and Loksatta being one of them. But then, they’ll meet the power cuts. But they are not flustered by it. The state will have a solution. “Central suburbs are only subjected to six hours of power cuts,” the state would say, “They still have eighteen hours of power, we can borrow some more.” Thus, the little what we have now will go on to ‘save the world’. Oh and then they’ll have explanations. ‘You know there used to be this power-source that recently shutdown and the others are all being renovated and will be ready within 2 months.’ And all that.

But then the suburbs will be given incentives to take up small scale industries like candle making and production of storable biogas made out of human excreta. The candles will keep us people busy all day and give us light at night. The rest of the time, we’ll be asleep, so we will not need any light. Hey, cardboard covers of notebooks are great to swish swash for breezes. And the candles, if smoothly made, can be used to make excellent dildoes. But then, they’ll have to be really strong or else, they’ll break inside the orifices and cause trouble later. Imagine the ecstasy of making love in candlelight after a candle light dinner! Perfect, ain’t it?

And the biogas fuel is the best incentive ever. It seems it is the second best energy-efficient fuel after LPG. Sure drives the point home that we are actually gaonwaalas. Shit and make gas out of it. Did I mention we are pigs?