Of weekends and a best friend's wedding!

So what happens when one your best friend decides to get married? And it happens on a weekend with a choral performance on the morning of the weekend? Fun! is the best word i can put in here. And what fun it was!

'J' Decided to get married two months ago. No! He decided loooooong back......The bride searching went on for some time.I surely know how long it takes. Believe me, I am going through it. After the usual 'yeses' and 'Nos' he finally settled down on this girl 'P'. It took a long time coming though. And so in the last two months of his pre marital life, we had 6 treats, innumerable discussions on the wedding plans including the gifting, the travelling etc etc.

All of a sudden the day came. We friends had arranged a car to take the long 500 Km, 7-8 hour drive. 'J' as usual joined us, without informing his parents and 'P' of course. I mean, he was supposed to take a train and that is all the parents and 'P' knew. So we started around 3 PM, and had to pick up my cousin on the way. The car was packed to its brim. Indian style! When we took our first break we realized we had a punctured tyre. After all we are IT professionals; Changing tyres should not be an issue. But, IT professionals do not change tyres, do they? It was an incredibly difficult job and we had absolutely no clue how we did it. After changing tyres we realized the spare tyre also is out of air. I again don't know why we did not find that out before replacing the tyres.I told you, we are stupid. I mean, we are IT professionals after all. So, both the tyres were repaired and we reached the place were my cousin is 2 hours late. And it was already dark!

Thanks to my aunt we had some poori's for dinner, though I still doubt its veracity. Some said it was 'appalam'. I'm confused! As soon as we started 'P' called 'J'. Remember, he is in the train? So all of us had to do a train journey impersonations. 'P' believed. She is naive after all. Girls are,usually before marriage! After a good, (Ok!) decent dinner we reached home at around 1:30 AM. When i entered another cousin of mine who had come for a choir programme the next day was wide awake. So the chatting started! and the laughing! and it was 4:30 AM. Time to go to bed!. I had to get up at 7:00 AM for the choir programme and it was worth every bit of effort to get up. Listening to Handel's classics and Theodore's modern Tamil numbers were just out of  this world. At least 'Out of this world' is the phrase the choir had asked me to use here.

So, After the mandatory sunday afternoon biriyani, we were up and running again. In the mean time the car had another puncture and so another hour of running around with the tyre. We had a 2 hour drive after the tyres got repaired and were in time for the engagement ceremony. After the engagement ceremony, we realized the best friend had not booked rooms for us to stay and we have to move to your uncle's place. I understand him! He is after all my best friend. There is always the time to reciprocate:)

Then again a night of chatting and laughter in the uncle's place. Another early morning getting up after having a few hours of sleep means severe headache. But, can't rest! after all our best friend is the groom. The marriage ceremony went on really well!  It can't go wrong! We were there. And then the reception happened. Of course we had our gifts ready by then. Hell no! I can't reveal the gift here. Immediately after the gifting is done we started back. Did not even wait to eat the biriyani. Of course we had a sumptuous lunch on the way, whose bill will be as usual claimed from 'J'.

The drive again was 10 hours! The car had a sensor malfunction which made the engine switch off once it cross 80 Kms per hour. All this we bore in the name of our best friend 'J' and his wife 'P'. And we reached home at 1 AM again.

 Now we are all geared up for the first treat after he settles down. This is the wedding treat! Don't ask me what the others were.

Life those two days! It was what life was meant to be. Fun!

Is education the cure?

Two days ago I left my 'American Tourister' bag outside the huge library in Chennai and went inside for my daily ritual. When I came back my bag was missing. It was such a good bag that one of my best friend always fought for it. Somebody found it to be too interesting and decided to steal it.

Bag getting stolen? In a library? where the best brains in and around Chennai are supposed to be slogging it out in pursuit of a brighter future? My brother said, may be the security personnel or some library staff could have taken it. He is right, I told myself. The educated youth can't be stealing bags.

Is it so? The educated youth don't steal? My mind struggled with that logic. In fact the biggest thieves this country have seen have been the more educated. The doctors, the lawyers, the engineers, the business managers and of course the highly educated bureaucracy and the saintly politicians. The great American D.L Moody said this and is n't he bang on?

                         " Take a child stealing bolts and nuts in a railway track and give him education,
                            he will steal the whole railway track!"

Then from where have we got the idea that education is going to cleanse humanity? Why do we instantly think that the poor and the uneducated steal more? Why do we feel that the rapes and murders this society is becoming accustomed to happen because of the illiterate migrants?

May be we are to put our thinking caps on again! and think a way out of the mess we are in. 'Education', in its current form is not the cure.

I could hear the former BBC journalist Malcolm Muggeridge murmur,

                                                "We have educated ourselves to imbecility!"

Where are the statesman?

It is frustrating! There is a moron, a murderer as the now famous tweet mentioned. Only it failed to mention that there is an anarchist who has recently joined the bandwagon.

Don't take me wrong. I am an optimist. I believe in the system. May be the system needs some small works here and there, but overhauling the system as the Prince repeated often is not my idea.

So, where are the statesman? The Lincoln's, the Washington's, the Mandela's and the Gandhi's I was made to read about. Indeed, as a child I had read about em all and 'awed' at some of them. I was taught they are leaders because they were honest; they cared for the people and fought injustice. I was taught the world is a better place just because they led their people.

Sadly for us, there is one who makes history books look foolish, whose biggest aide has two murder cases on him, who thinks the reason for malnutrition in children is the beauty consciousness of girls(Yes! He is stupid) and who does not inspire any confidence among two large chunk of people. Then there is the other whose greatest achievement is to have kept Arnab quite for two hours. I mean it! For two hours Arnab was dumb stuck! At the foolishness of it all. At the thought that people like me are still fools to think that he is going to change the system which his forefathers constructed and he himself was part of for ten long years. Like the kid which builds its own house and breaks it only to build another in the beach sand.

I hope and pray that the third one does not take the route taken by the leaders (Oops!) of this country. But already the signs are ominous and I dare not have big expectations.

So that takes me to my question again. Where are the statesman? May be I'm so naive to believe that a statesman will rise up from a motley group of jokers that we are. There can't be and won't be a leader worth naming unless us( Yes! You and me) behave like we deserve one.

I mean, A people as dishonest as us, as brutal and as criminal as we are don't deserve one; do we?

Let it go! Let it come!

Drop the last year in to silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank god that it can go! 2013, an year which can go. It had to go.

It did start on a positive note. Well, everything new does. But the year was bad. 'Tough' would be a better word. It had everything in it to be called one of the worst years of my life so far. It was imperfect. It can go. It had to go.

But, there is never the lack of a silver lining in any cloud. And for that matter in the darkest of clouds the silver lining shined brightest and for that I am thankful. I am humbled. For the friends. For the family. For those who heard my lamentations, for those who tolerated my nonsense, for those who prayed for me, for those who stood by me, and above all for those who loved me. I am thankful. The places I lived changed, not the people nor their support. They were my silver lining.

New year! New hopes! Looking forward to a close friends wedding, to vintage travels, to many days of laughter, to new opportunities, to many many many stories and indulgences, to the deep changes happening in the country, to many new books, to lovely new music, to many new write ups here, and to the challenges of the exams. Let it come!

Life, in between the "Let it go's" and "Let it come's" is beautiful. isn't it?

 

But for them, the world is a worse place!

It was humbling! Truly humbling. Life had not been good to them. At least that is what I had thought before. But when I saw them dancing and having fun, I think I am made to eat my words. I mean, my thoughts.

Elwin centre for the mentally retarded is a school I had known for years now. My best friend's dad is the principal for years and we are family friends ever since I remember. So it is easy to know the school well. I had been to the campus many times, played with the mentally challenged children on so many occasions but this has not stuck me before.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the Christmas programme of the mentally challenged children of the school. A good friend wanted to take snaps and so I went to the very front of the auditorium and sat there with the other kids witnessing the cultural programme.

The kids I sat with were all excited to see their friends come on to the stage. You can see that on their faces that they wanted good for them. They were happy, plain and simple! There were no remorse, glaring mistakes were not jeered at, no booing, no whistling, no 'boys VS girls' competition, no gang fights. Through out the programme, I watched their faces. Both the ones on the stage and those off it. The smile did not go away. The excitement never wavered. The happiness was there right through!

Suddenly it sparked on me. The purity of the happiness I had lost along the way. The excitement in me wavered. Hatred has become a part of me; Competition has taken away the sheen of pure love. But all of them I saw, in those tiny deformed faces.

May be, I had thought the world would have been a better place without them! Yes, I mean it. But then, truly I am made to believe that the world is in fact a better place. But for them, the purity of love and happiness is all but lost.

Yes! It is humbling; humbling to know that the kids I met yesterday were way ahead of me in their lives for they know not anything but love.

 

The family that made the difference!

He was Mumbai's brightest star; The next big thing happening to mumbai after the little master Sunil Gavaskar;Was often called the Vivian Richards of mumbai! It was on his stumps that the famed coach Ramakant Achrekar had placed a coin first - a sign in Mumbai cricket circles that you were the chosen one.No,No, you are wrong! He is not the now 'former' great Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. He is one Mr. Gurav Anil.

When the entire country was celebrating Sachin, Gurav was lying down far far away from the Wankhede.The smell of cheap alcohol rests around him, as do years of pain in his wild, staring glazed eyes. Where did it all go wrong? Some 25 years back his biggest fans were Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli. Sadly now, even his children don't talk to him. 

When Sachin in his farewell speech mentioned every single member of his family as the backbone of his success, Gurav was almost cursing his family. Ironically his brother was also named Ajit! Remember Ajit Tendulkar?

Ajit, Gurav's brother fell in to bad company and police were behind the entire Gurav family from then on. Life, took the wrong turn once his younger brother became the target of the police. Finally to distance himself from police he had to move away from his place! And sadly away from cricket. 

May be 'Gurrrrraaaaaav Gurraav' would have been a chant as well! Another cricketing hero could have won Bharat Ratna; could have become the cynosure of all eyes; It did not happen that way. And one major difference between Sachin and Gurav was the influence that institution called 'family' had on the two individuals.

I don't deny that there were other differences. It is said Gurav failed to score in an important match when the selectors were watching. He did not have the temperament to fight on. And there were many other factors as well. 

Yet, of course yet with a capital 'Y' it was the FAMILY, the real difference.

Sachinism! Thank you sachin!

I didn't want to write this. I told my dad I'm not going to write on sachin. There are literally hundreds of them writting and I didn't  want to repeat the cliche, "Thank you sachin"! But then, as always I decided to go with the flow than resist it.

Well, to me the greatest thing sachin has done to this country is to bring the smile back. After a hard days labour, after wrestling poverty and hunger, after muddling through chaotic traffic, the average Indian needed him to bring that sanity, bring that smile.And he did exactly that, for 24 long years.

The Hindus loved him as much as the Muslims did; The poor, the rich, the upper caste, the lowest of castes, the army men, the Bollywood stars, the prime ministers, the rickshaw wallahs! The sad reality of a divided India did not matter when sachin was at the crease. And again I say he brought them all smiles! Happiness!

I agree, the farewell went overboard; He overstayed his stay; there were other important things than a cricketer farewell. But then, what is life without a little joy and happiness? May be it is just a sport, may be cricket is taken too seriously in this country; yes, he is not god and failed so many times; yet if there was one man who had brought so much to this country then he deserves it all.

There was a saying "India slept well, when sachin scored a century!" And for that I salute him! And for that I repeat the cliche! "Thank you sachin".