Today I completed driving 25K km in my Santro. It took me 15 months and its been a long journey, well, 25000 kilometres exactly. Each and every mile has been a memorable one and shall not be forgotten. For, this is the car which was brave enough to accept me as a driver and train me through these treacherous paths of Delhi. This is the car which got bruised and battered a few times but never complained back. This is the car which was there with me through those dusty summer days, cold windy nights, those rainy thunderstorms, always protecting me and keeping me safe. LORD I PRAY to thee to bestow all the powers in the universe upon my super car and ... ok.. ok...I think I took it too far.
Anyways, there are a few....hmmmm... entities without whom this feat wouldn't have been possible. Firstly, I would like to take this oppurtunity to thank the engine of my car for being with me through thick and thin, always roaring in all its glory and maintaining its dignity along the way. I would also like to thank my cushioned seats and the shockers for making my rides so comfortable as if I had been sailing through the clouds. I would also like to acknowledge the floor mounted gear lever of my car for always providing me smooth transmission like hot knife through a butter. A special thanks goes to the braking system for stopping me from going on the wrong path. My thanks to the head lights an rear lights for showing me the path through those stormy dark nights. Last, but not the least, my sincere thanks to all my fellow riders who had the courage and confidence to sit beside me as I drove this beauty with the connoisseur's pananche.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
A profitable deal, indeed
Last week I went to local saturday market to buy some fresh fruits. It didn't take me long to purchase some mangoes, apples and litchi. But, I was in the mood for a long walk so I marched forward further into the market. As usual it was really crowded. Fruits & vegatable sellers were shouting out to the customers. People were busy striking a good deal. There were clothes, kitchen stuff, toys, junk food and what not.
Amongst all this hustle-bustle I noticed an old man sitting along side a fruit seller on the ground with few stacks of old magazines spread in front of him. He was skinny and old. He wasn't shouting out to customers like others. He was just sitting there motionless in the dim light of his laal tane. I could see some comics lying there in that faint light. As I child I used to read a lot of comics of chacha chaudhary & sabu, super commando dhruv, bankelal and numerous others. This spread of comics brought back the nostalgic memories and I decided to have a look. I started browsing through the entire lot. All this while I felt as if the old man was looking at me praying to god that I should find something of my interest and buy it.
After ten minutes of searching I found five comics of my interest. I asked the old man "paanch ka kitna hua" to which he promptly replied "chalis rupeey". I took out the 50 rupee note and handed it to him. For a moment I could see that he almost got a little worried and said " aapke paas khulle nahin hain kya". He asked his neighbouring fruit seller for change and in return got back a flat cold "nahin" as the answer.
He looked helpless as though he was about to loose a big treasure. He asked me to take another comic as he did'nt have the change. I had already checked out all the comics and I knew browsing again would just be in vain. I told him "baba aap rakh lijeye. Main next time aa ke ek aur comic le jaounga". Instantly, the worried look was gone from his face and he raised the fifty rupee note to touch it on his left eye then right eye,and kept it in his pocket. With a blissful
smile on his face he said "jeetey raho beta".
Amongst all this hustle-bustle I noticed an old man sitting along side a fruit seller on the ground with few stacks of old magazines spread in front of him. He was skinny and old. He wasn't shouting out to customers like others. He was just sitting there motionless in the dim light of his laal tane. I could see some comics lying there in that faint light. As I child I used to read a lot of comics of chacha chaudhary & sabu, super commando dhruv, bankelal and numerous others. This spread of comics brought back the nostalgic memories and I decided to have a look. I started browsing through the entire lot. All this while I felt as if the old man was looking at me praying to god that I should find something of my interest and buy it.
After ten minutes of searching I found five comics of my interest. I asked the old man "paanch ka kitna hua" to which he promptly replied "chalis rupeey". I took out the 50 rupee note and handed it to him. For a moment I could see that he almost got a little worried and said " aapke paas khulle nahin hain kya". He asked his neighbouring fruit seller for change and in return got back a flat cold "nahin" as the answer.
He looked helpless as though he was about to loose a big treasure. He asked me to take another comic as he did'nt have the change. I had already checked out all the comics and I knew browsing again would just be in vain. I told him "baba aap rakh lijeye. Main next time aa ke ek aur comic le jaounga". Instantly, the worried look was gone from his face and he raised the fifty rupee note to touch it on his left eye then right eye,and kept it in his pocket. With a blissful
smile on his face he said "jeetey raho beta".
Sunday, March 7, 2010
don't fix if it ain't broken
Pretty soon CWG-2010 is going to be the buzz word all around Delhi. The work is going on at full throttle. Old stadiums are getting renovated, new stadiums are gbeing constructed, hotels are coming up round the city and cleaning drive is in progress. The city is getting a face lift.
BUT, what has caught my attention is the work being done on the ring road in Delhi. That's cos its totally un-called for. The stretch of road from Kirby Place, Delhi Cantt to Dhaula Kuan is already good enough to be a skating track. But a new road is getting laid over that stretch which is absolutely unneccessary and causing lot of trouble to everyday commuters. Delhi govt seems to have turned a blind eye towards the roads in north delhi and west delhi areas such as Mukherjee nagar, Vijay nagar, Punjabi bagh, Hari nagar, Paschim vihar which have been dug up since forever.
Also, there's a 3 to 4 feet wide seperator in the middle of ring road that runs along its length seperating the two sides of traffic. Now if the purpose of the seperator is keep the traffic in appropriate lanes and encourage the pedestrians to use the overhead road crossing or subway crossings, then I say, it's doin its job pretty well. Apparently, delhi govt thinks otherwise. Probably they are hoping that the tourists might be interested in the stones used along the pavement. Cos they are swapping the stones at boundary of the seperator with new ones. And you know what ! The newly laid stones are different, they are not cuboidal, they are tarpezoidal in shape. Awesome, isn't it ? Isn't it great that more than the money, govt. is wasting a lot of time doing this shit and causing un-necessary trouble to everyday commuters ?
If Delhi govt has so much spare money, then there are lot of areas in Delhi where it can be put to good use. Infrastructure wise, yes, definitely. But more so related to the courtesy and mannerisms. Especially, the people involved in public dealings such as cops, taxi drivers, auto drivers all need a crash course in the subject. So why not channelise the surplus money in
that direction ?
BUT, what has caught my attention is the work being done on the ring road in Delhi. That's cos its totally un-called for. The stretch of road from Kirby Place, Delhi Cantt to Dhaula Kuan is already good enough to be a skating track. But a new road is getting laid over that stretch which is absolutely unneccessary and causing lot of trouble to everyday commuters. Delhi govt seems to have turned a blind eye towards the roads in north delhi and west delhi areas such as Mukherjee nagar, Vijay nagar, Punjabi bagh, Hari nagar, Paschim vihar which have been dug up since forever.
Also, there's a 3 to 4 feet wide seperator in the middle of ring road that runs along its length seperating the two sides of traffic. Now if the purpose of the seperator is keep the traffic in appropriate lanes and encourage the pedestrians to use the overhead road crossing or subway crossings, then I say, it's doin its job pretty well. Apparently, delhi govt thinks otherwise. Probably they are hoping that the tourists might be interested in the stones used along the pavement. Cos they are swapping the stones at boundary of the seperator with new ones. And you know what ! The newly laid stones are different, they are not cuboidal, they are tarpezoidal in shape. Awesome, isn't it ? Isn't it great that more than the money, govt. is wasting a lot of time doing this shit and causing un-necessary trouble to everyday commuters ?
If Delhi govt has so much spare money, then there are lot of areas in Delhi where it can be put to good use. Infrastructure wise, yes, definitely. But more so related to the courtesy and mannerisms. Especially, the people involved in public dealings such as cops, taxi drivers, auto drivers all need a crash course in the subject. So why not channelise the surplus money in
that direction ?
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Koon... chuk chuk chuk chuk
A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles - Tim Cahill
Be it the journey of life or a simple train journey with family and friends.
I recently visited shirdi sai baba ji temple with my family and friends. A group of 5 families inclusive of 24 members in total. We were to catch our train from Nizamuddin railway station at 3:00 pm on 15th Jan, 2010. The train takes approx 20 hrs to reach Kopargaon junction which is half an hour taxi ride away from shirdi.
I've always loved to travel by train. Although it takes time, but there is certain mystery about railway tracks, small unknown junctions along the way, whistling engines, an organized mess on platforms, it just keeps me occuppied. Its like another world in itself. There are a lot of train journies which I distinctly remember for the sheer fun I had and this one certainly fits into that list very well.
Our train started on time. Initially everyone was busy catching up with each other and around 3-4 hours passed easily and we ate our lunch too. Lunch menu included Meethi parantha, Plain parantha, Rajma chawal, Veg pulao, Mix veg, Aaloo methi, gajar muttar and Muttar paneer. Yummy !!
After a filling lunch and lots of talking, What next ? Everyone joined in to play a couple of games of tambola excluding a few elders who were still too busy talking about politics, real estate, cricket and basically all the current affairs. I don't like Tambola too much but playing in such a big group is fun so I joined in with everybody and was lucky enough to have made a few bucks. I choose not to disclose the exact amount here due to security reasons :P
After a few games of tambola, it was becoming monotonous and mummy, bua ji, mithu bhaiya and company were not very interested in continuing. They rather preffered to chit chat. So that left me along with Shweta, Shruti, Kritika, Deepu, Sunil, Vicky bhaiya, Preeti bhabhi, Rahul and Anshu. We were also not very keen to play tambola and so the table was open for suggestions. So I suggested that we play "skip on 7" game where everyone forms a circle and starts to count from one end. First person loudly says 1, second person says 2 and so on. Whenever there is a number which is multiple of 7 or has 7 in it the person has to skip that number and say the next number loudly. So we need to skip numbers 7,14,17,21 and so on. We enjoyed playing it for sometime but started getting bored of it very soon.
We put on our thinking caps again. After a little brainstroming, I thought of dumshrads. Surprisingly, the game was new to Vicky bhaiya and preeti bhabhi. So a quick tutorial and we were on our way. We split ourselves into two teams and started exercising our acting skills. It was LOADS of FUN. Shweta, shruti and Kritika were especially sharp and expereinced campaigners but rest of us were "Oh my God ! What's that ??" kinda actors. But that was the real fun. To guess a word being enacted by a terrible actor can be lots of fun.
Speaking of terrible actors, Rahul deserves a special mention here as he had us all in splits of laughter through his acting skills. He made me realize that sometimes actions don't speak louder than words :)
If I were to give awards for the performances here's the list of peple who would share the honours.
best "I can en-act any word" award: Shweta and Kritika
best "I can guess any movie " award: Sunil (Artist hain bhai!)
best "Leave me alone, I can't act" award: Rahul
best "Blabber " award: Shruti
Everyone liked that game so much that we ended up playing for hours that day and even the next day in morning. Our train was 4 hours late in reaching Kopargaon... but no one was complaining. The journey was so much fun.
PS: My special thanks to the crew members :)
Starring: Shruti, Shweta, Kritika, Deeksha, Prisha, Deepu, Sunil, Vicky bhaiya, Preeti bhabhi, Rahul and Anshu
Special appearance: Mithu bhaiya, Aarti bhabhi, Amit bhaiya, Sheetal bhabhi, Daddy, mummy, bua ji, uncle ji, tinku bhaiya, seema bhabhi, rahul ke dada ji and goga bua.
Be it the journey of life or a simple train journey with family and friends.
I recently visited shirdi sai baba ji temple with my family and friends. A group of 5 families inclusive of 24 members in total. We were to catch our train from Nizamuddin railway station at 3:00 pm on 15th Jan, 2010. The train takes approx 20 hrs to reach Kopargaon junction which is half an hour taxi ride away from shirdi.
I've always loved to travel by train. Although it takes time, but there is certain mystery about railway tracks, small unknown junctions along the way, whistling engines, an organized mess on platforms, it just keeps me occuppied. Its like another world in itself. There are a lot of train journies which I distinctly remember for the sheer fun I had and this one certainly fits into that list very well.
Our train started on time. Initially everyone was busy catching up with each other and around 3-4 hours passed easily and we ate our lunch too. Lunch menu included Meethi parantha, Plain parantha, Rajma chawal, Veg pulao, Mix veg, Aaloo methi, gajar muttar and Muttar paneer. Yummy !!
After a filling lunch and lots of talking, What next ? Everyone joined in to play a couple of games of tambola excluding a few elders who were still too busy talking about politics, real estate, cricket and basically all the current affairs. I don't like Tambola too much but playing in such a big group is fun so I joined in with everybody and was lucky enough to have made a few bucks. I choose not to disclose the exact amount here due to security reasons :P
After a few games of tambola, it was becoming monotonous and mummy, bua ji, mithu bhaiya and company were not very interested in continuing. They rather preffered to chit chat. So that left me along with Shweta, Shruti, Kritika, Deepu, Sunil, Vicky bhaiya, Preeti bhabhi, Rahul and Anshu. We were also not very keen to play tambola and so the table was open for suggestions. So I suggested that we play "skip on 7" game where everyone forms a circle and starts to count from one end. First person loudly says 1, second person says 2 and so on. Whenever there is a number which is multiple of 7 or has 7 in it the person has to skip that number and say the next number loudly. So we need to skip numbers 7,14,17,21 and so on. We enjoyed playing it for sometime but started getting bored of it very soon.
We put on our thinking caps again. After a little brainstroming, I thought of dumshrads. Surprisingly, the game was new to Vicky bhaiya and preeti bhabhi. So a quick tutorial and we were on our way. We split ourselves into two teams and started exercising our acting skills. It was LOADS of FUN. Shweta, shruti and Kritika were especially sharp and expereinced campaigners but rest of us were "Oh my God ! What's that ??" kinda actors. But that was the real fun. To guess a word being enacted by a terrible actor can be lots of fun.
Speaking of terrible actors, Rahul deserves a special mention here as he had us all in splits of laughter through his acting skills. He made me realize that sometimes actions don't speak louder than words :)
If I were to give awards for the performances here's the list of peple who would share the honours.
best "I can en-act any word" award: Shweta and Kritika
best "I can guess any movie " award: Sunil (Artist hain bhai!)
best "Leave me alone, I can't act" award: Rahul
best "Blabber " award: Shruti
Everyone liked that game so much that we ended up playing for hours that day and even the next day in morning. Our train was 4 hours late in reaching Kopargaon... but no one was complaining. The journey was so much fun.
PS: My special thanks to the crew members :)
Starring: Shruti, Shweta, Kritika, Deeksha, Prisha, Deepu, Sunil, Vicky bhaiya, Preeti bhabhi, Rahul and Anshu
Special appearance: Mithu bhaiya, Aarti bhabhi, Amit bhaiya, Sheetal bhabhi, Daddy, mummy, bua ji, uncle ji, tinku bhaiya, seema bhabhi, rahul ke dada ji and goga bua.
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