Money Trouble……..When I fell short by a mere rupee!!!

When I first read a Mills & Boons novel, I was simply blown over like any other starry eyed teenager. I had seen many novels and heard many a stories from friends, but I never actually bought one for a long time. The cover pictures that I saw warned me in advance that my folks are definitely not going to like me reading one of those books…..but the lure of the forbidden was just too much to resist, so I decided to buy my first Mills & Boons, I was perhaps in class 7 or 8….. :-))
Now arranging for money was the tough part, surreptitious inquiries revealed I needed 50 bucks for this! Back in those days, getting hold of 50 rupees was kind of impossible! So my partner-in-crime, my younger sister decided to pool all the savings we had. We searched all our secret hiding places, all the piggy banks were emptied and all we could manage was 29 Rs….sigh!

We then sat down and began scratching our heads, splitting our hair to find a solution to THE biggest problem of our lives at that point of time…..we just needed 31 bucks more and we could lay hand on that DREAM BOOK….ohhhh so near yet so far!!!! BINGO….suddenly I remembered about twenty rupees that I had inside one of my long forgotten books. Wow…..I finally had the money to buy the novel….well that was what I thought before I counted the total money…!!!!

It was exactly 49 Rs…..unbelievable and total filmy, but I swear this is exactly how it had happened! And finding that 1re took eternity…..in fact I remember we could manage the one rupee only on the next day. Whenever I muse about this incident, it never fails to bring a smile to my face and give a tug at all my heartstrings! We all have our personal filmy moments in our lives I guess…..Finally we did manage the fifty bucks and the excuse to go out of the house to buy the book was an innovative (according to me) ‘I want to go to a friend house in the neighborhood, her family is moving out of Kohima’....hehehe!!!

I remember the protagonists of the story were named Mel and Jade…….and probably the name of the novel was Man Trouble….well in my case it was no man trouble at all, it was plain and simple money trouble….:P

Awri's Story.....at last!

The first blow hit her just as she was bending down to pick up the broom! Stunned, she whirled around to see what or who had hit her and her sight rested on Awri! He was a good for nothing drunkard, did small works during the day and with the little money that he earned; he drank his day’s share of daru in the evening. She did not know how to react…..Awri regularly used to beat up his wife, but this was certainly the first time he had hit her!

Before she could fully stand erect…more blows landed all over her fragile body. “What the hell is wrong with you, why are you hitting me”, she shouted! But there was no relief….he now picked up the broom and started hitting her and abusing her! Her screams brought out the others of the family and they were stunned by the sight….“what the hell are you doing, have you gone mad?” shouted his mother!

He was taken aback.....no body had ever dared to shout at him, but today everybody were shouting at him, even his meek wife......what was happening?? He tried to focus on the people around him and figure out what the fuss was all about! After a few moments it hit him and hit him really hard, he almost reeled with the affect.....he was hitting his elder brother's wife instead of his wife...huh so much for trying to tame his wife while he was drunk!!!

Btw this is based on a real incident, the names have of course been changed!

Still reeling with disbelief!!

I was in the midst of one of those moments when words magically flow in your mind! I was in the middle of writing an incident about Awri that had cropped up in mind just a few moments ago, I was typing furiously…….did not want out to miss out on a single thought! And then the most unlikely thing happened to me…!!!

Suddenly I heard a sound ‘Plop!!’…..something accompanied with a foul smell (ughhhh) fell on the floor just next to me. Actually it has brushed my arm on its journey to the ground. Automatically my sight traveled towards the floor….initially I could not make out what it was. After sometime realized it was some kind of shit…….still I was not very sure. I mean what kind of shit hits you inside your room??!!!

Automatically I looked up and saw a lizard looking down at me with a grin and seemed to say ‘awrite it was me’. Instantly all thoughts flew out of my mind……actually for the next few minutes, not even a single thought or legible sentence about Awri came to my mind.

So, now here I am writing about lizard shit instead of the drunkard Awri about whom I had sat down to write in the first place! The so called “writer’s block” (not sure if it applies to lesser mortals like me…sigh!) had hit me many times….but lizard shit bringing about the proverbial writer’s block was certainly a first for me….huh! I still can’t believe it….done in by LIZARD SHIT!!!

PS……I guess Awri’s story will take some more time!!!

The Rickshaw Van!

At first sight I was not very sure how people could comfortably sit on it.....but as soon as I sat on one I fell in love with it! The 'Rickshaw Van' is such a delight to ride on when you are surrounded by beautiful greenery all around! The ride through Bakkhal village on a rickshaw van is a completely out of the world experience! I was wondering what is so different about this ride....I mean the landscapes are pretty similar to the ones I see back home in Assam? About 2 minutes into the ride I got the answer.....its the ride coupled with the gentle evening breeze in a distant land, with beautiful low roof huts, greenery all around, the pollution free air topped with of course great company!!

Just tuck in you legs or spread it out if you wish (there is more than enough space) or better still you can lie down if you wish and see the sky......it is a beautiful sight! The conversation with the Rickshaw Van wala about his livelihood, family, village, food and everything made it even more memorable. The people in Bakkhal are a hardworking lot....they are either out with their fishing trawlers catching fishes...or driving rickshaw van taking tourist on a sight seeing spree of the village.....during winter they collect dates (Khejur) and make gur (jagerry)...then they have the land to cultivate...build or repair their huts whenever needed.....they are busy throughout the year!

Bakkhal is such a pleasant and lovely place, that you will immediately fall in love with it. So if anyone happens to go there in their own vehicle.....I recommend they take a rickshaw van for seeing the village.....it is such a joy and you do not know what you are missing.....that is if you do not try it out! Watching the sunset from the beach is simply amazing.....you can just laze around in the beach or go and get completely drenched in the waters......it is such a stress buster, nothing like it!

Caught in a downpour

Angry strong winds lased out as if to say 'enough of the heat'......and the rains followed soon after! The drops came down heavily, furiously and non - stop. Those who were caught off guard thought might as well get drenched and enjoy the downpour.....some were more mindful, didn't want to catch a cold in this festive season, the swine flu scare was also working on their mind!

The chaiwala and chatwala were surrounded.....some wanted a hot cup in the rain, some wanted a spicy plate of chat, others just needed temporary shelter from the angrily lashing rains. We ran out in the rain, got completely drenched and by the time we resembled wet crows......we went to the chatwala's temporary shed.

We hailed one taxi after the other....but none was willing to take us home. All our gadgets was secure inside a plastic bag.......running out in the rain after every couple of minutes was so much fun! A girl decided this is the best time to sell her book....she was constantly running after people trying to show her book, but no one seemed interested!

Rains should soak you to the skin.......to me an umbrella has always been a useless accessory!!!

Drawing dread

As a kid I used to dread that I will fall behind a year just because I could not draw, I was terrible at it! Erratic heartbeats, sweaty palms, palpitations, butterflies in my stomach, feeling like going to the loo every five minutes….I can compile an entire list of things I used to feel in my body as the drawing exams approached. I was always an average student, not a very big fan of either mathematics or science, but I used to score pretty decent marks there which were usually about 50 or 60, but drawing was a sheer terror!

Stick figures were my saving grace if at all I had to draw any human figure. I remember the assignments of the drawing exams that year required us to draw the scene in our school playground during the lunch break. Now what on earth could a poor soul like me draw, my hands used to shiver even when I attempted to draw a straight line! Stick figures were clearly not going to work here…

I can imagine a thousand things in my mind, but to translate them into pictures by drawing is beyond me, I just cannot do it! I remember frantically looking around, trying to peep into my friend’s paper to see how to go about doing it. After about 1 hour, my paper was practically blank! I was sure that I would be detained in that class (I was in class 5) and I was sweating profusely!

Suddenly a classmate who was sitting nearby took pity on me and offered to draw for me. But then I did not know how to react, Moral Science classes always taught me cheating in exams was a bad thing to do. After giving a lot of thought to the biggest dilemma in my life at that point of time, I decided to pass on the paper to my friend. I reasoned I will pray to god a thousand times ask for his forgiveness, god understands everything and he is all forgiving after all.

Undoubtedly one of the happiest moments in my life as a kid was when I learnt that there would be no more drawing exams for me to pass! Sometimes I just sit and think of all the things that we dread as a kid and all the innocence that goes with it. The more I think about it, the more I miss being a child and my childhood!!

Some Judgment, huh…@#%#$!!

The Supreme Court yesterday gave the verdict that a mentally challenged girl who is pregnant (after being raped) can give birth to the child and it is the responsibility of the state to look after the baby. Apparently she was raped by two caretakers of the shelter house in Chandigarh where she was kept by the STATE. Hell they could not even come up with the name of the father of the baby and the court expects that the state will look after the child!

The counsel for the victim apparently pleaded "A child is not allowed to be born; a woman has to come to the court with a plea to allow her to have her baby". When pointed out to the judges that the victim is not in a position to take care of her and is unable to understand the concept of pregnancy and subsequent birth of a baby, the judgment said “Nature has its own methodology”, ya rite!!

According to psychiatrists her mental age is between seven and nine years with an IQ of children in that age group. I wonder how her counsel came to the conclusion that the victim wants the child to be born! How can the STATE take care of the victim and its child when she was raped in the very institution where the STATE had put her in!

I am scared very scared to think what will happen now both to the mother and the child. What future will the child have? What is the guarantee that the victim will not be raped again by a sick pervert? What happens to the person who raped her? Will all this madness and chaos ever stop???

Ahhhh that feeling…..

I must have been in class 3 or 4…….don’t remember exactly! All I remember is this happened while I was studying in the neighborhood school where I studied till class 4 before getting admitted to LFS. The teacher was talking about India’s neighboring countries in the Social Studies class. The conversation naturally veered towards the President and Prime Minister of those countries.

“Who is the Prime Minister of Pakistan?” she asked the girl sitting in the front bench. Not having a clue about the answer, she stared mutely at the teacher. Not getting a reply, she asked the next girl and got a similar response. She got blank stares from all the students she put the question to.

I was sitting the back bench….( I was a backbencher for most of my school life) I knew the answer, so I was waiting for my turn, but I never expected that none of the students in the class could come up with the correct answer. It was around that time that the then PM of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was in news…..probably she was elected the first women PM of Pakistan or something like that!

When my turn came, I answered the question. Even after my answering it, nobody in the class could get it right. The teacher told the class…..It is shocking, in a class of about 50 she is the only one who could answer the question correctly. So from today onwards she is the queen and all of you are her slaves…..:), you will listen to whatever she tells you….the teacher made the whole class stand the entire period and I was the only one sitting down, naturally I could not stop my ear to ear grin!!!

Ahhh…the joy and pride that I felt then nothing has ever matched up to my feelings of that day till date. But I live in the hope that someday something bigger might happen that might surpass all the feelings that I had experienced that day…!!!

Country under siege!!!

I don't know what I am feeling at this point of time......I have become numb....it has been 2 days now to this madness! I felt so ashamed to see the CM on television channels claiming that about 20 terrorists came on speedboats and entered the city.....what was the Government doing?? What kind of security measures do they have in place for people like us, where do we go, whom do we turn to for support? As a layman all I understand is they have been elected by people like us and we pay taxes to them.....the least we can expect from them is to to be secured and move around freely!

It is time for all of us to wake up.....after every terrorist attack be it in Delhi, Mumbai, Guwahati, Gujarat or any other part of the country all I had heard and have been hearing is the so called 'Resilient' spirit of the people. I have never understood this resilience and have no intention of understanding it! How long will people ignore all this....till it strikes close home, till someone we know or love is a victim? I don't know if this post is making any sense.....honestly I don't even care, I am just putting down whatever is coming to my mind!!!

I have always refrained from from making general statement about people......but now I think I can safely say that all politicians are a 'bunch of losers' who have no morals! All they want is votes...trust them to come up with an ad the next day blaming the other party for all that is happening!! I just can't understand that how can a group of 20 odd people kill, injure or take over 500 people hostage.....how can they hold an entire city to ransom? Any person walking down the road knows that situations are not ideal this days and the so called professionals claim that they did not have intelligence information about terrorists attacks on Mumbai.....what kind of information are they looking for....someone calling them up up and telling them 'hello...we are going to attack this place at this time?'...@#$%@#$....is this the intelligence they are waiting for??

I have so many things to say.....but I just can't find the words to put here......It pains me, makes me angry, makes me sad, make me feel frustrated, helpless and makes me very very scared..... How long will this madness go on, is there no end in sight???

Lessons from my debut!!

It has almost been four years in Delhi, but somehow or the other I always missed out on watching a cricket match at Kotla. I guess there is a time for everything and my time had not yet come till of course the 1^st of Nov, 2008. I made my debut in watching cricket matches on the ground!!! Entry glitches was bad......they don't allow cameras inside if you are an Indian! Yes, if you are a foreigner with white skin or any other you can take a camera and click away to glory!!!

I asked the security guys why was camera not allowed inside?? He says it is possible to blow up a stadium with the memory chip in a digital camera..!!! But I just fail to understand what made them think that foreigners will not think of blowing up the place...weired!!! My friend had a wonderful idea, he said just drop the camera in the bag of the Aussie guy standing in the Q....once inside we can just take it from him....huh so much for security!!!

Poor me and my friend, we did not have a car.....so had no choice but to deposit our cameras in a room just outside the stadium!! How much we asked?? 200 bucks for two cameras..!! The guy said this is just a small price you have to pay for keeping your expensive stuff with us for a few hours!! Thats not all, he wanted the money then and there!! I said see we are keeping your camera with you and we are definitely coming back to get it, you can take the money then. In case we do not come to get it, you can always keep the camera and only then he agreed to take the money at the end of the day!!

Two important lessons learnt from watching the match at Kotla....first dye my hair blond or some other exotic colour, speak with an accent and dress casually like tourists..... it will get an entry to the stadium with a camera without any questions asked!! Second get a room on rent real close to the stadium.....you can easily pocket 3000 to 5000 bucks on a match day by keeping cameras for a few hours!!

I am mulling what to do before the next match is played here!!!

Guys n gals any suggestions on this!!???