Transience

Its comforting to walk about, and intuitively know the way around, without ever having to pause and think..the familiar roads and buildings, and places that are significant thanks to the associations they have with yesteryear life.

Its soothing to catch up with people who you haven't spoken to in years, and still be able to have a conversation which you feel had been left off  only the day before, about friends and friends of friends, where they are and what they do..

And as you walk around, its also a bit unsettling to find out that some old landmarks have been replaced with swanky buildings, the roads don't look the way it used to, desolate buildings that you stare at and say "I used to know some people here", new street names and sometimes whole new streets have cropped up.

And when you look around, you miss a few old faces, that used to smile at you from shopfronts...nameplates that you thought would remain forever, have been replaced, bringing new characters and creating new stories.
And sometimes, as you talk, you understand that even the old characters have changed, perhaps without even them knowing it.

And that's when you realise that there's something both sweet, and sour about having a town you can call home. A home where your life and memories were shaped, and which is now being reshaped by others' dreams, and lives.

And as places fade away and landscapes change, you are reminded of sand slipping through your fingers, even as you try to hold on. What remains are those tiny flecks, to give you memories, and to remind you of the fleeting nature of it all.....

until next time, mortality

The Cybernauts

Was reading a book a few weeks back - The Cybergypsies by Indra Sinha, which was a kind of autobiographical take on the early days of the internet, thats starting around the mid eighties. Its a tale of the early cybernauts, their addiction to the internet and how their real and virtual lives fought each other for attention and threatened to engulf each other.
It took me back to the turn of the century, my early days online, when the net of Indra Sinha was well on its way to becoming the worldwide web it is today. It reminded me of the a/c internet cafes, visits to which were not so frequent because of the steep costs, and the dimly lit computer labs in the university which had only the unreliable vsnl connection.The days of IRC and chats with unknown angels and merlins and superboys, the arcade games, the imaginary worlds created among friends across geographies, in a way, it was almost the kind of life the early cybernauts led.
And when you were asked what exactly you spent hours in front of a computer for, you really couldn't explain what made it so worthwhile. The days of usa.net and eudoramail and theglobe.com, names which have bitten cyberdust quite a whileback. I still have a friend from those days, almost a decade of only virtual friendship, well, almost, since she sent me flowers for my wedding :)
And then came the initial days of blogging, and friends made on rediffblogs, people whom I did not know really, but with whom i shared thoughts, and rants. And, that, i guess where virtuality started ending and reality started taking over. There were blog meets and the imaginary worlds created carefully gave way to the cafes of the real world.
It took a turn with orkut and co, where the networks were used to get in touch with people you already knew in your real life. And these days, on twitter, i meet a few who i used to know during the rediff days, but gone are the days of anonymity, for my linkedin profile would readily tell people who i was in the real world.
i miss those days, because there was only communication and a conversation among equals then. No virtual celebrities, no social media experts, no snobs, everything was virtual, your imagination and thoughts were the only thing that mattered, virtuality was a shell you could retreat to when the real world became too unbearable. Its different now, virtuality and reality are too enmeshed, and as with everything else in the world, behind every virtual interaction, there is a real intention. This must be Cybernauts 2.0

until next time, really virtual

Long before we had single button publishing.......

A few days back, a friend buzzed me on GTalk to ask if i was the kind who contributed to magazines. She had seen a 1996 issue of Reader's Digest which had an item with my name and hometown, a combo which was too coincidental to not check out. And right she was.

Took me back to 1996, second year of Engineering, a time of upheaval. I was still getting used to staying away from home, and books were something i clung on to, not the engineering type, but fiction, perhaps as a link to a life i left behind. And since RD was something we subscribed to, at home, i sometimes carried it to the hostel. Incidentally, Dad still subscribes, and when i go home, i still get laughs from 'Humour in Uniform','Life's Like that' etc.

I remember the time when, after reading the 'Towards More Picturesque Speech' section, I sat down to make spanking new oxymorons. It didn't matter that i had no clarity on whether 'Picturesque' was made of two separate words i knew, though i couldn't see what sense their joining made, or it was a totally new word. Meanwhile, dozens of oxymorons made their way to RD, but only a few managed to get published. Maybe they are still laughing at the ones that didn't get published.

In the old days of India Post exclusives, I waited for the postman to bring me news of RD accepting my entry and er, paying me. When, eventually they did, I also remember the thrill of getting paid, and for the first time, seeing my words and name on print. Of course, I was also asked to explain the humour in (for example) 'Mutually Exclusive' and why it got published. I usually failed. For that particular example, the one that got published in 1996, I remember the picture on the cover too, because that was the last entry i ever sent to RD. Something must have changed after that.

Have you ever tried to look back into your past, a sort of bird's eye view? And sometimes, while doing so, have you ever felt conflicting emotions? SometimesI cannot understand myself and why i'd done things I did. And sometimes, I understand myself totally and wish someone had been there to give me a hug that I was longing for. And that still brings a lump to my throat. Maybe I have't changed after all.

until next time, published

I remember a house, like a lot of other houses, a yard.....

From streets lined with trees, from flyover constructions, from roads whose names gave indications of a colonial past, from temples and their loudspeaker bhajans and flower fragrances, from an old theatre that played mallu movies, from rail tracks and the hoot of the occasional train. To change, and the creation of another set of memories.

until next time, shift

Legacies

Quite sometime back, i had written this, in which i had tried to fathom the confusion of a generation caught in transit. That genaration is definitely making progress, marching towards the paramaters of the next generation with ever increasing confidence, but in a sense, giving up on things that used to be sacrosanct until a few years back. Nothing wrong with that, to each his own. But there's one thing that always makes me wonder.

There were things we grew up with - watching potboilers of amitabh in moviehalls with uncomfortable seats and later in VCRs, listening to the nasality of Kumar Sanu on Tseries tapes, enjoying the exploits of Kapil Dev or later Sachin Tendulkar in a crowded room full of cousins, reading Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle and Indrajal, travelling in Ambassador cars and Indian railways, lazing around during summer vacations and so on.

And while they still watch Big B movies in multiplexes, listen to Himesh on Tseries CDs while pretending to say Oh No's, Tendulkar still rocks despite occasional calls for retirement, ACK and Tinkle will soon be available online, Indian Railways is still cool if we go by Jab We Met, and they find a few hours to laze around during summer vacations despite the karate classes, entrance tutions, salsa classes etc that enable them to survive and win in this oh-so competitive world, I wonder whether they'll ever get nostalgic about any of the above the way we do.

Or have they found other things that i haven't heard of that will link them with their childhood and youth, the ones that will give them bittersweet memories which they can jot down like this, the legacy of a way of life they can pass on to the generations that follow. Or will it all be forgotten in the tumble of the life we lead today, in which everyday brings in a faster way of doing things, a quicker way of travelling, a better way to store data, an easier way to communicate and so on... Will it all be lost when things become so transient that the past won't really matter anymore...

until next time, remember....

Old School

I'm still quite unsure about the name, old n' all, though i have to admit, it does sound a bit 'in'. What am i talking about? It's the new (or at least i discovered it only recently) programming on Zee Cafe. (are you listening guys, thisis kinda endorsement and stuff) Unfortunately, its only about an hour everyday, and the timings aren't exactly what I'd call user friendly. (i thinki blew that endorsement deal)

But what it does give, if you can get around to seeing it, is those old favourites that used to appear on Star Plus (yeah, there was a time when it was sans saans and bahus and ekkta kkapoor stuff). I'm talking about Doogie Howser MD, Ally McBeal, The X Files and my personal favourite - The Wonder Years.

Actually it isn't just about watching old favourite content, its about bringing back those days when i used to watch it every evening. As everyone who reads this blog would know by now, all it takes is a bit of hint for me to go onto nostalgia mode. I guess, thats why they called it 'Old School'.

And as Kevin would say, “I remember a place... a town... a house like a lot of houses... a yard like a lot of other yards... on a street likea lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I sill look back... with wonder.”

until next time, back to school :)

The new magicians

Sometime last week, saw a photo of P C Sorkar passing his magic wand to his daughter, apparently a passing on of the baton to the next generation...

A long long time ago, i think a couple of decades back, i had gone for one of his shows, in my hometown... that was still a generation that was eager about magic.. i even had tapes of david copperfield, doing much more complicated stuff... and yes, magic did leave me wonderstruck then...

A few months back, i saw a show on axn which revealed the tricks of the trade, they also mentioned that there were a lot of stores that sold magic kits... but i wonder how many kids would be interested in them... aren't the days of pc sorkar and co. over?

the new kind of magis is perhaps being created by a different kind of pc.. and thats just the bottom of the chain.. for there are much more advanced and specialist comps that are making break throughs indifferent kinds of technologies at a much faster rate than ever before...and like many other things, an innocent old art that has been entralling generations is in the process of getting relegated by the wonders of technology....

and we become part of a world which has no time for magic... or maybe its just that even magic aint what it used to be...

until next time, abracadabra.....

..and while on context

I suddenly realised that long before google came on the scene, we were used to the concept of context... a few days back, i had sent our recent goa photos to an old schoolmate, and instead of sending me a reply, the damn fellow decided to leave a scrap in my orkut account.. and so, i was forced to go to my not-so-favourite site and check it out... and while i was there, i also visited his page and couldnt resist checking out old schoolmates (or as SwB claims, peeking at old crushes, which i vehemently deny..hehe)...

we are all out of touch, except for the stray e-mail blasts that get launched every once in a while that someone feels particularly nostalgic...and its not just school friends- college friends, colleagues from previous jobs and so on... of course, maybe its just me, but i feel its quite a common thing to lose touch with people who were once an inseparable part of our lives...(perhaps that explains the success of orkut, because it gets one back in touch)..

and thats when i realised that perhaps, wittingly or unwittingly, we make contextual relationships- school, college, jobs.. and its not just people but sometimes even places and cities... and since these relationships are in context, they end when the context ends... and leaves in its wake, memories, which in times to come, give us those bouts of nostalgia....

they say, as we grow older, we tend to go back to our roots, perhaps, a few years down the line, we'll see a generation going back to a prehistoric site called orkut to relive their glorious past :)

until next time, take a trip down memory lane...

World Wide Web

And the lure of the web continues.... worldwide... as the third edition of the friendly neighbourhood super hero's screen antics released on May 4th... i think i underestimated the fanbase a little bit as i was caught napping while the tickets at PVR and INOX were sold out for the weekend... but thankfully, there was a friendly neighbourhood theatre down Brigade Road, which we had never had to visit in our four year stay in Bangalore... Rex, the non multiplex in the centre of Bangalore...

And after these last few years of multiplex movies, i had forgotten the non DTS sounds and the non cinemascope views that could be experienced in a theatre.. and so just about managed to salvage the movie from between the sightly silhouettes and massive denim coated butts,crying children and adults exercising their freedom of speech...But all that was okay, for it wasn't just another movie, it was spiderman...

and since it was spiderman, it brought back a lot of memories - of sunday evenings spent watching 15 minutes of cartoon on Doordarshan.. of singing along with the title song..of gulping down hated flavours of Rasna just to get the Spiderman masks that came free with it.. of wearing the masks and pretending to be the friendly neighbourhood superhero.. of gazing longingly at the full costume hung inside the classy showroom....

they say every kid needs a superhero, but it was nice to realise that some adults choose not to grow out of their childhood fancies.... as peter parker says in the end - we are nothing but the choices we make...

until next time, happy swinging ;)

P.S: As far as reviews go, lets just say there's only about 20 minutes of web, the rest is offline ;)

Identification Parade

A few moons ago, Prero had a neat post on the five songs she most identified with, and asked us to make our own. And so i did, (though she says i have to make a new list :( )and these were my top 5, and irrespective of what the lyricists had in mind, this is what they mean to me..

High Hopes- Pink Floyd My anthem for perhaps two of the most wonderful years.. everything fits - the grass was greener, the nights of wonder, with friends surrounded... the causeway and the endless river..

Time-Pink Floyd The template of a possible life, and the home town life and the plans could have fitted so well, but perhaps (andthankfully) not.

Telegraph Road-Dire Straits Life, change, and the effects it has, the lyrics somehow capture very well our actions and their consequences.

Cats in the Cradle (Ugly Kid Joe) Almost the same as the one above, except that this one gets more personal and human.

Just before it gets dark - Emmy Lou Harris Perhaps there is a common theme in all the songs - of nostalgia, dreams etc. This one has the added characteristic that it was also featured in one of my favourite shows-Taken.

And so, that was the identification parade. My favourite songs, these and other, also have a lot to do about the time i first heard them, be it during my school, engg college, post grad, first job...and so on. Somehow, they also get associated to my life and times at that point in time, and so every time i hear these songs, its not just the music that gets me, its also those bittersweet bouts of nostalgia..

until next time, maybe life is just a song :)

World of Sports

Doordarshan, Sunday, 4 pm.. remember? In the days of only 'Distant Viewing', this was what i used to wait for on Sunday evenings.. before the days of live transmissions, this was your portal to get glimpses of international matches.. i used to curse them when they chose amatuer wrestling, billiards, chess and inane stuff i never knew could be classified as sport, and the entire show went without cricket, the only game i had an interest in..

Times have changed, and tennis, Formula 1 have been added to the interests, and therefore last week is an eventful one to me... early in the week, my favourite Las Vegas gamble in any tennis tournament, the one i used to bet on in any match, despite whatever odds- Andre Agassi, played his last match.. he lost the game, set and match, but in a larger picture, there would be few who could match him.. i was a fan from when he said Sampras looked like something "that swung off a tree" to the time when he said "Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras, Sampras" when asked who were the five greatest players the game had seen.. Of course i hated him a for a few days when he married Graf, but then that was only a few days...in the sport that starts with 'love all', he ended it, loved by all..

Monza witnessed a great race last weekend, Schumacher is now a couple of points from Alonso,and there are still 3 races left.. But that was not the only reason why Monza was eagerly awaited for, this was the place where Schumacher would make an announcement about his future.. and announce he did, his retirement. Another favourite, on a different track.. In a sport that starts when the 5 lights go off, and ends when the chequered flag is waved, he had a career chequered with controversy, but more brightly lit than any other..

They leave behind empty spaces in an ordinary fan's mind, empty spaces that cant be filled again,because in a different corner of the world, he grew up with them, cried when they won and cried when they lost.. Matches and races created memories that were special, memories that reminded him of how it was when they were the icons, they were the supermen.. they were the ones who he thought would last forever..

and so, their departure also tells him that times have changed, and a new generation is busy creating its own heroes.. its a new age, one that also has virtual XBox heroes along with real ones, its an age thats isnt so easy to belong to, when he is used to a different league of heroes..and so, like with every other thing, he relies on memories, bittersweet memories... he closes his eyes, sees the stadium, hears the frenzy and remembers the days that used to be, and the times that used to be....and applauds an era that has just made a final bow..

until next time, game over

Striking....

There is a university that i was once a part of, no, make that twice... once, when i spent years 3 to 13 living there, discovering a world on a tricycle, climbing buildings under construction, playing cricket for hours on end, walking among rows and rows of acacia trees, listening to grown ups talking science and mathematics and politics, going to kindergarten, feeling grown up when going to school, discovering a world on a bicycle, seeing people walk by with red or black flags and wondering how cool it must be to carry a flag and shout on the road...

the second time, a much briefer timeframe - 6 months, coming back to a wave of nostalgia, to a world i had spent time discovering, to walking up the stairs of buildings that were constructed almost two decades ago, to getting tired after a few overs' spell, walking among rows of buildings that once used to be the ground on which acacias stood, listening to grown ups talking management, to feeling grown up when doing post graduation, seeing people walk by with red or black flags, and realising how childish i was when i thought it was cool, because by then i had been there and done that...

a few months back, i saw a newspaper headline that the university was shut indefinitely - it seemed most of everyone were on strike, against each other - students, administrative staff and the university registrar had been manhandled by a set of students... the students were on strike for something that should be as far away from academics as possible - politics.. the exams have been cancelled, and if this goes on for even a couple of months, perhaps this year, there wont be a convocation at all in the university...

now the university has silent rows of buildings, and kids waiting for their exams to get over so they can play cricket, cycle around, discover a world, listen to grown ups and think how cool itwould be to carry red and black flags and shout on the street...and yes, the university has always had people with flags, it still has them.. cant blame them, it takes time to understand that flags aint so cool... like most things in life, it is a lesson that cant be taught, it has to be learnt... and that takes time, and a part of life itself...

until next time, dumbstruck....

Bombay Dying??

No, it isnt a doomsday prophecy... its just a manifestation of the 'what fun without pun' phenomenon :)...

its about the brand many of us have heard of, and worn too, as part of our school life... a few days back i saw an ad of theirs, which said there was a discount of upto 60% off on bath towels (yes, occasionally i do that too), but conveniently not mentioning where their outlets were...but as luck would have it, we managed to find one (purely by chance).. i think my last visit to a Bombay Dyeing showroom would have been around 6 years back, for trouser material!! and that was in good old God's own Country, where the premium on education might also have inadvertently lent some of its sheen to the outlet from where school uniforms were bought... and therefore, it had a touch of class to it...

but this visit told a different story... most of us can judge the way a shop is doing just by looking at it... a faulty signage, casual staff, the decor, the way stuff is arranged, all of them can tell the story... and from this shop, i could sense a gradual decline from the good old days.. yes, the towels werent bad, they still have good bedsheets according to D, and the Vivaldi shirts were also quite okay, but these are perhaps the last wall of defense...

and so, while some brands have smoothly made a transition - surf, rin, lux, colgate, parle.......for some brands- dalda, gold spot, binaca, solidaire, anikspray.... this generation's memories might be the last wall of defense...
until next time, sometimes clothes make a man's memories too

Seasons...

Its chilly in Bangalore... not the bone numbing chilly, but the kind of chilly that gets taken care of by a jacket, the kind thats pleasant, the kind that i associate with a hot tea, a good book, snuggling under the blanket.. and reflecting about the seasons...yes, we are talking about the weather :).. because the pleasantness of it makes it interesting... well, okay, maybe i didnt have anything else to write about... :)

but theres definitely something about it that inspires a post.. its one of the times when time makes us objective, step outside ourselves, and reflect on the things that have been happening,things that we have been doing unconsciously in the daily rigmarole of living, and get reminded of when we actually start thinking about it...

the last three months of the year.... in some places - winter.. in chennai - the time when it takes exactly 3 more seconds for an ice cream to melt (pleo, was it, who wrote that), in kerala - the time when the one and a half hour non stop bus journey to the engineering college early in the morning became all the more unbearabale, and your beacon is the hostel loo, at the end of the journey, a time long long ago... the time spent in writing mock tests to land up in a good management institute, the rush to beat the three hour clock, a time long long ago....in goa - amidst all the sun and sand and scary tests and assignments, counting days to the christmas vacation when you could go home, a time long ago.... back to kerala - balancing sales targets, and a desire to be in bangalore with the wife to be, sometime ago :)...

and finally bangalore - listening to 'Walk of Life' and smiling away at the post that just got written...yes, seasons, i guess it is just nature's clock ticking away, reminding us of the good and not so good times that have been happening to us, and around us.... long long ago, long ago and now..

until next time, nice clock, no cause for alarm....:)

Storytellers

Its partytime for the worms in Bangalore, the book kind that is.... all thanks to the Strand Book Festival.. one of the few things that rock our home's otherwise carefully managed financial boat..:)

and last weekend was no exception, as Sherlock Holmes, Calvin, Asimov, Mughals and assorted other stars came into our living room, and a slightly different kind of printed paper went out.. and like always, theres not even an iota of guilt..hehe

And since D preferred to do eyebrows while I browsed through rows and rows of storytellers, it gave me time to send a little note of thanks heavenwards, to the first storyteller i ever knew, and the best...To my grandmother, who used to tell me a story every night before i slept, who used to make sure i got my 'Poompatta' every month, and insisted that my dad bought me 'Amar Chitra Katha' regularly.. the storyteller whose stories were only for me, whose characters always seemed to be my age, or the kind that i liked... whose stories were imaginative, inspiring, heartwarming and everything else that stories should be.. who made sure that i would love stories for the rest of my life...

and since i know i can never be that good a storyteller, the books i buy are perhaps my way of passing on my favourite stories to those who come after me, for i understand that only the very fortunate ones end up getting a great storyteller as a granny...

until next time, live happily ever after...

Jammin' in Goa

No, not exactly, but yes, one of these days, i certainly will...a couple of posts brought back memories of the place, and hence the title..

the first one, by Mirage, brought a sweet wave of nostalgia, specially when she mentioned all the places we used to haunt.. oh yes, those were indeed the days.. i still believe that the immediate time before we get out into the world and be part of it as individuals who fend for themselves, both from a financial as well as a relationship standpoint, are the best possible days.. while we still might be suffering from doses of education,and the rough and tumble of assignments and tests, it still remains a time of at least partial abandon, coz you know dad is going to send the cheque next month too..:)

but the next one, that by an individual who works for the JAM magazine, also brought back memories of Goa (that was where i started reading JAM, and continued for almost 3 years), but accompanied by the rude awakening that as much as we like to think that the blogosphere is a mature entity, it is not always so, and sometimes the unpleasantness of the real world is dragged into it.. while i dont intend a detailed version of the controversy,in my mind, JAM has done no wrong.. but more importantly even if it has,the comments left on the post were in extremely bad taste...

and as people who have a stake in the future of blogs, it is important for us to drop in here, read about the subject, make up our mind, and offer our support.. because i think this is about an individual who seems to be doing something she believes in, and just because she happened to express herself, and that expression wasn't particularly pleasing to a group/institution, she shouldn't feel she has done something wrong, and more importantly feel isolated.. so do drop in, and for instructions on helping out, drop in here..
until next time, its Just Another Manuscrypts post!! :)

Retro!!

A while before i was born, there was a generation i would have loved to be part of... they are identified by a number of descriptors - flower power, hippies, love and peace etc.

the 70's was their time, and the protests against what was then conventional in society, were made in several forms - from agitation on the streets to men wearing their hair long and from groupism and drugs to song lyrics...That generation was very clear in their belief that society and humanity as a whole were going on a path that wouldn't quite turn out to be the right one, in the years to come... from the wars that were being fought for all the wrong reasons, to the pressure exerted by society on them to conform, they felt everything was going wrong.. and they fought it, by turning the tables on the way things were functioning then.. by just walking out with long hair and unkempt beards and staying in groups and resorting to drugs... not all of it was good, but they made a point...

This generation is also seeing wars, but with wrong reasons on both sides. 9/11 wasn't right, but nor was the attack on iraq... 7/7 was not right, but nor was the gunning down of an innocent guy.. but i dont see terrorism as the biggest enemy, for it can be resolved if people can be made to sit and discuss issues.. and though that was putting it simply, it still can be done...

the bigger enemy is us, for we have forgotten humanity... in a purely materialistic society, where technological advancement and career/economic advancement are the indeces of society's and the individual's development respectively, there is simply no time to lend a helping hand to those more unfortunate than us, because MMS scandals, the status of the brad pitt-angelina jolie affair, the ambani feud etc are more important to us...but when i see a 'go slow' movement thats gathering steam in Europe, and a 'blank noise' happening around me, i think we might be in for a fight.. a neo flower power movement, and a way to drag us back to a better path...

until next time, how can we play a part??

Playing Favourites

I once had a tshirt, a full sleeved one with wide horizontal black and red stripes.. it was my favouite tee, around the time superman was my fave superhero.. and this one looked like one of the costumes of lex luthor. i used to wear it a lot, to the point where someone commented that it had somehow got stuck to me....

a few years later, when i was asked whether it could be thrown away,i replied with a nonchalant yes. i was told that the reason i was asked was because of my near obsessive relationship with it, until a few years back... 'That one??!!", i responded, and immediately set about destroying photographic evidence for the association, and since that was my 'best dress', the evidence was considerable.. as the years have passed, i have come to realise that this was not an isolated phenomenon. i guess all of us do it, at different stages of life, cutting of our association with many of the things we used to cherish till only a few years back.. in most cases, we dont mind the growing up, we get tired of the stuff we have been loving for quite some time and in fact go to some extent to exile the memories, but sometimes the wheel turns all around, and we end up yearning for the 'evidence' that can bring back the memories...

and all this is not just limited to inaminate things like books, clothes, food, music, hairstyles..its evn with people... there are times in our life when we dont acknowledge people who might be closely associated with us, and there are times when we repent this, and when i am a little older, i think i'll have more 'times' to add on.

the concept, i think, is called growing up, and it works on both kinds of things - the ones we used to love, and the ones we are used to loving....
until next time, 'now playing' what favourites?

Of Parents and Children...

A generation which believed in arranged marriage, the security of government jobs, which hated being in debt, looked forward to the coke cans brought by relatives who were lucky enough to go abroad, whose aim was a home by the age of retirement, who made annual trips to their 'native place' in second class railway compartments, for whom Bombay was the land where dreams could become reality, who heard live commentary of cricket matches on AIR, who went to the airport with family to receive or see off those rare people who were fortunate to go abroad, who forwarded the lovemaking scenes in movies because they were shy, who accepted that bureaucracy had to be oiled with bribes, for whom Amitabh Bacchhan was just an angry young man trying to fill the shoes of his predecessors in vain, who belived in getting home by 6'o clock,whose only idea of balance was the kind they had at the bank, and maintained a work-life balance without realising it, who believed they were lucky enough to get the rin shakti and taste the thunder, and would get confused with anymore choices than available in the market, for whom the movies and a dine out were rare occasions to be savoured, who believed in making pickles at home,for whom razors were blades, and who would be appalled at 'that time of the month' being advertised, and for whom the only discs were the flying ones their kids played with, or the ones that were suddenly supposed to land from space one fine day, just like subhas chandra bose who would reveal himself from anonymity one day, who had to carry their entire water supply on train journeys, who firmly believed that a woman's place was at home, whose only idea of shares was the kind they would be getting from their parents, who still hadnt quite decided between capitalism and socialism, who believed in keeping their refrigerator in the living room coz it was a status symbol, who could look out of their windows and marvel at the sights that nature made, whose mailboxes got full only when the entire family went for vacation, who believed in one life-one job, whose retirement plans included staying with their offspring, who made financial plans for their parents as well as children, who loved having their kids on their lap, and looked in wide eyed amazement at the silly things their grandchildren did, a generation with hardly any choices...
A generation which believes in arranging their own marriage, the insecurity of the job market,which lives a life on EMI, has difficulty deciding between diet or regular coke, whose aim is a home by the age of retirement, one each in 3 metros, who hate the fact that their hometown doesnt have an airport and so increases their transit time by a few hours, for whom reality is what you make out of your dreams, wherever you were, who see live webcasts of championships on their handheld device, who are lucky if their family receives them after international trips, forget local ones, who forward the lovemaking scenes in movies because of the overdose, whose only interaction with the bureaucracy is a tacky webpage, for whom Big B is the biggest anyone could be in Bollywood, who regularly make and break plans of reaching home by 6'o clock in an effort to get that elusive work-life balance, while maintaing a portfolio with the right equity-debt balance, who would switch to a different brand at the slightest dissatisfaction, for whom the movies and a dine out are rare occasions,because home deliveries and home theatres are so much more convenient, who actually like 'Mothers Recipes', mostly the packaged kind, for whom razors are like most other things, disposable,who believe that sanitary napkins were just another FMCG product, period!!, for whom discs are of two kinds- the ones you go to when you want to party and the ones that give you music and movies, like the recent one you bought , a movie about some forgotten freedom hero by Shyam Benegal; who love the idea of 'pet bottles', coz you actually dont need a 500 ml bottle for such a short journey, who firmly believe that a woman should be allowed to work from home, if she so wished, who rack their brains to decide which shares to invest in, who dont care a hoot if it is capitalism, socialism or bipasha basu's jism, just so long as they have a blast, who are sligtly uncomfortable about the fridge in their kitchen coz it lacks the usual inbuilt TV in it, who watch on Windows the marvelous 'nature' screensavers, whose mailboxes are full and overflowing from all the vacation snaps from other family members, who sometimes contemplate whether a life is just a job to be finished, who believe in making safe retirement plans coz they know their children wouldnt have them in their plans, and make plans for their children so they dont run the risk of getting sued, who love having their children as their laptop wallpaper, and look in wide eyed amazement at the silly things their parents did...a generation with multiple choice in education, career, sex, food, entertainment ...life!!

and a generation in between, that cant quite figure out where it belongs, and is, well, in between.. a generation which maybe has the options, but cant quite make the choices...

until next time, bridge the gap...

A Matter of Choice

As he finished answering the last question in his aptitude test, he smiled at the irony of it all...

There was a time, a long time ago, when the fear of injections and vaccines had put a noble thought in his head - that he would become a doctor, a doctor who would take care of all the illnesses in the world, without hurting patients.. well all patients except some teachers,a few boys from the other gang and some assorted enemies he had made during his seven years of life so far...

But after he had heard his grandmother say that there was nothing better than to be able to sing and bring joy to millions of people, he had thought he should become a singer...considering that he had been won a whole lot of music competitions at school and otherwise in his twelve year life, he had every reason to believe that he would make a good singer...

He hated the injustice happening in the world, the way humans were treating other humans who were less fortunate than them... how humans were taking things for granted, and going along a path where the only aims were achieving more power and money without any concern for anything around them.. at 15 years of age,having been a part of the school debate team for over 3 years, he did believe he would make a good lawyer...

engineering was a good career option, especially if you were the kind who could build bridges,airports, railways etc.. that way, he could become directly involved with the development happening around him.. 22 years of life had taught him that noble thoughts had to go hand inhand with practicality, and there was a career to be made...it also taught him that an MBA could be a ticket to future successes.. that was why he was writing the aptitude test...

as he finished the aptitude test, he realised that it was quite similar to life.. for there were a lot of questions in which he felt that all the choices given were possible..

unfortunately,among the options, he could never find 'all of the above'...

until next time, life's like that....