A Day Like This

Finally the heavens opened,
As the clouds gathered tip-toed.
A hot mug of coffee,
And some snacks to go with.
Make me go into a reverie,
Of life, lies and truth.
Lost in memories, I thought,
What is it, which I wanted on a day like this?

Time to venture out into the storm,
Not sure, where I got the idea from.
Making my clandestine move,
Through the long winding roads,
Bolts of water hit my window pane,
The fragrance of soil driving me insane.
This is what I always wanted on a day like this.

The rustling of the trees,
And the bustling of the clouds.
The wind screams for a while,
A moment of lull which follows.
Eyes on the road,
And hands on the wheel,
As milestones go passing by,
The numbers keep telling me,
Life is nothing but a number game.
Just like Twelve hours of Sunshine,
Follows twelve hours of darkness.
But I have no time to get into this philosophy,
As I am game, for a day like this.

Splash, I hit a pot-hole,
Thud! There goes another one,
I have ventured into uncharted territories,
In search of the lost rainbow,
Only to catch a glimpse of seven colors,
Colors which was famously said,
To bore seven human emotions.
Yes! colors are what I want on a day like this.

There on the verge of the horizon,
I find children drenched with mud,
Hit the soccer ground,
Now turned into a pool.
I have just found my rainbow,
I step out of my car,
Heading for the ground I realized,
This is what I always wanted to do on a day like this.

Minutes To Freedom

This time around its going to be a poem that I composed recently which speaks about "A batch of 24 people" who joined a software organisation 2 years back. Today they have successfully completed their 2 years in the Organisation, a period of Bond which was amicably agreed to by all, well... almost all !!, on the 12th of October 2006, and are now free to venture into new shores. Believe me guys, the journey from being a boy to a man is the most rewarding experience a person can ever have. So here it goes...

At the stroke of midnight,
As I put pen to paper,
A train of thoughts queuing up,
Trying their best to captivate the first attention.
It almost seems yesterday,
That we set foot on the Nizam’s soil.
24 pairs of twinkling eyes,
With smiles to accompany the grace,
Is what waited inside the training hall,
All set to sip the first ounces of corporate coffee.

Nothing has changed since then,
As I retrospect back the memory lane,
The eyes still continue to twinkle,
And the smiles still continue to flicker.

We acted foolish at times,
Completely insane at times,
We fought, we cried,
We faltered, we tried.
Some have changed since then,
No complains though,
Its only human, to err.

Now as I look back,
All this time we were actually figuring out life.
Everyone has done it,
In some way or the other.
But for now, its time to stand up and applaud,
Cos’ there’s no shackles to earn a bread.
Not any more.

My Kitchen, My Lab

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls welcome to a brand new series which if not anything will definitely give u all a break from the routine daily soaps and reality shows which have inundated ur television screens these days. I am gonna play host, ur very own Chaos, Chaos who ?

Now this is for my male fraternity who has already said “Astalavista Cooking”. The show will showcase my adventures in the woods that we call the kitchen, you get the picture, right.

Last Sunday, I woke up at 10….waking up early on Sundays is just not in my dictionary is what I contemplated for a sec. and was about to go back to dreams again when Avishekh woke me up, I just hate anyone who comes in between me and my after-nap.

“Lets cook paneer today, you said u have mastered it back home this time around.”

I must have revealed that during an over-enthusiastic moment, God why did I tell it to him in first place. Now I can’t backout…my pride and humility is at stake. On second thoughts….lets give it a try.

After a quick breakfast, I headed south to gather the needful to deal with the paneer business.

“Mom I need the easiest recipe to prepare paneer an mind u the word easiest is in bold and within double quotes,” I waited with bated breath for mom to spill the beans via the line....sometimes we really forget what a revolution these cell phones have brought in our lives.

She launched into a descriptive version of her cooking expertise. She ended up sayin “And then u leave it on moderate flame for 5 minutes, you get that?”

Great it sounded so easy when she spoke, but frankly I just got the list of recipe right and the last words, everything in between made less of a sense to me. Numerous questions erupted, why has it to be the onion first and then the ginger-garlic paste, why not the other way round? Why do we have to change the frequency of fire so often? And then the mother of all questions, what the hell does God put me in such a precarious situation???

Words from the movie “A few good men” came to me, where Tom Cruise after figuring out the nuances of his case proudly announces “So this is what a court room looks like”. Here I am standing in the center of the kitchen, “So this is what a kitchen looks like, bring it on”.

5 minutes into the process and I am already sweatin like a freak. ”Why need the salt, let my sweat buds pour in and add to the taste,” I thought in exasperation. Hats off to mom, she never complains even though she spends half of her day in this hell.

Anywayzz after some proper guidance by the cook par excellence, Abhisekh, I was somehow able to get through the sequence of events right and as it turned out to be the “Paneer @ chaotic Sunday” as I aptly named it was not as bad as I anticipated. And for the recipe….gocha…this is no cooking class.

Ah! The dish was sumptuous, it was a tiring but a rewarding experience. Way to go….boy.

So the next time u think life isn’t throwin enough challenges at u, think again?

The Homemaker

It’s strange that she gets it right every time even though I hadn’t uttered a single word. And this was not for the first time that I have been experiencing this… This dates back to the day I was born. I still don’t have a clue how I sound so predictable when mom’s around.

This is by far my best work since I have taken up writing, I hope my readers feel the same.

Last weekend, the gang went for a movie, the usual animated stuff that we prefer…. As always, I was the first one to reach Prasad’s multiplex, they say the Big Screen here is the biggest we can get all over Asia. I was pacing myself up and down the stairs at the entrance, frantically scanning my wrist watch which seemed to have picked up pace by leaps and bounds.

Finally I could see hands waving from a distant, more than the hands, it was the voice that I recognized, even in such huge commotion his voice was loud and clear, now I came to know, why people call him “The Boy with the million dollar voice,” crystal clear. Boys and girls, that’s Aniket for u…

‘How in world r u always late? You could have screwed up the whole plan.’ I asked
‘Take it easy, we still have time,’ Aniket replied
‘You are dead man, if I miss the promos at the beginning….I am serious’ I said with a lot of authority in my voice.
‘Forget it, there are more chances of the sun rising in the west than Ani turning up in time,’ Ansh said with a slightly wicked smile on his face. Ansh is the 3rd and the last member of the “Animation Freaks Club”.
‘Anyways guys, can we have something to eat?’ Ansh queried moving his hands over his tummy.
‘But we just had lunch…’Aniket said, and was about to continue when Ansh interrupted
‘I need something to munch along with the movie, you have a problem’

The Big screen is on the First floor of the multiplex, me and Aniket had to wait near the escalator while Ansh was standing in front of the booking counter to fetch the tickets we booked online a few days back.

After a few minutes Ansh was back with the tickets, Aniket was busy by the time, his eye-balls shifting from left to right checking out girls of various age groups. He turned to me and said, 'every time I visit this place, I get a complex; all the beauties out there already seem to have found their perfect match.'
Ansh, who had already started munching on his chips, spoke up with a chuckling voice…'don’t u worry, every DOG has his day….'We all laughed along as we got ready to step on to the accelerator.

The cell phone started ringing when I was least expecting it. It was, I guess on the 3rd ring, no 4th perhaps that I picked it up. A weird voice at the other end (everything in Telugu was weird for me) started off as a newsreader in a rhythmic voice, suddenly I felt some one was pulling at my trousers. I turned back, to find a little girl about the age of 4 or 5 maybe screaming and bringing the hell down. It didn’t take much time for me to realize that she was intimidated by the moving stairs, the accelerator. She was clutching on to my trousers as a person would to his life jacket when in the middle of the ocean.

I looked around but I couldn’t find a searching face in the crowd. I tried to break out, but the girl denied to let go. Finally I could see someone screaming the name Avantika from the 1st floor, a lady in her mid 30s, holding a kid was looking with desperation in her eyes, I turned back to the girl, and I could make out the connection. I screamed out, 'don’t worry mam, I shall get her there. I picked the girl up in my arms and started off.'

As soon as I reached the 1st floor, Avantika almost jumped out of my arms and ran to her mom…she could have given Carl Lewis a run for his money at that particular time.
'Thanks a lot!' The lady gestured with a smile on her face.
'Mention not' I said, I could see tears almost about to erupt from the corners of her eyes.
'Ladies as always,' I said to myself.

'Where had u been, come along ur promos might be over by now…'Aniket started dragging me towards Audi4. I smiled at the happy family…almost with a spot of embarrassment and then went off.

I had the biggest learning of life that day, we all at a very early stage of or lives develop a connection with our mom’s that knows no words which is as spiritual as the Gods of the heavens…but I won’t be surprised if one day Avantika grows up and more often than not we can hear her say…'Cut the Crap..Mom' or maybe 'Take a chill pill' or the latest one these dayz 'Chillax stop shoutin'. Even I have done that on numerous occasions and I am sure most of us during their teens would have thought that it was so IN to be shouting at the top of their voices and taking their mom’s for granted. And my mom would reply 'You would know, one day when u become a father…you sure would know.'

It would sound as if I am trying to preach something…but as a matter of fact I really do believe that, God’s greatest gift to a woman is to give birth to a child. After a tiring day of work, school, etc. we all reach home expecting good food, good entertainment and loads of rest…on the other side there’s somebody waitin who demands nothing but a smile on our face. People call her the housewife, I call her the Homemaker.

The Game, Now and Then...

Slowly but steadily as the sun sets down the western horizon and the chirping of the birds getting back to their nests sets the tone for the perfect dusk, mankind making a gutsy effort to fight the Hyderabad traffic to crawl towards their home to witness something which has made history since it has hit the television screens.

The IPL has finally arrived and it has arrived big time, shutting the mouths of all the critics who had written off this format of the game long back.

But hang on, this is not just another column where I am going to discuss the nuances of the game. Here I am going to put forth my experience of the last 40 days of hysteria that the game had created.

‘You know it’s the Chargers Vs. the Rajasthan Royals today…its going to be great fun,’ announced my room-mate with a lot of excitement in his voice who had been struck by the Indian Premier Lightning, since Day 1.

‘Oh really,’ I said sounding not that interested, it had really been a tough day at office and taking into consideration that the last two weekends were really tight with no room for entertainment, I felt completely drained out….

I tried to navigate to some distant topic quickly before he gets totally glued to the television screen and asked ‘What are we going to have for dinner tonight?’

No answer….the boy was preoccupied.

“Oh man…these guys are good for nothing….the crowd should get their money back….and he goes on and on…and on.”

I am not just talking about me and my friend….this has been the setup in almost every household in India for the last 40 days. Every evening the living rooms will turn into a battlefield with fans rooting for their teams. It was pleasant surprise to see even people from the opposite sex putting in the effort to learn the game…of course it might not be only the cricket that has drawn their attraction….rather the amount of glamour that’s been pumped in….with biggies like SRK shouting and dancing around, any girl would fall for it.

The most surprising thing was once I was in conversation with my mom on the cell, when she suddenly asked me what’s the score ?….I was not even aware who were the teams involved in today’s match…..for me, I had just heard the 8th wonder of the world if not seen it.

It almost seems like a festival has ended, and already speculations for the next season have started making the rounds. The perfect blend of cricket and entertainment as we can call it has injected new life into the Game. If I decide to go on writing, I really can turn this into a novel running well into 200 pages narrating the IPL saga, but lets just keep it to something which fits well into the definition of a blog. The novel is an afterthought which can definitely wait.