My Days

It was Ajay’s birthday yesterday and we were at Gallops Mall in Ahmadabad. Area around this place is full of malls and all kind of mini and big shopping complexes where people come for food and roaming only. 90 percent of the visitors in the mall never buy anything or they don’t want to buy the same thing at higher prices inside the mall. Though malls in Ahmadabad are not a very costly affair still general tendency is not to buy anything from a mall. In Ahmadabad there are more than 100 malls, small and big and for all kind of buyers, now and they offer stuff at very much discounted rates. Still I see more buyers on the window outside than they actually go inside and buy anything.

Most of buyers out there who pretend as if they are there for actually shopping can not fool others around them who also belong to the same species. They are there only for outing and food and they enjoy it more than ever now. In 70s’ and 80s’ India, public gardens and parks was the in-thing for Indians of the bourgeois. Now malls have malls have replaced those Parks successfully. They are past now almost everywhere in India except in small cities and towns where mall culture not penetrated yet. Parks are now for all those who are ugly and old and can not tolerate noise inside shopping centers or malls.

I was very much busy enjoying subway’s chicken teriyaki and was least bothered about the socio-economic impact of malls on Indian culture and what the ‘blah-blah’ economist so worried about. Food was good and we were there for one hour more just chatting and doing nothing but watching all the deadly plane crashes on national geographic channel.

Ahmadabad is less polluted now than it was before 2 years time. CNG buses and auto rickshaws have improved things a lot and I feel more comfortable on my bike when I drive around Ahmadabad. I usually don’t enjoy riding bikes in such noisy conditions with so much traffic in the labyrinth of Ahmadabad but now as I don’t have any other option I do it half heartedly.

We have planned to meet again today after 5 in the evening. We first will go to IIM and be there till the evening lasts and than we will go to ISRO and will make all kinds of noise there. We play music there as if we are in some discotheque and not in ISRO scientists’ residential colony. Still I enjoy company of Ajay and Nikhil and Sinha and Midhun here in Ahmadabad more than anywhere else. Not in phursatgunj, that is the place for those who are Old not for Zorbas full of energy.

Today we are going to do the same things again. Monotony and stagnancy is life for me in Ahmadabad. I surf till the wee hours and than go to the bed. I wake up late in the afternoon and than enjoy my food and go to bed again. I listen to music and online internet radios. I just enjoy life slowly and deeply and even have reduced my reading a lot. Now I don’t read as much as I used to when I was in Baroda but soon I shall be back to normal and back to Baroda too. There is nothing to do in Phursatgunj but to read books so I think that is one habit or hobby I am going to keep for the life time.

Nikhil called me at 1:30 in the afternoon and plans are not clear yet. It is almost four and still we are not in contact with each other and I think my younger brother is not yet home. Until he will be here it is impossible for me to go out anywhere as I have to rely upon his bike for the movement in Ahmadabad. My phone is out of balance and I can not call anyone so until they call me I am going to enjoy sleep.