End of the road

I am deeply worried. Worried about my own future and for millions of others who are as ignorant as I am. The world is changing very fast. It used to be very simple When I was young.

In those days, Internet for me was yahoo chat rooms and e-mail. I still remember those college days, not very far, 7-8 years ago. My friends used to go for Internet surfing. They used to talk endlessly about having a foreigner online friend, female obviously. They used to boast how many friends they have and stuff like that. In my smugness, I used to look down at them. Poor souls! They are wasting their precious time on some fictitious chick, while I am getting enlightened.

Being a curious fellow, after a while I also decided to know what this Internet chatting is all about. I didn't know the rules of the game. I tried my luck with my most common Gujarati name (I can never forgive my parents for that) and whatever English vocabulary I had. The result was horrible. Chat room after chat room, forget girls, even the most hopeless aunties refused to talk with me. On the other hand, some of my friends were chatting with 3 girls at a time. After few weeks, I learned a few tricks. I started getting responses from some girls as I made use of my palmistry and sun sign knowledge. However, I couldn't make much headway as my typing speed was pathetic. Some of the girls used to think that I am busy chatting with another girl, when I was really struggling to find something on the keyboard.

I got fed up. But, being an intelligent fellow (in those days, not now), I decided to turn my weaknesses into my strengths. I asked myself, "What are my weaknesses in the yahoo chat room?" One I am a male and two my typing speed is horrible. Why not create a nice female id for myself and show those silly boys (my friends), what I am capable of. And the trick worked like a magic. As soon as I entered with a female id, all the boys in the chat room used to approach me. Even though, my typing speed was pathetic, those fools used to wait for minutes for a single sentence from me. It was entertainment at its best. Some of them used to tell their sad stories and even proposed to marry me. Most of them wanted my contact number. After few weeks, I lost interest and ended that silly game. Again, I returned to the comfort of reading great books. This time with even more smugness than before. My temporary affair with Internet ended there. I concluded that most of the stuff on the net is silly. It's only for frustrated boys who have never got a chance to speak with female species in real life.

After I joined journalism, I came to know about the power of Google. I was amazed. You don't need to remember anything. You don't need to think. Just type a few key words and Google will give you whatever you want. For people like me, who are blessed with poor memory, it was a gift from heaven. Once, I finished my course, I realized the power of online job sites. I also came to know about many wonderful things, like how I can listen to an old Hindi film song online and also watch a movie for free. My friends also told me how I can read e-books on the net. But, I don't like that idea even though it's cheap. I still prefer the old way of reading books.

Before coming to Phursatgunj, I was happy thinking I have become well aware about the Internet usage. I know stuff like how to book flight tickets online, Internet banking and online trading. Two weeks with Sabu and I am again feeling downtrodden. Everyday, he tells me something new about Internet which my tired mind refuses to understand. Brother, have mercy on this aging friend!!!

Anyway, I am lucky that I have some smart friends who have abundance of time and patience to explain the changing technology around me. But, I know everything has a limit. What will happen if they will all become very busy and lose patience? Sabu is already showing some signs of that. This can't go on forever. I can clearly imagine myself 10 years down the line. A helpless middle-aged guy whom even a 4-years old child will not respect.

40 Days

It really was a very very long and hot day today. Now temperature constantly remains more than 40 degree Celsius for long hours in the morning and noon. And now summer is here and so I am. I am in Ahmedabad since 1st of this month and busy studying for my exams but what I miss the most here is burning hot furnace like room of phursatgunj.

India was famous for its hot ‘summer and spices’ to the world for centuries before technological growth started ruining here beauty in mid of the 19th century. As I am in Ahmedabad I can enjoy both home made hot spicy food and even hotter summer sun. This is not the right time to visit India but if you want to feel and know and understand real India this is the only time when you should visit. April and May and June are ultimate torture, just like pain before nirvana and July rain is enlightenment. I am waiting for July to come and shower love on mother earth.

April is one third gone and I am here after forty days of gap. What happened with me and my life during those days is a usual story of hopelessness and laziness. I am a very lazy, tired and boring man, just like my 300 year old friends. Nothing of much importance happens to me very often, and I also don’t happen to many things in general. Either I remain aloof and silent or I remain aloof and silent when I talk. I don’t even talk much these days as I don’t have to. My conversations are limited to very few effective, intelligent and useful words. With my mother: where is pickle? ; I don’t feel like it, etc. With my father: how was your day today? (We meet in the evening only); Market was 300 points up today. With my brother: how (well) Bangladesh is doing in super8? ; You look like Bobby-Darling in your new hairstyle.

Nothing is happening in my life for so long long time that now I can only be good for nothing guy. What I did in last few days? Hum, few movies at our home theaters like Natraj and Raj-shree and few books and novels I finished while everyone around was busy with their final submissions. Nikhil has left phursatgunj and so I also left the room there. You can now find me either at bodhi-baba’s place or at the hostels. Of course I still enjoy masi’s food with chach in the afternoon if I am in phursatgunj. I simply love that place and people around there who do things at their own pace. Nothing changes and no one seems to be in any kind of hurry there.


After three four years gap movies again have become integrated part of my daily schedule in phursatgunj. My visits to cinema halls are now a common occurrence. I don’t give it another though to visit my home theaters in the morning and for matinee shows even if they show movies like ‘parvati ka pati kaun?’ and low budget Hollywood remakes. Very movies with aesthetic appeal and sense of art are released in post-liberal India. Quality of moving making has improved a lot in last decade but still movies are not up to the mark. I still love light weight comedies and they are now vanished from the big screens of Bollywood. But I still enjoy and celebrate third class love stories and forth class action movies.

Few movies I recently watched are nishabd, 300, hat-trick, hanuman, water, one night at museum, the ghost rider, transporter, hum hain rahi pyar ke, and few others. I don’t remember their names as I watch it for time pass only. The best I think was nishabd. Most of them, they say that they are pretty impressed with the concept and theme of the movie but I am much more impressed by Amitabh’s acting. Khan is just above average but not excellent in any sense or way. Historical facts in movie 300 are manipulated and I don’t think there is much truth in the story left. Animation was good. Hat-trick was worst among them all. The ghost rider was a regular Hollywood shit. All other 10-15 new movies I watched in the month of March were on an average one out of five movies.

On the other hand I really enjoyed and celebrated reading books and novels. Shantaram is worth a double read. It is even more gripping and interesting than the Da Vinci code and it took me only a week to finish that off. War and Peace is still going strong and it seems as if it is a never ending novel. I also read biography of Abraham Lincoln in Gujarati by M. Desai and few of Shakespeare and Tolstoy stories and plays. Lincoln’s life was full of senseless struggle and fight against slavery. I don’t like particularly this kind of books. Shantaram was book of the month for me though. Characters like Quasim Ali and Johnny Cigar gave the story more realistic and earthy feel while Lord Abdul khader khan made it a roller coaster ride for the author. Senseless Karla and ruthless Nazeer were partners in crime. Abdullah made the story passionate and Madame Zhou gave it thrill. But the tourist guide cum taxi driver Prabhakar was the juiciest character of them all. I again am going to read this book after sometime.

After all this March celebrations April began with study books and still I am very busy with them all. I have to prepare for three and a half subject in 20 days and it is not a very big task but I still have to work hard for it. I don’t blog or log on to this computer very often even if I read just few meters away from it. Sometimes I play chess online for couple of hours for refreshment. Yesterday afternoon I talked to Gauravbhai on gmail. He told me that it was his last day in front of ‘The Electrical Monitor’ and was going to join jasubhai media group from tomorrow. He even told me about the latest ‘Mr. Jose without josh incident’. I think we don’t have an instrument yet, and science and technology are not so much developed that we can measure the josh effect on any Richter scale. But effects are always more devastating than the deadliest hurricane.

India and Pakistan’s performance in the world cup cricket forced me to stay away from TV even though I can access it any time I want as far as I am in Ahmedabad. This world cup is full of spicy events and shitty stories and hilarious matches but my exams don’t allow me to stick to the TV for long hours. I am not much interested in the matches involving teams like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and West Indies. South Africa even is not as reliable as it was before 5-7 years. England is almost out of the World Cup. Australia New Zealand is a very probable final and I think New Zealand was my favourite from very beginning and I think they will make it big this time. I hope they win the world cup and can give Australia a break.

I am very tired now and don’t feel like writing any more though I have so many other tales to tell. I won’t be able to write again in the near future but I want to write more and more. My laziness and exams are preventing me to do so. I also want to write about Osho and his friends. I was planning this for long and recent comments on our blog forced me to think about that again. I must now have to write about them. I shall try. Amen.

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.

Streets of Phursatgunj - A Glimpse

The Contrast Green

The City Streets

The Antique Dawn

Funny days are here again

Indeed funny days. Both blogger and orkut are showering all kinds of compliments. My today's fortune in orkut says, "You are a person of culture." Nothing can be more flattering than this. Even my most generous mother doesn't think so. My friends must be laughing their hearts out. Just a couple of days back I deleted one of my comments on blogger. The message pops up, "This post has been removed by the author." Never in my wildest dreams, I thought that somebody, even a system generated message, will call me an author. Not just that, hold your breath, some of the most generous visitors to 20box are enjoying the posts. They are even advising me to write a book. Well, what to say? I am speechless.

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon. I love this city man. It's a paradise for lazybones like me. The climate is extremely friendly. You can sleep anytime in the day. It rains all the time in Bangalore. The rain also has a pattern. Mostly it starts in the evening. People here do business on their own terms and conditions. Just a faint cry for strike and the entire city will come to a halt. Not even a single shop will remain open. You can order tea and spend hours in a restaurant with your girlfriend. Nobody will bother you.

The other day somebody asked me to play online chess. To be honest, I am not even an average chess player. I used to play chess to increase my patience. People say it's a game for intelligent folks. May be true. From the very beginning, I knew I have limited mental capabilities. Therefore, I never tried to improve my game. I used to play chess only to spend time with a good friend talking all kinds of nonsense. Tea and snacks breaks in between. How can one do that online?