ख़ुशी

हँस लेता है दिल, जाने कितना खुश होता है ?!!

मै कहता हु "सुन पगले! ये बात समझ ना आये,

क्यों इतना तू हुआ बावला, क्या तुझको यु भाए?"

मै पुछू "सुन ओ भवरे! क्यों इतना तू इतराए,

किन फूलो कि पंखुडियों, किन कलियों पर मंडराए?

क्या पाया, किसको देखा, कितने रस का है पान किया,

किन किन रस्तों से गुजरा, क्या क्या है तुने जान लिया?

कौन मिला तुझको ऐसा, जो तू खुद कि सुध छोड़ चला,

कैसे दिन बहुरे तेरे, तू किससे नाता जोड़ चला?

कुछ तो बतला दे सपने तू किस जग के संजोता है?"

हँस लेता है दिल, जाने कितना खुश होता है?!!

"क्या बोलू उसको जिसको बस मतलब कि है चाह यहाँ,

हर मुस्काते चेहरे में जो ढूंढे कारण कोई नया,

मै खुश क्यों तू छोड़, बता है शंकित क्यों तू फिर वैसे,

क्या हर विस्तृत अधरों से तू पूछे प्रश्न सदा ऐसे?

मै तो बेमतलब खुश हु, बेमतलब कि मुस्कान लिए,

पर तू क्यों है व्यग्र हुआ, क्या तुझको है परेशान किये?

किंचित रस्तों, रिश्तो, पुष्पों कि मुझको इच्छा ना कोई,

मिलना ना मिलना मिलके खोना क्या कोई बात नई!!

क्या है परिभाषा खुश होने कि, किस कारण जश्न मेरे?!!

मै तो बेमतलब खुश हु, बेमतलब के है प्रश्न तेरे......"

The Two Cups

In two cups alike we all are served

In equal measures as each deserved

Yet each here in his way savours

And tastes the cups with unlike flavours

Some hide the joy and ham the grief

And live a life momentarily brief

And some go gaga in thrill of a flash

And pomp their insignificant stash

All that ye in life hath faced

The grieved, the failed and the disgraced

Are happier souls soon to be

The sweet of joy laid for thee

And all that ye in life hath relished

The blessed, the gifted and the cherished

Let not sobriety in thee go fade

The bitter might be the swigs ahead.

My Journey...

I knew it! I very well knew it!! My left eye had been fluttering like a moth for the past three days and I knew that something wrong was on its way. And bingo!!! Here I was... in the waiting chair of platform no. 18 for the past 3 hours. Three big, boring, awful hours!!! And guess what... still two more to go till my godforsaken train was scheduled to arrive!!! L Two big, boring, awful hours!!!

And the pain of watching the blinking platform clock was becoming insurmountable. More so because of my being me!! As you all know (or may be don’t) that ‘tis quite a task for my roommate and me to keep our body (a clear contrast) and brains (thankfully equal weighted!!) quiet even for an hour leave aside a pentad. So the only choice left was to loiter around. But again the problem was that I had a luggage that weighed at least one fifth of my weight. And I certainly couldn’t afford to wander with a 20% mark up on my shoulders. So I took the very hard decision to grace one of those chairs. But my brain was still pounding....

So I woke up the creative pig in me and took the pen and notepad even at the cost of being looked as a nerd which I am most certainly not or so I believe. Okay so I scribbled something on it and then I read and then I read again and then I thought it looked like a poem... dunno what you people will think of it... but anyways it is here...

मै गिरता हु कि दुनिया उठने नहीं देती....

हर चौखट पर बंद दरवाजा मुझे नसीहत देता है -

" अरे ओ अनजान अनभिज्ञ जीव!!

रोक ले ये बढ़ते कदम तेरे, इनसे न हासिल कर सकता है,

वो मील का पत्थर जो हर कदम के साथ खिसकता है.

समेत ले ये फड़फडाते अरमा तेरे, तुझे क्या लगता है?

इन अधमरे दो पंखो के सहारे, पंछी आंधियो से लड़ता है? "

हर लहर, हर झोंका, हर घूमता कांटा घड़ी का, मुझपे हसता है

" अरे ओ उद्दंड अकिंचन रूह!!

तेरे इन फुदकते से हौसलों कि, है ही क्या बिसात,

जो रखते है पंजो पर, उन बाजुओ कि अलग ही है बात.

ये रोशनी के फुनगे, ज्यादे देर तक न देंगे साथ,

वो स्याह सी काली सूरज को निगल जाने वाली है रात "

मै पीछे रह जाता हु, कि दुनिया बढ़ने नहीं देती...

मै झूका लेता हु कंधे, हटा लेता हु कदम,

मै और मेरे हौसले डर जाते है, खुद पे आती सी है शरम.

मै इन्तजार करता हु----

एक खुले दरवाजे कि,

साथ देने वाले झोके कि,

किनारों को जाने वाली लहर कि.

एक अनुकूल घड़ी के कांटे कि,

मै इन्तजार करता हु, मै इन्तजार करता हु ....

पर मै - मै हु ,

और मै - मै ही रहूँगा,

ठहरना सीखा नहीं है अभी ..

ये अरमा फिर से मचलने लगते है,

ये हौसले फिर से फुदकने लगते है,

और ये मुई उम्मीद कि किरण फिर से मुह उठा कर चली आती है

मै फिर से आगे बढ़ता हु, और एक बार हवा से लड़ता हु ,

और कमबख्त ये हवा रूख बदल देती है

एक कंकड़ उठा कर यु ही फेकता हु, पानी को हिलते हुए देखता हु

और बेहया ये लहर झट से मेरा दामन पकड़ लेती है

मै ताले कि छेद में झाकता हु, किवाड़ कि दरारों से ताकता हु

और ये अड़ियल कुंडिया चिटक कर टूट जाती है

मै सर को ऊपर उठाता हु, उस घड़ी कि तरफ नज़रे फिराता हु

और वो नामुराद कांटा इशारो पर नाचने लगता है

मै उचक - उचक कर अंगुलियों पर, खडा होता हु

देखता हु क्षितिज के पार, एक नयी दुनिया, एक नए सफ़र कि चाह में

लेकिन संतुलन का अभाव सा है, मै मुँह के बल ही गिरता हु

फिर से बटोर कर बिखरे साहस के दाने....

मै उठता हु,

मै उठता हु, कि दुनिया गिरने नहीं देती...

Arey look look look... my train has come... going home ... bye bye.. and yeah help me in finding a title..

Science of PJs- Weapons of Mass Destruction

“Chauri apni jeans upar kar le, nahi toh swine flu ho jayega.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????

What was that supposed to mean? How on earth can one associate ‘a viral disease’ with one’s jeans? And if one is to take a leaf from Hitler’s dictionary and believe that such impossibility becomes true, why would it be named as ‘Swine Flu’ and why not ‘Jeans Flu’ (a further sub classification could perhaps be Lee Flu, Wrangler Flu, Levis Flu and so on). Why is that sweet little plump animal being blamed for it?

I was left gawking and groping for a clarification. Then came the explanation that would have by all odds numbed the likes of Newton and Einstein.

“Abe tujhe pata nahi. Swine Flu se bachane ke liye High Jean chahiye hota hai.”

On the 4th floor of my building, I only had two options left after hearing this explanation. Either I throw myself out of the window or throw Garry out of it. Somehow I resisted the temptation and settled for a little less than that. Threw a furious look at him and left.....

.

Now another incident that my roommate very proudly tells me about is equally disgusting. Thankfully I was not the guy who was the target this time. That was a very unwholesome moment for our dear Pandu who caught my Dear Roommate studying in the library or at least he thought him doing so. And like every other Indian exclaimed “Kya baat hai be padhai kar raha hai!!” And my roommate again like every other Indian replied “nahi be.” He added “Mai toh mere samne wale bench par jo ladaki baithi hai use dekh raha hu.” Our dear unlucky Pandu just tried to be smart and did a Sherlock Holmes by inquiring further “Abe lekin tune ye jo lines khiche hai books par vo kaha se aye?” And he instantaneously ran out of luck. The reply came “Abe wahi toh!! Ladaki ko dekh kar line mar raha hu.”

Poor Pandu!! And Poor Me!! And Poor those who are reading this blog!!

How do you react to these PJs or rather TJs (terrible jokes)? You bang your heads into a wall? You start pulling your hair? You start thumping and jumping on the bench? Or you simply act like you have heard nothing though your whole body shakes and you wish to kill someone?
Whatever you do but one thing that I am certain of is that you guys would not be feeling much different from what I felt when I encountered these TJs. Now what I felt then is something even recalling which gives me dizziness. With my swirling head I am writing what happened when I heard that Swine Flu PJ on that unfortunate day of my life:

• I was feeling like the world around me had just been smoked out like a shot of marijuana.
• The land beneath my feet had become four dimensional.
• I was rotating around the sun at a speed closer to that of light. And time had just slowed down following the relativity theory of Einstein.
• Since my mass was reaching the speed of light I was transforming into energy and the sound of people chattering around me was becoming distant and ultimately died.

Now if this much of astro-physics was not sufficient that my biology also came to the fore.

• My entire nervous system broke down for some moments like the website of NMIMS once the result of NMAT comes.
• My blood started pushing out of my veins like the water coming out of the manholes of Mumbai in the month of July.
• My cerebrum started springing and ricocheting from the skull.

Now if someone has any doubt as to which one is a deadlier PJ – the one I mentioned at the top of this post or the ones which I just bulleted, then let me make something absolutely clear to one and all - I was actually feeling that way.

P.S.: Did you know-

• How our dear Saurabh KapUr is different from Kareena KapOOr? Ans.- Unlike Kareena, Saurabh is not POOR.
• Why swine flu cannot spread much in India? Ans.- Because none of the Indian species of swine flew in the past. (Mind Flu=Flew in Hindi)
• How come an enemy under pressure is defeated more easily? Ans.- Because he has to shit. And he cannot do it before everyone hence he runs.

-Excerpts from ‘Simply Believe it or Not’ by Saurabh KapUr and Ashish Dhagat ‘Pandu’

WHY ARE THEY THE BEST BUSINESSMEN OF ALL? WHY?

For the past 15 days I hadn’t had any non veg food thanks to my Mallu Boss who panics even at the very idea of seeing someone eating murdered food. And since he is the one who transfers my food burden to the company’s income statement—a provision that was not supposed to be created out of company’s profits as per the details provided to me in my interview—it conferred this moral sense of duty on me to sit with him at dinner and during lunch and have in my plate what pleased his eyes. Actually it was not an obligation. I could very well sit somewhere else and enjoy leg/tail pieces. But the chatter box as I am, I preferred to sit with him and enjoy north Indian veg food with south Indian tadka on it.

That day I got this chance to please my palates. My boss had his B’day and we decided to go out to have dinner. Further it was decided to have food of one’s choice rather than to form a consensus on it MBA style. So five of us—2 herbivorous and 3 omnivorous including me—had our day. Venue—Karol Bagh. My boss unsurprisingly decided to go for a south Indian restraunt and we—also unsurprisingly—chose to avoid the same. Ravi & I left after others had boarded the metro. And by the time we reached there others couldn’t keep the mice in their belly under control. So we two were left. Now the problem was I didn’t want to eat alone and Ravi being a hardcore Gujju & ‘XXX’ veggie couldn’t sit in front of a non-veg thali. He was going to this restraunt named ‘Suruchi’ known for its Rajasthani & Gujarati Thali. So I decided to try something that was going to be a ‘First Time’ in the life of this guy from Ganga Kinare—A Rajasthani thali (Dont laugh OK!). Of course I had it earlier at Dolly’s home but that was a modified version I should say.

OK so we entered the restraunt. And astonishingly I found more waiters than eaters there—all dressed up in typical Marwari/Gujarati attire. The order was predecided so we didn’t have to spend time looking at menu card. One Rajasthani thali for me and one Gujarati thali for Ravi. Well I didn’t have any idea that they would take the order in its ‘literal’ sense and put two thalis without anything in it before us. I was just going to say that “No no! You took it wrong. We mean Gujarati thali + Gujarati khana in it”. Before I could utter a word, they came back with small bowls. I couldn’t count how many were there in their tray but definitely they were more than the diners sitting there. And they started putting them in our thalis one by one. One, two, three, four...... and still counting!!!! “Oye bhai!! Are you gonna use my empty thali as a tray?” I was just to speak when one of them came with chhach and another with FOUR types of chutney with him and started serving us. I was still unable to figure out what they are going to do with those SEVEN bowls in each thali because the FOUR types of chutney were served outside those bowls. Then came Salads. FIVE types of vegetables in it. That was an acceptable number. But wait!! Salad too outside those bowls. SEVEN empty bowls!!!! For the next 120 seconds I felt myself tripling in size or in number. I was not one. I was three. At least the assortment of food in my thali was trying to make me believe so. This many varieties of sabjis we don’t have even in a whole week menu in our home. SIX types of sabjis. Still one bowl left empty. Before I could see anything in it, here came two more guests—an all new bowl of dal-bati and another of churma. NINE bowls and still the feast seemed far from over. Then one stranger came in the so far empty bowl. I couldn’t make out whether the new arrival was a sabji or a dessert either by its look or as I later realized by its taste (It was sweet sabji probably). Yeh lo ji! The real dessert had come. Another bowl of aamras. So TWO new bowls... one & a half of dessert and another half of sabji.

I was just going to start when I realized rotis are yet to come. My Gosh!!!!!! Four types of rotis/puris—Plain roti, Puran Puri, Bajre ki roti and bati already there—all dipped in supposedly pure ghee.

Finally wait ended. We were supposed to start now. Ravi started with puran puri and I with bewilderment and that didn’t taste as good. I just followed Ravi with puran puri and while chewing a bite of it, my mouth was working slower than my mind. Which one after this!? Even after finishing this whole puri I had no clue what to take now. Just to buy some more time for my mind I stuffed this (unnamed) thing. I went back to my CAT-preparation days and started recollecting all the formulas of permutation & combination and the probability theory suggested me that I couldn’t try all of them. I am not exaggerating things but I really had to struggle to keep pace with Ravi and choose next thing to eat. My hands were going forth, retreating, again going forth and then again I had to hold them back till I could convince them that this is what should be the next. Only the speculation of recession reaching its worst had such an uncertainty. Suddenly I started feeling terrible. I was going to be an MBA finance, also trying my luck with CFA let alone the commerce background that I have. All the fundas of Quantitative Aptitude and Risk (& Uncertainty) Analysis had taken a tumble. And that Gujju guy before me was so calm; enjoying his dinner like it was a day-to-day chore for him to work with these numbers...SEVEN+FIVE+SIX+NINE+TWO.....

Then something just blew my mind. I possibly solved the Ambani riddle. Why these Gujjus and Marwaris are so sharp? Why do they rule over not only the whole of India but the whole of world when it comes to business acumen? And why NMIMS has majority of Gujjus (& Marwaris) in it?
We start learning higher mathematics only when we reach 11th Standard. These guys learn it every day twice since their childhood. We apply P&C when we leave school. These guys do it since the time they start holding spoon. We use risk analysis to minimize uncertainty about things they don’t even need to learn it because their food does the trick for them.

The fight was over now. This dinner was much better than Mutton Pulao I planned to have- not because it was tastier but because it gave me a new recipe of success.

And for the very first time in my life, my hands were more tired than my jaws after a meal. And so was my mind owing to those tedious calculations.