“And… there goes my money down the drain” cribbed my fussy sister. She was going through her income statement and according to her a chunk of her hard-earned money had been ‘snatched’ in the name of Income –tax. Did she say snatched away? Why the hell was she cribbing so much? Be it direct or indirect, every citizen of the country pays tax. He/she is morally and legally bound to do so. Nothing comes free. We cannot afford for the services that we need individually and hence, we pay taxes to the government so that it can provide us with services that we can use as a society. For example, travelling from one place to the other would require roads and every person cannot afford to build a road of his own. So,the government does it by pooling OUR money. But, is it written anywhere that the roads have to be well built and maintained? Our ‘able’ politicians say naaah!
The requirement of a strong infrastructural base in the development of the nation has been grossly under-estimated by the Indian government. Adding to the dismal economic planning of the government are corruption and nepotism which together have gnawed into the fundamental development of the country. The foundations of our economy are shaky and so is our growth rate. The growth of our nation is primarily driven by the services sector. And, this in turn has led to an increased number of commuters and the nation’s infrastructure refuses to take their load. A glimpse of the muddled and chaotic traffic in Mumbai should put us to shame. Cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, taxis, rickshaws, dogs and cows push around for every inch of the road as horns make a racket and brakes screech. Pukka roads have become kuccha because they were neither built nor maintained properly by the authorities and there is no new effort towards improving the miserable kuccha roads. The pachka roads (almost all roads in the cities are a blend of pukka-kuccha roads) bear crater sized pot holes which get worsened during the rainy season. All these add to the woes of the commuters and make travelling to and fro from work a nightmare. On an average, a person in a metro commutes for more than 6 hours a day due to traffic and the situation isn’t getting any better.
The inertia of the government has forced the citizens to take steps to make the roads better. A couple of days back, the Mumbai traffic police along with a few people around tried to mend the pot-holes with mud and sand! The authorities are happy with the patch-work and have not done anything to repair the roads even after knowing that the citizens have now started doing their job. The residents of a particular locality gathered their resources and cleaned the garbage littered along the roads in the vicinity of their residential area. People in smaller towns and villages are building their own roads in order to connect to the world outside. Such incidents and many more have become very common in India today and this is not something to be very proud of.
The government should realize that it's on the verge of crossing the threshold of our patience. The day is not far when people will start taking law into their hands and everything will turn upside down. It should wake up from it s slumber and start putting all its ‘thoughts’ (the plans that it has chalked out over the years) to action lest the world mock at it s inability to fulfill Vision-2020 and disappoint the children of the nation who have grown up with the dreams of an honest and developed India.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Invisible....Visible....Invisible
2:28 am - Me: Hi! found something interesting to show.. mail me back asap
2:29 am- K: What is it?
Me: I found the link for that video...
K: Thats great.
Me: What's so great. You havenot even seen it.
K: Send the link. Don't waste my time.
Now i was wasting his time. Guys can be so rude at times!
Me: Okay check your mail. Btw r u online? Why aren't you there in my chat list? did you delete me from yours?
K: Not yet. I am invisible.
Me:Oh! Are u "busy"?
K:Yes I am. Goodnight.
Me:Okay. Goodnight.
What do you call a guy who is something more than your best-friend? Ya I know that the answer lies in the question. When i say "something more" it makes everything clear. The problem was that this phrase was complicating everything; a stranger-turned-best friend turned into a stranger again and I was to blame for it. I was cross with myself. Why on earth did I have to mail him at this hour when he was busy with someone else? But I had to share it with him, I always shared everything with him . I had to tell him when I made my first rangoli, when i got my semester results, when i bought that pink kurti , when i ate all those alloo ka paratha and green chutney and that poor fellow was starving in his hostel, I made my first corriander roti which was half burnt but lied to him that everyone at home loved my rotis, when i got my disappointing cat results and he was among the toppers, when i received my call letter from the placement cell,when kareena dumped shaheed; everything that mattered and didnot matter . He was a part of my life, a very vital part. Any decision that i took had to pass through him first. Damn it! I had become so dependent on him for everthing!
By now, you must have guessed that this guy was a friend(was because he now no more considers me one) and we had always spoken to each other only on chat sites or over the phone.
He found me on a social networking site and introduced himself as a friend from school. At first i could neither recognize the name nor the person, but i thought that since there were some 50 odd mutual friends from the same school so maybe i knew this guy and accepted him. I didnot know that he would start sending me love mails,e-cards etc; in short start hitting on me from day one! Okay, kidding. He was not one of those regular guys.
K and I chatted for the first time on facebook and we stopped chatting because he went offline within ten minutes. Was i so bad at talking to people? No. Guys luuuuuurve talking to me. As usual, I was indulging in pointless self-praise and i quickly made a list of guys who were bent upon getting 'married' to me. LOL. Atleast they said so. Yes you are right. Girls think a lot and unnecessarily conjure things that donot even have remote chances of happening .
"Facebook chat sucks!" screamed one of my chat windows and K was back. "quick! Give me your gtalk id". We shifted from Fb to gtalk and so did our statuses, from available to busy. Quite obvious. He showed me all the class photographs. "We were tiny little creatures ...very cute na?" he asked. Ya right! we were tiny little monsters and I looked like one too. I was standing right next to him. He looked like those kids whose moms never failed to make thier kids look impeccable. Neatly done hair,spotless uniform,sparkling shoes and i looked like a complete loser standing next to him with soiled uniform and dirty shoes. I knew he was lying when he said that i looked really cute... I had this boy-cut and looked like that shy kid who always cried and held on to mom's pallu. Chi! that girl in the picture cannot be me.
We chatted at length about almost everything, our college lives being the focus of our conversations most of the times. We had a lot in common and it was easy to talk to him about things that i could otherwise not even share with my mom. He was a nice guy. Nice meaning he was witty and funny and never flirted like the others did; not that i hate guys who flirt with me but with the kind of desperate flirting techniques that guys have resorted to these days, it is obvious that girls start getting suspicious of everything that any guy says. Anyway, probably he was too much of an introvert to flirt, though he likes saying that he was subtly flirting, whatever it was i never got to know. He was a book-worm and a pervert; all nerdy guys are. But he never went overboard when talking to me. Most of the times he was invisible on chat and i wondered if he did this to all the girls he was speaking to. SILLY! guys have this habit of being invisible on chat and make all the girls they speak to, feel "special" . Three months had passed and we hadnot exchanged our phone numbers yet. I knew that he would never ask for it unless i initiated. No pun intended. I finally found an excuse to ask for his number.
It was New Year and i called him to wish. He was in some crowded place, i could hear dozens of horns hooting together and numerous voices in the background.Was he in some mela? He knew nothing about phone etiqutee. He was half eating, half speaking and in between speaking to his friends and ordering kebabs too, while i held the phone close to my ears to listen to any word that he spoke lest i lose track of the conversation. Sad, there was no conversation. I decided to politely hang-up on him and never ever call him back again. I regretted for calling him and even decided to block him from my account. I was clearly over reacting. An hour later he called and apologised for not being able to talk properly. Hello! were you even talking to me? I was annoyed but somehow he managed to change the topic. After the customary stuff that every guy and girl talk when they 'speak' to each other for the first time we started speaking on our general chat stuff . Not so surprisingly, we spoke for almost an hour everyday and then almost every hour after a week. Months passed by.We knew everything about each other and he, I knew had developed feelings for me but he never brought it in our conversation. Somewhere deep inside i knew that I didnot want him to, becaue i wasnot really sure of my feelings. I liked him and it was good to talk to him and stuff plus he was a nice guy but i wasnt sure if i was "the nice girl" for him. Turned out that i wasnot.
He proposed and i said yes. I still don't know what made me say yes but as thought it fell apart in couple of weeks and i was responsible for it. It got messed up and how much ever he tried i couldnot switch on my 'love mode' anymore. I tried to but couldnot fall in love with him. He asked me to stop trying and let it come naturally. It never did. I donot know if it ever will but i miss him and without him everything around me feels empty and incomplete. "You live in denial" he pointed out to me, i wish i understood what he meant by this.
2:29 am- K: What is it?
Me: I found the link for that video...
K: Thats great.
Me: What's so great. You havenot even seen it.
K: Send the link. Don't waste my time.
Now i was wasting his time. Guys can be so rude at times!
Me: Okay check your mail. Btw r u online? Why aren't you there in my chat list? did you delete me from yours?
K: Not yet. I am invisible.
Me:Oh! Are u "busy"?
K:Yes I am. Goodnight.
Me:Okay. Goodnight.
What do you call a guy who is something more than your best-friend? Ya I know that the answer lies in the question. When i say "something more" it makes everything clear. The problem was that this phrase was complicating everything; a stranger-turned-best friend turned into a stranger again and I was to blame for it. I was cross with myself. Why on earth did I have to mail him at this hour when he was busy with someone else? But I had to share it with him, I always shared everything with him . I had to tell him when I made my first rangoli, when i got my semester results, when i bought that pink kurti , when i ate all those alloo ka paratha and green chutney and that poor fellow was starving in his hostel, I made my first corriander roti which was half burnt but lied to him that everyone at home loved my rotis, when i got my disappointing cat results and he was among the toppers, when i received my call letter from the placement cell,when kareena dumped shaheed; everything that mattered and didnot matter . He was a part of my life, a very vital part. Any decision that i took had to pass through him first. Damn it! I had become so dependent on him for everthing!
By now, you must have guessed that this guy was a friend(was because he now no more considers me one) and we had always spoken to each other only on chat sites or over the phone.
He found me on a social networking site and introduced himself as a friend from school. At first i could neither recognize the name nor the person, but i thought that since there were some 50 odd mutual friends from the same school so maybe i knew this guy and accepted him. I didnot know that he would start sending me love mails,e-cards etc; in short start hitting on me from day one! Okay, kidding. He was not one of those regular guys.
K and I chatted for the first time on facebook and we stopped chatting because he went offline within ten minutes. Was i so bad at talking to people? No. Guys luuuuuurve talking to me. As usual, I was indulging in pointless self-praise and i quickly made a list of guys who were bent upon getting 'married' to me. LOL. Atleast they said so. Yes you are right. Girls think a lot and unnecessarily conjure things that donot even have remote chances of happening .
"Facebook chat sucks!" screamed one of my chat windows and K was back. "quick! Give me your gtalk id". We shifted from Fb to gtalk and so did our statuses, from available to busy. Quite obvious. He showed me all the class photographs. "We were tiny little creatures ...very cute na?" he asked. Ya right! we were tiny little monsters and I looked like one too. I was standing right next to him. He looked like those kids whose moms never failed to make thier kids look impeccable. Neatly done hair,spotless uniform,sparkling shoes and i looked like a complete loser standing next to him with soiled uniform and dirty shoes. I knew he was lying when he said that i looked really cute... I had this boy-cut and looked like that shy kid who always cried and held on to mom's pallu. Chi! that girl in the picture cannot be me.
We chatted at length about almost everything, our college lives being the focus of our conversations most of the times. We had a lot in common and it was easy to talk to him about things that i could otherwise not even share with my mom. He was a nice guy. Nice meaning he was witty and funny and never flirted like the others did; not that i hate guys who flirt with me but with the kind of desperate flirting techniques that guys have resorted to these days, it is obvious that girls start getting suspicious of everything that any guy says. Anyway, probably he was too much of an introvert to flirt, though he likes saying that he was subtly flirting, whatever it was i never got to know. He was a book-worm and a pervert; all nerdy guys are. But he never went overboard when talking to me. Most of the times he was invisible on chat and i wondered if he did this to all the girls he was speaking to. SILLY! guys have this habit of being invisible on chat and make all the girls they speak to, feel "special" . Three months had passed and we hadnot exchanged our phone numbers yet. I knew that he would never ask for it unless i initiated. No pun intended. I finally found an excuse to ask for his number.
It was New Year and i called him to wish. He was in some crowded place, i could hear dozens of horns hooting together and numerous voices in the background.Was he in some mela? He knew nothing about phone etiqutee. He was half eating, half speaking and in between speaking to his friends and ordering kebabs too, while i held the phone close to my ears to listen to any word that he spoke lest i lose track of the conversation. Sad, there was no conversation. I decided to politely hang-up on him and never ever call him back again. I regretted for calling him and even decided to block him from my account. I was clearly over reacting. An hour later he called and apologised for not being able to talk properly. Hello! were you even talking to me? I was annoyed but somehow he managed to change the topic. After the customary stuff that every guy and girl talk when they 'speak' to each other for the first time we started speaking on our general chat stuff . Not so surprisingly, we spoke for almost an hour everyday and then almost every hour after a week. Months passed by.We knew everything about each other and he, I knew had developed feelings for me but he never brought it in our conversation. Somewhere deep inside i knew that I didnot want him to, becaue i wasnot really sure of my feelings. I liked him and it was good to talk to him and stuff plus he was a nice guy but i wasnt sure if i was "the nice girl" for him. Turned out that i wasnot.
He proposed and i said yes. I still don't know what made me say yes but as thought it fell apart in couple of weeks and i was responsible for it. It got messed up and how much ever he tried i couldnot switch on my 'love mode' anymore. I tried to but couldnot fall in love with him. He asked me to stop trying and let it come naturally. It never did. I donot know if it ever will but i miss him and without him everything around me feels empty and incomplete. "You live in denial" he pointed out to me, i wish i understood what he meant by this.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Abandoned.....My foot!
"And when you go I will remember to send a thank you note to that girl, I see she's holding you so tender...Well I just wanna say...I never really loved you anyway....No I didn't love you anyway..I never really loved you anyway...I'm so glad you're moving away".... i could hear myself half mumbling and half singing this song and repeatedly playing it on my mp3. This was one of my desperate attempts to convince myself that i was too good for him, i didnot love him and hence didnot have to make an issue out of the whole dumping thing. FUCK! Did this have to happen now? My hostel was beaming with happy faces all around; it was end of the semester and as usual it was party time,i could see girls in their skimpiest clothes with burly guys holding them by waist walking out of the campus gates. And I, in my lousy pajamas and a dheela dhala tee which looked liked it had passed on to me from my dad, was standing at the window of my hostel, sulking and listing out all the reasons why my life had turned topsy- turvy on that bloody day. I thought maybe God was punishing me because i had turned down so many other guys in the past or maybe he wasn't meant to be with me, he was just a phase of my life...a very bad phase or maybe we weren't the rab ne bana di jodi types... It had to be something! I had never imagined that it would all crumble down like this and I out of all people would be left in the midst of nowhere waiting to be rescued. I was unnecessarily getting senti. I had to understand that it was all over and nothing could be done about it now. It was high time that I stopped behaving like a zombie and started living a normal life. Easier said than done.
I tried to bring in all possible changes in my schedule so that i could focus on other things. I woke up at five in the morning (my mom tried convincing me to do this for the last 21 years...sadly i let that cheat ex of mine win!). I changed into my tracks and went for jogging everyday, this , I had read somewhere could bring down my stress levels. Don't know about the stress levels but the cramps in my legs because of the over enthusiastic run for one and half hour around the campus playground on the very first day left me brooding for the whole day. Sad.. I had to find something worthwhile to do! I tried immersing myself into books which was very stupid beacuse the exams were over and i was opening them after the exams. Shit! i had wasted so much of time on that guy and ruined my exams too. I tried watching movies but my over filmy room-mate had stored all romantic movies in the hard disk and watching those things in the break-up period was suicide and to top it all my best friend Ved was out of station. He was my crying-shoulder when i had fights with him but he too had to leave me and go and attend some stupid marriage of his cousin 1700 km away from the city.
Frooti was looking at me with menacing eyes. I knew the next thing that she would do was take that cigarette from me and fling it out of the window. I had turned into a near chain smoker and she didnot want me to get "spoilt".Ha! I wasnt an angel anyway; she was unaware of the fact that half of my nights were spent out of the hostel and I already was puffing my lungs out long before she found out. Frooti and I were among few others in the final year who had to stay back for a few more days before going back home to make arrangements for some conference in the college. Good i thought, lots of time to revive before showing my haggard face to mom.Lots of time meaning just one more week. Frooti's drama (she was better than my mom at this) to convince me to stop smoking didnot end for days. On one hand I never wanted that one week to end and on the other hand Frooti was making it increasingly difficult for me to live, she constantly spied on me,followed me to the loo too! Finally i had to relent and promised her that i would never touch the cigarettes and would throw them right away. Well promises are made to be broken. Whoelse knew this better than me?
The crappy programme scheduling and anchoring was handed over to me, Frooti was taking care of the interiors and "guest management" i still don't know what that means, perhaps Frooti does. The programme started with the usual vandana and continued into a slumber with boring bald-headed speakers talking about their school days,kids, trying to crack stupid jokes and making the audience feel even more fed up. I had atleast twenty minutes before introducing the last speaker and then the show would be wrapped up. I handed over the script and schedule to Frooti on the pretext of going to the waiting room and adjusting my saree (yes..we were supposed to put on maroon sarees on boring events like this) and escaped to a secluded place near the auditorium to take a few puffs.
As i lighted my cigarette i could hear something moving between bushes i thought it was a dog or a cat or a snake or maybe some other animal a tiger maybe, considering that our college was near a zoo. Ok i was imagining too much but i was scared! I turned to run away from that place,my saree and high heels werent of much help. As i started moving away from the bushes i could hear someone speak but i couldnot hear much so i went nearer. There were two voices and both, familiar. I regretted going further because after what i saw there i thought I had passed out for a second. Two bodies entangled under the moonlight,sweet talking and kissing each other unabashed. This could have made a very good gossip story for the next few days if the two unbeleivably shameless people were not my ex and ved's present girlfriend. She was two-timing! My ex was better he atleast had the guts to tell me. fck! why the hell was I supporting him? I did not have the slightest idea that he was going around with my best friend's girl-friend damn it!
I hadnot spoken to him after the break up but now I had to gather all the courage in me and ask them for an explanation. My friend's life was getting ruined. My life was getting ruined.
They were shell-shocked to find me( me out of all people) staring at them when they were too busy thinking of a place to make out. Before confronting them i had thought of a thousand things to yell at them but when i faced them i thought it was useless. Here were two people who didnot even think once before cheating on us so why should i even bother to talk to them, anything i said would fall on deaf ears anyway. I stepped forward called-up ved infront of them and told him about the whole thing. That bitch had the guts to try to stop me from doing so! She was sorry she didnot mean to hurt us.Bull-shit. Ved was heart-broken and so was I. Talk about crying shoulders. And I finally had to take one single step to get over that guy ...i stepped forward and slapped him tight. I felt something very heavy lifting off my body. I felt releived and finally i knew that i was over him. He deserved it. He deserved it for ruining all those years of my life,ruining my friend's life....and ....ruining my programme! Shit I left it half-way. How could i? This conference was 'important' for the coffers of the college and i had to leave it for this non-sense?
I rushed back to the hall and found people standing in attention for the national anthem which meant that the programme had come to an end. I looked at Frooti from the corner of my eye; she was looking at me menacingly, yet again! She always gives me that look...nothing new...maybe she picked this from my mom . Well,after the anthem she rushed towards me and i started searching for places to hide because she would now start with her hour long lecture. "Fuck you! where were you? I had to cover that section for you. Thank god i left the script for her .She had anchored in my place and forgotten things here and there like 'thanking' the chief guest..huh! big deal. I got rebuked for this later though. Well i guess all is well that ends well and it did end really well with me getting over this guy within days ;) Plain lucky.
I tried to bring in all possible changes in my schedule so that i could focus on other things. I woke up at five in the morning (my mom tried convincing me to do this for the last 21 years...sadly i let that cheat ex of mine win!). I changed into my tracks and went for jogging everyday, this , I had read somewhere could bring down my stress levels. Don't know about the stress levels but the cramps in my legs because of the over enthusiastic run for one and half hour around the campus playground on the very first day left me brooding for the whole day. Sad.. I had to find something worthwhile to do! I tried immersing myself into books which was very stupid beacuse the exams were over and i was opening them after the exams. Shit! i had wasted so much of time on that guy and ruined my exams too. I tried watching movies but my over filmy room-mate had stored all romantic movies in the hard disk and watching those things in the break-up period was suicide and to top it all my best friend Ved was out of station. He was my crying-shoulder when i had fights with him but he too had to leave me and go and attend some stupid marriage of his cousin 1700 km away from the city.
Frooti was looking at me with menacing eyes. I knew the next thing that she would do was take that cigarette from me and fling it out of the window. I had turned into a near chain smoker and she didnot want me to get "spoilt".Ha! I wasnt an angel anyway; she was unaware of the fact that half of my nights were spent out of the hostel and I already was puffing my lungs out long before she found out. Frooti and I were among few others in the final year who had to stay back for a few more days before going back home to make arrangements for some conference in the college. Good i thought, lots of time to revive before showing my haggard face to mom.Lots of time meaning just one more week. Frooti's drama (she was better than my mom at this) to convince me to stop smoking didnot end for days. On one hand I never wanted that one week to end and on the other hand Frooti was making it increasingly difficult for me to live, she constantly spied on me,followed me to the loo too! Finally i had to relent and promised her that i would never touch the cigarettes and would throw them right away. Well promises are made to be broken. Whoelse knew this better than me?
The crappy programme scheduling and anchoring was handed over to me, Frooti was taking care of the interiors and "guest management" i still don't know what that means, perhaps Frooti does. The programme started with the usual vandana and continued into a slumber with boring bald-headed speakers talking about their school days,kids, trying to crack stupid jokes and making the audience feel even more fed up. I had atleast twenty minutes before introducing the last speaker and then the show would be wrapped up. I handed over the script and schedule to Frooti on the pretext of going to the waiting room and adjusting my saree (yes..we were supposed to put on maroon sarees on boring events like this) and escaped to a secluded place near the auditorium to take a few puffs.
As i lighted my cigarette i could hear something moving between bushes i thought it was a dog or a cat or a snake or maybe some other animal a tiger maybe, considering that our college was near a zoo. Ok i was imagining too much but i was scared! I turned to run away from that place,my saree and high heels werent of much help. As i started moving away from the bushes i could hear someone speak but i couldnot hear much so i went nearer. There were two voices and both, familiar. I regretted going further because after what i saw there i thought I had passed out for a second. Two bodies entangled under the moonlight,sweet talking and kissing each other unabashed. This could have made a very good gossip story for the next few days if the two unbeleivably shameless people were not my ex and ved's present girlfriend. She was two-timing! My ex was better he atleast had the guts to tell me. fck! why the hell was I supporting him? I did not have the slightest idea that he was going around with my best friend's girl-friend damn it!
I hadnot spoken to him after the break up but now I had to gather all the courage in me and ask them for an explanation. My friend's life was getting ruined. My life was getting ruined.
They were shell-shocked to find me( me out of all people) staring at them when they were too busy thinking of a place to make out. Before confronting them i had thought of a thousand things to yell at them but when i faced them i thought it was useless. Here were two people who didnot even think once before cheating on us so why should i even bother to talk to them, anything i said would fall on deaf ears anyway. I stepped forward called-up ved infront of them and told him about the whole thing. That bitch had the guts to try to stop me from doing so! She was sorry she didnot mean to hurt us.Bull-shit. Ved was heart-broken and so was I. Talk about crying shoulders. And I finally had to take one single step to get over that guy ...i stepped forward and slapped him tight. I felt something very heavy lifting off my body. I felt releived and finally i knew that i was over him. He deserved it. He deserved it for ruining all those years of my life,ruining my friend's life....and ....ruining my programme! Shit I left it half-way. How could i? This conference was 'important' for the coffers of the college and i had to leave it for this non-sense?
I rushed back to the hall and found people standing in attention for the national anthem which meant that the programme had come to an end. I looked at Frooti from the corner of my eye; she was looking at me menacingly, yet again! She always gives me that look...nothing new...maybe she picked this from my mom . Well,after the anthem she rushed towards me and i started searching for places to hide because she would now start with her hour long lecture. "Fuck you! where were you? I had to cover that section for you. Thank god i left the script for her .She had anchored in my place and forgotten things here and there like 'thanking' the chief guest..huh! big deal. I got rebuked for this later though. Well i guess all is well that ends well and it did end really well with me getting over this guy within days ;) Plain lucky.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
