CHANGE

Packed my bags from Mumbai and shifted to Delhi. Everything has changed in the past couple of days, city, job, profile, friends, atmosphere, weather and culture. Every little thing has undergone a sea change. I know, why Mumbai, even I am missing the claustrophobic Mumbai. No matter how dingy and dirty the Mumbai gets, it will truly be the best and most happening city of India. SEA, the dirty Arabian Sea, I miss it badly.

Although there have been debates, discussions, PKSE (Pyaar ke Side Effects), cover stories on Delhi v/s Mumbai, why Delhiites hate Mumbai and vice versa. I was happy to be greeted by the cold weather, which makes your organs shrink and the white layer of fog stretched across the city. After three long years, I was experiencing the cold weather of the Northern region. Remember my school days, when my parents would force to wear gloves, layers of clothing, but young in the blood, brave at the idiocities, no gloves, no sweater. Holding shoulder to shoulder of your friend and riding bicycle while one or two of them driving scooter would pull the whole chain of friends’ riding bicycle.

Delhi ki sardi is truly a joy to cherish. The cold weather brings the real flavour of the whisky. The two/three long swigs of whisky breaks the whole idea of a winter, which even comes at a discounted rates compared to Mumbai. In Mumbai, after gulping n pitchers of beer, you still felt hot inside and outside.

Yes I am truly adjusting to the bull shit transport service in Delhi. Though fares are cheaper in Delhi and exactly half the rate in Mumbai. But the hassle of catching an auto and begging him to take you at the fare he demands.

Meter se chalo, saab meter kharaab hai.

To theek karvayo, Meter se kaun chalta hai.

Acche kitne, 60 rupaiye.

Bhaiya 50 chalenge, saab dal 100 rupaiye se upar ho gayi hai, chinni 50 paar kar gayi hai.

Mujhe kyon bata rahe hon, Manmohan Singh ke pass time kaha hai yeh sab sunene ke liye.

Finally he says with all his pride and valour intact, bolo saab chalna hai. Still you are requesting, No man, please don’t leave me alone in this deserted place, I feel scary (yes I do feel the same at 8:30 in CP, the CBD of Delhi). In Delhi, even men are also not safe after sun sets.

He made me realize that the prices of basic commodities has really skyrocketed. Its been more than six months since I last visited grocery store. And promised, if I contribute towards reneging Manmohan Singh out of office, he will charge me 40. In Mumbai, an autorickshaw driver is hardly bothered to understand the economic parameters. In Mumbai, you meet and greet a lot of people, who are talking about stock markets and gulping and churning market information, is their one and only motive for existence. While in Delhi, people are always talking about Soniaji, Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh and all the special human beings sitting above, below or around them.

At the same time, we can definitely talk about the Metro and the Mumbai local. Both have different meanings and importance in the lives of the people of two cities respectively. You do miss the madness of the Mumbai local? It is a phenomena on its own.

In Mumbai, I would search for my friends, who owns a car or who is able to lend a car to me. But in Delhi, all of my friends fly on four wheels except me, who has started to feel crippled without a car in Delhi.

In Mumbai, we always shop at malls, but in Delhi, even for the most upmarket and chic stuff, you visit markets, where you can roam on a street and window shop and loudspeakers are on, please take care of belongings and take care of your car, somebody may be trying to steal things by diverting your attention. Cars are parked in open. In Mumbai, most of the cars suffered from exhaustion by sitting and waiting for too long in cramped underground parking spaces.

Aur SirJi kaise hon. Everybody greets you with humbleness and respect, though most of them don’t feel the same, most of the time. The babugiri has seeped into the veins of every Delhiite, be it a peon. Nobody takes time to look at the watch. Everybody is running an hour or two late, which is like standard time.

I miss the professional and corporate culture of Mumbai, where you only talk about the work and not about bhabhiji, bache and kakaji, even if it is for the first time or nth time. In Delhi, besides work, people have time for all the schmuck burdening the earth.

Girls of Delhi and Mumbai. Mumbai girls are smarter than Delhi girls. Delhi girls are more beautiful and fair than Mumbai girls. Delhi girls like to get-up (no not dress up or make up), something is loud or bold on their body. Either a body curve, excessive lipstick, jhumke (earrings), dupatta, something is always over the board, as if they forgot to remove something after attending yesterday night’s party.

I am a foodie, so will definitely talk about food. Its difficult for a Punjabi to live on rice. In Mumbai, rice is the only reasonable (in terms of cost, time, hygiene and genuinity). But in Delhi, food just tastes awesome and the smell of it gives butterflies in your stomach. The sumptuous chicken tikka, kebab rolls, parantha and chhole and the thick daal. Every second day, somebody orders the delicious samosa in office. While in Mumbai, I was bored and saddened to eat the idlis, dosas, vada-pav, pav-bhaji and rice pulav, it’s difficult to survive on such such of food. BalaSaheb your Marathi brigade really deserves the accolade and the respect for eating and living on such food.

The list can be endless about n number of things, thoughts and perceptions. But to sum up, I have found average Mumbaikar lives as he has been send to spend some time on earth while Delhiite lives to eat and a comfortable life, without caring about money.

3 IDIOTS

With ‘3 Idiots’ I know I’m in the right. I’m just telling people to see the film and read my book. I know Aamir is a very powerful person. But finally the truth has to prevail, no? I’m no great artist, but there has to be fair play. I’m being accused of trying to get mileage. Ten lakh copies of the book have been sold. The book has been read by one crore readers. Wouldn’t they know the truth?

Finally after days of mud slinging over each other, Chetan Bhagat offered truce. Actually if we look into it, it was one way affair. Chetan Bhagat asserting his credit in the movie. There were hardly any comments from Aamir Khan or the maker of 3 Idiots. Then the media took over, who are experts in cooking biryani from plain rice. The media started discussing the credit points, same points, differences, percentages, 5%, 10%, 70% and 80%. When the media report came, Mr. Chetan Bhagat is paid Rs. 10 Lac for allowing filming rights to his novel, that is the end of the story. A creative person loses his world and charm and passion of his work. It is applicable to 3 Idiots film-makers and marketers too.

Or was it another marketing gimmick from one and all the interested parties. Aamir Khan possesses innovative market strategies. Had he thought, the name of the author/book could help him in leveraging his movie’s box office collections, Chetan Bhagat would have been laughing all his way to the bank. Chetan Bhagat saying in the end, I’m just telling people to see the film and read my book. Chetan Bhagat knows that a book only adds to numbers when it is released or when a movie is made on it. Like in the case of Slumdog Millionaire, the book was sold in lakhs after the movie release against its early distribution of 50,000. Chetan Bhagat knows anyhow after selling a million copies, this is the only chance to sell few more lakhs of copies of the book, esp. after the publisher had printed a million copies prior to the release of the movie (probably it may be the case). I don’t know how much credit should be given to the author of the book. In American/British movies, majority of the moviemakers don’t even mention the book and the author. The titles present only Based on Novel by ......, A Book Adaptation, etc. A filmmaker is inspired from a novel. A filmmaker can never ever justify the novel.

I would like to suggest to Mr. Chetan Bhagat, India is not a readers country. He should be really happy for his feat. His book made many Indians sit and read the one and only book of their life. In India, a book cannot compete with a movie. Indians like to watch movies. There’ll be very few people who will still read the novel. Majority of the people, who read novels before or after watching the movie, must have already read his novel.

Chetan Bhagat, himself said, ten lakh copies sold and one crore readers, need one say more. Most of the friends said after watching the movie, the novel was better. It’s difficult to share limelight/spotlight with Aamir Khan. In the end, these days only media wins, rest everybody is painted in an ugly frame.

Twenty Ten

Finally 2009 is over. I am not late or just woken up. Didn’t get time to publish it. It is always an exciting time of the year around Christmas. Everybody is looking at the year gone-by, the parties, the fun, the colours and the frolic. Though I miss the wintry chill of North, where I have spent 24 years of my life, wrapping yourself under layers of clothes, moving around with a blanket, holding hot cup of chai in hands to warm your body, the real taste of whiskey is felt in cold weather and the bon-fires.

I really don’t know or understood why people celebrate New Year. For the year goneby, the events, the moments, a flashback is so different from the normal routine. 2009 ending was special as we were waving goodbye to a decade. To a tumultuous decade. The decade evoAked to the fall of WTC in New York. The ultimate terrorist attack ever accomplished on a superpower. Suddenly the West realized how big the problem is and what poor nations and ill-equipped nation like our’s is undergoing. 9/11. 26/11, 7/11, 11 was symbolized for terror. Bali blasts, Madrid bombings, Tube blasts, Taj coup, so many dead and yet the fight for jihad is on. Osama Bin Laden seems like a case which will always be in progress. Al-Jazeera was one of the most sought after channels in the world. Afghanistan and Iraq fell, Pakistan will fall in the coming decade. Just pray India does not follow them. Coz when your neighbours are shouting, even you find it difficult to sleep. The talk of bombs and bombers was the supreme activity of this decade before Mr. Fuld took over.

The ending of 2009 was definitely an event to be celebrated. 2009 was one of the most painful years in past few decades. The pain inflicted by events of 2008 gave its conclusive results in 2009. 11’s were forgotten. Suddenly the World opened to a new phenomenon which nobody would have imagined in their wildest dreams. All the money that the Central Govt’s had printed was eaten away by rats. Americans would have been happy and restored peace by firing missiles on rats. But unfortunately those rats were American, so out of sympathy, they fed those rats with some more green paper and the diseased population spread to the world. It was only for few people like Indians and Chinese, who didn’t entertain those rats or fried those rats on their hotplates, respectively.

The World order changed in this decade. The people from BRICs, BASIC, Chindia, Emerging markets/nations were rubbing shoulders with the first world and would try and look straight in the eye, if not scare them. Hope something better comes out of it in the coming deacde. Otherwise, the process and the idea has changed globally. Orator Obama, sexy Sarkozy, dumb Brown, Madam Chancellor, everybody has changed and with them their outlook towards the world. India found water in space, for which NASA had spent billions of dollars.

This decade was extremely special for India. India was able to display to the World that we are capable and hopefully may come up with bigger surprises in the coming decade. We got one of the most intelligent and honest person in the country as our PM. Every politician falls short on his/her promises, but the good thing to notice is how many promises they were able to keep and what efforts they put in for those promises.

In technology space, laptops became cheaper than a typewriter, kids learn to operate mobile phone before they start speaking. So in the coming decade, you can expect some credit card sized gadget to be better equipped than your laptop, you blink about a message to be sent to your loved one, it will be their on his screen. Don’t look me as I’m fool, such things are happening and will happen, when companies are spending billions on cloud computing, Google is bidding for telecom spectrum to offer free internet services and guys like Pranav Mistry have built a cell phone sized super computer (that’s how I’d say it).

In entertainmwnt world, Playboy is up for sale. I don’t understand why Mr. Mallya didn’t bid for it. Everything came out of closet, when we have reality TV and people like Rakhi Sawant, who can make money and career out of bull shit. In the coming decade, expect the few sheets remaining on the bedside to be dumped. The whole flavor of naturalness will get more evolved. Already international celebs are posing in the name of vegans and greens. India is also in the race with them for everything so leave the glamour potion.

Cheers to 2010…………..!!!!!