haan haan jaa raha hoon

What if you have to move out of the city where you landed up staright from college and started your so called 'career', earned struggling salaries (in corporate paralance, peanuts) and got so many useless credit cards (by virtue of opening a new salary account), travelled in cheapest air-fares, paid thousands per annum to the auto-wallas and the 'dynamic' traffic police-walla, and paid at least a lakh ever year to the 'Bar & Resturant's of your area; Getting kicked out by the land-lord every 6 months, changing organizations at the very feeling that - This manager sucks!, and girls......O ya, I guess I did try my luck at a new girl every week,.....or if the girl was not new, I tried to have a recheck on my luck factor. (And do I need to tell that I have always failed.....guess not!)

I couldn't believe all this is going to end so soon, or at least will take a pause for a while (ok ok for many months to come). God know how you will feel if something similar happens to you, but this is what happened when I disclosed my feelings to the people during my so called 'parting meet', when I told them that I would be soon away from their eyes......

Non-Males : Do I know you? {me : <"Thank God! She doesn't know me"> }

Females : So What.....What do you expect me to do?

Female Friends : Good Luck! Keep trying you luck!

Female (more than) Friends : Dhokhebaaz.......F#$% Get Lost! I Hate you!

Eye Candies : Oh!! ..... Lets go for a movie/lunch/dinner/pub this weekend.

Fresher Colleagues : Sarsij Bhai....ab sutta maarne kaun le jaayegaa

Same Level Colleagues : What! You are changing company or what? Yaar mera bhi resume forward kara dena

Thoda senior Colleagues : Good......lekin plz ab jaldi hin shaadi kar le yaar.....dont torture yourself

Thoda Jyada Senior Colleagues : Going for higher studies!!!!! Do you get so much time to think about such things even after these many years? Meri shaadi to job ke 2nd year mein hin ho gayi thi.

Sabse Chota Manager : Haan , you should leave for the good of the team......waise bhi we should have kicked you long back.

Chota Manager : Oh good.....now at least I dont need to worry about a guy screwing up the whole project.

Bada Manager : Ya, I got to know that ..... so where from here? And why? Whats the use? Go join your father's business. [I tell you - Never ever tell anyone in your office that your father has a business]

Sabse Bada Manager : Sarsij! If you trust me.......you dont need any MBA......you only need a course in discipline......And if I were to do something for you - I would have FORCIBLY sent you to serve Army and that too at the bottom-most of the hierarchy! {God! Am I in India? No I just felt that I am in Korea or Israel}

And to all this I had just thing to say - Haan Haan Jaa Raha hoon......{You will know my value someday! }

And when I told the same to the guys I know......there were some obvious and well known answers.......eg, old class-mates said - saale daaru party de ke jaana, ...my flat-mate was happy to finally realize that he would be the whole & soul owner of the TV remote as well as a complete ownership of the internet bandwidth, ...my closest gang has started to abuse me because I have not been spending my last few days with them.......and quite possibly they could give me parting bumps, keeping in view the tradition to kick the ass at the very thought of something happening only once a year (eg B'day....new job.....engagement....shaadi......any other misc occassion like getting a new GF.....etc etc)

Well, for all those of you who still can't believe that I am going away from Bangalore, and will not see them for quite a long time, here is my final warning - Mai Sach mein jaa raha hoon......and in case I have some money/book/DVD/phone/etc to give you back please contact me at the earliest.....or else be prepared to blame me for no reasons.........however tall your claim might be, I wont be able to help you.

So guys help yourself........meet me, and recover whatever you have left at my disposal, because mai ..... ja raha hoon.......haan, haan sach mein jaa raha hoon!

ek dum fresh

ek dum fresh bole to.....ek-dum aaj ka experience hai......

Today I was travelling in the Indian Airlines/Air-India/Indian flights........and I must say.......after the opening up of the Indian skies for the private players, it was my second trip in the Indian Airlines plane(s). Needless to mention that the high point of all my air-journies have been the air-hostess. [Air-Hostess is one topic on which I believe I have gathered a whole lot of information, and if someday I try my hand at business, I would probably open a Air-Hostess training academy. (arre bhai ... already there are thousands of institutes for Engineering, Medical and MBA, so this remains to be the only logical avenue)].

Hitharto unknown, I saw a new face of the Air-Hostess fraternity, courtesy......Air-India/Indian-Airlines........

Eversince I was a kid I had a huge fascination for the air-journies, and I guess it was year 1991 when I boarded my first flight from Ranchi to Delhi (which had nothing less than 3 stops en-route : Patna, Gorkhpur and Lucknow), for the first time I saw the air-hostess aunty, who was not only serving the food, but also cleaing the place, and at the same time was also capable of speaking english which remained undecipherable to me and my entire family on board. If nothing else, I was at least amused to see those english speaking aunties.

And today after 18+ years after that first air-journey I guess there was just one difference in the whole scene - those english speaking aunties have grown up by 18 more years, and nothing else has changed. Looks as if Air-India or Indian-Airlines has decided that they will continue with these aunties until they cry and beg for their release from such a job which is meant to be done by dynamic young girls.

On one side we have Mallaya saab.....who claims to have hand-picked those red coloured butterflies for his guests in his Kingfisher arena, and on one side we have these sari-clad women who are showing no signs life while on board. The public announcement appeared more as a formality rather than informative, and the service was as lifeless as Rahul Dravid in the 45th over. Female crew-members were either over-aged or absolutely useless.

The smile which you get while boarding and the see-off are ofcourse plastic and un-natural in all the flights, but it was slightly ironic to see the complete absence of the same in this case, and it did raise some questions in my mind - Are these ladies/aunties are not paid enough to be smiling on their duty? Or are they facing the same which Jet Airways did to its employees few months back? God knows whats the actual reason.

If I were to draw a parallel between the kind of service I got to the kind of job I am required to do in my day-to-day work, it will be something like this one - While attending the conf-call with the clients I give all the status report, explain them the technical details of the work done, and at the end I say 'Please dont call me again, because I am not enjoying my work'. Ironical and disgusting!

Well, all was not that bad in the flight.....there was definitely a high point during the journey. A co-passanger was quite a known personality and it was pleasing to see that such a towering person maintained such a low-profile during the whole journey. Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the man is a politician of Bihar and can be always seen on TV during this election season. I got a chance to talk to him for quite some time and it was a pleasure to realise that he entertained a common man like me even though he was quite busy with own work.

In past I have seen and met many other towering personalities (and mostly on flights or the air-ports), and have seen the kind of distance they maintain and the air they create around themselves. (By the way, while I was travelling for the first time in air I got a chance to shake hands with Mr Jagannath Mishra, the ex-CM of Bihar, courtesy....Papa, or else how do you expect me to recognize the ex-CM of Bihar at that age?? Later I met many more like Lalu Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, etc etc).

Coming back to the flights and air-hostess, and adding a new angle to the story with the politicians travelling in the Indian Airlines flights, how many of you know that Ram Vilas Paswan (yet another big personality of Bihar Politics) has married a Air-Hostess, the affair started while in the air and it ultimately resulted into the marriage of two domains - Politicians and Air-Hostesses. God knows how many more politicians followed the foot-prints of this politician, but it is certain that Indian Airlines didn't like the attrition which came as a consequence of the 'love, while in the air' and hence it took the most stringent effort by not recruting the new and young staff members and hence save the young politicians like Rahul and Varun Gandhi from falling (in love) while in the air.

Added later : See Mallaya saab is again saying that he has handpicked his crew members.....

Dev D

Do you remember those Doordarshan days? When even the best efforts to create awareness among people (w.r.t. population control, safe sex, female contraceptives etc ) went absolutely hay-wire just because the India was not ready to accept the fact that the word Sex could ever make a respectable and meaninful sense. Either the TV was muted, or the kids were sent to bring water or the newspaper to kill those moments when such advertisements were aired.

Gone are the days, and the Liberalization braught with it an acceptable view point about the word 'Sex', and if not acceptable at least it made so much noise about Sex that no one remained untouched with the word. Good or Bad, but at least such ads are acceptable and even if the TV remote is handy, we try not to change the channel.

With Globalization and Liberalization being a part of our day-to-day life since more than a decade, its easy to find people expressing themselves more and more openly than ever. And Dev-D being one those expressions in the market these days. No wonder, the director has picked up all the clues from the contemporary society and a backbone which dates back to the original Devdas written by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhay.

Dev is one among us who grows up in an India going through the phase of transformation, and tries to maintain a mix of both within him. Paro and Chandramukhi of this setup belong to different ages, and Dev finds its difficult to match up to the change offered to him.

Dev-D is fully loaded with Free Sex, Drugs, alchohol, prostitutes, scandals, promiscious relations, skin show, and rich brats. But aren't these elements a way of India's collective hypocracy? Pick up anything shown in this movie and you would be surprised to note that none of them are unknown to the Indian society. Either the MMS scandal, Hit and Run episode, or the PaharGanj for its 'jugaad', everything which we might (and bound to) term as a taboo has been picked up from the real-life and are very much functional even today. So whats a taboo then?

Devdas, since ages and across all the movies spawned around the idea has always been treated as someone who chooses death as a part of his destiny. Devdas always dies for his mistake (you remember that dilaogue - 'You drink till death'). But this movie gives a refreshing break to the old setup and makes him choose life for the first time ever. Such a positive break-away from the old setup would not have been possible unless these were the times of Liberal thoughts. And I welcome this movie as one which is heralding the liberal thoughts.

[Points to look forward to in the movie - Emotional Atyachar and the youngest and the most sensible Deol ever].

Dev D trailer video below.....