INCREDIBLES

The Incredibles

It all started few months back when Vijay created this Whatsapp group, My first reaction to it was Oh God ! and I groaned Saala ek aur group 

but the irony here is that if you see the same sentence in different light or another perspective but with positive connotations it sounds quite differently, Let us go through this all over again.
Oh saala.... ek aur group....aur meri toh life badal gayi. I exclaimed in delight . Isiliye kehta hu saalo soch badlo, Nazariya aapne aap badal jayega

The chatting scene exploded with such high intensity that the splinters dispersed over far distances, then be it Bangalore or Kolkatta or Aurangabad. Yes! No doubt time has separated our friends to so many different places but thanks to some good intention and modern communications we were all reunited just like the beads of rosary. All the friends that were left behind in the corridors of MV and LU college were seen regrouping all over again in the corridors of life. 

It is so rightfully said "Once you make a decision,the universe conspires to make it happen" ( Courtesy The Secret by Rhonda Byrne) and the reason I say this is, because though quite a few of us were connected yet we had no information about the whereabouts of  our friend Ashok, Life was little harsh on Ashok and he had drifted away so far from us that finding him was almost insurmountable. But Surprise ! Surprise ! all pegs started fitting in right blocks so smoothly that in no time we found him !

Now all friends were reunited, Law of attraction was working at it's best and the subsequent chain of events were witness to this. Not to be left behind our Ganpati Bappa also jumped into the fray to reunite all the old friends, I say this because it was Ganpati festival which brought Ashok to Mumbai and as 
they say Andha kya mange do ankhen so all of us immediately decided to lock the date to coincide with his visit, Thus the Event of Reunion was finalised.

Ganpati at Vijay, Sangeeta and Ashok's Place

I hope you are not bored by our journey till now, per kya kare picture thab hi samaj me aayegi na jab back story pata hogi, Warna pata chala interval ke baad entry mari aur sab bouncer hi bouncer.

(L to R Sunil,Vijay,Sushil,Ashok )

We decided to meet at Oberoi Mall.The crescendo to excitement was at its peak. The tremors of which coild be felt on whatsapp group.

Sunil suggesting chalo College me milte hai, phir vaha se Varma nagar ka round, 

Ashok bangalore se likta hai nahi kahi mall me milte hai,

Vijay too throws in some ideas.In fact me and Vijay was constantly on phone behind the scene to ensure that this thing should be a success. But last moment Vijay too had some different ideas of running away to Delhi, Sangeeta and me was ready to wring his neck 

and hang him on the clothes string line if he tried any such stunt.

Sangeeta yelling in her patented style.. Arre pagal ! mall me bahut shor hoga,let catch up at a nice peaceful place.She is one hell of a lady always full of energy and laughter. 

One more pic please

I suggested let's go to some fort,which was unanimously shot down by everyone.... Yaar meri toh koi sunta hi nahi aisa laga... For once I was empathising with Sunil Nair, Waqt ne bechare ki zubaan leli hai, Err Don't misunderstand me...  its not that he is dumb, Mann ki baat kahane me sharmata hai Sochta hai sayad woh Modiji ka patented hai.

Kanta all the time from Kolkatta was ready to jump in any of the passing by plane to reach Mumbai however as the day neared Plane toh chodo Whatsapp per bhi aana kaam ho gaya, Kya kare abla nari teri yehi kahani, She had family commitment to take care of.

Sushil,Sujata,Meena,Me, Sunil and Sangeeta

Sushil bhai so fondly called as babujee of the group was a fence sitter throughout, No commenting, only watching the fun, But I appreciate the way he said Mai kahi bhi aa jaunga....Wah yaar ise kahte hai asli butter.....Err slip of tongue I mean asli dosti.

Meena oh meena , Man here is a person so quite, yet full of commitment, Hats off to you lady ! when she said what may come she will attend the party, She was the reverse case of Kanta when she was ready to leap out of the plane to be at the party instead of leaping on the plane (She was returning from Chennai same day in the afternoon !)

Sushil and Sujata

Sujuben, our dear Sujata is a Dormant soul, who whenever gets out of coma, post a message on Whatsapp and starts inquiring with the wrong person the wrong query. Kyo dosto meri baat kuch samaj me nahi aayi kya....Well agli meeting ke time ka topic rahega. Sujata kept us on tenterhooks through out, and here all the time I was nervously plucking petals of flower, saying will she or won't she come.

Mere yaaro , mere aane ki, Yaaro ko khaber kardo

Aah ha and finally Mohini, another guest star of the group who after posting good morning message disappears, She has this pollution issue at her place oops! sorry phir zubaan fisal gayi ....It was Paryushan at her place ( Gotta to have to go to google to check the spelling, Bloody no mistake this time, Patta chala Reunion se pehle meri haddi ki todtad and then baad me reunion of my bones by Doctor)

I hope by now you would have felt the Tsunami of emotions each of us was going through, It was literally as if we were dying to meet each other, Kuch log zada hi maar rahe the aur kuch ko bardast karna aa gaya tha.

le le beta selfie 

I don't know about the reaction of spouses of others but I can tell you about my house. Each time during the day preceding to our reunion whenever I entered my house tapping the keys on mobile phone, Next scene I see is that my wife was holding dagger in her hand ....Oops see again I started hallucinating, it was actually just a glass of water she was holding not dagger, but still one look at her and I could feel the dagger...anyways I smiled and said Jaanam samaj karo, But thankfully she has understood ki jab tak dosto ko mil nahi lega aise hi Devdas ki tarah deewaro se whatsapp karte karte takrata rahega.

Mere do anmol ratan , ek mutton  aur ek chiken

Finally the D day arrived,19th Sept 2015

and I simply couldn't sleep the previous night.Vijay,Sangeeta and Ashok were coming out of a hectic Ganpati Schedule, But yet their exuberance was not missing at all. We had locked up 3pm as the arrival time.
As Sangeeta was to come from Vashi so naturally she was the first one to start, Bur her updates on whatsapp was making me jittery all the time especially when she informed that some one has conked off oophs ! I mean expired, in-spite of this parallel track of events happening at her end she kept reassuring us that she will somehow make it and which I can proudly say she did ! ( Ab Vijay bolega tere ko toh moka chaiye hota hai Sangeeta ki tareef karne ka) 

KFC ka chicken kha ker yeh body nahi bani

Generally I am never late for any meetings but as they say the Murphy law comes into play when you least want it to happen and here I was simply struggling to reach the Venue.There was this constant calls coming, all of them shouting Saale Subha me bhagne nahi gaya tha kya jo aab bhagte hue aa raha hai , chup chap jaldi se auto pakad aur aaja and crazily I too was trying to reach and finally made it to the Oberoi Mall, My heart pounding like some heavy duty press machine, Arre Dadke ga na 29 years is a very long time. I was running frantically, jumping on the escalator almost pushing few people this whole thing reminded me of the scene in the Movie Mann when Aamir Khan was running to meeting his sweet heart on the dedicated day, with song playing in background, Saalo ab yeh mat bolna khud ko Aamir Khan samaj raha hai, aare emotion explain kar raha hoon, Khushi ka tikhana nahi tha aur pet me khuch khana nahi tha ( sorry for poor tuk bandi, poetry bol nahi sakta kyo ki poetry ki full on insult ho jayegi).

Love you guys

Believe me my heart was now all set to explode Abbe saalo not because that I was meeting you, Woh toh Do floor escalator per full speed non stop running effect hai.... I frantically looked here and there koi dikh hi nahi raha tha, waise bhi meri height choti hai so I never get to have bird's eye view. I called up Sangeeta (after all favourites me bhi favourite koi hota hai na),  she replied arre kahan hai tu and I said arre kaha ho tum , she said hum near Kailash Parbat so I made detour and started moving towards Kailash Parbat and I see this beautiful lady waving at me , Arre woh koi aur nahi thi apni Sangeeta thi, In a split second, memories of over two decades came flashing at me and a talkative person like me was also at loss of words and just behind her on the table our entire college gang was sitting. Ab kya tha hugging,bugging and shrugging everything happened almost altogether. Out of this whole set of friends Sunil,Sangeeta,and Sujata were all first timer for me (is it a coincidence ki teeno ka naam S se hai).

Ek table kuch pyare dost aur Khubsorat sham

Ashok shouted at me and said Sangeeta ka phone le sakta hai mera phone uthata nahi and I was Ugh ! Kuch bhi, 

Vijay bola jo bhi Sab se pahele aaya woh party dega ( Now this was his way of pulling Sangeeta's leg). One special trait of Vijay is that he is very talkative and if he and me starts talking we could chat from all the financial troubles of the world to spiritual manifestation this world needs to survive, Hum dono ke pass har cheej ka solution hai and all this while I was watching Sushil maje se majje le raha tha.

Abbe Vijay raat ko soya nahi tha kya

Sushil is a no nonsense kind of guy, I should say kind of a founder of this group, Mera college ka pehla friend , Sayad mai bade bhai ki izzat kuch zada karta hu, isliye unka majak karne ki meri himmat nahi hoti. Bada hi resourseful banda hai sab ki saas ,bahu ,behen, bhatiji sab ke mobile no yahan se aap ko mil sakte hai. Just dial can fail you but not Sushil  

Sunil appeared to be very quite to me this time, I wanna ask him Bhai mere over enthusiasm me koi galti toh nahi ho gayi na, College ke dino me toh khub hasta khelta tha. Aaj 3 star hotel ke malick ke jaisa baitha tha, But then I asked "Malick ek photo ho jaye and he got up and started clicking pics with his mobile and I knew now yaar yeh to apna purana Sunil hi hai waqt ki dhool ke karan pehchan me nahi aa raha tha. 

Ab Sujata se baat karne ki bari thi , Sujata toh college days se hi hatti khati thi but aaj toh puri saas look tha, Its easy for me to say hatti katti because during those days we looked like drought affected african kids jine khane ko hi nahi milta tha, Thin and skinny  ( In fact once seeing my college picture my wife said agar aap ko college days me dekha hota toh aap se mai khabi shaadi nahi karti) and on other hand Sujata was well built, with long flowing hairs and her walk was nothing short of a gallop of horse.  ( Ek confession, in college days I always used to be afraid of talking to her, Madam puri ki puri Khadoos lagti thi,now that was my opinion and with time I understood I was wrong, She was a very nice and simple girl. Moral of the story don't be judgmental you could be actually right.) 



we were now all waiting for Meena to come to the party, her flight was late but hats off to her again she made it to the venue, Meena was the same girl that I knew in college days except few kgs of additional weight, petite,demure and sweet person, Now with all of us together it was house on fire.

Me and the beauties

Do you know why I call them beauties ?

Its not about their external beauty that I am talking about here , Sunder toh aap log waise hi ho,  it's their hearts which is full of warmth and compassion. Hum ladke logo ke dimag me bas ek hi batti jal rahi thi Party ! Party! saala ek rose tak nahi lekar aaye dene ke liye....Dhitkar hai (As Dulip kumar must have said).The ladies of the group never forget for a moment about our kids. They took pains to arrange for cute photograph printed mugs for Sons of Ashok,Sunil. Vijay and exquisite chaniya choli for daughter of Ashok and Vijay and smooth, sleek silk scarf for my daughter. Love you ladies, that is why you will always remain beautiful. Age will remain only a number forever in your case.


You know what is the best part of Reunions:

Ek Bada Table

Old friends around and 

Millions of memories. 


Reminiscing and reliving all the crazy times with these friends was a blast ! That Naturally synchronised laughter which can easily bring down a house....Jise dil dekhkar bole Haye mai marjawa ghud ka ke 

Yeh sham, yaaro ke naam

Everyone can remember a different aspect of the same event, so when we remise, we are able to relive it through so many perspectives and believe me it's a rich experience, I'll go a step further and say its a revelation. When you are having the experience you can do it with your own perceptive. It becomes almost 3D experience when everyone adds their experience. Simple se baat hai,yehi reunion har kisi ne apni nazar se dekha hoga , is blog me maine mera view bataya hai aap ka kuch aur ho sakta hai...kyo sahi kaha na

 You learn things you didn't see or hear or weren't aware of at that time. Its just such feel good time and everyone is happy.

Feel Good Times

The evening was flowing around very nicely, some old secrets coming out and some new revelations. Best part was, after pouring millions of messages on whatsapp since last few months we were still not short of stories to narrate.

Before we realised anything it was dinner time so again several deliberation koi bole yaha chalo koi bole yaha cholo but sense prevailed and we thought taking dinner in a restaurant in a Mall would be a much better option as we will be wasting lesser time in commuting and spending more time connecting.

We all had our dinner at Cream Centre Thode bahut religious issue the but all sorted(Aare man by religious issue se mera matlab danga nahi tha yeh jain food and Non jain food wala lafda tha)

Dinner with smiles

Sharing food with friends, cracking nonsense jokes which we never ourselves understood, are all part of fun. Watching beautiful babes from inside the restaurant was additional benefit and to be with my besties.

Long time no see

The food was good and the company simply awesome, Each one was so unique, each one had a story to tell.

One evening is too small or should I say one life!!

So lets plan for the next meet

Ab aur kya kya bolu, Infact mere se ek galti hogayi yeh blog likne se pehle sab ka interview lena chaiye tha. Pura ka pura 3D version milta hum sab ka, Per koi baat nahi Yaaro aaj mere Dal chawal se Kaam chala lo, Biryani Phir kabhi.


Dosti mein duriyaan toh aati rehti hai,
Fir bhi dosti dilon ko milati rehti hain.
Woh Dost hi kya jo naraaz na ho,
Par sachchi dosti doston ko manati rehti hain

Disclosure: If anyone is hurt in any way then it was purely (un)intentional.

Now .... This is how I get my KICK !!!

It so happened that we were returning from our trek to Rohida fort and while coming back we couldn't get any conveyance so we started walking on the road. Just then a Maruti Van stuffed with people passed up, we hailed it and the driver stopped.10 people were already sitting inside so my friend Nikhil said "Aashish let us wait for another car as this is too filled" but I said wait, we requested the villagers to make place for us, believe me it was humanly not possible to adjust 3 of us more and yet those villagers were so kind that readjusted themselves,infact one of the women requested the college going girl to sit on her lap so that 2 of us could be seated.

All the way back I was wondering how different we city people are, In our quest for survival to earn money we have become so much indifferent to our fellow human beings that even when we see an old lady or man standing we rarely offer a seat. In local trains if one is fortunate to get the famous half bum fourth seat to sit the person has to request the other 3 seated people to move ahead. Very rarely I have seen them on there own making the fourth seat available. It saddens me to no end to see this self centered selfish approach.

Time and time again this humbleness and helpfulness of village folks leave me overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude.On so many treks these villagers have selflessly provided us with food, water and shelter expecting nothing in return. The smile on their faces simply make my day. 

Watching this smile, the humbleness, that shy waving of hand is how I get my high, this is how I get my Kick !!!

 

 

Should girls be allowed to make a career ?

You may wonder what a stupid question to ask especially in today's time. Well this whole idea of writing this blog germinated out of a small discussion which at a point almost drifted to been an argument.There were 2 sides to the above question with me defending it and at the other point someone close to me opposing it.


So first let me put down my side of story.

1. I always feel whosoever it be, a boy or a girl should have complete access to education.
2. Education is a tool we give to our children to cope with life in future.
3. I personally feel that girls should be encouraged more to pursue  higher studies so it provides them with more empowerment.                                                                                                                                

Now the other side of the story :

1. Allow only basic education like graduation to girls.
2. Girls who try to make a career end up not adjusting in the family.
3. Domestic Chores get neglected (my argument was they can always hire a domestic help)
4. Girl even if they become engineers or other professional have to dump everything at the alter of the marriage.(my argument was that it could be parents or girls mistake to select non professional family to get married into.there is a better possibility that a family of professionals would never want there bride to dump her career.

And the argument went on and on.

I just wanted a feedback from you guys and girls out there how far this myth is true that a career girl cannot be a good housewife. I am using the word myth because i do not believe in this thought.

Please do give me your sincere feedback.

Thanks