DIL…DOSTI….YAARI

A few days ago, on a little prod by one of my “Bestest Friends”, I put up a post on my facebook wall which went as follows - "Friends are the family we choose for ourselves". Following this, during all the lonely time that I now have at my disposal, I went on a ride down memory lane. The ride brought back an unrestrained flow of priceless memories of the times that I have spent with my extended family of friends. And then it struck me……I have used “My Cognitions” to put across my thoughts on various things…….why not add one to this list which goes out to all my buddies?

The list is endless……..so many moments that I would like to put down……

Let me start with the friends I had made in school……….one of my closest friends starting from those days of carefree abandon till today is Mona…….she has been and will always be special to me. I can’t forget those long walks we used to take, sometimes all the way from Police Bazaar to Laitumkhrah (those of you who know Shillong, might agree that it certainly isn’t a short distance), talking about almost anything in this world. Then there were those visits to the church near Don Bosco Square. We had and still have a lot in common, the best being our love for animals. I remember, how the two of us would make plans of following in the footsteps of Maneka Gandhi and starting something to help the strays lead a better life. I still hope, that one day we can come together and turn this childhood dream into a reality.

School was also the time when I was a crazy fan of the Little Master, none other than Sachin Tendulkar. My partner in this madness was Paromita DebRoy…….Paro if you happen to read this, am sure you remember the times we had. I must admit though, that I am still one of the greatest fans of this extra ordinary talent and I bet Paro feels the same. And then there was this brief but extreme obsession that we shared about the scene from Dil to Pagal Hai in which the Badshah of Bollywood allured the lady of his dreams with the double worded o – so – romantic dialogue “Aur paas aur paas…….” J.

Many more from the school days could probably add on to this sequence of memoirs and each one is equally important to me, but keeping in mind the concepts of time and space let me move on to the next phase. That would be the days from the 10 +2 years. Mona continued to be one of my closest buddies through this period as well. Lopa, was added to my self-chosen family of friends. We spent some absolutely fun – filled moments during the tuitions that we took with my favourite teacher till date, T.S. Sir. Also worth mentioning are those frequent visits to the “Chaat House” that we simply loved on our way back home.

Then came the time to move away from home………for the first time, to experience what was called - the hostel life, and one which I certainly didn’t have a very good impression about. And the initial days most definitely lived up to that very conjecture. However, with time it was this very hostel life that I came to associate with the best days of my life…….so much so, that I still miss it terribly. What made it great positively wasn’t the place……one look at it and you would probably agree that it really wasn’t. Then what was it? But obviously, the people……the friends…….a few more members added to my chosen family. Enter…..Anjori Dutta, Anjali Thakur, Lakshmi Prabha and Piyali Sinha. Together, we had some of the most rollicking times of our life. Just the other day I was talking to Anjori, and as we were reminiscing the boisterous times we had, she happened to mention a particular episode where we had a gala time in sort of adam – teasing a few boys who had come down to take a stroll in front of the girls’ hostel after dinner. The poor guys never figured out who were the ones turning the tables on them….thanks to the cover of the boundary walls on the terrace and the comic façade of voices we used in the process. Anjori let out a strain of “Babuji zara dheere chalo” in a playback perfect voice for a witch J while Anjali and Piyali were showering the funniest dialogues they could think of on the victims.

I remember another outrageous incident during one of our trips to the hottest eatery known to us in those days…...Aashiq ka Dhaba. We planned to go for an early dinner….so there we were at the “Corner” (which was the place from where the transport to and from our abode for four years was available) waiting to get into an auto. We decided to fit into one, and instead of going for the lap as the extra seat for the additional two, we decided to take the front seat on both sides of the driver. You bet, the driver must have been a happy soul as that was a seat meant only for the boys to take. As the three great minds, Anjali, Piyali and Prabha took the back seat, it was on me and Anjori to adorn the seats beside the driver. We started off, and while the two of us couldn’t stop smiling at the driver blushing to the limits of infinity….the three at the back seat, made it even better with their constant jibes at us. No sooner did one of the three give an example of “Do Phool Ek Mali” and the driver who was so long trying to contain his expressions to a few shy smiles, could no longer help it but break out into a laugh. God…….I don’t know what it was if not crazy.

I don’t think I could miss out the charge that the girls’ hostel as a whole had made on the annual crowd of Diwali visitors who would come to trouble and frighten us by hurling in firecrackers over the walls of the girls’ hostel shattering window panes, and damaging things inside the rooms next to the walls. We decided, it was enough and went for the chase, and we did get a handful of the culprits much to our delight.

I could go and on with so many more of such memorable incidents……..it truly is an endless inventory of priceless moments.

Friends truly are a family we choose for ourselves……..and all I want to end this with is a big thank you to all my mates for being part of this special family of mine and giving me this invaluable treasure trove of fun-filled moments that I will cherish for my entire life.

Love You All……J

P.S.: This piece is dedicated to all my friends and not just the ones whose names I have mentioned here.

The whole thing is that…………….

Bollywood has given us a lot many memorable one – liners……….a few of particular interest to me in this context are –
Money Hai to Honey Hai
Paisa Bolta Hai
Sabse Bada Rupaiya

We might have used these in many of our fun – filled conversations, but is that all these lines hold? Come to think of it and I end up concluding that probably they do much more than that, in fact, they hold what might be the ultimate truth and goal of life in the current day scenario.

There was a time when I was strongly of the opinion, that money, although important is not the whole and soul of the matter. There are other things, like love, peace of mind, the company of loved ones, the satisfaction of doing what you want rather than doing things based on calculations of profit and loss, etc. that are the ones which come first in the list of must haves……and money features somewhere down the line in this list. However, with time and with the good and rude experiences of life……..my unstaggering belief in this seems to have dwindled a little.

Why?........lets see……

There’s someone who’s passionate about nature and animals. He wants to pursue a career which will allow him to make his passion his work. He conveys his thoughts to his parents………..I am sure most of us know the answer he gets…….”Are you nuts?....Where do you think that’s going to take you 10 years down the line? Don’t be stupid “. He definitely doesn’t want to be that, does he, so, there he is, a Senior Analyst in a multi-national company. And what does he get…..a handsome pay cheque for sure, the power to buy all the luxuries of life………but, at the cost of……..the time he wished to spend pursuing his unfulfilled wish to do something that deals with his passion…….or may be that smile on his daughter’s face which he wanted to see when he takes her out on a surprise visit to the ice-cream parlour on a Wednesday evening…....

And then, there is this sweet young couple, very much in love, each wanting nothing but the everlasting company of the other. Happy in their own little world of a rented 1 bhk in a metro, a two – wheeler, a job paying a decent enough salary but certainly not enough to go about collecting the many temptations and luxuries the world of today has to offer. Soon enough, they get tired of getting soaked in the rain everytime they plan a ride together on their so long good enough two – wheeler, and of having to strike off their plans for a few days off to Goa because of non- availability of the train tickets and the insufficiency of funds to get the available but expensive air tickets. So, what do you think they do………..
……..but obviously, take off in search of greener pastures in terms of the financial returns. And where do they land up………happily, in high paying jobs. But is it the happiness they were looking for……..well, they do have a flashing car parked right outside their door, and they do have the funds to get the air tickets not only to Goa, but to Europe if they wish to…………but do they have the time to even plan a drive together to some place nearby…..well sadly….not really.

Then, at one of the many traffic signals in the city, while you are seated in the auto waiting for the lights to say “Go”, you see a mother holding his son by the hand, making her way across the vehicles, tapping at the windows with her hands spread out making a desperate plea for a few pennies to be handed over. May not be a very unusual sight in our country…….which you might as well have chosen to ignore, but this time, there’s something that particularly catches your gaze. It’s the boy, following his mother…….a look at him closely, and you see scars all over his face, head, hands and on whatever more is visible, beyond the cover of his clothes. You call out to the woman and hand over a twenty rupee note to her……...and the mother looks at you hurriedly before moving on to the next vehicle, not saying much in words, but her eyes tell you………she just can’t thank you enough.

I could go on and on with many more of such encounters………..but whatever may be the scenario, there is one universal truth that lies beneath all of them………..whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not, money does play a crucial role in life. While it is a necessity in some cases, in others it is an agent by means of which we attempt to buy happiness, all the while forgetting that happiness is not a commodity with a price tag on it.

But vain as we are……...we continue to follow the Bollywood mantra……..
“The Whole Thing Is That Ke Bhaiya Sabse Bada Rupaiya”.

Haso, Jeeyo, Muskurao….Kyu Ki Kya Pata…………..

Am back, again after a long hiatus.......had been putting this off giving no one but myself the same old excuse of a busy schedule.....no time...........but all my excuses were blown into thin air by the rude realization of something I had heard many times.......life is short, live each moment as if it were your last......coz you never know when you will be cut short of your words........

In the past, whenever I had come across this sentence, it just seemed like a small philosophical note on life.......nothing more. But over the last two weekends, the sudden news of the demise of two people, one an ex- batchmate and the other an acquaintance at my office, have forced me to take a closer look at the very painful and ultimate truth in it. One moment, you might be alive and kicking......and the next moment, in just a breath you might be whisked away to the other world. Frankly speaking death has never scared me. Like everyone else, the world on the other side of this thin line between life and death, has been a mystery for me as well. But somehow, I’ve always felt that however it might be, it can never equal this big bad world in the negatives.

Coming back to the point of the realization, that life is a short journey......which is the reason why I am sitting down here today putting down a few words.......making an effort to leave back a few memories (of my thoughts, my feelings etc.) etched in my own personal little history of life, for posterity. Today, I genuinely want to promise myself one thing, and keep up to it to the best of my abilities.......that as long as there is even an inch of a possibility that I can do so, I will never leave anything that comes to my mind undone, and put it off for some other time.......a tomorrow, which on one day might and will turn out to be the day I cross over that finish line.........

So, to sum it up, let me sign off for today with a personal favourite and one of King Khan’s most famous dialogues........ “Haso, Jeeyo, Muskurao........kyu ki kya pata KAL HO NA HO”........ :)