Mile Sur Mera Tumhara…

“Can you please…” “This place is…”, we spoke out together. Gitanjali Express, boarded at Nagpur, at 8:16pm on the 14^th of July 2008, barely a minute after getting into the train. I was on my way back to Jamshedpur, had quit my job after getting bored with it, and she was visiting her relatives in Calcutta. I had already taken my place on the berth and she rushed in with three pieces of luggage on the head of a coolie trailing behind her.

                “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is my seat”, I said.

                “Please let me sit here for a bit until the TTE comes, I’ll just get my ticket confirmed from him”, she replied and asked the coolie to put her luggage under the seat. The TTE never came to my coupe that night, and with great difficulty, I convinced her to sleep on my berth as I pretended to not be sleepy and went to the doorway of the coach, intending to spend the night by the small seat near the door with my iPod.

                She came to where I was sitting at about 5:00am, and asked me my name. “Abhishek Joshi”, I said, “What’s yours?”, She told me her name. And we spoke with each other into the dawn, asking each other about our respective families, our education, our interests, and then moved on to some heavier stuff, philosophy, love. I was deeply enamored by her eyes. They weren’t exactly brown, they were a shade darker, but they were beautifully shaped. Mrignayani, I’d have said.

                She said that she was perturbed by what was going on in the world, war, environmental destruction, greed. I said that that would always be there, that we humans were hardwired to behave the way we do, and she looked into my eyes and said that it shouldn’t have to be that way.

                And that was it, that earnest look on her face, that innocence in her eyes, maybe she hadn’t seen that much of the world. She wasn’t the cynic that I had become, she was still untouched by the pain that life brings upon the less fortunate. But I knew that she had every reason to be the cynic that I had become so easily. She had lost her parents to the infamous Purushottam-Kalindi train accident a decade ago. Her education had been set back a year as she couldn’t take up her classes at school since she was in shock for 6 months. And yet she had recovered. She had not become a cynic. She still believed that the world was a fair place. That people are intrinsically good. I had read about something of the sort somewhere, hadn’t quite believed it. And here was this beautiful creature of God who was telling me that there is still hope, that there is no reason good enough for us all to give up on ourselves.

                And I knew at that moment that she was the one. Our elders often wonder at how our generation chooses and discards partners so easily, and I agree with them completely. But I connected with her on a completely different level. It wasn’t visceral. It was very much something else. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and she later told me that she couldn’t exactly say what it was either. But that there was something that just connected.

                We stood at that doorway all day that day, never feeling tired. Holding hands. And then holding each other after a while. It was as if the whole world had disappeared all of a sudden. There was only her for me. And only me for her. I don’t know how it happened. My mother would surely have disapproved of my choosing someone for myself that I had only met a few hours earlier. If she had a mother, I’m sure she would have disagreed too.

                The train reached Tatanagar railway station, and I had to get off the train. We exchanged numbers and promised we’d meet again. As she waved goodbye, my Mom asked me, “Who’s that?”. “Somebody”, I replied. And then for a week I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. Did I want to carry on my father’s business, or did I want to do an MBA? I chose the latter, came to XLRI a few months later. I never forgot about her, but I never met her, too. Life just got too busy. We did keep in touch with each other on the phone though.

                The first two semesters passed by in a blur, and we barely spoke. Come the third term, I decided to call her up one evening. “Hello…””I missed you so…” we again spoke together. It was unmistakable. Each time we had spoken, we had done so together. When her voice and mine came out together, it was like music. “Mile sur mera tumhara, toh sur bane hamara…” the song goes. And I know this for a fact, that when some things are meant to be, there is no stopping them from happening. And it’s also true that when you meet the woman of your dreams, you can actually hear the music playing in the background, everything else just goes blank, and there’s only her.

                So, there are no two ways about it, I will meet her again after my summer internship. I will find out if we’re truly meant to be. I don’t really know right now. I have only met her once, but when I do meet her again, I will know for sure. I will know whether the chemistry is really there or whether I was just first time lucky. I know that I’d be right about her if we speak again together. Because when “Mile sur mera tumhara…”, things will really be alright again.

Leaving XLRI, Lovin' XLRI

So it's that time of the year again. As February ends, so does the XLRI stay of the batch of 2008-10. I have seen the batch of 2007-09 pass out of college too, I was here in 2008-09, you see, having quit my job, chilling at home. And I had a few good friends in the batch of '09. They were ALL teary eyed on their last days on campus. Clusters of students standing around campus would randomly merge into group hugs. Honestly, I never really understood any of that back then.

But I did know that there is something called the XL culture. Something that would not be seen in most other colleges. The last weekend was a whirlwind of activity on campus, as the famed XL-IIMC sports meet took place. I swear to God, never has 200 people cursing their hearts out sounded so melodious to my ears. And I think that in the midst of that din, of drums being beaten, players being sledged, IIM-C students being insulted to our hearts' content, ladies screaming their lungs out in expletives, I realized the true meaning of XL culture.

It's not about the pay packages that we get, nor about the awesome campus we have, or the brilliant professors and peers, or the beautiful city of Jamshedpur that we live in. It's not about the night-outs, or the sleeping in classes, or DCP, or ACP. It's about love. Yes, that's right. Love. I thought that all that talk about people being in love with a place and a people was nonsense, until I came to XLRI. We were too busy with the *ahem* introductions during the first term, the Summers in the second term, but come the third term, we saw our seniors being placed. All at one go, in record time. And there in we saw the tenacity that undergoing the rigours of studying at XL brings to people. They were all relaxed and confident throughout the process, seeing their friends get placed before them, companies handing out shortlists randomly, job losses and what not. That strength, I now believe, comes from love. The love that we have for our friends and for our alma mater. See? That's where XL culture comes from: Love.

In 2011, as we leave the college, I cannot say what our state will be. But I can say this: We will leave, happy, sad, and in tears. I love you, XLRI.

"Good Night, Sweet Dreams"

I call her up late at night today,

later than usual.

She is sleeping,

I imagine how beautiful she must look,

as she sleeps.

She picks up the phone,

says "What took you so long?"

"I had no money in my cell", I say,

"We can't talk for long".

"It's okay, I had a long day, we'll talk tomorrow"

She says that she'll call me up tomorrow at night.

I wait with bated breath as she whispers

those magical words.

"Good night, sweet dreams."

And I know she really means it.

My Name is Joshi

Well, the reason that most of my batch will know me by my surname is that a) it is faster to pronounce, and b) there are more Abhisheks around than one would like. But this blog post is not about me, nor is it about my name/surname/nickname. This blog post is about the torture I underwent at the hands of the idiot named Karan Johar.

Not that I deliberately want to step on any toes here, but I honestly feel that some people should not do certain things; like I should not sing, certain professors should not teach, certain people should not be heads of state, and Karan Johar should simply stop making movies. Or at least stop resorting to cheap tactics in order to gain cheap publicity for his stupid movies that contain no substance whatsoever. The Thakre family tried to gain political mileage over what SRK said about Pakistani players being allowed in the IPL and what not, in return giving free footage to the biggest turdfest that was My Name is Khan.

And SRK implored his fans to buy tickets in an act of defiance! I implore my friends to stop going to the movie theaters to watch such stupid movies, at all! Kajol's acting was decent in the beginning, at least during the first half, I kinda liked her performance. SRK overdid everything from the beginning itself, as expected. The kid who played Kajol's kid was pretty good throughout, as was his firang "best friend" turned enemy.

The story, however lost all linkage with reality as soon as the second half started, and like a bad bad nightmare, just would not get over. It stretched and stretched and stretched until one begged for mercy... After two hours of being subjected to mindnumbingly stupid cinema fare, I was begging for the damn thing to get over, even as I could hear a bit of sniffling from some of my friends. The airconditioning in the cinema theater had given up too, and we had started perspiring by then. By the time SRK meets the US President, for some weird reason, one heaves a sigh of relief and tries to walk out of the movie hall, only to see everyone already on their feet aiming for exactly that same exit.

Now, I won't say that ALL of Indian cinema is bad, an Indian made 3 Idiots after all. I will just say that as mature cinema going audience, we really need to stop this bullshit called Karan Johar fare, if we value our intellect at all.

Girlfriend = Grade hike?

Well, to be honest, I've been reading SuperFreakonomics of late, and that has got me thinking about quite a bit of interesting stuff... As the title of this blog post indicates, I plan on tackling the issue of whether having a girlfriend/boyfriend results in a grade hike for students in different colleges, and across different cross sections of society.

The assumptions that I will be making over here are that the people in question here is matured enough to take their careers seriously and also that they are looking at a long(-ish?) term commitment towards their respective amours.

My theory regarding this comes from my experience the last time that I had a girlfriend, back in engineering college during the second year. Before I had a girlfriend, my grades were pretty decent, but that was because college had just begun and I was pretty serious about my studies. In the second term, I found someone special, and my grades just zoomed up like anything! It was a long distance relationship, and predictably enough, we broke up by the end of the 2nd year of college. I went into mourning, and my grades went through the floor, and probably emerged somewhere in Colorado. I didn't really check where they went for about a year, and then by my 4th year of college, I had gained some control of my life and managed to put up a decent show by the end of engineering college.

This said, my theory says that having a girlfriend gave me that focus in life, knowing that I was loved by a beautiful beautiful person and that I also loved her back. I guess this would be generalizing too much, but I think that as long as I did not have a girlfriend, I focussed on trying to find one, trying my luck out with different girls, spending time networking online, offline, through friends and so on. Post the breakup, I spent time moping around, getting philosophical, trying to figure out what went wrong, where I could have behaved differently, and doing everything except studying. Sure enough, my grades plummeted.

So my advice to budding lovebirds would be to get a girlfriend/boyfriend and stick with them for a long term, keep a bigger goal in your life so that if you just have your amours as your sole goal in your lives, your world will crumble around you, like mine did 5 years ago, but if you really want to do something with your lives, then a small hiccup in your love life shouldn't affect you as much. It should just inspire you to work harder towards your ultimate BIG goal, and then maybe find another somebody special along the way.

"Can I drop you off somewhere, Ms Kempster?" - Part 2

So, about 6 months after my previous post on the same topic, I was riding my scooter down the same road in CH Area a week back when I saw a familiar figure walking down the sidewalk.
Aged, slightly hunched, more salt than pepper, she walked on braving the sun. But this time I wasn't in my car. I was on a 1987 model Bajaj Super scooter.
And this time, I didn't stop by, to ask whether she'd like a ride home. I just rode on, didn't even slow down. I felt this guilt for not having visited her home to ask after her and her ailing sister. And then I felt some more guilt; this time for not having visited the grave of my nursery teacher, Mrs Palamkote. The graveyard is just a kilometer from the campus. She spent her life getting kids in shape, up to scratch, and well mannered. Come to think about it, she didn't just give us knowledge, she actually gave us an education. She taught us to eat with our mouths closed, to walk noiselessly, without dragging our feet, to always say "Thank You" and "Please", no matter who we spoke to. She made us little gentlemen.
We've all gone our separate ways since then, each one of us. And even then, I can make out how different we, Mrs Palamkote's children (calling us her students would be an insult), are from the rest of the kids. Love truly can do wonders. Mrs Palamkote passed on a few years back. I couldn't bring myself to go to her funeral. And it pinches me every time I tell my friends that I'm at XLRI now, a few feet away from the place I started my education from. I cannot but bite my lip every time I tell my friends this, because I haven't had the guts to visit Mrs Palamkote's grave.
I don't know what I'm afraid of more. Whether I will break down when I go to the cemetery, or whether I won't feel a thing. I really don't know. But I hope that I find the strength to stop my vehicle the next time for Mrs Kempster when I see her walking on the sidewalk, and that I actually am brave enough to cross the road and say hello to one of my school teachers, or to help someone who needs it. I think that's all I gotta say about that.

The Joy of Giving Week

Before I talk about the event I just came from, I'd like to share a small story that I heard ages ago.

So, there was this successful manager at a big company, Max, making bucketloads of cash, working in New York, driving a Lexus, renting an apartment in Manhattan, you know, the works. One Christmas, after shopping at Bloomingdales for his younger brother, he was on his way back home when he saw this kid trying to flag down a ride, apparently home. He stopped his car, asked the kid to get in. Joe was his name. He was twelve years of age. He lived in an apartment on the way to Max's home. So, how Max asked Joe about himself. Joe then told him that his mother was a widow, and that he had a younger brother, Jim. His mother worked as a seamstress and Joe helped out at his uncle's shop. So, on the whole, it wasn't really a very pretty picture. Joe asked Max what was in the big box in the back seat. He replied that it was a gift for his brother who was in college. Joe looked longingly at the box. Max ask him, "What are you thinking about, Joe?"

"I wish," Joe said, "I wish I could be a brother like that."

I remember hearing this story in school in an elocution contest. And I also remember tears streaming down all my friends' eyes as this piece ended.

Coming back to today, at the inaugural function of the Joy of Giving Week when Anshu Gupta, the chief of the NGO 'Goonj', narrated to us accounts of people who lack the very things we take for granted; food, housing, and most importantly, clothes. He spoke of women who have to use rags, and sometimes even sand during their menses because they don't have even a clean piece of cloth to use as a sanitary napkin. He told us accounts of women in Rajasthan who don't have a uterus because they had to be operated upon because they'd get Cervical cancer otherwise. 'Scary' would be an understatement. Horrifying would be more like it. In a country which has one of the largest numbers of billionaires in the world, for people to live like this is simply unacceptable.

So, the answer is to just give. Not just clothes, or shoes, or money, but even your time. Think for a moment about all you have. Count your blessings.

Be like Joe.