Cities of Show-Off

Every city has its own unique characteristic. The cities develop these characteristics mainly from the type of people they accommodate. Interestingly, every city has its own style of show-off too. I have lived in four different cities and based on my observation and understanding

Delhi is the city of the hardworking Punjabis and harsh jaths. Here you will see the show-off of money and power. For example, the Punjabis are so fond of showing off their fort-like gates painted in golden or copper colour, huge cars and expensive garments and jewelleries that now people have started using ‘punjabi show-off’ as a phrase. This speaks enough for itself.

Kolkata is the city of culture. Here people show-off their intellectuality. You will find people discussing about Pablo Neruda, Orhan Pamuk and Amitabha Ghosh in crowded buses, trains, metros and other crowded places. You may also find some heated discussion on 'How Obama's economic policies affecting the lifestyle of the people of Anguilla" or "How the ideology of Che Guevara would have helped the party workers in Singur" or "How the new satellite launched by NASA will actually worsen the lives of Pinta Island Tortoise in the Galapagos Islands" and so on... In Kolkata people also show-off the fact that they are actually not showing off colourful and flashy clothes and expensive items.

Bangalore is the IT hub where IT stands for Information Technology. Huge offices of the multinational companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Infosys, TCS, GE, etc are here. Here people love to show-off the name of the company they are working in. And how do they do it? They wear their office identity cards and go for shopping and movies on weekends :). Sometime they also wear T-shirts with their company names embossed on it and go to vegetable market, fish market and sometime to outstation also. Quite smart!

Mumbai is only city where I haven’t seen people showing off grossly. There are people who show-off their looks, status, education, etc. but it’s there everywhere. My brother when used to go to office, he used to take the local train. He used travel in first class. He used to find crorepatis sitting next to him in plain clothes showing off nothing. I don’t know the reason why people in Mumbai are so polite. But one reason may be that there are too many rich industrialists, too many celebrities, too many highly educated and too many powerful people staying in the city. May be that’s why general people don’t feel like showing off as they are no match to them.

Finger's crossed for Feb 27, 2011!!!!!

Mekhla

I always wanted to buy a nice mekhla for myself. I had set two conditions for buying a mekhla. None of them fulfilled so I actually dropped the idea of buying it.

Then finally I bought it. It was very adamant and courageous step from my side. For last one and half years I have not bought anything which I wished. Not that I have bought nothing, but I have purchased only things of necessity. It’s true that I don’t really spend much but I have always bought things which I really wished and which is not really ‘necessary’ to have. But now when I go to malls and markets, I just find ‘nothing’ to buy. I see things that once I used to wish to buy. But I don’t buy them anymore even though I have money and freedom to buy that.

So, buying this mekhla was a big step for me. May be I am coming out of the shadow and slowly turning to real ‘me’, what I used to be before.

This mekhla is not a muga mekhla. Muga mekhlas cost 4-6 thousand rupees. I did not go for such expensive stuff. It’s a Rs 700 nice and very beautiful mekhla :)

Aditya Roy Kapoor

I remember I saw this boy in London Dreams. Even though I liked him, that small role of him didn’t leave much impact on me. But I really liked him in Action Replay. I just adored him. Apart from acting skill, good looks and fitness, the one thing that I liked most about him was his dubbing skill. I liked him in Guzaarish too. I just hope he does get good work and shines even brighter.

After Konkona Sen Sharma, Vidya Balan, Amir Khan, Abhoy Deol and Ranvir Kapoor, Aditya Roy Kapoor is another actor who is in my list whose movies I’ll wait for.

Boleshwar river is no more there…

Last week when we went to Silchar, we made it a point to go to Jellalpur at least for one day. After a long, tiring and enthusiastic ride, when we reached there, I couldn’t remember when was the last time I had visited that place. Jellalpur is still my dream destination. And literally saying, almost every day I dream about its winding and quaint roads. The village hasn’t changed much except for the new road bridge that’s constructed over the river at the bus stop, which is no more a bus stop now. The buses and innumerable Sumo and Ambassador shuttle cars now park themselves further beyond nutan bazzar, somewhere just below the hospital hill. No wonder that the old bus stand and the nutan bazzar have lost their days of glory. This new road bridge though has made communication to Jellapur much easier but it has stolen my childhood memory of river-crossing journey in a ferry, which used to be filled with excitement, fear, suspense and intense curiosity. The bridge was a welcoming change to the people of Jellapur and more to our family since after spending years for getting a grant for the bridge, my grandfather had received the confirmation letter from the government just one week before his death. Though my grandfather is not acknowledged for his tremendous effort, the letters that he had sent to the local MLAs and MPs arguing reasons for a need of bridge for the village are still there.

In spite of the missing river-crossing adventure, I could sense the arrival of Jellalpur just by its smell. It’s weird but the smell of Jellapur is unlike anything. It has the combination of earthen dust, the odour of rice plant hay, the odour of the smoke coming out from the earthen chulha of my grandfather’s house and my grandfather’s mouth odour, which always used to smell of tamak that he used to take from hukkah. The smell was there and also there was the sound. Jellapur has its unique sound too. This sound is the combination of the chirping of numerous unknown birds, the sound of people talking afar, the sound of hand pumps and some unknown sounds.

Since the crop time was just over, the fields were barren and grey. The people we knew also turned old and weak and looked withered. This time Jellapur was more grey than green. But the real shocking fact was the absence of Boleshwar river. Since this is winter time, we knew that there wouldn’t be much water in the river. During winters we used to cross the river and climb the hillocks and go to the tea gardens on the other side of the river. This was the most exciting action we used to do for which we used to die for going to Jellalpur. But this time there was no river at all. On the place where our favourite river used to flow before, there were some pits here and there filled with muddy water! Unlike previous visits, this time we were carrying mobile phones with 5 MP camera. We were very excited to catch images of our favorite spots so that we can see them later. But this time the spots were vanished! Disheartened and disappointed, me and my sister when talked about the matter to elders, then we came to know that the reason behind this destruction was the quarry or the stone pit that’s constructed on the upper side of the river. Though this quarry has brought employment for many local people especially at this time when the tea garden is at the verge of closing down, it has spoilt my childhood fascination – the Boleshwar river.

Pest Control - Not very difficult

Finally finally finally....I have got my house pest controlled!

It was easy....not as difficult as I had assumed it to be.

I had called Just Dial for the phone numbers of a pest control company. They had given me quite a few phone numbers. I had called one of them and asked them to come at 9 o'clock on Saturday. I wanted it to be done on Saturday as I would be there at home on the next day also to do any cleaning, if needed. I must have sounded very demanding to them, that the guy actually came at 9 o'clock in the morning.

Then he took out his medicine, which was a paste like thing....and started putting drops at different places...while I pointed out some of the extra sensitive zones. I didn’t need to ‘evacuate’ the kitchen.

As he was done, we paid him and then started the real picture. Cockroaches started to come out and dying here and there. So both the Saturday and Sunday I spent cleaning the house.

But there is one problem for which the house is not a pest free house yet; there are some still left though the count has come down drastically. The reason is the microwave oven. There are quite a few pests inside it and unless we get it cleaned, the house can't be pest free actually. So, our next step is to send the microwave oven to LG service center for pest cleaning. Once that is done, we may have to get our house pest-controlled one more time to get rid of them.

But the situation is really good at home :)

A Donkey's Life

If you don't have a vehicle of your own and your company also doesn't provide buses/cabs, then surely you are leading a donkey's life.

That's exactly what I am doing now.