When wedding bells become alarm bells

Got a mail lately (actually this blog is quite late considering the mail under discussion is already about a month old...how time flies, especially when you are getting a bad screwing at work) from Rishabh Sinha, that pseude-pseudo-bihari friend of mine from maniacal engine-erring (otherwise known as mechanical engg., that course of great penance where one finds out the true meaning of "sex-starved", with nothing for even the eyes to feast on) - one of the 6 S's, the others being narayan swami (who has been heaped with false praise elsewhere in this blogpage), soni (who has been reported LOST in all friendly neighborhood police stations ever since his marriage - whoever shall FIND him shall be immediately put behind bars....married sardars who have been in totally un-ludhiana like places such as bhubhaneshwar for more than 2 years suffer from a double trauma which makes them very very unstable and dangerous), Shantanu Somani (yeah, being the true marwari that he is whose blood pressure rises and falls with the sensex, he has got 2 S's where the rest of us are managing with one. Little does the fat one know that the amount of S you actually get in life depends upon the size of P you got - i.e., in more pragmatic, less exciting terms, success depends upon your personality - anybody else got better expansions [you frigging raging, raving, infatuated fatso, stop reading it as expansions ;)....its just simple "expansions" i am asking for the S-P relationship] shall get a horrible thrashing in the next post if they make it the Shantanu-Pradeep relationship), Sudhir Gulati (who belongs to that very rare species of Punjabi men with a great sense of humor, decent height, [reportedly, by Shantanu, who claims to be able to read men like books......which essentially means, in the pot] impressive length, and a bearing of dignity [which has always, always evaded me somehow......truly, i will fall to any depths to achieve some dignity] in his manner and speech, yet without a consort (female - temporary or otherwise).....a girl-friendless-punjabi-born-delhi-bred-engineer!!!!! Can you imagine his secret shame and ignominy???? How left out he must feel when with this cousins or others guys of his breed ! No wonder, he hangs out with our gang of mis-shapen, mis-spoken, mis-behaved-with, mis-girlfriend blokes.

{How many brackets, and brackets within brackets, in the above passage, OhMyGod!!!, Excel is getting to me.....lemme just quickly check if I have closed them all}

Well, coming back to the mail, Rishabh sent it informing us all that he is getting married, to a lady from MIT (Mahila Institute of Technology...No, you wouldnt find it in the ratings that include the Massachusettes' one. You are more likely to find it in the ratings measured on the Richter Scale....man!!! an engineering college full of women, Delhi women, !!! Ho Ho Ho baby, nothing feels like a bigger earthquake than entering such fecund grounds. You step into that college, look around at all those pretty women with books tucked under their arms, and you curse yourself for not being born a T-Sqaure, to be moved around all night on a white sheet by those delicate fingers. Massachusettes, on the other hand, is just another engineering college for bright nerds who can get its spelling right. Actually, it sounds like a strrong, native hindi abuse about mother-and-all not yet mastered by the english tongue).

Unexpectedly it is a love marriage.
Between two engineers.
And we thought such things happened only with doctors.

Trust Rishabh to break stereotypes.
Like that of the pan-chewing, stone-throwing, eve-teasing, lush-underarm-foliage-waving-in-the-air bihari.

But then, Rishabh has something about MIT ladies.
All the cute ones there seem to like him.
Just to correct any 6 ft tall, fair, handsome, broad-shouldered image of Rishabh you might be building up, let me describe him.

He is dark, not-so-tall, with a pot belly, and hair he never combs.
None of his muscles have seen a gym.
The only sports he plays are on the comp.
And no, he doesnt do any of those romantic things either like writing poems (I do, what a waste!), playing a guitar (reminds me that narayan plays a violin, but the only people he has been able to impress with that are starched-white-lungi-clad uncles, their wives and their 6 yr old kids) or dancing (BWAHAAHAAAAA.....dont even let me describe that).

Yet, all those pretty women from MIT kept falling for him.
And he was the only one of all 6 S of us who ever had a girlfriend.
His having had more than one; in sequence - never in parallel - to be fair to him ; made him much more than an achiever or a role model for us. It made him a figure of envy. Great envy.

So, his marriage was like always on the cards.

And so his mail came.
Rishabh was getting married. In Feb 2008.

And so is Narayan. In March 2008.
I am sure Rishabh's love story, whenever it is told, shall be interesting, but it would be nothing - absolutely nothing when compared to Narayan's. We will, hopefully, be talking about it someday too.

And Soni, as mentioned above - far above - is already married (albeit under some very suspicious circumstances)

So that leaves only me, Shantanu and Sudhir Gulati.

After spending a few reflective, silent moments on that thought, I wrote Shantanu an open letter.

In that letter I had refrained from discussing Gulati's predicament (perhaps one that needs an ointment) as he is very demonstratedly-capable of giving me back much more than I can humbly offer him in terms of repartee.

Before I submit to your kind attention my epistle of pain and doubt and fleeting time, let me put Shantanu in your imaginations - which, I assure you, is much safer than you being in his imaginations.

I shall try my best to avoid any references to his physical appearances, as far as possible.

He is short, pudgy, with a huge paunch, and a face that looks as if it were born thirty-five years before the rest of his body.
(phew...that is how far it was possible)

Now, let me turn with all my soft kindness towards other endearing aspects of his persona.

He has been often suspected, and sometimes convicted, of being gay, of having had improper relationships with his maid servant who happened to be an innocent boy called Damodar.
Now thats what you call a man-maid disaster.

Now that you are well acquainted, and in some cases duly warned (Shantanu's and Soni's, to be specific) of all the bearers of the names mentioned in the mail, please find below the entire text of it.

Dear Rishabh,
तेरा खरबूजा तो कब से दर्राती पे रखा था, लगता थी का अब कटा की तब कटा, चलो आखिरकार कट तो गया.....

सोनी का टिंडा भी कटा,
नारायण की लौकी भी छिल गई,
गुलाटी का तो तब जब वो करेला अपने रस को लगाम दे....

रह गए (रहे गे बोलेंगे तो भी ज्यादा ग़लत न होगा) मैं और तू शांतनु

तेरा कद्दू कब फटेगा?
मेरे अनार दाने कब फूटेंगे?
अपने खेत मे हल कब चलाएंगे? बीज कब बोएँगे?
अपने नस्ल की फसल की कोई उम्मीद है की नहीं?
या ये जवानी की बरखा खाली ज़मीन पर बरस कर, गाँव के नालों से बहकर चली जायेगी?

यौवन के सावन मे
ये हलके झोंके पवन के
सिर्फ़ सूखे पत्ते ही हिलायेंगे???
औरों को हरियाली दे,
हमे सिर्फ़ आती पतझड़ की आहट ही सुनायेंगे?

क्या हम दोनों की किस्मत मे औरों के पौधे बड़े होते हुए देखना ही लिखा है?

कब तुझ बरगद के पेड़ से कोई कोमल लता लिपटेगी ?
कब मुझे पे बेल चढेगी?

"Baby Uncle" कहते थे लोग तुमको..
Uncle ही रह जाओगे?
Baby कब बनाओगे ?

ज़िंदगी है दोस्त, कोई बैंक अकाउंट नहीं,
की जब चाहा डिपॉजिट डाला, कुछ तो इन्टरेस्ट पाओगे..
इक बार वक्त निकल गया,
हथोडे मे से लोहा फिसल गया,
अपने बांसुरी मे चाहे जितनी हवा फूंक लो,
एक धुन भी नहीं बना पाओगे...

कहीं ऐसा न हों की मियाँ गालिब के लफ्जों को कुछ इस अंदाज़ से कहने के दिन आ जाएं हम दोनों के....
"engineering ने गालिब निकम्मा कर दिया,
वरना हम भी आदमी थे"
(काम के तो न तब थे, न अब हैं)


---------------------------------
By the way, A Very Happy Birthday to Narayan and Shantanu !!!!!
(God must have had a bad day - 2 mistakes in a single day, damn man !!)

This post I dedicate to you 2 dudes on your bithday.
Cheers!!!!

Fire-fly loves of Mumbai

My feelings are shallow,
yet the pain is deep;
If you were just a bad dream
why can't I go back to sleep?

Dreams stare at the empty skies,
sitting in my empty eyes;
If you were just a passing star, a falling one
Why does the sky still burn?

WHY AM I HURT????
Why this pain??
If it was just a dance in the rain,
Why are my eyes still wet?

If it was one of those ephemeral fire-fly loves of Mumbai -
now-burning-now-dying -
just a fling,
Tell me, my sweetheart, tell me
Why does my heart sting?

Teri Ek Muskaan

रोज़ ओस इकट्ठी करके उसमे रखी है भिगोके मुट्ठी भर चांदनी,
बारिश के निकल जाने के बाद, तारों से झूलती कुछ बूंदों को पिरोया है,
पहले पहर में जगते एक नन्हें से गुलाब के कलि की अंगडाई चुराई है,
एक छोटे से बिल्ली के बच्चे के डगमगाते कदम हैं,
कुछ गजलों के अल्फाज़ हैं
एक तनहा समंदर की आवाज़ हैं,
जिनके साथ बैठ के लिखी हैं ऐसी कई नादान नासमझ कवितायेँ
उन रातों की खामोशी लाया हूँ,
और लाया हूँ मेरे दिल का वो बचपन
जिसे एक नज़र, एक बात भी कर दे ज़ख्म.


इन सब के बीच बैठा हूँ,
कुछ ज़मीन पे फैअली पड़ी हैं,
और कुछ गोद में रखी हैं,
ये सब चीज़ें जिन्हें देख कर मैं कभी मुस्काया हूँ,
और फिर संजोके रखा मेरी यादों के संदूक में,
ये कुछ पल - मेरे जीवन की पूँजी,
सोचा ये सब तुझे दे दूंगा.

यही तो दौलत हैं मेरे पास
जिससे खरीदने निकला हूँ....


तुझसे तेरी एक मुस्कान.




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(May God bless Kedar, and Google Indic Transliteration)