Parody - Bechara DK

Daddy mujhse bola
Jaakar roti kamaa
Education ki shakal mein
Paisa mat jalaa
Maa ki daant sunkar
Kabhi toh jaldi tu bhi beta jaaag, jaaag, jaaaaaaag..


Maine mann banaya
Banoonga Radio Jockey
Kyaa footballer, kyaa cricketer
Kheloonga sirf hockey
Naam apna alag ho
Aisi hai mujhe unique si yeh aag, aag, aaaaag..


Tina ne lagaaya
Jhapad ek mujhe
RJ ki pagaar pe
Ek pyaas bhi naa bujhe
Woh toh khaye mewa
Aur roti sang ghee mein luthputh saag, saag, saaaaag..

Men in Shorts - warning - nothing to do with Cricket

Men in shorts do something for me.

And before you get any ideas, I am not talking about lithe limbs encased in skimpy gear challenging my modesty, you know the type. No, those don't do anything for me.

I am talking about something quite special, and weird. If you know me by now, these two adjectives are irrevocably linked.

Sometimes when I am coming back from office, all a-fluster about some or the other traffic nightmare, or cabbie or auto-wallah, or getting home at 10 pm instead of 9.30 as planned, I catch a glimpse of a man or two, maybe in-between forty and forty-five years of age, flecks of gray starting to show, wearing a colorful half-sleeved shirt, with Hawaiian prints or something. You know. And shoes without socks. And of course, those shorts.

He is usually up to something mundane - walking the dog, picking up groceries, kicking up the scooty. 

It fills me with a strange longing. To have a life. Where I can come back home by 7.30, still early evening, with the hope of doing something productive and useful and fun with the rest of it. To have a home, to be able to get chores done on a weekday too. To keep work where it belongs. The way I have seen my father do it for as long as I can remember. In shorts.

Tell me your dreams

Sigmund Freud said that 'The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises'.

It is a rare day in a month for most people when they come face to face with their subconscious, they are jolted by the encounter, even betrayed perhaps, by the subliminal existence of it.

But there are those few who suffer the lot of a host whose guests have overstayed their welcome, guests who are constantly lounging on the living room couch, flipping channels.

As one of those people and I am basing my conclusion on the disturbing fact that it has been many moons since I had a dreamless sleep, I am curious to understand the nuts and bolts of it. I want to know what these dreams mean - because most of them are sinister, and whether they happen to any other people I know with such alarming regularity.

Are any of you readers persistent dreamers too? Or perhaps the difference lies in the fact that I remember all my dreams?

I read somewhere - Man is a plaything of his own memories. While dreaming incessantly has not proven to be detrimental to my well-being till date, except for the fact that I am not really achieving the dreamless NREM state for long enough, I am sure that it is a result of something that is not quite right.

Meter down

Fact - Cabbies in Mumbai have become so choosy about the fares they take on that there is a higher likelihood of dear ol' Salman giving you a lift in his gorgeous Audi A8.

Yes, that is a fact. One that has led to many many instances of the overactive BP to shoot above its lakshman-rekha for me. I absolutely can feel the difference. The Mumbai of fifteen years back where any business was good business and today - where even cabbies need their afternoon siesta, evening adda and night-time cuppa.

It flummoxes me. Or did. Until just recently. And dear readers, I believe I have cracked the code.

No, our cabbies have not become owners of super-fabulous hidden treasures, nor have they attained nirvana and no longer want the money. No, they are just managing their time and business better. How?

Mobile phones. The Mumbai of fifteen years ago maybe had a few techno-savvy adults and some tata-birla-godrej-brat-types sporting these gizmos. Obviously no longer the case. Much has been spoken about how mobile phones are and are going to even further transform the lives of the rural population of the country. What is closer to home is the way it has transformed the lives of the cabbies around. Their phone numbers are handy around in the offices and with select individuals and they design their days and nights around these callers. Even the yellow and black ones. So a cab with a couple of drivers stuffed inside snoring away means that they must have done late night or early morning duty and probably have a few such assignments lined up for today also. So no point waking them up.

Gone are the days when you could just hail a cab and expect it to take whatever you had to offer. If you want constant and uninterrupted taxi service, then get to know a cabbie, get his mobile number and be sure to call him a couple of hours before you want to go someplace. Yes, such is life. Supply and demand. If you don't like, become a cabbie yourself or if you are the Forbes 500 variety, start a taxi service.

Love-shove

I am not a big fan of Valentine's day. Have always been conflicted about it, like I have about most things. So a part of me shuns the 'celebration' so to say but another part (or maybe the same sneaky part) also likes it when there is something special going on.

But this post is not about that. Let me get to the point.

V-day 2009 - A and I decided not to give each other anything for V-Day, or behave as if it meant anything to our hardened twenty-six year old selves. It was the first one for us and soon after we had started going out. Mush has pretty much been anathema for me upwards of the age of twenty. So we decided not to bite the bait of commercialization. Lo and behold, I was gifted a sweet little expensive Swarovski teddy bear (I still don't know what to do with it) No fair, Mr A, said I! But secretly, I loved the gesture.

V-day 2010 - Again we didn't make a big deal of it. It was like any other day with maybe more fine in the dine than otherwise. But I woke up to the smell of roses. My secret evil little self did dance a little jig of joy.

Now cut to V-day 2011 - I go to office, travel to my market even, come back early, feel terrible about not getting him anything , go rushing to the nearest boutique, grab something that would look good on him (admittedly not the best threads in town, but it is about tradition, isn't it?) and get back in time to get ready and looking good. He comes sauntering in, carrying his self and his declarations of love, sans any restaurant bookings even.

Sigh. I read someplace recently that 'Fairy tales do for women for porn does for men - set unrealistic expectations'. While no rustic hillbilly in the department of charm and chivalry, A has come of age I guess. His acts of love have transformed from getting me flowers to getting me a Demat account. Well, love has many forms, and then again, so does a Demat account.

Chronicles of a shameless bride-to-be

Of course it has been too long. And don't tell me you didn't miss me.

Somehow, I don't feel like writing so much nowadays. While trying to make output a significant multiple of input in the machine that is my life, I let the music pass by.

Writing is like music. It is no surprise then that the times I feel like writing the most, when the desire grips me like a heart attack are when I am watching something sublime or when I am listening to some great music or when my brain cells are mildly soaking in alcohol.

Yes, the good life. The good life makes me want to take to the pen with a vengeance and churn out philosophy and literature. 

While on the subject of music, it is a gift to be able to get this affected by it. Not everyone is. And I sort of feel sorry for them. Music to me is more than just something pleasant to listen to. It defines my moods, takes me routinely to my happy places, inspires me, provides an uplifting force when I am Down in the D's.

Back to more mundane things, shaadi preparation is languishing and I am not able to bring myself to do anything about it. It is a good thing then I don't have to do much. The honeymoon location has been settled upon and not much progress has been made beyond it. Ankit thinks that I am the biggest free-rider that ever lived and I quite agree with him on that. He tried very hard to make me take a constructive interest in planning it out and I did comply. I lugged around a copy of the Lonely Planet for a while, and I did zero in on the places we should go to. Now it's his job to make that happen, innit? Work-wise this is the year when I am going to set myself on fire. Like they say - Success is not a result of self-combustion, it is the consequence of setting yourself on fire; and I believe I need that kind of success to be able to give it up someday with the satisfaction of been there and having done that well. Wonder of wonders, I am losing weight as well. A result of drastic changes in eating habits I am sorry to say, and not a healthy well-exercised body. But I have tried so hard to put in the right process for so long, it just does not work out. What with shuttling between office and travel and JVLR, gymming is a distant dream. Well, I should have a bit more stability in my life once there aren't two homes to toggle between and then I shall valiantly take it up again. For now, this will have to do. Nobody wants to see a pudgy bride.

And then there is the usual reading, watching movies and totally living it up on the weekends happening. Have been getting back in touch with some long lost pals - school friends, only to happily realize that not much has changed. And here is a theory - kids who perform well in school tend to continue to perform well all throughout life. They find rewarding pursuits like banking, business management, high-flying consulting and marketing careers and do as well at those as they did at their geography and algebra. The seeds of confirming to conventional standards of success sown early bear fruit all through. Well, congratulations to us.

On another rather fruity note, I have also become quite the winophile off-late. Vodka mixed with red bull in paper cups is a distant memory. Tis Merlot and Sauvignon which do it for me now. I do manage to lead a good life when I am not prancing around in a sack or clothes which look like that in some rat-infested godown, you see.

Des ki Dharti

People in villages have a lot of time on their hands. As well as a lot of curiosity in their stomachs.

I say this with experience - whenever I have gone to any village, I have had at least eighty percent of the population which is sitting or lounging around on the streets and in corners, come and surround me and my colleagues and stare at us like we were fish inside an aquarium.

Imagine talking to a dukaandaar about Lux and Knorr and having fifteen men standing around listening keenly, almost expectantly, like you were demonstrating  to them how to turn monopoly money into the real stuff. They really do listen, and they don't shy of making their approval and concurrence audible, when the situation so demands. 

Today I also encountered a rural balak - a smudgy-faced, rotund little fellow tugging at his father's kurta and pointing at something in the shop, all the while whining for him to buy it. He had to keep at it for a solid five minutes before his father, engrossed by the exciting products that my salesmen were brandishing, paid any heed.

Turns out he was raising hell for a toy gaadi - a square little plasticky thing, nothing like the sleek gizmos from hotwheels and more that his urban compatriots waste their time with. But a car it was nonetheless. This must be something programmed by the Gods - boys and cars. It would be an interesting experiment to see whether a boy kept isolated from the influence of advertisements which show great dare-devilry performed by other boys in fancy cars and also any movies which are pretty much advertisements for similar stuff on wheels, would still crave these toys like they were one inside the womb.

By the way, did you know that the government appoints some families in each village who are in-charge of distributing rationed and subsidized atta, chawal and shakkar to other BPL folks in the village? These dudes have a license and even make paltry margins. The government surprises me from time to time, by some rare display of efficiency.

So, as you may have guessed, I did some village hopping today. And our villages are something else.

Poultry and Cattle
For space they battle 
A family of fifteen
Is considered pretty lean
The oldies have time
Their stories as easy as dimes
Their children did stay on
Tilling land on which they were born
But the grand-kids are not so stable
They dream big and think they are more able
They study and then they go away
Life in a big city - seems glamorous any day
As clerks in courts and teachers in schools
No doubt they do write their very own rules
But who will sow the crop now and who will till
Leaving us hungry or footing a huge import bill

Fourth

Raju was running late. It was the 4th of the month.

Flying through the by-lanes of Kalbadevi, dodging tempos and thelas, the occasional car, and people - vendors, pedestrians, people generally passing time on the road - he would have looked at his watch every two seconds, had he had one.

Watching his light-as-a-feather, bony little self almost glide the air currents, one would think he was no more than five or six years old. He would actually turn eleven this year, or so Anees chacha said. He and his family of three begums and seven children then had been around when Raju's pregnant mother had been picked up by a local NGO coming once a month to round up severely ill slum-residents needing urgent medical care and taking them to the nearest municipality hospital. His mother had disappeared after his birth, and the NGO volunteer had delivered him to the neighbor - Anees chacha's doorstep. Chacha had accepted him as a gift from Allah and the newest member of his ever-expanding family.

That was eleven years ago and here he was now. A rag-picker/scavenger by day and waiter-boy at the Good-fun bar in the evenings. Sometimes, the lala at General kirana used him as a delivery boy and sent him to some of the affluent neighborhoods in the vicinity with parcels of atta and tel.

As Raju passed lala's dukaan, he waved out to the portly figure sitting behind the counter. Lala looked at his flying form and shouted - "Abbe kidhar bhaag raha hai be, bawla hai ka!". Further on, as he neared the police thana, his urgency to immediately be someplace else become much more acute, but he slowed his frenzied pace to a brisk trot, so as to not attract attention. As a young urchin around this area he already knew that getting in trouble with the police was as easy as one of them noticing his seemingly purposeless existence.

As he turned that last corner without incident and came within sight of his destination, his feet grew wings again and with the single-minded focus of an Olympian near the finish line, he sprinted the last twenty meters faster than Usain Bolt, just as the clock struck one and the gates to the Hanuman temple started to shut. He flew in and sat down, just in time to have a man put a plate in front of him and another ladle out a huge portion of freshly made, piping hot, deliciously aromatic - khichdi onto it.

Crazy Beautiful

The Terminal. A movie about a man who spent nine months at an airport terminal in NYC, waiting to be allowed to pass into the city so that he could collect the signature of one of the greatest Jazz legends in the world, something that he had promised his dead father he would.

When was the last time you did something like this?

Pages from my Diary?

An episode of my life which I view with a lot of amusement now and what had seemed to be the biggest sorrow of my life at the time - When I was a kid, I underwent some trauma. My mother was fond of having my hair cut really short - the style used to be called a 'Boy's Cut', no less. Saying she was fond of it, is actually camouflaging the true intentions.She was just not into taking care of long hair - the oiling, washing, combing, braiding, delousing that 7-year-old hair demands. It's another thing that I hated that look and would cry every time a reflection happened to fall upon my eyes or imagination. I thought it made me look like a boy, a rather pudgy, nonathletic one at that. And like all self-respecting 7-year-olds, I hated boys.

When my sister grew up a little bit and become the shining star that she is, I would always be compared to her - on her willingness to get up and start dancing, on her happiness and cheeriness in general, talkativeness. Nearly half my family prides itself on the words per minute they can chalk up, and are also very culturally inclined - singing, dancing - and actually very well - every time somebody sneezes. So a high premium was laid on such abilities and more importantly, inclinations. I, on the other hand, was into being left alone, watching from a safe distance. Not much of a talker, and thinking that I was too fat to stand up and display to people all my wobbly bits, I would fight tooth and nail to not be made to do that. This sort of stuck, this image of me being a quiet little thing. More so in my mind that anybody else's I think. And it also kind of led me to develop an alter-ego. I was uproariously gregarious with friends around - the bubble in the champagne and the rocker in the house. It is only over the past few years that a sort of merging of the two has happened.

At 15, I did not know any boys. Of course, I thought about them. I was interested. But just didn't know any. So it was really interesting going to these coaching classes where I encountered boys for the first time. There was so much talk those days about who likes whom, who said what to whom and about whom, who looked at whom - you get it. I found it deliriously fascinating - building mammoth situations around these exciting happenings in my head. Of course I also found the time to study, hard. That was the other thing I did.

Somewhere along in the next couple of years, K happened. My first love, or so I believed. He was the romantic, edgy, SRK-lookalike who would make my silly heart race at the time. And so passed three years. I did have fun. But I do not remember any of that. What remained is what took over five years to heal after it crashed. For the latter two of those three years, I kept it from my parents, assuring them that it was over. And when I finally came to them distraught that it had actually ended, all my father said to my mother was - I am glad that it is finally over now. I don't think I learned anything from that experience immediately. In fact, I went over to the other extreme of being terribly cautious and introspective about what I actually wanted and felt. Today though, I am a strong advocate of co-education schooling, of snapping children out of excessive day dreaming and of welcoming them back when they stray.

Due to all of this drama, I have this one regret - I did not spend as much time or thought on my graduation schooling. I could have done more. I feel I did not utilize the resources at my disposal well enough - both internal and external.

Life is made up of a million mistakes - misplaced notions and wrong actions, things which seemed life-threatening then and only bring up that warm glow of nostalgia now. I thought I was absolutely right and knew everything at 15, at 17, at 21. Thoroughly confused at 25, I knew I was wrong. Here I am now, at 28. Having been through the veil to the other side - where there is no love and no friendship, getting back just in time. Hanging on to the few solid friendships I have for dear life now - nothing can come in the way - no missed birthdays, no non-appearances on important occasions - nothing. In love - understanding the true implications of that word - to let some battles pass, to let some habits die hard, to embrace some wrongs, to work up some excitement at the end of a long hard day, and most importantly, to let kindness win over righteousness.

Long due and completely true

It has been long
Since I wrote a song
A streak of love sublime
On the vast canvas of time

When it entered my life
I was fraught with strife
Watching myself with a wary eye
Wrestling with demons of years gone by

But it was insistent and patient
It came at a good time too - perfectly stationed
I forgot to look back
Under its persevering attack

A year, two - under the sun
Enough for me to know it was the one
So I bound it to me more tight than anything
And now I wear it on my hand in the shape of  a ring

Women, ah!

Last weekend I went and watched The Vagina Monologues and I must say it felt weird. I will also say at some point in this post that it was brave and new age (it has been around since the past eight years too) but the first thing that struck me about it was that it felt - weird.

Note that I do not say it was weird, but that it felt weird. Hearing the word being said out loud, so many times, like it was a perfectly legitimate word, insinuating that the utterer of such a word was neither deranged nor an incorrigible pervert. What a notion!

On a serious note, it was a series of monologues, dialogues - all stories depicting a certain theme. An exasperated housewife, an elderly lady, a young girl, a sex-worker, a victim of rape. And needless to say all these themes had something to do with sex and the V-word.

The acting was immense. It was unconscious and funny, the imitations were awesome - the dialects, tones, accents - Parsi, Marathi, Punjabi, Brooklyn - all perfect.

I do recommend it to you ladies and yes, to you too, boys.

On a different note, Marilyn Monroe once famously said - I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it. 

As a working woman, I find myself trying to be a man sometimes. Not a lot, but it's there - the consciousness of the corporate world being a man's playground and of me - being a spade among clubs. Some people would put a different spin on it - in this age of everybody wanting to play the diversity card, a woman has a better and brighter chance of climbing the ladder etc. I am thinking it all boils down to celebrating the differences - I may not be able to joke with my boys, my team, with the same rambunctiousness and raunchiness as the average guy, but there are ways in which my unique womanly touch does manifest itself. I guess it is about recognizing that and being comfortable with it.

Some good news though. The CEO of a consulting company just recently commented on a study that his firm has done on the strength of the female economy and its influencing power on major purchasing decisions, saying that companies that are ignoring the woman consumer are digging their own graves.

That's right, Mister. You don't put an online payment option for the electricity bill, being Neanderthal enough to think that women nowadays have the time to ferret out post boxes and drop boxes and such like to deposit payments, then I will not purchase electricity from you ever.

A new beginning

She ran into the building, only just managing to register how impossibly tall it was. Last she had been in this part of the world, structures that stretched a 1000 feet into the stratosphere, were a rarity.

She came abreast a bank of ten tall high-powered elevators - opening-shutting-beeping, making the world aware of their super-tech presence.

Immediately stepping into the one that opened up, she looked around for the floor buttons and could not find any. And then out of nowhere, a flap clicked open in the wall to her left and a head sprang out. Yes, a head. After her heart had crawled all the way back from the back of her throat to the chest area, she noticed that it was not a human head.

"I am the lift genie. Which floor please". Trilled the head in what can only be described as a robot's version of a sing and a song.

Shaily was stunned. Admittedly, she had spent the last five years in Motihari, trying to teach advanced and efficient techniques of breeding cows to farmers, but she had no idea that the world had transformed so much. And this was Bombay, Mumbai. The city she had mostly grown up in. The city which she claimed to know like the back of her hand. The city which she had thought would never be 'India's Shanghai' in her lifetime at least. And here it seemed to be making Shanghai's high-rises look like caves..

"Don't worry, I am here to help. Which floor please".

At this statement, Shaily looked around trying to locate a camera perhaps, through which some person someplace might be monitoring her reactions and accordingly feeding in speech to the robot. Anyway, she was getting late, so she looked at the head and said - thirty-five.

"Thank-you. We will have you there in no time at all".

The lift gave a lurch and started ascending speedily and suddenly like somebody had set its rear-end on fire. She looked at the mirror and saw a weather-beaten, but still attractive thirty-five year old face. Maybe slightly disoriented at the moment. But the determination shone through nevertheless, to clinch this one.

A talk

It's a tough time my love
I fear I will melt away
Under the strong gaze of the sun
During these round the clock days


The mind is fiddling
With doubts anew
Peace is a bird
That long since flew


I need some fearlessness
Or at least some devil-may-care
To get back to strength
And go where eagles dare

Play - One on One

Today I went to watch a play called - One on One at the Tata Experimental Theater, Nariman Point.

This experimental theater is a smallish one with maximum seating of around a hundred people. Which is probably enough. The ticket prices are reasonable, the crowd is well-behaved and the plays vary from being serious bringers-on of Why-did-I-subject-myself-to-this to This-is-exquisite-and-I-want-to-marry-it.

The play today was one of the later variety. The concept itself was delicious - a collage of ten minute acts written by Mumbai's best playwrights on topics which intrigue/annoy/delight them about the India we live in today. To top that, the acting and no doubt - direction was superb, in some cases rising above the material.

Some of the notable performances were by Anand Tiwari, who is the guy from the Tata Tea Jaago Re commercial and some motley roles in various movies, Rajit Kapur aka Byomkesh Bakshi, who has come a long way since his cycle-riding-dhoti-wearing days and Amit Mistry, who plays a timorous terrorist-batchmate of Kasab's going through a crisis of identity.

The transitions between the pieces were made swiftly and silently and the actors seemed to know the audience well, successfully manipulating it into laughing and clapping at all the right places.

I highly recommend it, not only for its obvious artistic brilliance but also the high entertainment value. Who says artsy stuff, that too the very niche experimental kind, cannot be paisa-vasool? Who, really, needs a Dabangg?

A tribute to Piano Man

Her eyes are on me
I know it, o I do
My fingers tremble slightly
Remembering playing for her too

For I am the piano man
Getting paid by the sheet
She is the daughter of Mr Coone
With the world at her feet

She sits with a vodka in her hand
In a tiny red dress
I am belting out the notes
I couldn't care less

For I am the piano man
Getting paid by the sheet
She is the daughter of Mr Coone
With the world at her feet

I know she knows
I know everyone knows
I laugh with the old man at the bar
He is me, in another time, in younger clothes

For I am the piano man
Getting paid by the sheet
She is the daughter of Mr Coone
With the world at her feet

The room is dark
And her presence the only glow
She finishes her drink and gets up to leave
I wink at good ol' Jerry, getting on with the show

For I am the piano man
Getting paid by the sheet
She is the daughter of Mr Coone
With the world at her feet

I sing there every night
And they all sing along
There are new old men
Living their lives in my song

For I am the piano man
Getting paid by the sheet
She is the daughter of Mr Coone
With the world at her feet

There are waitresses, pretty ones
And many other princesses
But there never is her again
My girl in the tiny red dress

For I am the piano man
Getting paid by the sheet
She is the daughter of Mr Coone
With the world at her feet

Independence Day

Do waqt ki roti nahi, toh ek baar hi sahi
Marne ka freedom zaroor hai, azaadi hai yahi
Kuch log kar aate hain duniya bhar ke chakkar
Kuchhon ne zindagi guzaar di seh kar thanedaar ki akad
Gulami nahi hai British ki aaj, toh kya
Neta hai hamare maalik, daur hai yeh naya
Pet jab churmurata hai, toh bech aate hain maa beti
Aatma toh chhodo, ek healthy kidney aadhe saal ka anaaj khareed deti
Padhe-likhe hain hum aur aap, humko kyaa padta farak
Kharab sadkon par jab accident hoga, tab chamaata padega kadak
Hogi hospital ki urgent zaroorat humko tab
Chalega pata sarkar ne sanction to ki, lekin Neta or bureaucrats khaa gaye paisa sab
Nahin kahengen hum aaj ki Hindustan azaad hai
Jab takk ispar gundagardi, garibi aur indifference kaa raaj hai

Third

Armaity Dilliwala looked incredulously at her report card again. No, there was no mistaking it. There it was.

Third.

She felt a little sick. In all the ten years of her life that she could remember, she had always come first. That is what she was known for. Her parents, their friends, relatives - they all joked about it. One joke in particular, her Uncle Jamshed liked to tell and retell - his wife Sherzeen and Armaity's mother Aloo had both had their due dates around the same time but a week before the due date, Aloo went into labor and after a relatively easy five hours, there she was - Armaity, always ahead of her peers.

And now this. She could feel the eyes of her classmates on her. She thought she heard some whispering and giggling. She was still standing in the same spot where she had opened the card and seen that ugly thing stamped across the bottom right corner.

She had no friends, at least none that would sympathize with her at this hour of need. She had always consoled herself thinking it was because all her classmates were jealous of her. Now surely, they would all be laughing at her.

Dazed, she made her way back to her car and still unbelieving she handed over the report to her mother after reaching home. She was expecting her parents to break into hysterics and drama, as was their wont. But her mother just said - Good child, well done. Chalo ni, Rustom Uncle nu iyahan jaavnu chhe.

Armaity was stunned. What was the biggest disaster in her life was being treated like ant-shit by her mother. She was relieved at one level but also slightly disappointed at another. Wasn't that the only thing which made her what she was - loved and special?

By the end of the week, she realized otherwise. Nothing around her changed. Her parents continued to behave the same way as before. They fussed about her, took her to her tuitions and scolded her annoying younger brother for raising hell with his toy guns while she did her daily home-work. Her classmates continued to come to her with sums they could not solve, and the teachers continued to leave her in-charge of the class during free-periods.

By the end of this life-changing week, she was grappling with a peculiar thought. Maybe, just maybe, there was more to her than her rank.

Playgirl

The way to my heart
Is not an easy path
The journey offers little consolation
It is all about destination

Coz I am the kinda gal
Who once hooked will never pall
For better or for worse
It is your blessing, it is your curse

The body is easily reparable
Not the heart so able
It is under lock and key
There, I've said it, since you cant see

Coz I am the kinda gal
Who once hooked will never pall
For better or for worse
It is your blessing, it is your curse

Maybe you want something easy
Less intense, more breezy
That is your choice to make
But get out now, get out for my sake

Coz I am the kinda gal
Who once hooked will never pall
For better or for worse
It is your blessing, it is your curse

Second

He already had a best friend. How could he have another?

Seven-year old Akash was facing a dilemma. His school teacher had given his class an essay to write on their best friend. His best friend was in Lucknow, the city he had moved from, just four months ago. Amit and he had gone to the same school, in the same bus, to the same class, for three years. Such things cannot be overwritten.

Still, there was Venkat. Venkat had looked at him pointedly when he had told him about the essay. How he wished now that he hadn't told Venkat about it.

It had all started with a game of cricket, as most things do. Venkat and Ramnish were chosen to be the captains and they in-turn had to pick their teams. Akash stood there, a newbie in the group, seven years of having no playmates around in the locality he had just moved from having turned him into somewhat of a wall-flower as far as sports were concerned. His heart sank as one by one, Venkat and Ramnish plucked off the other boys and he was certain he would not be picked, meaning he would go to the team whose captain had lost the right to start choosing first. He stood with his head hanging in shame. Only later in life would be realize that shame is an obstacle of class A variety and is best discarded as soon as possible.

And then the incredible happened. He got picked. Actually picked, not thrown into the team which had no choice but to take him, but picked - fair and square.

He looked up, his eyes shining, and skipped across to Venkat's side, feeling mighty proud at what seemed to him, the biggest achievement of his young life.

So uptil now, he had fuzzily thought of Venkat as being his second-best friend in the world, and the best friend he had in this city. But he knew, he just knew, that Venkat would not like being relegated to second-best position.

The problem gnawed at him like nothing else had ever before. And he knew he had to reach a decision soon. The essay was due Monday.

As he sat, pencil poised over notebook, he thought back to all the good things that either of them had ever done for him. Amit had saved him from a street-dog once and had even let him use the fancy new pencil that his father had got him from Bombay. He had always given him good advice. Like the time, when he had wanted to invite his favorite teacher for his birthday party and Amit had suggested that he wear perfume while doing it, since it would make him look more grown-up and of course, nobody ever refused anything to a grown-up. On the other hand, Venkat had taken him into his team, and more importantly, under his wing - teaching him how to get a bit of a spin into his bowling so that the bigger boys take notice. He also invited him to his home from time to time, where his mother served him the most delicious rasmalai that he had ever had. He sometimes even let him ride his bicycle, which was new and had bouncy new tires, unlike his old one.

With aching brow and a tempestuous mind, did Akash finally come to a decision between the two mighty contenders in what was the most ferociously fought battle in his life, even though the participants were unaware of it.

And so it happened, that the essay that was turned in by Akash Saxena on Monday morning started saying - A best friend is one who takes care of you when you are in any problem and I am very happy that I have two..