First Step of Arranged Marriage

Uncle (insisting): Oh! Sharmaji, ab to ladki ko aane mein do din lagenge. Aisa kijiye aap aa jayiye ghar, ladki dekhne na sahi Saharanpur mein dost ke naate hi sahi.

Dad (reluctantly): Are Sir, aap ladki ko bula lo fir sab sath mein ho jayega!

Uncle (pretending): Aap is mind se na aayiye. Bas milne ke liye hi aajao.

Dad (modesty): Ab Sarkar ka hukum kisne tala hai aaj tak!

These consecutive expressions full of insistence, reluctance, pretention, and modesty made me to stand together with my childhood friend cum brother Deepank (virtual name) his first step of Marriage. I would like to call it as ‘Love at first Sight’, If bride/groom don’t like each other at first sight then second step become an imagination & things got stuck right where they were. Anyways, in our case bride was supposed to come there after two days so ‘Love at first Sight’ moment is far away. It was a mutual agreement that it would be an informal meet which was not supposed to have any relation with marriage proposal (as uncle said). But we called our aunt (buaji) for going to host’s place, my brother bought me a new jeans (as I have casual dress style), my brother shaved and joined us in that visit, we removed dust from car, We did all these unusual things for just another informal meet. When we reached to Uncle’s place he seemed to be more enthusiastic to know who is “Deepank” or his may be groom. As soon as his doubt got cleared regarding identification with clear indication of pointing index finger of my dad, he started focusing on identity named “Deepank”.

Then onwards, things got started with a warm welcome which was full of infinite number of dishes. I want to categorize the welcome food of that informal meet into three, four or better into five stages. Stage I: simple water, Stage II: Cold Drink and Fruits, Stage III: Dry Fruits, Stage IV: Snack (includes delicious homemade bread pizzas) and Coffee, Stage V: Tea. All things seem were very happening. Uncle was elaborating about the achievements of family, explaining us about the family members and we got more & more confused as we saw new faces of his joint family members. Really all things were very happening. We were being taken into different stages of welcome food. And all of sudden, I realized we two were looking totally stupid and out of box looking here and there for rescue & everyone is looking at box. Yes, me and my brother. Everyone was watching my brother with a gaze of would be groom and a sarcastic smirk. I was hating that moment. Bud suddenly, I started to realize that the experience was strange to me because it was happening first time. As soon as, I realized that feel, I started enjoying that strange experience and felt myself more comfortable as a boost-man for my brother, who was analyzing the situation in more deeper sense than mine because he was victim.

I realized that confirmation of the relation is dependent upon ‘Love at first sight’. That moment which had 5 stages of welcome food would not come back. So, I left the job of Boost-man and started to eat as much as I could. No doubt food was delicious. But we were there for different purpose. Situation became more fascinating when we were asked to meet the family members of may be bride. Every married woman of that family was smirking on us and wanted to comment in teasing manner. I wanted to comment back on their expression & tease them back but everyone was restricting himself/herself because it was our first informal meet. The best part is everybody knew that everybody was restricting the expressions to come out. Even though, I used to shoot few sentences for breaking the ice. Actually, I become restless if I remain silent for long duration.

Anyways, all things went well. That informal meet led to another informal meet and remained informal with solving a lot of purposes. Actually, everyone who was involved in this meet already knew that this informal meet have a vital role to play and is very specific in its aim. I really liked this strange experience or integral stage of Arrange Marriage and now I am waiting for the moment when my brother will get official right to see the may be bride in front of everyone. I remember the dialogue of my bro, ‘Sala, puri umar ladki ko dekha aur jab ladki ka baap kahe ki ladki ko dekho to samajh nahi aata kya dekhe’. I don’t know how to express but I loved that strange and awkward environment when you meet with those people whom you don’t know at all and talk infinitely in all those directions which proves that your family is culturally best or better to say it is rich in all fields.

Delhi - 6

"Some missions are impossible." So was mine, MISSION DELHI EXPLORATION. But when you try to opt for simplest, shortest and easiest route from the map of clustered, confusing and intermingled routes, you face those moments which insist you to use the keyboard of any laptop or desktop for writing a post like this.

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I used my art of bargaining for bringing prices down to Rs. 10 from Rs. 30 for the useful Delhi map.
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I brought bike from my brother's house for receiving my cousin Lt. Col. Anurag Sharma from Airport.
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My sisters compelled me to meet them at Mausi's house in Bhajanpura.

These jigsaw's flashbacks are sufficient in explaining the happened cause of writing this post. I purchased the Map for getting an idea about Delhi routes and opted a new route selected from MAP for receiving my brother which led me to select a route for Bhajanpura which passes from DELHI-6

I was riding on Bajaj Discover 135 and using Qutub Road which heads towards the traffic-wise dead zone of Delhi known as 'Sadar Bajar'. Traffic-wise dead zone means one can crawl faster on that road instead of moving on a motor vehicle. 1, 2.. 5... 60.... 100..... 400, and so on, I was counting the bald and haired heads wearing colorful helmets and sitting on different type of two wheelers, in still. Actually, all were waiting for a 'royal truck' which is parked precisely at the center of road. Royal truck was supposed to be unloaded by the huge army of worker who were trying hard for the sake of waiting traffic. But after all human have their limits, therefore they took about 15 minutes in completing this task. It is my short-sightedness that i can see only one such truck but there were 2, 3 or more Royal Trucks doing the same thing. Side by side, few traffic passengers who don't respect the Royal Truck were moving from the narrow gap between truck and divider of Delhi-6. Concluding the situation, I can say that followers of Royal Truck were waiting for its permission for doing the moment.

Such situation is quite common in the narrow street like roads of Delhi 110006. Utilization of roads is perfect and even under such crowded circumstances I was able to see a rickshaw on which a gentleman wearing white shirt was sitting. Suddenly, something touched him in his armpit and he stoop up on the negligible floor of cycle rickshaw and shouted 'Abey, dekh ke chal maaaaaaaaaa..... (gulp)'. You could have done the same, when unkowingly you got hit by the horn of bull of bullock cart. 1.5 feet long horns were pointing towards white shirted person. In response of 'Abey, dekh ke..', bull snuffed and the growing anger of person got digested with that gulp of person. He took few seconds to realize that even though man is a social animal but Science is not so developed that he can verbally communicate with Bull. So he chose the easy target bullock cart driver and spoke more loudly, 'teri... &*^$$$'. I was lucky that my ass was guarded by the car not by a bullock cart. Due to circumstances and fear of the imagined smiling face of bull, I didn't overtake that cart on Qutub Road.

Delhi-6 was so happening that few people innovate their own ways of passing the time while waiting for the permission of Royal Truck. Another, blue colored helmet wearing person had marginal distance between front of his scooter and backside of car. An old man came to him and pleaded him to give him way for crossing the road. Helmentman replied, "Main yaha ghanto se intzaar karke itna aage aaya hun, piche nahi hatunga kahi aur se chale jao". Old man had weak bones but strong voice, He replied, "bete jaunga to yahi se, chahe kud ke jana pade". Then Old man tried to exhale as much as he could to reduce his volume so that he can pass by the marginal distance. Eventually, he got succeeded in reducing his stomach to get fit into the gap, which resulted in crossing the scooter. After passing, situation was supposed to be calm down but the old man shouted, "Ghanta jawan aadmi hai, tere se achcha to main hun aur jab tera budhapa aayega na tab tarasiyo". Helment man replied, "Baba abhi tera budhapa hai tu taras...".

Suddenly Royal Truck gave permission to his followers and we started moving a bit faster than crawling. It was the will of God that I tool only half hour to cross a stretch of 500m. '1km/hr’, Isn't too fast? We all started moving and oldman, helmetman, white-shirted person, bull, bullockcart god disappeared. I reached to the transition where narrow roads fused with the wide road of ISBT. I accelerated the bike for getting out of traffic rush.

400...100… 60... 5... 2 1! I came out of Delhi-6 and cursed my Mission of Delhi Exploration. I looked back, to my surprise no one was willing to leave those narrow streets and join the wide road of city. They all want to enjoy the crowded scene and abusing each other. I was sitting out on Discover 135, away from the merged traffic of rickshaw pullers, cycle rickshaw, trucks, bullock cart, animal driven vehicles, with a relief. But somewhere, in mind I realized that while moving so fast I left out all of them, yes all of them in Delhi-6

the 3 mistakes of my life

Chetan Bhagat, leading English Author of Indian Nationality, has presented a real time story of Gujrati friends in his newly released novel 'the 3 mistakes of my life'. There is no doubt that this 250 pages novel of Rupa Paperback publications has full right to emerge as another best seller after his '5 point someone' and 'one night @ call centre'. It inspires to resolve religious, political, social & calamity issues of life instead of getting devastated. I really appreciate the cover of nove which reflect all the aspect of novel and especially the THREE. You can observe three differnt colors, three different men and three different stump. By the end, it shows a ray of hope to Indian Cricket Lovers for having a nice Batting Strength in future due to its connection with reality.

This novel is a narrated story of three friends Govind, Ishaan & Omi and narrator is former one. All have their different aspiration related to business, cricket & religion respectively. As a stable source of income they opened up a business shop. It gave them an opportunity to train a child named Ali, as future of Indian Cricket Team. They faced a lot of problems related to politics, religion, calamities & unacceptable love. In this story, they try to overcome these problem & their committed MISTAKES. Number of mistakes is not hard to guess. Above all, the description of terrifying experience about Bhuj Earthquake and Godhra Kand is really nicely written. Pointing the message of story is hard, but 'Success' is not an obvious answer of 'attempt' is clear message that floats on every page.

A common man can easily attach himself with the story due to its connection with real incidents. It is simply a real time narrated story with lack of extra spice. So it is the call of reader whether they appreciate spicy story or real story. I feel it as a nice story which binds reader with its flow. Giving it one try will be worth ones you finish off with this medium sized novel. Personally speaking, I like the real time connection, sensual description (especially), risk taking character of child & simple story telling way of author. I will recommend this novel for all kind of people except those who are fond of good language.

Angel & Demons

Imagination King, Dan Brown who brought Da Vinci Code and Deception Point published ambigramical 'Angel & Demons' with Pocket Star Books, New York in 2000. Dan Brown continued with his reputation as Sci-Fi Story Teller with soft hand touch on Sex for excitement. This novel of more than 500 pages focuses on the downfall of Religion with time due to Scientific Inventions. It criticizes the attempts made, by religious leaders, for intensifying the Gods presence.

Angel & Demons states the adventurous journey of Robert Langdon to Vatican City who is reputable professor & symbology expert. Vittoria is a physics scientist who accompanied Robert in her journey of saving Vatican City from the attack of Illuminati. Both defenders had successfully solved the treasure hunt in deciphering the four murder sites related to water, air, fire, earth. The election of Pope in Vatican City is the only motive which resolved in a dramatic way when world came to know about anti-religious group of Illuminati.

Suspense is the main key of Dan Brown which remains in novel till the last page. Novel is a complete set of History, Science and Religion which is signified by three different groups of Illuminati, CERN, and Vatican Church. According to me, this fiction is really appreciable and one should read atleast once. IITians can feel it as a perfect novel which correlates religion and science of a progressive world. I was in trance after reading novel due to unbelievable instances like Illuminati's exposure, Robert's Sky Dive, Vittoria's figure, labeled dead bodies. At last, I personally recommend you to read this thick novel with great determination for an exciting ending at the last page.

First Tag: Brand... Oh! God what a new start.

Tagging, Tagging, Tagging and Tagging. What is this tagging? This question is the reason for causing me delay to respond to the tag passed to me by Mehak. Last morning I was sitting in my office and she bypassed me by saying hi. I caught her from behind and asked her "what to do? i have been tagged by you". So she explained me that tagging means you have to continue with the carried idea with your fresh thoughts.

So, here is the idea. Take any day in your life and chart out all the brands you have used. If someone asks me about brand of my shoe, shirt, jeans, belt then surely he has found a way to keep my mouth shut. Anyways, I am brand ambassador of.....

Care of my Hair is taken by CLINIC PLUS

rarely i oiled them with ALL CLEAR in surplus

CINTHOL keeps my skin shining

Rest i want is UNBRANDED clothing

My Breakfast is not meant for feast

so it only aims AMUL & ANCHOR's cheese

i advocate for HOME BRAND

for all the eating stuff lies around

My outing are labeled with NOKIA tag

accompanied with my WILDCRAFT bag

mine leather stuff is as usual

towards shoes & jeans m very casual

in afternoon lunch is all i need

COKE, DOMINOZ, SUBWAY are famous indeed

BURGERIE & BASKIN ROBBIN also on top

all that i need my friends HP laptop

while writing this poem i raised my concious

that i should become more brand curious

toppling the stuff around for brand

in short, is not my habit i found

Please bear this childish and arbitrarly rhyming poem with sudden ending. It was done with an intension of making this first tag memorable but after a high magtinude of strain over my mind i am unable to recall the brands of stuff i usually purchase. So, I accept that I am not brand concious and purchase whatever looks suitable to me. Anyways, i want to pass this tag to one of my friend who seems to be a bit brand concious, "Mr. Amit Sharma". He is inactive from few days and even not visiting our blog so i want to wake him up by passing this tag.

Cheers

132, Vincent Street

I wrote this few days back but not getting time to publish it. Don't confuse yourself with the publish date with written date. They are actually different.

I am neither feeling broken nor my eyes are watered. Today morning, sun rose from east, clouds rained as they generally do and my boss, buddy, fellow workers all are in time and i am late. In short, its a normal day for me & even for you. As usual small ups & down of life are being faced which, are big one for others & ignorable for few, instigates me to scribble some words over the incident happened last night.

It was 1:32 PM in my clock when I received a mail from one of my best friend, which intended to make me realize that how he was feeling at that time . I am thinking at 132 vincent street over these three digits of '132' & arbitrarly tring to connect them with the memorable joke of $132 which has been announced commenly as tragedy at 1:32am of last night after a warm discussion.
Have you ever tried to make things memorable by acting on a hoax & targetting a human being better to say a friend?? Obviously yes... in your college life. Same thing i did. I acted alongwith my senior on the script which was fake & written by me but really cheap in reading and listening to all new readers and listeners respectively. I was getting succeess in its implementation but feeling bad right from its beginning. But I continued with plans by imagining a dream situation when imprints of this hoax's consequence would become memorable for our internship in new zealand.

The end of every joke whether its' good or bad is decided by the victim's way of acceptance. If he smiles at the end of joke, it would become a memory for the moment and if he got psyched it would become a memory at later stage of time. I am feeling guilty because victim of this plan had already been victim of pervious two hoaxes and smiled thereafere. There is a major probability of facing the bad end of this hoax due to victim's circumstances. Eventhough, I took a risk and eventually, got failed in making this moment as cherishable for him & for us too.

At discrete point of time, a thought hit into the upper part of my brain that due to my fun that person is feeling stressed & ruined his relations with others. Friends, I don't want to be a hero, so it doesn't imply that i want to be vilan. Actually, I want to be a neutral character of movie who play significant role in story building and janta generally ignores them while watching movie.
I know you are feeling surprise that if i had done such a culprit then why i am not broken. Actually, I feel that this shock helps to delimit my bounderis and help me to use safety factor while defining the upper limit of tolerance of fun that can be done wiht an individual. So that i will never act on those hoax which hurts other.

Does it ever happened to you?

Tailless Monkey

1, 2, 3 & 4. Naah! i think 5. Five MS (Multi Storey Building of IIT) can be placed one over the other to match the height of this Sky City Tower. Oh! I am writing this blog while sitting in my flat which is 17 floors higher than Ground Level. Even though I am not able to see the pointing tip of Sky City Tower which flashes the red color light. I am not a victim of myopia or hyperopia, actually its the sky touching buildings which obstruct the view of the Giant Sky Tower.

Now, I am sure that our ancestors were monkeys. Don't get shocked with this new line. Think carefully about the heights upto which we have reached in our daily life and that monkeys use to climb in their usual routine in jungle. In contrast, we use to jump from top of one building to another using some transport facility in city. But our developing world clearly speaks that days are not far when we will come over the bouyant force of air and without touching the earth, we will fly from one building to another via peak to peak without using flying planes. In other words, i am waiting for the day when all of us will become the monkey of new world who jumps from one building to another. If Transport convenaynce is only common factor between both of us then surely I would have satisfied myself by the quote "Man is a social animal". But Our youth loves Banana Shake which sometimes terrifies me because i feel that our 'grand grand..... father/mother' used to make some veggie stuff using their favourite banana as we invented banana shake, banana ice cream, banana cream, Banana Split, Banana Cheesecake, Banana Salad, Banana Bhajias, Banana Subji and Banana pudding in today's world. All of our living and eating habits indicates that our future is rolling back to our past. Few minutes earliar I was feeling proud about our dressing sense, Suddenly i looked out a girl without skirt, Oh! better to call it mini skirt outside my flat's window and realized that I have no more right to feel happy about 'Dressing' as a distinguishing factor between us. When i am feeling the future of human as monkey i can only feel happy about my tail which is negligible in human.

So prepare yourself to be a tailless monkey.