The Door to God II

We were done with our first phase of the North India trip. The things that were pending was for GC and Lady GC to go back to Mumbai while I head towards the Holy City of Haridwar ( Gateway to Lord Vishnu ) or Hardwar ( Gateway to Lord Shiva ).

So after finishing off Qutub Minar , we collected our luggage and headed towards the New Delhi station . The ultra hot Delhi clime was turning pleasant. A cool breeze has started blowing. After seeing off their Rajdhani , I was limping over the foot over bridge towards the exit and it started raining. I realized, this was the first monsoons showers of the year 2010 for Delhi and I merrily clicked a few pictures .. The rains were over in a jiffy and I negotiated a rickshaw to the Old Delhi station from where I was supposed to catch my train to Haridwar.

I reached the Old Delhi Station 4 hours before my train , checked out the stuffs and the surroundings and the environment and decided , I can go for some local tourism in nearby bylanes and gallis. I checked with some locals and they suggested the Lal Qilla and the Jama Masid in walking distance. Since I was already done with Lal Qilla , I narrowed down on Jama Masjid and started walking with my backpack asking people for directions. The roads were similar to other parts of India crowded with people, cows , rickshaws , 4 wheelers and punctuated by open manholes .  I would have walked for about 40 minutes or so absorbing the smells of Delhi Market when again the stupid cool breeze started blowing. I continued walking and was standing admiring the entrance of Jama Masjid. As I looked around, the wind picked up speed and the clouds started rolling over the horizon, the sky darkened and it started raining. I, in the right spirit of the adventure hurried to take pictures on my mobile cam and I realized that the rain’s transformation into downpour may affect other electronic items that I am carrying, rushed to the nearest enclosed area, rechecked all the zips , moved the electronic items into more secure pockets. With all these activities over, I checked the enclosed area where I was standing and realized it was a small eatery. The eatery owner was shouting at his aide to switch off the lights since he was afraid that somebody will get electrocuted. The downpour has now transformed itself to full-fledged storm. As the people grouped themselves closer to protect themselves from the rains, an auto went by. I was about to shout for it when the adventurer inside me shouted, why an auto is needed for a 40 minute walk and I let it go. The rain intensity increased and very soon the road in front of me was converted into an overflowing canal with water well above the knee. Our group was well tucked inside that snack’s shop. All the shops besides the roads were now full of passerby taking refuge from the rain.

After about 1 hour of tucking in business, I decided, enough was enough and started the walking business towards the railway station through footpath adjoining the shops. I would have crawled in for about 20 minutes when I reached a narrow lane from which water was coming out at a great speed. I realized that crossing the stream of gushing water will be very very risky with my leg. As I stood over there, I saw the water- speed though very fast near the entrance peter out by the time it reached the road. And so I took the main road itself. The water here was waist deep. I was the lone person staggering on the road with an aura like that of a gladiator walking back after winning the fight. After about 10 minutes of this staggering business on an empty water-logged street in the Old Delhi locality of the Indian Capital City of New Delhi, I remembered the open man-holes which I had seen on my walk towards Masjid close to 2 hour back. And most were present bang in the middle of the road. With this realization and the possibilities, I once again ran to the closest closed/crowded space where the chances of open man-holes and gutters will be miniscule.


I have been reading Paulo Coelho books for past 2-3 months. He had written about God giving minor indications/signals so that one can avoid problems/troubles. So I stood there waiting for rains to subside wondering whether this downpour is an indication for me to cancel my Haridwar trip and go back. As I recalled all the painful time I had spent in my bed not able to turn around because of my knee, I wonder what a slip in such flowing, twirling water will do. What If I am not able to get up or what If I get sucked into the open man-hole which I avoided 10 minutes back. What if the rain intensity does not decreases and this becomes July 26th of Delhi . With these thoughts making a whirlpool in my mind, I took the decision based on the old hindi proverb “ Jaan hai to jahaan hai” which pretty much means that one can enjoy the world and all its beauty only if one Is alive. And with this germ in back of my mind, I decided that my first priority will be to reach high /safe ground, probably the railway station. Depending on my arrival time in station and my condition, I will decide my future course of action.

With the decision made, the rains also started relenting. So I once again started the walking business and this time I was walking with a huge mass of humanity, making their way to various transit points, basically the metro stations. As I was crossing the road to the other side, one fellow shouted at me not to go too close to the electric pole .. It seems something had gone wrong with that pole people were getting electric shock in its vicinity. I changed my direction and once again followed the crowd. The rains had pretty much receded. The panic and the general confusion in the street had settled down into a comfortable chatter of sea of Indians out to have some fun on a rainy day. I got the directions to the Old Delhi station from a gentleman. Finally I reached the railway station which again was a sea of humanity. There was close to 30 minutes for the scheduled departure of my train. I collected some money from the ATM, walked over to the platform where the guard informed me that the train was late by 1 hour or so.

That 1 hour delay turned out to be 4 hour delay. I took the opportunity to clean myself in a soily public restroom made muddy by the flood by standing on a newspaper. My appetite for adventure had vanished, so was the appetite for dinner. I bought a couple of biscuit packets and went to the platform, occupied a box and started my biscuit dinner and the waiting business. Finally the train came at 2:00 am.I checked all my electronic items, somehow dozed off .

Next morning, I got down at Haridwar, I bought the morning newspaper . The headlines read - “Flashfloods in Delhi ,  5 dead of electrocution, wall-collapse” . As I stared and realized the possibilities, I wondered whether the decisions you take have any role in deciding the God’s will for you?

Kissa ooooops kaa

 Proffi has been a very dear friend of mine. had known him from past 8 years .... Met him somewhere after the 12th standard results and then same college , same company , same city kept us in contact.. he is a sort of person on whom one can rely on in all matters. He was( ?? ) a fellow who believed in greeting his friends in the traditional indian way by giving a giant HUG ...
Indians have a very different outloook and i would say a wierd outlook bout the american thinking and way of life ( Well this is my viewpoint .. if u don't agree I don't care , u can as well go to hell and even then I will not care , u can shout for me from there even then i will not care ).And i belive people responsible for this thinking are those desi people who have been over here for quite some time and think of themselves  as expert on the American Way of Life ( again this is my viewpoint if u don't agree I don't care , u can as well go to hell and even then I will not care , u can shout for me from there even then i will not care) .And one of the most abused viewpoint is "americans feel that too much physical contact between males in open shows their homosexual preferences.." And our dear proffi also came under such bad influences.
So when I met proffi for first time in America I was surprised to see proffi saying ooops all the time
any of us touched him in a casual way .... And so our entire Ewing-->Jersey City --> Philedelphia trip was full of so many ooops that even a experienced OOPs programmer would have committed suicide .

When this crescendo of oops had crossed all tolerance limits I knew I had to act..  I don't know from where I got the inspiration .. most probably it was Nandu's presence .. I said "India me the to kandhe pe haath rakh kar chalte the , aur sala aaj ek choti si ungli kya lag gayi …….seedhe oops."
I think my wise quote had the desired effect on proffi. Next day when we were going through the our traditional farewell rituals ,in full public view proffi gave me one of his old desi hugs and this time I said "OOOOOPPPS !!!!"

ps: This was first published in yahoo blogs on Jan 1 2006.

Books Completed- Jan 3rd 2012

Motorcycle Diaries -- Che Guuvera -- Ok book
Bolivian Dairies -- Che Guuvera -- Good book
Revolution 2020 -- Chetan Bhagat -- Pathetic book
Aleph - Paulo Coelho -- Ok/Good Book

Expecto Patronum

Some days back, one of my good friends had put up a facebook status saying that most of people surrounding him are very selfish and self-centred so he is kinda pissed off by the way these dark-vile creatures pull him down and ruin his mood. Due to some inexplicable reasons, I was in the Hogwarts Mood at that time and the mention of dark-vile creatures brought forward the memory of Dementors  who are also dark-vile creatures making use of a person’s emotional vulnerability to suck out his soul and the way to repel  them is to use the Expecto Patronum charm which requires the person to recall the innermost positive thoughts/ memories to create a defensive shield.
So whenever bad people surround you think about the good people in your life. If bad circumstances pull you down, think about all the good things in life. Let whatever good happened in your life become an expect patronum  to pull you out of the rut created by the bad things.

The Door To God …..

One fine day, lots of sunsets earlier, when the sun had gone down and the rest of the world was busy sleeping peacefully, I was finding it very difficult to sleep. I had no plans to go on vigilante business the way Spidy used to do since it was horribly cold outside so I indulged in some online debate on religions. There was quite a good participation from all three religions and I was able to blast lot of people who were trying to put Hinduism in bad light with lot of help from Google , Wikipedia. As I was leaving the debate, I realized that even though I can confidently bullshit a lot about Hinduism, I myself don’t know much about the Hinduism. I never did any Hindu act with my heart, brain and mind all together. I had attended lot of prayer sessions but never gave any attention to the words. I waited & celebrated all the hindu festivals with the ultimate aim of gorging on all the delicacies that are made. I had joined congregations in praying but everything has been mechanical. Probably the only Hindu act that I have been doing religiously was folding the hands in front of the God while praying. I had read a lot about other religions too starting from Bible to the Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.I had read lots of books, articles and painfully realized how bereft were we Hindus of any big empire or civilization in the past 1000 years. How we have been ruled and plundered by other civilizations in the guise of religion or vice-versa. How while others were advancing towards the industrialization, we were more worried about burning Satis. And how inspite of all the perceived weakness of Hinduism , I never felt any attraction towards the other *powerful* religions.  I went to sleep with the Swades song of Pal Pal hai Bhari and next morning I forgot about everything …..

Lot of sunsets passed since that sleepless night. I was gorging in Olive Gardens with the good and evil company of RC, KS , JC , SS , SB etc. The discussion was trundling on somewhat meaninglessly when KS put across the question to everybody about any unfulfilled dream not related to career. As everybody talked about buying house and other silly materialistic pursuits, I said I would like to have a bathroom the way Tony had in the movie Scarface , one which is having a big bathtub , a fully equipped bar and a giant screen television. And as KS asked me to take his question bit more seriously, I replied, I want to go to some of the Hindu holy places. As he stared at me, I said I don’t have any specific place in mind. It is just that I am curious why 1 billion people including myself is following this religion.

It was close to 6 months since I landed in India.. We had physically tortured Gafoor enough for him to reveal his marriage date and extend the invitation to us. Since we people were anyway going to Agra , we thought why not extend this trip and make a wholesome tour of the North India .. And with that in mind , we made plans for going to Amritsar , Delhi etc . As the planning was in progress, I wondered why can’t I squeeze in a visit to one of the holy places in between. And as I checked out the options, I realized Hardwar might the only option that might be feasible considering the time and distance to be travelled. And so all tickets were booked. And we began the preparations in the right earnest. I called up and informed my parents about all the plans and they refused to believe that I am planning such a big trip with my leg.

Close to 1 month before the travel date, after a long day spent standing/walking/running my leg started troubling me again. In fact the pain became so bad that I had to take SG’s support on walking back to the house. Next day I skipped the gym hoping that the pain would lessen. I did the same again but the pain refused to go down. I once again started on my regimen of daily oil massage, reduced treadmill in gym and increased cycling but the pain persisted. And I started contemplating about cancelling my trip.

So 1 week before the trip, I was still contemplating. At that time, I saw a Paulo Coelho book lying on the shelf. As I wondered cynically it is very easy to right motivational stories but when it comes to implement the ideas, it is very very difficult. Even if the physical aspect is easier, the mental block that needs to be overcome is the hardest. I realized this hesitation was very much unlike what I thought was the real me , always ready for the fight.

And then my brother called. The conversation went something like this “I heard you have been planning to go somewhere”. I said “yes, I have been planning to go somewhere”. He asked “why are you planning”. I said, “I wanted to do it for a long time, so I am planning”. He asked “What about your leg?”. I said “I don’t think it is good idea to always take that leg as an excuse and stop doing things which I always wanted to do”. He hmmed at this and said he should have also done some traveling when he was in India but got immersed into other things to plan out anything. As he disconnected, the things fell into right perspective and the decision was made.

Entry for June 08, 2008

Karta hoo mai sab burre kaaam

Usske baad kahta hoo Raam Raam!!!!

This one came to my mind when we were gaming one of my friends during the annual KB Party .. Not sure whether I should lay claim to this quote anyway let me keep it blogged . That way in case nobody is laying claim to it , my contribution to this big bad world will be recognized and honored . I might even be remembered as Mark Twain or GB Shaw or some other figure from past. The upcoming generations should not remember me the same way we used to remember Newton or Maxwell or Einstein or Huygens or some of those horrible people who did so much research in Physics, Chemistry and all other imaginable subjects and left so much for the young innocent people ( eg : me in 90s )to learn , memorize and then vomit it out at the time of exams .

By the way I finished off The Runner book.. Nice book , should be read at least once. Gives a different perspective of the admission criteria of colleges and the attempts made by the parent to get their kids fit into the admission criteria ...

Started with The Cell by Stephen King . It is a regular SK category gory book with a scary theme. Not as good or different as the The green Mile . Should be done with it this week.

It had been a good day , a memorable sunday , a near perfect sunday after a long long time.

The day started with whimper as I trundled at 8:55 to switch on the tv for the Federer Nadal final then trundled on towards the kitchen where I made a superb omelette and which I finished off with 5 slices of bread then it was the Euro Football match between austria and croatia and somewhere in between i remembered the F1 so one flick of my fingers I was in canada where hamilton beeped on to haikkonen throwing both of them out of the canada grand prix and then alonso bashed his car to the boundary and then i saw fishichella also going out after banging against the wall... after f1 , it was showtime .. i finished off Kite Runner and City of Joy .. Then it was a round of AoE .. After that some office work and sumptuous dinner at chikku's place with chikki going all out to give a fine display of her culinary skills.. After dinner it was again work time and then i m here blogging..

At the time I stopped AoE , i was just hanging by thread against a very high powered attack by the teuton knights civilisation of Lord Hienrich . My army was fighting in three places and also trying to protect my trade route which was my only source of gold .The internal sources of gold were exhausted . If I left my route open , enemies were slipping in and if i left my route closed then no gold for making army.. And when I sent a good wave of soldiers to protect the route , teutonians came calling..

Waves and waves of advanced teutons protecting the trebs were attacking my walled city..
A very huge attack by three civilisations breached the walls for the first time .. On seeing this, I sent all the soldiers inside to stop the first wave of attackers, gathered my army at other places and bought them to the aid to the besieged defenders.. As my army left the trade route unprotected, enemy soldiers slipped in through the trade route, so I had to sent another lot over there .. With my superior numbers and strong economy,I was able to resist against first wave of attack ....After beating back the first attack , i sent some more soldiers to protect the trade route . It was at that time teutons again came calling.. Since i was running short on gold , i had to resort to the cheaper halberdiers and skirmisher for the protection .. Skirmishers harmed teutons only from behind the wall , once the walls were breached skirmishers were nothing ..and then 6 trebs were bombing my walls .. With not many trebs of my own , the only way to destroy the trebs was to attack them with soldiers but the teutons were not letting any of my soldiers to pass through .. So i had to disengage the teutons at one place and send palladins to destroy the trebs .. palladins were expensive but that was the only option for the time being and so i had a group of palladin collecting a bit away from the battlefield .. the moment trebs came and teutons raced towards the wall , these palladins used to attack the trebs from behind the lines .. my superior strategy resulted in teuton attacks petering out ... by that time I had a solid wall across my trade route ...

As the trickle of gold became a sizeable flow , i jumped from halberdier to champions ,skirmisher to arrow horseman and a continuous stream of Palladins and that was the end ,,

Btw , The City of Joy was banned in India by the Nehru govt for portraying India in a bad light .. Well some scenes about the conditions in India were bad however the movie spoke tons about the never die spirit

It is very hot over here . Our AC has been up since morning and but the room temperature has not gone below 76 F ... Since morning   !!!!.. what about my carbon footprint and the resulting damage to the mother earth   .. should i switch off the AC ???? I guess not .. PM is in deep slumber in the next room , if i switch off the AC , he will leave his footprints on my face ...





p.s - 3 years down the lane , this was indeed a very memorable weekend.

Why do dogs sleep on the road??

During my 2008 visit to Mumbai, after being done with my all official as well as non-official formalities I was on my way to domestic airport when I had one of my first times. Well in one’s life all events are bound to happen the first time. And the same happened on my cab trip to Mumbai domestic airport. It was raining quite heavy and the cab driver was a bearded fellow. I asked him where he is from and his reply was Uttar Pradesh. And in response he asks me where I live in Delhi. I responded back what makes him feel that I am from Delhi. His answer was the way I spoke hindi was having a touch of delhi. Well I have been accused of being a Maharashtrian , a Bengali , a Rajasthani , a Oriya , a Kannadiga , a Gujju but this is the first time somebody called me a Delhi valla anyway there is a first time for everything and I took this comment from him in the right spirit .


As our chit chat continued, I saw a dog peacefully sleeping on the road. And I commented about that dog sleeping so peacefully unmindful of the rain and the traffic. The cab vallah replied back , let me tell you the story why the dog sleeps on the road. And he started as when Ramji was about to give up his earthly avatar and leaving for heaven , a dog followed him doggedly , requesting the Lord to let him accompany him to the heaven. On hearing this request, Lord Rama explained to them how it will be a violation of the law of nature to let them accompany him to heaven without his time on earth getting completed. However on seeing the dogged devotion of the dog , Rama promised them the next time he comes to the world, dogs will be the first creature whom he will be meeting. So as per the legend, the dogs are still and always on the road waiting for Rama to come back. And while I was marveling at the ingenuity of the story and the way that story had been fitted around something which I would have witnessed since my kiddy days but had noticed only when I was 28 the cab vallah continued in his chaste hindi “Sometimes we humans in our pride and arrogance; arrogance about money, arrogance about social status, arrogance about education forget to realize the importance of the God. But then story like this and the way even animals are waiting for arrival of God teaches a lesson about putting our beliefs in the strength of God”. As the words sank in my mind, I stared with wonder on the taxi-driver. I was not able to decide whether the taxi-fellow was commenting on me or was passing on his observations about others to me.