Lust...

It all started in school... I wanted to dance, but was not given a genuine chance. They thought that I was not meant to dance... I disliked all those people who deprived me of doing things that I desperately want to do... And I hated the fact that some times people can have power in depriving me of doing some thing... that can be one of the reasons that I will never dislike or hate my parents...

Last month there was an online internal survey in our company. The survey was related to an annual event called family day function. One of the question was some thing like this

" would you like to take part in any of the cultural program, if yes then select the program(s)"

one of them was dance. I had gone for salsa classes while doing my masters. I had gone to those classes with secondary intention of learning dance. I did select dance (with some amount of doubt) from the list and submitted my application for the survey.

I got a mail next day with subject "meeting on dance". I did not go for the meeting, I was too shy to participate after getting that mail. However one of my friend , who was one of the important person in the organizing committee of the family day function came to my desk and took me to the meeting. After the meeting I was there in the dance group along with 5 other people.

Amit, my colleague and a good friend, had also given his name but didn't turn up in the meeting. I didn't know any one well in the group. I wanted Amit to join. And he did join after some persuasion. We both had an extreme desire to dance on the stage.

Three from the group dropped out, We were finally four , that's Amit and me along with us Shital and Rupali. After we started the practice, my dance team realized how much talented I was in dancing. Amit and Rupali had no control over their laughter when they saw me dancing but Shital was totally mad at me. Shital was not just mad at my dance performance but with the way we took the whole thing very lightly. She just wanted our show to be rocking. She decided to rule our lives daily from 6PM to 8PM till the show was over, that's when she was conferred the title RING MASTER.

When we started the practice we were not getting it properly , at least I was lost. We wanted a visual feed back of our dance, for which I had an idea. It was to dance in front of a large mirror, the real idea was to dance in our office toilet space. The best part was that Amit didn't think it was a craziest idea. Amit and I were little shy to practice in the toilet until we realized it was not a permanent solution. All of a sudden I thought of buying a camcorder and I did buy it with in an hour's time of getting the idea. At that point of time I was ready to do what ever it took to make our dance better.

Now I have nothing much to write, you should watch this video

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2984859/rockstars_ringmaster_and_robot/

To Aditya, With Love...

None of us wanted to come to Hyderabad leaving Bangalore, but we had to. By us, I meant Arvind, Giri, Praveen, me and Aditya (that’s the order in which the city got us in).

It was October '08, when we all started staying together in this flat called F10. It’s a 2 BHK flat with little or no sophistication. Our work place was very near to our flat. Except Aditya, we worked for the same company. Aditya was my junior from college.

Our conversations at flat were in a polite fashion, when we just started staying together. However that was very short lived. Soon after we started dealing with sharing of resources and money, internal feud creped in. Some of the major issues were on cable TV, internet sharing, house hold shopping, house rent, need of house maid etc. Not just that leaving Bangalore was depressing living in that flat became pretty pathetic. Small talk became a basic essence of our conversation.

"World is in a mess" that was the statement from the CEO our company. Economic recession had pretty much started the same time when we all got our jobs or in that time duration. Aditya's company was in deep shit. Our mailbox started getting hit by forwards on lay offs and bankruptcy. These scary thoughts started becoming our primary discussion during dinner. There was hoax on Aditya not getting salary for 2 months. And yeah, we or rather Giri and Praveen prepared dinner. Arvind, Aditya and me were like ' kam chore' supporting staff.

Pulling each other’s leg became an ultimate source of entertainment after staying for few months. Praveen has this ability to sharply observe and imitate people. His skills started spreading amongst us. Best irritated dialogues came out when one of us was provoked like hell and the unstopping laughter from rest made it look like frying a chicken, with burning smell all over.

I derived extreme sadistic pleasure in sabotaging one's image in the friend’s circle. Let me give you an instance. Every morning after getting up I go to the bath room (which has an attached toilet). In many occasions, Aditya used to go for the bath during that time. I had to control my self, if you understand what I mean. I always thought he took more time than what is required to take bath, at least the state at which I was made me feel that way. After experiencing this for some days I started telling a story to my other room mates that Aditya was a noble person who hand cleans our toilet when ever he goes to bath, with best of my sarcastic abilities. Aditya was not even spared to defend any of his points since the story of him staying in bathroom for that reason was far far better than other stories that I could have created.

As months passed by we started indulging in many group activities, like for example playing cricket, going to movies, mid-night Ice-cream pursuits and dinner in some good restaurant. We shared our good, bad and ugly experiences of our office. Some of the most obviously interesting talks were about the girls in our respective work places. Pulling each other on some arbitrary girl was like an initiator for some of the most hilarious conversations. Giri was always in spotlight for some of the classified reasons. Arvind used get victimized by some of the nastiest verbal encounters with Praveen and me. Aditya came to his rescue whenever he was around. In that way Aditya and Arvind became close friends. During the course of time, F10 actually became our home.

Last month Aditya learnt that the business unit in which he was working was sold to some other company, in effect he would be moving in to a different organization. Two weeks back he learnt that he would be relocated to Bangalore. Yesterday was his treat. Today, he will be leaving. Tomorrow, we will be looking for a new flat mate.

Let me tell you what happened yesterday. Aditya agreed to treat us in one of the most sophisticated family restaurant in the city. When we went to office in the morning, luckily, giving a gift came into our mind. Arvind became very keen soon after I talked about it. All of a sudden maniac in me woke up, I got this idea of giving him a toilet utility (with all the history attached to it). HARPIC - the toilet cleaning lotion was the winner. When I told it to rest, they could not control their laughter. We also decided to give a leaflet with all our classic dialogues that were the basic contents of our sarcastic imitation. By evening we did that list and called "F10 classics" (typed in kannada script and printed it). Arvind and myself went to a departmental store and got a Harpic – the toilet cleaner, we also got a scrubber as free. We asked for the presentation cover to the same shopkeeper, he shyly said no, laughing on our idea. We finally found a gift shop that was ready to pack. The price was 20Rs; I told the shopkeeper that we would pay him 30Rs with a condition of making it shine like hell on a big box with all newspaper stuffed along with the toilet cleaning lotion and scrubber. So was it done, solidly wrapped with golden colour presentation cover and all. Arvind and me laughed like hell each and every second thinking about the whole idea.

At eight, we met in that over priced restaurant. The deal was any thing in the menu except ice cream. We consciously dint have much food during lunch to take the best advantage of the treat. We had so much food with so many snaps taken by Giri while batting. By the time we were done, Aditya knew that this treat would remain as one of the costliest affair for long time. We gave him the leaf let which had all our dialogues typed in Kannada. When he read each dialogue in the leaf let we laughed like hell. When we gave him the gold wrapped gift box, he was glad and told us that this was like the Vaseline to the entire cracks in a foot. We insisted him to open the gift before the waiter could get the bill. He did open it gracefully in the midst of many families sitting around us, who by the way were noticing our loud laughter.

Let me ask you one thing, do you want to be our new roommate?

17 -04 -09

( http://picasaweb.google.com/isiganesh/Aditya_harpic# )

Now, then...

Few years back when I was doing my engineering, Rohit was my very close pal. He was also doing engineering but in some other college located in the same city. We used to meet regularly in the cricket ground. Cribbing about our respective college and imitating our lecturers were our usual time pass activity. The other most talked about topic was about this gal Priti, his classmate. Gossips, rumors were basic ingredients of our chitchat. It was crazy at times but never the less lots of fun. Rohit was a big time stingy guy and so was I. Our weekend plans of going to dinner at some local restaurant were mostly a flop for the same reason. Here goes our typical conversation over telephone in the week end.

Tring… tring… tring… tring
“Hello… Can I speak to Rohit?”
“Dude... this is him... tell me, what shall we do tomorrow?”
“Are you kidding me? Don’t you remember that cricket match against those VSS nagar boys?”
“Of course dude, I am aware about that match, how can I forget that? I am asking after that match”
“I am suppose to complete that Electromagnetics assignment… if I don’t, I will get properly belted by that nasty lecturer”
“Don’t tell me all these stories, you had promised that you are going to treat me in that new restaurant”
“No way, that’s never going to happen… I am not treating; I can manage to come for the dinner only if you are treating”
“I can’t believe this… you are stingier than what I thought”
“Look who is talking… when have you treated by the way?”
“Dude, I told you right I am saving money to take Priti for lunch in that restaurant in MG road on Feb 14th … and I am also thinking of gifting that teddy bear”
“Ah… Rohit, you taking Priti to lunch is nothing to do with me… By the way if my dad sees me talking over the telephone for long, he will throw me out of the house, tell me fast, are you going to treat me or not?”
“Okay dude I will treat you, if that’s what you want, but not in that new restaurant, will take you to that pani puri stall near our school”
“Don’t put all these senti and all… Okay, all right, we shall have pani puri near our school, it’s going to save my time for my assignment as well, but don’t forget to bring money, I have absolutely no money”
“Don’t worry dude, will get the cash… I will catch you at 4O’clock in the ground”
“Fine, bye”
“Bye”

In fact having pani puri near school was easily the best thing to do then going to that new restaurant. We talked about our school days during that time. We remembered all the stories that proved us as the stingiest creatures on this earth. The other stories that never missed out in our conversation were about Priti. Rohit could recollect each and every conversation with her; I had to listen to all of those from him as if it was like a TV re- telecast. I gave him tips that never worked out, but he still came back to me for more tips. I can say for sure that my advice was never valued more than ‘then’ by anyone ever.

After completing engineering we lost contact. Both of us went on with our own life, career and stuff. But thanks to the strides in information technology that he found me through Orkut. He called me the moment he got my number; the conversation went this way

Buzz…buzz… buzz
“Hello, who is this?”
“Dude, guess... from my voice... come on, dude”
“Rohit?”
“ Yes dude, this is him… its almost 3 years now since we spoke to each other… the moment I saw you in orkut, I could recollect all the fun we had “
“Oh my god, what has happened to your accent, you sound like an American”
“Oh yeh, I work for an American company and I go to the US now and then, that’s how I picked up the accent… forget all that stuff, tell me when are we meeting?”
“When ever, where ever… any restaurant in the city, You always complained that I don’t treat right? This time, have what ever you want …any where … I mean where ever you say”
“No dude, I am the one who has to treat… first let’s meet and then decide on the rest... how about MG road? No, I meant St Marks road? "
“Sure… hey what about that gal Priti?”
“Dude, we shall not talk about her… I just want to say it’s over long time back”
“Oh okay… “
“Let me tell you one good news, I am getting married”
“Wow Rohit… who is it, when? Where? “
“I will answer all your questions, first let’s meet…how about Sunday, 4O’clock near our ground where we used to play cricket”
“Okay, but you were saying Some St Marks road… any way our ground is a better place to meet, from there we shall go which ever hotel you decide”
“Okay then… bye”
“Bye”

We did meet that Sunday near the ground. We joined with some people who were already playing cricket there. After playing, we recollected our entire ‘then’ team members with whom we had lost contact. We talked almost for four hours. Rohit told me all about his marriage, about the girl, family, how it was arranged, his plans after marriage. I shared my thoughts, about my life. We ate pani puri, bajji, kulfi ice cream, samosa etc in all the places near that location. We did fight again on who is going to pay, only this time it was for the opposite reason.