The eternal six year old Calvin, grows up

“This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen ...” – These are the words of the very famous Calvin who in my memory never excelled in school and seldom made it to a class ovation. But unlike me when-I-was-six, he had the vocabulary even an average adult wouldn’t. As a kid, Calvin was my hero. While I sat trying to finish my home-work and get past those “sumptuous” dinners, Calvin protested against everything I would’ve wanted to and he even had his way. So dear Calvin, since you taught me the complexity of imagination, I hereby use it on you. You cannot eternally sit pretty at six. The party’s over J

So, what did Calvin grow up to be…

If I had to logically think Calvin’s way up, here’s what I see - A physicist in his laboratory, working laboriously, to say the least. Calvin - The prober always at work, who never makes it on time to any dinners or luncheons because he’s busy cathode-ing and anode-ing the electromagnetic waves that gave him nightmares as a child. Infact, Susie Derkins - his love and hate interest as a kid, did try to mend ways with him. But Calvin decided to give more weightage to the elementary particles of physics and thereby created an electroweak interaction. On the night of their engagement Calvin didn’t make it to the celebration on time causing Susie “social embarrassment”. He never apologised. Instead he began to develop a mathematical model on a word he’d never heard in his imaginary world before - “social”. Calvin lives, breathes and experiments, much to turn himself in to one.

And I as I say this, I wince at my imagination. Maybe its time to put an end to Calvin’s logical progression. Let’s think a little unpredictable.

So what did Calvin really grow up to be…

After finishing college with very non flattering grades, Calvin realized he belonged to no more disciplined schooling and studying further would only make his report card colourful, in a red sort of way. Calvin’s father got him a dead-end job at the suitcase factory. Today Calvin checks on the handles in the assembly line there. He makes no mistakes. Life goes on and so does the assembly line.

Just my imagination!

With all these probable chart-outs to Calvin’s life, I’ve realised, may be there is a bit of me that’s still envious of Calvin being the “Calvin” he was. I also seemed to have conveniently omitted Hobbes from the plot. I’d like to believe once Calvin grew up, his complex imagination found a sack. As a kid he was my hero, where his heroism was beyond my control. Today when I got the joystick to his life, I turned him in to a ME. I turned him in to an average adult, who’s stuck in an unfriendly rigmarole called life.

Hey Calvin, stay six.

Gaurav?! Oh-No-Mics!

Sure he needs no mics after what he's saying. He'd just whisper this and even that mouse in my kitchen would be listening with ears all pricked up.

Lax Gaurav, not all my 300 hundred words are going to be in third person. Here I go with why 'I' want all those things you own. Being true to me, I have to reason this out with you rather than just say my thing the way it is. I completely agree with your 'deriving sense of identity' theory. Though, the hierarchy in my case drastically differs - relating with people > experiencing life > creating meaning > owning things. I live my life (subconsciously) around this structure.

So, coming to the point (with a bit of bush beating, I agree!) I’d want all that stuff you own to give-away to different people who mean a lot to me. I’m really trying to put this across in the most non-crass (read refined) way and I see myself super stumbling. But what the heck, I have my reasons pieced out.

Before I hit 300 (and with no six packs, arghh!! Where did that come from?!) I must spell out which part of my life deserves what.

All your furniture and soft furnishings will sit very pretty in my sister’s new house. She has a little of her own. I’d like to add to it what you own.

All your electronic goods, appliances and utensils (including the hundreds of bar glasses) will find their place at my parents place.

All your clothes, books and DVDs will make a perfect surprise for my brother-in-law. He will take them to bed while my sister is with the soft furnishings (Hahaha!) I might just borrow some books from him but that again depends on your collection.

Three hundred it is, but I must say luck to you! Though, I don’t know if you’ve really cracked it this way.

P.S.: I live with none of them. I live alone. And, I don’t lie :)

A lump in my throat

- I see that aeroplane going across the skies...it's gone now. May be it's somewhere behind the clouds. And aah, now I see it again. It's a game I play with the plane - where it has the vantage. I'm just playing on 'plane' luck and still hope to win. The optimism that makes me, me.

- Music.

- And then music again.

- Music, that speaks volumes. Brings back from chapters that were closed forever.

- Millions cheering for that one cause. I'm a part of that million, but I hear and feel my presence so distinct. It's difficult to get lost in the crowd, really difficult.

- Childhood. It was all so simple and all so sorted. They made it like that. It doesn't get made like that anymore.


- He hugs the son, the son holds him tight. A moment between the two, just the two.

- A pat on the back and it's forms.

My Rain-quote

It's that time of the year when we discuss the most happening superhit release of this season at the box office - "Rain and the City"! Yep, its housefull everywhere because with the mad show-ers you're probably on house arrest. The window is perpetually shut because it's raining diagonally man! The rains seemed to have done their homework and learnt their maths well - they're calculated and do their bit just when you plan to step out of the house. Welcome to the mumbai monsoons - I can't help but mention the infamous bollywood dialogue, "Mumbai mein do cheezon ka thikana nahi, ek ladki aur doosri baarish".

Every year, come monsoons and come news channels with water logged Mumbai 'Images of the Day'. Though this is just the onset of the monsoons, last Friday it rained like it hadn't in a hundred years or so. After we wound up the show and celebrated the fact that Suren and I will not have to see each others faces for two whole days, we hopped in to our daily home drop vehicle. We'd just reached Matunga when our fancy Nepali cab fella turned back and very matter-of-factly said 'gaadi isse aage nahi jayegi'. We didn't give up as easily as he did and insisted on trying to figure some lane and by-lane to get to Bandra somehow - which we later realised were lame and by-lame to say the least. After doing a round-a-round and a couple of more, like haara hua juaris, we got back to the Mirchi studio and spent the night looking for food and drink. We managed couple of sandwiches and hot chocolate after ransacking the canteen - just to get fired by the pantry fella the next morning (Suren ate like he hadn't known food before this, or was it the sandwiches I'd made. Umm...)

Being in the thick of all this, we at Mirchi decided to start a blog with all sorts of details that would help you, me aur aavaam on a rainy day. I'm putting down couple of numbers which you can probably print-out and stick on your desk or study. Trust me, the rains never tell and come. So like Baden Powell said - Be Prepared!

Be nice, be useful and befriend!! Post other numbers, traffic details, etc. which you think can help combat the rains (yes, battling the rains in Mumbai is close to playing one of those on PS2. You got to get your strategy in place before-hand) Leave a comment and we'll take it from there. But in all this stress remember, rain - feel it on your finger tips, hear it on your window panes, coz loves coming down like rain...!

Some important numbers
For emergency complaints like building or wall collapses - 1916
Mumbai Traffic Helpline - 3040 3040
Fallen trees, short circuits or fire - 2308 5991

Electricity Complaints
South Zone - 2218 4242
North Zone - 2414 5888/ 2414 4891
BSES Ghatkopar - 2500 0770
BSES Goregaon & Malad (E) - 2840 2411
BSES Goregaon (W) - 2872 1312/2872 2743
BSES Andheri (E) - 2832 8321

Why does the buttered side of the bread slice have to hit the floor first?

Murphy's Law is what they call it. And speaking after being hit with experience time and again - its one law that can never go wrong. No matter how hard you try - you can go on a date and do an under-the-table sequence with GOD, but if Lord Murphy has planned for things to go wrong, they will!

Instances that reaffirm my faith in Lord Murphy and his Law:

- The lights seldom go off in my society. It's one of those swanky places that make it to the headlines even if there's a micro-mini load shed of 5 seconds. I recently had a show down with the landlord and was moving out with bags and lots of baggage. While shifting, first the lights called it time-out for three whole hours and then the lift decided to call it a day-off. So what if I was shifting out of the 7th floor. Its Murphy man, Murphy!!

- Every noon, the Western line trains are astonishingly empty. Here's a day when I'm wincing with pain due to a bad cheese pizza I devoured the night before. The least I can do to feel better is park myself somewhere on the train. But nope! Its some fancy morcha happening in Dadar and the world and it's brother are travelling with me. Place to sit ? Eh, it's a party even if I get a place to stand on my toes and not breathe into underarms that are in the pits!

- The ticket line at Lower Parel station is always the shortest and after a long day at work I'm never in a hurry. It’s a stroll and amble that I pace myself with. But that was the day I had a date lined up and was super late. The scene at Lower Parel station - the coupon validating machine is not working, somebody's flicked the purple ink stamp-pad, only one window's functional, the guy at the window is super-old and super-slow and there is an ess line multiplied by two outside the ticket counter!

- Couple of other times when Lord Murphy never fails to surprise me - my iron doesn’t work the day everything including my face is all wrinkled and crumpled, for years the water pipes have dried dry on Holi afternoons, my phone battery dies when I'm waiting for that one phone call...

Sometimes I think I'm the chosen one and then sometimes I think - it can happen to anyone of us, may be I'm just the chosen one.

Pineapple pastries - if you please

Some wise old hag once commented on why she'd matched wavelengths with a radio station and decided to paint her face with the voice rather than putting her money where the face was! I couldn't be in her boots better.

It's IN THE FACE! I've been conned in to a 'cake making' session that changed the way the world would see me. Ironically, the world would see me after I joined a 'radio station' (for the record - we're not yet talking visual radio in India)

Plot: Its a photoshoot for the radio station website. I've been summoned 3 hours before the 1st click. They'd want to paint me, I know. The make-up man put stuff on my face and sat their cramming it up with the brushes of the world, for two whole hours. The one line brief given to them, which they seemed to have sworn to follow down to the T was - 'make these nuts look gorgeous'. After the million powder puffing and packing, they said they'd 'touch-me-up' (yew!) just before the final click. In all this play, I wasn't shown the mirror even once! Its the mirror-might-crack story they belted out.

Excerpt of a conversation between the Hair Stylist (HS) and the Make-Up Man (MUM) with my brain-bouncing thoughts in brackets -

MUM: Haay, I'm toh loving her eyes. Bouu fine aankh chhe taro baby (What's with this baby-ing me man?! But keep the faith Meera. These guys know best - so you'd have to bloody believe. )

HS: Hmm... what should I do with her hair (Bol tere saath kya suluk kiya jaye! My hair, for a change wanna ask me?)

MUM: Nothing, Bas straighten kari nak (Just straighten the hair? But isn't it super straight anyway? Okay, whatever you say. So what if its MY hair!)

MUM: Accha look at her eyes. I'm giving her the look that Bips had in 'No Entry'. Ene suit karse na?(!#$%^&*?!?!?!)

HS: Go for it! (!#$%^&*!!!)

I could tell you more of the conversation that scarred my memory forever. My face under scrutiny and cross examination (just a reminder, I work for a radio station!)

Lights camera and shoot! They shot me and how I wish I could shoot them back, in the true sense of the word! Well, the pictures were promptly delivered the next day on a CD. 'The Pineapple Pastry' shot from various angles. We've got Royal icing on the cheeks and a cherry on the nose.

Seeing is believing. Take a dekko and pour in condolences. Its a face-off between me and me. Sigh.


Make-up is so rightly called make up.

They literally 'made me' up!

Striking Tapes And Chaar Paanch-oing At PAPAs

I'm whiling away time, it's Wednesday night 10pm. It's a long day tomorrow but I decided to get online. Whoa Rujuta's online too. She had to do someone a favour with a ton of work and I had to do her a favour by giving her company - We're each others favour-ites, you see. In that not too flavoury an atmosphere, we set out to USL. We handed over tapes to the 'concerned person' who without any concern said, "chaar paanch ghante baad aao". Not to forget, we climbed the 4 floors to USL and could barely hear each other as we whispered - Sudhir Mishra was shooting for a film near the lift and hey it was 'sync sound'. So...!

We decided to spend the 'chaar paanch ghante' at Papa Pancho. Midnight or may be even 1:00 A M, but we want paani purees if you pleeease. After much pleeease-ing and a lil more he decided to do us the 'favour' - pretty much the order of the day. Meanwhile we got a serviette and started making a list of 'People I Really Hate', 'People I Kind ov Hate But Not That Much..', 'People Who Have Given A Whole New Meaning to Otherwise Ordinary Events in My Life' - like Aditya did to Birthdays :D

Yay!

After the chaar paanch ghante (which seemed like K Jo's next blockbuster) saath saath aanth minute (thankyou to the serviette and the people we know in our lives) we showed up like losers, collected the tapes and insisted on using the lift this time (yes, Mr. Sudhir Mishra, you had people terrified, petrified and pakao-fied with you that evening. You even made the receptionist keep the phone off the hook. Not like she complained though!!)

We burnt the brunt with a tobacco stick and happily went back to our respective homes - to get back to each other the next morning and say 'hey, yesterday was fun huh!'. And I took it a step further. Here it is :)