Silent Nights

The nights are dark and long
The bliss of sleep denied
Dawn hearkens with its song
But the silence is not defied.

The only sounds that break
The shrouded silence around
The fan, air conditioner and
The whistles of guards on rounds

Silence gives way to solitude
Solitude to Self
Occupied with its vagaries
Oblivious to the world.

A sudden jingle...
Sounds like somebody's anklets
Inexplicable fear, a sudden dash
Destination - safe in bed.

On Happiness

Found this poem Happiness by Carl Sandburg in my diary.

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them.
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered along the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children
and a keg of beer and an accordion.

Our hats off to the silent genius

I am no great fan of cricket, apart from a passing interest generally displayed on lazy afternoons. My insider's dope on the personal lives of the cricketers is next to nil and heck I don't even have a autograph. No cricket bat/ball adorns my room and if someone invites me for a game of cricket, I settle down comfortably into the role of an arm chair critic. But after what I saw yesterday, my admiration for one man has reached the zenith - Sachin Tendulkar. Look at his figures. My eyes were riveted as this man stood his ground and took those amazing shots wherever it was possible and made the impossible seem achievable. His team mates came and went and contributed next to nothing (except for the likes of Sehwag and Raina) while this man chased, ran and exerted himself to every possible extent to show that this was not just a game of cricket. There was lot at stake. Even if he had to go down, he had to make noise and show that the victory would not be easy as long as the likes of him were around. That is why it was such a pleasure to watch him defeat the well-planned strategies of Ricky Ponting. And that is why it was with a sad sigh that I watched him fall down as the exhaustion finally caught up with him. And that is why I watched with anger as the rest of his teammates destroyed what he had so painstakingly built. It was like Taj Mahal being built in a fast forward mode, and then being subjected to brute destruction. While the better known of his teammates hog the headlines with their adverts, their driving Hummers without registration, and their occasional forays into the world of fashion and glamour, this silent genius prefers to rise to the occasion, like a lion. Hats off to Sachin Tendulkar!

Mountains and Minarets

I still remember when me and D walked in My Home Rainbow on one sultry March evening, weighing the possibilities of us moving here. I was not happy with the fact that the apartment was on the sixth floor. But then, here was something about the apartment which we could not quite figure out. At that point of time, it was probably the commuting factor that had clinched the deal. My university and D's office were only twenty minutes away and I can safely forget about shelling out pots of cash for the autos.

The day we moved in, I made my first mug of tea and walked into the balcony. What I saw held my breath. On one side were the Jubilee Hills and of course all those cars on the road. And on the other were those Qutb Shahi tombs. Minarets against the skyscape reminding me of years of legacy that Hyderabad possesses.

Rainbow was fun unlimited. I fondly remember those punctuated occasions when D and I used to give a critical running commentary of the movie shootings that used to take place in Rainbow. Or surprise our neighbours with our blaring rock music and occasional hollering. Weekdays of work and fun and weekends of movies and eating out. It became our agenda to visit every restaurant in the city and try at least a starter if not the whole menu. That was our goal- to be achieved in ten months. But before we could do that, there came the clarion call to move on to the greener pastures of life.

As preparations are afoot for all the festivity that G-607 is gonna witness soon, those lazy movie sessions on the laptop and cooking sessions with D hollering from the kitchen whenever she chooses to experiment over the weekends have suddenly acquired the status of the sunniest days of my life. (of late I am not dreading these sessions because nowadays what D dumps on me to eat is quite edible ;-))

Our policy had been maximum utilisation of the resources, especially with reference to the elevator that had this weird tendency of becoming unoperational. Resources also included the track around the apartments which were used for evening walks. And as we went on walks, it was a standard policy for us to search for all the Honda City's, Civic's and Skoda's. D's dream of clicking a picture near the Honda Civic didn't however materialise. (She can safely forget about it as she is soon gonna have a chauffeur-driven BMW. Hehehehe!)

From mountains and minarets, we moved on to various things that we had come to love in this home. It was a place were D and I could just be ourselves. And more than that, it was, at the end of a hard day's work, a cozy home for us. We will miss you G-607, My Home Rainbow. Bye!

On my sorority life and reality.

With all my pretensions to being a queen, unqueenly is what you would call me on any average day. I'd like my clothes and accessories to be simple and comfortable,
since I have to run around for cabs, autos and of late, public transport. There is no way I can walk around on pencil tip heels (the roads of Hyderabad would not permit me to do that) nor dress in loud colours (by nature I prefer remaining discreet). So when N sent me a Sorority Life invite on Facebook, I dilly - dallied for sometime and then made the plunge.

Hell, I discovered I could make lots of money just by clicking on those buttons called 'organise events.' Great. Soon I had a bank account, and each time I deposited money, I wished it was for real. I could pass various levels and publish my success stories on my wall. (Friends were flummoxed for sometime.) Somebody would pop up on facebook chat and I would ask them to scoot, coz I was busy playing and putting money in bank and acquiring lots of glam. Heck - I wasn't even gonna wear most of those clothes in real life.

I was hooked. Every morning, I would exhaust all my accrued energy on the game and wait for it to replenish so that I could quickly move to next level. Soon, I got a car, two more and then there was no looking back. For someone who gazes at all the audis and mercs in hyd, this was some kind of vicarious satisfaction.

However, something was not altogether right. I discovered I was losing money and confidence. Further investigation showed that I was being attacked by people whom I didnt even know. Worse...I didnt know how to retaliate. I was informed that I was losing because of my limited house (the number of girls on your side and the glam that they have helps you fend off attacks from others.)

But I grew over it in time. What mattered was the money and glam I was acquiring. Soon with the passing levels, I could play some interesting games which now keep me occupied. Consequently my progress on sorority life has become slower. Now I am a Level 41 Diva and the last I checked, I had close to 5 million dollars in my bank account. Only catch is that all of it is not real.

That brings me to the whole point about this - why at all do we have an online life? Why are we more of netizens and less of citizens? Is it the fact that our online alter ego can be all that we are not in reality? Does it offer a medium which remotely approximates to real life? Is that why we dabble in it? Is that the logic behind our addiction to constantly updating our online status? Or is it just our gregarious nature?

Bhandi Chai

For the uninitiated, bhandi chai is a heaven's blessing on those windy and tiring days. When you can make yourself comfortable and have those few sips of warm tea while the wind goes all about you. Just in case you may think otherwise, bhandi chai can also be had on normal days. Only that on those special days listed above, it tastes twice blest. A lot lot different from the usual mug of tea that has become my ritual every morning and evening. It is sold by those vendors who tend to congregate near bus stops. Along with the palli (ground nut) vendors, they make a killing combination. But lets forget about the palli vendors for the moment and focus on the chai walla.

You just walk up to him, ask for your cup of tea and pay something like one tenth of what you would pay in upmarket restaurants. Then, if it is the university, you can comfortably sit under the tree and take those refreshing sips. And of course, also look around at life in all its hues and colours.

The last time I had bhandi chai, I had to catch an eary morning bus. D's dad insisted on dropping me at the bus stop. The weather was nippy and it was gonna be a good ten minutes before my bus would arrive. 'How about a cup of tea?'he inquired. The cup in question is actually one of those small plastic ones. That was my first encounter with bhandi chai and I was concerned about the hygiene angle. But as those sips went in, I felt a warmth and an assurance that I will make this trip without being frozen to ice.

Today there was too much of information to analyse. I gave up, shut down the system and walked down to the university cafeteria. There was a lot of excitement going on about the student elections, and the policemen looking at everyone as a potential trouble maker. But hell,... who cares. I made myself comfortable with my cup of tea under a tree, savoured it thoroughly. And in the process, thanked the heavens above for those simple pleasure of life.

Not allowing me to express myself

The song which played while I wait fuming for the customer service head is that of airtel thanking the people of Andhra Pradesh for making it the best mobile service in the state. Fiddlesticks! Ask me and I will explain the irony.

I had taken a new post paid number of airtel. Idea had demanded that if I wanted to get my ideas across to people, I should hang precariously onto the balcony of my flat for my life and my limb. The Customer Care assured me that they were trying for a better network coverage which should be through in a few days. My wiser friends nodded darkly (they had missed neither the experience, nor the meaning) and said that they had been under the same delusion for more than a year now. So I decided to move to what were the apparently greener pastures of Airtel. If my experience with Idea had been that of dealing with deluded people, Airtel was worse. They justified as to why they were 'apparently' deluded.

It all started with that message which claimed that due to negative address verification, I was going to be disconnected.I had to contact the customer care immediately. What followed was worse that getting lost in Franz Kafka's castle. And the epilogue to the story is stranger.

CCE 1 - Madam, our servers are busy now. The status of your connection will be available only after half an hour.

After half an hour

CCE 2 - There seems to be some problem with your address verification. Please contact the address verification department.

The bloke was decent enough to give me a number which did not work. So I dutifully called Customer Service again.

CC3 - Why don't you try with a different SIM card? (assumption - I travel with different sim cards at a given point of time.. He was cheerful enough to attempt to help me though) Actually your address verification has turned out to be negative, though I don't know what it actually means.

Rude words from me and my call is escalated to the team lead.

Team lead - You have to pay an additional 500 rupees by the end of today since you dont live in a family accomodation.

Polite question from my side as to why this was not told to me before elicited the same response. Change of tactics - I ask by when do I have to pay. Response - ASAP. By now I am furious and start yelling. I had the right to yell coz it had already been declared to the dealer that I don't live with a family and the payment to that effect had been made and any lame learner of English can see that the phrase 'negative verification' patently means something different from paying extra money and airtel cannot hold gun to the forehead of its post paid customers like this. Moreover the writing on the wall was clear - this process means that within a week of your taking a post paid connection, you would get a message that would shake you out of your living daylights like this. I started threatening legal action. That is when the call was escalated to the Head of the Customer Service.

I will spare the details and his justifications, but I did threaten him of legal action since all my documents were in place. In his 'I am going out of my way for your sake' capacity, he assured me of direct access to him and requested me to make the payment by 8.00 pm that night to avoid being disconnected.

Then more out of malicious intent, I call the Customer Care again to find the status of my number

CCE 4 - (cheerfully) The number is working maam and there is no need to make any additional payment.


And to the end, the Customer Care Head (poor man,...I pity his wife who has to put up with this kind of talk everyday. Must be muttering the same sales talk in his sleep also) insisted that Airtel's procedures were the best in comparison to other services like Reliance and Idea, coz they give you the service but steal your data (god knows how this happens - whatever, this is definitely heterogeneous scenarios yoked together by violence) When I confronted him the next day, he was clueless as to how CCE 4 could give a different take on the situation and instead chose to escape into singing odes in the praise of the procedures of airtel.

Whatever, I have not made that payment till date. And my number continues to work.

Disclaimer - The above is a reconstruction of the conversation that I had with Airtel over a period of three hours (plus an hour the next day). Since it is based on conversations recollected in tranquility (after having established suitable distance between myself and the events) I cannot be legally held accountable for the remarks expressed anywhere in this post. :-)