Train Journey - The PC Monitor

This was back when I was in college, II^nd year. My father had bought me a brand new PC, oh yes, back then PCs were ‘the’ things to have, this was before the whole mobile and laptop and tablet revolution you see. J

So where was I? Yea, the new PC. So for those who are not aware, a PC (Personal Computer), consists of three parts, the CPU, Monitor and rest of the parts (keyboard, mouse, speakers etc). Of these, the monitor and CPU have to be packed separately and consisted of two cartons of my luggage when I had to travel  back from Lucknow (my hometown) to Bhopal (where my college was). This was a 13 hour journey. Not too long you would say, well…read on.

I was supposed to board a Mumbai-bound train which started from Gorakhpur if I’m not mistaken, reached Lucknow around 12:30 at night and reached Bhopal at 1 o’clock in the afternoon the next day. So ideally, this was supposed to be a fun journey. All you had to do was get on board sleep through most of the journey and then wake up just about 2-3 hours before you reached. Well, that’s what I thought too! But I was sourly mistaken….

My parents had come to drop me off at the station and well, we were all very emotional because well, I was going. My Mum was on the verge of tears and Papa was trying hard not to show how sad he was. My sister was trying to make jokes about the whole matter, hoping it would lighten our mood. But all this lasted  only till the train came. After that, all hell broke loose!

Back then we used to travel by the sleeper coach mostly (students, remember?) and the best compartment used to be the ladies’ compartment, seats 1 to 6. It ensured that if nothing else, at least the company will be all female, we all know how safe it is for women in India. So well, getting back to the story, this time too, I had got my seat reserved in the ladies compartment. It was the upper, number 3 if I remember correctly. This compartment is right next to the coach entrance making it all the more convenient for me since I had a lot of luggage to get off when I reached Bhopal., or so I thought..

When the train started entering into the station, we were all really sad but only until we got to my coach. And the sight was scary! There were people literally oozing out of the coach in every possible direction, it looked just like the scene from Schinder’s List where the Jews are stacked together in trains and sent to concentration camps, the only difference in this case being, well, people had voluntarily got on board and had paid for this.

What is worse is that these were all villagers. Now I personally don’t have anything against any person from any area but I am very particular about hygiene, which if you are from India you’d realize is not a very big deal for these people. My coach in particular was filled with females, actually married females sleeping, one on each berth. No wait, let me finish. From each berth I could see tiny hands, legs and in some cases heads hanging out of the berth. Each of these females were sleeping with at least two kids and judging by the way the children were spread around them, these females were not the best mothers. As for any possible leg space, it was filled with their huge trunks which they were taking with them. Now the next question that came to my mind was, these don’t look like the kind of females who would travel alone all the way from Gorakhpur to Mumbai on their own, where are the macho males that are supposed to order them around. And well, my question was answered soon enough, there was one man sitting crouched on the lower berth with a haggard old lady, she was presumably the mother-in-law and this man was the husband for all the three females. So one seat was for the MIL and son, one each for the wives and their two-three children and in the other two seats were me and this equally shocked other female.

As for my PC, because there was no space for me to keep it under the seats as is the norm so I kept a lot of my luggage in my berth (thank God for the top berth) except for the monitor, which had to be kept down in the way since it was too huge for my berth. You would think this was the end of my travails but sadly, you are mistaken.

While my family saw me off really, really tense about the crowd and the people (they didn’t get sleep that night), I was bracing myself up for the journey. By the time everything was settled in and I finally lay down, crouched up due to the luggage on my seat, the haggard old lady who was sort of the head of the family took out this carry bag filled with halwa (halwa is something like tapioca pudding only a lot more oily and a little less gooey) and that is when my real struggle began. To start with, I could not figure out why a perso would even want to eat halwa at 2 o’ clock in the morning but well, probably her dear son asked for it. Dagnab him! So well, this oldie started feeding him with her very own hands, which would have been fine had she not gone ahead and tried the same thing with her other bahus (daughter-in-laws) who were fast asleep. She would force open their mouths and stuff some of the halwa and then close it again. Weirdness galore! And why was all this a torture for me? Well, she was reaching out to each one of them by stepping on my monitor! Oh, the horror! And what’s worse was that whenever I tried to shoo her away, she thought I was irked because I thought she was dirty. So she would go on like, “Nahi hua tumhara dubba gundaa.”(Your box didn’t get dirty.)

I tried everything from scaring her to telling her that it was a TV which might break but to no avail. As a result, I could not get a wink of sleep the whole night through since I would have to keep watch on the stupid woman standing on my monitor. Eventually I told her that she could keep stuff on it but not sit on it. this seemed to please her and my monitor now became her dining table, a small price to pay considering if she stood on it, I would anyway have had no monitor in the first place.

Towards the morning she had finally settled in and gone to sleep much to my relief. After jumping over a couple of villagers who were sleeping around on the ground, I finally managed to freshen up and managed to have a little something crouched up with my other luggage. But my, what a journey! The ladies while their mother in law was asleep tended to all their eight children who well created a real ruckus but well, I was way past caring by then, my monitor was safe.

By the way, my train reached two hours late and I almost wanted to kill myself by then. By the time I finally got off, I was all but insane. 

Things Professors say

Well, after an eight-year long hiatus I decided to go for my MBA. But, this post is not about me and how I adjusted to the place. This is about the awesome professors that I had and the funny things they said.

Take 1
The first incident was in one of those very technical classes, DMOP, where pretty much nobody understood anything, not because the professor couldn't teach well, he was really good btw, but because it was really really really hard core operations and it didn't make sense to most of us.

So, to keep us engaged, the professor tried to bring in a little bit of humour into the classes, hoping that it would help him understand if the students are atleast awake. So while going on with this process, he often cold called a few students. One such time he cold-called a person who was very very busy with his cell phone, due to which, he was looking down at the phone on his lap and not at the slides. Unfortunately for him, the professor noticed him and called him out. The guy looked up, the professor then asked him something very very relevant to the subject which I have already forgotten (its been all of 6 months since I studied that subject you know) and the student obviously did not know the answer. So the professor says, you might want to put away your cell phone, at which the student gave that incredulous look which said, "Hey, I WAS paying attention.", to which the professor said, I know you were looking at your cell phone, you cant be looking at your crotch! The whole class burst out laughing and that guy, well, he did not look at his 'crotch' throughout that class. :)

Take 2
Well, we had this tradition in which once a professor had finished his last class with us, we would call him for a group photo. It was on these lines that we invited our FADM professor (a real cool guy I must add, and well you will get to know this in a few minutes too) So well, FADM stands for Financial Accounting and Decision Making and the professor was explaining to us how to understand account statements, more importantly, how to write items in the Cash Flow Statement if I remember correctly. So well, he went on for quite some time when soon enough, it was time to end the class. And well, people were getting ready to invite him for our group picture when he was finishing up. But before we could say anything, he says,"Now that we have finished this, I am going for a well-deserved potty break." And off he went, before we could even fathom what he really had said!

Traxx

In India, one of the most convenient emerging form of transport is the 'shared' auto or Tata Sumo. You need to pay anything from between Rs. 5 to Rs. 40 and go from minimum distance of 5 kms to 30 kms without having to shell out a hefty sum.

But then, like every thing else, it is a mixed bag. If you want roses, you will get thorns too. That was my failed attempt at similies...or whatever. Anyway, back to the point. 'Shared' auto.

So this one time, in the peak of summers, my sister was to go in a 'shared' Sumo with my father. This is her exact narration of what happened. They had been trying to get a conveyance for quite some time and had pretty much given up, leaving them with no resort but to travel by this 'Shared' Sumo. Now the actual capacity of a Sumo is, 2 in front (driver + pillion) , 3 right behind, in the seat parallel to the drivers (engineer's description), and 6 right at the back in the opposing bench kinda seats that open at the rear. So how many does that add up to? 11. You're good! :P

The drivers being the greedy lot that they are...want to squeeze out (literally), every penny from you. So they want to fill up the WHOLE vehicle until there is absolutely no space to breathe. They fill in 3 ppl in the front ( excluding the driver) , 5 ppl right behind and 8 in the opposing benches.

Another important thing that you need to know is that my father CANNOT tolerate heat and when it is as hot as 45 degrees, he definitely didn't want to be scrunched up in the back with lots of people. He therefore chose the most preferable seat, the front seat. And when he came to know that there are 2 more people who're going to sit in the front with him, he decided to wait outside till they were 'stuffed' in. 

Finally the time came and the Sumo was full. So, my father, very conveniently went and sat in the corner-most part of the front seat. There was just one problem. The door wouldn't close. Then he tried, unsuccessfully, to twist and turn in order to fit in, but to no avail. 

The driver, during this whole time, did nothing but watch him try and fail, smiling all the time. Then, when my father had given up, he went up to him and said,"Saab thoda haath andar karke baithiye". My father, exasperated by now, complied. And then, the driver, who very well knew how to make his gaadi work for him, went, "Bang" "Bang" "Bang" ...you know how we try to close our suitcases when they are stuffed to the brim, exactly like that, except he didn't sit on the door (mostly coz he couldn't). By the fifth Bang, the door closed, he locked it and the vehicle started to move, with a very dazed man sitting in the corner and a girl rolling with laughter at the back. :)

Pickles

This was way back when I was in school, standard 8th I guess. It was a Saturday, a holiday, some time in June when amazingly, instead of it being scorchingly hot, the sky was overcast and weather was pretty good. This was the day Mum had chosen to make mango pickle. So, after all the heavy breakfast et al, she set out on the chore. There were loads and loads of raw mangoes that she had sliced and we were now in the process of mixing up the masalas for the pickle. Well, I should correct this, it wasn't we really, it was her with us on with our non-stop twitter about what happened in school, how our friends did this and that and blah blah. The solemn picture of patience, she would keep nodding and 'hmmm'ing to all that we said while we would go on with our incessant chatter. While on with this we were somehow reminded of about 5-6 pictures remaining in the reel of our Yashica camera (yes yes we had real cameras in my childhood, not digital ones and you only got 36 pictures in a reel so you would have to be very careful about what you clicked, unlike now, when people click pictures of just having tea everyday)

I had this idea of clicking 'natural' pictures which I was strictly warned against by Mum with her Papa-will-not-like-this-at-all speech. Nonetheless, I went ahead and got the camera and started clicking pictures much to her annoyance coz she felt she was too shabby to be clicked (again, bear in mind that my mum comes from an era where clicking pictures was a very formal affair). Anyway, the pictures started, Mini was a sweetheart and started posing immediately, holding a slice of the raw mango in her hand and pretending to eat it. After some time, the child in my Mum came to and she too decided to play along. It was at this time that I managed to catch Mummy right when she chewed into a big slice of the mango. It must have been real sour coz her grimace lasted for more than a minute, plenty of time for me to click a picture of hers. Her expression was unmatchable. In fact, that picture remains to be the cutest picture of hers that I ever clicked. But anyway, she drove me around the house for having taken the picture, coz unlike now, if something goes on film, it stays on forever and she wanted to have a 'good' picture clicked. By now, we were on the very last picture of the reel so Mum said she would click me. I don't exactly know what happened but just as soon as I handed the camera to her, it got 'clicked' accidentally and we had a big hearty laugh about the whole thing.
Later, when the photos came out, it turned out that it was not Mum's picture, but mine that was the funniest of the lot. Coz while hers was just a cute lady chewing on a super khatta mango, mine was that of a villager caught unawares in the city wala expression. So much for 'natural' photography. :)

The Moment

Back after a long time...real long I know...an year I guess...or more than one...but well...my blog, my wish :) ... arrogance works dude.

For a change, this is something that really touched me. Made me realise what togetherness is all about, and what it means to be MFEO, the cheesy acronym for - Made For Each Other
So, without further ado, here goes...

My husband and I had one of my dad's old friends come over to visit us. It had been pending for quite some time now and well, it was real fun when they came. Over tea, we started talking about various things under the sun. Being close to sixty, Uncle tends to be a little absent-minded. He forgets people's names, places he went to, what happened at that time and things of the sort, but he never forgets his friends. He must have a million friends, the warm and lovely person that he is and so, whatever thing or place or event you talk about, he has a friend in it...or related to it...or a part of it. I have finally stopped getting all amazed about this whole affair, earlier it fazed me out. Really!
Aunty on the other hand is the mature one...she is one of the most cool mums that I've seen, very down-to-earth, easy-going and great to talk to. And man, have never seen any person as concerned as her. She remembers everthing about everyone all the time. Is a wonderful host even if u reach their place in the middle of the night, unannounced.
In a way, uncle and aunty compliment each other.

Here's how...
Us: We just went out looking for a car at XYZ Car Shop.
Uncle: XYZ car shop...XYZ car shop....rings a bell... (gives a questioning look to aunty)
Aunty: It's your friend's shop.
Uncle: Oh yes, oh yes...my friend's shop...he was with me in college...great guy...is an excellent speaker...Pradeep...Pradeep...(questioning look number 2)
Aunty: Sinha, Pradeep Sinha...whose daughter got married last year
Uncle: (satisfied and smiling happily...having remembered Pradeep) yea, great guy...ya, his shop. Tell me if you want to go there again, I'll go with you. Great guy that Pradeep.
Aunty: (to us) yes, the wedding was wonderful. the groom is very good too, works for ABC company...we've known the girl since childhood, she looked wonderful on that day.
Uncle: What was her name again?
Aunty: Kalpana
Uncle: -----lost in thought-----
Aunty gives me a wink.
Topic changes to weddings now...
Uncle: Recently we went to a wedding, in Chandigarh...in Jan...eh...when was the wedding?
Aunty: 12th Jan...it was Uncle's oldest friend from school, he is in the army...his son was getting married.
Uncle: Yes, yes...he is a colonel in the army...and his son...(looks at aunty in a help-me-out-here way)
Aunty: Virender
Uncle: has studied...(more help needed)
Aunty: Is an MBA
Uncle: who works in....
Aunty: Gurgaon
Uncle: in...
Aunty: WXEG company
Uncle: ----------smiling contently------
Aunty: -------smiling lovingly-------
Silence of a few seconds when they are looking into each other's eyes and suddenly they both burst out laughing.

Sigh...wish I have such camaraderie with my beau 30 years after our wedding. It is people like these who reinstate your belief in marriage, love, understanding and togetherness. And yes, they make it look like it is the most effortless thing ever.

Hats off to them!

Child Abuse!!

This incident is of the time when it was OK for parents to beat their children to discipline them. There was no human rights commission set up to "save" them from "injustice" or whatever it is called and very frankly, it always worked. Children can very often be very hard to handle and well, when it comes to trying one's patience, they sure excel in it. This was just one of those times...

At the time of this incident, I was in seventh standard and my sister was in third. The only thing she loved more than teddy bears was sleep. There was never a day when she didn't have to be nagged and pushed and pulled and threatened to wake up to go to school. She was always grumpy and behaved like she was doing a favor to all mankind by getting ready to go to school. It was my father's job to wake us up and see to it that we reach our bus stand well in time. And, hence, there were a lot of un-pleasantries shared between him and my sis. Everyday, he would start waking her up half an hour in advance, only to find that she woke up later by exactly a half hour than the scheduled time. And, then she would make up for the 'lost' sleep (due to my dad's nagging) in the loo, in the bath, and at every possible place on earth. This was her idea of getting back at my dad for waking her up. And obviously, we got late for the bus, there were times when we rushed up to it and got it in the nick of time and there were times we were way too late even to see it go. At all those times, my dad would have to take us in his scooter to the next closest bus stand where the bus came for a second trip...and he hated it sure as hell, because that got him late for work and my dad hates being rushed. He is a planner, he always charts out the plan well in advance and never waits till the last minute. The whole incident obviously upset him badly coz his day didn't start the way it was supposed to.



Coming back to our story, on that day, we didn't even see the bus go. And this was after having literally having to push my sister out of the house. For some reason, she had been extra obstinate and mean and took thrice (not twice but thrice) as much time to get ready as compared to usual. As a result, my dad was obviously extra angry, and well, when words fail you, the hands automatically start working. So my sister was in for a thrashing...and a bad one at that, since once my dad got angry, it took him quite long to rid himself of the anger...more importantly, when the object of his fury was right in front of him. At first, he started scolding her at which she very nonchalantly replied that had he not woken her up in the first place, all this could be avoided. This was much more than what my dad could handle and he started beating her up left and right. Looking at my dad hitting her so hard, my mum was terrified and tried hard to stop him but to no avail. Then she hit upon a brilliant idea, and said, why don't you let me beat her up, to which my dad gladly agreed, why, I fail to understand. But, you see, when you get someone else to do your job, you don't get satisfaction and that was exactly what happened with my dad. He started prodding my mum asking her to hit harder, "Aur maaro, aur maaro...abhi kuch nahi hua hai", and things to that effect. By the way, all this was happening at 6:30 in the morning, in a quite peaceful neighborhood. And my aunt had come over the previous day and was sound asleep in the bedroom till the moment she heard loud cries of my father.
She literally ran all the way to the living room half-scared and half-asleep and fully terrified and in between her huffing and puffing asked, "Kahan hai chor? Kahan hai chor?" (where's the thief?).
Turns out she thought we had caught a thief in the act in the wee hours of morning and were in the process of beating him up. It took her a good ten minutes to realize it was not a thief and only her dear old niece who was being punished.
Till this day, she narrates this incident to one and all and tells them what a temper my dad has. ;)

A game of Flush

It is customary to play flush (teen-patti) in most households in Diwali, I fail to know the reason behind this tradition, but then again, what the heck!, as long as everyone is enjoying it, who cares. It was the night of Diwali, and was way past bed-time, about half past midnight, we were all about to leave from my uncle's house (everyone was invited to their place for dinner), when my uncle came up with the plan of playing cards. There was a lot of indignation about the plan, with people citing reasons from being sleepy to tired to just not interested. But as has always been, my uncle always has his way and finally everyone agreed to play "one round" of the game, I have no idea whom we were fooling. Snacks were layed out (inspite of just getting done with food), a sheet was spread on the carpet, the uncle took out a brand new deck of cards one of which was distributed to each one of us to fix places for everyone, the one having the highest denomination being the one who stays in his place while the rest had to move and sit next to him, highest to lowest denomination of cards. My uncle got the biggest card in this case, the queen of hearts and so he stayed put. The rest of us started shuffling around depending upon the cards that we had, there was a lot of disagreement about who should sit where, how fat everyone had gotten, how unflexible we all had gotten, how sitting on the floor was a forgotten art, how in the 'good old days' people were never bothered by all these things, how the times have changed and everything had "modernized" (it is important to note that anytime anyone talks about modernization, it is always looked down up, specially when there are a lot of elders involved) and many more things to that effect. Eventually, we all settled down after much pushing and pulling and the game was set to begin. Let me add in here that we were about sixteen people, including my Uncle, who was the sole proprietor of the game. Each of our cards were returned to one of my cousins (Uncle's son) who was allotted the responsibility of distributing the cards. He started the tast with absolute finesse and began counting the cards, which unfortunately added up to 51 only. He counted them twice and could still not come up with the magic figure of 52. He was admonished and scolded for being so stupid as to having finished engineering and still not being able to count to 52 and then the cards were recounted by almost every other person who volunteered, only to see to their dismay that the cards were still 51. It was then that someone came with a brilliant idea of laying the cards out one at a time to check which one had gone missing. Imagine everyone's shock when that card happened to be the 'Queen of Hearts'. Everyone tried to remember who had gotten it and it was not long before it dawned on the people that it was Uncle who had gotten it. By then it was already half past one and everyone very angrily (only as much as they could get away with, with Uncle) asked Uncle to return the card. So he lifted his right hand, then his left, then shifted to the right and then back to the left...to not find the card anywhere, consequently, the people sitting next to him were asked to shift around, move, get up and dust their dresses to produce the coveted card. But the card, it seemed, had a plan of its own and had vanished into thin air. When all of us had almost lost our heads and couldn't figure out how a card which was very visible 5 mins ago could manage to disappear...Uncle opened his wallet...only to find, the "Queen of Hearts", lying safely inside.The rest, as they say, is history.