Sunday, June 16, 2013

Cheeni & I



If there ever was a person diametrically opposite to me, you know my anti-christ or something it would definitely be Cheeni.

Cheeni & I had been acquaintances in school and for obvious reasons we were not the best of buddies or even good buddies for that matter. She was just one of the attractive girls I was in touch with!  So it was only about an year after school had ended (as fate would have it) & my course poetry book due with her got us in touch and despite our every human characteristic in direct contradiction to each other we became friends and continue to be(or try to be :P). Some friendships complete you. Getting in touch with people introduces you to a side which you never had but a side which you sometimes wish you had.

I’ll give you a brief idea about Cheeni: In my entire life each time I have called her (especially after we joined our respective colleges) 95% of the time chances are she’s partying outside and the rest 4.5% chances are she’s partying in-house.  The usual protocol or the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) of our call is:

Me:                              Jai Hind!
Cheeni:                       WHATTT?? (Loud noises in the background, people laughing, music blaring)
Me:                             I SAID JAIIIII HINDDDD!
Cheeni:                       Hahahaha!! Okk where are you?
Me: (shouting):          No the question is Where are you??
Cheeni:     You know I’m at this place and there is this party...  (this is usually when I get                distracted by the background noise or the blaring music) blah blah blah…. Something something something…
Me:                            Good for you! Call you later then.
Cheeni:                      Yo yo! But do call me at

To be honest I call her sometimes just to be rejected like this which gives me great moral authority later in playing the victim (I call you so many times but you're always soo busy. *sigh* *sigh*) but sometimes she startles me by picking up the phone and telling me she’s NOT partying:

Me:                              Jai Hind!
Cheeni:                       Jai Hind Popeye! Hw r u?
Me:                            there…is..no..noise…in…the…background??
Cheeni:                    Yaa I’m at home today.. I’m not that much of party person as you make me out to be. You just happen to call always at the wrong time.. Say wazzup?
Me:                             okyeah that means I’ll have to talk?
Cheeni:                      Yes.. are your notes ready?

OK the story behind the notes is. When we became friends Cheeni was a big talker she’d just chat chat chat like birds chirping all day in a garden and as for me- I could hardly come up with anything to say at all. She'll just finish off a story in middle and tell me:

Cheeni:           “Okk I have been talking for a long time your turn to speak”
Me:                 “Ummmmmm”
Cheeni:           "Anything idiot.. just open your mouth and say. Things like what did you do today? What did you eat? Are you planning to go somewhere, if at all?”
Me:                 “Ummmmmm”
Cheeni:           “Yes come on you can do it”
Me:                 "Ummmmmm”
Cheeni:           “I’m not talking till you are. You give me a feeling I bore you to death”
Me:                 “Ummmmmm”
Cheeni:           "Grrrrrrrrr… AGGGGHHHHH…. !@#$%&”

So after some of these conversations she told me I have to keep my notes ready for talking. I was however instructed to keep a diary ready with all the conversations that I have planned to undertake while talking to her. With my un-happening indoor life I had nothing much to say to the highly extroverted and outgoing uptown party girl. I was aware, through her, that a world does exist outside like they sometimes show in movies.  So I call Cheeni always after I have lived a sizable amount of my life and I have few stories to throw around and also I make it a point to make Cheeni aware of my whereabouts if I'm at a place even remotely interesting.

Text:

Hi Cheeni yaa u were so right about this movie. This movie is awesome.

To be translated as:
  •        You told me about a movie and I was paying attention.
  •        I have followed your advice and actually/physically gone out to catch the movie.
  •       I agree with your choice (Voila!)


Despite all these years we have met very few times in person and as expected we have always ended up as tragedy friends. Cheeni is not a text person not even a facebook person so my interactions are only limited to calling via phone.  As fate would have it (as you know it always has it’s way) Cheeni & I have met very very few times and after every single meeting (I assure you without a rule) we have ended up not speaking to each other for months at end. It has gone sometimes as far as termination of our friendship but you know distance mends and we are still on threshold of calling each other “friends”.



Cheeni doesn't know the name of the State I am in. (her geography isn't really upto the mark I’d say) and then ask her about the Mango stores in the NCR region she'll act like google maps to you. Take a right from that then a left from this second lane third shop ground floor and but the manager of that branch is not a nice guy. You go to the Mango store there you just take this right and that left this building that floor and Bang you are there.

Believe me six months I was in Goa and Cheeni could give me directions, almost like a smartphone GPS voice app., where she has been a tourist quite a few times. Okk where are you? Alright then you can go to this this and this place if you go that place you can go here here and here and I'm not talking about the beaches or the churches. She can tell you the best of places to have exotic foods and places you can buy  expensive clothes.

Cheeni is always “on the go” she has a shopping list ready, places to go list ready, next travelling plan ready and the things to cook list super-ready. See no wonder she has so much to speak about. I on the other hand speak about which Osho book I have read which book I will be reading next and what did I think about the world. My life is so interesting inside my head. 

I wonder many-a-times how come Cheeni & I are still friends at all!

Monday, June 10, 2013

You Don't Mess With The SP

Having fashion sense has never been my forte you know. That's why I’m lucky to be in a job where I don't have to wake up daily and look at the perplexing phenomenon my closet is and think... Hmmmm.. What am I going to wear today? Now that I am spoilt by the variety of choices but my choices usually have the set not-wearing-this-today criteria:

    1.     What was I wearing yesterday? 
    2.     Which one is the least wrinkled?
    3.     Which one has not been washed in last two weeks?
    4.     Which one has been mercilessly persecuted by SP?


Ask SP (Stoned Philosopher) she'll tell you in minute details all the embarrassing fashion faux pas I have committed in the four years of my college life. In fact I sometimes believe that she's just too much passionate conversing on it.

This one time (after almost three years after college and her getting married in meantime) I was at her home for dinner with her company colleagues cum friends and as usual I was building up this repo of me being this super-cool, witty, entertaining dude (hitting at some of the females in attendance there!). SP just couldn't take it anymore, after seeing me winning over the attention over her friends. So as-always-and-as-usual-and-as-expected she kicked in with two of her favourite stories (read: buried bygones) about me which she uses (successfully) to clip my wings and deflated the inflated ego I pretend to have. Okkk I believe you have the idea about how wicked this woman SP is.

So SP kicks in and starts narrating about the paucity of fashion sense I had ( please note the past tense) and how I used to be the laughing stock in her hostel room with her equally well-dressed and devilish girlfriends. The story usually works and then the same group laughing at my jokes now is laughing at me. Then the standard protocol happens: I start avoiding attention and the centre of attention shifts to SP.


Lesson bitterly learned~ You Don’t Mess with the SP.

(Keep her the cynosure of attention and live in peace & harmony)

(p.s.  no I’m letting you know the details of those stories so don’t expect them in rest of the article)

See the history is I was always told what to wear- first by my mother, then by my sister. Mummy's taste in clothes couldn't catch up with Youngistaan (wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt to a teenage party wasn’t cool anymore) and then my sister got married. So i was a fashion orphan. 

Also I was "in and out of relationships" so no-one could grill in me the much required and always deficit fashion sense.

(See I learnt this phase "in and out of relationships" in my Orkut career. Look if someone with oh-my-God!-tall-very fair-smart-handsome-dynamic personality like me declares he's without a girlfriend it will raise serious questions about his sexual orientation. So when anyone asked me my relationship status all I could come up was that "i'm in-and-out of relationships” and don’t you doubt me on this for this always worked like every single time).  

People in stable relationships respected you- “Oh my God he's at the advanced level of relationship he even has relationship issues." refer to my point 4 in this article. It also worked in gaining sympathy tears from girls.

She:    Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!! blah...blah...blah… So Parv you dating someone???? :P
Me:     hmmmm.. don’t ask… ahhh.. my life isn’t stable you know.. just in-and-out of relationships…    you know how weird some people can get L
She:    "Awwww.. Poor you. What happened?"
Me:     "hehe.. Yeah poor me.. Don't ask.. Dnt wanna talk about it.. “
She:    “Awwww…. Okk *hugs*… Now smile J
Me:    “Thanks sweetheart you are so nice J... so what you doin this weekend??. I was hoping to catch this movie…”

It also allowed me to dodge further personal and probing questions about my hypothetical relationship.

I have already introduced you to this wicked woman called Stoned Philosopher (SP). I now can’t resist winning your sympathy by narrating the excessive wickedness I have been subjected to by SP (My officially enemy No.1)

Yes the scene is again at a party hosted by SP in honour of her arrival on earth on that day some two and a half decades years back. I was there hanging around this really pretty girl I once had my prying eyes on, few years back and I believed she had shortlisted me too for the coveted and then recently vacated post of one of her boyfriends. After some animated discussions (which went on for a little too while) the girl remarked

Me:      Blah…Blah…Blah…
She:    Hahahahahahaha… Parv you’re so funny. (I added this part) But you appear so “Normal”.
Me:      Hahahahaha… Shhhh yeah I know I’m a crazy psycho. Now don’t tell this to anyone or I’ll end up in a Sanatorium.
She:    (Serious expression) No look I’m all for queer rights and I’m not joking but I have utmost respect for gay people… Blah…Blah...Blah…. I mean it’s really brave for you people to come out and accept it… Blah…Blah…Blah… But you don’t, I mean, look Gay to me. With all your funny-dating-with-girls stories.
Me:      Gulp… What? I’m sorry I think I had little too much to drink I’m hallucinating.
She:    You are having Orange Juice.
Me:      Huhh?? What did you say again... I think I should be seeing a psycho-therapist tomorrow itself. I’m definitely hallucinating.
She:    Now don’t blush and don’t you act all smart to me. SP told me YOU ARE GAY. You are like that Stanford to SP, yeahh she imagines herself as Carrie Bradshaw all the time (Refer Series Sex and the City) SP told me you go shopping with her. Can we go shopping next weekend please? I really need to buy some chic footwear. SP has a good collection and she tells me all thanks to you. Blah… Blah…Blah…
Me:      SPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP.. I’LLL KILLLLLLLLLLL YOU. I’m straight girl.. Look here’s some authentic heterosexual porn in my smart phone. SSSPPPPP WHYYYYYYYYY??????     
SP:      I couldn’t let you take my best friend away. Would I? Now shuttupp don’t be a drama queen and enjoy my party. 

Lesson bitterly learned *again*~ You Don’t Mess with the SP.
(Keep her the cynosure of attention at her and live in peace & harmony)


Sunday, June 02, 2013

Kundli and The Great Indian Wedding Tamasha



In my 26 years of existence on earth I never knew my horoscope (janampatri) or the time of my birth was of any significance till I got into the “great Indian shaadi mela”. (A big round of applause for the prospective Groom - ME!) I realised how lucky I have been to have parents who till recently didn’t even remember the exact time of my birth. (They had to dig out old records) See you can’t blame it on them when I was born in Meerut on 21 May 1987; there were riots underway throughout the city between the Muslims and Hindus. When the labour pains started my mother was taken to hospital in a car having a special pass which could pass through the curfew. In such an eventful arrival of my glorious soul in all my magnificence who expects to be worried about the exact time of birth I popped out and started wailing?

Imagine my dad.

The Nurse screaming at her “Congrats It’s a boy!!!”

Shoving me in his arms and he refuses little innocent me saying “Wait, let me check the time first.”

(I don’t intend any feminist outrage here please.) Feminists for the above careless remark of the nurse can imagine saying to my dad

“Shit... It’s a boy... Where’s the dustbin?”

So I popped into earth and found myself to be in India (Damn! I was supposed to be delivered in California. GOD DAMMIT this FedEx, you can never trust them at all. Let me get old enough to sue them.)  So hopelessly I carried out my life giving exams each year, getting bashed up quite often for not keeping up with my Indian counterparts. I saw tele-series and movies of US of A imagining all the fun I'd be having at the beaches with the babes instead of slogging day-in and day-out with the books here. I think I got off the topic didn’t I? Oh yeah I did, lemme just get back to what I was saying.

So I grew up peacefully without ever inquiring about my birth nitty-gritty’s you know the time, the hospital et al. I knew for sure I was born in Meerut and on 21 May 1987 because that information was asked at school like a million times. The teachers asking us to even write essays every year on it.

“THE CITY OF MY BIRTH - MEERUT”
~Parv Kaushik

Well as a child I couldn't do much socio-politic-economic analysis of Meerut but I did quite manage to write something.  Everything else was of practically no importance since date was all you needed to read the Sunday horoscope in the Sunday Times.(Yes I'm a Gemini now tell me my lucky day, my lucky gem and my lucky number of the week) Or while doing a horoscope match with a dream date by reading Linda Goodman. (Wow she’s a Leo we can really hit it off.) Just that Linda Goodman never did me any good in getting me any of my dream dates.



So you get into this whole marriage tamasha and you realise doting parents asking you not your salary or education first but “What my son is you exact time of birth?” (Now I’m back to the topic.)

“Thou will telleth me the exact moment in time of thy delivery and if thy stars are in unification with my holy-est honourable-est daughter’s star thou shall answereth additional nuptial inquest.”

I’m just converting the modern lingo into Shakespearean lingo.

Only time I was interested in my time of birth was when I wanted to get even with a girl who shared my birth date but certainly not my wisdom of humility in one’s own superior endowment in intellect over the rest of dim-witted populace. She was haughty and egotistical and I had to make sure I was born before her even if by 10 minutes for in childhood such seniority means a lot. That girl today is a part of one of the Ivy League colleges in the US of A. While me on the other hand... I'm still counting humility and modesty as my No.1 virtue… Ahemm... Let’s again get back to the main topic.

So this is cheating right? You study all through your life, missing TV shows and cricket matches, slogging to reach somewhere in life and it turns out people are more interested in your time of birth than your marks. When somebody actually recoiled in horror telling me I’m a “mangalik” and remarked that I might be a threat to my prospective wife’s life I could not logically arrive at that conclusion.

My police records are clean, I haven't visited mental correction facility since 21 May 1987 (though a lot of friends will remark that I should), thankfully I have never been recommended for counselling by a psychologist, no person or eyewitness can remark that I have hurt anyone physically (shameful, since childhood I wanted to be a feared Don among other dreams).

I saw this advert of Windows 8 on tivo and this Pandit-ji asks the Aunty-ji if her daughter is a “mangalik” to which the poor woman recoils in horror denying it like a charge of paedophile has been slapped on her son.




I GOT CONCERNED, IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME?

Am I psycho in the making? Am I sleepwalking at night and killing people at whim? The Dexter in me just was waiting for the dawn of wedding to wake up and then he will graduate to be a full-fledged cold blooded serial killer?   

My parents didn’t seem much concern with this fact. (Which caused more concern- do they know something and I don’t? are they hiding something from me?) They would give my janampatri to anyone who asked and say “Please check for yourself, if you are happy, content and satisfied we can talk further on more relevant topics like about your daughter’s interests.” Fascinatingly some people said I’m not a mangalik some said I was partial-mangalik all in all the debate has not yet been settled. Different sources quote differently.

This concluding paragraph I want to give a big moral lecture on how we should embrace modern thinking and not get too trapped in the old-conventional-orthodox mindset and move on with the evolution of science and technology. But yeah we all know that. Blah blah blah….

And frankly I’m getting late you see~ today is a Sunday. Let me check my horoscope first in all the newspapers then I have to do my online weekly tarot reading. (Chao)