Merry Christmas!!

Doesn't a festival bring another reason to smile, a reason to exchange warm wishes and gifts and a reason to feel and make someone feel special. Those small little surprises add a rosy hue to the otherwise bland and monotonous routine. Markets are swamped with people and shops are festooned with tinkling souvenirs. The whole feel of festivity is so amazing that one tends to overlook all his worries no matter how worse the circumstances are. A mere wish brings a dilated smile to the face. You may not connect with your friends and family the entire year but occasions certainly lends an opportunity to acknowledge their presence and thank them for being a part of your life.

I never celebrated Christmas the way I celebrate Diwali and Holi. The things I related to Christmas were Jingle Bell song, a nice holiday and a paunchy Santa that I only heard in stories and saw on television. As a kid I remember how I used to think that as soon as the clock strikes twelve, my Santa would appear out of the blue to hide the present I have been waiting for. It never happened and that time, I thought I knew the reason. As per the story, Santa is supposed to hide the gift beneath the tree and the only reason I never got a gift is simply because I did not have a Christmas tree :(

But this Christmas is different as I got the privilege of having a ‘Secret Santa’ who initially made me wait but later pampered me with cute gifts. The whole day I kept receiving something or the other that not just kept my belief in Santa alive but also made my Christmas the most special ever. The soft and cuddly teddy bear I got was worth the wait.

Be a Secret Santa for your loved ones and make their Christmas a memorable one.


Merry Christmas to all.

Everything's gonna be all right..

An empty mind is a devil’s workshop!

It is one of those many days when there is no work to be done. No work as in absolutely zilch (All thanks to the account I work on). In such case, how long can you expect someone to surf when the access to all the peppery sites is denied by the controller? Those wicked looks from your colleagues confirms that they are aware that it isn’t an official call you are on. Then there are some sheerly stupid magazines that scream aloud ‘The cover page is adorned just to fool you’. Well I realize it only once I am through reading it. The real embarrassment comes when you are flipping one of those few censored pages out of hundreds and suddenly some male colleague arrives and notices you reading it..Grrrrr

Overhearing someone’s irksome conversation only helps the eyes droop even more and yuck dip-dip tea makes it all the way better. So these two days I had enough dose of Tiger Wood’s flings, Rita Joshi’s amateurish statement and David Headley’s contribution to 26/11 attacks. What can be more interesting than knowing that Wood’s mistresses’ counter has hit 10. Isn’t it?? And the fools expect us to vote if we really care about the controversy.. Huh?? Buzz off!

Another shocking headline was Shahrukh Khan aka ‘THE KING KHAN’ wanted to be a porn star. What? Did he actually mean it or was it an atrocious PR scheme? I wonder which one would have got him more fame and money; playing merrily in Karan Johar’s lap or shooting for some B Grade porn movie. I have my serious doubts if he was capable of getting some A grade stuff with the kind of looks he had in ‘Maya Memsaab’ (My sincere apologies to all the Shahrukh Khan’s fans out there).

Whatever it is, at least it gave way to a new post :D

Author’s note: Please reserve two fingers for Alt and Tab to switch windows time and again when you see your boss approaching as you aren’t being paid for blogging.

How about being a child again?

Isn’t there a hidden artist in all of us? Remember how we used to make smileys on the back of our notebooks, how zigzag lines ended up making a dragon, how we made Sharukh look weird by putting a bindi and Aishwarya funny with a moustache?? Oh yes I did it all when I was a kid and it was fun too. I miss the days when my only concern was to collect shreds to stitch a nice dress for my Barbie, to check if my kitchen set lacks an important utensil, if I had planned enough for the evening outdoor games and how holding my head while pretending a stomach ache can mess up the whole plan.

I remember how we never caught fever despite playing day and night in the spine-chilling cold, how those small wounds healed in just 2 minutes, how a glass of milk and two rolls kept us vigorous the entire day and the way we always managed to find our friends without the cell phones. Wasn’t everything so uncomplicated and manageable? Those were the days when getting up early did not seem an effort, when the selection of the boss wholly depended on the palm and the dorsum, when goof ups were intentionally done and didn’t cause any trouble and when parents never demurred on having a boy friend.

Who would not want to relive those unforgettable moments which are now buried somewhere in our memories or are captured in a nicely festooned photo album. Being a child certainly is the best time of life when you have got nothing to worry about. It is the time when fairy tale sounds so real and convincing and no one can narrate it like a grandmother does. How easy it was to shed a small tear and get all your wishes fulfilled. A small cry was enough to stir the whole house and be the centre of attraction the next moment. Wish I had a few more of those frivolous years because I just did not realize how much will this time be missed.

Here’s wishing all a Happy Children’s Day as each one of you must have been a child once. Why don’t we try doing something nasty today and let the little kid in us take the lead..

DD: Delighful Days

I was forced to plug my ear phones in when after a few stations metro got crammed with people talking incessantly. A radio station was celebrating the 50th birthday of Doordarshan (DD) and I suddenly felt nostalgic when they played a track ‘Is rang badalti duniya mein, kya tera hai kya mera hai’ and asked the listeners to identify the show. Indeed all of us know it is ‘Dekh bhai Dekh’ as correctly as we know what succeeds ‘Twinkle Twinkle’.

During my childhood days Doordarshan seemed to be the only channel reserving the Television screen. I remember how we all used to snuggle in our respective seats just five minutes before the start of ‘Ramayana’. My grandmother made sure that all the kids are present in the room and Dad used to unravel the whole episode making it way too easy for us to understand. The characters, the cinematography, the performance everything appeared so real and entrancing which is missing in the present remakes.

Then there was ‘Shanti’ that I believe was the most viewed daily soap in our locality. In the afternoon, on my way back from school I could hear Mandira Bedi in every house that I crossed (Her looks were quite impactful though). Besides these, the programs that I liked included Chandrakanta (I can still visualize the big-mustached Kroor Singh), Potli ka baba (I din't mind getting up early on a Sunday morning for this), Mowgli (I have a ringtone 'Jangal Jangal baat chali hai' saved in my comp only because it reminds me of those good old days), Shaktiman (My brothers enjoyed watching it so there wasn’t any option left for me; Everything except for the character Geeta Vishwas was tolerable) and there were some that were not followed rigorously but viewed off and on.

DD certainly had its own charm before the cable hijacked not just our television set but our minds too. I don’t recall any news, music, movie or devotional channel and there used to be no fight over the remote control. Doordarshan was all in one consisting of every kind of program and henceforth providing a daily dose to its viewers. I have some delightful memories of the past and wish there was some way of bringing them back.

“Shesh samachar thodi der mein”

Pity Usha

As far as I remember, this name always had a place reserved in my General knowledge book. From fifth to twelfth standard (yes I had Physical education as a subject), I read about her in one form of question or the other. Identify the picture of the famous athlete; name the first Indian women to reach the finals of Olympics; who is known as the India’s golden girl and many more questions with a similar answer which is ‘P.T. Usha’. She is one of those Indian athletes who has garnered the maximum number of medals, won innumerable accolades and brought laurels to the nation making the Indians proud.

Out of boredom, I turned the television on and while switching through the channels, I found P.T. Usha crying uncontrollably on a news channel and suddenly I was inquisitive about the cause. It was really disheartening to discover that she wasn’t given proper accommodation in Bhopal where she had gone for the National Open Athletic Championship. First she was marooned at the airport and then she wasn’t even provided a separate room. The lady had to wait till 2:30 in the morning before she was given a private lodge. The irony is that she was ill-treated by the people of the same country that once conferred her most prestigious awards like Padma Shri and the Arjuna Award.

I wonder had the ignorance been the same if it was Amitabh Bachchan or Sachin Tendulkar and not P.T. Usha. The Regional Centre of Sports Authority of India surely had her picture framed but didn’t care a tad to comfort her. She spent her entire career serving the country and this truly isn’t the reward she deserved.

She is one prized possession our country has which is meant to be treasured but the kind of deportment she got was pitiable.