Affordable Luxury – Real Estate’s greatest gift to Indians

The world thinks Indians can consume anything. Literally anything. After toxic waters, DDT-ised fruits, adulterated medicines, spurious alcohol and unbreathable airs, we have developed an unbelievable appetite for indigestible substances.

And now our dear brothers and sisters in the business of building homes have started testing our capabilities with the promise of ‘Affordable Luxury’.

A Clever Donkey seems to be more believable than affordable luxury. If we pick up an oxford dictionary, it says affordable is an adjective that means ‘Inexpensive; reasonably priced’ while luxury is a noun that means either ‘A state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense’ or ‘an inessential, desirable item which is expensive or difficult to obtain’. So putting 2 and 2 together, we will get only 0. You see, the words affordable and luxury are at the 2 opposite ends of the spectrum and stand for things which are exactly opposite.

In more lay(lied to)manly words, if X is affordable then it is within the reach of the masses as it is meant for mass consumption. Hence, it is neither expensive nor for a privileged few. On the other hand, Y, touted as a luxury item is supposed to be expensive and overpriced to exclude the masses and create exclusivity for the privileged few who would be capable of paying that price. Hence X and Y can never come together.

So, we can conclude that armed with this knowledge we have greater hope of being able to educate a donkey to qualify as ‘CLEVER’ than to ever be able to enjoy ‘AFFORDABLE LUXURY’.

The Person in ME

Have you wondered whether there is another entity in you; living, talking and thinking in a manner completely diverse from the outer shell that you and the entire world has got so used to. It is an entity so powerful and overwhelming that when it comes to its element, it overpowers all your senses and directs your bodily shell into action while you recede to the recesses of sanity like a distant observer. Have you met that entity ever??

I have met him. I do not remember clearly all my encounters with that inner self. A couple of times when I have been insanely mad at something or someone I have seen his beastly face bare its fangs like a werewolf out for blood. I have been mortally petrified of that self to subdue it into a rational being. Emotionally devastated, I have seen him take over and drag along my wasted body. I am eternally grateful for that for I lacked the courage or the willingness to move that extra mile. I have seen him write lines of poetry drenched in the tears of my broken heart, I have seen him playfully jump up and try to catch the butterflies in the spring breeze. I have seen him move me through excruciating pains of bearing a surgery and through the overjoyed happiness at receiving the honours before people that matter. Have I seen him in fleeting glances or have I just been a spectator to his endless achievements?

I remember being me through the drudgeries of everyday life working through the mundane chores like a clockwork clown. I did not find him peeping out when I got pushed around in life by my superiors or by my fellow life mates, whether in college or in a bus. I haven't seen his traces in the millions of seconds or the zillions of moments of my fruitless living and my forgettable being. I have never found his traces when I wished these prolonged hours be gone like a fleeting wind. But it was he who seeded the ideas of creation, it was he who whispered the poetry of nature, it was he who dragged my mind from out of the trenches of a boring History class to the distant planets in the Horse Nebula. It was he who was always the visionary, the innovator, the wanderer and the rebel.

He has been there all throughout like a crouching panther awaiting his chance. I owe him the memories I fondly cherish. I owe him the few minutes of glory or shame that have made me stand out. I owe him the few moments that have made life worth living. I dread the next time I face him, and yet I yearn for that moment!!

 

The Question of ‘Q’

Indians and Q's: The worst contradictory matches that you can ever have. Rightly though the first word that comes to one's mind is the ever lurking disturbing word, "QUESTION", and Indians have had a long and illustrious relationship with it, the details of which would merit a longer blog some other day. But the Q that I am so very interested in presenting to the beloved (though rare and few) readers is the famous "QUEUE", the one that we have always seen and lived with everywhere we went and yet had been so adapt at breaking, twisting, deforming and skipping from our very early childhood, and for which we have been proudly applauded by our own selves or friends or family that have benefitted from the so-called daring act.

Well, I'm no saint, and I openly confess my share of achievements in this field. And no wonder I had always readily accepted the applause of the group of friends (which Indian lad wouldn't want to look a hero in the eyes of a couple of beautiful girls who get their desired seats to ogle at their favourite hero because of your daring act) that were benefitted by my act to get movie tickets, or my family who could secure seats on the train to travel to some godforsaken place for some equally unimportant work. They say, "Life comes a full circle", and so in an airport thousands of miles away from India that I witnessed an incident that opened my eyes (Not that the doctors hadn't seen my flaps to be closed at birth and hadn't worked on them till then).

Now to the incident!! I was returning from Europe after a not so enthusiastically describable trip, and just like when you are so very offended at your own non-performance that you tend to take pains to notice even the smallest of details of inconspicuous events occurring around you in order to fill your thought with them so that the thoughts of failure just doesn't have enough space to settle. So, there I was, waiting impatiently (we Indians are real bad at the action of waiting) in the lounge of Istanbul's not so famous Ataturk airport waiting for my flight to Mumbai, my adopted living place. From the various well-equipped and beautiful glass and steel gates, lots of blondes, red heads and black hairs vanished, well not literally, just that they walked off to their respective flights. While sitting over there and pondering over my disastrous 3 weeks, I noticed a strangely beautiful pattern. Whenever a flight was announced, people casually got up and stood in a slightly meandering queue that can always be defined as a geometrically perfect straight line as compared to the queues that I have been used to for me entire life. There was no jostling, no multiple lines, no overtaking, no hurrying or harrying others to hurry, just about none of the spices that made our Indian daily life so spicilicious ^*. There was no one to reign in order since the order was natural. And everyone was so relaxed and comfortable boarding the plane (except for the perpetually difficult guys who do not like the air travel)

And suddenly my flight was announced, the one that was supposed to take me to Mumbai. Suddenly all Hell broke loose. The perfectly sleepy region in front of Gate D32 suddenly erupted as if Mt. Vesuvius had shifted its head by a few thousand miles and had decided on erupting that very moment. About a hundred (I didn't feel like counting, but the number's sound felt good) Men, Women and children suddenly became actively interested in boarding the flight at the very same moment as if their existence depended on it. In a short period (that lasted for at least 7 minutes) order was restored; well if what came next can be called order. In a gate through which only 2 people can pass at a time, agitated passengers (ethnic definitions unnecessary as their actions speak) came in 4 different queues to squeeze in through that space. Where most gates had just 2 airline personnel, this gate demanded a minimum of 6, with 2 resembling bouncers of any common disco. Their voices started from a beautifully cultured "All passengers are requested to make 2 queues for convenience" to a loud "Please make 2 rows" to a hoarse rendition of "Just make 2 lines". And still the educated and the uneducated, the literate and the illiterate masses of our culturally endowed country so blatantly rubbished the name of our country in a foreign land that I felt ashamed of calling myself their brethren. By the time I passed through the gates, the Indian population had dwindled to a dozen or so and there were only two queues in existence. I'll never forget the dirty look that the Beautiful face of the harried airline employee gave the moment we were passing through giving me a general perception that our beloved citizens have created in the minds of the more developed countries' citizens.

And it does end there. Every time since then whether at the airport, or the railway station, the Bank counter or the KFC food counter, I have meticulously noticed the infallible Indians consistently maintaining their record of breaking queues (unless off course the management of MacD puts in those queue making bands) beating Usain Bolt's habit of breaking records. Being the optimist that I am, I sincerely hope that someday we will learn that a more relaxed and disciplined approach to such things in life, will lead to success and not failure. After all, the plane's never gonna fly off without you even if you are standing at the very end of the straight queue in front of the boarding gate !!!

 

* Don't try finding this word in the dictionary. I invented it. Equation: Spicy + delicious = Spicilicious. This word solves the usual dilemma since spiciness and deliciousness might not occur at the same time and for the same person.

Friendship!!

What is friendship?

Is it a relationship of convenience or is it another biochemical reaction in the neural centre of our body? (a complex reaction just like love but with lesser intensity and more catalysts to aid it) Is it about being there for someone in need with hopes that the reverse never comes to pass, or is it about wanting someone to be there for you with hopes that you can be there as well when needed? Different people, different philosophies and all seem to be correct in their place. So how does one define it then?

I can't define friendship by words but can only describe it by a scene I witnessed in my hometown. Career, fame, ambition, money – everyone needs them but sometimes that very one also needs a break to continue the chase afresh. So after a decade since I started out from my hometown in search of a future, I returned to my land for a couple of days. And that too I returned in the days of the festival of lights. Everyone was happy, friends, family and me and the entire world seemed to be happy along with us. Lights and crackers, sounds and smell, colours and beauty – everything seemed to glow in a light of its own, rendering the artificial diwali lights feeble in their brightness.

And among all that light I saw the two of them walking down the street hand in hand. They seemed to care the least about the world while they enjoyed everything around them. Or was it, ignorant of the surrounding chaos, they relished the sweet moments of each other's company, I know not. But whatever it was that touched their hearts, it was something really ethereal for its infection could be found in the people around them. People instinctively forgot their petty quarrels to enjoy the rare moments of happiness that one gets on beholding something so natural and so pure. While the world schemed and plotted, these two merry men kept wildly gesticulating and speaking to each other, smiling incessantly and laughing out loud once in a while. I don't know what people thought when they saw them, but the only thing that flashed before my eyes were scores of faces who had come and gone in my life, contributing in little or significant parts to what I am, faces who had once called me a friend but who had either vanished in the cacophony of my life's events or had simply ceased to exist for me because they were not on orkut, facebook or my mailing list.

Well you must be wondering what is so special about these men that evoke such potpourri of emotions. To tell the truth, there wasn't anything at all special about them; in fact God hadn't given them quite a few of the special gifts that we so naturally enjoy having. Maybe that is why the two of them compensated their shortcomings with the special bond we call "FRIENDSHIP". After all what else can you name such a deep bond between a blind man and a grotesquely deformed spastic?

The fight of generations

It's a common scene in cars, buses, trains and trams nowadays to find a septuagenarian to be cursing the current generation for being the way that it is. Well, it's not just the current generations' dressing sense that has become an eyesore for the older generations but also their lifestyle, music, behaviour and their mere existence seems to be a curse of God. And I being an inhabitant of the modern world had to face it quite often and felt that there was need for this to be discussed. So as a spokesman of the innumerable maligned co-members of this generation, I fire up the debate here.

To start off, people were never born they way they are today. Their environments – that at home and outside home, that at school, college or office and that at society – influence them and mould them into the men and women that they are. So if a kid of 15 today utters a phrase that is sociably unacceptable, then we do not deem it necessary to find the roots of this behaviour in someone of the previous generation who had passed on this legacy and instead behave as if this rotten fruit has fallen from the sky. If a boy of 10 is found cheating at school then we do not even bother to think that maybe his behaviour is being influenced by what he sees his father doing at home and office, taking bribes and neglecting duties and whiffing off any mention of it by saying "Everybody does it". If a teenager of 16 is found smoking or drinking, then have the people who are cursing this generation stopped to think that he might be just emulating his father, brother, uncle or the friendly neighbour next door; a person of the previous generation. The blame game is on and the few perpetrators of all these heinous activities seem to become the sole representative of the modern generation.

I would say if today's generation lacks the basic courtesy and moral fibre, then it has been a failure of our previous generations in passing it down to us. We were not born with that learning that we are to give our seat to an old person or a lady while travelling by bus. We learn it from our previous generations who are well versed with the ways of life. So if we have failed in inculcating these civil norms then it is the whole round failure of our previous generations in guiding us the proper way. In fact I myself have been a victim of my good upbringing. Once travelling by bus in a journey of 4 hours, I saw an old man boarding the bus. The way that I have been brought up, I courteously got up and offered my seat to the man and stood hanging in front of him in the sweltering heat of the Indian summer. After about 30 minutes of the bumpy ride, the couple sitting to the right of the old man stood up to get down and I took position to squeeze myself into one of those seats. But to my utter dismay and that of the people around me, the old man had put his hanky on the seats and was busy calling his grandson and granddaughter to sit beside him. Well, after that day, I have been careful enough to offer my seat to only SINGLE old men – i.e. someone unaccompanied by such relations.

Well, returning to where I had left before visiting the nasty 'daddu', it is not always the fault of a kid that he is like that. A girl of 16 is chastised for wearing short skirts. But where did she get the idea of wearing it that way? If it's the media to be blamed then isn't it someone from the previous generations creating such content, and if it's the parents to be blamed, then isn't it two members of the previous generation again who were too self-centred enjoying adult content while forgetting to shelter the unadulterated mind of their little kid from such influence. If kids of today do not respect their elders then isn't it a reflection of the scheming mentalities of their parents that they behold every day scheming against their own parents, siblings, relatives, bosses, neighbours and everyone imaginable. The last aspect of so called modern insanity is music. Music of today has been founded on the fundamentals of yesterday. So if the music of A R Rehman, Anu Mallick and Vishal Shekhar duo seems jarring and unmelodious then one should stop to consider that their inspirations lie in music composers like R D Burman and S D Burman from the past.

So, it has been a natural progression of time and an evolution of the present generation from the combined efforts of the previous generations. What we are today is what the previous generations have made us. And I'm not proud of what we have become. Hence, the older generations should now stop blaming the current generations and trying to wash off their own responsibilities. It's high time that they accept their failure and constructively work with the present generation to repair the damage done till now. Let us each make an example of ourselves and lead by example instead of shrugging off responsibility and putting the blame on others.

Correct usage of the wrong words

 

"Fuck Off dude", "Fuck You!!", "Screw you man" or "Go to Hell"; common expressions of casual banter that we find in the lingo of the modern educated intelligentsia of India. Because of my sadistic bend of mind and my usual hobby of bheja frying my serious thinking friends, I do get a whole lot of these beautiful phrases dipped in various extents of emotional cocktail. However, in recent times with the exponential increase in the usage of these phrases I started analysing their favourite words. So here's a snapshot of my ongoing research that might help all and sundry by improving the usage of these words:

1. "Fuck Off dude" – Hey people, just hold on for a second. Whom are you telling this? Fucking is supposed to be an extremely pleasurable activity. So if you're telling someone to fuck off, you are actually telling him "Pestering me is a waste of time. There's a whole bunch of pleasurable activities that you can do. Just go and try them". That actually should be a statement of irritation or a mild playful reproach for someone who's bothering you more than you had bargained for. So use it correctly. And be careful; never use it with Profs or bosses. You got to be the most defective piece of the almighty's handiwork on earth to wish something so good for them.

2. "Fuck You!!" – Again a proper usage of this phrase needs to be done. The usual usage being to say that "I DON'T AGREE TO WAT YOU SAY". Well good enough. But then why are you wishing him to do something abysmally more pleasurable than eating your head.

3. "Screw you man" - Still under research. As of now, you can use it as and when you want in whatever proportions you want. Wait for the updates when I get a hold of it.

4. "Go to Hell" – Man, you need to see some ads. Well, hell is the next happening place. And you're wishing the person to go there. Oh wow, u must be a real good buddy of the person. Anyways, so if you want the person to really suffer then use "Beg in Hell" or "Rot in heaven".

Now, with every research there are always some expected and some unexpected results. Some of these outcomes later on go to be big inventions while some peter away unnoticed. The following phrases have been a part of the ongoing thought process to improve the English vocabulary. So here are a few more phrases that you might find handy according to your mood.

Go Rape Yourself – Well that's a pretty nasty way of telling someone that you wish him/her to "leave you and do something infinitely more painful in the most dangerously lonely way". Wow, that feels really good! It's the ideal statement to whiff off some pestering pest or to give words to the exploding mass of anger dying to come out of you.

Hang below heaven – That's better than go to hell. After all you don't want to send the person to a happening place. So you ask someone to be continuously be tempted by the beauty of the 'apsaras', bored by the monotonous music, irritated by the cleanliness all around and yet not be able to do anything since your hanging for your dear life. Wow that's torture of the 4^th degree.

Rot in Heaven– "Isn't that LEGEN – wait for it – DARY", as Barney would have said it (please refer to the sitcom 'How I met your mother' for a more visual explanation of the previous phrase). Can u imagine a worse thing happening to someone? A place where people are partying without a trace of anything even remotely gray, you are rotting. Just imagine the hatred that you would be emanating from your more physically sound compatriots.

I hope the modern guy and gal has been really emancipated by the tons of B***S*** that I have written before.

Statutory warning: The aforementioned passage was written when I was extremely frustrated with life, love and work and did not know how to while away time. So unless you are absolutely without any possible work to do, read it.

Zindagi

hawaon mein kuch to baat hai,
jo dil mein aaj kwahishon ki baraat hai.
umar rahi hai hasrate hazar,
saaja de duniya pe na mitne wali bahar
choo le hum asmaan aaur baadal ko,
le aaye hum samundar ke gehrai se, anjaan sab motion ko.
ya fir apni bhatakti zindagi ko koi maine de,
jiye hai apne liye, ab rang bhare hum dusro ke zindagi me,
nazuuk kalion ke muskan se,nanhe haatho ke taliyon se
budhe kaapte haatho ke ashirwad se
kamzor aankho me jaagti asha se
banaye hum nayi duniya, sajay ek nayi zindagi