Nanna.

He always brought barfi from Kewal Halwai, whenever he came to meet us. In Secunderabad or Mumbai.

Whenever i went to jhansi, he made sure some food for me was always prepared differently in accordance with my eating habits.Sometimes just dal rice, otherwise bread with tea for breakfast.

He took me along with him on his morning and evening walks. Sometimes in morning we went to leher ki devi. Once we went near a hill, he sat down, while i climbed up the hillock along with a few cousins. While coming down, i discovered that ,sometimes you run faster than your fastest best and cannot stop under any circumstances.

The evening walks sometimes doubled up as vegetable buying trips.

He took me to a hair cutting saloon once. While coming back i wanted to buy a lottery ticket for 2 bucks, the prize for the same being about 100 bucks. He did not allow me to buy it.He said the point is not that it is just for 2 bucks, but i don't want you to get into this habbit.

He once yelled at me for going to a cousin's house. I came back to his house after 2 spending 2 days at orcha.

Whenever we had to take dakhsin or AP express from jhansi, both in the middle of the night, he always woke us up.

He never yelled at me for hiding his small tobacco box.But use to be pretty cross at me whenever i expressed a desire to taste the tobacco.

He always asked ,whenever i met him after a long time, how is rajkumari ?(my mother) . But rarely cared to ask he how is my dad? , his son.

He lost his father when he was 3, went to school upto 2nd standard. He started working very early in his life in a mill in indore. He later came back to Jhansi, and became an engine driver in Railways.he use to say it was so easy to get a job those days. He was once just sitting there and someone came and asked will you drive a locomotive for a job? And he got a job.

From what little i recall, he always wrote to us in sec'bad on a post card. In his typical handwriting.

He loved playing cards. His favorite free time activity. He always beat me at rummy and dehla pakad. He also had games he could play alone.

Nanna, my grandfathar expired yesterday. This is in celebration of his life. The Bond we had. And what we shared.

May 7.

Will always be remembered.Takes and Stands were what i thought my life was all about.But after 2 years of studying(Officially) , i have now come to realise, I have turned a bit scratchy and rusted.

Things which were till some time back very me have deserted me. I have somehow lost the only thing which i perceived i had , Courage. To stand up and speak my mind. Express myself.

In the last few days i was a lot more bothered about "what if" circumstances. Something to which i never gave a Damn. My weakness , as many put it. My way, as what i always put it.

If life were a process of self discovery, Rotting is the process of forgetting what was discovered, in the journey.

If one liner's are a person's forte, That needs to be practiced.

The dude at Pop Tates, Saki Naka made up my day when he served a complimentary ice cream. When questioned why, His response, " We give it to those customers we like". Accepted that i belong to that tribe of bloodhounds who once made a bill of 800 bucks completely complimentary at Pizza Hut,HN( In celebration of me completing an existence of a quarter century). And again , in the company of a dear friend ,at Sheisha Kanjur, ice cream and mocktails worth some 300 bucks were gotten as complimentary. You got it ,my word of the moment is COMPLIMENTARY.

And so did a dude at office, when everything seemed like falling apart. This post is dedicated to that dude. For making me realise ,again ,what actually is freedom. What actually is feeling yourself , again ,after you have lost it for a while.

On A Glider.

There was this afternoon when i was with a couple of friends, and i suddenly felt as if i wasn't there.Then there was this party we had, to celebrate another friend's birthday ,where people were discussing mosad ,munich etc. People know so much these days. A dude was quoted from world war 2 (people actually remembered that dude's name) who said something on israel and land for Jews etc. I was actually sitting somewhere in the middle and my appearance was that of a tennis spectator perpendicular to the direction of the court or ball-movement in a normal course of play. Looking at dudes here ,then there,then again here. Not a word came out of mouth. At some schools they talk about this concept of Class Participation. Its primary objective,my belief ,was to tell the world that you live on.

I would have loved to be on a glider. Flying it or as a passenger. A participating passenger.

Otherwise i have been on higher places. The hill top in my mom's village, the water tank top where i live these days, temporarily,in between two lakes. BTW i realized the other day, a lake when viewed from ground level does not give you an exact measure of its entire cover, but when viewed from my terrace top, technically an auxiliary top view, the picture ,technically an inverted image on my retina, is completely different.

I shall have my vengeance on this world. Even i do know a few things. But more than that , what i value are little observations like the one above.

Continuing the glider ride,on a completely unrelated note, Shantaram turned out to be surprisingly interesting even after having just read the first 200 pages and the last chapter.

Right now my options are.

1. Read Shantaram
2. Watch Enemy at the gates
3.Watch Clockwork Orange
4.Doze off.
5.Read yesterday's newspapers

Bang in the middle of the week i have 2 off's, coutesy the dude who coined the word Labour and someone else who chose to celebrate it tomorrow. And Budh poornima. When having to think of it ,i now realise ,i don't have an iota of an idea , whom to thank for that. Buddha, Moon god or the dudette poornima. I will generally thank mankind, harappa and mohan jo daro( It's ok, if it is in Pakistan today),Indus and someone in my company who decided that we shall have an off on this day.Indus, for flowing. They say civilizations initially came up near rivers and fishes were one of the early living things, after unicellular organisms.

Ans so i might end up exhausting all the 5 options and still end up with ample time and nothing to do. And then I will blog again.