CRAZY COUSINS

I always wonder how every person is so amazingly different yet similar to each other. Personalities mix & match and in spite of cultural, social, financial or even educational differences we can still compare and contrast our own personality with every individual on this planet. That is what makes me ponder on my own personality. How did I turn out to be what I am today? Now what did I turn out to be is not the question here cause that is quite a point of controversy with me battling a lone war against the entire world. However as I think over what aspects my personality comprises of, I realize that I am made up in the image of all my cousins, with a part of each of them making up me as a whole. Now how much of a part have I picked from each of them and which aspect of their personality is a part of me is a subject open up for debate but all I can hope is that I’ve turned out just fine. That is why I decided to write a blog dedicated to those people who made me the mess that I am today. Now all you average people might feel awestruck as to how can I say such a thing about my loved ones, but all my cousins (me included) have an equally awesome sarcastic sense of humor which gives me the right to speak about them whichever way I want to, without them getting all worked up about it.


DIDI: For my international readers, Didi is how most people refer to their elder sisters back in India. So from where do I start about this individual? Firstly identifying her is not a problem at all; she’s the one with the glass shattering laughter. Fight with her and she’ll either laugh or cry, both things are equally bad. Didi is the eldest of us all and yet somehow she manages to pack the combined energy of the rest of us. She also has had the wildest adventures that I’ve heard of. I know of none who has managed to have an accident with someone from the army and then have the Army call you at your home asking whether you want to register a complaint against that army officer, my Didi did it!! Her persuasion skills are noteworthy considering the innumerous times that she has convinced the cops that she has a “valid” driver’s license. Again no one can ticket a pretty girl sobbing at 30 gallons a minute, now can he? The first rebel in the house, her only objective in life was to piss my uncle (her dad) off. That was cool with us as after my uncle was done with her, he had no energy left for the rest of us. I can proudly say that our paths to individuality were laid down by Didi -The great. I would attribute a lot of my life’s first experiences to my Didi. My first pizza, my first ATM interaction and also my first revelation that wearing a visor-less helmet in an accident can leave you with a 2-inch upper lip, who else but the great Didi can manage something like that. The rest of us were mere spectators who laughed our hearts out for the rest of the week. But the lesson was worth it’s value in gold. Also the astounding acting skills possessed by rest of the gang can be attributed to this drama queen. I guess I should stop at here about her, otherwise I might be found dead under mysterious conditions. For all those who know her, I have wisely skipped the word “temper” from the entire paragraph.


BHAIYA: Bhaiya is what you call your elder brother in Hindi. No one but Didi can say his name (Rohan!) and whenever she does it is always a shriek! He’s the idol for all the younger men in the house. All of us wanted to grow up to be like him. Didi on the other hand wanted us to be anyone but him. Even though all of us (Yes, me included) boast about an awesome sense of humor, Bhaiya is in a totally different league. His wit cracks all the guys up and grosses out all the girls at the same time. I remember no one hour in the house without Didi yelling “Eeeekkkkksssss, Rohan .. That’s disgusting!!!!”. Memoirs include Bhaiya and me scrubbing our heads trying to check who gets the most dandruff on Didi’s black pajamas WHILE she was WEARING them. He’s the wisest guy in the whole world, more emphasis on the word “guy” just in case Didi reads this. But just his words are enough to get you laughing till your stomach aches. No discussion is complete without his pearls of wisdom and based on how you interpret his wisdom, you can get to either rags or riches – mostly rags. The amount of pathetic jokes in the environment rises as Bhaiya enters the scene. And if you think my jokes are bad, I would get you introduced to my Bhaiya just to make a good impression of myself.


DJ: If Bhaiya is the said Devil, DJ is the known Angel. In spite of the fact that she was younger than Didi and Bhaiya, she had the power to yell at both of them alike. Always a brilliant student, she managed to get us to study by being bossy and domineering. DJ would study more than all of us, combined. She kept reminding us about the importance of studies in our lives and it was much easier studying than listening to her rant about it. Even worse was if something in the house was out of place. I really never understood her compelling urge for cleanliness, but never dared confront the dormant volcano. Normally very cool, if she lost her temper it would be the end of mankind as we know it. However it still seems amazing to me as to how Bhaiya can still set her off. I can still recall those fun-filled childhood days when I heard cries of “Rohaaaaan!!!!!” by Didi and shrieks of “Bhaiyaaaaaaaa” by DJ from every corner of the house. Her driving skills are very distinct from the rest of the pack though. The average driving speed of the house has dropped from 70 KMPH to 40KMPH by her driving alone. Some people call it a miracle of physics as to how a person can balance a moped at such low speeds. All I can do is wonder at the irony in the fact that the name of her latest vehicle is Swift!!!!!


AJINKYA: He’s the youngest of the lot and the only one on whom I can exercise my right of being the elder brother. Whenever I see him studying in his room, I wonder whether he’s got the sheer determination of DJ or the deceptive personality of Bhaiya. There is no one in the world that can make better excuses than my dear brother. The worst excuses come for his weird yoga sessions where he can be seen inventing new yoga poses which have left him with a stomach worse than a beer belly. When he’s not exercising he’s researching medicine. As most of the times he is the subject of his own experiments he can be found moaning in bed at least twice a week. It’s really surprising how in spite of the failures, he still never lets go of his ambitions and ideologies. Now his latest conquest is to get into the army, however if he starts treating his colleagues with his medicines, they will be fighting more wars in the restrooms than on the border.


ME: The fifth member of this elite gang is me, and most friends who know me well could relate me to be a mix of all the personalities mentioned above. I have not yet managed to master the individual elements of the other four maestros, yet I guess a little bit of all their superpowers is an equally appreciable asset. And while I always assumed the well wishes of all my cousins with me, it’s when you have been away from home for a year that emotions get the better of you and that is when you value the importance of these family ties.

Love you all ..

HAPPY RAKSHA BANDHAN !!!

Truck Dhina Dhin.

My fascination with trucks goes back to the days of Terminator-2. This was when the T-1000 (Mercury-Guy) chases Arnold, who is riding a Harley Davidson, and still catches up with the Harley with immense ease. This was the first time when I felt the amazing power granted to the person behind the wheels of these vehicles. In India, since childhood we were used to see trucks totally overloaded, managing to barely crawl their way through traffic not leaving much differences to spot between them and bullock carts. However this was different, it was the first time I felt awestruck by a truck. And then it started, I started noticing trucks along with all the other luxury cars shown in all the Hollywood movies. Well we did try showing our own Indian trucks pulling off some stunts in Bollywood movies, but those didn’t really seem logically plausible. The most memorable one was in the movie “Road”, when Manoj Bajpai chases a Tata Safari driven by Vivek Oberoi and rams the truck into the Safari. At that scene even my pet cats stopped watching the movie. Anyway, moving on, then came numerous Hollywood movies presenting a show-stopping display of the power of their trucks in their movies like Terminator-3, Die Hard-4, Transformers to name a few. So when I arrived here in the US, along with the Audi’s, the BMW’s, the Merc’s, the Lexus’s and countless more awesome cars I was also impressed by the trucks which I got to see. On my way to Columbia, I saw numerous trucks some big, some bigger, some huge, some humongous, some driven by women, and all of them nicely lit so that everyone can identify them accurately in the night. Obvious cause they are powerful, fast and quiet. And that is when American Trucks got added to my list of things to photograph in the States, in order to send back home, along with the other cars and the hot babes. ;-)

Over the next few months, I never really got a chance to photograph anything impromptu. Partly cause I don’t own a camera (Yes I don’t, no need to give that expression of surprise) and partly because none of my friends who have a camera carry it around everywhere. So when we decided to take a trip to the Lake of Ozarks, I was the one who suggested Sandeep to take his $550 camera (excluding accessories) so that we could take lots of pictures of us and the cars on the road. As Sandeep was going to do the driving, it was me who had all the exclusive rights to the photo coverage of the trip. So as soon as our trip commenced, I started off on a clicking spree shooting everything that moves or does not move or in short, everything. Sandeep in the mean time was busy driving at the maximum speed limit of 70 MPH and even then somehow we were the slowest car on the road. The tomato red, Ford Focus (OURS), speeding at 70 in the right lane and still all other cars were cruising past us from the other lane. Damn! That makes you feel like a loser already. Still I kept urging to keep the car below the maximum limit. Much better to get overtaken by even the most pathetic pick-ups on the road, than shell out $100 to the cops.

Soon the trip became merry as the sound system of the car was awesome, Sandeep got to do what he likes the most – drive. Nitali got to do what she likes the most – gossip with Sandeep. Santosh got to do what he likes the most – listen to senti songs of Aashiqui on the iPod. And me? I was reminding Sandeep of the speed limit, gossiping with Nitali, listening to songs with Santosh and doing all these low-priority tasks while taking snaps at a rate of 22 snaps per second. Why 22?? Try Wikipedia.

Suddenly there it was - a bottle green truck, much more magnificent than any I have ever got to photograph and it was right in front of us. I immediately told Sandeep to drive past him at the smoothest pace that he could manage so that I could get a steady shot. As we passed by the truck, we were looking in awe at the mere size of it. It was so huge that our car was just the size of its two wheels put side by side. As we overtook it, I managed to get the perfect shot.

I was so happy that I started showing everyone my brilliance in the art of photography. In the meantime, the truck driver saw me take a snap and was wondering why I was taking snaps of the vehicle. Now such a truck however magnificent it was for me was still a very normal thing for an American like him. His thoughts were running haywire and I bet he thought we were either planning to blow up his truck, or rob his truck or God knows what else was going on through his mind. Me on the other hand/car was thinking about taking more snaps in order to get the perfect shot. I turned around and took 2 more shots of his truck. Now he went mad, he started gaining on us in order to make us pull over and ask for an explanation. We saw the truck driver gaining on us. I was even more happy cause I was getting better shots, which drove him even more mad. On a highway of 70, we were doing 70 and he was doing 90. And what better time that this for Sandeep’s self respect to kick in. Sandeep announced – In my living history, I have never had a truck overtake me and it shall never happen in the future – and started driving as fast as he could. This was it for the truck driver, first we were taking snaps and now we were not letting him overtake. He used all the muscle of his machine and came up to our side. This was when we realized that it wasn’t a good idea to challenge his ride with ours. Sandeep relaxed on the steering wheel and we allowed the truck driver to pass. And all this while, I was still taking snaps of the truck.

Now it was his time to get on top, after overtaking us he came into our lane and started slowing down. We tried overtaking him and he immediately came into our lane. We tried overtaking from the other side, he came into that lane as well. So we stayed in his lane for some time and then he started stopping the truck. That is when we realized that this guy was making us pullover. Now why would this guy want to make us pullover, was the question we were asking us. Maybe he was upset cause of the snaps, maybe he was upset because he wasn’t allowed to overtake us but like my knowledge had been enriched from the Hollywood movies, all I could think about was the movie – The Fast and The Furious – when the truck driver is carrying a shotgun, because there are cases of thefts on trucks, and when he shoots the crap out of Vin Diesel’s friend. Then someone managed to look at the terrain outside which was lonely till miles away, maybe he was going to mug us. Maybe he had unwanted stuff in the vehicle and would break the camera; it would cost me $550 + accessories as I was the one holding it. All these thoughts were running in our minds when Sandeep decided he had had enough. The truck had come to a standstill, so Sandeep immediately stepped on the accelerator and tried zooming past the truck. Now it was enough for the truck driver, as soon as he saw us overtake him. He tried to catch up with us. However the heavy load of the truck and the automatic transmission did not allow him to gain speed that fast. Before he could start driving at a decent speed, we were almost a mile away from him.

But I was sure that he would catch up and then what would happen, I dared not think about it. And then Sandeep had a revelation to offer. He hadn’t taken insurance for the car. The rest of the people immediately had their fingernails inside their respective mouths. For the next few minutes our driver drove steadily at 70. And I watched steadily out of rear window for any signs of an approaching bottle green truck which didn’t seem so awesome now. The others got pretty relaxed by now, but I was sure that he would return. And he did, soon we saw him come up from the past the horizon. This was too much for us, we told Sandeep to pull up into a gas station of a nearby town as at least there would be someone around in case this guy came to mug us or tried to kill us. But Sandeep kept insisting that if anything goes wrong we can call 911. Yeah right! As if they would be waiting for our call and would turn up as soon as we called them. But no one could convince Sandeep, he kept driving on. It was not long before he caught up with us again, this time I dared not take any snaps or he would have rammed his truck into our tiny car. We let him pass and he drove on without any signs of wanting to stop us. Now we were really relieved. But Mr. Driver now got more excited and wanted to overtake him one more time. This time when we were overtaking him I saw him gesturing to me through the window. My knowledge of movies made me realize that this was a gesture to pull over. I told everyone that he’s telling us to pull over. After a minute of mutual discussion, we decided to pull over and get this done with. We pulled over to the side of the road and he pulled over a couple of meters behind. And while we were stopping Sandeep forgot to put the handbrake on and the car moved a little. We thought that was it .. the truck has rammed into us from behind!! We looked back but the truck was quite far away. So we properly applied the handbrakes and waited for the truck driver to come out. I was more worried that he might be having a gun, so I wanted him to get down before I got out of the vehicle.

After a few moments of struggling with his door, the truck driver got out of his truck. He seemed in his forties and was huge. He was wearing the type of dress Hardy wears from Laurel and Hardy. Only that he was twice as big as Hardy. We on the other hand, Santosh, Sandeep and me, were the size of Laurel – combined. He came towards us and walked straight towards me. I was holding the camera tight, in case he tried to break it.

Truck Driver: Hey, why the hell are you taking snaps of my truck man?
Sandeep: We are new to this country and this guy (pointing to me) is taking snaps of everything around here.
Truck Driver: [to me]: Why are you taken photographs of my truck man?
Me: [Looking at him]: That’s cause I’ve never seen such a big .. [realizing my mistake and looking towards the truck] truck in my life.
Truck Driver: What is that? A digital camera?? You’ve got film in there??
I took 2 steps to keep a safe distance from him.
Sandeep: Yeah it’s a digital camera.
At that point I was just glad that Sandeep didn’t start giving specification of the camera including the filters.
Truck Driver: So did you take photographs or did you take a video of my truck?
Me:[From outside hurting range, showing him the photos]: Just photographs .. See.
Sandeep: We can delete them if you didn’t like them.
I pressed the camera against my chest gesturing “NO WAYS!!”
Truck Driver didn’t say anything.
We looked at each other for a couple of moments, before the truck driver set off on his way towards his truck mumbling on his way back .. “Just wondering why the hell you were taking snaps of my truck man!!”
Santosh: Have a good day!!

We waited till he reached the truck, lest that he should turn back and start shooting at us. Then when he reached his truck we ran to our car and started moving before he could ram his truck into our car. Soon we were on our way to the Lake of Ozarks. Thankfully we didn’t see the truck for the rest of our journey. We didn’t realize that the stereo wasn’t on for the remaining journey, and I had tucked the camera safely far beyond my reach so that my urge to photograph wouldn’t take over me again. The others soon started chit-chatting among themselves, and a visibly shaken me could just manage one sentence.

“I’m never photographing trucks in my life ever again!!!!”.

LIFE IN A DISCO

...

The most memorable experiences in life co-incidentally are also the most unexpected ones. That is one thing which has struck me in my vast array of experiences in life. Who would expect that last Saturday, when I was surely going to miss the celebration of the Indian community here in Columbia, would turn out to be such a blast? Well, I am scheduled to work every Saturday and all the cultural events have been organized on Saturdays. First I missed the function called India Nite, which was a cultural event filled with songs, dances, merriment and entertainment, which i got to know from people as I wasn’t there. Then I missed the Diwali Dinner, where there was going to be more entertainment and Indian food (My weak point), and I was going to miss it all. I come back from my job, frustrated from standing for 6 straight hours and then cleaning the entire dining complex and to top it doing all these things while the rest were having a gala time at the Diwali Dinner.

So Santosh comes back from the party, and tells me: “ Get dressed dude, we are going out!!”. I look at the clock .. 11:00 PM. But I didn’t care, the day was very frustrating and I didn’t even ask where we were going. Actually we were going to Déjà vu, one of the hottest clubs in town. I never expected such an awesome way to end my day. So within an hour’s time, we were at the gates of the club (10 mins for me to get ready and the rest 50 mins for the girls). And before we went in, Uday told Santosh to take off the hood of his sweater, off his head. Now I was wondering, what the hell is the connection between the hood and entering the club! But to my amazement, I saw a sign out which said, Please do not wear any headgear in the club, except for baseball hats worn straight! No hooded clothing permitted inside. What!! What were they expecting ? Jaadu from Koi Mil Gaya showing up in the club and fainting due to lack of sunshine?????? Anyways, so we entered the club and it did seriously look like a spaceship, just a lot cooler!! (considering the spaceships from Shaktimaan)

Inside the club it was a totally different world in itself. Before entering the club, the atmosphere was cold and chilly, however a couple of passport checks and $5 entrance fees later I felt as if I had come to a totally different planet. The natural environment here consisted of a warm cozy habitat accompanied with loud acoustics interrupted intermittently by the harsh vocals of the DJ. The entire audience was swaying to the beats which were at his mercy. He was the king, ruling his subjects and making them dance to his wish, simply by the touch of a button - actually a lot of buttons and switches. So after we bowed down before the immense power that he possessed, we made a move to the bar. On the way, we noticed the security arrangements. At every strategic point which could be a possible melee venue, were posted huge and I mean really really huge gladiators, casually also referred to as the bouncers. Actually the fascination of WWE wrestlers made my mouth open in awe as I watched their physical presence. People made sure they had their personal space, and no one dared entered vicinity. And so when I realized that I was gazing at them, I made sure that I got out of there as fast as I can, lest they think that I was some mischief maker or even worse in case someone misinterpreted my awestruck look as a sign of interest.

So we headed straight to the bar counter which was the Wall Street of the club. All the people were screaming their orders to the bartender who kept repeating to everyone, “You’ll have to say that a little louder, please”. I guess this was a tactic to make them thirstier, and convert it into more revenues for this self dependent economy. So everyone grabbed whatever they wanted to, no physical references here, and we headed straight for the attraction of the club, the dance floor. However I was too tired to dance, so I took a seat on a nearby table, keeping guard of all the jackets and the drink of a friend. Soon all my friends blended into the jungle while I sat far away from the crowd, watching the moves of each and every species in the habitat.

I watched as everyone was high in their own world, girls and guys alike were dancing as if no one was watching them, and they didn’t care even if anyone was. Then there were these two babes who felt the sudden urge to climb atop the bar table and start their own performance. They were pretty good at it. One of them urged her boyfriend to come on top of the table and just as he was about to climb the table the bouncer pushed him off, just hinting by a gesture that no guys on tables. Now this is particularly true about the bouncer species that they never seem to speak. The entire time they are standing with their hands folded, yet they managed a real-time response of less than 100ms when a situation seemed to be going out of hand. Coming back to the topic, I thought, where in the world has gone the concept of equality? The guys being equal to the girls and all that feminist talk? But then I realized.. why would I want guys crowding the table tops when two more girls can take up that place??? So I cheered loudly as that guy was pushed from the table. And all of a sudden one bouncer came towards me. I thought, it seems to be end of the ride for me as this guy was going to throw me out. He was not quite tall .. just “six” feet and heavily built, he looked like a hippo who had put on a black shirt. But to my relief he had come to pick up empty glasses of people who had not bothered to throw them or half-full glasses of people who had forgotten where their drinks were. He walked over to me and he spoke, yes he spoke, in fact he boomed.. “Is that drink yours?”, then I remembered about the friends drink on the table in front of me. I tried saying yes, but nothing seemed like I had a vocal cord malfunction. I just managed a slight nod and he understood. They surely are experts of non-verbal communication.

But in a short time I was going to witness the star attraction of the night. At the center of the stage was a group of women wildly enjoying the party! One of them was wearing a bride’s headdress so I guessed that they must be having a bachelor’s party. However it was their company which was stealing all the light. It was a male doll with enhanced masculine features, elongated masculine features to be precise. This was too much for me, a group of heavy-weight women enjoying the party with their blessed friend and I was sitting here instead of enjoying the party. So I hit the dance floor with the enthusiasm which was still well short of theirs but was quite a lot for me. I joined the group and danced my heart out, the loud music on the dance floor surely went to the head and made me forget everything about the past or the future. I was high just by the beats and the songs were surely catching up. There were more observations for me on the dance floor than off it. There was this guy who was surely looking gay, who kept dancing his way into groups of guys and then as guys gave him weird looks, retreating his way back to his original location. The bachelor’s party was still working full swing with no signs of fatigue which was impressive considering the Body-Mass-Index. Suddenly there seemed to be this sudden dearth of feminine life form on the dance-floor. On further investigation I realized that all the girls were heading for the table on which only girls were allowed to dance. The DJ clinching this opportunity played the song “I kissed a girl and I liked it” sung by a girl. The crowd went wild and it went wilder when all the 7-8 girls started dancing synchronously to the beats of the song. Everyone was enjoying it when one of the bachelor’s party heavyweights went aboard the table. It took two bouncers, who managed to carry well grown adults out of the club with just one hand, to help this lady on to the table. Very soon the 7-8 hot chicks were replaced by four members of the bachelor party and their plastic friend.

Witnessing this bizarre debacle of interest in the on-table performance, we resumed our dance floor gymnastics trying to make sure that we don’t get carried away by the beats and start a Ganpati dance over there. We were towards the end of the night and the couple dance disintegrated into a free-for-all. People started scattering across the dance floor, however there was this one particular group of girls that impressed me. One of the girls was so drunk that she didn’t realize where she was and what she was doing, however her two other female friends were keeping her away from all the unwanted prowlers who tried to dance with her and on one occasion even asked a guy to maintain a safe distance. But we didn’t mind females who were slowly drifting into our group, and soon it was just Sandeep and I left to take care of all on the dance floor. All of a sudden I felt a hand on my head. I looked behind to check who it was.. to find a girl had accidentally put her hand on my head. So I resumed my dance, but the boyfriend of that girl was in a playful mood, the second time he put his hand on my head. Both of them were well over 6 feet so it wasn’t a problem for either. I looked behind with an amused look but he had more surprises in stock for me. He started pushing his girlfriend onto me, and she was falling over me. I wouldn’t have minded her under normal circumstances, but with her boyfriend right behind her I had no clue what to do. Thankfully this stopped pretty soon, and I forgot about it even sooner as two hot girls joined us from the other side. But before we could praise our luck, the rest of the gang came back to the dance floor and the girls slowly drifted out of focus. Soon enough, the last song of the night was played and before we knew it, it was over. The entire crowd dispersed, and the lively ecosystem was now a barren desert. We made our way out of the club, the chill outside felt more pleasant now. After all it was one more first experience, it was the first time I visited a club in the United States!!!!!!!