Aditya Bhushan's Blog, page 2

Family members renovate Prof. Lala Surajnandan Prasad Auditorium in Patna Medical College and Hospital

During my visits to Patna in my childhood, where Nanaji (my maternal grandfather) lived, I recall elders in the house utter the words - PMCH quite often. Frankly, I never cared to understand what it meant. The only thing that I could gather was that at some point of time Nanaji used to work at PMCH and that now he had retired.
Again, it was beyond my comprehension, since I could see him working even now in his clinic on the ground floor of the house, which he had fondly named as Ashiana. Nanaji was a doctor, a paediatrician to be precise and the thing that I remember is that his clinic always used to be flooded with patients. 


Frankly, kids in the house like me knew little about his legacy when he was around. Once, I remember (around 1995-1996), my cousin sister had taken me to meet the film actor Shatrughan Sinha who stayed in the same lane in Patna. In the night, after Nanaji had come back from a Rotary club function, he asked me, “Tum Shatrughan se milne gaye the? Woh bata raha tha” (You had gone to meet Shatrughan? He was telling me). And in my mind I thought, Man! Nanaji hangs around with film stars.
As I grew up, I came to know that PMCH was the acronym for Patna Medical College and Hospital. Located on the banks of Ganga, it was established in 1925 and was originally known as the Prince of Wales Medical College. And Nanaji - Padma Shri Dr Lala Surajnandan Prasad, who was also the founder president of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (in 1964) had been instrumental in turning the children’s ward at PMCH into a hospital of capacity of 250 beds. 
To commemorate his contribution in the medical world, an auditorium in PMCH was named after him as the Prof. Lala Surajnandan Prasad Auditorium and was inaugurated in a grand function by Akhlaq Ur Rehman Kidwai, the then Governor of Bihar in August 1996. The auditorium was again renovated in 2005-06 with UNICEF funding and is now used as its Nodal Centre. 


Recently, it was decided by our family to give the hall a makeover. In an effort, led by my mamas - Dr Lala Abhinandan (retired BARC scientist) and Shakti Nandan Prasad (retired senior executive who served in multiple PSUs), the hall got new air conditioners and projectors among other state-of-the-art upgrades. 
The entire plan was a brainchild of Abhi Mama (Dr. Lala Abhinandan) and he did get good support from the faculty as well as some other relatives in Patna. Going into a nostalgic drive, he said, “I remember going near the auditorium sometime in 1971 to get babuji’s signature on my JEE form and I was asked to wait outside by Sitaram (Nanaji’s driver). Back then, the area outside the hall used to be empty unlike today when it is crowded with people. Babuji used to talk passionately about the construction of this floor as according to him the additional space was the need of the hour to tackle the growing number of patients”
I am sure, he would have never thought that one day he would be sitting in the very same hall at a function to mark the completion of the renovation work. The function held on March 17th, 2020 was attended by Dr. Anil Kumar Jaiswal, Head of Department of Pediatrics, PMCH, few family members and other doctors. Dr. Jaiswal referred Nanaji as the Bhishmapitamah of Indian paediatrics, quite a comparison I must say. Another well-known paediatrician in Patna, Dr. Neelam Verma described Nanaji as her guru’s guru and that till few years back none of the technical discussions among doctors would be complete with his name popping up. 


Well, today his name may not be part of every paediatrics discussion in India, but I am sure efforts like these are a small way to ensure that his legacy lives on. As far as Nanaji is concerned, he would definitely have been pleased at the efforts taken to infuse a fresh lease of life in the auditorium named after him. I wonder what would have been his take on the Corona virus. But I am certain his reaction to the various Whatsapp forwards on the disease would have been, “Aap log samajhte nahin hain” (You people don’t understand).

Two Stars and Platform#1 - A bumpy ride to Bihar's Silk City

How long would you normally take to cover a journey of around 100 Kms on a plain (non-hilly) road by car? An average speed of 50 Km/h would make it possible in 2 hours. But then extrinsic factors like the condition of the road and traffic could further increase the travel time.
As a result, to catch a train at 7:05 PM from Bhagalpur (the silk city of Bihar located on the banks of Ganga), keeping some buffer time I was advised to leave Katihar (a small town in Bihar where I had gone to meet my grandmother) at 3 PM. I left on time and had even checked the travel time on google maps which showed that I should reach by around 5-45 PM. 
A pitstop for Peda
I was relaxed and was enjoying the greenery of the farms on the bank of River Kosi. The driver told me that I should make a stop at highway shop which sold pure ghee and peda. I had been there earlier and my love for sweets meant that we made a short pit stop to have peda and tea. 
After this we resumed our journey and the owner of the travel agency who was also there in the car narrated to me his story. He was an engineer who had left his job to look after the land owned by his father and then started doing business. On the way, we found traffic as and when we crossed any town as this was one day prior to the revered Chath Pooja. And whenever stuck at a place for couple of minutes, I would check google maps which was still showing that I would reach my destination well in time. 




I began to panic
The driver took many shortcuts and was confident that we had nothing to worry about. I was relaxed till the time we entered the Ganga bridge which is the gateway to Bhagalpur. It is a two-lane bridge which was full of trucks. Even then the driver and his boss were confident about me catching the train. After being in the same place for more than 15 min, I checked maps and it showed that I would reach by 7-05 PM. In a state of panic I came out of the car and did not know what to do. 
Star#1 - A lady on scooty comes to my rescue
It was my fortune that I got an idea to request for lift from the two-wheelers who were riding on the pavement. Both the driver and I tried to stop the passing-by two-wheelers, but no one stopped. I had now started to think about the alternatives as catching Vananchal Express today seemed a distant dream. 
Suddenly, a middle-aged woman who was riding her scooty asked for help to lift her vehicle from the road onto the pavement. The driver started helping her and I simply asked if she could drop me to the station. Thankfully, she agreed but she asked me to drive as she thought I would do a better job at it.
Sitting behind me can turn even an atheist into a believer
Now, to give you an idea about my two-wheeler riding skills, let's just say that sitting behind me can turn even an atheist into a believer of god. But with no other option, I gave my laptop bag to the kind lady who sat behind and with my suitcase near my feet, the adventure began. Within 5-10 minutes, the lady realised that the odds of her getting injured was probably more than me catching the train. In a very polite manner she said, “Guys are more comfortable on motorcycles than on scooty. I think you are uncomfortable and going slow because of the suitcase as well”. I just nodded and then she suggested that I could try getting an auto-rickshaw as that way I had more chances of reaching the station on time.
Star#2 - A man on bike
At the first available opportunity which came after around 4-5 Kms of the adventurous ride, I got into an e-rickshaw. Well, I didn’t know that its speed would be lower than what I was riding at. I was literally screaming at the driver, but he couldn’t do much. With each passing minute, the probability of me catching the train was getting slimmer. So, I decided to again ask for lift from a two-wheeler. After few failed attempts, a gentleman agreed. He told me that he will drop me at the ‘outer’ of the station from where I could get into any compartment. 
He navigated through the busy streets of Bhagalpur like a racer but as luck would have it, the entrance to the ‘outer’ had been closed. Now, the only option was to go to the railway station itself. It was already 7 PM and I had all but given up the hope. I had already started thinking about the next steps that I had to take after missing the train. 


“Saakshat bhagwaan ka haath hai aapke sar par”
With all this going in my mind, we reached the station at 7-03 PM. I thanked the motorist and ran towards the train as though my life depended on it. At last, I stepped inside my compartment and before I could catch my breath the train departed. As I walked in towards my seat, I updated my mother and wife, both the women had been calling me and had probably sensed that something was wrong. 
After I finished the call, on of my fellow passengers who had overheard my escapade said, “Saakshat bhagwaan ka haath hai aapke sar par. Bhagalpur mein ek lady kisi anjaan aadmi ko lift de, aisa kabhi suna nahin hai. Aur ye train saal mein 360 din Platform#5 se khulti hai, lekin aaj 1 number se khuli. Platform#5 tak pahunchne ka aapka koi chance nahin tha” (You are blessed by the god. I haven’t heard a lady giving lift to an unknown person in Bhagalpur. Also, this train departs from Platform#5 on most days, but it left from Platform#1 today. There was no way you could have made it to Platform#5)”
I just smiled back in embarrassment and silently thanked god for making it possible. I also realised that in this chaos, I had not even asked the names of the two stars of my story-the lady and the man who had given me the lift. Well, I have no means to find the names now and the least that I can do is pray for their well-being. 
As I sat, one kid in the adjacent seat laughed and summed up the story in three words, “ Bhaag Uncle Bhaag! (Run, uncle run!)”.

My Dadaji's Almirah

An average human doesn’t necessarily remember all the things from his childhood. But then in most of the cases, there are certain images from one’s early days that are always fondly remembered. One such image for me from my childhood is that of my Dadaji’s wooden Almirah. Back then, it used to fascinate me a lot. Apart from its content, the other reason for this interest was that we kids were not allowed to open it. Though it did not have any lock, we never dared to open it. I only used to peep into it with the hope of seeing something new whenever it was opened by any elder member of the family. 
Before you start wondering about its content, I will clarify that it didn’t contain any money or jewellery to the best of my knowledge. It contained things which I think Dadaji valued a lot. He was a chemistry professor and the almirah had his books, diaries, pens and a lot of other stationary items. Whenever he opened the almirah before our departure from his house, I would silently hope that he would take out something new for me. And rarely did he disappoint me. On most visits, he would give me a new pocket diary from the almirah.  
Dadaji's Almirah
Gradually with time, the gift of a pocket diary changed into a Reader’s Digest book or magazine. He subscribed to Reader’s Digest and would encourage me to read it. Unfortunately, the only part of the magazine which I liked then was the humour section. He also had some wonderful collector’s edition books from Reader’s Digest like ‘Great Mysteries of the Past’ and ‘World at Arms’ among others. On one of the visits, my father found that there was a new addition to Dadaji’s book collection and it was the comprehensive ‘World Atlas’. As far as my memory goes, my father was keen to take that Atlas with him much against Dadaji’s wish, since he also wanted to read it. Like most sons, my father eventually had his way and we took the Atlas with us. I must say that it helped me a lot in school in the pre-internet days. We returned it back only after my cousin’s living with him were big enough to read it. 
Even after I was grown up and in college, I would not open the almirah without his permission. But what I didn’t know was that there still were a lot of unexplored treasure that it contained. During my engineering days, he had gifted me an engineer’s compass from the almirah. 
Another hilarious incident took place when my father, mother and I had come to his place while I was in college. It was one of the summer breaks and my father was telling him that I spend a lot of money every month. My father would have hoped that Dadaji would counsel me against spending, but what transpired left everyone in laughter. Dadaji got up and took out a small pocket diary from his almirah. Much to my father’s embarrassment it was Dadaji’s account book and it had the transactions from my father’s college days.  So Dadaji began telling me the amount that he used to give to my father every month. It was only after my Dadi’s intervention that he stopped reading. Except my father, everyone had a smile on their faces and the biggest one was reserved for my face. 
When I think of that incident now, I am amazed at how quickly he was able to retrieve the accounts book from around two decades back. Slowly, as he grew older, I think he stopped maintaining the almirah. I say this because couple of years back when I had opened the almirah, I could see few books of my cousins in it. I think that was the last time I opened it. 
Even today, the almirah occupies a prime position in the drawing room of the house. But I never want to open it. For, I don’t know if it is still as organised as it used to be earlier. May be it is and it is just my apprehension. But I don’t want to take a chance as I don’t want to change the image of that almirah from my mind. 
Dadaji
As Oscar Wilde had said, “Memory is the diary that we all carry with us”. So, I will carry the diary of fond memories that Dadaji and his almirah had given to me. And as far as Dadaji is concerned, I am sure he would have set up another almirah up there in the heavens to keep his treasures. 

A trip to my first home

If your father is in a transferable job you get to see a lot of new places and the by-product of this is that there a lot of places in the country where you can go and say “I was here”. In fact there are many places you can refer to as your “HOME”. But as with most of the other firsts in life, your first home has a special place in your heart. 
My first home was in Dhanbad, the coal capital of India. I had lived there in the first four years of my life, hence do not have much memories of that place. Still somewhere at the back of my mind there was always a desire to go to the house where I had spent the first few years of my life. With passage of time I had almost given up this hope but some things are destined to happen and this was one of those. 
My marriage again brought me in touch with my birth place. My in-laws were settled in Dhanbad and this was a great opportunity to visit my first home. So post-marriage when my wife and me decided to visit Dhanbad, I knew this was my chance. I got the address of the house from my parents but they too were skeptical of the fact that the house would still exist or if the same people would be living there. 
The search for Sunda House begins...



Now, Dhanbad of the 1980s did not have any house numbers and there were no multi-storeyed buildings. All this meant that the only address which I had was “Sunda House” and the name of the area.  With this piece of information my wife and myself set out on the expedition. 
When we reached the locality, we inquired about the house at a grocery store. We were directed towards a dilapidated looking bungalow which had a huge compound. The entrance gate was rusted and my wife was scared to enter it as she feared that a big dog might come running from inside. 

Nevertheless we opened the gate and walked through the long passage. There was an old jeep in the portico which did not have glasses and seats. The scene was straight out of a horror movie. I shouted, “Koi hai?” (anyone there?). Unfortunately there was no response and since we were not even sure if we had walked in to the right house, after some time we decided to come out. 


Still not satisfied, we went to the opposite house and inquired about Late Mr Sunda. We were told that, we had gone to the correct house and they may have gone out somewhere. Thanking the person, we again entered Sunda House with the intention of just looking at my first house for one last time.
It was a bungalow with a huge garden. Just when we were about to leave, I again tried calling the owners. This time around, they heard us and an elderly man came out. I told my father’s name and he asked in excitement, “Are you Suniti’s son?”. This single line was enough to bring a big smile on my face. 
He was Mr Sunda’s eldest son whom I referred to as Harish uncle. He called us in his office which had a small table, a type writer, dot matrix papers and few old chairs. After some time he took us to the first floor where they lived and called his sister Nilam. Harish uncle introduced me to her as Suniti’s son. Her immediate reply was, “Are you Mohit?”
I replied in affirmative and was pleasantly surprised that she remembered my nickname after more than 25 years even though we had not been in touch. Nilam bua (as I used to address her) offered us tea and the clock was rewinded 25 years back over the next hour or so.
She told me stories about how her father, Late Mr Sunda was very fond of me. Listening to the various stories of my childhood, I got a feeling that the Sundas were like family to us. My parents had many times told me that they had always been very nice to us. But hearing it from Harish uncle and Nilam bua, I realised that our relationship was much more than that of a tenant and a landlord. 
I also called my parents and they were thrilled to talk to Harish uncle and Nilam bua. After a while Harish uncle took us to the ground floor and showed us the section of the house where we used to stay. 
I wanted to write "Mohit was here"



Although I don’t recall anything about our stay there back then as I was very small. But even then I was filled with emotions. There was a sense of belongingness which I felt there and I wanted to write somewhere on the house “Mohit was here” like Mr Brooks had written in the movie Shawshank Redemption. 
Looking at the condition of the house it felt as though time had frozen for the entire Sunda House and its inhabitants. Now I didn’t ask them why the house was in such a neglected state as I thought it would be impolite. 
Before leaving we took a stroll of the compound and I was trying to collect as many memories that I could. We bid goodbye to Harish uncle and Nilam bua with a promise to comeback again. As we walked out of my first home, I was short of words.
Later in the night I asked my wife if we had indeed visited my first house or if I was just dreaming things. The entire experience somehow seemed unreal to me. A small wish which I had carried for long had come true and I was thrilled to say the least. Yes, I was a bit emotional.
Had I stepped on a time machine?
Although, I felt a bit sad for the condition of the house and its people. But in hindsight, had the house been transformed into a modern day villa; it may not have had the same effect on me. At the Sunda House, it felt as though I had stepped on a time machine and it had taken me back to the late 1980s. 
Coming back to the present and to once again explain what this meant for me, I would take take the help of a popular theory for the origin of the name of Dhanbad. As per this theory, it is derived from “Dhan” and “Abad” meaning prospered with wealth. Now this incident had definitely given me  a different kind of wealth which I will treasure for lifetime. 
It had given me the wealth of a sweet experience. And just like coal is used as an energy source, the land of coal once again proved to be a source of happiness for my family and me. 

The clock still ticks somewhere in the heavens - Remembering my Nanaji

Recently a friend who knew my nanaji (maternal grand father) asked me “Does the clock still tick at your grand father’s Ghadiwala ghar?” That one sentence sent me years back to my childhood when a trip to Patna and a stay at Nanaji’s Ashiana (the name he had given to his house) was at the minimum an annual affair for us. It has been a long time since nanaji left the world and I visited the house but the memories are still fresh in my mind. 
“Ghadiwala ghar” - the house with the clock, that’s how the locals of Patna used to refer to my nanaji’s villa. A two storey house with a huge clock at the top, it was quite a landmark house in Nala road area if not in entire Patna. 
The size of the house offered my cousins & me ample space to play and do things on our own without the interference of elders. But that was not all which was on offer. 


Nanaji personally did ensure that we all had a gala time. On days when he played golf, my day there used to start by accompanying him to the Patna Golf Club. For, back then I was an early starter unlike many of my cousins; a habit which can do me a world of good today. The bait for me used to be a lavish breakfast at some of the top hotels of Patna. 
And on other days when at home, while getting his head and body messaged by his maalish wala (masseur); he used to ask us kids “aaj kya khaoge baua?”. He would then direct one of his sons to ensure that our demands were met. This was the time when all the women in the house - my mother and my aunts used to give us a stare depending on the magnitude of our demands. By chance if nanaji saw the stare, then his single line response - “Aap log samajhte nahin hain”  was enough to silence the women and a boost in our armoury. 
Once nanaji left for work, we would either play on the terrace or with the lift. Yes, the two-storey house had a lift back in early 1990s and it was a source of amusement for us. The game with the lift used to continue until the time we were caught by an elder. 
Upon return in the evening, nanaji used to survey the house to see if any corner needed a facelift or if he wanted something new in the house. And this casual stroll would invariably result in the construction of something big like a library, bird house, tandoor etc. in the house. This was also the time when the workers (carpenter, painter, gardener etc) or the darbaris as one of my uncle referred to them as would try their best to impress their master with many out of the box ideas. 
The rest of the evenings were then reserved for a couple of drinks with my dad and uncles. During this time he would entertain everyone with his many stories. The plot of his stories could range from his student days in England to his childhood in Dumka or Biharsharif. And in between these stories he would ask us what we wanted to become in life. I never had an answer to this question (nor do I have now) of his and would just smile. 


Then on one of the visits (I don’t remember when) he organised a drawing competition for all the cousins who were present and this became a norm for few years. I am not sure who used to win these competitions, but I do recall that all of us used to get adequate prizes. One of my prized childhood possession was a drawing set which I had got as a gift from him after a drawing competition. 
He used to ensure that he saw all our paintings and then used to take us out in the evening so that we could select our gifts. I never heard him say that he was tired and could not accompany us out. This was despite the fact that his average day would start before sunrise and go on till at least midnight. 
Another fond memory and a day on which I always remember him is the new years day. He celebrated his birthday on January 1st and it used to be done in a grand style either at his home or at his farmhouse in Danapur. 
Today being January 1st, I am sure my nanaji - Padma Shri Dr Lala Suraj Nandan Prasad is throwing up a big bash and the clock would still be ticking at his mansion up there in the heavens. And if at all you end up reading this - Happy 103rd Birthday Nanaji!

Is your house a BOBO?

A bai or a housemaid is someone who helps us in the cleaning and other daily household chores. So in its nascent form, a bai or a servant was nothing more than a person who would assist your wife and you in the smooth functioning of your house. Slowly with passage of time and with the emergence of nuclear families, this helper started gaining more importance in one’s lives.  
And now we have reached a stage that a bai is one of the most important (if not the most important) person in your house. Today, when someone moves to a new place the first thing one does is to call the security person and tell “Bhaiya koi acchi kaam waala/waali bhejiye” (Please send a good maid). The reason for this urgency is that a day without a bai can change the atmosphere of your house from “An evening in Paris” to “Border”. 
In retail sector, COCO is the short form of Company Owned Company Operated outlets. Similarly as a mark of respect for the maids in Indian household, my father came up with an apt term - BOBO (Biwi Owned Bai Operated) i.e. a house owned by your wife and operated by your maid. 
What is BOBO?
So, what is this BOBO and why to call an Indian middle-class household as BOBO? The reasons are aplenty and I am sure many married men are already smiling thinking about the reasons. But for the bachelors and the privileged married ones whose house is not a BOBO (which I think is only possible in fairytales), I will go ahead and explain this phenomenon. 
Imagine you have made a movie plan for a 9 PM show and just before booking the tickets you call your wife to confirm the plan. An average novice husband would think that his wife would be thrilled at this plan, but as they “man proposes god (read wife) disposes”. So, the response you get is - “Can we go for a 6 PM show instead?” The reason is pretty obvious and one shouldn’t dare to ask the reason. 
Again for the benefit of everyone, the reason for this request of plan change is that your bai (maid) comes to work at 9 PM and to mess with the plan of your bai is like “Maut ko bulava dena” (to flirt with danger). So, you are left with two options i.e. either cancel the plan altogether or plan your office work to be free for the 6 PM show. 
Innocent people or people early in their married life make the mistake of suggesting that dinner can be done outside and hence the maid can be given a day off. That’s when you get an answer which basically lists down the roles & responsibility of your maid. All this is said in a single breath which could have challenged Shankar Mahadevan’s Breathless song. 
By the time you understand the important role that a bai is playing in the smooth running of your house, you begin to think that if a days absence at your office will ever trigger such a high level discussion. 
Coming back to BOBO, so what it essentially does is that most of your plans are governed in someway or the other by the plans of your bai. You may have this hallucination that you are running the house and you can continue to have this feeling if it boosts your ego. But the reality is quite different. We are living in the age of BOBOs and that day is not far when you will be submitting your monthly outing plans to your bai in advance.
Disclaimer - This is an act of pure fiction and any resemblance to realty is purely coincidental. I do understand the important task that your mother or wife plays in the smooth running of your house. You can hire 100s of bai’s but your house will not be in the same condition without the supervision of your mother and/or wife. So, ladies in the house; pardon me and take it as your today’s dose of humour
Also, I know my mother and my wife would surely be searching for me after reading this article. To them I will just say “Dekho Chand aya..chand nazar aya” (incidentally Chand is the name of our bai)

Driver - Ek Khoj (The quest for a loyal driver)

On the occasion of the 69th Independence day when our Prime Minister is asking fellow countrymen to take up entrepreneurship in his own unique style with the tag line “Start up India”, my family is trying to find a new driver with the tag line “Start my car”. It might seem a mundane task but it can get as difficult as searching the right groom for your princess daughter. 
One of the many perks that comes with my father’s job is an official driver. But unfortunately the driver has to be found by us and his company will only reimburse the expenses of the driver. So, when my father moved to Mumbai three years back he appointed a driver and in hindsight we were quite lucky that the same driver continued to provide service to us for close to three years. 
On a not so fine Monday morning we learnt that the loyal driver had resigned without giving any prior notice. It has been close to three months and as many drivers since that gloomy Monday and my family is still trying to find the right match for our young & beautiful car.
During the initial days of this search, I was quite excited to interview the driver candidates. I think the excitement was mainly because it gave me the feeling of a CEOs son who had the liberty to accept or reject the candidate at his own whims and fancy. However, the excitement slowly died down with an increase in the frequency of interviews. 

When one after another driver divorced our car, we were not only disappointed but also shocked. As per us, we were definitely good employers if not the best. But now that I try to go through the psyche of our employees (read drivers), we were not offering them with anything special. Our package to the driver included a fixed salary component (which was at best at par with the market standards), overtime (which was a rarity), travel allowance and a Diwali/Eid bonus. 
What we did not have on offer was to ask him to take ownership of instances of our drunken driving. What we did not have on offer was to make him a media star or pleasure trips to Bombay High Court. So, I can very well imagine our ex drivers enacting the 90s Nirma ad - “Jab wahi mahange daam waali safaai kam daamon mien mile to bhala koi ye kyun le wo na le”. However self-deprecating it may sound my family is the “Ye” in the above line.
In the job market comprising of the likes of Microsoft, Facebook, e-commerce giants we were at best an average Indian IT company. If we were to go by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, our package was at the bottom of the pyramid taking care of only the physiological needs. A driver also has the right to move up the ladder in this pyramid and reach to the stage of self-actualisation which we could not have provided despite our best intentions. 
So, we would not be bothered by what the nation wants to know until we find a driver who is satisfied with a HMT watch in the age of smart watches and the prime time debate in my family will continue to have only one topic “Driver - Ek Khoj (The quest for a loyal driver)”.
Note - I hope this write up does not reach the eyes of our ex-drivers some of whom were very active Facebook users

Year 2020 & Azad Socialistan

Note - The year is 2020 and the only form of media known to mankind is social media. India as a nation still has many unanswered questions and journalists like always are trying their best to get answers to these questions in the minute long tweet battle called as - “The Nation wants to Tweet”. Few journalists are not happy as Twitter has kept a limit of 150 characters per tweet which they think is an attempt of the right-wing people to curb freedom of press. Below is a report on the new buzz word in social media - Socialistan . 
In the early part of the millennium, the buzz word in India was Youngistan which was in reference to the potential of the youth of the nation. However, as musician Bob Dylan used to say “Times they are a changing” and the latest addition to the ever increasing list of buzz words is “Socialistan”. It is a group of social media enthusiasts who want a separate state called socialistan.
As reported in our previous post; the demand for a separate state of socialistan is gathering immense momentum and for the second consecutive day hashtag #azadsocialistan continues to trend on twitter.
But in a sudden turn of events, the person behind the movement of azadsocialistan who is an IT engineer by profession has been offered an onsite opportunity by his employer. Some social media buffs called it an attempt by the Government of India to derail their movement. However, the messiah of social media decided to treat this offer as an opportunity to show to the world the power of social media.
He did not directly reject the offer but instead chose to go to the consulate  office for visa interview and continue his campaign from there.The consulate had clearly specified the documents that it needed for the process and it included birth certificate, marriage certificate etc among others. 
Now our messiah being a social media enthusiast (although his twitter handle just calls him a cricket enthusiast) did not believe in government approved documents and carried his own versions of the document. When the lady at the consulate asked him for his birth certificate; he immediately opened the Facebook app on his iphone10 plus and showed the About me tab which had his birth date. On being asked his marriage certificate he showed the life event “Got married” which had received 400 likes. 
The lady at the consulate was amused to say the least and thought that this person was actually ridiculing the processes followed at the consulate. On being told that the man was actually behind a social movement in India called the azadsocialistan she immediately called for security and had the man taken out of the consulate office. 
Not new to being rejected, the man has planned a full fledged Dharna. He immediately took a selfie with the consulate officer and security guards and posted it on his Facebook wall with the caption “Chal beta selfie le le re #tod dustman ki nali”. At the time of going to the press this post had received a record 9994 likes and an equally high number of shares. 
We tried to talk to the man using whatsapp in order to understand the demands of azad socialistan. We were lucky enough to get a screenshot of his status message before the government actually bans it - First they will ignore you, then they will like your post and final they will share your post.
Interesting to note is that other than the demand for a separate state which will have a moderator instead of chief minister who will have full authority to throw anyone out of the state there are many other demands that this group has. One of the main demands is to do away with birth certificates & marriage certificates and instead start acknowledging the proof on Facebook for such important life events.  
The demands are revolutionary indeed and so are his dharna styles. Gone are the days when fasting at Ram Lila maidan was an integral part of any dharna. As a mark of protest, he plans to go off social media for one day i.e. full 24 hours. So, there won't be any tweets, Facebook posts or whatsapp messages from him for the entire day. 

Eminent tweeters are calling this as a very big step. One of them went on to tweet - “Ask me to live without food & water for a day and I will do it happily, but fasting on tweets and facebooks requires a lot of courage #azadsocialistan”. Given the fact that Mr Mark Zuckerberg recently had posted selfies with many Indian government officials we will have to wait and see how the government responds to this dharna which is being dubbed as the “Faceless day”.

New Year's Eve & Charcoal Gate

“How can we have a new year’s eve party without a barbecue?”  This was my response to the suggestion that we have the New Year’s Eve party sans the barbecue. Now this would suggest that I have been having barbecue parties for New Year’s Eve since eternity. However, the fact is that it was only in 2013 that I had a barbecue party for the first time.  Back then it was not a very smooth experience and the only saving grace was that we were able to make something edible barely minutes before entering into the New Year.
In spite of this history, we decided to have a barbecue party again.  Living in the times of e-commerce a barbecue grill was ordered online. The next task was to arrange charcoal for the grill. Having experienced tough time lighting up the charcoal last time around we decided to go for low-smoke charcoal. Here again we first checked the flipakarts and ebays of the world for charcoal. Unfortunately, no one was providing delivery before the 31st.
Charcoal Hunt
Next began the great charcoal-hunt. After a lot of inquiries I finally found a place which sold low-smoke charcoal. At least that is what I thought so. The fact that the shopkeeper had to go to his godown in search of low-smoke charcoal should have rung warning bells, sadly it didn’t. He returned back with a box containing fancy cylindrical packets which had Musk Charcoal written on the top.



My wife suggested to me that these were scented charcoals and would smell when we do the cooking. My reply to this was “Does plain charcoal smell any good?” She did not argue much and I decided to purchase what I thought was low-smoke charcoal. Sensing my inexperience, the shop-keeper asked Rs 1000 for what was hardly one kg of charcoal. I bargained and negotiated the price at Rs 800. I also told him that I might come to return the stuff if it did not serve my purpose of cooking. In hindsight this was the best statement I had made that evening.
Dreams shattered
I was quite pleased at my negotiation skills and clicked pictures of the purchase and sent it to my friends. But my happiness was short-lived. As soon as I showed the charcoal to my mother she was livid at my stupidity. Her first statement was “How on earth can you pay Rs 800 for this much charcoal?” The next line was the most devastating one for me as she declared food cannot be cooked on this scented charcoal. Musk-charcoal soon became the topic of joke at the dinner table. 
Not particularly thrilled by this I decided to go back and return my prized purchase. It took quite an effort to convince the shop-keeper to take back the charcoal and return my money which he fortunately agreed to.
In the meantime another crisis was brewing up at our party venue. The barbecue grill had been delivered but its size was such that it would have put the lilliputians to shame. With just a day to go for the 31st it was crisis time. The host for our party ended this crisis by purchasing a new barbecue which also came with 3 Kgs of charcoal. Now I don’t know if it was low-smoke or high-smoke but it was charcoal for sure.

Let there be fire
After all this hoopla around the barbecue we reached the party venue on the 31st and were at work immediately. First the barbecue grill was set up and the next task was to light up the charcoal. After hard work of close to an hour, use of lighter fluid and newspaper we could see the charcoal turning red. The immediate reaction in sync was “WOW”. 


I am pretty sure that the stone-age man would not have been as excited on discovering fire as we were on seeing the charcoal lit up. It was smooth sailing thereafter as we cooked delicious kebabs and had a memorable party. But if there is one thing I will always remember from this party it would be the Charcoal-gate.

Pain in the present, they say gain in the future #Dental Tortures

“There are some pains which are physical and some that are mental, but the one that is both is dental”                                                                                                                                                                                   - Ogden NashFirst day of my week long session with the dentist was more than enough to confirm my faith on the above lines  from Nash’s poem - “It’s going to hurt just a little bit” which I had read long back in school. I was greeted by the standard hindi movie dialogue for doctors “Tumne aane mein bahut der kar di”. Although he was talking only about the cavity in my teeth, it sounded like he was talking about my life. Then he dropped the next bomb, “We will try our best but if the situation demands we will go for a root canal”. Somehow to me it sounded like “Tumhe davaon ki nahin duaon ki zarorat hai”. The spiritual songs in his clinic added to the atmosphere. After preliminary inspection, I was asked to come the next day for the treatment.
The next day I entered the clinic thinking it would be a one-day affair. The flood lights were lit up in front of my eyes and just before the commencement of the treatment, I casually asked about the duration and the reply was that it will be done in 20 minutes. What I did not realize was that he was just talking about today. So, I spent the next 20 minutes telling myself “All is Well” while the treatment was going on, only to be told in the end that it was only the end of day 1. I now realized that the doctor was in a mood to play a five day test match with rest days in between. For a moment I thought of reminding him the law which states that rest days are no longer part of test matches in cricket, but decided against it eventually. With a half numb face due to the effects of the anesthesia, I reached home. I narrated my ordeal to my parents and their sympathy did a bit to soothe my pain.In cricket, experts say that day 2 and 3 are generally the best for batting as the pitch loses its freshness and has not broken up enough to help the spinners.  I was hoping that the same happens to me when the dentist bowls over his missile of treatment on me. Although my gums had not lost the freshness and the tooth was also broken up still the next two visits turned out to be less painful. At the end of day three I was asked to give measurement for the cap of my teeth. All that I can say is that it was not as smooth as giving measurement for a suit.Day 4 of the visit was reserved for trial of the tooth cap and the level of my excitement was slightly less than it is during the trial of new clothes. After the trial, the dentist told me that it required some alteration and polishing. Finally Day 5 arrived but there was not much of nervousness. 


In hindsight I think that I had been declared the winner before the starting of this match as it was me who was eventually going to get the benefits from this treatment. It is another matter that the only benefit I could see at present was for the dentist who would be getting richer by few thousand rupees. Anyway my trophy (the tooth cap) had been polished and was ready to be presented to me. With some more minor cleaning, I was its proud owner.