I, the Wanderer

How many times in your life have you come across a question like ‘ Aap log Hindustan se hain kya ?’ in your own country? Most importantly, what deed of yours could have brought someone to walk up to you at 6:30 AM in the morning and question your identity as an Indian, in a friendly, non-threatening manner? The answer is this –  we were picking up garbage lying across Leisure Park, Faridabad. Yes, this is the same garbage that we Indians litter around at public places, roads, sidewalks, open spaces, railway tracks, farms, mountains and countless number of spaces around the country. We were threatened by various agencies, organizations and corporations with hefty fines and punishments, but we never bothered. The likes of National Green Tribunal have been struggling with implementing laws on protection and conservation of nature, but we never bothered.  In the end, the  Swachh Bharat  message to create a better looking, cleaner India made rounds of social med...

For Madhya Pradesh, I will like to start with one quote "It is nice finding those places where you can go out and relax" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For a state suffering humongous population issues, being a traveler's den seems a distant dream. If you have been there, or you haven't, you should know one thing and that is Madhya Pradesh is no Himachal nor Rajasthan, it's a distinct land that has just started to taste money. The state doesn't offers anything like North India or South India, for wherever I went things are still simple and sublime as they were 20 years ago in Delhi or Faridabad. You still get to feel the old world air, the old Indian-faces with non branded clothes, travelling their way to work in autos, mini-buses but with their cellphones in hand. The best part about the state - Hindi. It's everywhere and I like it when I can speak Hindi. It's easier and it's Indian. That wil...

Cat Family! One beautiful family of hard-core hunters who have adapted to every surrounding thrown at them - mountains, plains, grasslands and the ever-growing cityscapes around the world. Look around you and what do you find? Cats are the next in number to dogs. They have the best pair of enthralling eyes that one wishes to possess himself, more so if it glows in the dark. Patting the cat. talking to frog We have all read about cats being independent animals, they don't really fit in. On the other hand, our favorite poochie poohs, the dogs, are real good at pretending for all the love and attention they wish to receive. Cats don't pretend. They bite. Just a day before, patting a cat made me feel good. I had to ask Mendhak to confirm what it means if a cat has it's tail shooting straight towards the sky. She said the cat is trying to be friendly. It was. But only that day. Next day, the same cat with the same body language bit me on my right hand and hence began a...

"Happiness is only real when shared"  This statement comes from the book of a certain someone I know, and I am sure anybody who can recognize this phrase will know him too. We have met him, seen him do his things his way and finish off his journey looking at the sun, the very element of life on this planet, the basis of everything that is happening today, even this blog post!!  Happiness, lately, has been quite difficult to understand, comprehend and interpret. It is a feeling, I am sure of it because for some time of my life, I really felt happy. For some reason, if you ask me today about happiness, the only thing I can offer you in return is a grin, or a sarcastic smile, or apparently a face with a biiiig question mark on it. Yeah, right there on the forehead!  Therefore , in a reverse chronological order, I am going to list down a few memories  I have with Happiness, now a dreaded H-word! 1- Baby Neem   Although it's still very difficult to c...

 "Main chal raha hu" was my last message to Rajat. I had to don the role of Batman and play some dirty tricks on my family to let me go, before I had been blamed of utter disrespect to everyone at home. Mother is quite unhappy since my spends on travel have grown over the years, gradually being modelled as a spendthrift at home. What do I do if I dont do what keeps me happy?  It had always been about the bike. I have seen the mountains and I know how they look like. I have seen the rivers and I know how they look like. I know I will see more of them but how? With a bike of course. It's winter here and it all gets really foggy in the morning which is one thing that makes me go crazy. Although the risk of moving around on highways during a thick fog is high, the least we can do is stay as careful as possible. No over speeding. No overtaking. No rash riding. Go and explain this to Akash. You are only wasting his time.  I could barely sleep for 2-3 hours since the 2nd la...

 "So bro, mera to trip spontaneous hi hota hai. Mazaa aata h. Kayi baar toss karke decide karta hu kaha jaana h. Kya fayda agar journey k baare mein sab pehle se hi pata ho?" I kept mumbling Gyaan to a blank faced Raman, who I bet would be wondering why he was there. My lectures are usually boring, I admit. But here was a person not known to me, being preached on about various things that had happened earlier in the day, and why I wasnt really angry. We never knew the word 'spontaneous' would be the summary of the Kerala trip. Let me rewind. "Cab nai mil rahi" "Acha ho gayi hai" "Heloo bhaiya" "Han aap ajao" "Kitni der" "Han bahar khade hai" These are precious words from Chirag, a friend destiny chose for me, not me. A vegetarian by nature, the only thing he has ever eaten is my modesty, whether I am with people or alone. Not even one hour has ever passed that he had not taken away my peace, whenever h...

“You know what, that girl asked me C mil gaya? All I could say was nahi, C ban gaya, and there the three of them stood laughing”. She chuckled, as I was telling her story about my recent visit to Jaipur due to official work. “Why are you so much into girls these days?” she asked. “It’s the weather”, I reasoned out, perfectly ready with the answer. “Last time I went to Jaipur, I was with these friends of mine and they asked us to go to Raj Mandir, I really thought Raj Mandir was a temple, but it’s actually a cinema hall”, she sat down as we agreed on taking another metro, since the one in front of us was too crowded. “I was on periods” she added. At first, it sounded to me like she was on periods and hence couldn’t go, because the body might not be at its best at those times (which usually my female friends tell) and with constant mood swings, energy is on a downward slope. But then something bothered me. ...

 "The more I see the less I know, the more I like to let it go" - Hey Oh (Snow) Red Hot Chilli Peppers Its always good to have supporting elements with you which in fact differ from people to people. Mine is not being with people! Life is something that's not there, yet there and hence isn't supposed to be taken that seriously. If you take out the advertisements from the TV and your radio and those social media sites, you are probably taking out the tactics of fear that has been instilled in your head by advertisers.   Good part is I am at a very peaceful stage of life, and I think its always a choice to either fight out with situations or just get up and leave them behind. I was seeking out some better thing to work, which eventually put me in a little tensed phase with firstly getting no calls from anywhere suddenly when I was wanting it, secondly, falling sick with Chikungunya and feeling chained to bed and thirdly, of course mother's eyes were bulgin...

 I have personally felt that its not really that attractive without the sun when you are at the mountains during the monsoons, because the sunset, sunrise and the colours that they bring to the landscape is just mesmerizing. However, if you love the foreplay and the climax that the clouds bring to the whole scenario, I don't think there's a better time to see the mountains (minus the snow) except when it rains.  Here's a little glimpse of the recent road trip to Ranipokhari, Marchula and Manila, lesser known towns in Uttarakhand that Rajat, Raju Bhaiya and I toured in a Chevrolet Beat. That car is a serious fun to zip around the mountains and it definitely befits all photographs. Reason #1 : You call it heaven or you call it cotton spread all around you, but I bet you cant take your eyes off because the scenes change every DAMN second. Road to Manila Reason #2  :  Streams flow everywhere, cutting down small paths through the mountains and onto the roads...

" रोको रोको ! साइड में लगा लो !"   (Stop! Stop! Park it on the other side)  I exclaimed with my eyes popping out at the sight of two bikers flying and crashing on the road, just a car's length away from us. I had to stop for help. Let;s ride...   Let me rewind the story.   It had been a pretty normal Saturday while I sat working my ass of off with 3 back to back presentations to be sent. I was short on time since we were supposed to leave by 12 or 1 in the night to Ranipokhari, Uttarakhand. I had to go out for some work to Delhi and while I rushed back home on my 14 year old bitch who is doing just fine, it started to rain. Never before I had experienced a rain where droplets were pricking the skin, trying to pierce off every square inch of surface they fell on. It felt like a 1000 needles raining from the sky. In fact, it pricked my lip so hard that I got a cut over it and a one and half drop of blood came out in no time. Somehow, I reached home and opene...

 I have been feeling so objective-less about myself and so much bored of it that even talking about it seems like, well...objective-less. The need to live life overtakes my thought process from the moment I wake up to all that force-able sleep that I put myself into. Yes, I am bothered inside, too much, too close to the breaking point.   Anyway, this is not about my cribbing but about the little activity my 9 year old nephew and I did together for, well someone who is, perhaps, leave it. Here is a Do It Yourself birthday card that was a mix of inspiration from Etsy, a Bollywood movie poster, New York Times and some overcooked original words by my unsatisfied ego.   Ok so here's the finished product, just so to introduce you all with what exactly it looked like from the front (I am not too good at tying Ribbons...did it just to ensure the thoughts end well) C in Old English Font (NewYorkTimes) outlined with a 3D outliner, Special 26 movie poster, Ribbon and color...

  Before I went to the United States for a short visit, I had never experienced difference in Indian way of driving and other ways. There, I learnt how to drive in lanes, when to apply the accelerator and when to apply brakes, how to let pedestrians pass first , then cycles, and then other forms of vehicles, the transformer like trucks being the last. Since the day I have been back to India, I think I have really tried to control myself driving in these conditions that are totally opposite to what I saw in New York. In India, we 1. don't know what are lanes, 2. have no idea what marks on the roads mean and 3. never knew rules of the road beyond textbooks because, ummm, because nobody follows them anyway   Everyday, I pass through my favorite highway, The Gurgaon Faridabad road , that was once considered to be very very dangerous. To tell you the truth, it still is! For those who love speeds, its a heaven and for those who don't, its nothing less than a nightmare. Wel...

The Hero, Anti Hero or Villain?    Last Sunday was quite unmanageable with time, as is the case with me. A little miscalculation of time and I was late for a meeting that my friend Yash had been calling me to attend, since a few weeks now. And once you are late, you are kind of late for almost everything that happens beyond that, EVERYTHING. While waiting for a friend at Rajiv Chowk Metro Station, I suddenly bumped into another old friend of mine, Vibhav. A few chit chat at the stop and we were out at the Inner Circle.   We chatted across everything we hadn't talked about since long, old office, our new lives, drinks, women, trips and tours, about him and about me while we kept touring the inner circle till I saw this bare-footed old man standing with head down and back bent, holding a few pens in his hand, silently calling people to buy his pens. At first, I ignored. Next second, it felt a little uneasy seeing his bare feet. Third second, I asked Vibhav if he c...