Dramanujan and his Hurdles

                   

                Dramanujan was not his real name, it was a given name. It was given to him by his fellow students at his ashram. He was so clumsy that a guy falling off a banana peel would be less clumsy and unlucky than dramanujan. And he was such a simple fellow that he would not hide his reactions and emotions while doing these clumsy acts. That was why he was called dramanujan, his mates thought he was always upto some kind if theatrics.

                 He wasn’t exceptional at studies either, so even the teachers showed little interest in his antics. Only his mother kind of understood him but she was far away in the raj mahal of Santholi. Once while on a field trip in the forest for studying the fauna of the jungle, dramanujan’s group encountered a lion. Dramanujan had his back towards the lion so he continued plucking on the bushes and grimacing in pain because of the thorns which the lion must have thought of as a little goat trapped in bushes.hence dramanujan’s antics had caused another drama.

                 Dramanujan’s mates all stood there frozen without saying a word in front of the lion. Dramanujan felt a warm liquid touch his feet, he swished around to find it was collective stream of urineof the bully far-right gang of hariya,budhiya and kaluaa touching his feet. After turning around he saw the lion and let out a majestic dance and scream conundrum that startled the Lion. The lion ran for its life and maybe let out a bit of territory marking fluid as well. Dramanujan’s drama alerted the teachers and guards and they came to the rescue.

                After that day Dramanujan was celebrated as a Hero. But as we know fame has its disadvantages. Now even the teachers and staff of the ashram started calling our Hero Dramanujan. His real name was lost in history like Atlantis or city of troy.

Dear Stranger 4: A mistake.

The week long Sports meet at our college was a good excuse for us to legally bunk classes. First day was the Badminton competition. Most of my friends and me made a first round exit as expected but we still hung around as we didn’t want to go back to college and attend lectures being attended by teachers pets. We hung about doing unofficial and at times unwelcome commentary on matches going on. Puns and subtle humorous jabs at our rival group kept things edgy and our crowd entertained. One girl seemed particularly entertained and was dropping hints which i thought were a bit leading.

After the day was over I enquired about the girl and came to know that she was not be messed about with. The last guy that approached her got only a slap in return. So I decided not to pursue the matter further as she was from the rival group as well. But deeper within I subconsciously took it as a bit of a challenge to approach her and not get the slap-sure return.

The day 2 event was Volleyball and while playing the first match I noticed that girl was watching the match today as well. We won the first match easily. I looked towards her she was chatting with a few girls from my class only. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. So I went ahead with the first plan in my head- Shinda 420. Shinda is a made-up character few of my friends and me use quite a lot. I went to the group and started chatting to my female friends standing close to her group. I was looking for some hint of interest from her and it was quite evidently there.

I said Hello to my classmate she was talking to and asked her How did she like the match. She was in mid-sentence when I suddenly shifted the focus and asked HER how did u like the match?? It was good no??.Before she could respond with anything more than a nod I continued my dialogue in chaste Punjabi. Thank you ji, I am Shinda from kukar (Mr Hen) village, District Jalandhar. And this match was nothing you should have come to our football match . Everyone told me Shinda just kick the ball towards Goal and don’t touch the ball at all or we will all fall on you with our kicks. I said ok shinda will do as you say. But then during match the ball go out of line and the man from other team, poor illiterate guy picked it up with his hands and threw it. I taught him a lesson with a tight slap but before i could explain myself the whole rival team was on me with punches and kicks. I kept asking them beat me if you want but please follow rules don’t use your hands.

Everyone standing there was laughing so hard but SHE was a bit stunned and i didn’t give her anymore time for slapstick and said SatSriAkaal Madamji and left as if I was being called for next match. I thought i had done it approached her and not got slapped. Maybe left an impression on her as well and when later on she will know I lied about my name and all she wouldn’t be bothered to smile at me anymore but i was wrong and it was a Mistake.

Son in law’s Turban (JAWAI DI PAGG)

Intro: A son in law is a very important celebrity in his in laws house in Punjabi Culture and the turban is a symbol of pride for every individual in Punjab especially in Sikh religion . So my story revolves around that context.

Kabal Singh had already ignored the sun shining brightly and all kinds of animals declaring that the new day had dawned. in fact it had matured into an adult day already. The commotion going all around him had grown steadily for quite some time now. He was thinking, “what kind of in-laws has he got ? No respect for their son-in-law, first they didn’t give him a quilt at night to sleep and now they are disturbing his sleep. It would have been better if he had spent the night at the police station only.

He was serving as a constable in the Punjab police and had got married only 2 months back. He had come to get his newly wed back to his place after the ceremonial seasonal visit of the month of saavan. He had travelled directly from the place of his posting to his in laws village. His ride on the bus was royal as usual because he had told the conductor he was an official and also he told him he had a bottle of whiskey with him. The conductor gave him the long seat at the end for completely his disposal. the conductor of course made regular visits to backseat to get his share of the sherry.

Mother-in law Surinder Kaur hadn’t expected her Jawai to show up at her doorstep without informing them first and in a drunk condition. She extended all courtsies she thought her jawai deserved and then put him to sleep on their best cot and with new quilts. When she woke up in the morning after milking the cow she went to give a glass of warm milk to Kabal but on the way she noticed that the Kabal’s turban that she had kept on a stool near the cot was nowhere to be seen. She was shell shocked and a 1000 thoughts ran into her mind. She thought what would she tell her Jawai, where was his turban which is also a part of her uniform . How could she bear the blame that her JAWAI got robbed of his TURBAN first time he visited.

Surinder had roused everyone by now and everyone was worried sick about what would happen next. Surinder sent her oldest son towards the city to buy a new turban similar to Kabal’s. The whole family was lined up I front of her and her husband. All of them we’re listening with their heads hanging in shame to their father giving them a thrashing lecture about carelessness. Kabal meanwhile got up and screamed collectively at all of them to bring him some hot water so that he can freshen up. His sister-in-laws rushed to do so.

After he freshened up he called his wife to help him with Pooni of the turban ( getting it ready to wear). The whole family got very nervous as the big brother had not returned from the city yet. They remained silent anyhow. Kabal looked at his wife when she entered the room and asked her what the whole episode was about. She told him everything about the missing turban. Kabal’s could not control his laughter and had to sit on the chair next to him. He told her that he has had the turban all along.

He explained that he had thought that mother-in-law had forgotten it give him a quilt. When he felt the cold at night he opened up his turban and used to it to wrap himself. Later on he found out that he was all the time using the quilt as the pillow . So he doubled up his wrapping with the  quilt and turban. He couldn’t help but think after that the Turban of a Jawai is too important to be ignored and also that he had two of the same Turban now with a tale associated with them. 🙂

Flight of a Fish

           Bablu the fish always had one dream he wanted to fly. He had expressed this desire to his parents and to his friends. His parents didnt pay too much attention or maybe they did not want to discourage his imagination so they just encouraged a little sometimes and on other times just ignored him and changed the subject. His friends made fun of him and told him that flying is only for birds. So he had very few friends in the real sense other than only one. Nanu was the fittest of all fishes of their age. He had the most agile fins in all and excelled in all athletic activities that fishes do.

               Nanu was so full of confidence that he wanted everyone else to have that confidence as well. So when he met Bablu for the first time in a plankton hunting class he felt fascinated with an under-confident fish with very brittle almost chubby fins having a dream to fly in the air. Their friendship was based on aspirations of both of them wanting to be a little like each other. Actually Bablu wanted to be more like Nanu.



              Bablu and Nanu used to go the shallowest of waters to watch the birds fly. They tried using their fins to propel them into the air but even with Nanu’s athletic ability and agility he was able to just break the surface of the water and they also found out that they could not breathe with dry gills. Bablu’s passion did not decrease even after that. He found out all about possibilities of flying from all possible corners of the shelf.


               He went to every fish he could find to be having any possible knowledge about flying. He found many experienced and scholarly fishes. The scholars actually knew everything about flight but only about a bird’s flight nothing to help in his flight of dreams. The experienced ones told him how they have survived so long on the shelf by not going into shallow waters where they can get caught by predator birds or fish collectors who come in their wooden shells and they never venture into deep ocean either.


           In the end he only had one option left to go to one-fin mehta who was an out of senses fool fish who had lost his one fin as an accident since which he would just keep mumbling random speech all day. Bablu went to see mehta everyday and only a few words were decipherable from him each day. In his pursuit of mehta he had even abandoned meetings with Nanu and their visits to the shallows slowly stopped.


           After 26 days of February visits he finally deciphered that the story that mehta was telling was a story of actual flight that he took with a bird but it was not only a flight it was an attack and he had only survived because the bird lost his grip on him because his brittle chubby fin broke and injured the bird . Bablu assumed that mehta lost his mind because of the trauma and lack of water on his gills. He also came to the conclusion that this was only possible way of him to fly and he might not be as lucky as mehta.


           Days went by but his passion just grew. He told the story to Nanu who found it possible but concluded that only luck saved mehta so it was not a transferable scenario but deep down he knew something was cooking in Bablu’s mind. So after much deliberation Nanu told his own parents who thought it was such a funny party story that they made fun of Bablu and his parents in the annual shelf party.

              Betrayed by his only friend and being the reason of ridicule of his parents he was feeling like being on the bottom of the ocean. His desire to free himself of all the bonds and fly away became stronger and stronger. So he made plans with Nanu to get back to the old ways and visit the shallows again. He knew what he wanted to do now, he was so sure of the way he wanted to achieve his dream that he had not given much thought to the escape plan, he was not sure he even wanted to escape.


            From the beak of the swan the whole world looked so beautiful , he had imagined world would look smaller but now he realised that the world was much bigger than he had thought and had more colors than he had imagined and breathlessness was not bothering him too much . With his dream coming true and with such an out of body experience he surrendered himself to the moment.

A RAINY WELCOME TO THE CAPITAL

         Some morbidly obese clouds burst over one of India’s hill states and the administration, pilgrims and locals were caught unawares. Even gods sitting in their temples in the mountains had to drown in the flow for what can only be described as the cause of the greater bad. The floods didn’t spare anyone gods, demi-gods, pilgrims, locals, atheists, agnostics, fundamentalists, doctors, Nazis and in the frustration and anger of rescue efforts many people vent it out on an IAS officer. So the rain was all over the news and roads around me. That didn’t mean I was going to shelve my plan to come to Delhi, me escape from everything including the words heavy and rain.

           On moving to delhi I realized rain was still in the air. I could easily tell it by the way my clothes stuck to my body as if they got separated they will reunite only at the next kumbh mela 12 years on. Few intermittent afternoon showers made the humidity worse. The relief was that air-conditioning was a common thing at coaching institutes and the metro, which was the preffered mode of transport in delhi. So I was relieved when I boarded the metro in the evening after studying the Indo-Pak relations for 900^th time.

            It was a cool metro ride with lots of strangers riding in your personal space and tens waiting to invade it even further not willing to wait for the next train that comes just after 2 minutes. After the initial mental hullaloo of boarding the wrong train and jumping out just before the door closes automatically just to realize it was indeed the right one. Station names making you head spin with city centres all around sprinkled with baghs, gardens and chowks, places with more variety of  names than chaminda vaas’s full name. Groups of young people breaking the silence enforced by earphones plugged into giant nuclear Chernobyl phones that are bigger than my graduation and post graduation notebooks combined. Lots of pretty faces, smooth legs and hideous colour pants varying from shit after eating broccoli and a 3 day old puke.

            My destination metro station arrived and I wanted to deboard soon and get to do some chores you do when you move to a new city. The underground station seemed to be having a festival sale of some kind towards the exits. The crowd was sitting and standing on the stairs leading to the exit in some sort of a trance. They were looking outside expectantly like waiting to see a half naked , queer eyed, salwar-kameez wearing, black money smelling and anti-MNC baba do a stomach churn that will give you acidity by just looking at it.

        The congregation at the not so pearly gates was because it was raining outside, not just the normal rain but it was a strange rain that was coming from all directions left. Right , front, behind, a bit from the sky and some even from below. The showers from each direction were in a violent mood and were trying to clash into each other and they reminded me of the clash of allies and axis powers in the great war. After some time , I even saw a few Jews flying around and axis showers hitting them into buildings. On second thought that was probably just after I tried to step out and got hit on the head by a shower coming from London.

 

           The crowd under the concentration camp shed was growing steadily. Every few minutes some interns would venture out with their shower proof umbrella weapons but were hit by U-boats (german submarines) sending aqua bombs from left, right and below. All new interns coming in were wounded wet with the degree of wetness of a mountain pilgrim. The rain war seemed to be heading to a stalemate as the wind (US) was unsure of which side it was supporting or even participating at all. I thought this would be the best chance to make a brave exit.

           I took the chance and covered all of the 50 feet distance without getting too wet. I headed straight for an automatic 3-tired rain shadow machine- The Auto rickshaw. Little did I know that it was just a trap. All the operators of these machines refused to operate their machines in this terror filled atmosphere as they had already been bitten when their machines had stalled because water had made way into their gas burning chambers. The rain had came back with a vengeance. The upper part of the rain became so aggressive and now it had the support from the wind. The central axis powers were almost obliterated.

           Then out of the waters of the North Sea came an auto just like the opening of the second front at Normandy, it brought with it hope to the people caught in the crossfire. We started towards our destination and the scenes of waterlogging caused by the war were right in front and below me. The water level was knee high for most people and most people were visibly pissed off making me think that is not helping, is it? Some little people were oblivious to the lack of hope around and were busy practicing their swimming and synchro skills giving a lot of hope to me and other people around that all was not lost. After wading through various roads with water level almost always above the floor of the auto we reached my drop off point.

         The residents of my friends rented apartment where I was going to stay were busy drying their mattresses and reinforcing their defenses after water had breached through from the windows and the air conditioner. I didn’t try to help them and went straight to towel myself and a change of clothes while looking out the window I thought a grand welcome to the capital is fine but a simple thunderous applause would have been enough. These histrionics were a bit too much. :):)

TRUE COLOURS

          It is often said that a human-being shows his true colors before he is going to die. The same is true for students in the time around exams especially just before the exam. I had the fortune of witnessing this interesting phenomenon last month during which I was part of the pilgrimage of the student community. The exam was being conducted in only one city of the state and not in the beautiful capital city but a small district headquarter 30 km off the highway.

        The exam was in the afternoon so most people including me were traveling to the city on D-day only. The atmosphere in the bus was the usual anarchy under the conductor’s rule. After fighting with several Iron ladies over whether their half-ticket children deserved a seat the conductor was visibly exhausted. So when an old man came on board he started asking for his certificate of age to prove he was a senior citizen. I thought the fact that he could not hear the conductor asking where he wanted to go but him continuing quoting the scripture for how the times have changed was a big clue..

       Some passengers especially the younger ones had a distinct anxiousness about them. After about half an hour most of them forgot about playing cool and dug into the books and notes. Most of them did not make it till the bus-stand and upon entering the city got off at the Gurudwara to pay the final installment of bribes to the gods. The praying thing continued even inside the exam hall. The most interesting were the prayers before opening the answer sheet. Some of the students even touched the boundary between exam hall and classroom before entering as if asking the permission from the ghosts of the room to enter their electromagnetic interference zone.

       People praying before the English paper language were a real spectacle. Praying for help in a language exam when the gods of their religion didn’t even know the language.I guess the prayer will go on something like this “oh almighty god, can you please request the god of English people to help me in the exam?? Oh wait!! The god of English was a jew, he spoke Hebrew and his apostles wrote in Latin. Oh god now I am even more confused, holy father, mother, brother, sister, love you, miss you, birthday, anniversary, valentine, Christmas, diwali, holi, swaaha…

         Another feature of the examination behavior was the panic when the answer sheet had some missing pages or had their page numbers jumbled up or if it had a smudge all hell would break loose. The urgency to get that sheet replaced was more than Salman Khan’s after he drove you know over you know who. The invigilators and their supervisors appeared more nervous than the students. They were like bride’s parents at an Indian wedding pleading to groom’s party to please take their daughter away for this amount of dowry please. The variety of invigilators coming to our nine days of showing our colors was also quite large. We had an invigilator lady who was bigger than Adnan Sami before he lost the 150 kg’s of his charming second chin and one lady Jhansi was so admant on following the rules that I think if I had asked her out for coffee she would have refused by saying I don’t drink coffee when it doesn’t rain. That’s a rule to keep me fresh..

          The auto-rickshaw drive back to the hotel or to the bus stand was the scene for all the frustrations or joy of the exam came out. People who had had a good day were full of joy and the ones who had a bad day were not always quite either. They were discussing that there was lot of corruption in these type of recruitments. According to them no one can pay Rs. 40 lacs for these posts as they cannot be recovered ever. They even proposed a rate of 4-5 lacs. So they were frustrated because of corruption but were not against it if the price is right.

       The papers themselves were more like a talk show on any of our news channels than any serious knowledge exploiting dictatorial writs. My central nervous system was playing the role of a moderator and left wing and right wing of my brain giving me suggestions. Mostly drawing conclusions was so difficult that my brain wandered to the interview with Chitragupta. All answers were eventually written by my CNS’S prejudice.

And now I am headed to the country’s capital New Delhi to prepare for further tests and tribulations’ of my life. Lets see what adventures await me there….

Thirst of the WAter DroP..

                            The hardwork done by a drop of liquid water in this world requires special mention that has been ignored by everyone in the world. Its great drive and journey to meet the creator and to reach its purest form that leads it to make all the efforts against laws of gravity and laws of liquids in this world. Large amounts of water drops in the ocean has two options to fulfil this wish of reaching the great high mountains where it can exist as pure ice and snow until and unless it does some unforgivable sin and is sent back as punishment to the oceans .

                           The water drops can either evaporate and catch the train or flight of the winds blowing from oceans to land or they can take the second option in which they have to travel against the flow of all the water droplets discarded from heaven because of their sins to reach the mountains.

                            The first path is easier as booking a flight on the trade winds is quite easy especially when you are near the equator where the sun shines the brightest. To reach the tropics water drops in the temperate and other depths have to rise on top of their social hierarchy and they will be carried to the tropics riding on one of the northern or southern equatorial currents and if the drops have some influential friends they can get to ride and chose between a warm current or cold current according to the climate or their personal preference.

                          The only problem is in the END, like all illegal immigration operations jumping over the border is the hardest step and only a small amount of droplets can reach the heavenly abode of the high snowy peaks. As the winds are overbooked with moisture they loose most of the droplets when they try to climb over the mountains guarding the pearly snow peaks. Only a few drops can escape this hardship.

                         The second part is difficult and does take a long time, there is lot of hardship and hard work in this path but the success is almost always guaranteed. The molecules may to wait honestly and earnestly to get a chance of raising themselves to the top of social hierarchical surface or their abouts and wait for their turn to ride the current in limited and unreserved spots and reach the mouth of rivers where they have a choice of so many ways through which they have to chose the right path that will lead them to ‘nirvana’.

                        Going upstream against other droplets which have been discarded from heaven is a mighty task. Not only the drops have to fight gainst gravity and the flow but also these drops which are dejected and depressed. These drops will be told by downstream drops about their experiences and how it is so difficult to reach up there and the system up there is so unjust that it is not at all worth the effort to reach up there. Many would just decide to fall back into the worthless existence in the ocean . Only a few would ever make up there and stay there frozen in time till the end of time in the purest form.

                         Ofcourse anyone can relate what i have written with the struggles of life of homo sapiens but you can also just enjoy the story without going all philosophical about it. I wrote it while listening to song about weed (babaji ki booti) ,,,wonder what would have written under its influence :):)

KHAKI – A DEAR STRANGER 2

           The feeling of the walls caving in and being suffocated was not the feeling I had expected when I jumped in but I guess that’s the tuborg (beer) does to the brain. The expected feeling of cold water piercing my skin like surrounded by porcupines had started to hit me as the influence of alcohol began to fade. I had to knock multiple times on the walls of the plastic water tank I had jumped into just for fun to get my friends to notice I wanted to get out of there. The overhead tank adventure had got us all feeling hungry.So in our inebriated condition another adventure beckoned us, a midnight trip to the Night food street from Zirakpur to Chandigarh.

         We had a car at our disposal but that wouldn’t have been fun so we decided to go on our bikes. 3 bikes, 6 people night dresses, all of us half drunk by now nearly 13 km ride to the NFS all seemed very exciting. I was riding pillion to my friend Budhiya. The midnight cold breeze had me singing in no time and with hariya trying to poke me from the other bike everytime  the two bikes came close the tune became very intresting mix of the song and anti-jab squeaks. Then shambhu from the third bike egged on by shamsher challenged everybody to a race. It was eyes closed for me from that time and legs and arms tightly wrapped around budhiya I had prayer on my mind and lips.

           And soon enough the prayer was answered we had stopped in the matka chowk not because we had crossed the chequered flag but because two policemen had stopped our group of dhoom machale gangsters and were asking for papers while smelling for alcohol. Those days all the newspapers in Chandigarh were full of the latest drive by the police against drunk driving. The news flashed in front of my eyes and before anyone else could start babbling I started with pleasantries to the officer in my calmest and most charming voice. I guess that is why he was quick to deduce that I was drunk.

       The usual round of excuses and denials started from our part but the officer didn’t seem to be too interested in giving us a ticket. He just kept smiling at our attempts to string so many sentences to get a working consistent story going on. He deduced that we were drunk but much of the effect of alcohol had worn off. So he halfheartedly started getting the ticket book out. I had got the clue from his mannerisms and got a ticket of 100 bucks from my wallet and tried to hand it to him. He reiterated this is not the way, so I got another 100 and gave It to him that did the trick and he went back towards his gypsy probably to give his partner the share.

       We started mounting our bikes and almost put them I gear when the partner officer came running towards us with the 200 bucks in hand looking furious. I got a chill through my spine thinking here comes a lecture about the young generation with their father’s money just wasting away their life’s. when he came near he seemed a lot less intimidating . He was a sardar officer with a flowing white beard and rather had a loving expression on his face. He asked twice who gave this money?? .We were stunned but my hand had gone up in the air without me even realizing. He said son you were going to have some food, go ahead and if you are short on money taker it from me. This is not the way even I have children who are just like you . Now just go and have your food.

         We did go and have our food at NFS and on our way back collected another set of beers from a vend that had a little window open through out the night .But all though the drinking, the riding and the abusing of shambhu because his bike had run out of petrol and we had to foot-tug him along the thought of the noble soul who had showered on me an unique experience of a khaki clad policeman offering me money for food had haunted me. Was it a dream or was I kidnapped by aliens but I guess humanity is still alive around us , sometimes it can be hard to find among the people who beat defenseless women on the street and debate over jurisdiction over the injured body of a victim but it is there somewhere!!!!!!!!

GOT MY LICENSE !!!!!!!!!!!!

                          Now by getting my license i don’t mean i got married or something, I just got back my driving license which i had lost a few days back. Finally i feel like a complete and legal citizen. The incomplete and illegal feeling started the day i realized i had lost my wallet, one of the only two things i was personally responsible for not loosing along with my mobile phone. I had lost my mobile phone on earlier occasions but this feeling was different. I was deeply traumatized from deep within.

            The deep harrowing feeling was because of the thought of going to the transport office to get a duplicate issued made me loose a lot of sleep and stool. On second thought diarrhea was the chicken sandwich’s fault but still it was enhanced by the state of bathrooms in public offices. I felt handicapped because i will have to drive illegaly untill i get my license.

         My previous experience with the transport office was a year ago when i had to get my driving license renewed. It took almost a month to do what involved only 3 days of actual working. I approached the much hyped “Suwidha Center” and in a few minutes only I understood it was more of a “Asuwidha Center”. The receptionist told me to go to the window no. 24, where after waiting i a long line the clerk told me I had to go to the DTO office window no. 8.

         The coveted window no. 8 had a big line in front of it and almost no information above, below, beside anywhere. After loitering around a bit i was told by a good Samaritan to get a form from the canteen and get it filled along with a medical and deposit it before 1:30 pm here. Itwas 1:15 pm already. So I brought the form and went home . Next I went to a doctor who worked in a government hospital to my medical done. But he refused it when he read it had to be filled by a registered practitioner approved by the civil surgeon. So I had to go to the DTO office again to know who was the authorized. Ofcourse no one knew and no one had time or cared enough to tell me there. So i went to the canteen and told the canteen wala over a cup of tea my tale.

         Under the banyan tree pay Rs. 20 to Gupta and he will do what you need without even looking at you. No urine, stool or memory samples. Gupta was a no hassles man. My medical was done in seconds. I was back at window 8 where after a long snuggle struggle i finally deposited my form and headed to window 6 for fee deposit. Another huge line beckoned me but a unique phenomena here caught my eye. Every now and then a guy would come with a bundle of forms, knock on the window, say a code name and his forms were taken in out of line. It was almost divine.

         After the divine intervention I got my receipt on which was a date to come back to this office after 3 days for my photograph. Ready with freshly ironed clothes and a spank turban that took almost an hour to put on i was in line outside Room No. 111 waiting for my turn coupon no. 342. Two and half hours of waiting in a summer afternoon and a few bouts of shouting and barking from clerks at the job of capturing me in film I got another reciept to stand in line at window 10 on a date 15 days later than this day.

         Cut to the present day and I thought there is no way I am going through all that again. I went to the DTO office but this time straight to an agent sitting beside Gupta under the great ol banyan. All he needed from me was photocopy of the license, two photographs and a residence proof. He explained the whole process patiently and detailed the Rs. 800 I was going to spend bribing away and circumventing the system. He told me to come after 2 days and true to his promise I have my license in my newly bought wallent.

          AT last freedom from system through corruption and commission. :):)

RED DEVIL – AN AUTO-MOTO-BIOGRAPHY

I have very little memory of my previous incarnation. I just know i was part of the INDIAN ARMY but i don’t remember exactly how many wars or battles I took part in. My last memory in army colors is an auction after i was retired and had to shift out of the cantonment.

             I was taken to an old age home for jeeps and waiting idle for a few days and trying and failing to start a conversation with other jeeps, I was taken to a special part of the old age home onto a high platform. All my body parts were loosened after which I went into a limbo which i am not sure was death or a comma.

         When i woke up from the comma I felt so rejuvenated and full of energy, I could hardly control my oils. Everything about my body felt so new and I found out pretty soon why ?. I had a totally new body shape, no longer was I bulky rigid and boring. Now had a low aggressive stance with a lean mean body which i could not have hoped to get after a 1000 pushups a day for a 1000 service periods. The regulation olive green of my body was replaced by bright cherry red and most metallic parts had been chromed looking like the back of a mirror.

            My old petrol engine had given way to a refurbished diesel engine which was way more powerful than needed. My slim rickety tyres were replaced by large shiny five fork alloys and burly studded tyres . A new feature the power steering made turning so easy for me that the headaches and neckpains were all but gone.

            Though I was no longer an Army Vehichle I had more crude weapons in my new avtar than a lightly armed naxal guerrilla or maybe not. All these new enhancements had made me so excited that I was eagerly waiting for someone to come and test my new self. After a few forgettable test drives, i came across my new owner to be. He was so surprised and ecstatic the moment he released the clutch that he exclaimed with joy…Thts my DEVIL..