marr I age

Why does every mother in the world makes her son feel like HE IS THE ONE or rather HE IS THE ONLY ONE. Not that I am complaining or anything, it actually feels ‘good’ feeling, to be frank. And I am sure all the moms are the same. Sweet….I must say!

I was actually in the middle of some work the other day and my mom comes in and tells me (or rather makes me realize) that I am about to complete a quarter of a century on this planet! Shocked, Surprised, Taken aback – some of the words to describe my situation at my mom’s sudden revelation (although known to me too) I ask her, “SO??”
I knew where this was going to go. She has practically never spoken about my ‘it’ (read: marriage) ever with me but today was a different day I guess!

Chapter 1: The Indian point of view
My mom had just spoken to her brothers & other family members and I knew brain washing had been done. Typical Indian stuff! I find all this so funny sometimes, am not against marrIage though, in any which ways, arranged OR otherwise, presuming there are only two ways to ‘it’. Tell me if there are more. So the discussion went ahead. I, as a nice son, gave a positive nod to the idea of marrIage , thinking the discussion was over for the time being. But my mom was there to prove me wrong. She was visibly happy with my response and at that very point grabbed the phone and started calling ‘selected’ family members asking them to find me a so-called suitable match!!!

I was visibly speechless and this is just the start of the dialogue.

Chapter 2: The Ladki dekhna – Ladka dekhna phenomenon
My mom’s ‘shaadi ke barey mein soch’ attitude, is encouraged, in a way cos’ of my friends. Most of them are married. The unmarried ones are getting conscious that they are not married (yet) so they’ve started the so called ‘ladki dekhna’ procedure. I sometimes this system is so weird. I know that the times are changing and all but still, this seems to be THE Indian way. Ladki dekho, paanch mint vaarta-laap karo and that’s it; its more of a business relationship than a marriage. Some (even I do) would argue that this may be the traditional way but it still is very much prevalent. Its hypocrisy all the way. I’ve seen cases where in parents are love-married but their children have to go thru the ladki dekho – ladka dekho procedure. Hypocrisy at its peak. Even though their children have chosen someone on their own but just cos he/she is from some other caste n crap, things don’t go down well with the parents. And hence ladki dekhna – ladka dekhna procedure, in most cases, whether one likes it or not.

Chapter 3: Choice marriage
As one of my friend points out, “it should not be called arranged marriage; it should be called CHOICE marriage.” Believe you me, just cos he is a guy, based in an orthodox (ya I know, not many would agree) India can he pass such a strong statement. And this again is his point of view. What he means is just an extension of Chapter 2. I actually went ahead and asked some of my other friends (male, female, married & committed, married & not committed, single & unmarried, committed to one, committed to many, single for life and others) on what do they think of ‘marriage’. Guys’ve more choice than girls, all agreed on this point. However affluent, broad-minded family you come from, this was a fact that could not be ignored. Choice marriage was a very raw and a demeaning phrase, the womankind said. I tend to agree with them here. And at the same time, some guys seemed to love it and in today’s context even the girls loved it.

Chapter 4: Friends’ diary
SHE is 25, sexy, earning good enough to sustain her so called lavish lifestyle in one of the cosmopolitan cities of India and is into her third relationship. She is short-tempered, has a factory of tears inside her, is very possessive (still ironically broad-minded), doesn’t like her (so called) boy friend talking to some objectionable (in her book) girls. She is someone who lives her own life, in her own way barring a few times when I think her guy influences and I am sure it is the other way round too. She doesn’t want to marry for years to come but still wants her relationship to continue! And yes, she calls herself ‘commitment-phobic’….but I know she is not.
Her views on marriage: “Waste of time!”

HE is 26, single, into his family business, afraid of society (in a sense that he doesn’t even smoke a cigarette in a radius of 3kms of his home!), more than his parents he is afraid of his parents’ friends seeing him smoking. Before he joined his dad’s business, he served an organization for 2 years in one of India’s metro cities. He has had his share of temporary relationships, one night stands (read: too many). But But But, now he is back home with his family and he is a changed man completely (except smoking). He does not look at any girl, eye to eye.
His views on marriage: “I can/will only marry a girl my family chooses. It won’t matter if my family chooses business gain as a bridge for my marriage. The ‘Indian society system’ scares me the most and that’s why I choose to be this way. I am not complaining though as I know my family will choose the best for me.”

SHE is 25, beautiful, single, earns well, lives in one of the BPO/KPO cities of India. She was in India, went abroad, got into a serious relationship and eventually was officially engaged. The next thing I hear is that the engagement is broken n so was she. So heartbroken was she that she left everything and came back to India, just bcos that country made her feel worse. I can imagine. I haven’t been to Delhi since last one year! Now she is back, has a good job but the pain is not gone. She hates to be in a relationship now. Cries at any hour of the day. Sadness has creeped inside her.
Her view on marriage: “Its just to fulfill ones physical needs. I actually see no reason why one should marry. I’ve seen couples only fighting all the times, in my own family (sadly) or otherwise. I, myself will have to be thoroughly convinced to marry anyone, now that I have gone thru the worst.”

HE is 25, was always single (till now that is) This guy never got into any relationship, not that he couldn’t, just that he chose not to. Not bcos his family would have opposed, just that he chose not to. Not that he is gay, just that he chose not to. Not that he never socializes, just that he chose not to. He is any parents’ delight. Whatever dad says, I’ll do that only. So when his parents chose a girl for him, he instantly fell in love with her! It’s already been 5 months to his courtship and in another 3 months time he’ll be married. I wish it was this easy!
His views on marriage: “Although I am not married yet, (and I can’t even tell you how excited I am) in my opinion, marriage is something everyone should go thru. Its already so beautiful, he says, even before I am married, imagine after the marriage. Maybe that is cos this is my first ever encounter with a female on ‘that’ level. But whatever it is, I am madly in love”.

HE is 28, single (was in a relationship though, long back), has a business of his own. Well qualified n stuff. As far as my sources could tell, this guy has gone thru the ‘ladki-dekhna’ process atleast 8 times. But here is where the difference lies. He was the one not chosen in all cases except one, where he disagreed for. So, its not always that the guy has choice all the time. Is he frustrated? YES. Is he angry? YES. Is he upset (with the womankind)? YES. And I guess all the YESs are only bcos of what he has gone thru.
His view on marriage: “Its only bcos of my parents that I am not killing all the girls of this world, I simply wish I could”.

SHE is 26, chirpy, beautiful. I was the common link between these two; this girl and her ex-guy. Their relationship lasted for 4 healthy years. In the end, things dint ‘work out’ and so came the end of it all. She was broken. He was broken. She used to tell me her side of pain and he used to hide his side of pain. After a year of their break-up (I so hate this word) she got engaged and eventually married to a guy of her parents’ choice. Though, I always thought that she is never going to commit herself to anyone now, looking at her state of affairs. Am glad she proved me wrong.
Her views on marriage: “Rocking and peaceful at the same time. It all depends on the RIGHT kind of person you choose. In a ways its good that one gets to use the power of choice or the power of parents’ choice in the case of an (arranged) life partner. I am thankful that my parents chose my husband as the guy for me. We are happy and our 4 month old kid is a living proof.”

..and finally..here's wishing my ex (i hate dis word..its so demeaning) pots of luck. She just got engaged last week. She deserves d best (she had me for 6 yrs;) and I hope she has d best..!

Goa..a state of mind..

Goa. Why Goa, cos’ in the last 6 months I've been there twice. We planned this particular trip in April’08, scheduled for July 4, 2008. The surprising and the best part was that we actually went and that too on the scheduled date. I call its surprising cos’ planning normally, in my friends’ books don’t always convert to action. Anywz the tally of people going was 19, but that was then.

.......

12 friends:

Vishesh
Isha
Bapu
Radha
Karina
Vir
Riddhi
GE
Maanu
Reliance
Sujamal

On the day we left Ahmedabad, we were 8. One Toyota Innova. Good weather. Great drive from Ahmedabad to Baroda. And then the pain in butt n back and everywhere else started and ended only in Surat where one more Toyota Innova & 3 more friends joined us. Which frankly meant more room to park your ass. I must tell you Surat to Mumbai (outskirts only) is one cool drive. It was drizzling and so it was awesome (read:awaysome;)
PS: I forgot to tell you. I was with 11 other Gujjus. Man..i so love them.
Anywz..I say Mumbai outskirts cos’ we had to go to Thane station to pick up our final member. Tally now: 2 Toyota Innova cars & 12 friends. 6 in each. Comfortable enough.
Getting to Thane, asking for directions, picking up our friend, getting out of Mumbai. Took 180mins.
So we inch ahead. Still outside Mumbai and asking for directions for Goa (which is still 600kms away) And above all this, one of the cars (not ours) was running out of diesel and the we were in Mumbai where most of the pumps shut off by 10pm and it was 10:45pm. In between all this we were taking wrong turns, people were hungry, the other car (whose diesel was drying up) had their AC still on. Funny no? Hell NO.
We pass by a McDonald’s. Some say “lets go”. Some say “pass”. We pass and it turns out that we made a mistake. No resto in sight. All petrol pumps we see are closed or worse even, closing down in front of us!! Finally we see one ‘Shri Sai Restaurant – Family Restaurant and Bar’. With no other option and people even more hungry, we decide to go. And ya, I forgot to mention, we were 7 guys & 5 girls. All handsome and beautiful respectively. So, we go ahead with the only resto in sight and it turns out to be a really good one. Will talk about the food later. Like I observed on one of my trips to Wagah Border. In the Pakistani side of the border, all guys sit on one side of the ‘place to sit’ & all girls on the other side. Strictly. We also parked ourselves in the same manner in the resto, I don’t know why.

And then came the time to order food.
2 chicken afghani, with red gravy and a bit spicy.
3 paneer something starters.
2 more vegetable dishes.
10 butter rotis.
1 peg of 100 Pipers
1 masala dosa
4 pathetic lassi

2 bowls of peanuts for free
Total Bill: 2500 INR

Satisfaction: negative
We ate. We played with peanuts targeting each other. All this was happening @ 1am and we had a looooong night/drive ahead. Anywz..we hit the road after dinner, got to a diesel pump. Filled the cars with fuel and started again. No sooner that we started, we took one wrong turn and by mistake took the Mumbai-Pune expressway and as our car was ahead of the two, I was blamed (God knows why, I wasn’t even driving) But the issue was that this grave blunder of ours was realized by us only after about 4kms into the expressway @ 2am. This is what we do. We call our respective friends (who live in Mumbai or Pune) to ask them when is the next U-turn / intersection on this expressway!!! And somehow we get to know that its 40kms away; cant afford any delay here. What do we do? We take our cars back on the wrong-side of the Mumbai-Pune expressway (FYI, this is one of the most accident prone highways of India, and that night I found it so true) Somehow we got to the correct road FINALLY.

Out of 7 guys (Bapu, Vir, Sujamal, Reliance, GE, Vishesh & Pankaj), 5 (Bapu, Vir, Sujamal, GE & Vishesh) could drive and out of these 5 guys 4 (Bapu, Vir, Sujamal & GE) opted to drive. Vishesh said he could not drive a diesel car!!!!

The car which was ahead always had to ‘check’ for the car behind, for obvious reasons. The most tragic/funny part was that one car had MP3 player and the other car did not! I was in the MP3 car ;) The MP3 car had like 1200 different songs to choose from. The other car had 12.

I don’t remember anyone actually sleeping the MP3 car. And we could see all but one (Bapu, who was driving) sleeping in the other car. The pity was he was listening to mobile songs to keep himself alive and we had to ‘check’ him/them every once in a while. So, the drive was good, music was even better. The weathergods were also meherbaan on us I guess. It used to rain for 5 mins and normal again for 60 mins. This went on till Goa. But wait, we haven’t reached Goa yet. We are still approx. 400kms away and ya I for got to tell you the most important part. Of the 7 guys in total, only one (Pankaj) was a non-smoker but if passive smoking kills earlier then well Pray for me..! So the point was that, that these fag-gang used to take a break (for smoking) but calling it anything but a smoke-break. This, I assume must have delayed our reaching Goa by atleast 2 hours. We drove for a while. They smoked a lot. And then at one place somewhere in the Sindhudurg (southern Maharashtra) @ about 4:30am we took a chai break. We ordered 10 chai, 1 coffee and 2 mineral water bottles. It was one of the most pathetic chai I ever had. Only GE, Bapu, Vir & Reliance cud finish it, everyone else failed to. God know what are these guys used to drinking to. Then we asked for the bill and this is how the conversation was:

Sujamal – “bhou, bill kitna hua”
Bhou – “Rs.220”
Chorus – “What the f***? Twwwoo Huuuundreeed aannd Ttwwweennnttyyy Ruuppeess?? For the worst chai on planet earth @ 4:30am in the most deserted place in Maharashtra?”

Imagine, we were trying to ‘bargain’ for the chai we had. And it worked as well. We settled for Rs.200, I don’t know what happiness we gained by saving 20 bucks that sultry night.
Anywz..ahead we marched. It was precisely 6:15am and we had touched the ghats (the beautiful hilly drive) It was drizzling and it was awesome (read:awaysome) We get a call from the other car.
Vir: “Come back guys, Bapu has puked as his body mechanism could not handle the hilly zig-zags”
Vishesh: “Will have to go back, Bapu has puked….IN THE CAR”
Somehow I knew this puke thing was going to be a hilarious experience.
We drove back and saw Bapu covered in puke all over, his tees and lowers and shoes as well. Poor chap.
I told you this was a hilly area (and believe me when I say that southern Maharashtra is THE PLACE to be in monsoon) and it had rained up in the mountains, which created many tiny waterfalls in the ghats. And our Bapu was like, “come what may, I wan2 take a bath.” We set out with the bottles we had to ‘collect water’ for Bapu to have a bath or atleast clean himself. The drinking water with us was over.

This is what each one was doing.

Vishesh: laughing & trying to target a mango from a tree nearby, in vain.
Pankaj: helping Vishesh achieve his goal, failing fruitlessly...literally..!

Sujamal: showing as if he was the only caring person on earth but doing nothing.
Vir: trying to answer this question “Why did I come?”
Reliance: “Have we reached Goa?”
GE: was he even there?
Radha: trying to find a water source nearby and very much worried.
Riddhi: helping her.
Isha: helping her.
Maanu: helping her.
Karina: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Bapu: “I wan2 take a bath or we are not inching ahead”

Finally the FBI girls found out a beautiful waterfall (about 50ft high) only about 10mtrs away from us, not easily visible from the road. Bapu, at that point of time was the happiest person in the universe. He took a royal shower, we clicked some pics and there it was, all happy. We inched ahead again, vowing to not to take a break again, till Goa. 45mins later, the fag-gang was active again. After all this and no more major delays, we reached Goa @ 13:00, about 27hrs after we had left Ahmedabad;majorly thanks to our fag-gang, breaks every hour..!
Trust me when I say, our ass had gone thru a lot.

GOA

Day 1
We reached in the after noon and straightaway headed to the liquor shop. Our shopping list for Day one was:
20 Budweisers
2 Teachers whiskey
1 Chivas Regal
16 Bacardi Breezers
With all this and ourselves, we reached the resort. Beautiful sunny afternoon. Nice rooms. All went to sleep. Only a few zombies like me, Vishesh & Reliance dint sleep. Anywz, all were up at 8pm, gathered in one of the rooms for ‘you know what’. One could not help but notice the twinkle in Bapu’s eyes when it is time to make drinks and managing everyone’s pegs and stuff. Its really something. After 2 hrs into drinking n all, each one had to mock either himself/herself or anybody else. That was one funny session. Vir mocked his wife. Isha mocked herself. Bapu mocked his boss. GE too mocked his boss. Pankaj wrote this blog. It was fun and it was 2am. Some went to a walk on the beach. Others went to sleep.

Day 2

The morning started with waking up each other and lazying around. We were asked to be ready by 11:00am by Sujamal, the finance manager of the trip, the trip arranger, the people manager. We were going to Fort Aguada & St.Francis church. But before that, Sujamal had a surprise for us. He had bought 12 identical T-shirts (with a logo of his travel firm-Dattu Travels) from Ahmedabad. It turned out to be a really nice idea, as the pics would show you.
We headed towards the St.Francis church, situated in Old Goa. Let me tell you, only 42% of us wanted to go to the church n all but those 42% made up the girls in the group. So..obviously we had to go.

The drive to the church is a good one thru Old Goa with Mandovi river flowing on one side and civilization on the other. We reached the church, with people all around watching us curiously. Again, the fag-gang was active and I had to, with no choice left, follow them for my share of passive smoking. This church is beautiful, from the inside as well as from the outside. Had a group pic session once outside and a sprint between the rest 58%, the guys. I won. Don’t know about the second & third.
Lesson for the fag-gang: Smoking leads you to lose races as well, besides killing of course.

Our next destination was Fort Aguada, a torned-out fort but a beautiful one. As we reached the fort, we decided to have a cup of tea (I’ve atleast 8 of them a day, in office) but my first in Goa. Now the tea-stall lady had an Indian breed dog; his name-Buddhu. It was, no doubt, a friendly one. Once done with the tea, we headed towards the fort, with Buddhu giving us company.

I must say, Buddhu was quite photogenic.

At the fort, we had some really crazy photo sessions; the pics here will support my statement for sure. Anywz, once done with the fort, our resort was our destination for the day, of course, another liquor shopping on the list midway.

This night was going to be a great one cos,
a) All friends were together.
b) Wimbledon’08 Final between Nadal & Federar was to be played tonight.
c) We were drinking.
d) We were in Goa..what else does one need yaar..!

All started @ 9pm. The Wimbledon final and our ‘session’. As I always have been, a Roger Federer fan, it was no different that night. But I dint know we had traitors among us. We had some people following Nadal. And so it happened, forming of groups. And when one mixes drinks + friends + any sport..you’ve no idea of where the drink is going, its only clear the next morning and this is what was precisely going to happen. Nadal won first 2 sets but we had faith in Federer and with it we gulped down some more, in my case I was already 7 Budweisers down. Federer took away the 3rd set and then it rained and the match stopped for a while. But we didn’t. We had some dinner and in the meanwhile the match resumed. In the chaos of our own Federer vs Nadal, we continued watching the final. 4th set was again taken away by Federer and this match couldn’t have been more tense. By this time, we were literally ‘off’. The 5th set was an amazing one and even the non-tennis fans among us were following it curiously! Nadal took away the final set by 9-7 and washed away Federer’s chances of clinching 5th Wimbledon title in a row. But at the end it was game well played by two tennis rock stars and the best one won. And among us it was a different story. By the time we realized tennis was over and it was time to sleep, most of us were drunk n all but it was fun and a sport-night never to be forgotten.

PS: Today, I lost my phone & with it a chance to meet a friend & eventually 2 wine bottles!

Day 3
As were the deeds of the previous night, most woke up pretty late. And the best thing was we had no plans to go anywhere but to stay at the resort and do whatever. The day, as all previous days started with lovely breakfast prepared by the ladies gang + Sujamal. All others were there just to eat and then rate the food. The best part was that I could start my day with a Budweiser….which I did, everyday with people giving me company.
We then decided to play cricket….on the beach. It was funny as I stood as an umpire the entire game, even though I was the self-made captain of one of the teams! Later went into the waters with divided opinions. Some were for the beach while some were for the pool.

We were in the waters for some time until because of high-tide, we were asked to pack bags and go to the pool. Sad.
Didn’t matter though. Pool was cool. Like kids we played some pool volleyball. We won. This is my blog, I cant let myself lose! We were in the pool splattering water, playing, doing all kinds of idiotic stuff, basically having fun.

Vir asked us, if we want some beer in the pool. Neki aur pooch pooch. Obviously we said yes and this is what Vir did. He went to the room. Came back. Gulped 2 beers in front of me and then says, “Beer is over Pankaj!”
We were done with the pool and we were hungry but with no beer or scotch in sight, we went shopping again. Bought a lot.
A day earlier, we had planned to go to a disc called Tito’s. The best in Goa. But people were too tired to go all that far n stuff. Sujamal, the man God has sent on earth to keep friends happy came up with an idea. He got a good deal with the resort guys to arrange a private party exclusively for us @ their disc.

Scheduled time:9pm.

I’ve to admit one thing. Girls are prepared for anything, any day. It’s a God gift or something. After we all were dressed up n ready to go (although the venue was only a walk, 5mins away)

Girls were all looking beautiful and guys were….guys! They were like..as if they knew about this party years ago and came prepared. Am only blaming us.

The disc was nice. Tequila was refreshing. Company was good. DJ was cool.
Overall a funight.

Day 4
Time to go home..but not before a pic-session before all the bottles finished by us during our stay.

A 23hr journey back home..n with minor glitches like punctured tyre n fag-gang breaks..we reached home but I dont know how many'll actually reach here after reading all of the above..!!!

They say, Goa is not a place, it’s a state of mind. I wont argue.