Knock,Knock knocking on Heaven's Door!!!

“Are you afraid of dying?”

It was 3 in the night…or morning!!!
Pune was the venue and the party was at a place called Vir da Dhaaba and the menu consisted of loads of booze…
Choubeyji drank like a sponge…absorbing each and every drop. I was fairly sober.Chaoubeyji was driving at 80-90 per hour. Tears coming out of my eyes.My hair was going haywire.
I was pleading “slow down, please dear.”
That’s when he asked the question mentioned in the first line.

“No”, I replied.
“No!”, he mocked “ then why are u asking me to slow down.”

“Because I am afraid of the repurcussions my death will have…what all will happen after my death, sends shivers through my spine…………………………”

At 17 years of age...

What was I doing when I was 17 yrs old???? Hmm…fresh out of school…joined CMS( for those who dun know…CMS is where I did my 11th and 12th…and its name is in Guiness Book of Records)…and have taken science stream…why u ask…well..uh…I dunno..maybe I had very good grades so Science was logical field…not convincing..eh..well even I m not convinced…and there is She..not even wrote a bestselling book..but accused of Plagiarism…whose meaning I know now..at 23 yrs of age…and there is Shobhaa De…soft porn writer (read any of hers..Socialite Evenings, Starry Nights…)there is no plot …just a soft porn story with some characters woven around that shit…even her autobiography was more of a sneaky peek in the sexual life and vulnerable side of the celebrities…and she never had any fling!!! Any affair!!! Strange!! Its said that generally the first novel are a sort of an autobiography (dun believe me…read ayn rand,s first…or “Hers” also)…strange after 60 years in the fields bordering over fashion field, movie magazine, films and ads…she comes out unscathed…hats off!!! If that’s true but it’s a liitle difficult to believe.. and there is Shobhaa De commenting on “Her”…calling her a poor baby…saying..though indirectly..serves “Her” right…At 60 years of age, what are the literary awards she can boast of?? None…

And there are other Indian Authors..Khushwant Singh…at 90 plus…written an utter crap..”Company of Women”…telling throughout the novel (if u can call it so)…how many women the protaganist bedded…how all the women went berserk seeing his manhood…

And there is Arundhati Rao…whose “The God of Small Things” went out to win the Booker…plz if anyone understands that novel…explain it to me..why do the Indian authors have to be so vague…why cant thay be direct like ..say…John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer or even Ayn Rand..

And there is Salman Rushdie whose Satanic Verses was banned …though I enjoyed his Midnight’s Children a lot..but here again…y so vague????

And there is Vikram Seth..whose A Suitable Boy requires a lot of effort to even hold that book!!!(1348 pages!!!)..1348 pages of long brooding passages…1348 pages of boredom…

And then there is She, who accused (mind it ..it also requires intelligence)..who through bad publicity (bad publicity is the best publicity)…is nothing sort less than an iconic figure(though in a negative way..)…whose How Opal Mehta Got Life, Got Wild and Got Kissed..I am searching everywhere….and I believe many others are searching too…

Lets give the devil his(well..her) due..Way to go…atta girl!!!

My Best Buddy

The title may be misleading and should read “My Best Buddies” but then again as an afterthought and thinking logically, at one time I had one best buddy only. Once when I am done with, then only the other one becomes my best buddy.

I can hear still mom shouting at me “you are useless and turning your sister into one too…bahar ghoomo jaake …social life kucch hai hee nahi tumhari” and I m like “ mom, plz for god sake dun bug me….i m enjoying wit my best buddy.”

My best buddy has taken me to courtrooms, taken me to primitive african jungles, introduced me to a girl working for a missionary (the last thing that wud interest her is money…believe me…I was also calling her a hypocrite when she said these words but her strong convincing points finally made me yield to her), made me investigate brutal murder mysteries, helped me screw some hollywood babes (aise hee thode naa main use best buddy kahtaa hoon). He has done a lot for me. When I was all alone with each of my friend busy in his or her life, he stood by me. He never let me down. Forget finding solace in his company, I ended up enjoying him thoroughly.

For us the humans, the most difficult is the parting shot. And if it’s a shot with your best buddy, then the empty buckets are bound to fill up with copious tears. A lump in the throat, nostalgia and what not. But then again, here also my best buddy is different. As soon as I am done with him , the other one is ready to become my best buddy.

If my best buddy is not taking proper care of mine (ohh yes, I love to be pampered by my best buddy), all hell breaks loose(only yesterday…..Danielle Steel….i ll never touch u again…u r shit).

With utmost honesty, Poirot has been my No. 1 buddy…I can wake up till 4 a.m. with him.But alas, he is running out of resources. Soon, he ll be an old story (unlike saumya, I don’t revisit my once best buddies). Then, I would have to find solace(sorry, again a wrong word…I enjoy..remember) in some one else’s company…..

In his Cabin.......

Shrewd to the point of being sly, notorious to the point of being dirty and if he looks at you continuously for one minute…one could even wet his pants…but whatever,…. I admired(at least used to) him. For a guy who has risen from DET level and is now at a somewhat similar cadre to a passout from IIT, my boss is appreciable, to say the least.

But when I entered his cabin yesterday for his signatures which ll unblock my ID, I was, if not shocked, giddy after overhearing a conversation on the phone. For what I thought was that cabin meant for- high level technical discussions and cost handling techniques, turned out just the contrary. I overheard him speaking to….a customer??? …a senior person of L&T??…well I m not sure of that but this was all I heard “do dozen mangoes bhijwaa de kyaa aapke ghar pe? Mumbai mein mangoes aa gaye hain.Haan jee jaisaa aap kahein…aur ghar mein sab badhiya hai naa…theek hai jee. Mangoes mil jaayenge aapko.”

Maybe it was a very genuine discussion with …say…his in-laws but having closely known him for 10 months, I seriously doubt that.

At last, YUCK!!!

Darna Zaroori Hai and Airport

For all those thinking what is the connection between an airport and the movie darna zaroori hai, 1stly this is not “an” airport…this is the novel “AIRPORT” by Arthur Hailey.

So it was a Sunday night when our dabba was cancelled( we seriously wait for such nights when she doesn’t give dabba cos that gives us a chance to spend a fortune (200 bucks only on eating!!) without us being notoriously callled as extravagent spoilt brats). For all those who think that 200 bucks n extravagance…I must b kidding…then ask my close friends wat does 200 bucks mean to me!!!

At 10.10 we ordered our pizzas and the last show of DZH was at 10.45 pm. Will we make it? Was a sheer test of my time management skills…and yes after a meal for two plus a medium pizza(hmm..my tongue is dripping..) we were done by 10.35 pm..n then finally at th nick of time, I reached DZH’s last show. For all those who havnt seen the movie yet and still are interested, I ll not reveal anything…but after the movie finished..john said “horrible!!! I ll give it –1 star” n I was like “no…it was worth 3 stars cos I think the story of bipasha basu had some class and the story directed by chekravarty(satya’s hero) was also watchable. Mallika sherawat was a pleasant change and was very decent, to say the least…amit jee was wasted n to think that of all the stories, ram gopal varma decided to directed this boring piece. Sunil shetty’s story cud have been dealt with more finesse. But my reason for giving it 3 stars is at least someone had the balls to make a different movie, not a run of the mill type of the movie.. agreed that moviemakers like homi, aparna sen do make different movies, what makes RGV to have an edge over these filmmakers are the box office collections. Frankly, I was surprised to see the multiplex jammed full on Sunday night. This is my first movie in mumbai where I have seen such a crowd..perhaps, I think that if this movie would have got a U certificate, it would have been a hit…at least, the kids would have been scared seeing this otherwise dull movie. I also wanted to see how is sajid khan as a director…well his story was agreed monotonous but the ending of the movie did manage to get an ovation from us the audience..so for him, in all and all his effort was not wasted.”

I compared this movie to Airport for my own reasons. At pizza hut, I decided that if I ll not make it to the movie, I have this novel to finish…I wanted to see what amongst the two turns out to be better..i had read “Wheels” by the same author and frankly due to all the technical stuff (an employee of Tata Motors would have enjoyed it more).. I didn’t find it very enjoyable..it was okay dokay..but this Airport had my interest right from the first page..and I had left the novel at a very interesting stage…a stowaway(for dumbasses a stowaway is a person who fools the airport people and manages to board a flight without any ticket….and I thought that its only possible on trains), a psycho bankrupt(who has a dynamite bomb in his attache case n he wants to get insurance of 300 million by bombing the flight), a pilot who has made a stewardess pregnant (how to convey that abortion is the best move for both of them without offending and hurting her sentiments)…and down on the airport, its chief head (whose marriage is at the brink of break-up ), an ex-chief(who helds himself responsible for a crash some years back and has not come out of his guilt yet). I was just praying when I left my very interesting novel in the midst of all these complexities that I hope it doesn’t turn out to be anti-climactic. And man, was it superb…the bankrupt psycho did manage to bomb the plane…for what follows next, read the novel. I bet u ll enjoy it….and now I m dying to read “HOTEL” again by arthur hailey.

One foot note…Arthur Hailey’s both novels have a striking familiarity in terms of wives of high-post executives finding solace in other men’s company since their husbands have work as their first wife…will it happen to me also?? No chance…I pray so…