Summer of 2012 - 1

After boarding Goa bound flights since last one year, boarding Delhi-Mumbai plane was nothing less than a cultural shock. In flights going to Goa, our co-passengers are mix of holidaying families, honeymooning couples and ultra-excited youngsters looking forward to a dil-chahta-hai-flavour holiday. And we, the students of Goa Institute of Management (yes we are real and normal students who STUDY here, and our classes are NOT conducted in the beach shacks… mind it), appear to be a depressed bunch of overdressed people. But flight G8-229 showed us how we have still not reached the pinnacle of sophistication, despite one year in a ‘serious’ management school. Being a Monday morning flight, the plane had an overwhelming attendance of erstwhile ‘blackberry boys’. The skilled and high income section of our workforce, dressed in crisply creased western business formals, titter-tatting on their smartphones with one hand and carrying all varieties of laptop bags in the other. I and my friend Karishma looked at them and then at each other and then at ourselves, ending the tour with a hesitating gulp. Same thought echoed in our thought clouds, ‘Dude! We are so not corporate material yet… And that is our future!!’

Anyways, that did make us feel a li’l younger amongst our co-passengers. We hurriedly grabbed our seats and even before the flight took off, both of us dozed off. I woke up to a ting, a sound which the push button above your head politely and sophistically makes to call the stewardess for you. Outside the window, a serene stream of white cotton candy clouds rested peacefully, giving us an illusion of motionlessness. That soothing picture was suddenly interrupted by a rocky mountainous terrain, just like the entry of a villain in a hindi film immediately after a romantic duet. But they seemed more like dependable guards than evil sentinels, as following them were the high rising buildings of Mumbai suburbs interjected by comparatively grass level slums. With this sinuous skyline I knew that we have reached Mumbai.

As I thumped my Delhi-feet into the Mumbai airport, a huge sign with a Gateway of India picture greeted us saying ‘Welcome to Mumbai’. I am always happy when I come to this city. Although I don’t know this place well, I can never be an alien to this land where I took my first steps, which would be somewhere in Goregaon East. We had no time to rest as we had to immediately proceed with our shelter hunt in Thane. So we took a cab, loaded our massive luggage and commenced with our project. Traffic jammed Mumbai kept surprising us with a random sequence of warm and cold breezes and salt-dunes replaced slums and buildings, while we tried to keep a mental record of what came when, Santa Cruz, Ville Parle, Andheri etc. etc. Finally, sometime after paying the toll tax, we reached Thane.

We spent the whole day searching for accommodation. At everyplace we went to, after calculating its distance from office and station, and our monthly payable, I would try to form a mental picture of me inhabiting that place. Some places fell short on surroundings, while the others smugly mocked our tiny pockets. Unfortunately, the search is still on, but not for long I hope. I have seven hours long induction to attend tomorrow, and unlike classrooms, I can’t afford to sleep during it. So here I am, signing off from the first post of my ‘Summer of 2012’. Ciao!

Not the one

I ain’t the one
You‘re looking for
But just another
Girl next door
You’ve gotta trust me
What I say is true
No I am not
The one for you…

I wake up
With swollen eyes
And with my hair all messed
I don’t look nice
The one you’d love
Must be a sleeping beauty
With pretty eyes blue
A li’l sweet but snooty
Unlike me who
Sleeps with her mouth open
If I were you
I wouldn’t have been chosen
So you’ve gotta to see
What I say is true
No I am not
The one for you…

I jump in the rain
I skid in a puddle
I have my own ways
That might not be subtle
I may laugh at nothing
I might snap just like that
I may cry sometimes
Just at the drop of a hat
If that’s too much
To handle for you
Then no… I’m not
The one for you

And We are Back

I was sitting at the airport, trying to breathe slowly so that I don’t let go of the tear that was sitting right at the edge of my eyes. To try harder I closed them. But I guess the things that you see with your eyes closed are the things that can hurt you the most as they bring back snapshots of the moments that touched you the most. I saw a blurred image of my father, driving me to the airport, smiling at me through the rear view mirror of the car and running a checklist of my id, tickets keys etc. Then I saw my sister, standing behind Ma while seeing me off, cursing my college for such a short vacation and hesitating to hug me in public. She suffers from I-am-too-classy-to-get-senti-in-public syndrome. But that makes her cuter. Argh! That made my fight against giving in to tears even tougher. Just then I saw Ma, hugging me. ‘It’s ok beta. It’s just about three months. Make the most out of it. We’ll be waiting for you’, she whispered into my ears, as I hugged her. I didn’t want to leave her. It doesn’t matter that you are taller than your mother. You can always fit into her arms, the warmest and the safest place in this whole world. Her fragrance beats even the best of the aroma therapies. Her words heal faster than any medicine. A trembling good-bye escaped my lips as I trudged my luggage towards the entrance of the airport. I didn’t want to turn back. I knew that if I would see her again, I won’t be able to keep myself from crying. I continuously felt hers protective eyes on my back as I walked towards the check-in counter. Failing to fight my urge, I turned to see those eyes behind the glass door when suddenly something rolled over my foot and my eyes opened with a shock. ‘Oh! I am terribly sorry for that’, apologized a passenger who had accidently ran his strolley bag over my foot. ‘It’s ok sir. I am fine’ Was I? Even after living away from home for six years now, it breaks my heart every time I have to leave. And by the way, that passenger was really cute. If appreciating a fellow human being from opposite gender keeps the mind off sad things then why miss a chance? Soon was joined by friends who were going back to Goa with me. Unlike the last vacation, no one came back with a new haircut or an added waistline. Suddenly all of us were smiling and wishing a happy new year to each other. The smile was more of a relief that even as miserable we have company, than being a genuine happy response on seeing a fellow classmate. We enjoyed grumbling about the boring lectures and annoying assignments that awaited us and that how short our break was. One can’t deny that grumbling in a group and laughing at our situation in the process is as entertaining as gossiping. It’s a pure testimony to the Hindi saying Dukh baatne se kam hota hai (Pain can be alleviated by sharing). The very ironic nature of the fact that we were leaving for Goa to study, while most of the other co-passengers were all set for the poor man’s Las Vegas trip, was very discomforting. I stopped for a second before boarding my flight and took a deep breathe. I love the smell of winters in Delhi. It’s like a sweet raindrop dissolving in my mouth. I opened my palms to touch the last of the winter that I’ll get this year and stepped into the plane. After the customary sort-of-break-dance of the airhostesses on bilingual safety-guidelines-rap, the flight took off. And so did my last hopes of running back to home. As the pilot prepared us for landing, I looked at the golden stars sitting on the dark earth beneath us. Slowly they morphed into street lights and headlights and with a jerk we touched down at the Dabolim Airport. Goa literally gave us a warm welcome with the humid air and fishy smell the moment we stepped out of the flight. The whole world changed within the couple of hours I was in that plane. I wasn’t completely out of my Delhi hangover as one of my friends in the taxi was aiding it by continuously cribbing about coming back. So, I shifted my focus to the scene outside the car window. We drove past Goan houses, beautifully adorned with variety of lamps reminiscing last year’s Christmas and New Year’s Eve. They added so many soft yet vibrant colors to the night. I realized my fascination with the Mandovi again as it ran besides us. We cradled along the serpentine roads and finally reached the gate of our college, Goa Institute of Management. As we drove in, all the moments of the last term came rushing back to me. Secretly taking pictures of friends sleeping in the lecture, chalk fights, running like crazy to beat the RFID scanner every morning, birthday bashes, parties, festivals, night-outs, eleventh hour struggle with the group assignments, late night studies in the library, chatting over midnight tea, resource management in examination hall… All this brought back my smile and I was relieved that even though I am away from home, I am still among my friends… my people. GIM jaisa bhi hai… mera hai.

A Soul Stirring Article By Harsha Bhogle

Remember when you failed an examination. How many people recall that,
your class, friends, relatives? You failed to make it to the IITs or
IIMs. Who remembers. How many times have you had the feeling of being
the best in your class, school , university, state….., you failed to
get a visa stamped this quarter…, you missed a promotion this year…,
how did it feel when you dad told you in your early twenties that you
are good for nothing…..and now your boss tell you the same...

You keep introspecting and go into a shell when people most of whom
don’t matter a dime in your life criticize you, back bite you, make
fun of you. You are left sad and shattered and you cry when your own
kin scoffs at you. You say I am feeling low today. It takes a lot from
us to come out of these everyday situations and move on. A lot???
really?

Now here’s a man standing on the third man boundary in the last over
of a world cup match. The bowler just has to bowl sensibly to win this
game. What the man at the boundary sees is 4 rank bad bowls bowled
without any sense of focus, planning or regret. India loses, yet again
in those circumstances when he has done just about everything right.

He does not cry. Does not show any emotion. Just keeps his head down
and leaves the field. He has seen these failures for 22 years now. And
not just his class, relatives, friends but the whole world has seen
these failures. We are too immature to even imagine what goes on in
that mind and heart of his. That’s why I would never want to be
Sachin.

True, he has single handedly lifted to moods of this entire nation
umpteen number of times. He has been an inspiration to rise above our
mediocrity. Nobody who has ever lifted the willow even comes close to
this man’s genius. His dedication and metal strength is unparallel.
This is specially for those people who would have made fun of him
again last night when India lost. They are people who are mediocre in
their own lives. Who just scoff at others to create cheap fun. Who
have lived in a small hole throughout their lives and thought they
have seen the oceans.

Think about the man himself. He is 37 years of age. He has been
playing almost non stop for 22 years. The way he was running and
diving around the field last night would have put 22 year olds to
shame. The way he played the best opening quickies in the world was
breathtaking. He just keeps getting better which is by the way humanly
impossible. Its not for nothing that people call him GOD.

But still I don’t want to be in those shoes. We struggle in keeping
our monotonous lives straight, lives which affect a limited number of
people. Imagine what would be the magnitude of the inner struggle for
him, pain both mental and physical, tears that have frozen with time,
knees and ankles and every other joint in the body that is either
bandaged or needs to be attended to every night, eyes that don’t sleep
before a big game, bats that have scored 99 international tons and
still see expectations from a billion people.

And he just converts those expectations into reality. We watch in awe,
feel privileged.

Well I think its time that his team realizes that enough is enough.
They have an obligation, not towards their country alone but towards
Sachin. They need to win this one for him. Stay assured that he
himself will still deliver and leave no stone unturned to make sure
India wins this cup.

This is not just a game, and he is not just a sportsman. Its much more
than this. Words fail here.....

--- HARSHA BHOGLE