Ghazi ventures – Part 1 of many to come…

One of our most eventful nites and I couldn’t help but pen it down.

It started around 8 30, with us hurrying to East Delhi in AP’s car to drop off some clothes at Kajal’s friends’. Post that, we drove, thru HEAVY traffic to Noida, to pick up Shrey. We decided to stop midway for dinner, since we souls from college hadn’t found time to feed our groaning tummies. Special mention shall be made of the AWESOME Gobhi Paratha, that I myself consumed a huge chunk of. We were on our way back, and Avi’s call patched thru to Kaj. The usual ‘aww you can come meet me’ requests followed. We lissened. Quietly. Then acted.. 😀

A U-turn from halfway to college, we decided to head back into Delhi, to meet Avi at IIT-Delhi. Mind you, it was already way past 11 30 or so, so we were wayyy past deadline in college. Nonetheless, we reached her campus, battling heavy traffic and trucks and barricades along the way, to end up below her building; only to find her utterly shocked that we had turned up at her doorstep. After a minute of ‘Oh My God!!s, it sank in that we were really at her place, and that she really had to show us around. As you wud already kno, any IIT campus, is not really nutshell sized. So she began with a tour of the most interesting place – the Nescafe; the lifeline of every residential college. The nite wore on wid a few teas, coffees and some verrry uncrackable PJs.. special mention to be made of the Little Johnny jokes.. .;)

Somewhere about now, Avi gets a brainwave that we can get on to her rooftop, and chill there NOISELESSLY. We agree; she assumes we agree to the silence clause as well. So we land up on her rooftop, not all that well dressed for the slight chill that was already creeping into the nite. Somewhere between the Nescafe and the rooftop, Kaj had her own adventreu, that I consider too personal to pen down.

Part 1 of our adventure begins here. A couple of minutes on the roof, and 2 surly looking guards corner us on the roof and forced us downstairs. One bloke was so thick, he wasn’t even willing to listen that Avi in fact LIVED in the same building. Another bandha, whom I will refer to as good bandha, at least heard our part of the story out – that we weren’t drunk, we weren’t up to no good (definition of good in UP and Delhi is so GOOD…), and that we in fact had no idea that the rooftop was out of bounds to us. Bloke 1 still refuses to hear us out, and Shrey and AP, our gallant heroes, rush to our rescue and swoop down on him. They cornered him, literally… (the term I wud use here is kopche mein le gaye…)and tried to get our version of the story across. For some reason the bloke, who apparently was a new entrant in the security division, had obviously never seen Avi before, and was just trying to harass her. Our knights in shining armor have made all readiness to bribe our bloke, when good bandha intervenes and decides that its time our sweet party broke up and that we left campus. We agreed, assuming that the matter would end right there. Bloke had other plans tho… just as we were leaving, he accosted Shrek, and insisted on calling Avi’s parents to lay some claim on the story. Very aware that this nite-time venture was definitely not plan of our good friends’ parents’ idea of an ideal holiday, Shrek tried to worm his way out of the situation. Worried that Shrek might actually BE in more trouble, our college negotiator, SAC member, Soni rushes to the spot, only to be brushed off by bloke. Worried that it’s getting too late, and the matter’s getting outta hand, AP rushes to assist Shrek, and is promptly shooed off. Shrek appears a few minutes later, running towards the car, with a look of relief that says “All’s been sorted out..”. We are later privy to his illusive tactics…

“Main aapka chota bhai hoon. Is naate se chod deejiye humein. ” (Accompanied wid innocent face)

“Hum vaada karte hain aisa dobaara KABHI nahi hoga.” (Innocent face attack part II. Here bloke suggests we SETTLE the matter)

“agli baar hum yahaan aayenge to aapko kaise bhoolenge… aap ke liye zaoor kuch laayenge.”

Part 2 of our adventure begins almost where part 1 ends. On the way to Comesome’s, which is all Kaj could think off in the dead of the nite, we somehow manage to convince Avi that all’s OK, and that she is safe, her house is safe, her aatma-samman is safe. Obviously, she is far from convinced; but we had to try neway dint we 😉

A not so long journey later, we reach Nizamuddin Station, which houses Comesum, both on the platform, and in a location just outside of it. As luck would have it, we were on the side where neither outlet was, and we had to walk a distance to the station, and then could only manage to make our way to the outlet on the platform. The paranoid kids that we were, we decided to play the ideal citizens, and try buying ourselves a platform ticket. As per regulations in Delhi, no platform tickets will be sold till Nov 15th, for security reasons. The studs that we were, we decided to go neway, since we were hungry. Checkpost looms. Policeman watches 5 very carefree students glide past him.

“Accha kahaan ja rahe ho aap..??”

And if the events of the nite weren’t enough, we had to explain to THIS policeman, how we hungry students from Delhi, who study in an insti in Ghaziabad, need only to eat and care nothing else about this world. He refused to admit we were students; apparently jeans and tees on a chilly nite weren’t proof enough. So my ID card was left as collateral, while we were meant to traipse to the joint, eat and traipse right back as soon as we could. We literally RAN to the food joint, and ordered whatever we could get for ourselves in as little time as possible. Minutes turned to seconds, as 3 plates of wada-sambhar disappeared before my eyes. We packed a few sandwiches, eats and drinks, and left for our car.

Not knowing that our luck couldn’t get any worse, we were stopped on the platform by a TC. The faces that showed on all 5 people were the same – we’ve have ENOUGH for the nite Sir… if we can find someplace to crash, we would. LET US GO!! He let us go, without fighting at all. After retrieving my ID card with another settlement, we headed back to the car, with the hope that our luck don’t get any worse, and we find the car missing, or some other factor of luck work against us.

Satisfied that nothing else could go wrong with the nite, which was incidentally now around 4 30, we headed back into Ghaziabad. Throughout the journey, we tried hunting for some decent entertainment on the radio and were rewarded every few minutes or so with songs that we could sing (Aditi…), or ones that we could hum along. Thanks to some terrific driving by our very F2 aspirant AP, we reached college sometime before 5. The watchmen and we were both so tired, for very different reasons, and fgot to enter and announce our entry back into college.

People in the story will realise that are very many tidbits missing from the story… the ice-cream, the radio discussion, the kathi roll walla, the kababs… I chose not to mention them for 2 reasons a) they weren’t all that relevant to the context of the nite and b) they dint fit into the storyline as smooth as all these other events did. However, for a reader, this is an eye-witness account of the nite that was the 18th of October.

Comments and suggestions are welcome… 🙂

Carrying on…

Now tht sum ppl hv recovered frm da attack they got after seeing my first blog, I can safely carry on to shock u sum more.
I write poems. The first time I told sum1 tht I was told,” Those r thr 3 words u shud never use in conjunction with each other; it doesnt suit u at all”. Nonetheless, I write, n continue to irritate sum n amuse sum. I write in a monotonous tone (of da poem) and give a distinctive touch of the same emotion throughout as much as I can.
So lemme introduce u to one of my favourites…
Its called In Reminiscence

I remember, I remember
the times I spent with my friend.
We’d made promises to stay together
in this great city that has no end.

I remember the time that I first met him
and how we spent so many hours together, just me and Jim.
Those wonderful moments, I will always treasure
the happiness they gave me, I can never measure.

I remember the pranks we used to play
and the scoldings we got from teachers everyday.
I remember our small group study sessions
our secret club, and our own little missions.

I remember how we’d built a world of our own
how we’d shared with each other things we’d never known.
I remember so many little things, they meant so much to me
I never saw the world as ‘me’ again, I knew it had become ‘we’.

The days flew by and the weeks rushed on
and before I knew many years were gone.
By then, I knew, I’d grown close to Jim
if I knew anyone I could trust, it had to be him.

We’d both become very busy men, struggling for a life of our own
we had no time to laze around, not even time to mourn.
And yet, I saw, I found time for him as he had found for me
we found solutions to every problem, as difficult as it may be.

And I look back on those good ‘ol days
and breath a sigh of relief.
That we hadnt decided to part our own ways
and stuck to our common belief.

Belief that we’d be there for each other
Belief that our troubles would ease.
Belief that life isnt gonna be forever
Belief that there is no such thing as eternal peace.

My past has taught me to value a friend
even through this life that has to end.
So remember, my friend, never be in doubt
That your friend is one who walks in when all the world walks out.
Not that I mean to add a note or two to it, but I must emphasize tht this poem is inspired from my real life and ne resemblance to a living person is more than a little intentional and reference to any places and/or events are very much intended. This is nt a disclaimer that I add to make this poem readable (w.r. to the recent Da Vinci uproar), but if ne1 felt even a little bit part of the poem, I did intend to make it seem so. I wrote this one keeping a frnd in mind, and I think it achieved the purpose quite well.

Another one of my all time favourites is still untitled…merely bcoz I cudnt give the array of emotions it portrayed ne name.

My greatest fear
a drop of tear
that drop of tear gone waste.
Lying on my bed
those tears I shed
I shed out of mere haste.

My greatest must
an ounce of trust
trust in my dearest friends.
That’ll carry me along
like a sweet song
throught life’s steep curves and bends.

My deepest thought
that life is not
not as easy as it may seem.
If I had it my way
I’ll struggle come what may
to make that my fulfilled dream.

My deepest regret
watching the sun set
set on a world I havent seen.
There are people I havent known
and pain I havent borne
in a land where I’ve never been.

My greatest strain
a feeling of pain
that pain arising out of anguish.
When my dreams fade
before they are made
and I see how they totally vanish.

My greatest belief
is of total relief
Relief when all’s gone well.
When a job is done
and a battle is won
there’s nothing you need to tell.

My greatest sorrow
that I cant borrow
borrow from time’s own bank.
And I see time slip
as I take a little dip
into life’s fun-filled tank.

In this jungle so deep and dense
my words make no sense
even to my well trained ears.
As if water were gushing
my thoughts seem to be rushing
from a captivity of so many years.

Again I’d like to add sumthing here. I had written this quite a while ago, when I was obv not in one of my best moods; but this goes on to speak a lot about sum1 I knw very well. I m nt goin to name a person in particular (but I can say its nt me), but this person I speak of knws me very well too; and I cud only do justice to pen down this mystery friend. Its quite rare that I dedicate a poem to sum1, but this one is wholly goes out to my mystery frnd. (I will reveal the mystery later on, but suspense works very gud to keep the attention)

I will hv to add sum of my recent ones, sum even I am quite shocked of having finished. But I guess u will hv to wait until thn; for now I cant get the order to put them in or the time to actually type them. So till I decide to be poetic, chao…