Sau rupaye ki amar kahani....!!!!!

I am here to tell you the story about ME. I have seen the ‘ups and downs’ of life. There is nothing left to be seen but a lot to be said.

I was born in a dingy little place devoid of proper lighting. The moment I was born, I was undulating in mirth and gaiety. My life seemed to be completely perfect. My body was so supple that it felt like I was a born-gymnast. My skin was glowing like radium in a dark room. My colour was so dazzling that it was as though God created me to showcase his mastery. People around me were completely and overwhelmingly besotted by my beauty. Everyone around me had just one word to describe me – Delightful. I was cynosure of all the eyes around. There was so much attention towards me that I felt like GOD. But the irony was that despite all the attention that I had they said that I was an orphan…. !!!!!!!

My joy knew no bounds when I was adopted by a magnanimous gentleman. He considered me to be so precious that he always kept me near his heart. I could feel his heartbeat as he went about his work. He was a very hard-working and busy man but still he kept really good care of me. He didn’t ever allow even a single fold on my skin. He was very very careful with the way he handled me. He ensured that I was always ‘spic-and-span’. And I was proud of it.

But life is full of glorious uncertainties. My master had to send me to one of his friend’s place. He was unhappy to let go of me but he had to do it reluctantly. His friend appeared to be a lousy man at first sight. And he really was. He never cared for me. He pierced a needle-like object into my heart for no fault of mine. It pained me a lot. He pierced the object with a lot of force and left me gasping for breath. Blood oozed out of my heart but it didn’t deter him. The pain and torture was unbearable. I was yelping in pain and pleading for help. But it all fell on deaf ears. I was later told that he did this to make me stick together with children of my age. All of us were bound together with this needle-like object. All the fellow kids were crying along with me. But the cruel and heartless man just went about his work. And I was left cursing my destiny.

The next morning seemed unusually pleasant. I was in a completely new place. This was warm and cozy. That was when I realized that my adopted father’s friend had shifted me to a new place. The owner of this place was a lovely lady in her 30s. She seemed a kind-hearted and genteel woman. This lady carefully took the needle-like object out of my heart. Then she bandaged the area. She used some elastic bandage over the wound. She put this bandage over all the other fellow kids as well. And then she took a pen and tattooed something on my skin. I felt a tingling sensation when she was tattooing on my body. After she finished I was surprised to see that she made a 100 using the pen on my skin. I couldn’t understand why she made it but then I was happy that I had a tattoo on my body. I was eager to flaunt it before my friends. But before I could flaunt it in front of my friends, her husband came and scribbled something on my skin. He used a pen to cut off the 100 and wrote something in a strange language. I could not understand what it was. My beautiful skin now became completely pathetic and dirty.

Days went by and I kept changing my house every other day. It was more like a routine every day. I was habituated now to keep changing my house. That’s possibly the reason why people hate to be an orphan. No one wanted to be with me. I had to fend for myself. But the tough weather and conditions had started taking toll on me. My skin was not as glowing as it used to be earlier. Even the suppleness of my body seemed to be on the wane. My body was beginning to get crooked up right through the middle. There were numerous holes on my heart made by the pricking of innumerable needle-like objects over the days. Now pain seemed to be an integral part of my body. In fact, my body didn’t respond to pain. It had now become a way of life.

One such day, as I was going along with my new owner I saw that there was some kind of fervour in the air. There was excitement all around. People looked very happy and were throwing colour at each other. There were lots of colours all around - Pink, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Orange. Looking at people made one feel as though one was looking at real-life replicas of rainbow. I had never seen such an environment ever before in my life. My new master too was enjoying his time out there. He too was resplendent in bright colours. He was splurging colour at everyone around. Although I was happy looking at the happiness around, I was still unable to fathom the fact as to why these people were splashing colours at each other. I asked one of my friends about it. He told me that this was an Indian festival called Holi and people celebrate it by playing with colours. I was happy to know about it and was in a trance when it happened all of a sudden. Someone came in front of my master and threw large quantity of colour on him. As he ran for cover, I bore the brunt of the entire colour. I was completely soaked in pink-coloured liquid. It was nauseating. I felt like vomiting as the colour went into my mouth. I choked for a moment. But then, gathered my breath and tried to dry myself. It took me two hours to be completely dry. I was happy that I was now dry. But oh no… What was this???? My body was completely pink. This colour stuck to me. It was not ready to leave me. I was completely pink now. My beautiful colour was all lost now. I was looking very ugly. An unbearable stench was emanating from me. I was devastated.

My pink-coloured body kept on shifting hands. I was moving from one house to other. Not many were now ready to adopt me. Many a time people shunned me. Also, the vicious attack on ‘Holi’ had left deep scars on my skin. It had begun to break up. Also, once my leg got stuck up in a zipper and it got mutilated. People didn’t want to take me as they despised my mutilated body. Then one day, a good Samaritan applied a plastic bandage on it. At least now, it appeared as though I had normal legs but the pink colour was still on. Some people didn’t notice the abnormal legs and bandage and took me over but then began cursing me as soon as they found out that I was a crippled fellow. I used to be very unhappy hearing all this about me. But then I had no other option. I had to stay on with them until some other careless person took me over.

One fine day, a person took me to a dingy little place devoid of light. This place felt eerily familiar to me. As I turned around and saw the length and breadth of the room, it became apparent that in fact this was the very room where I was born. I was happy to get back to my place of birth. I had been hoping to come to this place one more time before I die. Now I was here. There were many mutilated people like me all around me. As the man who brought me here came towards me with an object containing many sharp edges, it became seemingly apparent that my end was very near. He slowly brought the object towards me. And then, with a surgical precision he pushed me into the depths of the object. My body writhed in pain. I was shred into a million pieces and I was gone, gone forever into the depths of oblivion.

You would be curious to know as to who I am. Well….you have been listening to the story of an Indian currency note. Yes, I am the 100 rupee currency note…..!!!!!!!

Main Kaun Hoon????????????????????????

“Main kaun hoon??? Main kahaan hoon????” – This is an evergreen dialogue heard in innumerable Hindi movies just after a character regains consciousness. More often than not, the character would have met with an accident where his head gets injured and he forgets about his past… Thus, asking this evergreen question….
But you know what --- I too have asked this question many a time to myself…. Hey… hang on…before you draw any wrong conclusion… let me clarify that I never had an injury to my head … nor did I lose my memory or forget my past….!!!!! But then, why do I keep asking this question to myself???

Well, I am one of those lucky few who can understand the lyrics of songs like “Gaajuvaaka pilla memu gaajulollam kaada…” or “Dhagaala laagli kala , paani themb themb gala…. “. Not only these songs, I am one of those who can watch and understand, with equal élan, movies like Puttinti pattucheera or Maaherchi saadi…. !!!!!! I am one of those who can read Eenaadu or Dainik Lokmat with equal interest….!!!!! I am one of those who can converse fluently with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar or Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman in their mother-tongue….. I am one of those who can be called a Telugu Bidda or a Marathi Manoos…. !!!!!

Yes, I am one of those who can read, write and speak Telugu and Marathi fluently… But what is the big deal…. Anyone who stays in Pune for a substantial period would learn Marathi or anyone who stays in Vishakhapatnam can learn Telugu…. But not many are lucky enough to have a mother whose mother-tongue is Marathi and a father whose mother-tongue is Telugu…. I am proud to say that I am one of those lucky few….. The best thing about being in such a family is that you get to learn more languages… You get to understand the culture of two different places… You get to associate yourself with two different regions…. You develop a strong bond of togetherness with two different set of people…. What better example to quote than the fact that one of my best friends is Marathi and the other is Telugu… !!!!!

I am sure most of the people who are like me would tend to have these feelings… Not just this Marathi-Telugu combo, but it can be anything…. I have friends who are Kannada-Marathi, Telugu-Kannada combos…!!!! Not to mention my cousins who are of the same combo as I am… !!!!! We all know that India as a whole is an amalgamation of various languages and cultures… but still we are united… What better example of national integration than to quote examples like mine… !!!! But then, a coin always has two sides…. It’s not always hunky-dory..!!!!

As a kid, I faced a huge identity crisis…. I couldn’t understand if I was a Telugu guy or a Marathi guy…. Generally, it is accepted in any society that the father’s mother-tongue would be the mother-tongue of his son or daughter…. But somehow I was not able to fathom this fact…. I spoke Telugu as well as Marathi with equal gusto in my house…. In fact, I speak Marathi more than Telugu in my house… Then how come Telugu can be considered as my mother-tongue…???? What exactly is the definition of mother-tongue??? Does it mean that the language spoken by your forefathers is your mother-tongue??? Or is it the language which you speak more in your house??? These were some of the questions I had in my mind…. Well, honestly speaking, there would be different opinions about this issue… Some might argue that consistent with my logic since most of us speak in English at our workplace, we need to consider English as our mother-tongue… Well, this would sound completely absurd… But then how do we resolve this???

I thought long and hard about this…. Then a sudden revelation came to me…. It said that this hypothesis cannot hold good in the case of English because it was never the language of choice of our ancestors…. But then I thought, why can’t I consider both Telugu and Marathi as my mother-tongue because I love both the languages equally… I love both the regions…. I love both the cultures… So, there I was with gyaan in my life…. I started feeling proud of my heritage.. of my luck as not many have this kind of privilege of having a special bond with two languages and two cultures….

Before ending this, all I wish is that I marry a Punjabi or a Bengali or someone else… so that my lineage can be even better examples of national integration… !!!!!!

Indian Paisa League????

“Korbo lorbo jeeto re… korbo lorbo re.. jeeto re…. jeeto re…”

This is probably the most popular anthem of an IPL team. When this song made its first public appearance during IPL – 1, it created a frenzy among the cricketing public accentuated more so because it belonged to the team owned by the Baadshah of Bollywood. Kolkata Knightriders had the best of people with it as far as publicity is concerned. It was probably the most popular team before IPL – 1 started.. But alas, the honeymoon ended as soon as the tournament entered its business end….!!!!

Bollywood or rather the Hindi film industry has always been a part and parcel of every Indian’s life… I won’t be surprised that some people might not know the name of the President of India but would surely know Amitabh Bachchan’s birthday. We, Indians or should I say the average Indians are obsessed by Bollywood and Cricket… There is no denying this fact…. Indian Premier League is one such medium which cashed in on the popularity of these two modes of entertainment with the stated intention of developing cricket in India. So far, so good.

India as a nation has always been docile particularly in the field of sport. Except for hockey in the pre-independence era and to some extent upto 1960, India has never dominated any sport, not even cricket. But thanks to the hard work of great entrepreneurs of India, who created wealth for themselves as well as for the country despite the system, India now stands as a vending machine of moolah for cricket. This has emboldened the mandarins of BCCI to have their say in the International Cricket Council… Although not dominating the sport with their performance, India managed to get a firm grip over the administration of cricket through sheer power of money.

Then came the big daddy of the entire cricket extravaganza…. Indian Premier League… a concept said to be the brainchild of a businessman named Lalit Modi who took the milking of this cash-cow to unbelievable heights…. IPL compelled all the international players to make a bee-line to be picked up and given lucrative contracts and yes, most of them got quite a big chunk of it as well…. No problem with it till now….. The biggest problem is with the young cricketers of the country…. IPL which started with the stated intention of developing cricket in India has somehow lost the plot…. We have young players like Ishant Sharma, RP Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma, Irfan Pathan and many more who got lucrative contracts worth thousands of dollars which most other Indians could just dream of… They have such big money so early in their career that it doesn’t bother them if they don’t play well for India… It is the performance in IPL that matters to them…. I don’t say that they shouldn’t be given money… They should be but there must be a cap on it… You just can’t let it reach the roof top…. Well, even Prof. Ratnakar Shetty, a BCCI office-bearer seems to be of the same viewpoint…. There is absolutely no commitment from these youngsters when they play for India…. India crashed out of two big tournaments in a span of two months without giving a semblance of a fight…. !!!!! If reports are to be believed, one of the senior players of Indian team too has expressed his anguish at the lack of commitment level from this new crop of players…!!!

I can’t avoid citing the example of the legend Sachin Tendulkar…. He had the world at his feet at the age of 20… He had all the money in the world at that age but still he didn’t let that money get to his head…. He has always avoided controversies whereas these youngsters seem to be basking in controversies… And then we have the bowling coach of India, Mr. Venkatesh Prasad… If I remember correctly, Sanath Jayasuriya, Saeed Anwar, Ijaz Ahmed and co. used to WALK down the pitch and hit his balls out of the ground and this fellow is preaching that India expects too much from Ishant Sharma….What a pity !!! Before Mr. Prasad took over as the bowling coach all these young fast bowlers were bowling at good pace but ever since Mr. Prasad took over their pace seems to have dropped like the SENSEX did after the Lehmann fiasco… !!! As rightly pointed out by ex-cricketer Manoj Prabhakar, Prasad looks more like a baggage handler of the team rather than the bowling coach…. !!!!!!!!

Coming to the other point of giving youngsters chance in the IPL teams, well, lesser said about it the better because I don’t see many youngsters playing in the IPL teams…. Almost all the teams have only one or two youngsters.. Rest all are either foreign players or Indians who have played international cricket…. Now what about the local talent… no one cares about them…. All that these franchisees care is to make profit…. But the ultimate loser in all this is the Indian Cricket team…. Everyone is prospering but not the team as a whole…. Same is the case with the England team…. The county system there has had a similar tale as IPL which has made the English team weaker over the years… It is high time that we don’t allow our Indian team to fall to the same depths….

Finally, it should not be about the number of hugs one gets from SRK, Preity Zinta or Shilpa Shetty…But it should be about how many matches one wins for INDIA…. !!!!!

Superb, Outstanding, Fantastic, Mind-blowing, History...!!!!!!!!!!

Four years ago on a gloomy Sunday afternoon, I was enjoying a cool drink with my friends in a food joint… We were so engrossed in our talk that I didn’t notice that a really nice song was being played in the joint…. Suddenly, I realized this and started concentrating on the song…. It was a soft romantic number…. I could identify the female singer as Shreya Ghoshal but somehow couldn’t identify who the male singer was…. I asked my friends but they too weren’t sure…. None of us were sure of the movie as well… But that tune somehow was so enchanting that I couldn’t stop crooning it even after going home….. Wah… Kya music hai… That’s what I thought….

A couple of days later, I heard the same song on television… I was sitting in the other room and by the time I went to the TV room, the advertisement had disappeared…. Oh Man…!!!! When will I get to know the details of this song… !!!! As most of you know that I am an avid follower of Hindi film music…. I took this as a challenge to find out more about this song…..But the problem was that I remembered only a part of the song… It went something like this…. “Meri nigahon mein tera chehraa rawaan hai…. Gehre hai armaan jaane jaan pagal samaa hai….” My problem got accentuated due to the fact that this was not the first line of the song… I tried googling it but with no luck…. !!!!!

The torture continued for some more days…. I could hear the song playing in my ears day-in and day-out but couldn’t make out more about it….. One day, as I was watching Saregamapa Challenge 2005 I heard the music of this song…. But somehow I missed out on seeing the name of the movie as I got a call from one of my friends around about that time…. I thought this couldn’t get worse than this…. The tune was still lingering through my ears…. It was just marvelous…. I don’t have words to describe… It was one of those refreshing songs which you hear once in a century….. From the day I heard this song, I knew that this would change the shape of Bollywood music….

A week after the incident in the food joint, I was sitting in my house and that’s when I had the privilege to make out the movie of this song…. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got to know the movie name and more so, the singer… It was a complete transformation for the singer…. I remember that music from his older movies was bent more towards Indian classical music…. The composer himself had accepted that he is inspired by Kalyanji-Anandji’s music and more often than not, you could sense the rustic feel in most of his songs…. It was a complete transformation for the music composer and also the singer….. It was outstanding the way he created a fusion of Indian and western instruments… It was just out of the world….

And thus, started my liking for this great music composer who has given so many hit songs ever since….. Some people like him… Some people hate him… But you just can’t ignore him…. I must say that I am one of those who admire him a lot…. I am a big fan of his brand of music…. I am a fan of his brand of songs…. I am a fan of his brand of lyrics… Yes, I am a big fan of the effervescent music composer and singer of the path-breaking song – “Aashiq banaaya apne….” from the movie Aashiq banaaya apne…. Hats off to Himesh Reshammiya for having entertained us with his superb music all these years…. I am a big fan of his... and seriously, he is superb, outstanding, fantastic, mind-blowing history!!!!!!!!!

From 'B. Manish' to 'Manish Bujranpally'

“Naam kya hai tumhara, beta?”
“B. Manish.”
“Yeh Bammanish kya naam hai?”
“Arey uncle, Bammanish nahi …. mera naam hai Manish… ‘B’ mera initial hai..”
“Acchha… yeh baat hai kya… “

This was a conversation between a non-descript uncle and me many years ago… I think it was probably around 17 -18 years ago… But, what’s so special about this conversation?? Well, for one, I was always very particular about my name being pronounced correctly…. Also, people who see me at first, often mistake me to be a Marwari… No offence in that… But it sometimes irks you when someone speculates about your background without proper enquiry…. Let’s leave this topic for some other article… Let’s come back to where we started…. My name…

Right from my childhood, I was very proud of my name… Manish… so fashionable, so modern when most of my friends had long old names…. That’s why this seven-year-old was ever so eager to reveal his name to everyone way back in 1990…. But there was a caveat to this whole issue… This guy was never comfortable with his surname…. Oh Man…. !!!! This surname is too big… too old fashioned… sounds like the name of a village… BUJRANPALLY… What the heck!!!... This was what I thought always as a kid… Since I stayed in a predominantly Marathi colony, I was always skeptical to reveal my surname when someone in the colony asked me about my “Adnaav” – Surname in marathi…

So, I decided that I would always call myself as B. Manish…. If someone asks about my surname I would say that I can’t pronounce it as it is too big… At that age, I thought this to be a master-stroke, a stroke of a genious because this strategy worked most of the times and no one bothered to ask me about my surname… I was very proud and happy on my intelligence… Also, since most of my classmates were Telugu people and as you know, many of Telugu people just use initial and rarely bother to use their surnames… This worked pretty well with me….

This reference as B.Manish continued for a very good time…. Up until my engineering 2nd year… B. Manish it was always everywhere… As my college mates would know, IT batch was the most notorious as well as famous as far as ragging was concerned… Oh yeah.. We kept on ragging juniors even in our 3rd year and 4th year… It was 3rd year 1st semester and one such day wherein I went to IT sub-junior batch‘s class and asked some totally petrified juniors to come with me… There they were… a couple of guys… half-a- dozen girls being escorted by me from 3rd floor to 4th floor…. Well, for people who don’t know much about our college, it is the great Deccan College of Engineering, a college in Hyderabad famous for everything except studies.. !!! It was a ‘magnificent’ six-storied building… Our class was on the 4th floor while the juniors were put up on the 3rd floor…

As soon as the juniors entered our class… Mere sabhi classmates un par toot pade… Not literally though… It was free-for-all… But somehow, I managed to bring a couple of girls and a boy near our set of friends… Pankaj joined me… Rajesh and Rajesh joined too… Kishore and Kishore came in from somewhere… Now, don’t think that I am typing names twice… Indeed, our class had two Rajeshs and two Kishores….!!!! Yaswanth, Kranthi and Satti were observing from a distance…. I was feeling very proud as though I had conquered the entire world…

As Pankaj asked the girls for BD, hey hold on.. it’s not the beedie used for smoking….it is BD for Bio-data… , one of the girls said that her name was Swetha Tadepally with the emphasis on Tadepally…. I couldn’t stop laughing… why the hell is she stressing on her surname… it is just another PALLY… typical telugu surname… but then whenever someone asked about her name she always used to stress on her surname…. I found this pretty funny… And the ragging went on for another 30 minutes or so and then they left..

Later after coming back home, as I sat thinking about nothing, something reminded me about the incident about surname in the morning…. I thought…What’s wrong with Bujranpally… It is a pretty good surname… yeah… I should be proud of it…. It is the name of my ancestral village and generally in Andhra Pradesh people have their village’s name as their surname… This made me think deeply about me, my family, my ancestors and finally my surname… I spent the rest of the day brooding over this...

A few days passed without much ado... Sometime later, a new lecturer joined our college and he was asking us to introduce ourselves… As he asked me about my name, I replied.. Manish Bujranpally… with the stress on BUJRANPALLY…. !!!!!!!

Pursuit of Unhappiness.... !!!!!!

A butterfly collects nectar day-in and day-out from the flowers. It is relentless in its pursuit. It never gets fatigued. It never gets flustered. It goes on about its job from flower to flower and gets nectar to its heart’s content. There is a certain sense of happiness that it derives from its work. A construction labourer keeps working day-in and day-out and I am sure most of you would agree, he is almost always in a world of his own, humming tunes, whistling at times, he goes about his work with a relentless pursuit. There is also a sense of happiness that he derives from the work that he does. A software engineer goes to the plush AC office, swipes in, checks his mail, talks to his counterpart at onsite, gulps in coffee or tea and starts coding or designing or whatever. But often every activity that I have mentioned above is preceded and succeeded by an unnatural grunting and cribbing about the pathetic work, about the pathetic salary and pathetic company. Not one activity is done with the happiness reflected by the butterfly or for that matter even a construction labourer.

I did not get a good rating at work. I don’t want to work. – This sentence is something which we have heard or probably said umpteen number of times. If your rating is good then – I did not get an opportunity to go to a foreign country. I want an onsite. – would ring through the baritone voices of the ‘Definitely Male Pulsar’ driving hunks or even from the angels driving ‘Why should boys have all the fun - Pleasure’. If you are lucky enough not to hear or utter this dialogue then you are most definitely going to hear this - I did not get a promotion. I want a promotion.

I can hear people shouting at me now for being preachy. I am sure you guys would be thinking – “Yeh saala Manish apne aap ko bahut bada gyaani samajh raha hai aur hum logon ko pravachan de raha hai.”
Honestly, if I was in your place, I would have felt the same. There is no denying this fact. But there is no denying the fact which I disclosed in the previous paragraph as well. I too have said the second statement often. But as they say – The higher you fly, the heavier you fall. I too had lofty ambitions of being at onsite. But as fate would have it, I got completely bored and ‘de-bedazzled’ and disenchanted with an alien land. As they say in Hindi – “Main to onsite se dum dabaake bhaga” !!!!!!

I have often seen some of my friends never happy with what they have. Always thinking about something which they don’t have rather than being happy with what they have. I have seen people going after frivolous things. I have seen people relentlessly pursuing for unhappiness. Yes.. Unhappiness. People have been so much obsessed with others that they tend to compare each and everything vis-à-vis others making their current possessions irrelevant and unwanted. Hmm… there is a need for some food-for-thought for everyone including your self-proclaimed gyaani… How we do this? I leave it to the individuals as everyone has a way with it. I just had to throw in a bit of petrol or gasoline (which my US counterparts would better connect with) into a raging fire within everyone. Let it burn and let it also burn my article with it. I would be there to douse that flame with some other article pretty soon!!!!!!!

Why I like this IPL?????

It is now almost the end of Indian Premier League season-2 and I must admit that I enjoyed season-2 more than season-1 for more reasons than one. Although I am not in South Africa, I still believe this was better. Reasons? Here we go….

First and foremost, this season all the over-hyped and ultra-glamorous sides are out of the competition. Yes, I am very happy to see the end of Kolkata Knightriders, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals… More so, I am happy to see the end of Dildo, Bublee and Big Sister as Fake IPL player would say…  For people who didn’t follow the fake IPL player blog, Dildo is the nickname of SRK…. Bublee for Preity zinta and Big sister for Shilpa shetty….

But why do I hate these people? Well, the reasons are pretty obvious, isn’t it? What the hell does SRK know about cricket or for that matter even the Zinta babe and the Shetty babe… I agree to some extent that SRK has put in his hard-earned money into KKR team but it’s not the case with Zinta and Shetty…. Where was Ms. Shetty before Big Brother… She must thank Jade Goody for all the good that she has done to Shilpa shetty…. If not for those racial comments and the sensationalisation by the Indian media, Shilpa shetty would have been cooling her heels in some non-descript B-grade Hindi movie opposite Shawar Ali or may be in some Bhojpuri film opposite Manoj Tiwari… !!!! As the famous song in Hera Pheri goes…

‘Dene waala jab bhi deta… deta chhappar phaad ke…'

… This is exactly what happened to her and she found a bakra in Kundra…. And the rest, as they say is history….. !!!!

Coming to Zinta…. Well, I must admit that I don’t like the Wadia group because they have their lineage from Mohammed Ali Jinnah…. For people who don’t know about this, Ness Wadia, the ex-boyfriend of Zinta is the great grandson of Mohammed Ali Jinnah….. Also, people who have seen the move GURU would know that this movie is based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani…. If you remember, in the movie, there is a character by name Arzaan Contractor or something like this… That character who tries to buy out Ambani is said to be none other than Mr. Wadia…. I have always had a lot of admiration for the TATA group and the Ambani Group…. I would have honestly liked to see Ambani-owned Mumbai Indians whip the Kings XI team apart…. But it remained a wishful thinking….

Next is Mr. SRK… well, I have never liked him and this dislike has accentuated after the treatment he has meted out to DADA…. This was the reason behind me hating KKR team even more….

Now let’s get on to the second reason as to why I like this IPL….. My team Deccan Chargers are through to the Semis…. My heart says that DC will win this IPL…. Well, there is logic behind this…. If you guys followed the unofficial ICL – Indian Cricket League, you would have noticed that the Hyderabad Heroes team ended up last in the first edition and won the cup in the second edition…. I hope that this would repeat even in the official IPL….

Also, if you remember Hyderabad and Bangalore were the teams that finished at the bottom of the table in last year’s IPL… It is good to see these two teams battle against all odds and make it to the semis….

Another silly reason is that all the four semi-finalist cities this time – Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi – are the cities where I have been to…. I visited all these four cities and have an emotional attachment with Bangalore…. After Hyderabad, I would want Bangalore to win….. Let’s see what happens….

Whatever might be the result…. I am happy to see an even contest between bat and ball and have thoroughly enjoyed each and every match….

Finally, this is Mannubhai signing off hoping to see a Hyderabad vs Bangalore final with Hyderabad winning the championship….

Kismat ka khel hai saara.......

“Woh kehte hai naa…. Jo bhi hota hai achhe ke liye hota hai….,,,, Sahi kehte hain… “ – This acts as an epilogue for a very famous song from Ek Chaalis ki last local. I had the privilege of listening to this wonderful song which goes something like this –

“ Kismat ka khel hai saara… Phirta tha main aawaara… Kyaa se jaane kya hogaya…. “

Listening to this song seemed as though my entire life story was etched into it… Hmm…. Most of you must have read about my love affair…. How I tried all means to woo her… How I went out of the way to lure her…. Now, finally…. Finally… finally… she has accepted my offer and has decided to be mine…. Yes… She has… I was ecstatic, completely over the moon for the past one week…. This is what delayed me from writing about my feelings… It is apparently the biggest achievement that I have had in my life…. It has been a relentless effort of FIVE years which has finally borne fruit…. Saying that I am happy would be a gross understatement… !!!!

Sometime back, I was very much influenced and inspired by the Bollywood Blockbuster – Lage Raho Munnabhai. This was a movie which brought me face-to-face with an ideology called Gandhivaadi or to use a more popular term Gandhigiri. I have tried to follow my own set of rules without compromising on the core principles of Gandhigiri ever since…. This makes me think if it is a strange coincidence that the original Munnabhai tried to fight the Elections in India from Lucknow and this self-proclaimed Mannubhai too is going to get associated with Lucknow by way of joining the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow… Hmm…. Look how analytical I have become with my thinking just by the thought of joining this great institute….. 

So, this Mannubhai is all set to foray into the world of management… Something which I have yearned to get into for ages…. Now, this Mannubhai will pursue his dream to learn management in the Land of Mayawati and Mulayam with lot of dreams and plenty of courage as also a magnificent fire in the belly. Hopefully, I should do well even in the new place and make it big…. Finally, I end this by saying that

" Jo hota hai achhe ke liye hota hai… “

Finally, my time has come... I have known all the while that my time will come today or tomorrow... And I know now that this definitely is the time of Good ‘LUCK’’NOW’ for me…….

My Folly

Yesterday was one of those days when I realized my foolishness again… Yeah… again… There have been a lot of instances in recent times which uncovered the inklings of tardiness, boorishness and foolishness that I possessed. My prejudice about things kicked me on my face!!!!!!!!!!!


During my recent visit to IIM Bangalore on 23rd February, as I was awaiting my turn to get interviewed there were a couple of other fellow interviewees who were very much excited to tell me that Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Oscars. I downplayed it by saying that I was not wee bit impressed by the unnecessary and unwarranted hullabaloo about it winning the Oscars. I went to the extent of saying that it was a part of some clandestine shenanigans to usurp India’s new-found belief in herself and also the clout she has come to exhibit in recent past. I felt it was a ploy by the Westerners to malign India by depicting her underbelly and lull the foreign investment in India to sleep. When the fellow interviewees asked me if I saw the movie, I said that I didn’t see it and also did not intend to see it. I was convinced that this was not a movie to waste your time and resources on. This was accentuated by the fulsome criticism bestowed on it by some of the better known personalities of India. I became completely prejudiced and preposterous in my judgment. How wrong was I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday being a Friday, I was getting a bit bored and thought of watching a movie and guess what… I decided to watch Slumdog Millionaire. Movie started off nicely.. The narration was good… The intertwining of the past with the present was depicted pretty beautifully. There has been generous criticism for the scene depicting a shit-soaked kid running for Amitabh Bachchan’s autograph. I think that scene could have been avoided as I am sure no one even in the slums would like to soak oneself in that slimy-yellow-thing !!!! But, nevertheless, the circumstances leading to the scene were well justified and this actually set the tone for the movie. This showed that the kid could do anything to attain his dream. Hmm… Not bad until now.. I thought. Then started the adventure of ‘The Three Musketeers’ – Athos, Porthos and Aramis which was very well picturised and had liberal doses of emotion, humour and hope. If I were to look at the gist of the story, it was very much similar to that of the Man Booker Prize winning book – ‘The White Tiger’ by Aravind Adiga. Ofcourse, the only difference being that Jamal Malik in Slumdog was clean as a crystal whereas Balram Halwai of The White Tiger had some greyish shades. Overall, I was impressed by the way the film moved on and the message it sent across. It had a message for all of us, yes, all of us. It showed how India has broken the shackles and has surged ahead in this competitive world. It has portrayed the resilience and the spirit of the Indians. It definitely was awe-inspiring. I am sure that anyone who saw this movie would have had goose-bumps when Jamal – the Chaiwala becomes a Crorepati. I am sure it would have. I guess everyone likes it when the underdog wins it. Because I think all of us can empathize with the underdog and I am sure many of us feel ourselves to be an underdog. I am not an exception either.

So, what is the lesson that I learn from all this… ? What does this prove once again? Well, this again proves how easily I get influenced by others’ views and how I become judgmental about things without a proper analysis. Hmm… time to change things. Hopefully, education at IIM might help me do that. But I have to wait for this until the results come out in April. Till then… Fingers crossed.

Journey to Nowhere....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where am I going? Where is my life heading? Am I doing things which I like? Am I getting my worth in this world? I know I am different than others.... I know I am better than others... I know I am not like my fellow beings.....

These are some of the questions and deliberations which I am sure each and everyone of us keep on thinking about... And I am sure I am not in the minority by thinking about these things... Because I am damn sure that most of us do think the same way... Why is it that we tend to think these things??? Are we inherently better than others or is it the Aham - Ego which makes us think like this... ??

When we start our lives, we do not care who we are... We do not care where we are born... We do not care what our caste is... We do not care which nationality we belong to... We are only concerned about three things.... Food, Sleep and Play. A one-year-old doesn't understand the nuances of caste, creed, nationality et al... It's only after he joins his school, after he starts to discern things that he tends to differentiate between people. So, can we say that our education brings with it a slow and steady infirmity to slowly decapacitate our nascent and pure mind..??
I think this is partly because of some basic flaws in our education system as well as some fundamental dogmas that dog our society...

I still remember vividly that during my 7th class public examination, we were supposed to fill a form which asked us about our caste... This was probably the first of the many instances which made caste seep deep down into my system.... Also, being from a orthodox Brahmin family, I have seen many of my older aunties and uncles try to inculcate these things not actively but through a passive way... I am sure everyone must have faced in their homes... I am not saying that all our elders are at fault by trying to showcase the differentiating factor about our caste but it is the inherent character which we have that makes these differences pour out intermittently...

I don't deny the fact that I too am a bit afflicted with this caste factor but somehow I now want to come out of it... Try to love people for what they are rather than what their ancestors were... But honestly, I am not sure where I am going right now... Sometimes, I feel that I am going to change this world but the very other instance I think that nothing is going to change... There is a perpetual contrast that dogs everyone's life, most of all mine... But I guess this is what everyone faces at the age of 25- The Quarter life crisis..... I guess all my fellow quarter lifers face this situation which is nothing but a journey to nowhere......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!