Adieus gringo - II

The ritual which started last year continues this year too, and like old times I am all ready to look back on the year gone by and strap in myself for the year ahead, which would be much different then experienced by me so far. What am I talking about, read on.

The friends who were engaged, got married, the ones who were married increased their family size by one or maybe in the process, our office team shed in some few members and got a few members in exchange. The ones who left would surely be grazing in greener pastures and the ones who are joining in now, think this is as green it can get, a perspective thing isnt it!

"Two men look out through the same bars; One sees the mud and one the stars." - Fredrick Langbridge

Surely the difference is not that stark but it sums the perspective succinctly. Where we stand now tells a lot about our reach of the horizon and what we are able to see. And I guess with each passing day we are able to recognise the oddities of life much clearer and our wants increase our already bulky list by a few more points.

So if I were to sum the year in one breath it goes like this a close friend K who got engaged, got married and also got a baby (fast processing ;) ), another friend S got engaged and would get married next year, one of the friend A who had initiated a venture is going strong though with mild hiccups but he is gulping enough water :) and stands steady, mid-year was sent to Germany for a company trip and visited Rome and Switzerland as a side tour, where also got to mingle more closely with another friend there and other Indian families who hold hands in a far off land. Finished three years in office and got a memento. Though would confess have left blogging from a regular ritual to a side affair, will that change time will tell.



While some of you who were reading my blogs regularly found out that I was getting married an year back, but thats what I myself thought ;) but it turned out to be a hoax call, and the movie story took in a different d-tour from there on, but the stars it seems have realigned themselves for that fortune moment, and it seems real enough now. The dates have been decided and all seem to be in place, and as I said life would be different from now on.

Spending your life with a stranger for another sixty years, yiikees, makes my hair stand, but then I wont be the first one to experience neither the last. But as each person, and his/her experience is unique I guess it would be "Different". Many a times I have thought about this institution and ended with two logical answers of man's desire to procreate and his/her want to share in his life with another being after all we are termed in as a social lot and this is as social as it gets. Ofcourse friends and family included, but this is different I guess, its the step wherein the circle repeats itself into a new line for a different ending struggling for its own space to evolve and touching in a few more circles in the process.

Thats life I guess & maybe not pondering on it more of where its heading I guess I should be running out, there's much to be done and many a lists to be made. I wish you all a Hapy New Year and great life ahead.

Missyou Service

I dont think so the word would recaptulate any notes or nuances, though I do think it should besiege your heart with refrences of a long lost calling. Although till now you would sure be getting positive halos but let me warn you of the sign post which reads "Sharp curve ahead".

From past few months Time magazine has a small section [Lexicon] where they introduce some new terms which have come into existence with light to the circumsance or conditions. I thought maybe my conditions also calls for a similar action.

It happened a few weeks back when I got an odd sms with a dab of shaayari, at first I thought it was a wrong sms (just like your garden variety wrong number), but then few minutes later a more longer one knocked my door, with a full red gleaming from its eyes I mean ... you get the drill. As the sms had ended with a "Khuda Haafiz", I thought the mis-chances of such happening would be remote. And before my chain of thoughts could travel out of the confines of my imagination three more landed on my doorstep, like baskets of uninvited babies that are left unattended (was that the damn stork again!) now what to do!! Ironically or what my hindi in english form (damn this mobile people for not inventing hindi fonts everywhere) is not very good and it was taking me a whole minute to digest the contents. And gosh they were pretty heavy stuff thrown back, so I thought to return the favor, and more so in the same devilish charm my unknown benefactor had secretly bestowed upon me. Our company landlines route their numbers through some GSM technology (in case of out of city calls) which means that most of the time you would see a mobile number flashing on your screen. And then the phone rang on the other side,

She: Heeeellloo
Me: Heelo, I got a sms from this number
She: What!! I didnt sms this number (what she meant was you jerk I was fooling with a different guy and yours wasnt it!)
Me: (I thought when confronted its better not to beat the bush) My name is Shadab my number ends with 08 and I received a couple of sms.
She: Ohhhhhhhhhh!! (read my long lost love) sorry, I guess I would have mistakenly ....ilarkbfsra... (some gibrish) would remove your number.
Me: Ok.

I thought I had happily closed that chapter when half a minute later I get another delivery, ".....Appne hamein kaise bhula diya....". Hmmmph now thats a puzzle; I hardly knew that girl forgetting comes later in the story, more so after the climax. But I thought this foolishness should end here and now, and having read a recent hoardings of a call filter service introduced by my cell phone provider, (the service couldnt have been introduced at a better time), Lo, the deed was done. To my surprise the sms still came pouring in, so I revisted the site to look for some finer prints and there it was "The service activates 24 hr after its submission, and only for calls". Hmpppppph, so that indirect approach didn't work as planned, I have to go to plan B which is take the bull by its very horns. And so I called from my number, .... for clarity and privacy I wont mention the dialogue delivery in full but what I was enlightened with was the fact that miss call is a way of saying Miss you while sms like the ones I was receiving were its smaller siblings. Hmmmph having being annoyed more than my fair share I try to huddle some logic in her head reiterating that it wasn't working and that so will not this (get the waft). Poooh. after that initial call, I didnt receive any sms for whole day. And I thought my power of persuasions had worked, but the next day I got a call which I cut, then another, another. This time I called my cell phone provider to really do their stuff, and guess what, it did. But did I get a sigh of relief, nope, some jerk head had introduced their service with some jingles attached, now everytime I had a call from the barred number I get an sms too from Vodaphone stating "Your call barring was has successfully barred the __ number at __ time". Arrrrggggh, what was the use, the person can himself sms me while the calls even though barred still makes me pick my phone, they could very well, have called it Miss you service, as they cant block the sms while the call itself spurs an sms. So instead of the person the phone company does the missing you act. And thus my very own Term.

Leaving persuasion in the gunny bag I blasted the miss you person and finally its all over, the service is no more and so have my phone stopped beeping frantically every hour. Silence is a bliss, the missings are no more missed, atleast not by me!!