Humanity Still Exists

Being in a country where a girl is raped every 13th minute, it is natural for us to lose hope on existence of Faith,Humanity and Respect.

But this incident made me to have a second thought about what we really have and what we do not.
Last week, I had to travel from Tolichowki to Gachibowli(place where I stay), the most convenient and commonly used transport in this route is shared-auto.While I was waiting for the shared-auto, I came across a normal autorickshaw shouting Lingampally.Being aware that he has to cross my destination to reach Lingampally, I took a chance and asked him to Gachibowli with Shared-auto fare,he obliged.
I got into it and found a person already sitting there who is also roped into the "Fare Deal".We exchanged smiling gestures and I slipped into my ipod.In about 10min after that, an old lady stopped the auto and requested free-drop to "Dhargah", which was just a kilometer away from her position. The driver went fumes over her demand and started abusing her, not even considering her age. She pleaded saying that she neither has money to pay nor has strength to walk.I was getting frustrased with the kind of words used by the driver and abruptly stopped them by agreeing to pay for her and letting her in. I told that just to keep the auto moving and the old lady was too happy and she got in.Upon reaching her destination,she blessed me and left the place. I felt happy that I have done something worthy.Finally, when I reached my destination, I asked the driver about the total amount(mine and old lady's).He said " Aaj kal koi kisiko kuch nahi karte ji, aap uss aurat ko madaddh ki he toh main aapse paise nai le sakta". I was amused at his response, In a flash,I rewound the time and went back to see the red-faced driver abusing the lady and sign of negligence on his face while doing that, it made me wonder "Is this the same Guy who did that?, Is he taking Telugu movies too seriously?, Is he really out of mind?" whatever the reason would be I felt the change in his tone and behaviour.Though,I forced him umpteen number of times to take the money, he repeatedly refused by taking divine's name.Atlast, I made my travel  free of cost.This incident really made me feel,we get what we give,Instantly.
I realized, Humanity still exists within us and we just have to discover it.
Autowallahs take a bow.

Hum Aiseich Hai

Hyderabad . . The city which carries rich tags globally like Pearl City and City of Nawabs  also has a lighter shade in it.
Being funny comes naturally to true blue Hyderabadis. All we have to do is speak and people crack up. Even our profanities are deeply seeped in  humour. If someone does not make sense while speaking, politeness be damned,our “Old City” wallah won’t hesitate before blurting out , “Kya baigan ke baata karre ji,Khamush baito”.  For the uninitiated, the word baigan is the most used expression – a master adjective for expressing disappointment about anything under the sun. ( Pinda would take a close second spot).

Shedding lights on the Hyderabadi Lingo, It is just like a “Mixed Fruit Juice”. Take Telugu,Urdu,Telangana Telugu, English, put it in a mixer, and voila! That is what it is.

The Autowallahs of the City are the leading ambassadors of the Hyderabadi’s way of speaking. An outsider might just freak out when someone quietly comes by and says “Randi” (Well, that’s how they call a passenger with respect). If you ever get a chance to travel in a shared auto, just grab it.It offers more fun and entertainment. Recently, while I was travelling in a shared auto I came across a Teenage guy who was shouting over the phone saying ‘10^th ichchina’(just appeared for my Class X exams),’degree peekindhi’(flunked graduation). I am yet to realize what he really meant.

“Shut Up”

A Hyderabadi with Andhra roots would just say “ Na thokka em kadhu”  whereas a  Telangana-speaking Hyderabadi expression for the same would be “Na bheja kharab cheyak ra bai”. While a thorough bred Secunderabadi would just ask you to “Buzz off ya bugger” or the more conventional, “Shut the eff up dude” . Now that’s a lot of way to say Shut Up. Well, that’s the Hyderabadi lingo for you.

 “Food” 

Hyderabad is second heaven on earth  for spicy and meat  food lovers. Every area is famous for its own “special dish”. To dwell deep, I should be writing a separate article for this.But, I will mention those foods whose names are Hyderabadi Lingo oriented.Though,  Irani Chai and Double ka meetha is savoured by all, you have  Dum Biriyani, Haleem, Paaya,Chakna and Tandooori’s for Non-veggies and Veg Biriyani,Kheema Rotis,Veg Haleem and Rayalaseema Ruchulu for Veggies.When every other city has Midnight Maggi, Hyderabad have Midnight Biriyani.

Hyderabadi Lingo also has some common expressions that have found universal acceptance whether in Hindi,Telugu or English. People here say aayi when expressing disbelief. Then there is  abbaccha,primarily a Telangana word,(even Old City dwellers use it to express surprise). You will also hear common endearments like maccha,chicha,ustaad,boss,kaka and so on which have breached language barrier.They really do not have any meaning as such,but everyone here understands its reference.

“Typical Hyderabadi”

 Four typical Hyderabadi phrases used very often are :

1.   JUMP JILANI : When a situation gets too sticky to handle, some people stay,(and most others run). Jump Jilani is a catch phrase for the runners to describe how they ran to save their lives,all in good humour,of course.

 

2.   DE THADI POCHAMMA GUDI: It implies something on the lines of bash on regrdless. When you hear somebody saying that to you,it means they are not going to back down,come what may.Unless you are in the mood to get into a scrap.Its the best time to throw in the towel or think about changing tactics.

3.  HOLY FISH : It’s a Secunderabadi Holy Cow! Typical Secunderabadi’s use it as the go-to-expression for expressing anything from utter disbelief to pure shock. Its lot like Baigan of Old City slang.

4.   HAND ICCHADU : It’s a pure Telugu slang for when someone ditches you in the last minute or fails to keep a promise. It’s a metaphor for making a fool out of somebody. In Old City it is, Bada haath de diya yaaro.

Whenever you come across any person making use of these words, conclude his identity as Hyderabadi.  The coolest thing about Kaikus,Nakkos,Aareyyss,Turres is though you add a vowel sound to every word. Its too passe and has no sophistication or whatsoever.

Finally, One thing is for sure, you can identify a Hyderabadi instantly by the way he speaks Telugu,Hindi or English. Hyderabadi Lingo really has a good humour in it. Respect it while you enjoy it.

First Day First Show

Being Happy and optimistic I begin this article with mixed feeling. Happy, for successfully completing a revolution around the sun with my company. Optimistic, about the rest of the years to spend.

08 July 2011, It was a cloudy Friday, the day I was supposed to report to my company. Those days I was staying in a place called Domlur (Bangaloreans obviously heard of it) and my reporting location was in Koramangala. Since the mentioned time was at 8 in the morning, I along with one of my college buddies had to take an auto-rickshaw from Domlur-Koramangala. We had to pay a hefty auto charge only for travelling in Bangalore when the traffic was very minimal (that’s so common in Bangalore). Reaching the destination, we were too eager and little nervous waiting for everything to kick start. At first sight, the building looked like an apartment built using only match-boxes. Having said that I thought of diverting my mind by hunting good looking girls around (this is common too ;)) hoping for that charismatic  girl to come with a magical wand and raise few eye-brows, sadly I ended up finding a few of my own college girls and started mumbling “ NOT AGAIN ”

Moving On, briskly placing autographs before our names in a sheet of paper like an upcoming Bollywood star, we all were given a temporary i-card. Later, we were asked to board one of the buses and we did just that blindly even without knowing where we are headed to. Choosing the bus which consisted of highest number of good looking girls (well, better than zero). I was overwhelmed to know that the so called “Match-Box” was not my workplace.

The bus drove for about half an hour and reached Sarjapur, Head office. In that thin period, many Indian languages were flowing non-stop around me. One I heard the most was “Neenga Tamila?” , “Endha ooru macha?” (no hard feelings, its fact  :D). Luckily, we reached. Instantly feeling too proud to be a part of the company, I was blindly following the queue (like a sheep following the herd for grazing) and found the way to conference hall.
The next couple of hours was literal “Bheja-Fry” as a nerd-looking lady started off with her repeated induction words. Feeling too hungry and exhausted as I skipped my breakfast, I was desperately in need of a break. Right then, an astral sound came to my rescue calling for a brief tea-break. As soon as I heard that we are getting something to munch (for free), I left no time to join the line midway to make sure I get it before it’s all over.

Coming back fresh and recharged, I was expecting something better than pre-tea session. Luckily, a middle aged, smart looking guy came up with a fluent speech which was a distant dream for the former girl. Explaining about the expectations in the company, he succeeded in carrying my energy to float for next couple of hours. Besides the fact that the session was interesting, I was suffering from lack of heavy food for few hours. Naturally, when he asked us to disperse for the Lunch I was over the moon.

Honestly, I am one of those who believe that the best way of pleasing any guest is by the taste and quality of the food we serve them ;). Seems my company had similar thought and they came up with good food. They say “A lot can happen over a cup of coffee”. Infact, “A lot more can happen over a plate of food”:D. It was then, where I had a brief and formal chat with a few strangers from different parts of India and turned them into acquaintances. Post-Lunch, we decided to take a mini-tour around the campus to check the infrastructure, the view did not disappoint us. Only thing disappointing was my watch, which was crawling at snail’s pace in session but was accelerating at the speed of Bugatti Veyron outside.

Coming back from a heavy Lunch I was totally drowsy (I’m sure most of us were). Just like rubbing salt on the wound, the same lady was back with loads of documents. This time we had to do some paper work, signing on the bond, contracts and all the other important papers. It was too obvious session post-lunch, the peculiar reason would be that most of us were sluggish to go through every point mentioned in the bond/contract. The lady started off with her redundant use of words. If I were to collect a wheat grain each time she used the word “Professional”, I would have sold wheat in kilos for a month. Only one thing could have broken all this drama, Tea-Break (no prizes for guessing: P)

 Having couple of tea shots, I was off with my drowsiness and back to where I was supposed to be. Though it was the same nerd lady, I was used to her by now and her presence or absence was not making difference anymore. After few minutes, she came up circulating a piece of paper which had our coming week’s schedule mentioned and it reminded me of my school time-table. Right then, a guy interrupted and gave us some valuable information about transportation, rooms and useful information about paying guest availability for Bangalore Freshers.

When he was done with his brief talk, we were provided with an upgraded temp i-card (with photo) which was valid for next 3 days. At this point, I started feeling it was too much to take for a single day as I had developed a severe headache too. Luckily, we were at the climax of the drama. After the session, I headed back to bus following the herd of sheep. Choosing the bus which consisted more number of vacant seats than good looking girls (which was more important ;)), I had a peaceful journey on the way back and ended the day on a happy mood.

Petrol Drops

Petrol price goes up to Rs.80. Heaven forbid!! . I wonder Robin Sharma knew this day would come, which made him choose the title "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" for his fable.  It seems Indian Government is a strong believer of Mayan's Calendar, they want the petrol price to touch that 3-digit mark before the world "ends" . But, fortunately(?!) if the world does not end by this year-end what would be the cons owing to petrol price hike??

Here, I have noted down some of my  weird thoughts ;)

1 . First and foremost, Long Drive would be a metaphor and imaginary.

2. Nano cars will be cheaper than petrol.

3. Indian Banks would come up with various EMI schemes for availing Petrol

4. Swiss banks declares holdings of dematerialized black petrol

5. Autowallahs increase their minimum charges, failing to which breeds a new reason to protest

6. Rupee vs. Dollar would be a history, Gold vs. Petrol trends in.

7. Twitter and Facebook would fall prey to petrol debate.

8. Free Coupons for limited petrol would be a festive offer.

9. Petrol robbery hits headlines more than car robberies.

10. Petrol museum would be opened consisting of petrol cars.

11. BCCI declares every M.O.M in IPL will get 1 litre of petrol and 10 litres for Man Of The Series

12. Politicians  promise a litre of petrol per each vote

13. Groom's demand for petrol along with car as dowry and later burn bride with the same.

14. Celebrities will be caught sniffing petrol in Rave parties.

15. New branch in business schools - Petrol Management.

16. Petrol Bunks would be among  hit-list of  Al-Quaeda

Finally, Petrol extinct in India and petrol bunk is considered as a historical place.

God, Save Us!!

Bumpy Ride

Udupi- A name, which reminds many among us about the name of a South-Indian restaurant round the corner. Perhaps, only a filtered few among us are aware that it is a name of a Place too. It is in the coastal belt of Karnataka which is about 755kms from Hyderabad which is my current location. By bus, it takes 14 long hours to travel (Okay now, enough of Geography). In this article, I would like to share those 14 hours I spent on my journey from "Pearl-City" to the "Temple-City". So, fasten your seat belts and get ready for the roller-coaster.

It was a bright Sunday evening, where Sehwag was hammering every nook and corner of the ground and I could not resist to get off it. As the old adage goes "Time and Tide waits for none", I had to leave Viru for my bus :P. Reaching the pickup point with my buddies( who were too happy to send me off :P ), I waited there for the bus as it did not show up in the mentioned time. Meanwhile, my eyes caught a good looking girl (Seldom do I miss it ;)) who was waiting for the bus too and I was just wishing that she travels in my bus :D. After about half an hour, the bus finally arrived and Ta-daan she was in my bus.

Bidding all my buddies good-bye and heading towards the bus, I heard a slow Kannada Devotional song playing. I looked around and made sure it is not one of those buses on pilgrimage tourism. Soon as I settled, many greetings flew in through messages and calls, which made me feel like Marco Polo set on his voyage. A loud noise from the TV brought me back from my thoughts and "DOOKUDU" (a Telugu Movie) was started. Must say, it is a good movie but sadly I’ve seen it before, so I had no interest to watch it again. Call it a "Sheer Negligence" or "Weird Coincidence" internet-pack in my cellphone had expired too. So finally, I opted to listen to songs which made me realize I’ve many good songs in my cellphone.

Beautiful sunset and slow music took me to a different world which I enjoyed a lot. Soon the bus halted for some refreshment somewhere in a village which is never available in Google map, I went to blend with the mob to have the "Simply Dileesius" tea out of curiosity and the effort was fruitful, it was indeed delicious. I was all alone like a lost kid and that attracted a foreign couple towards me. If my memory is fine, it was Harris and Juliane from South Africa who were in India to explore dhabaas and local delicacies. We had a nice chat and discovered that, they were in their last week stay in India. Soon after, they took a pic with me. Well, maybe by now that pic has been published in South African Daily as "Malnutrition-Struck Adult In India" :P

Back to my seat, I dozed off unknowingly, courtesy songs. After about an hour, I was forcefully woken up by the scary rather hilarious snoring sound by my co-passenger, who is blessed with a kind of snoring which could make even Lions feel shy about their roaring. Holding back my anger, I took out the bedspread given to me and covered my face to sleep but in vain. Next couple of hours I had to  deal with his horrible snoring and I ended up having a strong headache. Oh! did I miss out that "good-looking girl" in my bus??, her seat was at diagonally right to mine and I could see her deeply immersed into the movie going on. She was mentally not there, my plans of talking to her was aborted instantly.

Soon, I slipped into sleep though the 'King Of Jungle' was roaring non-stop next to me, a much required sleep for me as the date was already changed and my brain was demanding for some rest. At around, 2.30am a middle-aged lady screamed so loudly which was sufficient enough to send any heart patient to deep sleep forever. In no time, the whole bus woke up and lights were on, I mumbled to myself - "I’m damn sure, she has been molested by the old guy next to her" but in reality she had a dumb-baseless-irrelevant dream, which not only disturbed the whole bus but also brought me back to Lion’s Den. It took around quarter to an hour for everyone to settle down. Peacefully, I had a deep-sleep thereafter, ironically not long enough.

I wonder people who have new-born babies are never dependent on alarms. Right on the dot, at 6am a toddler started its tantrum which made me mumble again - "VERRY Good Morning, U MORON”. From that point, I had to simply sit and enjoy the nature for the next couple of hours. As I came closer to my destination, my new found excitement overshadowed the tireful journey. Finally, I jumped out of the bus and stretched my arms to feel the familiar breeze which energized me more than a RedBull could do;)

Four States

Freshly coming out of Chethan Bhagat's imaginary world of "2 states", I decided to go with this simple rather self explainatory title.

Welcome to India. To be precise, South India. India is land of different culture..blah blah blah..all these we have learnt long back and fortunately(not sure) we are proud of what we are and where we belong. In this particular article I would like to share my thoughts on few funny things about my state and my neighbouring state.
Since Karnataka is lucky to have me let me pen down about it first. A state where businessman has more fame than those working in Cinema Industry. This state is attracting many outsiders or in typical desi-style "Pardesis" everyday and losing twice in number. Former Courtesy Bengaluru and the latter due to dirty politicians. Bengaluru is "open-arm" for every Indian irrespective of the place one belongs to or the language one uses. As a result, Tigers in India are more than Kannadigas in Bengaluru.
Now,when this is the scene in Karnataka. Lets go straight down to "GOD'S OWN COUNTRY" Kerala. Ofcourse,"Devils own people" thats what they say but lets cut that here. From Elephants to Boat Houses from Apples to Coconuts everything is abnormally "Huge" here (Atleast Few got my point there). If u want to impress a localite here u will have to follow one of the two easy steps.
Step 1: Try to speak as loud as possible while gargling with salt water.
Step 2: Buy a Gum. Try to yawn besides chewing it.
You end up being considered as one of the literates of palindrome language. M-A-L-A-Y-A-L-A-M.
Okay now, lets shed lights on Andhra Pradesh. This is the state which I had only visited but had never stayed before. The only thing I knew about this state was Tirupati and Telugu. Though I could easily read the language and do nothing more than that, I had never attempted to even learn it ever before.Ippudu koncham koncham show off cheyya daanki sufficient undi :P.Interestingly, while the whole nation speaks different Hindi. Andhra or Hyderabad in particular, speaks different Hindi. "Arey! Ye Hindi Kathe..Toh tuh Darta Kaiku?"  which really reminds you about Lahore or Abbottabad. Half of the city is busy taking Cinemas and actors tooo seriously while the other half is busy licking fingers with the famous "Dum-Biryani". 
Last and least :D I would take the honour to mention about TamilNadu - the worst part of India where sunlight makes no difference. I'll have to stop being racist for my own good :P Anyways, back to point, this is the state which truly believes in "Brotherly-hood" and sadly the bonding that starts and ends within Tamilians. Its very easy to form a team of Tamilians. Infact, these are those people who use words like- "Teri..maa" frequenlty and fearlessly..which you dare to use elsewhere. However, Andhra tops the list in this matter, they use words like "Randi" , "Rape" and "Choos" use of which straight away gets an "A" certificate in a Bollywood flick. TamilNadu shares the honour of "Style Disaster Striken State" with Kerala and all the credits to Lungi (Natural A/C) 
Lots and lots of thoughts are flowing in but I 'll have to end it.
These were few drops of the bucketful of information I have collected from an Ocean. If you  feel like patting my back. Do comment . That would serve it ;)
Finally, let me end this on a Happy note. These difference makes us what we are and I would like to quote myself- " We Should Know the Similarities and Respect the differences"  :P