BEST

i travelled in buses for three years in Pune while I was trying, rather unsucessfully, to complete Engineering. If anyone is from Pune, they would understand what it's like to travel in Pune buses which apart from being crowded beyond their capacity, are only held together by dirt and grime, and not nuts and bolts. Once I moved to Mumbai, buses were bye bye, and local trains were, well, hai hai.. I suffered from many a traumatic incident in local trains, ones that any mumbaikar would be used to by now, but two years of life in Mumbai had still not prepared me for some rather disturbing experiences. Anyway, I am back to Mumbai for studies and this time, its Mumbai buses. Although the buses are definitely better in that this time there are actual nuts and bolts holding it together and miraculously, people aren't standing like sardines packed together. There's something common to buses everywhere though, atleast from whatever little i have noticed. Although there are two seats reserved in the front for senior citizens, the "non-senior" citizens show no signs of giving up their seat and hold on to their place with as much feeling as they would hold on to their offspring. And ironically enough, OTHER "non-senior" citizens occupying the rest of those seats would be throwing poisonous glances at him/her so as to convey "God! How shameless he is, can't even give up his seat for the old man!". Today, I happened to occupy one of these seats unknowingly (since i am new to mumbai buses) so this old gentleman came up to me and said to me "vayaskaran sathi seat ahe" (seat for senior citizen) and not rudely. I immediately obliged and told him i didn't know so,and a friendly conversation followed thereafter.
What I never understand is the way people are so nonchalant about simple things such as these. If your elderly mom got on the bus, would you sit and wait for her to find her seat? Or would yu first seat her and stand, if need be? Then why can't people be sensitive enough to other elderly citizens? How can they pretend not to notice that there's an eight year old man holding on helplessly to the bar trying not to fall? If you are upto forty years of age, surely you can manage to suffer a little discomfort? It's disheartening to see how people choose to ignore basic courtesies to fellow passengers. And worse, we find innumerable ways to justify our actions "Not today, i'll offer him a seat some other day, today i worked really hard and i am really tired!" or "My stop is really far off, if it were close enough, I'd have definitely given him my seat". We crib and we criticize about how unfriendly a place the world has turned into and how nothing can help this country, but do we ever stop and think for a moment whether we did such a small thing as give our seat to an elderly? Do we?

Sex - The new “in” thing?

Yeeeep… the new cool thing amongst everyone. I remember when we were back in school. There were whispered conversations about the “S” word, especially after we covered our first chapter in Science, Life Processes. And we would keep looking back in the fear that someone might hear us.
Now? Well, as they say, in the olden times, if you have it, hide it. The new mantra says, if you have it flaunt it. They were talking about money until now. Not any more.. now it’s about whether you “dunnit”.
Everyone of us knows that at some or the other point, we have all been victims of peer pressure, now, It needn’t necessarily be about something as life altering as drugs or taking to alcohol in a big way, but something as insignificant as clothes, or simply how much money you can spend when you go to the movies with your pals. All I can say is, THAT kind of peer pressure I could deal with. I acted smart. I just made friends with rich people who didn’t care two hoots about spending money, be it paying for an entry in a discotheque or going for a movie.. hehe..

So it started with “Mere paas yeh wali video game hai.. tere paas hai kya?”, then “Let’s go to PVR for the movie, not that Anand! Chee! It’s such a dump!” followed by “Let’s go to Shoppers Stop for shopping man!”.

And now.. “So… done it or not yet?” and the look in their eyes can only tell you that you are expected to say yes if you are as cool as they think you are. If you do not, they go all wide-eyed and stare at you as if you were the most lowly form of life on the face of this planet. It happened to with me quite a few times and I tell you, it’s just plain weird. Then I start to think, have we all actually come THAT far? Have we become so “mod” as to be so casual about what us Hindustanis think is a sin “before marriage”? Is it ok to be casual? Is it ok if you are above a certain age, after which you are smart enough to know what you are getting into, pardon the pun. Do we blow the whole concept out of proportion, giving it more importance than it deserves? What?

Today, I watched Dev D. Parent: Please, for heaven’s sake, do not let your kids tag along. Friends: Do not watch the movie with your parents. You’ll cringe, and so will they.
The movie is quite explicit in that it has nothing whatsoever to do with emotions called eternal love, loss, sadness, repentance as was portrayed in the original movie, but purely lust, obsession, lies, jealousy. There are scenes that are not quite so graphic as they are suggestive and obvious, and well, the lingo? You know. My point: The concept of sex, the act itself is so in your face and depicted so casually that it is perceived by everyone in that manner “What’s the big deal!”.
Just like Archies comic says “You don’t need drugs to be cool”, well, there’s no need to think that you need to “do it” to be cool either, and anyone who does think so, is the real loser.