College Memories … Bday Celebrations

For people who don’t remember, my bday falls on 7th of August  every year.I recently celebrated my 28th bday with frnds in Namma Chennai at a restraunt  called Kabul.

While going to the restraunt, my sis called and asked whthr i hav got my bday bumps already . I told her, i m becoming too old for tht kinda shit . We r corporates now.

Tht was purely a overrated statement , becaus i hav a bunch of frnds who never grow up, despite few of them being married and having kids.

I got my bday bumps after the dinner and booze, outside the restraunt, right on the road .Well i made sure i get a gift from each one of them in return. But as one of my frnd pointed out, they gav us the bumps ‘pyaar se’ and he was
right . If it would hav been my hostel, dunno know for how many days i would  be unable to sleep due to the pain from the bday bumps

I remember, when bdays used to be a scare . Ppl would hide under cots / under the water tanks to avoid get beaten up . And wht beating it would be, i would not wish a similar beating even for a thief or my enemies . Hostelites get a chance to practise thier martial arts skills on the poor fellow . Some practise thier painting skills using shoe polish, shampoo , talcum powder , basically whtever comes to the hand at tht moment . Getting a cake for ur own bday is a huge risk as most of it ends up in the bday boy’s face . when frnds get a cake for the bday boy, they keep this in mind and get the cheapest one possible

One trick which i used to follow is , to befriend the biggest guy in hostel and keep him as my bodyguard (Thank u Balram for being my body guard for 4 yrs) . Few guys invariably slip and attack me. For them i keep a bowl of rasagullas ready . ‘Pehle ek rasagulla to le le’, but this just delays the inevitable and i get beaten up sooner or later after the bowl is empty . Then comes few days of painful sleepless night . Few ppl even resort to pain killers.

Thrs this one guy who used to be favorite gunny bag and whole hostel waited for his bday eagerly . He even threatened once , agar is baar bumps pada to khidki se khud jaunga (if u ppl beat me this time, i will jump off the 4th floor window) . His frnds replied, u r most welcome to do so . u will brk few bones, but still we wont pity u and beat u up. He went forward with the beating alone.

This happens during the midnight , the next day used to be happier as u always get showered by gifts . This followed by the wallet going for a toss over the treat.

Of old age pride, smile and laugh

Sometimes in your short journeys in day to day life , we meet ppl who leave a lasting impression on us . Some 2 weeks ago when me and my roomie were going to watch ‘New York’ at Mayajaal from Thiruvanmiyur , i met two old retired men with whome i had a lovely smalltalk .

I was one of the standees in the bus (quite common here). One old person (Old man 1 ) was standing besides me and another old man(old man 2) was sitting on the seat next to Old man 1.  Old man 1 was holding few items in his hand.

Old Man 2 : I think things u r holding might be quite heavy . Please hand it over to me, i will hold it for u.

Old Man 1: No No, its fine . Thanks for asking (a polite reply with a smile)

Old Man 1 : Hindi teriyun ?(Do u know Hindi ? in tamil)

Old Man 2 : teriyada (no, i don’t know Hindi)

Old Man1 : Thrs a saying in Hindi ‘Jab tak hamari haddiyon main dum hai, hum doosron ke aage haath kyun failayen’ which translates to, till we have strength in our bones , why should we depend on others .

Hearing such  a dialogue of pride and independence from a old man in his mid 70s, i couldn’t help but smile. Old man 1 noticed the smile.

Old Man1 to Old Man 2 : see, this young man is smiling. He is not laughing, just smiling . Smile shows love and affection towards a person whereas laugh shows criticism and mockery.

Old man 1 to me : so where r u from young man.

Me: i am from orissa sir.

and our small talk started from here. We  talked about how chennai has been treating me, wht i do , what old man 1 used to do, wht old man 2 used to do, what r my food habits, wht do thier children do etc.

Both the old men were government employees and retired now , but they get a steady pension and with their sons settled in chennai, thier life is quite comfortable now. below are few more extracts from the conversation which i remember

Old man 1 to old man 2: Which dept. were u in ?

Old man 2: I was in revenues.

Old man 1: Hmm …. the dept. to churn out money (revenue dept is considered to be the best to churn money as the upari  u get there is much more than ur salary)

Another one …

Old man 2: when i joined the job, i was paid Rs 75 per month . Then i used to save Rs. 30 per month.  A cup of tea used to be 2 Annas(Those not familiar with anna , an anna is equivalent to 6 paise . An rupee is made of 100 paise). A bag of rice used to cost Rs 2. I was not happy on earning Rs 75 as i had lots of responsiblities , though Rs 75 was a good salary those days . Now govt. is paying me a pension of Rs 5000 and i m quite happy with it though i don’t save any of it.

They talked about thier houses, one in neelankarai and another in pallavakam . They were quite happy with what they had achieved in life.

College Memories .. Getting senior’s name

When we were in 1st year engineering ,  we had to tell a quote to get a senior’s name . It seems this has been passed to our seniors by our super seniors and we used the same method with our juniors . I remebered this while we were casually discussion some incidents from our college life today in our bay with my colleagues. I felt starnge that even after 4 years of getting my degree , i still remember the quote as it is supposed to be (7 years after i was supposed to use it )  . Thanks to my seniors . The quote goes as below :

May i have the unique opportunity , doubled pleasure and trippled satisfaction to know your great grand name please

This has to be performed with your eyes facing the ground as if you r pleading for the name . Even after all the effort taken , the senior might not be pleased enough and may simply turn and leave .

The endangered Piggy

In this blog , i am not talking about an endangered animal species , but an custom which i feel is endangered and must be revived back to its old days glory . I am talking about the ‘Piggy Bank’.

As per wikipedia , it was named so becuase of the below reason :

In ancient times, scraps of food, and food that would otherwise spoil, could be “saved” and/or “invested” (and to an extent “recycled”) by being fed to the domestic pig and in doing so fattening the pig for subsequent eating or sale. As pigs eat such a variety of foods in so many conditions, the strategy paid off for peoples in all continents and the strategy was passed on from generation to generation. Then when money was introduced into society, the already firmly established cultural habit of saving food scraps by depositing them in the pig was then supplemented, and in more developed/urban societies was supplanted, by the saving of scraps of money rather than food in the piggy bank.

A piggy bank  use to have great significance when we were kids . Indian parents used to get piggy banks for thier kids so that kids know the value of money and the significance of saving it for future. Kids don’t become spendthrifts . My parents used to bring piggy bannks made of mud shaped as various fruits (Apple, Mango, watermelon, guava etc) from a yearly dola mela (a  yearly fair during the holi festival near our small town). The hole on it will be sufficient enough to slip a 1 rupee coin only. Later when 2 rupee and 5 rupee coins were released by the govt. of India , my dad used to expand the hole using a knife to make space for the new coins to slip into . 2 rupee and 5 rupee coins were a rarity those days . So if my dad gets one of these coins , it will go to say my piggy bank . When he gets the another one , thts for my sis’s piggy bank. If he gets two on the same day , each one of us used to have one. We were told that ne day the piggy bank will be full and when we break it, we would be able to buy something costly like a nice game or a watch or something which we aspired for many days. After breaking the piggy bank it would be fun counting all  the money in coins . Sometimes my dad will put the amount in a bank account  and he will tell us the amount gets doubled in 5 yrs and sometimes we used to get things which we demand for . I remember , during my high school days , with probably the last piggy bank i owned, my gramma got a watch for me(after adding a few 100s from  her purse). I still wear the watch to office .It has become an inseperable part of my life . 

A few days ago, i along with one of my frnds were looking for a piggy bank for his nephew . We were surprised to find that even big gift shops din’t have one . The ones we found were metallic and plastic ones with complicated locking systems which a child won’t be able to open , but the cost of these were more than the amount to be saved in it . Nowhere did we find the piggy  banks made of clay. Few days ago i spotted a clay piggy bank at one potter’s shop . It was a small clay orb with a bit of decoration on its top and a small slit to put the coins in . Don’t think there were many takers for the same. I just thought , the piggy bank i knew is on the verge of extinction . I wonder , how is the next generation going to learn the significance of money and saving

Concept of HOVs and Car pooling :

I really hate watching a single person travelling in a big luxury car or a SUV all by himself  on a busy day traffic. He can be tagged as a “Ecological Criminal” . He adds up to the pollution , makes inefficient use of resources like the road , the car in which he is sitting and the fuel he is wasting . Americans have developed a few very nice methods to cope with these problems.

HOVs :

1. Stands for High Occupancy Vehicles . Many busy roads in US have 3 lanes (instead of 2 , for to and fro routes). The extra lane , which usually is in the middle of the to and fro lanes remains open only for a limited period of time say 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM in morning and 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM in the evening.
2. During the morning hours , the lane is open for the vehicles from residential  area to the offices and during evening , from offices to residence . One of the most important criteria to use this lane is that there should be more than 3  persons in the car.If a person is found to be using this lane without the requisite no.s of travellers in the car , he might get penalised by the cops.
3. There are many advantages of this :

• People Travel together and bond over the travel discussing the latest issues and family matters
• Since HOV lane has lesser vehicles, the traffic moves faster than the other lanes
• People start early for work to catch the HOV lane , and hence reach office on time
• People start early from office and avoid overtime to catch HOV . Hence reaching home early and spend some quality time with thier family.
• People do car pooling

Car Pooling:

This is a process where ppl from the same locality or who stay together and work together or nearby offices travel in a common car instead of each traveling alone in thier car .Either passengers may share the price of fuel and parking or they may alternate the cars used , depending upon how many persons in the car pool have cars. The major advantages :

1. Reduces pollution as it decreases the carbon footprint per person
2. Better utilisation of the cars,fuel and roads
3. People socialise while travelling .
4. More economical as ppl share the gas and parking charges
5. Have seen many ppl giving lifts so that they dont travel alone and can take advantage of the HOV too
6. Reduces stress commuting to and fro from work

One of the major disadvantages of car pooling , everyone in the pool have to synchronise thier time based on the driver’s timings ; but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

The above two are possibly two very useful ideas to tackle the traffic congestion in most of the Indian metros considering the fact that the development of  infrastructure  also has its limits beyond which it can’t grow , but the population growth , though a bit controlled in last few yrs , is still growing at an alarming rate. But there are a few precautions that need to be taken too. Don’t give lift to others if you are traveling very late and u don’t have a right feeling about the person . Consider your own safety first and foremost.

And i have even seen profilic persons travelling in local transport or thier bikes instead of cars .  Using public transport is a very effective way of coping these issues too.