Young girls and not so young man

(Written en route Pune to Ranchi on 21/05/2011, so all little stories refer to incidents within train)

Faces can mislead. Emotions, thoughts, character – face is a great revealing entity. And yes, age. But due to some unknown quasi-cosmic reason, my face stopped ageing a decade ago.

Any girl on any given day will be ready to run up and down the Vaishnodevi shrine five times to stop her face showing signs of ageing. But ask any boy – er – man. The sole reason for the existence of male species on this earth is that, well, he has to be a man. When a male is not able to get himself branded as man despite being a man, the awkwardness he faces is unique to me. I haven’t met anyone who is asked of the class in which he studies even seven years after last attending the school.

Asked by a family once travelling with me in train, when I told that I study in class 12, the man replied, “You look too young to be in class 12, doesn’t he look like Pitto who goes to school with our Chooti?” His wife nodded with the biggest possible grin and gave a little pat on Chooti’s head. Chooti who seemed to be in class eight or nine smiled at me shyly and the depth of drooling in her eyes suggested that either she had a major crush on Pitto, or a face like Pitto with more manly credentials had really excited her. I gave a hint of smiling back.

This is the problem. For Chooti and her family, its a perfectly normal reaction. But for me, I am not even in class 12, I have been in job for more than two years now and Chooti is just a little girl for me.

I have been unfortunate enough to study in IIT and now to work for the government of India. Both places are devoid of female species of every possible kind. I really don’t know the intricacies of talking to a girl. I have no idea of how to stand, sit, look, breathe, hear, and think – in the presence of opposite sex of similar age. So, I have developed my own ways to face the challenge. Some of them are -
i) Get ignored by them, this is the easiest. Thank God that most girls ignore me.
ii) Try to spend as little time as humanely possible in presence of girls of same age.
iii) Talk as if your every sentence is costing a month of your salary and try to keep the sentence to really rudimentary form.

To the top of this, when girl-kids, half my age, simply make all excuses to talk to me, I feel like hanging myself. When everyone else is asleep in afternoon, this Bengali girl asks me, “Tumne khana nahi khaya?” She shows such a feeling of care that I curse myself. I don’t know what to do. I know most boys will hate this, but I will be mighty happy if some day these girls start calling me ‘bhaiya’. Now this girl is offering me Britannia cake. My God!

This mismatch of actual age and the perceived age is already taking toll on my working life. I naturally don’t fit in as an officer of many employees. People find it hard to see me as their future boss.

I have a history of young girls developing ‘very soft’ feelings towards me. Fortunately, the feeling is not mutual. I really hope that some day a twenty something girl will also develop similar feelings for me. I will wait the whole time while I am also in my twenty something. Or else, I will write another blog in my forties on same issues. ;)

Midnight @ NSC Bose Gomoh Junction

I bought this ‘Exal 4 – STAR’ scented pen at Ranchi junction just to have it. Few hours later at 0011 i.e. 00:11am, I am writing this diary with this pen and waiting for the Howrah Mumbai Mail to arrive at Gomoh junction.

I am waiting outside the upper class waiting room (Gents). I prefer to sit outside. This terminology of the waiting room itself reflects so many divisions. Class, gender. I am not sure how much of casteism we have forgone but we are happy to add new divisions. Indigenous or western, I fail to understand this constant desire of people to categorise themselves.

An empty freight train have just passed through platform 2 where I am sitting and writing. The guard at the end of the train stares at me. Probably he has not seen many people writing something at midnight on a platform. People all around me are sleeping or pretending to sleep. Songs are being played from the mobile of one person who is sound asleep. It seems he was trying to keep himself awake. ‘Duniya ka gham dekha to apna bhula dala...’ catches my attention.

It’s 0039. Another freight train passes before me. The loud grumbling sound of the train makes no difference to the ambiance around me. The air is very still. The scent of the written words can be felt distinctly. A coolie is strolling along the platform. Somebody makes a sleeping vendor sell ‘kurkure’.

When I see all the people around me, they seem to be venerable and innocent. Every person at the end of the day just requires a 6 feet by 3 feet space to sleep. One man in his early 20’s is standing before me and pushing some buttons on his mobile. He asks me,”Aapko kanha jana hai?” I reply dryly,” Mumbai”. He nods and goes back. Anyways, where was I? At the ‘end of the day’ problem. I am remembering a story in Bal Bharti or Kishore Bharti, where a man can own as much land as he can run on a single day. At the end of the run, the man dies of exhaustion and ultimately he needed only that much land in which he can be buried. How true! The good old NCERT has instilled into many kids of my generation a strong moral sense.

The fourth freight train passes before me as it’s 0121. Announcement for the arrival of Jharkhand Sampark Kranti Express from Delhi on its way to Ranchi is being made. People from the Postal department have thrown in many bags of mails on the platform. The Sampark Kranti train has arrived. I am wishing if I can board this train and go back to Ranchi. I cannot tell you how much I love Ranchi. A girl is peeping out of the window of S1 coach. The platform has came alive now. A coolie comes to me and asks if I require his services. I deny.

One blind man is asking for directions from another man. This man picks up his luggage and holds the blind man’s arm and is taking him to the desired platform. Humanity is not dead after all! It’s 0153 and I am getting little restless. I have also observed in these 2 hours that except for an old lady sleeping inside waiting room, I haven’t seen a single female on the platform. I think they are missing something very interesting in life. To be alone at night in a remote station where anyone hardly notices you and you notice everyone else and write, its a wonderful experience. It’s hard for a girl to be alone at rural stations in night and even harder for them to remain unnoticed.

Dehradun Howrah express has arrived. I had come home from Roorkee for the first time by this train only. It’s 0203 and my train will arrive in about half an hour at some platform which I still don’t know. So, better I should go to inquire. Two people come to me and ask, “ticket idhar hi kat-ta hai?” I say,”pata nahi”. Might be, with a diary and pen in hand, I seem to be the most knowledgeable person here.

Anyways, it’s time to wrap up. Goodbye.

Short Skirts

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Short skirts have always fascinated me. Men in general are all the time interested in the opposite sex’s anatomical details. One of my closest friend had written in my class X^th scrapbook, ” Girls in minis...mmmm..I love them.”

You must be wondering about this sudden change in the kind of topic I have picked to blog upon. Although its least probable that you might have read any of my blogs.. :( .. but still earlier ones were high in philosophical content.

I go on morning walks daily to burn off the extra fat I have amassed during one year of my complete inactivity. School children wait for their buses along the road. What struck me the most is the size of skirts the girls are wearing these days, the average size has certainly gone down ( or should I say up ) by about two inches from the time I was a school boy.

Don’t form opinions about me. I am not a paedophile, you will agree as you read further.

In school, the popularity of a girl was inversely proportional to her skirt size. I clearly remember how much above knee, the cloth ended for almost each girl of my class. I also precisely remember where the most popular girls of other classes, mostly seniors stood during assembly. That vital length between the knee and the threshold of the skirt was the kind of a signature of each girl. I could recognise each girl by just looking there. Those girls who wore skirts longer than the knee length were nonexistent for me. Going by my recent observations, such species of girls are now extinct. The skirts now are definitely on an average of mid-thigh length.

I won’t discuss various ways boys all around the globe have developed to peek outside in. If you are a boy, you certainly know few of them and if you are a girl, you definitely know all of them. Be it looking up the stairs or be it picking up something from beneath the desk, each one was master of one.

Before you start branding me or my whole such community MCP (Male chauvinist pig) or cheap, let’s look at it differently. There is no reason why a girl should expose three fourth of her legs on a cold winter morning. If there is no limit to how small a skirt may be, there is also no limit on how long it can be. Summers, I can understand, but winters? Women liberation? Ah, no.. these are middle or upper class teenage girls, don’t get too serious.

If you closely observe the condition of skirts, most girls probably stop buying new skirts from class IX onwards. The condition is even worse* for the P.T. dress, a lot of excuse can be made, after all you have to wear it only once a week, why bother buy a new one? (* read shorter)

So, do they enjoy this, boys ogling at them? Only they can answer.

Biologically speaking, girls of same age are much smarter and mature than boys for the most part of the teenage and even beyond it. Let me tell you a little story.

There was this girl in my class IX and X. Two fingers above the knee. Broad legs, slightly muscular. Oh,yes.. I forgot to tell, the signature used to be on the back side of knee. From the front, they all look similar, on the back, they are sexier and distinctive. Moreover, girl will never know where you are looking at, and from the front, ALWAYS look into their eyes..I will come to this later.

There was this girl. She was the class monitor. We had four rows of benches in our class and each bench accommodated two students. I sat on the first row, second last bench. My friend who wrote- minis, mmm.. sat beside me by the wall. One day she came towards our bench, looked at the other side and started making some announcement. Slowly she leaned back on the last desk, a part of her hip on the last desk and some part..bingo..it touched my shoulder. I should have moved in, only I didn’t. Honestly, it was more out of panic than anything else. I thought she wouldn’t notice if I keep sitting like a statue. And she didn’t.

I have rarely felt such guilt that I felt that day. I could not dare to look at her again. Later it became routine. Whenever she had to make announcements or say anything, she would always lean on the last desk, rested her hips partly on the desk and partly it invariably touched me. I never shifted on my bench and she never complained. Guilt was always there but I also started enjoying it. It’s a kind of feeling which I am sure you all must have had.

For the whole two years, I always felt that it was my fault. I used her. I had fallen. It was much later while reflecting back to my old days did I realise that she was indeed smarter. She was the hunter. Or am I really the pig?

Anyways, girls were more mature.

Coming back to my observations, I have felt that the sexier the girl is, the more popular she is, the lonelier she is. Such girls will always have fewer friends, will talk less. If you will look at them, in their eyes, they will shy away. Are they the most insecure?

With age I have discovered that looking into the eyes reveals much more than looking at the signature.

The skirt obsession of the teen years is really no one’s fault. Its the changing hormones that make both boys and girls do so.. When in doubt, blame biology.. :)

Lost

Have you ever wondered how it feels to be lost on a straight path! You always know where you are going to end and you are damn sure of where you started, just you don't know when will the journey end. There is a mystery in the simplicity of the path. Your mind asks you to keep going but only if people would have learned to mind their minds..

You get lost only because you can not think, circumstances force you not to think, you think not to think. This is strange but quite true. Its always in our hands to motivate ourselves but this is rarely easy. You go on doing a thing and when it starts seeming endless that you start bothering that what the hell is going on! Instead of thinking what to think, you start thinking what not to think and then a simple straight path starts looking like a matrix maze.

Solution is obvious.

GOOD BYE KORBA

I didn’t have to look at India’s map to know where Korba lies. I was happy to get Korba as it was the nearest ‘EDC’ from my hometown. After being born and brought up in Jharkhand and graduating from Uttrakhand, it was but destiny to enter my job life from Chattisgarh.

When I look back at my five months of stay at Korba, sitting in Indica on my way back home, getting the puncture corrected against the background of “Tumse mohabbat kar lun ji bhar ke....”, I feel confused. Five months is too long a period to waste like ‘picnic days’ and too short a period to accomplish something substantial. I tried to use these five months like that only, but to the extent which I succeeded is doubtful.

Anyways, before going too self-centric, let me dedicate some praise for the place Korba itself. It was better than my expectations. Roads were good, shops were sufficient, their quality was good. Restaurants were OK, the people were nice. One interesting fact -- It is the 10th highest income tax payee city in India! Money was in plenty with everyone in Korba. Once I was in the bank to make a demand draft of 2000 rupees. I was third in the queue. The first person deposited a bag full of money in his account and the second one cashed in a cheque of rupees two lakhs!

Korba looked beautiful at night. The reflection of waning lights on Hasdev river and its canals created a real splendour. The transport nagar chowk with traffic lights and parallel running railway track gave Korba an English look. But the autos and bicycles helped it to retain its Indian charm. The real USP of Korba was its chimneys. Clean chimneys of NTPC, dirty ones of CSEB and the ‘Kopper Chimney’. Sesh Nath had given an interesting chimney theorm. We had observed that the most of the younger generation who were born in Korba were taller than their parents who had migrated from some other place to work here. According to Sesh Nath, it was because of the chimneys. The hot gases coming out of the chimney created a positive temperature gradient and hence a negative pressure gradient. This reduced pressure at the top pulled the heights of young Korbans.

Korba always was not beautiful. My first night was, well, awful. On the very first night, I went to Green Valley Bar, my first experience of bar. Although I didn’t drink but I got a peek into the days to come and the friends I got – Omi, Sesh, Suraj, Subho. Murmu, Khevs and Devi were not there on that night. These were the people who shared my good and bad times and these were the best people I possibly could have got as friends. They all loved me, respected my needs and above all understood me. With them, I never felt low. Their poor but lively jokes refreshed me every time I felt tired studying. For most idiots who termed them as ‘villains’, they were the only people who didn’t fake. They were same in your face and behind your back. If only someone had heard what the ‘good’ people had to say behind their backs.
To be continued......

Intepersonal relations and the heck!!

My Korba stay has taught me one thing for sure, if people have time, they waste it thinking about others. Going by the same logic, if people have less time for themselves, they must think for themselves. What an interesting scenario it creates?




Many texts refer humans as 'complex social animals'. How true it sounds now!! When I arrived at Korba, I admit to have some prejudices. I used to discuss with my college friends that it would be difficult for me to adjust with the people in NTPC. Even if I accept them for what they are, they wont accept me for who I am. The latter still holds good but the former, I spoilt it. I had never thought that it would be so difficult. Every person is such a mystery in oneself, still such is the simplicity of character that you never know what they are really up to. Yet thats life..



People fall to obvious traps, I guess thats a way to assure that they belong to the place. Recognition is the ultimate lure, you will rarely apply logic there. If someone appreciates you, you yield for good or bad. The problem comes when you know all those tactics and fight to keep yourself aloof. I think falling in the obvious pits is life, you know its worthless - still accept it.



Clash of ego is usually blamed for such problems. But my opinion differs. Without ego there is no human being, afterall we go through such traumas in life only to achieve something to be proud of. I believe its the difference of understanding and the difference of perception that creates problem. Every person has one's own intelligence level and one's own horizon of understanding within which one operates. This difference of levels and circle of influence create problem. It's like the three dimensional venn diagrams where intersection of sets are really scarce.


So, what's the solution? Interpersonal relations is too complicated a matter and you waste time on it only because you have spare time. The best thing to do is to indulge yourself with something meaningful so that you find no time to think about all these heck. Just smile and let other people do whatever they want and you do your own work. With little time left you will think of yourself only.... I hope so....

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