Most Romantic Evening

It was silent... Very silent... unusual at this time of the day. The silence was frequently broken by the sound of thunder. Little drops of water had started knocking the windshield of my car. I could observe the splash of each drop on my windshield but soon the drops of rain got heavier and suddenly I could see only the flow of water on the windshield. The most unusual thing about this was, we were in the middle of road and none of the vehicles seemed to move an inch. Inshort we were in middle of a traffic block most commonly known as Traffic jam. "We" would refer to me and my "would be wife". This was our first date after our engagement. Infact we had just come out of watching a movie and then I had to drop her to her aunt's home which was around 25kms from my place. We had started our journey an hour ago and just after half an hour of journey we were stuck in this Traffic block. Initially we could hear lots of honking from other verhicles (including mine), but slowly everyone started realizing the honking would not clear the traffic on road. So one by one everyone had turned off the engine and it was very silent now (apart from the noise of rain falling over the rooftops). So with nothing else to do, I turned towards her, she was busy admiring the heavy rainfall outside the windows. I wanted to start some topic for discussion, but just kept looking at her for sometime. Guess she realised that I was watching her and she tried to look back at me. Realizing that, I started the conversation -

"So as you see, this is how our overcrowded city looks like, unlike your calm city."

She: "Hmmm... yeah our place is so calm and silent when compared to yours."

Me: "Well, I guess for sometime tough, our city has become silent anyway" and I start to laugh.

This did not amuse her to some extent. So clearing my throat again I start thinking on my next conversation topic. "So you liked the movie?" ... She: "Yeah... it was good".

Now there it was a typical situation where you are searching for topics to talk and make use of this good time and the topics are not coming out. Also the situation is worse since SHE is not helping in getting a new topic either. SHE is just replying to my questions without giving anything back for me to answer and find some time for next topic. So my mind was again racing to get on with some good nice topic and nothing was coming out. I had to spend some time asking her some basic stuff like Favourite food, Favourite hero etc... This helped since she gave her answers and responded with "What's yours?". We spent around 20-25 mins on this "Favourite" game and then it was silent again as we ran out of all "Favourites".
The rain outside had reduced a bit but the traffic was standstill yet. There were no signs of traffic getting cleared in near future, when suddenly she started the topic of "how was your college?". Aaaahhaaa... That was nice, more relieved now, since this topic could be extended further to pre-university college, high-scool and primary school. So there was plenty to talk. So we got started with this and as expected it lasted for more than an hour and was still going on, when suddenly we heard few car engines getting started. Finally the time had come to start my car engines as well to proceed to the destination.
This journey of 25kms took us 3 and half hours to complete in turn starting a new journey in our life symbolizing the beginning of a new relationship in which we are committed to each other.
By far the best evening of my life till now, hoping many more to come in our way...

Proposal - 2 -

Missed the first part. CLICK HERE to read the first part.

So we reach the front door and Mr.Everything now rings the bell. The door opens and the man himself is standing in front of us.
"Hi Uncle. How are you? This is my friend and we have come to meet... Ms.Lovely. Is she at home?"
"Hello. I did not recognise you. WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"
"Uncle... its me... Mr.Everything... Ms.Lovely's friend uncle... "
I was almost on my way back to the gate when I thought Mr.Everything would get beaten up, but then Mr.Uncle somehow seemed to recognise my dear friend and finally he called us back and let us into his house. Then he called Ms.Lovely who came and took us upstairs with the permission from her dad. So here we were on the terrace of Ms.Lovely's house. It was quite a huge house with lot of space to waste. They had beautiful green lawn in the backyard and lots of flower pots on terrace. This was just the perfect house to lead a retired life.
"So whats up. How come u r here? Who is this guy?" - She started.
"Oh yeah.. forgot to introduce u to my close friend.. Dear buddy" - He replied
Then the usual hello Hi happened and then there were lots of talks between us about general stuff. This made Mr.Everything frown a bit and he had to make up a fake cough to interrupt us. And then suddenly this guy bent on knees in front of her and started -
"Ahem...uh.. Ok... Can I ask you something?"
"Oh Sure, why do you have to bend on knees for that?"
I could not stop my laugh coz I knew exactly what he was intending to do, but poor girl did not even realise this. Everything stared at me and then turned back at her to continue -
"Ahem.. Will you marry me?"
That hit the girl as a bullet and suddenly she came down on knees. She was totally in confused state and could just ask "Excuse me... WHAT?"
"Ahhheeeem... I just wanted to know that if I propose you, then will you accept it?"
"What IF? You have already done that!!!!" - I spoke and realised this was probably not the best time for logistics. I got a cold stare from both of them and then they continued to stare at each other.
"So....?" Our hero was still waiting
"Wait a second... I mean... I just cant accept it now... U see... I am not sure... Actually I dont know... I need some time..."
To make things worse, her dad ends up on terrace. He sees both his daughter and Mr.Everything on knees. He is totally confused.
"Is everything alright?" - he asks.
"Yes yes.. everything is fine" - Both my fren and she speak up at once and get back on toes.
"So what happened?" - Dad asks still with a confused look on his face
"Oh..Uncle, I was just looking at this flowerpot here and she was just showing me how to sow a seed into this flowerpot"
Dad looks at them and then stares at me expecting some truth from me...
Taken by surprise.. I speak out saying - "Uh..I am actually not interested in flowers uncle"
"Ok... You all can come down... Tea is ready and have some snacks too"
Realising that her dad had probably not listened to any of the proposal conversation, we all proceed downstairs. While going down the stairs, lovely asks Mr.Everything to talk to her dad about the proposal. I could see Mr.Everything already shivering. But neverthless, this talk has to happen in any case. So we are in the Hall and uncle has started general talks about the daily work in Software companies and then he starts explaining some techniques in gardening. The talks were getting boring and I was just waiting for the moment when Mr.Everything would speak out about the proposal. The girl standing behind her dad indicated through her eyes to my fren forcing him to interrupt the uncle's gardening techniques -
"Uh...Uncle... I need to ask you something..."
"Yeah sure.. go ahead my boy"
"Uncle I want to marry your daughter.. Ms.Lovely"
Suddenly the frown comes back on uncle's face. I am all set to run towards the gate for the second time today but then something unusual happens. The girl speaks out - "Dad, I think even I like him very much and I would want to marry him, only if you are willing to agree"
Dad, gets more angry now and then calms down a bit realizing there is no point in getting angry and starts asking the general marriage questions to Mr.Everything. Ofcourse he is able to answer since he has come well prepared for the general questions.
Then there is a moment of silence for sometime and then Dad takes his daughter to some room to have private conversation.
"So... would you like to have some snacks? I am feeling hungry" - I say
My fren gives stares at me. I realize that he is probably not hungry but nervous. He has done everything fine and now there is the room door behind which probably the most important decision of his life is being discussed. He is totally restless. I enjoy my cup of tea and some snacks kept on the table. Finally the time comes when the room door opens. Our hero is anxiously waiting for the answer. Dad has mixed emotions on his face with mixture of worry and anger. The girl is crying behind.
Dad comes to Mr.Everything and says "So you want to know if it is a YES or NO from my side right?"
"Hmmm.... I would like to know the answer uncle."
"My son... The answer from my side to you is ..... "

[THE END]

Proposal - 1 -

Sunday morning. Door bell is ringing. I hope its a dream.
"Oh.. Hello.." comes the voice from my mom.
"Hello.. Aunty... Where is Sachin?" Replies the person at door.
"Oh.. Sachin is still sleeping..Come in.. Sit down, I will wake him up..."
I really hope no shouts come from my mom and this is still a dream, but then u cant really hope that ur hope is true, so the inevitable finally comes - "SACHIN....SACHIN... GET UP SOON... UR FREN Mr.Everything has come and waiting for you downstairs". There is no choice left for me as I have to get up on this early sunday morning (10AM) to meet Mr.Everything. Downstairs, I saw Mr.Everything, a little nervous, biting his nails and waiting anxiously for me. I came down yawning, told HI..HELLO.., he seemed to be taken by surprise at first and then returned with a nervous "Hello, good morning". I washed my face and took him upstairs to know why he was early to my home. The conversation went in this way -

"So what brings u here so early in the day dude?" - I ask.
"Hey maan, I am kind of worried. I need to tell u something" - He replies.
"Sure. Go ahead. Anything to help you out man".
"U see, this is very critical for me. This is a decision of my life"
"hey its ok dude. Tel me whats the problem"
"You know my girl friend, Ms.lovely, right? Today I am going to her home"
"Ahhhaaaa... So...."
"Actually, I think you did not understand. I told.. I AM GOING TO HER HOME DUDE"
"Oh... Haan... So... Which part do you think I dint get? U r going to her home, Right!!!. Is this some kind of trick question or statement?"
"Abbba... Ok, its like this, I am going to meet her parents, GOT IT?"
"If you are going to her house, u will OBVIOUSLY meet her parents.. Whats the trick?"
"No use explaining to u, Ok listen.. I am going to meet her parents to ask her hand"
"Oh...Like that.. Oh... U mean u have decided to marry her?"
"OBVIOUSLY da..."
"Wait, this is confusing.. if u want to meet her parents, u should be going to her place, so why are u here on an EARLY SUNDAY MORNING!!!!"
"Oh, U see I am feeling bit nervous and couldn't muster the courage to go to her place alone..."
"Aaaha.. I see that.. So what do you want me to do now?"
"I want you to come with me to her place"
"Oh... oh... Hold on mister... NO WAY... What will I do coming there... I dont even know them."
"Oh Dont worry dude. I am there right. It will be fine. Dont worry."
"Hmmm... Alrite if you say so, I will come with you. So the girl knows that you are going to talk to her parents about the proposal?"
"Actually I want this to be a surprise. She doesn't know about the proposal. But I am sure she wont deny my proposal. We are sooo close."
"hmmm...Lets hope so..."

So we head for Ms.Lovely's house. Both of us now nervous. Him for obvious reason, me for being stupid enough to accept the invitation of going along with him. I am wondering what would I talk to her parents and what questions they might come up with. The same worry is going through Mr.Everything's head as well. I start the talk during the ride...
"So what do you think her dad might ask"
I was already feeling bad and to make the situation worse, I got the following reply -
"Oh I forgot to tel, her dad is a retired military officer."
"Oh I see....!!!, So what do you think he might ask?"
"Hmmm... Dont worry dude. I have come well prepared for general set of questions which he might ask. I did a research on FAQs for marriage selection process and have come up with this list".
He showed me a list spawning through 3 pages of A4 size sheets written on both sides. Probable questions and most likely answers and he proudly announced "The most likely answers are all written by me. I am totally prepared dude. Dont worry."
"Hmmm... Not bad dude. Nice... Ok then lets just go there and u do the talking"

So finally we reach her place. The place looks deserted with a warning on gate which reads "Beware of the dog". In this situation, the word dog did not seem to scare us than the word "DAD". Carefully we reach the front door and Mr.Everything now rings the bell....

[To Be Continued...]

TRUE LOVE

“LOVE” a very sweet little 4 letter word which can make a lot of difference to any person in this world. The definition for love varies from one person to another and hence there is no actual perfect general definition on Love. Love as I say can be defined as a feeling in which one feels happy. In current generation Love is always assumed to be either from a GirlFrend or BoyFrend which is not always true. A general frenship can generate love but lets not get into these details now. So let me talk about the current generation itself. Love is categorized into 3 types – Attraction, One-way and True love.

Attraction – This is just another form of love. Attraction can be defined as an illusion of love. Some people are instantly attracted toward opposite sex. This is similar to what they call as “love at first sight”. I personally believe that there is no such thing as “love at first sight” simply because you cannot experience love by watching others. Hence I classify love at first sight is just an attraction. Some people claim that they had love at first sight and hence they got married etc etc, but I believe they got attracted at first sight and love gradually developed. I have seen a person who claims to be in love with different girls on a monthly basis. The best part is when every girl disappoints him, he finds another one immediately to share his grievances. There is a saying “History repeats” and this situation is like “His-story keeps repeating”.

One-Way – As the name suggests, this is only a one-way love. But again, for a love to blossom, it should be from both the people falling in love with each other. Yet again, one-way love deals with failure being the end result in most cases. There are cases where one-way love has given happiness to both people (one unaware of the other person loving him\her) but let us not get into these details anyway. So One-way love is just an elongated version of Attraction. Attraction is the common action which happens before turning into a One-way love in most of the scenarios. In One-way love, one who loves is usually the person who ends up spending more for the other person. The other person gets benefited by such a generous donor and would not hesitate to take advantage of it. Although you can argue that when a person is in love, spending should not matter, but then I would say, “Hello, THIS IS A ONE-WAY LOVE…..!!!!, Spending surely matters. Don’t you wanna save it for your TRUE LOVE???”. Anyways not much to talk on one sided affairs, so lets move on to main topic….

True Love - Aaah.. here it comes. The one thing which most people want to have in their life. In this form of love both people fall in love with each other and usually it ends up in a marriage. Well thats how Love marriages come into picture. There are constant debates on which is better, the love marriage or arranged marriage, but then both have their own advantage and disadvantages. But in both cases, you would have gone through a phase of true love. So essentially what it means is, true love involves compromises, but then the compromises are well worth for your true love. There are some lucky ones who don’t have to go through compromises, but then it’s a very rare case. Anyways, now I don’t have much to talk on this and hence I would conclude by giving a major difference in love marriage and arranged marriage - you don’t have say “I LOVE U” in arranged marriages. It is just implied…..

AMALL… THE MOVIE – Part – 2 –

You can read Part – 1 – of the blog by clicking the link - http://sachinss.blogspot.com/2008/02/amall-movie-part-1.html

Loud cheers started from the crowd (Well… WE WERE THE CROWD)… So finally the movie AMALL began… First 5mins it was all going fine. Movie looked good, they were still showing the names of all people in the movie. Then it happened. Nobody had thought about such a thing would hit them. From the first frame of the movie, people started to point out mistakes. So most people started making fun of the characters in movie including the super duper hero. Well, it was a hindi movie afterall and the hero in question was not among the popular in our class. This was bound to happen and it happened. This continued till the interval and since there were seldom any people watching movie in the theatre, it really did not matter how much noise we were making. The hall looked like anything but a cinema hall. The first relief finally came when we saw some scribbling on the giant screen which kind of read as “Interval”. The whole of first half of movie had one song repeating again and again. Everyone of the 25 people ran out to get some fresh air. Half of them were already thinking of just leaving the theatre right there. Finally after a 5mins gap, everyone decided to just go in once again and have some more fun by making funny comments on the movie. So the second half was about to start.

Suddenly we realized that one person from our gang was missing. It was funny, we had seen him enter the hall after interval, but now he was not in our group. We looked around in the hall, but we could not see him because of the darkness. Anyway after 5mins of vain searching, we continued with our normal chitchat stuff. The movie was just going on and on and it everyone was now starting to get desperate to get out. The movie was going to the limits of torture. Around 10 people started walking out of the hall, since they could not tolerate anymore. So here we were sitting and waiting for the end of the movie to come. Finally there it was, the movie finally ended. Ofcourse it was a happy ending since we were all getting out from the torture hall. At this point of time, we realized that the trailers were just the amazing part of the whole 3 hours. And once we came out, we found that missing guy out there. We asked him where he had disappeared suddenly, and immediate reply was “Oh…I was actually sitting in the last row and meditating!!!”. Aaah… there… meditation in the torture hall. Nice idea to try to relax, we thought and then the person who had suggested this movie was surrounded by the whole of 25 people. Now she really had to come up with some nice reason for suggesting this movie without which she would not be spared by the tortured group. The reason came out as “Dint you people really enjoy the movie? It was so nice. I liked it so much. You should appreciate the hard work that goes in for making a movie…. Blah blah blah”. She went on and on giving out reasons and one by one everyone started to get out of this another torture session. This was the first instance of watching such a underrated movie. Ofcourse even after such a movie, we again fell for the same girl’s suggestion on 3 more occasions. But none of them were as horrible as this one. Hence this movie stands out as the best of the worst movies our class group has ever watched.
Oh btw, the movie was AMALL – Aap Mujhe Acche Lagne Lage.

AMALL… THE MOVIE – Part – 1 –

You people must be wondering what AMALL stands for… Keep waiting for a little bit longer, you will know the expansion. So now let me give you a hint of what you will be reading in coming paragraphs. This blog is about people from college bunking the class to see a junkie movie. Yes after a week long discussion on which movie to watch, it was finally decided that around 25 people from our class would be going to this so called movie AMALL. Everyone were wondering would we get tickets for this movie.. etc etc ( The usual worries ) and finally decided that all people would be going to theatre a clear one hour prior to the start of the movie and take chance of buying the tickets. Oh btw, we had all decided to go to a morning show. So a clear one hour prior to movie start means we had to be at theatre by 10.

So finally I arrived at the theatre at 10 past 10 to see only 3 of my classmates on time. The ticket counters were empty and there was no hurry to buy the tickets. It was really shocking to see such an empty theatre especially when the movie got released just a week ago. This was probably a hint on what followed next, but unfortunately nobody seemed to get that hint. So we decided to buy tickets once everyone arrives. So now here was a tricky situation, I was alone, and the 3 classmates who had arrived were girls. And by the past history our class girls do not come close to having any girly characteristics. They were commonly termed as “Unruly girls”. Hence the constant fear was always there before talking to them. Being a daring guy, I had to talk to them somehow. So I slowly approached them, they were having some private giggling conversation. Ignoring their giggles, I went and said “Hi, so how long have u all been here?”. One of them replied “15mins. So u came now?”. (What a dumb question. Should I say “No I am still on my way”) instead replied “Eh… Yeaaaah!!!”… At this time, one of my close friend arrived. First time I was very pleased to see him at right time. Then he just said his formal “namaskara” and then we both proceeded to talk on our games stuff. Soon one by one, all 24 people had arrived and we were waiting for one guy (Who was known for his untimely appearance…). One of us called him and as usual we got a reply saying he will be reaching in 5more mins. So we asked him to buy his won ticket and enter cinema hall. We 24 bought the tickets and went into theatre. We saw few people here and there but by large ours was the biggest group in whole theatre. This was a good license for us to scream and shout whatever we want since it would not disturb anyone ignoring the empty chairs.

The big screen lit up with a few ads followed by 3 trailers. The trailers were probably the best part for next 3 hrs, only we dint realize it at this point of time. Loud cheers started from the crowd (Well… WE WERE THE CROWD)… So finally the movie AMALL began…

To be continued... Click Here

Weight Challenge

On one fine day, people in my office came up with a challenge. The challenge conditions were something as described below –

THE CHALLENGE – I Sachin, should reduce my weight by 2.5Kgs in 2 weeks failing which I would be treating 5people from Appoint for a big budget 1k treat. If I succeed in reducing my weight as challenged, then those 5people would treat me everyday for a whole week estimating budget of Rs200 per head. A weighing machine near our office was chosen to check the weight after 2 weeks to maintain the consistency.

I was confident of myself winning because of two reasons. First, out of the 2 weeks, 2nd week I was supposed to be traveling to my native place by driving in my own car. Driving usually reduces weight (I know… debatable). Then secondly, in native place, usually we can’t have lots of food because of high humidity. The humidity helps in sweating and thus reducing the weight. So considering these two strong points, I accepted the challenge. And then out of curiosity I just asked my fellow mate about the possibility of me winning this challenge and the reply was immediate… “NO CHANCE”. On asking the reason, he said, for reducing 2.5 kgs even by going to Gym and having normal diet will take a month easily. In 2 weeks, it can be possible only if I starve for 2-3 days and then have normal diet. This was a killer blow to my hopes of winning. Now I dint have a choice but to consider losing or starve (Which was never going to happen). Then I tried for different plans, like setting the initial weight on weighing machine show reduced weight by taking help of shop keeper. Since it was an electronic weighing machine, people would not know.

Then the time came when I was traveling to native place. The things got worse when people started giving more food and we had no choice but to have it. My confidence was slowly reducing… Now I was looking at the prospect of losing the bet…I had to do something… quickly… This was just a thought and I couldn’t do anything so quickly anyway. So the day came when I was back in Bangalore and the winner would be decided by lunch break. I knew I had lost the bet, so I waited for the inevitable.

Interestingly there was a twist in the tale. All people involved in the bet were supposed to be present when I would check my weight, but ultimately due to various reasons, only me and one of my colleague ended up for checking the weight. I saw mine first, and as expected, I had reduced by only 1kg. Then my colleague saw his weight, and would u believe it, he was actually around 2.3 kgs less than me. Well I made a pact with him and got a snap of his weight from the weighing machine. So here was my plan, I would show that I have reduced 3.3 kgs in 2 weeks and ofcourse for supporting my lie, I would treat my colleague twice for 100 bucks each. That deal worked out awesomely well. Everyone in Office could not believe about my weight loss and I had to cook up a story saying I had only one time food for last 3 days… etc etc. Finally at the end, I was treated by all people for the whole of one week. The next week, I and my colleague were sitting in some restaurant pondering over how we had managed to win the challenge out of the blue and grab a treat from others. This remains a secret until now, hope noone from our office reads this blog… ;)