#3 The Realization brought about by a MISHAP

On commencing my journey into this corporate world I had a brief idea of different challenges I would be facing ahead, one of them being Physical Fitness.

The point here is I always have thought myself of as an athlete. My association with games (basketball, badminton, football and cricket) all throughout my childhood and colleges days easily justified the thought.

This as I get it now was the greatest reason for my undoing.

Over the months had many keen observers point out that, 8 hours on the office chair and no activity after that wasn’t proving good for me. They had caught the out bursting paunch, which I had conveniently ignored all the while. Guess what my reply to them used to be “It’s a Sign of Prosperity”, and was promptly joined by fellow suffers of the syndrome (Afzal and Karthik).

Its not that I was total ignorant of the drop in stamina and fitness,while playing Cricket and Badminton on weekends had showed me my loss. Was hoping the weekend activity will come to my rescue and take me back to my cocoon of an (fit) athlete.

Life was going cool on those grounds until last saturday.

The Event:

Saturdays generally come with a decision to make, Cricket at 7:30 AM or Badminton at 10:30 AM. Well this time round opted for the later one.

I was a bit late than my usual time and was trying my best to speed up and make it in time to be able to play at least 5 to 6 games at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, but the hardships inflicted by the traffic jams was adding salt to the injury.

Had just crossed the Town Hall when I realized, the back of the bike was wobbling around. Being new to the arena of biking couldn’t straight away realize what was the issue. The first thing that came to mind was the scene from Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke where Amir and gang get hold of there goods from the goons and are returning home in a hurry to stop the ongoing auction but the back wheel of the tempo gets loose and eventually peels itself off (too much of hindi movies na.. probably should cut down on them).

Petrified with the images of that scene (Since my bike respectively is new and can’t imagine such loose nuts on it) gave a signal and brought the bike to halt near the Halasuru Gate Police Station. Got the bike on main stand and gave the wheel a spin to see if it wobbled, BUT IT DIDN’T.

Half hoping things are perfect climbed up on it again and gave it an electric start. Had just taken off when the same wobbly feeling came back, this time there was no mistaking, something was wrong with my ride.

It was in this second round of examinations that it occurred to me to check the air pressure in the wheel (Bingo!!! Der aae durust aae :D)

Frustrated that will be missing my game today, went to a constable standing at the gate of the police station and enquired about a service station or a petrol pump (petrol bunk for all bangaloreans ).The guy took what looked like an eternity and suggested I move towards the LAL BAUG area.

To get a second opinion on it called Bhargav who was waiting at the Chinnaswamy for a racquet that I was supposed to get for him. According to him some distance ahead close to the Kanteveera stadium there were a few petrol pumps where I could get a bit of assistance. Since both the options needed me to cross over to the other side of the main road, was a bit skeptical bout the idea. (I trust the driving pattern of the bus drivers in Bangalore too much to attempt something like that)

Finally following a local dude’s suggestion took a left and dived into the locality behind the police station, arranged the racquet's and helmet so that it would be a bit comfortable to hold them and would still be able to effectively push the bike.

I would have hardly covered 2 crosses pushing my bike when started feeling a bit of stress on my left arm. Ignoring those tweaking muscles continued to cautiously push my ride ahead avoiding the potholes as much as possible (But we all know that’s an impossibility right?). Those pathetic roads meant I had to maneuver the bike left and right every now and then, this wasn’t helping the cause one bit.

By the time I had advanced three more crosses could feel the sweat rising on the brow.
Dam this was hard. I knew it was going to be difficult to push the bike but didn’t expect myself to loose it in mere 5 crosses.

I was down and out, wondered if J.K.Rowling had imagined and tried to portray this kind of pain when she talked about the unforgivable curse “CRUCIO”.

I paused, put the bike on its side stand and took a look around for a possible source of aid, but there was none to be found.

It was my battle and MINE ALONE…

This went on for about another 12 odd crosses close to a kilometer mark. Guess that is when the exhaustion really started creeping in and my legs were starting to give up on me.

I was so engrossed in pushing myself up for the task that ..

I BLOODY MISSED A GARAGE ON THE LEFT OF THE ROAD.

Thankfully the attendant, out for some fresh air I guess spotted me and shouted out loud.

I have no idea what made him think I didn’t want to get my wheel mended by him, especially when his appearance out of nowhere seemed like some divine intervention. Assuming a possible client was going out of hand, he started full blast of explanations that as why I shouldn’t go ahead. Got a few hints as if he was talking about more money or something, but couldn’t get the head and tail of what he was shouting cause 1) he was mixing Kannada with Hindi 2) I was too tired to even try and concentrate to figure out what was he shouting out.

When he was close by I nodded OK and turned my bike around (AAAHHH the pain).

I rested my bike near his shop on the side stand and was looking for a place to sit and give much needed rest to my limbs. It took me about 5 minutes to snap out of woolgathering and realize that this over enthusiastic person who almost pleaded to get me in had returned to his job inside the shop.

It is so amazing, first he gets me to stop and come back to his shop (which I anyways would have had I realized it was there) and then goes back to what he was doing completely ignoring my presence. Somebody help to understand this attitude.

With rage boiling up to no limits I snapped at him and asked him to attend to my bike. It took him some time to lift his ass and come out to where my bike was parked.

The way he went about banging his tools and working on the wheel, it looked like he was bestowing a great favor on me. Would have gladly accepted the attitude if he was planning to do it for free :D.

Anyways it took him about 15 minutes to get through with the work and by the time I had got it confirmed from Bhargav and Karthik as to what the price for this service could be.

After quiet some amount of bargaining we settled at 25, which I gladly paid and rode my bike to start my homeward journey.

Reached home after a pretty uneventful journey and dropped dead on the bed. Took some time to get myself together and pondered over the morning events. Was feeling very low and depressed not because of the tiredness, it was the realization that was hitting hard.

This was never supposed to happen to me, so i thought. All throughout my teenage life had caught my elder brothers with the belly and made fun of them, even called them lazy for not making enough attempts to get back into shape.

And here I was now at the receiving end of all this…..

A day after all that, getting over all the bad mood that had seeped in, resolved myself to stand up against it and not follow the leads of my predecessor’s and keep blaming the office hours and work pattern and do nothing about it. Now I guess its all in the attitude. All you have to do is get an attitude to be fit and I believe I am on route for it.

The first approach would be to join a gym and give the body some stretching and exertion that it was accustomed to in the past.

Afzal bro if you are reading this we need to act on it right away and start using the gym at the office. Let us not hide behind the pretext of the sexy weatherand the lazy, resting mood that the rains have brought into bangalore. Shariq in case you too are interested for it, will let you use the treadmill only after I have, since don’t want the treadmill to breakdown before I get a chance to burn a few calories.

Will end this one with the hope that , will definitely go ahead with implementing the plan with in a week of publishing this , to avoid the mockery that would come along if I didn’t :p.

#2 CHUMMA … The Irony

There are two different ways a person reading the title will approach this piece of blog, depending upon where she/he hails from. The deciding factor boils down to the extent of reader’s interaction with people living in SOUTH INDIA (people with origins in South + people relocated here).

The main reason is existence of the word in two or more languages (Hindi, Kannada and probably other South Indian dialect’s) WITH DIFFERENT meanings.

In case you are from a HINDI speaking zone and have no idea about the languages in South of India, you would probably be guessing this blog has got something to do with KISS (me kissing somebody, vice versa or something along similar lines).Well you are a bit wrong footed here.

For most of us the word was probably introduced by Kimi Katkar and BIG B himself in the movie HUM (one of my personal favorites) and is not heard or used that often.

And if you are from the other half lot, you would probably be guessing what kind of title is this, since for you CHUMMA is not a kiss but just simple TIME PASS.

I have no idea how did they come upon relating chumma with time pass, weather it’s a mere slang of some other longer word or it actually is present in the scripts, all I know is it’s dam famous and probably the most frequently used word in this part of the world.

YES guys (pals from the first category) believe it or not, chumma here means simple time pass, no relevant reason for an action. Imagine what happens when the two meanings merge into each other in the general sense I.e. chumma = kiss = time pass, no big deal kinda situation, what do ya get???????

A Imran Hashmi + Malika Shrawat movie, with more chummas then dialogues

New to Bangalore, had a lot to learn bout the culture and life down here. In those initial days of highly accelerated learning curve had made an image of the language used here. Since both Hindi and Kannada directly or indirectly link their origin to Sanskrit, my initial approach was to try and catch all the similar sounding words, map it with their meaning in which ever language I knew and get the essence of the sentence spoken.

Here surfaced the CHUMMA.

Applying the same concept I aptly took the HINDI meaning for the word and tried to make some sense of the dialogue. Boy what a shock that was…….

Actually was planning to somehow explain the entire shock effect in the blog, but now that I have got accustomed to the word, can’t really construct the same scenario to appropriately put it into my words.

What I will do is give a few samples of it so that the point is somehow registered.

A limited encounters where the word was used in an English statement.

“Let’s go and chumma do it guys”

“Chumma wanted to pull your leg re”

For obvious reasons cant pen down the countless times have heard it in Kannada dialogues.

Will end this one with a few examples of the its usage, so that my pals from Mumbai get accustomed to this word and save themselves the shock and the confusion in case I happen to use it in their presence.

Q: What are we up to?

A: Chumma nothing at all pal.

Q: Why did you do that?

A: chumma wanted to screw it.

Q: Define a Boss.

A: An old fellow who claims to know lot of things and chumma sits around shouting at you for all the wrong reasons.

…. And the list goes on and on. Probably will have a lot more situations in comments when the guys from here read this one and decide to convert a few from Kannada to English.

On yoUr MArk ... GeT Set Goooooooooo

How did I come upon blogging????

Good question….

To this one I have some weak links but no definite answer. Let me try giving you the BIG PICTURE

A bit of Myself: Am not an outspoken guy or a much of talker if you have to understand it that way. Of course I do have my moments when everyone around either by force or will, listen to me intently, but am sure all of us have those precious moments in life when your word is given some credibility (If you still haven’t had them dude, there are some major unattended issues better hunt for them fast.)

To put it into one line “I think am something close to being an Introvert but standing with my back to it”. (Confusing na.. well I was confused how to put it so it had to come out this way.)

Past Life: Back in Mumbai finding like minded freaks was never an issue. Any new place I was into, be it K.J.Somaiya (junior coll) or RAIT (Engi coll) was always fortunate enough to find guys who had similar ideas (bunk classes, kill some professors or even blast the whole dam university building just before or after the results. If you are an engineer am sure you understand how famous these ideologies were)

Well to cut the long story short always had pals around to manage and balance any mood and make life cool out of those as well.

Present Life: Bangalore (oops) Bengaluru…..

All new fresh start, an attempt in life to do different things which I would have never been able to do in Mumbai. My first job and guess what ????? found a bunch of junkies here too, proudly categorized as the RED CODERS. Well we have a few scholars too in it but the rest of us have done a fabulous job in making them as useless as we are. We call ourselves the OTHLA GANG (for the sane readers not knowing Kannada OTHLA = jobless, useless personality). A major credit for this piece of art goes to a bunch of othlas from the gang viz the big boss OTHLA aka karthik, the mallu queen aka ANN amma , Bhargavacharya and the dude who has parted ways with the company (and is no longer around with fruit plates during lunch) Anand

So all you guys who are utterly disgusted at reading this one you know whom to blame (Bad inspiration can never result in good art...)

Well but they are not the only reason..

There is one more major contributing factor

WHAT DO I DO ON WEEKENDS?????????????

Weekdays is fine with work and all to keep me occupied, but come weekend and the problem starts, face one of the biggest hurdles of staying alone in a city where you have recently settled your ass.

The othla gang comes into rescue at times but, they can’t be here forever can they? with their prior commitments and huge list of pals. Distributing the 2 days of weekend such that you give equal time to all the pals you wanna be with is a difficult task, which I would have faced had this been Mumbai and not bengaluru (How I wish it would be so), hence no pestering them with sms’s and mails and calls.

The need to do something other than blind surfing the net and watching movies one after the other at home and living in a room with just your comp and a bed doesn't give one much options either..

So this is one activity to which am gonna look forward to on weekends. Don’t know how good the blogs will turn out to be, but no harm trying na if nothing else at least my writing skills might get a movement in the upward facing graph, however less in magnitude the upward displacement might be.

Hoping for the best…..