Ponderous cogitations...

Some people come into our life, stroking it ever so gently with their soothing touch that it leaves behind a mark etched so deep in our memories that it becomes absolutely chimerical on our part to wipe it off. Call it magic, the time spent with them howsoever routine and monotonous seems to be the best time of our lives.
The tender touches, that little pulling of each other's leg, those small moments of joy so beautifully interwoven that life seems so complete and gorgeous. We walk in the park holding hands, script wild fantasies together, talk about all the weird things in this world that our otherwise so very rational mind would bar us from gibbering. We get so used to spending time together that we don't wanna think about the possibility of not being able to do so.
This is when the omnipresent shows his might and forces us to part, but then in this Tech savvy world distance never appears like bringing about a hiatus in our relationship. we depart, making all sorts of promises to stay in touch. This is when i usually say to myself that hope is the most beautiful thing in this world.
Flight boarded, destination reached, picked up the phone.."hey!!!"(the hey from the other side seems so warm and full of excitement), the excitement is palpable in the initial few days but the story takes a turn now. The "we" changes to a "I" henceforth.
Its been 10 days since i last saw her but i talk to her almost everyday though the density has been decreasing exponentially. I ponder about giving her a surprise special call, think about some amazing things to dole out over the phone. Number dialed...tring,tring,tring...she's so late in picking up the phone that I am about to put down the receiver.."Temme".."oh! hii!!,just thought would talk to you generally"(the cold temme has already turned me off, i have forgotten all the amazing stuff i was supposed to blabber) " oh!!..but..err..".."Hey!! i hope its ok if i talk to you now".."well!!!err.. not actually i am supposed to be talking to my friend now..(who am i??)she's home".." oh!! cya then, bye"..cut
A sane human being would expect her to call back, sms back or atleast mail back.."duh!"..The waits going to be endless. My ego tells me "forget her.period", I delete her from my gtalk,delete her messages and phone no.(well do u really need to store it, u know it by heart anyways ) ,thinking if I don't see the name it'll be easy to delete her from my memory too but the so very sweet and nice human being that i am..one li'l buzz one day and i forget it all but then the proximity has decreased. I am just another guy in her gtalk list and vice-versa. Its been 6 months since i last chatted with her. In some cases she might appear to be offline from my id all the time.
i had been told by many of my close buddies to stay away from such dangerous short term(long distance) associations and they had foretold me about this end but i never paid any heed to their incessant blabber on this issue and i am happy that i didn't...
Knock knock..a sudden twist in the tail...this one's having a happy ending..they kept on talking and their friendship wasn't an ephemeral one. Their practical outlook towards life stopped them from doing anything outrageously special but then they continued being in the comfort zone, loved sharing little things about their lives. I still say to myself hope is the most beautiful thing in this world.
But finally a word to those who actually bring about a premature termination to this budding friendship. It is a very arduous task to find people who would love you and care for you truly and selflessly all their life so if you have found one, kindly continue sparing some of your precious time and energy to let this association blossom. The absence of this someone won't make your life incomplete or abominable but then the presence would surely make it more complete and beautiful.

I wish..

Preface: The current story is completely non-fictitious and any resemblance to characters living(only, none of them are dead) is fully intentional. This blog is not supporting or opposing the dowry culture but is a humorous take on the issue. The author of the blog though, vehemently opposes this tradition and has made some futile attempts (so far) to change the thinking of a few of the characters of this conversation.

On a sultry Sunday afternoon 3 of us were returning after a tortuous tête-à-tête with our first mock cat paper. The mess hadn’t started providing us with our daily dose of grub so we decided to go to the nearby restaurant wherein we were joined by 4 other wing mates. What followed was some imbecile yet jocular discussion on an equally interesting topic Dowry in the enchanting state of Bihar. I’ll try to provide you all with a grim picture of that conversation.

It all started off when one of us, let us call him Mr. A(I have been strictly threatened against mentioning their real names..), told that after returning from his intern in US, he got a proposal for marriage. Well what’s the big deal in it,huh, but then that wasn’t all, he had been offered a meager sum of 35 lakhs INR as dowry. Holy Shit!!!!

35 lakhs!!!! And guess what??? his family had calmly turned down the offer stating the girl was too old..As Mr. A put it, “IITian’s of my caste are in great demand and we will keep getting such offers”.. Before this could go down my throat, Mr. B proudly remarked 35 lakhs that too after your third year, haha, grow up…

They pleaded me with a proposal of 50 lakhs at the end of my second year only and I didn’t have to go to US and all, such is my esteem & demand. As this was going on, It suddenly dawned on me that only of 3 of us(me a bong, Mr. C a oriya and Mr. D a gult) had our eyes wide open, the other 2 non participants(they too belonged to the same state) till then were calmly munching their Tandooris. This is when one of them quipped “Dude, you are perhaps absolutely unaware of this tradition, none of us (the 4 of them ) would get anything less than 25lakhs!!!”

As all this was slowly getting registered in my old P1 processor, Mr. B suddenly said, “Dude as far as I remember your birthplace is sarwan (a small town in Bihar) and you are a Bengali too. You too can get the same amount, Bengalis with some soft corner for bihar are in demand too”

“What”, I said.

“Ya, u too can easily get a good amount”, said Mr. B confidently.

and here I was foolishly putting fight for girls, spending my dad’s hard earned money and my so very precious time. I wish I knew this before. I could have saved on so much of money, time and dignity(you keep losing some every time you put fight for someone). At this juncture i am reminded of a very close friend of mine (another iitian from a different institute though and my intern mate) who after failing in many such girl wooing attempts had commented “Arranged marriage is the best thing in this world” How right & foresighted he was.

By now my creative juices had also started flowing. I said, "hey guys I have a plan."

“See, we all expect to get placed in the first round of placements, i.e. by mid December and then we all planned to go to goa and all, spending our own money. What we can do now is, after getting placed we will all go out on a Bihar bhraman (journey, call it discovery of Bihar) and we will knock on all the doors and call on all the fathers whose daughters are eligible to marry. This way, hopefully we will manage to get atleast 10 lakhs INR as dowry. So what do we now? Spending some of that money we can go on a world tour guys. This way the problem of getting a sushil kanya to marry would also be solved and we will also get the much needed cash to enjoy the last semester of our college life!..Ain’t it simply brilliant??”

At this, we all broke into a big round of laughter…hehe..The gloominess after the pathetic mock cat had completely disappeared now and I felt fresh and happy. I too am in demand.

P.s. I am in an awfully bad writing form so couldn’t present the stuff as humorously as my skills at satire can produce but the topic was so facetious that I couldn’t stop myself from blogging. :)