50 First "Dates"

What comes to your mind first when you hear the word “date”? If you are a normal 16-25 year old boy or girl reading this (and nationality and culture has no bearing here), it’s the only thing that naturally comes to your mind, yes – an evening out with a girl or boy. Stretching imagination far, if you are hungry and are someone like Joey, you might even think of the dry fruit of that name.

But if you are an Indian boy or girl, then never – and I repeat never will you think of the horrifying concept that was once a recurring nightmare in your childhood. A concept that made you lose sleep before your History exams, a concept that consumed your sweet childhood days and made them dry like dates. All pun on the word is intended J. It is because, every Indian boy (or girl) makes a promise to himself that he will never again think of those terrible things once the trauma is over, lest it come back to haunt him. He locks all those memories up in a tiny little space in his head and never again mentions them till he dies. I think they say hell is a bad place because maybe they make you once again go back and remember and memorize all those dates and take an exam once every hour or so, the invigilator of course is the devil himself. And if caught copying from your fellow “hellites”, the punishment is that you have to memorize dates from the history of hell as well. Yes, I’m talking of those freakish “dates” from History lessons in school that forced you to remember God forsaken dates in human (or inhuman) history.

These abominable things used to appear in our exam papers for 2 or 4 marks “arrange in chronological order” questions. 22 chapters in the textbook, each riddled with innumerable characters, treaties, pacts, voyages and battles and hence producing enough dates to make the numbers of words in the Oxford dictionary seem like child’s play. If only I had a dime for every “date” I had in there, I would be a millionaire with real “dates” right now J

All through my school life, history was a subject I liked. The battles, the heroic deeds, the stories, the guerrilla warfare of Shivaji, the aura of Mughals, and then the Peshwas, British, it was all so exciting to imagine those events as compared to our boring present day life. But what was the whole point of studying the exact dates when they happened!! I mean, did it even make a difference if Shivaji was born on 27^th April 1627 or 29^th April 1627? What mattered was that he was born!!

In our SSC textbook, we had some 20 chapters with the first few dedicated to World Wars. Some stupid guy shot Franz Ferdinand of Austria and started the bloodbath of World War I. Now when we should have been studying why the war started, and what were its ramifications, we were memorizing exactly which date that moron shot him. J I mean, how does that date even matter? But no, we had to memorize that and a hundred other dates and lose the dates of our lives.

I remember this particular event in my SSC year. We had prelims before the actual exam, and we all were taking them seriously. Now, it is a known fact that sometimes, in SSC, teachers don’t always teach every chapter but give one or two for self study. It is also a known fact that people tend to fall asleep in classrooms during civics and history classes. (If you did not know this well documented fact, then my friend, it’s time you got yourself a copy of “50 things that are known facts” by Viraj Datar. J) So when exam time came along, I naturally assumed that I must make up for lost time by doing everything I can to study history well. As I sat up for the most part of the night missing sleep and studying dates and small details, I sadly (and fondly) remembered all the sweet sleep I had enjoyed during the lectures. Next morning, I called up my oldest buddy from school, Upen, and asked him in an exasperated and exhausted voice, “Yaar Upen, full ratra jaglo yaar… doley full laal bil jhalet, dokyache bumba jhalet, pan yaar hey don chapters hotach nahiyet re (loosely translated, it says – Dude, I’ve been up whole night studying History, my eyes can compete with the B.E.S.T. bus for the red color man, but I’m just not able to finish these two chapters)… Workers Union under British Rule. Horrible chapters man… I’ve spent like 4 hours trying to memorize the short notes, brief answers and give reasons and oh man those dates… those awful things are even worse in these chapters man… how have you been able to do these chapters?”

After this frustration filled monologue, Upen said the last thing I was expecting to hear. “Asey chapters aahet aaplyala?” (We have such chapters in the book?”) “Asa kahi nahiye vatta re, I mean, asa koni kadhich kela nahiye dude… out of syllabus aahe bahutek vatta” (“We don’t have any such thing man, no one has even heard of such things, I think it’s out of syllabus!”) I was about to crash on the floor with frustration mingled with relief. 4 hours good people! I had spent 4 hours of the night yawning and desperately trying to stay awake and pushing my memory to memorize the answers and dates and now it wasn’t even in the syllabus!! J J

My school life is filled with such happenings. Second last minute realizations that I’ve forgotten to study the Rapid Reading section of the Marathi exam and my personal favorite, a last minute realization before entering the exam hall that I’ve nicely forgotten to study the poetry section of the Hindi exam J J and such other things. But of all these things, dates stand out like a sore thumb. The worst game they used to play with poor student’s mentality was to mix events from any of the 22 chapters in the book in a single question. So in the four events to be arranged chronologically, you would see something like this:

1. Jyotiba Phule started XYZ ashram in Pune
2. Irwin-Gandhi pact was signed.
3. Germans sunk a U-boat in the Atlantic ocean and
4. Lahore session of the congress was held.

Now, is ANY of these related to the other??? Then how the hell does it matter what order they happened? And how the hell are we supposed to correlate these totally disparate events. J Now that Congress met in Lahore about a gazillion times, har saal kahin aur jagah nahi milti thi to Lahore mein milte they, so exactly which session are we supposed to consider? I mean mindlessly stupid and dumb dates were asked, which made no sense to my 16 year old mind.

The best times were when I used to open my history paper and approach the “Arrange in chronological order” question. Even after hours of preparation, every time I approached this question, I’ve felt the same thing. There’s a small voice inside me, which sometimes gives me guidance. But I think its main occupation has been to start laughing an evil laughter every time such a question comes in an exam. It used to start telling me first in a quiet voice and then loudly without shame. “Nahi aane vaala tereko”, is how it used to start. I used to resolvedly say “Aayega answer mereko”. Then as questions 1 parts A, B, C were answered, and Q2 about chronological order used to come closer, it used to simply start pointing its finger at me and laughing. And always, with surprising regularity, the voice used to be right!! Because instead of asking major important dates, the question makers used to find great pleasure in asking dates which even the people who took part in the event would not remember. Now, when everyone would remember when Gandhiji picked up the salt from the sea, they would ask, “When did Gandhiji leave his ashram”. Now how in the name of salt is THAT important?! But no, it was supposed to be our solemn duty to remember such useless pieces of information which matter not even in the least in the broad sweep of history. And then the boy or girl who most remembers such useless data is the top ranker. It was ironic really that merit was seen to be based on knowing completely unmeritorious information.

So needless to say, even in my final SSC history paper, that question stumped me. I ended up thinking a lot and answering the wrong. But I’m glad to say that in spite of such cruelty done unto me, I’ve not lost my liking for History. It still enthralls me, the events of those days still seem exciting and worth reading about.

I hope that our syllabus making people realize that an event of historic importance gains its importance from what happened on that day and how it affected the days to come, and not from which date it happened. Many times I feel like shouting like Sunny Deol in the movie “Damini” : “…..Tareekh pe tareekh, tareekh pe tareekh, tareekh pe tareekh… aur phir reh jaati hai to bas tareekh” J

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Day 2

Next morning started bright (!) and clear!! Mr. Storm was nowhere to be seen. Why could weather not have been there yesterday!! I made a valiant effort of not raising my arms skyward in curses to the rain clouds, and tried to get my spirits up as best I could. I once again went to visit my cousin from Queens who was today moving into his apartment. When we moved into our apartment for the first time as students in Raleigh, we had searched all the apartment complexes, chosen a condo, signed a lease and moved into a freshly painted and clean soft carpeted house. But that is not the way NY works. It turned out that the earlier friend’s dingy apartment was not an exception but the common case, for when I reached my cousin’s place, I found out that he had actually rented an attic in some Korean guy’s two story house. Needless to say, it had all the qualities of that friend’s place I mentioned earlier and few more which I shall tell you later, for added effect. We left his place to go roam in the city today. I decided to see Central Park which I had missed out on my last visit here.

I have a friend living close to NY whom I knew very well in my college. We were close friends then, and I had heard he had bagged a very high paying job in Wall Street. I’d called him up the previous day and fixed up a time to meet him today. I hadn’t seen him in over 6 years and so I asked him to have lunch together to catch up on old times, to which he agreed. Then I had suggested that after roaming around NY and eating out late, we could see his apartment and I could sleep there overnight and move out early next morning, since New Jersey was on the way home for me. But as I said earlier, destiny had a three-act epic in place for me. This meeting was to be my 2 hour class for “How friends change 101”. I had again banked my lunch upon a plan with a friend and so decency demanded that I wait to have lunch with him. I had roamed halfway through the gigantic Central Park, when the monster of hunger who had almost taken a toll of me last night, reared its head up again inside me. Last night, it had made my body shake and hands shiver due to lack of nutrition, today, I hoped that it would not be the case.

So my friend arrived a full 3 hours late to meet me at Times Square. Hunger makes me cranky and giant hunger makes me pure foul tempered. But I was strongly trying to be neither of those at that point. Finally he showed up and there was the customary handshake, smile and hug. But instead of the burst of conversation and words, that follows when two old friends meet; there was an uncanny silence after the initial talk. I decided to push for lunch. But his response shocked me. He said, “Oh, I had my lunch already.” With the shock still not registering, I said, “Dude, didn’t we decide to have lunch together? I stayed hungry all this while waiting for you.” And he replied back with “Oh, I didn’t know you were going to wait!”

This was a big let down for me. I could feel all the frustration and bottled up bad temper from the earlier day rising within me again. But controlling it all, I asked him to accompany me and my cousin to some restaurant for lunch. During the lunch too, I noticed that his responses were limited, none of that “old times chatter” was to be seen. Then we roamed around New York, seeing all the tourist attractions like the Empire State Building, Trinity Church etc. As the evening drew to a close, my roommate called me asking me if I could stay in New Jersey for the night so that we can leave from there itself the next day morning. With a deep sense of foreboding, I asked my friend how big his apartment was. He said with pride that it was a big 3 bedroom apartment and he and his roommates each had their own room. My hopes rising, I asked him if I could find some space to put up for the night because I had nowhere else to go. And his response was “Arre dude, there’s a problem. My roommate’s brother is going to come, and his live-in girlfriend also might come, so its going to be a little problem to put you up for the night. Could you find some space elsewhere.” Scarcely believing my ears, I continued my begging. “No man, the house I stayed last night was some friend’s aunt’s place and I’ve no other friends here. A hotel would be pretty expensive in NY. See, the thing is, we will anyway be going home late after dinner, so when we reach your apartment, all your roommates will be sleeping and in the morning, I’ll be leaving by 6, before they even get up. I wouldn’t even want to sleep in your room, just a corner in the hall would suffice. In the morning too, I wont be wasting any time having a bath since I reach DC by 11 o’clock. Just one night I’ll need some space.” And right there before my eyes, I saw one of the worst shades a friend can show another. He said “You need space na, then why don’t you sleep at your cousin’s place?” I said, “Arre, he’s just moved in today, and he has no place for a guest, it’s a small place.” He said, “How much space will you need, couldn’t you stay there?”

I lost it. It was over for me. Never before in my life so far had anybody, humiliated me so much. All day, he had kept telling me, “I work at Wall Street, I live in a posh locality in Jersey, my balcony overlooks the Hudson river giving me a view of Manhattan….” And when the time came to give me shelter for one night, his house had no space for me. Never before had I begged like this in front of anybody for shelter. Even in America, apparent stranger - some roommate’s friend’s friend, had provided me shelter happily for a night. But this friend, my own college friend had alienated me. His 3 bedroom apartment had no place for me for a night. Whatever be his reasons, he should not have humiliated me like that. That instant, I called my roommate telling him that I would not be able to stay in Jersey, but was going back to Queens to my cousin’s place.

Finally, as I entered my cousin’s apartment to sleep for the night, as a final cruel pinch in the stomach from destiny, I realized that the apartment had no ventilation system, AC or fan and all air circulation was dependent on a small 2 feet square netted window through which a small breeze would come once in a while. As I curled up on a hard floor in the humble home of my poor cousin, I realized that I would remember this journey for altogether different reasons – reasons I had never imagined I would see.

Valuable lessons were learnt that day. People change. Circumstances change. Events don’t go your way. All plans that you propose may get disposed. People we call our own, become unknown, and in poverty one finds simple benevolence.

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Day 1

Sometimes, you take a journey, maybe a weekend trip or maybe even a business trip which turns out to be something much more than what you had planned. It starts out as a usual trip or even mundane sort of a jaunt, but becomes something totally else, something that certainly does not merit the adjectives used earlier.

And what should have been a memorable trip, becomes just that, but for a totally unimagined reason. I recently had the (mis)fortune (for I certainly ‘mis’sed the fortune part of it) of being part of such a trip. What started off as a long weekend drive trip, quickly degenerated into an unraveling of human nature and a showcase for the dark side of human ethos.

But let me not jump the gun here, lest it become a Quentin Tarantino story. I’ll start from the beginning; it’s simpler to build it up that way. (Never quite understood why people like out of order stories!J)

It was a Labor Day weekend in America and was one of those “long weekends” that every working person in USA looks forward to, for they are so rare. I left work a little early in gleeful anticipation of the plans for the weekend. For, you see, I had planned this out about two weeks in advance and managed to get myself a ticket for the US Open played in Flushing, New York. As a child, tennis was one sport after cricket that I loved watching and the grand slams were my favorite. Never had I imagined then that I would get a chance to one day see it live in person right there in the Arthur Ashe stadium. So when I realized that the 3^rd round was going to be on the Labor Day weekend, I somehow managed to get a Saturday evening session tickets at the Arthur Ashe (the counterpart of Wimbledon’s Center Court). My roommate too had booked his tickets, but due to a mix up, he had booked it for the Sunday evening session. (in retrospect, this seems to be the starting point of the series of unfortunate events that played itself out over the weekend. Wow! Hindsight is 20:20!!)

And then it began. It started with a storm front generated in the heats of the tropics marching on resolutely towards the North Eastern Atlantic coast. For the first time in 19 years, a storm had climbed slowly and painstakingly towards New York. So my roommate and I who were supposed to hit the road late night on Friday, found ourselves staring into a sky that had turned an ominous shade of deep gray. With winds howling like wolves, we decided to push our plans a little to next day morning. Now, I personally don’t like to leave home extremely early in the morning for a trip, but as my roommate was all for it, I decided to go on with the plan. So next day morning, I woke up at 5:30 AM, and we hit the road by 6:30 AM, a personal record for getting ready, I might add. But much to our chagrin, the wind was still howling like last night, except that it had now become hoarse (must be due to the howling all night), and the sky had taken on a gloomy, brooding color of black clouds and the rain had given it company through the night and continued to do so.

Getting gloomy by the hour, we drove on. All through the way, we never saw a single moment of happy sunshine, or any scenic beauty for everything had become as frustrated as we were becoming. Still, we managed to reach New York on time.

Now, the first time I had been to NY, my memories had been really pleasant ones, for although I had little money, and had slept in a corner in some friend’s friend’s apartment, I had the pleasure of being in NY for the Christmas-New Year season. With such fond memories I was visiting NY again, and this time, I could even afford to live a good environment. But my disillusionment of that city began as soon as we reached there. The friend at whose place we were supposed to stay, had no place for us anymore. He had got new roommates who had tons and tons of baggage strewn about all over the place. Meaning absolutely no disrespect to him, the apartment was much smaller and definitely a lot dingier than most hovels in Mumbai. While I resented staying there overnight, I decided to keep quiet for the while. We left for lunch from there to an Indian restaurant. The locality it seemed was exclusively Indian/Pakistani. So much so that, I could not find one shop that sold American goods or was owned by American people. There were grocery stores, music stores blaring out Himesh Reshamiyya songs, just like they do in any street in Mumbai. Even the street was named: Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Avenue!! J

The rain had literally followed us all the way to NY and had now put up camp with his howling friend, the storm wind right above the New Jersey, New York area. My tickets were for the evening 7 o’clock session and after finishing my lunch at 2 pm, I decided to visit my cousin in Queens. He had come to US for his Masters’ just last week and was literally still living out of a suitcase looking for an apartment to rent and an on-campus job to live. Since he was new to the place, I decided to show him Manhattan, the heart of NY. But, fortune had a different plan in mind, so that when we reached Manhattan, we found the whole Times Square area drenched in cold, chilly rain with gusts of wind bordering on a gale. It was so bad that I could not even take out my camera to shoot a picture with my cousin. I made a brave attempt at walking about Times Square but it just kept getting worse by the minute. We finally decided to call it quits and took a subway back to Queens.

All this while, when the weather twisted and tortured my plans, my thoughts had started becoming gloomier and morose by the hour. Hence, when I arrived at the US Open stadium, it was with a certain sense of foreboding that accompanies such situations. Needless to say, the rain was now a heavy torrent. The area surrounding the stadium is open for miles around and there was nothing to stop the wind which here was seriously bad. I mean, I could see people’s umbrella’s turning inside out, cars shaking on the freeway due to the strong gusts and people like me who had come wearing a rain jacket shaking like leaves in the cold wind. There was a long queue at the stadium with a big question mark on every face. Agassi was scheduled to play in that session, and everyone had come there with a dream of seeing it all happen live.

Now that I look back at it all, I think I had a tryst with destiny that evening. Everything it seemed was conspiring against me, while I stood in that open cold rain drenched and windy front lawn of the stadium for the game. As the minutes ticked slowly by, all my excitement for the game died a cruel death. I remember distinctly, that towards the end, I was literally hoping that they would tell us the bad news of the game being cancelled quickly now, just so that I could walk away from it all. Finally, the guard walked past us holding a megaphone to his mouth declaring the evening session cancelled.

With a heavy heart, cold feet, wet clothes and a dejected spirit, I walked back to the subway station. It had all been for nothing. In a desparate bid to make the day amount to something atleast remotely related to fun, I decided to go for a movie. So I took a thirty minute train ride to Times Square and entered the theater. I had coordinated with my friends who also were watching the same movie. As the movie ended, my cold, wet clothes had dried on my body in the cold of the theater. I was miserable, and terribly hungry because I hadn’t had food all day.

One of the friends volunteered to take us to his aunt’s house to sleep for the night. So we all went all the way to New Jersey where the car was parked and drove back to Queens to the friend’s aunt place. The idea was to park the car at the aunt’s place and then go eat. But it seems, destiny had only shown me half the movie yet. Post interval, was the more frustrating part. After taking a few wrong turns, we finally reached Queens to realize that the aunt’s apartment complex had no parking spot. So we started driving around on the streets looking for a parking space. What began as a search soon became a exasperated hunt for a piece of land big enough to keep our vehicle. But none was to be found. We drove around for an hour and a half but to no avail. Hunger had taken monstrous proportions within me, and with the unquenched fire in the stomach came its trusted companion – the headache. What began as a mild pain became an agonizing throbbing pretty quickly, but yet no parking space was in sight. The events of that day – each more frustrating than the previous – took their toll, and I seriously regretted my decision to come to NY. A thought came unbidden to my mind, (to be frank, when the thought came, I was surprised to note that I still had a working mind at that point of time) that the two experiences I had about New York, the one last year and the one were so singularly different.

Finally, we found parking at 2 am in the wee hours of the morning, somebody managed to get a Pizza at 3 am, we devoured it like hungry wolves and crashed on the floor at 3:30 am.