Monday, November 24, 2008

What I did to survive my surgery?

I came back home after my cervical disk replacement surgery. I was operated on 19th November at the Max Hospital in Delhi. This was the first time in my life when I was being operated upon. So obviously I was nervous but I had to keep myself strong to keep my family strong specially my Dad. So I had to look and move absolutely normal like nothing was happening. God was also great as suddenly my sense of humor was at its peak. I still recollect during our discussion with the Doctor - the Doctor was informing us all the possible risks involved in the surgery. he mentioned that there was one percent possibility of my voice changing. I responded immediately that may be it will become like a great singer. Obviously he didnt like my sense of humor. So it was more fun time that I was having through out. Secondly I spent quality time with the family. A day before the admission I took my whole family to the Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary for some photo shoots of migratory birds. Catch up with some of the shots at my picassa account. We went to a good fast food outlet Hungercure for dinner. The third thing I did was didnt research about the surgery on the net which usually I do for almost everything. At times extra knowledge hurts. The fourth thing I did was choose the best possible place to get the surgery done. Good after care staff and paramedics is important part of healing. The nurses, physio,dieticians all are excellently trained to take care of people in trauma. This keeps you in good mood. Another important point to believe during the whole process is that of helplessness. I had to accept the fact that I had no choice and had already delayed the surgery risking more trouble. So when no alternative left better to fight it out. And lastly the trust in God and absolute believe that I have not done anything wrong that would make God to punish me beyond this.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

QSQT - Part 1

It was autumn of 1988 when "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak :(QSQT) was released. This was Aamir Khans first movie. His heroin was Juhi Chawla. I believe this was the biggest block buster movie of my time. This movie can be voted amongst all time ten most romantic hindi movies. Its effect on us was like "Bobby" or "Kashmir ki Kali" might have had on that generation or " Dilwale Dulhaniya le jayenge " in todays time. Every young person in love would visualise himself as Raj the heroes character or Rashmi the heroin in the movie. All the engineering students were more closely associated with this movie because of the line in the first song of the movie - "papa kehte hain" which read as "Koi engineer ka kaam karega". This was a hugely popular song and was played at all functions, marriages etc. Those times there were no discos or pubs specially in a conservative middle class town of Nagpur. Even if there were any we simply could never afford with the amount of money in our possession. And also understand and visualize that it was a very conservative society at that point of time. Talking or moving with a girl was always seen as going steady with her. It was not like today when you could bring your female friends home to your parents. There were no mobile phones . There was no long distance direct dialing. The only communication I had with my family back home was through inland letters.My Dad gave couple of surprise visits to me and I would cover them in future blogs.

The Jaycees club of Orange City had organised a Diwali fete. These fetes were one of our major entertainments. Usually the entry would be free and there would be games, food stalls and music. I went to this fete with a gujarati girl - Amita. We had known each other when I was living at my uncles place during my high school days but had lost touch. Then I came again in touch with her during the Navratri Garba festival. We did go to these Garba dances together for couple of years. The song "papa kehte hain" was being played at the fete repeatedly. We danced a lot. Suddenly I felt some similar faces staring at us. I was shocked to see my Uncle, Aunt and their whole family keenly following us through the evening. In fact Uncle was the chief guest and had inaugurated the fete. It was one of the most embarrassing moments I had. I just stammered and introduced her to all my family. I felt like I had committed a big crime and was so shameful of myself that I just ran out of that place.

Sekhar was one of the most serious guys in our gang. A typical south Indian , he used to live with his parents in laxminagar area of the town. He was totally a teetotaller and non smoker. It was August when we had our first interaction with the new students in the first year. Rashmi had joined to do her graduation in Computer Science from Allahbad. Sekhar changed suddenly on seing and meeting her. He was badly and madly in love with Rashmi. All one sided. He would provide all help to this first year student with notes and books etc. All the best stuff from our batch mates. We always had a feeling at Naik Bunglow that Rashmi was using Sekhar for these notes. Sekhar used to dream all about her - 24 hrs. And then came Qayamat se Qayamat tak. Jushi Chwala's name in the movie was also Rashmi and Mr Sekhar went ballistic. He used to think that Juhi is his Rashmi and I might not be wrong but he must have seen the movie at least 50 times. He took me to the movie at least 4-5 times and would continuously narrate each action of the filmi Rashmi as how much similar they were to his Rashmi. Naik Bunglow was his place of solace everyday when he would describe his romance everyday over tea,samosa and Desai bidi.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Naik Bunglow


As we entered our third year in Engineering, we wanted to live outside the campus. Naik Bunglow came as a perfect accommodation. Naik Bunglow was owned by Sandeep's(guy in the center with blue Tees) uncle. They moved out of this place as they felt it was not an auspicious place to live. They had some deaths in the family after they moved to this place. Naik Bunglow was a huge property with garden and lawns on all sides. We were lucky to get this place to live. As a student you can just dream of these type of accomodation. And that too without any rental. So four of us moved in there - Pallav, Prashant and both the Sandeep's. Interesting fact about Sandeep and me is that not only we share the same name but date of birth and year also. So we were lucky in the way we could share expenses of birthday party. Sandeep and Prashant were local guys. Pallav was from Kota. We had three rooms and a bathroom. We set up one room as our bed room and another as our study room. The third room was our store cum kitchen etc. Technically though we were four but most of the time the whole gang used to spend time here. Our good friend - Mittal used to live a few blocks away and was President of the college students union. So he always had lot of visitors. Our place was a perfect place for all the gang to freak out as neither it was a hostel nor there were other people in the vicinity. So there were no restrictions & we had very eventful two years here. We had been host to some unimaginable events . I would like to introduce other members of our gang here - Gill, Raju, Shekhar, Phalke, Pinku, Tolani, Benerasi - who used to frequent this place regularly often staying overnight. Please note that all the characters mentioned here are not fictitious and presently well settled in their life. Any incident narrated here about them is one off that happened during college days. This blog is just a preface of the best two years of my life. I am sure you all will enjoy reading it.