#3 The Road Guides

Every Thing Around Me Is Funny! 

(Except Me of Course) 

The Road Guides 

Men are explorers by birth. We just can’t stay locked out in a place. We step out, and explore new ways… well, we at least try to!  

And in the course of these “explorations”, sometimes we do wander but we would never admit that we are lost! Because the beauty of an exploration is that there is no where to get lost. But only when it's the time to return is where we get a little off the grid sometimes! 

And like all explorers, we look around for guardian angels for guiding us. Although in today's’ life of scarce we improvise and look-up to anyone with little or any information about the whereabouts. And this way, we often come across a very interesting kind of persons there is… The Road Guides. 

Road Guides, as the name suggests  are persons who we expect to show us the path walking on which we would reach our destination and we are very specific about the amount of input we want on that. But in this assumption, we sometimes neglect the most important factor, that no matter how divine these guides are, in reality they're just another human! 

Keeping this fact in mind we can very easily divide them into broad groups, friendly & bully. And no matter what kind you get, there's hardly any evidence to help you out at that point of time. 

This one time, I was in an unfamiliar place all by myself and if I let my pride slide a little I might admit that I was having a little trouble in following the road signs. So like any fellow explorer would do under these circumstances, I seek out help from one bystander who was on his way in the subway beside. He literally stopped on his way and started thinking and murmuring something. It was actually after sometime I came to realize that he was thinking of a better route for me!!  

So after taking about a couple minutes of time (which seemed like eternity), he finally came up with a route that involved me changing 3 buses and even taking a ferry! I was just standing there, wondering that if the person was helping me getting a scenic route to my place or just plainly trolling with me. 

Then there are some places which are made keeping in mind that the locality has an excess of pathfinders (?). You'll just know when you are in one of these places. They hate to have a long straight road. I ask why? Are they out of fashion? Is it compelling to create a diversion every ten feet down a road with no idea of which one goes where? How many times a person can stop and ask which way to take? And don't get me started on flyovers!! It seems that they are created for the sole purpose of misleading us explorers.  

"Oh so you want to go the other way? Well, that's too bad because right now you are standing on top of a one-way street which has shot up in the air. And only way to reach that part of the city is by going around the entire way till the end of the time!!" 

And if there's one thing I have learned by tracking the road signs is that they are only useful if they are talking about here & now rather than far away. 

" Oh Honey! look Paris is that way and it'll only take some few thousand miles to reach there! Why didn't they put up the way to moon?" 

But whatever the hardships may be, there always will be good people to help us cross any hardships on the way. Be it on road or be it in life, our guardian angels will show up at crucial places just when we'll start to feel as if we are lost. Has been the same for the travelers of the past and that hasn't changed still for today's fellow explorers. 

So, don't stay in! Reach out, explore unknown avenues. Who knows you might end up discovering a special place where others too will find a niche for them. In the words of a Bengali song … 

" Path Harabo Bolei Ebar Path'e Nemechi..." 

"Let this journey be all about getting lost down the way..."                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

             

#2 Mobile Freaks

Every Thing Around Me Is Funny!

(Except Me of Course)

Mobile Freaks

There are many types of people around me, some are good in speaking, some in singing, some in acting, some in playing video games and the list goes on…

But there are some people, who aren’t good at anything! But how could they live with this fact? So they indulge themselves in the one device that binds us all!! Cell phones, or commonly known as mobiles!

We all have our sanctuaries! I spend a lot of time on the internet while my ears are blazing with heavy metal! Some invest their time in good theatre, while some just stay home clearing new stages of some cool games. Similarly the “Phone Freaks” hangs infinitely near or around a mobile store!!

These people have nothing, (yes u heard it right!) nothing else to talk about!! They have devoted their entire life on mobiles!! Its kinda like a sports fan memorizing all the cool trivia of their favorite sport, only weirder!

Like this one time I went to a mobile store for a recharge, I met this classmate of mine hanging around there. Little did I know that he was one of the phone freaks!!

So the moment he saw my cell phone he went like, “Oh My God!! Where did you find that?” and I informed it that I had bought it! And that was it. He started giving me sayings and knowledge about how old my mobile was and how little it solved its purpose! He went on and said mouthful names of some technologies which I had no idea were present in phones! At a certain point in his conversation I felt like I was doing a criminal offence walking around with a mobile like that!!

Finally, after an hour-long lecture to recycle my phone at the earliest, he asked me to buy a new mobile as soon as possible!

I loved my mobile! I used to think that it was most reliable and stable handsets ever! But since the day “The Governor of mobile freaks” pointed out its short-comings, it wasn’t at all the same for me. It was kind of like when you are out with your girlfriend, and someone points out all the faults in her. Its never the same after that! Why? Did he have to do that?

A point in reference, these freaks won’t use a bit of the technology they are boasting of in their mobiles, but its gotta be there!! They’ll say that they have facility to use the same mobile everywhere in the world when they’ve never set a foot outta their own town! They’ll boast of some brilliant feature to communicate like Push to talk but won’t ever find it helpful cause they are the only one with it! They will say their mobile is capable of operating in a network which has no intention to be introduced here in the next 5 years, and if there is one bit of consistency about these people!! Its that they can’t stay on one mobile for long!!

If you could compare this situation with the dating scene, they are more like the persons who enjoy one night stands instead of a long term commitment!!

“If your chick is hotter than mine then I’ll just throw away mine a get a chick hotter than yours!”

Ah! Who am I to blame them!! Once the shortcomings of my mobile were pointed out, me… the person who had used that same mobile for 5 years couldn’t stick to it! And so, finally after a long week of turmoil, I decided to buy myself a new mobile. And who might be a better person to suggest me one than the governor himself! (Or so I thought!).

You see, whenever you think of buying something new which is an important part of your life, there is always a thinking process, and there is always an expert advisor. Normally the time of this advisor is really scarce, since his advices are fetched by many other people like you. But in my case the story was a little different. (Alright, a lot different).

I found my advisor right where I last left him, the mobile store. And when I informed him that I am finally ready to move on from my previous mobile to a new one, he gave me a life-altering speech!

“My dear friend! You today have taken a decision that’ll change your life forever. Today, you stood up against monotone and stepped up to make your life exiting!”

I was feeling a little like Neo of The Matrix, making my life-altering change.

And thus started the process of choosing my next mobile!

We went from stores to stores and came back with tons of information brochures, then sat down and scatter through them, in search of the ultimate mobile the consumer world has to offer me!

Hours turned into days and days into weeks. The energy which was in me was quickly extinguishing! My friend who seemed to found his life’s purpose would sit in midst of all the documents and blabber to himself. Often making notes and calculations into his notebook. He would sometime shout in between phrases like,

“Where are you? Come out wherever you are!!”

Or something like,

“Its out there!! I can feel it!”

Or sometimes when he would be a little low, things like,

“It’s a myth!! It’s a myth!!”

Finally, after a month he gave up! He came to me, a broken shell of a person I once knew and said to me,

“I can’t! I can’t! All this time I thought that I knew everything, now I realized how hollow my knowledge was!”

I grabbed him up and told him

“No My friend! You’ve shown me that there’s no other mobile suited for me than my own! It was a mistake trying to move on from my perfect companion!”

We hugged; both had tears in our eyes!!

P.S. Next week, I went in a store a got myself a new mobile. Just like that! (Down with you mobile freak!!)

#1 Fellow Passengers

Every Thing Around Me Is Funny!

(Except Me of Course)

Fellow Passengers

It is inevitable! Wherever I travel, there are other passengers with me there! Being an Indian, we have an inclination towards traveling in public transports like Bus, Train, Shared Taxi etc. and these are the places where you find your own set of fellow passengers!

Although India is known as a diverse country, we also have few very deep-rooted stereo types which can be seen everywhere!

Just to begin with, the all known phrase… “Save a seat!” and its cousin brother “This seat is taken!” If only I’ve got a coin every time I heard these I would have been seriously thinking about changing my hobby to Coin Collecting!!

But here’s the catch, my fellow passengers never seem to get tired of making fun of themselves! Never! They always tend to think that when I approach a seat, I am planning to take over it and throw them out!! And hence the phrase.

I once heard a guy claiming that a seat that he was sitting was waiting for 7 persons to return!! When clearly it was a 3 seater!! So I bent towards him and said…

“Do you need someone to help you hold down the fort?”

You see, the seat is one’s comfort zone, I totally understand that! But it cracks me up to see how far a person would go to reserve it, all of it!

So one day I just got up in a bus and a person was keeping his briefcase beside him on the seat. And when I asked him to give me my fair share of the seat, he literally gave me 3 inches of seat to sit! So I placed my bag there and said to it

“Glad you got a seat! They are pretty scarce around here!”

My fellow passengers always have the most weird and incredible body postures when I approach their seat! Some of them look like they are suffering from brittle bone disease and their whole body will just fall apart if they don’t sit (or rather spread over) that way!! While some of them maintains their dignity by sitting up majestically folding their legs over! That is until I remind them that it is a general compartment and they don’t belong there!

All great persons have stated in the history that a human soul is to be put in front of all the materials in this world! My fellow co-passengers are the living examples of each of those statements! They always put their comfort in front of any material (read luggage). I was once travelling in a train where I suddenly saw a strangely familiar bag rolling down over the floor in front of me! It took me some time to realize that it is the same bag which I put over the luggage space above me when I boarded the train! When I gazed up I was surprised to see that one of my fellow passengers had taken its place and was in a peaceful sleep. And yes, these people will sleep anywhere! Under any possible condition just to show you that they can still have a good time while you can go along with your sufferings!

And god they can get comfortable in ways you’ve never would’ve imagine! They pull out flasks, change in to just a towel, take a bath, have a candle lit dinner…

I once saw a person use his bed sheet to tie a hammock just above my seat and go to sleep! So while he was swinging and sleeping all night, I was scared sleepless below just imagining what will happen if his little arrangement collapses with him over me!

So there they all are… my fellow passengers, squeaking, screaming, stretching & capturing spaces all around me everywhere I go! They come in all shapes and sizes, coming around from all over the country, showing one true spirit of unity

“We won’t let the fort fall down!!”