Toastmasters P1 Speech

On the shivering cold night of 18^th December in the city of Jaipur, a man frantically paced the corridors of an up market hospital anxiously waiting for the doctor to come out of the Operation Theatre. The tensions of his grueling banking job fading away to give rise to possibly one of the biggest tension of his life - The birth of his first child. He was literally sweating in spite of the biting cold and his heart paced at a rate that is synonymous only with sprinters. It was around 8.45 pm the doctor came out of the OT to break the news of the birth of his son and that Ladies and Gentlemen, was the first mention of the person standing in front of you today.

Yes, technically you can call me a Rajasthani, although I am a hardcore fish eating Bengali and a fierce advocate of my city. I eat, sleep and drink Kolkata along with all the delicacies that the city has to offer. To put it simply, I love everything about Kolkata. I grew up in the town of Kalyani that is about a 40 miles form here and was not at par with the hustle and bustle of Kolkata. My sister is just 2 years younger to me but has always been the apple of my eye. It would surprise all of you to know that we haven’t ever fought. Sibling rivalry never existed between us. As both of my parents were working, it was me who took care of her when they were away. And she, the angel that she was or rather still is, never for once doubted my judgments. She takes my advice for everything even today although she is now studying in a premier institute in India. My dad is a retired banker and my mom a teacher. We are a very close knit family and for me, family takes precedence over anything else in this world.

My Schooling was from Don Bosco Bandel and like most other missionary schools this was a very strict school too. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if someday it won an award for being the strictest missionary school ever. To add to my woes, this was a complete Boys School. So you can understand the frustration and agony of me and my friends. The only silver lining was the existence of the all girls, Auxilium Convent right opposite to us and naturally you can imagine our excitement for School to get over. In school I wasn’t a very naughty kid and was pretty serious about my studies. I was an above average student all through. The teachers had only one complaint – “very talkative”. Indeed I was, and that is one trait I still possess. I was always involved in a lot of activities in school and it is where I developed a lot of leadership qualities and the eagerness to participate and take charge of things. I loved Cricket and Badminton and strummed my guitar whenever I got a little time. But before long it was time for boards and all non-study activities had to be put off. I didn’t get as much marks as everyone thought I would. Mom blamed the new mobile phone and my incessant texting. I think all of you can guess whom or rather who all I had been texting. 

I did my college from Techno India and since my childhood dreams of studying in a top college were shattered. I revolted. I revolted by doing absolutely nothing. I did everything other than studying in college. I took to extra-curricular activities like a fish takes to water. That is where I found my calling. I was always engrossed in organizing fests, running for sponsorships, managing the college magazine, anchoring shows and performing magic. Yes, I am a magician too and it’s a happy co-incidence that my name Souveek means Magician. I never missed college but hardly attended classes. In fact, I was so conspicuous by my absence that my teachers used to get surprised if I by chance happened to attend their classes.

It was not until when recession struck and companies froze recruitment that we realized we were in for trouble. It was much later that, TCS announced its plan to visit our college for campus recruitment! I was at a loss. When nobody gets placed, there is no worry but when all your friends get placed and you are left behind, there is nothing worse. I studied unrelentingly for the next 5 days, taking tips from my topper friends as to what exactly to study and finally on the day of the interview blurted out all that my friends had drilled into me. Incidentally, I was the only candidate selected from Electrical Engineering and naturally my topper friends kicked me and cursed me till they were tired. Sadly, its they who have had the last laugh. Let’s not elaborate on that, more so on a forum that is full of TCS associates.

To summarize I would say, I am a friendly, kind hearted guy. I am an extrovert in nature, yet have a layer inside me that is hard to reach. I love making friends and like to live life king size. So far, I would say life has been good to me, if you consider what it has given me. Of course there is no end to the list of complaints that one can make. My fierce optimism however keeps me going always. I strongly believe that no matter how hard the time is now, it will pass and will bring forth better opportunities, better moments. This my friends is I, Me, Myself in a nutshell.

To Own Your Heart

Waking up in the morning to a burst of gloom and dejection,
My heart feels heavy and there is this intense fear of losing you that drowns my senses
With an emotion, beyond my comprehension.
I know you love me and it’s not lies. I know you want me and it’s no tale.
But it’s just that I know I don’t fit the description of the perfect man you crave.
You can’t leave me coz you love me, you can’t love me coz you can’t find the man you want to love.
And I, in all futility want to cling to you.
Coz I derive all my vital strengths from you.
Baby, I love you and I know you love me too,
But I know I don’t own your heart, and that is what I wanted to do.


Your words are veiled to hide the resentment,
The battle between your mind and heart,
But your eyes can’t hide the disappointment
For having to settle for what you don’t want.
I see the pain you are in. I see that you suffer silently coz of the constant war
That you fight to force your heart to win over your perturbed mind.
Oh Baby, I love you and I know you love me too
But I know I don’t own your heart, and that is what I wanted to do.


Today, I set you free, to be happy
The way you want to be.
Today, I wanna see you fly, to the lands of your imagination
The way you see it in your dreams.
Keep me in your memories as I will keep you in mine,
The times that we spent together, I know, will always thrive.
This aint a sad parting, this I know, is for the best.
Oh Baby, I have always loved you,
But I know I didn’t own your heart, and that is what I always wanted to do.

The Choice

“Hey Jessica this is Dhruv from the band Xeroxed Devils. Rohit asked me to call you up regarding the passes to the after party of the IPL. I think he told you about this, right?”
“Oh hi Dhruv, yes Rohit told me about you and I will hand over the passes to you on Saturday night itself. Is that ok with you?”
“Absolutely, see you on Saturday.”
Jessica was into event management with a top company in Bangalore that arranged shows of celebrities. She had arranged quite a few shows for our band too. We aren’t all that famous nationally but in the college and youth circles we are quite a rage, and Bangalore is full of such young crowd. I am the lead guitarist of my band and Rohit is our manager. He is the one who ‘manages’ all sorts of passes and entries to events for us. Well we do make quite a lot of money from our shows and we can afford to buy passes for events but who doesn’t like free passes?

I am an average looking, “well mannered”, decent guy and I would say I am pretty cool by normal standards and yes normal isn’t a nice way of saying “low” standards. I play the guitar quite well, but more than that I know the art of performing in front of my audience. My stage presence makes up for me if I have a bad day. There are many more talented performers out there but I rule when it comes to giving a performance on stage. I am also quite a good talker and have always talked women into dating me. It helps a lot that I play the guitar. Women absolutely dote on guys who play the guitar. In fact, I took to guitar when I heard from a friend of mine that women like guitarists. Quite an ass that I was! It’s been quite sometime and I lost count of the women I floored. I dated around 4 girls and I must say that in all of the cases God must have taken a real good time creating them. Although he didn’t quite look after their brains but I never complained. They were beauties and it was awesome going out with such hot girls. I was a complete dude among my friends and I loved it. Most of my break ups were for frivolous reasons and it was more my girlfriends’ doing than mine.
My latest girlfriend of 6 months, Ritu, had just dumped me because she thought she couldn’t handle my ways. I was in fact absolutely relieved by her decision. I couldn’t dump her because she was a nice person and I had no grounds for dumping her. Also nagging cannot be considered a valid reason. Not to take away the credit from any other girl, she was the epitome of nagging. If Narcissus was the embodiment of self love, Ritu could pass off as that of nagging. Maybe someday they might have a word “Rituistic” to define someone as being extremely nagging, something like Narcissistic! She went on with her complaints that I hardly have time for her, every time I missed a call from her Well, I deliberately didn’t take her calls sometime but that was rare. It was better to take her call than to listen to her incessant sobs. She used to call me every hour to check on me. Where I was and with whom? She hated it if I went out with my female friends and all hell broke loose if I didn’t take her call for more than 4 times at a stretch. God! Was I supposed to take my phone even to the loo? There’s more, she called me all sorts of weird names like Puchi, Puchu, Mousey and I was always left red faced in front of my friends. I tried to tell her a lot, not to call me names but she hardly listened. Thank God she decided to dump me and I was happily single again. I could totally hit on the other hot chicks and Bangalore has no dearth of them, especially in the field that I am in.

It was then that I managed to get those passes of the IPL after party for me and my other band members. The match was between RCB and KKR so we were hoping to see quite a slew of Bollywood celebrities. SRK is a chick magnet. Wherever he goes, he manages to draw a lot of beautiful women. I was counting on him today and hoped he didn’t disappoint.
While I was getting ready for the party Jessica called.
“Hi Dhruv, I am really sorry, I wont be able to attend the party today. I will have your passes handed over to you by a friend of mine, Oromitha.”
I noted down Oromitha’s number, a little disappointed, as there would be one hot girl less in the party as Jessica was simply awesome. We reached the venue and I called Oromitha to enquire about the passes. A very fair girl with specs like Preity Zinta’s from Kal Ho Na Ho came up to me and said, “Hi you are Dhruv right? I am Oromitha. Here are your passes.” She had a very pleasant personality and was very elegant in her ways. She handed me the passes, exchanged a few pleasantries and went off on her way to the party. We followed suit and in a while I was thanking SRK in my mind for not having disappointed me. There were pretty women all around and more importantly, there was an unlimited supply of free food and booze. Now for that I had to thank Dr. Mallya. I hope he keeps on making more money from his booze and keeps on throwing parties like these. We enjoyed thoroughly and I flirted around with all those pretty women who didn’t have someone looking like her boyfriend by her side. In the end, we all got pretty sloshed. Naturally, the booze was free. Our friend Tanya was at her puking best, making the car the destination of the projections that erupted from her mouth. I made a mental note to force Deep to wash the car the next day. Deep was Tanya’s boyfriend of 10 years. Can you imagine? 10 years? It sounds like eternity to me. Since now we are around 24-25, it’s like they have been going around from the time they were 14! I hardly knew any girls at that age. In fact I was so naïve then that I considered sexy to be a dirty word to be addressed to women. It’s however totally different today and I’d rather not get into the details of what I consider sexy. We reached Deep’s place at around 2 am in the night and fell asleep wherever we could find a little place.

It was two days after this; I was browsing through the pictures of the party on Facebook, when I saw a familiar face in one of my friend’s profile. It was of Oromitha. She was pretty cute and I thought it only apt to send her a request. How can anyone ignore a cute and sweet girl that too one with whom one is already acquainted with, doesn’t matter even it’s only for a minute. She accepted my request a day later but we hadn’t started talking right away. It was not until a few weeks later that I saw her online and pinged her.
“Hi Oromitha! What up?”
“Hey Hi! Nothing Much. You say?”
“So how did you enjoy the party that day?
“Yeah, it was amazing! You know I got pictures with Shahrukh too!”
What is with women and Shahrukh? I can’t understand how that man attracts so many women even though he is 40 and old and wrinkled and married with 2 kids. There would only be a handful of women who wouldn’t like SRK. I carried on with the conversation with pangs of jealousy and anger for SRK’s magnetism.
“Hey you know what? You have a very sweet and different name!”
She replied after a long pause, “Sweet or different?”
“A little of both but more on the sweet side” I replied adding a wink smiley to the end.
“Thank you! I am sorry I gotta go now! Talk to you later!”
She said bye and she signed off!
That was short and well not so sweet, I thought, but she was a little different. There was something in her that I found very attractive, very honest. I checked her pics and in all of them she looked so pretty and sweet. There was this honesty in her face that stood out. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her in a few weeks. I was busy with my shows and hardly came online. Even if I did, I didn’t bother to check out anyone. It was after about 3 weeks that I saw her online and pinged her again.
“Hi Oromitha!”
She didn’t reply! I waited for quite sometime but still there was no reply. I got busy replying to a lot of other pings of friends, relatives and not to mention some hot chicks when I got a reply from her.
“Hi!”
I replied back after a good 7.5 mins in retaliation to her late reply, with a “How are you?”(Tit for tat at its best!)
She replied, “Good”
I was intrigued by her small replies and asked her, “Do you always reply in monosyllables?”
“Well No…Am sorry..Actually I am a little low!”
If a girl says she is low, it’s a guy’s moral responsibility to cheer her up. That’s what guys are for. To pamper the fairer sex and make them feel special whenever possible. “Well what happened? You can share with me if you want. I am a good listener and sometimes talking to complete strangers help!”
“Well not exactly. I’d rather keep it to myself”.
I didn’t wish to bother her as I hardly knew her and moreover I wasn’t too interested either. So I said, “As you wish Ma’am!”
She seemed relieved that I didn’t pester. We talked of some normal things where I tried to humor her for a few minutes. She cheered up a little and it was then that I played my masterstroke.
“Hey do you mind giving me your number? I am not a stalker, I don’t call girls in the middle of the night and I don’t send silly forwards, so you can feel safe!”
This is one line that has never failed me when it comes to asking for a girl’s number. I don’t know what goes on in their minds but they always respond positively.
She typed “hehe” and shared her number and I smiled in my mind, more for my infallible way of asking for a girls number than for the fact that she shared it. Male ego you see!
I texted her the next day, to enquire if her mood was alright. She replied saying that she was fine and thanked me for being so sweet.

It was one afternoon I had nothing to do and while I was fiddling with my phone I chanced upon a message sent by her and thought of calling her up. We spoke for a good 30 mins and to be honest it was not one of the best conversations I have had. She was a woman of few words and on the other side I was a man of too many words. A total mismatch. I disconnected and wondered for a while as to what actually transpired. After that we shared texts regularly as I believe sms is a very cool way to start knowing someone, not to mention it was free too. We had very little things in common and I had to fake that I liked a lot of things that she liked, in order to make her believe that we actually shared a lot of interests. She liked Shahrukh Khan’s film songs and I hated most of them. She liked black coffee and I drank black coffee only on dates to impress my partner but with utter disdain for it. She liked poetry and I liked prose, as I hardly understood anything of poetry. I tried to convince her that I too liked most of what she liked too, but when she asked me to watch movies like ‘Love aaj kal’ and ‘PS I Love you’ I was at a wits end. The punishment of lying, I thought. I promised her that I would definitely watch the movies someday and prayed hard that she forgot about them. This went on for a few days. The smses gave way to more smses and then calls but still I couldn’t extract a date with her. She always managed to dodge the topic of a date somehow. Girls are masters at these! It was after a lot of deliberation that she finally decided to meet me. The first date was a little abrupt. Here she was the talkative one and I listened. She asked me a lot of times about the reason for my silence as that was a rare occurrence. I didn’t know. Maybe I was mesmerized by her or maybe I didn’t like her upfront. It was only after a few more dates that I opened up with her. CCD was our usual hangout and the waiters looked with big eyes every time we entered, as it meant a table booked for more than 3-4 hours. I had to give them a hefty tip to bring their dilated pupils to normal state. I was kind of getting used to her and I liked it. We cared for each other and liked talking too. There was this mutual admiration, love, care that was very beautiful and before long we realized, we were in a relationship. There was no formal proposal from anyone of us and no proclamation of love and yet we were in a relationship. It was a lot later that we uttered the words “I love you” to each other and I could feel that we really meant it. It was very nice and I could feel her love for me even though she didn’t constantly say that she loved me. Things were very subtle with her, something I loved. The difference of interests that were so stark hardly mattered now. I actually started loving Black Coffee and for my interest in her type of movies, I had no choice. She forced me to watch “Love Aaj Kal”. We met mostly on Saturdays as she had college all the other days and she belonged to the class of students who wouldn’t bunk her college even on doomsday. For once I stopped flirting with girls and going out on random dates. Well not exactly stopped but I would say reduced.

Things were going very fine until the day she went to a party and met this guy called Sam. He was performing at the party. He too played the guitar and probably played it a bit better than me. I don’t know if that was the reason, but on seeing him, Oromitha had developed a sudden crush on him. She went up and told him that she liked his performance very much. Not only that, she came back home to look up his profile in Facebook. She told me about this but I hardly cared. Crushes are natural. She would have been more bothered if I started sharing about my crushes. I did look up the guys profile as she had inbox-ed me the link and I must say he was a perfect example of a clothes hangar. Thin like a stick, the clothes that he wore seemed to be hanging on without a support. He was dark but definitely not tall and handsome. But my girl was mesmerized by his charms. After seeing his pics, I went up to the mirror and checked myself out, to see if something was amiss with me. It didn’t quite look like. The guy also wrote blogs and this augmented her crush. Whatever he did seemed to find a favour with Orormitha. The guy was as big an ass as I was myself. He probably saw through the fact that she had a crush on him and made total use of it. He too very subtly shared his number and asked for my girlfriend’s number. I wondered if all guitarists were same. She asked me if she should give him her number. Now what do I say to that? Don’t? I am not like that by nature. I don’t control other’s lives. I asked her to do what she felt best, hoping that she wouldn’t share. But she probably felt sharing her number was the best thing. Damn it! I guess I should have said no. Now when a guy has a girl’s number he actually can get very close to the girl’s emotions if he wants to. I warned Oro that if Sam actually falls for you or even the other way round it would lead to a lot of complications. She never listened. Girls never do. She just blew it off saying that it was a very harmless college crush and that she loved me and that’s what mattered. The guy also had a girlfriend of four years and she said that he was just being nice and friendly to her. I didn’t pester her anymore and let her decide what to do. Before long my suspicions were correct. The guy after only about a few days of talking, proposed to her, even though he had a girlfriend. Probably he was looking for better options. Oro didn’t tell me this. I found this out when we were out on a date. She went to the washroom leaving her phone behind and it suddenly beeped. I never checked her messages but that day, I saw that it was from Sam. I was curious and I opened it. It read, “I am really sorry! I hurt your emotions. I just got carried away by your charm. Please be friends with me and don’t cut off all ties…Please”
I was taken aback! I scrolled down a few messages to see one more from Sam, my heart was pacing at a frantic pace. This one read, “Hi Oro…I don’t know how do I tell you this but I am really in love with you, I can’t live without you. Do you love me?”
I knew this was coming but I was hurt that Oromitha didn’t tell me anything of this. I went to the sent items and saw the last message was for Sam. I opened it and it read, “I am sorry Sam. I don’t love you. I just had a crush on you and that’s all about it. I love Dhruv very much and I can never even think of leaving him and going to you. Please don’t misunderstand me and I think we cannot be friends anymore. I am sorry!”
I kept the phone down, with a smile on my face and renewed love for my sweetheart; I waited anxiously for her to return.

Stupid men FALL in LOVE!!! Intelligent men RISE in FLIRTING!!!!

PS: All Characters, places and events in this story are completely fictitious. Any resemblance with any person living, dead or even unconscious is truly intentional…oops unintentional!!!

Tweet-Tweet, Tweet-Tweet rang my sms ringtone. It was around 9 o’ clock in the evening. I was already trying to soak in the aroma of the food that was getting ready to be served for dinner. I looked into my cell phone and saw the message. It was from Priya. I thought it would be some hi-hello message that we generally shared. But this was different. “Tanmoy, I think you are totally dateable and I should totally date you” is what it read. My thought shifted from the delicious food and my ever hungry stomach for a while as I typed in a reply, “Are you ok? What was that?” That’s what I said. Huh! What a stupid reply to a beautiful sexy girl wanting to date me. Its because I have been always like this. Fear of commitment and the lack of availability of any extreme beauty who would have reversed my fear of commitment, had never got me in a relationship…well a serious relationship that is. I was devouring my food when the next reply came. Well no prizes for guessing, I completed my food before I went to look into her reply. All these things can wait, food can’t. She just said she was sleepy high and didn’t say anything more. I guess my reply made her feel bad. Well you cannot make a beautiful girl feel bad, never. I got into my flirtatious self after having done with dinner and started texting her sweet and cute replies, the ones in which I have probably done a Phd. I asked her what suddenly made her realize this and all kinds of questions to which I was expecting answers that would praise me and give a boost to my already inflated male ego. It did. She said how she always liked me right from the first time she saw me! It pleased me…it would please any dolt if a pretty young girl said she liked him. I was feeling sleepy and had to wind up the conversation so I made her understand that it was probably an infatuation that would pass on with time and that for something really to happen there is a lot of time left and blah blah blah!!! She was intelligent and I guess, as big a flirt as I was. Good this would be fun I thought and fell asleep.

We started talking almost every day since then. We chatted, flirted, shared our experiences of the day and also made each other jealous by narrating incidents of how people asked us out but all of these in good humour. She liked me, it was pretty evident and I liked her too. So we were in a kind of flirtatious relationship. But I hate relationships. Any form of it. Phew! What a beautiful girl can do to your principles. We went out together to cafes, caught up with the latest movies and also went for drives just to spend some time together. Thank god she herself opted to share half the expense otherwise I would have been pretty broke by now. The only added expense I had to incur was of my car petrol which I didn’t mind as it was paid by dad. She was very sweet and lovable. I guess all girls who pay half the bills are. But it was fun to be with her. I think I started falling for her. Well that was dangerous but I guess feelings cannot be controlled. That’s what the philosophers say but I never believed in them as I had been successful all this while to control my feelings. But then they haven’t become great philosophers just like that. It had to be me who was wrong. I told her that I liked her more than a friend and even proposed to her in jest more than once however getting the timing wrong every time. That’s what happens when you are not serious about relationships. When she didn’t respond to my proposals as I would have liked her to and told her about the mercilessness of her rejection, she told me about the wrong timing and said she hadn’t turned me down. I don’t know how I had this uncanny ability to ask her out when she was low. I kind of got used to doing it and she probably saying no to me!!! But it didn’t bother me much, as I was sure I liked her and not loved her still.


Suddenly one day in the evening, it was the familiar tweet tweet of my sms tone that beamed in capital letters the name PRIYA. I opened it to see the following words, “You bloody moron, I love you.” Now what was that supposed to mean? With all my Phd in flirting sciences, I have never encountered such a unique problem. Was she abusing me or was that a word of affection? Maybe she liked morons. I didn’t know if I was supposed to be happy. Who would be happy to be called a moron? But again it was followed by the words I love you; the three magical words or maybe the cursed, I knew not. I texted her to enquire and got a reply that she was drunk. Gosh!!! Both the times she said she loved me, was when she was high. Once sleepy high, and the other time…spirit high. How alcohol and err…sleep have this effect on her. I guess I would then like her to be always high on alcohol or maybe sleep, whichever is convenient. Nevertheless she forgot about her love the next day itself when the alcohol wore off and I was left to wishful thinking of her getting drunk again soon. But that didn’t happen anytime soon.

In the mean time she flirted with other guys and me with other girls. Somebody has rightly stated, “Habits die hard” and in our case it saw no scope of dying at all. I went out with other beautiful girls (But this time had to pay all the bills myself) and she with other guys (Didn’t ask her if she paid) and came back home to discuss our adventures. It was kind of a commitment without a commitment. I have no clue what that is supposed to mean though. Everything was going pretty well between us when her father, a stout Marwari businessman found out about our relationship if there was any, and raised a huge hue and cry about it as I happen to be a Bengali. What am I supposed to do if I am a Bengali and she is a Marwari? Well I happen to be an ardent chicken eater and it would be almost impossible for me to give up non-veg food. But that was it. What is there to make such a noise about caste and creed and sect etc.?

We nevertheless continued with our commitment free relationship not bothering of whether to eat chicken or paneer until one fine day the realization dawned on me that I seriously felt for her. I don’t know what happened to me but I said that I love her and this time with all seriousness for a change. Well this is when the problem started. I did not even have the slightest idea about the mistake I had committed. She in her impeccable girly ways said that she was never serious about me and had never felt “that” way about me and that I had mistaken her flirtatious ways. She didn’t forget to add that she loved me as a friend and that wasn’t a lie. Wow! All of a sudden she had no feelings at all? Just because her father wants her to be with a grass eating maru businessman? Or maybe she had outgrown my necessity. I heard girls have these mood swings, but lady this is not right. How can these girls be such heartless creatures? Suddenly she stopped replying to my messages and taking my calls. The “You don’t even bother thinking of me the whole day” and “How much did you miss me?” kind of smses that used to fill my inbox if I did not text her one day had suddenly no meaning at all. I was left brooding, was I really in love or this was just another of those phases? I felt bad, very bad but did not know the reason for my being low…or maybe I did not want to know. I stopped talking to her too and tried to not even think of her but she was all over my mind. I dreamt of the good times we had and then the dream turned nightmarish when her words echoed that she did not ever like me more than a friend. I got angry for small reasons and shouted at people for trivial issues as this was getting on to my head. I felt like kicking myself hard for getting into this. For a week or two I remained indoors and cut myself out of the world. All the girls I had never been serious with and unknowingly hurt came to haunt me in my dreams. They seemed to say that all these served me right. I felt dejected, heart broken and extremely low. I narrated my ordeal to a cousin of mine who had already guessed something was amiss with me and took me to a club for a change in my moods.

I was very reluctant to go to the club but finally gave in to her request. I drowned 5 of the exorbitant tequila shots and felt an irresistible urge to dance. Although I have two left feet and am a very bad dancer by usual standards but the spirits awoke the Michael Jackson in me and I danced the night away. I forgot all my worries and pains and was oblivious to my surroundings when I spotted the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life. She was as if an angel who had descended from the heavens. Her beautiful face stood out in the crowd as she stood in a corner. I walked towards her and introduced myself to her trying to accumulate the senses that got half drowned in the tequila shots. The smile on her face lighted up my darkened soul and suddenly I did not feel those feelings of love for Priya anymore. It was now only Joanna, this girl who took over my thoughts. The innumerable irritating sms forwards that say, “Love is for the weak hearted and people who are strong believe in flirting,” came to my mind. And I was back to my flirtatious best!! All the sorrows of rejection were now gone in a jiffy. It was as if these moments of pain never existed. The same relief we experience after relieving ourselves when an urgent call of nature had not been answered for long. As I was coming back from the club with Joanna’s number saved in my phone, my mind drifted to a line from a Bollywood comedy flick, “Chandramukhi ho ya Paro ki farak penda yaaro!!!” I did not spend much thought about the relevance of this line in my context but returned home a happy man.

Editorial I wrote for Graffiti '10, the college magazine of Techno India!!!!

What makes a college? Is it the high-rise buildings, the suave classes and labs, sprawling playgrounds, the boring lectures or just a big name? Is college all about studies, a 9 point something CGPA on the mark sheet and the best campus placement up the sleeves? It is much more than these mere ‘materialistic’ stuff.
Struggling on the footboard of the buses to waiting on endless autorickshaw queues at peak office hours to reach college on time for the first few months as a fresher soon gave away to entering class at the end of a class of two periods and being grossly surprised when the teacher asked the reason for the late arrival. Complaining about the lack of good looking girls in your class and trying to steal a glance at the stunning beauty that passed by while the teacher went along with the mundane lectures is commonplace. From Bunking classes to catch the first day first show of the Ranbir Katrina starrer with your newly crowned sweetheart to leaving the lab report unfinished till the day prior to the viva and borrowing your friends report and copying to the tee, you have done it all.
You are reminded of the semester only when the dates are announced and realize that you do not know a word of the subjects. You start cramming notes and Xeroxes and browsing through your savior, the one and only Matrix the day before the exams and come out of the hall cursing WBUT for not having the question you prepared best. The seven point GPA and the scolding from parents for not studying anything remind that you are still in that point of life where you ought to take studies seriously. But who cares. You come to college everyday, exhaust yourself completely in the common room, playground or the food court and if after that a little energy remains, you give that to your class. College is not just about classes, it is all of these things combined that make your college life eventful. The small incidents that make a lasting impression. Memories that will remain with you even after you graduate from here. It is here you have a sense of belonging. You can stand here and proudly proclaim it as “MY College.”
This is what we incorporate in our college magazine, Graffiti. It is all about us, the Techno Indians. It is not just a college magazine that has been put together with an anthology of stories and poems or accounts of current affairs or scientific documents or for the matter simply entertainment stuffs. It is a manifestation of all the talent that lies buried in the obscurity for the lack of a platform, the soul of our college that bears witness to what we believe in. It is basically a reflection of the restless minds of a breed of socially aware young people who know not only how to face the adversities of the present social scenario but also to raise issues that need to be redressed. It is in fact a reflection of US...

Travelling by local train!!!

How many of you are daily passengers on local trains and travel by train, to and from your home to your place of work? All I can say is take a bow! Local trains in office time are a sight to reckon. A perfect battleground resembling World War 3. The only difference is in the absence of deadly weapons. Here the people are deadlier than any weapon with their office bags and bare fists to do all the fighting. I consider the people who travel by local trains in peak office hours to be special and if they happen to board or disembark from Bidhannagar, then they are angelic!!! Let me then narrate an experience of mine because traveling by train on peak office hours is an experience that needs telling. It is needed to enlighten the lesser mortals who travel by cars or Whiteliners or even buses.

I was to travel from Bidhannagar to Kalyani on a Friday evening at around 6.30 pm. I calculated the time to reach Kalyani to be around 1hr 15 mins and informed my driver to pick me up from the station at around 7.45pm. Little did I know what awaited me.
The first of my struggles began at the ticket counter. There were four counters catering to the public and each counter had huge serpentine lines that seemed not to make much movement. I stood at the end of one such endless queue which to my despair did not even budge. I switched to a different line after a long wait that seemed to move fast and the moment I stood in the fast moving queue, it slowed down, as if getting a whiff of my switch and being gravely angered by it. To add to my woes, the line that I stood in previously suddenly sprung alive and moved in leaps and bounds making a mockery of my switch. I had to be content with the present sluggish speed of my queue. After about 20 min of mindless jostling I got the chance to buy my ticket and immediately rushed to the platform to board a train to my destination.

By Jove!!! If I said a sea of people waited to board trains at the station, it would be a gross understatement, for I felt the whole of Kolkata was on the Bidhannagar station. It was a perfect manifestation of India’s most prized asset…its population. I waited among this sea of people for my train to arrive and at last it did. But here comes the main part…Before the train could even stop and I could even think of trying to get up, the sea of people that were there crashed onto the train like a tsunami and before I could even blink twice the train was jam packed. The ones, who missed it on the first go, were on the door trying to squeeze themselves into the train which however did not have the place to accommodate one more pair of legs. The crowds thinned down after the train left as most of them were daily passengers and were used to getting up like this. I had hopes on trying to get up on the next. But before the next train could arrive, another sea of people arrived from nowhere and no prizes for guessing, I missed the next train too, and the next, and the next to next. Before long I had missed about 4-5 trains. I then decided to board the subsequent train no matter what. I opened my specs and put it in the case and geared up for my bold endeavour. As soon as the train arrived, I pounced on it like a tiger that is hungry for a week, pounces on its prey. I managed to get my feet on the footboard after a lot of struggle. Well I could get only my feet in as half of my person left dangling outside and I clung to the rod like a drowning man clings onto the last straw. I heard myself saying “Jai Hanuman” innumerable times for I needed the strength of Hanuman to cling on and not hit any electric poles outside. As I now narrate my ordeal, you can assume that I didn’t. All thanks to the King of Monkeys!!!

At the next station which was Dum Dum, the moment the train stopped, I felt a push from outside. Just imagine! There were more people trying to get up on this train even though I was half outside. I think they couldn’t see that there was not the place for even a pin more. Or probably it was a game to them, push and jostle passengers of every train that stops out there and get up on it if you win. If you lose, try the next. Wow! What a way to relax after a hard day’s work! Spurred up by this I too started pushing the people in the train to get further inside so that I didn’t have to keep hanging. People stamped mercilessly at my feet which were graced by the new pair of Reebok shoes I had bought 2 days back and I had to stand there helplessly. More than the pain in my feet I worried about my shoes. I retaliated and stamped some people feeling happy that I avenged the mauling of my shoes. This stampede continued for about 45 min when the train lightened a bit and I went into the compartment, at last away from the door. Phew!

I reached Kalyani around 9 pm, victorious from the war at last, although badly battered and bruised. I was bathed in sweat, mine or someone else, God knows. With that stench on my person I had to wake my driver up from his deep slumber as I was late by an hour and half and he got tired of checking for me after each passing train. At last I reached home and lived to tell the tale to all and sundry. I end my tale with a word of caution for the weak hearted…Beware of local trains at office hours!!! And most importantly…DO NOT TRY THIS AT BIDHANNAGAR STATION!!!

The Necropolis Called Love

I was walking alone, in the necropolis called life,
The innumerable sorrows gave me not a single scope to jive...
Molested by destiny and left to wither in the cold,
Life seemed like a crushed paper, with ink smudged on every fold…
There She stood with a light, illuminating the darkness,
As if to show me the way, out of the wilderness...
She held my hand and walked along showing me the way,
I was too tired to question, and gave in completely to her say...
The soothing touch of her tender arms was balm to my long inflicted wounds,
The look of her expressive eyes made me forget all my blues...
Her presence rejuvenated my vanquished soul,
The touch of her lips watered my heart’s deepest core...
Life suddenly had a reason for me to live again,
With her in my arms, I could take on all pains...
She promised to be by my side when time plays tyrant,
I had hopes of a new life and good times were just in front...
But what was this? A sudden flash of light, and a voice calling on,
Away she faded, together with all my hopes, right into oblivion...
I cried for her, pleading her to stay back,
But there she went, never even bothering to look back...
Why had she come at all into my distressed life, to rekindle hopes of everlasting euphoria?
To show me a dream that never was, an impossible phantasmagoria...
Stranded again at the place am I, where I had been searching for a beginning,
But left am I in the abyss of darkness and wilderness, still waiting....