God Among Us

“Have it beta it’s his birthday”, my mom told to me and when I uttered, ‘ya he is 71 now’. She angrily said that they don’t age. I and my mom were talking about the god among us, the god of Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan while having Laddo on occasion of his birthday. 

In our country, there are gods who are found inside stone structures and worshiped and then there are those who are found on screens and cricket field and are cherished. 

India is a country that has for a long time cherished few people that they have even been called as demi- gods. These demi-gods are born out of their profession unlike the mythical gods. These demi-gods came in existence with coming of modern moving picture techniques. The first and foremost know demi-god among us is surely the person who was known as Kaka - Rajesh Khanna, defined what we call stardom. Girls would marry him with his picture and kept the dust into their lockets where he landed his feet. That what’s we do when we come to know the certain god landed his or her feet here. As for the south, the names like M.G. Ramachandra and NTR were so popular that they were given almost equal to god status. The people in the south worshiped them along with cherishing their talent in arts. 

People for centuries have adapted someone as their idols to lead an inspired life. In doing so the name changes with ages and in modern age, we have two greatest from movie world and the god himself from the cricketing world. As for the hindi cinema lover no one is mightier than Mr. Bachchan. Everything he does becomes a culture, be it movies or Kaun banega Croreparti. Thousands of people across country prayed for him when he got hurt while shooting for a movie. People don’t just follow what he does, they live it.

As for the South cinema lovers, even if Rajnikanth sneezes that’s an act of god. People just don’t follow it or live it. They worship him and whatever he does. They can’t tolerate anything against him, not even in the virtual reality. People even keep the ticket of Rajnikanth’s cinema till the time it stays in theatres. The status is so much high that he is also worshiped in stone structures at a place or two. 

Now the god himself, the cricketing god. Anything said to define his greatness falls short in words. Like lord Krishna he started his leela right from the childhood and the weapon became the cricketing bat. Other people in the profession started having nightmare about him. A very prominent player of cricket even said that “I have seen god and he bats at no 4 for India”. 

There are others who have the talent and belong to the same profession such as cinema or cricket and they are loved too but these three have only achieved the status where they are worshiped by people all around the world. The arguments may also be placed that they do what many do and take money for it too. In fact, these are among the highest paid person in their profession respectively. So what makes them stand apart from others? 

The biggest common factor about them is their ethical way of being a leader in their profession. Other than talent, the calmness and dedication has let these people attain the status to be worshiped. If we look at history, Rajesh Khanna was replaced by new ones because he lived like king and hence got conquered. I am not saying that he did not had the calmness in him but according to historians, he lost ethical quotient. These three are king in themselves but they are people’s champion as well. They do what many people do but their personal behavior has led them to become the Gods among us. Having talent for something doesn't make one great among the best, what makes you great is being humble about it. In India you get worshiped. As far as the mass worship is concerned these profession gets maximum exposure.

It doesn’t matter if they grow old or retire. The stature remains the same. People love them, follow them, cherish them and above all worship them for what they do or have done.

- Ajit Kumar Lal

Crush On A Librarian

Every school has a teacher, jis par pure school ka crush hota hai. I remember my school days when I had big time crush on my librarian. I never liked going inside my school’s library. I mean… It was like going inside the palace where all my enemies are planning to destroy my brain. You could say that I was actually ‘library-phobic’.

Once I was taken forcefully in that room by my class-teacher by saying that ‘if I’ll not attend library class then she will complain about this to my mom’. Grhhh… Why!! I mean...Why always this brandishing!?!

I was feeling so much anger that I even placed a bomb underneath my class teacher’s desk on my dream.

I was getting agonized sitting in that ‘pin-drop’ silent room and it was totally a fun watching my class mates getting inside the world of encyclopedia jis se acha hai aaj kal ka social networking media. By the way, I took out a Bollywood magazine from a rack and was checking out Bipasha Basu’s rack, just like a lion could also find his prey inside the cage. Though I was enjoying watching her but I was also desperate to get out from that freaky room.

Suddenly, one of my class mates who went out for loo (lucky fellow!) ran inside while gasping.

“What happened? Why you running like a jerk?” I asked him as I was also desperate about any gossip.

“Man! You should look at her”, he said with a tharky smile while pointing towards a girl who was entering the library from the other side of it.

I keep following her to the room with my eyes. And when she finally entered our main library room, I get astonished which is obviously a good feeling.

Man! I had never seen such a beautiful teacher before. She was looking exactly like Katrina Kaif wearing saree in the movie ‘Singh Is King’, and with books in hand. And it became soney pe suhaga when the wind blowing inside the room gave a ‘heavenicious’ feeling. She introduced herself and said something which I didn't heard as at that moment, violin was playing inside my mind.

I was staring at her with full loony mood. Even I sang a romantic song with her in my mind also…’Pehla nasha…pehla khumarr….’. But we know that there always a villain or an interval to pause the romantic scene of SRK’s movie. So here, the villain was the bell.

That whole day, I kept on singing all the latest romantic song while memorizing her cute attitude. For the first time, I was getting ready in the morning for school by my will. My mom was also surprised to see the change in me as according to her, ‘If 100 laziest died them I was born’ and going school was out of my ‘sincere’ laziness.

Every day I used to wait for only one thing: Library class. Her one sight was enough for me to write the screenplay of my dreamland. And by increasing my loony mood, I volunteered as a librarian assistant. And finally…wuff…She talked to me. It was just the intro but was even enough for me to write the happy climax.

Sometimes even I thought that she likes me very much and I should talk to mom that: Maa, maine tere liye ek teacher bahu dhundhi hai.

Aur in this movie, the villain came out to be her dad. One day, she came to me in the school and gave me a card wrapped inside an envelope. I thought that now I’ll make a history by wooing a teacher. When I opened that envelope, what I saw was her wedding card. Yeah! She was getting married. I mean…how she could!? Uski umar hi kyat hai!?Mujhe kuch hi saal badi to hogi? What was the hurry? Well, I walked off the library by submitting the library card showing that I’ll never enter this freaky room who only wants to traumatize me.

Hell to the library! I was moving to my class room with my torn ‘heart’ and wedding card. 

And suddenly…

I saw another beautiful girl walking on the corridor, wearing saree just like Sushmita Sen in main hoon na. And again the song started playing on my mind again: Chand Mera Dil …. Then again CRUSHHH….

- Kanishta Anshul Sinha

Off To College

Engineering College- The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet!!!

Starting days…..I remember it was full of fear, drama, and suspense. The fear of ragging, fear of new environment, fear of new people and of course fear of higher studies.

And now just hold your seat belt because here I am taking you all to the flash back!! 

First day in hostel, pin drop silence, the jitteriness!!

The common thing between the batch mates - all sailing on the same boat, carrying no idea where in the world are the seniors going to drag us, all standing in a queue, with a serious (or, better to say a “blunt”) expression, nervousness and restlessly waiting for our turn to jump on Fire.

Then comes the first call, the intro part (the bitter gulp in almost every College!!!) in which, one has to introduce oneself in variety of amusing ways, though I must include this part , the intro in SHUDH HINDI (NO HINGLISH, which is our day-to-day Language) though sounds comical at once, but that’s the first place where we felt how far we have stimulated from our own HINDI and adapted some other funky language , that too unknowingly(for most of us, at least I admit it)!!!

Simple words like, “Vidyalaya”, “sansathan” etc. were out from the memory Bank, and we were literally fighting to recall these!!

Next, not to forget, again a very disheartening part when you need to modify your hobbies selections, making sure you are not caught in your own web!! I would like to share my own situation here. Well, my hobby is dancing, I just love dancing, but when I came to know their strategies of making you dance on any random beat, from mujra to salsa, to cha cha cha…and that too was conditional that you cannot miss any beat, else “REDO”… I stepped back, asked myself, ‘have I ever danced and will I be able to dance on multi dance beats?’ 

So, I tried being on a safer side by saying singing as my hobby. BUT! You cannot escape from a cage; full of hungry lions. I was caught!! I sang my favorite….till which it was still ok, but when I was asked to Sing “aankhon me sapne liye” in Himesh Reshamiya’s voice, I couldn’t help my laughter (mind you, you cannot laugh when you are being ragged, else you‘ll have to Swipe and “flush it”).

Well sorry Shan, I really messed up your song in his voice, though I was pretty much appreciated for my effort!!

‘The Juggler Monkey Session’ - Another Drama, in which we made a group of two. Funniest of all, I Played the role of a juggler by saying ‘jamure ab dance dikhayega’ and my co-partner became a monkey, jumped out from somewhere, scratching her whole body, chattering too… and that was not the end , it was a ‘Merry Go Round’ session because in the second round, nonetheless, I was the ‘Jungly Jamura’.

Then the round of proposals, I mean what could be more embarrassing than this; being a girl you have to propose a Girl, a ghastly experience.

And the last session was – ‘Q/A’ round in which they asked the question which once heard would absolutely sound pathetic , but rule was- ‘Think Positively’ and don’t go to the wrong side- like, you all must be aware of the question ‘selenium halide’ (but not the answer).

The second level of Ragging – In College

The most dangerous one: targeting at a single point from three ways; Seniors of all three years targeting at any random ‘Ant’ (the freshers). I remember they were supposed to come during recess and to escape. We even asked our teachers to take extra classes!! The 1 hour recess was used to be the most horrible part, as that was the toughest time in the whole day.

And my IT branch, famous for “Pseudo Marriages”, yes it’s a generation trend being followed that at least, one marriage has to be held among the freshers and seniors giving their blessings!

The scene goes as –

One had to sit in the middle. As a sign of fire, and one selected couple have to roam around the fire with belts in their hand which was the artificial ‘varmala’ as per them. This obviously added some more spice to our ragging part.

And how could you feel that it’s an end, the most frightened part is remaining- The Dispersal Time.

Going to hostel was again a pain. We could be caught anytime, anywhere on road and thus, we started moving in groups as a bunch of ‘worried Ants’ that could be easily spotted.

That was the time when we used to think, ’what do seniors think about themselves, don’t they know that one day we will also become seniors, and then the super seniors. Whatever, we will never do this to our juniors and with this thought in mind we all waited for fresher’s party, as after that no senior would be ragging us.

Whatever happened, whatever pain we faced, somehow, what I (people must agree to this) realized that going through those sessions (Healthy), helped us in coming out of our own net. We discovered ourselves sometimes, when we were asked to mimic someone or show the best talent we have (in front of all), to show respect, to realize that there are certain levels and we need to obey those, the acquaintance that developed with the seniors and the recognitions that we got for ourselves as INDIVIDUALS etc.

All came to an end, 1st year also got to an end, Fear was now taken as Fun, and yes, the old concept of what the seniors think about themselves, got applicable on us,

AS WE FOLLOWED THE TREND!!!!

- Anjali Priya