What falling in love means to Alok

I can write a book about Alok. He is such an interesting guy who always throws up new dimensions in life. This post is about how Alok became a better person by just trying to fall in love. The fact that he is still trying to fall in love is what is making him a better person than any one of us.

Alok will go to any extent to woo a girl. When I say any extent, it includes waking up early in the morning to go for a jog, or keeping awake till 12 in the midnight to make those secret calls, traveling 50 kilometers just to catch the scent of a woman. You name it he does it. No, he was not a bad guy at all, he just used to get goose bumps at the mere mention of the word girls. Something used to excite him, keep him on his toes and he usually became a superman when it came to impressing girls.

How can we forget “GP”? It was because of her Alok learnt shorthand. GP was taking her typewriting and short hand classes at an institute in our neighborhood. Alok had set his eyes on her and decided to woo her at the institute. He stayed 15 kilometers away from this institute. Not that he did not have any institutes teaching shorthand near his house, but it was just that GP was not in one of those institutes. After three months of Hardly learning anything alok gave his shorthand exams and also gave a short love letter to GP. His love proposal failed but Alok cleared his shorthand exams.

Alok never quits. That’s what I like about him. He had already by then enquired on Karate classes as Prethi was going there. He got a brown belt. He joined Yoga classes for Yamini, swimming classes for Priya, horse riding for Payal, Aerobics for Sheetal. None of his affairs clicked but at the end he had learned so many things from, shorthand to aerobics. He is one of the most eligible bachelors available on the face of earth now. May be all of us have a lesson to learn from Alok. It does not matter how many times you fail, but it is what you learn from them.

But straight opposite to Alok was our Munna. He never ventured out of his house trying to learn anything. He learnt so many things inside his house itself. He learned to keep his house clean, fold clothes, dust the fan, mop the floor, use the vacuum cleaner, clear the garbage tins, cook and what not? Today he is a happily married guy.

So the bottom-line: What women want? Alok kind of guys or Munna kind of guys? Hope some girl posts her comment on this.

Finally before I leave I have to tell you something. I heard Alok has joined French classes (He never quits).

Back word (opposite of foreword)
This post would not have been possible but for the constant feed back received from my friends of their never ending learning process.

My First Love Letter

Whenever I think about writing something creative my memory immediately takes a stroll back to my college days. For those were the days I used a lot of my creative abilities to write love letters. I have written close to about 20 love letters to girls and my letters never failed to impress the girls. Hold it!!! Yes I have written 20 love letters, but none of those letters were from me to some girl. It was usually one of the cupid struck friend whom I had to oblige in all those 20 times and they would always end up signing the letters I wrote thereby giving it that personal touch of theirs (big effort for a man in love). For three years in a row I was a very busy guy in the month of February. Before I reproduce one of my favorite letters I wrote for my friends, I have this very romantic experience to narrate.

It was February 14^th 1994. One of my very close friends Alok was head over heels on this girl. I was summoned to write my first love letter. The mission not only included writing a letter, but of choosing an appropriate card, selecting a bunch of tempting red roses, the location where the event would take place and the dress our hero should wear. Sort of a big responsibility. The d-day arrived and after much of rehearsals the previous day we got ready for the grand finale. I was more nervous than Alok for my reputation lay at stake. Anything goes wrong Alok would surely kill me. All our college buses would start from this big parking terminus and most of the buses would be empty when they start out from the terminus picking up students further down the way. Fortunately our heroine was one of the few students who would board the bus at the terminus. So the bus terminus was chosen as the perfect stage for executing this romantic drama. I had advised my friend to take advantage of the emptiness of the bus. Here we are finally waiting at 8.00 clock in the morning at the terminus for the girl to come. With lot of deodorant and perfumes splashed all over, sacred ash spread on the forehead, neatly combed hair, prayers on lips and a new green (Symbolizing availability) color shirt and pink color pant Alok was looking like a hero straight out of a telugu movie. His gleaming eyes wore that “we may not be smart, we may not be rich but we are always available” sort of a look. At about some 300 feet away I could see a small figure walking with a bounce of a frog (love is blind) and our Alok stood up with a jerk. Immediately Alok had become nervous and caught hold of my hand and said “ Dey machi you are also coming with me when I give this letter, in case she does not accept at least she will not slap me if you are around”. Somehow the thought of getting slapped or slipered itself sent shock waves down my spine. But I could not refuse to his request. The girl slowly walked past us and went a few yards further before boarding one of the empty buses. The only way in or out of the bus was the door at front. Somehow I felt this girl was not in her elements today and wanted to back off from the whole operation. Alok was determined it was now or never. He turned to me and said “both of us will go inside together, you will go first I will follow you, all you have to do is go directly and sit behind the girl in one of the rows. I will then follow and hand over the roses to her along with the card, assuming something goes wrong I will jump immediately and run and you wait inside and let me know how she reacts”, His logic appealed to me. More than helping a friend it was the thought of looking at how girls would react when approached that made me accept the logic and how many time would one get the privilege of watching a live romantic action. For the kind of “Bakra” I was, I readily nodded. What are friends after all made for. As planned I entered into the bus first passing a cursory glance at our heroine I walked past her and sat in a row exactly behind her. Time started clicking and a thin line of fear and anxiety went across my stomach. Our hero took longer time than expected before entering the bus (may be he rehearsed for one last time). He came closer to the girl; and my heart skipped a few beats. He some how managed to say “Hi priya”. And from behind his back he pulled the bunch of roses and a card and dropped it on her lap. CAPTURE THIS MOMENT FOR THE ACTION STARTS NOW. Looks like priya guessed she got proposed. All of a sudden she started screaming at the top of her voice “No Alok , Alok No, No Alok……even before she said No Alok for the second time, Alok ran towards the door , jumped out and slammed the door behind him. But Priya did not stop shouting “No Alok , Alok No, No Alok…… , I was stranded inside a locked bus with a girl screaming “No Alok , Alok No, No Alok……, I somehow wanted to get out of that messy scene and did not have the courage to cross her and go for the door, my instinct asked me to jump out of the window. And I did. I just landed down with a thud from a jump of close to 6 ft from the window. I somehow regained my balance and as I stood up, I was face to face with my head of department and another professor of my college. I don’t know what went on in Priya's mind, from screaming “No Alok , Alok No, No Alok……she some how got tired and was just screaming No, No, No … . Here I was standing before my professor, jumping out of a window from a locked bus and a girl screaming No.No,No…from inside the bus. I somehow felt like a thief caught red handed. Within a few seconds I realized I had to run and I did. We decided not to attend classes for the next one week. Somehow in spite of all this Alok was able to convince priya over the phone and she accepted his love, she also seemed to have clarified to the HOD that it was not what they had imagined. It is almost more than a decade now but I will never forget “my first love letter”. For all those who are wondering what happened after that, the love just lasted six months. As of now I have to tell you Priya got married to a “big fat chicken “ with a US dollar account and Alok some how got out of the whole mess by asking me to write "my second love letter". Now for the sake of all cupid hit Romeos I reproduce my first love letter.

Dear Priya

ONLY I said that I love you,

I ONLY said that I love you

I said ONLY that I love you

I said that ONLY I love you

I said that I ONLY Love you

I said that I Love ONLY you

I said that I love you ONLY

Only Yours

and

Yours Only

SS

Alok

And finally Anand I hope you wont get angry with me for changing your name to ALOK. I just wanted to protect your identity man.

MS word Fonts and Ms. & Mrs.

I somehow picked up this habit of comparing women with fonts available in MS word. Every women looks like a font to me. The moment I see a girl I feel she is an ARIAL 10 or COURIER NEW 12. Frankly I like the fonts more than the girls. I may never remark, “I like this girl” but almost always end up remarking, “I like that font”. So here we go as I take you through some of the fonts I have liked till date.
There was this dark plump girl with a round face; she was an ARIAL BLACK 10 to me. Then there was this thin cute girl who found it difficult to put on any weight in spite of having a high fat diet, I named her ARIAL NARROW 8. Next was this TV show host who always shrunk her nose when she smiled giving her a comic, funny and yet a cute look and she reminded me of COMIC SANS 10. Next was this lady boss of mine who always stuck to business, looked stern, gave no space for personal chats always carried a few books in her hand, we called her BOOK ANTIQUA 10 (she always carried books/files and was an aunty by age). I met this stranger girl in a party who had one of those very attractive eyes, which could sweep any guy of his feet, and she could immediately turn a few faces within seconds of her appearance with that charming smile, she was christened IMPACT 10. There was this lady neighbor of mine who always spoke about her bad times every day , she was TIMES NEW ROMAN 8(only font with the word time). I had this friend of mine who felt she never had any romantic encounters in her college days because she felt she was more of a Lucida console 13, But trust me now she’s a MONOTYPE CORSIVA 10, one of the most stylish fonts ever. We had this traditional girl in our colony with neatly oiled hair and she always wore a half saree to any place she went, BOOK MAN OLD STYLE 10. Though I have not come across any confused girl till date I will name her WEBDINGS 10 (WEBDINGS 10) . So what font are you…..?

The no hair day

It was some 13 years back when I entered college with lot of dreams and hopes of a fun filled life ahead. So much of color around, lot of fun, trendy clothes making fashion statements, remodeled bikes and cars all around – those were the days, which everyone would long never ends. Within weeks I made a lot of friends, and found two more of them to be my best pals for life. Life was looking bright until one day it happened. I started realizing I was having a minor hair loss problem. Every time I used to comb my hair before some girl crosses me I would find a few strands of hair on the comb. But few strands of hair falling do not stop you from combing the hair right. Then I had to confess to my two best pals Munna and Bunty that I have started losing hair. To my surprise both of them responded by saying “Ya we too are having the same problem”. I felt overjoyed to know I had two of my best friends for company. We immediately called a square table conference in the canteen to find out ways to arrest this problem; we discussed lot of hair-raising techniques and finally concluded that Ayurvedic products are the best. We then chose this special hair oil, which would arrest hair loss in less than two weeks. All you had to do was apply it overnight with a good massage and wash it of with a shampoo the next day morning. So started the experiment on the first day. The more I rubbed the oil in my head the higher was the number of hair in my hand. The number of strands that fell off was far more than what it would have been on a normal day. I decided to shelve the oil technique. Munna too felt the same about oil technique. Then we started searching for alternative therapies. Munna gave one bright idea “ lets shave of our head completely, that way there is going to be no hair to fall”. No way!!! I was not going to let my “CROWNING GLORY “ go down in some barbershop. It was my hairstyle that won me so much of admirers in college. So I opted out of that idea. That’s when we got close to this affluent gujju guy in our class. He was only too happy to know he had three other guys with the same problem. He said we could try hair transplants. He could afford it, his father was a businessman and he was ready to spend his fortune to see the hair back on his head. I just enquired about the cost of a hair transplant --- the figure he said sounded like my fathers annual income. Ok I had to shelve the idea. Then came the most valuable suggestion from one of our feminine classmate. She said we should be applying egg whites on your head for half an hour and wash it later. “Three times a week and see how your hair grows” was her optimistic words. Hot summer Sunday afternoon we went out not minding the sun and bought eggs, and we decided group therapy should be better this time. Munna was the first guy on whose head we applied a thin layer of egg white. I think his head was a bit hot because of the venture in the hot sun that the egg white almost started to appear like a half boiled omelet. I suggested we should have got some bread also and breakfast would have been over. We had to shelve the egg technique. Then we all decided one of us should meet a skin specialist to find out the reason for hair loss. The best way to solve a problem was to go to the root cause of the problem. It was Bunty who was nominated to make the visit to the doctor. The doctor’s diagnosis was discussed in our square table conference next day. “ The reasons for hair loss could be Stress, pressure, hereditary, lack of healthy nutrition and water. I agreed we were under stress “ the stress of losing hair was the main stress we had”. Then we decided not think or worry much about losing hair and just made one fast decision that all of us should get married before we lose all the hair. So the hunt for the girl began. The gujju guy was lucky as usual, by the time he was in his second year his family had roped a girl from his native village and soon he was married. After a few weeks we decided to visit this gujju guy as he had taken a long honeymoon break and did not return to college. All three of us wanted to see how his hormone treatments + Ayurvedic shampoos + hair loss therapy was working. Here we are waiting to knock the door of his house, we heard his wife screaming at him. She said “You spend more time in front of the mirror than me and the amount you spend on all these hair tonics should be enough for an entire family of ten to eat for a year”. We decided it was time to knock the door and save our friend. The door opened “ I quipped in my own satirical way when she opened the door, “ Are we disturbing you now ?”. No No she responded “I am just scolding my husband I can do that later so please come in”. Family support was lacking in our efforts to raise hair. Months rolled to year, and year to years, here we are still waiting for the day when one of us would go bald completely. From a state of fear of losing hair we had got tuned the spirit of “who-will-lose-all–hair- first” attitude. But efforts to save whatever is left still continues with new tools and techniques like carrot juice, rabbit blood and vitamin b capsules. Baldness has found a way into our life in the form of humour. One of our balding friends who resembled south Indian music director Harris Jayaraj has been renamed Hair- no Jayaraj.

Before I end I need to thank all the shampoo companies, doctors, friends and well-wishers because of whom from having more hair to comb and less face to wash years back I have less hair to comb and more face to wash today.

Born Today

I started my journey into this world exactly this day 30 years ago. So I thought this to be a pristine moment to post my first blog. Nice to have something to grow old with. This itch to write has got more to do with people all around me posting their thoughts on the net and a fellow colleagues constant motivation to put my pen on the web. Today I will realise one of my mothers dream too, she always wanted to see me go on print. So mom, today after 30 years I fulfill one of your wishes by going on print. My photo will be on line for the world to see. Times are fast changing, from putting email addresses and websites on visiting cards, that day is not far when people will have their blog addresses featuring on their visiting cards. So I start this “literary journey” or “picturesque speech” with just one assured hit from that of my colleague. It’s a nice feeling when for the first time my name will feature on the Dublu Dublu Dublu (WWW) and Google will find me.