Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas

 Pals from various places. An attempt at a comprehensive classification of my pals, geographically.

Australia- Pooja Daniel, Sanjeev Undri

Dubai- Smita Mohan

China- Yapin

Sri Lanka- Samudrika

USA- Nidhi Kanungo, Annie, Samren, Leslie, Ron and family, Dr. Soni, and Athena, Kamalesh Nayudu, Avadhanulu, Seshu, Nandakumar (Junior), Jockey, Zoom, 

New Zealand- Chasha and Ruab, Gurvinder Singh

Canada- Vaseem, Tanya Shrivastava, Radhax, 

Finland- Anusha, Bhawana Moondra

UK- Senior (Nandakumar), Shuchi Bhatnagar

Hyderabad- Jogi, Venu, Nagarjuna, Nagu, Ramesh, Basudev and lots more, Pratima of Satara fame. HPS classmates galore, including Dattu, Krishna, Praveen (part-time resident).. Aditi Gupta ( lived in South Carolina too)

Lithuania- Natalija

Delhi- Shruti, Aditya, Nikita, Shweta, Sunil Kataria, Harish Chaudhry, Himanshu, Harish Arora, Pradeep Acharya, Kanika Mhendiratta, Padmapriya

Jaipur- Achint, Garima Shah

Bhubaneswar- Ramana, Banikanta Mishra, 

Lucknow- Bhuvneet, Anam, BK Mohanty

Mumbai- Bhagyalakshmi, Sheetal Garg, Abha, Meghana Joshi, Meghna Sinha, Pallavi Sharma

(Originally from) M.P. -Tosha Dubey, Anusha Soni, Pooja Shukla, Manuja Seth, lots in IIM Indore

Bangalore- Bharath, Nagendra, Shailaja Gupta, Anushka Mishra, Savitha, lots of IIMB classmates- Prabhakar, Himanshu, Ramesh, Lingu, Sid-Shubha,.. SP Kumar, Manasa, Sowmyashree, Rajiv Krishnan, Ram Seshu, Muthu

Chennai- Vijayakumar, Lady Daga (Bhawana)

 

What If?

Some thought-provoking What ifs..

What if...

Mahatma Gandhi came back and saw what he had fought for?

There were no IITs and IIMs?

The Arms Race had not progressed beyond Bows and Arrows?

The Kapoors had not entered Bollywood?

Kamal Haasan did not have a moustache?

We did not have a regular supply of jokers in real life?

Manoj Kumar could act?

the ghost of Kishore Kumar entered the likes of Arijit Singh?

Women were powering politics across the world?

Hamlet was Canadian (Trudu or not Trudu?)

McDonald's and Coke had not been invented?

Punjab Da Puttar

Continuing my serial encounters with regional heavyweights.

I met a hatta-katta Punjabi the other day. I asked him where he was going.

“Kanaada,” was the reply.

“Why do you guys like Canada so much?” was my innocent question.

“Bekaas Trronto is a great place, yaar” he said.

“But why?” I persisted.

“It’s a ‘player’ to stay there. Good climate, nice people, clean surroundings. Not like Delhi.”

“But if everyone goes to Canada, won’t it become like Delhi?” I was inquisitive, and persistent.

“Oye, main parathe wali dukaan thode hi kholoonga udhar (do you think I’ll open a paratha shop there?)”

“Nahin, nahin, paaji, my matlab was not like that,” I apologized. “I just wanted to know ki why you all don’t want to live in our country.”

“Simpal, yaar. We are still thinking like the British. Commonwealth country with only a few wealthy people. We have mobiles, but nothing to eat. Aston Martin is used to reduce the population, only. Election=inflation is a mathematical reality. We are losing our ‘chracter’ and the aam aadmi (common man) can’t afford an aam (mango).”

I said, “Paaji, you are right. But we have some national treasures like the three Khans, The Big Boss among them, and Kapil Sharma. How can you compare Canada with us?”

He said, “Trronto chal tujhe dikhaata hoon”  (Come to Toronto, I’ll show you). On that note, we parted amicably.