Just a Thank You Post

I was always a typical backbencher right from my childhood days. Throughout my entire life I always shied away from extracurricular activities. Well, particularly those competitions for which we required to perform on stage, were really nightmare for me. Oh! I seriously suffered from stage phobia. But the school authority was strict enough and on few occasions, guys like us couldn’t have avoided and had to participate in some of the competitions. I remember those tensed expression of my friends, whenever the results were being declared. Sometimes, even few of my backbencher friends also became little anxious and someone usually used to ask "Why you are taking tension? Anyway you are not going to win any prize" Even though they might have felt little bad, but usually they used to smile and the tension immediately used to disappear from their faces.  But I just can’t deny one thing. Well, I always loved those consolation prizes. Those were some kind of sensitive moments for me whenever the consolations prizes were being declared, usually at the end. 

My stage phobia and the repulsive reflexes for any kind of competitions continued beyond my school days. When I joined Engineering College I was so happy to meet all different kind of backbenchers. Life was so cool that time and unlike school days, college authorities never forced us to take part in competitions. Those days, I was only fascinated by Old Monk and many other friends used to share their friendship with 8 PM, as well. During school days I was so active. Our school was at a distance of about 10 KM from our house and I used to go by riding my bicycle. After returning from school, I used to play cricket/football in the nearby playground. Later in evening, I used to go for tuition and after dinner even used to study for a couple of hours. After joining Engineering College my life started to revolve in a circular loop “Sleep -> Old Monk -> Gossip” But no regrets, it was damn fun and definitely those were the best days of my life.

I’ve been blogging since more than a year and life is quite different after I entered into the blogging world. I like to thank everyone for reading my posts. I get immense pleasure whenever I see any comment on my blog. Well, those comments always inspired me to write new posts. It feels good and sometimes I even take a little pride, as I feel myself as a writer (sigh). I also had the opportunity to make so many new friends. I still remember my first Leibster award way back in January this year. Later, I received few more Leibsters and some Versatile awards as well. Whenever I received any such award, I always tried to bookmark the link and like a lazy man, I used to think that someday I would write about it. Seriously, I never got so many awards in my entire school life and what to say about my college days?

Well, it’s too late, but as people say "better late than never" This post is especially dedicated to all those awesome bloggers who like my blog so much and awarded me with Leibsters and Versatiles. Just want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart and I just hope I haven't missed any of the names!

Deepak Kripal, The Original Poetry

Meera, A Rat's Nibble

Soborowsky, Author's Thought – SLS Oborowsky

Preethi, A BIT OF THIS AND THAT

Sreesha, Petrichor and Clouds

Farzad Minoo Damania, Career Nurturer

guspazha, guspazhachinar (It seems the blog doesn't exist now)

A Novel Idea, A Novel Idea

Kranti Maheshwari, An Enlightening Thought

Diana Pinto, Diana's Musings

Garima Nag, Sweet Sharing

Shanknaad, Shankhnaad

Eli, Expatliv - In Exotic India

Preethi, Tulips and Me

Stallion, The Daily Life

Shwetabh Mathur, Memories

Karan Sampat, The K-Factor

Shilpa Jadhav, Being Mommee

Imli, The Tamarind

Well, it’s a pod like fruit and is used very extensively in cuisines across the world. Oh! I love those tamarind chutnies and pickle so much. Out here in India, people usually know it by the name Imli. Tamarinds are generally very sour and when people put it inside their mouth, their face grimace from the sour taste. When ripe, it tastes unusually sweet as well. The sweet and sour taste of Imli can mesmerize anyone, especially people who are addicted to sour things. It looks so damn tempting whenever someone uncovers it by removing the protected shell, especially when it’s totally ripe. Some people find it so attractive that they feel like eating plenty of them, but as soon as they put the first piece inside their mouth, it horribly stimulates almost all the organs. One piece of Imli is capable enough to make our teeth extremely sensitive towards every possible eatables for the next couple of days, especially those hard stuffs which we have to crunch. But whenever people look at any ripe Imli, particularly in it's half nude state inside the pod, they get very much tempted. 

Now, Imli got a very special significance in Bollywood since a long time. As a child, I was very much influenced by the true Imli knowledge. Last weekend after lunch, I simply browsed through the TV channels. I stopped at an 80’s Bollywood movie and enjoyed a relaxing moment for a while. After sometime, one typical scene appeared. Well, the daughter in law showed some extra interest in having Imli and in no time I understood that's actually a happy moment for the family. During my childhood days, I was such an expert in those kind of Bollywood facts, that I couldn’t stop my mouth and always used to showcase my talents. While sharing my knowledge, I never bothered about the kind of guests and quite often my parents had to feel the embarrassment. I still remember that on few occasions, my Mom didn't even allow me to watch TV along with some of the guests. Well, the Imli theory doesn't always bring happiness and particularly when the concerned lady is an unmarried one. In that case, her obsession towards Imli could be very vulgar and parents wouldn’t hesitate to change the channel in front of the kids.

I remember one incident when I was in my 6th standard. We went for a family picnic at the banks of the mighty Brahmaputra, along with several other families. Most of the kids were very much interested about the big tamarind tree nearby. We could see a plenty of attractive looking pod-like fruits hanging all over the tree. Few of the girls simply went crazy and they even tried many desperate attempts by throwing stones at the goodies. I and few of my friends were older enough and already started to feel the North Pole - South Pole attraction. We thought that was a great opportunity to show our talent and immediately climbed up the tree. Oh! as a child I just loved to climb trees, but also as I climbed higher and higher, my heartbeats used to accelerate as well. That was a big damn tamarind tree and we plucked hell lot of pods. Later, people enjoyed those fresh tamarinds with salt and green chilies. It was so tempting and also the smell was simply magical, but I was so much influenced with the great Bollywood Imli story that I didn’t dare to taste it. 

Time passed by and several years later when my wife Anjali gave me that good news, I was so much happy. But I was also little confused, as I never noticed her eating Imli. One day, as I was about to go to the market, I asked her "Should I bring some Imli for you?"

She replied "What will I do with Imli?"

I said "I think you would feel better if you have Imli"

"Are you mad? Go and come back soon"

Well, Anjali had craving for so many things those days, like Ice cream, fish, etc. But I really missed those Imli. I remember one day when she was kind of determined to have Ilish fish(Hilsa). We went to a fish market but couldn’t find any Ilish there and then we visited a different market. That was a tough day and even after few hours of extensive search, we couldn’t find even a single piece of Ilish fish anywhere. Later we went to a well known mall where they still sell wide varieties of fish. But, what the hell? We didn’t get it there as well. Anjali was so upset that moment and she even discussed about the tragedy with few of the customer care executive out there. They politely apologized for the unavailability of Ilish fish and said that the supply was inadequate for the last few weeks. They took her number and said they would call her as soon as the very next Ilish supply comes. After a few days, they actually called her and Anjali prepared the typical and yummy Ilish fish recipe with mustard, that day.  

I Love Guests

I very well remember how I used to get excited whenever any guest visited us, during my childhood days. Well technically, those were the days when landline phones were the only mode of communication. But majority of the people couldn’t afford such kind of luxury, as the call rates almost touched the sky. I think I was in my 8th standard when my father installed the landline phone for the very first time in our house. So, with very limited options available, guest usually used to visit without any prior intimation. Now, some people might wonder “What if there’s no one in the house and all of a sudden guest arrive?” Well, we have encountered such situations many times and those minor issues were easily sorted out. Wow! It was so much fun whenever cousins of our similar age group visited us. But, guests used to come only for few days and their departure was so much painful. For some special guests, I tried my best so that they could have stayed for few more days. I remember how I played an effective trick, when those special guests used to say “Sorry dear, we can’t stay more and tomorrow we will have to leave” Well, just before an hour of their departure, I used to put most of their cloths inside a bucket filled with water. As simple as that and the guest had to stay for another day. Well, I played that trick quite a few times.

Like many other things, my strong affection for guests, is also very convincingly inherited by our little angel Jia. She feels so happy whenever our door bell uses to ring and on every such occasion, she’s extremely delighted. Be it our maid or any delivery guy or any neighbor, she likes to play with each and every person who use to visit our house. Her excitement level is at peak whenever any of our close friends visit us and she loves to play with them till late midnight. About a couple of months ago, Edwin and Apee visited us and Jia loves them so much, particularly Edwin. That evening we ordered some food from outside. As we prepared ourselves to have our dinner, all of a sudden we heard something out of Jia’s mouth. Well, she was saying “Forty, Forty” in her own cute and sweet voice. She was also holding a piece of paper with her hand. It was actually the bill of those stuffs we ordered. Apee was little surprised and she immediately took the bill from her hand and had a look at it. Apee started to scream out of excitement "Aree! How could she recognize 40? She is not even 2 years old"

We asked "What happened?"

Apee showed the bill to us and said “Look here, its written 40 out here”

Actually, out of the few food items which we had ordered, price of one of the item was 40 and it was clearly mentioned in the bill. Apee’s excitement continued further and she praised Jia "Wow! Jia is such an intelligent baby" According to my knowledge, Jia could say one to ten continuously. Even though I had a little doubt about the 40 thing, but still I felt very proud that moment. After few minutes, I smelled something. Well, the smell was quite different from those yummy food in front of us. I immediately checked Jia’s pampers from her back side. Oh! She had done potty and it took us a while to understand the mystery. Well, forty and potty sounds so similar and especially from Jia’s mouth.  That moment, everyone had a good laugh.                         

                                                                  One recent video of Jia talking