The Bihari Paradox!!!

This is no story. No poetry. No rhetoric. No literature. What follows is a thought...an aftermath of what's happening with the so called Biharis (okkay generically speaking the "uttar bharatiyas") leading to a retrospect of my own self. Just that. Think about it. Well I did a lot!!

I am a non-believer of nationality or for that matter sub-nationalism. Patriotism for me seems to be a vague term invented to validate the lines drawn on this piece of planet we dwell in.A work of art of a very narrow minded person who failed to see the bigger picture!! But thats another philosophy of mine. Let's leave that apart!

Okkay so lets bring in some patriotism inside...jus' for the sake of writing this post...Yes I feel it now...I am an Indian...first and foremost ( though I would rather prefer a sense of belonging to this universe as a whole).

Well that wudn't make an interesting post...So lets start it with the tag..I am a BIHARI!!!....Well I was born one...that is one of the cornerstones of my existence. Though I really flip the bird and moon at it!

So where could this Bihari could have headed 6 years ago, given the current scenario....I was simply thinking!

---stayed on in Bihar...shot dead by one of the extremist groups on caste basis??

---Migrated to Gujarat as a Poor Muslim..Butchered??

---Killed in Assam insurgency??

---Kashmir..now cumm'on...that can't even support its native folks!!!

---or an illiterate immigrant labour trying to meet his ends in Maharashtra....thrashed within inches of his life for doing that!!

Luckily I am here..shut down emotinally and mentally in a cubicle...after a descent technical education and a job to suffice my current needs.I agree....an engineer has no such sub-nationalism...an IT engineer..even more so...after all we all are slaves of Uncle SAM n company and he doesn't differentiate a Bihari from a Marathi Manoos a But the question still remains..what iff!!

A common misconception about Bihari students has been that: He is good for only two things. He can be a good student, religiously toiling away, burning midnight oil and whatnot, score high and ultimately steal white collar jobs from the local population of the city he decides to settle in OR He can be a bloody gunda, eve-teasing, politicizing, intimidating and bullying, rambunctious as hell, the root of all evil.

But there is also a third kind, like Me...decent law abiding, harmless creatures...who do not spit, do not study ; do not eve-tease, do not pray at the drop of a hat; do not create ruckus, do not fade away in silence!!

The munificent compliments that I receive on account of my being fairly fluent in the English language (*With excerpts from mine as well as my friends' experiences that has also been blogged before) , or due to the absence of the accent which every Bihari is supposedly born with, or (and this is the best of all) my uncanny un-bihari looks ( what the hell is a bihari supposed to look like ? Dark, emaciated, hair dripping with mustard oil, or what? I mean WTF! ) :-

1. You don’t look like to you are from Bihar – Me: I underwent plastic surgery OR Why is that? Do Biharis have horns on their heads? OR I am a Punjabi who was born in Mumbai; my parents were averse to the rich cosmopolitan culture of that great city, so they relocated.

2. Your English is too good for a Bihari – Well, is that so?? I am sorry; my parents forced me to go an English medium school, which unfortunately had decent teachers.

3. You don’t sound like a Bihari, you don’t speak with an accent - Me: Speech therapy? Larynx transplant? Accent training? My answer depends on the dumbness of the questioner .

4. The way you cuss and swear, it is not very Bihari - Ohh boy...You shud hear me out..I curse, in my best Bihari.

5. Sir, aap Bihar se hain, lagta nahi hai (Sir, It doesn’t seem that you are from Bihar). This one came from a junior who was in my college to I : Me- An expression of incredulity and bewilderedness on my contorted face, mentally hurling abuses at him , and a really big WTF , when I was alone .

6. Man, you should be the Brand Ambassador of Bihar, given that you are so different from the average bumpkin: Hell Yeah. Why not? Moron!

7.Offshoot of # 2 -A Lady, in a train journey, to me – I am an English professor, have heard a lot of Biharis making a mince out of the Queen’s language, but not you - Me: When I was young my mother burned a Webster, a Wren n Martin and a few of the Classics, dissolved the ashes in the holy water from Thames and made me drink it. This is a tried and tested technique; it has worked for my sister as well. (Do not attempt this at home!)

8.Another Offshoot of # 2 - Do they have English schools in Bihar? ( An interviewer to my friend, apparently surprised at his command of the English language ) - Me(Had I been there) : No, I went to Eton for my schooling, and then I came back to India to complete my education , you JACK*** !

Maybe I should blush coyly and express my gratitude the next time somebody says something like the aforementioned. The Bihari Paradox is still unanswered!!!

With these words...the BIHARI in me has vented out his feelings....Control back to Mr. Vik$..the familiar weirdo!!!:)

---A Bihari has signed off!!!!!!

Life on AutoPilot...!!!

Hola Amigos!!
"I am Back"...as in the Terminator....Well...umm..not the exact way but yess....this time with a whole new Spanish accent(the pasta has rolled in)!!

Ok so, its usually customary that if you do not post anything for a while you outta' come back and offer an apology to all your readers who were waiting with bated breaths. But I dont have any such misconceptions, I know none of my blog readerswere waiting for my post....though I still hope some would remember this bloke!!:)

Before i start with the usual blah blah.....

DISCLAIMER: This may be a work of Fiction. Any resemblance to your life may be intentional but definitely isn't with any malice ... :)

I've always felt there are just two kinds of people in the world. Those who talk too much ... and those who aren't able to talk too much, as the first category (yappers) won't let them!

Seriously! ... I've come across many people who seem to be in love with the sound of their own voice ... and they'll ramble on and on ... and I feel like screaming -"Dude, if you love talking so much, at least say something interesting! ... or talk to someone who has similar interests!!! ... Don't persecute me just coz' I wandered into ur line of sight!"

Don't get me wrong here ... I love listening to people ... and given a choice between talking or listening, I'd rather listen(fingers crossed) ... But I'd rather give my time to friends and family and not to just about anyone ... But so many of these people just can't take a hint (or they choose to ignore the hints) ...

So I may yawn, program my cell-phone to self-destruct, tear my hair (I have lotsa them to run out) out in frustration, or just drop down unconscious ... they'll keep yapping away ... so long as I am physically present, anywhere near them ...At one point I thought I'd just ask the yappers to shut up and leave me alone ... but then I realized that I was actually benefitting from interaction with these fellas ...

1. If Patience is a muscle, I'm now a world-champion body-builder!
2. The ones who were spared of the torture coz' of me, treat with me with respect/pity/compassion ... and I don't mind it one bit! ... hehe :)
3. If I ever want to avoid someone, I quickly approach the first yapper in sight ... and he/she immediately strike up a not-so rivetting conversation ... and no one dares approach me!
4. I find that I can actually do quite a bit of work while 'listening' ... they don't really care if you are really paying attention ... they just want you to nod your head once in a while, mumble something like "yes" or "hmmm" or "i understand completely" ... So I've programmed myself such that every few minutes I nod and say one of those key-words ... they are happy and I'm none the worse for it ...
5. On account of the constant practice of nodding and saying "yes" without knowing what's happening, I think I'm perfecting the art that's practiced by all great husbands world-wide ... ;)
(no offence gals ... that's what most guys will end up doing anyways... always saying "Yes, Dear" )-------------------------------------------------

Till then..m on AutoPilot....Zoom! :)

The Divine Cup...!!!

So they have come up with a ban on smoking at “Public places”……not that I regret…..I have always been a non-smoker…a hard core one…..not like the ones who occasionally have one or two sticks popped in at the vehement request of their best friends for the company!!

So how did I react to the recently imposed law?? Naturally…I welcomed it to the core of my “healthy heart”…….but then it made me have a good look at the self contradictions and analogy of an addiction I had with the “Nicotine” addiction the Smoker Community folks were having.
Yes. I am addicted too…”addicted to Caffeine”……..too close to be a teetotaler.

The smoker fraternity would as well like to call it the Divine Stick (well I dread if this post will someday be read by Mr. Ramadoss)……..I have my Divine Cup!!!!
I wasn’t always a coffee snob. When I started drinking coffee in college, I did so for purely utilitarian reasons. It was part of a desperate plan to improve my plummeting academic grades. I figured that staying awake during class would be a key step in this effort. It didn’t help–either with nap-prevention or with my grades. But thank GOD my gray cells were quite developed to sustain me in the acads…..whew!!

One important thing I did learn during that semester was that there are few beverages more repulsive than hazelnut/caramel-flavored instant coffee. To this day, whenever I get a whiff of hazelnut flavoring I’m hit with a sudden wave of nausea, followed by an odd compulsion to pen down the very intricate chunks of Horatian Ode.

After my amateur years of Coffee Companionship college years, I began my journey toward a full-fledged caffeine habit, taking tentative steps toward the grown-up world of real coffee consumption.

Now I was really into the metamorphosis of becoming a connoisseur of this divine beverage.
I sometimes wonder..."Had I been allowed to gulp so many gallons by now if I would have belonged to the fairer sex...considering the taboo it brings along, in an Indian set up...Girls are seldom advised.....or shall I say....allowed....to take such huge proportions of a beverage that doesn't seem to go well with their toned complexion!!:)

Well I had no such restrictions...So I carried on the journey of fulfillment of my senses...
The random spots of my trysts with Coffee soon become a full time job. I started wondering whether I was drifting away too much ……..the day started, continued and ended with the cup in hand!

Well you can’t compare nicotine and caffeine in the same sense……just bcoz the terms phonetically rhyme!!!

The National Coffee Asociation reports that I am in good company----a major populace of Indians drink coffee. And in this respect, we are decidedly global, international, and cosmopolitan---we help consume the 400 billion cups of coffee that are consumed each year worldwide.

For those of us who depend on coffee to stoke our productivity and fuel our creativity, coffee drinking is serious business. Coffee is a liquid prism through which we view the events of our lives—drop by drop, cup by cup, and pound by pound. It’s important to be awake for the critical moments in life---and even seemingly mundane moments can be critical when each moment builds towards something better. Coffee is the drink of optimism. Drink coffee, be happy.

Because life happens when you're awake…!!!

"For I have known them all already, know them all -- have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”- T.S. Eliot

*This post was typed in utter boredome arising out of an extended waiting period at one of the so many CCD's mushroomed across the city...while I was waiting for my friend who finally turned up to comment on the same*

- Vik$ (off to a coffee break)