Chetan Bhagat’s last book, ‘The Three mistakes of my life’ was more or less of a mistake(fourth?) itself. It read more like a movie script than a book, with improbable story lines, shallow characterization and more than a little melodrama. So, when a friend of mine gave me Bhagat’s new book “Two States” to read, there was somewhat of a doubt if I would be wasting some brain cells reading this one too. But it turned out okay. The book that is.

Bhagat has revived the protagonist of his very first novel(Five Point Someone) for this book. The story is the same old story of most Hindi films. Boy meets girl; they fall in love; families are opposed. That sort of thing. For good measure, Bhagat throws in the North-South divide. And some emotional turbulence in the protagonist’s life (not done too well though). Most of the book is about how the hero and heroine cope with the cultural divide and win over both set of parents. Along the way, Bhagat also manages to do some soul searching (a concept that seems to fascinate the MBA types to no end).

The story may be simple, but the treatment is different. Plus, Bhagat manages to keep the reader’s interest with witty lines sprinkled throughout the book (especially the stereotyping of races). Character development isn’t a priority in Bhagat’s novels, so don’t expect much on that front. Lastly, there are no major “suspend your belief” kind of moments in this book, like in ‘One Night @ Call Centre’ and ‘The Three mistakes of my life’. 

All in all, Two States is an okay read. Good enough for the 95 bucks that one will spend on the book. Rating: 3 out of 5.

…nothing is permanent.

Footprints on the sand are dim reminders of people who once walked here. Sand castles built here wither away with time and moisture. Names written on the shore are washed away by the enthusiastic waves. Promises made by the beach are forgotten, their words carried away by the rushing wind.

On the beach, nothing is permanent.

…explained in six compact lines.

hoye zindagi jaise ek radio
Alag alag dhun sunati hai
Kabhi happy kar de
Kabhi sad banaye
KKabhi senti kar de
Kabhi mad banaye…

If only Socrates had known…

[Wrote this back in June. Was sitting in the draft section, making a sad face. Thought that I might as well post it…And this is fiction. Just in case.]

When all the tears have dried up, when all the thoughts come to nil, he figures he has to move on. Finally. Eighteen long months of wondering if he was the one to blame, if he’d gone wrong somewhere; he figures that he’ll never know the answer. Maybe he doesn’t want the answer anymore.

Eighteen months. Of insane schedules, of working late, of working weekends, of working like a machine. Of Excelsheets, Word documents, Visio diagrams, xml comments, cs files, analysis and programming. Just so that he wouldn’t get time to think. Of himself.

Tu nahi raha teri yaad reh gayi, palko mein teri aas reh gayi
Koi toh hoga bahana bata, tujhko bhula dene ka…

She isn’t worth it, he decides. Nobody is, says a voice from inside him. Nobody should be, he says. And smiles.

Once he decides to do it, deleting memories is easy. All you have to do is Shift+Delete and they are all gone. Forever.

They are in the shopping mall after watching the movie. He wants to find out where the Crosswords Bookstore is. He remembers vaguely but can’t seem to locate it.

After moving around the first level, second level and the third level of the mall, looking for the bookshop, he is irritated that he can’t find it.

“Why don’t you ask the mall security? I’m sure they might know”, she chimes in, interrupting his thoughts.

“Can’t”, he says.

“Why?”, she asks.

“I am a man. And men don’t ask for directions”, he says, crossing his arms in front of him.

“Looks like you’ll need a sex change operation to locate that bookstore then”, she replies, a thin smile forming on her lips.

“So you’re a one woman man?”, she asks.

“Yes. That I am…”, he says.

“Okay, then. Doesn’t that mean that your ex was your ‘one woman’ ?”

He looks at her, the sparkling eyes and naughty smile playing on her lips and says, “Oh, nothing like that. She wasn’t a woman.”

Her eyes widen and a stream of laughter comes from her.

“Oh, stop laughing. You know what I mean. I meant that she wasn’t THE woman.”

Purnima’s latest post made me remember that as a kid, I was really good at coming up with really obscure theories [exhibits for such behaviour in adult life : Of buses, Of phones ].

One such theory was of procreation. That means reproduction, or how babies is born. Well, my theory was (please note, I was barely 9 or 10 years old at the time) that it happened with the help of mosquitoes. Yes. Mosquitoes. How? you ask. And I shall tell.

Married people sleep together (mind, in the eyes of a 9 year old, it just means sharing a bed ), on the same bed, in the same room. And mosquitoes being the biting types, bit such these sleeping together people, in the process transferring all the baby making raw material needed from one person into another. These were no ordinary macchars by the way…these were special baby making macchars, otherwise the whole world would be full of babies, lots of people get bitten daily by ordinary macchars ,you know

Of course, these special macchars knew which couple wanted a baby and when etc. They were noble creatures, these macchars. That didn’t stop me from killing any macchars I got my hands on though. I believed I was doing my bit to solve India’s population problem

This theory held for lots of years, until that fateful day in standard 8 when a friend, armed with encyclopedic knowledge, told all the guys THE TRUTH (which left us completely flabbergasted).

I didn’t even have the heart to even kill a macchar that day.

[written long ago...am not reponsible for any puke arising out of reading all the cliches in this story ]

He looked at her. She was smiling, talking to all the friends who had gathered to watch the movie. He stood away from that crowd, immersed in his own thoughts with a can of soda in his hand. He looked at her again. How he missed her. And yet wanted to be away from her. He couldn’t understand. There’s a lot you don’t understand, he told himself and sipped from the can. He looked at her, as she smiled when the guy held her hand standing beside her, talking to her friends. He looked away. He called him ‘the guy’, even though she had introduced the both of them and he knew his name. She wanted him to like the guy. Like that has a chance in hell. He smirked.

He looked at the people in the plaza, people eating at the food mall, people talking, people thinking, some deep in thought. Somebody must be watching me too, wondering what that guy with the soda is thinking.

“She talks about you a lot, you know”, the guy had come and stood next to him and was blabbering.

“(Oh god. Now i’ve got to talk to this guy. And listen to a speech. Help me God)”, he looked to the sky.

“She sees you as one her best friends”, the guy blabbered on.

“Hmm (Oh god, please don’t let him say what I think he will say, please)”

“She still has feelings for you”, the guy said, with a sombre expression.

“(Damn it). Look dude, you come here looking all sombre and noble and tell me that your girlfriend has feelings for me. What are you asking me to do? Take her away from you? Or do you want me to give you a speech telling you some crap about how it isnt meant to be and that you should keep her happy, and that if you dont keep her happy or you hurt her, I’ll come and kick your butt till kingdom comes? Sorry man, I dont operate like that. I’m not the hero here, you are.”

She looked at them. They were talking. Although it didn’t look like it was too cordial. Why was he waving his hands like that? Why did he crush the can in his hand? I’d better go and calm him down she thought. She didn’t have to.

Someone had come up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around, looked at her and smiled. Not the usual one which he reserves for friends and me nowadays, she thought. This was his special smile, for that someone special. Special, my foot, she thought. What was this? Was she jealous? No, no, that can’t be it. She can’t be jealous of some girl who had waltzed into his life just some days ago. It wasn’t as if he was in love with her or anything. Just boyfriend-girlfriend business. The usual. He was like that. He was THE commitment phobe, if there ever was one. But something about this girl bothered her. The way he looked at her, he might actually fall in love with this one. Nasty thought that. But why should she care? She was in a relationship of her own, she was happy with her guy. Even if he didn’t like her guy. The feeling was mutual. She didn’t like his girl either.

As she walked towards them, he looked at her and smiled. She smiled back. As their eyes met, both of them knew, in their hearts, that they would never be happy without each other. But then, both of them thought, not everybody is meant to be happy.

One thing that Dhirubhai Ambani will be forever immortalized for is the small mobile revolution that he helped usher in India. Make no mistake, he played a huge part in this, what with the Rs. 500 ka mobile phone Reliance introduced some years ago. But this post is not about that. It is about a bigger contribution he has made. A contribution that will not be forgotten by a generation of Indians, and will be spoken of with reminiscing sighs in the days of their retirement.

A little history here. Soon after Reliance Mobile came into existence and a lot of consumers had them, people found out a way to cheat Reliance out of money they’d have to pay for legitimate calls they made. Basically, instead of disconnecting calls, they’d pull out the battery from the phones. Reliance executives, instead of taking a hit month and month again, decided to introduce a new scheme, which said: Pay fixed monthly charge and call any Reliance phone anywhere in India for free. That, and they also fixed their faulty billing system. People chose the fixed monthly charge and free calls scheme. Entire khandaans converted over to Reliance.

Perhaps unknown to the Reliance people, there was a market segment that they hadn’t thought existed. The people in lowu. Now, whats better than spending each moment in somebody’s company? Eh, wats that you said? Calling each other? Yes. That’s exactly what the lovers of our generation did. Both parties got Reliance mobiles and started spending a lot (and by that I mean a LOT) of time with the phone connected to their ear. Long distance relationships flourished, aided by this free reliance to reliance scheme. Short distance relationships flourished some more, if that is possible.

In fact, the practice is so prevalent now, that I have devised a way to identify people in lowu (and various stages of lowu), just by the mobile network they use. The algorithm goes:

Boy/Girl has Reliance mobile? Boy/Girl is constantly on the phone (>3 hours in the work day)? Boy/Girl talks very softly on the phone? Boy/Girl has expression of supreme happiness/ extreme stress/ regular boredom while on phone? If the answers to all of the above is Yes, then ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, a reliance couple.

A note to parents: If your child wants/switches to a Reliance phone all of a sudden, you should stop entertaining thoughts of a peaceful arranged marriage match for your child.

I have seen many such phone users. Separated by distance or circumstances, The Lowu Phone a.k.a Reliance Mobile has made life(lowu) a little easier and cheaper for lakhs of couples across India.

[And just in case you are wondering, the author does not own a Reliance mobile phone.]

Three alphabets. Meant to say:  Laugh out Loud.

He often wonders if people who write LOL on chat, actually laugh out loud at their own terminals. Or is it just an expresssion? A statement of intent perhaps.

Behavioural scientists in the future would go through aggregate data of the post millenium human interaction and find many insightful clues in the chats littered with LOLs. They would find:

• LOLs that were not meant.
• LOLs that were sarcastic.
• LOLs that were just thrown into the conversation, every five sentences so that the recipient was kept happy.
• and of course, LOLs that actually were.

Just then he gets a IM saying LOL.

He wonders which category this one belongs to.