The Public Diary

A guy approaches an unknown man to assure manipulate his fiancée. As soon as he is successful in his mission, that unknown person mis-recognises him as someone whom he knows. I can recall this scene from the movie ‘ Nautanki Saala . ’ Eh! Let’s not get into the details; I’m not here to tell the story of that movie. O nce we were coming back from somewhere and got out of our vehicle. I walked out of the vehicle, crying (I can’t remember the reason for crying, right now) and held hand of my father. Suddenly, my ears heard something and I stopped crying in order to see clearly. I realized that I wasn’t holding the hand of my father, but of some unknown uncle who I mis-took as my father. All thanks to the blurry view due to the moist eyes. Another day, when I was going to my school, I saw one familiar face few meters away. To greet her, I waved my hand high up in the air. As I reached closer to her, the so-called familiar face began becoming unfamiliar. To confirm this ...

Lately I got free from chains; I mean my exams got over . And the feeling was just awesome. Repeated attacks of excitement were visiting me. My sister was like “What is wrong with you? why are you smiling time and again?” Not that I have given exams for the first time, but I don’t know why excitement level this time was this high. It may be because I’ve made so many plans, blogging being one of them (preventive orders against which were given to me by my mom) or because I was extremely fed up of studying, for such long period (including those pre-exam holidays in which you are supposed to prepare for exams, in short, the little cousin of exams). Trying to understand such boring books in itself is a very complicated task. Add to it, people around you who are chilling. Your temptation to join them just goes up.  And if your luck is so bad, then the chances of some guests arriving at your home, along with their children (who would completely mess the house) will worsen th...

I am back! (Background score: Tini ti tini) There used to be this classmate of mine who was a close friend too. Her name was identical with a lead character of popular-movie-of-those-days. So I started calling her out (my friend) by that lead character’s last name. Then one day, my other friend casually asked why you call her by this surname, when her actual surname is not this. I (falsely) justified myself saying, " Her real surname is this only (which actually was that lead character’s surname in that particular movie) and the surname which she uses is actually the surname of some celebrity of whom she is a fan." And she believed me despite my hard-to-suppress-a-smile face. Another ritual of mine was to buy pens of only green colour. All this started because when once I was carrying a green pen, I casually said that as I am carrying a green pen therefore I am a Pakistani.  Then I thought to carry this statement forward, so whenever I was asked “Where do you ...

We entered our home. Mom asks us “How was the movie?” We say “It was super boring; we could not even watch it full and thus left it mid-way” She says “…but you came after three-plus hours which indicates you saw it till the end”. “C’mon mom we then strolled around to normalize our mood,” we said with seriousness. Third one joins the conversation with that 'Really?' expression on her face, revealing the whole truth. My mom often asks that what do you get by lying. There is some unsaid joy in lying. Re-thinking what you just did invokes laughter. Perhaps, it is a kind of boost to your acting ego that I fooled him/her so well (or may be not). You can twist your each and every sentence into a lie. It happens that nobody is willing to believe you as you fool around so much. (This reminds me of a story heard in childhood where a person every morning would lie that a lion has come and everybody would run around and then he would laugh at all of them. But when one day, th...

The little kid is jumping around in excitement of the up and coming birthday; though it is still one month far. Butterflies have started flying in the stomach. But as one grows up, excitement level dips down year by year. ( At least in my case) Soon the fact starts bothering you that ‘The Number’ called AGE is increasing. In the initial years, birthdays are more about the excited parents than the birthday kid itself. Lately, it was my nephew’s birthday. His mom was so excited and handed over the decorating material to me.  When we were finished with the decorating part, my nephew, who is just one year old, came and attacked the frills and ended up tearing them (Our efforts and hearts tore apart as well). It was just a regular day for him where he was just toying with the regular stuff and on seeing colours he tried to grab them all.   Aforementioned, when I was a kid even I used to say, excitedly, every-person-possible that it is my birthday today and in return, th...

I am going to be little philosophical in this post and all this post contains is - my convictions. One fine day, I was sitting in my classroom with my friend and the lecture was free. Both of us had nothing to do. After getting bored for minutes, she asked me “What are you thinking?” I suggested her to just observe the people around. We witnessed this: two guys were running where one was chasing the other one. Suddenly the guy, who was getting chased, came across the group of girls (Note: He topped the list of shy guys). In order to avoid that group of girls, he stopped midway which resulted in him being caught up by the chaser. And we burst into laughter. Had we been ignorant about the surroundings, we would have missed this chance of laughing. Whenever any creative person is interviewed and is asked about the reason behind the success story, the reply will be in terms of art of observing. “I observe people around me and substitute my observations into my work. Hence p...

Do I need to add a disclaimer?   If the title of this post is similar to any TV Show (most probably to a show which is aired on National Geographic), then it is intentional, and no co-incidence.  In this world where everyone is in the quest to reach acme and achieve perfection, stupid people are giving people the reason to smile. I believe in “While Smart people make you feel inferior, stupid people make you laugh”. To begin with, kids are stupid and I’m saying so out of my own experience. When I was a kid, I used to think that only those people get old who get married; if you don’t marry you won’t grow old. As kids get teased easily probably this is why their stupidity is named as ‘innocence’. Not only kids are stupid, but grownups as well. One day my friend called me up and we talked for minutes. At the end of the call, she asked, “Do you know what it is today?” I replied “nothing special”. Then she reminded me that it was her birthday and I was like ‘Oh shit!...

This person walks into the classroom carrying some books in hand and with the default expression, usually ‘sadu’ one. Yes, you guessed it right, I am talking about teachers. Sorry, I categorically made every teacher fall into this group. Not every teacher is like this but most of them are. First and foremost, my father is a teacher and just like every kid my ambition was to become a teacher (every kid desires to be in profession in which his/her parents are). With the passage of time I ridiculed this ambition as I realised I don’t have that love for teaching as my dad has.  Let me exemplify his passion for teaching — once I was confused about some logic that I asked my dad about it generally. He got so interested that he went, took a pen, a notebook and came back. He explained me in detail. Had I been in his place I would have plainly answered the question without much effort. Another thing that I noticed is that if a person who speaks less and is a teacher; then a...

“Don’t argue with people, it is not good.” One of the most inappropriate lessons imparted. It is good to be argumentative as it makes you spontaneous; it might help you in exploring a new way to look at things. And if the ball comes in your court then you may end up enlighten some other soul. What it takes to be Argumentative? Having a witty brain or the confidence?  According to me, it is confidence in yourself that is needed the most to have an argument. I am stressing more upon confidence (and not on witty brain) because most of the arguments between people are such where one party expresses views and supports them with mindless facts and continue the fight.  My sister argues with me with such high confidence (even if she is wrong) that I get confused if I am right or she. So, the need of witty brain to have an argument can be evicted conveniently.  Confidence alone cannot do everything; you should then know how to express yourself. I have seen many ...

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Pablo Picasso This quote got my consent immediately. After days, I realized that it does not go well with me. I used to be a kid who would just play and play. Afternoon or night, I would be found outdoors. Neither any sign of creativity nor any artistic piece of work. On the name of participation in any competition (co-curricular), there are only 3 occasions. Out of which actual credit goes to me for only two competitions. These were dance competitions and I participated in them just because of the fact that at that time I was not rational enough to make out that I am not into dancing.  In the third one, which was a clay competition, my sister made a model from clay and I just took it to school saying I have made it. I used to be a kid who knew only - schedule of cartoon shows, how to eat and sleep. So above incidents prove the first part of the above mentioned quo...

Has it ever happened to you that you went to the room and forgot the purpose of going there?  Answer for many of you would be in affirmative. It happens mostly because our attention is diverted to something else and this is what we call phenomenon of Absent Mindedness. Another common instance is when you accidentally fix your gaze on some object and sometimes (embarrassingly) on a person while thinking about something else. Similarly, one usually tunes out from the conversation and ends up saying something irrelevant to the prevailing topic. To begin with not-so-common cases, once I boarded a bus mis-taking it as some other bus. On the whole route, I was wondering that since when has this bus started going by this road. In between this thought process, I realized that my penultimate destination has arrived and I left the bus. After re-checking the route-displaying-board, I got to know that this bus was supposed to take me to my ultimate destination and now that it has ...

“Say ‘Thank You’ whenever someone helps you.” One of the basic lessons which everyone has learned in the school. There are some words which if not uttered will not affect, but sheer utterance can make a difference.  Greeting is a gesture that can bring smile on the others' face and does not cost you anything (except setting aside your ego). Once I was in a shop and was waiting for my turn, a guy in a white coat (probably a doctor) bought what he wanted, paid the bill and went to his vehicle.  After a moment, he came back and said “Thank You” to the shopkeeper and returned back. He would have made it a usual routine, after seeing such expressions on the faces of people which I saw that day on the face of shopkeeper. Amidst all his busy and tiresome day, he smiled and welcomed the guy. May be I am exaggerating but it’s a writer’s thing. Isn't it? Similarly, on your birthday what you crave for is greetings and when it comes from a least expected person it means a ...

“I’ll do this work tomorrow” says a person who has delayed the work for the past few days. Being lazy is an art in itself. One can say that “I am processing something creative in my mind that is why I am not in motion” whereas the reason behind being motionless is the lazy quotient indeed. You’ll have to come up with innovative ideas to stop people from calling you lazy. These are just lines to be said. Such people don’t give a damn if people call them lazy. I am unfortunate enough to live with such lazy people. The lazy family! Getting into details, lazy people spend their holidays laying, trying to sleep and sleeping… It hardly takes 10 - 15 minutes for them to fall asleep. (At least, they show it like this in Shinchan series).  My sister spends her free time by sleeping. Once I saw her going to bed to re-sleep just after 2-3 hours passed since she woke up. Ask me what my dad’s possible after-retirement-plans are, with no second thoughts in my mind I can say lazing a...

People usually have fond memories of ‘First day at College’, ‘First day at ­­­­­coaching class’ or any such place. As a school kid, whenever I saw any essay wherein description of first-day-at-so-and-so-place was required (obviously one among the other options), I would turn blind for that particular option. In this way, I got fewer options than others for writing essay. It further implies that I’ll have to blabber on some other topic which is not interesting either. (Oh! I’m getting diverted.) To start with, every child has bad, rather crying ‘First day at school’. We all have laughed upon the pictures of that crying kid whose face has turned red because of forcibly being sent to the school.  My story is no different.  Fortunately, my crying pictures are not taking rounds on the internet. As my dad was a teacher in the same school, in which I was supposed to study, my teachers were reportedly telling my father about me crying continuously. Then came the time w...

Pranks After hearing this word you start smiling. Probably, the reason for your smile is the flashback of all mischievous things you have done in your past (or maybe of which you’ve been the victim). People who have monotonous childhood are often called as ‘good boy/girl’. But, when they are grownups, all they have is this ‘good’ tag only. No naughty-kid stories. Sadly, I fall in this category of ‘good girl’. Gradually, I changed and started doing all such deeds. It has now become my daily routine to boo ( making a dog like sound to scare someone ) my sister who screams every time I do this to her (despite knowing that I’m going to boo her). Once I was reading a newspaper aloud, in which some haunted story was reported. After listening to it, my sister went to kitchen for some work and I followed her. I don’t know for what reason, she started screaming. I was laughing on her reaction and to scare her more I started laughing in a ghostly manner and she was saying “She is haunt...

CAUTION: People who are yet to travel in a CTU bus may not relate to it! Chandigarh is known for being a well organized and planned city. However, it has its own flaws. Major problem faced by its citizens is traffic congestion. To tackle it, Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) has introduced long low floor buses to carry maximum passengers. And I mean this word ‘maximum’ literally. Administrators need to travel in CTU Bus for one day to get a reality check.           This is how it looks like As a regular college-going person, I am well acquainted with the conditions of these buses. While these buses may look beautiful to outsiders, feelings of the travelers are completely different. No matter how good your day has started, you will be annoyed as soon as you find that your bus is late than the scheduled time (Late arrival of bus has now been considered ‘usual’). This thing, sometimes, prove out to be good when you are late and still able to b...