Where there is a Will...

I am very very sick today, could not even go to work. To all the people who know me as a non exaggerating, matter of fact kind of person, let me tell you that my fate is doomed and I might succumb to this incessant sneezing and coughing any moment now. So, before I meet my untimely demise, let me distribute my legacy to my near and dear ones.

Let me start with family. To my eldest niece Nancy I leave behind my sennheiser headphones, cause its the only German thing I have in my house. To my dear niece Gargi, I bestow all my cookery books, utensils, spices and unused rations, please admit that you can’t cook nothing and its high time you learn how to make your own cake and eat it too. To my nephew Vinayak, I leave behind my cell phone, just to let you know that people can survive with non-android phones, and since it’s not it the nature of guys to throw away technological stuff away, it will always put a smile on my face to know that somewhere out there, my non GPRS activated, non android, shit of a cell phone is giving you nightmares. To my youngest and very dear niece Ishita, I shall leave my Laptop, coz darling; you need to come online more often. For my sister Saru, I have only these lines to offer: “Tera tujhko arpan, Kya Lagey mera!”

Now, for my friends, who have served me well, by being my mentors and guides in this treacherous world, I shall leave behind things befitting their individual personalities. To Kartik I leave behind, my pre-paid rented house in Mumbai, do enjoy my humble abode while it lasts till April of 2013, for my landlord will never return my PDCs which are already in his custody, and do me a favour, make your stay at my place a living nightmare for the society secretary who lives right next door. To Wriddhi, I shall leave behind the Holy Grail, my precious Cosmopolitan collection. Now you can have access to sure ways to please your man in 25 easy steps, and learn about flirting tips that work. To Nishant Sir, I leave behind my entire watch collection, which includes 4 wrist watches and 1 wall clock because you need to learn to reach places on time. To Simon, I leave my refrigerator, for I would hate to let all the food stocked in there, go to waste, also I leave behind my unpaid credit card balance in your name, to continue the weekend movie adventures even after I’m gone. To my dearest friend Nidhi, I leave in your good care, my entire shoe collection, for you are a true connoisseur and have cursed me enough number of times for not getting any good ones for you.

For Mr. Anupam Padmanabhan, I leave my Wi-Fi Connection, because no one I know, loves to be online as much as you do and also it seems that you always have this uncontrollable desire to post your current locations on Facebook, god forbid, anyone should not know where you are at any given time of the day. For Mohit Neb, I leave my guitar, for I’m sure, sitting in that dark dusty corner, my guitar gently weeps to be taken out and strung, as god intended, and not to be carefully packed inside its bag, as I intended. To Aftab, I leave my collection of board games, which comprises of Monopoly, Cluedo, Scrabble and Pictionary in remembrance of those afternoons well spent at barista, playing Pictionary, for I haven’t met many guys besides you who can be interested for any board games. For Sarab Sandhu, I leave my skipping rope, sorry brother, don’t have any other exercising equipment besides that in my house, also I shall mail you the video of your shameful dance involving Kiits Malhotra and Sabbar on Papi Chulo, I firmly believe no person should live to see it, please hide it in some safe folder and lock it!

To Hanumant Paliwal, I leave behind my printer/copier/scanner, now you can find your Google maps, download them and take colour prints of the same on your next trip, wherever to it might be. To Sonia Rai, I present my aroma therapy candle collection, girl, stop being so high strung in life, just take a deep breath, light up the candles and relax. To Aparna, i leave my cosmetics collection, its all brand new, as I hardly know how to use any of it, it’s just a goodwill gesture for tolerating me as a roommate and for any fights that might have occured over not asking before using any of your stuff. I truly treasure your and sabbar. To Varun Kaushik, I leave my entire Dilbert Collection, it might not match your Chinese cartoon standards, but yes whenever I see a Comic/Cartoon, I don’t know why I’m reminded of you. To Ashish Singh, I leave behind this blog, for the world needs to know about the crazy stuff you have going on in your head, and you are one of the few people who have truly mastered the art of Bakar (thanks to all sorts of ruhaani shaitaani takats working in your favour).

I would like to donate my entire wealth of 50 K lying idly by in my bank account to “Save the Unicorn Foundation”....hmmm... who am I kidding? It needs to be sent to the Government of India for their nuclear warfare development program.

So that will be all for now, hoping to get over this sickness soon, if not, everyone knows what they are getting.

PS: If I survive to see the dawn of the day after the day after tomorrow, the agreement to bestow all the things mentioned above shall become null and void. Get your own stuff, you lazy people!

The Legend of Saru

Throughout the history of humankind, there have been people who have risen to the status of Legends. In my household, this status belongs to my very dear sister Saru. As goes with all legends, you hear stories, some believable, some downright implausible about them. So I will try and recall some of these believe it or not stories about the person who lent out a part of her name to me for all eternity.

My earliest childhood memories are that of standing on my balcony looking down awaiting my sister’s arrival and when she arrived, rushing to the stairs to welcome her home. I remember nothing else from ages 0-5, but this scene comes and goes like a flashback of an ominous dream, wonder why? I also remember a rag doll she got me once she was visiting home from college, also the fact that she used to receive an awful lot of letters and cards and that she bought a Phillips Hi-fi music system with gigantic speakers once, but I was only a child then, what would I know.

When we were kids, she loved to teach us all lessons. You know, it's hard to picture her without hearing her saying, "I'm going to teach you a lesson, you fools!!”. Her fondness to teach us lessons can be derived from the fact that as a child she wanted to be a teacher, and not because of her love for knowledge or books but to have access to a larger pool of children who could be taught a lesson or two. I wonder how that could have worked out given the fact that as a child, so I have been told, she had the weird lisp that was incidentally copied by shahid kapoor in the movie kameeney, during those days her introduction used to be... Faru Farma, Nurfery A. I think people of all ages, genders and nationalities can benefit from these lessons, though some of them contain certain aspects of violence.

The Lesson of Tough Love!

Children, at an early age, realize that public humiliation is the best tool to turn the tide in their favour. Of course, most of them have ever met Ms. Saru, for she has often stood calmly next to a wailing child in the market, and offered the child a critique on his/her tantrums by saying that the outburst was lacking effect, drama and soul. This critique was usually followed by a well thought through suggestion that the child in question should in fact lay down on the road, roll on the ground for a little bit just to make their case a little believable for consideration. That’s how we learned how to be content with whatever we get.

The Lesson about extra terrestrial life!

Some people have weird phobias, like fear of vegetables, fear of ugly people etc. The children of my house had a fear of aeroplanes. Like all phobias have a story behind them, this fear of aeroplanes was based on a fact shared by my sister with our nieces that whenever an airplane flies by, there are people on that plane watching out for children playing alone outside of their homes, and whenever they find a child like that, a hand comes out from the aeroplane and grabs them and takes the child away with them. This is the reason that whenever an airplane flew past our house, our nieces ran inside for cover screaming for their lives, the fact that we used to live next to a ground which was often used as a helipad caused many afternoon mayhems. This is how we learned about life outside out planet.

Lessons in Education!

My sister has influenced the education of a whole bunch of children that were born after her. She was the first one in the family to get an MBA degree and according to the latest census our house has a total of 5 MBAs and counting. If this trend continues, pretty soon we would be able to open an MBA college of our own. I admit I could have become a great chef, if only she had not shown her contempt for the hotel industry by saying that if someone from my family joins that industry, I will personally ensure their loss of life. Having been a victim of her numerous slaps during the course of many math homework sessions, I never could take that chance. This is how we learned what to be in life.

Lessons in Fashion!

I know my sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes even though she has to go out and buy new ones for herself. I once told someone, I can only wear clothes that were bought either by me or my sister, and I get complimented only when I am wearing her clothes. My clothes/shoe collection continues to grow, courtesy of her hand me downs. I proudly admit, in the past 3 years, I have only purchased 3 items of clothing, and still have no place to keep all my clothes. She has so many clothes and shoes that she can put a well stocked up Marks & Spencer’s store to shame. You know how people go out for shopping to feel good, because they can catch a glimpse of new and beautiful stuff, for the same feeling, I just had to walk into the next room open her wardrobe. Oh what a splendid sight it wass! This is how I learned to be speechless!

Lesson about teaching others a lesson!

I have only heard these inspirational stories about her, so don’t know how true they are. Story number one is about how she beat up a guy with her bare hands on a railway platform when he tried to misbehave with her and how the crowd applauded after this spectacle. Story number two is about a guy who used to constantly bug her in college and used to turn up every other day at her hostel and how she one day decided to meet him, took him inside the hostel and asked her friends to dress him up in a sari along with well coordinated make up and jewellery so that he could be humiliated enough to not bother her again. These stories taught us how to stand up for ourselves and not take shit from anyone at all!

Lessons in Beauty!

Being as beautiful as she is, I admit once upon a time I used to be really jealous of her but with age i have come to appreciate her beauty and how she is not at all pompous about it. Only last week, I got a call from a friend of mine, who very bluntly told me that she saw my sister’s photographs from her college days, which was followed by a comment on how pretty she is and how i am nothing in front of her, believe me it was a weird call to get at 7:30 in the morning. On another occasion, she came to drop me for my train back to college, when a guy friend of mine was dumbfounded for the entire time she was there, as soon as she left, the first question out of his mouth were, who was she? When I told him, she is my sister and a little too old for you, I could actually hear his heart shatter to pieces. This is how i learned to be humble about gifts from God!

Lessons yet to be learnt!

Among many other things that she has already taught me, there are lessons yet to be learnt. I would like to learn to be as poised, neat and sophisticated as her. I would love to learn how she manages to be sensible all the time and the reasons why my parents always give priority to her opinions than mine. If only I can match up to half her personality in my lifetime i would die a happy person.

A perfect sister I am not, but eternally grateful for the ones I've got.