राम उठाओ धनुष पुनः

हो चला प्रकंपित देश हित,

सुदृढ़ इसका आधार करो।

चेतना राष्ट्र की जकड़ रही,

करने को मुक्त प्रहार करो।

हे राम! उठाओ धनुष पुनः,

गगन भेदी तुम टंकार भरो।

रावण है बसा घर घर भीतर,

जन त्रास हरो संहार करो।

हिम शिख से सागर नख तक,

स्वप्न रामराज्य का साकार करो।

- आनंद मोहन श्रीवास्तव

(धन्यवाद भारत राजौरा)

पहन के रखिये मास्क ||

मन में यदि ठान लो, नहीं कठिन कोई टास्क |
डॉक्टर कह के थक गए, पहन के रखिये मास्क ||

पहन के रखिये मास्क, बची रहेगी काया |
वरना अंतिम यात्रा ले जाएगा, कोई कर्मी पराया ||

समझ फिर भी न आए जो , छोटी सी यह बात |
सोचो बाद तुम्हारे देगा कौन, छोटे बच्चों  का साथ ||

कोरोना का वायरस, है बड़ा हठी |
हाथ जोड़ विनती  है - सावधानी हटी, दुर्घटना  घटी ||
~ आनन्द मोहन श्रीवास्तव 

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is Laziest of us all...

There is a well-known saying that goes "Always give the hardest job to the laziest person because he will find the easiest way to do it".
Here are a few gems where laziness took the cake.

During hostel days, there were these two guys who would regularly get into squabble over one very important issue - who will turn off the light before sleeping? Mind you, falling asleep wasn't important; you just had to be lying down before the other guy "noticed".

Each of them would try to sneak in and lie down quietly before the other guy noticed... and if you think that the 2nd guy could've switched the bulb off while entering, then you are missing the point.

One fine day, they came up with a genius idea - flip the switch by throwing stuff at the switch board.... without leaving the comfort of their beds.

Couple of rounds went on, when, one of the guys, threw a slipper, and... missed the mark... and... hit the bulb instead of the switch.

All I can say - at least he got the job done.

Another instance was a couple of years later when I had recently joined software industry.
One day while getting ready for office, I noticed that my shirt needed ironing near collar; and that was after I had already put the shirt on.
Out of sheer laziness, I decided to iron the small portion without taking the shirt off.

You can guess what must have happened next. I, looked into the mirror, positioned the iron, and... ummm... let's leave what happened next.
All I can say - I got the shirt ironed, and also received a brown lining on my neck.

However, this wasn't the only bad thing. While in office, one of my colleagues asked me what happened to my neck, and laughed so hard afterwards that entire floor heard him.

The only thing that made me feel better was... at least I got the job done.

Morning Walk - Precursor

We all know that having elders in the house is a blessing. They guide us and help us in so many ways.
Be it giving proper rites (sanskar) to our kids, or comforting us when we are facing hard times, or guiding us when we feel really lost (or are actually lost but have a working cellphone). But you know what works best for me? They kick the bad habits out of us, and keep kicking :D

Since I have been out of my hometown for so many years, I had somewhat forgotten this blessing, but my last visit gave me a refresher.

Actually, Dad goes for morning walk every day to Lohia Park with his friends; so during my last visit to Lucknow, I asked him to take me with him the next morning. You get it where this is heading, don't you :)

I also said "Papa, no matter what excuse I mention in the morning, please ignore that". This was around 11:30 PM, and after that he went to sleep. However, I couldn't fall asleep as quickly as I do on regular days.

In order to be sufficiently motivated, I decided to watch a few motivational videos on YouTube and before I realized, it was 2 in the morning!

"That's enough motivation........... for day after tomorrow" I told myself and went to sleep.

5:45 AM - "Bittu utho". Probably I heard Papa's voice but he got only "zzzz..." in response.

6:00 AM - "Ye Vividh Bharti ki vigyapan prasaran seva ka Lucknow kendra hai (ये विविध भारती की विज्ञापन प्रसारण सेवा का लखनऊ केंद्र है)". Did I ever mention that my Dad still likes to listen to All India Radio. He has kept old radios in different rooms including bathrooms, and switches them ON as per his convenience. These are those really old quadragenarian radios from Philips, Murphy Munna (yeah, that too), that are either "very loud and filled with clear sound" or "very loud and filled with only static noise". So, the sound did kick my sweet sweet sleep pretty hard. However, being Piku's papa, my inner self did squirm, but my body didn't react.

6:10 AM - "I am going to prepare tea. Get up."
"Papa, I slept very late at night; I will not be able to go today for morning walk".

5 minutes later - "Do you want to drink green tea? Otherwise I will prepare regular one" he asked again
Me - "Papa, I don't like green tea, and I didn't sleep timely. Can we skip today...zzzzz"

2 more minutes passed - "It is almost ready"
Me - "Pappaa... pleeeease "

Few more minutes later - "Do you want sugarfree or regular sugar?"
Me - ""mmffff.... grumpphhh..."

... and few more minutes - "Bittoooo..."
Me (getting up and rushing to washroom) - "I will have rusk with that"!!!

A different kind of Diwali

This Diwali was different than others in few interesting ways.

The biggest differentiator was - of course -Aadya! It was her first Diwali after all; but that wasn't the difference I was talking about.

We started with regular routine; i.e. started "discussing" about cleaning our home almost a month before Diwali. We talked about lots of cleaning activities like taking out winter wear, getting rid of cobwebs, discarding old items. This was our most detailed planning ever; but that wasn't also the difference I was talking about.

We got so absorbed in planning that we missed out the "doing" part completely.

The only activity that happened was - taking down curtains. Mind you, taking curtains down is different than washing them and then putting them back on. 

However, that still wasn't the difference I was talking about.

We bought everything at the last moment, and some items even at the "lastest" moment (like crackers on the evening of Diwali itself); but that's not at all different. It is my normal routine.

Diwali evening started as usual; we started with important tasks first, i.e. taking selfies, ensuring camera & mobiles had sufficient space and charge, and then proceeded to lesser important tasks like pooja-path.

However, I decided to do something different this time. Instead of playing crackers in our balcony like previous years, I decided to go downstairs in the park. However.... yeah you guessed it right, this wasn't the difference I was talking about.

We had been there for almost half an hour or so, when I heard a loud noise coming from somewhere. Of course, who pays attention to any noise on eve of Diwali; so I decided to keep ignoring it.

Once we ran out of crackers, we decided to visit the temple within the society before going back to our flat. It was then when I saw that the noise was coming from water falling from 4th floor of the building. Since we stay on 5th, I mentioned to wifey "looks like someone is wasting lots of water" and walked away.

When we reached back to our floor after spending few minutes in the temple, I saw residents of our adjacent flat standing in front of lift to greet us. "We have been calling you for so long, why didn't you answer", they said.

It was then when I noticed that they had floor wipers in their hands and were standing in ankle deep water.

Moment of realization - they weren't actually there to greet us (damn).

It turned out that one of the valves on water pipe had broken on our floor and water found its way inside our flats (that's why I didn't see water coming from 5th floor earlier).

So, our rest of Diwali eve was spent mopping water out of the apartment.
Yes, this Diwali was different indeed.

Aadya!

Remember the "Nanhi Pari" I told you about earlier? She has a name now - Aadya! She has many other names as well but we will save that for some other time.

Aadya turned 6 months recently and I wanted to share few things that will make you go aww for her. 

Without much ado, here are those things:

- Whenever she is in my or her mother's arms, and needs a burp; she starts looking down, silently, with a really serious face. She doesn't look back up until she feels better.

- When I pick her up after I come back from office, she treats me in a very special way. She brings her face closer to my face, and rubs her nose against mine 4-5 times. But, she does that only once. Blink and you miss it.

- When it's time to sleep during night, she would turn either side, pull up a small blanket and cover her eyes and go to sleep. It is really adorable to see a baby this small do that! 

- If she gets up early in the morning and I am still asleep (which happens everyday), she would try to reach out and slightly touch my face.

- Most of the times, I wake up to a pair of big puppy eyes looking affectionately towards me... that's one of those baby looks that melt your heart. Probably, that's how kids started getting called Sunshine :)

It's raining... my foot!

Guys, Monsoon is here!!! In Noida!

The rain brought many so many things with it: smell of freshness, clean roads, relief from sun's scorching heat.

It also brought overflowing drainages, traffic jams, flood of moths and so much extra.

This morning when I stepped out for office, I saw it was drizzling. So, instead of my Scooty Pep Plus (remember, Plus is important) I opted for taking out my car. However, after realizing that the parking would already be flooded with cars (& of course water); I decided to ride Scooty Pep Plus.

What a wise decision that was (just like my all other decisions). As soon as I reached first turn after my apartment, I saw a huge line of cars! I immediately wanted to pat my own back, but didn't do that for obvious reasons.

Without any second thought, I moved my Scooty Pep Plus to the side lane and rode away swiftly. However as soon as I turned on the main road; my feeling of wanting to pat my own back turned into feeling of wanting to kick my own back; but I couldn't do that  either, again for obvious reasons. Entire road was packed with cars & 2 wheelers; and whatever wasn't covered by a vehicle, was covered with either water or mud!

Everybody was probably thinking how to get out of this traffic, but my mind was thinking about only one thing "हे भगवान, ज़मीन पर पैर न रखना पड़े; my shoes will get wet". Since there was some distance between me and the sluggishly moving traffic, I decided to go slowmo.

Somehow I crossed that zone. On my way, I saw so many innovative ideas that I literally felt proud of fellow Indians. There was one dude, who was wearing garbage bags over his shoes... tada... insta-water-proof-footwear; and then there was this uncleji, who had rolled up his trousers upto his knees. Smartest of the block was this one girl; she had taken off her footwear and put that in compartment and was driving effortlessly. You want to know the key differentiator here - she was also riding Scooty Pep Plus.

Somehow, I was out of this mess and reached the next turn. There was water on the road but only on the right half; so I didn't have to worry about putting my shoes down. "Kick on the back" feeling turned back to "pat on the back".

However, it got washed away when I saw some idiot's speedy car zooming through the water, splashing water onto every two wheeler.

All other cars were being considerate and driving slow, but this dude provided me a visual representation of "एक मछली सारे तालाब को गन्दा कर देती है".

Now I wasn't worried about my shoes; I was worried about my laptop and prayed to almighty to send a decent 4 wheeler by my side. I think God overheard me and sent a truck instead. So, riding side by side with the truck I crossed this road too.

Pretty soon my office was in sight and I was praying "almost there". It was just then, when, I noticed that the traffic outside office had come to a halt and the entire road was flooded. There was no option but to soak my sport shoes in cold, muddy, black water!

However, God had indeed overheard me earlier, and this time when I came to a halt, I was standing next to an auto rickshaw. So instead of putting my foot on road, I took auto's support and reached office with a song echoing in my head "शान से! शान से! शान से!!!".