I really wanna know

As my last post was about rap, I couldn't help searching through my diaries to find any of the raps which I had written during my college life. I got one...

" I really wanna know what I really really want
Every time I cut my pencil, I find the knife is blunt
I really want to own all the albums which were banned
When I try to wear jean, I end up with cotton pants

I really wanna know, what I really wanna do
I think of spiritual leaders when I go to zoo
And when I eat some beef steak, I think of chicken stew
I really wanna laugh hard, when others do boo-hoo
I end up with a slap, whenever I try to flirt
When I try to wear a polo tee, I end up with formal shirt

I really wanna know what I really really can
when the weather is cold in winter, I try to switch on the fan
When everyone's watching mushy stuff, I want to watch Batman
When I know that a pint is cheaper, I still drink from the can
So when I see a dog, I also think of a fox
when I try to wear a black one, I end up with blue socks

You really wanna know, what I really really feel?
My whole world is based on reel rather than real
I dont believe in any f#*ing religious zeal
I always check the price of things, before I pay my bill
So if this is a story of what I really really do
When I try to wear floaters, I end up with wearing shoes.


I dont even remember what the context was, but I enjoyed writing these kind of stuff. Little kiddish, but hey... who cares?  

The Rhyme Master

I have always been a rhymer, as long as I remember. When I was a kid I used to like rhymes and used to create my own rhymes. For example with 'twinkle twinkle little star' I used to rhyme 'come little close, why so far?'. My teachers used to get pissed at this so called 'bad habit' of changing 'literature'.

When I was at class four, I got introduced to the literary works of a certain gentleman named 'Edward Lear'. I read through his 'a book of nonsense' in three days and that introduced me to a certain genre of rhyming called 'limericks'. While the limericks strengthened my sense of rhyming, it also taught me how to look at every situation in a funny way. So whoever has experience my sarcastic funny side till now, you know exactly whom to blame. 

Then as I started going to high school, I got introduced to this children's science magazine called 'Kishore Gyan Bigyan'. Other than the scientific features, on the second last page, they used to have a limerick contest. They used to give the first line, and we had to finish the next three lines. And once I started sending my entries, to my surprise, they actually started putting my stuff among the top 5 entries almost regularly, and a couple of time my limerick won the first prize ( I know for a fact that they used to get at least thousand entries every month. 100 entries used to go from my school only).

After sometime because of a world-changing show called 'Superhit Muqabla',  I got introduced to a gentleman named Baba Sehgal ( I heard his albums quite late in my life). This man had a unique way of rhyming and I totally loved that. He always was a fascinating personality for me, and I got used to this new genre of music called RAP. 

I hate hip-hop music, cant stand the voice of a gentleman (not so gentle actually) named Akon and detest the new breed of R&B singers, who has no lyrical value in any of their songs. Wait... I was talking about rhyming and rap. Where did R&B come from? Ahhh... I was going to talk about the one rapper who actually made sense and for the last 14 years, I have followed each and every album of his. Marshall Bruce Mathers aka Eminem. His lyrics, his words, his way of rhyming is nothing less than sheer brilliance.

But my rhyming life actually came to a full circle in 2008. I was working in this Bollywood entertainment channel called 'Imagine Showbiz'. I had to ideate about  some Bollywood vignettes. What came out was a simple rhyme connecting two Bollywood celebrities. Originally I named it 'Khoon ka Rishta', but then as we didnt get many such 'Rishtas', we decided the name to be Cross Connection. And guess whom we approached for the music??? Baba Sehgal, the king of Indian Rap himself. 

Over the next few months, we created 60 such raps. Some written by me, some by my friend Alok. The raps were mindless, but the impact it had on people was terrific and the fun we had while rhyming can never be recreated. And the effect  baba's cross connection had on me, was immense, I rhyme at everything now. For last two years, whatever I've written, somehow or the other I write rhymes in it and I still do. Its a gift, its a curse, who am I? I am the rhyme master.

P.S: I know you guys have already watched it many times, but I couldnt help pasting one Cross Connection link. Have fun...

The real masterchef

My friends say that I am a good chef. Reason being I treat them often with different experimental food which they rejoice. But I know that I am just a cook who understands taste. There were many cases, where I cooked something and it tasted like shit, but I somehow managed to save the day by adding something on top of it and equalize the taste. That's how I became the chef. People say I got it from my dad, he cooks amazing though. Some say necessity while staying out of home made me this, well too some extent that too, but the person who got me interested in cooking is my friend Kallal, the real master chef.

Kallal was a good cook from the day I knew him. Whenever there's a school picnic, Kallal always used to be the one to cook meat. and his sense of spices were accurate, be it for 4 people or 40, spices were always perfect. He defined the proper Indian meat curry. There was one incident I'll always remember. We had a feast in our house where my classmates from our English teacher's batch gathered and we all were playing and swimming. Kallal was cooking from morning. When the food was ready, he blew our head with the taste. It was damn tasty. Everyone took second and third helping. My friend Aryabhatta, could never eat spicy stuff, he loved the chicken so much, that after his first helping, though tears ran down his cheeks because of the spice, he couldnt help saying " Kallalda, arektu mangsho hobe?' ( Kallal, can I have some more meat?)

Kallal legacy was known everywhere, even when he moved to Bangalore he was famous for his food. This photo is from the Commits college canteen where, one fine Sunday, Kallal the stud, wanted to make chicken to impress the girls. I'm pretty sure he did. At least the photo suggests he did. But I always wondered why Sahana (the extreme right one) is not looking at the dish, when she loved to eat. And why Kirti (extreme left) is so happy when she was a vegetarian. Maybe it was the salad. Nevertheless, Kallal still cooks and it will stay as his passion, But seeing him cook was what inspired me to try and experiment with food. His precision, timing and perfection is what I wanted to achieve, but being Kallal was never easy and will never be. I miss his dishes, sometimes. I hope he cooks the same now. Oh, by the way, the dish he made that day, looked like this. YUMMY........