The subtle differences

A possible series again… Deal’s all of us have lived in all sorts of places at different points of time in our respective lives, so much so that it’s quite a surprise that the three of us were together at the same place for so long a time. Well we aren’t now and that I guess kinda restores the balance a bit. Anyways, living in different places helps you notice those small differences and all that and that’s what this possible series is about…

KD’s Entries:

Pune-Bangalore:
1) When somebody in Bangalore tells you that BSNL CellOne is annoying, he could actually be talking about a person called BSNL Selvan.
2) Asking for directions in Hindi in certain parts of Bangalore would lead to replies like; “siddhe jako right leneka” and when you meet the same dude about 5 mins hence courtesy the unusually curved right turn and not so fast moving traffic, you’d get something like “kaa baa? Maine bola na so? Lephtich marne ka… ab tu reverse maar”

Bangalore-Pune:
1) When you explain very patiently to someone that there exists a state called Karnataka and that Bangalore is in it and also that Bangalore isn’t the capital of Chennai, that person could be stunned.
2) That person (point 1) could also get the feeling that you’ve got all your facts wrong and might take it upon himself/herself to educate you.



Antya’s Entries:
Delhi
1) When somebody gets hit by a speeding car (that happens once every 2 hrs) people generally speed off leaving the poor guy writhing in pain.
2) Insist on calling it “Dilwaalon ki Dilli” (wonder where the heart is).

Indore
1) A city where if you stretch your hand from your compound wall you’re sure to touch the other persons front door.
2) Praise the legacy of the city to all and badger it up behind closed doors.

Nashik
1) Backbiting is the favorite pastime of the people.
2) College is a place where you enroll to escape joining your family business for the time being.
3) Any place except pune and Mumbai does not exist on the map of the world.




Ratnagiri
1) You are either a farmer or a retailer or work in the collectors office. If you are not any of this you drive an auto rickshaw.
2) Revenue dept in the collectors office is to be pronounced “Revni”.
3) The jetty is the only place to hang out.

Ahmedabad
1) When you hear somebody talking about a “hole” be rest assured that he’s talking about his hall (the frontal part/room of your place of residence).
2) If you’re a bachelor and living alone in ahmedabad then the time beyond 10 is a time not to go to discotheques or anything but to infest some eating joint and gorge yourself.
3) One of the few cities in India to have 24*7 cyber cafes.
4) The phonetic sound “h” does not exist. It HAS to be replaced by “s” for eg. “Shaishav” is to be pronounced as “Saisav”. Thus tongue twisters like “See sells sea sells on the sea sore” don’t exist.(no points for guessing the original).
5) You happen to know more about the local streets in belgium and Kenya than any other place in india.
6) Every guy is a “bhai” and every woman/girl is a “ben”
7) Walk into any shop and expect to be treated like a king.
8) You’ll never starve in this city.



Pune
1) Courtesy is not a part of the pune psyche, and the local people are proud of their “frog in a well” attitude
2) The only people who are supposed to feel hungry beyond midnight are the ones living near the railway station.
3) Ask for directions and you are sure to end up in the wrong place.
4) Ahmedabad doesn’t exist as far as the local populace is concerned, for the people here anybody coming from Gujarat necessarily comes from Baroda.
5) Shopkeepers or retailers do you a favor by keeping their shops open.
6) Everyone here from businessmen to beggars alike, love their afternoon nap.
7) Don’t be frightened if somebody ever asked you what’s Noida or if the north east means some part of china.
8) Taking pride in one’s culture is a good thing but people here insist on living in the past.
9) If Jumping signals, cutting and changing lanes were an Olympic event, puneites would’ve won gold hands down.

Mumbai
1) Your bill is brought to you even before you’ve finished your cuppa chai coz even the waiter knows you’re time bound.
2) Talk about resilience and bouncing back every time the infrastructure crumbles.


AHAK’s entries:

Hyderabad:
1) You drive here, you can drive anywhere in the world.
2) There exists only one traffic rule – Drive on the left; and sadly no one follows that either.
3) Hyderabadis firmly believe that one should use the brake only when s/he reaches the destination.
4) You ask for directions and you get replies like “Seedha chale jao”. And you ask “seedha kahan?” considering the fact that there doesn’t exist any seedha, you get replies like “ek kaam karo…25 number bus ke peeche chale jao”. Now where the hell do we go searching for the bus?
5) Best place on earth to eat.
6) Over-friendly people.
7) You get to here Hindi which is out of this world. For e.g. “Kya bhi nakko” which supposedly means “I don’t want anything”.


Mumbai:
1) Amazing people. Real fashionable.
2) Consider every city other than Mumbai a village.
3) Any south-indian is a madrasi for the people of Mumbai.
4) People feel Hindi is what they speak. Hindi for “I shall pick him up from the airport” would be “Uthata hai na main usko airport se”.
5) Only place where ladies cut vegetables in the train while coming back from work.
6) Only place where timings of lectures are 11:23 am – 12:08 am.
7) Only place where you can see multi-storeyed slums. And doctors, lawyers living there.
8) Taxi drivers consider their Premier Padmini to be Ferraris.

Bangalore:
1) The funniest place on earth.
2) You get to watch people fight on the roads and no one knows what the reason is. Not even the people involved in the fight.
3) There doesn’t exist an intermediate variety of people here. Either they are highly cosmopolitan or they are highly rural.
4) Get to hear the craziest names of places. For e.g. Chikkabommasandra. Don’t try pronouncing that unless you are a bangalorean.
5) One place where you have the boys’ surrounded by the best girls’ schools.
6) Suprisingly, still a very clean and green city.

Pune:
1) Always compared to Bangalore and that’s criminal.
2) Waiters serve you as if you are the waiter and he is paying for you.
3) All restaurants have the owner’s daughter’s name. For e.g. Sumitra, Pavitra, Vaishali, Roopali and the list goes on.
4) There are no roads in this city.

Talk about originality

This is one of our less documented sides. All of us (all of us sounds much more powerful than the 3 of us right?) believe that women in our nation still do not get the right of equality that they thoroughly deserve. We in fact strongly mean this. We as a nation have a very very long way to go before women see anything close to equality in our country and we ought to be ashamed of this fact.

We can state examples to drive our point, but then everybody knows it (the inequality) exists, so why bother. If required, each of us can individually point out at least 3 incidents where inequality has been displayed in even the IT scenario, but then again, why bother.

This has nothing to do with the government or the rules or the organizations or firms or whatever, the rules seem fair when seen from a distance, yeah you’ll can point out flaws and all, but honestly, the rules are quite fair in the broader perspective, don’t you think?

It’s the attitudes of the people that inhabit this country that needs an overhaul. I mean women are instinctively given secondary treatment in the tiniest of things, not to forget huge differences in other things.

For instance, the ‘eligible bachelor’ article was all fun and all from my point of view, but then the girl could’ve had it bad. In fact most girls that age have it real bad.

Anyways, these are all things that everybody knows about, so nevermind them…

Here’s something not many will have noticed, so here goes.

Names are a big deal right? I mean most people really give importance to their names.
How many female names can you think of right now that do not end with either and ‘a’ or an ‘i’, or to look at it in the perspective of the Indian languages, how many names aren’t pronounced ‘ah’ of ‘e’ at the end? (so that includes ‘y’ and in some cases ‘e’)

And genuine Indian names plz, not Marilyn or something.

I can’t think of too many.

-Komodo Dragon

Now that KD has brought the attitude in picture, thought it would be appropriate to add a few lines on the same.

Well, to start with, we Indians are a very different lot. I don’t know why, but we get some kinda pleasure in doing wrong things and the worst is that we are genuinely proud of it. For instance, stopping when the signal turns red is a crime in India. And if one ‘abnormal’ person decides to do so, he is looked at like an alien. Why just traffic rules. Let’s talk about the topic in hand. Women have always been taken for granted in India. And we carry this sick Indian mentality which does not allow us to think beyond.

I don’t understand what we are proud of. Are we proud of the fact that we feel women are weak and dependent? Now if we stress our minds a little, we will realize that women have also played a major role in creating such a mindset. How many women in India believe that there is more to their life than just the house hold chores and bringing up kids? How many of them are practical and not emotional? How many women actually want to change? The count would be meager.

The other day a friend was upset because one of her cousins was being troubled by her in-laws and goes on to explain me how things don’t work in India and how you got to adjust with whatever you are going through. Common guys, enough of finding excuses to cover our short-comings. Try to find one excuse and you get thousands.

-- AHAK