Mixed colours of Holi, Uttaranchal and Indian men

So I am writing/typing again. And this time I have picked up too vast an area to complicate the matters. But its okay I have a lot more time at my disposal than my mind can bear to do this creative work. The reason is that I consider myself cretively challenged since I prepared for IIT- JEE for the two longest years of myself, and my view is that most of the people who do that, end up loosing this side of their brain.

Fine more than enough for the highly unrelated prologue to the post. Now getting back to the Title.

Today is holi.

So Happy Holi to me and all those who may end up reading up till here in this post, whenever they do.

How am I celebrating my holi ? Well…. Celebrating festivals has become a rather uncomfortable thing for me. I don’t know how one enjoys the festivals.

At one end I can see my mom and dad, not being able to enjoy them because of absence of both their sons (my brother is at IIT madras and I am roaming around the country for this management training).

Last diwali I was with my friends in bangalore. But now which friends do I want to be with also becomes a case study for me. For the last 8-9 months my friends circle has totally changed from what is so called nerdy, gande- sande(nahin nahane wale), life mein peace types, cracku, maggu, nabadu, gamers, lukkhe iitians to these so called new age polished, sophisticated, responsible MBA’s.

The problem is that with this new set of people I have to on a cautious note. I cant let go of myself because I still don’t understand them as well as I used to understand my earlier set of friends. The problems that I also have to face include that I always keep on comparing this set to my earlier set. Although I totally understand that this set has treversed a different course to reach where it is now. But the problem is that I have traversed a totally different path and I have also ended up at the same point. So my learnings, ways of living, interpretations and responses, outburst, adaptations, dealings are upside down for the same given situation.

I still don’t know what will provoke them, what is fun, what is letting go for them. What could be nothing at all for me could hurt them so much that is unimaginable for me. So I am still getting used to or adopting these classier ways to survive in this new age world.

But the journey hasn’t been bad. I have found teachers, I have found friends also. And probably time will make me a better individual with this socioprofessional learning which probably at least a few iitian needs. It’s just that I have had to get a crash course rather than a full course.

So today I am celbrating holi with no one but this lappy and TV in front with all these dilemmas in my mind.

Now uttaranchal.

Yes I came back from rudrapur yesterday only. And that is a place which I would call a mini Bangalore. Rudrapur comes under area where government has given excise and income tax benefits to set up manufacturing industries. And that seems to have worked. Rudrapur rocks today. You wouldn’t have heard of that place 5 years ago but today almost all the major Indian companies including the bajaj’s, Honda, Tata’s, Parles, Britannia, Nestle and a lot many more have set up plants. This has brought a lot of jobs and investment to the place. Now you get a 2 bhk for approximatedly 6000 bucks in that small village which doesn’t even have a good theatre to boast. I will compare that to Kota which also saw a dramatic rise in the rents because of students pouring in from all across north India to prepare for IIT JEE. And Bangalore where software professionals from all across the country poured in to make their lives successful? In kota you get a lavish 2 bhk for Rs 4000/ and in Bangalore you get a 2 bhk for 12,000/-.

This is the kind of sky rocketing which can be attributed to the Indian success story and the rapid progress we have seen over last few years.

And now Indian men

Yes actually this was the trigger to come up with this post after so long.

I was reading this article in HT which was saying that Indian men don’t want accept that they belong to some one. Rather they expect the women to belong to them. In effect, “Boy friends not accepting about them, having girl friends publicly”. Now this is part is not a response to that article. Rather that article triggered this post.

Are Indian men really like that?

Well probably, given the culturally conservative environment we have many men wont be ready to open up to the society until it gets moulded into the bond of marriage. This could be seen in two totally different perspectives.

· It gives the men the freedom to break up, without creating a social hoopla out of the thing, because normally women are the ones who get emotional about things and it becomes difficult for them to carry things forward. Given the fluid situation things make and break easily. There is no concept of soul mate at an initial stage.

· It also allows the men freedom to flirt with other girls as the article was suggesting. As man I don’t see anything wrong in that. But I think that would be really unfair. And this brings us to individual trust issues in the relationships. Which need to be sorted out.

So this ends a rather complicated, long awaited post.

Enjoy Life mein peace.

And I hope that such complications don’t arise in life of everyone.

ak