The first ride

hi.. its my first blog on my private page.. quite cool to begin with... the idea of blogging comes with a hope that it will be a huge hit one day.. maybe advertisers will pay me considering how popular my blog is and one day i will become this millionaire just by writing and will never have to go out in heat to work again. :) wishful thinking. life is completely about the unexpected and as far as being optimistic is concerned, i am all for it. Sochne mein kya jaata hain??

so lets begin.. like the movie does.. with a scroll of the leading actors... i too have some very important people in life (like everyone does). Mom (Niharika), Dad (Vipul), Sibling (Devam) and Fiance (Amul). (i hate calling amul, fiance though... i told like the titles... boyfriend, fiance and later husband... all of them suck. i call him baby.. and that sounds very very apt) so coming back to the point... these are the leading characters of the movie i call life...

these are very important people... as important as that they are on my speed dial... all four of them have a different, common ringtone assigned to their numbers so that i never ignore their calls (not that i ignore the rest of the calls... but atto jhust.. just to give them that unique status). Most of my passwords have their mention... and If i ever pray (when i somehow end up in front of an idol in pujas or family visits to temple) i pray for these four people. Sometimes i cheat and ask things for myself... but 99% its for these fantastic four.

Mom alias Mumma alias Niharika: She's the eldest in the family. :) and makes proper use of her authority. I can never afford not to listen to her or i will be reminded of my disobedience till i finally say sorry and undo what i have done (which directly translates into her victory). But she's funny to the core. If there's a funny bone in Devam and me, i am sure we have got it from her genes. She use to actively take part in fancy dress competitions right upto she cleared her college. And she always convincingly played roles of 'abhan tothiyo' (foolish student) and many more. My mom sings very well... She started with singing garba in her school and college and has continued till date... and funny enough, one of the criteria she laid before her suitors was that the guy also needs to be a singer... :) and strangely, GOD actually heard her and.... swooosshhh..... there came my father from nowhere... Mumma, as she likes to be called, is a teacher by profession. Has been working at the same place for last 27 years and though retirement is still 2 and a half years away, she's already worried about what will she do after she's got no work. Thats my quintessential mumma. Workacholic... enthusiastic... socially very very very conscious (diku, saav gaabha jeva kapda pehriya che... you cant wear this to so and so place... go change)... and inevitably, i have to go and change... she cant sit down quietly without a work for a minute (thank god, i havent got those genes... i love to relax) one sunday she gets an off, and she gets up early in the morning to go for her satsang or in absence of that mindless gathering, she will start cleaning the kitchen cabinet, not leaving a single barni to peace. And if her workacholicism is not enough to irritate me, she tells me how i havent learnt a thing from her and goes on to worry about how will i manage when i get married... :) Marriage is next thing on my mom's mind, when she's not thinking about her retirement or her friend's son's wedding or her own son's lunch and dinner excursions.. in short, marriage often comes up in our conversations nowadays at home. 'diku, ahiya sale aavyu che... taari 4 bhaare saari levaani che'. 'diku, sona na bhaav occha che, pachi mane na kehti ke main tane yaad na karavyu'. 'diku utth... dus vaagya, saasre jais pachi shu karis?'... so well, my mom somehow manages to link my every move with the future that awaits me... there's loads to write about mom. but if i dont stop now, i never will. lets move on to the next most interesting and amusing character...

Dad alias Daddy alias Vipul: If there's one word that can describe my daddy, its jovial. He's a true bhavnagari at heart. loves to exchange new jokes, make up new jokes and laugh even at times when one is suppose to behave themselves. He is an icecream lover at heart. Give him icecream and he wont even look above his bowl till he laps it up all. On a self imposed working holiday, he doesnt work full time. He takes up work when and as it comes it way. He's independent to the core in that sense. Loves to keep a tab on the real estate and the stock market though. You see he is a Gujarati. No one can take that away from a Gujarati ever - his investment brains and his love for food... essentially sweets. Dad loves to be around devam and me. I actually remember a day, some 10/12 years ago... devam and i were preparing for our exams... and right before we were to leave for school... instead of revising, devam and i were an audience to dad's stories of his college time. When we should have actually been revising our recitations and idioms, devam and i were busy listening to our dad's story of how he didnt even know that a subject/paper existed till he went to the examination hall in his college days. Such was our inspiration in those days.

To say the least, devam and i are lucky to have him. Dad never decides on our behalf... be it clothes we wanted or vehicles we wanted or careers we wanted.. and i was too eccentric from a very small age. I must have taken up 100 hobbies and left them one after the other, as they didnt amuse me after some time... and not once did my dad even sat me down to say, 'atleast give it a try'. he was happy to go alongwith whatever i felt like doing. so i left karate half way, and also kathak and a few years later... an entire diploma course in fine arts. And all along, he was only happy to know that i have some clarity at the end of it all - whether i liked it or not. I had the freedom to try and that really really matters a lot. something that devam too will vouch for.

Bro alias bhailu alias Devam: I already have a smile on my face as i set off to write about him. I think he's got the best genes of my both parents... he's good looking, jovial, cool and a darling. He wants to become a hero. Yeah, you all heard it right. He wants to set the Hindi film industry on fire and wants to attain stardom someday. I should have guessed it right when he was very young. He always wanted a big, powerful and rich surname. He wasnt happy with Acharya. He wanted something like Singhania. He always imitated and acted himself in front of the mirror and addressed himself as Dev Singhania. (gosh.. sounds like he is some prem chopra type villain's son) but yeah... he wanted big surname. He use to tell our local vadapav vendor that he is Vipul's son. He wouldnt specify that our Dad was Vipul Acharya and not Vipul Shah (director of the famous - sapna na vavetar serial)... but somehow devam always got away with a free vadapav or at the most on credit. That vadapav vendor still remembers Devam... as that famous Vipul's son. Now ofcourse, Vipul Shah has gone on to become a big big producer and director - something that Devam plans to achieve in future.

He's a cheat. He can cheat you out of your intelligence in minutes if not seconds. I would love to believe that he's innocent and straightforward but his tactics refuse to allow me that pleasure. He's so so conscious of his looks... the moment he gets up, he looks at himself in the mirror - checks out how he looks in the ruffled, out of bed morning look.. if he's happy with himself, he will continue to checking out himself for a few more minutes and if he's not happy with himself, he will spend ten extra minutes in the shower that day and ten extra minutes applying all sorts of creams on his face that night... just to ensure that he looks good and handsome at any time of the day. Thats Devam. One who was never interested in studies - would threaten to burn his textbooks the moment exams were over. One who loves to play and watch cricket - but his so called stardom getup doesnt allow him to play cricket in the noon or summers as the sweaty armpits are so not happening for a hero. One who loves to have music playing in the background always - even if it annoys mom. One who loves to eat his paneer butter masala + butter roti kadak with his a masala papad and chaas when he doesnt need to show off that he's fond of salads and non-oily food items. One who has 17 shirts of every possible black shade and one shirt which costs some 13000 rupees. One who loves reading my long long emails and give me endless advises as to what should i do with my life. Thats Devam - one you love to love and love to hate. But someone who takes the major chunk of the pie chart in the matters of heart is Mr. Amul Jani.

Tolly alias Baby alias Amul: If there was a smile when i started writing about devam... i have this huge broad smile right now... which is slowly turning into a blush as i start writing about Amul. Around 80% of the people who dwell on this planet know the lovestory. How we met over a school strike in our 12th grade - how i started visiting him on the basketball court - how he left for pune and yet kept in touch spending his precious little money - how my single annual trip to pune was even bigger than my birthday for me - how we felt so proud that we were still together despite of finishing college in two different cities - how we somehow managed to live without each other when i was away studying in london - how he made me the most luckiest woman on the planet when he came all the way to london for a month's holiday - how we grew out together from our adolescence to professionals in our respective fields and became officially engaged after being together for 8 long years...

we have been together for almost a decade now... and still discovering each other every day... like last night i discovered how he doesnt like me using his finger to clean my nose. :) when tricked with the most trickiest questions: 'Do i look fat?'... he cutely calls me 'my motu'.. hugs me and makes me feel its alright to have a few kilos more... he actually literally seen me through my thin and thick days... looking at pics which are ten years old.. we look like bachus together.. and now we are being looked upon my all as the 'couple in waiting' after his elder brother - chintan and vrushti's marriage.

Amul, Tolly and Baby have special usages. I call out to him as Amul when i want him to know that i am trying to call him since last ten minutes. I call him Amul when i am refering to him in my conversation with someone else. I call him Amul when i have to call out for him in front of people, who will otherwise think how cheesy i am being in calling him tolly. I call him Amul when he doesnt stop tickling me and his 'leaving certificate name' will come out as a final declaration meaning 'stop'.

Tolly happens in front of parents and friends... those who know he's called tolly and is a name that his friends and i share when we call out for him. Tolly is cute. Tolly refers to his 9th std stint when he went and got his head shaved because of the heat. Nowadays though he is losing hair and therefore the name stays. Tolly is pet name... or rather the cult name. Only our friends who belong to the 'IT' group call amul tolly. Some of his friends also call him jani (thats his last name) but i dont find it too romantic or personal to call him that - jani.

And Baby happens every other second. 'Baby.. goodnight' 'Baby.. what will you eat?' 'Baby.. dont drive too fast' 'We should have a house like that baby' 'Babbbbbbbbbyyyyyyy....... stop' (when we wrestling... and the tolerance level hasnt hit the roof)... so baby happens every other second... he's actually a baby...

Babies forget there's this whole world when they get food... Amul does the same. Babies do all the natak to get the attention... Amul will look at my from the corner of his eye in front of 20 people. Babies are soft, cuddly and so kissable... Amul is like that except for that one hour when he's just returned from his office in the dust capital of the world - Vatva. Babies do everything to make you smile and feel important when they bestow you with their attention and love... Amul does the same... and thats why he is my baby... a grown up baby... with all the worldly wise manners and ideologies...

You will get to know these Fantastic Four and many more in the coming days as i will continue to copy paste my experiences onto this blog... have a good day.