However, Hmmmm, I bumped into Apna Bagdor once again. Taking Maasi’s ad-wise (which obviously is influenced by my Mom’s instructions), I surf for ads on Manojkumarmatripaise.com and look for Himachali Girls. Hmmm… I find Apna Bagdor there. I find it an opportunity to make it good with her and may be a file-tag… I click on Read More… It says – The Profile you are looking for does not exist…. May be Apna has deleted her profile. But there’s another option too – Express Interest. But I have to register for that and Log In. So I create my Profile, and go back to Apna’s Page, which again shows the same error. But I click on Express Interest. A message pops up: You can only express interest to an opposite sex. Now I remember why Apna Bagdor had said, “I’m a girl.” Anyways, I presume, honestly, this time, no puns, jokes apart, Apna had not put her sex as Male there, and as she’s deleted her profile, the manojkumarmatripaise.com’s server is playing truants, though her name is still there in the database.

Now I log on to khemsinghpartner.com (Khem Singh is our office runner – Jeevan’s saathi… OOps! Colleague). I take interest in a girl. Her father is an Exercise and Relaxation Instructor. She’s a paid member and contact details are revealed. So I call up my Mausaji and ask him, if he knows somebody in the Exercise and Relaxation Department. He says “yes”. I tell him the purpose, and ask him if he can find out more about this Instructor. He agrees. But as he could not trace his friend’s number, after three days, my Mausaji called up the Instructor himself. Mausaji reported back to me, that the Instructor had seen my Profile and that I had a daughter, which Mausaji negated. But I have a daughter. A 21-year-old daughter – Witness. Any way, after exchanging details, about where about and how about, the Instructor said that they’ll discuss at home and get back. Fine. Now at the end of the conversation, I ask, my Mausaji - What’s the Instructor’s name? He says, XYZ. Now I come to the main point. Did you ask him the girl’s name? Mausaji seemed a little scared to answer that. “Nahin.” What? – I shoot back. “Nahin, yes that’s her name,” he says. I burst out laughing. While taking a sip of juice that I was having, I got choked laughing. This name “Nahin is not going to leave me.

Finally, Mausaji too started laughing. He had a word – Theek hee to hai – People ask you – How’s Nahin? You always give some excuse or the other. If it works, you can always say… She’s Nahin. I don’t know, whom did you see earlier.

Nahhiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…..

Any ways, I enjoy these jokes, life is playing. Keep playing.

(Note: Some things have been filtered and adapted.)

What say you????????

— Frank Sinatra—

Well, Sinatra sang this song early in the ’40s or ’50s. But I don’t know… what had prompted him to write this song or sing it. Probably someone else wrote it for the heck of it and Sinatra sang it.

I believe he was wrong. After all he was (or is) a famous singer as his songs are famous today as well. So take it as it comes and believe him for the time being. After all songs are just fantasies, a romance…

And on the other hand there were these bunch of fools called Beatles, who bayed to the sky singing: “Can’t buy me love… I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.”

Fools they were…

Then they go and sing…

I’ll buy you a diamond ring my friend if it makes you feel alright
I’ll get you anything my friend if it makes you feel alright
‘Cause I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love

I’ll give you all I got to give if you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give but what I got I’ll give to you
I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love….

…Say you don’t need no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy
I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love

Bay, bay, bay… Bay to the moon… you bunch of fools… who said… money can’t buy me love.

But truly ask me the definition of love and marriage…

LOVE: Love is about an ethical man… with principles and who speaks his mind freely, and one who stands apart from the crowd and dares to take the world in his stride or more precisely can care to damn the empty society norms.

Let me define marriage…

MARRIAGE: Money. Well, yes, you heard me right… money, money and money and more money. Marriage is more of a show-off. Love blossomed on those ethics, which defied and damned the society. But now marriage has to thrive on money and the society. You have to show-off.

- How long is your nose? (Abbe yaar mera matlab hai: Tumhari naak kitni unchee hai…? DIKHAO…) Dekho kahin katt na jae… SURUPNAKHA… says… “Bhaiya Ravan, meri naak Laxman ne kaat dee… Ram ko dand dena hee padega.”

- Bhai shaadi hai koi naatak to nahin jo chaar log lekar ke aa gaye. (Honestly, I don’t know, whether you want to collect people for a naatak / tamaashaa or a marriage.) After all we have to live in this society and we have to comply with it.

- Shaadi zindagi mein ek baar hoti hai, roz roz nahin… you should feel like a king or a queen…

Ask me… come on ask me… OK, OK, I’m just getting hyper and I know you would prefer silence… so I’ll deem it asked… so here I answer…

I would rather like to be treated as a king for my deeds rather than create a false aura around myself and feel like a king.

- The difference here is the FEEL and the TREATMENT

- The difference here is the I and the YOU

- The difference here is either ‘I’ feel like the naked king with a false aura around me and the ‘YOU’ who knows that I am really naked… still you put up that pretence to please me that I am in the most expensive and royal of the clothes… but there is that kid who will tell me that I’m really naked. Really.

Well if that was a part of the story… I also remember another story of Amrita Pritam… I really don’t remember the name of the story… but it was based on a Garwhali family… of a girl, whose father wanted to marry his daughter to a family who would give her a ‘naath’ of a certain ‘tola’ only. Nobody was able to match that. Finally one day he came across one. Now the girl was happy and was married off. The man every year as his income grew, added one more tola to the naath. This made the naath heavier year by year, which was painful for the girl. She did the house chores as she tried to balance the heavy nose ring. But as the man was rich enough and his prestige was at stake and he wanted to show-off his richness, it was mandatory for the woman to keep wearing the ring. After all how would his social status be known? It could be known only by how much tola’s nose ring his wife wore. Finally, one day, the nose piercing broke off as the nose couldn’t carry it any longer.

But what’s the moral of the story…? I really don’t know.

My problem is that I am too literate… Abbe yaar… zyaadaa padha likha nahin… balki literary… who has read too much of literature and is a romantic and who believes in too much of bookish language…

But isn’t it otherwise that the whole world is running after that MONEY? So where does that LOVE go? Remain in the books…. Where else?

Probably… you can add another Love story for our students to learn and ask questions… “Define the character of the protagonists…”

Another question could possibly be… “How does the author define Love and how does he define marriage? Write in 100 words. (The questions carry 10 marks each and both are compulsory.)

I often remember the film SHIVA of Nagarjun and Amla. Nagarjun is one guy who fights against the system and this character of his makes Amla love that guy. Love materialises into marriage and they live happily ever after… No, no, no. The problem starts now. The very character that had made Amla fell in love with Nagarjun, becomes the very element for the bitterness in their relationship. Now they have to be practical as he cannot afford to pick up those fights against the system. She doesn’t want him to fight any more. He has to be practical.

Now what is PRACTICAL and what was THEORY here. I have yet to define these two words or think over that… really!!! May be some other day! Till now… let me remind myself…

LOVE = ethics

MARRIAGE = Money, money, money and more money.