Monday, July 1, 2013

Of all things Kashmiri

1. You speak in a way that is called ‘Kaye-gee’, speaking in a manner that is satirical, and unfathomable.
1. You won’t speak in your own mother tongue, because you feel embarrassed.
2. The only Kashmiri song that you know of is the popular Bhajan that your parents used to sing while praying.
3. If a known person goes abroad, all relatives think that he/she is making a fortune there, and sending in kick backs via Hawala.
4. The first thing that you look for, in a marriage card is the surname of the Boy / Girl, to check if it is an inter caste marriage or not.
5. If it is an inter-caste marriage you just toss the card on the table. If its not, you read the details completely and plan to attend with enthusiasm (of course).
6. You are not interested to marry a Kashmiri Boy/ Girl, because of reasons that I myself could not fathom.
7. You are to dance on Mehndiraat’s more likely on a Bollywood number than on authentic Kashmiri songs.
8. You are a loud mouth. When 2 people are talking, the whole neighborhood would know.
9. If you live in a non Kashmiri neighborhood, half of the time neighbors think that you are having a fight.
10. The only time you meet someone is when it is someone’s marriage.
11. If you happen to meet a distant relative of yours at a function that first questin that will pop up in front of you is “Did you recognize me? Who am I, do you know?” You are left dumbfound.
12. You have a whacky sense of humor.
13. Your mom thinks that you are no less than Akshay Kumar in looks, and thinks superficially high of you.
14. You have 2 Papa’s, 3 Badey Papa’s, 2 Choti Mummy’s, 1 Badi Mummy, and 25 cousins, of whom you won’t even know half that well.
15. You give more importance to money than the social life.
16. Women only wear Kashmiri jewellery during marriages.
17. If you call up your relatives on phone, they would definitely ask you, ‘what was up for lunch or dinner’.
18. Going back to Kashmir is no more than a good vacation well spent. It no more means home coming.
19. The greatest festival is Shivratri, and actually means the kids getting richer the next day.
20. If you cook any Kashmiri cuisine, it is a special feast.
21. You love to eat Yellow rice balls, with curd and sugar on birthdays.
22. You will not pass on your culture to your kids either in form of edification, music, arts, food et al.
23. You will recognize a Kashmiri in a crowd, but will barely go and talk to them.
24. Kashmiri abuses (actually slangs), would soon be archived for non-usage by the UNESCO. Because now you rarely use these slangs.
25. You still brand a person based on his surname, ‘villager’ / ‘priest’ etc.
26. You believe in a lot of superstitions that have been fed in to our cerebrum since childhood.
27. If the elder generation sees another Kashmiri in a public place, they Switch on their Bluetooths to pair with each other; and actually find out, that they are related by nth order of 'x'. 

Thursday, June 13, 2013

When I caught the ants


When I was small, probably 5 or 6 years old, there were so many nasty things that I used to do.
I and my siblings were a menace in the big house that we had in Kashmir.  It was summer time and I set out to play in the lawn in front of our house. But, instead of going to the lawn I went to my uncle's garage, to check if his scooter was there, and to fake a ride on it (like kids of that age would do), and make noises like vrooom vrooom vroooom vrooom. As I was about to enter the garage I saw a colony of ants at the gate of the garage. I thought to myself it would be a great idea to capture these ants. I ran inside to get a bottle of Chelpark ink pot, with water filled in it.

I started hand picking the ants, and dropping them in that ink pot. The ants started to float on the water, and I didn’t know that they were actually dying. I was elated that I had captured them in my magic bottle. I continued doing this and soon my younger brother joined me too. We continued this till my elder cousin saw us and came near. He asked 'what are you doing’?

To which I valiantly replied that we are capturing the ants and safely storing them in my ink pot. He was taken aback. I asked him, “Why are the ants not moving in the ink pot”? He replied ‘the Ants are dying, in the ink pot filled with water’. I froze for a moment and felt bad that I was not capturing the Ants, I was actually killing them. My cousin took away the ink pot, probably to throw away in a corner of the huge lawn facing our house.


Sunday, June 9, 2013

Nirvana

Angrez come here either for 'Nirvana' or for 'Marijuana' !!