Chocos Surprise

    Birthdays are always special for many reasons. Most important of all is, it gives us a reason to come together in this big bad busy world. And when it’s your friend’s birthday it’s a crazy day out.

    As our country celebrated it's 68th Independence Day one known devil also celebrated her birthday. Vaishu and my friendship is something different, apart from the world. We sometimes fight, have heated arguments but are always their in the times of need.. I can share everything with her without having to think twice. Our ship has sailed through many storms to reach till this day. And the best part is we are still together even after those storms. So doing anything for her is always a pleasure.(In case you are reading it Vaishu, keep in mind I can write good fiction)

    It's been a surprise season for me since the start of July. First Vanessa's greeting card than Vinay's surprise party, after that Mane's video recording and now Vaishu. I was thinking what to gift her. I always have one simple intention when I think about a gift and it's the person in front should know we tried our best to give you something to let you know that you are a special person. So the usual suspects, an album. But I had already done it for 2 people earlier. Then greeting card, which again recently made it for one. Then thought about a photo frame. There was a reason for finalising it immediately. Actually I wanted to give a similar frame to Vaishu on her spinster party But I couldn't make it as it was during exam season. Then I wanted to gift her on her marriage but again exams. So now finally I was going to give it her.

    Like the earlier greeting card I wanted it to be home made without much of capital involved. It helps in keeping our personal touch. So I started exploring various ideas. Just googled that thought to get some concrete solution. While surfing for ideas, I cam across one frame which was prepared from a cereal box. Immediately a thought struck my head. We had a Kelloggs Chocos box which was empty and ready to thrown away. So I retained its possession and kept it safely in the wardrobe.

    Now what next? was the biggest question in front of me. Since my school days neither the craft work nor the drawing work was done by me. Someone else used to fill those books for my grades. So I had all the ideas, I had the content, I had various themes. But the biggest hurdle was how to implement these ideas on the canvas. I lacked the creativity. Plus it should have been a group work, but can't expect time from others as each of them have work commitments of 10-12 hours.

    So I had to go ahead alone. First things first. I needed to sort out atleast 20 pics from the vast collection of over 1200. I used to keep one theme in my mind and sort out 20 pics from the lot. Then if the theme wasn't feasible then again sort 20 as per another theme from the ocean. And this drill went on.

Themes

Vinay came to my place on Sunday afternoon to decide about the themes. Since my MS-Office was not working, I had not option but to develop individual pics and then stick them according to our theme pattern. So I called upon him to do the selection work.

First I had thought about including pictures of her friends from college till her marriage. So it will be like a journey or timeline since college days and will end with her marriage pic. Pictures will be like some specific moments or memories. But then since college the one group is now split into many small factions. So including everyone was getting a bit crowded plus will be unnecessary as not all of them are interested. And we can't include their pictures without their consent. So had to drop that idea.

Second we thought about including pictures of each and everyone with vaishu. So I found pics of the entire college group. But again, here also the same issues. Getting crowded as well as all our not in touch.

Third we thought about including a group picture in the middle and some memorable pictures surrounding it. So again the same drill. Dig in the ocean for a group pic. Her marriage photo was a good one, but I believed there were some people in that pic whose permission I didn't have, to include them in the frame voluntarily. So I started to search her engagement pic as it was less controversial, for me. Unfortunately I couldn't find it in my archives. So while talking with shweta I asked her to lend me the pic if she has. There she suggested check her FB a/c, she had uploaded that pic. Now I had all the pics but again their were problems. The box was small. If we have include a group pic in the middle then it has to be big, so that everyone's faces are visible. And because of that size other pictures will have to be adjusted in smaller areas. It would have been injustice on them. So had to drop the idea of group pic.

Fourth, we thought about going the same way I did for pravin. In his collage I had included his name in the middle which was apparently written on the sand in a beach. Vinay found one pic of vaishu's name on the sand from her facebook account. So we had that theme working but again the image was on the lighter side. Plus I wanted this gift to be something new and not similar to someone else's. So my inner voice was not allowing me to go ahead with this & hence, again, cancelled.

 Fifth we thought about a two way frame. On one side we will have decent pics and on the other side we will have some hilarious moments. One ofcourse was shortlisted was vaishu's epic pic from a restaurant while returning from our IV. Then one was of me sleeping on a bench in essel world. For pravin it was his pic captured while falling from the adventure sports in essel world. Vinay decided to caption it "Pawanputra". For vinay it was he holding a bottle and eating mirchis. It would have been too much fun but then that poster will always be in a deep locker coz of all the crazy stuff. So we dropped that idea though it was fun while sorting all those crazy pics.

Then finally me and vinay agreed upon one theme. To include 4 individual pics of vaishu from 2005 till her marriage. And 6 pics with all of us together. It felt proper and will not be messy. There was enough space to arrange all of them. For the individual pics of vaishu we got 2 each of her engagement and marriage. The good thing about them was they both were facing each other. The 2005 pic was also facing on the proper side but we couldn't locate a pic where she is looking in the desired direction. So we had to settle for one which was taken in Pind Baluchi. In case of other pics the biggest difficulty was finding a picture of rohan with vaishu. We scrolled like hell and finally vinay got one from the essel world collection where we all were getting down from a ride and fortunately rohan was besides vasihu. So we okayed that theme and now I had to start preparation of the frame.

The main problem in selecting themes or pics was that we had to be careful of excluding some people. And that was the difficult task as in most of them they were also a part. Second problem we faced was selecting pics of vaishu in which she is not sleeping, which is very rare.

 Frame
Before giving any border to the frame I had to ensure the box is stable. The portion where the box closes is foldable. So I had to make that concrete first. Took small portions of cardboard and inserted it between them so that those layers are strong and won't bend when the borders are made.

Now the big guns. After surfing the net, many images of hand made frames had a huge border and very less space for the pics. I wanted it the other way. I had to allocate 10 pics comfortably in that frame. So I decided to keep the border small with cardboard.

First I gave it background with pitch black colour chart paper. The black colour was suggested by payal as I had asked her for suggestion since her's is a more creative mind in these things. Then after the background I made a border with White cardboard. The intention was to have contrasting colour as the background of the frame is dark in colour. So that time I thought to make some desgins on the cardboard to make it more presentable. Now comes the back side. I was not in a mood to do anything on the back side and keep the Chocos cartoon as it is. Thought of telling vaishu, incase you get bored by our faces attach this cartoon as your frame. But then the box was on the weaker side. So I decided to stick the chart paper as border, with the thinking that it might give her a strong base.

After the main work was done now came the difficult part, the creative stuff. Where I am intellectually disabled. So it took lot of brain washing, consultations to finalise the frame. First I decided to do some sketch pen work like I did it in the recent greeting card. But it will look very dull considering the pictures in the frame which are very much lively. My handwriting is not at all good to experiment here, so thought about going the old school way. Cutting alphabets from newspaper in random manner and sticking them together which will read "Happy Birthday Vaishu". Intitally we had also dropped the idea of writing any captions on the pic as there were more picture so it wont look that much cool. Now after the main wished what next to decorate the remaining part? Fortunately their was one butterfly in Sunday Loksatta in two spearate parts on the front page. So I did a decent paper cutting and joined the 2 parts of butterfly while sticking it. Also there was some advertisement of some brand. What caught my eye in that Ad was the two small elephants. Thought it will be good addition. So included them also. So after putting them together it was looking something like this.

The Vaishu part was on the left side for a reason. I didn't get a carboard of full size of the frame so there was an attachement. And since I had not decided upon the background so I kept it on the left side so that the 'V' can hide the attachment. The big question was still pending. The huge part was still white and though the colour was contrasting black and white but still I was getting a feeling as it is naked. So started digging again on the net about ways to decorate it. But majority of them where high fundo craft work which is clearly not my cup of tea. Finally  my brother showed me the path. He is normally good at colour combinations. So he told to give the entire background a pink colour or stick pink chart paper. It will go good with the colage. And on that I can stick the letters and butterfly and elephants. Didn't spare a thought and went ahead with it and finally after lot of R & D the frame was ready.

Collage 
I was going to make a powerpoint slide of all pictures and get a printout in glossy paper. But unfortunately my MS-Office betrayed me. So I called up pravin and asked him if I can come to his place for some laptop work. Good news was that he was coming to Bhandup for Raksha Bandhan so he said he'll bring laptop along with him. Then vinay gave a different idea. That he will develop individual pictures then we can cut them in random sizes and stick them. But he failed to give them for developing as he couldn't make it coz of his hectic office timings. So I had to take the final resort, the photo studio near my house. I was avoiding him coz he is normally costly. But now that we had so much ahead we couldn't back out. So I told him to make the collage which he gave me in the same evening. The product was quite nice.

Scroll
We had dropped the idea of captions on the frame. So only HBD was involved in it. Though a picture is worth more than thousand words still I wanted something to written. But there was no scope on the frame. So we had to give it separately. While sorting pics vinay had given the idea of scroll, but that time we didn't took it much seriously. Now I thought why shouldn't we give it a try. Again my beloved YouTube, learning the techniques of how to make it. Cloth was not available so I decided to make it with paper. The most important part in this was the wood which we have to attach on the ends. I couldn't find any hard thing around at my place. Was thinking about getting wood sticks from some where when a thought struck in  my head. The easiest mode, pencil. In the pencil upper part is already black so I covered the below part also with black marble paper making it even on the both sides. Applying some gum I just rolled the pencil on the paper. Pink and black combination was already used in frame so repeated the same in the scroll. It took time to hold onto the pencil. So as precautionary I made marking on both sides to notify that it won't open beyond that point. The content I thought to ask small messages from everyone. But there was space constraint. So I searched lot of marathi cards as I wanted it to be in our mother tongue. Finally got 2 poems which were quite nice and also small. So I merged those 2 poems and made one of own. Now my writing in english is horrible so Marathi it's been long time since I have written anything in our Devnagri Script. So I gave this task to Vinay.

Final Presentation
 After all our research and experiments these were the two gifts which we gave vaishu on her birthday. The only change was we couldn't write our names in the scroll coz of space constraints. Else plans were to write them in different patterns.

Party
The day our people reach on time will be the day sun won't rise. We were supposed to reach at 630 at vaishu's place. But thanks to pravin, vinay & shweta and their confusion we ended up reaching at 815.  It also had it's own fun. Vinay asked pravin to get down at Rcity as shweta was also coming down who was their with her family. Vinay and shweta met at the bus stop near Rcity while pravin was still stuck in traffic. Suddenly these 2 guys took a rick and directly went ahead. Pravin calls me up and asks what should I do now. I told then continue in the same bus, till last stop. I'll board it at bhandup. Suddenly shweta calls me says we are at bhandup waiting for you. On the other side rohan had already reached Teen Haath Naka. So he went home to change and joined us in some time. After all the mix up we finally managed to reach at 815. After the Hi's Hello's we wished the birthday girl and were about to give her the gift. But suddenly Chirag said she is yet to take the cake so we snatched it away from her. Her face was classic at that moment. Vrushali brought a superb cake which made the evening. After some snacks, talks, photo session we decided to take a leave as it was already late. Shweta left for the day while we 4 went to Zaffran at Korum Mall. Just food as it was dry day and some ice cream in the end. The day ended at 1145 and everyone reaching home by 1240.

   It was long due that we all came together under one roof. Full on masti, lively. May be that's the magic of friendship. You can get angry on them, you can fight with them but you just can't live without them.


Happy Birthday Vaishu.


SR.

Congress(I) in Rehabilitational Mode

    Ahead of the Vidhan Sabha Elections in October, Congress(I) has made Narayan Rane as it's Poll Campaign Chief, Ashok Chavan as the Chairman of Election Co-ordination Committee & SushilKumar Shinde as the head of Poll Manifesto Committee. A rebel, alleged accused in scams, and own constituency reject will be leading the ruling party's campaign in the state.

    Inspite of the huge rejection by the public at large in the recent Lok Sabha polls the party still doesn't seem to accept reality and prefers to stay in limbo. The appointments of these leaders vindicates the fact that only those staying loyal to the family will be recognized, else sidelined.

   Lets take one by one on these significant moves and try to understand why it is mere rehabilitation process and not a constructive or sincere move.

Narayan Rane
    Rane had recently revolted against the party and it's CM Prithiviraj Chavan's leadership skills to lead the state. His son who was sitting MP also lost the election to Shiv Sena candidate from the Konkan belt, which is considered to be his stronghold. Taking moral responsibility, at first, and then threatning to leave the party, he submitted his resignation from the Cabinet to the CM, who did not accept it by saying the party high command will take the final call. However it got a lukewarm reaction from the party president Sonia Gandhi. After being ignored, Rane decided for talks on a compromise formula with the state leadership. However the party said, to be considered for any organizational assignments compromise will only be reached if he takes back the resignation. So after the withdrawal, as promised, Rane was made the Poll Campaign Chief as well as the mining portfolio was also granted to him. With this Rane will have a larger say in selecting candidates and also on talks about alliances.

Ashok Chavan
    Chavan was removed from the CM post when his name surfaced in the Adarsh Society scam. Since then he has been completely sidelined by the party. Though he was given the ticket for Lok Sabha from Nanded Constituency which he won, despite the Modi Wave, by a huge margin. Immediately after the results the Election Commission filed a case against him for not disclosing expenditure incurred for advertisements in the print media during the 2009 polls. However to his relief, the Mumbai High Court stayed the case initiated by th CBI and the Delhi High Court stayed the case initiated by the Election Commission. Also the Congress(I) appointed governor of Maharashtra K. Sankaranarayanan had went out of the way to reject CBI's plea to prosecute Chavan in the Adarsh Scam thus clearing his thorn on Chavan's march to Delhi. So after clearing all these hurdles the party has given him a fresh lease of life by making him the Election Co-ordinating Committee Chief. Like Rane, he is also a known detractor of Prithviraj Chavan and hence these appointments effectively makes the chief minister fight with his back to the wall for survival.

Sushilkumar Shinde
      After making headlines by sending letters to state chief ministers of not arresting muslims when he was the Home Minister of the country or claiming the RSS and the BJP are promting Hindu Terrorism in election rallies. Shinde lost from his own turf in Solapur by a huge margin in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014. So for him, the appointment as the manifesto committee head comes like a lottery. The embarrassing defeat should have completely sidelined him from any organizational assignments but his loyalty to the Gandhi family has been taken into consideration while giving him the post.

    So as we see, it's clear from their bio's that appointments have not been made, taking into consideration the factors which led to the embarrassing defeat in the National Elections which also brought the party from 206 to mere 44 in the Parliament. These appointments also make it clear that CM Prithviraj Chavan, who has more clean image, will not have larger say in the election campaign.

    The Modi wave still in the air and the strong anti government wave might bring a change in regime in the State, like in the Centre. With PM Narendra Modi likely to address 10 rallies in the State, will these appointments give a lease of life to Congress(I) or will it deteriorate its image further, only time will say.


SR.

Precautionary Measures or Ending Vrindavan Tradition?

    The Mumbai High Court in its recent judgement has directed the state government to issue a fresh circular banning govindas under the age of 18 from participating in the Dahi Handi festival. Also it has restricted the height of the human pyramids to 20feet(4 Thar).

    Dahi Handi is a festival celebrated to commemorate the mischievous act of Lord Krishna in the village Vrindavan. It is very popular festival in Mumbai and Maharashtra where it is part of the main festival Gokulasthami or Lord Krishna's Janmashtami. According to the legend, Lord Krishna and His friends use to form human pyramids to break pots hung from the ceilings of neighborhood houses, in order to steal curd and butter.

    Though in the recent years, this festival has become a platform of show of strength for the aspiring politicians in their respective constituencies, to garner popularity among the masses. The prize money is sky rocketing with each passing year with some hitting the Rs. 1crore mark. As the number of zeroes in the prize money increased, it motivated the Govinda Pathaks to make higher pyramid. As height increased, probability of casualties also increased.

    However, it still doesn't justifies the recent ruling of the Honourable Court. When your get hurt on a particular part of our body, one does not cut that body part but takes appropriate medications to fill up the wound. Banning Govindas under the age of 18 and restricting the height to 20 feet seems, to me, as major step towards putting an end to the tradition in the distant future. The ruling seems to be very harsh on the mandals who have been celebrating the festival for decades and generations together. Today it's Dahi Handi. Tomorrow there will be restrictions on Ganesh Chaturthi, then Deepavali, Holi. And the list will go on.

    There is a threat to life even when one goes to trekking on the peaks which are above 1000s feet above sea level. Recently a 13 year old girl from Telangana achieved a feat of climbing the Mount Everest. So age doesn't seem to be a barrier when it comes to height. Now some people will argue that she went with proper gear and all precautionary material. So why not implement the same in this case? Why not force the mandals to take all the precautions before making the pyramids.

    There might have been many ways rather than the current ruling. The ruling also directs the police to amend the Bombay Police Act to include higher human pyramids as 'dangerous activity'. So, now law will take it's course on how the festivals should be celebrated. Instead, why not ban the organizers which are mostly led by leading politicians to stop making it a battle ground to earn election tickets. Why not put a restriction on the prize money announced by these organizer beyond certain limit.

    A law should be passed which must compel all the Dahi Handi organizers to disclose their source of funds & make it compulsory for them to register under the Bombay Public Trusts Act or the Societies Registration Act thus bringing them under public scrutiny. This will bring in more transparency and put a curb on the hefty prize money which are included in the banners to attract the media glare. As the prize money comes down, it will immediately discourage Govindas from going higher in the pyramids.

    The Dahi Handi mandals should be banned with immediate effect if any of the Govinda from their mandal suffers any casaulty or death during the festival. They should be made to take full responsibility of all govindas in their Pathaks. Law should take it's course in this case and prosecute the mandal organisers with serious imprisonment. In case of casualties it should be compulsory that the mandal should pay all the expenses with regards to treatment in case of casualties and the heavy compensation as decided by court in case of death or permanent disabilities.

    Proper precautionary gear should be worn by all Govindas during the festival. The mandal should carry along with them an ambulance in case of any casualty which will assure immediate medical attention.

    The age limit should be reduced upto 14 or maximum 15. Above 18 means it also creates practical problems for the Dahi Handi Mandal. A fully grown up man wont be able to climb the last level as the people on the initial levels wont be able to balance properly. This will discourage many govinda mandal's participation in the festival.

    We have to find ways in the present situation rather than eliminating it, completely out of the equation. Law's should be made stricter and the government should also ensure it's proper implementation. But the nature of law must not be such which might bring down curtains on the centuries old tradition.



SR.

Happy Birthday Mane

   

    I don’t know his first name as I have always addressed him as Mane since Day 1. In the summers of 2006, we met for the 1st time in the confines of Sukh Sagor. The Gang of 5. Different people, with different perspectives with different way of living came together for an adventourous journey. Those months were one of the best days of our lives. Always being Out-Standing students to bunking classes, talking all nonsense other than books, Coke, Fag and Rum. Classic days. We were the Lords of all creation. No worries of future. Lived as if we were to die tomorrow.

   Only 2 left from that gang now as everyone took a different turn in the later phases of life. The saddest part is we dont have any memorabilia from that period. Not even a single photograph. But none of us will ever forget those days.

    People have memorable moments at certain places like a beach or hill station or some garden or a college campus. We have spent more than half of our years of friendship in Library. Be it Thane or Pune. Sitting hours and hours in those nilkamal chairs was our favorite hangout spot. The best time was the night time with the engineering comedians, the chaiwalla anna. Remember the incident of ceiling fan coming down. Ghosh..!! We lived our lives on the razor edge.

    Then came our long stay in Pune(Vidhyecha Maher). I remember my first day when I had to stay in a different house. You sensed my homesickness and stayed with me. People thought we were studying their, but bouyy we did all sorts of stuff. Dancing like maniacs in the visarjan miravnuk, watching movies, roaming the streets of Sahakar Nagar in the mid night, Mess ka khana, tapari ki chai and also doing Vassoli(my Rs 2000/-). Always wanted to live a hostel life, and we did lived in style. The best day was my midnight birthday surprise. That was the first time I did cut a bday cake at 12. Normally I do get a hint when some surprise in being planned, but that was rocking. 

    Our journey till date has been quite fascinating. We met so many people in the past 8 years. Starting from Anoop, Roshan, Sreenath. Than the Thane library buddies, I don't even recall their names. Then the Fantabulous people of Pune Nilesh, Nagesh, Prakash. Library mitr, Amol, Aasif, Wagh and many more. People came, played a part in our lives and then went on to continue their own journey. What I have learned in all this is "Life Moves On, Come What May".

    So don't change the way of living. Life is too short to be serious. Time is a luxury we don't have much to spend on analysis. Laugh out loud, dance in the rain, catch up friends, celebrate. You might be some one good underneath but it's always what you do that defines you. So keep the spark On. Remember the good times, let go the sad memories. Life is an adventure. So don' just breathe in it, LIVE it.

Happy Birthday Mane.

SR.