Being Me

While talking to my brother, during my Mumbai trip last weekend, about our TV viewing habits I realized that the channel I have been watching the most is 9X. Not necessarily because it is the best channel around these days, but because for the 1-2 hours I get at home on any average night between coming back from work or some trip exploring Bangalore and crashing on my bed with a book, this channel seems to have the most interesting shows.

I mostly have my dinner on weeknights watching Kahaani Hamaare Mahabharat Ki (I am sure I got the spelling wrong). Watch Kaun Jeetega Bollywood Ka Ticket? (or some such show) quite religiously on weekends. Which, apart from brief snatches caught from NDTV 24X7 and occasional episodes of 10 Ka Dum, sums up my total TV viewing.

I had been seeing promos of Gini & Jony Chak De Bachche for sometime now. Got to see the finals of the show today. In fact, I am watching it just as I am typing this. It must have been a pretty decent show. The concept is fairly interesting, and is, I believe, a product of the Gajendra Singh camp. I have a lot of respect for the man. I would concede that my loyalties lie with the small town team (as against the metro team), for I have grown up in one of the smallest townships of Bihar (and what is now Jharkhand) and I still feel intimidated with the youth from the metros. Despite having stayed in Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore for almost a decade now.

The episode I am watching right now also made me realize, once more after my visits to Chennai, how big an icon M S Dhoni is. I feel really great everytime I see Dhoni doing great because he belongs to a region I love more than any other part of the world.

My dad just got transferred, after postings all over India in the last decade, to the place I grew up at, the place I studied at from Std V to Plus 2. I was talking to my mom this morning and she told me that the conditions have actually worsened in the last decade. We had a maid, who had worked at our place for over 6 years, and she had a son and a daughter who were 9 and 6 years old when I left the place in 1999. Both these kids are married and have children of their own now. I was shocked. The girl would be just around 15-16 now!

A friend of mine from engineering is working in Bihar right now with a firm that is helping to improve the infrastructure there. When he could probably choose to stay in one of the better cities of India, if not abroad, earning far more money. While watching a recent program on NDTV 24X7 about the gradual developments in Bihar I had this urge to give up everything and move there to make some difference. But I know I won't.

I am enjoying making money in Bangalore far too much.