heights and fears !!!

I was watching a documentary on NatGeo last time I was home. The documentary was about an insanely passionate guy (otherwise why would he be on NatGeo, smirk ;-) ) who was into rope walking at extreme heights. He was shown practicing all alone in serene jungles first with low lying ropes just tied across two trees and then once across a serene lake with the rope barely 5 feet above the water surface. He is fond of doing it all with barest of equipment, just a waist belt preventing him from falling is what is visible.

He then climbed on the rope tied across two huge hills and started walking across trying to balance himself through the use of his body movements and carefully placing one step after the other in dance like rhythm. One can easily see the amount of courage and concentration that goes in here and people with humanely sense won't even dream of doing of this act. In the background this guy spoke one excellent line which rings in my mind every now and then. "I had practiced the same moves trying to walk over the rope on ground at two feet height, I was doing perfect and now when I am trying to do the same at several thousand feet, I feel the jitters and the journey becomes so arduous. At the height nothing else changes it is the same rope but it is I which has changed." How true !!

boys will be boys

Today in the class I happened to notice a notebook left by someone under the table. Just the usual notebook with pages covering notes from every subject till date scribbled carelessly. I think the owner was tired of carrying the same notebook for more than a year. All his efforts for finishing the 100 odd pages of the notebook had gone for a toss, inspite of it being used in all 3 trimesters probably for 4-5 subjects and finally he had to abandon it under some table. It all sounds like the start of a movie where hero is abandoned in the pram of a decrepit orphanage with just a gold locket around the infant shining bright in dark night, and the camera zooms in on the arm of the child where his father's name is engraved. This name is the only pehchaan of our hero and will help him being recognised by the goon leader who had killed his father (I happened to get to this link while searching for the above plot of a typical bollywood movie).

All this may be a little far fetched and the owner would take back his beloved notebook the next day, the story is not about the notebook but about what was in the notebook. I happened to frisk through the last pages. Don't you remember how since childhood you have been using the last pages of your notebook to calculate compatibility of some girl's name with your name (the one who accompanied you to school daily in the cycle rickshaw and you could never get a chance to sit next to her because of her nose dripping kid brother) or played zero kaanta (don't know the angrezi name) with your friend or passed messages to your beloved girl and stared at her handwriting for an infinite time back at home. The last pages of notebooks have always been a witness to the art showing professors, teachers and peers in their best (comical, sleazy ...) form. I know you would be thinking of going back to your school notebook and reliving the memories. The protagonist of our story (the notebook) too had some words of wisdom depicting desperation or just pure fun, the words were mocking someone in rythmic lines (I wanted to reproduce the lines here but some sense of public responsibility or just the fear of repurcussion restrains me).

The essence is what the title here says, boys will be boys, whether they are studying in primary school or graduating from an elite institute. Though unrelated to what those lines depicted, I am reminded of all the songs of the likes of 'hatheli per tumhara naam likhte hain mitaate hain ...' etc. The pictures of sonu loves geetu embedded on rocks in matheran, the tetrahedrons on marine drive, under shah jehan's takht in red fort or engraved on the college desks formed a collage in front of my eyes. Am not sure if only guys do all the writings, but usually the public engravings are courtsey to them. At least the kissas that I am aware of, all started or at least accenuated with these writings on the wall / desks / notebooks, Should all this also come under the purview of the debate on public display of affection ;-) ?