Preach, if you must, what you Practice

This Tuesday I was in Delhi metro coming from Gurgaon, sorry if I hurt any sentiments by not calling it Gurugram (getting their sentiments hurt is favorite hobby of people these days). I somehow think I will never get used to of Gurugram. I remember my schoolmate Kallu. In 10th standard, while registering for board exams, it occurred to his parents that Kallu isn't probably a good name. So they registered him as Kapil. It has been fifteen years (oh my God, 15 years... I am really old now.) But I never heard anybody calling him Kapil and case of Gurgaon is even worse because they are trying to change Kapil into Kallu.

 So I was traveling from MG Road to Saket (that's where I live). 3'O clock in the noon isn't the busiest of metro hours so I actually got a seat to sit down. That was great because you really need to feel comfortable to lie better. Oh I forgot to mention, my latest mobile obsession is online poker and I am not the luckiest with card. So I try to bluff with whatever I get. So I was playing poker in my mobile when I realized there is a dude standing near my seat and apparently his only mission in life was to know what is happening in my phone. People generally don't realize how impolite it is to sneak into somebody's phone. Sometimes when I am chatting with my girlfriend in public transport or lift, there will be some dude who will try to read every word of it as if I am sending it to his sister.

So, to make him feel guilty I looked at him but he was in different zone altogether. He was looking back at me as if I was actually asking for nudes from his sister. Those eyes expressions were really confusing so I thought better to use easy mode of communication. So I spoke, “Don’t worry, I am not going to lose Indraprastha and  Draupadi in the gambling." 

 Sometimes I wonder, probably I have some extraordinary quality to offend people. Once I was telling one of my friends who happen to be a Chemical Engineer from an IIT that Ganga Water is now polluted even for bathing how somebody can drink it.

And he was like: Ganga water can make anything pure and you think it is not pure itself. Our generation kids study few things about science and think that they know it all. The whole education System was made by Britishers whereas actual science was invented by, we, Indians centuries ago. You will happily read those foreign writer books and feel that you are very educated. Real knowledge is in Vedas. We had all this knowledge centuries ago. 

“But go and see the water analysis report before any Kumbh Mela, it always says that water isn't clean enough to even bath."

“This is agenda of these anti nationalist people, don't fall prey to it and never ever hurt anybody's sentiment for Ganga Maiya again."

So there was this guy who was staring at me because I looked back at him for peeking into my phone. He replied back to me, “I don't know what’s wrong with people now a day. You guys think making fun of our scriptures is so cool. Don't you ? That wasn't just any gambling game that was according to the will of Lord Krishna."

My tolerance for shit is very high usually but still this pissed me of. Not because he was not making any sense but I didn’t even know him and he was literally invading my privacy and wanted to make me feel guilty about it. So I replied, “Lord Krishna probably forget to mention it in Geeta but I am pretty sure he intended to say that it’s not exactly a good idea to stick your nose into somebody else’s business.”

He replied, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak into your phone but I just saw you playing poker. I know it’s virtual and it isn’t any gambling and even if it, it probably isn’t my business (yeah, that’s right there was a ‘probably’). It just made me wonders why we Indian don’t like to do or use Indian things. They take anything and westernized it and it instantly becomes cool for us. Take you for an example, even if you have to play a gambling card game, you won’t play Teen Patti which is invented in India but you have to play Poker. Because using Indian Things is so uncool.”

He totally swept me off the floor by saying sorry. You usually don’t expect sorry from these nationalist cops of moral police. But this was absolutely funny in its own way, I mean if you want to gamble, go gamble try your luck but make sure you are playing an Indian game. I took a good look of him and couldn’t resist laughing. It took me good 10 secs to be able to utter a word. “You are telling me to use Indian things wearing your Jack & Jones Tees, Levi’s jeans and superstar shoes. Dude, do you even listen to yourself ?.”

Right then metro announced, “Next station is Saket. Doors will open on the right.” I got up to leave , giving him my seat. He interjected from behind, “So that’s how it works for you, you will listen to me if I will tell you same thing wearing different clothes.”

“Obviously not, you are not making any sense anyway but then at least you will preach what you practice.” and waved him a good bye.