Nimish Datta

traveling and singing

[vishal dayama @VishalDayama]

My wife and I have landed in Delhi to celebrate Diwali at home. The place of ‘home’ has changed over the years. However, the idea of ‘home’ is still the same. I had left Delhi nine years ago; my parents continued to live there for five more years until they too decided to shift to a place near Delhi. If you can call the distance of 150km ‘nearby,’ that is. “Expressway se le lo iss baar,” I tell my driver who has come to pick us up at the airport. My manager has arranged a private taxi, as crossing Faridabad or Noida in Uber with an unknown driver still feels like voluntarily walking into your own murder. I might do it someday. But today is not the day. We stop by a chole bhature place before taking the expressway. A tasty plate of cholesterol is all I need to keep my blood flowing. Slowly, if it may. I tell my wife that cholesterol has chole in it. She laughs. I think she sometimes laughs at my jokes so that I don’t keep cracking more. The courteous laugh to stop the future annoyance. Smart. But I never stop. Smarter. Off we go.

The Delhi to Agra Yamuna Expressway is a beautiful thing of nature. Wide roads, no traffic, and a minimum speed of a hundred. Nobody is in a hurry but everyone has to drive fast because the person behind you is driving fast. Some metaphor for life is there I think. But the road is awesome. It feels like you are in Germany. However, the feeling slowly fades away when you look to your left. Or right. Both sides of the expressway are decorated by beautiful engineering colleges. For every washroom, there are ten engineering/MBA colleges. If by mistake you stop at the wrong spot for a toilet break, you might come back four years later, wiping your ass with an engineering degree.

I ask the driver why there are so many colleges in such a remote area. “Jin ameer baap ke beton ko admission nahi milta, wo apna college hi khol lete hai,” he sarcastically replies. A quick search on Google about one of these colleges tells me that these private institutions take fees of around 20 lakhs for a four-year degree. But they don’t market the placements or the faculty. They are marketing luxury. A cricket field, archery, squash, singing classes, dancing competitions, etc. They are talking about everything but digital signal processing. It’s a hotel, I conclude and ask our driver to stop at a dhaba. The chole bhature have digested themselves and my intestine wants more crap.

I spot a couple of students from one of those colleges at the dhaba. They are talking about the swimming competition happening in their college. We smile at their conversation while stuffing our mouths with bread pakoda. I take solace in the fact that only the careers will drown, not the swim-friendly students. Just kidding, I don’t care about either of them. I used to, but over the years I have realized that the only right way to live in India is by practicing apathy. Anyway, who knows, one of these students might become another Singhania who has to open Singhania Engineering College because his kid needs a degree to get accepted in society. I sometimes wonder if education is so less important to some of us, why do we bother with these four years? Just pay cash and get the degree no? And with the money you saved, send your kids to travel. They will anyway learn more than whatever I learned studying digital signal processing.

We celebrate Diwali at home for the next three days. All our diets have gone for a toss. The gulab jamuns, the ladoos, and the pedas are being chewed simultaneously so that they can make a tik-tok in the stomach with the moye moye song playing in the background. A couple of friends didn’t go home this Diwali, so they are feeling homesick. “When are you back?”, a friend texts me. I decide not to post stories on Instagram to honor our friendship. But on the last day, I decide against it. I flip like that. Suffer alone, bastards. I paid too much for these Diwali-time flights to not post stories. However, I tell them there is no Starbucks here. I too am suffering. They think I am joking.

We bid goodbye on the third day, with our stomachs full of sweets and memories enough to last us a few months. Off to the airport again. Right after check-in, we stop at the Starbucks. I wasn’t joking. The coffee feels like home. When you are traveling back and forth to the same place, the airport does start to feel like home. The second home. What is home after all? Just a feeling of familiarity.

I go straight to a meeting after landing in Bengaluru. Wife heads for the office. Back to the routine. Until the next festival returns. That’s why I love festivals. Not the dressing up or the food or the family. It’s an escape from the rest of the year. Everyone slows down their car during these three days. There is no hurry. Life can wait. We come back to our home in the evening. The third home, which will become the first for the next few months.

[Nimish Datta @Nimishdatta7]

@VishalDayama Fantastic story-telling sir! The humor shines throughout the passage. Keep at it!

[Nimish Datta @Nimishdatta7]

@AskLyft The support hasn't been that great

[Nimish Datta @Nimishdatta7]

@AskLyft Hi,
I have been using Lyft for almost a year now, and I've not had any problems. Till now. There is a promotional offer that allows me to go to my workplace which is 10 minutes away by walk for a dollar. There have been multiple instances where I have been charged more than $1.

[Manchester United @ManUtd]

Throwing it back to when Julia Roberts visited Old Trafford 😏

#MUFC

[Nimish Datta @Nimishdatta7]

My childhood coach. Grateful that he mentored me and took me under his wing.

[Vijay Lokapally 🇮🇳 @vijaylokapally]

Mr Gurcharan Singh. Lovable coach. True Dronacharya. Going out to bat. He is 86. See the excitement. He always says "my oxygen comes from the ground." He has produced 15 internationals and close to 100 national players. What a magnificent inspiration. A father figure 🙏🙏

[Nimish Datta @Nimishdatta7]

@Rishabh25096022 @xdmemer_ @rajat1037 @AtharvaGhorpa10 @Akkisharma21 @RitikPant10 @the_rakr @Vineett__ @paresh_ramavat @achabhaii @RishiPanwar18 @Rahul__Ghope @harshxjaiswal @pranavvatsa4 @AdityaG19165996 @w4gsss @FriedBars @realbawamp @krsna_army Humne usse bola bro mat kar diss tu

[Zendaya @Zendaya]

HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Fabrizio Romano @FabrizioRomano]

@Zendaya 😧

[Nimish Datta @Nimishdatta7]

@theweeknd Brooooooo droppp the stufffffffffff♥️♥️♥️♥️

[brooks sterritt @brksstrrtt]

these captchas are getting downright philosophical

[VUH🎬 @Vuhlandes]

Coconut water taste like it’s been in someone else’s mouth

[Manchester United @ManUtd]

Keeping Christian Eriksen in our thoughts and prayers. 🙏

[Gary Neville @GNev2]

Christian Eriksen ❤️🙏

[JerryRigEverything @ZacksJerryRig]

Since trump is banned on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, how long will it take him to figure out OnlyFans?

[Casey Neistat @Casey]

this truth has defined my professional career

[Nimish Datta @Nimishdatta7]

@KushaKapila Ma'am can you guide me to the thread you had created for the farmer agitation protest? I'm not able to find the link and have zero knowledge on the subject. Thank you in advance 😁

[Casey Neistat @Casey]

tbh my wife has no idea I did this. She hasn’t even activated her phone yet. it is not a gesture of our undying love, it’s a fucking sim tray.

[B/R Football @brfootball]

Gladbach’s @MarcusThuram was asked to provide some identification.

So he Googled himself 😂

(via @borussia_en)