Anirudh Lohia|Me and My Theories

• People outside Calcutta think you’re a Bengali(even if ur not 1)
• You are an expert at driving
• Your favourite newspaper is The Telegraph( specially the TV listings section)
• You think that you are very fluent in Bengali when u can just speak a few words here and there.
• When all other areas other than ballygunge and alipore( also include camac st, elgin road, park st.) are crap
• You swear by the fact that the best pastries in the world can be had at kookie jar
• You believe that no other place can beat ‘lake’ in the quality of chaat food.
• Your idea of hanging out wid friends is to go and have hukka or watch a movie at inox
• You went to vardaan market/ ac market on every Sunday during the 90’s
• You love bandhs and play cricket on the streets whenever there is one
• You party at sheesha
• Your worst subject at school was Hindi, however you had most fun in that class itself
• You simply love eating at azad hind/ sharmas
• You goto tolly every 24th December
• You think travelling in a taxi is ‘low standard’
• You goto every match at the edens in which India plays
• You must have owned a santro atleast once
• You call your driver as driverjee
• Your idea of going out for dinner is going to park street
• Your idea of going for a drive is to goto vidyasagar setu or to gautams for coffee
• Your north Indian friends make fun of you when you use ‘ hum’ instead of ‘main’
• You walk on the road rather than using the footpath
• You used to make trips to nicco park every month when you were a kid
• You think that your school is the best school in Calcutta
• You think that a person is from Jupiter if he calls puchka as pani puri or golgappa
• You have had drinks like ‘Dudh Pepsi’ and ‘Masala ThumbsUp’
• You have various groups of friends - school friends, college friends, building friends, and some are just random friends
• You bump into the same people everywhere
• You move around in just one layer of clothing even in the months of December and January
• You keep cursing the driving of the buswallas and autowallas
• you keep prayin for rains/ for a bandh just so that it floods and ur exam is postponed
• You dont think twice before ignoring the red light at crossings
• You just show your palm to cars approaching you while crossing the road and expect them to stop immediately
• You have Dominos and Pizza Hut numbers on your fingertips
• You are stuck in endless traffic jams during durga puja as half the road space is taken up by the puja pandals
• You somehow manage to get hold of your stock of chocolate bombs and aloo bombs during diwali even though it is banned
• your evening snack consists of jhal muri/bhel/aloo dum/papri chaat, etc.
• your idea of weekend getaway is a trip to raichak
• you hate greg chappell and think that sourav ganguly should be made the captain of the indian cricket team
• you use the words ‘ek tala’, ‘do tala’ to indicate first floor and second floor..and so on..
• you call the policeman by the words ‘dada’
• you hang out at someplace else every weekend to enjoy the amazing live performances
• you listen to 107.8 fm
• you love watching, playing sports other than cricket as well.
• you must have bet money on mohun bagan or some epl team atleast once
• You think of Flury’s and t3 when you think of breakfast
• You thinkin abt Idly, Dosa — Jyoti Vihar, Homely Raj and Ramakrishna mission cant skip ur mind.
• A Mamata Banerjee rally is just like another daily event which you pay no heed to
• You find it difficult to digest a rosagolla which is not from calcutta
• You have been approached by street children trying to sell chewing gum, they cling on to you or your friends when ignored.
• You have atleast once been amazed by the English speaking street kids in south calcutta and at the airport.
• You goto all extents to argue with your friends about Calcutta being the best amongst all metros in India
• You crave for paw bhajis from Mayaram
• You have a new passion…Kolkata Knight Riders
• Every cool kid in town is deemed a ‘Maru’ or ‘Bong’
• You never go to college street to pick books…even if you read voraciously…because you’d rather pay ten times more at Oxford to browse in ac!!
• You think Habibs is synonymous with quality hair-styling.
• You wait for Durga puja all year
• You used to do ‘addabaazi’ at Landmark but now are spoilt for choice with all the new malls…
• You rememeber sunday mornings at Victoria where there was always some ‘gulab-soda’ or ‘muri’ after cricket.
• You go to ‘chinapada’/Chinatown or Alipore to pick up black-market alcohol…
• you still call it ‘Cal’ even after the name change

This is a mail forward from Rakhi (one of my good friends)