People have many fears. I have this friend who has never failed an exam and still fears that he will fail. One of my uncles fears losing money in the stock market. You know what my biggest fear is? -

I fear that nobody will want to hear what I have to say...




On a wintery morning in January of 2007, I wrote my first post. I didn't think of the future then. It was just something you do when you are fed up with life.

I was in my final year of engineering, and as it is famous for, Engineering did enough to make my life a boring routine - Lectures, Assignments, Practicals, more Assignments, Prep leave, Exams, more Exams, Results, Placements and more...

Life happens not in a planned way but on a wintery Tuesday morning... like it did to me...

It happened when I decided to start blogging. I never thought I was a good writer. All I knew that I could tell stories. I wrote my first post and hoped my friends will like it. Some of them did. They pushed me enough to write the second post, then the third... till I became addicted to writing...

I think a lot, and I continue thinking till I write my thoughts down. This very blog taught me that. I would write down my thoughts and that would clear my head for newer thoughts, saving me from the cycle of thoughts that I used to get caught up earlier.

Dont you think who will remember you when you go? When I go, will they rememebr who Arshat Chaudhary was? Was he a good guy? Was he funny? When I go...I will leave these stories behind... and hope that through my stories you read my soul...

It is difficult to write a blog. It is difficult to place yourself out there. You are potentially standing naked on a street. in fact, it's even worse, as on a street, no one knows what you are thinking...what your deepest fears are... Everyone who has been on this blog, knows me.. atleast a part of me...

What gave me the courage to a guy like me, shy and an introvert, to start writing, putting myself out there! Trust and Love!

I hope through my stories, I have made you smile, made you cry, made you think, asked you to fall in love... I hope I have fulfilled my purpose of starting this blog.

I look at the followers of this blog. I am humbled when I realize there are so many of you who have never met me, dont know what I look like, dont know what my religion is, or what is my political inclination, but still you love me enough to read what I have to say...

It's funny how a simple comment from someone whom I have never met made me feel so happy for days together... I hope my stories have had a similar effect on you.

I can't help it if I sound sentimental today... But today, something happened which I didnt think was possible...

I have always loved your comments, even when you didnt comment, I knew you had read the post, and I was in some way, able to touch your lives in some way... I felt happy that I could do that. All those words of appreciation some of you showered on me on my Orkut and facebook profiles and through email, though exciting, only ended up humbling me and pushing me to come up with better stories...

In most of my posts, I must come across as a guy who has this inherent urge to announce his supremacy by cracking stupid jokes about how awesome he is... But honestly, isnt that the trait of a person who wants to be accepted? Dont you think the guy who goes on saying that 'I am the best' is actually not too sure about it..?

All this while you have enjoyed my posts... I sincerely hope that you have... You have seen me grow... From a boy studying for his final year engineering to the man that I have become... I know, not much of a man... but play along, will ya? :)

I have shared so much of my life in the last 2 and a half years, I have to share THIS with you, this is what I did today...

I signed these papers. I am now an Author.



I owe this to each one of you.... each one of you who has come on my blog... liked my posts... or even disliked my posts... each one of you has influenced my life and writing in some way.

Today, to each one of you who has taken time out of their lives to hear what I had to say -

Thank you
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27 letters to the editor  

The butterfly story...

Short story

The African Luna Butterfly lives only for a day. In that day, she finds time to eat, sleep, drink and mate!



She says...
Medicine is a weird profession. People who aspire to become doctors should wear a chastity ring. It's only in Grey's Anatomy, I mean the series, not the book, where doctors keep hooking up with each other. In reality, doctor boys are really boring.

I know some girls find them hot, but they are boring for doctor girls. They are all the same - hardworking, intelligent and serious. That explains why doctor girls marry late.

In my case, that was a supplementary reason. In my case, most boys didnt like me. Maybe I was fat, or maybe I didnt wear fashionable clothes. Maybe I just wasnt attractive enough for boys. I thought I should study now, there will be plenty of time in the future.

The study time made me 28 years old. All my friends started getting married. The ones who werent married were either engaged or had a boyfriend. They went out on Saturday nights, while I did their emergency shifts. It was still better than sitting at home alone watching reruns of Friends and Seinfeld.

I was in the pediatrics department one such Saturday night. I was hungry so I went to the cafeteria. It was 2 in the night and the cafeteria didnt have a lot of people eating in there. I asked for Upma at the counter. The good thing about being a doctor is that you get immense respect. The lady at the counter was so sweet to me. The cafeteria is self-service usually but she served the upma at my table. I thanked her and inserted my fork inside the upma when I heard this guy call my name.

"Dr. Ragini?" I raised my head up. At the next table sat this guy. A doctor for sure. What department was he from! He didnt even have a name tag.

"Yes?" I said.
He got up from his table and came and sat at my table on a chair facing mine.

"It says 'self service' you know?" He said pointing at the 'self service' sign above the cafeteria counter.

"So?" I asked. Who was this guy? And why was it any of his business to point it out to me that I didnt follow the rules. Anyway, it was the cafeteria lady who came and served me. It was not my mistake.

"So? So nothing..." He got up from his seat.
I was confused and as a consequence angry.

"Wait... Who are you? What's your name? Where's your name tag?" I asked in a voice that is louder than permissible inside Hospital premises.

"I dont wear name tags. You souldnt be bound by names, no?"

Who was this crazy dude!
"Listen Doctor... I didnt break any rules alright.. It was the cafeteria lady..." I dont know why I felt answerable to him.

"Doctor Ragini, dont worry... Well, I need to run... I need to save lives," he said in a fake Superman pose.

"Wait! Which department are you in?" I asked, I dont know why.

"The surgery department. The 'real' doctors department. The kind who save lives." he said with arrogance.

"Well, I save lives too... I am in the Pediatrics department." He didnt even ask.

"Sure... you do... All of us do. But yeah, some of us are more important than some others," he said.

What a jerk! I thought

He went away and I spent the night thinking about him. Then I fell in love with him. Dont know how that happened... It just did... And luckily for me, he was head over heels in love with me too... It's a lovely feeling, isnt it?

We dated for a year. The best year of my life...

He proposed one day in front of the 'Gateway of India', one of the weirdest places to propose but flamboyant, just like everything else about him.

Then something happened which made me reconsider it.

Till today, I cant decide if I was right or wrong. If what I did was right or wrong. If I was too selfish. I was 29 years old. I wanted to get married. I had found a guy who loved me.

Akki, sweetheart, if you are reading this... I am sorry...

Love,
Ragini.



He says..
Being a Doctor sucks sometimes. It's not like they show on 'Scrubs'. You should watch it if you havent already, it's really funny.

Talking bout funny, I met this girl Dr.Ragini in the cafeteria. And I was such a jerk to her. I dont know why. But she seemed so nice, you had to mess with her.

She wasnt very good looking. She was what you would call plump and had a very simple way of dressing. But there was something very genuine about her. There was nothing bout her that was made-up.

I think I feel in love with her. I think you love someone based on not how they are but how they make you feel when you are with them. She made me feel good, funny and well uber cool!

Like the first time she asked me where my name tag was, I made this stuff up about how people shouldnt be made to wear a name tag. The truth was, I was new in the hospital and they hadnt given me a tag yet!

We dated for a year. The best year of my life...

When I proposed to her a year later, she said yes. There are very few words which can make you feel happier than a 'yes' from a girl you love.


We were supposed to get married in 3 months when she started to behave weird. She had been sick intermittently for sometime, but she assured me that it was nothing serious. I had known her to be increasingly honest, so I took her word.

I should have investigated more.

One month before our wedding day she asked me,
"Akshay? What if I die, say 6 months into our marriage?"

Women I tell you! Getting married is subscribing to a lifetime of silly questions.
I asked myself how would I feel if she really died in 6 months... It was a morbid thought, but for that moment I did think of it...
"Those will be the best 6 months of my life." I said. I meant every word.

We got married. Those were the best 6 months of my life.

She had thyroid cancer. It is hard to detect. Usually its a benign tumour and it is possible to cure it. But her tumour was malignant. She knew about it. She decided to spend her last days with me. She really loved me.

I read her letters she wrote for me in advance. Everytime I read those it feels she's just sitting next to me, saying those things- describing the way we met, the way I proposed, the wedding night...

Her not being here is nothing to be sad about.
She lived a butterfly's life.
People like to think she died early... I like to think she lived for a year...
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To the crazy and back!

When I was a kid, the only night I got to stay up till 12 in the night was the NEW year's eve. Then after I joined Engineering, usually I stayed out till 2 in the night. In MDI, the parties would go on till 4. But the ultimate were always the parties that you read about on Page 3 of News-dailies.

There's reason they call it the party capital of Europe. To know why - there's one thing that you should do if you come to Berlin - Partyyyyy...

Now its not the same party that most guys have on a Saturday night back home. These parties in Berlin are a trip to crazy and back. Some parties just leave you at crazy and forget to take you back - Beware of such parties. Such parties are suitable only for Michael Jackson (R.I.P mate) and his friends (the ones over 18 years of age).

So I went to this party or should I call them parties coz they are in plural, and it was like crazy. Now I dont want you to think that I havent been to/have been invited for any parties. As you might have guessed, I am like, super popular here in Berlin too... And everyone wants a piece of Arshat coolcucumber... Now being a nice guy, I do like to appease people and go to every party that get invited to, which is Every party btw.

But of course I have my own constraints... I am not a party machine now, am I? Wait... maybe I am!

So this pretty blonde girl asked me out... I kid-you-not, she really did...!! So maybe she called like a group of 8 people to go out, but my friends in India and my son are gonna hear a different story! :P
If I have learnt anything from German TV, it would be never to turn down a blondie.

Now my regular readers (all 3 of you) know that I am a quiet guys who usually keeps to himself unless he really likes you after which he showers you with a mix of funny anecdotes and knowledge tit-bits. If you have noticed that I am like that with you, go buy yourself a chocolate medal. Others, keep trying :P

So as a quiet guy, I never really attended many parties. My engineering background and my straight A's made sure I spent Saturday nights cuddling with my books. Okay, go ahead make fun of me... But now, I can talk bout cars till dawn and you can not! And some of that talk does turn on some hot girls in the class, so there! In your face!.... Okay, I am kidding. My little 3rd and 4th cousins read this blog and I would like to tell you guys, car talk aint hot... Cuddling with books takes you nowhere! Maybe it takes you to IIT or better SPCE, but we have a girl:boy ratio of 1:147, that's where you want to end up? haan? haan? :)

The night started with quiet drinks. And it ended with quiet drinks... But inbetween lay the crazy. I wont explain the crazy as a timeline... It just started randomly, like it used to happen in class back in the 6th grade when the teacher was not around. One notorious guy with the name Chetan or Karan used to throw a chalk at someone and then would start the chalk fight of the century. The fight would end with one of the chalk pieces hitting the teacher between the eyes.. wait.. does this story sound like David and Goliath to any of you?

The evening had started at around 8 and all of a sudden it was 3 in the night! The night had just begun... Imagine that! The night began at 3!

Now in Mumbai/Delhi, the pubs have a realistic feel to them. They spend money for it to look swanky and stuff. There is a huge dance floor depending on whether you are Delhi or Mumbai. Its smaller if you are in Mumbai, coz, well, lack of space. Btw, did you know that in 1997, Mumbai real estate was costlier than Manhattan?! without the PPP! So anyway, there is a DJ playing songs with the words - Mainu, tainu, Ahun Ahun, balle, shava if you are in a Delhi pub and English songs if you in Mumbai. The number of English songs played depends on how further south Mumbai are you ready to go! There are 3-4 big bouncers in pubs in Mumbai to control the crowds. In Delhi the number of bouncers and their body-size doubles to control drunk Sardarjis, most of whom are as big as the bouncers themselves.




The bar occupies double the area and have more people crowding it than Mumbai. The bartenders are themselves drunk and go like-
"Mainu nahi karna pyaar.. ahun ahun ahun" when asked for a drink...

The point is, it looks regular... In the pub we went to in Berlin, well, it was like the inside of a Submarine... It was all red and green and blue and bare brick walls. It has all these pipes running through the pub. And there was this huge pipe with sofas inside and stuff!! How cool...

Now there werent any Bouncers in this club or maybe they must have hid themselves after they saw me coming. I tell you, the tales of my bravery are spread far and wide. But the bartenders were scary. I am so used to ahun..ahun..ahun... when asked for a beer. And they werent drunk at all!
I went -"Ein Bier bitte?" (One beer please, I hope it means that)
"Diese? oder Diese?"(This or this one?)

She could make out there were two different types of beer in the fridge!! She wasnt drunk even by a bit! Disappointing I tell ya! :P

The songs played were without any lyrics - they went - dhumchuk dhumchuk twing twing twing... And people - i-kid-you-not - the people had the beat memorized!!!! So after dhumchuk dhumchuk, they went in chorus - twing twing twing... It was in one word - Awesome!

So I was just soaking in the twing twing twing in me and trying to synchronise my dance steps, giving the Germans the complex of their lifetimes, just then a girl comes to me and says -

"Hi! Are you from India?"
"What?" I shouted.
"You Indian?" she shouted. It was difficult to hear her over the dhumchuk dhumchuk
"Yes."
"Bharatnatyam a dance form in your country?"
"Yes, also Kathak is from India" I shouted proudly.
"Yeah. about that, go learn some.. you suck!"

So after getting my ego thrashed from a girl whose only sense of dancing was to sway her curls from left side to the right, I went and sat in one of those Submarine sofas. And there I saw a boy and girl... well... since my cousins are reading it - I saw a boy and a girl "make notes". Now its cool in Germany to "make notes" in the train, airport, taxi, Brandenburger Tor, but these two were making like notes real hard... Like they had an exam coming up. The girl was also reciting the notes they were making. I am no prude. Well I am a lil. I made sure I made the notes makers a little conscious. hehe. What? Daddy's gotta have some fun too!

I hid behind the bar to see if the curly haired girl who had crushed my dancing ego had left. She was there dancing, thankfully here hair covered her face and eyes and she couldnt see me dancing in the corner. I was doing the best moves Berlin had seen since the last time Michael Jackson was here and I was giving them what they wanted. Obviously, the pretty blonde girl I had come there noticed me and invited me to dance with her.

Now I was dancing my heart out when I froze. My lower jaw fell down, forming a huge gap, formerly known as the pie-hole. The girl stopped dancing and shouted-
"Isnt dancing your thing?"
Of course dancing is my thing! I just showed Berlin the dance moves!

I came back and sat on a bench made of pipes and bricks. I now disclose, for the first time on this blog, what I actually saw that made me stop in between my jig -

I saw.. ahem... two girls "make notes" Oh yeah... I saw what most of Mechanical Engineers with, usually just 1 girl in their class dream of! Everytime there are two girls - standing, talking or the best - fighting, they think something will happen that would make them start taking notes! But it never does happen!!

Today, I became the first in my class of SPCE Mechanical Engineering, class of 2007, to witness it. If any of you have already done it, I have a blog and i have written it down... So I am officially the first, suck it up!

So anyway, after having so much of crazy, I hate to admit, I was tired. And I was the only one of my group who was tired. For the rest, the party had just started! They did some pub hopping, which essentially means, go from one pub to another till all the pubs in the city close down post noon.

I came out of the dark interiors of the pub into the soft light of the morning Sun. The slight chill of the German Summer was in the air. We sat in the taxi and they dropped me at the station. I got into the train. Swaying slightly as the train rocked the rails. It was 7 in the morning. I had partied for the last 11 hours!

I remembered the Page 3 headlines announcing that the party went on till the wee hours of the morning. Wee hours meaning 5 am. Here I was, wondering about how MDI parties lasted till 4 in morning and that seemed a big deal. I remembered how as a kid, staying awake till 12 at New years eve seemed like a big deal. And now, here I was wide awake at 7 am, with a night of dhumchuk dhumchuk, making notes and pub hopping behind me. I looked out of the window to see my station approach. I got out of the train, did a little jig and twing twing twing.....


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Rules and Long Legs...

So here I am with the new Awesome blog look. Took some time setting the whole thing up.. But worked out great for me. If any of you guys think they can make it better, do mail me, and I ll send you my code of the website, you could spice it up and I ll put up your name in Golden letters. (I will used chrome yellow to give it a golden feel). Obviously, I wont pay any money. My love and affection is the award. I have 90,000+ hits on my blog. Let me act a lil pricey, will ya?

I started blogging on a winter day on Jan 19 2007. Or was it Jan 17 2007? It doesnt really matter much.. If you parents came and told you that you were born 3 days before the date you thought you were, would it matter? Birthdays, CGPAs, salaries, no. of girl who find you hot, is just a number... You should never let it go to your head. This is the kinda speech I would give to my son if I forgot his bday. Yeah, got it all figured out.

That reminds me, I love kids. Especially the blonde ones. Blonde babies are the super subset of cuteness. They are so blonde.. and so pink! Sometimes I am hungry, and I see a blonde baby, I want to eat it up.. they are that cute! (and tasty!)



Talking about about blondies, I know how you horny bastards have arrived on this blog. You searched for hot blondes and google directed you to this blog. Guess what? There are no pictures of hot blondies here... Well, just so that you dont feel cheated I ll throw in one.. But just one! This one-


Coming back tot he super interesting topic of blondies, well, I went to this place in Berlin called Brandenburger Tor. I would have posted the pic, but its essentially a gate, and I know that most of you dont want to look at a huge gate after looking at the blondie pic. Most of you have stopped reading already.

So this place, its surrounded by a sea of Blonde German girls. Now I have seen French girls, and I am not arguing about their beauty. They are amongst the prettiest women in the world. But German girls are real pretty too. Different from French girls. But pretty. I dont know how to describe their prettiness without being vulgar.

So anyway, I am surrounded by a sea of pretty girls, but it gets better. (Special request to my engineering friends : Dont execute your fantasies, nothing of that sort happened). You see, Germany is cold. Winter lasts for like 6 months here. So every time the Sun shines, people storm out like Indians do on the 26 Jan sale at Big Bazar. And the girls see the Sun as a special invite to show their legs.

So there are legs all around me. Amongst the best legs I have seen ever.

A note to the girls who read my blog (all three of you), you wont really understand what a guy's fixation with legs is. It's difficult to explain. But to give you an idea what good legs look like, following are a few pointers
  • They should be sleek
  • They should be slender
  • Ahem... if I go ahead with more bullet points, I might get an R rating. So I ll stop at that.

The point is, they were pretty girls with short clothes and long legs. Now even in Mumbai, when you see a pretty girl with like nice legs, you are bound to give her a customary glance.

A glance has to be limited between 3 sec (for it to be a legally valid glance) to 7 secs (for it not to label you as a bloody tharki by your friends.)

Its easy to give a glance in Mumbai, there arent that many girls who wear short skirts all at the same time. You see, unlike Germany, Sun makes more appearances than Paris Hilton's naked videos do. So in Mumbai, out on the streets, if there is a group of girls going out for a party or dinner or something, there's only one girl who wears a short skirt. It's like a pact between Indian women. Only one of them can look superhot on a particular day. They have divided days according to it - Wednesdays for Preeti, Thursdays for Ragini, Fridays for Priya.. you get the drift... Btw, the names are random, I dont know any girls by these names. The order of hot looking days is also random. Or is it? ;)

So, in Mumbai, you give a customary glance to a girl's legs. I dont think there are any thoughts going on in the guys mind. It's just a way of appreciating something that's a gift from God or Talwalkar's gym. I bet even Abhishek Bacchan, married to one of the world' s most beautiful women, still glances at let's say, Rimi Sen. (did I just break AB's marriage?)

So the thing is, while you can glance legally in Mumbai, you cant do the same in Germany because of the unlimited resources! They are all around. You spend around 5 minutes checking out, trying to decide on which pair deserves a glance. You see, all of them deserve more than a glance, but now that you have choice, very much like in capitalist countries, you are confused.

So I spent 5 mins, still confused on where I should stop and give that much deserved glance.

I sat on a bench to contemplate, like they do in the movies. In that sea of pretty women legs walking from in and out the Brandenburger Gate, I could think of only one pair. The worst part is, she wasnt even here. The best pair of legs belonged to a girl who I had left back home. And even when presented with so many choices, I couldnt think of anyone else but her.

This phenomena, while pretty confusing for the guy who experiences it, causes awe to the readers. Most of them are already posting this on the Infy BB, while others are forwarding it to their friends, girlfriends, some are also forwarding it to their boyfriends, to show that they have been such dumbasses while I take the award for the coolest guy in the universe. Just a couple of pointers ladies, one-yes, I am supercool and stuff... and two-when you mail this post to your boyfriend, do remember to remove the blondie pic from the post.

About the confusion bit, I have always followed the 'Hardwire' rule which was discovered by Arshat Chaudhary in the lazy summer holidays of 2006.

Just to enlighten you mortals, the hardwire rules goes as follows:
Hardwire rule: Men are hardwired to have more of their kind. Everything right and wrong in this world is because of this rule.

There! Simplified funda of life. You are welcome.
But you should be in control enough not to gawk at a female in presence of another girl.

If a man can glance at a girl when talking with another girl, he isnt giving the attention they deserve to either of the two girls...
-Arshat Chaudhary (May 2010)

So I followed the hardwired rule. But the rules get damned sometimes, dont they? Sometimes, you the jump the Queue when you shouldnt... Sometimes you travel without a ticket, when you thought you never should.... Sometimes the self-imposed rules go for a walk. It might seem like we break those rules for no reason, but there's always a sub-conscious reason... Maybe you travelled ticketless coz you were late for a football match on a lovely rainy day and you didnt wanna waste 3 mins printing a ticket. Maybe you jumped the queue, coz you lost that match and wanted to divert your mind from the loss...

I am just saying, there's always a reason for the way we behave in. Sometimes you are just lucky to know what those reasons are. Some other times, you sit confused on a bench, in a foreign country, staring blankly at a humongous gate....


Rules and Long Legs...SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
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