ManuKhanna.com

Every now and then, all writers experience a strange phenomenon known as a writer’s block. It doesn’t matter if you are Stephen Kings or Manu Khanna, the chances of experiencing a block are very real and scary. According to Wikipedia, Writer’s block is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity.

I think I may be experiencing one right now. I no longer have that insuppressible urge to write, not even for my blog. The cause might vary from.. See what I just said, I don’t even feel like completing this post, what can be worse than that? Henry Roth’s writer’s block continued for sixty years, a day or two is enough to give me the shivers.

4th December, 1988 was the day when my grandma “biji” passed away in her sleep. Eighteen years since, each moment of that day is crystal clear in memory as if it happened yesterday. I remember Anu (my brother) coming to the room that Radha (sister) and I shared. It was around 7 AM. He shook my leg vigorously to wake me up. He spoke so fast, I could hardly understand what he said. I heard him say the word “death” and immediately knew biji had died. I ran upstairs to the room which my grand-parents shared and saw bauji sitting on his chair with his forearms rested on the arm rests. He looked terribly shaken and sad. But there weren’t any tears. I went up to bauji and hugged him and started crying (I was 12 years old then.) That was the first time I had seen a dead body.

What saddened me even more was that this body belonged to my biji, and that I could no longer continue to believe that death happens to other people only. Since then, the loss of bauji in 1991, Usha aunty, my nani, babboo mama and earlier this year, my own mother, has confirmed what I have always refused to accept, death is real and inevitable, either we can be sad and wait for our turn, or we can; or we can do what mom did; not think about it and enjoy ourselves in every sense of the word.

Great news! Dimple is joining brand-comm, a Bangalore based PR agency. No, we will not be moving to Bangalore. But yeah she will be traveling between Hyderabad and Bangalore often, at least I hope so. She will be managing brand-comm Hyderabad’s clients, one of them being Hyderabad Central. So if you have trouble getting tickets to PVR Cinemas, call us and we will see what we can do. For the unaware, let me clarify, getting tickets to watch a movie at PVR Cinemas is quite difficult. You have to be really lucky to get a couple.

OK jokes apart, this offer has come after much waiting and deliberation so we are relying on best wishes and support of our well wishers, so please keep them coming. And hey if anyone of you is passing through Hyderabad next week, please feel free to drop in at our house. Dimple won’t be around and we can get creative, you get what I mean? I’ve heard that a few dance bars have sprung up in Hyderabad, let’s check them out, shall we!

A month ago, Airtel Hyderabad gave me ISD facility without the usual Rs. 10,000 deposit. Very kind of them I must say. Since I was not using the service, I sent a message “ISD CANCEL” to 121 for discontinuing the service. Got a confirmation from them as well, can you believe that? Anyways, today while trying to make an STD call I got the message “This service is currently unavailable on your telephone.” I called up 121 (I just love calling that number only to learn that deactivating ISD also deactivates STD. So now I have to send another SMS to 121 to activate my STD which will get activated in 48 hours blah blah blah!!!! If that sn’t enough, hear this. My last bill was Rs.307 but Airtel GSM barred my outgoing calls. I found this very strange because in my wife hunting days I paid monthly bills of as much as Rs. 5,000, even remember paying Rs.10,000 once. here’s the icing on the cake: According to them, my credit limit is Rs. 34545, but they still found it prudent to cut my calls once my bill touched Rs.307.

Not too many but yet memorable:

• Sunday, 26th March 2006:- Spoke to Dimple for the first time
• Sunday, 2nd April: Flew down to Delhi meet Dimple,and spent time at Haldiram’s, Cafe Coffee Day in Lajpat Nagar and Cafe Costa in Sec.18 NOIDA.
• Tuesday, 11th April 2006: Dimple’s birthday. This was a hush hush visit 🙂
• Friday, 14th April 2006: Stopped over at Delhi on my way to Chandigarh for our engagement
• Sunday, 16th April, 2006: Dimple and I got engaged at Chandigarh 6. Sunday, 21st May, 2006: Our wedding at NOIDA And people say Sundays are boring 🙂

• 2006