Hardik Rajgor

C hildhood is just like an opinion: Everyone has had one and everyone thinks theirs is the best. Coloured by the vintage filter of nostalgia, viewed through the shattered kaleidoscope of adulthood, our childhood sticks deep, like religion. Look no further than when your parents start a sentence with, “When I was your age…” Grab a cup of coffee, because it is going to be a lecture in how this generation has lost the plot, and you’ll need the caffeine to stay up. “Ye koi gaane hai? Gaane to Kishore Kumar aur Mohammed Rafi ke hote the. What is all this crap that you guys listen to, Honey Singh and  Badshah ? ‘Blue hai paani paani paani.’ What nonsense is this?” This is how every  road trip  with my family begins. The person sitting next to the driver, playing the role of the car DJ faces more pressure than  Virat Kohli  in a big run chase, as he tries to acutely balance the melodies of the ’60s with the beats from 2017. Movies are another bone of contention a...

I n 2003, the era before T-20, watching a game of cricket for eight hours straight wasn’t considered “boring”. The Indian team at the time was a batting masterclass. Sehwag, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj – you name it. But as good as the batting was, the bowling and fielding was equally lacklustre. You never knew what score would be enough. Our bowling unit never inspired much confidence. Whether it was 300 or 350, it could make any score look mediocre. At age 10, this lacklustre bowling was my single biggest worry. (Yes, I’m that uncool.) The England-India game at Durban was a must-win World Cup game and we put on an average 250 on the board. I had as much faith on the Indian bowling line-up as I had in Santa Claus showing up for Christmas. England lost a couple of quick wickets but a partnership was beginning to take shape. In came Ashish Nehra, moving the ball both ways at a serious pace and he ran through the English middle order in a breath-taking spell of  6-23 . It ...

E very group of friends has that one guy who keeps track of every single calendar (including the Hindu, Umma, Chinese, Attic, Mayan, etc) and unleashes havoc with the three most dangerous words in holiday history: “Let’s plan something!” “Let’s plan something!” opens a Pandora’s box that could mean anything from a night out to a stressful four-day trip to Ladakh in the middle of October where the temperature drops (on a good day) to -1 degree. One can tell how excited someone is in the group based on how quickly they reply to the message, “Let’s plan something, bros.” The person who replies first is the only one really looking forward to it, while the rest just don’t want to be spoilsports and play their role in passive agreement. The occasional “Awesome” and “Let’s do it” need to be dropped to indicate you are game but may later back out due to unavoidable excuses. Planning always begins big because planning doesn’t factor in reality. “Why don’t we all just take a holiday on Frida...

I was watching  Harry Potter  on a lazy Sunday afternoon when my dad said, “This is so stupid, no one flies on a broom.” Now, I’m no Potterhead to take offence, but I felt like I just couldn’t let it go. “Well, it’s fiction. I know it’s not real.” I then paused for a moment and with a lower tone let this zinger fly: “I’m not the one who believes that a monkey flew with a mountain in his hand.” My dad stared me down until he exited the room. Born in a Gujarati family, I was raised Hindu, but I went to a convent school and lived in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood. My upbringing was so secular that if I were in politics, the Congress party would have already offered me a ticket by now. My mum must have done some “paaps in her previous life” (her words, not mine) that I turned out to be nastik. Being an atheist in India can be confusing. There are multiple religions, hundreds of prayers, crores of gods, and millions of controversies surrounding us. I know only the Gayatri...

B eing born in a family where your parents are ace garba dancers and your sister is a trained classical dancer, it was just assumed that I would keep the healthy family tradition alive. All geared up in ethnic kediyu as a little boy of ten, I accompanied my parents to the building garba function with great expectations. The enthusiasm dried up pretty quickly after they saw me move to the beats with the grace of a plucked chicken. Ten minutes later, my parents whisked me away. I was tasked with playing garba around the jhula in our house and that’s where I have remained. If you’re born Gujarati, there are many things you could have done to let your family down — you could have failed an accounts exam or kissed a girl who eats meat, but according to them, you would have truly let your rich, Gujarati culture down if you turned out to be the person who has two left feet and can’t dance during  Navratri . It’s an equivalent of sticking to your Vodafone connection in the times of Jio. ...

I am 5 feet 10 inches and weigh 46 kilos. If you are having trouble visualising that image, let me help you. When I apply a Prisma filter on my picture, the result I get is a tree or a pole. I’m so skinny that my girlfriend calls me  Half Boyfriend . Every time I log in to Facebook and read the millionth status update that month on fat-shaming, I have only one thought in mind: What about me? Or am I so skinny that you couldn’t even see me? Girls have been regularly shutting down fat-shaming bullies by posting photos in swimsuits and rightly getting a lot of support. But I once wore skinny jeans in 2007 and I still haven’t heard the end of it. Research after research backs the idea that  schools  should stop fat-shaming overweight children as it causes major psychological harm. Where were these folks when I was being labelled “patla papad”, “haddi”, and “sukda” during my school days! Here is an average day in my life: I am hanging out with a bunch of friends at one of ...