Mera Nagpur!

They say,

You can take a Nagpurian out of Nagpur,

But you can't take Nagpur out of a Nagpurian.

So true. Infact you can identify a Nagpurian anywhere. Just tell him that Pune is the better city and he will immedialtely pounce upon you and tell you why Nagpur is better! Don’t’ try and argue with him because arguing is every Nagpurian’s middle name!! It’s like “ ‘mujori’ is our birthright”.

Factfiles:

Fact 1: The "s"language

We have a large Marathi population that can speak fluently in Hindi and not Marathi. Rather it can be called

Hi-rathi( hi ndi + ma rathi)

For example "Hou".

When we say hou we do not mean "how" we mean "yes".

It is derived from the Haan(hindi) + Ho(marathi)= "Hao"..Bingo!!

Sahi means Good

Bum Sahi means- very good

Ek number- means- excellent

and MAHOL- means out of this world!!

Actually you will find “Mahol” being used like water!

“how’s my new dress?” Mahol!

“how was the movie?” mahol!

Abey kidhar means wassup?!!

Naasta marke aata hu, doesn’t mean he is going to kill breakfast but eat it!

And asking raasta kidhar ko girta hai? doesn’t imply where the road falls but rather where it leads to!!

Every old man is referred to as “Bawaji” and every other autowala, rickshaw wallah, shopwala, etc as kaka or mama.

And no sentence is complete without Bole toh! Bole toh is our gift to bollywood!

Item does not always mean hot chick as in this sentence- kya item(read: moron) potta hai!

Actually these words are our very own Takia Kalaam!!

Fact2 : The weather

The weather is a huge topic of discussion in Nagpur!

We have 3 seasons- Summer, Wet Summer and Chilled summer!

Needless to say the most discusssed figures in Nagpur are the temperature figures!

Aaj, ek sau athara(118) tha bhau..! meaning it was 118 degree farenheit today.

Infact I do not know any other place where the temperatures are talked about in farenheit!!

Most homes will have an AC, but it is more of a status symbol.

Yahan toh “cooler se hi kaam chal jata hai”!

For the uninitiated, a cooler is a huge equipment that has woodwool plates on three sides and a huge fan resembling an exhaust at the fourth side. It is a mandatory piece of equipment in every household!

And when the climate's hot can ice creams be far behind? Ice creams either mean the Haldiram softee or the Dinshaws ice creams..

 It never rains cats and dogs in Nagpur, it rains so bad, that people would say “hamesha kutte jaise barish girti hai!”

Fact 3: Girls!

No matter how they look,

No matter how the weather is ,

No matter how they travel-

You will never find a girl without the mandatory scarf on her face! The scarf is actually an understatement it looks something like a mask!

Actually even the eyes are not visible, goggles se chupa hota hai! The scarf is an all season garb! And to add to the effect, white full hand gloves and socks complete the picture.

Sun screen creams?? "Chal Hatt!" who needs them in Nagpur?

The girls are so fast on wheels that they can give Valentino Rossi a run for his money! Catch them if you can!!

Anyway if she happens to meet with an accident or hit someone, there will be 50 men trying to help her. But if it happens to be a guy then the same people will say- “

Kaay re boknya disat nahi ka? Baapacha rasta smajhla ka bey?” (are u blind can’t u see, is it ur dad’s road?)

LAD is the most wanted college here….no no not for girls, for guys… girls college hai na! Wonder if it a coincidence that Wockhardt heart hospital is situated next to LAD girls college!!

Fact 4: food

Oranges! The fruit we are most famous for! Though we grow them, yet we eat imported oranges, because all our homegrown ones get exported! And we do not get them cheaper at the local markets than any of you do..*sigh*

We regularly visit temples here, not because we are very religious or god fearing, but because we get the best samosas and bread pakodis next to most temples!!

Poha(made of fluffed rice) is “the” most heavenly food and when it comes with chana tarri it is divine! Actually to serve it without the tarri is criminal!

Aalo bonda is our “Big Mac” and Soya milk our version of “Red bull”.

We love our Haldiram softee and Dinshaws ice cream, but no one beat our Ice golas!!

Funnily enough, every Pavi bhaji cart is named “Srinath Pav Bhajiwala” for whatever reason!!

And lastly, the only thing other than god which is omnipresent in nagpur is the “pan tapri”

Every guy has his tapri and that is the first place you should look for him!! And never underestimate your friendly panwala, he may be a millionaire!!

Fact 5: Local Dance

No baraat( groom's wedding procession) is complete without "Naagin" dance!! You see, Nagpur is derived from "Nag" meaning snakes so we tend to take the name very seriously!

Sandall dance is our Prom, and every occasion, whether it is Ganesh Chaturti, Navratri, Holi or in short wherever the occasion merits dholaks, we break into "Sandall dance" which is our own invention!!

In fact, we look for the smallest occasion to ask our friends for a party, and party means, dinner accompanied by a small group dance!

So don't mess with a Nagpurian, because everyone has a "Pehchaan",

 "Tujhe maloom nahi mai koun hu, meri bahut pehchaan hai bhau"!!

( courtesy: Nagpurian Tips ,friends from Nagpur)

   

The Fraud concluding part

read  part 1   part 2   part 3

It was finally time for lunch and Anu had grown tired of calling him repeatedly. She hurriedly walked towards Ravi’s desk. It was empty. She was sure she had seen him a couple of minutes ago. Maybe he was using the washroom. She waited. 15 minutes and still no sign of him. She checked his counter for Mr. Mehta’s cheque. There was none. She asked his neighbor, Sharad if he had seen Ravi go out.

“Ravi hasn’t come today. I haven’t seen him all day.” Sharad replied.

‘What nonsense’, she thought,’ I have been seeing him all morning. How could Sharad have not seen him?’

She asked a few more people if they had seen Ravi. Same answer. She felt weak. Was she hallucinating when she saw Ravi? If Ravi was absent from work, whom had she given the cheque to for verification? She walked back to her desk in a daze.

She decided to delete the entry for 12 lakhs so that there would be no questions at the end of the day about the unverified cheque entry. To her disbelief there was no such entry! It couldn’t be, she was sure she had made that entry herself. She tried calling Ravi again.

No reply.

She desperately wanted the cheque back, should it reach wrong hands. No luck. It was almost closing time and the crowd at the branch began to thin out. She wrapped up her work and darted out of the branch.

                                                                  **********

 Then she called Ravi again . Thankfully he picked up the phone this time.

“Where have you been Ravi? I have been calling you all day”, she screamed without waiting for him to speak.

“Hello, who is this?” the voice at the other end asked.

A female voice. Who could it be?

“This is Anu,” she continued,” can I speak to Ravi? Where is he?”

“He has gone to the airport to book tickets to Dubai. I am his fiancée Poornima.”

She disconnected the phone reeling under the impact of what she had just heard.  Who was this girl claiming to be his fiancée? Ravi had never mentioned Poornima at any time before. Why was he running off to Dubai like this? As if on impulse, she hired an auto and went to AM bank and checked the joint account she held with Ravi there. After withdrawing the money from the fake Sanghamitra account, they had been depositing it all with this other bank.

“Can I know the balance in this account?”she asked.

“There is no money in this account madam” the guy behind the counter replied.

“What? Who drew the money? Where did the money go?”, she asked in disbelief.

“Madam, the transfer is to Mr. Ravi’s account in The Ram bank. The transfer happened today morning.”

Then it dawned on her.

Cheat. How dare he do this to her? So that is why he was absent from work. He had planned to run away with all their money? She sat on a bench nearby and sobbed uncontrollably. He had not just cheated her financially but also played with her emotions. He had promised her of undying love. She couldn’t believe he had planned to run away with that girl Poornima. It was all her plan, her ideas, and he would reap the fruits of her labour! She wept for a long time not knowing what to do. She had loved him more than her life and he had decided to dump her so unceremoniously?

Then she got up, determined to teach him a lesson. She walked to the nearest police station and spilled the beans on the fraud they had committed together. If she was left in the lurch, she would ensure that he paid for his deceit too. She wept softly pitying herself when Ravi stormed into the police station handcuffed and trying to break free.

“How could you do this Anu?” he barked.

Now it was her turn to unleash her fury. Look at the nerve of this guy to ask her such things. What did he think he was?

“Oh yea, Mr. Ravi, I should have kept quiet, isn’t it? So that you could have decamped with all our money and with that girl Poornima, whoever she is? You creep, serves you right for trying to cheat me.”

“What? Who Poornima? I don’t know any Poornima.”

“Stop it, you brute, she picked up your phone when I called. She told me you guys were getting married and flying to Dubai. You swiped our joint account clean and transferred all the money to your account. You cheat. I hate you. Rot in hell Ravi.”

“No wait. My mobile was lost yesterday evening. I learnt that Sheenu had all proof of our misdoings and also had obtained the account number at the AM bank. So I hurriedly transferred all the money to the other account I had at The Ram bank. And trust me there’s no Poornima.”

Just then Sheenu walked in taking both Anu and Ravi by surprise. She was accompanied by the branch manager and the cluster head. The Anti- fraud team from head office had also accompanied them.   

“Anu, Ravi’s right. There’s no Poornima, only Sheenu, who stole Ravi’s phone yesterday. I knew I had you guys by your cuff, but you could still get out scott free as your crime could never be proved. So the only way out was to get you to confess. Sorry, but your game’s up guys.”

                                                           *****************

The fraud part 3

 Read part 1 part 2

Anu looked up at Ravi again waving her mobile at him beckoning him to pick up her call. The phone rang for several seconds but Ravi seemed oblivious to its ringing. He simply looked at Anu and smiled. She grew tired of his smiles and it seemed odd and stupid. Why was he not picking up her call? She wanted to walk up to him and ask him what was so funny and why he had not got the last transaction of Mr. Mehta verified, but the crowd of customers waiting outside her counter had her glued to her seat.  

                                                        …………………………..

Ten days ago, Mr. Mehta had come to the bank to change some foreign currency. He had arrived in India with his wife and son a month ago and had planned to go to Kerala for a week’s stay before they returned back to Qatar. They would be travelling from Trivandrum directly and not coming back to Mumbai. Anu smiled at the opportunity and went through her rehearsed routine of mismatched signatures and new cheque. After Mr. Mehta had left she checked his account and was pleasantly surprised to see 12 lakhs in his account. ‘ I’ll transfer the entire amount after about 10 days,’ she thought, ‘anyway this is our last time here and I do not want any goof ups.’ And she had kept the cheque carefully with her. Today, it was almost ten days since she had been holding the cheque. She assumed the family would have left for Qatar and made the transfer entry using Kavita’s id and passed on the cheque to Ravi for verification.

 And here Ravi was sitting on the goldmine without acting on it. Didn’t he realize it would take her a long time to withdraw the entire amount in parts and deposit it into the other account? She didn’t want to be caught at this stage when everything had happened so smoothly without any suspicions or enquiries.

                                                              ………………………………

There had been a few glitches here and there, but Ravi had always taken care of it as he promised. The office boy, Yoga, had been the first to smell that something was amiss. Yoga had been filing the daily vouchers for cash receipt and withdrawls when he casually mentioned to Ravi over lunch that some of the employees were not putting their initials properly on certain high value cheques, and the mandatory letters for withdrawl of large sums were also missing. He wanted to report it to the branch manager. Ravi had convinced him to stay away from it and had assured Yoga that he himself would report it to the BM. Within a few days Ravi misplaced some important files on purpose and framed Yoga resulting in his expulsion from the branch. Of course Yoga never suspected Ravi was behind his termination.

Neetu, a new joinee had once observed Anu making entrees from another employee’s id and had pointed out that it was not ethical. Soon enough, she was committing errors with even simple transactions and was directly in the line of fire. Shortly she was shifted to a bigger branch to learn the process under senior colleagues.

Rohit was another colleague who had chanced upon Anu putting his initials on a cheque and had mentioned it to Ravi. He didn’t seem threatening, but Ravi paid an old friend who was into gang wars and the like, to injure Rohit in a bike accident. Rohit was out of action for almost 6 months and yet to return back to the office. He would surely have forgotten about it by the time he came back.

Anyone who had the slightest doubt were always ‘taken care of’ by Ravi.  But of late, harmless incidents had been giving way to serious ones. Anu had been averse to causing bodily harm to anyone. We don’t want anyone’s blood on our hands, she had pleaded. Ravi had assured her it would not happen again.

Unfortunately, Sheenu the girl in charge of account opening had an eye on them since the day Sanghamitra Ghosh’s account had been opened. She had wondered why the old lady had needed two accounts when managing one was painful for her. She had quietly been keeping track of the transactions happening in the account with the help of a friend in another branch of the bank. She had initially been aghast to learn of the huge amount of money coming in and moving out of the account. She now had a full inventory of the fraud happening in the account and knew who was committing it but she did not have proof against the two. It was purely by luck that Ravi chanced upon her diary and realized their game would be up soon. He had therefore decided to quit and go to Dubai with Anu before it was too late.

She had to be taken care of soon.

 read concluding part

The Fraud part 2

Read part 1 here

Mr. Kannan sat across the desk waiting for the transaction to be completed.  Anu diligently tapped away at the keyboard before she looked up and frowned.

“Sir, I am sorry but your signatures do not match. Can you please sign a new cheque leaf?”

“Oh, is it? I have not used this account for almost 4 years now; I have forgotten how I have signed. Can you please help me?”

“Sure sir, but first can I ask you some verification questions?”

Mr. Kannan nodded. She proceeded with the usual questions, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, ID proof etc and then smiled satisfied with the answers.

“Sir, let me show you how you have signed.” She turned the monitor to face the customer so that he could see his signature in the computer.

“Yeah I remember now, there’s not much of a difference but thanks for your help Ms. Anu. I’ll be happy to sign again.”

“Sir could you kindly use a fresh cheque leaf, overwriting is not allowed. I’ll destroy this one.”

She tore a cheque leaf and threw it in the dustbin. Simultaneously she deactivated the mobile alert in his account. He would not receive alerts for any transaction henceforth.

The transaction was completed and Mr. Kannan got up to leave, satisfied.

“When will you be back sir?” she asked innocently.

“I am leaving tomorrow and I guess it will be another 4 years before I can come back to India again.” he smiled.

“If you need any help with your account, you can call me anytime sir, I’ll be glad to help.” She offered her contact number.

After Mr. Kannan left, she checked his account to see the balance. ‘Six lakhs!’ she beamed. She saw that he had never used this account for any transactions while he was out of the country. He had just used it in case he needed cash during his visit to India. She filled the amount in the cheque leaf he had signed a moment earlier. The cheque leaf she had pretended to destroy but had destroyed one of her own instead. She tucked it into her purse and smiled. She transferred the amount two days later into her fake account. Then she withdrew the money in parts and deposited it in an account with another bank.

                                                     ………………………………………

Mr. Kannan had been her first victim and it would a long time before he found out about the fraud and complained. Any which way, she could never be implicated in the fraud. Ravi had ensured that both of them were never officially involved in the transactions. Every transaction had needed to be entered by an employee of the officer grade and verified by a senior officer. Ravi had ensured that he had got the transactions verified using his colleagues id’s and password and Anu had ensured to do the same.  They never used their own id’s for the transactions lest their fraud be caught in the future. They had carried out this routine several times in the past eight months. They had accumulated a huge sum of money and this would be the very last transaction before they quit their job in the bank.

                                                        …………………………….

 Read part 3

The fraud part 1

Anu sat at her desk impatiently tapping the table with her pen. She had checked her account for the umpteenth time since morning and there was no sign of any money being transferred to the account. She glanced at Ravi to see what he was doing. Ravi was not only her colleague in the bank she worked with but also her boy friend and the love of her life. The one she had dreamt of marrying soon. He looked up at her and smiled. She wondered what he was smiling at. She tried to check if he still had the cheque in his possession. His table looked empty. She had done her job making the entry in the system and passed on the cheque to him, but no money could be transferred till Ravi verified the transaction.

‘It is a high value transaction sweetheart, hurry up, 12 lakhs is no joke’ she tried to convey with her lovely kohl lined eyes.

She wondered what was taking him so long.  She and Ravi had decided to quit the job at the Lakshmi Cooperative Bank later this week and move to Dubai. They would get married and live life “King Size” as Ravi would often say. They had accumulated quite a huge sum of money in their account and it would be enough for a long long time. She picked up her mobile and dialed Ravi’s number.

‘Pick up the phone Ravi...’

                                                                         …………………………………

Eight months ago Mrs. Sanghamitra Ghosh had walked into her branch balancing herself precariously on her walking stick. She was very fond of Anu, who had always helped her with a smile. She met the branch manager and told him she was too weak to come to the branch for transactions and requested him to assign a person to help her so that she could conduct her transactions sitting at home. The manager saw that the lady had quite a good balance in her account. Her son who lived abroad had been depositing money into the account every month and she had been receiving some rental income too. He agreed to upgrade her account to a premier account so that someone could be assigned to help her with her transactions. She insisted on Anu being assigned to help her as she had been comfortable dealing with her. Anu was sent to her house the next day to collect some documents.

That is when Anu hit upon a devious plan. She not only collected the documents and signatures for upgrading the customer’s account but also original ID and address proof required to open a new account. The old lady did not suspect a thing and neither did the people at the bank. A new account was opened in the name of Sanghamitra Ghosh with all valid documents. One, which the poor lady had no inkling of and Anu was free to operate it as her own. The lady’s signatures were always scrawled indecipherably and the manager had been generous to pass her cheques whether her signatures had matched or not. It was easy for Anu to copy the signatures and by the end of one month she had become quite a pro. She marveled how she could sign better than the old lady. When the cheque book and debit cards had arrived for the new account, Anu had collected them from her branch to deliver it to the lady, but never did. No one had suspected anything because Anu had been religiously serving the customer for quite some time, depositing her cheques, withdrawing cash for her, filling out her forms, and carrying out any transaction that the lady might require help with.

                                                                    ………………………………….

read part 2