An excellent insights from a fellow Doon-ite about being a Doon-ite!!
- You and your gang from the city refer to it as
- You're still unsure of the spelling of the damn place after having spent almost all your life there...is it Dehradun? Dehradoon?
- Telling people where you're from elicits heavy sighs and an expression of envy, usually followed by them saying, "It must be very green and beautiful na?"
- After the aforementioned question, you struggle inwardly about whether to keep up the illusion of Dehradun as a cosy, idyllic hill station that has been perpetuated since 1923 or disabuse them of the notion and tell them exactly how populated, polluted and criminal it has become.
- You're always asked whether you went to
- People squint their eyes and mumble a sentence with the word Mussoorie in it right after you tell them you're from Dehradun
- You have gone to Saluja's or Universal's right after report card day and the blokes at the counter handed you a pre-packed set of textbooks, notebooks and a plastic box of crayons
- You and your friends have seen English films dubbed in Hindi at Prabhat,
- You have defended your school's honour to the death at tuitions when people from other schools ganged up against you
- You have spent more than Rs. 100 doing vellagiri at CCD and Barista and then wished you had spent Rs. 10 for an A1 coffee at the Buffet next door
- Pizza Hut and McDonald's and Fab India’s opening up was a big event
- You know what BTM (Behenji Turned Mod) means
- You use the phrases 'jhak maarna', 'jhand banana', 'launde/laundiyan', 'bhayankar', 'ajee ghanta', 'oh bhains ki', 'deewar taapna', 'kaam tepna' and the likes liberally in every conversation
- You curl the ends of your Hindi words regularly (eg. kar liyo, de diyo etc.)
- If you go to college slightly down south, people marvel at your level of Hindi and the Sanskrit-icised form you use
- Momo and chowmein has to be had every week from whichever street stall you can find
- You've been illegally manoeuvring a two-wheeler around town since you hit double digits
- You don the helmet only when kindly autowalahs warn you that 'aage polees hai'
- Flapping your hand for vikrams and then clambering onto them, squeezing into the tiny space next to an obese woman or a lecherous oik, has been done ad nauseum by you
- You’ve peered closely at every vikram to make out the no.
- Swearing you'll "never take a fucking vikram again" has been done ad nausem by you (and then conveniently forgotten because it's still THREE EFFING RUPEES)
- You do the following at least 3 times a week: flag down an auto, tell him where you wanna go, have him quote an exorbitant price (coz naturally, there's no meter), try and negotiate, have him shake his head sullenly, pretend to walk away and have him call you back frantically as he agrees to meet your price halfway. Rinse, repeat.
- Ellora's has been the one place you can expect to sate your never-ending lust for good bakery products
- You know sinister-sounding places like 'Chakku Mohalla' and 'Khooni Gali'
- Bindaal Pul has to be a constant geographical fixture in nearly all direction-giving exercises
- You've seen
- You were sad when Kwality Restaurant closed down in 2008
- In the pre-Pizza Hut/McDonald's days, you had birthday treats at Bossa Nova or Countdown or Udipi
- You get your household sweets from Gupta's, Kumar's or Bengali Sweet Shop
- You have ever been hit on by RIMC cadets
- You have seen 'So-and-so 4 G.S./P.S.' sprayed all over the walls and wondered what the abbreviations meant
- You remember being shamefully thrilled when it turned out the guy who'd shot Phoolan Devi was not only from Dehradun but also remembered him being a 'So-and-so 4 P.S.' in question!
- When references to the IMA, Ordnance Factory, Survey of India, Wadia Institute, Wildlife Institute and the FRI invariably crop up in textbooks, everyone in the class gives each other retarded smiles
- You have sat next to/shopped with/eaten alongside/leched at Tibetan Buddhist monks (or perhaps are one, although the chances of that are quite low, what with all the 'abstinence from worldly matters' thingy) and sneaked a peek at their shiny sneakers peeping out from beneath their maroon robes.
- Someone you know has made it to the IIT
- You have the dirt on everyone in each school because of the tuition network and have mastered the art of turbo-goss by the time you're in college
- You manage to keep tab on what everyone else from Doon is up to and can be counted on to tell anyone about anyone else (specifically city/college/current lover) at any given point of time
- If you have gobbled down bun tikkis from the stall at Dwarka Store
- You have burst your seams guffawing at the infamous Babool Patta Store ads and everyone knew the words of the voice-over by heart.
- If you have passed the wheeled platform/orchestra/paraphernalia of Rawat Band in some seedy lane
- Your school organised an annual trip to Lachchiwala and called it a picnic.....
- And on reaching there you found out that four other schools had the same recipe for fun…
- And if the next year you went to the same place for picnic and saw the same schools!!!
- You proceeded into the Paltan Bazaar only after religiously tasting the Gaylord softy....and a few more steps led you to the aroma of sambhar emanating from the Laxmi Restaurant
- Your guests and visitors (from outta town) waited eagerly for it to get dark so that they could see the twinkling lights of Mussoorie from your terrace
- The density of nursery schools ran into thousands per square kilometer.
- You have spent half of your lifetime in a traffic jam on
- Despite being one of the most important landmarks ,you never cared what the clock atop Ghanta Ghar read.
- You believe the most torturous place on the planet is the 50 odd meter stretch through Machchi Bazaar and you became capable of holding your breath in for record-breaking stretches of time as you wound your way through it
- You have seen stuff like 'Sirf Tum', 'Dekho Magar Pyaar Se', 'Buri Nazar Waale Tera Muh Kaala' (replete with black faced, red tongued matka thing painted on) behind vikrams
- Some of them even read -'Rab ne likhi saddi kismat, kachi pencil naal';''Zakhmi Parinda';'Malik di gaddi, driver da pasina, chalti hai road pe , banke HASEENA'
- You thought Bobby Soup Bar opposite Orient Cinema constituted fine dining
- The local ice creams of choice were Rita, Jolly, Joy,
- You have often done a 'tripling' or even a foursome on a two wheeler and no one seems to think it's something out of the ordinary
- Hot Bites is one place you always go when you don't want to be seen
- You have scrolled down on your scooter/bike/Hero Puch from Rajpur to Astley hall at least hundreds of time
- You like Kumar ki Kulfi and Kotwali ke saamne ke Gulab jamun
- Have spent lot of time at
- All said and done, you LOVE GOING HOME AND BEING THERE, flaws and all!
