Biku Unplugged

Freakishly Faithful : Chapter 8 - The Legend of the Fall

2009-05-11T14:25:00.004+05:30

Part 1

I have met many kinds of people in my life thus far. Some have inspired me, some I have aspired to be like, some like Karan, have been turning points in my life in many ways. A few I have despised, many I have generally disliked, some I have loved, the others I may or may not acknowledge. But I have never met another like the one, the only, the legen-(watch ‘How I met your mother’ because it’s neat)-dary, (for a while) the canny caveman with in-built eco-systems, the mystic misfit, and the liberating propounder of freedom of movement in your trousers – the Babu.

Babu is an unparalled phenomenon. A man so utterly different from the rest of humanity that one often remains wondering if he is for real. The guy is truly to be seen and heard to be believed. Scratch that, most people will see him, some might get to hear him more than just in passing, but few may ever truly believe that he actually is what he is! No amount of articulation in these writings can paint anything close to an accurate picture of Babu - the way he almost speed-walks about with a slouch, his strangely comical but highly articulate mode of speech in English, his even funnier way of generally cursing the world and its worthless denizens in Bihari Hindi, his Karate-kid standing-on-one-leg-with-his-arms-spread-like-wings pose followed by his hands grabbing at the air in front of him, the general manner and his facial expression giving the impression of a gruesome man-hawk with inverted talons tearing at your balls!! Oh yeah, it was scary (and hilarious) when he’d do that!

I’d known Babu since my first year in law school. He was an atypical outcast – indeed nothing was ever typical about Babu. For the better part of law school (if not all of it), he had little care for personal hygiene, and even lesser consideration for the effect of his general uncleanliness upon people around him. He had a penchant for pissing people off, stemming perhaps from his fickle ego, general disdain for lesser intelligence (which covered a rather large demographic in his view), and admittedly weird demeanour. But for the most part nobody really took him seriously (maybe that’s why he was often angry), and viewed him as little more than comic relief.

But Babu had qualities that were nothing short of sterling. He once described me as ‘a storehouse of omega level talent’. He may as well have been describing himself. He was always a force to reckon with, be it as a debator, or as a lawyer in a moot court, or even as just a guy doing the lights for a terrible dance performance, or a hastily put-together play. His claim to fame was always his prowess in Just-a-Minute or JAM competitions. That is one event that requires one to have a case of caustic verbal diarrhea laced with a liberal dose of innuendo, and Babu was full of that!

So people laughed at Babu, but grudgingly acknowledged his talent. Many proclaimed him as a mad genius, some would omit the ‘mad’ part if they needed something out of him. And nobody truly messed with him, not for long anyway. There’s no telling what may befall one if he incurs the wrath of a (supposed) madman.

Babu also had the most accursed luck one can imagine. For the better part of my association with him, he underwent the most agonizing(ly funny) string of experiences that made it seem like Lady Luck was fighting a crusade against him. I had even then, way back in Second Year, thought of writing a play entitled ‘The Babu Effect’, my somewhat overstated name for his futile fortunes. But I realized soon enough that a play would never do, and nothing short of a full-length book could begin to do justice to the life and times of Babu in law school. I think I’ll save that one for my magnum opus.

Lastly, Babu always made my life that much more colourful by regaling me with the occurring-at-the-time stories of his women. He had the hormones of a rabid dog in heat, and the charm of a porcupine-skunk hybrid (what with his usual odour and unshaven look). On the {very [very (very)]} rare occasions when he would clean up, he could look pretty darn dashing (so I have been informed by the distaff). But those instances were few and rather far between. And usually the object of his interest at the relevant point of time would not see him all clean and clear. Or, more likely than not, she’d not even realize it was him!

Babu was the butt of most of my jokes for most of my tenure in law school, ever since I’ve known him. I made it a point to poke fun at him in front of him, and mercilessly decimated his image in public. Every now and then, when I would feel somewhat mortified at my incessant trip-taking, I’d apologise to him, and he would say, “No, Biki. If I had a problem with it, I’d have told you so.” It even got to a point where, after I had broken up with Maya, Babu tried to cheer me up by instigating me to publicly ridicule him! He would laugh and give me fives every time I cracked a particularly nasty one on him.

Babu’s been one of my best friends since my first year in law school. He’s a crazy kook, a fickle lunkhead, a bizarre, bombastic, often belligerent bugger.

And I love him for it.

What say, Babu? Think the Iceman is back?

Freaksihly Faithful : Chapter 7 - Fire and Ice

2009-05-05T17:55:00.005+05:30

This is a first. I've deleted what used to be Part 3 of this Chapter (it was a filler anyway) and replaced it with what i originally planned as Part 4. This one is the longest yet, but i really could keep it short. it's an important turning point...

Part 3

That piece of writing had had a cathartic effect on me. Although Karan’s response to it at the time when he read it seemed somewhat mild (apparently Akruti had returned to Pune from her hometown only that day, and Karan had interrupted a ‘Welcome Back’ session to see me), it served to lessen the considerable surge of emotions that I was being consumed by at the time, however temporarily. Soon after seeing Karan, I left for Bangalore to take part in a Debate Competition, and for the next few days, all thoughts of Ruksana were replaced by Propositions, Rebuttals, Points of Information, Definitions, and also a surprise Birthday party for me thrown in. I boarded the bus back to Pune in considerably good spirits, refreshed by an all-round excellent experience.

November 15, 2005. The bus pulled into the final stop at Swargate, Pune. I had little on the agenda, since classes for the day had already ended in college (which I considered irrelevant in any case), and the closest thing I had to a plan was to call Karan, although considering how occupied he was with Akruti those days, I didn’t have much hope of spending much time with him. Nevertheless, I dialed his number, and hailed him with my usual greeting every time I called him – his name.

“Karan Singh!”

His pause was uncharacteristic. When he did speak, his voice was heavy, though not from sleep.

“Da… What’s up man? How are you?”

“I’m good, dude. Just got back from Bangalore. Thought I’d check up on you.”

“Oh, you just got back, is it? Nice… nice… How was the trip?”

His words were measured, distant. The attitude was one of forced politeness, not friendly familiarity. The conclusion seemed obvious - something was wrong. I decided to probe a little.

“Dude, where are you now?”

“Huh? Um… I’m… home.”

Home?

“As in at Akruti’s?”

“No dude. My place.”

Home! What the heck was he doing back there? His roommate Dilawar had often asked me as to the whereabouts of Karan ever since he started seeing Akruti. It seemed he had pretty much moved in with her. He hadn’t really been home in ages. I might’ve let it go, but for his unusually distant demeanour in the conversation.

“How come you’re home? Gone to pay the rent or something?”

“No, Da… It’s over.”

My eyes widened as I heard those words. A faint whiff of the potential significance of those words swirled in my head. It was enough for me to know that whatever else was to be said, could not be said over the phone. I acted reflexively.

“I’ll be right there!”

I rushed home, dumped my bag in my room, and without even washing up a bit (which, considering I had spent the previous 15 hours in a bus from Bangalore, was a necessity) I grabbed the keys to my bike and zoomed off to the Great Punjab Restaurant, where Karan and I had decided to meet.

I found him sitting on the pavement outside the Great Punjab, looking haggard and disheveled. I parked the bike and walked up to him, as he stood up to greet me with a very forced smile and a weak handshake. I could see in his eyes that he was glad to see me, but there were far more alarming messages to be read in those eyes. Neither of us had eaten anything, so we decided to have lunch in the Great Punjab.

We sat at a table and lit our smokes. He was trying to make light conversation, but it was pointless. Eventually, I geared myself up and asked the question.

“What happened?”

He looked at me with an air of abject resignation. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated, every sign of utter helpless confusion pouring forth from the widening of his eyes, the furrowing of his brow and the slight, quick shaking of his head. When the words did emerge, they came in a tremor.

“We broke up, dude. Guess it wasn’t working out.”

The shock on my face went unnoticed by Karan. I studied his face for further signs of emotion, but they were vague, and he seemed to be struggling to keep them under control. His eyes avoided mine for the most part, his voice was tentative, and he seemed to be talking more to himself than to me, as he tried to come to terms with the issue.

“We’ve been having some pretty bad fights lately. Her ex-boyfriend was in town recently and was staying over at her place. I discovered that there was something between them still. I could feel it, dude. I asked her a couple of nights back if she still liked him, but she rubbished the idea. Last night we were having another big fight, and I asked her about why we fight so much. She said that she felt suffocated in the relationship, Da. That I love her too much, that there is nothing but love in the relationship. That she can’t handle it. I fed the fish too much, she said. I couldn’t believe it! I went home last night, not able to figure out what the fuck to do! This morning I went to her place again to sort things out. But I couldn’t, Da. She said that she needed a break, and told me again how I loved her too much! I didn’t know what to do. I just said that I couldn’t stay anymore. And she said that she wasn’t asking me to. That was it!”

It sounded strange, too random. There appeared to be no real reason, beyond the vague reference to Akruti’s ex-boyfriend, behind this break-up. Of course, this was a difficult time for Karan, and he might not have been thinking straight. I felt it better to just listen. He seemed to need a sympathetic ear more than advice at the time.

After a few minutes of silence, he decided to lighten the air a bit.

“Screw it dude,” he said, “let’s eat something.”

As if in cue, a waiter walked up with the menu. Karan knew that waiter, and had often chatted with him on many occasions when we’d dined at the Great Punjab. It was one of Karan’s favourite haunts, and he always took people there. So the next line from the waiter, inappropriate though it was under the circumstances, came as no surprise.

“Sir, Didi is not with you today?”

I glared at the waiter, infuriated at this impertinence. Karan simply smiled haplessly, and almost in a whisper said that she will not be joining him. Fortunately the waiter did not decide to pursue the topic further, and we ate our lunches in silence.

Once we were done with lunch, Karan asked me to come over to his place for a while. That was just as well, as I did not intend to leave him alone in the state he was in. We rode over to his place on my bike, and entered the house, which was empty, all his flat mates being in their respective colleges at the time. He switched on the computer in his room to put on a playlist of songs, and sat smoking, not saying a word. I’ve never been much for small-talk, so I puffed away quietly at my cigarette, turning over all that Karan had told me just a while back.

Suddenly Karan looked at me and said, “Dude, can you please play a video for me on the comp?”

He named a video of a Jagjit Singh song, and guided me to the video file buried somewhere in his hard drive. I hadn’t heard the song before, and didn’t really think much about his sudden request, thinking it best to do pretty much whatever he wanted for a little while. The video came on, and all I really remember of that video was that there was a lot of rain, a pair of lovers and Jagjit Singh singing a sorrowful ghazal.

I sat next to Karan on the floor mattress. He head had been hanging throughout, his eyes facing the floor, staring at nothing. But as the strains of Jagjits Singh’s voice carried through the song, the music tinged with deep melancholy, the effect was far from lost on Karan. Right then I saw through the veil of confusion over his face, and his real feelings were beginning to trickle through. He was huddled up on that mattress, a tremble in his lips getting progressively more pronounced as he kept swallowing frequently, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening gradually. He presented a painful sight, a man trying desperately to hold the boy within in control, holding on to threads of a rapidly weakening resolve, willing himself not to break. But the collapse of the wall was needed, the swelling tide could be held back only so long.

There was nothing for it. I reached out and put my hand reassuringly on his shoulder. Immediately his resolve cracked, he buried his head on my shoulder and all attempts at maintaining control were washed away in the inevitable flood of tears. For the first time in my life, I saw a young man break down completely, utterly defeated by circumstances that he could not understand, shattered into submission through his racking sobs. For more than half an hour he cried, until his body could take no more and he nearly passed out from sheer exhaustion. And the whole time I remained quiet, dumbfounded at the sheer pain my best friend was in. I could offer no words of consolation, no hollow reassurances like ‘It’s gonna be ok’ and the like. When he was finally done, he lay on his bed for some time, while I sat at the computer, doing little more than rotating the mouse and staring at the cursor move in circles on the screen.

Eventually he woke up, and washed his face for a good long while. It was late in the evening, and I had to get home, since I’d not been home in over 5 days. We went out for a smoke and a bite to eat, and he spoke with a lot less difficulty, the emotional purging having clearly lightened his spirits considerably.

But his ordeal seemed to have one more leg to be traversed. As I was about to leave, he asked me to give him a lift to Scorpio’s, near Akruti’s place. I looked at him as if he was crazy, but he said that he had to take care of things. With many a misgiving I dropped him outside the gate of the housing society where Akruti stayed.

I rode away quietly, never realizing that a part of Karan had just died, and from its ashes there was something rising, something that even Karan would come to somewhat regret in later years.

We liked to call it ‘The Pac-Man’…

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 7 : Fire and Ice

2009-04-14T16:16:00.002+05:30

This is a first! Two parts of the same Chapter posted on the same day! hehe... don't skip part 1 before this

Part 2

It wasn’t over. I couldn’t believe it. Over 4 years since I left school, and only a few months after I’d broken up with Maya, I realized that I was still capable of being vulnerable to a fault. That if my feelings for Maya when we were together were paramount, their effects were also temporary, and were relegated to irrelevance after I discovered that even after all this time, I was attracted to Ruksana.

Anzarle set the ball rolling. When she jokingly asked me to “think of that girl you liked in school” in order to finish writing ‘Aap na rahe’, I went ahead and thought. And then the thinking wouldn’t stop.

One evening Nishita, Seema, Ruksana and I were hanging around at Ruksana’s place. Meeting up had become a regular practice post-Anzarle. Amidst the chit-chat, Ruksana recalled an argument she had had with me (Vegetarianism vs. Non-Vegetarianism) while we had been petting a little calf in a stable in Anzarle (the crux of her argument was, how could I treat the calf so tenderly, and then eat meat). With her usual playfulness (and, I’m tempted to believe, total lack of consideration) she said, “Bikram, what if things work out and we get married, will you become a vegetarian for me?” The lovesick fool that I was, I said that I would. The girls, rightly, laughed it off. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Ruksana had probably begun to feel like she could confide in me. Talk to me about anything. I didn’t discourage her. At times that was to my peril. On that very evening, she showed me a letter that she had sent to the ‘Chicken Soup’ book publishers. It was her story, about her feelings for Aminesh. I remember feeling strange, remember looking at the computer screen with nothing registering, except the fact that the woman I was crazy about was making me read about another guy.
The thought consumed me. My feelings for Ruksana, the ones I had thought were dead and buried, were flooding back into me. It made me curse myself often, but those feelings took me into their swirl with inevitable finality. And I felt helpless once again, for if today there was no Aminesh to stand in my way, there was still his memory in Ruksana’s mind, and the fear of the pain he caused her in her heart.

A couple of nights later, under the mild influence of a glass of beer, I penned down the disconnected blizzard of thoughts in my head. I was to leave for Bangalore the next day, to participate in the NLSIU Parliamentary Debate 2005. Hours before I left, I called Karan and asked if I could see him. He met me near Akruti’s place, where he had been staying of late, and I showed him a print of what I’d written.

I’ve been unable to write anything of the sort since. It went like this:

“More sleepless nights. More day-dreams. The familiar feeling of emptiness within. You haven’t left me. And you were never with me. You were always somewhere, tantalisingly close, yet always out of reach. Is it because I never tried to reach you? Is it because I was beaten to it? Is it because I was too scared of what you would say? But what is it now? Why have you come back into my head? Why do you torment me? Why can’t you leave me in peace? Why can’t I say that I love you?

Love is a feeling. I’m in love with the feeling. I’m not in love with you. I’m in love with the feeling. Just the elation of seeing the one who inspires those feelings. Just the lightness of my limbs, the energy, the smiles, the rosiness of the world, just the feeling. Not you, just the feeling. But why do you keep giving me the feeling?

Leave me alone. I don’t want to be with you. I can’t be with you. I won’t be with you. I love you…

I don’t see your face as easily as I used to in my imagination. Again, it’s the feeling. You just happen to be around, again. She left me, left a void. I thought I was over it. I thought it didn’t matter. I can’t be so vulnerable again. But why did you come back? Are you my weakness? Will you be my strength? Can you feel for me the way I feel for you?

What did you mean? “…if everything works out, and if we get married, will you give up eating meat for me?” What did you mean? Was it just a joke? You don’t know what you do to me, do you? Or do you?

Dreams. Dreams of spending mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights, dawns, everything with you. Forever. Eternity. A bond till death. May I die first. May your spirit forever live. “…and if we get married…” What did you mean?

Don’t smile. I melt at the sight. I hate you. I can’t win with you. I don’t want to win with you. I won’t win with you. I don’t hate you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Shut up!! Get out of my head. I love you.

Chicken soup. Your first love. How could you? A test? A bloody test? Did you not know what you were doing? How could you? Intimate details of your thoughts on another man? And of all men, that bastard? How could you? Why? Why show it to me? Do you like to see me crumble? Do you want to see me break? I am broken. I am torn. I am empty. Fill me. Complete me. Save me. No!!! I am not weak. I can live without you. I have, I will. If animal existence is life, I will live. Leave me alone.

But you will never leave, will you? You haven’t left my mind. Not for four years when my eyes never saw you. You were always there. You would turn up anywhere. The attached pouch on the side upper berth of the AC sleeper. The hoarding. The ad in the paper. Goddammit!! Everywhere. Why can’t you just go away?

I love you. There, I said it! Did you hear it? Can you see it in my eyes. Can you look beyond the sardonic smile? Can you see the desperate disguise, the hopeless cover up? Am I doing a good job at hiding it? Can you see that I love you?

Too many questions. Too many questions. Silver lining. Wake up. Is this a dream? Are you real. Is it my imagination. Is it just the feeling. Do I love you? Can I love you? Fill me. Complete me.

Love me.

Damn it all!!!”

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 7 : Fire and Ice

2009-04-14T14:30:00.001+05:30

Part 1

A day in life that gives no cause for reminiscence is one without colour. Then again, it may perhaps be too optimistic to expect a memory a day. It seems easier to accrue a set of days and spread a memory over them at times. These writings seek to crystallize those memories, some fond, some not so, but all important, that shaped the course of several of our lives for the days that were and the days to come.

The day that Kannika walked up to me and finally introduced herself was indeed a memorable one. It marked the culmination of some 23 days from the day I noticed her looking my way (and Mayukhda concurred) till the time she finally spoke to me (Mayukhda did the math). That is not to say that her relative positioning on campus vis-à-vis me changed much, if anything it seemed to become more apparent. But now that the introduction was done, a cursory ‘Hi’ while walking by was unavoidable. In retrospect, although I was slightly nervous about her turning up very often in the portico to the law college staircase (forcing me to use the only alternative exit route, the Arts and Commerce portico) and otherwise at nearly every place on campus from whence I was likely to emerge, I must admit that this sudden, unsolicited, unexplained fascination from this unknown girl had a charm of its own. So, after spending quite a bit of time avoiding her, I decided to just run the gauntlet and asked her if she’d like to join me for coffee in the food court one afternoon. Of our conversation that day I remember nothing. I simply remember that I stopped referring to her as ‘the Stalker’ thereafter.

On one occasion, Sagar decided to treat me to beer at Apache for no apparent reason. Mayukhda was around, so the three of us wound up at Apache at 4 in the afternoon, and spent the next 2 hours downing round after round of beer. After 3 mugs I was buzzing happily, and we decided to call it an evening. I was carrying Sagar’s beautiful rosewood guitar (in an equally impressive guitar cover) at the time. Before leaving Apache, I went to the loo, and when I came out, a gentleman in an intermediate state of inebriation, who was waiting to use the loo, noticed the guitar and repeatedly requested that I hang around and play a song or two for him and his friends. After some initial hesitation, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to entertain the public present, so I took out the guitar and played a song, in all likelihood a Euphoria number. Of course, one song wasn’t enough for them, and while in the middle of the second song, I noticed that a mug of beer had been placed in front of me. I also felt my cell phone vibrating in my pocket, but as a rule I don’t stop mid-song to attend calls. After the song, I was informed that the beer was for me, for my singing, and that I was to down it in a single gulp. I downed half the mug in one gulp, which was as far as I could go at the time, and checked my cell to see a missed call from Kannika. On calling her, I discovered that she was bunking her French classes at Allianz Francais that evening to meet me, and that she and her sister were waiting for me down the road at Barista. I agreed to play ‘one last song’, and ended up with singing several more songs, many messages from Kannika asking how long would I take, and two more mugs of beer (that makes 6 in total… so far). When I walked out of Apache, I felt like I was floating towards Barista.

Poor Kannika and her sister (whose name I didn’t really know at the time)! I don’t know what they were expecting when they called me. I do know what they got; a very drunk, barely standing, red-eyed, guitar-slinging, heavily slurring, idiotically smiling buffoon, most definitely not the most charming company in a coffee shop, although unfortunately, the most visible! The shot of espresso in a tiny cup didn’t seem to make any difference, and the girls eventually walked out, probably more embarrassed than anything else, all the while saying that it’s ok, while I kept apologizing for my drunkenness.

I guess I was too drunk to be really embarrassed, and even now as I think of it, it seems more funny than anything else. I’m certain I was quite content in playing the fool that evening. After all, when I stepped out of Barista, I met a group of students who’d been at Apache earlier, and who had enjoyed my singing so much that they took me back to Apache for another round!

Kannika (and sister), a cup of espresso, a solo jam session with Sagar’s exquisite guitar, and 7 mugs of draught beer…

A red letter day, wouldn’t you say?

Freakishly Faithful: Chapter 6: Yukh and the तीन-Stalk

2009-02-27T16:12:00.003+05:30

I missed out on a very important development that happened just before we started practicing laanat. Karan reminded me of it recently, and it’s strange because quite some time back, when I had thought of Chapter 6, I had kept this development in mind. I was tempted to change the sequence of the Parts in this Chapter to accommodate that development, but finally decided against it, and thought about putting it in this Part. Let’s see how it works out. This one’s the longest yet! All the best ...

Part 4

I parked my bike in the Symbi parking lot and hurried towards class. A glance at my watch revealed that I had stuck to my usual timing, which unfortunately was about 20 minutes after the first lecture had begun. The closed door of my classroom was confirmation enough that the Legal History lecture had begun, and I didn’t have a prayer of getting in then. With my usual half-happy, half-disappointed sigh, I walked to the NCC canteen for a cup of chai and a smoke, a standard ritual of mine on everyday that I was late for the first lecture.

The campus was relatively empty, and I was, as always, lost in my thoughts, which this morning revolved around our performance of Laanat for the Rotaract Club the previous evening. It had been such a lot of fun, the run up to the performance, all our laughter, teasing Karan with MJ, Mayukhda’s violent outburst at Karan for constantly tickling him during a torture scene in one of our practice sessions, the actual performance!

I reached the NCC and ordered my chai and Classic Milds. There were hardly any people in the NCC at that hour, and it was at such times when I really liked to have a smoke. There was something in the perennial hiss of gas flames in the open kitchen, the frequent clangs of metallic dishes, the muttered conversations of the canteen staff, which was always somewhat soothing before the large crowds of students would come and take over the place. I pulled in a drag of my cigarette, gazing idly at the flaming cherry at the tip, which seemed to take on a new life with every drag, giving off steady streams of bluish-white smoke. Every now and then, the little cherry would be hidden by grey ash tinged with black, but I would know that it’s still there, as it would struggle to light up with every drag, and if I didn’t flick the cigarette first, the little cherry would throw off the walls of ash that would accumulate on it, and would burn merrily on until its inevitable demise.

On the day which had been our fist day of Laanat practice, I had called Karan in the morning, offering to pick him up from his place and go to Ruksana’s, the venue of our practices. His voice had sounded rather different, somewhat secretive and defensive as he said, “No, dude. I’ll come myself. You carry on.”

My suspicion had been aroused, and I had instinctively asked if this had something to do with Akruti. He’d told me that he was with her at that moment, and that they were now finally and officially seeing each other! The news had been not exactly shocking, and not exactly surprising. But it did make me feel something vaguely not good. I had put it down to my natural pessimism on relationships, had cursed him, congratulated him, and had told him to get his ass to practice.

--------

I finished my cup of tea and stubbed out the cigarette. I wasn’t likely to see Karan during the day. I knew he was with Akruti, and a new couple typically spend all their time with each other. It was time for my next class. As I entered the main gate of college, I noticed three girls sitting on the katta next to the main gate, and one of them, dressed in a black shirt and blue jeans seemed to be looking in my direction rather intently. I vaguely recalled having noticed three people sitting in the same place on the katta on my way to the NCC, but it was only now that I realized that they were girls, and that the Black Shirt was staring at me. But I didn’t bother about it and went for class.

During the recess, I met Mayukhda, and we walked out of the Law School portico onto the ramp that was our campus. The Law School crowd stood around, and a few students of the Arts and Commerce College were also standing in their groups and chatting. Through the crowds, I caught a glimpse of those three girls, still sitting at that very spot on the katta, and Black Shirt was once again staring my way. I wasn’t too sure if this was merely coincidence, so I turned my back to her, and said to Mayukhda, “Da, something strange is happening.”

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Mayukhda.

“I think a girl is staring at me.”

Mayukhda has certain typical exclamations. They are all somewhat comical, and Rono likes to imitate Mayukhda’s general expression while making those exclamations by clapping one hand onto his head, slightly crossing his eyes, giving a really goofy smile, extending his other hand in a questioning gesture, and making a sound which is the Rono equivalent of a long, drawn out ‘Duuuuhhh’! On this occasion, on hearing of my suspicion, Mayukhda went, “What the fuuuuuuck?!”

“Yeah, see for yourself. Over my shoulder, 5 o’ clock, group of three girls. Look for the Black Shirt in glasses.”

After a few surreptitious glances, Mayukhda exclaimed, “Fuuuuck! Yeeeeaah, Dude!! She’s staring at you!!!”

“Do I know her?” I asked Mayukhda, who was my go to guy every time I needed an ID check.

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve never met her.”

“Hmm… Oh well, let’s chuck it. Why would any girl stare at me?” And we moved on to better things.

Over the next few days, my suspicion turned to certainty. Whoever this girl was, she was totally staring at me. She would look out for me, and once she spotted me, she would sit on the katta and just keep staring! Mayukhda had spread the word of this girl to some of our friends, and often somebody or the other would turn my attention to the fact that she was staring at me again! Her inevitable presence while I was on campus, and her incessant staring at me, eventually earned her the title of my Stalker.

One day, Mayukhda and I were chatting on the katta sometime in the morning. There were few people about, and the katta was mostly empty, meaning there was a good 10 yards to our left and nearly 20 yards to our right of clear katta. The three girls came out of the Symbi Food Court, and suddenly came over and sat right next to us, such that one of them was literally rubbing shoulders with me! After a few minutes, the girl next to me traded places with the girl who would stare at me, and suddenly, I was within breathing distance of my Stalker! Mayukhda was saying something or the other to me, but I had pretty much zoned out by then, and all I could hear were bits and pieces of the sotto voce conversation of the girls. Suddenly, I heard my Stalker ask the other two, “Should I ask him? Should I ask him?”

I immediately turned to Mayukhda and said, “Da, it’s getting pretty hot out here. Let’s move to class.” I don’t know why, but I felt somewhat hounded by this female, and I wasn’t quite ready for a first contact yet.

As more days went by, the Stalker kept changing her tactics at getting me to notice her. She would keep positioning herself in a way such that she would be directly in my line of sight. In the process she kept reducing the physical distance between us daily. I would often have to keep away from certain portions of the campus, because I knew she’d be sitting there, waiting, watching! I’d often have to sneak out of college through the parking lot at the back of college, and sneak in the same way. Mayukhda had even devised a system of spotting me on campus – if he wanted to check if I was on campus, he’d look for the Stalker on the katta, and then look in the general direction where she was staring, and sure enough, there I would be!

Finally, one fine day, after much pacing around in an area about 9 feet from where I was standing, she finally approached me and asked, “Hi, are you Vikram?”

“Well, it’s Bikram actually,” I replied, trying my best not to burst out laughing nervously at this first contact with my Stalker. Mayukhda, who had been standing next to me, excused himself and walked off, much to my chagrin, and I was left alone to face this girl. But it turned out that I had very little to say. In the next 20 minutes or so, I knew all about her parents, her three sisters, which sister is musically inclined in what way, that she herself had been learning to play the guitar in Muscat where she was from, and all kinds of other sundry details. She even wanted to jam with me, having heard that I play the guitar. She mentioned that she’d like to learn from me, but I told her that I didn’t know how to teach guitar, but I had the numbers of a couple of people who did. She seemed only to want to play / learn with me, so after some amount of convincing, she finally took the numbers I gave her, with a heavy look of disappointment. But that look disappeared behind a very sunny smile as she said goodbye and skipped off.

I turned around, and a feeling washed through me as if I had just been through a heavy impending ordeal, except in a good way. Sagar and Mayukhda sat a few feet away, on a circular portion of the katta built around a large tree. They both had conspiratorial grins on their faces, and as I walked upto them, Sagar asked excitedly, “Dude, your Stalker! You finally spoke to her! Tell us what happened man!”

“Her name is Kannika,” I said in a daze, the reason for which I have never understood.

Freakishly Faithful: Chapter 6 - Yukh and the तीन stalk

2009-02-19T17:44:00.002+05:30

This one's a slightly shorter part than what you might have grown used to. Part 4, which will follow, is what I've been trying to get to since the end of Chapter 5!

Part 3

It was the day of our performance. Ruksana, ever the opportunist, had set up a joint meeting with some two other clubs. The audience was sizeable, and in my mind, that was fitting for a play of the likes of Laanat. For this meeting we’d booked a decently sized hall in the Vidyarthi Sahayak Samiti off Fergusson College Road, which was just as well, since Laanat involved a lot of screaming, a lot of physical hand-to-hand combat simulations, a good deal of falls and rolling around in the dirt, and generally total hysteria.

Back in the little room next to the hall, which served as our green room, the mood was somber. There was no make-up needed, and our costumes were restricted to a plain black t-shirt and blue jeans, what I like to call Laanat-wear. But we all needed our own psych-up rituals. Mayukhda sat brooding in the corner. Karan and Sagar were chatting about something. Ketan and Saurabh were expressing their apprehensions of performing in front of so many people. Rono alternated between partially stuttering to me that he was freaking out, and frenetically air-drumming to some heavy metal on his i-pod. And I sat hyperventilating.

Pretty soon one of the Club members peeked in and told us that the meeting was about to begin. We stood up for the National Anthem which marked the beginning of every Rotaract Meeting, and thereafter, while Ruksana began the usual formalities of welcoming the guest Rotaractors, I turned to the boys and said, “Guys, I know we’re probably all nervous. Performing in front of people is never easy. But we’ve practiced this play for a whole week now. We know the dialogues and sequences backwards. We’ve laughed our guts out over this play in practice, we’ve been hurt, cut and bruised, all for today. We know what this play has done to us, and so we know what we’re gonna do to those people out there. Let’s give them something that’ll blow them away!”

Evidently my little pep talk was adequate for the moment, as all the boys said “Yeah!” in muted tones, and Rono engaged in one of his violent bouts of shadow boxing before we took to the performance area (I’ve gotta ask him who won those bouts??).

What can I say about that performance? It was anything but uneventful. Rono told me later that the first time he turned towards the audience and said the first word of the play “Laanat”, something just galvanized in him, he apparently said to himself, “Fuck everything!!!” and threw himself into the play with confidence the likes of which he never believed he had. Ketan forgot his line at a point when each of us had to scream out a scathing news headline, and simply repeated the line of the guy before him, causing some slight humourous confusion at a point which was supposed to be rife with tension. Midway in the play, one of Rono’s flatmates in the audience suffered an epilectic seizure, and we had to spend a good amount of time trying to revive the guy. But in the end, after we were done with the play and our curtain call, and the floor was thrown open to questions, we all felt pretty vindicated when one of the guest Rotaractors managed to stammer out, “Wha… How… Who has wr.. wr.. written this p.. p.. play?” (I verified it later; that guy doesn’t normally stammer). I got my first ever Director’s standing ovation, the joint meeting was a big success because of the play, and when we had dispersed, I discovered that somebody had stuck a female sanitary napkin (thankfully unused) on my bike. Nothing like broadening one’s horizon with a pair of wings!

Veni. Vedi. Velcro.

Freakishly Faithful: Chapter 6 - Yukh and the तीन Stalk

2009-02-10T23:34:00.003+05:30

Part 2

Mayukhda’s return was a relief during the lull phase at the beginning of Sem. 7, the time Karan was on vacation at home. My ‘Friends’ circle was little more than a dot, and I had practically stopped spending time with anyone else since I’d met Karan. Through a rather controversial result in the Pune University that year, several of my heretofore immediate seniors had suffered a year down, and poor Mayukhda found himself in that unfortunate company. In many ways, it was important for him and me to find each other, and our days went on peacefully, quietly, until Karan returned.

The Rotaract year was due to begin, and Karan and I were on board, on the Board of Directors to be precise. On the first meeting of the year, called the ‘Club Assembly’, all the Directors were to give a presentation on their respective portfolios and proposed projects. We were also supposed to bring as many new-member probables as possible to the meeting. So I took Mayukhda among others along (and only he remained to join the Club). Our inability to properly hook up a laptop to an LCD projector prophesised the times to (come considering how often thereafter we had the same problem), and Karan and I ended the evening crooning a KK number or two for a past President and Secretary of the Club, who were due to get married soon thereafter.

Much to our surprise, the Rotaract Club of Pune Ganeshkhind became a very involving hobby, so much so that it took up entirely too much time for the likes of Karan and me. We would be at Ruksana’s place almost daily, getting ready for the next project, preparing report after report, and doing a million things that only occasionally ever made sense to us. He would often take a few digs at me, saying I dragged him into it just to make Ruksana happy. But full access to Ruksana’s awesome Casio synthesizer, the prospect of fun, and at least one occasion when the writing on Seema’s T-shirt required a much (much) closer look by Karan’s myopic eyes, served to keep him satisfied most of the time.

I’d told Karan about “Laanat hai humpar” on one occasion before. He had been heavily into theatre in school, and had immediately seen the immense potential of the play. We’d decided that we would put up a performance for the Club, as one of Karan’s projects. The challenge lay in finding a suitable team of actors. The prospects in the Club itself were bleak at the time. Laanat needed men, and not just your garden variety biological specimens. This play needed elements of madness, a seminal rawness, an unabashed hilarity which laughed in the face of the world and, in turn, infused a lingering essence of its madness in the audience. Most of the guys in the Club lacked the sheer energy and spirit which this play demanded, and the girls were not eligible. So the search began.

----

My friendship with Karan had enabled me to meet several new people right from its inception. There were MJ, Shruti and Harleen, and Karan’s interest in one of them has been recounted in these writings earlier. There was Sachin, the amazing dancer and amateur choreographer, who even added a little element into one of my songs when he once heard me singing it, a little vocal touch that I have continued till date. There was KT, usually smoking Classic Milds at the corner table of the NCC in the evenings, Reddybhai riding around on his RD 350, or in his Santro with a baseball bat in the backseat. And then there was Sagar and Sanchali.

Sagar and Sanchali were both from Dubai and knew each other from there. They were doing their B.Com from Symbi, and were a fun twosome to hang around. When Karan disappeared into his quest for restoring life in Akruti’s lost soul, Sagar and Chali (as we called her), and a steady stream of Bensen & Hedges Lights served to remove any hovering monotony. They would regale me with their stories of Dubai and basketball, and Sagar even joined the Rotaract Club on a whim. He was tall, quite animated, amused at my sense of humour, and seemed generally enthusiastic. I recruited him in Team Laanat.

------

The reader will remember me mentioning that most of the guys in the Club were not really suited for Laanat. The operative word being ‘most’. Ketan was one of the Directors in the Board. He was an excellent self-taught percussionist, and had done great work with an old matka in my first song recording at Ruksana’s place that summer (the very same matka that Sam had played in Shaunak’s bedroom, to which I has started playing Wonderwall). For the most part, my impression from my very limited initial association with Ketan was that he was a squeaky clean chap, generally cheerful and energetic. I’d heard tales of his very humble roots in the little village of Barshi in the Solapur district of Maharashtra, of his old school with the broken benches and slaughtered English, of his sheer tenacity and determination to reach unknown milestones, his magnetic chocolate boy charm and the like. His parents were members of the Rotary in Barshi, and as a young teenager, he had gotten a rare opportunity to go for an International Student Exchange to Bolivia, and had brought back some videos. It usually took a lot to embarrass Katan, but on Ruksana’s insistence when he once revealed one of his little clips, his fair face did colour ever so slightly. The clip was taken in a dormitory or some such room with a few beds, and a bunch of teenage guys and girls making funny, and at points suggestive, noises. Ketan was on one of the beds under a think blanket, and one of the girls, a fair skinned goddess-in-the-making of perhaps Brazilian descent, had crawled into bed with him, the idea of the exercise apparently being to scandalize the poor Indian boy of rustic origin. However, Ketan (who, with his complexion and outlandish accent in the video, rather looked like a Spaniard himself) bravely held his own, figuratively speaking. The sheer ease with which he breezed through a situation that, under the circumstances, must have been rather hard on him (again figuratively speaking), in the background of his, well, background, was simply incredible.
I’d found my next Team Laanat member.

-----

Aarambh 2005 had been one of the most important events of my young life. It was my first musical performance as an instrumentalist, I performed with an electric guitar for the first time ever, Karan and I did our own version of a Bengali song, and we all danced around like buffoons on stage before the entire B.Com and B.A. faculty and students to some terrible rap! But more than anything else, it got me introduced to those people who were to eventually become my best and closest of friends, with a brotherly affinity between us stronger than most blood-ties. I had been amazed at the sheer talent in some of those guys, especially since in some cases, it was not backed up with any formal training, but was still formidable enough to dazzle.

Rono’s entry into Aarambh and my life had been suitably dramatic. He rapidly proved to be a creature of utter craziness, a one-man guffaw-inducing hilariously animated anthropomorphic beast! His propensity for coming off like an apologetic clown, victimized by the ravages of an unforgiving (bad)luck-line, never failed to have us in splits! He had never done any acting before, but a good deal of convincing, a liberal dose of “Dude, the babes flip over a rugged street play actor (unconfirmed projection based on no empirical research whatsoever)”, and frequent bouts of shadow boxing and air-drumming on his part, served to psyche him up enough to agree to give it a go.
The circle was nearly complete.

-----

Team Laanat needed seven actors. Rono, Ketan and Sagar were in. With Karan, Mayukhda and I thrown in, we were short of one member. Time was somewhat short, we had little over a week to put the whole thing together. We were sitting around in a hallway in Ruksana’s palatial bungalow, wracking our brains on who might be a suitable guy to complete the team, when Ketan suggested that we could look around among the various guys who stayed in the upper floors of Ruksana’s bungalow, which with all its spare space doubled as a paying guest accommodation. We saw little option otherwise, so Ketan went forth, and presently came back with Saurabh Jain, a generally reserved guy near about my age, with a maturity about him which spoke of a life lived and learned through experience. He was generally enthusiastic enough to be in the play, and we decided to take him in and immediately commence practice.

I was definitely glad for one thing. I was doing Laanat again, and I was watching a fresh crop of actors experiencing first hand the truly genuine odyssey of performing a play that seemed absurd on the face of it, but which was replete with a wonderful depth of meaning, capable of numerous interpretations, each more startling than the next. As the script, and the innate spirit within it, began to envelop us all, growing with us as we gave our own touches to it at every turn, I once again remembered the joy with which I first performed this play, under the revered leadership of Chauhan, the cuts and bruises which I always felt so proud of after every performance, the little blood shed in each fight and violent roll on the ground in the action sequences, the hush of awe as we would take our final bow, and then the thunderous applause as we would walk off the performing area.

After a gap that seemed entirely too long, once again, Laanat lived…

Chapter 6 : Yukh and the तीन-Stalk

2009-02-03T17:44:00.004+05:30

Part 1

Summers in Pune are sleepy. The city was pretty much a sleepy city anyhow, although in the last few years, the appeal of Pune has shifted from its rheumatic paradigm of a retirement destination to a far more vibrant and youthful ‘Oxford of the East’ and an IT hub. But the summers don’t change. The heat is a dry scorcher, and the sun on your neck feels like having one of those rubber hot water bottles fitted over an acetylene flame, kept on an itchy laceration (alright, not quite as bad as that! I love Pune). Even the women, muffled up in their stoles and dupattas to resemble strange bike riding bandits, are wary of venturing out into the burning afternoons (some of them are actually riding manual – geared bikes now, instead of the usual Scooty and Kinetic variations! And no, they don’t wear sheer leather on any occasions, rendering any possibility of the seminal sexiness of a biker babe a total nullity). During the holiday afternoons, people usually have nothing to do outside, and little to do at home. So they sleep.

But the Summer of 2005 was anything but a pseudo-slumber. Most of that summer had been spent in Ruksana’s study recording music on her computer with a big gang including Shaunak, Sam, Jeetu and a few others. And the last week of May was a breezy holiday in Anzarle, culminating into one of my best songs to date, and the beginning of my second heavy duty fall for Ruksana.

Semester 7 began in Symbi Law with a promise that had been absent since the beginning of Second Year for me. If there was no Sidharth Chauhan to grace our campus anymore (ah, the legendary Chauhan!), there was now Kunwar Karan Pratap Singh Chauhan to shake things up a bit (Trivia alert - Yes, that’s his full name!!). My Sem. 6 Marksheet was devastating considering my record in Sem. 5. I’d managed to just about scrape through in two subjects, with a relatively decent score in the others. Damn you, Karan!!!

I had decided that I’d attend those bloody 7:30 a.m. lectures that year, as I’d been promising to do since my Second Year, with the inevitable result. Still, although my desperate efforts at getting to college on time failed too frequently, I would at least attend one or two lectures in college. One day in the first week of college, as I was leaving the classroom area for the day, towards the NCC, also for the day, I heard a vaguely familiar voice call out almost sotto voce, “Hey dude…”

I turned around, and there stood, with a sheepish half smile, the broad figure of Mayuhda.

Mayukh Roy. Upto that morning my senior by education, upto this day my peer at heart. I had known Mayukhda since my First Year, although the epithetical suffix ‘Da’ was added to his name only much later. Our first ever interaction, if indeed it could be called that, was a barrage of semi-angry argumentative statements made to me outside the Library Reading Hall in my First Year, for disagreeing with the views of Sidharth Chauhan on the Novice Moot Court case (the statements had made little sense then, and have been forgotten now). Thereafter, we only really ever interacted in the December of that year, before Mood Indigo, the IIT Bombay Fest. By a stroke of luck, or an attack of jaundice, whichever way you want to look at it, a member of the Street Theatre team going to ‘Mood I’ had to back out at nearly the last minute, and I found myself joining in as a replacement, doing my first proper street play under the able guidance of Chauhan, with good old Mayukhda in the team (for the sake of convenience, and with fitting reverence, Sidharth Chauhan will hereinafter, and on two occasions heretofore, be, and was, referred to as ‘Chauhan’ {yeah, I know, that was painful}).

Mayukhda and I bonded on the ground of us both being misfits. In his case, his relatively small town upbringing hadn’t fully trained him to understand the dynamics of all the low-waist jeans of Symbi Law, and my excuse was that I was too much of an introvert to fraternize. Towards the end of my First Year, when Chauhan decided to make a street play based on a series of monologues, Mayukhda and I, along with a few others, became a part of something exceptionally important to the lives of us all and several others. “Laanat hai humpar” was born, a labour of love, a creation of madness, a play that defined us all, one that changed us forever.

But then Mayukhda disappeared after my Second Year. Fell off the grid, he did. A period he refers to as his ‘Hibernation’. And it was on that morning, in the first week of my Fourth Year, that Mayukhda, consigned till then to a bygone memory, came back into my life.

काला पाणि पार

2008-12-20T17:46:00.002+05:30

I am going across (1/7th of) the seven seas. See you next year.

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 5 : Flicker to Flame

2008-12-12T12:48:00.002+05:30

Part 3

Our days in Anzarle were typically spent with early morning walks on the beach, a late morning dip in the sea followed by a refreshing and invigorating bath at the water-pump next to the well in the courtyard of the beach house, an afternoon siesta and trips to places of interest in the evenings. We especially liked to sit on a cliff high above the beach, a place we’d call the ‘Sunset Point’ and gaze at the setting sun, the myriad hues of the evening sky drifting in layers from crimson richness to ethereal blackness. We’d sit there in silence, each engaged in deep contemplation on God-knows-what, with the strong, salty sea-breeze providing a haunting score to our thoughts. As the end of our trip drew nearer, our conversations began to be tinged with melancholy at the thought that this perfect escape from the routine of our lives had to be so short-lived. But with the Rotaract year ahead, and with our new found camaraderie, we rejoiced at the thought that a new phase in our lives was due to begin, one we would engage in together.

I had carried my guitar with me on this trip. Seema and Nishita had both seen me play at Aarambh, and of course, Ruksana had been a part of the Orchestra. I figured that it would come in handy if we ever got bored. I had been working on a song for some time, trying to base it on my feelings about Maya and about life post our breakup. I’d gotten the first four lines down earlier, and the music of the song was more or less ready. But, the song being in Hindi, I was having trouble coming up with the lyrics (us Bongs are known for our Hindi deficiencies).

One afternoon the girls asked me to play something on my guitar. I dished out my favourite Euphoria numbers, and once I’d gotten them swinging, I decided to try my song on them. I played the song, singing the first 4 lines and humming the rest. They liked the sound of it. I explained that it’s a song on loving and losing, and that I was having trouble finishing it. Ruksana, in her playful manner, joked that maybe it would help if I thought about that girl I’d fallen for in school. I smiled away her little dig; by now the others new well enough that I’d had such feelings for Ruksana back in school. But the idea bore some merit. So when the girls went in for their afternoon nap, I sat with my guitar in hand, closed my eyes, and went back to someday in July 1998. And the course of my thoughts went something like this:-

‘A daily ritual, observed religiously for years and years, seemed unfamiliar today. The usual precursors to the ritual were present well enough: the strange, contradictory combination of a monotonous, yet crest and trough like speech of the science teacher (who, in this particular case, only ever sounded fun while describing vectors, because she'd always say in her south Indian accent, "Vector Oh Yay" indicating vector OA), the weary sighs of my co-sufferers, the occasional, yet increasingly frequent yawns and the equally occasional, yet equally increasingly frequent churns of empty stomachs. The glances at my wristwatch were reflexive, intuitive even. Over a decade of expectation unfailingly made an imagined dopplerised bell ring in my head, even before the actual one echoed through the air, a clarion call of salvation for the hungry and bored. Lunch recess was here, as it had been all these years, again. But what was wrong? What was the dampener of the joyous gasp at freedom?

I saw it as the others began walking out of the class. What was this? Who were these people? What the hell were they wearing? Don't they look at themselves in the mirror in those, those hideous shades??? How can they bear to... My thoughts trailed off as I looked down at myself; peach shirt, ugly brown trousers, the letters VB embroidered onto the breast pocket, brown socks, tan shoes!! Not leather, but plastic, all-bloody-weather!!! Where was my white shirt, the white trousers, the white socks, the black shoes?? The navy blue tie with the Marian insignia pinned thereon?? What happened to the paint on the walls?? Shit, what happened to the walls??!!

Oh yeah, right... This isn't my school... No, wait a minute, this is my school, it just isn't my… No, no, no... Right, I got it! This is my school, now! It's not these people or the walls that are strange… Here, I'm the stranger…

That's what it was, wasn't it? It was yet another lunch break, but it wasn't a familiar lunch break. I wasn't going to charge down the marble staircase into the senior assembly hall, and start munching on the usual rolls from my tiffin box while chatting with Manik and Adnan, or showing my face to Drumeel so that I could be in one of the teams for the usual lunch-time football match. Nope, today I was going to climb down a narrow flight of stairs onto what is known as a 'Quadrangle' and walk onto a playground with two football goal-posts at either end and a most detestable, incredulity inspiring, enthusiasm rogering, scorn raising, and, to put it in plain English, completely fucked up "no playing in the lunch break" rule!!!!! Yup, this was my unknown, unfamiliar reality. No wonder it didn't feel right.

New school, new guy, day 2. It was the first time I'd put on the school uniform, And the sight of all the brown clothing (and red hair bands on the chicks… Goddamit, chicks!!!! [I was in a non-co-ed school before this. This is not an exclamation of joy, but one of agony {feels freaky to be stared at but so many unknown women because you're the new guy}]) made me feel weird as hell! Having been in one school for the better part of my academic life had made me thoroughly institutionalised. I wasn't quite used to being stared and pointed at like a circus freak!! But it was a position I'd resigned myself to accept. I mean what the heck, makes it easier to get to know people when they're curious enough to come to you as if you were a museum piece or something. Although it gets a little fucked up when they talk to you like you're dyslexic.

I grabbed my tiffin box and walked down the stairs after most of my class-mates had already gone. I did what I usually did when I had to eat lunch without Manik and Adnan around, by walking on the “play”ground, munching on the rolls. Once again, in my mind, I cursed my present situation. What the fuck kind of school banned playing on the playground??? Who the hell were these weird kids eating their lunches, sitting on the playground!!!!!! From post to post, sitting on mats in circles of various sizes, groups of students eating lunch, chatting away like they were in a goddamned banquet hall. Bloody hell, this was a football ground for Christ's sake!!

And then it happened... It was the single, most inexplicable thing... It was a voice, I know it was a voice... But there was something ethereal to it, like nothing I'd heard before... If you can imagine yourself to be an emaciated skeleton with your skin clinging onto the bones, and dehydrated to the point where your liver and kidneys begin to push against your body, and in that state you hear the gentle gush of a waterfall into a brook marking the entrance to Shangri la, you might understand what I felt in the few moments that it took me to turn around and face the source of the sound. The vision was blinding… No, actually that's not what it was. There was an implosion of light, 120 degrees of visible area suddenly contracted into one concentrated space, and in that space there was only her... Nothing else existed, nothing else got through. It was only that space, only her, her eyes, her face, her smile, and her voice... A voice that made every part of me quiver (perhaps, I fear, too visibly), yet one that numbed me to a point where the sound seemed distant, hauntingly enchanting, like the strains of the Siren's lute. Her smile was a constant through her speech, and her pearly white teeth flashed at me every now and then, teasing me like some infernal will-o'-the-wisp. "Hi, I'm Ruksana. You must be the new boy..." That and the rest of her words flowed out of her lips like the most symmetrically tantalising poetry! There was no question of resistance, no time to put up a guard… The cherub with the bow flitted around me, laughing joyfully as he shot arrow after arrow at me, piercing into my heart as incessantly and determinedly as a deranged battering ram.

For once, for the first time, and unquestionably at the first sight, I was in love...’

I opened my eyes with a start. It had been years since I had thought of that moment, and all of a sudden something that had lain asleep deep within me stirred ever so slightly. I knew I had to disregard it, and the guitar in my mind gently reminded me of the object of the reminiscences. I began playing my song, and after I’d finished the first four lines, the words just came to me –

“Woh pehli baar jab tumne mujhse baatein kit hi,
Aisa laga ki aasmaan se Pari aa giri thi,
Un gehri aankhon mein ek sharaarat si dikhi thi,
Woh sunehri muskaan dekh meri sansein tham gayi thi…”

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 5 : Flicker to Flame

2008-12-11T22:00:00.000+05:30

This one may seem somewhat chauvinistic, but what can one do? :)

Part 2

Anzarle is a sleepy little fishing village in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. The approach route is tedious but scenic for the city slicker; a grueling bus ride from Pune through lovely countryside to a place called Dapoli in a State Transport Bus (famously and ubiquitously known in Maharashtra as the ‘Lal Dabba’), followed by a sweaty and hardly fragrant drive in an overcrowded Tempo Trax from the Bus Stand to something of a very small port, and finally a suitably relaxed and gently swaying ferry ride across a short expanse of backwater to the first stretch of beach in Anzarle. The entire journey, which may take no more than 5 hours without mishap, seems like an odyssey, and can be an excellent way to get to know ones’ traveling companions. Or so I gathered as I heaved bag after bag from our little ferry boat onto the beach while Ruksana, Seema and Nishita (names changed) jumped off the boat and stretched their weary bodies languidly, with appropriate sound effects.

The beach house was a little 3 roomed cottage with a delicious rustic charm. The only signs of modernity lay in the solitary black and white television set in one of the rooms, an ancient refrigerator fortunately in working condition, the electric lights of the household and a powerful electric water pump meant to draw up water from a well in the courtyard on the hind side of the cottage. Beyond the cottage stretched what is known as a wada (a large garden) in which grew all kinds of trees, principally coconut, mango, jackfruit and papaya. The wada stretched for about 25 yards from the cottage to a wooden fence with a gate, and beyond lay the beach and the ocean (well, the Arabian Sea really). The inhabitants of the cottage were a quiet little family consisting of the caretaker, his wife, one son and two daughters.

Our first night in the cottage was rather entertaining in an unexpected manner. We had one of the rooms to ourselves, with mattresses laid on the floor and table fans all around the perimeter, serving to provide us some relief from the sultry atmosphere as well as from a cloud of assorted insects. My companions had carried some reading material, but the same being mostly restricted to several issues of Cosmopolitan magazines, I felt somewhat shy to join them in their researches (there, I said it!). I contented myself to reading an Archie and Pals double digest in low speed. Fortunately, the girls had decided to take full advantage of the fact that I was the lone male in the equation, a situation which they (erroneously) expected would make me uncomfortable. Their discreet and sporadic whispered communication between themselves notwithstanding, I presently became aware of their plan of exploiting the wolf-sheep role reversal. A roguish grin and slight nod from Ruksana signaled that the games were about to being.

Seema rolled the dice first. “Bikram,” she said in her Basanti-being-playful tone, “We’re just going to talk of some things about women. You don’t mind, na?” Ah, so that was to be the entertainment for the evening!

“Hey, no hassles. Go ahead,” I replied, as the realization of where this promised to go sunk in like a gentle high.

What followed made up for any slight disappointment I may have felt for not reading those Cosmos myself. The three ladies most graciously began to read aloud the Cosmo version of the Agony Aunt section, which is like reading a graphically detailed set of FAQs to bad porn. If this was their idea of scandalizing me, they weren’t doing the best job. I gamely pretended not to notice their recitations for the most part, but one or two glances at them conveyed to them, to their evident delight, that my interest had been aroused (I know it’s unbelievable, but no puns intended!).

But unfortunately, their nefarious plan at evoking a titillated blush out of me encountered an unexpected roadblock. I have found it quite the engaging past-time in acquainting and familiarizing myself with the workings of the female anatomy (I figured that if I can’t understand their minds, I should focus on their bodies, which are at least initially more interesting). It appeared that the girls didn’t share my interest. When it came to Nishita’s turn to join the fun, she began reading aloud the next giggle-worthy question, but trailed off midway, evidently confused with the reference of the anatomical portion therein contained. Seema and Ruksana leaned over and found themselves similarly confounded, and began guessing at what a “ruptured hymen” (my apologies) could possibly mean. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity at some payback!

I then proceeded into a lengthy discourse on female sexuality that, I feel certain, might have made Alfred Kinsey smile approvingly. Presently, my somewhat clinical descriptions of such rather embarrassing subjects caused some delicate ruddy tinting of the girls’ faces, most notably their ears. The discussion would be almost somber if their increasingly shy reactions hadn’t sent me rolling on the floor!

A couple of weeks later, Seema was to write me a flattering testimonial in a social networking website, describing me as “just a book in his own self.”

Veni. Vidi. Vici.

Chapter 5 - RCPG 1 - Flicker to Flame

2008-12-05T15:53:00.000+05:30

Dear readers. I apologise for not have posted anything in a while. My head was pretty messed up over the terror attacks in Bombay. No, no one I know was hurt, but I felt horrible just the same. Finally, after my head's cleared somewhat, I've started on this once again. RCPG was to orginally be Chapter 3 in my original essays that I'd starte writing as a goodbye gift for Karan some years back. But that was before I decided to overhaul the whole damn thing and start posting it on my blog. In those old writings, I'd stopped at Chapter 3. I won't stop this time :)

Part 1

She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child but
She’s always a woman to me
“She’s always a woman to me” – Billy Joel

“I’m here. This is it,” I thought, standing outside the green bamboo gates. The security guard eyed me curiously, but I didn’t make a move. A kaleidoscope of memories had assailed my consciousness, some happy, some sad, some vitriolic. But the dominant thought was that of a promise, one I’d made to myself as an angry teenager standing in the same spot over 4 years earlier, that I would never walk through those gates again. The sentiment had long since lain dead and buried, and so it should have remained until that moment, when Fate shoved a shovel into my head and exhumed it all. Logic and emotion were playing a tug-o-war in my mind, and my inert body and a small degree of false pride hung in the balance.

“It’s been more than four years since I last met her properly,” I thought, “I’m not pissed off anymore. So what’s the problem?”

“I promised never to go in there, that’s what,” came the reply.

“Yeah. But that was different. I was being dumb and unfair.”

“Maybe so, but I had good reason.”

“What reason? That I lo… felt for her but could never have her? So what? She’s not even relevant in that sense anymore. I loved Maya after that, didn’t I?”

“But she was my first love, have I really gotten over her? Plus, I’ve only recently broken up with Maya. This is dangerous.”

“Oh, please, she’s history! First love… blah!”

The raging debate in my head was suddenly interrupted by a voice, “Bikram! Hiii!! Come in ya, why’re you just standing there?”

The images cleared, and I saw Ruksana flashing her trademark smile at me. But something was different. Not in her, but in me. I had been mildly apprehensive at the prospect of spending time with her alone, when she’d asked me to come over to her place a couple of hours back. That apprehension had since been growing. But now that she was in front of me, I felt… nothing. That was pretty encouraging, really!

“Hey,” I replied, “I was just thinking about how long it’s been since I was last here.”

“Join the Rotaract Club and you can make a habit of coming here,” she said cheerily.

I chuckled as I walked through those bamboo gates, thinking how the idea of such a “habit” might have appealed to me back in school. We went into her room, and she spent the next hour telling me about the Rotaract Club of Pune Ganeshkhind. The dynamics were something like this –

1. She was to be the President, and I a Director on her Board of Directors. That would make her the woman behind the wheel (battle of the sexes alert!).

2. An ingenious marketing strategy - “You’ve done so many things in college ya,” she said to me, “all your debates and things. You play the guitar and sing. If you’re in the Club, so many young people will know that there are achievers like you who are of their age! It will be really motivational for them.”

3. A position of supposedly high importance – I was to be the Director for Professional Development, which is apparently the most important avenue in the Rotaract.

4. A call for suggestions for the Director for the avenue of Club Service, supposedly the one who has to maintain the fun element of the Club (Karan Singh received a call from me 2 minutes later)

We talked about what kind of projects I might take up as a Director, and then of MUNA and Aarambh and presently our conversation veered towards old times. I’d once written her a particularly vicious hate mail, and she seemed to love to make me keep apologizing for it. School days were discussed, old friends, funny incidents, strange happenings, Aminesh (her former boyfriend and my former best friend), and others. Finally, as it drew close to calling it a night, she asked me if I’d like to join her and a couple of her friends for a trip to her beach house in a little village in the Ratnagiri district. Her friends were to be in the Board of Directors of the Club too, and it would be a great way to break the ice between them and me. True that I hadn’t spent that kind of time with Ruksana before, and that we had hardly resumed contact long enough to warrant a getaway together. But there were some definite, inescapable pros to her proposition – The beach, the waves, the breeze, the sunsets, the beach house, three women, and me.

The holidays this summer promised to be rather interesting…

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 4 : From Dawn to Dusk

2008-11-23T15:13:00.000+05:30

Part 5

Love me now, for I may wait no longer…”
Something I came up with

Karan’s calls became far less frequent after that glass of Coke in the Great Punjab. His responses to my calls were laconic and vaguely apologetic – “Sorry, dude. Can’t meet you today. Gotta take Akruti to a doctor,” – and the like. I couldn’t complain, after all I had an idea of what the guy was probably going through. Of course, the time away from Karan allowed me to try and concentrate on my books (although as my Semester 6 marksheet would suggest, it wasn’t nearly enough).

One of the unique features of Symbi Law (and there were quite a few) was it’s insistence on conducting semester examinations approximately a month prior to all other faculties. That way, we got to curse our luck when we’d be nose-diving into our books while others would be making party plans in the NCC Canteen, and conversely, we’d be playing up the fact that our exams were long over by the time the others got their respective GPLs (full form loosely translates to ‘kicks in the posterior’). Fortunately for me, I was what was derisively referred to as a ‘localite’, with a home and family in Pune, so the effect of having to study while others continued gallivanting was far less on me than for my unfortunate peers whose hostels presented no entertainment or seclusion. And so it went on till the last day of my exams.

After my final paper, I sat chatting in the NCC with one or two batchmates, amidst the throng of smoking law students getting set for the all-night ‘booze-n-more’ parties. The prospect of puking my guts out at 4 a.m. was never a cause of much excitement for me, and somehow the charm of having women around, dancing and moving as only women do, would quickly and drastically diminish at the thought of them puking their guts out at any hour. At that point I was really looking forward to shaving off a hideous goatee that had managed to grow onto my face, a product of a few weeks of no shaving, and a good night’s sleep after ages. I was suddenly reminded of Karan (whose shaving habits were highly irregular) and I gave him a call.

When he answered, his voice had some of the cheerfulness of old. That was a relief, as ever since his conversation with Mo so many days earlier, he had always sounded rather strained. We decided to meet at Scorpio Net near Akruti’s place.

When I saw him, his face looked somewhat weary, but he greeted me with his usual enthusiasm. After the obligatory general chit-chat, I asked him about Akruti and was relieved to know she was doing quite well of late. She’d stopped assaulting herself, and was hanging out with friends, doing routine things again. Karan was still spending a lot of time with her, but she was a lot more stable now.

I then asked him about MJ. He looked at me with a wistful smile and said that she was fine, although he hadn’t seen her in a while. He had told her about Akruti’s condition, and she’d asked him to do what he had to do. I felt bad for him, but I wasn’t sure of how deep his involvement with Akruti had become of late, so I didn’t say anything. She was, after all, an object of intense emotions for him. Perhaps, if they were to ever be together, this was the starting point.

One often spends large amounts of time with a person without ever getting to know his true feelings on something that might affect him. We spend years with our siblings, our friends, maybe even our spouses, thinking we know all there is to know, and all of a sudden, something happens that opens a whole new aspect of their minds to us, one that might catch us completely by surprise. Several years later, I was to find Karan’s battered old notebook in which he used to write poetry, prose and thoughts while still in college, lying buried somewhere amidst other nostalgic paraphernalia. On one page were written the following lines in his handwriting:

“Karan, I’m glad I never said ‘yes’ to you. You showed me that I still can’t trust men. But you also showed me that I can’t expect someone to wait too long for me to say ‘yes’ - MJ”

Below it were written the words “No failures, no regrets”.

But the two “No”s had been scratched out.

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 4 : From Dawn to Dusk

2008-11-18T00:50:00.000+05:30

This next part is only somewhat based on facts. It has been recreated from bits and pieces of stuff Karan told me years ago. Since I wasn’t there when the following stuff happened, I have had to give it a largely fictional touch.

Part 4

Karan stood outside Akruti’s bedroom door, staring at the chipped off paint near the door knob. He was turning over in his mind everything Mo had said to him just a couple of hours earlier, and the look she had in her eyes when she let him into the apartment five minutes ago. Mo stood behind him, a few feet away. They said nothing. She just looked at him, and felt the pain of a lump in her throat. She liked Karan, she’d always thought he was a nice guy. And she was glad to see him now. It was all she could do to deal with the situation herself, and she didn’t know how much longer she could go on alone.

The silence was eerie, broken by the measured ticks of a wall clock hanging directly above the door where Karan stood. He was afraid to open the door, afraid of what he might see. He was suddenly aware of Mo’s presence just behind him. He could hear her breathing. He tried to concentrate on the faint whiff of the perfume she was wearing, as if his mind was shutting out the impending task by focussing on trifles. She put her hand on his shoulder and he shuddered. He looked back and saw tears in her eyes. “Please,” was all she could say.

Karan turned the knob and pushed the door back. As he stepped into the room, a wash of an acrid odour hit him like a pillow in the face. He froze, realising with horror that the stench was only too familiar. He hadn’t smoked hasish since he’d gone into rehab, but the memory takes its time to die out. The room was dimly lit, and was filled with the smoke of several joints. As his eyes focused in the gloom, he could discern a half eaten barbequed chicken pizza, several empty cigarette packs and a few photo albums littered all over the floor, and numerous empty bottles of alcohol. In the far corner of the room, next to a messy bed, sat a figure all huddled up. Her hands were wrapped around her knees which were drawn up to her body, and her head was on her knees, hiding her face from view. She was rocking restlessly, and her breathing was short and erratic.

Karan looked at Akruti, hardly able to believe that it was her. He knew her to be very tidy and hygienic, but the macabre atmosphere in the room suggested something very different. “So, what I’ve heard about her is true, then,” he thought, “She has gotten pretty fucked up.” He took a few steps towards her, and stopped at the sound of broken glass that crunched under his shoes. At the sound she looked up, and he saw her face for the first time in six months. Her eyeliner had streaked all over her cheeks with her tears, and her skin had taken on an anaemic whiteness, which made the contrast all the more gruesome. She gave him a chilling smile, and set her head on her knees once again.

“A… Akruti,” said Karan, hardly above a whisper. “What have you done to yourself? Why?”

For answer, she giggled like a school girl who’s noticed a boy’s trouser zipper open.

Karan found his voice. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you bloody crazy? People are worried sick about you. For God’s sake, look at yourself!” She stopped rocking, but kept her head down. Karan decided to take a more tender approach. “I can’t bear to see you like this Akruti. None of us can. We all care for you, ya. Come on, you’ve got to get a hold of yourself.”

“You care, huh?” she said without looking at him. “You seemed to care a lot more about her yesterday on that bench outside the canteen.” Karan remembered sitting on the katta outside the Symbi Food Court, laughing with MJ and holding her hand. He realised that Akruti must have seen him and MJ together. And it had been Valentine’s Day. Fuck!

“Does it feel good to hold her, Karan?” she went on. “Does she make you feel warm all over?”

“Don’t be like that, Akruti,” said Karan, “it’s not like that.”

“Oh, really? Then who is it, if it isn’t her,” her voice hardened. “Tell me, Karan. You can’t be alone, so who is it? Is it me?” He could hear her softly sobbing, but he felt powerless to stop it. His voice was dry, strained, “Nobody. There’s nobody, Akruti.”

“Why didn’t you call, Karan? For so many months, why didn’t you call?” she sobbed.

“What did you expect me to do, Akruti?” Karan cried out, “You treated me like shit! You knew how much you meant to me, yet you refused to be mine. In front of all my friends in the NCC canteen, you flung lemonade into my face. You embarrassed the fuck out of me that day. Did you expect me to come crawling back after that?”

Her sobs became uncontrollable now. Karan stopped; he realised that it wasn’t the best time for either of them to be reviving painful memories. He walked up to her and crouched. “Look,“ he said, “just forget all that. Right now you have to snap out of it. I…”

Suddenly Akruti lunged at Karan with a small pen-knife in her hand. The move took Karan completely by surprise, and before he could grab her hands, she had cut him on his chest. In a state of shock he held her hands tightly by the wrists for a few minutes. In the dimness, he saw a malevolence in her eyes, while she screamed, “You don’t love me, you love her!” When he came to his senses, he realised that she wasn’t putting up much of a fight, that she wasn’t trying to cut him with the knife anymore. He looked at her arms and saw all the places where she had cut herself. Her wrists were bandaged, and the wounds seemed to have reopened. “Drop it, “ he said, and the knife plinked onto the floor. The hate in her eyes was replaced by a look of utter remorse and she collapsed into his arms, weeping pitifully and continually saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He held her to himself, and he felt like he was holding a complete stranger. This shivering, weeping maniac was not his Akruti, the one he had fallen so deeply in love with. But he knew she was in there somewhere, and that only he could get her out. He felt he knew what he had to do, even if he hated to bring himself to admit it. He had to be by her side, see her through this mess. There was no telling what she would do next.

He held her tighter and closed his eyes. “No,” he whispered, “I’m sorry.” But he realised he hadn’t spoken to her. In his heart, he knew that he had just apologised to MJ.

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 4 : From Dawn to Dusk

2008-11-16T21:54:00.000+05:30

Part 3

February 15, 2005. It was Ruksana’s birthday. Two days ago, on February 13, it had been Maya’s birthday. Two women whom I have loved tenderly, passionately, in whose memories I have revelled, in whose company I have lost and found myself, in whose essence I have felt the meaning of love. Perhaps it is ironic that a day of love finds itself between their birthdays, neither one seeming any less important than the other, the day before and the day after. Some might call it poetic, and some might say I’m just a sucker for romanticism, either way, Valentine’s Day was a day full of emotion for me. And this time, the Day brought cruel tidings for another.

Karan had asked me to be there next to him, while Mo told him about Akruti’s condition. I felt distinctly awkward, and I knew I had no business being there. I didn’t know Mo, and my idea of Akruti had been limited to Karan’s sporadic reminiscences. I, therefore, chose to shut out whatever was being said by Mo to Karan, and endeavoured to pass the time in happy thoughts of Maya, and to a lesser extent, Ruksana (my break up with Maya had only happened 2 months earlier). But the mood was sombre, and there was a suggestion of a crisis in Karan’s body language as he spoke to Mo. Time was beginning to drag itself, and my position was becoming a very difficult one. At last Karan stood up and said, “Please tell her to stop being… like that. Call me once you reach over there, okay?” His words were somewhat broken and he was quite visibly shaken up.

We said our goodbyes to Mo and headed for the Great Punjab restaurant down the street. Karan walked in a daze, his eyes fixed on the pavement as if the road would show him the meaning of it all. We sat down at a table in the restaurant, and I ordered a Coke for him, his favoured beverage. The waiter placed the bottle before him, but Karan made no move to pour himself a glass. I poured one for him, and as I pushed the glass to him, I said, “Dude…”

Karan looked up at me, and I saw in his eyes a torrent of heretofore alien emotions. There was fear, there was pain, there was doubt, but more than anything else, there seemed to be despair. “She called me yesterday, Da,” he mumbled, “on Valentine’s Day. She asked me why hadn’t I called. She asked me if I was with her, with MJ. She… she asked me if I still cared.”

I caught a drift of hysteria in his words. His whole aspect suggested something vaguely horrible. His charming, carefree demeanour was dissolving into a morass of confusion and terror before my very eyes. This was a Karan Singh few would ever get to see.

“She said she hates me, Da,” he continued, “hates me for having loved her. For having dreamed of her. For holding her hand, for the flowers last year. She hates me because Mo and Rose keep talking about me, and she hates me because she keeps talking about me to Mo and Rose. But why, Da? Why does she need me now? I asked so many times, she always turned me down. There were times I felt like I was a clown doing a juggling act on a unicycle just to make her smile, but she hardly seemed to care. And now, this? Why now, Da? After I’ve finally begun to leave her behind, after I’ve become so interested in MJ, why now?”

The answer seemed obvious. “Because you’ve become so interested in MJ,” I replied.

He looked at me with that pained expression. “She’s cut herself, Da,” he cried, “she’s been pulling off pieces of flesh on her arm with nail clippers. She’s nearly slit her wrist!”
This was bad. The matter seemed on the verge of getting out of hand. For the first time in my life, I felt confronted with a problem whose solution gave away no hint at itself. All I could say was, “Holy shit!”

“What should I do, Da?” he said, “What the fuck should I do?”

But I could say nothing. The woman sounded crazy, but now wasn’t the time to venture a psychoanalysis. I said in a dry voice, “I don’t know man. Maybe you should tell someone in her family about this.”

But he wasn’t going to do that. I knew it, he knew it. It might have been the intelligent thing to do, but it might mean he would lose her forever. Even if he felt he might never have her, he still wanted to hang on to some sense of hope. He closed his eyes, and in a few minutes his face hardened, his lips setting into a thin line. When his eyes opened, there was a look of painful resolve. For the first time he noticed the glass of Coke in front of him. His fingers slowly curled around and gripped the glass, and as he took a swig of the drink, it appeared that his mind had found an instant of sanity. As he set the glass down, he looked at me and said, “I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, but she needs me…” And with that he stood up and walked away.

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 4 : From Dawn to Dusk

2008-11-15T12:16:00.000+05:30

Part 2

"With every silver lining comes a black cloud of despair"

Archie Andrews

Karan had often spoken of Akruti. From that very first day when we met after the MUNA training session, and throughout our continued association, if Akruti’s name wasn’t at the tip of his tongue, it would most certainly be at the back of his mind. He had often described his impression of her when he’d first seen her. On such occasions, he would sit back with a dreamy look in his eyes, and the suggestion of a beautiful memory or two would descend around his face like a luminescent mist. He would tell me, speaking more to himself than to me, perhaps, about how she had seemed to be a woman with just the right level of attitude, arrogance, solidity, stolidity, strength and femininity. Of how he had once told her that her red bandana made her look like a pretentious ‘wannabe’, and how she would be so much cooler if she’d just be herself. Of how they spent several months seeing each other without seeing each other, and how he could never really have time alone with her because either Rose (name changed) or Mo would be hanging around like some kind of chastity and propriety ensuring neo-Nazi chaperone.

But Karan was in pain. I could well empathise, for I knew how harrowing it could be to love fruitlessly. For more than half a decade I had often found myself in a melancholy reverie of my intense and largely unexpressed feelings for Ruksana, the unhappy circumstances that led to our fallout, the innumerable occasions when my heart was bursting to tell her so much! Perhaps that is why Karan and I felt so comfortable together. I’ll lay it down as an axiom right now – the leading cause of male bonding is women.

With the background of his stop-go deal with Akruti and the toll it used to take on him, I was quite happy to see Karan’s nascent interest in MJ beginning to grow into a full fledged ‘thing’. There was a new glow to his usual cheerfulness, and his brimming energy found excellent expression in his interactions with her. There was something indescribably cute about the two of them, and most everybody who knew either of them (and between the two of them that meant nearly everybody in the Arts and Commerce college) were abuzz with the gossip that Karan is totally hitting on MJ. For the most part, the news spread with smiles galore, and even one or two other admirers of MJ resigned to their fate and congratulated Karan for being the closest to the ‘chosen one’ in her life then. Frequent references to MJ’s hanging out in the RSI Club and Karan’s oft expressed desire to be her slow-dance-in-the-spotlight partner became a favoured topic of discussion. Many people eyed me curiously, wondering who exactly I was, sitting on the same table as Karan and MJ. In the process, my popularity as ‘the unknown quantity’ made its own small place in the scheme of things, and I was often prodded by complete strangers on the latest goings-on of the ‘couple’.

But with the crest there comes the trough. Isn’t it so typical? Just when we thought things could only get better from then on, Karan’s cell phone rang. His expression betrayed some little confusion as he looked at the flashing name on the screen and answered, “Hello?”

“Karan? It’s me, Mo. Listen… I don’t know how to say this… It’s Akruti… She’s… You’d better see me right away.”

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 4 : From Dawn to Dusk

2008-11-13T18:02:00.000+05:30

“The way you make me feel,
The way you turn me on,
You knock me off my feet,
My lonely days are gone...”
Michael Jackson

Part 1

Another semester of law school was drawing inevitably to its close. The crowd in the college campus had begun to diminish, and within a few days, the law faculty declared a study leave. But impending exams were never a dampener to Karan’s spirits, especially if it were someone else’s exams that were looming near. By then, Karan and I were regularly hanging out together, and every morning at about 9 a.m., a call to or from him had become a staple. I was a little too carefree about the vast portions of my subjects to be covered for the exams, and somewhat too liberal with my fibs to my folks about getting notes from classmates when what I really wanted to do was share some puffs and laughs with Karan. Life was easy, reduced to a series of walks from the Symbi campus to the NCC and back, with intermittent smoking pit-stops that left my wallet lighter and my conscience heavier (I was, after all, supposed to be studying, and smoking is a bad habit). Then, when there were no longer any women on campus for Karan to talk with, we’d push off to his apartment, where he lived with his roommate Dilawar, and the incredibly sweet couple of Tandon bhai and Pede. In the evening, when I’d decide to push off home, Karan would walk me to the nearest tapri for yet another smoke, and (without fail) would ‘borrow’ one Rupee for a phone call. And so, our days continued.

Karan’s love-life was somewhat seasonal. A new crush would materialize sometime in the months of spring, lazy afternoons would be spent dreaming of cosy days with the said crush in the summer, arm-in-arm walks under a quaint old-fashioned curved-handled umbrella during the monsoons would follow, by autumn there would be signs of something of a rift, and by new years eve Karan would have had either a glass of lemonade flung in his face, or his girlfriend would go for another guy because she couldn’t take Karan seriously, or, if he was lucky, she’d break up with him without any unnecessary drama or intrigue. I guess he was just unlucky, or maybe he cared a little too much for his women. Whatever be the case, and however unfortunate the heartbreak, Karan always managed to scrape his heart off the floor and give it away again. This spring, his ephemeral heartbreak healer was a young 'army-chick' called MJ (Clarification: At least one of her parents were serving in the armed forces).

MJ had been one of the ‘models’ in a college fashion show in Aarambh. She was pretty cute, and was probably fun to talk to (Karan did most of the talking, as always). My role, or rather the role I took for myself at such times, would be that of an observer. However, small-talk between the sexes usually bored me, and I’d often find myself fighting off humongous yawns so as not to embarrass the cooing couple. That is not to say my silent vigils went unrewarded. It was always amusing to watch Karan trying to impress MJ, and her playfully stoic resistance to his efforts were admirable. In the presence of MJ, Karan would often become rather magnanimous, and a nice chicken sandwich, or at the very least, a cup of coffee would often find place on the table before me. A pleasant trade-off for the daily ‘one rupee’ offerings! My favourite moment remains the time we were sitting at a table in the Symbi Food Court, and Karan, while expressing genuine admiration for the entire feminine sex, declared, “I really love women; they have so much grit!” while clenching both his fists at chest-height at the precise point of saying “grit”! Despite my temptation to view the incident as a glorious illustration of a Freudian slip, I am inclined to believe that the hand-gesture was in fact an innocent faux pas (or am I?). But, although I laughed till Karan was red in the face and MJ was beginning to have an inkling that something embarrassing had just happened, I could not deny that Karan was genuinely interested in MJ, and his intentions, like most everything about him, were honourable.

Freakishly Faithful : Chapter 2 (contd.) - Aarambh - the Beginning

2008-11-09T21:26:00.000+05:30

Part 4

“O maajhi, aeka kaeno kothai jaash, nodir aar saagorer tane-tane (O boatman, where do you go with the waves of the rivers and the seas? And why do you go there alone?)”
A song called “Nauka Chole” (the Boat sails) that Karan and I performed in the show

The feeling was electric indeed. The curtains were closed, and the auditorium was abuzz with the audience relishing the prospect of trading boring lectures with hopefully less boring stage acts. On stage, the performers of the day were milling about with the confusion so typical of nervous first timers; I know, I was one of them. The Orchestra performance (with 20 or so people about to sing and play, calling it a ‘Band performance’ would be overdoing it) was to kick things off. Wires from microphones and guitars snaked all over the stage and disappeared under the curtains. Shaunak met me in the wings, all charged up. He had practically left the guitar department entirely to me. He was going to play of course, but on a plugged in acoustic guitar. He pointed towards an electric guitar lying on the stage, and informed me that it was to be my instrument for the show. Now this was unexpected!

As I picked up the electric, I once again marvelled at how such a relatively small looking guitar could feel so damn heavy. I took out my pick, closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and did a single slow strum of the six strings, trying to get a total ‘I’m feelin’ that shit’ look. Unfortunately, any cool rockstar effect that my posturing with the guitar might have produced was quite likely obliterated by the very uncool ‘duh…’ look of confusion that now appeared on my face. The guitar had made no sound! Not on any amplifier, and not even otherwise. I spent a few moments picking at the strings while re-evaluating the basics - Let’s see now; hold guitar pick/plectrum like so, bring pick/plectrum to string, pluck string with plectrum and listen to sound. It seemed simple enough. But Step 4 (listen to sound) kept eluding me. I tried a variety of methods; picking the strings with increased pressure, holding the guitar in different angles, checking if the plug-in chord was securely plugged-in, and finally praying that the damn thing is not broken. Fortunately for me, JD noticed my fervent efforts and, with a classic look of disgust on his face, flipped a switch on the guitar, turned a knob marked ‘volume’ and said, “You have to turn it on first!” Ah, of course. I quickly played the chords of Summer of ’69 to ward of any excessive embarrassment, while quietly adding a 5th step to my mental “How to evoke sound from a Guitar” manual. No wonder JD wanted to throw me off the stage! To all and sundry, the next time you’re trying to play an electric guitar, do switch it on.

-------

We’d gotten off to a somewhat shaky start. One of the girls who was to sing solo on a Shubha Mudgal number had started off on a very wrong scale, and the laughter of the audience wasn’t too encouraging. She did end up singing the song well enough though. Our first success was on the song ‘Khamaj’ by Fuzon, where Sam and a girl named Shruti did a little duet. But it was the next song that was to ultimately alter the course of some of our lives.

We all knew it; this was definitely going to be our best song of the day. At least we hoped it would be that way, if we didn’t mess it up. And for this song, I had quite the bit of responsibility. Rono had a single monitor speaker near him, which apparently wasn’t loud enough for him to judge the tempo of my guitar. So he’d asked me to be near him as much as I could while playing the song. Ruksana on the synthesizer had an important ‘flute’ solo to play in the middle of the song, for which she insisted that I be next to her to help her with the tempo. Sam and Jeetu wanted me to be in between them to keep them on the right scale. Thankfully, the guy playing the tabla made no similar demands. Nevertheless, the requests of the others required me to be pretty much on the move for most of the song.

The success of the previous song had shifted the momentum in our favour. Getting the song right was crucial. There was some initial confusion in starting the song as, apparently Ritesh Deshmukh who was the Chief Guest of the day had made his entrance, and was taking his seat near the stage. But if the crowd were interested in getting a glance at the actor, who at the time was more the Chief Minister’s son than a Bollywood star, they certainly forgot about it when the sound of Sam’s silken smooth voice burst out of the speakers, singing the intro verse of one of the most popular Indian songs in the last decade. The roar of the crowd was brief but incredibly intense, and the sound coursed through me in an electric spasm. It was followed up by rhythmic clapping as I took off on the intro lead guitar portion. And when Rono kicked in with his drums midway into the song with a mind-numbing crash of the cymbals and his lightning fast drum-rolls, the crowd were absolutely blown away by this completely unexpected development. They’d never heard of the drums being played on this song, since the original was filled with percussion like on dholaks, but no perceptible drumming.

Needless to say, I dutifully fulfilled my role of being next to Rono, Ruksana, Sam and Jeetu at the desired points in the song. At the end of the song, one which held such an emotional significance in my heart as it did (and does) for millions of others, I could not help remembering how many times I had in the past thought of Ruksana when I’d heard the song. Towards the end of song, as Rono played a haunting shimmering sound on his symbals, I stole a glance at her, while Sam and Jeetu sang the words right out of my heart - “Ab kya karoon, kaase kahoon, he Maeri…”

Freakishly Faithful : Chapter 2 (contd.) - Aarambh : The Beginning

2008-11-01T18:29:00.000+05:30

These writings are, as far as possible, chronological. I am not planning to go for a day-by-day account, of course, but I do intend to capture as many incidents, events, happenings and the like as possible which occur to me in my recollections while writing these posts. This next post is a continuation of Chapter 2, and I’ve indulged my imagination in this one, because Rono had requested something earlier. Let’s see how this turns out.
By the way, I haven’t posted anything here in sometime because I’m on vacation. Did you miss me?? ;)

Part 3

“Dude… Rono… don’t play the drums for this song. It doesn’t have any drumming man,” I say to Rono, while we are getting set to practice what I hope will be our best number in the show. “Ok Da,” he says, drumsticks in hand, but I suspect he’s planning on giving it a go anyway. I have to dissuade him; he’s much too excited now that Shaunak’s asked him to play for us. Obviously he hasn’t had a chance to play a drumkit for a bit too long; his hands are itching to whack it for a while. I notice the matka lying around, and it hits me that a matka in addition to the tablas might produce an interesting percussive effect. I put it by him; after all, he knows percussion a lot better than me. He goes for it, and I’m relieved to see the drumsticks leave his hand. The kid’s great, but if he keeps playing those drums that loud, the singers will scream themselves hoarse trying to hear themselves singing. Can’t have the singers losing their voices before the show.
I strum the first chord on JD’s purple Ibanez electric guitar, and Sam takes off with the intro verse. Midway, I suddenly hear the crash of cymbals, and Rono starts off a rocking beat, something I’d never imagined we can do to the song. It sounds amazing, and we’ve all begun to lose ourselves into it. We reach a crescendo point in the song, and it happens. A loud and hardly melodic “twwooiing” sound reverberates in the amplifier to which my guitar is connected, and everybody stops singing / playing. I can feel everybody looking at me as I look down at the guitar and see my fear confirmed. The G-string, broken, again!!
Goddamit, why? Why, every bloody time? Why does it have to happen in front of everyone? We were all sounding so great, and now it’s all wasted, because of me!!
JD’s pissed of course. He comes to me, looking at his beautiful Ibanez missing a string and he asks, “Why do you have to play it so hard?!” I try to sound nonchalant about it in my reply, “Sorry man. This song gets me all josh-ed up. I feel I can’t play nearly as good if I don’t give it my all”
“Guitar ki to maa chud jaati hai na, mamu!” he says.
God, what if it happens on stage! What if, when I’m up there for the first time ever, my string breaks??!! God, we’ll have just one electric... no replacements!! I can’t let the show be wasted because I play uncontrollably hard!! I can’t let it be ruined!! I.. I…

I woke up with a gasp. It had all seemed too real, but then, it had happened. I remembered that day in the Vishwabhavan garage. I remembered Shaunak’s firefighting, telling JD he’d get him another string. I remembered feeling like crap.
I sat up on my bed, stunned for a few minutes, feeling a cold sweat envelope me. In about 5 minutes, the alarm on my cell phone went off. It was 6:30 a.m., already. I’d had a late night, having had dinner with Karan at Chaitanya’s. MUNA had ended the previous evening, but in my early morning fuzziness, it already seemed like some distant dreamy recollection. Today was a new challenge: Aarambh. I had to pull myself together if I was gonna play in a few hours. I slid off the bed and headed off to the bathroom. As I looked at myself in the mirror, with the brush building up a furious froth of toothpaste in my mouth, one line kept ringing in my ears – “Guitar ki to maa chud jaati hai na, mamu…”

Freakish Faithful: Chapter 3 - RCPNE MUNA

2008-10-22T17:19:00.000+05:30

People tell me that on my blog, I have the freedom to say what I want, how I want to. That may be so for general and random posts, but one becomes a little cautious and far less contemptuous of the perceived inadequacies of others when one is writing a story in the nature of the one in my recent posts. When I thought of this next part, my first impulse was to jump into the proceeding conversation and show the female character herein in the light that she appeared to me in my mind then, which, I say with some regret, was not very positive. But, given the background that she had won an award in my Council for a reason I am as yet to understand, and I had won no personal award myself in MUNA that year, my initial disdainful thoughts of her are neither warranted nor fair. The conversation that occurs in this post did indeed substantively happen, but I urge my readers not to pass judgement on the girl in the manner that I did. Do remember, that in the end, neither you nor I know her beyond the ambit of the following post…

PART 2

I remember noticing Sadia on only two occasions throughout MUNA. The first was in my Council, when I had thwarted an attempt by her to speak by raising a motion to close the debate (I wanted to move on to the next part of the proceedings, which was favourable to me). The second was in the bus ride from AIT to the drop-point at Null Stop.

I had chosen a seat at the front of the bus for some reason. I guess on that evening I was, shall we say comfortably numb. An awesome euphoric lightness had enveloped me, and in the darkness of the bus ride the vision of the awards and closing ceremony of MUNA kept flashing in my head again and again. I could see it then, as vividly as I see it now; the impish grin on the announcer’s face, the swelling tension among the delegates, the calls for guesses as to the winners of the event, the gratifying suggestions of team North Korea by so many delegates, the sound of my heartbeat growing louder, the encouragingly expectant looks from Karan, the announcement, the standing ovation, Merin’s ecstatic congratulations, Sairakha’s dramatic declaration that if Nikhil, Ray and I hadn’t won, she would have cried, Kuldeep uncle’s hawk-like countenance breaking into a warm smile, Harsh’s cryptic suggestion that next year I would be on the ‘other side’. In between these dizzy scenes, I kept looking around at the delegates in the bus, pretending to take in their evident awe with dismissive carefreeness. It was truly a high, one that I’d heretofore never experienced. An in the midst of one of my sweeping glances, my eyes once again fell on Sadia.

In the Council she had worn a hijab as part of her costume, which, in the manner of most Islamic nations, had been decidedly unflattering. But tonight, with her hair let down, her restrained delegate-ish manner having dissolved back into the energetic animation of a student, the moon shining on her face and her natural smile restored, Sadiya Bahidi was beautiful. My evaluation was evidently echoed by Karan, who had decided to take a break from smoking at the back of the bus, where the Best Team Trophy was unceremoniously serving as an ashtray. He joined me at the front, and sometime in between our conversation, he overheard Sadia mention that she was from Welham. His interest was immediately piqued, and, as I was to understand and often be reminded of thereafter, there was a deep chemistry between Welham Girls and Doon School, Dehradun, where Karan had done his schooling.

The mention of Doon School had a curious effect on Sadia. The name had only to be uttered by Karan and all of a sudden, it was as if the world had disappeared for the both of them. Her friends looked towards me, and I looked towards them, and we both realized that we had been discarded by the hoity-toity Public School society. In the course of the preliminary chatter between them certain facts stood established: her name was Sadia Bahidi of Sahrangpur and she had graduated from Welham Girls about the same time as Karan had graduated from Doon. Whatever else was spoken initially was lost on me. And then came the faithless freak’s bullshitting streak.

After a good long discussion, Karan suddenly exclaimed, “Hey! Hold on! You’re Sadia?”
“Yeah?” she replied with a curious look.
“Sadia Bahidi form Sahrangpur?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said with wide-eyed amazement, as if a gypsy had just told her a fundamental truth from a crystal ball.
“Oh my God!!!!” went Karan, “Oh my God!!! I can’t believe this!!! Sadiya Bahidi of Welham’s!!! Right here in this bus, talking to me??? This is unbelievable!!!”

What was unbelievable was her response – “But how did you know I’m from Sahrangpur??”

I have to hand it to Karan, he was certainly putting on quite a show.

“Arre, who doesn’t know you, ya??” he continued, “You were like the most sought after female in Doon!!”

Eureka!! The gates had fallen and the horse was through. Gameplay basics: Lesson 1 – if you want to get her attention, you tell her that she’s a centre of attention (women, correct me if I’m wrong here). And he didn’t stop there. He pulled me into the conversation.
”Dude, do you know who this is??” said he with an expression of total amazement, and I almost felt like clapping at his performance.
“Um… Sadiya Bahidi of Sahrangpur??” I said with a hint of sarcasm. But the sarcasm had quite the opposite effect. Her eyes grew even wider when I said her name and named her native place, and any doubts about her supposed popularity completely vanished at the mention of these details by another total stranger. Gameplay basics : Lesson 2 – after successfully attracting her attention, you rivet her attention and arouse her fascination by spreading the word on her supposed stardom and evoke favourable responses from unlikely quarters (women, don’t bother here).

And so it continued, with Karan saying that he would email the Doon School students newspaper and all online Doon school e-groups that Sadiya Bahidi had been found, and all kinds of other things. We got off the bus at Null Stop, and Sadiya said that her friends were heading off to F.C. Road for dinner. Karan and I decided to have dinner at Chaitanya’s, evidently to the joy of Sadiya, who celebrated by suggesting that we walk from the drop-point to our respective destinations. Outside Chaitanya, Sadiya turned to say goodbye to Karan, with overt indications that she would have loved to stay and continue their most fascinating conversation but for her friends. Numbers were exchanged, and as she walked away, she gave the clichéd glance back at Karan with the suggestion of lovely possibilities.

Karan turned to me and said, “Well, dude?” I said, “Dude, you sure as hell can bullshit!!” And then we burst out laughing…

Freakishly Faithful : CHAPTER 3 – RCPNE MUNA

2008-10-20T17:36:00.000+05:30

From this point on, things have begun to get tricky. The original Chapter 3 went straight into another phase of Karan and my lives, but it bypassed a lot of events that happened in between. Karan messaged me today about how these little recollections of mine are catching on in terms of reader-base. I was even surprised to see a comment from one of the incidental characters in my post which was Part 2 of Chapter 2 (thanks Yudi!!). Karan wants me to go into a lot more detail about several more events than I had originally planned. That might be an interesting thought. Also, these writings might be incomplete without a somewhat greater tribute to MUNA. So, here goes nothing…

PART 1

By February 2005, my life had taken a thorough turn-around. I was going to play the guitar on stage for the first time ever at Aarambh, and I was about to participate in what had to be the biggest debating event in Pune, the Rotary Club of Pune North East’s Model United Nations Assembly. What was interesting was that I now had trouble with adjusting my schedule. Hold on, now I actually had a schedule!

The concept of Aarambh, as it then was, was that it was to happen on two days. The whole programme would happen on one day for a portion of the Arts & Commerce Colleges, and would be repeated for the remaining students on another day. The Vishwabhavan auditorium wasn’t big enough to accommodate all faculties, which was just as well. I remember that Aarambh day 1 was to happen on 5th February, 2005, and Day 2 was on 7th February. Unfortunately, MUNA was happening on the weekend of 5-6th February. So the issue was that Karan and I would be missing day 1 of Aarambh. We weren’t too kicked about that, but I was pretty excited about MUNA.

On a moderately frigid Saturday morning on the 5th of February, KS Nikhil Kumar, Abhishek Ray and I, Team North Korea, reached the Pizza Hut opposite Balgandharva on J.M. Road for the 6.30 a.m. pickup. As the sun began to creep over the buildings and peep at us in between the leaves of the trees, the rays glistened off my well gelled spiked hair, the fruits of a then relatively expensive haircut at a fancy-ish men’s saloon (by 2005 generic Pune standards) on the previous evening. Karan had gotten a hair cut there too, and a shave that gave him an interesting upmarket Waziristan look. Dressed in his cream coloured pathani salwar jhabba suit this morning with his half-smoked Classic regular in hand, Karan, the delegate of Pakistan, was ready to go.

The venue: AIT College of Engineering. The time: 9.30 a.m. The mission: Stay awake through the Chief Guest’s speech. The ammunition: Pretty women and a comparative analysis of Karan’s and my tastes thereof. In costumes no less! Fortunately, the sights were pleasing enough, and our Secretary General, the venerable (soon to be reverend) Merin Mathew Zacchariah (spell-check requested) gave an inspirational speech and opened the MUNA. The seating arrangement revealed that Pakistan was to be seated right behind North Korea, which was good since Karan and I were to be in the same Council. Felt good to have some backup of sorts.

The debating was fantastic and well worth the effort Nikhil, Ray and I had put in into our preparation for the event. But a lot of interesting things happened outside the Councils as well. The participants, or delegates, were all charged up in their roles as diplomats and would almost continually discuss issues, resolutions, operative clauses, treaties, and each other. A truly inspired Press Corps kept publishing some hilarious Bulletins which were as amusing as the deep discussions on foreign policy by delegates at the urinals. The tension levels were high, and every recess in between the sessions found several of the delegates at the designated pantry area negotiating with the coffee and chai machine. Unfortunately, the Nescafe dispenser seemed to have its own agenda and revolted against the representatives of the comity of nations by spewing cup after cup of coloured semi-heated water in the name of tea. Several of the delegates lost their role-playing composure and adopted the uniquely Indian solution of banging the machine into submission, to no avail, however. There wasn’t much left for it, and after watching his third cup of muddy water fill to the brim, Karan rendered the final verdict on the machinations of the infidel West by declaring Jihad on the coffee machine! May the vengeance of a thousand screeching PMS-ridden wenches rain down upon that bilious beverage brewer!!
Despite his usual garrulous nature, Karan had been rather silent throughout the event. His most vocal responses had been limited to his outburst at the coffee machine, and a fitting censure of the Chairpersons in our Council because they had dared to read a message chit sent by him to Lenold, the Chairperson of another Council. His frequent threats of Holy War had earned him the (till date lasting) nickname of ‘the Jihadi’, and his enthusiasm on the dance floor in the social evening on day 1 had in all probability attracted some female attention. But it was the bus journey from AIT to Null Stop which saw Karan in his true talkative element. And the catalyst of his renewed enthusiasm was a girl named Sadia Bahidi (name changed to a badly masqueraded alternative), of Welham Girls, Dehradun.

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 2: Aarambh - The Beginning

2008-10-19T00:23:00.000+05:30

PART 2

I’d seen Rono around on campus before. He was completely nondescript at the time. I’d even confused him to be someone else the first time I spoke to him (Sorry Rono, but you and Ronnie John almost looked the same to me at one time). The only thing I’d noticed about the guy is that he was into drums. I’d seen him one day in the Symbi Cyber Café, glaring at high res pictures of elaborate drum-kits. If one thinks that might be an uncommon preoccupation, one might have found it even more out of place since Rono was sandwiched between two bloodthirsty Counterstrike enthusiasts at the time (No Rono, not even the hint of a pun intended). I’d never given him a second thought until he walked upto me one day and asked about all the drumming coming out of the Vishwabhavan parking lot in college. He knew that I was part of whatever was going on and, as I was to later find out, the sharp chatter of a snare, the subtle thunder of a bass drum, a lightening roll on the toms and a shimmering crash on the cymbals did wonders for his confidence (right Rono, didn’t mention the hi-hats); enough for him to walk up to me and speak to me practically for the first time.

By this time, practice and moved out of the AV Hall and had moved into the acoustically promising Vishwabhavan parking area. I told Rono about the band, actually the ‘orchestra’ performance that was to happen at ‘Aarambh’, the Symbi Arts and Commerce Annual gathering programme. He begged me for a shot at the drums, and so I asked him to hang around for practice and I’d see what I could do. By now I was no longer the ‘band consultant’, I was actually gonna play the guitar in Aarambh!

Shounak was pretty worried about the drums department. The only college drummer he knew of seemed to have mastered the loud and unflattering beat one may hear in a marriage band, and in the process the latter had possibly sacrificed any desire to actually play the drums with any versatility. At one point a guy from BBA had come into the scene and had given a rather powerful demonstration of his skill with the sticks. He was admittedly impressive, and leagues ahead of the earlier guy. Shaunak was about to as the BBA guy to play for Aarambh, when Rono came upto me and asked if he could have a whack at those drums. Shaunak was cool with it, as he generally was with everything else. Rono took his place behind the drums, picked up the sticks, and brought the goddamned place down in the next 5 minutes!! Holy Mother of Christ, this kid was good!! No one in the vicinity had even the slightest doubt of the obvious fact – Ronojoy Basu had arrived.

And somewhere at the back of my mind, while jamming to Maeri, me on the electric guitar, Karan, Sam and Jeetu on vocals, Rono on the drums, and yes, Ruksana on the keyboard, an idea began to tear away the cobwebs from the deepest recesses of my memory and dimly began to take shape. It was idealistic, somewhat seemingly impractical, yet beautiful nonetheless. And it seemed that I wasn’t the lone dreamer. After a successful show at ‘Aarambh’, Shaunak proposed that we form a proper band. He could’ve been reading my mind!

As Karan was to later put it, one man’s dream became everyone’s obsession.

Freakshly Faithful - Chapter 2: Aarambh - The Beginning

2008-10-18T01:00:00.000+05:30

PART 1

Karan jumped off just as I parked my bike in the parking lot of a building behind Kamla Nehru Park. He told me that we were going to the apartment of this guy named Shaunak who stayed in the building, and that the band would be practicing in the apartment. Shaunak answered the doorbell. He was a tall-ish, bespectacled guy with a long face and a pleasant smile, and a curious tendency to drag his words somewhat. He welcomed us both in and saw no problem in my watching practice.

Shaunak’s bedroom wasn’t exactly cramped, but it sure was packed. There were a bunch people sitting on the two beds that were set adjacent to one another, and another three or four more on a mattress on the ground. As we entered, I noticed three guitars reclining in a corner, one big black matka and a small study table cluttered with tapes, a player and random stationary. The ‘band’ seemed more interested in idle gossip, and practice didn’t seem to be on the agenda. I could tell that Karan found the setting and the people almost as new as I did, and that was a comfort for me. I was quite the introvert back then, and I’d already run the gauntlet of meeting Karan that day. It wasn’t easy for me to take in my surroundings so suddenly, but Karan’s presence and the sight of a guitar at arm’s length was reassuring.

It wasn’t long before I realised that there wasn’t going to be any practice happening after all. Shaunak was trying to prepare a song-list, and people were suggesting a bunch of Hindi songs. Karan quipped in with one or two; a song called ‘Creep’ by an artist I can’t remember. My ears perked up when someone mentioned ‘Maeri’ by Euphoria. I wasn’t much of a guitarist back then, but I’d shredded a few picks before then trying to play Maeri. I turned to a guy named Jeetendra, or Jeetu for short, and asked him if anyone knew the chords of Maeri. Jeetu turned to Shaunak, who said no. Here was a chance as good as any to be of some use, so I said, with more confidence than I felt, “I can play Maeri on the guitar.” “Really,” asked Shaunak, “can you show it to us?”

He handed a guitar to me with a pick while everyone turned expectantly towards this new development. There’s something to be said about being the centre of attention. One may not be too proficient at something, but once in the limelight, one often begins to speak like the thing’s second nature for him. “I usually play this song with a capo on the 7th,” I said, “otherwise the scale’s too high for me.” The look on Shaunak’s face indicated with sublime clarity that he didn’t have a goddamned clue as to what I was talking about. Having achieved the desired effect, I went ahead and sang the song.

5 minutes and some vocal chord – wrenching later, the spotlight was completely on me. Shaunak made me dictate the lyrics of Maeri to Jeetu and I wrote down the chords for him. The guitar stayed in my hands now as everyone started turning to me, asking me what other songs from the playlist I knew. Unfortunately, at the time my knowledge of songs on the guitar was only slightly better than my French, which isn’t saying much. Before long, everyone more or less returned to their chatter, and I continued my dictation to Jeetu.

After a while, a guy named Sameer, or Sam for short, picked up the matka and began slapping it with some serious enthusiasm and good rhythm. Something about that rhythm registered in my head, and I looked towards the matka for the first time with a tingling sense of possibility. A little concentration on the rhythm, and I had it. Yes… it could be done!

I asked Sam to maintain the rhythm, held a G major chord on the guitar and without preamble began strumming the intro chord rhythm patter of the song Wonderwall by Oasis. The strumming merged beautifully with the sharp taps on the matka, and Karan joined me in an enthusiastic rendition of the song. Therafter, Karan took off into one hell of a classical aalaap, and I was stunned at his voice. It was one of the best I’d ever heard, and for the first time in my life, I appreciated an aalaap. The near magical strains of his voice had everyone mesmerised, and when it was over I realised that Karan, Sam and I had just created a fusion version of Wonderwall, and it had sounded fantastic! Shaunak, who was in the other room when we’d started the song, and who’d walked in midway, added the song to the list as soon as we’d ended. He also called it a day as far as practice was concerned, and invited me as a special ‘consultant’ to all future practices of the band. They were to begin the next day in the AV hall of the Arts college. The practice timings clashed with my lectures in law college, but who gave a flying fuck about classes anyway? A band was asking for my help, I couldn’t possibly say no. Karan, who was obviously pleased to have found me, put his arm on my shoulder and said the words that I have heard so often ever since, “Let’s have a smoke.”

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 1

2008-10-16T23:52:00.002+05:30

For new readers, there is a prologue that comes before this chapter. for continuity's sake, please read that first and then read this post. also, i'd like to start an interactive exchange with my readers. if you feel that any particular part of these posts can be better expressed otherwise, please give me your suggestions in your comments. the suggestions have to fit into the subject matter seamlessly. if i don't accept your suggestion, it's only cuz i feel that it may not be appropriate or not in tune with my way of writing. but if i like it, i'll put it in and credit you. i'd love it if you can be a part of his endeavour, by giving me your comments, and recording them on this blog instead of giving me your feedback over a chat or email...

“I smoke to kill time; and because I’ve met a lot of interesting people over a cigarette.”
- An oft repeated line of mine

Fest ‘O Comm 2004 was over. I’d had a decent run in it. I’d won ‘Best Speaker – Against’ in the purely moronic excuse for a parliamentary debate that was one of the events in the fest. I daresay I made a fan or two in that competition. Specifically, there was Neha, from Symbi Arts & Commerce. She informed me about the Model United Nations Assembly, or MUNA for short. Training sessions for MUNA were on from December. I went for my first session on a Saturday in January. It was fun, and totally different from what I’d grown used to in terms of debates. I even met Ruksana (name changed to protect identity) there. It was the most I’d seen of her in four years. She’ll figure in the scheme of things later in these writings. But for now, I’d like to talk about what happened in my second training session.

On a cold Sunday morning, I once again rode to the BMCC College, the venue of the training sessions, for another round of frenetic debating, wada pav and chai. Any thought of the seasonal chill thoroughly dissipated in the heat of the arguments, and finally, four hours later, we were done. While the place was clearing out, I overheard a guy speaking to Neha. He was talking about getting a smoke. I was eager to make some new friends in MUNA, so I worked up my courage and did something completely uncharacteristic of me – I spoke to someone I did not know, without being spoken to first.

“Hey man,” I said, “you smoke?” “Yeah,” he replied. “Great, I could use one myself.” “Arre great! There’s a tapir outside campus. Bye Neha!”

I started walking alongside my new companion, feeling pretty good about myself at the fruitful negotiation of interests, so to speak. Turning around to wave goodbye, I almost didn’t notice the slight look of disapproval in Neha’s eyes. I barely knew her, but a woman’s instinct is a powerful thing. It was impossible to tell whether it was the thought of smoking that she disapproved of, or my companion. With not a few misgivings over my hasty attempt at being affable, I sighed inwardly, looked to my new companion and said, “By the way, I’m Bikram.” “Karan Singh,” came the reply. We shook hands, and there it began.

Within the next two hours, I knew all about Karan’s past drug problems, rehab, Akruti (name changed to protect my hide), the works. He in turn came to know of my recent break-up with Maya (name changed to what I wish it would have been), and the old chestnut about Ruksana back in school. We found ourselves in quite a comfort zone, two strangers confiding in each other, finding unity in the sorrows of our miserable pasts. A connection, often loosely termed as male-bonding, was formed, and I could sense that this conversation was a prelude to much more. So when he got a call at around 3:30 p.m., asking him to go for band practice, I didn’t hesitate to ask if I could watch. “Yeah, sure dude,” came the reply, and off we rode into a new phase of my life.

Freakishly Faithful - Prologue

2008-10-16T22:58:00.000+05:30

Who is a friend? What is a friend? Take a step further, what is a good friend? One may have come across posters or forwarded e-mails or even refrigerator magnets saying a friend is this and a friend is that. But does one keep such criteria in mind when making new friends? Do the words on some laminated piece of cardboard hanging in Archies spring to mind when a friend does something for you, or a supposed friend stabs you in the back?

I can’t think for others, it’s hard enough to think for myself. But for me, friendship is a feeling. All those sweet quotations about who or what is a friend are better left in the Hallmark one might give his pal on the latter’s birthday because he’s too lazy or too late to think of something original. And I suppose we’ve all been there, at the giving and receiving end.

So, who is a good friend? Heck, I don’t know, somebody who makes a difference in your life, perhaps? Or maybe it’s someone you’re hitting on, but you want to show her that you’re ‘good friend’ material, that you can be trusted, that you want to take things slow, keep her comfortable. Dammit, loving someone often involves such a load of pretentious horseshit!

But not with friends, really. Why pretend with a friend? What’s the point? Keep the bullshit to a minimum, make allowances for the occasional eccentricity that he might throw at you, and chill with one another. Straight and easy; no games, no hassles. That’s one way to tell a good friendship.

There are certain people who come into your life, people who suddenly take up a position of significance, if not downright prominence. It could arise out of necessity or sheer chance; whatever be the reason, all of a sudden one friend stands out from the rest. The one guy you want to hang out with, regardless of whether it’s to the exclusion of all others. Someone who opens new avenues for you, shows you a world you never knew existed, or were too afraid to be a part of. Someone who sticks by you, however temporarily, and changes your life. It is hard to come across someone like that very often, damn near impossible to find more than a few like that around in a lifetime, I’d say.

Karan Singh is one such guy.

Freakishly Faithful

2008-10-16T17:23:00.000+05:30

Dear all,

I revisited this page after quite a while, and although my page at daunplugged.wordpress.com is somewhat stylised with all kinds of neats gadgets, I could not escape the charm of the simplicity of the good old blogger standard black page. I have decided to start a new strain of posts on this blog. Once upon a time, I had started writing a little book about one of my best friends who has effectively changed my life in several ways. I didn't get very far, stopped midway in chapter 3 I believe, and never got back to it. I did, however, receive a very flattering response when I read what I'd written to my friends, including the guy for whom it was being written, along with earnest requests to complete it (I'm prepared to believe that although I read it out to them in Apache while we were having beer, and there was a lot of loud music playing, they all heard it right). The requests, of course, were not echoed for very long, yet my desire to continue the book lingered on. I do not hold any illusions of the book being published in any manner on a commercial scale. It is simply a record of my recollections of various incidents involving my friend, various others and me. Hence, with the wonderful opportunities presented by the internet, those recollections may find themselves expressed in my humble blog. I will be surprised if I can write as much as I want to of the book, but it is my hope that the attempt will be worth it. It is my earnest hope that when I begin this ambitious (and hopefully not abortive) project, I will have your support and feedback, and primarily your interest in my journey.

New Look, New Feel

2008-09-12T11:50:00.000+05:30

Dear all. thanx for all your support, feedback, comments, idle viewing, and on occasion, flattering references to my blog on your own blogs, or as inspirations to start blogging yourselves. This is not a goodbye or anything, but a mere detour. I shall now be blogging on http://daunplugged.wordpress.com from hereon end. It's got a new but old-school feel to it, plus I get to use a bunch of cool features there that haven't crept into blogger yet. Do visit me on my new blog and keep me interesting in doing this blogging thing! This current page will continue to exist for sentimental reasons. Or maybe I'll start on a whole different line on this blog, start writing about some other stuff that I didn't feel would be appropriate on this blog in light of the earlier posts. Or maybe I'll do that stuff on the other blog. hehe... Let's see.. do I look like the kinda guy who has a plan?
Da

the un in the usual...

2008-08-29T16:19:00.000+05:30

from the earlier post, it may have occured to some that i seem to be in a nostalgic mood these days. i realised that while writing this one... this one deals with something i'm finding difficult to think of these days.. guess it's always best the first time around...

a daily ritual, observed religiously for years and years, seemed unfamiliar today.the usual precursors to the ritual were present well enough: the strange, contradictory combination of a monotonous, yet crest and trough like speech of the science teacher (who, in this particular case, only ever sounded fun while describing vectors, cuz she'd always say in her south Indian accent, "Vector Oh Yay" indicating vector OA), the weary sighs of my co-sufferers, the ocassional, yet
increasingly frequent yawns and the equally ocassional, yet equally increasingly frequent churns of empty stomachs. the glances at my wristwatch were reflexive, intuitive even. over a decade of expectation unfailingly made an imagined dopplerised bell ring in my head, even before the actual one echoed through the air, a clarion call of salvation for the hungry and bored. lunch recess was here, as it had been all these years, again. but what was wrong? what was the dampener of the joyous gasp at freedom?
i saw it as the others began walking out of the class. what was this? who were these people? what the hell were they wearing? don't they look at themselves in the mirror in those, those hideous shades??? how can they bear to... my thoughts trailed off as i looked down at myself... peach shirt, ugly brown trousers, the letters VB embroidered onto the breast pocket, brown socks, tan shoes!! not leather, but plastic, all-fucking-weather!!! where was my white shirt, the white trousers, the white socks, the black shoes?? the navy blue tie with the Marian insignia pinned thereon?? what happened to the paint on the walls?? shit, what happened to the walls??!!
oh yeah, right... this isn't my school... no, wait a minute, this is my school, it just isn't my.. no, no, no... right, i got it! this is my school, now! it's not these people or the walls that are strange.. here, i'm the stranger..
that's what it was, wasn't it? it was yet another lunch break, but it wasn't a familiar lunch break. i wasn't gonna charge down the marble staircase into the senior assembly hall, and start munching on the usual rolls from my tiffin box while chatting with manik and adnan, or showing my face to drumeel so that i could be in one of the teams for the usual lunch-time football match. nope, today i was gonna climb down a narrow flight of stairs onto what is known as a 'quadrangle' and walk onto a playground with two goal-posts and a most detestable, incredulity inspiring, enthusiasm rogering, scorn raising, and, to put it in plain english, completely fucked up "no playing in the lunch break" rule!!!!! yup, this was my unknown, unfamiliar reality. no wonder it didn't feel right.
new school, new guy, day 2. it was the first time i'd put on the school uniform, and the sight of all the brown clothing (and red hair bands on the chicks.. goddamit, chicks!!!! [i was in a non-co-ed school before this. this is not an exclamation of joy, but one of agony {feels freaky to be stared at but so many unknown women cuz you're the new guy}]) made me feel weird as hell! having been in one school for the better part of my academic life had made me thoroughly institutionalised. i wasn't quite used to being stared and pointed at like a circus freak!! but it was a position i'd resigned myself to accept. i mean what the heck, makes it easier to get to know people when they're curious enough to come to you as if you were a musueam piece or something. although it gets a lil fucked up when they talk to you like you're dyslexic.
i grabbed my tiffin box and walked down the stairs after most of my class-mates had already gone. i did what i usually did when i had to eat lunch without manik and adnan around, by walking on the 'play'ground, munching on the rolls. once again, in my mind, i cursed my present situation. what the fuck kinda school banned playing on the playground??? who the hell were these weird kids eating their lunches, sitting on the playground!!!!!! from post to post, sitting on mats in circles of various sizes, groups of students eating lunch, chatting away like they were in a goddamned banquet hall. bloody hell, this was a football ground for Christ's sake!!
and then it happened... it was the single, most inexplicable thing... it was a voice, i know it was a voice... but there was something ethereal to it, like nothing i'd heard before... if you can imagine yourself to be an emaciated skeleton with your skin clinging onto the bones, and dehydrated to the point where your liver and kidneys begin to push against your body, and in that state you hear the gentle gush of a waterfall into a brook marking the entrance to shangri la, you might understand what i felt in the few moments that it took me to turn around and face the source of the sound. the vision was blinding.. no, actually that's not what it was. there was an implosion of light, 120 degrees of visible area suddenly contracted into one concentrated space, and in that space there was only her... nothing else existed, nothing else got through.. it was only that space, only her, her eyes, her face, her smile, and her voice... a voice that made every part of me quiver (perhaps, i fear, too visibly), yet one that numbed me to a point where the sound seemed distant, hauntingly enchanting, like the strains of the siren's lute. her smile was a constant through her speech, and her pearly white teeth flashed at me every now and then, teasing me like some infernal will-o'-the-wisp. "Hi, I'm _______. you must be the new boy..." that and the rest of her words flowed out of her lips like the most symmetrically tantalising poetry! there was no question of resistance, no time to put up a guard.. the cherub with the bow flitted around me, laughing joyfully as he shot arrow after arrow at me, piercing into my heart as incessantly and determinedly as a deranged battering ram.
for once, for the first time, and unquestionably at the first sight, i was in love...

Realisation

2008-08-22T14:45:00.000+05:30

i really don't think i have done justice to this one... simply because it means so much to me, but i am in a state of serious writer's block.. still, i wanted to put something down, and took a while to write this... so what the heck...

the alarm of the phone went off, and as always my eyes opened with the sound of the
phone's vibration that immediately precedes the ringtone. i picked up the phone and
looked at the time, blinking at me as if the phone was playing peek-a-boo.7:00 a.m.
time to get up. goddamit!! an early morning after a late night is one hellava
bitch!! but i had to get up today... i wanted to get up today... i had to put
yesterday behind me, forget the gargantuan fuck-up, prove to myself that we're so
much better than that... today, i, we, had to redeem ourselves..
a familiar pain in my eyes, the one i usually get on my late night-early morning
routine began to magically dull as the adrenaline started pumping, the same
adrenaline that made me keep checking the clock on the phone almost all night, the
same stuff that made me wonder why it's taking so long for the damn alarm to ring!!
i got out of bed and put the kettle to boil, and then checked my suit of armour for
the day... the cuirass lay on the bed in the other room, black as night, and next
to it my greaves blue as the ocean (clarification: my black kurta and blue jeans).
I opened the front door and picked up the newpaper, but my eyes refused to focus on
the words. a myriad of sounds were clashing in my head, hundreds of shining eyes
flashing down on me like a deluge of flaming arrows, stabbing at me with
relentless, remorseless glee, peeling away flesh from bone, mutilating me to a
point where anger, frustration, even shame meant nothing. the jeers, the sneers,
and our vain attempts at taking the battle to those eyes, all echoed in my head
like a ghastly symphony that would make sweeny todd cringe.
the whistle of the boiling kettle managed to break into my macabre reverie. i
prepared two cups of tea, grateful for the distraction, grateful to get away from
those eyes, those noises. i was aware that there would be many more eyes today. was
i ready? were we?
i took the tea to where karan was sleeping. he had suffered the ravages as i had
yesterday, and his sleep looked anything but peaceful. i woke him up, kidding him
that i was benevolent enough to wake him only after i'd made tea. but our moods
were far from cheery, as the thoughts of the next few hours continued to churn in
our minds.
Timecheck: 8:00 a.m.
we'd told the others we'd meet them at base-camp (read: ncc) by 8.30. it was time
to move, head out of the safety zone, consort with our brothers-in-arms. The cool
wind swept past us as we rode towards the ncc, stinging my eyes and causing a few
tears to bleed out and fade into oblivion. there was a comfort in listening to the hum of the engine, a constant that served to dull out some of the noise in my head. we did not speak, though karan stopped to pick up his morning smoke. we reached the ncc and found the others brooding, the swirls of the cigarrete smoke playing around over their heads like wraiths. i could feel the strange sensation, called butterflies in the stomach i believe, while wave after wave of anticipation coursed through me sending shivers down my spine and quickening my pulse. 8.50 a.m., and it was time to head to the war zone. head held high, weapons in hand, we walked towards it, karan, jeetu, sam, rono, niki n i.
the battleground lay more or less as we left it, except that today there were some
people putting a few more machines into the picture. we tested our weapons, our
hopes once again pinned on the people we could not control, the ones infusing life
into our weapons, the ones who had let us down yesterday, forcing us to suffer a
humiliating defeat. for now, we were satisfied, things seemed to be in order. ahead
of us lay a wall, behind which lay the eyes. but there was still time...
9:30 a.m.
sounds... growing louder... they are arriving, the eyes, behind the wall... but
something strange began to happen to me. i looked around at the others, seeing the
trepidation in their movements, but somehow, i suddenly felt no need to feel
nervous... i think karan understood.. we needed to get the jitters out of
everybody's systems, fast! we did our best. niki and jeetu were sneaking peeks at
the gathering hordes on the other side of the wall. "there are so many more than
yesterday," said niki, as i took her in my arms and promised her that yesterday
would not happen today. we took up our positions, bracing ourselves for the
impending assault... each of us counted the seconds, hearts pounding loud enough to
almost block out the noise on the other side, which was nearing a crescendo... an
observer from the sidelines gestured that the time had come.. we took one last look
at each other, taking in each other's appearances before the ravages begin... but
something was there in our eyes... i swear i saw it... the dilation of the pupils
receding into a contracted mass of fierce determination.. our breathing no longer
erratic, but measured, in unison, rhythmic... jaws no longer clenched, palms no
longer sweaty, the butterflies dissapearing as if incinerated in one scathing wash
of resolve... as we began to realised the true power of our combined energies,
there were no longer any thoughts of failure, no furtive glances at the nearest
exit. the curtains opened and we were blinded momentarily by the lights that made
us such easy targets. but today, we were ready to rock that audience outta their
seats.
As Tyler would say, carpe diem, baby.
Long live Ehsaas...

You flip, I'll call...

2008-07-08T11:56:00.000+05:30

They say life is full of choices, ones we have to consciously make... they never warn us of the impasses now, do they? but they do come our way, the impasses... and then you ask yourself, whatcha gonna do when they come for you... i get the feeling this one'll not go down easy... for some, anyway...

Heads or tails? This or that.. black or white... door no. 1 or 2? the options are usually simple enough, in all probability one option is favourable. then again, if neither option presents a sunny side up, then atleast one will be the lesser of two evils. but the deal with a coin flip is that one option is favourable to both/all parties concerned. i win, you don't.. you win, I don't... a series of transient spins, trasforming a simple coin into the flapping wings of some intangible butterfly, with a dopplerised ping, accompanied by the collective gasps of those whose future course of action, or for all we know, whose fates hang in the balance. then of course, seeing as the stakes are so high (even if/when they're not), there are ground rules to the coin flip. it can't touch anything on the way down.. if you catch it in your palm, you can't flip it over onto your other palm, cuz then "you've seen it" (i get the feeling stevie wonder might get away with this, soon as he masters catching the damn coin in the first place. the piano doesn't fly). So a 'safe' coin flip predicates atleast 2 parties, who stand to lose/gain in respect of some third party/subject/object based on the result of the flip.
but what if the guy flipping the coin is also the guy making the call, cuz there is no one else to make a call? the guy's got two options, and naturally either both are bad, or both are good (otherwise he wouldn't have to flip for it). but both can't be had, for whatever reasons. maybe cuz he's a good guy, or maybe cuz he can't handle the pressure of juggling both options. you take your pick. if he's honest, he probably won't be able to deny his internal struggle between his haloed effeminate angel and his horny, curvy-tailed devil. i'm sure what probably pisses him off the most is that the two work in tandem! for the most part, the angel keeps him from rambling, but now and then (and the ocassions may be few and far between, but still) ye ol devil injects a quart-full of aphrodisiacal ideas into the guy's head (both of them), and viola! he finds himself in situations where the angel and devil are having a scream-match, the one going, "what in God's name are you doing??" and the other going, "Why in fuck's name aren't you doing it??" I'm guessing that, in the neck of such situations, when the screams are at their loudest, the guy is somewhat engaged in the party/subject/object causing the screams, carrying on the 'nefarious' activity that has lead to such a debate. so basically, at such a time, he cannot exactly pull back and say, "time, please. i gotta flip a coin!" or maybe he should pull back, and just walk away. the hell with the coin, just do what's 'right'. yeah, i'm sure, and the guy'll just have bought his ticket to his cozy lil' castle in heaven, first class all the way. he can almost see it now, a golden boarding pass, no luggage (or maybe i should say 'baggage'), radiant smiles all the way, and all of a sudden, there's an announcement, "Attention passengers, this is an urgent message for the loser about to board the Heavenly Express. YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE, DICKHEAD!!! signed, your devil." and pop! the guy comes out of his 'morality'-based reverie, looks at the party/subject/object in front of him, and the screams continue.

Then again, there's option B, the other party/subject/object. the coin if flipped, might be for the reason of his picking one of them. but god, how he misses the simplicity of no supply (and then he thinks, "um... not really!"). when both options are good, you just know that picking either one is bad! but then thinking on these lines is selfish (and then the devil within asks, "SO??!"). selfless or selfish, now there we have flippable options! but what about green grass on both sides? nah, i don't think that's a good enough analogy. how about playstation on one side and x-box on the other (fine, it's childish.. i'm a guy!!!)? goddamn man!!! what the hell kinda options are these???
maybe the guy should just flip to decide whether to flip for it.
short straw, anybody?

Rono spoke...

2008-03-25T09:39:00.000+05:30

when i used to read the words 'with a heavy heart' i never really got it. but on ocassion, i have had to do things which made me sad, and a strange, continual heaviness in the pith of my stomach accompanied such doings. i guess that comes close enough. this post was one of those times...

it's that time again. it keeps coming every now and then, and it hurts like hell. one of those times when you have to bid farewell to a close friend. but what if you had never really given a thought to ever saying goodbye. you knew it would happen sooner or later, you just never thought about it. and all of a sudden you realise that the light will turn green, the whistle will blow and the train will take rono away for good. another one.. gone.

first it was the babu. i'll never forget that evening when he chose to lose control. babu was more than my senior. he was one of the people i could always count on to be there whenever i wanted him. there was a whole stretch when i was hanging only with babu in college. him n me, all the time, everyday. over endless cups of chai and smokes, breaking our heads creating connection quizzes, or lyrics to our rap songs (hehehehe), or bitching about the world, or me taking his case. whatever it was, it made life worth living. i couldn't imagine college life without him, and if it weren't for the guys, i'd probably have just crouched into a shell after the babu left. but whether anybody liked it or not, he left. and as the train pulled away, a part of me left with it.

then came (or went) the freak. the reason for such a big change in the lives of most of us. truly, if i hadn't met the freak, none of us would probably have really met at all. it all started with the freak n i. his drunken goodbye in his farewell party remains vivid in my memory. "Da, don't let Ehsaas die..." (followed by an unnecessarily wet one on one cheek, followed by an even more unnecessarily hard slap on the other. clarification: i'm referring to the cheeks on my face.). for once, someone saw me off, so to speak. the freak and jeetu came to see us off at the station as we were leaving for kashmir. i faked a loud teary goodbye on the platform.. hehe, it was funny, i was loudly howling on the freak's chest, and from the corner of my eye i could tell that everyone was staring at us!! one of our friends even came to us, crying herself, and tried to console me!!!! hehehehe... but the tears did come.. the next morning on the train, early on when everyone was sleeping, and no one was around. Oh, the tears did come...

and then jeetu. it's strange, i can't really remember when he left. it's like he went home after his exams, and just didn't come back. our universal 'phone laga' guy would now have to be called and spoked to when he had the time. one of his many lovely statements: "saalon, tum log har wakt kehte the 'jeetu, phone laga'. ab bhenchod main phone ka dukaan hi khol baitha!!!" after babu, jeetu's the one rarely seen nowadays.

and now, it's rono's turn to wave goodbye. goddammit!!! if babu finds it so difficult to come here from delhi, how much fuckin harder will it be to see rono again. he's off to bongland!!! and though he says he's thinking of trying out working in bombay in a couple of years, i doubt he'll be able to just pack up and leave home like that on impulse. the 7 have dwindled to 4, and the 4th one if gone in 3 days!!!!! sam, mayukhda n i remain...

the pain is slowly sinking in. as i come to realise that those people who have been my life in the past 5 years are slowly but surely fading away, i feel a lonliness that i had forgotten years back. i know they're there, they'll always be there. but we all know it's not the same. the question is, will it ever be the same again? will we ever be who we are now? will rono be the same insane fuck when i next see him? will i be whatever i am to him when he next sees me?

I guess another one of jeetu's gems would have to suffice here. he sms-ed this one to me when i was leaving pune, after i sent a senti msg to a bunch of people:

"Dude, are you gonna die? bitch, i agree life's changed a lil. but has it affected you so badly? chill man. we're where we were, just that we aren't together. all da best"

Take me Home, Alfred...

2008-03-01T09:38:00.000+05:30

it's been a while since my last post. so much has happened since the last time i posted anything... suffice it to say that i'm in a happy state of mind right now. that's probably why i haven't posted anything for so long. but due to some recent prodding by one or two people, i've put this one up. it's kinda self-pitying, which pisses me off. but it's all that came out after a considerable attempt at making myself write something. i still haven't recovered fully from the mumbai experience, so i guess it'll be a while before i can write again as of old. but for now, guess we'll just have to make do with this...

It has been 3 months since the virus hastened my retreat from the city they call the land of dreams. The irony is amusing as always; dreams are born and lost perpetually in the city that never sleeps. Like so many others, I too walked along its heathen shores and gazed at the Queen’s necklace, as I had never done as a child growing up in that city, feeling back then that I belonged, that it was my home. Ten years after I bid goodbye to Mumbai, I realized that it was never mine, that I was nothing more than one of the drones in a mammoth ant hill. Life was a grind, one interminable, mechanical cycle. It was such that even when I had to meet the Faithless Freak, I would inevitably find myself doing a full sprint behind a BEST bus for the better part of a kilometer, just so that I could save some cash for the mandatory coffee, smokes and chicken masala fry with roti, the only escape from the mundane routine. Working for human rights isn’t lucrative for the little guy. And Dad has done enough for me, gotta start living off my own living sometime right?

Thus I spent over 6 blurry months of my miniscule, irrelevant existence in Mumbai. Or perhaps it wasn’t all that irrelevant. At least a handful of people were somewhat gratified that I had come into their lives, however briefly. Of course, most of them were in jail at the time, and most anyone on the outside proffering aid might seem like a messiah to them. Beyond that, the only other people for whom my presence in the city meant anything at all were my Brother and Bhabi, my landlord (well, naturally) and the Freak.

And then, I had to leave. My first foray into ‘independence’ had gone horribly wrong. A proverbial job from hell, a city on a perpetual adrenaline overdrive, and finally a hospital bill that I would have to spend some three years repaying had I continued being the pseudo-activist lawyer. Perhaps it is fortunate that I fell as ill as I did. At the risk of exaggeration, I guess the only way I could get my life back on track was if I nearly lost it. So it was back to Pune, to the city that most certainly does sleep. Amidst the goodbyes from Dada and Bhabi, and the echo of the Freak’s voice singing “Goodbye my friend, this is the end” over and over, I left Mumbai.

The effects of coming home were damn near immediate and quite miraculous. Within no time at all, my smile became genuine again, Euphoria’s “Sone de Maa” no longer made me want to break down and cry, and the fog finally began to clear in my head. I started hanging out with the guys again, MUNA happened, my job in Pune took off on a great note. Life’s good today.

But I am mindful of the fact that I have lost the first battle. This is the first time I have slunk away in defeat, the first time I have cowered under the protective hood of the familiar. And naturally, in a way, I feel like crap. When I was leaving Mumbai, I spoke to Dada, expressing my anguish and shame at running away. His curt reply was instructive, “Yes, you are running away. Come back and fight again when you’re stronger.” In his own way, Dada was expressing his hope that I should not forget who I am and where I come from (as he has said on numerous occasions before), but that I should realize that the fight has only just begun, that it was never gonna be easy, and that any modicum of superiority that I might have enjoyed in the past over any of my peers is passé. Sticking to any notions that at this point I am no more than an inexperienced idiot would be an utter exhibition of naiveté. He wanted me to remember that I must always be ready for the fight, and that I must never give up in the long run. And, in his own way, he let me know that he is waiting for my return.
It seems he is not alone. In a moving comment to an earlier post in these writings, the Freak has expressed his desire to see me come back. To join him again in the war to claim our destiny, whatever the hell that means. I am gratified to know that even the faithless has faith in me. I do not intend to disappoint.

But I need time… I need time…

Guess I should start dreaming again…

Raging Tide

2007-10-08T11:30:00.000+05:30

The faithless freak and i have quite a few things in common. one of them, which is becoming increasingly apparent, is that we're both losing our minds. him faster than me, it seems. this city has gotten to us, and there's no wasy we can deny it. we continue of course to fight against the tide, the rage, the insults, the stabs. we refuse to give in, and in each others company, and i'm certain privately as well, we frequently renew our pledges to effectively shape our destinies, conquer the ocassional nudges of hopelessness. for we both know that to turn back now, to leave these heathen shores, and return to the land of the familiar, the lazy and the comfortable, would be defeat. And defeat we cannot face. We cannot stand the idea.

What's interesting is that others find themselves confused about us. in their estimation, we are 2 of the brightest stars in their horizon. they have led us to believe, and we led oursleves to believe so as well, that we are superior, elite and esoteric. yet we must of course maintain a grounded humility, it doesn't look good to have our noses in the sky. yet of course, those who have hailed us as the next conquerors have done so within their limited horizon. and we have been naive enough to believe that the journey will be smooth. it turned out to be a cattle track which we have to navigate during a perpetual earthquake. peace of mind is a distant dream, or is it an illusion? pieces of mind, body and soul seem the more likely outcome every now and then. and so we meet, and promise yet again that we will be strong.

But our despair finds other outlets. the faithless freak has chosen to document the chaos in his mind for the world to see. and he further chooses to advertise it by notifying all others of his rantings. i can't say i blame him, for we could certainly use a sympathetic ear, or a sufficiently alarmed response as our minds metamorphose into putty. and then the freak and i meet up again and laugh as we fight off the darkness.

the horizon won't come to us. we'll either learn how to swim, or drown trying. and we promise to be strong.

Driftwood

2007-08-17T18:53:00.000+05:30

I don't know, it is strange. It has been some 78 days since i have left home. and for most of that time, there has been one feeling that has dominated my conciousness - numbness. i am strangely, inexplicably, somewhat frighteningly numb, emotionally that is. nowadays i get the feeling sometimes that the numbness is fading. but that is no comfort, for i am afraid of what promises to emerge from behind the shadow my mind seems to have cast over my feelings.

78 days away from home. away from mom and dad. away from my room, my messy, light-yellow walled room. away from my computer, my music, my recording equipment. my familiar bathroom. my brother's bedroom with the hi-fi music sytem, the view of the hills, the cool winds. away from the safety and comfort of home, from mom's vegetarian mondays, from dad's habit of turning the ceiling fan in my room off at 4 in the morning, from my bike (oh, my bike!), from the now hardly used basketball court that i worked so hard to maintain, from the tv, from watching dad's head bounce off the wall as he would nod off while watching tv sitting on the sofa, from frowning with disgust at the ridiculous soaps my parents suddenly seemed so addicted to. away from standing in the varanda at dusk, and listening to dad lecturing me about how i need to start taking my life seriously, or about how to deal with women (yeah, he's the DUDE!! his takes on women are hilarious, it makes me smile to think of his 'advice'; it makes me smile through the numbness). from the stars in the nightsky. from the telephone.

78 days. 78 days since the final confirmation that my college life is over. 78 days since the time i could look forward to a lazy afternoon in the ncc. since the time i could think about jamming in the college canteen.

78 days away from jeetu, sam, rono, mayukhda. 78 days away from discussions on performances past, and dreams of performances in the future. of the feeling we get when on stage, with guitar/mic/drumsticks in hand, stagelights on our faces, the sound of our combined energies finding fruition in the amplifiers, the speakers, the monitors, the waves of cheering from the crowds, now soft, now rising, now on a crescendo! 78 days away from Ehsaas (the irony of this is amusing. i, who started 'Ehsaas', am now numb!)

78 days away from knowing that Goddammit! when it came to debating, i was the No. 1 in pune. Atleast! hell, i don't wanna be modest about it here, god knows i play it down everywhere else. but why should i not say it to myself? i'm not feathering my own ass. 5 years worth of competition has proved this statement to be true, dammit! but who knows it now? who will want to remember? 78 days since anyone cared.

today, i am in a new place, in a new world. one in which my talents are unknown, and have not yet found any way of being discovered. one in which i am no more than a wet behind the ears, bespectled idiot, whose sole objective is to learn while being pushed around. one in which i fend for myself, and am surrounded by strangers, each of whom have the same curt reply to seekers of sympathy, "Yeh mumbai hai." 78 days since i was more than just a dot on a crowded, confused and hardly artistic tapestry.

thank god karan is here. but his being around tends to have a somewhat scary effect. he might not be aware of my numbness, but his company serves to remove some of the fog. and behind it there seems to be emptiness, a vacuum, one that threatens to make its presence overwhelming. and if it does come forth, i am not sure if i can take the resultant gloom. i haven't been away from the comfort of the familiar for this long before. but the unknown is the only path i can take.

78 days since i knew who i was. a lifetime ahead to find that out again...

Konkan-E-Kashmir

2007-08-10T17:45:00.000+05:30

wrote this one for a bulletin of a club i was part of last year. the rotaract club, to be precise. it's a neat concept, the rotaract. but ya gotta have the right ppl in the club or running the club, otherwise, it might just be a waste of time. i'm done marketing the club. the article follows...

The problem in Kashmir rages on. Terrorist camps, bombings, shootings, atrocities by the army, civilian casualties, and recently the earthquake; everything in the papers make Kashmir out to be quite an unfriendly place to live. But I do not wish to join the mass of people who rue opon the problems in the valley. Let others talk of politics, of terrorism, of religion; these do not inspire me at this point of time. I would much prefer to write about my limited but fruitful contact with the valley, and this occurred right here in Maharashtra, when the Rotaract Club of Pune Ganeshkhind hosted 10 Kashmiri students and took them to Shrivardhan in the Ratnagiri district for the Rotaract Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) organised by the Rotarians there.

To be very honest, the prospect of hosting students who were likely to be to members of quake-affected families was not very encouraging. I was concerned that the students may have been psychologically dented after that massive calamity, and I was apprehensive of whether I could handle them in the correct manner, without being too emotional, excessively sympathetic, nor too distant. It’s hard to know what to do before a guy who’s literally seen his world come crashing down. But the students we met were mostly shy, yet capable of having a good time and quite co-operative and enthusiastic. Of course, with a club President like ours, most men would trip over each other trying to gain her favour, and so it was relatively easy to make them see the ‘brighter’ side of life.

The RYLA was organised by the Rotary Club of Shriwardhan in November 2005. It was the first ever ‘Coastal RYLA’, meaning that it took place in a coastal area and was concerned with a lot of things connected with the sea, like pearl culture, prawn farming, etc. At this point I must commend our club President for her idea to take the Kashmiris to this RYLA. One of the most gratifying things that one of them told me is that this was the first time they had seen the sea. Well, we not only showed them the sea, we also took them into it; first to bathe, then for a speed boat ride where they even managed to see dolphins! Quite an unforgettable experience for anybody, what say?

Ups and downs are the way of life and that’s what Azhar Bhai, one of the Kashmiris, discovered when he decided to join a bunch of us in a tanga ride on the beach. The horse which was pulling the tanga must have been pretty perturbed by all the “Chal Dhanno” cracks we were throwing at it. But I guess it was the last straw for it when we began singing the tune in ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” and rotating our hands over our heads cowboy-style. It suddenly accelerated its stride and the whole tanga broke! Azhar Bhai experienced a momentary feeling of weightlessness before he crash-landed flat on his backside, being reminded just why the firma is in term ‘terra firma’. I was sitting right next to him when it happened, and I too remembered my reasons for not taking up the job of stuntmen in films when the otherwise soft but wet sand made its mark on my rear quarters. Too bad no one caught that one on film!

Another highpoint of the trip was the campfire song-and-dance session which we had on the beach. As usual, the Rotaract Club of Pune Ganeshkhind rocked the crowd with some cool numbers played on the guitar and sung. Hey, what do you expect when the President, Director for Club service and Director for Professional Development are all members of a band? Anyhow, everybody was impressed and were grooving to the tunes, but none more so than the Kashmiris. One of them, Bilal bhai, finally broke out of his skin and began singing some really cool Hindi and Kashmiri numbers in his sweet pahadi voice. Of course, he had the ladies swooning over him, and it seemed for a while that finally atleast one of the Kashmiris had found favour with our President (poor Azhar bhai had been trying the hardest. He even began calling Amruta, our President, by the name of Ruksana, because he liked that name more).

It’s been a constant complaint of mine that nobody looks at the guitarist (of course, when ‘Ruksana’ is singing, who cares about the guitarist?!). But there was at least one of the guys, Manzoor bhai, who found my guitaring more interesting than the members of the opposite sex (now that’s a compliment, considering that we had some rather breathtaking specimens of the opposite sex in our contingent!). For a while he made it his mission to click a photograph of me playing the guitar, but somehow the time just didn’t permit us to do so towards the end.

After an exhausting 2-day RYLA, it was finally time to head home to Pune, and I am proud to say that our effort in taking the Kashmiris to Shriwardhan certainly wasn’t wasted. Along the pathway of life, one often meets friends who walk along with you some distance before parting ways. But even then, it is not necessary that such companionship will be meaningful. But given the right circumstances, even the shortest journey with a companion can produce the most remarkable of and enriching experiences. The Kashmiris were really sad that they had to leave, and Azhar bhai was confident that they would not have the same amount of fun and enjoyment at any other place in the India tour which the organisation ‘Sarhad” was taking them on (after all, ‘Ruksana’ won’t be around for the rest of the time!). We all embraced, and Bilal bhai sang us a last farewell number before we saw them chugging away in autorickshaws into the night.

A short story is never that. It is a prelude to a bigger one, a saga or an odyssey perhaps. In May, our Club has plans to join ‘Sarhad’ for a trip to Kashmir where we will help in the counselling and rehabilitation of quake victims. All the guys who came to Pune are as eagerly waiting for us to go to Kashmir as we are. It will certainly be some reunion.

Manzoor bhai, I’m coming to Kashmir in May.

And I’ll bring my guitar.

Gandhi Who?

2007-07-17T13:32:00.000+05:30

i wrote this article for a magazine that a club i was once a part of used to publish. it didn't make it to the magazine, cuz our club president thought that there was sufficiently enough inflammatory language to mislead our readers. just to clarify in advance, this is not an anti-gandhi article. read it till the end before pasing judgement. this article was written way before munnabhai 2, and at the risk of sounding boastful, i claim that i used the reference of gandhi on money for the first time, way before it became fashionable to do so. also, i'm no gandhian, so this article is no indication of my ideological inclinations. it's just something i wrote, and wanted to be able to read once in a while...

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The Father of our Nation. The Naked Fakir. Freedom fighter. Champion of Non-Violence. Deliverer of Freedom. A Mahatma.

Which Indian hasn’t heard of the Mahatma? His ideology and the stories of his epic struggle for Indian Independence have spread all over the world. So far is his reach that his name even appears to be familiar to the most uninitiated of NRIs and POIs (People of Indian Origin), who may not know too much more about him, apart from the facts that he led India to her freedom, and that he did not believe in dressing up. Indeed, in a country where titles have been abolished by our Constitution, one would normally not mention the name of Gandhi, without prefixing it with ‘Mahatma’.

But today, the Mahatma’s popularity seems to have diminished among the youth. The thin, bald man, with the round glasses and langoti no longer holds the iconic stature he once enjoyed, almost to the extent of monopoly, with the youth. It is not uncommon to come across a group of 20-somethings criticising the Mahatma in most uncharitable words. And of course, there are those who are ready to swear that had Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose been given a free rein, we may have achieved independence far earlier than we actually did. “Gandhi,” remarked an ‘intellectual’ friend once, “was a selfish fool, and a tyrant. When Netaji was fighting the British troops for our country, Gandhi goes on a hunger strike in protest! A messiah of peace, huh? He wanted all the credit for himself!”

Whether or not Gandhi’s methodology was the wisest is not an issue that I would care to debate over. That is the province of the major political parties, who depend on it and so many other irrelevant controversies for their bread and butter. If it weren’t for such matters to keep our politicians preoccupied, they might have to turn their attentions to the more insignificant and ancillary aspects of their job, like fostering communal harmony, or reforming the judicial system, or else, God forbid, good governance!

But as far as the yuppie Indian youth of today are concerned, Gandhi’s relevance is confined to his portrait on currency notes. The reality is that for the youth, Gandhi is an outdated hero, who just doesn’t fit the Superman profile. Many youngsters would rather read ‘Mein Kampf’ than ‘My Experiments with Truth’. We speak of him unkindly, when in truth most of us just don’t know. But what is sad, perhaps even disgraceful, is that most of us don’t want to know, because most of us don’t really care.

But there are those who have taken the trouble to look into the Mahatma’s life a lot more closely than the rest of us. Many youngsters have devoted a lot of time to discover that Truth that Gandhi spent part of his life searching, and the remaining part, preaching. The greatness of the Mahatma is not only locked in history texts, but is still echoed in the spirit of a portion of the youth, sadly constituting only a minority.

Perhaps, when the rest of us learn to expand our horizons beyond the boundaries of ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘myself’, and learn to tune in to the national conscience, the spirit of the Mahatma will inspire us again. The mark left on our nation by the teachings of Gandhi is indelible, and sooner or later they will regain their prominence. Then, perhaps, the memory of Mahatma Gandhi will occupy it rightful place in the heart of every Indian, instead of being relegated to two or three National Holidays.

Just Flinging It

2007-07-09T18:13:00.000+05:30

for those who may have been following my blog for a while, you might remember a post which read "I'm in unlove". in that post i was rather uncharitable to the person on whom it was written. i realised a while back that my unnecessary outburst in my blog reflected a certain amount of immaturity. so i removed that post. yet, as these writings are the only , though unsystematic, record of some happenings in my life, i felt it necessary to lay down my thoughts on the subject again.

a few months ago, i started seeing someone. it just happened all of a sudden. in fact, it was kinda strange. i met this gal on the christmas eve of 2006, and we sat over coffee and a sandwich, generally chatting up on a bunch of things. it is my experience, and i'm sure many will agree, that when a guy and a gal talk to each other for an extended period of time, the conversation invariably veers towards relationships. past flames, likes, dislikes, what you look for in a guy/gal, stuff like that. and this time was no exception. it was a few months before my finals. i was about to leave college life behind, and i didn't know where i'd be after that, but i knew i wouldn't be in pune. an era in my life was ending, and important era, one which is meant to be THE time in my young life. so far, i had had a great college life, although the really good stuff only started from 3rd year. there was one thing that i'd always wanted to try, but never did go for. and that was, the iconic, the legendary, the elusive, amorous, no-strings-attached fling. it was about time 'ol Da got his 'hands dirty' and played the game for the heck of it. i was at a point when love was an overrated concept and a thorough waste of time. and besides, i don't believe in long distance relationships, so it was illogical to fall for someone and then quite possibly leave her behind while i go in search of the rest of my life.

i realise i've digressed a little. back to the coffee, the sandwich and the gal. so we got talking on relationships, and interestingly, i quite categorically told her that i'm looking for a gal who'll be able to let go when i'm leaving town. nothing thereafter. i was to have my space even when we're seeing each other, and there was to be no clinging, and definitely no nakra (can't stand that crap!!!). what's really interesting, and even amusing, is that she said that i would have a hard time finding a gal who'd be ok with such an arrangement. and i told her that i'm not desperate for a relationship, but if it were to happen, it'd be on these terms.

we somehow ended up spending the night talking to each other. during the course of the night, i more than once felt that there were some vibes flowing between us, that maybe she was attracted to me. but i didn't think about it. i know it seems unbelievable, but i actually spent an 'innocent' night with her, which means that i had no ulterior motives, so to speak. i hadn't even thought of dating her.

We actually got around to seeing each other after new years eve. in the interim, i had ample reason to believe that i was getting the green signal from her. from my conversation with her on that Christmas Eve, i had learned that apparently she too was looking for a no-strings-attached, just for fun relationship. the night i proposed that we start seeing each other, i actually reminded her of my terms, and she agreed. it looked like i was en route to an uncomplicated good time. but fate, it seems, had other ideas.

within a very short time i began to realise that our lil' fling had the makings of an emerging 'serious' relationship. i had hardly started seeing her when one day she called me, asking if i had had a thing for so-n-so girl. it seems some chick in her evening class 'revealed' that i had had a major thing for her as early as a month previously. that came as quite a surprise to me, not simply cuz i didn't even know who the chick was, but cuz i'd never been involved in such a controversy before, where my girlfriend is getting reports from random females that i was 'involved' with them. it had a certain novelty to it, and the first time i had to comfort my gal that there was nothing between me and that other chick, it felt kinda good. but that feeling dissipated when my gal called me up later, all happy like, saying that she 'now' believed me cuz she had read this blog, and since i have previously posted stuff about all the females i've ever felt for, she knew that i had not fooled around with that chick. from this i simply realised 2 things - a. that my gal didn't trust me, b. that if my blog has saved me once, it might save me again, so i gotta keep it updated (hence this post). as for her not trusting me, i could hardly blame her, cuz she barely knew me. still, it didn't feel good to be doubted after giving reassurances.

i can make no bones about it; i wanted to get physical with this gal, of course, only on the condition that she wanted to do the same with me. it started off 'encouragingly', and i felt that in time things would take their due course. but it rapidly became clear that she would make this sort of committment only on one condition; that we should get 'serious'. i admit that this is an inference on my part, but our talks pointed only in this direction. she was falling for me in a big way, and i was still not ready for it. with due respect to her charms and personality, she just wasn't my type, which is why it hadn't been difficult for me to have a 'fling' with her in the first place. i was sure that as she wasn't my type, there was no danger of me falling for her, and so when the time came, it wouldn't be too difficult to let go. but i guess she began to view things differently. she had already begun contemplating the continuation of our relationship after i had begun my work, and was overjoyed to discover that i'd been placed in bombay. she was looking forward to visit me after i shifted to bombay, or that i would come home to pune to see her n stuff. the situation began to take a stifling turn for me.

there were 2 alternative courses of action that needed to be taken; 1. either i could be a horny bastard (read ' the common perception of your average guy'), lie to her that i liked her, and have my way with her, or; 2. break up with her before the situation got out of hand. i chose the latter course (and received a lot of criticism from a lotta guys :). i simply could not bring myself to lie for sex. i guess that's just not my thing. there are better ways to get some :) . so, after having been her boyfriend for around 10 days, i broke up with her.

she called me up the day after that, saying that everything that had happened between us now "feels like a lie". i confess that pissed me off, cuz in my book, i'd been about as open as i could from the beginning regarding our 'relationship'. but hey break-ups are hard, and since she had started liking me, it had to be tough on her. before i realised this, i posted 'i'm in unlove' on this blog. it was immature on my part, and the mere fact that i don't like being called a liar is no ground for me venting my ire like i did.

my 'fling' was a good learning experience, as i believe all relationships before the final one are. it showed me the kinda guy i am, and what i seem to be (in)capable of. in several ways, it made me feel pretty darn good about myself. i hope that the gal learned a thing or 2 as well.

Ramblings of Frustration

2007-04-18T10:57:00.000+05:30

I don't even remember when i wrote this one. i just found the page of the notebook on which I'd put this stuff down. from the tone, i'd say i wrote it sometime in my fourth year, quite possibly a lil' before some exams. it's quite snively and pathetic, and by no means indicative of my current state of mind, but i put it up so as to remind me that there are times when the shit seems perilously close to hitting the fan, but those times are quite trivial when looked at in hindsight...

It’s there somewhere. I can’t figure it out. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there. Somewhere among the confused thoughts in my head, it’s there. Playing with me, mocking my inability to discover it. Confusions, distractions, voices, clouds. I cannot reach it. It wants to get out, but it can’t. What is it that I want to write? What do I want to let out?

Wasted. Every opportunity wasted. There is no forward, no backward. Everything is suspended, pushing my paranoia to the inevitable conclusion. A dream of greatness. Unformulated, unarticulated, unplanned. Wishful thinking. I cannot live on thoughts forever. But there is no action. Every moment is one that is wasted. I am going nowhere. I don’t even know where I want to go. I almost look for the pit in which I fall. I do not avoid it, I practically seek it. Self-destructive, pointless. My ‘potential’ remains undiscovered, unused. How can I expect others to understand, when I don’t myself? The noises grow louder. Music, voices, the rain, all of it serves to cloud out reason, purpose. All around me are testaments to time wasted. Time better employed elsewhere. A life better lived otherwise. The words, the laughter of my neighbour serves only to frighten me more. The smoke blown into my face only reminds me of the time flying by, of the countdown inevitably leading to the end. Misery and pointlessness are my constant companions. A hope that God will bail me out springs up now and then. Sometimes strong, Sometimes laughable. If God helps those who help themselves, then it seems my doom is inevitable.

When will I wake up?

Why Move On?

2006-10-22T09:33:00.000+05:30

What do people mean when they say “I’ve moved on”? What does it mean, really? Does it mean that I was crushed because it didn’t work out, but now I’ve put it past me? Or maybe it means I no longer think of her, she’s history, and I always flunked history. Or for some, it’s more like “I’ve kicked the bitch right outta my mind, she’s no longer clogging up the system!”

Hell, I dunno. I’ve rarely had occasion to say that I’ve moved on from anything. But for some reason, whenever such occasion did arise, I could never consciously say those three words. Sometimes I wondered why. What was keeping me from putting a hurtful thought, an unfortunate failure behind me? I realised that I could never ‘move on’ when it came to my relationships (those successful, and those not quite), you know, the guy-girl thing. In every other case I could move on, be it bad grades, bad personal experiences, family hassles; anything but the chick bit. And I guess there’s only one reason for it.

Why in the name of the Holy Lord above would I wanna forget anything that made me happy, if only momentarily? Ok, you got me. Yes, broken relationships are hard. Fine, failed relationships are hurtful. I’ll give it to you, when you’re in a relationship where your partner’s taking advantage of you, or you’re not even in a relationship and your intended partner is already taking advantage of you, you’re just a pathetic dweeb! But hey, you cannot deny (don’t you dare lie, you just can’t deny) the fact that at least you were happy for a while. And even if you knew that your partner’s wrapped you round her twinky, you were still glad you did it for her. Yeah, you’d be a jackass, but a happy one at that. For a while anyway.

Yes, I’ve been in love with one girl for the better part of a decade. Yes she’s often acted in a manner that might be conceived as taking obvious advantage of that fact. And yes, I’ve been irritated, pissed, infuriated, and even at times disgusted at her for it. But hell, I’ve been happy as well. It’s a crappy song, but Britney did have a point when she crooned in her broken voice, “I’m a slave for you!” And though I cannot imagine breaking through the barrier of my ego to match the degree of servility necessary to be a slave to her (my sweetheart, not Britney you idiot!!), I cannot also deny the unfortunate fact that love is the antidote to good sense and dignity, among other things. That may not be the case for all, but I’ll wager that it is the case for enough.

Bottom line, I’ve never been happier than when I would make her smile out of anything I may have done for her. And this is just one of the women in my life (though obviously the more prominent). I’ve only had the one girlfriend so far, and I spent seven of the most amazing months of my life going around with her. I use the phrase ‘going around’ for the sake of convenience, to signify that we had a thing going on during that period. We didn’t really ‘go around’ anywhere to speak of. Anyhow, that ended in the new year of 2005. Sure I was sad, I was disappointed, shocked, bewildered, confused, broken, all of that crap. But I don’t hate her for it. I don’t even resent it. Because hey, I did have the greatest time while we were together. And in the end, if she felt that it’s not working out, then that’s ok. I had to respect her for her decision. If she were unhappy in the relationship, how long would it take for things to take a really bitter turn?

I’ve had two crushes that I can write home about, so to speak. The first one was in my second year, and as I’ve mentioned previously, I’m glad that led to nowhere in retrospect. But I wrote two songs on that chick before I realised that God was truly helping me out by keeping her outta my perimeter. So I’ve never been sorry that I liked her. And yes, I was happy when I was around her as well.

My second crush is far more recent, and luckily, I handled this the smart way; I told her that I had a crush on her before my feelings developed into something huge. That’s a new thing for me, earlier I’d wait too long before spilling the beans, and by then I’d be so far into the gal that a rejection would be crushing. But not this time. Except that the feelings haven’t wholly subsided yet. Heck, these things take time. When I told her how I felt about her, I mentioned that I owed it to myself as well as her to let her know, because in my case such feelings are rare (my criteria for choosing women are quite unconventional, kinda like myself). What’s the point of keeping something like that to myself? And of course, if I do something for her now, it makes me happy.

No, I haven’t moved on. Not from the memories of my happiness when it came to any of these women. Not from the power of emotions stirred by thoughts of them. Not from the feeling of longing to hold them in my arms and tell them how amazing they are (however short-lived that feeling might have been, and in some cases, it hasn’t as yet died). And why should I move on? I have learnt from my mistakes, and I’ve had fun while making them. So why should I just forget all about the good stuff by blotting it out with the bad. When you’re riding a wave, you’re gonna go up and down, and the one inevitably follows the other interminably on. You can choose to get off the boat, and you can choose to forget the ride. But why forget the awesome feeling of momentary weightlessness that you experienced while riding the waves, just because a while later you found yourself puking your guts out over the side?

I Know a Pretty Girl

2006-10-21T22:17:00.000+05:30

I suddenly remembered today that i'd once written a song for the girl i had a crush on in my 2nd year, the pain in the ass chick. i wrote it after the song 'hey lil girl', and for a while, it was considered my best song. of course, that was ages ago, but it's still not a bad song really :) i dunno if i have any written record of that song, so i thought i'd put it up here...

I Know a Pretty Girl

I saw her one day
At band practice at half past five,
I looked into those big brown eyes
And saw the rest of my life.

But i didn't say nothing,
I kept all my words inside,
Oh why, oh why,
Did my feelings i hide?

But then one day
I told her how i felt,
She said, "I'm sorry boy,
But there's somebody else."

Is there nothing that can be done?
La belle dame sans merci
She said you're too late boy,
You should've told me

And then with a weak smile,
And without giving me a chance,
She turned and walked away,
Without a second glance.

And i stood there for a while
Knowing there's nothing that can be said,
Couldn't stop the tears rushing to my eyes,
Couldn't stop the words rushing to my head.

I know a pretty girl,
Everytime i think of her,
She makes my head swirl.

Yeah, I know a pretty girl,
Everytime i think of her,
She makes my head swirl.

Everytime i see her face,
I know what the earth must feel
To be kissed by the rain.

She's radiant as the sun
Gentle as the moon
Born with the first raindrop
In the month of June

She smiles and looks at me with those eyes
She's an angel in disguise
I don't care for the rest of the world
She's all i ask for in a girl.

She says she's got a man
She also says she doesn't know
Where that's headed.

I just can't understand
Why she hangs on so tight
To a thing that's jaded!

But i know one thing for sure
I'll never let her feel alone
For as long as i live

Cuz i feel that she's the one
The one who can be the sun
In the tundra of my life.

Yeah, I know a pretty girl,
Everytime i think of her,
She makes my head swirl.

Hey Lil' Girl...

2006-09-19T21:38:00.000+05:30

This is one of my crappy attempts at songwriting. I wrote this song in my 2nd year on one of the gals I’ve had a crush on. Nothing happened of course (which in retrospect is a very good thing cuz this girl falls in the category which I loosely term a royal pain in the ass. Of course, at the time I wrote this song, I didn’t know that). I felt like putting it up cuz the lyrics have kinda become relevant nowadays. Same subject (a crush), different object (another gal, definitely not a royal pain in the ass!!). as such the original song was only very loosely based on the earlier gal. it's much more suited and relevant to my latest crush. I’ve made some slight mods in the lyrics (like removing words like ‘yeah’ and ‘babe’) but the rest is the same as when first written…

Hey Lil’ Girl, I’ve been looking at you for a while now,
Standing in the sun with your hair flying.
Hey Lil’ Girl, you’ve got me thinking about my life right now,
All these years I’ve just been dying.

I never thought it’d be so easy to like somebody,
But girl you’ve just got it made.
I’ve had my heart broken many times in the past you know babe,
But life’s a game that should be played.

Hey Lil’ Girl, I haven’t said “I Love You” to anyone for a while now,
I just can’t say it without a reason.
Hey Lil’ Girl, I ain’t saying that I’m in love or anything like that there,
I just think maybe you’re the one.

This ain’t the first time, yeah I’ve felt for a girl or two before
But what I felt I was too scared to say.
I did nothing in particular and I did it well but not this time hey,
I guess it’s about time I changed my ways.

Hey Lil’ Girl, I know that your life is a mess right now
Maybe that’s just what I like.
I don’t want Miss Perfect, I don’t need Miss Congeniality,
I only need you by my side.

Hey Lil’ Girl, I know that right now your answer’s NO but that’s ok,
I’m gonna take another shot, oh yeah.
‘Cuz everything I do, I do with all my heart, you know that,
And that’s a lotta heart I’ve got.

I ain’t letting go so easy that’s just not how I play,
I’m really sorry, it’s not my way.
You think things are complicated now,
Well take out that list and put my name.

Hey Lil’ Girl, I know that you think I’m not the best guy for you,
But gimme a shot you may be surprised.
I know that there are lotta fish in that there sea but I’m telling you now,
I ain’t letting go without a fight!

Unnamed Emotions

2006-09-19T09:28:00.000+05:30

this one i wrote when i was 17. was walking to college when i saw this old beggar. we tend to dismiss such people like so much garbage!! but humanity can exist in inhuman conditions as well...

Unnamed Emotions

He walked unnoticed, uncared for, on the street. He was dirty and probably had no place to stay. He carried an old, worn gunny bag, into which bits of paper fell everyday. For he was nothing more than a rag picker, just a rag picker, nothing more....

Perhaps it hadn’t always been that way. Maybe at one time he had a happy family, children running playfully around, the loving eyes of a mother or wife, the guiding soul of a father. Maybe, once upon a time, he had a place he called his home, his domain, his castle! Perhaps at one time he had a life. But now, he had nothing. For he was nothing more than a rag picker, just a rag picker, nothing more...

He walked slowly, plodding on along the road of a pointless existence. I was on my way to school when I saw him. He was nothing special, just another food-less, penniless footpath dweller. I looked away from him with a tinge of pity and sympathy, which was, however, overshadowed by a contempt that our unforgiving society has embedded into every “civilised” young mind. In school, we are taught to help the poor, but yet human nature subscribes to the cruel irony that more often than not, we, the priviledged, choose to look away from the miserably destitute.

A blind woman came onto the road in an attempt to cross it. It looked as if she were oblivious to the fact that she was crossing a busy road. I noticed that she carried a big purse and was easy game for a criminal heart. The old rag picker stopped next to her and asked her where she was headed. She asked for directions to the main road, and he promptly gave her a good description of the way to her destination. Before I even thought of it, he had helped her across the street and sent her on her way. I had been receiving Value Education as a part of the school curriculum for so long, the idea of a boy helping a blind person across the street had practically become a cliché, and yet the sight of the blind woman tapping her stick ahead of her did not move me enough to rush to her aid. The old, bent beggar had put all my formal education to shame.

The tears came to my eyes as I thought of how I had condemned the old man as a lesser being in my mind. He was not lesser; he was perhaps far greater than most of us will ever be in a lifetime.

He walked unnoticed, uncared for, on the street. He was old and grey. He walked slowly, plodding on along the road of a pointless existence. For he was nothing more than a rag picker, just a rag picker, nothing more... He had nothing any man could want, except for one thing. He had a heart of gold, and I can only envy him for that!

Tomorrow's Another Day

2006-09-17T22:50:00.000+05:30

I’ve only had the one girlfriend (and no, unfortunately it’s not the ‘more sleepless nights’ gal. But hey, my ex was pretty awesome too!!). I was pretty beat up after we broke up. This poem was actually a song I wrote. Now I think it reads better as a poem. It’s a poem about hope, cuz sometimes that’s all you’ve got to keep walking the line…

Tomorrow’s Another Day

I know what it’s like to have your heart broken
I’ve loved and lost and it hurts
You’re always wondering what made her walk right out of your life
Was it you, or was it her?

I’ve spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering what went wrong
I’ve done my share of crying
But one thing we’ve got to remember and that will keep us strong
That tomorrow’s another day

I know that it’s hard to forget the face you see every night in your dreams
I know it’s hard to forget the fun
I know it’s tough to leave all of those thoughts behind you
It’s so much easier said than done

But you’d better know that the world won’t meet you halfway
You’re the only one that’s got your back
So stop wallowing in this black hole of despair ‘cuz don’t you know
That tomorrow’s another day

I feel the turbulence of the hurricane on the emotional plane
The world’s a blurry blob through my tears
But one thing you’ve got to ask yourself is if what you really fear
Is that love will disappear?

Yes, I’ve felt myself that I may not love another girl again
I’ve been pissed at the pointless dreaming
But someone once told me that love is the last infatuation
Maybe that shit’s worth believing

I don’t believe anymore there’s someone out there made only for me
I thought my last girl was the one
But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to make your life make sense and know
That tomorrow’s another day

Just keep your chin up
Take a look around
Just remember
That tomorrow’s another day

Wish You Were Here

2006-09-16T21:44:00.000+05:30

wrote this one in first year. don't really know how or why i started it, but i'm kinda sure the ending has something to do with the 'more sleepless nights' gal (can't be fully sure though, i was pretty messed up back then). here goes...

Wish You Were Here

The couple at the altar swear to be together
In sickness and in health, till death do them apart
Promises so sweet, so noble, so magnificent,
That if they are true, they must come from the heart

The parson closes his tome
And by the power vested within
Declares them man and wife,
And then the kiss is no sin

The bride so beautiful
Her gown so pretty and bright
Her eyes, sweet crystal, so pure in love,
So shy, Such fright

She is so weak, so faint
She may come to harm
But the groom so dashing, so powerful
Holds her in his arm

And for the thousandth time
In his mind does he pledge
That if my wife were to cry in fear and distress
I should be dead

For as long as I live
I swear on everything pure
I will protect her, love her,
Her troubles will I myself endure

I will die for my love
For my love is my life's purity
And though my heart may fade away
My love will last all eternity

And physically though we be together
Till the end of this life
I know that we shall forever
Remain husband and wife

And with these brave thoughts of undying love
He sweeps her off her feet
And walks down the aisle
For a strange new world to meet

For they both know that from the rising of today's matrimonial sun
The force of two is now the power of one

I watch them pass, and shrink away from their awesome power
The strength, the bond, their joy and love
Does nought for me in my last hour

My strength has gone, my mind, my will
But not my love. No! Never!
For as long as love does exist in this cruel world
I will love you forever and ever

And if tomorrow never comes
If on my cheek this be my last tear
I shall wish, wish in my last gasp at life
Wish you were here.

More Sleepless Nights

2006-09-15T23:41:00.000+05:30

woof, this one's crazy! more on the same gal. i was slightly high on beer when i wrote this. sometimes, the chicken soup books can piss a guy off, even if he hasn't even read 'em. if you don't fully get this one, don't worry. it's s'posed to be vague. but you gotta admit, it's kinda intense!! dekko...

More sleepless nights. More day-dreams. The familiar feeling of emptiness within. You haven’t left me. And you were never with me. You were always somewhere, tantalisingly close, yet always out of reach. Is it because I never tried to reach you? Is it because I was beaten to it? Is it because I was too scared of what you would say? But what is it now? Why have you come back into my head? Why do you torment me? Why can’t you leave me in peace? Why can’t I say that I love you?

Love is a feeling. I’m in love with the feeling. I’m not in love with you. I’m in love with the feeling. Just the elation of seeing the one who inspires those feelings. Just the lightness of my limbs, the energy, the smiles, the rosiness of the world, just the feeling. Not you, just the feeling. But why do you keep giving me the feeling?

Leave me alone. I don’t want to be with you. I can’t be with you. I won’t be with you. I love you…

I don’t see your face as easily as I used to in my imagination. Again, it’s the feeling. You just happen to be around, again. She left me, left a void. I thought I was over it. I thought it didn’t matter. I can’t be so vulnerable again. But why did you come back? Are you my weakness? Will you be my strength? Can you feel for me the way I feel for you?

What did you mean? “…if everything works out, and if we get married, will you give up eating meat for me?” What did you mean? Was it just a joke? You don’t know what you do to me, do you? Or do you?

Dreams. Dreams of spending mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights, dawns, everything with you. Forever. Eternity. A bond till death. May I die first. May your spirit forever live. “…and if we get married…” What did you mean?

Don’t smile. I melt at the sight. I hate you. I can’t win with you. I don’t want to win with you. I wont win with you. I don’t hate you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Shut up!! Get out of my head. I love you.

Chicken soup. Your first love. How could you? A test? A bloody test? Did you not know what you were doing? How could you? Intimate details of your thoughts on another man? And of all men, that bastard? How could you? Why? Why show it to me? Do you like to see me crumble? Do you want to see me break? I am broken. I am torn. I am empty. Fill me. Complete me. Save me. No!!! I am not weak. I can live without you. I have, I will. If animal existence is life. I will live. Leave me alone.

But you will never leave, will you? You haven’t left my mind. Not for four years when my eyes never saw you. You were always there. You would turn up anywhere. The attached pouch on the side upper berth of the AC sleeper. The hoarding. The ad in the paper. Goddammit!! Everywhere. Why can’t you just go away?

I love you. There, I said it! Did you hear it? Can you see it in my eyes. Can you look beyond the sardonic smile? Can you see the desperate disguise, the hopeless cover up? Am I doing a good job at hiding it? Can you see that I love you?

Too many questions. Too many questions. Silver lining. Wake up. Is this a dream? Are you real. Is it my imagination. Is it just the feeling. Do I love you? Can I love you? Fill me. Complete me.

Love me.

Damn it all!!!

For the One Who Never Was

2006-09-15T23:37:00.000+05:30

oh, this one's a killer. i was head over heels for this girl. man, she could weave magic around me with a flicker of a smile. i could go on about her, but i'll let the blog do the talking, so to speak. this is some private stuff, but heck, it's old news anyway. if the girl i'm talking about sees it, then i'm sorry if you mind. this is my vent. i'm human, and tonight i wanna talk. check it out...

The Shoe Story

my dad once brought me a pair of sports shoes from abroad. they were beautiful, they had a great colour, they fit like a glove and it felt like i was walking on air in them. i fell in love with them the moment dad took them out of his travel bag.i put them on and strutted around the house in them, making my brother jealous. they were too awesome to be worn all the time, so i determined that i'd only wear them on special ocassions, you know, ocassions that would fit their grandeur. i waited and waited, and finally the ocassions came. but i was never satisfied. i kept telling myself that the time was not right, that the ocassions just weren't big enough. the shoes stayed safely in my locker, untouched except when i would take them out and dust them or wear them briefly around the house. and then the day came when i finally decided that it was about time that i put them on and go out. i put on my best clothes, took out a pair of new socks and finally sat down to put on my precious shoes. but i couldn't put them on! they were too small; i had outgrown them! try as i might, i couldn't get my feet to get into the shoes comfortably. when i finally got one on, it was too painful to keep on. mom saw me then and said to me, "there, are you happy now? your feet are too big now for those shoes. what a waste!"
i was heartbroken. i kept the shoes back in their place and went for the party in my old shoes. within a few days, without telling me, my mom gave my shoes away. my new shoes, my favourite shoes, the ones which i had waited so long to wear, were gone.
i was angry. i shouted at my mom. how dare she do this with my shoes? but in the end, i realised that i had just waited too long. my dreams of proudly walking around in them, my hopes of showing them off to the world remained just that, dreams and hopes.

those were just shoes.

what am i to you?

just a thought...

SAT Vocab!!

2006-09-15T23:32:00.000+05:30

Heheh. this one i wrote as an assignment in our english class in first year. someone actually asked me if i was stoned while writing it. i was not. give it a look...

The Pleasure of Reading

Of the googles of discoveries and inventions of Man, made in the course of the millions of years of his evolution, just about his greatest accomplishment, as I perceive it, is the development of his mind, his intellect, his imagination, his power of communication and expression, his speech, the culmination of all these factors into his writing, and then his most fantastic gift to mankind, the submission of this writing to the world so that men, women and children anywhere may read, learn and enjoy the intrinsic complexities of the human psyche.

The utterly callous assumption that reading is one of the simple pleasures of life is ludicrous, atrocious and as dumb as dumb can be! While there are quite a number of unfortunate, wretched souls who do not benefit much from any book that they read, one cannot deny the immense psychedelic power that a good book can have on an unsuspecting mind. For when one sits down with a good book, be it a novel of fantasy, adventure, romance, political intrigue or mind boggling detection, for a brief but intense period of time, he loses his identity and becomes one with the story. A husky barbarian fighting sword and sorcery, a gallant youth riding his steed to rescue the fair damsel from the tower of the Black Knight, a noble young gentleman defying a thousand odds so that he may hold his sweetheart in his arms or die in ignominy in the eyes of every lover, a cunning spy walking stealthily in his dark trench coat, his hat and collar concealing all but his eyes which hold a thousand secrets that could spell doom to all, or the great detective, walking around the back alleys of Victorian London, putting years of research into the annals of crime to the test before he retires to a quiet cup of tea with the good Doctor in his quarters at 221B Baker Street. All these words, all these characters spur images of great interest in the mind of the reader. Most of us may never experience such fantastic adventure in the course of our lives, but we can enjoy every moment of it in the course of a good novel.

I have laid stress on novels, but I assure all reading that there are other equally enjoyable pleasures in reading books of non-fiction like biographies and auto-biographies, books of History, etc.

And so, in conclusion, I’d just like to say that movies are good, music and song is better, friends are outstanding and love is out of this world. But nothing beats a good book… and a warm bath on a cold November’s day.

WHO ME???

2006-09-15T23:19:00.000+05:30

I've been meaning to blog for a while now. Finally i've been inspired enough to give it a go. It was always a piss-off cuz it took too damn long to open an account ans start blogging. But after reading stuff put up by shakunt and tabu, i thought that i might as well give it a go. so, Hey ppl!! here's some stuff for you to chew on. if you gotta say something about something you read on this page, feel free to post your comment. don't be a lazy bitch like me, i'd like to hear from you. so if you have to say something, click the link and say it!!

I thought i'd start off with one of the latest things i've written. I was sitting in the NCC (overpriced, underground) with a bunch of buddies. something had been nagging me for a while (chicks dude, chicks!), and i felt like writing. and the following came out...

Learn to Sew

Time. Inescapable. But continually running away from me. From those around me. The inevitable circle of the second hand, the minute hand, the hour hand. Moving forever on in their intricate, endless ritual. The epitome of precision, yet incapable of achieving true perfection. For every year loses a few seconds, every decade a few minutes, every millennium a few hours, every eon a few years perhaps. So, time loses itself, but still moves on, inexorably, excruciatingly. There always seems enough of it to waste, yet not quite enough when it runs out.

Why do people wait? Why prolong your agony, especially when you have a choice? Every moment of my life presents a new challenge, a new thought. For are we not the captives of our own intellect? Are we not continually in the search for freedom; from our surroundings, our pressures, from time, and perhaps, from ourselves?

Why don’t people say what they want to? Or what they have to? Worse still, why don’t people say what they want to, when they know they have to say it to retain their sanity, their happiness, their smile? What pleasure do we get from pain? What peace do we find in loneliness? What sense does it make to be by yourself even when you are surrounded by all?

Love or sorrow. Take your pick. Too often the one leads to the other, and just as often it’s vice versa. Like the hands of the clock, it is a perennial circle. But what of those who can’t find love? Or of those who don’t want to? Or of those who are afraid? Are they wretched, miserable, pitiful, cursed? Doomed to remain insatiated? Or will the inevitable grip of that most comforting of human emotions find them as well?

We come back to the same question, as inane, yet as profound, as some pagan ritual. Why don’t people say what they have to?

Too many questions. Too many questions.

This chapter’s over.

Turn the page.