The wanderer...

I am here today, there tomorrow; still a wanderer - the boat without an oar drifting along the whims of the winds. Neither the stars nor the moon mark my presence, nor answer me when I ask them where I’ll be tomorrow. Carrying logs to build a home, but I do not have a shore. The clouds rain on me and extend a hand of amity. But the wind drifts us apart and I lament at the lost friendship. Why to befriend when severance is your destiny? Why to love when you have to part? I play safe, and I espouse loneliness. And I am here today, there tomorrow... still a wanderer!!!

The phone call...

I was dead. The better part of a bursting hour they say. They’re doctors, so I believe them. I’ll be out of here soon and over pints of lager through the weekend, my friends would want to know for sure. How was being dead like? 
“You just pledged for the ‘been there’ club, bro. Respect!”
It was seven years back when I dragged my first chillum of hash. That trip is still patently etched in my mind. Ain’t death supposed to be an over-hyped irrevocable dope trip too? They say I was blurting gibberish before I had gone mute and fired up my trip. And that’s exactly how one flies on stash, I’ve seen.
And then suddenly I remember today. I saw someone in my death trance. Call it pearly gates if it helps you sleep, but I’d rather stay away from the term. It’s too girlish.
Thing is, I saw her. And I’m still surprised how come. We haven’t talked in years. I have seen her public photos in Facebook, though. Is she dead too? Should I find out by calling the landline at her home (‘cuz that’s all I got)? Wonder how it’ll go.
“Hi, remember me?”
“Kitu?”

The lovebirds...

And we will spoon when we sleep... We will have bagels for breakfast, bagels for lunch and bagels for dinner, because we are too lazy to go outside. We’ll watch Woody Allen movies back to back. And I’ll read City of angels to you. I’ll watch you while you do your hair, watch you while you sleep and watch you while you blow your nails to dry the paint. Let me smell the shampoo in your hair, let me count the moles on your back and let me discover your curves. And we shower together, we eat from the same plate and we sit on the same chair. And we will spoon when we sleep... for I love you!!!

The snowflakes...

It’s not that they were NOT in love. It’s just that the subject, as such, never really came up. It’s kind of loomed over them like a blissfully stupid cloud. The love cloud. 
“Guaranteed to rain on your brain, ‘till you’re moaning with serotonin.”
Maybe what was happening was that they were in love with the idea of being in love. But that’s still love, right? Instead of loving each other, they loved an idea. An aspiration. A wish. The other person was, more or less, an afterthought. Somewhat expendable, or at the very least, interchangeable!!!
Of course, it was just a matter of time before the truth of each other, the hard fact of their unique selfness, their one-of-a-kind snow-flakiness, became unavoidable.
Saying goodbye in these circumstances is always very awkward.
“I just had your car towed”
“That’s okay. Those flip videos of us I said I erased, are now on the internet...”

The stalker...

Somehow you come to know when you’re being stared at, even if in a crowd. I felt it, a couple of hours back, when I boarded the metro from Rajiv Chowk. But when I looked up to see whose eyes they were, I didn’t expect it to be from a well dressed, pretty girl in her early twenties. 
I first noticed her looking at me when she got up from her seat to stand near the pole just in front of the door. And I was standing in my favourite spot, the corner near the doors. I thought she would get down. But she did not and I found it weird as it’s uncommon to see people giving up seats. I was playing Texas Holdem poker in my cell. But I couldn’t ignore the feeling of being stared at. I looked towards her a couple of times. She was unapologetic that she was staring. And that made me uncomfortable and I shifted my glance. Through the corner of my eye, I could see the angle of her lips craft a smirk. I scanned her, bottom upwards. Her toes had a unique nail paint pattern in two shades of blue. The first two toes of a foot were a different shade from the rest three toes. And the color reversed in the other foot. Other than that she was dressed normally in platform heels, jeggings and a shrug over a top. The blue nail paints from the toes were also seen in her hands but with some more intricate detailing done with stripes and dots on well maintained finger-nails. She wore her hair in a messy bun and had large expressive eyes with a hint of kohl.
Ten minutes went by and as my station arrived, I displaced myself a step from the corner I was standing to the front of the door. The door’s glass acted as a mirror against the darkness outside and I saw that she moved from her place and was standing next to me, in the corner which I had earlier occupied. I looked towards her to see if she had enough space to stand and this time she smiled at me. I smiled back. I wondered if I should return a “Hi”. But decided against it since I was getting down in a few moments. My station arrived and I got down.
Hands in the pocket of my jacket, I was unmindfully walking along the platform when I felt a soft punch on my back. I turned back to see her smiling face!!!
“What’s your name?” before I could gather the situation, she asked me.
I answered.
“Where do you stay?”
I answered about my lane as I thought maybe she stayed close by and maybe she’s seen me before.
“Actually this is not my station and I don’t stay here. I was just following you!!!”
And that was a big dhobi-pachaar to my senses. “Following you”!?!? Why would a girl follow me??? She was looking at me, expecting an answer.
“Well, err... em... I’m flattered.” That’s all that I could manage to say as we set out on our brief 10 minute conversation...

The wounded healer...

It’s like any other day. His eyes burn from the smoke in his room. It’s from his cigarettes. It’s 2 am and it is his 8th peg of scotch. He is alone... and lonely too. Stumbling his way to the kitchen, he finds only a slice of cold pizza for dinner. He guzzles down some coke. He flops down on his bed. He wants to talk, but there’s no “she”. An hour later he gets up from his bed, fumbles through his drawers and pops a sleeping pill. Hits the bed. Sleeps... Wakes up in the morning with a headache and acidity. Takes a tablet for each. No breakfast for him. Showers and rushes to the hospital. He saves lives and offers health advice!!!

The booked Booker...

Well yes, I had a BIG crush on her. Punjab body size. Her erudite yet piercing large eyes did the entire trick. Who cares if she’s 46 now? (and if the comment that’s taken birth in your mind right now is ‘ek choti si love story’, then I can very well understand brother, you’re cheaper than govt subsidised salt). Whatever, I was hoping she’d win this year’s Man Booker Prize, declared yesterday, for her “The Lowland”. Aye, I’m talking about Jhumpa Lahiri. And yes, just as the billion strong Indian populace thinks, likewise, she’s very Indian to me, though she was British by birth and American by heart and citizenship!!! Trust me; she’ll turn out to be the next Salman Rushdie...
Sadly, this was our last chance at the prize. Next year onwards, as the Booker is expanding out of its Commonwealth boundaries and going global, what I can guarantee my yellow Enfield on, is that US will be taking home all the subsequent prizes like they have a ration card for it... And considering India’s literary scene going David Dhawan style, (oh looks like, we can call it Rohit Shetty style too), it will be loud-mouthed to expect even a newspaper cut-out of a Booker trophy, at least for the next 10-15 years (that’s my finger-crossed expected time for this Chetan Bhagat fad to die down).
FYI, this year’s award went to New Zealand’s Eleanor Catton for her “The Luminaries”. And bloody barnacles, she’s brought down the record youngest age to win a Booker to 28!!! Sigh...

The noble Nobel...

Let’s cut the crap. You and I both know India is never going to win a Nobel, i.e. if this play-safe mode persists!!! Let me elucidate...
A Nobel is NOT a lifetime achievement award. It’s an award for a trail-blazer!!! They don’t give a rat's ass whether you were selling panipuris for a living before you made a path-breaking discovery that opened a whole new avenue that didn’t exist before. India’s greatest living scientist CNR Rao is arguably one of the best chemists in the world. But he probably never will win a Nobel unless he makes a breakthrough.
Indian science is a follower and not a leader in the global arena. And followers do not win Nobel prizes. Indian scientists are persuaded to pursue safe lines of research that guarantee publications. James Rothman, this year’s winner of the medicine Nobel, was told that he was “nuts” to attempt to reproduce the cell’s complexities. The US university system tolerates and even rewards this kind of courage, no matter what results they bring. There is, sadly, no such kind of tolerance in India. And thus, no Nobel!!! It’s been more than 80 years now and for India, with a large research infrastructure, a complete absence of Nobel Prize winners is a serious paucity!!! Think about it...

The Durgas...

I know of a successful handsome lady in her 30s who rejected many a marriage proposals because she is the only surviving family of her paraplegic (paralysed) and sick father...
I know of a young girl who donated one of her kidneys to her stepmother even though that mother had 2 sons of her own... 
I know of a young lady who arrange-married an alcohol-addict divorcee man and just about 4 months into their marriage, the husband expired due to his alcoholism. And that was when she came to know that she’s pregnant. In spite of her family member’s relentless pleads to abort the baby, she preferred to bring into this world this fatherless child and also, thus in the process, put an end to any prospect of her remarriage!!!
These are my Durgas this Puja... Happy and safe Durga Puja to you!!!

The mortician chronicles...

Suddenly today, I remember the Anatomy mortician, his dirty clothes and his paan-stained teeth, who was the designated subject for surface marking during our 1st Professional exams. On my day, as I approached him with my chit in hand, he gestured with his hand asking me what I got. I passively replied, “Parotid gland”. He briskly pointed with his index finger to his cheek... Though I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown (every student of anatomy is, on the D-day), I couldn’t help but smile at his goodwill. I also remember today the Physiology bearer who, even before you touched his sole with your key gave you the best Plantar reflex. And even if your hammer slipped and fell on his thigh, you’ll be able to elicit the perfect knee jerk response you’ll ever see in your medical career... God bless them!!!

The condescence...

As a kid I was very poor in academics. So poor that I had failed the admission tests to get into the top schools in my hometown. As a result I had to settle for a ‘not so good’ school in my locality. I even remember doing away with my report card once.
Those days my father was posted in a civil hospital in a remote area across the Brahmaputra which made it hard for him to visit us (me, my mom and sis) often. Ma, almost single-handed, raised us up.
I remember one winter evening when I was playing with my friends from my lane. A few aunties were chatting close by. As it started getting dark, one aunty called out to his son and said, “Go inside son. Wash up and ask daddy to help you with your homework.”
Another aunty followed suit and asked her son to do the same. Seeing my friends wrap up, I also started to leave when suddenly one aunty, addressing me, asked “Who helps you with your homework, Rahul?”
I gave a blank stare before I could manage “no one”.
As I shifted my attention and started picking up the cricket stumps to take back home, I overheard a third aunty speak. “That’s why a father should always be there constantly monitoring a child’s progress in his studies...”
I was too young to fully comprehend the meaning of what I had heard. But I knew I did not like it. And somehow this memory clung on to me.
I don’t know if I can attribute the events that followed to this small incident. But yes, few months later, I repeated the admission tests and passed all of them with very good grades. It did not take Ma much long to decide upon this beautiful convent school which had its own school bus service that came right up to our lane. I started performing well in academics and two years later I won the “Best student of the year for academics and over-all conduct”, an award that shut many mouths...

The best friend

I was in the VIIth standard and she was a year younger, from a different school. She was cute. We used to meet in our maths tuitions. One day, she was sitting opposite me at the small 3 feet broad table. Our teacher, as usual, had given us some problems and had taken a paan-break. I was busy solving the problems with my head bent low when she softly rapped on the desk near my book. I looked up to find her and her friend gently smiling at me. I smiled back. Then she slowly extended her hand and passed me a small piece of irregularly torn paper, whose shape resembled some African country, two sides straight and two sides not so straight... I took the piece of paper and furtively opened it under my desk, head bent low like I was going to be privy to some secret brotherhood or something.
It read, “Will you be my best friend?”
As if I had just eaten a bhoot jolokia, my face turned red... and hot! I coughed lest I thought they’d hear my strong and fast beating heart... Thing is, I hadn’t attained puberty back then and was quite more of the studious kind, unaware of the love world. I kept staring at the paper trying to gather some courage to look up, but it seemed my neck was paralysed and it refused to help lift my head. I took longer than the “Lux super-hit film... is bhaag ke prayojak hai” kinda movie breaks in DD1 and when I finally looked up, they were expectantly still smiling at me. I gestured an ‘okay’ with my head by swaying it to one side and returned them with the biggest smile I could muster, and carried on with solving the sums as if world peace depended on it...
About a month later I 'grew-up'!!!

The unspoken invitation...

I’m not very fond of speaking. If I speak out loud, I’ll have to say what I mean. I’ll have to rummage around for the correct word. I wait for the end of the sentence more than the yearning of its last word to be heard. When I speak, I hear Silence clamour out loud that I’m trying to drown it. That’s a crime against a friend so dear. Silence is silence only for the deaf. For me, it’s a vast open meadow, where even the minute wisps of air conjure to be unvoiced and conspire to let Silence be heard; to be heard by the mind, the senses, rather than the ears... Have you ever felt nothingness? So light that you feel the air beneath you? There’s no better feeling than of being carried around by oblivion. A float. A drift. A glide. A surrender! My messages to you don’t need man-made words to be delivered. Come and sit by me, brother. The world, in all its words, is already very comical... And you, if I open my lips, will you take it as an invitation? If I open my lips will you step inside and take residence? Must I keep opening my lips so that I can also show you the way out?

The Want...

There’s this desire, this hunger, this greed. I don’t know exactly what I want. But I know that I want more. They say contentment begets inner peace. But I’ve traded my peace to this greed. That started when I drew consciousness from my pubertal thoughts. And that’s a long long time ago. I’ve never swam in a river. They say the surface is deceptive. That turbulent currents veil themselves underneath lingering to drown and take captive any sentient who dares, or maybe dares not, but falls prey to fate. But sister, why do I feel this turbulence inside of me? I think I’ve already fallen prey. And I’m already dead. And my surface is deceptive. I don’t know what I want. I just want more...

Bushisms

Going through a collection of Bushisms, I couldn’t help but wonder about India’s own political leaders as orators. I deem Barak Obama as a good orator as so many other US presidents before him. Sadly, India has not been so lucky in this division. You can hate but you cannot ignore the big festival of Indian politics, celebrated by 1.2 billion people. Oddly in this, other than Pt Nehru and A B Vajpayee, most other PMs have not been good orators. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had that magnetism and the ability to connect to the masses but lacked the magic of the former two PMs. Lal Bahadur Shastri gave the perpetual Jai Jawan Jai Kisan slogan but has few memorable speeches to his name. Deve Gowda sounded indolent and irritable. P V Narasimha Rao, Gujral and our current Manmohan Singh were erudite and scholarly, but could never electrify anyone. As we look forward, between our two future PM prospects, I think Rahul Gam can deliver better speeches than Rahul Gandhi (*no comments please, I’m kidding) while Narendra Modi has that authoritative voice, convincing personality and the ability to kidnap his audience’s attention. He rightly embroiders his speeches with phrases and imagery. He might turn out a good orator and I don’t know about his capability to be a good PM... Nevertheless, the billion strong Indians warrant the need for a powerful speaker who we can quote in our daily references. And that’d be great!!!

Hinglish

I’ve always been vocal against the fad of Chetan Bhagat. His critics carp about his characters, his language (more Hinglish than English), the plots, and what have you. What caught my attention was the constant sniping over his Hinglish. Here, I would like to stand up for him. In the right classes in India English is still spoken with the proper accent and intonation. Ok. Anyone who can’t is an upstart, a wannabe. Not ok. Bhagat is perhaps unawares of the bridge he’s inadvertently been building between the two Indias. His ‘Chutnefying English’ doesn’t raise my eyebrows and neither should yours. I wait for Hinglish to become an acceptable idiom, like American English, African English and Creolised English. Bhagat has only taken off from where Shobhaa De stopped. I see no reason being apologetic about writing in Hinglish what with the commonalities and democratisation taking place due to it. Salman Rushdie used Indian words in Midnight’s Children and refused to italicise them. Appreciate it. Theirs is a world where the youths aren’t bothered about any Wren and Martin. And who am I bluffing? Even I had apathy for Wren and Martin in school... Well, at the end of the day it’s all about your story. A few years hence, Hinglish, now restricted to our quaint song and dance Bollywood routines and the ad world, may soon become as acceptable as it deserves to be... Inshallah!!!

Ethos

You'll feel alone, out to sea, with no shore in sight. You'll wonder, "why me?” Put your pain in a box. Lock it down. We are men made up of boxes, chambers of loss and triumph, of hurt and hope and love. No one is stronger than a man who can harness his emotions. His past.
You live your life by a code, an ethos. Every man does. It’s your shoreline. It’s what guides you home. And trust me; you always try to get home. Whatever you desire, it’s always a war out there. And war is a country of will. There’s no room for sympathy. If you're not willing to give up everything, you've already lost!!!

Love nowadays and Love always!!!

Two movies... Yeh jawani hai deewani and Ranjhana!!! Two facets... Love nowadays and Love always!!! 
In YJHD, the love portrayed is more identifiable and present-day. Where career is equally, if not more, important. Where expediency rules matters of the heart. And where, as the world is shrinking in size, long-distance relationships is fast becoming ineffectual. I asked my sister if she’d like to watch Ranjhana. ‘Oh surely’, pop came her reply. On inquiring why was she so keen to watch such a plain guy like Dhaanush, she told me that somewhere in love how the guy looks is shadowed by the madness he has for his love. And it’s a girl’s dream that some guy shows this ‘madness’ for her, however he might look and whatever he might be...
Well, that sums up. There’s something which is fashionable and then there’s another which is classic!!!
To love...

Worst worst worst flight experience ever!!!

Worst worst worst flight experience ever!!!
Day before yesterday I booked my Air India flights from New Delhi to Dibrugarh via Kolkata (one day stay). Firstly during checking in at T3 I had to run from bay to bay and from counter to counter as not even their staff knew where I needed to report. Mine was an international flight to Tokyo. Secondly, my check in baggage weighed 18kg and they asked me to pay INR750 for the extra 3kgs. I had to argue as it’s clearly mentioned in their website that flights to and from the northeast states were allowed a margin of extra baggage. I had one cabin bag and a laptop bag apart from my check in bag and so I told them that I’d collect my check in baggage directly in Dibrugarh. After security check I purchased a bottle each of imported Black Label, Glen Fiddich and Ballantine’s from a duty free shop. I intended to give them as gifts. I landed at Kolkata yesterday as I had some work and today as I boarded my flight from Kolkata to Dibrugarh, everything was downright repulsive. Firstly, they have the worst ground staff in the world. All were aunties and uncles with attitudes worse than the staff of the local municipality office. Everyone was cranky and they looked like it was in 1976 when they last smiled. They had only a few counters for all their flights and were very slow in their work. I jumped the queue and inquired about my flight only to be received with a shout that I was late. I then moved on to my security check. There, I was told that I could not carry the liquor bottles I had purchased at the duty free. I went back and put them in my cabin bag and asked the reception counter to accept it as check in baggage. They declined stating that it was too late and they were keeping the gate open only for me and asked me to either miss my flight or dispose off the bottles. I talked with the CISF station chief and the terminal manager and they clearly stated that the airlines staff should accept my bag. But the Air India uncles and aunties did not. I HAD TO LITERALLY THROW AWAY THE $120 WORTH OF IMPORTED SCOTCH IN THE BIN. I reached my boarding gate only to realise that the flight was ‘indefinitely’ late due to technical snag and the boarding hadn’t even started. I felt like it would have been better on my part if I would have hammered the bottles on the reception staff’s heads for they were lying to me all the while. “The gates are kept open only for you!!!” I talked to the captain of the flight and made him know that Air India has the worst staff in the history of flying. That’s not all, they served breakfast with stale brownies which smelled worse than the ones they sold at midnight stalls in front of hospitals. They gave milk powder and sugar but no tea or coffee. And the flight attendants were all Dharmendar and Hema Malini wannabes in their late 40s with pot bellies for the uncles and puffed up buns of cheap dyed hair for the aunties. The flight was bumpier than a scooter ride on a freshly gravelled road. And the landing would have shamed even Launchpad’s infamous crash-landings. Just as I was calling it a day and got up to de-board after the flight landed, to my utter frustration I realised that the overhead luggage compartment was all flooded with rain water from Kolkata’s rain and that my laptop bag was wetter than Cherrapunji... I was already too tired to react!!! 
FUCK YOU, Air India!!! You are a shame for India...