Notes from a rollercoaster

A few weeks, maybe even months later, when I read this it will feel surreal. I will try hard to recollect the sepia-toned days; I will make a few things up as I go along. Right now, I could do well with a distraction. Something that doesn’t make me think of the current… ah… predicament. Usually, distraction has been plans for travel. Finding a new place where I could seek adventure. But it seems those will all come to naught. I have tried and failed over the past few months. So, I have to wait. I also understand that this is a lesson where I learn how valuable status quo is and the balance once disturbed takes a long time to fix. But I teased and flirted with it and this is what I have.

 But there’s always Plan B: smile and wait. So, there you go. No distraction. Be a man, suck it up.

Wait, isn’t this that new adventure I was looking for? It brought out a blog. Hey, whaddyaknow?

They Paid Their Bill and Left the Booth

I wrote this while I was at an attractive restaurant in Leh. My companions chattered mindlessly about things I didn't care about. I was however, intrigued by the couple on the table not far from us. This poem (?) just fought its way out.

It was read by two people, before I published this, which was one too many. What better way to preserve and to be kept a secret, than this blog?

Here goes.

They Paid Their Bill and Left the Booth

Two silhouetted in the shadow of the fading light,
sexuality oozing from every pore,
one unabashed the other hesitant,
one from the past,
the other--future.
Turn away,
we'll look at them later.
Blow out the candle,
the sun has set.

Let's get Leh'd

My homage to the only man who could makes depravity an art form—Charles Bukowski

Fancy some Hummus in Leh?
We walked out,
I needed some hummus,
She walked where we did,
Her face wouldn’t have started wars, nor would it have ended any.
Her face did stir my deep desires.
I moved away, she moved toward,
Our fingers brushed.
We passed each other,
I turned around, she didn’t.
We walked in,
I needed some hummus.


It is all a conspiracy, believe me.

The city, the dusty boring city is 10050 meters above mean sea level. The climb up to the illustrious castle, in disrepair, was steep. The other two were racing each other—a gym rat race. Those with beer bellies flopping in the breeze, like yours truly, can’t race gym rats. They do, however, pass judgments.
I was running out of breath. I was at the top. Still wheezing, I was shown a village, still within the rehabilitation project.
“We should scream—Screw you Chinese bastards—just for the sake of it,” I said, expecting my comment to be received with quiet contempt that my observations had received through the last three days. I didn’t give a royal, flying fuck.
“Why?” she asked.
“Maybe, that crater is,” I pointed to an unmade foundation hole, “shelled by the Chinese and the government didn't tell you,” baiting her to ignore. She didn’t. “You call yourself a journalist?” she asked.

Vocal contempt! I loved the punishment.

“You shouldn’t believe everything your government tells you, it usually lies,” I told her.
“Don’t tell anyone you are a journalist,” she replied.

There were several instances I could have narrated where senior, expert journalists trusted the government and were left with their foot in the mouth, but this was getting funny. The quiet cultural floozies versus me. The fight begins.

She narrated the same story to him. He loved the punishment met out to me. I loved it too, but my pleasure wasn’t where they felt it was.

“Maybe it was a water balloon,” he smirked. The two looked at me. Laughing, mocking, looking down at me.
“I know, that is a foundation site, you guys have no imagination.” I explained. Why did I explain? I wanted them to keep pushing themselves down that road. But then, I had a propeller up my ass and enthusiasm is overvalued.

They exchanged meaningful glances.

A few days ago, both, had spat and ridiculed the concept of masochism. Now both, shamelessly, indulged in it. Oh the irony of it all.

I got up, ran towards them and pushed them off the cliff, my arms wrapped around them. The wind whistled in my ears. They cried, screamed, the ground was approaching. Gravity, my friend, is an ugly, unforgiving bitch. We were going to be the proverbial pulp on the sidewalk.

"Imagination, creativity makes you flexible, expands your horizons. Letting the child take over doesn't make you stupid, it gives you perspective... a smile, try it," I bellowed over the wind and the screams.

“Let’s go, there is a climb left,” he said as he prepared himself for the ascent. She eagerly followed. She always followed.

My knee hurt, so did my ankle.
“Fuck you. Fuck you,” I told my knee. It wouldn’t take my weight.
Mind over matter, the stupa awaited us. Fucking Gumpa.


P.S: This isn't meant to offend anyone. I am not complaining. I loved every second of my journey up and, then subsequently, down. It was something that could be best described as, how a dear friend would call it, flash fiction.

Three friends, a fishing boat and the secret to levitation- continued

II

Abe stared at the sea. He held in his hands, a net, coarse to his delicate fingers. “Abe, the net,” his father screamed at him to keep the net taut. It was three years ago, since he was offered a way out. They had promised to meet at the bus stop the next day at noon. He had written a goodbye letter, he had packed his bags and was ready to leave when he fell down the stairs. Curiously, his parents never found the goodbye letter. Abe had debated leaving to find that mysterious messiah but his childish innocence tied him tied him to his little world, even though he knew it was small, too small. He had once packed and reached the bus stop but didn’t know which bus to get into. So, here he was. Living the life his father planned for him and it did not involve flying. His life, he thought, was wasting one day at a time. He convinced himself he was not selling his soul for the simpler pleasures of life. Abe’s dreams were less vivid, he dreamed about cabbage and beetroot. Once he dreamed a tiger was let loose in their village. None of them let him fly.

The sea spat back at him, it was time to take it in, dawn was just about to break. The sky was turning the colour of a newlywed bride—a pink hue on an almost white sky. The sea gulls flew over his boat, their wings ruffling in the wind, just like the sheets of a marriage bed. Wisps of dark clouds like her eyelashes completed his fantasy. It was the beginning of a new day, a new passage in his life. He was now wedded to his dream. Not many understood this. They preferred to avoid Abe; his parents ignored his rambling as long as he was the best fisherman in the village, which he was.

He did however; find comfort in two other friends. They gave him one thing a 15 year old never asks for—quiet. The three were entirely comfortable in the absence of conversation. They had once spent an entire evening walking on the beach, not a word said, not a meaningful glance or a nudge. They just walked.

Amongst all the other around him these two were the only ones he had spoken to, briefly, about the mysterious man. Abe felt closer to Mahesh—known for his strength—rather than Abu—known for nothing in particular. Abu obediently sided with the majority. Luckily for him, he never had to make a choice. Mahesh and Abe never argued.

III

“I think, this time I might leave,” Abe whispered. Mahesh grunted. He looked at the bidi he had stolen from his father’s drawer. It smelt foul but he saw the adults suck at it and often, on a cold wet evening, hold it with some reverence. He was always amused.

“What do you think, Abu?” Abe asked, raising his eyebrows. Abu shrugged. He never knew what could be said in such a situation. The more he thought about it, the more he realised, he didn’t know what to say in any situation, except when his grandmother asked him if he wanted fish. Abu’s grandmother was an excellent cook, but she could never get the fish right. She always left it raw. Abu liked it. He insisted that it was the food of the future.

It would mark three years the next day since he met that man. All he had to do was get on the bus that left the village at noon and get off the last stop. This was the only logical way he could trace the steps of the man who would teach him to fly.

“I think, this time I might leave,” Abe repeated. Mahesh nodded, he patted his pocket. Mahesh had a letter Abe wrote ever week to give to his parents when he left. At the end of every week he gave Mahesh another letter and tore the previous one. Mahesh always silently pocketed it. Never a question asked, never an explanation offered. Abu nodded, he held out a small sock that had odd coins and notes and handed it over. This was another tradition, every week; Abe added a few coins and Abu hid it. Neither of the two friends ever responded. Usually, the three walked back home in absolute silence, but this time Abe took a detour; he went back to his boat while the other two walked home.

Mahesh knew this morning felt different. When he woke up, there was a knot in his stomach. The sky was different. Dawn was early. The sky was white, like the shroud on a corpse. The white was punctuated by a few deep dark clouds, the shade of a hand, which had slipped the tightly tied shroud, where the blood had coagulated. The sea gulls were making an infernal racket. They sounded like the wailing of the widow. This day, he felt, was the death of something important. He didn’t remember this till he got back home after awkwardly waving at Abe as he walked towards that wretched boat.

Creation, Destruction and Everything in the Middle

This tale was born on Colva’s premier beach. I cut the umbilical cord with the buzz that accompanies copious amount of beer on a cold February night. The story has been since stewing in the recesses of my mind, unable to see the light of day until another story pushed it out.

It has been, personally, one of the toughest weeks of my life; I think I did it well this time. No breakdowns, I didn’t give in to temptation and I kept my head firmly in place. But this isn’t the story of my bravado it is the one I narrated on a beach while chewing on a wonderful chocolate chip muffin.

Three friends, a fishing boat and the secret to levitation
The three lights were constant on Colva's horizon. People had stopped questioning who those bobbing lights belonged to. Many years ago a geology grad had explained, to the locals, it was the reflection of a methane eruption usually seen when garbage is dumped offshore. "In a few million years it will be oil," he said brightly. A few god-fearing fishermen had ascertained it was where damnation and earth met. "It is all described in those missing pages that the Vatican doesn't want us to read," they concluded. The lifeguards dismissed it as a whale with a tag that reflects when the moon shines on it. No one knows of a whale in South Goa; if there was one, it would have been on our tables.

Old man Crab said he knew. No one paid heed to the old man. He was old, wrinkled, had long arguments with dogs, was a vegetarian and looked like a hermit crab. No one listens to someone who ties their house—a cardboard box—on their back. But Crab knew and when Crab died, the secret died with him. Crab died in peculiar circumstances, he was as strong as a horse, the three bouncers from the posh beach shack up the beach can testify to that. He had once wrestled the three men, a fourth his age, beat them into submission and then bought them beer. Crab, witnesses said, was seen screaming—he is back—while pointing at an even older man, he then kneeled over and died. I met that mysterious old man, and here is that story…

I

A young boy, not more than thirteen, his shirt unbuttoned, his school shorts dirty with wet sand and sea shells ran the beach with abandon, he ran everywhere, he often hoped, if he ran fast enough he would take off. It was his dream to fly.

We all have dreams in which we fly. These flying dreams, according to popular psychology, tell us about the state of mind. We fly over cliffs and over monuments, we fly out of tough situations and some of us fly into tough situations—if you have a messiah complex. But not this boy, when dreamed off flying he could smell the salt and he could hear the cries of the sea gulls, he felt the wind ruffling his hair. He saw his hair, it was long and curled, and it also had a few beads in it. He always woke up when he saw his hair. He had these dreams in the afternoon in an abandoned boat, where he would rest to escape the white heat of the sun.

This day, his boat was the home to an old man.

He was certainly not a local, his accent was different. He had wrinkled skin, his shirt so baggy it covered his fingers, his pants were held up, gracefully, by a piece of cloth tied around his waist. His shaggy beard covered his face, his hair—dark—dropped to his eyes.

“You love to run, don’t you?” the old man asked. The old man looked familiar, the boy didn’t reply. “Have you tried to fly?” the old man asked. The boy nodded.

“Come with me, Abe and I’ll teach you.”

It is never too cold for a warm mug of tea

What is the right temperature to talk politics? It certainly wasn’t in a draughty room, with a half packet of un-smoked cigarettes, cheap rum, bad wine and a packet of potato chips—lays.

I remember one sanctimonious bitch telling me, “stop calling it Ruffles Lays, it isn’t. It is just lays,” after which the pig-headed-mental-age-of-16 woman-child rolled her eyes. “It isn’t just lays, it is Frito Lays, you dumbfuck! Next time you get in trouble, call fucking Pepsi,” I didn’t say. But that is what exactly came to me when I sat there in that room which had five window panes missing. I have these moments. I am a petty and vindictive man when it comes to ungrateful pricks who don’t know how to spell gratitude.

The weather, Google later told me, was 1 degree Centigrade and windy. I could have sworn it was 1 degree Fahrenheit and a blizzard. For those who didn’t know or were too lazy to get the gag—1 degree Fahrenheit is -32 degrees Celsius. Do the math. Now, you get it? Attaboy!

But don’t they discuss politics, if ever, when it is the last digit before zero, near a fire place in the living room? Do they make fireplaces in living rooms anymore? And before we move on, who are these they? I have to find them. They make odd rules—don’t drink water after eating a watermelon. Don’t run before the sun is out. Why the fuck not?

I digress.

Let me start from the beginning.

I was sitting with the Colonel and four strangers at 10,000 feet above sea level in Lachung, Sikkim. The four friends worked together in the same store selling clothes. They had taken a few vacations together. One of them was married; none of them had a proper education and all of them were younger than, both, the Colonel and I. In any normal circumstance, you wouldn’t find us two city boys sharing a drink, a few laughs and drinking stories with four salesmen from Murshidabad. I am not looking down at them; I am looking down at us. But this was not any ordinary circumstance, this was special. This was the Colonel’s time and it was one fucking degree centigrade. Did I say that already? I will say that again.

The Colonel, for the record, loves to let people stumble their way in and out of conversations. He leads them like a predator, sniffing around them, pushing them into a corner and when the time is right—the smart comment and the wry smile. Score! Smart man the Colonel.

Why am I whining without anything happening? Just you wait.

“Do you vote,” the colonel asked them. Surprisingly, the boys, whose crowning glory was holding down a job for two years and managing to score homemade alcohol, loved politics.

“We do, whenever we can.”

“Communist in your state, who in your district.”

“Congress and it shall be forever.”

The colonel and I, grudgingly, loved where this would take us. “Why Congress?” I spat. Hoping the disdain for the very average but uninspiring thieving fools would stay out.

“He [Congress elected leader from rural West Bengal] has done a lot of good. He has paved the streets, cleaned up the city and he doesn’t let us blare the horns after 5 pm, he [the humble and honest leader] says it is illegal,” said one rather proudly. The four boys were proud of their city and its hand in banning frustrating horns snared, especially, by the idiot outside my window. Could we send his sorry ass to Murshiadbad? He would like it there. Why? You don’t ask. The boys enticed us to visit by telling stories about the sights and sounds and how easy it was to score a hot steamy night of anonymous sex. Apparently Mr Murshidabad lets brothels and a good, healthy trade of marijuana flourish under his rule but not legitimate voting procedures? Now, wait. I just violated two rules of writing—1) Answer one question before getting on another and 2) Get to the bloody point. I will.

“There have been reports that he [the humble and honest leader] has faked votes,” one of them said and he smiled. I was shocked. I knew these things happen. I watch The Simpsons too. But these guys said it with pride. It was whatever-holiday-the-colonel-believed-in came early for the Colonel. The Colonel smiled with genuine delight. The child was handed his candy.

“You still trust the system,” Colonel asked, what he hoped was, a rhetorical question. The wry smile, the smart comment, this was it. Or was it?

“Yes. Obviously,” one said.

What?!

“There was another man who tried to stand up to [the humble and honest leader] but [the humble and honest leader] was a gangster, before he turned politician, and the man was never seen again,” another said with even more pride, implicating [the humble and honest leader] had him killed.

“Do you know anyone who had his vote faked?” asked both the Colonel and I. Both smelling a story. No said one. No said the second. No said the third and the fourth guy said nothing at all. The conversation then veered to the reason why younger women married older men.

“Who had his vote faked,” I asked the fourth. The boy smiled. I offered him my cigarette and lit it for him.

“My mum,” he said.

“How did she come to know?”

“She went to the polling booth and [the humble and honest leader] told her the vote was made and she could go home.”

“Did you complain?”

“She would have voted for him anyway. Why would I? We don’t have time for this. And I don’t want to disappear.”

Fuck.

Before I wrote this blog, I was screaming and yelling at the TV screen almost having forgotten about this conversation. Renuka Chowdhury was squirming her way out of TV interviews and had given feeble excuses about the food price rise. I screamed: this why I don’t vote. All of you are fools. This system is broken. No one can be happy in this system.

Except those four from Murshidabad, I suppose. It was 13 degrees centigrade in Mumbai and it seemed cold, even then, to talk politics.

The Incessant Reruns

I am back. Back? Back, yes. Can you believe it? After one year of eerie silence in the cyberspace, I return. I wouldn’t say I haven’t been spewing words into this ingenious world of 1s and 0s but to put pen to the metamorphic paper—that hasn’t been done in a while. The colonel’s furious and unnerving note making, pushed me over the edge. Apart from running down snowy slopes howling like a bitch in heat the colonel inspired me to write—again. The colonel is a very inspiring human being. I’ll, as the subsequent blogs pan out, describe the colonel in detail and with a lot of colour. He is the one responsible of pushing me down into the chasm of writing—for you. Yes, dear reader, for you.

I live this pointless life for you. I make mental notes to tell you, funny anecdotes to narrate, plagiarise one liners to make you sniffle and plentiful more. I am, as I claim to be, a budding social commentator and a failed comic. I like to call my brand of humour as vague.

Vague humour translates to—not really funny, but usually interesting observations that you usually miss or choose to ignore. Erm… I’ll stop defending myself.
In the 5Ws (or was it 4Ws?) and 1H there is a Why? Why am I back? Like I said before, blame the colonel. His revolution has enamoured me and he has his first and, I can safely say, final recruit.

Solemn oath:
This blog, henceforth, won’t philosophize especially by using immature metaphors. It will stick to a topic and rant. There will be no talk of wolves or any other animals of the night, unless I spot one and I talk about it. Otherwise, rest assured, Mr Sociologist has left the building.


Feels good to get that off my chest. You must wonder have I wasted your time? I won’t debate it, I have. You are here, because I have either arm twisted you into reading this or you are me. Not many bother. If you are a potential employer, I am flattered. But please, don’t judge me through this. I am better than this.
This blog won’t be an Ayn Rand-like monotony of self-righteous vomit, nor will it be Paulo Coelho’s pop spirituality. I won’t attempt a Tom Robbin’s brand of humour. I won’t be as clinical as George Orwell. I won’t be as dramatic as Franz Kafka. I am better than the second and I am not good as the third. The first is a bitch who never got laid and hence her bitter life entombs her writing. The others are out of my league and comparing myself, even in physical presence, is like erm me and George Orwell. There is none.
If you, dear reader, are an Ayn Rand loving zombie who can’t stand the thought of me whipping out my dong and bathing her grave in my spite, I would implore you to read other authors and leave this blog. Goodbye.

You still here? Excellent. Either you don’t like Rand just like me, or you want to see where it goes. Or you have a lot of time to kill. Either ways, this preamble is a peek into the life I have lived in the last one year. The places I have travelled to and the people I spoke to. There is a story everywhere and I promise to narrate them, the only way I know how to—brain farts. (Brain farts—this word isn’t mine. It was used to describe my attempts to turn my usually witty self into a social networking celebrity. I doubt it was her invention but we won’t dive into it. God bless her.)

I will start with my trip to the Sikkim then drive into Raigad, shove my ramblings into Pushkar and then love-fucking-dale—Ooty. Hopefully, I can wrap all of these up before my next one.

To think about it, this entire blog was thought, planned and written on a grubby platform in a rundown old town in West Bengal, while I waited four hours for a train to steam into the station. Yes, it was a long time for someone who did not have a lot to think about.