Musings Of The Lonely Runner

Forty Days, Three Races and Two Weddings Later...

2011-12-18T17:33:00.002+05:30

Over the past month and a half life for me has been all over the road, in airport terminals, in strange places and and in strange beds and I am only now beginning to put the pieces back together. Back to back footraces, weddings, work pressure and a steady sleep deficit has taken a toll.

Now I am looking forward to a month of quiet and no travel, and a dear old friend visiting me before my first ever marathon. Boy am I excited!!

Despite my training going for a toss in November, my running's gone up several notches – I ran the Bangalore Ultra in mid November, the Delhi Half Marathon in end November and the Goa River Half Marathon last Sunday. I managed a personal best on the half-marathon in Delhi shaving off 22 minutes from my previous, and ran another one couple of weeks later to settle on being a 2.10 half marathoner for this year. Next year I intend to breach sub-2 barrier for good. Between running long runs from Goregaon to NCPA, I have become more confident about 20/30+ km distances.

Not to say that I don’t get beat up, but just that I can take the beating with a smile nowadays.

So finally took a short break this time after the race, and hung back in South Goa with some of my runner buddies. Two days of eating snapper and prawns, sleeping eight hours, drinking wine and swimming at Colva seems to have done the trick of cutting out the lag.

Toying with the idea of getting a custom domain for my blog, and other home improvements but lets see how they work out.

Looking forward to uninterrupted blogging through the last month of the year.

P.S.I spent some rushed time hanging around in my old campus in Delhi, with some of my good friends. Even if it was a small cup of tea, it felt great sitting in the dhaba and taking a stroll down memory lane, however short.

We Laugh..

2011-11-02T20:58:00.000+05:30

...and,
the smile drags on, like a wrinkle on your pretty face

like green leaves in a cold cold dark Delhi winter

something that's outlived its purpose.

Like us.

Like the suffix no one gives a damn about,

and the windows which remain forever closed.

Atleast you cared enough,

to fake a laugh.

(Thank you)

Dopey!

2011-10-08T12:58:00.000+05:30

It has been more than a month since i blogged, and so much has changed in since then till today. Its almost like i hard booted my life, without the unpleasantness and the jarring.

I have always had this nagging suspicion i have been an exotic sort of a closet addict - my drug of choice keeps changing. I loved chewing gum and collecting the cricketer cards that came with it till the day i kicked the habit, i was absolutely into re-reading Tolkien in college till i found little time for it, i was absolutely into my girlfriend till we broke up, playing football and partying when i was in Delhi for two years, etc etc. The list of my misdemeanors and fetishes go on, and you basically get my drift. Right?

Now for the past two months i have been doping on running, and through some of my running buddies i have been introduced to a new side of the city i never saw - the lush green forests and rolling hills in the middle of Mumbai. Talk about hallucinations, and now imagine they are real - those are definitely the best kind. The coffee tastes different, just better. So does the occasional pizza and beer. The longer distances have started seeming shorter, and since i run at dawn the days seem to have more hours than the twenty four.

An unwitting casualty has been my blogging, especially since my blogging ethic was already quite suspect. Since i try to pack in two longish runs on both weekends, on top of the usual workload and socializing there remains little time to actually do some writing.

But I have laid my hands on two books - one of which I am reading right now - The Thousand Autumns of De Zoet and the other, a graphic novel, which I am greedily eyeing every now and then - Habibi by Craig Thompson. Maybe I will try a book review or two next..

On Nothingness and Nothing else...

2011-08-25T21:46:00.001+05:30

I just ran my first above-five miler on the roads around my house in about three months. I am drenched in the thin leaky drizzle that Mumbai seems to be blessed with these days, my shoes are filthy and soaking wet and i think i will catch a cold.

I am sure I will catch a cold!

But I still can't help but wonder how these runs seem to repeat a pattern. Since i barely warm up before my runs, my lungs keep screaming for me to stop in the first few minutes. After some more time when I settle in, my legs start to hurt and i start thinking of taking the first walk break. And somewhere beyond that, suddenly something clears up and everything else clicks into place.

You don't feel your legs falling on the ground, you forget about the pain and just kind of drift off..into nothingness. You don't think about the minutes ticking by or the bend in the road or the sweat on your forehead..you somehow simply exist by the rythm and sound of your breath.

Frankly, i think too much fuss is made about finding oneself - losing yourself feels better (and right) somehow.

Coffee, the Cliche and a Curtain Call

2011-08-14T17:05:00.002+05:30

I always knew coffee was addictive..i am only finding out how addictive coffee shops can be.

As I write this i am sitting in the crowded food court of the mall next door to my house, sipping on a Gloria Jean's cappucino..so i have some experience. I finished office work last weekend, paid credit card bills and sent emails yesterday and now I am blogging here.

I am the cliche...the guy who sits around at the coffee-shop with his laptop. I never seemed to understand him before..now i have become him.

As to my changed blog title - the morbid soul has been around for some time now (spreading cheer, candyfloss and sunshine..you get the drift?) and I think it's time for a gracious exit. I am still as morbid, but its less of 'me' after four years of intermittent blog posts, unremarkable verse and memories.

I definitely plan on writing more about running (duh!), my office and the people I meet. The morbid stuff will still be doled out in bite-size pieces. As Kierkegaard so cleverly put it - "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

P.S. I think I am going to cry :) ...and off I go to get my cappucino refill.

The Dogtown Chronicles No.2 : The Prescript

2011-07-18T04:03:00.001+05:30

P.S - this is actually a prescript for later posts.

I think I need to talk about my work more often.. my work-life or the lack of it. Considering that I might end up spending roughly 14 years working (assuming i live to retire at 60), i think this post cannot be early enough.

In it's own way Dogtown has been kind to me so far, and the occasional rant maybe even things out. I guess my heavily layered cynicism will obscure the fact that I actually like my job, ahead of the ones I might have been doing otherwise..and unlike many and fewer still who will actually admit, I actually have a nice boss.

Perspective first! Contrary to everything they tell you or read about in newspapers, working at a brokerage is far from a Sunday holiday camp. People get fired most unceremoniously, and they might just be the luckier souls. The paycheck claims more than its fair share of your life and holidays.

To add to that I work in research, which in the world of high finance has as much oomph as a carefully pickled cucumber. And judging from evidence at hand, a cucumber's probably cooler as well.

I work through oil spooks, nuclear spills and scams - carefully churning out pages of research notes and strategy recommendations, which i'd believe get promptly consigned to the posterity of online documenting hosting sites and workplace dumpsters. Sometimes we get queries, commissions and other happy stuff.

Did I mention that all of Mumbai's skies seem to open up when i travel to work these mornings?

Haiku from a room under the roof

2011-06-14T21:59:00.002+05:30

My feet feel so tired,
from hours of sleep & standing still.
My beard looks funny too.

Back home, I miss the rains
and salt-crusted winds of Mumbai.
Can't wait to curse them, on my return.

I like the mad people sometimes,
when I understand. The ones who make sense
all the time, less so.

'Bili' The Bad Boy

2011-06-09T09:53:00.000+05:30

I hope the name says it all.

I have been down with jaundice for the past couple of weeks later. The 'Bili'rubin strikes again.

After a week of high fever, jaundiced dreams and a general lack in life I was hospitalized. Which brings me to the best part.

I discovered that dextrose drips feel cool and vitamin-K shots sting like hell. I also discovered that antibiotics and general listlessness makes you dream weird stuff (lets leave it at that!). I also discovered that the newness of a hospital wears off between the 30th and 31st hour and its a general downhill from there.

So here I am banished to Kolkata, off so many foods it's actually funny. I drink juices and glucose water and pop vitamin pills through the day. I just finished reading "War" by Sebastian Junger and now I am on this sweetly geeky novel by Charles Yu called "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe". I watch Game of Thrones and The Office episodes from time to time.

I have lost around 8kgs in the past week. I think I still look like a man who's been hit by something heavy...possibly a meteor.

The Dogtown Chronicles No.1

2011-05-19T21:24:00.001+05:30

My bittersweet relationship with long commutes continue.

I love the fact that you can get so much stuff done in the morning train or auto ride. Catching up on news and emails, sneaking in that Shins song to get your day started or even reading a book are just some of the less exotic stuff you can get done. You get to see the characters and lonely dogs in these wee hours too.

It's the evenings that are really painful, especially now that my work's shifted to this god forsaken patch of reclaimed creek land. You get elbowed, kneed and head-butted on the trains from Bandra and there are the usual impossible auto drivers to deal with when i get down at Malad. Early evenings at BKC are late nights here.

Watched Thor last weekend (after two weeks of crazy schedules which nearly made me miss it) - it was kind of a damp squib really. Asgard was a letdown, and everything else was well..forgettable. But what it made me realize is that I really want a badass hammer like Mjolnir. Nay, I need it!

I got this bright brainwave of reading (more like listening to) audio-books on the treadmill, so I am off to try this out.

I without my Ipod

2011-03-24T21:58:00.001+05:30

...am a polar bear without ice, am Google without the Doodles, am the guy who listens to music on sorry Dell laptop speakers.

I never realised how important my Ipod has become, especially as constant company on my daily commute on the suburban trains, and autos on the alleyways of Mumbai..till now. I never realised how much my playlist through the day, punctuates/expresses exactly how my day passes..till now.

Firstly, the problem. My Ipod has this recurring problem where it needs to be restored everytime it gets synced. That's fine. Now, it syncs but doesn't show any music on the drive. So I tried different things - restored my ipod, uninstalled and reinstalled itunes, scrubbed my library and put it back in. Nothing works.

So I need to go visit Apple support soon.

Till then however, I miss listening to Wye Oak's latest album and Jack Johnson. I ache for it at the office, and its difficult to open youtube channels at work. I hang forlorn on the trains, looking at the ear-phoned commuter with envy.

Till then, March runs limp. Till then, my days are a language not spoken.

Because of the times...

2011-02-28T20:59:00.000+05:30

...i have been away and infrequent when it comes to blogging.

That and the long hours, financial markets gone cuckoo and the uncomfortable fact that brokerages are no longer the pampering industry they used to be (unlike the earlier parts of this decade). Did I mention that I procrastinate too?

So what's been happening? I finally fixed my knee (don't know how) so I run now and then - i plan to run my first marathon this running season. I am hooked on Red Bull and coffee. I am trying to find places to learn Mandarin - still looking. I finished reading Jan Guillou's excellent Arn trilogy - all ordered from Flipkart, who couriered them across superfast. I got a subscription to the Economist - not that I dislike it, but I dislike the notion of (one of those cliches of the financial industry).

Thing is, that the past two months have actually been a blur of long weeks and weekend work - and I am still clutching at straws here.

Win Win

2011-02-02T23:41:00.002+05:30

Either...
Life is too beautiful to be sad,
or I am too drunk to be sober!

Tube-light

2011-01-17T01:47:00.002+05:30

This is one of those bright ideas I get on sunday nights/monday mornings - writing and reading all night long in a red-bull fueled daze.

My entire week gets conveniently screwed.

Atleast I get to spend the weekend in Kolkata.

The End of It All.

2010-12-30T00:36:00.003+05:30

Just back today from Kolkata over christmas, and the beer at Golpark, Oly, cheap wine at home and the iced jim beam's at Some Place Else hasn't settled in yet. Neither has the chicken sandwiches on Indigo or the tiredness. I am sleep deprived and as usual heavily caffeinated.

Looking back the year wasn't half bad - I fell in and out of love and other things. I fell out of one job into another. A few more pages of writing for our graphic novel. Discovered my love for kentucky bourbons. I ran two half marathons - hopefully two of many more to come. Bought a camera after years of waiting around. Continued writing bad verse. Watched all of "That 70s Show"...at least whatever that counts. Read more Murakami. Discovered "The Funeral" by the Band of Horses. Did a Woodie Allen marathon. Still looking for Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.

Strange how the year draws to an end, sometimes it feels stranger that it draws to an end at all, after all the shit.

More arbit musings to come next year.

A very happy new year to me and everyone other unfortunate soul reading this.

Here and There..

2010-12-19T23:33:00.000+05:30

For all you music lovers..me and Sir Rat are blogging here on music that we love listening to in loops. Add your likes or dislikes..we will hopefully be more regular going ahead.

Also most of my future verse shall be put up here..just to resuscitate one of my older blogs.

Terminal Update

2010-12-08T11:02:00.000+05:30

I wait in the gleaming chrome and spotless carpets, haggard from lack of sleep and quasi-doped on coffee and red bull..I slouch within the very innards of the Delhi airport waiting to be chewed up, left to stew and finally to be spit out at Dehradun. The Uniyals (for want of a better name) get married today, and I am there to see two of my best friends tying the knot. Did I mention its vegetarian and no booze served?

And I am off again tomorrow. Back to Delhi, spend a few hours with bro and another flight back I will be in Mumbai.

A couple of weeks later, the same ritual; only this time to Kolkata, for quality R&R with family and old friends.

My life seems to be in endless transit, an ugly graffiti of lost baggage claims, un-insured and unsure.

P.S. Very late update on Delhi Half - apart from the obvious highlights of Gul Panag and the mini riot at the finishing line, I finished the half but only around the 2.20 hour mark. My knee got a little busted, and now I am aching to get back to my routine runs. Of course there needs to be a lot of stairs/hill work for the knees.

For Fourteen Days After...

2010-11-08T00:10:00.001+05:30

I just booked my tickets for Delhi, and all excited about the half-marathon (Its my first Delhi half). Also being the only race this season (my Mumbai registration was messed up because of a misplaced timing certificate) I want to start and end strong here. There is a 10K the weekend after at Priyadarshini Park, but thats all.

So my vela weeks look like this now:
Mon - Rest
Tue/Wed/Thu/Fri - 5kms (mostly speedwork)
Sat - 8kms easy run
Sun - 12kms easy run

Most of it has been on the treadmill, but next week should be on the roads around my house (at the risk of shooting life insurance premiums).

Last run in Mumbai should be a 16km long run on the road, and then a steady taper with lots of pasta and pizza.

Looking to improve on my 2:40hr time at Mumbai last year...I should be completing the course around the 2hr mark this time.

Here goes nothing!!

A Bargain

2010-11-01T01:39:00.001+05:30

Give yourself away..like old furniture in garage sales.

Live your life, don't think about me,

Again.

Live a different life.

I could have had better words for this,

Wish I did, but

I need to keep it simple too.

Sometimes, on rainy days

behind closed doors,

I will think about us, you know i will.

And, I will unmake promises too.

The songs are all undone now.

The notes are all unstruck. Only,

The fan blades rumble and hiss.

At times, sometimes

I wonder why..

We never did say our goodbyes with a kiss.

(Or did we hold them back?

Kept them safe as souveniers of a lost war perhaps?

Or as trophies of fallen lovers?)

A Rant On Pigeons

2010-10-05T23:04:00.004+05:30

I am under pigeon attack...or more aptly my flat is under pigeon attack. Since the past week they sneak in through any window left barely open..an entire gang of them.

Now I know what Shaun (as in Shaun of the Dead) felt like surrounded by zombies. Except that it's worse for me.

See I think zombies are perfectly decent people on the whole - they grumble a bit if you hit them with a cricket bat (who wouldn't), never seem to be in a mood for conversation (can't complain about that one), seem to have a slight anger management problem on their hands (understandable again, if they had to see themselves in the mirror everyday i.e.), terrible oral hygiene (my dad always used to say gum was bad for my teeth) and they wait for the slightest chance to tear your limbs apart (ever had a bad boss?). All forgiven!!

Now imagine the zombies laying siege, and as soon as they break in..instead of delivering quick, sweet death they start shitting around you, all around you, all the time. They would be called pigeons.

Let the pigeon wars begin!! Grrrrr..

p.s A pigeon ~ Game bird, Columbia livia; young about 4 weeks old is a squab. A 150-g portion is an extremely rich source of iron, a rich source of protein, niacin, and vitamins B₁ and B₂; contains 20 g of fat; supplies 350 kcal (1500 kJ).

Back in Black

2010-07-30T00:06:00.001+05:30

So I am back in new improved black...and white fonts. Drab, unsexy and perfectly professional..very morbid! Notice the clever connections i make to the name of this drab, unsexy and less trodden blog.

I am back in black..

Musings of a Movie Buff

2010-04-29T01:59:00.005+05:30

Sunday was lost in a lot of green after-smoke, brilliant movies, and studies. Talk about engaging weekends..

It was a good old friend's birthday on Tuesday, who rang me up for the party on Monday night after a particularly irritating day at work. So after some haggling (work the next day, studies bla bla bla) I ended up at this really cool wine place near Versova till wee hours. I stared at the maps of French wine growing regions splotched all over its ceilings, sipping on wine and digging into apple pie, and this particularly funny joke about saints and wolves...

...which is all good, but is a complete ramble away from what this post is about.

So I have always been a huge fan of Wes Anderson, and particularly his celebration of the dysfunctional and the bizarre. Which brings me to another man whose handling of the subtle ironies in life in his movies have become somewhat of a drug for me..Woody Allen.

Funny how that bug never bit me before!

Of Coffee, Colaba and a rule of Thumb

2010-04-19T03:54:00.007+05:30

Of late I have taken to drinking coffee at weird hours of the day now. Not the usual morning cuppa, but mugs of steaming hot black coffee at night. The kind that comes innocently laced with insomnia..the kind that you can't do without, but you'd later wish you could.

Dead child was in and out of town, and we met up in colaba for the usual touristy pilgrimage of the shrines at gateway, mondegar, theo and marine drive. An evening of back to back games of bowling left my thumb sore...and now the spacebar, the 'c' and the 'o' on my keyboard refuses to work unless repeatedly punched and prodded by the big T.

There is only so much the thumb can take...and it has made it's very mangled presence felt through the day. While typing, opening a can, texting...you get the drift, right? So amidst all the pain, there's new-found respect that I discovered for my big thumb.

P.S. after a long hiatus (a year, or two?), finally I have started adding more words to the lost 'graphic novel'. Hope my friends haven't yet bailed out.

Another season, Yet another kopper

2010-04-12T00:26:00.003+05:30

So Liverpool drew another game today, and the remaining scraps of timid, vain hope went flying out of the window. Probably a fitting curtain call on whatever remains of a truly gut-busting season for Liverpool fans.

We shall limp to fifth or sixth place and pull our weight in the Europa League next year..aaargh!!

And so I come to Leslie Feist and her awesomeness which sustained me through most of March!! and this one song by the Shins

(about a hectic week late) From the Land of Sand and Feni..

2010-04-04T23:51:00.009+05:30

Borkar's reception was a brilliant affair down at Majorda..took us more than an hour to travel from Porvorim and down, but it was more than worth it.

The next day was a blur of zipping around on scooters from end to end, through palm dotted roads, sleepy bylanes and an odd innocuous cathedral thrown into the middle of it all. We swam at Vagator, lunched at Baga and at the end of an extremely tiring day, dinner was at one of the cheerful restaurants in Candolim.

And after a brief Carlsberg stoned hour at Arambol next day (and several lifts later to get back to civilisation)..I was on the short flight back to Mumbai alone, cradling a copy of an Ian McEwan novel for comfort.

And here I am in the dying hours of another Sunday, still lusting after the shores of Arambol.

The Weekend before The Weekend

2010-03-24T23:05:00.003+05:30

So I am off to Goa..again.

There should soon be stories of a genuine wedding reception, comatose hours spent in and out of a beach/shack, blue-green sea stoned hours in the March summer sun and bottles of port wine that I smuggled back.

When I thought about buying a KKR jersey, I thought about this....

2010-03-23T22:08:00.009+05:30

This was the year I thought I might go and buy a Kolkata Knight Riders jersey this time around.

Not that I watch too all that many IPL games but just somehow when you are away from home for some time you tend to crowd around its symbols, root for its soccer and cricket clubs. Somehow the rolls would taste all the better when you tell people about it, the shops we would buy booze from and the metro stations seem shinier.

Back home, somehow this never did bother me. Being a part of this city, living and breathing in it..rhyming along in this jigsaw of poetry...yet another piece in its endless turning wheel, moving smoothly through time.

Needless to mention, I never got around to buying the jersey..

A Song for Tonight

2010-03-13T06:56:00.012+05:30

I see you. Now and then.

Everything you say is a song to me,

And everything else tiny scribbles in my black book.

You talk of yourself, and the walks you take

And the dogs you never had.

But,

Tonight the air around you hangs heavy.

Heavy with…

The promise of riches beyond this world

And stolen kisses on dark stairs.

Warm sighs of love in the cold winter air.

And your hand to hold in my own.

And tonight I can leave everything for you.

I will leave behind my stars and the sun,

The known faces, familiar streets, friendly pubs,

The box of fading photographs,

And memories will be forgotten too.

We will go down the winding path and narrow alleys

…of our love.

Take a train to nameless places, and forgotten isles.

End up on a beach where our seas meet.

We will make a bonfire there

And around the flames we shall dance,
...to our song.

(For that is all there is…)

My 'got nothing better to write about' Post

2010-03-11T23:02:00.008+05:30

So the past weeks I was in between shifting apartments, getting my internet connection and spending my now-usual long nights at work over endless cups of black coffee.

And here are three lessons that I learned in the past three weeks:

1) Calling people an irritatingly frequent number of times gets things done rather quickly. So ironically you might end up making less phone calls.

2) A post-paid connection has its virtues (despite me preaching to the contrary all this time)..no wonder what I have now.

3) You don't go out for morning runs without a watch. That's what I am looking for now..

Also you don't run around dogs at the crack of dawn..they will always catch up. When they do, that's when the cell phone comes handy.

p.s. Never fail to wonder how the black coffee rounds out a wholesome, healthy workplace scene

The Plan...

2010-02-08T00:01:00.002+05:30

I am drowning out of choice here..
Drowning in self-loathing, and my own sorrow
Sinking in the mangled, pleasure-ridden bodies,
and the heap of legs and feet and arms and lips
by the side of my bed.

I drown everyday in existential debate,
ones that concern fruitless gains and my fate.
With every day, I rise once more..
Sisyphus unchained.

I drown, on the last gasps of your memories,
memories of us as they fade.

I will drown some more...
drown out the clamour, and the people around.
Sink into the quicksand of this city,
Take its eyes, smell and heart..and the whispers
and become a stranger to my own.

A Half Marathon and Symptoms of a Stress Fracture

2010-01-28T23:56:00.003+05:30

I ran my first half-marathon the Sunday before last, and I finished strong.

It's also the day I fell in love with this city, with its people, with its winding alleyways, the shady corners, the gentle ups and downs on its roads, the smell of the sea in the breeze...and it all happened where the street rolls up a hill near Peddar Road.

And after the run, we ended up at Mondy's with a pitcher of beer, chilly beef and awfully sore legs..

which leads me to what I began with..what I stumbled upon a few days back.

Wide-angle

2010-01-09T12:00:00.003+05:30

I live and sleep in between forlorn piles of books read, half-finished, still to be read and crumpled..between takeaway menus and clothes and long empty bottles of beer and DVD's waiting to be watched. I swat mosquitoes, listen to the Silversun Pickups and watch football.

At times I blog....

Dying Lights

2009-12-28T00:59:00.001+05:30

This was written in Goa, typed on my cell (the qwerty came good) after staying up all night drinking on the beach, and the first draft proof-read by Ru the following evening. Thanks Ru!

Empty vacuous words and half-truths, ours
Crashing down on the shores we shared,
Dragging back our castles in the sand
Back to where they belong..
At the bottom of the sea, and its cold belly inside.
Let them rest and rust,
Amongst forgotten treasure hoards of gold,
Skeletons of ghost ships and whale bones.

How all of it unravelled and came apart
In a storm of light and tears,
Wave by wave, grain by grain..slowly,
It dissolved to nothingness, like bubbles of magic weak.
Almost without a trace or mark.

There is something left of it, after all.
The faint dying embers at the fork in the road,
Something to clutch at in the dark and lonesome times
The wet sand, and our togetherness that was.

There and Back Again (a potboiler involving old friends, lots of beer, one red snapper and Goa)

2009-12-23T01:24:00.005+05:30

There's still sand in my sneakers...thought I shook out the last grains back at the Mapusa bus-stand, but some stuck. The t-shirts are still rolled up in the backpack, and the bottles of port wine and feni are lined up by the side of the bed as if to face a firing squad.

So I finally had my much awaited break from work after a crazy two months...the old Presi gang re-united on the beaches of Goa, in a place overlooking a not-so-clean swimming pool. Well not the whole team, but in enough numbers to fool you into believing so.

We stayed a little off Calangute..tucked away nicely between Candolim and the main Calangute beach. A great beach with the right amount of people in it, shacks dishing out chilled beer and great beef chilly..and just a stone's throw from our hotel.

We chilled out in the shade, bathed in the sea, guzzled beer, probably destroyed half of Goa's marine life on our dinner plates, did an all-nighter on the beach and in the hotel. We walked on the beach, made calls and texted friends who couldn' make it.

We also made promises to keep meeting every year in Goa in the same week, but I guess time tests us all.

And then it was over..we were tired, and everybody needed getting back to their lives..everyone had to catch flights, trains and buses. And so limped back into town in a cramped up bus, with a bad cold and a worse Goa hangover.

Its tuesday night, and in the morning off I go.. back to the false ceilings, glass doors, central a/c and my 'ergonomic' chair. It's a damn pity I can't drink beer there.

From morning on, I will be going rat-a-tat on my office pc keyboard and maybe it'll be another month to my next post.

So Much For Asterix

2009-11-07T00:06:00.005+05:30

So when I was a kid, I loved Asterix comic books. Nothing's changed, I still do.

Where else would you find a roman called 'Nefarius Purpus', a goth by the name of 'Rhetoric', a briton calling himself 'Dipsomaniax' and a gallic wife of a fisherman named 'Bacteria'.

So I always wanted to buy all the Asterix comic books...so now I have a plan: I go and buy an Asterix album every month.

Yesterday I bought my very first one: "The Mansion of Gods".

So I checked. My brother wiki tells me, there are 34 in all (i.e. unless Uderzo in a fit of chronic flatulence turns out another lumpen turd like the "The Falling Sky")

So 33 more months till another domino topples.

I guess this is how dreams become faded grey memories in the end.

In the past few days...

2009-11-02T01:14:00.009+05:30

Time and the associated creativity that comes with listlessness has gone for a long toss.. kolkata and home was my last reprieve. Its gone now. Goodbye.

I was proud of finishing two books on the flights to home and back...'Road' by Cormac McCarthy (well almost) and 'The Bleachers' by John Grisham. At the moment, I am lapping up 'Amsterdam' by Ian McEwan on morning auto-rides to work.

Wrote something decent out of the kolkata airport waiting area..Something that I always wanted to.

Watched 'Paranormal Activity' which I found even better than 'REC', along with reruns of 'All the President's Men' and this old 1970 Japanese anime series that i used to watch.

Been listening to The Perishers and Airborne Toxic Event all day and night long...with some Interpol in the pauses and stops.

Got a surprise call from someone i used to know better.

Sometimes life seems to go around in loops as well...

...and circles.

Tonight I Said Goodbye

2009-10-14T00:38:00.004+05:30

I seem to write more verse these days than prose, and at times its pissing off. I wrote this one on Sunday in the Kolkata airport, while waiting for my delayed flight back to Mumbai. Yes, i was back home for a week. (There might be more changes but i had to publish this.

Leaving the city tonight.

Picked up the memories, and stowed them away…

Wrapped in flimsy cardboard, safe

And close to my heart.

No sleep for the journey back, away from you…

Only caffeine blues, mellow and light

…with a heavy heart, on the red eye flight,

From happiness,

To empty apartments and empty sex.

No peace when I close my eyes,

The scent of your perfume lingers on in my head.

The brush of your skin still warm, and raw.

The lilt of your voice, loops on in my head

We’d never seemed closer, and yet

We always knew (it all along)… that,

This was the long goodbye.

Now the gods howl, and the rains cry

Enough for the two of us, enough while we grow old.

Jet fumes mark the miles between us, and the

Strawberry fields have grown sour and cold.

We are strangers now, to each other

With a stranger past, still intertwined…

And the years have since moved on.

A paracetamol poem is of the order...

2009-09-06T20:57:00.003+05:30

Finally put my beer demons to rest over the past week, and now its black label and margaritas for me.

and finally after a really long time i partied till late morning and spent saturday nibbling on my last potent bunch of liquor chocolates (a long story).

Its sunday..and i went for my weekend long run, and ended up with a bad flu with all the rains and all.

Here's to another languid week...of more of the same!

the other day at work...

2009-08-18T00:49:00.006+05:30

I just returned home from work..bruised with boredom, and harried and exhausted. Seventeen hours of my day i spent working..a personal best (worst?) for me

The funny thing is while on the cab-ride back home, i could not think of seventeen hours i spent doing something else.

I wracked my tired brain over all the activities life has afforded me: sleep, brood, do nothing, play computer games, watch movies, make love..and this is the haunting answer i came back with.

Nothing..work in office is all i had done.

Sometimes its funny...the fact that a fatter paycheck actually stretches limits of human endurance, and more particularly my own.

Rest of the times..its just plain scary!

Picture Perfect

2009-08-09T08:42:00.008+05:30

I thought the picture had faded,
to black and white and dust.
Polaroid on reverse, put to rest.

Seemed like time took its toll,
healed yet another soul.
Seemed like i finally let go.

Stumbled upon the photograph last day.

Lying in a dusty shelf;
still a warm gray
and an angry shade of blue.

Ffwd back

2009-08-08T23:17:00.007+05:30

Summer came and passed in a blur of breakup blues, new job honeymooning, greasy pizzas and beer.

Monsoon came with the customary rain battered auto rides to office...and they say it has already passed. They say the rains have passed, but the dark clouds and the curious smell stay.

Said my goodbyes to a friend leaving Mumbai a couple of weeks back, and now i hear that people back home i could share a drink with, get lesser by the month.

Now its time to wait for Winter, but i guess there is no winter coming this year!

skipread recommended

2009-03-29T13:31:00.002+05:30

Why do people get this incredible urge to put their thoughts to pen and paper?

Sometimes I wonder why people bother to read the written word and pages of prose, love a book and even treasure some.

How many times have we seen lonely people huddled over the crimpled pages of a hoarded book, reading it yet again in the hope that they would glean something new in this reading? Maybe it is to travel to some distant land of unknown people and a language he does not speak nor understand… to lose themselves in the feeling of belonging to something utterly foreign, distant but still achingly familiar. Maybe it is to read about people in love and relive their romances, to convince themselves of happier times to come, of the first rains or their home cities. Maybe it is not. But that is how I see it.

It is simpler for me that way.

Why am I writing what I am? It is only at times I get wracked by these bouts of honesty, and almost spontaneously I reach out and start writing. There are thoughts rushing, which you can no longer keep track of but need to write it all down in a mad mad rush… and laugh at it when my madness has passed.

I am a terrible writer. Not just because I am vague and clueless. But rather I believe writing something meaningful is practically exhibitionism. To write good literature is to go nude, leaving not just empty words on pages but exposing yourself to a certain amount of lechery. I am a prude when it comes to that. I am terrified of having the layers peeled off from me and standing there just in my bones and words.

This is why I am as terrible to read as I am.

P.S. I will try and publish this as soon as possible to preempt myself from deleting this post, and possibly to put an end to my horrible blogging work ethic.

2009-03-29T13:03:00.002+05:30

And I just hung up the phone…
Did what I had called up to do
Still choking on my excuses and alibis
Trying to scream out the tears I didn’t shed
Till now.

I remember.
When we were younger…
In the days when we still used to smile
Remember the grass beneath the both of us,
When we used to lie…
Your arms wrapped tight around mine.
All of that seems so far, so distant…
It doesn’t feel like a part of me at all.

How could something that started with a kiss,
And a hug…
Finally come to this.

SNAFU!!

2009-01-13T01:16:00.006+05:30

I shall blame it all on work, and long office hours, countless cups of sweet milky coffee and listless hours spent punching the keyboard spelling out economic pishtosh.

Doesn’t matter what the accusations are, now that I am working I shall proudly cower behind the all too obvious protection of employment. Well if the accusation is “Why haven’t you been blogging?” it kinda fits, but if it is “Why did you kill Roger Rabbit” it is open for debate. I have made my point, and rather subtly I would like to believe.

I am between shifting jobs, and currently a homeless destitute sleeping in the living room at a colleague’s place in Thane. Let’s call my friend ‘Mongol’, not just for what I think is more than a passing resemblance to the hordes, but more so for his rather macabre interest in inventing new torture methods. He had once infamously suggested burying people in limestone, almost with childish glee. Mongol however is a nice jovial soul who is actually a good friend… and he’s letting me stay in his living room. I mention Mongol because I am sure we will hear more of him…he makes a good blog post.

The past few months have taught me a lot. I learnt all these nifty keyboard shortcuts which are good for showing off at times. I learnt that managers don’t really manage anything in an offshore; they crack sad jokes and keep giving their absolutely unwanted views on everything from rocketing prices of guano (that’s exaggeration) to using an iMac as a TV (that’s fact), giving you deadlines you can’t possibly meet and hold regular meetings within themselves to discuss ways in which to thwart being lynched by disgruntled employees. I have learnt that to be a good manager you need to show considerable promise in your language skills, especially proper use of phrases like ‘ideation’, ‘leverage’, and ‘actionable solution paradigm’ along with an instinct to take credit that was undeserved and passing the blame for any fiasco down the food chain.

Well colleagues are a different matter all together…there are good ones, and then there are the ones you feel like strangling with the phone cord. There is nothing inherently wrong with them. However when they start talking a lot, it makes you feel like gnawing at the keyboard in front of you in the hope that you will choke to death before you hear too much. So when it comes down to survival, killing the other seems an easier option.

I am leaving for Delhi the day after for the weekend, a day long journey on a rickety train… so JNU here I come again.

The Circus Shifts...

2008-09-14T01:05:00.006+05:30

Three months its been since i shipped here from Kolkata, three months since i started working, three months i started spending my own money rather than my dad's (and how it stings), three months of stiff creased fresh ironed shirts and daily shaves in the morning.

Its been about three months since my friends stopped hearing from me.

Its been much more than three months since my last post..

and now the circus has shifted to Mumbai, or rather suburban Thane... a shitfuck place even a fly wont bother about. Imagine an entire town or city without a proper bookshop!!!?...

and so i shall talk about new stuff and old stuff.. about layoffs and love, books and buddies, homies and roomies, more of the bad shit which i shall pass off as poetry and more rambling posts about nothingness...

and abrupt endings to the same.

Last Leaf from Delhi

2008-05-14T10:23:00.006+05:30

{This post was typed on the morning of my last day in Delhi but was only posted in Kolkata after 3 days since}

It’s a beautiful morning today with a breeze and a mild hangover and a hot chole bhature for breakfast. This is also my last blogpost from JNU and Delhi. As I sit here listening to Green Day (no. not time of my life) yesterday goes through my mind, almost like a favourite tune that you keep humming.

Packing is done. The boxes are taped shut. The suitcase locked. The bags overflowing. Me and Honkor (I shall call Shady2.. Honkor from now on for no particular earthly reason) visited Dilli Haat and tasted the bambooshoot and rajamirchi and pork for the last time, for a long time to come. I visited one of my favourite bongs on campus.. the barber at KC. I got a massage, chatted enthusiastically about Kolkata and tipped him and said goodbye.

Evening was with Kadu, Park, Shirley and Uga at Ramsingh Dhaba. We listened to and shared puke stories from Scindia School, from South Korea and from Presidency while we gorged on tawa chicken. Me and Uga bought some Carlsberg and went over to kadu and Park’s place. More puke stories followed, along with other weird stories about weird porn. We talked about horror movies, we talked of traveling and meeting up in Mumbai and Delhi and South Korea, we talked of laptops and splurging, we talked of the good times and the pics, we talked of holi and the tshirt tearing that had happened. We made plans of Goa trips and Mumbai tours. We heard how old Haryanvi grannies apparently say ‘Randi’ a lot, we were in splits how kadu had confused her dad’s name once and now its messed up on all official records. Honkor had dropped in from a wedding reception and we boozed some more. Finally it was time to say farewell, and boy!… it got all emotional and serious. I felt so bad and I waved goodbye from the door, from down the stairs, from outside their balcony.. And as i told Honkor while we trudged back drunkenly.. It feels so bad leaving behind good friends that you have made but it feels good to know that you have good friends atleast and it makes two years of JNU all the more worthwhile.

I will be meeting Rijula and Ajit sometime in the morning. With all the UPSC exams next week they are all busy and working to death.

It’s the same boring journey on the Rajdhani in the evening and tomorrow its going to be Kolkata and mum’s food.

2008-05-07T14:16:00.006+05:30

The last week to be in Delhi, has been almost like just another week in Delhi. Exams are almost over, except for a political thought exam where i shall go ranting and raving about Mill and Marx and Hegel.

After some introspection i came to the conclusion that masters wasnt a total loss of two years. I think MA in Econ gives you perspective i believe..it gave me one, about all the subjects i am miserable at. No go in Eco..that was the moral of the painfully long story. Also been planning whether i should go down to Goa every fortnight or every month when i am in Mumbai.

Roommate bought a dell laptop. Shady2 (i.e. the roomie) is too busy with civil services prep, henceforth i lounge about in the room with these really cool pair of wireless headphones watching umpteen number of movies. Tried to learn photoshop to help out with the graphic novel, but cant make head or tail of it, hence thats shunted as stuff to do in kolkata.

Delhi and all that will be Left Behind

2008-04-18T22:22:00.011+05:30

I am leaving delhi next month..two years of my life spent, Dad's money wasted, plenty of classes bunked and a number of professor's wrath incurred, plenty of places travelled, nevertheless a lot of things learned and finally a job landed..ergo time to take a pitstop in kolkata (funny how i still feel funny when i say kolkata instead of calcutta) for a month, before i push off for mumbai.

Every day i get on an auto i start wondering how much i'll miss them..i'll miss the delhi roads, i will miss living in a city where vehicles do actually get to run at more than 20kph.You never know.. along every turn and every bend in the city, there might be some ancient bit of history that shall jump out from the sodden leaves of a history book.. or some shortcut, or some trivial bit of discovery that will intrigue you.

i'll miss all the shuttling around inside the city with elder brother in search of kebabs from Nizammudin or the biryani from New Friends or my first tryst with sheermal.

I will miss food..especially the bambooshoot pork and raja mirchi from the Naga stall in DilliHaat. Its almost a craving that i have, and is one of the hazards of leaving delhi.

I will miss my room, even though its probably the dirtiest 20ftx20ft space save a KMC garbage dump. The cobwebs on the ceiling and fossilized remnants of various things under the bed shall be sorely missed. The fact that i never managed to do much work in the room is much appreciated on hindsight.

I shall miss the delhi lingo which i so amusedly picked up, starting from midnight trips to the Sangam 'thekaa' behind the 'jhuggis', to saying 'haannji' instead of 'haanji'. I shall miss the wonderfully raucous and obscene derivatives of abuse that i get to hear on the streets. I shall miss using them very freely as well.

JNU shall be missed. The trees, the hostels, the landmarks, the academic area, the long walks and the morning runs around the stadium and the football matches which we played all over the campus. The crispy dry lamb you get from Kiecha, and the Slice of Italy calzones shall be fondly remembered. The entertainment value of the all the loony characters i met, political jumbos spewing leftist mumbo, economics classes regarding neo-marxian critique of globalization and all the social consciousness shall not be missed, but not forgotten either i guess. It goes without saying the same applies to the friends i made in JNU. That was untrue, just in case you bought that.

I am feeling kind of solemn, and i am not sure whether the post seems that as well. In case it is, it was never intended. In case its not..all is hale and hearty.

2008-03-17T23:33:00.003+05:30

exams, fever, more exams, bad cough, phlegm blocking the oxygen to my brain, more fever, delusional dreams, sweaty sleep shaking all night under the quilt, blood-tests and then a fucking anticlimax- the common cold.
What more can I ask for?

When you have nothing to say you go Bla Bla Bla...

2008-02-20T07:32:00.005+05:30

Its been so long i have been away from my blog and the rest of my existence online. Not for a single reason..but a variety of them. Had gone down for a week to jodhpur with my parents to my elder bro's place and travelled down to jaisalmer, a happy family.

Had plenty of parties in JNU with some college buddies who were in town, nearly broke my back trying to drag this friend of mine who got too sloshed. We had to kick him, slap him, drag him by all fours, on twos and then finally managed to tuck him into bed.

Managed to watch plenty of movies, and catch up on the 'Golden Compass' by Philip Pullman- both the movie and the book, and i have to admit though the movie was enjoyable, but the book is far better mainly because the movie has taken far too many liberties with the book and left out vast portions of narrative and changed parts of the plot as well.

Actually i am trying to come up with a host of excuses to cover my laziness. Period!

Icebox

2008-01-27T09:49:00.000+05:30

It was P's birthday..a couple of days back. I went, stood around in freezing cold for an hour in the terrace to surprise her..and surprise her i did, after which me, sanju and P binged on chocolate cake and pizza. Aaah good times..
My nose feels like its frostbitten..and this cursed wind refuses to stop. I wonder when Delhi shall get out of these sub-zero levels..

more guttural sounds...

2008-01-11T23:09:00.000+05:30

Never been so busy with studies since JNU.. I practically had to run out of the bed to attend a auction theory class.. I never do that, i need the long leisurely stroll with the around the dreamy-haze-thing world where you try to remember what day is it, then the month and so on..

So i basically run around most days, read 2 newspapers out of israel and another out of beirut for my israeli foreign policy.. and try to plan a football match at last this semester.

On my way back from classes today, i dropped in a friends' room who got plenty of goodies from kathmandu.. and he got something called lapsy candies..which are these amazing candy strips of some fruit.

I just got up from watching this movie called 'Atonement', with amazing direction by Joe Wright, and brilliant cinematography. A Must watch..

Pangs..all sorts of them

2008-01-07T17:43:00.000+05:30

I had to spend the entire morning and afternoon running around for registration work for this semester. I dislike that. Not the registration bit, but the running around bit. Add filing up the same information in seven differently coloured folios only adds to my misery. More so when I don’t have enough papers to choose from.. Especially the ones which people sneer at, but you have an assured A. I am in a quandary.

Did I also mention I am broke? I am.. Barely 50 rupees in my wallet and none in the account. I need to call up my parents to bail me out again as always.

I am tired and unshaved and scruffy too.

I watched this movie yesterday called The Notebook which was a simple movie and a predictable ending. Think I will add to my misery by watching Beowulf this evening.

And I don’t like the fact that the spell-check refuses to accept the spellings we learnt in school..

The Same ol' Drill

2008-01-04T10:21:00.000+05:30

Woooopy!! Its a new year again..ripe with the promises of further academic failure, greater parental remonstration at the habits that i have come to love, sexual tension (thats a good and bad), this weird Brownian Motion in my friends circle except that its not at all random..i can almost picture them on concentric loops moving away (the whiskey i suspect), more whining at the cold, the heat. the jats, the roads and the people in them, more beer, more india-hopping, more smelly socks and unwashed clothes.. and more blogposts full of all the above.

Been reading this excellent book- 'When Genius Failed' on the meltdown of LTCM, one of the biggest hedge funds ever, which crashed at its peak and nearly took the international financial system along with it. Its an amazing read and a book review would be in the works once i finish reading it.

Sigh!

2007-12-29T10:11:00.000+05:30

Its been a long time… since my last post, this post has been a long time coming. Exams are over, so is the monsoon semester, so are placements. As i sit in the Delhi cold in a corner room in a hostel in a far flung corner of JNU listening to Eddie Vedder's 'Hard Sun' all i can think of are friends. Friends whom i met once, and those who are soon going to be liberally scattered all over India. So i will just write about my friends…

Raodude is in Mumbai. He was working with dev benegal and homi adjania on their forthcoming projects. He recently joined deutsche bank and working movies on the side.

Sonulla is in Cal now. She sat for CAT and I think she’ll make it. Otherwise she’ll be moving to Mumbai in search of a new job.

DebuChow is in Delhi a stones throw away from JNU, but I haven’t met him this semester. I think he wants to get placed in Mumbai as well.

MalBan is in Cal and loving her work in Telegraph. I think she might move out of Cal next year.

Dead Child is in Delhi currently, and I heard she plans to move to Mumbai too.

Pseudo, Srijita and Sudipto are all in Cal. They got placed in Bangalore and will probably shift out there.

Ronpa is in Delhi, and I think he’ll go wherever the job will take him, but I have a hunch he would love to be back in Mumbai.

My graphic novel buddies I will call them: SoSerious and Random.

Random is staying in Cal and got placed in Cal. He is happier these days than in the past.
SoSerious got placed, and he might have to move out of Cal to someplace else.

Shady2 is my Roomie. He’s gonna stay over in Delhi and give his UPSC exam. I am going to miss the FIFA grudge matches and the booze sessions and rest of the stupid shit.

Porno is going to pursue further studies and greater introspection on Mao Zedong in JNU. She and Shady2 are going to get engaged in the coming year sometime.

PJ is in Delhi, but she wants to move to Mumbai. I hope she gets to.

NB: (I dont know all details and some might be dated. Also some of it might be some fiction, you wouldnt probably know, neither would i…but i am sure you wouldnt mind)

This and that

2007-11-23T08:59:00.000+05:30

Back in delhi, and i have an econometrics exam tomorrow..i will flunk as usual and blame it on the boring stuff thats true, which is true nonetheless.
We had a company coming down from mumbai yesterday, so me and another friend went to pick the guys up, and we waited at the domestic airport and marvelled at all the weirdness that travels by air these days.
and the guys turned up, and it was the same old goodcop-badcop routine which they did.
had lunch at nirulas, a measly burger though..
and missing my camera which i left back at home..
and heres a pic which i took in mcleodganj..

coming home of a hurried man

2007-11-16T10:57:00.000+05:30

I have been busy..

busy since the day the train carried me back home..

busy gulping down the familiar roads and the familiar crowds milling around at the crossings and the corners,

busy gulping down the squalor and the stench, and the adda with old friends and the same old stories which are passed around the circle everytime we meet up, but still manage to leave us in splits each time..

busy gulping down the rezala mum makes and the 'bhaars' of mishti doi..

busy gulping down all the news regarding Nandigram and wondering how long does it take?

been busy with a coupla friends to get a graphic novel out next year sometime.. story is being developed, a few panels of concept art have been done, so maybe i will post it sometime later.

Bottomline..I have been busy.

to have eggs or not to have eggs?

2007-10-23T16:35:00.000+05:30

So much has been going for the past fortnight... a trip to dharamsala with P, both of us had dreadful colds so we sneezed and sniffed throughout the trip.. But it was fun all the same, and the weather was good and sunny and there were white fluffy clouds during the day. We hogged on stuffed potatoes and lasagne, stuffed ourselves with wine..

There is this wonderful movie i watched called 'The Letters from Iwo Jima' directed by Clint Eastwood as part of the Iwo Jima Project, providing the Japanese perspective to the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theater of WW II, the other part being 'Flags of our Fathers' narrating the same events from the American point of view. Ken Watanabe(Katsumoto from The Last Samurai) steals the show with his stellar performance again with his portrayal as the pragmatic Japanese commander General Kuribayashi.

I downloaded this nifty web-browser called Flock, that lets you link up your flickr, blogger and other media or social networking accounts you have once the features activated making navigation that much easier..and also streams updates making you keep in sync with whats happening.

And finally i downloaded the Google Desktop an hour or so back, which one of my friends recommended it to me..and its a must have i say. You can add gadgets to the sidebar to listen to music from radio.blog, receive feeds from news sites, open gtalk and remember orkut birthdays and customize it as you want...there are a million possibilities.

And i am also looking for a ride back to Calcutta in November, but there seems to be a million more people looking for the same tickets.

All this and my dad keeps telling me to have eggs in the morning everytime he calls up..

A Lot of BlaBla and Some BullShit!!!

2007-10-05T08:47:00.000+05:30

I am down with a bad cold topped with occasional fever, and by bad i mean baaad! I have been sneezing in my room, and i have come to a conclusion that somehow i must be allergic to my room, because i sneeze only in my room..

Because of this fever (atleast thats what i am pointing the gun at presently) i am flunking my econometrics exam which implies dire consequences for me.. since my work will be based on running regressions through the greener part of my life, albeit to earn greeenbacks.

Photography has gone for a long toss, and thinking i need to deposit the camera in the safe hands of my parents when i go to cal this november, means probably it went for a long long time.

A Very Important Person told me that i need to feel much more with what i write and not be simply the personal blabla shit that i am on the blog..which is very true, and i agree with her but its unavoidable.

I finally watched 'Syriana' which is a fantastic movie about the influence and designs of the oil complex in the middle-east, watched 'Donnie Darko' which was a fascinatingly dark and weird movie.. watched 'Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy' which was a total disappointment, guess Douglas Adams is a tough lead to follow, and also downloaded and watched 'BladeRunner', based on the shortstory by Philip K. Dick which i again really liked..

I have been very busy you see...

Corridor Katha: Bathroom Singer

2007-09-29T00:35:00.000+05:30

Taking a shower these last few days have been quite a pain..

Theres this new guy in the corridor who has to sing every time he's in the bathroom. With the weird throaty groaning voice he will sing like hes a wannabe indian idol type..i for sure cant sing for peanuts, not even in the bathroom but i know how far you can tolerate..once it makes you wish that you slipped through the drain with the soap and the filth, somewhere far away from that voice, now then the voice has gotta go. Oh did i tell you that i dont even recognise some of the stuff he sings, which pisses me off no end.

Sampler:
aapka pehla pehla nazar
hum pe halka sa asar
dil hua bekarar
abhi sirf aapka intezaar
(falsetto)
Repeat Lines over and over again till you are fed up and tired

James Blunt is really not that bad, it kind of grows on you with time.. i like a few songs actually.
I have a game theory exam tomorrow, that i will flunk is a foregone conclusion.. have been actually playing fifa since the evening.
and writing some more sappy poems which i shall never publish..

SleepTalk

2007-09-21T22:01:00.000+05:30

I just woke up from one of those purposeful sleep sessions that have been so rare since i came to Delhi..this is how it goes for me:

sleep without the alarm on (absolutely essential)
wake up to pee, pee, come back and promptly curl up in the grave again
if there are calls or msgs make it clear that i am very sleepy, maybe just give a groan or two just to emphasize the point
doesnt matter if the lights are on, if i am purposeful enough i wont bat my eyelids
drool on the pillow (again essential)

When i am in cal, alone in my room i generally read books to make me fall off to sleep..just to have good sleep.

I am listening to James Blunt's latest album, its mostly bad.. so i will go listen to The Requiem now.

Ahem

2007-09-16T09:20:00.000+05:30

Midterms are round the corner, and i still need to buy the book, get the notes, understand the stuff and solve problem sheets before i get to sit for the exams..
amongst other things i have become a facebook freakie.. i have been working on a new poem for the past few days, but seems so sloppy havent been able to get past the first three lines.
watched Amadeus, Fiddler on The Roof and The Red Violin yesterday on the trot..
ergo, The Good Life continues.. for now.

FeelShit Post

2007-09-07T14:38:00.000+05:30

The title is supposed to mean exactly what it says, every bit of it. And not even one of those nicely rounded pieces of turd that i feel like, no.. no where close. Its more like my slimy guts are sprayed all over.

Its been a few days since that i have come to understand the existence of my being and the miserable inertia thats there. Its not because i haven't had beer in a long time, not because i have to watch people playing football while i limp by, or studies or the lack of it.

Its just that i met this friend of my elder brother's in delhi.. fairly rustic bloke, perfectly nice, makes amazing mutton curry when i turn up at his place, counts mafia bosses and shooters as his seniors from college in Purnia, Bihar. This is about him.

This guy turned up in Delhi five years back.. with Rs.700 in his pocket, and an accommodation on the floor of a tiny hovel of a distant uncle. The first investment in his job as a salesman was to go and buy 3 shirts for Rs.35 each.. and buy a chatai to sleep on for Rs.45. He sure has come a long way now that he treats people to mutton weekends and rides around on a bike.

Its not his ordeal that makes me feel like shit, and i know there are countless stories like these .. but the fact is that, the more i think about it, the surer i get by the hour, that i don't have the balls big enough to turn up in Delhi with 700 bucks in my pocket.

Things i do to keep me busy

2007-08-29T12:28:00.000+05:30

I play games on my comp or watch movies all the time

Rest of the time i am listening to music..listening to lots of creedence clearwater revival, lynyrd skynard, switchfoot and matchbox20

Once in a while i check my mail and blog and all my social obligations online.

I wonder about how lazy a bum i have become after coming to JNU, but then a voice inside reminds me that i was almost the same in presi too..so then through iterative introspection of a similar manner, i come to the conclusion that its not me but my dad and possibly more of my ancestors who are to blame.

I also think about when will be the next time i meet P, and all the food both of us will hog on.

Since i have already thought so much, i continue on my train of thought and wonder if i am becoming more of an introspective writer and maybe i could write something like this, hoping someone would be stupid enough to buy this shit. I end up earning a potload, and then i leave my job, take up a small flat and never write a book ever again. Chuck the racket once and for all..

I count down the drug-cocktails i need to gulp down my throat every day for the ankle, and i feel thirsty at the thought of chilled fosters, which i cant mix with the medicine now.

I am currently reading Very Good Jeeves to make me feel happy, and having hot cuppa tea in my nifty new mug during breakfast.

Now that i think of it, i am wondering when i study? thats a toughie

I also write arbit posts like these to cure my boredom, and issue apologies such as these which do not state anything in particular to readers unfortunate enough to brave this post till the end.

Of a Sprained Ankle & Other Unhappy Tales

2007-08-22T21:33:00.000+05:30

It all happened when i was playing football.. The field, well looked more like a minefield than the one where you can play..my feet got stuck in a hole and turned in a weird angle and then a weird popping sound, the one you hear when you pop corn..only a bit louder.

The next thing i know i am on an ambulance to the health centre.. a doctor coming and checking my ankle, a frustrated fart in the injections room jabbing my arms full of painkillers with murderous joy. After going for the mandatory x-ray from the hospital, i limp back into my room with a poor excuse of a healthy potato for my right foot, enjoying the small joys of spraining an ankle, you get to roam around in wheelchairs, people offer to get you water and food..

Now that i have been stuck in my room for more than a day there are lots of things i wish i could have done.. like take a bath but i cant stand on my foot, take a shit but i cant because its one of those squat toilets in my hostel, roam around campus with all the free time i have but i cant even drag my wretched foot to the loo at the end of the corridor. My poor roomie has to wake up in the morning to fetch me breakfast, a habit he was never particularly fond of and stock me up with water when hes not there.

So, here i am. A filthy guy who smells of volini, constipated through self-control for now.. who thinks about how he will manage to shit when time actually runs out, plays fifa on the comp endlessly and writes shitty poetry when awake (pun not intended)..

By the bye we won the football match 3-1

Wet Sand & The Sea Inside

2007-08-19T21:08:00.001+05:30

Wet sand of the colour grey,
And the white foam its friend,
Rolling and reeling in the waves…
Call out from the distant bend.

The rolling waves as if,
The call of a thousand voices,
Each gentler than before…
A thousand gentle cries
Of anguish at my pain,
As if it’s their own.

There is a hollow within me tonight,
Which grows with the time passing...
A storm brews in the sea inside, and
Memories drown and die.

The lives I lived and the people met
The roads I took and the lovers loved,
Are a distant blur before my eyes.
Jump cuts, through my life.

How many days more?
How many more?
How long will it take?
Till I am consumed by my dreams,
Nothing left but just occasional reminders
Here and there.

I wait for the sea inside,
With the salty waves of hope
To rub my wounds raw,
Till I give in,
Give in to my dreams.

For that is what I want,
To be swept away on my dreams
To the distant shores
Of my imagination stretched.

After all these years,
I heed the call from the sea inside
Sitting on the wet sand of the beach.

My Experiments with Velaaness

2007-08-15T09:39:00.000+05:30

In case you know the meaning of the strange word, you are probably thinking i fit right in.. and in case you dont you just need to be patient and read through this.

I am unabashedly velaa in campus, starting from the morning to the wee hours of the night. I sit and stare at my computer, read a book here and there, read the newspaper.. take a bath which is no more a luxurious shower but perfunctory splashes of water, thanks to the water crisis. I sometimes have vodka alone in the room like i did a day before, with the darkened room and switchfoot and snowpatrol playing in the background.

When i am sufficiently velaa i scribble on word, and hope that the keyboard doodles start making sense on their own.. so that i could post it on the blog next time. I also seem to have trouble with thinking up the names of the poems i write.. what with creativity and all. I also indulge my voyeuristic tendencies by snooping through blogs and not leaving comments behind, not to mention browsing orkut and facebook and flickr.

When S is there, he talks about his UPSC prep.. so he goes on about fast breeder reactors and IGMDP and i nod my head along to it, and try to quip in with a seemingly intelligent question. When Porno (derivative pseudonym) is there we will go on about how shes infatuated with Mao, now that she has a communist china course.

When i get bored with all of it i play FIFA on the computer, and me and S take turns playing challenge matches.

When i am velaa, which is all the time.. P is always on my mind which makes me happy.

p.s. if you still dont get what velaa it refers to a fat-arsed jobless good for nothing. Now podo, and i wont tell you what that means.

If i were a tag

2007-08-13T21:17:00.000+05:30

got tagged by ruby tuesday, and herein follows the confessions..

If I were a beginning, I would be: the beginning of the end
If I were a month, I would be: october
If I were a day of the week, I would be: saturday
If I were a time of day, I would be: evening time when the sun sets
If I were a planet, I would be: earth
If I were a season, I would be: spring
If I were a sea animal, I would be: a dolphin
If I were a direction, I would be: all the wrong ones in life
If I were a piece of furniture, I would be: the beanbag
If I were a sin, I would be: lust
If I were a liquid, I would be: beer
If I were a fraud/scare, I would be: friendless and rich
If I were a gem, I would be: a blue sapphire
If I were a tree, I would be: krishnachura
If I were a tool, I would be: a pencil
If I were a flower/plant, I would be: carnations
If I were a kind of weather, I would be: the cold in delhi
If I were a musical instrument, I would be: the ghatam
If I were an animal, I would be: a labrador
If I were an emotion, I would be: happiness
If I were a vegetable, I would be: bell peppers
If I were a sound, I would be: falling drops of water on a silent night
If I were an element, I would be: fire
If I were a car, I would be: sold as scrap
If I were a song, I would be: adam's song
If I were a food, I would be: crispy chilli dry lamb
If I were a place, I would be: my home in calcutta
If I were a material, I would be: denim
If I were a taste, I would be: apple
If I were a scent, I would be: the smell of grass after rains
If I were a religion, I would be: misleading
If I were a sentence, I would be: incomplete
If I were a body part, I would be: eyes
If I were a facial expression, I would be: a toothy empty-headed grin
If I were a subject in college, I would be: film studies
If I were a shape, I would be: red balloons
If I were a quantity, I would be: seven
If I were a colour, I would be: blue-black
If I were a thing, I would be: my father's ancient minolta
If I were a landmass, I would be: ladakh
If I were a book, I would be: snow or kara kitap, either of the two
If I were a monument, I would be: forgotten and in ruins
If I were an artist, I would be: Ansel Adams
If I were a collection of poems, I would be: Veinte poemas
If I were a landscape, I would be: the Himalayas
If I were a watch, I would be: digital and glow-at-night
If I were God, I would be: very very busy
If I were a vowel, I would be: a
If I were a consonant, I would be: p
If I were a formula, I would be: H2O
If I were a Science, I would be: astronomy
If I were a theory, I would be: game theory.
If I were a famous person, I would be: a recluse
If I were an electronic equipment, I would be: a zen stone skimming the surface of a lake
If I were a sport, I would be: football
If I were a movie, I would be: almost famous
If I were a cartoon, I would be: asterix or samurai jack
If I were an explorer, I would be: a rolling stone
If I were a scientist, I would be: richard feynman
If I were a relation, I would be: the awkward silence/pauses in between
If I were a river, I would be: dying, just about now
If I were intoxication, I would be: jose cuervo
If I were alone, I would be: thinking
If I were a question, then I would be: is that so?
If I were a hobby, I would be: traveling and photography
If I were a habit, I would be: sleeping through classes
If I were in an atom, I would be: out of breath
If I were an end, I would be: saying goodbye

If I were you, I would be: reading this and nodding my head.

I would be passing this tag on to pj, devjit, ru, and shar.

All about pie

2007-08-09T20:27:00.000+05:30

The day before i was as velaa as the days that came before it, so just ambled over to nearby basant lok market better known as priya, but the names really not that important.. just that its very close to JNU and we pretty much go over now & then.

What however is of importance is this small departmental store at the end of the complex, called Modern Bazaar, on the 2nd floor of which there is the tiny bakery which churns up a delightful apple pie. Now i would like the apple pie microwaved when i get them,but cold ones taste just as well.. its just amazing,with chunks of apple and i think i caught an odd raisin or two. Let the connoisseurs sneer but it tastes damn good.

I have tried out apple strudel at hyaat in kolkata & the apple pie at flurys is/was just too good.I am yet to try out wengers' apple pie, and cant wait to try it.

By the way, did i mention i am a sucker for apple pie?

Baby, Foster Blues

2007-08-05T09:54:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was hectic for obvious reasons.. weekend and all.

P came over to JNU so i had to wake up early morn and try to clean up my room, and stash everything in the closet, i could not. Well she liked my room and lets leave it at that..

Evening i went to this house-warming party thrown by a friend near campus.. dropped P off at the metro, reached late, drank fast and caught up. We managed to keep the neighbours awake with the popping corks of champagne, shouting and loud loud music, and I went rummaging through the ruckus to find a pint bottle of fosters, you know those small bottles which fit snug in your hand which i simply love. Watched with the pint in my hand (yes i did manage to find it) my friend Park's new flat being slowly smashed, wrecked and vandalized by all of us.. now i know why Nero played a fiddle when Rome burnt.. Must have felt pretty damn good.

Me, Mayur and Uga we started a game of pass the bottle/ bottoms up with a khamba of whisky, something which went on for quite some time.

Midnight saw a drunk neighbour dropping in and complaining about the noise. Coupla hours later even the police dropped in to shut us down. Law abiding responsible citizens that we are we did.

All in all a good happy party which gave me the blue foster dreams at night and dreamy foster blues now in the morning..

Back in Delhi

2007-08-01T13:53:00.000+05:30

Well back in Delhi.. in the hustle-bustle of JNU..

Still getting used to the walking bit which makes you wish you had something better to get you around than your sorry pair of legs. And theres this new hostel coming up in front of mine which has robbed me of the simple pleasure of taking the shortcut through the jungle to the academic area.Talking of hostels theres a huge water crisis at mine, which basically means hygiene goes for a toss.

We get beers at Priya these days so that makes me happy. S has moved in with me as my room-mate so we deal in twelvepacks on weekends, we are planning room improvement on the lines of creating a stash of rum and voddy ready..

Auto-rates have been hiked, the buses are more crowded and harder to find..so Delhi, i find is a more expensive city than the one i left back in May.

Well back in Delhi and wishing i was not..

(Till the morning comes again)...

2007-07-28T12:39:00.005+05:30

I cling onto the rushed kiss,
On the stairs as you left.
When you muttered the hushed goodbye,
From so far,
So far to hear.

As my lips grow colder now,
As the kisses we gave, and took
Fade over time.
Grow older.
I cannot wait enough to get back
On the road.
Back on those roads you took.

Follow your trail like the shadow,
The shadow you once shed,
Left behind, cast away.

To follow you like a shadow,
For that is my lot
To drown in your memories each night,
And wash up on the shores
Of sleeplessness each morn
Again and again,
For that is my lot.

Till the morning,
I wake up
With you next to me.

Moving on....

2007-07-13T14:23:00.000+05:30

This is my goodbye post from Bangalore…
The last night in Bangalore was especially good fun, with the IIT Roorkee guy pitching in with a booze treat. So promptly Deepak and Roorkee went and fetched a khamba of Bacardi; The 4 of us accompanied with a guy who does not consume alcohol but only tastes it (by taking several large neat gulps, but that’s a different story altogether) went to the roof to do the misdeeds… man oh man Joy was tipsy from the word go, and he kept shouting out to the planes passing by… I don’t quite dig white rum especially with sprite, so I kept clicking pictures to humor me.
The party ended with the non-consumer of alcohol getting high and breaking a glass, and thank god he did because by then the usual mellow booze chatter about girls, swear words and sports had shifted into a thoroughly intense debate about the multidimensional nature of a sphere and exchange rates.
Hence the party met sudden death, and we all slinked off to our respective nooks and crannies to sleep over our last night after which people will be running helter skelter back to sweethearts in Calcutta or family in Gurgaon… but not me.

Tomorrow I will be in Cochin…
backwaters, palm trees, beaches, people speaking a language I don’t understand, toddy and loads of beef; just thinking about it puts a big goofy grin on my face.

up to nothing

2007-07-11T16:30:00.000+05:30

This is one of those post-paycheck-receipt-adrenalin-rush-induced posts… I just returned from a mad sprint to the electronic city sbi branch, which is not that far from where I am typing this.
I am slightly miffed because I wont get the nervous tingle when I think of my impending kerala trip, simply because I am richer … but I am happy because I can afford to indulge myself at a pub.
Or maybe I can take Bacardi to bed with me…
Amongst other things that I have been up to is consistently giving bad advice to a dear ol friend… in fact I have been doing that since second year in Presi, but surprisingly she still tolerates me.

Misadventures in The Corporate Jungle Pt.4: Learnings and Preachings

2007-07-09T11:27:00.000+05:30

Firstly let’s put things into perspective..an analytics/white-collar job is mind-numbingly boring, the work is so repetitive it will make you feel like bashing your head into the wall just to see some colour on the wall.The managers will talk about quality management,they will try and make you feel good about the job that you do,some might even try to make you feel proud of it (and if you are stupid enough you might just fall for it),there will be accent-neutralization classes which will teach you how to say wiiiidniiisssday and thiiirssday properly, there will be big fat bumbling bosses form the overseas team who will let you know the excellent work that you did,and take home a paycheck ten times bigger than yours just for doing that.I think I am driving my point across way too well here,so lets get down to the catch.The catch is simple..your job sucks, so do your managers.. so how do you survive this shit-pit?

Since my summer corporate stint is ending, and a cubicle-free existence beckons I just thought I would write those overview wrap-up wind down posts on how to survive and flourish. Firstly pretenses do matter at the workplace, few people work, most are slackers and some like me are fakers..these are some of the things I did to survive the boredom at the workplace.
You could read it, mutter to yourself that my balls have traveled the highway up to my head, and write get-well-soon comments..or else you could just contribute by adding your ideas.

Get a cuppa coffee,and pace around the floor as if looking around for someone. Remember not a lazy jaunt, but something between a brisk walk and a steady jog as if in a hurry. This gives the impression that you are busy enough to be drinking your coffee on the go.

Stick to your computer screen like a swatted fly sticks to the wall..everyone will think you are mighty engrossed in your job, and it doesn’t matter if you were checking out the latest airfares.

Have a worried frown at the ready always, just to get the idea that you are quite stressed out at your job, across.

Try to avoid your peers during normal lunch hours..next time you meet them you can go on about the deadline you had to meet.

Make sure that you talk in complicated high sounding phrases about your project, just so that no one actually gets exactly what you are doing and you can pipe in with..yes its kinda difficult

Just if faking gets on your nerves you can pursue one of these fascinating hobbies..try swatting cockroaches,which are pretty darn difficult to find in an office these days, so you will be happily engrossed with this for some time. You can try exploring all the toilets in the building, drinking liters of coffee with a vengeance, trying to fart silently when you are talking to your boss and see his face cringe with pain and more.

I will think of some more points..mean-while I need to finish my project report on the total business process innovation and automated quality management paradigm project. If you did not understand what that meant then go figure!!

P.S. Never take advice from a guy who is worthless enough to sit at his workplace all this while, writing 600 words of pure crap.

2007-07-03T11:25:00.000+05:30

Well i have realized my inspiration comes from curious quarters.. it was one of those realizations which kind of dawn upon you on an uncomfortable bus ride, just between when you are shifting on the seat thinking you would have been better off booking that AC Volvo, and when you think about shooting phlegm on the bald pate of the man in front of you, just to see where it goes.
Yes back to my inspirations…let me see

I read Three Men in a Boat when I was in the fifth standard, but the actual evil of the book engrossed me in the ninth when I was doing a reread… Montmorency the dog who would get in anyone’s way just to get sweared at and make people’s lives miserable became my hero… and yes he does have friends

The other were the Vogons in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy… especially vogon poetry was just a work of a genius… it kinda spurred the poet in me

For people who have read P.G Wodehouse, the name of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge generally makes them think of a clever opportunist who exploits everyone.well guess what.. he was my hero.

I am running short of inspirations to write about..i think this drunkard uncle that i have and havent met in about 5 years was another constant source of inspiration to me, for reasons obvious to all.

this weekend

2007-07-03T11:10:00.000+05:30

Had one hell of a good time this weekend..

had an extremely good boozeup session with the essential metallica, pink floyd and linkin park peppered with tequila shots

bought a digital camera the day next

watched DieHard 4 the same day.. and died laughing during the f-35 chase sequence

left for hyderabad the same day in the evening..rest of the weekend was given to roaming the streets and savouring its biryani.

and here i am in my cubicle typing all this while getting ready to stifle another day which could have been as productive as the rest..

Feverpitch

2007-06-26T11:28:00.000+05:30

Life has been a haze of paracetamols and cheap wine lately.. but the obstinate arse (that I have come to realize) I am, I still turn up at office for work. I shiver and stretch through the 10 hours at work propped up with endless cups of steaming hot coffee and splashes of cold water…
Back at the pg I collapse like a wreck on the sofa to watch Friends reruns and Scrubs.
Before I go to sleep I pop my paracetamol and drift off to dreamland.

a promise

2007-06-25T11:27:00.000+05:30

Torn and broken, I am
Tired of all this shit,
I am not talking about wings or stuff
Like that, I am talking about being torn away
From dreams and happiness and stuff
Like that.

I think about writing how it felt,
Of the long phone call and everything you said,
Of the long pauses and the times you cried
Of the times when you asked me how I felt
And I lied.
I don’t think I want to write about it.

I don’t think I can write those lines,
My pen has run dry, choked
On the dusty memories
Of you.

I think I can only say this, to you…
I will walk my own path
And you shall take yours.
I hardly keep my promises,
But this one I shall make sure,
That my path never crosses yours
Ever again.

BeefeD

2007-06-21T11:47:00.000+05:30

I had a beef curry so bad last night I am off seedy restaurants staffed with seedy people, continuously scratching under their lungis, for some time to come.
It was one of those places were everything seems to be smeared with grease... the chairs, the tables, especially the plates and finally the food. As for the beef itself the lesser said the better.

I am gonna stick to my humble rava idlis and dahi vadas from now on..& pray that i dont end up with projectile puke on the officefloor..

All i need are keds

2007-06-19T12:01:00.000+05:30

I have been missing rockclimbing a lot these days.. I dont know if its because of the bouts of intense inactivity in the weekends or what.. hence I am going to this artificial wall in bangalore for the weekend. I will borrow my roommates keds and try out all the moves on the rock face..
artificial walls will be an ugly cousin of rock faces, but still i can make do without them.

The question is will I be able to borrow the keds or do I need to steal them for a day?

Misadventures in The Corporate Jungle Pt.3: Yawnnn!!!

2007-06-14T14:09:00.000+05:30

You know, I am pretty messed up right now… in the head that is. I have millions of decisions to make on from where to fly back to delhi… trivandrum, cochin, or maybe all the way back from Bangalore.. Whether to take kingfisher or indigo or spicejet.. I am wondering whether I should go to Hyderabad or Coorg over the weekend..

And I am also worried how I can manage to get my paycheck for my second month, before I leave, without which I am pretty much bankrupt…
The payment system in the company is pretty interesting though.. All the paychecks for Bangalore come from Gurgaon, the ones for Kolkata are posted from Bangalore, and we promptly assumed that the Gurgaon ones must be sent from Kolkata. Come to think of it the entire system is a work of genius, to prevent hapless HR’s getting lynched by unpaid irate interns with payment issues. And somehow if theres an analyst rebellion (there are plenty of reasons.. the measly payscale cant afford that xbox or spouse, maybe bad food at canteen, toilets swimming in pee) the poor HR’s in the center will again be the first to go. But with this system all you can do is curse the HR dept. of some other center or at the most send them Viagra spam. It’s a brilliant scheme..I tell you there are intelligent people at the helm who manage things far better than it seems..
Now I am tired, I haven’t typed so hard so long in a long long time. I think I will shift my bum, smile at my mentor, get a coffee and think about the matrix moves I will use to flatten the guy sipping coffee next to me for no particular reason, read the paper, go look for symmetric faces in the crowd… count my hours down till escape, come back to my chair to look busy. But by then I will be all tired with this running around, so back to the coffee machine it is.. with a vengeance.

I love my work…

In Splits

2007-06-11T14:41:00.000+05:30

I just came across this.. and it reminded me of all the classic google april-fools day hoaxes, especially the mentalplex gag

My Beautiful Mistake

2007-06-11T13:00:00.000+05:30

In the night, in the cab
Crowded with tired souls,
On dark and unfamiliar roads,
And dotted with neon trees,
When the world is a blur,
And everything seems to pass me by
In a hurry,
I think of you,
Your knowing smile, and
Your loving eyes.

When I lie on my bed,
Silent soul, still of breath
When I sit on the ledge,
Of the roof,
Counting the eagles in the sky
Watching as they take shape,
And dissolve
My thoughts turn to you
As your memory
Tortures my own.
My very own beautiful disease.

As I write these lines,
I come across a thought, one
I shudder to think of
Losing you to someone else,
Losing you before we met,
Only to blame
Things long left unsaid.

In Short

2007-06-04T18:08:00.000+05:30

The pg is so crowded these days..there is 13 of us miserable souls bundled into a flat which doesn’t seem nice anymore..everywhere you see the newbies in our castle..sprawled out on the couch,in the loo,in front of the tv watching arbit south-indian channels and hindi dubs of spiderman (makri-manav)..when they come close I scowl just to make sure they know they are unwelcome..

I just jotted down in the diary a kind of analysis of my Bangalore trip in short..one of my occasional quirks of my deviant brain..heres how it looks

· Work-hours at office, 5 days a week- 10 to 11 hours on the average.
· Number of times I have been to a decent pub in 21 days- thrice,but once was a really short stay of 20mins, where i had to swig some booze before pushing for the aerosmith concert
· Number of concerts I have attended- 1..the aerosmith concert last Saturday.
· Number of pleasant looking girls I have seen- didn’t really count that one,but I tell you it is a depressing figure.
· Number of times I have been taken on joyrides across Bangalore roads- thrice, since I have tried to use buses or generally stick to known places.
· Number of kannada words I have picked up- 1..illa (means no)
· Number of movies I have watched in Bangalore- three..herbie,cars,shootout at lokhandwala..all on dvd.
· Number of times I have wanted to become a really good photographer since coming to Bangalore- all the time.
· Number of times I have had dosa after coming to Bangalore- once
· Number of friends in Bangalore i have met up with- 0
· Number of times I have been stranded in the office, waiting for a cab- twice, because of the rains.
· The number of times parents have called up to communicate they will cut off the account unless I restrain my expenses- 4
· Number of days I actually restrained my expenses- 4, the day immediately after my parents call

I Need Some Money....

2007-06-01T13:36:00.000+05:30

A few days ago I visited this landmark store.. pretty ordinary at first look, it was huge like other landmark stores, it had everything from cutlery to cameras.. it had the usual crowd at the billing counters..
However it was the comics racks that got me all sweaty.. there I managed to find a hardcover copy of ‘Goodbye Chunky Rice’.. something for which I had the scoured the depths of the torrent sites.

flush flush down the drain went my list of books that I wanted to buy.. Here goes the new one

The List of Books I Will Buy in the Near Future:

Goodbye Chunky Rice- Craig Thompson
Epileptic - David B.
Trainspotting- Irvine Welsh
Liar’s Poker- Michael Lewis
Kashmir Pending- Naseer Ahmed
Farewell to Arms- Ernest Hemingway
Norwegian Wood- Haruki Murakami

The List of Books I Want to Read but will Convince Others to Buy:

Harry Potter- The Deathly Hallows
The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers- Sarnath Banerjee
Lord of the Flies- William Golding
Sophie’s World- Jostein Gaarder
Remains of the Day- Kazuo Ishiguro

The List of Graphic Novels I Still Search Frantically:

Palestine- Joe Sacco
Kings in Disguise- James Vance and Dan Burr
Fun Years- Alison Bechdel
Jimmy Corrigan, Smartest Kid on Earth- Chris Ware
Fax from Sarajevo- Joe Kubert

An Ode to Nothing

2007-05-31T11:46:00.000+05:30

Here I am walking
Down the empty streets
Blinded by the rows of neon
Dazed and reeling from the sounds
The myriad smells leave me numb
I peer at unknown faces to
Perhaps glimpse a friendly gesture
or Face

Tired and bored,
Sit down at the nearest rail,
Cold steel of comfort to touch
Under the red sky dotted with
Dark and gloomy clouds
I patiently wait for the
Rains to give me company
Curled up on my feet
A dog comes crawling,
Sniffing for comfort
It seems. I say,
Lonely friend in lonely night,
I look for my own sweet pill
To put me at ease in
The endless dark

Endless hours pass it seems
Till I give up
My hopes and dreams
Of togetherness and more.
I gently wake up my sleeping friend
Around my feet, by my side
My lone friend throughout the night.
With hope and dreams and
Lies I tell myself.
I walk again with the first ray
Of Light.

rather dull i say

2007-05-28T12:35:00.000+05:30

The weekend was dull other than a good lunch and a booze binge at the club.. as dull as it can possibly be. Went to brigade road to savour its distractions.. promptly got drenched in an appalling thundershower, had to return on an auto with a mad auto driver who abused everyone and everything in Bangalore in fifteen minutes… mums, sisters, roads, politicians, the big cars, the small cars, the rains, the clouds, the drains and even himself.. Great man that.

Scary thing is everyone had expectations when they came to Bangalore.. Joy was looking for symmetry and he is still disappointed, Deepak was looking for good weather and he’s happy, me I have realized that I came only for the food and to misuse parents’ money... faintly depressing that I have no greater calling in the coming months

Misadventures in The Corporate Jungle Pt.2: For a Fruit Grill Sandwich

2007-05-24T12:39:00.000+05:30

Last night after work I opted for a different cab-route, which would drop me about 500m from my block near a fruit juice centre which amongst other things serves the yummiest fruit grill sandwich I have ever sunk my teeth into..

Well, what I did not count on was.. a trio of bong women in my cab, who went on with their inane chitter chatter about all kinds of gossip about their life. I am not exactly averse to gossip you know, it can be fun at times to eavesdrop.. But after 11 painful hours at work all you want to do is sink into your seat on the ride back home and hope no one notices your presence,you hope that you get to hear kannada songs you don’t understand, people should talk in some non-exotic language you cant make head or tails of, people whose faces you wont recognize in the dark cab. Things turned out quite different.

For the next hour I had to keep hearing all kinds jokes on opportunity costs of staying back late at office, relatives as supporting accounts, and parallel economies with room-mates. I cursed my luck and my brethren.. how do you manage to find bengalis everywhere… every nook, cranny or crevice. By now the conversation had shifted to the finer points of the bengali language in the song ‘hey shona’ and a quick narration of the story and bong connection in the movie followed.

I cringe in my seat, and shift uncomfortably, praying the nightmare will pass soon enough. I grip the arms of the seat, and stick my head firmly towards the window and make promises to myself to buy noise-canceling headphones once I start earning, and prepare myself for a long long ride. My gluttony drives me on..

Misadventures in The Corporate Jungle Pt.1

2007-05-21T12:47:00.000+05:30

It takes an eternity while I am scrutinized under the suspicious glares of security, till i am ushered into the inner sanctum…

I look at the swanky office, all glass, the clean floors and more glass with wide-eyed awe… I find that my mentor has turned up. He quickly whisks me away to the team conference room. I follow him stiff limbed, trying to blend in with the décor, jumping around corners, sliding from cover to cover across the cubicled floor, even as I follow him.

We get to the room… we sit down. My mentor explains what is expected of me… I listen and keep nodding my head. I wipe off the beads of sweat on my forehead..

He asks me more about my background… I say ‘M.A. Economics’, he says very good… I stutter ‘from JNU’, he says very good again, I spit out ‘Presidency Eco grad’ he adds a nod to the customary very good. I feel relieved. He tells me to roam about and report later till I get the computer. I shrug.

I roam about the cubicles, all five floors of it; I sit in the cafeteria in the basement… I sit in front of the coffee machine and read the same papers over and over again.. I sit on all five floors waiting for my friends to come out… I try my best to look busy and important… a hand in the pocket, straight-backed, with a frown on your face, and coffee cup in hand…

By the evening, I am sipping on my millionth cup of coffee… I am so bored I could kill for the heck of it… finally I get my computer, and I can work, and work I do till 9.30 at night.

The wheels people pack me up into an overcrowded cab… I am made to squeeze in between this overgrown hairy mammoth who sways to the tune of his ipod, and another smelly guy I did not bother to look at. I quietly swear at them both... it makes me feel slightly comfortable.

I get down at the drop point, trudge back through the apartment complex, the long road, the stairs to the door of the flat, through the door to my room, to my bed and to my tired sleep.

Bangalored!!

2007-05-18T12:08:00.000+05:30

Insomniac in cab.. dark dreary delhi roads.. check-in.. first ray of light.. A-320.. pretty hostesses.. touchdown.. bloodshot eyes,splash of water.. move in with family friend.. feel right at home.. overdose of kadam dosa.. PG hunting.. tamarind rice.. move out.. awesome place on the 7th storey.. mall hopping.. disappointed and distraught.. me and joy on bangalore roads.. conmen for autodrivers.. joyride through bangalore.. further disappointment.. bigfoot bong,forlorn and hunting for shoes.. mango rice, curd,mango juice, mango shake, and more mango.. VH1 till late night.. stiff on the sofa.. and fucking headache.. work begins in the morning.. the last despondent sigh of freedom

p.s. usage of the term bangalored is opposite to the common internationally accepted definition of being laid off. Here it means shifting to bangalore for work and all the inherent wierdness that comes along with it.

On the Rocks

2007-05-09T21:25:00.000+05:30

you lie on the rocks, your head sways gently to the left.. and then again to the right, your hands roll as pudgy masses of goo.. you feel nice and happy.

you look up to the open sky and start counting the stars.. you give up midway to shoo away the odd dog which came along.. you stare at a blob of light which keeps growing till its a fucking airbus in your face..you whistle to catch its attention, but it seems to be in a hurry.

you dont bother because you are so much happier closing your eyes and let the bright lights pass.. you seem to sink in your delicious coma

the booze helps but its just leads you the part of the way.. the rest is who you are

Back from the dead

2007-05-07T12:56:00.000+05:30

Well well... i am back again. For my earlier readers i must clarify that shit did not really happen every other day, in fact month-long constipation was the norm and hence the self imposed exile from blogosphere.

Why did I return??

none of the high-sounding stuff about giving vent to my emotions or tell stories, none of the talk about catharsis of the soul..
i simply have nothing to do and lots of time to kill