Bheegi Billi and other tales

I slowly, carefully slipped my hands through- the left one went first, to the chagrin of the pot-bellied Master Rasul, and then the right, and a few smoothing of creases later, he directed me to a mirror to take a look. The suit felt mighty fine, and unlike what I’d thought, almost weightless. I tried to stretch my arms out wide and had to stop at an unwieldy angle that made me look like an overdressed scarecrow. Ma had the now-ubiquitous “I wish was quick enough to take a photograph now” moment, as Big B started laughing out, too. The tailor was shaking his head when I enquired if I couldn’t stretch my hands beyond the point where I was. He replied through poorly controlled sniggers- “People in suits aren’t really expected to go beyond a shakehand”. That was probably the only dampener in an otherwise supremely satisfying two hundred seconds. As Big B and I concurred, Tashaniya.

While that tailor’s receipt says my abbreviated name will receive that suit two days from now, my name troubles will probably haunt me a day earlier. It’s that big feline day tomorrow, and stories are flowing in from all directions on how the organisers are very particular about identification details, with at least three different levels of frisking and checking. In that regard, it's piquing that my passport, college ID card and ATM card, the only three officially acceptable forms of identity verification I have here, all happen to be slightly different variations of the same 25-character name (without spaces). An identity crisis, indeed.

Talking of that catty event, the venue happens to be another of those million permutations for college names here in Hadduland that go like (random-alphabet)ITAM. Just to make sure, Big B and I did a recon of the venue yesterday. The morons have the only centre in Visakhapatnam a full thirty kilometres off the city. Thankfully, at least twenty-five of those are either on the highway or on a newly-constructed BRTS road. But once you take that dreaded diversion the college board demands, you’re into a sand-and-rocks quagmire in the middle of dense snake-infested forests, flanked ever-so-briefly by an almost out-of-place picturesque lake. I have a feeling Slartibartfast left some of his work over here, too.

***

Five months after the last visit, and more than twelve years after that first landing, I think I’m going to miss Visakhapatnam/Vizag/The city of destiny.

There. I got that out.

O Brother, where art thou?

It’s been over a month since I last gave abstruse hints about my romantic meanderings, dear reader, and to say that it has been just eventful would start a riot. All the attention of the avaricious atrocity that is the world’s largest democracy’s fourth estate has been on Anna, Arundhati and even everybody’s favourite cow, Arindam, has failed to think beyond it. Pardon the ill-advised amour with alliteration- don’t confuse it with acerbity, please- but being averse and apathetic through this succouring of angry acolytes has led to an accretion of... alright, I’ll end your misery before you go all apoplectic with rage. But, you get the idea.

The whole movement gave a mind with a comic bent of, err, mind, so much ammunition for jokes. Yet, for fear of being mobbed and lynched, I couldn’t release it all. Even after this great surge of democratic(?) anger has finally ended in a victory for civil society (refer this for perspective), one hopes it isn’t pyrrhic. And, I have to admit, assuming it’s safe now, that I was never party to it all. That enraged the jingoistic Matkas in Azad even more than my pleas for them to stop calling Jackie, “Kalu” (as Maya Sarabhai would surely aver, that’s so middle-class!). In fact, even through the deluge of Anna-related news all over print, news and Twitter, I looked for diversions. MSD’s boys were bleeding black and blue, the football season hadn’t started, and Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and company hadn’t made an entrance into my life. So what I was up to really?

If you are reading as a present student on campus, I’d probably have rubbed it in a thousand times already that I have no courses this semester. Which means no lectures, no tutorials, no practicals- no contact hours. None. Naught. Nothing. Nada!

It isn’t as rosy as that last word makes it sound, though. Twelve hours of sleep have become indispensable, while the only daily attendance I mark is to one balding Gujju I run into everyday at Nescafe, him not taking Architecture final year as seriously as the rest of that incestuous family. Then, there’s the moping around with the rest of the coffee gang, SMSing Mango to continue her education of the over-hyped Shangri-la that is 5^th year, and the tension-filled conversations at home about feline matters. Thanks to the amazing social anomaly called birthdays, though, I have at least six new novels to get through with. And did I tell you, we get paid eight grand a month for all this? Money for nothing, indeed.

The problem with having so much free time, though, is that you get time to think things over. As I was telling Dang the other day, time may be the best healer, but wounds without closure burn the most. And that is when you’d spot me walking about alone, shorts fluttering with the easy wind, eyes on the lookout for that speck of brilliance always lurking in the sky, and a heart still yearning for the girl with love in her eyes, andflowers in her hair. Did I tell you I was falling in love with Led Zeppelin, too? Anyway, this is the product of the past two months’ random walking. Trusty cell-phone camera earns the xoxo’s. (Mal, I really don’t see how x and o aren’t hugs and kisses, respectively.)

Of Pipers and reason

I was searching for his birthday, since he’s taken every possible measure to hide it, when I stumbled upon these wise words that PeeTeeVee shot at me in a chat. I was then cribbing about how I still had two and a half years to go before I quit this dump, and now as the sand quickly thins down with less than a year to go, it really makes me wonder.

“You know, I don't know if this will make much sense to you, but so many things pass us by when we keep looking forward to someplace else, sometime in the future.”

Random romantic epiphany strikes once again. I sigh, once again.

P.S.- Over the past month, I finally figured out what Stairway To Heaven means. As Plant says in one performance, this is a song about hope.

Life and a box of chocolates

There are some things in a seven-year-old life which you know as facts but have absolutely no idea what the source of that ubiquitous truth is. For example, it is known to every benevolent soul who’s worn a ridiculously decorated conical hat that it’s Lord Ganesha who holds the world record for most puris eaten at a birthday party. Or that The Undertaker has more than one life.

One similarly gathered titbit that garnished a most filling childhood was that Toblerone was the best chocolate in the world. Many a Punjabi kid with relatives in the States would brag about how his cousins would brag about its all-conquering flavours. Taste buds located at least an hour’s drive from the nearest Nirula’s Nutty Buddy would long for a mere taste of those Swiss peaks. Even renditions of Kajol prancing about drunk beyond her wits on the highways of Zurich would only entice mouths hungry for that elusive ultimate cocoa delight.

A close-to-normal life - collecting Tazos, singing this song as the first one as soon as someone finished saying Bolo Ram Ram Ram on the bus back from school, and discussing the day’s Power Zone cartoons while playing cricket in the evening – was never to be the same once it acquired this one direction and purpose: to experience the taste of Toblerone.

It’s a great travesty to romantic justice that I don’t remember how that first pack of Swiss-made treats ended up in our corner of the fridge. But I don’t. And it did. We took almost a week to even touch it, scouring the calendars for an auspicious day to first lay our hands on the end-product of a long, arduous pilgrimage. Then we did, asking Ma to gently open the packaging- its golden foil and triangular top would make a perfect addition to my budding chocolate wrapper and foil collection, I thought. And after a gleaming glance into each other’s joyous eyes, my elder brother and I let one bejewelled piece into each of our gaping mouths. And we closed our eyes for a good few seconds...

Obtaining Toblerone isn’t much of a big deal today, with every other neighbourhood store selling its overpriced versions. Yet, as Pa gently opened another box brought with much excitement from Mumbai airport’s duty-free shops, I felt the same old rush. Perhaps it’s the part of me that refuses to accept growing up that makes eating that chocolate seem like a pilgrimage. Or maybe Toblerone is the best chocolate in the world.

These kids- 2

"Jealousy, like the flawed love that bears it, has no respect for time or space or wisely reasoned argument. Jealousy can raise the dead with a single spiteful taunt, or hate a perfect stranger for nothing more than the sound of his name."- Shantaram.

Sigh. Makes you wonder if it's your jealousy that's flawed, or your love.

Dekho baarish ho rahi hai

The huge huddle in Mishra’s room finally broke out with a collective sigh. While it was relief let out by some, exhaustion was also a part of the air around the Fifth Wing. Merva’s illegible scrawls lay Xeroxed in our hands, as Jynja, Mishra and I ambled around the corridor, filling in on minute details at the eleventh hour. My loose shirt swayed at the sides, as the others scrambled to keep a hold of their loose pages. Downstairs, Haddu joined another jolly bunch in lighting up and away the banalities and vagaries of four long years...

***

Almost proportionally, as the light from the window kept dimming, my chin, unstably resting on my slipping hands, went closer and closer to the books I was supposed to be studying. As I shook up from another unintentional catnap, the darkness outside told a story quite different from the wall clock’s. I got up and trudged that well-worn path to G-27, to find Dela strapping his sandals to reciprocate. Smiling, I asked the obvious question- Coffee, Dile? The weather's amazing outside. He didn’t crib about having a mountain of notes to copy and the usual rants about the insti’s affection for academic bulimia; the cool draft from the back door would barely allow anyone to.

***

While I was eagerly following Man Utd’s second-string’s demolition of Schalke in the Champions League semi-final on the phone, Mango texted that the lights had gone out in the Nightingale’s Nest too, putting her plans of finishing some vast syllabus over the course of the night in great jeopardy. Yet, her voice betrayed little concern for that business. The strong winds were making it difficult to walk, and the century-old tree in front of Ravindra danced in delight. Exams could take a backseat when the heavens were in such a generous mood.

***

Back in the corridor, Mishra was getting goose bumps. “It’s going to rain, I’m telling you. It’s unbelievable. It always rains, ever so slightly, every single time, during these exams. It’s...”
His voice melted away in the rapturous thunder from the sky. We took pictures to mark the occasion; their hair wavy and unrestrained. And it rained. One final time.

P.S.- Anu Malik’s solo albums were great entertainment, weren’t they?

Through the bubbly froth

The incoherence of the early-morning toothbrush conversation never manages to mask the potency of the words it carries. So as a mumble through Pepsodent’s light pink replies to my Colgate Total’s utterances, I’m resigned to another Monday morning beginning with chana-halwa. Almost four years of the same may have dampened my resolve to disregard its presence on the weekly menu, but haven’t broken into my stubborn dislike for black grams and the accompanying oily mud patch. As (to Ma’s utter surprise) I finish the daily ablutions and proceed to pray to the many Gods adorning my dusty shelves (which almost made her faint), I sincerely hope that there is some semblance of taste in the breakfast that follows. Back home, there’d be Ugadi Pacchadi, a dish with six different tastes symbolising the different emotions we’d experience through the coming new year. The mess keeps to its word and emotions in being as stoic as inhumanly possible, and off I am for the last set of mid-term examinations I expect to take.

The euphoria from the World Cup win was, quite obviously, yet to die down, despite the looming spectre of IPL 4. Facebook display pictures still hadn’t lost their “Bleed Blue” badges, which disgustingly kept reminding one of sanitary napkin advertisements. Nor had the Computer Centre forgotten our raucous celebrations after the win, with the huddled chairs in front of the biggest computer screen we had still in their respective places, including those two traitorous ones who were watching United’s miraculous comeback at West Ham on another live stream.

The month-long gap between those final mid-sems, and the ultimate end-semester exams would see a whole bunch of farewells, valedictory functions, photo-ops and other general sentiaap. I couldn’t help but wear my favourite emoticon through it all. :-/
Jynja says that emoticon sometimes looks like someone brushing his teeth. I love this guy.

You know, stuff.

It’s a recorded message in Telugu that breaks my nonchalant routine. It’s something the (wildly obvious) Punjabi aunty beside me barely registers, as does her bespectacled son, who’s still ravenously running through his KFC munch-box. The rest of the process, though, from the now almost always messed up safety instructions, to the pilot’s oft-practised “We’re fourth on the departure list and should be off the runway in ten minutes”, is in order and I put my newspaper down, put my head back and ready for another take-off, homeward bound.

The coffee on the plane isn’t as bad as the last time I decided to shell out twenty rupees for that favourite beverage being served like it is in those American movies by skirted waitresses. Most importantly, it keeps me up for that depressing fictionalised account of a family going through the ’71 Bangladesh war that was a gift from the British Library, Chandigarh, part of the eye-opening trip to the green-and-gold fields of Punjab that Mal and His Majesty had taken me to. Soon after the landing at Hyderabad, the pilot’s throaty rasp was upon us again, informing us that the remnants of the winter up north were inexistent back home- the mere mention of 36 degrees had my hands sweating their veins out. The landing at (an incredibly further Anglicised) Vizag was rougher, the temperature six degrees lesser but I swear I might have passed out on the walk from the plane to the arrivals terminal because of the humidity. Ah, that’s the city I know as home, alright. The car’s angel lights and air-conditioning were veritably heavenly, as were Ma’s healing hand and Big B’s choice of boom-blasting music.

All along though, I kept wondering: where the bloody hell do pilots get their ruddy accents from?

***

Sometime last year, my brother tried to teach me how to drive a car. My incompetence beat my impatience in an uneven encounter: he gave up in two days. With my father expressing his surprise that with a little over a year for college to end and me being impotent with anything that’s motorised and has gears (yes, I added gears for that very reason, dear nefarious imbeciles), Big B brought himself to teach me to get two wheels moving, instead.
But, as he remarked himself, I must be the first person ever to be learning how to ride a bike when the cat to be belled has a 220cc engine.

For those who haven’t learnt riding a motorcycle yet, here’s a heads-up: it’s quite an emasculating experience. Particularly ironic for a vehicle that prides itself on being definitely male. Every single time I screw up the “press clutch – don’t accelerate – now shift up a gear” routine, the malevolent male bike gives its master’s male parts a proper crushing. Even Big B runs out of sarcasm when I manage to continuously achieve the holy grail of the neutral gear when trying to shift from the second to third. Yep - neutral gear at 30kmph, the fastest I got today.

As I deliver my well-rehearsed “belief in the public transport system” bullshit, even my most optimistic believer avers “You’re so never having a girlfriend. And your wife will hate you.”

I gobble another oatmeal cookie and snuggle in Ma’s arms watching F.I.R. on SAB TV. And stuff.

These kids

It’s a vile surge of anger, rushing to your head in a blinding flash. Pope’s dangerous little knowledge was producing that primal emotion that the rational me (better known as the pussy) forever endeavours to subvert. But, this time there is little restraint. I can’t hear what he’s saying. All I see is an enemy. My hands bashing his brains into the wall with manic barbarism. I shake it off my head, and a few minutes later, it’s the more familiar feeling of embarrassment. Of being shamed. Of being laughed at. More human, less primal, I console myself. I’m a loser, but at least I’m not a testosterone-charged ape. There, there.

I’m trying my very best. It’s the funniest I can get without referring to human excrement. It’s been a full hour- give me one full laugh, please. I’ve reduced peaches of men to rolling heaps, and more than just the odd woman, too. The distance, though, just keeps growing, and the vibes only get colder. And there it is again, a little spike from the spine growing into a raging monstrosity. I could take that chair and...

The ape inside thinks we social animals are such pansies. Bloody poofs, the whole lot.

P.S.- This is a fictional account based on true events. Or vice-versa. And stuff.

(Originally posted on March 12, 2011 at 2:53 a.m.)

Touch-me-not

It’s almost creepy how your mother can decipher the mood behind every “Hello” on the phone, even spotting the fake cheery ones. The last few replies have been exasperated pleas for better sleeping habits, if not “What’s wrong?”. That first utterance always sets up the tone for the rest of the conversation, with Ma using those Mommy superpowers to figure out the ethereal emotion around every breath and highlighting her inexhaustible will to make something of her lazy bum of a younger son. Such amazing abilities aren’t just limited to maters though- the elder siblings are similarly blessed, getting the drift behind a redundant emoticon or a mere drop of a shoulder. Big Brother, indeed.

These intangibles are pretty much the best excuse I give to my professor for taking no interest in artificial intelligence. Those networks and algorithms can learn all they want, but they’ll lack, to use an almost out-of-context phrase, a basic instinct. I just know that sentence is grammatically correct- spell check or no spell check. And though that picture is for all and sundry to see, you just know that that smile is for just the one lucky bastard.

Things- Good, Bad, Pretty Young etc

As I begin typing awkwardly on the stone cold keys of my keyboard, dawn slowly breaks on R-land’s horizon, its steady ascent only disturbed by my phone’s cacophonous alarm. I’ve been up for the past three hours; the frigid air penetrated through every strand of fleece in my quilt to end uneasy dreams of being George Costanza’s business partner (or something like that). Feet propped up in front of the heat convector on the tea table, I look out of the window to see the night’s pitch black give way to the snowy blue of the morning, eliciting a bright response from the birds in the blanket of trees behind our wing. What I like most about dawn is how the changes are never too sudden, never too alarming. You get time to think about what's gone by, and get ready for what's up ahead. The darkest of the night soon seems a long way back, only in an hour, with the sounds of dreary slippers dragging on the corridor floor waking you up.

The rigours of academics, however, aren’t as accommodating. A first ever six (followed by three sweet zeroes) will sit next to the colon on my latest grade sheet’s SGPA column, its rotundity eerily irritating the eyes used to the more robust sevens, even as its inverted brother remains as elusive as a semblance of sense in Tees Maar Khan. A fourth consecutive New Year’s Eve in the insti didn’t help the saddened mind, itching to join the rest of the family watching another farcical orchestra crooning Daler Mehendi’s legendary Ho Gayi Teri Balle Balle as midnight strikes.

Yet, despite the insti’s most monstrous efforts over the past four years, that resilient bug of optimism fails to go with the (outrageously cold) wind. Ladies Luck and Love await, according to random quacks in the newspaper’s horoscope section but what really gets me cracking for the day and year ahead is the Quote of the Day from yesterday’s Hindustan Times.

“Everybody should believe in something. I believe I’ll have another coffee.”

– Anonymous.

Three

Dear Blog,

Happy birthday to thee!
Today you turn three!

Love,
Me.