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.)