Slip Slidin’ Away

If someone who didn’t know asked me what the main ingredient for rasam was, I would have to answer- tomatoes. Yet, one barely associates them love apples with the steamy memories of the best piping hot rasams we’ve carefully sipped. Just the right amount of water, the careful tickle of the fingers to pick out just the right amount of spices, the hiss with the introduction of mustard seeds- tomatoes play but a bit-part role in the grand magic of rasam.

Such is also the magic of bookstores. Anything and everything from a cushion on the floor at the end of a long shelf, to a sitting ladder to reach for the dusty tomes at the top, my favourite bookstores have always been more about the browsing experience, even more than the buys themselves. The inscriptions on the first page of many a second-hand book in a makeshift street market have touched my heart. Sometimes, even overall disorganisation has made book-searching memorable; swimming through a pile of dog-eared, sulphur-teared copies looking for that elusive gem gives that heady feeling that Scrooge McDuck must have when backstroking his way through his money pool. Quite often, it’s the most fickle variables that bookmark a store in the memory, like the primly dressed man in the business section, the hep homemaker in the cookery area, next to the hippie in the travel section, or the giggling-gaggling teenagers “woo-hoo”ing whenever they spot a favourite in the chick-lit section. Or, of course, if you get (un)lucky, you could spot me secretly trying to finish the ultra-expensive Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection.

P.S. - On that note, if you’re anywhere in and around Delhi, avoid Om Book Shop. For all kinds of reasons. Reliance’s Time-Out has a god-amazing selection, but makes book-searching seem like grocery shopping (something they are managing to do with every retail venture of theirs).

Red Letter Days? Not.

As another cold winter morning began with me wiping my drool off the pillow, I had a weird feeling in my stomach that told me it wasn’t going to be a great day. But it could as well have been the excess sambhar from the previous night. With this conundrum in my drowsy, lazy mind, I made my way to the toilet seat, where I proceeded to forget what I was doing and fall asleep in a pose not completely unlike The Thinker.

After some frantic shouting, shoving and shooing, I was out the door and into, well, a place I only knew as our front porch, but one could see no further than his own feet. Negotiating each step carefully while still trying to keep that icy wind off my nose, I somehow managed to see our school bus’ lights in the distance and made a dash for it. Getting in only after an exhausting sprint to the next stop, I got on wondering why I wasn’t allowed to take my Hero Kidd bicycle to school like my brother was. Even the usually chirpy driver seemed grumpy, and as I moved ahead, my usual spot with the Antakshari/Name-place-animal-thing gang was taken. I had to wind my way through to the back to stand between a couple of hard-nosed seniors I had no idea about.

Classes began, and my fears were confirmed when I missed two out of five spellings in the English class, earning the teacher’s rebuke. I was caught talking in the next class, and the week’s only P.T. period couldn’t have come sooner. At the football field, it was the usual: Chenab and Ravi versus Ganges and Satluj. Now, Satluj and Ravi simply hated each other; they were green and we were red- we had to! In those days of scrawny eight-year-olds, I was the ball-bashing midfielder. Well, that was more because every other kid wanted to be a striker, the fat-ass was the goalkeeper, and the abject losers were stationed at the back. Somehow managing not to fit in any category, I stuck around in the middle of the yellowish park jumping into tackles and passing it to the silkier, more skilful players up ahead. Trying to win one such ball, I rammed into one of the Satluj strikers, and having missed the ball completely, brought him down crashing to the cries of a badly mispronounced “Penalty!”. The penalty was duly argued over, taken a few times over in haste and finally agreed upon, and slotted. Now banished to the dreaded keeper’s position, I sulked between the posts. It did get better, though, as a couple of saves denied the rivals a win, and the match finished as a diplomatic draw. And my days as the permanent goalkeeper had well and truly begun.

The lunch break followed, and after filling myself with Mumma’s delicious creations, I finally thought the day wasn’t turning out that bad. As I went to relieve myself before the last period of the day started, I felt, well, relieved. The cold indolence of the morning had given way to exhaustion in the midday sun, and I let the bad day out; my head began to lighten. Strutting back in to the class with a dazed smile, I put my hand out and softly spoke “May I come in, Ma’am?”. Even before she could turn and nod, my daze was ended by loud screams. “The post office is open!”, “Letters, anybody?” and as it dawned on me, to the bemusement of the now-amused teacher, a loud chorus began... “Shame shame, puppy shame...”
I still pretend I don’t remember what happened next, but like that midsummer night which was to come a decade later, I remember every minute of that infinitely long last period and the subsequent bus ride home. They even sang “Shame shame, puppy shame” in the bus during Antakshari! I got through that day, and if I’d seen the Star Wars series by that time, I’d have known I was well on my way to becoming a true Jedi.

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is the Force.

Famous Last Words?

To Fattu (alias Six Foot Three): I think I just saved your last penalty in the insti. (At the main football ground)

To Sushi: Hahahaha, Soosma! (At Nescafe)

To Kaka: Accha, to hum chalte hain. (Outside his room)

To Sunky/PG: I’ll see you guys in Ravindra. (Over the phone at 3 am from Azad)

To Dela: Bye, man. (At the Azad gate at 6 am, near the rickshaw to the railway station)

To AP: I don’t think a Hello is the best way to begin this. (At the railway station, aboard the Jan Shatabdi)

Watch her go as she sings...

Settled comfortably in V’s cushy pillow, I stare with the slightest of smiles as he playfully strums that famous guitar intro from Romeo and Juliet. After Shakespeare and Mark Knopfler, I speculate on the magnitude of the disgrace it is that someone with the song-writing abilities of Taylor Swift gets to put her ignominious pen to this blessed title. Disregarding such eventualities of terrible anomalies, I applaud fulsomely when he’s done, and he brushes it off with a blushing wave and moves on to play it on his iTunes. A minute into the song, I, as always discussed with an Arbit Prat, mentioned how my idea of a perfect proposal was “You and me, babe- how about it?”. V notices the longing of immaculate romances in my eyes, and quickly catches the geek in me off guard with a quip on his acquisition of a book called “The origins of words with their romantic stories”. I laugh at his smart diversion, and quickly delve into the yarns of how I learnt the word decoy when playing a computer game called Commandos... I wonder what brought us together- laughter, pain or just a mutual friend, but our chats remain outlined with the common desire for that which we cannot have, an uncontrollable fancy for things that aren’t, weren’t meant to be. Knopfler brings his voice down to almost a whisper, in those lines that kill me each and every time; we talk about how songs we like are very different, on the contrasting planes of acoustic likeability, and emotional connections. He plays Julia Dream from a Pink Floyd album I hadn’t heard of before as we dissected Wish You Were Here, making the conversation itself the perfect example of what we were talking about.

Over three hours later, after negotiating the minefields of dogs in front of the E&C department crossroad and Ravindra Bhawan, I return to the conversation, and despite my best efforts to control the habit, I revisit the events of the night gone past, and start my playlist with Lady Writer once again, knowing only too well it’ll end with The Hardest Part.

P.S. - If the Arbit Prat and the Delanged One are reading, I couldn’t help myself when typing this post, and listened to Piper To The End more times than good for me.

P.P.S. - The title is from the chorus of this song I’ve been listening a lot to lately: She’s Got A Reason, by The Coral. Yeah, of that Scrubs song Dreaming Of You fame.

(Originally posted on 21st August, 2010 at 6:11 a.m.)

...and, we're back!

Continuing the trend set in the past two years, the first month of the new academic year has once again flown by at a speed that would frighten an already threatened Usain Bolt. The wounds from the champion's loss to Soderling at Wimbledon seemed long-healed when Murray upset him again last night. India were playing Sri Lanka yet again as the rest of the cricketing world- the Twenty20 World Champions in particular- got down to some actual work. For example, Afghanistan is now not just playing an insane amount of cricket, but regularly beating other Associate countries, too. I figure it won't be as long as some predict before we have another subcontinental Test-playing nation.

Most significantly, though, the mostly-horrible advertisement for football that was the World Cup ended without too many memorable incidents, and the Premier League returned to my relief. The transfer window was typically Fergie-ish once again, but the slight frustration of not picking up any stars was more than wiped off by the impressive pre-season showing. Chicharito looks like one hell of a find, and even 10 million pounds for a 22-year-old now seems like a bargain. Even then, my instinct tells me Bebe will be another one to join Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Juan Sebastian Veron on that infamous list of terrible, expensive buys.

The late Monday night kick-off meant the Azad TV room would be where I watched United's season opener for the fourth year in a row, although it's zilch when compared to the fact that this was the 15th season in succession that Paul Scholes started in a season opener, or that Ryan Giggs continues to be the only player to have scored in every Premier League season. At the stroke of Chris Foy's whistle, there were just four people in the room, and me the only United fan, with the others following the fortunes of their Fantasy League selections or there to wind me up in case we drew like two years ago. And despite their joy at seeing their rivals misfire, the opening half an hour had them all disappointed as Wazza didn't even look close to getting a shot on target, leave alone scoring- their captain was failing them.

When the ever-improving Valencia charged back to win the ball from behind, and a disappointing yet spirited O'Shea passed it to the Ginger Ninja, I, like most of the Stretford End, screamed "SHOOOT!". Yet, he calmly found Berba at the edge of the box, and the Bulgarian's finish was met by my yell of delight and relief. As the celebrations for United's opening goal of the season died down, the fact that I had no fellow fan to high-five began to prick me, though I knew that be it Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai or Gurgaon, Dela, Sushi, Gulati, Manki and Kaka would probably be jumping out of their chairs and yelling, too. The rest of the game, thankfully, was a breeze, with Scholes especially in imperious form. It would have been a perfect night had Berbatov put an end to that lovely one-touch move involving Scholesy and Rooney. 3-0 was still an auspicious start to the season, and definitely the boost we need before that ever-tricky visit to Craven Cottage.

Let's hope, in the year that marks two decades since Liverpool last won the League, we decisively knock them off their fucking perch. Glory, glory, Man United!

Old dope and lost hope

He had little idea when he was woken up from an uneasy sleep that the time was four in the morning. After some weeks’ rest, the rain gods had decided to get back to business, springing a rude surprise on the few residents who were enjoying these dry days. From the vantage point on the uncovered top walkway looking up to the stars, he drowsily dawdled down the dusty steps. The dust kept reminding him that this area wasn’t inhabited anymore, not for the last few months at least. How it mattered to him was anyone’s guess, though, as no one knew if he could keep track of time. Those two months could mean a fleeting break, or an ever-lasting epoch. Few could care about what he felt, but anyone who’d have noticed the drooping ears and those longing eyes would know it was the latter.

He cursed the clouds as he unsuccessfully tried to settle into another walkway. Sleep disturbed is like a child ridiculed: it just isn’t the same ever again. Then, a door opened, and through the slowly-fading darkness, he spotted a small light. The noise from the sources nearby suggested familiar revelry. Even though a more rational part of his heart asserted it to be a red herring, his hopeful part convinced him the last two months were just a small break from the routine. He scrambled down the stairs; the very stairs he’d acquainted himself with along with his master, along their many varied sojourns across the land. He’d fed and fondled him, loved and lingered with him. And then he had disappeared, but the reappearance of that light he had so often near his mouth suggested he was back. His delight overpowered reason, and he ran across to the room’s closed door, looking for the mouth holding that light. The smell of another familiar smoke wafted in to his nose, and he was lost again. He was reminded of the first time his master had introduced him to the magical grass. The grass that could be burnt and its smoke inhaled, he remembered light-headedly as he sauntered across to the back door, convinced his master had returned. That feeling of weightlessness was vivid in his memory; he recalled being on top of the world with just one puff of his lungs. The man with the light looked down at him doubtingly, as the sun slowly emerged from its reverie. The dark blue silhouette emerged to be a shorter, leaner man than his master, but his belief was unbroken. He feverishly turned to the open door, looking for the face he looked forward to the most amidst the overhanging layer of magic smoke. The man with the light shouted, and more came out from inside the room; an air of hostility around them. His master wasn’t one of them, but as he tried to walk into to the room to check if he still was in some unseen corner, they kicked him. They shouted curses, some laughed as they threw those very lights at him. The pragmatic part of his mind chose this moment to take over, and his hope was crushed. Beaten, humiliated and crestfallen, he walked out onto the wet grass, feeling slightly cold in the steady drizzle.

Jackie knew Noka had probably left for good.

Another drip in the wall?

There were damsels in distress,
There were bright shining knights
There was garbage in excess
And heroes in tights

In the middle of the night
And the blinding sunny day
Under the shimmering moonlight
Were sold shady tales

Of eyewear worn by superstars
And belts by their dads
Weary of hefty men with bars
Collecting cash in wads

There were starry-eyed girls
And single-minded guys
With their hands roaming in twirls
Remembering failed tries

There was a rich man on a bike
There was a pauper with pink paper
One another they didn’t like
On the flip sides of a taper

Not beaten by trick or treat
Our subject has a ball
As he cracks open that zipper
And pees on the wall

(You can sing this quite like those Irish drinking songs.)