Welcome to my world….

Hi, I am D.

I live in Glasgow and presently working part time for the NHS while completing my dissertation for my Masters in Development Economics. This is not a blog about how an ex-criminal lawyer from Guwahati, Assam, India came to be doing economics in Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

I live in 66, Fergus Drive which is a rather nice address, on top of a hill and then again the apartment on the top floor. But this is again not a blog about how I ended up here in this tastefully decorated and rather messy lounge, looking out of the window and seeing the twinkling lights of the West End of the city and typing on my rather battered and bruised laptop, D-Boy…….honestly, the only way housework could be done in this place was with a shovel or, for preference, a match and a few cans of petrol…..a firebomb would perhaps serve just as well………

I live with 3 other insane roomies and this is a blog about them……

Its also a blog about the various visitor’s who walk in and out of the door’s of my flat and my life………

But basically, this is a blog to invite you to my life and friends and other animals……not because they have asked me to, but because I need to draw up the final chapters of my sojourn’s here…and as always I talk in philosophy and they listen in gibberish……

God’s first words, according to bible were “let there be light”……if my roomies would have been there, they’d have instantly yelled back, “what colour??”

With these words, I do commend my soul to any god who can find it…..

Allow me to define my surroundings like every other author usually does, one way or the other……a frightful bore, I always find it……but there you have it…..you HAVE to define stage space and trust me, this is indeed a stage…..

It’s a nice & sunny two bedroom apartment with a decent lounge and a small, but well equipped kitchenette. The rent we pay is £525 and though its supposed to be a two-man apartment, as is usual with Indian students, we’re fitting four in where two are supposed to exist. I guess, this somehow fits in with the entire ethos of the place…..

The flat is redolent with the usual aroma’s of curries…..hot, spicy and meaty and potatoey….just like our mum’s kitchens would smell, which is of course what defines it as home for us and as a smelly nuisance for the rest of the rather tight-lipped and uncomplaining neighbours.

If I were to start, I guess, I should start with someone interesting…….the problem is exacerbated by the fact that all three are equally insane and therefore of interest…..lucky for me, one of them just popped his inane face through the lounge door and asked me what I was doing……so, I guess he’ll serve to start with…..

The West…..

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you, Shantanu, Maharashtrian and game addict……..earlier readers might remember this great individual with his rather desperate shorts and inane grin from blogs before……A personage of immense appetite and yet stick thin due to a possible hyperactive metabolism and even more possibly a stomach that reaches below his knees, this is a man who absolutely and resolutely retains his identity and amazing neighing laugh and of course the impeccable timing that goes along with his definitive laugh…..

Shantanu arrived on these far and chilly shores in pursuit of further education…….possibly education in all forms and aspects, one would suspect, but education at all costs…….A straight A student, his education commenced with my erstwhile flatmate’s sizeable mammaries and the lady did have a bosom that rose and fell like an empire…….. I do believe his education there is still in a process of fulfilment……this is of course when he finds time away from his unending war games or his dilbert-like projects in his lab….To his credit, shantanu is famous for his walk since he moves in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk…. He had a unique stride: it looked as though his body was being dragged forward and his legs had to flail around underneath it, landing wherever they could find room. It wasn't so much a walk as a collapse, indefinitely postponed…..and also to his credit, sarcasm was merely a seven letter word beginning with S……

A few words about shantanu…..he HATES cleaning up and cannot cook or rather WILL not cook…….he’ll exist on bread and milk or worse, on dry cereals rather than actually do anything towards procurement of a hot meal….A past master at the art of escaping chores around the house, a fierce defender of anti-conspiracy theories and an absolutely irrepressible and horrible movie interrupter, ever since I dragged his skinny and drunk-on-two-pegs-arse to his bedroom, this great man has been a rather indomitable part of the horde…..

The North….

Taimoor…..the khan was and is still a reluctant visitor to these foreign shores…….when I met him, my first impression was that here’s finally a person who has really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance……and has almost made it an art form !!!

My views over the last year haven’t really undergone much change and the same was reiterated by one of our professors who remarked to khan, "It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever…………have you thought of going into teaching?"

For khan, the ferocious afghan, the whole wide world and perhaps even the universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) fight with, and (d) rocks….how economics figured into this equation has left both the professors and me scratching our collective heads……….

I saw him truly happy a few weeks ago when we were having dinner and suddenly noticed a council house somewhere in Maryhill, or the local Nedsville going up in flames. Khan was jumping up and down for joy and was nearly dressed to go and watch the sight before I managed to grab hold of him and sit on him………for which reason, he is still quite pissed with me. According to khan, TV and the net were subsidiary sources of entertainment to that of a raging fire or so his village folklore ran………..

Khan calls me Jiten and I call him Anwar, the names of our respective cooks back home, since we’ve donned the chef’s apron’s out here and made blood oaths to never reveal this fact to our respective would-be wives……..he makes a mean vegetable “Pilaf” and I don’t do badly at “kheer” ….. the joint decision was based on the fact that neither wants to be spend anymore time in the kitchen than necessary……Yes, we’re are closet MCP’s…….though I don’t mind the cooking so much as long as there is someone to lift the heavy stuff, do the chopping and the cleaning up after wards…..

The South….

The next man in line is the southernmost entity……Murali…….net geek, downloader extraordinaire, the “tanki” who could down 17 shots of whisky and then carry on normally and yet who drinks but rarely, fellow speed demon and a vicious, authoritative and the most insanely logically minded young gun of his ilk that it has been my pleasure to know…..

Murali, murli, MUTTU (as Shantanu calls him after getting drunk on two cans of beer) is of the generation which considers the screen to be the better substitute to pages…..this is a man who’s from a place which had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote……..Rajnikanth aka Murli in our flat was The Man and he had the Vote……and I was never unhappy to go along with him……things were rather simpler and in any case, I do suit the role of the scheming and nasty vizier than the happy-go-lucky ruler with a mind that ticked like a clock……and like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo…… I must say that NO tyrant in the whole history of the world had ever achieved a domination so complete!!!

With murli and the rest of his southern gang, barring a few notable exceptions, the subject of them and sex was a complicated one……… it does, in essence, boil down to this: when it comes to wine, women and song, South Indians are allowed to get drunk and croon as much as they like……or in my beloved Muttu’s case, snore melodiously…..that man could snore like no man’s affair and sawing wood, hewing iron blocks, or even a jackhammer stood no chance against the deep reverberations that emanated from this man’s nostrils……..Thankfully, I was in close pursuit and competition which therefore meant I wasn’t as much affected as the rest of the roomies and the rest of the building and the people living down the hill………

The East…..

Now, its hard to define myself, so I guess I’ll define the others who does not actually live here and yet are perhaps involved in ALL our activities one way or the other……if the others want to define me, they’re free to post me their thoughts…….I promise to publish whatever they send, provided they even bother to.....

The Others……..

One of the most persistent and frequent visitors of our home is P………….an inseparable part of all our activities and endeavours and a constant fountain of disgusting PJ’s, idiotic statements and yet as much a part of 66 Fergus Drive as any of its insane inhabitants……by virtue of the ever present and overworked net connection, this person is as much a part of the house and given equal status by all the flatmates…….that is to say, given status on point……..the point followed by a rather long and sharp sword, possibly…….

Now if I were to actually get down to defining, I guess this is a person who belongs to that breed of People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people……talk to her and you begin to feel the acute depression that steals over every realist in the presence of an optimist……If I was ever to meet this person I guess we’d look at one another in incomprehension, two minds driving opposite ways up a narrow street and wait for the other to back up first…….but then, luck is my middle name….mind you, my first is BAD……which also gives reason to the fact that I can scream for mercy in 19 languages and just scream in another 44……I could go on and give out her name but I guess I could also cut off my own leg with a rusty butter knife, because in the long run, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful, so I guess I should just suffice to state that its my beloved flicker on the screen………

The next pair of intruders were Jay & Karthik……presently in detention and sufferance not to enter our hallowed doors following the incident of the vodka, the camp bed in the lounge and the rather messy carpet stain the morning after…….

These two jokers would make alcohol out of anything they could put in a bucket and eat anything that could not climb out of one……For myself, I think karthik has possibly demolished what I believe to be the better part of a complete poultry farming industry here and back home……….and Jay has probably done his share for possibly quite a few Russian distilleries……both did quite a bit for rare species…….kept them rare, for one thing…..

Then, of course, there’s Umair…….now, this is a man who exudes sexuality in a megawatt range…over several miles, I’d quite believe……Umair has eyes that glitter like a saint’s downfall and when he smiled, he exuded an easy air of undistilled, excitingly dangerous lasciviousness……. He could swagger while asleep…..Umair could, in fact, commit sexual harassment simply by sitting very quietly in the next room…..a gentleman in short.

Umair generally follows a great law, which I HAVE to put down here……According to him, you never ever volunteered. ……Not even if an army general stood there and said, "We need someone to drink alcohol, bottles of, and make love, passionate, to women, for the use of." ……There was “always” a snag……. If a choir of angels asked for volunteers for Paradise to step forward, Umair knew enough to take one smart pace to the rear…You have to admire a man like that…..A guy like that always lands on his feet, or on someone else’s feet at any rate….

The list continues and will be updated at frequent intervals……keep an eye at this space….

A finale……

While I was typing out the above, I just got my phone bill and it says that I have spent seventeen thousand rupees on phone calls to India…….and of course, Shantanu has to ask “how?”……the man does have a voice that puts me in mind of a vulture who has arrived a little too late at the dead donkey's feast…….just showed him what I wrote and he gives his usual neighing laugh and is now asking why I am writing this…….you see, he is not a man to mince his words….people and onions, yes; words, no……

He reminds me that I should stop writing about him, if I wish to have people reading my blogs……says I should write about more colourful people in Glasgow, like khan for instance……my answer would perhaps be, Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum……roughly translates, if you have their balls in your grip, their minds will follow……My hands are still distressingly empty, however....

Presently Khan and Shantanu are going at their 9 month old hobby horse………discussing the variety of sins and the possible forms of retribution either will receive in the afterlife as per Islam and Hinduism…….I cannot truly for the life of me decide who is more inane or insane……Khan is religious after a fashion…..he usually fashions where and when he wants to be religious….though to be fair, where he comes from the folks are a god-fearing lot…..they sure had a great deal to afear…..and Shantanu isn't exactly an atheist, as atheism was a non-survival trait in a world with several thousand gods and anyway, the gods back home did like an atheist …..gave them something to aim at…..

Murli just strolled in from work and khan asked in quite a passable brit accent, “oi you, you have fucked down the internet?” The bizarre statement follows a basic head turning of heads towards me…..forgot to add that I am the official interpreter of the flat…..and trust me, there’s enough to interpret indeed…..

After you'd known all three for sometime, you found yourself fighting a desire to look into their collective ears to see if you could spot daylight coming the other way……

They say hell is other people….in time you learn they’re wrong……

Welcome to my world……