Daydreams ….

Nightmare or remembered past….

They say people dream when they are in the theta level of sleep, that they dream of the things that happened to them, of the things that they wish had happened and of course of the horrors that are feared, will happen to them…..

Daydreams are therefore safer, better and more appreciated……we exercise strict control and censorship……and as with most humans, control is basically happiness.

Which is also another reason we deride daydreams and censor it within the social preview; we say its pointless, useless and of course worthless.

Interesting lot, us humans, hey?

I used to daydream a lot as a kid……especially in algebra class……about almost everything else but algebra. My dad claims that half of his hair turned white due this great ability of mine and its consequences on my report cards. He also claims that the other half of his hair turned white due to the same reason, only caused by my younger sibling.

• Must have been hard for him, an engineer to have sons with no aptitude for mathematics; the elder needed pen and paper to sum up one and one and the younger needed a calculator!!!
  
  In any case, daydreaming was coherently and comprehensively thrashed out of me by Noel sir’s cane and later on, with the advent of studies without maths, by the advent of actual interest in what I was studying.
  
  Life in college was too hectic to be wasted daydreaming, and after college, it was the work to make those daydreams real that consumed the time allotted to such trivial pursuits.
  
  After a hiatus of decade and more from the fantasy isles of my childhood, I have returned back to it and received a rather warm welcome.
  
  I today believe that my decision to study further was one of the best I have ever taken. And coming from a rather short list of good decisions, it carries much value. For nothing else, it has given me a chance to go back to the magical isle of daydreams.
  
  My usual commute to my place work takes about 40 minutes by bus and the same back. Now, for most people, a bus ride that long is perhaps too long and a hassle, but I treasure that time as it allows me to sink beyond the ordinary and into the extra-ordinary.
  
  Now, daydreams are not possible on buses in India, in fact, I would go further to say that once a person is out of school, daydreams are a thing of the past in India. The pace of life is far too frantic and the sheer crowds of people crowding into your personal space actually renders almost thought impossible, much less daydreams.
  
  Buses and public transport in the West is usually one of the cheapest and most reliable methods of getting anywhere and the best thing about such transport is the singular fact that westerners prefer not to use it. They prefer the privacy and freedom of cars and personal vehicles. Not that I am complaining.
  
  I love the sight of a huge bus seating a comfortable 73 being inhabited by a scant 7 and sometimes even 3. I can choose my seat, stretch out my legs and plug in my headphones and loose myself in my own world of possible situations and scenes…..
  
  List of probable scenarios –
  
• My return back home, without informing anyone. First to land up in Delhi and shock the shit out of my brother in Dehradun and then to arrive together back home and listen to Ma’s insane screeches of delight and surprise
• Possible extenuation of the same in relation to relations…pun intended
• A day in the future, when I am done with my loans and with a decent job waiting for me back home, packing up the debris of my foreign travels and adventures
• My possible life, hopefully comfortable, back in India without hassles and with some decent company to share my load of foreign alcohol and stories
• Possibly the day I meet someone chosen by my folks for marriage and scaring the shit out of her to convince her that I am the worst possible choice for marriage and settling down
• Maybe finding someone who’ll actually find me interesting enough to spend some time with…….though I doubt that again…..however, it’s a daydream, so what the hell……
• My own place, paid for and decorated ( I want a bedroom with three white walls and one wall done up in fire engine red with charcoal sketches of calvin and hobbes on the wall – very minimalist, with a simple double bed and a nice copper wet bar somewhere on the side – haven’t yet decided on the den)
• My own garage where I can keep my old beauty, my lovely thunderbird and hopefully a harley-davidson someday and a decent sedan car

Even more hopefully, a son or daughter to teach how to ride the monsters. Doubt the presence of a mom in such a scenario to be honest since I know that even daydreams have limits.

Ah, the list goes on……

The fact still remains, that even if daydreams don’t come true, they are always there for you, to be called up at a moment’s notice, to re-invigorate you, to keep alive the flame of hope burning in your heart.

Another interesting thing is that daydreams are possible here because no one wants to intrude on your private space. A few blogs ago, I had sneered at such need of space, but now I see the benefits of having space.

Space to breathe in, to dream in, to be yourself in, to recharge yourself within to fight the cold and real world outside….

Everyone here jacks in their headphones and forgets the world around them

(except for the little and big old ladies who seem to have some kind of a massive freemason’s society of their own and chatter in their own incomprehensible lingo and seem to recognise each and every one of their own – I sometimes have the feeling that the whole world might be run by the dotty looking granny with the wispy white hair and massive purse who sits opposite me in the morning bus run and her ilk. She does mutter to herself quite a bit, which increases the suspicion – she might be murmuring instructions on a hidden speaker!!)

My usual, blatant paranoia aside, the whole exercise is indeed a form of yogic healing maybe, because I feel one benefits from having a wild imagination and happy thoughts which leave you feeling at least a wee bit happier and better equipped to handle cantankerous professor’s and demanding bosses and give you a reason to smile.

The transition from daydreams to power naps (love that term) is also a probable consequent which also helps in the long term, though it can cause long walks back home when you miss your stop and land up back in the bus depot, about 3 miles from your destination.

They say, difficulties are grist for a writer’s mill and extra exercise is always good for anyone, so I usually just grin and make my long way back home quite often and see much of the neighbourhood than I would usually see. In fact, its all grist for my ever churning mill, supplying the ever increasing demands for places, locations, situations and characters.

Like the crazy NED (Non Educated Delinquent) with the horses teeth who very kindly woke me up at the bus station and pointed me home and the rather smart and kind looking ladies in nice cars, who refuse to give a lift to an uplifted thumb in the pouring rain.

You do meet all sorts and types and they all give you a reason to say, yeah, this is why I came here and whistle through the rain……daydreaming of the day I hit the hot and dusty airport back home, with enough funds to actually implement a micro-hydel project or maybe three back in the village, stop the bloody floods everywhere and generate enough electricity to bring about sustenance……man, wouldn’t that be something to see, a way of generating self sustaining resources, in fact, creating employment as much as giving the people something to be assured about……we might even be a success to try for more projects…..who knows, we might set up a whole network of micro-hydel projects all over Lower Assam, hell, maybe, all of Assam…..

And the feet pound the wet pavement, the wheels turn and the daydreams go on…..

The travails of marriage….chauvinistically speaking!!!

Marriage has been termed in so many ways and means that even defining it any further would be an exercise in futility. Allow me to quote that famous phrase which everyone has heard and so often observed in real life;

Marriage is a sweet, eat it and suffer, abstain and hunger…..

My thought is that it is perhaps better to be malnourished than suffer indigestion, if not food poisoning.

Forever have I been called cynical, pessimistic and such similar names for my vehement liking for reality and yet, hatred is often the flip side of love, they say and the grapes are assured to be sour if not cursed. If the accursed things were not sour, what would they be doing, hanging on the branch…….some smart bugger might have just fetched a ladder and done an end to temptation itself.

Marriage for an Indian man is truly a show of horror’s as I have had the opportunity to observe and envisage from all that I have deduced. Considering today’s modern liberalistic and open society, when you do get milk at the supermarket, it just doesn’t make sense to buy the whole bloody cow……..and lucky for us, the milk in the store also comes in different flavours nowadays!!!

They say marriage is the price men pay for sex and sex is the price women pay for marriage. I love aphorism’s like this…..they say such a lot in such brief words and brevity is the soul of wit. But then, the ability to quote also passes for wit today.

For an Indian man to be not married by his late twenties is unpatriotic at best and sacrilegious at worst. In a usual case scenario, by the time, the modern Indian man has hit his job and is finally rid of his studies and subsiding on doleful dole’s from rather tight fatherly purses and if the Gods are with him, he ends up with a hopefully decent packet to take home with.

After years of slogging it out, the poor fellow thinks life might finally be worth living…..or so he thinks…..

Aunts, sister’s, mother’s and in some extreme cases, even grandmother’s descend upon him en masse and demand sacrificial blood and fire. Bedevilled and harassed the poor guy finally accedes to their wishes and enters his second stage of serfdom.

A man has three stages of serfdom – the first under his mother, the second under his wife and the third under his daughter or daughter-in-law and any man who says this is not true, knows where he lies……pun fully intended.

Now, consider the opposite stage of females……..they study and try for jobs and usually husbands. In today’s world of being “politically correct” I refuse to stand corrected. True, there are career women, and the exceptions prove the rule. Any woman who says that she doesn’t wish to get married is already lying……pun again intended.

The hardest part of accepting marriage as a workable solution in today’s world is hard for me, an ex-lawyer, ex-lover, ex-human being perhaps as most of you would say.

A marriage is supposed to be a meeting of minds, divinely ordained and communal bliss in its highest state, which I doubt if ever existed. Our earliest epics show what sorry husbands we males were……I mean, take Ram for an example, dragging his poor wife through enough shit, not to mention the atrocities committed by him, in the name of chastity and reputation. As my granny used to say, to hell with traditions like these which enslave women.

A couple of generations down the line, I am hoping to say, to hell with ideas like marriage which enslave men….

Socially speaking, a wife is nothing but trouble……all the benefits of life are swapped for duties and responsibilities not to mention the insane amount of hassles the whole concept entails in the years ahead.

As I tell my family and friend’s when they talk of marriage to me – I am not going to give you a four day party and wind up paying the bill for the party for the next forty years.

A few years back, when I was still practicing law, I was approached by a client who had a sorry state of affairs. Apparently his mother and wife had a spat and the smart wives shut up her mother-in-law by telling her that if she continued fighting, she, the new wife, would go and file a police complaint for dowry harassment and cruelty and ensure that the rest of the family will be in jail.

Much as I admired the woman’s eminently workable strategy and timing, I wondered what the hell had happened to the entire concept of marriages in itself. As for the client, I told him that if war was joined, the element of surprise counts the most and if she could even say such a thing, the contemplation of such an avenue was evident and the action not very far off. In short, file for divorce and serve notice at the earliest. I must admit that I didn’t hear from the client again but I stand by my advice and statements.

Coming back to today’s world and issues, my friends here have long rambling discussions on this very topic.

How the hell do we choose a wife?

To fall in love is something we have all done and become bitter about and yet still like all male idiots want to be loved and to love back in return. Love marriages and their occurrence in our lives seems a rather distant possibility, however. Living so far away from our homes, in an alien land and working in jobs that pay well but don’t leave you much time for actual socializing. Again, in the event of socializing at all, finding someone who understands you and your background inasmuch as being able to share your life narrows down the field so much that its akin to trying to find a needle in a bloody field of haystacks………and no, you don’t have a magnet to do the job either.

FBCD’s (Foreign Born Confused Desi) are simply out of the question. It is bad enough to have to endure them elsewhere to actually have to live with one. As khan puts it, who wants a bloody coconut, brown on the outside and white inside.

So we come to the issue of arranged marriages. The funniest part of the whole situation is that even considering such a mode of action is nuts enough. I mean, for Christ’s sake, the whole thing stinks of such inequality and is almost an auction of yourself as much as of the opposite party and worse.

I mean, what other choices do we have? Matrimonial websites are just an extension of the same and online dating or chatting is far too risky, if not an absolute disaster.

No, arranged marriages are the best possible outcome. As in, if we are to choose someone and marry them, any problems and the rest of the family is like, YOU chose her, now YOU manage. If the family chooses, at least, somewhere, somehow, I can scream at them, YOU chose so now, YOU manage.

Not a very funny joke or even consideration, however it suffices.

Now the interesting part –

We live abroad and are bound by a very set number of holidays (25 paid leaves to be exact) and within that span of time, it’s next to impossible to envisage a possible manner of knowing someone proposed by our folks.

A very usual scenario is that your folks find a few “possibles” who you hope to meet when you’re on holiday and depending on the meeting or (if you’re lucky) meetings, you make a decision which can change your life.

One meeting or even two or three…….what the bloody FUCK???!!!!

It takes years to even get to know that someone is not the right person for you or better still that you’re not the right person for someone.

So, one or two meetings…….in a span of time that’s hardly enough to see your parents and your friends and family and maybe shake off jet lag and they expect you to know and assess a life-partner???

I mean, even logistically speaking, it’s a nightmare of a proposition, forget about the un-reality of the whole scene.

Again, assuming that even if it was possible, how does one actually know who’s sitting across the table and how they might fit into your life?

You meet someone who’s one of the “possible” person’s and both people are on their best behaviour with much care for appearance as much as behaviour. You meet them once, twice, a few times maybe and neither knows who the actual person really is. All they get to know is perhaps each other’s views and at best, like’s and opinions.

Is that enough to actually make such an important decision which relates to the rest of your life?

Worse, the whole consideration is also based on the proposition that neither has much time to even assess previous baggage that each of us in today’s world manages to accumulate and if it even matches or goes with each other’s.

So, okay, you make a blind choice or as is usual with most males, choose the one who is easiest on the eyes and so on and so forth and things start to get really sticky from then on.

Life is not easy back at home and it’s worse here. I mean, you’re isolated and completely alone usually. You have no family support networks which we took for granted back home and it’s a hard enough life her to manage on the best of terms. You have to do everything yourself and everyone you know here is barely managing their lives to bother with yours.

Into this mad and fast paced life, you’re expected to bring back a bride who’ll take all this into her stride. Not bloody likely, mate.

Then again, consider that the person, who appears shaved, relaxed and with a well filled wallet of conversion rich currency and the person who gets home frazzled and too tired to even try to be charming and chilled out. Consider that the sharp, pressed jeans of the second date at a snazzy restaurant might change for a tattered and torn pair of shorts with curry stains and no desire to be or to do anything on the hard earned weekend. Consider that for most bachelor’s the level’s of neatness or even cleanliness are on bare subsistence level’s with the broom and washing sink playing a bad second lead to a six pack of beer’s and an action movie, preferably Hindi

The bloody female will be home in less than 2 months and file a police complaint for harassment and agony……and probably serve notice of divorce proceedings.

And then comes the final wringer….the laws are biased or even tilted towards women, if you will. It is assumed that the victim is always the poor woman who’s suffered and who has been victimized and what of it that she is educated and qualified and able to work. Cough up the alimony, the maintenance, you rich NRI, and in dollar’s and pounds, not to mention that she keeps all the fancy and expensive stuff that your parents draped her with during the marriage. Yeah, that’s the final icing on the cake, brother, with all the marzipan roses and yellow cream piping.

So, okay, I am assuming a worst case scenario, but what’s the best case scenario anyway?

Our mother’s and aunt’s and even grandmothers were of a different age and had a completely different take on life. Divorce was beyond the pale of contemplation and you made do with whatever was dished out to you. It doesn’t mean that I am saying that our father’s or uncle’s or grandfather’s were absolute devil’s and our maternal folk to be saint’s. But there was a lot of give and take and compromises were struck.

Being married within a society they grew up in meant and stood for something. That something has disappeared today. In today’s world, there are too many option’s and that’s why we all lose our way so easily.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that divorce is a bad thing. In fact, I have seen much within my own family and of friends to think that it’s a definite alternative to the situations people find themselves in. However, I believe that it should be the last resort and not the first choice at the first instance of misunderstanding.

Yeah, I know, that marriages are still happening and there are couples who are making it work and yeah, I have seen how all they are coping and what else.

Some of them make me cringe with embarrassment and shame, some of them make me wish I didn’t know the participants to such a pact or form of social contract. Some, very few, give me hope……..a wee flicker of hope, maybe……..

Yeah, I am being pessimistic, cynical, probably immature, idiotic and wildly neurotic if not outright psychotic.

But then possible starvation is still infinitely preferable to food poisoning and I do like the no fat strawberry flavoured milk I get at Sommerfield’s.

Life goes on.....

Birth, childhood, adolescence/teenage, adulthood and so on, all the way to death, life in all its relentless impetus moves ahead, a forward movement that defies all stops and halts in the journey of inhaling and exhaling and we puny humans, believing ourselves to be the master and commanders of our own destinies are caught up in the slipstream of this massive momentum like wisps of fluff….

Life moves despite all that we do to stop its movement, all our prayers, pleadings, heartache’s and all the joys, pleasure, happiness, ecstasy cannot stop this progress.

Well, is it said, that this too shall pass……

This ….. this glorious day with the sun shining and the wind whistling in the eaves of 26 Winton Drive, the warm smell of fresh tea brewed by Jassi, positively dripping with sugar and milk, the funny aroma’s of Jaja’s Chinese cooking, the clean and much rubbed table top, khan attempting industriously to make sense of my rambling notes on an even more rambling subject, Anand too tired to actually study anymore, lounging around and yelling at the rest of us to cut up and dice the bloody cauliflower that he got for a pence at the Sommerfield sale to make aloo-matar-gobi, me with my eternal companion, my beloved D-boy lappy recording all this……this too shall pass…..

So many days, so many seasons…..so much has passed ….. and yet we all go on…..

I went through five years of lawschool and five more years of practice and it all went by in the blink of an eye…….and not a memory that I regret or cherish……

Or maybe, a few too many of both…..

Lived a hundred lifetimes, or so it feels…..and yet each day a new adventure, a new day arisen freshly churned, freshly made, unrepentant and unforgiving….

I had thought I wouldn’t have the strength to smile again, to venture forth again……but the human soul, the relentless heart will not give up, will not admit defeat even when the bitter taste of ashes is still redolent in my mouth…..

And so I live, and I dance and I laugh and I fight and woo and court……

Life goes on……

I once thought I would be enslaved by a set of warm honey coloured eyes for the rest of my life and here I am…..done with penitence, done with repentance…..finding life once again, in a pair of blue cerulean sea foam eyes that look at me with askance for my insane devilry and forgive me at times with a twitch and a pretty blink……a pair of eyes that don’t yet haunt my dreams, but lighten my heart when I see them, a pair of eyes, vulnerable and yet defiant at the world…..ah, pretty eyes, I still fall for you….

They say that this too shall pass……and I have learnt to live in the moment…..to make nimble my feet and my tongue and tie hard my errant heart with the steel chains of remembrances and memory…….to feel the sulky wintry sun and the brisk clamorous wind both together and wish for neither while preparing for either…..

Life goes on…..with promises and offer’s of money, fame and mayhap’s even love and caresses……of whispers of goodnight kisses that still feel soft and inviting and the softer smells of freshly shampooed hair and skin smelling of fragrances and musky undertones….especially when it stays on your skin the next day......

For hands held today are worth a hundred caresses promised for the future and call me a chauvinist for all you are worth, but I have what it takes to be a man and look for a woman, not another man to satisfy my needs, or even for empty words and betrayals for the future…..

I was asked what’s aim, my objective and I found my answer…….maybe a bike, maybe a dog, maybe an open road, maybe someone to ride that road with me……

The answers are simple, as long as you understand the questions asked of you……

And the questions are simple as well, we just make them complex and overly important…

Doesn’t matter where you’ll be employed next, doesn’t matter if tomorrow exists, doesn’t matter what the world thinks of you, doesn’t matter what you think of yourself….

All that matters is what you KNOW of yourself and what you can MAKE of it….

There is no past, and the future can take care of itself…..the present is what that matters….

And if the present contains “kheer” made by boys and fit enough to make the girls salivate…..well, what can I say…..we just rendered another possible weapon useless…..and trust me, 3 liters of milk, 300 grams of rice, assorted nuts, cardamoms, and raisins with ample amounts of sugar and cooked with enough patience, enough beers and enough stirring on a slow flame are enough to render most issues useless and get the bloody female juices flowing….

The way to a modern woman's heart is indeed through judicious use of sugar ...... everywhere !!!

As my aunt says, we’re all fit for marriage or rather unbelievably unfit for marriage, considering our skills within the homes and without…..as much as the antics we all get upto.....

Life does go on……..What we make of this all is always upto us…..

PS

The name’s Jenny….. :D

And this too shall pass.....

Lack of belief...

We were watching a movie, a Hindi one of course and a sudden and vehement reaction caught my notice…..

That’s the introduction, I cannot think of a better one presently…

Take a flat of five Indian boys (boys are always boys and rarely men, especially to writers hating creeping age) in a foreign land and you’re bound to find chicken cooking and beer or a Hindi “Phillum” on the menu on any given weekend. Its cheap, it’s effective and universally acceptable at any given time, like it or not. Smokes are an optional extra, though usually and invariably present only with the smoke detector disabled in the local area.

Take my situation for example – with a mixed bag of engineer’s, software geeks, MBA’s, economists and lawyers, the group is about as good as it gets. We’re ready for almost any and every contingency as can be envisaged and pretty much sick of “phoren” land with all its amenities and facilities, not to mention assignments and exam preps.

The chicken was being cooked in Dal, my innovation on the usual curries concocted by us. I mean, half the buggers were yelling for chicken and the other half for plain rice and dal, so economically speaking, I optimalized the given factors and resources available. Trust me, it works beautifully.

The beer and vodka stocks had been raided the night before, the facts of which I’ll get to later on, so it was “phillum” night for all of us.

Shantanu, my mild mannered Maratha who’s an absolute berserker hacker in his dual life had just ripped the latest “phillum” from the net with active collusion of a similar mercenary, the even milder raghu (better known and absolutely feared online as rags) who lives south and a window below me, literally and metaphysically

Anand, the management guru was smoking his beloved B&H’s and framed against his more beloved window ledge and Khan the ferocious afghan was poised near the bloody lappy screen as if ready to just leap into the lush flowing homeland shown on the movie. Khan is homesick and the rest of us are just sick of it all.

I am stuck in front of the stove, my usual spot and peering over the pots as much as following the predictable plot unfolding on screen.

The movie was “Salaam London”, the latest release from the movie factories of Mumbai and depicts the eternal questions of love, as our hero so eloquently states to his leading lady.

Barely as the hero utters the fateful words, gazing deep into the heroine’s eyes with bass and viola solo’s in the background getting into fourth gear, and there’s a sudden eruption of snorts and expletives….

As I grin in collaboration, I wonder at the state of the guys and maybe most guys of our ages when confronted with the issue of love, its proclamation thereof and the derogation as well.

A while later, Jassi turns up sleepy eyed from the catnap’s on which we are all subsisting on these days and I ask him his opinion on love. He in turn shows me all his teeth and asks if that is answer enough.

Suddenly my world is full of men who deride the very idea of love and its associated situations. Jokes, anecdotes and stories abound of others who were in love or are and is usually followed by a heartfelt expletive which is shared with equal emphasis all around present company and usually the punch line is about how stupid they were.

In consideration of this and much more, I am forced to ask myself the question; have we become fanatically cynical and pessimistic about love and has this occurred while we were sleeping?

It seems that Love with the capital L, is for the idiots, it doesn’t exist……or does it?

If you get it good, if you don’t, better says Jassi between sips of no sugar juice. Is he being smart or merely realistic?

The ages in the group range from early to late twenties, a generation by itself, unmarried except for Anand and is as diverse as you might wish for, location wise, experience wise and even career or interest wise. So, considering that this is a good cross-section source of data, I base my analysis on their views;

Has love or the feeling in itself that a man can feel for a woman, become redundant?

Love for parents is necessary as all agree and live up to. The frequency of calls and the huge bills run up by all of us, in that regard give hard testimony to the same. Siblings, friends and family more or less fall in the same category with classifications and is acceptable.

What of that between the sexes?

We have all experienced the same in one way or the other and my surprise is the fact that all are embittered by its contact. Even me

Do I snort when I hear another lovesick swain asking for advice? I do.

Do I give him advice on how to play the game? I do.

Do I think him an idiot when he leaves me? I do.

Am I the idiot or him?

Can we exist without love?

Is it wrong to deride the very concept of love just because it’s a case of sour grapes, embittered memories or even fear of consequences?

Do we even qualify to understand love?

Our grandparents and their parents had it easier perhaps. They just went ahead and made babies and made their way into each other’s life as unobtrusively as possible. Perhaps in the years between the production of babies and the eventual end of the lives, they achieved a form of companionship which could be the closest possible definition of love.

Many of us never get the flame burn of actually seeing someone explode into their vision and complete obsession in that self, so elaborately portrayed by the Hindi “phillum” industry. Some of us do and come away from the experience much shaken and none the wiser as to what the hell just happened to them.

Anand is married and got married at an early age. He even has a son and misses him. I miss my bike, he misses his son – would that signify as love?

For me at least, if not many others, love is the spark that occurs between a man and a woman that causes them to believe in each other to the exclusion of all else. That spark may not last much more than a heartbeat, may last for a lifetime. However, the fact remains that it was love……or maybe it was just lust. After all the highest form of lust is love as quoted my eternally cynical buddy, Rahul, who recently got married and yes, it was a love marriage and the bastard is still as cynical as he always was. He wants to go back home for “legitimate sex” as he calls it, but I think he is in love and unwilling to accept the fact.

Love has many forms and shapes and is whatever you want to make of it. The poets say it better perhaps, but I still prefer the bollywood lyricists anyway. And in someway or the other, we all want it. Black or while, brown or green, we all seek the comfort of its shade in the burning sun of the lives we lead.

If we all want it so much, why are we ashamed to admit to it?

I love to watch romantic comedies in private, as do a lot of guys, perhaps most of us. I always root for the underdog which is exactly what the producers and directors want.

It’s stupid, its predictable, its safe and its what we all want. A happy ending, kisses et al and yet it somehow makes sense……well at least to me, when I want to unwind.

A good hug and kisses would also do the same trick, but isn’t available on my DVD store’s shelves.

Two days ago, the gang went to a Friday night party and I didn’t as I wanted to catch up on my preps. About 11 pm, the whole drunk horde came back with an inebriated female in tow. The gang were followed by two ASR’s absolutely bewildered as to what to do and finding me, the usual ringleader and patron saint of all the drunks of Winton Drive, dumped the collective responsibility on me. After levering out the biggest lummox of them all, I set about feeding and kicking the rest of them into bed, but the bloody female was another problem in itself.

Khan switched on the music on my over-worked lappy and started dancing with the lady and it was more of a vertical demonstration of his horizontal intentions than anything else. The rest of the gang refused to budge while getting a free show, so eventually realizing that it was a hopeless cause and my studies being done anyway, I unlimbered my hidden stocks of vodka and beer to the gang’s delight and joined in.

To make a long story short, the lady was soon in my t-shirt and track lowers and tucked up in my bed and I was using my jacket as an improvised pillow. The morning after was pleasant enough (especially as an ego booster and I was probably insufferable to my roomies and chat buddies alike) but the whole scene merely served to explain to myself how hungry I was for some “touch-therapy” as an old pal in law-school defined it.

The ensuing morning post mortem after the lady was dispatched to her own rooms was enthralling to say the least and especially with Jassi and Khan attempting to open up the Kargil hostilities with Jayant chewing on bread, perched on the counter and playing the male version of Barkha Dutt.

The whole scene was hilarious to me and like all funny situations had its roots in bitter truth which is made more palatable by humour.

Which in essence brings us back to my original question; who are we fooling?

Ourselves…..

We deride the very concept of love because we wish we had it in our lives and since we don’t, we pretend that its stupid and idiotic. The love of a woman makes a man sometimes try to be something more than he is, aspire to greatness even…..even unto the issue of personal hygiene and tidying up of rooms and shaving.

I do admit that I have a morbid belief in love and an endless fascination for the madness that it engenders and I do think that people haven’t stopped believing in love nor have they stopped wanting to be in love. They just don’t believe in a happy ending. They still believe in love and falling in love, but now they know that romances almost never end as well as they begin….and hence they are scared of accepting the sheer fact of love actually existing.

And more than nuclear holocaust, more than global warming or natural disasters, this is what will kill us…..as a generation, as much as age, cancer, cholesterol and liver cirrhosis.

The past twenty centuries have led us to an endless cycle that each generation goes through, with the same questions and the same hopes and shattered dreams and cynical attitudes and know it all belief’s.

The truth is that we all want a part of it and till we don’t get it, we are all in a position of flux and too egoistic to admit that we need anything or even that we hope for the same.

I too want to be in love, to be loved and caressed and hugged and kissed……

I too want to believe…….but I think I have forgotten how…..

And I’ll probably still laugh with derision and snort the next time I watch another Hindi Phillum with the guys……..but I wish I could watch it with someone’s hand holding mine and keep silent……

Couldja, Wouldja, Shouldja....

What is a blog?

Is it a story, a series of anecdotes perhaps? A diary even….?

Is it just a means to an end or an end to a means….

I am a writer and this is not my profession or my vocation. What I am beyond these words, these lines, is not anyone’s concern and yet within these lines, everyone is my concern...

A writer writes whatever he writes based on his experiences, on what he feels, on what he see’s and observes….

In the past seven months, I have written much about my own self and yet there’s so much else I want to write about….so many stories that it seems that I have walked onto the set of a Tolstoy novel…..and yet, I have not been able to even encompass the variety and diversity of the people I have seen, experienced and observed and befriended…..

The people of my life are perhaps some of the most interesting characters I ever hoped to find….or even write about….

I only wish I found the plotline or even a reference point where to start…..

Should I begin with the Pakistani’s and the Bangladeshi’s……two sets of people who emerged from opposite ends of the Indian Sub-continent with such diversity between them that its hard to envisage that they share the same ancestry or even that they are perhaps related…..But perhaps its just that the representatives that I observe are such…..

Would I be able to explain the meaning of waking up in a lumpy spring mattress so unlike my old coir one back home or even the much abused cotton waste filled roll that I used back in college for 5 years and then dumped on the Salvation army…and wonder what the hell am I doing on it…..

Could I write about the “foreigner’s” to whom we are the actual foreigner’s…and the look’s in their eyes which we probably mirror back home….

Should I write about the bleak mornings when I stand by my windowsill and smoke hand-rolled cigarette’s and drink coffee while watching the flashy cars below on the street and think of the dusty and hot mornings back home…..

Could I write about our own cousin’s who have lived here so long that they are even more foreign to us than the natives and even more puzzling…..and yet are a part of me as much as my own fingers which type out these words….

Should I consider mine own brethren and the changes that being in a foreign land has wrought upon them…..and perhaps me?

Would I consider explaining about the utter senselessness of the whole system of which I am a student...and yet believe that there is no other alternative to…..

Could I write about my chat pals, three females, who have never seen me and who probably, chat with me just because my insane conversations intrigue them…and thankfully never read my blogs….

Couldya, Wouldya, Shouldya….

I would like to write something that when another person reads it, they’d be able to identify themselves with at least the protagonist, if not one of the main characters….and yet I don’t know how to even create a character which is a composite of the whole…..

I wish I could start with my journey here and work my way back in retrospective, with flashbacks and linkages….kinda smart and a very much over-used idea, I know….but still interesting….

I thought I should write a blog that can define me as much as it would define my own terrain….and perhaps be understood in a context that doesn’t require merely words or status or even visibility to be thus…..and work out a book that would give me enough space to be read in…..and to breathe in….

But what would be reference point? Would it just be another college story, just another frothy, funny piece about the experiences of just another stupid arse who has enough sense to employ some smart gag-lines and have a coherent enough plot for the lowest common denominator of readers to understand and empathise with….

I wish I could write something that would cause a reader to read me, to breathe the slightly smoky, slightly musty air that I am breathing in…..to become a part of me and go on a trip with me….not far perhaps, but far enough that when the final page is turned, there’s a sigh and a small silence for the reader to collect his/her thoughts and breathe deeply enough…

I am not asking for greatness and nor am I asking for fame……perhaps just a bit maybe…that’s not wrong is it?

I want to make a change, to cause a diversion, to make my mark in these ever-shifting sands of time and space…..not by much, but enough to be accepted and to become part of the whole….

I want ….oh, I want….just to be me and appreciated perhaps….

But then, so does everybody else….in their own ways and manner’s…..

Can I be able to link together the various parts of these disjointed pieces and jig-jaws of concentrated insanity onto paper and into a cohesive and sane whole?

As I type here in my warm kitchen ( I have the burners on my cooking range on and its safer to smoke here as the smoke-alarm is not a smoke sensor but merely a heat sensor) and see the sickly yellow walls, the faded red nailed down carpet and the over-flowing trash bins, lined with the ubiquitous black plastic bin liners and the kitchen table over-flowing with the debris of my papers, books, cigarette papers, tobacco pouch, pens, filter tips, markers, cell phones and files folders of notes, I wonder what to make of it all….

Its 5.30 am as my watch tells me and it will soon be just another chilly April morning here in Glasgow, a Saturday morning in just another city.

Does a story start here or is it just another blog?

Me!!!

The lull between the waves….

Someone recently asked me why I write this blog?

I thought the answer was obvious…..or was it?

The lady asked me to stop being weak, to cover my wounds and to show nothing but strength. Quite an Amazon, one would presume and the advice sensible…..or was it?

She asked me why my need for adulation, why my need for posturing? Why the need to show the world my pain? Don’t others have pain as well? Do all of them write blogs and ask the world to pity them? Or so she asked…….

Interesting thought process…..

Is it wrong to write a blog? To express and not to repress? To define yourself and take recourse in the abstract, almost clinical detachment of setting out in words EXACTLY what you’re going through?

Am I asking for sympathy or worse pity by writing of my own belief’s and thoughts?

The claws of the beast on my back writhed every time I took laptop to hand and set out in no uncertain terms as to my own condition and the grooves of my own defensive shields ran ice cold blood down my spine as I realize anew each that this could be read by one and all…..and be castigated and humiliated as I was by a reader or worse by all………

Was that courage or merely an exorcism of fear?

Is there any substantial difference between the two?

The lady in question asked me if I suffered from the hero complex – to perform hard tasks and expect applause and celebrations….

I did have a handy snappy retort to that, at least….So I replied, heroes only come in three kinds; dead, damaged or dubious….and I do believe I am the third kind…..

The answer didn’t really have the zing in it anyway…..

Much as I wished I couldn’t really explain to her what it meant for me to even consider laying myself bare thus and yet the trusty words that are so quick to defend, to justify, to retaliate, seem inadequate to explain the long years of my comparably short life that has brought me to this phase of my life and the even longer shadows that crowd my thoughts.

Could I or even would I be capable to explain the ruthless, brutal, dishonest and hard life I have left behind me?

Could I or even would I, be capable to ever explain to anyone what it means to be hollow in victory and an empty husk, to flee in the night like a thief and worse, like a coward.

Why did I not stand and fight, she asks, and well she might…..

All my life has been negative space, always waiting for someone, or something or some kind of real feeling to fill me up and give me a reason. I thought I found a reason once and yet it was not to be….

The lady also has issues with me talking about my past life here……quite a nosy character perhaps……but then I did lay it out for everyone to nose around in……

Why does my ex still mail me or even want to be friends with me? I am a past, preferably forgotten, conveniently disposed of, in the easiest possible way and to live in the present and future with nothing but the best to look forward to, with the worst already behind her. Right?

Another old friend, also female, says she is bored and needs to feel comforted and secure in the fact of the existing past as well as the present…..

A bit confusing I found it, to be honest…….but then I do seem to have a few too many female advisors, to be honest, so, that kind of comes with the territory…….

What do I think?

It’s hard enough to write 9 essays of 5000 words apiece within a space of 10 days, not to mention proof reading and restructuring another 45 essays within the very same 10 days…….Not to mention the fucking insane knight of the realm, jack-booted ass I got stuck with as a supervisor (bloody bugger uses engraved notepaper to invite dissertation students to high tea, in friggin’ black tie!!!)

Someone teach me how to say no to people……especially friends in need…..

As I think about the whole issue, I try to look at it from the perspective of honour…..

Most people confuse honour with virtue. Virtue is concerned with what we do and honour is concerned with how we do it. You can fight a war in an honourable way – the Geneva Convention exists for that very reason- and you can enforce the peace without any honour at all.

In its essence, honour is the art of being honourable and it’s a simple art to practice……

Don’t do anything that makes you unable to look at yourself in the mirror every morning……

Not that I like looking at myself, anyway, but at least I can meet my own eyes and regard my inner self……

Am I at peace….with myself? I ask myself that question every morning as I brush my teeth

A hard question to ask a soul wrung over from a lifetime of revulsion, hatred, ambition, guile, bad decisions, good experiences and stupid mistakes…..

They say, fate always gives you two choices, the one that you should take and the one that you do.

I did what I did and I do not regret the choice

I am empty inside……unfeeling, cold and clinically detached……neither shame nor exultation……

If I were to answer myself, perhaps I would say that I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation....

I would probably be called insane for thinking thus, but then sanity is a madness put to good use and in today’s age and disillusionment, men are so necessarily mad that not to be mad amounts to another form of madness…..and yeah, everyone in the whole world was a crazy Indian blogger in at least one past life!!!

The flesh surrenders itself,
Eternity takes back its own.
Our bodies stirred these waters but briefly,
Danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self,
Dealt with a few strange ideas, and then submitted itself to the instruments of Time.
What can we say of this? I occurred. I am not….yet, I occurred.

As the Bard had stated - Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.

India Extended…

Is a nation defined by its boundaries or by its language and cultures?

Back home, we would greet strangers with the commonest possible question;

“Where are you from?”

Now, WHY such a question is asked, we all know, in our varying levels of sociological profiling awareness.

The best answer I have ever received back home, in India, was “From India, same as you….”

The best answer I have received here, in Glasgow, was “Does it matter? I speak your language….”

The boundaries of India once stretched from the upper reaches of the Afghan mountains to the vast saltine marshes of the Hooghly delta.

We might have not spoken the same language then….We even might not have been aware of the extent of our domain.

After Partition, we suddenly did become aware …. Painfully aware….

And after years of being subject to varying influences of regionalism, communalism, casteism et al, without a hint of secularism anywhere, we finally landed on the far shores of a country, not our own, bereft of belief, cynical and hardened by years of defining ourselves and teaching ourselves to be concerned of none else but what concerns us.

And suddenly found cousins and relations…..of language, of culture, of belief, of understanding….across the border and yet in a different country altogether….

We found kindred souls with the same love of Hindi movies and cricket….of the need for heartfelt abuses peppering a conversation shared over gallons of sweet milky tea and cheap cigarettes….of the sudden ease of a person whom you don’t know and yet understand…..

All on the basis of a common language & culture….

Fine, we call it Hindi and they call it Urdu…

Fine, they add salt to their tea and call it kava and we add sugar and call it chai…

Fine, we have the prettier actresses and they have better singers….

Fine, we cant decide who’s fielding a worse team presently….

The differences are less than we had assumed and the similarities more than we could have imagined!!!!

We’ve all here suddenly found pals who we might have grown up with, it seems and allies against the alien culture we find ourselves in.

Suddenly our boundaries are extended…..

One of my old pals who is presently in Melbourne, Australia was just trying to tell me how normal and similar Pakistani’s are to us……I first heard the same a long time when another one of my friends went to Pakistan on a Peace Promotion trip a long time back.

Not that I had specific animosity or such, but Kargil was quite recent and its hard to understand much from what the governments and media spouts.

When cable TV would show the PTV channels, we’d get very upset about how India was being subverted and shown in a bad light or whatever….Never considered how the Pakistani’s might perceive NDTV and Barkha Dutt….

One of the most hilarious scenes I observed recently was when two friends & idiotic buffoons from India and Pakistan started horsing around pretending to be journo’s and media guys from their respective countries……the whole comedy merely underlined the issues of trust and comfort of the ACTUAL people on the ground, rather than the governances or systems…..

My old Chinese roomie truly believes that the Dalai Lama is a threat to China and is building a core terrorist camp in Dharamshala……My American friends think that Bush is an ignorant savage and are even more vociferous in condemning him than ourselves……The Scots and English and the Italians and the Iranians and the Russians and the where-ever-you’re-from’s ……they are all not what we perceive them to be…..

True, there are some similarities…..the Africans or those of African descent DO talk like rastafarians….the English CANNOT smile or laugh with their mouths open……the Scots WILL deep fry a chocolate mars bar……the Iranians ARE sexy and promiscuous….the Chinese ARE incomprehensible when they try to speak English…..and so on and so forth…..

But these are generalizations…..Chanel talks like a BBC newscaster (though she does do wicked imitations of a lot of different people)…..Kat laughs like a banshee and is really cute when she does show her wisdom teeth…..Gillie is still very fat conscious….El Naz does have pimples on her face now…….and Chu-se-kai does manage to be understood in English ……

And we Indians ???

We carry on in these far shores, a part of India in our souls……

We make a decent hospital waiting room appear like a Bihar station when one of us is sick….

We do try and bargain even in discount sales……

We do wear thermal clothes ready for North Pole even on a summer’s day….

We do try to bhangra, even when the DJ is playing ballroom music….

But….

We still hear the familiar strains in the accented English….and sometimes unaccented ones as well…

We still understand problems that can ensue out of seemingly simple questions and issues…

We still absorb the old ways and find askance at changing them….

We still are a singular people….divided by boundaries….marked before we were born

We still are the same people….undivided when pressed upon….wittingly or unwittingly

We still are ….. and continuing to be…..India extended….

Perfect letter to scare off wannabe wives……

Dear XYZ,

I wish I could start this letter on more favourable terms however, the fact remains that since both are pretty well scarred, its always better to start with some diffidence...that means, with some distance, silly...don’t reach for the dictionary just right now!!!

Okay, lets have a look at the scenario....

You:

1. Been dumped
2. Getting old
3. Bored out of your wits though not lonely
4. Require companionship as most old pals are too busy with THEIR own lives
5. Require security and yet interesting lifestyle, hopefully with some excitement and fun thrown in…probably some love wouldn’t hurt…and by love, I mean, an idiot who thinks all that you do is sooooo cute and okay-dokie…and for preference, who earns well enough to offer decent security and spending cash…
6. Have to make a decision fast within this year hopefully….one way or the other…
7. No real contenders for your hand in marriage, to be honest, I am more like the runners-up trophy, something if not nothing, half a loaf of bread better than nothing etc etc

Me:

1. Been dumped
2. Getting old
3. Lonely beyond belief though not bored
4. Require companionship as most old pals are too busy with THEIR own lives
5. Require someone who understands my wild ways and need for experimentation as well my abilities….someone who gets my jokes and stops me from going comatose on alcohol if I don’t have enough work to keep me busy….someone who could possibly read my writings and criticise/appreciate them, listen to my wild ramblings and lead me back to saner alternatives…..In short, I require someone who’ll love me despite my failings and accept and understand my efforts to win the world for them.
6. Have no time limit on my decisions….yet, there is a limit on my decisions….I don’t waste time or emotion or at least try not to
7. Have enough participants, though not one yet who is reaching me….maybe because I have the doors shut tight….whatever…..the fact is, despite my obesity (That means being overweight!!) and my wild ways, I am still a decent “catch” for most idiotic females and their bloody families…..something which really depresses me as I don’t fancy being “auctioned” off or being traded like a bloody horse/donkey….I mean, get a grip ladies/families….what’s marriage for you…beauty/youth in exchange for ugly/security….its not a bloody trade off!!!

I don’t mean to be rude and all that jazz, but the truth is a bit convoluted…

You said, you could read anything through… so fine, wade through this and think about it

To start with, my parents did NOT have a decent marriage….fought like cats & dogs and I don’t want a marriage where I have to fight my wife over silly issues instead of resolving them normally…I took a lot of shit from both over different issues and hence my initial supposition of marriage is pretty much shit to begin with….

For me, marriage would involve a life where I could cuddle my wife and argue with her on my lap, some give and take and definitely a lot of space….hmmmm, pretty much what everyone wants, isn’t it?

Next, I have complexes….big ones….they have made me a tougher fighter, but its not easy to live with them….I have a tremendous inferiority complex about my looks and an enormous attention seeking mania amongst others…. Which in turn explains my drive to win at any cost and also my plethora of girlfriends over the years and no commitment to anyone or anything besides my own objectives….As one of my ex’s put it…I am interested in everything, committed to nothing…

So, finally, with all this baggage, I did finally meet someone who could handle it all and yet like me….and THAT’S saying a lot….I gave her a lot of grief initially but in the end, I was hers….

(This is usually me….I will make you laugh and help you and all that shit, but wont trust you till I am sure of you…..but once I do…I am yours for life… typical d-boy nonsense, yeah? But you’ve gotta admit, it sounds very jazzy and nice!!!)

Anyway, took quite a bit of time for the lady to actually open me up….because I don’t ever show who I am or what I am thinking…I show a lot of rubbish…a lot of silliness and inanity, but usually, I know pretty well where I am going and what I am doing….you’ll realise this if you really get to know me and my manner of achieving objectives, which is a rather far way off presently….

NOW, we get really messy….I got dumped….hence, all my existential angst (This means anger at even being alive) and absolute depressionist tendencies and suicidal berserker alcoholic binges… I swing like an yo-yo with no bloody fear of consequences or of falling…hence I am usually successful at the risks I take…

After going through so much verbiage (look this one up in the dictionary….ha ha ha) I would commend you for having survived so far…

The point is….I am a mess….I have some good points and a hell of a lot of bad points…so, basically, I am a talented mess…and that takes some doing…

Do you really want all this shit?

Do you really want a guy who has abilities, dreams and yet is so messed up that he doesn’t know which way to turn if confronted with something personal?

Do you want a guy who can be an utter bastard with all the dirty tricks known and ready to roll, with a past as long as your arm and a scar to show for every time he screwed or got screwed?

Do you want a guy who knows he will make a change someway, somewhere; a guy who’s had the living shit kicked out of him and yet has picked himself up again to fight?

Do you really want this guy or is it merely a compromise for your own needs and wants, because to be honest, this would be the last time this guy would ever even consider opening the doors to his heart, mind and soul….provided you know how to push open the doors?

Regards,

D

PS

If you are still not satisfied with so much of crap, you can read my blogs underneath….and I’d be seriously impressed then….

Have fun…

Nihil Ultra

Nothing is Beyond….

What does it signify?

Nothing

Different times have different perspectives…..

A few weeks ago a young and rather brilliant friend of mine (If I may call him such, for at times, I am in awe of him!!) wrote a rather scathing expose on the Indian Judiciary and the judicial system as a whole.

For a few days, I smarted under his comments and wrote pages in reply against his seeming diatribe against one of the pillars of my existence…..but I didn’t publish it. Initially, I wished to polish up the piece and make it more ….shall we say, polished? Perfect examples of tautology perhaps, but be that as it may seem to be…..

I did not publish the piece and as the days went by, I considered the ramifications of what I had written and more importantly, WHY I had so fiercely defended the system?

Was it an underlying sense of loyalty, cultivated over the years, to one’s chosen profession? Was it belief in the system itself?

My arguments were not flawed, I still consider the Indian Judiciary or even the judicial system to be the best in place and I also still think that the system should be allowed to function without pressure of media circuses or even of public pressure.

Aristotle had said, law is reason without passion and yet, it was this principle that I believed in most passionately. The law is nothing but common sense, an operating system without which the edifice of social contract will not subsist and in order for it to be effective, it must operate and function in sanctity, peace and without pressure.

I still honestly believe that it is the rule of the law and it is the law which makes us function as a democracy and that the judiciary is the main cornerstone of any effective governance and so on and so forth.

And yet I did not publish….

My reasoning was cogent, articulate and yet empty of belief…..

I myself am empty of belief, of passion, of sustenance…..

I find it hard to defend principles that I have weathered so many storms for, given so much up for…..

I am questioning, not my principles, or my beliefs or even my foundations, but myself.

There was a time when I prized my fierce warrior instincts, my willingness to fight, right here, right now for anything I happened to believe in….I believed in confrontation, at any cost…..and now after so much lost…I have lost this willingness to fight….I question the need to contest, I question myself….perhaps too much….

Its getting harder for me to write…..

My reactionary and revolutionary pal puts it in an interesting perspective and very charitably states that I am lazy …..He is actually being charitable…..

At his age, I was full of fire and brimstone, piss and vinegar, ready to take on the world and its cousins along with…..I have lost that fire, perhaps.

Expanses of white screen are suddenly causing me nausea …. I think I have writer's block....and I am struggling with writing sans alcohol.....

I seem to bring out the best or the worst in myself when intoxicated beyond belief.... It’s perhaps the only time I don’t find myself or even my existence repulsive

Usually, it’s a low grade chronic headache which keeps on getting worse and finally erupts in a massive drinking binge or possibly a fight or both....and then, next morning, with an aching head or injured hands, I end up churning out 16 pages or so of ridiculous prose!!! Most of which I shouldn’t even be considering……

I honestly don’t know what to think.....do know that I should do.....but suicide is morally reprehensible to me

I burnt myself yesterday with hot oil and my right hand looks like it’s been to the wars but at least, that staved off the drinking bout for a few more weeks. As I burnt my hand, there was a moment of happiness….the pain blocked out everything else…Some experimentation is required here, I feel….

I write verse when I am drunk....absolutely completely disgustingly correct iambic pentameter verse in ringing couplets....my prose comes from the morning after when I am too sick to hate the world, which is usually my default state of being…. so grappling with the idea of output sans alcohol....which is not very productive presently...

I shame myself with my self-obsessed incoherent ramblings and squirm when I read blogs which are passionate and ring with sensibility that shames my rambling outpourings

As I check my inbox, I am appalled to notice that in the past month or so, I have hardly written what has been going on in my life to anyone at all….I building a frigging shell of normalcy and balance…

According to me, a person writes when his soul is in torment and the world is pressing down on him……hence I stopped writing for the years that I spent with my ex ….. I was gloriously and maybe, selfishly happy with the state of my being….

Once she dumped me, the wellspring poured forth a torrent of verbiage, unblocked the dams and dumped (forgive the pun!!) out massive amounts of choked back, repressed rage, anger, bile, vitriolic reminiscences…..and now I am empty. Dig as I might, I find it hard to actually be bothered about anything.

This state of being actually makes me less inhospitable, less insufferable and perhaps less me…..I miss my hatred, my bitterness which has brought me so far….

Diary, Diary, on the screen…..where the fuck am I? Who the fuck am I? Where is that damned smartass legal eagle who could dream and spin out reality from dreams?

Things that have occurred since I last wrote;

Got a job with HBOS –

After 17 interviews and 8 assessments, I am finally working for the Halifax Bank of Scotland in the AML & FSC’s (Anti-Money Laundering & Financial Services Crimes) section. In fact, I recently got semi-promoted to the DPA (Data Protection Act) section and am under negotiations for a full time contract. The work is interesting, the hours are decent (4-8 pm, Mon-Thurs) and the pay is good. Lets see how it goes….

Have severed relations with skinny and hence allayed further apprehensions-

Do I want to talk about this? I don’t know, as usual or rather as is NOT usual. I usually know what I am doing. She was getting too close perhaps, maybe I am too raw still….its been 2 years and more, but the mind and heart still says 4 years of penitence and then retribution, 2 done, 2 to go……I honestly don’t know

Changed rooms and not happy with new roomies-

I have given up my ASR’s post as I need to concentrate on my studies what with the new job and so needed to get out of my nice 2 man flat and have shifted into a 5 person flat. Hardly know my roomies, am too busy with my own issues.

An old junior of ILS days, Udipto came to Glasgow-

Rana was an old junior from Assam and is still the same, if not fatter. But it was nice to reminiscence about ILS days. Got him some decent booze and sent him off with Taimoor to roam the city while I was working.

Did okay in my assignments, still second best and need to do better-

Am scoring solid A’s however, there is still a guy ahead of me and I need to do better. Thank god, I am still competitive where studies are concerned....wish I was so in college, too many distractions.....regret none though.....

Gave a party for my birthday combined with Jay, Karthik, Asim etc. -

This was a bad idea….however, the kids from class enjoyed themselves….which is another way of saying that they got drunk silly, made out all over Jay’s flat where it was held. Jay himself was comatose long before the party ended, and quite a few of his bed sheets were soiled by the guests….but this is “foreign” so all is forgiven…..Chanel was incensed that I was slaving in the kitchen, but soon forgot me with the aid of Stolichnaya and some Zulu chap……I cleaned up as best as I could, threw Sam and Tharun, still lip & tongue locked as usual, out into the street and treated myself to a drink…..it was my b’day after all, and I cant get worse than this….

Haven’t been attending as many classes as I should -

Need to work on this, though I have managed to go to most of important seminars and workshops etc. I am exhausted with work, correcting taimoor’s homework, doing marwat’s essays and my own studies…..not to mention applying to various vacancies in the UN and associated agencies.

Went to the hospital after my Warden nearly dragged me there by the ear -

After I got my hand burnt (4.5 % body surface area second degree & some third degree burns) I nonchalantly washed it in cold water, cooked dinner and went about my business for the next 4 days….it was only when it started suppurating and bleeding worse than could be sustained by tissues that I went down to the Central Services building for some bandages…..the bloody females started howling for the high heavens and sneaked on Kevin, the warden. So, when I got back home late that night, I find Kevin in a fine mood who takes one look at the stinking and bloodied bandages and literally drags me to Western Infirmary. There, they practically flayed me as they ripped up the dead skin which had formed on the burn surface, WITHOUT anaesthetics and bound me up again. I was nearly dizzy with pain, however, the swelling and the slight fever I was running went down with all the antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs they gave me….I didn’t touch the pain-killers as I found the pain to give me focus enough to continue with my job and studies…..So, now I have a decent stock of pain-killers….smart boy I am....

But what has been bothering me is that I haven’t been getting my thoughts in focus… I have issues of lack of issues….am missing my bitterness and hatred…..don’t like it…my resources dwindling…..time running out

I have too many thoughts at the same time and as a result I end up taking the softest option. This is bad for me, but I am unable to break the cycle.

The truth of the matter is that I have become a vagabond, unaffiliated to anyone, free as a cloud and roaming free through the blue expanses of cerulean blue sky…..and I honestly don’t know where I’ll blow next…..

Nihil Ultra….Nothing is Beyond…..

Hop Many in Edinburgh....

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, beyond the east of moon and thewest of sun, where is found the homes of the North Winds and the Ice Giantsand the ephemeral Gods of the Universe, a place where Space and Time have nomeaning…..an old man is surrounded by his nephews and grand-nephews,littered around his already littered study…..all clamouring for astory….most are in their teens and yet listening to his stories is a delightfrom childhood and still continues to be so…

The old man puts aside his old and battered laptop and starts rolling acigarette…something forbidden and not allowed in any of their homes andhence, all the more intriguing for all of them….

“So, what kind of a story would you like to hear?” starts the man as he getsout his beloved rizzla rice papers and his aromatic tobacco pouch.

“Not the one about your hiding in a bunker in Afghanistan or your war stories in Africa…they’re too scary” interjects one of the elder girls.

There is an instant uproar from the male segment and they are in themajority.Grandada’s harrowing life and death stories with the associated accents,scars and noises re-telling were delicious in their horror and left one withshivers down the spine…..though some of the horrors did get a little bit tooreal at night, each one grew up with these stories and were an importantpart of their childhood…

“Hmmm….how about my law school hostel stories?” suggested the man, squintingwith concentration at rolling the fine paper with the tobacco and the filterinto a slim little cylinder…it was getting harder these days than it wasbefore….“Naaaa…” “Not AGAIN..” there is no helping it, the kids of today areseriously loud, thought the man as the cylinder was finally rolled to hissatisfaction, a slim and slender roll of impending death….what the hell, its one of the few pleasures left, the man thought as he snapped open hisbattered steel lighter, another remnant of a near-forgotten age.

“Hmmmm….did I ever tell you about the time, I went to the wildest streetparty in Europe?”

The children suddenly silent…this is a new one….grandada actually going to aPARTY!!!.....what’s a street party….how wild could it be…..

The silence rolls around the suddenly silent room as slow sensuous spiralsdrift toward the ceiling from the lit cigarette…

“it was in the winter of 2006, I was in Glasgow, studying in the Universityof Glasgow for my second masters in…”

“Development Economics!!!” crow half the boys in the room, the girlsgrinning…The man grins as well, the children know his bio-data better than he didhimself, nowadays…

“Anyway, it was bitterly cold and I was very interested in mystudies…something you guys should be as well…”

(A chance to drive the importance of education was not to be missed….afterall, he got enough of it in HIS days, why should he not return the favour!!)

The series of whines,, growls and similar noises to suggest an orchestra ofcats on hot tin roofs urged the story onwards…

“I was in Glasgow for the first time and had become something of ahermit…hardly knew anything more than the University, my classes, theLibrary and my room….Things were getting really boring and so I decided todo something interesting for New Years Eve.”

As the story unfolded in front of his content audience, the years rolledback as he recalled the days of the winter of ’06….

Initially, there were only two responses to his google group email…Dorte, aGerman girl in my class, who was home in Germany for Christmas and PranayAlhuwalia, that revolutionary dramatist-journo who was also vacationing backhome in Delhi. However, there were hardly any others interested and this wasabout 3 weeks before new years. Everyone was busy with the assignments andessay submissions.It was only a few days before New Years Eve that Rishab Khanna, anotherbatchmate met up and suggested the very same idea. I, of course, had decidednot to go by then and was reconciling myself for a very quiet NYE soundasleep in my bed.

Rishi-Boy, as I called him then, was much in earnest and roped in hisroomie, Athar Rizvi from Pakistan. Athar preferred to be called Atty and wasa lanky, tall, fair guy. Next to turn up was another fellow called Faizan,also from Pakistan who came up with the information that the InternationalStudents Centre was providing free board in Edinburgh for NYE.

It was at the Winterfest, an evening sponsored by the International StudentsCentre that Atty, Faizan and I got together and met up with Calum, thePresident of the Int. Students Centre who assured us a roof over our headsin Edinburgh. Calum, the poor, poor man, had actually no idea what he wasdealing with here, but gave us the go-ahead for making plans. And finally ina bar in Byres Road, (Curlers) we agreed on the policy to go ahead and makea mess on NYE at Edinburgh. Rishi-Boy was noticeably absent due to hispresence with his latest lady-love in City Centre and agreed in proxy viaAtty.At that point, the whole plan started materializing and I started making therequisite tickets for the Princess Street Party as well as the bus ticketsetc.

Around this time, I scrapped Pranay for his final decision and wasassured his presence subsequent to his calling me up the minute he reachedGlasgow. Conveniently, I completely forgot poor Dorte….

The four of us would make plans to meet up every day after that to finalizedetails and we never got around to meeting each other for one thing or theother. Finally on the 30th, I managed to meet up with Atty and Rishi-boy inStarbucks and accompanied them home to print out the tickets and passes etc.

By this time, Pranay had not called up, and hence we assumed that he was notcoming and so got the tickets only for the three of us, Rishi-Boy, AttyRizvi and self (Faizan was getting his own tickets).

As we went over to another pal’s room to get the tickets printed from mymail, the first person we see is Pranay who had just arrived back from Indiathat very minute!!! He was delayed due to fog and adverse weatherconditions. So, we had to figure out how to arrange another party pass forhim as well.

If this was not enough, after the tickets were printed out, I suddenly sawthat we collect the bloody passes from the Hub offices in Edinburgh before 5pm the next day. Our bus tickets were booked for arriving in Edinburgh at7:45 pm!!

To be honest, this was where I should have realised that the entireendeavour was not going to go as planned….

However, being the go-getter sort, decided that I would go to Edinburghearly and the others would catch up with me there. Since I was the one whohad booked the party passes on my credit card, it would have to be me whowent and so, around noon, the next day, I hopped on the Megabus link and setoff…

When I reached the city and got off the bus, I felt I was back home inIndia…..

Pranay was once asked by a guy what he missed most about India, here inGlasgow…and he had replied in his classic style….looking out of the windowand not seeing 500 people outside….

Edinburgh was packed….according to the statistics, there were half a millionpeople there to celebrate the wildest street party in Europe…

It was already a usual Scottish day, windy and with a fine misty rain,chilling one to the bone. I hopped onto a taxi and reached the Hub officesat the bottom of Castle mile and found it swarming with a mini UnitedNations crowd. Making my way to the line, I managed to get tickets for thewhole group

This was when Rishi-Boy calls up and informs me that Faizan is not going tomake it and Dorte is back in town and wants to come along. So, I muscle myway back into the offices and manage to get another ticket. I even madefriends with a rather pretty girl at the counter called Emma but was toobusy to notice the signals.

By the time, I was done and had got outside the wind had picked up and itwas already dark so I went called up Calum and got directions to the placewe were supposed to be lodging in for the night.

That walk was perhaps one of the craziest I had taken. People were driftingtowards the party venue and the wind and the rain were steadily picking up.The place I was supposed to get to was halfway across town and as I walkedthere, the wind practically helped me along. It was bitterly cold anddespite having on a really heavy sweatshirt and a heavier fleece jacket, thewind cut through like a knife. I saw a chain-link fence about 18 feet longtorn off its moorings and lying on the street and no, I am not kidding. Atone point, I was practically edging along a building for fear of slipping onthe wet and slippery road or worse, being buffeted by the wind into it.

Anyway, I managed to reach the address and Calum, good man that he was hadthe place organised. It was the International Students Centre offices. Bythe time, the others reached the place, I had well and truly talked Calum’sear off. The others reached the place safe and sound and within minutesRishi-Boy unlimbered the bottle of Scotch I had insisted he get, and pouredout a hefty dram (two in my case) to everyone.

After making sure everyone was well covered up, the whole gang, Atty,Rishi-Boy, Pranay, Dorte and self set out for the evening’s festivities…

It was raining like anything and Rishi-Boy and Dorte stumbled and fell onceeach along the way, but by the time we reached the gates, we were informedby the police that the party had been cancelled. Pranay and I insisted ongetting photographs with the police guy. We told him that we’d come all theway from India and couldn’t go back without evidence that we had reallyreached the place and that it was cancelled!! The poor officer complied withus…twice…
By this time, we were all well and truly wet, chilled and pissed anddetermined that we were going to party and so walked on in the rain and windlooking for pubs. A lot of people had the same idea, apparently and all thepubs were packed.

The first pub that we went into was called the Iron and as I went to getbeer for Dorte and myself, I saw a girl pulling up her jumper to haveanother snap a photo of her …umm, assets.

After that sight, I was invigorated and figured that the night might not besuch a loss….

The series of events that occurred after that are a bit hazy to memory…but Ibelieve it involved numerous other pubs, a beer had in each, with generoustots from the bottle of scotch that Rishi-Boy carried.

We wound up around 11 pm at a rather classy pub where all the boys wereroundly kissed for providing lights for some equally drunk female’scigarette’s and finally we rolled on in the search of disco’s to dance in…

I remember being treated to beers for lifting two huge guys up and singingSutta Na Mila quite loudly on the streets….with rishi-boy happily abusingeach and every white guy on the street in Hindi…I believe Pranay and I alsojoined in and Dorte getting more and more freaked out by our antics….

The next I remember, I found myself dancing with a French guy whileRishi-Boy tried to make out with the guy’s girlfriend and shouting out thecountdown to the New Years.

All the time, the only guy who was not drinking was Atty Rizvi and if itwere not for him, I doubt if all of us would have stayed together…

But there was more to come… to poor decent Atty’s mounting horror….

Around 1 am, the guys got hungry and I had clean finished off the bottle ofscotch, so they dumped me on a bench to doze off and got in a line to getsome fast food. By the time, they came back, I was in deep conversation witha girl and apparently refused to recognise them and went off for a walk withthe bloody female….

After a while, I got back …..with a smirk on my face, according to Rizvi to his utter disgust….

At 4 am in the morning, Dorte disappeared and we found ourselves in a busstand, deciding what to do next…

According to the others, I quite showed my horrible side and suggested verypractically that dorte could go to hell, and we should catch the next bus toGlasgow…and promptly went for a piss behind a parked car….when rishi-boy andpranay attempted to do the same, the car drove off….

Around 8 am, I was awoken by Rizvi inside a Royal Bank ATM, to go and catchthe bus back home….and there we met Dorte as well….no one was in a mood toask questions and so everyone just piled inside the bus.

By this time, Atty Rizvi was in utter and absolute shock and probably readyto turn himself in at the next mental asylum….

Inside the bus, finally, Pranay and Rishi-Boy decided to exercise theirsinging skills again and I joined in, till I went to sleep again…

We arrived in Glasgow around 9.30 am with my tongue tasting and feeling likean alligator’s tail, with its head way down in my stomach…..

Rajat and Vivian, a really decent couple from my Halls of Residences offeredme a lift and I got back home to my room, completely frazzled out andextremely zoned out…

The next time, I actually opened my eyes, it was the 2nd of Jan’06….

The cigarette had been burnt down along with two others in the overflowingashtray as the children finally realised that the story was done…

“You actually did all that….??? Seriously??” asked one of the girls

“Of course, he did, he doesn’t tell lies, do you, Grandada ?!!” interjectedthe youngest one.

The man merely smiled and went to pour himself some scotch as the voices ofthe children started the usual squabbling and arguments and looked up at oneof the numerous pictures above the bar, showing a bunch of bedraggled andgrinning group of boys, a girl and a rather harassed looking British policeofficer in his neon green jacket and slightly raised his glass to them.

International Studies & Students

My cousin Sean calls me a scab….as in dabboodada, you’re such a scab

He is not calling me a name, he is defining me. And not wrongly, either…..

A student is a scab on the skin of society. Useful both in the short term and the long term, but presently a little gross looking and definitely an irritant as well as being scratchy and….. ummm, well, figure it out..

One of the most interesting things about being a scab on the skin of society, that is, being a student is the fact that;

a. You have enough time to actually introspect absolutely insane inanities of your life, though this is usually during the horribly boring and totally useless vacations.
b. You have enough time, during the same vacations to go completely out of your mind, either by drinking copious amounts of alcohol or by exhaustively digging through the internet.
c. You can discuss into early morning topics which make no sense, no possible use and possibly will be forgotten by the time you wake up
d. You can get bloody idiotic and the world, more or less forgives you….
e. You can get away with being irresponsible, idiotic, insane, incorrigible, obnoxious, repulsive etc etc that is, you can also be yourself…

I mean, I love being a student….I only wonder why I stopped being one a few years back.

We’re the finest species of humanity on the planet… and its no wonder that these years are most often called the golden years, the wonder years.

Talking about golden years, there are certainly golden moments of being an international student in a foreign land and sharing space with other ….ummm, students..

My Chinese room mate calls himself cougar…..like tiger, he defines as I nod along….trying hard not to grin….

The dude is so intense that he is adorable and is a real sweetheart…..especially at 2 am in the morning when I’m making enough noise to wake the devil.

His real name is unpronounceable…as mine would be to him…BTW, I call myself D….its simpler for the poor whites….and the rest of the world….

In any case, my roomie and I, have these amazing conversations and random moments of absolute insanity.

Like a few days ago, I had myself some anda bhurji, that infamously simple dish of eggs so beloved of all men who have to cook for themselves…

I mean, I can write an entire blog on anda bhurji or fried eggs….I have friends who would die if it were not for this dish, as it is the only dish they CAN make….

Eggs by themselves can keep a man alive and my pal taimoor, poor fellow, is a living example of this.....

For those not in the know, taimoor is a rather ferocious afghan who has “imaan” (beliefs) you couldn’t cut with a knife and hence wont touch non-halal food. The man has been existing on bread, eggs, kava (a salt-ish tea) and chocolates…

If you think, this is the limit, wait till you hear about another old pal from my law-school days who has been surviving here in the UK for almost 5 years now on a steady diet of chocolates, biscuits and milk….and amazingly, he is thriving on the bloody diet…

Anyway, so, I had made myself some anda bhurji the usual way, with eggs, onions and some garlic mince and chilli powder when my room mate walks into the kitchen and sees the fragrant dish being served out into a bowl

(I still love eating out of bowls – hence I have only one plate and about 12 bowls – all plastic)

Anyway, he goes like, what’s that? I say, eggs. He goggles at me and says, You’re cooking eggs? You don’t cook eggs…..eggs are not supposed to be cooked, would you cook an apple?

I am inured to most international cuisines by now, so I am like, yeah, well, WE cook them and LOVE cooked eggs…

My poor roomie shakes his head at my weird ways and starts making a sandwich out of bread, strawberry jam and chicken…boiled chicken, that is…

I goggle back at him and ask him what he is doing and he offers to make me one….says the chicken is quite fresh…

I say thanks, but no thanks…

So there we are, sitting and eating anda bhurji and Strawberry Jam & boiled chicken sandwiches ….. trying not to look at each other's plates/bowls…

My roomie is also quite musical …. He plays two different types of flutes and also a stringed instrument called the “cushin” which basically looks like a sitar lying down and taking it easy…

Today, my roomie was practicing his stuff when he said that he would play me my national anthem….I was quite surprised and …to be honest, a little intrigued….

So, anyway, I was like, cool dude…lets rock…and stand at attention

So, the guy starts strumming his instrument and the melody though quite recognisable, is not the Tagore composition we used to bray out in school and in my NCC days…..and I listen with and at attention….

After he finished, the poor guy grins at me and explains that he heard me playing it on my laptop quite often and learnt it….

I gave a weak grin and offered my compliments and my heartfelt thanks ….

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was playing Atif Aslam’s "Yakeen"….

Am planning to go to Edinburgh for the wildest street party in Europe…. Or so it is said.

The Scots celebrate hogmanay, that’s the new years out on the streets and am hoping to go and see that… will blog on that later.

But my cousin Tony’s advice on behaviour during this eminent festival based on personal experience goes as follows –

Have party passes, don’t drink beer, don’t drink urine, don’t snog girls, don’t make sexual advances at animals….

(This blog was delayed due to lack of internet connections at my halls of residence for nearly a week before new years eve....Managed to study a bit therefore...wait for the Hogmanay special ...or as we called it HOP MANY !!!)

Who am I?

The weather turns colder…and I am starting not to notice it….getting acclimatized I guess…

So much to write…not even sure where to begin…

Okay, let’s start with the basics….

My best friend is terrorized by his fiancé and he seems to like it….

The fiancé claims to be terrorized by my pal and seems to revel in it…

I am terrorized by both of them….and I also enjoy being human….once in a while….

My married pals seem to lead double existences of baseline Siamese twin existences with their respective spouses….. Bloody guys can’t seem to think for themselves…Bloody females cant think at all….

My unmarried other pals are living in a constant state of sexual frustration and in an intense state of seeking means of alleviating the said state….never seem to achieve it, unless by marriage and then also, I am doubtful of their success…

My professors are intensely happy that the semester is over but the librarians seem to wear a harried look as I start haunting the library instead of the classrooms… I am getting really intense about my subject…there is so much to read….

My cousin shibu passed away ….was found dead in a pool of blood in his bed…..alcohol abuse….. Earlier than we all expected….I grieved for 10 minutes and then got back to work on my assignments….is that normal?

My parents are looking for girls for me and I am scared stiff of spending a life with a woman who won’t get my jokes and worse….that’s assuming my folks find a girl at all….Me being who I am, am sure most females are gonna go; “…… ‘ells bells, head for the hills!!!”…. and I kind of like the idea of being so repulsive !!! Saves me a lot of trouble, as I will outline later…

Am hoping to get seriously blasted and blown in Edinburgh for Hogmanay….but I don’t know if even that’ll happen… have too much to study…

I corresponded with my ex with a flurry of 10 mails in total over two days and then finally it ended as abruptly as it started…my buddy explained it in his inimitable style “dono lambe lambe chod rahe the, as usual, needed the gas out of the system, simple”

Was she ever in my life….seems so long ago that I am wondering if it seriously occurred…… Life is as before now, wonder why I went through so much shit for a female at all…..but then, again, it was a learning experience….

I find solace in endless day long conversations with an old friend who met me for only two-three days 5 years ago and 5 years later, we are still talking and second guessing each other’s thoughts and moods…..and no, we are not romantically involved, both are a bit too pragmatic about each other’s needs and objectives in life!!! She needs a rich hubby and I need to get ahead in my life….well, further than where I am….

I find my world revolves around gmail, yahoo/msn messenger and orkut ….and yes, d-boy…

My fingers are typing blind ….. my second greatest fear is starting to get erased…

(Second greatest fear: if I loose my sight, how would I transcribe my thoughts in English and not in Braille….I cant think in braille…though the thought itches my cranium and I wouldn’t mind trying it to see how long it would take me to master it….)

Hmmm….I am living in interesting times…which is another way of claiming that I am cursed by my Chinese roomie for making too much noise at 2 am in the morning…

My thoughts are disorganised and dis-oriented, I need sleep….write later…

Okay, awake and it’s the next day……

I like the new songs from the movies Dor and Guru…..Okesite is an interesting website for downloading movie songs….I also like the midival punditz version of Don…it’s a classic rock version….

I seem to have a motley crew around me all the time….presently, I am surrounded by afghans and pathans with a sprinkling of maratha’s, two diga’s and one pondicherrian (I wonder if that’s even right??!!)

The only thing in common with us all is the fact that we all are slightly insane in our own ways…. And no, we are not mad…Mad's when you froth at the mouth. We’re all a bit insane, that’s when you froth at the brain…..from too much cranial cogitation, I’d guess.

I like food that’s easy to make when I am studying but my beef sukha is turning out to be quite good….

A blog is supposed to be about you and your experiences….I have so many, that I need dumbledore’s pensieve….

Is this my life….brought down to a standstill surrounded by books on abstract theories….my desk is a mess again….man, I do need help…

I love my studies and my cluttered existence….do I really need anything more than this ?

Recently, I have been having second thoughts about academics…..

I mean, all I need is a functional kitchen with plenty of drawers, a bathroom with hot water, a bedroom with a desk and a swivel chair …. That’s it…..

I have a cluttered existence…my desk is usually a mess and my clothes are flung all over my bedroom…..but my life has become a minimalist structure…. Stripped of all but the bare necessities and it’s an existence that restores peace in my mind…

If I need company, I venture out to see the world passing by with a glass of beer and then I head home, back to my library and my laptop…

It’s a comfortable existence…..do I need anymore?

My studies can lead to a Ph.D, or worse, I guess…do I need to really change the world?

Why do I need to change the world at all? Or even if I do agree that it needs changing, why not do it through a classroom?

Is this me?

Hmmmm…….