Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Another failed first time

A momentary lapse of reason, and I agreed into doing something so abhorrent that I never subscribed to even in my college days. That killed my evening. I had plans, plans about planning about affecting my near and distant future. But, alas, so is life, and so it goes.

Right now the disorder of last evening has carried on to my next day, as I sit a few hours into my professional time, geographically faraway from my profession, and mentally even further away. I will light up a smoke and hold it fragile between my fingers as I stare somewhere faraway into space in he narrow confines of my room where I sit sipping lukewarm half a cuppa masala chai, just to dramatise the situation - seems I get more of my kicks from the destructive elements life has to offer, in some half-agreement to the nihilists and the satanists. I'm already living days in this carryover stuff, much like an algorithmic multiplication of 9s to a random infinite number, leaving a carryover at each step - carryover trail crawling, as life ordains me.

To come back to the original focus, what this boob had agreed to, was a concert; a rock concert; an Indian Ocean rock concert; organised at this sprawling complex of IP Park; organised by some Indo-Deutsch partnership. The inference chain went so :
- if not the venue, enjoy Indian Ocean
- If not Indian Ocean, enjoy the venue

Initially happy to see a free concert at hands, I found that 'free' is an initiation opportunity for a lotta other freeloaders, and this being India, 'diversity' is to be expected. So there were mummy-papa-baccha types, uncle-aunteejee types, uncleji types, bhaiyya-types, corporate-spending types, chirpy-bird types, mid-life-crisis types, and chutiya-wannabe-types. [On the way to here, I had been musing on the impossibility of a Woodstock in India - the sneaky kids, whiplash-wielding-self-discretion-using policewallahs, pariah dogs, vendors, wannabe oldtimers, and the adjoining shitting ground for some poor families, all spoiling the atmosphere for an observational rocker and push him back home to write diary entries instead] So I found myself on a wooden row of benches, beer in hand, pork sausages on the plate, right opposite a muslim couple (the girl was in a Burqua) - in their religion, alcohol is haram, so is pork. So this was the kinda opposing confluence it turned out. Later there was a trio of village women in kitsch green saris veiling their face (घूंघट डालना), opposing my view for a while - then they actually sat down to sit through the concert!

To add to it, there was Ashoka Hotels doing the catering, and doing so in the most creepout manner - by employing their over-professional crew to imitate a McDonalds; a McDonalds at the price tag of an Ashoka (kingfisher being the cheapest drink at 180/pint, and veg burger being the cheapest food at 200). There was a mustached-uncle in suit taking the order, on a whole page of grid of items on offer, which was to be given to seemingly-minor employees at the serving counter. But it had a silver lining, as the following incident explains: there were these svelte German girls sitting opposite for us for a while, into whom bumped some Indian acquaintance of theirs (white toothy smile plastered on his face) whom I found annoying. When he exclaimed "I'll join you guys with a beer!" I was relieved that he was gone for at least half an hour - so big were the unmanaged queues.

I.O. themselves were unspectacular; I wouldn't say they were lethargic or untalented, or that they were great, but they can't hold you for very long. I suppose they are less of what they started with by now. They have a sick drummer. They made me busy with a lotta questions about why I, impulsively, didn't like the concert. It could have to do with me re-entering a Syd Barrett phase presently, and expecting something more chaotic, more synthesized, more grunge.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

First Shaadi of the Season

My cerebral tubes are probably choked with Manchurian, Chaap, and Shahi Paneer, in multiple servings to satiate this evening's foodie that had been eager to attend his first wedding of the season. Finally, after committing to two other weddings (as a guest), where the wedding couple itself broke off commitments prematurely, I get one to attend in all fanfare. Disclaimer, that being in my league means almost commenting from a cave - social events are rare, rarer still are the ones I do attend.

One thing for sure, is that being abandoned is no fun (aka being a guest on behalf of yourself, as against the earlier routine when it was the parents we used to tag with and everything used to be 'on behalf of' them). I am newly-abandoned, so I could be led to confuse my unethusiastic impulse for inexperience, and linger on in the hope that there is some silver lining. But really, the only silver lining, as I've come to find is just that palpitational feeling of rubbing shoulder with lardbags in suit.

There is the assurance of food, if nothing else, but trust me, I feel like going on a pilgrimage every time I return from a wedding - not to forget the paradoxical situation of my stomach the next few days, that will not let me leave home. The course of 6 meals accommodated over a single hour is brutal for anybody, regardless of whether they deny it.
This guy, has his eating quirks - still no different from 12yr olds who are ignorant of propriety, skipping main course to accommodate more space for ice cream... which nets me even more lubber than I think.

Of note:
- New fat deposits. They will be useful WTSHTF.
- Dysmorphic body structures.
- People growing into their parents. But I hold negligible appreciation for any parents (mine included) in the first place. So this adaptation is of little use.
- The era of silence, when silence dominates congregations, is still faraway.

Friday, October 26, 2012

I'll be the King

It has been 18 hours that I've had anything to eat, and the same that I've locked myself in muteness. This is not my usual recluse in the Delhi apartment - I'm surrounded by the people called family, in my hometown of Lucknow, under assault by tastes that unlock some primal corner, and yet this is how my past 18 hours have been. My vision starts to feel blurred as a particular set of glands prove their existence, an emotion so alien that i make my way out to the open rooftop to tame this new level of emotion; my eyes hurt, and it's not the treatise on chronosynclastic infundibula to cause that, for a change.

I am alone, and I feel like it, for a rare time, in a very intense way. The vision of my world is just that, mine, and I panic. I know you won't be there.

Meat and Soul

"I can't help it," I said. "My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things."
"You and your what?" he said.
"My soul and my meat," I said.
"They're separate?" he said.
"I sure hope they are," I said. I laughed. "I would hate to be responsible for what my meat does."

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Slow reader, Fast walker

Its unlucky that I'm a fast walker, but a slow reader. Books could've been much cheaper an indulgence than traveling, you know. I love getting lost; mountain trails and fictional worlds, are two of the best places to get lost in. But while the travel - and all the associated dreaming and planning involved - has destroyed my finances (my cash flow stream is a horror) and my profession (i've not yet matured to the concept of employment), book reading tends to make it light for you.

I wouldn't have spent on books in three years what I spent last winter on a single trek. Books, moreover, are a solo thing... you find one to read, you read it - there is no need to be chasing others to come read it with you, or settling on a date 2 months in advance for a reading session. Books don't require so many roles as trekking does - that of a salesman (for adventure), a beggar, a travel planner, a manager, a fixer, a passionate fool. Most importantly, books can be done in parts; travel cannot - not unless teleportation is invented.

Book-reading, however, is also a reflection on the nature of the people who stick to it: people who are always short on time, people who want to manage their life better (for the sake of what?), people who juggle with partial commitments (ever thought of a trek as a commitment, much like how parenting is?), lazy people, idealist people, conservative people. The "lazy" could also mean lazy enough to find satisfaction in another's description, experience, imagination, or opinion; travel, on the other hand, is one's own - you can't really find help with any philosophies or opinions when running into a herd of yaks or slipping on a glacier.

"There's more in a mile than in a 100 pages of a book", somebody famous said it on Discovery Channel, yo.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Puppy Crush

Last evening, came home from a run, to shrink in horror of seeing Pup-2 lying lifeless, jaw open in the agony of his last moments. He was a month old, at best. It was only in the last week that we had noticed this litter of 6 flopping all over our neighborhood; since then I'd been a regular benefactor towards their nutrition.

I love dogs, unconditionally, and seeing one whom I'd assumed guardianship turn road meat, was very sad. I was also the one to carry his still-warm body to the garbage dump. [Coincidentally, 2 days back, I had dreamed of disposing a dead dog]

Being 99% sure that it the deed of some local car owner, who carelessly backed out from the parking without any thought of having a tiny life at the mercy of its wheels, nobody could be blamed for this. But this afternoon, I acted 'proactively', and plastered these around the neighbourhood:


My one bit.

Cooker volcano erupts, leaves man scared

Look at that. Abstract art. Right in my kitchen, on the ceiling.
Alternate title: Pressure cookers gone wild!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Idol Crisis

It's been a while that I've been in mourning about the fall of Roger Federer in the tennis arena. He's been on a downhill roll, more so since my committed endorsement of this legend of the game. He did win the Wimbledon since my rant about that, but that was eclipsed by his loss record, and moresoever by Andy Murray's - one time Roger's least of troubles - double of an Olympic Gold (defeating who else, but Roger) and the US Open.

Next to come is Lance Armstrong, cycling idol (nay, 'god-worship' is a better word). Victories, allegations, denials, vanishing sponsors... in my eyes he's turned from a step up in the evolutionary chain, into a mafioso boss who pieced together an almost-perfect drug ring to establish that image. Having idolised Lance, I still expect some large undocumented void in this (ongoing) doping saga, and sympathize with the censure he's subject to in these days (but who isn't, the tale of the Tiger (Woods) - for mere infidelity - was a more lamentable affair).

2012 hasn't been good - I've had to drop two idols; and I'm already past that stage in life to be making idols. Should I just go further back in history to pick a figure that has sneaked away untarnished, flew away in his/her make-believe wings of gold?

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Jusqu'ici tout va bien

Surrounded by all these worldly pursuits - a cat staring at me from the cover of the book I'm (presently) reading, a dual screen glowering at me demanding code and clicks, a pair of Nikes sneaking up to my bedside asking me out on a date to the forest trails nearby, a Jane Birkin eluding me - ooh mon amour - into throes of passionate love, a couple of bananas desperately flagging me against that Snickers bar, blowing kisses to get then picked up instead, - and yet I stay sedentarily distracted for most of the day in cognizance of none of that and deliberate on the virgin wonders of the world, the unchartered frontiers that lie for me, bound in a half dream.

Born free, ain't got any money; ain't getting out - that's been the story this far. Will it go any further? Any faster? When you fall, you gain velocity, but when you climb, deceleration is the benchmark. Am I falling?

So far, so good. So far, SO GOOD...

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Brand magnet

Last week, as I went out for a run, I noticed my pan-culturalism.
I had on me 6 articles of clothing, each of which coming from 6 different malls spread across 3 states and 4 cities - (going up) shoes from Ansal Plaza, in Southex, Delhi; socks from Sahara Mall, in Lucknow, UP; shorts from DLF Emporio, in Vasant Vihar, Delhi; tee from GIP, in Noida, UP; and cap from Ambience Mall, in Gurgaon, Haryana. Five international brands - Nike, Lotto, Adidas, Puma, Jockey - were involved.

In contrast, today was a more desi affair. My socks and shorts proudly a purchase from Nehru Place flea market. My briefs - Rupa's ("अब रूपा क्या पहनेगी!") - from Rishikesh. My cap, a free gift.
Only one brand violated my desi profile - Nike, in the tee and the shoes (but for shoes there is no match for Nike in the Indian commercial space). Just noticing how brand agnostic I am, and how marginal difference apparel (except shoes) makes in performance. Had my best run today, so I might infer otherwise.

Sexual illetracy

What are you? - asexual, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, polysexual, intersexual, pansexual, transsexual, bigender, trigender, transgender, heteroflexible, homoflexible, bi-curious, androphiliac, gynephiliac, HUG, LUG, BUG...?
Can't be sure? Me neither.

Coincidentally, I've started with Polyamorous Perversity alongside. It had a distinct design input phase, and even more distinct gameplay (as you can guess from the screenshot below).


Delhi's Hook

Well, Delhi has a hook in me now. Outside the dull, disappointing, fading professional dimension, I have found a major motivator towards health (and mental peace) in the QRP - Qila Rai Pithoria, right next door. Some days I've been leaving the office early, some days I've been skipping office altogether, so as to not miss on the single kick from the day that I get from visiting this nature's abandon at the edge of Delhi. Yes, QRP.

I'm slowly coming to fix my long-held wrong assumption, that such places were hubs for gay cruising or prostitution. The place is nothing but dense forest crisscrossed with winding trails, with the ramparts surviving from Mughal Era forming its boundary. It is least of an attraction to the Delhi-wallahs who prefer picnics - with bhutta-wallahs, mungfali-wallahs, bhelpuri-wallahs, chai-coldrinks-chips-wallahs in vicinity - to a complete escape in the cradle of nature. The ominous look it bears is unsettling to the other gender, which is why neither one finds any young birds, nor the guys who come in anticipation of birding. It's a bit too unglamorous to the young romantics as well, who find greater attraction in the Garden of Five Senses a short distance (and INR20 entry fee) away. This complex has a more gardeny garden as its front, so that is where the old folks and kids stick to (even I was unaware of the sprawling complex that lay beyond for a few weeks), which means a thinner crowd, and a happier me. As for the criminal elements, I have yet to encounter any, and my present theory is that even they find this place too deep into the bowels of nature - some shoddy Dhaba or a more primarily-located ruin would suit them better.

From personal experience, there could be no better time than dusk. I enter late, and exit too late, at nightfall. Generally I've been the last person around, huffing and panting. Thursday evening I saw a Neelgai (Blue Bull). Today I had jackals crisscrossing my path on the last lap. Despite this being the time around a new moon phase, my adjustment to severely low visibility has been really good; I'm a cat! My mind keeps going to the thought of how nervous we feel in the dark, when there's really nothing to be afraid of anymore, at least not places like these; trust my instincts on this one (despite Delhi being labeled the rape capital).

And the best part of it? The rocks. The most amazing central feature of this place, where I am found flexing my hands and slapping trees after my runs. Lado Sarai Rocks, as they are popularly known in climbing circles. The rocks are one of the best climbing locations in Delhi, and yet so undeservedly unpopular, that my heart cries in pain. There are several climbing routes marked, and I believe on some rare days some do come to practice here. I have yet to even start with my climbing ambitions, unarguably the best part about this place, but I'm already in so much love with it.

moar dream frenzy

As ugly as it gets. I have a dirty tag in me now - a killer, a coward.

I could've saved saved that shark. Now I've got to dispose of it.
I could've saved the G as well. Now his only memory is those three last frames on the tape, before the flood swept him away. Poor guy.
I could've done better with the dog as well. Now look who's got blood (and viscera) matted into his hair and into his tee, standing at the kitchen sink...
Blood, fluids, the stench, the cleaning up.
[Update: 2 days later, I was disposing away a dead dog for real - the blood, fluid, cleaning up part...]

When weird and random are coupled, its means misery for moi.
'Kafkaesque' is what best describes the varied scenes from my dreams. Still trying to find out the connect or the interpretation of these so called 'symbols' - my guess is that nothing could satisfy a yearning for explanation, so might as well just go with it instead of subjection to reflection.

My subconscious surely couldn't be influenced by my last thoughts before going to bed - of making love with electrodes on (note: not to be confused with electrostimulation) :|

Monday, October 15, 2012

High Hopes

The biggest developing news in our country is another political embezzlement scandal, the rape of a NLSIU (Bangalore) student inside the univ campus, and a celebrity wedding ("sangeet ceremony was a star-studded ball", one should revel in that fact). Now I know what India would be busy in the coming week - more protests - or, asses complaining about other asses, as it has come to be.

Meanwhile, in world, Felix Baumgartner jumped from the Earth's stratosphere to become the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, a feat unimaginable (or 'mystic') to a majority of India's populace. We are so up our own ass that we never really see any such cherished moments in our timeline anymore. Independence was it. (and my friends circles, enlightened by conspiracy theories, tell me that even that period wasn't one to feel inspired of) To find larger-than-life inspiration outside our history books is really difficult. If one looks to current affairs, the 'difficult' transforms into 'depressing'. Somebody balancing a watermelon on a 40ft pole situated on his roused privates on one of those talent shows is pretty much the best there is. Shabash!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Nutritional deficit

Another new. I tried having a reasonably-fed day, and found that I'm, indeed, incurring a daily deficit in amount of my calories. [That matches the financial deficit I coincidentally happen to be in, but that rant is for another day.] Having rid myself of the charms of mouth-watering Chhole, Samose, and Boondi (the types made as offering in temples) right down the street, I find that eating under discipline could pose an equal health risk to me. There is just so much that I need to count for, and with the options around, its difficult. I had been tracking myself - the morning apple, the snickers bar(s), the cappuccino, the Sub.

After foreseeing a grand deficit as the day neared closing, I had to surrender to being social - and even then, the South Indian fare of Vadas and Masala Dosa only helped me so much as to halve the deficit, but not give a full cover. If I were a labourer and had to work at a construction site each day, I'd develop some fatal disease by the end of my third sack of cement, probably. But thanks to being that man behind the machine - that most of us have grown into - I can work (which involves mental faculties and dexterity, but no mobility) despite the starvation. My shortfall of yesterday measures 563 - also to consider that I burnt away 564 just in the cycling to the South Indian place.

Today, this far, I've been keeping myself regularly fed. I'm almost halfway into the day, and I've counted for almost half the daily need, which is keeping with the expectation - but beverages make for a third of those, so that's something to be wary of. Khichdi's gonna be next, to make my day.

Romantic couplets of the men that make the nation mobile

चाय में रंग नहीं बनता दूध के बिना
महफ़िल में रंग नहीं बनता आपके बिना

तुझे तकदीर से चुरा लेने का मन है करता
तेरी एक तस्वीर से मेरा मन नहीं भरता

With all the grimy travel involved these days, I'm gonna keep a log of these. I've been long fascinated by the images - from days of Madhuri Dixit, Rani Mukherjee, to Katrina Kaif - complemented with these shitty romantic couplets, found pasted on truck/bus/auto/tempo windscreens. These guys probably develop their romantic notions from it - more likely (just my perception here) that the prettier the picture and the saltier the couplet, the better they jerk off.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Fighting (for) depression

"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth."Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

For greatness, I need depression. Looking at the state of things, I deserve depression. Somehow I don't find myself there - fighting some overwhelming feeling of failure, listening to NIN's Hurt, holding sharp objects while contemplating, calling up friends and weeping over the phone... clearly something's horribly wrong. Depression feels like my prerogative at this moment, and yet here I am, satisfied; maybe even... that H word... Happy.

To make amends, I got hold of a friend - M - recently diagnosed with thyroid complications, for which the prescribed medicine warned (for me, advertised) of certain side effects, one among those being - TADA! - depression. I was very excited to call up, and find M in a state of depression as a result of the meds - which confirmed the efficacy of those pills, - to get out of which I recommended we met up, Friday itself. Alongside, I asked M for some of the medicine too. God bless Thyroid. I had a weekend of depression to look ahead to. FUN!

We met, went out to Pizza Hut, where we talked, and sampled from their ongoing Italian carnival. All was fine till the point that I paid the bill in courtesy, only to find M having taken the medication thing lightly, and having none at hand. All I got was a "LOL, really?" expression. So, there, my plans were squashed. That made me feel so sad, that I almost went into depression. But I didn't, so, fail, again.

Monday, October 08, 2012

Cat Phase


I am a cat. That's the name of the book I'm presently into - a book about a noname cat, by a Japanese legend, Natsume Soseki, which is, as I've come to perceive, the forerunner of all cat monology that's popular now. This morning I overstayed my morning at home, to finish its first volume (its a three-volume novel) - and enjoyed it.

Not to forget is Henri the cat, also a recent discovery (its been trending only recently, maybe that's why). But its most entertaining.

Virgin ideas

One archaic concept still dominant in our present (Indian subcontinent) society is that of keeping one's virginity intact. Humour me here - so a girl could talk dirty, watch porn, flirt, go out, exchange saliva (and a variety of other fluids), let you annihilate their breasts, give and get blowjobs, let you finger her, even let you take her anally, and still call herself that - virgin? I know a lot through shared experience to register this rant - thanks, friends (and smaller subsets). It's just too hard for us guys to comprehend what a girl means when she claims being that. I guess is equally hard (or harder) the other way round, when a guy makes such claims.

It's quite like asking for vegetarian food, then being served a plate piled with dog meat, bull testicles, roast cockroach, and snake viscera, and then foolishly asking "you sure there's no chicken in it?" How can someone imagine us to believe in the concept of "virgin" anymore, and why are these people keen on passing this futile notion to their offspring?

Iambic Tetrameter, you say?

Doug H is the geekiest person I can claim to have come across in my quest for learning and emoting. His process is amusing, baffling. Amusing for all the minutiae involved, obviously, which makes him t3h geek. But it is also baffling to see how easily he lays out his personal domestic life, that would mirror the same for any other guy sans the geekery; that I see as coming from fixed stable definition of a society and of what is expected of him. It comes as so straightforward that he needs not have any opinion or bent mandates on it, a geek who stays fixed to his skill than in social moral mores ethics. Marriage, kids, education - they are just meant to be that way. I admire and envy him, as I begin with his intro to Eugene Onegin.

Man-crush, you say? Probably. Envy? Probably that, too.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

You've to give me some credit here. I'm into 9th year of blogging - which is about half a life lived since the time that I started blogging - and yet the same traits of a strife-torn, caustic, impulsive, foolhardy (and adventurous, I dare say?) life reflect in my daily dealings. Laziness continues to dominate my days. Special (twisted) turn of events follows in a far second place. Consistency, if any, comes last. There are still elements of conventional living that my brain circuitry short-circuits at - planning, responsibility, professionalism, propriety, excess fat, television, romancing, etc. I do occasionally fall into the social trap, but with advanced scientific means, cut my way out of it, only to fall into a deeper abyss of (seeming) nothingness where directions mean nothing, and the purest of emotions and intents are only a distraction from the realization that one is to hit the bottom sooner or later. Would it be applicable to call this my Catch-22?
I'm in no mood to humour you here - its a condition you can be apathetic to, but not be ignorant of.

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Restoring Feminity


This was so offensive that I had to paste it on my blog wall.

What I wasn't prepared for, however, was where the click on the ad led me to - a website marketing something called a "natural vaginal tightening gel", which provedly "Improves grip and strength of the vagina".
Agreed, that I don't know girls and what they desire. But I fucken never came across a guy who'd call this restoring femininity. I can see the contrast in those that inhabit this planet, in that I was listening to Nicki Minaj's edgy vocals in (KW's) Monster, and at the same time, of reading about a product, for which a market clearly exists. Where are my feminist brethren? Girls, are you buying such stuff?

The rotating banners say it loud:
* "After all these years in love, we have fallen in love again"
* "Now, every time feels like it's for the first time"
* "Just when we thought our wild days are over, we started all over again"

This is just an overload. I should just stick to slashdot and hackernews - at least the drivel is met with sharp, devastating critique and downvotes.

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

G ecosystem


Found: some post-monsoonal residents of the fields, where I presently am.

If last night was a tiring and embarrassing affair, today was quite the opposite. The sounds of nature are so intoxicating that I need no other drug. I'm floored by the collective cacophony of the cicadas that is now my favorite sound, and also makes me wanna be a sound engineer who can preserve these for the future - the death of some of my favorite insect species will need suitable elegies.
I can't recall seeing such dominance of insect species over the avian species earlier, especially from an aesthete's PoV. The spiders are at their most flamboyant. So are the crickets - I got rare (macro) footage of one munching on a petunia.
Talking about petunias... don't even let me come to flowers - they are in abundance, one for each of my lady likes ;)

disturbing their peace

I've been flipping out since my arrival back into the domain of nature. The shrill sound of cicadas is beautiful, almost unimaginably so, especially when in an ensemble, as right now. I've been chasing cicadas around, teasing grasshoppers about, and even molesting inanimate petunias. Later I might climb Montpellier and stalk foxes. The macro mode has been my best friend today, and presently I long for an SLR with a good macro lens.

Presently I also long for something else.

Blemish

Historic day. I missed my first train. Not only does 2012 mark first tie I shooed any journey, but also one where I missed my first train. Both these incidents, however, were separate, and potently I'm combining my journey and shall be in kgm tomorrow morning as planned. I chose bus journey for an alternate, managed to get on the last train bound for av and managed to find a seat on the last bus to haldwani. It's been a dirty end to the day. But I have better things to look forward to, so can ignore this blemish on my travel record.

This year has been a string of narrow escapes, do this feels like a progression. But rest assured, I'm never mission another one. Tonight I travel in this rickety buys with front row view, and considering three pleasant weather I might enjoy the rude. Only hope that roads have improved, as on all past travels on this highway we've been stuck one place our other to reach few hours late, which translates to extra hours of discomfort. Out now.

Monday, October 01, 2012

some old s**t

(possibly too drunk, ca June)
This is epic. After a round of kingfisher beer, and stalking some social sciences chick named Cunningham, we're going to have 'aloo ke gutuk', the connect to our pahariness and away from our desi-ness.

Guy #2 is out already, and Guy #1 is going crazy in demand for a quick escape - to him I can only wish some gal who could escape the propriety and come straight to the benefits instead...

But my evenings rarely stay out - out on the rooftop - this way. They usually go: dead, phone call, dead. I might be dead soon.

Leaving for the office, happy

I'm leaving for the office, happy. The happiness has nothing to do with the office, however, for I'm leaving home as less an employee and more a traveller. Once the day's mask of profession is done, I won't be returning home - and head out for the station instead, where commences a train journey which would have me at the Shivalik foothills by tomorrow morning. I delayed my exit thrice, cleaned my apartment twice, had a modest yet heavy breakfast, packed and repacked for the journey (I'm breaking the one bag tradition this time, though laptops demand an exception from this rule), and had the ritual weekly cleansing after which I am gonna stay ignorant to various terms of contemporary hygiene for about a week. Strict abstinence from food until tomorrow when I get access to a toothbrush (note: my toothbrush).

It has been a while that I snuck outside this urban bog and found myself breathing in the fresh air of you-know-where - it feels like an year since, albeit records confirm I was in zones of elevation a month back (Mukteshwar/G.). Experientially, a full 4 week/ends of detachment is enough to cause severe psychosomatic symptoms ("the psychosomatic nature of man" - Herbert Ratner), so I have a lot of repair to do.

After a lotta deliberation, it was decided to keep both the nifty Tab and the bulky laptop. Earlier, I'd convinced myself of completely shirking work for this week, but now I think I might want to pull off an idea or two in my seclusion (outside the hours I'm being transformed into a khaate-peete-ghar-ka-ladka by mom, who'd be there, too, as would be the company of my entire extended family... so now one gets why productivity might be a futile expectation). One thing I really want to work right this time is the Tab - on previous occasions it has misbehaved on roaming for reasons I don't get); ultimately I wanna see it (the Tab) as my one gadget on future trips, so I can publish/store/share my meanderings as they happen, assisted by the power of the Swype keyboard, at my lazy comfort.