Sunday, October 03, 2010

Field exercises

Hiding behind the wall I could not see who was firing at me from the other side. I introduced some of my own fire from my M4A Carbine to get them into hiding, then tried to steal a look, and I did - there were two of them at the other side of the complex, themselves following a similar strategy as mine, and firing in short bursts, expecting to get lucky. I thought I could trump them with my knowledge of bullets having the power to get through certain walls at a certain angle…”wallbanging”. I fired again, several times, and my bullets tore through a chunk of wall.
I did eventually hit my present aggressor. He fell with his Kalashnikov. The one with him now took charge, pretty much the same thing; stupid AI. “Easy,” I said to myself, and continued my steady stream of fire. But with time, I could sense my bullets were going ineffective. I brought myself out of my hiding, to stage an assault. I was being careful, for he could just be sitting out there waiting for this idiotic move of mine, and so I fired a few times again, but those bullets only punched holes in the blue plastic barrels at the far end of the complex – I could confirm that the other guy wasn’t there anymore. Might he be circling around the building, looking to surprise me? Convinced of that logic, I changed my course, tracing my steps back ever so carefully. First thing I did was to exchange guns – my carbine for another dead terrorist’s Kalashnikov. I struggled, for I couldn’t remember the key to swap objects, but eventually I did. Soon I had circled about the building, without either of us surprising the other. I stood staring at the dead terrorist whom I had taken down a while back, confused as to where the other was hiding. I was out in the open, and a nervousness came over me. Could he have run away, or entered the building? Not too sure.

Suddenly I felt a shock run through me, I was numbed, I was down. I woke up.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Gardening

Foreign Flower
Something clambered up to the surface in me yesterday - the primordial desire to cultivate. As I ambled along the open spaces outside my office complex, there was a strange sensation in observing the grass artificially growing in modest patches. More than those verdant patches did I find interest in the dug out portions of the earth – the brown earth, often clumped together in fist-sized chunks, the roots haphazardly sticking out, in a violent fashion, like a scene of genocide. The gaping hole in the earth was strangely inviting; maybe it was an invitation to creation, somebody had to fill it in, I wanted to be that somebody.

My envy for the day went towards the gardener, whom I had caught at work earlier in the day. He was working on a tiny patch of grass, right there as you step out the conditioned environs of the office. It was nothing very challenging – he had carved out an area which he was methodically carpeting with new grass. I was drawn-in to the extent of forgetting the embarrassment of conveying my idleness (when you are a worker, you do have to look busy – a cellular conversation, smalltalk with fellow colleagues, a notebook to scratch on, those darned shoe laces that never stay put… anything but an extravagant display of nothingness).

We humans are a grassland-loving species, we like to put our lands to use, to cultivate, and I won’t doubt a wider reach of this instinct. I have grown up seeing lots of Uncles sharing a passion/indulgence for gardening – scoops, rakes, watering cans – that you wonder why they only blame the opposite sex of being sedate in their own artificial worlds. I have heard of army men growing gardens to escape their dull routine abroad – creating a new landscape within the new landscape that they have been posted to. Alas, I presently have nothing but a couple of dying/dead plants in tiny pots on my balcony; they get little sunlight and no human attention. There is no grass I could grow, no garden I could rake of dead leaves in the autumn, or rose bushes that I could prune. Another cry inside to get back home asap.

Remember Shirke ?!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Why so light?

Won't be long before I drift into my today's sleep; 0830 in the morning. Being irresponsible with your schedule is exciting; Juhu beach is exciting at dawn as well; so is Shruti's company. Already having come a full circle, rest of my waking hours would be spent trying to catch sleep; hard luck for me that life has such abundance to offer and yet we have to steal everything, including sleep, including our own expression. I also have this entity called 'office' where I'm supposed to spend time and get rich.

Mumbai is a crazy city. By the time - 0700 - we were on our way back from the beach, the traffic had swelled to an extent that it seemed no different from 0900. There were cops about, sneaking about traffic signals, writing a new chapter in the Indian history of corruption - its INR 50 for jumping light, 100 for no license, and 200 for no legal proof of owning the bike. I was miffed by the noise of traffic constituting my dawn, a day that had begun so serenely.

Rewinding back, this morning I woke up at 0540 with a tingling sensation all over the body. I had only an hour's sleep, and the jumps were still pumping through me, hence the condition. As usual for the first half of the week, I found myself wondering about the weekend foods that could've got me this stomach upset.
To remind myself, tonight is going to be another night of indulgence - Abhishek's only got this day before his religious dedications restrict him from meat.

// 20100907

Burn my shadow away

Was overcome with an unbearable tide of emotions by this evening. To my luck I could sneak away from the office sans a trace. Wiled time at R-City; then later, dismayed at the find that there existed no Shopper's Stop inside - I had free coupons to feed my materialistic minimality - I immediately employed a rickshaw to get me home. Melancholy took hold through the journey - I walked into my apartment in mere folds of flesh, there was a vacuum inside.

I was reminded of that which a few of my friends confided to me "I wept on many days"; their experience of living by themselves and facing the de-humanizing aspects of their employed roles brought from thoughts into tangible weight of their tears.
Well, keeping the trend going I too tried, but I couldn't - it seemed ridiculous and self-defeating. Had I not forgotten the fact that I was also out of toilet rolls and Maggi, perhaps I'd have bawled.

Archival Diary Entry//20100907

Friday, September 10, 2010

Warming hands by the fire again

My travel log might see some fresh ink soon. My shoes will taste some real soil again. My lungs will breathe in some happy air again. My skin will feel the touch of wild flowers (as I tie on a mountain slope) again, and the numbing sensation of sparkling brook waters will haunt my feet for more days to come. I
have gone malnourished in the hunger for adventure, I have gone mental in the lust for my being with nature. I hope this could give me answers. Sikkim and Bhutan is on the cards, have to fill the boat that will rock those corners, have to make plans.

Ich imagine coming across some travel author who takes me in for her protege.

Marriages are made in heaven

It would not be surprising to see why religion and arranged marriages go well. India is a shining example, a country that boasts of a "religious character". Marriage is a bond between two people. IT takes forever for two to know each other. What better than train them on the same framework, same decition-making guidelines, mo matter how flawed or historically inconsistent they are? Unless somebody can define themselves or sum their living in a word - eg Hindu, Muslim, Christian... - they cannot sell. Selling ourselves is what religion is for. Who cares how well people personally know each other, learn to guess the instinctive side of other's character? When there's a framework that the society (unjustly) rewards you for why be particularly unique, or try to find the perfect soulmate?
"Marriages are made in heaven", when interpreted this way seems logical. We have created a stable framework, supposedly written and ruled by an otherworldly entity that punishes us for a thousand deaths if we break the code. Hence they know those rooted in a religion would not dare break that code; they would not dare anything less (or more) towards a human being by the type of relationship they're in with. Hence a mere background check for criminal record and genetic defeciencies works well. Oh how easy it gets for them. And then they cry about the thousand sins, deviancies that their bile pushes them to.

And that, of course, is the original opposition to an inter-faith marriage. Like getting a Java expert into a C# project. Like pairing an OOP expert with a procedural programming adherent.

Someday my life would find this occurence...
"Sugar, I've always been a PHP guy and you're a VB.NET gal. This cannot work between us."

Monday, September 06, 2010

trouser-gyan

I should rather put this in my other blog, since a 'geek' isn't restricted to the computer domain. So it happened that I savoured content on the construction of trousers in the past hour. It started with the attached description of my newly-purchased trousers: "...cut in flat-front style, custom fit. Sits just below the waist, straight through hip and thigh, with straight leg opening..."
What be flat-front? What be this 'below-the-waist' stuff? Why is it straight through my thighs?

And so my trouser-gyan led me to finding out why my uncle's above-the-waist style of wearing trousers holds such a charm, the purpose of pleats (that isn't always applicable), and the story behind cuffs at the bottom. It led me to suspect my recent purchase; as a result I have decided to do away with the cuffs, trim my waist handles before I could put on these trousers, be more analytical the next time I'm out for another pair, and never iron my trousers the wrong way (which, I have been led to believe, I have been doing since eternity). I might as well have them custom-stitched - back to the days when my father would have those done for me; he would surely be astonished at this profound learning.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Flying lessons in the morning

It is 8 in the morning and often my day starts much beyond this. But at the present moment, I am well awake, bubbling with thoughts, and feel excited (in its classical literal meaning). Hot water from a soaked towel runs over my left buttock, losing its intensity, yet fulfilling its purpose by the time it breaks into tiny streams that would cascade down the thighs and onto another towel underneath me. I am filled with a relief.

Imagine me a sybarite; but the deviants would probably guess better - I am recovering shortly after having an accident.

Friend: Aur weekend me kya plan hai
me: my wkend started with flying lessons in the morning
*not of the kind you'd expect
Friend: ok
me: ahem, hey, wht'd you infer, btw?
Friend: Inference, I don't know
I would like you to explain
But I have seen you online the whole night
so was a little worried
pyaar to nahi ho gaya na tujhe
me: pyaar ka koi vichaar nahin
Friend: just joking
what are those flying lessons
me: so it happens that my proactive day - another weekend where I woke up to ensure my eternity - started with a 9km walk from my cousin's place to back home, and I got hurled in the air by a bajaj avenger midway
Friend: you mean and accident
* an accident
me: yep, tales of the common man
Friend: kaisa hai be?
what about injuries
I hope it's not serious
me: no, nothing broken. nothing bleeding.
Friend: nice way you put things up
me: my rear took much of the damage
Friend: That's great
me: jeans and shirt torn
Friend: vo sab to thik hai
galti kiski thi
me: both of a swerving autowallah and a speeding biker

But I, like every man, am a being of pure survival. It did not take much time for me to come to senses. Survey of my limbs, survey of the bystanders' reactions to ensure I wasn't bleeding, gathering my sensory impulses to analyse the extent of my injuries, then taking a few deep breaths before breaking into my first words to communicate my disappointment at both the involved parties, then recollecting the spills from my pocket scattered on the road.

Shaqeel, a cab driver that represented the best of humanity at that moment helped to wash my bruised palms, and volunteered to drive me some distance ahead. To his surprise, instead of hinting at an anxiety to get home in haste, I got down by the shores of Powai Lake. "Sit by Powai Lake to catch the sunrise" was on my itinerary, you see.
Alas, the sky was/is too cloudy today. I did enjoy the serenity, nevertheless, my eyes wandering off to the far ends of this lake to imagine a bask of crocodiles somewhere. Then some more listlessly staring-into-the-horizon, I started feeling the boredom and the pain and headed for home. Pain makes for a bad awareness - it sucks you inward, to your core Darwinian impulses, you cannot come up with a metaphysical theory or chart your future.

Now it seems difficult getting back on track with my superhuman fitness routine that would've been starting this evening.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Fantasy cocktail - (theoretical) pleasure of pain

Launching an offensive against the roaches that breed in my kitchen, and seeing them flit about shortly thereafter after the poison has entered their system was a defeated satisfaction, because I didn't hate them enough to imagine them dying. What I could imagine was a torture experiment:

Me standing upright, being tied on all my axes. A section of both my arms would be cordoned off from the rest of the body; perhaps a 5-inch strip starting from the elbow and towards the hand. This section on each arm would be exposed to certain species of insects that have a historical notoriety for their assault on anything living. For contextual comfort, let us assume ants (preferably the black or red ones) on the left arm, and wasps on the right. The ants could be incited by some sugar syrup on my arm; the wasps could be teased by a throbbing in my arm, having me clench my fists repeatedly. The whole thing would last for 180 seconds, after which the insects would be sprayed with smoke, so as to merely lose their grip and fall off, without meeting death.

Preparations complete. Let they be let loose.
The ants tear through my flesh; the wasps inject into it. Rapid firings in my head, unbearable pain. This would be those Discovery Channel shows we so curiously watch, taken to the extreme - makes you wonder why we are so curious about it in the first place. First minute would be the most exciting...the insects would learn my existence and communicate of my solitary existence in the otherwise vacuum that they've been put in. They might probably try befriending my arm at first, and playfully caress the skin, before coming to a conclusion that their attempts have failed. This would be the first minute of our rendezvous - the most amusing and least interesting as the insect behavior is quite indecipherable to us humans.

The next minute would start with a swelling dissatisfaction for the wasps as they could neither trace food nor friendship, nothing except this throbbing unfriendly tissue that my arm is; the ants would have discovered sugar centers on my arm by this time, and thanking their gods for the excess. With these facts, the ants bite into me in joy, while the wasps sting me in disgust. If I were spiritual, I would fain accept the ants' actions. If I were of the Rosseau clan, I would be elated at what the wasps were at. Being an educated person who is familiar to both, I would expect myself to be in rapture at my physical annihilation.

The third and final minute would be mine. All mine, as the ants would have reached the soft tissue beneath my flesh while the wasps' poison and pain of the sting would have been announced all across my nervous system. Each individual finger would try a heroic effort to stretch across the divide, but to no effect. Every extremity of my body would be twitching involuntarily. I couldn't possibly be more agreeable to death than at this time. Darwin would probably set sail again to formulate a new theory. By the end of this minute, I would have collapsed entirely into myself.

(to added effect, and to further impress Kafka, we could have these insects etch out my crime, which I am able to decipher at the end of the last minute)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Marina and Ulay

There was Marina, and her lover Ulay, who planned to make an example of their love, and decided to represent the coming together of two hearts unlike any other couple. The year was 1981.

They would cross the great distance of the Great Wall of China - Marina started walking at the eastern end of the Great Wall of China, and Ulay began walking at the western end, in the Gobi Desert, at the same moment. They simply walked towards each other along the Wall until they met in the middle 90 days later.

They had thought that they would get married when they met in the middle. But by the time they managed to actually do it, their relationship had disintegrated and their meeting ended up as a kind of divorce ceremony, marking the end of their love and work together.

In the process of stretching human limits, and being the proverbial pair that bridged distances despite all the hurdles, the wall turned into a metaphysical entity that reminded them of their own limitless capacities, and the challenges that they could take for themselves. It reminded them of a dimension beyond the mundanities, even beyond the motive force of love that started it all in the first place.
Try as much as we could to dissect and reason these two lovers, only experientially-gained reasoning could explain this.
Well, thanks to some help online, I would not be making my back any worse than what I presently have, which was as a result of fiddling with a few bikes in the garage to make space for parking.
Note to self: need a stronger knowledge of applied physics and a stronger upper body frame.

With Oakenfold's beats pulsating gently through my head, I can mull back over a change in my office landscape over the past few days. Some of my closest friends will be missing. Gone, too, are the cute 'village girls' that I always found loitering about; I'd generally amuse myself with lipreading their inainities, as well as obsessing over the awesome few. Now I will have long empty hours of no or little code to fiddle with, which, willingly or not, is can help me find time for office naps, table tennis, and frivolous, flirtatious chats on gtalk after hacking over the corporate vpn. On retrospect, today's hour of sleep right after lunch was probably liberating. I could swear my dreams had brought another vivid scenario to life in tat hour, but I fail to remember it now.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

durian, ravana

We had known about mango being the 'king of fruits' all this while. Seems that was just a national label, since the real king of fruits is something else - methinks a sampling is needed, and also the great challenge against your olfactory senses in making the first bite.

I should probably make a new entry for this dedication to the cinematic masterpiece Raavan (that I got to watch only yesterday evening), since it was overpowering. But the efforts it requires would be too much for something whose script does worse than a Vivid production, and whose team should receive public lashing in the following order:
  1. script writer
  2. screenplay
  3. aishwarya rai
  4. vikram
  5. abhishek bacchan
  6. mani ratnam
For those who think otherwise, pls get in touch with me over wood-baton-tuesdays or leather-whip-thursdays.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Taking over the town

This day was exhilirating, both sides of the cinema screen - a fledgeling story going on either side, and life mimicking the art that it sought out towards. I should count the day as epic, because never before have I indulged in cinema - the movie theatre types - to the extent of catching 3 first-day releases in succession in two different movieplexes. And it's been my first being chased by a nimbus cloud, hot on my heels. And also a first of sitting through an entire movie soaked in the rain caused by that cloud.

Impluses, when diligently followed, often unfold into a fond memory, if nothing more overpowering. But more than often they overpower you, and it is amazing to see yourself transformed, feel your senses synchronised with your inner morals, all this without subscribing to any formal education; the natural course of life seems more potent and successful for your future than any pretensions and formalities we abide to in the society.
What strikes me is that learn being impulsive, appreciate the call of your subconscious, and soon you learn to challenge your impulses to throw something even better and more liberating to you. Things like this are first class adhesive for the various snippets of your character that your fragmentarily find yourself into.

Office, you ask? That took a holiday owing to the itense feeling of liberation that I woke up with; or to put it officially to the bosses: "allergic rashes and severe muscle pain". It's delightful to be keeping a separate public profile or I'd be crippled from making this mention here.

Evolving into that pseudo-spiritual ToI supplement, am I?

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Where does wanderlust come from?

Father's Day is fast approaching, and by coincidence, I am preparing for a trip to Nainital, where I’ll be with my father, who always migrates to the happier altitudes for the summers. Here’s something that I feel is a sorts of inheritance from the man.

Why do we travel? Or maybe the better question is, where does wanderlust come from?

I was thinking about the origins of my own travel curiosity and remembered my father's stories of traversing great distances, either as a necessity or out of impulse.


For a background, my grandfather was from a remote village in Kumaon called Guniyalekh, that lies a little beyond another slightly-lesser-remote village of Padampuri, in the district of Nainital. Family tragedies and the cause of employment had him settle down in Lucknow almost 80 years back. He kept his fascination for his roots alive by building a cottage in the quaint village of Gethia, not far from Nainital. Come the summers, Gethia would serve an ideal base-camp for visits to our ancestral lands that lay deeper in Guniyalekh. My father recalls the entire family travelling the distance in equal portions by bus, on mules, and on foot. Those were the days of denuded dirt tracks through forests and dangerous stream crossings, and I’m still surprised to hear of my grandma and my aunts’ courage and struggles to travel these distances. Being abused and seduced by the nature, all at once.

My father took a difficult resolution upon my grandfather’s death, that he would legally obtain rights to the lands – or whatever was left unoccupied of those – in Guniyalekh; the longing that lay in all hearts now turning into a hope, a hope that turned into expectations from my father. Having graduated in law, and choosing teaching for a profession, a man who spent much of his time extolling and preaching the ideals of ‘kanoon’, now set forth for the corruption-laden legalities of the real India. More than the legal procedure, it was the travelling involved that could make a person submit to defeat. After several trips between Lucknow and Nainital, endless juggling between Gethia, Nanital, and Guniyalekh, fighting the bureaucracy in Nainital, and death threats by selfish villagers who had their own plans of illegal acquisition in mind, he managed to get a piece of eternal satisfaction that everybody wanted... If the geographical pinball of a great acquisition wasn’t sweet enough, there are his tales of spending snow wintry nights in shacks out of necessity, going on a snow leopard hunt with the villagers, among the others.

The sights, smells and sounds that I lust for must be nothing but a nostalgic fact to my old folks, I am just trailing on their footsteps, clutching for a version of my own.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Note-to-self: avoid getting run over at the nearby crossing from time to time. It was a lighter vehicle today, however, so I'd have escaped only with a crushed leg.

The weekend has Mumbai that I've only seen on the reel, feel closer - the skies are expected to raise hell over the next couple of days, and the municipality is doing random silliness to curb the damages of the rain.
I returned from the office yesterday night at 2330, clutching a sweaty tee and cycling gloves, and a book expounding the unbearable lightness of being. The sight of half a dozen colony resident canines crowding around a small tin case sheltering the water pump confounded me. My approach had the dogs distracted, and agressive petting followed. The question of the creature inside the tincan still remained. The building guard soon arrived to intimate me not to go closer, as there was a snake inside , which was why the silly dogs were crowding around. Against the routine logic, I homed in closer. My findings brought forth the fact that it was a large mouse. Of course, I traced out the snake as well, cramped inside a small opening in the rocks not too far from that pump.

Sunday, June 06, 2010

zeitgeist

Cookie Monster: hey
Guy Harlot: hi
Cookie Monster: saw iron man 2
decently watchable
Guy Harlot: tell me something that isn't
i saw badmash company - its also similar
Cookie Monster: come on !!!
except for anushka sharme
the bloddy movie was
insulting ur intelligence
bleeding madras
are americans really that stupid
and us indians tht inti
Guy Harlot: well in yashraj chopra world it is
and anushka sharma was the downside of it, i'd say
that guy mad after prostitutes was the best of the lot
Cookie Monster: lol
anushka sharma downside
somebody tht hot??
Guy Harlot: have i mentioned before that she carries ZERO appeal
oh yes, it was at sakley's that i'd mentioned that
now she makes me see a company colleague in a less harsh light
Cookie Monster: ohh pls
shes beautiful
awesome figure
Guy Harlot: so being skinny is her winning point?
Cookie Monster: she aint skinny
Guy Harlot: well anushka sharma and sonam kapoor do not appear so gorgeous after their recent public works of art
Cookie Monster: public work of art??
Guy Harlot: this movie of anushka's, and sonam's kitsch spice mobile ads
Cookie Monster: lol
Guy Harlot: in the current light, if they offer themselves to me, i will merely enjoy a tit or two before backing away
Cookie Monster: hahahah
if they offer themselves to u??
Guy Harlot: of course, they can. there have been greater miracles in the timeline of our planet.
Cookie Monster: yaa like the advent of life
Guy Harlot: yes, and the medical condition called micropenis
i say you'd rather not investigate into the latter
Cookie Monster: ohh boy!!
i should have listened to u
so whts up?
Guy Harlot: i'm seeing a discourse on erotica
"अँधेरी रात में, दिया तेरे हाथ में"
Cookie Monster: lol
wht the heck is tht
Guy Harlot: indian women being deflowered by radical postmodernists
we shall resume our discourse later

Saturday, June 05, 2010

Untitled

They all had gathered in the drawing room. It was 12:30AM in the night; hence every moment of their forced waking was a restless one. Their restlessness was also met with an anxiety that grew with every soft step of mine across the room. Silently, I circled the small table at the center, my eyes distracted into studying its minimal features, as if they could reveal to me the exact words to represent the gravity and urgency of my thoughts in a simple fashion. I cannot remember how much time I’d spent testing their patience; they stood there like lethargic vegetables, feeling perplexed at my present behavior, and only too willing to crawl back into their beds. However, they were sympathetic enough to assume that I had come across some interesting incident or an idea that had been lost in the process of translation into speech, and by the mathematics on my face they tacitly bargained into sanctioning me time to express myself. Well, they had to wait anyways; I could not let them get back to their beds without breaking to them the news of my death...

Saturday, May 29, 2010

things

May has been hard hit by my emotional state of crawling deeper into my shell. Inaction and inexpressiveness have been the defining labels. This blog has not seen much love.
 

The week that just ended was defined by setbacks -

Firstly, the Naxal audacity ballooning, and resulting in several more deaths over the week that went by. Imagining an outcome is scary - for our government would bear these scars forever, economic development will be thwarted, the regions would see intense warfare and bloodshed, there would be more grisly decapitations featured on the news to which people would boast of their disgust during dinnertime.

And then my plans of travels in Europe going into the dust with a fractured Visa process that our governments have fixed upon. It is very irksome, having the resources and inclination, and yet feeling crippled is not a feeling I've come across often.
Now I'm considering agents, bribes, and tearing through these frameworks to see how its done. One last flounder before I give up.
(similar frustration)

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Am I starting to dislike office?

It is getting growingly uncomfortable avoiding snowclones in daily expressions.
How awkward to trip into the '...than fade away' mode at the start of the week. Well, the concept of a week rarely holds significance when each and every day is a revelation of sensations about things around us.
Observing human behavior soon turns to sorting through litter, as there is rarely something that would make you feel proud of not being the furniture that you sit on... Well, on retrospect, I get more from my chair than I get from my friends and foes around me. Maturity has a new definition - "A state of immutability of finding yourself vegetable existence fulfiling".
Utahraptor, WE NAILED IT!