Poems, Prayers and Promises

The firsts ones are for Abhinav Bindra. For making me dizzy, goosebumped, lumped-throat and oblivious of my own personal defeats and tribulations. Wish I could pen odes of gratitude and resurrection and self-salvatory bliss to this man. No words are enough to describe the kick of the adrenaline of senseless patriotism that he injected in me. For killing that pessimistic doomsaying bastard in me. And to make me believe that WE as a country, CAN. We can move mountains and plumb oceans and fertilize deserts. Thanks. MY COUNTRY is not devoid of CHAMPIONS. Not anymore. We can look into the eyes of the world. And make them blink.

The second ones are for Saina Nehwal. I so hope that this kid wins another match. Just now I read an article on her. It said that this girl never partied, movied or ate out for the last seven years. Apparently because of financial constraints. I so want her to be stinking rich, drop-dead gorgeous (more than what she is) and a kick in the testicles of that perverted Indian male populace of rapists, oglers, molesters, wife-burners, foetus-killers. I so want this lady to shine on. I so want to pray for her.

The third ones are for me, my parents, my family, my microcosms of the olfactory, optical and tactile conscious, subconscious and the dreams. For the boy who never goes to school and instead serves tea in the roadside stall. For the countless impoverished in Orissa whom I have seen withering away for 8 months. For the mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles who we abandon into spheres of decrepitude, oblivion and nonchalance. For the kids with yellow clothes outside CP who sniff gums. For the countless confused twenty-somethings like me who have touched Che, a whiff of Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsburg, and still got no way to go. Our days of grandeur will come. Our demons wil be slayed. Our country will sleep unfettered, fed, read, lit, clothed, shod. Someday. Someday soon. Even as I dream away, I know that one day we will.

Happy Independence Day. A bit early, you might say. Wrong, I will snap back. It's been 61 years. We just did not realize this enough. Have happy dreams. Happier realities.


Peace.

A nation's wardrobe malfunctions

As 4 billion of the world's population watched, our athletes dressed improperly. As the world traded in golds and silvers and at least bronzes, we traded the 29th and the 42nd places. As the world hulas into the five rings, we tap-danced indifferent resignation. As the world keeps his hands on hearts and weeps into national anthems, we remain seated. As the world celebrates we dig deeper into our defeats. As the world gets age-defying solutions, we are shrivelling at 61. As the world expects us to do something, we prefer to seat on the sidelines and let the show go on. As the world leaps, we get pulled back. As the world masters, we train the slaves in us. As the world procreates, we give birth to dead foetuses, and a generation of no-getters. As the world climbs the podium, we clasp our hands in jealous claps. As my nation swirls into nothingness, I watch on blindly. As my Indianity gasps for breath, I choose euthanasia.

;)

About me
You see
Am fine
Cliche line
(But) thats true
I'm through
This stay
90 days
Am missing
Gal kissing ;)
Smoke screen
Un-green
Autorides
Thug-by-side
SMS, dust-bowl
Daal, kadhi (cold)
Night-outs
Whispered shouts
Country roads
Dollared loads
Inflated Gandhi
Am landing
Pretty quick
Post few clicks
Gal, open arms
Am cold, need the warmth :)

Goodbye again

This is for the three friends I lost a couple of years ago. In a flash. In a flash flood. Swept away. When death ceased to be a statistic. When life initiated me to death. When all I could do was wish that it was all a bad dream. When text messages brought in the news of a recovered body. When I grew up. When conspiracy theories became a way of life. When the love of life was not enough. When I was alone in a big city.

Subhankar. Arundhati. Swati. Three names now, eh?

Sweet November and mamma

This moment I am dizzy with love. Radiant with the warmth that rises up the left side of your sternum, lumps into your throat a bit, then even as you try to gulp it down so feverishly, it oozes out, melting down a bit of your lachrymal glands in the process. And whatever be your degrees of carnality (I guess I coined this word just now), hedonism, testosteronism/ progesteronism (here I go on the 'coin word sound cool' trip again ), stoicism or pragmatism, you just feel so hopelessly mushy. I am just thankful to have been so stupid in love, so many times, and still not losing the touch. That I can share poetry, burgers, bitchy gossips, kisses, dreams, hugs with someone and knowing that I would be able to do so for the rest of my life. Knowing that I will age holding hands, fighting, desperately wanting to change 'that' thing in her, and secretly hoping she does not, because 'that' is what makes her HER. That I might not be the rich, successful person in life, but that am already rich, successful in love and that more than makes up. It just gives me goosebumps to be not so pretentiously macho, opinionated, prevaricating, whimpering for a certain small parts of the day (when she calls or mails or texts or we meet or I just wish she was with me or dream that she is with me). That on those certain parts I get to train as the Care-Giver rather than the Better Rat. That in spite of those sarcastic snides to that guy from Dil Chahta Hai (Sonali Kulkarni's anniversary-obsessed boyfriend who doesn't get the gal), I still love celebrating those 'This-day-that-year we first voice chatted', 'This-day-last-week you first called me a dog' or 'This-second-last-hour you said you love me' moments. That I still shave in a month, take off sweaty shirts for fresher ones, try not to stare at other girls too much for a certain itsy bitsy baby of a BIG GIRL. I am just damn fortunate that I got pulled out of a rut, got all decked up and got injected with a few vials of life-serum.

To whoever it is who makes us do things that we do, I am just thankful that I got to do a few things right.

And HOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Doldrums

Caffeine. Gotta break the code. Nasty fleshy thoughts. Client call. Single syllable conversation. Nasty thoughts (sequel). Disjointed eyes. What's the score again? Face-replaced-with-ass manager. Nice chick transparent kurti? iPhone 3G. You did 3 gals last Saturday? What's with you, code. Lemon tea tastes like nascent pee. Let's ping-pong. Phone call. Manager without balls shouting. Fuck the asshole. I am a slave but need the appraisal. Yes sweetheart had breakfast. Oye man let's wake onsite up. No not from an Adams album. What sir what's up? Strip club sampled? Boobs on lips!!! No groping no cuddling no tonguing no farting no eyeing no jerking no restroom!! I need dark chocolates. And a laptop. Not possible? Oki a iphone? No again? Never mind gudnyt. Mannu one asshole this OC. Bholu idhaar aa. So TIME gives good tuition? Ok what was the divisibility rule? What, good girls in ISB? GMAT? Will think. Hey nice kurti. Mannu, see, pointed nipples. Code, let's try breakpoints. Crud, abends. Where was that? Google, enlighten. Sirji, what is defrag? No not playing Unreal Tourney. And that is shag. Ha ha ha. Turkey. Hungry lets lunch. Rajma kadhi kaddu. Coke to wash down. Saunf was good. And Mannu, the girl ahead of me was wearing thongs. White. Don't jerk now. Save for night. Damn sleepy. Ping-pong returns. Defect prevention. Pareto. Fish-bone. 80-20. Shove up ass. Don't sleep. Manager opens mouth. Brains spill over table. Bad breath. Bad example. Bad vocabulary. Bad accent. Bad. Bad. Bad. Code, you be good. Pressure on bladder. Metabolised coke. And water. And infants'-pee tea. And manager won't budge. And the code won't blink. And my renal tubules won't work less harder. And the bad breath won't stop. And the green letters won't speak. Nausea. Neurosis. Timid farts. Undigested onion. Inflating balls. Stiffening muscles. Manager gets queasy. Time for him to tea-off with like-minded assholes. Sweetheart, won't be able to meet up today. Mannu, yaar ye dekh le ekbar. Thik hai beer on stake. Behenchod muh mat khulwa. Mujhe jaana hai 2 min. Pee-break. What? Pea-brained? No. Right now pee-brained. Wanna quit. Bond ends on next eternity. After that. Gotta get married after I quit. And have kids. Read them stories. Not fair. One life. Wasting IT. Mannu, its late. Gotto cram Manhattan. Not the city. The book. Drop me a mail before you leave. Manager out. Good. Mannu in. Good. Job unfinished. Regular. Another day older. Sucks. Life will move on. Let's see.

Grant me, Genie!!

1. I don't want to die. For the next many years to come.
2. I don't want to die hit by a bullet, roasted in a riot, crippled by a stupid medical infrastructure.
3. I don't want to die before Maa dies. Let her be spared this pain.

Lucky Lips?

Or is it the eyes? Or is it the voice? Or the promise of Bohemia, perhaps? Or that feel-good,sunshine factor? Or is it my mediocrity? The cloistered tramp in me? What makes Lucky Ali so very special? So special that even now those songs, first heard on noodled magnetic tapes and a cranky music player, seem to touch something deep down? Readers, for this moment of insanity, I grant you entry into my world. The world that WAS. The world that COULD HAVE BEEN. The world that has been taken. Even as I take quantum plunges backwards (and I feel that am cut out for a MBA class!), join me. As WB Yeats once said, and a Steven Spielberg once made famous; 'Come Away O Human Child, To the Waters and the Wild..........'.

My first memories of the droopy-brown-melancholy-eyed, seemingly happy-go-lucky (no puns,please) guy was with that cult number from Sunoh. Back then, I was in the eighth, was a serious flunker, managed regular detentions and that dreaded Guardian-call (Indian, or do I say Benagali, version of a PT tete-a-tete), religiously followed a now obsolete Phantom 2030 (was an animation show, where the skull-faced Ghost was all gizmoish, and his archenemy was a freckled, cat-cuddling guy---DD2, every Thursday, 5:00 pm), never had a crush (and wasn't sure of my sexuality and morality either--- I almost fell in love with a girl from within the family), played football in the rains, missed the school-bus (and it was always while coming back from school), was used to listening no Hindi pop (what with no Euphoria and Silk Route yet), and believed that friends are forever.

And then suddenly there was a man strumming something like a guitar (til date I have not figured out the name of that stringed do) atop the Step Pyramid, striking visuals of sand and the sun, no girls in leotards or glossed up flesh (yuck), no lyrics resembling the local meat-shop (there was no quintessential dil, jigar, aankh, chehra in Lucky-world), and most important, an underlying 'I don't care if the world thinks I am a dud as a singer' attitude. As for the last part, a lot of vocalists should take a bow in front of Lucky for giving them that courage (though mostly misplaced). Whatever, even as I was droning off, Lucky Ali swept away the music awards that year, always accepted the awards in denims if I remember properly, talked of his first wife Masooma (her maiden name was Megan I believe, and she was from New Zealand) with unfailing buddy-warmth, and came to Kolkata to sing in Xavotsav (December 1996). And here is an excerpt from that interview, recalled from moribund grey cells,and translated from Bengali:

On his childhood:

'I never knew Mehmood the comedian was my father. My teachers used to point at me and refrred to me as his son They expected me to act funny, as they thought it ran in my blood. Once in an airport, my father had come to receive me. And I pointed to him and exclaimed, "Look it's Memood the famous comic actor!!"'

On some random boyhood memories:

'Long back, I lost a sock from a pair. A few days dug out the missing one. I had a coffee-mug. Someone used to mark it with lipstick so that I do not lose it. I hopped schools.

On the song he would choose as his best:

'The one that remains to be sung.'

Forgive me for this arbitrary piece of drivel, but this was just to reemphasise the wanderboy in that boy, that caught up with me, and I am sure with a lot of middle-class middlebenchers who tread the middle path, and are now nearly middle-aged, stuck in the middle layer of status, society and hard-earned 'serendipity'.

Next ride for this troubador was in the 'Fifty Years of Independence' bandwagon. Colgate, Doordarshan and Mani Shankar (the man with those beautiful Vande Mataram snippets and credited with the video of Maa Tujhe Salaam) teamed up to rope in popular artists and weave a dream album called Meri Jaan Hindustaan. Honestly, I do not recall any other number from that album, except the Anjani Raahon Mein one from Lucky. If someone would delve deep, those days, just before the News at 9:00 pm on DD1, there used to be a five-minute interval, in which short features on a wide variety of stuff, ranging from National Unity (not the Mile Sur Mera Tumhara), to Anti-AIDS, to National Literacy Drive used to be aired. And if you were lucky enough, you would see the video of Anjani Raahon Mein. And with no cable-TV in my home (thanks Maa for not bowing to my histrionics, your act helped me be a grad at the least), and no accompanying music channles as a rsult, I would wait for that five-minute window. The song, and the video, with all their simplistic lyrics and visuals and sounds, weaved magic on me. Especially the Wo Jheelmeelati Aankhen....... part that always made me want to go away, just so as to come back. Strangely enough, this song gave me visions of Kohima, the place where my father used to work from, the place that was my summer vacation retreat, the place which gave me a taste for pork, the place that initiated me to wood-smokes, mists swirling down on my palms, Bryan Adams playing on a lonely, silent night. I would literally have dreams of this song playing and me lost in the hills, looking for my father, and I would wake up crying. This happened a lot, and somehow, even now, this song helps me break free from my 'I am a single parent child' attitude. I feel closer to my father, much closer than when we are face to face, shouting, cursing, walking away. Somehow this song helps me broker peace with myself.


Contd.....................

Soliloquy............

The dusts have settled down. The storms in the tea-cups have blown themselves out. The last note has been played out. The last delirium has been sobered out. The places have been taken. The history has drifted away, the Coming is looming large and the moment is drab. The times they are a changing, Bob.

And so I will doodle. With lazy fingers typing away fervently for that spark, for that ooh-la-la, for that word of eternity. For that esoteric phrase, the lure of the grandiloquent, the tag of the Known. The flags have been hoisted here. The fire and the works are being sunned out. And Peter, Paul and Mary, I am more than five hundred miles away from home, hearth and heart.

It is tough living the two lives I live. Of the dank and the chic. Of the vegetable and the flesh. Of the clamour and the monologue. Of the dream and the desire. Of the slave and the master. Of the time-zones and the synchrony. Of the freeway and the dustbowl. Of the belonging and the wishes. Of the accent and the vernacular. Of the dissemination and the rooting. Here I am, this is me, and I am not liking it, Bryan.

Two of my friends have died long back. I have condemned to oblivion many. Many have gone away. I have hurt a lot. Got scarred. Loved, lost, loved (?), loved (?) and blissed in the order written. I lost my voice of shouting. The pen that helped me scribble those drivels. That currency which never let me rue the past. That vodka with lime that let me loosen up. That shirt which witnessed blood-letting, getting my first job, my drifting away and ashore. Someone across the oceans loves me a lot. John, can I borrow that 'You fill up my senses' line?

Maa is getting old. So is Baba. And Anjan Dutta. And Suman- Kabir and Chatterjee. And people are growing up. They are getting married. Procreating. Stopping being virgins. Not in the given order. Somedays my city will stop menstruating for me. Breeding for me. She will have crows' feet, bad breath, cracked heels and arthritis. I will stop getting back. The eastern winds will stop blowing. People will speak Parseltongue, or Hindi, or Punjabi, or Dogri, or Awadhi, or Tamil. And I will have recurrent dreams of not getting my last Bengali sip, Pratul.

I will have kids. Cosmopolitan. Spic-n-span. Behaved. Groomed. Measured. Pippetted out. Calibrated. They will not cut classes. They will not kiss in the rain. They will not let their tears flow at the dead of the night, hunching over no God of Small Things. They will not spend lazy, useless evenings of marijuana, strums, uncertainity, warmth, silence, sunset, ripples on the water, taking off the shirt, plunging in, feeling like mermaids. What am I doing? As we grow up, the tears too dry up, right Mr. Hall?

The Coke of life runneth over

Ever got hooked on to something? Something like a Jimmi Hendrix number, or a failed love, or one of those stages in Max Payne where the life-serum won't ever suffice, or perhaps that childhood habit of picking your nose, or like putting into mouth whatever you find in your nasal cavities? Ever felt that overwhelming desire to do that 'thing' that would take yor life a fermi closer to those pearly gates of Bliss? Ever done that? Ever got deprived of that? Ever stayed up through a night (or nights) waiting for that strum at say 4:15 of the song, or peek-a-booing at the tube-station nemesis, or nourishing a nemesis in your broken heart? If you have, you will know what I am talking about.

Let's clear the fizz, er the mist. If there is one thing I would really take to my pyre, it would be a tumbler of the black bubbly I guess. The 7X-ed serum. My sip of nothing-to-do. My swig of this-rajma-is-inedible. My mouthrinse of no-time-to-brush. My kick of more-cola-less-whisky-else-I'll-puke. My champagne of code-is-running. My fistful can of Maa-am-in-US. My metabolism of acid-in-the-duodenum. My immunity of am-gulping-pesticides. My diversity of cherry-Zero-Diet-Classic.

Its cliche to be writing in the first person with zillions of narcissistic atoms and dog-eared phrases and hyphenated pseudoChetanism, but then, that's what the cola does to you, I guess. My love affair with the thing started way back in the 90's I guess. When the jerk in me was schooling, the MMS jokes were being brewed, Kapil Dev was sending those moustached express 'uns, the ACDs were just getting coiled up, size Zero meant you flunked (believe me, even the Coca Cola Company was yet to invent the sexy black-and-red cans), SRK was toppling girls from the roof-tops, Sushmita Sen had just earned her tiara, and most significantly, people were not Googling to get the address of their parents' homes. Then, suddenly, as a Sunday Superhit Muqabla (Baba Sehgal anchored it, DD2, 9:00 pm, my first brush with cleavage and midriffs) was belting out those thunder-thighed numbers, a group of people starts singing something like 'Share my dream, share my Coca Cola, always the real thing'. And there you go. The Coke had rearrived. Even through my 14" black-and-white grainy window, I was hooked on. Not because it tasted great. Because Thums Up (then owned by Parle) was stronger, Gold Spot would you give you that Zing Thing, Limca would heal up your acidogenic mutton rogan josh, and Tree Tops would nourish the kids. Still it hooked me on. And it was that advertisement. Yes, it was something special. Even now, after 15 odd years, I keep rummaging the Youtube and the Orkut for that tune. But somehow it eludes me.

The next stone in the pond was when Coke launched those cans. It was sheer loss of virginity for that cola-worshipper in me. It was like I gave everything to that swish of the can-opening, the red, chilled aluminium, and the aura of chic that it carried. It was pricey, especially to the middle-class happy with the half/one liter monoliths of the overtly grotesque but financially viable glass jerrycans. It was meant for a single use, for a single go and as happens with those pricey prostitutes, once you let loose, there's no stopping. I gave in my heart, and to date I remember all those things I was ready to sacrifice or achieve, as the situation demanded, for 330 ml of liquid sin. And even now I remember those empty cans on my table, kept as trophies of my conquests, jostling for space with those lost pages of innocence. I would trade my right hand for getting back one of those deformed, dented cans, but they are gone forever.

I tried Coke with all sorts of edible, and potable stuff, with mixed results. Like I once heaped in two spoonsful of drinking chocolate into a glass of stale Coke. Tried dropping two pellets of mint for my own 'refreshing' drink. Contrary to those forwarded videos, my house did not blow up. But my appetite was disturbed for a couple of days. I drank it with tea, dipped slices of bread into it, added it to a glass of milk for colour, and, to top all, dissolved a couple of sleeping pills to make the whole idea of popping pills more palattable!!


I can bore myself to death with these Coke-stories. But stop I should, and stop I will, with this last story.

Many nights ago, I was down with jaundice. An acute case of yellow pee. And the doctor sentenced me to three months of despair, uncertainity and a no-Coke regime. Over those moments of solitude and introspection, I had made a couple of promises. One was to get into the US someday, with an I-20 valid for five years, and the other was to grab a can of Coke, after clearing the Port of Entry, to celebrate that. One of the promises was fulfilled. The pain and guilt of the unkept one do haunt me. And then what do I do? Spend a tenner for sure. To get all dizzy as the carbonated liquid sizzles and singes down into my guts. As I kill yet another demon of mine. The joie-de-vivre, emanating from that fizz and sugar and water keeps me alive. To tell another story. To grab another Coke. As they say, the show must go on.

Numero Uno

For my first proper noun. For my first lesson in love. For my first journey. Completed. For my first brush with life. And the violent struggle to preserve it and prevail over the brother of Sleep. For the initiation to music, and lucidity and articulation. And SRK. For waking me up for mornings of spellings and hand-writing and numbers and ruler-smacks and hopeless whimpers. For those nights of Durga and Diwali and ice-creams and soda and pizza and multiplexes. For those tears of desperation and warmth of middle-class success. For my moments of insanity when time seems to slip like sand. For harbouring that belief that even I can fly. And making me believe that on those few seconds of absurdity. For the apology of letting you down. For the pride of being known by your name. For that fairy-taled past of playing and hugging and fearlessness. For this schismed present. For posterity. For peace. For happiness. For my first blog. For the One. For you, Maa.