Wonderland

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

Most nights it was a little niggle. Something that drowned easily in beer, that got outshouted by the playlist of the night, or that gave up and watched Leno with him.

There had been others like this one. They usually lived under the surface for a couple of months, peaked feverishly on a random, ranting trip to Hangoverland, and petered out quietly after. Status quo. So it goes.

The one haunting him today seemed to be of a deadly new strain. One that had sneaked past his usual daily antibiotics; and had waited till the lights in the house were out. And had chosen a sober night to attack. And attack it did....with a vengeance for all it's deceased earlier versions that had been thwarted.

The hapless author tossed and turned in his sleep for a while, and realised he'd been wide awake all along. Staring at the ceiling was not the answer now. Forced yawning or counting sheep were never the answer. He'd usually switch on something soothing on his walkman at this stage, but no song seemed to have the answer.

Dude rose wearily to wash his face. This is to be one of those nights. Denial was not the answer.

He switched on the low yellow bulb in the washroom, splashed his face measuredly a couple of times, and straightened up slowly to stare back at his reflection.It seemed a routine he'd been practising for a while now. Like say, a decade.

Work was so not the answer. This was something he'd figured out at the time of switching career interests (again, abt a decade back)...so the failure of this hypothesis wasnt breaking his heart especially now.

Workaholism wasnt the answer. Shirking work wasnt. Having a job description that sounded awesome wasnt. Cribbing wasnt. And comparing paychecks threw up more questions that the act alone would answer. And it didnt. Workmates werent the answer. Areas of interest werent. Certifications werent. Prospects elsewhere werent.

Music promised to be the answer for a good while. The act of listening, not playing. Both werent. There were some guitar riffs around that could make him orgasm involuntarily, but they'd been playing for a good while now, and the dude's niggles continued to bubble. And there were lyrics he'd probably copy paste into his wedding vows, or his "birds and bees" talk to his kids. But nope, guitar riffs and lyrics werent the answer.

Books werent the answer. He'd been reading them a million a year once, but more to avoid having to talk to people, than anything else. And he liked reading books for what they had to offer, and not for what he'd been trying to wrangle out of them. Fiction, thankfully, never pretended to be the answer. Non fiction usually fell into Paulo Coelho, self help, spirituality or textbooks. And all 4 categories could sincerely fuck off.

Religion promised way too many answers. He'd been born way too cynical to actually believe anybody or anything. Especially when they all insist that the really good stuff gets you sent straight to hell. It's almost as if he'd rather stay ignorant of this answer, than put away his beer.

Sex wasnt the answer. Not that he actually knew this one. But there was something incongrous about the idea that a mutually assisted emission of body fluids by 2 sweaty, frantic characters hopping about manically under the covers, would answer his usual questions. He'd love to be personally proved wrong by a rather fetching member of the opposite gender...but part of him knows that he'd find himself staring again at some unfortunate mirror that night. Before rushing back to his senses and the bed.

Love...tough one this. He'd been convinced this was the Holy Grail....so it takes a while to let this one pass. But he probably wouldnt fall into this unless it's with some1 who's asking the same questions. Some like minded one who'd rather ask the questions, than get them answered. That puts two peas in a pod. That does not necessarily solve or silence the question. Then again...I wouldnt know. Never have been in a relationship. Abortive or otherwise. Wouldnt mind being proved wrong at this one either.

Football probably was the answer during boyhood...but those days are done. Hobbies are more like distractions away from the questions, rather than a path to the answer and I'd prefer keeping it that way. So that saves beer from ever getting questioned.

Travel may just be. Cooking may. Biking may. But I have friends who are champs at all 3, and they've got questions plaguing them as well. And there are a zillion things I could pick up and mull over in this way, but they just wouldnt be the answer. Or there was no way of knowing if they would.

The guy's reflection now looked like he'd forgotten his wallet someplace.
Usually he wore this quiet, demanding, searching look that wouldnt waver or blink....but would stare right back at the dude, until the latter turned away with a muttered FU. Not today. Today he looked like the prosecutor, who'd been struck with amnesia. The dude had no clue about the question.

Which was what started this fucked up niggle in the first place. This wasn't a case of Dennis not going where he promised himself he would. The dude didnt know where to go from here.

The 'Now What?' syndrome, ladies and gentlemen, has finally landed.

Currently listening : White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane

Writer’s block.

I swear.

It’s like some fucked up mental thing. Blog posts pop into my head at random hours and totally unbloggable times….and they keep gnawing away, nagging to be written. Then when the broadband finally arrives…I’m left staring at a blank screen, wondering why the fuck…?

Recommends : The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson.

Current music : On every street – Dire Straits.

Oh well.What the hell

There are now two of us writing this post.

The first guy keeps wondering about just what part of his 6 day week, Sundays-are-for-church existence would be worth blog space. He’s quasi resigned himself to a lame ass dialup connection, to keeping the music low at home, to a TV that hiccups every 5 minutes and to the fucking rains. Way too much sober time, too many roll-your-eyes-&-sigh quietly moments, just frigging too much of what yours’ and my parents happily subject themselves to.

The second guy is the absolute bastard. The absolute, absolute bastard.

He’s barely 2 years old now. Was born during some merry confluence between Bacchus and Knopfler in the ethereally slothful and filthy confines of Room 452, one of several identically fashioned and inhabited rooms on campus. Rocked his house for two glorious years, and took an inordinate amount of glee in clucking sympathy for seniors and friends who moaned about how sucky life is outside college.

And he’s been watching his own descent into an ordinary life with this sideways, knowing, infuriating smile…and he hums some sardonic Dylan or Cobain to this new schmuck in the mirror. Bugger watches me agonize over lost gym hours and tax planning and how sober I look before I ring the doorbell, and he’s always humming something in the background.

To be true, there are times when he gets to get back to form. Those “Roll up your sleeves boys, we’re getting haaappy” times. Difference being…those times are now suddenly affordable…but they need to be scheduled. Both for day of week and time of day.And you can never really have them twice in the same week.


Currently listening : Things have changed – Bob Dylan.

The aah fuck moment

“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime, the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant ”

- Johnny Depp, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas


These posts are always the most fucked up ones to write.

The ones where you want to pen down your feelings. When you need to choose between letting yourself loose and being unapologetic about it, and between the usual analyzing, postulating and self counseling crap you’re wont to find here. When you realize that writing about it doesn’t help you deal with the shit…it just dilutes whatever precious little you do feel about anything anymore.

I’ve packed the rest of my stuff from the room…and will be handing in the keys tomorrow. There were visions of being the last rebel here…blaring the music louder than ever, breaking the rest of the champagne glass set, stocking up on booze and cigarettes and pot and movies and porn…just for that one last frigging day. It’s a cliché I can’t bear to recreate anymore.

This be the moment where one wishes he hadn’t forgotten how to cry. The booze could do the trick…but 2 hours later, he’d wake up and feel the same way abt stuff. So all he’s left with is a half filled Word doc, and the mess in his head.


Currently listening : Time to take her home - The stone temple pilots.

If heaven spoke

“The question here is not of whether you are drunk or not. The question is…are you drunk enough?”

“Test msg. Plz do not reply”

“The quality of the students has been going down every year…but yours is the worst I have ever seen.”

“Dude.Beer.”
“Dude.Krishna Bar”
“Dude. Happy hours”
“Dude. Tunga buffet”
“Dude… “Fuck off, I’m broke”

“Rush to the audi now..whatshisface company has come and there’s nobody present. Pundir is taking attendance”

“Football in the bbal court at 6.30”

“Susie, if you say another word, I’m going to drop this bottle out of the rickshaw”
“Dude…”
* The agonizing scream of a broken beer bottle. And a very panicked rickshaw driver *

“CR / Acad secy please help”
“Lol”

“Okaaay. Shikha and..?”

“Kuch BIG karma hai yaar”

“I’ll climb into her room through the window. Do you know where the plumbing pipes are?”

“Doooood!! You spilled vodka on the floor”
10 seconds later…
“Hey, you think this will burn?”

“NFS hosted on 10.4.4.3…join up in 5 minutes”

“Hey dude…do you ever sleep? It’s the middle of the day out here”

“Haan, you can take how much ever from his room. The funda is that, you have to replace the bottles tomorrow”

“Knopfler is God. He’s just..he’s just…God, man”

“You brought nothing from Goa?”
“He he he. Lock the door, dude…and get 3 glasses”



And this is probably my last weekend on campus.
Listening to : Brand new day - Sting


Who am I kidding?

Atticus

How should a guy react to digging out his only baby rattle from the family archives of junk, lovingly dumped into some random box under a supersized table?

I live at home now…home being a matchbox sized 1BHK, with a miraculous balcony. A home currently occupied by 5 people, so space needs to be fought for. And I’d waged a war against the balcony…throwing away everything we didn’t need…and dumping into more boxes, the stuff we apparently did.

And we happen to be a family of hopeless stashers, so the aforementioned task…is a huge one. Boxes and cabinets and cupboards are brimming with the arcane and the useless….relics of the 3 generations that called it home. Stuff from work, school, the children, the grandparents, the Gulf, the malluland, the weddings and the funerals. Just stuff, man….Monica would have an orgasm just listing the categories they could be organized into.

My dad has this thing for restoring ancient electronics. He’d bring stuff from the office that’s probably been discarded after 3 lifetimes of use, and tinker away until it got running again. It used to drive Mom mad at times….we’d have the most massive of audio systems (one entire cake sized box for the radio, another such box for the tape recorder, and even another for the amplifier). Stuff with dials for indicators…and knobs for everything else. Crackly sound and horrible reception too, but those things never were the point. And this museum also had sections for the ancient wood paneled TVs, the 286s PCs, and dinky air heaters with exposed red hot copper coiling.

Some of those have made their way here. Add to that a cornucopia of nursing manuals (Mom), draughtsman’s instruments (Uncle), banking newsletters, Old Spice shaving kits and ornate lighters (Grandpa,), an assortment of textbooks used and handed over by the grandkids here, and the (Tom & Jerry / wildlife/wrestling) cassettes, and discarded / recycled toys left here by the dozen odd grandkids…and it’s a bewildering personal museum…that balcony.

And it’s here that I’ve now dug up my beloved rattle, my swaddling cloth, the earliest family photos (Dad must have been 14 in some), the sexy little gold lighters, my grandmother’s wedding sari…and a plastic pouch containing too many openers to belong to a family of teetotalers. And there’s still a ton to sift through. My new daily habit.

It started off as a dumping drive…so that I could fit in a hammock, a bitching PC, some very phancy speakers, a book rack a lamp & a bed. Nothing too ambitious. Now I’ve got frigging sentimentality tooth marks all over my heiney.

Current music: Window in the skies, U2.

nothing much yet

I was hoping to post the next one from a spanking new broadband connection at home. Buggers have taken my money, and havent installed anything yet...so am resorting back to free campus Net.

It's this stupid feeling swimming around...when you know you've got posts swimming around in your head waiting to be typed down, but you feel too guilty to spend an hour or two indulging your blog instincts. And these blokes have been swimming for about a fortnight now.

The damn CFA. Applied too soon, and when in a frame of mind when I wanted a break from the books. Need to grit my teeth and finish it off now.

Random incident from 3 days back :

I'm lounging in front of the TV with my folks when this celebrity lookalike gets on the screen and does his thing. He's short, with gray hair, stupid french beard, and an emphasised slur.

Mom : "It's Amitabh Bacchan"

Bro : "Nope, it's Chandrababu Naidu"

Sis : "No wait, it's Rajnikanth"

An appropriate silence. then yours truly pipes up "It's Ron Jeremy".
Bro wrinkles his brow trying to figure if (where?) he'd heard that name before. Sis and Mom nod thoughtfully at the screen.

Lets thank the good Lord for not giving parents the "Let's google it" impulse.


Listening to : The wheels are turning - Springsteen

apologies and all

It's a conundrum, mate. One spends 5 days at office and home, swearing at the dialup, waiting for his turn on the computer, and generally being too frustrated to do anything beyond playing some music and some Counterstrike. One tells himself he'd get out of that neurotic mess come the weekend.

And he does succeed at that. A bit too well. I know I've blogged unsober in the past, but c'mon...in these hard times...between a pint and an empty Word doc staring back at you...what would you do for 2 days?

But umm, I did want to blog some announcements today. There's a will to take writing a bit more seriously now. I'll try and pimp this space with some eye candy too. And I'd try and go anonymous...allow myself some serious bloodletting, both creatively and personally.
I cant decide yet on whether to start another url now, a la lifebeyondnitie.com, or to archive the older stuff in a password protected section on the site, or just leave the shit the way it is. Opinions pliss

I've been spending too much time here. I've also been spending too much time in the bar, but I'd vehemently protest (hic), that's it more to do with the former.

Song in my head : Roadtripping, RHCP