Nostalgia – Page 2 – Helmet Pinched

A timeless story.

I’d like to begin with this:

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I’d something more to say

I’ve been wanting to write something about ‘time’ since times immortal. But then, time happens to be a very complicated subject to talk about; for me, cause its bundled up with nostalgia. Now nostalgia as we all know can be pleasant sometimes and disturbing on other occasions. I choose not to experiment with luck these days and I’m trying to avoid unnecessary thoughts. Especially since its nearing the 14Th of February. Hrmphh, guess I’ll surely come up with something by then cause I’m celebrating one year of worry less life on that date. A year of life after the shackles were broken, a year since I began sleeping peacefully and a year since love ended. Or so I want to believe. Couple of days more! Wow, now that’s an accomplishment and come to think of it now, god damn! Its a year since the misery (mine and her) ended. Well, more on that later.

For now, I was pondering about how much time I’ve wasted and its true what they say, time and tide, once gone never return! I’ve wasted a lot of my time doing things I should have avoided. Its pointless cursing myself now but then I’m going to take up this opportunity to remind myself of how big an imbecile I am to have whistled away those many hours, those precious seconds. I should have been utilizing the nanoseconds god gave me by doing something worthwhile. Its during times of self-inspection like these that I realize that I haven’t respected time and thereby I haven’t been fair towards my Karma or my purpose in life. I was certainly not made for loitering around malls buying random stuff that I may or may not need, sometimes for someone else who in the end was all geared up to crush my heart!

Now, you’ll would probably wonder about why I’ve suddenly come to this moral epiphany. Its more than just a divine manifestation of thoughts in my head giving birth to these rather sad feelings in my heart. This is me looking into what I’ve done thus far with my life and a retrospective self-justification to myself. A feeble attempt at telling myself to step up and grab life by its crotch! Sadly, I guess I’m just a fat fuck lost in melancholy. I dug deeper into the time I’ve lived thus far hoping to find a story worth telling. A story that’s devoid of variations caused by my will to shine. I went quickly past my work life and the part of my life that I’d like to forget the most – college. Arghhh, that was horrid! Except of course for Prab. Prab is an amazing person and I’m sure he’ll be there with my for the rest of my life as my only gain from the limited time I spent in college. I had to track back right up to grade 4 when I was a stupid kid who knew nothing but Malayalam. A kid trying to even it out with the many bright kids that plagued his classroom. This happened to me and this incident makes me feel like I’m alive – even today! I can nearly feel the worry of a little boy. I can feel his apprehension and I can still heave the same sigh of relief that I did 16 years ago. It was all about a pencil…

Satya was this awesome sport man who was loved by all. He was a teachers pet cause he looked cute and I guess the girls dug him right from then. We were supposed to use pencils when working on our ‘classwork’ books so that we don’t ruin it. Later on, once the teacher checks it we’d get to re-write it in the fair copy with a pen. Or if I remember right that happened after the 5Th grade when pens came into picture. Fountain pens mind you. Ball pens were taboo! Heh, silly things like thee make me want to go right back in time and be seated next to one of my classmates. Those pesky, rather nasty beings who had everything but love for a fellow who hadn’t studied for his exams. They’d try their level best to cover up what they wrote on their answer papers. Copying was for the scum of the class, the last benchers. I’ve strayed away… precisely what happens when I write about events close to my heart.

So, yes, Satya. Satya had this beautiful red pencil which he had acquired from someone who had recently returned from ‘abroad’. Abroad here implies a place outside of our knowing. It could be the US of A or it could be the street next to my house that I don’t know of. This pencil; it was the object of envy for me from the day I saw him draw lines with it in his geometry book. I wanted it so bad that I stared at it and hoped that it’d hear my plea and come running to me. Satya could never negate the pencils will! It wanted to come to me, so it did. My concentrated efforts led to nothing but scornful looks from Satya. Probably wondering about why I had my eyes set on his amazing pencil box. Ohh, if I did not mention it, he had a double decker pencil box where he could neatly stack up pencils, scales, rubbers (as we called it then and I dare not refer to an eraser as a rubber now. Heh, we’ve ruined English) and everything else that he could own and did not want to share. I had the old scratchy camlin geometry box that I hated since the time I saw his box. On this specific (but lucky day I might add) he was seated next to Vinod B, an Einstein in the making. I had gone through my ritual of staring at all the cool stuff these cool kids had and gotten back to being my unappreciative self. I was at that point in time cursing dad for not buying me new white shoes. As I cursed on, I heard something fall, ever so gently; as if it was meant only for my ears and then I saw it roll over to my feet; as if it was meant for me! I was filled with incessant joy. It was the pencil. The red pencil I so wanted. It even had a red conical ending to its top portion from where the lead began. I caught a glimpse of Satya and Vinod talking and I hoped that neither of them noticed what I was up to. I slowly slid the pencil under my feet and began gleefully talking to my partner. The bell rang, the kids got up and made a run for it. They all just wanted to go home. I had pocketed the pencil by this time and had rushed out with the rest of my peers. I just wanted to get the hell outta school and rush home. I’d hide it away and shower it with all my love I thought.

The next day was Friday and I was destined to be stupid that day. The first bell rang and we sang the national anthem and settled down with class work. Here is where I extracted the red beauty which was neatly hidden in my camlin box which looked as though it had survived brutal carnage. I began writing away with it. The text I wrote appeared so beautiful that I was lost in its beauty. By this time Satya probably noticed that he was missing his awesome pencil and had begun freaking out. He turned around and caught a glimpse of me with his pencil. Here he went, “Hey, that’s mine!” and I go all crooked eyed and sly. “What? No, this is mine. Uncle got it for me from Dubai” Uhhh, alright, I had no one in the US of A then, OK? “But mine looked exactly like that and I don’t have it anymore” he said looking all perplexed and slightly embarrassed at being unable to differentiate between his pencil and mine. We spoke about it for a while and he seemed to carry on with his work. Crisis averted I thought and continued on my gleeful journey with the red stick of lead. The period after lunch arrived and here we had our class teacher, Mrs. Shirke walk in. We quickly finished our after-lunch prayer and settled down for a boring class. After lunch classes usually meant a lot of snoring, boring, farting and cranky kids. Mrs. Shirke was talking to Satya and I noticed her turned towards the class unhappy about our dishonesty. I chose my lie to be our collective failure. I just decided to ignore what was going on and continued yapping with my partner. Here Mrs. Shirke shrieked, “Anup!!! Stand up…” I stood up with a sheepish grin. “What are you smiling about?’ she questioned. “Nothing miss” I said meekly trying to avoid eye contact. “Ok, you come here now” she said. i walked up and stood next to Satya. Here she began questioning me:

Miss: Have you taken Satya’s pencil? The red one?
Me: Me? No miss, I have only one red pencil and I bought it from Mayur shop near my house.
Satya: Haaaa… miss, he’s lying. Yesterday he told me that his uncle bought it for him from Dubai!!!
Me: Noooooooo miss… I bought it from Mayur.
Miss: Ok Anup, you buy the same pencil for Satya and he’ll give you the money. He’s lost his pencil.
Me: Ok miss.
Satya: How much money?
Me: 10 rupees (that was the largest amount I could think of then)
Miss: Now go to your seats both of you stupid boys.

Satya looked disgusted cause he knew I was lying and he quietly went over to his seat and sat down. Here on I experienced a surge of guilt and remorse and it was nothing like what I had ever felt. I was sad and lost throughout the weekend not knowing what to do. I couldn’t’t talk about this to my parents or anyone else for that matter cause I had stolen what was rightfully someone else’s. I had broken all the values my parents and my school had taught me. I did try to justify myself once in a while. I did not steal it, you know? It just rolled into my pencil back, didn’t it? I spent Sunday trying desperately to find a pencil like that in Mayur. I remembered dad telling one of his friends, “Mayur is a good general store, avide ammem pengalem oyichu ellam kittum” translated – You get everything except a mom and a sister. Mayur wala also couldn’t help me. I was lost and could not find sleep. I even tried avoiding school on Monday but mom was mighty smart; she ducked under my lie and sent me packing.

As I sat on my desk expecting the worst to happen, I could hear the kids call me all kinds of names. Chor, chortya, dhaprya. These are all variations of the word ‘thief’ I was expecting the worst. First period, prayer done. I prayed hard this time. Mrs. Shirke looks at us sternly and begins teaching. I could feel the seconds go by in milliseconds. I thought she’d take this matter up after the class ended. To my amazement, neither she nor did Satya come up with this unsolved case. Then the next period slipped by and then another. I couldn’t eat and I wasn’t able to be my usual self. Slowly but surely the day went by and I couldn’t believe my luck. They actually forgot. The entire class of 40+kids and the teacher forgot about it in over two days. What kinda luck god did I pray to? I hid the pencil away and never bought it to school after that. The days slipped by and no one ever spoke about the pencil. I don’t have the pencil anymore, but I have its memory and I can still remember how it looked in my hands. Someone else’s prized possession. It looked sad and stolen. I’d never forget those few weeks. I spoke with Satya recently and told him about what had happened then. He was completely blank about this ever happening. I sometimes wonder if Mrs. Shirke and he let it go on purpose. Just cause they were angels in disguise. I was a lovely kid. I never stole after that.

Aha! I feel refreshingly awesome now. Even though its 2:30 AM and I have had a rough day at work. its memories like these that keep me going. For all the time I’ve wasted, its memories like these which seem to make up! Thanks Satya.

-Anup

The last month – year 2008

I’ve been shying away from doing what I think I do best – write and express. Reasons unlimited; but one of the main culprits being my lethargy. Usually, I don’t need to try when I wish to express myself in words. I open up an instance of notepad.exe, place my fingers on the keybee and lo! I’m off. Typing away all the words I never knew off. Actions and emotions seem to flow out of my fingers in perfect sync and harmony, ready to be presented to the data hungry world online. Now I know very well that no one cares about happy times. They want depression, anger, hatred and heavy words. Simple instances of beauty, humility, modesty, friendship and others aren’t relished by the masses and I’m lucky that I write for myself and no one else. I sometimes wonder about journalists and all those who write for the mob. It’d be so difficult to satisfy the masses. I was so excited about the long vacation that I’m living right now that I didn’t feel like writing anything. I just wanted to get out of my flat and come here, Pune. I thought I’d suffer but whats this new feeling all about? I feel super good! Especially since I realize every second that passes by that she is out of my system. M.G road no more brings back old memories. Pune Central does not bring back flashbacks that pull the skin out of me. It all feels new and just like any other city. It feels like… re-incarnation.

Some parts of last month; December that is, it seemed like my life was fast forwarded and some other times it felt like I was living bullet time. I remember being hyper excited about going to Pallakad and attending Ratheesh’s wedding. Duh! and suddenly its two weeks and more past his wedding. I attended all the three weddings and one chilly reception. I’ve traveled a lot and I’ve been sick and coughy these past few days. Pune does that to me. I’ve never managed to adapt to Pune’s climate; even though I’ve lived here all my life. Bangalore seems to suit my health. I hardly fell ill when I was there. Thats like an entire year! I’ve been in Pune for almost two weeks now and I’m sure that I’ve been sick for 8 days out of the 14 odd days. Its alright though cause I spent most of my time with mom and Sneha and they’re super happy that I wasn’t out. Other landmarks achieved in December – Abhi and Muiz are not single anymore. Sigh. Muiz, well, doesn’t matter much to me – him getting married. He didn’t give a fuck about the friends he supposedly has anyway. Shaista is an angel and I’ve known her from the time I’ve known Muiz. She’s been there with us on almost all our important occasions and she’s an awesome woman. Muiz is a lucky dog! God bless the both of them. Hmmm, bless Shaista more though. Muiz is an ass! Abhi and his woman seem like a match made in heaven. I don’t want to jump ahead of my shoes right now but from whatever I have seen, he couldn’t have found a better girl. She’s just as angelic! God bless the both of them too.

I’d want to write more about my stay in Pune but like I said, there wasn’t much that happened except for the weddings and home. I wasn’t relishing the idea of being stuck at home on New Years, but then, I was sick out of my throat, lungs and other important organs so I just couldn’t move. Its then that it dawned upon me that I have bronchitis and I shouldn’t take cold lightly. Yeah, so thats how I spent new years, watching TV and hoping for the best. Other highlights – I met school friends – Rakesh, Nishant and Deepak. I visited burger king for like the first time ever! Seemed like these guys were frequent visitors there. The other thing I noticed was that a girl perched on the rear seat (consider a bike) unavoidably increases your travel time from point A to point B. It took us around 35 minutes to reach a spot in the city which I used to take an hour to accomplish when she was clinging on, talking into my ears. I also met Neha and that was a hell of a lot of fun because she talks a lot and I like people who’d talk without thinking too much. She and me used to chat a lot when we’d be partnered together in school. She hasn’t changed a lot; except for the degrees, added female attitude, beauty and the scarf on her face. Well, yeah, its a Pune thing. Every girl with a bike would have a scarf on her face. Its protection and style in one scarf. Duh! Short notes on my stay in Pune –

– Attended Abhi’s wedding.
– Attended Shaista’s wedding. Muiz, you suck!
– Attended Shaista’s reception. She looked gorgeous on both occasions.
– Managed to complete a lunch arrangement for the creator – Abhi and his wife Bhagyashree. I was glorified by their presence in my house *winks*
– Met a lot of important people; Smikh, Sonu, Vivek, Pramod, Rakesh, Nishant, Deepak, Govind, Neha, Sanket and a few others.
– Spent a lot of quality time at home – Mom and Sneha.
– Presented myself to dad so that he could advice, talk, yell, talk eblish and vent as much as he could! I’m alright if that helps reduce his BP.
– Read a few good books.

So that was the end of year 2008 and yes, I hope for the best in the coming year. Wish you’ll who read here a happy new year. God bless.

-Anup

Near and dear.

I’m going through a phase in my life where I have quintals of time on hand. This doesn’t necassarily mean that I’m jobless or that I have nothing good to do. It just means that I find a lot of free time. Owing to facts such as being in a city where I don’t have a lot of friends, being away from family; thus reducing people who live with me and share the same roof, hmmm, I live alone. Close friends who seem to be nowhere near and in fact, far far away! Some of them distanced by land, some because of lack of time and the others because of my own emotional withdrawal. I’m missing them all. Also, I’ve realized that I am not and I don’t think I will ever be – someone who can quickly make friends. Its a very difficult process for me and friends one made must stay so forever, or so I’d think.

I’m missing Sneha a lot. I’m scared she’ll be gone one day. She’d need to walk into the whimsical world of marital bliss and thats when she’d be crowded by a lot of people I wouldn’t even know. I’d lose my little sister to all those strangers. Who essentially won’t be strangers anymore to her but will remain people I don’t know and I simply can’t fathom the thought of her going away or me not being able to talk to her the way I usually do. She’s someone I’ve loved limitlessly and someone I’d do anything for. Man!! I miss you so so much. I miss mom, but not as much. I talk to her very often and then Radha aunty is nothing less than mom for me. She’s always there when I need motherly advice and food *winks* so somehow, mom seems to be with me all the time. Dad and me have always had an unspoken problem and it has stagnated and grown on him and me for the past few years now. Especially since I did not meet upto his expectations when it came to earning degrees. Pfft, how I loathe professional qualifications. How essential is it? Think closely and you’d know that education is overrated. How many of those many many engineers actually use what they learnt? It just wasn’t for me, you know? Dad lives in a society where everyone comes to him for advice on what they need to do and he thinks its sad that he couldn’t draw up his own sons life. I’ve been trying my best at telling him that my life is beautiful the way it is and I’d want to work and design life on my own, but then he’s a dad and I’m a son we are living a common life. Father issues – how much more of a cliche can that be? I miss talking to him though, he’s the only person I lose to (with words) and he doesn’t even need to try.

I miss Abhi, Muiz, Smikh and I miss Convergys a lot. How I wish I could re-wind and go back to that day – 2nd May 2005. I walked in and saw this huge guy (who looked handsome but wore tight formals which were falling short of his ankles) and we sat opposite each other. He seemed to be in love with his hair and I must say they’re much shorter now *winks* Muiz was the first person I spoke to and he has been my friend ever since. Abhi was with Suvarna and he seemed like this fat snob who was too high on himself. He looked like he was about to take charge as the Director of Convergys, India. But he still laughed like a huge kid, even then. I remember him talking to Suvarna as I gazed at how big my company was. I had no clue about what I was getting into. Convergys was instrumental in shaping my career and has since then shown me the path I should follow. I’ve never stopped since. I miss every bit of my love life which lasted throughout Convergys and ended with it. I’m not sure if thats good or bad, but it was beautiful when it lasted. I miss being in love. I miss our magical magic bay at Convergys where we had non-stop masti (hindi for fun) and I miss Smikh, Mank behind her, Abhi to his right and me behind Abhi. Muiz asking me to host the server to play Counter-Strike even though he was on a call. Smita running around playing tipy-tipy-tip-top which color do you want? And “Green!” says Hitendra Rawat one of the awesomely vulgar guys in the networking team. Wow! It all seems like a dream now. I miss you Shags, I really do and I don’t understand your apathy to my existence. I wonder how it is that you’re just gone and I feel like you’ll never come back. Scares me, but then is there something I can do? I guess not. God damn it! Nostalgia fucks up my brain.

Chetan had come home cause we decided to work out on some Active Directory related stuff and I thought that’d be good, mostly cause it’d help my grungy brain. I usually have a lot of fun when Chetan is around and this time I was in for some added fun. The source of laughter this time wasn’t Chetan though he accompanied me as I teared with laughter and disgust. I’m sure most of us if not all would find it funny when someone farts or pretends to cough even or otherwise make funny noises using their stomach and intestines which needn’t necessarily be followed by repulsive odour, you know the ones where you’d suppress the want to let it go but it’d bounce within your stomach and make a funny noise? Hahaha, well this time, this middle aged lady was caught by surprise cause it was dark and she did not notice me and Chetan walking behind her. She let out one huge one and it sounded like “Bhrrrrrrrrrrr brrr brrr brrrr” and thats when she notices us from the side of her eyes and she made the “Ohh shit! no…ohh fart!” face and tried to redirect our attention to her chappals as she made some noises by scrubbing it on the road. This did not seem to fool either Chetan or me. I was wondering about what the hell that was as Chetan looked on dumbfounded and thinking to himself, “Man, thats a big one!” we then looked at each other and rebounded into peals of laughter where neither of us could stop. She hurried off not knowing what else to do! I really did try to control, but it was hilarious and I really laughed my ass out! Chetan made the whole situation even more funnier by trying to muffle his laughter. You actually laugh more when you’re trying to stop yourself from exploding and thats what happened to Chetan. All in all, this was a crazy laugh day and I loved the whole therapy! Cheered me up. Thanks aunty.

I watched “A Wednesday” Its a movie involving Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah and it was one of the best movies I’ve watched over the last few months. A small scale movie with no stupid songs and gripping from the beginning unto its end. Also, the message is pretty clear. Its about how the common man feels and about how one fine day the “stupid common man” can decide to reply to all the unwanted shit he has to deal with because of the numerous religious fanatics out there. I mean, I got Naseer’s point, “Koi madarchod button dabakar mere liye yeh faisla nahi karega ki mujhe kabh marna hai” Which means “No motherfuckers decides the time of my death on the press of a button” Bloody kill these bastards! I’m sure anyone who watched the movie would say the same. Terrorism needs to end and I wonder why the government keeps such people alive. They have the whole funda of “encounter” so why do they keep such pests alive? If you find them, shoot them, no questions asked and no answers awaited. They are apparently kept alive for more “information” but as if they’re going to give any. Fuckin’ waste them! They’ve messed enough already with near and dear ones and with people who make up our world. People; looking at whom we feel safe and the most important feeling of “I’m not alone” This should all end. Heh, big things for me to say when whats worrying me now is what I should have for lunch.

-Anup

Questions…

I had these meandering thoughts in my head and I had to get it out. Sometimes the pain of losing love and someone you thought was very important is an abstract loveless feeling that cannot be explained. All you can do is live through it and endure it. A few rambling thoughts…

And here I am… again,
Thinking about a song…
But all I can think about is you;
Trying in vain to forget the bargain,
My tears for your joy,
Wasn’t that an easy thing for you to do?

How long do you think you can run?
From questions and my agony,
How much time do you have left with you?
It’ll dawn upon you someday,
You were everything to me…
To my eyes, you looked brighter than the sun.

You left my hands and you left my side,
When you promised so many times that you wouldnt;
All your lies and fakes smiles,
Isn’t it true that you loved it when I cried?
I was insane and I was mad
I just craved for your love; but you said you couldnt…

Mistakes were made and time was lost,
You went your way and left me alone;
Help me here! How do I fill the void?
What you have now has come to you at my cost.
Into me its spaces that you’ve sown,
Its my love that you’ve killed and I have died.

Then why is it that your ghosts haunt me?
Answer me now! Or else leave me in peace;
I can’t take this pain anymore, don’t you see?
Dreams of a fresh beginning; they seem blurry,
But without you in my head, I see them more cleary…
Call these to be my last words to you;
I will love you forever and there is nothing you can do…

Well now, thats just a fictional little story. Just something that came to my head sometime back and since we have regular power outages here, I just thought I’d type it in. I hope it entertains someone. I won’t lie; my life is beautiful!

61 years of freedom, really?

I don’t want to sound cynical here but come to think of it are we are really free from the so called “Gora raaj”? The white mans rule on us coloured people, is it really over? Well it never has and it never will. We have always been under the western rule. Earlier it was forced upon us and they captured our land and stole our wealth. But now, its sad that we are slowly moving towards their culture trying more and more to westernize or if thats not what you’d refer to it, lets call it globalization. The world turning into one? Bullshit. We have always been a gullible little pup to their pomp and glory and have always tried to adopt their ways of life. I’m probably just speculating all this and what I feel can be ignored, but then for how long? Lets continue living in the shadows of our ancestors – they were brave.

Anyway, I did not intend on writing a cliched post but then I felt the urge and when I feel like typing, I’d better get it out cause else it sits on my head, grows so heavy on me that I lose sleep and I have to be ready for work tomorrow. I’ve been feeling so very lazy. I don’t like this part of me. The part of me who’d just want to sit at home, enjoy the drizzle, get a cuppa tea and relax. Makes me feel bogged down and bored of life. I don’t want that feeling to sink it cause then it just makes me sad! And I decided to write to get over the Nostalgia. Yes, 15th August always reminds me of my school days.

I’m proud of being a K.B convent product and that I’ve studied there without interruptions for 12 years. I’ve known from my peers, classmates and people I know that most of them tend to skip schools. But in my case, I’ve been very lucky and I was a part of the most awesome school ever. Independance day celebrations used to bring out a lot of colourful things in our school. Sports, concerts and others amongst the charade of things that were done during that week. Practise sessions used to be the most fun part where we’d get to miss classes if we were part of one of the plays, skits or songs being enacted. Ohh and the others who don’t take part in stuff like this get to wear colourful clothes and hold flags and run around school corridors the whole day without having to keep our hands folded behind our backs and thats like the one day where we don’t need to form a file when we walk. Its happiness all around. Teachers look prettier on that day and they seem to be extra nice to us too. We sing songs, get sweets and then we have the friends hangout time which used to be awesome too! Ghosh… I miss school. Mostly because I used to have loads of friends there and I was a comic so I’d get quite a lot of attention. Thats when I realize how drab my life has become. I miss my school mates and I miss them all the time. They were going to meet up today, dunno what happened of that.

I’ve got to get onto a 12 hr shift from 6 AM in the morning tomorrow and I’m not at all thrilled about it. So I’m just going to finish this off and here’s wishing all my fellow Indians a happy Independance day and lets just try harder to reach where we intended to go rather than following someone else’s culture blindly. Enjoy their ways, but stick to our own is what I’d say. Bharat mata ki jai!!!

-Anup