The castaway car.

So I got lost and it was scary cause I had no clue of where I was and I was desperate to reach home but then I was too high on myself to call up and ask for help. I then proceeded to roam around the city at 12:30 AM clueless about where I was and the road to my home seemed to be lost unto oblivion. It was weird of me though that I kept the music loud and kept on driving. Going back to the whole situation, it would have turned murky weren’t it for some good people out for sehri and other reasons since it was Eid. There were quite a few muslim people out on the streets; either returning from the mosque or on their way. Luckily for me, there weren’t any communal riots going on and I managed to talk to a couple of people who helped me out. I drove all around Bangalore, I feel. Eid Mubarak to those two good people who helped me. Eid Mubarak Shags, Muiz and Shaista and all those people celebrating the auspicious day.

I had been to a friends party which was a dinner thing and thus it began at around 9ish or so to say it never began cause people were sober then. They were just about getting on the higher, more funnier side when I had to leave and I feel sorry for myself that I had to come home and work. The thing here is, this post is a follow up to the post ‘meeting strangers’. Here in this case, I thought it’d be difficult for me to survive at a place where I wouldn’t know any of the people coming over and I pondered for a long time about how I’d be able to communicate to a bunch of people I did not know. Funny that? No. It was horrifying! I was worried thoughout the time I drove to her place and up unto the time the door bell rang, from there on it was easy and time just flew by! Most importantly because I found a mallu guy who decided to do the funny talk and also happened to be kind enough to include me in almost all of his discussions. I just sat there and heard him out… ohh and I did have my share of time checking out all the pretty ladies that poured in. The host was gracious enough to admit that she didn’t know all the people who had come over. It was fun, nice people and they weren’t as drunk as I thought they’d be. Or well, I guess they probably did after I left, maybe. Mallu’s bond quickly and I sat speaking to all the mallu’s I could gather.

The thing here was I got to her house easily because she had drawn up a pretty decent map from Cunningham road to her place and I managed to reach there without missing a turn. While returning though, I was lost in thought and spaced out completely. I thought I could take on the roads and karma came in to punish me. I had the map, but I didn’t bother looking at it. Took me more than an hour of driving around Frazer town to finally hit M.G road and from there on it was easy – Koramangala and my place, Arekere which according to most people is the end of the world. Phew, you guys don’t know how affordably good my place is. Now thats not an adjective everyone can use, you know? I managed to reach home and for the first few minutes I was thinking out loud – am I really home? Wow, where was I? Sometimes, these parts of the town which are as close as a few miles away might seem so very alien to you. Upon returning home, you’d feel misplaced or still lost even, funny feeling that! Anyway, thanks R for the invite. It was an awesome party! Its ok that I got lost. I’m sure I can find my way around the next time *winks*

Ramble on...
Tired and sleepy...

Its been a rather sad day after that – Airtel calling me up to know if I wanted more post paid connections; I mean, why would I need more post-paid connections when they’re calling on my post paid number? Some guy from HDFC called to verify if I still want the loan and I was too sleepy to answer so I hung up and tried to sleep. Thats when the HDFC girl called up again and began tweeting, “Sorry sir, we couldn’t get your statement from Citibank; all the banks are closed, you know na?” and me; unsure about whats going on and extremely sleepy, barked out, “So what do you want me to do ma’am?” “No no sir… I just wanted to tell you that we are still awaiting your phone bills from your fathers landline number” she squeaks this time! I heave a sigh and I guess it was good enough to give her the hint that I was mad. She hung up quickly after apologizing. I was trying to get some sleep after a hard nights work, woman! I couldn’t sleep after that. Her voice kept echoing in my head. I’ve been here in front of this box ever since. I need sleep – so so desperately!

-Anup

The waiting place…

Population outburst, unruly and uneducated people, educated scmucks, morally impaired, outright stupid – some of the many reasons for the unending waits we have to endure as part of the mob. The mob who lives in a world thats crumbling under the weight of the ever increasing ignorance in people about their pointless existence. They seem to be oblivious about the fact that its they themselves who cause ‘the waiting’ A quick one on this –

And grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
Headed I fear, towards a most useless place.
The waiting place…
For people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
Or a bus to come, or a plane to go.
Or the mail to come, or the rain to go
Or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
A high-school yearbook. An old photo album. A teddy bear.
A snow-globe. A well-worn book by Dr. Seuss.
Or waiting around for a yes or a no
Or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
Or waiting for wind to fly a kite
Or waiting around for Friday night
Or waiting perhaps for their uncle jake
Or a pot to boil, or a better break
Or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
Or a wig with curls…
Or another chance.

I’m tired of waiting. I know that I’m part of the mob and there’s little that I can do to decrease the amount of time spent on waiting for things you want. The queue is never ending and I spend loads of time just waiting in queue. The queue at the Airtel bill payment counter which is incapable of managing the crowd even with 5 queues going. The queue at Adigas, the food joint where they serve cheap but good food. The wait at restraunts where people seem to eat on forever. The wait at the parking lot where you’d consider yourself to be lucky to park at the rate of Rs 30 an hour (outfuckinrageous). The wait at the parlour or the saloon even! Its funny that I have to wait anywhere and everywhere I go. Who are all these people I wonder? Why are they out? Where do ALL these people come from? What the bleep do they want? Why are they out when I’m out? God damn these crowds!! Stop touching me you pig… duh! People all over me. Crowds annoy me and unruly people get on my nerves. But the wait goes on…

This outburst is after some random guy decided to throw sambar all over me and had the audacity to ask me to pay up for his loss in food! I gave him a piece of my mind which he probably did not understand. He then went on to make a funny face, talk some eblish in broken hindi and cursy kannada. We stared at each other for a while. He wondering about who’d pay for his idli-sambar now and me thinking about who’d wash my shirt? You can’t blame anyone for anything that happens these days. Unavoidable people, I tell you. I was there for him and he was there for me. We were so unavoidable to each other. Bumping into each other for no reason. Blame the crowd. The wait at Adigas has always puzzled me. The food is alright and that too at a modest price range, but then, why don’t all these people eat at home? I mean, I see entire families standing and eating away. Laughing away to glory, unperturbed by the fact that they are in the midst of such a lot of commotion. I understand if the bachelors hang out at the place for food and more, but whats up with all these ladies? Or whats up with their men? Don’t you’ll ever cook at home? I see the same faces everyday. It just worries me! Good old times when mom cooked food and what she cooked seemed to be the only thing I could ever like. These new age mothers feeding their babies idli-sambar which some guy cooked in some unhygenic kitchen. For the love of god, whats wrong with you’ll?  Anyway, the man went on buy more idli sambar for himself and I walked out thus missing breakfast, yet again.

The wait for getting a loan sanctioned is killing me from another end with the HDFC chicks sucking the very life out of me with their stupid ass questions. “So sir are you married?” “No” I say candidly. She goes onto ask a few more questions about my family and friends not trying to hide her awe when I say that I’m new to Bangalore. “So you know kannada ha?” she asks and I curse my fate. “Gothilla ma’am” and she giggles. She goes on, “Sir are you single?” here I get brain fucked and I ask her what she wants! She goes on to say, “Sir you want this loan no? Please answer my questions” and I go @$@$%$#%!#@##$@#$ Some more annoying questions later she puts her boss on the phone who asks me the same annoying questions again this time he adds on to say, “Sorry sir, these days they don’t give loan unless your father agrees to it! They don’t agree even if you have a wife. They don’t trust wives… you know with all the divorces in Bangalore!” and I’m thinking… ‘Man, what the hell’s going on? So now what? You’re a relationship councellor?” He giggles some and tries to confirm my mothers maiden name. This interrogation continus for another 20 gruelling minutes before which he seems to point to me that I can get more loan than what I’ve opted for and how I’m making an incorrect decision. I’ve never felt this smothered. The torture along with the wait has fuelled my rage and I’m going to stop running after any of these imbeciles. I’m tired of the waiting…

-Anup

Words.

I’ve loved words from the time I learnt and understood them. I’ve always thanked Miss Rozana Rodricks (my English teacher) for enlightening me and introducing me to a language that has no boundaries. However much we Indians despise the time when we were ruled by the whites there would always come that time when we’d need to thank them for the immense amount of worldly knowledge that was shared and add to that the language itself was bestowed upon us and as we all can see, English was easily absorbed. Since eons its gone around worlds within our small world and it didn’t need to try hard to become a globally acknowledged medium of communication. Today, I’m not shocked when even the rickshaw guy understands me when I speak in English. I have somehow been under the impression that I was good if not the best when it came to notating what I thought I knew about the world I lived in. Well, this mirage was recently shattered and I’m still trying to rummage whatever is left of the then towering figure of myself.

I’m just a nincompoop! A little toad unable to squeal or croak and trying to swim in a pond thats too big for it. Smelly and newborn. Trying to swim, but drowning instead. Words are never in your control and they can choose to make you sound sloppy if you treat them with disrespect and/or be overtly confident with them. Simply put, they have a mind of their own when they flow from your head, heart and mind onto books or digital media that you’re imprinting it onto and during this transition they might end up meaning something which you probably did not intend them to mean. Writing exactly what you feel, I think is a very difficult thing to do because feelings are abstract and writing requires a lot of imagery. I’m just going to write what I feel and stop nagging people to write. Its sad that I don’t have a single friend or acquaintance who actually likes writing and or blogging. Friends who blog would have been more advantageous, I’d say. I tried to talk to a few of my friends into writing. But then, thats what they say about writing – its not everyones fantasy. Some wouldn’t even read.

All my recent revelations stemmed from two important things. One of them being my guru at the creative writing workshop throwing in some real critisism about the way I write and the content in my writing. What he said was true and I’m thankful that he provided feedback. He’s a busy man but he still managed to find time to tell us newbies about what we need to correct in our writing. After this, I began reading at random blogs and I ended up at this blog – Lakshmi. From whatever I collected off her work on the web; she’s a 17 year old and I found her writing to be extremely captivating, almost poetic the way she writes prose and the way she’d evoke imagery using words alone is simply outstanding. I read at quite a few places but this was special considering that she’s merely 17. I thought it took time for one to be profound with words. Also, it takes experience to put them together. I’d associate her superior word building skills to her affinity to books and her love for reading. Its takes a lot to develop a unique style of writing and I was totally bowled over with the way she presented her thoughts, ideas and feelings without sounding unreal. I’d like to applaud her work and I hope she continues writing. Its quite a gift she’s got up her sleves.

I spoke to Sneha sometime back and we discussed a very lethal subject thats in the pipeline for her and then me. She usually vents out when we talk. She compulsively has to tell me about how silly it is for 25 year old guys to marry (this is mostly cause the guy she had a crush on was married) She’d comment on how weird it is that her weekend falls on a “Thursday” instead of one of the days on an actual weekend! Finally, we’d trickle down to the alfa-male of topics – What kind of a guy? When? Why arranged? *sigh* Sometimes I wish she had a life. The poor thing has been owned from the time she was born and I’m sure she hasn’t had a chance yet to decide for herself. I can’t quite say that its a bad thing to have had everything you ever wanted but then the caged feeling isn’t all that good I’d assume. I’ve always been the runaway prodigal son and thus I’ve managed to outlive parental expectations. Whatever I do is good for them – Wow! you managed that is probably what they think. Sneha on the other hand is expected to live upto our parents words and decisions and she’s be wonderful with being an optimum daughterdroid. We discussed marriage in length and it felt good talking to her about things on a more serious note. Well, thats how I ended my weekend. I’m covering the nights tomorrow onwards and I’m hoping to begin my workouts again. Finally, I hate stray dogs – they can bark endlessly throughout the night and sometimes I feel like rushing out, pulling a Mt. Carbine and killing each and everyone of the 40,000 odd strays living near my appartment. What a pain. Heh, but then… another day in paradise.

-Anup

Innocent love.

I watched this movie yesterday and I desperately wanted to talk about it, especially this one song; which forced me to go rent its DVD. The movie’s name is Subramaniapuram and I’m sure the non-southie crowd wouldn’t make sense out of the language and what it is that they’re saying. No worries, I’ll explain. But please take time to patiently watch the video and keep a close watch on the both of them. Its one of the most cutest songs I’ve seen in a while and it tickled me a lot when I watched it. Now, it needn’t be the same for everyone, but then I’m a helpless romantic *sigh*

The movie is set in the 1980’s and thats why you get to see the bell bottom trousers and the “davani” as we call it in the south. Some others might know it as “pattu pavada” thats what the heroine is wearing and these kind of traditional clothing hit me hard! In a world where less is more these kind of movies and people make me wanna live more! The end result of this movie is pretty tragic though and it tells us about how we shouldn’t trust women! Not all of them at least. They are easily bogged down by family and innocent love can be killed within a few minutes of hard talk! The song is about the girl and the guy, both talking about their love for each other. The guy speaks about her smile, how beautiful her eyes are and how she makes him feel and the girls describing what she sees in him from a distance everyday and how wonderful love makes her feel. She’s falling… Cuteness.

Well, thats all I had for today and I’d like to thank all the people who read here also the people who take time off to comment. I really appreciate the comments. Thats how I get to know about who reads here. Makes me wanna keep writing. So, please, keep it flowing!

-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.

Miss them all...
Miss them all...

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.

Farty
Farty

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