Chetan – Helmet Pinched

Bangalore revisited

Its been less than 7 months since I left Bangalore behind but its all that I can think of now and my craving to return is growing stronger by the minute. Now, I’m fairly certain that this post might be prematurely ended due to my short attention span and my addiction to movie re-runs; which I must say is despicable because I’ve been repeating movies that I’ve watched a zillion times! Sometimes, I even remember the dialogues that is to follow but then, I’m addicted to re-runs and that’s all that I’m doing these days. I’m supposed to be working, reading, following up with dad on my marriage arrangements and other grave matters that need my attention but all I do whenever I find time is port into my hard drive full of movies that I’ve downloaded over the past 3 years and browse through. I then find a movie I’d like and there you have a re-run! Its suddenly hit me that around 10 days of leaves have sped by with me doing nothing but movie re-runs, a couple of books and some other things in general; which I must say I absolutely HAD to do. Like take a small stroll, stare at the gym from outside and contemplate an entry, stare at the Dubai skyline from my terrace and think about things, daily chores in the bathroom and a couple of stray discussions with the store manager at Madina super market, Bur Dubai.

I’d also like to bring to my notice the evident and seemingly alarming distance from human contact. So I have this room and I am in it. Its got everything you need. Split AC, a fridge, a bathroom, a bed, the internet and windows which you need not open! Its the perfect place to bury yourself and never be seen again. Hell yeah! That’s what I’ve been going through for the past 5 odd days and its silenced me from the inside. Sometimes, I even feel like I don’t have a shadow! What the fuck? Its so pissed at my lethargy that it went on a stroll by itself. I catch up to it overtime though. I’m scared of being alone in this cold desert. Don’t leave me alone, ehh? Things haven’t moved since the time I got in and I don’t intend on moving them into the cupboard because this room would then creep me out more. I haven’t turned the lights off in over 5 days – again cause it scares me every now and then. The new apartment is gorgeous no doubt but every once in a while it seems like Room 1408 in that movie. The one where they had a dead ghost living somewhere amongst its tiles. Damn! I’m going to have another sleepless night today. I’m hoping for work and hard labor to fix this problem. Work will commence tomorrow after an excruciating gap of 10 days and Boy! am I happy.

I’ll set aside the ramble for now and keep it for another date. As the topic suggests the aforementioned wasn’t my prime topic of discussion for today. It was Bangalore. If there was anyone who was following this blog and reading every now and then if not always, you’d note my obvious love for Bangalore. There aren’t any grave reasons for this. I just like the city for no reason. It seems like my place to be and the city where I’d finally settle down. I’ve lived a dreamy life there and come to think of it now, I’ve never been as alone as I am today. Again, loneliness is a state of mind and it can be easily overcome… yada yada yada!! Blargh, up yours with all that mumbo jumbo. I had friends there. However little they be, they were there. I didn’t meet them as often as I’d want to but then its ok, you know? It was enough that they were around. This post is dedicated to those glorious 18 months that I spent in Bangalore AFTER wrapping up a masquerading bitch of a period in Pune. A few clicks full of memories…

A lot of pictures have been left behind and I guess I’d track back to them a few months down the line. I’m sure my homesickness would just keep growing until the day I decide to return once and for all. From the looks of it, that day isn’t too far. I’ve always known that I wasn’t meant to be out of India and these days that I spend outside of my motherland yell an affirmative to my precognized notion. Point being, I’ve had people like Kuttapi, Ammu and Radha aunty who were MORE than my own family (trust me; in a lot of different ways), I had friends like Chetan and Ajay. These are probably the coolest people I’ve ever known. Anymore cooler than this and that’d make them backstabbing bastards. A karaoke pub that would let me sing and people who really did not care how you sang as long as you had the balls to do it! An opportunity to listen to Ajay sing "Smells like Teen spirit" and "Angels" AND rocking on both accounts. Chetan and me walking on the street and bursting out with streams of teared laughter at the aunty who let one go! Abhi and his very regular visits. The writers club and those emails that were exchanged. I can go on and on and on. Reasons aplenty for why I loved that city and how much I long to go back.

Now, the most obvious question is – Then why the fuck are you still stuck there? Well, you got to know this – a typical middle class mans life is full of a series of different kinds of shit – obligatory shit, responsibility shit, you-live-in-a-society-shit amongst others. I’m not different. As stuck as can be in a mud puddle which is grippy and ruthless. Questions like, "Ahhh, you’re back so soon?" with the "What a loser! tssk tssk" kinda face. "But son, you shouldn’t have wasted an opportunity like this!" You need more? I have more – "What?? You’re getting married – you need the cash! Don’t be a whiney loser like XYZABC, hang on!" Finally, the peach, "Damn! you got laid off, didn’t you?" I’m too scared of these questions and I don’t wish to fall down in order to answer them. Guess we all get fucked by the society one way or another. I’ll just deal with it for a while and fly back when I feel its time and when I’m no more part of a society that knows me.

Well, apart from these teeny weeny problems life pretty bright. Dubai is under 80 billion worth debt they say. I have no freaking clue of what’s going on and when I’d be thrown out of my job. What’s the point in thinking? I’d play the wait and watch game for now cause uhm, that’s all that you can do. I’m not going to crib, fret and frown over my job because there is no dearth for opportunities! In other news, Sneha is getting married too and I’m super excited. My long vacation starts on the 28th of January and I cant wait for the days to fly by. I cant bear the void anymore and I cant wait for Mrs. Menon to come over. Well, that’s it for now and I hope to god that this finally shows up as a post. I don’t trust myself with blogging these days. I have no clue about what’s gotten into me. Publishing a post seems to be a herculean task and I most usually find a reason to discard the draft by the end of it. This is lovingly dedicated to all those people back in Bangalore/Pune and Kerala *winks* This is to tell you’ll that I miss you’ll truck loads. Peace out.

-Anup

An expensive weekend.

Once every month; Chetan and I have this unavoidable urge and craving to spend money. Its not like we do all that we want to do, which might include buying Levis denims and more shoes. We fall out of home hoping to buy stuff but these days we usually return empty handed cause uhm, allegedly, there isn’t anything worth buying. Or some random reason that we’d come up with at that point in time where we get stuck between the want to buy and the want to flee from the shop we’re standing in. Its awkward silence and then the both of us making a hasty exit from the shop leaving the salesman wondering what he did wrong. It was hilarious when we did this at Levis where I sent the boy to get a measuring tape for alteration since I had apparently just purchased a pair of expensive Levis. Here is where I looked at Chetan and we had a not-so-quite discussion about buying those denims. “Do you want it?” he asked. “I do!! and I dont…” said I looking perplexed at the thought of spending 3 grands on a pair of pants I did not actually need right then. Here is when Chetan turned into a Gladiator and he began fleeing the scene. I promptly followed suit and left those denims hanging by the manequins hands. Still cracks me up when I think about that day.

This weekend was one of those expensive ones where we did spend a lot of money on activities we could have easily avoided but then once in a while we like the rich feeling. Rich dining, expensive leisures and prodigal wandering. We visited Ruby Tuesday for lunch on Saturday. Chetans suggestion that. I’m positive that we’d never venture into that restaurant again. At least not the two of us. Its ideal if you want the perfect American date and I’d hope that the girl you’d take along would be worth the money cause its menu card is the epitome of a proposterously expensive list of food items you’ve probably never heard of unless, of course, if you fall into the Creme’De’wastera clan who is used to expensive places like these. We had Penne mushroom Pasta and mini burgers with nothing but plain water even after the host asked us if we wanted something (alcoholic) to drink twice. It did seem embarassing the second time he asked and Chetan demanded some more water. We quickly finished our meal and paid a paltry sum of 600 bucks for the above mentioned food that was eaten tastefully by me. Chetan ended up stuffing most of it into his mouth cause it didn’t taste too great, he said.

Ahh! I nearly forgot to mention about the angel we saw at Pizza hut before that. Ohh yeah, thats right we had initially walked in to Pizza hut to eat a poor meal but then we decided to give Chetans choice of restaurant a shot after we caught ourselves staring at this angel on earth who couldn’t get enough of whatever it was that she was eating. She didn’t lift her eyes off her plate for once. What an ogre. Geez, no! This girl; I mean, its kinda difficult to put into words about how cute she was. Fair… infact, very fair but not pasty. A round chubby face but not fat. Curly hair right upto her shoulders. Eyes fixed on her plate and innocence written all over her gorgeous face. Lips so cute that you’d lose your apetite. The kajal in her eyes and those eyelashes, wooohoooo!! God sure spent a little more time on her. We exited soon cause else she’d be medusa who turned us into stone. Hey! Its not our fault. You cant help staring at girls like those.

We went bowling at Ameoba after all that food and we spent an hour just waiting for it to be our turn to take a shot at the heavy balls. We watched all those amateurs being funny with the ball and pins. We even found some dude trying to spin the ball in mid air. He was funny as hell and Chetan tried imitating him which made me tear with laughter. I finally decided to stop watching since there was this one girl who sported a lose top and decided to bend down with the ball. It made me feel guilty even though it was not me showing my cleavage. Chetan had no interest in watching live soft core banalities either. So we sulked and waited for it to be our turn. I wonder why that part made me feel guilty. I mean, its not like my eyes would self-realizingly close itself or blink for a longer second when images like this occur. Sigh, what a mindless world of women. It finally arrived and it was awesome. 45 minutes of unadulterated fun. I beat him in the first game and he beat me in the second. Its usually that way, we really cant decide on who is better. I guess we’ve decided that we both rock at it. Mostly, cause no one else there went above the score of 70 and we were in the 100’s. I loved the strikes we had and it was exhilarating. We then wasted time at Forum and had some Maharashtrian food for dinner. Sunday was a lazy day with loads of sleep and movies. Thats pretty much what we did this weekend and yeah, my purse got lighter by a grand. Sigh.

I am tempted to quit working and go take up a travelling job. More on that later. For now, I gotta head to my boring IT job and I guess you’d find me writing more if all that boredom doesn’t kill me. Later folks.

-Anup

Clear skies.

Here’s a little something that came into my head out of event horizon:

Clear skies, yet again
A blessing to your eyes
Orange dawn drives me insane.
From within me guzzles;
Warm thoughts of life,
Hope within hopes
Lies within lies,
Wants and desires,
Dreams and pain;
Concealed within hot fires,
All of them so seemingly hidden,
Beyond the horizon;
Some warmth from within the cold.
Chirping birds and humming bees,
Yellow light – mystic and crimson…
Clear skies – blue, orange and white,
Studded with me, me and me!

It was a lovely feeling early today morning. I’m not sure how but like Chetan said yesterday… nature knows that its festive time maybe. Heavy rains lashing the city stopped well before Diwali and has since then shown mercy to the midgets that we are. Living off of whatever is thrown down to us, inconsiderate and nothing but a plague to Gaya and the life she carries within herself. We continue to hurt her and there seems no end. We really are a plethora of erosive parasites and we’re slowly eating her up. But then, she’s ever forgiving and God is loving. I have no other justification to the wonderful people in my life right now and I’m insanely happy.

We celebrated Diwali pompously on the 27th; uhm yeah, one full day ahead of when it actually was! But then, it made me very happy cause I have such amazing people in my life and I’d consider myself to be lucky if at least these few people stick by. Ratheesh and Chetan had come over with crackers that we bought for 60% discount (apparently) . We visited the temple and prayed (good guys, aren’t we?) burst some crackers and here’s when me and Chetan got a dose of poisonous fumes and the both of were in neck deep trouble. He ended up uncomfortable, cold and itchy and I was breathless. I couldn’t sleep much because my lungs kept me awake. I just couldn’t breathe when I tried to lie down. Radha aunty was a life saver yesterday morning. I was looking for some medical shop that would be open but none of them were and I decided to ask Radha aunty if she knew of some place. Thats when she gave me an inhaler that she had and I’d say it saved my life. Food and now this! Man, you’re awesome. Speaking of food; we stuffed ourselves with sweets and by day end it kinda got me and Ratheesh into a lot of shit; literally *winks*

I’m compelled to talk about this movie I watched – A Scanner Darkly. Now, this was the first Rick LinkLater movie I watched and I haven’t watched ‘Waking life’ but I’ve heard a lot about it and I need to watch it as soon as this download is over. I’ve become an abuse to the internet, a leecher with no morals cause I don’t like seeding. I download and then stop. Damn! these days, I don’t like the idea of sharing. Anyway, the movie talks about a guy and thereby indicating a world full of drug addicts and the the paranoia, perceptual distortions, and chaos of hallucinogenic overindulgence. Keanu Reaves does an awesome job as per uge’ and I love his style. I’ve loved him in movies like “The Matrix Trilogy” and “Constantine” he’s been amazing in movies like “The Lake House” “A walk in the clouds” and now this. The guy does an amazing job of portraying emotions in a not-so-shahrukhanish style! To the point, clear, concise and stylish. I did watch a few other movies – Contract Killers, A Cinderella Story, Quarantine and a few more but Scanner Darkly was different because of its story line and the animation done to people who actually acted in the movie. Looked creepy, mysterious and thats what made the movie even more gripping. A couple of good things that happened over the weekend – Abhi is back! I’m happy that he is. I got the t-shirt I’ve been wanting since ever – The Division Bell and it totally rocks. Finally, I’m playing Dante – Devil May Cry 3 and so far, its an outstanding game. I can’t explain how awesome it is. Not right now at least cause I’m into it so maybe the next time I’d ramble on about the game! Peace out suckers.

-Anup