The Catchline

I am Indian: I am influenced by Bollywood!!
Hence.. my Blog now sports a corny english catchline to go with the hindi name.
It feels complete finally!!(oh.. the pic too)

HearSee

Cool Dude1: "Dude.. Bombay is the place to have fun"
Cool Dude2: "Duhhuud... Bombay is fun, But Bangalore is fun with class"

FMAG*1: "Yaar.. lekin kabhi kabhi intimacy ho jaati hai..."
FMAG2: "Hmmm... karo, par ghar pe pata nahin chalna chahiye!!"

*FMAG = Frustrated Middle Aged Guy

Billboard of latest Kannada Flick:

Noone has ever invented condom for the gun...

He is deadly dangerous.............

La musique nostalgique

Listening to the new album by Enigma. It’s good – very ambient; I am crazy about ambient music. It takes you to a different plane of existence. It is a catalyst, which can make any experience extraordinary – very much like the SonyErricson ad which has been showing lately. It just trickles through; it commingles with the mellifluous juices of a succulent pan, it flows with the cool pre-winter breeze as I walk in the inky blackness of the alleys of Koramangala late into the night.
Music induces in me a sharp feeling of nostalgia. It stems from the mutation of my musical preference with time, from the habit of overkill of what I am in love with then. It then becomes a marker of that chapter in the diary that is life. Play me High Hopes and I am teleported to my room in Calcutta, switching off the worries of the impending engg. entrance exams and lying in my bed soaking the magic of Floyd. Turn on Robert Miles and I ratchet down the highway of memory to the plush leather upholstery of my friend’s dad’s new Esteem; seat reclined, doors thrown open, as the garage throbbed with the beats of my very tryst with trance. Atif takes me down the corridor of my hostel during the last few days of college life. Enigma’s first few albums jog me down the Military Park in the sultry morning air, as I smiled quietly at the queer mannerisms of the motley morning walkers, thinking about how smooth my preparation for Std X boards was coming along. Rangeela finds me waiting in the car for my brother, as we got late for school in Ranchi. Pet Shop boys shrinks me into shorts with elastics when we got our very first music system- a Videocon, which was out of bounds for us as we got our first taste of English Pop. Pankaj Udhas plays softly in the background as we have our Sunday lunch of kathi daal-chawal in our airy duplex in Ranchi. Cranberries croons to my heart as butterflies flutter in my tummy – I sit dreamy-eyed stupidly smitten by a girl at her first sight. Maiden finds me stay up late nights enjoying my tension-free pre-engineering days. Prodigy and FatboySlip make me jump around like crazy in my first single room. Coldplay is what some happy memories are made of. And Himessss willl remind me of the days when Baba, Jalan, Dilip and I went grocery shopping; popped our heads out of the windows and 'serenaded' the unsuspecting bikers stuck at the traffic signal.

the beer speaketh...

i glug the drink..
i am my own shrink..
i think trivial...
bring on the next vial...
my soul turns pink!

et tu brute.. so be me!!

i am a stoic again..
i am a sponge...
i live life in the grunge...
is it any good???

Motor(quadra)cycle Diaries - A game of points

Disclaimer: If you are a family member of mine kindly skip this post.
After all I could do without another tirade of cling and clang [refer: The Prelude]. As my parents rightly put it – post-trip – the Maruti, a very light car with minimal safety features, isn’t the best suited vehicle for doing 1900kms on the highway. And it was our very job to find out why. It all started with the post-dinner drive in the first leg of the journey. After a filling snack of chicken kebabs and paneer manjuri (this is how they spell Manchurian in namma Karnataka), washed down by on-the-house rasam shots – spicy enough to disinfect the entire system – we took on the highway again. Four hours on the road prior to this had seen off the frustrating and infuriating city traffic and the deceptively well-laid highway stretch. Ak had indulged in the thorough cleaning of the wind-shield while we chewed furiously at the kebabs in the dimly-lit bar (no thanks, we were keeping away from the drinks). The highway deserves a mention here. It was mosaic of ravaged bits of pathway threaded together by crumpled boards whispering "diversion", visible only when your nose is touching the board. Driving on this 150km stretch of rubble at night was quite a challenge. Ak took it up as I struggled to get a couple of winks, crumpled in the back seat of the car with another soul, B, with a gargantuan ruck-sack wedged between the two. Rather, I was wedged in and was only hoping that I was born a frog with three folds in my legs. We started off flying over a bump, and braced ourselves for the ride to follow.
Another interesting feature on this stretch was the immaculate positioning of bumps; a couple of meters before the diversion. In case one didn’t spot the board, the bump would do well to throw the car off balance before consummation, be it the ditch at the end of the road or the car heading surreptitiously from the other side of the diversion. This is exactly what happened at one of the diversions, as Ak didn’t spot it on time, and hurtled down up the bump and down the incline, barely managing to lose some speed in the process and missing the car from the other direction by a mere whisker. 50 points. And thus began the game of points.
Another diversion; another mangled board; yet another case of night blindness; screeches; clouds of dust; car stopped within kissing distance of a mound of red mud, or was it coagulated blood? 40 points.
2am: on a smooth road, well marked with boards on both sides. I am driving with the windows rolled up to keep the chill out; music fills up the car; I am humming to myself enjoying my personal time as the others have been engulfed by sleep. Thoughts stray back and forth as I don’t bother to wake the others – they have to get behind the wheel later – but the truth is I am thoroughly enjoying it, whizzing at no less than 100km an hour. The signs on the sides forewarning turns race by as they lead to mellow turns with banking that are negotiated easily. Another board marking an impending left turn; a casual glance as my foot is firm on the accelerator: mistake; another seemingly innocuous turn, and there is no urgency to floor the breaks: mistake. The turn coiled menacingly and it was too late to jam the breaks. I gently squeezed the breaks and turned the wheel a fraction alternately; too much of either would throw the car off balance. The screech of the tyres rises to drown the music within. I entered the curve from the left and finished on the right, couple of feet off the railing on the right. As the car slowed, the heartbeat raced. Victor: 50 points.

Motor(quadra)cycle Diaries – The prelude

The choice of the title is not intended as a smart-ass pun(only…); it is the best description for a Maruti 800 as compared to the new generation cars. What else, other than a label as belittling as a cycle, could be more apt for a car that lacks even a power steering and power breaks in this age. Maybe that’s the beauty of it. Maybe we Indians have a special attachment for it. Maybe that’s the reason people still buy it, though a few more thousands can facilitate a more comfortable driving experience. I choose to brag about this beauty – one that still constitutes a high percentage of The Chaotic Indian Traffic – because she has performed exceedingly well under trying conditions. I may not know much about car maintenance yet (probably why she makes my life easy) but I know she’s here to stay.
I am compelled to write this after a road trip to from Bangalore to Pune, and back; all of 1800 Kms completed within two days and two nights. That it was maniacal, I would vouchsafe and my parents would testify; they did give me a hard time for doing this. I don’t blame them; their progeny-safety alarms had gone haywire when I called them and very coolly said. “Guess where I am. In Pune. We drove all night…” [cling cling clang]. I’ll save you the dirty details.

This is how it started:
A: “Crazy traffic... aargh! We may not make it on time”
B: “Hmmm”
P: “So B.. what if you miss the train”
A [matter-of-factly]: ”What’s there… Will drop him to Bombay”
B: “Yes yes… let’s do it man”
A: “Yeah sure… We are talking 950 kms here… That too over the weekend; to and fro… Shut up and start praying that we reach on time”
B: “Dude… I am serious… It’ll be awesome”
B [Praying]: “I hope we don't make it on time... God please pleeaassee”
P: “Wazzzzzaaaaa”
[tee teeent] sms from U: “Kahaan ho??”
B: “Gaadi mein…. Duhhh”
B: “Abe chal yaar… C and Ak will be ever-ready… you just gotta say yes”
A: “Sup….”
P: “WAZZZZZZZZZAAAAAA”
B: “WAAAAAAAAAAAAZZAAAA”
A: “WAAAAAZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAA”
K: [Bewildered, confused, obfuscated… should I reach for the thesaurus now]
[tee teeent] sms from U: “Kab pahunchoge… train nikal jaegi”
A, B & P[in unison]: “HAHAHAH.. WAAAAAZZZZZAAAAAAAAA”
K: [Befuddled, flabbergasted, lost; I did reach for the thesaurus]
A: [Expletives galore at the sight of a broken down truck in the middle of the road – the cause of the traffic jam]
A: “I think we’re gonna make it on time. B, what say… you wanna catch it?”
B: “Are you crazy… we doin this man!!”
A: “Yes we are…”
K: [Shake of the head] “Tch tch… you guys serious?”
K: [Back to: astonished, baffled, confounded]
P: “Wazzzzaaaaaa”
[tee teeent] sms from U: “Jaldi aao…”
We pull up in front of the station. B gets off with his luggage; U had been looking at her watch every split second. In the meantime she had finished reconnaissance and pinpointed the coach and the berth.
U: “Chalo jaldi karo.. choot jaegi”
B: “Huh.. so??”
A: “Yeah.. so???”
P: “WAAAZZZZZZZZAAAA”
U: [ Bewildered, confused, obfuscated, Befuddled, flabbergasted, lost, astonished, baffled, confounded… all at once]
Enter C and Ch.
Plan briefly blurted out; Ch nodding; C neighing
C: “Abbe yaar trip safal ho gayi!! Let’s do this... I am calling Ak, he’ll surely come”
Poooooonn.. Chugg chug…
P: “C’mon guys, lets do some drama…”
[Authoritative tone] “B get on the train… A and C start running… B, get pulled down from the train”
A, B & C too excited to do anything; P pouting and sulking
P: “You guys are useless…”
U: “You guys are out of your heads”
A, B, C and P[in unison]: “WAAAAZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAA”

zoooooommmm

How often do you get back home at 5:45am, hair all coarse and entangled, putrid alcohol laden breath, eyelids weighing down like lead weights, back a tad stiff, yet, spirit soaring high as the first light of the day lights up a quiet a smile on the face. Sometimes, we decide to do something really stupid, and we love for those times. The times when we just head out against all odds, shrug off the common sense, and throw reason in the trash can.
We did just that, couple of nights back, bang in the middle of the week. One friend was visiting us, and another was about to leave - to erase everything on the blackboard, that is life, and start afresh. The occasion had to be given its due respect. Hence, we decided to head out at the stroke of midnight, to drive down some 80 kms to the Coffee Day on Mysore road. Someone suggested that we get some beer on the way, so that too was taken care of. Only at that hour, are the roads of Bangalore a pleasure to drive on (not all of them mind you). All that’s left to do is to roll down the window and let the good riff or the rhythmic bass-line permeate your senses. (The cool beer down the throat doesn’t feel too bad either!)
Joking, munching, chatting, drinking, humming, clicking, we overshot the pick-up point for C by about 10kms. But no one minded the 20 extra kms on the road, except for C, of course, who had been waiting there, braving the chill. The effect of the beer was evident only when I got off the car and realized I wasn’t walking too straight, and come to think of it, I had advised K, who was behind the wheel of the other car, to take it easy with the beer. B, with his motion sickness compounded by the beer, was queasy on the way back and let out a few jets of murku and a quarter donut marinated in beer.
By the time we got home we were half dead, with the ringing thought of getting to office in a few hours time. It was promising to be a hell of a day. K had to attend meetings throughout the day and ended up calling in sick(in fact he just slept all day, not even bothering to call). I zombied my day through work and then ended up going for a late night dinner, where I gulped in more air, in hideous yawns, than food on the table.

And BTW, tonight we leave for Bombay: 950*2 kms; two days; one Maruti 800; four guys up; three guys down. Later...