And one day you meet them again..people you’d called friends…family…to relish the taste of familiarity for a few moments…and swallow…only to realise wat lingers on is just some timid memory of sweetness forgotten long long ago…and crave in hope, for the revival..someday…

Post convocation…MIT coffee day…have spent many a penniless evenings outside its crimson portals…watching and waiting for time to fly..unfortunately, it did…damn!

A celebration on the streets

I spent exactly four and a half hours today looking for 2 things-a simple black clutch and a pair of stunning red stilettos. when the air-conditioned mall-etic ambience of ansal plaza did not do the required providing, i dragged my folks to the super-upmarket non-air conditioned bylanes of Khan market..

In my pursuit of the fine things, i almost missed the mobs crowded around the little shops (and the bigs ones) with TVs….i really did..bumped into a 5 feet tall bugger who gave me a smoldering look and a paan stained grin…NOT inviting, thank you…It took a moment to register that today’s THE match between India and Pakistan…Wonder how mum missed it..wasn’t too long ago when i missed lunch because she decided to watch a test match between New Zealand and Kenya!

On our way back back after picking up the sibling, Mona (the sibling) suddenly yelped-”We won!!!!”…not exaggerating…there were precisely four exclamation marks when she said it..yay..anyways, i started to smell Diwali after a while…you know, the painful, acrid smell of wasted chemicals..aaaargh! the firecrackers again…

and then, hundreds of people took to the streets, celebrating and dancing to, India’s victory…didn’t know a mob can have more than fury..loud, brash, uninhibited fun..not only was the spectacle wonderful but also was, conspicuously,…male

Guess nothing’s perfect

All nighters dilli-istyle!

I finished reading ‘the hitch-hiker’s guide to the galaxy’..i know, i know..too late but wow!what a book…what-a-book!!

So I’d started browsing through some Portuguese school kid’s copy of ‘the catcher in the rye’ which I’d picked up from a street-side second-hand books’ vendor, when it started…funny how it always starts off with a very coy, distant, pulsating thump…and becomes what can be safely called noise pollution.. All-nighters in Delhi have had very little to do with cheap beer, substance abuse and psychedelic trance. It’d usually been a pseudo-religious affair consisting of fat auntijis sitting in groups with dhols (drums) of varying sizes, fat unclejis sitting in bigger groups doing god-knows-what and kids doing what they usually do- run around making a racket…and the rest of us sinners pay the price for not joining in by having to stay up all night listening to Mrs. and Mr. Surinderji proudly encouraging their 6 yr old Gurinder to belt out the latest bollywood remixes of the originally staid bhajans..

and this was roughly 8 years back..

Now, ‘modernization’ and ‘cultural refinement’ prohibit such vulgar display of, well, religious fervour..now, you can only host ‘hap’ all nighters, by hiring ‘hap’ DJs and ‘hap’ decoraters, in only ‘hap’ venues ji!..so what if the ‘tant’ has to be pitched bang in the middle of a children’s park in a residential block?..Oh ji, thoda adjustment please!..

And so it began..Mika, Himesh Reshamiya and Jaggi D started to claim ground..in my head..along with Mr. Holden and his suicidal impulses, from the book i was still trying to read..i tell you, globalisation has never made more sense..its strange though, gangsta bhangra’s not that bad, dude! It’s like an aural version of the alu-tikki mcburger or the chicken tikka pizza..you would hate the idea but love the taste..i was soon livin’ it up on my living room carpet..with my head nodding uncontrollably to the rustic-UK beats and constipated vocal cords, trying to lip-sync to a language I’ve only laughed at…balle-balle in my head!

‘Comforted’ED

OK, so i look like i make people feel comforted….Huh??

This statement was thrown at me today by a well-meaning friend/acquaintance…over a depleting supply of classic milds and a dirty mosaic table..

Much as i was too perplexed to hear the explanation part of her speech, my head did repeat the damn thing over and over again, just to taste it…or maybe take some pleasure in the loss of meaning which happens when a totally sensible phrase is oft repeated, till it starts to sound like gibberish (try saying ‘table’ or ‘moon’ or somethin 50 times and you’ll know what i mean)

Coming back, ‘comforted’ as in when you get to scratch a particularly itchy square inch of your back? or perhaps it has to do with the sense of all-transcending relief which seeps in when you get to eat/pee after a longish period of time..

What comforts you? or rather, what makes you feel comforted?

Would i feel comforted if i look at somebody who is? or if i look at somebody who isn’t, and relish my being, in what would be my pathetic sense of gratitude towards all things not under my control and eventually feel, comforted? I guess it could be neither…for instance, i could feel comforted by just looking at something so unrelated to my current obsessed-over situation in life that i feel comforted by just knowing that there’s more to this out there….alternatively, by knowing that i got the the biggest problem/tragedy of them all, which completely justifies and even underlines my obsession….comfort in knowledge..and sometimes the lack of it..not knowing beer can build a belly would be quite comforting to all nursing an abdominal grudge..

Inference, though i know that she’d meant it quite positively, I don’t yet know if making people feel comforted really counts as “the best thing about…” anybody…me in the least!

Of overpriced coffee and commercialized conversation

A sip, and then, a momentary freezing of the brain…a stuck icelet, and finally, exasperation

random punctuation on a conversation glazed over..

a red menu card, tired company and failed smoke rings..

the familiar leaf on the ‘cap’, served with processed sugar and a processed smile

a crossword puzzle insulting, pretending, galvanising..tantalising behind a headline announcing that it is, indeed, afternoon

a pen on blotting paper…lines applauding and shooting..hoping for world peace with bright, big, whitened happinesses

shortage of nicotine..no, calamity..then assistance and action..redemption till its calamity again..

an orgy of pretensions…of passions shared, of people loathed, of coffee well-liked and lives well-led, of waves of recognition and small-talk, introductions and half-smiles, matchboxes traversing the universe

and finally, the printed white scrap in the red binded book..leaves of pink, orange, grey and sometimes yellow..testimonials of the good-times by the good people..

(to be continued)

Sundried and salted

Their set of questions-”what’s up? Howz Delhi? What you up to these days?”

My set of replies-”Nothin‘ much man..chillin’..Delhi’s good..awesome..been shoppin!…howz u?”

It’s funny how complete sundried tomatoes taste…almost cooked..not that you ever minded the raw juicy pulp..relished it even..but somehow..sun dried feels more wholesome…amiable..thorough

Life’s in Bangalore’s as good as it gets..got a house, friends i’ve known since college for flatmates, a decent job, all the freedom that i’d wanted, the works. Missing home is always about the superficial, materialistic side of things….little, annoying images of the luxury left behind, that creep up whenever there’s no butter at home and dinner means brown bread with water and cigarettes..and sometimes about the longing for the old things…people male, female and dancer..and animal golden and covered in baby fat..
I took a flight to Delhi..home…last friday..to ‘chill’ for a bit. Homecoming was bear hugs from the family, an overenthusiatic golden labrador panting like crazy and juicy meat-balls in rich gravy and rice.

It’s strange how we adapt to new cities and new situations..even stranger how we adapt to the old ones. I don’t miss bangalore…ok, i miss the cigarettes..and the beer..but i think i like the taste and texture of sun dried tomatoes on my tongue..the whole-ness..the familiar tingle of the old sun on a life that hasn’t changed much…at least doesn’t seem so from 2400 kms away, where the raw tomato puree compromises its way through the unfamiliar maze in a city too big for its own good..trying to hold ground at times and trying to leave a trail behind at some others…mostly trying to lose what it had become over the years..to something else..like some disillusion taken seriously..only to taste the sun and the salt again,..but just for a bit…only for a little bit