More encounters with chill people

I just started reading a book called "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding. The story starts off with two characters. One's kind of a grumpy fat-ass. The other one is the chap every guy wants to be. Smart, brave, brash, suave and supremely relaxed in his demeanor. I haven't finished the book, so no spoilers here. 

The latter character is the typical chill fellow. You adore him for that. And you secretly abhor him for that, if you are a proverbial uptight son of a bitch. 

Now, here's the deal. I've had the fortune of meeting, and being around quite a number of these chill fellows. They have this cooling effect around them, that in a way, rubs off on you without you even noticing. I ran into one such bloke today, in probably the place where I least expected a person of this variety to exist. 

I catch a rickshaw to travel from my home to the railway station. Going is never an issue. Coming back is. The rickshaw drivers refuse to come all the way to the stop closest to my place. Rarely do you find someone who will bring you all the way to my stop. Anyway, before I start crying about my rickshaw woes....

I was rushing out of the railway station, looking for a rickshaw, as usual. After 2-3 refusals, a fourth driver came along, with a very relaxed smile on his face. He was headed in the direction of my home, or at least to the stop that I get down after. I got in. Something about the way he sat, looked around, and behaved had a very uplifting mannerism to itself. It's like he would happily agree to take you all the way to another galaxy, if that's what you'd asked of him. I then asked him if he would be wiling to take me to my stop, a bit further than his decided destination. He happily nodded. It's like how my grandfather would happily agree to take another round of the park when I asked him to, when we went walking. That is an unbelievable decade and a half ago. Phew!!

This rickshaw driver looked a slight man. Lean, almost gaunt, like he'd seen through life sufficiently. None of the ALPHA-MALE vibes. He was just all too happy in his own skin. And Oh yes! He had a pleasant smile almost plastered to his face. It made him look in a zen-like state. As though he would happily relinquish his life without a regret of any sort. A few people who had gotten into the rickshaw asked the driver to stop upon reaching their respective destinations. The driver spoke then, to the chaps getting down. His voice was hoarse. Almost as if his voice-box was missing. I noticed his neck. It looked like it had been operated upon. Now, I could be wrong, but this man probably had a throat cancer, more so given his thinning hair, and emaciated appearance, probably a result of chemo therapy. I could be horrendously wrong with my conclusions. But here's my mind trying to rationalize the information at my disposal.

With the conclusion that I had come to, from the rickshaw-driver's appearance, I had a rather counter-intuitive realization. One often hears that people become cold, heartless even, after having encountered too many hardships in life. I am of the opinion that we couldn't be further from truth with that line of thought. Maybe, just maybe, the more hardships we are faced with, the more easy-going we become. I do have an explanation I managed to cook up for this insight of mine. The folks who see themselves through a lot of trouble, come to a juncture in life where they partly become immune to the vicissitudes of life, stresses of troubled waters. Moreover, they probably understand that this time, like all the times in the past, the hard times will pass by. So instead of fighting their difficulty, they take-it-easy-policy!

Very unlike chaps like me, and a big chunk of the chaps who'll read this, who get everything handed to them on a platter. And when a remotely threatening situation arises, someone hits the panic-button, and wreaks havoc in our universe!

How weird it is to even wonder that there are people, who have been pushed to the edge of their survival, and have come back to lead happy lives. In the words of Hunter S.Thompson...

"The edge, there's no honest way to explain it. Because the only people who really know where it is, are the ones who have gone over. The others, the living, are those who pushed their control as far as they think they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down. But the edge is still out there."

Outside the City

Sometimes you just keep staring at a blinking cursor, wondering as to why you decided to start writing. The proverbial "Staring at  blank sheet of paper" has come down to that. That feels like getting stuck solving a Sudoku puzzle, or for that matter, getting stuck in a traffic jam. Maybe it is the feeling you get when you're stuck in general. A pointless limbo, inching towards you every moment relentlessly. Suddenly, you look up. The signal turns green, and you finally heave a sigh of relief, thinking everything from thereon will go happily ever after. Just like a fairy tail. Just then, a bugger in a big SUV, darkened windows an all, cuts your line. A fit of rage runs down your spine. So does a wave of helplessness. You are sitting in a dinky car, as compared to the SUV chap. And then you think to yourself.... 

"Does a bigger, bulkier car mean that its driver has a bigger dick than a chap sitting in a hatchback?"

Somewhere, your mind gets infested by the thought that the guy in the big car is compensating for his puny penis by bossing around on the road in an SUV. Now this thought feels amusing to you. And it also quells your anger a little. So, you make a joke out of the whole situation, and carry on with the way things were going. By now, sadly, the lights have turned red again. This is even before you got to move a whole of 200 meters. Now, where was I?

For the past month, I've been writing about cars for a living. At least technically. Yes, and so, every thought of mine, is either about cars, or about sex. I also think about movies. But that is mostly because of the hot female in the move. So that too counts as sex-thoughts. I'm just surprised how candid I feel in front of a cursor. Okay, whatever. My dad wants to buy a car. It's been a while, about over a year that he's been thinking about this. And mine is a typical upper-ish middle class family. The sort of families stuck between ambitions of rising up, and pressures of maintaining current states of well-being. Even our problems are typical upper-ish middle-class in nature. You want people to see you the biggest car you can technically afford, but the thought of fuel bills give you the chills. Specially my father. He's from Delhi. And folks from Delhi want one thing more than everything else. "BADDI GADDI." Even the thoughts of driving a hatchbacks give them elf-esteem, if not existential issues. Why? I dont know, honestly. 

The last two cars my dad's bought, are completely my doings. Specially given my love for automobiles. Both the cars have been sedans. My dad has lived with both the cars comfortably, and I am pretty sure that I'll be choosing cars for him for a long time to come. There's only one problem. He's stuck on purchasing a Honda City. The new one. He thinks it is a smart looking car. I abhor the way it looks. A few words on the Honda City....

This car came into India as a beacon of Japanese perfection. Beautifully put together, clean design, an amazing engine under the bonnet. A sexy car, in three words.It stayed that way  a matter of about 4-5 years. Then a new model of the City came, and ruined everything. It looked like a bloody mouse. That stayed for another 3-4 years. The fellows at Honda fixed the design in parts, but you can't kiss a mouse ant turn it into a prince. That happens only to frogs! So, the Honda boffins redid the City from ground-up, and finally, came up with something at least half as decent as the original City that came to India first. Had my dad bought this car any of its face-lifts, I would have bowed down his choice, and worshiped his taste in cars. But he did not buy this car. He still did have a soft corner for "Honda City". But he never bought the car. meanwhile, the monkeys at Honda were working on the next Honda City already. And before anyone knew what had happened, we were confronted with the new Honda City, the latest one on offer. id I tell you how hideous I find it?

The next trouble being that this car is selling numbers! Like crazy! Every Tom, Dick, and Harry seems to be driving the new City. Somehow, I feel that if there is something that everyone has, it's not worth having. An ad commercial for the Honda City, specially the new one, would sound like this...

The Honda City... For the corporate white-collar jockeys.... It has just enough going for it to keep it from looking boring. It's the cheapest (proper)three-box Honda you can get your hands on(The Honda Amaze is Honda's version of an Indian joke.). And it will never make you stand out while you drive, no matter how much you think it will! So rush to your nearest Honda dealership, and buy the new City! You get a placebo shot of self-esteem absolutely FREE!!!

(To be imagined being said in a very Baritone voice...)

The car has no character! The City is to cars what IPhone is to phones. The 4 and the 4S, even the 5 looked good. And then, Apple made the 6 flexible. 

Suzuki cars look fine. They shout "BOURGEOIS"  in a very understated manner. 

Fords shout "Look at me". 

Hyundais shout "Forget Fords, look at ME!! I come with a lot of features too!"

Volkswagens... They don't shout. They very suavely exude "I am German. I am sexy! And also beyond your intellectual level of comprehension."

Skoda: "I am Volkswagen's misunderstood brother."

Tata: "Well, that's all they say... or that's what everyone else tells them... Tata!"

Chevrolet... Woah, they tell us how bad Americans are at making cars, despite all their bragging. 

Then, we have Nissan and Renault. These two are too incestuous to stay in the same market, at least here in India. 

Who's left? Fiat? The one car the Italians got right for India was the Premier Padmini. They were headed in the right direction with the Punto, the Giorgetto Giugiaro design and all. And then, Godfather must have intervened, made them an offer the Fiat chaps couldn't refuse. So they had some form of a tie-up with Tata. And we all know what happened to Tata. 

So much just because the Honda City is too banal. If you want to choose a car, choose a Polo GT. There's a car with a lot of character. Choose a Suzuki Ciaz, if a 3-box/sedan is your thing. The car actually does a decent job at being a looker. Sticking with the sedan theme, pick a Vento. Even better, pick a Skoda Rapid, essentially a Vento disguised for those who can't palate pure German simplicity! Choose the EcoSport! Yes, it's a faux-SUV sort of a car, but it manages to look bigger than its dimension. If you happen to be smart to do away with what "others" think about your car-choice, stick to hatchbacks. Smaller size, smaller fuel bills, easier parking, and most of them are pretty fun to drive as well! And nowadays, they come brimmed to their gills with big-car features. So you don't need to bother about the size of your prick while driving one of these, provided you have half a brain. Need I say more?

Or go, buy a Honda City.

Moms

Yeah, I'll make this one about moms. Rou read it right. MOMS. Those stupid creatures who overtly obsess over your well being, so much so that you feel like dying just to stop being overtly obsessed over. Really, these females make everyone feel so pitiful about them, that you wish you magically vanish to put them out of their misery. I mean really! Look at these females! They get you out of their vagina, or get themselves cut to get you out into the world. And then what? You wreak HAVOC! EVERYWHERE! So 9 months of carrying you around, and then, another (goodness knows how) many years of dealing with you, till the time they can't do anything with their lives, and then probably more worries about you when their mist-like soul departs their bodies, in case any of that actually happens, and yeah, more of that, and that, and that, and that! You should die!

I sort of hate my mom. Well, sort of. I mean, we all do. Don't we? I don't know. Shit. That came out bad, I suppose. You see, my mom's a do-gooder. She has this internal moral compass that is very compassionate, and caring, and boring, and zzz....zzz...zzz. Huh! Yeah! What?? So she does her things, over-does it from time to time, gives birth to an arsehole, and then to a little bum  to give the arsehole company, and then, puts in every ounce of herself into feeding and porking the arsehole and the bum into the arsehole and the bum the arsehole and the bum have turned into. Amazing. With me yet? Wow! You're smart. It's weird. How these ladies can be so phenomenally stupid! They keep giving birth to arseholes and bums. Just to clarify, the guys are the arseholes. The girls are the bums. I'm not going to explain. Let's just move on.

I wake up, my mom shoves tea in my face. Not like she throws the cup at me and says "Drink it, or I'll shoot you!", but in a very saccharine manner that makes you think that all the world has diabetes. I do realize that a big chunk of this is my fault. I'm 23, trying to make a living as a writer, and living with my parents. Yes, true that this is not a matrimonial ad, but I should probably get the hell out of my house ASAP! I did manage to get 4 years of outside-house-time. But hey!

"I'm Back!" DDhu-DDhu-DDhinn-DDhu-DDhun!(Terminator-II music, if you can pronounce that correctly.) And so is my mom's bordering obsessive compulsion about my well being.

Something that came to my mind recently is a part of my schooling. I was pretty much the straight-laced chap in school. So were most, actually all my friends. So not much of rattling cages for my chaps and me. You remember the "Remarks" column in the school calendars/diaries that we were all given at the beginning of each school year? Getting even a single "Remark" from a teacher was enough to give me existential troubles. To the effect that I felt y mom would disown me if I ever came home with one of these dreaded remarks in my diary. The first time i did get one of them, I don't remember for what though, I came back home, scared as shit, and showed it to my mom, after a lot of apprehension and contemplation. My mom was a bit flustered. Or so, she showed me. But I kind of get a feeling now, that she honestly couldn't have given a shit. I mean, it's kids. We do shit we're told not to. We boo teachers behind their backs. A few unfortunate times, those teachers happen to turn around, only to discover that they are being booed. What can they do at the very most? Eh? Scare the shit out of a kid by writing a note in the kid's diary? But goodness does that trick work! Specially when you're not the mischievous kind. And then, you go crying to mamma, hoping that she'll understand that it wasn't entirely your fault that the teacher was a bitch/arsehole. Yes! That's how we keep our kids petrified, until they are of the age to understand that none of this matters. Thumbs up! *ting*

Is there anybody home?

We've all heard about the eye of the tornado. The calmest, safest place to be in the event of a tornado. Completely secured from the tyranny of the monster. Then of course, there's the calm before the storm. The period of silence before the crack in the dam cannot hold itself together for a moment longer.  But what about the calm after the storm has passed? The last two are very difficult to distinguish between. How do you know if the storm is yet to come? Or that the storm has gone? But somewhere amid all this confusion of storms coming and going, there's an eternal limbo that exists for a few moments. The mind simply becomes impervious to the onslaught from outside. It becomes easy to remove yourself from whatever's happening, all the upheaval. That's when know that you are in the eye of the storm. Move in any direction too much, and you'll get caught in the vortex. Stay. For these moments alone, it is best that you stay put. Agitation ain't worth the loss of energy. Blunt force only leaves you more mangled, more exhausted and stuck in sticky mess.

We often hear about moments of clarity, how important these are in life. The times when the waters are still, and it is easy to let go. When realization strikes that the best one can do, given the circumstances, is to take a back seat, and go with the flow. Like right now, there could be something troubling the mind. It could be any thing. It could be many things. But counting problems is not going to solve them, I suppose. And temper will only complicate things further. And so, you decide to watch the world pass by. Let the rage settle by itself, with out fighting rage itself. You see, that's the thing about the rage monster. The more you fight it, the more it fights back. The moment you stop giving two hoots about it, or even one for that matter, it gets bored and goes away by itself. It only sticks around as far as we keep ourselves in the picture. For instance, the moment I say that "I fear the rage monster is lurking around", the monster has someone to go and infest. And trust me, all of this that I happen to say is complete balls.

Are these realizations? Yes!

Are these of any good to anyone? Now that's anyone's guess.

Magically, the last two lines rhymed. Good shit!

But one thing for sure is that the ability to remove ourselves from a situation saves us from a lot of mess. 

What I did realize is that there are going to be times when the attack from outside, and sometimes from inside, the relentless pounding of hard rains on the bleak looking window pane might make us question the integrity of what holds us together. But rarely do we doubt the certainty of the next moment. And even if we do, our doubt is not going to stop the next moment from coming. Or the moment after that. Okay, that went off on a tangent, I suppose. Chuck it. 

I was speaking with a very close friend of mine a couple of days age. The call was over the internet. So I could hear him as if we were sitting in the same room, chatting, just like we did a couple of months ago. And those were probably the best months of my college life. No, those were certainly the best months that I spent in college. There's only one problem. This bugger, the close friend of mine, might read this like an idiot. And I'll have to spend a big chunk of my life hiding from him. Screw that. Thing is,  during this hour-long conversation, my friend said something that struck me, hurt me, got me thinking, and kept me thinking for  few moments. He said...

"Dude, all those times are over, right? Shit!"

I retorted saying "No, man. Those moments will forever stay alive in the past."

I had gotten that concept from Kurt Vonngut's Slaughterhouse Five. It's strange how nature has provided time the capacity to store and save all our collective conscience. It's like a perpetually working hard drive, everything archived in it. Just that our dimensional limitation keeps us from tapping into this eternal memory space.   

Another thing I remember thinking about, now that the matter of "Dimentional limitation" has come back to my stream of thought is this...

As it is, I have a feeling that we are restricted to this 3-dimentional world so far. Or maybe our intellect has its roots in a higher-dimensional being, but somehow, we have been cut-off from visualizing beyond what we are told we cannot imagine. If the latter's the case, then that's rather stupid of us. But anyway. The thing I am trying to drive at is this. We are sparing no effort on diminishing our dimensional capabilities. Born in 3D, living on 2D screens, wearing weird-looking glasses to view illusions in 3D on a 2D screen. How did we bocome so delusional? As Louis C.K., the comedian says.... 

"Parents look at their kids performing on stage through those huge tablet screens they hold in front of their faces. Wow! How stupid is that? They are performing on stage. See them for real.... IN 3D! Not through the camera with which you're recording their performance that no one would even want to see at any moment in their lifetime!!"

Those lines weren't verbatim. But that's the gist of what he says. So that's that. If you happen to be reading this even with an ounce of consciousness, I'd like to take the blame for reducing your 3D world to 2D, too. A little. Go outside, get wet in the rain, maybe smile at somebody! Your day will go a little better, unless you smile at rapist, who misconstrues your signals and you end up getting buggered. That goes even for guys. 

I love how subtle Englishmen are with what they say. A lot of reductionism and eloquence in them. I'd like to illustrate with an example. The whole world uses expletives, crass, vile and vulgar expressions and says....

"I/We got fucked in the arse."

The Englishman says "I/We got buggered." How cute. And how under the radar. Brilliant! I still wonder if this is a good way to end a post.

Indian Benelli Triumphs

If anyone reading this feel that the title of this post makes perfect sense grammatically, you're probably right. And yet, if one happens to be smart, there's something unique about it, the heading. 

Yesterday was "Shorty's day out." As usual, I set out to win the world, exactly how I set out every single day. That's been the case for the past two weeks. Anyway, yesterday was an out-and-out day out, And for starters at least, I could happily say that I was living THE dream. 

Now, you see, I have a thing for automobiles. Bikes, specially. So when you get to go around the entire city, hopping, skipping and jumping across motorbike showrooms, the kind that house within them bikes that make every gear-head drool, just to find out and sample all the latest pieces on offer, and that is part of your job description, then you are living the dream. Well, sort of. Unless of course you ride these mouthwatering beauties, and THEN write about them for a living. Well, I'll get to that too. But some time later. 

As I begin to delve into this about-to-be incessant rant about myself, I realize that each one of us has a story to tell. Each one of us. And there are more than 7.2 billion of us. And quite a big chunk of those are interesting, or definitely worth listening to. I'm not claiming mine is. I ain't claiming that mine isn't either. But there is so much each one of us is going to miss out on, and we can't do a thing about it. None of that matters, as long as I get to take over the world. Does it?

Something just came to my mind. Doesn't everyone, at least once in their life, think that he/she wants to rule the world? For every guy, it is as Philip Seymour Hoffman says in the movie "The Talented Mr. Ripley" goes...

"God, don't you want to fuck every woman you see at least once?" 

I don't know what stops us, to start with. Maybe it's our "apparent" lack of  know-how as to where to start from, for starters. I was traveling in the Metro-Rail in Bombay. I realized something then. The Metro that I was traveling in, is private property, no matter how badly, rather well the whole metro-rail project seems dressed up like it isn't. Like "Taggart Transcontinental" in the book Atlas Shrugged, the Bombay metro reeks of one thing, and one thing alone. RELIANCE!! And I wondered. One company actually controls the transportation infrastructure(okay, a part of it) of a city like Bombay. And the roots of that company begin as a TEXTILE firm! And so, if the rest of us remain bound to our struggles of making a living, BOY do we lack imagination!

There is something so ethereal about wild imaginations. Yet, imagination is a gift we all possess. And so far, we know not of any other extra-terrestrial intelligence. Yet. But if we do find them, rather if they find us, we sure are dead. For their capacity to locate and contact us will mean that....

a) They are a much higher order civilization than ours, which implies...

b) We're screwed

c) For a change, all of this is not going to be shot in United States of America.

Yeah, so as I was saying, I got to roam around all of Bombay, visiting my favorite automobile-showrooms. That was yesterday. Today was just as good. I left behind all of my worries about alien-invasion, world-domination and all that which gives me sleepless nights. Today was called "How-to-ride-a-bike" day. For some reason, it came naturally to me, riding a bike. I was given a basic set of rules I was to strictly adhere to. And off I was, with an engine thumping between my legs, apart from my joystick, of course. If you know what I mean. Wait. Was I too vulgar? Well, I almost forgot to mention that I almost squished my balls trying to swerve around a kid that wandered into my path because the kids' mother was stupid to let the kid scamper around in the middle of the road. 

About the cost of a life, I never used to understand why people are so crazy about kids.... or about having kids, or in many cases, about not having kids. And now, I have a problem. I'm beginning to think about sex. I'm tired of thinking about sex. I wonder why I am saying this. It's one of those things that I suppose is part of late-stage-adolescence. Or maybe it isn't. Who knows. So about kids, this obsession about shit-piss-&-puke producing factories. Yuck! Sure, they look cute. But if one thinks these lively creatures are hideous, then I wonder what one would think of the creatures these tiny tots grow into. Misery loves company, I guess. So we get kids to turn them into creatures like ourselves, more so replacements for ourselves after we're long gone. So much for keeping our kind alive. I have no clue why I let out the last paragraph out of the confines of my mind. 

Next up, Zakir Khan! (Part of) His name is Khan, and he's not a terrorist. He looks like a laborer,but he is not from Bihar. But hell, he's hilarious! He said something about chaps who get into engineering. During school, guys have a bunch of girls around. Somewhere in time, class 10 exams come along, and we happen to choose our subjects that we intend to pursue for future education. The chaps who take Mathematics know for a fact that in life, they will have nothing to do with ladies. Then these poor fellows get into an engineering college. Fewer ladies around. By the time they get into an IT job, even their dreams don't have ladies in them. It's probably themselves running from a hungry dinosaur. Or if someone is talking in their dreams, it'll be two guys. I have something to say here. All of the above is personal experience, except for the IT job. I escaped that part by some miracle. But then, my father has a knack of finding houses for my family where no ladies of my age-group, or even in a +/- 5 years age bracket happen to reside anywhere close by. And if some girl happens to reside in my 200m radius, who also happens to fall into this above mentioned age-bracket, my sister magically happens to get into a fight with this female. And so, I live on, to another morning to conquer the world.

Nothing

Guy: "You look pissed. What happened?"

Girl: "Nothing".

Guy: "What can I go for you?"

Girl: "Nothing."

Guy: "Then what are you pissed at?"

Girl: "Nothing."

If the guy is smart enough, next he'll ask...

Guy: "What are you wearing?".....

The "Nothing" I am going to talk about has nothing to do with the above mentioned "Nothing". That's as if the above mentioned "Nothing" actually means anything. Here's what I think. "Nothing" is relative. No, I don' mean "Nothing is relative." That would make me an absolutist, whatever that means. But let me simplify.

Example No. 1- "Goodness! Today I had a very bad accident. Thankfully, "nothing" happened." 

Example No. 2- "Bloody hell, man! Office is turning into a boring place. 'Nothing' ever happens there!"

It's crazy how the not-happening of anything eventful can have such a profound effect on how we perceive our situation. Besides, I might have just figured out what the true purpose of meditation is. It came to me as an "Aha" moment. The true purpose of meditation... wait for it... The true purpose of meditation is to shut the constant inner voice that, otherwise keeps chattering till the time one takes his/her last breath. Basically, you can have complete silence inside your head, preferably any time you want. And no, it doesn't require you to sit in some very specific position. So yes. It takes great effort to have "Nothing" going inside your head. For me, it's an infinite pure-white floor with everything till the horizon completely pure-white. Absolutely nothing!

But for someone else, it could be something else. It could be pitch dark, for all anyone knows. It could be a rainbow, if anyone fancies that. Again, so many interpretations of "Nothing", each one unique to the person imagining his/her customized version.

Sometimes, something as little as a smile from someone, which costs nothing to anyone, becomes the reason that makes someone's day.

Look at this line... "There's nothing to do today."

A chap who hates to work will be having the best day of his life. On the other hand, someone who loves what he/she does would probably go into depression because of the precious moments irrevocably lost. Same situation, nothing changes. And yet, two worlds diverge in opposite directions.

Maybe, just listening to Superman, on a down-in-the-dump day can make you feel like a rockstar, despite you having done nothing(again) to feel that way. That one was an example purely quoted out of personal experience.

Right now, I can hear my dad watching Whiplash. It's that line in the movie where Terence Fletcher(The musician) says "I tried. I fucking tried. That's a lot more than what most people get themselves to do." I know that sounds purely out of context. But here's the deal. A lot of "nothing" comes from a lot of tries. But it's probably after the 1001th trial that the bulb glows. And after that, NOTHING else matters.

Mary Jane..... What son?

I haven't asked my dad anything about Mary Jane. For those who understand, I thank you for allowing me my discretion. For those who don't understand my underground jargon, go, Google the words you don't understand. And in case you happen to be lazy enough to not bother looking up things you don't understand, you might as well not read any further. 

It's been a while since I've started enjoying slow walks. Feeling every breath, every step, soaking in all your surroundings. It ain't a race against time any more, each time that I grant the ground below my feet the privilege of bearing my weight. That's just me being an arsehole as usual. But seriously, being able to absorb all of the beauty around is an ability that few of us are left with.

What I am about to say comes purely from experience. Before I start, no apologies. This ain't a family show. So as I was saying, I had a rod up my arse. Perpetually. I still fear that vestiges of that rod still remain somewhere down south. Each time I moved from place A to B, I wanted to be the first one to reach the other end. Why, I know not. Somehow, it was secretly fun to be the jerk to turn up first at any place, and lose precious moments of life wondering why the others ain't that eager to walk fast. I remember a very non-contextual quote by Ratan Tata..

"Walk fast if you want to walk alone. If you want to walk for long, walk together."

Maybe the first part of the quote makes sense. But the quote, for me, makes little sense on the whole because if you're in a group walking together, and you are adjusting your pace to be part of the group, you're being phony. 

Anyway, walking fast was sort-of-fun. But somewhere in time, I remember not when, I was introduce to Mary Jane. She smelled strange... smoky, if I may say so. But in a good way. I didn't notice how, but she was the first ever creation that could ever so much as budge that rod out of my uptight hind. She loosened me out, without turning me reckless. She actually left me a lot more at peace, unlike most ladies I've some to know, except for maybe one. That, some other day. As for Mary, she turned into a friend. The first one I was happily willing to share. That's another thing I could sort about myself. Possessiveness. Well, almost sort.

The best part was that I never "needed" Mary. Encounters with her remained unplanned, elusive almost. But that's how we liked it, I suppose. At least, that's how I liked it. She's suddenly pop out of nowhere, leaving me in an eternal daze. I'd sleep like a baby on her lap, only to wake up like I'd been granted a fresh lease on life. All that big talk, fast walk and balk began sounding so pointless. A facade that covered things, like wax, melted away.

It's been a while I've met Mary. The other day, I was walking my walk, taking in all of my wondrous surroundings, just as I'd learned being with Mary. I smelled her, but barely. But that's all you need of Mary, a whiff, to unmistakably know that she's close by. I looked to my left. And oh yes! It was her. With someone I didn't know, teaching him the lessons I'd come to learn just a while ago. And that's cool. It's making the world a better place, a happier place. Besides, I knew that she'd some to me when I call. 

I looked the guy taking lessons from Mary dead in the eye. He looked scared for some reason. Strangely, an enormous 1000 watt smile erupted from my face. I must have looked like an idiot with that smile. But that put the scared chap at ease. he responded with his version of a 1000 watt smile. And yes, he looked like a bum. A worse one than I did, I'm sure. That's the thing about Mary. She's probably the only one successfully making people smile, since goodness knows, beginning of humanity. 

Mary doesn't look her age though.

Talking

There's a bunch of us who talk. Talk as in TALK, TALK, TALK and... TALK. I suppose that's fine. Then there's a bunch of us who don't talk. Don't talk as in DON'T TALK, DON'T TALK, DON'T TALK and... DON'T TALK. There's of course the bunch in the middle that does things in moderation. So no need for exaggerated sentences for them. The gang in the middle has it a little easy. They get by without getting asked why they don't talk, or as to why and how they talk SO much. Pretty convenient, eh?

I often wonder how people deal with the constant voice inside one's head. The chap/female depending on your gender, yapping ever so non-stop, till perhaps one's last breath. Well, if you're a guy and the perpetual voice inside your head is that of a female, or vice versa, it's probably safe to assume that you've got issues. That is of course unless if you're a guy, and the voice inside your head is your wife's, or your mother's. In that case, the voice is certainly not coming from inside your head, brother. You're listening to the live radio channel "Everything in the world is so wrong", 87.8 FM, whose only host is either your mom, or your wife. Or maybe they take turns. Maybe they're fighting for their turns.... ALWAYS. That's that about the inner voices. 

Then there's a thing about outside voices. I'm not big on talking. Probably one of the worst conservationists. So this inner rant of mine comes out in form of writing, I suppose. I've in a way worked my way around my inability to converse, though. I put the onus of talking on the one in front. I ask the person a question about himself or herself. The first question usually never does the trick. The conversation is young, the two involved are slightly awkward. More so if the one in front is a woman. But 3-4 questions down the line, things begin to have a flow to them. It helps if you are a good listener. I wouldn't know if it does. Because people, the moment they get comfortable with genuine curiosity from the other end, or what looks like "genuine" curiosity, they are off on a story-telling binge. About themselves, of course. And that's precisely when I take off on a Gulf-stream of my own thoughts. 

As strange as it sounds. We as a people love to talk about ourselves. We can go on, and on, and on about how, why where, when and what we went about doing what we did. Some of us get a little over-enthusiastic about this, and bore the living daylights out of the person/people in front. But that's at least better than boring someone with silence, all said an done. And that's the best part about talking, if you notice. It shows us what we are. And what we are is a collection of all our experiences, a collection of all the angles and perspectives that happened to come to us. And most of all, we are all about the people in our lives. Because that's what we talk about. We bitch, we praise, we curse, we laugh about all the living chaps who walk in and out of our lives. I am attempting to make it all sound very revelatory and mystical, but that's just plain facts. Goodness, do I thank the chaps in my life, despite my aversion to talking!

Another thing I love is stoner conversations. This is where things might get a little controversial.Not many people talk about stoner conversation in the public domain. It's the same like how people don't talk about their penis or vagina. As though they are too ashamed of it. Specially when there isn't much of a deal to them. The conversation is usually two/three guys, doing their thing, talking stuff, and watching a new universe unfold in front of them. The universes, rather multiverse that  is surprisingly forbidden by law.

The sort of things that come out of such conversations are usually nonsensical outside the realms of that particular conversation. But BOY do they allow you to explore and experiment with one's sense of humor! Just in case you make a mess of things, say something inappropriate, reveal something really deep, dark and unspeakable, something like VOLDEMORT, you can get away with it, because everyone thinks you're out of your mind anyway. But you know you're not. You know that what you said, is probably the most unpretentious thing you have uttered in a lifetime. And for all you know, it turned out sounding funny. It gives you many if those much needed moments of clarity, these conversations. 

Moral of the story? It's as Bob Dylan says.... sings actually...

Everybody must get stoned!