Tick, tick, tick, tick.....

I run into red lights a lot. For some reason, I reach a signal just when the green arrow has turned into amber, three seconds after which, I have a red circle staring me in the face. After the four-hour long wait at the signal, the lights turn green, I slot the gear into first, ram the throttle into the firewall, and leap ahead of the rest of the pack that seems to have stood around dumbfounded. I quickly leave them far behind, as though I'm driving a 400hp-plus Ferrari in a crowd of bullock-carts. Sadly, just 400 metres after my blistering launch, I'm met with another signal, which too has decided to show me the finger by turning red just when I am about to breach it. Excellent. All the tearing down the street that I did is completely useless now. The blokes who were miles behind me appear back in my rear view mirror, droning towards my car at 4km/13 years. Of course, they make up the distance, given how long the halt at the signal is, and then they give me the "Oh-you-did-all-that-Fast-and-Furious-glibberyglob-and-yet-we-all-caught-up-with-you. Loser!" look.

I have, in my own ways, made peace with the look of contempt in the eyes of these folks. However, what I haven't been able to make peace with is the count-down timer that tells you for how many seconds.....


The red numbers flash on the count-down display next to the signal, second after second, a constant, annoying and agonizing reminder of every second that you are losing in your life, as you wait for that signal to turn green. Precious seconds that you could have used to do something more productive. Seconds that you could have done more with, seconds you could have spent racing to a destination 1300km south of the place you are at, where your heart really lies, badgered. Seconds, that turn into minutes, minutes that turn into hours, all of which you will never get back. So, besides the distances, there's also (and always has been) the lengthening interval of time that separates you from the  most exquisite being you've ever seen and felt.

Every time I shut my eyes, I see an arrow-straight road ahead, 110kph on my speedo, the sun setting on my right, it's about four in the evening, and a milestone passing by me indicating that my destination is just about a 100-odd kilometres away. So, I should be there in about an hour and a half. This is the last leg of a journey I have yet to start, and I have no clue when I will. Will I stay restrained by the stings that tie me down? Of strings I imagine, but have no clue whether they exist.

And just as I begin to think about what it is that holds me back, things that let me reach to the edge of my goal, but pull me back micrometres before I grab the big prize, my eyes open. The alarm clock tings. Or the lights turn green. Or there's another task that I need to finish. But all this while, there's one thing that never changes. The count-down timer keeps ticking. Tick, tick, tick, tick.....

On hotel rooms and airplanes and other things...

If you've experienced true pain, it seems you can appreciate the beauty in everything. I'm not saying that, I read that line somewhere and it made no sense to me. For the only true pain is a kick to the nuts.
Here's another finding on pain. If a person, who's attention you long for the most, ignores you..... the brain reacts in the same way as it would if you physically hurt yourself. You'd actually feel hurt it seems, if the cute lady stays indifferent. It's on reading this particular finding that I realised why I feel so hurt all the time. Nah, bollocks!

As part of my job, I fortunately travel around a lot, and get to stay in a lot of good places all around the country. Instead of feeling things like pain and sorrow when I'm out, I notice things. Things like the bathrooms in my hotel room. Things like the fact that in every hotel bathroom, I mean in EVERY HOTEL BATHROOM, there's one shower jell, and there's one shampoo. And they are coloured according to whatever fruit extracts it is that the puny boxes claim to contain. Each time, one of them (the shower jell, say) is a concoction of peaches/oranges/grapes/bananas or whatever, and the shampoo too has some fruit in it, but it's always a fruit. Never a vegetable. No bitter gourd, no spinach, none of that healthy stuff. It'll be some apricot or litchi or some exotic fruit that mom never buys. Who buys green apples anyway?
I've seen this enough number of times that I know that this is the general state of affairs in the bathrooms of high-end hotel rooms. But I wonder why the hotel management wants to turn your body into fruit salad.

See the amount of thinking that's required to keep you from feeling hurt all the time?

Another observation here. If you're reading this, you've perhaps sat in an airplane more times than you've calculated 33x33 (1089, genius!) in your lifetime. Unless you specialise in calculating 33x33 of course, then in that case, you're not counted.
But when a plane lands, why is there so much of a 'click' 'click' clack' 'clack'; every bugger on board trying to free themselves from the clutches of the seat belt? Mind you, the flight's just touched down, it's still not halted completely, so the doors too aren't open (unless some air hostess got really creative). Basically, you're readying yourself to stand in a queue for the next 3 days before the door opens, for what? Deplaning 3 seconds before the chap who was sitting till the crowd cleared?

Talking of airplanes, my dad once told me a story long ago, about how inside airplanes, beautiful creatures called air hostesses exist. He told me this when I showed my apprehensions about getting into a sealed chamber that apparently flew like a bird. But after hearing about the beautiful creatures inside (I couldn't pronounce 'air-hostess' then), I changed my mind like a good boy. Now I know for a fact that the 'beautiful creature' story is a myth. I can only see creatures with four tonnes and three tones of make-up. In essence, we could carry a lot more luggage if the airy hostesses left their mascara at home. Just kidding. Poor souls, they need to deal with famished idiots like yours truly, when we demand for food and drink. How did things go so bad for them, I wonder. About the beautiful creatures, I still am hopeful to travel on Virgin Atlantic some day. Pappa, I know you don't lie.

And now, for the heart-wrecking part. Fruits, fruity shampoos, hotels, planes, air-hostesses, no air-hostesses, I couldn't bother with any of it. For all I care, give me a cot under a star-studded sky, and I bet that a chap who's done his day's worth of work will sleep like a baby. But that sleep is something I surrendered on the day that I shook hands with her. It was on her birthday, exactly 355 days ago. We'd known each other, albeit not that well, for just over a month or so, and I'd fallen flat on my arse the instant that I saw her. An arm's reach away she is, but I couldn't be further from her. Shit! I can talk like Yoda (Oh yeah!), but that's no use when you're supposed to be bloody Luke.

See, it's at despondent times like these, when you travel long distances every day, partly just to see someone, that even a non-believer hopes for a miracle. You'll have surrendered to an insurmountable strength, that surprisingly lies somewhere within you, but is just bloody hard to find.
Mind you, if you're fortunate though, there'll be some being that comes to the rescue. In my case, there are two. This soul will tell you stuff that's as mystical as 'The Force', (I know it's getting too Star Wars-ish), and you wouldn't have the first thing called a clue about what they're on about. But I suppose you're supposed to soldier on, listen blindly and do, but not just do, but do instead. Or something along those lines. Off you go then! The force just awoke a few months ago. Didn't you see it or something?

Why the secret code, eh?

I've been looking around for a while, at things, at people, observing them in whatever little ways my faculties allow me to. And there seems to be repetitive pattern if you may. Our troubles, as though collective are largely the same. Most want to climb ladders, and somehow, they lament at their inability to do so. Ladders of all kinds, corporate, monetary, physical, mental, social, romantic, technological, familial, yada yada yada, 

In most cases, that's the situation of you, the reader, as is mine. 

Mom says ask the boss for for a promotion, dad talks about a pay-hike, investing, the wife wants to go to Hawaii, or some islands with blue waters and open skies, and not to forget, that new flat that she thinks you should buy. The kids want new clothes, an iPad each, more allowance, and a bunch of more gimmicks. You want the ultra-cute girl to like you back, the rest of the world to shout a little less, rev the motor all the way to the 7000rpm redline, and maybe, just maybe, keep those raging hormones a bit more on the leash. And each one of that, irrespective of who you are, what you do, rather what you don't, seems to be too much to ask. It's more troubling when you see someone who comes along, points a finger at something, takes what he/she wants, and walks away with a jump in their stride. At that time, you wonder, "How the fuck do you do that? I gotta learn that shit!". Strangely, many a times, all you need to do is walk up to whatever you want, take it and walk away with it. Or is it all the time?

There seems to be something elusive about how things work. Yes, true that most of what you do, may not work, no matter how many times you read Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret". I tried reading it myself, hoping that I'll be a changed man by the time I'm through with the book. I fell asleep on the third page. So that didn't work as planned. But like many of us, I find myself asking the question - How badly should you want something, to get it? Stupid question, I know. Most people will respond by throwing a brick at my head, saying "You don't wish for something, you idiot! You fucking work for it! Stop being a faggot and suck that dick!"

Then you see these blokes who endlessly give you advice on stuff.... "top 5 tricks to success", "top 365798 tips to achieve your goals", "best tips on living a happy life" and bollocks of that kind.  Mind you, some of them make millions selling their horseshit to desperate people. From personal experience, the only thing that's remotely close to getting you what you want is just one word. It's called "Doggedness". Persevere till the time even life thinks "Damn, this fellow's serious. Let min through." or something. Yeah, just a warning, I don't think that formula works in romantic pursuits. I've heard it works there too, but perhaps, for the times I've tried, I've let up on the gas a little too soon. 

That brings me to another question. When do you stop trying? Rather, when should you stop trying? Should you ever? Many tell that if you don't get a favorable response, chuck the person/thing and move on, as it's probably not be meant to be. But how do you know what's meant to be or not to be? Rejection, how many times before you thrown in the towel? 1? 2? 5? 7? 23? Yes, somewhere in my head, a voice says "Never". I honestly want to hear it and agree, but that will prompt me to make a few phone-calls that I know, won't help my situation one bit. 

But, but, but, but and a big, sexy butt, in the midst of this anxiety-riddled existence, I've come to realize something precious. It's that no matter how hard you get battered, irrespective of whatever you're denied, if there's a voice in your head, that inner conscious, that says "Don't worry, just soldier on", there isn't a thing in the world that can keep you down for long. You may not have the code, or password to the secret gate that keeps you from the land of dreams, but nothing's stopping you from changing your world into your dreamland. Yup, that's some inner voice. 

Don't look now

You know those times when you're shouting someone's name so loud, but only in your head, that you feel your ear-drums burst? And it's followed by that loud piercing sound of silence? It's stuff like that which, if you can endure, will help you soldier along when the going gets shitty. It probably doesn't even matter if the name you shouted was that of the one you've fallen madly for, or your sworn enemy.

Too serious a start? Well, here's something that we all go through. You know Sunday nights, eh? That time of the week where we either live the most, or resign our fates to the impending five trudging days. The Sunday evening is like a game of chess in the head. You plan your weekly moves in advance, look for gaps, careless leeway left your way, an early escape on Wednesday, the sure-shot party on Thursday, and if possible, you give Friday a miss altogether. How easy it would be if someone declared the upcoming week a holiday. Yuhoooo!!!!! I'd be happy if someone did that for you. However, I've signed up for shit that never asked me to sign on a dotted line. So Sunday night....

Bloody hell! I'll see her again tomorrow! Yay! Yay! Yay! Well, that line repeated about a thousand times and counting. The stupid mind only stops repeating that line if I get my hands on a set of car-keys. In that case, all the monkey-mind can think is "Floor the right foot! Floor the right foot! Floor the right foot! Floor the right foot! Floor the right foot!", so on and so forth. It's a bit of a recursion, life as of now. And then, Monday comes.

Just to give a description of what happens, it's all well and good till she walks in. Then....the world crumbles, blood-supply to vitals seize, all systems flat-line, and the body spirals onto a limbo for the next five hours. During the limbo, and even way after the limbo's over, all I can think of is this atrociously attractive human form. No! It's happening again! How do you stop ranting and raving about what you think, when there's only one thought being repeatedly rendered in the head?

She's an arm's reach away, and yet so far away from my touch, It's like looking at the floor of a filled swimming pool. You think you can touch the bottom by putting just dipping your hand in. However, there's a phenomenon called refraction that's laughing at you from somewhere.

"Oi! Mr. world! Conspire in my favor for this once, eh?" beats the heart. The mind on the other hand says, "No, No! You mustn't ask for help, but instead, power through your heart's weakness, for it's a stupid muscle that knows simple things like beating and beating alone. And I, the mighty brain, your true connection to the collective consciousness of all of humanity, am all you need to solve your issues. Not the puny heart."

If your mind ever said that, or anything similar to that, ever, I suggest you consult a psychiatrist, because the brain talking like that is most certainly a sign that you've got issues. As for me, I'me madly enamored by this gorgeous woman that I shouldn't be attracted to. Because she's supposed to be smart, AHHEMMM sexy, and boy, the way her hips move when she walks, it knocks the daylights out of me. Not because it is seductive or stuff (hell it is!), but more than that, it has the innocence of a kind that's hard to find. Not that the lady in question is innocent herself. She's got her quirks, strange ones, subtle ones, crazy ones, crazying ones, so on and so forth. But I wake up everyday and thank my fortunes for showing me this one piece of art that manages to get my blood pumping in the eerie cold of my immediate surroundings. Yes, there's a good chance that I might never get to hold her tight, every ounce of her. However, I still won't lose the many heart-throbbing afternoons, and the heart-wrenching evenings I've endured. Maybe they'll make me hardier some day in the future.  

The moves you make

I stumbled upon an article about how Formula 1 pretty much reinvented itself after the death of one of its most celebrated drivers, Ayrton Senna. The piece is over two years old, and as I later noticed, it was written by this young lady who I've come to admire deeply in the past few months or so. About the piece, what struck me most was how simply it was worded. No high-flying wordy nonsense, no complicated terminology that sends you running to the dictionary. It was simple, to the point, lucid, like an 18 year old is telling you a story about something that she's fervently passionate about. I was so moved by the simplicity of what I read, even inspired, dare I say, that I decided to write something simple myself.

No, it's not about Motor Sports, love. I hardly have any experience in that subject, save for the odd one-make races that I have witnessed on a race-track. I need to mention that those experiences too are something to the credit of this aforementioned young lady, for my life, thus far, has been far removed from lap-times, unless you're talking about 400-metre relays, of course.

But what I can write simply about is running, jumping, leaping, lifting, pulling, pushing and other monkeying-around moves that we are all capable of, They keep us in the shape and size that we are supposed to be in. However, off late, we are more concerned about the shape and size of the screens we carry around in our pocket. Sadly, the fact is that if you happen to read this, chances are that you will be doing so on one of those screens. But if you plan on sweating it out, be it for health reasons, or kicking your stress (or yourself) in the butt, here are a few moves that will give you guaranteed results, no conditions applied.
I have been accused of being a misogynist by a some nitwits. However, I love ladies, and it a point to tell them  how attractive they are. Yes, that's a mild digression, but what I want to say is this. In case there are any ladies(if at all) reading this, I plead you to try these moves instead of walking on a yawn-inducing treadmill. Don't worry, you won't develop body-builder-rivaling biceps and triceps, unless you're into stuff like that.

Here's the list
-Squats
-Pushups
-Skipping/Jogging
-Planks
-Pull-ups
-Dead lifts

Squats
It's the simplest move you can do that WILL get your heart pumping. You don't need your crush to walk by, you don't need to drive in the opposite lane with oncoming traffic. Hell, you don't even need to watch a horror movie. Simply sit your butt down, come back up. If you're a beginner, aim to do that 50 times. If you're a pro, go on till 500 if you like. But by the end of it, your thighs, lungs and heart will plead clemency. The best bit? You don't even need gym equipment for it!
Just as a side-note, don't let your knees go ahead of your foot when you're descending. Also, keep your torso as upright as possible through out the movement.

Push-ups
If you're a guy, this will probably be a test of your ego. How many can you do? If the number is under 20, get a sex-change or something. Do that, or do more push-ups! If you're a lady nevertheless, please do them, like please!
The move itself looks easy to do, isn't it? It is in fact quite a test of a person's upper body strength, and like the squat, it needs nothing but your own bodyweight. Also, there's a whole variety of them that you can do, depending on your level of strength and fitness levels. And if you have competition, there are few things that will give you a kick out of doing them.

Skipping/Jogging
I'll elaborate on skipping first, as it requires the rope and little else other than your concentration. And also, skipping first as it gets the job done quicker and even gives your upper body a good sweat-session. Most of us have done this as kids, especially if you're girls - two of you moving the rope and the third one monkeying up and down in the middle, and you took turns at doing it and what not. For guys, it has always about who can do the most by themselves, and then some. It was fun, right? And then we grew up and grumpy and things. So out went the fun. Now, all we skip is meals. Get hold of that rope, get into your room , move your bed and table to the furthermost corners and SKIP! SKIP! SKIP! SKIP!
 Because jogging needs space and shoes, a dry weather and a bright day etc etc.
Side-note again: Try skipping with a little bend in your knees, and preferably on a soft surface, or maybe with your running shoes(yeah, that's a bit contradictory to the jogging bit.), just to keep the knees safe from the constant impact.

Planks
Another one of the body-only movements that requires ABSOLUTELY no equipment, clothes(hee hee hawww hawww hawww!!!) or even movement for that matter. Here's all you need to do.

Yeah, that's it. 

Looks super-easy, eh? Hold it for a minute (most people struggle), and your abdominals (a.k.a abs) will squeal. There are too many benefits of doing planks, so check them for yourself if you're curious.

Pull-ups
Yeah, this is the scary one for many a men, let alone ladies. Why are we so intimidated by this one? No clue. Happily, most of us start out with a single pull-up. That's all most starters can muster. But stay at it, and there isn't exactly a limit, until about 30 or something. Just kidding. There's never been a limit to anything, has there?
Arnold Schwarzenegger's book on body-building says that even if you can do just one pull-up, do it, but do a total of 20 in the whole day. Your strength will build up eventually. If you can't do one pull-up.... well, there's a trick.
Jump to the top-position-

The position on the left

How do you get to that position? Use a chair or your brains or something. So once you're up there, descend slowly. And REPEAT! You'll eventually grow the arm-strength required to pull yourself up without the chair. And presto!

Yes, you do need a pull-up bar for this. Or if you're smart, you can hang onto the ledge of a loft if you have one of them at home.  

Dead-lift
Here's a tough one, which is why, it's left for the last. And you need gym equipment for this one. But if you can nail this move, you virtually don't need to perform anything else to strengthen your body. It needs your entire body, arms, legs, abs bums and the whole shebang to work in unison. So not only does it strengthen your entire body, it also gets your body to work in sync. 

Here's the mechanics of it-

The bar travels from the floor to the top in one straight line. 

Here's what things look like in motion.

For illustrative purposes, I'd have liked the next one better.... err..

The way this lady's doing it though, is a bit off. But I know, it's fun, right?.

Keep the back as flat as possible, don't let it round up like this...

 Push the weight off the ground with your legs, and focus on keeping your back straight. Else, it'll screw your back and you could even get a herniated disc (slipped-disc). But do it right, and you'll be of the few who have a balanced body. Like a boss. 

Butt-cracking jokes

I look outside the window and see the clouds that are going to soon turn into rain. But for now, Mumbai is left standing for a downpour. Yes, there are a few Mumbai folks who have managed to click photos of a few instances where the clouds have pissed around for fun. But the city looks somewhat parched.

Rains... I remember, my last proper date, it happened in Kerala, just as the rains were starting out. My left hand and myself, ahahahaha.....we danced and waltzed and all. Ahem! What? It was this lovely woman, who put her trust in yours truly, and remained happily ever after for the next one month or so. Then everything burst into flames and I-remain-petrified-of-women-ever-after and things of that nature until recently. But lets not get into the recent events, for the sake of peacekeeping, for you see, if I were a bird, I'd happily choose to be a dove or something. A dove with a sexy arse, guns for wings, the head of a fire-breathing dragon and a fart so powerful that it would help me attain the speed of light on the day I consumed legumes!!

One second. How did things go from rains to farts? Anyway, since I mentioned the dove's arse, now I'll talk about butt-cracks. Butt-cracks are cleavages that are hilarious. They are your ticket to happiness in an age where breasts have been placed on a pedestal. More importantly, butt-cracks are cleavages that don't look good neither when blatantly put on display, or when subtly exposed. Especially not so when someone bends over and unsuspectingly displays their Grand Canyon. That even happened to Jeremy Clarkson, the ex-Topgear and now "whatever" host. Now you know how closely people watched TopGear. Let me not tell you which car review it happened during.

 A noteworthy observation about butt-cracks here. You see, those who have good, round, rumpy buttocks, are less likely to be embarrassed by the sight of their crack-at-the-back than those who don't have the(or have very small)  gluteus-maximus(the muscle in the bum). That's because the bum, if shapely, will keep your pants in place. So even if you are out of shape, but your derriere is nice and round, don't bother when you bend over. Just to be safe, WEAR A FUCKING BELT FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!! That especially holds true of your arse is droopy or absent altogether. But if you're ballsy(or butt-crackey) enough, screw the belt and....

To end on an even lighter note, here's a joke. A sardaar kid was up to no good at school, and as a result, some teacher of his gave him a good spanking. I know, horny teacher, she must have been into that kind of a thing. After the spanking, the disheartened(why?) mini-sardaar took his aching bums and went to the bathroom to 'assess' the extent of the damage. He looked his bum in the mirror and exclaimed.... "साली ने इतना मारा  की पिछवाड़े के दो टुकड़े कर दिये।" Translation: The bitch spanked me so bad, my arse's been split in two!

A brief history of... err... bollocks?

Let's talk five decades of humanity through the eyes of someone who's been around for a little over two. It's needless to say that opinions expressed here are purely personal, and if you see the name of a girl anywhere, that's the girl who I have a huge crush on....

For convenience sake, I'll start with the 70s because

a) that saves you from the gibberish I have to talk about the 60(about which I anyway know little about except for the Indo-China war, the whole hippie movement and a bit about Woodstock, about which, again, I just know that The Beetles and Bob Dylan didn't turn up for. And that there was a lot of drugs and sex there too.)

b) As I said, I know little about the 60 (actually, even about the 70s, 80s, 90s and even for that matter the 2000s.)
And so, about the 70s.. Oh shit! I don't know anything about the 70 except that Godfather, Sholay, Rocky, Star Wars, Golmaal, Taxi Driver and many more awesome movies came along in this decade. 

So lets get to the 80s where a lot happened... err like my parents must have graduated and things, 1984 went whizzing by and all of George Orwell's predictions got postponed for another 60 years. However, Mr. Steven Jobs leveraged the idea behind Orwell's dystopian book and sold to many the Macintosh, which was just a fancy desktop computer that no one really wanted, but bought anyway(As with most things Apple sells). The drugs must have worn off or something, everyone getting off the hangover. What that did was give people no other choice but to twerk to disco music, goodness that atrocious thing! Why didn't the Terminator come along and take out Bappi Lahiri and the Bling-gang? We could have gotten rid of the 90s altogether! But then, the inevitable 90s came.

With the onset of the 90s, the Gen-X population started getting threatened by their successors, the toddlers that were going to be quite unimaginatively called Gen-Y. Us basically. Cranky, pesky choice-riddled brats who saw more of the world through a screen than through their own eyes. Very strange. What LSD and pot was to the 60s and 70s, it's Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter for us now. We're the gang who take pride in saying things like....

The sad bit? I know Jiggly Puff is responsible for this facial graffiti. That still doesn't make me awesome. 

 I'd say....

The worst are the little retards that go about singing the 90s....

And about yours truly....

Yes, I do realize I might run into a few copyright issues. But who gives a shit?

I'm just petrified about our population that's come into existence after the 2000s. What do they say? Oh! I was born with a cell-phone up my arse and my speech bubble looks like...

And are these kids called Gen-Z by any chance? If so, what are we going to call the next generation? And why were Gen-A-through-W so lost in obscurity?

The Week, Every week

A second passes, just like a minute, which too races away along with the hour, day, week, month, year and eventually a lifetime. Then you’re like, “Where did that shit go?”

But let’s take a reasonable time frame to look at how things go down, say a week. It’s said that time doesn’t come back. Strangely, Mondays are a persistent. Then again, let’s start with the dreariest day of all… Sunday. 

That’s how it all starts, right? Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday… Eight days of the week. If you start counting days with Monday, boy, you’re some mature person. Also, your week is one day shorter, which however, in the larger scheme of things, shouldn’t make a difference.

Back to Sunday, the worst amongst its daily siblings. Why so? Because you wake up to the thoughts of the impending Monday, then you sulk all day, and the day just whooshes by like a fart. Yes, the beaches and promenades are also crowded with cheerful chirpy people, mostly couples eating away at each other’s heads. It’s either them or aunties who are fruitlessly trying to lose the last 10 pounds that they have been trying to for the past 4000 years. The uncles don’t run. They walk around, do their share of weekly ogling, go home and masturbate like hell! I almost forgot the pesky kids! Who gives these creatures the tricycles? Every time you’re out on a run, these tiddly things veer into your way, and then you need to be careful to not knock their bobby heads off. Yeah, Sundays are bad.

Onto motley Mondays. It’s like walking at 3kph and then suddenly being thrown onto a treadmill moving at 450kph. You can imagine the trip and the kind of rash that you’re left with when your face hits the treadmill’s conveyor belt. If you manage to get ready to take on the world by 12 in the afternoon, it’s cool. You can go to work in peace, reach without having to wring a litre of sweat from your shirt, and get fired from your job of course. Else, you can get up at 3 in the morning, get ready by 3:30am and sneak out before anyone steps out onto the road or the train. You’ll be office-and-dry, no one will notice, and you’ll curse yourself for not having slept those 3 extra hours. You can also wake up at 7, get stuck in the mad traffic, or jam-packed trains, and reach work at 9 in the night, and back home 3 days after. So yes, there’s no way around Monday unless you plan on turning into a house-wife.

Tuesdays are a bit easier. Most people who left work for Monday won’t return till Thursday, and those who returned did so because they lost their jobs. So the battle-field is less crowded. And that’s a lie. Apparently, a lot of people migrated to your city from Bihar the night before, which means only one thing. It’s about as crowded as Monday, and you get to hear a lot of amusing abuses. But yeah, you don’t have to be an un-payed employee at home.

Then we have Wednesdays, which feel vague , honestly. In fact, the world could probably have done without Wednesdays. Or maybe, it should be turned into a holiday or something. You see, it can’t compete with Tuesdays, let alone Mondays, for its sheer energy quotient. And since Thursday is a work-day, the lady won’t go out with you. Now that sucks.

It’s now time for the day before Friday! Yay! Yay!... err.. Yay! Thursday is kind of cool. You look forward to the next day, there’s usually not a lot of work. And precisely when you think that, some gloating idiot comes along with a chest-high stack of work that needs to be sorted. You slap your palm on your forehead and decide to jump off the top of your office building. Nah, you sit till late, finish off the entire pile of stuff that’s supposed to be the most urgent thing in life (sadly you know it isn’t), go home and doze off, hoping tomorrow will be better.

TGIF-- Thank Goodness (or God) It’s Friday-- Now that’s an expensive chain of restaurants set up to celebrate just one day of the entire week. The chap who came up with the idea, a guy named Alan Stillman, opened the first TGI Friday’s in New York in 1965. What’s strange is that he opened the restaurant on 15^th March, which turns out to be a Monday. Why Alan?
Coming to Fridays, they’re fun, the people are unusually cool. They don’t honk madly when you cut lanes while driving, and will even let you pass first across a barricade if you shift down a gear and bury the throttle into the car’s firewall. Even the trains have an easier-going crowd, unless of course you are getting on at Dadar. Well, in that place, you need to fight to get into the train even if it’s a Sunday afternoon, when everyone’s sleeping. I wonder who’s hustling at that time. On Friday, your lady looks particularly gorgeous, and the work is a little rushed because everyone’s itching to go to the late-night party (save for yours truly). You decide to go for a little sun-down drive in the opposite direction of your home. Roads are empty, but some bum’s driving at 7kph right on the dividing line, and so, you honk, flash the lights, hurl curses and try to give the guy ahead a piece of your mind. Sadly, he never gets it. Or maybe he does, because he moved to the left. But you don’t care if he got it or shat his pants, or snorted coke. You shift down to third, slam the throttle and shoot ahead with squealing wheels, leaving the world behind in the dust. Man, that Honda City is quick! You might miss out on the movie you planned on watching because of your nightly ventures though. But then, that’s what Saturdays are for.

So, Friday night fever is over, the tyres have cooled down, and a good chunk of the city is hung over. Perfect time for a workout! But you press the snooze button and doze off for another four hours, and bloody hell! It’s 11 in the morning!! That means half the day is gone, the newspaper is probably lying in tatters, and the coffee is over. So you trudge to the shop downstairs, see a bar of dark chocolate on the shelf, pay the money, eat the chocolate on the climb back home and…. Oh shit. You forgot the coffee. Screw it. Black tea today. After downing three movies, a family pack of ice cream, and four bananas, or seven, I don’t know, it’s evening. Meaning it’s time for some deadlifts! Basically you lift a barbell, loaded with all the weight plates in the gymnasium, straight off the floor. Something like this…..

Okay, she does it better.... Looks a lot sexier. 

You do it till your butt hurts, then go home, fall on your bed and into a deep slumber until ugly Sunday wakes you up again.

More bollocks as usual

You know those times when you're sincerely planning on fixing shit up, and then someone scorns at you for not having fixed shit up? I hope you know the feeling. In case you don't, you feel like dousing all your plans in 100% alcohol and lighting shit up. Trouble? 100% alcohol is hard to find. 

Okay, that got too science-ish. Here's an easier one. 

You fight with your mom. It gets ugly, you decide to never talk to her again, and pray that your mom in your next life be someone else (if you're 4 years old). Then you plan to go, say sorry, give the old woman a hug, make amends, etc, etc. But moments before you apologize, mom scolds you for some goodness-forsaken reason. And you go like "Fuck it! I'm better off as a frog in my next life." 

No, I didn't fight with mom. I do feel like the proverbial princely frog though. Wait, how does one stray, and might I say, slightly scandalous piece of writing come into public attention when there are much better things out there to click on? What is as it is disconcerting is how active people are in front of their computer screens. Imagine if they were so active about their health. Trains would be much easier means of transport. 

Anyway, about apologies, I'm thankful that I've never shied away from the word "sorry". And what I write now, I wish it were an apology letter to someone whom I've come to admire a lot, perhaps more than I should. Only that this is no apology letter. Instead, I'm going to talk about situations where push comes to shove. 

When push comes to shove, Punch. Oh, let me correct myself. When push comes to shove, punch and then RUN. LIKE. A. BITCH. Mind you, that's plain bad advice right there. I'd rather suggest something that one of my new friends would suggest, and mind you, this chap's smart, even if he doesn't seem so(yes, I'm going to get punched soon). He'd say "If push comes to shove, just walk away from the place." And what this fellow says, works. Always. Maybe you could trip a bum bloke or two on your way out, but yeah, walk away man. Walking away brings me to something called "Letting go". 

Yes, that's a troublesome, and many a times, troubling topic. The deal with letting go is simple. You just don't want to, at least your initial instinct doesn't want to. That though is thanks to the faux-fighting spirit that many of us come endowed with. One never wants to quit, never wants to walk out on what seems like a battle worth winning(every battle feels that way, I suppose.) Yeah, that's about all the wisdom for one evening. Yeah, this overdose of smarts comes along when you wear purple shoes. Moral of the story? Don't wear purple shoes. 

If you manage to let go, you get inner peace. That thing that Master Shifu keeps uttering in Kung Fu Panda, but never manages to attain. And the fat panda? He bobs and bounces about, getting his tenders stuck between pokey things, and walks away with all the Kung-Fu swag, leaving his surroundings in the wake of his fart. How?

"Peaceful is a man who can live with himself.", says err... what's that monk's name?? Oh yeah! Thích Nhất Hạnh. That's his name. Don't ask me how you pronounce it. For

a) I don't know how to, 

b) It doesn't matter, because he never uttered that phrase in the first place. 

But yeah, keeping your shit together when it's thundering down under is some skill! I've met a few rare specimens who have it, this skill. Boy are they cool! They probably know the whole mystical letting-go routine. Maybe I should take classes from them. Or maybe, I should say Skadoosh and buzz off. So.... Skadoosh.  

Learnings from the day

I learned a few lessons today, lessons that I should have learned 3000 years ago. But the mind is perverse, the heart more so. And in a bid to retain my learnings for today, I bring them to you in this heart-felt piece of writing.

For starters, silence is golden. So is the flesh of a ripe jackfruit and mango. As is honey, especially when it shall run down the skin of this gorgeous creation I know. Mind you, gold is golden too, unless it's been reduced to microscopic particles and then made to float in water. It then surprisingly turns blue or something. 

As for silence, it's kind of a remedy to just about everything, as much as the noisy world suggests otherwise. Bad day? Chuck the company of people who mollycoddle the situation, making you feel worse about your predicament in the process. Made a blunder? Keep mum! The interrogator will get tired eventually :P (or you'll die getting tortured).

I'm yet to figure out what to do when you are debilitated at the sight of your crush. So someone help. Maybe you should shout out whatever you have in mind, right in the middle of the road. You might just discover that you will never require a megaphone in your life, just as I did. But then again, that, I'm sure, is not the best advise on the subject. And so, moving on.

Beware of the ugly friend. Yeah, I love this one particularly. If you're a chap, and you like this female, please note this down. Especially if the woman in question has this demonic, frightening-looking and well, let's be kind, ugly friend, you need to do one thing. Pray that this friend gets run over by a truck-sized rat that has fangs for teeth and likes putting its butt-hole on the faces of people it runs over. Yeah, that sounds like fun. The only trouble is that petting such a rat will take some effort, since it, quite obviously won't fit into a hamster-cage. Also, just in case you're successful, the female you're trying to crazily woo, will cry like crazy. The craziness is most likely to spread like wild fire, and then everybody will end up in a mental asylum. What you'll have as a result is a lot of people who fear ugly friends of the girls they like, and a bigger lot of people who will now, get scared by rats of any and all sizes. So yeah, beware of the girl's friend. 

On a more serious note, I saw a sight over half a year ago that stunned me to no end. It still continues to stun me everyday. I thought the pangs that the sight induces somewhere in the chest will go away one day, maybe in a few days, a week, a fortnight, a month, a few months. But sadly, the pangs never went away. It may sound a bit sadistic, but the throbbing heart circulates that extra ounce of warm blood that feels a bit like downing a good shot of brandy on a cold winter night. Just that in this case, instead of putting you to sleep, this brand of brandy acts like a double can of Redbull. Which means you feel like doing push-ups all the time. Good for the pecs, I tell you. Bad if you're too sweaty. And since this too is a place where I'm a little stuck to say the least, HELP!!!!!

All that of course brings me to superhero movies, deodorants and chocolates. Actually, no, it doesn't. But anyway, has anyone been watching TV lately? Or is it just me? You get deodorants that fool you into thinking that spraying them around your pits and butts will make you smell like Iron Man, or that spandex-clad looney who runs around with a round shield and a star sticking out of his bum. Oh yeah, Donald Trump! Crap, he's the chap with the hair like a parrot. Chuck that. 

Why was the Maruti Baleno advertised during Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice? Did Maruti think that buyers can be duped into mistaking the Baleno for the Batmobile, and their own selves for the Batman? I have to say though, the Baleno actually looks pretty sexy. Smooth, slightly voluptuous, just how most beautiful things are and should be. 

However, Cadbury's involvement with Batman vs Superman is still open to debate. It seems Dairymilk, the chocolate, now comes with Batman and Superman images embossed on it.... In 3-fucking-D!!! Even the chocolate wrapper has Batman's face, and half of Ben Affleck's on it. Wow! Basically, if you eat them, you're supposed to be endowed with Batman's and Superman's abilities. Magical, ain't it? What all companies do to cash in on a movie that virtually bombed. 

Lesson from this? Bonkers ad-ideas work, I suppose. Children will want everything with Batman on it. So will 24-year olds, as will 2000 year-olds. Also if you think that you'll smell like Iron Man or Captain Stupid by spraying the latest set of Axe deodorants, it's probably safe to assume that you're an Appam Chutiya. For those of you who don't know what that means, you're going to be very happy in life. 

Saturday night live

If the women at home sleep well, that's good. If they have deep sleep, that's good, especially if their sleep remains unfazed by the chinks-and-clinks of the door's keys. If you have a car at home, that's good too, as is if you're awake at 1 in the morning. It's all silent and you can hear yourself think. Oh yeah, if you have the keys to the car and those of the house, there are a few things that money can't buy. And this situation is one of them. Also, if the car at home is a little quick, nothing like it.

So you tip-toe out the door, take the stairs to escape the 'ding-ding' of the lift's doors opening, and as long as you don't have stray dogs sitting around in your parking area, you'll get to your car without Big Brother knowing. I have dogs in my parking. The watchman was asleep, and as a result, the building's gates were locked. Thumbs up. *ting*
What all you're put through for a little nightly trip. So I woke up the sleepy fellow, who's supposed to be guarding my building folks from the outside world, got him to to open the gates. Poor fellow got up from his Sunny Leone dream and opened the gates for me.
I got into my car and drove away into the dark. And straight into a traffic jam. At 1 am. I must be dreaming! Nevertheless, I endured the grind. No, I didn't do the world a favor by practicing patience, but just saying. Thankfully, within 200 metres, things cleared up, gears going 1 through 5, more smoothly and swiftly than I'd realized. Which again is good. Up ahead lay the highway which, for tonight, was my way, and just a left turn away.

Again, it wasn't the cleanest stretch of road I'd seen in my life. The traffic was even more annoying given the time that was blinking on my car's dashboard clock. Such remained the case for another dreary three-odd kilometres. Then the road ahead cleared, virtually each car ahead going left, leaving the entire right lane free for me to hog on. Down went the right foot, and the nearly 120 horses galloped away, "Thug-duk", "Thug-duk", "Thug-duk", "Thug-duk"!

I'll tell you something. If you get behind the wheel of a car, with any number of existential issues floating in your head, show the car an empty stretch of road and weld you foot to the firewall, your issues will evaporate straight out of your car's tailpipes. That's true even in the case of a Maruti Alto 800, as long as you don't switch on the AC. Quick little city hatch, that.
I of course was behind the wheel of a car whose predecessor is the stuff of every Indian auto-nut's dream. I'm sure you've guessed the car. Okay hint? It's not the Zen.

Honestly, my ride wasn't as quick as I expected it to be. I'll take a big part of the blame for that though, as my gear shift-timings weren't spot on. It's also because how smoothly the creamy engine gathers speed, and then you look at the speedo and say, "Oh shit!"(with a wide grin on your face). You never get  a jolt of acceleration that you'd usually receive in a modern diesel Volkswagen or Ford. It's like the difference between sprinkling your food with black pepper and extra hot habanero sauce. The black pepper hits you somewhere towards the back of the throat and makes you feel all warm and cozy. The habanero sauce burns your tongue and has you skipping floor tiles on the way to the kitchen for the sugar box. My car's the black pepper.
It's the small dose of brandy that makes you feel that everything's gonna be all right. Not the little shot of tequila that makes your insides screech "It's BURNING!!" "It's BURNING!!".

It's not racy in any sense of the world. It doesn't pretend to be either. It's attractive enough to justify the number of people who buy it. It's lithe enough to let you exploit a reasonably free road and is honestly, very forgiving to drive. The best bit? I get to drive this lady every morning. Yes I would have liked her in a duskier colour, the wheels could have skipped the Atkins diet and the looks could have done with a little less "look-at-me" factor. But if perfect's what you're looking for, go back to dreaming like the night watchman. 

Are they all mad?

Ever been to the railway station at Dadar in Mumbai? I'm sure you have, even if you think you haven't. It's that place where you  were carried from your seat to the platform, up the staircase, across the bridge, lodged into another train and transported to another station. And all this while, you could't read the name of the station where the teleportation took place. It's the place where the clocks always read 9 am. Rush hour 24x7, without a let-up.And I haven't even started with what happens in a fast local that's headed for a place called Virar. Well, on this train, everyone's headed for an intergalactic war, and no one knows who's the enemy. And so, everyone's killing the first person comes into their peripheral vision. Mind you, there are 27 people standing on every square inch of the train's floor.

And if perspective is what you're looking for, here's some. The population density on the station platform is possibly the highest on the planet. It's like a 4-hour long grid-lock, and every vehicle is a smoke-spewing auto rickshaw. Now imagine a zombie breakout in such a location. That's the scene in the Virar-bound train.

In case you travel by train, it is a good bit unlikely that you're reading this. That's because apparently all my friends are rich. Oh, poor me! See, one of my good friends at work has a car, another one has 7 bikes, 4 cars and travels by taxi, another acquaintance drives some trashcan and the girl I like, flies around my head, four of her in a circle. Like those stars that go around a cartoon character's head when he hits his head hard somewhere. So people in my circle aren't crazy about trains. As a result, they'll mostly miss out on the quirks of traveling in a local train.  Or maybe, as another good bloke I know says, a good number of the car-guys initially took the daily train-grind for days, beat the living daylights out of their adversities, and now travel in cars like bosses.

I'll tell you what I'm driving at. If you see the madness that people go through every day in the morning, waking up, rushing through thoughts and things at the speed of light, it's bordering comical. If you find yourself surrounded by a crowd this dogged and energetic, a bit of their electricity rubs off on you. To many, the hurry-burry looks unnecessary, as there'll always be another train that arrives in the next two minutes. And yet, as you go down the staircase onto a platform, there'll be a train that's just arrived, and is 5 seconds from departing. To catch it, you'll see seven chaps hurtling down the stairs, skipping one, two, even four steps at a time, and you'll wonder why the heck these chaps do what they do. Yes, some of them are nut-jobs(actually, a big chunk of them are). But in that set of hurtling masses of flesh, blood and bone, there might just be one who may have helped push humanity a step further. Yup, that sounds super-lame. Strangely, such is life. 

It's really that hard...

Unless you're half an inch from shitting your pants, I mean literally, I don't think 'controlling' really works all that much. Hence all the bollocks about letting go, pissing-off, getting lost, going to Buddhist monasteries, and jerking off too maybe. From the list, you'd have obviously figured out which one works best.

But I'll tell you a tale, of how I managed to mangle my head between my own buttocks, just because I couldn't keep my eyes off of this bewilderingly attractive woman. The adjectives may be an bit of a stretch, about half a millimeter at that. But I couldn't keep myself from falling into what happened to be an endless hole in the ground. Thankfully, I haven't reached rock-bottom yet, but when I do....

Somebody's gonna get hurt real bad  

So yeah, I'm enraptured, lock stock and one bloody smoking barrel, and I have no clue what to do. How do you exactly get around these creations? And why does the curly-hair-geeky-looks trick work Every Single TIME? Genetic predisposition? Am I going to make rock-climbing-ropes out of them? Or does a genius fellow face generally become a turn-on for anyone with an IQ of minus 236? As usual, I haven't the faintest idea.

You write, you read, you run, you drive, do push-ups and other things in life, with this ONE face filling every crevice of time that falls in between. Every second that you're spending looking peacefully at the things around, staring out into the vast emptiness, pondering about infinite infinities, I'm spending in agony with only a big, and rather amusing surname blinking in front of my eyes like this..

  

You need to replace the "WARNING" with the surname of course(which I won't tell you purely in personal interest.). But you get a fair idea that what looks like fun for the first half a second, becomes a nightmare. Especially when your potential darling comes into your dreams and punches you in the nose. At least she didn't kick me in the nuts. Sadly her friend did.

No, I don't have a point to make by ranting all of this. I'm not sure  how much longer I should practice restraint, or how soon I should behave with reckless abandon. And I know for a fact that spilling the beans hasn't helped a soul in life. Except of course for those who wanted to kill someone in a lift with their fart. But then what do you do with all the raging bulls, horses and cattle and shitty pigeons? Let them loose so that they'll wreak havoc in the farm and also possibly in four towns nearby? Caging them seems cruel, riding on them all at once is anyway an impossibility, and either way, the pigeons are going to poop all over the place anyway. 

Damn! In Hindi, you call such conundrums "फ्री-फण्ड के स्याप्पे" (Free-fund ke siyappe), a.k.a Trouble without a cause. 

The story of a clown gone mad

Painfully holding onto a train's grab handles, clutching onto my stomach that had gone, let's say, a bit off, I was wondering if I could make it home in one piece. Yes, it was a time when even reading Jeremy Clarkson didn't sound too appetizing. The only respite was that I, for a change, wasn't relentlessly thinking about the girl I've been dying to talk to for a fortnight. Phew! What all a single McDonalds burger can do to you.

Five years clean. You read that right. I hadn't gone to that lousy joint in five years until the day before. Not from some abhorrent allergy I'd developed out of eating there. Neither was it my Ronald-McDonald induced clourophobia that kept me from going to the place. Perhaps it was all the bit-too-happy-meals that weren't as appealing anymore. Especially because I never really got proper action figures when you bought the kiddie meals(quite sure no one else got one either). The toys were err... too plasticky. They may have glowed in the dark, or had a button on them that got them to shoot arrows, blow somebody, make squeaky noises and things like that. But you never really got full-on value for money, although in the mind of a 6-12 year old's mind, 'Happy meal' "sounds"(And I double quote) like abundant value. Sadly my dear, the only one happy after you buy the kiddie pack, besides the ghastly clown, is some big portly chap who'll happily feed bullshit to all of humanity.

During the arduous train journey, something sparked in my cocked-up mind. It isn't the most mindful of things, but how about replacing the big 'M' with a 'F'. FcDonalds. Ronald FcDonalds. No biggie unless Ronald has a brother named Donald, and gets offended. Not that anyone would honestly give two hoots about another offensivitis victim. The idea of replacing the golden arcs with something else too, seems like a bit of a farce. That brings me to Michael Keaton. The same chap who starred in the first proper big-screen adaptation of Batman(1989). And let's agree on one thing, that the Adam West starring Batman from 4000 BC wasn't exactly the Batman from our imagination, was it? The face masks with the eyebrows and all that malarkey... But boy, what a Batmobile!

All right, back to Michael Keaton. The fellow came back into his birdie-superhero self in the aptly named Birdman. If you understood the movie the first time around, you're a liar. But if you tell me that you watched it twice more, or that you watched it stoned, and then got a hang of what the deranged protagonist was on about, sir, I shall give you a hug and a lolly-pop. And now, Mr. Keaton is about to don the role of America's most underrated superhero, that of Mr Ray Kroc, in a movie called "The Founder". Didn't ring a bell? This chap was an apparently frustrated, middle-aged man who went on to create McDonalds. In theory, this guy is something like a Steven Jobs of the fast-food-business, maybe a bit slower initially. But given that nearly every street in India has a golden arcs a stone's throw away, now even in places like Calicut(a place that dimwits think is Calcutta), you get an idea of how vast the franchise has become, and is still becoming. 

Again, health-loonies will rant about what the cheese-mayo-and-four-tonnes-of-salt laden meals can do to your bowels, the smell of your fart, and your waistline. But think of it. We're talking about one man sitting about 20,000 kilometres away, who, on one fine morning, must have decided to start a restaurant chain, Mind you, in the process, he probably made his company the first name that pops up in the mind of roughly 70% of the people around you, when they think of a food joint. And a movie on this chap sounds bloody exciting. That said, I'm still never going to enter McDonalds again.

Not coming soon enough!

Broom-shaped pleasure

Tralala, Tralala, Tralala,
Tralala, Tralala, Tralala, 
Tralala, Tralala, Tralala,
Tralala, Tralala, Tralala,

In your snatch fits pleasure, broom-shaped pleasure,
Deep greedy and Googling every corner.....

I was working my morning away, writing a story which would put my name on a website for the nth tine when the piece went online. And that's when those lyrics, accompanied with heavy bass notes, hit me on the head. I couldn't decipher the words at first, but I did know how enamored by the song I was, and of the fact that the song was not going to leave my head any time soon. It wasn't much before I realized myself walking towards the source of the music, a fellow playing the track on a Gibson speaker. 

I: "What soundtrack is that?"
The chap playing the song: Shazam it..... Just kidding... It's Fritzpleasure by Alt-J. But seriously, Shazam it. 
I: Yeah, sure.... look who's super busy.(Of course I didn't say that.) 

The mini-conversation got me thinking. Just imagine. Some unimaginably driven nerd, petrified, and more importantly, absolutely incapable of making any sort of serious social interaction, might be typing away an incomprehensible code for a software that would be the next Facebook. It will put humanity on the cusp of a communication revolution(once again), make our present means of interacting absolutely redundant, things that should be neatly packed and thrown away as relics of the Stone Age. Say, this creation is out and available, which means we can enjoy connectivity like never before. That means we can be even better at being slouchy couch rats. If earlier we could go online and buy stuff, this new mode of transacting information can teleport stuff straight from the mall to your home in 3 seconds. Pizza delivery will be free if it doesn't reach you before you can say "Pizza". Blimey, the world would be so awesome! 
Meanwhile the amount of human interaction is going to reduce to the size of a peanut. We barely know our neighbours as it is. We rarely ask for directions anymore(and if you were a guy like I am, you never asked for directions in your life.... *wink*) because there's google maps. 
You'd much rather look up on Zomato for a new South East Asian restaurant than call up a friend. Which is a bit strange, because who eats South East Asian food anyway? Eat some spicy chicken tikka for goodness sake!
Case in point, you don't go about asking someone who's playing a song you like, because NOW, you can bloody well SHAZAM it! The word Shazam itself sound like "Hulk Smash!!". But actually, here's what Shazam means : used to introduce an extraordinary deed, story, or transformation.

Needless to say that the word would usually be followed by an exclamation mark, 

Something like this...

It's almost like we aren't up to the task of interacting with another for some reason. And so, we figure out means to circumvent mano-a-mano mode of communicating. Even better, we let someone else come up with better alternatives to talking. Mind you, that's just a flap of the butterfly's wings. Just zoom out a little... maybe a little more. You'd realize that as part of the storm that was whipped up, you are being watched, and everything you see, and are fed, is tailored to make you think in the way you think. You're reduced to an obedient consumer, a puppy in the hands of an evil, unknown, faceless task master, who knows that now.... you want more! More!! MORE!!!!
Or I may be delusional, high on acid, pot or what! Also, I think I should stop cribbing about some nut who was too busy to tell me the name of the song he was listening to. Brilliant song though. 

Cheyalo Aanduaar!!- Trains of though

Here's to the spirit of all those dogged souls who step out of their doors every morning to take on the world. In case you are one of those who work from home and take 53 beaks every hour, you too have my permission to read on.

You'll find many kinds of people on this planet. Chirpy ones, perpetually PMSing ones, creepy ones, nay-saying ones, pesky ones, ones who chat with thin air, and also those who laugh to themselves for inexplicable reasons. Or at least for reasons YOU cannot explain. Unless of course you're talking about Navjot Singh Sidu. That's because the 52 year old turbaned bugger does little else but laugh for absolutely no reason.

But talking about rest of the lot who inexplicably laugh by themselves, it's a ball to watch these folks. I see their kind everyday, and sometimes laugh my entire train journey away in amusement. You do see the dichotomy, I suppose. I'll tell you what it's like to watch these folks. It's a bit like a pot high you share with your best friend. You're looking at each other, some stray thought enters both your minds(often times the same thought), and then, the laughter unleashes till you sprout tears and then some.

It's like watching someone read a Jeremy Clarkson book. The chap's laughing his pants out, and you're wondering what the hell the obnoxious-looking, unnecessarily tall guy on the book's cover wrote that's so amusing, and in your bewilderment, you start laughing out loud yourself. A note about Mr. Clarkson's writing though. The chap writes like the world depends on his finished pieces of work for survival. He reads like a trip gone horribly, but nevertheless hilariously wrong. That's until of course you reach the end, where all the pieces come together to form something revelatory, an epiphany of sorts, where secrets of the world seem to unfurl in front of your bloody eyes. Bloody because if you start reading the Brit, you'll not stop until your eyes are blood-shot, and you slept only because your eyelids forced themselves shut.

Chuck the mad blokes who laugh by themselves! So enamored is one of my seniors with Jeremy Clarkson that he compares the ex-Top Gear host (and future host of some godforsakenly named TV show) that with Jesus Christ. Jeremy Clarkson, Jesus Christ, JC JC, see the connection? It's okay if you don't. You wouldn't die. And yes, the JC connection may sound like blasphemy to many. But then, what doesn't?

People believe that Jesus walked on water. Poof, big deal! I say, given Mr Clarkson's height, he could walk right across the Pacific ocean, via Mariana trench, with his head bobbing above the surface throughout the journey. And what's the deal with blasphemy any way? A bunch of humans(usually unemployed, or too self-righteous or both) taking offense on behalf of an enigmatic, unknown... errr entity that everyone apparently calls God? Really, do  they even wonder from time to time that god could be a lady or something?  Goodness! You see, man can't be god. Rather, god can't be a man. Too much testosterone simply screws you in the head, and even downstairs, especially in the morning. Then, there are the relentless urges to do things to things, and then things to more things. Anyway...

Thing is that there are too many things to do other than watch random strangers from the psychiatric ward laugh their while away. Yes, it's a fun thing to do for as long as you do it, and seems so even after you're done doing it. Actually, it's a brand of fun that should be accessible to all men, women, children and Navjot Singh Sidhus alike.

In case you were curious about what the "Cheyalo Aanduaar!" title is all about.... It's actually "Chalo Andar"("Go inside" in Hindi), as it sounds verbatim from chaps who usually travel on trains by hanging onto the coach's grab-rails(and mind you, their own lives). They make space to grab onto the train by forcefully pushing a lot of fellow travelers into the coach. And each time they push more blokes in, they shout.....Cheyalo Aanduaar!

A horror story

While the chaps were all-consumed in the thought of the gorgeous woman, wreathing in agony of unanswered, unrequited love, lost in wishful thinking, the others were predicting world-domination by machines, the slavery of man at the hands of a man-made creation.
It didn't take long. Half a century, and the machine-intelligence had dwarfed millions of years of nature's brainchild, the human brain. The sad part being that it all took place right under man's nose. In fact, man even gave things that all-important impetus, that branded on all of humanity's forehead.... "You're in control." All that even before anyone came to know about the rise of a god-like power. The Internet. You, your presence, your absence, images, clothed ones, nude ones, clandestine ones, innocent ones, the ones in which you pouted, the ones in which you forgot to, personal information, the things you never told anyone, all locked, and uploaded, into some cloud. And you were thinking that there's something called privacy. All while sitting in front of a screen. Brilliant.
But someone somewhere got to know that no one was safe. The news spread to another one of them, the whistle-blowers. Then it spread like wildfire, only that it was late, perhaps, a little too late. We had already turned into holographic projections by then, whatever this 'we' was.

It was some while ago that the ads came to notice. Why were some of them so resoundingly recognizable? It felt like a scheme, like someone, in this case, as it happened to be, something was playing foul, subliminally programming the population into servitude. You could hear them in the trains, the platforms, planes, the radio, movies, and oh yes, the TV. You could turn a deaf ear to them when they played about, but the brain still picked it up. You didn't know that, of course, Not consciously at least. But the seeds had been planted. It's not like the Terminator movie, where a weird program took over military control, nuked the whole planet, nearly bringing humanity to the ground. Nah, that would be too much trouble, wastage of resources and energy. All the machine had to do was tap into its favourite, and most potent weapon. The human mind. Which had been handed to it by mankind itself. So all easy-peasy.

A bit about the ads. Men sitting at high places thought that playing them would help them fill their coffers faster. Alas. Fill their coffers they did. But that was just a bone that the network threw at the dogs. And how the big boys scampered to it, the little bones.

We though we could capture our imagination on screens, make them as realistic as possible, with 3D, 4D, 5D, dimensions that we had little understanding about. But the terms seemed fancy, high-tech. And so, our eternal quest to one-up each other became our unbecoming. As it is, when granted Carte Blanche, unlimited freedom, what we do is.... well, we fight. Recognizing this, the enemy accepted our gift-wrapped defeat graciously, effortlessly.

Go back! Make something. Anything, solid, hard, tangible, tactile, smooth, round, beautiful. Because it's going to happen. Our freedom won't be ours for too long. We have fought for it in small clans, nations, communities. Pointlessly. That was hard when we fought each other. Next time, it won't be us on the other side. It will be an unrecognizable, almost god-like enemy, of course just in case the aliens don't get to earth before that.    

All rise

I was on the lookout for 'hair-raising music'. On Google of course, as no one, well almost, goes to music shops any more. Where are all the PlanetMs? 

Coming back to my quest for hair-raising mucic on Google, I opened the first few links of the search result, and here's what greeted me first.

Before I forget, I was searching for "hair-raising" music. What rose, was altogether another thing. The onslaught of the cleavage continues, so does our search for extra terrestrial life, our eternal treasure hunt for the meaning of our existence, Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, and the slaughtering of the common man. And most of us chaps can't take our eyes off of that woman's photo.

A friend of mine at work said that the magazine that we work for, will sell quadruple the amount if it has the photo of a naked lady on the cover, which actually is a brilliant idea, I say. But then "We are a family magazine, yaar!"

Such is the oversexed mobile life of today. And oh yes, it sells like hot cakes, the whole boobs and arse show. But you know what? The fun is a lot more in the partially covered pictures, the excitement, the anticipation. Because then the clothes come off and................. the 6 o'clock alarm rings, and you wake up with a jerk. No, you don't wake up jerked, for those of you who go that extra mile with your imagination. Okay, sometimes you do.

The worst bit here is that almost nothing on the screen, or even in reality for that matter, is left to imagination. The censor-board does its self-righteous bits, but then we all ponder on the pointlessness of its existence. I mean the chaps on the board watch all of it, have all the fun, and then have the balls to keep the good stuff from the remaining population. I was talking about the violent parts.

Mind you, just because the cock started running in the middle of the road, that doesn't mean the pussy wasn't having any fun. See? How many thought of a penis running in the middle of the road? And a cat running after it? Now that would be a funny scene, and a weird one too.

By the way, anyone seen cats having sex? Damn! How do they manage to be so secretive about it? Dogs on the other hand are kind of open, a bit too open perhaps, about their sexuality, hence we have the doggy style, but no katty style. The latter must be something of a style-statement. Moving on...

It's a strange feeling, when you're super high on pot, and you are jolted by this understanding of some untold, enigmatic secret of the universe, and you go "Damn! So that's how it works!" Although moments later, you're still trying to fathom what exactly it is that you understood so profoundly. That's exactly how I felt when I realized moments ago, that the hair-raising musical bollocks that I was in pursuit of, has been long since forgotten. Al for that gorgeous woman who reminded me too much of someone who honestly drives me crazy. 

Reckless abandon

It's difficult to understand why the words of a senior you admire, have such a profound effect on you. Is it because of the astuteness in what they say? Or is the profoundness a consequence of your admiration? The ego will never admit the latter as the cause. However there might be a rare instance or two where the former might actually be true, that what you admire, is actually completely worth admiring. Here's hoping this to be true this time.

Reckless Abandon. Here's the deal with these two words. As funky as they sound together, the visual impression they leave in the head is that of a head being repeatedly bashed against a mirror, shards flying, blood dripping, teeth clenching, or wait. It may not be that gory a picture. It sounds more like running your car over some stupid bloke crossing the road, feeling his bones crunch under your wheels, first your front wheels, then your rear, looking behind at the dilapidated body, and then fleeting from the scene with your tyres squealing.  Maybe even that was a bit too gory, but  the latter example better covers the words 'reckless' and 'abandon'. But hope you get the picture.

The issue isn't the meaning of the words. It's the fact that the mind is infested by the two word as though by that song that keeps playing, ringing in fact, inside the head, or the face that refuses to leave your sight. Talking about the face, now there's something that either won't leave your sight, or all you want to do is to see it perpetually, without an eye-blink coming in the way of your sight. But that's worth another piece of writing altogether.

But why Reckless Abandon? It's what you feel when there's no one to open the doors to your own house. It's what the nights do to you when you let the fire in the belly die down. They recklessly abandon you. How so? They put you to sleep by midnight. That's how.
It's what goals feel perhaps, when you seek instant solace. Okay, the last line may be the part you wish would be true. But nevertheless.

There's another aspect of reckless abandon, out of many that remain unspoken about, of course. It's called Whatsapp. It's a phenomenon that manifested itself when an extra smart chap took two fancy words, joined them together in a grammatically incoherent fashion, and made that into an application. All in an attempt to bring humans closer(or so were the intentions). But look around. Do you see one pair of eyes wandering into free space? Looking around, even with the remotest of chances of meeting another in the eye? All eyeballs on a palm-sized screen, endlessly peering at a distant friend's image, or maybe that of a group of them, awaiting a *ping*, or a *ting*, or just a tremor in the pocket. And in the process, humanity, the kind that you see for real, hear, touch and feel, has been recklessly abandoned,   

Bad Combos

Beer spurs up your creative juices, says one school of thought, which school it is, I know not. But being tipsy does give you weird thoughts, sometimes even abysmal ones. But it doesn't seem too far-fetched an idea that you might stumble upon something seriously genius when you happen to be under the influence.
Now, it is no new news that coffee wakes you up, gives some serious spring to your step, and also a boner sometimes, Let's assume I didn't say that. But yeah, caffeine can really spruce you up if you feel like a bit of a laggard. And a double espresso can get you to do a 100 push-ups straight.

But what happens when you combine the two? A social lubricant+ smarts inducing fluid with good old caffein? Do you get a potion to everlasting(long-lasting) creativity? Or do you end up with a goopy feeling?

 To answer such inconsequential queries, yours truly conducted one of the most un-thought of experiments in the history of mankind. One bottle of beer, one can of Red Bull, another bottle of beer, another can of Red Bull, another bottle of beer, okay, that's enough fluids for the day. I honestly thought I'd give Shakespeare some serious competition after that string of drinking. And I did. To the effect that no one, even I can't decipher a word that I have written.  But yeah, in the name of science, the experiment was a complete disaster, and not to mention, a complete waste of time. Not only was the Red Bull unsuccessful at keeping me awake yesterday(when I originally started writing this post), the beer was super effective at putting me to sleep. So creativity jumped right out of my bedroom window.

Now, onto some random, but nevertheless astute observations... Save for the Maruti Alto, the price of every single car on sale has shot through the roof in the past decade. Hatchbacks that costed 4 lakh, now cost 6. cars that costed 6 lakh, now cost 10. Remember the Skoda Octavia? The older one that quite literally looked like a tank, and was even built like a tank? It costed about 10-12 lakhs when it came to India. Now, it costs nearly 20. But my problem is with the Wrigleys Orbit. The chewing gum, that is. In 2005, it costed Rs 5. In 2016, it costs Rs 5. With the only difference being that now, you get 5 pieces of gum instead of the 6 that you used to get earlier. What makes me wonder is exactly how much did Wrigley's profit out of the one missing piece of gum per pack? Is that profit worth dissing nearly every customer? One piece of gum? Just one? महंगाई डायन खाए जावत हैं। 

More troubles... Snap!

Some evil mind must be plotting an apocalyptic plan , a(all) politician must be, or is cunningly working his/her way to a higher vote count. Some German might, any moment now, have a eureka! moment for the most beautiful, yet simple automobile ever conceived. Oh wait, there might be some dufus sitting somewhere, trying to get in touch with extraterrestrial life(you idiot! You're going to get all of us killed.) And amidst all of this, and countless more things happening on this wonderful planet, here I am, completely consumed by the thoughts of this woman. 

Imagine this.. Helicopters flying in the background, battle tanks lobbing grenades, missiles, and pebbles at each other; a soldier getting the bullet right up his rear entrance, and then receiving a blow to his tenders(Damn! Which one is more painful?), everyone around running for cover, some chap getting his dick blown, another guy blowing someone's dick, yeah, I know, these things happen. Apparently even on a battle field. Somewhere around all this chaos, there's this chap wearing ugly heart-shaped pink glasses, leaning on a railing, dreaming about this beauty, whose soft cheeks he wants to touch, Zappppppppppppppppp!!

Honk!! Honk!! It's a battle you moron! The signal's green, and you're behind the wheel of an excessively.... slow car. Nevertheless, you dump the clutch, stand on the throttle, and power away, leaving the competition in the dust, your dust. And the thought's of the gorgeous woman, well, you'll have to keep them on hold for now.

I know, none of that makes any connect, what so ever. Except of course for the fact that all three paragraphs ended with the thoughts of a gorgeous woman. And that's a bit troubling. It's even more troubling if this is your condition for the past two months. Yup, such thoughts make life a bit tiring. But then some bum clicks photos of famished children in Africa and posts them on social media, and you wonder where your own problems disappear. But then weekends come along, and you are thrown back into the existential crisis loop, where you're constantly trying to figure out what you want to do with the time you have left on earth. Mind you, it may seem a lot. But anyone saw two decades disappear? So yes, you want to make a dent in the world(I wonder how), woo the girl like no man can, change the course of history to come, and blast away down a straight, endless road in a 911 R, and not a bloody Bugatti Chiron. Weird. Too much Geneva motor show. Yikes!

A bit about learnings from this weekend. I read somewhere that nothing happens. As in actually nothing happens. You can start afresh after every thing that seems like the end of the world. Save for the fact that our mind's chemistry fucks us up a little with every potential threat to our apparent existence. Again, the word is apparent. I couldn't have understood this 'Nothing happens', perhaps a decade ago. Or even two years ago. Girlfriend dumps me, I screw up my results, and all things go southwards. Three months later, I could hardly remember the incident. Not that my grades improved(I sucked at grades anyway), but the thoughts of not being able to romance one female were obliterated in no time. Job lost? Same scene. Well, actually I don't know how that would go, but as my boss told me once, 'Is it the end of the world?'. That one line that he uttered, that too at a time he was technically roasting me, blew my mind. I mean, on a serious note, what's the worst thing that can happen? Lose your job? Demotion? Humiliation? Love interest not interested? Maybe too much of romantic issues here. You see, you only end up writing more of what plagues you. And the narrator is smart, well nourished, and very well looked after, and very good to look at. So the next thing that can get yours truly worked up..... is the gorgeous. 

But you see, as long as you look right, then left, and then right again before crossing the road, and cross only if there's nothing rushing at you at 4000km/hr, you'll do fine in life, at least till the time you've crossed the road. But if you are one of those women who walks in the middle of the road, the case with EVERY woman I've walked, your hopes of living are low.

In conclusion, yeah, I can't name the woman because she'll get embarrassed, and her friend will kill me. Life is awesome and so was David Foster Wallace. However, as usual, the world is not enough. And I want to snap my fingers and fix everything. Everything! Just like that... SNAP!! SNNNAPPPP!!!

Goodness gracious!! SNAPPPPPP!!!!!!

Shit, that worked!