Saturday, 30 April 2016

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. 

Friday, 29 April 2016

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. 

Saturday, 23 April 2016

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!

Sunday, 17 April 2016

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. 

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

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!