Manali-Leh-Srinagar-Part 2

Worlds/Walls of our own

We all live in our own worlds, creating walls which encircle us and are hard to break down. Our citadels are our bastions of wretchedness where we hardly let the omnipresent rays of joy shine through. A top view as of today i.e the 18th day of September 2009, would reveal roughly 6.785 billion such citadels in a vast plain of emptiness with the broken down bricks and mortar of citadels long gone.

Sometimes an enlightening effort would bring some of these citadels together and a restructuring would take place but nevertheless the end would just be another bigger citadel.

We all want to reach out but are afraid due to many reasons. Life's illogical and irrational behavior teaches us a hide and seek game which makes our lives bereft of logic and rationality. We subjectively end up time and again with building our walls higher and higher not really knowing that the answer lies in the the horizontal and not the vertical. Vertical towers of babels where a few lead lives of confusion and where the few mouths confuse the ears and the minds with voices from a thousand tongues. Our walls are built so strong that the rot corrupts all that is within and sanity takes a beating which more than desired leads to the temporary bubbles of stars and dreams akin to the ones puffed up with Marijuana smoke. But such are as transient as the Marijuana jokes, powerfully strong but gone the next minute.

Lives made so pathetic because our circuit boards have been printed to deceive and be deceived. .....And we are all guilty as hell!

betrayed and used

Space space space again……….. What do I write about?, Should I write about the pain and the lack of gain with not a morsel of grain, however emo it may sound. Kind of rhymes though.

So here it goes again. In days of yore sailors would wait in anticipation for their ship to dock after months of voyage and as soon as the ship hit the wood on the buoy and the anchors drop, these fine boys would disappear off into the maze of houses and alleys. The captain and first mate would invariably look the other way as they allow the sailors their hours of debauchery. One would unfailingly find these sailors in the taverns and whorehouses drinking with face deeply buried in tankards of fermented liquid or on ripe and sometimes overripe/rotten pieces of bosoms or alternating between the two. As the hours go by some would find rooms for their temporary comfort and the less discreet ones would do it out on the alleys. For the next few hours, all the months of backbreaking work on the ship with the occasional taste of the captain’s whip and the worm infested food are forgotten. Moments of bliss are spent as the scurvy infected unwashed bodies try to get the maximum that their money can buy of the comfort offered by the ladies of undoubtedly questionable characters. For the few moments bought the fairer bodies offer the comforts of wives and lovers. Even today the practice still carries on from the filthy wharves of the third world to the glitzy and sleazy streets of Holland where such exchanges takes place openly and legally condoned. For the prudish and the morally upright not just the act but the thought of such transactions is one that brings shame and a feeling of filth and unpardonable sin. However on a deeper note one has to understand that there is a perfect understanding between buyer and seller which does not normally stretch beyond, with the transaction being my comfort for your comfort. The seller offers the comfort of her body and the buyer the comforts that his money can purchase for the seller (Of course this is a definition sidelining a few of the evils like child prostitution, human trafficking etc. and assessing the situation objectively). Apart from a few moral laments and the thought of a lake of fire and brimstone, what needs to be appreciated is that such exchanges are done with the utmost honesty. My temporary comfort in exchange for your temporary comfort and the matter ends there. Loyalty, trust, in sickness and in health etc. are all absent which suits the situation very well. Compare this with the hurt that one gets when one finds out that he/she has been cheated, lied to, emotionally kidnapped, manipulated and used. This is in the case of a normal relationship where it is expected to cherish and be cherished and respected. Life becomes a misery when it hits you that you have been played. The hollowness and the sense of emptiness become so big as if to suck all the infinite unhappiness of the world to fill in the void. Imagine what the other person must have thought about while doing what was done to you!. Your sense of betrayal is overpowering and your self respect takes a dump and every single waking moment is spent in trying to drag yourself forward and existence becomes a punishment. And every moment that should be spent sleeping is spent in hollowed waking moments.

In ode to betrayal here is a song from one of my favorite bands, Crowbar:

I gave my heart and soul to you my friend
You let me fall
If you could only see what's in my heart
You'd take my hand
I've lived this life as a man would do
Why's it so hard to find the truth?
My faith is strong within myself
I bleed of pride
Inside
I won't forgive
You can't take it back now
It's to hard to swallow
No words
No conviction
I've found the truth inside myself
But I am still doing time
Opened my eyes to what is real
This world is hard
It's cold
It's agony

Crowbar- Existence Is Punishment

Goodnight to you!

Musings

Space space space ...i don't really know what to write about but there is this incessant itch inside me to write whatever is cruising through my thoughts. The only problem is that there are no commas to the continuous and disjointed mini stories that keep on flowing through the network of ganglions and receptors in my grey matter. By the way i wonder how much of it has rusted due to my continual abuse of it through the years.
I work...a snitch...i am falling asleep ...snitch....i eat snitch....i workout...snitch...sudden thoughts so powerful, so emotional and sometimes so enlightening that i almost attain nirvana or dream of being a savior of humankind, but as sudden as they come they fade into oblivion the same way. The bad part is that like the fall after a cocaine high things get so bad that even pulling a minute of further existence becomes a torture. One minute Begees is singing staying alive in my head and doing a disco and the next minute a dark song by the cure eats away the reason for my very existence.
Some or most people, depending on the environment i am in at that particular period, would call me lucky for what i have but what i have learned is that the feelings of luck, happiness and wealth are just subsets of a transcendental state of being and not anything static that one can define. I do sometimes feel gratitude for what i have and what God or destiny (for the atheists) has given me and get so drunk with joy that life becomes very meaningful but another moment a dog living on the street outside my home may feel more lucky than me i.e. if a dog can feel lucky.
I like the joy of a good book, the fall of rain on the balcony, the sight of wooly clouds with the backdrop of blue sky, bliss from the church, a motorcycle ride, a dance floor full of chicks, a case of beer before me, the face of a happy beggar when i palm him/her with a 50 rupee note and so on and on, but then poof, such joys evaporate.
No amount of bliss that the face of a lover or her caress offers remains ingrained for long within me. I do want to find the one but more often than not , maybe because of my suspicious mind or my fear of what lies beyond, one becomes another and this another becomes another and the one becomes the ones. Hell no, i have not found the one (maybe vaguely this one time) and am truthfully skeptical of finding the one.

And so it goes, and so it goes...simple fact is that we are all ants and as an ant i need a sanctuary.

Not to be confused with a loser, after all boys don't cry, i am trying my best to reinvent myself and be a better man. I don't want to feel sorry for myself either, only assholes do that (Line borrowed from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami). I have attended church dutifully without anyone's coercing for the past month and a half and had even surprisingly stopped the stone cold steve austin beer guzzling act for the same period. Let's see where it leads.

The shit that i am writing right now, which may bear a close resemblance to the ramblings of a teenage emo head, may make me so embarrassed tomorrow that i will immediately delete this post or add some modifications, but right now it summarises the state of mental being (defined exactly by the erhu solo of the first video in my previous post) i am in so i'll just post it as it is . And hell i don't care who reads it anyway, i am not the type of person who selects topics with care and then do a few rounds of edit before posting. I write without a care and then just slap it on to my post.

Goodnight.

Heartbreakingly beautiful

The first video is a hauntingly beautiful erhu solo from the band CHTHONIC, a very talented black metal band from Taiwan. erhu is a traditonal stringed instrument/violin from Taiwan, which the band has integrated so beutifully with their brand of metal.
The band is so good that Ozzy himself paid their expenses to participate in Ozzfest 2007, when in fact sharon and company were charging bands to go on stage.
I am adding the second video as an intro to the type of music they play. The song is called quasi putrefaction.

A room with a view-Death Angel

Was browsing through you tube and found this video. I just had to post it as it is one of my favorite songs of all time. I love this band and this song, takes me back years to the spring of my eternal youth. The band is a very successful trash metal Filipino band and one of the Titans of trash metal. They once had their 12 year old cousin to play the drums. To get acceptability and success in the international market they later on took a white singer. Later still the lineup was changed a few times also. I used to spend hours learning the song thus it is only one of the few songs that i can play on the guitar, of course with a few glitches. I can even play the first 10-15 seconds of the guitar solo, depending on my variable timings..he he

the indian painter

My father's house

I went to church today with a backpack full of yellowed books
the books i came to buy in the nearby flea market
but the music of the church bell saying come on home
was too familiar for my dusty feet to deny

I went to church today after a gap of six years
in between maybe one or two but always leaving my heart behind
t'was the same though that saw me through the door today
and into the last row i sat behind strangers a sinner at rest

I went to church today with a heart stoned and laden
but when the hymns started my heart fluttered
and my hands reached for the hymn book lying near
three in all i sang with gusto even though two i never knew

I went to church today but the pastor's message half i heard
the book i flicked in random and the presence of my father i felt
i silently cried into his arms with no one near
when i finished and looked up a better man was born

a dirty 500 cc bullet

international graphiti xchange at kolkatta airport toilet

Aizawl thunders vs the JCB

down and gone

DELETED-BAD POEM

kite died a chicken death

Poet(Potte)ry in the making

My mother's big black bus

I once knew a man who I was fortunate to know. My mother told me that he was at one time a well respected policeman in former East Pakistan. He was tall, handsome and a sight to behold as said by people who knew him. I have also personally verified this by seeing his handsome image in many old black and white photographs lovingly kept by one of his dear ones. Proud as he was of his looks he believed that his calves were his sexiest feature. It would give him a kick to take his patrol rounds in his cycle with his shorts showing off his strong and long calves. Well, that was what was said of him. Later on he took retirement from the Police and settled in a burgeoning town in the southern part of the state. Being a rich man he fathered many children and had a few mistresses also, which was more or less an undesirable fact that the family had to learn to live with. He had houses, properties, a few trucks and even land rover MUVs. All unimaginable but testifying to the fact that he was one of the richest in his area at that time. The children did partake the riches of the father also and led comfortable lives. However in the times that came, like every unavoidable interruption to a happy story, the military came to the land with full battle armour going after a few rebels armed with country made rifles and a few stolen .303 rifles. The state was in turmoil. Unfortunately the man was accused of being a rebel sympathiser and supporter and some of his assets were confiscated and some got lost in the turmoil of events.
All I could remember later on was a big black bus that use to come intermittently to Aizawl ferrying passengers from the Central Jail at Silchar. I would wait at the Jail corner with my young mother who would have my infant sister quietly sleeping on her back and my younger brother beside her. I would hang around in the back somewhere close by. At that time I could not fathom the reason why she cried whenever a tall and gaunt man use to come down from the bus, give her a small hug, say something and climb back on to the black bus. The bus would start again and then ferry the passenger to god knows where? I do not even recollect my father being beside her once also during any of these episodes. Perhaps it was embarrassing and compromising for a young and honest upcoming bureaucrat to have liaisons with prisoners, or maybe I was just too young to recollect his presence. Whatever was the case what I can still remember was the bitter happiness that my mother's face reflected in the man's brief presence and the sorrow of loss that she felt whenever the bus would pull away to return only a few months later.
In the years that came the man was released from prison and in the occasional visits that we made to my Grandma’s place, i use to see the man brewing black tea over an electric heater almost all the time. He would hardly talk to me cept for a wizened look that he used to give me. Coming to think about it now, I can now understand the outburst by my youngest aunt when I once mistakenly wiped my washed hands after dinner on a shirt that was hanging by the bathroom door. How was a boy of 5-6 years suppose to make out the difference between a towel and a shirt by candle light and at the same time be wary of the deep psychological scar and possessiveness felt by the people who were near to the man?.
A short time from then the man died. I later on realized that he had been having a long bout of illness and it was only because of this that he was released from prison.
Now leaving the story behind. In life most people are made by the teachings that are inculcated and imbibed in them by their teachers as they transverse through life. In my case the teachings are learned in retrospection from the people and events that were before and which I have only related to in the present. In this case I have to learn to be dignified and not to bow down to any that challenges my core values, principles and beliefs, whatever the repercussions may be. You see the man was my grandfather and whatever he has taught me in retrospection, I would want my descendents to imbibe the same from me that my grandfather was a champion of. After all he was the only grandfather that I knew.

Across the land of the 5 rivers

give it back

Would I be allowed to have a year back
When I discover that I have squandered many,
Would life treat me a little better
If I learn now to respect it a little,
Would the chances that I give to many
Return just one for the many I let pass,
Would the price that I have to pay
For life’s follies be one that takes my life away.

Would the years I spent in a false cause
Be the punishment of a lifetime,
Would it give me wisdom dearer
To make this life better,
Would the myopia of my days’ visions
Cloud the vision of my days,
Would it lift away rather
The cloud that has shrouded my life’s reason.

Would the wrongs I have righted
Right the wrongs on me or none,
Would the hurts I have given
Reciprocate me with more than given,
Would it make me more sensitive
To hurt others no more,
Would it reward me as this life now
Incapable of any feelings, of what life am.

connections of the noses

DELETED-BAD POST

Ka thianpa zu bottle :p

the Y-Men

when doves fry

The swan, the sun, and the moon

slumdog billionaires

These are some of the kids that i recently met at a railway station. The youngest may be around 7 years old and the eldest around 13 years old. Sans the fair chances that life has to offer they have been forced to grow up too fast. They are engaged in polishing shoes and repairing torn bags and broken zippers. Overzealous in their trade and on the lookout for opportunities they somehow noticed the broken zipper in my bag which i was trying hard to conceal and coerced me into making them repair it. One of them even wanted to polish my black reebok sneakers for which I had to chide him for his repeated requests. Believing that they had found a soft target they even showed me all the holes and tears in their attires trying their best to get me to buy them new ones. Things reached a limit when they charged me 50 bucks for the repair of a measly zipper and i had to chase them away with a 15 rupees payment for their service. Nevertheless i cannot stop myself from laughing whenever the sight of the youngest with colours smeared on his face appears in my mind, 5 days after holi...Truly billionaires in spirit

how to get to the united states and back in 350 dollars

Others would usually have a lot to say about their first visit to the States but the visit i had made in 2007 seems more or less like a vague dream to me now. I just had to pen down some of the memories so that at least some will remain.

Let me start with the 350 USD I had in my pocket when I left Mumbai on Etihad airlines. This amount is an aggregation of what office gave me and what I had also exchanged of my own personal money. This usually happens when one has to keep up with a stingy boss. He would give you enough to experience but not enough to enjoy. Like a colleague of mine use to say, office support is like liquid oxygen. The liquid will try to drown you but the oxygen will keep you alive. Anyway to start with I had 3 beers on the flight to Abu Dhabi where we had a stopover. I spent two hours roaming around the terminal checking out the different shops and wares finally settling down on a Heineken beer for 6 USD. It was quite educative to observe that all the sales girls and other employees at the terminal were people of different nationalities except maybe for the security personnels who may have been locals for obvious reasons. Boarding another Etihad flight after the brief stopover we flew continuously for I believe 16 hrs? until we landed at JFK airport. Till then I stuffed myself with I think 15 beers. I had to literally beg the stewardesses to give me the beers as they were either afraid of me getting drunk or were afraid of me finishing their stock.
Landing at JFK airport, sooner then I exited the airport terminal, a distant Haitian cousin of Papa Doc decided that I was going to be his customer. He stuck on to me and as I had to unfortunately use his expertise to purchase and use a phone card I left my travel plans in his hands. I bought my first phone card for 5 USD and wasted it by not using it properly. I bought a second phone card for the same price and dialled my office to let them know that I had arrived safely. Unfortunately a not so bright colleague of mine picked it up and instead of transferring me to the right desk wasted the balance by asking me about the weather and other stuffs. My collegaue being a Gujju, i do not blame him as i was then in his definition of paradise. Knowing that at least office would know about my safe arrival I decided to proceed on to my destination using the unregistered taxi van of my haitian friend. Settling for 125 USD till Jersey City he loaded my baggage on to the back. However he had a nice laugh when I went to the front left of the van and bumped into him; I had totally forgotten that in the states the driving wheel is on the left side. Anyway he dropped me at the Hyatt hotel jersey city where I met my host. I was around 150 USD down by then.
Checking in at the reception my host was expecting me to pay the advance bill with my credit card to be reimbursed later. Knowing fully well the time it takes for international reimbursements and the condition of my accounts I patiently waited for my host to take out his credit card for payment. After checking in I went up to my room to rest for a few hours. At about 4 PM I came down and gave my presentation for about 45 minutes. After that I was free as my flight was only in the morning two days from then. To help overcome my Jet leg I went up to my room and had a nap again. In the evening I came down and went out to have some food and to buy some beer as everything seemed to be so expensive at the hotel. Roaming around jersey I settled down at a roadside café which was run by a Vietnamese family. I ordered a bowl of noodle soup for USD 12 for which I felt very happy as the bowl was equivalent in size to a small bucket and had enough content to satiate my hunger. As I was eating I saw two chicks coming out from inside the café but my male antenna was snapped when I heard them comment , ‘ did you see that guy eat’, whether the comment was meant for me or for someone else did not matter then with confidence totally dashed. After I had eaten I went round jersey city, bought a few bottles of beer at a shop run by a Gujarati family and came back to my hotel to sleep.
The next day I woke up quite late and decided to see NY city. I was feeling very hungry and could not help notice a hot dog stand from my window just outside my hotel with a few construction workers lingering around the stand and having some of the good stuffs. I did not want to waste money in ordering food from the hotel and also did not want to upset unwritten protocol by eating hot dogs from a vending stall just outside the hyatt. I got dressed, skipped both the hotel food and the hot dogs, and having bought a ticket for 2 USD took the steamer to the NY side. Roaming around the financial district and after having a look at ground zero I bought a hamburger and coffee for USD 5. I took further rounds around the financial district and then came to the jetty where one could get steamers for the statue of liberty. For a memento, using my camera phone I took a distant hazy picture of the statue interposing my face in between. Having roamed some more I returned to my hotel to take some rest.
In the evening I came out again and strolled around jersey. Jersey as they say is filled with Indians and especially with Gujaratis. I had a brief talk with two gujarati couples who I met at the quay and who had come to visit their children working there. I then went to a roadside café where I ordered some beer. After sometime a chick of Indian origin walked in and ordered some beer herself. She was alone and I was alone, and though her body language was open invite for me I held back. Thinking about it now I just cannot fathom my reason for holding back. If I could kick myself I would do so wearing the biggest boots that I could lay my hands on. Anyway drinking beer and brushing aside the presence of the chick I observed the sights and smell of jersey city. I saw a lot of old and young people just having fun, cruising around in their convertibles and SUVs and even a wedding at a church across the road. I also got a big shock when I saw an old little black lady driving the biggest SUV that I have ever seen in my life. After having three beers i paid the bartender USD 15 dollars and strolled around jersey again. Later i purchased a couple of beers at a cornershop for drinking at the hotel. Back in my room,while sipping beer, I surfed the TV and even came across a channel having a show on the making of a pornographic flick. It was a show on a couple brought up on christian values but who later became big stars and even owners of a production house in the porn industry. By then It was past dinnertime and feeling rather hungry I reached for the menu card for room service. Running through the menu I made an order of the cheapest item on it, which was ceaser salad priced at USD 35. I was feeling rather excited and happy when the room service rolled in a big trolley with a covered tray. No tips and the room service guy went out. Flicking the cover open I had one of the biggest disappointments of my life, the image of which is still vivid in my mind. There were 5 lettuce leaves sprinkled with a little cheese and one weeny tiny anchovy fish which the cook may have caught in the Hudson river just a minute back . I gobbled down the disappointing dinner but along with that came a problem of an impending thirst. As i had finished my stock of beer by then i went to the drawer table to get some water bottles that I had seen earlier. As I was going to open one I saw the label on the fancy water bottle which read “VOSS’ and $9. I placed the bottle back again on the tray and sat across the table trying to fight my thirst. For half an hour I contemplated what would be the risk if I just have water from the tap in the bathroom. If I do drink from the tap would it be ok or would I be down with some sickness from a Robin Cook’s novel in a foreign land?. Having made my choice I finally decided to reach for the VOSS water.
The next day which was the date of my departure, the hotel got a taxi for me to JFK (@ 120 USD) . Arriving at the airport I feigned ignorance by not tipping my latin American driver who had even taken down my bags for me, thus saving 5 bucks in the process. At the terminal I purchased a book for my dad for 21 USD and some ‘made in china’ NYPD and Statue of liberty souvenirs for my friends. At 9: 30 Am I boarded the plane and flew in to Mumbai via abu dhabi in about 16 hours. On reaching Mumbai, as it was the weekend, I decided to go back via delhi from Mumbai. As luck would have it, on the way from Delhi airport to my friend's place , I left my two mobile phones behind in the autorickshaw which resulted in the loss of whatever photos I had of my trip and hence none to show in this post.

under a million stars

There are times when I just want to escape for a little bit and be away from my everyday life and see things through the eyes of the common man. I like to live in practical the phrase that I like telling others viz. ‘comfortable in five stars and also under a million stars’, experiencing the sights , smells and colours of the lives less ordinary. Last weekend I was in one of those moods and dragged a colleague of mine along to take a one day visit to a town on the border of the adjoining state. With this colleague of mine deciding at the last minute to join me, we rushed off to the railway station to catch the 7:45 evening train. Having purchased two general tickets at a princely sum of 121 rupees , we decided to have some eats before boarding the train. We were eating some puris when the horn for the train's departure went off and dumping whatever was left over in the dustbin we ran towards the bogey with our bags in our hands. We clambered onboard to an already tight space of sweating humanity. The first one hour was spent smelling the stink emanating from the trian toilets and from the fart holes of my fellow passengers. We were also busily dodging the sweat dripping off from the guys standing next to us while profusely sweating ourselves. To top it there were these pesky Gutka sellers and chai wallas who were entering from one end of the bogey and exiting from the other, like motorboats cutting through muddy water, while hawking their wares and transacting business without the slightest hint of discomfort. As the trian started we got some respite from the heat as cool air started blowing in from the windows. After an hour I could manage to get a little farther into the compartment and away from the toilet doors. However as expected the bogey was crammed full of people and little people represented by brown bawling babies crying their lungs out. One remarkabkle nature of Indian in general that I would like to remark on is our resourcefulness and to make the best use of whatever is available. From putting together agricultural pumps and scrap materials for use as transport vehicles and in this case using the ceiling fans as shoe racks, no one in the entire world can beat us indians for innovativeness. To my side and sitting was a bunch of men peering into some videos that were proudly being played by a young man on one of those chinese mobiles. To my irritation he started playing some 80s jeetendra movie songs in full blast, I could not complain as everyone seemed to be enjoying and having a good time, with the condition of the bogey who would blame them.
By this time people started settling down and sizing themselves into the different spaces. It was remarkable to note that wherein people were jostling for standing space just a few moments back the same people had settled themselves in on their sides or backs for sleep. I decided to settle in myself and take a quick nap standing up. I had actually no choice as my feet were rooted to their spot cemented by the bodies of others who were pressing from all sides. Even if I had decided to fall i swear I would have fallen only from the knees up. My colleague in the meantime had also settled into a small opening in one of the seats as his ass is quite small and manageable.
An hour before reaching station the guy who was playing videos on his mobile phone previously suddenly got up and shouted that he has lost his mobile. He frantically started looking for his lost mobile on the floor and on the seats while thouroughly disturbing the rest of his fellow passengers. After sometime he started bawling with tears streaming down his face which elicited a good response from the fellow passengers. Apart from feeling sorry for the person who had lost the phone it was really funny to observe the sight of farmers in bright turbans, tattoed tribal ladies and even a Sadhu in dreadlocks help look for the lost mobile in the cramped compartment. In the meantime the shoe resting on the overhead head fan decided to contribute in the search by falling from the fan and hitting the sadhu on the head. I was deprived of the outcome of the mobile hunt as we had arived at my station by then and we had to get down. However before I was let go my pockets were searched as a precautionary measure but all they could find was a Nokia N 73 which had the leaked video of MSi (mailed to me by wonderboy from misual.com)

a small escape, cheap and 3rd class

sunday market, beneath ellisbridge

the world's first ISO 9001:2000 certified Kuhva Dawr

before and after

this is our friend sid, at entry and exit from an IIM. today he is in california with long streaked hair and bulging biceps driving multiethnic chicks around in his ford mustang..

And to consider that all his parents expected from him was for him to become a respectable scientist!!!