Tuesday, December 30, 2008

slot for blot

An unplanned experiment
To plug the boss's volcanic vent
When electrophoresis becomes the scape goat
It sounds like an orchestra that's lost it's note

With these quick calculations I pray
I will lead the boss's attention astray
These mangled ideas that pop like corns
Help me walk this path filled with thorns

These are thorns of insecurity
That help me gain maturity
So long as corn will pop
I'll crush the thorns and won't stop


I'll walk the road and reach my aim
Till I can walk I'll play this game



Friday, December 26, 2008

Merry Christmas

Yesterday, on Christmas, I attended the Church Service in Sector 18 after a many years . I remember attending this church (against my wish) since I was a kid. It'd been more than 5 odd years since I last visited the place. So familiar was I to the place that I when i entered the premises yesterday, it felt like I was still a regular member of the congregation. When I entered the hall, I was greeted by a few people (who still remembered me), with a big smiles and hugs. As the Service commenced, I was overjoyed to hear the familiar hymns and the zealous congregation singing really well. I was not too engrossed in the sermon though; it was soporific and extremely so. I was glancing around, looking for familiar faces and did many.

The first shock came in the form of Aaron George, Abraham's son. The last time I saw him, he was a squeaky little boy reaching barely 5 feet in height, now he's almost 16 and 5'8"! When I wished me "Merry Christmas", I wished him back and didn't take my eyes off him, for this face was almost familiar...almost! Then I almost shouted in disbelief "Arnie"!! He smiled and said "Yes"

The second and the more severe of the shocks came when I saw a guy (don't remember his name anymore) who I used to play with as a kid (he's my age). I saw him standing some distance away, he was stooping, had a big paunch, had a woman standing next to him (which I later learnt was his wife) and the guy looked 10 years elder to me...either that or I'm in a state of denial!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, December 08, 2008

Dad and I went to meet Bhatti uncle today. He and dad have been friends from college days. My dad met with a serious accident 6 months ago; he lost two of his toes and nearly lost his foot. Mr. Bhatti underwent a bypass surgery 12 days ago. We were greeted by the sad and wrinkle faced Mrs. Bhatti, my parents tell me she used to be very beautiful when she was young. Every time I meet her I try to picture how that could’ve been possible and I’m sometimes convinced that she must’ve been. Actually I do rememeber what she used to look like when I was a kid. But when I see her now, I can't relate that face to this lady. Mr. Bhatti however was a well maintained healthy man...till very recently. We went in and met Mr Bhatti; stopping and weak, this wasn’t the picture I carried of him all these years. I was in a state of shock; I’d never seen him this feeble. I saw the endless sutures on his leg and chest; he really was cut open wasn’t he!! He had three coronary artery blockages that were “fixed”. Dad and Mr. B talked about their status quo for a long time.
I wondered what they discussed 35 years ago!

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

That's me eh?

The trip from Chandigarh to Dehradun wasn't very uneventful except for a small mishap! Going downhill on the road after crossing Nahan, i was oblivious to the fact that the road very slippery (unbelievably so). The bike hadn't given any trouble on any of the steep curves. This time I was damn slow. As soon as I turned, the front tire lost traction; the moment I realized that I was about to fall I said a million prayers for my buddy sitting behind me....hoping that his head wouldn't have hit on the road or his leg wouldn't have come under the bike...we were dragged for a short distance along with the bike. I do not how how i manouvered my body but for some reason when I got up, I wasn't hurt at all, I picked up the bike instantly, the bike was ok too, not a scratch (incredible again) except for a twisted footrest. In fact the engine didn't die out either, it was happily chugging when I put it on stand. The road was so slippery so it didn't graze us but my buddy took some blow on his shoulde. I was very cautious the rest of the way. We went to Dehrahun and then returned to Herbertpur where my sister lives. In all we covered 250 Kms that day travelling through field, hills, forest, towns (quite a variety there).
My arse was sore but that was nothing compared to my right calf, which was killing me. The bike had stalled 3 times the previous night and it took more than 50 odd kicks everytime to start it; my calf's not used to this kind of a beating (4 days past and it's still very sore). But the sad fact is that throughout the time I was in Herbertbpur, I completely forgot about my buddy who's one of those few people who doesn't seek attention when in pain. I was tired and in pain myself. I spent that evening and the next morning happily talking to my mate but never once asked him how he was, whether his shoulder was hurting. All this despite recalling the event many times.
I didn't know I was so inconsiderate!
Just incredible how you think that there's nothing wrong with you...till the time something like this happens.
Worldwide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was:"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure,

In Africa they didn't know what 'food' meant,
In India they didn't know what 'honest' meant,
In Europe they didn't know what 'shortage' meant,
In China they didn't know what 'opinion' meant,
In the Middle East they didn't know what 'solution' meant,
In South America they didn't know what 'please' meant,
And in the USA they didn't know what 'the rest of the world' meant!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Past revisited

A visit to the Chandigarh Art Gallery and Museum made me rethink why I hated the subject of History with all my heart in schooldays. In school, I couldn't understand why we were looking at the seals and figurines made/ used by people who lived a couple of thousand of years before us. Why did I have to spend my time trying to remember something that was so old and apparently of no use to anymore.

For some unknown reason, I was yearning to go and read about Chandigarh's Harrapan civilization connection. This city is small and well planned but most people that live here have no interest in visiting places like the Art Gallery/Museum. Since I was born here, I thought it would be a good idea to finally learn something that was free to public yet so well hidden (out of shear uninterest on the part of the denizens).

Time and timing both are important

Monday, September 15, 2008

Be gentle on my curves! O ye curves, be gentle on me.


Yesterday I rode up to Chail, a beautiful town in the state of Himachal Pradesh. The return journey was harrowing. To sum up the danger I was in, I’d just mention that I was in a delirium while riding; I was half asleep in the latter part of the journey back home. The curvy hilly roads were as dangerous as the frequent potholes that embellished it. Riding on low beam I could see the potholes that I was headed for, but not the direction in which the road turned, and the reverse in the high beam. Consequently, I had to keep the dipper pressed on with my index finger and release it for the time there was someone coming from the opposite direction. The shock absorbers took a serious beating, so did my butt, back, shoulders and arms. My ears and neck were hurting from having the helmet on for more than 12 hours. And just to make things more difficult for me, the oncoming traffic mostly comprised of doggone-idiots who did not keep their beam low.


Try to imagine this:

You start the ride a little sleep deprived from the previous night.

you’re desperately trying to stay on the curvy road trying to focus hard to keep a lookout for potholes (pot-wells actually). Every once in a while a broken patch of road or a deep pothole suddenly appears from nowhere and you go over it…JHANK!! Was that the bike or your bones? You don’t know!

you’re going at a reasonably high speed for hills (45-60 kmph),
with your index finger you’re maneuvering the dipper (keeping it pressed most of the time),

you’re dogging traffic and constantly shifting gears from 3rd to 5th,
you have a heavy pillion rider (nearly a 100 kgs) who is incessantly complaining of a sore butt. He can’t help it, the rear seat is a massive torture, especially on such roads.

Your whole body is hurting; in fact an involuntary action sets in whereby your body has started to shut down. Some part of your brain is battling to keep the eyelids open but the eyes themselves have almost lost contact with the rest of your brain.

The oncoming lights become hazy and you’re trying hard not to fall into a gorge that’s just a few feet (sometimes inches) away from you.

You cannot stop, you must reach home. You’ve gotta be back in your lab and do that little experiment that you thought you’d do when you reached at an earlier time…unfortunately you’re calculations, owing to some friendly advice, has gone horribly wrong.


You stop to pee and recognize the landmark; Ah!! The hills are finally going to end…unfortunately that’s just your brain playing tricks on you! That place is still far away! You start again and do not understand why, after an hour, you’re still riding on the confounded hills.


On the dividerless highway, you are blinded by the highbeams, it seems like there’s no place to go, I seem to going in the wrong direction…wait, that’s just a couple of cars in the wrong lane while negotiating a dangerous overtaking procedure.


You get pushed off the road a couple of times by the aforementioned…the other option is to die.

You’re body’s shutting down more and more with the passage of time; home is still far away.

SCENE 2- You’ve reached home. How? You don’t know!

SCENE 3- You're in your lab at 12 midnight, thinking if such adventures should be banned for PhD students...scientists die old, don't they!


I just have one thing to say at the end of it all:
Chail’s beautiful!

...one more thing, i'd do it all over again...yeah, but wouldn't start sleep deprived.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

short city ride

It so happened that my old friend Harman touched home shores after 8 months of sailing in the icy waters of scandinavia. He owns a standards bullet and I, an electra 5S. After a week's rest H wanted to go for a ride. I however have been keeping so busy lately that a long distance ride was impossible to undertake. So on the night of 9th August, i.e. last friday, we set out aimlessly at around 8pm. Chandigarh wasn't the most crowded of the places till around 5 years ago but these days its a different story. Innumerable traffic lights, roundabouts and newly-acquired-money has metamorphosed the traffic scenario altogether and the scenario is at it's worst at office hours and friday nights. We moved through the packed traffic that had barely enough meandering passages to accomodate our bulls. Finally we left the traffic jams behind as we left Madya Marg behind and moved towards Sukhna Lake. The bulls seemed relaxed too and we cruised at 60kmph on the, broad, well-made roads of the city-beautiful. It was extremely humid and the only way to keep cool was to keep riding. The sound of the two bulls reverberated on the empty roads lined with trees. It felt like a reverie. Only once in a while did Harman and I make any kind of eye contact, it was was as if we were cruisuing reassured by the heartbeats of our bulls. As we reached the long stretch of the lake road, we increased the speed a bit and sped down, crossing the lake and the governor-house and took a left turn to dark, secluded alley that moves to the backside of the lake. The road was dark and not very well paved, we rode till we reached one of the two parking lots, it was pitch black. Two couples that were enjoying the seclusion were starlted and pushed off the moment we stopped our bikes (c'mon guys we're not policemen!!). As I mentioned before, it was pitch black, the air was humid and very still. On one side were thick bushes and the land was raised (that's the side where the lake is situated), the other side was plain...and that's all we could see. We both layed down on our bikes, head up; the view of the sky, from between the sparse canopy of the trees was phenomenal. As we gulped down the stout-beer, my sailor friend told me about the constellations and how he was taught to navigate using the stars; it was all greek to me. There staring at the stars we started talking of the old days, of our college days and the ex-girlfriends we had...we've been friends for the past decade and had spent the glory-days together. Now that I'm almost 29, I realised how much we had changed over the years, how much our situation had changed; I don't fall in love as frequently as I used to...not at all actually and I've started believing that short term relations are much better. HA! we were just glad to have lost all those chicks (emptied our hearts and filled our brains for good) and found our "own selves"...happy to be riding alone, yet together...the Loner Males. So we pushed off...and chugged for another 3 hours through the City that we were born in and the City that we love. When I reached home way past midnight....Ma was angry!

Monday, July 21, 2008

It’s a nightmare; wake me up.

From a distance, I saw the naughtiest of the girls at the children’s home, Seema, weeping inconsolably; I had never ever seen he cry till this day. I was clueless till I saw in the bustling swarm of kids, to my utter surprise, her mother sitting next to her. The three kids, two sisters and a brother, Seema, Reena and Rinku, stay at the Children’s Home. As I went closer, I saw that her mother was injured; she had bandages from her right brow-ridge up to her hairline. Her clothes were stained with blood. I enquired from Sister Kalyani about the cause of her condition. She told me that the landlord had beaten her up since she didn’t have money to pay the house rent. Her kids were visibly disturbed; Rinku was quiet and stayed away from his mother but kept staring at her with unblinking eyes, Reena too was in a state of shock (apparently it all happened in her presence when she’d gone home), she wasn’t crying but had a blank look in her eyes and Seema became hysterical on seeing her mother all bloody and bruised. Only when Riti turned up did Seema do her final bit of crying (after hugging her). I think these kids grew-up a little today. As kids, parents seem like huge boulders, all powerful and capable of doing anything. As you grow up, you realize that they have to fight a daily battle to sustain the creatures they gave life to.
Navjeevan Children’s Shelter, run by The Don Bosco Society, has its own set of tales to tell the world. It’s a home for destitute kids who are not orphans, but whose parents cannot keep them due to poverty. They range in age from approximately 4 to 13 years. There were older boys but they were all sent away to a less equipped place which housed boys only. These are stories of children who were given life, but “time and chance” brought them to this shelter, away from their parents. Take for example Karan and Deepa, the newest “acquisition”. Their father is about to die of AIDS and mother too is HIV +ive. The kids are healthy and unaffected by the virus but they have nowhere to go since the parents can’t keep them.
Tomorrow Seema’s mother will go to seek the Governor’s help. She’ll start another day to wade through the life that’s so messed up. God knows if the father of these kids is safe; he’s paraplegic and runs an STD pay phone business under a tent. He moves around in a hand-pedaled three wheeled cycle, I pray to God that that landlord doesn’t target him.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

purge it

I had no idea about the low-quality, high-volume mental excreta I had gradually accumulated on my blog...not till the time I found my name on the pages of HT... that was an emergency call man! I logged on and saw realized that my blog needed some summer cleaning.
Gosh it's not good to write at night in a semi-conscious state; you tend to go on and on writing utter nonsense!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

The boy in home science

Ah! I guess I can take some time off to pen a few things down (actually punch em in). Its strange how much and how well I used to write when I was undergoing an emotional turmoil a year ago. The talent just seems to have disappeared now, now that I've been keeping extremely busy. Anyway it's been a long time that I haven't written anecdotes from the past on my blog.

I'll just tell you about the time when I was in 9th standard. I was one of the (may "the") quietest boy in the class (rather throughout the schooldays). When we were asked to choose between the subjects of Home-Science, Physical Education and Computers, I choose Home Science. This was due the fact that I found computers too boring and used to play basketball every evening for 4-5 hours at the Sec-46 Stadium so I didn't see the point in joining pys-ed at school. I was the only boy in HS, and since I was so introvert, had hardly ever talked to any of the class girls (even most boys for that matter). The girls found me extremely shy and quiet. Once I was standing and one of the girls (I remember her name "Deepali") threw a chalk at me. As my rotten luck would have it, it landed right above my crotch and left a clear white mark on my dark grey pants. Deepali burst out laughing which made the other girls look towards me...n down there...n they burst out laughing too. I got really embarassed and could feel the perspiration on my forehead and the feel the heat emanating from my ears.

That wasn't the only prob I faced in HS class. Once my teacher asked me to bake and bring an eggless cake. This was a major prob for me. You see I used to live alone with my dad and we could barely manage to make palatable food, let alone cakes...that too eggless ones which I had no clue about how they were made. "What the hell can replace an egg?" I thought to myself...I couldn't imagine as egg was my staple diet, the only things that dad and I knew how to prepare well. Anyway I finally baked a cake with eggs and didn't know that the cake was meant to be given to the principal who was a strict vegetarian. Of course they found out that the cake had eggs...and I went into a state of denial....and inside I was cursing myself for having enrolled in this stupid class.


Once our HS teacher was on leave so the HS girls decided they'd go to the football ground and play. I was happy, I thought they were gonna play football. I realized later that they had other plans. They started to play what the li'l children's game "A FARMER IN THE DEN, A FARMER IN THE DEN...HEY HO THE...BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" I was utterly shocked..."how could 14 year old girls play the games of 8 year olds??" I sure was perplexed. From the corner of my eye, I watched the boys play basketball in the most horrible way possible. "I could teach those idiots" I thought to myself. None of them knew that I actually played pro because I never talked to anyone and never did tell anyone about it.
While I was lost in my thought, I saw the swarm of HS girls headed towards me!! "Run" I told myself out of instinct. But I was cornered. They started bullying me by ordering me to sing a song for them. I hadn't sung since 6th standard after a very bad performance left me completely embarrassed. "I'll die but I won't sing", I had vowed. So they gave me 2 options, "either sing for us or come and play with us"....boy the decision was simple, no matter how embarrassing. So they made me the farmer and made a circle around me and sang and danced around me. This was such a sight that the boys left their game and watched with their jaws drooping. Now that I think of it, my class girls were actually being nice to me. They wanted me to open up and live like a normal kid, but my family situation was such that I never could open up to anybody. I'm a completely different person now, I wish I could meet them and be friends with them again, but it's just a silly wish!

Anyway, after this episode I begged the principal to consider my case and shift me from HS to Physical Education; he conceded. Once in PhysEd, I showed them how to play basketball...and for the first time in my life, guys actually wanted to befriend me. I was so happy to be HOME! Finally I was accepted. But I always remained quite despite it all...well! At least they liked me! It was so important for me back then.
Surely I've changed now!
.
.

I'd better go to sleep

These days every morning that I wake up, I feel enlightened about some aspect of my life. This might / might-not be true. However after perusing through the pages of a psychology book I was amazed to learn that the brain actually looks for solutions to the various problems we face while we're asleep...I guess my brain is really coming up with a couple of solutions these day.
Sleeping sure is extremely important.
So I guess it's time so bid adieu and say hi to the dreamworld.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

You too dad?

My dad’s unwell, he’s been suffering from severe bronchial asthma for the past 20 years and it usually aggravates in winters. This time, it’s quite serious, nebulizers, steroids, antibiotics etc etc are not leading to instantaneous recovery that they normally lead to. Since he’d been coughing a lot due to overproduction of sputum, I reckoned his chest and back muscles would’ve been quite fatigued. So I decided to give him a massage. This is where the image of my father being strong and muscular (like he used to be) got erased. Dad’s nowhere near as muscular as he used to be, he looked frail. As I massaged daddy’s back I felt really sad, he’s not as strong now is he!! His arms are “relatively” strong (nowhere near what they used to be). I remember my father’s big biceps, he used to flex them and show me when I was young and I used to wonder if mine would ever grow that big. His wrist is still bigger than mine, his fingers much broader than mine. Actually the shape of my fingers resembles my ma’s than my dad’s. In fact while massaging him, I was cautious that if I applied too much pressure, for it felt that I might hurt him…how weird is that, my dad was strong, nothing could hurt my dad, I remember pushing him as a teenager and what a mountain he felt like, I could never match his strength. I remember seeing him after a bloody accident and he was still smiling and telling us not to worry. I’ve known him as the most stubborn as well as tenacious and hard-working person, how can he be weak?? When I was done giving him a massage, I was very sad indeed to realize that my dad had grown old. Then he uttered a feeble “thank you”…boy oh boy, that did it…I ran to my room and cried like a baby. I picked up one of his recent photos and one of the old ones and realized how old he’d grown. I also realized that his present face is not the face that comes to my mind when I recall it.

When we have disagreements, we still fight them out. We’re rude to each other and sometimes don’t talk for days…then start conversing on something casual and pretend nothing ever happened. I’m nasty to him sometimes (well he still fights like he used to)…for I still feel that if I ever try pushing him…he wouldn’t budge and would throw me a couple of feet away with one shove of his hand…for he’s still that mountain to me. Well it’s not like that now is it, and this makes me so sad!

Friday, January 25, 2008

The cold and I

The temperature in Chandigarh is plummeting, it touched zero last night and the forecasters predict that it might go down to minus-three degree Celsius, the coldest in Chandigarh’s history.

It’s good not to interact with unstable people. The cold, the unstable people, the friends, the fortune tellers and other forces all throw me off balance and pin me to the ground…and then suddenly I realize…there’s no one out there, I’m doing it to myself…and I get up, shrug my shoulders and walk off in the blistering cold.

There were just two realities, the cold and I, the rest were just figments of my imagination.