bon voyage

My protein prep’s getting screwed for the past more than a week. It did so again today and the frustration was immense. I didn’t feel like doing anything yet pined to do something that would take my mind off the failure and give me a sense of relief that there was more to life that would recharge me to take the bull by the horns the next day. At 8:15pm I wanted to go back home and thought it would be better to go back and tidy up the mess of a room I had created; a constant reminder that something wasn’t right in my life and I had no control. I wake up in a mess and go to bed in a mess just to remind myself constantly that I am not taking charge of my life yet. I know the day I clean up the room is the day I take on the problems at work as well. It’s funny how I’ve gotten into this habit of subliminal reminders about taking control of life. Anyway, just when I was planning to go back home, I thought I’d say hi to Anuj as it’s one of his last days at IMTECH. No sooner had I reached the hostel, I saw Mirage and Balot accompanying Anuj and the rest is history. It was Anuj, Balot, Mirage, Surendra and I, lots of peanuts, some boiled eggs, some other stuff, Kellog’s chocos (I love munching on them) and a bottle of Aniquity. We ended up having one the most fun times ever. It was when I bid goodbye, when the effect of alcohol was dwindled off my nerves when I hugged Anuj goodbye to leave for home that I realized that this was probably the last time in a long time that we’d get to sit over a drink like this. Emotions came over me and suddenly all the times since January 2006 flashed by. We’ve known each other for a while now and all the great times we’ve shared will be one of the finest memories I’ve had with my guy friends. The alcohol concentration in my blood was milder but not finished. As I rode out, I decided I wasn’t gonna wear the helmet and feel the wind on my balding head and on my face throughout the way. It was awesome as I cruised at low speed on the straight roads, only slowing a bit on the roundabouts. There were some stretched where the air was cold, the wind raced into my shirt and enveloped my in cold, chest, back, hands, all. I was thankful when this cold stretch ended and the tepid wind no longer made me feel lonely. The street lights passed over like bright stars. I was riding with just one hand, the other resting on my thigh. The strong wind made my eyes water but it felt nice. I enjoyed the ride that got over pretty quickly. Loved being alone and hated the thought of being attached to another degree after this.
Here I am back in the messy room, my laptop adjusted between the clothes sprayed on the table, telling me that I need to take control; a disconcerting thought that tells me this second just passed me by without me having taken any control of my life in it.

Nightmare

********************************************
* I watch this moment pass me by *
* I'm lost somewhere, wishing I could fly *
* Living through days that move so fast *
* So fast that nothing they promise *
* ever really lasts *
* I surrender to the ephemerality *
* that first takes me to eternity, *
* But lasts for seconds in reality *
* What’s perpetual, are these *
* inopportune opportunities *
* And these lovers of vanities *
* Planted here by the devil himself *
* Must I stay with these annoyances *
* Mysteriously glued here, I detest *
* the sights, sounds and sensations *
* Hang my head and bear the vexation *
* That’s repulsive but still a temptation *
********************************************

Rendition

Part of me
I never knew
friends I had
I had but few
A year hence
I have less hair
but life's moving
on top gear
playing life's act
that sounds like fiction
way more than fact
This is My rendition
of this script
of these nondescript
stories from the crypt
Hanged to death n
sliced in the gulliton
Disparged by you
dispised by everyone
I cried nearly drowned
no one tugged at
this outstretched hand
This is my stage
I'm the prodigal son
and yet I am the sage
This is my rendition
of the misadventure
that I did but then didn't
share with anyone
I had love but
i held too tight
what I love
is a shadow
in a dark night
What I aim
is a world away
What I adore is
an ingrate I'd say
I see my reality
finally the way
I wish to
This is my life
my rendition
I'm the hero
I am the audience
to my own rules
I bow in obedience

unrest inside

tonight
avoid proclivity
tonight
I yearn serenity
Do cease this dirge
what mental scourge
I wish not
to hear any words

A silence, heavenly
neither ticks of clocks
nor barking dogs
keep them all away
Let me hear, what
these beats have to say

Upheaval

I clean your wounds
and my own heal
I empathise
and to my suprise
It's easier to
forgive my foes
to stand up and
stop ranting about
these tales of woes
It frightens no more,
the sight of this
blood n' gore
I'm neither buried
in terror
nor soaring high
For I accept that
one day, I'll die
so will he
the one who can't
express his heart
so will she
the one who woudn't
use her mind
but is still
most kind
she loves me despite
knowing me well
with all the fears
I can't dispell

But as I
tend to your wound
my pain subsides
but why?
unaware of all
from me, that
my own mind hides
the doors open
in my dreams
I see not only
the surreal sights
of soaring along the
lovely meandering streams
I see as well that
I'm stuck in mesh
with claws
tearing at my flesh
and gradually it's
all too real
but when I..
I bandage your wounds
my own heal

I stare into you
And see my heart
It begins to
make sense, part by part
I am the claw, that rips
I am the hand. that whips
I gift wounds to one and all
I feel humbled, I feel small

I cover your wounds
and stroke your hair
I kiss your forehead
and put you to bed
and quietly walk away
relieved of my own pain
these lessons in life
will not go in vain

guise

Too long to forget
Losing you
Why do I fret
Too stubborn to bend
Too honest to say
you’re just a friend
Too casual
to question why
might shed a tear
When I say goodbye
Too etched to erase
Intertwined in a maze
Blessed to know you
Too well to adore you
I’m you and you’re me
Lost in riddles
Where exactly are we?
I’m your reflection
You’re mine
We ride again
In the dead the of night
With the wind
We put up a brave fight
We race in vain
The truth chasin, yanking
its horse’s reigns
and we run and we split
so that one throat
is spared from being slit
when I look in the mirror
We both meet again
I raise my eyes
I feel overpowered
for I see you clearly
I see a coward

outstanding

Whoever stored fish
in a can without a lid
n knew not that it'd
never be served a dish
had to be a rich man's kid
Oh the rich man's kid
in a blaring car
downing his pain
in an lavish bar

The pain of having less
Less being relative,
nothing short of a mess
ten pairs of swank shoes
for the eleventh
got nothing to lose

His wallet's a legend
blessed by dad's sweat
that appears on his brows
when he evades tax
or takes some bribe
In his circles
he can take pride

sweat shop cater
to his loud taste
he binges on colours
in a brazen haste
The only thing
he doesn't doubt
He must stand out
walking in the crowd

unme

You, isn't it you
I'm thinking of now
conscience creeping
into my dream's somehow

Slipping into a crevasse
you caught hold of my hand
Thought it was the end
but I'm alive and
grateful, here I stand

Isn't it you,
who just brushed past
to tell me you were near
when I stood in the fear
that I was alone

you're a stranger than strange
you're almost deranged
but wish to know you more
for I feel for us,
there's something in store

Lovesickoflove

I’m lovesick, I wanna hold you so
I yearn for you, never wanna let go
I’m sick of love, don’t waste my time
So sick of it, won’t spend a dime

Come close, I wanna smell your skin
Too sick of love to call this ‘sin’
I’m tired of love, I don’t wanna fight
Just hold me close even if I ain’t Mr. Right

You are strange, you’re such a witch
Your selfish plans, immune to glitch
You’ll wreck my world, it’s such a trend
You’re beautiful but so are your friends

I’m lovesick when I break my bread
Even more so when I go to bed
I’m so lovesick I pine for a caress
So sick of it, I couldn’t care less

I’m so lovesick, I want you NOW
So sick of it, I know it’d be such a row
So lovesick, for you I’d sing
Too sick of it to explain…
…what you’re missing!

Again it's the blues
my world's losin it's hues
It's been days and
I yearn for good news

or even a harbinger
No sweet sensations linger
Just when the mind's blank
and there's nothing to muse
there's nothing, I tell myself
so there's nothing to lose

Walls talk to me
ghosts are my friends
I embrace shadows
I cast myself from within

It's my own face
I gently stroke
between the mirror and I
there's a blinding smoke

I dream of greatness
lying unconscious
In the realms of reality
my hands extended for alms
I'll do big things I do foresee
I'm at peace with my tenacity

strength to strength
I heal and renew
As I turn
the blue to grey
I pick my colours
and paint my way

I was reading something about child-rights and chanced upon an article on the Times of India website. Having finished reading it, I noticed a link to another article titled "5 best positions to get pregnant". Though of no particular interest to me as of now, I still thought I should increase my knowledge.

The article turned out to be quite a farce. It mentioned five "things" as being best to aid conception (pardon me for this but it really was there on the website so here goes):

Missionary
Raised hips
Doggy-style
Side-by-side
Orgasms

Now the first three are man-on-top, the next on the side. Ok! According to my diminutive knowledge on the subject, apart from kinky fetish and kamasutra stuff, the only broad category left is the woman-on-top, which apparently another article by TOI suggests is one of the most successful sexual positions at giving woman an orgasm. So they're contradicting the story as a whole. And last but not least, orgasm. This pretty much suggests that any form of penetration will cause pregnancy.

They also forgot the most important point: Erection. Ah! We Indian men just circumvent all our responsibilities LOL! Articles like these really amuse me. They really don't disburse any real knowledge.

Since TOI seems to be covering sex well, here's a link to another one of their articles on sex

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-09-30/health/28082731_1_orgasm-g-spot-female-sexual-dysfunction

I will refrain from adding my own experiences about the topic but I wonder if it's as bad as they're saying it is. What I can't refrain from is quoting a part of the article, here goes

"Technology can help: Perhaps the most extreme solution for sexual dysfunction among women is the so-called "orgasmatron"-an implant inserted into the spinal cord, which stimulates the user when switched on via a remote control. Despite an initial struggle to find subjects for clinical testing, the device is now in development."

Wow! A remote controlled babe to make out with, what could be more utopic than that. Talk about technology.

Here's more TOI on technology for you:
Female marrow could turn to sperm (eeks! Brothers our balls will be redundant soon)
New reproductive technology could render men redundant (wonderful! not just the balls they mean)

They're talking ways to address pregnancy. Really, tell me, do we need this, there's a kid being born every other second in our country? Why not concentrate more on enjoying the experience. You should be a traveller, an adventurer, enjoy the journey while you reach the destination.

& Have less babies please.

Into the Wild

Christopher Johnson McCandless
Feb 12 1968- Aug 18 1992

I just finished watching the movie Into The Wild. I think I'm becoming more perceptive to movies. It probably has something to do with the fact that I've loved all the movies I've watched recently. Into the Wild was a great movie. I'll probably write my thoughts on it later but the spooky part is that H.D.Thoreau seems to be chasing me. I've been (slowly) reading Walden, then the last movie I watched had Walden in it (The Great Debaters) and today, into the wild also mentioned Walden by Thoreau. I guess I gotta speed up my reading.

Only that I really don't think McCandless and Thoreau were talking about exactly the same thing and McCandless was probably a little delusioned, if I dare say that, Thoreau probably was constantly there somewhere in his head. I'd like to add that though I used the word delusioned, I would love to admit that men like McCandless inspire me and I do, in many ways, relate to his childhood. I've had thoughts like the ones he did. Only that probably as an Indian, my parents had too great a role in shaping my life, though not thoughts, and my life would've never gone the way McCandless' did. Maybe it would have because I started to read Thoreau when I was 22 but my vocab hindered the progress and I gave up reading it; thank god. Besides at that age, silly me was too madly in love with a silly girl. All the stupidity saved me to grow older.

How I wish that McCandless was alive. If he were alive, maybe his story wouldn't appear to be that brilliant but what the heck, even a degree less, it would still be awesome. But I doubt if he would've had the realizations that he did if never went that close to death...before he actually died. Sad as I am right now after watching the movie, I know I can't change the past, I can learn from it though, "Happiness is best when shared"

Hat's off to him and to his amazing sister and to their words that changed the people around them and their story that will continue to affect all that hear it and watch it as a film.

Right to Disobey

Some things just inspire you and spook you at the same time. It all started with me, a non-reader, watching a program called Great Books on the channel I love, Discovery Channel. The topic of discussion was the book Walden by H.D. Thoreau. The discussion was enchanting and I was captivated by Thoreau’s idea of living all alone next to a pond/lake, in a self-built house and eating self-cultivated food. My tryst with the book ended as soon as it began when I downloaded the e-version of the book and began reading it. Back in 2002, my grossly limited vocabulary impeded the progress of reading that book to an extent that I gave up in frustration after perusing a dozen odd pages but the wish to read the book still lingered in my head. Then last year, when I went to meet my prospective bride in Bangalore, who happened to be a voracious reader, I was shown around the city and soon landed up at one of her favourite haunts, the book store. There, as I walked around hypnotized at the sight of so many books, reading as many title names as I could, I found Walden sitting pretty. Without a second thought, I purchased it, despite the reconciliation with the fact that I would take eons to finish reading it even if I started right away. Methinks that the reading part of my brain is either underdeveloped or skewed.

Anyway it’s been a couple of months since I bought the book and after finishing the other book that I bought along with Walden, The Wind in The Willows, which I totally adore, I picked up Walden. Thoreau’s writing left me awed. I was reading about things that I personally pondered upon so many times since the time I was very young and of course, much more than that. For as much of a thinker I thought I was, Walden made me think even more than I ever thought I could think. I was delighted to find that one of my favorite quotes, “men have become the tools of their tools” is actually an excerpt from Walden. More awed I was when I read the preface that threw light on the fact that the idea of Civil Disobedience was Thoreau’s and that the people who drew inspiration from it were none other than Martin Luther Kings Jr. and our very own Mahatma Gandhi. Here I would like to mention that Walden is a very old book and was written in the 1800s.

Anyway a few hours ago I was scanning through the sea of movies that my buddy Rick had loaded on my computer more than a year ago. I am not one who’s interested in movies and therefore they’ve been just vegetating on my computer. I’ve watched one or two in this span and liked Training Day. A few hours ago, I reckoned that tomorrow being a Sunday, I could take the liberty of watching movie and since I was feeling very lonely and morose anyway, I thought that a movie couldn’t worsen it any more. So I got down to deciding which movie to watch and after much deliberation I clicked on The Great Debaters. It turned out to be an amazing movie, just like Rick had told me. It is a true story from the 1930s in which a group of black students from a non-descript Wiley College went on to win a debate at the Harvard University; a truly captivating and an inspiring story. I’m still reading Walden these days and owing to my poor attention-span with books, am just on the second chapter despite loving what I’m reading. Why I’m mentioning Walden here is because a strange chill ran down my spine by the end of the movie as the last debate is on Civil Disobedience and guess which book these have in their hands in the movie, you’re right, Walden; a great debate, a great movie and truly a great book. It felt nice to know that I’m trying to neuro-wrestle with the pages that have truly inspired and spawned greatness in history. I hope a bit of it rubs off on me as well. I couldn’t help but write about it at this hour, right after the movie concluded.

Cleaning season

Over a period of the past few weeks, my room has been growing messier. Of course I dislike being in an untidy room but sometimes I just let it be. Then today morning Ramrati, our cleaner-maid, who’s worked at our place for more than a decade, started to complain about how cluttered my room was while she was mopping the floor. She’s in her 50s and I’ve watched her grow old over all this time. What I dislike about her is that at times she talks about unnecessary topics with my mother. My mother gives her tea and food in the morning because she comes to our place very early. This was fairly commonplace activity till the time my dad objected to it, saying that my mother was spoiling her too much.

The problem is that Ramrati and my dad don’t get along at all and strangely, it’s because of her punctuality and in some strange way her love for our family that she still works. My father is not the kindest of and Ramrati is quite good at answering back when treated unfairly. My father and Ramrati have had terrible fights; in a normal scenario the maid would either leave or be fired. Both scenarios have taken place; more than once my dad has told her to hit the road and Ramrati herself has quit three times, the longest for a month but always returned home. My mom sides with her and quite frankly when my father becomes unreasonable, I too have sided with her in the past. Such scenarios have led to a weird tension between my mom, dad and me with my father interpreting it as we both going against him for a lowly housemaid. Not once has he ever acknowledged that he can be outrageously and unacceptably rude. Anyway dad’s not always rude and unreasonable, he a nice guy most of the times.

What I’m trying to say is that I cleaned my room so that Ramrati doesn’t mumble/curse and in the process wake me up early in the morning when she’s cleaning my room. That’s one thing I hate and lose my temper at spontaneously, when I’m woken up from deep slumber by something unpleasant, be it my parents talking too shouting instruction to each other early in the morning or Ramrati incessantly mumbling curses at me. My folks have faced my wrath once due to this habit and I don’t want Ramrati to find out the hard way that I, afterall, carry my dad’s anger genes; oh the big fat male ego!

inferno

Mr. Seth's ground floor apartment was set ablaze by an electrical short circuit exactly a week ago. Our apartment is right above his. They say it was a frightening site as two fire engines and many firemen braved the smoke to put the fire out. The aluminium wires gave way after 20 years of constant usage and the result was frightening. Quite luckily no one was in the room when the TV exploded projecting out shrapnel and setting the wooden closets on fire. I now understand the big deal about fire-proof building material.
"A spark neglected burns a house", it never was so real and literal before. Whenever there has been minor sparking in the meter and/or the electrical points in the house, we've never really appreciated the gravity of the repercussions. A visit by the electrician to tighten loose ends generally solves the irritating hum. I never could imagine that an electrical fire could break out in a matter of seconds and go out of control just as quickly.
In order to not meet with the same fate, today we bought a various sets of copper wires to replace the whole wiring of the house. Havells wires are good and you get a good deal if you buy from the Industrial Area. We could purchased the same material in about 60-70% of the price 6-7 years ago as copper wasn't as exorbitantly priced back then. Sometimes the only cogency is provided by a demonstration of disaster; well we stand convinced.

headliners of hardliners

Apart from the disturbing event that occurred in Pakistan, where a Christian leader was shot dead for raising his voice against the Blasphemy Law, another headline caught my attention, in which a lecture at the Northwestern University ended in a graphic manner in which a couple demonstrated the use of a sex toy. About the former all I have to say is that although it is bad to slander about any religion, unless the some practice in it brazenly questions the very essence of humanity, such laws can also be used as weapon to wrongly indict people of other faith. Well what can I say, the victim, a minister of minority community in Pakistan, Shahbaz Bhatti is dead so it doesn't matter anymore. Maybe there'll be more who'll raise their voice and more who'll die. I wouldn't call them martyrs. I wonder if Bhatti has met Jesus already, something he firmly believed he believed he will after dying. If not, what a waste.

Let's talk about the latter, the event faces investigations by the University authorities as they say there have to be guidelines for pedagogy and not everything is demonstrable in public.
In someway it brings memories of the time when one of my close friends Nipun Kalia was to present the subject of his PhD research in front of a Dissertation-Commission at the Punjab University a few years ago. I cannot recall accurately but Nipun was studying some aspect of Catherine Breillat's movies. The big deal about the whole thing was that Breillat's movies were about sexuality and were misinterpreted by a some members of the commission as pornography. In vain Nipun tried to explain to the clamouring members that there indeed was a difference between the two. There were people on his side but there were also many many against him. He stood their being judged as a pervert because he wished to investigate something that was related to sex. Media dogs sniffed the controversy and soon there were articles about the incidence and Nipun was portrayed as a nymphomaniac. Happily married, he's anything but that. Moral fingers poked him from everywhere but that did led him to have a celebrity status within our circles and even more so at his wife's workplace.

I don't know what to say of such a contentious issue at the Northwestern University, I really don't think having a live demo of a sex toy in a university is acceptable but then again that's not what the lecture was about, it was about "Bondage, swinging and other fetishes". Well if they're investigating that at the University, then it's probably no big deal to have a demo of a sex toy. After all it's something that people do engage in and it doesn't hurt or kill anyone and is for pleasure. Anyone that says that he/she doesn't have any interest in pleasure of those kinds would have to be totally asexual and most people aren't like that. The couple that performed were exhibitionists and were more than happy to oblige. This act was performed after the lecture was dismissed and the audience was cautioned a dozen times that what followed would be extremely graphic. For me what stood out was the way in which Channel24 titled their article as opposed to the others. Following are the titles of the articles by different news agencies.

Channel24: Live sex show spices up college class

The BBC: Northwestern University sex toy show 'disturbing'

The Times of India: US university to investigate sex toy demonstration by professor

NEWS24: US university to probe sex toy demo

The New York Times: Extracurricular Sex Toy Lesson Draws Rebuke at Northwestern

Lost and found

I don’t know why I started punching the keys now. Maybe because it’s been some time since I’ve spent time with this word file (.doc) that I’ve titled Hard-Wired. It has sequels and I have most probably lost HW1, 2 and 3 or maybe they’re there on some CD. I still remember how blogging started for me. I had been writing diaries for a few years then, if my memory serves me well, I started to write on the computer and pass on my articles, anecdotes to friends on email. I am not too sure if this habit prompted Ashish to create a blog for me. I remember it was the year 2006 and I’d gone to meet him at the Bible College in sector 47. He created my account and he was the one who named my blog jesslikethat (an interesting parallel to just-like-that containing my name). I was excited and in Ashish’s words, “You took to blogging like a fish takes to the water.”

Every night I’d sit alone in a dark room and punch in anecdotes or sometime just random thoughts that led me punch keys like a mad man. I remember it turning into an obsession. I couldn’t sleep without writing something or the other. I always had something to write about and here I am now, writing about the days that were. I initially named my blog the Sargasso Sea, owing to the meta-genomics project that I was working on. This project was bolstered in India after an American scientist named Craig Venter exploited the meta-genome of the Sargasso Sea, found novel genes and started his own big venture. We Indians followed the footsteps and explored the whole of India for a metagenomic lead to wealth but after spending crores and crores of rupees, ended up with nothing. Nothing except that being a member of the project, my interested in scientific research was kindled and I went on to pursue PhD (of course not in metagenomics) and other crazy plans that I’ve yet to execute. Anyway I changed the name of my blog to “purgatory” after realizing that I was indeed writing any and everything that crossed my head. I then changed it to something that I was at peace with “the long and short of it” for obvious reasons.

In 2006 my blog, in connivance with cupid, caught someone's attention who I started seeing for a while, during a time when my relation with my then girlfriend had slipped into a coma. The end of 2006 brought one of the greatest mental depressions I’d faced till then. I kept posting on my blog. I deleted many of my initial posts in that depression, an act that I still regret.

2007 was the Launchpad of my career. I don’t remember how much I wrote then. 2008 my PhD started and I don’t think I blogged too much in those days. Life was suddenly full of other things and I no longer had the time to write but I doubt if I ever stopped writing completely. 2009 is the year that I don’t recall much of rather a period I have willingly erased from memory (ah! rather it just faded quickly of late). This also was the time when I started to miss those moments that I spent alone in a dark room, in front of a computer, writing my thoughts.

Strangely though, I wrote articles for an online newspaper and I think I wrote three of the total four in 2009. So in many ways I was undergoing a transformation as I’d started to write about more relevant stuff about the world. 2010 turned out to be the most happening year of my life till date. My breakup, arranged marriage plans, the explosions of confusions in my life and then finally…FREEDOM from everything...and then a chance meet with a stranger that...but then maybe not. My PhD work that doesn't really invite much of my guide's intellectual input barring a few spurts once in a few months (y'know just to keep me busy). Where are we headed, what's the relevance of this work? I dunno and no one's answering anything...workwise, I feel like I'm walking blindfolded and being lead by the blind.

But writing liberates me from so many mental shackles. I can breathe again; I lost a lot but in the end I'm reunited with myself. Again, I don’t know how much I blogged in 2010. Too much happened in these 365 days, most of it too emotional, both in a good way and bad, for me to pen those thoughts exactly but I did keep my blog posted. I must admit that facebook annihilated my blogging to a massive degree. All I know is that writing is important for me and though there may be a hiatus here and there, there will always be comebacks and for now, I hope I’ll start to write the way I used to; possessed and obsessed.

Let them be the judge

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Man-holds-up-flight-as-pilot-was-a-woman/Article1-666941.aspx

So here we are educating our women, expecting them to be equals but hey wait, are we expecting them to do all the things that we do in addition to the set "social protocol" of taking care of the household? I think the expectation from women has skyrocketed.

For gods sakes, let em choose. Let em choose what they'll wear and eat and how they'll live and last but not least let them be free to decide who they wanna make-out with. It's their body, don't insinuate exaggerated thoughts of piety n purity into their heads as kids. Educate them about repercussions and dangers (for that matter even the boys) but let them bloody explore their own minds and their own bodies.

Who's to say what's best for women. It should be a woman's choice to pick a profession and a partner. Just because a woman is flying a plane doesn't automatically imply she isn't taking care of her household, doesn't even imply that she has one. This passenger was quite a bigot. He couldn't even begin to appreciate what effort one has to put to become a commercial pilot.

The Embrace

I am nobody's
nobody's mine
I know it well
still I pine

capricious affection
misgiving's my rose
n' nothin I offer
to lessen your woes

come near
bury yourself
I'm here

Anuj's PhD viva tomorrow

Yeah what a title to a post. This will be his last touch with our lab. A classic example of a bad student-guide relation that went sour in the very beginning and could never be disabused. Anuj has completed five and a half years of PhD time. When I joined the lab as a project assistant in Jan 2006, Anuj was in his first year of PhD and a baby faced, happy-go-lucky kind of a person. At that time Boss-D was short tempered and felt that Anuj's behaviour was abberant for a PhD student. True, ours was a high pressure lab and Anuj may have probably done better with a softer guide. Anuj took up smoking and continued till last year when he gave it up for good. He started to drink as well. 2006 and early 2007 was the time when I myself lost control over my drinking habit. Much of this time was shared with Anuj/Sankalp, Rick and Harman separately. Man!! How much was I drinking!

My relation with Anuj has been brotherly and has grown ever closer, especially so after Sanky left for New York and I joined PhD in the same lab that I'd left as a project assistant. I was closer to Sanky and his departure brought me even closer to Anuj. Anyway the vendetta between Anuj and Boss took a whole new turn after the big JBC got published from the lab with Anuj and Arijit as joint first authors. Something went amiss in the Anuj's emotional response to the situation. He suddenly started to feel distanced from the lab owing to his thoughts on the total authorship of the paper. The wrong vibes were sensed by everyone and they started to retaliate in kind. Anuj had grown disgruntled. To me, as an "outsider" within the lab, everybody seemed to be losing it.

Apparently Boss-D didn't write a good recommendation letter for Anuj when some big scientific names in the world showed interest in Anuj's CV, Being an honest person, he's clear and upfront about his opinion and said that he would write his honest opinion in everybody's recommendation.  Anuj then left the lab to join as a Level-III PA at another lab within the institute. Since then every time he comes to the lab to meet Boss-D to remind him to send recommendations to the new interests. Tomorrow, is his final PhD seminar. I am no one to judge Anuj or Boss-D, one's my Great friend and the other a Great Guide to me; seriously, I have no issues with Boss-D, in fact, at times, I feel that he's extra nice to me. Anyway, Boss-D has mellowed down to a humongous degree over the past few years.

I've seen Anuj change from a soft chubby carefree guy to a fitness freak, hard-hearted and melancholic man. Still I can never forget the alacrity with which he lent me money and literally forced me to buy a digi-cam, which he himself hunted around for me to buy. He did it because I used to ride to far off places but didn't have a digi-cam to click as many pictures as I could. I really will remember him for his serious protocolish advices on how to patiently deal with my impatient dad and not mess my relation with him. I'll always remember that trip to Haridwar on Jan 15, 2007 when Sanky ditched us both and left with his friend and we both spent an amazing time at the Shanti-kunj Aashram roaming around and exploring the adjoining areas on foot and how we sat to warm our hands near a fire set-up by an old yogi baba. I'll never forget my bike-ride to Rishikesh for river-rafting with him when we also stopped by at my sister's place in Herbertpur. I'll never forget my bike-ride with him and Harman to Thanedar, when we simple had the most amazing time that guys can have together. I'll never forget the way he made fun of me whenever I was in an over-extended mourning period of my break-ups. I'll never forget how he (and Sanky) shaped my attitude towards life in many ways. I'll always accredit him to changing my inherent sordid and morose outlook towards life to a slightly lighter.

Last but not least, I'll never forget the awesome drinking sessions we've had and the time when we consumed bhaang (Cannabis) on Holi (like many others at the institute) and got hysterical. Of course we've had minor issues a few times (though I can't remember which ones exactly).I've known him for a little more than five years now. I remember we both got a little sentimental when I was leaving as a project-assistant and how happy we were when I joined PhD in the same lab after a gap of one year. I still kept in touch with Anuj n Sanky through that gap of one year. I'll never forget Boss-D's warning to me to not reform the gang with Anuj and Sanky when I was about to join PhD :) It's a bit saddening to see stuck in this phase of life but I'm happy that tomorrow he'll get his PhD degree and I hope he's off to a great place to do his Post-Doc. I hope his love for science is rekindled and he does well in life and I hope Boss-D and Anuj reconcile someday. Will always remember you Anuj. God bless you. Good luck for tomorrow. N yeah I will watch a movie with him before he leaves, though I hate watching movies; that's the very reason he wants to take me to one.

Veil-untyin (Valentine)

On this Valentine's, I learned that St. Valentine doesn't refer to any one particular saint like I thought. There were a couple of them. Valentine's feast too has been chucked out of Catholocism for good. Well I guess that's reason enough for the rest to pick it up and f* the sh* out of it.
Whoaaa! n just 10 minutes ago I got a call from a friend telling me about one of the most scandalous things ever. Man! First-love chasing her after losin her many years ago.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about how my Valentine's went. IT SUCKED so far as conventions go but it was better than last year. Last year I was brooding over a morbid relation that died a month and a half down the line. This year, there was nothing, there were a couple of possibilities but I thought better to leave them unexplored, the bitterness still lingering. Within the year, I have changed a lot, I'm not so sensitive about relations anymore. I value my freedom, my time, my money and my space way more than I used to. Not that I don't miss the warmth of being with somebody but what the heck, that can be had without strings attached. Strings strangulate.

This Valentine's I woke up late, I brushed my teeth and made it a point to not shave as a mark of my disrespect for the day. I worked hard and till lunch, had quite forgotten that it was Valentine's. At lunch, people at their dressed up red-best reminded me that it was the day when most singles wish to mingle and most couples spend a tormented evening trying to find a decent place to spend a few romantic moments together over dinner or otherwise. The businessmen will, if they can, devote all the 356-366 days in the year to mundane causes that will ultimately fill their pockets and accelerate the society to being that little bit more preposterous, somewhere it is headed already.

In the evening I had an uninteresting telephonic conversation with an otherwise interesting person. I feel a pull and then a push, what the heck! I guess life's about being conscious, conscious of your posture, of the passing minute, of the clutter, of the traffic, of the time to say goodbye. The only time you should let it go is when you sleep. And yet, there are so many things that aren't expressed but still felt and then you sit back and wonder if what you're wondering about is actually so wonderful or just a figment of your imagination. In such a situation, it is best to put your mind unfettered mind to better usage, like He said "let the dead, bury their own dead". Later is was back to square-one, at-the-gate date with Ritbit. That's the time when it was all loaded onto a gun of wit&humour and fires exchanged.

So much for a silly day that's just one of many. I like kisses, not headaches. That was the strange, debaucherous revelation when I saw myself in the mirror, that was my veil-untying on the Valentine's.

Ed on honor killings

Read Birinder Pal Singh's (Dean & prof. Dept. Sociology, Pbi Univ. Patiala) article titled "Honour killings: make the state accountable". The writer explains how the meaning of the term honour-killing differ from place to place. In Haryana it is sacrilegious to marry in the same caste in Punjab it's the opposite.

The writer goes on to say that modern education is not all-emancipating or liberating when it comes to issues like honour killings and that the whole concept that it is, is a "recent assumption". The writer goes on to justify his case by quoting the examples of Indians residing in cities like London and Vancouver, exposed to "plurality and multiculturalism" would not be involved in the act. What was new to me was the "common knowledge" that gangs of boys and girls living in these big international metros charge hefty sums of money to divulge the whereabouts of the runaway couples to "'honour retrieving' parents". Apparently the members of these gangs are well connected and needless to say that "winning the confidence of potential victim(s)" is a part of their strategy. On this point I fully agree with the writer, I have been exposed to the minds of the educated people who are/have-been at high positions.

The writer talks about the origin of khaps to the medieval era of regional feudatories when the khaps provided protection to its clan. "Hence it's role was to to ensure the safety of the community from external threats and internal collapse". He says that it's not that honour killings are a recent occurrence but has merely come under the media-light.

The write goes on to unload the blame on the modern day "populist and perverted political culture" failing to maintain law and order and thus resuscitating institutions like the khap. He says it's also the common knowledge that Haryanvi politicians in Haryana demanded Mitsubishi-Monteros just two years after they were given Toyotas and their counterparts in Punjab ask for Toyotas while the schools and hospitals are starving of funds. The writer ends the article saying that the state functionaries have to become modern themselves- a concern for the other- before modernising the society.

My take on this:
I partially agree with the writer in that modern education doesn't seem to break the shackles of bigotry that's apparently infused into our blood and is being brazenly handed down from generation to generation.
I say that it's a vicious cycle. Ever heard of any political leader's offsprings were to carry out the act so sacrilegious to their society. They can't for if they do, their daddies will not win the next election and they won't get to be as profligate with the public money. In saying that I'm saying that we the citizens are fueling this bigotry because this is the bigotry that's so ingrained in our own minds and no education modern or otherwise has been able to remove it. I don't see a cure for it, it's a the emancipated individual that sees the honour killings as culpable, most others say that it's bad with an undertone that says "serves them right". Toyotas, Mitsubishis or any other Japanese brand's presence or absense will fail to free our minds. We want leaders that move in big cars, are brazenly shameless, ruthless and rich for we aspire to be the same.

Fix it

Today was an interesting day. A series of events ultimately led me to start saving a bit of money every month in the form of a recurring deposit. The events were purely emotional, both positive and intensely negative but this resulted in me saving a small sum of money that I otherwise would never be able to. Today in retrospect, I wonder if I should feel happy or sad because the sad part is that had I been saving since the time I actually started to earn, that is five years ago, it would’ve been pay-back time by now and the elation is the simple thought “better late than never”. Before late last year, I had not a single penny in the form of savings. I led a simple life, no great clothes, no great passion but I managed to drain out my entire stipend being reasonably happy about nothing.
Last year my eyes were opened to the fact that if I wanted to get married right away I was at the mercy of my parents. Not that that my parents are wicked but I felt that it should be the other way round; at least I should be partially independent and not looking towards my family for the entire financial requirement of the occasion. Anyway, the marriage drama didn’t work out for me but what it did for me was to give me a sense of doom that awaited me. Suddenly I saw inflation, suddenly I realized that I wanted to be married in another five odd years if not earlier, suddenly the thought that my parents weren’t gonna be around forever and the fact that they might even need me to support them. Suddenly I felt I might have a kid or two as well in the next decade. Suddenly I wanted to have it all because I suddenly realized that I was so goddam lonely.
Today I went to SBI PGI with Rajni, my lab-mate. It is the bank with which I’ve had an account since the mid-1980s when I first opened my account under my mom’s name with a sum of around two-hundred rupees which I’d collected. Times were different then, I remember two-three bank-employee-uncles would laugh and gladly calculate the sum, in coins, that I’d collected in the piggy-bank. Mom tells me they used to look forward to seeing me and my coins because they were happy to get the coins, the much needed change (chiller!). So today I broke my six-month old recurring-deposit account and added a bit of money to it to start my first fixed-deposit with a paltry sum of money. The FD, despite being small, made me feel ecstatic. I felt like I’d accomplished something great. Why? Because for the past nearly twenty years, I’d grown a habit of wasting money, whatever amount I had. This is my second stint with saving money after the piggy-bank episode nearly twenty-five years ago. Today signified the breaking of the bad habit and the revelation of the importance of financial-planning. It sounds stupid to others but to me it’s a significant leap in my maturity.
“I do not use marijuana”; to someone who’s never been addicted to it, it’s no big deal to say so but to someone who’s managed to get out of the habit despite failing a couple of times, it sure is a big statement. So when I say that I’ve started to save money, it’s a huge statement. I know I’ve started out small but I know I’ll make it grow steadily. It’s not about greed but about planning to avoid financial disasters in the unforeseeable future.
Just a few minutes before I sat down to write this, I found a note written by my ex that she’d slipped inside the wallet she gifted me. It talks about having lotsa money! Lol, sweet as her gesture was, I hope it turns symbolic for things to come. Gotta prepare for my next PhD and I can’t afford to be deprived either. How I wish I hadn’t been so profligate in the past but what the heck, better late than never.

“Semper Sursum”
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Blotcha

There are instances that make me wanna believe in God, not because miracles happen (if they do i.e.) but because some things are so inexplicable. They are so till the time I nail em down and hammer out the reason for the mystery and then I'm back to being an atheist.

So I couldn't get this blot right for almost a year now. I've done western-blots for the protein I work on many a time but that's not a big problem since antibodies have very high affinities for their targets; they recognize diminutive quantity of target that gets blotted. However N-terminal sequencing (NTS) was another story as it required a reasonably high amount of protein to be blotted on to the PVDF membrane. By fluke, I got it done once but that a very high quantity of pure protein and somehow managed to travel from the SDS-PAGE to the PVDF membrane.

Today morning, I gave up. The small quantities of proteolysed fragments just wouldn't blot despite my tenacious effort to do so for the past one month. After much deliberation, decided to look for some other way to get the NTS of the fragments and expressed my frustration to my guide. He suggested I check the literature on an alternative method. As I sat on the computer I thought I'd check out electroblot-troubleshooting. In the sea of results, I found a pdf that I sensed would be of some use and as I was perusing through it, came across a line and read no further. I sprinted across to cast the SDS-PAGE gel and get the transfer buffer ready. It consumed my whole day and I was mostly quiet, working but never doubting for a second that success was just a few hours away.

Six hours down the line, lo and behold, the most beautifully protein-blotted PVDF membrane that our lab has ever produced. It made my guide spring up from his seat. It made one of my labmates visibly upset (not everyone will be happy at your success), and others happy but happy or sad, they all came to me to inquire about the protocol. After having shared my knowledge, I called it a day.

A big hurdle crossed today. Now I'm looking forward to designing mutants and hopefully get one that works wonders and some poor man's life can be saved. Makes me feel so good about working hard on this project.

Here'r two I just made up, talking to myself:
Solve problems my love but only relevant and non-fictional ones.
While solving a problem, kindly ensure that you don't turn into one.
JSS

This is not what it looks like

A packed (unopened) light-lemon colored Millipore syringe-filter that I accidentally brought home in my pocket and casually placed on the dining-table, instantly and almost violently startled my parents who were eating dinner.
"Is something wrong?" I thought.
I looked at the filter again...DAMN!!! THIS IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.....
The stupid thing looks exactly like a condom :|
Funny how I never saw it that way in the lab

A few more

I remembered you till the time I didn't call. (wrote this one before)

I hear all these nice things people say about breakups and I wonder if i was dating a mean alien.

Break-up is so called because you break a bad habit and grow up.

The best year

2010 has been a great year for me, I will go on to call it the best year of my life despite it serving me the most horrifically painful moments I've even faced.
It started with a decaying relation with my closest girlfriend ever, we celebrated the New Year party separately.
UMPM-2010, the international conference at IMTECH that I got the opportunity to anchor.
The extreme bliss of being loudly appreciated by the sarod maestro Pt. Biswajit Roychoudhary at the spic-macay function at UMPM-2010
Her parents taking her to Bombay, followed by more putrefaction of our relation.
The most horrible Valentine's -- Dog Show and Salad bar
JeRi rescue
Ekta: Friends after 14 years
Harman's wedding and all the time up to it -- the first big revelation of my life
The Break-up
A week of relief
Months of regret
Bike ride to Thanedar with Harman and Anuj- Surreal. The horror of getting back to reality; very real.
Shehanai vadan
Riti's gift
Bike ride to Rishikesh with Anuj.
Shaadi.com
Trip to Di's
Anita and the effort to get married and shut the doors behind me
First flight
First trip to south
Second manic depression of the year
Possibly one the handful who know what it feels like to make-out in depression.
First interesting chat with a stranger on a plane, Archana D. M.
Relief of getting back home without a putative wife
The relapse
Wedding story: The End
Marriage Phobia: The Beginning
First time experimental characterization of my molecule
First time I started to see what my work has to be and...can be.
Actual value of my single-hood; priceless
Sleaze and Raunch: somethings are meant to be forgotten
Fresher Party: performed the song with Kit, Manav and the kids...HiT!
Reunions: Romit, Karanpal, Navinder
Second trip down South.
My first poster and poster presentation at SBC, IISc Bangalore
The second trip down south and the revelation of my scientific status quo
The poster presentation mistakes I will never commit and lose could-be friends
The huge malls and the first horror house trip
Walks and bus rides: Loved Bangalore.
Loved IISc and all the experiences
First night flight: beautiful city lights and a horrific landing.
Returned maturer (or so I think), returned with plans.
The best time ever in the lab; either the boss or we weren't around for almost the whole of the month.
The final relapse.
The best Birthday celebration ever: celebrated with all my friends and also with my family.
Met a maturer but still very playful Jeri
Drive to Kasauli with Di, Dan and Chiki on Christmas
My ex's wedding
Saw Harley Davidson up close, for the first time.
Surreal through-the-night conversation with a stranger: amazing
A great party: Mr. Jolly and Mr Facebook

Goodbye 2010, thank you for everything.

My quotes

An ardent follower of Ashleigh Brilliant's quotes, his style inspired me to pen a quote, the thought of which was soaring in my mind for sometime.

I've forgotten you but I remember us so clearly

I loved you with all my will; I hated you effortlessly.


There's a lotta love out there, the challenge is to obtain it from the right kind of person.

-Jesse S. Samuel

Thank you Ashleigh for the inspiration.

010111

010111 or MMXL and as you might have guessed it, stands of the 1st of January 2011. As usual time passed me by too quickly for me to do anything about enlisting resolutions (NYR or New Year Resolution) or even cerebrating on what should be top priority in my life. So I woke up very late in the morning with a blank head a residual alcohol in my breath. There was too much to be done in too little time so I just slept some more thinking "hey I have to run anyway, so why not rest a bit more".
Confused people are confusing me about how to deal with them. This is silly, does it not make me one of them now.
I got the bike serviced and reached the lab by 4:00pm, this is the latest that anyone has ever dared to step into the lab with the boss around even if it's a holiday. But in the whole day there was one stretch of time when I a situation hit me. I slipped out of my lab (yeah they hate my guts) to pay the internet bill of which, today was the last day. It was very cold, cloudy, the breeze was strong. Riding a motorcycle in such settings is such a pain but for some crazy reason, also enjoyable, even if in a masochistic sense. On the way back to the lab I slowed the bike while crossing fruit vendors thinking I'd much on some apples, guavas or maybe bananas to satiate myself for I had not eaten since late morning and it was 4:30 in the evening. I couldn't decide and slowly the fruits passed me by and halted the bike next to a soup vendor a few yards away from the former. I ate three eggs and then I had soup. It was pretty cold, the few pedestrians that passed by had half their faces buried in their muffler and jackets. Life appeared to move in slow motion till a fast car shot past. Like I mentioned before, it was bit dark due to the clouds and it made the whole desolate area appear like a painting. Light fog, or even thick one, makes trees appear exceptionally beautiful. I've wondered many a time as to why this is so, probably because it hides out the inner parts, the branches and makes the peripheral part, the outer leaves, stand out and as a result the whole tree appears more like a painted tree than a real tree. Suddenly the stillness was broken by vendors rushing around and my soup vendor seemed to have a panic attack. I realized it was probably the municipality truck on a raid to check the roadside vendors. MC confiscates everything and fine them. My soup vendor requested me to help him move his four wheeled cart. I rushed to my bike to keep the soup bowl aside and helped the guy get his cart off the pavement. Had he attempted to do that alone, he'd break a couple of hundred raw eggs piled up. No sooner was the cart down, he disappeared like so many other vendors that were there. There I was, parked on the side of the road in the bitter cold, sitting on my bike and consuming hot heavenly soup. A few people crossed me giving puzzled looks. After all a guy sitting on a bike on the side of the road, holding a steamy soup bowl, for which there was no origin anywhere close by, must have appeared strange. Ah it's been a cold cold day.

Jerry Almighty

Jerry my sis’s 10 month old cute cocker spaniel is home these days along with Danny, my sis and their five year old kid, my niece Sarah. He has big hazel eyes, a rotund head and innumerable soft curls on his long ears. Maybe being brought up in an open area in the suburbs of Dehradun has made Jerry hyperactive, maybe it is a “pup thing” but he goes berserk at times running around the whole house skidding and slipping and nipping at things and sprinting anywhere, even into dead ends, at full speed.

The one thing that comes to my mind when I see this old pup is “passion”. He seems to be passionate about everything that he wants to do; at times these are not necessarily things that would earn him the title of a good dog. They wanted a dog as a snake alarm system for Sarah since she plays in the open in a place that is abound with snakes. As luck would have it, Jerry seems to be missing the exact quality that would enable him to do this. The word “caution” does not seem to exist in Jerry’s dictionary. Jerry loves and loves to be loved the family can’t help but give in to his charms, and many a time, his helplessness.

Quite frankly, Jerry would fare better as a mongoose for I know he will behave like one the moment he sees a snake; I pray that snakes keep away from both Jerry and Sarah. I am also quite thankful that Jerry managed not to find the leopard that was on the prowl in the area where my sister lives. In other circumstances he would to invite the pardus to play with him and that would have conferred everlasting peace on the twitchy, restless Jerry. That would have been one messy Tom and Jerry show.

I think Jerry’s claustrophobic in our city because we always leash him before he leaves home and our home is smaller than my sis’s. Walking Jerry is quite an experience. Jerry loves being outside and the moment he is, he transcends into a world of his own. He hardly ever looks up, his nose is constantly on the ground and he follows it like a dust particle in Brownian motion. He yanks and pulls the chain in every direction that his nose forced him to follow. I am surprised at the force with which he pulls me along. He’s a small dog to be generating that intensity of force, like I said, he oozes passion and he follows his nose with the same and when he encounters me trying to stop him, he pulls with every ounce of energy in every muscle of his body. In the beginning I almost fell from the hard yank but slowly understood that this dog doesn’t pull as light as he weighs. He never looks at me, never implores the way he does when he wants to eat, he just pulls as hard as he can, I see he legs neck and back in action trying to break free from the invisible me.

Jerry neither learnt to fear or scare anything. I have heard stories of him scaring big dogs. Witnesses say that the victims are more taken by surprise at Jerry’s haphazard motion than anything else. He seems like some small object that is moving haphazardly and too fast to be clearly visible that they get spooked. Anyway the little zealot’s inquisitiveness once landed his buttocks in the jaws of a bad tempered dog who didn’t give two hoots about the randomness in the universe. My sister turned to be more dangerous of the competition and rescued a confused Jerry from the grip of what would have been a couple of stitches and shots of antibiotics.
Of course Jerry forgets and therefore forgives and I still have to take off with him at the first sight of the ferocious stray dogs in the area before they see Jerry or vice versa. In the former case I doubt I’d be able to outrun the danger and in the latter, the would-be victim is sure to pull me towards the danger in a fury of excitement and inquisitiveness, I therefore am as alert as a dog while walking little Jerry while he’s lost in a wonderland of scents and odours. But I hats off to his ears (or whatever sense) for tonight I saw a dog sprinting towards us from a distance and I am sure Jerry saw nothing with his nose buried in a pile of leaves while I goaded him to run along with me and climb the flight of stairs to my home but no sooner had the mutt crossed under, Jerry sensed the presence of his contemporary and started to whine and pull madly at the chain. He gets too excited on seeing other dogs. Last night I told him to shut up when I got hyper on seeing a big German Shepard cross us and started to pull crazily at the chain to go closer to it. The big dog crossed nonchalantly but then looked at me with a puzzled expression as if trying to say “is this pup for real?”

I see Jerry all excited about life and all inquisitive and eager to explore even while I restrain him with a leash for I know there are places I do not allow him to go for the sake of his safety, I tug at his leash seek cover for him every time I sense danger. All the while Jerry never looks at me! He’s busy doing his thing and I’m non-existent for him. I wonder if I treat god the same way. If one exists that is. Just a silly passing thought on the eve of Christmas. Merry Christmas 2010 every one.

I remembered you till the time I didn't remember to call. -JSS

Proponents

T’was Sanjit’s B’day and I managed to not call him somehow; I suffer acute and fulminant procrastinitis.

Hashmat came over and we left for CCD-35 to meet Ashish and the others of whom we did not know. I went in the car after my bike refused to start which I later found out was because of the weak battery. At CCD, the others were Puja, Ashish’s son (who still doesn’t have a name), Mayuri and Jason.

After a few wise cracks we got to describing how the year had been for each one of us. My words were egotistical, centered on me, myself and I, how I’d hit rock bottom but risen like the Phoenix etc etc. Hashmat’s were poetic and talked about how he didn’t care much about the days gone by and the one to come but about the present moment; he even laced it with Urdu verses and it sounded nice. Puja’s was about becoming a mother and staying awake and how life-changing the whole experience was. Ashish’s was the same (of course not mother but a father) and also about how he switched his job to work for a not-well-known company (Yikes! I was about to use the word “infamous” incorrectly here), Mayuri’s was also about being phoenix but unlike me, she credited it to the power of God and I don’t remember what Jason said. Alexanderson didn’t say much but was busy absorbing the sights and the sounds around him after he woke up.

Another interesting topic that was talked about was how Facebook usage has been followed by a concomitant decrease in blogging activity and I corroborated this by my firsthand experience. This is one of the reasons that I am writing this post, for I do not feel like writing about this or any other experience anymore and it has mostly to do with my using Facebook. I believe that to want to write about something, something should stand out from the norm like a beacon staring at you in the face. That potential energy gets sapped away in trifling short messages to friends and never builds up enough once you feel that you’ve already talked about it. This post, no matter how insignificant or boring, is an attempt to break that habit of not writing. So although I do not really feel like writing right now, I am.

Ashish also informed us about an essay competition, the prize of which is an all-expense-paid literary tour of England. The details are given on the website www.revelationmovement.com. I am excited about it, not that I think that I have a chance but thinking that it would probably help me read a book or two, since I cannot get myself to read any.

An interesting discussion on God ensued and turned intense and though I remember it being great, I don’t remember the details anymore. Probably because it is 1:30am and I am sleepy but I am glad that I wrote.

When something needs to be done about a lot of things then you really should stop procrastinating. - Jesse S.Samuel

Rid(d)er

Afternoon: I fixed my bike
Evening: I thought I’d fixed my bike
Late evening: I’m in a fix here

I dunno what to make of this; was it divine intervention to make me go back to cycling, was it a wakeup call to stop procrastinating for good, did it serve to humble my loud-mouth, was it something to help me slow down and look at my life for once or was just a great script for comedy. I’d like to believe it was combination of all.

Last evening after almost losing my leg to kick starting a bullet in vain, I took a lift half way to my place and then boarded a rickshaw. Things so happened that I couldn’t manage more than 4 hours of sleep in the night. Today morning I boarded a bus to my workplace carrying my helmet. I had to walk some distance from the stop, accompanied by two people from my institute, one of which unwittingly said some nasty things about someone I care for, of course totally oblivious to the latter till I bombarded him with interrogation regarding the legitimacy of his blab. I manage to embarrass him but not without upsetting myself as well.

In the afternoon, I went to check if my bike would start. With a warm battery in the afternoon sun, it took a few kicks to revive the beast from coma. I heard the dug-dug long enough to smile and forget the morning’s incidence. In the evening, I returned to my dug-dugi and kicked again. Something about the way she wheezes that tells me if she’s gonna start in a while or just slip into coma again. She sure slipped back into coma but not without sending my leg into one as well. I decided I’d drag the fat-ass to the mechanic and did so. I reached there only to find the workshop locked and caught up a few breaths to drag it back to the institute. I realized my mistake, I’d ignored the battery water level way too long and in the cold evening, it couldn't even cough a spark into the spark-plug. I asked one of the guards at the institute for water and he offered warm water in an aluminum kettle. As I poured the life giving water into the battery, the PAPARAZZI arrived. My batchmates,seeing my pour warm water into my bike stopped and cracked wise jokes on me

“OMG! If you’d give such love to a woman, she’d keep you happier than your bike”,

“Wow! This thing runs on water? Warm water?”,

“Click his picture! We gotta upload this on facebook!”

“Evening out with your girlfriend eh!, why don’t you both go to a restaurant…err! Petrol pump!”

Sure they clicked my pictures as if they’d seen Paris Hilton’s underwear…or Paris Hilton without one…and then they disappeared without offering any help.

Outside, seeing my ordeal, the rickshaw walas, warming their hands around a bon-fire, were staring at me like hyena’s eye a dying prey. I walked up to them and asked how much they’d charge to take me to my place and I was quoted a price of 100 bucks (I mean come on, it's not like they had to carry the bike as well, it was just me). I walked back showing them my middle finger but they smiled. Maybe they thought it was some kind of thumbs-up.

I walked up to the hostel to the paparazzi hideout and told them to give me one of their bicycles (yeah I didn’t ask, I told them), they offered one provided I get my pic clicked on the bicycle wearing all my leather biking gear. I obliged and dutifully showed them the middle finger and they smiled too. No sooner had a cycled a few yards, I realized that the cycle was too small for me and its seat was made of some material that can be aptly called softwood.

My knees were just an inch odd away from the handlebar at their closest point and my weight was too much for the tyre pressure. I love cycling on my bicycle but this one was total pain and the cycle rode really heavy. As I made my way through IMTECH, whoever recognized me had a good laugh seeing me perched atop a relatively small bicycle and going zigzag trying to avoid the handle hitting my knees.

I heave-hoed my way through the less crowded roads in the beginning but as I hit the traffic I realized that the threat of being mowed down was very real; most motorists were on cell phone and/or overspeeding and caring two hoots about other “lesser” people. On every bend and corner I pedaled on like a freaked out snail watching cars and truck closing in, trying to wiggle out as fast as I could. I missed my Bullet and then later I started to miss my own bicycle which is a decently nimble machine. I watched Bullets going dug-dug past me and I sighed. I then realized that I was way too slow even for other cyclists but then was reminded of the adage “beggars can’t be choosers”. So I was beggars wasn’t I, I’d almost bully-beg-borrowed this tin-can I was riding.

Then something upset me: smoke, beedi smoke on my face, yuck! As if the vehicular exhaust wasn’t enough to pollute my lungs which were working overtime anyway, I had someone shoving tobacco smoke down my windpipe. I instantly looked at the source. It was rickshaw-wala in front of me and there we both were right under the bright streetlights. As more smoke rose and came to me, I looked at his ruffled white hair from behind; the white smoke and the white hair looked queer enough for me to forget about the filth of it for a while. As I strenuously wiggled to overtake him, I started getting a cleared picture of his face. First the ears, then the profile as I looked at the gaunt, heavily-wrinkled, weatherbeaten face of the old man I was mesmerized the thought of somebody painting a face like that or somebody capturing a picture like the one I was getting to see. As he puffed on his beedi in a style that looked so original it could be used as a video-lesson for actors, it seemed like he didn’t need to look up to the traffic to know where it was coming from or where it was going but he kept going without committing a hair of a mistake. His legs and one hand were on autopilot and his face and other arm were lost in the ecstasy of the beedi smoke. It seemed like to him there was nothing to the world cept his beedi; a strangely awesome sight. Then I thought I’d have missed it completely had I been on my bike.

As I crossed pretty women on the road, I, now perched atop a funny looking “nothing”, realized how impossible it was to get them to catch even glimpse of me; a shiny bike does shimmer me into moments of fleeting attention doesn’t it. And after a few such incidences, I realized how inconsequential that need for attention is.

This could’ve happened only on this bicycle for when I’m on my own, I’m concentrating more on racing with the motorized traffic and winning for a while; I realized that even that was a silly thing to do. I realized that all baabu-cycles riders were old men.

Then I found myself on the road right across my alma-mater. I realized that I crossed it every day but never looked at it. This time I was slow enough to spot my last classroom in the dark, I stared at it for a while and then instantly shifted my sight across to the other side to the two palm trees I loved looking at during a boring class and was overjoyed to spot them as well and in fact they did seem a little bigger than my recollection of them; 14 years is a long time.

By now I had gained some speed and was happily swaying left and right as I pedaled down home. It had been quite a while, or had it? I checked the time, it had been 25 minutes since I left and home was probably another 10 odd minutes away at that speed. Just then something bit me on my knee. Some godforsaken insect had probably made its way up there…Yeeooww! That hurt. I squished whatever it as was from outside between the fold of my jeans.

When home was in sight my cell phone began to vibrate, I took the call, it was from Arijit

“so how does it feel like to cycle up to home?” he barely managing to control his laughter. Apparently some nit-wit had updated Facebook about my condition even before I reached home.

“Awesome” I replied. I really enjoyed the ride.

BEER BELLIES

(Just returned from Mrinal's reception. I'm pretty drunk and I know what I'm writing is shitty but what the heck!)



The brotherhood of beer
it sure sounds queer
invites critcism from all corner
but to me heart it's very near

remember the time
harry was to reach home at nine
but we downed a few beers
and lost all our fears
we sang and we danced
with total strangers all night
with fire we romanced

the brotherhood of beer
do lend me your ear
harry chatty raj n I
drove to morni and got high
in the tiny camp we shaded our faces
in a desert,it sure felt like an oasis
we sang, we joked,
we fought we smoked
snaps without pants
those pictures sure still haunt

the brotherhood of beer
we hug and cry out our fear
Tarun would no longer be single
it was one of the last time that
beer, chikku n I mingled
we cried the past away
we embraced the future so
by the time it was time to say
our faces began to glow

the brotherhood of beer
the awesome smiles we wear
Sanky Anuj n I
we'd cry we'd howl we'd sigh
PhD's difficult you see
love & security's a thing of the past,
and there's just insecurity ahead
and it's all for free
and it's vast
We down a bottle or two each
and we begin to preach
how beautiful life suddenly is
we're soaring like eagles
no one to block us,
we rise we decend
we do as we please

the brotherhood of beer
come and meet the seer
his name's Taran n he's cool
I had it with him and talked of the pool
the one where you jump
and those who wish not to be broke
lie on their back and use the Rai-stroke
God's man he's always high
if he's not on His, then there's
beer on his thigh
thank you for being strong
thank you for never going wrong
Cheers to you n all my friends
let's meet up together with the bottle again

It's rainin Madonna

The sound of the falling droplets outside remind me of Rain by Madonna, it's been a long time since I heard the song. Remember back in school, I'd play it every time I was home and when it rained. I rate this is as one of her best songs. Yeah! I was obsessed with it at one point of time.
Here's a link but make sure you're plugged into a nice speaker system before u play it to do justice to the melody.
Nice lyrics, awesome music and of course, Madonna's voice-- another winner by Madonna.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzbhiNl0roY

BJP-CONGRESS

what a vicious cycle:
We won't create chaos if you stop creating chaos by talking about the chaos the we once created. No one gives a shit about creating chaos in the common man's life.

Two lines that caught my attention on a Discovery Channel program on Crocodiles

1. As the night drew closer, so did the predators.

2. As the thirsty are drawn to the water, the hungry are drawn to the thirsty

MAGIC

http://www.tripurainfo.in/info/Archives/330.htm

For Ash Brill

*
*
Like a true Ashleigh Brilliant fan, I say this:
"if it doesn't kill you, it'll make you stronger, though it may also maim you!"
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Myanmar(red)

I don't clearly remember the first time I heard the name Burma or Rangoon. Maybe it was in the school days in the late 1980s when its name was changed to Myanmar and we kids were confused about how to pronounce it or maybe it was on TV watching that old number "mere piya gaye Rangoon, kiya hai wahan se teliphoon" from the 1949 Hindi movie "Patanga".

Yeah, Yangoon sounded ridiculous after being so used to Rangoon but hey I don't even wanna get down to telling you what Bengaluru sounds like to me!

The name of the country, either one, is derived from the name of the major ethnic group of the land, the Bamars. There are other minority ethnic groups in the country as well and therefore deriving the name of the country on the name of one group doesn't sound fair but hey that doesn't bother me eh, after all mine is a country divided over races, castes, religion, region, colour, sects etc etc...phew! Oh! Gees! there's more but I'll let it rest here.

It's a densely forested country and is the world's largest exporter of teak and some precious stones; yeah that means they are chopping off their forests but what else do they do? It's a poor country with a majorly rural population.

I don't konw if S.D. Burman had his roots here but another person sure does, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is from Burma. At 65 she's as old as my mother and had been under house arrest for more than a decade and a half. Her father Aung san is considered the father of modern-day Burma. Why is she under house arrest? Apparently the military junta wouldn't let her govern the country, in other words, let democracy prevail in Burma because apparently her party, the National League for Democracy was too popular and won 59% of the national votes and 80% of the parliament votes and therefore the junta thought it best to lock her in her house and let her cook dishes instead of brewing trouble for them outside it. I mean who'd give up power like that!

By the way the word junta is not Burmese, it's of Portuguese/Spanish origin and translates to "committee" in English. Military Junta however is a term used to describe Military Dictatorship and there are many examples of these like the juntas of Brazil, Nigeria, Greece, Bolivia to name a few. I guess for some armies, when they don't fight any wars for too long against an enemy nation, they turn on their own governments. Shucks! it's not their fault, it must get really boring to do nothing with all that skill and discipline being wasted.

The Burmese junta however isn't all that well meaning though, did I mention teak in the list of exports, add heroine to it, of which Burma is a major exporter. Huh! but why do I bother, let those who take drugs, take them and die. But wait! Drug addicts are a nuisance anywhere they are, aren't they and those promoting nuisance and earning money out of it can't surely be good people. Well Junta, you're being bad boys by doing this and censoring the media in your country to an extent that nobody in your country will ever read what I'm writing; the internet too is heavily policed. I hate the place I live in for n number of reasons but i can't even begin to imagine what life would be like with my "I want more freedom" mind as a Burmese citizen. Hey I'd in Burma I'd probably be very free by now...free from my body, a spirit roaming in the teak jungles and sniffing poppy plants eh! Nice!

Senior General Than Shwe, is Burma's military dictator. It just came to my mind how uncannily it sounds like the Hindi word for dictator "tanashah". This guys been the big boss for a long time now, since 1992 to be precise. He's weird ok! When the common Burmese folks struggle to procure just enough for their subsistence, Than Shwe lives like a megalomaniac and is incredibly superstitious. Next time somebody asks you to frame a sentence with the word "unconscionable jerk", you know what to write.

So what's with the new Election hogwash in Myanmar?
It's nothing really it's just going to be transition from a military dictatorship to a non-military one. Suu Kyi is still detained and debarred, and other, more than two-thousand political prisoners, these elections were meant to be nothing but hogwash.

So why does the junta need to wash its hogs? Ah! International sanctions you see, there's more to the world that the junta gets so the junta is carrying out a cosmetic surgery to change it's appearance. After all, after the world no longer recognises them, or fakes to not recognize them, as a military dictatorship, they'd start to lift their sanctions. Why would the other countries do that? Aha! Because Burma has something the whole world drools at the prospect of obtaining; OIL!!
China certainly has more money than India to appease Myanmar and it is definitely doing so in lieu of exploiting the Burmese oil and other resources.

I end the article here. With this wee-bit information you can form your own clear opinion and read more on the aspects of this article that you wanna know more about. But the last, and definitely not the least, of the questions that comes to my mind is this, What kind of neighbours are we surrounded (hounded) by?

Goodbye

Goodbye (she used to tell me to never use that word)

She: Take care babu . (1-Nov-10 16:14)
Me: U take care babbus. have a happy life. (1-Nov-10 16:15)

leading on and being lead
commotions in this ol' head
jumping over the hurdles
and fixing the errors
I see a new face
every time I look in the mirror

des-tiny

Can’t believe the tirade I threw at our society a few days ago on my blog. The inane insults that I’ve have had to go through just to live on for another day and grow up have sure made me irascible.
Most around me will say it was my destiny; I wouldn’t say much about destiny except that for some it is used as a term to justify “move on” for others “walk all over”. I’ll kill you and say, “sigh! He/she was destined to die.” Sure sounds ridiculous but the staunch believers of destiny would say “if I die by your hands then, it was destined to happen”. Sure there’s no way to disprove that.
For me life is about choices; easy, difficult, calculated, pleasurable, painful choices. I needn’t justify the past as destiny. For me it takes more sense to analyze the course that life took due to the choices that I, and the people around me, made. That however seems to be a difficult way to lead life because it requires undertaking a lot of responsibility and answerability. I’ve just found the path, treading on it is difficult but I’m not gonna give up.
When I appeared for the PhD interview at the PGI, way back in 2005, and told one of the PIs there that I was born in PGI, the instantaneous “destiny syndrome” kicked in within me and the PI as well. What a pleasant thought, I’d do my PhD at the same place I was born. Funny how I disliked my short stay in the PGI that I’m glad I never pursued PhD there. In fact after seeing the maternity ward one day I was dumbfound, “THAT’S THE KINDA PLACE I WAS BORN IN? I hope it was less crowded (and a bit cleaner) back then”
Or that I ended up buying the bike I was fierce opponent of. Here’s another one, a nut case stops me in the middle of the road to click a picture of my bike. The stars were just in the right place that I happened to be in that place that night, a place where I’d normally never be seen and at that hour, and that too happened because the clutch wire of my bike broke down. And I’d exchange numbers with this person, something I never do. End up falling in love and somehow the course of her life changes and we’re going steady and undergoing the most complicated interpersonal education of my life till date…and then steadily away from each other.
Or that I made my profile at a wedding portal and a “kind of an” interesting person shows interest in me and I accept her offer by clicking a button, just like I casually had for eight other women who’d shown interest. Then I think its destiny and take the first cheap flight to a city more than two thousand kilometers away from mine to meet her. And the very first night she take me out, the first day that she’s met me, she’s hardly covered with clothes. I have the most terrorizing experience that I never could tell her about how I felt while she was feeling good! But then again, she said that that’s the way people dress around in Bangalore and true maybe I am from a backward place called Chandigarh but what the heck, I didn’t see anyone else dressed up like that in Bangalore either, maybe she’s disillusioned. Had I not believed so much in destiny, I’d saved a good amount of money by now.
Yeah but my experiences have been the kinds I’d never thought I’d get to experience, or even that they existed. So call it destiny, or call it imprudent choices, there's nothing of the past that I wish to change.
It’s time to calculate affordability when time, money and not to forget, a life is at stake.

Those Serpentine Roads

It was another trip down memory lane with her this evening, a short ride through those roads and avenues and those streets from not-so-long-ago yet from the times that can aptly be called The Past. It felt good and not burdened and I didn’t feel that lump in my throat that I did on an earlier occasion. We’re lovers no more, we’re not friends either. Today we were like two free souls that were charting the paths that we moved through in the past. I never thought we could hang around like that. Anyway we were just out for a very short while; took a detour on my way back home and I was late anyway so I had to rush.

There’s this ominous thought in my head (even right now) that I’m gonna break down and start to feel that remorse again, the utter helpless remorse of having lost her. However I take a deep breath and take solace in the fact that if “we” were foolish enough to have lost something that was so dear, we need to pay the ultimate price and not repeat those mistakes in life. True also is the fact that she’s still in there and this space where she sits will only be freed once she goes away, once she’s out of sight, which will be very soon. I feel sad thinking that she’ll be gone soon but I’m happy too that I will finally let her go and gradually her memories will fade (will they ever?). Maybe they’ll just take a back seat and make way for more important aspects of life and more important relations too. I wish her well. I will not let such beautiful memories poison my life.

Speaking of poison, I just watched a guy who got bitten by a rattler on Discovery Chanel. They say a snake can strike out to a distance from half to two-thirds its body length. This one was an eight-footer so it had quite a reach. It dug its big viper fangs just a wee bit into the hand of the guy who’d picked him up (!!). The guy said it didn’t hurt so much for a minute but then when the pain kicked in, it was unbearable and his hand started to swell up. He described it as feeling like his hand was being minced in a meat-mincer. By the time he reached a hospital his system had started to shut down. Medics jumped in to save his life first and after declaring him stable, they concentrated on his hand which had become necrotic by now. His flesh had dissolved and one could see through his hand it was bleeding profusely and the venom was still acting and dissolving more flesh. He was administered antivenin but that could only stop further damage, what had already occurred couldn’t be reverted. Rattler venom can dissolve bones as well; pity the animals/rodents it feeds on, they’re well digested and dissolved from inside by the time the snake starts to ingest them. The medics pressurized him to allow them to amputate his hand but he refused. The video was horrific, he was all needeled with drips in one hand and the other one looked like rotten meat and he was writhing in pain. The docs did the best they could and saved his hand, saved being a relative term. His thumb joint got almost dissolved and couldn’t be fixed in a normal position, and the same happened to his index and middle fingers, all of which are almost nonfunctional. His ring finger and small finger are normal though but I guess he still can’t play guitar if he used to and if was right handed i.e. Sad but true, time and chance, in a fleeting moment, can alter the course of your life, like what happened to my dad when he met with that horrific accident when a bus ran over his foot.

Anyway, time flies and dad’s ok, as ok as he could’ve been after an accident like that, I do miss his big toe and the other toe next to it. As a child, I remember cutting his nails. I’ve never talked to him about it for I wonder how much he misses it himself. Sure, time flies and so does a bot-fly, an insect of the rainforest that lays its eggs on mosquitoes. When the mosquitoes bite humans and other creatures, they lodge the bot-fly eggs on the skin. The moisture and nutrients on the skin cause the eggs to hatch and the larvae bore through the skin and start to eat the flesh inside. The keep digging and keep eating. This happened to an American guy who’d gone to roam the South American wilderness. Five weeks after he’d returned to the US, his two-hundred odd bite-marks had subsided cept two that kept growing big and started to ooze blood and other strange fluids. The docs in the US gave him IV antibiotics and discharged him. Apparently a case in the whole of the US had never been reported before and no one suspected a case. The guy decided to tape up the holes in his legs one night. When he woke up the next morning one of the tapes had come one and he saw something wiggle from the hole. Apparently the bot fly larvae requires copious amount of oxygen unlike some other parasites of the gut, like the tape worm. The guy quickly switched his video camera on, grabbed forceps and pulled the wiggly thing out of the hole in his leg, it was half an inch big and looked quite annoyed. Now this guy was motivated to pull the other one out as well so he covered up the other hole with large amount of Vaseline. The bug wiggled out a big but no sooner had the guy caught hold of him, he escaped back into the hole in his leg and buried itself deeper, chewing into his inner flesh while doing so. The guy screamed in pain but was determined and repeated the procedure, this time he grabbed the worm well and what followed was a tug-of-war with the guy pulling the larva out and the larva holding on to the inside of his flesh with great strength. Slowly and surely the guy pulled it out, this one was thrice the length and fatness of the first one. It wasn’t a pretty sight at all but hats off to the guy for his guts.
Sometimes it so happens that the experts cannot figure the problem out and prescribe a treatment that doesn’t cure. A couple of thousand bucks, countless hours and a spike in stress levels has been the cost of the wobble in my bike. A condition that no one till date has been able to solve. 42 emails exchanged with the bullet guru of the world, Pete Snidal and he’s run of ideas too. My bike still wobbles, without letting out the scene of crime. No bullet mechanic that exists in Chandigarh has been able to fix it. But I think I finally see the wiggly end of the larva. When this is done, I’ll educate a couple of hundred mechanics about the strange, uncommon problem they probably never faced but never gave a second thought to look into because they were all too busy making a quick buck doing the mundane stuff. I don’t blame them, not like I’d kept a prize money for the one that cures my bike but I see it happening at the first chance that I get to fix it and how sweet will that feel when I finally ride my stable bike.

There’s so much in life to stay happy about and to stay excited about. I’m learning that you shouldn’t pick up a big rattler on the road, you not throw caution to the wind when you’re out exploring the unknown, you should observe your surroundings and the people with a keener eye, and last but not least, you shouldn’t let beautiful memories poison the happiness in your life.

I can smile about today evening’s little outing with her without a heavy heart. I still can’t believe we didn’t make it, but then I must accept it. Goodbye, wish life free of serpents, bot-flies or any other unhappiness.

My foot

Ramlila sounds outside are blaring. I wonder why I don't feel the need to take a closer look. When was the last time I watched ramlila? I guess it was way back when I was younger than ten and maybe no more than twice back then also. I couldn't understand much owning to the loudspeakers of the time being acoustically poor. Extremely loud sounds make me uncomfortable. Back then the sets, the actors, the attire and all the paraphernalia seemed royal and grandiose. As I grew up and observed better—sounds counter-intuitive doesn't it—I reckoned that all those things that I found grand as a kid were actually quite shabby. However that only raised the respect I have for these artists; keeping a tradition alive through thick and thin of modern world. I do wish they were a little less blaring though.

Haven't times changed, I remember when Reebok and Nike were officially launched in India. I think that was way back in 1996-97. I had friends who wore these shoes before they were launched in India, courtesy their extended family in the western world. I remember the most inexpensive shoe by these companies was priced at Rs. 2500/-, these days you have a few shoes priced lesser than that. I'm talking about the time when the most expensive Indian sports shoe was a liberty Force-10 that was a full leather upper with a great rubber sole priced at around 400 bucks, compared to that, "air-bags in soles" was a alien idea that left jaws hanging. We'd heard about Michael Jordan as young basketball players, a few with Cable-TVs in their homes, and others at the former's homes, had watched him play. Those towering American basketball players wore shorts and vests that seemed affordable (or so we thought!) but we never missed those big sneakers while watching them dunk or dribble or anything. When I saw Jordan in a Nike Ad, I saw Jordan, then I saw the shoes and all the gimmicks that they were embellished with.

"Beautiful, I wonder what those feel like on the feet." I thought to myself while watching Jordan in an overtly aggressive pose ready to dunk the ball into the dungeon of eternity.

Rs. 300/- the price of an Action Shoe that was very popular for nearly a decade and a half till the Big-Feet stepped into India. Basketball is a high impact game for the joints especially when the only courts that we had were cemented and the only shoes that were all wore provided negligible cushioning, actually the rubber soles of a bathroom slipper would provide better cushioning than the shoes that we guys at the Sector-46 Stadium owned. Thankfully most of us were skinny 14year olds, not carrying too much weight to hurt out joints so bad. Action, a shoe my dad found overtly expensive and therefore would never buy me one.

Watching these cool phoren sneakers, Indian companies decided to give them a run for their money and came up with a brand called Tuffs. A pair of these Action priced shoes, looked like a Nike on display, it even felt comfortable (for a week or so), till it proved that cheap rexin couldn't match pure leather and that cheap soles actually mean cheap "souls" of the Indian manufacturer that could make you feel happy for a week then leave you in lurch staring at your sneakers, the beauty and comfort of which seemed to have sneaked away. So a month down the line of owning a pair of Tuffs, I stared at them in disbelief. My dad was finally convinced to buy me a pair...and they let me down. Two months down the line they looked like very funny and flaccid gunny bags with cream poured over them (that was the design) on my feet . I couldn't understand quite well back then that if the price of a Tuffs around one-tenth that of a Nike, they were actually supplying one-twentieth the quality. It didn't matter because quality-wise it wasn't in the league anywhere close to the international brands. They were just playing on the mind of the boy from a middle class family who couldn't afford Nikes but desperately wished to own one since everyone around him had them (for me my dad was the devil himself for not buying me those). In a way these shoes was some kind of a counterfeit, they looked like those to make you buy them but then they run flat before they've bedded your feet in. You can't play basketball wearing Tuffs without wearing them out in a jiffy.

Anyway, I grew up. Ma sent me money from the middle-east and I finally bought my first pair of truly international shoes: Adidas. They were beautiful and they were comfortable and they were good for me because I'd grown very fat and therefore my joints needed cushioning from my body-weight. Basketball days were long over but the appetite had grown. Adidas cushioned me very well and I grew fatter eating the phoren Kraft Cheese (oh! I could "down" a glass of that and still want more for the rest of my life) and Kit-Kats and Mars and Hersheys and whatnot. Ma wanted me to have everything that I yearned for and the more I had it, the more I yearned for it.

Nothing against the shoes, they were all great, the Reeboks, the Nikes, the Adidas that I bought from the money ma sent me. Dad would've had a fit if he ever knew the price of those shoes; if Rs 300/- was expensive, he would've made me wear the Rs 3500/- shoes in my hands, maybe even kept them on a display in the house. I just took the 300 odd bucks from him, put in another 3000 odd bucks and buy the shoes and tell him they were for 300. He never found out, he was least bothered so long as I didn't bug him to go shopping for them with him.

Only around 4 years ago did I watch on Discovery Chanel that extra cushioning in
shoes was actually bad for day to day use. Of course they were not talking about morbidly obese people or ones with joint condition and the likes. For a normal healthy human body, walking barefoot strengthens the muscles and tendons of the foot and the legs. It is now known that wearing extra cushioned shoes makes us place out body weight on the wrong side of the foot which is detrimental to the limb health and can even put unnecessary pressure at the wrong places in the spine.

I reckon that as much as it was about owning a pair of good-looking comfy shoes, it was more about "this is gonna make me look more acceptable to them" back then.
At 30, I do like owning a pair good shoes but I surely don't mind walking barefoot if I feel like, caring the least about what people would say, for me, that's been the best gift of growing up, to not care too much about superficial stuff...beyond a certain degree! ;)