A Dovahkiin Rests

Adam Adamowicz (1968-2012)

The idea of someone dying can fuck with people's heads in so many different ways. I used to think that only when someone you were related to, or were friendly with, died, did it effect you. A stupid notion that was. I know that now.

Till about two and a half hours ago, I had no idea who Adam Adamowicz was. And then a friend told me how the internet was abuzz with some people claiming that Whitney Houston's death stole the thunder of another person; "the Skyrim guy" she said. It's funny how the internet works. Within thirty seconds we found out it was Adam Adamowicz. Within fifty, I found how some people online were fighting over how fan posts over his passing were such repeats on this forum. It's a little sad how we lose some sense of morality online. I guess when one has a really badass or hipster user name, one has to live up to it. I shouldn't be judging them though. I have laughed/yawned at funerals. I guess it had a lot to do with some boring rituals hindu funerals are made up of.

Adam's passing hit me like something I had not felt all throughout the last year, when famous people were dropping down like extras in disaster films. Ignore my crassness. There's something weird about celebrity deaths and the social media. I haven't figured it out yet but I can't help but sadly laugh at things like "RIP Steve Jobs is trending on Twitter".

Adam was a concept artist who gave us Fallout 3 and Skyrim. Ever since the Skyrim videos were released in late 2010, I have been glued to YouTube and since then, I've been planning on building a gaming rig that could support this game. The point is, I was surrounded with Adam's and the entire Bethesda team's work.

Remember how you felt when you were told that Heath Ledger was dead, right before the Dark Knight hit the theaters? That's how I'm feeling right now. I haven't played Skyrim yet, but now I must. I can't comment on how his friends or colleagues feel right now. I better not try to gauge what his family must be going through. But to all the people who knew Adam as the genius behind making the world of Tamriel come alive in Skyrim, I tell you this - it is okay to feel sad about his passing, but let us celebrate his immortality instead. Enjoy the game for all that it offers, treat it like an old painting in a museum for it is in no way a lesser work of art. Every hour you have been/will be spending in Skyrim, let it be a tribute to the artist who used to be behind the scenes.

Adam, you will be missed.

I will stop crying now and go back to working.
Only then can I afford that rig I promised myself.

It hurtsssss us!

I just chatted with clients who say "ASAP" about 47 times in a conversation. This beats the record for "like"s I had heard while talking to a friend, who's like ya-know, like, very, like chilled and cool otherwise.

Then there's this another client who calls himself Shown Parker on the internet. I kid you not - that's how he spells it. Turns out he's a Gujju who wants to hire "Contain" writers. 

This planet is strange.

How 2011 (rear) ended me..

Facts -

• Net Resolutions around Dec/Jan have exponentially increased since the arrival of Facebook.
• The number of fucks Delhi gives in regards to global warming is zero.
• The content writer is the scum of the universe. Even below the outbound Hindi call center guy who stays near Atta market in Noida. And he is NEVER content. 

So, how did I spend the night of December 31st, 2011 you ask? Come, (don't) I shall tell you.
Did you ever have a dream where you're surrounded by beautiful naked people all around you, stuffing things into each others' orifices?

Well, neither did I. (But I'm sure someone does dream about those things)

But, I got to live one of these dreams. Oh yes! (repeat 6x)
So, when the entire world was celebrating the arrival of the last year of human existence (Yes, I believed everything the Mayans and John Cusack's movie told me), when my yellow bro Thupten was asking me to accompany him to a party which I'm guessing had booze, women, grass and a guitar, when Pori was having a good time with her sisters, when Sunayana was being the cool hippie somewhere in Rajasthan, when my parents were gorging on excellent food back home, when Kar was enjoying the after-party of her birthday party somewhere in the hills in North Bengal, when Pankhuri was eating all the cakes her Mum was baking at home, when the Nigerians in the next building were going in with crates of alcohol every ten minutes, when Johny Hendricks was knocking out Jon Fitch with one left overhook at UFC 141, I was....

... writing 24 articles for the website www.mangasm.com (The lack of hyperlink is intentional. No, seriously.)
This website sells anal sex toys for men and I (of all content writers out there, WHY ME???) had to write about the heightened orgasms a guy could get if he rubbed his prostate gland with the right amount of pressure. And that was just one of the 24 topics!

So yea, there were no girls, only guys inside my head... and that too, naked ones with this expression. If I were a gay content writer, I could have still seen the silver lining... but, sigh...

I tried going out, but Delhi winters are seriously not good for Bengali boys like me. Also, the auto guys were charging 50 bucks for a 20/- ride to Priya. Screw this!! I wanted to hit them on the head with the biggest prostate massager mankind has ever seen...

I came back to my room and tried to finish the work. I even waited for Stockholm Syndrome to hit me. But no. Nothing. I just sat like a loser and carried on typing.

Happy New Year, everyone.
Die.

P.S. All you guys out there who want to 'experiment'. Let it be known that stimulating your prostate gland can induce an orgasm which can last up to an hour. For more details, go to mangasm.com

Woody Guthrie's New Year Resolutions from 1942.

Assembling a PC - from lowest to highest budget

Lately, I've been quite obsessed with assembling a Gaming PC, mainly because my laptop (a Compaq CQ45 Core2Duo with 3GB RAM and 256MB dedicated graphics) is about to die soon.

Also, another teeny weeny reason is that ..
SKYRIM HAS RELEASED!

Anyway, whenever I'm not working or eating or sleeping, all I do is browse the World Wide Web for PC Assembling guides. That is when I came across a link which has a detailed chart on what hardware to use for assembling the best PC for any budget. Of course, I cannot afford the last two configurations, yet. But some of you might. So here's the link.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af150/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png

Thank me.

Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same

Warning - This is a rant.

This year was sad. Some friends just moved far, far away. The trouble is, I don't know if it's something I did or if they just got bored. What I find more scary is that everyone seems to be growing up really fast. Jobs, partners, aims, 5 year plans, etc. If the Kids are All Right, then why the sudden race? I can never get my head around it. 

I even tried planning a trip with one of them. Didn't work. Sudden exams are the universe's WMDs which annihilate my happiness this time. I realized I upset this lovely friend. And now we are suddenly distant.

All of us, have had our own things going on - work, studies, struggles, families... but now, it seems to be too visible. The other day, one of them told me - "What the hell are you doing with your life?". I had no answer. How does anyone answer that? I can't bore others with my "plans".

Barney Stinson was right. When he's feeling down, he becomes more "awesome". I want that power.

I'll try my hand at juggling, I think.

Thanks for listening.

Headphones, Food and People - A walk through Old Delhi

Deep fried fun.

Shaahi Tukda - A royal piece indeed.

Don't be fooled by the crowd - they give you way more space than rest of Delhi

Cool Topis.

A starving belly, a walk through one of the best yet cheap gourmet lanes in town at a time of the day when the locals had just broken their fast, coupled with some of my favourite music arranged in an arcane playlist, and the best bit – shuffle mode. This, I tell you, is the life. So when The Shins started strumming their way into simplistic glory on New Slang, I found myself walking just like the guy in the video, clueless about what to dig into as an appetizer. (The next time someone says soup I’m gonna souperkick his derriere to Manchuria). Like a true Bengali, I start with a sweet dish – pretty sure I’m gonna end my feast with another. The Shaahi Tukda is made from specially baked sweet bread, mixed with all kinds of dry fruits topped with a not-too-sweet-but-fat layer of dry cream and a plate costs you ten rupees. I was happy. ‘Twas short lived as the track changed to Phil Collins’ Another day in paradise. I was suddenly conscious of the three street urchins staring at me from the other side of the narrow lane. Always had this argument with myself whether I should give in to the pleas of street dwellers, or walk on out to discourage the culture of begging for alms.

 Pressed NEXT and walked on. (sneer at my apathy, yes)

 Mohammed by Dandy Warhols helps me forcefully distract myself from such random arguments. My shallow heart aligns its beats with the haunting bass intro of this beautiful song...”I only wanna do the right thing, but all these demons pass my side...” So I find this entrance to a dargah, and sit out the remainder of the song. Listen to it, and you’ll kind of have an idea why.
The track changes to Seven Seas by Antix. As much as I love their work, I couldn’t help noticing after two minutes, that my steps were matching up with the exact beat of the song. And that’s when I realized, it’s about time I changed the track. It’s physically impossible to keep up steps while walking with the beat of a trance number. You’ll eventually end up running like they do in the Roadrunner Show. Classic rock in the form of The Doors comes to my rescue. I was literally shadow singing to the beef kabaabs and tikkis as they were being roasted on the grill. What else can you do with a song like Light My Fire? Do not answer, it was rhetorical. The kabaabs and tikkis complimented each other like the drums and keyboards did in that amazing instrumental break. The plan of taking my own sweet time while eating food of such great quality takes no time to fail. Picture Homer Simpson gobbling a beef steak. I was as dedicated. That’s it, appetizers were over. Not that I had enough space for a full meal from here on, but hey, I do not loiter around in Old Delhi every other day, do I?

Lord of the Rings 

Stepping into a small restaurant called Sultan Hotel, I head straight for the small table upstairs under a small but strong wall fan. I look for someone to help me place my order. Abdul, a boy of about fourteen, bounces up the stairs. I ask for two tandoori rotis, a beef korma, and nihari. He seems more intrigued by the shape of my head, as if he’s planning a PhD, on the dents* up there in my skull. I repeat my order. He jumps out and hops back in exactly in a minute with the food. The Doors give way to Chet baker, although I doubt if, while writing My Funny Valentine he had the same look in his eyes, as I did while drooling over the juicy meat pieces. As if I cared... One slow track follows another, and this time it’s Radiohead with Talk show host. This is a true testament to the greatness of food over here in this part of Delhi – even my favourite band in the world cannot distract me from my mission. Two more rotis and Pearl Jam’s Nothingman have passed, and I’m suppressing burps trying to convince myself and there’s more space left. Some other day maybe - No, not maybe - some other day for sure. 

And now I’m thirsty. It’s sort of hard to spot your favourite lassi shop in a crowded market, but frankly, Smashing Pumpkins’ 1979 animated my monologue of bumps and grunts and anglicized Urdu apologies. I finally find it, order a big glass of sweet lassi and end it with a very satiated “Aaaahhh” as if I was the third band member Wham! never had. Bob Marley sings Coming in from the cold. Ok, this might not mean a lot to most people, but to me, some of my close friends and lots of people I’ve met in Kasol, Himachal Pradesh, Mr. Marley is Lord Almighty. The night was ending quite well. I was in two minds whether to take a rickshaw back to the subway, or just walk. I decide to walk as the track changes to Born Slippy by Underworld made famous by the closing scenes in Trainspotting. I smile and wonder if my music phone has a mind of its own. I’m sure it does when I enter the train. Radiohead is back again with Fake Plastic Trees.


*Ah yes, the dents on my skull - My birth involved forceps. And, someone dropped me right after I was born. My head hit the gurney. Now, there's a dent on my head.

Photos by - Tracy Ghale (https://www.facebook.com/tracy.ghale)

gangi frá engill

Never knew I'd be such a drama queen. The news was something I had been expecting for some time now. But then again, you know, there's always this hope... that may be things are not as bad as your fears tell you. The good thing is, I've run out of fears now.

I needed to run.

Just got out of the room and made my way to the main road. finished a smoke by the time I reached Kusum Pahari Slum. The road from here to DLF Vasant Kunj was a straight mile stretch. There were no cars on the road. The traffic lights were red though. Weird.

I ran.


For drama's sake, I dashed as the lights turned green. I wasn't expecting a great pick up. May be I wasn't as heavy as I thought I was. The thing with running too fast is, you seem to lose your balance if you try to slow down too soon. I was surprised my head was filled with useless info such as this when all I actually wanted to do was just run and let all the bullshit out. part of me was angry too. at myself.

I had barely managed to reach the turning that led to the mall when I looked up to the streetlights. closing my eyes was a stupid idea. I tripped on the pavement and fell. No bruises. Was I tough? I didn't feel tough. i didn't bother getting up. Breathing was not easy. I never had weird horse-like noises come out of me before this. I wasn't dying, that would have been too pathetic.

A car zoomed past. Someone threw a plastic bottle at me from the inside. I picked it up and somehow managed to throw it back. the car stopped. I didn't move. A girl stepped out. We looked at each other. I hadn't yet realized my forehead was bleeding. She went back in and drove away. A dog paid attention to me. i was momentarily happy. I waited for it to wag its tail or something. Bastard just sniffed the bottle and left. i tried whistling for attention. I didn't know how to whistle.

I wanted to pass out. I would have been successful too, had the weather not been so awesome. what were the odds! fucken Delhi summers!! shitty things can happen on good nights.

They say you can't have what you want unless you accept what you are. I hope it's true for letting go as well. I was a chaser obsessed with chasing the impossible. Now I will try to let go. May be.


I took an auto back home.  


Song fo da moment (i want to be able to talk like this) - Lunatic Calm - Leave You Far Behind