Perfect Love Gone Wrong...

2009 A.D....Delhi metro so far knows three colours – red, yellow and blue. Good. Cause they say, that by 2015, the trains are gonna run in so many different routes each represented by a different colour, that even VIBGYOR-ing your way through the metro maze would be next to impossible. Great! Just when I had decided to give up trying to figure out DTC bus routes and move on to greener (read easier-with-lots-of-air-conditioning) pastures, I am back to square one. Well, not exactly square one. I mean, if you look at a map of the proposed route, then I would call it going back to an intangible mess of discarded guitar strings in a polybag one. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bitching about the existence of these beautifully made modern marvels of public transport, I mean, my lazy, fast travel loving, sweat hating self loves it. It’s just that when something you love, grows bigger, things get complicated.

Me: DMRC, are you listening?

DMRC: Yes my lover, what is it?

Me: Ummm....you’ve grown too big for my comfort... We need to talk.

DMRC: *sob sob* ...B-b-but, why? ... How could you? After all this time we’ve spend togeth...*sob sob*....Oh Fuck You Raj, deep down inside I always knew you were a shallow pig!!!

Something along those lines, you know what I mean? ... while you’re reading this, do not give me that look that you’re giving right now. It isn’t all my fault. The metro is one confusing ride, which is if you have the time to be confused while travelling. All you need to do is just open up your mind and just listen to the automated alternating male and female voice on the intercom. I shall present a couple of questionable rules laid out, regarding metro etiquette. Exhibit A, Do not play loud music inside the train. What?!! Nayan agrees to my disagreement, his logic being, that it is all a great ploy to keep us restrained to ourselves and moreover, if everyone enjoys their own music through their earphones, it fuels consumerism. My thoughts are, let’s just say, slightly different. There’s a good chance of people breaking into a twist, or bhangra (yeh dilli hai meri jaan) or in my case, as a close friend would add, even a little tap dance recital when they listen to good music. This effects the moving train’s balance. Very hard for the driver to run the train. Did you ever think that he could be dancing too?? Exhibit B, Always check under your seat, there could be a bomb. Imagine the scene if everyone starts obeying that rule religiously... it would look like a group session for self help oral sex to a perverted mind. People could even improvise and break into the Mexican wave version of this odd ritual. Vivid Picture.

Exhibit C (my favourite), Do not talk to strangers. Yeah right, so we should all continue talking to people we already know, and ....and nothing actually, that’s it. Combine Exhibits B and C. It’s freakin dangerous, I’ll tell you how. So you board a train. And say, you’re kind of a selfless being in this modern world, where you look under not only your seat, but also the seat of the other guy sitting opposite to you. Now you see a teddy bear/thermos/transistor under it (things which the DMRC thinks could be bombs...i frankly thought the bad guys had moved on from Mr.India, the movie) ...so how do you tell the other guy Dude, your ass is about to land on the moon... I mean, he’s a stranger, right? Can’t talk signs flashing in your head!!!! The metro doesn’t only warn you about terrorists, but also pickpockets. Hmmm...ever imagined the catastrophic results of both being on the same train same time? So the terrorist places a Winnie the Pooh teddy under a seat and is almost about to detonate it using the Chinese mobile he’s carrying....or is he? Is the mobile still with him...or has Captain Pickpocket attacked and it’s already on it’s way to Pallika bazaar? Gripping tension, drama and panic.....throw in an item song and you have your own Bollywood version of Speed, the movie. Something like Ramesh Sippy presents Raftaar, the speed. Exhibit D, Do not sit on the floor of the train. Why not? Am I asking for too much if I just wanna enjoy the AC under the connecting space between two compartments? ....the interesting folks are always found at those places anyways....and I’m definitely not asking CM Sheila Dixit to wash my denims.

The Delhi metro can be a funny experience. Weird, but funny. It was fun while it lasted my love.

MJ - Momos and Jelly.

Funny things happen. No, this is not Cpt. Obvious speaking. But yea, funny-weird-diabolical-sad things do happen. About three days back, as i woke up, ideally just minutes before lunch hour*, my roomie suggested momos. So downstairs i trod to "go get some" in a very "stay-give-some" stage of body and mind. The momo walla spiked hair dude was not to be found - yeah man, we got momo wallas with gelled hair humming to classic rock tunes, whatchYOU got bitch?! Huh? Anyway, he was nowhere. Bread Omlette it is then. Again. Fine, so no hummed version of "Light my fire" today. I can live.

Right when i'm done paying the bread omlette dude, for the royal half hour dish he cooked, i hear humming. Not 'The Doors'. Even better. It's Michael Jackson's 'Black or White'...i turn around and there he was. Carrying the steam cooker type of thing on his shoulder and nodding at me. 'Mar gaya na woh? So Bad, man, So bad.' he says...i can do nothing but smile, and acknowledge the passing of our dearly departed King. The humming continues. I chat with this guy for about ten minutes, while he heats up the momos. The topic of conversation ranges from Michael Jackson to......well, just MJ actually. Oh wait, there was a bit about grass, but i guess that would fall under MJ as well. Suddenly all those celebrity interviews on Larry King Live about Jackson's death..and life, seemed fake. Here was this guy, many thousand miles from California, heating up momos, and telling me with a sad smile on his face, how he bunked school back in his village and danced to 'Thriller' and the rest, songs he had on this duplicate cassette he says. Surreal, that's how i felt. Oh wait, roomie's hungry and i too. Packed two plates of hot steaming chicken momos
and hurried upstairs. As we enjoy the food, i couldn't stop thinking about a kid in a hillly nepali village having the time of his life, in that very exact moment, trying moonwalks and being aloof to this crazy hazy world...i was literally there. watching, smiling, smoking....total trip.

As we shared the last piece, suddenly i was pulled back to real life. No, it wasn't the momos running out but the packet the nepali MJ had packed them in.. the packet was probably one of many unused ones from some drug company. Nothing to worry about, right?..well, not if the label says "Parson's Lubricating Jelly". 'Unused' was and has never been a more important criteria ever.


*lunch hour is any time i wake up.

On Lalgarh...

very amusing that the media is suddenly interested in lalgarh when it's liberated from the WB administration and the tribal locals were finally moving towards self-governance and ultimately, happiness...where was the media when these locals were being brutally killed and beaten by CPM goons and WB police all these years?...i'm not ending this comment by saying 'Lal salaam' cause frankly, it's losing it's meaning more as we speak...but please pause and look around. and question whatever you don't comprehend.

Pulp Fact-ion

Scene 1 : Was walking out of the Vishwavidyalaya Metro station, when a glowsign neon ad made me pause. It showed a bunch of young we-were-the-original-cast-for-RANG DE BASANTI type of fellows jumping high in the air. they had smiles on their faces, smiles that remind you of horny uncles that lure you towards them with candy or lollipops. The ad said - Study in Australia!!! enroll today and win tickets for the next musical at the Sydney Opera House!!! The people behind me, who obviously were not jobless like i was, didn't find my sudden halt amusing as they grunted while colliding with me. "Arrey BehnChod!!" one of them said under his breath. I wasn't allowed to follow the stop-stare-think routine once again (story of my life). I walked on. U2 forever!!

Scene 2 : The token checking machine( i'm sure there's a word for it..just not in my vocab) and the queue that led to it, saw me standing next to the same BC obsessed guy, only this time he was right in front of me, rummaging through his pocket for the token and holding the line. Should've retaliated, now that i think of it, but i was too busy thinking about the Ad i had just seen. The guy turned behind and smiled. A smile that we men generally use for moments like when someone points out to you, in public, that your fly's open. the index finger that points towards the exact co-ordinates of your crotch doesn't help either. pathetic as i am, i return a smile as if losing the token was the sweetest thing he had ever done. U2 rocks!!

Scene 3 : The Brotherhood of Richshaw pullers waiting outside the metro station had definitely pimped up their style, if not the ride. Spanking the empty seats, they say in perfect rhythm, "Ajao, meri wali pe chadh jao!!"....which translates into,"Come, climb onto the one thats mine!!". The nostalgic memories of the millions of times i've shared a rickshaw with friends, suddenly nauseates me. So avoiding the main exit, i take a detour through the parking lot. the sight of dogs making out is way better than Rickshaw Spank Inferno. Surprisingly, the dogs were absent that afternoon. The post lunch humping hadn't begun yet. Instead i see a Baba with a chillum. He smiles at me. Finally a genuine smile, phew!!. ..so what if he was high as a Kite? U2 should be paying me for this.


Scene 4 : Waiting for a friend, who likes pork and beef as much as i do. The problem of being a guy sitting outside the back gate of a girls hostel, is that every freakin living creature hovering around, will stare at you and give you the "Look". i try to duck/look away/meditate...doesn't help. i run out of options. i look up. An Ad for a computer institute ideally named "Dics" catches my attention. This time people aren't jumping around. just smiling at you. i can actually picture them calling out to whoever bothers to listen - "Come to us, we shall bestow upon you the magic of Dics...Dics....Dics ver1.2". Creepy. The smiling creeps in the Ad have gelled hair, whitened teeth, and extra ironed shirts. i could sense the pride in their Dics....i mean Pics. Bono and The Edge loiter inside my head.

Epilogue : My friend doesn't make me wait a lot. We head off to the land of Beef. Funny how when you're in good company, you stop thinking about Sexually motivated Education Fair Ads and famous Irish rock bands.

Seven. The number of joints you need to smoke using pure RK puram grass to “lose it” and, as entertaining as it may sound to your friends, open up. For amateur smokers out there, “chhoti” gold flake tobacco, for the mixture, gives you a better high than Navy cut. The topic of conversation can range from kids in Darfur to ‘how groovy the plane looks’ as it zooms overhead like a Mothership that doesn’t exactly know where you are. Previous relationships also add variety to the ‘talk’ but personally i find that dangerous although in public i would rather say its boring. Escapist? You might add. Pink Floyd has become a cliché. Times have changed. Its the age of the Dandy Warhols now. And please don’t spend any money on “decking” up the room to create the perfect ambience. The whole idea of smoking up is to let go of those worries. If you really have extra moolah, get more grass.

Coming back to the number seven, yes, make sure that you have all the necessary material needed for that perfect high – Rolling paper, unused wedding invitation cards for weddings of people who don’t give a fuck about you( the feeling needs to be mutual) – they make excellent roach, cheap quality fried stuff – chips, potatoes, chilly pork/beef, and yes, people who smoke up – i call them grasshoppers. So, are we ready now? Almost. I almost forgot the main ingredient – an acoustic guitar. Floyd plays better on a guitar than on winamp. So there you go, a perfect night awaits you. And yes, please comment if you think we can make improvements. Its open source ;)

My somethin-somethin on the whole media hyped good/bad muslim idea

Why must a Muslim ( Indian or otherwise) be put through the task of justifying himself, not time and time again, but even once? If X is a Muslim, and Y is a terrorist, why must X have to prove the X is not equal to Y? The major goof-up in this issue, is not 'people trying to come to terms with the fact that there ARE good Muslims who need to be heard' but people from all backgrounds and faiths failing to see that the more the justifications are encouraged (read demanded), the more alienation it creates. Alienation - the alleged grand reason, for 'local goodie Muslims' to just 'cross the line'....is it that hard to see that while trying to unite a nation, all these justifications are rather widening the cracks? The Cracks, which the majority has taken upon itself to exploit. and yet, it doesn't have to explain itself. Funny, i think.

The current social scene in India is not really helping. Look at the support that Varun Gandhi is getting after he proclaims that 'he shall set the Hindus free' of this minority appeasing politics. Hasn't he fit the perfect bill of the Hindu-Terrorist yet?? The Batla House incident where Jamia students were apparently harbouring terrorists (proof? none.), was seen as a success of delhi police. Same delhi police that also managed to create a martyr out of Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who according to eye-witnesses, was seen walking out of the locality after suffering a 'minor wound'. The Establishment will NOT help us. Clearly.

In this short time-frame( most of 2008 actually), we have also welcomed a wave of so-called well made movies that raise the questions of communal tension in this country. 'A wednesday' where Muslim terrorists are the cause of the problems of the AAM AADMI who has been forced to take action against it. Very conveniently, the writers HAD to include a "good Muslim" in the Mumbai police too, who by the way, had to hide his 'tabeez' when speaking to the terrorists and his Hindu colleague coming to the rescue...Utter Crap!!! if i may be allowed to say so. Well made movie? may be. but the message its sending across, knowingly or otherwise, is a very dangerous one. "Shaurya" - muslim army officer has to face the music this time around because he knew a thing or two about human rights violation and respected human life. Throughout the movie, the officer is resigned to giving it up to the laws of the Indian Armed Forces. Again, it is upto good'ol Hindu military lawyer to come to his rescue, and tell the world what exactly happened. "Aamir" - common man (read, Good muslim) sacrifices his life for a greater cause - upholding the moral duty of the good muslim of justifying his faith. Bollocks!!!!! all of these might be good movies, technically. but we can't be naive enough to not see past the message that these movies are trying to propagate - some muslims are good, it is upon the ever-so-good hindus to acknowledge, understand, and help them.

something, somewhere is seriously wrong. Please try not to be blinded by the sense of this brotherhood on one hand, while totally ignoring the fact that some of us, albeit unknowingly, are fanning the flames by these justifications.

Organized Religion is bad.

Death is just one word...

Was it the choice of movies i had seen lately? Elizabethtown, by Cameron Crowe

about a guy who knew his father better,after his death. Or for that matter, Vinay Pathak starrer, Dasvidaniya - about "not just surviving" but actually living one's life. Could've also been the underlying theme of the play that i had seen in a long, long time. Frankly, i wasn't exactly expecting a bubblegum extravaganza at a play titled "When We Dead Awaken" at the recently concluded Delhi Ibsen Festival, directed by Ratan Thiyam. Now this one's about a now-dead guy who missed out on the small but beautiful moments in his life, while chasing a fruitless passion whilst he "thought" he was living. May be.
Also need to mention that, yes, i have been going off to sleep while my earphones sweetly implant by brain(or whatever's left of it after an evening with fellow "grass-hoppers") with lovely haunting acoustic ballads by Death Cab For Cutie. I really don't feel the need to explain what THEIR music is all about.*

Or may be it's just my death loving morbid self.

Ok, yes. i exaggerated. I'm not really the morbid types. And before all of you get judgemental and stuff, let me clarify that the first thing that strikes my mind while thinking about death, is NOT 'oh dear Tim Burton, what am i gonna wear for this funeral ?!'...i guess it's not someone dying, or U.S. induced genocide that gets me off (thinking), but more so, the idea of accepting death as something so natural yet potent even before it strikes; that's the kinda stuff i'm talking about.

Dunno about anyone else, but lately the idea of dying as a social experiment has crossed my mind...let's just say, more than once. The fact that it's i who's playing the roles of the mad professor, and the guinea pig, made me think again...and again,and again. The next best thing , and it comes to me quite naturally,was to just lie down on my dirty old mattress and scare the ceiling with my blank stares, pretending to be dead. I would imagine that i were an art loving zombie who could not smell the paint even while standing beneath the Cistine chapel, could not cry at an opera (mind you, living people cry at operas for lots of reasons, and not just because they wanna get the hell out of there), who couldn't raise his voice, but maybe just growl and drool a bit, against all the oppression thats out there; could never scream out "Aaaaahhhhhh!!" halfway through his first bungee jump, or halfway through actual orgasm. Kinda reminds me of the expression-less bunny in Andy Rileys line of cartoons strips called Bunny Suicides.







Governments, states, countries, countrymen today make news all over regarding freedom of speech, apparently because one blames the others for snatching it away. I think it's all about who actually is controlling the 'mute' button of our so called SOCIETY. What about the freedom of reaction? i know i sound crazy - i mean, apparently no such thing exists. may be not. But it sure means a hell lot when you're just lying there - undead.

At the risk of sounding preachy, let me just say that Life, no matter how much it sucks now, should be enjoyed.If you have a zombie self, listen to it once in a while. Learn to eat,sing,roam,fuck,smoke,drink like there's no tomorrow. learn to fight all those who try to bog you down( not 'ask you to go down' - i mean enjoy THAT obviously. that's different).

My Undead moments, i owe you guys big time.


*opening lines to a Death Cab For Cutie song -

Love of mine, someday you will die
I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark,.....