‘Made in China’

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[Warning 1: This post is RATED X, visitors’ discretion is advised]

[Warning 2: This post is RATED X, yippee...all the more reason to read it]

My roomies are a recyclable lot. Never at a point in time do I have the same set of roomies. In fact, the only roomy in this room that appears to be a constant is me.

The minor advantage of having a renewable pool of roomies is that you keep coming across different characters, which I can make the target of my penning indulgence.

Because of this continuous current of renewal, recently two roomies were added to the merry lot of Namibaba’s forty-four roomies. And as is the tradition with the merry band, they were instantly granted their nick-names by Namibaba. These nick names are inspired from the most intriguing qualities of their personality, something that when one comes across in them, one learns to love to hate in due course of time.

One such roomy is Double-tits called so for his buns, which bear a striking resemblance to the more widely known physical trait double chin. To imagine a double tit all you have to do is to imagine a double chin’s close cousin interpreted in terms of chest muscles.

Another roomy is Slowmo called so because of his strange obsession of walking in slow motion in the aisles between the beds in Ship. Only God can be your savior when you are in a hurry and you happen to be trailing Slowmo in the aisles. No amount of pushing and shoving will motivate him to move faster. It appears that by delaying others in the narrow aisles, he is stocking up his invaluable ego reserves.

Another one of my roomies is ‘Made in China’ who apart from being a Chinese, is called so because his sad face lights up on the mention of ‘Made in China’, even if happens to be something as seemingly as inconsequential as a mineral bottle with the tag of ‘Made in China’ on it. It is another matter that in this post this otherwise inconsequential bottle, at best fulfilling the thirst need of the Chinese on bed no. 15, assumes a critical function of that of being a symbolic representative of a fundamental tool that plays an important tool in perpetuation of the human race.

What happens when you put these three roomies of distinct flavors on a small bed of 3 by 6 feet? This was quite close to the scenario when I noticed them interacting on bed no. 36 (Doubletit’s bed), and answering the above question in the context of organizational dynamics, it was rather close to ‘pandemonium’. Also, it’s interesting to note that from the point of view of organizational dynamics; the three member group on Doubletit’s bed was a one that consisted of 66.66% Indians and 33.33% Chinese and the Indian fraction seemed almost too aware of the fact that India has lost two wars with China incurring huge losses on both the occasions. And as far as the size of bottles is concerned, this faction is as unaware of the truth as were their forefathers who owned the responsibility of losing the wars. [I would hereby advise the reader to exercise patience about the mystery of the bottles. Rest assured, the mystery will be revealed in the coming passages.]

But before we get on with the dynamics involving the bottle, a little about ‘Made in China’ should be told first. ‘Made in China’ is a super-chikna character with feminine body language which automatically makes him vulnerable to strayed perceptions in a room overcrowded with men. Something I admire about him is that he is a self sufficient character who goes on scribbling in his notebook without ever taking a peek on the TV, as I go on typing on my lappy. He looks like a very young Buddha in the respect that he has a nerdy appeal and a liking for expanding his knowledge constantly. So, when I saw Made in China talking to the Indian faction consisting of Doubletits and Slowmo, the Little Buddha was talking about the three letter word that seems to be the very basis of life- Joy. From his talks it seemed that joy is not a result of anything, it’s rather a daily, independent decision that one takes first thing in the morning. It’s almost as if he wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Come hell or high water I am going to find joy today’. And rightly so, he seemed so focused on joy that it is what he seemed to derive even when the talk drifted to his very own Made in China bottle and the associated sentiments.

After having finished the talk about the religious hangouts that Made in China had been to, the Indian faction became too aware that they cannot let him go without some ridicule because he was joyful to an extent of being irritating. His joy came across as a sacrilege because supposedly only Indians are to be as joyful as him, given the extensive history of only-a-dhoti-clad sadhus spending their days in uncontained bliss even amidst a supremely materialistic environment. The Indian faction seemed to be offended by the spiritual joy that the Chinese seemed to exude. And hence it became extremely crucial to talk about the bottle of Made in China.

Made in China’s face lit up when Doubletits pointed to his mineral water bottle, which looked nothing like mineral bottles sold in India. It had twin characteristics that made it look unmistakably Chinese. Firstly, its shape seemed to be an offshoot of the architecture of the ancient Chinese monasteries that sported multiple roofs, roofs that seem to me synonymous to the spiritual planes that one is required to ascend when practicing Chinese spiritual arts. Secondly, the plastic of the bottle seemed to be a derivative of the Chinese made TT balls because it had the prominent opaqueness which contrasted starkly with the transparence associated to the ‘purity factor’ observed in preferred designs of Indian made mineral bottles.

So, when Doubletits pointed to Made in China’s mineral water bottle, which also appeared to be smaller than most of the bottles we come across in India, the Chinese was filled with joy because it was his chance to say proudly ‘Made in China’, as if it was enough to explain comprehensively the reason for the way the bottle looked. Not unpredictably, Doubletits had other plans in mind. He pointed to the bottle in Made in China’s hand and said, ‘Chinese bottle’ then he promptly pointed to the mineral bottle kept on the side table which happened to be a one liter mineral bottle and said, ‘Indian bottle.’ As the Chinese looked on with a confused, but joyful expression, Doubltit’s gesture was promptly followed up by Slowmo’s Andhra-accent laughter. The joyful Chinese still didn’t seem to get it. So, Doubletits pointed to Made in China’s penis and said, ‘Chinese bottle’ and made the gesture of ‘small’ by his fingers, and then he pointed to his own penis and said, ‘Indian bottle’, and made the gesture of big with his hands. The Chinese seemed a little taken aback by the sudden aggression; something like India was when China had attacked without much warning in 1972. It seemed to be the golden revenge of Doubletits for the Chinese aggression of 1972.

Although I wanted to congratulate Doubltits on his micro coup which did not make any difference to the Chinese rate of economic development or the rapid rate of modernization of its defense forces, I merely reflected on what’s the size of the bottle got to do with anything? I mean, let’s even assume for a moment that the size of bottles of our ancestors compared to that of the Chinese’s ancestors was something to be proud of (although there are no Olympics for ‘size of bottle’ and even if there was, China would have promptly gone on to bag the organizational rights and would have made billions out of it), how instrumental was it in influencing the outcome of our wars with China or receiving more FDI than China? History seems to be hinting that we might just have lost the wars in the overconfidence of the bottle-size when it was not uncommon to hear stuff like, ‘Hamare gama pahelwan, dus dus Chinky ko pataki de denge.’ I think, in those days the comparative size of the bottle was pulling the strings somewhere in the back of the mind.

I fail to understand, why there is so much claim going around about whose bottle is bigger. Moreover historically also, wars have never been fought by bottles. They have been fought with swords. And the size of the bottle has never affected the outcome of wars, even more so since ‘technology’ and ‘technique’ came into being and I am talking both in the context of war and love respectively. Yes, even if we consider love for that matter, a whole lot of research seems to point out that the bottle’s size is not as crucial as the technique employed to use the bottle for the purpose love-making and to be more precise, of satisfy a female companion.

And even if it is a world that is run by the size of the bottles, no one can ignore the way the Chinese race has improved its physical condition and health. I am sure the smart use of the bottle to curtail the birth rate has a lot to do with it. When compared to the smartness of the Chinese bottle, the size of the Indian bottle, if at all still in the lead, after the drastic improvement in health and fitness standards that China has seen post economic liberalisation, the presumed marginal lead of the Indian bottle in comparison seems to be blown away (no pun intended).

And as far as characters like Doubletits and Slowmo are concerned, who know nothing of the Chinese revolution (which stretches way beyond bottling), I would imagine only two hypothetical scenarios to dispel their doubt about the much publicized comparative study of the bottles.

Scenario 1: As for Slowmo I hope the Chinese Olympic gold-medalist for the 110m hurdles- Liu Xiang doesn’t decide to trail him in one of the aisles between the beds, I am sure the gold-medalist will empty Slowmo’s ego reserves in a hurry, by simply hopping over all the beds in all of less than 13 secs.

Scenario 2: And as far as the national hero Doubletits goes, I hope he does not come across the fabled bottle of Yao Ming of the National Basketball League of the US one of these days because if Yao Ming decides to empty his bottle on Doubletits (pun intended), it’s going to be one hell of a slam-dunk (pun intended).

Baba says:

‘It is not a coincidence that the Chinese are good at both miniaturization and expansiveness. The former is what they have treasured for years anatomically, the latter what they have always dreamed of achieving.’- Namibaba of the forty-four roomies fame

‘Where Angels Dare’

Look up; I am up here, employed by God
There are deadlines you’ve got to meet
Heaven is a depressing place
Of dead people who are terribly neat

The place is filled with these angelic souls
Who even put me to shame
Despite being an angel highly appraised
My soul has dried up playing this game

I look down upon my golden lyre
To whom I my secrets confide
For I cannot complain directly to God
Will I ever get a chance to explore my dark side?

But by God, I am a dreamer and that day is not far
When I will pull up my spotless socks
Exchange my lyre for an electric guitar
And make this place called heaven rock

‘A Forgettable Conversation’

We sat beside the sweeping sea
With secrets swimming in rather deep
Our eyes talked and we looked at ease

Then we lit a little flame
It burnt between us like a dancing blaze
Of all feelings that don’t have a name

We spoke and we spoke of us
And hurled our pride into the flame
The fire created quite a fuss

It now became a sarcastic fire
And for our little conversation
It soon became a funeral pyre

‘An Ode to You Oh Visitor’

And only yesterday I was boasting to my friends over dinner at Leopold that how personal the blog is to me and the advent of a visitor will not influence how I proceed with my writings, but as is evident, the very first few visits have already made an impact which is quite evident from the extent to which this very post is inspired by the visits. I guess what I said to my friends yesterday was one of those times when I say aloud the complete opposite of what I think is the truth. But that comes across as so wired when I think of myself as an honest person. Contrary to self-expectations, I think I just keep on fooling myself into believing things which aren’t true. Taking that hypotheses further, I think I am completely opposite of honest. Now since I happen to be stating this, having proved myself dishonest, it might be a completely wrong assumption. But who knows maybe the assumption that it’s a wrong assumption is again a way to fool myself. I think this is going no where. So I would just let you know what made me think of myself as a self deceiving idiot in the first place.

‘An Ode to You Oh Visitor’

My prose is gross
My verse is worse
To keep on venting
Is my curse
But I value you dear visitor
Cause without you
My blog is a sleeping log
The posts are ghosts
And I’m an addict of solitude
Carrying on without a cure

‘Counting on Life’

And when I am feeling not that well
And I feel like ending everything
Which would not take but a severing act
To free my soul and make it sing

And when I think of this in a single breath
The only thing between death and me
I think of life and how it’s a search
Can’t count on death to set me free

‘Fully Oded’

Oh my heart
Write an ode
That can take to her
The entire load
That’s mounting on
This little wagon
I am riding down
This bumpy road

Oh my heart
Guide the wagon
Which with my love
Is fully loaded
And make sure
That by the end
Of this ode
This load of love is fully oded

‘Why I’m Tempted to Believe in Rebirth’

March 2005, home, Jalandhar Cantt.

Flies are crowding around him. They are in his eyes and everywhere. Why doesn’t he go snap-snap at them playfully, trying to catch them in his mouth? The mean looking cat is staring at him while it cools off in the shade, why doesn’t he get up and chase it away, feeling the taste of the cat’s paw in the bargain?

I can see him clearly now. There he is lying in the freshly made clearing, a perfectly circular cleaned up area of radius 1.5 meter amidst this dense shrubbery. I am thinking, while my heart is flooding with pity and my mind is nervously imposing courage, ‘My God how is it possible?’

I walk toward him, wishing him unwell for the first time. I am thinking, ‘I hope he is feeling unwell, and having felt so has munched some juicy grass, of the one particular kind he likes, and is drowsing off in the killer sun, waiting for the puke to come, because his body is feeling cold and he gets so confused when not well, just like me. He is just like me, only more respectable.’

My mind is tossing up past memories, ‘Why doesn’t he get up and lie in the shade for a while? He is feeling confused after all isn’t he? He doesn’t know whether to lie in the shade or the sun when unwell, then how come he has made up his mind to lie in the sun today? His body is feeling colder than usual isn’t it?’ But God his body, please not this cold.

The clearing around him is a miracle. It is as much a miracle as his just lying there for all these hours when he is the very icon of ‘life’ for me.

I close in on him and catch the glimpse of that chain, the thick one bought after the wisdom gained from countless weaker ones broken by him previously, ‘God please not that chain around his neck. God please, not that choke-chain around his neck.’, My mind is refusing to make sense of it all, ‘I mean, what are the odds of his chain getting stuck in the shrubs and on top of it no one ever hearing him barking during his struggle with death, a struggle so fierce that the clearing looks like a royal gardener’s job.’

His body is lying there lifeless like a warrior’s who has just lost a bout with death. I have never seen him give up. I have never seen him let go. Tell me God, what do I make of his body that is lying so dead-still in front of me?


May 18, 2006, an alley near Ship, VT

I am walking toward the VT bus stop. I am walking through the ally. And suddenly my mind is flooding with memories of Dodge, so extraordinary a dog that he simply couldn’t do with an ordinary death. The son-of-a-bitch just had to grab the headlines even while dying. He just had to grab all the attention even while leaving despite of the fact that he never fell short of it in his reasonably blissful life. The point being that the playful bugger just couldn’t have enough of love.

As I am standing there, the trigger of this deluge of memories is sitting on his hind legs right in front of me with his tongue hanging out. He is hardly 4-6 months. He has the same sandy body with white markings on his forehead which continue to his muzzle, the same white on all four paws, and a bit of it on the tip on his tail. He has that confused expression on his face which says, ‘I am going to be a fool for the rest of my life. And I am going to love you like a maniac. I don’t care if you ever love me. I will always love you.’ I find myself say in surprise, ‘Dodge’. He doesn’t look my way. I cry out again, ‘Dodgu…’ He still doesn’t look. I try for the last time, ‘Dogde…’ He looks my way, rotating his ears like he has just heard something familiar. As I look on, a little girl emerges from one of the huts lining the road, picks him up and starts petting him. Having been tempted to reconsider a belief which has always been a source of curiosity for spiritualists, philosophers and a the reason for the immortality of a magnificent line on Pharos which inspired a whole civilization to value life more than any other wealth, I move on toward the VT bus stop, my heart carrying on stronger, now that it is infused with a sense of a distant joy.

A confession: This was one of the most difficult posts to write because I had to constantly struggle with my mind to gain access to the memories which are soaked with sorrow, the memories whose very recollection is regarded by the mind as hazardous.

Miss you Dodge

‘The Curious Incident of the Pussy in the Night-time’

It was a typical Marine Drive evening and the breeze was hell-bent on sweeping everything resting on the promenade a shade further toward mainland. It was during this tussle of the multitude of things lining the coast with the stubborn sea breeze, when the sun had freshly set, the sky had just acquired a mysterious dark shade of blue, and I was consciously gazing at the concrete rocks lining the beach, that I happened to notice something that instantly registered in my mind as odd and I thought, ‘That’s odd…’. It was what seemed like a glowing diamond, moving circuitously within the murky mesh of the concrete rocks lining the coast, what I have been told are called ‘tripod rocks’. Though the movement of the diamond slightly erratic at times, given the concrete caves it seemed determined to negotiate, it was making a pretty smooth job of it. The diamond glided within the multiple caves, vanishing into darkness at times. Quite naturally, I was enamored by the beauty of the glowing diamond and instinctively started following it. As it was, I happened to be quite close to the end of the causeway where the tripod rocks merge with the sea rocks without exhibiting discernible traces of separation. And it so happened that I reached the end of the causeway following the floating diamond only to find a cat emerging from below one of the concrete rocks, its eyes now in full view and clearly showing intentions to flee, which it promptly did the very next moment, laying my curiosity to rest.

‘I love You Because I Love Me’

And then the much awaited moment arrived when she said, ‘I love you.’ The love-story wouldn’t have ended before beginning had he simply brought himself to believe her. He had done it again hadn’t he? It was just like he had done it to others before her. He cared for her too much to have her fall in love with someone like him, someone who he held in so much contempt. Had he known the basis of his own suspicion he would have been better off, but having spent most of his life away from books, he was in no position to know his own mind. When they met later and her hand was in someone else’s hand he still didn’t know what to say or what had happened between them or how to end it i.e. if there had been anything to begin with between them, he just went on staring into her eyes trying to find the traces of the love that he had once questioned. It would take him another year just to realize that he is a victim of fate like millions of other people, another year to find out that the emotional calamities he went through were because he refused to take his life in his own hands, no matter how strong were the hands that were holding it. And he would also understand that his only victory would lie in turning it around. He could only do it by not being himself any longer. That is the very definition of change is it not? In the future he would only remember himself as someone who he had met once and had had a lot of trouble with. And then he would claim the persona of remote stranger by saying, ‘I was that stranger once.’ without actually becoming him in that moment just as he was unable to become the man he is today when he had looked into her eyes with suspicion, had questioned her love and had wished to become lovable but had failed. He will know then that he is a product of his fate, and the combined fate of all the people who live in this world and it was only that doubt for her love, the hurt in his heart and the hurt he had given her that has led to the understanding that has dawned on him today. And then he will learn to love himself enough to rightfully deem himself a deserving object of affection. And then his ability to dream will be the only limit because his mind would be a place without fear.


Some famous person: ‘Our first and only love is self-love’
Namibaba: ‘Well thank God for that.’

‘Ship Floats’

Sometimes I see this weird dream. I see my hotel- Ship transformed into a real ship on a full moon night and setting sail on PD Mellow road. I see all the beds except mine moving neatly in a file, as if obeying an algorithm, and stacking up neatly in one corner of the hall. I see a starboard emerging from the floor on one end of the hall. I see a mast rising from the middle of the hall and a sail climbing the mast simultaneously. My forty four roomies take their positions on this Ship according to their experience and qualification in merchant shipping: navigators to the navigation panel, the junior engineers and the engineers to the engine room, the captain and his commanding officers on the starboard and I to my bed no. 24, which is stationed bang on the middle of the deck near the mast.

This ship called…ahem…Ship soon sets sail and it sails across the government dental college, the GPO and finally reaches the Victoria Terminus where I can see the lady atop the dome in her glorious deposition, faintly covered by the thin sheath lent by the moonlight. My mind registers awe at the sight.

At this stage the dream invariably hits a snag. And every time I have this dream, it proceeds in the same way because my mind has not developed an alternate solution to the snag yet. I hear screams coming from the announcement system, drowning the emergency alarm, ‘All hands on deck, we have hit iceberg: VT.’ And then I lift my eyes to the mysterious lady atop VT and see the light illuminating her turning faint red. Confused, I shift my gaze to the moon, I see it turning into a shade of red too. At this point I panic.

Then I hear the captain’s blaring voice on the announcement system, ‘We have just calculated that in order to save the ship we will have to lessen the load. Get rid of the most dispensable object on board.’ As soon as I hear this I freeze in terror.

I see all sailors on deck heading toward me like zombies, their hands reaching out for me. I try to get off my bed and escape but I soon find that my hand is tied to the bed with a handcuff, and I can’t free myself. The sailors lift me with my bed and chant, ‘Sailor God, Sailor God’ in unison and then with a single united effort, thrust me overboard, entirely on the mercy of the ocean. In my panicky state I try to find a dry oasis in the wet desert surrounding me but without successes. I am strained to think that my bed will soon sink but the luggage compartment underneath it, seemingly keeps it afloat. Aboard Ship I can see faces of confused sailors, who don’t know whether to celebrate their survival or to mourn my state. Ship gradually fades out of site leaving behind a trail of darkness.

I, perched on my floating haven, my bed, my launch pad of dreams, continue to drift dangerously close to iceberg: VT, clutching my folded legs together out of apprehension. In this lull before the onset of trauma I let go of all hope and bury my face between my knees. All of a sudden, I feel a cold a hand grab my right shoulder. The fingers dig insensitively on my shoulder. I turn around slowly in apprehension. As I turn, my eyes catch a faint red glow and I find myself looking straight into the stony red eyes of the lady no longer atop VT.

This is where I usually wake up to reality.

‘How He Wished’

He wished for the power to dream
He cracked when the dreams asked him to surrender

He asked for change
His mind ached when it ensued

He wished for the power to think
The power to think a blank mind at will

He soon gave up even the wish
That he wished to give up all desire

He searched for love all over
Only till he decided to look within

Then came life’s deluge and swept him
He gave up…to win

-Namit

‘Impoverished’

She looks on, bearing the puzzled expressions on her face, which has probably now become a permanent fixture. She is no mistress of riches but yet, the weathered pram that she tows carries her most prized jewel. A jewel that I soon find out is third in its generation. The other two jewels soon arrive on the seen. If there are degrees of confusion, the two wear much less confusion on the face, but more importantly they are not entirely devoid of it. I cannot blame them. India can surprise you for a lifetime irrespective of whether you are a foreigner or not.

Her clothes, glaringly of Indian style that no one in Mumbai wears these days, are soiled. The jewels are soiled, as if freshly mined. They wonder if their mother has enough money to buy them Mewar Ice-cream. One of the jewels, girls both, makes her wish of having an ice-cream cone known to her mum. The mother disregards the wish and continues to stare into space as if unconfident about the potential of her wallet. I continue to munch on my ice-cream insensitively.

The mother asks the jewels, ‘What is that? What’s that man selling?’
‘It looks like ice-cream mama.’ they reply with anticipation.

All of them then proceed to sit on the side walk which is dirty enough to form the collective throne of the countless beggars who have suddenly found an excuse to vanish somewhere. I try to infer the country of origin form the accent of the mother. It seems to be a European accent. I wonder how long they have spent in India, which other countries have they been to before this, have they always been in short supply of money and who might be the father of the dusky jewels, who sport mixed Indo-European features.

I wonder what other cultures have they come across before? I wonder if they are enriched by the experiences or only gradually robbed of their own culture. I wonder, while they look about with puzzled eyes, what life makes of people who are not only economically poor, but also have a confused cultural identity. I wonder how life treats people who are impoverished not only economically but also, culturally.

As these thoughts rush into my mind, they keep looking about as if in search of something elusive. I, having finished my ice-cream walk on, back to Ship. It’s time to sleep.

‘Bombay Chronicle’

It is the morning of May 06, 06. I woke up feeling weak. That is what you get after getting the viral infection for the umpteenth time. But I don’t think that viral is the only culprit. The other culprit is the doctor who I saw at the St. George’s medical college which happens to be in an alley right in front of my hotel. This wannabe male version of Florence Nightingale is as fresh in my mind as is the taste of the sizzler that I ‘assembled’ at ‘Out of the Blue’. The doctor and the sizzler, together they make up for the wild blend that is forever lacking in my dull mind. I will not forget the way the menu of ‘Out of the Blue’ ensnared me in having a meal out of the blue even when I meant to avoid eating a full meal at all costs. Well I think that the modest creativity of assembling a sizzler was did me in. And as far as the doctor is concerned, I will not forget him for prescribing me the most temporary relief medicines for a six month old chronic viral attack cycle. His prescription consisted of an analgesic, a paracetamol and an anti-allergic, all of which I happened to have in my arsenal already. I wanted to shout right there and then in his office, ‘Please for God sake gives me something extreme, something of industrial strength.’ But then I thought how it would scar all the ultra young age citizens and the old age citizens who had come for a diagnosis and I didn’t do it. Now I am reprimanding myself for not being selfish. I should’ve just gone ahead with it- scarring or no scarring. The result is that I am the one who has ended up scarred now. Now I will never forget how the doctor spent ages with the poor and the needy and neatly sent me packing with an illegible diagnosis in 40 sec. flat. His solidarity with poor also left me wondering if Florence Nightingale shares her family tree with Robin Hood.

Apart from waking up and feeling weak, I also woke up begging for more sleep. I don’t think the only culprits are the viral and the St. Georges doctor. I think the other culprit are the bedbugs in my…well where else…my bed. I have figured that the only way I can get sleep these days are to sleep only when the bedbugs are sleeping and that happens only once it’s daytime. I have no clue how these buggers come to know if it’s day or night. I guess it has to do with biological crap like adaptation, mutation and hereditary intelligence. I couldn’t care less what it’s got to do with. All I know is that I have rashes all over my body and if I can’t sleep during the night, I can’t work at the Express. I have two options

1. I can align my sleep cycle in an alternating pattern with that of the bedbugs, which is not viable since I have to work at the Express during the day.
2. I can go and make a complaint to the hotel admin. But the way my previous complaints have been flushed down the sewer, the very prospect of making a complaint makes me shudder.

But since the second option seemed to be the more viable one, I avoided making the complaint to Attendant-Prince (to know whom better you can read ‘Project: Budget Brainwash’) and chose a softer target i.e. the right-handed right hand man of the left- handed Attendant-Prince. I made their natural orientation clear because it is one of the most preferred pastime of the Attendant-Prince to make it clear to his cronies how he thinks that lefties are generally more clever. I couldn’t agree with him more after having met him. And I wonder if that’s the reason why his left hand man is left-handed. Here we need to take into account that for the Attendant-Prince the left hand man scores over his right hand man because the Attendance-Prince is a lefty. Anyway, one thing I most dislike is conspiracies and a conspiracy which is against right-handers is a conspiracy against me. I will make sure that the attendant-prince will pay for this sometime soon. I still have to figure out how though.

Waking up and feeling weak first thing in the morning is not good. So I was looking to fix the problem. I summoned the right-hand man of Attendant-Prince i.e. I walked over to him while showering respect all the while I approached him, and said, ‘Raat hote hee badan khujlane lagta hai. Mujhe lagta hai mere bistar mein kutch problem hai.’ And he instantly offered to change the bed sheet, which was very kind of him. But I brought to his kind attention that the problem was lying much deeper than that. The problem was not in the superficial bed sheet, but deeper, in the mattress, where the buggers borrowed, so I requested to him, ‘Woh spray karva deejiye naa.’ And he said, ‘Abhi to karaya tha do din pehle’ and I did not say anything because now I was looking up to him as the ‘pesticide spraying demigod’ who would save me from the attack of the bloodsucking buggers in the night-time. So I decided to show him something more impressive. The ultimate weapon of persuasion that I had reserved for the last, ‘Yeh ched dekh rahe hain aap?’, I said pointing to small perforations in my gray shorts like someone was shooting them with an air rifle when they were drying on the clothes’ line. Or can a high tension cable do this to your shorts (Read ‘Drying Clothes can be Injurious to Health)? Anyway, I was saying that I said, ‘Yeh ched dekh rahe hain aap? Kal tak yeh yahaan nahin the.’ And he whispered in a tone filled with dread accompanied with respect, ‘Cockroaches’, and I thought, ‘Now I got your attention huh?’ and he promised as soon as I went out in the evening, he would spray my bed with the pesticides, full strength. ‘I wanted to shout at the top of my voice, ‘Make it industrial strength.’, but I kept quite because now I have realized that it would dilute the gravity of the issue that I had raised. And after I had talked to him, thanks to this episode, I have also realized that I have a bad habit of fucking up the advantage at the last moment by being sarcastic, or trifling. And which is a habit it’s time I let go of.

And what about feeling weak? I don’t think it can be solely attributed to viral. I think the lack of parks in Bombay has something to do with it. I am a person with multiple complications when it comes to health and well being. And one of these is my weakening knees and back. I have concluded that it would be suicidal to run on cement surfaces. It would be like trying to drive a beat up beetle over the Rockies, in that event, a lot more than the bumper is likely to come off. And I am not ready to compromise even a bumper anymore. I have lost enough things in life. And so I make sure that I only run on clay or grass. But the lack of parks in this city makes it remarkably difficult. I remembered how I used to hate MICA alumni at the alumni meet referring to their paunch and calling it an occupational hazard. But now I know how that hazard comes into play. Anyway, it’s hard to picture myself ending up with even a slightest of paunch. It’s just not cool. And more importantly it’s just not me. But given the lack of parks in the city, given my growing love for the city, and assuming that I will most probably end up working here, it will have to be some treadmill kept in a gym that will have to do the trick.

When I woke up feeling weak, I had to just stay still for about twenty minutes to gather enough courage to move to the bathroom. But the conversation between my bed-neighbors, the merchant-navy-big-bully and his bed pal kept me engaged, so I decided not to move for another few minutes. The big bully, who supposedly once had a brawl with the captain of his ship and taught him a lesson by getting himself fired from the job (don’t ask how) was once again narrating the stories about life on the big blue. And then when he got stuck on a minor detail, something to do about the coldness of the food served in life on the big blue, he referred to me. Then, his bed pal asked him about me and he mentioned casually, ‘Yeh babu hoga engineering side ka officer, hai na babu?’ And I had been thinking that all these days I had made it crystal clear that I have nothing to do with ships and the closest that I ever came to a ship was when I watched the movie Titanic. Actually my most frequently spoken sentence in here is, ‘Main shipping mein nahin hoon.’ I promptly made it clear to them that I knew nothing about the serving temperature of the food on the big blue and that I had nothing to do with ships.

I woke up feeling weak and suddenly the promise that I had made to Vishal on the evening of May, 05, 06 started to look weak too, like it would snap any moment. The promise had been about going to catch a movie because it is a natural thing to do when you bump into your Career Launchaer, Chandigarh (presently at IIM-L) buddy on Churchgate after you have just flipped though a few pages of ‘Penthouse Girl on Girl’ on one of the pirated book seller’s hangout but have ended up buying ‘The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-time’ which after reading left you wishing that had you been the dog that got pitch forked in very beginning of the novel you wouldn’t have had to go through this sedate, overrated crap. So now it’s almost 4 in the afternoon and I am not too good at remembering movie schedules around here and besides I’ve got a courier to make to mama before I can call him. And the most crucial thing is that I don’t have a cell, so the communication between him and me is like one way traffic. When do I call him? Maybe I’ll make the courier drop at 4:30 and then call him at five so that he can catch the evening show of whatever Bollywood crap is playing.

The weakness that I felt in the morning was not alone. Not alone in the sense, it was accompanied by a serene, contemplative frame of mind. And because of this contemplation inducing weakness I couldn’t help but remember the chain of events on the night of May 05, 06. How I entered the STD after going to the Thomas Cook office and then saw him- that bastard. I know I am not making much sense. I think, in order to make sense the elevator of Ship, which I have screwed up once before, is the right place to start. Let me make this clear that I don’t have any special liking for this elevator. It’s just an elevator. It does nothing more than what an elevator is supposed to do. It just shuttles people up and down through a dark vertical channel, which if you happen to look into otherwise, would seem pretty spooky. Though I think the elevator is another reason for me to feel weak. This is how. Because of it I do not use the staircase and I am kept from getting even that exercise which I would get in case I used the staircase. No matter how unappealing this elevator might be, there is a special thing about it though I am not sure if it’s face-saving or defacing. The thing about the elevator is that (I am speaking for males here because I don’t know how it would affect the female body) it can make you grab your balls. Yes. Believe your eyes. Look I’ll write it again for your sake in bold. It can make you grab your balls. It can do that because it is the most abrupt elevator I have ever been on. When you press the down button, your balls come all the way up to your throat and choke you, and when you push the up button, your balls touch the floor and rebound. It is nothing like the caring, gentle and thoughtful elevator at the Thomas Cook office, which accelerates slowly and decelerates as slowly. It’s not like this one at Ship, which behaves like a brick hurled at the sky. Good thing that I screwed it. Had they not hired an elevator operator, I would have screwed it over and over again. I can screw it at will because I know how to if I want to. Okay I accept that I had lied when I said I don’t have a particular liking for the elevator, what I really meant is that I hate it from the gut. So where was I? Yes I was saying that it can make you grab your balls. What I meant was that, to ensure the integrity of your balls when traveling in this one of a kind elevator, you tend to secure your balls. And since now I have become habituated to this elevator ritual, I happened to grab my balls even when I was at the Thomas Cook office, purely out of habit, which elevated one of the eye brow of the elevator operator. Seeing the eyebrow go up, I instinctively let go of my balls. Quite contrary to expectations, soon I and my balls were in the 5-star comfort of cloud nine when the Thomas Cook elevator sensitively whisked us from ground floor to fourth floor. On the fourth floor I collected the money which I was supposed to from the Travel Insurance Department, smoothly traveled down the building in the thoughtful elevator, and proceeded towards the STD to call mama to inform her that I had received the money. I made it a point to enter this particular STD because it’s always 'AC on', and because it’s terribly hot and humid, even in the evenings. I entered one of the cabins to make the call to mama. I made the call. When I was making the call to mama and was half way through of what I had planned to say to her, he walked in and instantly I knew it was unmistakably him. No one could look more…well…‘him’. He was with who I thought was his wife, and only yesterday he had told me in the street that he was traveling alone. Despite being a person who lies frequently I can’t stand liars. And this little lie of his was indicating that everything that he had told me was a big lie and it meant that he really was what I had thought of him the night before. Anyways, no words passed between us. I gave him a knowing smile, the kind of smile that says, ‘I got everything figured about you baby. I even know what the tattoo on the ass of the man who gave you the tattoo on your ass says. It says, ‘I own you smartass.’’ So I gave him that kind of a knowing smile. I was able to give him that kind of a smile because truth was on my side or atleast i thought so. He usherered his wife into the STD cabin adjacent to mine and then, I saw the streak of fear on his face and the drop of sweat that ran down his worried face, sliding down his temple and along his cheek. I concluded that he must be terribly worried to see me to sweat like that in my favorite, perfectly cooled STD shop. I said love you to mama and then kept the receiver down. By that time he had walked out of the shop. I stepped out of the shop with the ‘I own you buddy’. smile on my face and then what happened will make sense only when I tell you what had happen on the evening of May 04, 06.

This is what happened on the evening of May 04, 06. I woke up feeling weak and called in sick at the Express. But it was not the kind of weakness which brought with it the contemplative streak. It was the ‘restless’ kind which make me conclude that feeling contemplative is independent of feeling weak which beats my previous hypotheses. But anyway, I was feeling weak and so I spent the day sleeping and daydreaming until the evening when the adventurer in me urged me to take a walk and explore the surroundings within a clean radius of a kilometer. I listened to the adventurer in me and got down to fulfilling its urge which by now had become my urge too and it was a combined urge now. And so I jumped into my jeans, hedged the cash in my wallet to a level where it wont hurt in case I got mugged, jumped into the elevator, secured my balls, the operator pressed the button and I landed on ground zero. After having my dinner I was returning to Ship when out of nowhere…no let me reframe…it was actually from behind a parked three ton army truck that he appeared. I saw him. My mind registered the first impression of him and it said, ‘Hunky-dory. Safe.’ He was a harmless looking middle-aged man, wearing a bottle-green kurta, probably silk, with an astoundingly neatly trimmed mustache which looked like a wider than normal black Johnson’s Band-Aid ultra neatly stuck above his upper lip. He was speaking English the way many middle class men speak, with a streak of unfamiliarity with the language in their tone. But I guess…no I know for sure why he chose English despite being uncomfortable with it. It’s because it is one language which is not as harsh as Hindi. To quote an example, it is nearly impossible to ejaculate our frustration by saying ‘Shit!’ in Hindi, at least in public.
This is what he had to say to open the conversation with the stranger that was me, ‘How far is Gateway of India from here?’
Because I happen to be a frequent hiker from VT to Gateway of India, I told him, ‘If you take a bus it would take 5 minutes or if you are feeling adventurous enough you could walk down to the Gateway of India which would take you about 20 minutes but the walk is worth all the sweat.’ And the fact remains that it is indeed one of the most beautiful serenades I have come across. It is almost as beautiful as the The Mall in Jalandhar Cantt, where I used to serenade when I was either extraordinarily pissed or exceptionally happy, generally, or even with someone particular. These two, together are two of the most therapeutic stretches I have had the pleasure of serenading. Anyway, he was not interested in what I was saying. As I would figure out later, he had to stick to the script, his script to be more precise, and I am the kinds who can make a mockery of his kind of a script. So he hurriedly came back to talking about Gateway of India which seemed to be one of the key words of the script on which a lot depends, and said, ‘Don’t mind I am only speaking to you as a friend. I had a bad experience when I first went to Gateway of India.’
‘Don’t tell me you got mugged…’ I interrupted him much to his irritation because I was doing to his script what I would like to do to the elevator in my hotel- screwing it. I got ready to narrate what had happened with me. He made an irritated expression and stopped me with a hand gesture.
He continued, ‘I was very young at that time, and don’t mind me saying this, I am only speaking to you as a friend, I was quite healthy at that time and I had boobs’, he said pointing to his chest. I am sure I lifted an eyebrow when he mentioned boobs because I had not expected this kind of slang language form this seemingly antiquated life form from some small town in India. And I did not try to think what would have happened, if we were talking in Hindi, how would the sentence that he just said would sound.
He didn’t stop there, he went on, ‘And there was this guy at the Gateway of India who started rubbing them and started tickling my nipples’. This was accompanied by a gesture which looked like he was tying to a drive in a screw but he was short of a screw driver so he was using his thumb and the pointer finger instead. ‘And that got me really…EXCITED.’, he said. Boy was he well rehearsed. The psychological implication to be observed here is how he had reacted positively to the pervert’s advances, by getting excited (and not offended, a reaction one might expect from a straight person, or even gay person for that matter), in his Gateway of India instance. Talk about stinking, subtle communication.
Then he asked me, ‘Where are you living?’
I said, ‘Ship Hotel.’ And then he gave a knowing smile which was badly rehearsed and had many flaws in it.
After he had smiled the flawed knowing smile, he said, ‘So when you guys watch blue films in Ship, is it true that guys start feeling each-other up.’ I noticed how he said ‘blue-films’ and not ‘porn’ or ‘porn films’ instead which proves that he was a blast from the past and was quite inactive now compared to his younger days when such (now considered antiquated vocabulary) was in vogue. I did not raise an eyebrow this time. I was so calm that I thought I would freak-out the bastard with it. I was acting on the principal that people get freaked out when they things don’t go according to plan. Acting contrary to expectations is the best thing to do in those times. I merely said without being too offending because I was weaving my web and couldn’t afford to scare him away, ‘Nothing like that happens in Ship, your imagination is too wild.’ And he laughed like a hyena. This is the kind of laugh that suited him perfectly. This was his original laugh. The knowing smile had looked such a sham.
His script looked over and it couldn’t look more bombed so I assumed that it was my turn now. So to freak him out further, I started asking him a flurry of questions, which ranged from where he was from, what he did for a living, whether he was married, where was he living in Mumbai about most of which he lied. I know he lied because when he was going by the script he was looking straight into my eyes but when I introduced my own little impromptu script which involved unexpected questions, he started looking away, his mind trying hard to detach itself from his Gateway of India fantasies and thinking up false, credible seeming information. The biggest lie being that he was staying in Trombay and had come to town for ‘business’. And then I enquired about ‘business’ he said that he was into plastic tank business. I had been sure that his man was a phony for a long time now but now I really wanted to kick his butt at his own game. The only difference was that his communication was scripted. Mine wasn’t, so I had to be very careful of what I spoke. I suddenly had an idea which I thought would trap him. I had noticed how he had looked away when he was mentioning his profession. I presumed that he had lied about it. I thought I would trap him by asking him a closed ended question framed in an open-ended way (to use the terms in a slightly different way, you know what I mean). The framing of the question was tricky. I could ask the question in two ways,

1. ‘So you only trade in plastic tanks or you also make them?’
2. ‘So you only make tanks or sell them too?’

I figured that in order to avoid answering more questions about the same, if I asked the first question, he would answer, ‘I only trade in plastic tanks’. He would do that to avoid responsibility of knowing about the know-how of manufacturing plastic tanks.
So I took the second option. And falling in with expectations, he said, ‘No, I only make them.’
I had got him. The logical thing to do was to ask him a whole lot of technical questions about plastic tank manufacturing. For instance, where they get the plastic, what was the formula of the plastic used, who designs the moulds, what was the capacity, where was the factory located. By the time I was through my script, he was sweating profusely and I suspect that his mind was now far removed from Gateway of India type fantasies.
And then after I had asked the questions, I gave him my knowing smile, which was a proper knowing smile and then nervously he said, ‘You asked me so many questions. Like a lawyer, like a lawyer. It wasn’t without a purpose. You asked them just like a lawyer.’ He seemed quite awed by lawyers. I told him. ‘I am studying to be an MBA.’ And I said it in a tone which conveyed, ‘I don’t have to be a lawyer to teach you a lesson bastard.’ This made him even more nervous. And them I guessed that he had no more water left in his body to convert to sweat, so it was time to say good-bye but not before he said almost with awe, ‘What a handsome man!’ Yes that was meant for me. And though it reeked of flattery, I lapped it up because you know how flattery works. Though you know it’s flattery, it does affect you on a subconscious level. But what is important is not that you are being affected by it, what is important is that you should know that you are being affected. He stuck out his hand to shake mine. But it hardly culminated into a successful handshake as his hand was hanging like a damp squid and I did not intend to hold a damp squid on a day on which I had gotten up feeling weak and restless. So I just plain left, and he went his way. I walked away knowing that he knew that I knew what he was and what he had just tried with me.

Now that you know what had happened on the 4th of May, I can tell you what happened on the evening of 5th of May and make sense too. After I stepped out of the STD, though I had the knowing smile on my face, I had planned to leave him and his ghosts alone but his ghosts had vomited much venom in his mind by now, and so he blocked my way and stopped me. I could smell all the alcohol that he had consumed that evening. He grabbed my T- shirt with his damp squid and warned me in his drunken voice, ‘You don’t say a word about me to anyone.’ I wanted to hit him. But I thought again. And I thought about his wife who was still in the STD cabin, his non-existent kid, and then I simply slapped the damp squid away, freeing myself in the process and simply walked off as if we had never met before and he was some random drunkard who had accosted me.

As I was walking to Ship the episode kept playing in my head over and over again and I had this huge urge of sharing the episode with someone so that tomorrow if the bastard harms me in anyway, they would know who to look for- a middle aged man named Ashish, traveling with his wife, and who had stayed in one of the hotels in the area near Ship. I knew that it was his own name because of the way he had said it. And I also knew that he did not have a kid because he had got terribly confused when I had asked him the question about kids. First he had said no and then after considering his age, and his married status, he said yes. And moreover I did not see a kid when I saw him with his wife. Why would caring parents not bring the kids along? I know I am making a lot of assumptions here but that is how irrational I was on that evening. So I thought that I would call Swati. I called her up from one of the get-lost-if-you-don’t-have-a-coin local phones, but then when I heard the engaged tone on her phone, I thought why should Swati have to put up with all the crap that happens to me. I should learn to handle the crap on my own, just like old times, and I also figured that the unexpectedly violent behavior of the bastard had induced me to think unreasonable crap. I finally decided that this particular incident does not need to be told to Swati at 11 in the night-time. With this thought in my head I walked up to Ship, stepped into the elevator, found the operator absent, secured my balls, tinkered with the button, screwed the elevator, took the staircase, went to my bed, and collapsed on it.

‘An Ode to Gurinder Chaddha’

Gurinder Chaddha
Why make flops like ‘Mistress of Spices’
With expensive Ash?
When you can make stuff like, ‘Shake it like Ash?’
Without casting Ashwarya
And on top of it save all that cash
That’s wasted
On the razzmatazz

'Wild-life Near VT'

And then the dog lifted its hind leg, looked directly in the eyes of the new mongrel in the neighborhood, and began wetting the wall, his cool eyes stating, ‘Read the writing on the wall. This is Blakie’s hood.’

Nearby, in an alley in Blakie’s kingdom, the sewer rat nibbled on some spilt rubbish, skittered along the pavement and into the grill it went. The garbage collector cursed it overhead for causing the garbage to scatter, ‘Curse you, you little rascal. The gutter’s just the place for you, you filthy rat.’ The rat smiled like a Shaolin monk who has mastered ten most coveted martial art styles and muttered, ‘And the world’s just the place for you, my friend.’

In close proximity three legged dog limped to the place where all the howling was coming from. He saw a brawl building up. What initially seemed to be personal matter between two fleabags had now engulfed the whole hood, even Blakie was present now. The three legged dog had not had enough sleep. He barked to them irritably, ‘Get a life you mongrels. I have had a tiring day.’ Two dogs leapt towards him to teach him a lesson. They had sniffed out his nervousness. Blakie intervened, ‘leave the freak alone.’ he barked. The aggressors behaved as if nothing had happened, and left.

In the evening, the urchin begged half-heartedly the whole day for which the God of Professions punished him, by only providing him with which he could barely sustain and could afford no luxuries. After having his fill at the eating joint meant for urchin, which serves only fish as if by principle, he retired. He retired to the melody of the Made in China FM pocket radio which is a rage in his fellowship.

Early morning, the drug addict rose from his death, coughed his lungs out, vomited some blood, talked to his relatives who looked alive and well off. They talked not of disease or death but of mundane matters as if nothing is wrong with this early morning painting. By the time they were half through with the conversation, the addict’s wife crouched beside her husband with something sniffable, cheap and effective and the addict took it all in from his sniffer. He slowly fell to his death again. His relative departed knowing which sewer hole to find him by the next day.

A man came to Ship half baked in the ways of the world. He thought he could not stand the smell of fish around the area. Now he has been living here for 15 days and he says, ‘What smell?’

‘After Dance Hours’

It’s after dance hours and
The fragrance of your name lingers

True to your name
What if it’s after we’ve danced
And nothing will be the same
We’ll cherish the days
We danced
Only till it started to rain
We loved
Only till it started to pain

Couplets by Sarci

The closer we got
The farther

What is there to remember?
The feeling is lost

We were together
Till love did us part


Is this love so strong
That we can’t stand it?

If this force that holds you from me is stronger
It wasn’t love

You say you cannot love me more
Why do you turn away?

Is it the extent of love
You once confessed for me
That’s keeping you from resisting
Its destructive phase?


What kind of love dear?
One which cannot even keep us near?

‘One of a Kind’

Is there a world beyond this world?
Is there a storm beyond this whirl?

Is there a kind beyond this kind?
Or human kind is to itself confined?

Are we supposed to feel like our ancestors?
Are we supposed to cultivate the same attitudes?
Are there worlds still unexplored…
Or is destiny to us so rude?

I ask myself- am I a social clone of my peers?
Have I given in to rejection fear?
Or am I holding fort?
The lines are blurred, no longer clear…

But in this moment
I do remind myself the dream
That I forced upon my eyes
To look beyond what is expected
And be one of a kind
Even if it means standing alone
Not just be one more of mankind

Lines by Sarci

Seek out not treacherous arms to hurt me oh foe
For that fate is already gifted to my imagination

You smiled
And I took it as a promise of togetherness
I did not know
That in your world, it’s merely an institution

For me, a lifetime in a moment
For you, just another stone overturned

The wounds are still fresh where you touched my heart
It’s beside the point that I will not trade them for the world

When you lay beside me beloved
This bed was the launch pad of dreams
Since you left,
It is only a field of sorrow
Where there is regret for today
Hope set aside for tomorrow

I keep my lips sealed to protect my inanity
And the world interprets it as lofty vanity

Most joyful were the moments when you only haunted me- the specter
Most painful those when your apparition materialized- the actual

Only I gave you the power to injure me
Pray don’t deprive me of the credit now


Your face watermarked on every wave in the sea
I sat and counted them till the sea receded
Time was considerate when the waves didn’t form
But cruel, when to a big wave, it again conceded

I am destined to bear your face’s memories for a while
‘Cause only a face can erase a face in this world
I am confined by the fences of my passions for you
For only a face can replace a face in this world

Nami-baba at Freud’s Grave

Freud: I don’t understand, why do people move to St. Xavier's hostel?
Nami-baba: Professor, you would have known had you not studied just one patient and that too your wife.
Freud: Pity my wife never stayed out in hostels.
Nami’baba: Not that you can do much about it now. Anyways I think I can answer why people move to St. X hostel. I think its desperation out of not having enough information about other hostels.
Freud: Desperation…who would know more about desperation than me.
Nami-baba: Yes after all you had to settle for your wife for a patient in the end.
Freud: It wasn’t out of desperation.
Nami-baba: Yeah-yeah.
Freud: Are you mocking me? By the theories of psycho analysis, I would think that a man as great as me would deserve more respect.
Nami-baba: Hey don’t expect me to respect you simply because you are dead.
Freud: That’s not the reason why I deserve respect.
Nami-baba: That’s what you think. Your subconscious couldn’t disagree with you more.
Freud: What?
Nami-baba: Forget it. Let’s come back to your question. You asked me why do people go to St. X to stay, yes?
Freud: Yes.
Nami-baba: Professor, I think what’s important is not why people go to St. X, what’s important is that why people go there and stay.
Freud: Unhun?
Nami-baba: Have you ever wondered why people start to find themselves at home in badly kept jails and madhouses after they have been there a while?
Freud: Yes-yes, how could I not wonder? It’s inescapable.
Nami-baba: Exactly. The same principle applies here. Let me explain it to you in terms of depression syndrome. When a person first comes to St. X it is purely based on the academic reputation of the institution and some desperation for accommodation. After meeting the warden and checking out the hostel he catches that faint whiff of depression in the air. It is then that the little seed of self-destruction which is planted in each of us sees its first ray of nourishing sunlight. And this seed, coupled with the budget constraint and lack of information about other places to stay, constantly pushes him into accepting the accommodation or to put it in better words, ‘accepting his fate.’ Slowly depression becomes a part of life, one without which the dweller feels incomplete.
Freud: I have framed some twisted theories in my life but that one beats everything. It’s so twisted that I can’t even tell whether it’s reliable. I am proud of you Nami-baba. After all we have to keep the flame of psychoanalysis burning and that can only be achieved by coming up with increasingly confounding theories about human thinking.
Nami-baba: Yeah-yeah whatever professor. I couldn’t care less about what a dead man has to say but since it’s you, I can always lend an ear.
Freud: Thank you, thank you a thousand times.
Nami-baba: Ok-ok I think I should make a move now or if they see me moving my lips for so long near a grave, they will put me in St. X or something. Oh I forgot to give you the Playboy that you asked for. Here take it.
Freud: Just slip it in the hole.
Nami-baba: There you go.
Freud: Thanks and bye.
Nami-baba: Good-bye old boy. Keep the tossing and turning under control in there. It’s a graveyard you are at, and one would think that the place is almost holy.

‘It’s on Time’

Time runs fast when you are walking the streets
But it only ambles on when you are running out in the heat

Time drives by when you are driving for leisure
But when you are in a chase, it races with measure

Feels like a time warp when you are sleeping
But time seems to clot when it’s a book that you are reading

Time flows freely when you are working alone in your cubicle
But when you are talking to your boss, it flows only in a trickle

Time floats past over swigs of intoxicating potions
But, if one is shot at, bullets seem to move in slow-motion

It’s known that life seems longer when the adrenalin flows
Though you can’t stop time, you know you can make it run slow
But then, what’s the use of taming the time-monster
When it’s more endearing with a mind of its own?

‘Project: Budget-Brainwash’

The day I stepped into Ship, I had the good fortune of meeting the most ill tempered attendant the place has to offer. After talking to him a few times, not much urge in me to talk has remained. Though he is irritable and ill tempered and highly unpredictable, he has quite a complex personality. This conclusion is based on the assumption that I am a rational being who does not give anyone too much benefit of the doubt.

It so happens that every time I have a conversation with him, it ends on the same note and needless to say ‘his note’. But it is usually me who builds the crescendo by being the ‘complaining sort’. Despite of my ‘complaining habit’, after being brainwashed by him and his gang who propagate the belief that the hotel offers the best facilities for the price we are paying, my very reasonable complaints now seem like shameless petitions for luxury, even to me.

I clearly recall, it was my very first day here when I had asked him, ‘Is my luggage secure here?’ I was referring to my second piece of luggage which was secured along with other pieces of luggage to the door with a long metal chain. And this is what he had to say to me, ‘If it doesn’t look secure to you why don’t you rent the now vacant double bed AC room we have. Rs. 312 is the rent. Your luggage will be quite safe there.’ I tell you I had this great urge to yell back at him why doesn’t he check in himself? What’s holding His Majesty back? Why does His Majesty sleep in quarters even worse than mine but I swear I restrained myself from hurting the poor man’s feelings.

As far as I know he knows darn well that I am a student and that too who is doing his summers at ‘The Indian Express’. For Gossake, hasn’t he ever come across the concept of budget constraints in his luxurious life of 25 years? And here I don’t want to make a mockery of irony by calling it an irony that he appears to be ignorant of the concept of budget while working in a budget hotel- the very place which is the reason for his next meal. I hope it’s clear to him that it’s not some five-seven star cruise liner he is working his lazy ass off in but a stationary budget hotel made out of concrete, attached to solid ground, inhabited by Nami-baba and forty-four roomies, a hotel which can never even dream about setting its eyes on a cruise liner let alone setting sail like it, but still has the audacity to call itself “Ship”.

Life is so predictable; I knew it won’t end there. So another time we had a chat about me complaining how disgusting it is to fill water from a cooler which situated so freaking close to the bathrooms. And again after the brain wash meant to make the hotel look like a place more reasonable than heaven, I received the generous offer from his majesty the attendant-prince himself to shift into the 312 Rs. double bed AC chamber intended to match my humble status as a summer trainee at The Indian Express. It was made clear to me that water wouldn’t be a problem there. And I must state here that what perplexes me is not the offer but the way it’s made. It’s purely mechanical as if some algorithm controls the words he is mouthing. I even close to considering that he was joking. It couldn’t possibly be true the second time, but it turns out that reality couldn’t disagree with me more.

And the third time this happened, it inspired this post, ‘cause third time is not funny. This time my problem was finding a plug point to charge my lappy-the device that earns me instant respect among the roomies. So His Majesty in his flat voice duly suggested the plug point near the staircase. Of course His Courageousness did not consider that the place does not have fan, is susceptible to trespassing and hence would require me to stand there in the heat as long as the lappy was getting charged, which is not much over an hour’s time. Needless to say the excellent suggestion of the plug point was followed by the magnanimous offer to move into the Special Summer Internship Suit which cost only Rs. 312. And, needless to say the suit was fitted with state-of-the-art plug points, and not only a fan but an AC.

After these three incidences I have given up on the ‘unreasonable complainant’ inside me. And have become a brown rat subjected to the greatest psychology experiment ever conducted inside a wannabe ship hotel codenamed ‘Project: Budget-Brainwash’.

And yes this brainwash does not come without the dilemma whether the attendant-prince is dumb or smart. But it comes with the assurance that whether dumb or smart he is surely an ass for which I congratulate him and my puny self profusely.

‘The Diplomat’

Recently my hotel- Ship had the good fortune of becoming international in nature when a group of Japanese arrived with their dark, tense goatees and flawless complexion being the main attractions.

It so happened that hardly had this Japanese contingent set foot on the haloed turf of Ship, one of the roomies in my dorm, who can boast of exactly the kind of paunch that inspires me to do some ab crunches everyday out of fear, struck a (conscious, intentional, forced) friendship with one Japanese punk who was of course as slippery as an eel although he looked a picture of innocence.

The Indian seemed to be saying through his body language, ‘I am Indian you are Japanese. I am a special Indian, you are a special Japanese. I am rare you are rare. Destiny has brought us together in this small hotel. Well we must play PM-PM i.e. you represent your country I represent mine.’ And they talked, discussed bilateral issues of importance, and translated each others names into each others languages. Here, the only word that I can use to describe the Indian’s behavior is ‘cocky’. When they were “talking”, I had this uncontrollable urge to get up and ask the Indian how his little yellow rat was doing in the friendship lab. Not that I hold anything against this Indian. It’s just that I have never seen him interact with anyone “Indian” in the room but things obviously changed when a Japanese, from miles away came to stay; this Indian suddenly felt the pangs of being friendless.

I will not say anything beyond what I have already said ‘cause I do not want to analyze something that has been a million times already, by Indians or non. I would rather end it by congratulating this evidently well informed, English speaking Indian for being quite a diplomat and certainly IFS material.

‘My Things on “Share”’

On an ordinary day i.e. a weekday, I would be standing in line for the loo holding the previous day’s news paper for diversion but today, since it is Saturday, it’s 8 in the morning and I am still in bed, deep in my early morning slumber. I am clinging to my pillow, my lifebuoy on the sea of dreams, but not only to prevent myself from sinking in it but also because I have slipped the key to my under-the-bed cupboard into its cover. And since even in dreams I am too aware of the fact that the forty-four roomies know too well that I have a laptop, locked in somewhere, and their fascination for it is as much for it as their contempt for any form of exercise (except to the famous eye work out that is done in front of the television), I hold on to the pillow even tighter.

I resent the fact that, I don’t dream in pictures these days, it’s almost as if some dream merchant has bought my eyes’ images without informing me and sold them to a person who used to dream away his decline everyday, possessing the currency of an ignited imagination, which if lacked anything was a confident vision. I am happy to know that my dream vision is helping someone, somewhere dream in pictures while I still cling on to mere ideas, adrift on the dryness that comes with the lack of a picturesque rendering. It’s almost like donating a heart simply because someone can use it better than you. But even without a heart, life goes on. After all it’s not the heart that learns to be ‘in love with the idea of…’

If it’s alright to put it this way and still not come across as harsh, I have established that my dreams, so to say, ‘lack an imagination’, it takes a huge stimulus to actually put it’s imaginative machinery into motion. And I don’t think it is merely restricted to the realm of dreams. Even when I am not sleeping (strictly in the technical sense), I still need highly impressionable stimulus for it to even register. To illustrate this I would resort to a recent pleasure trip when I was strolling down the road near Ship Hotel and, I was shocked to observe the kind of landmarks my mind remembers. Generally, when in doubt about the way I am going, I freeze and look around. And this is precisely what I did on this instance. I looked around for something that I would identify my way with. And promptly I saw the drug addict on the corner, engaged in burning almost anything and going about it in a sniffing manner. So I redirected myself. I moved on and when another freeze occurred, I looked around and promptly spotted the three legged dog sleeping on his trademark mat. I redirected myself. On the instance of another freeze, I looked around and on finding nothing recognizable, I looked down and duly found the squashed rat that I had seen near the pavement, and I instantly knew that I was close to Ship. It’s confounding how my mind refuses to register billboards, directional signs, building facades, shops etc. but rather chooses to remember things that are completely inconsequential and what is even more stupid is that these landmarks are mobile (except for the squashed rat which has little chance to be carried about by the yellow, gray, brown, white cat that lives in Ship’s attic, which I have come to call ‘Flame’). What happens if these things change their bases tomorrow? I would be lost. But then I am comforted by the fact that these landmarks’ lives have stopped like the body-clock of an insomniac.

Now, after proving the incompetence of my imagination, I can narrate to you what happened on this morning which did not see me standing in the ‘queue for the loo’.

One of my forty four roomies is my merchant navy friend Akhil. He is a marine engineer who mostly hangs out in and around the seas surrounding Japan, but here to do some seaman courses which will make him ‘The Secure Seaman’, at least for the time being. Now, he mostly keeps to himself unless being talked to first, when of course he becomes an amiable, chatty version of himself, but today something stimulated him to talk to me first. It appeared that he needed my laptop for some weird reason and nudged me in my sleep to inform me that he needed the favor.

I could hear him in my sleep, ‘Namit wakeup! I need your laptop. I need your laptop for a few hours.’ I duly clutched my pillow tighter, the key in it withstanding the pressure building around the pillow.

‘What, whha-aaat?’ I came to life. ‘You need mmmmmmmy LAPTOP?’ I said it as if he was asking from me my life.

Of course this fear was not baseless. I have a few reasons to believe that I and my laptop and the relationship we share can me harmed. The reasons being:

1. One mugging
2. One lost cell phone
3. ‘Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ roomies at Yadgar, Grant Road
4. Forty four roomies of the ‘Nami-baba and Forty-four’ roomies fame and their inquisitive eyes.
5. The Sahara marketing head warning me that the merchant navy guys were ‘SMART’ (compared to his more conventional split personality disorder, resonating between a corporate head and a lecher) and would show their interest in my laptop in which case I shouldn’t let them even lay a finger on it.

I was up from my slumber by now, and my brain having registered some imaginary activity in the form of the above listed, I asked again in mild disbelief, ‘You…you…you want my lappy?’ and I heard Akhil’s voice say in a straight forward way, ‘Hey who’s asking for your laptop? I just want your black shoes. Can I borrow them? I’ll be back by twelve.’

I was not awake enough to be embarrassed. But now I am awake enough to be, and so I am writing about the episode but without being embarrassed about it. I don’t know why but I am not embarrassed about showing my insecurity. This is some more new emotional territory for me. I seem to be shouting from the dome of VT, ‘Yes I am insecure, and will be for days to come and will be in love with the idea of love for sometime too. This is what I have on ‘share’ for now and I am not promising any progress in the near future either, though I do try. Take it or leave it.’

Actually, Akhil just came back, and is sitting on his bed talking to his friend that has come along with him. He has returned my shoes without showing the slightest desire to see embers of embarrassment on my face. Even if he looks for them, he won’t find any because I am in the ring, fighting a bout with my imagination, asking it to yield to my desires, and I can vaguely begin to see my image atop VT, sharing the done with the with the elusive lady, white with insecurity about the city she is looking over, or overlooking?

‘Dear lady atop VT you mind if I shift my attention form you for a while and make you crave for it in bewilderment, and give it to another lady, equally magnificent?’- it’s time to watch Aeon Flux at Sterling with Akhil and his friend Aditya.’ Needless to say, the experience will be on ‘share’.