This weekend and that - long, unstructured and incomprehensible (part II)

II. Full circle in Calcutta - not this weekend
Day I
Midway from airport to S's place, I get a phone call and I go - "crap, I picked up some one else's luggage!". As I ask the driver to turn back, he looks at me with empathy and I realize "Not easy to leave your baggage behind! It follows you!" So here I was, back to Kolkata. Kol (yesterday) Kat(h)a - story : yesterday's story. Life has come full circle - and what a circle it has been. You have traveled all around, thinking you were moving ahead to reach exactly where you were and that is your eureka moment - life my friend is round and goes in circles. At this point, of course, inevitably almost, the car fm radio starts blaring out - ye duniya badi gol hai. I ask the driver to turn off the air-conditioner, and roll down the window to feel the breeze and check if it is familiar. Of course, it is familiar - hot, humid and carrying with it stench and dust - no pretensions, no soft touchy-feely stuff here, this breeze is rugged and has been around. In any case, baggage duly picked up again from a not-to-pleased babu moshai, I finally reach S's place. In the middle of an expansive stretch of barren land punctuated with midget huts, stands their tall apartment proudly displaying a neon sign which says Sarachi in gaudy red letters. Almost as a last lame stand of the weak and the pre-historic, stands a sorry excuse of a shop, just outside the entrance of the building - one ancient lantern burning dimly, almost purposelessly - preserved just as a matter of pride and old glory by the owner I presume. The shop has an assortment of goods - new age kurkures and out-of-fashion orange chocolates. Their flat is on the 10th floor - good, I feel better now. I will use the staircase - funny how we find ways to escape from places we go to. The apartment is swanky. I am informed that it falls under the high income group apartments. There is a terrace too which gives a good view of the poverty all around and is an amazing place to get drunk. I approve of the terrace.
Day II
The familiar yellow taxi, smelling of sweat and petrol - takes me to the familiar Park Street. How I wish K was here! As I walk the stretch, with restaurants lined up on both sides, old buildings greet me with an understanding nod as only old buildings can. We walk into one-step-up and come out feeling it is a little cheap and downmarket. As we did in 2004, realizing it was beyond my meager salary. Only this time the doorman wasn't sniggering. Life has come a full circle. Remember when Flury's reopened - there was an unbelievable queue of people outside it - such is the power of legacy . I take in the sight of people relishing Kathi rolls and mind goes back to K's love for Kathi rolls. There are a bunch of hippies having fried noodles by the roadside. Enter one of the restaurants, with its white liveried waiters and strangely subdued lighting that always depresses me. Eat and drink and drink till we realize that one of us is drunk. Seriously drunk. So, we have a seriously drunk person with one who is drinking for fun and is not serious with a third person who is seriously sober and doesn't find any of it funny. Follow mad chases on the road, wrestling in maidan , a few tight slaps - we finally end up where we are supposed to - in Sarachi building, with the seriously sober person much weary and worse for the experience. Sobreity has its own pitfalls! 24 hrs now with barely a couple hours sleep. Emotionally drained, I do what I do at such times - find the darkest corner in the apartment (which was in the kitchen), shove my head inside one of the cupboards, curl up in a feotal position and cry myself to another couple hours of sleep. By the time I wake up, the seriously drunk friend is still serious but sober, the seriosuly sober friend is still serious and sober, and I am in a situation where I can use a few drinks. So, we head up to terrace, i drink in the view - the numerous huts around, and we start talking. What is it about Kolkata. We talk so much- everyone talks so much. Don't know when we stop and go to sleep.
Day III
Next day is bright. I feel purged and clear-headed. Head to a swanky mall. Another expensive restaurant. Expensive buffet. An expensive wine. The erstwhile seriously drunk is not in the mood. So, I have it by myself. Of course, all the while I remember that wine has calories. So, i cut down on food and have only dal and wine. Fron the swanky restaurant to a swanly mutiplex. Only the cinema is gritty. It is about love, loss, lust and power. In brief, it is about life. It is based in Rajasthan and is a story of Rajputs - that gives me a sense of being connected. Which is of course delusionary because the Rajputs I know would look like caricatures of the ones depicted in the movie. Which reminds me of this clever thing that I thought of while watching the cinema - real life and real characters are such caricatures of fiction and fictional characters. And all the while we think it is the other way around. The best parts of the movie are of course (and naturally so) lost on majority of the audience. The storyteller is defeated again! So hardly a murmur of appreciation for those references to Dinkar's poetry and Pyaasa's songs. We go back home after cinema, realize we are hungry and nobody is going to deliver and go out foraging. On the way, I get into this monologue about life and marriage which is characteristically pessimistic and outrageous. But it makes for good dinner table conversation too.
Day IV
I wake up at 4, bid good-byes and head for the airport. I guess I will have to come back here - the baggage is still very much there. But for now, the play is over. Onwards to consultancy, smart dressing, good eating, many pleasantries, elevated sense of importance, juvenile insecurities, morning flights, loungy (lousy) waits. Onwards to life.

This weekend and that - short and structured (part I)

I This weekend - without a shirt on my back
These days, I keep thinking about that poem (or story..I don't remember) I read at school. A hypochondriac king, convinced he was suffering from a serious affliction, summoned all the medical practitioners in his kingdom and demanded that he be diagnosed and cured of his mysterious illness. Some medicos were honest (yes, some of them are :-)) and informed the king that his illness was a delusion. The King, not used to truth, summarily sent them to gallows. Some others, more used to the ways of kings, humored him by diagnosing illnesses with strange sounding names and prescribed him placebos. Of course, the placebos could not keep the mad king happy for long and their fate was no different (much like in real life, the honest and the equivocal both go to hell!). So, in the end, there was only one physician left - considered the wisest and most prudent of them all. When it was his turn, he diagnosed the king with what he called "depression" and opined that the king could be cured only if he wore the shirt of a perfectly happy person. The king dispatched his troops in all directions to find a perfectly happy person. Days, weeks and months passed by - it seemed that nobody in the Kingdom was perfectly happy - everyone had a past to complain of, a present to preserve or a future to secure. Till one day, a group of soldiers, chanced upon one who appeared like a vagabond. He lay in an open field, under the sun, his eyes closed, a blissful smile playing on his lips. The soldiers questioned him - "Are you happy?" "Perfectly!" "Don't you have any cares?" "What cares? My past, present and future are this moment" "We want your shirt" "Shirt! I have never had one!" The king heard that the only perfectly happy person in the kingdom did not have a shirt on his back! The king suddenly understood this "depression" - he renounced his kingdom and wealth and lived happily ever after - like a vagabond. Such has been my weekend - lying in the open fields, under the open sun, without a shirt on my back, soaking in the moment.

5 random thoughts...

1. 2.5 hours never seemed so many - you chase them all day and they keep receding...slowly and steadily. It is utterly wicked and cruel!
2. It is a season of relationships. As I am getting into new ones which are full of exciting possibilities, there are those couple of old ones, which threatened to break anchor and set sail - drift away. I have realized though, that beginning a voyage as they may be, with new mates, there is a string that ties us still and one of us just needs to tug at it for the other to come running by. As I was saying to C and S the other day, "My thoughts and values are evolving constantly. However, I no longer feel the need to evaluate and reassess all my relationships with new perspectives. Some relationships have now achieved the constancy that makes them independent of "points-of-views" and "perspectives on life" and they are just there - like your parents. I take them as given." Then there are those relationships that have taken a turn for the worse reminding of me of debts that I need to repay. It is a season of relationships this.
3. Rebellion is back in fashion. At least, the notion of rebelling has found its way back into my head and crept into my conversations. I look forward to these "chai for me and sutta for him" sessions with R that punctuate my working hours these days. Our conversations are irreverent and we crib unapologetically. These collegiate discussions, strewn with liberating expletives, are the high points of my working hours.
4. Rediscovering some words I had lost in the recesses of my mind. The other day, it was dark and I was fumbling around - I bumped in "ephemeral". Today, I met "visceral".
5. I found a leaf between the pages of one of my old books today. It brought back an old day from the not-so-recent-past. I ambled back from the school, on a hot and sunny afternoon, day dreaming about cricket and IIT. A violet leaf, smelling sweet, drew my attention for some reason and I plucked it, inhaled its aroma and decided to keep it - between the pages of a book. The leaf has that day written all over it. It is perhaps the best photograph of my childhood.

2 stills from years ago

14 kilometers of narrow, winding, serpentine "kacchi sadak". Green fields punctuated by huts with semi clad kids flitting in the distance. Slow, rhythmic sway of the bullock cart lulls you to sleep. And every once in a while, just as I am about to slide in slumber, the buzz of a fly and its faint tickling touch on my cheek.
******
Jostling for space with the crowd around me. Fighting to hold on to my mother's fingers - squeezing it so tightly that she winces and looks at me annoyed. She heads for the same subziwala, her regular guy who gives her good prices. And they haggle endlessly. Every once in a while, some one passes us with an acknolwledgment of acquaintance. As I get bored, I start drawing imaginary things in the air with my fingers. I am at it for a while, before I feel a tug on my hand, mother looking at me with joy and explaining to the subziwala, "He likes drawing in the air. His drawings leave no trace except in his imagination".
******

While you are being...

...you are making my life incredibly ethereal!

Between you and me...

I feel like I am on a cliff. On the edge. It is so still I can hear my heart beat with a dull thud against my chest. I am so nervous, I almost feel tickled and laugh out loud. I slowly drop my gaze downward. From the clear blue sky into the dark, vertical, unending chasm. As I gaze into the depth, my heart beating faster and faster, scared and thrilled by what would happen if I let go of myself, I am held riveted, magnetically by the sight below. Realization dawns that I must take the leap. Having been here so many times before, returning without exploring what seems to be my destiny, this time I almost feel incapable of doing anything but gently bend and push myself against the infinitely elastic space. I close my eyes and step forward into the vacuum for the ride of my life. It is a leap of faith that I have taken. As I hurtle down, in a free fall, I see nooks and crevices that I scarcely knew existed in these rocks. Amazing shapes and form pass me by, in a blur with blinding speed. I feel exhilarated. I feel at one with you.

You feel like destiny to me. You are so quiet, I hear myself clearly. When we talk, sometimes your words take life and make faces at me, bringing me a smile. Sometimes you make the space between us melt and I am face-to-face with you feeling awkward and self-conscious. Your fragrance reaches me, traveling through optical fiber and telecom cable. I wake up looking for a green dot on the screen. As I work through the day, my eyes flit up every few seconds, taking in the color of the dot - green, orange and grey - matching my mood. There is a thrill in my heart and I am afraid too. I can land with a crash and end up hurting myself.

But for now, I will take the leap and enjoy the ride. I am hurtling towards you in free fall, as you wait for me, arms extended, smiling mysteriously.

Bon voyage!