thgt for today

so... in this tryst with creativity... on this day... when i'm tired of living... i have come up with another gem...

i wish.... i could just cease to exist.... like a bug-ridden program from the matrix... who someone would pull a plug-on!
no repercussions... no explanations.. no residue... no feelings... no after-effects :)

so.. who all came last night?

so... it was saturday night at the "beach" again..

i came up with this very interesting 3-d view of a saturday
Dinner
Drinks &
Dancing? ;)

nifty?? don't you think??

so post-dinner... as we moved into drinks....

he was already there...
she dropped out at the last min..
she came with us...
she feigned a head-ache... sadly... she doesn't like us as much anymore i think sometimes...

he was there as usual...
he happened to come there..
he also came in to kill some time...
and wonder of wonders we met him at that place!!

so the motley-crew in itself was quite SOMEthing.. .and then there was all that alcohol.. :)
and then there was the BAND! playin blues.. now we didn't even know.. we liked blues.. and so much... until we sat thru their performancE!

and then... it just wasn't about what they were playing...

imagine the band.. all of them middle-aged guys..

the vocalist with a super-animated face and an extremely happy expression.. making us all wish.... WE COULD BE THAT HAPPY WHEN WE WERE WORKING... but then.. thats the beauty of being a performer i guess??

his bassist... another very competent artist... and providing some killer vocals to half the songs.. the guy has more gray hair... wore a white shirt and jeans.. and a beer belly :)

and his fingers were dancing.. walking on them strings... creating magic... and he had the most bored expression on his face... an expression that said.. yr 21.. yr enjoyin the music.. u think i'm doing something spl... i'm 42... i earn my wage like this... i'v been here.. done this.. .one-time too many.. .its not an expression of defeat.. or something whcih says that... i shud've been more in life.. its just something... which says... what u consider magic... is part of my job.. and a daily occurrence for me :)

ther's somethin so spl when u see that in a person.. we're a nation starved for heroes anyway.. and he may not be a national hero.. but he was my hero for last night :)

and then we followed the familiar route...
to the room with the best view of howrah at 3 am....
to a dark room where parachutes begin and end...
to a familiar place that friends call home...
to all things dear and worth living for....

sometimes i wondered if he'll die alone...
he said worry abt yrself sonny...
i'm atleast not uncomfortable being alone :)

#1

Its so.... empty...
Somewhere..
Somehow...
Someone forgot us... but anyway?
Somestuff just happens
Sometimes..
Somewhat beyond our control?

Some.. .say... its Fate
in Someways.. they're right... but...

Somethings' gotta give!!

of dreams... of growing up...

so... i randomly asked her.. and we got thinkin... what did we want to be ... when we grew up... what were our plans.. as 5, 9 or 14 year olds... and where did we see ourselves when 25's...

so i asked her.. and she said she was what she wanted to be.... but this 1's about me.. for a change ;)

so... what did i want to be... when i grew up... unlike nitin sadly.. i had no clarity or focus... no pilot dreams for me..

and sadly.. or in characteristic my style.. i had specific ideas about vague things i wanted out of life...

like let's see... i walked into shoppers stop andheri.. in mid 90's? considering thats when i moved to andheri.. and i'v only shopped there.. for the last 10 yrs... and i knew back then... in school... that this is what we deserved in life... so maybe that is when the first thgt germinated... about making a career in retail... ofcourse... you all know.. (heheh.. considering no1 really comes arnd here lately, you all here.. r prolly all of my alter-ego's n imaginary frnds)... the difficulties tht came in the way of actually pursuing tht career as a dream.. but it did come thru some-how.. what with the summers at pantaloon... the final placement at spencer's... can a dream be any more fulfilled than this?

let's see the second part of my dream.. as a 14 yr old again... i wanted to live in an extra large house.. live-alone... with multiple rooms... there was this fascination with the whole idea that.. it has to have.. more than one bedrooms... something to do with excessive capacity.. or extra space or something... ofcourse we wanted this in a high-rise.. in our beautiful bldg opposite siddhi vinayak.. but well.. .cut to '07... here in cal.. ther's a 2bhk to myself... which is furnished... 2 room's.. 2 bed's... 2 ac's... sofa-set.. dining table... all of 1000 sq. ft.. hell its bigger than HOME back in bby...

these.. r the 2 thgts.. abt growin up... tht did come to mind... and suddenly.. when i see em... i feel i'v SO COMPLETELY accomplished em both.. so to speak?

and then... there is this feeling of emptiness somewhere.. or a sense of in-complete.. or a sense of.. whatever did i want this for? in my life? and funny thgts come to mind... but BIG words at the end which say... BE CAREFUL... WHAT YOU WISH FOR... IT JUST MIGHT COME TRUE ;)

Aqua Serene

So there were things to celebrate... and things to ponder over...
and we ended up in aqua...

setting - roof-top open lounge bar..... with a lit-up pool... with beach chairs around it just on one-side.. and leather cushioning on these beach chairs.... good lounge music playing thru a live-dj..
so we sat here... drank for hours... conversations flowed like the water in the pool.... and then we decided to call it a night and go home...
we went over to his house... the familiar beautiful old world of kolkata.... his house... with its mind-blowing view of my howrah bridge...

all the lights we'd switched off... just the stray lights coming from those endless windows...buzz from the booze.. heh.. i like this rhyme... and then... he put in that tape of parachutes.. and it strted... tht serene voice..... with those simple words.... and a lit cigarette... that room did not need much more... that place... did not need much more... our lives did not need much more.. than just that serene moment... where everything folded and closed down... nothing really mattered except 2 ppl... looking out of that window... sitting alone in a quite room at 3 in the morning... and listening to them perform... just for us :)

stray thgt - it scared me to think... how much courage it must have taken him... to have lived thru his life.. to have come up with those words... at this wise-old age.... any1 can paint a pretty picture at 16.... but by 25.. life-happens to you :) and then... you know... how the story goes :)

Stray weekend thgts...

Brilliance.... like sheer mediocricty is matter of a moment!

SO here's some toilet humour.. from an alleged 24 yr old... who apparently hasn't gotten any for long..

IF nothing.. maybe some 14 yr old's on the verge of puberty wud appreciate this work :)

#1
roses are red
violets are blue

when my groin aches
will you come through?

#2
back n forth... in n out..
i wait for you... to lick my mouth

you slam the door... and shut me out!!

Quote UnQuote

Just some stray thoughts...

- The most successful love stories are the unsuccessful ones.

- Greatness lies as much in all that you chose to not do, as in doing all that you can.

- Peace, which some call happiness and others pleasure, is not measured by how long it lasts, but by the intensity of the always fleeting moment in which it visits us.

i miss jpmc!

n those requests... and the glee-ful abandon... and the thrill of doing nothing really...

and the beautiful ladies maybe?

New realizations & beginnings

It tremendously aggrevated my sense of loss.. nostalgia struck me much harder... and the part in me which wants to cling to the comfort of the old really wanted to run back to the maximum city and claim... that.. which had been rightfully mine... all these 24 yrs... when i thought of how she would leave for college this morning... would go sit in a class.. snooze through a couple of lectures... and then go out on a coffee break.. chit-chat in the canteen.. get done sometime in the afternoon.. and come back to the comfort of home.. and have the whole evening to yet plan something with friends...

suddenly then... i am reminded.. that my day's in college stretched past-mid-night on most occassions.. also... the only bonding we did do.. was me n him... sitting on that lil ledge outside the canteen... with our sleepy-stoned looks.. unnecessarily long hair... loose clothes and a condescending attitude towards every mortal we could lay our eyes on..

the oblivion towards every mortal who could snatch a whiff of oxygen in that over-crowded space that was best meant for a batch of 100 and best utilized by scores of 16 yr old's instead..

the abondon of presentations... the pointlessness of theory... that had no practical application.. which is also sadly not very true.. when you actually start working... and the utter disdain with which we regarded all people that would take anything seriously or put too much effort into any important activity..

when the to-do lists of the day or week .. were about paying the credit card and phone bills.. the lies to tell to cover the inflated fuel bills (something tells me the bills will yet remain just as integral part of my life now.. as then) and which movie to see... with which of them... today.. there are no movies and there are no companions.. maybe its only fair?

and then suddenly.. through this cloud of nostalgia and feeling bad about all that we missed out on... as a silver-lining or maybe a whole new spin on life.. we see the reality of finally moving away from home.. finally renting out a 2bhk.. where you would live alone.. .and be responsible for locking the door.. shutting the taps and switching off the lights.. also... where you can lay down quitely in your bed and not have to think why will anyone come and ask you something.. and will you have to come up with an answer?

and then... the meeting new people.. who were so much fun.. that they so very easily become friends? of seeing new places and experiencing a new cities customs.. .from tram's to metro's...

of going to yet more interesting places and meeting yet more interesting people.. of broadening your horizons from a city to a country suddenly... of finding inter-connectivity at the national level ;) ;)

of people actually thinking you know something.. and your opinion really counts.. where there is a reward... even if only notional.. linked to the awareness or interest shown by people..

there's a lot of missing the old.. the comfortable.. the easy.. and there is just so much excitement of experiencing this new and observing the changes as they happen....

from being a sad post... about missing my dhiraj cuppa.. this post is suddenly enjoying the kulhad tea and jhal-mudi!

Ode to home...

the last sprint down marine drive
the last drinkin binge of a night
the last night with friends...
the last sun-set

the last sound sleep
in the comfort of my bed

the last warm glass of milk
early in the morning

the last of waking up without alarms!
no gleeful abandon and carelessness

the last drive....
oh so swift....

the last of... student life
of life-long friends...
of relationships and memories

of bumping into acquaintances
every corner and street

the last of lasts
the new shall now last

n i may move physically geographies
but my soul from this city.. shan't depart!

a year to last...

the times are changing
the winds accelarating

its not that they have changed direction
we never knew where we were going anyway..

its dark outside and dark within
i'm searching for that voice
but it's all quite still

when they walk that fast
they're slowing us down

the quick-sand sucks
and i can hear her complain

the black is shining brightly
shimmering and reflecting light

their spirits are so high
n they all passed away noiselessly

the continuity so jarring
the noise so serene


it's been a good year
and it shall cost a LOT!

So... what makes you interesting...

At about 2:15 AM... roughly 3.5 hours back.. i was on my way home...
being Saturday night... near amar there was a significant crowd of post-partying eaters... having skipped dinner even i was quite hungry... and the good ol' bhurji-pav seemed so enticing.. but i pretty much decided to not eat road-side...

and then by the time i got on to the high-way... i msgd him anyway.. about how i missed those good ol' days.. and the good ol' bhurji... and he called back and said.. why don't i come over and we'll all go for bhurji.. since both of them were also not upto too much!!

At 2:26 AM... being exactly 3 mins away from my building i wondered if i should turn-around...
and with it being 2:30 anyway... there was nothing to rush home for... and my grumbling stomach did demand some gratification... so we did turn-around :)

and we picked them up from their building... the pyjama-party with laptops... and off the trio went.. in the general direction of juhu... deploring the youth of today... their drunken driving escapades... and feeling ol' as usual....

mid-way through the bhurji-pav... some part of bhurji reached her eye instead of her mouth... and all-HELL broke lose... and then she was screaming.. and in the process of givin her water to wash her eyes... we spilt 500 ml of Thumbs-UP under my car seat... and also saved her eye in the mean-while... finally having found that bottle of water and washed the food-out!

then we moved on to the Marriott for a coffee-break.. after all that action... apparently we needed somethings to calm us down...

weird as it seems good ol' friends were also at Marriott.. though they'd all left by the time we finally did come aroud..:)

and then there was this bonding... with old stories and anecdotes… and the usual talk of this that and the other… we discussed his in-significance in his life … about how connected this city life is (as usual) and when we thought we’d had enough of this.. that and the other…

we dropped them back… and came back home…

I wonder if any of this made the evening any better or makes for an interesting read…

But given a choice between all that is said above… and parking the car in the parking lot at 2:30 … I wonder how I’d chose to spend those 3 hrs of my life… given a second chance?

Rhyme Scheme?

This is a Toy...
For i am a Boy
With no concept of Joy!

I fly in the Day
I've lied all the Way
Cos i don't know what to Say!
Come lets go play?

The Name of the Game
To always stay the Same

To talk when you Can
Cry if she.... Ran?

Its now late-Night
So... sweetie... Sleep-Tight!!

Rambling on...

#1
the thought is not
the touch isn't!

sometimes when i really sit down to think
even a lifetime really wouldn't

but its the empty chase
the endless phase
the look on your face
and this perpetual race
we're losing the
Winnings!!


#2
its not alone
they're singing his song
red blood met blue
and everything went wrong

i'm listening to the sea
its not talking to me?

along with the rough rain...
we'll soon see its end!

Management lessons from Omkara...

Maybe it happened... b'coz i've been studying mgmt for half-a-decade now... maybe it was just there to be seen... this once...

so i was watching Omkara.. and somehow... all along in the movie.. i thgt it had lessons on sucession planning.. or the lack of it.. and its importance...

like right at the beginning when saif is side-stepped.. and no1 talks to him abt it.. there's a dis-gruntled middle mgr.. (who essentially fucked e-thing up)

then with the whole song n dance sequence... where vivek fucks up... no1 took care to clearly mentor yr newly promoted mgrs..

and the problem... as alwsys lies right at the top.. where the bosses didn't take enough trouble to just ensure.. their ppl were managed efficiently n effectively... and i guess they paid the price by destroyin the whole pipe-line of future leaders..

maybe i am seeing mgmt into this. coz my thgts r tainted now or something.. with all this talk of MBA..but those 3 hrs sure felt like mgmt-talk to me!

right investments!

This isn't so much about the stock-market, because i don't understand how it works anyway. Its a lot more about investing time, effort, money and your feelings in people and friends.

Money is not a big deal, i've always believed in it. Thus, financial investments.. in stocks or people are not that big a deal...

But investing in people, exposing ourselves to them and letting ourselves be vulnerable around them is so much power given to an external source. Like our various OB discussions, this is an external locus of control (not good).

Investing in people fucks-up further when you think about how volatile the investment is, how easily all of it can result in naught and disappear without a trace.

We yet carry on, meeting new people investing in them.. exposing ourselves... usually getting disappointed....

...and then the churh next to home says
"Goodness is the only investment that never fails to return a dividend"

A summer of Discontent!

Its been a while since I call this summer just that… and then I got thinking about well… summers and me… from the time… when each summer we’d go down to the native place, meet all those cousins… travel around states spending a couple of days with almost everyone and that scorching heat… those 2 wheeler rides… the crazy stuff some of those guys did do… and which I was party to

And then there are the times when being born and brought up here in Bombay… I’d get very conscious of seeing any form of insects around me… or about not getting my favorite biscuits or something in those towns.. or even magi seemed like sucha welcome relief and familiar feeling back then…. All of these things back then… were of paramount importance.. the be-all and end all of the stay there and top priority and expectation…

When I compare it to this summer… if I did leave this town.. my first worry would be, how many of these faces will I not be able to see for how long.. will I have my cell phone with me… will there be internet connectivity at that place… suddenly in my own little way it seems like a global village which I find very hard to abandon or miss…. Which is then such a sad compromise… when compared to the glee-ful abandon with which I left this place in those days.. how I looked forward to a new set of discoveries back home, and a new crop of stories to share with people here…

Suddenly I think… this is the only place that I even consider home… and don’t want to lose touch from these people … don’t want to miss out on their time or their lives… it all seems pretty weird… the transition from the family by birth… to the family of choice…

Somewhere along this trip … somewhere along all these thoughts from the past… I almost forgot all the things that make this summer so messed up… and then I wonder how much of this will even be considered next summer or hold any meaning……

and the last time i felt complete....

was the day kashish died...

may the may's enrich her life... like they once enriched mine

Will Mahajan Survive?

Maybe a topic of this nature deserves more mature treatment… maybe this is the mature treatment we wish for it to have... Maybe what I’m writing is just the outcome of the tremendous strain, that my exams; which I’ll barely pass... have put me into

So anyway when I read about pramod mahajan being shot at by his brother... I found the news fascinating in some ways... I don’t know how many people follow news or Indian politics in my generation… it is after-all very redundant over sensationalized anyway...
So if pramod mahajan is shot the interesting thing that struck me is… after quite a few yrs… a young BJP leader is shot (I wonder who’s idea of young is a man of 56 [2 yrs from retirement if he were in a government job] ) anyway.. point being congress is familiar with this scenario having lost their young guns in madhavroa scindia and rajesh pilot… even the jundal.. though I dunno where his political allegiance lay, while I’m sure if it wasn’t with congress it would have been before his career ended…

So yes… coming back to the point… congress always loses young leaders… its their thing I think.. they lost rajiv and sanjay after-all.. what could be more congress anyway..

Whereas BJP seems to be the one to retain this talent… now whether mahajan lives or dies might just help us understand if the phenomenon is Congress specific or all pervasive…

Ofcourse another semi-interesting point that struck me in the course of my ramblings is that… bjp is in the opposition now… when pilot, scindia and rajiv died.. congress was in opposition.. maybe its just an opposition thing to do?

Sea Rocks!

I'm very slowly barbecued
as their loud laughter
pierces my defences...

they're relishing the process
as i'm slowly turned over
evenly cooking every brain cell

its not only
their voices
their actions
or their thoughts

its their being
that leaves a bad taste in my mouth

its not like i'm
asking them to make sense
expecting them to be sane
or hoping for miracles

all i want to do is go HOME!

6/4/6
21:00