Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Last Saturday we had our terrace party with all my friends and colleagues, blasting-off as if there’s no tomorrow. Booze flowed freely, Home delivered food from K restaurant( it was superb) and all reticence lost. The chilling breeze didn’t have any deterring impact: after few pegs noone require a top( talking about men).

I was showing off my 6 pack abs ( only 2 showed- made promise to display the rest by next party) and RB showed off his music skills on his guitar.

I secretly decided to stay a bit sober and watch the action, so found myself clinching to a bottle of Smirnoff ice( note for my wife:less than 5% alcohol).BR the usual party controller got himself drunk on whiskey and I wondered why. I noticed unusually poignant BR and decided to investigate on the matter.

It turned out to be nothing very serious. The booze gloom syndrome which every drinker is susceptible to (read: senti dialogues after being drunk)

He told me about his childhood, his relation with his father, how he made fun of him and how he thought of him as being lowly, etc... and Then he cried inconsolably on my shoulders, wetting me with his tears and mucous out of his nose.( after the party I was forced to shower with my Dettol anti bacterial shower gel-and it was freezing cold).

The party got over and everyone dispersed but BR refused to go. I wasn’t sure how much he drank but he decided to empty his heart on me and tell me the reason behind his latest sufferings. He spoke to me non stop for two hours and I cant explain in words how I felt with my sleep deprived eyes solemnly waiting for him to stop and leave my house.(I have never missed my sleep so badly in my life)

Below mentioned are few excerpts from BR’s heart revealing saga , which I thought of sharing here as a first person narrative. I have added a bit of fizz trying to make it palatable and omitted phrases which I thought are unparliementry (You should hear BR talk-he would put a truck driver to shame).Here it goes:

Now that iam into my middle age and being left with expectations and worldly worries to feed, I have decided to explore the spiritual side of my existence. After suffering for many years I have finally decided to address my problems related to happiness and wellbeing.

When I look at my past , I was really happy as a child.My dad was in the govt. service and we had a middleclass upbringing. We ate, wore and entertained out of my fathers meager salary and the poor guy(my dad) had to even save some money so that we could settle down one day into our home town .He had to worry about owning a house and our future education expenses et all, but we were happy. He was not like me: he was content with whatever little he earned. He as happy to call himself a “middle class government employee” and smiled with it whenever someone asked.

I remember those days, we couldn’t afford branded clothes or branded restaurants. But my Father managed to take care of us and thinking about it now, did a good job at it.

Finally I managed to get myself educated and then came my worries. I was picked up by one of the best companies to work, but after few months of working I felt this was not it. I resigned despite my fathers protest and I explained insolently: its my life and me to decide what I did with it. He stopped his advices and least to say he was hurt by my remarks.

I wanted to be the best in the industry, earn more than my college mates, earn loads and loads of money and as quickly as possible. I dreamt of living in a posh apartment , with a luxury car and then marry the most beautiful girl in the world.

It was then that I started loosing my hair: according to my mother it was for the reason that I was taking way too much tension into my head. I was at my rudest best in explaining to her that I didn’t want to be like her husband (my dad) and live all my life as an ordinary middle class man.

I got rich and had all the money I dreamt of but:

* The food from the best Italian restaurant in town didn’t come anywhere close to the dosas my mother made, grinding them the previous day on the small stone grinder.

* I use a good mid segment car, but those journeys in overcrowded buses with my parents are still the best I have ever had.

* I could buy any branded cloths but I don’t look forward to wearing them the way those tailored shirts and pants , given to us during special occasions .

* I dont get hugged by my mother when I get sick and noone makes me that special kanji only my mother could make.

Now iam never happy, I never have time for anything in life. I am always tired. I cant sleep if I think about my work schedule for tomorrow. Life is a living hell, I have just discovered from my doctor that I have high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels.

Iam convinced money cant buy half of the best things in my life that I got it for free and hence took it for granted. I feel like apologizing to my Father now and hug him once again like those good old days. I want to admit to him that I will never be cleverer than him, No matter how much my bank balance improved. I will never get the love I got from my mother, no matter whom I married.

I didn’t know what to tell BR or how to calm him, .But I agreed with him: money cant buy half of the good things that I got it for free in my life.

P.S: Dont worry about the title.And HAPPY ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY TO ME. I AM ONE MONTH OLD IN BLOGGER, WOO-HOOO

Me, Myself and Musings

The other day, I was reading the “Quotation of the day” widget on my blog, which quotes Agatha Christie-“Lucky is a man if he has had a happy childhood”. How true, isn’t it?

I didn’t have an happy childhood. I don’t know if I can call myself an unlucky man, but I am indeed unlucky to have lost my mother when really small. Who can realize more the fact that there is no one in this world like your mother, than a motherless child himself. That is one thing I have and will always miss for rest of my life. Motherhood for me is more of a ‘read-somewhere’ or a ‘heard-from-someone’ thing rather than something which I had experienced firsthand.

Throughout childhood and even now, hardly anyone around me knows that I didn’t have a mother. I was this boy, who had too much pride to let anyone know his sorrows and garner sympathy in return. Whatever memories I have of my mother are extremely fond and well cherished. She was an extremely beautiful woman, a poet at heart and an avid reader. Only much later that I learned of her disease and depression with which she lived, while showing a happy face before us. I wouldn’t like to mention how she died out of similar pride that I still harbor, that I mentioned before.

I didn’t have a happy childhood because it was mostly spent watching my parents fight. I have distressing memories of my mother crying after a brawl with father and sometimes father locking us inside a room to stop us from coming in between him and his target (my mother).

Yet, I don’t hate my father, for the reason that he immediately took the part of mother, soon after her death. He did all he could to aid us, to cope with a motherless upbringing we grew in. he married again and we had a stepmom. And yet again we were lucky that unlike what’s portrayed in movies and television, she turned out to be a truly loving lady. She would get up very early to cook us breakfast and packed lunch, ready us for school, sometimes hand feed us when we decided to throw some extra tantrums etc. She tried to give us everything she thought a mother gives to her child, but being an extremely sensitive child, I still secretly longed for my mother. I felt the love she showed wasn’t the kind, a natural mother bestowed upon her kids.Later, she had a child of her own and my sensitivity found reasons to further prove my beliefs by comparing her behaviors with her own child.

Now, when I think about her, I realize that I owe her much more than a mere thanks. She really needn’t had to care for us, the way she did. I love and appreciate her for that.
As I said earlier I don’t hate my father, but I don’t love him the way I should. I cannot stop myself from believing that my mother was his responsibility and if he would have really tried from his heart, he could have saved her life. He should have prevented her from falling victim to manic depression. How? I don’t know.

But the images of him, taking care of me when I was critically ill, visiting my room late at night to check if I was sleeping comfortably and covering me with a bed spread to shield the cold, worrying about my college admissions, the role he played during my marriage and the lovely grandfather he is to my child-makes me show a happy face, albeit with a tad bit of resentment.

Tra la la- i watched a movie

I was blog hopping the whole day, well, most of the day, hoping that I would stumble upon a genuine bad blog. But, hey, congrats to all you guys, couldn’t even find one. If you ask me of the parameters at which I had etched my judging criteria, I can just say-something which bores me and I say,”EUREKA, here comes the most boring blog of all”.I have finally concluded that BAD BLOGS are an extremely rare and endangered species in the blogosphere. Some are Outstanding, some are excellent, yet some are good, but never there is a Blog which is BAD.I have decided to include myself in that BAD world of blogging. Someone to save the species from extinction. You might think what this guy is upto; call this a Keyboard diarrhea, keyboard loose motion or constipation of ideas, it’s entirely upto you.

Lately, I have become so compulsive obsessive with blogging, I have been promoting my blog in the most cheapest of ways possible.I have put the blog URL as my status message on Gtalk.As if that’s not enough, and what if someone misses it, I have also added it to Facebook status message. I have been personally telling every single of my friends about this ZIllionbig guy, whose blog is supposed to be the best in the blogosphere.

I was watching ‘Life in a Metro’ today. I know I am pretty late at writing a review, considering the movie was released 2 years back and CD shops have stopped selling even the pirated DVDs. But I am late at several things in life, so this doesn’t really come as a surprise, if you know what I am talking about.

I am a real macho guy, you know those muscle and strength type ( no really, I have 2 of the 6 pack abs, though my wife calls it a paunch), but I can also get real mushy and touchy. I had tears in my eyes on several occasion watching the film, though it was unintentional on the part of the Director.

Since I am writing a review, you guys might get judgmental from my previous paragraph.No, the movie wasn’t a tear jerker, not even as much as ‘Tare Zamin par’ was, but I could relate to so many of its scenes that I couldn’t stop my eyes getting all welled up.

It was nothing short of a crap, if I judge it by the hat I wear when I watch a good Hollywood movie, but incidentally I wore a different hat, the one I wear while watching a Hindi movies( I hate the term Bollywood). And it turned out to be a real good watch.

The age old story of love, extramarital relations, passionate and passionless marital relations etc, pretty mundane all of them. But the effort was genuinely sincere. I felt I had gone through so many of such relationships in life.No, I am not talking about extra marital. I haven’t had any as of date, and cant say about the future.( hope my wife never reads this, but whom am I to say anything of the future. And what if my wife has an affair? Aah?).

For a change I found Shilpa shetty pretty, otherwise she has a very plastic look(too good to be true look) and a mile long synthetic smile.Oh, yes, I just realized she didn’t smile often in this film, no wonder she looked prettier. My two bit advice to Ms.Shetty, its good to smile and smile is key to happiness and all is true, but never over do something which is only half as much necessary.

Coming back to the film, interwoven relationships created a magic. I believe, that was what created the magic in the film. All the characters’ were in one way or the other related to each other in a peculiar unfaithful way. Starting from KK to shilpa, Konkana to Irfan all were unloyal characters-So true in todays times. Hindi movies have jaded us by telling us the same old tale, where every love is supposed to be ultra loyal to each other.Women are supreme species and can do anything for the maang ki sindoor. For a change a story which says straying is natural and doesn’t necessarily mean there is no love lost in the marital relationship.

The climax chase scenes were not meant for the brainy, logical types, since it goes ahead and tickles you logical brain in several negative ways. How can every character be chasing one another at one particular definitive moment? But this is a movie and things are supposed to be taken in a more allegorical and metaphorical way.

The sincerity and truthfulness in depicting characters’ as close to reality is sadly compromised in the end with the above mentioned chase scene, but then, the director had to end the story in some way and also remind the viewers that this is an entertainment cinema and its more than your money’s worth, if you find this movie above your bottom hit expectations about Bollywood (sadly I have accepted the terminology, whom am I if even oxford dictionary has accepted the word)

One thing I really appreciated about the movie was its music, with more than a couple of real groovy tracks and expressive background scores, which really lifted each scene and the movie in its entirety. Preetam ROCKED!!

The movie is really a light hearted one which is surely an exciting watch, but then I must mention that it shouldn’t be watched with a cynical Hollywood sense of logic and stay rooted to where we all belong to.

I may not be too good at being a critic, since several apparently crap movie had me all welled up. That’s one reason I refrain from watching emotional movies in the theatre, but I have had fun watching movies with my wife. I have had tears flowing like flooded Brahmaputra, when my wife would laugh at me for being so mushy. But its fine, I cease to be a macho man in front of her ( I can even fart in front of her without feeling embarrassed). I may not be the best critic, but hey, at least I tried.

ciao all

Blogging

Now, having kind of settled into the blogging world, I find it to be much similar to a black hole of cyber space.

The enormous thoughts and ideas that it sucks into its behemoth gravitational centre is astonishing. The more a person spends time here, the more he is deluded. I find ideas and thoughts echoing all across, but also these ideas and thoughts have precedents.

Having read several blogs, I find the true expression of the self, which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Several blogs have memoirs, origination from some level of unconscious, but turning into perceptible subjects once written, helping the writer know himself better. I feel I too need to write memoirs and identify the true nature of my existence.

I remember, my childhood was spent speculating how it would be to be grown-up. In fact I was so obsessed with growing up that I don’t remember much from the age of 10- 15. When I think about it now, I feel it was this enormous desire to be taken seriously. I wanted to be treated as a mature, grownup man by anyone I knew. I guess every child wants to be treated as an adult.

I wonder if I really took time to enjoy my childhood and growing up. A large part of it was spent worrying about exam results and performance in the unit tests. I wish I was given another chance at growing up, and to feel the real essence of childhood and stages of growth into that forbidden realm called “Adulthood”.

I feel a major difference between a child and an adult is that a child asks questions and an adult simply learns to overlook things.I remember me, exhausting my parents with innumerable “what is this?”, “why is this”, to a point where I was made to understand that asking too many questions wasn’t the right thing. Probably the entry into adulthood was a certain acceptance of things as they are.

Now, being an adult and into the core of my life, I have come to realize that if all questions were to be answered, a whole established system of norms would be turned on its head.

Ciao friends, Let’s keep the child in us ALIVE.

I am old fashioned ( yet aint ashamed)

The other day, I was reading the post of Anju titled “Am I old fashioned?” and couldn’t help but disturb the beehive of thoughts from erupting. What am I, Old fashioned or modern?

I have been accused of being old fashioned many a times. People who have called me so include, my friends, colleagues and even family members. I don’t remember exactly how many times I have been called or the frequency at which I have been called, but I think the last time was when I bought a Tissot watch and one of my colleague commented that it was rather old fashioned. In this context, old fashioned meant it was classic with gold and steel two tone bracelet and automatic mechanical movement. I was supposed to buy a sporty watch with colorful looks and big dial with many functions which was over-engineered for a normal daily use.

I have come to a realization that calling someone old fashioned is an offense by itself and we are all supposed to be ultra modern to qualify as desirable and chick. Said that, I feel I am more comfortable being old fashioned than being an ultra modern. There are several parts of me, which likes to be old fashioned, yet having grown and educated in an cosmopolitan environment, I can’t keep myself away from a modern lifestyle.

· I am a fauji (Army) Son and once was a fauji kid. I went to school in a Shaktiman ( No! it isnt the TV serial about half man and half machine starring AB lookalike) converted into a bus. I can still recall the particular smell of the CSD canteen, Hamam Soap, Ponds Dreamflower Talc & Surf. I still prefer Brooke Bond red Label tea, which, ever since I can remember had been our family tea brand. I still like Britannia Good day biscuits over several chocolate chip cookie brands that are flooded in the Carrefour’s and Wal-Mart’s.

· I am ultra loyal to my wife, when extramarital affairs and straying has become an accepted norm. I know some of my friends who cant wait to drop their wives back to India, to hunt new girlfriends. I somehow have grown out of the lure of carnal pleasures. Young girls in bikini don’t titillate me the way they used to. Of course I may give them a second look or probably admire them, so would I admire a good looking Dog or a cat and it’s not because my love juices are overflowing. I have realized that sex is a highly overhyped thing. I really don’t understand people committing rape, murder or child abuses, fully aware of the risks of being caught. How is it such an important thing that one would risk everything in life to attain few moments of pleasure?Of course sex sells, and since it sells, its been so much over glorified by the media that one wonders over the ground realities.For me sex is a manifestation or rather, an outcome of love. I know I sound hyper old fashioned.

· I like to get up early in the mornings and on holidays, like to visit a temple. I love to visit temples not because I am brimming with bhakti. I like the tranquility of the mornings and the ambiance of a temple, mixed with the sweet smell of Agarbatti. I remember, my friends would get up late in the afternoon and give me an awkward gape when they discover of me, coming back from the temple with a teekha( red markings on the forehead).I know of friends who would go to the morning mass in the Sacred heart church, just for bird watching( featherless birds).

· I find KFC, mc donalds or pizzahut highly over hyped and glorified eateries, just like sex. I mean, if I eat a meal at KFC ( I do so when I run out of options or in too much of hurry) I just cannot force myself to have another meal, atleast in the next couple of days. I love everything thats cooked by my wife or mom, even a kanji. In India it’s so fashionable to eat at a fast food restaurant.

· I love rural life of my hometown. I love to be woken by a rooster alarm and the smell of cow dung hovering in the air. I love the sweet, cool Well-water of my native to any Soft drink or Frappuccinos of Starbucks. My friends and colleagues find my tastes medieval, if not ancient.

· I like reading classics. I am currently reading (making an attempt to read) George Eliot’s classic- The Mill on the Floss., though extremely boring. My favorite books include Ernest Hemingway’s-The old man and the sea, The Great Gatsby-by Fitzgerald etc.

· My greatest fantasies include making a journey, like those of our ancestors in a bullock cart across India. But chances are that I might actually hate it because of all the traffic congestions I might create and all the curses I would be subjected to by the boisterous truck drivers. I wish I was born a thousand years before. But then on second thoughts, wonder about the medical systems and what if a plague or TB outbreak happens. No, thank you, I am fine in the 21^st century.

What I was coming to is that I am a mélange of different eras. I am a part time Old-fashioned guy, who loves everything from the Victorian era(Mughal era), but cant stop admiring the progress mankind has made over the years and the positivity that comes with being in an modern world. I love my Diesel Denim( I am trying to impress, I just have levi’s) and Armani Exchange or D & G( I meant NEXT, Marks & Spencers) as much as Kurtha paijama or Dhoti( not lungis mallu’s wear).

Ciao all.( hope I made some sense)