This one’s for the record- Today is the last day of the fortnight, a fortnight of leave (including sick leave), a fortnight of soul search and contemplation. And still nothing.

I have been transcending from one phase of boredom to the next. I guess it’s only a matter of two, three phases more before I write a treatise on the phases and kinds of boredom.
And how to get bored when you cannot get bored?
Or how to get bored when people keep breaking your concentration?
Also, how to not let go of your boredom for days at a stretch?

But you know what? On a different plane of thought- its not just plain boredom, it’s much more complicated. I guess its pure lack of passion coupled with the crippling realization that a lot many of your plans are dependant on positive actions of people whom you haven’t even met in person and on whom you do not have any control and none of your actions are going to change the status quo much.

Hmmmmm…interesting position to be in, really! And even more interesting is the question – that what is more interesting in this? - The position to be in? Or the realization that you are in this position?

Anyways! Whatever!

I am not much interested in finding that out I guess.

No, It’s not a guess- I know, know it for sure that I am not interested.

And No its not ‘Anyways’ either- it’s either my way or the highway/ropeway/subway ….whatever!

Goddess

Why does GOD have to make someone so beautiful? That you look at her, and it takes your breath away

I had never felt anything so intense in my life. As if something had sucked life out of my gut. The air had become so intense, it was hard to breathe. The only sensation I could feel was a cold burning sensation- alternate drops of fire and ice piercing through my body and running through my veins hitting the tip of my under skin

It was a moment which froze and it froze me along with it- and it felt like eternity.


“Life is the summation of all those things we did not do, or of all those things we could not get, or maybe of all those alternate ways we could have lived it, but did not”-

Philosophical stuff!- which I might have given as gyaan to others, or might have thought at some other moment, some other day.
But at that moment, I didn’t care a damn. All I did care was, that I could have been there standing next to her and she could have been mine and only mine- for that day, for life and for eternity ……but it didn’t happen.

I so wish I had a time machine.

The daily rickshaw ride has become even deadlier these days.

The mildly ball crushing experience of bouncing over pot holes and speed breakers has taken dangerous connotations these days with rain water covering broken roads.

Add to that the ever ‘tharki’ socially accepted behavior of Public Display of Lust by men here.
Anything remotely human and female attracts stares and ogles of the order which would even make rakhi sawant feel bad! Traffic stopper as a compliment doesn’t exist in the dictionary of this place- traffic is anyways always on a halt with people searching for a female to ogle at.

Now put these two things together and imagine that you are on a rickshaw, managing to save your balls from getting crushed and you see a pool of water ahead and you start recalling on which side of the road was the pothole last time you crossed this place and try to whack your brains off to guide the driver, but the guy in the front is busy turning his head 180 degrees to ogle at a female passerby- Abe Ch*&^%$! G*&^#, B*&@# *$

Well aviators, white shirt, jeans and sports shoes…they go a long way in building your image here…you abuse and you abuse them as if you own them while wearing your aviators and everyone fears you :P - Remnants of the old raj !

But seriously Mr. Health Minister and WHO, you should seriously consider making the cycle rickshaw ride a danger level 6 activity and ogling while driving a penal offence as you have done with smoking!

Well, among other news, B&H lights has become 100 bucks a pack now! And that’s an even steeper price increase than my pay hike!


Hmmmm…is ITC hiring these days?

How does it feel to be back in your blog after nearly a year ?

Feels good eh? well yeah ! it does, feels as good as cleaning up your desktop...after planning and mentally having done it scores of time before you get into that mindset of 'what the F$#K? Aaj nahi chodunga tujhe!

well to be true...the past one year has been one hell of a ride..perhaps the weirdest and the most unexpected run so far...and many a times I did come up face to face with such fantastic happenings- the good, the bad and the ugly..that I felt like writing about them, then and there....but then i never did...and even if i wrote about them....i never blogged. Why? Maybe I was too hesitant to put up my thoughts and feelings on public..I just wasnt comfortable with it...

Maybe one day when I am done with all these...I will write about them..maybe a book....who knows? Nothing is impossible for me now that I have discovered hidden facts about myself- like I am the most "happening" guy on planet earth- with so many things happening with me :D

And that I am the true prophecy of Murphy...and God's Chosen One...and well I maybe a alien J-Rod with short term memory loss..for all I know..
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...so now you know..how much the happenings of the past one year has affected the insanity of this righteous man....hmmmmm

so guys thats it for now ....we'll close this post on that positive note...cya a-round..


cheers

The Chinese have ‘Fingered’ India yet again!

65 intrusions in less than 6 months, that too on a 2.1 sq km tract of land which is no longer disputed. A simple calculation will tell you that this translates to nearly 11 intrusions on an average per month by the PLA, which cannot be anything else than fingering around and testing the nerves of the guy on the other side, in this case Indians.

Well I still don’t guess that this stemmed from an official Chinese charter to re claim Sikkim; rather it looks like the work of an idiot middle ranking official of the PLA who is in charge of the affairs in that particular border area.

And now some of the funnier (if not hilarious) aspects of this entire episode:

The Chinese just enter the piece of land …spend some minutes enjoying the cool air, have some cigarettes and go back, but not before littering the place with cigarette butts and other tell tale signs.
And in response to that Indian soldiers too have started littering the place(which is Indian), under the assumption it’s a disputed land….and they are replying the PLA in kind.

And yes there are also reports that Indian soldiers have started following ‘Gandhigiri’ and they form human chains whenever they see the Chinese coming their way.

[There is also another explanation to it, as the CBMs signed by India and China prevent the use of fire power in case of an intrusion by either in disputed territories]

But the point is the Chinese have no clue what ‘Gandhigiri’ is all about and fearing it to be some kind of new Indian war technique run back as fast and far away they can.

The Mango Verdict: Next time the Chinese finger around, use the ‘Chinese Finger Trap’ Strategy!

Photo: http://www.china.org.cn/china/photos/2008-04/10/content_14773980.htm

Absolute

When you have known, seen, experienced a lot too many gross things in this world and risen above them all

When distaste overflows from the top of your head
When you breathe fire at the sight of this heinously crooked and mediocre world, lost in a devilish dance of slow self destruction.


Its then that you transcend into the realm of the absolute
A realm of absolute power, absolute energy, absolute awareness
And above all……Absolute Existence!

mango republic

They say if life offers you a lemon.....make some lemonade !
But what if it offers you mangoes instead? not one, but hundreds and thousands and millions and hundreds of millions?

make some mango shake...huh ? or do some black magic and put life into it and call them the mango population, divide them on their castes and become the head of their mango republic?

And if you are not that particularly good in english, or for that matter in any language, just follow simple word to word translation like this one done in hindi :

Mango = Aam ; People= Junta; Person= Aadmi

And bingo! you have an individual as well as a collective name for your subjects.

Ahoy! But just before you get careless with these powerful words, here's some basic do's and dont's-

-> always use the singular person for raking up emotions for a political cause, like what will happen to the 'aam admi' if the government signs a technology treaty with another country which will solve our energy problems?

or where will the 'aam aadmi' go for his nature calls if factories come up in farm lands?

- > And keep the collective ' aam junta' for shielding purposes. Like you can always claim that the aam junta gave you a mountain full of wealth as gifts when some honest tax officer comes asking about that money you made in those shady deals.

And if you follow these rules to the book, then my friend you.......yes YOU, will get to rule your own replublic of mangoes, term after term, even if there are umpteen numbers of genocide/murder/rape/corruption charges against you and those guys in pyjamas keep hating you.

Now who are these guys in pyjamas? Well these will not be mangoes but will still be your subjects.

These will be guys who will pay you taxes, who will get you the much needed Dollars after slogging it out in foreign shores, who will bring you name and recognition and wealth, who will consider themselves very powerful and intellectual and feel for your mango man more than you or other fellow mango men or women. But the mango man will envy them and attack them at the slightest chance and molest their women while they take a walk on a beach on festive nights.

And then some one from them will write a blog on it!

'Chaand pura hai..
aur raat adhi'

Nothing else to say, but still wanted to blog...

Life is increasingly becoming a monologue....with lots of background score and occasional guest appearances.

Once upon a time two friends went camping in a jungle. After trekking for the entire day when they set up their tents, a bear attacked them. They both started running for their lives, until one of them stopped and started putting on his running shoes.

'You certainly can't outrun the bear with those shoes one '- shouted his friend.

And he replied 'I don't need to...I just need to outrun you!'

The loop of sexuality

This is not about sex! It’s about men and their sexuality; Its about retrosexuals, metrosexuals and about those who find themselves lost in between these two.

(In short its all about heterosexual males and all beautiful women reading this are free to keep their hopes high of being with me)

The old conservative, pseudo Tarzan, retrosexual Indian male has been knocked down. His bulging biceps and macho image has been defeated by the well groomed, six pack armed, designer wear flaunting metrosexual.

Men have started going to gym just to get the ‘six packs’, shopping malls have more men’s clothing stores now than what used to be there even 5 years back. And cosmetic companies have started launching products meant especially for men.

It doesn’t always appear so stark, until you put up your head for a couple of seconds during that visit to the men’s salon, and look around. Men have changed, changed their postures and look. The stooped heads and skyward facing chins have been replaced with men lying lazily on spread up chairs with face packs instead of the omnipresent shaving cream. Even salons have started to offer services which never used to be found in the men’s list, and at times it does come as a shocker, when you find the middle aged guy seated next to you getting a manicure!

Strangely this transformation wasn’t as sudden as it might appear in retrospect. I know not many will agree with me on this one, but trust me guys I know it better than you, because I was caught in it, caught in the transformation and it cost me more than a thousand bucks.

Not so long back when this idea was still in its infancy and hadn’t become so trite, I had bought a shirt- a party shirt- a pretty flashy looking shirt- a shirt which I bought under the impression that it looked metro sexual.

But every time I wore that, the chettas back in K mistook me to be one of them.

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I still have that shirt, nicely packed and kept in one lonely corner of my wardrobe. At times when I am caught drunk and dressing up for a late night party, I take it out, have a long look at it and then put it back inside, knowing very well that not many of today’s copycats will understand its historical significance.

So now you know the ‘Bollywood’ jokers, whom most of you gals drool over as well as the industry to which they belong, are nothing but laggards who follow early adaptors.

They are there for the mediocre, and when the mediocre dance on the footsteps of those jokers, it’s called ‘The Dance of the Mediocre’!

Scene# 2:

Venue: Centre of the office floor, waiting in the small cubicle housing the photocopier and the printer.

Time: 3 pm

Plot: I am standing in front of the printer waiting for my print commands to take shape. There’s another soul standing hardly 1 feet away from me so lost in taking photocopies that he misses me coming in.

As soon as the printer starts working, he turns back in astonishment, looks at me, then looks at the printer doing its job and shouts back at me - What are you taking out? (In Bengali)

I looked at him for a second and thought-

Birbal died ages ago, but his blindmen with eyes still roam across freely and terrorise people with their dumb questions.


So I just gave him a blank look and replied- Printouts!

The futility of actions and dumbness of thought

Scene#1

Time- 9:20 am

Venue: Waiting in the queue in front of the elevator of my office building. There are a couple of elevators and the queues for getting in, generally run parallel. So there are about 30 people waiting in total.


Plot: after standing in there for about 10 minutes finally I come at the starting of the queue.

Generally in such a situation, most people keep concentrating on the electronic display by the side of the elevator door, trying to influence its speed by exerting their mental control over it, others, especially of a particular insurance company whose office is just below mine, and those who come with their female/male counterparts, happily use this time in flirting and bitching around.

So as I was waiting there in front of the queue with my heavy laptop bag panting on my shoulders, it was quite a normal scene, until a middle aged woman standing in the same queue as mine walks forward, pushes me and keeps pressing the elevator switch in frustration, probably she got fed up of using psychokinesis!

Seeing this my counterpart in the next queue, a well dressed young executive also starts pressing the elevator switch next to him.


I thought for a second of telling these two geniuses, that these elevators are manned by operators and they know very well that this is prime usage time, infact they have just 1 minute back seen the long queue waiting when the elevator last came down, and they under no circumstances are going to halt the elevator in its way out of no reason, neither is the speed of the elevator going to go up by pressing this switch repeatedly. So the entire act of pressing this switch is futile.

But then something occurred to me- one of the earliest lessons of a subject in B School which at that time I didn’t like much, called organizational behavior. And it said- average intelligence in a group environment tends to come down to the level of the least intelligent member.

Well those fat books weren’t so useless after all!!

The Revenge of the Nerds !

If I finish this post in one go, I’ll treat myself an ice cream.

Hmmmm..ummmmm..Okay dismiss that.

Take two -

‘If I finish this post, I’ll treat myself an ice cream!’

Now that’s neither an exaggeration, nor an easily achievable task by two counts.

First, you should have a look at the number of half finished posts in this little word doc which I so religiously save on my comp, to have a passing idea of the number of imaginary topics I have conceived, started writing but somehow lost steam, since the last couple of months.

Second, the temptation of having an ice cream is really big for me right now. With an acute cough, blocked nose and body temperature which shadows the NSE index it’s a big deal for me to somehow sneak in a cig, leave aside the prospect of going out and treating myself an ice cream in this condition.

So..coming back to the nerds and their revenge!

Question number one: What was I doing for the last couple of months?

Answer:

Well…I discovered the gory truth about someone, took some days to digest that, lost all interest in writing, finished my first project, partied around my last week in bangalore, came back to cal, saw durga puja after three years, met some old pals and foes, kept running around the city meeting fat, bald marwaris, bidi smoking bongs, story telling uncles…..befriended a lot of fat women and finally caught a bad cold.

Question number two: How have I been doing?

Answer: Well I have been doing great. I have successfully guarded my frustration and dangerous intentions quite well in the past few weeks. Guess I am riding up the learning curve on that.

And I have kept my calm, kept my calm against the dance of the mediocre all around me.
I have kept my calm at the sight of ring/pin studded, long haired, doped teenagers around me in pubs and discs. I have kept my calm at the sound of aunties bitching when I was neck deep in work.

I have kept my calm at the sight of gorgeous young women flirting around with firangs.

I have kept my calm at the realization that the same old buggers, who used to get on to my nerves back in college, still have their old abilities.

And finally I have kept myself from hitting a doc who showed me the doomsday scenario that I’ll be an asthmatic patient when I reach 50..if I don’t quit smoking.
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Well that’s it for now. See you next time.

Over and Out!

[And before you really start to believe that I am a nerd, lemme tell you, the idea of this post name is not mine, its my bro avinav’s, a self proclaimed nerd of not much repute]

A four letter word called 'Love'

Yhaawn!! ….

One more Yawn!!...
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Its about 2 am in the night..and India seems to have lost all ability to break the 8th wicket partnership against England….

Okay its over now…no more yawns.

Yup as I was saying, that four letter word….

Now don’t panic. I am not going to bore you with another of my love lost monologues today....

Rather I am going to tell you a story, well three of them actually. Stories of normal people, of the kind me and you encounter everyday but never realize that they also have a story to tell, a story which can move us and make us think.

The first two stories are inspired by real life stories, of people I have known. But the real thrill is in the third and final story. Thrill because it’s so unbelievable and chilling, but again as they say- life is stranger than fiction.

But it will be some days before I can dole out that story to you, so let’s start with the first one now…….



The first story

It was about a little before noon, on the third day and I was enquiring my sales staff about the important towns and villages nearby which I can visit on the east of the town and interview some people. I asked one of them, a pretty simple looking young woman hardly in her mid twenties, who claimed to be from that area, to write down the names of all the places in Tamil, to make it easy for my driver.

And as she was busy jotting it down, outcomes my franchise and we start with our normal talk. The discussion had hardly lasted 5 minutes when she comes back and hands over the list to me. I in turn handed it over to my franchise, asking him to review it and he starts reading out the names, loud enough, until he stops and starts laughing, even louder.

Mr. Pratik, you see this village? He points out a name from the list to me and says ‘ This is her hometown, her village.’

I looked at her, with a fake smile on my face – ‘Oh ..That’s great’

Until he starts again- ‘But don’t go there and tell her name, or else they would hang you upside down on a tree.’

For a few seconds I continued with my dumb smile, with a raised eyebrow, expecting it’s some kind of a joke.

But it wasn’t. And this is why?

‘He started again- and you know why Mr. Pratik?

Because she did love marriage, ran away from her home and married a guy outside her community, the first time ever in that village………..

And has never been back there again.

And you know whom did she marry?

You see that gentleman over there, the salesman in that front counter.’

*******

I could have said yes, looked up at him and given him some change. But I didn’t, I chose not to react, rather concentrating on lighting my cigarette and ignoring his existence as the auto stopped in yet another traffic jam.

It was one of those mornings, when you are just angry on life in general and pissed off at every creature who dares to come in your way. When you feel like you had a gun in your hand to shoot at every idiot who commits the cardinal sin of not doing his job as you would have wanted him to do and even worse comes right in your way when he was the last one you want to be alive on this earth.

I had missed my company vehicle, waited 20 minutes for an auto (and for those who know Bangalore and its auto drivers know what I mean?) and was gradually mentally preparing myself for spending an hour, travelling in a stinking public bus, listening to full volume, high pitched Kannada movies. A bus which has four television sets fixed in it and which spends more time waiting for passengers every 2 km than travelling, and a bus which will only take me half the way, from where I will have to take another bus to reach my destination.

It was about then that the auto had stopped in yet another traffic jam and out of nowhere he comes in: hardly in his first decade of existence, ugly and dirty, shabbily dressed, with coarse hair and a flowing nose. His sister was still performing her acrobatics on the road, hardly a metre away, among the stationary cars and bikes and autos.

He mumbled something to me, but I looked away. He tried to tap me on my knees, but I waved him away with my hand, as if he was just another filthy insect, dirtying my trousers by touching it; and kept looking at the other way with vent and cursing Bangalore’s traffic snarls.

Red lights turned yellow and his sister who looked bigger than him started running from one vehicle to another, begging for money.

As the traffic started moving, they moved to the side, onto the footpath.

He was crying, howling with anger, the kind of anger which comes from helplessness as he saw his sister approaching him and jumped next to a tree trunk and hid his head beneath his knees. His sister jumped next to him, shouting and started punching on his back.

It could not have been for more than a few seconds, that I caught this happening- pretty much unwillingly. But as I was leaving them behind in the auto, I felt a twitch in me and for a second lamented my act, perhaps I should have helped him, listened to his prayers and given him some change.

Maybe it would have helped him buy just one tenth of a meal or probably some cheap drugs for his bastard father, but it would have bought me the mental satisfaction.

The false satisfaction which comes from the belief that I have done my part, the satisfaction which you get by massaging your ego that you have done something great today by helping a needy person.

Maybe he would have still cried out of hunger, helplessness and inability to protect himself, maybe his sister would still have got raped on the dark streets of Bangalore and produced another generation of sufferers like him or maybe he would have never made it into youth and perished somewhere in the streets, unwanted and uncared….but I would have forgotten him in my false sense of glory, perhaps…….Had I acted differently that moment.

.....

I had dreamt about this day so many times in the past one year that I have lost count of it. Dreamt with hope when that was the only thing which I could hold on to; when reason gave its thumbs down to me and when life had a question mark on its face and pointed its finger at me, threatening to pull its brake. There was nothing I could have done then, except to hold on to hope and count my days and dream of the day when all this would end.

It all kept coming back, each and every strain of all the emotions which had fired in me in the past one year on the way, in the elevator, in the lobby, the final burst of hyper heartbeats, the silent prayers and finally it all went away as soon as it had come. Within a second it was all over.

At times it’s hard to digest that something for which you’ve been waiting for so long passed through you so quickly. I knew I was sinking in as I kept looking at it, repeating the words in my mind, over and over again.

It’s a great feeling to live the moments you had wished for, wished from the deepest roots of your very existence and wished for long. The elevator had a small picture, tucked away on the top, a picture of the mother goddess, which normally wouldn’t make much sense to most of us coz we keep seeing it everywhere? But in that moment I just closed my eyes and said a silent thank.

There’s something between I and rain. We share a love hate relationship of our own, and it’s hard to gauge- only she knows when she will come and throw her bucket full at me.

Thankfully, she was happy today, drenching me only with her mug full and clicking my pictures all the way- and why not? After all she’s been witness to it all, right from the day it started..

The Catch

The Bangalore- Chennai highway looked green & wet. It’s been raining here for some days. Thankfully, the rain gods haven’t been as tyrannous in Bangalore as they have been in Mumbai or Kolkata. But still the wind was strong and cold, the clouds were dark and rain was ominous. Rather it was a breather, a break from incessant rains for the last 24 hrs when I stood in front of the Bangalore- Chennai highway.

My driver doesn’t understand English or Hindi, he understands only Tamil, which means all that we speak to each other is at best ‘noise'. Infact that’s what its been all about, or rather is going to be all about, for the next 2 and a half months for me- a second degree in communicating through sign languages and understanding the underlying meaning of noise. After all noise does have a meaning if only we understand the language.

My official decree is to understand customer psyche and behavior and to map the different media vehicles and their effectiveness to understand how best to reach to my target group? Its still a new business so all that I do is going to have a impact on how my brand is seen and heard and known in the months or perhaps years to come in this country. And that’s why I am currently on this vehicle overlooking this mighty highway, trying to be where my customer lies?


It’s kind of sarcastic for me to embark on a journey trying to understand people and their psyche when I haven’t been able to do it for myself, convincingly in all these 25 years. But the thought of getting away from the maddening crowd of metro city and always being on the move allures me like none other.

It’s something which has been in me for quite some time now, about a year or so, when the present stopped alluring me. It didn’t happen in one day, nothing does. Rather it was the sudden realization of this slow change which came as a bolt one day, not from the skies, but from deeper within.

I just wanted to run, run ahead into the future, a future not as bland as the present.

But alas time works like a government office, in its own pace, not willing to slowdown or pace up for us. And what’s worse? Even bribing doesn’t work.

That’s when my subconscious played a trick, realizing I just can’t outrun time, I started running from everything else that represents present, and it started from the place.

**
When I was just a college grad, working in Kolkata, I used to walk back home after work every day. On one of the major crossings on the way back there used to be a huge hoarding, with just two words written on it - “Keep walking”.

It still manages to eke out a single round of sarcastic laughter from within me, and I giggle. My driver tries to look back from the rear mirror on the top, much to his amusement and points to a distant temple built on top of a hillock visible from the highway and after much struggle manages the words- ‘Sir, Temple’

***

It’s still a long way to go.. but there’s something which keeps disturbing me, a nightmare of sorts. Not very long ago, someone very special had irritatingly remarked when I did something foolish, that ‘One day you will have all the material things in your life, but you will be lost and you won’t know which way to go?’ I had replied then, that ‘Don’t worry; I will have you with me, as my guide, to help me with it’

I lost her somewhere in this world of sham beliefs and promises, but those chilling words keep coming back, especially in ambiences like these-

When it’s dark, windy & raining and I am on a highway, with a driver who speaks hebrew and a tired windscreen wiper trying to show us the road ahead.

A tale of three neighbors

The Chinese are building a road till the base camp of Mount Everest. And that is being done to make the run with the Olympic torch a bit less tasking, atleast that’s what the official explanation seems to be. But as caring neighbors they hid this disturbing news from India, lest we might get depressed about the great progress the Chinese are making.

The Pakistani administration is furious with the Brits for knighting Salman Rushdie. As if the Brits really care a #$%@ about it, and as if poverty, corruption, unstable political set-up and religious extremism was not enough to keep them busy on the home front!

But the greatest tale of them all comes from India. A group of people have come up with the ground breaking theory that vibrating condoms are against Indian culture, and have already started targeting the govt. run company for coming up with such abominable product.

GOA

The sun was still shining somewhere behind those orange & silvery clouds above the hills brightening up the small courtyard in a bright shimmer of golden light before evening comes calling in.

The air had a sweet and moist smell in it and the cool monsoon breeze blew calmly across the courtyard in this sleepy suburb of Goa, brushing against the leaves of the trees surrounding it.

The place looked deserted, all the kids who had been playing there all afternoon had left for their homes, except for one young kid who stayed behind to spend some extra moments with his friend, playing in her courtyard.

She appeared like an angel with her small frame, hazel eyes and long dark hair. She was wearing a long white dress, which had come down right above her ankles and looked more befitting as a night dress than a play wear.

She got up suddenly from the stairs of the front verandah of her house where they both were seated; planning what next to do after the last game of hide & seek had proven to be quite tiring and a bit eerie in this atmosphere.

She got up with a strong resolution, and pointed to the cycle. Quiet excited about the new idea which suddenly struck her, but still not quiet sure whether he would like it or not? She kept looking at him with longing eyes, trying to persuade him and perhaps asking him through her eyes to laud her for her brilliant idea.

There was something special in her eyes which he couldn’t ignore. He got up and ran towards her.

They both got the bicycle out; she sat in the front holding the handle, with her legs sprouted out in the front, noticeably happy to be held by her friend and cycling while he sat behind her, paddling.

There was a strange sense of responsibility which landed upon him as if from the clouds- this was the first time he was feeling responsible, responsible for a girl who was his first best friend, perhaps the very first feelings of being a guy and he didn’t want her to get hurt by falling off from the bicycle.
He had been in this position before, the ‘Band-Aid’ on his right knee kept reminding him of that.

He starts paddling and the cycle starts moving slowly and crankily, unable to bear twice the weight it was designed for. Soon they gain some speed and start encircling the courtyard with him holding the handle from the side and paddling, and she laughing heartily with her leg still sprouted out at the front.

Smile is contagious, and soon they both start laughing with his young mind perhaps forgetting the god sent sense of responsibility for a moment. He takes a sharp turn and she folds her leg bringing them right on top of his and they both fall down.

They both were hurt, his left knee this time was bleeding and her long white dress was torn & full of dirt. There was a long and deep scratch on her left arm which she was holding and looking at with tears in her eyes.

They were still lying on the ground with the bicycle still partially weighing on his right foot. But he kept looking at her face, her cheeks had become dirty with the dirt and tears flowing from her beautiful eyes which in a moment had transformed itself from a happy and glowing one to one full of tears and perhaps blaming him for it.

They lay there for some more seconds before her mom came out, took them both inside the house, washed their wounds and administered first aid.

She was still sobbing looking at her torn dress and her wound as her mom gently held his hand, taking him to his house a couple of houses away.

As they walked, she slowly caressed his hair asking him not to cry, telling him that the wound would heal in a day or two.

But it was not his wounds that he was worried about. It was something else.

Some months later he left Goa for his hometown and never saw her again.



And even after 21 years since that day, this is the only incident which I vividly remember of Goa and of my first friend, Shraddha.

Scent of a Woman

The Mall
It was around 8’o clock at night that our auto finally halted in front of our last destination for the day- the biggest mall in Cochin City, situated midway along the MG road.

Before I proceed further, the ‘we’ above included me and my friend KB, who went by the reputation of being the one point reference, example and proof of all of Murphy’s Laws.


KB: I love this city dude. It has a disc, a multiplex, a mall, scores of coffee shops and hell lot of foreigners. I wish they would have made the IIM here.

I wanted to say something, but decided to just nod my head and stay silent.
Two minutes passed and he started again.

KB: I’d say we achieved what we came for. We did manage to go to all the places and market ourselves. Wot say?

I: As much as two great souls can achieve in a single day in an unknown city.
We literally went to everyplace where anyone was willing to lend us a ear, give us a place to put our posters and willing to buy tickets for our fest!

KB: Yup….And we also managed to finally get a glimpse of her maaan! The MMG!
I always knew she exists. We were just in the wrong place for the last two years.

The one in CCD was quite cool, but the chick in Subway was real hot maaan- navel rings in Kerala! that’s a first time for me!

Wait! I have to charge my phone! Let’s go to that cake shop round the corner and do that. In the mean time we can also pitch to put our posters there. I can see a lot of hot chicks seated in there.



Two Years Earlier (Yes Flashback)

Have you ever experienced this? - when you are standing in the middle of a busy crossing or shopping mall and suddenly you turn your head in the exact direction from where a beautiful looking girl is coming your way or perhaps just plainly standing and looking at you and for a flicker of a second your lines of sight become one?

I know what most people would do in such a situation. They would just turn their head away and never think about it!

But what if it starts happening with you again and again- on roads, in college, in Durga Puja Pandals, everywhere and almost everyday?

You would probably enjoy it and still never give it a second thought as to what signals your brain is giving away to you? I also didn’t.

There is always a mismatch between what we seek or desire in our subconscious and…..What we actually want or rather made to want in our conscious self?

I was lucky to get what I wanted in my conscious self pretty early in my life, academically/professionally.

But something was missing. The sudden achievement of what I wanted made me all the more aware of what I subconsciously seek or desire and missed.

It was not that I was very sure about what exactly that was? I was as confused as a 23 year old would be.

She was still taking shape, just a silhouette and certain broken images-


The Myth of the MMG and the Prophecy

I had heard a lot about the beauty and grace of Malayalee women, and should say also witnessed among the limited sample of Malayalee population in Kolkata. So as I was packing my bags, perhaps another dream was taking shape in my mind, of finding my MMG (Mythical Mallu Goddess) in my next two years in K.

But all my hopes of finding her ended abruptly, within a week of landing there.

The average girl in this city had more body hair than the sardar in our group, got dressed in strikingly fluorescent color salwar/saris, and soaked herself in coconut oil.

Yes! Coconut oil- from banana chips to chicken tikka to girls, everything had just one thing in common- coconut oil and its odor, which didn’t just put me off, but also made me feel like puking.

Now, I was not the only one in search of that ‘mythical mallu babe’, there were others in the club as well, who had come with a similar expectation and were left heartbroken within weeks of landing here.

It was about that time that our sorcerer- the resident wizard on everything mallu came up with the prophecy-
That K was not exactly the place where the MMG dwells; she lives a bit down under in cities like Cochin or Thiruvanthapuram. Go there and Thou shall find Her!

But there was no practical hope of us going there, neither was I game for it.


The next two years were both short and long. Short because it all happened so fast, as if time just flew by. And long because of the things which I was involved in or just simply happened.



Things happen and people change. By the time this incident happened, I was no more turning my head looking for that ‘someone’, my sixth sense had stopped working and I was no longer on the chase of that subconscious dream.
That dreamer in me had died many months ago, a long way from here….somewhere outside a busy and dirty railway station, on a gloomy and wet Saturday afternoon.



Back at the Mall

We both were standing outside the cake outlet. We had somehow managed to get them put our posters on their wall and help KBs phone get some much needed charge before it konks off !

There were only a few people in this part of the mall by this time, just a few tourists with their backpacks roaming around and checking out stuff, and a young couple seated on the table by the cake shop & getting cozy. The shop across had a large Adidas signage put on the entrance and side bars, with a couple of kids checking out new sports gear. There was also a leather apparels outlet just next to it, but from where we were standing, we could just see one half of it.

I turned around to see what KB was up to? It was already late and we had to go and catch the bus. I walked towards him and just as I was about to tell him that; he grabbed my hand and literally turned me around 180 degrees.

KB: Dude! Don’t miss this one!

A couple of girls had just walked out of the leather outlet across the alley. One of them was dressed in low cut hipsters, had streaked hair and a nose ring (I am sure KB meant her when he said that)

The other one was just in a simple white salwar with a blue dupatta, had dark long untied straight hair, the perfect complexion which made her face glow even without any visible sign of makeup and had big expressive eyes. The perfect feminine Mythical Mallu Goddess!

KB: Let’s go and talk. I am not going to be just a spectator this time. (Grabs my hand and starts pulling).

Suddenly I was feeling alive again, as if I was looking at someone I always knew. As if I had met her somewhere, watch her run after a local train in a busy platform, watch her smile at me with her palm above her eyes to beat the sun and then seated by the window and tying her hair as I stood and watched her go away.

As if God just pressed the slow motion button that minute inside that mall, my vision was foggy- I could just see her and only her, smiling & walking towards me ……….and hear some faint fumbling sounds (which I later realized was my friend KBs)


KB: Hello! I am KB and this is my friend Pratik. We are from…….

KB pretended to talk to both of them, but kept looking at the other girl with streaked hair and the nose ring.
His words kept reaching my ears; but I was just mesmerized, watching her as she stood next to me, slowly running her fingers through her hair until suddenly she pushed her hair back and a whiff of air went across my face.

Wait a minute! I know this smell. What is it? Why am I suddenly feeling so dizzy!
Why is she smelling like Coconut Chips?….No- Coconut Oil!
And why is the smell becoming so intense?

I looked at her hair for a second time, trying to kill my doubt and saw/smelt something which I had missed in my mesmerized state.

Coconut Oil!

3 minutes later we were walking out of the mall.

And an hour later we were on our bus back to K, with KB talking to his gf on the phone perilously close to my ears and my thoughts running back to another crazy night many months ago in another unknown city.