Wednesday, July 29, 2009

TIMES OF TRAINING 'n' ASHES......QUITE STRAIGHT THOUGH

These vacations were real hectic, after a “one on one” heavyweight bout with the deadliest of all papers, with a hope of apocalyptic results, I was all set to be drowned in a sea of training, where some more Loch Ness were ready to gulp me down. But as the archaic saying goes ‘Time and tide waits for none’, so happened in my case. It all went, bringing with it, MJ’s death, the master, with whose ‘Dangerous’ I inaugurated my course of English music, the typhoon of dance, the Aristotle of songs, the connoisseur of style went away, in ,perhaps, the most stylized way.
The last eight days of the vacations, or probably the only days of my vacations, were spent watching that recurring “My daddy strongest” act of Jackson’s daughter. That crying phenomenon served as a fulsome week’s package for our agencies.

The politically more important salami that made a handsome sandwich for the news guys was ‘article 377’. Gays are now in vogue, lesbians are rollicking hard, heydays for straights. Long gone are those days when guys like Turing committed suicide and gave way for trademark of companies like Apple*. The most HOMOgenous of all decision resulting in the STRAIGHTest of all debates.

“Pappu pass ho gaya “ was the champ in one-liners until “Article 377 pass ho gayaa…. “ went way ahead of the former. As my chronic struggle for getting in the general compartment of the train continued this time, I still managed to get inside swimming through massive pool of enormous bodies,and as I peeped out to get some Oxygen ( with its faintest hope), I got ready for facing the “ now a clichéd “ grin and listened that “ now an over clichéd” …”article 377……”. I realized that my back was in close contact with a man’s trouser and so temporarily, yet affirmatively , I was declared a gay.

One more great news of the term, esp. for me as I have a soft corner for England , was the Ashes, and a convincing , determined win at Lord’s. Its not that I hate Australia, as I have rolled over the googlies of Shane Warne big time. But c’mon man, now everybody wants a change, and who does not enjoy, Freddie Flintoff savaging the middle stump and KP hovering for a towering six. Though we never saw that six, but still I enjoyed that ‘voodoo’ of Lord’s (as one commentator had put it that way).

And as time again has started jogging down the track, lets hope for a safe haven for MJ’S soul, great life of all the homos and c’mon England “ whip’em hard”.

*Alan Turing was the revolutionary Computer Machinist who is undoubtedly the father of modern computing. Fate proved him to be a straight. And as he was a code breaker with England in World War days ,it was not considered apt to give him independence, so he was given Solitary Confinement”, and within an year he subjugated and killed himself by mixing poison with apple. The time when his body was recovered , a half eaten apple was there, and to commemorate the great scholar Apple kept their symbol that way

Monday, July 27, 2009

TO ALL THOSE WHO ASKED , “WHY LEAVING THE HOSTEL?”…A TRUE ANSWER

“YEH RAATEIN NAYI PURAANI….AATE…..AATE JAATE…..
LIKHATI HAIN….KOI KAHAANI…….”


Nights for me are something sort of an oasis when I am a thirsty one all alone in a lonely desert. Where I quench my thirst, I fulfill my heart. Nights are like a fresh morn where it all seems to be new, like a laborious noon, where a kind of ‘wanabee’ spirit rolls down my mind, alas, like that gorgeous twilight where after all the trials and tasks done , heart lives up and says ,…..”C’MON LET’S PARTY’
This time alone in my room, and incidentally in a dark night, my mind lingers on to those days which perhaps, made me start discovering the life that I was made to live beforehand. Those days of hostels , of those rooms, of those lobbies, and of course that awful mess-food, those days that perhaps will never come again as I have dropped them in the aisles of history (reasons I’ll tell later.)
If I roll back myself and start recounting those days, the moment that tops the list contains a letter of a mother and I ,a freshly ragged son of her reading it, a point where he understood what that home he left behind was for him, what that letter and those feeling inscribed in the blue ink were. I was wearing a filthy uniform , but that was the last day (or moment) that I was pure, and knew what relations actually meant.

Friends ,or rather partners, no, shall I say mates…..or I don’t know ,perhaps beyond language, they were guys, who acted as parents, as girlfriends, as something unimaginable. They are still there….yes….they are…its just that ‘I’M NOT’. Still remember those sleepless lobbies, where the night crawlers (all of us), used to crawl away days, nights, weeks, away from all the hindrances, all the struggles, all the realities..perhaps.

Hostel for me was like a school, a school where I learnt what life was, what I was, what the near ones whom I had left far behind were, what home cooked food was …….. It was fun; it was all like a riddle whose answers I knew beforehand until….
Until I realized, that this was the fun I was not supposed to have, this was the riddle I was not supposed to solve. I was somewhere in a huge, long mango orchard and I well knew that perhaps, that it was the arid Sahara that I belonged to, or rather I deserved. I wanted to prove something, I wanted to prove that I can convert my Sahara into a fruit orchard, wanted to prove, that I can take a decision, struggle with it, but stick to it, hate it again, but ultimately gulp it down so that the reality can be digested. This was all I wanted to prove to myself.
So I took it, and am out of the hostel, of that PMC, of those night strolls, of many things. Electricity is not there this time in my rented room,, everything out and out dark, sweat flowing like a distant Campty, but somewhere inside, a faint lamp , of introspection, is burning, burning low , burning slow, but burning deep, burning steady. And somewhere along that low battery radio, in some distant channel a song is being played………

“YEH HAUNSLA KAISE JHUKE…..YEH AARZOO….KAISE RUKE……”

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

WHEN A MANGO TURNED PRO....

SUMMER OF ’09 … warm and sweaty…. Summers always have been the same story ,of heavy electricity loads, pepsi, those funky chocobars and “not so” funky Dermicools. One thing you can’t forget if you hail from this heveanly part of the state of U.P. are those mangoes….those glib.,Yellow,smooth, acts of ecstacy. Mangoes , to me, have been , like a savior, like a friend,like a wife. Now like a savior, because mango only came for my rescue when I was mercilessly raped by these tropical villains. Friends , as I had spent those countless summer afternoons with this yellow cutie and believe those noons were as pleasant as that night of first love. And of course as a wife because it gave me everything…..pain (when not there), pleasure (when there ), support (against that sun when it was inches away from my mouth).

But come this summer and I was devoid all the three. I became alone, lost a friend and consequently became a widower. Why….well…”AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, WHEN INDIA SWEATED, ME (WITH 2 MORE) WERE SET TO PERSPIRE IN JAIPUR. We were there for a networking course. That meant something , in fact many things, like downloading , uploading ,webhosting, but where was my fruit, my love , my life, my mango. It was not there, all downloading seemed empty, uploading seemed fake. All the virtual world of web was turning unreal for me. Until…… love finally spoke, it finally excecuted and gave me the reward. Next day, in the lab , with all the state of the art facilities , I got a username “M A N G O” Now …I don’t have words to describe it, 600 kms from my home , 600 kms from those dussehries , I got my love, though as a username but I got it. I was now all set , to climb up the virtual world….how wrong I was ..in fact how unknown I was …..
They say that this whole holy world is just a mere probability of interconnections, some times its there , sometimes it is not. For me this web world of internet was something identical.

So now I ,as a mango for the next 25 days, started gearing up , lets say for the inevitable. The next day, now it might be a cliché but I have to say that the sun rose for me, and me only ,the rays of the sun , pinching me , forcing me towards ruthless labour. That smooth sunshine inspiring me towards professionalism. Yes that’s the word, “being PRO”. The course, in a certain sense was null and void, ‘coz all I got in those tests were null and void, i.e. zero. 10 zeroes in a row. Physically I was exhausted, that sprawling Jaipur campus no longer enchanted me. Mentally , I was down in the dumps but from one anonymous part , I was all spiriited up, and that too unanimously.

For me those zeroes and those failiures were not emptiness , but a ‘suchness’ one cannot describe. Yes,I was unknown before as that virtual world was a real professional world we were climbing to. I guess this generation z (or z++) is quite crazy about professionalism , but perhaps while approaching that , we tend to loose it…..loose it all. There is a thin line between professionalism and practicality. We , quite often tend to forget that. Being practical , is more or less like being ‘I’, like being a mango, which is eaten by that mango itself, there are no ways, there are no possibilities, everything is for a specific reason, for that ‘I’. While being ‘pro’ was being true. True to the profession , true to the world , to the almighty. Those, are the professionals who behave like an ‘I’, serve the ‘you’ and targets the ‘us’. Those 10 zeroes and loads of internet told me all that as with each of them I was getting up close with my goal but not emotional towards it. I was getting truthful for it, not selfish.

These 2 things , Internet and the mango , told me a lot of things. There is hardly a day I pass without tackling my fingers over the address box, internet’s like a friend . like a mate sometimes, but for the net I am nothing more than a login id ,a code. Why? because its true , its pro it seves ‘you’ and targets ‘us’. Similarly the mango, my love whom I adore. But for it, I am just one of them , whom it has to serve, from season to season, orchard to orchard.

So now, back home , with dusseharies , bustling around me, I was in them, eating enchanting , caressing them all this time , a bit professionally.