Post errr...

One of these days will be the last day that I start an entry with a false start.

I've been learning to write, well, more specifically how to write for mass consumption. And since this space is not intended for a mass audience, there you go.

Well, life's running along at a fine clip. The last few days were a whole lotta fun. My folks came to visit me for the times that were. The college, more importantly and thankfully the Director, decided that we needed a much-deserved break from the mayhem.

And what a time it was. To be with my parents in an atmosphere where they weren't getting all agitated with the lack of time and abundance of money that I spend whenever I'm not around them. To be able to have my father only talk about his ideas to turn this coming year into the most profitable ever, and not how I was wasting my time doing whatever I was doing, was good fun.

As I grow and mature, I think I'm kinda understanding why my father and me agree to disagree on most things- I know generation gap is the best way to put and portray it; but the difference is more on the surface than deeper for a change. My father is a man from Finance, if not for his lack of adeptness at speaking the queen's language, he would have been the Chief Equity Analyst at a Wall Street, atleast Dalal Street Firm ( I know each kid thinks that his father is the thing that's happened to mankind, but people who know me know that I don't). Now numbers are the driest things around, all fact, while what I do and want to do in life is all fiction.

So, as you can deduce and I can portray, that's just about it. Its about a sandpaper and a drip coming together. And what happens from there is the life of yours truly. I know that's a very crude way of putting it. And that's the way it should be. Metaphors that bring the truth home, and similies that take it there.

All I attempt to do is play with words, and all he does is predict numbers based on facts.

Facts and fiction are just that.

Observations

If you are the tallest person in a semi-formal group of people, and whenever you are spotted sitting below-chair level in a public area, people are more than likely to ruffle your hair and generally irritate the hell out of you.

Similarily, if you take nice, cute, soft potshots at people over a period of time, and at any time you let your guard down, you are bound to be hit with a dynamo the speed of the smelliest, dirtiest fart that you've encountered. It hits you with a vengeance and then it lingers.

I know that the people that I'm talking about, if they get down here to read this, people from the 1st paragraph will be bewildered and people from the second would think to themselves - " Wow, Blockhead, you figured it out."

Ciao

The only reason that I write here today is that the last 2 days have been a tad different from what I've been experiencing non-stop for the last 2 months.


I know this sounds rhetoric since you might be reading this just after or before my last post, but then life has had little to offer lately to relieve the feeling of ennui that I've had to live with.

2 days ago, I went to Bombay for realistiscally for the 1st time. (The last time I went, I was 6, and all that I remember is the boot house and some muddy memories of a dandia night in the suburbs).

Though I got to see most of Bombay from the backseat of my cab, and I was on the road, in bumper to bumper traffic most of the time, I got a taste of the City of Dreams, Mumbai, Mumbaikars ki Shaan. Here's my take on it-

When you see the largest population of Fiat Cars that you've ever seen, you know you've reached Bombay. And I'm not talking about the Palios, Siena or Ferraris for that matter. These are old 1980 model Pal Padminis. Except for a few derelicts and some running ones, you wouldn't probably find more than 5 of these in a 5 sq km area around you anywhere in India. But in Bombay, they infest the streets with their black and yellow manifestations. The commonality is not only in the color, but the decals that all of these will have. These range from your run-of-the-mill bus-type Bandra to Bhayander signs, but Signs of all kinds. Thankfully all of them were in English, so I can put down some of them for you here.

They are interesting because they are the only descendants of Bumper stickers in India, even though they are plastered across the back windshield in huge, garish fonts and have the average wit and twist of a Medical Research article. So here you go-

• Come with Me
• Follow Me
• I'm the one!
• Going where you wanted to?
• Writing is like making love. Don't worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.

Ok, so the list is small and you know that the last one is not seen off the back of a taxi but trawled off from the net. The only reason I do so is that I've fallen off my high horse that I could write reasonably well and that I knew how to twist and turn words, sentences, phrases, verbs, adjectives and blah blah blah into meaningful pieces of literature, or pop writing atleast.

The above quote has gotten me back to where I belonged. It's got that thing back where it belonged. Right inside my head. And I'm trying to get it out.

Getting back to Bombay, the day was a rainy one, so I probably got my romantic view of the city the 1st time that I saw it. For the work that I had, I managed to go to Bombay House, the Headquarters of the Tata Group. I was practically within 3 floors of where Mr. Ratan Tata sits. I guess for one of the few times in life, I was enamored. This is probably my idea of visiting Monet's or Van Gogh's studio, or a visit to Disneyland, depending on your choice of passion. The fact that I might get to meet Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan, the Numero Duo of the Tata Group if I slog my ass off hard enough. And if that happens, that'll be the manna of my life for as long as I live. Its stuff like this that my dreams are made of.

Another dream that came through was to see a water body that streched till the horizon. Managed to see the Arabian Sea right before my eyes. The cab took an inane turn off a silly looking single-laned flyover, and I had the Queen's necklace streched out right before me. It was just about dusk time, and the lights had come on early due to the bulbuous, bulging, bating skies.

The view of the sea has never been described to me, and probably never will be described to you. So here's my take, fYKI. .

The edge of the beach wasn't very visible to me, as I was in a car, so coudn't really see a lot of details of the water hitting the rocks and all that stuff. What I did see was an unending stretch of water, that expanded my scale of vision once and for all. All one had to do was look longingly at that wave that stretched just before it all ended, or began.

The next stop was the Bombay Gymkhana Club, an open space on Marine Drive, which is your proverbial pin in the haystack in the heart of Mumbai's commercial space. Of all the facilities that it has, one is an open ground with GRASS. This probably sounds as lame as it does, but you need to travel through a big city as I did, and then reach where I landed up, you'll know what I'm talking about. And, to top that, there was a group of teenagers playing football in the rain-drenched field, each kick to the ball out there drenching the person in front with an equal amount of disdain, water and mud.

All in all, these were like these two dream like situations coming back-to-back in quick succession. And I felt for the 1st time how does it feel to have the sine qua non of ideal situation set up by society becoming visible to you real time.

I mean, all you can see is what I want to write here. Its just an account what I saw, not what you can feel if you were there. And most fittingly, you'll feel quite the same as I did, if you were there. To top it up, all this happened within a space of 5 minutes, while I was still chatting up 2 seniors from college.

Bombay as a dream city has still retained its character for me. I look forward to being back there, doing what I have to, I want to, I would and then something.

Reality will bite, and hard.

Till then, from lala Land..

Yours Truly,

Yours Truly.