Void III

To say that it is a very lonely road ahead would be an understatement. Coming undone bit by bit is not something that I'm really good at. I still don't know whether it's because of you not being there or because you're happy somewhere else. Speed is the only solace left. The only time where the void is not filled but momentarily forgotten. In a corner where everything goes wrong, it's just a heavy realization of your absence. 

I could never get that alone in a crowd reference. I still don't zone out to a happy meadow with you in tow, but yes, it is an overwhelming sense of loss that seems a tad too heavy to handle. 

I'm still carrying a hope that one day you will just be a blemish on the horizon, where your absence shall be purged of all emotion. 

There are those times where I'm still holding on to that wheel after I've parked, but I seriously do not know if it's just the adrenaline or the thought of having cut you out for a longer period of time than the previous night.

Hell, I swear I was way more in control than this. The only consolation that there is, lies in the fact that you made your decision, and I hope it bodes well for you, but regrettably, it dents my being, makes every act superfluous and brings out the worthlessness in the rest of the world.

There is no suffering, at least on the face of it, no worldly maladies, but there's nothing left, nothing to look out for. It's been seven years since you've been there, and two without you. Still stuck, by choice, somewhere in the middle. 

Hopefully, salvation lies somewhere beyond that sunset. And in all probability, the material shall become immaterial one day and get me there. That, shall be the juncture where I'll finally find you, or be rid of you, or both.Till then, love, happy infiltrating.

An asystemic redemption.

Yeah. Its been more than two years without you. You continue to be the unaccounted for anomaly. There are those who have been after my life to let go. In my best interests. But, as is in most cases, that shit seldom works. I could have discounted it if you just haunted a sporadic drunken stupor. The problem is your absence is more potent without alcohol.

 It’s the mornings that are the hardest. Time was supposed to dim the smell of your hair, well, I still remember it. And that is bloody unfortunate, lying around for fifteen minutes, struggling with the sheets to blot it out. And trust me, I get more bloody efficient with it everyday. At least I try. Another century, and I’d probably be on the brink of having a normal morning. The worst is when you’re there in a dream, where all is still well, nothing’s happened, and then something has to fucking happen to wake me up. I really cannot describe it, but its really close to falling off a motorcycle, dragging on the road, and the first shot of red hot pain when the initial shock sets in, the one where your head reels, you see stars, your hands go cold, you break into a sweat, your throat goes dry, and your feet buckle under you. Yep. Picture that. Exactly that. Every fucking time.

Its hard to explain, but there is nothing to move on from. You may have lost interest, but that really does not work both ways like a portal. And as long as that portal remains open from one side, I guess I’ll always be in that wormhole. This is where that bad boy image takes the real thrashing. The whole cocksurety goes out of the window, like a balloon going plonk. There’s a sense of misplaced pride that will not let me relent and make that call, though I really don’t count on that working either, but on the other contradictory hand, there’s that misplaced as fucking hell hope that refuses to die out, that maybe you’d break. That you’d make that call. Just, maybe, but well, that’s what losers do in general. Talk about fucking Stockholm Syndrome.

There are those nights after alcohol where that phone glints like the proverbial bullet, but the scary part is when it’s the same after tea. If they take me away to a padded cell one day, maybe, they really wouldn’t be that off the mark. I hope the medication that comes with that straitjacket, is strong enough to blot out everything. Everything. Well, most of it anyway.

I’ve always been really good at taking the hostage out of the equation, but the problem is I can’t really take myself out, can I?

Of Wolf and Man.

There will always be ways and means of showing us down as a collective. And for the most part, they will be true. You can choose a thousand ways of deprecating the accepted way of life that we have. Again, I’m not justifying it. I’m just accepting it for what it is. Maybe it is because we have a very Hobbesian view of things. Maybe it is because of the diverse demographic that is at the root of the discrepancies, with the progressive liberals on one side, and the ultra conservatives on another.

Every nation has its ghettos, so do we. Yes, the fact that the majority is still in a third world rut, can be a tipping point explaining the clash between the ultra modern and the rustic rudimentary ideologies today. Every home or a semblance of it has the same raging debate. Sadly, in a house where one television in the master bedroom is playing a serial where the poor twenty year old girl needs to be married off quickly because her erstwhile fiancé, who dumped her because he was a douchebag, or she’s not going to get a suitable match, ever and in another room, Walter White is cooking meth on a laptop, such differences are bound to arise. Cataclysmic generational change is always accompanied with ramifications, the growing distance and divide is just the cause and effect of the same. Some might pass it off as harmless entertainment, but yeah, it plays its own part. We're a fucking impressionable lot.

There are some who want to get married, wear designer bling on the wedding, have the picture perfect honeymoon, have kids, and attend weekends wearing the latest from Tom Ford at Verma uncle’s farmhouse for a wine tasting thing, then there are also those, who’d just pack up a rucksack, strap on their boots, and fuck off to the hills. The problem is, they’re reaching uncompromising ends of the spectrum, where the link is just getting more and more tense, and you know that its at the point where it may just snap.

But hell, that’s not even the issue here.

The issue is the state of things and how people from different segments are reacting to it. People say there’s no law and order. Where else can you flout the speed limit as diligently as you can here? And seriously, do you mean to tell me that you’ve never crossed the speed limit of 50 in Lutyens’ Delhi? Come on. How many times have you paid your way out of talking on a cellphone, not wearing a seatbelt, drunk driving, and maybe a million other offences. How many of you are staying in rented accomodations with registered lease agreements? Have you never paid a bribe, for electricity meter issues, back dated insurance, gas connections, and maybe another million such issues? I think you have. And then, you have the balls to light a fucking candle and go to fucking India Gate? Seriously. Get a grip. At least don’t laugh at yourself.

A Godman is accused of rape. He will not be arrested. A fleet of twenty Fortuners will receive him, and you can't do shit. Oh yes, you can. Go light a fucking candle. His son decries the child who was raped. He will not be touched. Time to light another candle. Discuss it on another primetime forum. How many candles will it take for you to fucking see that an approaching wolf will not be deterred by a candle. Jesus.

Accept the darkness that plagues you. Accept that you’re a nincompoop and that you chose the easy way out all your life, which is why the nation’s in a shithole today. Understand that the only thing that’ll keep you from going under if you come across a goon will either be brawn, the telephone number of the SHO from so and so Police Station, or a sidearm. Its as simple as living in a failed state of anarchy. And where chaos reigns supreme, you do not light candles. You douse the lights, stay the fuck home, and hope the wolves don’t choose your house for fine dining tonight.

Or, as a corollary, become the wolf.

Acceptance is the only key.

'We' the people

Well, at the outset, I’m at quite a loss. Not because whatever happened in Delhi has not happened before, though the brutality of the act is quite reportedly unprecedented, but because of what happened in the aftermath. I wasn’t there when the lathicharge was happening, I was walking my dog in a posh colony somewhere, and being the totally non concerned citizen that I am, I have no proclivities towards staying abreast of whatever goes on in the city via newspapers and news channels. I stay preoccupied with my car, my motorcycle, issues at work and whichever woman I may be in love with at any given time and finding and improvising on ways and means to woo her.

That being said, I was having dinner with my folks and they’re slightly addicted to NDTV 24x7. And I saw. I saw a woman in an orange suit being hit thrice in the stomach by some four helmeted, bullet proofed, and rather well geared policemen, Delhi’s finest, the elite, crème de la crème, so to speak. The woman got up, doubled up, fell down again and crawled to the side of the pavement. After which, I, being the responsible citizen that I am, tweeted and facebooked my resentment, replete with the hashtags, mind you. As I then proceeded to take more gravy and satiate my gluttonous and rather ravenous appetite, I received a call from my reporter friend about another reporter that I know who lost a chunk of flesh, as a tear gas canister exploded near her feet. I got another update on twitter about it being on you tube and checked out the link. I saw the shell land at her feet and the camera going haywire and the resulting chaos. Its probably something that is extremely common in war reporting, and maybe even better delivered by  Hollywood, if you remember the Ironman flick. But this was someone I knew.  The TV then went on to get Renuka Choudhary’s comments on the same. I believed that the woman, being a woman, would maybe sensitize the issue a bit and reach out, or moreover, being a ruling party member of Parliament, would play it sly and try to pacify the viewers, if nothing, then for preserving the votebank. But  no, the level of brashness in today’s political circles is such that she said, and I quote, “Arre baba ‘we’ also want the security of ‘you people’only”. The demarcation was pretty clear, though Barkha Dutt refused to pick on it.

And that, I think, was it. I do not know how to term it, I did not get a mini gun and tear down Congress headquarters. I did what I could. I went to India Gate. The crowds had dwindled. But they were still there. And that, really was not how I remembered India Gate. There were shoes, not in pairs, but single shoes strewn about, scarves, shawls, blood smudged pavements and asphalt. There was an elderly gentleman who was looking for his left shoe since the afternoon stampede. One from a bunch of pretty battered first year kids had given him his bright red Converse chappals, and held the man’s surviving shoe as he skipped around in damp and dirty socks, regaled by a bunch of ‘awww’ing girls. It felt good to be around them. I met another kid, who was shaking inconsolably in front of a camera with a lacerated arm repeating just one question, why did they hit us. Some guy with a camera produced a flask of water which I passed to the shaken and stirred boy. I saw a warzone in Lutyens. And they were still sitting there, with their placards and candles. Still not retorting but with a resilience that people with rage issues like me cannot comprehend. I stayed there for another hour, trying to do my bit, desperately trying to understand where these kids muster the reserve, not to take the beating, but to still stand there and not retaliate. A force that actually could not be swayed.

I do not know what the outcome of this conflict will be. I’m quite assured that this bunch of ragtag kids cannot bring this Government down, and I also know that even if it were possible, we are in stark need of a currently absent political alternative. And I also know that what these kids need, what we all need is for us to switch off those flatscreens and land up in the trenches with them. For, as has been specified by the Government today, it is about taking sides.

And I’m definitely going. Not with candles or placards. Not with baseball bats either. Because their resolve, even if puerile, needs to be encouraged. Even if it means just helping an old man find his missing shoe.

Oh, and if you’re reading this, 'we' could use some company.

Counting stripes with Mephistopheles

Its not about the furtive glances you get at a traffic signal.

Its not about the kids watching in wonder as you rip the road apart.

Its not about the image of badassery that you carry among your peers.

Its not about impressing women. Well, not just all about it.

Its not about scaring your boss into submission with the roar of a free flow exhaust.

Its not about buying gear worth more than the motorcycle itself.

Its not about cleaning visors with more accuracy than when you’re cleaning a gun chamber.

Its not about helmet decals, carbon fiber knuckles or bionic knee greaves.

Its not about the likes on facebook.

Its not about running to the hills.

Its not about being sprinkled with the first drizzle of the season.

Its not about getting drenched to your underwear in a torrential downpour.

Its not about the endless trips to the mechanic.

Its not about speed.

Its not about cruising aimlessly to the horizon.

Its not about the odo crossing a million.

Its not about the chrome or the powder coat.

Its not about the achy shoulders.

Its not about the bad back.

Its not about the dirty denims, smelly socks, scummy shirts and stinky jackets.

Its not about racing lineage or caliber.

Its not about deciding whether to wear black or black.

Its about more.

Its about looking like a dusted raccoon when you take off your helmet after 300 miles of truck dodging.

Its about the cup of tea that you gulp down on a country track that tastes like carbureted gruel.

Its about the corner you crash into.

Its about getting back into the saddle and conquering the same corner, a little lower, grazing footpegs.

Its about cussing at a broken headlamp before cussing at a broken ankle.

Its about the reserve to go another mile.

Its about the reserve to go another fifty miles.

Its about enjoying an unsettling, clinical and cold noise.

Its about peeling off throttle calluses at formal gatherings, cubbyholed in a corner.

Its about unnecessary revs in neutral.

Its about not understanding the point of public transport.

Its about hitting the next gear into the void, grinning.

Its about a belief that the corner will submit.

Its about stubborn faith that the tyres will hold.

Its about stitches, casts, physiotherapy, cat scans and sticky bandages.

Its about basking in the glory of being an absolute nobody.

Its about realizing you’re the best hummingbird this side of the planet.

Its about laughing at Armani and worshipping Alpinestars.

Its about understanding that a spanner can be a lifesaver.

Its about worried mothers and perplexed proud fathers.

Its about exasperated wives and proud girlfriends, or if you’re lucky, vice versa.

Its about the will to shrug off disasters.

Its about learning to use tourniquets.

Its about everything that makes sense and everything that doesn’t.

Its about survival on a higher plane.

Its about realizing that impossibilities are just a notion.

Its about preaching salvation and redemption.

Its about god, the Devil and everything that comes in between.

Its about all you are, in consonance with what you were twenty years back, and what you will be at your granddaughter’s fifth birthday party.

Its about confluence, divergence, internal combustion and the social contract theory.

Its about you.

And you, my friend, have only just begun.

A quantum of admissibility

They love us because we're bad boys.

They leave us because we're bad boys.

                                                                  -KS

I remember when we parted ways.  I remember the literal continental drift before we did so. I remember the relief when it was over. I also remember the smothering heaviness the morning after.

They’ve asked me over the past year how I’ve been so normal, so clinically detached from the fact that you’re not there anymore. They’ve noticed the lack of theatrics and eccentricities that usually accompany a break up. I’ve always shrugged it off by saying it got over when it should have. That it got over while there was still no bad blood. That it got over before it got ugly. That it got over because we wanted different things. That it was because we weren’t seeing eye to eye (well, for one, we couldn’t because you were decidedly taller). That it was because you were younger and didn’t see things as I did. That it was because I was older and therefore, outgrown of the romance that you could still see. That it was because I had gotten tamer and now lacked being the wild child that got you in the first place. 

Well, the truth is I’m not over you. And I really don’t think I’ll ever be. Or want to be. Or expect to be. You’re like that perfect childhood movie that stays with you, there to be remembered as the greatest singular movie ever. That being said, I’ve noticed how unsettling the relationships around me have been.  Some have been defeatist experiments in an absolute quagmire of futility. Well, most if one looks at it in complete objectivity. But then, they also say that human behavioral patterns have to be studied in subjective unit patterns, unlike complex mechanical systems. Human relationships can be as complex as dynamic cloud patterns, meteor showers, insane ratios of fractal curves but the quantum of chaos involved remains the same. Or maybe more, who gives a shit. A cloud or a gulf stream or a rising tectonic plate does not care where or how it goes, humans do. A little more than bloody necessary even, at times. Hell, most times.

I’ve seen grown men in bars, looking at their watches and dreading a call from the better half. I’ve seen them lie. I’ve lied for a few of them personally. I’ve seen them walk out of a movie hall to receive a call. I’ve seen them rise not to meet a woman but frown as if they were responding to a subpoena from the most ruthless judge in town. Seriously, its like watching someone play Call of Duty. In first person.  I’m eternally thankful that it was never required of me from you to be someone as petrified as any of them. 

Then there are some of them who have a problem with the time and space continuum. They need all the space and a little more than all of the time in the world. They’ll let you hang out with the boys late but want to an integral part of the august gathering, either in the flesh or as a defence satellite via the ever so unsanctimonious cellular phone. Noble thought, but irksome in the real world. Like a gnat at a fucking barbeque. It does not work. No chauvinistic reason as such. It just doesn’t work.  It just falls in the same category as keeping the poor man in shackles and away from the gang. Sad, but true. I’m thankful that I was never on a leash for the time that you were there. 

Then there are the card readers. They believe, abjectly and ceremoniously believe that they know it all. They don’t question or argue, they come to life altering conclusions. Verdicts. Commandments. Holy edicts. Men are idiots if they do not conform. Thankfully, and from what I could gauge,  I think you gave the other gender credit when it was due.

Which brings us back to why we’re not married with three kids, a dog, a mortgage and a minivan. Seriously, I’ve given it a lot of thought, but I still do not have a plausible answer. It’s the law of diminishing marginal utility proving itself in a study of perfect emotionless harmony. Where the perfect mechanics will falter because that is the way of the world. A very dark, Hobbesian world, but a worldly flaw nonetheless. It’s the simplest rule of chaos. You fire a cannonball from a spot. It lands at another spot. You fire another cannonball from the same spot, it will land somewhere very close to the earlier spot of impact but not exactly there. May go the same distance, but it may falter because one errs in the placement of the canon, because the wind changes the yaw and trajectory of the cannonball, because the hammer didn’t wind correctly the first time or a million other reasons. The outcome of all human relationships will be the same. A lack of feeling. The lack may differ in intensity for different beings in  the end, it may take multiple routes, but it will die. 

Ultimately. 

But, as I was saying, chaos really just tells me the outcome was rational considering what we had as a complex mechanical or live system. That it just wasn’t supposed to work for eternity. But it doesn’t sort the shit when I wake up and you’re not there. When nobody’s holding down the hood of the jacket so it doesn’t hit one in the face on the pillion seat of a motorcycle. When I don’t have to look for cafes at 3.00 A.M. Or when I chat up with thirty other women who just strike themselves off the list within 60 seconds of an introduction.

Or the totally gut wrenching pull when I realize that I love you. I do not want you there but can’t let you go either. Won’t is more like it. 

So much for fucking chaos.

Inebriated visions in pink

Alcohol. When consumed in volumes, makes one speak volumes. Alcohol, I believe, offers a clarity that most embrace, and few understand and there are still a bunch of a select fewer who treasure it as the last semblance of a human trace left in the alcohol stream. And, therefore, understand the true import of the pungent viscosity of the wondrous elixir that you're downing by the gallon.

I see you. Sitting on the table opposite mine, while I pretend to gawk at a stupid cricket match on the plasma across you. Couldn't be more loserly, could I now. You know the guy you're downing the Bud with just ain't worth it. The Nokia is your excuse at times, the match or the loo at others.

I see you. Basking in the blue backlight of the Nokia. Lighting you up in an unearthly beautiful hue.

I see you. Scratching the label off that sorry unwitting bottle of beer. Adjusting your sunglasses on your head at 11 P.M. With that hair, that wondrous shock of hair, that Yves himself would discount your unpronounced but surreptitiously understated roundish belly for.

I see you. With the pink, suggestive, and if I may be allowed to add, only tastefully suggestive pink shirt, the conservatism, just screaming forth from the white spaghetti underneath.

I see you. With the mammoth ring on the finger. A constant reminder of the horrendously stupid mistake you made probably a year back, considering you still have a beer outing on a tuesday evening.

I see you. As you disdainfully sign the bill and gulp what remains of your beer. As you put that credit card immaculately back in that red clutch. As you take out a listerine strip and offer it to the expectant cock across the table knowing all too fully well what you'll be enduring in the parking lot.

I see you. I know I want you, covet you as you leave the table and walk away. I hate to see you go. But it would be a sin to say that I don't love to watch you leave. The alacrity of your asymmetrical perfection can only elicit a sigh of relief, as you now stand a distant memory to be wiped out with the next potent mix of Bailey's, Kahlua and Cointreau. And if you're really lucky, I'd dedicate to you two rounds of tequila post your exit-de-trance.

Another one bites the dust. The pointlessness of the situation reigns supreme as I come back to the conversation on my table where we burn old friends on the spit, gawk at the new women in the bar. By the fifth tequila you're nearly out of my head. Only to be filled by another masterpiece in the image and splendour of the maker. I try and understand your thoughts, trials, tribulations and smiles and how I could be the white knight salvaging all that matters to you. Another tequila please.

No.
I don't see you anymore. Fading, like an infantile injury from the mind of a greying individual. Drowning in tequila seems to be an option which becomes infinitely more viable. The clink of a zippo and you're nearly forgotten. As I retrace my steps to the car, I don't even remember what the whole toast to pink in the bar was all about.

I see you.