Raindrops of my Thirst

I'm not a good man. If someone calls me a nice guy, that person is in need of a thorazine drip.

I'm not some patriot who would walk down the green mile exulting at the prospect of becoming a celebrated martyr. I do the work I do, not in answer to a higher calling, but for the dough it brings in.

25 years may not be much from the perspective of someone sitting on the outer fringes of the cosmos, or even a figure with mind-blowing potential on the number system, but it means a lot to someone who has lived them from a frigid, overcast day in the winter of 1982 to a day when people, both big and small, look up to me.

But it's not worth much if you can't face yourself in the mirror. A man sold his soul for a selfish perverted cause. And then he tried to wash away his guilt. Tried to drown it in a lifetime of good deeds and a sea of respectability. It almost worked, too. But inevitably, the further you run from your sins, the more exhausted you are when they catch up to you. And they do. Certain. It will not fail.

They say when someone dies in the throes of a powerful rage, a curse is born. One that is capable of consuming others in its fury... Even after death... And I want Death on a bright Sunday afternoon... When there is not a cloud in the sky... Eyes closed, arms open and a heart at peace...

We love someone, we miss someone and we reach out to them... But so many times, we reach out solely because we fear being alone, we fear dying alone... Life is not so much of a FairyTale, is it?

Whenever I have done something, I have spent days agonizing over whether I should be doing it... And a part of me always knew that if I did not do it, I would regret not doing it... And I did not want to have regrets... That was one burden I did not want on my conscience...

All I wanna do is close my eyes and let my tears take me home.


Mood: Dreamy

Music: But it Rained - Parikrama

Mayday Mutterings!

"Mayday Mayday!! Sujanya is taking me shopping today!!"
Yeah that was pretty much my heart-rending protesting plea, which as always fell on her deaf ears!
And before she embarks on the hunt for a thermo-nuclear warhead to drop on my head, let me also come clean! She did not force me!! Hehe!! Just an attempt to beat her at her very own drama game! :P
Anyway, 1st May (Office holiday, atleast in India), we went out for a bit... She needed some stuff and well I was jobless, as always... :D
Well, after an extensive (excruciating?) round of City Center, and then we went to Lifestyle... Now all this was in the middle of a really hot afternoon, and Sujanya felt like a beer, so we turned TDS into our first stop... For the uninitiated, TDS is "10 Downing Street"... A pretty hip hangout for pub-lovers...
Now I'm sure you are familiar with flashbacks in reel life, so jump into one of these real-life ones:

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[Waiter (Note: I do not know if there is some other term for the people who go around serving drinks in a pub, so I'm sticking to my restaurant-oriented-academic lingo) brings the food menu]

Sujanya: Could we have the drinks menu please?

[Waiter gets the menu... I take a look, make my choice, hand it over to Sujanya, she declines. Now the maitre'd comes to take our order]

Sujanya: A pint of beer and a fresh lime soda please?

Maitre'd: Will that be all?

Sujanya: Yes

[He leaves... Few minutes later, the waiter brings the stuff and places a...err...bottle-green bottle with a label that clearly states Kingfisher, square in front of me]

Me: Errrrr... That's her order, the Soda's is mine...

[A big pasty smirk on the waiter's face, while Sujanya is unable to hold back the idiotic grin...]
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FLASHBACK ENDS. THIS IS NOW!

I do not drink, I do not drink, I do not drink. To be read in the head-turning-thrice, ear-popping-background-sound, EktaKapoor-soap-like manner.

Yes, the penultimate wonder of the world, a 25-yr old boy who DOES NOT drink!

Fine, the last line was the outcome of a frustrated-with-that-bollywood-dhamaka-reaction guy's umpteenth instance of irritation, but, yes, I am a specimen of that rare species of youngsters who do not feel the need to down a vile fluid to feel good about my shit-hole of a life or to celebrate a diamond-studded-piercing on the remotest corners of my butt! I am normal ( I think...) in every other way. I do not wear a pink shirt, I do not use lipstick, kajal, mascara, eyeliner, rouge or any of those numerous face-paints. I have a manly voice (again, I think...!) and, well I shaved yesterday but still, I do have facial hair.

It was a similar scenario at a friend's wedding at Nainital in February. People are drinking left, right and centre. Some were guzzling down shots at such an alarming rate, I believe they would have stuck tubes from the keg in all the other..uhhh...inlets in their torso, if it was biologically-feasible to swallow through them! And all the time, folks around are telling me to join them and not be a spoilsport...

I am curious about this now... Why am I a spoilsport, a sissy, a Mama's boy just because I choose to demonstrate my ample, unending love for my liver? I am not exactly walking around with a "Say NO to drinking" placard around my neck, I am not preaching about the ills of drinking or about how it makes men beat their wives and drive cars off bridges. I don't drink because I don't see any sense in it, plus I love being in control of my own (questionable?) senses.

I have known friends all through school and college and even in Infy who booze like every day in the rest of their lifetime has been declared a dry day. One guy used to get drunk, get on the table, rip off his shirt, and dance vigorously to every C-grade song ever made, until noon of the following day. Another used to get high and smash his bottle on the floor and let loose a tirade against each of his ex-girlfriends or just friends or crushes, usually starting with "Wo saali..." and then continuing in a language that is alien to my underdeveloped vocabulary of expletives. In Mysore, one guy felt romantically inclined after knocking down some 4 Patiala pegs of Teacher's and made his way to the girls block to confess his love for a particular lady. She almost pushed him off the fourth floor and called in security. Sounds fun yeah, but not if you are the drunk one.

Another friend says that moderate drinking is good for health. You want health, then eat less of those dripping-with-butter dosas, run like a horse-on-caffeine in the morning and do not chase girls. You will definitely live longer. Yet another says its to stay cool. You want cool, I'll turn up the AC, I'll put ice-packs on your head, I'll put you in the refrigerator.

Devdas said drinking helps drown life's sorrows. Dear Dev (putting an arm around his shoulder), we need a light, clean heart to drown them, not a liver soaked in alcohol... You lost your K...K...Kiran, I mean, Paro, and I lost mine. You did not own your Paro and I did not own mine. We came in alone and we will go out alone. We both have learnt that attachments cause misery. But Life still moves on. The sun rises, the bulb in my bathroom works, the BB still hangs up because of ridiculous arguments, my landlord still continues to pester me for more rent, my lead still feigns an astonished expression when I attempt to leave work at 7.30 after having worked for 10 straight hours, Alex still continues to be outrageously corny, Shilpi still continues to curse me for not eating properly, Sujanya still calls me an asshole for absolutely no reason, BlackPearl still mocks my cowardice for not being able to strike up a conversation with CuteFemale, my old friends still hate me for speaking my mind.

But I may have missed something. There may be something great hidden within that bottle. A lot of people drink and feel good about it. My friends drink, most guys at Infy drink, my uncle who spent 11 weeks in the hospital with a liver problem due to drinking drinks, a lot of girls I know drink and Devdas drank. Maybe something is there. Maybe its that people enjoyed puking in Nainital, after having overloaded their capacity for alcohol. Maybe its that my bed-ridden uncle enjoys being in the hospital surrounded my matronly nurses, where he is now because of a bloated liver. Maybe Devdas was just a habitual drunkard who went around saying:
babuji ne kahaa gaon chhod do,
sabne kahaa paro ko chhod do,
paro ne kahaa sharaab chhod do,
aaj tumne keh dia, haweli chhod do,
ek din aayega jab wo kahenge, duniya hi chhod do...

Whatever happened to the damn shopping spree??? SORRY! Anyway, ladies wear section of Lifestyle, I think Sujanya probably lost her mind! She rejected some perfectly good outfits outright! Females ! Me, I was feeling like a baby monkey who had just been air-dropped into an subatomic particle physics laboratory! No pretty female monkeys around either... DAMN!

Shaving off a 2.5-month beard causes half the people on the floor to refuse to recognize me... Double Damn!


Mood: Purrrr!

Music: Phir haath mein sharab hai - Pankaj Udhas (talk about bleddy coincidence!)