Bits of life

I can hear the whistle. I am on board a train again. It’s the third time in 6 days. AC 2 tier upper bunk, Bengali Aunty travelling with her dad on the lower seats, young couple making faces at their adorable little kid on the side bunk, Chinese mobile phones playing “Aj ei din ta ke” at unimaginably loud volume, Air Conditioning at full blast right at my face. That’s the scene here. Add to it the fact that the only food I have had in the entire day is insufficient amounts of Jeera rice and Dal that was mostly soup. I am regretting the fact that I decided to skip breakfast since I was late. I have no idea what led me to be really confident that they must be serving dinner on the Yashwantpur-Howrah Express but since its 8:45 p.m already and I have not seen any signs of any of the IRCTC crew, I keep saying sorry to my growling stomach. The fact that the old man in front of me and the father daughter duo below me have all opened up neatly packed tiffin boxes seems to have driven the final nail in the coffin. Oh well, 6 months away from the luxuries of home has taught me to just accept certain situations.
The only thing that has kept me going through this journey thus far is Chetan Bhagat. Thank heavens I picked up the copy of Revolution 2020 as I had hurried past the entrance to the station. I was reluctant initially because it would mean parting with a major share of the Rs 250/- I was carrying with me (thanks to shitty SBI ATM at the station that dispenses no cash). Chetan Bhagat my man. That patent style of his. No I cant describe what stands out in the way he writes. It’s the entire package. The thoughts, the words, the euphemistic sarcasm and the weird brush on reality. I am not really a great fan of the stroylines he comes up with but I am definitely a fan of the little bits and pieces he so masterfully portrays from the eyes of a realist. I have only gone through about 80 pages now. I have no idea what this story is shaping up to be. But already I am in love with this book. The ironies, the sarcasm, the comic references, the pain and the natural human reactions…all of this expressed in words for which we never have to look up the dictionary. That is what is Chetan Bhagat. I don’t give a damn what this story eventually ends up to be (in my opinion except 5 point someone, all the rest of the stories were outrageously dumb) because in this book, once again I can feel the essence of Bhagat. The smoothness and the lazy lingering around simple thoughts that propelled him to stardom.
The IRCTC guy brought two trays filled with dinner for the Bengali father daughter. Must be the second course in their dinner. I asked him about mine.He looks at me flabbergasted and says, “Did you order?” “Am I supposed to?”, I ask him. Apparently, food is not included in the ticket fare. We are supposed to order it. When I asked him why he didn’t ask me for my order he enquires of where I boarded the train. When I said “Vizag”, he tells me that he had taken the orders before Vizag. God knows why do we have to give order for dinner before 4 pm! I was preparing to go back to Mr. Bhagat without any regrets (see what only 6 months away from home does to your sense of adjusting?) when old uncle in front of me says, “Sorry, I have finished my dinner already but would you like some butter milk and sweets?”. For a moment I didn’t know what to say. So I said the usual…”No its ok. Its not a problem”. ( I said it in an amazingly casual tone and surprised myself. See what 6 months away from home and working in a MNC does to brushen up your communication skills?). But he insisted. He was already thrusting two packets of buttermilk at my face. I made a few quick calculations in my head. Now, it is my principle not to take anything from any stranger on a train. This doubles up when I am travelling alone. But I quickly reasoned that the packet was sealed and from Visakha Dairy, I had seen him sucking on one such packet just moments before and the guy has been reading the works of Swami Vivekanada for the last 3 hours. The last reason trumped everything else. I have tremendous respect for Swami Vivekananda and the strength of his words. Any person who could read his works for 3 hours, was definitely not a goon trying to knock me out with spyked drinks and rob me. So I held my hand out for the packets. And then after the logical realist in me had succumbed to the genuine kindness of this man, the softer guy in me felt good. Actually, he felt great that you could still run into such warm people on random train rides (see what 6 months away from home does to the emotional part of you?). As I munched on the Milk Peda he had given me, I asked him whether he was from Vizag. A little conversation here and there…and I kept it simple…not probing too much (see what 6 months away from Bengal and nosy Bengalis do to you?). I asked him whether it was his first time to Kolkata. The UCO bank employee admited that it was the first time he was going to Kolkata…he had some training programme in Saltlake. I advised him to take a taxi from the station since it is very far.
He is fast asleep now. As I take one more look at him, I see a simple Telegu bank employee about 50 years old, using his worn out bag as a pillow and sleeping with a smile on his face. Nice guy, I say to myself. I think I should have told him “Thank you” one more time. I had thanked him thrice already though. The Bengali aunty below me has finished schiding her father about how he should eat his food and how he should do this and not do that. She never forgets to throw in those English phrases and words in her typical Bengali accent! She is now on the phone with her mother complaining about her husband and how insensitive and egoistic he is. I better get back to Mr. Bhagat…Oh wait, whats this…SMS!

Convocation

The last thread binding me to my College days has tweaked. Convocation was my last excuse to go back through the hallowed gates, smell the fresh and youthful fragrance of the greeneries. Even as the day appraoched, I was more apprehensive than excited. No I did not bother too much about whether I would get my degree or not…that wasn’t really an issue. But somewhere in my heart a question kept fighting to grab my attention…”What next?”
Even as I got off the bus on the cold winter morning, there was a skip in my gait. I could have taken the cab. It would have saved time and also been more comfortable. But I wanted to do things the way I did them for 4 wonderous years. And as the cold December wind lashed at our faces, most of the passengers in the bus squinted and gritted their teeth in disgust. But to me it felt like heaven…so unlike the modest winters in Vizag from where I had arrived the day before, it felt like home…23 years of my life summed up into that chilly breeze in that hackneyed bus at that very moment! The University has hardly changed. Only the bank has been repainted (orange seems the weird favourite for all JU ites!)
We met. All of us. After 6 months. The best friends…the groups…the duos and the trios! They were all there! The geeks and the rockstars, the dudes and the duds! The wannabes and the carefrees. They were all there. And we hugged. And slapped each others’ backs. We shouted when we saw each other. We swore in joy. We called each other names that we hadn’t been refered to by for many months now. And we all felt the same. We had all gone back in time. We had all gone back to those days when we enjoyed the liberty to be who we really were…not any ambitious and diplomatic young man working his way up the corporate ladder. We all knew we were in a place where we had very little to hide…and where we felt safe…we were among friends.
We collected our degrees, we played cards, we revelled in Park Street. But all of that seems an unclear dream now. So much of it happened in a day. What remains is just a handful of emotions and sensations that keep coming back to my mind suddenly. Suddenly over an aromatic cup of coffee, suddenly looking at myself in the mirror when I wash my face, suddenly when I close my eyes at night, suddenly when I tie my old shoe laces and suddenly when I feel down.
All of us have memories of college. For some of us they are sweet. For some of us they are bitter. Some are simple…and some quite dramatic! In college we had friends…and we hated many of our classmates. We hated their guts…or we hated their ways. But still we miss them. We miss them because they are part of that perfect picture in our minds. Without them, that picture would not be real. They are what make that picture perfect.
When we parted that day, I knew that it was the last time I was going to meet many of them out of my own will. So I took one last look at them. The JU Chemical Engineering Batch of 2007-2011. It was one hell of a group. As we stepped up to collect our degrees, each of us felt it…felt that this was the end. To some of us, the position in the line was important…at what number were we called up to collect our degrees…our prestigious ranks in class. But for most of us ( the slightly level headed ones), it was a moment of flashback…a flashback of 4 years…4 years during which not even for an instant had we thought of this moment…this moment of the end!


PS- This post was written on the flight back to Vizag from Kolkata.

Me

I always wanted to travel the world. Not to famous places or anything of the sort. Just places. New places every now and then. Wake up in different beds…look out of different windows…look out to see different scenes and different people. I yearn to sit at back of the bus and gaze aimlessly out the window…a little squint in my eye…the sun smothering my face…and my 2 day stubble. I want to drive on an empty road. I don’t want to drive fast…just coast along…the morning breeze streaming through my hair. I want to listen to a hundred voices around me…speaking in a language of which I cannot make out a thing…I want to look for words they keep saying…and then cook up a meaning for each of them. I want to capture images of faces I don’t know…faces I shall never see again…capture them in my camera…gaze at them for emotions…try to figure them out. Sit myself at a roadside shop…where they serve steaming cups of tea…very sweet ones…like hot sherbet. And I want to drive in the countryside…where the sun never comes out from behind the clouds…and lush green meadows are dotted with little farmhouses with queer brown fences around them on which jackdaws stare at me as I sail by. And I want to stare at little kids on mountain tops in grey shorts and red sweaters, unwillingly dragging their satchels along, some wild mountain fruit clasped in their hands…their tiny little eyes gaping at me in curiousity. I want to run along the beach at the break of the dawn…to see where it ends…where all the big hotels give way to the tiny homes of the fishermen and then the lighthouse and then suddenly all the sand goes away and its only lashing waves and brave black rocks thrusting their chests out to take the beating. In the middle of the night I want to be sitting on the verandah of a tiny forest bungalow, with the lights gone out…only a candle in the dining room where the cook prepares country chicken in a fiery gravy on a winter night…and as I wait for him to serve the steaming rice, I want to hear the cricket’s trance and the occasional trumpet of the elephant and the otherwise silence of the mysterious jungle…I love what this world has to offer…all its nature…all its creatures…its human civilizations…I respect all of them…and I love to know all about them…

Listen to me!

And we are fighting to be heard, to be listened to. Its all that we want. To have our own way. I am King and thus you must obey! That’s all we would love to shout out. Introvert? What introvert? There are no introverts. They have just given up. Nobody listens to them. So they stay shut. We are all the same…dying to be heard. Fighting to be heard! Stop you! I must speak now. I have said the same thing…last Friday when you were saying the same thing. I stopped you then as well! Why am I stopping you now then? Because you should hear me! No, its not an emergency or anything. No, I am not under any stress. But you must hear me out…listen to MY point. Your point? Yes of course its there…but I am right. You MUST listen to me. If you listen to me your thoughts will change…and you will think like me. Speak like me. But even then you must stop and let me speak. Please listen to me. No No NO! Even that’s not enough! You must agree with me. If you don’t like what I say then argue with me. You MUST argue! Its your right to argue. But then I am eventually right. Accept it. You MUST accept it! How can you not accept it? I am right. You have some logic to what you say but at the end of it, I am right. Yes you have to accept it. Please listen to me and just accept it. That ALL I want.

Clicks!!!

Scribblings from my heart

I want a home beside a railway track in the midst of a decidous forest. In the dizzy heat of the afternoon I want to hear the rattling from miles away. I want to see the birds scurrying away in the distance behind my greentop hillock. In the dark of the night I want to hear the moan of the siren piercing the cricket’ trance. I want to wait for the glaring light to pass over my drowsy face for a moment while the siren blasts away. It would be swell..

Tick tock tick tock

There’s a voice in my head that tells me to stop but there is this lady in red drives me on. She’s not some pretty lady, she is just a hallucination. She is no good for me, but she makes me feel good…and she keeps pulling me away from myself…from my innocent self…she draws me to her lair…her soft woollen carpets of acceptance and her fluffy pillows of denial. Monotony is such a bitch…flaunting her starched shirts and perfect creaseless cotton pants. Its getting to me really…blood pumping in my veins, thumping my head…walls…dead ends…I am a servant of fate am I? And staying shut is so much fun…let the lady guide you…she knows best….makes you feel good…not about yourself…just good. Good in a bad way…like said before…”I love you…like I hate you”! Everyday that 9 30 am run, those drowsy afternoons at the machine…and the stupid noddings. Why am I like this? That’s because I am scared…scared of losing this. I don’t want this…but they tell me there is nothing else to have! Claustrophobic little room with senseless minds and mosquitoes that squeeze the life out of my body…what is it that I was supposed to find here? It’s a road I have left behind in 3 months time. It’s a dusty road…and it doesn’t have any ladies in red…but something tells me, its where I should be.