Yaar, te dildaar

Yaar, te dildaar,
Rabb ne ditte hazaar.
Koi kamm nai,
Koi vadd nai,
Koi vakhra nai,
Ek-o-Ek pyaar hai..
O yaar da!

The Book

A few pages stuck together like secrets. 
A few read often and worn out like a pair of fav jeans.
A few pages dirty and messy like a house after party.
A few filled with doodles like the ones on your notebook.
A few wrinkled and crumpled like the contents of my laundry bag.
A lot of blank sheets, and stories to be written.

Ek lehar

साहिल से टकरा, आज फिर लहर टूट गयी

वापिस आयेगी, कसम खाते हुए लौट चली

रोज़ देखता हूँ तकरार यही,

और सुनता हूँ आवाज़ वही

पर आज अचानक यह एहसास हुआ कि,

हौसला, इरादा हो, तो बस ऐसा ही.. तो बस ऐसा ही

for the devnagiri handicapped - 

Sahil se takra, aaj fir lehar toot gayi.

wapis aayegi, kasam khate hue laut chali.

Roz dekhta hoon takrar wahi,

aur sunta hoon awaaz wahi.

Par aaj achanak yeh ehsaas hua ki,

hausla, irada ho, to bass aisa hi.. to bass aisa hi.

Miss you

Miss you..
On a rainy day,
On a lonely night,
On a cold windy evening.

Miss you..
'cause you brighten my life,
'cause you lighten my day,
'cause you warm me up, whenever in sight.

But you know ..
too much of you, I can't handle,
too much of you, and I'll go blind,
too less of you, and I will be.. no more than ashes.

I try ..
to keep my distance,
to take a peek when I can,
to bathe in your warm love once a while.

Everyone has seen..
You turn a little pale,
You frown in anger,
You blush, and that is when I love you the most.

I know..
you will always be there for me,
you are generous, and yet
you can be dangerous.

Oh dear star,
they call you sun,
but they should rather call you Father
 

passive v/s active

ऐ खुदा के बन्दे, इस दुनिया को देख कर, तू अब रो ना |
माना यह खेल है उसका पर, खड़े हो कर, तू बस देख ना |
तू भी एक किरदार है, किरदार है ऐ खुदा के बन्दे |
राह है तेरी नेकी की, और नेकी तू हर दिल में जगा दे |

इस मोह-माया की नगरी में, उम्मीद है बस तेरी ही,
तेरे कर्म की, तेरे धर्म की, और बस एक मिसाल की |
राह तेरी तकता है आज, हर एक बन्दा वोह,
डरता है इस कहानी, इस माया, के अंत से जो |

बस चला चल, चला चल, ऐ खुदा के बन्दे क्यूंकि,
तेरी मंजिल तो पाक है, और वो यह है नही |


For the devanagari handicapped, here is the english transliteration:

Ae khuda ke bande, iss duniya ko dekh kar tu ab ro naa.
Mana yeh khel hai uska par, khade ho kar tu bass dekh naa.
Tu bhi ek kirdaar hai, kirdaar hai, ae khuda ke bande.
Rah hai teri neki ki, aur neki tu har dil mein jaga de.


Iss moh-maya ki nagari mein, ummeed hai bass teri hi,
tere karm ki, tere dharm ki, aur bass ek misaal ki.
Rah teri takta hai aaj har ek banda woh,
darta hai iss kahani ke, iss maya ke ant se jo.


Bass chala-chal, chala-chal ae khuda ke bande kyunki,
teri manzil to paak hai, aur wo yeh hai nahi.

Just Another Conversation

Him: 287654! You're next. 

30562871! Here, be happy. 

1885991284! Tu bhi aa jaa. 

73822! Yeh lo. 

882000341! There you go. 

....

....

.....
Sarbjot: Hey Bhagwaan! Mera number kab aayega??

Let's Do It

Yea, you've had my back and I yours but,
we've been stuck for a while now.
Yea, it is time for me and you to
tear down the wall that we put together.

Let's make a run for it.
Let's head out in the same direction.
Let's get outta here.
Let's go and do what we do best.

You take the left and I'll take the right.
But how about the middle path?
Oh you think we can share?
ummm... I guess, we have to!
So, let's make a run for it.

Let's head out in the same direction.
Let's get outta here.
Let's go and do what we do best.
Let's do it and do it our own way!
 

डर लगता है

ऐ खुदा, बिन मांगे तू ये ख़ुशी क्यूँ देता है?
कल जब इसका नशा उतरेगा तो बताओ क्या,
इस दर्द-ऐ-दिल का इलाज कोई करता है ?
तुमहारी क़सम, मन में लड्डू तो इतने फूंत रहे है पर,
कम्बखत इस चने के झाड से गिरने का डर लगता है

for the Devnagari handicapped:

Ae khuda, bin maange tu ye khushi kyun deta hai?
Kal jab iska nasha utrega toh batao kya,
iss dard-e-dil ka ilaaj koi karta hai?
Tumhari kasam mann mein laddu toh itne phoot rahe hai par,
kambhakhat iss chane ke jhaad se girne ka darr lagta hai!
 

The Perks of being a Nice Guy

This blog is in response to the Ode to the Nice Guy rant. Which is true to a very good extent.
But being nice has it perks too. I have told this story many a times, and here it goes again because this here an example of those perks.


Well, it is about this homesick guy who was to fly back home for Diwali after almost a year. He had booked a standard economy class ticket for a Friday evening, packed his bags almost 3 days before the trip, and was so excited that he couldn't even sleep the night before Friday. Sleepless, he goes to office along with his luggage as he was to leave for airport from there itself, and works on a couple of teas till the lunch hour.
The flight timing was 6:30pm and as per government rules he was to check-in before 6:00pm. Our dude tracked back the time as he usually does in such cases - keeping the travel time for a 15 km journey at 1.5hr at maximum, taking half an hour as spare time, and decided to leave office at 4pm. But as soon as he finished his lunch, at about 2pm, it started pouring down heavily, and he had to start the calculations again. He gave the rain some consideration and pre-poned his departure by half an hour.
He then continued his work for some time. He had his eyes on the weather and mind at his homeplace and impatience growing inside of him. At 3pm he finally gave in, logging off his terminal, he picked his bags and left, assuring himself that leaving early from work was necessary for reaching the airport on time. As he waited outside the office to catch an auto-rickshaw under the heavy rains, the umbrella did little to protect him. Our dude caught the first empty auto he saw and didn't even attempt to bargain with the driver, chucked the luggage inside, and jumped in telling the auto guy to take off.
Inside the auto he made some calls to his school friends and relatives and told them that he will be home soon and should catch up. The dude was so excited that he didn't even care that he was almost all wet in the 5 minutes that he waited, and would probably catch a cold/fever in the auto/flight. Instead, he was hopeful that he will get air-dry in the auto by the time he reached airport. As the time passed, he realized that he wasn't getting any breeze for air-dry. The auto was almost at a stand-still and moved a Km in next hour. Being an optimist he still thought that he would make it on time for the flight as there was still more than an hour and a half to reach the airport. The next hour, the auto moved another Km and the traffic jam seemed to extend for miles. As if the fear of missing the flight was not enough for the home sick guy, the auto-driver started demanding for more money for being stuck in a jam with his motor running. He ignored the driver for a while, and called up the airlines at the airport and explained that he might not make it on time, thanks to the rain. For a change, the airlines which is known for a pathetic customer service assured him that they will accommodate him on the next flight out without any issues, but he should still try to make it for the current flight. With one thing off his mind, and the festival spirit in his heart, he quit arguing/ignoring the driver and told him that he should just get him to airport and he will pay 100 bucks more than what he had asked for.
Finally, upon reaching the airline desk he checks the time. It was 6:45pm and he glanced at the schedule screen which said that his flight got delayed by an hour and would depart at 7:30. He cross-checked with the person at the counter if he could still make it on the current flight, and got a positive response, and the person asked him to go to next counter to check-in. While he was taking out his ticket, two people from behind came out charging at the counter saying that they missed the previous flight and asking if it was possible for them to make it on this one. The dude laughed inside at the fact that at least these two people were worse than him at planning the travel. Knowing that he already had a ticket and that it was Diwali time and everybody wanted to go home early, and due to the fact that the out of the two people one was a good looking girl, he let them pass him in the line to the check-in counter. In return he got a smile and a thank you, which was enough to erase all the pain of the fight against mother nature, and auto-wala that he had to go through in the last 3 hours.
As he reached the counter and provided his ticket, the lady at the counter checked it and asked him to wait a minute, went out to discuss the situation with another airline personnel, and returned to inform him that his ticket was offered to someone else and now the flight was full, but they were happy to offer him one of the empty business class seats without any extra charge.
It turns out that the flight crew got delayed because of the bad traffic in such heavy rains, and because he had called the airline and informed that he will be late, his flight ticket was offered to someone else, and because he had offered the two people to pass him in the line, all the flight tickets in economy class were booked.
After a torrential rain and agonizing wait in the auto, this 'nice guy' got to fly home eating one of the best butter chicken and kadai paneer that he had ever had and enjoying the flight time, catching up on the lost sleep.
 

What does it mean dude?

We all know what it means. But, when asked this question, I blanked out for a while and I wondered, not about the answer; but about why this question was even asked. I am not going to take any names here, as it might hurt someone's prospects of a relationship. So let's name people as X, Y,  A, B and so on....

Curious dude X tells another dude, Y, about this friend of his. Friend = A.
Dude A and gal B had been friends for a while, and were often just hanging out together, talking about, god knows, whatever topic. During one of such hang outs, A and B ended up holding hands for at least a couple of hours.
and then ......... wait for it.................... wait for it.................. nothing! This is all that happened (or at least what I came to know of). Whats more significant is what happened after A and B parted. A called up X and told what had just happened and asked him "yaar, agar ek ladka aur ladki ek-doosre ka haath pakad ke baat cheet karein, to iska kya matlab hai?" and X said that he didn't know, and was puzzled himself. As he was curious he asked Y about the matter.
Y digs on to get more info on this by asking questions like - Who held the hand first? Was this some comforting or consoling hand holding or not?, basically tries to get some possible masala out of the story. X replies positively, saying that there wasn't either consoling or comforting involved, no one in particular held the hand first, it just happened.
This is where I come to the picture. So this dude Y tells me about X asking him such questions. I too, obviously asked Y the masala extracting questions, and told the universal conclusion about this matter, to which Y agreed. We confronted X about this and got some more info on the topic, which pointed to one thing - there is no A. X was playing the oldest trick in the book. He used the name of A to just narrate his own story. I guess the proxy can be understood in a way that by doing so, X gets to keep his budding relationship under cover, and also gets a way to ask the trivial question.

But the other question still lingered....
What does it mean when a guy, asks his friends for the answer to this trivial question?
One could be that X knows what it all means, but for some reason hopes for a different answer.
Or this could be his arbit way of sharing info on his life.
Or he is just trying too hard to analyse the situation.

So, tell me.. What does it mean dude?
 

You are 'It'

Set out on its own way,

it doesn't know how it came to being,

or when it will die.

The path it takes, is called its destiny.

While it rewrites destiny,
with others of free will.

Collides with some of what's in its path, 

evades the others, it defies those 

who try to predict; flaunts its free-will.

The free-will, itself takes it on a ride

of self realization, and destroys the pride;

then disintegrates and merges it with self.

It is the self that takes them all, 

feeds, nourishes and sends each one out.

Out on its own way.

Everytime I Die

Some come and some go, 

the sum total may not be constant. 

But then, nothing in life is fair! 

The ones coming, are welcome, 

I bid farewell to those leaving. 

For those returning - I hope it's different 

'coz no one likes to die, over and over again.
 

Old Monk Joke

You might be disappointed if you are a fan of Old Monk Rum.
This is probably the oldest Buddhist-monk-joke, and I must have heard it many a times. But the last time, I heard the correct version and finally understood the humor behind it....

There's a barbecue at the Zen Buddhist temple, and the Zen master's working the grill. A young monk reverently approaches.
The Zen master looks up, smiles and says, "Wanna hotdog?"
The monk replies: "Please, Master, Make me one with everything."

continuing with the other part....
After taking the hotdog, the monk pays for it with a $20 bill and asks for change and the Zen master replies: "Change must come from within"

Fair. Enough!

It all came crashing down. She finally acknowledged what had been around her for a long time, and had grown in front of her - slowly, steadily, brick by brick, and wall by wall. 

She believed that sometimes a talk with a stranger can be a real eye-opener 'cause she thought one who has nothing at stake, speaks one's mind. This guy was less of a stranger though, and more of an acquaintance. But the realization came to her nonetheless as she knew that he stood unbiased, and did not have any hidden agendas. She could not ignore or refute his stand. Well, it wasn't even a stand that he had taken on the issue. It was a fair, simple question asked in a candid manner, that had her dumb founded. The whole situation was like something that led to the aphorism "Know Thyself". Something like what went through Socrates mind, when a person, who didn't know what Socrates looked like, asked him if he knew Socrates well.

She took a while to come up with an answer 'cause each time she attempted to answer she ran into the walls which she had ignored all this while and simply could not find a passage out of the concrete jungle. After about a minute, all she could manage was a mumble - "I don't know. Maybe?". He couldn't hear what she said, but the look on her face was a sign enough for him to understand that he had poked her on a sensitive issue. She brushed the question aside and moved the conversation to another topic. He, being an acquaintance, let it slide. But, the question lingered in her mind, leading to a desire to act. To act on destroying the prison of ignorance.

दासतान-ऐ-दिल

वो हमे भूल गये तो चलो कोई गम नही।

भूले को रसता तो कोई दिखा देगा ही।

पर पहचान कर मुह फेर ले, ये हमे मंज़ूर नही।

कसम से! बन्दा ये सच्चा है, कोई आवारा नही।

कोई यह बता दे कि हमने करी कया खता,

जो दुनिया कहती है कि माफ़ी हमारे नसीब नही।

अब गिर कर उठा ना जाए, लाचार दिल ने ऐसा करा,

क्यूंकि रूठे वो हमसे और हमें अब ये जाहान गवारा नही।

हरा हर पल करता है दिल के ज़ख्मों को,

वक्त भर देता है हर घाव को, यह सच नही।

दासतां है यह किसी और की यारो,

क्यूंकि ..... मेरे सीने में तो दिल है ही नही।


for the devnagari handicapped -


Woh humein bhool gaye toh koi ghum nahi.
Bhoole ko rasta to koi dikha dega hi.
Par pehchaan kar muh pher le, yeh hein manzoor nahi,
Kasam se! banda yeh saccha hai, koi aawara nahi.


Koi yeh bata de ki humne kari kya khata,
jo duniya yeh kehti hai ki maafi humare naseeb nahi.
Ab gir kar uttha naa jaye, lachaar dil ne aisa kara,
kyunki roothe woh humse aur humein ab yeh jahaan gawara nahi.


Hara, har pal karta hai dil ke zakhmon ko,
waqt bhar deta hai har ghav ko, yeh sacch nahi.
Dastaan hai yeh kisi aur ki yaro,
kyunki...... mere seene mein to dil hai hi nahi.

The year long relationship - Part 3 of 3

Important: this is part 3 of a trilogy, it is highly recommended that you start with Part 1

More than half a year had passed, it was mid March and we were now practically living together. Luckily my landlord never saw her. Anyway, I was planning to make a trip to Bangalore to meet up with IIT junta, and asked her to join me.

            Me: Hey Lon, my friends are having a get together in B’lore. Do you want to join me?

            Lon: No. I think you’ll have more fun with your friends without me.

That’s another thing that irked me a lot. It’s as if she not only had no place for friends (neither hers nor mine) in her life, but also in some way she was allergic to them. Let alone meeting some friends, even if I received a call from a friend, she would just disappear suddenly. I tried to poke her on that a couple of times, and all I could get was a cold reply – “You’ll be having fun with them, what do you need me there for?”. If not allergy then maybe  jealousy of some sort. Anyhow, it was a battle front and I was loosing badly. Social life was coming to a screeching halt. Sometimes these sorts of things make you consider the pros and cons of an entire relationship. I knew I was in a corny corner, I guess it was an addiction and if so, I needed a rehab.

Fate, it seems had a plan for me - I had to travel for work to US for a couple of weeks soon. It’s not that I was dying to get away from Lon, or that I have a craze for US; but I like travelling. Even if you hate travelling, you have to admit that it’s fun to be at a new place, see new people, and learn new culture. For me it was all the more exciting because it was my first time outside the country.

If I remember correctly, I got my visa on a Wednesday evening, and it was decided on the next evening that I should travel on the same Saturday, so that I get some time to settle in before joining the US office. With just two days to pack up, practically one day as I still had office on Friday, I had to hurry. I started to pack on Friday evening and I was doing it frantically and that annoyed Lon –

            Lon: Oh, somebody’s excited.

            Me: Well yea, but more tense than excited. I still haven’t yet got confirmation of the hotel reservation, and I leave tomorrow. Moreover I am travelling alone.

It is not a big deal – travelling alone. I am used to it, I do that often from Chennai to Bangalore or Delhi. But going to a new country, alone, seems to be a big deal for everyone.

            Lon: Alone? So you won’t have any company for next two weeks?

            Me: Yes and No. I will be staying alone, but I have a couple of college friends who stay in the Bay Area. I hope to catch up with them in the weekends. It’s been a long time.

            Lon: Ah! Super. I suppose you wouldn’t miss me then.

And hence started the whole ugly argument again, and ended up in a communication breakdown - that too right before I had to leave. It’s the last thing you need on your mind when you are packing. I decided I’d let her break the silence this time.

As soon as I landed at SFO and got the immigration stuff done. I called up Ankit, who said he would come pick me up and show around SF. It was awfully nice of him and Aditi, his gf, to do so. We also called up Vibhu who had just come back from his convo @ MIT the same morning, and despite his long journey, he got up and travelled another 45 miles by public transport to meet us! We roamed around in SF for a while, had brunch, and then went to the famous Golden gate bridge. It was the smoothest possible transition for me to a new place - in familiar company. The very next day Harsh landed in Bay Area for his internship, and there was another addition to the gang. We guys spent almost every weekend together – Movie/ Pub/ Club/ Hookah/ Beer back at Hotel/ Football World Cup matches/ Sailing/ Beach trip/ Road trip. It was very much a jam packed trip.

Work was keeping me busy in the weekdays and I was keeping the gang busy on weekends. As the work demanded, I extended the trip by another 3 weeks, and I didn’t even have to think twice about it. Why would I? I was having a good time, great accommodation, pick up and drop for office, non-vegetarian food every day and a gala time with old friends. I guess Lon was right, I wasn’t missing her at all, I was successfully rehabilitated. Meanwhile, a couple of my school juniors - Ronak and Mayank, who were graduating this year, and placed in Chennai, asked me if I wanted to share an apartment with them, after getting back. I agreed almost instantly and later on I realized it was probably the best decision I had made. I hadn’t officially broken up with Lon yet, in case we were to patch things up, this was the easiest way out to improve on our social life. She just could not not-meet flat mates. I just got excited, I had the perfect solution. I had already given her my new number over e-mail, but hadn’t yet heard from her. But what the hell, I had the perfect solution, so I called her up. A relapse.

            Me: Hey Lon, What’s up??

            Lon: Hey Sarb! Nothing much, just back to the old business of haunting lonely single men. How are you?

She killed me each time with this one. She really has some memory.

            Me: *a laugh. I’m good.

Blah-blah-blah and I updated her with the stuff going on there. 20 minutes and we were chuddy-buddy; it turned out to be easier than I thought - to patch things up. So, I decided to tell Lon about me moving with Ronak and Mayank. The reply was completely unexpected.

            Lon: So this is your way of breaking up?

            Me: What? Break up? Who said that?

            Lon: Yea, I said that. You know that I don’t like to meet your friends. I know you’d ignore me when with your friends. Now you’ll have flat mates!

            Me: What do you mean you don’t like to? You don’t want to!

            Lon: Does that make a difference?

            Me: Hell it does! You haven’t even tried to!

            *awkward 30 seconds silence

            Me: So it means that if we are together you will never go out with me to meet anyone?

            Lon: You are SLOW. It took you a year to get to that conclusion?
            *painful 30 seconds silence of introspection.

            Me: Hmm.. Yeah. Thanks a lot and GOODBYE Miss Ness.

As Oracle once said “Everything that has a beginning has an end”. This was the end of it. What did I learn from it? I don’t know, maybe not to drag it for so long 'cause people start to think that you are SLOW. Anyway, Life has taken a new turn and I am back in Chennai and have moved to Thiruvanmiyur with Ronak and Hrishi. Mayank got an offer in Bangalore and obviously chose Bangalore. This marks the end of Lon era. Good riddance Ms. Ness. May you find some painful guy to drive mad and wish I never have to meet you again. Cheers to Ronaxx and CHB and to the good times ahead!

Important Message again: Thank you for your patience to go through the extra long blog, split over three parts. Unfortunately, this is not a plain text. This is my first attempt at writing a breakable "code". Hopefully it will not be the last. I request you to try to break the "code". I’ll be glad to answer any questions after that. You can always ping me for any hints. Answer/Solution is updated in the comments section now!

The year long relationship - Part 2 of 3

Important: this is part 2 of a trilogy, it is highly recommended that you start with Part 1.


One of the reasons why I got along with her so well, at first place, was the eye contact. Well, I am sort of a guy who doesn’t really make much of an eye contact. I don’t know why, for some reason, I really have to concentrate hard to keep eye contact; but in her case, it would just turn to a staring contest. Maybe it was the pseudo romance, or maybe puppy love, but in the beginning I thought that I get lost in her dark brown eyes. Later on, though, I felt the creeps because every time I got lost, I felt like I was staring in the dark at emptiness. Before you pass a quick judgment on this, I request you to hold on a little longer and listen to what I have to say.

Lon is almost perfect; I’d say she is perfect in all departments but one, the one that kills me. As I said she is uncomfortably hot; and she doesn’t even need any make up to be that way. You would know what I am talking about if you’d met her. Yes, that probably is the first requirement for any guy, and she more than fits the bill. But, I was fond of her more because of the enlightening sessions I had with her.

For a guy like me, who doesn’t really know why he is doing what he is doing, half the time. She had shown me my own true nature. It’s weird but, she introduced/reintroduced me to myself, and I’d also come to see her like my guru. It was she who inspired me to pick up guitar, sketching, and blogging again. Lon is the most mature girl, for her age, I have ever met. Guys’ ego usually get in the way when the girl they date are more intelligent/mature/earns more money. Not in my case though, I don’t mind her being the superior-being as long as I get to learn and improve on myself. She is, if not more, then at least as mature/intelligent/brainy as me. She usually knew what I was talking about, and she corrected me too when I was wrong or well, when I wasn’t sure about what I was talking about. Yes, it’s a fault that my friends would associate with me; I have the constant need to correct anyone/everyone for any mistake or fault of theirs, be it factual/grammatical/pronunciation/any damn ignorable mistake, it is likely to get the corrected by me. I know it’s annoying, and it was good to get my own medicine, for a change.

Looking back, I remember she also got all of my jokes and did not get annoyed at the PJs that I keep cracking every now and then, except for maybe once. During one of the movie marathons, we were watching “Enter the Dragon” and I started dishing out Bruce Lee PJ’s - Bruce Lee's favorite festival? Diwa lee, his sister-in-law's name? Saa lee.  I guess I should have been wary of her Chinese roots before cracking Lee jokes because she really got pissed, and yelled at me “Don’t ever joke about Lee, it’s my middle name, you ass!” and I was thing WTF? Okay! Okay! Anyways, by now I am sure you are wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Why is this, the last relationship and not the current one? The thing is, she's like a convex-one-way-mirror. She can see everything, but you are stuck looking at yourself - enlarged with all the faults magnified! 

Usually you can get a good idea of a person by the company they keep. But, I couldn't even use that approach, as I have not met a single friend of hers, now I suspect that she never had any. You know those hard-level puzzles in the magazines which attract you to solve them, but are too hard to crack and you give up after getting annoyed? She is like one. The problem is, in her case, you do not even have the next edition available to check out what the solution was.

It is not like I haven't tried enough to get her to open up. But every time I ask her about her past/future/friends any god damn personal thing, I get shot down by her brahmastra - silence. You just can not beat that. What are you going to pull out, silence? Good luck with that. I tried that once. It leads to what is popularly known as communication breakdown. If you think I could have been more patient with her - Well, I ran out of it, and, I AM a patient guy, I really am. A lot of my friends can vouch for that. But, she just wouldn't budge. Lon can sometimes be so irksome that she can literally drive you mad. At least with my patience I had come to know how to handle that aspect.


.... continued at Part3

Full Time Job

Yea, Life's a full time job.
No vacation, no time-off.
It's like He has given us a job a piece.
No one knows the purpose,
neither of one's own job, nor of anyone else's.
What would our contribution amount to?
What we lack is the big picture.
I have to say the average job satisfaction is very low.
If only He hadn't given us the intelligence to question,
we'd be like machines in a factory.
Maybe we already are like them.
The ones that question, breakdown in protest;
Some get replaced sooner than thought.
So, work! work! 'cause no one knows when the payday is, or what the pay-check is.

The year long relationship - Part 1 of 3

The last year was a good one, but the last relationship? Not so sure. I had just moved out of IIT campus to Nungambakkam and was really bored. Bored because, almost all of my friends were placed outside Chennai or had gone for further study outside Chennai, to add to that, my job wasn't hectic either. Occasionally it demanded weekends/ more hours, but on an average I wasn't working more than 45 hrs a week. I had all the time in the world at my hands, with nothing much to do. Moreover, the procrastinator in me destroyed the plans of utilizing the free time, and it was in this “free time” that I met her.

I had gone out to check out Minus1 - the closest pub to my place, and I found her sitting at the opposite table staring at me. Well, being a Surd in Chennai, I do get a lot of stares; fortunately this wasn’t one of those - “OMG, Is that an alien?” look. So, I took the cue, and stood up, but before I could walk up to her, my rusted guts started to panic and threw up junk and random questions - What is an asian babe like this doing sitting alone in a pub in Chennai? What if she is a pro? What if she's just jerking me around? What if she is with someone or waiting for someone? Luckily, the brain processed some parameters and ordered me to turn straight to bar and to order another beer, buying me time to think and to weight the pros n cons.

After half a pint and 5 mins, the pros and cons were irrelevant, as gods curse for men had taken its full effect and I wasn’t thinking with my brain, but my penis. Again, I stood up, and the panicky rusted guts, which again tried to throw me off the target – What should I say? What should be my pickup line? But this time I ignored it and decided to be.....  Spontaneous!

Me: Hi, Do you mind if I join you?

Babe: Sure.

*awkward 30 seconds of silence…

Me: So, what’s a babe doing, sitting alone in a pub in Chennai?

*facepalm. So much for spontaneity! At least, I could have asked her name first!

Babe: Well, I come here and haunt the single men, sitting alone at the bar. And what are you doing sitting alone at the bar?

Me: (huh? A babe with a sense of humor! ) I come here to get haunted by the pretty babes who sit alone in the pub. Damn, that’s not funny! tchch.. I just moved in here, and just came down to check out the pub. I am Sarbjot, BTW.

Babe: Hi, I am Lon.

Half an hour had passed and I was barely managing to keep up with the philosophical topics that she was so happy to discuss, the pub was closing, and there was a growing desperation for a way to ask her number. Bad at multitasking I started to nod at almost everything that Lon said.

            Lon: Okay. So, let’s go.

            *another nod. Damn it! I don’t have a way to her number yet!

            Me: Where to?

            Lon: I am thinking of going to Marina beach and pain some more single men.

            Me: (What the hell? She’s brave too?) Do you need company?

            Lon: I don’t. But you do. Why don’t you join me? *grins

            Me: (Yessss!!) Sure.

Moving to the end of the day, (as rest of the part is out of the scope of this blog) as we part our ways –

            Me: This was fun. Should do it again.

            Lon: Yeah, Give me a call next time you are going to a pub. Alone.

            Me: *a laugh. You are funny!

And there I had it with me, her number. 

So it started, with a run in @Minus1, continued with hangouts at cafes/pubs, moved on to frequent dinners @Shansi, and got strengthened by movie marathons, back at my place.

I was easily hooked on to her company, not only because she’s uncomfortably hot, but also because she has an addictive personality. She was just so damn unpredictable. One day she is all preachy – “God helps us all”, another day she is all ears even when I’m in the ’deth fan mode - “Megadeth is far better than Metallica because, blah blah blah”. She could be anything from angry, calm, argumentative, agreeable, funny, violent, caring, abusive, and eloquent. Lon had all the weapons in her artillery too have things her way; silent treatment being her favorite choice of weapon.

 As summer gave way to autumn, we were spending more time together and things were going smooth until…. Well, they say if you observe the moon closely, you will start to notice the imperfections.

.... continued at Part 2

Train of thought

would like to be proven wrong more often.

would like to be more open minded.

would like to be, for a while

would love to be more than just be.

needs to know.

needs to understand.

ah, needs that don't ever end.

understands the importance.

ignores the same.

needs to drive.

first get a license!