Category: Fiction

Project 1000. Day 3. Joe Nobody.

So today, I dont have anything specific to talk about. So rather than wasting time trying to find a plot to write about, I would try and create something. A character map! When I say I’d create a character, I mean that I would think of a man and try to create a world around him. Most movies, novels and other such things make these character maps to ensure that character and his behavior is consistent in different situations while he is in the plot. After from helping me reach the 1000 word a day goal, this would help me create characters and use them, as and when that elusive book happens.

I’d start with the most cliched character of them all, a computer hacker. 

So we start with the basics. Facts. 
Name: Joe Nobody
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Height: 5′ 11″
Body type: Athletic, fit
Education: Dropout from college but very good with computers

Family, Friends and Key People in Life
He is the only son of a single mother. His mother stays in a different city with her sister and both of them work in a hospital. The mother is perpetually worried about his health and marriage but Joe pays no heed. Joe meets the mother once every month or when he drives down to meet her. Joe also has a cousin from the aunt. She lives in the same city as Joe and they get along well. The cousin works with a bank and has no clue about Joe’s personal life. This last Sunday of the month is a routine that has been around for more than three years now. All four get together and goto a movie and have dinner. Its as definite as the sun rising in the east. In last three years, Joe has never missed this meeting with his mother and aunt.

Till about a year back, Joe was seeing a woman from work. The woman was two years older to Joe and worked with the marketing team. Now, she has moved onto a different man and a different job. They are no longer in touch. He sorely misses having that female company and is on the active lookout for someone.

His best friends are friends from work. He gets along really well with A, B and C. A and B are managers with electronics and gaming sections respectively. C works in B’s team. All 4 are very close friends and hang out together after work and all. Their common interests include hiking, biking, gaming and pub hopping. Apart from that all four are huge fans of the local cricket team, especially when the cricket season is on.

While in school he was very quiet and kept mostly to himself. He had only a couple of friends back then and he has lost touch with them. He has fond memories of the school but he often quips that if he was to get back to school with his friends, it would be so boring.

Overall he is content with having a few people in life. He has largely been independent and likes to be alone. And yet he misses that female company

Occupation 
Joe has been working at BestBuy for more than 5 years now. He started as a sales rep and has grown through the ranks to become the highest level an employee can reach  on the shop floor. The next promotion, due in another 6 months will see him become the lowest “suit”. Right now, he is the supervisor of the computer hardware section. Has about 15 retail employees reporting into him. His key responsibilities are to train and supervise the on floor employees. His job requires him to stay up to date with latest happenings in the computer hardware. He knows more than he speaks and most people around him know this and thus treat him with respect. He is known as a true geek that knows everything about hardware. However when it comes to software, he seems to know nothing and relies on his team for help. At times he even calls his team from home and asks them how to fix Internet.

On the other hand, the 8 hours that he is not working at the BestBuy, he is a very active member of the underground hacking community. And he is considered as an authority here as well. He does all these things from a van parked in his garage. If someone comes and looks at his home, there is only one desktop in the living room where he checks his email. In his van, however, there are two row fulls of computers and electrical equipment. There are times when he goes to the BYOC hacker conventions. He prefers to keep things in the van as he loves to work in solitude and space in the van is really limited and thus there cant be anyone else around when hes working.

Personality
Like most geeks he likes to hang out with his kinds. He thus gets along very well with his team. He is good natured and always has a smile on his face. He is always willing to help and actually goes an extra mile to ensure that he is liked by everyone. At times people do take him for granted. And he knows that people take him for granted but he still lets go.

He lives by the maxim of “live and let live”. Though he does things that arent really on the right side of the law, he has had no brush with the criminals as yet. 

He does not believe in showing off. In fact he wants to keep as low a profile as possible. At times he gets himself called stupid because of how he acts to conceal his secret identity.

What made him what he is?
While growing up, he has heard stories of people living in fancy mansions and access to clubs and lounges that reek of money. He wants all those things. And he wants them bad. He is very happy go lucky and very content with his life, except for a woman. He like living and he ensures that he has a lot of fun. He has no major hangups in life. He has no dark secrets. The darkest is the fact that he got his first girlfriend when he was 31 and despite that he could not keep the relationship going.

What keeps him awake at night?
At the job front, he is worried about his promotion. He realy likes it on the floor and does not want to move away from there. And on the side project, he wants to win the upcoming hackerCon. He knows that he can easily win it but he still needs to practice and beat competition. And since he has been doing it for some time now, he doesnt really get kicks out getting secrets or winning a competition but its like the trophy that everyone wants!

What is his role in the story? Why is he important?
Depends on the story. If my life was fiction, I would use Joe to help me hack into the banks and get all the money from all the places.

That’s about it. And here is a humble request to more established writers and authors, what did I miss in this character map? What are best practises in the same? How can I improve this? Thanks a ton!  

Anatomy of a bad day

So this is how a bad shitty day looks like. And this is a long post. After all I am going to talk about 24 hours!

  • 0600. The alarm kicks in. You are awake before it rings because you have been getting very light sleep for last few days. You can see the alarm ringing but you are so tired, mentally and physically that you cant move your hand to shut up the alarm.
  • 0615. The alarm is still ringing. You can now fidget and move your hands around. You try to locate your phone, the phone doubles up as the alarm, the eyes are still groggy with sleep and you cant see clearly. In distance, you see a silhouette that has to be your phone. You make great effort to reach it. only to realize that its the TV remote. You curse and fling the remote as hard as you can. It lands 5 millimeters away. In the meanwhile, the alarm is still ringing. You give up and shut your eyes.
  • 0630. Its enough. The alarm has been ringing for more than half n hour now. You get angry at yourself and you throw your blanket and locate the alarm. You get up, locate the phone, which has somehow hidden under the pillow, shut the damn thing off.
  • 0631. The alarm rings again. You realize that you hit the snooze button rather than dismiss. You carefully, slowly, find the dismiss button and shut the alarm. Go back to sleep. 
  • 0830. You realize that you are late for work. And for the pitch that can potentially win your company 10 crores of business.You curse your luck and life and drag yourself out and try and get ready. Of course your favorite shirt is gone for ironing and you have to wear a boring shirt that you otherwise detest. You try to find your lucky charm and your pen and you cant. Since you are late for work, you skip breakfast. You dont even say bye to your ma. But you do miss the time when you called sgMS everyday before you left for office. Obviously, now you dont.
  • 0845. You reach your car parking to realize that there are a million cars parked behind your car and you cant take your car out. You make rounds to neighbors and plead to remove their cars. 
  • 0907. Finally all cars blocking your way are out. You call people in office and realize that the dependable kids in your office were partying last night and they havent done anything for the grand meeting. You wish, for the millionth time that you had people that you could trust.
  • 1017. You struggle for an hour in traffic and reach the client’s office for a meeting that was supposed to start at 0900. It may be put on record that the distance is mere 7 kilometers but the traffic makes the five minute journey a long drive.
  • 1105. The meeting hasn’t even started. The client is busy doing God knows what. 
  • 1155. You are still waiting for the damn important meeting to happen.
  • 1220. The client emerges from the depth of his office and he apologizes profusely for the “little delay”. Just when you thought that the endless wait has finally ended and you were about to get up and move towards the conference room, the client says “oh I forgot something. I would be back in a minute”.
  • 1245. You are still waiting for the minute to get over. 
  • 1248. Mysteriously, the client is back the moment you type this. Hands full of Samosa, chai and jalebi. Dunno hows he juggling the three things together. Ushers your and the team into a conference room.
  • 1249. Before you could present your stuff, fucks your happiness over the “mundane”, “kiddish” and “juvenile crap” ideas that you have presented. Does not forget to add “please take this merely as a feedback”. Even without reaching the second slide of your mundane presentation.
  • 1250. You are out of the meeting room. These were the longest two minutes of your life so far. You hope to eat something nice and end the bad morning. The boss wants to say hi to some old friends. He asks you to wait. 
  • 1315. Since you dont have any old friends, you cant say hi to anyone. You call your boss and ask him how long will he take. He says five minutes. Which translates into an hour, which thankfully you know, since you have been working with him for two years. You step out of clients office and go buy a Red Bull and some chips from a nearby petrol pump. You go sit on a traffic intersection and munch onto the chips. Thinking about sgMS and knowing that she would be eating a dabba from her mom.
  • 1400. You get a call from some HR consultant, with bad accent, and she promises you a job with a “leading media conglomerate”. When you tell her the money you expect, she hangs up, without saying bye. The boss is still nowhere to be seen. 
  • 1530. The boss emerges. You head back to office. Only to go for another meeting. But you have to drop the boss to office because he is too lazy to drive his own car.
  • 1630. You reach the other client. The meeting drags on forever. The agenda of the meeting is about peanuts and biscuits.
  • 1730. The meeting is still on. You are still debating the quantity of chocolate chips in the biscuits.
  • 1930. The meeting that you thought would go on forever finally gets over. You rush to the parking lot because you need to reach office and write another presentation. It needs to be presented the next day.
  • 2010. You reach office and get started on the presentation.
  • 2100. You have no clue. And you are staring at an empty document. 
  • 2230. You are still staring at the empty document and powerpoint because you cant think of shit. Your brain died after the afternoon when you were waiting for your boss to get free from his social calls.
  • 2330. The thoughts and screens are still blank. You give up and decide to go home. 
  • 0030. You reach home. Thankfully there’s no traffic around and you reach in record one hour. 
  • 0040. You gulp the dinner that has gone cold. Since you have been coming home this late most days, you dont even bother heating the food.
  • 0045. You try shuffling channels on TV and they are showing the worst movies ever. You fling the TV remote. You recall the episode of the morning when you couldn’t find the alarm.
  • 0050. You are fucked up in the head and you dont know what to do. You scroll through the address book on the phone and try to find someone who you could speak to at this hour. You realize that most of your friends are either married or they dont care. You fling the phone in the general direction where you fling other things, including the TV remote.
  • 0100. You sulk and sleep because there is no one you could call and talk about shit that the day has been. For first time in the entire day, you miss the fact that you dont have anyone to call your own. Not even #sgMS. 

And thats it ladies and gentlemen, for the time being! And no, this is NOT a piece of fiction. This is inspired from real life incidents.

Then and Now

Lemme try a new style. For the lack of imagination and better words, Id call this, Then and Now. And ofcourse this is about sgMS. I am thinking that I should start a new blog all together and call it “Letters to sgMS” or something. May be. But for the time being, here is the post. 

Then
Wake up. Think of her. Think of all the things that I could do. Make a plan of action of things that I could do during the day. Look forward to the day ahead.
Now
Wake up. Sulk. Go back to sleep.

Then
Call her moment I leave for work. Even before I lock the doors to my one bedroom existence or step into a rickshaw. I know that I would meet her during the day eventually but still, call her moment I am out.
Now
Wait for her call, message, email, something. Hope that something from her comes my way. Of course I cant call or send messages. All I can do is write things and then hope that someday she reads these. I know that these would lose meanings when (and if) she reads these but then I can only try.

Then
Reach work. Boot up my computer. Message her that I have reached. Get a feedback on what I am wearing. Share my office gossip with her. Hear her office gossip. Play music that she likes. Tell her about the music that I am playing. Take requests even though she may not hear them.
Now
Reach work. Regain sanity after a two hour drive. Ignore what I am wearing. Do not participate in gossip. Try and play some music. Shut the music before the first song is over. Sulk.

Then
During the day, after I have done some work, take a break and go get a coke for myself. Take VP or Rr with me for a walk to the coke shop. Talk to them about whatever. Try and bring her up in the conversation without anyone knowing about it. Miss her.
Now
During the day, do nothing. The entire day is a break. No coke. Miss being with her. Miss talking about her. Miss talking to her.

Then
Look forward to the evening when I would actually get to spend time with her. Even if its at any of those coffee shops.
Now
Dread the fall of the evening. Once its evening, wonder what to do. Kill time wondering. Get dejected and head home. Struggle through traffic for two hours.

Then
End the day, alone on my bed, trying to sleep and thinking about her. Conjuring up dreams of she and I living happily ever after.
Now
End the day, alone on my bed, trying to sleep and thinking about her. Conjuring up dreams of she and I living happily ever after.

The Shopping Spree

You never knew that a trip to a mall could fuck your head. I was at this mall in Bangalore, miles away from Delhi or Mumbai and I saw this amazing store that stocked all things Indian and ethnic. Since I am very interested in such stuff, I had to walk in.

The first thing I saw in that store was a leather purse shaped like a her favorite shape. And it brought back memories of the time when I had bought her that very purse, on my last visit to Bangalore, from a different store. It brought back memories of her smile and excitement in her voice when I gave her that purse.

I have always loved the concept of gifts. Don’t really like getting em but nothing like a well planned and executed surprise. I totally believe that life’s too short and you can’t really wait for the right time to make someone happy. If something reminds you of someone, you better pick it up and dispatch it. And since she was is obviously more special to me than anyone else is, get always got a truckload full of surprises. Every time I met her, I got her something. A small stupid hand written note, a large box that has nothing but small post-it notes where I’d written things that I loved about her, a teeshirt, a fake flower and million such inconsequential things.

Coming back, I saw this purse and after the adrenaline rush, my heart cringed. Before I could think, I saw this set of small ceramic dolls. I had got them from yet another place for her. Then there were these pencils, that coaster, a mirror, a wall clock, a bunch of fake flowers (I dont, as a policy give flowers), a tee shirt (that she refuses to wear, her taste is better than that) and some more things that I had bought for her. It was like she had decided to open a store and stock it with stuff that I got for her.

All those things were bought for a reason. Everything had a back story that’s miles long!

And then there were these things that I have always wanted to buy with her, once we started living together. The bookshelf to start with. It could stock books, CDs and all the little kick knacks that both of us are fond of. There was this rug that I had thought I’d put next to the TV in our living room. And that small chandelier that I would have put in the dining area. The damned store had it all. If not with me, I am sure she would have bought some of those things. May be not actually. Despite knowing her for all these years, I still have a hard time guessing what she likes.

Its been a week since I went there and even now I regret the decision of entering that store. After a point, I just couldn’t bear to stand in that store and look at all those amazing things. Dejected, while I was walking out, right at the exit, I saw this yellow nameplate that I always wanted to buy for our home. It read, “The Happy Home”.

P.S.: Sucks the way this has come out 🙁

Dear sgMS

Dear sgMS,

Its been quite some time since we decided that things weren’t going to work out between us and we need to move on. Of course its far easier said than done. And like we both knew all the time, that despite you being younger by more than a year, you are far more experienced in worldly matters. And you were the man in the relationship.

From the look of things, I guess, you did work on what we decided and you have indeed moved on. At least the constant barrage of messages, emails and phone calls has ceased from your side. Not that I wanted it to stop. I really really miss them. Every time the phone rings, something in me hopes its you. Every time there is an email, I hope its yet another picture of you that you would have clicked to show me the new accessory, dress or the gift you bought/got. Every-fucking-time baby!

You know, there hasn’t been single a day when I haven’t missed holding on to your hand. When I haven’t wondered multiple times a day what would you be up to. In fact in my greatest moment of glory, when my entire world (of less than 10 people) was showering praises on me for being the best, something was amiss. Till five minutes back I dint know what it was. Now that I am writing this and thinking about you, I know it was you who I was missing. I had kept searching and searching through all the faces that I knew and it sucked to know that you weren’t there. The damned victory felt incomplete. And you know that I don’t win often and every such instance matters a lot.

You know that whatever I do, is never ever complete without your inputs. You lend me so much strength that even insurmountable tasks become easy. I become oblivious to all the hardships and obstacles. So much so I refuse to even acknowledge their presence. The X, that marks the victory target becomes so easy to spot and reach. Of course I am lazy and procrastinate all the time but with your reminders, some of which are really cute, got things done. If not sooner, then later. There was this game that I constantly played. Cook up an idea, make you privy to it and then see you make me bring that idea to life! With you not around, life ain’t as much fun.

But then things change. Time changes. People change. You and I changed. From being inseparable, we grew comfortable living in different cities. And now a time has come when we no longer talk to each other and yet we continue to live. Survive in my case.

Of course both of us are extremely social. You have always had fans, friends and followers that were spread from New York to New Delhi, Surat to Sydney and Mumbai to London. I am sure you would have found comfort in their company. In fact some of them were really cool. So much so that it made me insecure. Though I told you that your friends make me insecure, and I have never admitted to this in the past, but when we were together I hardly had any issues with anyone. You were mine, you told me you were and that was all that mattered. But now, when we aren’t together, for some strange reason I feel bad, really bad when I hear that you are meeting them. I hate it when I get to know that they send you gifts for even non-occasions. Its a right, that I thought I had reserved, for rest of our lives. But then I cant really control things. Can I?

You know, after you left, even God seems to have deserted me. Of course I have been His favorite child and things have fallen in my lap when I dint expect them to. Dint you happen to me by chance? Who could have thought you and I could be together. You, the princess. And I, the ugly frog. I still remember that kiss that changed it all. Ya, that awkward one. Always brings a smile. I cant believe I turned away from you. I know you’d hold it against me for rest of our lives! There are tons of moments like that, and I can talk about them forever.

But then, I cant really live in the past. I need to look up to what future holds for me. There are dreams that I have always had. I need to work on them and get cracking. I know it would become all the more difficult without God and your shoulder for support. But I would still chase em. Its a different story that once I do get to those milestones, I will not be celebrating them. There cant really be any celebration when some part of me is away from me.

Baby, this is one those letters that I know would not reach you and even if it did, I know, it wont make an iota of difference to you. But then its my karma to write. What it does, what effect it has, I cant really control. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. I’d do my bit and then let things take their course. I had to write this because I was missing you like hell. I try not to!

I think that’s about it for the time being.

Hope you are doing good. Hope you are as strong as I have known you to be. Hope you are happy. I know I need to move on and all that. I am trying. Trust me.

Till next time,
Always,
SG

Secret Dairy of a Corporate Bitch

I was contemplating putting in my papers. Unlike most people I know, I am the kinds without a plan. Like Joker once famously said, “Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just… do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon’s got plans …” Nah, I am nowhere close to the brilliance in thought that Joker represented but I like the whole thing about me not having a plan. At almost 29, not having a plan sounds like sacrilege of modern society and I do face the music at times. But then, I cant help it, can I? Neither could Joker. He just did things. I do things. Not working felt like the thing to do and I am doing it. I am doing not working. Whatever.

Anyways the post is not to whine about it. The post is about a question that has been bugging me for a couple of days now. Since I dont have no motivation to work, I am wasting time, energy, electricity, Internet, water etc. I ought to rather go somewhere else. For someone like me, someone who has no suicidal tendencies, home should be a the next obvious choice. But home bores me. I am tired of staring at the walls that I now intimately. I am bored of things that they show on TV. Even Cartoon Network is not funny anymore. I just cant go home. So if not an office desk and not my room, what else? The third place? That all coffee retailers in the world claim to own? Nah. I dont like coffee. I dont even like the ambiance. I want to goto a place where I could be comfortable. I could be myself. Where I can be silent. Or I may yell at top of my voice. Without being judged. Or be scared.

So where could I go? I could go see a movie by myself. But am I the kinds who likes to be a dark hall by myself surrounded by almost adult kids coochi-cooing? No thank you. I could ask a friend for a lunch or something but then I dont think there is a single individual in whole of corporate India who has this utter disregard for rules as I have. Taking an unannounced leave on a Tuesday for my friends is actually a thing that they could make a folklore out of. One fine day when they would have become CEOs, they would speak with pride that, on a warm August Tuesday, this friend (read I) asked them out for lunch and they took an announced leave for the rest of the day. The jaws of audience would drop as if all the gravity is concentrated on their jaws and they would come out praising the CEO as if he just saved the entire human race from extinction.

What other options do I have? I can drive around the city. May be go see the Ramlila Maidan where Anna sat for 12 days. Or go see the book fair at Pragati Maidan? Or may be just go home and catch on some sleep? I think I shall let a toss of coin decide the fate. But wait, I have three options and the coin usually comes with mere two faces. Reminds me yet another gem by Joker, “You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push“.

Fiction! Part of P 0811. Other posts here.

Aug 21: Taming of the shrew

“What are you saying? You dont know about Taming of the Shrew? And you tell me that you read? You should be ashamed of yourself!” said she, when I told her that I did not know who the Shrew was. Little did she realized that I was not interested in any Shrew or its taming or mating or watever. I was merely interested in striking a conversation with her, hoping to get her to agree to come out with me for a drive, dinner, coffee or movie. In that order. Drive is my thing. I am at my best, when I am driving. If I could, I would have became a driver.

“I dont! There is so much literature out there and its tough to read all of that, especially if you started reading at 25.” I replied. “So why dont you tell me about it?” I threw in a bait.

“There’s nothing to tell you dude. Its a simple enough story, told well. If I were you, I would have read it before I spoke to me.” She snapped back. And although this was on sms, I could feel the irritation in her tone. I am good at this. Putting a tonality and emotion on a mere text message.

“And why is that?” I was trying my luck by asking a useless and a prodding question, to a woman who was anyways pissed off with me! I told myself if I got a reply, I would be a notch closer to that drive. I was mentally preparing a step ahead and thinking of possible places to take her. She lived in Noida and that meant just a handful of places where you could go.

“You are persistent. Arent you?”, she finally replied after an eternity. I checked the time and it was mere eight minutes since I had asked her. For someone like her and I, sms was as synchronous and immediate as a face to face conversation is. I had lost all hopes and was about to send another text when I got the reply.

“And you always dodge questions. Dont you?” Now I knew I was in the game. I tried pushing my luck further and sent a neg her way.

“Lol. What did I dodge? To invite this acquisition?” she replied. I had to be quick on my feet. And I have had enough of BS. This time, something snapped in my head and told me to be straightforward.

“The one about the shrew to start with. And then there were more that you dodged.” It does help when you can type fast on a phone. It must have taken me all of 4 nanoseconds to read her reply, process it in my head, type that answer and hit send. Love the way technology is making lives simpler (and hate the way its making relationships more effervescent).

“Ah that one. You should read taming … because I tend to believe that I am the modern day avatar of the shrew. And it would be mightily tough for a man to even tolerate me.” Wow! I could not believe that she was opening up. Was she throwing a bait at me? I decided to make her wait. Why did I do that? I dont know. It just looked natural to me.

“You’ve given up already? Have you?”, she asked. I was asleep when I got that text. I have a very light sleep and any messages, calls wake me up. Not that I dint plan to reply to her message, I just dozed off. And now that she was inviting me, I had to do something about it.

“Lol no. I just started reading the Taming … and to be honest its a really boring piece of text. I wonder how could he write so heavy language. Please yaar, summary batao. It would help speed up things ;)”. I said. I was told that you need to make conversation and always end a line with a question mark. Human instincts, they come in play more often that we realize. You end something with a question and more often than not, people would respond. And it is surprising that even simple obvious things stated as questions tend to get things done faster than any other mode of motivation.

“Dude, its a very long story!” Pat came the reply. Of course she had to reply. I had asked her a question. I had no clue how to read this one. At least she did not say no. However, I knew that its either now or never.

“Since you say that its a long story, lets go for a drive. You will have all the time in the world to narrate the story and give me all the gyaan about shrews.”, I suggested. This was natural progression at play. I made the drive sound like an obvious thing to do. And I primed it so that the going-on-the-dive bit sounded like HER idea, rather than mine.

And then I dozed off again. And before I could get into the NREM-REM cycle, I heard my phone beep.

Inspired by a series of SMS conversations that I had once upon a time with a woman I thought I was going to live the rest of my life with. As you may have guessed, she is happily married with someone else and I have lost all contact with her. I have tried reading the Taming … numerous times since then and every time I loose the plot in just the first few lines. Truth be told, I still miss her. If not the lifepartner, she would have made an excellent friend. Someone I could count on.

And yes, I did go for that drive. And many more after that.

Started writing this on 21st Aug. Finished on 28th August. Part of Project 0811. Other posts are here.

Aug 08: Up In The Air

In last three days, I have spent time in three cities, taken 4 flights and managed very little sleep. I am infact writing this from the comfort of my economy (read coach class) seat. My legs are cramped, the air is bit too cold and experience, less than pleasant.



Am calling it, Up in the air.

From luxury of my seat, I can hear the chitchat of the air hostesses, the jokes they are sharing about which hostess is sleeping with which pilot and which passenger is a lech etc. Its been about 24 minutes since we took off, the in-flight food and beverage service about to be started. And since this is the holiday season, the flight is almost full. Thats 184 passengers on board.

As I child I have always wanted to fly. Have wings, take control of myself and see places that I have read about. I wanted to be free and wanted to do things my way. I saw flying as the ultimate freedom. What else can be better than spreading your arms and taking off, at your will? But then, this was a long time ago. Today, I dread every time I have to fly. And considering what I do for a living, I have to fly very very often. Call it the occupational hazard.

Come to think of it, flying is not that bad. Atleast the cruising bit. It gets scary during the take off, landing and turbulence. Let me talk about turbulence first. Everytime the plane hits the turbulent weather, it shakes as bad as my juicer does when I am making yogurt with diced fruits and curd. I actually, at times, when I am home, take my juicer out, throw in some diced fruits and switch the juicer on. And I can actually see myself in that juicer, the plane shaking like the juicer, and I being tossed around. Helps me calm down for some strange reason.

There are times when turbulence is that bad that air hostesses actually spill coffee, tea, water or whatever they are carrying. They spilled water on me once and for a nano second I thought I was drowning. Drowning up in the air. Now, it sounds funny but that time, it was potent enough to give me a heart attack. So when turbulence is really bad, they have to be sent back to their resting stations. And this is when the low gasps and scared moans start. And once someone screams, it becomes a roller coaster ride with everyone screaming and trying to outdo each other with their shrillness. It becomes really scary. Obviously, there are announcements that tell everyone, including myself, that its just turbulent weather and it will pass away soon. But do I really believe in these announcements? Do they really calm down people? They dont help me. I am not sure if they help passengers.

You know, funny bit is that, if I compare scales, an aircraft weathering turbulence is similar to a car going through a country road. The car jerks as much as the aircraft does. You are in the car, in your seat, with a safety belt, holding onto your seat. And, to make matters worse, statistically, air travel is the safest mode of travel. The probably of your aircarft crashing is about 10,832 times less than your car being hit by another. And yet, everytime we hit turbulence, my heart skips a beat. My palms get so wet that I cant even hold anything. And all this despite the fact that the air temperature inside the pressurized cabins is maintained at 24 degrees C for comfort of passengers.

There are times when I am flying into cloudy cities. Clouds are different monsters all together. Though I love rains. I love the sight of dark clouds filled with all the serum from God. The thought of a nice rain elevates my spirit to no end. But not when am flying. A plane passing through the clouds is no less than those torture machines that they used on informers and prostitutes in the medieval ages.

Since there are clouds outside, you cant see anything. All you see is the whiteness. Yes, the darkest of clouds, when you are up there, are white. I dont know why. I ought to know but I dont really care. Second, the blinkers on the wings and body of the aircraft, they illuminate the whole goddamn cloud and it feels like you are passing through white. The kind of white they typically talk about when they talk about a white passage that the dead must go through. Everytime I hit clouds, I pray to God for my life. Every single time.

Take off is ok. At least, you know that you are closer to ground. Though once you are in air, it doesnt really make a difference if you are close to ground or up at 33000 feet. If something wrong has to happen, it will happen and there is not an iota of thing that anyone, me, you, the ATC, the ground crew could do about it. Landing is a bigger challenge if you ask me. Since you are diving nose first, towards the ground, at about 500 kmph, at times, you wonder if you were to keep going, how big a crater would the impact make? As large as the craft? Or as small as the nose? Anyways, so this is the part of flying that I am at ease with. Anyways, I read somewhere that pilots are mandated to log 4 times more hours on landing practice compared to take off practice, on the simulators. And in fact, as I write this, I think, the time to put that practice into action has come. I am almost home and hopefully would put my feet on solid ground within another 13 minutes or so.

“Thank you for flying with us. Hope you had a wonderful flight ladies and gentlemen. Have a good day and a pleasant day”. And with announcement, I replaced my headset and turned off the mic that I, and all other pilots use to address the cockpit, crew and passengers. I then wiped away all that sweat from my face, my neck and my bald head and fished for the logbook that we pilots have to fill in, after every successful flight.

This is day 08 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.

Aug 07: Re-living Mr. India

“Kamra. Kamre kay aage balcony. Balcony kay aage garden. Garden kay beach. Beach kay aage samunder. Samunder main pani”. So said the great Anil Kapoor, before his Slumdog, 24 and MI4 days. He was peddling a room to the lead actress of Mr. India and describing in vivid detail, the beauty of the room and the view.

Am at Goa right now, waiting for a meeting to happen. And while the client wakes up from her deep slumber, I am idling away my time at this amazing place.

Goa is a coastal state and is hence dotted with beautiful beaches. Here, beer is cheap, women come by scores, poisons easy to find and time, all the time to while away pursuing intellectual conversations and thoughful ramblings. Goa is a classic example of a place where time moves slow and things happen at a leisurely pace. You could choose to gape at the ocean, drowning in the sound of its music, wondering about that lone boat that you see docked in the horizon. Or you could choose the walk on the beach, feeling the sand, waves kissing your feet and whispering those unexplainable messages, as they come and crash against your feet. From your vantage point, you could also choose to let your gaze follow that beautiful lady in red, walking on the beach and paint a picture of her life in your head. Like this woman am looking at, she must be one of those MBA types, she’s moving in a straight line, at the exact place where waves just end. Very calculated, precise, sure. She would be single. I don’t see any signs of commitment. And at the pace she’s walking, she is not in any sort of hurry to go anywhere. She is content by herself, the way she’s hugging herself. Probably the serious kinds. I have been seeing her move around for a while and she is yet to kick some water or bend down to pick those shells. Obviously well to do, as evident from her taste, clothes I mean. Probably here to take refuge from corporate jungle that she lives in. Am wondering if I should go and try my hands at being the kamra salesman and see if I can make an offer she can’t refuse. But then, the question remains, is she looking for a kamra, with all those benefits that we spoke of in the beginning?

And yep, in the movie, Mr. Kapoor, aka Mr. India, did manage to sell the room to our heroine, and eventually, lived happily ever after.

Tags: #movies, #anilKapoor, #goa, #travel, #peopleWatching

Aug 04: Welcome to Africa

So far i have written 3-4 posts under Project 0811 and so far, this is proving to be the toughest. I am back to square one. Where I know I have to write a piece and I am clueless what to write on. I am out of stories, anecdotes, ideas, data that I have no clue what to write. Ideally I want to write a short story, in 500 words, but then nothings coming to my head. And starting today, I wanted each blogpost to have a picture/photograph that best sums up the post! But then, dear sire, we need to have a post in the first place!

Let me attempt a short story. Ok heres the deal. I shall find a random link on google and write a piece of fiction inspired by the content on that page. I googled and I found randomwebsite.com. Let me generate a random website link. Drum rolls, confetti blasts, here we go! So it pointed me to AllAfrica.com. And heres the story.

“You dont understand me at all. I cant tolerate you guys for even a minute now. I am going.”, said my daughter. She is 13. And I had caught her red handed while she was trying to steal money from my office. Moment she said, you don’t understand me, something snapped inside me. I could clearly see what would she do once she leaves home with that money.

She would go buy an ice cream. After all, like father, like daughter. Then she would go for a walk till she reaches the dockyard, which is about 100 meters from our bungalow. No one else but us, call the bungalow, bungalow. This used to be a chawl till about 5 months back before I bought the entire place and created this sprawling landmark.

She will then board the vessel docked farthest from the shore, scared that I might find her and fight with her again. She would get curious with all the instruments, compass boxes, wheels, navigators, maps, logbooks, pens, radio sets, levers, cranks, the tunnels and will get lost in her world where she would play the pirate and fend off the crusaders. She has to be the pirate. The kingpin. Nothing else would do. There is something intriguing about being on the other side of the law. I, I even went to the extent of patching my right eye.

Without her realizing it, the ship would set sail. It would take her to Africa. I could see that cloth banner, that read the most dreaded words I had ever laid my eyes on. Welcome to Africa. She would be surprised at first. Then she would feel lost at a place where everyone is topless, dark, smelly, humid and cold. Then she would be surprised for a bit.

And when the reality would hit her, she would not flinch, leave alone crying. She would be brave. Probably braver than her father. She would take less time, far less to make her fortune in the land of black gold. I dont know what business would she pick but whatever she does, she would survive and reach the top of the game. All the while, slogging, to teach her father a lesson. No other emotion makes a person work harder than hatred.

And sooner than later, one fine day, just like that, she would decide to head back home. And see that banner, the Welcome to Africa banner, for the last time. Ever. And come back, to claim her place. To erect the tallest skyscraper the city had ever seen. At a place where I built a majestic home. Where my parents rented a 6 feet by 8 feet, shared toilets with 30 other “homes”.

I could see everything. As clear as you could see things.

History, as they say, repeats itself. I was determined to keep history at bay this time. Just this time. For once. I fought back the tears, ran after my daughter. And dug my head in her neck and allowed that lone tear to roll down my bearded cheek. And I had no clue, who was more surprised. She or I.

This is day 04 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.
Note to self: Need to fix my woulds and wills, coulds and cans, so on and so forth.

Aug 02: Dear Humans

Dear Humans,

Before anything else, without any further ado, let me clarify. I did not cross the road. Not this road. Not that road. Not any road for that matter. And I never thought about crossing any roads ever. And I checked, my cousins also, had no fancy thoughts of doing such a ridiculous thing. And nor my forefathers and their forefathers. No one is interested in your roads. No one in my family and extended family wants anything to do with you guys and your roads. You may please keep them to yourself and create your own jokes.

You see, we are peace loving … things. We just want to be left alone, to do out little jig with the torso, the neck, the beak and the chicken dance. I know you guys must find it amusing, the way we bump our head into ground all the time. But then like us, you guys have tons of rituals that our race hasnt been able to understand. I mean what could be so interesting about a naked, saffron loincloth clad man, dancing in weird postures that lakhs of women try and imitate all his actions? What happens on that night every year when you guys almost burn the entire city down with so much fire and lighting that it actually hurts.

May be it hard to believe for you guys, but we do have sleep cycles. We dont really have those REM cycles but we do have our chicken cycles and we need to spend a large part of our lives sleeping. And when we sleep, we want to sleep in peace. In one piece.

Thats grudge no. 2 btw. The last letter, listed in great detail, the tortures that every single one of us goes through all the time. The impending cage. Ofcourse it is really tough to spot your relatives in that huge a bunch of while haired things, all looking the same. The lucky ones reach the pressure cookers fast and they happily melt away with all the spices and gravy. The unlucky ones, us, the ones looking at all those of us being carried away, that sight is scary.

The next on agenda is all those filthy cartoon films. Do we really look that yellow? that furry? that tiny? that fragile? Do we deserve to be sold at traffic signals? And not just sold, but renegotiated on and bickered about. And its not even a genetic clone. It is made up of plastic! I know you guys are 7 billion and we are mere a few thousands but this is no way to treat us. If Noah had his way, you and us would have been in equal number. And since we dont have to wait for 9 months to produce the next generation, we would have grown faster. Mmmm, that could have been interesting. Imagine the menu reading butter aadmi, aadam musallam, aadmi changezi, aadam shawarma etc.

So, I am short on time. I understand that roads hold a special place in your life, lores and development. They connected you guys and helped moved faster. They allowed movement of people, things, thoughts and stories. Including the one about me crossing the road. I mean, who could even think of it? And why? Can you even imagine a chicken on the road?

Guys, can we please cut it out? Dont you guys think you have stretched this one, a little too much? Isnt the joke now too old, too predictable and too boring?

Sincerely,
The Chicken

This is day 03 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.

Random bout of Inspiration

It hits you when you least expect it. When your life is all set and is on a well treaded path to economic independence and predictable success. When you are about to take off and vault to the pinnacle of your profession. When you think that nothing can go wrong. No, not think. You know that nothing can go wrong. And it hits you. At the time when you least expect it.

I am talking about a random bout of inspiration. Let me give an example to drive home the point. I tagged along with a friend to Levo. Levo is one of those fancy places where heiresses of princely estates, ameer baap ki bigdi daughters, trophy housewives et al go for haircuts and pedicures and manicures and what not. Of course I have nothing to do with a place like that and people like that but this friend of mine wanted to change her hairstyle and I was asked to tag along. So my life was all fine. You know dull and boring and predictable in the MBA-rising-through-the-corporate-ladder way and suddenly one day I find myself standing outside Levo.

While she was getting her hair done, I had about an hour to kill. And Levo had this fancy magazine rack. The top few shelves had Vogues etc of the world. But the bottom shelf had xBHP, Suburb and Platform. And every turn of the page on each of the magazine, I went wow. Lemme take them one at a time.

Suburb is this magazine that is published out of Gurgaon and is aimed at expat community in Gurgaon. Since Gurgaon is a major hub for multinationals, there are tons of expats. Here for both short durations and longer stays. The content, the editorial notes and other material was very average from a niche magazines perspective but they made a good effort to appeal to their audience. Most of their content was clichéd and boring for an Indian but I am sure most expats wouldnt have known those things and would read Suburb religiously. Here, on our hands, we have this bunch of people who are intelligent and enterpriding enough to find a niche audience that is large enough. And they have been supplying them with dope they want. Amazing!

Next up is this magazine called Platform. A typical publication for Page 3 celebs. It proclaims that it talks about Art, Design, Fashion, Words, Music and Films. Everything that gets attention of the media savvy kinds. Apart from showcasing fashion designers, it did talk about art directors, writers, photographers and other creative kinds. I think its an awesome initiative to showcase people and their work. Apart from established professionals, there were tons of snippets about upcoming artists/creatives/talents. The content reflected a very strong editor at helm of affairs. And a lot of connections and purani dosti as play. Mightly impressed by them. If it wasnt Rs. 150 per copy, I would have subscribed to it.

And last, and the best, xBHP. As a kid I remember spending hours on the xBHP forum and ogling over bikers, their machines, their rides, their lifestyles and their babes. Seeing them in print was a pleasant surprise. And that too 250 GSM paper, gloss finish, thick 200 page magazine. Beat that shit guys. I made a few phone calls to a few friends still crazy about bikes and I was told that the guys at xBHP work with auto magazines and in the words of Green Day, they are having time of their lives.

Sigh!

Anyways, coming back to the post, random bout of inspiration, so this visit to a spa in Gurgaon is that random bout that I am most scared about. Something in me is now itching to get into the publishing business and start a magazine. And the question that I have from myself is … do I or do I not scratch that itch.

P.S.: Another post on what it takes to start and run a magazine business. Coming Soon. In 2015 ;P