For, Happiness Endures.

Utopia is a crumpled 100 buck when you’re dead out of fuel.
Utopia is 300km/h.
Utopia is passing in challenge reval.
Utopia is not having semester exams on new years.
Utopia is the xerox machine.

Utopia is Calvin and Hobbes when you have an exam.
Utopia is flipping your car over 7 times and escaping with bruises.
Utopia is a pair of guinea pigs.
Utopia is Pink Floyd.

Utopia is an old monk on a winter night.
Utopia is half a smoke on a frozen hilltop after a midnight trek.
Utopia is closing your eyes to find colors dancing.
Utopia is the rain when you’re high.

Utopia is eating a cloud.
Utopia is full meals at an Andhra mess on a remote Highway.
Utopia is canteen chai when it pours like hell out of the blue.
Utopia is free doughnuts and coffee on a random walk.

Utopia is “Macha”
Utopia is “Sounds like a plan”
Utopia is “Lets do this!”
Utopia is “What happened last night?”

Utopia is talking to an eye.
Utopia is seeing through your ears.
Utopia is hearing the colour.
Utopia is slow dancing in a burning room.

Utopia is a gramophone record.
Utopia is finding your guitar on the bed when u wake up at 3 am.
Utopia is a new drum kit.
Utopia is a time machine to Woodstock 69.

Utopia is a dream that lasts.
Utopia is a hug.
Utopia is half a smile.
Utopia is the daily abuse.

Utopia is the losing battle of the conscious and the conscience.
Utopia is the lie that tells the truth.
Utopia is the impossibility in your hand.
Utopia is the pain that reminds.

Utopia is a very cozy jam-pad.
Utopia is a one and a half gig you’ve waited half your life for.
Utopia is a friend who knows that the song isn’t finished.
Utopia is the green.
Utopia is psychedelia.

Utopia is Peace.
Utopia is Love.
Utopia is Rock and Roll.

27

The freckled ball, lit the sky,
and showed the phantom’s face.
I asked him why, all my gods,
had died in curious ways.

A boon so vile, a curse benign,
a deal you cannot refuse.
The divine sound, from his hidden mouth,
reeked of the devil’s hues.

Should you find what lurks beneath,
would you reach for it?
Or shun it as the devil’s work,
and run away from it?

Well if you’re in a paradigm,
You’ve waited far too long.
Just sell your soul to rock ‘n roll,
And move the hell along.

Bluesmans’ cross, a moonless night,
the devil walks alone,
If you chance by the mister then,
He’ll divine your guitar’s tone.

The diabolical deal, you must but sign,
and join the long lost line.
You’ll be a god, the darkest one,
The fame, the women, the wine.

But darker still, the ol’ mister,
will come but knocking again.
Years from now, when the time is up,
his property he will reign.

Well if you’re in a paradigm,
You’ve waited far too long.
Just sell your soul to rock ‘n roll,
And move the hell along.

An exercise in Integrity

Last week, I decided I wanted to be licensed to drive throughout the territory as India, a Light Non-Transport Motor Vehicle. (A Car DL, for my less verbose audience). I have been driving through narrow gullies and jammed highways at all times of the days these past few months without incident or accident, so I figured I’m not that bad a driver. So when I drove to that place at the edge of Bangalore, I wasn’t nervous like I should have been.

But i knew my chances. A friendly delicate flower had once bestowed a piece of wisdom upon me: If you go without a driving school tag, its likely you’re going down. I nearly didn’t get the application since I was late and the good lady there had decided to throw a tantrum because she was delayed by us late comers. A cheeky fellow found a way to soothe her down and I got my form. After the harassment of filling the form, I went up to submit it to a person who’d just heard of the good lady’s antics and was conspiring to get her fired! Bureaucracy, I thought. That and Engineering- “Who needs stand up comedy?”

When it was my chance to drive, or park it rather, an excited lad parked his bike right behind me just when i was about to reverse. Happened again, when I moved it a bit to park by him. It was quite a circus to get it parked. A hefty soul came and sat in the car and asked me to drive. It was going smoothly until I had to reverse. Then the girl driving behind me decided she had enough and left the wheel, got out and started crying. What am I to do? So I stood there till the scene was cleared. But the Inspecter had decided that I cant reverse the car. (Yeah!)

Institutionalized testing failed again. So I walked off knowing I could still drive, driving back my good friend home.

– THE END –

But you just KNOW that there’s no THE END, without someone getting totally screwed over. I was stopped by the same cop who had failed me. Lets call him, Mr.Integrity, for jest. There was a mistake in paperwork and I was to pass? Unlikely.  Man needed a lift. (Yeah!). So this man, who has just deemed me incapable of driving, is telling me that he trusts my driving with his life on a highway, just to get a ride. So my testing continued for another half hour, where Mr. Integrity graciously told me things I already knew about driving, and again and again and.. yes, again.

When we questioned him why I failed when I could clearly drive, he said I couldnt reverse. When we explained what happened, he spent the next 5 minutes giving me reasons well short of funny. The answer to why he’d never admit anything was clear at the end: the man made me take down his number and to give him a call after a week. *cough* bribe *cough*

Prophecy

The face of agony is seldom concealed,

The scars on a pretty face seldom healed,

Save for the young damsel i portray to thee,

None hold their pain as elegantly as she.

She cries in the corner all alone

She weeps in the dark on her own

And when she aint by herself, no,

She smiles like an angel and more.

The roof above us is dark as is cold,

Reminds me of the night her fate was foretold,

A monk prophesied the misfortunes galore,

Of broken hearts and devastation, no lore could hold.

She’d eyes that could kill and a smile better still,

An aura of charm that none but her knew,

Its such a shame that the prophecy had to come true,

For those lovely blue eyes are no longer blue.

She cries in the corner all alone

She weeps in the dark on her own

And when she aint by herself, no,

She smiles like an angel and more.

She was the fairest of maidens that I ever met,

And I speak in the past lest you forget,

She died this morning before the sun shined,

and when she did, she looked up, she smiled.

Bad day

Last Sunday I rode through my college road. It seemed like such a long time since I’d seen it. So the next day I got all geared up and decided I would go to college. And I did. Only to find a company had come to hire us engineers. What the heck, a couple of friends and me wrote their screening test. Since we had no eligibility, no preparation, no interest, or knowledge of software engineering, we walked out citing excuses. But curious as to who’ll make it, we came back to hear the results. And as the names were read out, I was naturally shocked beyond words when I heard mine: I hadn’t a pen with me, let alone a resume!!

So I made up a resume from a borrowed sheet and sat for the interview. Nothing to lose, I talked my way out of it with empty confidence. And then the wait began. Minutes turned into hours before they shortlisted six. And as I got up to congratulate my friend, God laughed up yet another one as my name was called again! I was confused as to how and why this was happening. Maybe that confidence helped pull me through. But this meant further interviews and lengthy waits in that empty corridor. I endured two more rounds of technical interviews telling them I knew naught. At this point I was a hungry zombie. But things brightened up when I heard them calling for an HR interview – at last I’d have something to say. But I wasn’t given a chance and I knew it wasn’t a case of overlooking. Then the results were announced. I hadn’t made it. In that dead of the night, to an enervated man swinging madly between hope and reality, nobody could really explain why 7 software engineers with a world of experience had taken 13 hours and 3 rounds of technical interviews to tell whether an electronics engineer with no knowledge of the subject was fit for a software job.  I prepared myself for the condolences and walked out.

When you’ve had a bad day, the ride back home offers the only solace. It reflects the loneliness of misery and hands you a power you’re dying to have. And in the dead of the night, your only friend is your guitar. But sometimes even that F note on the guitar just doesnt sound that awesome anymore.

Of the Antichrist, sights and waterfall treks

Another roadtrip to quell the thirst of a roadie. In what would later be called a chilled out couple of days, me and a bunch of 5 other idiots would experience some things oddly unbecoming a normal sightseeing experience. As it happened, the six of us met at Mysore Road bus terminal in the dead of a cold July night with the assumption that buses plied to Salem quite frequently. When we went there we found that the frequency wasn’t what we needed to worry about. None of the weirdly shaped, “jhathang!” colored flashy long boxes of metal had seats that humans willingly sit on. We passed when the first bus left, but when the second bus offered nothing better than its predecessor, we boarded it without much choice. We did our best to sit toward the center to negate the vibrations of the shaky bus, but when the driver smiled and switched the lights off, we sensed malice in our further drive.

God’s divine plan seems to have included us surviving it, for so we did, as we woke up at 3 am at Salem Bus Stand. What you tend to expect in this scenario is an empty bus stand. But Tamils, let me tell you, don’t sleep. There were at least 500 people awake and seemingly waiting for something amazing at that ungodly hour. It was then that the stench hit us. We were walking about and the toilets at the end of the area had picked on us. We held our noses and made a run for it and boarded a random bus that headed to Yercaud. As we made conversation with fellow Bangalore travelers, a big neon sign flashed “PMS” in three flashy colors atop a hotel.

When I woke up again, it was cold as hell and the bus was winding up a hill at great speed. When it stopped and we made our way to look at the view from Yercaud a dog came running toward me. I thought it was just friendly. When we went hunting for hotels in the direction where the dog came from, we found Hotel Select, an unassuming ill-maintained lodge. I entered to find a man staring at me like he didn’t expect company. I asked him for a room to his surprise and he shook out of it and said “Oh yes, rooms. Come see” and walked off to the stairs. I had put my hand on his desk on a book. An unexpected glance showed me an outline of a man with arrows to his parts. The caption read in bold: ANTICHRIST and the ANATOMY OF A MAN.

Shaken but not stirred, I let him lead me up to the rooms. He opened the door and I saw bloodstains on a cot. He suddenly took us to another room. We said the room was ok. He asked us what price we wanted it at. This was odd. It felt like he was only too happy to give us the room and it was almost like he’d give us at whatever price we wanted. I played it safe and told him I would come back for it after breakfast and ran out of there. The next lodge we tried had two types of rooms: single and double. A single room was a 10×15ft box with a bed in which a normal sized man could sleep. A double room was the same with an extra table. The owner wanted the six of us guys to sleep in a single and a double room! Not knowing what exactly his intentions were we made our way out of there not interested in rooms anymore.

Balaji knew of a place called ‘House of Peace’ that offered accommodation. After 6kms of walking, misleading directions, wicked stares, and a lot of debate we found a Veerappan lookalike on an Activa heralding the DMK flag, who offered to help us. And he did, for we were in the christian missionary rest house in 15 minutes. The guard of that place was a happy-go-lucky character like you wouldn’t believe. He would listen intently to whatever you say and nod his head very happily, no matter what you said! Always! A nun smiled and offered us 3 comfortable rooms and we snatched that offer.

After that though, things mellowed down for Christ’s sake. We had a trek, which was a walk along a long winding tarmac road and a real trek for about 0.3km to see Kiliyur falls. It wasn’t that great but was not bad either. We chilled out a bit and spent the afternoon. The evening we checked out Pagoda point, and Lady’s Seat and Gent’s Seat, all viewpoints. It was as if Yercaud was built just to look at Salem from a distance. The DMK’s symbols were on every inch of the land. A night refreshed us enough to take a taxi ride to check out Shevaroy’s temple, a cave temple and a very beautiful Botanical garden which to me, was paradise. The place and the weather can only be described as “chilled out”.

When we headed back to the bus stand to go to Salem, we saw the ‘Antichrist’ man from Select creeping up upon us. We hurried and took the first bus out of there to Salem. And with that the crazy Yercaud trip came to an end. We bought tickets for the evening train that allowed us to have a quiet meal, still thinking of all the characters that Yercaud hid under its belly.

__________________________________________________________________________
Travelogue:
Yercaud is a nice hill-station that offers a 1-2 day vacation with cool weather and nice greenery any time of the year. You can reach it via Salem. Buses to Salem are very frequent 24 hours a day from Mysore road Bus stand, but make reservations for good buses. Local buses cost Rs 90.
Buses to Yercaud are similar frequent through the day and will take you there for Rs. 11 in
about 3hrs. Salem is also connected to Bangalore by trains which need at least 2 days prior planning for reservations, to be on the safer side. Rs.150 approx for Sleeper.

Accommodation: “House of Peace” (Locals refer to it as Kanadi Bangal) is a christian missionary that also maintains a travel guest house with clean rooms and bathrooms for Rs.225 a day (includes food). A youth Hostel is situated more centrally, next to Hotel TamilNadu, near the Lake. A more posh option would be the Hotel Shevaroy’s nearby, or the Sterling Resorts near Lady’s Seat.

Food: Local hotels are plenty with most offering decent local food. Shevaroys offers a multi-cuisine restaurant with rates similar to Bangalore’s. You’ll eat well with 100-150 in your pocket.
You’ll eat, for around 20 outside.

Going Around: All places are near enough to walk for the average tourist. Taxis are available and they take you to and fro in 3 directions. (6 people can sit comfortably in one taxi)
1. The trek to Kiliyur falls, a waterfall (Rs.200)
2. Pagoda Point, a viewpoint, Cave temple, Beers cave (private), Botanical Garden, etc. (Rs.250)
3. Lady’s seat Gents seat, rose garden, children’s park (latter two close by 5pm) (Rs.100)

The Lake is centrally situated and has row- and pedal- boating facilities.

A hand at drabbling

Here’s my first drabble. Hope its exactly 100 words. Thanks to Jan for educating me on what a drabble is.
____________________________________________________________

Gary Smith woke up and sucked in a gallon of fresh air. It was a lovely morning he thought. He felt a general goodness about him. The phone rang. It was from Veca Electric. His next job was to install security lighting at a home near Lake Washington. He made his way to the “Greenhouse”. A few steps, a couple whistles, he opened the door.

The bullet from the shotgun had gone right through his head. The lefty held the barrel on his chest as he looked through the roof. Blood flowed from his ear. REM played at the back. Nirvana!

It’s that time of the year

Its that time of the year when…

1. “Return to innocence” means forgetting what you studied last night for an exam 2 hours away.
2. “Happiness” is an objective, measurable quantity and has a value above 35/100.
3. 3 days after you plan to start studying, you remember you’ve gone through the semester without a proper textbook.
4. Its never a good time to START something.
5. Breaks are a good thing. Its always a good time to take one. Breaks from breaks from breaks from breaks from breaks from breaks, are good too.
6. Too much of sleep is never enough.
7. You start hating that alarm clock and coffee so badly that the feeling turns mutual and they stop helping you out.
8. Your room is full of photocopy machine outputs.
9. You are blogging at 2am because you slept because of lack of interest to study, and now not getting enough sleep, and of course, its not the right time to start studying.
10. You start thinking if all this is worth it, all the time.
11. Everything soul-wrenchingly mundane, even Bollywood flops, are on the cards.
12. Facebook seems to start giving you dirty looks.
13. You hate everything.
14. You come back to the unanswered question of career choice.
15. Most of your text conversations are aimed at verifying if the other guy’s had any luck with it.
16. Luck is a whole new different feeling.
17. You believe in God. New strings attached.
18. “Lowered Expectations” actually means being pragmatic,
19. “Its all Out of Syllabus”, “Its postponed” and “There’s only little to study” are jokes.
20. You crave for one final day like you’re awaiting death.

A Higher God

When the cops look at two idiots lugging two acoustic guitars on a seasoned scooter at speeds that make lorries shy, and let them pass without checking their license to ride, you know something good’s just happened. But you never stop to think if that’s a sign. A sign of better things to come.

An old friend wrongly racially victimized comes back from distant lands carrying the air of trains and exams, but Haji looks like he just got a fresh lease of life recently. Hugs, shakes, nods, jabs, greets. Peace. Little music, lot of talk. Happy. We await JD. Far removed from JD of scrubs. A happy person. Talent. Comes a while later. The usual: Greets. Shock. Bewildered by the newly acquired electric bass: Brass finish tuners, Wooden texture for the body. “Killer”. PK’s proud. Also of the price he paid for it. The guitars plug in. The bassie shows the stuff. A little jam, a little food. Happy.

Shift to acoustics. Pack. Shift to the open upstairs. Sit. Look at the sky. ECSTATIC. The sky is beyond beautiful. It is the dictionary definition of elegant magnificence. A symphony of colours thrown around on an empty canvas, but still make for brilliant coalescence. Somehow the distinctly different masterpieces of heavenly art come together in a fit of divine choreography to produce what no man can describe satisfactorily. Each angle, each colour, each shade, each shadow, each shape, each contour- and to top it all, the constantly changing, evolving nature of it all- enough to make Shakespeare come back, enough to silence atheists, enough to make Morgan Freeman tick off “1.witness something majestic” off the Bucket List. With every minute of this orchestra of colours, the Drones From The Turbine played on; a quartet of acoustic guitars completing that orchestra. The music sounded sweeter, the experience up a notch. The sounds went on, making believers out of critics, until more joined in. It was to end fittingly with Purple Haze, an ode to a different God, a mark of respect for the flaming guitar, a tribute to The Jimi Hendrix.

It was a day nothing could go wrong. Why leave food to chance? The cuisine was tacitly agreed upon and we let the great Andhra food finish the day with the best it had to offer. Everyone fed. Not a soul unhappy. Its the stuff you dream about. Perhaps Utopia isn’t just a concept.

Play something, Im hungry!

Everything is subjective. So much so, that on a night of sweet music being played at Rockathon, when a band (Bottleflower seeds, for the record) plays Nirvana’s “Where did you sleep last night”, a song that requires quite a bit of high pitched screaming and sudden variations, 50-odd people clapped their hands and hailed Nirvana and I turn to the left and see two little girls holding their ears and running to the exit!

In a world as subjective as ours, we need to be thankful that there have been two things that have never changed. Two things that have never been debated. Two things that shall always remain, the good God’s best symphonies. Food and music. Two individual events in recent days have retold me the concept of these two. And it amazes me how it never amazes me that this trivial thing is everything. It might just be the answer to the purpose of life, and if not, will surely be most of it. It is the principal, fundamental, raw, unbiased, untouched, pure form of living. And it shall forever be. Whatever be the mood, whatever be the time or the place or the situation, whatever be the company, whatever be the source, whatever be the quality, whatever the reason, atmosphere, impending natural calamity, recession or state of world peace. For it is what Adam did when he found an apple. It is what early man did when he killed, whatever it is he killed. It is what we do no matter who’s born or who’s dying. We need to eat, and we need to sing. Else we live a lesser life. And that’s something i don’t wish for even, say, Zoozoos!