An evening on the terrace

"And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, 

When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, 

When the road is a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor, 

The highwayman comes riding-- 

Riding--riding-- 

The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door. "

I've been doing this all too frequently nowadays. Whenever I run short of ideas to put on my posts, I resort to quoting someone else and fawn over their control over their grip of the language. The above extract is from Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman" and it is a poem that I'd read 10-12 years ago and still love it exactly as much.

After another especially tough day at the office back in Calcutta, I'd find myself hooking up my disused I-Pod. I love my I-Pod for the funky, sleek thing that it is but earphones in my ears for more than half an hour cause me such an headache that I am not able to utilize this wonderful gift to me to the best extent possible. I'd go up to the 3rd floor terrace, my retreat from the noise and the grime of the city of Calcutta. It is only three floors above the streets, but it is three worlds apart. 

Especially on the days when the moon was like "a ghostly galleon tossed upon the clouds" and a cool but slightly uncomfortable breeze rose from the Hooghly. As Dire Straits, U2 and Pink Floyd performed in crystal clear I-Pod quality into my ears and I stroll around the highest point of my house, I'd look around at all the deserted rooftops of the neighbouring houses. I keep my eyes peeled for any activity in the darkness holding sway on all the other rooftops of course secretly wishing that I'd see nothing that'd disturb my peace of mind. I'd smile whenever I'd walk past the tiny water tank that was on the terrace. Back when we were kids, my cousin sister would tell us (my sister and me) stories of the shark that lived in this tank and we'd be really scared and stay away from it! I'd look out from the parapet to see the narrow lanes in front of my house bathed in a eerie yellow of sodium lights. The rare motorcycle or taxi would lose its way into this maze of palely lit passages and the hum of their engine would shred the peace of the night. I'd keep moving around this meditation ground of mine as long as possible letting the breeze play masseur to my stressed out mind before logic and necessity would dictate that I had better get back to bed if I was to survive another day of torture at the office next day!

The philosophies of fall

My favourite strips in the Calvin and Hobbes are those which are set in fall. Calvin and his pal tramp around the woods in his neighbourhood and discuss topics of gravity with the nonchalance only Calvin is capable of. While the world around him prepares for winter, and the leaves desert the trees, the thoughtful side of the otherwise devilishly scheming kid comes out. The amusing violence of his imagination is replaced by an unnatural calmness in thought, so very unlike Calvin.

Fall is a season that is bound to make even the most insensitive person think of the transience of our life. It is the philosophy of life in action. Be born green and young, stumble through to the sharp bright colours of age and wisdom before finally cutting themself from the tree of life. This notion of eventual death for all is not the most pleasant thought, but that is the unspoken truth. We are only here as visitors, stragglers with the larger, more important personalities that shape our world. And since we are on this one, long holiday here on earth, everyone ought to make their mind and like it!

Letting go

The wind is a constant presence, picking up in sudden gusts asking the trees to rustle along. The leaves on the trees have lost their last shade of green and turned into yellow, red or pink, the colours of parting. With every assertive push of the wind, they float out of the comfort of the branches twirling their way down to their brothers who lie strewn at the feet of their creators. They form a river of colours as the ruthless cold wind now makes them hurry along the road forming a red wave here and a yellow whirlpool there. The streets and lanes are blissfully deserted on a cloudy Sunday afternoon as I wander them but for the fallen leaves that run alongside me. They said fall in New England is beautiful but they never hinted that it would be so indescribably beautiful.

I wonder how can death be such a beautiful thing and the harbinger of a cold, bleak winter bring such peace to the mind. Fall is a wonderful season of melancholy marked by a thoughtful sense of joy. I figure that as much as we may fear change, we secretly crave for it too. When the leaves are set free by the trees, we are afraid that this might be the last that we see of them. But to feel the life-force of creation once again we have to let go of the past however memorable it may have been. 

Into the blue

There is something special about standing in the bow of a boat as it heads out into the ocean. You may be freezing your butt off but the feeling of bravado that it provides is unbelievable. Yes, there can be only one captain on the ship but you sure as hell feel like one when up at the very front of the vessel with nothing but the limitless ocean in front of you. On the day that I landed in San Francisco, I took the Bay Cruise but it was so darn foggy that we actually passed under the Golden Gate Bridge but only got the faintest of faint glimpse of it. Everyone else was safe and snug inside the cabin while I was the only person out on the bow braving the cold and the fog off the Pacific.

Last Saturday, I found myself in a similar situation but this time the day was a very bright and sunny day and lots of people were on the decks. This time I was out on a whale watching trip out of Boston harbour and the ocean was the Atlantic. That of course didn't deter me from doing my Long John Silver thing as I hogged the maximum time at the front of the catamaran we were in, only letting people who gave me the evil eye a chance to come up right to the front. It was a really fast ride, the "Aurora" and she chugged 400 passengers along as if there were only 4. I know it's not much but she is the largest water-going vessel I've ever been on and most definitely the fastest. The wind cut like ice into the face but like old sea-dogs I took it all like a man. 

I kept my eyes peeled for the monsters that I had come to see. I had wanted to be the first to spot that famous spout but a keener pair of eyes beat me to it. A collective rush of excitement ran through the boat as all of us ran to the starboard side. There she was, the first real whale that I had ever seen, a huge 50 footer by the name of "Scratch". And what she seemed to be doing was waving at us tourists with her 15 foot flipper. "Flippering" as the behaviour is known was strange to say the least. She kept slapping the water with her flipper as she floated side-on. She kept up this show for quite some time before plunging back into the deep with the trademark flourish of the tail. We then moved on to a couple of mother-calf pairs who swam gracefully in synchronization far above the capability of what you'd expect from such massive beings. We hung around for almost a hour and saw their mild antics though I was dying to see them to do the whole clear of the water jump that humpbacks are famous for. No such luck for us that day!

I thought of our situation there. There we were in the midst of the vast ocean far away from anything even close to inhabited land. We were in the kingdom of these breathtakingly huge creatures that made the vastness of the oceans their home. Indeed they wouldn't be suited for anything smaller. 400 odd of our species, animals that had colonized and dominated this planet for about 4000 odd years now out here surrounded by never ending waters to experience exactly what our ancestors had set out to conquer thousands of years ago. Away from our cloistered existence and interdependent lives, we were all there to hear even if only for an hour, the call of the wild.

The Indian connection

Most people in the States think of India as some sort of extension to Arabia. They think of it as a land of harems and camels and that is a fact that used to bug me a lot during my early days here. Now I am somewhat used to the colossal levels of ignorance that is regularly on exhibit here about what lies outside the borders of the USA. The concept of India is such a vast topic that I do not even dare to venture into the finer details of the various languages, religions and regionalities with my American pals here. I usually make do with just "No, we are a completely different nation from the Gulf nations."

But I really enjoy being the window to India for people who are really interested in finding out about India. I recently talked to the son of an American colleague of mine who had chanced across a story from the Mahabharata and was really interested in it. I recommended a few books on the epic and simplified the concept for him equating it to the comic-book superheroes that he was more used to. In a nutshell, I told him, these are our comic superheroes with a religious twist to them. He was amazed and I was even more so at being able to explain the idea behind the epic in such a way! I'd never really thought of the Mahabharata that way until I had to explain it to a foreigner.

Then there is another guy who is really into martial arts and surprised me one day with questions on "Kalaripayattu". I gave the information that I had about this obscure Kerala martial art which didn't amount to much of course. But it was interesting to explain to someone what Kerala is and of the infinite identities that reside within the framework of India. 

One evening after office, I received a call from a call centre promoting some educational course or the other. The accent was Indian and the guy on the other end of the phone didn't try to fake any other. Upon asking I found that they were based in Ambala. Ambala being just half an hour from my college days in Kurukshetra, it was like a call from home. The guy on the phone with me was in fact a fresher just out of Mullana engineering college, Ambala waiting for Accenture to live up to the promise that it had given to him on campus. He was on the call-centre job for some extra pocket money while Accenture delayed his joining date. His voice was full of hope for his future as he discussed the courses he was taking to further his career and my opinion on them. Given the economic downturn, I am not very sure when the company will finally call them in but I hope for his sake that they do so soon. 

On my trip to San Francisco, I had missed my 6:00 AM flight out to San Fran thanks to oversleeping (No surprises there). As my taxi sped on towards Logan and my watch said 6:05 AM, my call went through to the United Airlines helpdesk in India. What was supposed to a $580 ticket (I had missed my flight and was calling after the flight had taken off, so technically my first ticket was already void) got to me free. And I have no doubts in my mind that this was only because the girl at the other end recognized an Indian voice at this end and did her best to save my ***. I was on the phone for 20 minutes as she frantically tried to set me up and in the end, she did get me in on the 8:30 AM flight in place of a last minute cancellation. I have always been proud to be an Indian but on that day, I was just glad that I was an Indian.

Video game weekends

As usual we were holding on to the tail-coats of a trend, never really the first to catch on! Video games were in vogue by the time we were in class 2 or thereabouts but it would take at least 2-3 years more for my group of friends to catch up with the frenzy. We had an occasional game of Mario all right but it was always second choice over GI Joe warfare or terrace cricket.

The real explosion of popularity for pitched virtual battles began with the arrival of Santosh, the 'professional' gamer from Hyderabad into our school. We were small town boys and our experience of games was limited to the first 3 worlds of Mario or the 5th level of Contra. But suddenly amongst us was a guy who had the largest possible library of those 8-bit adventure games and he had finished them all! Santosh rapidly gained demi-god status amongst us novice gamers as he taught us all the cheats and tricks that went into overcoming the seemingly invincible boss character. The weekend became the centre of our existence as hordes of us gathered around one TV screen alternately cheering and jeering as the creations of Japanese programmers ran riot on the screen. Nintendo was the magic word that opened into the most enthralling technicolored stories. 

Recent research seems to indicate that video-games promote social ineptitude but at least for our school group it was the binding glue. The afternoon spent gaming would carry on to a evening of cricket and the rare game of real football. Our lives were filled with the anticipation of getting together again for a hearty laugh at the mess-ups and a shared sense of victory when the credits for another finished video game story rolled out. It was being part of history in the making even though the game controller may not have been in your own hands. Joining in on the enthusiastic high-fives being thrown around, it was a special pleasure to claim to the sullen faced absentees from last evening's successes in school next day, "I was there!"

My roommate in 333

Third year had just begun with the luxury of single rooms and me & Malladi had gladly taken a common verandah equipped pair of rooms. We figured that this was the best way to avoid drawing attention to the obscure topics that we so enthusiastically discussed much to the chagrin of our other pals. But fate had different plans in mind and a persistently dripping roof forced me to abandon that comfy little room that I had in the corner of the hostel's C-Block, the equivalent of Tibet in our hostel's not-so-peaceful environs.

The MMCA found me a room on the top floor of B-Block, a block that was blessed with the zest that the C-Block sorely lacked and cursed with the mayhem that was inevitable when the year's most unstable elements got together in the same set of 3 floors. So off I went, bedding and all, to my new abode of room 333. I was calculating the number of unannounced parties that I'd miss out on by not being Malladi's verandah partner any longer, and ruing my decision.

When I shifted to my new room, I wasn't in the pink of health with the fickle weather causing some kind of congestion in my chest and thereby inviting my old friend asthma. My pals often wonder how I manage to stay calm in certain situations where everyone else is tearing up their hair. Truth is, it's only because I know very well how it feels when even something so natural and subconscious as taking a breath becomes an activity you need to out all your focus on. An asthma attack is the worst you can possibly feel and in comparison, every other woe in the world is just child's play.

The room was vacated just a week ago by Rishabh Kalra who probably couldn't bear the thought of being 2 staircases apart from his bosom buddies and thereby landed in the kitty of rain affected people like me. The windows were all covered by black paper, whether the handiwork of Kalra or someone before him I don't know. But it was dark and gloomy when I first entered the room, not the most welcoming room in the hostel. I am a creature of the light but I was too ill then to think about taking the dark paper off. I dropped into bed and slept right through the afternoon and the evening. 

Both the doors were latched and the light from the windows papered out so I couldn't really tell the time when I woke up. It must've been after midnight, and I decided to get myself a drink of water. But I found that I couldn't move. I have the habit of sleeping on my stomach and hard as I tried I could not budge. What was even more terrifying was the reason that I couldn't move! It was like someone or something was pressing down hard on my shoulders and was just outside the range of my eyes as I strained my neck in vain to turn around and discover the source of this force. My mouth went dry and couldn't produce anything more than a very feeble hoarse sound. I struggled for a few minutes more but all in vain. The next thing I knew it was morning again and it was a normal college day ahead. I figured it was just a bad dream and let it go by.

But on my second night in the room, the same thing happened again! The same crushing force pinned me to the bed at an odd hour of the night as I fought with all my strength to obtain the same unsuccessful result. I broke into a cold sweat and yet again it was morning when I woke up. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how I managed to go to sleep again every time. Maybe only a person like me was capable of going back to sleep even after such an incident occurred.

The hostel is so obviously not the place to discuss such paranoid stories. A couple of years ago, we had one of our year-mates undergo psychiatric treatment for such experiences and I wasn't quite ready to join his gang yet. I put these experiences down to my asthma and tried to forget about it. But a host of chilling thoughts crossed my mind. In which room did the guy who fell/jumped to his death from the hostel roof 12 years ago live? Was there some story that was not known to me?

And for the first 4-5 nights in a row, this apparition continued to recur to me with the same intensity. I tried to sleep on my back but somewhere in the night I'd turn onto my stomach and then the unknown entity would reappear making its presence felt. I was really scared by now and didn't really know who to confide to. So I decided to try something on my own. I gave up trying to turn around and find out who or what it was. The next night I felt the same force, I eased my shoulders and didn't do anything at all. The source of the force also eased up and then it was gone much quicker than before. For the first time since I had moved into the room I was able to turn myself around and saw what I expected to see. Nothing! The next couple of nights I did the same thing and the visits grew shorter. Within another 3-4 days, the presence was only fleeting and thereafter it was gone. Whatever it was, it had a feeling that I was there to overpower it and once it became aware that that was no such intention on my part, it left me in peace.

Room no.333 in Hostel No.5 was my personal fiefdom. I had personalized it to the greatest extent possible over the course of the 2 years that I stayed there. We had everything in there : great 'addas', serious discussions, emergency study meetings and all the ingredients that go into making a hostel room a 'hostel room'. And the real reason why it felt like my very own universe was that I had to share it with a rather creepy roommate for 2 weeks before it left me for good for reasons best known to itself.