That kind of a week

It's been an inauspicious week so far. On Monday morning I woke up to find my toothbrush missing. How's that for a far-from-fresh start to what is a pain-in-the-*** day anyway? The day brings along a number of new issues in office that have the potential to devastate the project I was earlier working on. I was supposed to transition out to a new project from this week but some strangling weeds of my own sowing are holding me back. Once again not the picture-perfect start to a new project that anyone would desire as uptil now I've spent most of the week firefighting the past one.

 To follow it up, I have my driving license road test scheduled for tomorrow. The minor problem being that it has snowed today, and the roads will be glassy skating rinks by tomorrow. Flunking the road test is looking like a bitter reality as of now. And to think that it'll only be Wednesday in about half an hour! I can only shudder when I try to imagine what final knock-out punches this week is concealing.

Yet there is always something special about a snow-fall that makes me forgive it all the trouble it later causes. The snow from the earlier showers nearly a week and a half had become black and ugly. With this new snow covering it all up, the purity and stark whiteness of the surroundings is back again. My colleagues and I went out for a smoking break during the snow, and watched the tiny little snow flakes tumble down even as our hands trembled outside the comforts of the coat pockets. Today's snow was particularly light and fleecy. It twinkled with a cheerful glitter as it piled up on the ground that became even more prominent under the street lights. I watched the arrival of the twisty, twirly guests through the window with a mixture of snug happiness and baseless melancholy not unlike the feeling inspired by rain. There must be someone or something up there with an incredible eye for beauty, sadness and poignancy to have created these masterpieces where every mood goes together even though their natures may be exactly opposite. 

The basement from hell

It's really creepy, this new apartment of mine and the house that it is part of. It's on the third floor, obviously built out of the attic as an afterthought. I regularly scrape my knuckles against the rough grain of the roof when I stretch up my arms to complement my yawns. There are 3 decently sized rooms which are eeriely empty as of now except for the few suitcases that me and my room mate are living out of. The only piece of furniture we had until yesterday was a sunnily coloured ironing board which would serve as the table for the laptop and my tough VIP suitcase as the chair. We have progressed to a table and four chairs from those days but the house still has plenty of room for vengeful spirits to play around in. 

A furnished home definitely doesn't feel like it wants to drive you away. However for this apartment, the impeccable contrast that the sparkling untouched interiors present with respect to the shabby exterior and approach to the house is really striking. It's as if it takes care of itself by not letting anyone stay long. My landlord tells me that his mother used to stay here and pay $600 in rent (Only possible in America where you can even bill your own mom) before she got married again and moved out with her new husband! That's so like Norman Bates in 'Psycho'. Wouldn't be surprised to find her 'well preserved' in the basement. Yeah, my idle mind is playing tricks on me again but I feel rather excited about actually living in a house which can give off this kind of a menace.

That brings to the basement of this house where we go to do our laundry. There is a lone naked light bulb which casts it sparing yellow light on you would imagine in every basement of the stereotypical American psycho. There are rows of shelves stacked with nails, potentially violent construction/maintenance machines, pipes running in mazes overhead, a dirtbike which seems curiously well maintained even now in the depths of the Massachusetts winter amongst other things: all of which share space with two scared little Whirlpool coin operated laundry machines. You need to stoop to avoid knocking your head and pray that you don't fall prey to Hannibal Lecter/Jason from "Friday the 13th"/Leatherface from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or whoever it is that hides in the darkness that lies beyond the shelves. The wispy cotton that is stuffed to form the ceiling of the basement remind me of a witches' hair in the spooky circumstances. I think I like this house. I have a feeling that it'll keep me from feeling bored... ever!

Alter ego

In the grim reality of daylight, I am the regular office worker beavering my way through the mountain of deadlines, tasks, issues and all such varieties of soul skewering activities. I have a multitude of bosses in a variety of guises to answer to for things which are really far beyond my powers. Of course, there is no way to make this point clear to them so it is standard practice to just let it be.

Come night time, and I am the emancipated creator. The unrivalled king of my domain in cyberspace free to in ramble on any random subject that infects my oscillatory mind. Little do my daytime adversaries know whom they are crossing swords against. But I do not ruminate on a gremlin atop a skyscraper neither do I enter the closet to don a flashy new uniform. I think and write about the unfamiliar yet inexplicably comforting alleys of my thoughts. In these dark streets, I am the only one who has no cause for fear.

Part Deux

9 months is always a significant number as far the human being is concerned. It's hard to bring up that period of time and not endure any snide remarks. The 9 months that I am concerned is the duration of the second chapter of my USA stint. I was in the middle of devouring steak tips at a farewell luncheon financed by a Pakistani friend when the final confirmation of this changed itinerary came. My flight on Saturday out of Boston stands cancelled and although my mind was somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean already, I must fish it back to this country. Barack Obama took his Presidential oath today and his anti-outsourcing stance seems well on the way to implementation as the guy whose job I am going to take up could not get his US Visa stamped on his Indian passport. Thus a historic day for the entire world bore significant personal importance for me too. Part Deux gives a new lease of life to potential trips headed in the direction of the Grand Canyon, Washington DC, LA, Las Vegas, Chicago, Miami and all such heavyweight names to which I could not pay attention during my first stint. The first stint of 7 months was over and my heart was set for home. But now, these 9 months have joined in like an unwanted baby. May I be a man reborn at the end of this trip. It's late at night but there is never any end to my fanciful daydreams of travel.

Only human

It was only a matter of time. I had to give in to temptation and make a mockery of another pre-conceived notion that I had about myself. An aggravating parrot when it comes to preaching "Be different, don't follow the herd" motto to anyone who wanders within my vocal range, I find myself a slave to a product which has made being alternative cool so popular that it is not 'alternative' any longer per se but painfully mainstream. I refer with much indignation to the I-Pod culture of which I (Bitter shame chokes me) have become a part.

I recently bought an I-Pod Touch on a sudden whim. I hadn't even planned on buying one because to me it represents just one more thing that is gone wrong with our yuppie generation. What's wrong, you ask? Well for one, it's a conversation killer. Sit next to an attractive girl on a flight and before you are through your breath freshening chewing gum in preparation of the potential filled time ahead, the damned earphones are out of the bag and nestled inside those pretty little ears. If cold-shouldering has had a more effective technique, I am yet to learn of it! Besides, the Pod also indicates an intolerance for everything around you, be it the sounds, the people and the flow of life that evades your music doped senses. It is an active ally of ignorance ensuring it's listeners don't know-don't care attitude can be sustained. And it is ignorance/intolerance and unhealthy contempt for other ways of life that is the cause of most of the misery in the world today (Think Al Qaeda, Maoists or Nazis).

Coming back to my recent purchase, you'd think that after all these criticisms I'd be miles away from any I-Pod whatsoever! I already owned a video I-Pod; a gift from a cousin of mine and after the initial intoxication with it's coolness, it pretty much lay ignored in my gadget tray. I was so proud of the fact that I saw it's inherent evil and stayed off it. Then I walk into an Apple store a couple of days ago with a friend and a friend's friend. This friend's friend was looking to buy an I-Pod Touch and I joined them, secretly smirking at the ordinariness of his "path-to-cool".  And darn it's coolness, I found myself buying one myself. Damn you, Steve Jobs for making a product that suckered me into possessing it knowing fully well that I was only at the tail end of the Apple sheep herd. The sleeker-than-sleek design, the ultra coolly coloured icons and the super sexy feel of the touch screen really made mincemeat of my intellectual pretensions. As penance for my faltering into "common man" territory, I shall bequeath this gadget of the Devil himself to my sister. If I am able to rise above the ordinary that is...

Homeward bound

After 7 months, an incredible adventure comes to an end. A country that has dominated popular culture for reasons good or bad has become even more familiar from first-hand experience. There are a number of untouched destinations that I'd have loved to brush upon but I'll have to save them for another time. San Francisco, with its windswept beauty is definitely at the top of the heap from my first visit to the USA. The sparking orb of energy that is New York city comes a close second. And in general, the real thrill of exploring a foreign country lies in finding out how folks are entirely different but at the same time exactly alike too. But it's time to go home.

It's time to go back to the bustling crowds and the chaos, where peace and quiet are like distant relatives known only through a family photo from 20 years ago. But all the turmoil is cut off on the outside. On the inside, my mind will be at the greatest possible peace. It's a sense of belonging that completely swamps all other ill-feeling. I guess that's why they call it home.

Monster fetish

A major landmark in the most ordinary townscape of Bharuch was Panchbatti (literally meaning 'Five lights'), an intersection where 4 different roads met at a roundabout. It was the only location in town briefly deemed busy enough to deserve traffic lights. But that misconception of popularity persisted only for a couple of months. The municipality decided quite wisely to re-instate a bored looking cop at the intersection to oversee any traffic misbehaviour at the roundabout leaving the signals unattended and unwanted. Right next to Panchbatti stood our favourite haunt from our school days, the cinema hall Relief.

Class-mates from all sides of the town would find this to be the most convenient of meeting locations and besides this was the cheapest of the lot in our town's cinema halls. Right opposite stood "Basant", the shady, run-down theatre which ran B-movies with their usual  innuendo filled names and provocative posters. Each of the titles were a hot topic of discussion and amusement amongst us friends. But finding out the title was where our courage ran out. None of us actually dared to cross the road and investigate the story for ourselves. We were content to be on this side of the road at Relief Talkies where 'our' kind of movies played.

Relief was earmarked for all the Hollywood movies that ever came to Bharuch. All the most bloodthirsty creatures and action heroes to have come out of any studio in LA made a stop-over at this corner of small town Gujarat. And keeping in mind their clientele at this halt, they all spoke chaste Hindi! It was an experience that was extremely sidesplitting and aggravating at the same time for us the convent educated lot who supposedly had a better grip on the Queen's language than most of our fellow cinema-goers. It was inevitably entertaining in one way or the other. If you haven't seen Samuel L. Jackson deliver a rousing speech in Hindi and then promptly be bitten in half by a super-intelligent shark, you've really missed something. 

All through our school years, starting from early adolescence, this cinema hall would be central in our planning. Parked motorcycles would be our conference rooms as we would plan out the rest of the evening, debating whether it would end in front of the milk shake stall at the railway station or on the grass of GNFC colony lawns after a short burst of cricketing activity. The conversation would taper away whenever an attractive girl swept by to pick up flow again only when she was out of sight. Then it'd be time for the show to begin and for us to enter the dark confines of the hall. It'd be time for an entry into the world of rampaging dinosaurs, lovesick giant gorillas and nubile blondes brought to life by our voluntary suspension of reality.