Vegas, baby!!!

"Viva Las Vegas"

"Sin City!!!"

"What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas!"

Woo hoo! Do I feel the spirit of darkness swell in my soul? Unfortunately, no!

If there is one place in the USA where everyone apart from me wants to go, then it is Las Vegas. Now my cousin has finally put me up to it after insisting umpteen number of times. My brother loves Vegas and just can't stand the thought of anyone not liking it, so he has taken it upon himself to make me change my mind. So I am about to spend half a grand to go across the country and visit a place whose publicity wasn't good enough to make me want to go there.

What is Las Vegas after all? A city of dazzling lights and structures in the middle of the desert, a showcase of what is glitzy, glamourous and as smothered in excess of all kinds as can be. The major draws (I would think): gambling and strip clubs. Gambling doesn't hook me in at all (Probably because the first time I gambled in a casino near my town, I was left with 5 dollars out of my original 15. A straight out 10 dollar loss!). Winning a lottery is a sorry way of copping out of life's challenges. Imagine having all the money you'd need by a twist of fate but lose all purpose in life simultaneously. Not me! 

Coming to the much more juicier topic of strip clubs, I do not harbour the "I quietly sneaked into a strip club, but don't tell Mom!" fantasy that seems to inhabit many a dream. Being chicken about anything that I do in my life is not my game anyway, besides the fact that I feel that the "gentlemen's club" business is nothing more than glorified prostitution, except that in this case, the prostitute is much much hotter. I fully appreciate the 'freedom' that the US of A offers but this is a rather ugly expression of that freedom.

Enough said. I am sure a change of opinion about Vegas is due when I am back from there, and I am quite glad that I signed up for the trip. I am tagging along with a bunch of Vegas pros whom I have become quite chummy with over the past 7 months. The end result will definitely be fun for me, but it still remains to be of what kind!

The rock of ages

In reality, it's just another rock on the shore of the Atlantic. There is not even enough historical proof that this rock was THE ROCK that saw the beginning of the colonization of America by Europeans. It seems that it was simply pointed by a man nearing his death - supposedly some kind of psychic medium capable of communicating with the first men and women who had stepped off the "Mayflower". The neo-classical structure framing it seems to be the only thing that draws attention to it, but it is hardly worthy of the immense symbolic importance of this rock.

Plymouth Rock is supposedly the rock where the families first stepped on the land of the Americas after making the incredibly brave journey across the Atlantic. It was definitely not the most popular destination for today as we were amongst the dozen odd people who hung around this monumental piece of history braving a cold breeze from the ocean, chucking coins into the well where the rock is housed. An inscription which says 1620 (But actually engraved in 1820) doesn't add an iota of authencity to the rock, and the beer bottle disposed right next to it doesn't speak well of it's upkeep too. Come to think of it, the modern world is practically defined by what happened in the USA and what the USA did for/to the rest of the world. This was where modern history started penning down its climax - for good or for bad. For the local resident leading his grandson through the monument or the ladies walking their exotic dogs all around it, it was just another evening stroll on the waterfront. To me, it was another touchstone for a human being's insatiable curiosity, the never ending search for some place bigger and brighter. May this search never end...

Runaway train

A lot has been happening in my life lately, and at the same time a lot has not been happening too. I ace my driving road test in snowy conditions but following that my search for my 'dream' car continues to frustate me. The 'dream' for now is to get a car within my extremely limited budget which I like but every time I narrow my search to one, I find that it has 'just' been sold! This has happened so many times in the past week that it is beyond belief! I have given up trying for a couple of days to get rid of the bitter taste of frustation in my mouth, but hope to get back on the search soon. Meanwhile I have outsourced that job to my cousin who has picked it up with a vengeance. I hope he has better luck than I do!

Instead I watched Gustave the Giant Crocodile on YouTube about 3 times already. A bigger waste of time I can't imagine but it's way better than to cycle through dozens of cars, look up their maintenance histories, estimated prices and then hit the stone wall of rejection. I'd rather watch a huge crocodile in East Africa, reputed to have killed 300 people fall into a trap designed for him and then make a miraculous getaway. It's similar to the feeling you get when you see Hannibal Lecter get away in "Silence of the Lambs", except that in this case Hannibal Lecter doesn't spout psychology and then eat people. This Dr. Lecter is 25 feet long and just eats people up-front without engaging in any kind of conversation.

I also re-activated my Facebook account thanks to the stubbornness of my American friends who refuse to use anything more practical like Orkut. The interface of Facebook has to be the most unattractive display I've ever seen with that sick pale blue colour and an aesthetic look like it was designed deep in some laboratory of communist Russia. And then there is the inexplicable requirement to be friends with someone before you can browse their profiles. Hey, I don't want to be friends with someone without something to jog my memory about who they are and why they want to network with me. On the other hand, thanks to the "Are you interested?" app on my profile (Don't ask me how I signed up, it's for another day), I get a list of 5 matches daily whom I might be 'interested' in. By the logic of their software, I ought to be a good match with Pratibha from Hanumangarh never mind the thousands of miles in between. The distance is immaterial in case of true love. If Facebook profile photos is any indicator, 99% of the girls in India are beautiful and the rest are not on Facebook. Oh, Facebook now also thinks I'll take a liking to Ishita from B'lore, or Satarupa from Calcutta and XYZ from ABC (I am sure I am the ONLY guy who has all these 'interesting' girls lined up for me)... It's a whole world of beauty out there and here I am hiding away from it all. What is really hard to tell is that which fear is holding me back- the fear of failure or the fear of success.

So you see there is a lot on my mind and if I give this post a little more time, there's more to disclose. But it's time to go to work and knock this runaway train off the tracks for everyone's well being.

Mixed nuts

The full moon has to have something to do with madness because there is no other way to justify our actions. We had an invite to an American pal's house on a Saturday night party. The invite didn't give any further permissions to take our clothes off and roll about in the snow which is what we proceeded to do. Alcohol might have been one of the minor reasons but it was mostly the (hopefully temporary) upsurge of abnormality that pushed us off the edge.

We arrived in the most traditional fashion with a pack of 12 Sam Adams longnecks to our friend Mark's cabin in the woods. Located somewhere in the woods of Freetown, Massachusetts, this was how the house of a outdoors man like Mark should've been. It was old American Indian territory with snow encrusted huge trees and frozen lakes as was expected at this stage of an especially bitter Massachusetts winter. The snow of the past few months lay in piles all around.

We walked into the cozy pinewood cabin you can imagine with a stove for extra warmth, a golden glow I had only seen in houses shown in the movies, Pink Floyd themed decorations and classic rock throbbing from the army of speakers. A few beers and a couple of shots of tequila later, we were prime targets for the casual inciter. Before we understood the implications of our public announcements, we were already in only our shorts and a towel on our shoulders. There was no turning back now.

Walking out into the yard semi-naked as we were, there was a spring in our steps. Like I said, it must be the moon playng its strange tricks on the mind without which there were no grounds for excitement. We were about to soak ourselves in a hot bubble bath in the centre of the yard and then flounce about in snow at least 3-4 days old. In the yard of a little house on the back of beyond, nothing was too much; nothing seemed to faze us any longer.

So we did do the incomprehensible. We drank beers and smoked in the supreme comfort of the bubble bath and then proceeded to wiggle about in pretty tough snow. Thrice... So what's the out-take of all this apart from bruised knees and elbows? Well, for one there is the wicked sensation of pleasure and pain clubbed together quite sado-masochistic in nature. As for why? Someone once asked George Mallory, the famous mountaineer why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest. Mallory's reply was brief but complete. He said "Because it's there."

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.