Diseased

I have been sick for a very long time. In fact since I was in class 3. Thanks to my early start in the world of myopia, I am next to blind without my glasses on but my frames feel as much a part of my body now, as say my arms. There is no existence for me without them and extreme short-sightedness is a way of life for me.

The only time it comes to feel like a handicap is when I am forced to make the occasional visit to the optometrist's clinic. Today was one such day. It doesn't really help when the doctor in charge is one of the prettiest girls I've come across in recent times. Talk about a made-for-each-other couple! Nearly blind guy meets optometrist sweetheart on a hot summer afternoon! Naturally the intoxication of beauty lasts only until she instructs me to take off my glasses. Then she is a haze, a frequently smiling and giggling haze but a haze all the same. Such is the double edged sword of this disease that it brought us together but I couldn't really see her when she was closest to me. Ah well, such is the way of the world!

Medellin

My friend from engineering school is in Colombia right now! He found a friend from Colombia in his graduate school in Ohio and now has flown straight into Medellin in his new friend's home country. Colombia of drug cartel, Valderamma and Shakira fame, very symbolic of the roguish charm and exotic nature of South America being trekked across by the same guy whom I borrowed notes from and shared a common anxiety with over what the future held for us as we crammed and mugged to become engineers in the little town of Kurukshetra. Since then we have met in Calcutta on New Year's Eve, in a nondescript town in Maryland where his car had caught fire and roamed the streets of Washington DC together with his crew. Talk about the currents of fate and they sure seem to choose strange places for us to run into each other.

Life is infinitely unpredictable. As friends who partnered in carrom, or slouched next to each other as any random action movie classic played on HBO under the exhilirating coolness of the common room coolers, was there any way in which we could've told how our lives would proceed. Or could have any of the others who'd shared the same lifestyle with us, one of intense inactivity in Kurukshetra? So much can change over just a couple of years! As my pal roams the late Pablo Escobar's sprawling fortified mansion in Medellin, now a museum to the extravagant lifestyle of the most powerful drug lord of all time, with his personal army and supposedly 7th on the Forbes list of billionaires at one point of time, he must be puzzling over the same question that often intrigues me, "This feels great but how the hell did I get here?"

Beer fueled optimism

It was the weekend before the weekend of the 15th of August. It was late on Friday evening and we had driven down from Boston to Jersey City, NJ right across the Hudson from the brilliant glowing night skyline of Manhattan. The good stuff and the coolers were in place in the gazebo at Avalon Cove where some lucky friends had an apartment overlooking the water as seven of us guys found ourselves taking in the view of the million odd building lights from the island on the other side cold beers in hand. The city that never sleeps shone crazy bright that night as if only to keep us awake and talking as Friday slipped into Saturday.

The truth must be spoken and like all conversations in a guys only gathering, the start point was definitely not out of the ordinary. A vigorous and somewhat healthy discussion on the artistic merits of "savitabhabhi.com" [Guys, it's worth the visit and girls, PLEASE DON'T GO there as it's not worthy of your type of curiosity] and of free speech ensued. Somewhere between the first beer and the second, the conversation took an abrupt turn. It's hard to remember what caused the sudden change in the frame of reference but we were plunged into a world of Gandhism, and why it'd or it'd not work; whether India's historical passivity as a nation was an indicator of its wisdom or its cowardliness; the wretchedly desperate lives that a majority of our countrymen are condemned to live; Naxals, Maoists, Sangh Parivar maniacs, Islamic extremists, corruption, inefficiencies and their cures if any: all of this came spontaneously tumbling out in fountains of passionate debate. The fires of the argument raged into the morning long after even they turned off the technicolour lights on the Empire State Building.

Exactly a week after was India's Independence Day. It's easy to laugh away all of our bluster as the usual tall talk fueled by alcohol. But I thought it was a really note-worthy fact. Here we were a bunch of young yuppies, half a world away on the banks of a foreign river in a foreign land with no apparent cause for discussing such a head intensive topic. Yet we were completely immersed in it, cocooned by a variety of our concerns and solutions which we saw as the most appropriate for a land that tied us together despite all that distance. In chai wallah stands across the country, in railway stations and bus stops, in offices and pubs, on cricket grounds and wherever else the youth of my country gather I imagine such topics being simultaneously broached. Whatever may be our limited suggestions, that we are ready to talk and invest our passions into at least thinking of a way out is a major first step. After all, we very well could have stuck to more appealing topics like Savita Bhabhi for what our time was worth. There's a buzz in the air whenever the word "India" escapes a pair of lips and there's no way to deny that fact.

Not all of us are going to go ahead and act on those brave words of ours but even if 1 in 10000 takes that next step, India's got it made. All those concerned voices booming in chorus is sure to make the earth shake and make that handful of people stand up and take notice. Naysayers, smirk away as you look on the impossible odds stacked against us, but deep inside you do know that India's time is coming!

Monday morning flew

I trust there is some major issue with my mental make-up. Of all the work-day mornings, Monday morning happens to be my favourite. It's the only morning when my shirt and trousers are ironed and my shoes are shined to a dull black (My shoes never really managed to get that reflective glint seen in Cherry Blossom ads). There is a mad hope permeating this much maligned day that it was the beginning of that week when everything was finally going to come together. I was going to complete all the tasks which I had putting off for months at work and which had now come to a critical status of "must do" because I shouldn't have shelved them away in the first place. I was going to make this week, the week of iron discipline where I'd focus on only work at work and then give vent to my creative urges too by churning out a little post everyday for my blog. After all, it was always possible to give half an hour a day for the rare thing that is precious to me in life, right? Domestic chores like the laundry, cleaning up and re-organization of my corner of the house were pesky little creatures which were going to go down during the course of this landmark week. A smile on my face blazes like Sherlock Holmes when he sees through his cases. It's a pity that this kinmanship with the superior spirit of the Great Detective is so short lived and lasts only that one glorious day of the week.

Soon it's "Things are not going to plan" Tuesday, and then it's time for "Things are definitely not going to plan" Wednesday. Before I can say "Next", "We are pretty much where we were on Monday" Thursday is here and the week is wound up by "Already worked hard enough this week, will see this off on Monday" Friday. Weekends are of course beyond the flailing arms and outstretched fingers of guilt. It's a weekly joke, a very rapid deconstruction of a myth which tends to gather force everytime another Monday approaches gradually fizzling out by the end of the week. Monday mornings are good times, when the ridiculousness of my plans and strategies is flowing underneath mountains of optimism and goodwill for all of mankind. The rest of the week is engulfed by a slow and painful process called a "reality check".

Fair play

Every sport of note is out there to reward anyone or any team who lives up to the "spirit" of the game whatever indecipherable or undefinable quantity that is. Cheating during a game euphemestically called "gamesmanship" is so popular a tool nowadays that players actually have to be rewarded for not cheating. The Cristiano Ronaldos and the Michael Clarkes of the world thrive on this "gamesmanship" or "Win by hook or by crook" philosophy of modern sport. Second place is not worth a penny these days. The "Fair Play" award is apparently for losers who haven't got enough drive to win.

This in my opinion really sucks! Sports is the only arena where one can be blindly partisan to a club or a player without needing a flimsy basis for being so. It's also the arena where the natural competitiveness of humans as a species can be expended in a positive direction and bears witness to breathtaking David versus Goliath encounters. The whole charm of the face-off would wear thin if David were on steroids or if he launched a sneak attack on the sleeping Goliath in contradiction to the rules of fair combat. Rules are what make the playing and watching of sport such an intense and involving experience. It's human nature to try to sneak past a rule or two when no one is watching but it only means that the authorities need to keep a sharper eye out for misdemeanours and definitely coaching in "gamesmanship" as is common nowadays should be a no-no. There is nothing better on earth to watch than the grit and fierce passions on a playing field but everyone should tip their hats to the rules. I mean, what's next? Roughing up a key player in the opposing team pre-match or even hiring a hitman to take out a rival team's star - if all is fair in chasing victory where do we draw the line?

Necessary evil

During the course of my current obsession with the "Mafia Wars" game on Facebook, I came to a sad realization. We need evil, no matter whatever wishes we might express of living in an utopian peace loving world. Without organized crime, or bloody wars sparked off by childish opponents how bland and colourless our stories would be. If politicians started turning honest and laws actually started applying equally to us all, where would all our inspirational tales of fighting the system and its odds be? Can you imagine how boring an honest cop movie would be if the only thing he was up against were the bad guys outside the police force? A mystery movie without murder and illicit passion in it is a thing unimaginable. For the sake of worthwhile art, evil has to linger on a little while longer. Once my time on earth is done, folks can get back to this cleansing the earth of all evil business of theirs again.

Time warp

By the standards of what they show on TV on the likes of Discovery and NGC, this ranks somewhere in the danger region of a walk in the park. 17 miles of the Saco river in Maine were canoed in an highly inefficient S-shaped path by my novice oar. We could hear the traffic buzz by on occasions that the highway got close to the water's edge. True it was a forest, but it was a largely bear free zone of Maine and hopes of seeing a moose remained exactly that: hopes. Given the hard time that the fidayeen squads of mosquitoes gave us, we didn't have any time to take stock of any more wildlife anyways.

However there is something to be appreciated about leaving your wallet behind because all your plastic is useless and junking your cell-phone inside the dashboard because there is no signal on the river. The reality was that we were within 15 minutes distance of ready help in case something went awry yet it was very much an adventure for my delicate, urbanized soft bones. The bobbing canoe demanded attention to balance not normally necessitated on my ergonomic office chair. The cool dark green waters that my tipsy transport glided through were a welcome change from the gray carpeting that runs in between the gray cubicle walls where I normally wander and conduct my daily business. Without the benefit of a wrist watch, every minute of the day in the canoe is accounted for: minutes spent in the sometimes searing sometimes soothing sun, minutes relished in the rare shadows of riverside foliage, minutes invested in fighting off mosquitoes once they discovered new victims stumbling into their shadowy domains and minutes expended in never-ending hope that we had finally reached the end point of our self inflicted physical exertions. It's a way of life, this tendency to tangle with nature which has been with us since time eternal, since the day we as a species started exploring the world beyond the domains of familiarity and comfort. Yet we have become so isolated in our cocoons that even a little slit filtering light into our protected little world is blinding and an invitation to take that first shaky step out into the big bright world waiting to be discovered. I hope I have taken mine.