Balthazar and Blimunda

Here's a story of the days gone by 

I could see the stars but not the sky

It was a sight without reason

A quarter fool is half a heathen

We were dancing on a precipice 

caressing on the half-turn

gasping at the vastness beneath

The inquisitors calling us to burn

The ground was a palimpsest of trodden tales

Put your ears up close

And you could still hear their wails

I willed my hand in through the flames

Through the rage, despair and broken shame.

Out into the world where the crowd brayed

Diminished and redundant 

Like the smell of water hyacinth 

plagiarized on the marble plinth

Like the fire in the creeks

Now selling in the streets

You, my love, are life strung nude

But stay a while in this searing darkness

I am burning desire in the shadows for you to breathe in  

Not solitary, but still in solitude

Ravenclaw - A short story

What's your house, the girl enquires. "Ravenclaw!", the boy exclaims with a touch more enthusiasm than ought to be necessary for a 29 year old. But he is relieved to hear the girl chime "me too" in unison. And so the conversation begins. The boy is now rambling on for his life's worth. Spouting whatever he thinks might grab the ears and the eyeballs. Call it his greatest hits. An ensemble of accomplishments drawn into the remarks with such subtlety so as to remove the hint of hubris in them. Little did he know that the girl could hardly understand his thick slurry speech but was still nodding along. The boy intentionally misses his block but claims otherwise. The girl suggests he may as well walk her to her apartment a few blocks away. The boy obliges with a thudding chest but a dazed face. Five blocks, a minute a block. No let's make that two minutes a block as the night is warm, the bodies tired and hearts in flutter. That leaves our protagonists with ten minutes of conversation.

Ten minutes later....

They look at each other for just a fraction. The boy murmurs a greeting. "Well, hopefully I'll see you around in the gym again". The girl smiles and nods her head. The boy turns and takes two steps before doing an about face. "What's your name again, if you don't mind me asking". The girl laughs and responds. A stillness only broken by the rustling of leaves overhead. The moment comes to pass, the boy bids goodnight and slowly begins to walk alone with his thoughts. The full-scale of the possibilities of that encounter dawns on him slowly but has scorched his thoughts by the time he reaches the corner. Now he doubles back at full pelt and looks across the glass doors to the elevators of her building. But the girl is nowhere to be seen. Unbeknownst to him, she lives on the first floor and so didn't need the said elevators. The boy doesn't quite believe in fate. In fact he is a proponent of Murphy's Law. The wave of euphoria has now crashed full-faced against the rocky shores of regret and there's nary a boat in sight.

An hour earlier...

The boy is tiredly staring at his screen. He comes here every night around the same time, sits on the exact same stool and places his belongings on exactly the same spots on the marble stall. This is the only time he can eke out from his day to prepare for his MBA applications that are due in a a couple month's time. But the day is exhausting and his mind is jaded. The girl walks in to the gym, the boy looks up and their eyes meet. He is sitting in the perfect spot for the geometrical arrangement of the sight lines to take shape. His mind registers a face from earlier but cannot quite place it in the correct chamber of familiarity. The girl scampers on and the boy starts to cackle on the keyboard with furious concentration.

2 hours later...

The boy is still dazed and staring at the ceiling overhead. The sleep comes in fits and his mind is still muddled with what had transpired earlier. Was the girl being polite and making small talk (she wasn't) or did she actually fancy him for some odd reason that he himself could not fathom (she was, and he will never understand why). An idea begins to to take shape, the eye-lids begin to get heavy, he cannot take the regret and will try to salvage the remnants of possibilities as best he can.

A day later...

An apartment complex on 81st street. A box of artisanal chocolates, an envelope (a much too verbose a note inside it which thankfully has his correct contact information) and a single blue flower rests on a table-top in the lobby. The boy checks the arrangement one last time and hurries back out with his friend who came along for some much-needed fortitude. A brown guy staking out a love interest is definitely grounds for concern. But it's much less so if he brings along a white girl as his accomplice. At least, that was his reasoning. And now the deed is done. Let the impatience and anxiety take hold in place of hope.

3 months ago...

The Cherry Blossoms are in full bloom. There's a warm, breezy sheen to the evening. The kind that beckons the summer birds to sing. The light is just about dimming on the horizon when the boy saunters into the Central Park along with his cousin's family. Sister-in-law wanted to see the blossoms so here they are taking pictures and ambling around. The trees are eyeing each other across a mulched path. But they aren't agreeable to this segregation and hence their branches reach across to form a canopy for the people underneath. The boy is clearly enchanted by the scene and preserves it as a picture on his phone. But when he trains his eyes on the screen to check out his masterpiece, he notices a yellow fleck at the end of the path. Like the sun rising up the horizon. He zooms in to find the silhouette of a girl who is now slowly ambling her way across to him. She is in a reverie and after looking at her face so is he. But the moment passes and he composes himself to look the other way. It is not his way to impolitely stare at people. Over the coming days he will be reminded of the girl every time he would come across that picture. More in wonderment and intrigue than pining. Because in his mind, they are in completely different worlds that will not ever collide. He doesn't know this yet, but much like the branches of Cherry Blossoms overhead, they are destined to meet.

Two days later...

The phone buzzes. It's a text from an unknown number. There's a picture of the arrangement that he had left yesterday in the lobby of the girl's apartment. Underneath it a single word....Hi!

Love, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits

“Her voice sotte voce, My heart sere,
Like the songbirds for fricasse,
She devoured her prey.”

Our life is one extended chase sequence. A never-ending pursuit for all things we desire, all the while looking over the shoulders to see if misery is creeping up unguarded. From my chance encounters with despair, I have come to realize it's diverse nature. It comes in myriad forms and affects people in myriad ways. There's one that seeps through your skin and drenches every sinew so that you trudge through your day as if in a trance. There's another that forms a solid lump in your throat so that you gasp for breath and forget your bearings for a short while. And then there's the needle in your chest that makes every breath you take an endeavor in existence. I suppose it might manifest itself in other ways but these have been my bedfellows in the past. Minor blots in the inking of my history.

And the diversity of it's being isn't limited to mere affectations. It extends in it's preambles too. There is no limit to the number of things that can make one sad. It is boundless. It's what keeps the therapists in jobs. There are, however, a specific set of emotions that give rise to sadness. Anger begets sadness. Anxiety begets sadness. But what hurts the most is when hope begets sadness. Hope kills. Literally. It's the one particular emotional state resulting in duality as an after-effect. Either the heights of euphoria or the depths of sadness. Each magnified in its essence by the pretext of hope. And nothing encapsulates this apparent symbiosis between hope and sadness than the pursuit of love. 

An introvert by nature, I don't quite feel the sustained need for human company to subsist. But I do crave endearment. I grew up in a kind and loving environment being constantly showered with adoration. My life to a great extent has been decided through moments of love and pain. I learned Spanish because I was in love and I embarked upon grasping French out of spite for love. Granted I mastered neither, but the feeling was what guided me to these endeavors to begin with. So to now find myself amidst a cornucopia of spurned affection has been scathing to my self-esteem.

And that is not to say that I am unable to deal with rejection. Before I landed my current job at McKinsey, to my estimate, I may have had more than 30 odd rejections at various stages of the interview process. The whiteboards at Google, Facebook, Goldman et al. have borne my scribbles at various points in history. But with those dismissals came experience and an idea as to where things went south. There is a specific knowledge base to master and expertise to be gained. But dating is a primordial beast. It changes its shape with every encounter so that you are left second guessing every single time. It's the metaphorical Old Man of The Sea. Sometimes I wonder if Homer intended the metamorphosis of Proteus as an irony instead of an epic.

The problem lies in my propensity to get ahead of myself. For rejections only hurt if you are emotionally invested. If you are put down faster than a stray dog in Singapore, consider yourself lucky. For it's that much harder to reel in the tether when the kite is high up in the sky, buffeting and breaking in cold drafts. When it comes to dating, I function in the exact opposite manner of how I handle things in other walks of my life. I don't quite hedge my bets. I go all in with every penny I can muster. And so when the LOVE ticker takes a nosedive on NYSE, I am left with empty pockets and a bruised ego. Hope has always sprung eternal in me and it's not a quality, rather a hindrance when it comes to dating. Things need no rhyme or reason to unravel. One turn of the day and you are left wondering with no sense of closure. One moment you are surfing the crest of a wave without even knowing how to swim, next moment you are slipping into the very depths. And in your elation your forgot to strap on your life vest. And you don't know how to swim. And now you are fucked. 

Being single in a place like New York is an exercise in endurance and disquiet. It's hard to connect with people. Its harder when they are distractedly gorgeous and uncompromisingly sullen. And its hardest when you have to wear your ethnicity like a disclaimer. The taffeta of your being becomes shallower and much more pragmatic. And so I have to come to a stark realization that I am horrible at dating. I certainly know how to love but I don't quite know how to date. I never shy or hide away from a situation. I am never "confused". I can convey precisely through words the depth of my feelings and I do so often; most times to my detriment. I am looking for something real -- like unicorns and centaurs and loch-ness and cupids. And I have met some amazing women too. Call it a perk of living in a global city; you meet people of all kinds, colors, auras and viewpoints. And, to be sure, I have never uttered one bad remark about any of my interactions or had so much as an untoward thought in my subconscious. Partly because in my worst moments I cling on to my dignity for support. And partly because I know that at some point in time I'll perpetrate the very same act of which now I am afflicted. Karma really is a bitch to those who believe in it. The problem, then, was that in all the accursed scenarios I led myself to be carried away. To unravel the reams of reality and bind them into my imagination so that it all became one. And when the end came, it was brutal not because it was cruel or an unordinary occurrence. But because in my haze of fervid oblivion, I hadn't quite contemplated a sudden withdrawal and it left me curled up in bed and not wanting to wake up to the sad reality. 

There's a deluge of articles on the web highlighting the frustrations with dating. This isn't one of them. I don't think modern dating has in any way turned sinister. Rather it has highlighted the quirks of human nature. The technology has provided us with auxiliary options galore that lead us to indulgence or anguish at the swipe of a finger. The resonance of pleasure and pain has never been more stark, the reversal in fortune never as quick. So the same frustrated daters may very well be guilty of committing the same ordeals that they complain about. And that list must surely include me.

In any sort of interaction or relationship, there's a metaphorical string that binds two people together. Except that one is tied to the twine while the other holds it. Your happiness or lack thereof depends on which side of the string you end up. And for the most part, you'll always end up on the wrong end because we, as humans, are predisposed to hope for better things. To achieve beyond our station. You'll, at first, float like the papier-mâché at Las Fallas and then all it would take is a singular tug to unravel your essence. This is the source of my sadness but it is constricted to the next time I fall for someone again. So due to its limiting nature and my apparent familiarity with it, I know how to cope and recover from it in a short span of time. This may not be the case with sadness of the existential kind, the fear of which fuels our desire to work hard towards fulfilling our aspirations. Personally, it is what empowers me to eke out another hour of personal study after a 12 hour work-day and wake up dark and early on weekends to maximize the productivity. Sadness for me, then, or rather the aversion towards it acts as an enabler more than an inhibitor. Sometimes I do, however, wish that I could master my limbic system to a degree that enabled me to rise above the hum-drum of my being. But since I have no desire for psychedelics, I cope with my melancholia by putting it into words so that it isn't mine anymore. And hoping that years down the line I would pore over these pages with a tinge of nostalgia. Well not hoping per se. That would be contrary to everything said so far, non?

Yearnings Of A Butterfly

Looking up at the barren blue sky,
is a golden gilded butterfly.

Astride a jeweled jasmine petal,
it sits supple but still.
Wrought wings glinting,
like lighted lamps added in frill.

On a furtive frond of the palm,
that kisses the veranda’s marble arm,
lies the drab dull butterfly.
Its gaze covetous,
legs skittish sprigs.

The feeling, magnified, is forlorn.
Thoughts, if they were indeed coherent, insatiable.
It wants what its not,
beyond what it has.

Eyes like worlds afire. 
Antennas like princely shards.
Beauty so candidly captivating,
sung across the horizon by bards.

It doesn’t quite perceive, 
for its low in cognition.
But pray that it could
and see that the beauty it seeks,
cannot sustain without upkeep.

The gold needs glimmer to laugh.
The stones need rain to weep.

You, my dear, might be drab in vision,
monochromatic markings like precise incisions.
But you are alive in thoughts and dreams.
A multitude of color bursting on winged seams.

So be grateful.
Rejoice and take flight.
Carve out your ebullient existence
in your own dull dulcet light.

Fear and loathing in New York

I lead a very comfortable existence by any yardstick. If we take the basest measure of not worrying about where and how the next meal is going to come, I am pretty high up on the richter scale. I order gourmet brunch as a takeout with nary a glance. My only predicament being should I go down the flight of steps to receive my food from the delivery boy or let him do the hard ask of climbing up the steps. I impulse bid on luxury clothing on eBay and then curse myself if I win. I used to go on really expensive first dates before I got my head out of the sand. My dad says I should worry about my future but I can’t seem to think past the next week. Which isn’t to say I am a wild child buying a million dollar Wu-Tang Clan album to show my worth. Or those unabashedly expensive bottles of champagne in the hopes of luring an eastern european beauty with golden tresses, high heels and a burning heart. On the contrary, I am quaint by every account possible. I don’t go out anymore, neither with friends nor pretty strangers. The collection of dating apps on my phone has whittled away to leave empty real estate now filled by Fika and ZocDoc. Once in a blue moon, if I get an odd message from an admirer on OkCupid I write such a debilitating and occult response so as to make sure that the initial admiration turns into distancing at a canter. I don’t quite know why I do it or what has brought about this change. I spend my friday nights painting alone. I spend Saturday mornings running alone. I spend my entire weekend alone, in a coffee shop, in a class, on a rowing machine, in a theater. And I love it. And I fear that something will change to take it all away from me.

I am fearful. I have anxieties. I cannot quite ascertain as to when they started. Probably after my cancer or when I moved to this city. Nor am I going to divulge as to exactly what I am fearful of. But my demons are real and they are always too close for comfort. Always whispering in the ear. Squeezing into every filigreed crevice of my brain. I ward them off by working a lot and then some. Keeping the mind busy and body tired seems to do the trick. But sooner or later the clouds begin to darken and the anxiety seeps back in, dampening my soul. I fixate on an issue and let it ferment in my head until it begins to grate. I analyze, hypothesize, dissect, reason, paraphrase, question the situation until the minutes pass by and I am in a vice like grip. I bide my time to wait for the bout to subside but then let something else through the door to pore over in the days to come. I am not quite certain the last time I was truly happy. In the meantime I have lost contact with the few that were close to me. To be fair, I am not sad or depressed. I am in a constant state of flux and for better or worse I have come to think of it as a good thing. That being emotionally neutral, while certainly worse than being happy, is a far better proposition than being sad. And I have begun to enjoy my own solitude for then the demons are mine alone and I don’t have to explain to anyone why I think the way I do. 

I am hoping that I can break this cycle soon enough. I go through a gamut of emotions a second. People can categorize theirs at any given time. Tense when angry, tired when depressed, animated when cheery. I can never place a finger on mine. My mind is a parched earth waiting for the first drops of rain to singe the surface. If anything, I have learned to appreciate all I have rather than grimace about all that I don’t. The realization being that as long as I have functioning limbs and all my mental faculties in place, life is never too bad. I am grateful rather than complainant, relaxed rather than nervy. While there will always be milestones to reach and disappointments to swallow, there will still be little joys to be had in everyday routine. These are the raindrops that when meticulously harvested can lead to a tumult to wash away all my despair. So I will continue to hold my hand out to the drops for now and when the clouds do sing and the rains do come, I’ll let it ensconce me in its cool embrace and cry away the night awaiting a warmer sunshine.

All the way from 86th to 14th

All the light we didn’t see,
All the words we couldn’t hear,
All the fruits we didn’t taste,
Made for a life of terrible waste.

All the gravel that wasn't tread,
All the letters that weren’t read,
All the ink that didn’t dry,
Slumped against the wall but couldn’t cry.

All the kisses that didn’t last,
All the moments that passed too fast,
All the souls that didn’t touch,
Looking at the daisies with eyes to begrudge.

Now I am past my prime,
Clutching at the stars,
Reminiscing the time.
I wish I had the keys to the door,
Step into the portal, 
Let the world shift beneath the floor.
For all I want is to see the light again,
Let it warm our hearts, melt away the pain. 

Notes: The title of the poem is a misnomer. The poem is inspired by the title of the book 'All the light we cannot see', which I am currently reading. I found the line so captivating that I wrote and extended upon it on my train-ride from 86th to 14th St. Hence, the name of the poem :) 

Help me raise money for Cancer research

Look at that baronially handsome face. No, not the one on the left. Thats way too baronial. Nor the one on the right. Way too handsome. Gaze directly into the loving, trusting eyes of one in the middle. The slit across his neck was borne of resistance against the drug cartels deep in heart of Mexicana. Well atleast that’s what I tell people. Makes for a more badass story. Truth is far simpler. It’s the product a second 6 hour surgery in the space of 2 weeks to remove malignant tumors in my thyroid and lymph nodes.  I got off easy. Think of it as a common cold amongst the different cancers that can afflict you. But a lot of people aren’t that fortunate. Specifically approximately 8 million who die of cancer related condition each year.

So as a person in remission I am trying to raise funds for the American cancer Society. I would love it if you guys can donate to the cause no matter the amount. Even a dollar would go a long way. I will match the amount raised up to $1500 . Seeing that I have 700 certified friends on Facebook and bosses with extremely deep pockets I would love to raise a considerable amount of money. Your donation supports the American Cancer Society's work to save lives and create more birthdays by helping people stay well, helping people get well, by finding cures, and by fighting back.

Know that your contributions - any amount you can give - truly make a difference in the fight against cancer. 

Click here to visit my PERSONAL page.
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The rise and rise of rhetoric

If words could kill. A sentence thats so mainstream in its existence that everyone from poets to rappers have had a shot at it. Kinda meta. Well surely meta. Only if words could kill, I did the killing by writing these words. And who would be tried for such a murder. The writer or the words themselves. Are they the weapon or the culprit. And what about copyrights. And the thoughts in head that have yet to metamorphose into words. 

Well regretfully I do not need to ponder over such questions. Because words do kill. They have been doing so for ages. In fact the worst of massacres can be attributed to mere words. Some say words are winds. Once they leave your lips its impossible to put them back in the bottle. I say they are more akin to fire. The can be contained with proper caution, but whittle away at the embers and it soon engulfs the jungle. 

History is privy to this fact. It was the words that led crusaders to the steps of Constantinople. It was the words that led to the incarceration of Jews. And it was the words that led to the partition of my country. Scores lost their lives, limbs and dignity on both sides of the draw. In each instance we were provided with extreme eloquence of speech. A voice untethered to rationale but seeped with emotion and pride and fire. Humans are easy to manipulate. All you need are mere words to drive them to do the bidding of individual in possession of the said words. For Crusades read Pope Urban II, For Nazi Germany read Hitler, For Pakistan read Jinnah.

Now tell me if words can kill.

Yet somehow the words have seen their power diminish over the years. With the advent of information age we are surrounded by words which should, in theory, render them more effective. Au contraire, while the words themselves have never experienced such largesse in numbers, their use has actually diminished. We talk before we think. We tweet before we talk. And then we stab, we wound, we pierce, we pinch, we dissect those tweets. The words have never been less controlled and more dangerous. You know the proverbial shit hits the fan when people look to Urban Dictionary for meaning rather than Oxford. Its the reason why an innocuous invite for a nightcap is construed as a thinly veiled euphemism for sex. If you are wondering, I was the inviter. Granted that in some tiny recess of my mind that idea may have cosseted itself but I would never be so blatant as to propose it outright. Killed at seduction by an online repository of colloquialism.

Reading brings me immense delight. I linger over beautiful sentences and soak in their meaning. Both literal and figurative and even some that cannot be construed but merely hypothesized. I am befuddled by the aromas, tones and textures of fine wines but composed while discussing finer points of a prose or poetry. Lately though, I have come to feel that it's not necessarily a trait worth having much less celebrating. You know that the same proverbial shit has hit an industrial-grade cooler and splattered all across your wall when you are rejected by a statuesque beauty on the grounds of being too polite and gentlemanly. And when she posits the framing of your thoughtfully composed texts to be quite unsettling. This time you shouldn't be wondering but, just in case, I was the rejectee. Killed at seduction by short-form. Shakespeare wouldn’t survive here, I tell you.

You see, we are barraged with words and visuals so hard and fast that we become immune to their affect. Gone are the days when you would sit for hours stringing together a few lines to convey. Now it's all about the hashtags. 

It's not even so much about the locution but who said it. More about presentation than content. It's the reason why extroversion has come to be looked as a favorable quality rather than a characteristic. We forego validity of an argument in favor of how it's put across. It's pitch. It's roll. It's sexiness. It's the reason why Netanyahu can roll forward rhetoric after divisive rhetoric and and win an election. It's why India is enthralled with a tea-seller turned Prime Minister that is Modi. And more dangerously, it's why someone can declare himself a Caliph and lead a religious war all over again. Imagine what Hitler would do in the present times when the reach of his words would be far greater. But then again he wasn't much of looker. You see, words are powerful. Words from a beautiful, charming, pouting face even more so. It's the paradigm of living in today's visual society. We see so many names and faces. We take selfies and consume selfies. We wish for lives we don't have and we show off lives we cannot have. And along the way we try to sway the opinion of others in whatever way we can. Whether it be 140 characters or longer.

Much like what ISIS does. Much like what every individual tries to do. The politicians, the God men, the celebrities and to an extent me by writing this. 

Journal Entry 1: An ode to Ma

I cried today. A deep, satisfying cry. The one that starts somewhere in your heart and sputters upwards forming the tears in your eyes and wets your lips. The cause : nostalgia. Its amazing how time moves and shifts our priorities. All we need is a moment of respite to let that feeling wash over us once again. 
My father had meticulously digitized and catalogued all my pictures that he could find. It was my life in technicolor. He had painstakingly filed every letter I sent from boarding school and any other relevant documents in numbered binders. Perusing it I realized how much i wanted to go back to the time. The time which would never come back. The time I spent with my parents. The time when I was truly, sincerely happy. And it made me hug my parents and cry. My dad was dumbfounded and swatted me away. He doesn’t know how to react in oversensitive cheesy situations such as this. My mom held me tight. 
I love my mom. I cant say this enough. Indian men are generally spoiled with love. Me more so than others. Not spoiled in a 'rich parent doting on the only son kind of way'. Our family is distinctly middle class. But as Vince Chase would say it,’We were rich in love’. The most unadulterated, rich, heady love. And my Mom epitomizes this most of all. She is of the nurturing kind. That’s her one overpowering quality amongst many that come to define her. It was on show then when she raised me and its on show now when she is raising my ten year old brother. She never shouts, is never irritated by childish pandering, always listening, always nurturing. 

I have always wondered about the transactional nature of love. You give some and expect something in return. It occurs in every form. The romantic lovers who exchange their love for each other. The rich sugar daddy who exchanges money for love. The pretty housewives who exchange it for some botox and sunshine in St. Barts. I do not doubt the sincerity of the love itself, but our propensity to seek it in return. You always expect a return of investment.

The only person oblivious to this fact is my Mom. I can truly say that. She loves me unconditionally and I am forever grateful for it. I get to see her usually once a year. We talk once every few days. Not much words are exchanged. Just an assurance that we are both doing well. But we do not need words. Even our silences convey a thousand thoughts. I know her voice. Every undulating modulation associated with a mood. She is always tranquil and serene. The voice of reason in the family. She is full of devotion. At night she sings hymns in her sweet voice and in the morning I wake up to devotional songs that she plays on our century old Murphy radio while she cooks breakfast. 

The byproduct of such complete faith in the Almighty is that she is never fazed in any situation. In fact, when cancer struck me it was my dad  who trembled and has been forever anxious about my health. My mom on the other hand was her calm self. She just prayed. And her serenity rubbed off on me. I knew I was alright because she said so. Every time I am in a sticky state of affairs or need a task fulfilled I ask her to pray for me and I just know that I will come out of that situation just fine. I guess that’s the power of love and belief. 
Her belief in God and my love for her.
 

Farts on a plane

I despise flying. Its one of those things that you are thankful for enabling a smaller world but then wish that teleportation couldn’t come soon enough. Not that you cannot have a pleasant experience on a flight, just that its so exorbitantly priced that its out of reach of mere mortals like me. Business and First class is for the caviar eating folks. The ones who probably have a gold finish faucets in homes. Or for those seasoned travelers who collect miles in air like I do on a treadmill. I am neither. I am the proverbial cattle class. I just take my bovine self and plant my rump on a seat and then regurgitate for 14 f***in hours. 

Nowhere is societal lines more defined than in a plane cabin. You think Louisiana was segregated during plantation times. Try the current day airplanes. They take a perverse glee in herding you through the business class so that you can see for yourself the pleasures that could’ve been yours had you paid 10 times the price of your feeble ticket. But you couldn’t could you? So now don’t stare at the pretty lady enjoying her flute of champagne in dark sunglasses and walk to your seat. Then ask the attendant for ibuprofen, some whisky and hope that somehow you’ll survive the ride.

Sometimes I trade the luxury of a quiet peaceful journey for some extra legroom. I sit in the infant row. I have come to realize there are two kinds of infants on a plane. The bad kind and…well the even worse kind. Do not be fooled by the smiling cherub faces. Upon take-off, those angels are devil incarnate. All high pitched squealing, snot and saliva colluding on skin, snatching your book or laptop or what have you for their amusement. The mother will look apologetically and you will smile ruefully. The only question in your mind is, was I like this as a baby. I am going to ask my mom when I land. 

The only good thing to come out of this trade is that you can furtively pass gas at those opportune times when the baby soils the diapers, which are quite often. You mix your noxious fumes to theirs and they get all the blame. Ha Ha. I do not have the slightest bit of shame in saying this. You really don’t want to fart on a plane even if its the silent kind. People will know. There’s nowhere for your fumes to go in that decompressed cabin but up the nostrils. The odorific tendrils creeping up along the nasal passage and binding themselves to the cilia of neurons. And voila. The brain registers the smell and expressions change. I am not a horrible person for doing this though. After all, the babies can survive the condemnation. Its expected of them. I *even* lend them a smile and a piece of chocolate. 

A token offering for the pungent services.

A realist, some housewives, a handsome phone and crap tabouli

I am quasi-yogi. Meaning I do not like to walk around with a mat in tow and cannot touch my forehead to the base of my feet and don't talk in a jovial voice or think that humankind is all peace and love and bonhomie. In fact, I believe in the opposite. That life is not a fairytale and that while everyone deserves a fair shot at happiness almost no one actually ever gets it. We just trudge through it with ideas to a better station than we currently are at. Some may better themselves in this life, others console themselves with better prospects in the next.

Yes I am also a quasi-morose. A quasi-pessimist. A realist.

I do yoga more due to a necessity brought on by a medical affliction rather than an inherent desire to find the wonders of pranayama. The thing about true yogis is that you can spot them from afar. By their mannerism and talk. They exude a calmness and speak in hushed dulcet tones. Whether it is artificial or genuine is open to interpretation. What is for certain is that yoga has become a lifestyle unto itself with its ethos of positive energy and billion dollar yoga-pants industry. Rise ye Lululemon and Atletica. I certainly don’t feel that energy without a cappuccino at the start. And lest you think this is a tirade against a popular cultural phenom, all my posts are rants against something or the other. Bear with me here. Let me state my case.

I like yoga for what it is. A sequence of controlled movements that tests your flexibility, strength and balance. It calms your mind and benefits your health. Where I find myself ill at ease is always at the beginning and the end of a class when the instructor starts to philosophize much like a pastor in a church. They talk about life and people and setting a good intention and then bestowing the said intention out to the world. All good. Better than promoting hardline propaganda. But it still seems made-up. I do not for once doubt the sincerity of my instructor for she is fabulous. Hell, she is learning Sanskrit to better understand the meaning of the asanas. I tried to learn Sanskrit and still hate myself for it. That tells you all about her devotion to her craft. 

What I wonder is if the pupils actually adhere to the principles of the practice. My class mainly comprises of UWS housewives and I wouldn’t consider them even remotely jovial. I have seen kerfuffle break out over yoga mats. I have heard snide remarks over incompetency. But most of all, I have been privy to apathy. A lady next to me once asked, nay commanded me to put my already turned off phone upside down for fear that an unsuspecting screen glow might harm her concentration. Note that the phone was off as in éteint as in apagado as in there's-no-way-in-hell-it-will-suddenly-light-up. And I know my phone's got a personality pero not that much :) There’s a whole world to look at so why fixate on my phone’s wily charms. Plus its not like she was trying to win the next nobel prize in downward dog that a little glare off my phone would make her lose her train of thought. But I obliged. Since, despite my original argument I guess I am, in fact, trying to set a good intention. And its not attributable to yoga but to a stark but loving upbringing. And a real commitment and desire to be nice to people. 

I have started blending into the world of New York. I am clad in black from top down, I eat overpriced quinoa-and-tabouli salad and I pretend to go on brunches on weekends ( I run to the closest whole foods btw, they have amazing buffet ). And I do yoga. 

But I still like to walk slow and take in my surroundings. I still try to make small-talks to strangers whenever situation permits. And I still cannot get to terms with how small my apartment is. Like paying fortune for a foxhole. I guess you have to be part of the crowd in order to stand out from it.  

Of leather whips and penis walls

I attended a party at the 'Museum of Sex' for New Year’s. As the clock stuck midnight I was eating brownies with a  gaggle of drag queens and looking at the mating habits of chimpanzees, which are disgusting btw. Gives a whole new meaning to ‘f***ing like an animal’. But, amidst all that and in a long while, I was tranquil and happy.

My night wasn’t supposed to be this way. After work I went for yoga as a fitting peaceful retreat to the upheaval that was the year gone by. But as I stepped out of the class and into the awning of my apartment, it became apparent that I couldn’t stay there. My neighbors were hosting a party. As usual failing to invite me. Now feel free to accuse me of vile, acerbic diatribe but this wasn’t just any other night. This was the entire humanity flooding the air waves and social media streams with merriment. The thumping music and laughter emanating from the walls and floorboard would’ve never let me cry myself to sleep. So I looked at all my options which weren’t very many to begin with. There, however, was this invitation from a friend whose friend’s friend’s friend happened to host a party at the Museum of Sex. It sounded so outside my comfort zone that I was intrigued.

“I pictured hedonism. I pictured debauchery.
I guess, I pictured a porn set rather than a party. ”

I arrived at the venue before my friend as she was running late. Ideally, I would’ve wanted to enter alongside her so as to not feel like a desperado looking for his slow jam at midnight. But I couldn’t wait outside in the cold with snot running down my nose and pockets running out of kleenex to wipe it off.  I drummed up some courage and entered only to find another brown guy of my ilk standing before me. Cue a sort of contorted smile from him that meant we had an understanding. I never quite knew what that understanding was but it was palpable. He even had the same getup as mine, replete with a peacoat and a scarf around the neck. I was missing his fabulous beard and he was missing my height. No guesses who came out on top there. It gave me a smug satisfaction which would be shattered later in the night when he was buying shots for a girl with ringing cries of b***jobs. Make a case for another broadside here but I guess every wishful future of the incoming year is rendered moot when set against the basest desires in the present.

But enough brooding. Soon I was inside and so hot under the collar that it made my skin burn. I then did what every lone guy at a club would do and made a beeline for the bathroom with eyes constantly on my phone. 

“A guy in a gothic garb stood ahead of me.
To whom I blurted, ‘And who, dear sir, are you supposed to be’.
Wrong choice of words you see.
He was being himself.
Young, wild and free.”

Apparently, he always liked to cover himself in furs and line his eyes with mascara.

And so here I was, in a restroom at a museum completely out of my depth and planning to bolt. Then I glanced my reflection in the mirror which painted a striking silhouette, if I may indulge myself. As someone would later point in the night, ‘I looked disgustingly handsome’. I also realized, for better or worse, that no one knew me here. So with a final flourish through my hair and a breathe deep enough to summon up the longest utterance of Om, I went out and ordered myself a litchi infused vodka. And then again. And again. One more.

Fast forward a few drinks and I was beginning to take in my surroundings. There were the tall friendly drag queens with fabulous makeup and hair. There were the girls in nothing but pasties on their chests and fur hat on their heads gyrating to the music. There were, what i took to be strippers with padded out bottoms and tattoos doing the same gyrations but on a podium. On one corner, I observed a group of older ladies who looked like at some point in their hay day, were the groupies of rockstars but had now fallen on hard times. Karma may or may not be a bitch, but age definitely is. Whatever grows must succumb. But do the leaves really have to wither and shrivel before they fall apart.

Soon the friend arrived and along with her, some innocuous looking brownies which I devoured with glee. And from here on my memory is a bit hazy, some parts may be my imagination but whats a curry without a handful of relish and what’s a story without a sprinkling of fetish.

So one moment, I was hanging off of giant stone penises jutting out of a climbing wall. And another moment, I was competing in a game of racing golden phalluses. As a victor, I had to spank the other contestants with a leather whip. Talk about whooping the ass both literally and figuratively. The Chinese tourist took the meek lashing with great trepidation while the native New Yorker next to me took it with delight. Culture clash between the Orient and the Occident has never been sexier. Then somehow I ended up on the dance floor. I am not sure what sort of movements I espoused but they, regrettably, managed to grab the attention of a black dude in drag who commended my sense of style. I, unfortunately, made the mistake of saying I love black. It was in reference to my clothing preference and not the choice of partners. But too late for that as I barely evaded his attempt for a lean-in. Still the the heady mix of flattering remarks and alcohol gave me enough confidence to ask the fur-hat girl for her number to which she obliged. Only to never return my text. Ever. 

I somehow made it back to my apartment tired but elated. 

People ring in the New Year with all sorts of hopes and aspirations. They celebrate the past and make resolutions for the future. I am not one of those people. I forget the past and my resolutions tend to materialize over the course of time. Nonetheless, I did start my year in a territory completely unfamiliar and if that’s a prelude for things to come then I will embrace them with open arms. Here’s to a 2015 filled with travels and a better bank-balance.

Of bathrooms and sonic booms

Shit. One word that has come to be so profoundly generic that it can be used in a variety of scenarios. From the proverbial shit to the literal shit. It can be found any and everywhere. In essence, its part life itself. We eat and we shit. And we trudge along repeating the same process every day. The harmony of our entire body symbolized in the process that converts what we put in our mouth to what we excrete from our bowels. And come to think of it, our digestive tract just might be the most indiscriminate equalizer on the planet. From expensive escargot and foie gras to the crumbles of starch laden bread. It all gets converted to shit. Sure it might be deposited in open farmlands of India or the golden bidet of Sultan of Brunei, but ultimately it vanishes into the earth and enriches it in parts. Our life surmised in shit.

I have a high metabolism which leads to more than one trip to the office bathroom. A place that I dread. Not because of the perfunctory smell for our nose gets accustomed to it. Much like the way eyes get routined to the darkness. Not because of the awkwardness that creeps up slowly as you stand next to your boss's boss at the urinals. There are no social etiquettes guiding this encounter. Your penis anxiety preventing the flow downstream and your eyes fidgeting for walls to focus on. Those seconds seem to elongate and stick like the wax stretched thinly on the skin. No, none of the above reasons send ripples through my spine quite like the possibility of having sonorous innards orchestrating a symphony in the adjacent stall. Its the most disingenuous of sounds. You can't quite figure it out until it takes a hold of the enclosed space. And then the Bathroom Philharmonic Orchestra begins in earnest. The woodwind to my right and the percussion to my left. And it's all too frequent an occurance that I am led to believe that I have more than one Mozart in the office. It's an unrelenting undulating sound that you have to suffer through for as long as you are in the stall.

And yet, despite all the statements to the contrary I take a perverse pleasure in this daily ritual. The sanctity of the industrial gray and white environ bringing a profound solace. The one shrine of respite from the world at large. It is in this time of seclusion that I am at my most productive. I rummage through the trending stories on guardian, look at stocks, thumb down the Instagram feed and get my daily finger flicks of Tinder all in a matter of minutes. In fact, I wrote most of this piece while sitting in the stall too; the sonic booms coaxing my soul to quiver. And now I can't feel my legs. Time to go out and face my bombastic bête noir.

5 books to read this winter

Winter. Dark, dreary, cold. Soulful, serene, pure. There are plenty of adjectives and connotations to associate with this holiday season. While the steel gray clouds have a tendency to provoke a sense of dejection; the bleak landscape appeals to the reader in me. So here are a few options to add to your reading list this winter. Since choices are a matter of perspective, don't blame me if mine differs from yours.

The Goldfinch

Pulitzer winner and every Indian child's worst fears come to life. It's written from the perspective of a boy who suddenly loses his mother and his life thereafter which lurches from bleak to the awfully dreary. The narrative can seem extremely dull and drawn out in parts. But therein lies it's beauty. The first 100 pages fill you with trepidation and the prose is Dickensian. Read it for the utter sadness and some redemption.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Another Pulitzer winner. I feel that more gloomy the book the more chance of it basking in Pulitzer glory. Its about a sad boy who leads a sad life and dies a sad death. He is ghetto and he is a nerd. And every man and his dog knows that you can either be ghetto or you can be a nerd. But not both. The world isn't kind to such species. But then again, who says that life always ends on a happy note.  Most of us don't lead a happy life and the ones who do aren't mindful enough to realize there fortunate existence. Read it for utter sadness and zero redemption.

The Art of Fielding

Ah finally a sweet book for sweet people like me. This book taught me the nuances of baseball, a sport I find utterly mundane ( I tend to frequently utter the word utterly for its utter hilarity ). Sure I had to look up on google what a shortstop was when I was turning the first few pages but I had a new appreciation for America's pastime by the time I had creases on its binding. It's about a small-town boy facing the travails of potential while playing college baseball. Although, on a second thought its not about him. There are a multitude of intertwined characters which makes the book such a pleasant read. Plus, its set in a fictional college in north-eastern Wisconsin. If that's not winter than what is. 

After Claude

Now this one provokes strong reactions. People either love it or hate it. I personally hated it. But that's probably the reason to read it. It's just a girl ranting against the world after being dumped by her handsome French boyfriend. It's the opposite of Mangez bien, riez souvent, aimez beaucoup. Read it for the passage bordering on softcore pornography that made me look hither and thither on the subway just to make sure no one could ascertain what I was reading. And for the few curious glances you will get from the fairer sex, for this has 50 Shades written all over it.

A Gate at the Stairs

I am currently reading this. And have been impressed enough to recommend it. There are plenty of witty lines to bring a chuckle. Pity that my said chuckles tend to induce stares of disdain from fellow subway passengers. Its more of hoot really. Low in intensity but high in pitch. Which makes me sound like a high-school girl going on her first prom. Cue the stares. Read it for blithe lines that seem more profound with each repeated reading.

Of the destitute and dogs

There's a homeless man who sits on the corner of 65 and Broadway with his pitbull-terrier mix. He is young with a hippy look about him and a book in hand. Sometimes Tolstoy, sometimes Virgil. Come to think of it, wouldn't Tolstoy be considered a hipster of his time. Rich man rejecting his inherited and earned wealth and growing a beard so fabulously out of sync with his drab dull garb that it would've rivaled Gandalf's. Gandalf the grey that is. Not the white one whose clothes seemed to radiate light like a humanoid tube light. Nothing remotely dull about him both figuratively and literally.

Anyway back to the destitute after that detour. I am a curious soul by nature. I look at someone and instantly conjure up stories in my head about them. Every little detail interests me for therein lies the beauty. I pass by this man-of-my-attention every day on my way to gym and my mind starts publishing a back story. How did this person came to be where he is. He is able-bodied and mind is sharp enough to breeze through Shakespearean drudgery. Could he have been a thespian fallen on hard times, or a philosopher who was born an eon too late. In Plato's time he would've been revered for his knowledge but today the only knowledge worth having is one that pays the bills. It's no longer desirable to let the mind wander over all things but to study a particular coterie of subject enough to be masterful at it. Reminds me of time in college when art historians would convene under a tree outside for class while the engineers looked out the windows forlornly. Our professor, to lift up the spirits, jovially quipped that ten years down the line the same historians would still be sitting under the tree watching birds from below, while the engineers sat in shiny offices watching the same bird from above.

I am still not sure who gets the better view or comes out on top in this arrangement. The free soul or the automated soldier. I have tried to imbibe a little bit of both. And failed to master either.

Anyway back again to the impecunious after that diversion. Or rather the poor man's dog who seems to have taken after its owner in demeanor. Always tranquil and beseeching every passerby with those round soulful eyes. If eyes could talk, this dog would be on the radio while entire nations switched to the same frequency. 

After one particularly tiring gym session, I bought some empanadas from the food truck and happened to pass by those eyes. The dog's eyes kept following me while its owner's stayed glued to the book held perpendicular to the ground. I found that an incredibly uncomfortable way to read. He also had a large placard out front, 'the dog always comes first'. Why, if I have the temerity to ask. Did he do so out of pure compassion or to cater to the emotion of the public. At no point did either sets of eyes go to the deliciousness in my hand and yet I was left plenty self-conscious. So much so that I turned on a six-pence, retraced my route and deposited my meal at the foot my silent acquaintance.

In that moment, I realized how cold it was, how hungry I was, how I was going to go back and eat a full meal, how I was going to sleep under a warm down comforter on a plush bed, how all my little inadequacies fall by the wayside when compared to situations such as these. But to my surprise, I also felt a twinge of jealousy for the bond between the dog and its owner. I did not matter why the owner put the placard. The fact that it was there for all the world to see made the bonhomie free of all societal vagaries. A bond so bright that none of mine except familial can hold a candle to it. A bond so strong that neither cold, nor penury can rupture it. A bond that seems so arduous yet effortless in its making that I have yet to create its likeness with someone in this city.

Of pink running shoes and black boots

I like pink. There. I said it out loud under the blasé anonymity that the internet provides. Why do I like it? Well, for starters my mama thinks I carry it like no other man. And being the mama’s boy that I am, how could i disagree. I do believe that some men can pull off pink quite well and I am part of that rare metrosexual breed. Not the sort that goes in for a boyzilian, mind. That kind of pain is only reserved for the bravest of souls for which I have neither the desire nor tolerance . But I do like a little dash of color. Especially in New York. Every inhabitant of this city abides by a color code and that color is black. Black oversized sweaters, black skinny pants, black boots, black everything. I quite like this ensemble on girls. But for myself I reserve a little respite of brightness in the gloom of fabric that covers mine own skin. A little pocket-square here, a trim of bright threads there. And bright pink running shoes. 

I have grown to be quite fond of them. They are an abiding protection to my feet. Taking all the brunt of my body-weight as my foot strikes the ground with a thud. The absence of reverberations a welcome realization that all the fancy faux-science bullshit that nike claimed in making the shoe has a bearing of truth to it. In that moment all is forgotten about that silent soldier in South Asia who knitted these FlyknitTM for hours on end for mere pittance. I get to enjoy the fruits for his labor for hundred times the price. And what joy it is.

Running long distance is an exercise of solitude. You step on to the blue track with a 360 degree view of the skyline. Its curves ever enticing, straight lines beguiling. I tend to get lost during these runs. Since I run on a track its easier to just let your mind wander as the moribund route repeats itself in a loop. My vivid imagination takes over and it paints pretty pictures with strokes provided by whatever tune is on my iPod. From the poetical mastery of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s afreen to the populist cacophony of Daddy Yankee’s pegalo. I treat them all as equals and build up my little idealist worlds. My legs, all the while churning like engine pistons and corroding ever so gently in the process. My heart, sinking and soaring at the same time. I run till the dull pain starts to sear through my knees. And just like that an hour of going round in circles has come to pass. While I am none the wiser in the process, my soul is a sea of calm.   

"Perfecto"

I see her through an incandescent haze

Past the cheap rum breaths,

Canoodling faces and skins ablaze.

It wasn’t the clothes she chose to wear

Nor the lustrous sheen of her hair

Its in the depth of her eyes

and something about that incongruous smile

The Master wouldn’t conceive of such a notion

To leave me aflutter with a foolish devotion

Even the winds stand askance 

You have to step closer they coax

or is it all that you want,

Not a hint of romance

Be kind for once, I retort

for she is nice to me,

the past is a clutter, future a parody

for now, perchance, just let this be

A poet is born...

The grass glistens, 

Grasshoppers bound from the sodden earth; 

Zephyr blows cool from north, 

Sniffing the pollens out of a flowers womb; 

Petals flash the vivid colors, 

Onto the morning light, 

That shines off the dew, 

Apples are ripe; 

Kitchen smoke wafts 

Through the air, 

Ever so slowly, 

Admiring nature's craft; 

Birds chirrup, insects stridulate, eyes stir in the soft glow 

And a poet is born...

Untitled I

I expected solitude

instead i stand amidst a crowd 

I wanted walls of gold 

instead at night, I shudder with cold 

I hoped a life full of adventures 

instead i pass on moribund commissions 

I craved unsurpassed glory

 instead i walk without a story 

I expected an easy ride 

instead i crawl on paths, narrow or wide 

but i still linger on 

for i know that light is just round the corner

tomorrow is another day 

and who is to say 

that it wont bend my way

Cuando era niño....parte uno!

When i was small, 
i was better than you all. 
on my cumpleanos, 
my mom bought me a gift; 
it was bourbon biscuits , 
kind that gives your tongue a lift. 
era muy feliz, coz i had it just for me, 
no one to share, no one to give, 
just the way i wanted it to be. 
step by small step, 
i descended down the tree-lined road, 
stuffing the urge,to rip open the packet, 
and eat like a guttural toad. 
i did'nt believe what popped in front of me, 
it was surely a monkey, 
dunno if it was a he or a she. 
I guess it was a he, for the monkey was big, 
squinty little eyes and smelled like a pig. 
the monkey bared his fang like teeth 
striking its paw on the ground beneath. 
when i was small, 
I wasn't really that tall. 
so I got a little scared, 
and he chuckled in delight,asking to be dared. 
I dropped my precious biscuits, 
the one that were meant to give my tongue a lift; 
now the wretched thief would show it off, 
in the whole of Dalhousie district. 
he snatched it from the groung and ran up the tree, 
now, he was sitting beside another gang of three. 
he gave each a piece and then sat on a fork, 
like telling his people, 
"bring on the champagne, pull off the cork". 
I was distraught and seeting with rage, 
why the hell are monkeys let out of their cage. 
the blasted thing was still smirking at me, 
"shoo off little one, go take a pee". 
such humiliation was hard to take, 
i wish i could catch him and turn into chopped steak. 
But no, I could not, 
because when I was small, 
I didn't have big enough balls. 
So I took the easier way out, 
and ran to my mum in fits and bouts. 
She took me in her arms and bought another pack, 
I looked up at the monkey, "take that! u little quack!". 
Hah! he couldn't say a word back, 
how could he? a monkey doesn't crack. 
I am glad i m not a monkey, 
for I would be jumping up and down trees, 
looking for leftovers, singing in the breeze. 
Instead i grew up to be a student, 
tense, shallow, tipid, 
a cog in fate's cruel instrument.