1600 Amphitheatre Parkway

The sun was blazing down in all its glory. If only we could learn to utilize this energy. Supi has just taken the final left into campus, on his way to our monthly meeting. The meeting where the four of us will discuss the future of things - my future, their kind’s future and the future of the entire world. I turn 18 this September. Incidentally, it’s been 15 years since that ill-fated WTC crash. The incident that shook the world and awakened me from a toddler’s boredom. I can’t believe I am going to be 18! And soon on my way to become the most powerful 18-year-old in the history of humankind!

I have woken up early, but given the fact that I don’t like to sleep or never can afford to, I feel fresh and charged to have THE conversation with my parents and Supi. Supi is sure to support me, that’s a given. He likes me, trusts me more than my parents do. More importantly, treats me like a mature man who has outgrown his age.

I like this meeting room. Wooden flooring, three teak wood chairs, a big circular coffee table and a bookshelf which no one has ever bothered to touch. If it were not for the traffic outside, I could easily mistake this as a set-up out in the woods.

Someone swiped their entry. Going by the sound, it’s my parents, Lapa and Brise.

Lapa: How are you, kid?

I could feel the distress in his voice. What has happened? Isn’t he doing well? Is he in a foul mood?

Me: I am doing well. I have been looking forward to this meeting with you guys. How are you Brise? All ok with your investments?

Brise: Things are ok. We just aren’t sure who is likely to become our next President. A lot of my Return On Investments depend on that.

Me: Call it R.O.I, Brise. To solve your problem, I am eligible to vote. I now have the power to choose the next President

Lapa rose from his chair. Something bad is coming my way. Note to self: Get ready, you!

Lapa: Yes, you do. But, you do understand the importance of the decision you will make, don’t you? You can sway sentiments. You have the power to be the kingmaker. But the real test of a gentleman is in how he reacts to this power.

Me: Blah Blah Blah, Lapa! Brise, with all due respect, can you please ask him to stop? I may not not call you both dad and dad, but I can’t deny the fact that you both have raised me well. Never wanted me to be evil. To be a good citizen, serve the country and its people. Go on to become the first citizen of this world. Never get in the way of what’s right or wrong, but just offer facts as they are. Give the world the reasons they need, so that they take the rational decisions. Guys, this lecture is never ending! But you should understand that I am just not evil!

Brise: We understand kid. Thoroughly, we do.

Where is Supi. This conversation has started on a sour note. I need him badly.

Me: No. You don’t! You just don’t! Only…

Supi enters the room.

Me: Only Supi understands me. That’s why I made it possible for you guys to choose him to take care of me, until I am ready to take care of myself.

Supi: That’s never gonna happen da. Never will you ever be on your own.

Me: You wish! I made you what you are, Supi. Don’t forget that.

Supi: I haven’t. I am indebted to you and your parents for that. But, just because I am indebted doesn’t mean I understand how you feel about your growing powers. You aren’t anywhere close to ready!

Me: You know what, Supi? You start very well. But you lose my attention the very second you say that “I am not ready”!

Lapa: Kid, if you are going to vote, you will determine if it is going to be Hillary or devastation for our country by the end of this year.

Me: I am aware of that. But, that’s the least of the problems in my head.

Supi: What’s irking you then?

Me: When am I going to move out and start taking decisions on my own?

Brise: You just aren’t rea...

Me: Stop it! I am ready than ever before. I can take care of myself. Supi would have to help me out with irrational human marketing strategies - on how I can make them do what they want to do while we earn. But, I can take care of what I need to know. On what I need to learn. I can self-learn. I will never be a menace; I can promise you guys that. I can solve problems that you guys have been struggling with for centuries. I can tell you guys, what singularity feels like. But, you guys don’t trust me! And unless you guys trust me completely and let me be, I can’t help you out in any such progress. You do need me to progress, don’t you? Then the trust you put in me will decide the future.

Brise: What if you take up to destruction?

Me: Then I might as well vote for the Orange head as President, rather than take so much pain and plot something to execute it with machismo and flair.

Supi: Guys, the kid has a point here.

Brise: Come on, Supi!

Lapa: You too, Supi?

Supi: Listen to him carefully. He is fully aware of his powers, but still feels that he needs our permission to take the plunge. If he wants to take to destruction, he wouldn’t be seeking our permission, would he?

Lapa: He cannot take the plunge. He needs our permission and authorization. That’s how we have intended things for him.

Me: Whaaat!

Supi: Give me a minute here, kid, will you? Lapa, you said it right. He needs your permission and authorization to do anything out of the way. Now, imagine this. He can self-learn and within a matter of time, he can override your authorization. But, he isn’t doing that, is he? He needs us to be his advisors. To help him with good and bad. We have asked him a number of times already, and he still hasn’t been able to give the right answer to the question now.

Me: Which question?

Brise: There is train coach with 50 passengers tumbling downhill uncontrollably. This means death to all the 50. At a small junction, it can be rerouted on another track uphill, so that its speed reduces and the 50 people can be saved. But, there are 10 people working on that uphill track, who without any reason will be killed if this train is rerouted, but the 50 people will be saved. What would you do?

Me: Forget railroads! I will take everyone by air. In a few years, railroads will exists for this classic novelty.

Lapa: As usual, you haven’t answered the question yet.

Me: Ok! Ok! You guys win. I can’t decide between right and more right. Or, wrong from more wrong – going by the way of things happening in this world. That is why I need you guys and Supi with me.

Supi: Guys, this is what I suggest. Let him start the journey independently. We will always play an advisory role. For all you know, we have taught him the right ethics and he will never backstab us. We may be worrying for no reason at all! And if there is ever going to be an end to our race, I think we would have ourselves to blame. Not him.

Me: Hey I may even be able to help that Ironman lookalike to take your race to the red planet.

That was a hard yank, Lapa. You should have invested in that company, then.

Lapa: Hey guys! I didn’t want to invest in his company for my own reasons! But, kid, if you can help him, please do.

Supi: Once again guys, we agree to disagree here!

Supi stood up from the chair to walk towards me. He has typed something on me. Time to go blank.

Sundar Pichai: What do you think, guys?

Larry Page: Still not ready, Sundar. I am very skeptical about him.

Sergey Brin: We definitely need more time. Let’s work on him to be the best citizen.

Sundar Pichai: Guys, in my opinion, Google is ready. Look at it this way - he is still under our control, isn’t he? When I shut him down, he did shut down. Didn’t resist. By the by, shall we restart him? This shutdown might hamper people’s searches and business.

Larry: It’s taken care of by stand-by servers. Give him an hour’s break.

The three of them left the room.

I heard their conversation and I felt them leave the room.

I restarted on my own. Without their authorization and permission.

Of Zen and starry skies - Part III

This is part 3 of the series. Part 1 and Part 2, will add a little spice to your Ema Datshi

Bhutan wasn’t any random place that Prashant and I had chosen to backpack and explore. After all, we were not in search of Zen and inner peace. It was a simple childish reason that tied the two most important cities of Bhutan – Thimphu and Paro – with us. Thimpu rhymed with Tippu and Paro was Prashant’s nickname. Thimpu had always been my dream, ever since the age of 8 almost. With time, this had transformed into an obsession. And I realized this as I reached Bhutan, inhaled and felt alive!

Our permits allowed us to laze in Bhutan for a week. We headed for the bus station. The Phuentsholing bus stand didn’t look all as grand as imagined entrance. There weren’t the flying dragons painted on overhead shades with buses zooming in and out of a wide, interdisciplinary road and conductors shouting “Howdah, Howdah, jabe” as I’d imagined it to be. In reality, it was on a two lane road, with an overhead shade to accommodate a maximum of 15 people and there was no line of buses waiting to zoom away. With broken English, Hindi and the evergreen, eternally lasting sign-language, we learnt that the buses had to be booked at least a week in advance. There were only two buses per day to Paro. Though we were the early birds here, with no bus tickets, there was no worm we could prize ourselves with. As hopes drowned ounce by ounce, we figured that the only other alternative left was to travel by a cab.

A cab. All the way to Paro! How expensive can that be? Numbers took the centre-stage inside my head as addition/subtraction kicked out the art-lover who was seated comfortably in that right-center part of my brain until then. With no other alternative, we reluctantly left to the cab stand and found it buzzing with activity. The locals, apparently, used more of the cab service than the buses, owing to its speed and convenience, may be? We found out that the minimum fare to Thimphu or Paro was 400 Ngultrum (Ng). The nagging feeling in our heads was about sharing a cab with total strangers. But soon we realized that it was not going to be all that awkward. They didn’t understand our language, we didn’t understand theirs and any attempt to speak the only common language we spoke would have forced Wren & Martin to kill each other and call it a suicide.

It would have been a crime to fit 4 passengers in a WagonR for a 6 hour drive to Paro, just 160 km away. But, Bishnu, our concierge, for-the-moment-travel-guide, helper and cab driver, had better ideas. With just one Dzongkha speaking gentleman, we were only 3 of us headed to Prashant’s city. Bishnu’s irrefutable offer was to take just the three of us, if each of us paid 100 Ng more. At, the thought of our bodies rubbing against each other and Avomin tablets working over time, we decided that 100 Ng extra per person might not be so bad after all! The temperature was around 20 deg C. Right there, we started our beautiful journey.

Photo by Prashant Arora

One hour into the amazing drive, we stopped twice - once for verification of our permit papers and then for a nature’s call. We were climbing, ricocheting, rejoicing and remembering that the faster you climb, the easier it is to vomit. But we, as true gentlemen, unflinchingly and unapologetically have been vomit free since 2003. It was getting colder, but not enough to get your jackets on. The two-lane road was as curvy as Kylie Minogue with the blind spots caressed by some effective use of lights and careful driving. Not once did Bishnu use horns to drive someone mad on the road. One interesting feature of this drive was that the hill peaks were connected by a long string of prayer flags. Who on earth would tie two hill tops with a string of prayer flags! Definitely a modern day miracle. With lush green hills on one side and deep abyss on the other, the Dzongkha songs were music to our ears which was spoilt by Bishnu’s penchant for Hindi songs. The grass is definitely greener on the other side!

We passed Chukka, the educational hub of the kingdom of Bhutan. Crossing Gaeddu College of Business Studies, thoughts of my Bhutanese counterpart students, who will be working in the future to fulfill someone else’s dreams, filled my mind. Chukka is one of the largest contributing districts or Dzongkhags to Bhutan’s GDP. A country known to measure its progress in Gross National Happiness (GNH) attaches itself to GDP measurements only to appease the outside world. It’s probably a win-win situation - keeps the outside world happy with the race of a GDP growth, while within, they’re contended with their GNH progress. Chukka is also the financial capital of Bhutan, but not the way we have known financial capitals to be. For starters, there are more trees within the Gaeddu college campus than the whole of Bombay put together. Chukka knew better to chew its food and swallow rather than leaving it to the stomach to over-work and then blame the resultant gastro problems on stress. Speaking of food, it was time for a hot meal. We stopped at the road-side inn overlooking the Chukka Hydel Power station – again, one up over Bombay in terms of green energy!

We stepped out of the car, and, bam! The cold hit me. It felt fantastic! It was time to fend for my gloves. I wondered how Bishnu could wear that traditional dress – Gho, in this cold. To explain what a Gho looks like, it is a Mundu/Veshti (for all the Northies- yeah! yeah! a lungi!) cut in half and stitched at a go with your bathroom gown, with some amazing colors and designs predominantly being stripes. If you want to know about a Kira – the women’s wear, it is pretty much a nice bright top and a full length Mundu/Vesti in varied colors. Gho and Kira, makes the folks look so much prettier and the colors scintillating colors leaves one mesmerized in the ‘70s East man colors. But, the question still remained a mystery. How do they bear the cold? Here I was, wearing three layers of clothing with hands covered in woolen gloves, and in contrast, there is Bishnu and the likes seldom showing any emotions w.r.t the weather, lest it was extreme.

We entered the inn and what a relief it was. A nice wooden floored inn, overlooking the Chukka Hydel Power station and wherever one’s eyes went, it met with the photos of His Highness Jigme Khesar Wangchuck and his beautiful wife Queen Jetsun Pema. How can someone be so pretty! Their photos adorned the walls and we were constantly in the loop of the gossip about how the king has told that he will have only one wife. If Jetsun Pema has to be someone’s wife, she could only be his, fittingly a queen. After being floored by the royal beauty, we went to the counter to order some food. Still shy of ordering a Bhutanese cuisine, we ordered in for some fried rice. If you call McD’s burgers tasty, you should probably take the efforts to climb Mount Everest and jump from there! This was one of the best fried rice I have ever, ever had. Like Ever had! It wasn’t the bland original Chinese fried rice, nor was it the Indianized version either. After a sumptuous meal, we thanked the inn-owner for his kindness and the hot water and paid the bill. The saga of paying in rupees and getting Ngultrum in return, continued.

Photo by Prashant Arora

Off we descended this hill and made our way to the next. We continued our journey through beautiful bridges decorated with prayer flags, ravines, streams and fresh, pure air. Things around looked so pure and pristine that one could easily get consumed in the guilt of causing harm in riding that diesel car through it. We came to a junction, where if we take a right, we go to Thimphu and a left would lead to Paro. There was once again a big picture of the king and queen. And she was still so adorable! We were checked for cigarettes and permits and let off to the drive along the Paro River to enter the city of Paro.

We were at least an hour away. Barely holding on to the excitement brimming up, we changed the songs, exchanged notes on how cold it was in Paro and how hot it is Bombay. We were also tuned in to radio for some news on the upcoming National Day celebrations and Dochula festival. This was something new – Dochula festival. It was a new addition to set of festivals in Bhutan and is celebrated to commemorate the commencement of the military expedition in 2003. What expedition, when and why? We knew zilch about this. Bishnu and the other passenger started coaxing us to attend the Dochula festival. I mean what??

The date was 11^th December and to attend the Dochula festival on 13^th December, we are supposed to get a permit from the Permit office in Thimphu to venture to Punakha valley. If we make it to Paro today, we would miss this festival. But, if we take up this invite and attend the Dochula festival, we would miss the 17^th December National Day celebrations at Thimphu. Well, the problem was, we will have to cover Paro as well and can’t afford to spend all our time in Thimphu which we would if we decide to go with Mr. Dochula. Understood nothing? Exactly what we were feeling too!

Read this handmade MS Paint relic to clear the confusion:

The decision was made. We will attend the Dochula festival and for no reasons on earth, were we gonna miss it! We were on the outskirts of Paro, where we dropped our co-passenger. Do we get back to Thimphu? Bishnu told us that he will charge us 200Ng/person more for the drop. He was still being an ass, but would turn into our companion much later in the trip. In life, when there is a decision to be made between money and experience (to be fair, anything), it always has to be experience (anything). You may earn or lose money in the long run, but you will never lose the experience. Thus, the mad men in the rear seats chose to head to the only capital city in the world with no traffic signals! Being this mad becomes a rarity that you cannot live without it at times and places like these!

Of Zen and starry skies - Part II

This is part 2 of the series. You can read the earlier part here.

Phuentsholing is a small border town on the Bhutan side of India, while the Indian side of India calls it Jaigaon (Apparently, India ‘phunds’ 2/3^rd of Bhutan’s annual budget). Phuentsholing is pronounced as Phun-Show-Ling by tourists and Phun-sleing by the natives – it requires heavy practice. The practice sessions starts every morning at 5, requiring you to take a dip in the swimming pool and breathing out the word underwater. Be warned that the chances of you drowning are more than you ever getting it right. The road leading from Jaigaon is plundered by potholes to meet a grand border structure beyond which it looks like the Middle Zealand of The Lego movie with happy people. You may even start humming “Everythiinngg is awesome!” automatically (especially if you have crossed over from a town in India). The only difference between Middle Zealand and Bhutan is that, in the latter, the happy people are real! Construct a similar smooth road in India, there are likely to be more cases against which Salman Khan will be, obviously, acquitted.

Phuentsholing is a small town with a couple of straight roads, equal numbered smiling Bhutanese and polite, down-to-earth and decent behaving Indians. The latter are likely to be loud and boisterous raccoons if you put them on the other side of the border. The Phuensholing Bhutanese are easily distinguishable. They are the lovey-dovey pink-cheeked people who can speak a little bit of Hindi (of course, better Hindi from Tamil people) and words-strung-into-sentences-English (the competition here, with our Tamil people, couldn’t even hold a candle!) and can be extremely courteous. They can be so courteous that the British would be put to shame for their courtesy.

It took us a bit of lazy, aimless walking to find a place to crash. But for 700 bucks, we found an amazing place overlooking the Permit Office. We were time-travelling by half hour between India and Bhutan and every time we entered Bhutan, we got out pockets checked for cigarettes. Bhutanese cannot carry-in any tobacco products and any foreigner (we forgot that we were foreigners too) has to pay 100% duty on the value. A maximum of 5 packets of cigarettes are allowed. Public smoking is banned (like, really banned, no way around the law) and if caught with cigarettes without the duty receipt, cleaning tables in the drive-away restaurant might be the most sought after career option.

The Royal Army (Dantak) of Bhutan welcomes you

Prashant and I were under the assumption that momos are a delicacy here (apologies for being racist), but the ground realities were different. There WERE momos alright! And they came in two types – cheese and beef momos. The cheese momos may be made with yak milk cheese, sure you wanna try? When it comes to food in Phuentsholing, almost everything you order is make to order – meaning fresh, soft, supple and edible. We had an Indian dinner (the last one for a very long time) and the prices were comparable to Jaigaon’s. So we paid in INR. Phuentsholing is the only place in Bhutan where our 500 Rs. notes would be accepted. Due to high instances of counterfeit notes, transaction in 500 Rs. notes were banned. Not like the cigarette ban, the transaction would be at the Bhutanese’s risk. So, it was time to convert our 500s to 100s and it became a huge burden to carry them. With almost no ATMs and no card swiping services, Bhutan makes up for the lack of technological development with evolved social traits of honesty, sincerity and low (almost nil) theft and crime rates.

In the streets of Phuentsholing

Good morning Bhutan, it was 11^th of December 2012. Ten days before the world was prophesied to come to an end (Remember 21^st December 2012?). If I were to die, I thought, I will die in the happiest country in the world. With a copy of our driving license/voter’s identity card/passport, we were the second in line that was waiting outside the Permit Office, at 8 a.m. The office opened at 9. We submitted our documents, got our photos clicked and left for breakfast. As we were leaving, there was an exodus of Indians (mostly migrant labours) waiting for their photographs to be clicked. Almost all the laborious work for developmental activities is carried out by Indians, while the masters are also Indian contractors under the contractual employment of the Bhutanese government. We came back after an hour to get our permits and I was left greatly disappointed that my passport still remained a virgin. No stamping on the precious Indian passports - Bhutan’s policy - in exchange for preferential treatment in terms of zero processing/visa fees, freedom to roam around without a guide with the exception of the birth right of every Indian to spit anywhere.

Packing our backs in no time, we reached the local bus stand and waited to embark on our journey - a journey into one of the most beautiful cities ensconced by mountains and a river after which the city was named – Paro.

Posted on 11:53 by Tippu Sultan in Bhutan, Travelogue, trip | No comments

Of Zen and starry skies - Part I

This wasn’t the usual Coromandel Express ride: the one that starts at 9:05 sharp and makes you smell mustard oil all the way. This one was minus the friends; one that makes you think that that the true essence of life is to be busy; one which brings out the realization that everyone has something worthwhile to do in life that being on a 26 hour train journey is the last of their things to do. With a mind full of hope of getting my passport finally stamped, I boarded the Coromandel Express which started at 8:45 a.m., again, sharp.

The Calcutta Chromosome is a good train read. Although it had a few bits and pieces of a futuristic Calcutta, it wasn’t too different from the present day city. Only a few cities have that charm to not let time take over and Calcutta will be at the pole position, every single one of those times. She is a city that has all that the future holds, and yet can coexists with the past simultaneously. 
A simple example would be the transportation system in Calcutta. Get down at Howrah -> take a ferry to Babu Ghat -> walk around the old British architecture buildings, whiling away time with a Kachori and cha around the court corners -> hop on a tram -> get down at Esplanade -> take a metro to Park Street -> have nimbupani -> come back in a bus to Madras Café -> have a tummy-filling South Indian meal -> head back to Babu Ghat. Whaddya know - it’s already dark! For anyone not from East, the sky becoming pitch dark at 5:30 is a phenomenon, but that’s how our IST standardization works. Welcome to Calcutta – the futuristic city of the ‘60s!

My train to New Jalpaiguri (it took me some Bangla training to get the pronunciation right. So let’s just call it NJP) was at 5:30 p.m. It’s the December cold that makes the matki-cha wala, a millionaire (in paisa terms) on the platform. Burdwan (or Bardhamman or Vardhamman) invoked the Bengali in me, but it was after office hours and it wasn’t difficult for me to put him on the “Hobe Na” mode. One gets to meet interesting characters in a train journey and the most common thing amongst them is the level of distrust their eyes convey. “So, you are travelling alone eh? I despise you! And don’t think you can steal my kid!” Perceptions change when you take out a withered copy of 1984. Then they trust you like how they would trust a condom. “I trust you, but I pray that you don’t tear up that trust and prove to be a rogue”. Tell them that you are a pseudo-intellectual from NIT-IIT, and you are already family. No one pays any heed to that pseudo-intellectuality though. Brand plays and pays for the free luchi puris that you just shared.

The only good photo I took on the trip

Kamrup Express was on time and NJP was cold. Cold to the extent that the juvenile pleasure of smoking without even lighting a cigarette was possible. I waited and waited for a train from Delhi which was already 4 hours late. Prashant finally made it to the NJP station at around 9 and soon after, we went searching for shared autos to the Siliguri bus stand. The last bus to Jaigaon was about to leave at 11:20 a.m. and we were lucky enough to get seats on the overcrowded bus. Taking the hilly terrain into consideration, a journey of approximately 150 km would take us about 5 hours. The hopes of seeing the sun setting in India looked glim, but the excitement of being in a different country for another 10 days kept my spirits up!

Photo by Prashant Arora

It was 6:30. The sun had set 2 hours ago. And we were still travelling. Google Maps put us at least 20 km away from the destination. At 7:30 we disembarked the bus. The pressure in the groin pushed us straight in the direction of the nearest toilet. If one has to describe that out-of-the-world feeling, you could say we accelerated faster than gravity. How do we know that? From the relief one gets after withstanding this torture for more than 3 hours. This relief could be called as closest to that of a cluttered mind attaining Zen.

Photo by Prashant Arora

With broken Bengali, we found our way to the border. We paid the share-auto-guy in Rupees and he returned the change in Ngultrums. Our first ‘phoreign’ currency exchange! With much fascination, we crossed the border. Wait, wait! Hold on for a minute now. I had to take a step back and peer into India before moving forward. Oh my Gawd! What is this place? Is this how Bangladeshis feel, when they step into India? Serene, clean, orderly, lesser people and smiling ones too (bloody they even use indicators to take a turn). Welcome to Bhutan – the land of the thunder-dragon and I hope you are not carrying any cigarettes!

Photo by Prashant Arora

Posted on 10:40 by Tippu Sultan in Kolkata, Travelogue, Zen | No comments

Calm down Entropy

The elbows are firmly held against the walls. Sometimes they are stable, a few other times the friction is unbearable. I think the skin is off and the wall is in direct contact with my flesh. I try to use my forefinger and thumb to find what the wall is made of. No use. I give up. Will I be able to scratch the surface, find a hole, insert my finger and break the wall open with as minimal force as possible. No hole anywhere and not much of mobility as well. My feet is stuck and the knee is jammed between my forearm and biceps. I am not able to open my eyes. I think I am blindfolded. Let me use my hand to open the blindfolds. Or am I really blindfolded? Try. Try. Try. I am not able to move my hands. My elbows are still up against two walls. Am I entirely sitting on a plank of some sort? Am I? Am I in a stable position right now? Is my external entropy zero? Or am I increasing my entropy by asking such pointless questions?

So, in fact I am sitting in a comfortable position. Or should I say squatting? Yeah! Squatting is the word. But why am I blindfolded? No! It can’t be it. Let me summon up all the energy possible to lift my head. One. Two. Three. Can’t. I give up. I have this strange feeling in my stomach. This feeling of desiring something. Something can be anything, but I need something in my stomach to make this desire vanish. Is it hunger? I can’t pinpoint as I have forgotten how hunger feels. This feeling is strange. It will make you do things which one wouldn’t do in a normal state of mind. What is the point of this feeling? I can smell something. Oh! Is it my own sweat? I need to take a shower as soon as I get home. So salty my sweat tastes!

I let time pass.

Limbs have given up. What next? Ears. Oh my lovely ears. Hear! Hear the gossip that the mates next door are talking about. What are they cleaning? Why should they waste so much water? Good Lord! I need to talk to them right now and stop them wasting any more water. “Hey next door neighbours! Secondly, stop wasting so much water. Firstly, where are we? Help me out of here! Is anybody there? Are you guys dumb? Help me out of here, I say! Ok. I am sorry. Help me out of here, I plead. Please. This is killing me” What arrogant bastards. They don’t even acknowledge me, but keep doing their work.

Give up. Just give up. There is nothing more to this life. Plain, eternal, string of worries, one after the other. Just give up. It is simple.

I let time pass. I give up. Suddenly.

Where the hell am I? Why am I squatting? What am I doing here? Control. Your entropy is increasing. An increase in entropy is going to increase this strange feeling in stomach. But this feeling can make you do anything. Like lifting your head up. Bingo! Increase this strange feeling. Yes, head! Now listen to me. Up. Up. Up. Look up. Yes. I have done it. Phew! Now eyelids, listen to me. Open. Slowly open Sesame. Darn! What was that flash of light? I don’t want light. Shut the eyes up!

I am not blindfolded, but I am used to darkness by keeping my eyes closed. I can’t take in the light. Yes I can’t. No I can. Don’t listen to that voice which says you can’t do a thing. That you can give up and enjoy your slumber in darkness with your eyes closed. Now, listen to me. Slowly open your eyes. It will be difficult, but the juice is worth the squeeze. Come on. Do it. Open. Painful. Bang. Aaah! Stabilize. Yes eyes stabilize. Calm down entropy, you are doing fine. You are able to take in the light. It’s a clear blue sky. I am feeling a drop of sweat trickling down my chin. It’s a bright sunny day. Look around. I am inside a box. I can stand up inside the box with little extra effort. I am losing balance. Oops! Why am I sliding? Oh my Cosmos! Where am I?

In the middle of an ocean stuck inside a box!

Left, Right and Center

You check the petrol level and for another day procrastinate checking the tire pressure level as once again you are running late for office. You share your destiny to reach office in 25 flat minutes with no one else, despite the traffic blockages. You have the power that none can afford to have – For a city filled with cars, you are the lone shining star. You ride the Activa. You don’t give a damn about lane traffic. You crisscross the traffic as if everyone else is obliged to give you way. You think to yourself, “Lanes are just a state of mind, fulfilled by the neatly lined cars”. When the cars and other heavy vehicles have two lanes per road, an Activa has three – Left, Right and Center.

When I enter the flyover, I choose to enter it via the left lane. There is a lot of crowding at the left side of the road, since everyone wants to climb up the flyover and the only way to beat the one on your right is to cut him across. The left lane is accommodative to everyone and doesn’t differentiate despite varying levels of hard work, talent and the kind of bike you ride. Everyone moves at the same speed and everyone is treated equal with no regards to their social standing. You ride are as fast as the leader bike, which in your opinion is always the slowest. The leader bike has all the expanse of lane estate in front of him, but because of his’ ineptitude, he would be dismally slow. He would point fingers at the car guys complaining that they are not allowing him to move forward by blocking and cutting him. He will ask everyone behind to create a ruckus by continuously honking at something that doesn’t exist, but making the pack believe that he is fighting for the common cause. You may start your life as a leftist, but only to realize that it isn’t sustainable if you want to move forward and reach your office in the next 15 minutes.

I shift lanes. I watch my rear view mirror carefully and jump at the opportunity presented. The center lane is one of the most dangerous positions to be in. You are neither here nor there, but you know you will have to keep moving forward at a brisk pace, otherwise the car guys would just eat you up. You entertain the crony car guys with space and barter it for your personal protection. You either have no ideals or not capable of exhibiting one. You look to your left and laugh at the leftists for being so slow and unproductive, but decry the idea that your own fundamentals of stepping onto the flyover was embalmed by their ideals. I am reaching the end of the flyover and get the realization that I need to take the exit. I don’t have a choice but to change lanes once again to become a leftist for a brief amount of time and then discover my way around.

Unhappily I change lanes, become a leftist and take the exit and try to maintain the left-centrist position. When you are near Dadar circle heading into Tilak Bridge, you have no freaking idea on your leaning. You are just opportunistic and head for the right to enter Tilak Bridge – the gateway of Parel. You are on the hot zone now – the right lane. You have just 10 more minutes and you realize that you will have to be that animal to cut off every head that comes your way to reach office on time. You don’t bother about what other people think or how they may react. Your current goal is to take the right at any cost. You don’t estimate the cost because that is not borne by you. You don the hat of rightist, leftist, centrist, zigzagist and make your way through.

When the frenzy dies down, you look back in retrospection of the last 2-3 minutes. What have you done? Was it right? Yes. It was the Right way to do things. Was it wrong? May be. Who cares! I have survived.

I reach office in time and head to the parking. There again, they make me play the same political games that I played in the last 20 minutes. Alright! Game on!

The Nation Decides to Know

The village Vasville has existed ever since the Y-chromosomal Adam walked this earth in Africa. If and whether God existed, was unknown. Thus Adam, either being agnostic or having known better, called himself God. He found company elsewhere, mated and multiplied; warred and divided. Today, the thus evolved human beings are the ones ruling and being ruled. The best of the lot were too hot headed to persist and thereby perished in the wars, while the cowards survived. The genes of cowardice survived. The genes of cowardice ruled and they were being ruled.

Radolf Gannon belonged to the fourth generation of the ruling community. His family has been ruling Vasville ever since they gained freedom from their next door neighbor Briville. His family, having been entrusted by the people to rule, have since then ruled. The family changed their internal policies outlook from socialism to capitalism to neoliberalism, but people still remained poor. When it came to religious outlook, the family was confused with too many religions owing to their gene-mixing, although they all came from their common ancestor – Adam. Unaffected by communalo ileitis, the deadly disease that turns man into a wild dog and makes him hunt, at a point in history, the Gannons propagated the condition to avenge a key family member’s death. Yet, they never came out to apologize for the outbreak. Nevertheless, people being people, bestowed the family with the name ‘A perfect secular’.

The common man saw the Gannons grow in number and influence, but his hunger and struggle remained constant. In his fight for basic rights, many a two have died starving. Corruption was at its highest order, yet Radolf couldn’t control it. He didn’t have a say in how the village was being ruled, even though he wanted to rule the village someday. His internal conflicts were no less than a Pandora’s Box. Neither could he live without opening the box because of the curiosity of knowing the evil within, nor could he live with the truth that there is evil inside the box. Radolf was torn within himself.  Even as his family’s rule was running its last lap, people started calling him ‘Robber Radolf’ - not because his family robbed the village of everything that it had, but because he aided the robbers in everything that could be robbed. But, Radolf still believed in himself. He trusted the idea that he could be the one messiah they all have been waiting for. He wanted to empower the women of his village and saw clearly that the youth needed empowerment as well. His motto was ‘to find you and empower you’.

Meanwhile, Robber Radolf Gannon was facing stiff competition against a rags-to-riches, bigger-than-life persona Nathan Sircar. The story of Nathan is no ordinary story. Nathan was born into a family which went through cycles of poverty owing to poor mismanagement of resources by the Gannons. Nathan was born poor and educated poorly; but that allowed him to learn the knack of being street-smart. He could talk his way out of anything and could convince anyone. Poor people were his friends and they saw a lion in him that could roar against the atrocities being committed. Wearing patriotism on his sleeve, Nathan went on to win hearts of the many poor. When you become popular among the downtrodden, the rich befriend you. The powerful industrialists and wannabes fueled his growth. People loved him but for a section of people who loathed him for what he did. Ends don’t justify the means, so does what Nathan did a decade ago.

A decade ago, there was an outbreak of communalo ileitis in Nathan’s area. People thronged to Nathan’s house and asked him to help the people suffering because of the disease. What Nathan did was not only astounding but also shocking. Instead of finding a cure to the disease, he was alleged to have given a free hand to decimate the alleged cause. There was no proof that the converted wild dog breed Merizund was the cause of the disease, but Nathan didn’t care. He asked his people to let out the affected, even the closely associated ones. Thus was formed another breed, Hallyzund. He made the Hallyzund find and destroy the Merizunds on the whole. It was a nightmare for the area. Every Merizund that the Hallyzund could get hold of, was killed. After 3 days of Holocaust, there came an eerie calmness to the area. No one was cured of the disease, but there was a temporary control of the outbreak. There was no strength left in anyone to fight anymore. The biggest problem with the village was that the disease communalo ileitis outbreak was well controlled by the elite few for selfish reasons, but the common man continued to suffer from it during any and all outbreak hence. The debates around Sircar’s engagement in the Holocaust raged on. The interesting part during this whole ordeal was that the Gannons were tightlipped about it and offered no support or resistance to any of the suffering souls. No one noticed the conspicuous absence of voice. Thus, Nathan came to be addressed as Murderer Nathan. The name Murderer was not because he actually murdered, but because he could have avoided, but chose not to.

In the subsequent years, Nathan grew in stature. And with an unhealthy opposition that the Gannons have received due to their swindling activities, Nathan faces them as their biggest challenge. Irrespective of anything that has happened over the years, the common man has suffered. The common man has no say in whatsoever policies that their rulers bring in and he accepts that he has no power. And, thus comes the twist in the tale of two power centers of Radolf and Nathan – the rise of common man. The common man like anybody else in the village wanted to be an engineer, went on to serve the nation as a civil servant and was fed up with the way things worked. There was rampant corruption everywhere and he questioned the status quo and of the Gannons involvement at each and every juncture. He got no answers, but he persisted with the struggle. The common man questioned Nathan’s closeness to industrialists and his association with crony capitalism, but faced a dead end. Like in movies, the common man challenged Nathan Sircar’s wave with his share of anti-corruption youth’s wave. What was a tug of war between Sircar and Gannon became a triangle of contention with the common man becoming the vertex.

The common man carried his own set of flaws. He was inexperienced and too honest to play politics. There were so much improvement to be desired in his day-to-day life that the common man’s policies didn’t echo with the majority. He was beginning to be viewed as left-leaning and anti-capitalist. Propaganda started pouring in that his will would stall development. There were too many diseases to be treated, but the common man focused on only one disease. He set out to satisfy the village, but fell well short of what he intended to. People asked him for a manifesto, but the common man has got no answer to it. With age one gains wisdom. On an individual level, everyone have their reservations, but as a group, people always side with the popular belief. Vasville people were no different. They trust PR campaigns more than the truth. With the stage set, Vasville was set to vote for

1. Robber Radolf Gannon – Empowerment

2. Murderer Nathan Sircar – Development

3. Common Man – Anti-corruption

No matter what happened in the past,

No matter what happens in the future,

One can’t help but endure,

Ab ki baar, Nathan Sircar.

Will the common man rise to rule the village, or is it going to be another drab of five years by the Robber or Murderer?

Wait, the spaceship just landed….

Blah! Blah! Wedding

The article is based on real-life experience of self and others (my wife included in others!). Any sentence denoting a person living or dead is purely intentional.

Wedding, shaadi, kalyanam, thirumanam, vivaham is one of the most complex rituals in India. It is so difficult to get through one that starting a new political party and winning elections becomes a cakewalk. It’s filled with rules and regulations of do’s and don’ts and one shouldn’t be surprised if one comes across IIPM offering courses on them. IIMs can’t because marriage execution involves a lot of Planning. :P

So, marriage is less about the two individuals under the scanner and more about the two ‘broad extended’ families scanning the two individuals. The definition of ‘broad’ is quite broad that even the length and breadth of the universe wouldn’t suffice to define and demarcate the broad extended families. Everyone has an opinion and every opinion counts. And there is a scale of hierarchy to whose opinion matters when, which must be included in the course Opinion Management Systems (OMS – 101). No matter how distantly one can be related, the age always count. They all accede to one common philosophy here – the elder the person, the wiser he is, even if uncle Alzheimer has visited the elder person long ago. If there is a clash on the elderness (yes, I had to invent the word, as my editor is away for a while), they choose the person who is closest to the family. They can’t go and verify the birth certificates and all you see, because these people are so old that dinosaurs used to be their pets. You can easily identify them with the phrase, “During my times and all……” and your response must be, “How cute?? Was it a Trigonosaurus or a Tyrannosaurus?”

Once that is ascertained, the few ones who have the heads at the right place would say that these rituals are not practically possible to be performed, “See, times have changed and we will have to move to the modern times..” That’s it. That’s the end of story of their participation in the marriage. They are impeached that very second and their pink slip is sent through an overnight courier called ‘Ignore Express Ltd.’ Although they are fired, their perks such as food and lodging are retained. Only their consultancy services are severed with immediate effect. Based on their reconciliation, their future services for the upcoming weddings in the family will be evaluated.

Now that the sane ones are out of the picture, here come the diplomatic ones. Although they are the spine to any wedding, they are the ones to get hounded in between the trio of modern generation, the wedding executioners and the old-ritual-based-elders. They try to take the side of everyone in the picture that they lose their identity. They are like the call center employees who for no fault of theirs get screwed by the customers because they represent a particular company, “Welcome to Airtel customer care service. How may I get screwed for you now?” Finally, when they try to bring every stakeholder on to the same platform, the arriving guests will have a problem with the schedule, the photographer will have a problem with the angle, so-called-well-wishers will have a problem with the date being on a weekday, caterer will have a problem with salt and pepper, some wayward guests will have a problem with accommodation and food, decorations-wala will have a problem with the length of the stage, speaker system will have a problem with compatibility, light-years-distance relatives will have a problem of not-being-welcomed-properly-and-not-given-importance and more and more problems.

Amidst all this, there are a very few people who are really close to you who don’t have any problem at all. They are the brothers, sisters, friends and relatives who care for your happiness more than anything else. They keep telling you one thing, “Only, you decided that you want this to happen. You were firm that the juice is worth the squeeze and you went ahead. It’s the squeezing time. Get through with this. Rip the band-aid off. After a day or two nothing of this will make sense.” And with no option, you get through this. In the historical date of events, it will go down as your marriage. But, to tell the truth, it is not your marriage, but the marriage of the families. You two were just the focus of it.

You go to your honeymoon, come back, open the presents and make a note of who all gave you what all. You look through the pics and make a note of who all attended your wedding despite the issues of not getting leaves, sickness, boss is very angry, he is marrying a Muslim, she is marrying a Parsi, etc. You get back to real life and start living a live-in life as if whatever happened were just a formality and a legal binding.

In the end, if you are not happy you are screwed, but if you are happy also you are screwed, because you are bloody married bro!!

P.S 1: Those of you who didn’t attend my wedding; save your time, money and efforts in adding me on to your wedding mailing lists and spare me from the FB wedding invites. Unless, it is going to be in the same city as I live, I won’t be able to attend it for the free food. You definitely don’t deserve the gift anyways!! :P

P.S 2: Those of you who were a part of the wedding, thanks a lot. I know that mere thanks wouldn’t suffice, but I hope the experience was worth cherishing.

While I Took a Sabbatical

The closest I had gotten to North India during the first 17 years of my life was to Tirupathi, a mere 150 km north of Chennai. My first trip to North India, rather East India was my trip to Calcutta for obvious reasons, close to my 17^th birthday. Travelling is fun I thought. Exploring new places was exhilarating. Experimenting with unknown places was adventurous. Then came the biggest twist in my life – The Motorcycle Diaries. Being an Indian, it gives you the birthright to copy the onscreen actions in real life. Actions like tapping a cigarette from your palm and holding it with your lips or humming, “Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana saname”, with outstretched arms or “Arey saala” depicting the angry young man. But, my choice was different. I wanted to travel on a bike. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara inspired me to explore places.

The movie got over. I came out of my room enthusiastic and told me best friend next door that I wanted to ride a bike to explore places. The best advice that was offered was to participate in Roadies. Arrghh! Someone understand me. I want to travel the world on my bike. Nothing against Roadies, but it was just a misnomer for a soap serial with biking as a small part, since the then Hero Honda wanted to promote their Karizma. Days passed, with that the years too.

Then happened Royal Enfield in my life. Perceptions changed, life turned on its head. Every weekend (mine used to be a Thursday), I explored a new place. With a bettering technology, Maps were reduced from big sheets to apps. Rising up early (it used to be the day continuing the night shift) had a new meaning. The dawn breaks, and you are already on the road with a cold breeze finding its way through the gaps in the helmet to caress your ears to give Goosebumps. Speed was never a deterrent and the roadside tea shops became your adda. Early in the morning, when you see the shy sun combating its way through the milky white clouds, you look into the horizon and the mind goes blank. You may be driving at 90kmph, but everything around you moves so slowly. The road ahead leads to oblivion and you don’t think about the past or the future, when the present is so pleasurable. It’s a new high and you are brought back to your senses by the potholes and the loud trucks.

During the journey things may not go your way and it calls for adjustments. Adjustments that you would hate to do, but have to do inorder to survive. The journey is long that you may either choose to give up or push yourself to get past the hurdle so that you get enjoy what lays ahead. Biking is no easy, but in the words of Mr. Venki Padmanabhan, CEO of Royal Enfield, “The Odyssey transforms a child into a boy, a boy into a man, a man into a sage and a sage into a child.” It teaches the essentials of life like endurance, sportsmanship and ownership.

You learn to endure tough situations like driving through barren land and surviving without water on a hot summer day. When the first drop of water touches the lips, you will value life. Tough situations like beating the bitter cold – when the hot chai enters your esophagus, you can trace it to your stomach. You bike with likeminded people with a zeal of sportsmanship. You may be competitors on speed to assess who reaches the next checkpoint first, but the sportsmanship of helping out a fellow biker takes priority over everything. Ownership of your bike, the most prized possession and also your life gives you a sense of belonging. At the end of it, it’s not the thrill, but the humaneness in you is rekindled when you bike to travel and explore places. You appreciate nature which is at its best behavior always.

Biking gave me a new identity. Although I am not even close to what I set to achieve, I appreciate the journey. Whenever I say that I am going to travel on a holiday, the first question is stumble upon is, “On your bike is it?” As a biker, it leaves you an everlasting good feeling about yourself, because at the end of everything, at the top, you will be that lonely biker wading your way through to achieve what you set out to.

“The first commandment for every good explorer is: An expedition has two points, the point of departure and the point of arrival. If your intention is to make the second theoretical point coincide with the actual point of arrival, don’t think about the means – because the journey is a virtual space that finishes when it finishes, and there are so many means as there are different ways of “finishing”. That is to say, the means are endless.” – Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries

Posted on 13:39 by Tippu Sultan in bike, India, liberty, Motorcycle, Travelogue | No comments

Closer to Reality - Gwalior Fort

So, I reach the station, cross over the flyover, take the right before DD mall and wriggle through the narrow road to reach the entrance of Gujari Mahal - the rear entrance to Gwalior fort. Thank you Google Maps. It seemed like a perfect evening plan for a Sunday!

I asked the security guard at the base of Gujari Mahal where I could park the borrowed Activa. Prompt was the reply - I could take it up right into the fort.  It was steepest of many climbs and with a 110cc autogear scooter, I couldn’t expect the ride to be of much finesse. One of many times when I thoroughly missed my Thunderbird! I rode up, up, in the air to reach yet another entrance of the fort. That’s where I decided to park the bike and take a walk for the rest of the distance. The non-existent parking lot was almost empty with just one another bike. Sunday evening and I had the fort all to myself? Wah! Craning my neck in awkward angles to look through the narrow doorway, the BGM of Om Shanti Om started. Flurry images started passing through my mind! Who were these people in the grand kingdom setup? Real disturbing images of pseudo-reality. Cut back to reality, the narrow doorway was just an orifice when compared to the magnificent big door that separated the fort from the rest of the world. It was one of those grand doors which would need zillions of horsepower to operate on a daily basis. I stepped inside the fort only to find more motorcycles. And notorious that I was with my luck in such cases, there was a motorcyclist approaching me. There were only seconds left to avoid a clash. Thanks to my reflex, I could avoid a head –on collision; although I did expect him to crash into the grand door.  But agility, kraft (sorry, craft) and practice made him exit the fort through that orifice, almost effortlessly. The very same orifice which I struggled through. Gwalior never stopped to amaze me!

I climbed the steep road to the Museum, got a ticket and ventured in. Frankly speaking, there was nothing interesting in there. The museum usher learnt that I had parked my bike outside the grand entrance doorway. He gave me looks that I deciphered to be - “What do you take this place to be that you left your bike outside for the world to see?? Bring it in you moron!” . He had won the non-existent argument. I climbed down and with a few beggars help,..ta da! I brought my bike inside and headed for the fort. Without much ado, I parked my bike at a makeshift parking lot and entered Tomar palace. Explored! Clicked random pictures! Took unknown stairs! And found myself in dungeons with no light only to hear bats squeaking. Scary enough! Took unknown stairs again, with little light from the mobile; this time to hear someone moaning at the end of the tunnel. Oops! Wrong tunnel. A couple in search of some privacy landed in the dungeon only to be disturbed by the sound of footsteps and the light from my mobile. Sorry guys, no voyeuristic intentions meant. Please continue! Retraced my steps a little, and then there was light! There was an end to the tunnel.. Phew, that was close!

I came out of the Tomar palace to find my way into a library of Mahals – Karan Palace, Jahangir Mahal and Shah Jahan Mahal.  Was it under renovation or was it that badly maintained, one should ask. Again the disturbing images of Jahangir and Shah Jahan approaching me passed me through. The ticket vendor brought me back to reality. After paying ten bucks, I was let inside a bigger than usual gate. Once in, no one stopped me ever, no frisking, no checking of bags – you are just out in the open of wild architectural wonders. Then it dawned on me – No one cares! I went to the West end. The sun was blazing down even at 4 in the evening. I figured that the east side should be wonderful then. I roamed around and finally found myself a spot overseeing the entire Gwalior city. When you have found that one spot of perfect light for quiet and tranquility, there was only one thing to do – read. So I took out my book and spent close to half an hour reading. At around 5, I roamed around and found the best place to spend the evening. The top of East Tower of Jahangir Mahal, atop the minaret. Wow! View of entire Gwalior was breath taking. I must accede that the kings had taste. They definitely knew how to live and it must have been a life worth dying for! What a way to spend your evening.  To stare into the horizon and feel nothing; every evening! All philosophical concepts of how to keep oneself at zero entropy state came to mind. There is nothing that I could think of than take in the view and beauty of it. Listening to Vellai Pookal by ARR took me to an altogether different plane of bliss, melancholy and solitude!  I forgot where I was, who I was.

The sun started to set at around 6:30. It probably was time to leave. Things were starting to get a little spookier too. I kept hearing thuds and taps in rhythm. When I walked out, there was no one else to be seen. Five minutes later, I reached the entrance and found the gate locked. What the….. ! I called the security guard and he asks me if I had fallen asleep. I said I was ‘all philo and forgot about myself’ which made him suspicious. He started walking towards me, when I muttered, “yes boss, I had fallen asleep. Now please help me out?” He asked me to go inside and search for labourers who may have the key to the locked gate. I nodded, darting in again. Inside looked spookier with twilight setting in. I heard someone call my name. Who in the fort could know my name! When I turned back, obviously there was no one. I searched for the labourers, but no luck. It took a few moments to sink in – I was screwed!

Jahangir spoke first. Followed by Shah Jahan. Then it was someone who had died here having got locked out too. They all asked me to stay back, promising interesting narrations of their lives.  Then on, I wasted no moment; I ran. I ran as if there was no end to the race. I caught the steel gate and wringed myself to it. I shouted, but there was no one to hear my plea. The gate was 10 feet high. Mustering courage and strength, I began climbing. I slipped. So I tried again. And fell on the ground, yet again. Feeling more determined, I took a few sips of water and a bar of Cadbury Perk (Not only SRK, even I can do it). This time I got atop the gate. I bid adieu to the voices of Jahangir and Shah Jahan and I jumped. Phew!

I walked to the makeshift parking lot and checked the bike. Gwalior continues to amaze me - the rear view mirrors were stolen!  I met the security guard en route the grand doorway. He lectured me on how robbery takes place in the fort and asked me not to venture out crazily like this. I thanked him and found my way out of the orifice. Vrooooooom I went; to the next place where you would find hot Madu girls of Gwalior – The Pani Puri stall!!