'Psychoness' Continues [10 in 10 Contd...]

Trip Review

Day 1: The pig was the most sighted animal on the journey from Delhi to Jaisalmer. An uncomfortable ride on a camel and a bonfire in the Thar were followed by a few hours of sleep.

Day 2: After sightseeing a couple of forts, we were on our way to the land of Gujarat. The truck drivers in the state had impeccable traffic sense. (Any link with alcohol prohibition, I wonder).

Day 3: The asiatic lion in the Gir National Park didn't seem too pleased to be disturbed during its afternoon siesta. We reached Diu (of Daman & Diu) by evening and explored the entire place.

Day 4: We drove till we got sick and tired. And then, we drove some more. Without going into any details, I would like to say that our stay in Dadra and Nagar Haveli was pleasant.

Day 5: Pictures clicked during the drive through the Western Ghats were a few too many. We were particularly surprised to not find food anywhere at midnight. I mean, it was Goa afterall.

Day 6: Beaches and hippies were to be seen everywhere. The trek up and down a hill for a certain Aguada Fort was very tiring. The view from the top made it worth the effort though.

Day 7: Spending a 2nd day in the same state was inconsistent with the theme of the trip, but we did anyway. And on New Year's eve, while the other 3 were partying, I slept.

Day 8: We were back on the road again and the return journey began. The Mumbai-Pune expressway was delightful, but the same couldn't be said about the roads in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh which we would cross the next day.

Day 9: Had a couple of hours of sleep in some really shady hotel in Thane. Crossed Gujarat again, but we still couldn't have the elusive 'dhoklas' and 'theplas' (do you even get these there?).

Day 10: The Chittorgarh fort seemed like a place we wouldn't mind living in. Rain, fog and traffic delayed us, but we eventually reached Delhi.

Random observations about the trip:

1) A certain bird by the name of 'Grey Tit' is found in Gir. We passed through a town in Maharashtra known as Lanja. (Lanja means whore in Telugu).

2) The song 'Arambh Hai Prachand' from the movie 'Gulaal' was played the most number of times in the car. It was like the official song of the trip.

3) We used to take 'pee' breaks on the journey (most of which were at my behest). Vamsi would blame these breaks for everything that went wrong and therefore me.

4) The 'daal' in Gujarat is terribly sweet. You get a dish made of 'sev' and 'tamatar' in Rajasthan. It is called 'sev tamatar'. Udayan fell in love with it.

5) Srikanth and me toyed with the idea of building a toll road between India and Japan and charging 1 billion dollars as toll. (Courtesy: no sleep, motion sickness, poor sense of humour)

The car was brought to a stop, the music was turned off and at 5:57 pm on the 4th of January 2009, it finished.

We were physically and mentally exhausted and drained. All the travelling had left us disoriented. So much so that, we felt like stationary things around us were moving. ( You see things moving past you for the past 10 days, your eyes and more importantly your mind gets used to that). We desperately needed some rest. We really, really did.

But we didn't take rest. Keeping true to the spirit of the trip, the 4 psychos went for '3 idiots' that evening.

Anyway, whatever.

10 in 10

THE PSYCHO TRIP

Mode of Transport: Road

Distance: 5934 kms

Days: 10

States: Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh (8)

Union Territories: Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli (2)

The Psychos:

1) VAMSI

2) UDAYAN

3) SRIKANTH

4) MADHU

'I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain'.

Not really. It was the start of a really, really long journey alright. And the conclusion was most certainly uncertain. But I am not too sure about the excitement part. And I had my reasons. Well, I didn't get a wink of sleep for the previous 21 hours, was tired as hell and it was bloody cold.

After the last of the bags were loaded into the boot of the 'White Diamond' (that's what we named Vamsi's Swift for the trip), we were good to go. We got into the car.

Srikanth was contemplating adding more places into the already watertight schedule. (Srikanth is never ever satisfied).

Vamsi was complaining about my excessive luggage. (Despite our long association, my idiosyncrasies still continue to deeply annoy as well as amuse Vamsi).

Udayan was charged up and raring to go. (Although he doesn't accept it, we feel that it doesn't take too much to get Udayan enthusiastic).

I was cribbing about how I didn't get a wink of sleep for the previous 21 hours and how I was tired as hell and how it was bloody cold. (Cribbing comes as naturally as sleep to me).

It was classic us.

The thought of going on a trip originated as early as October. Consulting with travel agents, googling of places, toying with maps, flipping through holiday guides were some of the activities which went into the planning. Ideas as frivolous as driving down to Thailand and as normal as holidaying in Rajasthan were extensively explored with feasibility analyses (an extremely high level of tolerance was afforded) and detailed estimates of time and resources. Trekking in Uttaranchal, skiing in Himachal Pradesh, relaxing in Kerala, exploring the North East were all considered in isolation and in various combinations. Countless hours of discussions didn't get us any closer in finalising the trip. Everyone had a different agenda, a different set of conditions and constraints, different preferences. What we had in common - impatience, inflated egos and insanity (what we would like to call 'psychoness'). We weren't even sure of whether we would go on a trip till the last minute, let alone where would we be going and what we would be doing.

The car was brought to life, the music was blasted on and at 4:19 am on the 25th of December 2009, it began.

To be continued.....................

'Peeche Aao'

DELETED POST 1

A couple of posts were deleted earlier. One of them (the one below) was available in draft and is being republished in original. (First published in late 2009)
 
10-0. It is the scoreline of a football match I was involved in last weekend. Although it seems exaggerated, it is not. And what might seem even more phony, this wasn't the first time I had the fortune or misfortune of playing in football games with such ridiculously one-sided score lines.

*Winding back the clock*

Name: Madhu Varma

Position: Center Forward/Trequartista

Role: Captain

Team: Goka Juniors

Well, that was me and my team back in my engineering days. And while the rest of the students were doing whatever they were doing in the afternoons (typically attending lectures), the members of Goka Juniors would be crazily running around a ball (an exercise which vaguely resembled what the Americans refer to as soccer) in a woefully inadequate rectangular piece of land, which by the way was supposed to be the playground. Braving the weather, risking rebuke, we would religiously play the game, with a dedication and passion one would associate with an Olympic Gold Medal winning team.

The 'blood and sweat and tears'

[blood: I perennially fell down while playing and hurt myself.

sweat: We played football. So obviously we sweated.

tears: Well, I suppose I am getting a little carried away.]

we put in, would gain relevance when we participated in tournaments and played against opposition teams. This was the time when all of our investment (time and pressure) would be put to test.

# A typical scene after a match in the tournament#

Uday and me are laughing like maniacs for no apparent reason. Reddy is shaking his head in disgust. Varma is giving the post-match analysis to Srikanth, who is ruing everything that happened before and during the game. Aashish and Rishi are frowning. Muddam and Putchu have blank expressions on their faces and seem disinterested about life. Bharan is looking around for food. Vamsi is wondering, what just happened, while Rahul is abusing him and everyone else.

The scoreline: Goka Juniors 1-11 Opposition

* Winding the clock to the present *

MDI 10-0 FMS. I am finding it quite difficult to digest the score. The scoreline has an all too familiar feel to it, but for the first time I am not on the wrong end of it. I am on the winning side which mauled the opposition and not the other way around.

Those who watched the game were quite amused to find me celebrating during the game as if I scored the winning goal in the World Cup finals. And I celebrated like that 3 times. The home spectators found it hilarious and the away ones found it condescending. But then, they didn't know how much the hat-trick and the victory meant to me. But then, they didn't know about Goka Juniors.

Acknowledgements:

->The MDI football team. Especially Tushar (for sharing my penchant for crazy, peculiar goal celebrations) and Ikam (for the countless times he set me up, only for me to incredibly miss the simplest of sitters).

.

The hat-trick is dedicated to:

To my beloved Goka Juniors, the best footballing team ever. And to 'Peeche Aao', of course.

Note:

*To those who aren't aware, Boca Juniors is a world famous Argentine football club team. And the first half of the first word of the name of my engineering college is Goka. So that's how the name of our team, Goka Juniors came about. (How original and creative!)

*During the matches, our defenders never used to let Adnan (who played the position of defensive midfielder) go up. Whenever he would venture a little forward, they would shout to him, 'Peeche Aao'. And that used to irritate Adnan a lot and was a source of silly humour for the rest of us. It is difficult for the readers to appreciate this, but take my word for it. It used to be really, really comical.

.

Anyway, whatever.

IL CORVO

Contrary to what it seems like, the pigeon is not my favourite bird. I was gleefully fascinated by its ways in Europe and more particularly so in London, but that wasn't enough for usurping the top position which was, is and will always be occupied by the crow (the common raven). So, there wasn't an iota of doubt as to what I would name the second beast in my life (the first one being Adolf).


'IL CORVO'


Well, getting it wasn't exactly the easiest of things. If there was one thing, my mom would never let me have, it was this. Convincing her that I wasn't going to get killed by the 'monster' was awfully difficult and is arguably my greatest achievement ever. It is amazing what time and pressure can do. And a whole lot of cribbing, of course. This entire episode has given me so much confidence that I now feel that I can even convince the British to stop employing the word 'royal'. (I would never do that, of course. All I am saying is that, I beleive I could do so, if i wanted to).


Everyone I have spoken to regarding it, have tried to reason with me and appeal to my rationality. And when I didn't change my stance, the conversations typically ended with me being labelled, senseless and/or crazy. (A certain few were too polite and called me brave instead). If there ever was one thing for which I was unwilling to listen to absolutely anyone, it was this. Like they say, I was as 'obstinate as a mule'.


Taking a slightly different approach, Praveen made me feel inadequate to have the 'monster'. He said, one had to be bulky, wear white 'khaddar' clothes and be adorned with thick gold chains, bracelets and the like to deserve it. I appreciated his humour, but there was no way, I was appreciating his point of view.


So, as I paced around in the hall restlessly, the phone rang and this time it wasn't a friend who just called up to say 'What's up?'. As I went down the lift, all the trouble I had gone through over the past few weeks to have it, flashed in my mind. The endless hours of dreaming, arguing, defending, selling and convincing had finally borne fruit and here was I asking myself,
'IS IT WORTH IT?'.


At 21:01 on the 24th of September 2009, I laid my eyes on it for the first time. It was darker than the night. As deadly as sin. Royal and regal.
I brought it to life. 'Thump..Thump..Thump..Thump..Thump..'


TOTALLY.


Anyway, whatever.


I usually end my posts with the 'Anyway, whatever' or ta da (or some other version of it). Since the 'Anyway, whatever' is done with, the reader can put himself or herself out of his or her misery at this point, by navigating away from this post and doing something else or something better. (Anything would be better than reading this rubbish, so essentially there is no difference between 'something else' and 'something better').


But in case, you have read up to this point, you might as well read the next few sentences and waste a little more of your time.


As a certain someone asked me, "Why did you get a bike? You don't even know how to ride it?".
I replied,
" It doesn't matter that I don't know how to ride.
And for the sake of everything under the sun, it is not a bike.
It is a motorcycle. It is a Bullet. It is a Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 5S.
It is. My 'IL CORVO'. "

Anything and Everything under the Sun

The following conversation, (which took place at a devilish time of half past 7 in the morning the other day) has been replicated (as much as possible) as it actually panned out. Minor alterations may have been made, taking the sensitivity of the readers into account.


Index
*.......* : Action
#........# : Comment


Udayan: Wake up, you bastard!

Me: Huh!

Udayan: *Whacks me with a pillow.*

Me: Mother fucker!

Udayan: Wake up. How much time will you sleep for?

Me: Dude, I just slept for like 8 fuckin hours. And I got up a couple of times in between.

Udayan: Fuck you! You sleep like a pig everyday and then you crib.

#We associate pig with gluttony, greed, sloth and every other vice, since it is convenient#

Me: Fuck you! *Wakes up with a groan and curses everything under the sun.*

.........................

.........................

Udayan: Dude, I was just wondering as to why people celebrate birthdays.

Me: #Comment deleted due to its inappropriateness.#

Udayan: I mean, with every passing year one only gets closer to death। So the birthday isn't
actually an occasion to celebrate.

# A brief note on the author at this point would help the reader better appreciate the rest of the conversation. I have an annoying habit of countering opinions (and sometimes even plain facts), just for the heck of it. The low general awareness necessitates me to come up with unconventional (or ridiculous, according to most people I know) arguments all the time.#

Me: Screw the ‘celebrations’ part. But well, I am not too sure about the ‘getting closer to dying with every birthday’ part.

Udayan: What are you blabbering? Let’s say one has a life time of 70 years. Isn’t he closer to 70 when he is 40 than when he is when he is 39.

Me: Dude, but it is not decided beforehand as to how long one is going to live.

#I don’t believe in destiny, fate and other gay stuff like that.#

Udayan: Let us not get into whether it is pre-decided or not. Irrespective of everything, one is nearing the end as time passes.

Me: Not necessarily. Doesn’t the passing of every year alter one’s chances of further survival?Isn’t the time one has survived till date a factor which influences how much longer he would live for?

Udayan: Dude, cut the crap. *Shakes his head in disgust.*

Me: The probility of one living till the age of 70 when he is 40 is different from the probability of his living till the age of 70 when he is 39. The fact that he survived for another year should increase his chances of living till 70.

#The usage of the word ‘probability’ elicited laughter from both parties as we reminisced the idiosyncrasies of that wierdly strange professor who lectured us on probability during our 11th and 12th standard years.#

Udayan: I will slit your throat open right now and then we will see how probability works.

Me: Whatever. Fuck you!

Udayan: Fuck you! *Goes to the wash room.*

Me: *Lies down on the bed again and curses everything under the sun.*



The following are certain things I wanted to report:

1) Luthra is on a roll in snooker. He recently thrashed my opponent (who, if you remember from the earlier post, thrashed me) by a margin of 40 odd points with 3 balls remaining. This makes me look even worse. Bloody relativity.

2) Keshav is carrying 4 mobile phones with him these days. When I asked him, ‘But, why?’, he replied that using 4 phones would give him expertise in multitasking. I shall refrain from commenting on this.

3) And finally and most importantly, Atul ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck-for-anything-under-the-sun’ Jain has secured arguably the best internship of the MDI PGPIM 08 batch. His status message on Google Talk now reads as ‘CITI NEVER SLEEPS’. Killer!


Anyway, whatever.

Why I hate Relativity. And the Beastly Beauty.

1) Damn my mind for not being able see the Absolute

The other day, Luthra and me had gone to a snooker parlour to catch a game or two. All the tables were taken up and since we weren't too keen on waiting, we agreed to join others. The dashing gambler that Luthra is and the egoistic, arrogant prick that I am, we individually agreed to the challenges posed by our respective opponents (who we realised by then were bloody good at the game) with monetory stakes.

Luthra lost by the margin of a few points, but gained the respect of his opponent.

Although the following account might suggest othewise, I am not too bad a player (courtesy of the fascination with the game during my 11th and 12th standard). Here was my opponent who seemed like snooker was the only reason for his existence and here was I, having not played the game for quite some time and it being my first time to that particular parlour and therefore that particular table(for those, who aren't very accustomed to the game, note that prior playing on a table gives a slight advantage).

I wish I could write that I fought the good fight and emerged victorious against all odds. But sadly that wasn't the case. I was losing by 50 odd points with the last 3 coloured balls to be potted. Like one of those losers who try to salvage whatever little they can, I thought to myself that I should keep the margin under 50. And in the end, I lost by 32. It wasn't as bad as losing by 70 points, but 32 is pathetic enough.

And disgustingly, I was happy.

I had a gleeful smirk on my face, although I had just got embarassingly outplayed and my wallet was a couple of hundred bucks lighter.

Fuckin relativity.

2) The Beauty and The Beauty

Beauty, 'they' say, lies in the eyes of the beholder. ['They' incude the self-important dorks who make such well-sounding (but totally retarded) statements and the 'dull' people who quote them to validate their opinion. I shall be quite 'dull' myself here and do the same. I will show the applicability of this proverb in a certain personal context and then generalize it as a universal truth].

Adolf, to Udayan and me is the most beautiful thing ever. There is nothing which is even comparable. But that is not exactly the opinion anyone who has had the 'privilege' of laying their eyes on him have . In fact, it would be the exact opposite. It scares the day lights out of everyone and we are quite confident that certain people, when in close proximity to him would actually faint. The sadists that we are, we plan to test our presumptions.

Adolf, by the way is Udayan's rotweiller. I am Adolf's godfather (I christened him). I had left him as a 4 month old 'puppy' (I am using the word 'puppy' out of lack of other words. He was quite a beast even back then.) only to find him become a fearsome monster 5 months later. It has been around a couple of weeks since I have been around and I am still skeptical of 'fooling around' with him. For everytime, he has the chance, he ravages me. His ramming with brute force, pricking of my feet and gnawing at my arms (fortunately, he still doesn't know how to bite forcefully) could be construed as friendly playfulness or ruthless hatred. I like to believe that it is the former. And actually hope as well.

All in all, Adolf is frightening (there are few sights scarier than that of Adolf in the dark with his glowing eyes), destructive (the broken windows in the house are a testament of that) and untamable (he is not taken for a walk, he takes the holder of the leash on an unpleasant ride).

But then, he is the most beautiful thing ever.

Anyway, whatever.

Beyond the scope...

The first sentence of any post of my blog is the only one which needs some thought. The rest of the post writes itself. The reason I am mentioning this is to escape even that minor inconvenience.

Now that that has been taken care of, I can now move onto other things. What other things? I can’t think of any other things. I am at my ordinary best these days. So what the heck? I will just fill this post by mentioning the awfully uninteresting events and things in my rather boring life over the past few days.

29/7/09 and 30/7/09: The return flight from UK to India.

I just can’t get myself to sleep on a flight. And add to it an annoying co-passenger sitting beside you, the TV screen in front of you not working and having a 4 hour transit stop. Can you script a more perfect disaster?

31/7/09 and 1/8/09: Can’t remember.

I would most probably have been glorifying the Queen’s country and rubbishing my very own (UK is so clean, India is so crowded and other idiotic statements like that). How I wish someone just punched me in the face during this time!

2/8/09 and 3/8/09: I re..re..re..really love gaming [Ladha style].

There are few things more beautiful than FIFA 09 on the X-Box 360. With updated summer transfers, my beloved Juventus FC team looked strong on paper (or should I say, screen) and I went wild with all my crazy formations.

4/8/09 and 5/8/09: Things getting back to being exactly as they were always.

My criticism of my mom’s cooking, haunting coffee shops, obsessive following of football news, rubbishing everything and everyone under the sun. I even performed my routine ritual of torturing myself (which is watching a Telugu movie). [Telugu is the funny-sounding language, I speak at home].

6/8/09 and 7/8/09: Something else and the gentleman’s game

It’s been quite some time since I played cricket, but as always I came across as someone who has a good batting technique. I typically achieve this by tapping the bat on the ground and playing classy, imaginary shots in the air after every ball

8/8/09 and 9/8/09: A visit to the zoo and something else

The reasons for us going to the zoo are beyond the scope of this blog. Anyway, the sloth bear did gross injustice to its name by running around like a maniac in its enclosure. I was disappointed. The hippo was absolutely delightful, though. The next day was the 9^th of August 2009.

10/8/09 and 11/8/09: qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm

Posters of 'The Godfather', debates over and about ice creams, bitching about my engineering college were the common themes. A few words about the mundane things like life and future might have figured in the discussions, but were promptly discarded and forgotten.

Oh, boy! I am disgusting myself now with all this rubbish. And so I shall put an end to this.

Anyway, whatever.

Before I forget, I just want to mention unlike what some might suspect, Ta Da is not a stylised form of Ta Ta (which means bye). What Ta Da means is beyond the scope of the reader.