Strange Meeting

After a very long and arduous journey, I can finally sing, 'Main yahaan hoon, yahaan hoon yahaan hoon, yahaan'. With the kind of finality that comes only when one is a Kolkata Knight Riders' well-wisher. You know the team HAS to lose. There are no two ways about it. What’s more, the weather here was just perfect. The skies were cloudy, there were brisk winds all round and there was a light drizzle in the air. Pleasant-ness. Felt good. The car in the parking lot looked like it was my getaway vehicle from some crime scene. I realized I was thinking of nothing else at that instant. HOME. After a period of over three months.

There are a lot of reasons for my calling this post ‘Strange Meeting’, after the poem of the same name by Wilfred Owen(one of the best ever, according to me). Strangely, happy was the last word I was thinking of. I’d put most of that to the monumentally boring, slow, eventless and annoying journey that I had to face first up. A raucous trio of Biharis who just couldn't stop gushing about their laptops, their mobile phones, their choice of music and about how retarded their maternal uncle was, for he was travelling with his family, and had made the catastrophic error of choosing to travel in the general compartment - and was stingy about paying the TTE and getting a seat in the A/C compartment. Bleh. In the next compartment was a family which didn’t seem to have the faintest clue that making an unearthly racket all the time can be annoying to fellow passengers. God, that kid, Pranshu was his name - may all the bloodthirsty hordes from hell descend on him and silence him for good. Now I’m positive I hate children – especially those of the peskier variety. Like a great man said, “Parents, beat the muthafuckas!”

How do I feel? Hanging out with my homies – that bit sure feels awesome. But when I am at home or I am alone, I’m not so sure. I feel _____. My room still has those scary looking books – IIT Physics, JPNP; Fundamentals of Chemistry, Mathematics for IIT JEE – Tata McGraw Hill, Organic Chemistry - Morrison and Boyd… and so it goes on.

All I can do now is point and laugh at all that shit! I’ll let it out here too – Hahahhaha.

There, I already feel better. But the rest of it is so same, yet so different. Spending the evenings out of home, coming back to food – lots of it (if you have ever met my mother, you sure know what I am saying – why else do you think I have the impressive physique that men and women lust after?) and holding up a book in front of my face whilst lying on the couch with the A/C set to 16 degrees C. Feels OK, yet feels _____.

Starting up my ride by thumbing the red switch, it again feels _____. The instant I got my arse onto the rather stiff seat, I realised that my fingers on the handlebars also have that bizarre sensation. Now, I had the temerity of calling my ride a ‘ride’ – it is anything but. I hope it was the Yamaha FZ-15, I dream it was the Ducati 1098, but I know it is only a Bajaj Kristal (cue for cracking all the gay and effeminate jokes). It’s got DTSi. Even the Duke doesn’t have that!

Anyway, the brakes are wound up a lot tighter and the thing is pulling cleanly and effortlessly – a sure sign that it had gone for a service in the recent past. I made some errors while riding in front of the Rabindra Bhavan. Braked too early a couple of times and almost caused a collision with a Tata pick-up that thought the view of the Kristal’s arse was most certainly an automotive aphrodisiac. Yuck. _____.

The ideal word in those blank spaces has to be ‘weird’. Ah, that does it.

Beast of Burden

1.IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY?' YOU SAY :-
I'd Die for You (Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet)

2.HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Stiff Upper Lip (AC/DC - Stiff Upper Lip)

3.WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Dear Prudence (The Beatles - The White Album)

4.HOW DO YOU FEEL ?
Up the Downstair (Porcupine Tree - Coma Divine)

5.WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
The Real Me (The Who - Quadrophenia)

6.WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
Dream On (Aerosmith - Aerosmith)

8.WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Every Little Thing (The Beatles - Beatles for Sale)

9.WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Sometimes I Feel like Screaming (Deep Purple - Purpendicular)

10.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Disappear (Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence)

11.WHAT IS 2+2 ?
Zero the Hero (Black Sabbath - Born Again)

12.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA)

13.WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
I am the Highway (Audioslave - Audioslave)

14.WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WHEN YOU GROW UP?
The Kiss - Skit (Eminem - The Eminem Show)

15.WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
The Song Remains the Same (Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy)

16.WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Shedding Skin (Pantera - Far Beyond Driven)

17.WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
You're Crazy (Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction)

18.WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
One Wild Night (Bon Jovi - Crush)

19.WHAT WILL YOU PUBLISH THIS AS?
Beast of Burden (Rolling Stones - The Best of the Rolling Stones)

You know that this is something that's doing the rounds on the 'Notes' application of people's Facebook profiles these days. You also know that only retarded, jobless and hopeless people do this, for their life is so, so very meaningless.

But I know that this is the next thing you'll be doing.

So, this is what they ask you to do:

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT MAY SOUND.
4. Tag your friends
5. Everyone tagged has to do the same thing.
6. Enjoy

The last three steps are irrelevant if, like me, you do not have the testicular fortitude(or whatever it is that makes you courageous) to post this as a note on Facebook.

I also know whoever is reading this is going, "Et tu, Raunaq!!"

Yes. This is what happens when you run a huge, HUGE risk of cocking up the exam that's on the next day. Throw in an alarming lack of creativity as well.

So be it.



PS: Now you also know why this post's titled 'Beast of Burden'.

Nonsense

As I lie sprawled here
On this burning hard shoulder
The midday sun in my eyes
I feel a hundred years older

My ride's wrecked, it sure seems like 'tis all over
I'm only hoping for a miracle, some lucky clover

A pick-up looms in the distance, from the heat haze
Thought it changed colours a few times,
before it went stable on red

She pulled up alongside my battered machine
And beckoned me in
I staggered into the passenger seat
Wondering where to begin

Her looks could burn asbestos, I thought
And never could I have imagined
The ride was going to be disaster-fraught

The next thing I know, I'm gulping down my own blood
My mouth felt like it was full of gravel
Which actually were the powdered remains of what used to be my teeth
I've lost my left hand, and am unable to make my legs do my bidding
The pick-up is wrecked, the gearlever's gone through my gut
And I don't know what became of her

I am waiting for the end
Waiting for my pain to go away
Not too different from my state a little while back
Except that I want to be put out of my misery




Thoo. Never again. Sorry.