Birthday blues

I turned 28 this Feb 14th.
It is actually embarrassing to have one's birthday fall on Feb 14th. I mean, the fact that the only reason why I get cards from women on Feb 14th is the birthday element, is a bit belittling.

Fell off my horse this morning.. What a way to start a year.
Mercifully, she is a docile creature and came to a pause 'coz she found this patch of green grass which she had been eyeing quite keenly for some time. I was hanging on to her neck, but she couldn't care less.

A friend of mine presented me a book about horses.. Love it.. Couldn't get a better gift. Turns out that the idea was suggested to him by another dear friend... (This reminds me.. Women are sometimes weird! I shall blog about this great discovery of mine later)
I decided that I would spend this one day without thinking abt women and porn.. you know.. the usual stuff. Was mentioning about my birth day resolution to this friend. Pat comes his reply, "Damn! I shouldn't have given the horse book then!" Tchh tchhh, people are evil minded these days..

I decided to put a smart message on my galk.. I wrote: "I am in love with Karishma. She is old, she is deaf.. But she is nice and she lets me ride her.. She is a horse!"
It was slightly longer than this, I don't remember the words exactly. The last line was supposed to be the twist in the tale, but for some reason gtalk did not show the last line! I didn't know this until I got calls from my friends inquiring about the thoroughly indecent message on my gtalk.

More to come...

Treasure Hunt

You know what treasure hunt is, don't you. I will skip the explanation, then.
The occasion, that I am about to narrate, was one such treasure hunt.
We must first describe the leading lady.... ohh yes .. and her mother.
Flashback.. to 1997 September, if my memory serves me right.

I am awaiting the appearance of a native of my village, in the great foyer of the SN Girls’ hall of residence: that great altar about whose inhabitants many a male’s dreams and fantasies were made, many more shattered.... that source of great bliss to countless young males, who with their eyes closed, have let their imagination run wander freely into the numerous rooms of this grand old place, to lech at its inhabitants and their doings.. Apologies.. I am getting a bit carried away.. flight of fantasy..
So.. Yes.. I was waiting for this village-mate of mine, a senior, who was pursuing her M tech in Agricultural engineering, who, at this point in time, hopefully, is putting her vast knowledge to good use in choosing a good bundle of carrots over a kilo of potatoes to cook dinner for her husband.. I digress again..
There is this aunty, decently dressed, in a churidar (please don't ask me what that is.. its a kind of dress that fat women wear to conceal their bulging bellies.. and slim women wear to accentuate their curves). She started talking to my parents, and upon learning that I had cleared JEE (Joint entrance examination) without going to any coaching class (no body knows it was by fluke), got suitably impressed.. enough to start talking abt this little girl of hers.. who is a DASA (Direct admission of students abroad:- In short, they don’t have to take the Entrance examination: the just pay 10 times more fees and come in.. some of them are indeed bright), and who is weak in maths, and how grateful she would be if I could take care of her and her math skills and so on..
Lets talk about the little child. There was nothing little about this child. Fully developed breasts, and all other accessories that would make any KGP-male start hunting for his hanky (handkerchief) to soak in his drool, and a very broad mind, that was perfectly willing to accept any male it fancied.
Let us call her R. (Mind you, I am not a bloody prude. I don't sit and judge the morals of another human being, 'coz I am no saint myself. Indeed she was a good woman. The fact that she slept around a bit has nothing to do with what I think of her as a person. But then, if she hadn't, we wouldn' be having this story, would we? )

So, madam R, over the course of time, had N number of boy friends, most of whom where looked upon with extreme envy by the rest of us. Ohh.. about her mom's wish about the undersigned taking her of her mathematics skills and all .. the less said, the better.
The hero of our story, was the last member of this series, whom we shall call J. J had a problem. He was not tall, whereas our good lady was tall. So, when you saw the great couple walking hand in hand, one couldn't fault you for imagining that they were a Grandmom-and-grandson pair. You needn't stretch your imagination that much to figure out that if your height is such that your mouth is just about the height of your lady's breasts, there are certain advantages at hand.
Now, please, I have had people contradicting me on these matters. I regret to say that I am not an expert in these matters, and therefore, whatever opinions I have, may be ill-informed and prejudiced. But you obviously don't care abt my opinions, do you? We were talking about her breasts.. I beg your pardon, her height? To cut a long story short, the talk of the town was that they made a nice pair.
I must confess that I have a bit of difficulty in collecting my thoughts.. the 2 pegs of rum in my blood is obviously showings its true colors. So.. what I was I trying to say.... Ahh yes, the treasure cunt.. err typo, the treasure hunt!
On that auspicious day, you could see men in groups of 2/3 rushing from hither and tither, looking under rocks, climbing trees, slipping under parked cars.. looking for clues.
One of the guys, a bright chap no doubt, had this inner calling to go check out the Deans' rooms. He must have had this feeling that some clue to the treasure was hidden in the Deans' foyer. (There were multiple deans sharing the same foyer, so the apostrophe is right.. you stickler!) That is on the first floor, has a dark glass door, a comfortable sofa, with the added advantage that no sane human being would be found loitering around there at un-earthly hours.
This gentleman, I really don't know who he was, rushed up to first floor, pushed open the glass doors, shined his torch and what does he see? The great dame is topless, sitting on our dear friend J. J's hands are quite busy kneading the offerings at hand, his mouth apparently was busy providing the necessary lubrication... I can't describe further.. I am feeling a bit shy.
The point is.. they froze.. and stared at this source of light.. Our man, the man of extreme presence of mind, said " Opps..Sorry guys! I thought there was a clue here. Carry on! bye!" switched off his torch, and walked away. (If you want to find out who this guy is, do check out the CEO’s of the Fortune 500 firms! Must be one of them by now)
"Moron!" I know, what what you would like to call him. But he had more fertile stuff in his head than what you and me have.
Now, the average person, would picture the scene unfold thus: The girl hurriedly puts on her top, the guy pulls his pants up and zips things shut, and they quickly exit the venue to hunt a better mating place. But our man and woman were made of a different mettle. Did the owner of the torch not apologize for intruding into their moments of bliss? Did he not entreat them to carry on? So why not carry on? Yes, thats what they did.. our Mr J started to knead with more gusto.. i can only imagine (with a heavy heart) what our lady was kneading then....
The guy-with-presence-of-mind-who-happened-to-shine-a-torch-on-the-pair-of-breasts, at that moment was rushing down the stairs, like a man possessed. He lost little time in reaching the main foyer, where several wannabe clue hunters were loitering around, each trying to figure out what the other is doing. To them he shouted "Clue in Deans' foyer! Upstairs!!!!"
My reliable sources inform me that the scene that unfolded there at that moment looked something like a dam bursting. (The way he described it was a bit more interesting, but I refrain from mentioning the simile here to avoid offending my female readers). The entire motley crowd ran up the stairs, torches in hand.. and burst open into the Deans' foyer. Some 30 torches illuminated the lone sofa there, enlightening the occupants of the sofa: one with her top down, and the other with his pants down!
I do not know what transpired there after! I can only imagine that most of the torch owners rushed to the privacy of their rooms to de-stress themselves from the shock of their first-time ever sight of a beautiful pair of breasts. At least, that's what I would have done.. (How do I know if they were beautiful? I have it from multiple authentic sources. Let's give them, i mean the breasts, not the sources, the benefit of doubt)
The incident made the J&R couple "world famous in kgp". They seemed to relish every moment of their new found fame!
Since I wasn't one of the lucky torch bearers, I am afraid, I can't give a more colorful description of the view there, but I am sure your imagination can definitely do a better job!

R is now happily married to an NRI guy. J? I don’t know.. and who cares?

Road Trip to Mallu land

You must have heard this before..
What did Misbah forget when he flicked the ball to deep find leg?
In every corner of the world, there is a malayali!

(Explanation: Misbah Ul Haq, Pak cricketer flicked an attempted 6 against India to win, when he was caught by SriSanth at deep fine leg. Err.. I hate explanations)

It seems there are approximately 7 lakh keralites in Bangalore city alone. All we have as mode of transport (to Kerala) are 2 lousy trains and some 1000 private bus operators. Naturally, when fate allowed me to ditch my work and take that much awaited break to go home, I couldn't get any tickets to Kerala. It was Xmas time, and I couldn’t get a ticket even if I knew the Rail minister. Plain fares were going for an ask of 10,000 INR. Consequently, I decided to take my Bullet and ride down south.

I did a bit of googling, and found out that there is a bypass to Erode via Mettur dam, which means I needn’t touch Salem. Route chartered, I set off early morning at about 5:30 ish.
Soon it dawned on me why people wear gloves on their rides. My fingers froze hard on the handle bar. I decided to take an attend-nature-call break somewhere after Hosur and found it difficult to even straighten my fingers from the position into which they had solidified.
The road to KrishnaGiri is quite nice and smooth. Two lane traffic: life was good. Reached the bypass to Mettur in about 2 hours. That road is a bliss. Smooth as velvet. Almost no traffic save the exceptional cow. Green trees on either side. Reached Mettur dam soon.
I don't think I need to describe its beauty. The picture speaks for itself.

Took a lot of pit stops at Tea stalls. The simplicity of the village folks is so refreshingly. They greet you with a smile, are courteous. You feel at home. It’s the sick city dweller whose features are perpetually frozen to display a face devoid of any expression.
The road meanders along the river side for the rest of the trip to Avinashi. As I rode along, it occurred to me.. how often do we remember that the simplest things in life give us most happiness and pleasure? We digress…
I saw a small stream en route. Parked the bike. A small flock of sheep were grazing on a patch of grass. They looked at me with mild curiosity. I went down and squatted a few feet from them. The leader of the group took a few steps towards me. Soon another three followed and all stood looking at me. I whipped out my camera to get that shot, but the sudden movement must have scared them and they turned away. I suddenly remembered that I had two banana peels in my pocket that I hadn't thrown away. The offering was accepted with overwhelming enthusiasm, followed by optimistic licking of my hands. But alas, I just had two banana peels with me.

I bid adieu to them, walked further a few meters where I saw this concrete sidewalk on which a body could peacefully lie down. I lay down on that sidewalk. There was this huge canopy of a tamarind tree above the side walk, giving me shade. A yellow tailed swallow sat on one of the branches, chirping loudly. I must have dozed off for half an hour: when I woke up the sheep had gone, so was the swallow. I started my bike and continued down.
The road from Avinashi to Erode --> Coimbatore is pathetic. Potholes that could swallow an elephent. Unruly vehicles that force you off the road every kilometer when they try to overtake each other. I reached Coimbatore my 3 pm. There is a by pass from Coimatore to Palakkad, which is a toll-road. Big, wide, straight:- a beauty to ride. You could see the Western Ghats to your right. Majestic mountains painted against an azure blue sky.

Stayed at a friends place that day. They had this dog, Sweety. Well, Tintin would have sworn that it was not Sweety, but Snowy.

Started the next morning on my way down to my town. Was extremely reluctant to take the Palakkad Trichur highway. I happened to have the misfortune to traverse it a couple of months back. It took me 4 and a half hours to travel 60 kilometers! Fortunately, the road had been patched up a lot. About 10 kilometers on the NH, towards Alathur, I saw this layer of morning mist on paddy field glistening in the morning sun. It was a sight to behold:- Nature in fine splendor.
I couldn't believe it was a sun rise, 'coz it looked every bit like a golden sunset.
The trip down further south was largely uninteresting. Bad narrow roads, scorching heat, blinding light, all conspired to make in quite painful.
I reached Kottayam by about 1 pm and decided to pay a visit to the local bullet garage. The guys were good (Marikar motors), capable. They advised me to change my brake fluid which I did, oiled the clutch cable and I was soon on my way.
Reached Adoor by 2:30.
My dad was having his lunch when I rode in with my helmet on. Clearly he wasn't expecting me, 'coz I hadn't told them I was coming on my bike. He politely asked me to take a seat. This puzzled me, its only when he explained that he didn't know that it was me, that the mystery was cleared.



More to come... later...

One night.. once upon a time .. in Kgp

Kgp, a.k.a IIT Kharagpur, is this heavenly place where the undersigned spent a good four years once upon a time.. I know, Chetan Bhagat made a tidy fortune by disclosing certain closely guarded secrets:- may Almighty give him health to enjoy his new found wealth, but still, I can't resist the urge to chronicle certain events which I hope may provide some amusement to you, dear reader.

First and foremost, I am no great writer. What I write here may not be in any particular sequence. The names would be changed to protect the identity of the characters involved.

A note of caution: Most inhabitants of this place are in the age group 18-22. On an average, there may be about 1 female for every 25 males. (This ratio varies quite a lot!). All these bits of info, are mentioned here to caution you that for 99% of the time, there is (at least was) only one topic that hummed in most our heads then.. and that was women, 'sex', to be more precise. Many of the anecdotes that follow, therefore would have the aforementioned as its central theme. But no, it is not a collection of who-slept-with-whom-how-when tale, just so that you don't entertain false hopes.

I think I should start first by listing out the events that took place one cold December night, most likely the December of 2003. Before we get into specifics, I must educate you on certain preliminary details without which you may not be able to fully appreciate the story that is about to unfold.
There are two kinds of men in Kgp: the ’ haves’ and the ‘have nots’. The haves are the lucky ones who enjoy feminine companionship. PDA (public display of affection: for the less knowledgeable amongst you) knew no bounds. The guys generally take an extreme interest in stroking her ears and god knows what else, when they know that the less fortunate ones are ogling.. We digress, more on this later..

Now, these young couples are miles away from the prying eyes of their parents, uncles, cousins, aunts and other such miserable entities that normally prevent two young beings from mating.. err typo.. meeting to their heart's content. Naturally, you would tend to reason that the couples are keen to be together where ever and when ever they can. The issue, my friend, is that there weren't that many places where one might enjoy a quite moment with ones current object of affection. A soviet spy in the cold war era would not have been followed with such due diligence and care as the poor couples of inhabited the holy place.
The preparations, sometimes were quite elaborate. Voyeurism was an art that was practiced to perfection. I should mention about a particular senior, whom let us call MB, who had a chart in his room which had arrows and flags that depicted the current snap shot of the Kgp love life. You could very easily see from his charts who was dating whom, where were they last spotted together, whether something meaningful happened between them, so on and so forth. Many years later, when I was looking at the war chart in the War Museum, London, it struck me that MB’s charts were more organized, albeit dealing with a different subject matter. If you think I am imagining, let me assure you, i am not. I digress again.. The only scope for the 'have-nots' to catch some action, is then to follow the 'haves' like a shadow, and find a suitable vantage position where he can observe the drama unfolding between the lovers. You must remember that in those days, porn was not that freely available. People had to reply heavily on their imagination to survive. We probably had about 30 computers, most of them dumb terminals! Your only source of entertainment was the occasional "Debonair" that the paper walla brought for sale. Actually, this reminds me.. I think I should detail these in another blog. I can very easily fill 10 A4 sheets with what I have to say.

So let’s come back to the events of that cold December night. For some reason, I had this strange urge, to go to the central library. I wanted to study, drink from the fountain of knowledge. I normally take a deep breath and wait for the feeling to pass. That day, I felt this thirst for knowledge somewhere deep down in me, and finally I decided to pay the CL a visit, pick up some random book that interests me and sit down and spend the next hour, till that miserable urge passes and I became normal again. The CL, if you haven’t seen it, is massive. I have often looked at the neatly stacked rows of books and wondered what an excellent place they would be to steal a kiss from a girl, if the chance ever occurred. I had often made mental notes of which of the sections of the CL offered the best possible cover for such clandestine activities. It is a different matter that I never ever had to consult these notes, for no such events came my way.. Ahh.. Thanks for your sympathies. So, off I went to the CL, climbed a ladder, to reach the first floor, which is when I heard the giggling. We must exercise our brains a bit now, and pull out those old geometry fundaes from cold storage. Imagine a rectangle. Imagine another rectangle stacked above it. These are the two floors of the library of interest to us.




I climbed up and was at 'm' when I heard the giggle. I knew that the quarry was at 'c', which is the only place where there are tables and chairs. Quietly, I retraced my steps, climbed down to first floor, went to 'A', climbed up and reached 'X'. I could see the two birds now clearly. Never in my life have I ever seen a dumber pair. They were sitting right under a couple of tube lights and experimenting with their basic instincts, right where everyone could see them. X, on the diagram above, is right behind shelves of books. I did not switch on the light for obvious reasons. It was dark there which suited me perfectly. With great interest, perhaps even without blinking my eyes, I stood there, transfixed. I think some level of detail regarding the happenings behind the table at 'c' are necessary here. The chap had taken her sweater off. He was peeping into her blouse. A round of necking and petting followed. This was followed by another round of more robust necking petting. Clearly, the guy wanted more.. Can't really blame him, can we? I shall refrain from detailing the events that unfolded there in more color out of respect for any female readers of this blog, but you get the idea.. He decided to risk everything and wanted to take the proceedings to the next level, which is when the girl cautioned him that they could be discovered any moment. The guy sat lost in thought, three quarters of his brain fully concentrating on the offerings exposed to him, the other quarter getting a wee bit wary.

Eventually, he stood up, looked around, and unexpectedly started walking towards 'A'. I was sure that he couldn't see me. I was there fore sure that all he was doing was to go to 'A' and double check that no one is around. I couldn't backtrack to 'A' because he was already walking towards 'A'. I stood my ground, confident in the knowledge that he couldn’t see me... which is when I realized that he could see me if he came to 'A' as there indeed was some light where I was standing. I was not standing in total darkness. Panic struck me.. my blood froze.. I felt an instant increase in brain temperature; you could fill a bucket with the sweat in my hands... and viola! my cool, intelligent brain swung into action. I picked up a book from the shelf and started perusing it with all the devotion of a true seeker of knowledge. The guy walked past me, he evidently saw me. He went to 'A', walked back to 'c', whispered something to the girl. She looked in my direction, horrified.. they continued to whisper. I knew they were discussing about me. I put the book down, walked to A, sat on a chair with my back towards them, picked another book, and started counting till 300. I was just an innocent bystander, wasn't I? The guy would obviously come once more to double check and he would see this serious student lost in his book with nary a thought about anything else. He would go back to the girl, take the activities to their next logical step, which is when I could throw the book way and quietly, resume by eye-feast! Heights of optimism? Yes, in hindsight, I agree. But I hoped against hopes that they would think so, and there I sat, counting away. At 300, I couldn't bear the suspense any longer, I rushed back to my peeping place.. the quarry had gone! I was dumbfounded. What in heaven's name was the flaw in my theory? Why could the guy not believe that I was an innocent chappie who just happened to arrive at the scene and who was sooo undoubtedly interested in the book he was reading? I could smell something fishy.. but my mind was still dumb. And then suddenly, it struck me... There have been occasions where I felt like a complete, miserable idiot, but I think that was the moment of crowing glory. There was no light where I was standing! And, the industrious me was busy reading a book!

It took two minutes, perhaps more, for my senses to function again. One doesn't like to believe that one is a moron despite overwhelming evidence in support of the theory. Slowly, my brain recovered and moved into first gear. "If there was no light, he couldn't have seen my face", I reasoned. So even though he knew that there was this numero uno idiot standing behind the book shelf, he didn't know who it was! What a comforting thought? My spirits soared! I rushed down to the foyer, where my eyes caught sight of the quarry, leisurely walking towards .. wait! I knew.. they were going to Jnan Ghosh Stadium to continue the intimate interactions.. which I so inconveniently disturbed!

My brain whizzed into turbo charge.. I knew they were going to the stadium. The Stadium, is a dilapidated structure with tall grass all around the place, lots of trees and shrubs offering you enough cover to do what ever you wished to do under the cover of darkness. It had one main entrance. It was an established fact all coo-chi-coo couples spent time in stadium. It was, there fore, another established fact that each little thing you did in the stadium (at night) could reasonably be expected to be very closely monitored by at least a dozen pair of hidden eyes! But I knew, that these birds were a bit desperate.. and I could see fate smiling upon me.. I could see her gently bidding me.. to seize the moment.

It was obvious that if I followed them, they would see me. I picked up my cycle, and raced to the road, which circles the stadium. I had to finish the 1 km stretch to reach the diametrically opposite point of the main entrance.. and I didn't have much time left. I raced like a man possessed, threw my cycle into some shrub, jumped into the wilderness and waded through the thick shrubbery, picked a spot about 10 meters from the main entrance, and sat waiting. Some quick calculations told me that they would be appearing at the gates any moment. My eyes strained to see their silhouettes appearing near the gates.. A minute passed. And then another.. A couple more.. I knew then, the precise meaning of the word 'frustration'. The optimist in me, however, is a die-hard chap, and it rose to the challenge then. I waited there a good 10 minutes! Not a leaf moved! A stray dog did come around the corner towards the stadium, but that didn't impress me much. With a heavy heart, I stood up, took stock of the situation.. They must have taken a detour and found some other cozy corner. Dejected I walked towards the main gate. I reached the main gate, and walked out of the stadium... and came across this guy and girl who were just turning towards the stadium entrance. Our eyes met. I looked at the guy! The guy looked at me. The guy hadn't seen my face near the shelf, so immediately didn’t connect the dots. But then, my face was white as a sheet. I was not a master of masking my emotions in those times. Slowly, the mild surprise in his eyes gave to complete bewilderment when the facts registered themselves in his mind. Anger, agony, and mix of expressions followed in quick succession. Finally, his face froze with a look of extreme frustration. I could imagine someone trying to pour a sea down an exploding volcano. I could imagine what he felt. I truly felt sorry for him. I looked at the girl.. She didn't have a clue.. I could see she hadn't taken any of these in. I walked past them quietly, and started on my half a mile walk to my hostel. I knew the moment was gone! I knew I had lost it...