For the Love of My Neurons

How and why do we have to put up with people who survive, thrive and procreate by feeding on human neurons? I mean literally. Have you ever been in a spot where you are stuck on a dinner table, with a neuron-eater next to you? Or even worse, have you ever been careless enough to agree to go alone on a dinner with such a character, for the sake of politeness when everyone else candidly or pragmatically refused? Well! If you did, I hope you learned the lesson, though the hard way, and don't you worry, there are plenty of us who have learned it your way!

You innocently agree to such tete-a-tete's thinking its all right to have trivial and benign conversations at dinners. Its cool. But things take a brain-numbing turn when 'how have you been' turns into a monologue-ish recitation of a really truly boring sounding autobiography. You start with gripping-sounding, out-of-the-world, 'are you kiddin me!?!?', 'Is that right?!?', 'No way!!' or a Elaine-ish 'Get out!!!'; but move on to a mundane 'Oh really?!?', 'I see!' or a simple 'ha!'..Trust me, such subtle shift in your choice of words bears no effect or notice to the neuron-eaters. Thats the only time the big huge American burgers come to the rescue - you stuff your mouth with em and hope that it will aid in shutting off your brains too to the predator. It doesn't. You embark on a wishful thinking journey, imagining gouging out the guts, kidneys and the leg-piece out of the predator. That doesn't happen either. You would invariably have to stretch or test the limits of your endurance and take pride in that, if you will.

Oh society! Who devised the concept of you 'oughta be "nice" to everyone' and proliferated it across civilizations and geographies? Why can't I just tell someone that he's a sucker if he's one! Why can't I choose to leave him on the dinner table to hang out with the lady bartender who can talk about incredibly interesting cocktails and scotches. I guess such is life! This had to be a conspiracy of some incredibly intelligent sadist who took immense pleasure in people's hidden pain. Someone who enjoyed watching normal people turn into retards and retards turn into rulers.

Such is life indeed!

The Alcoholic Dilemma - Body Vs. Mind

A strong believer of the fact that mind controls the body, I recently witnessed the biggest uproar from the slave against the master.

This happens when you have total disregard for your slave and exploit him beyond limits. In my case it all started about 15-20 days. I fed the slave (read - my body) with all sorts of junk, alcohol and stuff that it is not comfortable with (read steaks and lambs). I used the legs at a rate greater than ever before and then I deprived it of some basic amount of sleep.

As if all this was not enough, the mind decided to subject him to a birthday binge with a weird concoction of alcoholic liquids. The torture continued for about 4 long hours. During the sleep, while the mind was unaware, the body decided to go on a revolt of epic proportions. Next day morning, unaware of the conspiracy, the mind pushed the body out of the bed and offered her a sip of water. The body threw back the little water with a lot more of toxicity into the flush. She was shivering with angst. Little did the mind know of the amount of venom that the body was about to spew. The mind decided to give her a little more time to settle down and offered her a small cookie. She pounced back at him with even more fury and venom (read bile fluid). He submitted to the defeat and slipped into oblivion. An hour later, the slave shook the mind to life to make him feel the agony. He, in turn, tried his best to cool her down by spending a good half an hour in the shower but the slave body was inconsolable. Another sip of water, another bite of the cookie, another vent of fury!

At 4 PM EST, after a lot of effort and reconciliation, truce was finally established between the mind and the body when the body decided to accept a cup of soup, some water and a little orange juice. The mind, on the other hand, gave written assurances to the body of not indulging in binges for a long time to come. More reconciliation followed with calm sleep and a healthy and mellow dinner.

Will the mind honour the assurances? will it give up 4 hours of revelry for a day of tussle? Only time will tell!

The Grapple with American Portions!

For some weird reason, that evil temptation knocked me down only after I had a few hair shaved off my head – (as if those long locks were the reason of my poise). I stared at the not-so-hottest- looking-female-of- the-day over the bridge, devouring a waffle cone of chocolate chips, in the most indulgent fashion. Her teeth were yellow and her tongue was white but it was the cone that made all the difference. I looked away but the seed had been planted. The evil was already inside me. I had to have the chocolate chips by any means possible now (analogous to the Barista coffee at the top floor of the Great India Mall I guess). After leaving a few voicemails (damnn…no one wants to talk to me syndrome), I finally got a call back from one of the loyal members of the bakar-bhasad group advising me with the directions to the nearest JPLicks. Had never heard of them or never bothered to hear about them but they seemed to be the biggest ice cream chain in the world to me right now. A couple of lefts and rights and I was right inside the JPLicks. Choices were easy. Ice cream with chocolate chips in a waffle cone is all I wanted. The big question and the reason for this blog was the size. We know size DOES matter late at nights. It does matter at electronic gizmo labs. But not in icecreams please!! Out of sheer ignorance, I ordered for a medium and ended up getting 4 scoopfuls of icecream with chocolate chips on a disproportionately small waffle cone. I raised my fist in my usual show of frustration but the damage had been done.

I walked out of the store – It was colder outside which might prevent the 3 scoops out of the 4, to melt off - licking the JPLicks creation in a 360-degree fashion, sampling it circumferentially every 2 inches or so. And then to my discomfort, Jieh and Amrita found me, in the most compromising situation, me grappling with a waffle cone that was disproportionately round and huge at the top. I pretended to listen to their girl-talk for 5-10 mins before being asked some pivotal questions, to which I was seemingly unaware. I pretended innocence. Jieh smelled my predicament and let me lick the jplick’s while they talked of eyewear and boyfriends and livers. We parted in 3 different directions hoping that we would meet again on the Halloween evening.

I kept moving towards the bridge, hoping no one would discover my plight; my pace keeping pace with the rate of the cream drip. My hands were all ice-creamed, the napkins I had were soiled but the fighter spirit in me refused to give up. And then! The inevitable happened… I lost my grip on the cone!! It flipped and started falling down. The strong reflexes came to the rescue from my spine rather than the brains and I caught hold of the cone; upside down though!!! I held the two scoops, remaining still, upside with my naked hands and there stood a small girl, requesting for dimes, in laughter. I ignored her with all fervor I could gather, flipped back the cone to its original state. Reason had prevailed by now and I was looking for the nearest trash bin. I found one after treading 20 long treads – a walk that seemed to be as long as a walk from Tommy Doyles’ to Spangler in the harsh Bostonian cold (I could have exaggerated with better analogies but I choose not to!) at 3 in the morning. I summarily trashed the remains of the draconian cone and sped off to the confines of the Hamilton Hall across the river.

The Periodic Spurt

Music teases me. Time and again it proves the extent to which I have lacked balls and guts. Believe it or not. I am a living example of someone who would easily kill his talents just for the sake of the herd. Was it the upbringing? Was I intravenously fed with risk-averseness since childhood? Was I recited stories of bankers and engineers rather than rockstar singers or writers before I went to sleep? Can I go back in time?

Its easy to blame and pass the buck and then forget it until you are accidentally poked again. But its worthwhile to pick up hints and motivations. Its worthwhile to be inspired by the very same things that poke you, the very same words that hurt you, the very same tunes that challenge you.

The energy burst is here, I hope it doesnt get busted. The time to live is now, I hope it doesnt get wasted. The mental vigor is alive, I hope it doesnt get rusted.

With these thoughts, I go to bed, hoping to 'excel' tomorrow, yet not lose the vigor. I hope someone will enjoy the pun and the irony intended.

The Lonely Traveler - The Closing Ceremony and the Solitude

I reached the town before noon, took a good long desanding shower and ran to the exquisite temples that close off by noon. By the end of it, I was convinced that our forefathers were gods of sandstone. The sculptures were so immaculate, minute and smooth, that the technological advances were no match to it. The Jaisalmer Fort and the Patwa Haweli were more examples of such exquisite work. The only glitch that remained was the glaringly poor maintenance of the Haweli in particular. You could do a rich hunt for rats, pigeons, bats and their droppings accompanied by foul smell in the Haweli that boasted of having one of the most exquisitely carved frontal façade. They say that the Archaeological Department has woken up. I am just keeping my fingers crossed…rather than doing something myself about it…

With this last piece of architecture, my sojourn had come to an end. The roots were calling and I decided to head back to Delhi via Jaipur. On my way back, I was evaluating the pros and cons of solitude and lone traveling. On the positive, you are a free bird. You go whatever places you want to, whichever means you want to and whenever you want to. You have time to write and listen to music of your own choice without much distractions. However, as wisely said by someone, ‘He travels fastest who travels alone…but he hasn’t anything to do when he gets there.’ Another point worth mention is the non-existence of the concept of lone traveling in the country. Right from the autorickshaw to the camel guide, everyone in the country was worried about my traveling alone. Immense pressure it was for me. Was I normal or had I just gone desperate. I took respite when I saw a few other homosapiens traveling alone, nationalities anyways had stopped making a lot of difference to me.

The Lonely Traveler - The Dunes

As the sun went for the usual dip below the horizon, I embarked on a longish walk, from one end of the dune to the other (about 4 kms). Dunes are like near-harmless seas. Water can drown you, sand won’t let you. The only danger it poses is that of getting disoriented. Looking at my own footsteps in the sand, I realized how I was never walking straight even if I wanted to and hence how easy it was to be lost once it was dark.

Walking alone, I soon got enthralled by the beauty of the brown ocean with seemingly stationery waves. The silence and the vast expanse of nothingness had an inexplicable charm of its own. At one moment, you would let out a gasp of delightful surprise, at another, you might just want to kneel down and close your eyes. Often you would also experience those sudden spurts of energy in which you would want to run over the convex side of the dune and slide down the concave side, knee deep in sand.

Having spent a few hours on the dunes, I finally decided to retrace my steps back to the camping place, which I readily got confused with. Liyaqat found me after an hour and took me back down the dunes with impressive ease. A dinner of quarter-an-inch rotis this time, alongwith curry, maggi and beer followed, as innumerable desert beetles worked tirelessly to collect camel droppings and roll them over to god knows where.

Post-dinner, Liyaqat continued his ‘joking-toking’ stories about his exploits with white females who had undertaken long desert safaris with him. Another interesting fact that came up was his reason for being single till date. It isn’t often that you hear of disadvantages of being a male, but here is one, in case you are born in one of the Muslim villages in Rajasthan, adjoining Pakistan. Unlike most of India, where males are gifted dowries for having married a girl, Liyaqat’s family would need to cough up atleast 100,000 Rs to the bride’s father. The lucky father of the daughter would gift away about half the amount back to the daughter as she leaves her father’s house while the rest of the money could stay with the father. Similar practices are known to exist in some societies of the North-Eastern states in India. In this case, Liyaqat admitted, the sex ratio was heavily biased towards males and it was too difficult to find a girl.

With these revelations, I slept under the beautiful crystal clear skies where, it seemed, that a hundred thousand new twinkling lamps were glowing full throttle to prevent me from sleeping in the open on the dunes. When the lamps failed to dent my sleep, the dust storm decided to take the lead. I was bathed in sheer sand by strong winds blowing from south, south-west. After an hour long struggle, I simply covered my face with a dirty piece of linen and shut myself off.

Next day morning was comforting as I came to know that even the seasoned camel man had troubles sleeping off. Finishing off the morning chores, drinking sanded tea and toast, we prepared the camels and headed back towards the road. 4 more hours of arse-wrecking camel ride and I was back on the road, in a 4-wheel drive, racing towards Jaisalmer.

The Lonely Traveler - Desert Safari

The Safari day began lazily. I woke up early but didn’t really feel like getting out of bed. This was my first sane sleep in the past 4 days. I finally brushed my teeth and headed for breakfast and tea. Quite expectedly, the imaginary English girls were not going for the Safari and I was the lone guy out there. I was prepared for it.

The camels were supposed to meet us at Amar Sagar. I had quickly bought a desert safari dress with turban for 400 bucks and headed in the jeep towards Amar Sagar. A small teastall was the rendezvous point for the camels and the jeeps. The ration was loaded, Liyaqat Khan introduced and I happily bade goodbye to Little Johny as I finally embarked on the camel safari.

Liyaqat Khan, the camelman, was a tall, lean figure with a face that seemed to have wrinkled and hardened by the vagaries of life. He wore a long Pathan suit and spoke comfortable Hindi, fluent Marwari dialect and comprehensible English – quite a must for all camel safari guides. He belonged to a village that was about 3 kms from the first source of water – a source that was a man-made pond about 20 mts in length 10 mts in breadth and might be a meter or two deep. The amount of dark brown water in the pond depended solely on rainwater. The camels, humans and mules drank side by side – heights of equality, or was it just an irony.

First few hours of the ride took us through scrub and cacti vegetation and a few ponds, one of which was surrounded by a gypsy settlement. The Rajasthani Banjarins are considered to be adorned with the most colorful dresses and ornaments. You would inevitably find them wearing colorful printed red ghaagras and cholis with borlas. The bangles are generally huge and with different designs, so are the nosepieces and necklaces. They would invariably call every tourist on desert safari as a ‘gora’ or a ‘gori’ and would expect some tips from you.

Our first stop was for the sake of our camels. We stopped near a pond for filling the camel’s water sacs, while I was nursing my cramped hip joint. And this reminds me, I did not really find riding a camel to be an easy job. Although a folded cotton mattress is placed over the saddle, it doesn’t prevent the deep insides of my hind to get badly cramped up. Eventually, I imitated the camel man who was sitting with both legs on one side. Although scary and prone to falls, the posture, no doubt, is more comfortable.

An hour or two after the first stop, we decided to rest for lunch. Liyaqat unsaddled the camels and left them to feed on thorns. He meticulously laid down the mattress for me and set out to gather dry twigs and branches for the fire. We were about three hours from the dunes and I preferred escaping the hottest part of the day by laying down in the cool shade of the lone tree in the vast expanse of short cacti. I ate potatoes, lentils and half-an-inch thick chapattis (or probably tried to eat them). Another small nap and we started proceeding further west. After crossing a small hillock, we reached one small set of dunes which, to me, seemed exquisite. This might sound geekish and irritating, but the look of these dunes immediately reminded me of the default Microsoft Windows Desktop image of picture perfect sand dunes. Another hour on the camel and we were at our destination. I waited for the tea before heading out on the dunes for all the fun.