My Angel

The darkness spread quickly,

Covering all the eye could see,

and even the strongest light,

this magic evil could not fight.

Laughter was all but gone,

This, a night with no dawn,

Hope had turned to despair,

A malaise with out repair.

Plants withered & simply died,

Smiles froze and fears cried,

This winter was not just for bones,

It had cut through to human souls.

To this place, an angel came,

Seeking not fortune and fame,

To only help the people cope,

And to revert despair to hope.

Bit by bit, the winter thawed,

Smiles reached to men once hard,

Songs burst out, sung on a lark,

All here now unafraid of the dark.

And the darkness crumbled fast,

The sun, this time, did outlast

And in this light, the people saw,

The angel, her name Theresa

Therapy?

Strangers in the night, we were
Emptied souls filled with gore,
Tales of fool’s hope and hopeless horror,
brought tears for times before.

And in this wasteland of human life,
Filled with weary loss and false glory,
We sighted brief glimpses,
Of inspiring beauty in every story.

In that never-ending night I realized
Life’s victors sleep not virgin-white,
After fighting the world’s pettiness,
They lay down bruised and ugly. But wise.

We left that room quietly,
Hoping that night had turned into day,
But Alas, we looked at each other, smiled
And said, see you next Wednesday.

My Human Mirror

A mirror reflects your actions. It therefore implies that your actions come first and then come the reflections. But what if the mirror could somehow predict your actions? What if the mirror could talk? What could it tell about you? That you are the fairest of them all?

So this is what my human mirror says about me:

1. Be prepared to be called fat all the time, even when you've lost weight

2. Be prepared for his single-minded obsessions with certain things - I present to you sooriwhatshername [edit: sori1004jy]

3. Be prepared to listen to him laugh/tear up at the same joke/inspirational speech, no matter how many times he's heard it

4. Be prepared for loooooooooong walks

5. Be prepared to rate other women on a scale of 1 to 10

6. Be prepared to listen to his outrageous and completely unreal ratings of other women

7. When you see that look of love glinting in his eyes, it's not for you, it's for the glass of beer that's in front of him

How does one prepare for destiny?

For a culture supposedly focused on inner beauty and peace, we do care a lot about the way we look. After all, looking at inner beauty and ascertaining the extent of peace the person in front of you feels is much more difficult than looking at the hot chick (a.k.a. person in front of you) and surrendering control to nature's hormones. And we very well know that nature follows its pre-defined script.

Most successful meetings run thus: The eyes will establish contact, lips will separate to reveal a beautiful smile . . . and the rest will be left to destiny. . .

And the script runs on . . .

Therefore the all important question that one should ask oneself is this: Am I ready for destiny?

I too asked myself this question. Unfortunately, I chose to burden my mind with this question just when I was in front of a mirror. And that has led me to the current pain that I experience as I type out this post.

But I reveal too much too soon. Wait for it.

The prima facie answer the mirror gave me was the famous 'All is well'. Eyes (aided by enormously thick glasses) were fine. The long beard I had cultivated on a 40 day long road trip was gone and I had lost 4 kilos. So far so good! And then I tried my smile. . .

There are different ways to smile. There is the polite 'I-don't-know-why-I-am-smiling-but-I-have-learned-that-it-is-polite-to-do-so-and-you-expect-me-to-smile-so here-goes kind of smile. Then there is the seductive, lips half parted, come hither smile. All actors in B/Hollywood are accomplished masters of this smile. Then there is the confident smile, shy smile, sad smile, joyful smile and so on. . .

The smile I tried on that day was the E-smile. No, the 'E' does not refer to electronic. Nor is it, I assure you, a prefix suggested by a marketing expert to increase readership of this blog. I call it the E-smile, simply because it is impossible to produce this smile without pronouncing the alphabet E. And I went 'Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee'.

That was when I noticed. My teeth were stained yellow. All those days and nights of coffees and teas had left their mark: indelible at least to the tooth brush and paste I used. And worse, there was a cavity. Yes, this required a trip.

Most people think uncharitably of their dentists. I don't. They are nice people. Learned. Wise. Always smiling. Even their offices are decorated with posters of people with happy smiles. Beautiful smiles. Beautiful lips . . . beautiful girl . . . er - the contents of the posters will be described in detail in a separate blog post. Coming back to the point, dentists are the sort of people you'd be proud to call friends. Until they don their face masks and gloves.

Mine was no exception. A warm smile inspired trust and confidence. But soon his real character emerged. Gone was the warm smile, now hidden behind a white mask. His hands now held instruments of cold steel, capable of many many thousands of RPM. All pointed in the direction of my mouth.

People often seek to understand the true meaning of trust and faith. And so they go to their pastors and priests. Pastors will point to their Churches while Priests will gesture to their temples. I submit that real trust and faith is learned only when you sit in a dentist's chair. Your mouth wide open, eyes shut, your hands folded and you wait. For deliverance. I see no other reasons apart from trust and faith as to why you would willingly let another person poke, drill, pull, stitch and mess around in your mouth.

I had a wisdom tooth extracted yesterday. I am happy to say it went off well. I now have clean teeth that I can proudly reveal when I smile. Even the E-smile.

The road to destiny does run through the dentist's office.

Till next time.

A new hope

Along with the wailing come the tears
Dripping on the floor, they’re fuelled fears
A thousand demons spring forth to destroy hope,
At them I curse and shout myself hoarse.

And when hope lies bleeding, almost dead,
The hunger of demons is well, well fed,
The tears dry at last,
I know, this too shall pass.

The lost can never be found,
No matter whose door I pound,
But when I rise again, wounded and strong,
Then ends the darkness, so long.

Wounds will heal, and cheer will reign,
Early rays lend life to hope again,
Amidst the scenes of darkness past,
A new light spreads, spreads fast.

The rites of passage

Every culture, every society has over time come to see certain rituals as rites of passage. Call it a baptism, a bar-mitzwah or an Upanayanam (I am a Tam-Brahm after all! :P), these are the true signaling devices that we have devised to announce our arrival. Reliable sources tell me that in some cultures even castration is considered a rite of passage (Ouch! Maybe the final pack . . . er passage :P)

But I digress. The reliable source mentioned above a.k.a. Wikipedia, has, I see, left out one very very important rite of passage. Granted, it does not have history and tradition on its side. It is less than 100 years old. But what it lacks in historical depth, it more than makes up for in its geographical spread. No matter what your sex, caste, creed, race or nationality, you have to undergo this ritual if you want to drive.

And like all rites of passage, this one has a perfect time. Your 18th birthday. If you are an ideal person, this is what you would have done: drunk yourself silly on the last night / first day of your 17th / 18th year and shown up hungover for the driving license test. It shows. Just look at your license photo!:P

Anything less than ideal, you would have given a few days gap between the 18th birthday celebrations and your driving license test. I fall in this category. You see, I gave my driving license test for a motorbike 11 years after my 18th birthday.

Why, you ask? Why now? Because it is only now that the ‘macho’ness of the idea of a sole biker riding his bike across a mountainous terrain overcame my innate and abundant inertia. And so I stood in a line filled with babies. From the next decade. The test itself was fairly simple. Drive a Kinetic Honda for 5 metres and turn back. No sweat there.

At least that is what it was to me. But then I realized that I was thinking from a vantage point of somebody who was 10 years older. For a boy / man or a girl / woman at the cusp of adulthood, this was a fricking big deal.

And so I watched them delicately nurse the Kinetic across the ten metre course. Some were tense, others nonchalant. However, in the end, we had all made it. Or so I thought.

The advantage of maturity is invisible. There is no halo that shines behind your head indicating your ability to navigate the roads of Mumbai. There is no indication that your heart beats normally when the babies’ hearts beat a little faster. In the end, the result is the same. The Kinetic is back safely at the starting point.

The disadvantages of maturity are however easily visible. The glasses. My glasses. My soda-bottle glasses. So when the inspector glanced up from my application form, I believe that he focused not on making eye contact or in confirming my identity, but instead on the oh-so-prominent symbol of maturity that I wore. In his version of Serengeti I was the limping gazelle, masquerading as the preying lion.

It was here that my heart filled with dread. I was going to get rejected on grounds of poor eyesight. At least made to jump through some extra hoops. The inspector could insist on a vision certificate. From a government hospital. From experience, I know that I will never get a clean certificate. My dream of riding a bike to Laddakh was over. Finito. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

But all was not lost. While maturity has given me the prominent addition to my face, it has also given me the ability to cope with the situation. Long lines in various government offices in multiple countries had given me the ability to instantly put on my appeal-to-your-nobler-side face. An impossible combination of a soulful look with down-cast eyes, it worked very well in immigration lines, ration card lines, passport offices and on one memorable occasion with a cop who had almost written me a ticket for going 20 miles over the speed limit. It was this weapon of last resort that I deployed. . . and . . . incredulity slowly gave way to comprehension and then assent.

He smiled, shook his head and advised me to drive carefully. I nodded and walked out the room. 25 years after I fell in love with motorbikes, 22 years after I learnt to ride a normal bike, 11 years after I should have gotten my license, I've actually gotten my driving license.

The rites of passage are complete. I am a biker now. And I love it.

On fitness and unknown women - a study

Thank you! Yes you! I know I've never met you. We've seen each other though (I hope). Oh,alright! I've seen you before. And through this post I want you to know that you profoundly affect my life every day.

You see m'dear, the effect you have on me is transformational! All I have to do is look at you. Yes. Really. One look at you, whether it is in the elevator, or at the movie theatre / mall, is enough for change. Yes I Can! In goes my belly and out comes my chest. My back is straighter and my stoop is now a swagger. And while it may look like I'm holding my breath, what I am really doing is assuming that new yoga posture that will become tomorrow's craze. Really I swear.

Or let's talk about the gym. Yes folks, it's true. I do go to the gym. Yours truly succumbed to the deadly forces of obscure medical jargon (what in the world does 'high levels of Low Density Lipoprotein' mean?) and blatant threats ('either you reduce that tummy or no more cheese dosas for you, young man!') unleashed by my mother. But I digress.

So I landed at the gym 2 months ago. Lost amidst the weapons of mass er.. fat destruction, I quickly spotted my life saver: the treadmill. Here was a machine built just for people like me. It could operate at low speeds and has a 'Stop' button placed prominently on the panel. I felt happy. A serene walk for fifteen minutes at 4 km / hour couldn't be so bad now, could it?

It worked like a charm. At first. I kept going to the gym and gave Mom no opportunity to action her threat. If there were any doubts about the effectiveness of my routine, they were certainly never expressed to me.

And then you came along. To the adjacent treadmill. Why, oh why couldn't you have come in just ten minutes later? I would have been long gone. Life as I knew it would have gone on beautifully. But no. You fiddled with controls of the treadmill next to mine. And then I looked at you. Out came the swagger, in went my belly. All this while the treadmill threatens to throw me off.

It was then I committed my gravest sin yet. I took a quick peek. No, I didn't look there! I looked at your treadmill speed. you were STARTING at 6.5 kmph. You cruel cruel thing!

So of course, I nudge my speed up to 7.5. And begin to pray. Dear God, let this be over fast. She's such a petite girl. Surely she must have burned off yesterday's dinner by now. And even day before's. Aaha. Her hand moves to the speed controls. Thank you God! Surely she will get off now. I'm saved! My legs can rejoice now. Wait. What's that beep? And why is she running? 9 KMPH!!!

AARGH. I contemplate throwing in my towel right then. But I couldn't. Why you ask? Blame it on evolution. Sure enough, my hand found its way to the speed button and nudged it to 9.5 kmph.

My legs made all sorts of threats. My head made all sorts of promises. Compromise and cooperation were achieved.

After an eternity, you slowed down. First. Ha! I waited a respectable 15 seconds before following suit. My legs were safe after all.

As I slowly transform back from a pair of revolving legs into a evolved human being, I become aware of sights and sounds that I had never paid attention to before. The calorimeter, I realized actually has three digits, not two. And that 'thud thud' comes straight from my heart pumping away in all its glory.

This dear folks, happened two months ago. For the first time. Thanks to the coincidence of matching schedules, I've become rather used to the daily assault on my body. In fact I look forward to it.

But believe me, I am so glad she caught me at the treadmill. I shudder to think what would have happened if she had caught me lifting weights.

Till next time.