Description:
23 years and running...... Maybe it's time for a journal.
Contents:
Poetry
Have you ever been inspired by hate?
Have you ever been inspired by desparation?
Have you ever been inspired by the knowledge that you will never win?
Have you ever been inspired by loss of love?
Have you ever been inspired because you have nothing to lose anymore?
Have you ever been inspired by doom?
FAREWELL
The grass sways as she turns her head one last time,
As a sinking feeling grows in my heart, drums beat.
A horizon heavy with clouds, the rain waits,
Much to my relief. A respite from the pain.
A last farewell, the clouds gather, short, the respite.
A warning drops from the sky as the mountains cringe,
In thunderous rapture the heavens break,
I turn around one last time! And I’m alone.
Under a weeping sky, possessed by my heart’s yearning,
Heavy breaths smother my tears,
I wait no longer as the peaks beckon, arising in my senses.
She saw me not for the last time, or I be dead.
Lashing whips of rain around a spine of lightning,
I ride yonder with her face in my mind,
A heavier heart does not live; a heavier loss does not exist
Quench my soul, my broken soul.
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
What’s that creeping in my mind?
Ominous, its moaning cello warning
Ominous, its melancholic tip-toeing
Questions
Questions
What’s it asking? Answers! Answers!
I’ve lost my mind
Its gone quiet…………
It’s come back!!
Bigger, Blacker, an Orchestra, with a hearse
With my name on it
With my name on it
Dances
Dances
Fate, Tears, Agony
Mistakes
Lost
Orchestral behemoth, Paranoia
Schizophrenia
Mirror Mirror
Who
Am I talking to?
Drums
Orchestra
Climax
Conclusion
Answers!
Heart beats, Blacker
Blacker
Blacker
Nagaland Beckons
I don’t remember entering Nagaland, as I was fast asleep when the bus entered Dimapur bus station. My friend woke me up and told me we had reached, and I woke up groggy and stiff, as you would expect after a night-long bus journey. Dimapur looked and felt just like any other small town tucked away in the North-East. It has a fly-over though and that reminded me of the fact that I was still some distance away from the hills.
Bodo was my companion for the journey and also a self-appointed guide to this beautiful state and I, was in an uncomfortable position as the unwilling tourist, who is trying to hide the fact that he is in town for the first time. All my confidence disappeared when everyone around were fluently conversing in Nagamese, and I knew that if I were to utter the little Nagamese that I knew, well let’s just leave the rest to your gory imaginations.
Thanks Bodo, for finally deciding to come along; a whole half-hour before the bus was scheduled to leave Shillong.
Dimapur was pretty humid I must say, and kinda hot. So after a while of getting used to the stickiness of the air I had a nice cold water bath while our wonderful host, Mayang made a nice welcoming breakfast for us.
Day One was spent just hanging around and meeting up and chatting with some old friends. Then it was decided that we were to visit Kohima the next day. That night I discovered one more thing about Nagaland. For a “Dry State”, the booze was much cheaper than many other places, Bangalore (where I currently reside) included. Maybe it was Dimapur’s close proximity to Assam, but it still came along as a nice surprise.
The evening was spent on the terrace, me fidgeting with my mom’s camera as Mayang, Bodo and Blender’s Pride warmed up in the dusky light with the Patkai range in the back-drop like thick edges of a curtain that comprised the grey Dimapur sky. As we carried on our re-union, I felt at peace and comfortable and far away from all the troubles and responsibilities that awaited me a thousand miles away. It started raining that night while we were polishing off our duties, and that even helped the evening become more memorable; the night sky, the rain drops, good company and the prospect of seeing another new place the next day.
The next day Bodo and I were joined by another friend, cute and bubbly Ageno, as we embarked on our journey to Kohima. We boarded an Alto at the taxi-stand outside the railway station, and I felt relieved as the scenery started to change from the dusty and crowded town-center to a more pacifying green of the more spacey Dimapur suburbs. Bodo was in a very excited mood as there were some old buddies waiting for him and slapped on his face was a smile reminiscent of Jack Nicholson’s joker, Ageno was on her way to deliver some special leaves/decorations for an Angami function the next day and I was once again looking like the “excited tourist”, clicking wildly at anything that fancied my attention as the car slowly curved up the road to Kohima.
The journey captivated me as I looked around at the hills, beautifully done in a mosaic of bamboo green and bamboo brown and the dark clouds that beckoned us as we approached the capital. The rain drops started to appear again and the clouds started draping themselves around the hills once more. As we approached the “diamond necklace”, that’s how my friend described Kohima at night, there was one last hiccup: landslide. Now I felt that I was truly in the groove with the rains and the mud and cheerful men digging away and trying to help the vehicles get through, even though I saw no reason for them to be so happy about it. By accepting the landslide as an integral part of my journey I exorcised that “tourist” ghost in me and felt more of a genuine traveler.
We entered the bustling center of Kohima and hopped off, invigorated and looking forward to a rain-drenched day in this beautiful misty town spread like a serpent over the high ridges that made up this terrain. We met our friends, Bodo’s classmates who made me feel at home straight-away. After a quick bite at Big Bite, our group of six hopped into a Sumo, courtesy Jo, and I had no clue whatsoever of where I was being taken.
The pouring rain was not going to deter me though, and even the potholes of Kohima were not going to shake my enthusiasm as we thundered along and landed up in Dimori Cove, with the surrounding scenery guarded by thick mist. I was happy though as I saw a lot of the surrounding range on our way there and regretted that I will have to wait much longer before I really explore this part of the world. We went to Naga Heritage village, and surprisingly I wasn’t the only one who was seeing the place for the first time. This is where the famed Hornbill festival is held, and that is on my To-Do list before I croak.
Kohima for me went in a blur and sadly I was unable to see the cemetery as it had already closed down when we reached there. But that only gives me another reason to come back. We had to leave back for Dimapur that night itself, and after a sweet farewell in the rain, Bodo and I quietly reclined on our seats as our cab plunged back towards the plains in that dusky grey light, that just one day back seemed so uplifting. I felt the melancholy in Bodo as his Jack Nicholson smile slowly metamorphosized into a long Adrian Brody face. The night ended in a nice dinner cooked by Mayang and we had the usual beers and drinks and chit-chat with our good friends.
Day Three was the hurried last day, and involved a small detour into Hong Kong Market, where I got myself a couple of t-shirts ,a belt and a DVD of sappy Korean movies. I also got my mom an umbrella, although she didn’t seem too thrilled when she saw it. It turned to be one of those summer umbrellas, not exactly made for Shillong monsoons. We also met another of Bodo’s friends and then it was time to go.
Final farewells and final pictures were taken as Mayang promised me he would land up in Bangalore very soon, and Bodo and I trudged along mentally preparing ourselves for a long journey back home.
Three days I was there but being my observational self I saw a lot in this little period of time. I’m not trying to put down a detailed analysis of Nagaland or trying to be the next expert on this place, but from my own perspective, this was a satisfying journey as I got a personal insight to a place I’ve always been curious about.
The scars of conflict are visible in Nagaland, with its large presence of non-civilian forces, and also the effects of this sixty year civil war on the people of this land was shown in the small conversations I had with my friends. But Nagaland is one of those places for which you require to throw away your pre-conceived notions and journalistic point-of-views to truly understand.
The bottom-line is, I’m going back to Nagaland and this time it will not be some 3-day trailer but rather a nice blockbuster trip of this diverse and beautiful place; and maybe a longer article about the icy enclaves of Dzouku or a lazy Sunday afternoon in Mokokchung.
So watch out and Cheers!
Return
Finally Bangalore welcomes me back after a month's vacation in a rather uncharacteristic manner- a cheerful auto-wallah! A rarity indeed even though this is a fine city, but not that I am complaining.
For a person who comes from the idyllic setting of the North-East, I believe that Bangalore is the closest thing to home, speaking of course on a "big-city" scale. It is laid-back with a pretty accommodating local population but at the same time it presents many opportunities which we lack back home. As a student here I have many memories, good and bad. But the experience piled on and now I'm in a position where I can look back at those bad ones and smile genuinely.
Bangalore comprises of a whole kaleidoscope of Indian culture and it's like the miniature version of the country here. Its cosmopolitan atmosphere was a welcome continuation for me from my days in St.Edmund's where our group consisted of guys from literally all over the place. Another thing about Bangalore that would excite us North Easterners is that it has a pretty good music culture and there is a place for every genre here. So if you are musically inclined, there’s no need to fear monotonous Punjabi remixes in this neck of the woods. After all this is the place where Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Sepultura, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Scorpions(twice!) and many others have played and enthralled their audience.
Also, you don't have to wander too far if you decide to have some pork and beef for dinner. Of course it requires a bit of "discovering" places in the beginning, but that should be welcome by the little explorer that's in all of us. And that is good news because eventually you will get tired of the more commonly available chicken. Also if you are a foodie then Bangalore is a place where you can find multiple cuisines. Just a walk down Church Street here and you can have choices ranging from Vietnamese duck to a nice heavy steak to some delicious Punjabi cuisine and of course scrumptious biryani (a must on your to-do list for Bangalore). There are lots of nice places to eat and that is something about the city that you will discover with time.
And as Bacchus may bear witness, a lot of us love a pint or two on a warm afternoon or maybe something stronger on a rainy evening, and yes indeed, in Bangalore you're never too far away from a watering hole. You got them dingy bars (of which I saw a bit during my college days), where you can imagine those stabbing scenes which you see in South Indian movie trailers happening often. Such is the "ambience" there. Then you got the slightly "posher" ones with the roof-tops where you can have peanut masala and chicken kebabs along with your drink. And of course you got the pubs where they serve you beer in pitchers and charge you double for cigarettes. The attractive thing about most of them is they play good music, although at times they overdo the Pink Floyd or Doors bit. Then there are the discos and they come with a rather depressing deadline, something shared with the pubs. Let’s just say that if Usher was in Bangalore he would have to stop making love by 11:30 P M because that is closing time for the clubs down here.
Rock concerts, grilled chicken, auto-rickshaws and their shady meters, call centres and their daredevil cabs, flooded streets, branches falling on people and protests against "helmets”, triple life-size political portraits and festive movie premieres are all a part of this booming city and top it up with an old fashioned traffic jam and there's the picture. Forum Mall and the brands you find there, multiplexes where Hollywood movies are actually popular and South Indian restaurants where you stand and have dosa, free pop-corn with a pitcher of beer, these are the mental stills in my head when I think of Bangalore.
That's Bangalore in a nut-shell for you; the beginning of a love-hate relationship with this big city that still tries to cling on to its old identity as an idle cantonment town. This little piece here is just an introduction from my part to this city which a lot of us are familiar with, but there’s so much more to it and each topic deserves a chapter of its own.
Here’s to Bangalore, whether you love it or hate it, you can’t ignore it.
Nightmare
I had a nightmare last night. It was one of those dreams where you can't run, you can't scream and you know that you will not win.
The earth was crumbling, falling apart at the seams, apocalyptic if that is the word you want to use. I found myself trudging through the ruins of my school and the broken alleys of my locality. A voice whispered in my head telling me not to speak. The voice told me not to open my mouth. If I did, whatever it was that was destroying the world would enter me too, and I would dis-integrate like everything else around me.
I was not alone.
She was tall and beautiful and I saw the fear in her eyes. We were like the last of the sane. I didn't want to let her go and I felt that she thought the same.
Red dust everywhere and the world was coming to an end. I suddenly saw the lane that led down to my house and sprang forth. At the gate I turned back and saw her still standing at the steps a few paces back.
She had spoken? I was not sure as her eyes still had the warmth and she started walking towards me.
But I was not sure.
I picked up two long twigs and set up a crucifix pointing at her. That was when I was sure.
The warmth faded away and her skin paled when she saw the sign. Her fangs were drawn and I realised that her love for me was no more. I crept back and fled to my door. I felt her icy breath float towards me as soon as I turned my back.
In my house I saw my grandmother lying still on a couch and I wanted to wake her and ask her if she still had that vial of "holy water" she always kept but then I felt her cold body, limp and without life. Just like that cold January night seven years back. I didn't want to turn back even though I felt something standing at the doorway.
I didn't turn back and clutched the twigs in my hand and said a silent prayer in my heart.
I woke up and it was three in the morning.
Drenched
A rainy day in Shillong is not just about the downpour. It creates stories and anecdotes that wouldn’t happen if it was not for the rain.
In school, the rain would slam onto the courtyard and the corridors would be splashed in no time. With my kind of luck, it rained especially when I was in my track-suit [on the days we had aerobics], and much to my mom’s horror I’ll go back home literally brown with mud and water.
The rain brought about interesting games, like the one where we pull each other along the corridors like a sledge. The gymnasium used to be open at times and it was a hall of noise literally. There were these stacks of desks at the end where kids used to literally climb up and down and everyone is having his lunch everywhere.
Rain meant the building was cramped for space and with students running around and emerging from every nook and cranny, there was bound to be the usual bumping, which would evolve into a full-fledged fight?. I was one of those guys who saw a lot of fights but was never involved in most. These fights would more or less happen when it rained, and a lot of times, the proposal of postponing them till 3 O’clock was usually made.
As I got older, a rainy day usually meant comics, movies, hot alu-chops and endless waiting for the showers to thin out a little so I can venture out. There were the times when we’d get caught in the rain and get totally drenched.
I remember it was in my tenth grade that the guys got invited for this party by some PM girls?. It was a Saturday and we were all decked up and met up in Down-Shop. As we started off to our destination, which was a rented hall in a pretty posh hotel in Police Bazaar, the rain suddenly came down on us and we literally dissolved in it. There we were, almost the whole of 10B, in the middle of Ward’s Lake [short-cut], in our best clothes and gelled hairstyles, drenched and caught unaware like sitting ducks.
By the time we’d reached the place, we were ushered in by our lovely hostesses, and shown the bathrooms straightaway where we all ended up trying to wring our T Shirts dry. That Figueroa [forgive me if I spelt it wrong] wine didn’t last more than a few minutes as everyone warmed himself up and I’ll tell you, the dim setting and the expanding dimensions of that hall, the preceding downpour and the general excitement and nervousness in the air still remains fresh in my memory.
I met a lot of new people that day, and over the years some of them have become my very good friends and part of that wonderful Shillong gang that constitutes my world back home.
So now as I type this while listening to a melancholic Korean song by some anonymous singer,window shades pulled behind me and the sun shining brightly outside, you can only guess what the weather is in my thoughts.
The Cast of Characters
I never felt the heat till I came to Bangalore.
This past Saturday, a small period of time I spent out in the sun caused me a head-ache that lasted till the evening. Whether it was the brightness outside or the heat or a combination of the two that caused me discomfort, I’m not really sure, but it certainly disrupted my weekend to such an extent that I was not even in a mood for my Saturday beer.
Much to D’s glee, this is the second weekend that I ve not consumed my usual copious amount of liquor. A seminar this coming Sunday means that the dry stretch would continue for a third week most probably.
My mind now runs back to 2001-2003, when I used to skip those torture sessions with PCM and instead opted for a sitting session in Down Shop. We never really hated the sunny days back then, cos they weren’t that sunny. I’m speaking of-course of the days in April which can actually be called the end of spring and the beginning of summer in Shillong.
My mind then wanders to those discussions we had in Down Shop whilst our attendance continuously dipped a few meters away up the hill. There was Malik, there were a couple actually and whoever sat behind the counter assumed the title. The Bandus were always changing, although there were a few regulars, including a Sly! Thanks Ksuid, for introducing me to my namesake.
Then there was “blue jacket dude”, who was really annoying. No one ever knew where he came from but he certainly did hang around, even played a cricket match with us once. Malcolm, the drunken mascot from Steven’s locality [Every locality had one.] was another one who hung around, frequently assuming the role of a Native-American warrior who just fought his last battle. Somehow these characters became a part of these unknown yet recognizable faces that made Down Shop really a nice place to let out those heavy sighs and relax those muscles. A nice session would evolve once the place filled up a little, and there was even space at the back for a few of us loyals.
The “Debu” would walk in and hunch under the doorway while he let out a trademark wail. Love sucks, it stinks and it goes down with a couple of drinks; that was his mantra for a while. Also add to that the uncertainty of PCB and here was a guy who was being driven “over the edge”. Slow walks in too, polite and yet as cynical as one can get sometimes. The Gold-Flake passes around, and the bitching starts. Tarkari plots yet another scheme to put the Math teacher out of his/her misery. P Shome walks in announcing himself loudly. He then brags about how dirty his jeans are (we even had a competition much to everyone’s disgust) while fishing out a cigarette from underneath that bed sheet he wears with the boats on it. Amidst the yells of FIRST BOOK! The Debu triumphantly gloats over the fact that he s mastered the art of acquiring the cigarette (or anything that looks like one and is about to get burnt).
J walks in and walks out. He has an agenda on his mind and always “looked” the least idle from our lot. Vicky marshals himself from across the road with a cigarette in his mouth and his faithful companion of a bag slinging by his side. The talk shifts to the previous weekend’s “get together” and the sins and acts of debauchery that were committed. The ones who were “rocking on” too much were picked upon as well as an inconsolable Debu who realizes that push-ups are not acceptable in most social gatherings, especially if there is a lack of dancing space. Add to that unattended (un)zippers and we actually had a case of public obscenity.
Sometimes the conversations would take “shady” connotations when a member of the group narrated his adventures/misdemeanors of the weekend, and how a mixture of alcohol and dance (?) led to an unexpected encounter.
Ksuid would appear to retrieve his bag from the counter, sometimes it was one of the guys from the other classes. There was a running joke that stated the efficiency of the Down Shop counter; that Malik would even harbour a dead body for you out there for a few days provided there was space. Thanks to this service provided, we never really needed lockers in college.
That was then. Along came sweeping changes in our lives, and even the shop wasn’t spared. The security of Down-Shop has now been replaced by the swankier Palomino, and while I must admit that I’m a fan of the cutlet (which goes really well with the “grease”), the spirit of Down-Shop still lingers around somewhere, misplaced tangibly speaking but sort of left over amidst the new structures. All you Edmundians who read this and were a part of the age where Down-Shop existed will know how central it was to the manner in which we socialized back then. There’re quite a few of them who would still have accounts in Malik’s notebook and there are those who have never tasted such sublime “longs” anywhere else; you all know what this humble eating joint meant to us.
But gone are the days when Bodo would be searching for “buckets” and Slow for cigarettes, in the confines of the shop; The loud conversations, that plank of wood across the ceiling where every one has banged his head at least once (some everyday) and that fire at the end of the room, are now just figments of the past, in a place that we can’t visit anymore.
Decisions
8
10
18
17
My math scores between 2001 and 2003 do not look very encouraging. SSG didn’t help with her tireless crusade against me and my helpless friends, and this hapless group included Tarkari, O-Sam-a and P Shome. Another thing that went against me was that Calculus involved no numbers, a fact I was not aware of when I filled my forms.
Until then, Calculus was this cute professor in Tin Tin comics.
In the end there I was, burdened by PCM, the most “challenging” of the courses. Cruel indeed, was Mathematics, but it earned me a few gold medals.
The credit goes to Patrick for coming up with this ingenious analysis of examination-leaving skills. Now those who thought they spent the least time in the examination hall would have an imaginary medal to prove it. So in the end, those of us who weren’t cut out for the Math Olympiad did get the consolation a medal to reward our resistance to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s evil spawn.
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