one more peg please!

He drove the car as fast as possible... In one hand he had a glass, filled with whisky, water, just the way he liked it... i sat next to him, and watched him , in complete awe.. i mean, this man was driving the car as if it was his last day and on the other hand he drank like he wud never see whisky in his life.. i kept telling him "dude, go slow man"... he kept saying "ur a scared chick" "digusting piece of rotten plastic" "blooody absolutely no thrill in life" " u telugites" "half tamilian" " go fuck ur biriyani", and a lot more... i had this weird smile on my face while he glorified me. i kept thinking "wow, this is so cool!!!! im gonna die". The man drove faster, faster, faster and faster... my grandma once told me about how Hinduism had over 10000 gods... At that very moment, i remembered most of their names... my heart spoke to me, screamed at me for being in the car... i was never this scared before, except once when i was caught for peeing in my class, tat also with fear... oh god everything just co related then... i sat back, watched my life pass by me, while my friend drowned himself in whisky and my fear... i looked at him, the three friends behind me, who were a lil different from the driver.. they were drinking rum.... i looked at them and in my mind i said " goodbye friends" " meet u'll in someother lifetime".... as if my friend heard it, he replied "balls, we'r meeting this weekend"... i smiled , probably my last smile, and waited for the end...

he stopped the car, suddenly.. like "oh my god" suddenly... he looked at me.. i was as shocked as my mom was when i told her "ma im doing BBM".. he called out my name in his most sweetest slutty voice ... "SSSIIDD".. exactly tat way... i asked him if this was his kodak moment... he kept looking at me.. i also told him "listen we'r never doing it ok.. so forget it"... he asked me to come out.. i did.. i stepped out, while my other friends quietly joined me.. one of them said "are we dead".. the other one replied "dude we'r near nandi hills da".... i was like wow, its not exactly as exciting as it is to go to ooty, but i can manage... i stood there, under the most beautiful sky, with a few million stars all singing the same song that was now being played in his car... radio head... "no surprises".... he kept increasing the volume... and then suddenly, he went right upto the middle of the highway, and did something tat was close to traumatic.. he started dancing.. for a radiohead song.. they wud be ashamed to know tat they created a dance number atleast for one man on earth... i stood there, my feet stuck to the ground, laughing.. so loudly that it could be heard on top of nandi hills... i then looked at him... initially i thought it was aerobics, it eventually turned out to be thapankuthu.... so here i was with four guys... one's thinking he's dead, another thinks he's in love with a girl, the other one hasn't spoken a word since he puked the 12th time and finally the last guy, the driver guy as we called him, who has whisky in one hand, dancing thapankuthu to radiohead song, on the highway... ofcoz i joined in later, and the dancing went to a new low... we kept dancing... i looked at him and said "kevin, u bastard... u are the maddest, the most craziest man i have ever known".... he replied " and this shall be one of our craziest moments, and u will be remeber this always".. he almost completed his oscar sentence,when a truck came barging towards us.. we probably had 3 seconds to decide if we wanted to move to live, or to resemble orange marmalade stuck on the road... the five of us jumped, flew and got to the side.. saved.. alive.. breathing.. scared... i was silent... completely shaken up.. horrified.. the other three, absolutely stunned, wide eyed, panting... i could hardly stand.. i almost cried... such an uncomfortable feeling went thru my really big body... i suddenly remebered kevin.. he wasnt next to me... he liked the highway better.. the four of us stood there, while he was back to the highway ... dancing... he ssuddenly stopped dancing, and looked at us and said in the worst ever wannabe british accent" one more peg of whisky, please"... i couldnt help but laugh... he came up to me and said, "wat an opportunity it was dude... i cud have seen u dead, it wud have been so cool man"... i said "BASTARD"......

the man who dint spill me in the bathroom

it always happens to me... im almost never completely free in my head when i wanna describe my dad... i always end up thinking how to start, wat to write, wat i cud hide, what i would elaborate on and wat i shud surely skip.. its not like he's a celebrity. and hey, its not like he's the best dad in the world.. really? see i end up asking questions like this, which i will eventually never be able to answer.. this is all so confusing anyways.. so y write anything abt him.. anything abt a person who's just another father.. hardworking, crazy and really annoying at times.. im sure u wanna know... read on

many years back, without sounding to meryl streepish abt this, dad and i were riding back home... if i can remember, it was a rainy night.. he was riding his kinetic honda (its standing in my apartment even today)... we were on our way back home... he was slightly not well .. and i believed tat... the bike was unusually jerky... and plus the damned rain... i was drenced and needless to say my dad too was.. i felt cold and he tried really hard to make sure i wasn't getting wet.. i can tell him now he did a terrible job then... i felt terribly cold and sick... he kept riding, it kept raining... he rode the bike as fast as he could... i could say with the movement of the bike tat something terrible is gonna happen.. in a minute.. in a few seconds.. and then... i opened my eyes and it was dark... i could sense tat we had stopped riding the bike.. suddenly felt dad wasn't there next to me.. i flipped.. scared to my balls, i started screaming.. not tat i could see too much, but i could scream..i did.. and then suddenly someone pulls me up... it wasn't my dad i could tell by his touch... it was a strange man, who seemed to be drenched too.. u know how the rain can get everyone wet... i looked out for dad.. after a few seconds, when i was almost alive (mentally), i saw underneath.. we had falled into a ditch... there i was,, on top.. the bike under me and dad under the bike... he kept screaming... they pulled him out too... ofcoz a few minutes later... his favourite kinetic stood tall.. taller than him.. his leg hurt.. he stood there.. looked at me and asked me "ur ok right".. i could say he was crying.. i wondered then.. he immediately took me to the nearby hospital.. got me ok.. got himself ok.. all the way back he cried... he kept looking at the sky.. very dramatically...i asked him several times, why he was behaving so weirdly... he only said "im sorry"... and then i remembered the doctors question to my dad.. "how much did u drink Mr Raju"... my dad said nothin.. nor to the doctor or to me.. he never does..

as i grew up, i always wondered how that night happened.. i kept cursing my dad for taking such a big risk.. for risking my life as well.. even now, im thinkin y did he?... tat night was replicated many times... ofcoz without me.. he scaled thru accidents like it was his favorite pass time.. i never clearly understood how he survived each time.. many a times, he even laughed abt it.. i kept tellin myself and lot of other close friends tat he's cuckoo, tats y... he clearly wasnt't cuckoo... he was beyond tat... something in him loved this part... this process of getting hurt.. his way of risky lifestyle... i don promote it, but i can only stand today and clap.. thinkin abt all tat shit he went thru... he loved whisky.. he does still.. but now it cant conquer him.. cos he loves another form of high.. and tats called "PEACE"... when i see him now, i can tell he's resting.. he's peaceful.. oh how tat makes me jealous.. makes me remember every accident he met with, all the million litres of DSP tat went into him..and tat came out of him... in all this his sense of humor stood out.. i asked him once "dad arent u scared of dying?".. he replied "shut ur mouth and go have lunch.. there's chicken today"... i looked at him, and thought "aiyo"....

iv realized i love these things abt my dad.. im not too proud of it, really.. but if he wasnt like this, then i wudnt be like this too.. tats y he never scolds me at all.. for anything.. for nothing...he seems to agree everything i do.. be it my personal life, my professional life he has only one thing to say "its ur life, u screw it up, balls im paying for it...." I jus cannot tell u how i love that attitude of his.. its too hot... so many times i see him looking at his kinetic honda.. he touches it gently, and probably even talks to it (depeding on his intake)... he's totally absorbed with the surrounding these days.. he wants everything clean, prim and proper.. and a few years back he was the master of dirt.. just abt everything he wore would be missing the same day he wore them... iv seen him abuse and scream at my servant and at the same time fund her child's complete education.. he's never touched a cigarette and still he would stand at the gate and give advise to a chain smoker as to which brand is better to switch... he bought mutton from one shop for all his life and when tat shop closed down, he stopped buying mutton...

he's retired now.. he made ads for a living.. for a great living.. and eventually a very bad living.. a living.. and now it seems to be so easy to talk to him.. i can ask him anything, or talk to him abt anything... i can jus go on, but he'l have only one thing for me in reply.."silence".. and tats wat i want from him.. this is the same man who almost killed me a few years back.. and today i saw him play snake and ladders with my neighbors kid.. he obviously LOST the game to her... yet he smiled.. so much.....

Him

it was always easy to walk on the road,
with ur hand it seemed a little less longer,
nicer and exciting. there was a fear to fall,
a fear to feel the ground and know it all.
the fear rose, and so did i.... that day,
something happened. u gave up, and i was given in.
how did u know, how did u project my fate.
now, im sealed, and im done for. need the hand,
need tat day. every once and the, let me know.
if not by the word, by the eyes, let me know. let me go.
its my last few words, not my end yet.
for the walk and more. its my time.... hear i soar....

do the norm... earn some money... have a family.. raise a few well mannered kids who will eventually grow up to be like u, or may be adopt a kid, a dog may be. take ur wife out once in a week,look at other women, buy a few goodies for parents, may be a trip abroad would do, meet friends once in a while, may be never, depending on ur spouse,build a beautiful mansion,spend weeks thinking wat to name ur first grandchild, spend millions on marriages, one last world trip may be, and then... one day, jus die... heart attack, predictably... in all probability, jus die a normal death.... normal normal normal.... everything shud be normal... extraordinary is like a curse of the old witch... out of the norm is like a deep sea, and doin something different is like walking out of the line and falling flat...

why? have u wondered? may be u have, but may be u immediately flipped back to doing normal stuff, someone perhaps called u, msged u, or may be ur thinking abt this in the middle of a great night of sex, a great evening of tea, or on a day where weed seeped through or some alcohol with slight merges of tobacco gained its balance. its the norm anyways. even now when im typing this, the word normal suffocates me. im no preacher of things extraordinaire, but i do believe in a difference. how long, is it possible to breathe the way we are, by doin things the way they have been done for years now. y not push a few buttons, y not take that 8th mile, y cant we just leap and see how it is to fall into whirls of being someone new, being someone diiferent.imagine if every day is lived exactly like its previous day. it would be heights of boredom. but that is wat we do anyways... and we also throw free advices on how to live. sometimes for hours, catch a poor little different boy in a party and cut him into pieces with volumes of "wat are u doin to ur life" talks. every word growing like a creeper, more so cos the person speaking will know nothin about living, and tat my friend is not his mistake anyways.

to think of it, its actually a much more difficult way to live. u need more courage to live a normal life, with all the distractions burgling through our lives today. to be different is like climbing the web. but, seriously lets try it. just for a day, may be a week or month, lets try living differently.. lets live a life, tat challenges us everyday... lets do crazy things... things that have been written off, things which no longer have a meaning.. we really have nothing to loose... imagine having something to tell, everyday abt our lives... iv actually done a research... iv actually found out that there are no rules to live.. no where is it written,inscribed or taught that u have to lead a normal life.... the truth is ur anyways gonna die, hence, before u do, do something super exciting and then kick the bucket.

pahadganj-a

the auto zips through the bylanes of Shahid Bhagat singh Marg.... its night, around 7pm. the delhi winter made its presence felt, much more than required, and that day wasnt any different. it was cold, fiery, for some weird reason. you already know beforehand, sometimes, the things that are going to unfold in the next few hours. the auto takes me to extremely conjusted and dirty lanes and suddenly i see outside and we'r surrounded by a million lodges. all around me they were just arbid names of hotels, motels, lodges and ofcoz the guest houses. the auto guy stops me there. he tells me "saab, yeh raha pahadganj"

sometime back: when i asked the auto driver if he would take me to pahadganj, there was an instant stare from him. i was a little taken aback... did i say something wrong", i asked myself. a few seconds later after he curtained his look, he asked where in Pahadganj, i told him "the german bakery". he said " acha, saat bajhe ho rahe saab, jaana chahoge?"
i said "ha, kyun", he said "nahi, aise hi pooch liya tha, chalo beto".

the first thought i got when i saw the place in its totality, was, oh bloody hellllll. where am i. if chandini chowk is crowded and dirty, then pahadganj is its son. bloody crwoded and filled with curious customers, onlookers, hippies, foriegners, sardars, and a whole bunch of pimps. they'r everywhere. just about every lodge there is,is a brothel. Just as i was walking, someone from behind, held me across my shoulder, gave a slight jerk and asked me "u want hashish, ganja, charas, coke" i said "no, no no no thanks" he asked me further "u want ladies, gents, top, bottom, angrez or desi" it was like someone planted an atom bomb, right next to my ear, and i went numb and dumb. after a few seconds, when i recovered from my extended shock, i replied very feebly "nahi, no" he insisted that i try, and i insisted him to leave me alone and alive. he had this glare on his face, and with all curious eyes he asked me " kyun bhai, kuch tho chaiye hoga, yeh pahadganj hai, india gate nahi"

the place is occupied by thousands of foreigners. most of them who'r still in a trance. they probably smoked up weed or hash years back, and havent returned back to the normal world yet. most of them look at you with all brooding eyes, trying to tell u something, trying to give u sweet hints tat they want somethin, or just smile at you as if they knew u for quite sometime and u happened to pass by. the women there deserve a special mention for their sense of fashion. well it doesnt exist for starters, and secondly its just a few pieces of cloth, infact waste cloth from a total flop tailors shop, put together. they look bizarre. they will not talk, but their entire body makes it very clear, that they lost it long back. the men there have hair longer than that of women, and most of them are from france. u will surely get this thought atleast once in ur already clumped mind "am i in a bad version of goa".

i was enjoying all this. not that i wanted to pounce on someone and sleep with them instantly, but everything around me had only one thing screaming out loud "we dont care wat u think, we'r screwed and stoned, go to hell, or come to bed"

when i realised i spent alot of my time dazzzing around, i decided to go to the german cafe, and then the diamond cafe. both were quite close to each other, and both extremely small, but both extremely beautiful. at the german one, i had a lasagne, and it was superb. it was just perfect and it was wat i needed. but i couldnt sit there too long, cos there was this pimp who was stalking me and i was super freeked out. i thnk he traded me without my own knowledge, and any moment someone's gonna come and do something REALLY bad, was what i had in mind all the while the lasagne went into my mouth. so i quickly gobbled my lasagne, and headed to the new diamond cafe. it was a little more peacefull, and was astray of pimps. i sat there and ordered for a beer. it arrived on my table even before i could breathe the next. super fast service. well its another thing, that i sat next to the fridge. i sat there, and felt tired. not phsyically, but mentally. i was filled with all kinds of pictures and frames, and i realised why most of them there sit so dazed. its cos, the entire place is like tat. it just dissolves u, and throws u out from its core just when u wanna understand whats happenin. but mind u, i was feeling quite good. dazed, but good, even without touching a dust of weed.

just when i was tucked into my own thoughts, a white man, sat in front of me, at my table. there was no place, and hence he decided to sit there (i obviously dint need a table i thought)(it was my 5th beer). i just sighed to myself "oh god another horny phirang". anyways, after a few uncomfortable minutes, he asked me "delhi?". i was like "yeah, and you" he said, with pride "france". i was like ok so, ur like a drop from the ocean, there are like so many futrvouis here". he probably wanted to hit me, but hey they'r romantic i heard, so he said "iv been here for 6 yrs" i havent gone back home""india my country now" ouch...

his name was jeff, but he now calls himself krishna.

it was already 3 hrs since i came to pahadganj, and i felt i hardly saw anything. the craving to see more, and the blessed company of jeff/krishna was quite tempting, but passable. it was too late. it was around 9.30, and the autos wud charge alot, considering i have to travel 20 kms to get home. i carried myself (happens to me after 10 bottles of beer) to the auto stand. my mind was so peaced out, so spaced out, and still had such horrid plus amazing memeries of the place. i was still in the place, but was not scared anymore. everything abt the place will scare u whether u like it or not. everyone there looks at u, whether u glance back or not. and everyone's high, if u are or not. i was walking to the auto stand, and an auto stopped by, i told him where i needed to go. he asked me for double. i wanted to show him the middle finger, but he would have thought im telling him single meter. i kept bargaining, and fighting with him, to reduce, and just then suddenly someone held my hand and asked, "u want ladies, gents, top, bottom, desi or angrezi". i looked at the auto and screamed "DOUBLE METER CHALO JALDI"...

im goin there next week btw, for a documentry shoot. i will kill that pimp.

a good wake up call

A great script writer once quoted "there are only four stories, that need to be twisted each time, to give birth to another story"... i am a firm believer of this, and keeping this in mind, im gonna account my comments on the film Wake up sid, which i watched a couple of days back.

sid wakes up, the alarm then rings, he looks up and down, left and right for his book, the one which might save him from the temporary madness of Exams. he finds it, starts scribbling, singing, humming, digging sweet body parts and then the book is captured by the camera and we see him drawing untidy sketches of Simpson. the music begins and there goes the starting of Wake up sid with a very upbeat, yet meaningful introduction song also called Wake up sid .. predictable? I dont think so!

Very few films, create a fizz, that jazz, the curiosity to watch them further down, even though you know from frame one, their story, their ups and downs, the start, mid and ending. Wake up sid, is one such movie. From the time the promos of the movie hit the tv and cinema screens, it was easy enough to guess what the movie would be about. But, when a movie has a very upbeat and clever start such as this, u know it, that this is gonna be slightly different in its treatment. how? well read further.

im not going to waste time in unwrapping the plot and give you my analysis of the story. no thats not what i want to do. but wat i wanna do is, is tell you that this movie is just not your "same old" jaane tu ya jaane na type of college romance. Infact its not at all about romance. the movie never tries to thrust the romance into your already romance filled mind, thx to jaane, ddlg, kkhh and ofcoz ur flight of girlfriends. this movie is about that section of extremely laid back, complacent, rich and spoilt, yet very good hearted brats (thank god he's not shown as the evil rich boy like mohnish behl in all his movies) who never seem to wake up even if your dad asks you to apologise to your mother for having spoken like a total jerk, ass and wat not. the scene where ranbir screams at his mother, even though he's the one at fault, i think has been handled so brilliantly that i have hardly seen any movie dealing with similar emotions do. i literally felt like getting up from my seat, stretching my arms and slapping the shit out of ranbir kapoors face. it was thankfully not spoilt with melodrama, nor was it extremely real with unspoken words. it had its perfect blend. and thats what characterization is about.

i think i must have heard this from so many ppl who watched the movie. "Oh its like jaane tu ya jaane na". its not. im sorry if u think im mad, but it really is not. "Jaane... na" was about college romance, dwelling into something else and then finally plopping as something as serious as marriage. "Jaane tu... na" was about our first crush, our best friends loving us secretly, our cool parents accepting us as couples, friends slowly growing apart, insane traditionalism and a million literary ironies, such as godot. whereas "wake up sid is about growing up, its about dwindling between no where, roomies, internships, first interviews, the battle between hindi music and jazz, obesity, college obsession, and lots of dad's moolah spent on video games (i hate them personally,so..). i have clearly given so many differences. yes, there are a few similarities. but tat exists in every film u see these days. name one recent hindi film which u thought was unbelievably original and cannot in the name of dilip kapoor be compared to someother movie. its not possible. like i said, every movie has its similarities and its differences. wake up sid scores well on its background too. a few sequences with brilliant background score by amit heri are top notch. the scene where ranbir is about to leave konkana's house (she locks herself in the bathroom), and he keeps hesitating, the background score there, and ranbirs handling of the scene is supremely heartwarming.

but hey, im not all that good too. there were a few things in the movie which i thought could have been bettered. the most important being, Konkana sen. she is seriously getting stereotyped and i honestly feel that she needs to break out of this "dusky, beautiful, upper middle class babe in a sexy job and i will make u realise wat u are" type of role. be it Metro, Page 3, Dil Kabadi or someother movie, she has played very similar characters. ofcoz i loved her in all these movies, including wake up sid, but tats becoz she just gives her craziest performance each time. But its time she gives us something different.

Ranbir kapoor. i think this is the only movie in which he has acted. i recently read a blog, that ranbir acted like ranbir in the movie. i personally wanna meet that person and tell him, that acting is not always about going crazy about a character. sometimes it requires you to give the character your touch. how do we know ranbir s like tat or not in real life? how do we know that he blew every rupee rishi kapoor earned? we dont. so please stop saying "oh he was so himself" he acted quite well, to the extent tat you empathise with him, u get angry with his behaviour, u love him sometimes and u just disregard him sometimes. according to me if so much is interacted with the audience, then the actor has indeed done a good job (theatre speaking).

i loved Ayan mukherjee's direction. It simply shows that it has been directed by a 25 or 26 yr old chap. i can vouch and say that this film was not ghost directed by Karan Johar. because i honestly feel Kjo lacks that chutzpah, the young blood, or the energy to do such a film. Even his KKHH was so mature i thought, considering it was predominantly gonna be a college romcom. Ayan has shown, what 19yr olds do these days, and i just hate to see ppl wasting time on playstations (i simply feel it is the most important reason y couples are divorcing these days). its really nice to see him, make ranbir cry like he's really crying or make anupam kher scream at him, not in the amrish puri way, the way he dealt with obesity, and finally showing how irritating it is to clear up house old mess and converting it into a beautiful house. all this with nice background songs by shankar ehsaan loy. my favourite sone being iktara, with a close second "Life is crazy".

watch Wake up sid it for its simplicity, normal comedy, daily life situations, growing up, and waking up most importantly. and stop comparing any movie to any movie. if u dint like it, just say u dint. don ridicule it by comparing it with someone else's work. its quite pissing off i tell you.

drop by drop

Trickle down now, through that moist brown tile
dance gently on the glass, placed so well
the sound u create, gives me a chill, gives me a fizz
i seem to forget, the ground on which i dwell

Put forth your tiny leg, step by step, step by step
let me help you, here, hold me, just take my hand
place it warmly, quietly, and place it just there
look how empty, dry and barren has become, my land

Oh how painfull, the wait, the wait, oh this wait i crib
carry on, its your time, not mine, i will stand
how much can u punish, how much can u laugh
im tired of waiting though, tired till my last strand

A hundred seas go quiet at your silent journey
from where, you dribble, scribble, dally and fall
what do those mortals know, what did they see, i yell
its me who melted waiting, its me who saw it after all