(Mis)Adventures...Goa Ramblings

Yet another mundane, descriptive post - people in search of higher planes of realization are asked to re-navigate...

I'll begin with a line about my own memory, which I have just forgotten. This makes it imperative to continue and I shall not mince more words...

Goa was an amazing place, in the simplest sense of the word. The people seemed extremely outgoing and footloose, and generally inclined to play it up a bit, in the form of drinking or gambling or whatever. There were a couple of amazing things we could do at reasonably affordable prices. This list included parasailing, water-scooter rides, playing billiards at a club, going on a river cruise on the river Mandovi at sunset, go-karting, gambling. Etcetera etcetera...in short, a lot of fun.

The big bummer was that the eye candy, so to speak, was largely missing. This not being the peak season had its advantages - in the form of low rates for almost everything, but the general wisdom given by people had been: 'Goa me jaake sab tharki ban jayoge'. Unfortunately the same did not happen. The sprinkling of foreigners and (ahem)babes we spotted on our initial sojourns rapidly vanished as the monsoons made their way into the state, much to our chagrin.

Am feeling drowsy right now. Can't write much really. So here go the PS1 Goa Test highlights.

Dudh Sagar Falls: The falls are fundoo, straight out of a fantasy storybook, makes you go all poetic/romantic/cacophonic and all that, but the real fun was going to and coming back.

What happened was that the rain had washed over the road that leads to the falls. The alternative route involved a 12-km-long trek along a mountainside railway track, featuring long tunnels(neeche dekho) and awesome scenery all around. No, that in itself was not the big deal but the mountain itself was infested with snakes, huge crabs, leeches and yeti. A couple of leeches actually got stuck into my leg. Luckily, we'd brought salt along :)

And then there was THE return trip. Stuck on a quaint hillside 'station' where no tickets were available, with an unhelpful station master and irate maalgaadi-drivers who believed we were daakus, for God's sake, we finally convinced a sympathetic lone-engine driver to give us a lift back. In technical terms we stood on a flimsy ledge at the side of the engine and held on to an overhead handle for our dear lives as we chugged along the mountainside.

Water Scooter blues: This happened in Calangute. After trying a few tricky maneuvers on the waves, and having gone quite far out into the ocean, the driver of my scooter obviously began to get visions of Tomorrow Never Dies, and probably in a fit of euphoria, turned the scooter a hundred-and-eighty degrees in a blink to face a huge oncoming wave.

Well Nature met us head-on. The breaker sent the scooter, him and me flying in 3 different directions. My life-jacket snapped partially open and I was swallowed by the ocean. This was a good distance into the water, mind it.

The driver was bobbing in the water a few feet away from me. I reached him somehow and started to get a hold of him hoping he'd pull me back - however this guy angrily shoves me back into the water saying: "Chhod mereko, [insert suitable expletive] !!" and swims away towards the shore.

I floundered for quite some time and feasted on a lot of salty water while two rescuers came, first saved the upturned scooter (the obvious choice: I am worth much less than some 8-10 lakhs to them) and then pulled up close to me and took me back.

Bidit ki buddhi: Trying to discover a secret path to the river behind our college, a PS-mate named Bidit Kumar and myself scaled the campus wall and made our way across some arid fields to a wide, nicely paved path. The catch, which is always there, was that this path actually was part of Zuarinagar Police Reserve, which twenty-year old guys are never supposed to be encroaching upon. The scariest moment undoubtedly was the one when this grizzled policewala came running out at us, provoking in my mind horrific images of police induced torture, etc etc. We were scolded by the police and severely warned (and spent the next few days thinking if they would contact our homes or not). Finally, however, everything was sorted out and we hurried out of the reserve without a backward glance. And we spent a few moments taking snaps at the riverside.

The second catch was, we couldn't return through the reserve and the gate chowkidars were too strict, which meant that we were stuck! After wandering for about 15 minutes and thinking we were done for, we found this meandering goat-trail kind-of thing on the hillside we'd just descended, and putting our trust in God we climbed up through a load of brambles and thickets, and finally reached the campus wall again.

There is a lot more that happened. But I trust I have given you the feel of it.

Janus ko neend aa rahi hai...

Recent Internet finds

And I'm back! 

Just back.

The innate awesomeness of Goa shall be written about later. I'll begin with the exact opposite.

Perhaps the most pissing thing about Goa was that every third website was blocked. Blocking is something whose brunt we Pilani students have had to face many-a-times but the IPC guys were magnanimous towards  bloggers at the very least.

These crazy Goa people had blocked almost everything, including Blogger, Lastfm and Twitter, and weirdly, LinkedIn as well. The worst part is, whenever you go to the Server Room there's a guy unabashedly watching his fav videos in YouTube - talk about hypocrisy... 

We extracted revenge in the only way we could - by downloading any song and software we could lay our hands upon, which sounded remotely interesting (and was below 20 MB in size). In this aimless search I discovered quite a bit of useful stuff, including the blistering fast Safari 4 I'm using right now, three awesome horror novels by Stephen King  called "It", "Carrie" and "The Stand", and a really cool open-source 3D rendering software called Blender Pro (used for Madagascar 2, Up and other less notables)

My best internet find, though, was the amazing theme track from the Lonely Planet/Globe Trekker. Dunno if people know about it - it's this really amazing travel show on BBC. This theme combines an awesome dance electronica thing with local rhythms and beats from all over the world into a truly irresistible mash-up. 

I shall end the idle rambling. Now. 

I will now shave and get a haircut done. Now.

Yes ma, I say meekly, I will.Khub bhalo.

And now, where is my umbrella?

Silence.

Eto irresponsible hoye gechis naa! Kichu ekta to harabei...

And thus I am welcomed  home.

cheers,

(who else?)

Poetry...

This is true poetry. And unfortunately it's NOT by me. No sir. One of my cousins has 3 major hobbies: (1) worshipping Oliver Kahn, (2) creating small videos, (3) writing poetry when bored. If you like this and wish to read more, do visit www.mythoughtsrhyme.blogspot.com. That's his blog.

BREEZE

I'm walking on the road we used to...
I'm walking along the way we will
There's a piece that's missing
And that's the only piece there is...

You're gone and i'm thinking of you
And i miss you, and i miss you...
I know you're thinking too and that you'll soon be here
I just want to see you..be with you..

I don't ask for much from life,
But i'd like to say a few
I want back my smile
It's going around with you..

I don't want to have to see you walk away
If you must, I want to follow
The only reason i'm hangin on
Is because I know you'll be back tomorrow

Where are you now?
I just know you're far away
But my lips just keep on moving
Hope somehow the words flow your way

I know you're singing back
That's why i love the wind
Because it carries your scent to me
From wherever it now is..

You're far away, for far too long
Just glad to know you're singing along
I'm waiting for the day you'll be back in my arms..
I'm holding on...

Oh I don't want to have to see you walk away
If you must, I want to follow
The only reason i'm hangin on
Is because I know you'll be back tomorrow

The only reason i'm hangin on
Is because I know you'll be back tomorrow

The only reason i'm hangin on is because I know..
...You'll be back tomorrow..

Oasis 2k8

Whenever I look back at a certain eventful week in late October this year, an odd sort of feeling springs up, something that I can't quite put my finger on...like this feeling, my memories of Oasis, the college cult-fest, are also very difficult to sort out completely; sharp and vivid sometimes, hazy and obscure otherwise. Is that how things are meant to be? "Time and space all melded into 4 days of Unio Mystica". Who knows.

Newayz here goes my account of Oasis 2k8.....

To begin with, I guess Mafia Night really kicked the thing off :). I learned how to properly play Mafia (something like Killer-Dead that we used to play at RKM) two days before we spent a whole night playing it (October the 19th: fest began on the 20th), that too at Patel chowk. Going the whole night without sleep may not be uncommon for many BITSians but I'm an early riser, so this was very out of ordinary, but good fun all the same. 

Here's what strikes when I think of the fest itself ( in order of striking) -

#1)The first thing that I remember was KK. What a singer, and what a performer. The audi(ence) was simply spellbound by his voice and his energy, and did repay it to him in kind. When KK told us from the stage "You guys are louder than me!" I didn't believe him, what with those two gigantic curved speakers, but hollered back with the crowd anyway. Now that I see the vid and realize that we actually were drowning him out in the choruses. 

#2)Euphoria: They sucked. Totally. And that was a sore blow for me because Dhoom and Maaeri are among my favourite indipop songs. They arrived late, they spoilt their most beautiful songs (e.g. a line from Gully: "Tujhe palkon pe rakkhunga jee." became "Tujhe kamre me bithaakar lock kar ke rakh doonga, jeeeee-ee." What the hell :O) . To my increased dismay, they also left out many of their good original songs (Doha, Aasaan, Millenium and many others which though not very popular, are good, soulful songs) in a bid to play to the public. But even then, "gen dancing"(more leaping and pushing in the crowd than dancing :)) to any music absolutely "rokks" :)

P.S.: And I was so tired after that show that I slept off almost immediately after in the OEP booth, having asked Udit to wake me up after half an hour for the Lounge Piranha show. Udit said no problem, and fell into deep sleep a few minutes later. And we both missed what was supposedly the best gig this Oasis...

#3)Bani J: The thin-as-a-stick, dumb-as-hell MTV veejay was a horror, both visually and otherwise; she was walking all over BITS with her ghastly white face and ooodles of thadi, trying to get "cool sound bytes", as she put it, from the crowd mulling about. I had the misfortune to speak to her twice. I shall certainly remember each meeting :(

#4) Dance workshop:I can waltz pretty well now but not jive at all. DW was not quite the tour-de-force that I expected, but was still a fun learning experience. I think the guys from Delhi did a really awesome job of teaching something, step-by-step, within the span of two hours. Neel looked very beautiful doing the waltz, and we college students were made to do ring-a-ring-a-roses :D. Yup, I think that's about it.

#5) Food: Was even better, and costlier, than last year. CCD brought along some awesome MNB-type things called "Devil's Own"s. They cost Rs. 100 a glass, and single-handedly depleted around half of the money I'd saved to splurge on food and stuff. There was also the eventful time when GJ ordered a CCD veg-sandwich, which , somehow, started smelling 'non-veg' to him. After trying it a couple of times he decided it was rather 'fishy' and since you don't waste CCD stuff & since I was the only one with him then, I wolfed it down. 

What else? Crowds shouting "KK! KK!" during the wait for Euphoria, drowsily watching Choreo and Razmatazz, doing an impromptu onstage stint for EDC with some clothes and a Remington during the Stage Play competition, "Wake Up the Sleeping People and Ask them Dumb Questions" during Rocktaves ... and generally, a few other very happy memories...

Cheers,

SS

Here's to second year

Boy, isn't life weird.
For the last one week, I have been a second-yearite. And it's been something of a ride. Given the fact that today was the first day in 10 that I could actually tuck into dinner at my own mess, you could say it's been a tad exhausting, what with hostel "ragging" (ok, make that "interacting" - cuz real proper ragging is something I would probably never learn in my lifetime), single-room blues, irate backies, even a Pahari trip + a punctured cycle, not-to-mention frequent bouts of "old-wing-nostalgia", leading to frequent dutches at C'Not with the whole of R.U.H. Then again, EPC and Moruchhaya are back with a bang; the harried SMSes, unremunerated expenses, interactions again(these are proper ones, mind it), and finally helping poor, sensitive people (read: juniors) who tend to explode or implode at the very mention of words like "erection" or "anorexia"(that's for the ladies) - well, it's been something.

And finally the harsh realities of 2nd year, limited though they may be, are kicking in. Firstly, the uncannily slavish devotion to classes that I nurtured in my second sem seems to have completely evaporated. I no longer rush out of my room at x-15 min to reach a class starting at x time 5 minutes beforehand. Rather, the languidity of being in a single room gets to me; I wallow in my bed or click away at my lappy till its almost time. And even then I don't hurry; this has led to me sitting in the back-benches or missing the crucial first demos in almost all classes so far. I have also started getting into heavy LAN gaming (Halo and CS and AOE).

Yup, I know. I'm doomed. And unless I pull myself together right now, my 9.something GPA last sem will be quite worthless....

So today, I reluctantly invoke the most potent, dormant power in BITS...

The ghot-board.

Adias,
Janus

Here's a Really Long Post......

Well, here's my first story. And I have no agents yet, so I'll just publish it here :)
Btw, its long n not immersing or anything. Read only if really jobless, like I was when I wrote it :) 

The Gift


It had been Christmas Eve when he had seen her for the first time.

And it is once again Christmas Eve in Landour.

Bitter winds, bitter memories of a little town that used to shiver and tremble, sing and dance at these times, assail him. He trudges on, adjusting his cap against a fresh onslaught of the relentless blizzard, drawing his coat about himself as he walks...



"So why are we here?"

Her voice was slightly muffled. She was, after all, female; she obviously wouldn't stop speaking though she was wolfing down her third naan. Her questioning, doe-like eyes scanned his face now, mutely repeating the same thing she had asked him just now. And this was standard fare, very much a part of Ananya as he knew her. Every time they met, he knew she would begin with this one line.

They were seated at the Regency, in Kolkata. The monsoon was a mere week from settling in fully, and the first showers had already come into the city, invigorating the people with fresh hope. This was the time when the fishermen in the villages would bid their wives farewell, as they ventured with their boats into the wide estuaries of the Sunderbans, trying to catch the prize hilsas that swam up the river. This was the time when the stalls at Victoria would do the year’s best business before the Pujas, as couples strolled the Memorial grounds all day and night. And this was the season when children would think of paper boats to float in the city’s drains. Later on, this very rain would be carrying both boat and child away…

But for now, the rains were just beginning. And as the cool, moist wind that heralded this beginning blew over her face, she smiled, closed her eyes, and stretched back to enjoy the breeze. He looked at her for a moment, then answered: ”There’s something I’ve brought for you.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d given things to her. And she knew that. She opened one eye, and gave him a sharp, quizzical look. “What?”, she said.

And then he said to her: “Will you marry me?”

Her fork fell on the plate with a clatter as she saw the ring. Her hands went over her mouth as she gazed, open-eyed, at him.

And in those eyes, all he had seen till then was fun, frolic and carelessness....

...today he thought he saw acceptance glisten for the first time…



The hospital stands in front of him...white, tall, simple and forbidding. From the outside, he can see the orderlies walk hither and thither, nurses carrying trays and clipboards went about, talking in fluent Pahari. He rushes through the glass doors, nearly bumps into a nurse. Instead of apologizing he says to her “My wife is admitted here….I am Mr. Avinash Pant from….”

The nurse’s annoyed look is soon replaced by concern, and she points towards a particular corridor. He thanks her hurriedly and rushes towards it. He runs through the corridor, breathing heavily.

And then he sees her, through the window of Ward 3. Broken, lifeless. But then, she smiles at him. Life, for an instant, flows back into her face. She had recognized him. Amidst all the terrible pain, she would have smiled like that for only one person in the whole world…

Involuntarily, his hand reaches up to brush off snow from the little bouquet of flowers he has brought along…



He lay awake at night, looking out at the twinkling lights of Landour, of his long-lost home…

Why did this place have to be their honeymoon, she had asked him so many times. It was obvious, wasn’t it? He had so many sweet memories of this town. He still remembered the chilly winters, the long treks over lush green hills to reach his secondary school, the humdrum as the lines of prayer flags on the roadsides all flapped as one in the mountain breeze….he had always, deep within, cherished the thought of returning here once. And it had grown, but, thankfully, hadn’t changed one bit…..

He looked at her face as she slept, beside him. What a ride it had been. The proposal. The disagreement of her ‘Born Tough’ father who had hollered at her “Whom do you love, me or him?” and the extremely filmy reply “It is possible to love two people, but only one can you love the most.” He smiled. The settling down in Mumbai. The struggle for a respectable livelihood. Returning in the evenings, expecting a warm dinner, and a warmer smile…

She turned around in bed and blindly felt for him. He laughed out aloud. She slowly opened one eye, and then sat up suddenly at once.

“Kya hua? Its…”She glanced up. ”..two in the night…why aren’t you sleeping?” She looked even more beautiful with her eyebrows arched in a rare expression of concern.

“Just woke up.” ,he lied. “Listen, I’m going for a stroll, ok?”

“But its snowing!”

He planted a quick kiss on her forehead.

“Stay safe. I’ll call you soon.”

And he lit up a cigarette and walked away into the blizzard towards the florist’s.


He stands beside her, watching the near-lifeless eyes slowly rise up to his face. And he knows his tears will not be enough to stop him speaking to her. To communicate, one last time.

He clasps her hand. Peace is slowly creeping into those eyes he knows so well. He knows she’ll be asleep within moments…

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, Ananya..” , he says. His voice cracks. “I’m so sorry that I wasn’t…ever…there…”He breaks down into harsh, cracked sobs as he crumples beside her.

He waits by her side, wiping his tears, allowing the silence to stretch, till sleep overcomes her. Then he replaces the old flowers beside her, and takes out the vial from his pocket. He leans over, empties its contents into her slightly agape mouth.

And he realizes that its over. Nobody would ever know.

He steps out into the blinding whiteness again, snowflakes stinging his flesh like knives…..

And it all returns........

His first love. His first marriage. Moving from Kolkata to Landour. Her smiling face that saw him through the hassles of it all.

Then his second love. Not love, obsession, madness. Stronger and fiercer than the first…and then his ultimate choice…

….and all the lies that had followed…

As Divya had said, it was possible to love two people. But only one could you love the most……

Of Endings(R.U.H) and Beginnings, Too.....

"Ei poth jodi na shesh hoy, tobe kemon hoto, tumi bolo to...
Jodi prithibi-ta shopner desh hoy, tobe kemon hoto tumi bolo to... "
(Should this path never end, how would it be?
Should this world itself be paradise, how would it be?)
- immortal lyrics of a song from Saptapadi.

Home. Finally home. From friggin dust storms, from Peter and Michael and other LGMF-ing insects, from MNBs and Rs. 50-chicken rolls in C'Not (bastards!), from weird hippies in Rishikesh, from the stark isolation of the Rajasthan desert, from everything that is unknown or inunderstood or fun...it's all done and over with. For this first year, at least.

But hey, the path hasn't ended. Not yet......I guess we're still somewhere around Chirawa....:)

Cliche of the hour: The only permanent thing about life is change. Change which keeps on happening, which comes unbidden and undetected, and yet in some way alters your life forever...

Why am I rambling bullshit? Just like that, I guess.

Much more to write about my first year, but I guess I'll leave gyaan for later. This post is exclusive to R.U.H.

Stupid name: R.U.H - Ram Upper H-wing. But there it is. And I guess it shows that we weren't the most intellectual 1st-year wing on campus, but who cares?
Here we are in all our insolence:

Santa Abhishanth me Rithvik Srinivas Jayesh Atin DivX Nayyar BCBKDK Sankeerth Geeth Golu Trinath Paritosh Vellu Udit Mayank Gaurav Arpit Reddy Ravi RaKaMuMa(as I call them) Sindhur Mandu:) Krishnan Arjun and Gogte whew!!!

A year that began with us, arguably the 'lite'-est wing on campus, giving the regulations a damn and taking to life as it came, soon changed when we landed with a couple of horrible results(all except the gods PUGR, of course, but more on that earlier)...2nd sem saw us change for the better(hope so at least, cuz CG cards haven't yet arrived!!).

All that's happened all throughout the course of an amazing 1st year is definitely not clear.....but what is crystal clear was after all the sight of the wing at 4:30 pm on the 15th....when Gaurav had gone with his friends from Bhilwara and I was wandering the dusty corridor by myself, peeking into the empty rooms and thinking about the times when they were full...
Melancholic me. But there it is.
Adieu, Ram Bhawan and wingies.

Tears,
Janus

P.S.: However, for the 10 or so of us who have spilled over into our new wing, we have managed to get a total b****** of a warden for 2nd year! Looks like a lot of fun awaits us next sem too :)