The Legacy of Rain

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Dark grey. Overcast. Wind, strong and persuading. I spread my arms. Ochre leaves once green with life whip about in the merciless wind. An end to the dying. Trees dance with the wind in anticipation of its coming. White spindly branches spread out in the sky throwing the earth below into an ethereal glow. Thunder rumbles across the dark sky roaring for a new life. I look up to the skies, to a sea of infinite storms, to the raging waters flickering in vengeful hues. I close my eyes. I feel the cold wind against me, slapping against my bare skin. I feel the earth rise up to answer the sky. The fragrance of wet mud crushed with leaves and wind assault my senses, intoxicating them with nature's essence. A promise to a new beginning. I lose myself. Give myself to the overwhelming elements that surround me. To feel one with nature in this ageless ritual. The first drops of rain. Like ice spears from heavens they strike me, going past my skin and bones to the very soul inside me, infusing life. With rising intensity, the orchestra of nature moves to a deafening crescendo. Single drops become waves. Waves, the earth embraces as it would, with lust, his feisty lover. I stand in the gift of heavens. I feel reborn. Feel like the earth, parched and dry, the rain quenching its undying thirst, washing away all that is dead, giving life to a new age. I feel eternal bliss lost in this raging onslaught of the skies. With as much fierceness as it had begun it stops. Silence. It slams into me with vehement force. The agony of which is softened by the fall of a single drop. I shiver in the stillness like a new born to its first touch. The air, thick with life. I open my eyes to the first rays of sun cleave open the dying armies of the heaven's harbinger. All around me earth celebrates the fulfillment of a timeless promise. Every shade brighter than ever, reflecting a new lease of life. Nature revels in the splendorous glory of its revivification. I bore witness to an act of life. I must now return to the darkness that engulfs my world. To effect my world with life.

Travel - Living Life

'Travelling is like flirting with life'. How better can this urge to explore the unknown, to seek and learn be explained? What is it that makes some people want to travel so much? Across continents and oceans just to be somewhere. Why do they do it? Is it a need to find new ideas? New experiences? A sense of fulfillment? A promise? Beauty? Love? These reasons might sound absurd to those who have bound themselves to their corner of this unbelievably huge universe. They stand inside the boundaries that they have created for themselves, never straying far. But I wonder if they ever peep over those walls because I really cannot believe that there is a single person in existence who does not want to see and feel what he has never felt before or at the least harbor a small amount of curiosity to what lies beyond. There are people who undertake life changing journeys knowing that they would never be the same again and then there are those who stumble into one, surprised at what they become in retrospect. In fact there are all kinds of travelers. The true joy of traveling lies in the journey as much as in the destination. It is an unmatched feeling in its own to experience a new culture, to savor something exotic, to be in a place or a phenomenon that you have always read about, to feel it happen around you for real. I believe that the feeling that u revel in at that moment is worth every bit of your effort. Why is there a need for beauty if it is not indulged in? Why do things beautiful and terrible exist if not for the sole purpose of being experienced? A true traveler is the one who takes pleasure in what he experiences and where his feelings are truly his own and not born out of a requirement to do so. No matter how short a journey might seem it always changes something in you, it always does. Some wise guy once said if you are not willing to be changed by a place then there is no point going. The world is a very beautiful place. Man has explored it for centuries and yet there is so much left to be discovered. To me life is a gift to experience the beauty that permeates everything around us. The true essence of which is captured in D. H. Lawrence's words, 'Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time.'

TabascO!!

My titles have no real relevance to what i write... they are mostly something very small or insignificant and might be in the best of cases related to a small part of the day's events... somehow I cannot bring myself to generate a decent enough title and i end up picking something randomly from the day... today's for example is TabascO ( my obsession with using capitals in the oddest of places is a discussion for another time).. now this small bottle of Tabasco was not particularly good but it did remind me of a time with my dearest..

Here anyway it was just like any other bottle of really hot Tabasco maybe a little weak in its composition as it could not bring tears from my eyes even after i literally soaked my slice of Chef's special thin crust pizza in it. Now this in my terms is akin to sacrilege.

Now around this small bottle of not so good Tabasco sat three young handsome prospective men engaged in polishing of the three really yummy pizzas that were on the table. around them sat men and women, all busy at their own tables, with their own pizzas topped with their own conversations. Now around all of this stood the roof and walls of the famous Pizzeria which in turn stood on the far side of marine drive. Now the exploits of these three men did not begin here. It began far away in another crowded bombay local heading towards Victoria terminus.

The train accelerated and then decelerated and stopped and then repeated it over and over again for what felt like a hundred times betwen Thane and CST. But you cant help but like these trains, especially for the most intelligent of the group ( yes that would be me, thank you) it held a special something as it was a time between here and there, like all journeys are for him. For him a journey always had a meaning, he liked being in transit, being neither there nor here. In some strange way he found an even stranger sense of solace in the time between.

We were at cst finally and like the last two times we headed for the group of small stalls right outside the main entrance, for what seemed to become a sort of ritual - lavish consumption of sugarcane juice. from there we happily signaled a cab and asked him to take us to chor bazaar, now the next six or seven cabs we hailed had the same answer to give us as the first one - 'nahi' - complete refusal.

we were stranded. hopelessly. Now after great effort and help from a few people over a very erratic mobile network we found that we were on the wrong side of the road. so now we were frustrated. anyway the objective of going to chor bazar for me was to just see whats available there, for ambu - buy a bag and some stuff, for kaushik- nothin in particular, he thought it was a cool place to hang out in.

So since we were not sure how things are laid out in chor bazar we ended up in bendi bazar which i was told was basically the same. By the end of the day i was still not sure about this. Ambu and me started walking around in the sea of people and shops and smells and bustle and hustle and everything else that i have conveniently left out but fresh in my memory. Both of us found it quite nice to be there, we even found out a very small but cheap shop which was selling the best sheesh kababs that i have ever tasted ( some how our internal compass always points towards food, thank mother nature for such small blessings!!)

Now all this merrymaking in the middle of the market district in bombay was not without consequence. Our dear friend Kau decided to take an aversion towards all the things that i mentioned above, the smells and people and hustle and etc etc... he decided that he had not asked for this and that he wanted to leave. Being brought up nice and clean and having little to no exposure to such wonderful but common human gatherings, our dear friend's soon to be terminal state of mind forced us to evacuate the area immediatly and head towards more affluent parts of south bombay. this in our situation was the marine drive.

So thats how three wonderful young bachelors ended up feasting on yummy pizzas in the pizzeria on marine drive complaining about the quality of TabascO.. Now there is only so much you can do in a place like pizzeria. of course we did look at that particular group of girls with short skirts who were on the next table. But this time we were really not interested or bothered because the food was that good an i loved my white wine far too much.

It was really nice sitting there enjoying the sea breeze, the ambiance, the brilliant mixture of voices from a gathering of such different people everything together struck a big chord in me. One thing is sure, I am going back there.

anyway after filling the never ending abyss in our bodies we headed for a walk along the marine drive. The slow walk along the sea soon turned out to be an alert walk along the road as our views were pulled and torn away from the shimmering waters to the streaks of light left behind by the speeding BMWs and Mitsubushi's and Porsche's. So there we were sitting on the road side picking out cars and criticizing the way the people who can afford them maintained them.

Soon it was time to go. we hailed a taxi to Vt and then caught a train to thane and then from there we caught a rick to our apartment. so Thats it!!


What????

Thats really it!! I cant find something innovative to fill my boring travel back home can I???

ciao

TC

SuNdaY....

I jus realised when I started writing this blog that I should have named this 'Roasted bombay duck' and not the previous one....hmmmm.... Now I cant even think of a good title for this. Doesnt matter really coz I know that I am the only one who reads my blogs, of course part of the blame does fall on me as I really havent told anyone that I blog.. not even her...!! she'll be pissed when she finds out... anyway... Lemme get into the events that unfolded the sunday before last.. that would be the 2nd of Dec.

Late sunday morning...exhausted from last night's adventures everyone decides to call it a lazy day. But as always someone or the other always has something coming... as a consequence of which we found ourselves on our way in a very very crowded local train to CST, to meet up with a couple of friends in south bombay. Anyway as usual the intelligent guys who planned such a disturbing lazy sunday afternoon disrupting session ended up being late. In a way it turned out to be great since I finally caught sight of the gateway of India which in the meantime, was drowning in a sea of humanity. But somehow gathering immense amounts of willpower my two friends and me pushed and pulled and scampered through the deluge to execute a respectful three rounds around the gate...Man! I felt patriotic!!

This being the first time for me in south bombay... It was fascinating at the same time a little weird just walking through the streets.. watching time work its way on everything around me, unlike all the other places it had a strange way about it... not easy to explain... but you could feel it...you as a part of the system that is being affected... I realised then that I was falling in love with this city..with all its people... its dirty crowded local trains...its old buildings...most of all i could feel its pulse.. the life... coursing through it... I am afraid, deep in my heart, of what this city will do to me to claim me its own...


Enough of serious thoughts and back to where I was... which was standing in a makeshift alley by the side of the taj mahal hotel and peeking through one of the windows to see the large stock of liquor lit up in vibrant colours.. Ambu's heart melted at this point...he felt useless and lost in his world of monotonous IT workers... hoping in the sharp sting of a terrible depression, for a day when he shall be on the other side of the glass sipping on a drink, complaining about the age and origin of the maker...

After the short stint of wallowing in self pity we decided to move on to the better things in life which undeniably for them was inexpensive liquor which fortunately for people like us was available at GOKUL BAR.... a very nice place in a great location selling stuff cheap... which was perfect for us... not to mention for some other foreigners who i believe were like us... While i lost myself in enjoying every minute molecule that made up the reshmi Kabab in front of me, my dear friends resorted to their sacred ritual which was inarguably always started off with a Beer...

I had my share of fun when i got a good bargain on two books that i wanted (atleast i think its a good bargain...its my first time bargaining in bombay).. one was Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami ( I have taken a liking to the author after reading Norwegian Wood) and Tarun Tejpal's Alchemy of Desire... this I picked coz i liked the title.. to be more honest i bought that coz the scheming cunning vendor wanted me to buy it... he figured out my weakness for books and then offered me a price which i found powerless to turn down... conned i think, i was....

Anyway after Gokul Bar we headed to Bade Miyan... Which was another cheap place to eat.. where you get the best kababs and tikkas and all that sorta stuff in bombay.... after filling our stomachs with a lot of stuff from there we took a walk... and we were led by coincidence to Tendulkar's... now we couldnt just walk past the greatest batsman of all time's restaurant without paying respects can we??... so again fate had us sitting inside... struggling to order a dish or two as it was too heavy on our wallets or rather, for the sake of decency, we were not quite ready for... Now i had fun here too.. coz u see i ordered bombay duck in some weird sauce...and it was good... it was my first bombay duck and it is best till date.... God !! it tasted so good... jus the thought of it makes me want to go hog on some more of it....

Anyway our heavy tributes to the master blaster had wiped us clean of everything and it was not a very difficult choice to arrive at when we decided to break for the day and head home to the northern corner of bombay away from the madding crowd ...

And that for me was another wonderful day in the great city of Bombay...

till something weird or supernatural or even downright mundane happens to me...ciao...

RoasteD BomBaY DucK

Dec 1st.... our first foray into the proper mumbai... The agenda : Sivamani concert!!! and then ambu's item number in the middle of great many bottles of beer and dsp black...something ambu really really was desperate to do...anyway getting back to topic... took a local to sion..tht wud be somewhere after kurla... 20 long minutes...reached and like always ended up waiting for harish and gang... all the time eying the chics..gotta admit it bombay is full of them... all kinds...anyway...Sivamani was great on stage...even better was that hot girl in a short one piece spaghetti strap dress who was sitting in the next row..hey!! when u appreciate you should appreciate all things....anyway..things kinda slowed down when sivamani's birthday was celebrated on stage and all of us were taking peeks at the girl in black...by the way...compeering in our coll was way better...Way better...so there we were at the end of the show...wondering what to do next... considering we have to return to thane...and it was already late to go anywhere...this is about the time when ambady started getting pissed...bcoz he cudnt get his booze...and ambady without his booze is a very temperamental ambu..... anyway... we had to split and somehow or the other..after having seen the closed shutters of a couple of shopping malls...we ended up hungry for food and booze in the outskirts of thane..somewhere near the checkpost..our only company being the lonely barks of the stray dogs in a distance.(did i mention bombay has a problem with stray dogs?? and we thought Sethu was bad..) so there we were one desperate to reach home Hamid, one preoccupied with god knows what kaushik...one guilty vinayan coz he cant finda good place..one given up and jus wanna eat me...and a very silent ambady... ambady and silent is NOT normal-please note. finally we found ourselves in this really local bar.me attacking a triple schezwan rice,ambu on haywards and Mc,vinu boy on his large,hamid..well hamid as always avoidin drinks and quite occupied with his double omlette..

By the time we were out of that low lit damp place..it was close to one... took a rick... ambady still angry with the way things turned..though a lil pacified by the fact tht we did eat...it was a long and disappointing day...that is if you dont COUNT the Babes,sivamani,the girl in black, stray dogs..and blah blah...and thus we come to the end of dec 1st...world AIDS day... hmmm... pity we didnt go to a dance bar!!!.... well thts it ppl... we are doing all we can to keep amrita alive here... OM AMRITESHWARIYE NAMAHA!! Dec 2nd will soon be posted... till then... be good... no watching those shame shame movies and clips... no extra time in the bath...good night....