That old “long-notebook”….

Most of us who have written a few things during school or college days, have had that favorite old note book or note pad where we wrote regularly or irregularly….

I have one of those preserved too. It’s the typical long notebook printed by some odd local publisher and titled the book with some typical Indian name like “Kamal Books”, “Vikas long note”, “Saraswati Pustak” or something equally non-attractive (at least to me). Mine doesn’t have a front cover.

But to my happiness, I remember my notebook without the front cover ever since… the first page interestingly is full of the different styles of “signing my name off”! This was a regular hobby with me and my Dad used to be pretty intrigued too. My dad has the most unusual signature I have seen for a simple minded Engineer. So there’s this page with signatures all-over, some with English & Hindi alphabets mixed up to give the whole thing a different look, that happens to be the face of my fav writing pad.

The last page almost mirrors the first one, while the difference is in the directions of the scribbled signatures.

But the essence, obviously is between the two.

It holds some of my fav old poems and articles, I wrote years back. There’s something with nostalgia that makes you feel sentimental. So I keep going back to that note-book and read from it. I haven’t wanted to change or copy stuff from there onto a newer better and beautiful note-book. Something just stops me (It’s become like an artifact for me ).

The other reason of the fondness, probably, is that it belongs to my college time. The era of romanticism, youthful energy and also some solitude. All three of these attributes reflect in all that I wrote at that time – new ventures, homesickness, My Mother, my gang of ‘yet-to-be-engineers’, my crushes, my dreams as a young man, times of dilemma, time itself, solitude and sorrow….

So it’s a mixed bag of some most cherishable times of my life.

Another fact that adds to this is that I spent more than a year in a small village in Assam, exposing myself to a totally different world. Some of the most remembered people (young n old), some of the most lonely nights, some days of bizarre travelling….

All in all, my fav long-book is a drop of rain that takes me back to the Sea, where it came from.

Wierd Dreams

I'm sure we've all had some really abstract dreams. The ones that we most-often do not remember and do not even care about. But there are times when one does remember the god-forsaken incomprehensible but intriguing dream and if one's crazy enough, then he/she also tries to solve the mysteries.

It's also so much fun to tell your freinds n cousins about what you dreamt... and then listen to their prophecies.

Well, this is one of my wierdest dreams that i did remember... and i just wrote it down as the first thing in the morning. When i read it later, i had a humorous time myself. The thoughts that appeared in my mind while i read it later have been colored in red.

I peeped through a pandal… an enormous pandal with the typical reds n greens in stripes all over (looks like you’ve recently been to an Indian wedding)…. listening to some loud voice (Big deal! In such a uselessly huge pandal the voice has to be loud for everyone to hear)…. The voice starts resembling “akashvani” (hope it wasn’t the radio program), and later it appears that it’s a very huge event and someone is literally speaking from the sky (now this is turning mythological)…. Speaking about events in our life (haha that could’ve been karan johar’s movie idea dude!).

Suddenly there starts a heavy downpour (Bollywoodish…)… rains with thunder and lightning (So, whats unusual?)… the volume of water dropping down is humongous….(whatttt… I thought this was getting romantic)
I run out of the place (looser)… and it turns out to be a sea-shore with numerous war-ships (pirates of the caribbean)…. An infinite fleet of warring boats (troy…)…. I am playing with kids (what…. On a shore that has war-ships across the waters… you’re playin wt kids, u gotta be insane)…. Small kids, with waves coming at us (what else).
The waves keep getting higher and higher… I save a few kids from the hit of the huge waves (at last u really “do” something)… it turns to flood (now for god’s sake… a flood on a sea-shore)… water flows with high velocity everywhere… to the huts…(Huts???)
When the water recedes(time really passes quickly), it leaves behind baby crocodiles(not whales?? Discovery channel freak!). Kids start playin wt them (bizarre kids). Some crocs are slightly bigger (u did realize), we chase them (chase them to where brave people)…. I spot a long snake rushing back to its hole in the earth… a red hooded snake (enough this is a jumanzi remake).
We start playin wt the crocs too.. we happen to chase them to a room( :O) a room on the shore, n where did the huts go…went with the floods? Leaving the room for your indoor fun wt crocs?)… they crawl in… we follow them (Crocodile Dundee).
In the room its just a few crocs (2-3) & we play wt them… slowly they disappear to the other side of the room… (did u wish they’d stay wt u forever?)
We think of taking one as a pet (dats a modern idea)… but we don’t (ur mom wud be releived). and then we spot a bundle of young chicks (aha now there it is, some fun… so were they sexy?)… colorful n cute (go on)…. I pick them with their mother…(their mother? Were they sisters? How cud u pick ‘em up)
She bites me with her beak and seems unhappy, I leave them(Oh the real chicks… from the hen)…. Then they move on in a straight line after their mother.(thank god u woke up).

So thats it guys.
All your comments on my dream are welcome.
All your comments on my comments are also welcome.
Even your interpretations of the dream will not be rejected :).

Joe... Joe... G.I. Joe…..

G.I. Joe just got released a few days back and hearing about it I remembered the toons that I used to be possessed by as a young tier-II city boy. Now this is a fav old remembrance thingy between the four of us cousins… So whenever the spirits are high and the loud music has given way to nostalgic cherishing of memories…. We almost never ever forget to revisit the GI Joe trek that we designed and implemented with “pepsi-fizz excitement” (this is a term coined by my Uncle, especially for ever-over-enthusiastic know-nothing teenagers that we foolishly turned out to look like).

The gang.
The eldest, gutsy lad “S” had himself electrified by managing to be struck by an iron rod with 11000 watts passing into his intestines (btw he was just trying to catch up with a Kite J). NDE (near-death-experience). Vacationed in the hospital for half a year….
M: restless and naughty, centre of a nuisance, found himself in such kinda situations often.
G: beautiful, blue-eyed boy of the group who could get touchy at times, but never gave up on any fun, how-ever dirty it might sound.
Youngest and certainly not the least, P: fair n cute, challengingly sporty, agreeing to any plans to prove his worth, calling the rest by names when the usual practice was “bhaiya”.

So here goes the adventure tale:

One fine day of some long-gone summer vacation (meeting at summer vacations was a trend “then”), the four of watched G. I. Joe. Excited (* pepsi-fizz) one of us spotted a hillock, from our 1st floor house-balcony, that we’d been eying for quite some time. It was decided that we leave for the god-forsaken hillock and find some adventure enroute.

Colorful shorts and tee’s, white Canvas shoes and a Hero-BMX bicycle made for the most appropriate gear. We split into two groups: S-M & G-P. Each group got to ride the “bike” for a certain distance/time. The other group ran along…. Yes they just ran!

The war cry was simple: “Joe Joe… G I Joe…..”

We left the tarred road 15 mins after start & took the muddy trail. Exchanging the bike to enjoy the “country-drive”, we made up all gossip for self-motivation. With each kilometer covered the frequency of exchanging the bike kept increasing… and the hillock seemed “just as far”. It got tougher with the Sun trying to beat us to the mud. This was supposed to be the route to the village from where our maid “Ramvati” came. The 2 odd people we came across did not reflect this fact though! Subtle requests for exchanging the bike transformed to loud battle-like arguments amidst the huff-puff running to catch-up with the bike (just so that the other team would not drive an extra decameter).

By the time the hillock appeared near, all four of us were dragging ourselves and the bike… walking towards the “castle to be won”. Mud filled the air and our heads alike. Barren land with thorn bushes marked the panorama of the hillock. Thirsty, Sweating and dehydrated, all we found on the slope of the hillock was holes made by birds, being used as nests and all kinds of shit (buffaloes, dogs, goats and horses). A few dry sticks from the trees did make for an enjoying swordfight that lasted a few minutes. None of us was so much of a nature lover to enjoy the flora and fauna of the place (as if there was much of it anyways ;p). We spotted our home from atop the hillock and “discovered” a short-cut through some bushes, which could be maneuvered (and all four of us agreed that was the best way home).

With no village within sight we decided to head towards the bushes, which we believed, cut-across would take us directly towards our township where we could climb a wall and budge back to known territory. Fate with us, as we approached the bushes their size seemed to be considerably taller than us. Another blow to our planning still did not discourage us from carrying the bike on our shoulders and venturing into the bushes. A few insect bites and some rashes is what one would definitely not be scared of (till the results manifested later). But what took us by surprise was the marsh that awaited us. Through the thick of bushes, with our feet foot deep into the marsh we found ourselves on the bank of a big stinking pond with tall cranes grinning at us.

We decided to use all our collective intelligence to move along the periphery of the pond to reach the other end and move on victoriously towards our home. After all, this definitely was “adventure”. Traversing the un-explored virgin terrain, we emerged out of the bushes only to find that we had covered too much of the periphery and would have to trace back some distance to find out if we knew how we could get back home. And all this time we still kept “exchanging” the bike between our groups, only this time it was each group wanting to give away the bike asap. Finally we found the way to the same old muddy track that we’d trodden an hour back….

Another 40 minutes of dragging ourselves and the god-damned bike and we were standing in front of our place. Mom seemed waiting for us in the balcony. Perhaps, we did not realize the mud and marsh on our clothes and hair made us look like filthy ugly frogs.

All she could do was yell at us “DO NOT CLIMB UP THE STAIRS, GO WASH YOURSELVES AT THE HANDPUMP AND THEN YOU SHALL BE ALLOWED INSIDE”.

“Joe.. Joe.. G I joe…….”

And we never went G-I-joe-ing again!!