Wednesday, August 22, 2007

And on

There is complete darkness all around.
No street lamps, and no light from houses nearby.
There are no houses nearby.
No far away towns to cast an ambient light for miles around, and no light from the moon above.
There are no oncoming vehicles, and there are no vehicles playing catch up.
It's a road from the back of the beyond. It is not a state highway, it is certainly not a part of the Golden Quadrilateral.
The surface is tarred, and the surface is smooth.
There is no marking on the road - no white line, undulating or dashed.
No markers by the side, and no boards that give directions.
The ones in green, with white lettering - they're not there.
The speed is a constant sixty - it could be more, but then the road could have a sudden bump - and with no light around, that's being pretty risky.
At the edge of the road, speeding along, letting the bike slip into and out of curves. Now she bends this way, and now that-a-way. Slowing into the corners and accelerating out of them.
Now heading for the straights with the throttle open, and now slowing down of her own accord upon encountering a slope.
Now up and now down.
Dark and seemingly abandoned villages pass by - signs that indicate a school, signs that warn of speed-breakers.
The nearest town should have come up a long time back, and the chase is on. Sleepiness combats egotism, and the bike rides on.
Recollections flit in front of tired eyes - maps that seemed to have promised a town half an hour ago. In the saddle for the last sixteen hours, and a seeming eternity to go.
And in the flickering light of the headlamp, underneath the scratched visor and behind the old helmet.
Over the defiantly drooping shoulders, and under the furrowed brow.
As she turns yet another corner to reveal another interminable stretch of macadamized eternity.
You smile.
And ride on.

Friday, August 10, 2007

And may the Good Lord bless Math. Eco.

For those not in the know, you have to go give sixteen papers at Gokhale.
That doesn't qualify you to become a Gokhaleite, by the way. I know people who have done remarkably well in all sixteen and aren't one, and I know people who haven't given the one but are more Gokhaleitish than Gokhaleites themselves.
Anyways, one of those sixteen, for most people in Gokhale, happens to be a paper called Math. Eco.
That happens to stand for Mathematical Economics, and even as they read this, there are people on the face of this mortal earth who'll give an involuntary shudder and curse the undersigned for awakening memories that were safely buried away in some remote inaccessible corner of the subconsciousness.
For now before their hapless inner eye pass ghostly apparitions - indifference curves and Hessians, now Lagrange multipliers and now Jacobians. Second order conditions dance a terrible dance, as do McLaurin and Taylor, damn them.
But enough said. One must not turn away readers who know not what is being said, and one must certainly not terrorize the readers who do.
But the point of bringing up to the surface such a macabre creature of the past is to introduce to you the man of the hour.
For the undersigned become a buddy for life with the said character when both suffered together the trauma of having to memorize the U
11's and the U22's.
All the fine and wonderful things that can be said about Kshitij Sethi apart, and make no mistake, that is an inexhaustible list - the finest that can be said from my viewpoint is this - we studied Math. Eco. together.
Kshitij Sethi is a brother, a BBKTK in capital letters. A true dude, and a friend for life.
We've been through thick and we've been through thin.
We been through virulent fruit punches, and through the Manas episodes. Through all night TT sessions and through dropping every bloody soul in Gokhale to either the railway station or to the airport. Through Waasu Mama study sessions and through breakfast at Nal Stop.
And lots more.
But what I remember the most is walking round after round of Kumar Classic, notes left upstairs, talking about this, that and nothing in particular. With a math tutorial up the next day and resignation writ large upon our souls.
One of us triumphed in the Great Khare Wars, and one of us did not.
But Kshitij Sethi became a BBKTK, and the Lord be praised for that.
In fond memory of those walks, and in the hope that there may be a chance for a repeat performance, Amen.

The Bloody Rain

Grey and dark and forbidding.
From the windowed view that Pecos afforded, in between the bars that barricade the windowed view, the rain fell.
Relentlessly, unremittingly.
It had been threatening to fall since morning, and in the late afternoon, it started to pour. And it poured and poured and poured.
The light was dull, and a dirty flood of water flowed down the street outside. People waded through slush, while yet others waited under awnings - waited for the bloody rain to stop - and it never did.
Poured and poured.
I sat with the raconteur, silently.
We didn't talk, and the music didn't play - there were no lights.
All you could listen to was the rain outside, and the occasional peal of thunder.
More rain.
And I looked at the guy who sat in the corner, near the stairs - he'd sat there for as long as we were in - and I asked the raconteur, gesturing towards him - about what his story was.
"Nothing", grunted he, sipping his own beer, " Lost his love".
"How did he manage that, the poor schmuck?" I asked, hoping for a tale.
It rained harder.
"How does it matter?", said the raconteur.
"He lost her, and she ain't coming back. Sometimes, that's all that bloody matters."
Outside, it rained harder still.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Umm. Arre but!

Listen no, peoples.
An unnamed reader of my wonderful dazzling blog (ain't it just that? I know, I know. Thank you) says that the blog is good.
So what else is new, the rest of my devoted readership will wonder.
That same unnamed reader then says that the Pecos short story kicked ass. As did the poem about the childhood stuff.
The d.r. is now scratching it's head in faint bemusement.
"Is this" the d.r. wonders, "the same Kulkarni who had us all under his spell so effortlessly in all these posts past? And if so, then why is he saying the obvious again and again?"
"Bhaat naansense!" they'll mutter beneath their breath, promising themselves that they'll not stand much more of this tripe.
Patience, brethren and the hot girls who read this blog, patience.
Kulkarni, as always, has an ace up his sleeve.

You see, this same reader also mentioned that the other posts were so well liked because all the travelogues got a leetle beet boring.
Sigh.
I mean.
Really? The travelogues are boring?