Nothing

 

Today, dear old girls and all you buggers, I shall tell you a story about Nothing.

Careful perusers of these pages (and who would want to be otherwise?) would have noted that the word "Nothing", in the previous sentence, commences with a capital "N". That is no typing mistake; it is not a typo. That's just the way it was supposed to be – I shall indeed be telling you a story about Nothing.

Nothing is a word with deep meaning and significance in my life. It is a word that has described me completely on many an occasion; happily, I can still plead guilty on this count.

To give you'll a flavour of what I mean:

"What are you doing?"

"How much have you finished studying?"

"What is in that bag?!"

"What is in your wallet?"

... and so on and so forth.

A deeply satisfying, all-encompassing, always and everywhere present vacuum has been an ambition for me all of my life, and I'm happy to report that I have been fairly successful in this regard. And along with me, my closest friends, pals, buddies and BBKTK's have shared this noble quest – they too have searched for the Holy Grail.

Two worthies come to mind at the present instance (and lead us to our merry tale) - Dennis Zachariah Alexander, and Anish Parulekar. One knows not if you've heard of these gentlemen, but you are certainly missing something if you have not.

We go back a long way, these two and I. For a little more than a decade, we have stood shoulder to shoulder, resolute in our support for each other, and done Nothing. At each of our homes, outside in restaurants, pubs, colleges and many other places, we have conspired and successfully implemented Project Nothing. In face of arduous odds and challenging obstacles, we have refused to bend, and we've fought to see the day through.

Click here for a short introduction to Dennis. He and I were supposed to write on this blog together, he one post, and I another, and so on. As you can see, Dennis is good at doing Nothing. Anish, of course, is not far behind.

Anyhow, doing Nothing is a task easier said than done. Right now, for example, both you and I are not doing Nothing. I'm writing this, and you, obviously, are reading this. Beep!

If you're on the phone, or working on Excel, or are with your babe, or whatever – you're not doing Nothing. The only activities that pass muster are eating, drinking, casual chit chat, and staring vacantly at the TV. All else is hard labour. And therefore not advisable.

And on one memorable occasion, us three made a right good fist of doing Nothing – even by our own lofty standards. Which is, really, the point of all this.

We spent an entire weekend cooped up in a studio apartment in Mahim, with a wonderfully capable stereo system and a TV for company. From late morn till really late night, we lolled on the beds, made casual conversation, pretended to watch TV, ate kheema pav (for breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight snack) and pursued with vigour any activity that did not require much of vigour. If you see what I mean.

For two days, we stayed comatose. We watched documentaries on TV about the Indian Railway, and we listened to Dire Straits on the stereo. We talked about this that and the other well into the wee hours of night, and ordered food at home. We sat in the living room and did not speak a word. For hours on end. The only time we did step out of the house was to replace a couple of bottles of beer that we had dispensed with – at that age, that seemed like a prudent step (replacing the bottles; consuming them wasn't prudent, it was heaven). We hung out like only guys without girlfriends can.

In complete peace, happily broke and resolutely single, with not a soul to bother us, we stayed together in that house like bears in winter. For two days, Dennis, Anish and I were lost to the world.

And even today, nearly a decade on, we still remember with wistful sighs those days of yore. Acknowledged we may be as Masters at the Art of Nothingess, the three of us know that this particular episode may well prove to be unsurpassable.

Be that as it may. The Buddha under the tree didn't have a patch on us for those two days, and for that, we shall ever be grateful.

So yeah, that's that.

 

 

P.S. What are the odds, do you think, of at least one reader going: "But I don't get it. What was the point of writing all of that?"

 

Life Na...

GT was watching a movie late at night the other day - Déjà Vu, starring Denzel Washington.
He fell asleep while watching it.
So, the next day, before going to office, he slipped in the DVD again, and tried to watch the parts he'd missed.
The problem was, he had to keep fast forwarding. Ten seconds into a scene, he'd realize he'd already seen it the night before.

Summer

I have in my room one of those thingummies. A digital clock that, in a fit of existential doubt, mutates into one that is also a calendar, and just to cover things off, insists on telling you the temperature as well.

I'm staring at that clock now, and the ghastly contraption cheerily informs me that were I step out into the sun, it would roast me at an ambient temperature of around 34 degrees.

I know, I know – compared to your native place, where temperatures reach 75 degrees every day of the year, Bangalore is as cool as it can get, and I'm a city slicker to complain, but now what to do? It's hot as hell.

It's hot, it's sweltering. Your eyes hurt when you're on the road with the glare, and you have unhappy armpits. There's a trickle of sweat down your back, and you have the dreaded itches. The fan alleviates without curing, and the afternoons are endured rather than experienced. The nights are stuffy and you have no appetite. A bath is effective only as long as it lasts. Step back outside into the world and you're back to square one.

You know the feeling, no?

But this post is not a rant about summer. It is about the nicer aspects of that least wanted of seasons.

You remember the summer holidays? Ah, those long, unending days of blessed nothingness. When you'd get up at nine, watch TV and have breakfast, traipse down to play cricket, do so until a late lunch and then snooze. Wake up to cards or Scrabble or Monopoly or – and this was my favourite – carom. Cricket again, or maybe hide and seek or any of the other million games that children can play for hours. Dinner and some more TV. A movie that ends at midnight, and good night.

Visits to the park, and sessions on the swings and the slides. Plate after plate of pani puri. Helium filled balloons and hot and spicy bhel. Gully cricket and gulli danda. Matinee movies and cartoons and popcorn. Visits from relatives and going out for dinner. Frolicking in the swimming pool and long tall glasses of nimbu paani.

Memories. Now what to do. Overwhelming types they can turn out to be.

But two things I remember more than most.

One, long sessions of cards in the afternoons. Games of Penalty, Not-At-Home, Ghulam-Chor, Badaam Saat and Rummy and so many others. But really, what I looked forward to more than anything else was the bowl of long strips of raw mango, lightly garnished with salt and red chilli powder, interspersed with green chilli split lengthwise. It sounds spicy, I know, but believe me, the tanginess of the raw mango and the spiciness of the chilli, with just a hint of salt. Sigh.

And second, lunch in the summer was inevitably accompanied by bowl after bowl of aam-ras. Now, if you don't know what aam-ras is (and I can tell you right now that Microsoft Word certainly doesn't), then go out and ask an Indian. That Indian will inform you, in wistful tones and with a lingering look in the eye that aam-ras is, really speaking, the nectar of the Gods.

Thick and juicy, richly orange in colour, with little delicious lumps of mango islanded in pure mango pulp, chilled lightly but not frozen – aam-ras is a dessert fit for kings. Households all over India make this dish with any of the gazillion varieties of mango that are available, and children in these households have grown up revering this simple yet heavenly dessert. Me, personally, I'd go for the aam-ras made with the Haapus (Alphonso). Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

And so I may sweat and the heat may be sweltering. Summer may be here, and about that there is no doubt.

But I'll get by with my memories of the summers gone by. And, if you don't mind, another helping of aam-ras, thank you.

The Abolishment

 

In the biting cold of the Himalayas

On a lonely mountain, way up high,

A wild looking bearded man,

Let out a despondent sigh

 

He'd made his way up here,

Many months and years ago

He'd offered penance to the Gods,

But today his morale was low

 

Through many a season had he waited,

Eon on eon he patiently stood,

With single minded devotion he had prayed

And long had he nature withstood

 

But today he thought of giving up

He'd finally had enough

He would wave the flag white and go

Back and earn his dough

 

Nary had he taken his hands down though,

And was about to stand on two legs again,

He was struck by a mighty vision;

By an understanding beyond his ken

 

And then did the Good Lord speak unto him

And ask of his devoted devotee

"You've pleased me, my son, and so,

Ask what you will of me"

 

Tears filled the mortal's eyes,

He'd waited for ever so long,

His wish was about to be fulfilled,

He was about to right a grievous wrong

 

O Lord, said the bearded one

I have a request of thee,

And it is one, I assure you,

That is required by all of humanity

 

It will be granted, said the Bearded One,

You've certainly earned the right

Ask and it will be given,

For all is within my might

 

Well, said the mere mortal, I among others,

Have suffered for nearly all of my life,

A suffering so ghastly in nature,

That it gives incomparable strife

 

And I resolved to come here and ask;

Ask of you, my Lord to reprieve,

Us from all this suffering,

From our misery and our grief

 

On behalf of my world, O Lord

On behalf of humanity I say!

Grant me my earned wish, O Lord

And abolish that accursed Monday!

 

The Art of Self Expression

I like crazy.

A lot of it has to do with the environment that I grew up in. My family, immediate and extended (bless 'em all), is happily mad as a rule, and anybody who has maintained but a passing interest in these pages over time would agree that all my friends are rather unhinged. My best mates in school and in college were raving kooks, and most of my neighbours over these years have covered themselves with glory in the loony bin department.

I myself, I wish to assure you, remain defiantly mad. The corporate world dusts me off, and drags me kicking and screaming through five days of chained sobriety, but underneath the pleasing calm veneer, Kulkarni remains as Mad as a Hatter.

And that, dear old friends, is why I love Bangalore so much. Although I love Pune infinitely more than I like Bangalore – it is home, after all – I must admit that Bangalore wins hands down in the Madness Stakes. Hands down, I assure you.

And the reasons for this are a-plenty. Speed breakers, and their awe-inspiring designs, cops and their blessed idiosyncrasies, traffic and it's asinine management, the food, and it's bewildering culture, and so many more fascinating aspects that serve as proof of the city's endearing madness.

But the one thing that truly sets Bangalore apart in the eyes of the sufferer and the connoisseur, and the one thing that gives Bangalore the thorny crown without dispute – is it's ability to express itself.

Bangalore advertises the fact that it is mad in myriad ways, each of them a work of art. Be it the advertising on hoardings that abound in the city, the menus in it's many restaurants, in the maddeningly mixed idioms that Bangalore uses, or indeed, in the way that Bangalore communicates at large – it is pleasingly, endearingly, outstandingly mad.

Have a dekko at this picture. It was taken right outside our home here in Bangalore, and it's raison d'etre is still a puzzle.

One can spend (and I have) many hours on trying to figure out the deeper meaning in this magnificent message. First off the bat, "Save yourself from Uneventuality". Even allowing for the fact that every Bangalorean seems to thrive on living life on the edge when it comes to driving on the road, wouldn't the point of following traffic rules have rather the opposite aim in mind? Maybe not, you think to yourself, maybe eventualities is what Namma Bengalooru actually craves. Who is to know?

"VONOV SOLSS".

I mean, you have to give that thing space. You can't begin a sentence right after you say that. Doesn't seem right somehow.

What on earth could it mean? What are they trying to say to us? Is it English? I think not. Should one read it left to right, and then the next line? Or should one bob up and down, V and then S and then O and then O again, and so on? Either ways, it remains resolutely unreadable. Fascinating, is it not?

Now, moving on, if they're indeed going to teach us how to speak English, they could begin with themselves, given what's written right above it.

"Computer Training and Personality Development", of course, just make matters murkier.

"In case someone actually begins to think that he's understood us", you can hear the advertisers scheme," Let's throw him completely off track by throwing in Computer Training in there. And to really run riot, let's follow that up with Personality Development. That'll show 'em!"

They end with, bless their souls, Foreign Languages. So is "VONOV SOLSS"...

...In a foreign language? Is it meant as an appetiser, an hors d'oeuvre? One will never know, because one will of course never have it in oneself to actually call that blessed number.

And what really drives you up the wall is to find that these guys have branches. Not two, but a resounding four. People in Bangalore, it would seem, can't get enough of VONOV SOLSS.

For all you know, a dozen more are being added as we speak.

Bless their souls, indeed.

And this of course, is but one example (one of the better ones, certainly) of Bangalore attempting to express itself. I'll share more over time, be sure of that.

In the meantime, here's wishing you a very happy VONOV SOLSS.

Dear Old HAL

On the 11th of May, legend has it, the Bangalore International Airport will be thrown open to a non-adoring public.

Somewhere in the far distance, a certain Mr. Brunner gives his best impression of manic laughter, but that's the plan for the moment.

And as with everything else that is in the realm of the public cynosure, this too has generated a Mt. Everest's worth of newsprint.

Worry not, dear reader. Kulkarni couldn't care less about what people with an interest in public matters think about the move, and Kulkarni
does not intend to launch a diatribe either for or against the new airport.

But Kulkarni deeply laments the passing of the chaos that was the dear old doddering HAL airport. Truly, deeply laments.

Allow me the luxury of painting the strangers a somewhat delayed introduction.

Way back in the misty haze that is the past, HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.) built an airport far away from the city. IT (and that is no printing mistake) happened, and the city promptly upped and swallowed the area around the HAL airport. In the process, the wise men in the Karnataka government decided to use HAL airport as the city's airport. IT grew bigger, and people began
traipsing in from all corners of the world. With a brainwave that was inspiring even by the Karnataka government's standards (and they're a pretty intellectual bunch out there), HAL airport then came an International Airport. Broadly speaking, that's how it all happened.

And I haven't travelled much, but believe me when I tell you this: dear old HAL airport must be one of the most hilarious airports the world has ever had the privilege of hosting.

Plonked a little way away from Airport Road, HAL Airport is a whimsical collection of short squat buildings, on one side of which lies a runway that is just about long enough to prevent heart seizure for any pilot fool enough to land on it. On the other side of those short squat buildings lies chaos on an unprecedented scale. This is so because HAL airport was designed (presumably) to accommodate the occasional car that would ramble in from the main road, regurgitate its passengers, and amble out the other route. It was certainly not designed to handle all the traffic that Namma Bengalooru could throw at it. And make no mistake, when N.B decides to throw traffic at you, it does so on a mind numbing scale.

So at any given point of the day, HAL Airport chiefly consists of traffic cops clutching their heads in despair, people in cars honking away to no avail, and pilots standing on their brakes and saying their
Hail Mary's while landing on the tarmac. How it survives, nobody knows. Safety regulations are practically non-existent, and the only reason it hasn't been on the list of terrorists around the world is because it is, frankly, beneath any self respecting terrorist's self-esteem.

Cars, bikes, trucks, fuel trucks, fire engines, cargo vehicles, cabs and cows happily cohabitate the area outside the airport, peacefully co-existing in the traffic jam that is ever existent. At all hours of
the day and night, policemen huff and puff and plead with visitors, travellers, sundry citizens and varied animals to get a move on and go elsewhere, only to be pacifically ignored. Karmic peace, I assure you.

And apart from all those splendid reasons for being in everlasting love with dear old HAL, here's the clincher.

As with all modern airports the world over, dear old HAL has a restaurant in its welcoming premises. Situated a little away from the airport, on the far side of the traffic jam, Bageecha is a restaurant
that is open for 24 hours, seven days a week. It serves food that is best eaten by stomachs made primarily of cast iron, and it also boasts of a chai tapri serves chai at all hours of the day and night. We used
to go there to buy the coke to accompany our rum at three in the morning - and this alone is reason enough for me to shed a tear.
But the reason why I'll miss Bageecha is this - it can still be seen on Bageecha's menu:

Yes it is closer to home, far closer, than BIAL will ever be. More convenient, closer, more approachable, no UDF and all that. Yeah.

But I'll miss dear old HAL because... well, in spite of all its faults, in spite of all its shortcomings, dear old HAL was endearingly eccentric, frustratingly fussy and incurably irritating. It was almost
human, it was.

And if a certain Arthur C Clarke was still alive, he'd have nodded sympathetically.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Huh?

Say what you will, there is a rush of adrenalin about the whole thing.

The involuntary jerk of the neck, and the eyes open all too suddenly.
Light seemingly floods what had been welcome darkness, and there is a
slight dryness about the mouth.
One parts one's lips ever so slightly, and the tongue is prised loose
from the roof. A first, exploratory gulp and then a sharp intake of
breath.
The eyes scan the room quickly, responding in part to age old intuition,
looking for immediate danger. Upon meeting derisive smiles and
derogatory chuckles, there is brief puzzlement in the mind - what could
be the source of amusement here, if instead all one is feeling is a rush
of adrenalin?

And then one recalls the dark, comfortable room. A hush that a cathedral
would have been proud of, and a welcome coolness that the air
conditioner effortlessly supplies.
A steady drone from the center of the room, the voice rising in neither
pitch nor inflection, and slides that sidle past at the rate of one
every two minutes, comforting in their regularity of design, colour, and
for all you could care, content.
The slow slide down the chair, and the slow shallow breathing. A deep
somnolent sigh, and careful observation of self's tummy rising and
falling in slow steady cadence.
Then the heavy eyelids, the droopy eyelids. They fall steadily, until
your vision is blurred - at which point you raise yourself and peer at
the screen. Nod intelligently and draw in a deep breath.
The slides nod comfortingly at you. They know, they understand. And
slowly but surely, they begin their slow reassuring dance, keeping pace
with the drone that still emanates from the speaker. Softly and
soothingly they lull you into drooping in your chair once more.
And again the eyelids droop. A milimetre at a time, but they droop
nonetheless.
Until your vision is blurred once more, and this time you succumb to the
urge. The blur grows ever darker, and you slip away into slumberland,
where there is peace.
Sleep.

Until your reflexes kick in.

But it is all worth it, is it not, buddy boyos?
Because nothing kicks ass like falling asleep during a presentation in
the afternoon.
Amen.

Katta

 

Nowhere else in the world, I can assure you, is a short, squat wall accorded so much importance, as it is in Pune.

Assiduous readers of this blog would have by now gotten comfortable with the fact that all Punekars are a touch on the eccentric side. Not by much, but within the breast of each citizen of that fair city rests a spark of quirkiness. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it is the defining characteristic of a Punekar – and who would disagree?

Which, I regret to inform you, does not bring me to the point of this post.

But if you see what I mean, it does prove my point.

But the point of this post, I hasten to add, is already up there in the title. Today, boys and dear girls, we're going to learn about the katta.

A katta – don't hold me to this, by the way – is a short squat wall on which people can sit. It is situated, preferably, a little away from the main thoroughfares, and should even so be in reasonable proximity to a college. Within shouting distance should be a tapri that sells sutta and chai. On it should be friends, not necessarily from the same college.

Given these rather sparse requirements, a college going Punekar can spend weeks on said katta.

For in the eyes of the ubiquitous college going Punekar, chatting with friends on the katta is about all there is to life. While his peers of a more sincere variety listen to the steady hypnotic drone of the lecturer in a stuffy classroom, he sits on the katta with not a care in the world, sipping every now and then from a small chipped dirty glass, half filled with tapri chai. And at this rather cerebral activity – sitting on the katta, that is - there is none to surpass the Punekar. None.

For all kattas across Pune, there apply certain norms; expected patterns, that by now have been imprinted on every Punekar's DNA. Easy conversation, many cups of cutting, the occasional vada pav, the rather more frequent sutta, and above all an easy going, yet cutting sarcasm that wounds but does not kill. Mastery of these skills is a necessary prerequisite that must be possessed by the owner of every derriere that rests on these kattas.

Also, a katta session must of necessity involve a heated argument, a lengthy debate, long, rambling and pointless reminisces, a thorough whole-hearted vilification of the Indian cricket team, and in times of utter tedium, a superficial discussion of politics.

No specific order needs to be applied, and the cerebral quotient is guided only by the type of college that is in closest proximity. A katta near the Pol. Sci. Department in Pune University, for example, will be the very nadir of abstruseness, while the katta outside Symbiosis might never cross the realm of what happened on Monday Night Raw the past week.

Bird and bike watching is not only allowed, it is thoroughly encouraged. Each katta usually has a special; a "The One" in either category, and the truly lucky kattas have that rarest of rare honours: a "The Bird who rides The Bike".

From early morning until late evening, the katta hosts a series of never flagging conversations. They range from the profane to the mundane, from light banter to tear-jerkers. Friendships are forged here, and relationships are sundered. Groups at the time of passing out vow to meet at least once a year, and groups at the beginning of the year form themselves to last for a lifetime. Conversations last as long as the day does, and sometimes longer.

The first puff of the cigarette is inhaled on these kattas, and the first bitter sip of a somewhat cold bottle of beer is had here. The first hesitating proposal, painfully rehearsed for weeks on end, is made here a little after dusk, and it is here that the ears first get to hear "You're a good friend but."

The katta sits there, year on year, decade on decade, playing host to one generation of youth after another. It weans for all of its flock the skills of life, and it graduates in the true sense of the term far more students than formalized academia does.

For many a Punekar, the katta is the college. And what an education it is.

No?

 

Above all, the coffee. Above all.

 

Early morning time in Pune. Around seven thirty, say.

The early morning rush hasn't really started yet. A not-yet-fully-begun morning, if you know what I mean. The sun is out, but the heat is not.

People come back from their morning walks, from their game of badminton, tennis or squash. Out for a jog on BMCC ground, perhaps. A climb up the revered tekdis, or maybe some yoga at home. Better still, nothing at all. You've woken up, and you're here. All around you, people abound.

The middle aged salaried class is out in force, grey hair and clipped moustache. Maybe the squarish, rimmed spectacles that shield crinkly eyes. Short shorts, as were fashionable in circa 1980. A t-shirt that reveals a slight paunch. Bhabhiji is similar in spirit, but wears a salwar kameez. With the duppatta tied across the shoulders, satchel style. And if she is a true Puneri, she will have on her head a cap. Colour blue.

The youth brigade is well represented as well. Slight, not-quite-formed moustaches and the ghost of a straggle of a beard on obviously adolescent faces. T-shirts drenched in sweat, and a tennis racket for company.

And of course, the pensioner regiment. Ramrod straight, with newspapers opened in front of them, with glasses (not cups) of coffee on their tables, they'll give a disapproving once over to nearly everyone who enters the place.

Waiters abound everywhere, with young boys running around clearing tables so that a new lot can sit. The owners in a little corner to the left as you enter, minding their galla and running their restaurant. The kitchen diagonally opposite, behind the rather large refrigerator that houses the cold drinks, from which emanate the clash and the bangs of many vessels, and in unfailing succession, steaming platefuls of the holiest of heavenly foodstuffs.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Roopali.

As you come down from Fergusson College's back gate... allow me my idiosyncrasies, won't you now?

Fergusson College, around which Deccan Gymkhana arranges itself. Sprawled over a large rambling, self indulgent area, Fergusson college plays host to a variety of departments, and an asylum's worth of lunatics. Settled at the foothills of the Maruti Tekdi, Fergusson College has within it's confines many a hostel, department and canteen. Another blog post, in other words.

But the reason I digressed is this. On Fergusson College Road, as you proceed towards the Police Ground, you encounter first the Fergusson Girl's Hostel. Then, a little later, you come to the Main Gate. Opposite which is Savera, where half the students sit. The other half are at Vaishali. Then, a while later, you encounter another gate, which leads up to the Staff Quarters and the Hostels. Known, with a whiff of the common sense that Pune is renowned for, as "Third Gate".

So when you have a gate that opens on to BMCC road, you call it, with another dash of the common sense that I referred to earlier, as "Back Gate".

Because.

So as I was saying, as you proceed from the Back Gate down towards Fergusson College Road, you park just before this road ends. On the left, in front of Jai Jalaram Xerox centre. 25 paise, back to back. At least, that's what it used to be. Cross the road, and on the other side lies Roopali. Started way back, long before I was born, Roopali has served to it's loyal clientele South Indian food of a quality unparalleled. Nonpareil, if you will.

Soft fluffy utthappas, garnished with a smattering of chillies and onions. Or maybe a crisp-at-the-edges and soft-in-the-centre dosa. Maybe you feel like a fluffy idli today, or would you prefer a freshly fried medu vada? Try the cutlet then, if that's your fancy. Personally, I'd go for the utthappa to start with, and then a plate of medu vada.

But the coffee. Oh my God, the coffee.

Served in a simple white cup with a brown rim, on a saucer of similar design, with white freckled foamy froth at the top. Hot to the touch, you lift the cup delicately as you would grip a pen. The first draft of the aroma hits your nostrils, and the sweetish tinge of fresh filter coffee assails your senses. Your eyes close in reverence, and you take the first sip. The bitter introduction of the thin, biting coffee is assailed by the milk present, which leads on the sugary aftertaste.

A smile creases your face and you open your eyes. And on the visage of the member of the retired regiment who looked at you disapprovingly as you entered, is the ghost of a smile. He does not quite raise his glass of coffee in salute, but in that caffeine charged moment, one Old Punekar acknowledges another.

Salaam.

Of Diseases Incurable

 

"Well then, young man", said the old shrink,

Settling into his comfy old chair,

"What seems to be the problem then, eh...

Why do I sense an air of despair?"

 

"I don't really know, Doc",

The youth made reply morosely,

"My life's overflows with ennui

And the days pass so somnolently!"

 

"And why is that, do you think?"

Smilingly the shrink said,

"Is it your love life (or the lack of one),

Or does something else fill you with dread?"

 

"No, it's not that Doc... at least, I think not

All of that, praise the Lord, is so very fine,

I don't think it my health; nor my wealth

And it's neither food nor wine"

 

"Hmm", the shrink said musingly

"The answer is then completely clear,

Your career must be your ailment;

Is the office a place of toil and fear?"

 

"Oh no, I don't think so," said the youth,

Work is really too good to be true,

Numbers and charts and stats and graphs,

And really, that's all I ever do."

 

"Hmm", the shrink then said,

And this time his mood was sombre,

He thought he had identified the problem,

And the thought filled him with horror

 

Heavily did the shrink then sigh; in despair,

Finally he said, "Your case I cannot fix;

All else I could handle, young man,

But you seem to work in analytics!"

Hullo, Patel Sa’ab?

"Hullo, Patel Sa'ab? Haan... nahi, daaru chahiye tha. Haan, nahi – maloom hai, thoda late hai... par please... Patel Sa'ab? Haanji... ek khamba Old Monk. Haan OK... nahi paanch minit mein aa jaayenge. Haan pakka. OK Patel Sa'ab. Thank you."

On the bike and off you go. Late at night, and no traffic on the road. Pune is cold by night, and Pune is empty by night. You speed along the roads, your own shadow flitting by in rapid succession under the light of the lamp posts. Slow down at a crossing, and speed up on the straights. Over the bumps, and avoid the potholes. On and on, rider hunched up in the contorted, concentrated stance that only a drunk rider can attain, and pillion gaily drunk, bring up the rear by yelling and singing.

Past the residential areas, past the college, and past the hostel. Opposite the school, the bike is parked. Two rather tipsy souls clamber off and make their way to the door. A couple of soft knocks, made louder when no response is to be had from within.

The night is silent, save for the occasional bike that whizzes past. The insects valiantly chirp away, and every now and then you can hear a dog bark in the distance. The stars twinkle away up above – it is a moonless night, and the sky is clear. All the houses are barred shut, and there is no light burning within. Pune sleeps, but the two souls are awake. And knocking.

An answering grunt, and an exchange of relieved glances without.

The door opens and a sleepy moustached man stumbles out with a bottle wrapped in paper. The money is handed over, no questions asked. Two rather tipsy souls get back onto the bike and head back past the hostel, the school and the residential areas. Onto the main road, and whizz past it all. A brief stop at the usual place, just off the main road and then a right, for the cold drinks. Some chips for company, and you're back in the game.

The party continues.

Nal Stop, Comesum, Pyaasa, Kubera, the bakery opposite Pune Station. Patel Sa'ab and the cold drinks. The cigarette tapri just off JM Road and the cigarette vendor beside the railway booking counter at Karve Road.

And in fond remembrance, the back door entry to Lucky – may it's soul rest in peace.

And if, my friend, you've been reading this with a wistful smile and a heavy heart – why then, hail fellow, well met. You too have prowled at night.

Cheers.