Stupendously Sublime

This May would make it my 5th year of knowing the "Argumentative Bengali", the man who taught me how to be insufferable, how to refine tongue in cheek humour and how to come day in, day out, and out of the sheer love one has, keep taking it... We met very recently, and he again had to take a lot of "love" from all of us, but he always does nad boy did he have a story.... The story begins with a cousin of his asking him: "Bhai to itna khush kaise rehta hai" at which point he looked at us and said: Ab isko kaise bataoon main kaise khush rehata hoon, daru peeta hoon, charas peeta hoon, ye poochta hai main khush kaise rehata hoon. Girlfriend gift bhejti hai.....GHAR ke address par, apna perfume lagakar......aur log poochtey hain main daru kyun peeta hoon... jiske haath wo gift nahi lagna chahiye, wahi mujhe phone karke kehta hai ki tera gift aaya, khushbu waala...aur log poochtey hain ki main charas kyun peeta hoon... Ab batao...main ussey kyaa boloon, main it...

The words of that singing maestro, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, years since he must have sung this song and this song brings new meaning to all those that hear it, everyone who has loved and to all those who have loved and lost. A not too cheerful beginning to the new year on my blog, which i have ignored for a long time now, and i'm really sad that one of the things that my post grad has taken away from me is the prolific quantity of my writings, yet it has given a certain fatalistic depth to my writings. New dimensions are always welcomed even though they might lead to the depths of Tartarus. Bah! I rave on like a psychotic headcase, to my general indifference i have turned 24 and have to salute my friends who like clockwork kept calling till i spoke to them, a very very big thank you from my side, may the sun of our friendship burn through eternity. It was a most wondrous day and specially because i and my friends threw a bachelors for a dear new friend. I have been partying alm...

Let me start off by saying that, i comment on the real essence of ragging, not that mental and physical torture that masqueraded as ragging throughout medical and engineering colleges, which i actually abhor and think that society is better without it. Now, onwards, ragging my trusty internet connection says is "the practice in educational institutions in India and Sri Lanka that involves existing students baiting or bullying new students" and yes the issue is calcitrant in the indian education system, we hear of deaths and suicides, true abslutely true, some students who don't deserve to be called humans, do indulge in such practices, but not all and somehow somewhere we are worse off without ragging. Now that the politicaly correct stance is out of the way, i will just like to put a few pointers as to how and why, I being ragged helped me. I too went to an engineering college (most of those who read this will know) and like every single one of the freshers, i was scared...

Talking today with my most revered and respected senior (tongue firmly in cheek), "His Lordship". It was a weird talk to say the least, it started with him telling me that koko was the name of a monkey that was sent into space, i'm really sorry Kangkan but man that koko name is pretty catchy, but i digress, the fact is that he told me that a mule is born when a donkey and mare (female horse), "do it" (i kid you not this is what he said) and that he could not fathom the reason why a mare would agree or would be willing to do something like that, the point being that if a donkey has a chance with a mare, then it speaks of hope for our kind, you know the not so supermodel's, the average joe's of this world, the ordinary guy. The chance that the ordinary guy might get the chance to be with a woman, who is in another league, and this got me thinking, if 6's date 6's and 9's date 9's, why would this anomaly happen, why would a 9 date the prover...

Another haze of smoke clears from my face as i drag another lungful from the hokaah in front of me, i taste something delicious and look around to pass it to someone else, and all i see is strangers from a strange land, suddenly i realize i'm not in kansas anymore. These faces smile, joke and laugh, their eyes full of mirth, and i'm a stranger in their midst. I strain my eyes to see a familiar face, to see someone who is not an empty shell of existence, my gaze passes from face to face and i realise that i'm executing an exercise in futility, i break into sweat and in a most "inceptionesque" way wonder how i had gotten there, sadly it was not a dream and i had to live that moment for what it was. My sweat peppers my forehead despite the air-conditioning, i want to run from that place screaming at the top of my voice just to feel myself again, to convince myself that it is not a dream, but i control the panic and leave the smoke box to gather a precious few breaths...

"I have gone from the pyre of denethor, to the ashes flowing in time, from which shall rise The Zen.....this is my tao....this is my destiny....."- occasionaly Raphael, majorly The Zen There comes a time in the life of everyone, where a major upheaval or change completely shifts your view of the world. This change is almost like viewing another spectrum, like a blue or red shift on the doppler, like the rose tinted glasses on your nose have been replaced by a murkier brown, enough similies....like black and white has had more grey shoved into it.....(well maybe just one more for old times sake) The carefree wanderings and trust fostered over years, beautiful relationships wrought in gold, love given unabated, attention showered magnificently...that was the birth of Raphael. The will of fire passed down from the elders of a sublime tradition, then we became the inheritors of that will, to be passed on to the next generation, till we became the ethers and the elders of the hall...

Silence rains down, like blood in an apocalypse, the poor mortal fears for his sanity, hiding in the vacant expression that he now portrays, looking at the equally vacant far-off expressions on the face of his companions, are they thinking the same, wonders the mortal, and then one of them looks at the mortal and says "did you say something?", "ummm, no" replies the mortal. Silence rains down again, like blood in an apocalypse. Suddenly a voice breaks the bloody silence "Agla station Rajeev Chowk hai, blue line par jaane waale yaatri daayin taraf se utrein" Yes, my friends the above scene was not cut from a hitchcock movie, it was pure and simple awkwardness of 4 strangers, pushed together by fate, and traveling together because of convenience. The ice is hard as ever, all the niceties have been discussed, families have been discussed, personal lives have been discussed (till that permissible level). Yet the 4 are strangers, different, from different backg...