Wanderlust

I yearn to be on the road again. In the words of J.R.R.Tolkien,

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea.

The following are my lines,Tolkien is of course a master.

I yearn for leave to leave this land,

I yearn for a peace that never was mine.

I yearn for the sea, the breeze, the sand,

I yearn for some tranquil lonely time.

Thane to International Airport

The journey from my home to the airport was eventful to say the least of things. You don’t really factor in a major traffic jam at Powai and fervently pray that your dad sitting beside doesn’t suddenly start on your inability to ever be on time.  But just then the driver sneaks out in one rapid stroke of maniacal madness and you are bounding out to the airport just in time for your flight. Then it rains!

Dad waved a good bye and a good luck, and I secretly believed he must have a mumbled an atheist prayer. And I was off. To be honest the moment I entered the airport I was terribly disoriented about where to go and all that cheery confidence of the solo trip was waning.  A few creepy thoughts of biting more than I could chew did stream in, but then I sighted a gorgeous Kingfisher air- hostess and I knew everything would be fine!
I had to clear the immigrations check. A few fiddly questions about why you want to leave your beautiful country followed. And then I was off. Hang on! I didn’t tell you about checking in my baggage, did I? I check in my baggage – a brown bag. Then off I go to immigrations. Over the speakers comes an announcement – there’s a brown bag at one of the counters lying unclaimed. Now I belong to that tribe of people who feel whatever evil has to befall on this earth, will unfold upon me. So I suffered a few moments of panic about that bag.
I even had a chat with a Thai flight attendant about the bag. He gave me the look of a sage who had seen many such lost souls and told me that everything would be alright.

As I waited for the flight to board, I lounged around the airport checking out a smoking hot firang with short pants and a Lakshmi printed T-shirt reading Shantaram. I was ready at last to leave Indian terra firma.

Gaining Weight!

For years a lot of people bugged me to take care of my physique. They wanted me to join a gym or do yoga or something. I resisted with vigor.  “I don’t need no gym. I don’t need no weight control. ” I sang in a Pink Floyd like tune. That was until a month back. Right in the middle of fight with my younger brother I realized he was taller than me. Thwack! A punch crashed into my face and I went down to the ground. 46 kgs don’t take too long to touch the ground, eh. Shameful! A little later I watched the 1976’s classic ‘ROCKY’. I felt really fired up. So off I marched to the gym.

A closed white door beckoned me. I opened it and ... no the world didn’t change! Inside were posters of a species of men that could easily pass off as alpha males. Body builders, wrestlers d of course Arnold Schwarzenegger fought for space on the walls. My gym instructor ushered me in. Now my gym instructor looks like he can do all kinds of things. I mean walk the ramp, jump off buildings and save kids, box, wrestle and maybe even lift the earth if Atlas gets bored. Like a Greek Adonis his body is so perfectly proportioned that I wonder whether Michelangelo chips away at his body every morning. As far I am concerned I look like one of those children they feature in the WORLD POVERTY ALLEVIATION ads. Thin mind you, very thin. If you have to compare me to anyone then it would be to a Tolkien’s hobbit.
 But I digress. “Pull-ups”, garbled the instructor. So off I went to a machine and promptly hoisted myself upwards. That’s when in the middle of nowhere I realized I couldn’t bring myself down. My benign instructor promptly pulled me down.
Push-ups next. I managed fine. I was feeling buoyed now.
Well next we moved onto the “DUMB BELLS” and this is where I made a complete fool of myself. The hunk gave me a heavy 5kg one. Mind you I didn’t ask for it. I tried hard to lift it. It dutifully refused to budge from its resting place. I tried harder now with both the hands and I slipped.

Ha-ha! The entire place was abuzz with laughter. The benevolent man again proffered me his hand. My male ego severely bruised and with my ROCKY spirit down in the dumps I got up with war cry ringing in my head. A few quick runs on the treadmill and some more of those bone creaking exercises I was off home.
For two excruciating months I followed the exercise schedule religiously.  For the past two months I have been unable to move any of my arm muscles properly. Instead of developing into big bulging blobs of envy my arms have contorted into something non functional. My whole body feels as if an oxen clog has been made to ride on every sinew. Mind you I am not doing this to feature in some glamorous model hunt for an underwear brand. Ah! That reminds me of something. Why do these fellows with perfect six pack abs and all look so sullen once they are put in front of a camera with nothing but underpants? As if somebody with an even bigger and bulkier frame ran away with their pants. Ok, I digress again.
 One fine day at Thane railway station I decided to do a weight check. Somewhere in my six pockets lay a fortune. I dug out a rupee from it and tucked it into the machine. It said “42 kgs.” Aargh! My weight gain program has reduced me by 4kgs. Wonderful!! Some of my female friends envy me. They say it’s so difficult to have a 24inch waist. Folks say stop worrying and start living. I have stopped gymming and started living.

Travel Resources

I have always wondered if I could find a list of travel resources online and found this rather spiffy one! 

An evening with Prem Joshua

It was in Goa that I first heard the name Prem Joshua. It was a whim, a mere moment's glance at the trinket shop of a Rajasthani lady wearing, what Sanket said, was a truckload of bangles, that I first saw that name. While the lady went to explain that the artist was a hit amongst the firangs and so we should buy it.You can either attribute the fact that we picked up that music album titled Prem Joshua and friends, to the lady's salesmanship or us trying to get a perfect Goan souvenir.

 I had forgotten all about the disc until back in beloved Bombay, Sanket told me that he was blown away by the music. "It is brilliant fusion", he chimed. Now Sanket Chavan is a man who knows his music. So when he says something is unlike anything you have heard, you have to listen to it. And listen I did.

Prem Joshua and friends put me in a musical spell that brought memories of Goa and other journeys flooding back to me. So when I heard that these folks were going to be Bandra for a free music concert, I was ecstatic.

On November 22nd, 2009 at the Celebrate Bandra festival, inside the decadent Bandra fort, Prem Joshua and friends performed live to an audience that comprised of an expatriate population, Indian families, young students & some hippies.

The open air amphi-theatre, the palm and coconut trees that surrounded the artists and the crescent moonlight all added a slightly surreal feel to the entire event. The music was beautiful, melodious, soaring, swerving, at once taking you on a journey and then suddenly making you ponder.

Prem Joshua had the audience in splits with his funny takes on India. Another concert was playing about a stone's throw away. He quipped, "We have competition today. You know in India everything has to be loud." The crowd cheered, because it sounded more like an Indian's rant!

The sitar playing was taut, the tabla,the percussion and the entire music sounded exactly as it sounds on the disc. But the thing that stayed with me was the Soprano Sax, a hauntingly beautiful sound that pierced my heart.

The concert ended, but a lot of us wanted some more.A standing ovation and a few moments later we ended up meeting Prem Joshua himself. I had heard this line somewhere, "You never choose the music you listen to, its almost always that the music chooses you." That line struck a chord inside me that night.

P.S.A big thank you to Sanket for the concert pass. I am adding a link to Shiva Moon just in case you want to sample some of Prem Joshua's music.

Travels across South East Asia - Setting Forth

I did mention that I would blog about my South East Asia trip and today I post the first of many posts.So here goes...
I have always had a fascination for the West; nay let me put it more strongly, I love the West. So when I heard that my charming cousin had no qualms in hosting me in the UK, I shot off from my chair straight to the VFS global office with my visa application. I even planned an entire backpacking trip of Europe in my ridiculously imaginative mind. In retrospect if I had taken some more time in filling up the visa form or maybe added a tome on why I wouldn’t settle in the UK along with the form, I might have not ended up in Thailand or Malaysia or Singapore for that matter. I would have been writing something about the French or the Spanish. I might have written reams on my first Ashes experience but the Emigration Control Officer at the UK visa office had his own take on my brilliant plans. So he rejected my visa application.

I had tramped all the major bookstores in Bombay and spent countless hours poring over the Lonely Planet Europe guide. But then the best laid plans of men who look like mice almost always go astray. So instead of enjoying an English summer, I decided to pack my bags and go off on a semi-guided, semi backpacker tour of the Far East or as some prefer to call it the South - East of Asia.

I had created quite a lot of buzz with my plans of the Eurotrip, and when the whole trip came unstuck many a friend and acquaintance had a hearty laugh at my expense, Schadenfreude I say. So I was rather discreet about my new plans! I would leave for Thailand on 17th July and be back on 28th July, just in time for my date of joining Godrej IT on 1st August.

The Thailand trip happened, the Godrej IT joining didnt! But more on that later...

Monday Morning Blues!

I know today isn't Monday so dont really tell me that! I wrote this on a bluesy Monday moment weeks ago. Felt like posting it. So here goes...
I was waiting for my bus to arrive. It would take me to office. Now if you know me personally then you would know that, such an occurrence is rare. I mean it’s not as if I had reached the bus stop early but that the bus was late. I belong to the category of people who bound like a hunting hound after buses that are sprinting away to their destination.
But today was different. I stood patiently with the Dave Matthews band playing through my head. As I heard “Where are you going?” I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. And then I spied them, two kids with tiny bags, playing in a corner awaiting their pre-school bus.
One of them was taller, with a blue water bottle hanging around his neck. A cherubic grin adorned his little face. The other one was short, with a band aid on his head.
It was a curious game; they were trying to grab each others’ bags while going around in circles. No matter how hard the shorty tried he could never grab the taller one’s bag. I laughed at the silliness of it all and the simple joy that they derived out of it. Boy! They were happy, so radiantly happy that I missed being innocent. I missed being young, carefree, stupid and without responsibilities. A cagey sadness gripped me even as the song changed to Radiohead’s Lurgee.
Soon their bus arrived and they left while I pondered on…