A tale of four cities

So T made a mockery of the three word rule. And he blogs as often as a constipated orangutan does its business. And he is random. No matter. He shall be forgiven. For his name is nobody. (Another’s name is red though personally feel that it is not interesting enough to be read). And he is s____. God bless his soul. God or rather the Quintessential Personification of Hope, QPH, my God.

Gurgaon is a wonderful city. Village. Urban village. As I stood with M on the balcony of his guesthouse room on my last day there, gazing at the menagerie of malls and men and all things concrete, I felt strangely comfortable in this confused fusion of rapid commercial development, teeming immigrant professionals and the indigenous population trying hard to cope up with the numerous immigrants accompanying the furious expansion. I think it was something to do with the comfortable speed of life. Comfortably slow. Uneventful for most parts, but with its share of fascinating days as well. Fantastic days. As a thin stream of smoke escaped the balcony in search of some unattainable destination creating a hazy veil over a distant show of fireworks heralding some lucky couple’s entry into holy matrimony, M expressed his mild dislike of this place – its coldness in the midst of the contrived warmth of crowds. I let a noticeably loud silence express my mixed emotions to his harsh opinion.

Bangalore has been kind enough to welcome me back. When I was younger, this was the garden city where people sought a moment of peace and solace to console their hectic stressed lives. Or so was my perception. But now it is yet another unenviable and inevitable victim of the timeless human desire for continued success and prosperity. But tell us about the weather, won’t you kind H? Of course. Pleasant and snug with an eternal hint of rain, constantly providing entertainment through an unending game of hide-and-seek with the sun. Rainbows, clear as you would ever see, brightening up your day merely by their presence. Making up for all the irksome traffic of men and vehicles, loud, continuous and rude traffic, all of whom are rushing around for some activity which has the proverbial urgency and patience of time and tide.

In our world, indolence has turned into having nothing to do, which is a completely different thing; a person with nothing to do is frustrated, bored, is constantly searching for the activity he lacks. – Milan Kundera, Slowness

Off to Bombay for the weekend. Apparently our apartment contract is ending and our landlord has decided he has had enough of us. So P, T and I are homeless. Homeless in the beautiful city of brilliant lights and inviting sea faces. T and I think we like the situation. Nomadic we shall be.

Sitting in the airport with T, waiting for the boarding announcement, bombarded by constant messages of delayed flights and sincere regrets by ladies paid to be apologetic. We are in a race to reach our base city, having chosen two different airlines. Our flights play along with us not being able to decide which one should be the first to leave. T talks of a character he has met who had introduced himself as a hybrid and one who used both sides of his brain. He who has infused a new sense of fashion in our style-challenged lives. T makes remarks, both rude and insightful, about the appropriateness of colour and elegance of clothes on the many passengers biding their time away. Our boarding happens simultaneously. We stand up and walk away in silent smirking, alluding to fake wishes of good luck.

Normally a flight from Bangalore to Bombay takes an hour and a half. Its been 6 hours since we parted ways. Neither the winner. T could still potentially win. Lets hope for his sake he doesn’t. Inclement weather in Bombay caused my flight to return by which time I had lost all enthusiasm to try again. T’s flight is still stuck. In the capital of the abstinent land, with an uncertain future. Poor T. He is not as fortunate as I, who on diagnosis of the situation as a warning from QPH, have decided to fly to my real base city. Chennai.

Just to make the title a little more appropriate, I have decided to add this last section which may sound unconnected. But I have to.

It was the best of times, it was the best of times.

Thanks, QPH. Thanks for listening.

Smiles,

H

My name is Nobody

First things first – dream, thyme and asparagus. Now, I can actually start writing what I want rather than follow the diktats of a tyrant (I could have said diktats of a dictator for the sake of alliteration and all that, but haven’t done so to display the self control in the writing).

There is this old Bud Spencer and Terenzel (hope I got the spelling right) called ‘My name is Nobody’. It’s about gun-slinging cowboys and the Wild west. However, unlike most other Westerns, it’s a lovely comedy like most of Bud’s movies. I won’t talk much about it, though – this post isn’t on the evolving dynamics of Western talkies nor is it about the effects of Bud on making America wiser (Sorry, couldn’t help that one).

So what am I going to talk about then, that would interest you, my gentle reader, and, more importantly, interest me? Well, for one, I’m going to speak about myself – Nobody. Am I going to ask the fundamental question surrounding the makings of me or question the ambiguity and sophistry surrounding things like I think, therefore I am? Not quite. I’d much rather stick to saying Mojito ergo sum, like my old friend, T and have my friends bear me with a smile.

So, coming to the heart of the matter, I primarily wanted to talk about the things I find interesting. Strangely enough, this has become people and books. The latter isn’t strange, in itself, but coupled with the former, I have begun to observe a whole new side of me. One that was never exposed to the sun, but left to die of lead rot owing to our society’s penchant for tempering our mettle in barrels of engineering rather than in economics, psychology or the arts. (Remember relatives of yours looking with abject scorn at anyone who said he had done his B.A.). However, H has just spoken of people rather recently, so I’m going to talk about books. Again.

I was reading a rather queer book yesterday called the Curious incident of the dog in the nighttime. It was lent to me to read just the other day by H and knowing how rarely he reads books, I was sure that it wouldn’t disappoint. Well, it didn’t and then it did. I won’t reveal any of the book for you save that it first spiraled me out on a rather interesting journey of thought, through other books that I have read (I do this often) and then brought me back, rather dishearteningly to a mundane Earth. My fly by night was stemmed (at the root, as it were) by a mere boy writing in blank verse. However, let me digress a bit to mention that I also thought of the curious, and then the words queer, quaint and so on and how the words themselves have become curious, or quaint or queer. Look at the word attic, for example, do you think loft or do you think greek?

I was talking about my fly by night. The author, very early in the book, begins talking about Sherlock Holmes and the way he solved the story of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Not surprising in itself – authors often mention other books they love, it is the way they bring a bit of themselves into their books – what was strange was that my dad, on hearing the name of the book, immediately said “There is this Holmes quote I recently read – There was something curious about the incident of the dog. It didn’t bark. Yes, that was curious” (I promise I haven’t spoiled the book for you). Let me throw in another example before I explain what I’m trying to get at – mid way into the book, I began to read a letter to the protagonist. Apart from my feelings of disgust and voyeurism on reading someone else’s letter, I began to recall a similar style of writing – that of the Fobishier (or is it Frobishier) in Cloud Atlas and how much of oneself is revealed in one’s writings to others – that letters hold memories as much as the mind itself does. I wonder if what they say in the movie AI is true, that space and time are able to hold the very essence of the world around us to the extent that we are able to synthesise it ourselves by reading old memory. God destroyed dinosaurs. God created man. Man destroyed God. Man created dinosaurs. Dinosaurs ate man. Woman takes over…

And, once more, we get to the heart of the matter. The matter of how words, nay, not just words – but words, actions, scenes enacted, smells can evoke memories of all we have seen, heard, touched, tasted and, yes, loved, (for, have I not loved before, my gentle reader?) It is passing strange that people try to forget their past, while yet others cling onto it for dear life, as if that is the only straw keeping them attached to an unreal world. However, it is rather different for me; I cling onto the books I have read to escape from an all too harsh reality. Even now, memories are woken, creating a chain reaction from book to book, scene to scene, person to person and memory to memory. I met a girl as fair as summer… May I give a few words of advice in a rather tiring, cryptic manner? Happiness is a hammock. More on this in another post.

And so let me leave you here, brave soul, to go forth and forget your own past, to forget all the words you have read, to start afresh, to treat every moment as if it were your first, or last, to be eternally surprised by the world because it is create anew each moment and this one was not the same as the previous; or mayhap I should entreat you not to forget – to remember and forgive old quarrels, to renew old friendships because they shaped your lives, to miss old flames and give them a ring because they loved and cared for you and more importantly, you cared for them. Go…

And so it is, that a nobody might do something – to realize that his whole life is a beautiful thread to be lived to create a grand pattern. Because Bud Spencer did not mind people saying – “He was beaten by nobody.”

And for H, that is why I’m s_____

T