Train Station

They hustle, they bustle,
a gushing torrent of muddy water,
not a uniform muddy, like the Ganges
but muddy like chocolate chip milk cookies,
a confluence of shades of brown,
testimony to the hours spent, laboring under the tropical sun,
Like the glittering bands of red and orange and green,
on a war veteran's verdant uniform
they wear their color on their cheeks,
each a symbol of hardship, of strife
but while one glitters in all its glory,
the other is forgotten,
in the torrent of muddy water

Trains pull in hooting like a farting bull,
and smelling like one , too,
they empty many gallons of humanity,
on the grey simmering tarmac,
its high tide at noon on weekdays,
low tide at night, on weekends,
but no matter how torrid the weather,
the river never runs dry,
for there is forever the old man,
with his tattered old bag,
who lies by the east bound track
like the last drop of water,
in an empty sea.

Man's Best Friend

It looks at you,
imploring eager eyes
tail wagging and tongue sagging,
groveling in the mud, muzzling your toes,
so unabashedly vulnerable and yet with such careless abandon,
as if a friendly pat, a few gently mumbled nothings,
would fulfil its existence

Meanwhile bombs drop and havoc prevails
blood pours into the sea
like a crimson glacier at the peak of summer
markets plummet, economies crash,
meteors brush past and stars collide
storms rip through, ecosystems subside,
nations and masses collectively fret
solutions seem impossible to beget

And you look back at the joyous ball of fur cuddling at your feet,
gaze into the depths of those benevolent beads for eyes
and for that brief moment
all problems seem solved

Hitchhikers Guide to Orissa

I scribbled fervently as I finished the last question on the paper. Phew! A quick  glance at my wrist watch - 20 minutes to go yet. To hell with it. I stretched, took a look around, then wrapped up the assortment of various stationary scattered on and around my desk. I deposited my answer script on the relevant stack , and scampered out into the corridor. RIP mid semester exams.

Three days of open time, and that nagging urge to get out,  to spread my wings. My backpack had been sitting in   a quiet corner all week, silent and conscious of my situation , all the while staring at the uneventful wall behind it. I could almost hear it beg to be used. To be stuffed, hoisted, lugged through sand, swamps dust and jungles. Some offers are too good to refuse, and this was one of those. I sometimes wonder whether its my backpack which gave me my traveling bug ... it has been around before it reached me, and the travelling bug is said to be contagious.

So the plan was set, and a few more lunatics with backpacks joined the gang. Seven of us on the roadtrip, but there still was a major problem yet to be resolved - where do we head out to? Despite protests from some of the more lazy people, the compass was set south, and we decided to head out to Orissa. Chilka lake to be more precise, and its vast unexplored bird and animal life;  its sprawling scenic backwaters, and waterfalls in near vicinity. More about the waterfalls later.

So here's the gang - there's me , mod , the resident you-know-what hole. There's Ankit "bada sutta" Verma, calm, quiet, and with a notorious air - straight out of a mafia film,  just that he's indian. Then there's Sanket "Gultra" Deshmukh, dazed, angry, amused and  hysterical in equal measure, alternating between the states and random. There's Vivek "Diablo" Sharma next - he's the exact opposite of gultra behaviorally and bs (bada sutta) physically. There's Nitish "Rathi" Rathi , typical haryanvi baniya with constantly thinning hair, and dripping with thick sarcasm. Sirish "Shishu" Subramaniam, the management guru who manages to find humor in the most unexpected of places, and has a gait like that of a emperor penguin.And last but not the least,  Amardeep "Amar" Gupta, with long feminine hair, and a body to match.

So we set off to Balguan, which lies on a tangent to Chilka lake. The train journey was what you can expect it to be if you travel unreserved. Three of us slipped  into the sleeper coach,  haggled with the TTE, and finally procured 3 berths. But wait - did i mention that there were seven of us ? The next six hours were spent constantly shifting positions, finding vacant voids for our stray limbs amongst the mess of mangled bodies, and accommodating even more illegal travelers on the floor and and in every nook and cranny large enough for a human body to fit in. The TTE made a second round later, demanding even more cash. We ran the typical drill of broke students with exams  (in Balugaon !??), and managed to show him a few empty wallets before he let us off the hook. I've never met an honest TTE in my life ; it's almost as if they have an procedure that filters out only the most morally flexible for the job.

Balugaon was a small and  forgotten station. Rathi, in quite typical fashion, was desperate to relieve his bowels, and after many failed attempts to locate a toilet in the immediate vicinty, took the chai-waalas sage advice and defecated on the tracks. "New experience" in his words. The seven of us stuffed into an autorickshaw meant for 5, and reached the edge of chilka just in time to catch my most gorgeous sunrise in recent memory. The sun rose gloriously from a sea of orange and pink, which gradually changed to purple and magenta, all the while flaunting its depth of shade in the rippling water originating from under fishing boats.

   

                                                      

A boat trip from Balugaon to Satpada promised us a view of the endangered Irawady dolphins - Chilka being one of the only two saltwater lagoons in the world where the dolphins reside. What we were not informed however, was that the boatride was going to 3 hrs long , in the mid day heat. The view was spectacular to start with, and the calm vistas of the gentle water seemed to seamlessly merge with the horizon in a distance. It was supremely peaceful - until the sun came into its element. All of us tanned by a couple of shades on that single boat ride, with gultra getting a headache and losing half of his sanity at the same time. Sishu lost the other half. We saw a few dolphins on the way - spectacular and elegant creatures, non chalantly leaping out of the water a few feet from the boat, whistling and gurgling in harmony. They had a skin of the color of the muddy brackish water, and had benevolent eyes a shade darker. I had a joyous fit the instance that i saw them, which soon settled down to a calm appreciation of my first dolphin sighting.

Satpada was another little town, centred mainly about dolphin tourism, with little shops running along the road as we headed in. Our plan was to travel to the Nirmalajhar "waterfall" a few kilometers from here, as confidently indicated on the wiki page. The OTDC rest house was our respite from the road, giving me the option of testing out the local crab for lunch, which turned out the be utterly horrible. The crab shell declared war against the soft tissue in my mouth, and while everybody had a full stomach afterwards, I was left with a bloody mouth and a stomach ache.

An overenthusiastic boatsman took charge of us there after, randomly getting hold of us in the street. The poor guy looked through the group of foreign tourists right behind us, bee-lining towards our confused group. I still cannot fathom what could have prompted his indiscretion, considering that we had empty wallets and were headstrong bargainers, not to mention the presence of  a baniya in our group. We were not complaining though - the guy had a boat, with a roof on it this time , and the boat was all our for the journey from Balugaon to Johnny Kuda (strange name, i know!) .




An incredible boat journey, dozing under the summer sun  while the warm surf washed against our boat, while gultra clicked away (himself) with a camera in hand on one end of the boat. Narcissism was defined after gultra was born, and his smiling skull in half of the pictures explains why.

                         

                

Another hard bargain from Johnny Kuda brought us to junction (what junction? the name slips my mind), which was some highway basically. We walked up to the driver, who was chatting away as if he didn't have a bus full of irate commuters waiting for the bus to start. We looked at the driver- and then we looked at the bus. It was so thoroughly packed that people were oozing out of the bars in the windows.  And then lightning flash - amar suggested that we could ride on the roof. The driver was hesitant at first - "dada, police pakdega highway par" --  one look at the bus - and all he could do was shrug his shoulders.

And then, we took off.

Gush after gush of cool wind hit us square in the torso, as the bus caught speed on the highway. The bus lethargically wound up the gentle slopes of the eastern ghats, as the temperatures noticeably dropped with the height. Off came the shirts and out came the mikes, as all of us showed off our mediocre vocals, shouting at the top of our lungs to overpower the whoosh of the wind. The people on the road below were quite bewildered , having seen such theatrics only from cattle and little children. The little children joined in the waving and singing, and before long we were at nirmalajhar. 

Now this is the Nirmalajhar that I had imagined it to be - a 50 feet waterfall with cool freshwater, falling into a   and pond followed by a  trinkling stream with leaping salmon , surrounded by green grasslands and burstling wildlife. The driver however stopped the bus in front of a dilapidated old hindu mandir , and announced - "aa gaya". We looked at each other for a second.  "Yahan se raasta kya hai ? " , enquired Verma innocently, expecting the reclusive waterfall to be buried in some deep alcove away from civilization. "Yahi hai dada", replied the driver, refusing to budge from his previously asserted predicament. We could see a square bathing pool inside the temple, but surely that couldn't be the famous waterfall. Verma, still desperately hopeful, prodded on - "Andar jaa kar hai kya kahin ? ". The driver, exasperated by the bunch of baby faced hopefuls asking dumb questions, reiterated for one final time - "YAHI HAI!!". And then he sped off.

Nirmalajhar wasn't too bad though, we had a blast bathing in the moss filled water. The little 10 feet by 10 feet pool was supposed to have an inexhaustible supply of holy water. Gultra enthused by the holy spirit, had a sudden urge to jump into the water, and everyone else followed. Holy or not, the water was soothingly cool, and a diving competition (in which i lost to rathi 9.5 to 9) capped the visit. Another trolley ride took us to the nearest railway station, where the station master told us to wait for a few hours before we could get a train to Puri. A few hours? You've got to be kidding me.

And hence the plan was made that we'd hitchhike to Kurdhan Road, and get a train from there to Puri. After a few reluctant drivers, one finally stopped to drop somebody off. Everybody had temporary amnesia, and forgetting their worn out states rushed to the truck. The truck driver, intimidated to see seven sleep deprived and drawling guys ganging up on him late at night , refused straight. However being a student in IIT prepares you to make the most absurd excuses to fit your cause (and explain your absence from class) - and suddenly one of us chimed in - "Dada, behen ki shaadi hai, baraat chhoot jayegi, please adjust!". The driver, quite possibly having attended quite a few emotional "behen ki shaadis" in his own family, melted like swiss chocolate, and let us on. 

2 hours in the open roofed lorry - with nothing but the steel floor underneath, and the open sky above. Shishu, being a eerily efficient opportunistic sleeper, dozed off immediately while the rest of us were battling with textured steel penetrating our rear sides. Diablo still had his ray bans on in the pitch dark, I wonder how much of the stars he saw. Before long we were at Khurdan Road, and on a late night train to Puri. 

Monday morning happened on the train. And with 12 am came holi. Now shishu, gult, diablo and me were asleep when the holy hour crept one. Verma, Amar and Rathi were not. They had been waiting.

Sirish was the first one to wake up fifteen minutes later. And then gultra, followed by Diablo. And they woke up with close up (the red and sticky kind) all over their faces. Sishu wiped his face off like he does every morning - before realising that he had heavy make up on -  and then looked at his sleeve. And then he looked at the faces around him ready to erupt with laughter. And then he understood.

Diablo woke up, felt his face, got angry, and went back to sleep. ("Bahut neend aa rahi thhi yaar"). Gultra woke up , disoriented for the first few minutes. And then he wiped his forehead... just to grab a fistful of closeup. In one of his crazy fits, he walked up menacingly to where verma , amar and rathi were standing, their smiles slowly devolving to terrified frowns. And then came the dialogue of the close-up kand -- " (pointing at Verma and then the left door)Mein tujhe is darwaaze se phekunga,  (pointing at amar and then the right door) tujhe uss darwaze se phekunga, (making cirlces in the air while pointing at rathi) aur tu, tu to gayab hi ho jayega ! " . And puri was here before we knew it. 

I still don't know why they didn't smear my face, verma told me later that they thought i had woken up. 

We reached Puri at 1 in the morning. We bifurcated into two parties - one headed directly to the beach, while sishu, diablo and I headed for  the Jagannath temple. We were almost attacked by bulls, dogs and monkeys on our way through the deserted roads. Despite being holi(y) day, the temple was deserted , with all the devotees in deep slumber outside the temple. We asked where we could get some prasadam, and we were pointed to a cave like room - which turned out to be a bat cave. So cool. Now tell me where I can eat. 

We had some great south indian prasadam, and assuming that it was for free, thanked the pundit and prepared to leave. He looked up at us - "120 rupees", he said, poker faced. We looked at each other, and sishu mouthed "lol". Well, at least we have full stomachs. And we saw the bats.

The beach was incredible, running along the knee deep surf in the moon lit night, when nobody is around, is incredible fun. We fooled around in the sand and surf  till sunrise. While i got high on the view, the hypnotic drone of the waves as they lashed the shore, and the golden sand sparkling under the silver moon,   Rathi, Verma and Amar stuck to the conventional methods of doing so. Morning came, and another spectacular sunrise.

We headed off to Konark after that. I don't recall what happened on the way, but Rathi does.

                                             

We had a lavish breakfast at the OTDC retreat, and rented a toilet. Gultra at this point was as alert as corpse on drugs, and fell face flat into his breakfast multiple times. I had some trouble with the toilet, which i assumed to be western, and it turned out to be and indian style elevated by a couple of feet. No worries though, I figured it out before it was too late.

The sun temple was  exquisite. The sandstone sculptures were masterful. And the themes were well ... different. Unabashed and elegant displays of raw human passion, bodies intertwined in hungry longing, as souls united to become one - it was almost lyrical. Gultra became obsessed with a particularly unfeasible position, which i'm sure he'll try out with his next female partner, if he can manage to find a gymnast girlfriend.

Back to Puri after barging our way through many road blocks ("Bura mat maano, holi hai!!!"), we took a train back to Kgp. Got proper sleeper tickets this time. We had some female company from Bhubaneshwar in our compartment, but we discovered that the instinct to sleep is far more overbearing than that for the propagation of the race, and hence the next five hours saw us collectively lowering the centre of mass of the coach - fast asleep. 

And then Kharagpur arrived. Back to the real world. My backpack is at peace now. But not for long. It never is. 

The Concentration Curve

You cycle towards the examination hall, not late, but not early either, and you feel the cool wind on your face, and the winter sun on your back. You notice the black long tailed bird in the tree tops (wonder what it's called), the dog sleeping by the drain (while another one tries to hump it), you notice the electric wires and the knots they make, and the Australia shaped cloud in the horizon. And that's because you are not concentrating. You've let yourself go, and your brain is in it's default disengaged state. Each time you glance at your watch, it reminds you that you have an exam awaiting you, but then the main building gate catches your eye, and wonder why they open the way they do, and not open the opposite way...

You reach the examination hall, and a little juice from the adrenal glands is pumped into your body. Your senses spike as you collect the paper, there is that excitement of anticipation. It's interesting how fragile the adrenaline balance is - too much of it and you go blank and freeze, too little, and there is no motivation or intensity. But the perfect amount can put you in the "zone", heighten your senses, make you feel as alive as can be. Near the start though, you have too little of it, the paper seems uninteresting. You gaze out of the window. You look at the misty tree tops, and a waft of sweet aroma tickles your nose. A song bird chirrups in the distance. Oh yeah, the paper. You glance at the watch. The wrist watch - that amazing contraption. It's almost like a crystal ball, which binds the present in it's faint tick-tick. Looking into which snaps you back to reality. 10 minutes past already. Some more adrenaline rushes through. Now you're ready to get to work.



You rush through the initial questions with utter and total focus, your world restricted to the A4 size of the question paper. Any signs of lurking fatigue or boredom get obscured, and the body curls around the wooden desk, the head inclined as the hand scribbles away. The limits of the human body are nowhere near where they pretend to be. You haven't slept in two days and had a throbbing headache. But for that moment, the physical world dissolves into the background, it's just you and that sheet.

And then the guy on your left coughs. That cough which breaks your chain of thought. Or maybe it's the invigilator who does the honors - " I card please?". He has an apologetic look on his face. You suppress your irritation, and feel a little sorry for the guy. Stand all day in examination halls, asking for I cards and trying to weed out cheaters. Not better than a constable's job, without the pay. You rummage through the many stapled pages, and find your name. You sign next to it. The invigilator hastens to collect the sheet from you, and shuffles off. Poor guy.

You look at your watch. Snap. An hour to go, more than an hour's work left. You take a sip of water, take a look around. Your gaze wanders unconsciously to all the pretty girls seated in your range of vision. You muse about how effective your"pretty girl" filter has become - you could probably spot them while hanging upside down in the middle of a fish market. the You notice one to your left. That explains the sweet aroma. She has pretty hair too. "Look into your own paper!" someone shouts from the back. He's shouting at someone else, but he has a point. You take another sip. That's another ten minutes gone.




The adrenaline kicks in again, thank god for that. You rush through the remainder of the questions, without looking up again. Fifteen minutes to the end, and there's one question left. You've solved a similar question the day before, this shouldn't take much time. And then you make that dull mechanical table that every last question inevitably has , and while you do it, you think about what you'll do after the exam. Take a hike, finish that book, watch that movie you never had the time to watch. Then you look up, massage your strained neck. The invigilators seem to be getting restless, like predators gearing up for the kill. They repeatedly tell you how much time is left, and whisper things to each other, strategizing the best method to round up the prey. "Two minutes left !!". Oh damn.

You realize that you made a mistake in the table, and your answer is absurd. So much for "mechanical". You scramble to fix the error, the adrenaline kicking in in earnest. You find it just as the invigilators move in, fangs bared and claws out. You arrive at the answer in that final burst of calculation, just as the once polite and harmless invigilator rushes towards you, a man possessed. You turn in the paper before he does you any bodily harm, and try to get away from the guy. No need for that - he runs off in another direction, thirsty for answer scripts - I wonder if they have some way of turning the answer sheets into equivalent amounts of gold, judging by their desperation to grab a few. Or maybe there is a thriving black market for answer sheets, people probably buy them and use the cheap paper to light fires.

You alight off your perch, scratch your head. Now that was pretty good. Somehow extended periods in the "zone" always fill you with a faint euphoria, an irrational contentment. You walk out of the examination hall, and notice people milling around in the gallery. "What was that? No i didn't get that answer, you screwed up!" your friend smugly tells you. You think about how you could have made the mistake. It was the pretty girls, it's always the pretty girls. And the open window. And that invigilator. The exam room was also not a good one, the seats were low , the desk was too high. You had a headache too, and you hadn't slept the night before. Your pen was not the one you preferred, it was that cheap ballpoint disposable. You look at your watch. Snap. Oh, hell with it. Let's get to that movie.

Word Void

It's strange , but this is one of those times that i'm lost for words. I'm often lost for words, sometimes without reason, and this is one of those times. So here's some structureless mumbo jumbo - me wanting to find out what comes out when there exists that peculiar void of words within my being. It is quite paradoxical for me to be able to describe a period of wordless existence using the crutch of language- with words as a medium, considering that they have supposedly abandoned me presently. It's like that guy who wanted to document how getting wasted felt, but then he couldn't think straight enough to write while he was wasted , and couldn't remember enough the next morning. It's pretty similar, this situation , of using words to describe wordlessness.



There are many ways of thinking things out, words being one of them. The most vivid and powerful of these "thinking in your head" tools is visualization. So we have language, visualization, and.. hmm..i'll let u know when i come across anymore. Language is curious in it's subtlety as a thinking tool - it's often indispensable, without letting one realize the fact. To get a grasp on how remarkably powerful language can be, compare a language-less civilization with ours. How language can organize thought is incredible ; because the organization is so robust (excuse the control systems hangover) it allows one to build layer upon layer of logical and mathematical constructs, allowing us beetle brains to explore situations and relations of an almost infinitely complex nature. I often wonder whether the inability to comprehend and utilize language is one of the reasons that animals are so inept compared to humans in cerebric processes - because after all, a single layer of thinking is basically observe and respond, or follow your instinct, which is sub optimum utilization of whatever little mental faculty non homo sapiens have.

So much for wordless void. I still sense the void within me, the only difference being that it's been initialized with junk now. Need to clear my registers before I can make some sense of them . That means a good night's sleep. Or maybe some adrenaline. Where do they let you sleep while u're falling from the sky? Oh yes, that was in my dreams. Maybe i'll get the same dream again. Then i'll have adrenaline and sleep, inside of sleep. Interesting. Can i have adrenaline and sleep inside of adrenaline? Oh man, i've stopped making sense. Maybe i should get some sleep. Or maybe some adrenaline....

The Highest Point - Part II- The Centre.

The bees have this way of bumping off you to get a measure of your physical presence. I can't stand it when they do that. It's like a person trying to judge you on the first look. At least in the case of a person, you can be certain (in most cases) that he's not going to uncover his rear on the spur of the moment and jab you with his ass. Bees like to do that. And it hurts.

I stumble across the edge on my knees, taking baby steps towards the center. It's dark already, and I can hear the incessant murmur of people voices at a distance, far below me. Or is it the bees buzzing? I don't really think i care right now. My hand slips as some of the flaky paint falls off. I hang on with my other hand, swallowing my heart back into my chest. God, it feels good to be on the edge. And i'm not even standing up yet.

Moving towards the center, groping over the many layers of slippery paint, i try to maintain three points on contact at all times. That bit of technique usually works, but with the top layer having a mind of its own, i might as well as be delivered directly to the heavens, instead of going down first. I've always believed that this fictional God of ours has an inclination towards optimized solutions. If he's going to be fictional , might as well as make him smart. Can't wait to die and prove all the theists wrong. To hell with God and bees. Where was i in the narrative? Have i died yet?

My trembling hand (i really don't know why i'm trembling, but it's a good feeling) reaches into the cavity at the center of the tank , and I take a minute to compose myself. I'm at the center of the dome. The wind has picked up all of a sudden, as if to convey its displeasure at my audacity. Hey, guess what, no bees at the center. Looks like even they've lost interest. Or maybe they're just bored. I'd be bored if i were a bee. Fly....buzzz....look for predator...no predator....look for predator...no predator.....kiss up to the queen......no predator...wait ,predator!...show him my ass and die. Wait, that dying part is not half bad. But i could give the rest a pass.

My hearts beating a little slower now, and i can see all the water tanks everywhere in kgp. There are 4 of them. I'm on the tallest one. I spread my knees evenly about the peak of the dome, and like a toddler trying to walk, i rise up in all my glory. My knees are a little shaky, but not too much. I balance myself as if standing atop a pole. The back creaks , the hands spread out, and the air really hits you in the face. Wow, i'm standing on the top of the world. Isn't that phrase reserved for Everest conquerors? I don't think somebody on top of the Everest would care about accurate phrasing. Neither do I.

I like this game, it has that fatal fun element. Very rare that one gets to play something like that. I'm in a constant tussle with the gale, trying to stay on my feet. The wind knows that I die as soon as it wins. So do I. Poor thing, it hates to lose, the wind. It destroys cities when it's angry, and decimates civilizations. But on this day, it lets me win, lets me live. I owe it one.

I get back on my knees again. The epinephrine tickles me as i lower myself, or is it the altitude? Time to go back. Something bumps against my face. Bite me already if you have to, darn it ! Damned bees. My fictional God like to tease me with his little toys. I start moving back. Some more plaster falls into the endless expanse below.

The Highest Point - Part 1

The top is a good place to look at things from. You can get a expansive view, without having to strain your neck. You are almost flying, and the filthy ground, an unpleasant shade of brown, is far far away. You are also under the constant peril of falling to your death, besides the danger of being stung to death by bees. To be fair to the bees though, you getting stung is a greater problem for them than it is for you, considering that the worker bee dies after losing it's sting. So you can only pray that the bee is smart enough to cover it's ass (literally and figuratively) and stay away from you. But at 80 feet in the air, you are more concerned about that itch on your sole than you are about flying arthropods; i would prefer anaphylactic shock over fall from 80 feet any day. Bring it on.

Bees? How did they enter the discussion? Bees enter whatever they want, whenever they want, so i'm not delving into that question anymore. Yeah, the top, back on track. So the top is also round and charred black under the intense heat of that diabolical Bengal sun. The sun gives life, but it gets a little annoying when the energy starts overwhelming one; everybody likes crackers, but then bombs aren't that much fun ,are they? The limestone is tanned and is peeling off, and the center of the dome looks tempting,as I look on clinging to the edge. I deliberately look down past my feet again, past the ladder rails, down to the inviting earth many feet underneath me, just for the epinephrine rush. I get that elusive hormone running, and a little shudder passes up my spine out through my hands. The last ladder was the longest one, and it hangs threateningly at an acute angle between the last platform and the top. The only thing that you can see looking down is the thin air. A couple of birds perched on the edge chirp in a barbed taunt. I plant my feet on the top. The ladder is out of my thoughts for the moment. We'll deal with it on the way down. Oh darn, not the bees again.