Professional dreaming

If i fall asleep tonight, i'd love to wake up as Lionel Messi. Minus the hamstring injury though. Yes, a bit taller. That's it. Perfect. On a second thought, i won't mind waking up as any other footballer who is plying his trade in top-flight European football clubs. Unlike cricketers, 10 out of 10 footballers are fit and in the best of shape. And did i mention the kind of money they make? Well, it's in crores, not lacs. This info is enticing enough. Of course, you're expected to perform every time you hit the field. But then which job doesn't expect you to do the same? On the perkier side, does your current job allow you to pretend as if you are a kid and turn up at your workplace in shorts? Or do complete strangers (fans, by the way) chant your name while you're busy typing out an e-mail? The answer to the last two questions is a firm no. Also the reason why i want to wake up beside Antonella Roccuzzo tomorrow morning.

When mosquitoes don't bite...

For the record, i've got six tattoos (seven, depending on how you look at it) under my skin. They don't make me a better person or a member of  a gang. [Related: I won't mind being a member of a Russian-mafiosi-with-a-desi-touch group where everybody else fears me and my tattoos.] Coming back to reality, none of my artwork seems to have impressed my parents so far—not even the one that has both their names mentioned in it. Regardless, i somehow feel vindicated by my choice to go under the needle. Besides, what more can a son do to express his love to those who are convinced that he's a perennial underachiever? Anyway, i digress. Everyday we discover something new. Not in the way fire or faith was found but somewhat close. Like the other night, i woke up to an itchy acidic experience only to confront my worst nocturnal problem after sleeplessness: mosquito bites. These wannabe-lesions appear somewhere stuck in between love bites and hate bites. Anyway, i digress again. That night, i observed a distinct pattern. Mosquitoes are afraid of my tattoos. No, seriously. They don't dare poke their hideous proboscis into the area that's inked. In fact, they go for the tiny space that lies in between the black design. Isn't that astounding? Of course. Do you know how it feels to have an entire community fear you? Hitleresque, yeah. Milosevican too. Thanks to this rather intriguing behavior amongst Sanpada mosquitoes, i've grown more confident of my pursuit to get a lot more tattoos than i initially intended to. I just hope this ain't Mother Nature's conspiracy to make my face end up like Mike Tyson's or those Maoris who intimidate you with their Haka moves.

An incomplete poem

This is a poem. It might not appear so but it is. What you're currently suffering is an accumulation of several random thoughts that would have loved to be expressed in rhyme or a limerick but thanks to my limited skills, they seem content with being prosaic than poetic. Let's just say: This is how poetry in demotion looks like. Whenever my thoughts digress towards an incomplete poem, i somewhat try to stick to the plan of finishing it off in one stroke. In the meantime, my mind plays with the voices it never hears in the first place. However, that idea never materializes. Something has to happen in the middle of nothing and I'm left with everything but excuses. This is an excuse too.

Hue, us and them

    There is no point in teaching darkness a lesson or two in racism. It won't understand. In any case, almost every little thing under the sun has a grey shade. Unless you are in Antartica. Moreover, only penguins have the right to see things in black and white. That's also why they choose not to fly and play chess all day. No kidding. But what recently happened in Wisconsin and what's currently going on in Assam as well as Myanmar tells us that we are NOT living in a colorful age. Those on social media might beg to differ thanks to their over-dependence on Photoshop but lame jokes apart, racism is a grievous human shortcoming. Taking into account the way our stupidity appears now, our species may never rise above this narrow mindset. 

     Of course, there are moments when we get hope. For instance, when Usain Bolt stretches mankind's limits on the track and is loved by everyone, irrespective of their skin tone. No wonder he is the greatest racist of all time. Errrrr, i mean he wins race and all? OK, chuck it. On a serious note, how about Mario Balotelli hugging his foster Italian mother after winning the match? And there are many more examples—especially from the world of football because UEFA may have discarded the B&W patched footballs but Europeans are still mired in racism—where tears jerk and colors turn into celebration. Wish i was talking about Holi here but I'm not!

     As a Liverpool-loving adult, i think there are very few openly-racist players who play as good as Suárez! YNWA. As a cricket-loving kid, i was ignorant as well as racist (lethal combination) as i felt all black people lived in a faraway nation called West Indies. But to compensate this notion, i used to discriminate against red ants and adored black ones. My grandma played a small but significant role in developing this psyche. She told me that black ants are good omen. I guess that's why i keep seeing these tiny creatures today even when they are not around. 

      Being from a country which literally gave birth to racism, i don't know what is politically correct. Because a majority of my country(wo)men wish to be fair. What they don't acknowledge is the fact that despite all their lightening products, they'll still be black folks with brown skin and whiter-than-Anushka's armpit. This is also the reason why irony dies a painful death when Indians accuse others of racism. But let's get real for a minute. Humankind is inherently racist. A few words, said or unsaid, won't change that. 

     On a more serious note, black isn’t the color of hopelessness. Hopelessness is too hopeless to have a color of its own. And Wimbledon is white whereas the term 'blackmail' isn't. Fortuitously, unlike racism, racial jokes are always colorful. Having said that, it's difficult to figure out where exactly inclusion ends and segregation begins. While we are at it, shouldn't we ask ourselves whether Coldplay's Yellow was a special tribute to their Mongoloid fans? Ergo, everything is not fair in racism.

The crawling's on the wall

People believe in ghosts. I believe in lizards. In fact, my morbid fear is what's stopping me from total world domination. Yeah, I know the idea goes against Spider-Man given the fact that he’s fighting a giant reptile in his latest franchise. But then he’s just another superhero who is making Hollywood richer. If you ask me (which I doubt you will since I don’t have much of a reputation in this munificent act of replying), a lizard has real superpowers. For one, it can hunt for food in utter darkness (try finding your fridge under similar circumstances). Secondly, it can moonwalk on ceiling (which makes it unanimously better than humankind, not just Michael Jackson). Thirdly, it can bounce its thoughts off the wall without slipping down. And the list is endless.

"He's my pet." - the lizard in my room about me

For most of us, encountering a lizard or a cockroach is similar to having our very own Man vs. Wild moment. Coming back to the horror part, these creepy reptiles scare the shit out of almost everyone. You know who freaks me out more? People who don't freak out at the sudden sight of a lizard! To my credit, I frightened the tail out of a lizard last night (the updated scoreline - Me: 9 Lizards: 3846). But to be fair, it’s not always their intention to test our vocal chords. In most cases, they avoid us like cancer. They have better things to do. For instance, forage and fcuk. It might be hard to believe but life is rather uncomplicated for them. Besides, they are part of nature’s plan to teach us a lesson or two in patience. Although they might act as if they understand everything, they stay humble and observe manners. Like Rango.

Her: "What are you most afraid of?" Him: "Lizard." Her: "What else?" Him: "Lizards."

While we're wasting time here online, someone's falling for someone. Somewhere. Na, I ain't talking about lizards. Unless Mr. & Mrs. Lizard are having a jolly good time on my wall.

People, meet Saturday; Saturday, meet People

The last time I blogged from office was on a Friday, more than a year ago. And today, this runty post is being dedicated to a day which doesn't get the kind of attention it deserves—all thanks to its fixture between the Big F and the Big S—something it shall have to live with for as long as human race exists. To make situation worse, Fridays and Sundays are designed in such a way that we actually start looking forward to the well-hidden positives of life. To top it all, the idea of killing oneself rarely happens on a weekend. (Yeah, Freud, Hemmingway and Marilyn would strongly disagree!) No wonder people thank God for Fridays as well as Sundays but someway manage to overlook Saturdays. This negligence on our part leads to vengeance on theirs. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that ennui took birth on a bright Saturday afternoon. Thus the resulting ambiance is so dull on this particular day that it doesn’t matter whether a person is at home or at work. Sometimes it even forces Baz Luhrmann to change Sunscreen’s lyrics from 'idle Tuesday' to 'idle Saturday'. The reason behind this disorder lies in an inferiority complex Saturday suffers from that Sunday isn’t aware of. Notwithstanding these hebdomadal baloney, Saturday takes comfort in the presumption that people spend Sundays trying not to think of Mondays. After all, Saturday is just a Sunday away from Monday. And before we realize it, someone will change Saturday into Sunday into Monday.

Changing years, Unchanging life

Neglect this part: For the past few days, I’ve been encountering queries like “Any plan for New Year?” and “Will you be spending New Year’s night at home again?”. The ones asking me the former question don’t know me and the ones asking the latter wish they were asking the former. Na, I'm not blaming them. They are genuinely nice people but victims of curiosity. My boringness is beyond me for a reason. Even snails are more interesting. Most of my jokes prefer not to be laughed at. In the course of human evolution, I’m a f—ing downhill. Sometimes I ask myself why am I not a chimp yet. But then chimps aren't supposed to suffer from identity crisis. For reality's sake, humankind is way too sophisticated and directional. But then there are always aberrations and exceptions and vocabulary to lean back on. So I console my bruised ego with asthmatic arguments and breathe deeply. It beats me how it works every single time. If it hadn’t, I’d have killed myself by hanging on a noose made of noodles. The worst part is I’m not even depressed and am a thorough teetotaler. The only thing I’m addicted to is cinema. Earlier I was mistaken about an apparent addiction to social media. Turns out it was just a temporary delusion. I scribble so-called funny one-liners daily masquerading as philosourphy. Luckily, I fail to laugh at them. Unluckily, some poor kind-hearted souls do. At least that’s what their comments imply. I don’t reply. I stopped communicating via tweets long time back. I’m quite grown-up for that nonsense now – making fake conversations with imaginary friends while overlooking calls from the real world ones. By the way, this doesn’t mean that my friends and I are on winning terms. Speaking of age, I’m 25 now and the year we are going to step into will try its best to make it 26. I’m prepared as I’m not ready to die as of now. I haven’t accomplished anything, you see, except few sweet words every now and then. I haven’t done well on the financial side too. The friends I grew up with have. I don't even have a girlfriend. The friends I grew up with do. Presently, they must be busy enjoying some parties somewhere. A few of them want me to be there with them although they understand that I don’t enjoy people’s company. I like individuals. I’m not adept at presenting myself as a people’s guy either. Pretending is an art and I can't pretend to be an artist. I hope all of them have a memorable night. (On a second thought, considering the alcohol they’ll be ingesting, I hope they don’t.) Coming back to me, I’m better off in my own company watching movies the popcorn-hogging people usually don’t bother with, posting meaningless blogs and creating sense out of absolute rubbish. It’s a less than pathetic existence but still fulfilling in its own precarious way. All I’ve got to do is remind myself that I’m supposed to be glum and smug and sad and fallow. And like I mentioned earlier, it works every single time.

Don't neglect this part: Happy New Year for bearing with me through factual fiction and wasting your not-so-precious time on this page! May 2012 make y’all forget what you always wanted to be.

The Last Christmas

Merry Boxing Day to y’all. Or better still, Merry leftover Christmas to the poor. I love this time of the year, you see? In fact, I’m fond of every festival that offers delicious yet free food. Nevertheless, as one can guess, I’m going to be harsh from this point onwards. I waited nearly a week for Diwali bash(ing) but since I realize that my blog has got only a handful of unfortunate followers (thanks to my reluctance to unabashedly promote the way everyone is supposed to), there is no point in waiting to hurt people’s sentiments.

I abhor most practices associated with religion. It has more to do with my DNA than my parents’ as they are very God-fearing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t admire the festivity and the colorful decorations and whatnot. But then there is always something hidden behind religion that ain’t an expert with the concept of camouflage. Christmas too has its fallacious side.

"Maybe I’ll have to resurrect once again just to remind you idiots that it's not my birthday!" - Jesus Christ

We celebrate it as Jesus Christ’s birthday despite being fully aware that he wasn’t born on December 25^th. He was a superb fella who had issues with his Father and all but that doesn’t mean we should distort his very date of birth. To add to his eternal woes, we haven’t tried hard enough to rectify this error. Accordingly, we should have been a little more sensitive and traced the exact night he was born.

The travelogues of the Three Wise Men who were on Maggi diet during their arduous travel could have helped. After all, we celebrate Buddha and Muhammad’s birthday every single year using lunar year calendar. So why befuddle ourselves with Georgian calendar and carry on this historical travesty?

One other aspect regarding Christ’s race bothers me. He was a brown-eyed, dark-haired Jew. There is no ambiguity in this reality. But thanks to Charlemagne and the eventual patenting of Christianity by ‘whites’, Christ miraculously turned into a blonde supermodel with blue eyes, golden-hair and an awe-inspiring set of abs. Would he be any less of a prophet (or God or whatever it is we look up to him for) were he a brunette?

Even the nativity scenes replicated by us during yuletide exhibit critical geographical and climatic flaws. We depict snowfalls in them when we know that Bethlehem had as much chance of a snowfall as Mumbai does. And it doesn’t stop there. We have this infatuation with the so-called Xmas tree when it has hardly anything to do with Jesus and his neighborhood. Those trees became a part of Christmas folklore way late into the 15^th century or so in Eastern Europe.

Recently, Pope got all worked up and reminded Christendom the importance of inculcating deeper religious values instead of celebratory ones. He was slyly attacking Santa Claus I guess. After all, kids (and adults alike) seem so thrilled to greet that obese character from Finland who is hell bent on promoting Coca-Cola even today after decades of slipping through charred chimneys. I adore his reindeers though. Since my childhood days, all I’ve ever requested him to do is gracefully hand me over his mode of transport. Naturally, I haven’t heard from him yet. Either he doesn’t exist or he loves his reindeers way too much.

Coming back to where I started, I can’t make a difference nor do I wish to when religion is involved. But we’ve got to understand that almost all faith-based ideologies are replete with myths, lies, tales and unsubstantial claims. Unless and until we don’t realize this, there will always be a wall of discontent and intolerance between folks belonging to different religion and sects.

In any case, what’s the harm in creating fancy stories and fake snowfall? As long as humankind is kind enough to be happy and not baying for each other’s blood, we should be celebrating whatever comes up on the calendar even if the date is grossly mistaken.

One more thing. I don’t mean to be a doomsdayist but if the Mayans were right, this could well had been our last Christmas ever!

Life's *Storry*

Since I’ve got absolutely nothing to blab on, I’ll try my bad luck with stories. Like you know, stories go back a long time. For most of us, our grandmas held the password to the magical world of endless tales that kept us engrossed when we were less-stupid little kids. And then one day you grew up and stopped paying heed to impossible fibs. In simpler words, you became a part of your own story called Life. You were the main character, for a change. Of course, you realized every now and then that you weren’t cut-out for the part but still you carried on with it. Needless to say, you often wondered, “How the heck did I bag this role?” So you started looking around and acknowledged the fact that this whole world is an exotic stage and we are all mere hams, diligently trying to act professional, ad-libbing every now and then to add a twist to the script. But in the end, you get a story to call your own.

No matter where you come from, you always carry some f-ed up story with you. These stories, so to narrate, are mostly based on personal inexperiences and utter disregard to consequences. That’s exactly what makes it so damn captivating – its raw unpredictability and undeniable authenticity. Somewhere down the line, we learn that our story can’t be perfect the way they show in movies. Our stories are basically sad, to be frank. We love melancholic drama and not even attempt to get tired of it. Maybe this is the reason why our stories mostly turns out very hospitable to tears and warms heart. Luckily, a fortunate few find the silver smiling lining amid this charade and laugh their heart out at the trivialness of breathing. And some join in the laugh riot.

This story we’re talking about here is alive. It has procreative gifts. For instance, it can give rise to spiteful rumours, adulterated anecdotes and misquoted quotes, too. Far from being dead words, this story is life itself. It may so happen that once in a while, life may abandon you and digress towards loneliness, lethargy, maudlin and other such inviting corner. Despite this interlude, the story goes on.

"Dearest Life, January was here but you weren't, where were you? February is here but you aren't, where are you?”

The search never ends nor the hide-and-seek routine. Just for a story’s sake.