Puri sucks

memento

Me and Sudeep aka “mota” M G were in the same class in school since as long as I can remember. Probably from kindergarten. He was stocky, that funny fat guy who used to say and do crazy stuff in school. As a consequence he was a butt of jokes among us fellow students, teachers and he always got picked on and bullied even when was in high school. The bullies didn’t get a free pass, though, and we bystanders laughed our asses off when he got into fights. Although I lost touch with him soon after tenth standard, I was aware of his shenanigans through our mutual friends.

We old pals from school had a mini reunion of sorts this pujas on 8th October back in Durgapur. Thanks to KN who orchestrated the meetup, although poorly, as less than half of the people supposed to come actually did. Thankfully, Mota showed up. He was in a MBA program (who isn’t these days?), and working part-time at a big computer hardware store to shore up the bottomline. As apparent from the photograph, he had changed a lot. He had grown vertically quite a bit and apparently worked out a lot in the gym and built a killer body, which, according to Mota’s own admission, was working wonders with women. I wasn’t impressed by his hairdo, however. I think he has watched way too many 80s hindi movies.

He left early that day of the reunion when the photograph above was taken as he had some packing to do for a vacation in Puri next day. Two days later, he drowned, in the rough waves off the Puri beach.

I came to know today morning. OVe (the guy with glasses to the left of Mota) called me from Jamshedpur.

I always knew something like this would strike one day. It would have been an aberration had it not. But I didn’t expect that the day would come so soon.

I now really hate Puri. I never liked the vibe of that tourist haven. It beats the hell out of me why Bengalis flock to that shit of a beach “paradise” cum religious pilgri-fuckin-mage polluted by greedy opportunistic religiohacks and con men.

Plugplay

Today I have a mind to note down 10 albums I’ve really enjoyed. It’s not exactly a Top 10 list as I may be missing out some and I didn’t really get the opportunity to listen to every song from every album in my music library (time is a bitch), but it’s close. The albums are selected not only by presence of a few pleasing songs, but in their entirety, completeness, tone, rhythm and momentum of musical content. I am refraining from assigning the albums numerical values like a music channel countdown show. It’s not appropriate as I enjoyed each of these 10 albums in their own unique way.

Travis albums are not listed as truly each of their albums would comfortably end up in the list below. So I am giving all the 6 Travis albums an honorary mention. Here’s to you, guys.

To The Line!

1. Discovery (Daft Punk): The whole album is like a story, each song a chapter. Breathtaking. Notable songs: One More Time (we’re gonna celebrate), Something About Us, Digital Love, Voyager.

2. Ganging Up On The Sun (Guster): The songs slowly grew on me. One of my all-time favorite alt.rock albums. Notable songs: Satellite, One Man Wrecking Machine, The Captain.

3. Under The Iron Sea (Keane): Talk about existentialist angst. Rocking my Jockey. Notable songs: Bedshaped, A Bad Dream, Nothing In My Way, Walnut Tree.

4. MCMXC a.D. (Enigma): Bliss. Notable tracks: Principles of Lust, Sadeness.

5.  The Cross of Changes (Enigma): That’s what i call a complete New Age album. Notable songs: Age Of Loneliness, Return To Innocence, The Eyes of Truth.

6. How To Save A Life (The Fray): Saved my life from doldrums of everyday boredom. Notable tracks: Heaven Forbid, How To Save A Life, Over My Head.

7. Oxygene (Jean Michel Jarre): On a monsoon afternoon, I put the album on in the mp3 player and I’m teleported to another galaxy. Notable tracks: Oxygene (Part IV), Tangerine Dream.

8. Dreamland (Robert Miles): Exactly. Notable songs: Fable, Fantasya, Princess of Light, In My Dreams.

9. All About Chemistry (Semisonic)/ Welcome Interstate Managers (Fountains of Wayne): Both these remind me of my Higher Secondary high school days. I’m not a fan of the the album though I like it, I’m not sure about the band and I definitely don’t heart those two years of my life. Notable tracks: All About Chemistry, Sunshine and Chocolate; Hey Julie, Hackensack, Stacey’s Mom, Supercollider.

10. Blue (Third Eye Blind): Gives me the blues. Notable tracks: Never Let You Go, Slow Motion.

I think that’s just about it.

Naivete

Listen up, people, whenever you hear a teen/post-teen girl say:

“even if i i break up can’t see any other man”

” now i can’t be with anyone else”

“i’ll have to remain single”

“i’ll have to remain single for the rest of my life”

i feel i love him much more than i used to…but he doesn’t say nothin'”

and close variations of the above, rest assured the bloke in question has did the job on her. And know this for sure that it was her first time. Hello, someone popped the cherry.

Man, it’s for stuff like this we have bubble gum pop, all-women alt.rock bands and a steady flow of B-grade Hollywood/Bollywood romantic comedies.

Innocence. Good times. Goodness.

Getting out

of one’s comfort zone takes some doing. I’m not talking of guys, geeks, run-of-the-mill pot smoking engineering grads and such, rather everyone irrespective of gender and stereotypes.

It’s October 2005. Fast forward 3 years and it amazes me how far i’ve streched the radius of my comfort zone. The obvious question is what extreme things I’ve done, say, bungee jumping, binge drinking and all. It’s not only about that. But a fundamental change in how I see life, how i live life and what i want out of it.

It didn’t happen in a day. there’s no single cinematic “growing up” moments contributing to such a change but many small events which initially seemed little of significance involving folks, new and old, some more than the others.

But if I have to point out a single person I would give the biggest credit for, then that’s her . No i won’t name her (notice that i’m pointing out the gender). That person reads this blog, is plenty smart and will probably figure out who i’m talking of. And no, I’m not talking of my mother.

I am still living because of her, and not just surviving.

For the uninitiated, gap between living and surviving is as large as the Grand Canyon.

She thinks of me as a disappointment which is infuriating, and I only hope someday i could show her how grateful I am. I’m at a loss how that would come though without looking stupid/campy/cheesy.

Narcissism

but. No more pizzas with extra cheese. Cheese is the food straight out of the devil’s kitchen. No more Lay’s. A lot less colas. A lot less junk food. A lot more H2O. A lot more discipline in everyday life, and not just in food.

I badly need discipline, and regularity. I’m going to need them in the next few months more than ever.