(My Dear) Alka.

Meri zindagi mein Kanya Rashi abhi tak udit nahi hui hai - This is the pet reply I give whenever any of my friends asks me about the presence of any girl whatsoever in my life.

 

Leave dates apart. I am 25 and, till now, I have never ever been out with a girl for even a simple and completely harmless dinner. Worse, if I start counting the number of girls with whom I have had any "Substantial Conversation" in my quarter-of-a-century of existence, I am dead sure I will have to stop the exercise far before I reach the smallest 2 digit natural number possible. And “Substantial Conversation” here can very comfortably be defined at say around 50 sentences per month.

 

Simply put, I am afraid of girls. Very afraid.

 

It is strange, considering the fact that the first friend that I had in a girl was way back in Prep (or was it Nursery?). Or maybe, it is completely logical. Maybe the reason behind this is those 9 most formative years of my life that I spent in Vidyapith. If we agree not to take into consideration the approximately 150 bovines that we had in our dairy, the only female that we could see for days together was a very old lady, with hair so white they reflected all the sunrays that fell on them. She visited our campus almost daily to cut grass. However, if the enviable improvement that many of my fellow Vidyapith brethren have made in this field is any indication, it would be a gross mistake to put any fault on the part of good, old Vidyapith, instead of considering it more of a personal failure.

 

However, the purpose of this post is not to crib and be sad, but to celebrate the girl that I just mentioned above in passing.

I don’t even properly remember the class I was in when I met her. Was it Prep or was it still Nursery? Since the image that comes to my mind happens to be of the entrance gate of Pristine Children's School, it in all probability must have been Prep. Does that mean that North Point School, where I had my Nursery education, was devoid of girls? Can't say. In the image, I am clinging hard to my mother. Afraid that she is going to leave me alone in the school, I am crying desperately. And somehow this girl also happens to be standing there. Her parents have already left. And God knows why she is consoling me and telling that it would be fine, that it is the first day of school for her as well.

She is Alka.

Simply Alka.

I don’t know her surname, and chances are that I never knew it at all. When you are so small, finding out complete names of your friends is certainly the last thing on your mind.

I remember vividly the classroom where we used to have our  lessons and the small playground outside, where, during the recess, children used to play and have their tiffins. What I don't remember is what she really looked like. Did she have a circular face? Or a long one? Was she fair? Or dark? Or was it some shade in the middle? I also don’t remember us sharing our tiffin boxes or water bottles, and other stuff like pencils, erasers and sharpeners. But I am sure such exchanges must have happened between us.

Two years down the line, I got admission in Kendriya Vidyalaya. The day we said goodbye to each other, there was no exchange of any gifts, addresses or contact numbers.

Or photographs.

The children in those days still behaved like children. Not like grown-ups, as they do now. Those were the days when childhood had still not lost its innocence.

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(My Dear) Alka,

(Should I address you as a Miss or as a Mrs., in case you have already found yourself an eligible life-partner and are happily married?)

Yours is the only name that I remember from the first three years of my school. And you are the only girl with the name Alka that I know. Isn't that strange? Especially because your name is so simple it appears to be one of those many Indian female names that should have had been more common?

After I left Pristine Children's School, I went to Kendriya Vidyalaya, from where I shifted to Vidyapith in Class IV. In the April of the year that I passed out from Vidyapith (2002), I decided to hunt down my friends from my previous schools. It had been 9 long years since I had met even a single one of them. So, I picked up my bicycle and followed the trail that my school rickshaw used to take. Surprisingly, I was able to dig out quite a good number of them. Most of them were still living in the same houses as they were 9 years earlier. At that time, I wondered whether I should try locating you down as well?

But then I dropped the idea. I did so because:

a. You being a girl, probably it would not have looked decent enough to hunt you down after a gap of almost 14-15 years.

b. I was not sure whether Pristine Childern's School maintained the records of its old students. I don't think it does. It was just one of the many round-the-corner schools, which simply should not be expected to put in that much extra effort to maintain old records. And that, alas, was the only starting point I had from which I could have started my search.

c. Most important, somewhere down under I had this fear that probably you will not even be able to recall my name. It would then have turned into a very awkward situation. Sometimes I wonder : Is it only the boys who tend to remember so fondly the girls they met in their life? Or does the same apply to the girls as well? Again, you happen to be the first girl to whom I am putting down this question. And I do not intend to get an answer.

Anyways, I am pretty sure you must have grown into a very beautiful and confident young lady by this time and must have carved out a good, satisfying and well-paying career for yourself.

It would be nice if we could meet up some time.

But then, we both know that the chances of such a meeting are next to non-existent. And in case, if I do happen to meet some 'Alka' in my life again, be rest assured I am not going to try finding out whether that 'Alka' is the same as you. In the matter of girls, I have turned up into a completely unconfident and confused young man, you see.

I don’t know what else there is that I can write to you.

I don’t have any photograph of yours and I am completely unable to affix a face to the empty frame. Thankfully, at least I do remember your name. And trust me; this name of yours is going to hang out with me for my whole life.

You remain, after all, the first friend that I ever had in a girl.

Love and Prayers,

(Yours) Abhishek.

 

Alka - The frame is going to remain empty. For eternity.

(Alka koi kalpana ki udan nahi, ek haqikat hai. Wo thi, aur Insha Allah aj bhi hai. Farq tab aur ab mein bas itna sa hai ki tab wo mere saath thi; aj 700 crore logon ki is bhid mein kahin gum ho gayi hai. Aur lakh koshishon ke bawzud main use dhundh nahi sakta.)

I have lost my Rhythm with Pen.

Thoughts were easy to come. Words - even they were not a big deal. It was the sentences that would simply not take their desired shapes.

It was 2 a.m. when Santosh woke me up. He was drunk. Both the booze that we had purchased in the evening and the Arsenal-Manchester United match that he was seeing had finished. He needed some more booze for the night. And for that, he needed some cash. And so he woke me up. So, in the pretty late hours of the night, we went to the Citibank ATM at the Tunga restaurant near Udyog Sarathi.

On our return with the needed stock, I went to bed. I really needed to get myself some sleep. I had not slept the whole Friday night due to the pain and the whole day of Saturday had been spent in the hospital. Worse, tomorrow was Monday and I had to go to that hell which corporate morons so euphemistically call office.

But sleep was not going to oblige. So, after struggling in bed for around an hour or so, I gave up. I woke-up and decided to write something for my blog. There have been quite a number of thoughts in my head lately that I must pen down, unless I am comfortable risking their complete loss.

Now, the problem at Santosh’s place is that these guys don’t have a proper laptop. Santosh had one. But he had to submit it back to his office. Remember? He has resigned and is enjoying his days of complete freedom these days. Manoj’s laptop, I discovered, has most of its keys dysfunctional and hence the best use that it can be put to is watching movies and other craps that you might be interested in. As for Sibin, this bhai sahab has gone to Cochin and as it appears his laptop has gone with him as well.

So, at last I decided to jot down my thoughts on a sheet of paper with one of the pens that I could find lying around.

It was here that the problem manifested itself. The sentences would simply not come out. The pen, it seemed would simply not run on the paper in any meaningful manner whatsoever. It seemed I had lost my rhythm with the pen.

It must have been at least two years since I last created something innovative and beautiful with my pen. Last two years, I have been completely out of touch with that beautifully simple, age-old writing equipment. True, I have been using one of those in the office all through these days. But such use has been restricted to jotting down some small illogical pseudo-legal notes or other equally illogical numerical figures. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, in the middle of the night, here I was, discovering that I have completely lost my beautiful rhythm with my pen. And with it, I felt as if I had lost my simplicity. And innocence.

Why did this happen is a question that must be answered.

Is this the result of being surrounded too much by the modern day technological gadgets? Or is it the lack of open spaces, great expanses of sky overhead and green trees all around in a city as over congested as Mumbai? Or is it that I have been consumed completely by the illogical, money making rat-race of the corporate world (which has taken me closer to Lakshmi, but at the same time has vastly increased my distance from Saraswati)? Or is it simply the fact that I have lost the art of writing beautiful, sensible paragraphs?

P.S. - The incidents described in the post occured on the night of 31st January, 2010. Ultimately, I was not able to write down anything at all. At 4:30 a.m., I and Santosh decided that it was a nice morning to go to Colaba on a bike. And so, by 4:50, we were well on our way to South Mumbai. That deserves a separate post all together, which I will post in near future.

Bhujiawala Gets Lifer.

Haldiram Bhujiawala proprietor Prabhu Shankar Agarwal has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a fast track court in Kolkata. And this he gets not for putting extra mirchi in bhujias ;-)

Don't believe me? Read the full article here.

I am in pain.

Terrible pain. For almost the last 10 days. And the worse part is that, except for Neil and Santosh I don't have anyone to share it with.

My whole left rib, both on the front and the back, has been aching since long. And I don't even know the precise reason for that. It may be any one or any combinations of the following:

a. The fall from the bike - As mentioned earlier, I have fallen a total of 4 times till now. However, the funny thing is that while all the falls have been on the right side, the pain is completely on the left. Is there a possibility that the shock waves from the fall that originated on the right travelled through my body towards left and found themselves a place comfortable enough to settle down there? I am not sure.

b. The office job - I sincerely pray that this not be the reason. The job that I do is quite mundane as I have to keep sitting in front of a stupid desktop and keep staring at even more stupid legal documents day after day after day. Two of my colleagues have recently fallen prey to the bad sitting posture. While one has got himself a slip-disk, the other has got something with some weird name that I can't even recall. He needs a complete bed-rest for a few weeks and has gone on an unpaid leave to his home. Isn't it sad that you get all these problems so early in your life, and that too doing something that you don't at all enjoy doing? I would no doubt prefer terrible pains due to bike falls rather than even a mild one from my office job.

c. I suspect there might be a third reason as well, which I will, for some reasons, not share on this public platform.

Besides this, I have been having a bad cough for almost the same duration. Although I have consulted Chhota Babu back home and have been taking some medicines prescribed by him, the relief is not really there.

I think it is time I consulted some doctor on the matter. I have been ignoring it and relying on my natural immunity for too long and it has failed to deliver me the results yet.

My Closest Save till Date.

Yesterday, at around 8.30 in the evening, I had the closest save of my life till date.

It so happened that as most of the days, I was walking back home from the office with one of my colleagues. And as usual, I was careless enough not to walk at the ultimate side of the road, where the pedestrians must walk if they love their dear life. Now, there happens to be this bus stop just before the Chakala Junction from where we take a left turn to reach Poonam Nagar where I am currently staying. Just as we were crossing the bus-stop - I on the right side of my colleague - I suddenly heard this loud horn of a bus. I turned around and to my – I don’t know which expression to use here - I find one of these newly launched A/C buses that ply in the city of Mumbai less than a foot behind me. The bus was still in motion and I had barely enough time to escape it. But somehow – thank God - the Universe conspired and I managed to do it just in the nick of time. As the bus crossed me less than 3-4 inches away, I stood on my finger-tips and could very clearly feel the wind rushing between myself and the bus.

While we were standing on the side, my colleague cursing the bus-driver and calling him names, the bus swallowed and vomited its share of passengers from the stop and moved on. The driver of the bus had turned towards my side and was looking continuously at me for a few seconds. And although I could not see his lips moving, I am quite sure he must have been abusing me in at least equal measures as we were doing him.

However, the strange thing is that even after the incident I was neither shaking nor was afraid of anything at all. Since afternoon yesterday, I was feeling a bit depressed in the office. My mind had stopped working and had shut itself almost completely away from the outside world. It was completely in a state of separate peaceful existence. And that I think must have been the reason of my complete indifference towards the almost sinister incident that had just unfolded itself.

Since neither of us two were feeling like walking down all the way to home, we were already searching for the auto before the incident. Luckily, the first auto we asked after this agreed to drop us to our place. Although my dear friend is least likely to agree to this, looking back in retrospect, I don’t think that my decision to take an auto was in any way intensified by the incident. There are reasons for that:

a. I am learning how to ride bike since a few days back. Although I am already taking it in the Mumbai traffic now and am gradually increasing the radius of my territory, I have already fallen 4 times in the middle of the traffic. This has fetched me my fair share of injuries. I have a big enough bruise on the upper side of my right foot due to which I am not wearing shoes to the office these days. Floaters that I wear are also not friendly as they too hurt the bruise. So the moment I reach office, I get rid of them even and walk bare foot the whole day in the office. So, as I was not in a state to walk, I was already planning to take an auto back home before I was almost finished off by the bus.

b. Due to the same reason, I had taken an auto even the day before yesterday and will be doing the same for some days to come at least.

The bus-stop at Chakala where I almost got crushed.

However, the good thing, apart from the fact that I am still alive and have written this post, is that yesterday, after having a quick dinner at Santosh’s place, I was back again on the roads on his Honda Unicorn. I went to Juhu Beach and back, my longest trip till date as a bike rider and had the smoothest and most confident ride till now ;-)