mausoleum of smells

Inside your head there is a small room full of cabinets. Row upon row of classified memories, archived by smell, sound and time.

Their owners are long gone. But their remnant molecules lay trapped in the still air like empty perfume bottles. 

Leaving you only with a faint dull ache and fragmented visions that are as captivatingly real and factual at the same time. 

Image by Phish. 

don't look back in anger

Originally published on www.metal-hq.com on 6 December, 2010. Republished.

It is December. And I do not have a plan. In 24 days time, the year will melt. That's when you will probably be doing something stupid, romantic, nostalgic or pathetic. With or without your loved ones. In a new city or a house party in some stranger's log cabin that you will never go back to.

If you are lucky you will get stoned, attacked by lesbians and win a lottery the next day. And also have a fantastic new year's story to share with nervous colleagues in hushed voices. Perhaps you will tweet through the ordeal. Maybe you will even write a book, sell the rights and make a killing. Everyone is in on the intellectual rights business these days. (Don’t believe me? Hell, I just got a buyout quote from a not-that-big music director for a 30 second strumming of the guitar. And it stands at 10 lakh.)

I digress. The point is it is time to wrap up the year. And everyone is in a mood to do the damn job as quickly and painlessly as possible. You know, sum up all the good parts of the year in a line or two, swallow the heartbreaks and the bad parts with a hurried grimace and move on. To another 365 days of trying and stumbling while doing the same things and pretending that they are different. And I shall attempt to do the same. I have been more than decent at my job. Setting up an advertising agency is no joke really. And apart from all the real problems to solve – like who gets the better computer, there is also a genuine, burning desire to do good work and build a great culture.

We are getting there I think. I have been an average photographer. Though I don’t walk around with the camera any more I am investing a lot of time and energy in learning a lot more. Trying to understand myself is also a significant part of the process. And not a very pleasant one, if I might add. But having said that, I also managed to shoot three major campaigns this year. Add to that one book cover for Penguin and three more in the pipeline sort of makes it liveable.

I have been a hopeless son. I don’t call my mother as regularly as I would like to. And when I do call I am usually in a hurry to hang up. I am making up for this one even as you read this. #ashamed I have almost given up squash because of my very rare and debilitating condition called procrastination. I am back on twitter. I have a larger shoe size. I have a smaller head. I went to London (and Scotland) and often start stories with, "When I was in Scotland..." I haven’t saved a penny. I have made a new friend.

Thus, I have decided basis my own pretzel logic that my last few days of the year must be spent in sheer joy. Hence, I officially refuse to take stress. I refuse to let other people tie me down. I have decided I will follow what I am good at and only do that. I will not let dumb people irritate me. I will give in easy if that means I escape unhurt. I will cook more often. I will lose more weight. I will not harm you. And just in case, I have hurt you in the past one year, I am truly and deeply sorry.

Blame it on the drugs.

the physics of happiness

Originally posted on www.metal-hq.com on Sep 13, 2010. Republished.


He walks with his camera. Plodding the negro streets from dusk till dawn. Waiting for a smell. A mere whiff. Of black and white. He walks for an answer. Or perhaps a question. The last piece. His hands are unsteady from the cigarettes. His feet torn by science. But a heart lifted by every new sight and sound that periodically and infrequently assaults him from every corner.

By the tube station he stands. Mumbling the names of almost every station on every line. Slowly and repeatedly to strangle time. Scanning the faces around him. Waiting for one to leap out and enter his camera. And maybe even his life.

By the theatre door he stands. Half-cigarette dangling. Half-missing home and yet not. The impatient crowd wouldn't give him a second look but for the intrusive and protruding long lens. Held precariously at half-mast. Waiting.

By the supermarket exit he stands. iPod, check. Brand new five pound shoes on sale, check. Tired backpack, check. Camera with freshly charged battery, check. The city smells of fabric softener.

Notes are being made. Copious and detailed. Images drawn, erased and redrawn in the head for a future sense of deja-vu. The tape rolls on. The faces merge. The songs confuse. The feet plead. The batteries drain out. But the hungry mind lunges on. Taking in both the trash and the graphically new. And every blink of the eye is a picture taken. Click. Click. Click. The mind is a gigantic memory card.

Three hundred thousand steps and 136.789 pictures later a story emerges. Woven by the nameless faces frozen in time. A collage of personalities looking in our faces and telling us about who the one behind the camera is. The one that spells it out however is the most imperfect. Perhaps because he was grossly unprepared for it. Or by the trembling fingers from years of smoking. Or nervousness. Or all of the above. He doesn't even remember where he was when he took it. It is but a blur. Technically and like a fading memory.

Brittle and disintegrating with every recall.

There are more pictures. Not all of them are nice. Click here if you want to see them.

invisible

And in the morning all is forgiven. The monsters that danced around your sleepless bed at night have retreated to the dark and dank corners. Lest a stray beam from the sun reflects upon an invisible shiny surface and destroys them. And they wait. Their hideous formless bodies breathing in and out the noxious gases they inhale to stay rotten. For you, the unconsoled to return. They wait. Just so the vicious assault of insomnia and sweaty sheets may continue. Night after night. They wait.

In the solitude of darkness.

full frontal

The promises to self have been broken. The self-afflicted wounds have turned to scabs. The saturation is at it's velvety wettest. The days pass by swift and uneasy with every move of the celestial cog. The restless mind still seek the comforts of a past routine. Lungs collapse and then rise again in habituated boredom. The heart pumps relentless.

The machine has been turned on for thirty years. And it continues to grind through space and time. Producing nothing but a continuous deep and mournful grating sound.

umm..best wishes?

Four days into the new year. And things have changed. A lot. More for better than worse. My job is more fun. My mind is clearer. I am fitter and healthier. Heck, I even like someone. And I am addicted to my camera more than ever before (perhaps, that is one of the major reasons for me being away from this place).

My apologies for neglecting this space (and boy, when I ignore something I really do). It's just that I have been very hesitant to put finger to keyboard. So I decided to let things be. Till the right time i.e.

I promise to take out more time. Though I am sure I have lost all my loyal readers by now. And like most things in my life, my fault entirely.

Catch me on flickr and my tumblr for more regular updates on life, love, the universe and other habits of highly asocial (but very lovable) people.

half-past

No, it was of no use - I had not changed, and never would.
There was a soft spot in my nature, a strain of weakness, a
sensitivity that would never harden. All that I longed, and
had striven, to be - cool and stoical, detached and aloof, a
true Spartan - was beyond me. Marked ineradicably by my
singular childhood, by an upbringing in which too many women
had participated, I was, and always would be, the victim of
every sentient mood, the unwilling slave of my own emotions.

The last few lines of A Song of Sixpence by AJ Cronin, my most favourite writer in the whole world. Possibly because of these lines itself. It rains today. And I sit here trying very hard to shrug it all off and slowly, calmly collect the scattered pieces.

up

Monday mornings can be made fresh and crisp with notes from long-lost friends, a dead cellular phone, a cup of freshly brewed Darjeeling and the brittle remnants of a dream at dawn. The mind suddenly lifts above the obvious, the smoke and the haze of a big city and finds itself transported to a winter morning, ten years ago. Wrapped in the comforting smell of a woolen pullover and freshly washed hair.

of movement

Just because I have been away from this place doesn't mean I haven't been doing. I have. Terribly big things. Part of the evolution process. And I am only getting better. Sharper. Smoother. Shinier. Longer lasting. With extra additives for more power. Home delivered occasionally (on request). With great discounts for early birds.

Now there are a few things that I have been ignoring as well. Littler things. Invisible to the naked eye. Things that require complicated math. And round-shouldered, bald-headed, musty accountants to reprimand you mildly on occasion.

It's the last thing I need to do before I can label myself 'new and improved'. For your collective benefit. And perhaps even, mine.

brief

And these are the last lines I will write for her.

re-route

One morning as you wake up you suddenly realise that the best parts about your life exist only in your head. As little videos running at varying frame rates. Yellowing memories with smiling faces of people who are not part of your world anymore.

redo

This is a time when all are hopeful. When everyone is obsessed with shedding the old and looking forward to newer things. To stronger relationships. To better investments. To tastier diet plans. To faster, more fulfilling gratifications. To functional governments. To hair-fall products that actually work. To new-fangled substitutes for loneliness. Towards betterment. And in my quest for a future, enhanced me, I too will be abandoning a lot of my possessions. My intangible accumulations of more than two decades that I will give up, perhaps forever. An eclectic mix of habits, traits, mannerisms, fears and anxieties collected from a variety of sources. Gun-toting heroes of Spaghetti Westerns, hand-me downs from not-so perfect gene pools and dated, fictional idols from books.

And as I carefully pull each one out from deep within me, I remember a former self from a few years back. Comfortable, irreplaceable and invincible. And if only I could get back, to have a little chat with myself and exhibit the most pathetic specimen of my casual recklessness. Also known as, Me.

Above: Calvin and Hobbes travel time in a cardboard box. I think Bill Watterson could see the future.

preface

Like every other new year, this too slipped in. Cunningly amidst much fanfare and drunken revelry so that no one would be alert enough to notice the large, rather inconspicuous bag of red days. Days that will start like any other. Days with leaky faucets and elevators that refuse to budge. Days with irate phone calls and the apparent stench of defeat. Days that will suddenly change gears mid-way and present you with the opportunity to change your life forever.

If only you notice.

Trust Mark Stivers to come up with this. Through this New Year I am determined to change a lot of things. A part of my evolution towards Phish 2.0. As a small step, I started with the template of my blog, an experiment that has been received well. The next step is towards being a better listener. Hopefully and completely. Happy New Year. May you find love.

Image courtesy Mark Stivers. He is a very funny cartoonist and a piano tuner from Sacramento, CA. I am a huge fan.

in my life

Approximately 2000 kms away from the shiny, happy people of Bombay I have a little vault. In which rests the collected paraphernalia of a now hazy life. The vault lies patiently in wait. For me to come by occasionally and turn the contents over, slowly and meticulously. Like a collector of fine china, taking in each piece to quietly marvel at it and yet be terribly careful not to chip it. It is where I stumble upon faded smiles, doodled notepads, dog-eared comic books and smudged photographs of happy dogs, all of who are probably in heaven now.

Even before I landed here, I had decided to walk the city. To plod heavy on the grey pavements that have nourished thousands of the starving souls that needless youth over the world seem to acquire at some point before adulthood. To give in to the unique sights and smells of every serpentine lane that vein across the grimy, sweat-stained heart of the metropolis. Hence, armed with a heavy sense of motivation (and brand new saintly-white Adidas shoes) I started walking. And with each dusty step, I found a little note. Left behind by a younger, former me.

I found the little cafe that we could never walk into fearing it to be expensive. The shuffling old ushers, bent with consumption, at the local cinema, now as derelict and run-down as its light bearers. Our bumpy (and very dangerous) pitch at the cricket field which the kids from the other neighbourhood never dared to step on. The corner newsstand where we flipped through trembling girlie magazines. The dusky, winter evenings spent on park benches huddling and coughing as we struggled with perfecting smoke rings. The window that became the cynosure of our lives because of the unseen, pretty girl who lived behind it.

In varying degrees of intensity they came back. The bits and pieces. Broken and in parts. Shrapnels of memory that are impossible to remove surgically. Lodged deep inside, destined to cause pain for as long as I live.

inertia; a short but moving story

30 days of leave lie in front of me. 30 (apparently, very expensive) days that the company that I work for granted me. 30 terribly short days that I have to get maximum purchase out of. 30 days of potentially life-altering circs. 30 days of uppishness. 30 days of colour. 30 days of blank pages.

And I just wasted the last 45 minutes to find an appropriate cartoon.

I don't know who drew the cartoon. But I think I understand what he's trying to say.

observation

You can always tell a rich girl by the way she does her hair.

me, two

Someone once told me that man, intrinsically, does not change. The very core of us remains the same. Irrespective of time, environment and experience. So if you were a procrastinating, lazy, run-of-the-mill, average, vanilla advertising writer with no remarkable skill sets, chances are you still are. And will forever remain to be. People don't change that fast.

But the efforts are exemplary. To learn more. To know more. To grow exponentially and without limit. Academically, financially, socially. To seek out and grip that invisible rung that's keeping us from reaching the top and the world beyond it. Every few seconds the auto mechanism kicks in. Tweaking itself a little to adjust, recoil and take yet another frog leap into space. Recording the data of every unsuccessful attempt with absolute precision. Only to repeat them. Over and over again.

Which is why the decision to upgrade myself is not so bad. To quit is harder than I thought. To change altogether, excruciating.

But evolution is a good idea. That's what they all say, anyway.

When in doubt, get Gary Larson. And sure enough. The image is copyrighted. I used it because I am a fan. Not a pirate. Or a scumbag. Though, sometimes I can be both. With utmost efficiency.

butt, seriously.

Been close to two months ago that I visited this place. Armed with a middling philosophical treatise about loneliness and an abstract justification of an addiction. Fifty soot-slimed, grueling and acidic days of work later, I am here again. With an entirely different self and purpose. And a little surprise (worth one cm displacement of either eyebrow, either way) of a announcement.

I quit smoking.

It's not a resolution. I am not in love with a non-smoker. And I am not playing out a silly macho bet with anyone. I just quit. One sultry evening inside a taxicab I decided to just give up. I have been smoking for 14 years. It has been a good, loyal friend holding me up in the empty hours between good and bad times. Providing me with a warm, crackling glow and a temporary haze. Just when I needed it.

Been ten days now and I am still surviving. The first three days were horrible though. I don't really know what or how long the detox process is. But I am willing to go through with it. After a long time I am doing something for myself. And it feels good.

Really.

That's from Gaping Void. With just the kind of words that were forming in my head. Forty seconds ago.

ashtray

All I really need now is a lazy cigarette. To create a cloud bank of suspended blue smoke coils over my head. Much like a speech blurb in a comic book that the artist forgot to letter in. Condemning the character to eternal silence. And you never know if his facial expression is contorted in laughter or in pain.

There are days that last a thousand hours. And all you need is a warm, safe smell to crawl into at the end of them


Life in Hell is a weekly comic strip by Matt Groening. The strip features anthropomorphic rabbits and a pair of gay lovers called Akbar and Jeff. Groening uses these characters to explore a wide range of topics about love, sex, work, and death. His drawings are full of expressions of angst, alienation, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom. And I can see why some of you are smiling.

intermission

2.30 in the morning is a fine time to reassess your life. The fading sounds of sleepy vehicles, the rhythmic pattern of rain, the silent hum of the air conditioner and the distorted, moving light patterns on the ceiling create the perfect setting. To the cranking of rusty machines in your head, as you twist the handles of memory, wincing with each painful print it pushes out in exhaustion.

So I decide to write. I need to put an end to this break. Time and I have severe compatibility issues. Actually, like most things in my life, I have never given it the importance it deserves.

I went to watch a film yesterday. After 16 months of finding excuses, yesterday I finally ran out. The film was good enough. I quite enjoyed it. Drank two-thirds diluted coke. Used the men's washroom twice. Choked on a popcorn kernel. Smoked the exact length of a cigarette with three seconds to spare. I also managed to fall in love with the actress (I still am, I think).

In the last few days my social self was at its best. I was invited to a friend's house for dinner. A college re-union of sorts. Most of these people are now married. I sat there slowly getting drunk as the women fluttered their wings around me cooing infrequently that I should be next in line. Their husbands just looked at me glassy-eyed like cattle after yet another exciting afternoon of chewing cud.

I also met up with Gaurav (read: the life of others). I was one of the chosen few he decided to give away his stuff to. We got talking (got dangerously drunk on some extremely potent martinis actually) I never really wanted any of his stuff. And I told him so (though he is giving away a selection of his precious books to me). I really wanted to meet him and figure out a few things. About him. And maybe, in the process, a little about me as well.

That's also because I am a little confused today. Setting up the apartment has taken up most of my productive hours in the last few weeks. I have spent a lot of time thinking of ways to ensure it is liveable. And likeable. To get the futon at the exact angle that faciliates the flow of positive energy and yet make the living room look bigger. To carefully select and arrange my assortment of framed pop art posters. To get lamps that best reflect my delicate disposition. To ease out the slightest oohs and aahs out of the people I allow inside. Which in turn helps me to mould their view of me just as I want. Without seemingly trying too hard.

And I wanted to meet someone who was really shedding all of that. I was interested to know if that means we are really changing our intrinsic selves. Our core. That what makes us, us. I wanted to understand if we are really giving away mere objects or are we really shedding ourselves of all the little layers that we have accumulated since birth. There is no real answer. Gaurav's situation allows him to experiment with the concept. Something that gives him more elbow room. And I wish him luck in his endeavours.

I, on the other hand, find myself in a cupboard. Stifled and yet comfortable. But I don't chide myself. There's still a lot to do. A lot to find out in my cultivated and nurtured darkness. And only once I know what exactly I am hiding from can I face it completely. The inertia, the sleeplessness, the longing, the battery of self-abuse can only stop then.

The mission statement has been written. I need to manage my information systems and processors more efficiently. To better understand my motivators. To strive to meet the exacting standards of self can only be possible once we have the necessary qualifiers. One that enables me to stay on the road. And not meander away into the fields to have chats with smiling scarecrows.

Or develop a sudden, intense schoolboy crush on an actress.

Theology was never my favourite. But Peanuts is different. No?

the life of others

It’s a nice house. Though given the circs. I would have settled for just about anything. It is big, airy and though somewhat noisy, has all the psychological and emotional strokings that add up to, for the lack of a better word, cosy. After being without an address for 45 days in one of the most volatile cities in the world, this seems like a dream. And I am surprised at how in the short span of a week I have taken this for granted. As if this was always meant to be. The delirious hunt seems like a distant nightmare. The body seems amnesiac about the rising blood pressure woes. And friends and family are luxuriously nonchalant about the entire thing.

I could have written a book. Another ‘drawn from self experience’ that I just had to share with the world. Or perhaps, made an appeal to people through this place to please allow me the use of their apartment (one, very sweetly has done just that). Even if it didn’t work out the traffic on my website would definitely soar. That is an intangible asset these days. But I don’t really know how many alert marketers would really pay heed since my blog isn’t really about anything but potatoes.

It was then that I read this. And I admit, the man did honestly put me into a spin. I am quite monk like myself. I have no fascination for cars or the frills of a large backseat. I don’t really care about what I am wearing most of the time. Quality means more to me than quantity. But here was someone taking to a whole new level altogether. To renounce everything, he had to a complete stranger and live the life of a leaf. Hoping for a strong wind. My first reaction was that of excitement. Here’s my chance to get back at life. For eight years of struggling against the system. For all the times I have been homeless or broke, or both. For all the times I have walked in the rain as cars arrogantly splashed by cars, smiling and thinking about where I am headed in the first place.

But then it got me thinking. Do we really adopt minimalist ways (or yet, advocate it) because we cannot afford to see what lies on the other side? Do we merely hide away from the harsh reality that we can never possibly get that much and hence positively reconcile ourselves with what we have, sometimes taking it to the extreme of actually not wanting some of the stuff in the first place? I mean, do you really, really need a bidet?

I light a cigarette. It’s time to cross over to the other side. To Gaurav’s experiment. The off-consumption life. From a marketer, whose genus believes in spending every second of available time devising somewhat evil ways to sell soap to people like you (Often taking the help of equally devious and misleading wordsmiths, like me. It is a happy, torrid relationship that borders on organized crime and very long and complicated ‘back-scratching’ instruments that would have been banned even in the medieval ages).

What might he have been thinking? Is he really giving away all of it? I love my books. I adore them. I don’t even let people flip through them for more than a minute in my house, leave alone lending them. More than a few thousand odd, my books have never known the pleasures of promiscuity. I love my little, inexpensive bar. With faded bottles of Scotch that I dare not drink because I don’t know when I will get hold of another bottle. Stacks of DVDs, painstakingly catalogued by genre. My inexpensive cane furniture. My photo frames of jazz artists. To give them away would be to give away a part of my life. And he is right when he says that. Do these define me then? Am I not complete without them? Do I need them for emotional support? For approval? The nod of assent? To impress and encourage women to go the distance? (Umm..with me…hopefully) To standout amongst my incestuous peer group? Oh Please Look At Me, I Am Different Because I Like Miles Davis And Philip Roth As Against Your Trash. And no, it doesn’t make a difference if you are a better human being. If you have found true love. If you can talk to birds. Or are concerned about the world. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t have the sea facing apartment, you are just not important.

I slip back into my being. I don’t think I can do this yet. There’s just too much to do. Important or otherwise. But I think it’s a delightfully crazy idea. I think it’s eccentric and powerful enough to change one’s life. If not the world. I don’t really think it’s for attention, but rather letting people know that it is possible in today’s world to move away from the glitz and get back to basics. A modern day Chris McCandless.

And yet I find myself a bidder. To be a part of his experiment. And I want the apartment, the books, the cane furniture that he has designed, the DVDs and whatever else comes with it. And, no I am not going to give it away. Not yet. Here’s my pitch, in 300 words.

“The apartment will be mine. I shall make friends the little nooks and corners. The corner shelves. The spot where you get the sunlight in the afternoon. The room with the creaking door. The bedroom where you slept after a harrowing day at work. The place where you sit and frown. And I will strip them off their old owner’s shadow. And if you happen to drop in weary, they will greet you warmly as a guest but not an old lover.

I will categorize and catalogue the books and DVDs and put them upon my weary shelves. Next to the ones that I have been having affairs with. This will be my personal harem. I shall not erase your names. But write my name under it. Duplicates will be forgotten in cafes, taxis and parks for others to pick up.

The furniture shall bear my weight. I shall rest on the futon on tired days. Frolick around the bed on others. Stare at them passively and think of where you might be at that very moment on off days.

The appliances shall be there. So will be the utensils. Serving out their remaining days and helping me in my endeavours to be socially acceptable. Washing machines will clean. Ovens will cook. I will treat them nice as long as they behave. Maybe sometimes, I will put in a shirt that looks like yours or cook something that you used to. Just to confuse them a little bit.

The bar will be for me to enjoy. I might put up a neon sign over them. The ones that flicker away in the night rain. They have a depressing quality about them that I adore. The glasses will be wiped clean and used. By a variety of lips. Promiscuous or otherwise.”

Gaurav, this is what I intend to with your constructed life. All the best with yours. Drop me a postcard from little misty villages that you come across in your life. The post offices are quaint. And there are beautiful women who don’t speak your language behind the counters. Selling stamps to backpacked strangers of no fixed address.

To everyone else, if you are in the mood to give away anything at all, please do not hesitate to contact me at phishpot@gmail.com. I need a cloud, for starters. To others, I would love to know what you think.