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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

das futile

A month long absence. Attributed to nothing. Nothing significant anyway. I am in advertising. So while someone else might have an excuse like "I was fixing the nuclear reactor for the space shuttle" or "I was writing a paper about the the economic and social degeneration of spotted cows as against the non-spotted kind", I was busy trying to sell you stuff that you don't need. With a mighty swoosh of the pen I was trying to affect my microscopic world. Just so my peer groups notice me. And maybe someone else.

My apologies. To everyone who likes this place for whatever reason. Thank you for making the effort of dropping a line to figure out whether I was alive. Though I sometimes wasn't. Near death experiences in our field of work involves an ill-fitting garment on the day of a shoot. Or perhaps a typo in the right hand bottom corner of an advertisement that you notice well after release.

So busy have I been that my usual despondent self hasn't been able to react to various despondency-provoking stimuli. I have hardly been self-deprecatory or disillusioned. I didn't have an existential issue. Nor did I stare at beautiful women, thinking that I am in love. At best, I have been mildly sad. Mostly at night when it's quiet and there's nothing much to do anyway.

I haven't been taking any medication. Probably because I am not supposed to. I haven't been downloading music. I haven't been doing too much reading either. I have lost out on 30 days of my life without doing anything that adds value to my being. For 19 hours every day.

Hence, I bought a Playstation Portable.

That's a little Wizard of Id strip that seems to strike a chord somewhere. Created by Johnny Hart and Brant Parker of B.C. fame. Been a big fan over the years. And I wish I knew them personally.