My good friend, Robert Pertham was rather restless. His looks defined the quintessential uneasy person. Not that he was uneasy to talk with or have at a party, he was just very restless. He was a small chubby man, with oodles of energy. In fact, I remember the day when Robert, I and some other friends had gone on a hiking trip. Towards the end of the trip, we could barely walk. Our strength was flagging. It was in these occasions that Robert would walk ahead of all of us, sing boisterously, and goad us on to the end. It was perhaps for this quality that almost everyone loved him and I hated him. He would make himself available on every occasion. It was like he was omnipresent. How he managed to do this was a mystery. His wife had left him with the kids a long time back. She said that she just couldn’t stand him shuffling around any more. Poor lady, I sympathize with her. He was quite a lovable person if you could ignore his constant darting eyes. The way he bit his nails. The ‘Tap tap’ noise he made with his feet. In any case, he was a good man but a rather restless one.



I refer to Robert in the past tense for a reason. It is because I killed him today. It wasn’t a premeditated act. It just happened. I had replayed his death in a million different ways in my head, but in that moment, I knew what had to be done. He is gone now. Gone for good. Maybe the next time you eat a beef steak, you might get to meet him. Bon Apetit.

My face is calm. It is peaceful. No signs of the turmoil. No indication of the storm. Raging inside me. I am angry. Very angry. Very angry.

I am beyond the questions. They have betrayed me. I want to shout. No, scream. But, I just took a resolution. I will stay calm. Yes, I will stay calm. My face is calm. It is peaceful. No signs of the turmoil. No indication of the storm. Raging inside me.

The flashbulbs will go off. Without me. The newspapers will talk. Not about me. A household name. Not me. It’s seething inside me. But I will stay calm. I need to. For their sake at least. Why should I be the gentleman. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them. Their living guts. And all you fuckers too. Fuck you all. Fuck You……

I am angry. I promised to stay calm. I am calm. Can I be calm. I’ll meet those phoneys. I’ll be calm. My face is calm. It is peaceful. No signs of the turmoil. No indication of the storm. Raging inside me.

This blog is addressed to all non mumbaikars (like me). The name Mumbai or Bombay features in my list of cool cities. So does Paris and L.A. My choices are obviously a result of my experiences, both real and imaginary. I have for instance experienced Paris by night but only imagined sunny L.A. But that is beside the point. The main thing is that Bombay is in my list of cool cities.

How it got there is a long story….



To me Bombay had always been this place in the Movies. Almost every movie somehow mega glorified Bombay. Scenes from Rangeela with Urmila swaying her hips and Aamir khan being studly shall always have Bombay encrusted in the Background. So Bombay, for me was this ethereal town. In the movies it firmly remained. Until one summer after first year of college, I decided to visit it. Believe me it was everything that I thought it would be. My first few days was an overwhelming experience. I tended to observe the hubbub in Bombay from a higher plane. The people dashing. The horns blaring. The extreme wealth. The utter poverty. It was like the movies. Every bit of it was true. After the first few days, I needed to meet someone at a certain time and at a certain place. I didn’t realize but I had already divorced myself from my detachment of Bombay. As I ran to take the next local from Dadar, flagged down an auto, and cursed the many beggars, I was oblivious to the reality that I had now been officially inducted into Mumbaihood. And the story continued.



Many more Mumbai trips have happened since them. I have met some amazing people, been to cool hangouts, done very fun things and today Mumbai is easily up there. Right among the best of the lot.

Where do people go when they die ?



I really don’t know the answer to that. Somehow this always comes under the purview of every religion. Either acknowledging it or the complete lack of it. There is no middle ground. But, I want to know what happens to me when I die. Do i switch off like a machine and then everything goes into utter darkness??…. The thought is scary. But as always, the spark of ingenuity in me has come with an alternate explanation.



I don’t care what others say, but this is where I will go, period.

A place with lots of good food and drinks.

She stood there blocking my path. In ordinary circumstances, I would just step aside and proceed totally oblivious. But her eyes held me. She was a cow albeit a very cute one. Her eyelashes so pretty, that it almost seemed like she had kajal on. As she chewed her cud, ruminating on her daily forages, I began to wonder whether she actually noticed my presence. There was also the outside chance that she might suddenly get very touchy and decide to gore me with her unsightly horns. This thought started nagging me. At first it started off as an itch in a corner of my head and then it started creeping into my nerves. Within a few moments, it had developed into a full blown paranoia. The docile image of her bovinness been replaced by that of a raging, depraved and wild animal. Flares after flares of adrenalin rushed through me. My face flushed. My blood was hot. I could feel sweat on my back. I wanted to run, but couldn’t decide which direction to flee. I just stood there transfixed, rooted at the spot. Well, time passed. I remember feeling very hungry, and the mess food tasting godly.



P.S. Those who can know will know.

The shadow of a human hand fell on a whitish wall. The shadow danced a slow clumsy dance. It flickered and jumped as if it were the least bit comfortable. Then suddenly there was darkness. A gust of wind had knocked open the window. The wick of the candle lay smoldering. The red glow gently diminishing with every swirl of cold air. Slowly, the last embers died out. The night sounds made their eerie presence felt. The sound of crickets filled the dark void. “Where the hell is the matchbox ?”

Every now and again, there occurs an events so improbable that it shakes your entire belief system. I encountered one such event today. The essential premise of man’s superiority over animals is that we are able to think and take well thought out decisions. More thought, less instinct. In fact, we take pride that we can delay instinct so much that it becomes rational thinking. It is perhaps in our instinct to eat meat when hungry, but a strict vegetarian will tell you otherwise. As I said before, thought prevails over instinct. What I could no digest was why a dog(belonging to the canine family)would refuse to eat meat and choose sambar rice instead. Strange. Maybe genetic mutations are happening at a faster rate, and very soon we will see a new breed of vegetarian dogs. But consider the possibility, that the dog refused the meat by choice. Could this mean that, we humans are not so unique after all.

The buzz near my ear was seriously irritating me. I swear, I hate mosquitoes. By now, a layer of sweat had formed on my face, which somehow encouraged me to sweat even more. The buzz reached a crescendo. Ok enough! the mosquito had to die. Whack..!!!… ya, it’s dead. A feeling of satisfaction came over me, that me temporarily revel in the glow of this terrible blackout.



My room was getting too stuffy for my liking, so I went out to the verandah. The 3 AM moonlight greeted me, with a certain sense of foreboding. All around me the trees were bathed in the dim light. I was feeling lonely all right. I placed myself on the verandah wall and thought no thoughts. Just this nagging feeling of wanting to sleep. Images of the previous day and the day to come flitted before my eyes. 3AM is a very wierd time. It’s not yesterday nor today nor tomorrow. Well I just remained. thinking no thoughts.

My daily dose of news comes in the form of newspaper delivered with a loud thud. This is my cue that the day has started and the world has indeed turned a full circle. Lately I just don’t feel like getting up and reading the news. It’s not because of my laziness, I’m simply afraid of what I might see. Violence is everywhere. Bomb blasts, genocide in S.Ossetia and now riots in Kashmir. Seriously, what the hell is going on in the garden on top of the world?



I’m a proud Indian, I have enormous faith in the army and I’ll stand by every decision they take. However, I can’t help but draw parallels in history. Whenever, the indigenous people of a region are genuinely pissed, change happens. Trying to stop the rising tide of change by imposing martial law and killing innocent civilians is never the solution. Such a scenario is only going to have violent repurcussions. The founding fathers of our country have always told us to tread the path of peace and non violence. Even happenings in Palestine, Iraq and Vietnam have have shown us the prolonged effects of the use of force. I sincerely hope that an amicable solution is found to whatever it is that the people of Kashmir are upset about and that the violence ends soon.

My Halcyon days were spent in the winters of Delhi. The holidays were a time for friends and family. On one such winter, still a wee lad, barely started going to school, I was basking in the sun. Sprawled out on my grandma’s lap, I was gently purring like a Persian cat that has just had an entire fish. My grandma used to shower me with grandmotherly affection and narrate to me Panchatantra stories packed with morales( none of it has sunk in :( ). She was examining my feet and she told me something that I can never forget. She had noticed a small mole on the sole of my right foot. She said that this signified that I would do a lot of travelling, just like my dad.



Hmmmm… I’m 20 now and I certainly have travelled a lot. From peering down at the Big Apple on top of the WTC, taking a hike on the Great wall, celebrating Bastille day in front of the Eiffel tower, shopping on Orchard street, staying at a Nazi Concentration camp, swearing at pimps in Bangkok, conquering the Himalayas,Alps and the Appalachians to visiting temples in every nook and corner in India. I have been there, done that and I am definitely going to travel a lot more too. It is easy to give into fatalism and make up theories to explain the reality around you. It’s convenient to say that this is my fate and feel good about it. I make no such claim despite my grandma’s sincere predictions. One thing I’m sure of, fate or no fate, my dad loves travelling and I have his bug.