Dear Caesar



If you had any idea how many times I’ve tried to write this letter for over two months, you’d wonder why I wasted so many mournful moments banging fingers on this poor keyboard and didn’t spend that time doing something more productive – like napping on the bed with legs hanging in the air or bark from the balcony for whatever reason or hoovering a radius around someone whose eating something .... like ANYTHING. After all, that’s what you’d have done.
But I’m a dufus human. And supposedly as an intellectual human being full of corrupted virtues and feelings, I have this soul wrenching need to put my thoughts and feelings on paper in form of the words to emit out to the universe. I guess, barking non-stop for straight two hours could have done the magic but neither I can match the anxiety you feel on separation nor my fellow humans would like it, at all.
So here I am. Saying a proper goodbye. It's not forever. It shouldn't be. Nor, do I want it to be:
You know, I have always wondered, what good things I might have done in my previous life to have you as a blessing in this one. As I go on to wake up alone and spend days without you, I’ve been trying real hard to learn more lessons about “happy-go-jolly-living” from more evolved creatures, like you guyz (dogs). Mostly from the streets now.
Do you remember that first time, when I picked you up in my arms like you are some sort of fragile wax form and brought you home on the back of the bike. You melted right into me like you knew it’s where you belonged or I guess you were just scared and hungry, I don't know. But, of course, you were. Gloomy-eyed, dumb founded and paralyzed with fear. You knew nothing of the world except life in a cage.
Remember those first months after we met? You learned that some of us (especially ones with food) aren't really all that bad. The way you slept some early nights, hiding your head, trying to be smaller than you already were. The way you finally figured out that the whole flat belongs to you too, but only after pissing on my bed for like oodles of time. (BTW I am sorry for snapping at you like that in those moments. I told you, I am a stupid stupid human.)
Slowly, I have watched you blossom into the dog you were meant to be – taking just a few more steps outside your comfort zone, becoming more confident and curious, tail just a little higher, Oh, and of course – that ridiculous tongue flapping all the time.
I got to see your first (of countless) moments of true happiness: biting, slurping and licking my fingers! Always in that sequence.
Among many things, I have learned from you is that joy is a full-body expression! The way your entire body spin like a teetotum when you are happy – which is like every-fcukin-single-day!
You have been a forever happy, forever kind, forever gentle dog. Except that one time when a peacock flew into our flat, and you were like barking, "ONLY IF I COULD FLY". I knew that look! I understood, man. I understood.
*Sighs*
I miss you, seezy !
I miss the way you bow every time, I put my head near yours. I miss your furious interactions with other dogs, especially bitches. (Remember that encounter with Apple. I guess we are brothers in that department, huh! Just don't know how to behave with 'em)
What more can I say. I miss your familiar jagged little sigh in the darkness at bedtime, your compulsive obsession (or as I like to call it, deep appreciation) with food:
"What is this, pedigree? Awwwwwesome! What is this, Egg-sses? AWESOME! What is this, grass? AMAZINGGG!"
Pikachu (that's what I wanted to name you first), my heart squeezes to the idea of you not being in my life anymore. But to trade the tears for never having experienced these things at all? Not a chance. We had some good adventures in our time, didn’t we?
And today, as I saw you after two whole months, I couldn't help my eyes going wet and throat a little dry, as you recognized me from a distance. But you made me laugh with all your slurping and canoodling. You are the funniest dog I have ever met. And saying that speaks a lot, coz before you I was terrified, petrified and ignorant to your specie.
I hope someday my reluctant specie will realize just how lucky we are to share the same planet with you all.
PS: And your last meal with me. I poured some some extra eggs in your bowel. It will be our little secret, dont bark and tell Prashant, Abijit.
PPS: I specifically remember this coz I told you, I have been stuck at this for last two months. And I still feel its ....



Dear Future Wife



I don’t know if you are ever going to read this blog entry but still here I am sitting at the edge of my bed while humping my fingers on this old detritus keyboard, hoping you would… someday.

I am not a perfect person. In fact, I am shoddier than you think. I am not a fun filled Saturday night or a chilly Sunday sunset. I am a Wednesday 2 am. I am gunshots muffled in pillows. I am that torn rug in January which always fell short at the ankles. Leaving your feet naked and cold. My moods crack on a nightly basis and I am always hemmed in this awkward sadness which seems to be longer than a 21st December night. Often now and every then it collides my approval of having people around me. Because more than often I feel I don’t belong to conversations, that I belong to the full stop at the end of every sentence. There is this light and darkness mixed under my skin that now has become a storm which is brewing inside me. You don't see the lightning but often you can hear the echoes of thunder.

So basically, yeah I am crazy. Go save yourself and RUN. 
Run till you reach the shore.



PS: If you haven’t run away till now and you are still reading then I guess- I will make myself sleep on the couch tonight. No need to throw stuffs at me.

 Obediently Yours !



There and back again ....



There and back again ..... As the half burnt cigarette in my fingers is turning hopes and dreams into ashes, I am trying my way best not to turn cold to my feelings at this midnight epoch.

“You need a break.”

That’s what I told myself when I decided to go on a trip to Lahaul-Spiti. Okay let me just fast forward in 8x speed so I can reach up to the main part.

Enter the valley of Lahaul-Spiti and you won’t find any welcoming lush green alpine vegetation or a soothing road ride. No. It was a stimulating bungee jumping ride all along the way where my emotions were playing seesaw between ecstatic excitement and anxiety, bordering at times on panic and craziness. I am not kidding. At times on the hair-pin turns of the road when I could feel the adrenaline rush on my finger-tips and cheeks because of the depth I could see from the window, I thought to myself, this is it, time to die, it’s been a pleasure world; oh and please tell my parents I love them. Not that I showed, I was in any discomfort of course, this was an all-male establishment, any girly screech noises were strictly forbidden.
But somehow the caravan kept on going. As it always!

Staring at contours of a far more complex nature, while clicking mental pictures of endless layers of powdery maroon and glowing ochre slopes loomed in the distance, with the beautiful River Chandra drawing patterns in the lap of an ever-widening basin! The road and the mood was ON. With its steep jungle clad hill sides, gargantuan, sheer rock faces and a great company of six hobbits, the experience in all made me feel incredibly relaxed and glad to be far away from the hee-haw madness and chaos of the city.
It’s really a fascination for me to think how these roads were build. The workers must have one of the most difficult, dangerous and least desirable jobs in the world, especially at higher altitudes where the temperature drops to below freezing.  I hope they got paid well, although I suspect they did not. Life is unfortunately very cheap in India.

Past the few and far between milestones of Rohtang, Gramphu and Chhatru lies the wind-swept Batal. Our first night stay.

I imagine it’s the sort of place where Satan’s staff stay when travelling between hell and purgatory. My heart did drop a little when I first glimpsed our small, dark, smelly windowless room with no solid cover on top. The quilts were dirty like they haven’t been washed since their “invention”. The mattress on which we were supposed to sleep had sand particles sprinkled on it. In short, it just felt like I am back in my room in Gurgaon except the fuckin freezing cold part. But to my surprise none of the damsels uttered any anguish or the sad smiley towards the condition of that room.

It was a very uncomfortable night. None of us could sleep well. The time literally froze in that room with us. And I can’t remember the last time, when I so impatiently waited for the morning. Turning sides in every two seconds. Kicking the person who’s sharing quilt with me. Asking for water. Not getting any response. Searching for water bottle in dark with naked hands. Stumbling on a dog who had managed to crawl inside during night. Taking him back to my side. Sleeping with that dog.
Hell of a night. We all got to know each other a little more now. I learned a lot of things about my company and they learned that I snore like a bear.

The next morning finally came with the promise that the worst is behind us. This is as bad as it can get.

From Batal to Chandertal lake to Kaza (World’s highest retail outlet) to Key Monastery and to Kibber (World’s highest motorable village) …. the time flew by, our level of ecstasy and eyebrows increasing exponentially on each sight and on the last day it snowed. I couldn’t have asked for any better ending except if any girl would’ve fallen in love with me. Well that didn’t happen but all in all it was an awesome trip.

Among many great things about this country side, one particular thing that clicked me is the way these hilly people live. In quiet, peace and comfortably slow life. After 7pm you won’t find a single shop open. The lights are out by 830pm and the whole town is in deep slumber by 9pm. During daytime, in the streets you can always find two people chit chatting little things while by passing each other. I am pretty sure they all know each other. And that ever welcoming glowing smile on their faces (especially monks), it just makes you wonder if, we the city people with metro speed life, cars, grandeur malls and buildings have got it all wrong. 
I really wonder.….. 


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