Me Vs I

‘OK I don’t know this.’

‘Dude, have a deeper look. Read it properly. Take an intelligent guess. You might just get it right. Remember in school, you were a champ in quiz. Your gut feeling regarding the answers and your intelligent guesses were always right’

‘Hmm. Actually that is right. Wait let me see. Let me read the question. ….OK, now the choices are…..Mmmmmm……..I don’t know head or tail of this! Ok…lemme take a guess…..Answer b) looks right.’

‘No man, look at d). This looks logical.’

‘The answer is obviously between b) and d). But which one? You are saying d). Logical choice you say? What is your logic based on anyways? Bullshit!! On first look it seemed that that the answer is b). Now, is that not gut feeling? When you are analysing, you are not following your heart. I will mark b). Ok Next.’

‘Oh come on. Are you hearing your own logic? I am saying it cannot be b). It makes no sense. Go back and change it, you idiot!’

‘Actually, b) makes less sense. Ok, let’s go back. Mmmm..…Done. I have marked d). Oh God! Please make this the right choice! Now, Next…. Mmmm…What the hell is this? How is anybody supposed to know that? Crap!! What logic do I put here? There is no negative marking anyways. Let me mark something…..Inky Pinky Ponky……

[After 10 Mins and 16 ‘Intelligent Guesses’]

The heady head message..

‘Head message chahiye Sir?’ (Do you want a head message, sir?), the dark chap almost whispered in my ears, while cutting my hair.

‘Nehi’, (No) say I.

‘Acha lagega sir’ (it will feel good, sir), he said with a lot of self-assurance.

‘Kitna lagega’ (How much is it)?’ say I.

‘Oil message 70 hain sir’.

‘Without Oil?’

‘60’.

Well a simple haircut is for 50 bucks. 10 rupees extra for a message is not much, I thought.

‘Thik hain kar do.’ (Okay, do it), said I.

I am always a bit tensed when I am in a saloon. The metallic sound of the scissors against my ears and on my head makes me nervous. What if he becomes a bit distracted? There is high probability of my ears getting chopper off. What if he makes a dent on my head? Almost all my school life, I never ventured to a salon. I would be surrendering my head to my Mom, instead. I believed that if I had to trust somebody with my head, then I would rather put it in my Mom’s hands. Undoubtedly, she did a decent job with my hair. But it was soon that I was not able to blindly trust her with my hair. The result of the hair cut would be directly proportional to her mood that day. Days on which she would be having a rough day at home (lots of utensils to wash, the dog had shed a lot of fur, Dad had said something which Mom did not like, etc. etc.), my head would look like a badly mowed lawn with haircuts on those days. Every time after a haircut, I would look a bit different.

Fiction Vs Non Fiction

It's been a while since I have stopped reading fiction. Fiction these days do not add any value to you. I somehow feel that after I read a book i should know a bit more than I knew before reading the book. Most fiction books do not do that. I used to read a lot of fiction once. In school, Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys, Three investigators and other fast paced adventure tales used to trigger by imagination and would take me to this fantasy world of adventure, thrill and suspense. Then I started reading Bengali Literature. I believe Bengali literature is as vast as English literature. I had full collections of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim chandra, Shorodindu at home and I had read almost everything while I was still in school. Sarat Chandra was my favorite for a long time. All his stories would be around common Bengali households, about common people going about their lives. What made them extra ordinary was the depth in which he would explore human relations, emotions and ties. All this books are extra ordinary studies of the human psychology. Rabindranath was famous for his short stories. His short stories would be based on very simple or common theme and would almost always leave you with a smile on your face or a tear in your eye.

During later part of school, I started reading thrillers like Alistair Macleen, Frederick Forsyth, Robin Cook, Micheal Crichton, etc. I was specially thrilled by Frederick Forsyth books simply because of the detail that would be there. I remember one particular book which had some 4-5 pages or more, describing how to make an atom bomb. I guess the first non fiction book I read was a book called,"Jesus Came to India". It intrigued me beyond comprehension. No fiction book had made me think and interested me as this book did.   I some became hooked to non fiction since then. "Truth is stranger than fiction", it's said. Very true. Some times, there are news which can beat any well thought out fiction.

Desert Potraits

Rajasthan trip: How it all began.

For oft, when on my bed I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances in Rajasthan sand and hills.

(Stolen from William Wordsworth; changed according to context)

As I sit now reminiscing about the past week, it all seems like a big jigsaw puzzle of memorable events which somehow has become all jumbled inside my head. As I write this blog I would try to solve the jigsaw puzzle and present a comprehensible picture of the Rajasthan trip to anyone who ventures to read.

It all started one day morning, maybe a week and a half before the trip. I had planned for a 6 days trek from Manali, a hill station in the Himalayas, during this vacation when almost all of my friends gradually dropped out of it. There were various personal reasons for that, which I don’t want to go into the details. I had applied and got leave from office. My trains were booked. Suddenly the trip was cancelled. I had gone to sleep the last night all dejected. As I opened my eyes in the morning, this brilliant idea came to me. I immediately called up Avinash. He did not pick up the phone, later when he called, I could not pick up the phone, but when I did speak to him I told him my idea. I had always wanted to go and explore Rajasthan. And he was based out of Jaipur. I humbly asked him for his time and company for a Rajasthan trip. And he said yes!