mere lab taras gaye: the parched lips

We possess a remarkable capacity to think logically for our good, greater and individual. However, we are owners of an exceptional ability to twist all logic for our immediate benefit.

Dry days curb drinking. On dry days, the tanked stay with wife and kids, celebrate birthdays mumbling the correct words, and measure things in units other than pegs. Yet, they are sober enough to formulate a foolproof plan to compensate for the substantial loss in hung-over hours.

Side-effect: they make the other days, at least the ones immediately after the dry ones, incredibly wet.

Fellow swiggers and all those too inebriated on life,

Bombay has decided to celebrate the oncoming of the auspicious month of February (according to the Gregorian calendar) by observing 5 DRY DAYS, namely, Jan. 26, 30, 31 and Feb. 1, 2.

God save Bombay on Feb. 3. Providence has dictated such a momentous occasion be a Saturday. And until then may all bootleggers celebrate by unleashing their cache of spirits.

Lets drink to dryness!

Check This Out

six degrees of separation and none of freedom

Imagine entering a throbbing disco. The beats become this invisible being that holds your limbs in taut control. Suddenly, you’re pulled into that world. Rhythm, melody, harmony and their overlapping into each other’s spaces. Trampling on domains to create a mélange of implacable sensations. Your ears are filled—the entire audible spectrum—with sounds you never thought possible. You need no cue; the ambience directs your actions.

Now see, feel all of this, with your ears wide shut. Look at people, the language of their bodies. Feel the silence, so far removed from this illusion. Live on this oasis and experience. So less, so much amiss. There are no pauses that heighten the effect, that elevate the music. And a wave of people, seemingly stupid, dancing, moving, grooving to some unfelt agency.

This scene from Babel is so wonderfully shot; it has just stayed with me since.

The silence rises to a feverish pitch. And beyond, its one long silent story—birds with pulverized beaks, choir girls with severed tongues, tigers who can’t roar, and songs that don’t sing.


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Six degrees of separation are really too many sometimes. Our worlds inhabit our realities so tightly, in so complex yet familiar a manner, that virtually everyone is a few nodes of separation away, close at hand. We’re balanced right on the edge of our tethers like we’re repelled by this proximity amongst us. Drawn apart against the inclusive forces like electrons in their orbitals. Such encompassing forces bind each one of us that any small piece of the puzzle displaced entails a reorganization of our existences. Values, rights, wrongs—everything collated into perspective again.

The irony is this trigger can’t be controlled. What can cause this hint of a displacement that may go on to move continents is really un-forecastable. What is culture for some is sacrilege for others; religion for some, sin for others; even our ideas of fun find no common ground these days. No wonder, with such disparate beliefs, our faith in humanity is tested with a far greater frequency. A whole lot of skepticism and insecurity has fallen into our plates. It chaps our lips, chafes the lining of our stomachs, but we just can’t stop eating.

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There's this friend from Chicago, K, a major in psychology and international studies. At TGIF the other evening, we chanced upon a picture on the wall that looked like Che Guevara (it was Bob marley's actually). K remarked that she had spoken to Camilo, Che's son, at her university and knew him quite well. Our conversation suddenly assumed importance, like what we spoke about on a carefree evening mattered in a bigger perspective. Meanwhile, for a few minutes while we were on the subject of Che, I was wondering to myself: small world na?

mumbai marathon!

fuckety fickety doo
i ran, did u?

150th from amongst 7500 odd half marathon participants...

1:49:38

I motivated myself by mocking all those runners whose Nikes cost more than their spirits...Yes, it felt good, especially whenever I looked at my ancient, restiched pair of sneakers...

I can't tell how I feel because I feel so alive...And I just can't wipe that smile off my face...For the time that I was on the road, everything else became a distraction and how much did I enjoy it!

My volition and imagination are entities that no one can dare touch...Running is just one way of claiming my individuality...Any words expressed about how it went and what it feels like is just beacuse of a failure to communicate...

The feeling is one of utter chaos--absolutely indescribable!

I miss the high-rises from the roof-top

Standing on a roof-top (the higher, the better) is like standing on the fringe of society--the geographical somehow replicates that which is in essence.

People like lizards, wagging their restless tails, waiting to hop onto kites that will make them soar above. A sense of dissociation so strong, you feel like a visiting supervisor when you look at your brethren. Things such as "up there" and "down below" mean something exact.

It's the height, is it?

You experience a clarity, a sanctity, that is so obvious yet unfathomable on analysis. A kiss on the 9th floor roof-top, it becomes extra-special; smoke, and the drags turn almost philosophical; when you eat, the food can become incidental. You remember the ambience, the feel. So much is about this feel--this thing that defines moments.

These moments, these fleeting units, then define experiences. In retrospect (the way we usually decide) we label these experiences, placing a huge serving of permanence on our memory plates that'll keep us nourished. And this will decree that life has been such and such. To evaluate something as questionable as the quality of our existence, we cling on to equally dubious parameters.

Goa has to be fun, lectures boring; junk food delectable, gyaan unacceptable. A collection of interests or a set of acquired biases?

What explains this?

say no to angsty posts

You cannot be unfaithful if you don't know what it is like to be faithful.

Outrageously absurd na?