Charlene…

I must have been barely four, maybe five when I first saw her…

For me Kindergarten was never much fun, neither were the next thirteen-fourteen odd years of my school life spent feverishly in the pursuit of education. The world of alphabets, letters, numbers, colours and toys remained alien to me till the very last day I spent at Little Angles Kindergarten. While other kids played with plastic-blocks, play-clay or rode the merry-go-round, I would roam the gardens alone talking to myself. I loved to daydream and tell stories to an invisible audience.
I never picked a fight, never protested at being bullied and my name was never associated with any mischief or for that matter, it’s perpetrators. In a lot of ways I still remain the same.

Then came the day I saw her for the first time. I remember being unable to take my bespectacled eyes off her. She stood among her friends, waiting for her turn at the swing. Clearly the prettiest and tallest of the lot, her long black hair flowing freely down resembled a beautiful waterfall and she had the prettiest eyes in the whole world. I stood there staring stupidly at her like she was some heavenly creature that had accidentally fallen straight out of the skies; she was what fairytales were made of!

I remember, from that day on, I had become extra enthusiastic at the prospect of going to Kindergarten, much to the amazement of my parents. They never realised that my sole purpose of waking up during wee hours of the morning, enduring a hideously large mug of Complan then riding off to school with dad with a heavy water-bottle and ID card dangling from my neck, was only so I could hide behind the thick shrubbery in the playground during tiffin-break and watch Charlene play with her friends.
She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

Little Angels School allowed its students to celebrate their birthdays in class. As toddlers, we were allowed to bring cakes, candy and gifts for everyone on our birthday. So every other day we’d go back home with pocketfuls of candy while the birthday boy/girl always went back home with heaps of presents.
One morning during play break, while I stood in line for the merry-go-round I overheard one of the kids say that the following day was Charlene’s Birthday and she had promised to bring a clown to school! The second half of the sentence failed to register;
…………It was Charlene’s birthday! And I wanted to give her a present!

That afternoon after school I raced back home without even once stopping by the ice-cream vendor or the sticker-guy. I can’t remember having ever run so fast. I did not know what to gift her with her but I was desperate and there wasn’t enough time. There was no chance mom would take me out to buy a present and she would definitely not understand if I told her I wanted to buy it for Charlene. We couldn’t afford it. With dad looking for a job and mom still finishing her post graduation, money was an issue. We had cut expenses down to necessities and buying gifts for others was a luxury we could ill afford. Amusingly, I understood that we had problems with the ‘buying’ part but never quite knew why that was so.

Once home, I dived underneath my bed.
A dumping ground for all my possessions, the area underneath my little bed had a modest pile of rubbish constituting handed down toys, a sizeable number of toy-guns and a few items of everyday use that would never enjoy the privilege of being called toys by luckier kids. I took a good look at all of them assessing their chances of making it as the perfect present for Charlene, sadly, none made it. What use would a girl as pretty as her would have of a handful of dismembered Gi-Joes, a fraction of He-Man’s brood, a teddy bear with an eye gouged out, half a car, a few marbles and a spoon? And then I saw it…

On top of my table, amidst the books and colour pencils lay my box of Green Apple sketching pencils. Mom had specifically instructed me to use them sparingly and only for sketching class because of how costly they were. I had obediently managed to use ten pencils over a period of more than a month and there was only one left in the box.
I wasn’t sure when I’d get the next box but nothing was quite as valuable as my Charlene, so laying all my apprehensions to rest I picked up the box and pulled out the last remnant of my status symbol.

I will never forget the next day at Kindergarten. None of us at class could wait for the lunch bell to go off, Charlene’s clown had already arrived! Although I too wanted to see the clown, he wasn’t priority.

After about half an hour of the clown’s torturous romp he was politely asked to call it a day by our class teacher who had clearly had enough of his unfunny tomfoolery. Charlene sat amidst her friends giggling and playing with what seemed like small gifts she had received during the day. I realised, she would soon get busy with the cake, I had to act fast, before the party began!

I pulled the pencil out of my bag and drawing a deep breath started to march towards her direction.
She sat right underneath a window and I noticed how beautiful the sun rays made her hair look. Everybody and everything around her ceased to matter and I lost my inhibition, the ID card dangling from my neck swung merrily as I gripped the pencil tightly and starting marching towards where she sat.
In no time I was standing amidst a small group of giggling Kindergarten girls chatting animatedly and playing with their dolls. The activity around me stopped and all of them looked up at me wide eyed as I walked up to Charlene.

The first few seconds were traumatic, I had never realised that all my bravado would fizzle out facing someone so beautiful. I slowly put out my hand and produced the pencil before her and I didn’t say a word, I couldn’t, I was choking.
I never expected the reaction my action would elicit from Charlene; she seemed to understand the purpose of my visit. She smiled sweetly, took the pencil from my hand and after planting a kiss on my cheek she said “Thank you”. The ground tilted around my feet and I felt my head swirl. I cannot recollect the subsequent events of the day.
Nevertheless, from that day on I became friends with Charlene. We studied, played were together right up till first standard after which she suddenly stopped coming to school. That was the last I saw of her. I remember crying a couple of times to mom asking her to find out what happened to Charlene but all in vain. I missed her for a very long time thereafter, but gradually Charlene melted away in the chasm of my memory and there she stayed for all these years till the other day I was suddenly reminded of her when I came across Green Apple pencils at a stationary store!

Smiling to myself I picked up a box and headed back home.

Neena

He stopped dead in his tracks cause there she was, the crowded vegetable market was the last place in the world he had expected to see her at, yet there she was…!

It could only be her..

She bent attentively over a heap of lemon and chillies and sorted them with an outstretched skeletal finger. As she picked one lemon at a time and put it with great care inside a small cloth bag hanging precariously from her shoulder, the plastic bangles around her thin wrists jangled. She tied her hair in a rather messy pony tail and wore a dull cotton salwar. He could catch glimpses of her face from amidst her hair. He had noticed how hollow her cheeks looked.

She was younger than him by about two years; very pretty and sprightly, yet today she looked old and weary. The last time he had seen her was more than fifteen years back yet surprisingly enough it didn’t take him long to identify her amidst the crowded bazaar’s hustle and bustle.
She still retained most of her features. One of his sister’s good friends, she was a rather cheerful and extremely talkative young woman but it was with utmost surprise that he observed how astonishingly different she looked now. She looked grown up, worn-out, afflicted with an untimely maturity.

He hesitated to walk up to her and say hello but there was no telling how she would react. What would he do if she failed to recognise him? What would he do if she did? Would she remember?

As she sat on her hunches haggling with a shopkeeper he noticed a particular refinement in the accent with which she spoke Hindi, quite amusingly though, she failed to conceal it. Her attempts at making her pronunciations as pedestrian as possible amused him even more. Neena was such a delightful mismatch amidst the hordes of sweaty vegetable vendors and Sunday morning shoppers.

“Neena…!”

“NEENA…!”

At his second beckoning she turned around and looked up at him wide eyed. She unplugged her walkman and staring into his eyes stood up slowly. He could tell she was trying hard to summon up as much recollection about him as possible and he could tell she was struggling with it. Deciding to save her from any further embarrassment he said;

“I am Ram, Nayantara’s elder brother, remember?”

Almost as if in a flash her expression altered and her eyes lit up. With a quivering voice, she exclaimed;

“Oh Ram……how have you been? It’s been……”

“About fifteen years” he interjected, smiling, continuing on his mission to aid her in her struggle down the memory lane.

“Yes Ram, fifteen years, fifteen years is such a long time and gosh you look so different…!”, she chuckled.

“Yeah, I keep getting that a lot and I could say the same about you, so what’s up Neena, never expected to see you here of all people, how is everyone at home?”

“Well, one can never tell where one drifts off to with time, I am doing okay, what’s new with you?”

“I am doing good too, not much of a shopper, dad is inside choosing the fish for today’s lunch and here I am talking to you…..!”

He looked into her eyes and an old, familiar feeling, hidden underneath a decade and a half’s worth of pain and memories began welling up inside him. His Neena stood right there in front of him and he couldn’t decide how to react, what an idiot he was. He wished he could freeze the moment, forget about time, place and consequence and just hold her, hold her close and he could have bet she knew about it and had possibly felt the same way, only, fifteen years back. Breaking the pause Ram asked;

“So Neena, how is everything at home? How are your parents? I hope they’re doing good!”

Neena looked away. She immediately lowered her bag, picked up a handful of chillies and lemon randomly and stuffed them in her bag as if in a great hurry and then pulling out a ten rupee note she paid the vendor and began walking towards the market exit. Ram followed her.

“Neena…Neena what’s wrong?!”

“Nothing, I need to get going now, there’s much work to be done around the house!”

“Tell me please!”

She looked at him as though she wanted to ask him what difference it made to him how her parents were and why at all was he bothered. Where was he all these years? With great difficulty Neena withheld an outburst and contained her tears. Ram waited.

“Papa is no more with us!”

The lump in her throat made it almost impossible for her to speak and she knew she would not be able to hold for long.

“The business wound up because of law suits and we lost our home soon after, one morning we found him in his bedroom…..” tears welled up in her eyes and she began to choke badly;

As shocked as he was, he knew the worst was on its way;

“Rat poison…” was all she could say before she broke down completely.

The words hit Ram with twenty times the force of a speeding train and he stood there, frozen. The mid-day heat burnt his skin and made it impossible to stand inside the stuffy bazaar.
He looked at the frail girl standing before him dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, fighting a brutal battle to control herself, the cloth bag had long slid down her shoulder and now lay near her feet with it’s contents strewn around. Ram bent down to pick up the lemon and chillies and Neena hastily wiped her eyes and joined him.
Suddenly everything about the Neena he saw before him began to make perfect sense and he stood looking at her picking up the last lemon from the ground and dusting it.

“How’s aunty dealing with it?”

“Oh…..”, her voice even more quivery, “……..it hardly made a difference to her, she stopped recognising us, I mean, papa and I about two years back when she suffered her third stroke, it had a permanent damaging effect on her brain. Now she cant move a muscle….I give her a bath every morning, cook for her, feed her, wash the clothes, do the dishes and sweep the house…its all on my shoulders now Ram..”

A smile was something Ram had least expected from her after this but when she did, he couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He advanced towards her to embrace her, to assure her that she was not alone, that he had come, that destiny hadn’t crossed their paths again for nothing, she hesitated, stepping back immediately she looked around uncomfortably. Adjusting her cloth bag she said, “Raghav is waiting outside in the car, I need to get going now.”

“Raghav?”

“Yes, Raghav, we met last year at JU. He is pursuing the same Mass Communication course as I am. He is why I am alive Ram, he really keeps me happy. He is waiting outside at the parking lot.”

“Well…we…”

“I knew Ram, I always did, I saw it in your eyes all the time but it would’ve never worked between us, it wouldn’t have lasted very long, don’t ask me why but I knew it wouldn’t…..it was nice meeting you Ram, fifteen years is a long time...and you’re a big boy now!” , she said ruffling his hair.
“I should get going now…don’t miss me Ram, its not worth the heartache...what’s gone, is gone, things aren’t all that bad in my world now!”

Ram didn’t know what to say, although he stood there feeling miserable and wishing he hadn’t met her at all in the first place, his sadness was suddenly replaced by a strange feeling of confusion with Neena’s last sentences. What she said didn’t seem to make sense at all, neither did her great desperation to leave, yet he stood there smiling wryly at her as she waved her hand smiling sweetly at him. He waved back.

“Take care Neena, be in touch..!”

She didn’t look back at him.

Almost immediately, Ram’s father appeared out of nowhere with a Hilsha in each hand. Grinning widely he raised them up in the air for half the bazaar to see; “Call your mom and tell her to forget about the Chicken Chettinad, there shall be an Ilish-fest all through this week…!”

Before getting into the car Ram looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Neena and her boyfriend, they couldn’t have left the market place yet considering the crowd that had built up in the paltry parking space. He stood on his toes and craned his neck to see as far as possible but she was nowhere to be seen. They were gone. Surprising, one would need to grow wings to get out of that parking lot that soon. Nevertheless, with a heavy heart, Ram got inside the car.

“Baba, remember the Balsaras….Neena Balsara….Nayan’s friend?”

“Hmmm I do….why do you ask?”

“Nothing, been a long time, I suppose you know about her dad and her mom…”

“Yeah…sad….very sad….theirs was a happy family. Remember the time you and Nayan would go cycling with Neena?…such a sweet girl she used to be…but such a tragedy…both mother and daughter…”

“They are all alone now dad, you can imagine how difficult it must be for them…”

“What do you mean they are all alone…?”

“Obviously, since Mr. Balsara is no more……!!”

“Have you any idea what you are talking about..? Has no one told you? Hasn’t Nayan told you anything about what happened to the Balsaras..?”

“No dad, she didn’t even tell me about Neena’s father in the first place…but what is it that I missed?”

His father rolled his eyes and sighed….

“Ram, a couple of days after Vijay was discovered lying in his room dead, frothing in the mouth because of the rat poison he had consumed, Neena and her ailing mother disappeared. A lot of people say both mother and daughter had gone into hiding because of the constant harassment by the police and relatives, some even say both mother and daughter went mad, anyhow, they were nowhere to be seen for days until one night a police constable discovered two bodies floating around in the Corporation tank. It was poor Neena and Mrs. Balsara….poor Mrs. Balsara was literally crippled, it’s a mystery how she jumped into the tank. The issue was hushed up and soon the Balsaras were forgotten….”

The hair on Ram’s neck felt like pin pricks and even his father could notice the goosebumps on his skin as he sat horror-struck and wide eyed. It looked almost as if he had suffered a seizure.

“What’s the matter Ram?”, asked his father glimpsing at him while keeping an eye on the road, “Take it easy son, things like these happen all the time, get strong, learn to take them…lets go home soon and I’ll ask mommy to make us some nice coffee”

Ram was looking outside intently and his expression did not change, he suddenly turned a pale shade of blue and began to whimper. Extremely alarmed, his father immediately pulled over the car. He started shaking Ram desperately, trying to get him to talk yet Ram sat there looking outside and sobbing inconsolably. He shivered like a terrified little cat and his teeth chattered as he stared with great focus at an old banyan tree at a distance. He was looking at something, something that was scaring him a great deal. Ram’s father looked in the trees direction.

...From amidst the thick leaves, branches and the long hanging roots of the old Banyan tree, frothing from the mouth like a mad dog, perched Neena, drooling and panting and in her dark, hollow eyes he saw fury, the unearthly madness of a wayward specter.

The plightful Stag

S.T.A.G.; these four letters have haunted my social life ever since I turned old enough for the word to start gaining relevance in my life.

The very first time I was made privy to this chilling bit of reality was in my second year of college when after having been denied entry to a club for of not having an ‘arm-candy’ by my side I ventured out in the cold looking for single women, the objective being solely to gain entry to the disco as a couple. Once inside I would let the good lady go….yes, just let her off.
I eventually ended up finding a girl who seemed to have no qualms about holding my hand tight and marching right upto the bouncer at the door. Had it not been for my college senior that night who managed, right at the nook of time, to show up like brave Sir Galahad, I probably would have ended up with bone injuries to the skull and multiple lacerations all over the body as the concerned girl happened to be that very bouncer’s candy. As to why she agreed to come along with me remains a question. Sadism has its faces. I paid thrice the entrée fee and spent the rest of the night sulking by the bar with just about enough money left to buy myself a diet Coke.

We are an ostracised lot and highly misunderstood too. We are loathed and loved by pub and disco owners for equally germane reasons, loathed, because among other reasons, we ‘misbehave’ with women under the influence of alcohol or whatever it is we may be drinking and loved because we are always made to pay double, sometimes triple the entry charge everywhere we go! Thick would be his head who thought men-folk who show up at a disco with a significant other are safe customers and would never look at other women, leave alone indulging in alcohol induced misbehaviour and thicker would be his head who introduced this concept in restaurants!

Last week a few of my guy friends and I were sent out of a restaurant with an assertive, “Sorry Sir, no stags allowed inside!”
The month before that a friend and I had to balance our bottoms on uncomfortable bar-stools at a pub cum restaurant as the cosy lounge sofas were for ‘couples only’. Not only was I appalled, I was livid and I would have left the place immediately had I not needed that drink. I wonder what the homo fraternity would make of this? What stunt would a gay couple have to pull to prove to the lunkhead standing guard at the door that the two of them weren’t actually stags, without embarrassing themselves?

And what is with the nomenclature? How about we start calling single women ‘Hinds’ and debar them from entering any pub or restaurant unless they pay a fantastic amount of money? How about we paint them with the same generalised accusations that stags face every night and watch how they deal with the music?

There are more chances of hen growing teeth than Hinds being asked to pay, more so, denied free entry.

The world loves single women as much as it hates single men.

Gods got a twisted sense of humour...

The worlds oldest woman, Sakhan Dosova lived in Kazhakhstan. She survived for years in terrible living conditions because of poverty. When she turned 130, the Kazakh Government gave her a flat as a celebratory gift. She slipped in the bathroom of her new flat, broke her hip and died.

An evening by the pool with James 'Bund'

(Babu da: If you are reading this I know you will sooner or later want to kill me but this is just to let you know that it is not my slightest intention to hurt or ridicule you, I love you and this is how I choose to show it!

Other readers: Seriously graphic content ahead, reader discretion advised, read on an empty stomach)

It must have been poor Babu’s turn when the angel at the ‘Hygiene-Sense’ department high up in heaven, deserted his post and went for a piss break, leaving the conveyor belt switched on. Babu passed right through, completely unsensitised and desanitised.

What many people don’t know about Babu is that, as a baby he was once picked up by a pack of wolves who had mistaken him for one of their cubs. He was dragged away into the dark woods where he survived for months among his new-found hairy friends until he was rescued. The ordeal took its toll and left a number of characteristic peculiarities in him which can be seen, felt, heard and smelled till date!

For the uninitiated, raise your glasses to the one and only Nilesh ‘Babu’ Sinha!

I have had the fortuity of knowing Nilesh and being associated with him as a brother, friend and junior in college for the last 5 odd years. What makes Nilesh appreciably different is the fact that there are an equal number of reasons to dislike him as there are to like him. Aside from being somewhat of a walking-talking brain, the man is pure genius with words, be it spoken or written. Enough has been said about his caustic tongue and his peculiar tendency to resort to Oriental martial art-esque poses (complete with sound effects) while throwing insults at people is legendary.
Nilesh is extremely kind hearted and has about fifteen and a half billion odd pet bacteria, microbes, germs and other micro organism in his clothes, in the words of a wise one, “Babu has an entire ecosystem existing in his socks alone!”

He has been seen barking at stray-dogs in the dark and deserted lanes of Noida in the dead of the night, there is video footage of him howling at the moon and what can we say, our man has a powerful fetish for women that strongly resemble retired Pakistani cricket players and Frankenstein himself, throw in a stray X-Chromosome or two and the faintest of likeliness to the feminine species and our man is ready for sweet-lovin’!
All said and done a great number of women did manage to look beyond Nilesh’s trademark blue shirt, black trousers (sometimes unwashed for months), muddy chappals and that endearing pong that sent many a victim scampering for fresh air, and recognise his blade-sharp intellect. This of course lead to a number of embarrassing sex scandals involving Nilesh, the particulars of which he would insist on describing to us, complete with noisy details that would set off disturbing images and even more disturbing thoughts in our young minds. To add to the bizarreness of it all he was extremely particular about using flavoured rubber protection. In his own words, “there are taste-buds everywhere!”

Perhaps all this explains his fixation with the name, James ‘Bund’ (Bund- pronounced; ‘Boond’, meaning; the female genitalia). Yes, it is extremely difficult to imagine what Martin Campbell, Terence Young and the likes saw in Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan!

I vividly remember an evening I had spent with Nilesh at the club that he used to frequent for swimming, truth be told, Karan and I tagged along hoping to check out girls. Those days Nilesh was on an aggressive weight loss mission. Having realised that as much as a mere pound or two more would probably necessitate the use of a size-D bra Nilesh was hell bent on shedding those pounds and he went about it zealously.
Inside the changing room while we looked around for girls Nilesh shed his clothes rapidly. Disappointed at the sight of shapeless and ridiculously hairy Sardarjis in colourful underwear Karan and I turned to Nilesh, we stood watching transfixed as the Michelin mascot himself stood before us in tiny black swimming-trunks. A set of teeth appeared from amidst his facial forestation and one eyebrow went right up as Nilesh in his deep voice said, “Whaddaya think lads?”
As he jogged towards the pool his belly jiggled gleefully in perfect rhythmic consonance with the upper half of his body and his torso resembled a fat man’s face with a wobbling mouth and bouncing eyes. Displacing much water and making much noise our man made his entry into the deep blue depths of the pool and plummeted right underneath; he almost crashed into the bottom of the pool when by some inexplicable force of gravity, rather the lack of it, he managed to make a perfect rebound and slowly headed back to the surface. As Karan and I gaped speechless, dripping from head to toe, Shamu soared above the surface of the water grabbing hold of the handle-bars and said……

“Whaddaya think lads?”

It was amazing how gracefully and deftly Nilesh managed to do his laps, each stroke followed the previous one after a considerable amount of time as he gunned back and forth huffing and puffing. Quite admirably after about an eternity our man managed to complete all his laps, as he proudly took the steps off the pool his grace reminded me of Ursula Andress emerging out of the sea in a bikini. A mind numbingly terrifying thought suddenly crossed my mind and the lovely Ursula Andress was replaced by an image of Nilesh emerging out of the pool in a bikini swishing and swaying his long hair and the fat man’s face and eyes wobbling in ultra-slow motion……

“Whaddaya think lads?”

I nearly suffered a seizure when thankfully the clouds cleared and my eyes opened up, Nilesh stood right in front grinning, the water had made his black trunks roll further down threatening a sudden disclosure any minute.

As Nilesh, Karan and I tottered back to the changing room chatting, I put my arm around Nilesh. I knew he would never realise how much I would miss him after he’d graduate and leave and the time was coming soon. I tried not to think of it. There were other urgent matters to take care of, like telling Nilesh that his trunks had now rolled way down and a few Sardars behind us were laughing at his exposed butt crack.

I absolutely dislike this Template and I'd like to change it immediately but...its too much work!
What was I thinking when I chose it?....yuck!

“I don’t think I can do this Bikram!....I think I am gonna throw up….and my hands are so shaky…!
Iceman gave me one of his forced smiles and waddled away. The poor guy was in no less of a nervous breakdown-ish situation himself to dole out any courage. His teeth chattered and his voice was quivery. Our man on the rhythm guitar hadn’t taken his instrument off his shoulders all morning, I think he carried it to the bathroom too.
Jeetu was nowhere to be seen and neither was Sam. They must’ve wandered of somewhere with Lenold, although I hoped both the guys wouldn’t go and blow their vocal depths up in swirls of smoke, the chances were far from bleak. Both my vocalists needed to save that vocal pitch for the day.
Karan sat in a corner talking to the girls and Mayukh worked with the soundmen near the rings.
The fourth swig of whiskey backstage was clearly a bad idea. Although the freeze of the early February mornings in Pune made it more of a requirement than just ‘a rock thing’, we needed the buzz and what could do the job better than neat whiskey on an empty stomach? As the massive crowd roared outside, I paced up and down the backstage area going over all the cues and fills in my head over and over again, over and over again, I had to give this one gig my two hundred percent and if possible, three hundred and fifty percent!! Funnily, no matter how many times I rubbed by fingers against my jeans, they continued to be cold and frozen, both traits fatal for drummers, I couldn’t grip properly and my wrists locked.
“Firecrakers!” exclaimed Karan as loud reports echoed into the early morning sky outside indicating that the event had finally commenced. We watched as a group of dancers shot onto the stage one by one waving gold and silver pom-poms, the grandeur, the colour, the noise was absolutely intoxicating, captivating!
Our show being the main event for the evening wouldn’t start for another hour or so, as per plans a few speeches and dance performances were lined up before we’d get to take the stage, the sponsors had to be pleased. I saw it as a massive relief. I was in no state to go and start whacking away at those skins right away in front of all those people.
Speech after speech followed, followed by dreadfully elaborate dance performances and cheesy displays by sponsors. We sat in the pitch darkness at the wings nervous, waiting, watching.

And all of a sudden, it was time!

My stomach turned to water as all of us stood up facing the doorway leading into the stage; this was it!
A faint ray of light from outisde fell on the floor illuminating the threshold. As Jeetu and Sam appeared out of nowhere and bounded ahead, Iceman and Lenold exchanged last notes on chords and riffs, Karan, lost in his own thoughts walked slowly towards the doorway, head hung low. I walked by his side, drumsticks in one hand and my heart in the other. None of us spoke a word to each other.
Here I was at the brink of what could potentially be the biggest manifestation of our collective aspirations, the one objective we had cherished for years, nurtured and protected from numerous nay-sayers, circumstances, fate, criticism and our biggest nemesis, our own dissenting selves. The minute I walked out through the doorway crossing the threshold that divided the stage from the backstage area I felt like being sucked into a vacuum chamber of sorts. The massive crowd of a few hundreds roared as bright beams of light blinded us completely, my ears blocked out and all I could hear was a faint buzz in my head, the air was full of whistles, balloons and confetti. It was astounding how different the temperatures were just across the wall that divided the backstage and the stage area, it was freaking hot on stage and the lights made it worse! A few more loud bangs went off here and there and in the bat of an eyelid there we were facing a massive throng of raised hands, signboards and faces. An ocean of human beings.

As we headed for our individual weapons, I saw mine. She reclined on a raised platform placed right in the middle of the stage waiting, still and quiet, waiting to be stroked, to be turned on, to be brought to life. Canopied by a virtual encyclopaedia of gleaming golden metal she resembled a behemoth mechanised chariot, a massive amassment of detailed percussive paraphernalia comprising of metal, wood and skin. A brute bearing the power of a thousand horses yet the felinity and beauty of a jaguar.

Iceman plugged in his guitar and played around with the strings holding his plectrum between his teeth and Lenny made last minute adjustments to his distortion pedals. We took our positions like soldiers behind trenches waiting for the approaching enemy, as the warm rays of the morning sun emerged from behind the hills and washed up against the stage, an eerie silence fell among the crowd.
Almost as if heralding the new day, the warm sunshine, an electric guitar cried out loud sending echoes resonating into the morning sky and chills down my spine. Immediately like a hurricane after a prolonged lull, the crowd acknowledged Lenny’s statement with an applause of explosive nature. Iceman looked up into the sky one last time. As I raised my sticks high up in the air, I shut my eyes, memories trailed in leaving my heart bursting with a mad mix of emotions; exhilaration, trepidation, passion and unremitting love, this was going to be it, this WAS it!
As Jeetu and Sam grabbed their mikes, streaks of pyrotechnic fireworks rocketed across each other from either side of the stage with deafening reports, I grit my teeth and brought down my arms on the cymbals with all the physical might I could summon, then a series of bright, recurring flashes…. 24/B and the High-Bhais…Symbiosis garage…The Mag 7…Aarambh 1…Aarambh 2…Not Just Jazz…Battle of the Bands…Ehsaas...Laanat….the verandah in my old and now demolished house, There were violins in the air…NCC…the jams at Barista…Apache…the World Youth Aids Day gig...mom’s face!!

“Rono wake up…you’re getting late for work…get out of bed RIGHT NOW…its such a beautiful Monday outside, mummy has nice Quaker Oats and bananas for breakfast..now GET UP you lazybones..!"
I rolled out of bed like an overweight, disgruntled sea lion and tottered towards the bathroom. It was going to be a very bad day!