LIVE: From the NETHERSTATION

Another day goes by, what a waste…!

I lay on my bed one unbelievably hot summer night….tonight! and stared at the ceiling fan up above. It spun and wobbled so joyfully it almost seemed as though the thing had a life of it’s own, I wondered at times, if it would dislodge from the hook and fall straight on my face. Considering the way my life has been proceeding I would be happy if it actually did. The weird part was, I couldn’t even feel so much as a faint draft of the ‘Cold thunderstorm’ that the fan assured. I perspired like a derby prize winner, my bed felt like a flat bed of rock somewhere out in the middle of the Thar and my temper soared dangerously... !

The idiot box blared in my parent’s room….women wailed, men hollered, babies cried, guns roared, cars revved and some more women wailed and some more men hollered and some more babies cried and some more guns roared and some more cars revved and lots of people laughed raucously at another one of those so-lame-I-could-go-buy- a-gun-and-make-a-thanksgiving-dinner-outta-my-brains jokes on yet another one of those stand-up comedy shows on yet another one of those television channels…sheesh!
The earsplitting decibel level made me want to tear my armpit hair out one by one and all my pleas for a slight diminution in the volume stood hilariously ineffectual against the Goliath of a din that blasted out of that room. My parent’s are ruthlessly protective about their ‘TV time’…No hanky panky there!!

My eyes sailed to the little space, a passage of sorts, between the balcony and my bed. Those precious few square feet that housed my drum kit till about a year back are now just an empty patch. All those arguments about that little bit of space and how my ‘dabba’s and ‘plate’s blocked a free and comfortable way to the balcony and the final, melodramatic expulsion of my ‘dabba’s and ‘plate’s which now repose proudly in the musical room of some local school for the needy, reaped a rich reward of an empty patch on which now, stands a chair!
For long have I dreamt of that red TAMA Starclassic…MY red TAMA Starclassic with shiny rims and water-clear skins, with a Gibraltar drum-rack going around it, propping up Crashes, Splashes, Trashes and Chinas, a PEARL Piccolo and Iron Cobra chain-powered double pedals. I don’t even know when I’ll have the money to buy a ‘desi’ kit to at least keep the practice going. Right now I am worse than a beginner.

I tried picking up the book I spent 2/3rd my monthly-allowance buying, to study for that job-interview I am not even sure I’ve gotten a chance to sit for and maybe also for the 4th interview I am going to be sitting with the same law-firm, don’t even know when that’s coming up and my boss ignores my calls. One look at that enormous mass of infinitesimally tiny letters filling up entire pages from corner to corner, no paragraphs, no gaps, no headers and hardly any full-stops murdered even my slightest desire to learn and that trickle of sweat rolling down my chin helped matters hugely!
Anyhow, I spent the entire day wiping myself dry, cursing the municipality and worrying about my job-interview.
And of course…my usage of the internet on the home PC has been banned after dad discovered a little bit of porn in my laptop last week! Therefore last night I walked for a good half an hour to get to the ‘closest’ cyber café to check my mail while dad sat at home checking his.

The most exciting addition to the party throughout today was the load shedding that went on to stay for a marathon 18 hours from early morning! And thereafter when the lights did come back the A/C conked.
Its exactly 11.49 pm right now, it’s around 38 degrees outside and the humidity is close to 80%, the television is still blaring in the next room, the voltage is dwindling again, ‘didi’ is planning another Bangla-Bandh soon and I am typing this desperately to avoid jabbing a knife into someone’s eye!