/m\ Bengaluru

My mama always says that I can never do things the right way. The reason she promulgates is my breach-incoming to the world. Nothing more complicated than the fact that i was pulled from toe to head from the fetus against the norms of head-first-push deliveries. Why i say is because I land at the liquor belly of the country on a dry weekend. Unknowingly of course. But the idea of Bangalore on a dry weekend is plain shockingly absurd. How do I possibly describe my reaction to the "close till sunday due to election" board? Frown-face with twisted eye-brow? The I-will-smash your balls so what if 17 and a half-year old who is denied entry to an Adult film look.

At that point, It only helped to think that I am not a dipsomaniac. But my motive-supremo was to expose my auditory faculty to some hard-rock and comfortable-metal(if it does exist)as pubs it Bangalore are held as the mecca of music-lovers.
I then pursued the mood-enhancing thought of the auto-rickshaws that play Metallica. Courtesy- a friend's first-hand experience of the rocking auto-ride. Needless to say, I didn't find one. But what i found was a megalomaniac display of books. From roof to ceiling, in multiples of hundred hurled in one stack. The Mahakumbh of papyrus, in L, XL and XXL denominations.

Arthur Miller's plays at Rs. 50 can shock anyone's wit right? The charcoal-folds of epistolatory gave me a cerebral seizure. Wondrously, there was no place to collapse or even squat to scurry the desired tome for that matter. The literary fest sprawls across the three floors; compartmentalized into: Philosophy and fiction on the ground floor. Literary fiction on the first and science fiction on the second. The depraved looking store-employees bowl you out with the speedy quest of the title you desire. The modestly dull staff carries Foucault on their sleeves. Yes they spell it accurately too.

Four-hours well short for the book-mall, along with the booty. i pensively picked up my annual reading list of twelve while rejecting a stack of meaty ten. Blossoms- my singular honey-moon destination, if i marry a millionaire.

Bangalore other than booze and blossoms is unabashedly cool. Be it the local weather or the local intellect. Whiz passig the crowd of drab techies, one effortlessly spots uncouthly men in curly beards like the interface of Greek god of music. Suave and uncanny, they become piping eye-candies. The girls are loud like any other Maybelline-applying chicks.

The libertine use of material reflects in all architectural archetypes. Malls, office complex, residency or even shady restaurants. The spirit of mankind is rendered aesthetically in tall structures that stand for modernity. The Randian panorama of architecture can be scaled in the cloudy fields of Bengaluru sky.

Like any other metro, the speed of life is expressed in mbps. Work-hard but party-harder syndrome seems to infect everyone. Rat-race should be declared the official sport of the state. Technology becomes religion and heterogeneity defines culture.

If booze and blossom compete for the potential b of Bengaluu, Brigade road braces victory. The c.p of Bangalore, brigade road is one-stop destination for shoppers, party-goers, readers and gluttons and even angora-lovers. The road dons a shop that rears nine angora-cats only for recreational purpose.

As days passed, I saw my trip turning into a pilgrimage. I couldn't have asked for more. The independent train and bus-rides were beyond good. The 3 am premier of DDLJ in hindi (played in the volvo) was way too beguiling in a predominantly Tamil and Kannad speaking passenger majority.

you can run and you can hide :-)

Things can't get any better when you make yourself run 4 km's to fetch the drool-dribbling, eye-popping, moaning-groaning-adrenaline humping chocolate fantasy at subsidized rate only to opt for an unflattering cold-coffee priced at a modest 35. 'Joy sans pleasure'(borrowed from Robert Jensen's speech), i reckon.

The unwinding roads at IIT Chennai offer a perfect picturesque for fitness enthusiasts and the unfitting exercise procrastinators. Talking about the lush landscape would be stating the obvious but oh deer! what fun in spotting them like former class-mates in a foreign city.

At Twilight, the moonlight pierces through the willows; casting abstract shadows on road that seem to compete with the beauty of the willow itself. The pace of your steps against the throbbing music redefines melody altogether. After a point reality hops into oblivion, leaving you comfortably alone with your thoughts.

If walking clears your head, running, vacuum cleans it. The world looks fresh, even though its bathed in sweat. 'Running without getting anywhere'experience feels as spiritual as it sounds. What does one run behind? Ordinarily-a bus, ambitiously- money and notoriously- woman. But running purposelessly overtakes all of them, even logic and rationality for that matter.

In a span of two days I have begun to think highly of athletes, installing my faith in the 'brain with brawn' species(Hello, are you listening?. And ofcourse you can run and you can hide the adipose. The strategically located cafe coffee day(4-km away from the IIT gate)suitably awards your chiseled tummy.

Why bother with further explanations. if forrest can run, so can I

When aghoree turned into emo

Orion and Artemis

You came to my life draped in white, carrying sunshine in your palms.
I, the infantine hope
of a withering blossom,
Melted In your folds,
in exact widths and proportions
Fitting into the ethereal poetry, that was ever etched
On the nape of the earth.
Love? Was it?
Annihilating all the existing paradigms and notions,
As you scribbled freedom on my wrist.
And danced all the alphabets in exultation
-celebrating the communion of our musk
Love in freedom and freedom in love
Days slipped by like pollen from rose
You and me heading to We
I clinged to us,
blinded by the fire in your eyes
A fire that devoured me, like a hungry giant
Through a royal invitation to the house of pyre
Burnt? Bruised? Any injuries?
So how do I spell mortuary?
Drawing castles out of gelid ash on a foggy night.
A night that limps like an ageing dog
Waiting passionately for sunlight no more.

inside me is pain;
Flowering like lichen,
over a dead body
bereft of a face,
stolen of a name
rooted deeply in the gravels
of an edgeless shore
Seeking showers;
of an untimely rain
inflicted by derision
in the charcoals of time
turning memories into sonnets
that refuse to be recited