GOAN AND GONE

There are some good things about advertising. Not always will you spend time cheating people with ads that boast of facts that do not actually exist, and call them an exhibition of your new-found creativity. Could be inate, but once in Goa, who the fuck cares?

There is a place where you do not need to worry about the clock ticking your life away.
There is a place where you will always find yourself spending more time with your thoughts than you ever did.
There is a place where you could walk in any direction and still reach heaven.
There is a place where you do not have to worry about how miserable the place you left behind is.
There is a place where you could stand still at any moment and still feel the dynamism of life.
There is a place where small things become more worthy than the materials that very often influence you sadly.
There is a place where you could just stare at the setting sun and get lost in the colors of tranquility.
There is a place where nature bows and welcomes your personality irrespective of what you are.
There is a place where it is easy to decide who or what you are more in love with.
There is a place where you would die to hold the hand of that someone and walk towards the horizon, and the beauty is, you believe it exists.
There is a place which will take you out of balance and make you experience the bliss of being unstable with routine.
There is a place where you could not just feel the breeze upon you, but see it.
There is a place which will tell you how exactly life needs to be lived after you are done with achieving the sadistic pleasures of virtual reality.
There is a place which will make you confess to yourself and will host your weakness till you get rid of it.
There is a place where you could look straight into the eyes of water and surf on the waves of internal sound, your conscience.
There is a place called GOA.

In Goa you’ll notice that you are diffusing into a free spirit, just like your shadow that falls on the moist sand of the beach. The sun sets and rises before your eyes like it had waited all this long to do so. The waves strike the rocks and sing to you the song that mesmerizes your senses and puts your swinging mind at rest. The foot marks you leave behind are washed away the next second, unlike the past that still tortures your subconscious existence.

DELHI-MONU-MENT-ALLY REFRESHING

Delhi-Amateur observations and observations worth observing.

First, the trip was simpler than the blog title.

Amateur Observations: 1. Delhi has the maximum number of foreign tourists after Goa.
2. Delhi's winter manages to produce a thin layer of ice on top of everything (except for a human body).
3. In Delhi, if you expect a person to look back at you and smile, you have to be of some use to him/her.
4. People in Delhi have to struggle a lot to maintain the class they have been maintaining. Their car has to better than their neighbour's car.
5. After driving in Delhi for a week, Hyderabad's traffic seemed so much better.
6. Time, they want it to be in their hands, but they never realize that it has been slipping out of their hands everyTIME.

Observations worth Observing: Delhi's monuments...they are beautiful, can tell their own stories with their loud architecture, they have lesser scribblings from tourists when compared to monuments in south, and finally, their creation is history, but they are the most magnificent at present. If only everything in Delhi was as well maintained as it's monuments, i would be a bit more excited while blogging it.

What caught my attention was...the Iron Pillar at Qutub Minar cannot be touched anymore. It has a fencing around it. As a kid, i always used to go, wrap my hands around the pillar backway, and try making my palms meet each other, but impossible always. It can't happen. However, a very tall person can, because the upper half of the pillar is narrow. Anyway, this cannot be experienced now. I saw a lot of Russian Iron-men posing in front of the Iron pillar for photographs. Russians...they are all over Delhi. I was lucky enough to speak to a Russian guy who came to India a couple of years ago, went to Rishikesh, peeped so deep inside himself that he decided to stay back... to enjoy freedom...in it's state of happiness. "India has the power of transforming people", is what he said in the end.

Coming out of history and into present, Delhi has really taken advertising to the next level. There are advertisements on the name plates of apartments, there are advertisements on pencils, erasers, and I am not sure...but the mythology books pubslished in Delhi may have a Levis ad on the back cover. People in Delhi are crazy about brands. I wanted to pick some cool t-shirts from the street and my cousin looked at me like I was dropping my level of existence.

Clothes in Delhi...might be a simple thing, but I never bought an original Levis for 200 bucks before...from the showroom. 90% off. Why would anybody want to give so much discount. And, this sale is all season. Tax is exempted from clothes in Delhi.

CP- One of the most busiest places in Delhi. Could be called a shopping street. or could be called a cinema paradise, or could be called an IT arena. Depends on what you are going there for. The buildings in CP are symmetric. White in color, standing on white pillars, but the sad part is that the buildings are getting weaker everyday and might fall anytime. I am sure that if it happens on a Monday afternoon, it will kill 1/4th of the Delhi population.

Delhi is a paradise for people who like shopping, peeping into history and rediscovering themselves, people who want to live without giving a damn, people who want to compete and grow, people who want to have more affairs than kids, people who want to live in a tight place, but fly in their own free space, people who want to eat good food and carry their stomachs in their half tucked shirts, people who want to meet interesting people (Indians and foreigners), people who enough money to balance it out after they are cheated, people who can maintain standards of living inspite of not being able to maintain a constant income. Don't forget to go to the red fort. Pandit Nehru's firing speech on Indian Independence still echoes amidst the big red walls. The flag, on top of it, will make you realize how difficult was achieving freedom, and how difficult we have made it for ourselves to sustain it. The capital city awaits you.

The Journey or the Destination?

Me and an equally impulsive friend, Vinu, set out on a trip to Bangalore. Usually, we travel on a bike, but this time we (or the people around us) decided that we travel by bus. Not our kinds, but we still got in and looked at each other in disbelief. The bus wasn't moving as fast as the thoughts in our minds. On roads, we are different people than we are in everyday lives. Life is fast and the eyes are always waiting to discover what lies on the other end of the highway. Anyway, we spent four hours on that 4 wheel discomfort (regarded as comfort by other people). For us, two wheels are enough to carry us and our visions and ideas of a journey. Then came Mehboobnagar, the first pit stop where the bus haulted and gave us 15 minutes for dinner. For me and Vinu, they gave us 15 minutes to re think whether we wanted to do this journey this way or could we still find out a way of our own. We found a way ( or probably lost our way to the destination). It was a mad idea, but we wanted to make this trip an adventure that we would never forget. We have seen Bangalore many times, but have never looked back and thought that the journey was as exciting as the destination itself. We left the bus there and gave our food away to a little boy who was moving around there, holding his younger brother in his arms, asking for money. We gave him a reason to sleep peacefully and gave ourselves a reason to stay awake all night. We were standing on the other side of the road now, with our wallets bulging out enough to attract crooks. Zombies, thats what we looked like and almost acted like. We split a cigarette and had some chai and then thought that the only way to travel now is to ask for a lift. Truck drivers, they do not stop because they do not trust people asking for lifts and when they stop, they do not look like they are trustworthy themselves. At 12:00 in the night, no one is. Finally a truck stopped and we asked for a lift. He was only going till Kurnool, which was 200 kilometeres from there. We got in and sat in the comfortable cabin. The back side was fully loaded with goods (probably smuggled goods :p). Vinu did not understand a word of what the driver and his friend were talking. He panicked, but I asked him not to, because i understood their language. It was my language, Haryanvi. They were from my village up north. I started talking to them in our lingo and Vinu relaxed. They were nice to us and we were nice to them in the form of being patient while they shared their life stories with us. They were painful and refleting. The driver had lost his wife and had 5 children to bring up. India-population explodes before the public service message reaches televisions (which they hardly have) . We stopped at a dhaba and sipped some more amazing chai. We moved on to become friends while the truck moved on towards Kurnool. The highway from Hyderabad to Bangalore is bad. It is under constrution, and I dont know how many times we missed an accident. The distance between us and our life/death was just a mirror. Sitting in the bus, in the back seats, we would never have experienced this. We got down at Kurnool and searched for a place to sit and straighten our backs. We lit a cigarette in hope that we get another truck to go further ( i know that others light candles in hope). We sipped some more local chai which was rich with flavours of ginger. We were wide awake, and now, refreshed. We waited for another truck, along with a lot of people standing there for buses at 2:00 A.M, to drop us at the next pit stop which was Anantapur. Finally, a truck stopped and the driver looked pretty young. It is only after we got in, we realized that the driver was fast asleep and the guy who was driving was a trainee, trying his hands for the first time that night. We tried calling the insurance guy back in Hyderabad, but there was no signal. He was driving slowly and we could see local people on bicyles overtaking us. It was nice and peaceful, that road. We looked up into the sky and got lost in counting the stars which we got to see after ages. We can't see them from the city anymore. There wasn't any smoke there except for what the moaning engine of the truck emitted. We were lost in the beauty of nature and listening to Metallica on my ipod. The truck driver was a little sleepy and we thought that that the best thing to do right now would be to engage him in talks and keep asking him some stupid questions that zap him. He said he would show us an old temple on the way where people come and sacrifice animals to please the holy goddess. How can a Goddess, who is pleased by sacrifice be holy? Anyway, it is the peopel and their ill belief that still binds our country in chains of under development. Before we could reach the temple town, we saw prostitutes standing on the side of the highway. They are looking into your eye, and are almost sure that you'll want them. Major popuation of HIV+ people in India are truck drivers. They stay away from home for months together and then they cant stay away from sexually transmitted diseases. At 3:30 in the night, with temperature hitting as low as 10 degrees, the girls(mostly under age) stood there in hope that tomorrow they would be able to eat if they are eaten by beasts like us tonight. Me and Vinu just looked at each other and turned away in helplessness. We went a little ahead and saw a dead body lying to the side of the road. No one wants to go and find out what happened. No one wants a police case and no one wants to be lying next to the body for over indulgence in other's business. We moved on. It was a wide forest area with no lights what so ever. Just our truck, our pain, our eyes that were never open like they were that night after seeing what we saw and after believeing what we did not want to. However, facts are facts my friends. We finally reached the temple. The crowd was gathering, and it was just 4:00 in the morning. We wanted to take another truck from there as we were scared to be sitting beside a driver was young, driving for the first time, and was sleepy. We tried negotiating with a few there, but nothing worked. We smoked, sipped chai and sat there wondering if we would reach Bangalore alive. Finally, a truck driver showed interest, but he asked for a lot of money. I said, "lets fuck off Vinu, it is not going to work out. I think we should stick to the same truck." The truck driver put his head out of the window and said, "what man..you are saying fuck off and all? I understand that language." We became quiet, started sweating for the first time that night, and started apologizing speechlessly. We looked worse than animals with dirty clothes and over grown beards, and he would happily sacrifice us to please himself and the holy goddess. We went back to our old truck and sat in it. We moved on, fell in love with the undisturbed trees, small lakes, and million stars in the sky. We reached Anantpur at 6:30. We saw teh sun rising in it's most beautiful form ever. We were hungry and nature was calling too. We attended the call and went to a stall where a beautiful woman fried some mirchi bhajjis for us. The mirchi had a lot of mirchi to make our mouths (and other holes) water. All we wished for was that the woman shouldn't take us wrong and think that our mouths are watering for some other reason. Anantapur is not a funny place. It is violent and aggressive. You'll be killed before you know what you have done. People stared at us like they were being disturbed by some odd looking youngsters who were roaming around their town early in the morning. We were tired to the core and again went and stood at the cross road to get another lift. We asked a cab, but he went way without replying. May be he was driving all night and was tired, or may be he just started and he dint want to start with people who looked like they are aliens. We were lucky enough to find another mode of transport from there. Bangalore was only 200 kilometeres away and we got two seats in a luxury bus for 100 bucks each. We went in and slept like dogs who hadn't slept for ages. We were tired and shook by the things we saw. We woke up listening to city noise, and we knew that Banaglore has come. We reached, alive, in one piece, with all our belongings and money, safe, secure, but disturbed by the sights. It was 9:00 in the morning and we thought we should call up and tell our people back home that we have reached. We called in turns and said, " we have reached safely." Our folks said, " you did the right thing taking a bus to Bangalore. Now have fun there." "Yes" we said, and thought to ourselves, that we did the right thing leaving that bus, or we would never experience whats wrong. After that, the life of Bangalore and the sound of pubs attracted us. I can guarantee that alike me, even Vinu thought of the journey with every sip of beer that went down our throat and every puff of cigarette that went down our wind pipe. Traveling is not just about reaching the destination. Traveling is about going close to your innerself, every minute, as your body goes close to the destination.

2008 and India

Vision-is a stylish word used by a lot of organizations who claim to be working towards the development of our country. Some of these organizations, I have noticed, work and get the desired results which favor the hope of our nation, but some just keep meeting every quarter and fill reports with false stories of self appraisal. What we need to do is work on one idea at a time. The Government has to start taking social volunteers from the youth of our nation. Open an idea in front of us, and if we believe that it will strengthen the roots of our every growing nation, we will participate in it. Not everybody feels for everything, and not everybody can think so much anyway. If I were to go be part of, or even dedicate my life to an initiative that I believe would change our nation's state, why would I not go? It is just that enough people do not know what is happening around them. Lets spread the urge to change like the wild fire. Lets volunteer and be responsible as we always desire.

India

This video is dedicated to our country-India. It has a lot to be loved and a lot more to be changed.

We-the barbed

Sky is a symbol of freedom. When you look up into the sky and see the sun shine back at you, you are free. Unfortunately, the clouds are dark and heavy. Dark with corruption and heavy with population. This is the present state of our country. We need to take it to a lighter and much brighter state. A state called freedom.