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After MoshMania, we stood in the nearby bus stop for 45 mins before the bus came. It was 459, the same one which we had taken to get there. The conductor mumbled inconherency while we gave him the money. To the passengers’ surprise the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere at a stop called “Yash Coach”. Had to take a rickshaw, with a broken meter, about which the driver revealed only after we reached Jogeshwari Station. After haggling and abusing him and giving him Rs.5 extra, caught a train to dadar. It’s not because of all these troubles that I am posting this. So what then?

hmm…reached Dadar. With all the headbanging and waiting my legs where killing me. I stumbled in. Looked around. It was jam packed. But then to my utter surprise I saw a completely empty row. My first thought was that the seats might be dirty, ..but then they looked clean enough. I asked a guy what was it all about. He pointed in the direction between the benches on the floor. When I took a glance there was this tramp lying there with just a shirt. Just a shirt. It was a very quick glance and I thought wtf, i’ll just look in the other direction. And I went and sat on the other side near the window. The people who were standing were staring at me either with jealousy for getting to sit or with loathing for being so insensitive. I stared them back. Out of morbid curiousity I decided to take one more look at the tramp. Then I saw his legs. They were covered with festering wounds, with blood and pus oozing. For rest of the journey I kept my eyes safely pointed out the window.
Suddenly I was really sad. Many stray dog’s manage to find adopting families. If someone finds a wounded animal they can call Maneka Gandhi. Why isn’t there a number where I can call now. Why didn’t the people do something………..
But then I was one of them.

Music

Some like them experienced, with knowledge of the moves, others prefer young, immature and tight. Likewise in music.

Today’s was tight.

I go to rock concerts like this for the energy, of people as well as the 10,000 watt speakers’. The less famous bands play earlier, but they also play it heavier. So what happens is this; if the frenzy zooms up in the beginning, and then as more famous bands play less heavier songs, energy goes down. So when Pentagram’s turn came, everybody was either exhausted or overdosed on pot. And particularly because I feed on the crowds energy, it was a downer.

Mosh

The pit here was the largest I have seen. And the fact that it was named Mosh Mania, gave it a certain legitimacy. There are certain features of the Mosh Pit. At the center of the pit are the hardcore rockers. With piercings and dreadlocks. If you are not one of them, you only go there if you are a daredevil like me ;). But these hardcore lot are the sweetest people I have seen. They may look like the devil’s massagers and doorkeepers, but even when one of the 100 kilo giants mosh a 60 kilo guy like me, they do it with care.

At the peripheries are the fakers. They are afraid of getting hurt but still want to get involved in the fun. They keep an eye behind their backs and make sure that there isn’t another faker behind him. Then all throughout they act as the fuel which keeps the pit burning. Whenever a mosher reaches the periphery they push him back in. And they don’t take much care of how they do it. And most will only push from the back, so that in case the guy gets hurt they need not take responsibility.

Not most of the times but, occasionally when I have been carrying a coffee cup for too long without coming across a dustbin. Also i stuff toffee wrappers and other bits into cracks of buildings and crevices between tables.

Yesterday we had an impromptu plan of going to Mocha, a nearby cafe. We picked a third friend working late in his lab, tripling on a kinetic scooter. This third guy had a bag of garbage which he had to dispose. We missed a dustbin on the way and were soon out of campus. Now chances of finding a dustbin were almost nil. So I took the bag and projected it to a point close to a nallah. Out of nowhere came these supergirl anTGarbageGirl and Superbroom and kicked the shit out of me.

anTGarbageGirl: Go and pick it up at once. seething with rage
me: compiling error…what where who…wtf?????
Superbroom: pick it up and put it in a dustbin eyes spewing fire

Now I could have picked the easier and funnier ways out….

option1-
me: Oh..I am really sorry, i’ll never repeat this.
Then go, pick the bag go inside the campus and throw it into a dustbin.

Why did’nt i do it?
Because apologies are meant to be said when you realize your mistake. But in my case there was no realisation. I already knew that littering is bad before throwing the bag.

Or I could have used a minutely logical excuse like …

option2-
me:Oh we are not throwing it, it’s too important to be thrown. It has got my SSC certificates. I am just keeping it here for safety, and when we return I will take it back.

option3-
Or I could have just keep my mouth shut and done a amitabh style baraat naach.

What I did was making lame excuses with a ruffian’s tone in my voice. But the supergirls were hard nuts, even my gunda from Bihar accent did’nt budge them. Meanwhile my friend who was behind me (the actual master of the bag) went in a jiffy picked up the bag and ran into the campus to find a dustbin.

I did’nt even see him go. Here I am standing having a verbal duel with two supergirls, being a total villain, and my sidekick dumps me and goes to find a dustbin.

When they saw him go picking up, they stopped mid-sentence and dug their spurs into the autodrivers back. I was like, “WTF??” and when I turned back I realized what had happened. I am not speaking to him for two days :–X .

Next post would be a justification of my actions. Or I’ll just forget the whole episode as one of my ego trips. I hope my attempts at humour have at least partially covered-up my “atrocious” act.

I was in my office on 26th, when it started. Initially it was drizzling just like everyday, but gradually it grew in intensity. It got our full attention when the power supply went off.

There is a hill facing our office building. On its slope are hundreds of hutments. Near the base the hills are also excavated for stones. This excavation has caused the hill to have a abnormal cliff formation on top of which the hutments start.

As the rains continued mini landslides started to occur. The houses which were just on the border of the cliffy side where increasingly becoming prone. Finally a whole room collapsed, as the ground beneath turned into slurry.

Meanwhile I and Prakash went outside to ‘enjoy’ the rains. While people were taking shelter beneath whatever they could find we ventured out without our umbrellas; wallets and mobile phones inside polythene wrappers. Ladies in white clothes would have really cursed their luck, as their wet look made ooglers out of many men. Walked back to my hostel and am living happily ever after.

One thing which I realized following this event is that death does not effect me much. Unless I know the person, it’s just a statistic. And I think I not the only one. I do not want to make a general statement like, “Everybody feels detached here”, because I cannot prove it. Maybe it is because deaths so much a part of our life. When there are so many people, there are also so many deaths. It is considered a good omen in our country if we pass by a funeral. Westerners would freal out if they hear of this. Afterall the word “Paarthiv”, used to denote ‘dead’ bodies literally means pure. At the least indians are not very scared of death. Also death does not have a morbid smell here. So is that why bomb blasts or floods do not deter people from going to their jobs the next day.

And since there is no power supply in my office building since that day, I am on a forced vacation. And thus safely cocooned from nature I have (un)luckily missed out on all the excitement, of being stranded on a double decker bus, of being without drinking water, etc.etc. I have got no tales to tell. Well, except maybe for a tiny one. Yesterday on my way to my friends flat who lives nearby, I saw the dead body of a dead puppy. It was lying not 5 feets from a tap where women were fighting to fill their pots. It had a collar cum chain made of a rag. The body was bloated. And a crow was picking on its eye. I felt like chasing the crow away, but realized a sec later that it was only doing its job. And maybe the other people also saw that. I am not sure if it was a sad scene or a powerfully real scene, but that was the only time I was moved.