Teenage americana

Kamathipura is famous for another thing. It’s chor markets. Fridays and sundays, morning 4am to 7am, in an alley called “ded gali”, or 1 1/2 alley, is held the shoe market. Brands like NIKE, REEBOK, ADDIDAS, WOODLAND and others, any model less than 800 bucks. My sneakers are in pretty good shape, so I caught on my sleep while my roomies went and brought back a great deal. I’ll go there on a friday, as there is also an electronics bazaar on fridays. I need a floater, but that can wait for the rains.

Then went for some shopping to HUMA mall. Had the new flavors from kwality icecreams, with funky and alcoholic names. But the vendor says it does not have alcohol, just flavors.

And i am just back from go karting. It had never occured to me to try it. The closest i had got to the track was 5 years back, when fresh in mumbai, i heard about a movie shoot at the track. Back then celebreties were still godlike (for me) and when aishwarya rai had deigned to come, i had no option but to go. Part of a mob standing outside the tracks, patiently taking in the numerous retakes of a song. When the shot was ‘cut’, aish walked towards her dressing van. And the mob broke the lines. The few security personnel could’nt do anything. We ran towards the van. With numerous emotions flooding on aish’s face, most of them synonyms of fear, she looked even more beautiful. She was about to reach the van’s door when we reached her. Nobody did anything, she had such a presence. Everyone stood around making a circle with her in the center. No one said anything, for a moment. Then the security guards came back with backup. Aish lifted her hand and waved. And everybody waved back.The security whisked her into the van. And that was that.

5 years later had a even higher high on the same tracks. When i first sat at the wheel it did’nt take much time to get confident. And even before 1/4 of a lap i was speeding. And when the first sharp turn came, I took a left (or some such thing), on a clockwise track. Bang, into the tyres. The first thought was “fuck..is the kart alright, i don’t want to pay for damages”….but then i saw no hanging pieces, and the “pit man” came running. With a warning of doing it coolly, flagged me off, metaphorically. The rest of the laps were sheer fun, though i could not reach my full potential because of the “bang” scene in the back of my head. But go karting sure kicks any drinks ass, in the highness quotient.

Future plans, deep and i are spliting costs on a skateboard. And a BMX bike.

While my body is headed towards middle age,
i am headed towards teenage americana.