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People think of death as a fullstop. The end of a sentence. The culmination of a state of being. The climax. But what if life endures. What if it spills over, and carries on. And instead of a fullstop, what if life's more like a comma. A momentary pause before you continue your mission in another plane. I'd like to believe in a comma more than a full stop. So afterlife is not a new sentence, merely a continuation of what has already been said.

Maybe that's what we are. Sentences that go on till some sense has been made, with commas to accentuate certain learnings along the way. In that case, we add new words as we go along and use a comma to slip into another thought without having to change the sentence.

A sentence can have many commas, as long as it can, for example, this sentence, make some sort of sense. The idea is to have said something, to have made a statement about your life. The idea is to have less commas and distill your sentence into a succinct phrase, sans punctuation.

So a truly enlightened lifetime could read something like "I think therefore I am." instead of "Since I can think, and evaluate different thoughts and processes, it is natural to infer that my being constitutes of my thoughts and my own mirror of my conscious self."

And that would make ghosts, sentences in brackets. Stuck without an end, (in a state of suspension).

I know there are flaws in my theory but maybe if I think it throught, i might end at some conslusion. But I'm scared.

What if my sentence is something negative like "I'm wrong." Or "Learn from my mistakes".

But I don't fret that much. The universe, like a book requires all sorts of sentences to make sense. And being wrong doesn't make you a bad sentence. As long as the language is right and the meaning clear. I'd hate to be a sentence with a flaw, like a splenning mistake. Or uncorrect language.

Then you stick out like the last two sentences. And the editor may have to remove you. So you would have spent a lifetime, meaning nothing. Just a sentence that has been struck off.

Heavy Fuel

I saw first hand the indignities that time heaps on people when they grow old. It's not fair really. Watching someone who was once an alpha being turn into a helpless, zeta nobody. Some Red Indian tribes like the Irouquai would leave their old behind when they migrated. I wouldn't blame them. I'd rather be left behind and die in the cold, prepared to meet whatever comes my way, wolves or bears. At least I went down in a blaze of glory. Or as dinner. As nourishment for some being higher up in the foodchain than some worms underground.

It all hit home when I went to meet my uncle, my dad's elder brother. He's 14 years elder than my dad and was a stud in every sense of the word. He lost his right arm in the Indian-Pak war, and though it's been stitched back on, he hasn't been able to use it. In spite of this handicap, he's actively pursued his passions all his life. Tales abound of how he and my dad would drive across India in a Fiat Premier Padmini and later in a Maruti 800. He would light a cigarette with his left arm and lodge it between his fingers on the right arm, while driving non-stop for 9 hours at a stretch.

There's another instance where my dad, uncle and my grandfather had rushed into a cave in the jungles to escape from a sudden shower, when they heard a growl in the dark recesses of the cave. Everyone turned to see a leopard staring them down, ready to pounce, since it felt threatened and was caught with its back to the wall. My uncle calmly raised his rifle, kept it on my dad's shoulders and shot it throught the heart.

This man. This killer of leopards. This master of miles. This conquerer of fear is today afflicted with diabetese and finds it tough to climb a fleet of 5 steps.

And though my awe of him doesn't ever show signs of diminishing, no matter how old and fragile he gets, I can't help but feel that life should have been a little kinder to him. Him, of all people.

I don't want to grow old and worry about insulin shots and pensions coming to the bank and medical policies. I'd rather call it quits while I'm ahead. I am against suicide and wouldn't ever let life's problems push me into a cowardly act like that.

But is it cowardly when I'm 60 and think I have done all I can in my life? I won't be commiting suicide. I'd be retiring. From life. That's all.

Like Knopfler said

"With my ugly big car,
I'm going to climb this hill.
I'll write a suicide note,
on a hundred dollar bill.

Cos if you want to run cool,
you ve got to run on heavy fuel."

Black magic music

Art Blakey and the Jazz Giants - what can I say. I was blown away by the sheer energy of the album. You could power the city of Bangalore if only we could learn how to tap it. And what's amazing is that he started out a pianist and was forcibly steered towards the skins virtually at gun point. And a damn good thing it was I must say. Or the world would have been bereft of a drummer par excellance.

He started playing on my stereo last night and I couldnt let him stop. I kept him in an eternal loop till I released him at 5 in the morning. And come 10 o clock, he's playing again on my laptop in the office. Sorry Art, you know what they say. There's no rest for the wicked.

Motorhead

Hi-Torque, lo-torque, swing suspension, fixed suspension, 62's better than 67's. That's the lingo I dabble in nowadays. I'm considering buying a bike you see. I'm tired of waiting for good cruisers to come into India. I'll settle for a 350cc Royal Enfield instead. But I need an old model, 62 batch. And looking for it ain't easy.

It should come for around 12K. Another 20K spent on it to suit my preferences and I wouldn't need to beg others for a mount to ride off over the weekend. My parents would give me hell for it but it's ok. You see I've had two really bad crashes and they now fear for my life. The last one left me bed-ridden for 2 months with a cast the size of Antarctica. And I refused to get plates put into my leg, so I had to wear the cast for over 6 months. I moved around with crutches. But that was years back.

I will buy this bike. And so I shall have three means of transportation at my disposal. A car, a Motorbike and a bicycle. Four, if you count my Willys Jeep back in Delhi. Four means of transportation spanning four technologies and three types of fuel. What more can a man ask for.

World peace?

Scribbles

I haven't been writing much, simply because I have been sketching a lot. I've been scribbling away furiously with any instrument I can find, on any medium I could find. Since Monday, I haven't ceased scribbling.

It's like I just discovered I could draw and now I can't seem to stop. Anything from lighters to mobile phones to even fruits. Yesterday I spent the 3 hours in a meeting, scribbling on a pad, furiously sketching everything in sight. Pens, staplers, people, blinds, Ac vents, chairs... everything. At the end I realized that the pad belonged to the client and so I had to tear the pages and take them away with me before he realized what I had been up to during the meeting.

I've hatched and cross hatched myself onto every piece of paper on my table. Even the walls bear the brunt of my new-found love. How long it lasts, remains to be seen. Think I'll scan some of them and put them up on my blog.

It began, like most things do, with a 8B Staedtler pencil I bought on Sunday. I had decided to go and check out the Queen Victoria and KKing Edward statues put up by the Brits to commemorate their reign.

Puzzles

I have a funny feeling that one of these days I'm going to solve one of life's puzzles. It started with a rubic cube that someone got to office from one of their travels to bangkok. It's not a normal rubic's cube as in, it doesn't slide only on two axsis. It's one of those that come apart with interconnected parts. So when he unravelled it, he was left with a long string of interconnected cubes. It was lying around in the office and everyone tried their hands at it. But to no avail.

I walked in yesterday, and on my cigarette break, managed to solve it in 8 minutes flat. I just used the process of elimination, if it doesn't go here, it must go there. And soon I had it beaten. The guy refused to believe that I solved it and he unravelled it again. But try as I might, I'm not able to solve it again. I think, this time I'm trying too hard. I'm trying to look for a pattern consciously, whereas I should just play with it and let my sub-conscious take over.

And today, while giving it another shot, I managed to nearly put it together. Just that I missed out the pivotal segment in the middle. It got me thinking, if I find that pivotal part of my universe, I might be able to sort my life out too. And so i began to sift out the variables in my life and look for the constants.

It's not easy, I'll tell you that. Your heart wants to label something a constant, when you head tells you that it's just a variable. And sometimes, your head tells you that one component is a constant when your heart just glances at it and discards it as a variable. The challenge is to truly look at things with your soul and decide, without your heart or mind colouring your choice. That's the zen way to do it.

I have a feeling I shall be able to do just that in the near future.

Inspired perspiration

Do you know that a stallion when left with just one mare, tires of mounting her over and over again? But if another mare is intoduced in an adjoining stable, in sight of the stallion, it renews its vigour.

Much like the stallion, just one sms from someone really close to me, saying that he loved my blog has spurred me on to write more. And so last night, I galloped throught three poems in just an hour.

But then I awoke today morning, I realized that the pace showed in the verses. It read like a last minute homework. Like someone speeding on a cruiser or cruising on a speedster. It didn't belong. Makes me wonder if it's better to consistently write mediocre, or show flashes of genius between writing you won't wipe your ass with.

I don't know.

Amazing grace

This weekend ended up being a bit of a damper if it wasn't for a Hero Honda CD 100, that saved the day. Come Friday and I had planned a trek through the western ghats. The trek was to start from Kukke Subramanium (I think I've got the spelling right) to another place called Sakleshpur. The route is a 40 kilometer stretch of railroad that is currently being upgraded from a meter guage to a broad guage, through dense jungle teeming with wildlife.

The last bunch of people to go there promised me that it's as close to paradise as you can get without drugs. And so I was looking forward to this leasurely labour of love. But as usual my work required me to stay back on saturday and it would have been a folly to attempt the stretch with just one day to spare.

My regular motorably generous friend was a bit reluctant to lend me his steel steed. And so I awoke to a slightly cloudy Sunday morning sans an agenda. But I was determined to do something with the day, especially since the weather forecast said "Mostly cloudy with partial rainfall during the evening". ( For the benefit of our readers in cooler climes, this forecast is a good thing if you're living in Bangalore, especialy since it's getting on to Summer now.)

The phone rang in the middle of my preparations for breakfast and I lunged for it, leaving 'Suzanne's tasty sausages' on the pan with its chopped onions for company. The caller happened to be someone from work, calling to confirm the delivery of an artwork from the day before. Just as I was concluding the conversation, I remembered that he too owned a motorcycle. Not the 350 or 500 cc Enfields I was used to, but a very unassuming 100 cc Hero Honda, who's only claim to fame is that it gives you 60 kilometers per litre of petrol. On a hunch, I asked him if he would mind my borrowing his motorcycle. I was in luck as he was going out of town and wouldn't be needing it. Things were looking up already.

The problem with these 100 cc types is that firstly they are made for city riding. The idea being simply to get from point A to B. And so their heat up if driven for over 60 km at a stretch. Moreover they are really light, have thin tyres and shake everytime a truck passes you on the highway. But then again, beggars can't exactly be choosers.

Consequently, my choice of destination would have to be close to Bangalore. I vaguely remembered someone telling me about an off the track route into Bannerghata National Park. It seemed an attractive alternative to sitting around on my ass all day, so I set off.

An hour through Bangalore traffic saw me reach Bannerghata road, notoriously callled the third worst road in India. And rightly so since after a few kilometers, the semblance of a road is not be be found. There were piles of gravel that had thoughtfully been dumped in the middle of the road, so that try as you may, there is no chance that you'll miss it. Then there's the large patch of delightful potholes with a tattering of road in the middle. Ah! the joys of descending into the middle of a pothole on a light, narrow tyred, shocker shot, 100 cc, jap bike to finally hit the bottom with a thud and then go flying into the air only to land in another pothole. Ah! the sheer pleasure of feeling weightless only to descend and bang your balls painfully against the fuel tank that has so thoughtfully been designed for just such an eventuality.

The good part is that the ride kept me so occupied that I didn't even notice the scenary, which may I add was nothing to write back home about. And so leaping, skidding, aching, I rode into a square where one road went on towards the left and the other led to a Temple at the base of a seemingly monolithic rock. It was to the temple that I was headed. I parked my bike and began the ascent to the shrine at the top.

I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you about something that I have been noticing for some time now. There are no old temples in north India. Wait! That's been phrased wrong. What I should say is "There are no old temples intact in North India." Kindly let me explain.

Walk into an old Church and that is pretty much what you would get, an old church. Walk into the Kalka Mandir in Delhi which is supposedly thousands of years old, and it looks new. See my point.

In south india, a temple once built, stays pretty much the same. There might be slight changes in its structure, especially when another room or two is to be added, but still, it still looks old. Temples in North India are continually changing, thanks to the fervour and devotion of its devotees. A Baba Gainda Mal will donate 20 lakh worth of marble flooring to the temple and consequently, the flooring will change. Not to be outdone, Baba Lajpat ram will donate a truck full of granite. And so the favours come tumbling in.

Consequently, most temples in North India look garish, new and opulent. Like a rags-to-riches punjabi's house in Lajpat Nagar, Delhi. It's a pity since nothing draws reverence like the stone walls and austere look of the temples of old. At Bannerghata, I was happy to notice, Baba Gainda Mal had had no say.

It was quite a steep climb to the top, but I was delighted at reaching the summit as it offered a good view of Bangalore. And so after a few seconds spent bowing to the powers that be, I sauntered on towards the back of the rock.

The instructions I had been given involved entering the Bannerghata National park illegally. My friend hadn't told me in so many words but I suspected something it. Especially when he had told me to walk past the "danger sign that has something strange written in Kannada". And so I ambled on, past the danger sign. I was obviously heading into the jungle as I spotted elephant droppings after walking a few hundred yards.

Elephant droppings can be unmistakeably identified. The first thing that strikes you is the sheer size of the payload. The second thing is the colour and consistency. The colour is usually light brown and is fibrous in consistency. (Now that I have managed to disgust you, we shall move on).

Further observation revealed that it was distressingly fresh. That meant, I'd have to keep my wits about me. Especially since I had been toold that most of the pachydermic inhabitants of the National park have been rescued from circuses. And consequently they abhor humans. So much so that they may make time out of their busy schedule to see to your demise, should you happen upon one.

Still, I continued. This time with my heart nestled between my tonsils. 500 meters down, I came across an interesting phenomena which I later learnt was common tradition in Karnataka.

Apparently, after being joined in holy matrimony, married couples come to this deserted place in the jungle and collect stones in piles and place them here. These piles are supposed to symbolize the home that they intend to build and in this way they seek the blessings of the gods.

And so I found myself standing upon a hill top, looking out over a thousand little piles of rock. Some piles even had pcket fences marked out with small pieces of stone. One guy had even ventured to make it into a double storied bungalow complete with driveway. It was almost surreal looking out over this miniature township. I felt like God for about 10 seconds. That was before I heard a rustling in the bush. Then I felt like shitting.

It turned out to be a mongrel. After staring each other down, we turned away and went on our way. I made my way down a small winding trail. It seemed too small to have been made by anothing bigger than man so I was assured. The path soon traversed through a clump of bushes through which I could see nothing. But suddenly, I was in a clearing. And a spectacular one at that. I had made my way to the top of the last hillock overlooking the forest below. Below me stretched the undulating forests of the ghats, with a smattering of hills on the horizon.

The sheer beauty of the place made me stop in my tracks. The clouds were scattered in the sky, and so the Sun was playing hide and seek. Sometimes coming out to warm me, sometimes penetrating the clouds with just one large ray, giving the place a bibilical look. I felt that any moment now, the bush in front of me would catch fire and half an hour later I might find in my hands the new and improved version of the 10 commendments.

And so I sat down and gazed out over this vista, smoking Classic Regulars and gasping, every once in a while at the beauty continually unfolding before me.

Homecoming Queen

My body's back within the relative safety of my cubicle in Grey Worldwide with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. But my mind's still wandering. I walk around making conversation with people in the office, talking to clients, going to meetings. But I'm still not quite here.

If you saw me, you wouldn't know it, but I can feel it deep within. My analytical mind's here, taking on problems, dealing with common everyday issues, cracking campaigns and ideas. But another more important part of my mind's somewhere. Home doesn't feel like home anymore.

I was afraid something like this would happen, but I knew I had to do it. Before leaving I'd told a friend that this trip is bound to change me. For the better or for worse, remains to be seen. I remember shivering while packing, my pulse rate way higher than normal. A constriction in my chest. A part of me was telling me I shouldn't leave. This was no ordinary trip. It was almost like crossing a line that you know you can't come back from.

The closest comparison I can find is that guy in the movie the Matrix. The guy who betrayed Neo and the team, just to be able to go back and taste a juicy steak, even if he knew it was fake. I mean, no matter what he enjoys in that make believe world, sex, food, drink, success anything, deep down he'll know it's all fake. And sooner or later he would start to loath it.

I feel like that guy. I have come back because I have the security of a job, a salary, a car etc. etc. But I know now that I'm only pretending to like it. My soul's not in it anymore. I'm merely going through the motions. I'm playing the game just to be able to make some money to sponsor my next travel. But I feel like I betrayed someone. I was supposed to travel sans anything, but was too much of a coward to go on. Maybe someday I will have the strength to shake off all my worldly encumberments and leave.

For now, the coffee tastes good.