This week that year

A cautionary fore statement would be that this post is in no way related to Valentine’s day or the likes. (The author believes the whole concept of Valentine’s day blah is nothing more than overrated celluloid induced kitsch, but well! That’s just the author’s opinion and a completely different story reserved for another day)

Anyway, I just sit here wondering what was going through my head and life at this time of the year over the last many years. I am surprised with a realization that I  am mildly victimized by a selective memory phenomenon. In other words, I don’t really remember what I was doing during the Valentine’s day week pre-2006. Honestly, I really don’t  😉

In 2006, I remember being on a roll. I had just lost some weight, feeling very good. IIIT-H (my alma mater) was having her annual fest , felicity. It was fun though I spent my moments wondering

1. if I should get a girl friend (haha! As if they grow on trees!)  or continue to live a free life ( Khula saand if I am allowed to use the partial profanity :p)
2. if I should seriously give CAT a shot or have a happy workless life working in some small time company

2007   V-day week was a little more eventful. I had to prepare hard for two things  … the IIM interviews  and trying to finish more than 4 laps at the Gachibowli stadium’s  swimming pool (never managed to 😦 )  And of course, life was taking quite a beating on the emotional side due to my sheer lack of emotions (or rather no opportunity to display them)  in life around that point of time. (dead inside ?! What a loser … :P)

2008 V-day week was at Joka (God bless Joka!! ) , the IIM-Calcutta campus. Academically, it was the worst period of my life. No dont get me wrong . Life was awesome … but my scores were low  that term. So thats why the previous statement.

Anyway, it was also the time when I carried out some self inflicted fradulent romanticism. For instance, since most of my pals were blaming me for the highest levels of insensitivity, I went to the jetty on the night of 14th Feb, took a chocolate , said *happy valentine’s day* and  threw it into the lake. The jolly good batchmates of mine actually thought I was treating the campus lake like a wishing well for future romantic opportunities . Lol …  how sweet of them ! little did they know that I did it only because I was a tad drunk and was trying to get rid of the chocolate because a caterpillar crawled on it … voila !

2009 and 2010 V-day weeks were  killers … I wouldn’t talk too much about personal stuff 🙂

2011 V-day week …. started off with Lalla getting married  😀  and I was so happy for him…see! So much for fellows blaming me on the insensitivity factor. Now I have to go someday to London to party with Lalla and Lalli 😉

Well ! Right now … I am sitting here with my bags packed and would be on a flight to  Palolem, (Goa) in another couple of hours . Well I am not exactly a romantic… more like a party fella who enjoys the dark paradoxes of life a little too well …need I say more ! 🙂

– Ghost Runner

Mindset of solitude

****

In a city of mechanical cold

Filled with true facts of old

About unending stuff on a platter

Like weekends, parties and babes

And all  a hedonist could behold

At an annual time of yearly vacations

When you strive on stuff of relations

Like a social being in all bliss

Surrounded by pals, allies and money

And the scorchers you could kiss ….

Yet he sits in a mind set of solitude

All seems immersed in platitude

To stare, frown  and shrink in darkness

Wouldn’t care  if gobbled by a lochness

The only feeling is cold … heavy … numbness

****

Its pretty obvious that the idle mind is the devil’s workshop. So said dad during the holidays at home.

So said the legendary El Papa , the flat mate of mine in Mumbai.

The author doesn’t really understand whether its any evil or bad-guy allusion in particular. But the thought flow in fursat (idle state) is certainly chaotic

Anyway, Christmas hols are here and I am stumped with a 3 day long weekend. One does live  weekdays wondering about the relaxing long weekend one would have at the turn of the week. But yet, when it arrives you have no idea what to do other than sleep and eat. And yeah! The thoughts flow uninterrupted by day to day phenomena …

Throw in flat mates going away for the weekend and you are stuck in your huge 3 bedroom apartment all for yourself. Its an amusing kick, the thought that goes the Culkin way , “The guys left me home alone” . Freedom ..pristine, invisible and unaccountable! But yet , the kick is temporary and gets overshadowed by thoughts. Just thoughts …old thoughts which one usually tries to subdue with the weight of your job, your businesses, and living through the present day deliverables.

I wonder if something like The last solace in a Universe of Chaos exists. A romantic would impulsively say that the panacea to this requirement is love! But borrowing from good ol’ Al Pacino from the Devil’s advocate , Insipid! The same sensation that occurs as an equivalent to consuming a buxom quantity of dark chocolate ….

So good ol’ Pacino suggests a substitute that is way cheaper and free of baggage.So I actually tried chocolate and ice cream while watching TV. Nopes! Didn’t really work. The claustrophobia and the solitude persisted. That reminds me of good ol’  Sam , an old friend from IIM-C.

With Sam, I worked out this concept of bliss in solitude . But I guess besides  the kick of a soundingly, apparently , theoritically peaceful approach, it didn’t really work. Perhaps because I am not into being a lone ascetic yet 😉 Or perhaps because all these days, I have been lonely anyway, irrespective of people always being there around me.

So its not even physical solitude that seems to be the problem. Just the thought coming up since I have the time to let it come up for these 3 days. The thought that I have been living  in a mind set of solitude, either dormant or active. all along

I shall then,pump up at the gym a bit, do my twilight jog,  dress up in my funkiest way to date,  and hit the city after the Sun goes down.

Is there such a thing as the last solace in a Universe of Chaos .  . Lets see, wonder and hope an answer comes …

yours truly,

still the dark,fast and fiery,

Ghost Runner