Return of the Caveman

Recession does strange things to people.While for the majority its all gloom , for some rare ones it gives a glimmer of hope. On a sunday morning a few days back , as I lay on my back contemplating my bleak future , a ray of hope came to me in the form of a report on the sunday supplement of the Times of India.Like all other reports on the garishly colourful but extremely informative sunday supplement , this report too was spiritually and mentally uplifting , infusing in me the "Korbo ,Lorbo,Jeetbo Re" spirit .The report is a highly scientific study on the growing trend of men sporting a stubble or in some cases a full beard.The writer , while dissecting the trend under the context of current socio-economic conditions , quotes a particular psychologist, who has the following pearls of wisdom to offer
"During the times of recession ,women tend to prefer security over flamboyance and hence would prefer the caveman over the metro-sexual man".
Yes! Yes! (pumping my fist) The final nail on the coffin of the metro-sexual man has been stuck!O you metro-sexual male , with your manicures and pedicures , your designer clothes and "I am so cool attitude", O all you worshippers of the stammering king,get ready to get you waxed asses whipped by the Caveman cause the women of the species have finally discovered good taste.Things have come a full circle .The Caveman , with 2 of his shirt buttons open, exposing the amazonian rain forest on his chest and with a cigarette dangling from his lips, is back with a vengeance. As recession brings out the basic instincts of womankind , I can only hope we see the return of the real Indian male as epitomized by the great Mithunda in one of his classics -
"Dekhne mein bewda,
Daurne mein ghoda
Aur maarne mein haathoda"
The Caveman is here to stay ( and so is the recession!)

P.S-
At this happy hour , my only lament is that recession should have occured 4 years back when I was an engineering student because that was the period when I had the closest resemblance to the Neanderthal man.

Haikus on blogger's block

I

A blinking black line,
Stares at me from fields of white
Mocks my empty mind.


II

With wine on my breath,
And fingers on my keyboard
To write or to sleep?

III

Boredom, mistaken
As zen state of nothingness
Creates bad haikus

Thoughts on home

"Homeward bound
I wish I was
Homeward bound
Home, where my thought's escaping
Home, where my music's playing
Home, where my love life's waiting
Silently for me"
-Simon and Garfunkel ( "Homeward Bound")

After wishing to be homeward bound for what seemed like zillions of years , I finally took a flight to Guwahati after a tiresome assignment in Saudi Arabia.The idea of home evokes different emotions in different people.For me the idea of home has always been along the lines of the Simon and Garfunkel song above.It is a place which gives you the comfort of familiarity.The joy of sights , sounds and smells that you grew up with , the joy of laughing over the jokes you have heard countless times before , the pleasure of getting up late and then playing your music at full volume.Home also means eating fish for both lunch and dinner ("so sad he doesn't get to eat fish in Pune"), lunch invitations from long-forgotten acquaintances and getting updated on the extra-marital affairs of each and every male character in the the never-ending television soaps.It also means confronting questions about my marriage plans with my beer belly often acting as an indicator that here is someone pretty well "settled" and eating well and hence needs to get even more "settled" into a life of marital bliss.
Life in Assam at times seems to be caught in a time warp.Ofcourse there is Guwahati , which seems to be like a child on a growth spurt as a result of a hormone injection.However,stepping out of the chaos of Guwahati , there is always the sense that things havent changed at all.The roads are still the same ( atleast in lower Assam), there are still enough power cuts to keep the generator and inverter business running and the newspapers are still filled with reports of road mishaps and shootouts between extremist and Army jawans.
I was fortunate to make a trip to the extremely picturesque Manas National Park on the Indo-Bhutan border. Its a place of such breathtaking beauty that even if you have no interest in wildlife you will come back with memories you can cherish for a lifetime.Its one of those places which redefines your ideas of happiness and makes you feel like Christopher McCandless of the movie "Into the Wild".I also visited this quaint little Bhutanese town called Panbang which seems straight out of a picture postcard.It has made me even more certain that Bhutan will be the place I would like to settle down at some point in my life.I guess with my pot-belly , it would suit me to be a Buddhist monk as it wont take much effort for me to resemble the chubby monk which appears on the labels of all bottles of Old Monk rum.
As I write this , my mom is packing my bags for my return trip to Pune , stacking it with my favourite "boga pitha" - though its a different matter that all that will remain of it after making the long tortuous journey to Pune would be a mass of sweet white powder.Its time now to return to the big bad world..the world of formal shirts, swipe cards ,insipid food in tin boxes and stale canteen coffee...of getting up at 7 A.M and rummaging through my wardrobe for a pair of clean socks...of coming back home and discovering that your Kaamwali Bai has decided to take a casual leave for the 4th time in the same week..such is life!!

Poems by a fan of Neruda and Mithunda -3

Belief

I believe..
In the dampness on my pillow,
That still smells of the rain
On your wet hair.

I believe..
In the shattered window pane,
That trembles to the wind
On a cold February evening.

I believe..
In the creaky old bed,
Where we lay entwined
Like creepers on a moss covered wall.

I believe..
When there is nothing left to believe,
All that remains
And all that lingers
Is just emptiness, and
The sound of rain on my tin roof.

P.S - Happy New Year to all..i had an awesome booze filled new year bash at alibagh..discovered for the first time that women staring at my perfectly spherical beer belly makes me feel like a sex object.