Category Archives: Myself

Life, Myself

Meta Post

A good friend recently mentioned that I’ve had a blog for almost ten years now. This was slightly shocking to me, because while the passing of time did register, it still feels more than a little…scary.

The blog actually turns ten end of 2012, and my, my, things have changed in nine years. Livejournal, where it all began, used to be this bunch of people just having fun. The LJ friends’ page was that generation’s Facebook status, young ‘uns, and unlike Facebook, you would find genuinely interesting content to peruse in the mornings. Actual written content, you know, not just a funny link or a professionally-written, well-articulated article. There were threaded comments, there was roaring LJ-Drama every once in a while. LJ also proved conclusively that it is possible to make – and sustain -lasting friendships online, even with strangers whose real names you did not know.

Beatzo, at that time, was this distinct personality. He was a fragment of who I was, a slightly deranged self-conscious pop-culture-humper who was trying to figure out if there were other people willing to play with him in his walled garden. He was trying to figure out how big the garden was. (Yes, I know, super-creepy talking about yourself in the third-person. But I don’t do this often, and I am talking about a persona here, so cut me slack, yeah?) For those who were not around in those Livejournal years, I used the image of Gollum as a user-picture, because that sort of fit.

I am not sure if Beatzo exists anymore, the character that he was back then and the voice he had in my head. If he does, he may be Beatzo v3.0 right now. (v2.0 was a maladjusted, angry little creature because of some people who pissed him off, and when he wrote, he really did not give a fuck.) And he’s also more of me than ever.

There has been prolonged periods of silence and of course, unrelenting quantities of self-indulgent blather. But I guess the blog has been a sort of weird daemon/shadow-creature/sounding-board for me all throughout. I still figure out what to say and what to leave unsaid. Much of what I write makes me cringe when I read it the second time, and I continue to write my posts in a frenzy of typing until I figure out it’s time to end or I get bored, and click on publish without that all-important edit pass. I am no longer up to writing wall-of-text posts, because I cannot handle them myself – a case of my writing habits adjusting to my online reading habits. My eyes just glaze over. Or I press Alt-tab. The moment a post crosses 500 words, I start telling myself that The Blather Needs To Be Contained. And I do.

But hey, it’s just a blog. Right?

And the funny thing is, I’ve gone on record telling friends that blogging is dead. It is, at least the version of what we thought of blogging 10 years ago. I miss unselfconscious writing, you know, seeing people I know just be themselves or their online personalities, playing their parts with unrestrained glee. Sure, all the memes, the clip-board videos and excerpts and photographs and the one-trick pony blogs have their place in the sun. But there is this dearth of everyday, non-schticky writing that just is. The kind of writing that reminds me of a quiet evening with a bunch of friends who would sit around talking about all the things under the sun. About the books and comics they read and the movies they saw last week, without having to go into deep critical commentary.  About their ride to the office and why it sucked, without trying to constrain themselves to a 140-character barb.

I am not sure if any of this is a complaint, or about what.

So, anyway, this is not a tenth anniversary post, because hey, this is not even the tenth anniversary. This is just me taking stock of things and trying to gear up for this artificially-induced mental reboot that the New Year brings with it. As if the passing of a calendar day can wash off the daily sediment off our lives and make different people of us. Nope. This blog will, in all likelihood, continue to be the same as it was two days ago. You, all of you who’re reading it and rolling your eyes or smiling along or have alt-tabbed before you read this, I still do not know who you are. Doesn’t matter, we’ll still have fun. Umm – actually, I will still have fun, you can join in. (That was v2.0 popping up to say hi, just so you know. 1.0 made a small appearance and forced me not to post this on January 1, because that would be too cliche. Sheesh.)

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Myself, Travel

My Big Fat Spanish Vacation: Barcelona Day 1, Half Of It

I landed at Barcelona airport on a Friday morning, with a tingling feeling in my tummy. Excitement – because I was going to have an awesome time. Mixed with trepidation – what if it rained? What if I got ripped off by cab-drivers? And a bit of semi-happiness seeing a random guy reading a copy of El Jueves. Most of the worries were taken care of in the first few minutes. It was a sunny day and according to the Information Kiosk at the airport, the path to my hotel was straightforward, involving a bus ride, a train ride and a short walk. I hadn’t reckoned with my luggage and the subway system in Barcelona. You see, I was carrying contraband of a graphic nature. Among other things, the one-volume twentieth-anniversary edition of Bone, a monstrosity of a volume that threatened to unplug my shoulders after a few meters of walking around the subway station at Plaça de Catalunya. Add to it the fact that the station was arranged across a horizontal spread, with multiple routes. It took me some time to find my correct line. It would have been a breeze without the luggage, but add the weight and the slightly air-conditioner-deprived underground, and I was rattling like a dehydrated marmoset. My stop was two stations away, and when I was out, I was like – fuck it, I can’t walk anymore. So I got a cab. Good thing I did too. Because pal Horacio, who came by the hostel for lunch, was about to leave after hanging around for some time. We met just as he was coming out. Pleasantries and Hellboy pages were exchanged – well, I gave him the page I was transporting for him. Horacio and i hit up a Catalan place for a late lunch near La Rambla, the tourist hub of the city. On the way, he showed me the Barcelona cathedral, pointed out the MACBA, the Barcelona museum of Contemporary Art – and most importantly, the comic-book shop he frequents in the area. It was closed, but the posters of Los Muertes Viventos (that’s the Spanish version of The Walking Dead, amigos) on the display window made me grin. Horacio left just before dark, because he had to take his son out to football and running late. (“my wife has run away with another man, Satya”, he remarked sadly, as his fifth phone call went unanswered, and then both of us burst out laughing. ) I decided to head back toward Catalunya again, because I had to pick up my friends from the airport – they were flying in from Cluj to spend the weekend with me. The Plaça was lit up brightly. People everywhere, sitting on benches, outside cafes, some even singing. It felt good. I sat down near the fountain, a little away from the crowd, breathing in and watching winter smoke swim out of my mouth – something that never fails to amuse. A young girl next to me, reading and smoking, turned out to be a veterinary student in her second year. She put her book down to talk, finished her cigarette, and then offered me some oranges. We looked at the fountain for a bit, and she told me how she loved and hated the crowds at the same time, how this time of evening for her was special because she could read in peace. She asked me to look her up anytime I am back. “How will I find you?”, I asked. “I am always here in the evenings”, she laughed.

(to be continued)

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Life, Myself

The Marina on a Foggy Evening

Winter’s almost here, and the season in LA right now reminds me of Assam. My kind of winter. A delicious chill in the air after dusk, and the rolling mist makes everything seem muted and somber – lights, passing cars and the boats.

The perfect weather to go walking and to take some pictures. It was brilliant, and as I went around the complex, part of me hoped that somewhere in the fog, I would come across a vendor selling roasted peanuts in a cart. And I would start to pay him and then realize that – shit, I have only dollars in my pocket, and paying a dollar instead of 5 rupees for a bag of roasted peanuts would be sacrilegious. I was glad I did not meet a peanut vendor, finally.

But there were only solitary people walking their pets, joggers panting as they thudded past me; strangely, a pig squealed from afar – I have no idea why, and I could hear sounds of laughter from the buildings nearby, presumably unrelated to the squeals. The air felt clean and fresh, I smiled at people, and they smiled back at me, and I came back home. Where there was Thai lemon and chicken soup, roasted duck and Thai iced tea to wash it all down. Was your evening better than mine? I don’t think so.

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Myself

Nothing

Too many things I want to write about, too little time. (“Less”, a voice says. “Little”, another voice corrects. Sorry, in-joke.)

I spent my first weekend in a long time in a glorious blaze of Do Nothing. Contrary to what people might claim, it is actually rather tough to Do Nothing. Not in the philosophical sense of the term, of course one has to be doing something at any given point of time. This was more about spending two days indulging in something that makes you answer the oft-asked Secret Brotherhood question (“how was your weekend?”) with a straight face, instead of collapsing in tears at the reminder that you have squandered a precious 42 hours of your life (counting Friday evening, and with a 18 hour Sleep discount).

But I had an excuse. A sore throat and the threat of an impending fever. I woke up at my usual time on Saturday, eager to bus-hop to Comikaze, the newest pop culture convention to hit Los Angeles, and my body refused to acknowledge any form of mental cajoling on my part. I went back to sleep, waking every few hours or so to make myself some tea. I drank a lot of tea that day.

At some point, I woke up and it was dark outside. Turned out it was 8 PM, and when I tried saying that out loud, I found out that I no longer sounded like Marlon Brando in The Godfather, my voice had taken on a Bachchan-esque timbre. Practiced saying “I am your father”, in both English and Hindi, while taking a shower, and the echo even added a certain gravitas to the proceedings.

I opened the apartment door, wanting to go grab some dinner ere slumber’s chains bound and totally BDSMed me, when I saw some random Thai restaurant flyer on the doorknob. Now normally, I would just go Krakatoa on flyers, ripping them while growling and frothing at the mouth and then stuffing them into the trash – yes, irrationality is another of my virtues, please bear with me. But that day, that flyer felt like The Voice of Alan Moore, booming at me in a Northhampton accent – “Thai food, you know you want it.” and then it proceeded to tell me a joke involving the Elder Gods and Daler Mehndi. Which could have just been the fever, but the accent’s still so vivid that I might try telling that joke myself some time.

I remember having really bad Thai food, and trying to watch Home Alone 3 on Netflix, and then deciding that Doing Nothing is better than self-inflicted torture. It’s all a blur after that.

Actually no, I just fell asleep. Again.

Then there was Sunday. Where I woke, felt much better, went to Comikaze (the flesh was still unwilling, but the mind, it led the way). Though I wish I did not. Other than spending $25 to buy 5 not-really-necessary-but-still-awesome comics (Age of Bronze, Luther Arkwright, Noble Causes), I did not really enjoy myself that much.

And then I came home and made 17 billion points on Monsters Ate My Condo.

I will probably delete this post out of shame a few weeks from now.

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Life, Myself

1998

Most years in my life are a blur of mundane events, with nothing outstanding to distinguish them from others. But 1998 stands out, for a lot of reasons.

I turned 18 the previous year, and was chomping at the bit, ready to leave Guwahati behind and looking forward to the strange new life that lay ahead after the different engineering entrance examinations. Those would determine my fate, whether I would go West, North, South, or stay behind in Guwahati. South happened, and when I walked through the gates of my college in Warangal, a place that seemed very different from my 18-year-old life so far, sure, I admit I was a little petrified. The fear however was not about leaving my old life behind, it was to do with the rotund, serious-looking, dry-voiced senior who had effectively taken charge of our luggage when we landed at the railway station and herded us towards the auto-rickshaws. And that was the scariest Udatta ever got, before I got to know him better.

But I get ahead of myself.

It was the year I saw my first A-rated movie in a theater. Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen. I told my mother I was going to see it, and found it really strange that she did not complain at all. Even gave me some extra money so I could have dinner outside with my friends once we were done.

1998 was also the first year my friends and I travelled with no adult supervision of any kind. To Nepal, where we spent heady nights in the streets, temples and casinos of Kathmandu, lost our hearts over random beautiful women in the city, and tried to behave more grown-up than we felt. My first taste of beer in a ramshackle hotel on the Indo-Nepal border, just because my friends found Budweiser for the first time – I ran down the hotel corridor looking for a wash-basin to spit up the mouthful I had swallowed, because it tasted so fucking terrible. Checking into a hotel in Thamel slightly out of our budget just because the receptionist was a drop-dead gorgeous girl who smiled at us when we went in. Ordering sizzlers for lunch and dinner, because we could. Then to Delhi, to apply for all the colleges there, because the Joint Entrance Examination results were late and we had to think of the back-up plan. The heady feeling when my father called up the hotel to say that it was fine, I could relax, the results had come in and I had not done too shabbily, followed by the twinge of regret about not having more money so I could go and have a good time. Trash-talking with the street-vendors in Paharganj, cracking Assamese jokes in Connaught Place, being loud, obnoxious dorky and wide-eyed, all at the same time.

Before the year was over, I would have gone to Calicut and Bangalore. I would have my first Kerala Beef Curry, and curse myself at having not tasted beef all these years. I would sing and play the keyboard on stage, in front of an audience, for the first time. I would meet the strangest people. I would make friends over the strangest things, like whistling melodies recognized in a bus. I would make friends who still are.

It was a good year to be in love. The year Titanic released in local theaters in Guwahati, and the year Silk Route released Dooba Dooba. The girl I was in love with was moving away to a different city. For an insane moment or two during college admissions, I had actually contemplated selecting  a college in the same state she was in. Logic prevailed, “love” was put in its place. I wonder how different life would have been had I let the heart decide. I still have her letters, written in a graceful cursive hand and littered with small sketches. She, on the other hand, has a kid.

It was the year I read the first Sandman comic I understood completely, and loved to bits. Issue 50, ‘Ramadan’. That giddy feeling when I first came across it in a library sale in Goa. Yeah, I was in Goa that year too, because classes were due to start a month or so after our admissions were done, and we could either stay on in the campus – and be incessantly by seniors stressed out by final exams, or just get the fuck out of the place and come back a month later. My uncle stayed in Goa, and there we went, my father and I, to spend a few weeks away from real life. I walked through the alleys of Panjim like it was fucking Wonderland; there were others I met, in addition to Gaiman – Indian Ocean, Vangelis, Michael Kamen, Robert E Howard. I didn’t go back to Goa for 12 more years; I’ll probably never go there again.

One last, enduring 1998 memory – me dropping my father off at Madgaon station, where he was taking his train back to Guwahati, my train to Warangal being a few days later. We stood on the platform for a bit, talking about this and that, about how I should tell him immediately if any seniors bothered me, and that I should have fun at my uncle’s but not trouble them too much. It was nearly time to leave, and he patted me on the back, and told me to get a move on – why wait until the last minute, after all? And this is where perception and memory play tricks with each other. My father remembers waiting at the door of the train so he could wave goodbye to me. But I strode away and did not look back even once. Maybe it was to avoid letting him see the tears in my eyes.  Perhaps it was a conscious act on my part, a fear that I would look back and he wouldn’t be there at the door and I wouldn’t like that one bit. Or maybe as a gesture of innocent stubbornness, as a friend put it, that tried to say that I had grown up. It’s a clear, burning memory for both of us – I did not look back. 1998 was the year I learnt not to look back.

It was a good year.

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