Oh, bollocks.

'I want a conversation.', he said. 'Nothing else.'

She didn't reply immediately. She didn't flee either, though truth be said, she looked like she wanted to. She looked at him, too many expressions fighting for precedence in her eyes for him to single out any one of them. Then she gave a shrug, not the shrug of someone giving up, but of someone resigning themselves for a drawn out fight.
'Fine.'

He sighed, and plopped down on the grass, stiff and itchy. Nevermind. He wasn't particularly in the mood for this either. But he'd asked for it. He sat and looked at a line of ants on the pavement carrying a bit of a leaf back to their queen mother, linked, as they were in comics, by the hive mind. Everybody knew everything. Boy, that would be so great. These situations would never come up. He looked back at her. She was staring into the middle distance, playing with her hair, looking supremely uncomfortable.

'What d'you want to talk about?'

Awkward silence I.

'Anything, I guess. Did you know that ants communicate by... wait, you didn't seriously expect me to sit and complete that, did you? You would've let me waste this conversation too, like all the others before it?'

'I would actually like a conversation like before. When you were happy, and we would talk about all kinds of random stuff, and laugh and i would listen to you ramble on about things that i understood neither head nor tail of.'

'Like an indulgent parent towards a particularly dense child who's just managed to memorise a nursery rhyme? How considerately condescending of you.'

The fact that he had taunted her sunk in only when he noticed the change of expression on her face. He wasn't a cheery soul, but he hadn't meant to be sarcastic. Well, not so early on, anyway. Ah, well.

'Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I was just...'

'Whatever. Its okay.'

Awkward silence II.

'All right. Enough with the mushy pseudoemotional balderdash. I can indulge my endless need for self loathing and take it out on you, but i'm bored of that. We could try to thresh out our feelings, possibly fight over inconsequential differences, and feel that we've put it behind us, but that's not going to happen, and the endless cycle of disagreement, contained resentment and subsequent release is going to lead us back to this juncture at some point anyway. So lets try something different. Think about it, tell me what's going on in that mind of yours, and we'll take it from there.'

'....'

'I take it from your blank expression that you didn't really get any of what i just said, did you?'

'No, not really.'

She was smiling now. Good. At least his rant had served the intended purpose. He meant all that he had said, though he hadn't expected her to follow any of it. Reasoning, logic and other rational arguments apparently had very little to do with conversation, and it had taken him a while to understand that, and even longer to actually put it into practice. Earlier, he would've gotten frustrated and repeated the entire thing. Now, he just made a face and smiled back, and said,

'Well, crap.'

Awkward silence III.

He got up. Stretched, and then hopped around for a while flapping his arms and saying, 'Aaaaaaaaaaargh! Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!!', before banging into a lamp post and falling to the ground, twitching spasmodically.

'What are you doing?'

'I dunno. It helps.'

'Should I give it a try?'

'Sure, why not?'

And she did the same.

'You're not getting the flapping bit quite right...'

'Oh, bollocks.'

'Okay. I'll just shut up then.'

Awkward silence IV.

They sat together, huddled against each other, and watched the sun set. It was exactly like a thousand sunsets before, and a thousand sunsets after. That didn't stop it in any way from being spectacularly beautiful, though, as a giant ball of molten gases performed perspective tricks before vanishing across the horizon for the period of half a diurnal cycle. He felt something small and warm slip into his hand, further inspection of which confirmed it to be her anatomical counterpart.

He turned towards her, and saw twin suns setting in her eyes, and resisted running away, or jumping off the terrace, or picking his nose, or any of a hundred different ways to screw up the perfect moment that a hundred insistent voices whispered to him, coyly and enticingly. He turned a deaf ear to them all and drew her closer to him.

He finally understood. They didn't need words. Or actions. Or thought. They didn't need to spend time with each other, or demonstrate their feelings in socially accepted, and commercially encouraged ways. Permanence was overrated, forever was a very long time. They were what they were, at least, for the moment. Change happened, and could either be dealt with, or not. Tomorrow might bring very different reactions to the same sunset, though the sun didn't really care about that. What happened, happened, and indulging in counterfactuals and regrets just wasted the time they had now. All this, in the span of a few minutes, at the end of which he noticed she was staring at him in a rather amused fashion. 'Wajjap?', she asked. A smile played on the corners of her lips.

'I think a fly just went up my nose', he said. And sneezed.

Four shots

'Its more fun headbanging when you have long hair.', she says. A grin, bordering on maniacal, lights up her expressive features, cast into sharp relief by the flickering lights, before turning away again. Her body moves in perfect synchrony with the music. The light streaming through the volatile tangle of her hair frames a halo around her head.

I look at the stage, the crowd, feel the heady, inebriating atmosphere, laden with notes resounding and notes unsaid, with memories of laughing with good companions, of better times, of times alone, memories, some real and some false, of how it was, and how it could have been, of concerts past, and pubs, and singing off-note in the middle o' the street in the middle o' the night, of celebrations and consolations, of unexpected achievements and bitter disappointments, of melodies, moods and moshpits. As the music lifts me up, jerks me around, and clouds my vision, and invites me down a path I'm intimately familiar with, I let myself go.

----------------------------------------------First shot.----------------------------------------------

We sit at the restaurant, the sole guitarist plays jazz, a saxophonist beside complementing him, both of them going off into odd little solos in the middle, while the other one, with impeccable timing, drops into the role of the rhythm, both of them keeping the beat without the aid of any percussion, a telltale tapping of the feet all that shows the effort behind mastery.

Utterly mesmerised, we watch the tight pair, our drinks untouched, as they go on playing, in their own world, unhurried by the whirl of life moving half tilt, full paced, around them, drawing all of us along with them with the gentle tug of their music. I notice an elephant outside the window, deeply in thought as it listens to the performance. As the piece comes to a close, it trumpets. The time blurs, I jump again.

----------------------------------------------Just getting started.----------------------------------------------

'Breathe out into my mouth', the dude with the badge. I start, involuntarily, and step back. I've been standing in a line so long that temples had begun to sit up and take notice. All right, maybe not that long, but conventional virtues like patience had long since been worn to nonexistence in our quixotic crusade for international music, tinged with uncertainty of whether the promised land shall indeed be ours, and expectations shall be lived up to.

The fans that were initially so full of eager talk of past concerts, the foreign ones especially inexperienced of indian lines, have sullenly retreated into their music players, as the opening bands start their performance for the night, and heads jerk up. It appears as if the organisers have taken a note or two from the temples after all, as a television streams proceedings from the inner sanctum. Everyone crowds towards the entrance, and they finally start letting people in, but if you thought this was the start of something beautiful, then think again..

'I'm sorry, what?' I'm still taken aback.
'Breathe. You are drunk. I know.'
Me? A strict teetotaler, and drunk? How dare he? All right, I need to bluff now. Think, think.
'I've got a nasty cold. You know, red eyes, runny nose. You don't want it.'
This point seems to strike home. His resolution of my inebriation seems to waver. 'But you are drunk?'
'Nothing but cough syrup, bhai.'
The crowd from behind is pushing and jostling, and somehow this lends credence to my sincerity.
'Ok, ok. Go.'
In as close to a straight line as i can manage, i walk in, triumphant. The band up on stage performs a drumroll in my honour. I bow, to nobody in particular. I decline a joint from a passing acquaintance, for the time in the line has made us like brothers, and run up to the front, as much as i can manage. The scene changes, the time changes, with the song drawing to a close, to the dawn of a new day.

----------------------------------------------Second shot.----------------------------------------------

The bass starts the set. The guitars cry out, wail, scream, sing, and carry you through a bewildering multitude of vicarious emotions. I'm on my toes one moment, and on the ground the next. The crowd sways gently with the music, as the undercurrents in the music translate themselves into a surge of emotional release. Mobile phones and cameras light up the backs of the sea of heads. The set grows tight, leading up to the highlights.

The tempo increases gradually, the band does not speak much, it does not need to. The beat grows erratic, true to its progressive genre, and suddenly the calm crowd loses its serenity, its sync. Two concerts merge into one as the song gives way to a rougher tone, choppy and forceful, as the crowd begins to push and shove. Gentle nudges push aside the more passive observers as a rough circle begins to form in front of the barricade. Some people are already in there, their heads going up and down, fists clenched, oblivious to their surroundings. I stumble forward, my head dipping and weaving, and come to a stand, feet spread apart, From outside the circle, a form hurtles, clad in a metal t-shirt, and tackles one of the headbangers with his shoulder, rocking him around, and he responds in kind, a lining of people now separates the emerging pit from the outside, and tries to make sure that there are no unwilling participants. The pit is violent in its absorption, people push and get pushed back, fall down, and get right back up, the music being the sole object, perception overloaded to an extent that nothing else matters. The master of puppets increases the tempo to a climax, and slowly brings the song to an end, wherupon the enervated moshers gather their wits upon them, and raise their hands in the only salute that the situation demands.

The next song is smoother, softer, like the caress of a lover after the more passionate lovemaking has come to a sated close.He leads up to the solo, the crowd is awed. I am awed. I remember the solo that followed, but not much else. The lights psychedelic. The sound refined to a point where it cuts you like a finely honed rapier, leaves you utterly drained after the song. 'so now where?'

The lilting melody of the opening riff of Trains lifts you off, into utter bliss. You do not talk, you aren't capable of it. Your eyes are open. Or maybe they're closed. This experience is as ephemeral as an out of body experience now. You cycle through emotions you didn't think you were capable of. You reach dizzying heights of elation, then abjectly feel depressed, not knowing the source of your grief. you pine for the love of your life, or not. You sing along. You stumble forward, and realise you have a foot, on the ground, at that. You're a bit surprised. They start playing the interlude. The crowd's clapping, en masse. You look up, and find that you're clapping too.

----------------------------------------------*Hic, where were we?----------------------------------------------

It finally takes a jam session to get us started. Us of the timeless continuum of music. The keys go wild, bodomlike, the guitar acoustic plays ubiquitous. Silence reigns as a drum solo is attempted, and pulled off. For a moment there is silence, a warm, anticipatory silence, waiting for the first notes to float in the air. And it begins. Albeit a few dozen hours late, thank the soundcheck, not that they're to be blamed. Its a day of firsts. The small enclosure is packed, well, as packed as it gets.

The tracklist warms up slowly, with the food stalls demanding a desultory visit in the space between two songs, or one that isn't a personal favourite. As the evening progresses, and some metal finds its way into the audience's ears, a lone wolf goes to the centre, and begins to headbang, unmindful, unheeding of the eyes 'pon his back. Emboldened by his misplaced bravado, some more go and join in, and soon enough, the spiral does its work, and the whole place is a raucous, stoned, motley of jumbled bodies, arms around each others shoulders, as a single organism that breathes to the sound of the music, including the ones in front of, and indeed, around the players themselves, who are as much a part of it as the audience is.

As the song comes to an end, and the encore after that, the sweaty, pulsating, out-of-breath revelers disentangle themselves, and settle down on the grass for the ending credits.

----------------------------------------------I think i losht count..----------------------------------------------

Its chilly, and depite the warm clothing, there's a nip in the air. We rub our arms as the band, if, indeed you could call them that, for they're no more than schoolkids, frankly, get up on the small platform that serves as stage, and strap their guitars into the tangle of wires that seemingly impossibly leads to the assortment of old speakers behind the stage, the whole setup looking as if borrowed from the scrappers for the night, the ancient stage oddly at odds with the youth of the performers.

The kids start with style, they might not know tricks to woo the audience, or using the lights, but they know their stuff. They start with covers from the golden ages of classic rock, and go on from there, and most of the crowd hums along, the young, the old, the street peddlers, the cap sellers, and the little furry dog that always seems to turn up at these gatherings.

----------------------------------------------Third shot.----------------------------------------------

A concert in the land of cheap booze, I had thought. Why not? How bad can it be? And here we were, on a beach, a bottle in our hands, singing the chorus of Hey Jude. I try to recall what had happened in the evening, and skip back a few hours.

I'm at the entrance to the venue where the gig's at. I notice a few people sneaking into the stage from under the barricades without paying the customary tipple for entry, and full of righteous indignation, I approach the authorities, who show me the error of my ways, and the beauty of being in a miniature utopia like this,'Dude, look. If they're desperate enough to sneak in from under the barricades, then they deserve not to pay the entry fee. Chill, enjoy the show. Have a beer.' There are couples sitting on the grass, and a gathering crowd near the stage, the music is folksy, but not quite. It has a bit of rock in it, and a bit of jazz, and a whole lot of interesting stuff that the mind ventures to identify. Sitting down, standing up, that day, this morning, the tune is catchy, infectious. With a start, you realise that you're singing the lyrics of the song, a minute earlier you didn't even know you knew them.  The first band's a three piece instrumental affair, with the drummer supplying the occasional vocals. But its the second, who come on stage and blow everyone away. Who knew so much could happen with three guys and a quart-er?

----------------------------------------------I swear i'm not high.----------------------------------------------

I seem to have landed back in the present. As the blurry shapes resolve themselves, I realise, that the frontman's climbed up the scaffolding. A solo of epic proportions is going on, so much as to seem a jam, laying bare the essence of their unique style as a band.

----------------------------------------------Panic.----------------------------------------------

The band bows and walks off stage, before the crowd has time to react. A collective gasp. Hushed whispers, are they coming back? They can not be done so soon. They're yet to perform their big ones. Or do they not intend to do it at all? Is it really over? The collective cranes its necks to look at the stage, to see if they've missed anything, imploring it, in its blankness, to reassure them that its not over yet. Everyone's on their feet, and crowding near the stage. At the height of the suspense, they walk back, without a word, pick up their instruments, and start. You discover that the world spins. In addition, it also rocks. Hard.

----------------------------------------------Fourth shot.----------------------------------------------

There is a pause. The silence is defeaning. You close your eyes. A single note is played, it hangs in the air, as if unable to fade away. Another joins it. And one more. The crowd goes wild. The song finishes, but its not over yet. The band'll play halo next. You skip back to the present, as someone collides into you.

I'm tired. Bands, artists, entire philharmonics have rendered their performances, and it goes on. And at that one point, your head heavy, feet leaden, your neck stiff, the drummer caresses the hi-hat with a drumstick, and the bassist slaps his thing. The beat worms its way into your consciousness. You know this song, even if you don't. The music starts again, and you forget the heaviness, the regrets, the burdens of mortality and its attendant worries, as your body resonates to the rhythm of the song. All concerts are same, and different. The good ones, the bad ones, the small ones, the large ones. The ones playing metal, and the ones playing jazz. The sophisticated functions, and the hippie gatherings. They call out in you that primal component that has remained dormant under eons of evolution, and yet reaches out to the furthest tendrils of your sensibilities. Everyone is in their own personal universe, and connected to everyone else at the same time. In that one moment, music transcends genre, region, and indeed, time itself.

Its a little past six in the morning, and I can barely stand. I look around at familiar faces, all of them worn out, all of them content. As the first rays of the sun reach the stage from the distant horizon, the band plays Fear of the Dark.

----------------------------------------------

'thank you so much, we had a wonderful time playing for you guys.'

This extended rant is essentially incomplete, taken from my experiences at the concerts of the past four years. all resemblances are intended,
Dedicated to her, who happened to utter the line that got this article started.

Sometimes you get your wish

      'I'm bored of being depressed.', he said, grinning. 

The crowd paid him no attention whatsoever.

      'I'm going to get my life into whack. Straighten out my messes. Dust the cobwebs off those brains.', he persevered.

The crowd continued its demanding task of doing nothing at all. A small argument broke out between two card players, who had realised that the other had been cheating since the start of the game, six games ago.

      'I'm not joking this time...', he said, to nobody particular but the entire populace in general.

The crowd ignored him pointedly, like fungus-on-the-wall. The small argument had started to show all the signs of a not-exactly-sunny nature combined with a bad hangover. In anticipation, money on tables was being pocketed, tabs were being settled, floors were being cleared. 

The card players had pushed their chairs back, and engaged each other in a staring contest. The bargirl, shotgun in hand, was flirting with a douchebag who, oddly enough, happened to be dressed like a cowboy. The entire pub's attention inconspicously centred on the card-table, in the manner where nobody dares to look, yet everyone's watching from the corner of their eye. 

A silence reigned. In the reigning silence, a single fly buzzed over the polished surface of the bar, until someone thoughtfully swatted it with a beer mug. Silence reigned again.

      'Now look, young man, i'm talking here...'

Suddenly, he had the entire pub's attention. The two players advanced truculently, flanking him on either side. 'Whaddya want, twerp?', one of them ventured, in tones of carefully cultured menace. 

      'Er, forget it. I don't think you'd get it anyway.'

'Try us.'

Not the first...

There's so much sense in the world that its sometimes baffling. So, in my best slipshod, broken english I have tried to convey er... stuff.

Wise old nipponese saying that I just made up,
"Life is like an orange, peel it for the juice within."

Now,  read on.

Onbus, inbus , redbus, buses with ladders, x double dot is increasing, and the dodo can not even reply to that.
To do or not to do, why is that a question?

Wouldn’t a cooked dodo be analogous to a stuffed tharki?

Good morning, to people so good, people so sad, people in people, and those in the bad.

So you’re twenty two? No, I’m twenty too. That’s what I said. Okay, we’re fine then.

Quiet reflection by us strong, silent people can lead to some rather expected conclusions. Un?

Written matter is that of zeros and ones, but bleeds and marks wait for no one, least of all some highly overdue chancellors and all their associated paraphernalia. What a way to get work done, no wonder some set standards by institutions like ours.

As it would be, devices in communicado choose a strange time (but coherent, completely so) to go defunct, sometimes mute, at other times allowing me usage of hallows of sacred communication.

Worried looking inspectors with malfunctioning pectorals bashing open doors, innuendoes fly everywhere, people heltering and skeltering. Very inspiring. The jokes are lame enough now, thank you.

The hallows were venerated and the bells tolled. ‘tisn’t a wonder heads hadn’t rolled. With so many people in the pot, the orgy was rather orgic, with big guys and their flying locks, and hallowed names turning into versions spawned by cradles of filth, god alone knows why they did not take a line out. I forgot, okay, I’m human.  Jeez.
Four strings for a lifetime. Nah, sounds better in native hindi.

Beera, beera, beera a guy’s gotta have balls to  do that kind of stuff. I admire such persistence. Limpet like, some might call it, others going so far as to brand them a leech, a desperate kind of chappie. But then, even ranjha was that kinda fella, wasn’t he? Just don’t sing in the bathroom, will you? You’ve got culture to handle, now.

Seccie is now ex, with a dopy and a joint in tow. What will classic do? The file handlers are parameters with random seed variables, but even that is ultimately a pseudorandom serie. We now have bodom, and jhat, and heaven knows a lot more, but which ones will take up the mantle. Wait, what mantle?

So if we have miniature dodos, is it all right to call him dad again?

Why me? This one says. But he’s the mos’t illustrious one, mind you. Never trust these whiny ones, I tell you. Just ask him to spout that hindi of his. Bloody bhasha ka saudagar. Just get him some java, tell him to change his scale and send him off to waves.

One small step for man, one giant leap for some others. (please don’t hit me.) A proclivity for physical comebacks only limited by the amount of torque one can muster. After all, r x F has to be small if r is…

A positive slew of birthdays this season, not much to rant about, but still. The planning among the amazonians include intricate (often) effectively planned efforts (still don’t know who ‘miss 100% attendance’ was, though.) while we neanthertals prefer a sound bash (by us), followed by a sound bash (by the unlucky feller who survived to tell another year’s tale). C’est la vie.

Speaking of which, that craphunt of ours gave us the opportunity to examine said waves in much more detail. Only wish I could be on those crests, going up and down, up and down…

Heterosexual company should be made mandatory, under grounds of illusionary sanity and what I can only call ‘groundedness’.

So you’re asleep, or comatose, isn’t it comma-toes.

Even nonsense has syntax, semantic is the rabble that defines chaos. Ordo ab chao, and all that.

There, there. too bad, so sad, better luck next time.

If you’re despairing as to why this isn’t making any sense, well my dear friend, your only problem is that you’re sane.

To talk about ‘anything, any damn thing’, has resulted in a phantasmagoria, ‘oops, stole chinker’s word, but it matters not, as this ‘ain’t a statement of purpose I’m typing. The infinite improbability of life, the universe and everything has resulted in a supply of topics that shalt not run out, in a mortal lifetime, at least. Anyone interested may contribute to the guide. For all that we talk about, well, there’s always that point when we finish, but there is no such thing as the end.

And another thing…

College Dayz

It truly is an age of literary outburst, with people, and gult-ures (no intentional pun) evolving with a pace most historians would be reluctant to admit. Language, essentially a by-product of current culture, would naturally be assumed to be subject to similar change, and this assumption is not wrong. Words, the likes of which humanity has never seen before are being accepted at a rate that would make even the stoutest Shakespearean theorist quail with uncertainity.

Words like bahookie (n. Scottish a person's buttocks.), blowback (n. chiefly US the unintended adverse results of a political action or situation.), mzee (n. (in East Africa) an older person; an elder.), obesogenic (adj. tending to cause obesity), plank (n. Brit. informal a stupid person.), retronym (n. a new term created from an existing word in order to distinguish the original referent of the existing word from a later one that is the product of progress or technological development (e.g. acoustic guitar for guitar).) or twonk (n. Brit. informal a stupid or foolish person.) being recently added to Oxford are but a harbinger as to what is to come.

As I see the red line highlighting the word ‘dayz’ and involuntarily flinch, the import of what I’m writing comes back to me with renewed vigour. Language, is but a product of people’s day-to-day communication. Consequently, as everyday processes grow more ruthlessly efficient, the priority on the newer generation is of being more functional rather than descriptive. As the reliance on MS Word’s spellcheck grows, English continues to change in new bewildering ways until finally, an article written in an attempt to emulate the old English is said to be ‘murdering the language’. Believe me, such a time has come.

The English that we grew up with, that which we read in Enid Blyton and our other beloved authors is no longer our English. However, this being that case of the elephant in the room we will mercifully conlude this boring rant, saying: Todayz English is a mixture of reronyms and cool wordz that perfectly capture everything hip and happening around us, and if you don’t speak this tongue, then you’re a dweeb, a geek, a wannabe with noob status that ain’t gettin’ nowheres. I m gn nw. c u l8r. gn.

-          A tribute to what used to be a beautiful language.

There, there.

< to be expanded >