Indian Long Drives

Also, at times like this one, I need long drives. Indian long drives. Indian? On Indian roads, in Indian cars, with Indian traffic rules (no rules). Just pick the last lane and keep cruising at a slow 40 MPH without a care. Stop by a tea-stall, buy a cutting for a couple bucks, feel its warmth and savour its gingery taste. Put it in the cup-holder, gear up and resume driving. On the long long stretches of GauravPath--the Piplod-Magdalla Road (Surat). Driving past the food-stalls, families picnicking, lovers cuddling, gangs of boys at cigarette stalls. Cigarette stalls. Especially around the SVNIT. What joints they were, weren't they? Boys seem to be very happy at those. With all their gangsta bikes and all. Show-offs. Trying hard to impress everyone in sight. Sometimes just not giving a shit though, and enjoying with one another. Laughing, cussing, cracking jokes-dirty and clean, occasional Eve-teasing, shutting up and all well-behaving suddenly on seeing some pretty girl pass by and just having basic fun overall. I never thought I noticed boys at the cigarette stalls so much.

Oh well , moving on, going further and further and getting lured to turn on to the (ONGC) bridge on reaching that circle. How many reasons have we had for driving upto that bridge? To get some fresh air; to see Tapti in its glory eagerly meeting up the Arabian Sea at the horizon; to steal some kisses; to eat roasted corn-cobs and chaats...And we paid a toll for all this. Literally. I'd have felt a zillion times better if I were there at this instance, gulping a lot of salty air that also distributed the wind in my hair. Pretty much a cleansing process it is, to stand on the ONGC bridge and just stand and go blank. Thoughts come and go but never register. Such a detox!

Solitude couldn't have been more enjoyable than on Indian long drives. On the other hand, what a different yet memorable story could be told if Dingi accompanied me on that drive! Then both of us would go on the shores of the Tapti behind the Gymkhana and just stand. And either talk or not. But we would communicate so much, either way. It makes me think though, why did I never dip my feet into the waters where they were conveniently banked behind the Gymkhana? I wonder if I will get a chance to do that again, given the rate at which new buildings are constructed there.

Wow, for a few minutes, I just slipped in a visual journey, if not a real one. Almost therapeutic. These Indian long drives, I sorely miss. No lanes, no limits, no belts; just a short long trip, a short long trip.

Voyaging on Nature's Wings

I visited India and returned, in a few minutes. Ethereal, mystic, almost magical, a jaunt. I boarded the mind and it flew me. I closed my eyes. I smelt the smell of rain-steeped wet soil, and that of the drenched greens. I heard the sounds of the clouds' gambolling and the fat raindrops merrily bursting into several little droplets on the ground. I felt the moist vapours of the hot coffee on the skin of my face, soothing. I opened my eyes. I saw the water splashing off the little puddles near the side-walk. I saw muddy water sprinkle off the gumboots striding up and down. I saw lovers. I saw workers. I saw beggars. I turned around and saw a shelter I call home. I closed my eyes again. And felt. I let every sensation imbrue me...the smells, the soft touches, the sounds, the invisible sights,...all,...all...I couldn't tell...I visited India and returned, in a few minutes...Oh world!

To Muslim Terrorists

You must be really happy and proud of yourselves after knocking the WTC down and such, right? It did create a stir of course but hell, the world trade hasn't stopped and never will. You scared the people but somewhere deep down you made them strong too. You taught them dealing with losses. You taught them decision making. You taught them to forgive and to fight. Looks like they're all a whole lot more stronger and powerful. You haven't harmed anyone really. Do you know who you really are terrorizing though?

The Muslims. The peace-loving, absolutely normal and very loving kinds-- to cut it short, the TRUE Muslims. You are terrorizing me. My mom. My dad. My brother. My family. All of us. You have successfully harmed us. You know, how a lot of people now hate me because of you? You know how they consider me some butcher because of you? How their smile-length shortens when they know I'm a Shaikh...How they are suddenly aware of where I touched them...how they are suddenly regretful of the good things they told me about...how just are they regretful of even knowing me at all. How the expectations from a 'Tamanna' crash to the ground when they know I'm a 'Shaikh'...They may be biased but it's your fault. You did it. To us Muslims. To us God-loving Muslims. Yes and there isn't any difference between God and Allah, FYI. I wonder who you've been worshipping because My God never got angry when I called Him God...or when I bowed in front of Ram and said in my mind, "It's still You, God"...I wonder which Allah you work for because my Allah doesn't need mere mortals to work for Him...No one works for my Allah. He is The Creator and The Destroyer and He doesn't ask me to do it...and not FOR Him at least...never. So whatever be the reason behind your actions, stop doing it under the pretext of Islam. Because when Prophet Mohd saw an orphan in a fair, he held him by his hand and took him home. What you do, is create orphans in times when there isn't a prophet Mohd...

Your eyes are filled with the dust of the caves that you hide in. God's people don't hide. Your actions have changed my life. And the lives of millions (yes, there are millions) of other such peace loving, understanding, or just common-sense-possessing Muslims. If there's anyone at all who you have terrorized, it's us Muslims. And Allah will do the rightful at the right time and of this I'm sure, that I'm not sharing the hell with you. 

Abstract Gauge to Gauge Abstractness

If there is a gauge to quantify how much a human being contains patience, trust, stoicism, strength, tolerance, bravery, boldness, candidness, zeal, etc; basically any abstract expression or act; if there is a gauge to all that and more, it is love. A meter to measure the entities no other instrument can; an ordinal scale with an absolute zero; that is love. So underrated in that aspect. Heart rate, respiration rate, and such physiological signs are the aftermath; not a co-process; and mere signs alone, non-specific. Unfortunately, the units of measurements in love are acts, be they words or doings. "I love you", for example, is probably one of those with high standard deviations and errors. Standing by, supporting and such, on the other hand are high up on the accuracy levels, with very less possibilities of error and greater correlations. So you see, it is not the most valid tool. Yes there could be false positives but then there is no other tool yet that breaks through scientific norms to gauge all that abstractness, is there?

Layovers of Life

The feeling of relative-relaxation and anticipation while lounging at an airport, waiting for your flight mostly seems sweet to me. Curling up with a book, a coffee, the cabin-bag stashed against your body, now reading the book, now lifting your head out of the book to sip the hot coffee and in that one coffee-moment, capturing the whereabouts around you through your coffee-steam-fogged glasses. Your mind instantly confabulates a hundred different stories--the prim fifties man with the brown leather suitcase, the chirpy 16 year old with pink sneakers listening to her iPod, the mysterious thirty-something woman in her stilettos and red lipstick, the noisy family from Asia, the careless looking serious sexy young man with a slight spiky hairdo and so on. Then taking another sip and getting back into another story that the book tells.
Sometimes airport lounges are the only places where your mind gets time to do recaps. Analyses, introspections and more analyses; just pure unadulterated thinking, planning. You promise yourself to write it down and check it off the list. Unfortunately, you forget it as soon as you get on the plane...or even before that. But it was a realization, wasn't it?
Alone, you tend to begin new conversations. Accompanied, you take the talk deeper. When you are at the mercy of your brain's games, it could be all dangerous but airports are high-security, everywhere. Or, are they?
And then if the sole purpose of your being at the airport is a leisure trip, all of these seem definitely cherishable--the way they're coming back at me right now. I so long to feel that feeling of being at one of those waiting lounges at terminals, reading a little bit of my book, a little bit of faces and sipping my coffee-turning-cool.