Sick Strings

“Getting F - majorly, with... F - Major aint no one's F -business.If you have a F - problem, please try to F - yourself. It will be F – embarrassing if you cant F – play it. Give it your best F – shot, still if you can’t then F – give up. Playing guitar aint your F – game.”

- Anxious Rohitus Dubious, 2OO7 AD

"Take me home, I am sick of this place", said my six string.

I was seduced in 1999, in the backfields of NID, Ahmedabad. Couldn’t muster up my courage for next four years, got my pleasures just looking at them in others arms…then I bumped into them, when I least expected; right inside the QAR room. It was midnight, there was no one around. I reached for them... and got them to my room. I didn’t care who they belonged to. That was my first night with those strings.

"Its never too late to learn Hotel California", my friend Van says emphatically, everytime I hit a sloppy F major.

Jayanti-LOL.

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Face Value

“See, I can’t change the design once I have made it. I am sorry, but you’ll have to live with this fact. You’ll never be a hunk in a woman’s eyes”, said the God to the dark skinned Indian male.

“Well, then change her eye’s, you have to do something about this!” said the Indian.

The Indian used to be quite happy with himself. His looks and complexion were not at all a bother for him. He could play 'Gilli-Danda' and 'Kabbadi' all day long in the sun without sun lotion; feel the sun on his face without a worry of a skin cancer. No tan lines. He used to laugh at his caucasian friends, who turned pink in the sun. Life was pretty good so far, but what goes up comes down; and so it happened.

One fine day, when the Indian Male was at play, God released some beta versions of womankind. The beta women flocked on the Juhu beach, where the Indian was playing ball, with some Caucasians. The moment they noticed this new species, they were dumbstruck. The ball game was forgotten, a new game of ‘who gets who’ started. The Indian realized, except ‘Gilli-danda’ and ‘Kabbabdi’ he wasn’t good at anything. He tried his best to look graceful, macho and charming, but to no avail. Every cave resounded with sounds of pleasure that night, but his. He slept alone that night, a defeated man.

“Okay fine, fine…now don’t give me those looks, let me think”, God interrupted the Indian's depressing train of thoughts. “Hmm, I shouldn’t have done this, it’s my mistake I admit, I should have made all of you the same…” he added in a sotto voce. God was a little sad, he felt like V.P Singh, after passing the mandal commission proposal on reservation for backward castes. There was no solution. Even the light at the end of the tunnel had a brown tinge.

Indian was the only successful beta version of God’s male creations. He was a survival machine. His dark skin could withstand the UV radiation. He had a lot of hair to save him from extreme heat and cold. He wasn’t tall and white, making it easier for him to hide in the bushes while hunting. He was very lithe, and could climb up trees whenever chased by lions. His skin tone matched the bark of any tree in the forest, his camouflaged ambush was lethal. He never slept on an empty stomach. Today he seemed like a flawed piece.

God went through his inventory; there were still quite a few things to be introduced in World. His head did some permutations; there was still a solution possible. “I hope he buys it”, He thought.

With a little hesitation God said, “My son, I am sorry for what I did to you. I just wanted to experiment a little, please understand. Still, I can make some amends. See, I am going to invent something called ‘money’. It can buy you anything in this World, even a compliment from a woman. Now, will that satisfy you?” He noticed the Indian’s eyes come alive.

“Does that mean I will have a lot of money?” asked the happy Indian.

“Umm …not exactly, but it will be one thing which you and Caucasian will have an equal shot at. Both of you will have to figure it out…you know sort of. See, the best part is, money won’t know the color of your skin. You can attract money…and then attract a woman…are you getting what I am saying?” He added.

Indian came back to his cave, with a heavy head. He was ecstatic and sad at the same time. He hit his bed early and dozed off with a game plan. Play time was over. There was a lot of work to be done.

Next day, by afternoon, while the Caucasian was still hanging around in forests, calling himself Adam and looking for Eve, the Indian had already invented wheel, discovered fire, conceptualized ‘Zero’ and developed a township. He also helped the Caucasian figure out Christianity, and sold him the discoveries and inventions at a huge profit. Money happened. Moreover, this time around, respect and compliments were a natural by product, from the beta females. Though, he was not a hunk, the tall, white, chiseled, muscular mass of skin and hair which would make a ‘woman’ swoon. Still, he didn’t feel like a zero now; he was free wheeling all over the globe with a fire in his belly. “Thank you God…you behaved like one” was the only thought he had. Indian was content.


God on the other hand, was not really happy with himself. He is still trying to make things equal for the Indian. He tried convincing the whites to change to brown but there was a huge uproar. He couldn’t change the blacks and browns to white either. He made Michael Jackson do it once, but every one still called him a black. There was no solution. Even the light at the end of the tunnel had a brown tinge.

He figured a long term plan and tried racial cross pollination. He made the Caucasian invade India and the other way round. Offspring’s like Johns and Dinos, looked like positive results of His effort. In a few eons all the humans will be hunky and beautiful, thank to his efforts.

As of now, in parts of south India, the story is different. The original Indian is still found in all his glory there. He hasn’t changed. He still wakes up in the morning and looks into the mirror, “I need to be better at Mathematics, start an IT firm, buyout a Caucasian’s factory, win a Pulitzer…and then I am sure she will call me a Hunk ”, he tells himself as he combs his chest hair and puts oil on his mahogany skin.

Bump in the Night.

Mumbai monsoons always gallop me through a never ending memory lane. This morning they cross dissolved me to two years back. No, its not one of those life changing incidents. It just leaves me with a funny feeling, and yes a little moral to behave better next time.

This is a story of my initial days in Mumbai. I had no clue about the City. I had just got a taste of my first salary. My account had quite a few zeroes earned by me, not by my dad, for a change. There were a lot of things on my desire list, like sitting in a aeroplane, buying an iPod, etc. I wanted to treat myself, only MYSELF. I wanted to have the best Bombay could offer to any bachelor earning his own dough. Sorry to disappoint you, but I ran out of imagination and just landed at a movie theatre. It was the cinematic masterpiece, ‘Van Helsing’. I am sure the director was high on LSD, camera man high on methadone, lead actor had a dose of ether and the crew was tripping on Indian bhang, munakka, arrack and some household phenyl. Anyway, that’s beside the point.

The movie finished at twelve in the night, leaving me with a hundred ways to rip it apart. Isn’t it amazing, how good we feel about ourselves after watching a bad movie? Just the way we feel after being patient to a really cranky kid. So, there I was stepping out of ‘Suburbia’, the theater. It was raining outside.

Monsoon shower is best, if you are headed home. You actually don’t mind it. You know you have to go back and change into pajamas only. I strolled a while in the rain, mulling over the CG antics of Van Helsing, waiting for the crowds to disappear. Unfortunately, I forgot that the crowd will disappear along with all the available cabs also. I was stranded.

The pouring hadn’t stopped. Crowd had cleared. The cigarette was over. A cab stopped on the other side of the road. I rushed to catch it.

The downpour was heavy; I was drenched in a matter of seconds. This cab was my last hope and an Indian had again lost to white skin. Anyway, I was standing next to the open cab door, looking at that white girl. She had her one foot outside, I couldn’t figure whether she is getting in our out. “Are you getting in our coming out”, I asked; speaking the slowest English I could. I saw her face in the dim street light. She was pretty cute, and distressed. I was terribly wet, no pun intended.

“He is charging me Rs.240, for the airport, isn’t that too much?” she said. She looked like an archetypal damsel in distress. Rain added to the ambience. I saw myself sitting atop a white horse, with a shinning sword and resembling George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Raj Kapoor, all at the same time. Deep down I also felt like being a good Indian. “Of course, he is trying to fleece you! Let me handle it.” I showed the cabbie my war face and scowled, “tum jaiso ki wajah se hi sab hindustaniyon ki naak katati hai!”. (Because of guys like you, Indians lose respect everywhere). She got her handbag out and together we walked towards another cab which stopped a little ahead.

“Come with me, I will pay for the meter till Dadar and get down there…you can take it further to the airport, it will be much cheaper to you that way”, she agreed. The taxi started trudging towards Dadar. None of us knew that this cab ride will change the way we look at things…

Mariana was from Virginia, she was here on a university exchange program. Apart from the fact that a cab was trying to gyp her, she had a high opinion of Indians. Of course, my effort was the icing on the cake. In a matter of thirty minutes, we learnt a lot about each other.

The cab stopped at my place in Dadar. I stepped out with a two ton halo and a pair of wings, feeling good about myself. “Madam ko safely yahan se airport le jao, aur jyada pareshan mat karna”, I ordered the bhaiya cabbie. Cabbie gave me a smile, I couldn’t decipher it. Anyways, I stood at the gate of my house, waving at Mariana as she left. Oh, so angelic I thought.

I slept like a baby that night. My brain worked overtime though, thinking of various romantic scenarios. I used to be single then, and any female was a prospect of a relationship in those days.

I woke up with the irritating noise of my brother Dhruv brushing his teeth and flipping the Sunday times like a Neanderthal, next to my bed. I was very excited. “Dada, you know what happened last night”, I said, rubbing my eyes. “Whaa happeng?” Dhruv replied through the foam in his mouth. I told him the story expecting a little more nitro for my ego and overall studliness.


“Phwwwwaaaaahaahahhhhh!!!!” Dhruv laughed splattering the whole foam on the paper and some on me! He rushed to the bathroom, washed his mouth and came back laughing even loudly. I looked at him, something seriously wrong had happened last night. There was no reaction choice for such an occasion, in my manual.

“DO YOU EVEN HAVE A F**KING CLUE ABOUT WHAT YOU DID LAST NIGHT!” he said, after some five minutes of rolling on floor and laughing. “THAT POOR CHICK WOULD HAVE SHELVED OUT SOME RS.500, THANKS TO YOUR GOOD SAMARITAN DETOUR! IF SHE WAS PAYING RS.240 EARLIER, WHICH ACTUALLY IS THE RIGHT AMOUNT FROM BANDRA TO AIRPORT, SHE WOULD HAVE PAYED DOUBLE THE AMOUNT FOR A DADAR TO AIRPORT CAB, WAH! DUBEY JI! WAH”

Mariana’s email address in my pocket suddenly seemed like an unredeemable sin. Like I said, I had no clue about the city. I had never seen an airport or a plane in my life till then. That day I learnt the most about Mumbai. It is a linear city and Bandra lies midway between Dadar and Santacruz.

I really don’t want to think about her image of Indians. I laughed as well as lambasted myself that day.

I still try to be a good Indian hoping that one day, I will again be caught in a monsoon with a white girl in distress, this time I will do better. That will be my redemption, for the ‘bump in the night’ I gave Mariana.

May God bless her.