aloque

Innocence. A quality exclusive to the very young. (Later, its called stupidity). A quality that is valued highly by everyone except the innocent one himself. Thats what makes babies as lovable even though they tear, burp, puke, piss, crap all over your new sweater. Try doing that at three for a flaming red bottom, and anytime after the age of six to ensure visits to the psychologist. But, in the tender years, it's even a good thing to be the target of the innocent bodily secretions in question.

baby aloque's parents shopping twenty two years ago.......

"hold him for a sec will you?":-)

"sure":-I

"hey, he peed all over me!":-))

"he loves you more than he loves me!":-(

"thats obvious!" *patting the wet patch proudly* "but have you noticed he ALWAYS does it when we come to the book-store?"

Figments of my imagination apart, here is what I know. I only remember the loss of innocence. These are the moments of new perspective, changes, growing up and so on. Only the parents are sighing about me growing up too soon, learning cuss words at an alarming rate.

Only parents to tell me how innocent I was. About my bisyllablic conversations of "vasthaava?(won't you come)" and "kodatha!(will hit you)" with the kite that was stuck in the tree in our courtyard.

About not caring about 12" long pig tails by the time I was 2. (my mom wanted a girl!)

About when I politely inquired if we were sitting in a large bus at my first movie theater experience at 3.

Simple is as simple does.

Here is what I remember. Glorious moments of discovery!

We had a broken down car back then and all the kids in the colony would take turns to sit at the wheel and furiously hurtle down imaginary streets at breakneck speeds while the rest of us pondered the life altering decisions the umpire inflicted on us in the just concluded cricket match. No girls allowed of course! They didn't care but we just wanted to antagonize!

Once, an older boy told us how babies were made. In retrospect, a technique which could end the human race as a result of wrong orifices and sore backsides. Later, he got to drive the car all evening while we were gagging in the back seat. But we were irreversibly perverted. None of our parents would be patting an innocent little head anymore!

I think i was about 8 when I mouthed the first F U in front of my dad. Of course, I didn't know what it meant but the colours that were rapidly changing on his face and his legendary flaring nostrils ensured i would use it in plentiful quantities, although away from the reach of hands that want to twist ears.

Of all the trouble we went through to keep the girls out of our car, my first crush was not without irony. When I was about 8, we had a carpool to go to school and there was a girl, lets call her A. She always chose the seat by the window and three little boys making stinky faces whenever they had to sit next to her, each secretly glad ( I was!). I even devised a game where we had to pretend that inertia was totally in control of our bodies and we would fall away and over each time the car negotiated a curve and i always liked the left handed curves more than the right handed ones. Sometimes, I just cheated inertia and acted 'innocent'!!

got to stop some time. and now, before you are subjected to the unpleasant story of the discovery of puberty, seems as good a time as any!

Dating is such a mind game now. Crazy statutes of limitation on everything possible. No wonder us dudes are a confused lot!

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Ever try to tell a well known story in a language you aren't totally familiar with? I've lived here in Hyderabad all my childhood and know enough Hindi/Urdu mixture to get by without any hassles but when I have to tell Snow White and the seven dwarves, i knew I was going to have to stretch my limitations. 

It was quite an out of body experience for me. You can see how jadooi aainas, zeher bhare sebs, and chhote safed dhaadi waale aadmiaren't a part of my everday conversations with the Hyderabadi autowallahs (had a book with pictures, so the five year old wasn't utterly confused but even he knew I could have done a better job).  I kept wondering how to say evil witch or ways to effectively translate 'mirror, mirror, on the wall'. In the end buree rani and jadooi ainaa had to do (brothers Grimm turning over and over in their graves). And just before I had to end, 'raja ne snow white ko puppy diya aur uske gale mein atka hua seb nikal gaya aur woh uth gayee' had me laughing even before I finished the sentence.

However, seeing him smile after two days of total listlessness make my pathetic story- telling skills worth improving. Any suggestions for easier stories to translate?

I know i shouldn't sell people short. I should never judge a book by its cover or a guy by his purple shirt and yellow pants. No, wait a minute, that dude needs help. But, you see where i am going.

I had that blasted night duty again and went there fearing the worst but ended up having a great conversation with a guy double my age. Life never ceases to amaze. This man was the doctor in charge and he had a life of misfortune. No one can even begin to guess what he'd been through when they look at the funny smirk he wears on his face all the time.

We talked about magic, card tricks, paranormal phenomena, yoga, mind control, tantric sex, god, fate, luck and a few other issues. The man lost about 3 years of his practice recovering from a fractured hip, fractured leg, fractured arm and a fractured skull that happened on SEPARATE occassions in the space of a few years. He was told he'd never walk again twice. One fine day, he spontaneously lost his eyesight to a rare disease that we haven't much information about, nor have any idea of how to treat. His eyes were injected with drugs for 6 months which he spent in total darkness, and he was told he'd never see again. Today, he swims, does yoga and has 20/20 vision. That doesn't say much about us doctors when it comes to prognosis, but it does say a lot about the human spirit and its endurance against all odds.

Before we finally went to sleep, he just wished me luck with my life and when I wished him the same, he said that he'd been lucky all his life. Optimism is an amazing healer.

The bus rattled and bumped across the narrow lanes lining the slums and we were bounced around mercilessly as I tried to crane my head out of the window to catch a glimpse of the place that I was to call home for the next five years. I had chosen a college during counseling without even bothering to look at it just because the other colleges I had as options were not in the city. My mind made every building that was moderately sized become the run down shack that it was going to be my misfortune to be a part of. As the college building eventually drew near and grew in stature as I approached it, I heaved a sigh of relief. Actually I think it was a big whoop of relief. The building was big. There was a campus. There were other students. I was going to be ok!

The first few days were amazing, in a new city, no parents, new classmates, new WOMEN!! Even looked forward to ragging.

After the first few days of settling in and my first and last strip tease for drunken guys, measuring rooms with match sticks, learning crude initiation songs, and learning to call everybody regardless of gender, caste, creed, species "sir", women who had their noses in their books all the time, and guys who preferred speaking the local language to English, I was rattled. Also led to the realization that man is a hardy animal and will adapt to anything given the time and appropriate doses of boredom.

The next 4 and a half years passed in record time bringing and taking with them a mixture of happiness, friendship, fun and games, muddled romances, a fair share of sadness, missing home and losing friends. And in the back ground without doing anything spectacular other than break a few records for minimum attendance possible, I managed to finish my subjects and before I knew it transferred back home.

I realized I had been waiting to come back but I realize now that I am here that I was glad to have been there as well. My college wasn't the best in the world and I didn't have the social life I had dreamed of, but 5 years turned me form a boy into a man and I will always cherish them dearly.

The college itself had its fair share or more than of problems. Management that served their own selves before the institution, indifferent students and teachers, stuff I am told is more common than it should be. Now this institution is broke and fighting derecognizing from the centre and everyone who is associated with the college is on an internal strike with no signs of an immediate solutions. Its heart breaking for me to think of all my friends who are still there and all the teachers I had admired (very few!!).

Our graduation is coming up this month, and a celebration, though in order for getting through a grueling course, could have probably come under better circumstances. To make the most of a bad situation, we are hoping to gather and remember what our college meant to us and pray for a new lease of life for it remains a part of our identities for the rest of our lives .

"You are never to see her again", stormed his father. "I never expected that you, a king to be, would cavort with a commoner, a dancing girl even. Have you no respect for your position or mine?".

The words bounced off him easily. They weren't so hard to ignore when everything he held sacred told him that he was right in seeing her, her sensuous form swaying as the sun shrank away almost as in envy of her radiance. He was right in slipping away for their clandestine meets, to feel the sweet agony of waiting for her on the banks of the river, oblivious to the water that joyfully played at his feet. He was right, he said to himself, to fill his mind with thoughts of her, to want to be with her every one of her waking hours, to sleep by her side every hour he spent asleep. She opened to him a different, more beautiful life than he had dreamed possible, just by her presence. With her, he found courage, strength, tenderness, and a will to succeed he did not know he had. She made him a better man than he had ever thought possible. She was no commoner. She was the princess of his heart.

Storms raged outside the fort walls every night that season, and he hadn't seen her for days. His anguish was incomparable to anything he had known. He asked himself if he could live without her, and he knew what he must do. He walked out, called for his horse to be saddled, and rode off into the rain. The raindrops stung his face like a swarm of angry bees, but he held on to the reins and urged his horse towards the only home he knew. He reached the banks of the swollen river which was devouring everything in its new found path, and without care, coerced his faithful beast into the hungry waters. They had no chance against the unforgiving force of nature. the horse was swept away from beneath him with a fearful whinnying, and he was tossed around like a small twig. He flailed his limbs in the direction he wanted to go and the current carried him to the other side. He ran, ignoring his bruised and battered body, knocked on her door and collapsed in her arms. She, wordless, held him close and they reunited in tears of mixed emotion.

When the prince did not return home for days, the king sent for him, and realizing the value his son had for his own life relative to his love, he relented, and had a bridge of stone built over the river that almost claimed his life. The prince married the love of his life and, later, built a city where she had lived.

The fort is Golkonda, the river, Musi and the largest monument of love in the world is our city of Hyderabad.

to all the those who noticed i was gone and were glad for it, boo fer you. and a hearty round of hugs and high fives for all those who might have asked 'hey, where is that dude, aloque?'

if you've been reading me then you'll know that i am a doctor and i had to go away to this small town on the suburbs for a night duty and i haven't gone back since. the trauma of it all was quite unbearable.

drove 40 kms to a hospital with no patients. (already knew that but the government MUST find ways to waste employees time in new ways - common minimum program)  they have a tv there so i decided to carry my VCD player and a couple of movies i wanted to watch to pass the night. got there and found other doctors hanging aroung the tv like leeches and spent a good four hours watching telugu news and trailers of the latest mahesh babu film (new heights in cinematic perversion). also discovered that the telugu film industry now has about a zillion new people i wasn't interested in and was actively trying to keep away from. so fate decides to put me in a small room in a faraway place with 3 telugu movie fanatics. someone up there loves me.

finally people decide to sleep and then the thought that was playing terrible games in my head was about to be realised. 4 dudes on 3 beds put together. i am NOT homophobic or anything but i will choose the urinal farthest away from the one in use in a public bathroom. And i will not share my bed with any degree of comfort with 3 strange guys. (3 strange gals would extend into the realms of fantasy but i am not so opposed to that).

turns out that telugu movies fans with their firs day first show reflexes (never underestimate a TMF) got to the bed first and i (horror of horrors) had to sleep in the middle. damn it! i was hoping for stealing a corner. after a hundred pokes in the ribs and the fumes of mortein blocking my nose, i decided that it was time for a walk, nad discovered that the door was locked from the outside!! who the fuck locks you in? safety measure my ass!! i opt for whatever i was being kept safe from over this.

but i am glad i got up and got out of bed becuse about 2 secs after i got out one of the 3 dudes let one rip PPHHHHHAAAAAAAARRRRRRPPPP. REAL WET ONE. needless to say, i wasn't getting much more sleep that night.

next morning we had no water and i had to brush my teeth with lumps of ice broken from the freezer. but that was, by then, not a surprise.

questions abound in redundant verses

that translate my waking thoughts

answers are as far away as the reaches

of horizons distorted by deep desert drought

i am not a seeker of infinite wisdom.

i do not need a fountain of youth,

not even the keys to the kingdom.

my holy grail is a sweet memory of you

that has lingered forever on my senses

our paths will cross, fate and truth

cannot forever hold up their defences.

The harsh noises no longer

jolt our 'refined' senses.

We don't notice now,

around our dream fields,

the steel fences.

Our fellowship, at its end 

breathes now on

a sustenance of suspicion.

Helping hands only hand

out phials of poison.

Plastic and paper.

They are the new religion.

They are the masters,

and we are

the humble peons.

What is it about regional divides, feelings of country and kin, patriotism and sacrifice for the land, that lead people to be inspired, to be larger than themselves, to extend their horizons beyond what they thought was possible?

 I know that all these arbitrary lines drawn on maps are but human creation, made by a group of men to guard their gold over thousands of years, but is there something within all of us more primitive, a deep urge to guard what we mark as our territory, our home? Animals have it. Maybe, despite all the evolution we cannot change some things.

I have days when I sit back and think that the country I live in is in fact not one that I can relate to. I have problems understanding cultures I feel are outdated, politics I feel is a gangsters' front, praying to 300 gods that I do not have faith in, and millions of people going about their lives everyday with a passing remark or two about how they would make India a better land if given the chance. I have difficulty coping with the feeling that everyones' palms have to be greased for the reason that life is not possible without.

There are more things we have that we can and deserve to complain about than to feel proud of. 

I guess then that it would only be natural for me to distance myself from these problems. If I thought about them and give my feelings a chance to be involved, I would be afraid there is too much to fight against, too much to lose with little achieved. Who am I to question or change a system that has, in our co-conspiratorial minds, a facade of normalcy. What can i do alone?

Then I have days when I feel strong, that I can change something, that my education, my ability can be put to use, not planning the first million I want to make, but, the first life I can change for the better. I feel a young voice can make a difference in a country of condescending octagenarians, jaded by life's cruelty, cushioned by convenient morality. On those days, I feel the inherent goodness of all people, waiting for a chance for doing things a better way.

Not all of us can be politicians, not all of us can be leaders, not all of us may believe that this country can the best in the world, not all of us may subscribe to this 'pipe dream'.

But, if, somewhere at the back of our minds, we  can keep the thought alive that we can make a difference, no matter how intangible, if we only recognise our love of this land despite all our differences, despite all the difficulties, instead of pushing it away, then we would have found our identity in this world. I truly believe every one of us loves our home and those who feel they do not, spend life times trying to fit in, when the truth is here for all to see that we are undeniably, delightfully INDIAN. In its acceptance with all its frailties lies a better future. 

I wish such days for every single one of us out there, where ever we are. JAI HIND.

p.s: outlook magazine puts 54% of india's population to be 25 or less years of age. This is our time to take a stand.

news flash! calling all guys!

something amazing happened yesterday.

i was at this restaurant and i saw this totally hot looking babe and by hot i mean good looking, great body, nice smile (not flashed at me and thaz not the amazing thing.) but you get the picture.

due to my extreme ill fortune there wasn't a guy friend around so i tell this to a girl friend and she nodded through it all and then she asked " what was she wearing?" i looked at her for a second and said to myself "ok ok she's a woman. calm down", and then spluttered out.....what the f does that matter. didn't you hear me??? she was HOT!!

and that my friends is the bane of our existence.

here is the amazing thing.

i was driving back home and the APSEB did me the 'favour' of my life and dropped a live wire on my head, and i did a mel gibson. the night wasn't black anymore but an amazing grey with a cheese yellow moon and 7 twinkling stars peeking from beyond the smog ridden (whatz happening to poor mother earth??sigh sigh sigh) sky. oh! wait a min. how silly of me. the sixth one from the left isn't twinklikg as bright as the other ones. i wondered if it was sad and if stars didn't have feelings at all.

my red tee was not red anymore but indigo and my blue jeans were ocean surface blue (on a mid summer day on the equator with the sun 2/7th covered in cumulo-nimbus of course....duhhh!!!). but my thoughts were disturbed by some strange smell of 19.281% alcohol mixed with deer secretions (male, aged 2yrs 261 days, with 4" long antlers), jovan musk, 3days after expiry date. yechhhh!!!

then i walked back to the scene of the accident and hit myself repeatedly with the live wire. you guys do not know how lucky we are. sports rock. metal bangs. women are only graded by apparent temperature and promised promiscuity. red is red, blue is blue, we live on earth, the moon is a mill miles away and stars don't really have feelings.

also every single guy would read this based on the title. and our noses don't crinkle up every 2.5 secs. and we don't call our clothes a new colour after they fade just a little after every wash!

I've tried a lot of different things on this blog and people haven't thrown me out yet, so here goes nothing...

Ever pervasive, omniscient,

the stench of human decay,

nauseously infests the currents

of air, on a sun-less red day,

when battle field Earth is center stage.

Generals gather in their masses

of trained inhumans, murky mortal clay,

to wilful strew the field with carcasses.

They, life-less, look into the scarlet glare,

yet to comprehend its futile despair.

Bayonets wielded by hearts that're clouded

and motivated by crudely atavistic ways,

gouge the living flesh of souls, long dead,

as a steel grey bullet quickly, quietly allays

the realisation that arrives, although delayed.

Crazed hands raised in frenzied unison

feign celebration, as in their survey

lie friends, lie foes, still against the horizon

that's as blood-shot now as it was that day.

Name the victor. Name the vanquished. I pray!

war hasn't really been at the top of my list of favorite things for mother earth for about forever. some help from sabbath's 'war pigs' has to be acknowledged.