The Threshold of Coolidity

Sometimes I think all of us are born selfish as a survival skill. You can go through days without seeing someone perform an unselfish deed. I witnessed a girl perform one a couple of days ago and just had to document it to appreciate what she did for the world.

Time and Place: 7:30 pm, University of Maryland, College Park

Weather: 30 degress F, feels like 15 deg

The Incident : I was walking with Shitu and Rashi to Lot 11 to get to my car so that we could go home. It was freezing! We were dressed in layers, and still the piercing wind fought its way thru to provide intense discomfort. Only question on my selfish mind; Why did I not wear more layers? There was a TERP basketball game on campus so there were several people walking from Lot 11 towards the Comcast Center geared with huge jackets, and walking really fast. And, thats when I saw the unselfish deed. A lovely girl around 5' 8'' was walking towards the comcast center with her friends wearing a brown jacket over a tight white t-shirt (jacket open!) and a very, very short denim mini-skirt flauting the most beautiful legs!

Now we all have walked without gloves in the cold and our hands (the most rugged of body parts when it comes to temperature swings) froze to death. But this girl without thinking of herself and her pain, wore a mini-skirt exposing 3 feet of skin to the piercing cold just thinking about the poor men who would be deprived if she din't. That my friends is as unselfish as one can get. Thank you stranger girl for your selfless act of serving "man"kind by wearing short skirts while braving the cold, and radiating a chill of warmth which just might be what gets another through the cold day.

So, most people do laundry on a regular basis. I do the more natural thing when laundry day closes in on me: I buy 3 boxers and stall the situation (I wont reveal for how many days!) and pray for the elastics on all the others, coz as long as the elastic is up and working, those babies stay in the rotation :)

So, come laundry day, I heaped up, and I mean heaped up all the stuff that merited a good wash. I carried things down to the laundry room and had a little flashback. The last time I was there, just before I started the washer I remembered that the pair of boxers I was wearing, my favorite, would remain unwashed and hence out of the rotation. I couldnt afford to leave my lucky boxers out and risk not wearing them for (?) months. So I looked around, took a deep beadth, and shed them both (I can undress real fast for the records!), and then quickly put my pajamas back on (I can get dressed and bolt even faster!)  Its kinda cool going commando. Later, my roommates had fun at my expense when they told me that there was a camera in the laundry (not true).  I chuckled thinking of my last escapade as I complimented myself for wearing a boxer this time that I dint care about at all.

So, things were going really smooth, when I realized that my jammies that I wear all the time and desperately needed washing were on me. MMMM quite the predicament. Anyways, so I promptly took of my jammies and put them into the washer.  As I stood in my boxeres loading quarters into the machine, i heard "Moto" my new motorazr scream for me. Fear came all over me as I realized that I had dumped poor Moto with my jammies into the washer. As I rescued her, I thanked Raj for rescuing her. We now owe him a treat. A pretty eventful laundry session, i decided to make to back to my pad, and decided that shedding my jammies was much less risky than forgetting to put in my boxers. But as a left the laundry room, a whole family seemed to be going for dinner, a couple of girls were going out, and they all looked at me and smiled! oooooops. I wanted to stop them and explain to them what had led to my current state, but whatever. So forgetting boxers was less embarrassing than forgetting jammies. Learn from this episode people!

Sometimes, its tons of fun when the simplest things you do turn into a story, its awesome to have fun with the simple things in life.

Yup, we all should immigrate to canada. Multicultural, cool as hell, laid back, pretty, and yes much more laid back marijuana laws thats why the grass is greener on the other side. Setting up my cousin, Nendo of  Sucky, Sucky, Five Dollar fame for an undergrad at Uninversity of British Columbia, Vancouver via a pit stop at Toronto to meet my 7-year old cousin gave rise to the best trip ever.

The kin: My cousin is the cutest little fella alive. He was adorable, I got him a mini-guitar, a toy mustang, and baseball mitts. He loved the gifts. He stuck to me like velcro for 3 days. We hung out in a playground where I taught him to splash mud around, and then roll in it. We made a trip to Niagara, which was breathtaking, and yes, the american side is like sitting in the back seat of a mustang whereas the canadian side is more like driving one, all in all the american side is like going to a party you werent really invited to. The next day was a trip to the mall, where the seven-year old was taught how to spot a pretty woman, and watching charlie and the chocolate factory. The movie was awesome, disturbing though in johnny depp's resemblance to Michael jackson who happens to let children into his home/castle (spot a similarity?) and the overall make-up that depp sported. At times I could hear depp scream "I'm bad, I'm bad, you know it, you know it". and then naming the characater, Willy Wanka, does that have anything to do with wanking his willy? I sure hope not! The songs were very bollywood, with cheesy dance steps but I guess they are directed by an indian dude, and it was a bunch of fun anyways. The next day was marked by boys' day out on the field visiting toronto on a double decker. Abhikun is a chick-magnet. Wherever we went girls came up to us to say how cute we look when we play. I fed them stories of how i am 25, he is 7, and his mom left me when I was 18 and that she was japanese. When they dint believe me I made abhi talk in japanese and converted the disbelievers.  All in all, his company was awesome, he made me his role model, copied everything I did. Told his mom a day after i arrived that a girl on the bus was "his girl" coz  at one point I told him that I was talking to "my girl" on the phone. We gelled his hair so that he could look more like me, and he also said "daaaamn" a coupla times. The finale was while watching charlie and the chocolate factory: I had been sipping coffee all day on an empty stomach,  and had a layer of nasty cough in my throat. We both went to relieve ourselves in the restroom before the movie adnd stood in adjacent stalls.  While taking a leak, I kinda spit into the urinal to relieve my cough, kiddo obviously thought that he needed to do the same, and took a huge spit that dint make it too far so we all know where that fell, then he got extremely upset that he had spit all over his equpiment, it was hilarious. Its fun to a be a role model, was fun to play with a kid, this time it was more fun that it ever has been, I guess I really am 25! Last but not least, the kid has a tongue longer than that of kiss's lead singer, I kid you not. He wil be the best kisser in the world!

Toronto the place: The place is too cool for words, the women are too hot for words,  its like a cool New York! I was amazed! I live in the DC area. This place is teeming with Indian and Chinese restaurants. I walked by a Chinese restaurant in Toronto and it was called "Ho Lee Chow!", an Indian restaurant named "Khanasutra." Now, in my opinion that is just bloody cool. I am tired of restaurants being named China Garden, China town, India Bistro, but this place is cool enough to don a name that boasts the intellect of its customers. A welcome breeze was Canada!

 Vancouver:Vancouver was simply the bomb. The first day I met up with T, one of my closest guys from my Roorkee days. Lunch with Nendo was at a campus place called the village, where there was indian fast food, taiwanese, chinese, cantonese, mandarin, and greek next to each other for under 5 bucks with pop (canadian for soda). Campus is flanked by a beach besides the mountains necessitating a 16 storey hike down to visit it, simply poetic in its beauty. And yeah, clothing is optional! While we were at the beach, there tons of asian (some clothed), and white (few clothed) people but just one black dude (clothed) there with 4 women(unclothed) for obvious reasons. T and I (clothed) were the darkest people people at the beach besides him. When he crossed us he tells his women, "Ladies, these gentleman have the second and third largest penises on this beach!" and the girls echoed "Hell, ya!". Amidst all the fun, we never lost track that we were there to set up Nendo, but our worries about him were terminated when he was assigned a dorm room on the 6th floor with 22 female, and 5 male floormates. Seems like, sucky sucky aint gonna be no problem no more!

But the funnest part was yet to come.  In the morning before hitting the shower i was playing Pearl Jam (MY MOSTEST FAVORTITEST GROUP EVERRRRRR) and T said that they might be in town, and at 5:00 that evening we found out that they were hitting the stage in a couple of hours. At at the last minute we got floor tickets for the show. The show deserves a separate article, but yeah it was the best show ever, every song had a different ending from the studio recording.

So all in all, nothing could make the trip better, but I had an incentive to come back here so was excited about returning, but the incentive vanished. For a later chat.

Disclaimer: This account is in no way meant to offend any race.


Baggaged back to India from England in accordance with my dad's decision to retreat to the homeland, me, my thick british accent, and culturally ignorant self found ourselves in Calcutta. I call myself ignorant coz I was just 7 and pretty much believed everyone was british, white, and had british accents, and I similarly was british, brown coz i played in the mud, and had a british accent. One day early in our return to India, Miku wanted to start our new lives on a good note by paying a visit to the Kali Temple close to Dum Dum Airport. The Temple was next to a neverending field, and while my parents went in to the temple to pray I was set loose in the field much like a little dog. However, when a master sets his dog loose he hopes that the doggie doesnt poop all over the place and thats exactly what this doggie did. The story of the biggest shit I ever took is what follows.

Wandering around the field I came upon this gentleman dressed in white, with a little white cloth on his head bending over in a posture very similar to a somersault attempt. I watched him for a while. He bent over on his knees, hands forward, and touched his head to the ground, and then at the last minute as if he was scared to somersault, just held the position, and then gave up and came back up. He then, took a deep breadth, looked left, and right, as of to see if anyone was watching his failed somersault attempt and repeated the motion failing yet again. I couldnt take it anymore. I remembered my first somersault and how tough it was, and being the sweet child that I was I decided to help him out. I first went right up next to him, kinda got ready the same way he did and then rolled over on my head and looked back at him to see if he had gained any confidence. But, he dint even look at me, maybe he was shy of being a grown up who couldnt do a simple stunt. I gathered that the shy man needed more help, so I took matters into my own hand. I stood up, went right behind him and when he bent over, I pushed him to help him make him the happiest somersaulter ever. Everything that ensued is a blur due to the intense screaming. But in short, the dude, kinda fell on his side when I pushed him, way short of a somersault, started screaming at the top of his lungs till their were several (hundreds) of people dressed in the same attire surrounding me and screaming in some foreign language. They definitely dint sound british.

Miku and Dada, amidst the screams must have realized I had taken a dump in the middle of the field. They came to my rescue. The Muslium dude, who was in the middle of his Namaaz shouted at them as he explained how I had defiled their religion. At this point I was rather shocked why I wasnt being handed out candy for being so helpful with my stunt tutoring. All explanations my parent handed out to the white clad army seemed to be ineffective in subsiding the shrieking. Then miku, the lady of the day, came up with the answer. She said "Maaf kar deejiye, beta, mand hai!," translation: "Forgive us, for the child is retarded." The crowd quietened down a bit but dint seem to buy the argument, so my mom urged them to talk to me to figure it out for themselves. So one guy said something to me that i dint understand so I started wailing in my british accent " Mommy what are they saying? i was taking me walk and I helped the lad take a sault and he screamed at me face!" The moment I finished talking the crowd started nodding, as if something I said convinced them that I was really retarded. Some of them even patted me on the head?!

So that's how my own mommy saved me calling me retarted, if she hadnt what would have become of me is beyond my imagination! I was telling this story to a friend a coupla days ago, and she said I should be grateful coz my mom saved my skin. It hit me that yes, my mom literally SAVED MY SKIN that day!!! (Get it??????)

“I believe in love, coz its all we got, love knows no boundaries, costs nothing to touch, I believe, I believe in love” --- Elton John.

I guess since the day the first musical note escaped a man’s lips, songwriters have poured out their hearts writing about love; its hopes, its power, its joy, its betrayals, its agony, its heartbreak (I use the word heart but it’s truly the brain that knows, loves and wants). No amount of singing about love will ever beat it to death coz everyone has so much love to give. Our ability to love probably makes us the most sentient species on earth. Our ability to love and understand others, and more so our ability to love and understand ourselves. Understanding others may seem a daunting task, but understanding your own love for others is a far more intricate attempt. Surviving in this huge ocean of different kinds of love, loving a partner stands/floats unique. Why? Almost every other relationship in life we are born into. We don’t choose our parents, we don’t choose our children. Love is there. However, we don’t just love our parents because we are born to them, but becoz of the love they shower on us and show us, coz nothing, nothing invites love like being loved by someone. But falling in love with someone is different. All the love we have to give is flooded upon this one person our heart sets itself upon. This power of choice makes this love the most tangible, the most intangible, the most painful, the most confusing, and the most fun.

I don’t know if love is our capability or was it defined by the elders to make sure the species survives the test of time by enforcing the institution of marriage whose survival recently seems to be highly challenged! But it sure does feel real! Given the pressure these days to find a mate, do people rush into being with someone they wouldn’t be with given exposure to someone more to their liking/"loving"?

"She says she is in love with him, cant find a better man, cant find a better man! " ---Eddie Vader (Pearl Jam)

When you fall for someone and sit around telling your closest friend how much you are in "love", and want that person to be with you, that is probably an intense liking merged with the whim of having her and having someone. Spending time together, loving each other is what gives rise to love (rather cyclic). What determines the success of this choice is; was the whim of having her far more than the whim of having someone. However,love seems to be powerful enough to accomoadate the whim of just having someone enough to let loving lead to love which justifies arranged marriages leading to as strong bonds as love marriages if not stronger.

But I believe the fact remains that the person you love is in your head (lets call her SHIVANGI) not just in front of you. Through culture, tastes, feelings, etc all of us have some idea of who we wanna love. People we meet, people we know, people we love, people we loved mould this notion in our head of our lover. When we meet someone whom we choose either by heart or arrangement or a combination of the two (lets call her Shivani), Shivani replaces/becomes SHIVANGI. The beautiful relation that follows involves love, caring at every level, sharing of every possession (thought and things), but always includes an attempt, a desire to mould this person into the lover in our head coz that is who we love. As Shivani shapes into SHIVANGI, she also changes the lover in our head ( who SHIVANGI is) , and that’s when the two people we love come close to blending into one. Along the way, disappointment stems from Shivani’s failure to match SHIVANGI, my heart breaks when Shivani doesn’t do something that SHIVANGI would do for me, and when Shivani does something that SHIVANGI would never do to me! This beautiful struggle though bumpy does not come close to the pain of a breakup. When Shivani leaves me, I have the pain of dealing with Shivani not being there, but I feel like SHIVANGI is gone too and that I can never love again coz the person in my head is gone. When thinking about the lost love, I think about Shivani a lot, but I think about SHIVANGI even more coz I was and will always be in love with her, I only remember how close to SHIVANGI Shivani was and hate the fact that she is gone, while when she was around I hated the fact that she wasn’t more like SHIVANGI. The pain is less if Shivani was very different from SHIVANGI, but if Shivani was a shadow of SHIVANGI the pain is unbearable. Yes, we miss the person we lose, but even more the idea of the person we lose. But in case we can never get Shivani back, there is hope coz SHIVANGI never dies, she always lives in my head and one day someone walks into our life and makes SHIVANGI flood my body and mind again and the journey continues. While pondering and confusing myself what confuses me more is that if Shivani never left me, but I met someone who is closer to SHIVANGI than Shivani is. What do I do? Should I love SHIVANGI or Shivani? Am in love with SHIVANGI or Shivani? I wish I knew, I wish I knew, but I’m glad I love, coz

Without love, I Wouldn’t believe, I wouldn’t believe in you, and I couldn’t believe in me, without love, love, love …. I believe in love ---Elton John.

PS. Shivani is a figment of my imagination

Shivangi is also a figment of my imagination but I love her