Handed the fighting fish to C for ‘safekeeping’. Am supposed to go to Thailand on Tuesday and as I said in one of my previous posts, I don’t like riding on things driven by anyone else. Plane rides rank second after long route busses and before bikes. So predictably and having those where will that plane come down tomorrow thing. I mean just think: once the plane goes up there is no room for anything. No switching on your sidelights and stopping on the side of the sky to change your tires or check the engine or other stuff. Anything goes wrong and whoosh straight down.

The fish is kind of sensitive, plus it just got over a whitespot break out and having lost quite a few fishes in the past month I don’t quite fancy losing this one. Plus I like this one nicely. And if I don’t get back it will be taken care off.
Well if you haven’t known be well and long enough then this is quite ‘normal’. Every time the time comes to go on a ‘tour’ or out of town I get like this. I have always been an extremely negative guy, always. I probably took the art of being ready for the worst to an entirely new level. I loved saying “when you are expecting the worst to happen then bad is better and that’s good.” I am like the king of pessimism. Saying that word – King of – feels funny. The word gives an entirely different meaning to a phrase these days. Hypochondria in everything is like my ‘thing’. You know about the people who see the glass half full and those who see it half empty? Well I fall under neither. My mind works like this: It could spring a leak, the dog could spill it and wait wait wait here’s my favorite – an earthquake will cause the table to shake and the glass with fall and bye-bye half a glass of water. After that my mind goes “Who will I think of first. Whom will I call first? Will I be able to call at all? The telephone lines will probably go out, but what about the mobile towers? But when the telephone lines go out won’t that mean that the whole of NTC will be down so no cells to? What if I am inside a very old squeaky house? Will the earthquake cut right through the khets? This house has a big base so does that mean it is safe or less safe? What about all the crystal my dad has collected? It is standing on a glass pane. See what I mean? I have a feeling that this was one of the reasons my

Ex-1, ie M, left me. (Time Out: Monday, July 25 06, 00:12 hrs)

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(Restart: Tuesday, July 25 06, 07:30 hrs)

Yeap! I am a very ‘troubled’ person to be with. Grumbling like and old-old man about this could go wrong that could go wrong and at the same time doing everything else like a 13-year old. Yesterday, while I was on my to hand over the fish, I had to drive behind a big truck in Jadibuti. It was a long flat truck and had a big bulldozer riding piggy back on it. The big front face of the metal ‘shovel’, which repels bullets in movies, was facing me from up above. It was menacing. One wrong jerk, one big pothole, one wrong squeak of the truck’s suspension and the whole bulk of Iron could come sliding back and squash me worse than the mosquitoes we squash. And that was not the only danger lurking. It was a slight climb so both of us were pretty slow. But if the driver hit the breaks anytime, especially as I was starting to try and overtake it, them wham! My head would hit the side of that imposing steel/iron edge.

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I had on my new strong Nolan helmet. But still… the result would be rather unfortunate. Very unwanted. One twitch on the driver’s feet, one sneeze, one stupid mutt or dumb child running across the road or as is the usual case in that area – people walking on the highway swaying from left to right with their own feeling of invulnerability from being even touched by the scores of powerful vehicles prying on their road and in quite a hurry. Scores of people thinking that none of the trucks, cars, busses, bikes and whatnots would even touch them as they covered a big expanse of the already narrow highway, all because they would rather not cross the road and walk on the pedestrian area dug out for the them. You have to waste 10 seconds and would have to walk 10/20 more meters. Plus one would have and equal amount of risk in crossing the street wouldn’t you. The fact that when you are crossing street you tend to look sideways as opposed to having the traffic come from behind you in the busiest and most accident prone� stretch of road in the valley doesn’t matter.

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Well any move from them would give me anything from a very heartbreaking scratch on my new helmet to a coma to becoming the Legend of Sleepy Jadibuti Hollow Headless Unicorn Driver. If you hear a rattle-rattle of the taillights and a short low pitch but sharp horn but no sound of vrrrromm of� a bike, it could be a Uni. So run. The Headless Uni Driver is looking for a head that fits in his Nolan Helmet. He will cut your head and see if it fits. If it doesn’t he throws it into the river. If it does then it will finally rest. But the driver had such a weird looking head that none will ever fit. Run. It is so easy to be killed and to kill. Very easy. Watch Final Destination for details.

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Vladimir Komarov died because a lot of mishaps ended with the parachute not opening properly in Soyuz 1 (I read that Yugi Gagarin hit a minister or someone higher for ordering that launch when it wasn’t supposed to be ready. Yugi was also the reserve cosmonaut for the mission). A lot of things went wrong in Soyuz 1. Three cosmonauts died in Soyuz 11 after spending 23 days in space because one bloody valve opened or did not close properly when Soyuz 11 was undocking from Salyut 1. The people on the ground opened the hatch shouting congratulations to the cosmonauts only find them staring back at them. Just staring. All dead. Something called an O-ring, some kind of seal, was faulty in Challenger and the end result was a total break up. Everything broke apart. For Colombia it, it was because something hit the ‘brick’ of thermal protection system and it came lose and we all say for hours and hours and days and weeks the visuals of each of the shuttle’s peace falling to the earth, The Brick was to protect the shuttle from the heat generated during the reentry. And when one, which is totally in the outside of the shuttle just sticking to the structure probably not linked by any wires no monitors, got lose it let the whole Indian Sub-continent know that there was a woman of Indian Origin called Kalpana Chawla who was an astronaut/scientist in NASA. I think the Indians still don’t know that Rakesh Sharma was the first Indian in space, he went with the Soviets. I always hoped that the first Nepali in Space would be called Tapas Thapa. But that will never be. I knew about Kalpana Chawla a long time back, I read about her in Femina I think. The Colombia gave that knowledge to all the people around me. I felt pissed. Just like I felt when everyone started talking about the Titanic after the film like they’d known so much about it all their life. Agreed we had all read a chapter on it in school. But I knew a lot more about it from a National Geographic edition and by reading the search and final finding of the wreckage by Ballard in his book. The same was with Tsunami. I had checked the encyclopedia after reading Alistair McLean’s Santorini. And now the whole world knew the word. Knowledge IS Power. Well I felt that inside and lost it when the knowledge became everyone’s. I no more had the bragging rights. Well the point here is that small things could mean total annihilation in space, but that is not the only place. Watch final destination and look around you. One loose sprocket. One loose spike in your tire. One wheel lock because of a tight break. Or a loose one because of water and dust. One rusty wire. One slip. One tree falling. One overhead wire loose. One crazy bus driver. Sheesh. Dying is easy.

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All that said, the basic point of the whole desertion was that I was in a very dangerous situation, but it was nothing like what I was already feeling. This extreme feeling of mortality before big trips is very extreme indeed. No monster bulldozer comes anywhere near. Driving behind and army or police pickup with the gun resting on the back rail and pointing straight at your heart where any of the above mentioned jerking eventualities would have very undesirable ill-effects. Maybe this ranks higher. Maybe. But every time a trip gets closer I get this bad feeling that I won’t be coming back. In the past it has been giving books to friends, then bitter sweet miss-you-take-care-always-yours-love-you messages to my Ex-1, when she wasn’t an ex ehe, and now there is the fish and maybe a message to Ex-1. But this time I decided to leave something more behind. This blog.

This actually came up yesterday; I think I was riding to Vajra hotel in the morning. Or was it before that, I don’t recall. I was thinking of writing a goodbye if I don’t come back email to friends and some more to others. I forgot what caused it, but then I began to look at my life. Well this moment of total recall generally hits everyone at times when they think it’s all going to be over soon, you know that famous “you see your life and events in fast motion zoom” I forgot the exact words. Maybe I was thinking of what to write on the blog or something, when I probably started thinking about where I am. If I come back I will tell you about it but for now just let it be known that I consider being in a “Back to Zero” state. Plans, hopes, dreams, everything around me just went poof on me in the last few months and now I am in a state where I have sort of nothing. No plans! No hope! No dreams. Just nothingness ahead of me. It’s like time for rebirth. But when I say rebirth I don’t mean bang die and be born again. I mean change direction in THIS VERY LIFE. So I think crossroads would be a better word, hence my singing of Sweet Surrender (John Denver who died on a plane crash), Crossroads (Don McLean, who I think is still singing American Pie somewhere, shit American pie is also about a plane crash) and Coming Back to life (Pink Floyd, I don’t know of any crashes for this one but Syd Barrett died last week. I wanted to put Piper at the Gates of St Peter as heading, referring to his creation Piper at the Gates of Dawn). So I really hope that I get the chance of taking a path on the crossroads rather than cross over to the other side or have a rebirth.

So I was thinking what am I now. I decided to compare the Me Now to the Me I Would Have Wanted To Be Now when I thought about it years ago. How close was I to the person I wanted to have become when I grew up. I don’t mean aim, ambition, degree or career wise. But as a person. You know those qualities and activities you imagined you would have and do when you were older. Hobbies I thought I would have. Things I thought I wanted to know how to do. And the kind of person I would become. Where did I want to be and what have I become? This is always a good measure.

So let’s start. Hmmm…I wanted to be a person who enjoys drinking. I mean classy booze. Well no arguments on that. On that front I am a drowning success. I don’t drink like a fish. I drink more than a fish and usually I try to enjoy each drop, drinking not for getting high but for the taste of the thing.

Next smoking: Well even though I had my first few puff when I was in class eight ( I started with More Rs 5), I never thought I would end up into a smoker. Maybe the occasional drag. I am not a chain smoker but still one is too much as someone said in Oprah and I have a lot more than one each day.

I was a very sadistic person as a child. I stole money from my parents, stole comics from a store in Sanepa, stole money (a few rupees but it was still steeling) from Sita Ram dai’s Newspaper stand, titaura’s and a lot of things from a lot of places. I still remember me and a Pal in BSAMV who used to go opening desks of juniors to steel stamps. Can’t name the guy though. I pricked ladybugs’ heads with a needle. Catching them and clipping their wings and putting them on an ‘island’ I had made in the kullo in my back yard. Killing them as in a make-believe war. Killed ants insects. Still destroy succulent plants which I myself used to cultivate in another make-believe war. The small aggressive oppressive braves versus the big round reluctant but numerous ones and the large flat ones being enslaved to fight for either ones. Man I was cruel and I feel so damn bad every time I recall.

But then around 3/4 years ago I became a veggie. Ate a few morsels of meat by mistake but still maintained it before converting after extreme pressure from Baba. And the smell from the Barbecue right outside my door everyday was too big a temptation. I had already started feeling the stress of being veggie and the primal call for a burned part of a carcass. Then there was this one incident where a mosquito was drinking. I didn’t want to kill it. I let it drink. After all that was it’s destiny. Whenever I see fat mosquitoes inside a room I pity them. What a waste of their lives, no matter how fat they got. Their males were outside in the garden drinking juice. They are never going to get out of the room and mate and even if they are already pregnant, I kinda forgot if a mosquito has a pregnancy or not, then they can’t get out and there is no puddle of filthy water in my room, I hope. Well getting back to that one mosquito imprinted in my mind, I let it drink. I didn’t want to kill it. I went on reading what I was reading. Then the itch started to become unbearable. So suddenly reflexes caused me to try n shoo away the insect, but my reflexes were to fast and I was too strong. The mosquito got squashed. I felt so bad. I still feel bad. These days there are so many instances that I nearly fall over trying to avoid frogs and even ants. But still I kill mosquitoes. I feel bad every time I do. Every delicious bite I take of meat, I feel bad about the animal it came from which was moving and jumping every cell was alive a few days ago. It’s a very funny bite full of guilt and satisfaction. So I can’t decide if I have become the good person I wanted to become in that front.

I haven’t learned to play any other instrument and the little I knew of a Piano I have forgotten. Cross.

I wanted to become a good and true person. There was one time when the class teacher, Rohit sir I think in LAS, called me to settle a dispute. And I actually told the truth. And the two involved students got some punishment. One looked at me really badly but no one said anything. Now I am a pathological liar, who sometimes manages to lie to himself and even make himself believe a lie.

I am not a good person anymore. I thought I was a good person and would make a model friend, lover, boyfriend, husband and father. It looks like I will not become the later two. And I have failed in the former three. Failed badly. I am a miserable evil person now.

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Looks like this one is to be an unfinished business too. Like me. Always and unfinished business.� So a short quick synopsis of me.

I have had my share of hots on and crushes. More than Sameer (Saif Ali Khan) did in DIl Chahta Hai, though not in the same frequency. I have been in love a couple of times. And one will last for a long long time to come lingering on and on and on. I have been in relationships. I have broken a couple of hearts and hurt people who love me. I have had my heartbroken one or two of them, I had in wrenched out. And I have hurt and wrenched one heart beyond repair. I am not proud of it. But it had to be done. I probably am not a virgin, as far as I can recall. My story is that I was too drunk to remember what happened and I woke up the next day and there was a naked chick in the same room. People with whom I went to Pokhara tell me I am not. I probably know a lot more but I chose to not remember. I have kissed three woman. One was the one mentioned above. Which was the only thing I remember of that night and it horrible. Next was someone I loved but it I knew nothing and messed it up in all occasions. The last was a memorable one. I can still hear her groans of pleasure and feel the hair. And I did that with a lot of people around. All were drunk, had slept and were waking up when the incident happened. I have also cheated. That final incident was the one. I have had cyber sex and one long distance phone sex. Have watched a lot of porn. Have been successful and am now a big bad failure. I am a big underachiever. In fact the only thing I have got great success is not being one. I smoke I drink I have fun. I laugh.

I even appear to laugh through my miseries. But let me tell you this. It is not like you are dying inside and you hide it and laugh or smile. A lot of times you ARE dying inside but still you feel the laughter and smiling and do that. No camouflage. Sometimes the smile is a camouflage. Other times it is also a smile of nothing left to lose. A smile of death. Freedom I think the hero called it in The Far Pavilions. Sometimes you just smile at what fate gave you at what you expected and at what you saw and how it all vanished.

Am I frustrated? Is the smiling me the real me? I don’t really know. I do have the enormous hurt and pain and I do have the laughter. I am a walking contradiction. No No No I am a slothing contradiction. A person who can be clinically certified as chronically unpunctual. The biggest of all procrastinator. Everything about me is unfinished business. And so it seems is this. No aims no future. I personify total failure and what not to do with yourself. Once someone told my Dad that I could be Pushkin, but I won’t.

That’s me. Mister Inconsistent. Mister Nonsense. Mister Unfinished Business.

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PS: Don’t say bon voyage or good luck I fear that. Just give me a “Break a leg”. Please. I don’t have the time to explain. But good luck always ends up giving me a bad one even in the most favourable conditions. So just feel it and say break a leg. And If anything happens… please try and get this published somewhere. This one should have been better. I thought a lot of beter words. Bt there is not time. And pick a nice picture to publish as well.. nice n funny.

Thank You

tt

(11:38hrs lokanthali)

If I make through I’ll finish it. But there are four planes to ride and a beach to stay in which always reminds me of the tsunami.

Maybe make this into a merorial…

Will I care? I don’t k now. I hope I will. I hope there is an after life/ rebirth/heaven hell/ghost anything. Just not the end. All life and wham nothing. I don’t fear death, don’t get me wrong. I just simply hate it.

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