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She is very pretty and he is very handsome. She is the best singer at school. He is the school cricket team captain. He is the best athlete; girls love him. It's teenage love. Magical, as ever.

Folks at home don't like their relationship. They want to bargain, as usual, to no end. Option-less, they elope. They get married and promise to live together, happily ever after.

A couple of months pass. The World raises its ugly face. Money is in short supply. The odd jobs don't really help much.

Love evaporates.

He drinks as if there is no tomorrow. She cries all the time.

They have an argument, and then, they have a fight. She tells him, 'You are no man'. He wants to prove that's what he is, 'a man'.

He beats her with his cricket bat, breaks a few of her bones. He wins. She loses.

As always, the relationship remains the biggest loser. Violence.

***

He believes his religion is 'in danger'. Even his indoctrinator says so.

He leaves home to fight for his religion, and to restore his religion's lost glory.

His parents are confused, "Where did this son come from? He is just 18. We never brought him up that way!" He doesn't care, for he has a bigger cause to fight for. The AK-47 and the RDX are friends that will help him achieve his cause.

He fights, and he is dead. No one sings. He is dead fighting a 'cause' no one understands.

No one claims him; not even his indoctrinator. His parents refuse to recognize his dead body. Violence.

***

Her mother controls the home and believes, blindly, in tradition. 

She wants to fly. Her mother says, "It is not healthy to fly. Good girls don't fly. They cook." 

She wants to go out and find a job. Her mom says, "Don't. There are guys all around, all potential rapists."  

She hates home.

Her mom says to the relatives, "she is misguided. She has the galls to be free!" and she adds, "She is influenced."

Her mom forces her marriage. The guy claims to be an NRI. They don't really know much about him, but they assume that all NRIs are great. "God's own children"; as they say.

The marriage happens. She doesn't really like him. Her mom doesn't care. Violence.

***

It is her first day to the kindergarten, in a big bad city somewhere in India. Her parents are happy and proud.

She goes to the kindergarten. She does her jigsaw and she does her nursery rhymes. The kindergarten loves her, and she loves the kindergarten.

She is very friendly. She looks around. Right in front of the kindergarten building; there is a construction site. 

Laborers at the construction site work; and their kids play all the time. She wants to play with the laborer's kids, they are her age. 

She makes advances. She wants to play in the sand, without a care in the world. She wants to build sand castles, together with the laborer's kids.

Her kindergarten teacher tells her, "Don't talk to those dirty kids. They are 'gande bacche', filthy kids. They will spoil you, and they will teach you abuses." Violence.

Lately, there has been a hell lot of talk about 'great writing', typos and the propriety of using SMSese in blog posts. Blogosphere is never short of one thing' opinions.

Let me start with a quick confession- I am not a 'writer' of any ilk. Neither do I fancy any secret dreams of being one, ever.

I mean, the first thing I ever wrote was on this iLand and it was supposed to be an armature attempt at amusing myself. That's right ' amusing myself; if some others get amused in the process, that's a bonus.

Wifey doesn't care much about my blogging persona. I think she has read about three (!!!)  of my posts till date. Quite rightly so, because the real bloke in her life is enough, it's only natural that she has no interest in my so-called virtual avatar.

What I liked is her interesting observation from the three posts that she read. She said, quite matter-of-factly, "If I remove precisely five words from your posts and I can prove your vocabulary is just about zilch!"

Now, that sounded mean as hell. I said, "Ahem ahem and what are those words?"

She said, "Well, those words are suck, screw, rock, hell and piss. If you decide not to use any of these words, you will realise you have no other words left to express whatever crap you write."

I guess she is right. These five words are so generic; they can be effectively used to convey an entire range of emotions. I feel tempted to include another four letter word to that and make it a six word list.

Wifeys know the best, after all. "Where's my jhola, honey?"

"So glad to see you here, Madam. Welcome to my little shop. You are late, I am afraid. It's time to close, almost."

"Let me show you around my little beauty. Take a look. Oh! My shop, isn't she a beauty? I sell Everything. I sell Anything as well. And yes, I sell Dreams too."  

"Look at that Display Counter. I have displayed bits of History there. Some of it was stolen. We have quite a few thieves in this area, Madam. I plan to shift my shop to a better locality."

"I had Geography on display too. It caught dirt and I had to send it to the Cleaners across the Street. I will try to show you on your next visit here."

"Look at that cupboard, Madam. There are some canaries here. Lovely birds! They sing. Not all, only some of them. Some of them died, they didn't like the cages.”

"This is what I call the Bric-a-Brac section. I keep tit-bits and curios here. A bit of Science, Nostalgia, Romance, some Love and some Passion too.  Do tell me which one you like."

"The Honest Shopkeeper has everything. I sell Environment and Ecology too. They are in high demand these days. Some trend, my son says. I believe him. The young ones are smart, you know."

"There is the Flights section. It has Flying Machines, all makes, all models. I especially like this model- the Flight of Fancy. I can offer you an attractive scheme, if you like." 

"Climb up the stairs, Madam. Careful! Watch your head, please. Look at that big cupboard there ' it has two sections. These two sections house the World. Just look at it! Isn't it fabulous?"

"In the first section, it is the World That Is. In the second one, there, is the World That Could Have Been. Which one do you want, Madam?"

"I am sure I had Atlantis somewhere, the caretaker says it's lost. I think I will have to fire the caretaker now."

“I could have shown you more, had you come earlier. You missed other sections. I could have shown you Life and Death. I sell Afterlife as well.”

"But it is time to go. People at home wait for me, you know."

"Please do come back to my humble shop sometime later. It's an honour to serve you, Madam."

* and a Reference for the Rest of Us

Today, Yours Truly is in a Gyan giving mood and so shall he do. This is post about these cuties called 'Fonts' - suitable Fonts for the Web, if you like. Here I do not intend to talk about the history of fonts and typefaces, Gutenberg onward, but to talk about the suggested ways of selecting fonts for on-screen viewing.

Firstly, in a strict technical sense, a Font and a Typeface are NOT the same. A typeface is the style of the individual letters. For example, this sentence is written is using the Verdana typeface. It uses size 11. There lies the difference ' Verdana (size 10) and Verdana (size 12) are different fonts, but the same typeface. So wise, na? A typeface is often loosely called a type; sometimes it is called a face too. I fancy using all these words interchangeably.

When I started computer programming, not too long ago, days when a 16 MB memory was considered a luxury, machine resource had to be used in a miserly way. The green screen applications (No Graphic User Interface) used a have lot of Courier typeface. "This is the Courier type and it is the closest we get to a typewriter output."

Moving on every font is not very reader friendly on a computer Screen. There is some science here; a whole lot of very smart folks do some cognitive research to arrive at these results.

Some of the typefaces look good on paper and others are specifically designed for Screen Display. Times Roman, for example if most widely used typeface in the Newspapers, but the same newspapers on their websites would probably be using a different typeface, Verdana perhaps.

It is subconscious thing in the mind, you may consciously try to focus on the content, but the mind gets distracted with certain typefaces. Typefaces have their own personality; they can be formal, casual, modern, traditional, serious, friendly, and cool.  

There are two broad categories of typefaces- serif and sans Serif.  Serifs are those little doohickeys at the ends of each letter (the picture explains it better). Sans Serif means just that ' sans (without) serif.  

I am writing about some of the popular types. I use the same typeface to describe its features; I also mention the size. Please judge the readability yourself.


Times New Roman (size 12) is a serif type and it looks like something you would probably see in a newspaper or magazine. It is not very readable on Screen. It has a close relative called Georgia which provides better on-screen readability.


Arial (size 10) is a sans serif type that has a more modern look, but is NOT necessarily easier to read on screen because it’s on the narrow side. It can look very light when used in smaller sizes. It has the power to make the make the most interesting text seem extremely boring (on Screen). It is often used in business correspondences, though. Helvetica is something similar to this face.


Verdana (size 10) is an easy-to-read sans serif face. Most of the serious websites and dot coms use this type. It is my favourite too (for on screen reading). However, it doesn't look too great on paper. Tahoma (size 10) is another Screen Friendly font and it looks like a cross between Arial and Verdana.


Georgia (size 12): This serif face is much easier to read on screen than Times New Roman because it was designed for the screen. On the other hand, Times was designed for paper (early 20^th Century!). In case Georgia font is not installed on the reader's PC, it is automatically replaced with Times.  (Somehow, rediffiland does not support this type too well, it makes it smaller than, say Microsoft Word. I used size 12, still it looks quite small. As they say, it does not follow the 'Bata size' on iLand.)


Comic Sans (size 10), as the name suggests, is an attempt to make it look comic. It is informal and friendly, and may be useful for certain kind of web content. This is not the kind of font one uses for writing anything serious.

These are some of the common fonts. There are zillions others too, and many of them are not Screen Friendly.

Moral of the story: Nothing. People still use the fonts they think looks cool, what the heck! (Myriad Web another Screen friendly typeface!) 

 

PS. The title of this post has been inspired by the famous Dummies Series of (mainly) Technical books. Those are the only books I read and understood in one go. Want to do an 'iLand for Dummies', anyone? This Dummy will buy the first copy, Pucca Promise.

Picture courtesy: http://www.arts-letters.com… And (No) picture courtesy: you know who!

Oops! the iLand folks moderated the picture (explaining what a serif was), calling it “illegal, obscene, racist or infringing of intellectual property rights, or otherwise injurious or objectionable “ I guess that is a copyright thing from the website I picked it from. Anyway, remember the doohickeys at the end of the letter, they are the Serifs. Now I know, a picture does say a thousand words.

Continued from The Vacation


Ashok's camp was beautiful. It had around ten Swiss tents by the small river, surrounded by large grasslands. At a distance, on all four sides were snow capped mountains.

"You guys started early morning right? It's already sunset time. You should have broken the journey " Ashok said as he walked towards them. He hugged Adi and Renu warmly and said "Welcome. So nice to see you mates, after such a long time."

Ashok was his old, cheerful self.

"And how're you Chameli Darling! That look still is a killer, babe." Ashok flirted with Renu. 'Chameli Darling' was what Renu was sometimes called by her college buddies. Normally Renu would blush to that remark and come up with a witty one liner. Not this time. She just smiled a faint smile.

The camp attendants were swift; they got down to the business of carrying the luggage to the tent.

"You people seem tired" said Ashok "Go check out your tent. Freshen up, and then we'll sit and talk. Give the attendants a shout if you need anything else. Meanwhile let me go arrange a campfire, drinks and snacks."

Inside the tent, Adi and Renu went around the business of changing, cleaning themselves in a slow, robotic fashion. They did not utter a word. Once in a while, they both stole glances at the suitcase.

"When are we going back, Adi?" asked Renu. Adi did not reply.

'This trip is fucked. And so are we.'

A thousand thoughts came to his mind. ‘I have been a loser. A middle-middle class existence, a 2 room rented 'quarter' in a Government colony, an old Maruti 800. Heck, is this what I had dreamt when I offered himself to Renu. She takes the bus to work.’ Renu was thinking the same perhaps. "Adi, can you imagine the kind of things we could do with 10 crores. We don't have to worry about the basic necessities anymore. We are out of the rut!"

'The rut. Yes, that's what it is. She is right and I am responsible for it.'

Said Adi, "Yes, and we will do a whole lot of transactions, all in black." Renu shot back, unexpectedly, "that's okay Adi. If you feel it's not fine, please go ahead and report this to the cops. May be they will publish your photo in one of those newspapers and the TV channels may give you 30 seconds of airtime, praising your honesty."

"Not that, Renu. I want the money. I need it. I was just considering the various possibilities." Adi looked tensed and a bit angry too "Let's go and sit with Ashok, we will figure out what to do. The feeling has not sunk in yet."

At the campfire, Ashok was in his usual jolly mood. He had always been a sportsman. He had an athletic build, sharp mind. Adi and Renu tried their best to contribute to the conversation. Renu was a better actor. Adi looked miserable.

Ashok joked and talked a lot and quoted several funny college day incidents. "Remember Chameli Darling, that bloke Debashish who wrote that silly love letter to you! Totally fucked up character, I met him last month. Now he Renu? Are you listening? Hello!"

"Oh Ashok, I was lost into something. I am really sorry. Please continue. What were you saying?"

"Is something wrong folks? Did I say something you don't fancy? Hey Adi, Renu tell me, mates. We're friends right? If you want to be left alone, just tell me. I'll fuck off, I promise." Ashok sounded hurt.

"Oh no Ashok. You're such a baby. We like you so much and you haven't changed a bit" Renu tried to cover it up. "Yes Ashok, no other problems. I think it must be the journey, or may be the altitude thing even I am not feeling too good." Adi looked at Renu as he tried to drop that excuse to Ashok.

Adi and Renu spent the next four days at the camp thinking and planning what to do with the money. Adi was tensed. Renu had not expected him to be so perturbed. On the other hand Renu was more relaxed and secretly happy that they had some good money now. Adi would be often sitting around by the river, staring at the snow capped peaks. He looked very disturbed and behaviour became a bit erratic, he would often lose his temper. Renu did not like that fact. 'Why is he so burdened with his sense of right and wrong? Conscience. Morality. Why can't he think straight?'

Ashok provided the much needed outlet and comic relief to Renu. Ashok was an adventure sports person, an excellent rock climber. He narrated a lot of interesting experiences. They went for long treks. Renu would return to find Adi sitting around, sipping beer and thinking.

"I hope your marriage is fine? No screw-ups, na? You both look quite disturbed." Asked Ashok to Renu. "Nothing like that. All fine." Renu pretended everything was normal. But normal it was not. 'May be I should say the entire thing to Ashok. Adi seems to be hopeless. He may even go insane. '

Rest of the days were quite heavy on Adi. He spent most of the time sitting around on the river bank and hardly ever spoke. Renu and Ashok took some treks together.

The night before leaving was a long one Adi had drunk himself silly and had to be manually carried to the bed.

Next morning, Adi and Renu were ready for the return journey to Chandigarh. Ashok asked Adi, "I'll hitch along, guys. I have to go to the Delhi HQ, you guys drop me at Chandigarh and I'll catch a train to Delhi." Adi agreed and was glad he would not have to do the driving now.

Next day, at Chandigarh Sector 18 Coffee Shop, Renu and Ashok see a small news report on the fifth page of The Tribune. The headline said: "Unidentified man found dead near Shimla Highway. Police suspect alcohol overdose."

'A most perfect murder ' Ashok thought and ordered the second cup of coffee.

THE END

"It's been long Adi, we didn't go anywhere. Don't you think we should take a break now? Plan a vacation or something?" said Renu, with a bored ex-pression. Adi agreed. "In fact, I was planning the same; let me call Ashok for ideas for a vacation. The same Ashok, remember? The college buddy "

"Which Ashok are you talking about? We had three of them, right? Srinivas, Gogoi and Shukla…"

"Gogoi, the sporty chap He quit his banking job last year and joined an adventure tourism company. Now he manages a couple of river rafting and hiking camps." Adi told Renu. "By the way, I know he had a huge crush on you, and I think even you fancied him quite a lot."

Renu mocked back at Adi, "An insecure rascal you are! Nothing like that ever happened, you bloke."

Adi and Renu went to the same college. Over the four years they studied together, they shared the same friend circle, shared good times and later got married to each other. Adi now works as a printing technologist in a large printing company and Renu teaches at a local Polytechnic. They have a simple, middle class existence in Chandigarh.

The next day, Adi came up with the news "Hey Renu, Ashok runs quite a few of those camps and he personally recommended the one at Sangla valley in Himachal. It will not be a very long drive from here, and he says the weather is perfect this time of the year and advised us to plan a trip on weekdays, not weekends. You know it is more peaceful that way."

"That sounds great, Adi. A camping trip to the Himalayas! We'll make it longish one. Wow, I can already smell the fresh mountain air, those rapid brooks, and those wild orchids. Amazing!"

"Right Her Majesty. Your wish is my command. Let's plan a trip next week, should we?"

"Do you think that jalopy of yours; the Maruti 800 will be able to carry us to such high altitudes?" Renu said, with a mocking smile.

"Well, what can a poor man like me do? I can't afford an SUV, you know. We'll go as far the 800 takes us. Some day, may be if I win a lottery or something, I would love to be rich."

"Oh, forget it. The 800 rocks and I love you Adi. I wouldn't mind a richer Adi, though."

Adi called up Ashok and confirmed their trip.

After almost a week, Adi and Renu started the journey much before sunrise. "It is around 250 kilometres ahead of Shimla; that would take around 10 hours from Shimla. It's difficult to maintain an average speed of more than 30 on Himalayan roads." Adi informed. Renu wasn't interested in those details, "That's fine, honey. The journey is the destination"

"Right. The journey is the destination."

It was an eventless drive till the time they crossed Shimla, after which they started penetrating deep into the Himalayas. The gigantic and majestic mountains opened several layers of surprises. The picture post card landscape makes you wonder if you are on Earth. The roads became lonelier and lonelier. An occasional car passed by. Few locals would be casually walking up and down the hills. The only traffic jam they came across was caused by a herd of goats.

Adi and Renu were speechless, too awestruck admiring the beauty of the landscape. The car proceeded at a leisurely pace. The journey is the destination, indeed.

Suddenly a long back car overtook them at a very high speed.

"Has this guy gone nuts? Driving at that kind of a speed on these roads? Is it a Formula-1 going on here? Bastard." Adi was suitably disgusted. "Must be some idiotic spoilt brat, forget it Adi". They continued.

They had moved ahead a short distance when then heard a thud. The same car, which had just crossed them, had slid down the cliff and took several topples and fell into a ravine. "Shit! They're gone!" Adi stopped and had a look. Adi and Renu got down and looked at the damaged car it looked like a huge, messy ball of steel.

They looked around for help; there was not a single soul as long as eyes could see. No one in sight.

Adi said, "Someone might have survived. I'll go and have a look." He started going down, carefully. "Be careful, Adi. Watch that step." Renu followed him, slowly. She was curious too, may be she could be some help, may be someone wounded would need to be carried back.

Adi reached the point where the car lay in debris. He peeped in, and was aghast at the sight. Two human bodies, totally crushed,.. as if they had been rolled under a road roller. He was too horror-struck to react and could not speak for a few minutes. He had never thought death could be so brutal, instantaneous and ugly.

He regained his composure after a couple of minutes and heard Renu calling him, "What happened, Adi?" Renu was almost there. "Dead two of them. Don't come closer Renu. You will not be able to stand the sight. Deadly."

He turned back to climb back to the road and then resume the journey, when he noticed a very large suitcase, half open with the jolt. From the suitcase, he noticed, 1000 Rupees notes. He took a closer look. It was whole suitcase full of 1000 Rupees Notes. "Renu. Look at this!" They both looked wide eyed at the suitcase. "Fuck! This must be at least 10 crores! May be, more…"

"I am scared Adi."

Adi looked around again. Not even a single vehicle had passed the road since they stopped. No one.

"So am I Renu, what to do now?"

"Let's carry the suitcase to the car and get lost from here. We'll figure out the next step later." They repacked the suitcase, closed it again and carried it back to the car. The suitcase was very heavy and to be dragged with much difficulty. They finally managed to take up to the road and dumped it behind the back seat.

The onward journey was one of the longest and most nervous one they ever had. Adi kept sweating on his forehead, thinking hard. Renu kept on clicking her finders and concentrated hard on the dashboard. They did not talk for quite some time.

"This can land us into big trouble Renu. May be we should report at the nearest police station." Adi thought aloud. "Who knows, those guys may have been terrorists. Who else carries such obscene amount of cash?"

"Or may be no. Just imagine Renu, 10 crores!" Adi looked at Renu. She was still very nervous. "Let's carry on and pretend nothing happened, Adi. We will think about it peacefully, once we reach the camp."

"All right, we should be somewhere there soon." Said Adi and noticed a small sign board with an arrow pointing right - 'This way to Grand Himalayan Adventures and Holiday Camps. Welcome.'

To be continued

Upamanyu Chatterjee's famous novel 'English, August: An Indian Story', tells the story of Agastya Sen aka August Sen, an IAS officer who gets posted to a mufassil town called Madna somewhere in Central India.

The book begins with the statement "I’ve a feeling, August, you’re going to get hazaar fucked in Madna.”

The above statement could have been written in many other ways, but none would sum up the emotion in exactly the same way. Such is the power of the lingo called Hinglish. 'Hazaar fucked'! 'Thousand fucked'? The purists will wince at Hinglish, 'disgusting, bastardised language'.

That's the irony, no matter how much the purists wince, Hinglish grows, and how. If they can have Chinglish, Singlish, Spanglish, Franglais what's the big deal with Hinglish? After all, that is how languages grow and acquire local flavours. Variety is the spice of life, isn't it?

Business trips to the East Asian countries like Singapore and Malaysia allowed me to decipher the intricacies of their own version of the Queen's Language. The Singapore cabbie asks you, in pure Singlish "How are you, la?" You reply "good, la." If he says "Cannot", he means something like "No". The best sample of Singlish I came across was "Can also can, cannot also can". Go, guess what it means. (It means - "It is optional".)

Of course, a lot of common Indian words have been a part of the Queen's lexicon for quite some time. Words like jungle, dacoit, putty, pundit, guru ' all are regular English words now. Quite a few Indian English words like prepone and eve-teasing are so commonly used that hardly anyone knows, or cares, if they are proper English words.

All the Indian regional languages, at least the spoken form, make generous use of English words. What we get is a potpourri of two or more languages mixed together with telling effect. Try telling the rickshaw puller you want to go the Vishwavidyalya, he'll give you a confused stare, tell him University, he will know.

I have spent much of my youth chasing babes in Delhi, without much success of course. I tried hard to patao them, but they did not dalo any ghaas - but that's beside the point.  Those babes did teach me the finer aspects of Hinglish and made me a maha connoisseur of the lingo. Like this gem of a Hinglish sentence, uttered by the damsel-in-distress "I was going aage aage, he was coming peeche peeche, and it was damn andhera. And his hand no, mere hand ko, almost touched and nikal gaya." If you have a closer dekho at this sentence, you will know what I mean.

Even the big brands in the corporate world love Hinglish. Think of the catch lines these days, "Hungry Kya?" or "Kal par control". The smart Alec TV channels adopted Hinglish as their official language long time back. Gone are the days of DD news where they read the news in chaste Hindi or the Queen's language.

If you hear "She is total bindaas", you know exactly what she is all about. I have not been able to find an exact English equivalent of the word bindaas. The meaning could be anything - zany, peppy, happy-go-lucky, fun loving, carefree. I don't know if they can be considered perfect synonyms.

Chalo yaar, I am through with my rumblings and bakwas. Will catch you later, have hazaar things to do now. Need to go out for some khana-peena, daru-sharu with the hoi polloi and the riff raff.

Purists, please go ahead and wince.

Remember the day we met and talked the first time? My pal's rented pad in Noida I used to frequent in those 'educated unemployed' days. You stayed next door, your own rented pad. Our faces were familiar to each other.

I would visit my pal every other day, hoping to steal a conversation with you! You were my only incentive for visiting him, apart from the cheap rum that bloke offered. What a big time Line-baaz I was!

And that fateful evening, when we talked the first time. You stood outside, looking worried and scared ' your rented pad was dark, a short circuit, the fuse was gone. You were so coy in asking me if I could fix it. I did. As soon as I was done with it, the power went off!

We cursed the State Electricity Board ' that's how the conversation started.

++++++

Times passed and we started talking more. Conversations flowed; thankfully the Electricity Board was never the agenda. You were in love with me, before I fell for you. But you don't agree to that, the liar that you are.

Remember that rickety, grey scooter of mine? Bajaj Chetak. God knows why you had named it "Bhootnath". That day Bhootnath took the giant leap - from "it" to "he".

We rode across Delhi those days, feasting on Bengali Market gol gappas, Nirula's and Priya Cinema. Noida still didn't have a Cinema then, except for that rat-house called Alka which played flicks like "Sola Baras ki Jawani".

You cursed Delhi and said it doesn't rain enough. Whenever it did, we took out Bhootnath, and rode aimlessly around Connaught Place. Drenched and shivering.

You killed me every time Bhootnath ran out of petrol and I was too broke for a refill. I think twice I made you push him, and you did a great job.

++++++

That first job made me feel super rich. It was a whopping 4 digit salary, not even halfway to the 5 digit mark.

How to spend that money was the biggest problem we had. I wanted to buy you something, and we rode to the Sarojini Nagar market. We hogged on all the 'export reject' rags. We felt super cool, super trendy and so 'with-it'.

On the way back, Bhootnath threw his tantrums again. We took that long walk pushing him, bags and all, looking for the nearest mechanic, who arrived after two miles.

You laughed all the way, I could never figure out what was so funny. "We did a Bhootnath today! Or Bhootnath did us?" you said. 
 

++++++

Time passed and we got married. Holy matrimony as they call it. You said "Heavily loaded word, this 'marriage' is. I feel exactly the same. Don't you?" I said "Same difference". You laughed like mad. We could never figure out what was that goddamn responsibility that people talk about all the time. For us, before and after marriage was almost the same. "Almost same-same, thank you."

The careless planner that I was, I screwed up everything, including that Honeymoon journey. Remember how we travelled Indian Railways, sans reservation, 'waiting-list ticket' and all? Our charms did not go too well the TTE too.

The funny woman that you are, you never complained, just giggled through that godforsaken journey. I think that was your attempt at making me come over that self-guilt. "The journey would have been better if we had taken Bhootnath along." I murmured.

"Fat chance, I am not strong enough to push him up the Himalayas" you giggled back.  

++++++

Times flew by; that 4 digit income kept growing. Funny, it does not seem so whopping anymore. Now it fails it keep pace with the needs, more often than not. We made babies, and felt happy. The happiness grew as the baby grew. Along with that came a lot many needs. Foreign travels we always dreamt of came and went.

I kept oscillating between bouts of happiness and boredom. Sometimes the peer pressure was killing. I was doing well, but never good enough. You often reminded me to keep off the rat race; it is easier said than done. You repeated the same old thing you always said, "even if you win the rat race, you remain a rat".

"Nice words. And like all nice words, meaningless too", I said. It was back to business, as usual.

Bhootnath died a natural death and was dispatched to the junk yard. Along with Bhootnath, a lot of the memories went too; and quite a few of the simple joys. We carried on.

The funky Indo-Jap car replaced Bhootnath.

++++++

Needs. They never stop growing. Noticed how things change? That Indo-Jap car looks too small and way too outdated now. We are missing something. Or are we?

The Indo-Jap Car: wonder why you never even bothered to name it? It is still the 'car'. Bhootnath was a person. He was our friend who made us laugh and played his pranks too.

The car is just a piece of equipment to be used, and resold for a bigger, better one. Even when we want to take it out for a spin, the rain never hits you.

"Keep the window open, let a few raindrops in", you insist. "Let's do a Bhootnath one more time. Please."

Dear iLanders,

Dilip Krishnan has posted Globetrotter Part II on his iLand. Read it to believe it! I am still not through with pinching myself.

Thank you Dilip for doing such a fantastic job and making me feel like a pygmy in the world of writing.

-VT

8.55 AM, the British Airways flight to London takes off from Delhi's IGI Airport. Vijayan is happy he has an aisle seat. He quickly shoves his handbag up the overhead luggage space and keeps his laptop under his seat. He always prefers the aisle seat because he likes to roam around once in a while, mostly in the cabin crew area, next to the rest rooms and strike conversations with other travellers.  

Arun had a seat next to Vijayan. Arun is employed with a large software firm and works as a Sr. Systems Analyst in Gurgaon. This is his first trip to London and he has to be there for the next one month.

"I hate these early morning flights, you know waking up at 3 AM and all that. Sucks man." Arun said. To which Vijayan said "You bet a better idea is not to sleep at all. No sleep is better than little sleep. When you sleep, sleep like a log, or don't sleep." and he laughed loudly. Arun flashed a wide smile, a bit awkward one.

It's been a while after the take off, Vijayan is looking the on flight entertainment screen surfing channels. In between he becomes engrossed in a book he is reading. Never spends more than 10 minutes at a stretch with the book, he goes back the screen, surfs again. Arun notices the book Vijayan is reading, "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan.

Arun liked to draw inferences about people by observing them. He and his wife had this favourite guessing game they like to play when they visited public places, restaurants in particular. He would ask his wife "Look at that man there. Yes the bald one, what do you think he does for living." His wife would take a guess at the stranger's probable profession justify her description. They both enjoyed this little game they played all the time.

Vijayan was about 40, looked quite rugged and lean. He had that weather beaten look and very intelligent eyes. "Looks like a street theatre artist or may be even a retired sports man. But he is clean shaven, which reduces the probability of him being a street theater guy who seem to be hooked to their beards", Arun thought when the drinks arrived. "Coke" said Arun. Vijayan settled for wine. "The food festival starts now" said Vijayan.

"Airline food sucks anyways. I have specified a vegetarian food preference; I think they will get mine earlier. You are a veg?"  Arun asked. Vijayan laughed and said, "No such luxuries for me. I eat everything. You know I have even eaten a crow once, very bitter meat. Absolute yuck!" All the three statements Vijayan had made till now all ended in laughter from his side, which made Arun a bit awkward as he did not find them funny enough for a laugh, a smile would have sufficed.

"Do you live in Delhi or UK?" asked Arun. "I live in Chennai actually. I work with an IT firm in Chennai" was Vijayan's reply. Arun was relieved Vijayan did not laugh this time. He was also found out his guess about Vijayan's probable profession was wrong. 'But he looks too rugged to be an IT guy. He does not have that air-conditioned room, chubby look at all' he thought.

An old joke says when two IT people or two beggars meet, they ask each other the same question "Which platform do you work on?" But Arun did not ask that question to Vijayan as he a look a bit old. So he said "Oh I see, Chennai. Is this trip related to some project you guys are doing in UK?"

"This is a trip related to some work that we are going to do. I am also involved with some pre-sales activities. I think I will be in UK for about 3 weeks." said Vijayan.

"Oh I see, I am only 7 years old in this industry. I work in Gurgaon, a Sr. Systems Analyst." Arun said, trying to split the bread loaf into two halves and stuff it with margarine.

"Good" said Vijayan and shifted his focus to the video screen. After some time, Vijayan asked Arun if he would like to go down the aisle for a drink, near the cabin crew area. Arun followed. "You've been married for long?" asked Vijayan. "Around 5 years now." Arun said and noticed Vijayan peeping out of the window and saying "Look at that barren landscape. The Great Persian Empire, Khayyam wrote his Rubaiyyat on these lands, think of Ghazni, Kanishka this land has seen so much. From up above you see no artificial boundaries. They call it Iran and Afghanistan now and they keep fighting all the time."

Arun found Vijayan awkward, perhaps desultory at times; but interesting, none the less. They spent the rest of the flight talking of this and that, reading, sleeping and staring at the in-flight entertainment screen.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we would be landing at the London Heathrow in an hour " announced the pilot. Arun asked Vijayan "Are you familiar with London?"

"What do you want to know?" 

"My hotel booking is at Liverpool Street, Traveller's Hut Hotel, how far is it from the Airport? Should I take a taxi?"

"Ah, incidentally I will be staying in the same pigeon hole. Don't worry, we'll go together." Vijayan said, matter of factly.

Arun was excited and curious about his first trip to the UK. London, Vilayat! He was also happy that he will have company for the evenings and weekends. 'This Vijayan looks like an interesting chap', he thought and asked Vijayan "You must be traveling a lot, right? You must be a globetrotter."

"Well, a Globetrotter" Vijayan laughed again "Yes, a Globetrotter I have been, all my life. Even before I got my passport made. It's all in the mind you know. One can travel continents on a "11 day-10 nights" package tour, where your entire goddamn itinerary is defined; mentioning what are you going to eat and where!." He had a mocking smile. "A true globetrotter will not be found dead as a part of those groups".

'Smart Ass! What does he think of himself? A National Geographic Adventurer or something' Arun thought.

"A National Geographic Adventurer, that's what I wanted to be but had no clue how to do it. So I got into such a common profession. That doesn't stop me from being a globetrotter! It's all in the mind, Arun".

'Can he even read my thoughts?' Arun was bewildered.

 
***

Traveller's Hut at London Liverpool Street was indeed a pigeon hole, as Vijayan had described it. Arun was glad to have Vijayan for company, it made the first few days a bit easier for him. Vijayan helped him with directions, bus and tube routes et al. Arun was excited he had noticed quite a few Indian Restaurants around the area. Vijayan did not seem to care much about the Indian Restaurants there. He would eat there once in a while, primarily to give company to Arun.

Vijayan would return to the hotel room at around 6 in the evening. Have a couple of drinks and then go out somewhere. On weekends Vijayan would disappear for two full days. He would go to all kind of places, a friend's house, an art gallery, a night club, a striptease house, a library, a far off village.

Arun was right - Vijayan was a bit desultory. 

 

To be continued.

P.S. Our friend Dilip Krishnan has agreed to do a Part 2 of the story. I am sure he will do a great job and provide interesting dimensions to the background and characters in my Globetrotter.

Will it be a great idea, (greedy, perhaps?) to expect some other iLanders to write their own Part 2? To me, it looks like a fun thing to do, if some of you, dear friends, take up the half done story and provide your own treatment to it. I am sure Dilip and I would love to be surprised by someone else writing their own Part 2, and we end up making "The Globetrotter" "Our Globetrotter".

Meanwhile, let's wait and watch for what Dilip has in store or us.