A Bowl of Elusive

When I passed out of school in March’ 2007, I was not sure about what I wanted to do with my life. I had decided to join hotel management but I had missed the national entrance exam for the same, so I had a year free. While many of my classmates were preparing for IIT or Medical entrance tests, I was positive that those career options were not suitable for me. I did eventually join hotel management and by the time I passed out of college, I did not want to join the hotel industry. This article is not about that. You can read my article ‘ Why I Didn't Pursue a Career in Hotels... ’ to know about that story. This article is about that one year I spent in Bhubaneswar, the capital city of my home state Odisha.  Sometime during the period between the board exams and the announcement of results, one of my uncle’s acquaintances suggested that I could be a pilot. I had the height for it, standing at 185 centimeters at that point in time and great eyesight. Moreover, when I explored the req...

Ramit was one of those people who keep to themselves, go about their 9am to 5pm jobs and settle in their beds at 10pm but lay awake until an hour after midnight scrolling on their phones, coveting others’ lives on social media. His days were pretty much the same. He held a data-crunching job at one of the most prestigious companies in the world but he was paid peanuts and if you ask me, that’s what really matters. He had dreams, of course, dreams inspired by ideas of adventure and travel, but in his heart of hearts, Ramit was an indoors person. He did not have many friends, because it had already been rather hard for him to befriend people. He would sometimes go to these happening cafés around town and sit there looking at beautiful people, couples, gangs of friends, boisterous and happy in their conversations and jokes and Ramit envied them. He wished he had the comradery. At other times, a beautiful girl would catch his eye and he would start wondering about what her life was like. B...

A friend of mine just forwarded a video of the song “Radha Kaise Na Jale” from the movie ’Lagaan’ and as I was listening to it, I was transported back in time when I had first heard this song. I remember they used to run the trailer of the movie between programs on the Zee Channel and I loved it. It was one of the first movies that I had been really excited about and I remember this because my grandfather had commented on my excitement. Ah, songs and the memories they bring with it. As of today, memories are all I have left of my family members. For each one of them, there are memories associated with certain songs. And I thought, why not write about the various songs that hold significance in my life in the form of memories they evoke, be it about my family members or certain moments in my life. My father was the OG music aficionado in the family. He had a Philips 2-in-1 music system and he would buy cassette tapes of his favorite albums. Kumar Sanu, Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle & U...

I know I have been missing in action for a while and that's because I was dealing with some personal crap. For the four or five people who read the shit that I write, I am back with the fourth installment to the Eric and Angela story. And for those who are joining just now, here's the link to Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 . Go play catch up before you read this. Or not. I can't tell you what to do.  *** Eric lay awake in his bed, reminiscing the events of that fateful night that he spent with Angela at that hotel. Had he been “just seeking sex”, he could have chalked that night as a win and moved on to the next conquest, but this guy wanted more, he wanted her heart and that’s why the following day felt more like a win than the night before. She was leaving, feeling dirty and repentant about their night together and Eric had broken down. Eric knew he had at least some claim to Angela’s heart when she decided to stay when he promised to keep it platonic.   Moreover...

This is the third chapter of the Angela & Eric series. Here are the links to Part 1 & Part 2 . Read on to find what happened next. It had been two whole days since Eric and Angela spent that night together at his place. Eric had not seen her yet. They had been texting on and off, keeping the conversation light and avoiding the discussion of kisses and temptations as much as possible. Every now and then, Angela would drop in a term of endearment and make Eric feel lovelorn. Eric was half tempted to call out Angela for all the ‘mixed signals’ but he did not want to dig a hole for himself.  On the third day, it was cloudy in the morning and by the time afternoon came, it started drizzling. Eric texted Angela asking her if she wanted to get wet in the rain. Enticing as the idea was, Angela opted out on account of her tender health lately. She suggested they have dinner together if the rain stopped. Not one to let an opportunity pass, Eric commented that unless she wanted to ea...

This is the second part of the “Eric & Angela” series. Click here for Part 1 . A million thoughts ran through his head when Eric drove six odd kilometers to meet Angela. She had mentioned that the café they were meeting at was pretty close to where she lived, she preferred to walk. That is why she had chosen it for their first meeting. He had seen her pictures and he had heard her voice and they had talked to their heart's content but the two had not met yet. This was the fateful day, Eric thought to himself. The voice in his head often became a pompous news anchor and started narrating his own life to him when Eric got nervous.  “Eric being the neurotic son-of-a-bitch that he is, doesn’t want to be late for the first date. As Angela has reminded him thrice now, it isn’t a date. However, he is excited and has butterflies in his stomach, more than he had ever had before. In his excitement, Eric is trying to imagine what Angela looks like when he should be concentrating on the ro...

Have you ever wondered what is the point to all this? I am talking about life. Why do we live? What do we live for? Someone who had met me a decade ago would be surprised at my asking these questions. I believed in indulgent excesses and living for the decadent pleasures of life. By that, I mean food mostly. I had a small family, including my grandparents and uncle and I never gave death a thought. Then in the last decade, I lost all of them. I made some serious mistakes in life, hurt people in the process and here I am, at thirty years old, alone, regretful and as per the latest reports, diabetic. So, I am asking myself, what am I living for? All these years, I had something to look forward to, but now it is all gone. I have these feelings that I feel like sharing with people, but when I call them, words fail me. You see I am unable to express the extent of the loneliness I feel or the all-consuming pointlessness of life in general. Lately, I have been doing a little bit of cost-benef...