Back to Pune [Day 7 - Pune/Mumbai]

~12th Mar~
Didn't get to sleep much at night. was up at 630 with a headache and residual sleep. Nevertheless, considering the headaches i am getting used to, this was nothing. the downloads i had put on last night were well underway, and pranjal was hgetting ready for office. i went out and got a cuppa from Shubham. it was overcast and slightly chiily too; more like august than march. headed into college and roamed about for the better part of the next hour in the place which still has three years worth of memories safely tucked away in corners. got back to my room around 730 and lazed around for the next couple of hours. dumped and arranged stuff on my HDD, watched naruto and avatar, burnt deepti's DVD, made a couple of calls. Spoke to sheetal. she'd just gotten off a night shift and sounded adorably sleepy. seems her mom was in town, and she wouldn't be free in the evening. pity, since i WAS rather looking forward to seeing her again. oh well, i suppose i'l catch up later. prateek came by around 11. we chatted and lazed around in general. the naruto konoha gakuen den was a hit with him as well, as it had been with kapil and shanky the previous evening. deepti came down to fc road just after noon. prateek came down with me to meet her. she was waiting in the car, right by college. she had to take a looong detour to get a parking space which was barely 100m away from where her car originally was. heh. while taking my evening stroll yesterday i had chanced across an ice cream/kulfi parlour right next to where CCB used to be. i took deeps and prateek there. the place was nice and comfy and had an ambiance similar to CCB. prateek, whose normal state of being was reserved, seemed to have no such issues with deepti. her disarming ways had brought out the funny and talkative side of my best friend. the three of us talked and talked and talked. on bleach, avatar, our respective fields of study...and, of course, the shit i had gotten myself into. people still seemed to disbelieve me over it, and though both of them knew i'd never lie to them, deeps said she still half expected to start laughing any moment and tell her its all a big joke. well, i suppose that during the course of the ensuing conversation, she got used to it being part of reality. we were at orchid fresh for over an hour...me and two of my bestest friends, chatting away over chocolate...what more can a person want from life? time just flew by. finally, reluctantly, we had to break up. prateek took an auto back to college. deepti left after making me promise that i won't fuck up any more. it was 2 by then, and i headed back to the room to finish packing. subhro and kundu returned shortly before 3, and kundu said he'll be dropping me off to the station. it started dripping as we left, and started pouring within moments of me entering the station. the weather kind of reflected how i felt inside, i guess....
slept during most of the journey. got off at thane and took a local heading towards bhupen's place. he was supposed to be out till late. anyway, i was insanely tired and was asleep by 9. woke up at 11 for dinner. bhupen returned shortly afterward. apparently, he had downed 16 cans of fosters, a tequila and a whiskey. he looked rather composed, given all that. he even asked me, 'am i making sense?'; and was very happy when i told him he was. he was. he WAS talking a bit more than usual and was slightly disoriented, but otherwise OK. we discussed my results (his reactions and views on the matter were the most interesting by far, but i suppose alcohol had a part to play in that). we talked music as he played songs off his ipod, his crappy job, the arse of a boss that he has, life, books, and his upcoming holiday. both of us had slept off by 1230.

didn't sleep very well. was up at 430 and out by 5. sitting at dadar station and writing this, waiting for my train to arrive. these ten days have been like a slender bend, one that you rarely notice initially, but further down the line, you tend to look back and realise how much this bend has influenced where you've ended up and where you're headed. i've been screwing up royally for almost 2 years now. the person writing these lines is not the person who left pune in 08, unfortunately. though i did get ot see flashes of him over the last few days. he walked on marine drive, went for lunch the following morning, walked the entire length of fc road, played guitar all night, hung around at aundh, played cs after ages, had ice cream.....the glimpses were enough to make me realise where i'd been going wrong all this while. i refuse to fuck up any more. and heaven help whoever stands in my way.

i just realised that pune had managed to work its charms on me. so, surprisingly, has mumbai. never expected this to happen. maybe its got something to do with the fact that kol has become more of four empty walls now, its colour gone. my past in this city will always remain my haven, my wonderwall, but in present the city has nothing but shattered memories for me. till i can lay these ghosts to rest, i need to get out. and mumbai/pune happens to be filled with some of my favourite people now. kol will always remain home, but pune has given me so much without making any fuss over it, without asking for anything in return. this is something i've come to realise only in the last few days. i'm even prepared to give mumbai a chance...for if sheetal and archan da say there's something to this city, there must be...
i dunno when i'l be back. dunno how many people would wait till i do. but i DO intend to return....and maybe, just maybe, i will be bit closer to calling it home as well...

Back to Pune [Day 6 - Pune]

slept for maybe 5 hours at night. was up and about by 930. spent the whole morning in the usual routine of this place. ate, lazed around, read poirot and burned dvds for manyu and deepti. went out in between and returned nikhil's guitar. deepti and devi came by after lunch. i've never had a chance to interact with devi before. it was a fun one hour. i was surprised to find out that devi watched bleach. both sisters were in their element, and time just flew by and suddenly it was 330 and they had to leave. i left soon after. got off the bus a couple of stops earlier and walked the lingth of FC road and JM road, just for the heck of it...it felt nostalgic passing by the familiar shops....
kapil came later in the evening, and then shanky and amit.....we watched naruto (YESSS!!) and did timepass in general. after shanky left (he had all night classes at frameboxx) amit and i decided to go aundh side. on the way we decided to watch a movie at night and stopped by e-square, but nothing was available. kapil trusted me with another stint on his scooty, and we reached his home way past 9....stayed there quite a while, copying stuff...i managed to land blackadder and fringe. blackadder is hugh laurie AND rowan atkinson. saw a bit of it later. its absolutely hilarious. we left his place after 1030 and headed to daniel's....poor guy has been busy with an obscene amount of workload, but he came down and we chatted outside his home for for almost half an hour. the topics mainly veered around anime and a couple of movies. bleach and kenichi were hot favourites. it was past 11 when we started from there. kapil went back home and amit dropped me off to my room. kundu got me dinner (everything was long closed by then). chatted with subhro and kundu awhile. kundu got a bit senti...they left after 1230...was feeling dead by then. throat was in pretty bad shape since i was out that long...slept off almost immediately.

to meet again

to meet again
under sunnier skies
and the wind billowing through our clothes.

to meet again
in a crowd of strangers
two strangers, yet strangers no more.

to meet again
under a yellow umbrella
even as all we feel comes pouring down.

to meet again
on some seashore, again,
and hear our voices echoed in the waves.

to meet again
beneath the tree around the bend
amidst rustling leaves and light and shade.

to meet again
beneath morpheus's veil
and in blissful ignorance walk together.

to meet again
when things make sense no more
and laugh all our fears away into the night.

you, whom i've
never known
never seen
yet felt
somewhere deep within.
tell me, honestly...
at what speed must i live,
to be able to see you again?

Back to Pune [Day 5 - Pune]

~10th Mar~
This was a day of words. Woke up rather early by normal standards, and since my throat was better than the last couple of days, indulged myself by staying in bed for almost an hour, drifting in and out of wakefulness. even then, was out by 930. met deepti and a couple of her friends at the law college road ccd. they had just been gotten off class. lazed around and chatted over insignificant stuff....identity crises, various teashops and cafes and dhabas all over the country, how ccd and barista are capitalist by nature, music we all prefer, how women should not be trusted with self propelling vehicles. anyway, that all done, we decided to push towards kondhwa. returned to my room, packed and left with deepti. stopped for coffee in between...reached around 130...
my aunt's place is one of my favourite places on earth. i get good food, good company, am pampered quite a bit, and there are so many books, and the weather is usually lovely too...its tooo good. i spent the afternoon idling around, raeding agatha christie and listening to music. then went over to nikhil's place and got his guitar. guy plays really, really well. not only is his technique on a totally different level, his playing has a beautiful feel about it which is still lacking in me. met up with shiv. we(he) talked and talked and talked. about his company, his college, his life, manyu and how he needs to lose weight, me and how i need to bulk up et al. headed back for dinner...
played the guitar post dinner. it had been a while, but it felt really nice. manyu came by after midnight. we were up talking through the night. we listened to some music on the comp, but most of the time we spent in the balcony, talking about insignificant matters and equally significant ones....strumming once in a while...discussing life, love, expectations, plans...all that we rarely talk about...he left almost at 4. slept off within 10 minutes of him leaving.
this was a talkative day. heh.

Back to Pune [Day 3 - Pune]

~8th Mar~
Woke up to find Pranjal diligently studying for his exam. throat still neck deep in shit (no pun/allegory intended). Got a call from Deepti...ran off to meet her at ILS during the little time she had between classes. Walked back the distance till my room...via bhandarkar road, and then took the shortcut beside hdfc and into my college from the back entrance. college was more or late empty then, though it was 9 in the morning...exam season is on its way, so all i saw were students studying all around. took a peek inside my department, but found it devoid of life. got back to my room, and started making dinner plans. lazed around the whole morning in the room only. copied dvds, chatted with people online, finalised plans, and then took a li'l nap, since i was still slightly hung over from the last night. woke up at 1230 as Pranjal left for his exam and headed for lunch and then to amit's house. did timepass there and then prateek came over and joined us. i convinced him that it was a good idea to come to dinner with us and then stay over at amit's and return to college the next morning. didn't take much effort. prateek and i left after a while coz amit had some work. we strolled back to our room, then went to buy dvds (for him) and headed back to amit's place after kapil called and said he was on his way. we all played doom3d by turns. amit had turned hyper again, like last time...bleh. we headed for baner around 8. dan joined us outside sarjaa, where we were planning to have dinner. spent quite a while in there...it was the first time prateek had been part of a pune anime meet proper (last time, that's 2008, he'd joined us for dark knight at e-square). he was in his spirits that evening. we talked about most things geek...anime, manga, hentai, games over all consoles, websites, food, and how kapil had put on weight leaving me the thinnest in the group...hehe.
post a sumptuous dinner, we headed out to look for an ice-cream shop(which was closed), but thankfully found another where we all got ourselves cornettos. since prateek and i were down with rebellious throats, we decided to share a single cone. dan headed back towards home...amit asked kapil to ride his bike in his stead, since he wasn't feeling upto it. which put me in charge of commandeering kapil's scooty, much to the apprehension of all and sundry present there (including daniel). but i looked like the epitome of confidence (i haven't ridden a self propelling two wheeler since i left pune in 2008). i just told kapil 'bhaga mat...dont want the speed to get to my head, then i'l start rideing like a maniac'. he gladly obliged. the best moment came when i sided beside his bike, both of us riding at around 60kph, and asked...'kapil, left brake peechhe ke tyre ke liye hi hai na?'. their reactions were...interesting, to say the least. specially prateek's, who was visibly shaken. anyway, we made it back to amit's without incident. vibhav called, and we all took turns speaking with him...prateek stayed back at amit's place (they apparently stayed up till 2 talking, talking, talking, or so they claim). kapil headed home and i back to my room....stayed up past 1, though i was really tired. was copying dvds....went to sleep with my usual bedmate, my throatache...

Back to Pune [Day 2 - Mumbai/Pune]

~7th Mar~
woke up with a sore throat, a slight headache and a long day ahead of me. bhupen and i left together at 9. he went to office, me to meet nitesh. rahul had warned me that central line trains would be irregular...i got to dadar and walked to nitesh's room. turns out he returned from office around 9 the previous night, and had been drinking since then with his roommates. he hadn't slept and looked more unkempt than usual. his flat was a nightmare. clothes, dirty plates, booze bottles and glasses strewn around everywhere. the exact opposite of where i had stayed the last day. we chatted a while and then left for phoenix mall at parel. while sitting there i realised that i hadn't been able to speak to vandy in a month and i had no clue as to where exactly the reception was. i kept on making call after call, trying to trace her, but to no avail. anyway, archan da came by after a while and nitesh had to leave. we went and had lunch and then spent time roaming around phoenix, discussing kolkata and mumbai, mostly, and who was up to what. it was strange to see someone like archan da, who had spent 5 years in pune, speak so affectionately about mumbai. but i guess I'd have been slightly weirded out if he hadn't. by this time I'd almost decided that i would be starting late for pune, since I'd most probably not make it to the reception. just for the sake of it, i tried vandy's number one last time, and she answered....took directions from her and headed back to dadar. took the train to kanjurmarg, picked up my stuff, and then found out that trains were not running towards vashi. so i headed to thane, and caught a bus to pune.
reached pune around 8....headed straight to my room, changed, and took an auto to the reception hall...it was way inside khadki..real pain in the arse, but worth the effort....got back around 11....pranjal called and told me to come to barcode. found subhro, kundu, shautam, pranjal, and another colleague happily boozing away. having nothing better to do, i joined in with demolishing the RS they were having. we finally left at midnight and returned to our room...i was as usual dead tired by then. we still stayed up for a while more. pranjal had drank quite a bit, and he had his last semester exam the next day. duh. we sent him off to sleep, and subhro and i were up chatting till 1, i think....it had been a long, long, long and hectic day. spread over two cities and a load of acquaintances from the various bends of my life. the trip seems to be going as planned. hope it stays that way....

Back to Pune [Day1 - Mumbai]

~6th March~
the only bit of unwanted luggage that I'm carrying on this trip, it seems, is a persistent throat ache and a hacking cough, and it doesn't seem interested in forsaking my company anytime soon. pity. i reached mumbai early morning. got off at dadar, successfully negotiated the station which has confounded me in the past and headed for kanjurmarg, where bhupen stays. reached around 630, i suppose. within a few hours and a couple of phone calls later, i realised that most of the people i wanted to meet were busy till evening. as a last resort i called rahul....he was at the doc's but he told me to come down to nahur. having nothing better to do all day except read, i went along with rahul (who has a lot more white strands on his head than before...guess marriage can do that to a person) to their new home under construction at belapur...spent a couple of hours there chatting with him, after which he dropped me off at vashi. called up sheetal from there, who'd just returned from her shift. she told me to let her know a while before i reached BT. i got on the train, put on an alarm and happily dozed off, all the time under the impression that the train will definitely pass dadar, and that would be when i call her and wake her up. well, fresh from my nap, i still found station after station bearing unfamiliar names. after a while, becoming almost sure something was wrong i had gotten on to the wrong train, i went near the gate to check the route map. imagine my surprise to find that the vashi-BT line is completely different (as in no dadar), and i was roughly three minutes away from BT. i called sheetal up. told her that i'd made a calculation mistake and was at BT already. she said she'll take 'some time' to get ready, and told me to come to colaba causeway in 20mins. knowing her for the better part of 3 years now, i was well aware that punctuality was not one of her stronger suites. so i found myself with quite a bit of time to kill. i was feeling rather thirsty by then. i went up to one of the railway snack stall at the station and ordered a lassi (i had had a throat ache all that time), and downed it in 30 seconds flat. still thirsty, i ordered a chocolate milkshake. downed it and realised i was STILL insatiably thirsty. had ANOTHER milkshake. felt slightly better after that, but my throat had started acting up again. anyway, i headed out of the station and took a taxi to the causeway. found out on the way that she had already reached, which made me really happy...it'd be the first time she was early. heh. i got off at the causeway, and then spent the next ten minutes trying to locate each other. finally did, and then we headed off to barista. sheetal had grown thin....but she said that she still weighed the same...so unless she'd grown more muscular over the last year and a half, it wasn't really possible. she had a point, but then again, i still maintain that she's grown thinner since i last saw her. not that it made her any less stunning, though. anyway, i convinced her she owed me two treats, one for getting a job and another as payment for all that much anime i was giving her, and that she was lucky i was prepared to club those two treats into one. she seemed convinced, but barely. was very happy to find out that her viao was NOT pink (it was silver), but the bag was red and gold (officially, though it seemed more like deep pink and yellow to my eyes). over a variety of goodies (tea, coffee, sandwiches, and...chocolates, obviously) we caught up on books, music, anime, work and life in general. sheetal being the most sparkling person I've ever known, time just whizzed by. but THEN...she was unable to finish her chocolate, much to my glee. said she felt sick with too much of it. i told her a few more gory chocolate stories till she was prepared to forfeit and let me finish off the rest. it was funny...she is one of the three chocolate goddesses in my life (chocolate goddess- one who either loves chocolate, or treats me regularly to it, or both), and she herself had mentally OD'ed on it. anyway, that episode done, we headed towards marine drive. mumbai by now had already started growing on me. the cool evening breeze and the lights in the horizon made me like this city a bit more. we sat there and talked and talked and talked about almost anything and everything we had in common and some that we probably didn't. and then it was time for her to go...i headed back to the station and back to kanjur, having spent the day with two people i barely got a chance to know but two people I'm really fond of anyway. rahul and sheetal...I'd met the former the last time in may 08, and the latter in july 08...but it seemed like almost no time had passed since then and now. it didn't take any effort to pick off where our last conversations had ended. two entirely different people who have next to nothing in common with each other. but both are equally strange in their own ways, infinitely admirable, sparkling with life every single second...and both people i wished i knew a bit better. it had turned out to be a lovely, lovely day.
was really tired when i got back to bhupen's. took a bath, went out and got some food. he took a beer while we waited, and i foolishly took a peg of vodka. not a very good idea when one is as tired as i was. was on the verge of dozing off on the street as we headed back to his room. anyway, had dinner, chatted with him a bit more...and when things finally started getting spirally around me, faded away into the blissful oblivion of sleep...