Lost and found - Part II

                                                                           IV

Akash takes nearly seven hours to reach the destination. Before looking around for Rony and Gini, he can already see them sitting at the Namastey cafe. He sees them now better than the last night. Rony is fair and keeps short hair with a beard twice as big as his entire head and it seems that his body is squinted due to his facial hair. The hippie swag he carries gets amplified by the metal ear ring on his left ear. He talks softly in such a heavy voice that few syllables of the words he speak die down at his lips only. You have to be attentive to catch those syllables. His eyes are joyful but mostly he is at peace. He keeps on listening to Gini with a plain appreciation that can be easily ignored. He is one of those introverts who experience every moment with a deep sense but are unvocal about it. Gini was sweet in every gesture she made. She had a modest smile fixed to her face. She is fair too but her skin is tanned in a way that makes her look even more gorgeous. She is so nice that when Akash was being a bull, cocked up in frustration last night, she was actually apologising to those guys for him. Not that the guys bothered listening to her. Gini and Rony both giggle and go for a high five as if remembering some past incident. “Hi guys”, Akash says to both of them. “Oh we were just talking about last night only”, says Gini with a grin as usual. Rony adds up, “Man you were crazy as fuck last night, I hope you remember”. Of course he did. He notices Shantaram on the table, twice in the same day. ‘So you too are reading this’. ‘No this other girl we met here is, she has gone for a walk’, says Rony. Now the odds are good enough that it’s Riya but he couldn’t see any of the stuff she was carrying at the table. He could ask her name but doesn’t bother to. ‘So you guys were laughing because I behaved like a jerk?’, asks Akash. ‘No man. It’s just that you were so peaceful and philosophical while we were at the beach. Some shit you said I didn’t even understand, some conscious thing. I thought you were on some BABA kinda trip and in next moment, Whack! You didn’t even warn that guy. It’s hilarious ’. ‘I don’t know what happened’, says Akash with a chuckle. The laughter continues. Gini puts a sarcastic question, ‘So who else did you find reading Shantaram’. He could sense the background behind wicked smile on their faces. He turns around to see Riya standing at her back. And he raises his hands up with middle fingers for them, ‘Whatever you guys.. I was being nice’. "Yeah so nice of you to ask for directions in the middle of a highway road", refutes Riya. "Well it was an icebreaker", defends Akash.

PART II

I am no Casanova but I am beginning to get a feeling that Riya has developed some sort of fondness for me despite my bizarre preferences. She looks at me with the same polite smile even when I speak of something dull and obscure. I could have been sure if I was sober. Rony is equally wasted and if not, his appearance and the cool lingos, half of which go right through my ears make him appear so. We were happy to talk. All of us, blabbering around our experiences with people we just met at a place serene yet stirring.

The table at the cafe was looking like something taken right out of a Hangover movie scene. Neither did any one of us bother to get it cleared nor did the waiter thought of it as his job. Maybe his job is only to put things on the table and leave the rest to the customer's resolve. There are more than a dozen pints of KF blue on the table most of which Rony had guzzled down and a bottle of Double Black half done, at which Riya has kept the pace up with me. The table looks messed up. We have been sitting and chatting for almost five hours now but it is comforting still. Although, whenever Riya and Gini exhibit their explicit fashionista awareness while talking, which all girls do without noticing men in the group, Rony and I relish the smoke which calms down the noise on our eardrums. We were okay to keep shut as we had no opinions. I guess all men are equally good at this. Men don’t talk much but they understand the vibes, generally. Rony told me about his travel stories which in the beginning were really fascinating but then I kept losing interest in them because I already got a general idea and partly because my attention was still with Riya. I would look around to take a glimpse of her face and every time the vivid expressions on her face under the dim lights would startle me so much that I would take a silent breath and that moment my heart wished to know more about her. But then the gutless insecure emotion which comes out of nowhere screws it up all, making me avert my eyes from her. I realise that it might actually get awkward if I let the emotions ride on.

When I realise that the cafe is about to shut, it is because the waiters had already left for the day. Gini is almost hanging on Rony’s shoulders, half-asleep while Rony was up and ready for another beer although the numbness had disabled him. Riya is in deep thoughts looking towards beach. I look at her and she is always a new person to my eyes. Meanwhile, I was deciding if the remaining Double Black is enough for the night. When Rony realises that he won’t be able to carry Gini to the room after a few minutes, he gets up and calls it a night. “All right guys, time to crash into bed”, he says and gently pulls up Gini trying not to startle her. Gini opens her eyes only to say goodnight to us. The moment Rony and Gini went out of sight, I knew I have to make a move before Riya makes up her mind to leave and that might be the end of the universe for me. I was in a hurry to say something to her and I looked at her face but she was staring somewhere at the end of the world with eyes wide open as if lost in some thought and speaking to herself. So I decided to let my universe end while she was busy in hers. It is easy to understand the situation and do the correct thing only when we are not occupied by selfishness. I wanted to talk desperately but only if she was not disturbed by my intrusion. Besides I had a couple of drinks left with me.

She stands up after some time and says, “Care for a late-night walk on the beach?” I nodded with a cold ‘Okay’. The tendency to portray oneself as exactly the opposite of what is going inside the head is the most spontaneous reaction in these situations. As if in the moment, my ego was driving me to protect the weak heart which is full of emotions. And the silence was no better. She says to me, “Are you always this quiet at night” and before she could finish, I thought it’s time to seize the moment but not get carried away by it.  " As I had already swept you over with my first impression, I was waiting for your move", I joked and she chuckled. We kept walking. She continues, “So you do not like your job and you don’t get to do as many things that you like but can you tell me, which is the most important thing that you want to do in your life. Not an ambition or achievement that you have set for yourself but one thing that is close to your heart and it makes you complete in whatever little sense.” Okay, this is not fun anymore. I was getting light and she shot me through the heart and soul with an arrow of grief that has been a constant nightmare to me. I take too much time to come back and so she continues further, “Don’t you think we are caught up in the wrong contest, struggling only to overcome issues which have been created by us only. If you don’t like your job why don’t you quit?” I wish I had a simple answer for that and I tried hard to save myself the embarrassment but could not find even a complex one that I could tell her. But I realised that I feared getting out of the comfort of having a fixed salary which is nothing more than a dog chain. 

Riya has quit her job and she is travelling and I can understand what she means here. She has a strong appreciation of the affairs of my confused being. She means whatever she says but something is still on her mind. She is anxious while she gives me the sermon as if she is trying to establish a ground for her own resurrection. ‘You think quitting is the solution?’, I ask her. “How else would you know what you want?” I respond this time, ‘Look first we have to understand the basics of survival, whatever shithole of a world we live in, it is all we have unless you have the guts to leave behind everything and live in the jungle and eat whatever nature provides. So we need to survive at par with basic requirements and I agree that we have turned this survival business into the struggle of accessing more and more luxury and comfort of our modern day societies which give us little time for ourselves. We lose ourselves and the things that matter to us take backstage as we partake in the rat race. So we need to stand our ground and explore the things that bring peace to us’. “And how would you do that” she smiles. ‘I am working on it. You’ll be the first one to know once I crack this’. I couldn’t have been more assertive while explaining all this to her, but deep down I knew very well that we both are precisely facing the same conundrum. After walking to one end of the beach, we find few rock beds to sit and chat a little more about similar things.

VI

I receive a call while we are still at the beach and before I could pick up the phone disconnects. It’s Sandy calling.  At this time of night either he is caught up in some situation or he is going to get emotional on me for not making it to Goa. In both the cases, I am not going to help him anyway. When he is emotional he speaks of such nonsensical things that I can only say "It's okay bhai". If he is stuck in some situation he is just going to tell me what mayhem he must have created. As if he is some gangster and I am his sidekick. He sends a message instead of calling again. “Pops is here”. I have never known what pleasure he gets by calling himself Pops. I call him back to find out what Pops is upto and he tells me that he is in Gokarna. I am sure at once that he is fucking around. Then he asks me to wave the phone with flashlight on. He shouts out loudly, “I see you bro”. Taking monstrous giant leaps, he reaches to us in no time. He is still the same beast that he was in college. ‘How the hell did you find out?’ I ask. “Chuck it”, he retorts. He pushes me aside and introduces himself to Riya. I was beginning to think that I was keeping it cool with Riya until Sandy showed up. I am sure nothing is going to happen now. I know him well enough to guess that his intention will only be to embarrass me in front of her. Nothing more, nothing less. “Riya I hope you are not taking him as a charity effort”, he winks with his usual wicked grin. ‘You and your stupid comments, same old horse shit’, I rescue myself before he could continue. He has been the same asshole for ages. I remember the day still crystal clear, we first met in college. He was sitting in the canteen with his gang of dumb hooligans, while I was standing waiting for my French toast. He whistled at me and threw a comment, “Hey dickhead! Move aside”. I didn't turn around at once. He went again and harder this time. I turned to face him and shook my head with a smirk. I turned around and kept waiting for my order. He came up again, " How about you get my order too?". This time I replied, ‘Please wait till I eat mine, and then I will drill my dick past your head after which you will not care for food’. And I smiled, I don’t know why. We could have had a fight that day easily but we grinned at each other as we knew instantly that we were the same kind of assholes.

After some time at the beach, we were still talking although neither of us knew the context. I saw two policemen from afar, walking towards us,  looking out in the dark as if searching for gold. I stood up and reached towards them and before they could ask, I was ready with my defence, "We were just leaving". But as they are always better at coming back, one of the policemen replied, "Oh then you were just waiting for us.. so kind of you." I could come back with a witty answer to that but I was sure it would do no good to me. At these crucial times, Sandy has a knack for coming over for the rescue but that ass left with Riya before this gold-searching party could even notice. I think policemen might have seen them but knowing that they got one, they must be like, 'why bother catching others'. They ate my mind for more than half an hour and I was also at it, giving them excuses all of which implied that I was just leaving. I guess that fault was mine only,d when I asked them that where is it written that one can't spend the night at the beach to which the same guy replied, "Come with us to Police Station, we will show you in detail". Finally, when I handed them some of the lost gold pieces they were so eagerly looking for, they were happy to leave. I walked towards the other side and when I found Sandy and Riya they were laughing as if I was a circus clown. Sandy breaks in, "You helped them find you, they saw you only after you were near them". Yeah, I am helpful which is why most of the time that 'help' flies around like an arrow, coming back right into my ass. 

Riya leaves us and I tell her that I’ll see her in morning. She nodded her head in agreement as if teleporting me that we will continue from where we left. Sandy draws out a joint the moment Riya leaves and hands it over to me. I light it up already missing her. Sandy smokes up almost half of the joint just to take care of the sideburns. He takes exhaustive drags and the smoke calms him down. I let him be as there is nothing more assuring in the world than your best friend’s company. Once both of us are high enough and a gentle smile turns up on our faces, I ask him, ‘When did you get here?’. “I had a meeting with client in Bangalore yesterday, winded it up and came straight here to respond to your distress call. Your Instagram posts kept me reminding that I screwed you over.” He shared his stories and as always I enjoyed them.

‘I really needed this man. I am beginning to lose interest in everything I am involved with. And I know clearly that I am missing out big time in my life. And what is coming ahead is not more than this for sure. I want to make it count, only if I can know, how? Some days I feel like I must consult some psychiatrist only to be sure if I am becoming insane’, I said to him. “Fuck! Your head is not at the right place”, he laughs out. ‘Come on man I am not kidding. I am not saying that something disastrous has happened with me. But it’s like my life has been exactly the same every day since we left college. You can say that I am over thinking at it but somehow I feel like I am struggling to survive. I am happy to have made it out this far. I mean I am okay but I got to find some purpose to life. I have told you these things many times. You know what I mean.’ Sandy comes back with a reply this time , “Then let me tell you again that you are not a person that can be satisfied so easily. You remember when we used to smoke up on the top of the overhead water tank behind our hostel and we would chat endlessly on how there is more life inside of us than what this manipulative world offers to us. Bro, who we are, how we live, what response we have to different circumstances in life and the morals we stand on are much more important tools than anything else in the world to find the true purpose to life. You are stressed out just by the thought of not knowing things better. Atleast you are aware of this. I say you are better than most of us who are living in a bubble. To find the answers, you must know the questions. But my advice, don’t wander around too much that you become insane. And if you are destined to wander around, then life won’t be easy as finding the “true” purpose can never be easy”. ‘Yeah man! I think I get you’ I add. He continues with a smile, “And besides who knows the purpose might have been to find Riya. I could see the sparkles in your eyes.” ‘Just like your eyes have, when you meet with every other girl’, I reply with a grin. Sandy comes back, “Mine is an artistic talent bro. You will need some serious training to reach to that level.” We keep up the chit chat whole night long.

VII

The sun starts to ascend and across the sea sky is carroty coloured. The clouds are dispersed like stretched cotton candy and the orange light skirmishes across the cloud surfaces. The sky is almost a colourful canvas painting and better than that for it is not static. As the light intensity increases, the clouds move around as you wish them to be. Sandy is still enthusiastic as if his day is just about to start. Tourists are already taking morning walks while my yesterday was yet to finish. I tell Sandy that we must move to the shack and get some sleep. He is not interested in moving an inch and just nods only to procrastinate. Suddenly after sometime he tells me, “I am going to stay in some other shack. I’ll come and catch up.” ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ He says with a sheepish smile, “Got a girl waiting on me”. ‘And you came to meet me, same old horny asshole. See you later’. 

I start walking back to the shack and I wonder how after confessing to Sandy what troubles I am facing, I can actually see more clearly. I was too busy understanding the complexity of the issues that my psyche only had created that I couldn’t find the simplest of the way out. Atleast I know now that I have to focus only on the things I want to do rather than contemplating on every other bug that bothers me.

I remember again what Sandy told me that how we used to discuss about the same stuff in college. The difference was that we would include our agendas in college activities. One of the most satisfying experiences of those was arranging a campaign to collect the leftover food from all hostels and sending it over to people in need. I remember I got supplementary in two papers in that semester. Sandy had coordinated the transport while I had tied up with all hostel supervisors and NGOs to ensure that the bargain is fulfilling. Hostel authorities helped us only for the good publicity till the date the college festival was not over. Then one fine day the hostel authorities made an issue out of nowhere, pointing out that the students were not happy to pay extra bills and blamed it all on the supervisors for making extra food. Supervisors were briefed in person about the actions they had to take. I vaguely remember one of those nights, when an argument led to another and we had beaten the hell out of our hostel supervisor. Overnight the campaign was shut down and we were thrown out of the hostel. 

Nothing can stop me to start over that campaign again but I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage it alone. And I don’t want to know that. I just want to get on with it. I get back to my room and drop dead like a zombie exploding after a gunshot. I am half awake when I receive Sandy’s call. He has planned camping for the night and tells me that I can come only if Riya is coming along. I tell him to fuck off. I sleep back for some more time. I get up and find that I slept the whole day. I feel better and the thought of starting my food relief campaign is already cheering me up. It is going to keep me busy long enough to settle my nerves. I walk out and grab a club sandwich at the shack’s restaurant to kill the appetite which has been bothering me throughout the day but wasn’t good enough to get me out of bed. I call up Riya and she tells me that she is at the beach. 

I see her buying some antiques from the locals. She is talking and seems more interested in the lady selling the things rather than the objects. I wave at her. I am not sure whether I should straightaway tell her to come for the camping Sandy had spoken to me about. Before I could speak anything, she says, ‘ Rony and Gini have left. They wanted to meet you but you were not reachable. Never mind even I am leaving in some time. I am glad we met.’ Before she finishes I interrupt, “I am glad too. But let me tell you at least this much that when I first met you I didn’t know that it could be this special. You are unique. You have the strength to face anything that bothers you. I could see how you were so happy to talk to that lady who sold you the antiques. It’s an experience you take out from every person. You are more than you know yourself. And yeah you have helped me as well to come out of misery as I have cracked the code for now.’ “Happy to hear that” she smiles. We sit on the beach sand and talk some more before she leaves. 

After she leaves, I lay down and look up in the greyish sky, just before the darkness engulfs the sky and I think of nothing. I just keep staring with an empty mind till it’s completely dark. I collect my things from the shack and text Sandy that I am going back as I have to plan out the things I need to set up my enterprise for free food. He says, “I knew Riya would ditch you”, to which I reply, ‘You wish, she is my new collaborator and you are hopeless.’ 

The Window of Happiness

The attainment of happiness expresses a choice, an attitude we consciously carry. Success of any measure is considered as source of happiness by most of us and hence we are driven towards personal ambitions. True happiness lies in the pursuit of sharing what we have and perhaps not in the race of acquiring more and more material goals. It is a matter of personal introspection whether to be content or beset by the desire for absolute happiness. Happiness in my perspective is a relative phenomena in all of its forms. Little things give so much happiness at times and sometimes even the highest accomplishments mean nothing. The relative essence of happiness is visible only when we overcome the will to control things set out by our desires.

Two men, both seriously ill were staying in the same hospital room. One man's bed was next to the room's only window. The second man had to spend all his time laying flat. The men talked for hours on end. And every afternoon, when the man in the bed next to the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. There was a beautiful lake in a park, children playing around, lovers holding hands while walking across the pathways and the groups of oldies chatting all day. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the second man would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene and he was happy. It was such an amazing sight that he fell at peace just by imagining it. Unexpectedly, an alien thought entered his head: Why can't he have the pleasure of seeing all that through the window? Even with his last stage illness this didn't seem fair and this thought now controlled his mind. And now because he was jealous, he could not have the same blissful experience when his roommate described the view out of the window. The thought that he will not be able to look out the window by himself before he dies, occupied his mind. And it was a matter of few weeks.

Few days later one night, the man by the window who happened to be very sick earlier that day began to cough real hard. The second man watched him struggling to call for help. Listening from across the room, he didn't do anything although he could have easily called for the attendant. Soon the coughing stopped along with his breath.The second man felt bad but he was not sure what he had done. So he gave himself the same explanation that others had assumed, "it was his time". The next day he asked and was shifted next to the window in the room. Finally, he had his last wish come true as he was going to look out at all the wonderful things out of the window. He could now see everything on his own and have the experience with his eyes open. He moved slowly to look out the window beside the bed. It faced an open barren land with nothing but dirt all around.

Lost and found - Part I

                                                                                      I

Akash has to get up early morning tomorrow, only if he is going to board the flight to Goa. The holiday trip he had planned with Sandy seems unlikely now. Slouching over, in his apartment on a greyish black bean bag as if stuck in it forever, he is still not sure. He has a drink in his hand, Rum Cola. Akash has quite too many favourites when it comes to the choice of poison. In his happy and lively moods he pounds the night with as many whiskey pegs as he wishes, mostly until he sees the morning light. Some days when he is not sure whether he is having a bad day he ends up drinking gallons of beer only to explode later. And when he is fucked up like a worn out labourer, rum is the saviour. Then there are days when he drinks whatever he gets his hands to. But mostly to end a day, he prefers a happy-go-lucky Joint. Akash was looking forward for this much needed break to loosen up from the hustle of his mundane life. But when time is not running good and life hits you with a surprise hammer fist you realise that your luck sucks the most. Sandy won’t be coming to Goa. And now Akash can’t decide if he would survive alone on this trip. He leans back on the bean bag which had become a black hole for him and taking a full side roll, he stands up. Making another Rum Cola, he walks out into balcony. He had a comfy couch kept there, which usually finds place in living room. Placing his drink on floor he lights up a classic mild. Half way through the cigarette he finishes his drink. Now smoking heavily he gets merged into the couch, still fighting the dilemma. What would he do in Goa for five days? But then as he crushes the stub and exhales the dying spirit, he realises that there is nothing much that he is going to do here as well. And then he decided to not decide anything. The plan was ready before he stood up for another drink. Leave this shit hole city and take a breather.

He still has lot of time to spare even after watching back to back episodes of Stranger Things. So he leaves a little too early. He is travelling light; a bag pack to boast a carefree minimalistic attitude. Walking past the vacant sidewalks feeling fresh and light-hearted, as to what lies ahead in the day, he gets into the empty local from Bombay Central and drops by at Ville Parle. He prefers a walk to Domestic terminal and stops by at a roadside stall for chai-sutta. As there is plenty of time to catch the flight, his mind started drifting, comfortably but unknowingly, towards the thoughts which had been accumulated in his mind for long. Even though he was doing fairly well in his life, he felt as if something else was meant for him. As if he needs to go back in life and make some different choices, not sure though what choices. He vaguely remembers what he wanted to do at first in life but then the effort is too much to trace those thoughts back from lost memories. When he graduated, all he wanted was a job that can take care of his requirements and he got that, so he didn’t bother. But now he feels that he has settled for less and maybe he was meant for something more. He is unsure though about this as well. 

Akash gets to the airport and then spends a good amount of time looking for a book for the trip. Considering his state of mental decisiveness, buying a suitable book would have taken him ages and so he leaves the bookstore empty handed. He takes his window seat in the flight, ignoring even the prettiest air hostess as if he was depressed. He was not. He was beginning to realise that it wouldn’t be possible for him to survive the next five days if he doesn’t lighten up his mind. 

II

Akash arrives at the hotel near Baga beach around lunchtime. He is too tired but decides to fill himself first, so buys himself a couple of beers and finishes them off with a pizza. The restaurant was almost full even at this time of the day. This was one of the busiest times at Goa. Season it is, as they would say. But he had his lunch as if he was sitting in the middle of the ocean. He didn’t even bother to check out the crowd around him, as if lost in himself even without knowing. He went back to hotel after a smoke and slept like a hibernating bear. A few hours laters, he wakes up at around 9 pm. He is engulfed by a weird disgusting feeling. He does not know what it is all about. But he knows that he is in Goa and he has to hit the holiday off. He goes through his metal songs playlist and puts on the song Paranoid. Before the song finishes, he rolls up a joint. As he lights it up, the next song from the same band Black Sabbath starts over, Mr Crowley. He is high enough to sing along at the top of his voice. And now he feels that he has a holiday night to finish with. He stubs out the joint half way and goes for a bath. Once he is ready to leave, he puts the half a joint in his cigarette pack and starts walking towards beach. He is charged up. 

People and too many people all around, he can see. But he doesn’t care. He is just listening to the beats of whatever shitty trance it is and dances his body muscles out. Moving whichever way his body sways, lost in the uncanny rhythm of the music, nothing is on his mind. He moves out of the crowd only when he is totally drained out. Taking a Budweiser pint , he starts walking towards the beach. Sits down on the wet sand and lights up his half dead bud. Just a few metres away, he saw a couple listening to some songs under the starry sky admiring the waves lit up under the moonlight. He ignores them at first, but then he hears the David Bowie song, The Man who sold the world in Kurt Cobain’s live track. He says at once, “Would you mind increasing the volume, I really like that song”. “Only if you share the joint with us” replies the girl. Now bearing in mind the bazooka of a joint that Anil had made in hotel, this remaining half a joint is of significant size. And he seriously needs some company plus the song is one of his favourites. So Akash stands up and moves closer to the couple. ‘Hi I am Akash’ he says, shaking hand with the guy, who replies, ‘hey I am Rony’. ‘And I’m Gini’, says the girl. He passes the smoke and each one of them gets occupied with the joint and the cult song. 

Akash had first heard this song long back in college. For days he remained flabbergasted by the lyrics and kept on thinking about the paradox that it poses throughout. And now he is amidst one of the biggest paradox of his life. Most of the times, he is himself not aware of the subject that rides his subconscious. “Is he there where he wanted to be? Is he doing what he is meant to do?” He is looking at the end of the ocean trying to reach beyond the horizon. He thinks about his years in college and the friends he had there. Friends make you appreciate and accept the reality of life devoid of soreness it rams down your throat. He misses them. Most of all the feeling, that everything is Okay. Before the song ends, they have an understanding which comes seldom out of comfortable silence. “So where is everybody else?”, asks Rony. “Oh I am alone here”, says Akash. “Solo run!! Haa! Nice.” , remarks Rony. Most of the times with unknown people, silence is an indication that you are not hitting it off.  But then, most of the times life is predictable and we end up making it miserable. The waves are now almost getting to them. Listening to Kurt Cobain’s Come as you are, Akash says, ‘the consciousness of being liberated is achievable only if you are totally aware what makes you so. For the rest of us getting high is the shortcut key’. He rolls up another joint there. 

After a couple of hours, they decide to move back to their rooms. Turns out, the couple too is staying at a nearby hotel. They all figure out it's enough for the day and start walking back to their rooms. On their way, a gang of locals, drunk as hell cross their path. Akash is few steps ahead of the couple. One of the guys too loud for his size is walking without looking around and heads straight into Akash. Akash tries to avoid him but doesn’t slow down and the short guy stumbles as he rams into Akash's shoulder. Tripped by a timid shoulder shove, the short guy cries out ‘Space bitch!’. I am not a bitch, I am the Bad Dog, Akash wits ricocheted inside his head.  And he throws a rock-hard punch at the short guy. Well it was offensive on Akash’s part and he himself takes few seconds to realise that he did that. The other three local guys come in for rescue and encircle Akash. He is too frustrated to apologise and besides there’s nothing that a stoned guy is afraid of. He warns the guys with a straight punk look, ‘Back off! I’m gonna kill someone today’. The guys were equally fucked up but the coldness with which Akash spoke made it amply clear that he is out of his mind. This is the bottom line of every brawl; the one who is completely nuts gets the upper hand. They stared back at him like they were still thinking what to do. The couple keeps on walking as if nothing has happened and Akash follows them. ‘Seems you like to fuck around’, says Rony. ‘I don’t know but I don’t take shit easy’, replies Akash. ‘We’ll be leaving for Gokarna, tomorrow morning, wanna join?’ Akash nods with a blank face still angry over being called a bitch. 

III

Mornings are beautiful only on holidays. On other days mornings make you realise that life is running ahead of you and you have to catch up with your own pitiful ambitious desires. Akash gets up and sleeps over again after finding that it’s still 8 am. He thinks again whether to stay put or leave for Gokarna with Rony and Gini. Meanwhile he remembers that Gini had told that they will pick him up at 10 am. He manages to think while grasped in the holiday morning sluggishness, whether it would be uncomfortable to sit at the backseat of the car and somehow ends up deciding that he’ll rent a bike. He jumps out of the bed after noticing that it's half past nine and on top of it he has to find a place to rent a bike. He leaves after taking bath at the speed of a valence electron. Akash drops a message to Rony to meet at Namaste Cafe in Gokarna. He didn’t mean to avoid them. He just wanted to ride alone. He gets his hand to Royal Enfield Standard 500cc at 11 am. After a good heavy breakfast he gets to the highway singing in sync with AC-DC soundtrack Highway to Hell. The ecstasy of riding a bike is not only in watching the beauty of curves of the road ahead but more so in going across curves of gusty winds feeling as if you are flying in open sky. But mostly people are lazy ass suckers on the front seat of car, tripping like hell. Biking requires some effort. The thump of the machine is in resonance with his heart beat. His mind is free of the thoughts that bother him. Suddenly he remembers that sometime back in childhood he wanted to be a Moto GP rider when he didn’t know how to ride a motorbike. Now he knows, but never remembers to give a fuck to that childish thought.  It’s startling how the childhood dreams are so out of context for most of us. His heart wants to be a child again, where one can dream anything and feel heroic about it but for the rest of our lives we keep doing creditable deeds but somehow feel unsure about them. As we grow we become conscious of the world around and its reaction to us. And that fucks up our free spirit. 

Akash takes a break after almost three hours of biking. It’s been long since he had been used to this sitting posture. For the past 15 minutes he had begun to feel numbness in his ass but kept twisting himself to get out of it. Being tough is drilled into the heads of some people so much so that they end up stretching their own limits far ahead of the line. But then he became conscious that his head is already free from frosty precipitation of dreary human lifestyle and so he clears his dilemma sooner this time. He stops to find a cafe so lonely and beautiful that he is in awe of it. It’s funny how our judgement of things around us is so much dependent on our moods that we can’t justify them a lot many times. He has been at better places but now as he feels like a bird after flying miles high in the sky, he thinks that this is most beautiful cafe he has seen. May be it was. 

Akash orders a fresh lime soda and gulps it down like he has never had one. He can see a girl across a few tables facing straight at him. He looks again at her with the second glance and before he knows it, his eyes get immersed into hers. She has brown eyes, big but unruffled and there’s too much of the world he can see within. He is aware that she has noticed him but he keeps on staring. The moment her eyes met his, he gives her a polite smile and calls the waiter for a beer. And now he thinks that she is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. Beauty is like raw power, very much opposite of muscular strength but more effective in a lot of ways. Beauty gets the admiration it deserves without any proving. She is on a bike ride as well which is apparent with the attire she carries and she is reading a book. Now Akash is intrigued. He gets up and reaches her unhurriedly and confidently to ask her if she can help him with the route to Gokarna. Every time a guy has to talk to a girl he has to come up with something which is mostly made up. She looks at him suspiciously first as all girls do with every guy in this part of the world. She says smiling, “Just be on the same road and you’ll find a diversion some 50kms from here. Or google the route.” And he returns back the same polite smile with 'Thanks'. He sees the title of the book. Shantaram. Akash now introduces himself. She replies, “It’s Riya”. “Nice read for a biking expedition!”, Akash says. As much cool he wanted to sound while speaking to her, he ends up being as much precisely awkward. ‘Yeah! been biking for a month now’ , says Riya. A month! Akash starts to feel the numbness in is his ass back again but then recovers back to say, ‘That’s awesome ’. They sit and chat as he finishes his beer and she sips the coffee with such slenderness that his eyes start the second round of fascination. But he resists. “So what up?”, she says curling her hair back swiftly. He is so captivated by her that he begins to thinks if he is still high from the last joint he had. He takes a bigger gulp from the pint and manages to think what to say. ‘On a holiday. Running Solo! Haa!’. He feels awkward again. “I am a fan of the book. Pretty insightful narrative”, he continues. “Yeah, what’s your favourite character apart from Lin?” asks Riya. “I like the flow of the story even more than Lin’s character.  It moves ahead at an even pace and becomes remarkable as characters unravel both inwards and outwards.” Now he sounds cool. He thinks at least. They keep talking for some time before Akash realises that he has to meet Rony and Gini. He thinks that he’ll still make it to Gokarna before sunset and besides he wants to keep talking to her. Akash asks her since when she had been biking. ‘I started biking a couple of years back to see if there is anything interesting left out in the world for me. To my surprise, I found there’s so much life everywhere and all one needs to see that, is a spirit free from the shackles of the lousy lives we have been forced to live.’ He couldn’t agree more.They part their ways upon reaching an understanding which two travellers come across upon knowing each other’s plight, though they didn’t share any. He rides again with his disposition even more close to his heart. He is still in awe of Riya’s personality.

 It’s about time for sunset. Akash stops under a tree on the highway alongside a dense stretch of palm trees. He smokes off classic mild imitating the mafia swag. Smoking gives nothing but an overpowering sense of existence with every comforting deep breath. Most of the smokers are nicotine addicts but that thought can never overpower the relief a smoke gives from the clutches of anxiety. Akash sees the long curve of a beach at a distance and nothing else. He is the only person there. He keeps walking through the beach and admires the deep orange coloured sun beaming down its own daylight. He jumps off into the sea for a dip. He is happy to swim. It’s fun. He walks out of the sea to sit and admire the merger of fading daylight into the calmness of night. Watching day and night fuse together, he spins off thinking about the duality that everything poses in life. The choices we make and the options we avoid, the understanding we develop and the ambiguity we carry, the rights and the wrongs.  It’s the relative thought process of our mind that holds us back us from taking the duality as an established fact. Our mistaken apprehension to achieve singular and just outcomes of every situation in life screws up it all. We think of things from different perspectives each fuelled by its own end result. So confused, we weigh as if everything is measurable. It all adds up to a systematic fucked up process to subjugate our own inner being. All of this unsettles him. Still it’s a beautiful evening and he is happy to be here. Whatever is clogged inside his head is atleast gushing out with the breeze.