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.