Shhhh....Taru is sleeping... He will see you in a few weeks

Bangalore's Ultimate Walk

This is one of Bangalore's little jewels, five kilometers from the Tarantula home. Its has already entered the city and become a part of Bangalore. Priceless find. Surprisingly nobody seems to know about it. It is right on the main road but the entrance is so narrow, it looks like the entrance of any small coconut plantation. You can never guess that it opens up to thousands of acres of Reserve Forest area that stretches miles beyond a small imagination, you can keep walking many kilometers across Anekal right into Tamil Nadu and never realise. The beauty is so seductive. Till the tiger attacked us. We killed him with our venomously dry tarantula humor just after we entered the small forgotten unfenced perimeter of the national park. We should have carried a gun as a precaution, but my mommy has taught me that visitors shouldn't be rude. So we didn't.

Mountains in the Clouds

We had internal exams in a week, tons to read, so I forced a late nighter followed by some precious sleep, followed by… BANG, BANG, BANG!!! “OPEN THE DOOR!!!” BANG BANG BANG BANG….

“KRISHNA WAS KILLED LATE LAST NIGHT!”

His face was smashed. The shape of the pole he had crashed into had made its neat oblique complement on his face. The left side of his face….. well there was no left side left, just the skin on his forehead that had escaped the scrape, pulped flesh, clotted blood and crushed bone. The right side of his face was worse, Though the right side was absolutely untouched from the accident it will remain permanently etched in my memory. It was horrible. That paralysed expression of excruciating pain will haunt me for many years. Eyes so tightly shut that even hours after dying they have not relaxed, his teeth were clenched and tense. All his facial muscles were contracted to the maximum. Even the big hole in his skull behind his left ear hasn’t traumatized me as much as the permanency of the pain on his face.

Afooah tells me that it seems like only yesterday when she had first met Krishna, and he had told her that he was from the Bahamas and life was so good there, he was just waiting for these five years to run away so that he could get back there and practice with his father, in his hospital.

Mistakes can seem so harmless when we are unaware, till things start going wrong, till it becomes uncompensable.

Krishna , the first class-representative (C.R) of his batch was my immediate senior and was the son of the most sought-after Indian Orthopedic Surgeon in the Bahamas. On a late Saturday night, he and his friends decided to go out for a joy ride after a strenuous week of work on his new bike. Krishna’s father who had come down to Davangere two weeks back, had bought him a new bike. A Dark Blue Bajaj Pulsar 220, The most powerful of the Pulsar series. Dr. Murthy would never buy his son anything less than the best. Little did he know that two weeks later his son would, in his quest to put his ultimate bike to the ultimate test on Davangere’s roads, crash into a pole sticking its neck out into the road at 124 kmph. The boy was thrown off the bike and into the air to land on his face, on the left side, the same side that had taken the full insult of the blow with the electric pole to scrape on the road for several metres before coming to his mortal halt. All this happened in a flash, Krishna had only a few seconds to experience the horror and pain, and before he knew it, it was all over. The bike meanwhile continued to ride itself, riderless, like it was being driven by a Spirit of Death.

The next day, A large crowd had congregated outside City Central Hospital at 11.30 am - Half the Medical fraternity… Minutes later a well-dressed woman and a young girl appear from an auto. The woman walks towards the hospital, then slows down, then stops. She looks around unassumingly for a minute.
“Where is my son?” (silence) “Why are so many people standing here??” (silence) “Where is my son??”

Her face morphs into anxiety… Then, suddenly she goes hysterical

“WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY SON!!!!!! WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO HIM??? WHERE IS HE??”

5-6 Doctors approach her. One of them says something to her.

“(blood-curdling scream) NOOOO! NOOOO!! YOU ARE LYING!!!!! YOU ARE ALL LYING TO ME!!!!”

His sister is speechless. A silent tear rolls down her cheek. She looks like a part of her has died. The doctor then tries to pacify his mother and calm her down. But in vain.

“(earth-splitting scream) STOP LYING TO ME!!! BRING ME MY SON!!!!! BRING MY SON!!!!!!! BRING MY SON TO ME NOW!!!!”

His mother's mind cannot digest her son's death. She cannot accept the truth. She will not. Her mind doesn't want her to. It knows she wont be able to survive it.

“(tears gushing down her cheeks)LIARS!!! MY SON!! HE WAS THE ONE WHO CALLED ME HERE TODAY MORNING ON THE TELEPHONE…HE SPOKE TO ME…. HE WAS THE ONE WHO ASKED ME TO C-C-C-O-M-E H-H-E-R-E. HE WAS THE ONE....IT WAS HIM (breaks down uncontrollably)”.

For a moment it seems like her legs cant bear the burden of the situation anymore, she sits down on the hospital floor, then faints, collapses.

I was riding back home from Padma Condiments when I saw Moose, I waved to him. What surprised me was, he didn’t wave back like he usually does, I rode next to him to meet him. His face was pale and his eyes were red and glassy. I had never seen Moose in this state, he is one of the most rugged men I have met and nothing usually bothers him or shakes him, But when he said what he said, I was so shocked that I stalled my bike.

Vishaka, Krishna’s close friend is kept in the dark for most part of the morning following the crash. But later on, one of her book-smart but not so mature batch-mates informs her- and these are the words in her sms “Hey Vsaka, hrd Krshna died in a bike crsh… Rly sry ok?”. She first doesn’t believe it because… well because that’s the amount of credibility that the informant has, but when she asks her roommate and receives a reply of silence, she gets her doubts. She asks her roommate to tell her everything, fast, after being threatened with murder her roomie ultimately spills the beans to her.

Vishaka went nuts…She really did. She ran crying from the girls hostel barefooted to City Central, to find everybody crying. Everyone was crying….His Mom, His sister, His father (who was still in India), Nurses, Doctors, Friends, Batch-mates, Ambulance driver, even strangers cried after seeing the body. Vishaka stopped talking. Her family was called and her brother came to pick her up and take her home, to Bangalore, he had his engineering sem exam the next day.

Vishaka, a brilliant student, a talented dancer and orator… She was the other first class-representative of Afooah’s batch. She and Krishna were bold politicians, No one could stand in the way of their killer attitude. Vishaka hung herself,

Vishaka’s Parents were in Chennai. Their flight was delayed by half an hour, they arrived fifteen minutes after she killed herself. She wrote a 45 page suicide booklet to explain her decision, with individual sections dedicted to each of the important people in her life. Her brother came home from his exam to find his sister hanging from the fan. Hanging, eyes and mouth wide open, in a final desparate but failed attempt to breathe one last time.

There is much praise and sympathy for Vishaka’s martyrdom in Davangere, A true love story. She had died for a true cause, she had died for love. But, During the fourth minute of asphyxia, Vishaka realised that she had made the biggest mistake of her life, and there wasn't anything she could do about it.

Afooah is shattered. Minutes before killing herself Vishaka had called her to wish her a happy birthday.

Blog Migration Announcement

Today is the Big Day! I have decided that this blog will be migrating to another URL (pronounced "url"). A lot of thought, planning and effort have gone into this, so it will most likely be a total disaster. The whole Internet could implode. By nightfall the entire industrialized world will be communicating via smoke signals.

But if it actually goes as planned, there will be a link on this site directing you to the new site. It's going to be very elegant. I have employed some top website designers, who have produced some fantastic work ;-)

Advisory to people going to the bathroom in Davangere

Be Careful..

or better still

Abstain.

Whatever it is, I don't consider it a small creature.

S-H-O-C-K!!!

S-H-O-C-K. Was the expression on my face as I stood outside the entrance of Padma Condiments and stared foolishly at the now empty spot where 5 minutes ago I had parked my brand new sparkling Crimson Red Pulsar 180 DTSi, The Back seat still had a fresh chalk mark from the showroom that exclaimed ‘SOLD R/-’. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. Could this be? I asked myself…is this really true?? She was gone. - Vanished into thin air in the middle of the night like Cinderella.

I kicked myself mentally in the butt for leaving someone as beautiful as her unprotected to the night – even if it was only just for a couple of minutes; I had left her unlocked and vulnerable… My complacent ignorance to the conniving night and its methods had brought me and thrown me hard into reality to painfully swallow the situation. As I swallowed (the situation, some spit) I warped from shock to disbelief to despair till I reached a cold but somehow comfortable silent mental numbness…I decided she couldn’t have gone too far After all I still had the key, she wasn’t exactly light to push with her belly FULL of delicious petrol which I had but proudly and now I felt, quite stupidly filled into the spoilt brat’s tank with almost half my month’s allowance.

Padma Condiments is a small but efficient departmental store on the corner of the 1st Cross off the Medical Hostel Road in Davangere, the only store which gives you ice cold Mountain Dew at 11.50 pm. They pay the cops to stay open after 11 (shhh). The store was very close to my batchmate and friend’s apartment building…

I had just met Pygmy Puff and our mentor Dr. Aditya Chowti (Chow) who is a House Surgeon (we call them Howzies) in Puff’s 3rd floor apartment…Chow had brought along with him a friend Dr.Hardik Choudhry, a PG in Ophthalmology … We were discussing random stuff at Puff’s place till we decided that it was getting rather late and we should leave poor Puff to his pillow, Puff is a traditional early bird…

I went down to the apartment parking lot, got onto her - my new lovely, my dad’s gift for being Nineteen and good, I started her up…I loved her sound in the parking lot, the closed space magnified and reverberated her 1-week old thunder…Happily I rode out of the gate on her back and got off her three buildings away at Padma’s to quench after laughing and babbling myself dry upstairs, not realizing that as I drank the cool sparkling Mountain Dew, I was being robbed…

I paid the old man sitting behind the cash counter in his lungi, thanked him and stepped out of the shop to my emotional bereavement… Shocked,I first traced my way back along 1st cross searching, and then along medical hostel road…no avail… I notice a shady looking boy, about 14 year old scrutinizing me from behind a grilled gate in a dark corridor housing a staircase right next to the shop.I ask him if he saw my bike… First he says he hasn’t. Then he says he saw a youth in a black t-shirt sit on it and push it downhill towards the boys hostel.It is quite possible... Someone possibly one of my friend’s idea of a practical joke.But something in me cant half believe him. It looks really suspicious doesn’t it? What is this 14 year old doing up past midnight watching from behind this dark grill gate?


I call Puff…RING RING RING RING RING RING RING “The Airtel number you have called has not replied, please try again… later”

Again…

RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING

Puff: “Ay wat the hell… its past 12”
Me: “Hey my bike's been stolen”
Puff: "Huh??!?”
Me: “Its gone!"

Puff: ..............

Me: "Hello???"

Puff: “What?”
Me: “Bike's been flicked”
Puff: "Haha Yeah right!!”
Me: "COMMON! TRY AND BE SERIOUS”….”
Puff: !........

Puff: “Ok then. Hold on I'll be down in a minute”

Minutes later Dr. Chow and Puff on Chow’s Aquamarine Blue Karizma and Dr.Hardik on his Black Splendor emerge from the apartment gate and stop in front of me…Puff’s eyes look puffy…Chow’s eyes look chewy… Dr.Hardik’s eyes look hard into mine “where did you park it?”…”There” I point, ”Where is it?”…”Gone” I say…”you left the key in it?”….”No.i just left the handle unlocked” I cant hide the guilt in my voice…we notice three middle aged men standing at the grilled gate with the boy now…Chow decides to question them

Dr.Hardik and I follow the shady boy’s instruction and go downhill Medical Hostel Road to first check the UG boys hostel parking lot….Hundreds of bikes…Yet none of them a spanking new Crimson Red Pulsar 180 DTSi…

We check and recheck and re-recheck all the bikes…nope….

We check the PG men’s hostel parking lot…..nope….

We comb each and every one of the 12 crosses of MCC ‘B’ Block adjoining the medical hostel road slowly…there are so many places a bike can be hidden…..nope again…

We try continuing further downhill on medical hostel road till the end where we see 2 autos…I approach the 1st auto driver and ask him if he saw someone pushing a red bike…he says he saw someone pushing it uphill!!! His breath smells of alcohol…

Dr.Hardik is finally at his wits end….its well past 1.30 am . “Lets go to the police” he says…SUICIDE!! Everyone knows the Davangere Police especially at odd hours are as crooked as the thieves who stole whatever they stole in the first place…. First they’ll extract cash from you, then information about you, then SOME MORE cash from you…Then only if they feel there is enough cash at the end of all that they may actually move and do something, and if they actually do something right and find it ,they will want EVEN MORE cash before they show it to you. Even if what they show BELONGS TO YOU they will want SOME MORE cash to give it to you…Some of my hostel mates have had bad experiences.

I explain this to Dr.Hardik…He reasons that it would be cheaper paying the cops 500 rupees 4 times, than paying auto everyday for the next four-and-a-half years…I slowly agree,…we see Chow and Puff approaching…we all head back up the hostel road towards the police station…
“Do you have the registration papers” Dr.H asks, I don’t reply…I just realized to my horror that I haven’t even learnt the registration number of my one week old bike yet and it is gone….

We cross the boys hostel at a good speed and approach the Padma Condiment cross, following Chow’s lead we cross Padma condiments, the 3 men are still there at the grilled gate…We cross them and approach the Main Road where we should turn left to head towards the police station…All of a sudden Dr.Hardik swerves to the right to avoid Chow…Chow had suddenly stopped in front of us before the main road and turned back…Dr.H is mouthing curse words…We turn back and ride to a halt next to Chow’s bike which has stopped diagonally on the wrong side of the road facing into a gap between the wall of the building with the grilled gate and the wall of the next building – an under-construction Bungalow . I can feel the three shady men at the grill gate gaze at us like hawks. Deep in the gap between the walls of these two adjacent buildings is a Bike!!!

Its Crimson Red…. It’s a Pulsar 180 DTSi…Phew!!!

Time to learn the registration number

And yeah… I got kicked nicely by the guys in the hostel later on for being so careless and irresponsible…Its still hurting…Had I not been lucky enough for Chow to gaze into that gap between the two buildings at that moment and spot something…the bike, by the next morning would have been untraceable with new number plates, new ignition. new locks, and a new owner with a free tank full of petrol (19 litres)…The chassis number would have been scratched out or modified to fit new papers…I would have meanwhile spent the rest half of my monthly allowance on the police and would have had to live on air for the remaining part of the month and will have most certainly died of starvation and self-pity.

The Mess

mess mess what a mess!
the more you eat the more the mess
mess mess what a mess!
walk in and get free gastrointestinal distress

what to do? where to go?
we must have something in our belly no?
mess mess what a mess!
the more you eat the more the mess :-)

rumble mumble hear my stomach stumble
still tweaking to this gastronomical catastrophical jungle
mess mess what a mess!
the more you eat the more the mess..

chilly manchuri, cutlet fry, samosa
eat up or you will feel terribly mosa
mess mess what a mess!
the more you eat the more the mess :-)
mess mess what a mess
BOOM!
oops! its gas i must confess

Chows Dilemma

DR Chowdhary Prashanth The Nekbyter has injected his bike with the secret devils formula which makes his CBZ sound like a CBR and allows it to accelerate from 0 - gazzabalabozozillion km/hr in 2 secs and drink petrol like water..So it has been immediately certified as national property of JJMMC Boys Hostel and Chow only gets to use it (never) when it is not being used by the underprivileged members of the Osi-Biker society which mainly consists of OC Reddy and OC Raghunath

Rain Smells and the Sun's Tactics

Ah the smell of wet mud reminds me of when i was more down to earth with myself,The conditioned reflex to which is to shut up my trite truisms and lie back and let my nose enjoy himself....have you noticed that these rain smells feel a lot cooler on your nostrils than other smells?

Davangere is turning out to be a hotter and humider version of hell during summer.Its a burning hole. I have come to the conclusion that the sun is an incorrigible rogue. He first momentarily brainwashes everything into a nice glimmering golden during sunrise (like india shining) and then, after he gets his prayers and offerings from the naive, resorts to a full fledged cold blooded heat attack. The ass doesnt even hint at regretting making your armpits cry. Then in the evening at the end of his term like all good politicians he makes full exploit of everyones short t.v retarded brain and once again pretends to care and love and envelopes everything in gold before fading away, leaving his followers in the dark. He is a criminal bastard after sunset, he runs away to a different land, where he is called by a different name and has a different face with a different role but more or less similar halka kelsa methods

OBITUARY (Oh Bitch you are he!)

It is but my sad misfortune to announce to you the tragic and yes gory demise of the vaccinated tarantula.We tried as hard as we could for 30 long and tantalising minutes but at the end we couldn save him....everytime we thought we had him he would slip away.....it would be at the tip of the tongue but slip back to the unexplored deep,sweet unknowns of our hideous hippocampus.Thus the lovely vaccinated tarantula or taru as gajee used to so lovingly call him has passed on to the lap of The Lord Almighty today at 1505 hours after suffering from a rash but inconsistent attack of acute password retrieval failure (APRF).YES IT IS A SHOCKING AND GRAVE LOSS FOR ALL OF US(bharath) WHO KNEW AND CARED ABOUT TARU for taru was a good blog who minded his own quiet life,living silently in his rightfully owned 2 bytes of cyberspace and did his job no worse than the other 500 gazzillion neglected blogs holding his dignity close to his bosom and not letting out as much as a peep about his incredulous and inhumanly unfair state of things.

Mike Check

Hello