Boxer - 8994

So it's been two months since I came back to Chennai. I'm employed now but thankfully in such a place that nourishes and motivates me. I really like the profession, the place and the people. So instead of embarking on a journey of professionalism, formal suits, fake smiles and omnipresent boredom, this place hands me short adventure packages disguised as projects and encourages me to think (laterally, linearly, spherico-rhomboidically and hyperbolic-geometrically). I enjoy working in this 'wonder la' office.

I travel to my office oft times by train. But sometimes I ride my dad's Kawasaki Bajaj Boxer (note: with a registartion number - 8994) to reach the spot. This bike is at least 10 years old but somehow manages to look rickety and ancient, worse than the ones you might find in the rat bikes section of Oley's scoot-a-rama, thanks to the wonderful care and maintenance bestowed on it. The bike's horn, front brake, indicators and headlights are absolutely non-functional. But what we want is for it to run. And that it does, if with an occasional whimpering (because of an anemic engine) and regular bumps (because of a pot-bellied tyre). It has managed to shame, stain, dishonour and ridicule me in many major, moderate and minor roads of Chennai with a sense of timing that'll make Charlie Chaplin feel insecure.

Let me site a classic example. Once when I finished being the Master of Ceremony for one of our department activities in MCC, I was surrounded by some good hearts who generously congratulated me. Acting modest, I congratulated them in return for being such a wonderful audience and making the show interactive. Proceeding thus our little mutual admiration club reached the exit. I waved at my friends who were crossing the road to catch a train and kick-started my Boxer 8994. Making a U-turn I turned the bike around my friends simultaneously waving at them (yet managing to maintain a modest body posture!!). When this U-turn victory waving parade got over, I got stuck behind a bus and applied brakes. And the rebellious boxer let out a voluminous groan - Crrreeeeeeeeeekkkk! Poised at the brink of modesty now, I looked around at my friends (with an apologetically embarrassed look). Half of them feigned not knowing me, while the rest were reeling with laughter. That was your best joke, though it didn't come on stage, their eyes said. With an awkward it-happens look, I shifted gears and dragged the wretched dilapidation back home.

The moody bike's mischief reached a new level yesterday when after office I wrestled with it for close to an hour trying all sorts of bike wizardry to start it. There was one bike-aware soul who took pity on me and helped me for half an hour but the stubborn brat 8994 did not budge. So I left it at that and went back home thinking hard on how I can teach a lesson to this bullishly adamant piece of contraption. I came back to office today but couldn't look at Mr.8994 till 3pm. When I went and finally kicked the starting lever, the bike jumped to life instantly. Dear oh dear! I've seen humans stabbing you one day and smiling at you the next but this machinery seems to be the mother of all things brutus.

Nevertheless, I guess 8994 teda hai, par mera hai!

With this, Shyam's legend of associating himself with fumbling and misbehaving whimsical machinery continues... Et tu boxer!

On having an ipod

I've never been good at taking care of my things. For instance, my computer doesn't obey me on anything and downloads stuff according to its own whims, my cell (which was one N72) got soaked in water twice before it decided that I don't deserve a display and later worked only when I startled it by hitting it with a hard object twice... but I lost that mobile along with my dear bag at some place I can't remember just before I broke my sun glasses and lost my bike key... I have never had a pen for more than a week in my entire life and my clothes are always stained and crumpled (especially now as I have to do my own laundry).

But I've got an ipod (which I got exchanged, because I messed up the original one) which really understands me. It's a small apple shuffle and I hold it dear because of a lot of reasons. Over the months it has become one of my closest friends. I put a selection of songs in it and kept it in the 'shuffle' mode because it's like the roller-coaster. You don't know what to expect next. The orderly playing of songs is just like a merry go round, you know whats coming and it just goes round and round. So, as I said this ipod really empathises with me.....When I am in a hurry and have to walk fast, it lets Chester cry 'I become so numb' and I find myself galloping. When I'm tired and walking slowly at the end of a long day, it gets SPB into the act and he melts into 'munpaniya, muthal mazhaiya' or Sonu Nigam eases his honey coated voice into 'kal ho na ho'. When I'm walking to classes, it introduces James Blunt and when I'm alone in buses admiring the countryside, it launches the genius of Rahman. He starts song after song, goes into a myriad of instrumental magic, builds up the momentum and ends up in symphonic style, drenching your heart out. But there are times when my ipod has its glum moments (after all it is a being too, and it has its mood swings!!). For instance, when I finish talking wonderfully with my girlfriend and can't control the smile on my face, it plays Bob Dylan or 'yeh jo des hai tera'. But then I don't change the song because I don't want to interfere in its free will and force my thoughts into it. I try talking to it but sometimes it's just not in the mood to listen. But I feel that it has the right to be like this because only a few days back, when I felt I had to let out my anger, it came up with 'time to play the game' and 'behold the king, the king of kings...on your knees dog' by Motorhead. I had ended up becoming artificially mean and it had cheered me up and I had thanked the little shuffle with all my heart. So after such a performance I felt I had to bear with the 'bob dylan' indulgences of my shuffle, because I honestly felt that it has earned it.

So we have our good days together and not so good days, but the thing is, it's always there for me (unless it runs out of battery). So I charge it up and it charges me up and we both pull it off at the end. It never worries about the dress I'm wearing or the things I did that day or what would I think of it if it didn't say hi. All it asks is that I pay a visit to it once in a while, plug it in my ears and spend some quality time with it. When no one else is there, it is always around to get my feet back on the ground, to make me smile and to make me feel, to finish a day off in solitude or to start one with vigour.

So, cheers - to shuffle and and its load of songs...