2'o clock in the night...three friends, all at different levels of inebriation, sitting listening to the soundtrack of the movie they just watched (FYI: Wake Up Sid)....
one of them slightly older than the other two....one very happily tapping away at the book on his lap, which by the way is a book on Hinduism and the philosophy of Swami Vivekanada...the other, a sensitive, free spirit, uncharacteristically chirpy and effervescent tonight...sitting relaxed on the chair to the extreme right...
the conversations veer from the characters of the movie they watched most recently to a funny incident a couple hours ago...in the wake of an on-screen conversation around "how's your sex life" a toddler started wailing uncontrollably...
they resolve to spend the night chatting...not to sleep...if at all, crash around 5 or 6 in the morning...what'll they talk about...none of them seem to be in a position to continuously hold conversation around any topic....their conversation keeps veering from topic to topic...with the film being the anchor that keeps it going...
they deliberate if there are any watering holes open around this time...surprisingly, it's the unusually chirpy one that brings up this topic....what if their favorite pub were open ? but they seem to bear the adolescence of the city they live in with amazing stoicness...while the happy one starts humming "Oh Darling," a recent track from a movie they watched a few weeks ago compensates for the lack of melody in his voice...
At this moment...I ask for a story....
a spontaneous hug later...Hinduism lying unattended on the table, he starts jiving to the tune....shit! an unintentional change of track leads to momentary disappointment...but in seconds, we're back on track...the craft of a veteran poet and lyricist find company in a blink-and-you-miss-it embrace, a couple spontaneous steps and the comfort of the bed after a long day....
discussions on creating playlists on iTunes...the fragrance of the soil, fresh after the rains from the land of the erstwhile five rivers and unobtrusive tapping of all six feet in the room...
longing glances from the bed and unfazed concentration on the laptop...time i retired to my room downstairs? while the tempo sears up on iTunes and the search for future members of the current playlist continues, spirits liven up further in the room, perhaps acknowledging the lack of bottled spirits, sigh! and there goes Bob Marley... crying desperately for a sense of history...how i wish people gave history a chance!
unwieldy tresses join the fray with a little orchestration...bob marley's presence notwithstanding...in some corner of the globe, mothers playfully tell their kids their noses could be fixed with a little help from the ubiquitous kitchen, well too,l for the lack of a better word....
well, we all studied history at school...nothing so great about it....so, the eternal lover boy of bollywood easily bypasses Marley and a song he didn't sing but lip-synched to now joins the melangee
desperate pushing back of sleep...unfazed attention to the laptop...a PJ that draws me to the conversation...i quietly slip back...requests of playing tequila sunrise...tired bodies...and confident promises of fighting sleep provide the prelude to The Eagles' famous track....the attention now meanders to the FC Barcelona tee while comic jibes at the lack of nationalism infuse the air....
Now more than ever it seems rich to die/To cease upon the midnight with no pain....long, long ago a sickly poet in a wet, cold part of the world immortalized these lines with his death a few years after penning these lines...well, if not the invocation of death but the celebration of timelessness will live much longer...
i am brought back to the room...the neglected minstrel of the god-forsaken city we all belong to croons away to glory...why is decadence so painfully appealing?...he taught all of us to love the city...cities...and made us sit up to the ballads of the back-alley people...more of him sometime later...god rest his soul in peace...the city with its sights, sounds and people will probably continue to haunt him even after death...
the night eggs me on...we laze around sleepless, while a popular bengali singer weaves his magic,,,for a change, he doesn't ignore the physicality of love...memories of almost forgotten concerts haunt me...invisible threads joining vignettes from the past spread its wings of fancy...i half wish i could be transported to another world....one that i have left behind...
the constraints of the medium of my expression surface in front of me...need to stop typing as my laptop is almost running out of power...well, lamest of all excuses that it is...i probably am too tired to continue this worthless experimentation of a writing exercise...see you later, friend...do drop by sometime....
