Quantum of Shoelace - II

"Classic Ride, Dusty Shoes"

Pink laces is mammoth's child hood obsession here, school tuitions, holi milan, diwali mela, new year parties, hardly has an occasion gone by when mammoth hasn't eyed her and flirted with her.

Our tongue tied jurassic hero replies with a simple hello and invites her inside, "Oh, Actually I was wondering if you could give me a lift instead ?", she replies. Now mammoth here has situational disruption of motor nerves, specially around pretty girls who have a sweet voice. Pink laces observes the forrest gump like reaction and rambles on non-stop, "Actually my friend was supposed to pick me up for an event at my college this evening, however he couldn't make it because his car broke down in between so I was wondering if you could do me this favor, it's really a huge event and seems like an emergency, so... can you take me there right now !?

"Actually my friend, pick me up, do me, it's really huge, take me right now !", These are the only words the testosterone pumped genius heard, the way his feet are sweating something tells me the fella is in hormonal overdrive. He darts inside, the tracks are off in 3 seconds, jeans on in 5, the essential black tee to hide those tyres is on in 2, brushes his hair twice, socks & sneakers(my free ride) on in 10. He's ready in 20 Seconds, it's a new world record for lazy bone.

"Let's go !", Pink laces and mammoth head for his forsaken Maruti 800, the car is an antique piece however mammoth here wants to win formula one in this and handle her with baby gloves. She gingerly slides into the front seat, scared it might just fall apart if she brushes the sides. Minutes of unnerving silence pass between them as the car does an impersonation of a heavy metal rock band while starting up, "it's a classic" genius boy explains to the damned damsel in distress who will need to de-stress pretty soon. Fifteen minutes later they are on the main road, Now pinky(let's just call her that) studies at Maulana Azad Medical College, somewhere genius boy last went to when he had to attend a rock fest. The way he's clutching and braking, it's really making me dizzy, the moron should ask her for directions instead of switching lanes at every traffic light, or is that because sleaze ball is eyeing her even now, that too while driving !

"So do I take a left from here ?", Mammoth breaks the silence but with a poor choice of words. "Oh, sorry I thought you knew the way, it's easy, take a left from the next light, then a free left turn, from the roundabout we got straight, take the left from the flyover, then right from the roundabout and we will be there". It's interesting how the female of this species can actually talk non-stop without even breathing, if it was a under-water breathing contest right now, pinky could beat "free willy" hands down. Talking of contests, Mammoth here is winning the "staring at her" contest and in celebration jumps the red light.

Judging from how he's braking and how pinky's sneakers are coming together in a hug, I would say the traffic policeman has waltzed right in front of the car. "Stay in the car", machismo reeks from his words as pinky nods silently. "License ! ?" grumbles Dusty Shoes, his paunch marking the territory around him for maybe half a meter. Mammoth's hands slips into this back pockets, and after five minutes of measuring there depth comes out empty. Obviously he's forgotten his wallet and his license with it. Paunch with a head measures up the situation in true TP like fashion then shoots, "RC ?", Dusty shoes smiles as he smells a bottle of Royal Challenge Whisky from Mammoths sweat trickling down his brows. Damn Mammoth and his stupid motor nerves!

Beyond Closed Eyes

A drop of inspiration beyond closed eyes,
lost beyond the thoughts of my mind.
It’s the world we live with, I ask to inspire.
A few words from it, is that too much we ask ?

Pain from a soul touches me today,
Far away from me,
She wanders the desert free,
An oasis of tears and her darkest fears,
Reading through her thoughts,
Her beautiful wand of words,
Touches my mind.

A language common to the souls,
I understand from one and I see it in all,
She hides her own and tells me to be gone,
To wander, to search, to love, to lust,
till the day I find another to fill my thirst..

She wishes only darkness from the sun,
Of the sky and ocean to be one,
Put an end to a dream dreamt,
Before the night had begun.

Is it not fair that she breath the air we do,
Is it not fair that she be amongst the stars,
With us here,
Not without us in a desert far.

The world without you is not to end,
A wound so deep, without you it will not mend.
The scent of you, untouched, unaware, it flies,
Like a drop of inspiration beyond closed eyes.

Quantum of Shoelace

“Mammoth, Bastard, Toe Ring, Pink Laces.”

Mammoth has been dragging his feet all day, God how much of self pity does this guy want to wallow in, ever since he got into an argument with that girl with a toe ring he’s been sulking and sulking. Get off that chair you lard bucket and hit the gym, then maybe she’ll think you are the man of her life or better you might just find a new one.

Hi there, for those who are wondering, I’m Mammoth’s shoelace, just thought I would give an interesting perspective of mammoth’s life since I see things right from the bottom up(pun intended). I’ve been a part of life since childhood, still remember the first time he tripped by me on stage and how that started his whole self esteem problem.

Enough about that though, let’s come back to today. The dude grumbles and mumbles to himself that how he’s a man some girls would be lucky to have, yes of course however the point is they want to be luckier and not just lucky, right? He moves onto tinker with his computer while listening to “born to be wild”, shakes his head as if he’s the wildest thing in town, had half a mind to strangle him but then again “26 year old accidentally strangles himself with a shoe lace” would be too much to digest for everyone. Anyhow the self proclaimed IT geek bangs away at the keyboard for 15 minutes so intensely you would think he was making the next supercomputer.

Mammoth’s done now after 15 minutes of doing nothing on the black box, genius boy obviously couldn’t focus because of all the self pity. He’s calling up his child hood friend the Bong Bastard(BB) now, poor fella doesn’t have any idea about the kind of rambling he’s in for, the mammoth starts with recession and how he wants to leave this city and get a new life, should try leaving his own house first maybe. After wandering a bit genius boy gets down to bitching toe ring out, BB offers useless advice the kind divorce lawyers offer before stating their fees, then suggests getting a new girl. However it hardly helps, lard bucket over here is a single tyre organism, basically you take out the human DNA and you’ve got a ball of fat that keeps on whining and rolling till it runs you over.

BB hangs up after a bit, due to desperation and a much needed loo break, you would think after bitching her out so much, mammoth would take a break. Hell, he calls up toe ring immediately and starts with immediately bitching about BB, boy can he bitch or what, after an hour last month’s phone bill flashes across his eyes. Genius calculates he could have paid the maid for months using the money spent on phone bills, hmm so the maid’s cheaper than four months of love talk but no sex, Shiney did have a point. Toe Ring girl is just happy that the focus is off her and now onto BB’s shortcomings.

Mammoth is now yawning, she must be yapping about her new boss, god what’s wrong with this female so she has got a new boss, doesn’t matter! Woman just kiss butt, if he’s cute sleep with him and then tell tales to get him fired for harassment, if he’s a she then get her to sleep with someone else, get her fired, get a new boss, now repeat cycle till you get a boss you could rollover with a pencil. Finally Mammoth hangs up as the door bell rings, oh it’s that cute neighbor from downstairs, Long legs, nice sneakers from nike, those pink laces, shivers up my thread baby, hubba hubba !

Manali Day II - E L E V A T I O N

The swiss girls had left once we had fallen asleep for our early morning deadline, they were cute specially the tall one, we definitely missed them. I got up and Verma was sure he had a heard a leopard or two just when he woke up, however Rohtang awaited, I had been there before as a child only to remember everything in bits and pieces. It was 7 and we were as ready as we could ever be cigarettes, tripod, backpacks,cameras & binoculars all set !

The driver picked us up from the old manali bridge and we were off on a whirlwind trip through the mountains, starting from old manali, the view throughout was breathtaking, after you cross old manali there are a number of small villages with apple orchards and a clean riverside, I am sure each one in the group was at that point tempted to stop and enjoy that pristine river side, however rohtang was the agenda. The driver was taking a different route from the general one to beat the traffic and the drive through the small,quaint villages was something which reminded of the Italian country side shown in the movie 'Godfather'.

We crossed the villages amongst the hills and entered the steeper mountain roads, the road quality had started deteriorating and greenery around intensifying. Punter was multitasking non-stop between his phone and camera, definitely not one of his more peaceful talks I would say. Our usual banter was on non-stop as well when the driver came to halt in front of a store on a desolate curve. I contemplated whether we will be robbed naked or the driver will stop at money and valuables, the driver told us to get fur coats and gum boots for the snow at rohtang adding that the weather is turning bad at the top. The store owner (his brother most probably) also suggested the same, "Customer ko galat thodi na batayenge", the cheesy driver added in the most professional tone possible. Paying no heed to the warning of the two great all knowing weather experts we decided against getting anything here and moved on.

After an hour of swinging through the mountain roads we came to a valley full of make shift stores renting out fur coats, gum boots etc. and a couple of places to eat. We went through our breakfast of omelette and parantha cracking jokes about the restaurant owner,he was a funny fellow who took orders in a military fashion and charged like a three star hotel with a swagger of a five star owner.

I rented gum boots to go along with my own alpine jacket, Avnish and Verma got furr coats to go with their gum boots, Punter skipped it all since he was busy taking photos and talking on the phone while taking a breath or two of air in between. Tummys full and shoulders fashionably decked with genuine fur we moved on to the final stretch going through lengths of roads with frozen ice similar to a popular 'Jab We Met' song.

After another 45 minutes, Our sumo came to a halt face to face with a traffic conundrum. A guy who seemed to know the driver walked up to his side, a pahadi exchange followed with the guy flashing two fingers at our Mr.professional in the end. Apparently a couple of cars had plunged from these heights and so all the vehicles had been stopped.

We hopped out of the sumo and were bombarded with a barrage of people screaming "danda le lo","tattu karlo","chai". Rohtang Pass a.k.a Zero Point was 7.5 kilometers by road, the other choice we had was verticle trek through a mixture of mud, snow and irritating tourists(the average indian middle class family). Punter traded in his costly shoes for gum boots before starting and we purchased a few walking sticks to make the trek easier.

We took our first few steps to stop after a couple of minutes, covering hardly any distance, snow(as we had discovered) provides resistance far higher compared to its normal temperature counter part while walking on slopes. This was going to be a tough one, as we climbed further the slope became steeper, the snow deeper, my fear of heights caught up with me , one look back and I gripped my walking stick tighter and dug it deeper into the snow. The weather was rainy and cold with dark clouds, yet I was sweating due to the whole effort and of course the height we were at(real scared). We stopped in between to enjoy aloo bhujiya with nimbu (courtesy Avnish) while watching many a tourists enjoy the dirty snow and then head back thinking this is all that is there to Rohtang, mountain side full of snow & tattu's you know what.

We trekked further, stopping for tea breaks in between and then moving on again till we reached a sort of snow entertainment park, with people telling us to buy 'shillajeet' & 'kesar'. It was a sea full of tourist with skiing, sledging, dhaba's, yak rides, photographers and more tourists straight from the heart of lajpat nagar market. We were disgusted at being in rohtang's version of crossriver mall, rohini thus we asked a few people about zero point and were directed towards a temple about 5 minutes of distance but 30 minutes on snow. I relied on the walking stick heavily to keep going but now realize that it slowed me down even more as the stick was 1//4 th my size and I had to keep bending to stick it in the snow and that was why I felt so exhausted(obviously my weight had nothing to do about it).

Others walked to the temple as I ambled behind them, wondering if it's possible to have a heart attack while walking through snow, but of course I had this particular tattu waala to keep my spirits high, he shared his expert opinion with me in good faith "tattu karlo sir, high altitude pe saans ki problem hoti hai, aur aapko to zaroor hogi", I assume he pointed me out because of my height, after all my nose was 6 feet 1 inch above rohtang pass, I was definitely getting less air as compared to my companions and the tattus(obviously my weight had nothing to do about it).

We reached the snow covered temple in 15 minutes thumping the snow and walking amidst the clouds refreshing us with the cool water mist carried along. The temple seemed to have a snow covered idol inside a stone igloo, I noticed a board emphasizing "Aagey jaana mana hai". I felt a bit happy thinking this means no more walking, everybody happily ignored the board and started suggesting walking to zero point. I planted my butt down and suggested people to go ahead without me, everyone said yes however kept standing. I realized that sometimes being the weakest in the gang makes you feel helpless however that is the one and only opportunity to overcome that weakness. After a few breaths my juices kicked in, I asked a sledge owner about zero point he said "bahut door hai, ek ghanta door hai". Not willing to buckle down I asked a chai waala, "5 minute door hai" pat came the reply.

We were off again, Verma and Avnish up ahead, me and punter behind, after 1 minute of walking punter and me were resting again, Verma's stamina training had paid off and Avnish gave him good company initially. However Verma surged ahead later with Avnish slowing down he realized that he knew he had to reach zero point ASAP before the gang gives up. He reached zero point in a minutes walk more and signaled to us, whatever it was Verma's enthusiasm or the very rush of being at zero point, we got going. Avnish, Me & Punter eventually reached Zero Point half-breathed but full on the rush.

Zero point had almost nil tourists, only a group or two helped by the Govt. of india tag on their vehicles. This was the real Rohtang, mountains covered with blankets of clean white snow, a hill to the left, a hill to the right, a frozen lake amidst snow covered mountains. It was hard to imagine that such a place exists, beautiful and white, quite and serene. The sun shining through clouds at times, the air was cool but fresh, people few. As a I saw a couple walk up a snow covered hill, I realized that I missed her, "now" would have been beautiful with her, the forlorn beauty amidst this gloriously white snow.

In the background was snow covered peaks which filled my heart with a strange awe, there was a mystery in those peaks, that frozen lake asked a few questions. Frequently we hear phrases "heart of nature", here it was, I was face to face with the very heart of nature here. My hearted wanted to be amongst those peaks, I knew why I was in awe, the mountains stood like gods, touching those clouds in the clean blue sky majestically, they symbolized eternity, immortality, thousands of years have passed and these gods have withstood all time,seasons,everything.

It was slightly scary to be in company of such awesome power almost monstrous and yet so peaceful. After a couple of hours, we sledged back to the tapri at cross river mall, Rohtang. Feasting on pakodas, maggi, omelettes and sipping on tea at the tapri seemed heavenly after "andha trekking". We headed back down now, this time on tattus as the heavy trek through snow had tired us down a bit. As the tattus tip toed down the 7.5 km road, the weather cleared up, the sun shined and realization dawned upon all of us, the whole thing was like a well managed mafia. Taxi's intentionally dropped the tourists so far down so that the tattu people along with stick and sledge pushers can benefit from the whole thing, people who drive up personally are generally forcefully stopped and given reasons like bad road etc. whereas the road and weather seemed fine. Probably the profits are shared at the top most level between the taxi owners and tattu owners. Tourists exploited in the most organized way, aah the splendors of india, the magical feeling of being amongst mountains followed by the realization of being duped.

Our taxi picked us up from the same point and we were back in Manali by evening, the trip had left us hungry, Punter and me started our search for lamb stew and rumali roti. What followed was the most funniest experience, none of the eating joints opened up before seven in the evening. After searching a bit more we decidedly dined at a place called "Mom's Kitchen". The reverse racism became ever so obvious when we ordered for lamb and the owner told us,"Foreigners don't like lamb because it stink thus we don't keep it in stock, everywhere you will get chicken but not lamb, foreigners don't like to eat it". This was india at its best for me, food stocked for europeans but not for indians. Our dinner was followed by a walk back to the hotel and then a marathon discussion about racism,cross cultural differences, our own overseas experiences along with beer and cigarettes. It was a grown up version of our discussions at IIC, a real kickback to our college days, only better.

Manali Day I

The hotel was situated right in the middle of old manali atop a small hill which required a small 5 minutes climb, which rather seemed like Everest at that point of time after the 14 hour volvo ride. Surrounded by the old manali market below, the place at the top was quite quaint, peaceful and relaxing to the soul and the market below seemed like the place to roam.. The rooms simply had a bed and a loo, 400 bucks sasta tikaao, awesome view of the mountains and a bit of green around to add that li’l bit of nature real value for money. Perfect place to laze around and dope whole day as was obvious, we took to the place easy but left the doping up to the firangis as we already had our gudang garam plus chai to get high.

We unpacked and loitered a bit, while having our kaam chalaoo chowmein & omlette breakfast we asked Raju about ladakh, keylong and rohtang. After hearing the distance and time ratio for ladakh & keylong we decided to stick to rohtang as the main course along with river side beer guzzling as the side dish for our trip. To our surprise Raju turned out to be the owner of the place along with the regular dope supplier for the Firangis buzzing around at the place. A number of maalishwala’s eyed us trying to sell their handy work, Along with the sadhus with chillum and jataas we had our rehearsal of hare rama hare krishna all set.

We set out ready with beer cans and cameras packed, after exploring old manali a bit we reached the river side, the ice cool water was enough to chill our beers and bones to ice.
Sitting on that river side, drinking beer, feeling the cool splashes along with the few drops of slow rain relaxed us after the night long journey. Puneet decided to try a few antics and Avnish did a few river side dances while Verma and me quietly contemplated at what lies beneath these sheets of water clear like slides of glass and cold as ice. The fresh air had got us hungry and we headed for mall road trekking through the nature park

The nature park was a peaceful experience, a quite walk through a forest with only wild dogs and birds, the place was something out of a love song shot in a jungle for some hindi movie. The walk was filled with funny photos and scary stories about man eating trees along with punters explanation on how he wants to use his gifted knife to pull of a Man vs Wild(ala Bear Grylls) and how he hasn’t even cut a lemon with it till now.
Upon reaching Mall road we chose chinese as our poison and chopsticks as our weapon of choice at CHOPSTICKS. Post our hogging we booked ourselves a taxi to rohtang and roamed the market for some intense minutes.

One thing was consistent over all the places be it old manali or new, racism. The place was full of Israelis, Swiss, Europeans & Americans i.e Foreigners and were treated mostly like a sardar would be treated in Punjab. These guys form the steady income flow for the people of manali and therefore they had become people of manali themselves. Wherever we went the local shopkeepers and restaurant owner showed least interest because we were Indians, the irony of reverse racism left me dwelling as we headed back to Raju’s hotel through the nature park for a hot cup of tea along with cigarette and an early sleep in for next morning 6 o’clock trip to Rohtang.