She

Her entry into the room went almost unnoticed. The animated conversations and boisterous guffawing doing the rounds in the room left little scope for a dramatic entry. Yet, there was something that made me look in the direction of the door, just in time to see her petite frame cross the threshold. She was smiling a smile that was both shy and bold, both courteous and ruthless, both girly and mature. Her loose floral skirt, which came to a graceful climax just above her knees, complimented her vivacious demeanour. Her hair - long brown and silky, were tied rather unromantically into a simple ponytail, in a vulgar display of power over their unbridled elegance. She walked slowly and confidently, exchanging pleasantries with the guests. I could hear her mutter sweet nothings in her light, chirpy voice, which had the minutest trace of a Bengali accent in it. Her eyes, from time to time, betrayed an expression of boredom she was trying extremely hard to camouflage.

Through the din of meaningless sounds and aimless voices, I heard each step she took towards me. Every time her chic little sandals that gently embraced her fragile ankles, touched the floor to manifest her purposeful stride, I felt her aura, her energy, and her essence get closer to me. I stared at her unabashedly. No inconsequential norms of social etiquette were going to prevent me from savouring every moment of her I could manage to.

The one hour that I spent in her company seemed like a second, but was worth a lifetime’s memory. The warmth of her sweet breath, the sparkle in her deep eyes, the depth of the trivialities we conversed about, the beauty of the moment, is something I shall never forget. As I bid farewell, resting in anguish in the knowledge that I shall never see her again, our eyes met one last time, and there, in the midst of the loud, bumbling mass of humanity, two people were alive!

Its been a while

Well, its been like forever since i upgraded this forsaken page...so here goes
Suffering from the usual lack of energy for writing something just for the sake of this blog, I am just pasting a short movie script (incidentally, my first) that I wrote somethime back. Lets see how this experiment of publishing something i actually feel for goes...

HUSH

(Everything is black/white…no colours)

Set 1

Distorted 5-4-3-2-1 sequence they show in many movies (NO sound)

The atomic bomb going off (black and white footage…again standard) (NO sound)

(Cut to Mime: Black background, mime dressed in black, except for the hands (white gloves) and the face (painted white, with black expression accentuations))

The mime is sleeping, curled up in a foetal position, with its thumb in its mouth…only visible motion is the breathing action of the mime – 10 secs (Sound of huge atomic blast in the background)

Set 2

A busy metropolitan road (shot standing in the middle of the road, so that both sides of traffic are visible for a long distance) – 10 seconds (NO sound)

The mime mimes sitting on a see-saw, going up and down, with a ‘whoooaaa’ expression every time it goes up, and a ‘wheeeeee’ expression every time it comes down (4 repetitions of each) (Sound of cars honking, and heavy traffic in the background)

Set 3

The footage of Neil Armstrong jumping on the moon (NO sound)

The mime is lying down on its stomach with its head on its hands (like a puppy), with a light bulb next to its face. The bulb glows on and off alternately, and the mime’s expression goes from complete sadness to full smile (respectively) alternately. – thrice, slowly (The 2 most famous clips: ‘one giant step..’ by Armstrong , followed by ‘Houston, we have a problem’ from Apollo are played in the background)

Set 4

Scenes from mobs…people throwing Molotov cocktails, police charging, people upturning cars – 10 seconds (NO sound)

The mime is playing with a white balloon, with a fixated smile- one displaying complete merriment…scene ends with the balloon bursting with a bang, and the mime’s expression becoming blank with a sudden jerk. (Sounds of mobs, police sirens etc)

Set 5

A classroom with a picture perfect teacher (hair tied neatly in a bunch, impeccably dressed, spectacled, prim and proper) standing next to the board, on which the table of 13 is written, and she is going over it with her pointer stick, with a fixated smile on her face.

Cut to children – all impeccably dressed, hair combed back/tied in ponytails, and one book in front of each of them, all reciting the tables in perfect tandem, with the same fixated smiles on their faces. (NO sound)

The mime with an expression of anguish on its face…paint rubbed off and black smears all over the cheeks (as if it has been crying), eyes red (the only element of colour in the entire film)…camera is zoomed on the face…zooms out slowly…once the mime is visible knee upwards – suddenly the mime’s shirt is splattered with blots of white paint (with a paint ball gun)…the mime’s expression does not change. (Sound of children going over the table of 13 in the background)

Set 6

(Shot from a distance, and height…giving a view of the proceedings without having to move the camera) A funeral…the coffin being lowered into the grave…people dressed in black look on…a woman in a black veil weeps inconsolably on a grave-looking old man’s shoulder.

Cut to view from grave – looking at the sky…mud is thrown into the grave till it covers the camera completely (NO sound)

(Camera zoomed to the mime’s face) The mime has its eyes closed (NO sound) - 10 secs

Suddenly it opens its eyes (Ringing of a loud church-bell in tandem with eye opening)

…Fade to black as the sound of the bell dampens…

muzic

Therein lies salvation…

Sadly, the above lines were said in a movie (the name and cast of which I remember not), when the hero sights a trailer (with attached restroom), while the love birds are stuck in a traffic jam with the heroine’s bowel movements not giving her a ton of pleasure…hmmm…not quite the direction in which I wanted to take this blog!

Lets start again, shall we?

It’s quite late…I should be asleep, so that I can wake up in time for classes! But I have been thinking (rare occurrence, but a positive reality), and there is something I must confess…I have, of late, contemplated closing this blog down! This is purely due to rather selfish motives, namely the fact that I don’t like sharing important things, and don’t really revel in discussing trivialities, and well, am kind of clueless as to what kind of stuff I should write in here…and am definitely and completely unimpressed with the quality of the written material disgracing the rest of this page (probably essays written in kindergarten about the culinary choices of my dog were of higher literary merit!). I was just waiting for a particularly jobless day, and a particularly fast internet connection, to end this rather sad affair I have had with the blogging world, when I suddenly decided to write something about something I feel very strongly about, and don’t mind sharing (eureka!)…MUSIC…wherein lies salvation!

Endless are the moments one has spent sitting in a daze, almost meditative, yet experiencing the sheer materialistic pleasure of listening to a particular piece of music, and feeling it crawl all over one, enveloping one in it’s sound, absorbing one in it’s soul, shattering one with its brilliance, and yet, rejuvenating one with its purity. I believe, without a doubt, that the musician is the ultimate artist…which is drastically different from the claim (which I shall refrain from making) that music is the ultimate form of art. Just imagine someone sitting there, and out of the blue, comes a tune that will prove to be ageless, or a riff that will hold generations in awe, or a single note or pattern, that will revolutionize the way music is played or heard, or will create a whole new genre of music and inspire millions of others to explore their creativity…just imagine that if that someone wasn’t there, there would be silence! That is the ultimate adrenaline rush mixed with the ultimate spiritual experience – to know that if you weren’t playing the note/beat, there would be silence…that you are the reason that there is music in the air, there is rhythm in the room, there is beauty in the moment, and there is a dream being realized!

Much is said and written about the musical content of songs, about the lyrical liberties taken by artists, and about the issues they express their views about…may it be death metal, or marylin manson, music has come under the axe the world over…but in the end, music is still about hope…it goes beyond the lyrics, beyond the words, beyond the meanings, beyond the implications…it goes where few things go…it goes to the soul…and there is hope…if more music can be made, the world has no other choice but to improve.

Am I addicted to music? Am I incapable of functioning without it? Has silence started getting to me the way not getting their dosage gets to addicts? I care not about that…but what scares me no end is the gut-wrenching fear, that I’ll someday get so used to music that it’ll stop affecting me…that I’ll grow inert, and shall only continue because I am addicted.

Ah well...life’s too short to riddle it with fears. For now, I know that as long as November Rain’s 1^st solo continues to bring out a tear in my eye, as long as Mozart’s 25^th continues to give me sleepless nights, as long as Mr. Crowley’s solos almost tear my heart out, as long as Change Of Seasons leaves me in open-mouthed awe, as long as the first roar of Bathory Aria send shivers down my spine…I am in heaven! As long as my neck moves vertically each time distortion kicks in, horizontally each time a guitar solo is rendered, and along every axis each time Mozart is relived, and the hands are overpowered by a natural impulse to hit them drums each time a beat is heard, and the fingers ache to hold that guitar the moment a riff is struck…I am beyond heaven…for heaven is a boundary…I am in the world of music ..where there are no limits!

Amble Ramblings of a jobless soul

In the past year, I:

• have probably had more meaning'less' conversations than Jay Leno,
• have probably wasted more time than Kyonki Saas Bhi kabhi Bahu thi's script writer,
• have probably gone out more than Vijay Mallya,
• have slept more than Shiva (room no. 220 Saras - he's our benchmark),
• have listened to more music than Rolling Stone's music reviewer,
• have watched more movies than Sathyam Cineplex's usher,
• have played more guitar (on a hockey stick) than Zakk Wylde,
• have played more drums (with one reynolds jetter and one Cello 'freestyler' - both with empty refills, on my thick, and deep sounding, GATE book) than Lars Ulrich,
• have sung more songs than Udit 'my lungs fail me if i dont brush my hair every 3.56 minutes' Narayan,
• have spent more money than the prodigal son in form,
• eaten more than - well... me in other years,
• consumed more Thums Up than most pesticide junkies,
• have watched more porn than 45 year old horny bachelors,
• have attended more classes than - umm- uh hmm- lets just go to the next one,
• have checked my mail more times than Bill Gates' assistant must check his,
• have snoozed my alarm more than the no. of times it wanted to wake me up,
• have warmed my bean bag to a temperature more than the melting point of rexine-leather,
• have dreamt of pizza more times than junta dream of Apping
• have critic-ed more than most movie critics do in a lifetime,
• have critiqued no one, i think,
• have watched 'Ozzy - live at the Budokan' more times than the dumb pepsi ad aired after every over of the test match,
• have procastrinated more than the Tamil nadu Govt did while trying to catch Veerappan,
• have withdrawn more money than my father thinks prudent,
• have 'pee'd more than , well actually, that rate's been pretty consistent..lets strike that one off
• have combed my hair more than most medeival princesses,
• have combed my beard more than most self-respecting chopper-riding ruffians,
• have changed more wallpapers than most screensavers show images,
• have washed more clothes than , than...than the no. of girls i kissed
• have mugged more than..yeah..Shiva again :D
• have made more puns and Pjs than Shekhar Suman in his glory days,
• have shouted 'HECTOR' more than Achilles ever did (its true),
• have read more books than Laloo Prasad yadav (safe bet),
• have played more football than Sachin tendulkar,
• have played more cricket than Ronaldinho,
• have burnt more cds than the 'al sadaf' pakistani movie pirates,
• have heard more 'illegal' music than the 14 year old girl who was prosecuted for it,
• have made more typos than an exceptionally smart urangutang taught how to type would,
• have made more plans than the no. of search results google gives for 'him',
• have executed plans barely more than the no. of google search results for 'Aaftaab Kharbanda is the smartest dude on earth'
• have written more useless blogs than ... i guess most people

But I still insist, I am NOT jobless, I just find more time to pursue 'other' activities, than most people :D



It is better to have people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Who am I-a comprehensive and boring guide to the enigma titled Aafi

Well...I've been called scary, intimidating, over-sarcastic, irritating, affable, cynical, mean, funny, geek, nerd, ugly, pseud, bald, hairy, goofy, retarded, adorable, tall, fat, obese, over-weight, callous, lazy, motivated, enthu-less, given up, lit god,bulbo,intelligent,brilliant,genius,prodigy,VIP(that a prof called me-takes the cake)...and a whole bunch of other words....but they dont even go half way into exploring my true self...

Born and brought up in Chandigarh, christened Aaftaab, with an abundance of A's that ensures me Roll No. 1 wherever I go, and raised in probably the best and almost ideal environments possible, I have led what most people might refer to as a near-ideal life, have the best possible parents and sis...no regrets, no complaints..

Appearances can be deceptive....so please go by mine...

I am decently tall, always a couple of pounds on the wrong side of the scale, heavily built, currently have long hair, thick specs, tons of hair all over the body, and yeah...an ever expanding forehead.


What I do, and more importantly, what i dont

Well, I love music, sometimes it is all I need to live on...
I dont mind reading [it has taken a back seat in the last few years though :( ]
I love watching football and cricket...Go ManU and India respectively !
I love watching movies...vague to dumb, brilliant to cheesy..comedies to epics..anything
I LOVE FOOD..it is the ultimate pleasure...and for me...the ultimate sin too..
I get sudden bursts of sometimes meaningful, sometimes vague, sometimes rhyming, sometimes not...mostly amateurish poetry..
I hate politics, and arguements....
I dislike boring courses...and in IITM Civil they are in abundance...
I dislike people who form opinions based on appearances(ahem...Dear prof. Apparao..pray heed)
I dislike mugging something that i see no point in mugging..

I try and live by my own rules..at least since the past few years..but after your entire childhood is spent in a more or less 'regular' fashion(taking part in extra-cul, topping class, becoming headboy...all the usual stuff), the coming of age and then realising how you want to live your life, and more importantly, actually living it, doesnt come easy. For me, it involves some crucial decision making, some rule-breaking, and some resistance-less going-with-the-flow....
As of now, I have a pretty good picture of what I like and dont, what I beleive and dont....this doesnt mean that 10 years down the line I'll still be following the same rules...I might be looking back and laughing at my immaturity, or I may be looking back at despair at unrealised potential...who knows?
I trust myself, I back myself to do stuff sometimes to a superhumann level, and I get disappointed quickly and regularly...but still, I have this undying faith in myself, in what I am capable of doing if I want to...thats it ....IF I WANT TO...sadly, presently I dont find myself really wanting to do much......I have stopped studying, have lost all interest in Engg...only feel enthused if there is a problem that is mentally challenging in a non-academic way, and dont really know what I will do after 2.5 years....but one thing is for sure..I have a never-dying faith that sooner or later, I shall find that one thing I will want to spend my life working on..and I shall do it.
I wanted to be an artist, and actor, a chef, a psychologist....wanted to go to National School of Drama, wanted to join the Food Crafts Institute.....but I made 2 fatal errors..1) I scored high marks in exams, which for young Indian males, implies that you HAVE to go to IIT or AIIMS, or at least work your butt off for it...and 2) For the most forgetful moments of my life, I wasnt sure about myself, I didnt bank on myself, and didnt back myself when I needed me the most..I just nodded in humble resignation, and went for my coaching classes....there died the actor, the chef, the psychologist..to be revived some day? I dont know...I hope so

About my nature...well, I am kinda moody..get extremely sarcy when I am having one of those days..possessive (not obsessive though), contemplate a lot..do little; think too much about some stuff, think too little about most things; like having friends, but am equally comfortable in solitude; like laughing..giggle a bit too much; sometimes insensitive, sometimes oversensitive, dont like poking my nose into others' business, and expect them to extend the same courtesy to me; love simplicity, and hate overcrowded parties and places..prefer a quiet talk or walk anyday; love the beach..it makes me senti almost always; like forming philosophical theories, and then laughing at myself as I strive unsuccessfully to realise them; like discussing stuff-but hate arguing, and yeah..love sitting and theinking about anything and everything..the kind where you suddenly realise that the last one hour of your life you have been sitting in the same pose, and still have no idea what you were thinking about...:D

well..I think thats all about me...and somehow...most of me is still left untold..and I guess never will.

'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy .....ol' Bill himself