my first bike..not really

I was really young when this happened and I just remembered this today while coming back to Jacksonville. At the time this happened I was living with my parents in our ancestral home at Tripunithura, Kerala state, India.

One day everyone in the house was in an uproar and the only thing I could glean from my various uncles was that a new bike was coming to the household. Now, somewhere between the point where I acquired this 'intel' and the point of doom as we shall refer to it I got it into my head that this bike was for me. Wheres the logic in a kid getting a bike? go figure, when you're a child everything seems possible.

Soon the new bike arrived and I was uber excited. My first clue that something was wrong was when my mom prevented me from going down to see 'my' new bike. Im sure that internally i was yelling with righteous indignation, after all how could I ride my bike If i was not even allowed to see it.

To make things worse this one uncle of mine rode in on the bike, walked all around it, sat on it, rode on it some more and was generally treating it like his own property (it was..!!). This was the last straw!! Not only do they not let me get to my property they were also enticing me by letting others use it. My blood boiled at the events as they were happening around me. At that instant, i'm sure that all my warrior ancestors were watching down from wherever they were, intently cheering me on.

Due to me being quite small I could do nothing more than be righteously indignant.

Later on I remember wandering around the bike checking it out and then somehow I got the bright idea of pressing my leg against the engine or radiator or some other hot part. Suffice to say that it hurt a lot.

By the time I stopped yelling my mother and aforementioned uncles had gathered around me and after surveying the damage they carried me inside. The burn on my leg hurt like hell for the first few days and then a glorious boil developed at that point. This boil was gross in appearance (unlike the more popular jock variety of boils) and all I wanted to do was to POP it. This sentiment did nothing to reduce my utter shock when my mom advanced upon me with a needle in her hand and something resembling a grin on her face. Turns out popping the boil didnt hurt as much as I thought it would and my leg looked much less gross.

I never really got a bike. Not in my high school, not in college, and not even in post grad education. I do drive cars but never bikes even though I am licensed to drive both 4 and 2 wheelers.

Fishtail..

Today I was talking to my mom like I always do when she said something that caused me to go back. Once when we were driving either from chennai to cochin or from cochin to chennai, there was this railroad crossing kinda place. We had a lorry parked right in front of us, waiting for the train to pass and let us through. As soon as the bar preventing us from crossing the tracks was lifted my mom, who was at the wheel, got a sudden burst of inspiration from the spirit of Speed Racer (I'm assuming he died since no one who talks that long without taking a breath lives to be too old). My mom revs the car and overtakes the lorry and is heading for the tracks (the lorry guy gave her the little wave by signal which stands for "you can quit bugging me and just go on now" ).

Suddenly we had a lorry bearing down on us from the opposite direction and even though my mom tried to get us completely out of the way she was only partially successful. The result was that a good portion of the car was dented and an even greater portion of my mom's ego was bruised (See....she had thought herself capable of teaching speed racer a thing or two, one thing about driving and another about breathing in between sentences).

As we proceeded on the atmosphere in the car was weird. We knew that once we got back to Cochin, oh yea, thats where we were going, our relatives would be all over this. There would be all sorts of theories flying around the place like "She was drunk", "Family has no control", "Bad car", "She was drunk", "Faulty railway gate", "Government must change", "Global warming", "She was drunk" and so on. In order to avoid this we decided to come up with a believable story upon hearing which people would like at us with golden sympathy dripping from their faces and also, all the alcohol related issues would fail to exist any longer.

I was so excited at this prospect of being able to contribute to such an important story, and it was at this point that I uttered the magic word. "FISHTAIL".

I had come across this word in some tintin comic or somethin and I thought it sounded pretty cool.

Y'all know how the tail of a fish moves in a direction opposite to the rest of its body right? Well, this word is also used in connection to the movements of objects other than fish (yes, and also seaweed..come on..!!).

Suddenly everyone was thinking about this concept, of telling the folks back home that the lorry fishtailed into us thereby causing the damage seen on the car.

Whether that story ever saw the light of day I do not remember, but the creation of the story in itself was as grand an adventure as I could have hoped for at that point.

I think even my little brother threw in a few comments here and there.

I just wanted to record my memories of that event.

magus.

True Darkness

Ever get the feeling that you are well and truly insignificant? This is probably the point at which the descent begins. An initiation into the paths of darkness.

Slowly a crack appears in your personality and you realize that you are leading two lives. On the surface you smile, make jokes and navigate the pathways of this system we call life. Inside, there is a perpetual storm in progress.

Voices rising from the abysmal depths of your own being, mocking, criticizing and carrying on an endless commentary on what the outside world is thinking of you.

Music helps in quieting these voices or at least drowning them out. The main problem arising from this is that you tend to become self destructive.

In my case this has manifested in a not so harmful way. I am not at immediate risk of finding an entertaining and quick way to end my existence which in a way is good I suppose.

I have been getting calls from various people asking me to play in bands with them and though I accepted a few of these I am always on the verge of calling them up and quitting from the project.

Why? I dont know, I simply find myself stuck on the question "What is the point?".

When do you know that your life is pretty much screwed? The day you wake up and cant find a strong enough reason or will to stand up and live through the day.

I am a huge believer in fantasy and magic and even science fiction but maybe the reason why I like these things is because they are suggestions that maybe there are things out there other than this suffocating monotony of existence. I shall not delve too deep into that line of thought since I dont want to take away three of my four reasons for continuing to breathe.

Sometimes I think that maybe I was never meant to be here to begin with. I have always felt like an outsider. When in school I thought that maybe once I left India I would find my own kind of people, this belief became increased tenfold when I was in college since my life then was so much more crappy. I came to the USA and found no one here even remotely like me, if anything, they were even more removed from me than my countrymen.

Thats when hope died in me that my isolation and misanthropy was caused by simple incompatibility with my immediate neighbors. I fear that it is caused by incompatibility with the race as a whole.

I often tell a few people I talk to that I am a high elf. In almost every tale I have read the high elves have left the land and retreated to their homeland which is hidden from mortal eyes by the strongest magic. I would like to believe this and hope that one day I shall lay my eyes on the golden shores of my homeland.

Almost reminds me of the song from the disney movie Hercules.

I have often dreamed, of a far off place,

where a heroes welcome, is waiting for me

where the crowds will cheer, when they see my face

and a voice will whisper, this is where im meant to be

I'll be there someday

I can go the distance

I will stay my path

I wont accept defeat

I know every mile

will be worth my while

when I go the distance, I'll be right where I belong...

I think I am still capable of a little hope.

Wraith.