Thursday, August 16, 2007

North America on the run : languid placid ennui

(Happy Independance day to everybody: I am here in some remote corner of Canada, when the whole country is celebrating the Independance day. I am ably represented by my kid though: he attended a flag-hoisting at a special guest at a school, all decked up in the Army uniform his mother bought his for the occasion. He will see the photographs of his first independance day when he grows and definitely will feel very proud. Anyways, happy Independance day to everyone)

I am sitting facing the glass wall of the terminal, a whole panorama expands itself in
front of my eyes, just for me. Mountains far away : blue and bleary : show promises of snow on their tops, peeping behind the pine like cold climate trees.

Greenery, that too immaculate shades of greens, is a rule rather than an exception. So if a piece of land is not in use, it is green, has a lush green well cut grass look to it. The huge airport sprawls between these patches of green. Humongous heavy belly air crafts lumber up to the start of their run ups, get off as if they never wanted to move.

With maximum gracelessness they pick their noses up. Reluctantly fold their hind tyres under their huge bellies. I can picture them any moment saying "to hell with it" and rolling on the beds of the inviting green grass expanding into the infinity. The sun also adds to the speed (rather the lack of it) of the scene, dragging its feet so slow that it takes four hours (from 6.00 to 10.oo) to just set. Right now the sun is just ambling, far past the time it should have set and gone to bed, playfully shining his weak rays here and there: sometimes on the blue mountains in the distance, sometimes fleetingly giving chase to the wings of one of the airplanes. Sometimes just teasing a poor passenger, sitting behind the glass in the terminal, minding his own business writing his blog.

Now consider that all this is happening at one of the busiest airports in western America, and you will see the irony. No, ironic is not the right word for whatever is happening here, contradiction: near but not enough; because the word means than there are two points of views, vying to be right: no, nobody is bothering to be right or to be proven right. Ennui: may be right, just right as then the word itself is so confusing that it adds to the mystery of the place.

But then this is not right as well. The mystery of this place is the chatter of the passengers and the announcements floating on the air to reach your ears. Add words like ennui to it, and it becomes a out and out murder mystery. it is not so. It is a mystery where the answer is some where near lurking just below the surface. You can see its outline but cannot find what it is. If you tried, you might. But you do not want to do that really. The tinge of anxiety not knowing the answer is what is more exciting than knowing it and getting it over with. Languor, placidity: next un-understandable word and I am just copying James Joyce's style.

Redmond, in first few days has already been an anti-thesis of sorts.The airport being the first place where I can sit down calmly for the first time and note it and note it down. The sun shines on the sand of clouds, undulating in the sea of the sky, and you people : hold on tight while I narrate one of the most bizarre journeys taken up (or forced upon )yours truly. So bizarre that a quarter of it is already done and dusted before I could breathe deeply and start making some noise about it.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

My experiments with the coffee(maker)

this is Arvind Kandhare:
Blender of the coffees, visitor of the countries, solver(supposed) of the problems,sleeper of the days, sufferer of jet-lags, eater of bland oat meals and blander corn-flakes,takes the first sip of his own made coffee in his wife's name
and hereby (after adding a lot of sugar and creme whitener) christen thee sweet kandy-coffee.

Never having added sugar and creme whitener to the molten tar on the road, it can not be said for sure, but if it were done, it would not test very dissimilar.

I may live for hundreds of years more, but one thing is sure, I will never test anything so bad as this , either self-made and others, and emphasizing the fact that it is said after the bland oat meals in the morning in itself can be held as a proof of it, another proof being the remembrance of cockroaches we MPalya guys drank along with whatever drinks they decided to swim in, I declare this coffee the worst drink that ever did or will enter my bowels.

But the jolt this newly christened creation gives me goes far beyond what it was designed for: namely keeping me awake by the day, as I am so hi-strung that I may not sleep for next 3-4 days now :)