Delirium Diary

Somebody is at the door, ringing the bell so hard that it seems the walls of this room will collapse. The light of the florescent tube is reflecting from the ceiling giving the ceiling a uniform glow, as if the ceiling has its own aura. The way these patterns of colorful squares and rectangles keep emerging from the light, some brown some teal and some orange. I loose track of how many of them.

It’s strange, and especially strange when this guitar is pulling apart my veins, Pink Floyd is great. He will make me die one day. I have stretched the muscles of my neck so much that I think my head will become separate from my torso.
Everybody in this room is sleeping including Ajay my room partner. I’m wondering if this ceiling fan is at the exact center of the roof. It’s a huge effort for me to pull away the earphones; I should act fast otherwise my ears will burn because of the dark side of the moon. How many hours have passed since I’m trying to separate these earphones and how many more will I need to finally put them away? I’m trying to lie down now and every degree of bend is an effort, effort of making my body to carefully rest against the ground without yielding to gravity.

I close my eyes; circles… rectangles… again… some teal, some brown and some orange.

Ajay wakes me up, it’s already 8:30 in the morning. I forcefully open my eyes, just managing to take a view of the world, through a small slit between my eyelids. It is blindingly bright. I remember that yesterday was Tuesday, since the tiffinwallah had given potato curry in the Tiffin, I can still taste the garlic and potato blend in by belch. I get up with utmost effort burping at least three to four times; each time tasting old monk rum, garlic and potatoes. My tongue has become numb and has some herbal aftertaste whenever I gulp the foul saliva of my unclean mouth.

Today it is my turn to drive to the office.

I need to be there for 10 o clock stand up meeting.
Otherwise that bastard project manager will mark 10 rupees on my name. That fucker has this weird rule; whoever comes late to the meeting will pay ten rupees. As if his father has bequeathed us a huge fortune.

I kick start my Yamaha, there is barely enough petrol to go to and come back from office.

Ajay royally makes himself seated in the pillion seat.
Ajay weighs as much as a hippopotamus; I feel his weight at every turn of the road.

The road to IT park is full of dust, there is a truck carrying rubble in front of me and that bugger isn’t letting me overtake either. All the dust and soil is flying around and my eyes are full of dust and muck. Ajay has this habit of constantly talking when he’s riding pillion and the worst part is, he doesn’t hear what I am saying because of all the noise on road and the noise of the bike. Every time I say something his response is “ayen?”. Fed up with it, I say “your mother’s ass”; he says “acchha, I see”. I don’t know what he got from my abuse which he is concurring to.

We reach office just in time for the daily meeting, to hear the same crap about speeding up the delivery and ensuring quality blah blah blah…

I’m getting some NullPointExeption, I’m fed up and tired. I open timesofindia.com and read today’s horoscope, its all rosy and good. I wonder if I really belong to my sun sign.
I toy around with the idea of calling Roopali. The thought of Roopali brings within me a strange mixed feeling. A feeling of longing, sadness, helplessness and anger. Girls are really very practical. It’s been a month now we have not spoken. How can she be so stone hearted?

I have lunch with my regular lunch gang; as usual Ajay tries all his charm to make girls laugh. We have usual lunch break full of banter and laughter. It’s a welcome break from the mind numbing work and vicious circle of thoughts.

The day goes by, and everybody is looking at their watches. I am still solving the same problem which I was at 11 in the morning. I haven’t progressed even a single line since then. Tomorrow’s daily meeting is going to be difficult; I have to be prepared for a public insult.

I remember those days when I used to ask Ajay to come by bus and rush back half an hour early, to meet Roopali at a café in the suburbs. How can she forget all those days? She is just finding a reason to go away from me. Her father’s transfer to Delhi is just a reason for her to get rid of me. Why can’t she just broach the subject of marriage? I don’t have a huge bank balance, in fact I don’t have any, today is 20th and I have one thousand rupees in my bank. But I have a job, a respectable job. We will have to spend some days in pain initially, but soon everything will fall in place. I might get an onsite opportunity next year; it will solve all my financial problems. But she knows everything about my finances, that’s where I committed a mistake. I told her everything, I shouldn’t have. Girls really are very practical. Forget it.

Ajay and I sneak out avoiding our project manager’s eyes, fearing he will ask us the status for the day. On the way we stop at mama’s shack, buy a fifty rupees pudiya of grass. Next stop is Bluemoon wine shop. Two quarters of old monk and a liter of diet Pepsi (fatso is very conscious about calories, especially when they come from a drink).

When we reach our apartment, two tiffins are kept at the door, I know what is going to be in it. It will be either rajma curry or chhole both equally insipid and tasteless.
Its become a daily routine now, its time for ‘Friends’ on TV and its time for booze for both of us. We open our individual bottles. We buy two bottles intentionally because it is easy to keep account of. Pour our pegs and silently watch Friends; occasionally laughing at some jokes. I really love Friends. I find a strange bonhomie among the characters. Or may be I crave to live a carefree life like them. We open our tiffins and eat them with usual disdain. Carefully finding faults and promptly criticizing it.

By the time our dinners are over its time for Sopranos. That means its time for the joint.

I appreciate some qualities in Ajay. Like when he washes his bike on Sundays, he does it so meticulously. Same is the case when he makes the joints. He carefully draws out tobacco from cigarettes, mixes appropriate quantity of grass and tobacco, maintaining a correct ratio. And he does it with great enthusiasm, never showing a sign of boredom or unwillingness.

First few drags are heaven, smooth as silk. I feel a slight heavy headedness and then an unknown pressure on my chest as if my rib cage is going to explode. I keep waiting for these familiar milestones in the journey towards the ultimate goal of delirium, with each drag. Now I don’t feel like talking at all. I want to listen to music. I take out my CDman. A Pink Floyd CD is already in it. The music gives me a strange tranquil feeling as if nobody exists other than those sounds of water droplets and I. I can see Ajay slowly lying down and falling asleep. The window has started glowing now; the sodium vapor lamps are lovely. They should put these everywhere, even in the houses. What a sweet glow. And so many colors, orange, red, white and even blue. And those shapes which come out of them, oh they are just wonderful. I haven’t seen a square split into so many parts; some triangles some rectangles. So many squares with their diagonals cutting each others, and all the parts have their own colors. I like blue one the best. I think number nine should always be blue. Nine has nowhere to go, one more and you are ten, ten is so complete yet it’s beyond the virgin numbers. I love nine, I love blue.

Whenever I think of nine the bell rings and pulls the house down. Is the bill ringing in the song or is it ringing outside the song. I will lie down and observe it more closely.

It’s the third day in a row Roopali is ringing the bell. She knows he is in there, she knows he is avoiding her; his bike is there in the parking lot. Boys are so selfish, spineless creatures who don’t even have a courtesy to make an eye contact.

It’s quite in the society premises; the orange glow of sodium vapor lamps has lit the whole place. A stray dog is barking at a far away place. Tomorrow will be a new day or may be just as today.