Angst

'And then i elbowed her. no, jus an accident.really.believe me .'

Another Saturday night.

We were at the the same old pub, same table(good panoramic view) in the first floor(Stags upstairs,Sir) listening to the exploits of Abinandan. I was posing as if I am not listening and not very interested and redoing these over and over again- sipping the vodka, watching the football match and staring at the girls dancing in the ground floor.

It felt good to think that I hate coming here every weekend and burn money to listen to such crass. I felt that I don't belong here. I promised myself every other week that i would never come back. But then,I know..I was only fooling myself. Actually, i liked it.loved it.Vodka.Rock.Vodka.Psychedelic Lights.Hookah.Rock.Vodka.Girls.And Girls.Ah. What more do we need? I feel I am cleansed of all the litter the corp. world had left on me over the whole week. And as always, there is Abinandan - the official titillator of our group. Let me tell you, he is a genius when it comes to titillation. Ofcourse, I know that most of his exploits are not true. And worse, he knows that I know them too. Yet, we continue this amusing Saturday soap opera of ours.

'Hoo.Ho.Ho.Hooo.Elbowed where? where where where?'.That was Narain.

If there is one person who could demolish the tiny bits of decorousness,diginity and other faecal matter left in out gang, then he is the man. Ruthless. Real name- Narayanan.

He was my classmate till 7th . Used to wear big glasses. And brought that giant sized Faber Castle scented rubber. He would never give that to anybody. Except to me. I used to borrow it by giving him one rupee. And erase something on the paper of my notebook just for the heck of it and then smell that little portion of the paper all day.Whoaa. The high that gave! Even weeks of burying myself in marijuana couldn't beat that. And all my other lesser mortal classmates used to smell my notebook. i felt like a demi-god. Him GOD.

Black and White memories. Life was simpler then. His dad got transferred to Delhi, he completed his schooling, engineering etc. in Delhi and now he works for the same firm with me. But no thick glasses this time(surgery,laser).Long hair,colored etc. When i asked him about that scented rubber thingy --'saalae,don't say rubber. means something else'.Hmmm.Like that.

His embarrasement is his real name, I know. whenever he tried to act to smart with me(especially in front of girls) I call him using his real name and he shuts the fuk up. Well, I do know a trick or two. But then, he is a nice guy. In a way, he is like me. Pampered.Frustrated. Never had a chance to be independent. And now, with all this new found job and the illusion of freedom that came along with it, he is full time into flirting.

And unlike me, he's honest. Doesn't pose.

I finished my drink .And thought of leaving sooner than the usual time I used to. Abi was still going on and on . But i thought i had enough for the day. i mean, that's enough for the rest of the night. After this, i used to go to my room all alone .

All i did while driving my bike is to visualize all those fake exploits of Abi and play them in one infinite loop and then go to room and jerk off. thts all tht i wanted to do. With every passing stroke, I could feel the fumes coming out of my nose. fumes of despair.anger.self pity. hot hot bloody hot. And then, I felt like smudges of umixed colors floating inside a painting. transported into another realm. another sphere.And then,sleep like a baby.

At the end of the day -- all tht matters is a good orgasm. And some sleep.

"Sriram, Waitoh. Am also coming. drop me near Jayanagar'.hmmmm. fuk. So this time it's going to be different.Narain wanted to leave too. since he didn't bring his bike and he stays nearby to my place, I got to drop him.

And then, the worshthest thing happenned. Kaushik wanted to leave too. he have his bike and all that, but he keeps talking during the ride. i hate it.he is a fake.pseud.he is like me. i hate him. and i knw eggsackly what he is going to talk. Awfully repetitive.it's going to be either about Heisenberg or Nietzsche or Camus or some stupid pseudo philosophy - which i DETEST right now and all i need now is a nice shag .And then he would say something real bad about Abi, label him as a pervert and attach some freudian symbols, that he is struck in the anal phase or Abi's ID or Ego or Whtevr is not fully developed and he suffers from some arbit disorder or complex( usually oedipal, cos that's the most scandalous). All this, after thoroughly enjoying getting titillated for free. Puke.Just Puke. WHat is not fully developed is not Abi's ID but Kaushik's somethin-else.I hate it.One need not thank Abi for the wonderful, life-saving, sanity-prevailing service he is rendering evry saturday.Atleast,one can keep quiet. whtever. Kill all these self-righteous bastards. Castrate all such preachers.

I tried to avoid any sorta conversation with kaushik and kept a safe distance from his bike.narain was on a high, rapping eminem. traffic jam @ 9 30. Long live Dewegowda! An auto wallah screeches his so-called brakes and scares the living daylight out of me(oh fuk with all these *living daylight* kinda texts. i want to shag and it's no good time for writing eloquent prose with such stinking similies. Err. Btw,Is it a simile?).

In front of us, there is one huge bus of some IT company struck in between a coupla lorries. and then this autowallah is behind the bus. some kinda deadlock. no one could move an inch for the next ten minutes.

It's time to listen to Kaushik - the architect of New B'lore, and the socially concerned-intellectual.My bad time. 'In IITs we need to introduce this course called traffic engineering. I say, make this a serious science. Analyze the traffic patterns at various places of the city and re-design and rebuild the infrastructure accordingly than just blindly building one flyover after another'.

Wow! B'lore traffic problem solved. NRN & Azeem bhai,listening?

Jared Kaushit Diamond, the environmentalist --'Gosh. all these lorries must be banned inside the city. look at them. monstrous. and look at the amnt of smoke it releases. fuk,we are having a minor bhopal gas tragedy here. am sure they had filled the tank with arrack'.

he stops. and then, looks at me for some approval.

i keep staring at the slogan written on the auto. And there was this moron in his Pulsar behind us continuously honking.

'Lol(yea, he said lol), inhaling the smoke from these lorries plus traffic jam on a satuday night with a honking idiot behind = existential angst'.

his fukin pseudjoke. i faked a smile. not bcos i dint wanto hurt him and all tht, but it jus dint matter to me and was no big deal to fake a smile. he's happy. me's happy. evryone happy. The eND.SHubam. and then, i can go home and masturbate in peace.

"Exitence What? what did you say?'.Oh no. Tht was narain. he was happily humming Eminem until now.

"angst." "what?" "a-n-g-s-t."

" wht the fuk does tht mean?"

"an acute feel of anxiety. unspecific, philosophical anxeity. about your place in the world or about personal freedom and a lot more"

he smiled again.smug smile of snobbishness.boy-oh-boy. he must have felt like Sartre now.

" hmm. nice. angst.a-n-g-s-t. rhythmic. will remember that"

Thankfully the traffic cleared. Kaushik took the right.Adieu.Hope you have a good time jerking off thinking of your Simone de Beauvoir. Still it would take 20 mins to reach my place. there was this strange sound coming from behind . from Narain. i couldnt hear what it was cos of the strong wind blowing against us. am sure it is not eminem. and i listened hard. narain was in the process of making his own song. not eggsackly a song but he was pronouncing tht word 'Angst' in 100 different ways and making up his own song. It was so full of angst. aaangst aaanaaagggstttt annnnnnnngst.ssstttt. unbearable. all these distractions reduces the intensity of my visuals and thereby weakens the session i am going to have. Sunnavabitch Kowshit.

"chooth. stop it" he went on..
Anngst. Anggst.
"what are you trying to do?"
Angsttttt.AAAngst.

I ignored him for a while. Small trick. Usually, after drinking, people want to prove a point - that they are drunk and thereby do some crazy things like these to grab attention. the more you attend to them the more they act like assholes. so if you ignore them for a while,the get bored and then shudup.

but fuk, my trick dint work. the more i ignored him, the more he raised his tone.he was really on a high. He then tried to recompose the song into something else. People who have the vast n rich experience of watching soft porn movies exported from kerala could easily visualize what i am talking about. That background score during love making scenes. bakgrnd score? moans. AhAhAhAhnnngst. AhAhAhAhngst. He was trying that out now.

"asole. stop making tht sound or get off frm the bike'. Though I was acting tough anda all that, there was this mysterious laughter stemming from somewhere inside me, which was very happy to find someone else who is as pissed off, as frustrated as moi. Such a loser.

He got himself promoted to hardcore. monologues.oh-my-gawd. screams. I had no clue how to stop him. he was at his loudest. people overtaking us are amused. they must have thought that we faggots are making out on the bike.

We were around 3 minutes away from another signal and in case if i am held up there and in case if this bugger keeps moaning when the bike stops and when everyone is silent, then thts going to be fukin embarrasing. So I wanted to stop him doing that. But he was at his best. aghhaa.. angsssangsngstt. ahhhhhhhhngst.

'Okay, you are freaking out. agreed. stop it'
ngs ngs ngstttttttt. ah ah ah ah angsttttt.
'Agreed.Agreeed. You are a freak. Stop it'.
angssssss angsssssst
'You are ecletic.You are eccentric. Stop it.'
angstangst.AHHHHHHngst.

We were nearing the signal.

"narayana.i read somewhere tht people who are obsessed with making such sounds are sterile. so, to compensate that sexual unhappiness, they go verbose.they like talking dirty. they like phone sex.they like cyber sex. cos, they couldn't do it in real. there was some statistic regaring this in TIME a coupla months back....?"

he stopped . it worked.
' you mean to say tht since i am shouting like this cos am an impotent?'
'not impotent. sterile. they r diferent'
'whtever.' 'no .but, they r different'
'fuk you.basturd. only people like you care to know abt the difference . cos u want to know under category you fall.Not me. You think you are this liberated guy but fuk you, fuk you. you are not. You don't become one just by watching subtitled films or by reading some abstruse book. you and ur inhibitions. I was just enjoying myself. fuk you.i have seen it all. and i dont need ur certificate. it is only you who is desperate.desperate, but acting as if U had fuked 23 females.'

'wookay,wokay Narayanan iyergar. Greek gawd, you are. One thousand bows' we crossed the signal .

I managed to shut him up. I won. But what he said, it did hurt. A bit. Nope. A lot.

The roads were clear.We dint talk much after that.i dropped him at is place. He blinked his eyes, patted me, smiled a little smile and said gud night.

Still five minutes to my room. stray dogs are having their time.group sex. the roads are empty. one flickering street light. i took the left to the main road. it was empty too. suddenly there was this urge. to do something. took both my hands of my bike for some time. and after that, some wheeling . and after that, drive along from end to end diagonally in the shape of S. another signal. Fiat Uno next to me.Couple sitting inside. and i dont take the street to my place.instead i loaf around. felt like going for a drive. and all of a sudden, there was this scooty pep with two gurls behind me. Hmm. I turn back and look at them for a split second and then turn back cos i was afraid that they might think of me as a bad guy.i couldnt see them properly.

narain was right.i am this inhibited hypocratic southie. turn again.this time,slowly.sexy.i slow down. i let them overtake me. both of them looked stunning. and then, outta nowhere, i got this courage to go and speak with them.. heck, am not this typical inhibited southie. I AM NOT. What abt asking them out.'You look very pretty. can we meet tommorrow somewhere?'.To any of those girls. maybe, to tht gurl sitting behind. Yep. i will. am not tht guy Narain was talking about.

Acclerate. Go near.and thn slow down again, Rehearse. 'you look very pretty....'. Deep breath.

i get close them. gurl sitting behind is starrin at me. fuk.come on. words not comin outta my mouth. suffocating.she is starring real hard this time. i choke. she mistkook me for a hooligan. she is now telling something to the other gurl and gives an ugly glance again.shit. This is not going to work out.

One more time.I acclerate .overtook them and then slowed down. Turned back.Come on. Open up. Open up. I somehow opened my mouth. But something struck inside my throat.A frog. I choke.I don't know when i swallowed it.

And then, I Shout at them. 'Angst.Ahhngst. Ahhhngst'.
Like an animal.
Like in those soft porn movies.
Like the way Narain shouted.
Finally, the frog goes inside.

And then i went driving down the street at a crazy speed without turning back for the next 5 minutes . And finally, i got some courage to turn back to see if they r coming behind or if any police patrol is following me.

I take a U turn . Fuk fuk fuk fuk. What have I become. Take the right. Such an asole . Coward. Fuckin low life. Fake.Loser. fuk fuk.Take the Left. fuk fuk fuk. FUCCCK. I shout at the top of my voice and all i get back is my echo. from every single corner of the street. that echo. is it mine? whose voice did it echo? whose shadow am i?

Gardens on both sides of the road. A drop of tear sitting right at the edge. Chill night wind. I close my eyes. Two straight lines on my face. Breath.This moment. That's all that I have. I am alive. this very moment. Amidst every single thing that goes inside. this gigantic life force that keeps things moving. i feel i am part of it. part of that wheel. not just as a cog. but also, as a cog. the cog is the wheel. One hundred thoughts. Unstructured.Beyond the spheres of expression. A new feel of vitality.I break free, I am at Peru.I quit my job. I am at Machu Pichu. I close my eyes. Am at Haiti.At Istanbul.At Teheran.At Morraco.At Konark.At Aluwa.At Chattisgarh. Here.Now. Breathing in and out. This very minute, am completely free. free from all the illusionary bonds which weighed me down.free from self pity.and hate. and loneliness.and desolation.and solitude. I felt the freedom I never had, which I always had but never knew that i always had. What do you call that? Ananda? Bliss? Sense of being? I don't know. Happiness, maybe. Yea, I felt so happy. I had never been so happy. Just for a minute I felt I had the whole world inside me.

Just for a minute.

I take the right which will take me to my room.i feel my shirt pocket to ensure tht i have the room key.i promise myself that i won't go to tht damn pub again and am not going to jerk off tonight. Heck, am not going to jerk off from now on. Am really not going to.

I Opened my room. Turned on the lights. Scattered newspapers.Bundled up mountains of unwashed clothes.Stinking Socks.Hot underwear hanging on the arm of a chair.Semen stains.pestiferous bedspread with a brown stain in the middle which looked like the map of Africa.

Heat dripping in from the roofs. Drop by drop. Into the floor.Into the pores of my skin. Into everywhere.

My room.Stenched with the smell of urine and vulnerability.It was empty. It was inviting.

I switch on the television.