Meanwhile..

Mr.Stranger wakes up to a flash of lightening...a lazy look out the window..its raining. Thirty minutes later he is off to work. Its a Limo-taxi...super comfort...zero decibel ride..with the only sound of some meak volumed 90.4 FM stereo and the click of the wipers at the edge of the windshield. Its 6.15 am and still dark...the street lights coming thru the windshield...polarized by the droplets. Soon the shades of the night will be lost to the twilight. And soon the day will be lost in a blink. This choice of the early-to-rise life has taught him the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Amidst the shaded glow of sodium vapor streetlights...he still feels a discomfort in the smooth embrace of the bucket seats of a limo-cab. Meanwhile, on another side of the globe, Shotgun Vilas drives back home after a day of work. He is living his American Dream. The GM car, the Gucci Shirt, the planned vacations, the unplanned weekends, edeals on iphone, Thanksgiving Sale...hidden grief and strife...packaged in a Walmart Life. He wishes to sip a beer before getting to his house chores...before dinner...before he goes to bed. But the beer can wait..atleast for the next couple of days..until he hits the friday. It is this wait that keeps him motivated towards his choices. Long ago he used to sip a chilled beer at 6 am in the morning...and now he chooses not to remember this part of his life. Back home in Mumbai, AsExplainedbyaJunkie moves his lazy ass from his bed to the kitchen for his occasional blues penguin walk...contemplating..and more importantly..articulating some new antidote from the mixbag of issues gathered from his scattered life...and at the same time searching involuntarily for some morsel to chew on... He has managed to keep his life to the simplest form and is still clueless about the cause of his dissatisfaction at this hour. Fully knowing the futility, he lights up another cigarette and ponders on. His posessions area at a bare minimum..mostly because maintenance of posessions is not his forte...and a bar to his wants that would puzzle Sigmund Freud. But then again...even Shotgun Vilas' persona would baffle Freud. Around the same time, in a lesser known town of Madikere, in the picturesque district of Coorg, Bomanna wakes up to the thunder of a ligthening strike nearby...only that it is the 23rd time this night. Its been a rainy week in Madikere. Even the Dussera celebrations were not blessed with a dry spell. His vacation of a little over a fortnight has been plagued by bad rainy weather. Even his trip to Bangalore was eclipsed by dark clouds and continuous drizzle. It puzzles him that it was raining in Singapore when he left there a week earlier...and its been raining ever since he landed in his hometown. For a moment, in the dark space in front of his drowsy eyes this night, he thinks that its raining all over the world. God has strange ways. There are a million lives stuck in this moment. Meanwhile...

Motorcycle Diaries

Feb 21, 1 am. Phone rings. Hello. Is this Jack? Yes. Do you know Dean and Jimmy? Yes. What happened? Where do you stay? How do you know them? I am at Canton Hill. We are friends from the same college. There has been an accident. Please come to Magnolia Hospital immediately. I am Inspector Sawhney calling. This is my number. Get here asap. How bad is..... The line goes dead. Earlier that evening. Dean finalises an apartment where he is supposed to move in next week with Jack. Jimmy and Dean go out to celebrate. They have Jack’s motorcycle. Jack reaches the hospital thirty minutes later. Emergency ward. The police waiting. None of his friends are to be seen. More questions follow. After 10 more minutes of interrogation, Jack is told that Dean is dead. Jimmy is in critical condition. They were run-over by an SUV. Story: No witnesses. The driver of the SUV fled from the scene. Police first said they brought the two to the hospital. The hospital Journal says differently. The police version keeps changing over the hour. This is the first time Jack has encountered the police. There will be a lot more first times in the next hour. A Report is lodged against the duo for reckless driving the next day by a Doctor who also fled the scene. I am Jack. This happened 2 years ago.