A Driving License Needed…

Let' me first come to the main point : I DON’T HAVE A DRIVING LICENSE.

Well, I had one, but some crazy fellow dared to enter House No. 490 on 5th May 2007, and walked out unharmed, richer by 5 mobiles, my wallet, some 20 bucks, my PAN card, and my DRIVING LICENSE.

That was my first Driving License, it wasn’t a genuine one though. This little piece of paper made me 5 years older. Though I was born in the year of the BOAR, i.e, 1983, the date of my birth was shown as 1978. Whenever any one doubted my not being an adult, I would promptly show them my Driving License. With this forged piece of evidence, I have evaded so many fines and challans throughout India, mainly the North, South and the East.

Without it also, I have been able to survive the check posts of the Bangalore Traffic Police for quite some time. And I was very proud of it. Last week, somebody asked me, “How come you don’t have a DL?”

I said, “Dude! Who needs a license to drive in Bangalore? There are so many vehicles in Bangalore. You would have to be a very very unlucky guy if you are caught without a license.You can be booked for riding without a helmet, jumping red lights, driving without a number plate, and if you accidently happen to hit a policeman head-on. But you have to be the most unlucky person in the world, if you get caught for riding without a DL”.

And the next time I was riding a bike, well, I guess, I was the most unlucky guy in the whole world that night. Mr. Rwitam Mitra, had to be dropped at his house in Marathalli, for which we had to enter the Outer Ring Road. I was imagining how the cold winds would make me shiver when I will be on full throttle on the empty roads. But, before we could hit the deserted Outer Ring Road, Felix’s always-lit-pulsar’s-head-lights showed me a police waving his “danda” in-front of us.

Little did Mitra know about my loss of that fateful night. The first question he asked, “Tere pass hai na?”

I have hearts of steel, but I was not sure how Mitra would react to my denial. So, I said, “yes I have”. Just before hitting the brakes hard enough, I had second thoughts of using the throttle instead, but I changed my mind. So, we stopped.

There were 3 policemen. Each of them were busy attending to other unlucky people. One of them asked me for my License. I pretended to search my wallet hoping that I would find a pice of paper that would at-least look like a Driving License. Hehe…Seriously, I was thinking this…

But at-last, I gave up. Now the policeman asked me to hurry up and went away to another biker. There were around 5-6 people waiting to show-off their DLs to these policemen. So, we had plenty of time. Mitra did have a license, and we though of a plan. We swapped our roles. It was dark, and we put our brains to work. When the policeman came back, Mitra showed him his license, snatching the helmet from me. Hahahaha… 

The policeman took it and started examining it, asking general questions about our addresses and purpose of late night journey. Everything seemed to be working, till another policemen came along and stood near us. He smelled something fishy, and finally realized the anomaly. Shaaaaaah!!!! Caught again. They asked for the bike’s RC, pollution certificate and insurance, which Felix said, were at House No.490.

We knew what had to be done now. I started counting my money in my wallet in my mind. But, how were we going to make an open offer for bribe to this man? Mitra tried his best to convince them, that we were good people, and are aware of the mistake that we have committed and asked them to leave us just like that. That was not going to happen. I hope Mitra wasn’t very serious about such a thing happening.

Finally, the policeman asked, “How much do you have”. Mitra answered first. “40 bucks”…

What the hell!!!! Weren’t the pop corns and cold-drinks enough?? I had to pay here also?? Well, in the dark, I put my fingers in my wallet, and pulled out 2 notes, in the dark. They were 2 Hundred Rupee Notes. “Unlucky the second time”.

In 2 minutes, everything was settled. We were warned and let off. Just before running off, I thanked the policeman, and he replied, “No Problems Beta”. All the way, till I reached home safely after dropping off Mitra near his house, I was extra cautious, in the look out for another check point. But there were none. I guess, the clock had struck 12, and the unlucky day was over. Thank God!!! We were not drunk, else we would have been behind bars.

The next day, I searched the Karnataka Government website for details on how to obtain a DL. Realizing that I had to spend at-least Rs.200 and dont-know-how-many-hours, I thought, I would just avoid the check posts from now on. I still don’t have a DL.

No more time, but have to wait

Well, looks like there is no more time left for me. Time would not allow me to do some things that should have been done in the past. Time has left the past behind and is just about to knock on the doors of the future. I cannot even feel the presence of time now. The “now” is already going into the past, so fast.

Hehe, forget time. I just wanted to relax from now on. Till Sunday, I have decided not to touch my still “untouched” books. And I am trying to relax. But, I am not able to figure out how to relax. What should I do to relax ? Even in my sleep, I have had some obnoxious dreams, dreams that were definitely not sweet. Dreams that made me sweat, dreams that woke me up at the oddest hours of the night, and deprived me of the adequate amount of sleep. For the last few days, I had been sleeping at very odd hours, sleeping for not more than 5 hours a day, though I over-slept for a few days. 

So, here comes the question. “What am I worried about ?”

I am not sure. I have never been sure. Frankly speaking, I don’t have any expectations from anything. Well, then, what am I worried about, if I don’t have any expectations? If I were to generalize, I would say, each and every action will always have a “Good” and a “Bad” outcome. Of-course, I don’t want the “Bad” outcome, nobody does, perhaps. But out of those two, who decides which is the “Good” one and which is the other? Probably, that is what I am worried about. 

I expect my journey of life to be one without much pain, but pleasure, without much losses, but gains, without much sorrow, but happiness, and I can see at-least two roads in-front of me. I can’t see beyond a certain point, and so don’t see my final destination. No one has even made a mark on any of them. There are no indications, directions or suggestions for the travelers. One of them seems to be a bit rough than the other. But, that’s what I can say about the two roads till the point that I can see. Beyond that point, its dark. these two roads are only meant for me. Other people will have their set of two or more roads. And it seems that I, now, I have to make the decision, to choose one out of the two. 

I feel like tossing the coin sometimes, since it seems the only way out. And, if I decide to choose one of them, I will never be able to come back into the past, and take the other one for a change. Perhaps, that is what is worrying me. But, the act of deciding seems to be not under my control. I feel that it has already been decided and my mind already knows which road I will take. But, somehow, my mind has stopped communicating with me. Though my mind knows which one I will be choosing, I am not aware of this decision. Perhaps, it’s not my mind actually. Perhaps, it is the roads, that have made my decisions. Perhaps, the road that I will be traveling on is the only real one, the other one being just an illusion. It probably doesn’t even exist.
This illusion, even if I am aware of it, still makes me wait at the crossroads, and contemplate. Isn’t it weird ? 

Perhaps, I should stop thinking any more, and wait till the illusion vanishes. I don’t know now, which one of them is the real one. I will wait till one of them disappears, and then, may be, I won’t be worried too much. I wouldn’t have any choice then, there wouldn’t be a decision to be made. Life would be so simple after that until another crossroad appears.

A day before that CAT, I am thinking all this ? Wow. Seems something terrible, or may be pleasant is waiting for me somewhere. Or may be, I at-last know:

                "Why People Call Me Psycho”

You can’t beat me.

Hey, Kunal. You can’t beat me so soon. You started so late, and you are already two posts ahead of me. I know, I know, I have been lazy, and you have been hyperactive,(very uncharacteristic of you though), but I will definitely catch up with you in no time.

I will give up everything, CAT, SHAT, XAT, PHAT to just write one more post than you. Though, technically speaking, I have a lot more posts than you, but you wouldn’t agree to it, would you?

So, here’s another one. I just downloaded “Windows Live Writer”, which is like an offline blogging client that can publish to almost all of the well-known blogging sites. I think you should give it a try. This is the first post that I will be posting using Live Writer. Actually this post should have gone into another blog of mine, that blah blahs about some tech stuff, but I just had to increase the number of posts on this one. Hehe. See, I don’t give up  so easily. Well, you can say that I am determined, but if compared with others, I am not sure where would I stand. 

Okay, Okay, I have written enough for this post. Well, one more thing. Do you know, Blogger just wouldn’t allow any blog to use up unlimited storage capacity. It has allocated only 1 GB per user. WTF. 1 GB…. My life compacted into a single GB of 0’s and 1’s?? I have already used up around 57 MB. Of course, the pictures take up most of the space. 

Sunday will perhaps be the turning point of life. Well, the angle of the turn can vary from 0 to 360 degrees. But I am expecting a minimum turn of 90 and a maximum turn of 270. Hope it doesn’t turn out to be a 0 degree or a 360 degree turn. 

That’s all I have to write in this one. I just wanted to test the Windows Live Writer. Have fun. Keep posting.

Final Frontier...Catrified Again...

Today was the final Mock CAT. What a relief !!!! Well, I didn't do any better than the other mocks, but, finally, the preparation days are over, and we will be facing the real one very soon, head-on. Best of luck to everyone.

Do you remember this picture? I just read a post that I had posted this time around, last year. The last lines were:

On a serious note:
CAT is not everything in my life, morever, this was my first attempt, a real live MOCK CAT for me. And I have already started preparing for the next year's CAT. It just takes a MAN to crack the CAT.

Hahaha....That preparation I was talking about had not lasted for more than a week. Last year I scored a percentile of 84.6 . I will be very very disappointed if I score less than that. But, I am still hoping for some miracle to happen. I have been very unlucky during all those Mocks, but I am still hopeful that I will give my career best performance on the D-day.

For me, all those pencil and paper preparations are over. This remaining one week, I will be getting up early in the morning, as early as 6:30, just to make sure that I am not late for the exams.

My next post will be coming up on 16th November. Hope so.
Till then, enjoy the winters.....

Obama's WON !!!!

So, finally, its official. I had always had this feeling that Obama was going to win. All the newspapers always had some news or the other about the recent US presidential campaign. Not only the newspapers, the news channels were giving much more coverage that I would have liked. But this picture today on TOI was a real shock to me.

Was Manmohan Singh offered a cake when he won the elections? Did anybody even knew who was Prativa Patil till she became the President? Or that lady in the picture is some distant cousin of Obama? What the hell!!! A girl from Delhi or Bangalore or any other metro, for that matter, is quite understandable, but from a city like Bikaner !! That surprised me. Of-course, winning the elections, perhaps is the greatest achievement for Obama, but why is this girl so happy???

Sleepless Nights

I don't even remember when was the last time I had such uneasy feeling. Not even before the Semester exams, not even before my first job interview and definitely not when I proposed that girl from school. November is here, and in a few days, the Sunday mornings will not be the same any more.

I don't know what's in store for me, and I would not know before the starting of next year, but what I know is, I will have to get up early on every Sunday morning, take bath ( winters are already here, but thank god, I have a hot water system, not exactly a geyser, but the damn thing works ), get dressed and eagerly wait for my angel, the Bangalorean autowalas who would drop me at the venue of the exams on time. Best of luck to all those who can understand my condition.