On a recent trip to Baltimore, sitting in the middle seat, surrounded by two huge blokes, I decided to disturb everyone for the upteenth time trying to go take a leak. I was almost dying to get into a conversation with someone, anyone, just to kill time. After walking in the aisle for the upteenth time, I met another passenger whose facial expression (to my great luck !) revealed that he was in the same predicament as me. Absolutely Bored to Death !
So we talked. The general chit chat of first meetings. I realized that this little British Indian lad of 30 was a hugely successful young man. A soccer businessman at Lost Gatos, a permanent job at Stanford. He was the picture perfect image of the go-and-get-it-now generation. And to make things even better he was handsome like an apple, and took out of his pocket a picture of his Italian girlfriend living in Florida. That`s it ! There can be nothing wrong with such a life. Well after two hours he began to feel more comfortable talking to me. Told me about the difficulty of his relationship with someone living on the other side of the continent ( i.e Florida), and having to travel to her every once in a while just for an embrace. I could tell (but fortunately kept my big mouth shut) that the relationship was under serious and severe strain.
Well the cherry on the cake came when he told me of his recent experience in the Bay Area, as he heard of the death of his father. I stood over (after the storytelling) with tears in my eyes and to my own surprise embraced him like a brother. I will call the story the "mobile incident".
The mobile Incident
The music was rock. Van Allen or something blasting on his Ipod. He drove off his brand new hummer, in a delightful Palo Alto weather. The day was good, even tending on glorious. He loved these moments when he would drive off from Stanford on 280 to his soccer practice in Santa Clara. In such moments, Baz seemed to get that cajoling feeling, " O People actually love me, I seemed to get respect wherever I go, and how could I have landed myself such a beautiful girl". At times, and this is my little addition to the story, even the trees looked like they were bending and smiling at him. We love you. Nature loves you Baz ! The call came at 5.34 p.m (he remembered) because he was speeding at that time, and had to lower the music. "Hello who is it", "Ma", "Ma", "What is it", "Why are you crying so much". ."Beta, Papa is no more…few hours earlier…accident…fire…died as he reach the emergency'". Baz just recalled that he was shouting as from this moment onwards. He held the wheels and kept shouting, "NAAA NOOOOOO". That`s all he did up to the moment he caught the freeway. Then something (let`s call it survival instinct) told him he would crash if he behaved as follows: non stop shouting frenzy with eyes fixed only in front, never sideways. Looks like he was having what the Dr Phils of this world would call, a post-traumatic stress experience. Anyhow, Darwinian instincts prevailed and made him pull on the side. He got out of the car and caught some air. Walked around on the lay by like a mad man, with cars whizzing past at 100- 120 mph. He did not remember when the police car pulled behind, he only recalled the sound, "Pimp pimp" and the emergency lights of the police car. "Sir get down on the ground , Sir get down mother fucker". "Officer my dad just died, officer my dad just died, can I hold you". "Sir you`ve been drinking get fucking down on the ground, you are under arrest, anything you say will be ..etc etc".
So he spent the rest of the night in jail apparently for 2 things: a) driving under the influence, and b) presenting a grave risk to passing cars on the freeway. No alcohol test was ever done and no one cared that it was never done. No one gave him a hug. No comfort came. In the dark corner of the cell, he cried for his dad the whole dark night. He remembered that the cover given to him was infested with lice. The lice issue, he only took notice, the next morning during a shower. Well, he did get a lawyer, he did pay the fine and he did get out. Yet few words in his lovely cockney accent I cherished before our eternal parting, kept ringing in my ears as I staggered back to my seat, "Rattan it is all a grand illusion man, what we think we are, we really are not". "Anything can change anytime ". “One moment you are this and the next moment you are something else”
He came out of his one night confinement, another Baz. I recalled Aurelius, "Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh ". General Marcus, you are so right. I closed my eyes trying to catch some sleep. What am I to do in such a cruel world my Lord !
