The Over Enthusiastic Falooda Wallah

2024 is on the way out and it has been a year. It has truly been a year. 

There have been many memories made this year in different places. Chai stalls and parking lots, sofas and metro stations, in the darkness of a cinema hall and in the eyes of a new friend.

However the memory that I carry into 2025 is the tale of the over enthusiastic falooda wallah. 

I'd gone on a solo trip to Hyderabad and crashed with friends who did a fine job of hosting me, showing me the sights of the city and encouraging me to explore. It was during a particular dinner where I experienced Mandi for the first time that this story begins. My friends Vijju and Ani soon learnt that I had never had falooda in my life, and so learning they declared that tonight was the night! 

And so we found ourselves, me in a kurta and jeans and Vijju and Ani in the outfits they wore to office, standing next to a falooda cart where the falooda wallah, upon finding out that it was my first time having this dessert, decided it would be the best dessert he could fashion. 

In went the candied fruits, the kesar and the malai, in went the chocolate sauce and syrups and this massive dessert was given to me, with a red spoon to slurp it up slowly, while Ani clicked away and Vijju grinned as I strugged with the overflowing glass.

And this memory is what I'll send 2024 with- the love of a streetside falooda vendor who just wanted the child in me to have the best falooda he could think of.

Goodbye, 2024. You have been an experience!

The Bilge Master 

Tales from a Time Past

I came across a line in a book I'm reading which said that all fairy tales are tales of mourning. That line is now ricocheting in my head and as I sip my first cup of tea, I want to ask you to take a walk with me into the cauldron of my thoughts.

The existence of the faerie folk comes with its own brand of mythology. Do not trust a goblin's words, beware a dragon's greed. The gnome is your ally if you feed it. Watch out for the wicked witch. Forsake the forbidden fruit. One could even argue that the Genesis of Man is a fairytale. A woman is tricked (and blamed later for having fallen for the trick) into consuming fruit which grants Mankind knowledge. Surely you see the tragedy? As a firm believer of the adage "Seek and ye shall find", the start of this particular story had me thinking a few things. But then I realised that the will to seek is always in Mankind and the will to find is there as well, irrespective of if Mankind likes what they find. 

Thus, the fairytale. The fairytale is a place where Mankind runs from the horrors of what they have found. As a child grows older, leaving premolars behind for the more permanent molars and puberty changes their body, influences their mind, they forget the realm of the faerie folk. They want a deadlier setting. A Nosferatu. A Lycanthrope. Maybe they want to know of the failures of fallen Gods and the wrath of scorned demigods. 

In this intricate web of fascination, I've found myself grow up and grow addicted to the written word and I have dared to find ways to express using a pen myself. 

However, I am of a dying breed. I recall the most overplayed Oasis song now, specifically the lyrics 

"There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how"

And that brings me to what fairytales ask us to mourn. In the time of the smartphone and the internet, very few actually use these bastions of power to read. In a world founded on the power of words and letters sent from one county to another, perhaps one city to another or one country to another; humans now communicate in fragmented sentences and half words. In this barbaric world of "less is more", where can we find the faeries? 

So yes, I am in agreement that fairytales are a way of mourning for a world now dying. As we advance into a future where the screens rule over us all with an iron fist, it brings me sadness to finally bite the bitter bullet that perhaps listening to grandmothers telling stories or running into a library and spending hours in that world of worlds is something that has been consigned to memory, to the places where nobody knows if it's night or day.

But maybe it is those spaces that will save us in the end? Maybe it is those spaces where our children will look into and find joy? Maybe children will hear the stars laughing and clap their hands to save Tinkerbell? Maybe there's hope that The Little Prince has come back?

"I said maybe...you're gonna be the one that saves me"

The Bilge Master 

But There's Still Tomorrow, Forget the Sorrow

I wonder if you're listening? There's a comforting voice on the wind, it's a Tuesday evening and the whiskey has just been finished. All over the world, people are preparing for Christmas. Trees are being put up, gifts exchanged and Yule Tide cheer is rampant.

So what if this year wasn't what you expected it to be? It also wasn't what you expected it to be. You win some and lose some after all, but in between those won moments and lost memories, you find yourself chuckling.

I'm keeping a beard now, my voice is deeper. But someone inside me keeps asking me to shave it off and become who I used to be. My word, is this prose, is this poetry? This year definitely hasn't been what I expected it would perhaps turn out to be. 

To the people who sent me books, arigato

To the friends who kept me sane, arigato

To the recipes I cooked and fed you with, I hope you liked them

And to the No. 1 Yaari? That ain't gonna change 

There's still tomorrow, forget the sorrow. I am on the last train home.

A picture to wrap up, a year to say bye to and cheer to spread on Christmas and hope for James Gunn giving us a good Superman soon!

The Bilge Master 

How Then Should I Presume?

It has been a hectic morning since my friends are coming for lunch. I'm the designated cook and this is my secret ingredient for today's lunch.

I won't reveal what I cooked with the cashew, sorry. However, should you find yourself in my end of the woods stop by, and I shall make you something (also a secret).

I got to thinking of the places we go to and the songs that we leave behind there. We also find songs along the way, which make that place special to us. My first Poets of the Fall concert in 2012, where the setlist had an acoustic version of Sorry 'go Round or the recent chatter in a group about the Hyderabad Blackstratblues gig prompted this. I took a trip to Hyderabad in October, went to Salar Jung and had amazing biriyani. Now, I have to go back.

When I was in school, Christopher Nolan made a film called "The Prestige". This film had a line which said that making something disappear wasn't good enough. We had to bring it back. It stayed with me. As I grew older, many things disappeared, many things appeared. I went back to that staircase in college, that chai stall in Golpark, those momos in Narendrapur. I also realised there are places you can't go back to, unless someone gives you a reason. 

For now, I'll go back to the kitchen. I need to finish making fish. But I wonder, is there any place you want to go back to?

The Bilge Master