KUNGFU AND THE DEVIL

There was a time when ordinary martial artists made pacts with the Devil and his Dark forces.
For the price of a soul, an aspiring martial artist had the chance to gain possession of superhuman powers, invincibility, ability to dash up the sides of tall buildings and hopskip past rooftops, gliding,somersaults in midair.
In return,the devil was to have the sole right to the man’s soul after a mutually agreed number of years of fame and invincibility.
At least this was what we had been told.
They certainly had a mysterious aura about them, these kungfu masters.The public,at least the young public admired and wanted to learn from them.They certainly were the heroes in those days.
Not that they did any public good, but at least the possibility was always there, if ever the enemy or the invasion arose. We felt safe. The town was safe.
I remember a cousin of mine met one of these mysterious heroes....and this was the story she told .....
It seems this particular kungfu master had already made his eternal pact with the Dark forces.
He was a stranger in our town, passing thru ..A visitor from mystical Burma.
The first night he visited a local cinema hall, and strolled around a bit after the show.
Way past every sane person’s bedtime.
Members of the dreaded local gang had seen the stranger, and they certainly did not like what they saw. A tough looking stranger, milling around in their turf. This was most unacceptable. NOW comes the best part.
As they surrounded him, the stranger stayed calm and said, ‘ my little brothers, plis don’t make this mistake , you are in no position to grapple with me’
This angered the gang even further. Bad introduction. Big mistake.. With chains and pocket knives a la Nicky Cruz they snarled at the audacity. But just as the first fist was about to land, the stranger suddenly swung backwards and disappeared in a flash. No smoke, no mirrors.
The stunned gang froze in horror……….. There, several storeys above them, stood the stranger ….balancing himself on the roof of the cinema hall.



As I look back on those days , after watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon honored with the Oscar, I realize the story had been true all along. HA
Only in those days we called him the Devil.
Nowadays they refer to him as stunt director, director or whatever term fits.
Perhaps he demands for more than the souls these days.

THE ROCK FANS

What makes a rock fan ? Is it the religious consumption of each and every album, every poster , every article , is it the emulation, is it the sacrificial headbanging at the cost of one’s original neck muscles, is it the screaming , is it the ubiquitous gesture lml with every scream , or is it just plain having fun at the show.

India ,as far as I remember had a neat way of rocking out. Since every rock band worth its salt seemed intent on giving this great country a miss, we had to make do with our own.
Campus festivals, arguably the only platform for rocker wannabes in those days , produced a hundred or so new rock bands every year. And except for a few dedicated rockers , the rest were replaced by new bands each year.

They all suffered from short term interest and the public, short term memory.
In some ironic way, India did always have a surplus of rock bands.
So these bands did a little give and take .They sang covers of world famous rock bands
and in return the audience rocked along, occasionally threw in a stage dive now and then
for the home videos, critically analysed each cover and just stopped short of booing.
All round fun for everyone.
This neat agreement worked very well , until one day the bands decided to break free.
Suddenly the songs did not ring a bell, the solos a tat short of the usual finesse.
And the audience , well , we responded in kind.
A familiar Indian band had the nerve to add their little ditty amidst Deep Purple covers.
All of a sudden the swaying cheering crowd around me froze.
One minute silence to honour the temerity? Then the dam burst.
Good thing there was security to separate the audience and the bands.
Suddenly this night was getting better and better. A few frens and I joined the booing choruses .This was like an experiment in mob violence.
You shouted out one good expletive, above the crowd and everyone chanted it in unison.
This was in an era when Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock fought each other every other week for the Heavyweight Championship of the world. YES, we were young and we knew our wrestlers.
As one chant began to die down, a fren and I screamed, FINALLY, THE ROCK HAS COME BACK, IF YOU SMELLAAAAAAAALA WHAT THE ROCK IS…….. ….COOKING ( always wanted to do that out LOUD , just could not resist )
Faces , heads turned around..Confused looks. I spotted some school boys.
Then for a minute or so,
The Rock’s fans emulated their hero ( Dwayne Johnson) and chanted his piece , right in the middle of a concert , with the hapless band still playing their now inaudible self-composition.
Stone Cold , am sorry to say didn’t get his due that night.
Only because the band had realized their mistake and began the intro to HIGHWAY STAR and got the crowd smiling again.

The world has changed a lot since then, hope the band has made it too.YAY.lml

Raining cats n dogs ?

There is one incident from my boyhood days I still recall, one my frens wouldn’t ever let me forget.
I remember it mostly for the funnyness, craziness of it all.
We had just finished giving the 10th standard exams , and it was party time.
We had begun drinking around this time, secretly , of course.
One night I drank a lot more than before, and it felt good for a while.
I was on top of this world.
Later that night, as I staggered my way back into our locality, I saw that the house lights were still on.
I began to panic.I had not counted on this one. My parents were supposed to be asleep.
I was supposed to slip in quietly to my room .Surely I could not enter the house in this condition.My dad, his cane, my mom , gospel camp ? suicide ? no, still too young.
In my inebriated state I crouched past my mother’s kitchen garden and sat underneath the window sill in hiding, waiting for the GODS to fall asleep.
However hard I tried I could not sustain this position for long. And so I fell .
Crunch ……..Straight into the corn stalks , crushing my mother’s precious garden stalks.
Still dazed and scared to death, I fumbled and dragged myself up as best I could.
Surely the GODS must have heard that.
And so before anyone could come out that door, I meowed my best imitation of a cat,
twice , thrice , meow, meow meow , hoping and praying underneath an evil sky on what was supposed to be a great first night out for a young boy going onto manhood

Did it work? HAHAHA

THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF THINGS IN LIFE’S JOURNEY

I still vividly remember that misty morning bus ride in Madrid. That fresh air still unpolluted by the city’s heavy traffic. To any tourist it is a delight to take a bus ride through Madrid. If, instead of worrying about traffic jam or reaching your destination on time, you take a moment to lose yourself in the sights and look out the window and see the places you’re passing through you will see the true beauty of Madrid; monuments, churches, bars and buildings old and new which stands as a proud heritage to this great country. Anyway by Indian standards it was clean and less polluted.

Anyway, my reason for being on that bus at six am on that freezing morning was surely not for witnessing the beauty of Madrid. A friend of mine and I were to go to Seville and we had to catch the seven thirty bus leaving for Seville. The previous night I was in a bar drinking with a friend till dawn. I don’t even remember at what time I slept or what time I woke up. Olé! At five thirty in the morning I was there at the bus stand waiting for a bus to transport me to yet another bus stand, for Seville.
Once inside the bus , my exploits of last night began to torment me. Alcohol now began to began to work all dimensions of my stomach.. Suddenly, my priorities changed, HAD TO CHANGE. It was not the best time to look outside and savour the beautiful city .
I was searching for a plastic bag. I was filled with nausea. I couldn’t hold it anymore. It was coming, rushing, pushing, and accelerating through my food tract.100 miles per hour,I can’t remember. I scrambled to the back of the bus. OAAAAAKKKKK. There... I puked in the bus.
I was glad I was a stranger to the commuters as much as they were strangers to me.

Yes I know it is not the kind of experience any one would want to have. But as I sat back and resumed my journey, relaxed and relieved after the P****** incident I remembered something which a friend of mine once told me. It was “in times of trouble always look at the brighter side”. At that instant I learned to look at the brightest side. I asked myself, what if I didn’t have a plastic bag then? What if I threw the whole load to flood the bus floor or onto someone’s lap?
From then on, throughout my life’s journey, I have learnt to look at the brighter side of things.

THE BOY PILGRIM

THE GOATS MUST BE CRAZY
( )

I just didn’t get it .
Never been much of a traveler. Travel round the world , see new places , new faces , the constant thrill of discovery and adventure ? The only discovery I made lately , was the term cliché.
I loved the safe confines of my room, and the TV more than made up for the adventure and discovery bit.

that was until I saw.
for myself.
with my own eyes.

“freedom of excretion”

Rajdhani express,
non-ac window seat.

Little goats , big goats squatting , dustladen faces, some betraying signs of struggle, all lined up neatly right outside my window, up and down the hapless railway tracks, enjoying their freedom of excretion.
And as the summer breeze wafted in the startling smell of freedom through the open window, it got me to thinking .
why the railway tracks ?
why facing the train ?
why in a straight line no less ?
why time it with the train ?
why not before ?
why not after ?
why not the sugarcane fields nearby?
why not ... a newspaper , at least the cover story ?

and so , I realized I had made a fatal mistake.
I had written off my traveler friends too easily.
This right here proves there are unsolved mysteries yet in this world, new forms of freedom to be discovered, new sights and smells to ponder over, and this was most likely what had brought my bagpacking frens halfway round the world to India and beyond.To meditate on these very troubling questions on the banks of the ganges with the yogic master. HAHA ( just kidding.)

Anyway , this experience was my initiation into the amazing, stupefying, at times enlightening world of travel and discovery.
My conclusion: must travel the world , plenty more goats out there.HAHA