I hope there’s a bigger picture, a masterplan behind everything. Life, hurt, fortune, bad luck, natural disasters, fate, destiny, sudden surprise meetings, helplessness, weakness, strength, smiling tears, nervous laughter, broken hugs, dysfunctional love, warmth, peace, loss, hope, love, death.

If there isn’t, and if I get to know that everything happens on Someone’s whim, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it.

He steps out of the lobby, onto the street. The cold breeze greets him like a shiver greets a spine. He wonders if he should trade his shorts for trousers for a few nights. Shakes his head and starts walking. Can’t be too overdressed for a walk.

He sticks his hands into his pockets. It’s not that cold, dude. Looks like it’ll rain. But he hasn’t called the weather correctly in 29 years. He likes the rain better than the cold. It reminds him of grey clouds and not being able to see Worli Sea Face from his bedroom. It reminds him of drops of water trickling down his old fashioned frosted windows. It reminds him of reaching school only to find it closed for the day. It reminds him of dancing madly in the building car park. It reminds him of sitting at the door of his primary school classroom during lunch hour, waiting to catch a glimpse of her because that was the only way she could get to her secondary school classroom during the rains. It reminds him of his first day in college, and showing up late and skin-soaked to the orientation lecture. It reminds him of wading through knee deep water to get to work during his first year in advertising, and then being told - in graphic detail - all the stuff he waded through. It reminds him of irritating droplets on the insides of his spectacles which he had to keep wiping. It reminds him of a shoot in Shimla, during which he almost fell off a cliff and died because of the slippery slopes. It reminds him of driving his Jeep on Marine Drive without worrying about the ditches and puddles of water. It reminds him of showing up soaked to work and ‘borrowing’ the extra t-shirt that Herman always kept in the office, only to realize that Herman was late and soaked too. It reminds him of a stormy Saturday night and sleepy Sunday morning in Singapore, which he spent watching her sleep.

He walks on. The newsstand is still open at this time of night. The vendor is pushing a copy of ‘Dalal Street’ to someone, giving gyan about the skyrocketing stock market. He laughs. Everyone has an opinion about everything. And it’s all good. A hot stock is like a one night stand, enjoy it while it lasts. A bluechip is a long term commitment. Be faithful to it and it’ll be a fruitful alliance. He is convinced that life is like the stock market. There is no single direction up or down. Enjoy the upswings and live through the downtrends.

Some kids from the call centre are hanging around. They represent today’s gen-next, he presumes. Piercings straight out of a 'Prodigy' video, cigarette packets, expensive phones with cameras that look like cameras with phones, designer denims and branded eyewear. He overhears some conversation about a fucking customer up whose ass I wanted to shove the phone receiver. Bhenchod Americans can’t restart their computers without detailed instructions and they think they can save the world. Pass the cigarettes dude. Nice Jeans. Diesel, dude.

Planet M is being renovated. It’s almost a void in his life, not being able to go there and meet his closest friends, all stacked up neatly in alphabetical order. Bankruptcy zone, someone once referred to it. He doesn’t think so. Music and movies are the best investment, the one and only legacy you can leave your children. When you’re young, you keep your hobby alive. When you’re old, your hobby will keep you alive. He would spend hours in HMV and Tower Records and Gramaphone. Visiting friends, sometimes taking them home. Every song has a story to tell, he says. And what’s life without stories.

He reaches the crossroad. Decision time. Should he walk straight ahead? Nah, went that way before. Left? Boring road, bad idea. Right? Right.

It’s getting nippy. Looks like it will rain. But it won’t. He hasn’t called the weather correctly in 29 years.

Apparently, the key to eternal happiness lies in timing everything correctly.

There’s a time for your first relationship, the first kiss and the first shag. Time to go to college and study. Time to stop studying and get a job. Time to switch to a job with better pay and perks so you can settle down and get married. Time to get hire purchase to buy a car whose advertising is targeted at young couples with double income and no kids. Time to have a kid and leave the car redundant. Time to trade in the couples’ car for a family car and a four digit EMI for a five figure one. Time to get a home loan to buy a house. Time to find ways to make more money to support the two EMIs. Time to find yet another way to make even more money so the kids can go to a good school. Time to break a fixed deposit to arrange for the donation to give to the middleman who’s ensuring your kid gets admission into that good school before you can start worrying about the fees. Time to plan for the kids’ post graduate abroad. Time to die.

When I was 17, I read a quote by a certain Mr. John Hegarty.

When the world zigs, zag.

And a few years later I first read up on the legendary Dr. Marc Faber, undoubtedly the world’s most celebrated contrarian.

In an uncanny emulation of life, the capital market has repeatedly taught many a trader that trying to time it is like teaching a pornstar how to fuck. It will not behave the way you or for that matter anyone wants it to - it’s older than anyone trading in it.

Just like life is older than anyone alive.

Ancient eastern wisdom suggests that life isn’t as difficult as we make it. Modern history has proven time and again that life is wasted on the living.

Maybe its time to zag.

I got tanked last night.
Wasted.
Hammered.
Drunk, for the uninitiated.
I kept pointing to my empty glass and the bartender kept refilling it.
It was a promotional thingy for a new sufi album.
Pretty good, actually.
The album, and the thingy.
The videos they made suck, though. You didn’t have to get drunk to puke, basically. And the artist was visibly pissed about it when I congratulated him. Told me he should’ve taken my advice. Next time, I told him.
I remember meeting someone who gave up her career in advertising to have a baby.
I remember meeting a choreographer-director type who wore a cap indoors. That always amuses me.
I remember meeting a head honcho type who was flaunting a DVD video camera, but didn’t exactly know how to operate it.
I remember leering at a beautiful woman in a pink salwaar kameez until it made her nervous and she left.
I remember a bunch of college kids doing a weird kind of Zambian choreographed dance and all of them being quite conscious of everyone around while they were at it.
I remember chatting up a waitress who was wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and was serving purple colour vodka shots in test tubes.
I remember a Singapore Airlines air hostess smiling at me in the hotel lobby, and yet another looking away haughtily as she puffed her cigarette.
And I got a call from a friend early this morning who hadn’t slept all night and just wanted to chat.

He drinks a whisky drink, he drinks a vodka drink.
He drinks a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink.
He sings the songs that remind him of the good times.
He sings the songs that remind him of the better times.

Of late, I’ve been receiving pictures over email.

Of old friends, their wives, their husbands.

And look warily at their wives, thinking that my friends deserved better.

Well.

The husbands aren’t Brad Pitts and George Clooneys, but they’re alright. The girls are happy.

The wives though, are real pretty. My friends’ ugly arses got lucky.

So when I receive pictures of smiling couples, one half of whom I remember as a hormone-charged teenager buying a copy of ‘Debonair’ with his lunch money or an impressionable fiercely-independent little-girl-lost who used to make atrociously bad tea, it makes me smile.

For what its worth, it was worth all the while.

And she was drifting in the restless sky with abandon, wearing a robe of white cloud as the sun shone in her smile.

And she was walking on the raging ocean carelessly, her swaying hands playing the music of water on a harp made of waves.

And she was floating on the scorching sand like a silent sigh, her hair glistening like gold and her eyes calm like a distant oasis.

And she was right next to me, her touch on my face searching for a reason why I was far away.

And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand.