Bach from a Long, Long Trip

No. That is not a typo. That really is Bach and not back.
Let me explain. After almost four years of Coldplay, Lucky Ali, The Beatles and Kal Ho Na Ho, I decided to try out something different in music. And classical music seemed radically different to a guy like me who can actually write each and every Coldplay song down on paper.

Over the previous three days, I have been listening to Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Chopin, Williams... and a lot more.. And believe me, this is truly one of the best ways to relax and unwind yourself.. Don't believe me? Just listen to Greensleeves by Williams and you'll become a believer in no time.

Now, about this little trip of mine.
Well.. I went to Mumbai.. in a car.. Again. It is difficult for most people to grasp the magnitude of this road trip. Look at it this way. The National Highway - 2  connects Agra and Delhi with a smooth four-lane road that stretches to a little more than 210km. The journey takes about four hours, the rush hour traffic in Delhi and Faridabad notwithstanding. En route, one sees a lot of greenery and some great dhabas.

Now, consider what I went through. The National Highway - 3 connects Agra and Mumbai. A distance of about 1200km. But I didn't go through the entire highway at one go. First, I went to Indore. And then, from Indore I set out for Mumbai. But these two sub-trips weren't any less difficult.

The road from Agra to Gwalior, a distance of about 120km consists of four lanes and this part of the journey was pretty good. But to reach Indore, I still had about 530km to cover ahead of me from Gwalior. Now, the road from Gwalior onwards consists of two lanes. And some insane traffic. It was only after fourteen hours did I enter Indore. It took about fifteen and a half hours to reach Mumbai from Indore.

This trip reminded me as to why I love Uttar Pradesh so much. You see.. UP, despite its corruption and lawlessness and insane politics and whatnot still 'seems' more prosperous and full of life than all the other states I went through - Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharasthra. Throughout the entire length of the highway, dhabas were few and sparse. And none of them could match the Asli Pappu Dhaba one encounters on NH2. Human habitation could only be seen at intervals of a hundred kilometers and there were fucking rocks everywhere.. It seemed like the fucking surface of Mars with me in the Rover.

This trip made me realize that I love the lawless badlands of UP more than the efficiency and the sheer fucking scale of Mumbai. Don't have any clue as to what I mean by the word 'badlands'? Buy yourself the dvds of Omkara, Ishqiya, Shool, Gangaajal, Apaharan and you'll see what I mean by that word.. :)

Its college again tomorrow. We've got our timetable revised to make ours a 5 day week. Yeah... finally.

In a few days, I will have forgotten all about this trip and would've delved deep into fucking college politics. And a couple of new books that I bought. Dalrymple's 'The Age of Kali' being one of them. College politics isn't actually college politics.

I have a word for this. Its 'galpolitica'. Everything usually revolves around gals or in this case, a single girl. And for all the Paulians reading this.. No. Its not the girl you're thinking about.



And since its Valentine season, love is in the air, the notebooks, the textbooks, the bus and library cards, the hostels, the canteens and every other place one can imagine. The galpolitica wars are heating up.

And my college being my college, I'm expecting quite a few people to get hurt in the coming days. The girl I like? The girl I like tends to fall for stereotypical lovers, which I'm not and which I don't intend to become. So lets leave it at that.

In other news, we've got some interesting subjects now. I am particularly interested in DBMS and MP. Lets see how DBMS helps me in building Copocollege v.1.1.

And yeah, I've made another movie. Expect it to show up here and on my Vimeo page in a day or two..

Have Fun'