THINGS YOU SEE, THINGS I DO

A Shadow Of Myself

2012-01-08T17:04:00.001+07:00

Been a long while now.... off blogspot, off the saddle and off life in general. Time to get back on track, its about time now.... for i've now become just a shadow of my former self!

2011-02-01T08:29:00.001+07:00

It's time.....

2010-12-12T20:22:00.002+07:00

play days are over
socialised enough
ate and drank
smoked and puked
...
...
now there's only one thing left to do!
GET A GRIP!

EXTRA! EXTRA!! Read All About It!!!

2009-02-27T10:58:00.005+07:00

well, well, well,, it's almost here. a book about a biker's whimsical journey across India by P.G.Tenzing, ex-Indian Administrative Serviceman of the Kerala cadre, Sikkimese, philosopher, singer and the father of Dechen P. Tenzing, who is gonna be releasing her very own book albeit of a different kind. Dechen's story and artwork comes packed together in Sikkim's first Manga Novel (probably first in India) titled Wolf's Fang. This will be released along with her father's Penguin book at our very own Rachna Books in an exclusive release function. Log into the bookshop for more details!!!!

IN THE MEAN TIME... FOLLOW THE LINK

2008-11-15T11:14:00.003+07:00

www.rachnabooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=12&Itemid=58

MISSING::::Chapter 1 - The Motorcycle Diaries

2008-10-21T12:52:00.008+07:00

Gangtok - Goa! That was what we set out to achieve on our trusty Royal Enfields (just the bikes, the people at their factory down at Chennai suck!) and we achieved it alright. Me and another buddy of mine. Some self portraits from the trip... Top to Bottom: Me relaxed and enjoying the cool breeze at Chilka lake in Orissa waiting for the Irrawady dolhins, either they're very moody or maybe it was winter, they never surfaced! Then there's me tired and frustrated under the Vishakapatnam sun trying to customise an Electra clutch cable to fit a Machismo AVL, no mechanic for almost 200km radius. Thats my bike was we stopped at the next major bifurcation past Vizag and we had to decide whether we should carry on to Hyderabad or push on further down to Vijaywada, the latter won. And the last one is enroute from Khanapur to Hampi, a neverending truck jam for almost two hours to negotiate!!!!!

MISSING : : : Chapter 1

2008-10-16T22:55:00.002+07:00

Well, it's been more than a year and a half that I have gone AWOL from blogspot. A year and a half of wandering, wondering (this seems like an endless obsession), bonding, blundering (if there's such a word), riding, being taken for a ride, assessing, ass-kissing, thinking, inking, computing, changing nappies, vectorising, criticising, guitaring (more ing than the guitar), quitting and drinking again, praising, praying, scratching, and scratching again, and also photographing. Three of the last done during the Gangtok - Goa ride in December2007-January 2008. Bodh Gaya... Ride On!

MISSING

2008-10-16T21:29:00.006+07:00

BLOGGER MISSING SINCE JULY 2007. Last seen in Goa, as evident in the picture above...

2007-07-06T22:19:00.000+07:00

Alcohol makes you do weird stuff. Here I am, 9'o'clock at night, stuck at a page from a 72page magazine i gotta finish by day after and i'm taking pictures of the borosil glass am drinking out of, lit from behind by one of those funky chinese LED cigarette lighters and reminiscing about the day i took this other photo.... of a compact-disc uni-cycle that belonged to a little boy in marchak, he parked it on his road side stall table as he gobbled away on his lunch! (the paint is a little messed up, but it runs all right!)

Tee Off!

2007-06-11T12:51:00.000+07:00

Will be or won't be, lets wait n see!

FISHY COMEBACK!

2007-06-11T12:38:00.000+07:00

It's been a long time, away from my short posts. Digitising, restoring, blah blah! System crashes and restores, re-installations, missing battery charger, mobile phone going auto-mobile, sim-replacements, viral fever, rum overdose, sokpa discussions, party @ lisa's, wet-rides... the latest wet ride being the one i went to yesterday... me and kapu! To ranka, through martam, on to sang and then into some vague hamlets in between, and somewhere along the way comes the fresh fish, fish fresh, i dont have a fish fetish, for the record. Fish on a bamboo leash! So, thats it, a fishy comeback, somethings fishy!

Tristan @ Italy

2007-03-25T11:31:00.000+07:00

Last night was THE night, GRADUATION night for Gangtok. Finally, it happened. A jazz night at where else but Little Italy! Introducing......

1. Tristan Pradelle, saxophone maestro from France, excuse the clone!

2. Thats me, letting off some steam!

3. Thats the 3 amigos, Karma-The Painter, Chophel-The Buro-cat! and BulletProof Rayman!

4. and this is where Gangtok comes alive!

REMAINS OF THAT DAY!

2007-03-24T12:08:00.000+07:00

1. MEINDL Iceland PRO MFS, as it should be.

2. My MEINDL as it is today.

3. Sole-survivors from Tholung, North Sikkim from exactly a year ago this April.

4. Aerial view of my Vintage MEINDL! Hehe! Should I E-BAY it???

BANARAS : Diary Of An Atheist

2007-02-16T17:24:00.000+07:00

from sunrise to sunset at the dashaswamedh ghats in banaras!

mountain of a mole-hill

2007-02-09T22:25:00.000+07:00

Well, am not really the writing kind, as you (those who've wandered through my domain) figured out by now. And it might seem like am making a mountain of a mole-hill, but i'd rather make a mountain, a mountain of a mole-hill and anything else, than spend my life mountainless, in lands where the only thing that rise higher than your self esteem are the glittering malls (they should be spelt MAULS) and not the lofty peaks, devoid of glass and steel.

Its been a little more than a week now that i've been battling my way through ceaseless traffic of expensive cars, blaring horns, mule and bullock trains, one green and yellow CNG motif in more than 5000 gasoline breathing supposedly-aesthetic mechanical wonders, all in approximately 5 square kilometers of concrete canvas. And it's not at all pretty i tell you. Maybe they are, and i just dont have the eyes for it, or the heart for it, lungs for it rather!

Places where an evening walk should be called a smog-walk, where driving and riding is not exactly the means to relax and where the only locality called Green Park is nothing but an extension of a car-park built to accomodate the shoppers that throng the diamond store near it - a diamond is forever! Try breathing diamond!

And where do I come from u ask??? I hail from the land of the mountains! That should suffice. Mountains with rivers. Mountains of snow. Mountains! Mountains that dont 'maul' you, mountains where you can be yourself, mountains where there's nobody honking from behind you, mountains where you dont need rear-view-mirrors for navigation, mountains that let you live! Mountains with snow flakes!

down Aminabad, the grand old Lucknow!

2007-02-08T20:19:00.000+07:00

They're only faces, do you still have to have a caption for them???

Portraits from Kanpur

2007-02-06T22:39:00.000+07:00

The myriad of colours at the famous Shivalay Chudi Bazaar.

Visitors at the fountain in front of the J.K. Temple

BATHMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-01-25T13:25:00.000+07:00

He's not a fool you see, he checks whether theres enough water in the tank for him to take his morning bath or not, else the robe stays. (Namchi Monastery, south Sikkim)

under the dish

2007-01-25T13:18:00.000+07:00

All things divine, as they stand, at Sumin in east Sikkim

selfportrait

2007-01-25T13:10:00.000+07:00

bicycle diary

2007-01-07T16:13:00.000+07:00

2006-11-08T13:43:00.000+07:00

Bike Over Troubled Bridge

2006-11-08T13:11:00.000+07:00

Bhusuk, almost an hour ride away from Gangtok!

GOOD MORNING GANGTOK

2006-11-08T12:53:00.000+07:00

It's 4:30 am & Gangtok wakes up to a golden Khangchendzonga while the moon calls it a day, a night rather! And prayer flags welcome the sun an hour later at Ganesh Tok!

GOLDEN HARVEST

2006-11-08T12:43:00.000+07:00

the last ride

2006-10-15T10:33:00.000+07:00

Shots from the last ride atop my trusty Royal Enfield Thunderbird 2002:
A close up of chaang, local millet beer.
A yak gets a heady wash in Tsomgo Lake.
Red cheeks adorn a little girl in Kupup (12940 feet) and...
...my steed, sadly i sold it some days back! Enter THE NEW BULLET ELECTRA 4S 2006

a happy dasain

2006-10-15T10:27:00.000+07:00

A front porch potrait of dasain celebrations in a village on the outskirts of Gangtok

undisputed

2006-09-24T11:33:00.000+07:00

Meet the motormouth, Gangtok's resident SlimShady!
Given the opportunity she might outshine the Fred Durst & Shady Tag Team

watsbeenkeepinmebizzy

2006-09-24T11:25:00.000+07:00

nepali folk tunes by Binod, the sarangi player from Nepal and brilliant guitar accompaniment by DeoAshish from Shantiniketan at one of our many musical evenings at THE BookShop in Gangtok, I doubt if there's anything like it anywhere else for that matter.

With My Pants Down!

2006-08-28T19:33:00.000+07:00

...of the beholder!

2006-08-28T19:26:00.000+07:00

Smiley!

2006-08-11T13:59:00.000+07:00

Gangtok!

2006-08-11T13:35:00.000+07:00

If Only

2006-08-10T11:55:00.000+07:00

If only I was a poet
How I wish I could write something
wonderful about these drops of rain
If only you were the god of rain
How I wish u'd let down drops everyday
so that I could write again!

Joe Sarangi!

2006-08-10T11:41:00.000+07:00

india gate, excuse me!

2006-08-07T09:32:00.000+07:00

ATTENCIONE!

2006-07-16T22:11:00.000+07:00

woah!

dialogue

2006-07-14T20:11:00.000+07:00

CHANGE CASE!

2006-07-14T09:48:00.000+07:00

'italic'

ONCE I LIVED IN CAPITALS
MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC
but now i'm sadly lowercase
with the occasional italic

- Roger McGough, 'The State Of Poetry'

borrowed beginnings

2006-07-13T19:40:00.000+07:00

i feel strange when i get down to writing, it's something which i don't do often. i somehow find more comfort in expressing myself through photographs (which is probably why i hardly manage to get the message across). anyway, this time i thought i'd start. but then again, since i'm so very unsure of my celibate vocabulary (unlike my enfield sprockets, it never gets greased), there's a slight hesitation. so i've come to an agreement with the mark twain (excuse the highhandedness) within me, for beginner's we shall borrow.

i don't how many are gonna read this, fewer would want to know where this is headed and after all that if there is someone still scrolling on down and wants to know what brought it on. it's the photos of umiam lake and the cathedral in shillong. i know the 'large' thumbnails dont do the place justice and i felt it demanded a littlemore respect. the first of the north-eastern states i had the good fortune of visiting, meghalaya. 'shillong', in particular. if you think of shillong as the 'cook's special', umiam lake is the entrée. in this order, you travel into this capital full of pristine low lying hills and a wreath of cirrus strokes overhead. by the time you're through the lake and into shillong-country you're already running short of incontrovertible adjectives to adorn your travel diary with. this is a good clue as any that my travelogue should end right now and i let someone true to the place speak for the place.

robin s. ngangom is a manipuri poet who studied and is presently teaching literature at the north-eastern hill university in shillong. reproduced below is not something that preaches the resplendence of shillong, but something that divulges the reasons why shillong with the rest of the immaculate north-east has been misrepresented by the indian media so far.

BAD PLACES

Sometimes, through no fault of it's own, a neighborhood picks up a bad reputation. If you happen to visit on a singularly uneventful day,you will find it roofed with a blue sky, and dark green pines and bamboo stooping to kiss it's dusty road. And although it is true that love was made inall wintry houses and it's dead have been buried in it's unruffled graveyard, you would never guess how it earned such a vague hatred from outsiders. Perhaps one night, acting on a tip-off, a party of nervous paramilitary men shot a couple of teenage militants to rags at the gate of one of it's unfortunate houses. What is truly ironic is the factthat the revolutionaries do not hail from this neighborhood, they merely happened to be there during an illtimed party. It is also entirely possible that a few men and women desperate to find witches and warlocks in an increasingly faithless age, forged themselves into medieval instruments and burnt down a house which looked a little eerie in moonlight and killed a strange old man and his wife.It has been called names - a hideout, for instance - they say the scars on its walls are bullet marks really. You would be advised not to court its women because the area grows dangerousafter sunset. But such neighborhoods continue to grow as if nurtured by misgiving.

- Robing S. Ngangom, from his collection titled 'The Desire of Roots'.

yesterday n' tomorrow

2006-07-13T09:22:00.000+07:00

what greets u in north sikkim!

the shillong chapter

2006-07-13T09:00:00.000+07:00

Umiam Lake
the cathedral

little one

2006-07-13T08:58:00.000+07:00

halo!

2006-07-11T20:13:00.000+07:00

untitled

2006-07-11T20:10:00.000+07:00

notes from a peepaholic!

2006-07-11T20:05:00.000+07:00

2006-07-11T19:48:00.000+07:00

...and he asked me "You think your life is hard??"

walk on!

2006-07-11T19:40:00.000+07:00

Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.

One Headlight!

2006-07-09T20:01:00.000+07:00

CAPTION THIS, WYLDE ONE!

2006-07-09T19:49:00.000+07:00

somebody stop me!!

2006-07-09T08:22:00.000+07:00

little boy wonders
whats inside this toy?
will it help me grow
into a violent boy?

floetry!!! haha

checkmate!

2006-07-08T20:49:00.000+07:00

en prise - as they say in French!

smokin'

2006-07-08T20:32:00.000+07:00

NO SMOKING? That's only applicable in places that are centrally heated!

who is the fire starter???

2006-07-08T20:22:00.000+07:00

'You know me, I've got to find some way to get a fresh fire'- Garth Brooks

will u walk into my parlor?

2006-07-08T20:17:00.000+07:00

when it rains.......it drops!

bleedin bullet

2006-07-08T20:10:00.000+07:00

once in a while my bullet bleeds!