Wings, words and pasta...

Four years it will be since I wrote my first ever post on this very blog.. Life never ceases to surprise you though. Because for the first time in these four years has someone actually declared that they are waiting for my next post, explicitly ordering me to "write something good".. :-D

Anyhow, I hope this one might be "good" enough.

When I wrote 'Winged Dreams' (http://black-benchers.blogspot.in/2012/10/winged-dreams.html) back in October 2012, I got the very logo of Honda wrongly oriented. For the record, it's as specified below: 

One and a half years since my first job at this automobile giant, I have learnt more than I knew in the initial 22 years of my life about vehicles. And while I am still not very sure about my definitive career path and/or life's passion, something about learning how an automobile works or just reading up ways to mod up my winged lass 

Six years old and still good as new, I hated her since the very first day.


Her impracticality stung me to my very core and I despised riding her. My elder brother bought this bike for his daily commute and used it for less than an year. I went off to university and she stood under covers for the better part of 3 years. Now that I am working and am single, her upkeep and maintenance is my responsibility!

Been 6 months since our relationship began and she has changed my views completely...

Honda CB Stunner is a charm to look at and stylish as anything. The acceleration is best in this segment and so is the ride-height. For a 170 cms tall guy like me though, she proves to be a quite challenge on u-turns and hairpin bends. And the wet grip could do with a little more traction (probably with wider tyres)... That said, she delivers a healthy 55 kmpl in city and 65 kmpl on the highway. I am a light rider and usually cruise in the 50-60 kmph range. Her top speed is limited to 101 kmph and the vibrations are phenomenal. Above 6000 1rpm in the top gear, you get a rough massage in delicate organs. Excessive vibrations might be the only downside of this vehicle given that it shares the engine from the much more stable but less quick CB Shine. The gearshifts seem to be too closely paired and after the topmost gear, the available power demands for at least one more gearshift. And since I can afford a little splurge occassionally, I have decided to gift her a K&N universal air filter (model no. RC1060), a free flow exhaust with the full tube, an NGK Iridium sparkplug and a smaller rear sprocket (41T or 42T) to reduce the vibrations and increase the initial punch as well as top end power without compromising much on her fuel efficiency. My fingers are crossed about whether she would absorb those parts without any hiccup.

Talking about changed views, the same goes for our honorable Prime Minister. I was cynical about him ever since the Godhra verdict but now he seems the very PM that India needs right now. An analytical and shrewd man of action! All hail "NaMo" /\

Apart from that, life seems to be changing everyday. Being single for the better part of the last 2 years now, I have matured way too much for my own good. One of my female friends thinks that I need to be more receptive of the many feminine emotions and nuances. I pride myself as a good listener but absence of logic is off-putting. So much so that I begin to wonder what the hell am I doing, listening to this crap?!

When two people converse, I believe both of them should gain perspective when the conversation finishes. Venting is a typical way to ruin any friendship.

One morning, I woke up to this scene outside my fourth floor window:

I look at them and I wonder - Who are they and how are they able to even survive this cold without a roof over their heads? I earn decently and still demand for a lot more while they seem to be perfectly contented with their predicaments. Hats off to the resilient spirit and shame on my materialism!

Coming to the end, my quest for peace is still on. Went backpacking across a large part of northern India in the last 8 days and realized how very idiotic it is to shut myself away from the world in my so-called condominium. When I slept underneath the clear Himachal sky on the cold New Year's eve, I thought a lot about the worthlessness of losing hair over piddly-ass consumerism and associated perks! Then again, it's all relative... A few expensive and essentially useless commodities define me to the world which thrives on hypocrisy. 

When and why did we stop to smell the roses to focus wholly on the faux ones?

What have we achieved, in hindsight, after the evolution from under the ground to over the moon?

In my view, only a few good people seem to be worthy of our great civilisation and I am yet to enter that list. Only now do I truly appreciate the depth of Mahatma Gandhi's talisman - 

Compassion and kindness are the only true virtues for our sustenance. Discipline is the key and love is the medium. 'Interstellar' was a brilliant piece of cinema and an ode to astrophysics. While I did not understand most of the theories, I was able to gather that love is the only quantifiable phenomena that can sustain its properties over spacetime and higher dimensions.

P.S.- Since this has been a long post, here's a glimpse of my delicious pasta cooked with only half a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil, onion, potato, tomatoes, salt, cumin seeds, brown mustard seed, black pepper and 3 types of pickles -