Preface - "Will Here"

Agreed, God gave us all (well...almost) a beautiful life, he did the best he could, with the CAD tools and Photoshop, to give us a well designed world system to live in. To make it better, he installed many soft wares to make living life a much easier thing to do. But then Satan is well...Satan (no other word describes him better)!! He planted his best viruses into God's database system, making our life confusing, abnormal and shitty. Moreover, he introduced new soft wares called "Guilty Pleasures" which were irresistible but, allegedly, bad for us.

God was all mad & furious...
We were unhappy too (but that's usual, plus, nobody cares if we are!).
This of course resulted in endless rounds of COUNTER-STRIKE between God an Satan.
We watch in awe, as mostly scores are levelled, hoping some day, one of them would win two consecutive rounds and will rule this whole world system (highly improbable, both of them take such great HEADSHOTS!).

Being the Great Indians, good values are instilled in us from day 1 of our lives, and so was with me. I went on living that values and rules driven life, hoping (as i was promised) one day everything would turn out to be just fine. They said, if you think straight and work without the lust of result in mind you will succeed. But 15 years (small time, but still) of battering that I got from life was enough to bring me out of that great dream that was stuck into my mind by my Great Indian Family.

One day, tired of thinking straight and working my ass of like an ass without any good result in sight, I saw Satan take that perfect headshot and suddenly it dawned on me. No matter which side you were on, life would remain the perfect bitch it is, taking digs at you, making you feel miserable. No matter whether you were a smart ass or an ass hole, you will get all kinds of sticks stuck up your you-know-what. As they say, nobody dies virgin, life fucks everyone!

Life hasn't been anymore rosy since then, but at least being on Satan's side helped me use that wonderful software of guilty pleasure. I know I will end up in hell, but then who wouldn't? Mark Twain said "I like heaven for climate and hell for company", I care two hoots about climate and would love some company any day. Guess that tells me my choice...

So here I am on my PC, typing away in MS Word, taking last few swigs left of my HAYWARD 5000 and puffing away last cigarette left in my pack, with nothing else to do (though I doubt I "CAN" do anything with a Patiala peg of vodka, almost two bottles of beer and 19 and a half cigarettes already inside me), 'coz I have finally decided to tell all about my life after that bloody headshot that Satan took. The journey I undertook with Satan on my side, with nowhere else to stop until my next stop...HELL..!!

Preface - "Allan Here"

Last night, I went to a bar for the first time in my life. I told my super-supervisor, a post-doctoral researcher about ten years older than me that her smile could be used to test radiation counters. And that was before I had started drinking...no wait, that’s not why I am writing this.

So before my back became hunched and my neck crooked and I became this soulless, lifeless nerd whose ultimate idea of revenge is to beat the bubble-words or text-twirl or any other face book app high-score of that guy who has been hitting on this girl he fancies from afar....before I had forgotten how to make friends without sending a request first or to smile without a colon (of course, there are other things you can’t do without a colon...but smiling?) and before I discovered the sheer joy of sitting alone in my room night after night and watching Southpark episodes for the tenth time, I had a life. It wasn’t a great life, it didn’t even seem like a good life, in fact I do remember wishing it would end a fair number of times (of course, it soon did), but it was a life.

I had friends on the same continent, I had hobbies; real hobbies, not stuff you’d do just to write on your resume or to be able to spend time in the same room as that girl you‘ve been fancying from afar, or to beat the high score of the guy who’s been...and, oh yes, chics dug me like mad (I know, I know. But hey...I have a right to improve my memories, right!). On the flip side, I also liked backstreet boys and thought McDonalds was the ultimate in fine dining. Anyway, this is the story of that marvellous life...

I’ve decided to call myself Allan, and all of my friends would be given random American names. And all the girls that I fancied at any point of time would be called Cynthia, mostly because that is unlikely to be the name of any girl who was in my school. All the girls that fancied me at any point of time would be called...ah well, I doubt I would ever need a name for that category. Most of the events take place in Delhi, the great Indian capital, or Gurgaon, its shining suburb that’s one growth spurt away from turning into the world’s most expensive slum, from about eight or ten years ago. Although it does seem like all of it happened a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away....