The Diary of an extraordinary Gentleman

It is funny how our life is nothing but a pursuit. We keep running behind money, career and of course- women to satiate our soul. It was one of those gloomy days of my life; a day where I am filled with self-doubt; where I question myself- would I be able to fill in my father’s shoes when he is gone? Will I ever achieve as much as he achieved in his life? Do I deserve all this wealth? After a failed relationship and a failed business venture, an optimist like me wants a second shot at life. Isn’t it a perfect way to welcome the Valentine’s Day- feeling gloomy and pathetic when the entire city is celebrating the joy of love by the lakes and the riverside? Oh! One must visit the infamous ‘Princep Ghat’- my favourite place in this godforsaken city. I often take a stroll through this park at night as it allows people as late as 11p.m. It resembles a bit like the park below Tower Bridge in London. There is the magnificent bridge (Vidyasagar Setu) overlooking a monument built during th...

Prologue What can we say about Gaurav? First of, there can never be a person who would have come across Gaurav and have forgotten him entirely. Well, how could they? It is not every day one gets to meet a character as definable as Gaurav Guha. Gaurav is not the regular Joe one would expect to meet. Though he has a heart of pure gold and has the best intentions for everyone around him, his brain is made of anything but gold; probably God, while creating him, forgot to add some grey-matter inside the thick and heavy skull of his. Legends would have it that Gaurav was born on a new moon night in the month of May, 1991. My best guess would be that he must have farted as the nurse slapped his tiny buttocks, expecting him to cry. The first time I met Gaurav was at my school in Shimla. I still remember him sitting at the long brown dining table in our long and wide dining hall. On Sunday mornings, we had special breakfast every Sundays. The special breakfast menu would comprise ...

So here I am, waiting at Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, sipping my overpriced cold coffee at starbucks. I still have over 5 hours to kill. I always feel nostalgic whenever I visit Mumbai. Even though I don’t really have too many memories associated with this city, those purple and white state buses plying on the highway takes me back to the time I would visit Pune to meet my then girlfriend Pooja. It is her birthday tomorrow and today, I am a nothing but a stranger from her past. As soon as I stepped out of the airport this morning, I was fishing for food; I was as hungry as a whale. I ordered for a simple ‘Masala Dosa’ and my co-traveller ordered for a ‘Pav Bhaji’. “Are you sure you want to eat Pav Bhaji as your first meal of the day?” I asked sceptically. He simply looked at me and smiled broadly acknowledging his choice. My eyes settled on a board that read, ‘Fresh strawberry milkshake’. Overwhelming memories poured in this restless mind of mine. Thi...