On Reaching 100

I am 100-posts-old. Wont’ you wish me? But wait, right now my thoughts are with a man who also would have been wished today if he were alive. And if he were alive, he would have been rocking. Parineeta’s songs might have had a different tune and A.R. Rahman wouldn’t have been as hot as he is considered today.

But Pancham is still alive, isn’t he? His albums sell like never before, and he sells more than anyone else. He is today a brand. For a die-hard fan like me, every day is Pancham’s birthday. He is, after all, a habit: when you use Colgate every morning, you don’t ask, “When was Colgate born?” That way, nothing unusual about June 27, except that I am writing my 100^th post today, having begun the journey sometime in October last year.

The man who began the journey is different from the man who is writing the 100^th post. That man was single and in search of something – in search of what, even he didn’t know. He would never get what he sought, and that would make him lonely – and how he loved to stew in loneliness. The stew fuelled this blog.

The man who is writing this post is married and kind of content. His search is on, but it is no longer urgent. Still he misses those long, lonely nights when he yearned for that something – but that something would always remain in a veil on the other end of the cyberworld.

Most of the 100 posts were written out of that yearning. Alcohol contributed too. In celebration (celebration? Why not!) of the century-mark, I reproduce five posts which I consider my best. Please read them: it won’t take you long:

1. Circle of Life

2. The Day I Cried

3. Thoughts on a Cloudy Afternoon: Hot Samosas and a Goon

4. Of Mice and Men

5. By The Ganges