let me guess, you're a Cancer,right?' asked Christine,a look of frank curiosity in her hazel eyes.

i gazed at her in incomprehension as i tried to recall the details of our encounter last night .i thought we had met at a bar in the Upper West Side, but it could well have been Chelsea.Damn,this was embarrassing .

No, wait got it. We met past midnight at the after party in Peter's apartement .She was a broad way actress who had a thing for bankers,and we had a glorius , Phonet discussion about a new art gallery.

I felt proud of myself. Despite being inebriated,I had probably succeeded in sounding pretentious enough to get an invitation back to her apartement. 

I felt even prouder to note that my performance hadn't suffered because of the alcohol. Otherwise why would we be here,enjoying our moring-after ,

having sushi for brunch in this fancy new Asian-Latino fusion restaurant?But what was this 'Cancer'business ? Gosh.had i been so pathetic as 

to call out for my doctor father or some other freudian tripe like that? I was about to ask her fir an explanation when i overheard 

snippets of conversation from the table next to ours.

Don't you just love this palce?It's so.......so ethnic,'gushed a middle-aged platinum blonde to her identical-looking friend.

'I thought i had outgrown sushi, but this place is just,like,so totally awesome.'

I'm breaking up with Richard,'her friend replied,paying no attention to the sushi comment.

'I think i love him,but i'm not like,in love with him,if you know what i mean.'

i pulled myself away from their profound exchange to observe Christine daintily sample her Kodako Nigri.

'Sushi got your tongue?' smiled Christine,brushing a wisp of golden blonde hair away from her face with the back of her hand.

I knew she thought she looked adorable when she did that.'if it isn't Cancer,the it's Gemini,'she said.

All of a sudden, i was tired.i didn't belong here Zodiac signs,

twenty-year-old ditzy actresses,fusion restaurants,baby octopus for lunch,miniature brioche buns for dinner,

independent movies,art galleries,outgrowing sushi,breaking up with Richard-none of it was real.Rather, all of it was real.

I was fake, the imposter who didn't belong here. The same Eric feeling of living someone else's life was haunting me again.

I'm drowning,I wanted to shout, someone please throw me a ******* stick.

'Did you say something,big boy?'she asked.

Oh Christine,I thought, the only sign i can think of right now is the Ram. 

I want us to get back to your apartment and go at it until i can't think any more because thinking, 

you see,is dangerous;

too much of it drives even sane people insane.

'Cancer,'I mumbled .'Right the first time.'

"That's what i told Richard.I really need to find out who i am first,'floated the voice from the next table.

That's it, I thought,i'm done.i began thumbing down my BlackBerry.Sadly,one of the few benefits of being a banker was that everyone expected you to be an asshole.

'I need to rush,'I said.'something's is coming up.Do you mind if we do this some other time?'

Christine must have been shocked by my rudeness.Later, i felt bad that i didn't give her enough time to clean up the Uni-Tama on her plate.

After all, she was the unlikely silicone angel who had compelled me,the yale educated,

American-born,pampered son of immigrant indian parents to quit my Cushy wall street investment banking job amd leave Manhattan.

But i was in a hurry that day .Soon there would be insignificant departures from the neat,tight script of my life and some scenes needed to be rewritten immediately.

Monday morning asusal , my alarm went off at 5 a.m.,the same it had buzzed every weekday in the past twenty-odd years of my existence .

Morning's were always busy: In high school,i woke up early to attend violin classes because Dad was convinced you nee something

 'extra'for admission to Yale or Harvard;in Yale, 

I got up to maintain my place in the athletics squad because investment banks viewed participation in competitive sports favourably in their interviews;

now,waking up early ensured that i was the first analyst to reach the bank.

I switched off the alarm,picked up my blackberry and scrolled down the messages sleepily. 

The usual Monday morning 'Urgent'e-mails about pitch books and client meetings;today though,

my attention drifted to the Zen footers at the bottom of the e-mails.

CARPE DIEM.SEIZE the day.

life is too short to smell the flowers that bloom at your feet.

life isn't complicated you make it so.

jesus,did people really believe this smack?I got a surprise for you,buster:it is complicated .You hurt those you love the most;

the bigger an asshole your are, the beter you do in life; ypu strive for all the things that matter the most .

try telling the chinese sweatshop worker, who is going blind from sewing Nikes, to seize the day,or the gutter cleaners in India to smell the roses.

It is simple isn't it? I put the Blackberry down.

 But i couldn't makle myself get up from the bed. I rolled  around for a couple of hours,smoking a smooth Dunhill

and staring blankly at the Monet and Warhol replicas on the walls of my studio apartement.

Soft music from an acoustic guitar instrumental played in the background on the bang and Olsen music system.

the cell phone beeped. A message fom Christine :

'Had fun stallion. The opera this weekend?'

I smiled. I had created an elaborate sham of a life,Fake  Monet, acoustic guitar instrumentals,

SMS invites you to the NewYork opera-none of these belonged here,the same way i didn't belong.

I pulled the soft,luxurious cover to my chin, staring at the ceiling as the random idea that stuck me over lunch with Christine began to take shape.

 By the time i finally made my way to my office on wall street,it was 8 a.m.

The fifth floor of the tallest building on Wall Street,

plush furniture in the lobby, a gorgeous receptionist with a Brit accent and a plunging neckline,

the latest Fazzino on the walls. it had all seemed so impressive two years ago,I thought as i walked over to my cubicle.

Just what had happened  ?

'Here he comes' exclaimed peter as i switched on my computer . 

Peter was my closest friend from Yale and partly by fortitude and partly by intent, 

we had ended up in the same firm-he after taking a couple of years off to back-pack across Thailand,

vietnam and combodia,me after abandoning my PHD in physics halfway at Yale.

  'Dude, are you all right?'Coz this is the first time i have beaten you to work or class since we'ave known each other.

I was worried maybe the actress showed you a different movie,or should i say move,from the one you expected.'He winked.

'I'm fine,I'll fill you in later,okay?has Ruth asked for me yet?'I said.

'yes of course,' said peter.'Her star portege,her shining diamond has never showed at work later than seven in the a.m.,

so yeah, she has been hoping around for a while.

She's is worried you might develop a life outside the work. Ofcourse,she doesn't know about your weekend adventures yet.

Speak of the devil...'

I turned around to see Ruth,my tall,my blonde,hard-driven Australian manager,

arriving with a sheaf of important-looking papers in her hand.It was business as usual. 

Banks didn't know or care about crises of the soul.

I spent the rest of the day (and most of the night)

filling in spreadsheet after spreadsheet for a meeting with an important client,

a majority of its profits from its underwear collection.

During the course of the next fifteen hours,I became an expert on what different types of underwear cost,

which US retailers sold half-priced underwear, what size underwear was the most profitable to produce,

how economic recession impacted underwear consumption,which colour underwear consumption,

which colour underwear were the most popular at Christmas and other such important,fascinating facts.

At two in the morning,i finally sent the analyses to Ruth,swearing i would set my plan in motion immediately.

i never had lofty ambitions for myself,and i didn't care if there was a different destiny waiting for me somewhere ese.

All i knew was that becoming a connoisseur of the underwear industry hadn't figured in my list of childhood ambitions. 

My phone rang just as I was about to head off to Peter's cubicle.

'Good work, Samrat,' said Ruth. A kid yelled in the background.'Take fifty prints for tomorrows alignment meeting at seven, will you? Spiral bound.' The kid squealed louder as if it was being sacrificed at the altar.Mummy is on the phon, honey,'said Ruth in the same voice she used to speak to Peter.

Suddenly,i didn't want to end up like her. President of a white-collar sweatshop, hundred-hour work weeks, pre-meetings for allignment meetings for pre-meetings to the client meetings, spiral-bound pitch books at two in the morning , squealing kids, indifferent spouse,demanding client's.

'And let's squeeze ten minutes out of my calendar tomorrow to talk about your busuiness school application,'she said.

i could accurately predict every day of the next twenty years of my life,i thought as i fired the prints.

from associate to analyst to Harvard Business school to vice-president to managing director;a wife,two kids, a nanny and a housekeeper;a summer house in the hampton's a vacation home in Colorado;sell off the summer house in a financial crises,

buy two in a boom.Variation would mean being promoted six months earlier or later; and going to wharton instead of Harvard.

I wasn't meant for this, I thought as i began spiral binding the pitch book.this isn't the life i chose,i am living someone else's reality.

'Fancy a smoke?'I asked Peter as i stepped into his cubicle after leaving the pitch books in a neat thickset body bent over the keyboard,one hand on his bald pate,the other typing on the keyboard furiously.He looked more like a skinhead than a banker,I thought ,and he definitely did behave like one.

Who else would be up at 2.a.m.,not for a noble cause like tracking a client's financial position, but to follow Jenna Jameson's favourite positions?

Just a minute,'he said,turning to me.His blue sparkled with excitement.I'm on the verge of a breakthrough.Check out this site. I  nodded appreciatively,wondering for the millionth time since meeting him six years back at Yale just how he managed to get by.

'Done,'he said, getting up from his chair.'Let's pack up.Another busy day.'

We made our way out of the quiet building,shivering in the crisp winter air.The neon sign of the chinese take-out place flashed the corner of the quiet street.

'I'm leaving,' I said as we lit our cigarettes.

A bum was shivering outside the unlit Starbucks.Fancy telling him,i thought, that i was about to quit my quarter-million-dollar-paying investement banking job because i was feeling 'empty',He'd probably stick the needle he had in his hand into my eyes.

'Bad day,eh?'said peter.

'No.I'm serious.i'm quitting ,'I said.

'Dude,don't give me that.Notyou,'said peter.

'your'e meant for this.Straight as in high school, perfect SAT,4.0 in Yale,athlete of the year,Ruth's darling errand boy,this place runs on screwed up\=folks like you.'

Whatever,'I said.'I'm done.'

Big stoned eyes narrowed in disbelief.'And where are you heading?Private equity?'he said.

'No,definetly not.I think i'll probably go back to completing my PHD.I kind of liked it.Maybe get back in academia after that,become a professor or something,'I said.

Bull, Peter said.  You are not interested in the phd, you just want to get back to the old life. look, get over it. no one does their first job forever. 

See, what I am tired of.  This whole life...... Whole Truman show,  I said everybody has an opinion on my life. play the violin,  score as in school, participate in athletics, go to Yale become a doctor or a Banker, apply to Harvard Business School, don't stick to your first job---- everyone seems to be living my life except me. 

 You are Asian,  man, this is your destiny. he loved.  I did not laugh. 

 dude, Said Peter. don't get me wrong. I think it's great to quit, this is the crappiest job in the world.  Soon as well. I just don't think leaving for that PhD is wise, though .  You did not like the course. you did not even like physics at Yale for that matter. Being good at something doesn't mean you like it. and you are good at this banking bull shit.  I stayed  at him.  Sometimes he made sense. sometime off.  See the world,, backpack, hike, travel find yourself, he continued. join me. it will give me a reason as well. I am getting restless again.

 most times, though,  he did not make any sense. a couple of hours later, I made my way back to my apartment. talking with Peter had not helped much.With the few logical words, he had destroyed the one fantasy that had kept me afloat for the past few months. If I was not going back to complete my PHD, what would I do?

how long have you been here? Ask the bearded Sikh cab driver in Hindi.

This was the last thing I needed. IDebeted whether to pretend I did not understand, but I began to feel bad for him. if there was one thing worse than banking, it was probably driving a cab through The lonely streets at 3:00 in the morning.

Just a few years, I said.

Do you plan to go back? he said.

he had touched a raw nerve. I don't know I said. don't think so much. you should go back, he said forcefully. If I was your age, I would go back. now what was this about? I felt like I was in a bad CIA movie. How did he know about the conversation I did just had with the Peter?

It's lonely out here, he continued. the older you get, The lonelier it gets. Go back now while you are still young.

It's lonely everywhere, I said.

he turned around and stayed at me in disbelief.

Not at home,, Boss, not at home. even if you have no one, you will find friends and family like this in India. He snapped his fingers. No one is lonely in India. You should go back. of course he had mistaken me for an Indian. I did not feel like giving an explanation, so I kept quiet.

Everything is not thought from the head, he said, thumping his chest with one hand and swearing dangerously with the other. sometime, think from the heart as well. 

 Three weeks later, I braced myself for a painful discussion and called my father at work.

 is everything ok,  beta?  He asked, sounding very concerned what happened?

 ours was not a relationship given to sudden, and unPlanned expressions of love. like everything else in my strictly ordered  my life,my weekly phone call to my parents happened on scheduled every Sunday  evening.  A phone call outside the timing usually signified are crisis,  and I knew my father would have probably pulled himself out of a surgery to take my call.  Heck, I thought , he was kentucky's   best   damned  cardiac surgeon, after all.  he could fix any  arterial damage my phone call had caused.

Everything is fine, dad.  I am going to... going to India,  actually,' i   replied hesitantly.

 I could almost hear him relax,  and my heart warmed to him .  He was a simple, uncomplicated man, full of goodness.  He wanted nothing more than my happiness. happiness, I thought to myself,  fleeting, elusive happiness, that's all I want too.

 that is great, beta. you haven't been there in so many years, and it is always fun to travel to India on business. have you told ma about it yet ?  She will be overjoyed .  Listen, I am in the middle of something. why don't I call you in the evening? ' He said.

' this is not a business trip, actually. I am quitting gold man and going to India for couple of years,' I said.

Defining silence.

 Iris to fill the gap. I am not becoming a hippie, dad. I am planning to go to Business School there. I have already applied and been accepted.' still no response.

 it is not that bad, I continued, trying to believe it myself,' with India becoming an economic superpower and stuff.  And an international business degree would probably helped my banking career when I am back... are you still there? 

' But why would you do that?' he said finally.

Acabbie  told me to,' I said. 

' What?' he said.

 where do I start, I thought and will you ever understand?  for one, I hate the script. I am 25 years old and more than a third of my way through, and I have acted perfectly so far without ever   asking for Even a single extra take.  I have scored straight As in  School, become the valedictorian  at Yale  and join the best bank on Wall Street. but I can't live this Truman show  any longer . I dislike the monotonous predictability of my life.  I am tired of making a livelihood filling spreadsheets  that help make rich, fat bastards richer and even more miserable then they already are.  Everyday I get the sinking feeling that I am not creating anything; I am just pushing paper around. done with the 18 hour work days, and i don't need the constant unnecessary  ball- crushing  stress  to make my first million before 30.  you won't understand this, dad, but I don't give a flying  **** whether I become a millionaire by 30 or 36,or even if I don't become one at all. I have realised that I am just not Indian enough to run the race. please try to understand that? 

 What I really want to do is to shave my head, grow a beard, become a hippie, wander around Africa and India for a year and find myself. but I am just not American enough to do that. I am an ABCD, an American Born  Confused Desi, if you will; I can't function without back- up plans, career options and safety nets. so I am taking the safer route and joining business school in India instead. at least there  I can still play the American searching for himself while getting an education that would be somewhat valued by corporate America.  I know these are the vague, spoiled concerns of the ' privileged Americans', as you say, but I am one of them now, am I not? 

 Samrat?  Hello?  Are you still there? 

 Yes, I said. I don't know, dad. I just hate it here.

 you should have listened to me when I told you to join medical school. but no, you did not like medicine. he said.Why  India ,though? have all the business schools here shut down?  After Yale, you should go to Harvard  or  Stanford,  not some school in India. 

 I need a break from here, dad, I said.plus  the whole" second- generation immigrant finding fruits in India" is so glamorous Now, I think it will work to my advantage. differentiate my resume and stuff.'

 this was true, although I could not care less about my resume or my career right now. all the group president in the bank and the Diamond- studded  wives  Had wept  their  stone heart out after seeing bend  it like Beckham and  bride and prejudice and similar nonsense.If I could tell them with the straight face that I had gone to India to find my roots,  there eyes would  probably well over as they handed me job back. 

Its Going to be ok, dad. I am joining the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, not Solapur leadership Institute, so hopefully you will think there is still some hope. I managed to sneak in through the foreign national quota, I said lightly. that did not seem to think it was funny, though .

 beta, 27 years ago I graduated from a similar college in India  and came here to give you a better life. now you want to go back to the place where I began ?  Ultimately, it is your decision, though. we will be supportive of whatever you decided to do, he said tiredly

Surprisingly, his support made me feel irritated  Instead of grateful. I wished he would shout, take me by my shoulders, tell me that it was a wrong decision and forbid me to go. suddenly, I did not want to be an adult, to deviate from the script or Bheem I held accountable for my choices anymore . but my slide down that slippery slope had begin, and there would be no going back now. 

 I spent my last few weeks in the US wrapping up my affairs and communicating my decision to those who mattered  .  the reactions ranged from encouragement,albeit  the Australian variety, from Ruth (' I am disappointed,  but go for it.' no drama. we will be glad to have you back when this foolishness is over.') to disappointment from moum(' this is what happens when you stay alone for so long. at your age, your father had you.  As usual, you are running away from responsibility.') to outright admiration from Peter(' good for you, dude, video you finally struck it to the man. I am very proud  PU and yeah,if  you are Asian roots screwed you over, you should find out what it is all about.  Remember   Tarantino: if someone  stuck a red- hot Poker up you're ***, you've got to find out whose name is on the handle.')

I was glad they understood  in their own ways, though I still was not sure what I was getting into.  Hopefully,  there were more answers than questions in India,  and it would not all be a waste .

i didn't understand the finality of my descision until I was comfortably strapped into my seat on

the twenty-hour-long flight from new york to bangalore with a stopover in paris.

'That's it,'I thought as the flight took off,'no turning back now.' And surprisingly,i found myself getting into the zone of not caring pretty quickly.

I usually get into that zone when things are neither definitively good nor bad:Thet just are.

NOw,for instance,the good (excitement at going to India,escaping the monotony of my life in Manhattan)

balanced the bad (a risky, directionless career move,the prospect of two wasted years).

But there was so much noise in my head that it genuinely didn't ,matter any more.

to hell with it, I thought ,you get one life ,and everyone is allowed a couple of mistakes.Who can predict the future and in the broad scheme of things,does it really matter anyway?

Do what you feel like and hope that it sticks. If it doesn't, throw it again.Maybe it will stick the next time round.And if it doesn't ,who cares?

it's just one insignificant life wasted in the vast ocean of lives all around.

Whatever floats your boat, whatever cranks your tractor,whatever melts your butter,whatever humps your camel,whatever sizzles your bacon,whatever ticles your pickle...

I was so spaced out by the time I was on my connecting flight from paris that i broke my rule of not swapping life stories with the guy sitting in the next seat.

No good can ever come of that.At best,you walk away feeling thankful beacuse you met another fucker in the vast cosmos whose world is even more screwed up than yours;

at worst,you meet a self-satisfied prick who makes you doubt your life's choice.Unfortunately,it was going to be the latter this time.

;Are you out of your mind?'asked the young Indian software engineer dude sitting next to me on the flight.He wasn't being facetious.He seemed genuinely agitated by my descision to quit Wall Street and go to India for an MBA,

with the typical Indian gift for immediate familiarity, he had quickly dispensed with a pleasantries and probed into the intimate details of my life.

He now felt compelled to pass judgement on my choices.

He took off his glasses and squinted at me for a while.

Finally,he said, you'll be fucked there.'He breathed on the lenses and wiped them on his shirt Before putting them back on and continuing , 'look, I don't mean to sound insulting, but you are what we call a"coconut"in India–brown on the outside, white on the inside. You have grown up in the US and can't even begin to understand how screwed up our Indian education system is.'

He immediately dismissed my suggestion that investment banking on Wall Street was not a cakewalk either.

'I don't think you are quite getting it. How do I explain this? The folks in the Indian institute of management, they are…how do I put it…crazy behenchods. They have dreamed all the lives of breaking free from the mythical iron hand of the Indian system that grips your balls the moment you are born into the great Indian middle class. There is no place for Yale's "balanced perspectives","broadened horizones","work-life balance"and other oestrogen-boosting "let us help you get in touch with yourself"stuff at the IIM. There is only one perspective there: get the highest-paying job. People work like dogs, backstab, front stab, side stab—whatever it takes to achieve that. Every year there are cases of suicide.'

I could already feel a cold grip on my balls, but he continue relentlessly.

'look brother, if you still have the chance, just opt out . Live your high life in Manhattan. Save this self discovery for another life. It is all Maya anyway,the chasing of an illusion. How far do you want to travel to realise the decsatisfaction is the nature of existence and unanswerd questions the only real answer?'he said, ending on a surprisingly philosophical note.

The chance conversation would come back to haunt me ad various times over the course of the next 2 years in India. How far did I really need to go before I realised the futility of my journey ?

For now, though, there was no time for second thoughts, or first thoughts for that matter, considering how little time I had invested in this decision. The flight had touched down. I was in Bangalore already, the outsourcing capital of the world and the subject of recent frenzied worldwide debates as it threatened to make the US work force redundant. However, if the same technology cal boom had caused any change in living standards, it was not apparent. We were greated by the customary delay at the airport as multiple flights arrived simultaneously and the immigration queue got longer and longer.

'bastards! Why the hell is it taking them so long to check the papers?'grumbled my engineer who wants to immigrate to India illegally anyway? Bangladeshis is only! And will they arrive from New York on an Air France flight?'

More frustration as an immigration officer decided to leave for his mandatory cigarette and tea break, exhausted by they unexpected exertion that the night had ****** upon him. Expletives filled the air:'Saale sab haraami kaamchor hain','everybody is a ******* bastard.'

'See,for you, all this must be charming. The authentic Indian experience that you are seeking in your quixotic trip . However, I promise that if you stay long enough, this kind of stuff will start messing with your head. How can we keep caressening our balls with stories of globalisation when even our most basic infrastructure is so hopeless ?'ranted my bitter friend.

I did not find this oft-romanticized sight'charming'in the least. I was not Paul Theroux or Mark Twain or even Patrick Swayze, out here to experience the city of joy and pontificate on the plight of humanity. I was just another ordinary traveler on un-heroic journey; one more lost soul in the sea of lost faces around me, how to fill a known void with an unknown one. But I did not mention this to my friend who was closed to breaking point anyway. He seemed to be waging his own private war against the system and chair up after scowling at the immigration officer who checked his papers. He offer to give me a right to the Indian institute of management.

'my car is outside. It is horribly expensive and unsave to keep the car Parked there during a long trip, but I have an arrangement with the parking lot guys. They watch it and don't charge me the full rates. In India, everyone has some kind of arrangement or another', he explained. 'you stay here, I will be back in 1 second.'

Waiting outside arrivals, it feels like I did stepped into a riot. I did forgotten what it felt like. A cacophony of sounds, people everywhere as for as the eye could see, stale air smelling of automobiles smoke, industrial exhaust and strong tobacco, blaring horns, a swarm of frenzied taxi-drivers descending on me to Bags away, more shouting, screaming and cursing. A taste of India, I thought, would I really be able to survive 2 years here away from the creature comforts of the US?

Soon enough, a small bride red car pulled over. My friend got out to help me load my bags. As a squeeze myself in beside him, I immediately detected the sweet smell of marijuana. Then I noticed the dreamy look in his red eyes and the conspirational expression on his face.

'need a joint whenever I get to the airport, man, otherwise the traffic gets to me', he explain it apologitically. 'don't worry, it won't impact my driving. I have a couple everyday in the morning before I drive to work'.' Was that supposed to make me feel better?

I wandered weather I should get a cab instead, but dad's words came to mind. Much to Ma's dismay, he had relinted to give me some rare fatherly advise just before I felt:

'now that you have decided to go, beta, here is my only piece of advise. Learn to let go in India. Succumb to India. I always filled that America makes you very soft and self-centred. India will make you a man if you allowed it to.'

I decided to be a man and entered his car.'would you like to have a joint as well?'he said. sure, why not? That is why I did just left my quarter-million-dollar Wall Street job. To smoke marijuana in India, be driven along the madness of Indian roads with the stone a driver whose hands trembled as they gripped the steering wheel, and possibly end my inglorious pursuit before it even started.

I am speeding truck, a stoned driver, both passenger and driver killed instantinously—it was probably a typical Indian story that would not even grace the inside pages of the local newspaper.

'yes, of course,'I said aloud. I am going to make you very proud today, Dad.

Soon we wear flying, and I revelled in my friends acute observations has he drop the car at formula 1 speed over narrow roads. I concentrated on looking straight ahead, into blinding headlights.

'it is all a waste,'he said.

'what is?'I looked around, wondering if I had missed something on the road.

'all of this!'he shouted, agitated at my every ******* inch of removed both hands from the steering wheel and waved at the passing world. The car nearly swerved of the road.'lies, hypocrisy, sleaze; it is all around you. They teach their kids to bomb airplanes but won't let them write **** on the walls.'

'Okay,okay,got it,'I said hastily.'you are right it is a waste. Everything is.'

We drove in silence for a while, racing big SUV's, all inexplicably white, when suddenly the road became very bumpy indeed. The seat belt was broken, so I had to hold on tightly to my seat to avoid hitting the ceiling.

'fitting,'he said.

'What?' i asked

'this is the approach to road to the IIM. It is falling apart,'he said slowly.

'what is fitting about that?' i asked,puzzled.

Hitler is head back and laughed. The car took another dangerous turn. It is metaphorical allegorical, whatever.'

It did not make any sense, but I said nothing, worried he would lose control of the car.

'the world. It is falling apart,'he said suddenly after a long silence, As we pulled up at tall, imposing gate.' we live, we breathe, we pay mortgage, we die, just chasing wind and trying to catch the I wandered what had inspired this outburst. The entrance to the institute looked harmless enough—-warm white gates, an Indian institute of management sign lazily perched on a spire, and a lush green approach to the main building.

'best of luck, man,'my friend said as he dropped me always remember, nothing matters. It is a cosmic conspiracy.'

Buy now, the Dope had hit me as well. We both gigad histerically. I bade him farewell, delighted at the fact that we had not even exchanged names during the past 20-24 hours of knowing each other. Nor e-mail addresses, telephone numbers or promises to meet again. There was nothing fake about our encounter. And I was finally ready to live my own life. I giggled again. This was India, things were probably real here.

Would I have choosen a different room in the hostel if had not been stoned that night? Probably.

My tiresome type-a traits would have kick in. I would have checked multiple rooms, analysed their pros and cons and probably chosen a bigger room than the small one I had drifted into. But then, would I ever have run into shine Sarkar at the IIM? At Yale, Peter had once stumbled into my room high as a kite and said,'dude, it's all connected!'before passing out on the floor. I had taught nothing of the comment at the time, and had resume my studies as usual after dragging him to his bed.

But now I thought I understood what he meant. In a sense, everything that happened in India followed a well-laid-out master plan, though it seem would like a series of random events to start with. Or perhaps, it was a deathwish of some sort: I had probably been asking out disaster from the moment I arrived here.

It started with a loud, insolent knock on my door that jolted me awake the next morning. My head hurt from the combined effect of the jet lag, the airport ordeal and the late-night marijuana romp. I woke up confused. Why were the walls of my room covered with crumbling, pale whitewash, and where was the monet? But it did not take me long to get back my bearings. With what I would later recognise as disrespect for personal space, so characteristics of life here, a small, dark Bilbo baggins-esque character, who seem to be in unusual good humour, barged into my room as soon as I opened the door.

'Ah! You are the famous firang who is going to live next to me. I must say I am disappointed, though I was expecting the real deal, A gora—a white-Skinned archi with hairless skin, red hair and freckless on his nose,'he said, longing himself down on my bed, 'but you, my friend, you look even more Indian then I do. A 6-foot Plus, broad-shoulder brown giant: Shiva's very own phallic symbol of Indian manhood. Don't worry, I know I am making no sense. I am Sarkar by the way–shine Sarkar, your next-door neighbour.'

I try to figure out if he was drunk. He did not seem to be.

I am Samrat Ratan,'I mumbled, trying to adjust to this new, undesired presence in my how do you know I am from the US?'

'thank God, at least the ancient is authentic and Samrat sounds like a real hippie name. And your red eyes do betray a true jetlag. you are a major celebrity already, firang. Everybody is talking about the Manhattan-based investment banker from Wall Street who has decided to Grace us with his presence at the IIM,'he said.

I was surprised.'what? Why? That hardly warrant star status'.

'you have to understand,'Sarkar they won't show you this in the Hollywood films about the slums and whores of real India, but becoming an investment banker on Wall Street is the kind of fantasy that adolescent wet dreams are made of in India. And you decided to leave all that and come here; you are the star of the great Indian middle class porn blockbuster.'

He jabbered on. I think you need an authentic Indian cigarette to wake you up. Here, have a Wills Navy cut. It won't help you win friends or get laid as the ads show, but it will definitely wake you up.

'he was right. It was Harsh, quite unlike that dunhill lights I smoked in Manhattan, and screamed cancer. The smoke burnt its way down my throat, slowly waking me up in a few drags.

The walked out of the room and I was immediately struck by the shark, uneven beauty of the IIM campus. The view from our shared balcony was straight out of those sucker tourist postcards that people put up as wallpaper on their desktop. Directly in front of the student hostel was a courtyard with hibiscus and gulmohar trees, not flowering but not completely bare either . Behind us was an Olympic-size playground with a basketball arena, a mini-soccer field and even skating rink.('is that a god damn and skating area?'Sarkar said, equally taken aback as his eyes followed mine, but for different what kind of a wimp skates in India?') the main institute building adjoining the residential hostel seemed to be some sort of a neo-imprisonist architectural marvel. From the distant view we got from our balcony, it seem would like cubes were placed over each other to form a complex castle-like structure. I am usually suspicious of people who climax at seeing oddly shaped buildings and say stuff like'great endeavour of the mind'or or'victory of the human'but this view of the imposing building moved me. Not to the point of having an Earth-shattering ****** or anything, but still, it was impressive.

'what? You thought all of India was like Gandhi's ashram?'said Sarkar at my obvious surprise .

I felt ashamed. He was right. I was behaving like a redneck tourist from Kentucky (which I was). Still, I was not too far of the mark, as I would learn later . The campus stood Oasis-like amidst the crumbling infrastructure outside. While potholed roads that ensure a bone-breaking ride are not unusual in India, the road leading to the sprawling IIM campus was a real mother. During one particularly Harsh monsoon, a visiting professor from Romania or some other exotic eastern European country received a little more than the authentic Indian experience he was seeking when his airport cab sputtered and died on the flooded road. He had to wade his way through shoulder-high water to reach the campus. And if that was not enough, the unlucky bastard went on to collide with a floating, dead buffalo and lost his laptop in the ensuing chaos. After shaking of the sordid memories of his introduction to the IIM, he must have wondered how the best business school in the country could be so oblivious to the management problems that abounded in its immediate environment. But as we would soon discover, that precisely was the unofficial Moto of the denizens of the business school:'ensure your own house is in a shamebless.'

Sarkar perched himself on the balcony ledge smoking a cigarette, clearly enjoying the pleasant summer breeze.

'so , where did you go to school? What is your story?'I asked him.

'not even midly as interesting as yours, firang. Mine is a typical Indian story, similar I would presume to almost everyone else here. No clear ambition, no governing interest, just drifting along, doing things I am supposed to be doing, collecting degree along the way. I had an engineering degree before I came here, I must admit I am horrible engineer. I can't even screw on a light bulb, but thanks to the wretchedness of our education system, I graduated with honours from the IIT.'

And honour student from the Indian institute of technology? I knew enough about those to know that he was way smarter than he climbed to be. His story was not two different from mine, though. I had done physics at Yale by default, and had realised in my complete in aptitude for it before drifting into a soulless banking job.

I was about to tell him that when we heard a shrill voice call out from behind,'hey guys! Are you going for lunch?'

It belong to a small, bepectacled guy with thinning hair as oily his smile. 'myself Chetan Sharma from Mumbai, chartered accountant. I heard you were and investment banker in New York . I wanted to make an introduction.'

Word travels fast in India, I thought. We made the prefunctory introductions. Once the smile was gone, Chetan had a worried, anxious look on his face. I did not want to judge him to harshly and so soon, but he did resemble the gollums on Wall Street: bankers whose obsession with their year-end bonus rivalled the fixation of the legendary Tolkien character. Or as brad Pitt(more eloquent,in my opinion, than Tolkien) said in fight club:'the things that they own start owning them'. Over the course of the conversation, Chetan gave a disinterested Sarkar and the some what fascinated me a detailed description of his scoring'always 90% at least'in school, which I guessed meant straight As, his acing the prestigious national chartered accountancy examination and his frustration at being rejected by the Indian institute of management at Ahmedabad, arguably the best of the IIM's. 'Chuitiyas. The interviewers were asking too many personal questions on soft stuff like listening skills, sensitivity, etc. Are they interviewing me to be an investment banker or a call girl?'

Clearly, he had not learned a lesson in sensitivity from the debacle. Chetan Seened impressed by sarkar's IIT pedigree and completely stupefied by my decision to quit an investment Bank on Wall Street.

'but yaar,why? What do you ever hope to get from here?'he asked.

Hmm, where do I begin, I thought, and do I really know ? I thought I knew yesterday when I was sharing a joint with a nameless software engineer who shared more of himself with me in a day then most of my colleagues back home shared with me over 2 years of working together. And I think I know, right now, sitting on this balcony with you perfect strangers who are so blasé about revealing everything about yourselves so easily to each other. I came here to live a real life once again, not an imitation of someone else's reality. Does that answer your question? I hope it does because I am getting sick of answering it.

But I did not reveal myself so easily. I don't know for sure,man. An international experience is valued in Wall Street. Global mergers and acquisitions, economic growth of developing markets and the expected retail explosion in India, all that kind of stuff, you know', he seemed a triple suspicious but let it fly.

Chetan's room was on my right and sarkar's on the left. The two sides would go on to represent the two extreme ways that I would try to live my life at the IIM. Although I tended to lean towards her sarkar's self-destructive hedonistic philosophy, I developed more than a grudging respect for chetan's unapologetic ***** ambition for grades and jobs, however empty it seemed at most times.

We went to the cafeteria for lunch. The spread of authentic Indian food there reminded me of the platinum blonde who had found the sushi restaurant'ethnic'. She would definitely climax at the food here. But then again, maybe not. This cafeteria would not be ethnic enough for her. There were no photographs of the Taj Mahal on the walls, no Sanskrit calligraphy on the table cloth and no integrate drawings of palaces on the plates. Just a white washed hole with rows of steel tables and foldable chairs. She would probably be disappointed. The Bukhara spice on times square with it sitar - wielding host was far more 'Indian'. Boy, was I glad I had got away!

Sitting there, devouring the best Indian meal I did had in months, I felt almost optimistic at what lay ahead. There would be new faces and interesting experiences, and investment banking had said such a low base for happiness that it would not be too difficult to cross that. I exchange it enthusiastic introductions with many of my new classmates over lunch that day. Has Sarkar had predicted, most had heard of me and were suitably stupified by my foolishness, and in one case, even annoyed by it.

'NRI,eh? Said a short, obese, angry - looking guy with spiked hair in a tone that could well have meant bastard or cocksucker.

'not really', I said. 'I am not a non-resident Indian; I am an American citizen.'

He shrugged. Same what I don't understand is why you guys come back. Did not you think about your roots or about your kids growing up in the American culture, or whatever it is that makes you return, when you left in the first place?'he asked.

There was a slight hush at the table. Even for India, were expressing offensive personal views was seemingly as common as asking,'how was your weekend,'he seemed to have crossed the line. Not that I could defend myself with any lofty assertion. My coming here was not like Mahatma Gandhi returning from South Africa to lead India from darkness. Assisting India's development or anyone else is development for that matter was a distant concern in my mind. How could you save the world when you could not save yourself?

'and since when have you become a gatekeeper for India?'a calm voice asked him, saving me from the embarrassment of answering. It belong to a tall ,muscular, Mills - and - Boon sort of a guy with the short crew cut, who had been quietly eating his food so far. Like everyone else, he seemed to be his early or mid-20s, but his demeanor commanded respect.

'I am just a concerned citizen,'the short dude said as if he had just smoked out a CIA agent hatching a plot against India.

'you should have been fighting with me in kargil then,'the tall guy said.Ah-ha, I thought, an ex-army officer. unless, of course, you were doing more important stuff for the country then. You must have been in politics, are in an NGO maybe?'

'no, I was working in a software firm,'the short guy said in a small voice.

'canvassing for funds for war veterans in your spare time, perhaps? The army officer said.

'I was busy preparing for the IIM entrance examination then,'he said, clearly embarrassed.

The table tittered with quite laugher.

'not everyone is born with the silver spoon,'he said, taking another **** at me before slinking away from the table. Sarkar and I introduce it ourself to vinod Singh, the army guy.

'don't sweat it', vinod everybody in India is an expert on nationalism. When we were fighting in Kashmir, we used to hear single - digit - IQ film personalities after their view on military strategies on the radio.'

'jingoism is an Indian problem,'said sarkar caustically.'he pointed to the vacant seat where the short, fat dude had he would probably rate navjot Singh sidhu and Salman Khan as bigger Patriots then Mahatma Gandhi or nehru.'

Vinod's body shook with laughter .'Sidhu is a cricketer and Khan is a movie star,'he explained it to me. Then to sarkar, 'dead heroes in their own right.'

'heroes, my ***. Ask them to play for the country without wearing a Pepsi t - shirt and Dora underwear, then maybe I will believe you. What is patriotic about being offered a million dollars in endorsements to play a dump cricket match? It is a scam. See, that is why I want to get out of this country. It is like toole's confederacy of dunces, idiots everywhere the eye can see,'said yet our friend has come here,'he continued, pointing to me.

'why did you leave the army?'I said quickly, trying to avert another discussion about my foolishness.the cafeteria is closing,'said sarkar before vinod could why don't we shift the base to a daba?'lunches are long, elaborate affairs in India, and I had not realized it we had been sitting there for a couple of hours. In my previous life, lunch took all of 10 minutes as I grabbed a tuna sandwich everyday at the same deli and wolfed it down in front of my computer while ferociously tracking the moment of our client company stocks. Now there were no more stocks to track, the market had closed down for me. Not that I was complaining.

'there is one right outside the campus,'said we can go on my bike'.

I had planned on going back to my room to do the suggested pre-read for the next day, our first day of classes, and Vinod also seemed a bit doubtful. Sensing our hesitation, sarkar added,'we will be back soon, I promise. No drinking and stuff, just a cup of tea. I need a break.'

This was the first day and we did not know them that sarkar always needed a break.

Before we knew it, both of us had been convinced to ride pillion on sarkar's bike through the mini - riot of Bangalore streets. We stopped at the highway stall, or daba as I learned to call it, a few miles away from campus ,and sad don't you enjoy a cup of tea. I smelled grass again.

After having studiously avoided drugs through High school and Yale, they seem to be following me around ever since I had landed in India. It made me feel like that Alchemist —the universe seem to be conspiring to fulfill my hidden desires.

Sarkar had lit up a joint and was smoking it openly while slurping his tea.

'Hey, aren't there any cops around here?'I asked, surprised by his brazeness.

He interned surprise by my ignorance.' this is not America. There are bigger crimes for cops to bother about then arrest Singapore student contemplating life over some ganja. Here, you have one as well.'

The joint looked tempting. I reached out for it. It was stronger and harsher than the one I did smoked yesterday.

We perched ourself comfortably on the lon cot. Vinod casually placed his arm around sarkar's shoulder. They look good like a gay version from the movie twins; sarkar was decidedly short and fat, and vinod was way taller and built like an Adonis. I would have to get used to the Indian comfort with same - sex physical proximity, I thought. In another life, I would have thought Vinod and Sarkar were gay. Well, how did I know they were not, I mused. I did barely met them. But of course they were not. They had revealed everything about themselves so quickly to me that matters of sexual preferences would definitely have come up. Both of them were similar in that way. They had the same self-assured Air of'look, this is what I am. Don't like it? Then screw you. Go change yourself'.

I took a long drag and passed it on to vinod, who refused. ('no ganja for me. I have very few brain cells as it is.') he bought a bottle of rum from the daba and began emptying it's steadily.

'you were saying? About leaving the army?'I asked again.

'haan,yes,'vinod said.' I was very young, barely 17, when I joined the National defense academy, the Indian equivalent of your West point, that is. All of us were dying to get into a war when we graduated. We could not believe our luck when the Kargil war was announcer and we begged to be chosen for it.'

'peace man. Peace out. No war,'said Sarkar sounding very stoned.

'long story short, the world took its toll,'he said.'we killed, they killed, some friends died, others lost their limbs, and we started to understand the politics of it for the first time. The old soldiers were all jaded has hell. It is useless, they said, as soon as we start driving the pakistani's away, some politician will want Muslim words and there will be peace again. War is useless, our biggest enemies within us, they would say. Nothing made much sense and I did not feel like a hero as I had thought I would. I just felt stupid,'said but it was not that, really. It was…'he passed to drain his glass. We started at him expectantly.

'well, nothing as such. I was reading a lot, newspapers, politics, war fiction, trying to make sense of things once I got back. When it came down to it, I realized , most of my work was pushing paper around, if I was lucky–and killing people if I was not. And then once…. Well, it sounds foolish…'

'don't stop now,'said sarkar, slouching on the cot and suddenly looking interested.

'no, nothing, it was just a stupid incident. My best mate, another lieutenant, had lost his leg in the war. His CO, commanding officer that is, was coming for a visit to the regiment and he was sent to make sure the COS room was all right. So there he was, an officer in the army, a war hero who lost a leg for the country, standing on one leg and checking to ensure that the flush was working for the CO's visit. It was sad in a very pathetic sort of way. And I kind of decided that if I had to push paper and check the bathroom plumbing for a superior's visit, I did rather do it in the corporate world. At least my family would get some money and security. It is kind of stupid, you know, how small things just to set the chain of events in motion,'he said. He poured another glass for himself.

Barely a year older than me, and he had lived more than I would live in my whole life, I thought. He was probably having a bayonet ****** at his stomach when I was eating sushi with Christine and trying to figure out how to recover my lost soul in India. The selfishness and insignificance of my crisis was suddenly disconcerting.

'good decision,'said Sarkar.'of course, you will miss out on the honor of Aishwarya Rai bringing the wreath to your funeral, and Anu Kapoor dedicating an episode of Indian idol to your memory.'

Vinod broke into laughter.'I did not mean it that way. I respect the soldiers, I love my country, I don't ever want to leave India. But I was a misfit in the army, I think.'

'I think we are all perfect fits in business school, though,'said sarkar, lazily we were all happy with our lives, and came here because we really wanted to get an MBA.'

It was such a pessimistic statement for the first day of business school that I could not help but laugh. He had given up even before starting; finally, I could tell mom then I had met my match at running away from responsibility. I took another long drag of the joint.

The marijuana started to kick in and the world seemed to slow down a bit. The tea was excessively hot, milky and sweet–and tasted delicious. I could feel it slowly, pleasantly burning its way down my throat. The strong petrol fumes from passing vehicles started to smell inexplicably good. I could make out fine dust particles rising leisurely from the ground. The radio was playing soft, pleasing songs in an unknown, melodious language. The race of the setting Sun and the dust particle seem to fuse together to create a radiant spectrum of colors. Funny, I thought, I could not seem to recall noticing dusk before. I felt a sudden burst of joy. Everything will work out, I said to myself, I just have to make the most of my time in India. However, I thought distractedly, looking at the joint in my hand, I need to be in my senses to do that. I should not smoke up so much. I had smoked yesterday as well.

'we should not do this, you know,'I said. My head felt heavy and I was struggling to form a coherent, complete thought.

'do what?'sarkar said.

'what?'I said, puzzled.

'you said we should not do this,'he said.

'we should not do what?'I asked.

'that is what I asked,'sarkar said.

'no, I asked that,'I said, struggling to understand.

'no, you said we should not do this,'sarkar said.

'do what?'I asked.

'what do you said….'he said.

'what?'I said.

'you are stoned out of your minds. I can't listen to this conversation,'vinod said unbearably loudly.

I sprawled on the cot, supporting my head with my right hand and holding the joint in my left, staring at the empty earthenware cups strewn on the ground.

Many peaceful, stoned hours passed. The daba began buzzing with night - time activity. Truck drivers with their cargo, large families on long journeys, random groups of college students on their dinner break–all arrived, made arbitrary conversation and left, each lost in their own world, trudging along, trying to make sense of the fundamental incomprehensibility that surrounded them it is all cosmic conspiracy,'the software engineers words came back to me. I giggled at the recollection of the previous night.

A lazy, vacant eternity passed.

I saw you not get up to strike up a conversation with the group of soldiers who had just disembarked from their gigantic, oddly shaped green metallic monster of a vehicle. ('it is called a three-ton,'I I think I should go,'he said.)

Sarkar yawned lazily beside me.

Sarkar and vinod were pretty cool, I thought, but could we ever become friends? Real friends, I mean. I had asked Baba once why all his friends were Indians.

'dad, why don't you have a single close American friend?'I had asked somewhat tactlessly .

He was surprisingly forthright:'there is always a chasm between us, the divide caused by the absence of a common past. There are no shared memories of frat parties, tailgating, hazing and ball games that I can reminisce with them about, the same way they can't understand sholay and Kapil Dev.'

Maybe he was right, I thought, and I did never be able to get really close to my Indian friends. I had hardly caught any of the references—Annu whatever, some sidhu. But it did not not seem to matter. Then again, maybe our generation was different. We had, after all, grown up in a flatter, more concordant world.

I turn to do you think the absence of common past matters, dude?'I asked.

He looked up drowsily, spewing Blue smoke.'Huh?'he said.' what? Do you want to go back?'

'go back where?'I asked.

'back.'sarkar sounded desert.

'okay, back,'I said.

'I can go, I guess, if you are tired,'he said.

'no, I am fine. You decide if…'I said.

'no, I am fine. You decide', he said.

'no, I am fine. You decide', I replied, liking the sound of the words.

'no, I am fine. You decide', he said.

'no, I am fine. you decide,'I said.

'okay, I just made it offers can make a decision,'he said.

Vinod came back just then and asked,'should we go back?'

Sarkar and I looked at each other and burst out laughing, nearly falling off the cot I'm rolling about uncontrollably. The hot Ash from the joint fell on my forearms and the sudden burning sensation felt good.

'let me ask again. Should we leave now? It is almost dawn and classes begin in a few hours,'vinod said.

I could not explain the effort to dissect the issue logically. Sarkar seemed lost in thought as well.

'let's just go,'vinod this is what happens when you smoke that ganja of yours.'

Sarkar seemed to break from his trance at this comment and uttered his only coherent thought of the day.

'I smoke it in protest, man,'he marijuana exist naturally as a plant. Who is the government to ban god's creation? It is like me wanting to make potatoes illegal because I don't like the way they taste.'

Wow, I thought, this sounds profound. What did he say again?

The chillybbangalore air slowly knocked me back into my senses on the right back. As we went back to our rooms, I was a triffle worried about the classes scheduled to begin in a few hours, as was vinod, no doubt. Sarkar did not seem to care one way or the other, and in fact suggested in final round back in our rooms, which both we know that I declined. I checked the time: 4:30 a.m. classes begin at 8:00 in the morning. Of course, none of us had done any pre-work whatsoever. For the second day in a row, I had smoked up and barely slept, and though the IIM seemed like a cool place so far, an assortment of unsolicited advisors had assured me that academics would be brutal and unmanageable. Lying on my bed stoned, this seemed incomprehensible. Whatever, I thought, as i drifted off to sleep.

I had seen worse before. How bad could this be?