Of readers and writers

30th March 2007

Of late I’ve experienced solitude like I’ve never experienced before. I have a premonition of impending doom on my life. There’s a reason for it and that in itself is paradoxical; knowing the reason should be a good enough reason to change the path leading to disaster. Sitting alone at my home, I’ve realized that I have little control over my bad habits. I will not delve into the niceties of how they eat up my time, but would like to quote something said by someone, sometime ago “temptation normally comes in through a door that has deliberately left open”. Sometimes the past haunts me while I’m trying to understand the principles of rotational motion behind centrifugation and my mind spins out of control. Then I start reasoning as to what happened in the past and why it happened while the chapter of centrifugation is snapped shut in frustration. But then I reopen it and say to myself "....I gotta do research buddy...I have to explore and discover and invent...I can't waste my time like this."

I’m not a student of literature but I do like reading once in a while. I do not like most self help books and most fiction novels (I do not really need to read an extraneously created fiction…there’s enough fiction stored and created every now and then in my brain…makes life difficult for me).

I love something else though; short stories, essays and sometimes, poetry. The other day I was reading a short story by Leo Tolstoy, “Three Hermits”, a wonderful creation and I strongly suggest you read it if you haven’t already. We all need to do a lot of introspection and you’ll realize what I mean when you read it.

Then I read Stephen Leacock’s “the awful fate”. I remember another one I read by Leacock a long time back “my lost dollar” and another one "my financial career" in which a guy has a phobia of going to banks. I just love the way Leacock creates funny situations on people who can not express themselves aptly and create difficult situations for themselves while clinging on to waning hope that others would understand them. By the time I finished reading “the awful fate”, I was hysterical; I couldn’t stop laughing (and almost empathizing) at the character Mr. Jones.

I also find Jim Corbett’s work (Of course! not the one he did with the gun) very interesting and while reading a collection of his stories in the book titled “Temple Tiger”, I was transported to another world. The fear and the adrenalin rush I felt as I read the book were surreal.

It’s 2:00 am in the morning and I’ll end it here. But before I do, I’d like to say one thing about “The metamorphosis” by Kafka. It deeply affected my psyche. It is so sad…WHY DID GREGOR DIE…why? Boo hoo hoo!! Why couldn’t he have metamorphosed back into a human and had a good life…why oh why? I read this story only recently…say 3 months back…and I’m still sad (even though it ends on some kind of a positive note.) Why is the world so cruel and why do people you love turn their backs on you and even try to harm you…WHY?? (OH DAMN! WILL I JUST STOP RELATING EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD TO MY PERSONAL LIFE…I just hate myself for this)

Last but not least, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created a character I absolutely adore (I’m sure I’m just one of the millions).

now we use SEX to SELL COOKIES and other stuff

“Is it really that big?”
Rediffmail advertisement. The double-entendre is quite apparent; a woman putting on lipsticks while she tells her excited friend in a sultry manner about Raju’s “thing” being that big, does make me laugh…lips and “thing”…ho ho ho!! She even claims to have seen “it”.
Then they show a surd who is not ready to believe that Raju’s is that big.
Then they show Raju, a guy of short stature and a baby face, peeing in the loo. A man next to him greets him while looking at his “thing”… [Now this is really a very DIRECT hit about what they’re otherwise only stating implicitly. This really spells out what they have on their mind…tell me something guys, you don’t pee using your e-mail account, do you? What the heck was that man staring at Raju’s lily for while he peed? And he even gives a smile while looking at his…]
Finally the secret is revealed “it’s not big. It’s unlimited”; it’s Raju’s e-mail account.
NOW TELL ME SOMETHING!!
Why would any guy be so interested in knowing about another guy having a huge “thing”? Tell me, has nature been so miserly with them that they find themselves so inadequate and small OR are they just homosexuals.
The ad ends with the line, “big enough for anything”. OOOHHHH MANNNN!!! If you consider the primal-hint that the ad gives in the beginning, what the heck are they talking about…? I understand that these days some women have become really greedy but this is ridiculous…Why a “man” at all, a horse would do better in that case!
You Rediff people are absurd. As always, please excuse.
Thankfully, at the end of the ad, they show that people were actually misunderstanding the size of Raju’s e-mail account for the size of his “thing”…and we do thank God for the fact that it wasn’t an ad about 6£^[$ enlargement (like the freaking spam mails that we keep receiving these days) like it hinted in the beginning.
SHOCK VALUE SELLS!! SEX SELLS…There are other ads that initially look like ads for an aphrodisiac and/or condoms …but they’re actually advertisements for COOKIES!! [MILANO and DARK FANTASY if you remember!!]…now you need sex to sell food!! Lame Man!!
The ad world is so mixed up that if I’m watching an advertisement for a condom for the first time, more than half way through, I’m almost sure that it’ll be an ad for a bloody new cookie…not till the time they say it loud…Kamasutra or Moods…or whatever…am I ready to believe that it’s a condom’s ad…cookies and condoms, soon there’ll be a technological breakthrough and there’ll be no difference between the two.
But tell me something, I’ve had a rediff account for the past 5years and I have hardly deleted any mails from it. It would take me a whole day or two to go through all of them and the stats show that I’m using only 14% of the total 2Gb assigned space)…So wasn’t it unlimited already?…bloody publicity gimmick.
If you still disagree and say that now you can send huge attachments… tell me something sister/bro, have you ever tried to attach a file of size around 3-4mb? It takes not less than 15-30mins on a broad band connection. Who the heck will be bold enough to try and attach a bigger file?
So it really doesn’t matter if it’s unlimited now…it’s still the same.

DISCLAIMER- No one can hold me personally responsible for whatever trash I write on my blog. I mostly start writing after midnight…at that time of night, it’s no longer me…it’s the “MONSTER”…this is a sobriquet bestowed on me by an alien!

Waver no more

23rd March 2007


They said one day, it would all disappear
All, to me that was once dear
I stand alone in the balcony and stare at the moon
I wonder if the approaching minute brings doom.

I recall your face and I see a stranger
I feel no love, affection or even anger
The moments we spent together
Now seem weightless like a feather

As I am caressed by the breeze
Your memories start to freeze
I stand alone and look at the dark sky
The stars fill me with strength to climb high

Then thoughtless and for sometime, blank
I wonder if I have any memories left to rank
Sometime back, there were many I had of you
Now there seem to be none, not even a few

I have no reason to stay stuck in the past
I have all the reasons to move ahead and fast
I’ll move on and annihilate my adversaries
One of them happen to be your memories

I’ve had eclectic experiences, therefore
In the game of life, I’m not an amateur anymore
I finally see what needs to be done
Now I see why this war needs to be won.

So I cast your memories away
I know I’m walking on the right way
This heart will not be stirred again,
And if it ever does, it won’t be in vain.

Thou shall not steal !!!

I’d like to write something from the past (again) .
I remember the day I stole something…(hey I’m not a kleptomaniac ok...I was just a kid back then)...
I was in 8th standard, dad and I used to stay together, mom lived away. Dad was (is) an exxxtremely logic based person (by the way such people make good analysts but have generally poor imagination. I’m definitely not his alter-ego, rather I’m just the opposite …reasonably imaginative and highly illogical most of the time). That digression was necessary to explain what follows. I asked him to buy me a cap. After much explanation about the need for one, I was given one…an ugly one…I hated it…it was white with a coconut tree and beach painted and across it was written “Sands”…GRRR GRRR!!! But to dad any cap was cap. Technically it solved the purpose but aesthetically it sucked. I wasn’t planning to have a discussion about a contentious issue like “beauty” with my dad. As a school kid, I was never in a mood to abnegate my wishes, but that was something that “inadvertently” I always had to do… (Renounce yet another wish!! C’mon man! The only thing left to do was to wish that I would stop wishing. C’mon dad, either get me a good cap or put me in some other school…see, that might sound illogical to you…I understand!).

I used to go for basketball coaching (5 hours everyday after school…basically that’s where I lived my life) in those days. All the anger and frustration used to be vented out on the basketball. So one holiday evening I was fooling around in the court, I saw a cap hanging on a hook. The stadium was rather empty and there was no one in and around the basketball court. After getting tired of all the exertion I looked at the cap and then looked away. I looked at the cap again, it seemed to be saying to me, “hey boy!! Look at me, am I not pretty? Look at me…feel my soft fabric…put me one and now take me away, I’m all yours!!” I knew it belonged to one of the people inthe stadium and a strong voice inside me told me not to look at the cap at all...but there was another voice that said to the cap “YOU’RE MINE HONEY!! GET READY TO BE KIDNAPPED” And in a rush of adrenalin, I picked it up and and walked away. I was excited to finally possess a smart cap, though I felt guilty ecerytime I looked at it. I was very well aware about the fact that I had labelled myself as a thief in my own conscience. Slowly, the guilt overpowered me but I had no idea about how to undo it. The next day one of my classmates saw the cap and wanted to have it. He sat and explained to me for a long time that the cap didn’t suit me and looked great on him and that if I gave it to him, I’d be doing a favor to the cap. Actually I didn’t believe him completely and thought that he looked like a freaking “skinned fowl with a nicely beaten boxer's eyes” wearing that cap…it accentuated his eyes and his eyes were a shame to the optic aesthetics of humans…PHEW! Anyway, it didn’t suit me either, I was wafer thin in those days (I weighed 50kgs back then...now I weigh 82Kgs and people still call me skinny so you can imagine...of course I was a wee bit shorter than I am now) and when I put the cap on, it gobbled most of my face…it looked more of a face mask than a cap on me besides I was feeling bad enough about having stolen it, so I gave the cap to him.

Cap-less and content without one, I was going up the stairs late one evening when I saw a stranger come out of my house and leave with a big smile on his face. OUCH!! That was the owner of the cap…somehow he had tracked my address (someone who knew me as well as him had seen me with his cap and guided him to my place). Later I learnt that dad paid him Rs200/- that he asked for in return for the cap that I stole. When I entered, dad was standing in a corner in a state of shock and disbelief. He saw me and the emotions turned to something I was more familiar with (bloodshot eyes!! High blood pressure!! Veins popping out of his forehead…Run baby run baby run!!), “you bastard, now you’ve started stealing people’s stuff! Is that what I’ve taught you about life” he roared almost blowing my eardrums out. “No time to get emotional” I thought to myself and retraced my steps out the door and down the stairs with full speed as my dad reached for his leather belt that he so generously used with the full force of a grown man to “teach” me about life ever since the time I was 6 years old.

As I raced up to the market place, I had a practical thought in my mind, “Where am I going to spend the night? There’s no way I’ll go back home, the old man will skin me alive and sell my skin to the tanners”. Lost in thoughts of regret and survival I walked on and on. After much thinking I realized that I wasn’t familiar to any place except the stadium. So I reached the stadium, jumped the wall and entered, it was pitch-dark inside. I crossed the basketball court the jogging-track and reached the seating area that was made of bricks. I sat there in quiet darkness thinking what I was going to do next; I was hoping that dad wouldn’t track me down to the stadium. I wasn’t crying, I was just terrified…terrified of my dad, terrified of the cap owner, terrified at the thoughts of my class mates, terrified at the thoughts of my school, terrified at the thoughts of my team mates, terrified of the people on the street outside…terrified of the notorious pack stray dogs living in that area around the stadium. In fact so terrified was I that night that the cold, rough, hard earthen surface I was sitting on, the pitch black surroundings and the black cloudy sky (I remember I couldn’t see any stars) actually felt very comforting. There were millions of thoughts going on in my head, then after sitting and thinking about random stuff for a long time I felt sleepy. I stretched my limbs on the sitting area and dozed off.

Droplets of water and thunder woke me up (I did not have a watch with me so I had no idea what time it was); it started to rain. I thought “why don’t I go back home, I’ll sleep near the stairs and dad will probably let me in, in the morning. Better to be running fever and found outside home than be running fever and walk all the distance back home in the morning…where else would I go?” The sound of the thunder was unpleasant enough and lightening flashes illuminated the wildly swaying trees that were now looking like giant monsters with ominous intentions. I ran up to the wall and jumped out of that eerie place. I ran as fast as I could (thankfully I was wearing shoes not slippers). Home was around 1.5 kms away from the stadium; I covered the distance pretty quickly. Running in all that rain wasn’t a very nice experience but fortunately the rain kept the stray dogs at bay (they would’ve never forgiven me for trespassing…they got quite aggressive as the night approached).

My “maturity” told me that dad would probably be sleeping soundly in his bed. When I neared the park in front of the house, I saw a silhouette some distance away from me. It was my dad calling out my name, thinking I was hiding in some corner somewhere nearby (my home range was much larger than he thought). His cries were subdued by the loud sound of thunder and rainfall.
“He’s not asleep? I thought he’d be happy to have finally gotten rid of me!” I thought; I was genuinely surprised.

I went near him and as the lightening flashed, I saw his expressions change from that of helplessness to relief on seeing me. In a calm voice said “ghar chalo” (come home). I followed quietly, we walked homeward in the rain; there were neither hugs of joy (though I could see that he was relieved on seeing me) nor the dreaded beatings (there was always a possibility of that happening). He walked ahead of me, I was expecting to be roughed up on reaching home but that didn’t happen. He opened the door for me, gave me a towel and told me to dry up and change clothes. He was poker-faced all this time and I couldn’t really decipher what was going on in his mind. I changed and went to bed; it was 2:00am in the morning.

I went to school the next day on time and it passed like any normal day, I didn't talk much to anyone, another evening at the basketball training (that was the only place where I experienced freedom...as it is, I was claustrophobic) and another few minutes spent with dad at the dinner table…all in an uneasy silence...but I was inside my house...I was thankful for that!

The clocked ticked and I dozed off in my bed listening to it.

Hey Jesse, there’s hope out there…

Before leaving for Delhi on the morning of 14th March 2007, I picked up the newspaper and scanned the pages for something interesting. I came across this small article that I scanned (inverted the colors and rotated it…y’know to give it the effects!!!), for I felt that it was inspiring me…to write something (oh man! Not again!). I could’ve done a better job but you know sometimes it’s better to write just the simple thoughts that come to your mind (yup! If I delve too much into my thoughts…I come to terms with the fact that I’m an alien…and then I feel like going back to my planet…though I can write tons and tons of stuff in that state of mind…much of which has a grave potential to offend zillions of people).
Phew! I digressed again!! Why am I so self obsessed…maybe it’s been the effect of company of the recent past. STOP STOP!! U A£$& hole…you’re doing it again!! They were good people…”good” being a relative term…STOP IT!!

Yes there is definitely “too much of a good thing”, and its better not to overdo it. Ask me! It just flips around, shows its ugly head (one you thought didn’t exist) and stares you right in the face…you mumble, you fumble, you tumble and in the end you grumble…GRRR (Arre oh Samba…bahut aag hai iss bheje mein ..ha ha ha ha haaaaa haaaaaa)

By the way, I thoroughly enjoyed this trip to Delhi. I was on my toes all the time, I was enervated at the end of the day but I came back with sounds and images in my head…of a live, vibrant and a downright huggable city. The hustle and bustle charged me up like I’ve never been charged before. Though I don’t dislike Chandigarh, I believe I’m not that open minded because of the slow pace of this place…I wonder what I would been like had I been brought up in Delhi…UMMM!! maybe Mumbai…ummm Maybe New York…oh the usual “would’ve, coul’ve, should’ve” shit…Man is never satisfied). The fatigue was only felt once I sat on the bus to head home. JNU too was great…I hope I can get through the entrance…and this time, I’m not just hoping…I’m working my ass off for it…if I still don’t make…BOOOO HOOO HOOO…I wanna stay in DELHI…then Mumbai, then New York…then Stockholm…then Berlin…then Paris…finally the Himalayas.

Here’s a li’l poem I wrote, inspired by the li’l article…

Brothers, sisters and “others”
Children, fathers and mothers
See whats new in the brain-world.
All those abuses, at you that were hurled…
You need to remember them no more.
Kick those memories out that open door.

Selectively, all those memories they’ll erase…
How would they do it? Who cares!
Lover’s promiscuity or a prospective one’s denial ;-)
Now you can forget all the stuff that’s vile.
A friend’s deceit or an enemy’s assault…
Now they’ll collect it all and throw it in a vault.

Will I ever be the same again?
I’m tempted to believe it won’t be in vain.
With a preponderance bad recollections…
Who wouldn’t want to get rid of the dejections?
But shall I not consequently forget the lessons I learnt…
…that taught me about life; one’s that bruised and burnt.

Why not accept the truth and move on?
That sure was hurtful but now it’s gone.
Let’s break the pattern by which we dig a ditch…
…and happily fall into it…let’s repair this hitch.
Forgive and forget; to walk, that’s a tough mile.
C’mon people do it, for this is THE COOL style.

Wake up you idiot!

11th March 2007
2145 hrs

It’s amazing how quickly God answered my question.
In the morning, I was asking, “HEY! WHERE’S GOD? Where is He?”
I was returning home from Imtech in the evening today (Sunday) when I met Riti on the way, she gestured me to stop.
“Hi, I’ll be coming over to your place in sometime. Are you going to be free?” she enquired.
“Yes”, I replied.
“Are you free now?” she asked
“Yup”, I replied.
“Come along then, I have to show you something.” She said
So I went home, parked my scoot and went upstairs to drop my stuff in the room. Then we both started walking towards the market.
“So what do you think it is that I wanna show you?” she asked.
“No clue”, I replied, “is it a new shop? Is it a new food court in our sector?”
“Nope”, she replied.
“Then I don’t know. I’ll just wait to find out” I said.
Then we crossed the AWHO Park and she said, “Yesterday I went out for a walk and I crossed this small rather unkempt building behind the market.”
“The homeopathic clinic? I’ve been seeing it since I was a kid. What about it?” I interrupted.
“It used to be a homeopathic clinic, now it’s being used as a children’s home by Don Bosco society.” She said.
“REALLY!” I exclaimed.
“Yup, n I got to meet the kids that stay there. I also took Joy (Riti’s golden retriever) along so that they could play with him. A few are orphans but most are from extremely poor families that gave them away because they couldn’t afford another mouth to feed.” She told me.

We reached the little red building. Riti knocked the backdoor and a young helper-lady opened the door and greeted Riti with a big smile. The backdoor opened into a small but long kitchen. When the kitchen area ended, we entered a room lined with bed on two sides and a rug in front where around 8 or 10 kids were sitting and watching TV. It was minimally furnished(it wasn’t very big) …rather just the beds, a small old rug, a simple curtain on the window, a TV rack with TV and a couple of plastic chairs stacked one on top of another but most importantly, it was clean. When they saw Riti, their faces lit up and it caused a little commotion amongst them. We were then greeted by two nuns. They all seemed so happy to see us. Riti surprised me; I didn’t know she was so good with kids. She instantly connected with them it was just the second time she was meeting them. They all remembered Riti’s dog’s name but no one remembered her name. She suggested to the kids that they could call her “Riti” since “Suchreet” was a little difficult for them to remember. She also introduced me to them and then cross questioned them, “What’s his name?”
“JESSE BHAIYA”, all the kids shouted in unison, it was almost deafening. WOW! They didn’t call me uncle.

The nuns offered us chairs to sit and asked the kids if they wanted to interact with us (or wanted to watch TV which they were doing when we entered). They all cheerfully agreed to switch the TV off; I was quite surprised…how often do you get to meet kids who’d give up a fav TV show to meet you.

Now about the kids, they came in various shapes (thin to plump), colors (very dark to very fair) and sizes (tiny to tall…i.e. as tall as any 5th grader) and their names went from extremely Christian to extremely Hindu. They eldest was in 5th standard, the youngest one was in pre-nursery (she was a tiny angel). I don’t remember their names but their faces are still dancing in front of me. Riti started off by asking their names…hullabaloo…man they all spoke at the same time…always…and they were LOUD. Riti handled them well and got them to make less noise (intermittently for few seconds) so that she could hear everyone individually…they all introduced themselves by speaking aloud their names, their classes and sections and the schools where they read. I was surprised to know that they were all being sent to good schools…St Xaviers and Sikhiya. They all had different ways of speaking, all of them introduced themselves in English…a little broken though but they were all so sweet. Some were confident and some shy. All I could do was sit and watch in amazement while Riti did her thing with them. I was quiet for a long time. Then we spotted a boy (his name was Odil) who was rather quiet and almost in tears. Riti asked him to come to her, he did so reluctantly. Odil was healthy, dark boy with a little broad nose he must be 6-7 years old, he had a constant frown and teary eyes…this was a genuine expression of emotional stress (trust me I know this look very well). He never looked at either of us in the eye but fixed his gaze on the floor. We gently asked him a few questions, he did not respond…did not even nod. All this while the rest of them were creating a ruckus, jumping around and interrupting our attempt to talk to Odil with their funny antics…then one of them tugged at my jeans and told me, “bhaiya, iska bhai kal ghar chala gaya thaa, isliye yeh dukhi hai.” (his brother left for home yesterday that’s why he’s so sad). So Riti just brushed her hand on his cheeks and let him go.
Suddenly I had a strong urge to interact with them…till then, I was too lost to be saying anything. So I asked them loudly, “what’s your favorite dish?” to which many replied together, “Sab kuchh!” (Everything)… “Wow! I can ask stupid questions!!” I thought to myself (after all how many different dishes must they have had). But then different answers started pouring in,
“Mooli ka parantha”
“Gobhi ka parantha”
Then came in random answers…
“Meat”
“Chicken”
“Fish”
“Milk”
“Eggs”
And then I realized that they were just naming the different types of foods that must’ve been mentioned in their text books. But they all loved one thing…SAMOSA!! That was stated unequivocally. Then one of the boys (his name was Rahul) came near me and shouted “mujhe to aap acche lagte ho” (I like you) and started doing bhangra…
“wah! aaja beta, kha le mujhe.” (wow! Son, come and eat me.) I replied…they all laughed.

Many of them wanted to perform…they kept taking each other’s name…
…“bhaiya, yeh gaana accha gata hai” (he sings well)
…”didi, yeh dance karna chahati hai” (she wants to dance)
Then there was a guy who claimed that he couldn’t do anything, his name was Simon, a quiet boy…right then, someone announced that he was good at drawing. Simon ran to the other room and brought his drawing notebook along. He showed us his drawings…we appreciated his work and cheered him.
A few of them sang songs, some danced. What I was amazed at was that apart from their rhymes, they knew complete lyrics of all the bollywood songs that they sang.
There was tiny guy, his name was Ankit. He was hyper active, I called him, “Ankit idhar aa!!” (Ankit come here). He sprang up and came running towards me.
“Show me your feet little buddy” I told him
He obliged, and the others asked “why were you seeing his feet bhaiya?”
“I just wanted to know if he’s fitted any springs under his feet. He jumps around so much.” I said and they all laughed…Ankit could not stop dancing…he was so happy and cheerful.
Then I asked them, “bare ho kar kya bannaa chahte ho?” (What do you wanna be when you grow up?)…you know the usual stupid question to be asking a kid.
As usual they all shouted together…
Teacher
Pilot
Doctor
Hero
……the variety was huge…then Rahul jumped up and said, “Main to Amitabh Bachhan banunga.”
Ankit did a little summersault and said, “Main Akshay Kumar banunga.”

Now the tiniest of them all (the little angel, I forgot her name), broke into tears. Riti took her in her lap and snuggled and talked to her. Then one of the nuns said to us, “if you show too much affection, they’ll all start crying.” I was deeply moved by this statement.

Then they all told me about their favorite cartoon characters…as usual all of them shouted together…the din was extreme.

At least they’re being properly cared for, educated (in good schools) and fed here…where would they go and what would they do if these people weren’t there to take care of them? What’s the least we can do…spend sometime with them…what’s the max we can do…something tells me…we’ll know when the time comes.

Then after an hour or so, it was time for us to leave. So Riti said “Kids we have to leave now.”
I was surprised by what followed, “NAHI…aap log abhi nahi jaa sakte” (you people can not leave now) they all shouted and they all became serious. They strongly insisted that we have dinner with them…I was taken aback by this. They had a fun time with us and therefore didn’t want us to leave (not that they were sad kids…they seemed to be generally happy people). But we had to go and we promised to come the next weekend…so it was time to say bye bye.
They all shook hands with us (maybe 3-4 times)…then Rahul put his hand up towards me (I realized that he was asking for a high-five)…so I gave him a high-five and this excited all the boys who gave me high-fives for a good 7-10minutes…they were all so happy. I saw the surprised faces of the nuns and felt pretty proud. The nuns thanked us and asked us to come often.
As we left, I had much to thank Riti for…for bringing me to that place and showing me how to connect to the kids.

At the end of the day, I must thank God again

“HEY! WHERE’S GOD? Where is He?” I asked in the morning.

He’s right here, next to me, teaching me about life and answering my questions.

ONCE BITTEN TWICE “HAUNTED”

I genuine sweet smile….on a girl’s face…Oh God! Yeah, I remember seeing that…a long time ago.
”What’s such a pretty smile doing on a girl’s face?” I thought and laughed a little. I’m so used to my lady colleagues (sister’s sorority) that I forgot that women can even smile. They happen to have elevated levels of adrenalin in their blood…I don’t like fighting with girls but here it’s about self defense. An attack without provocation is always at hand and over the months I’ve begun to feel like a ringmaster who’s been let into a cage of mad lionesses. I’ve learnt to survive in this hostile environment and even learnt to intimidate and tease the fairies and keep myself safe at the same time.
We all do have a great time but I still never get to see WOW! Smile from my sisters in arms; yes, a loud, blaring, cacophonic laughter when they’re making fun of random people is definitely something someone (with even an underdeveloped sense of hearing) can’t miss. Now I spend almost the whole day with them, consequently whenever I look at these ladies, I either expect one of the following:

A smile (a shrewd one)…
one that says, “I need your ice box dear brother”

An even bigger smile (this one’s scary…remember Glenn Close as Cruela Deville in 101 Dalmations)…
It says “brother, my brother, I forgot something somewhere…why don’t you run down the aisle and bring it for me.”

A still bigger smile…(I mean this one extends beyond the face)
It says, the lunch was pathetic…lets go have some chocolates.

A shrug in disgust (when I’m walking towards their ice box with DNA samples in my hand)…
a look that says “I don’t share MY ice-box with anyone so get some ice of your own…I hardly know you, how can I possibly share my ice box with you.”

Poker face…
It says “I am here but my soul is elsewhere”.

A teeth baring snarl (after they’ve fought with their parents or boyfriend or whatever)…
it says “I am a witch, you better beware or I’ll turn you into a cockroach.”

Head down on the desk…
boo hoo hoo hoo the world’s so nasty to me…go away or I’ll gobble you down.

Standing next to me (while I’m using the computer) getting impatient…
”I need the bloody computer so move your butt from here…I’m expecting a mail from my aunty/friend/blah blah…it has the marriage photos…so move it and let the sisters take control). [Damn! How many acquaintances of theirs are getting married…millions of them man!!]

A scowl
The “I hate men!” look

Fortunately there are other ladies in the campus who’re always ready with a genuine (if they’re faking it, they’re veterans at this) beautiful smile…oh it just lightens up your burdens (at least for a fraction of a second). Oh what a pleasure it is to smile back at them with the same flow….mmm…mmm…here cutie cutie!!

Chiki in wonderland

After a month long trip down south, Di, Dan and Chiki (Sarah Ruth Rajkumar) arrived in Chandigarh today. Chiki of course has grown bigger than the last time I saw her (Diwali 2006). Now she walks, runs and expresses herself much more clearly that she did when she came home the last time. Well it was another reintroduction time…the li’l lady (now 16 months old) remembered no one (Ma, Pa or me). It was funny the way she stared at me for a long time with unblinking eyes and finally gave a shy smile and buried her face into di’s sweater. However she was apprehensive about coming near me.
Anyway, I’d like to describe the night’s events:
After feeding her at night, Dan and di were singing lullabies to Chiki. From my room I heard Dan humming the tune, di singing softly and Chiki humming (and singing a few broken phrases…rather saying a few words in between) along with them. I was amazed at the li’l baby’s ability to hum “in tune”. I switched off my room’s light, opened the door and peeped into the other bed-room. Dan and di saw me but I gestured them to not look at me (for Chiki hadn’t seen me and I wanted to watch her without making her conscious of my presence). In the dim light, I watched her antics while her tired parents sang for her. She kept rolling around and turning, all the while humming “twinkle twinkle li’l star”, “baba black sheep” and a plethora of others I’m oblivious to (di knows them all by now). Danny slept off while humming, di kept yawning now and then while singing while the li’l one enjoyed the songs. Her tiny fingers were dancing to the tune, so were her bums, her legs and her toes as she kept changing positions after every 20 odd seconds. Sometimes she would stare at the ceiling, sometimes she would bury her head into Danny’s hands, and then roll over towards di and start humming again. I watched her in amazement, she’s so little and the bed is big enough to accommodate her gymnast like movements (I envy her for that…I’d love to do that). Chiki kept talking to di in some alien language (which only the mother and daughter could understand.) Then she climbed on top of my half asleep sister and started giggling. Di jumped up and started tickling Chiki; she laughed uncontrollably but got irritated in just a few seconds. Di’s motherly response was an affectionate hug. Chiki hugged Di and in a few seconds (just like that), fell asleep. I kept watching all this and was amazed by this. How can somebody just fall asleep in a second (I have a bridge period in which I’m half asleep thinking of all the shitty things and shitty people in life and trying to convince myself that it’s a waste of time…this last quite a long time…I’d say an hour maybe or maybe longer…I’m quite an angry man by the time I sleep).
I can’t believe that my parents would’ve showered affection on me at some point of time when I was little…they definitely would have, I have a few blurred recollections. We grow up and have our own perspective about the world. I judge my parents ruthlessly (oh! I do), many a times I feel estranged towards them, many a times I dislike being around them…but I do love them. They did the best they could for me…i.e. the best in their sight, my perspective could be different. The story would probably repeat when I have children. Though I fiercely defend my right to choose my partner (nope no interference form any corner here), to believe in whatever I want to, to go wherever I want to without my parents interfering, but after tonight (after watching Chiki and didi), I do love my parents a little more…for Chiki just fell asleep…she’ll never know how she fell asleep…she didn’t know that her ma sat up straight in the middle of the night (despite being sleepy and tired from a long journey) to provide for her daughter a comfortable place (her own body) so that her daughter could fall asleep in the blink of eye. And this has been happening for the past 16 months and will probably continue for sometime.
I returned to my room quietly but felt a little heavy hearted. When Chiki grows up, she’ll not remember this…how she fell asleep…just like that. When she’s a young woman, there’ll be times when she’ll disagree with her parents, dislike them or even fight with them (inevitable)…but will she remember this…what I saw standing in the darkness…no! I don’t think so.
So I presume that I too don’t remember or recall the many sleepless nights my parents must’ve spent when I was unwell or cranky or…just sleepy…for they must’ve just made the environment conducive enough for me to just sleep off without my realizing that the hands that worked towards making me feel that way were theirs.
So dear ma and pa, I still am fiercely defensive about some aspects of my life (and I know that you respect that), I just want to announce something…
I LOVE YOU Ma
I LOVE YOU Pa
THANKS FOR EVERYTHING.
THANK YOU GOD!

Cavalierly yours

Denizens of hell are pleased
When words, from your mouth are released
Your caterwaul causes ear drums to shatter
Your frequency exceeds any other clatter
Your soft lips spew out lava and poison
That causes the sun to rush down the horizon

You’re so full of hatred and so jaded
why is your world is so drab and faded
Your pride can put a queen to shame
Every mortal to you is game.
Your equivocations seem mean and evil
You judge like God and punish like the devil

They say “what goes around comes around.”
Beware on those grounds
You’ll burn out and turn to ashes
With the same pride on your face that flashes

I walked on…

8th February 2007

Today was the first day after 24th December 2006 that I felt alright. It’s sad that at times we hand over the reins of life to someone (sometimes without them asking us to do so.) When he/she’s gone, we grope around in the dark to have him/her back and its worse when we find out that the person’s gone and so are the reins that we so willingly handed over to them. It’s tough to keep a happy face jump around and try to mix up with more people than you normally do, just to get over the thought of somebody. But why does this happen in the first place?
Maybe it’s the pheromones making a fool of you.
Once you’re out of it (like I am now) you say, “Man! What was I thinking?” Well now that I’ve been there and done that, I’ve resolved to not let it happen again. Today is the first day that I’m able to think normally about it and forgive myself for getting into such a situation in the first place. If people have certain notions about themselves in their mind and are hell-bent to prove it to the world, they have a serious issue. In time we all figure out how we wanna live our lives. You might suck and still say “hey! No one can sue me for that.”…no sir I can’t and I’ve learnt that it’s none of my business.
Also I’ve resolved to keep my pheromones under tight security and scrutiny now. All this really blinds your perception of the world; the bliss of it all is “maddening”.

Anyway with this not-so-brief introduction (that happens to be rather unrelated to the rest of the body of this post), I shall proceed with writing about the events that occurred late in the evening today (8th Feb 2007). I’ve been doing some free hand exercises lately; when I felt that my triceps were too stiff to be exercised anymore, I thought of going out for a walk. It was cool and breezy; I started off feeling rather high (owing to the muck that I just washed off me). Hardly had a I walked a few paces, I saw two figures walking some distance ahead of me on the faintly lit street, they were holding hands and talking rather loudly. As I neared them I got little confused as they both seemed to talking at the same time; it didn’t seem like they were having a conversation with each other…”who else were they talking to? Was some ghost friends accompanying them??” I thought. On crossing them, I noticed the blue tooth ear phones on their ears; they were both on the phone. What a sight! Holding each others hands yet busy in their own different worlds. I decided to observe them for sometime and see how long they would talk on the phone; after 15 minutes, I went my way as they had no intention of letting the blue tooth rest…at least they were holding hands. This act of holding hands means a lot to me. In retrospect, there have been times when I’ve locked lips with some ladies but never held their hands and vice versa. I must say the one’s I deeply felt for were the ones whose hands I held…though there was a mild regret about not kissing a few of them. Thankfully I don’t plan to do either for a long time to come. Anyway I looked back at the couple once (rather just their held hands) and walked on. What a small act, yet it says “you’re special and I’m there for you, no matter what.”
Next stopà marriage party at the community centre. In the multitude of many beautiful and not-so-beautiful creatures, there was one that caught my attention, the mare. It was wearing an embellished head-gear with a not-particularly light-weight bridegroom on its back. While its owner led it through the maddening crowd, its unsure, hesitant steps gave away its real feelings. Its head was stooping and once in a while, it would try to jerk away from the people who were moving in too close (to her nose and eyes). The loud cacophony generated by the band players must have caused her to lose her faculty of hearing a long time back. If there was one creature there that positively didn’t want to be there, it was the mare; it would only get to eat the dry husk at the end of all this torture. I suppose it’d worked the whole day pulling cart loads already; poor girl. I walked on; I looked around to find my mad man, he wasn’t there; “he’s probably foraging”, I presumed “or maybe looking for a less noisy place to sleep.”
I walked on; the shopkeepers were calling it a day. Then there were two girls (maybe college going) standing in the park’s parking under a street lamp. I’d noticed them as one of them seemed to be intensely involved in counseling the other about something, “Stop doing this to yourself!!” I heard her say loudly to her friend and then hush up on realizing that she was too loud.
Then a couple of boys in their early teens crossed me, discussing loudly about parts of the female morphology, they didn’t really care that people could hear them; it reminded me of my old days.
Then a car dashed by with some young men inside trying to find the limits of the vehicle; it reminded me of the old days.
On reaching sector46 market, I turned back towards home. Two guys raced past me, they were howling and yodeling loudly; it reminded me of the good old days.
Then in the market place that was almost completely closed, I saw a man sitting in his car with a bottle of beer from which he would drink every now and then, all the while staring blankly into oblivion; that reminded me of…nothing…I’ve never been in such a situation…maybe worse ones.
I crossed the community centre, the baraat was still in frenzy and the bridegroom was still seated on the not-so-royal steed; poor animal. On reaching the park I saw the two girls I’d seen before still standing and talking, when I crossed them I looked at the one facing me and she smiled; what a sweet smile. I smiled back and walked on.
Most of the women that I’ve come across feel a kind of a responsibility on their part to spread the gloom into the lives of the men they are acquainted to. The reasons could be many but for the paucity of your time, I’ll forgo the details. Pardon me for digressing, it always feels good to smile at others and receive it. So if you’re reading this, I’m smiling at you right now, please smile back and take my word, that’s your best expression.

I took a detour towards the less traveled road. I gazed into the darkness around me and realized that the place was very lonely indeed. Like a constrictor traps and squeezes the life out of its prey, thoughts pulled me back to the time when I was walking with her, discussion silly little things, whiling away time like we owned it, the time when I was living in a mirage; the time when I was happy. Its strange how attached we get to someone even after knowing so little about them (or maybe we try to overlook their short comings all the time). I’ll never be able to explain to her what I felt for her and why (though, it would be easy to explain the “why”.)

I got lost in thoughts…then these thoughts spat me out into the real world; it was dark, cold, and breezy and I was alone. I looked around me left and right; there was not a single soul in sight.
I wished for a miracle à that I’d see you coming towards me as I turned around.
I turned around, you weren’t there…I turned around again, you weren’t there. Sanity started to move away slowly. I jerked my head and tried to bring myself back into reality; she’s dead, she can not come back…I must move on. I turned around for the last time and with my eyes shut but turned back again without opening them.
God’s just putting me to test; he won’t test me beyond my capacity. Maybe I’m unaware of my own capacity.
I said a little prayer, I asked Him for strength and courage. At least He’s never let me down. I’ve let Him down a million times but He’s never paid back in the same coin. “He loves me” I said, “He loves me selflessly; I’d do this for Him.”

I was alone but no longer was I lonely. I turned back and headed home.
I walked on.