A Hot Afternoon

It was the summer of 2005, the baldheads in Delhi could have utilized their heated skulls to make omelets in a flash, but here, from the air-cooled insides of Rajdhani Express, the irritated hustle and bustle of the swarming humankind on Platform no.6 seemed entirely needless, slightly absurd. I hadn’t even finished stowing away my luggage to a corner under my berth, when the pantry-boy, zippy and as if fresh from a bath, appeared before me to register my nod for the lunch; and sir, ‘veg or non-veg?’
Life was good.

‘Non-veg’ I replied promptly, even as my mind took me thirty minutes back in time, my Mother telling me from the door of the house how these train-guys barely marinate their chicken, and so how unhealthy it can be. And why have all that non-veg anyway when I have packed you these aloo parathas! Resting my bags on the banister against which I had stopped, acting already tired, I had replied nodding sagely with limpid honesty dripping from my eyes, ‘Of course Ma !’, the way I always respond to all of her suggestions.

In a moment a girl my age came huffing and puffing with two bags, one of which hung forward from her neck like a nursery-school kid’s water-bottle, and sat down heavily on the berth in front of mine, freeing herself of all the weight. She didn’t particularly care about the luggage very much, and let it lie rashly on the floor. I had nervously straightened myself up in the meanwhile, characteristically, at being suddenly brought into a lone girl’s vicinity.

She wasn’t very tall, maybe five feet two, but her lithesome, slender figure cloaked that amply. When shortly she eased herself with her head thrown back, as if dissipating the tension from that oddly hanging bag, I remember it had occurred to me how her neck was quite long for someone her height. It was crawling with all those fancy janpath bead-bands, I thought she was trying to divert attention from the length of her neck with them; ‘but hey, nothing fools me’, I remember smiling inwardly.

No, she did not bowl me over at first glance, at least no more than any other carefree, bead-band wearing, slender-figured girl would have. On a side note all carefree, bead-band wearing, slender-figured girls bowled me over pretty readily. But then, that longish neck, what a weakness it is for some people - people like me. If Vipin had been by my side, I am sure he would have raised his eyebrows in his own peculiar way, which, peculiarly, doesn’t forbid you but rather encourages you hypnotically.

"Hi … Bangalore?" I began, consciously employing the least words possible, lest my tremulous confidence reveals itself piss-off-ing-ly.
"Oh yeah yeah yeah, so you’re going to PESIT too?" she said looking at the folder in my hands. She spoke lightening fast. If I were in her place, I’d have just finished saying ‘Oh yeah..’ in the time she completed the whole of her sentence in. PESIT was, and maybe still is, an engineering college in Bangalore, and that’s pretty much all that I know about it. I can tell you the full-form, but who cares?

"Yes" said I, trying to look unaffected by .. I don’t know what it is that I always try to look unaffected by. Anyway, I was actually going there, to PESIT. No, really. God Promise. Yes I was. Wow. Then she began quizzing me on how good that institute was, and I kept cooking up weird answers, and when there would come over an abrupt silence I would fill it up with rationalizations for why I said what I just said, interspersing all this claptrap, of course, with that odd compliment or two which she accepted graciously. ‘These are going to be some real promising years there.. there’s no way I am taking admission anywhere else’, I was already fast-forwarding life two months, in my head.

“I may as well take up the lamest course at the lamest IIT this year, I have that option too somehow.” I told her in a tone that was meant to sound self-deprecating but was of course secretly self-important, ironically. “Oye that is great!”she said loudly, but then everything that she spoke she spoke loudly, as if there were someone-outside-on-the-platform she was trying to reach out to. She smiled so cutely though, that I think we should replace the word ‘loud’ that I just used with something like ‘blithe’, alright? Alright.

Someone-outside-on-the-platform there actually was. He soon came in with two more bags, one on each shoulder, sighed unnecessarily at seeing her seated and came and sat down next to her. She then told him I was going to PESIT, then told me it was her brother, I acknowledged, and from what I can recall I had my gaze momentarily stopping at his mustache as I was greeting him, and he did seem to notice that instantly; probably he was quite used to it, his mustache all bushy like bristles of an overused toothbrush.

She stood up when it was already some twenty five minutes that we had boarded the train, and rushed outside to get some potato chips. I wondered what lazy slob this guy was to be relaxing here while she was running around for trivial things at the last minute. "Your Sis is intelligent, I know how I’ve just about managed the cut-offs."I said. He smiled suspiciously, and I shrugged it off and began peering from the window if she was to be seen coming back, but he kept looking at me blankly.

"Hey body shody! Real good physique you've got dude." I said to this guy, mainly because all that blank staring of his was making me feel uneasy.
"How old do you think I am. Take a guess. Take a guess." he said with his hands, deliberately or not I do not know, before his mustache.
'With or without the mustache' I wondered.
He looked 35 to me, but I thought answering with a much lower number would make his day. It wouldn't hurt, after-all, to humour the elder brother of your to-be-something.
"24!" I said, hoping that it flatters him and that he doesn't find it sarcastic.
"Try again. Try again" he said. Did he say everything he say twice over ?
"Ok. Ummmm. 28! I just wouldn't believe you if you tell me you're more than twenty eigh..." I said before he cut me short.
"What yaar!! I'm 19. Kya yaar.!!" he was mad. The first meeting with bro-in-law went awry, I thought. Happens. No worries. All's well, I told myself.

Soon, the announcement was made, the train was about to take off, and she still hadn’t returned. As the wheels first rolled I got up quickly and began running towards the doorway, then watched the guy following me and subdued my stomping footfalls to mere brisk walking, and in a few moments was down on the platform staring out into the crowd teeming with people waving tata-bye-bye to their kins in the train, and some looking at me, bizarrely, in dull sympathy. ‘These fools are blocking the way for her, I am sure, and for these foolish trivialities. Dammit!’ I punched my laps and rushed back in before it would be too late. If I had seen someone munching on chips then, I think I would have snatched the pack, crushed it and thrown it out of the door. ‘Where is her brother now, that useless joker?’ I wondered while walking slowly back to my berth. There he was now - in front of me, walking back to our compartment from the door at the other end of the bogey with all the energy that he had till now saved for his funeral. ‘What now?’ I spread my arms out irritably. ‘What’s the big deal’ he replied ‘twas just a pack of chips. I don’t have them anyway.’

"And your sis ?"I asked.

“She’ll surely have them on her way back home. She loves them. And she knows that I am seated on my allotted seat comfortably, so she can relax. Chillax. Anyway, I must confess I am a little nervous about the counseling now. My rank is such a border case. You said you too just about managed the cut-offs. Hopefully, we should end up in the same branch. Nice nice.”

“Wow! It’ll be fun!” I struggled to get the words out of my mouth, “I guess I just need to catch some sleep now dude, please wake me up when the lunch arrives, will you?”

“Sure.”

“Lovely.” I mumbled drably into the pillow lying on my stomach and dozed off, and probably proposed to her in grand fashion before the slob could wake me up for lunch. And then the chicken wasn’t all that bad either.

A few more days

Here they are, these days, and in their midst I, trying to slow time down, make hours count, make days dense. In no time, which of course means in a week or two, I know I'll be thinking of tonight and the thing that I'll recall first up would be that I had been thinking on this day that I'd be thinking of this day in some days. This is not redundant thinking - this is how you make minutes count, this I guess is how you make nights dense and slow and leaden when you are all by yourself; wait, I think it's dawn now.

I had a look at the window barely five or ten or fifteen minutes back when everything was deathful black and now suddenly the sky outside is a large plate of murky grey iron, stained a little darker with greyer trees, and greyer distant buildings. In no time, which of course means in half an hour or so, the birds will be out in force - chirruping gleefully while swooping at each other in playful morning energy, the expansive sky turning blue with envy in the background. Really, birds are children. I, all the same, would still be lying on this bed slowly slurping water from my plastic bottle, and telling myself it's tea, and obviously not believing it. There should have been some tea-vending facility here.

I have an exam tomorrow. These may as well be the last academic exams that I'll ever take, and unbelievable as it may sound, I wish we had a couple of more subjects this time around, it's all going to be over so soon you know. I wonder how it will be in some days, when I'll have no business sticking around here - would I still linger aimlessly for a few more days until official compulsion would lock this room away from me, or would I, like a hard-boiled twentyfirst-centurian, party a night, hug and rush home, and catch IPL with my entire attention shifting smoothly to boundaries and wickets and, what's that new fad, Zoozoos ?

I went out to ride around the campus roads on my motorcycle an hour ago - the roads empty and inviting as they are at this point on the clock, but as I was starting the gears felt all jagged and I was mawkishly tempted to tell myself that it's a sign of how it doesn't want to go, how it too loves being here. Yes, that thought did burst forth, till I soon realised how terribly affected by Reema Lagoo it was to be thinking like that, which made me puke with angry self-reproach. And so, you know, it isn't everyday that I slurp water continuously and slowly at this hour.

And ... the birds are out.

The Neighbour

(Excerpt only)

He had been so, so utterly sad for a month now that he could have very easily been made to fall in love. Only in his early twenties, and by most accounts having an enviably bright future ahead of him, his ennui stemmed from what was, in his assessment, the scantiness of suspense. All of his actions – of the day, of the week, the month and so on were etched set on the back of his skull. Rick Bland, the shrewd meets chancy stock-trader by the day, was a mere bland self-traitor by the night. Every night he wondered why he didn’t know what to do with the inflowing money that the day had left him – really, what wretched misery.

It was a Sunday, the hot summer Sunday the most enchanting, the most poetic constituent of which is beyond a glimmer of a doubt the Air Conditioner, and he had been lying in front of it on a bed reading a book of investment mantras that, as the promise went, had all that he needed to know. One could be excused for thinking he was having a good time. Anyhow. Riffling through its pages in a manner of dissatisfied impatience, he suddenly threw the book he didn’t know where, and screamed violently complaining of he didn’t know what. The pressure-cooker, had, burst.

In a matter of seconds though, he had to calm himself up, our mannered lad, our controlled explosion - as soon as was heard approaching the unmistakably dragging stead of old Karen, his neighbour. Into her last days perhaps and alone, she was excusably attracted as much towards the ugly as towards the cheery. It’s much more likely though that she was in fact so enormously repulsed by her own being, that everything else seemed pleasantly inviting by comparison. The scream, vague and short, had spurred her curiosity like she’d spotted a UFO, clear and huge.

She asked him standing at the door ajar if everything was fine, and if she could help him in any way. He, fit, 22, wondered guiltily and she, frail, 74, looked on patiently. As if his paradigms of well-being had been given a wild jolt by this most polite of questions, he clutched the mattress on which he still lay supine even as he said that he was quite all right and was sorry for having disturbed her; his last words trailing off into an abashed, inaudible mumble. He got up thinking desperately of something to talk about with her, to give her company. This was his only atonement, told his conscience; maybe he knew inwardly what ailed a lonely soul in a lavish flat the most. He knew also, after-all, the genesis of his scream, he thought to himself and pouted at the delayed awareness of it. Jump, stand up. Here we go.

After hustling her to the sofa with an amiable, encouraging, requesting face, he rushed at once to the kitchen to make her some tea. She wouldn’t mind some wine, she said with a giggle even as her only surviving frontal upper-jaw tooth hung trembling in a warning to betray her any second. Rick laughed back; ‘Sure, sure’ he said leaning towards the bar.

They gelled readily, and it hadn’t been long before Rick found himself pouring out to her glass the well-kept secrets of his life – his childhood which was spent in a doleful slum outside Upington, that his parents turned up their toes turn by turn when he was still in his teens, how compulsion brought him to Cape Town, and how serendipity made him, a trader’s servant, a trader. He knew a handful of people here outside of his work: the grocery-guy, the pizza-boy, and, and well, that’s that. Sigh. Old Karen gave him a laser stare at this, ‘And me?’, she asked acting somewhat mischievously to have been hurt. ‘What an endearing embarrassment!’ thought Rick, and hugged her at once in true grandsonly fashion.

Days, now, consisted of caring for and being taken care of. Rick brought something new, something special to eat every evening, even though eight out of ten times she, accustomed for years to just porridge and flakes, would be unable to have it. He didn’t mind it, and she? She just loved seeing him lick up his dishes. On weekends, he would take her on a drive to the countryside, where the two of them would watch birds and canals, and occasionally some wild animals, and more rarely still, some spectacular mansions.

“You have weird tastes, I mean, for a 22 year old, don’t you?” she said one day, taking Rick in by surprise.
“Hey, I thought you liked it!” he replied.
“It’s not about me. I’m asking about you.”
“Ha ! I have no taste, I don’t think so. I just like that you like it. That’s all.”
“H’m. You don’t know many girls, do you?” she dropped it.
“Any.” he muttered trying his best to look the other way.

They spent a lot of time fishing that day, and she amazed herself at his enthusiasm after each catch: he would jump and shout like he’d landed on the Moon. ‘He said he liked all of it just because I liked it, that’s all. Was that what he had said?’ she self-talked servicing her rusty, senile memory, when she heard the loud honking of horns: Rick was already prepared to go back, enjoy his catch, on his plate. The drive back home was, ok, it wasn’t exactly awesome with fishstink and karensnore each trying to upstage the other in trying to be Rick’s major headache. And then, we're home; a sparkling new Mercedes parked clumsily already in this cramped, crumbling garage that only this fishloaded MiniCooper was used to getting into.

Rick looked towards Karen, who was still noisily asleep, and considered the possibility of the Mercedes being a surprise present; not that he was desirous of any; not that he would be averse, either. ‘This wasn’t required, but, umm, it’s, wonderful’. In their interactions it had become clear to him that Karen came from a notably affluent family scattered across the globe due to her sons’ professional pursuits. Her husband, of whom he had faint recollections from his first few days here, was a sprightly old man of much local recognition whose funeral had been attended by his patrons in the trading line too. But how is that even remotely a part of the equation, he wondered as he pulled the key out after stopping the car. ‘Would it be proper, Rick, to accept it; wouldn’t it amount to a fee for companionship?’ he froze with a lurking abashment, his arms poised on the steering wheel, the barely resting legs confused in mid-air about their future course of action, and eyes, as if parasitic, swinging alternately between Karen and the mirror with a squeamish restlessness.

‘Aaaaaannchhhi’! You can always count on an old woman to jerk a lost, statue-ed over-thinker into motion, sometimes even when she’s asleep herself. Out they step in a moment into the settling sunlight of a cool evening, and Karen looks at the Merc with an equal curiosity.

Discombobulation

I thought maybe I should write a bit. Just because I hadn't for some time, I have this nudge to write something, anything. In fact, once I really get down to it, I realise that what itches me fundamentally is the urge to type rather than the urge to write as such. I really enjoy it when these wayward fingertips stagger coltishly all over the keyboard even as a neat sheet keeps taking orderly shape on the screen in front - exquisite typesetting, perfect calligraphy - as though in stubborn resentment against the huddle that causes it.

Oh, hell, am blank again. It doesn't happen usually; I start blindly, but then I just keep going on with whatever tumbles forth initially. But I can't think of anything right now that I could comfortably and pleasurably write over here. Let's try. Effortlessness is elusive, for now.

I had a great week. The best of the condemned 2009, I should say. Why condemned though? Can I, who began the first blog-post of a potentially very crucial year with a word as auspicious as 'but' be allowed the right to refer to random things as condemned? Maybe not. It was a rebellious streak, a sort of carefree confidence, a rather perverse sort of it actually. Do you register, by the way, these baleful methods at masochism? I hope and wish you don't.

Alright, I have it figured out. I am into my last week of attending college; maybe I should write about that. I'll try to throw some nostalgia in with phrases like 'With mist before and moisture inside my eyes..' or something like that, and who knows I might just have a few pagefuls worth of verbal drove up here to be published. Wait, I think that sounds just too melodramatic to be real. Cancel. I'll be real. Ok, done, that's what I'll be: real.

We, a bunch of lewd-comment-passing, bombshell-ogling, tongue-rolled-out, jaw-dropped cheapsters, are finally going to be kicked out of the college leaving it to the sophisticated custody of higher intellects. Saving our time from being an utter uselessness, we clinched a bumper deal the other day of having a cosy photo-op with a not-that-stunning-after-all girl who we don't know. Yes, who we don't even know, that's right. Alright, 'who doesn't know us' - for sake of being real, for precision. But dammit, no more being 'that' real.

Yesterday, I attended a class at college. It was after a good six months, and I say that without any hyperbole whatsoever. The teacher wanted us to be a little sentimental about leaving college, and about leaving him. I may manage the former. The teachers at my college, largely, were a tickling needle. Before I landed here I was told that they were all technological authorities, true men of reputation. Four years later I grudgingly accept the latter. They were, indeed, men of reputation. They had a reputation for doing badly everything that was worth doing well. Well, the class was spent grinning sheepishly mostly and roaring raucously sometimes at a dozen PJs that encompassed, by some mysterious force of mother nature, our entire syllabi. The hour ended with the teacher cracking another one-liner that blew our lungs away: 'Don't mind it Gulati jee, it was all in Good humour' he told Nayan Goel, even as Gulati kept looking on in confusion.

I'll continue some other time. It's getting very painfully demanding, this writing bit. I've been very nervous writing anything lately after some of it's been found really fucktarded by some astute, elite prodigies of prose styling. I am trying.

The 100 Truths Tag

Here’s the tag, Princess

1. Last drink: Yes, this one’s the last, I promise.
2. Last phone call : 0 minutes 6 seconds.
3. Last text message: Oomph Friendship Club.
4. Last song you listened to: Maa Muraadein Poori Kar de Halwa Baatungi.
5. Last time you cried: It was the Ice Age then, they say.

Have You Ever...
6. Dated someone twice: Yeah, the judge on my hit-and-run case. A third date beckons in a few days.
7. Been cheated on? Yeah, while I was cheating too, so, as they say, chalta hai.
8. Kissed someone & regretted it? Ram Gopal Varma. Sab ganda hai par dhanda hai ye.
9. Lost someone special? My mind.
10. Been depressed? Yeah, refer to answer 8.
11. Been drunk and threw up? Twice a day.

Four Favourite Colors...

12. Fluoroscent
13. Magenta
14. Sharper Magenta
15. Sharpest Magenta

Firsts...

16. Made new friends: soon after taking birth.
17. Fallen out of love: with a thud.
18. Laughed until you cried: Beyond that. Laughed as I cried.
19. Met someone who changed you: Rakhi Sawant.
20. Found out who your true friends were: Recently.
21. Found out someone was talking about you: Some Jennifer, I hear. Lopez or Aniston, not very sure. Doesn’t matter, too old either way.
Have You...
22. Kissed anyone on your friend's list: Which one ? There are so many of these lists.
23. How many people on your friends list do you know in real life: All, well almost.
24. How many kids do you want to have: 378: my lucky number, I am told.
25. Do you have any pets: I have fish.
26. Do you want to change your name: Not really, I’ll have to get a new set of business cards printed, I just got them made in gold.
27. What did you do for your last birthday: I awaited, wondered, ate, talked, laughed, shrugged, travelled, slept.
28. What time did you wake up today: 7.30 AM
29. What were you doing at midnight last night: Discussing Drunkards and Elections.
30. Name something you CANNOT wait for: There’s no such thing.
31. Last time you saw your father: as I write this.
32. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: Maybe I’d want to be able to laugh at bad, sad, dead, heard, herd jokes.
33. Most visited web page: Google Reader.

What's Your...

34. Name: S*****t
35. Nicknames: Teenu at home. And both by school and college mates was nicknamed Shahrukh, somehow.
36. Zodiac sign: Pisces. By some other deduction, Aquarius too.
37. Male or female or transgender: Male.
38. Elementary School: St. Mary’s, Ranchi.
39. School: The Air Force School, Delhi.
40. Colleges: Delhi College of Engineering.
41. Hair color: Black. Ok, some specks of grey too.
42. Long or short: Long.
43. Height: 174046030029 nanometers.
44. Do you have a crush on someone? : NDTV-India reporter Deepti Sachdeva.
45. Ever been in love? : Umm, perhaps.
46. Piercings? : Once had an ear pierced; after a day of struggling with it, let it fill.
47. Tattoos? : Naah.
48. Righty or lefty: Righty. Can bat left handed too, better than Curtly Ambrose, that is.

49. First surgery: Stitches next to the eye.
50. First piercing: How redundant a tag is this!
51. First best friend: Bhai.
52. First sport you loved: Flying Discs.
53. First pet: Sandra the lizard.
54. First vacation: Calcutta, I am told. Puri, Orissa : the earliest I remember.
56. First crush: Some girl in class 1. Started early.

Right Now...

57. Eating: Nothing.
58. Drinking: Nothing.
59. I am about to: yawn.
60. Listening to: Songs from Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayi.
61. Waiting for: Godot.

Your Future...

62. Want kids? : Yup. Chubby, lazy, round.
63. Want to get married? : Want to. Get. Married.
64. Careers in mind? : Prime-Ministership.

Which is better with the opposite sex...??

65. Lips or eyes: Umm, eyes.
66. Hugs or kisses: Can’t say.
67. Shorter or taller: Shorter.
68. Older or Younger: Indifferent.
69. Romantic or spontaneous: Romantic.
70. Nice stomach or nice arms: If I say nice stomach, would that automatically mean herculean arms ?
71. Sensitive or loud: Sensitive.
72. Hook-up or relationship: Depends. Highly subjective.
73. Trouble maker or hesitant: both sound synonymous to me.

Have you ever...??

73. Kissed a stranger: No.
74. Lost glasses/contacts: Never had them to lose them.
75. Sex on first Date: No.
76. Broken someone's heart: Maybe.
77. Had your own heart broken: to pieces.
78. Been arrested: No.
79. Turned someone down: Never required to.
80. Cried when someone died: Yes.
81. Liked a friend that is a girl? : Naturally.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN...

82. Yourself: Mostly.
83. Miracles: Reluctantly.
84. God: Intermittently.
85. Love at first sight: Coyly.
86. Heaven: Wishfully.
87. Santa Claus: Selfishly.
88. Kiss on the first date? : Depends.
89. Angels: What’s there to believe or not; they’re everywhere.
90. Devils: They’re everywhere, yawn.

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY...

91. Is there one person you want to be with right now? : Yes.
92. Had more than one boyfriend/girlfriend at one time? : No.
93. Wanted to kill someone ever? : Yes, cockroaches, mosquitoes. Ok, sometimes ants. Guilt.
94. Among you blog mates, whom would you like to kiss? : Among those whom I’d kiss, I’d like none to blog it.
95. Committed a blunder and regretted later? : Who hasn’t ?
96. Wanted to steal your friend's girlfriend? : Yeah, of the one who stole mine.

ASSOCIATE WITH SOMETHING YOU WEAR...

97. White: Vests.
98. Black: Shoes.
99. Red: T shirts.
100. Pink: Chaddhi?

Posting this as 100 Truths? : 101, including this one.

Spot On

"I don't read a lot of modern fiction, but it seems to me that too much of it is thesis fodder. Since the rise of the academic critic, writing has had to have an increasing sophistication, as if subjects such as love, ambition and family are worthy only of the airport novel. Writers come out of university courses and carry into their writing academic concerns rather than the concerns of the general reader."

- Vikram Seth (here)

Dee See Eeeeh

I

Spring, 2004. Vipin and I had been moaning on habitually, just outside the gate of a curiously quiet DSOI club at the centre of the bustling Dhaula Kuan, at how we had landed up in the mess we had landed up in. Our pre-board results had been declared the previous day, and with the kind of performance we had put up, securing our admit-cards for the board exams from the school authorities, we were sure, wasn't going to be a very pleasant experience. My Dad had been called to meet the Principal in person, and I feared the exchange in the Principal's office was bound to be topped by another exchange, back at home in the evening. We were supposed to be bright students once, weren't we, I mused. What had happened?

'I wouldn't know. If I did, I wouldn't be here.' Vipin quipped and jumped to his feet dusting off his backsides soiled by the footpath, and returned briefly with another burger from the roadside dweller.

'What at all do you ever know?' I finally spoke, only after I had taken a big buttery bite off his burger.

'Really, if you hadn't woken me up from my slumber, I was flunking for sure! I think I should be rather satisfied now, you know…' he said in a manner filled with gratitude, his involuntary wriggling with his plate away from me belying it all at once.

We had gathered here en route to DCE; we knew we weren't going to get through the entrance exam, and since there's nothing to be ashamed of after all these years, let me admit that we had even thought of repaying our many little movie-ticket debts with this money we had got from our respective Dads for the admission forms. Soon enough, a third, balanced classmate who was in complete control of his senses, or whose Dad exercised complete control over his senses, arrived, and like the jeannie of his Dad's lamp, held us by our collars into the DTC bus to Peeragarhi.

More than an hour had passed, and from the looks of it more than an hour remained. The two of us had been relentlessly passing lavatorial jokes all victimising this third classmate of ours, and by now he was no longer on talking terms with us, really. Under an unwritten contract Vipin and I never cracked these ruthless jokes on each other, and a lull had come over the journey.

'Make sure we don't get through this entrance test' Vipin whispered as if we were otherwise surely going to. 'Our lives will be hell, take that from me.'
'Goes without saying.' I replied matter-of-factly, or pretending to be so.

Lull resurfaced.

Shortly, Vipin sprang on me with the suggestion of chucking the rest of the journey and that of asking this classmate to get the forms for all of us. I didn't protest; it seemed quite a practical suggestion. We both asked him if he could do the needful, and as if already waiting to get rid of us, he took the money from us in a fit of petulance and immediately started peering out of the window as if into some rare spectacular sight, though from what I recall I could only catch a glimpse of a much-in-demand public toilet, before the urgent elbowing of the passengers pushed us out on the road at the nearest bus-stand.

Broke I sat for an hour with Vipin dreaming up the latest flick in my head, and nodding absent-mindedly to plans for attending an upcoming concert he thought would rock; provided of course that we're granted the money - a bleak possibility after our recent accomplishments. Then I returned home hesitatingly, to, a locked door. My parents were at the Principal's office still, I guessed. 'Long, long meeting it's been. Shit!'

Thus died prematurely what could have been my first brush with DCE.

* * *

II

Six months had passed since that day, with a lot of exams sandwiched in between. We, and this still refers to Vipin and I, made it to none of them. Alright, let’s be fair, we did get a little. But what we wanted, we didn’t get; what we got, nobody wanted.

I missed both IITJEE and DCE by a whisker, and this spurred crazy hopes in my heart that some discipline for a year and I’ll be decorated with a geekish pose on every newspaper, my name printed with a golden font amid glorifying praises. More importantly, I was somehow dead sure that seeing this, at least one of my Dad’s many friends who, I always held a suspicion, took birth only so that they could one day cast their offer to marry their beautiful daughters off to me, would surely have the good sense of bringing alive their bollywood-lessons learnt by suggesting to my Dad ‘kyun na iss dosti ko rishtedari mein badal dein’. But the initial motivation soon whittled out as we, Vipin and I, okay, I and Vipin, turned neurotic film buffs, the kind most people only hear about in folklore. We saw every goddamn movie that released, a lot of them twice over, so much so that by the time we had once gone to see Veer-Zaara and were almost returning disheartened by the Full-House noticeboard, the ticket clerk was gracious enough to voluntarily insinuate us into the balcony with folding-chairs in our hands! I did not know then that later one coveted temptress was to find all these tickets out and guess that they must have been dates, and I would have to smudge mystery around the whole thing with a sentence as cleverly cheesy as ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that they were dates.’ No untruth in that statement, no truth either, if you look at it. I may expand this part indefinitely, I may do this, I may do that, I won’t. The whole thing, anyway, is supposed to be about DCE.

III

may be continued

On Questions

My path rendered itself to me obliquely :
Collisions in the dark ever guided my way,
I was always blinded by the Sun in the day.
Conventional wisdom, I was better to flee.

But my intellect’s been inutile of late,
Can’t persist with questions, crucial and hard
Of career and commerce, of science and art
It just can’t bring itself to contemplate.

It can’t give these, importance more
Than the one that’s etched in the heart
In contrast to which these, from the start,
Are found secondary, bland and bore

This question, which now colours my ink,
Which I carry between all my pages,
Which I carry to all saints and sages :
“Do you sometimes, of me, still think ?”

The Stoic

किसी बात का ग़म मुझे अब क्यों नहीं होता
सब रोते हैं जहाँ मैं वहां क्यों नहीं रोता

क्या खून है ये आज भी या बन गया पानी
कितना उबालो इसको, मैं आपा नहीं खोता

मैं झूठ के आंसू तो बहाने को बहा दूँ
इन आंसुओं से दिल कभी हल्का नहीं होता

बड़े युन्ही लड़ते यहाँ बच्चे युन्ही हँसते
सब ऐसा ही रहता यहाँ गर मैं नहीं होता

कोहराम है, इस शहर की अब नींद है हराम
मैं सो गया थक कर जहाँ कोई नहीं सोता

You

You are the creases on my Forehead, You are the pouches under my eyes, You are the grey in my hair.
You are the Strength in my dare.

You are the vulnerability in my Strength, You are the screech in my speech, You are the crack in my screams.
You are the House of my dreams.

You are the ghost in my House, You are the thorn in my garden, You are the shark of my ocean.
You are the Birth of my emotion.

You are pain of my Birth, You are the helplessness of my infancy, You are the angst of my adolescence.
You are the Fire in my insolence.

You are the scorch of my Fire, You are the stagnation of my water, You are the disease in my air.
You are the Please in my prayer.

You stole the ease from my Please, You stole the art from my heart, You brought the rife in my strife.
You are the Life of my life.

कल और आज

क्या कल सैलाब आया था या मौसम में मोहब्बत थी
कोई मुझको बता दीजे कि कल क्या मेरी हालत थी

मुझे अब याद ना आए, मेरी बद-हवासी का मंज़र
क्या मेरी जुस्तुजू में कोई जुर्रत, कुछ ज़लालत थी

के घंटो से टंगा हूँ फ़ोन की तारों पे मैं लेकिन
सुबह सिर्फ़ घंटियाँ, अब उसकी मम्मी की वकालत थी

Parting Musings

This, today, is the last of my functional days at this office. As I sit writing this, I see that my neighbour has a stomach-aching inkling that I am whiling time away. He gives me an oblique jeering glance and smiles economically to himself with the air of a veteran who has done it all, or at least, seen it all. I tell myself I am well justified in it; and 'is it not that my stipend is lesser than his salary by an amount equal to his salary', I soothe my dawning self-consciousness and recline defiantly, limbs stretched out, on my spring-laden cushiony chair. He raises his eyebrow for an infinitesimal moment but I somehow catch it, and pull the lever of my chair down. Now it is sufficiently low-slung for these partitions to ensure that I am out of his range of view. Emboldened by invisibility, I do a quick swivelling movement even as the chair's spindle creaks, and just as I am about to face the desk again after two complete rotations, uncap the pen and drag it on to the register like a landing airplane and start writing in cursive italics at once. There is a bit of Rajanikanth in every chairbound apprentice, I tell you.

* * * * * * * * *

My corner in the office overlooks a wall-sized lemony-yellow windowpane, Saint Gobain I guess. The window overlooks a spate of scenes, but my corner only overlooks the window and a tree just outside it, thanks to the many obstructing cubicles in between. The yellow tinted glass-pane makes me see a splendid sunset-hour evening-sky every hour of the day; and on one occasion too many I've made a fool of myself by running expectantly to the window and peeking out of the abetting porthole only to stand the glare of a harsh sun. But I marvel at this stained glass anyhow, and chew over getting myself a pair of yellow shades, but heck, they look a tad too gaudy, don't they?

In any case, when I cast my eyes over the entire place from the window today, I noticed that there stood a girl at the groundnut-hawker's, instead of that grumpy forty-something who hasn't smiled once in the last forty days. She isn't, as one can tell, exactly a stunner, but too good to be that hairy horror's daughter all the same. 'But who else could she be anyway, his daughter she is, she is', I tried warding off my cheap suspicions. Every now and then, a customer would appear, assess the items, but leave without buying a trifle. 'I love groundnuts', I condition myself and quietly sneak out of the office. Down at the stall, I take a closer look at her - she isn't as good from here as from a distance, but there's a certain piquant, tangy thing about her which, if the products had, they would have been worth buying for double the amount. Street-smartness oozes out of her voice, and it occurs to me that the Basanti in Sholay could well have been one of her followers. I taste a bit of everything enquiringly and finally settle down on fried grams and a sweet peanut slice. I had barely begun haggling, and she had barely begun resisting, when suddenly the eyesore, her dad, appeared out of nowhere, and with an expression as severe as Ajay Devgan in a romantic scene, asked me to take it or leave it. Probably he understood, discerning old fellow, that my eyes didn't speak of a man discouraged by prices.

Perspectives, on Valentine's

1
The roads nubile blush with roses red, yellow and pink;
They all today lead to galas, and at gaping pavements wink
That Love, the solemn fogey, may be your ally of ages,
But today's hero, its cousin, isn't agreeable at your wages.


2
A romantic remonstrance of made-up complaints,
A prince peps a florid trance, and a princess faints
A scene ; some public display, which curiously
Froths fervour, makes men, love furiously.


3
Eyes toiling out of the windows of old feral buses
Withdrawing themselves slowly back, as it rushes,
They turn down passively to the lying peanut peels,
Then stick out one last time, adsorbing how it feels.

Pen on Paper

There is a certain pleasure in writing with pen on paper, doubly delightful if it is an old-world ink-pen - like it is right now, that the most advanced, sleek and artfully designed keyboards cannot, for the life of them, offer. Writing on paper, I am a little bit on my toes, because there is no software to help point out to me those intrusive grammatical errors which, by their mere creeping in, can make a delicately imagined, lovingly cast, and secretly revelled-in piece of life abruptly seem an eyesore. This post is none of that so I hope I can safely take the liberty. And anyway, I've been long out of touch with the observance of strict grammar, ever since it failed to help matters where it was supposed to. So much for something so trivial.

Perhaps some day I'll take to it again. I never say never; I am a coward; or is that being human? Mortal, gullible .. insecure : ah, coward it is. I'll take to it again when I find the need for a higher financial platform too pressing, for they are the only dependable means to it that I know of. And let's be fair, most of what I understand of life and living, is due to these run-of-the-mill entrance exams. They are great objective teachers, other than, of course, being objective-type tests. Unlike the archetypal pedagogue, they let you be. Unlike the archetypal pedagogue again, they make you ask questions. Unlike him again, they are sympathetically understanding of your silent responses. But like them, they make sure that you are not the same after them as you were before; you are more. Also like them, they are looked at by the pupils predominantly with a feeling of a well-known type of fear vigorously muddled with a not so well-known type of contempt, and yes, how could I forget that, that occasional awe.

My first brush with this world was when I was midway in my eleventh class. Due, somehow, to something the kind guys liked in me, I was offered their preparatory course for a pittance of a fee - a nominal eight thousand for an year and a half. I vainly wished that they took the full forty from my folks, and later on quietly slipped the thirty-two in my hands, so that I would go back home and give back that money while proudly exclaiming "I earned it, Mummy!" With the same end-result, God could have made it a thousand times more thrilling, but he likes the mundane.

Once there, I was exposed to a group of three apparently-deprived youngsters whose lives until then, it seemed, consisted only of days wasted in playing with punctured tyres - rolling them around with some stick and running alongside. Humane pretensions kept aside, the words on a father's paycheque are invariably written on the face of his sixteen year old son. And their faces told, or screamed, that the words weren't quite heavy. Newly here from their village somewhere in Bihar, they looked exactly the kind of young lads that modern, sophisticated girls would look at, from a distance of course, with disdain, and turn about hoping not to be looked back at by them. Their teeth had the red of bricks by years of guthka, pimples sat themselves in awkward positions at every corner of their faces, clothes were just good enough to venture out of a shell, bottomed by hawaii chappals. They, however, anyhow, anyway, at the end of the day, eventually, were superhuman wizards. When I would be struggling to begin to make sense of the questions, they shot back with the answers - with a sense of victory; with a tinge of, if I may add, vengeance on the world. And then I was no dumb bimbo either; on the contrary, I hardly believed until then that a pair of a head and a spinal cord existed on this planet that could work as swiftly as mine. Of course, every such mirage fast evaporated, incondensibly. They were everything I was not - carefree, loud, cocky; despite all the odds that lay against them. The next thing I knew was that I wanted to be with them. Then I squandered the year with them, in things that can politely be put as unsuitable - I didn't know that while I was craving for looking into them they had been craving for looking into something else. Obviously, I, constrained by the foolproof middle-class conditioning of temperance, never went the distance as they did. At the end of the journey when each of them was deep in debt, they were still astoundingly unperturbed, as though they had seen a life from where it was impossible to get worse.

It was the final mock test, after which there was only to be the real one, when the best among these best, took the question paper, sat in the exam hall for ten minutes flapping his feet wildly all the while, and in a sudden moment rose up and left. I thought he must have had some seriously troublesome thing bothering him; and after fifteen restless minutes I submitted my answer sheet and left too, I knew no answers either, but that's another story, for another post. Outside, in stark contrast, he was lounging around as if he had all the time in the world and he would much rather be preoccupied if that was an option.

Bewildered, I began, "You, Piyush, you, it is you who stood up; no duffer gets up before half an hour, and you know it's you. What happened to the whiz who had taken admission here?"

"Forget about it, I was wasting time inside; I knew not many answers, and those that I knew wouldn't have scored for me a bumper." Nothing ever sparked any contemplative emotion in him; not at least the emotion you expected to spark.

"Why did you even come for it if you were so unconcerned?", my curiosity was seamless.

"If I didn't appear, a letter would have reached my home that I missed the test, and you know the kind of dressing-down I'd get from my Dad then?", retorted he.

"And wouldn't you get a dressing down for the seven-on-hundred or nine-on-hundred or whatever that you'll get now, and which, too, would be reported to your Dad?"

" No. He can't get a seven-on-hundred on this test himself, I bet. Ha ha ha" he answered hysterically.

And in a few days it was the time for which we were all there in the first place. While some of my human, ordinary friends went on to make records, none of these three ended up exactly in heaven. It was their destiny, there's no other answer that I would take, it was their destiny, just as it was their fathers'.

They didn't have keyboards back then!

The gentle, distant Sun had become unforgiving in an hour's time. The last smoke was had with whimsical whiffs of cool breeze playfully manoeuvring the smoke as it made its way out after living its character inside the lungs. Now, the surrounding air stood lifeless like a godforsaken rock; and the smoke erupted in dense grooves persistently amassing a trembling blanket, suffocating in its own monopoly.

~

The flyover, otherwise a cacophony, was a trustworthy protector in these times. Even if it weren't, he would still be surveying its bending angles, its chatter under the cruelty of hordes of vehicles, or the fatigue in the pillars that support its weight at its various nooks. He lived here; once the most brilliant student of civil engineering his reputed college had witnessed in decades, this flyover had been his home for the last three days.

His classmates, who had always found him in the company of an old keyboard that he had chanced upon when he moved into his room in the hostel and never in that of his books, envied his acumen as much as his professors were awestruck by his proficiency. In his heart of hearts, he exulted at this giftedness, but also wished he got the gift that he wanted. Music was his passion, his God, but perhaps not his gift. But there was only so bad someone like him could have done at what he loved, he was still way better than the overflowing ordinariness all around him. Day in and day out he practised the symphonies of Mozart, dared to improvise upon them, fiddle with them, flirt with them. This usually continued for hours at a stretch; and it may be true that it also somehow nourished him, for there is no count of how many times he missed the inflexibly timed hostel meals in his trance. By the time he was in his final year, the passion had outgrown itself to resemble an obsession; biographies of Mozart lay all over his room; he made music in the classroom, in the labs, even in his dreams. Salil, his closest friend, who also singularly somewhat closed in on his academic and musical talents, besides sharing endless cigarettes with him over music, stood first this semester. Not that it mattered to Mohan, the rank race; plus it had gone to his best mate, so it was all the more calming. But it was conspicuously unexpected - Mohan who exceeded number twos by huge margins, being exceeded. Salil, baffled himself, sought Mohan to ask what was going on, when Mohan just joked it off by calling him Salieri and calling himself Mozart citing the similarity in names, which of course, was feeble if any. 'Mozart and Salieri', he imagined and swelled.

The days at college were about to end when, in a bolt from the blue, Mohan decided to run away to pursue music. Salil, who had been Mohan's roommate for years, couldn't help feel a pricking concern for Mohan's father - provincial, semiliterate, ingenuous, hearty and by now Salil's Kishan uncle. It was evident from the frequency of his college visits from their native place two thousand kilometres away in the hinterland that uncle's life depended, in more ways than one, on his son. How proud he was of Mohan's education, how he couldn't wait to see the first 'graduate' generation spark up his lineage. Indeed, so ingenuous he was he didn't know Mohan, let alone Mozart.

Salil pestered Mohan persistently to rethink, to not ruin his career, to give himself some time, to take a short holiday, and even to not live a 'delusion', but all to no avail. Mohan vehemently denied being naïvely romantic, and sometimes tried his bit to convince Salil that it was a necessary evil - the construction company employment would render him infertile, bereave him of his purpose, and then 'what use will be the career?', he asked furiously. For some days he defended his as the righteous choice of passion over glory, and then one fine evening, he vanished from the college without any noise. The college mourned a few days later.

It's been two years since, and the college is doing well.

~

Now as the sun had become scorching hot along the left edge under the flyover, and a puddle of dirty water soiled the right, a frail looking Mohan was hard put to find twenty square feet of convenient shade. When he couldn't find any, as luck would have it, he resorted to oblivion as a substitute to solution. So he took out his keyboard, from an unbelievable preservation. It was a carefully crafted case made of construction leftovers that lay everywhere under the flyover. He hadn't sold the keyboard, though it seemed he rarely played it now.

Meanwhile, the suffocating blanket of smoke had by now expanded into a big cloud near the sixth floor balcony of a swanky multi-storey across the road, towards the other end of the flyover. A young man dressed in the finest fabric, sipping the rarest coffee, and smoking the choicest cigarette had his eyes fall upon the keyboard, his once-hobby made him momentarily wonder 'If I could be there'. Two minutes, practical-thinking and a few unsatisfying puffs later, Salil throws his half cigarette out of the balcony, and resumes work on the MS-Excel file waiting impatiently for him back in his cabin.

A few hours passed, the sun relented, the swanky building deserted, and Mohan picked up the half-cigarette thorn-bound upon a cactus plant. Back in his haven, he takes a deep satiating drag, one that also satiated the cigarette itself, perhaps giving it 'delusions' of not being just any saleable commodity.

~ ~ ~

Rumour has it, that two months ago, in the dark of the night, Mozart was heard on this road. Yes, more prominently near that seeping incline under the flyover.

Small Talk

Not so much plagues the absence of her voice dipped in sucrose,
Nor does not hearing words of praise when he sits writing prose,
No, not even the fact, that there were not to be any more dates,
But that he had no topics now when chattering with his mates.

Straight from the Office Desk

It takes time, and then, time takes it. In a moment of accidental reflection, it's clear that it took less than even a fortnight, for the capacity to think about other, less-taxing things to return to me. In the penultimate analysis, I guess what I had feared for a bloodsucking parasite, was only a pesky, pokey, unwelcome guest. A few sessions of brooding are still inevitable, and justified even in their pointlessness, for in the final analysis these 'sessions' are, I concede, more of 'fits', and you can never really be too sure about them.

The other less-taxing thing, as it turns out, is the industrial training. Only that sitting through nine hours of absolutely no work is a most taxing challenge in its own right. Sleeping, apart from being prohibited and inspite of being tempting, is an inconsiderate escape. Because each of the men in the neighbouring cubicles, whose professional assignments weigh a full-fledged train as against my handful of nuts and bolts, is bound to feel wronged, maybe even to sigh pensively amid silent cries of 'why me', maybe even stare resentfully at sleeping-me amid silent curses of 'why him'. The second alternative, now, is to pass time talking, but then, with whom ? Certainly not these guys with trainloads of work keeping them busy and rendering them irritable. Lastly, there's the option of actually working through the day, where my own inadequacies abandon me. In tragic contrast to my branch of study, I am not really a man of machines; except of course, the tomato-soup vending machine there, which, by now, may even possessively call me 'My Man' for the faithful company I've been to her. But seriously, there are only so many cups you can take, the numerous five-minutes just don't add up to nine hours; besides, you start feeling like a bottle of ketchup by the time you're back home.

Despite being a minnow's minnow in this intimidatingly complex pecking order in this intimidatingly large organisation, I, surprisingly, am answerable directly to the AGM, who, surprisingly, is a very humble, forthcoming gentleman. Quite unlike my immediate senior, the minnow, who is too much of a Mr.Know-it-All for him to actually know anything at all. But then if your actual expertise over your putative expertise is anywhere like mine, you aren't really entitled to grouses like these. For that, I must first get better at my work, or change the work itself, because currently, my work and I - we just don't get along. Like a platonic relationship between two shy perverts, ours too, is going nowhere. A few more months.

I have set a fresh label for posts of this kind, anticipating that there'll be many more of these. There have to be.

Added Later: Ok, my dashboard tells me it is the hundredth one. Not quite the way I would have wanted to hit a century, but anyway, I let it be, like they say, 'it doesn't matter'.

Childish Whims

Written on 2nd November 2008 at around 8 PM; then titled 'One of These Days'.

One of these days, I’ll bring life to fables
One of these days, I will turn the tables
One of these days ..

One of these days, I’ll ring a surprise
One of these days, I will see sun rise
One of these days ..

One of these days, I won’t remain raw
One of these days, the world will awe
One of these days ..

One of these days, I’ll break the shackles
One of these days, I’ll bring miracles
One of these days ..

Oh God! Pardon me, I refuse your order
To let go of those lands on which I border,

To take these bad days as my longer fate,
I just refuse to accept it won’t be my date.

I hope you’ll excuse me for having my ways,
I will be a little stubborn one of these days.

Making of a Joker

‘If you can laugh at it, you can live with it’: the realisation to which he awoke;
He has been cracking fantastic ones, ever since his life's been made a bad joke.

End of a Joker

He was the Joker of the class, his desk surrounded, even swarmed.
He has forgotten how to laugh, and always wonders who he harmed.

The Stoic

When unaccompanied, no one is a stoic, these eyes betray the most heroic.
I am but just a novice who refutes, what chance have I before long solitudes.

Curse

Don't rely on your bats to do all the talking,
oh dear fan-boys of Sachin Tendulkar.
For all your genius and elegance of kings,
a flawed bat alone can make you a sulker.

Friendship

I'd love to be a somewhat closer friend,
to you, I slyly want to pour my heart out.
But would you me, some patience lend,
until I fight the urgent hard drought ?

The Applicant

We the patients of fatal diseases,
our days counted in countings,
live on the border, by doc's short leases,
love real borders that others find daunting.

That war's much better despite its dangers,
than this meaningless war within,
that one unites us with a billion strangers,
this one distances us from our closest kins.

Plus, don't only those soldiers march on forward,
who really have nothing to lose ?
We fit the bill; please, we are not cowards,
let our suppressed fury cut loose.

What-Ever

For a change, I am not concerned too much about the quality of what I am going to write. This isn't a garbed declaration of the quality of the previous posts, but an admittance of my mere quest for it previously. For now, though, I'd just let my heart speak without intrusions of the structural, aesthetic, or the hypocritical type from my neural circuitry.

Not that being concerned would have changed anything.

It is said that scarcity makes a man grow. But of course, this is only a piece of romanticised fiction, one that fascinates the mind, and also leaves it corrupted. If at all there is anything that grows during scarcity, it is scarcity itself.

People are mad, only a little less than I. They ring me up, ask me my result. A long nurtured love with numbers makes them call out for percentile-percentile right away. The next thing they say is a loud, enthusiastic, but for me a very hitting cry of Congrats or wow! It is truly a mixed-feeling, only too mixed, only too cluttered. Anyway, then I say something and the next thing they say is variable, though mainly it is something like an even louder 'Whaaat!' from those who've been watching a lot of Indian television Reality shows, while those who had restricted themselves to Simi Gerewal talk-shows on TV respond with a mannered, quieter, baritone Awwwww. Anyway, awe and shock, separated by a damned sentence; it saves me the cost of going to amusement parks to experience roller-coaster rides. I get them by the dozen every hour.

I did not get any IIM calls. At 99.70 of something called a percentile, I know not one more person among the thousands whose profiles I madly turned all through the last night, who met the same eventual fate as I, at this score. As far as sectionals go, one of the three wasn't all that fabulous for me, but it was still much better than many who finally raked in calls. Yes, I know, I am talking like a bad loser, but I realise there is only so much grace I can show at this time as a pornstar who is diagnosed with breast cancer minutes after she checks in a hospital for silicone implants that she hoped would have made her rule the world's compact disks.

Perhaps, it was only fair. I guess it was only fair that someone whose deeper longing, much deeper than the longing to ace a management entrance, is to demystify for himself the enigma of the Absurd, met with a full-blown, in-your-face absurdity hitting his head. However, the important word here is not 'Fair' or 'the Absurd', it is unfortunately 'Perhaps'.

Of course, it is not all bad, it never is. Almost at the nadir of my faith in the world, I discovered how terribly good some people thought of me. Major disappointments are palliative in the sense that they homogenise other auxiliary setbacks within themselves, making them indistinct, and making you inert to them. At the same time, they ensure that any faint good thing that happens shines out distinctly and you immediately recognise its being. So when I get terse replies, or worse, am left unanswered, it is easier accepting that it is how it was meant to be, and remain nonchalant, on the inside as well as on the outside. On the outside, I had always remained a stoic, but even the furore inside has now been replaced by a fading, near-mute, deathbed wistfulness. Put simply, it can be said that I have been humbled. And I still say scarcity doesn't make you grow. Being humbled is not growing. It was better earlier.

As a cockroach lying on its back, as a curious teenager being made to sit through back to back episodes of Vishnu-Puraan, as an audioning vocalist with a sore throat, as a nun in a stripclub, as a Nobel-prize awardee resisting a call of nature at the time of his speech, as a copywriter being corrected for wrong grammar by his maid, as Osama in Ayodhya - and as all of them put together, I am currently an amalgamation of varied emotions, all of them disconcerting, well almost. Among the four hundred and thirty six feelings that I feel now, the only one that qualifies as a silver lining is the pride at the stupendous success of Abhineet. It is no surprise, for it was always going to happen, unless all the IIMs decided to not conduct admissions at all this year. Of course they are conducting admissions, so of course Abhineet is there, right on the top. I particularly love people who don't make a big fuss of their brilliance, who aren't immersed narcissists. But then narcissists are never immersed, they only mistake drowning for immersion. I am amazed how Abhineet, after being what he is, comes off as just another guy, while being everything but that. Seeing his name printed with praise on the front page of a national daily today, I had a firm feeling it is only a beginning of a story that'll be long, admired, and deserved.

I also feel guilty for having subdued his celebrations, his enthusiasm. Among other things, maybe he would have wanted to write a jubilant post on his blog, the kind of victory-speeches that I am only too fond of, but cancelled it owing to the bad taste he must have thought it would leave in my mouth. That's how your head works, I know, yaar. But to set the record straight, I am looking forward to your masterpost as much as Shakti Kapoor looks desperately forward to new, struggling damsels asking for his patronization for them in bollywood. Even more than that, so please! And I cherish your email-of-compassion yesterday just about as much as I would have cherished the calls, and it goes without saying that it'll remain in my inbox forever. Also, All the best!

Unless Mamta Bannerjee taught you humour, you'd know that parts of the post were funny. Maybe the post was, but I am not. Perhaps 'this' explains the anomaly; a great blogger, see his/her blog I'd say.

A New Year

But for procrastination, I went to the college only yesterday for some thing for which I should have visited it twenty days back. It was a wonderful afternoon; the atmosphere was evocative of a refreshing hill-station holiday resort. It was the kind of atmosphere that made you want to gossip rather than be a mute spectator, but being alone I wasn't exactly spoilt for choice.

A particular lad again had my unswerving attention. And risking my reputation, I'd go on to say that he always has had it. No, he isn't the typical centre-of-everyone's-attraction or the bollywood-ish party-ki-jaan; in fact my guess is that not many people are aware of his existence, other than those bound to. I wouldn't be either, if it were not for his room being opposite mine. A confirmed loner, he has always had a permanent stern expression plastered on his face. His walk from his room to the mess and back to the room is devoid of any friendly interactions or TV interruptions. He goes about his work in such a rigid no-nonsense manner it makes you wonder whether there is actually some problem with the rest of all of us. If there was one word I would associate with him, it'll be 'serious'. It is none of my prerogative to be judgemental about it; maybe he has due reasons for it which I, in all likelihood, will never know.

Again, he didn't catch my attention after all these days for his secluded, almost misanthropic disposition. I think I have now got used to it. What was once notice-worthy is by now most-expected, at best a reaffirmation. But he was, as I saw yesterday, the very definition of affability. Moving from one triumvirate to another until each ran out of the time they could afford idling, he was all laughs and giggles, looking decided that idling was to be his occupation for the day. I thought he'd be feeling a little awkward being so social so suddenly, but if at all there was any clumsiness it was adeptly suppressed. There was no doubting his chivalrous charm but when the company was all-boys he also explored his artillery of Hindi expletives, of course not in the war-monger way, but in that pleasant way that keeps you at an arm's length in conversations, fosters brotherhood among us inherently rustic strangers, and projects you as the proverbial yaaron-ka-yaar.

He still is serious, essentially. Perhaps this time, about, a new-year resolution.

Ways People Talk

It can be a most engaging pastime, if you care to notice, and you don't quite need to have a linguistic bent for its appreciation either. Really, observing how people talk never ceases to amaze me, for it brings out how there are as many languages inside a language as there are people speaking it. You can always find out a great deal about a person from how s/he says whatever s/he has to say. An example that comes to mind readily is the typical vocabulary people in a particular profession get soaked into so completely, that they end up using weird words at the most inopportune moments, unwittingly verifying the Freudian sub-consciousness theories. A distant Uncle of mine who owns a medical store has perhaps been so busy flogging off curious supplements to his enervated customers all his life that his staple adjective for anything praiseworthy is 'powerful'! 'How cute is his little daughter, Uncle, isn't she just so angelic?' I asked only to hear 'Yeah, Powerful!'

And then, almost all students of my college would be aware of the swiftly repeated loud cries of 'DCE college' that the RTV conductor makes at the Metro station, because for the life of him he wouldn't give a damn to what DCE could stand for, whether Deesee is a bollywood bombshell or a sacred cow; but has to and indeed does take due measure to ensure that this lot of 'college'-goers standing near him doesn't, by any chance, leaves him unnoticed. But then this whole profession-vocabulary angle has been dissected so exhaustively by the now omnipresent TV's comedy kings, that there is hardly any novelty left about this entire exercise that I should explore. So, I'll just get back to some more of the oddities that I happened to spot recently.

A very good friend of mine, a mysterious character however, reveals some of his mysteries thus. An ardent lover of caps and hats, he often tells me he is always on the lookout for 'different-different kinds of caps' whenever he is out shopping. Yes, precisely that. Because, in his mind of minds, he actually looks out for alag-alag tarah ki topiyaan, he found it obligatory to add that extra 'different', and not because he was actually trying to be different, which he actually is! To think in one language while talking in another can be shoddier than not thinking at all while talking I'd say, unless hilarity is your first aim. This, then, is what I identify as the translator's plight. Of course, no language completely renders itself into being converted into another; not without the sprinkling of such amusing slips. This is also why one often finds many dubbed-into-Hindi movies hilarious enough to earn awards for their comedy, only to find out later that they have already won many for the excellence of their depiction of tragedy or action. Watch the 'Rocky' movie series in Hindi after you have watched it in English already, and you'll discover how Rocky's typical filler-words '..ya know' are each and every time so meticulously translated, as if they impart the dialogue all the meaning, into 'tum yeh khoob jaante ho'. So, 'It's gettin cold ya know' becomes 'ab yeh thanda ho raha hai, tum ye khoob jaante ho' and many more similar gaffes! Really, it is so clumsy it is actually great fun.

An old friend was to get married a week ago, and the occasion called for many of my other old friends to get together - it proved to be a reunion of sorts; all marriages are, on second thoughts. Some things derive their pleasure-quotient from their rarity, and this was just that. I know how bored we were three years ago hanging out with each other day after day after day, that once it had got down to all of us discussing how our social lives sucked, and each of us undisputedly accepting the conclusion that it sucked because each of us stuck it out with the rest of all of us. Ironically, we were in agreement upon the assertion that too much of being in agreement with each other all the time wasn't such a great thing after-all. But meeting after all these years was the best thing that could have happened to us at this time, we all agreed, yet again. However, as soon as I reached the venue, I was greeted with 'Saale tu bhi aa gaya' by the groom's brother as though 'the lesser the invitees turn up the preferable' was the mingy dictum that reigned supreme. Of course, it wasn't so. As I awkwardly took a seat close by, I saw that this was how everyone else was greeted too, some of them even more strangely, like - saale aaj nahi absent hoga chahe kabhi class na gaya ho. Perhaps someone had got it into his head that this was a particularly pleasing way to welcome people. The point I am trying to make here is that no matter how much you read into people's language to try and know about them, it isn't an ISO certified yardstick. For all you know, what you think as strange or stranger, could well have been funny or funnier, in intention. So, a fair bit of allowance had better be kept in these matters.

True, as much as how you mould a language can bring you embarrassment, the impact you generate is also a strikingly straight-line function of what treatment you give your words, your own way of putting the same old thing. This is so important it cannot be over-emphasised, but then it is so universal that it needn't be emphasised at all. The endearing Short-Film 'Historia De Un Letrero' (Story of a sign) made the most of this principle all the way to the bank, besides grabbing numerous international awards on the way. Since films are always better viewed than explained, I won't bore you with what happens in the film. Instead, I'll leave a link for you to entertain yourselves.

Totally unrelated, but since it has come down to pasting links in any case, I thought I'll paste this too. I found it awesome.

Childhood

Once, I was completely someone else. I always said what I had to say. Now, I say something else.

The most pressing urge I experience from within me is to go back in time, maybe back to school, maybe even back further, to infancy perhaps. Besides its urgent thrust, the urge is made unbearable by its inherent futility. I am unfortunately aware I am on a one-way. I, like billions of my contemporaries, have to go forward. Don't confuse it with upwards, better-wards or anything. Just plain forward. What makes the urge pressing is the sentiment that the farther back I look in time, the more homogeneous I see myself as. I was one with the people around me, one with nature; one with the Rickshaw wale uncle who took me to school everyday as much as I was one with the Car wale uncle who'd come to my aid on days the former would curiously disappear. The further back we go, the more all of us were similar. The more we were similar, the more we understood each other better. And even when we didn't, it was for the better. Years of unguided, misinformed, intuitive lessons learnt weren't such a profitable education after all. It feels meaningless, like an addict six months into drug abuse, on the point of no return. It also feels restless, like that addict in rehabilitation. The addict at least has to go through them one at a time. And the addict's case at least has hope.

I can be someone else in the future. I can say this because I know I was someone else in the past. The self, well, then, is an unreliable reality. Maybe it is not a reality at all, but unreliable it sure is.

The Angry Gaze

Angrily, when I slowly gazed upwards in the darkness,
The big Stubborn Sky stared back with scary starkness

A switch, it seemed, turned on in less than an instant
Which enabled automation of the very very distant

The Sky even though decides to keep the remote-control
He does relent to take me along on this wondrous stroll

Those lovely little Stars abundant in the Space,
Swiftly move to make the contours of your innocent face

The craggy Crow - cute Cuckoo meetings,
Replay each and every one of your greetings

What memory did delete, memory also made replete
I profusely thank the Sky that it's like no other treat

It was truly a most delightful, even magnetic, sojourn
Probably the stuff, out of which legends are born

But, the little one knows about a thing, the better one thinks of it
The thorns on the red carpet reveal themselves bit by bit

I was shown the skyscraper that stood tall; also stood alone,
And struck a chord somehow with my own flesh & bone

It's avoided carefully even by the adventurer on the parachute
The building of stone isn't stone enough, it struggles to remain mute

It's uninhabited perhaps and desperate, even tenants would do
Not its expensive tiles and furnishings, no gimmicks could woo

It's lonely at this altitude perhaps, the building muses
And every now and then, it wished the height reduces

I rethink whether I was stared back in a Response by the Sky
Maybe he was staring down already - fed up of the splendour, on the sly

Days

Days, these days, pass in a hurry. I remember how I reluctantly woke up early this Monday to reach college on time since I desperately needed to be where my books were. And before I could notice, it’s Friday and I am back at home. It tells me that I am more at home now, when I am in the hostel. For a major part of my first year, Mummy used to send me off to college every Monday with myriad Do’s & Don’t’s as well as with a very heavy heart, as though I was leaving for war. And truth be told, a part of that did seep into me and I, although completely aware that I was going to be back in a matter of days and in any case it’s just around forty odd kilometres away that I was going, would too feel sad about it. In retrospect, I think it was a most childish thing, and everyone ought to grow up so much so as to be willing to change shelters for education or profession. It’s remarkable how things are better now. Mummy gets up, wakes me up, I pack my big bag for hostel and my small bag for college, do the routine, have my breakfast and leave, that occasional forgetting some important file at home notwithstanding. Of course, this is only what happened even then in the initial days, but it has acquired a sense of mechanisation to it, as if all of us are programmed, like Robots are, to do what we do. For instance, I am always at that very point on the lane from where I have to turn right when Mummy comes to the balcony just in the nick of time to wave a final bah-bye to me, time after time after time; it’s incredible precision-programming in action.

*******

I am done with Semester Seven now, which means I have now known seven-eighths of what I needed to know to be called an engineer. On the face of it, I know nothing. All I know is how to cram before the exams, write the exams so that I get a decent enough score and just get away. Yes, that’s all I know. And yes - I also know how to destroy all evidence that I tried for it, in case I don’t actually get the decent score I aspired for!

*******

Had I not been deep sunk in a meaningless muddle of my own back then, I’d have loved to come up with farewell eulogies for both Jumbo and Dada. Call it fixation, but I fear that as my own heroes of Indian Cricket fade into the oblivion of the sidelines, my own love for following the game will peter out sooner than later. No Dhoni can be Dada, no Bhajji ever Jumbo; and even as we’re doing very well to rip apart the Aussies and the English one after another, I seem to miss the memories of those passionately fought draws that these men of lesser luck always seemed to end up with. Apart from that, I sense a somewhat intricate feeling of oneness with big-day chokers, being one myself. I know, I know that’s a weird justification to place their losses before these victories, but I guess there’s no harm in justifications being weird as long as they be truly-felt ones.

*******

I’d also have loved to write about the exams, and that’s almost a ritual for this blog – I see I have a specific Exam-post for each of the exams I have taken over the last couple of years, but then so much has been said about them already that it makes no point really. ‘All’s well that ends well’, is all I guess I can come up with.

The Bell Curve

There's only so much you can smile in solitude; it doesn't quite qualify as celebration.

It was the ecstasy that naturally follows those long longed first-conversations which end with warm goodbyes and implicit assurances of getting back to each other. Heck! It wasn't just that. It was mad euphoria, there's no other word for it. The slightest attempts to downplay the surge will, I am afraid, distort the story.
An important exam had gone awry beyond consolation in the morning. And the floating remorse of it still managed to vanish into pleasantest surprise with the first traces of an elongated 'Hiee' hitting the eardrums. It had to be special. The lad had been wishing to hear it for months, but somehow every time he would try to find lame excuses for striking a chat, that's what they invariably turned out to be - excuses which would be really lame.

The remaining exams hardly demanded his attention. Rather, he could hardly give it to them. The days that ensued saw him narrate that eventful day to his friends over and over and over again, a fresh perspective each time; each subsequent narration brought forth a previously unhighlighted intricacy; each one of them bringing out a shinier glint in his eyes.
* * * * * * * * * *
Then there are some realisations you think you'd have been better without. The one that was soon brought home to him had surely been brought home to him only too soon. It hadn't sunk, the hysteria. It sank, the realisation of its sudden demise.

Perhaps all things that pervade fast subside superfast. This one did - like an acute illness as against a chronic one. Abruptly, unanticipatedly, cruelly, the news of that other guy was somehow soon broken to him - the news of that other more-important guy.
'Luck... lucky' he mumbled wistfully between explosive plosives.
Ah, well.

Culmination

On Being Judgemental

Cross-culturally, being non-judgemental has come to occupy the high-ground of sophistication. Very often, we get to know of people being criticised for being too judgemental. So much so, that their criticism often has in its subtext allegations of clumsiness, insensitivity and the likes. At this stage of cultural evolution, hasn’t it become necessary to ask ourselves whether anything of any constructive value has ever been created without forming a set of judgements in the first place? Filmdom comes to the fore of my memory when I think about the attack on being judgemental. As though it were a ritual, the preachy-quotient of new films is discussed with alacrity by critics all and sundry. When all other aspects conspicuously fall perfectly in place, it is then that that film runs a great risk of being labelled as preachy or judgemental. Being opinionated is treated like a sin, unfortunately, in a profession which is in many ways only a portrayal of opinions. Now someone told me being judgemental hasn’t got anything about making judgements, it is about criticising people too quickly. The way I see it, I see people being disapproved of for being judgemental per se, without a heed being paid to the opinion they took and why and how they took it. The way things stand then, isn’t being anti-judgemental being judgemental too?


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An Idler's guilt

I guess I should unzip the veil to confess that I have lately been susceptible to evaluating myself all too much. Too much is fine by me, really; only the evaluation should reap pleasing results. Only, it never does. Frankly, when you are in this mood, you tend to find a meaning out of every inconsequential thing randomly taking place around you. In one such event, I noticed I don't take nicely to being the only one online in a chat-tool list, while all other of my friends are offline, even the exponentially greater number of those who are more adds than friends. Being the only one isn't nice, even when you didn't really want to talk to anyone in any case. It fills me with defeating feelings of being a useless layabout whiling away his time in the most unproductive of things while others must be exercising, studying, reading, watching films, having ice-creams, going on dates, playing cricket, writing codes. From a logical construct however, what difference should it make if one of those umpteen would have been online at the same time? Nothing. But that saves me this self-defeating thoughtless mental ordeal. Now that I considered the logical construct as I was writing, I also feel illogical now. Eeeeeh.


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Clutching at Straws

I have a weird manner of classifying my posts as happy posts and sad posts in my head. Once every few weeks, I come back to this blog and scroll a bit, trying to gauge how days have been. Since days haven’t been exactly smooth of late, I came back a few days back, with a specific purpose this time. I was trying to see the posts of around that time when things were particularly hunky-dory; everything was falling into place, almost as though by a divine intervention. I tried to take note of how I thought, wrote, lived and reflected in those days when everything was going so well that it sometimes occurred to me that I could make no mistake, even by mistake. I saw that I had quoted something by Muhammad Ali back then, thought for a moment about my present state of mind which is in starkest contrast to it, and cursed myself for the transition of decline. I made up my mind, did a bit of that self-motivating, psychological catharsis that all men of aspiration must have some time or the other done in their lives. I was banking heavily on it to bring about a difference.

It didn’t.

Now, I have one more chance before the real day. A chance to redeem old, forgotten reputation; but more importantly, a chance to regain old, forgotten confidence.


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"I never expect to lose. Even when I'm the underdog, I still prepare a victory speech." - H. Jackson Browne

Shamelessly or otherwise, I have, again.

Hallucinations

Sauntering through metro-stations
I have these strange hallucinations

That one discerning pair of eyes
With intentions though free of vice

Follows every movement of mine
From how I spit to how I dine

But since I also harbour inklings
That every damn appraisal brings

More bad than good to the fore
I fear culpability all the more

Although these fears I often hide
Miss Nonchalance ever by my side

With twilight they come out of hiding
And until dawn are with me, fighting

And end up victors more than often
No folded hands can make them soften

Mornings spent trying to start anew
Watching the birds, feeling the dew

Just when the fears I am done forgetting
Are re-sown their seeds - those eyes, riveting

Incomplete Fiction

The Try (incomplete here, complete in the head)

Preface

To the part 1, I had got a comment which said girls were more of backstabbers and jealous than perhaps boys. I don't completely approve of that generalisation myself, and would in no way want that such an inference be drawn from this story I wrote. In fact, for the kind of B-grade storytelling it is, I wouldn't want that any inference of any kind be drawn from it. But now that that comment had made me think a couple of things, I'll ensure that this sequel belies any such notions - boys can be schemers, after all. Simultaneously, I also feel B-grade storytelling shouldn't be met with contempt, the likes of Chetan Bhagat mustn't be trashed the way they are. Why? There's reason. You need B-grade to really value the worth of A-grade. Hideous, yes, but judgements, even if aesthetic, invariably rely on contrast. With this intro, I have cleverly (or so I like to believe) ensured that not much is expected of this mumbo-jumbo written primarily with the aim of assuaging academic monotony.
[Part 1 + Part 2] follows :

Yesterday, Sagar made a startling revelation to all his buddies, including me.

'I love her, guys. I am the Next.'

'Whom?' we asked in chorus, as if rehearsing for some third-rate, forcibly-make-believe street play. Though I never used to get his unnecessary jargon I did get a hint of what his 'next' would be about.

'Aastha, you dumbos.' I heard from him and thought 'who's the dumbo?'

For a second there was the silence of confusion. I suppose all of us were ten percent happy and ninety percent amazed at his courage. Happy for his face was lighted with cheer, a face that had just barely managed to smile mildly for a second when he got a cent in his Numerical Analysis paper, and then made up for it by yawning for a minute. Amazement, was even more obvious. Aastha had dozens of aspirants dreaming of her, and half of them were listening to Sagar at this moment. Though the amazement was at his imagination that made him believe he could win the race. The other day a seminar on 'Heights of Imagination' was arranged by the cultural society people. We never knew he had attended it even as he told us he's going to his room to sleep. Now we were sure he did.

Probably he attended it sitting on the front bench. That is his trademark. Sagar isn't a stud, apart from his grades. But no one knows about his grades. Yes, I forgot to add he's unknown too. Half the class wouldn't recognise him on phone, because they'd not have ever heard his voice.

'Its DCE mate! Where every girl with two feet and a nose considers herself an Aishwarya Rai and all of us some Rajpal Yadav duplicate. And you're talking about the best goddamn material there is.', yelled Abhay. Pretension was never Abhay's forte. But he could have done without this one, I thought. So I went ahead to mend matters so that Sagar doesn't get depressed.

'Great Man! Who knows, you might not even talk to this funny Abhay once you're done. You know what I mean.' I added with a superficial smile and followed it with a wink of an eye that didn't come naturally with the mood either.

'What the hell! I thought you guys would be happy on hearing this. You guys are no friends. You are hopeless.'

None of us said a word, and we agreed to him partly. Apart from Vaibhav who chuckled, 'Better be hopeless than a hopefool!' and then laughed loudly and raised his palms before mine hoping I'd clap my hands to his. That was a tough situation for me. I had already resisted laughing out along with him, but now I had to refuse his clap too. I couldn't resist the temptation. On the spur of the moment, I clapped my hands against his, and then immediately looked back at Sagar and winked an eye at him indicating to him that it's Vaibhav who's the fool. Sagar looked foolishly confused.

After about an hour of conversation in which most of us were hell bent towards pessimism, Rajat finally agreed to help him out. Rajat had a better track record than all the others, so that made Sagar all the more bullish on his chances of success. Though I'd still call the bullishness, pure foolishness, but they were both very proud of their optimism.

Rajat has got this better reputation than all of us, all for nothing I believe. I have never believed his tales about his sky high feats. And none of those feats had been achieved in front of our eyes, we were just told about them. By none other than Rajat himself. All I held about him was that he is my friends' friend who knows nothing better than occupying one computer centre seat all the time and never taking his ass off it, however important the waiting guy's work on the computer might be. He was as happy about his fanlist on orkut reaching two hundred as Mika might have been at the Rakhi Sawant pappi. He is known to have more than a thousand friends there, and doesn't forget to mention at the slightest provocation that he has more people in his fanlist as you'd have in your friends' one. The addict that he is, I wouldn't be surprised if he answers his exam sheets starting with a 'u there?' and putting a :) following correct answers, a :( following presumably incorrect ones, brb before his 'may I go to toilet/drink water' breaks, and gtg at the end of the exam. That might as well be the case infact, coz hiz marx r a bl8ant p8h8ic. He is a humble guy though, lolzz.

Anyways, I went back to my room then, my eyes already strained by the excessive winking.

Sagar came to my room in the evening, and even though I was a million nautical miles deep in my ocean of dreams, his noisy bangs on the door jolted me awake. Unlike in the morning, he was very no-nonsense-goes this time around. He expected from me an estimation of his chances, to which I tried to comfortingly remark that, my forecast simulation project wasn't so advanced just as yet. But like I just said, Sagar wasn't here to hear jokes; bad ones like these - not at all.

Like a formula that clicks just when the viva-voce question is put up to you, the evil thought of fabricating a story to turn him off Aastha crossed my mind. The story seemed to me the quintessence of a necessary-evil, deserving of dethroning Friction. It was, if I may add shamelessly, a Eureka moment. Conscience tried its bit to reject the unworthy idea, but expedience had embedded it oh so rigidly. I told him to check his email the first thing tomorrow morning, while I'd meanwhile get around talking to some of my friends common with Aastha. I was, in fact, buying time for preparation. He left after a while, hopefool.

Later, I scratched my head for half an hour over why I was going to do what I was going to do, despite full confidence that I was going to do it anyway. A slight compunction reminded me of that famous Lalu Yadav one-liner targeted at the Left during the N-Deal debate: Tum agar mujhko na chaho to koi baat nahin, tum kisi aur ko chahoge to mushkil hogi. At the same time, I also felt a little bit Othello-ish. Okay, that last pseudo comparison is only to console myself.


I sat to write him an email. The longest of my life. I made sure I diluted and dilated it with a lot of fondly reflective undertones, and gave the crux a secondary treatment, to give it that guise of ingenuous credibility, to sustain his oblivion of the slightest vested-interests I may have.

___________________________________________________
To: sagartempo@truckdriver.com
Subject : hiii
_______________________________
Hi Sagar,

Here you go.

Last year, I worked for a couple of NGOs. Service was more of a by-product, adding stuff to polish the resume the prime motive. If that makes me sound like a hardened utilitarian, all I can say is No-I-am-not and be wishful that my word be taken for it. Anyway, there was a fabulously good-looking girl working with me in both of them who'd remind you a lot of that 'Swades' actress Gayatri Joshi. A month ago, she erupted out of Sagar, that much-loved South Indian restaurant, while I was chewing on paan outside it. Languishing in a rugged old pair of bermudas, it was almost as though I was caught off guard while she shone in one of those impeccable neo-Patiala-suits. I recognised it as an opportunity to latch on to, but these bermudas repeatedly made me want to slink away. After a fleeting dilemma, I realised I might just get too late. I stood up, put on a calm, nonchalant expression, ruffled up my hair - you know the way they give that SRK-effect, and shouted 'hi' looking at her. 'Hi', she smiled and I began blabbering, without losing a second about how she had slimmed since the NGO days. She nodded in welcome agreement for a while to whatever I had to say. Soon, monotony set in. I longed to come up with something cute and endearing, or at least cracking witty, but for the life of me I have never been able to exude useful charm, particularly when I am itching to. As her sister picked up Tinkle from the magazine-stand, she started telling me how nothing quite matches up to Calvin & Hobbes. I cursed myself for never giving it a try, despite desultorily going through the whole ruckus about it wherever I landed on the internet. A cursory glance over one of its petty pieces and I knew I could go on about it in the most engrossing manner; you know that too, don't you? What a small price to pay for having her listening to me intently. Goddamnit!

I saw Harry-Potters lined up against the pavement. Then, for five minutes I went on unabated about how I had still kept immune to the great Harry Potter mania. I tried my best to convince her of the gravity of the bad times we're in that such frivolous fantastique is adulated as masterly. I lacked conviction in what I was saying but I made sure none of that was palpable. Alright, it was a somewhat despicable attention-mongering exercise, for the kind of attention all things unusual must have. Anyway, I knew I was taking a risk, maybe even clutching desperately at tender straws, but I had to. Did I have to? No, she was already taken. Also, she probably loved Harry Potter more than she loved the guy she loved; I would soon discover through a long, animated carp.

But leave that for later. And anyway how does all that bother you! And yeah, soon came out from Sagar, who, Aastha! Yes, and goodness me, she was with her! Although, what you might want to know, is that she was with him too. Her guy. They were settling the bill while my NGO wali girl had come out to buy her kid sister some comics. You won't believe it, but then do you really think I have the kidneys to contrive such a complicated story?

Now that guy is handsome, Muscular with a bold, italic, capital M, and drives a Pajero. You know what kind of guys drive a Pajero at our age? The prodigal Bad-boys. Ok, you think I am prejudiced. I am only a well-wisher, dude. Go ahead! By the way, I was told his Dad's a political bigwig. Also, I don't think Aastha is as naïve as my NGO wali girl to love a novel-character; or a book, actor or soft-toy for that matter; more than that guy she likes.

Top secret it is that I have revealed to you bhai. But then, what are friends for! Keep it like secrets are kept, though. And wish me luck with the social-worker!

Bye!
___________________________________________________

With that last exclamation mark put, ecstasy overcame me. The only hindrance to this bliss was that I couldn't share it with anyone. Happiness, to sustain, needs to travel. Haven't you noticed that the most hilarious movie in the world seems boring when you don't have a friend by your side to keep passing off those comments on? Those comments that you believe are funnier than the film, after cracking each one of which you swell with self-importance. That I couldn't share this wicked genius with anyone was a slight spoiler, I tell you. Slight, I repeat. The bigger spoiler was waiting to happen.


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The Brothers ( Incomplete .. hazy in the head too)

Kishen started out on the morning paddy inspection very early today. Dawn hadn't broken when he bent over his head to face the chilled handpump water on his head, the gush of cold almost sweeping his head away, but he was enjoying it. Truth be told, he had been enjoying everything for some days now, even the most mundane routines. As the winds blew more and more turbulently, he found his clothing more and more a hindrance to the fun he could have had. He had been like this ever since he was a child. When he was still not an adult, he would accompany his father in the mornings, and occasionally took kid Mohan along. Unlike father and Mohan, who remained glued to their blankets as they walked, he was always tempted to throw away the blanket and run through the winds. With age, that enthusiasm had shrunk, and his jump and jabber filled morning rounds increasingly became reluctant compliances of obligations. For the last few days though, he was reliving old times. Mohan is going to come back after completing his college studies, we hear he is a qualified computer professional now. The last time he was here more than an year back, the occasion didn't call for reunion induced merry-making. Their father had passed away back then, and after a week of sharing the grief, Mohan had gone back without a goodbye, only informing them by a phone call after his arrival at his college, that he had to leave to take some exams. Kishen was furious at him then, and Mohan had started to remain more aloof from them subsequently. His phone calls decreased from daily to weekly to hardly. Letters became far out of question. For Kishen, the guilt had become overbearing. He would curse the day he screamed so madly at him on the phone. 'What could he have done here anyway?', he must have asked himself a thousand million times. In a dramatically pleasant turn of events, Mohan had resumed writing to him now. The last three weeks had witnessed Kishen receiving five of his letters. Why he still wouldn't call them up, was what kept Kishen thinking half his waking hours. 'He's still shy. He always was. Can't call, huh. But writes, just a matter of time before he'll crack his voice on the phone.', Kishen gladdened himself by telling his wife daily. But wait, forget the phonecall, he's coming! The latest letter, recited to him by his eight year old son Vaibhav, reads,

"Bhaiya, it has been long since we talked. I remember you every day, and remember that you couldn't wait for me to come back home from my school in the adjoining village, and never failed walking miles from the fields just to make me those bajra-rotis for lunch that I particularly loved from you, right at the time I was supposed to come back from school. What a chef you were, you'd any day put to shame the five stars here. How do you manage now? Must have got used. I have got a job here. And I'll be back home for two weeks. Meet you on Sunday.


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Born to Stand Out, Trying to Fit In ( incomplete would be an exaggeration)

The boy rose from his bench, the fan still running. He asked his Dad if he could go out for a movie with his friends. He knew Dad wasn't accustomed to thrusting his opinion on him, and wouldn't object. Expectedly, he was allowed. Still, there was a tinge of guilt as he stroked his hair back, and tucked his shirt in at just the right parts, leaving the rest untucked. It was a little discomforting to peep into his wallet too. He wondered if he should be asking for more money. He took five hundred the other day, which he ought to have saved so far, at least nowadays. The guilt would overbear him, he thought and left. At the gate he noticed the tank of his motorcycle empty. He started his mental calculations. Calculations didn't help. He walked to the main road, hoping to catch some bus. He didn't know about which bus to take, asked someone on the stand, misunderstood, boarded and on realising that, got down somewhere.

Somewhere was a dark place. Somewhere was stark dark at One in the noon. A small kid half his age was holding ten sugarcane sticks by his left hand, and fondling an ice filled container with his right, with a grinder making irritatingly scratchy sounds between them.

A man in his eighties knocked a coin on his table, and the small kid's hands started working even more quickly, as though that served to charge the battery of his robotic hands. In seconds he served him the juice, even as the old man looked on, understandably dull on reaction at his age.

The small kid insisted a friend of his to take charge for a moment, while he returned from one seemingly ultra-important assignment of his. Our boy-lost, who stood in the shade of this shop, was in the middle of a useless conversation when the call abruptly ended. An sms followed that informed him his balance had crashed. He was furious, even though at no one in particular. The small kid returned chewing guthka, and out of courtesy had brought one for his friend who sat at the shop. He didn't take it. He nudged him again, to no avail. Visibly, he too was happy that his gift wasn't accepted. He immediately emptied the other pouch also into his mouth. His friend wanted a glass of juice for having been there, to which the kid straightaway refused. His friend ran out snatching two sugarcane sticks from the pile. Our boy,

(I leave it, it'll get way too wayward)