Me. Microcosmically.

The great war of Lilliput

2011-08-26T10:13:00.003+05:30

They stood around in a noisy, spirited huddle. The war was about to begin. Lightning and thunder rolled loudly above. Rain had started pattering down.

“This is the right time”, Tom said to Harry.

Harry nodded in agreement, “We must take our revenge. We should make him regret for our Dick’s blood.”

“He’s down”, Tom said looking at the huge figure of Gulliver lying a few meters away from where he was. “You charge!”

Harry moved close and sparred. Straight at Gulliver, hitting his forearm. Indeed Gulliver was down, he was caught off hand. Blood sprinkled ever so slightly from his strong forearms. Then Tom repeated the dose. Gulliver, in spite of his huge frame was helpless. His weapon hung from his fingers like a paralyzed limb, useless.

A host of their soldiers, waiting in the hiding, sprang into action, injuring Gulliver all over. The smell of victory was enough to gee them up, young as they were.

An old warrior, the senior most one, rebuked the spirited youngsters. “I’ve seen all these, boys”, he said, “Gulliver is dangerous. I feel we should plan the war on another day.”

The young blood hardly paid any attention. They kept on sparring at Gulliver.

The old warrior hid in a corner, face overcome with fear, looking at his young boys.

Suddenly Gulliver sprang into action. With a swipe he killed Tom, who crumbled in a heap on to the ground. Harry charged and got a similar swipe which invalidated him. In Gulliver's hands, the weapon swung like a rapier which swished through the air in expert arcs.

Gulliver pressed the weapon against Harry’s dark, incapacitated body. He was dead. A vein sputtered loudly, red blood flowed out and solidified. Without their leaders, their loyal army was vanquished in a trice.

The old warrior sat cowering in a corner, alone.

Gulliver said to his wife, “Ah, It was the battery. The bat is fine now with the new batteries. They are done with”. He blew a dead body from the mosquito bat, tossed it onto the table and crept into bed. His wife put an arm around him and snuggled close.

“Still they are not fully killed”, said she, listening intently. “I can hear a buzz”

“It’s alright, let’s sleep”, he said.

Gulliver and his wife slept peacefully that night. The old mosquito buzzed around, sadly, looking for a gap to launch at least a token attack. Sensing there was no hope, he escaped after a while, silently, through a crack in the window pane, vowing to come back again, to exact revenge for his beloveds' blood.

Together, alone.

2011-07-23T19:06:00.001+05:30

I first met her in the deserted corridors of my school. We sat on the dusty steps leading up to the library and read a book which told a tale of a young man who fell in love with a fairy.

From far away, I could hear the squeaks of delight from children who played on the grounds, under the summer sun.

We met again - Under the giant oak tree near the deserted basketball court. At the corner seat of our library, behind the book shelf from where I could see the radio tower in a distance, majestic and alone.

I guess I was in love with her. One day, she broke my heart.

"I have many lovers", she squeezed my hand and said, "but call me any time, I'll be there for you."

I thought she was bluffing me, but she wasn't.

Like the quintessential genie, she materialized whenever I wanted her to.Those were lovely moments. I hated people when they butted in and spoiled our heaven.

Time went on.

One day I squeezed her hand, just like how she had done to me years back. It was payback time.

"I have some lovers now too", I said with a smirk. "Still I love you."

"I will excuse you", she teased. As she stood up, her hair brushed against my cheeks. "Don't forget me"

We didn't see for a while. In fact, I didn't think of her. I was too busy to do so.

Several friendships, love affairs and years later, one rainy evening, I thought of her. There was one near me other than a cup of steaming coffee.

She didn't fail me. Immediately, I felt her soft hands hug me from behind and her moist lips on my neck.

"How have you been, my darling?", she whispered, flirtatiously.

I pulled her around and looked into her eyes.

"The time without you", I said, "it wasn't worth it."

I kissed her on the lips.

Breathless, I looked into her eyes. She looked at me coolly, as if she had seen all this before.

"I love you", I said, "I love you, My dear Goddess of Solitude"

In reply, she just held me tight, silently.

I'd rather be here..

2011-07-16T18:00:00.001+05:30

No,

I can't stand the stares,

At my attire,

At my mobile phone,

At my clumsiness with which I dig into a slice of jackfruit,

At the odd way in which I have draped my dhoti...

I can't stand it,

When your women giggle at me,

With the back of their palms pressed against their lips...

I can't stand it,

When your men cheat me off ten rupees,

And put that fake innocence on their faces,

And act concerned when they ask, scratching the back of their heads,

"Are you finding everything fine here, sir?"

I'd rather prefer,

to be here,

in my dusty, dirty, immoral city,

which, by night,

would pull me in,

seduce me,

under the cloak of

its pure, orgasmic anonymity.

Some random morning thoughts

2011-05-14T08:14:00.000+05:30

I was in heaven, the cloudy smoke rings all around, sieving the sunlight through them. Ahead, an angel clad in white stood, holding a pristine white cloth. I sat back, watching the spectacle through my half clad eyes. The vision of heaven had never come to me this beautifully - the smoke rings, the bright light, the whiteness, the angels. It was phenomenal. But then, the phone rang in my shirt pocket.

The call was from Airtel and I had to pay my Broadband bills for the last two months. Three thousand bucks.

I remembered an adage: Money is the best vehicle from the world of dreams to the cruel, real one.

Then I rushed to survey my bright, cloudy, angel-inhabited heaven again. It was in ruins. My snuffed out cigarette lay under the chair; the girl on the next house's balcony had gone and her white bed sheet lay there fluttering in the breeze. The only definitive memory I have of the heaven was that it smelled of cigarette smoke.

**********************

On some days like today, when I don't cook my breakfast, the only hotel I turn to is a run down malayalee tea-shop near my house. And daily I order the same menu - 3 poori's with potato masala,a double omlette and tea. The omlette and tea are taken together, bite by sip, at the end.

The potato masala that they give with the tea is so drab and tasteless and it makes me wonder how I keep on having it each time.

It must be because I have a faint memory of having a tasty masala from this shop. It was perhaps the first or second time since I started eating from here. Maybe its the hope of a repetition. Its funny how far hope can take you.

**********************

Today, while I was eating, a lady sat in front of me, washing the plates. Daily she operates a grinder, staring ahead, with a curious impassive expression on her face . There is some undefinable air about her which depresses me.

But today she was sitting on the floor, plates piled up around her.

Suddenly one of the waiters moved around and knocked some plates down and it landed on her. She looked over her shoulder angrily and stared him down. An icy-cold stare. Cold fire.

But the waiter had moved across without noticing and was cracking jokes with someone outside. She was looking at thin air.

For a second, the mood was unique. She had no one to stare at. But she held the stare angrily for a couple of minutes. The culprit waiter guffawed outside at his own jokes, oblivious to what he had done.

Then she looked down and then went back to scrubbing the plates. Harder.

It was depressing. I felt I could feel her frustration brimming over and that it had more to it than just the knocked-down plates.

I didnt finish my tea.

You...

2011-05-02T18:50:00.000+05:30

You had been,

In the hushed whispers, falling on my ears over the phone,

on many an hour where the night had started dissolving into the day.

You had been,

In the words, the sentences, the songs, the tunes, the sorrows,

which we shared, Long before we started to share each other.

You had been,

In the fearsome dread we felt, the stupid dread ,

whether the eyes would judge and spoil the bliss

that the Minds couldn't ever do without.

You had been,

In the aroma of body oil which was a perpetual, sweet irritant,

whenever I pressed my face, deep, between your ear and your neck.

You had been,

In the infinitely happy giggle which escaped our wet lips,

when all our body juices had just dissolved into each other,for the very first time.

You had been,

In the pang of sudden guilt - born of meaningless social obligations -

which would melt in the heat of yet another long kiss,

You had been,

In the feel of your soft hands which I prised off my chest,

when the setting sun's golden light reminded me of a journey at hand.

You had been,

In the inevitable curse which was on my tongue on that horrible day

when my careless words made you suddenly realize, that we ,

so far, had existed in nothing but a mere bubble.

But, that was then.

Now, you exist,

In the meaningful silences which seems to fill all our infrequent conversations,

In the memory which now consoles me,

In the memory that I have indeed loved and been loved,

In the numbing hollowness I have now learnt to live with.

Yes,

Now,

You are in me.

More than ever before.

You are me.

And then, he just faded away...

2011-03-28T01:55:00.007+05:30

He would walk down those streets, daily. The streets where the lovelorn princesses stayed in dilapidated mansions which had dull paints and sooty chimneys.

Every day or almost every day, as if by design, his roving gaze would meet the eyes of a lovelorn girl. It would only be a trice before she got enamored with his hazel green, delicate, teary eyes which seemed to tell a hundred tales.

Then they, he and the princess, would fly, the girl close to his chest, sleeping like a kid, warm in his embrace.

After flying a while, they would land on some grassy meadows, where there was no other sound other than the chirping of the sparrows and the rustle of leaves in the gentle spring breeze.

Then he would bring forth his magic wand, and with a wave of it, create castles which would stand high, mighty and imposing on the grassy meadows. And then, he and the princess would venture inside the castle.

Inside the castle, they would be trapped in a time warp. Time would stand still outside as they discovered each other, inside the castle. He would merge into her and she into her, till they were nothing but one.

Then one fine day, when he felt he had enough of the princess, he would decide to leave.

Then, as soon as he left, a metamorphosis would start.

The grass on the meadows would go dead. A strong, chilly winter would set in, replacing the spring. The castle would be shorn off its aura and would resemble a deathly prison.

The princess, trapped inside the castle, would become a lonely prisoner waiting for her salvation at the gallows.

And he would fly away, deserting the meadow, to find a new princess, to explore new meadows where he would again create castles with a wave of his magic wand.

More castles, more love sessions, more prisoners. More immediate, cold winters. It went on, on and on.

One day he woke up, and realized with a shock, that he had lost his magic wand.His hazel eyes had lost their charm and had become pale.

He flew. His sudden ineptitude frightened him. He flew far and landed on a meadow which he had left long back. The castle was still there, looking less gloomy than when he had suddenly left it. With a relief, he realized that the chilly winter had given way to something which was less strong, more bearable.

He could make out strains of a song coming from inside the castle. She was singing. There was a refreshing freedom in the lines. A tone of relief as if celebrating newfound hope.

He moved with unsure steps towards the castle. But then, as he groped at his waist, and realized that he had lost the keys to the castle.

He stood helplessly for a while. Then in a stray wind which came that way, he just melted.

Vanished without a trace. As if he had never existed.

The strains of the song were still audible from the castle.

Musical Nonsense

2011-03-12T10:05:00.000+05:30

I loitered on the platform, outside the train compartment, waiting for the railway staff to come and stick the passenger list. Come they did and I checked out whether my seat was mapped rightly to my name. Yes, seat number twelve and the name was mine.

Then, as always, I went on to scan the list, making a mental note of who my fellow passengers were. Most were nondescript Tamil names, but one, on seat number nine, was a Miss.Veena Krishna (F23, F for female :P), was chartered to board from Katpadi and to get down at Chengannur. There wasn't a malayalee name alongside hers and that was real good news. It meant she was traveling alone.

I didn't really have an idea of where Katpadi was, so I kept looking out at the station nameboards at each stop. It took a while coming, this Katpadi. It finally came when I had just woken up after a nap, to find lot of people swarming in to and out of the train.

I took out the comb and shaped my hair, regretting that I had forgotten to oil it in the morning.

She came soon – tall, dusky and shapely. Long hair as well. But she was talking to someone, that too in Malayalam. I cocked my ears. She was talking about seat numbers and a guy was answering from outside my line of sight. The hero came into view then - fair and handsome with a nice goatee which suited him just fine.

Then they snuggled into the seat opposite to mine and started talking. I focused hard on my copy of "How to Kill a Mockingbird", but my ears were glued to their mouths. Just out of college, they were. And the girl was chattering like a non-stop train: about studies, about affairs, about others affairs, about other guys. She did it with such a flirtatious smile on her lips. And I got sick.

I get sick when I see these girls and boys cuddle together and talk. It just makes me squirm in my seat. It must be jealousy, or maybe the frustration that I hadn't really been able to do all these candy floss stuff while in college.

Then I noticed that the guy had his elbow dangerously brushing her hip. I grew more and more uncomfortable. To make it worse, the guy started asking me some perfunctory questions as well. I replied in kind, making sure that I looked and sounded as if I was way past their age. And that I was least interested in what was happening between them. I acted it out rather well, I guess.

But the girl's chatter and the guys smiles were really making me agitated. Then I found my solace. My cell phone and my headset. I plugged it into my ears, stretched out my legs and played the first album which my aimlessly moving fingers took me to.

Kishore Kumar started singing. The girls chatter was still faintly audible. I pressed the volume control and send the decibel levels soaring in my ears. Kishoreda filled my ears. "Chukar mere man ko..Kiya tune kya ishara". I looked at them with the song pumping in my ears.

"Badla ye mousam, lagey pyaara jag saara.." when the high pitched rendition filled my ears, I could no more hear anything of the girls chatter. The song had drowned her completely.

But, now, it was lovely. My ears were full with a beautiful, awesome love song. In front of my eyes, the pretty couple smiled and snuggled romantically together. It was in sync, perfectly. Now since the girls bubbly chatter wasn't audible, the whole picture was perfect. I noticed them a while, sitting happily opposite me, with Kishore Kumar providing the perfect background for the romantic spectacle. It was so dreamy a sight that I dozed off.

A climax was necessary. But what came was an anticlimax. And it came when I woke up.

My phone battery had conked out, which meant that Kishore Kumar wasn’t singing in my ears anymore. I noticed that the girl had leaned away, but with sugary expression on her face intact. The guy was peering sleepily into his mobile. Still talking though.

"So many in our batch getting married", says the guy.

"Yes, Aswini getting engaged too, did you know?", she replies.

"Yes I did. Someone told me. When is yours?"

"Mom keeps on looking, might happen anytime", she says with a smile. He answered with another smile.

I was shocked. So they were not couples? Really?

They went back to talking some crap, which I didn't listen.

I didn't listen because I was busy. Busy mourning the colossal waste of so many things. My mobile battery. My valuable time. My imaginative juices which worked overtime, to give Kishore Kumar background to their inane chatter. Oh, so many things.

Pissed off, I took a trip to the bathroom, pissed, came back, apologized to Kishore da’s soul and slept.us

From a homebound journey...

2010-09-05T19:15:00.001+05:30

Thought of jotting down a few idle thoughts which occured to be during my journey back home, from Chennai.

Mother Nature and Lady Luck smile: Hit by fever on the day before, I had still not recovered. Thankfully, for the first time, I had booked my tickets on a non-ac bus. To add to my luck, it rained throughout and the air conditioning wasn't really missed.

Mr.Grumpy Dumpty: The guy who sat next to me looked was such a grumpy soul, staring fiercely at me as my bag accidentally brushed his shoulders, ever too faintly. I stared back, and dismissed him with a don't-care-a-hell-for-you smirk, which I have after years of use, practiced to perfection. He, to me, was proof that the world wasn't as good a place as I had started to feel, especially with the air condition thing that I told you about.

2 Damsels:Two girls, one of them real pretty, sat diagonally across me – both looked the college going type. We spent our time glancing - Me at them, they at their mobiles and occasionally at Grumpy, who I must admit was a rather handsome guy.Don't start mistaking me now, I am as straight as a pole!

Rain,again: Annoyingly, the bus started to leak, and a string of drops started to trickle down on to my trousers. I would slide my leg away, but involuntarily the leg would back go to its comfortable position, get wet and annoy me. Slowly I started to get sort of acclimatized to the reassuring trickling rhythm of the drops and their consistent impact on my thighs, so much so that, I started missing it awfully, when the rain and the leak stopped after a while.

Grumpy turns friendly: The two of us were already felt miles apart, though our shoulders were brushing each other's for quite some time now. Then his phone rang - one of his buddies had missed a train and the guy had calledhim up. He turned and asked me, I felt a sudden surge of companionship, called up my friend who is almost a railway Wiki and gave him a prompt suggestion. We soon got talking; got on rather well, and I found out that, he was a frustrated software engineeras well. Like how I had been, until I switched my job.

Expletive Barrage: Notwithstanding the jitters, stiff seats and the leak, we had worked ourselves into somekind of a sleep, when a mobile phone started to ring at full blast, waking theentire bus up. I heard three expletives in two different languages, in addition to one by me, in pure, chaste Malayalam. The irony of the whole thing was that,the owner of the phone was the last person who woke up.

Grumpy strikes again: After a rather uncomfortable sleep, I woke up, hoping we would have crossed the Kerala border. Rubbing my eyes, I found a huge, orange placard with big, green Tamil letters on it. Still, there was a faint hope inmy mind – it should be somewhere close to Kerala. Grumpy slowly murmured, "Madurai" and went back,contented, to sleep. Dejected and disheartened, I crashed back on to my seat. He had given me yet another reality check.

Passenger Mutiny; Our own words for breakfast: The bus got stuck at the check post, for reasons known only to them. We waited for half an hour, rumbling tummies and all, till finally I lost control, took my bag and started to get off the bus. Grumpy followed me and we vented our frustration on the poor driver, the undivided attention of the damsels being the motivation. Two angry young men. I felt heroic.

But, as soon as we got off the bus, the checking was over and the driver proceeded to start the bus. We rushed back, jumped back in clumsily, and with a sheepish look on our faces, went back to our seats, pretending not to hear the driver's rants. Talk about eating your own words!

Homecoming: Mom was at her fussy best, caressing mycheeks and holding me close, complaining about my hair and skin. I bent down awkwardly to let her kiss me on the forehead and then proceeded to the kitchen,where as if pre programmed, steaming Dosa's were getting cooked for me, with my favorite coconut chutney. I brushed, pulled my chair next to the stove and gobbled up a few.

Gosh, you talk of friends, you talk of relatives, you talk of Mother nature and Mother India, but is there anything, anything ever, toreplace the care of your Mother?

Lull before the storm: The first few hours are always serene,when it takes a little time to blend back into the presences of each other. Then the usual fraying of tempers and stuff would soon start, so I sat back and savored the calm, while it lasted.

Writer's Block and a remedy: And if you wonder why I wrote this whole thing, its just following the old adage:- If you can't think of anything to write about, just write about anything that you think! :)

To you dears: If you have reached thus far, wish you all Happy Onam!

The story of a director

2010-08-19T18:36:00.001+05:30

Prologue: Prasad Siva, software engineer based in US, took time off from a busy job schedule to pursue his passion – films. He had the script ready for his first film: which he had based on Bhama, his chitta(Mother’s younger sister). Bhama had no longer been in contact with him and his family, after she had recovered from an attack of depression, after an (alleged) affair with her student. But Siva believes otherwise. Here, we trace his experiences, through memories, through diary notes, through emails…

Over to Prasad: It’s April. The summer has set in. The three month holiday is up. At the airport, I wait for the announcement. I have my suitcase by my side and a carry bag with me. I browse the bag. There is a pack of Lays, a bottle of Coke, my last year’s diary and the script for my first film. I have forgotten to bring the newspaper. Or that new novel that I had bought last week.

There’s nothing to do. I just turn the pages of the diary. Flipping through, well knowing, to where I am headed. I stop flipping and start reading…

************************************************************************************

November 15 2008: Am damn tired as I check into the hotel room. The one good thing is that it rained. Heavily. Instead of Cochin, I wished I had gone straight to Calicut. But then, was it raining in Calicut? I don’t know. I am about to start my first film. There is a sudden flutter in my stomach when I think of it.

I go through the photos of the shortlisted ladies for the heroine’s role – most of it was trash – this idiot Aravind, such a horrible taste he has. Oh yes, he does say the same about me too. Surprisingly four of them seem okay though, look bold enough. Four out of twenty is a better ratio than usual, when our tastes for women are matched up against each other.

Boss calls up from Texas. IT Crap is sickening even if it’s on phone. I disconnect the phone abruptly and congratulate myself on my audacity. Not very long under you, boss, I am directing my own film now.

I have to fix a time to meet the four girls, talk and do a screen test tomorrow. I call up Aravind and fix it up at ten in the morning.

November 16 2008:: Yesterday’ rain was the best thing so far. Now today, Sreedevi thrills me as much as the rain did. Or even more.

I meet her for the first time, at noon and am stunned. She’s tall and dressed in a white salwar-kameez and a pink duppatta flung carelessly over her neck. Careful carelessness. She is as different from Bhamachitta as she can be, but I find her so similar – I can’t place why. I fix her up for the role immediately.

She waltzes through the screen test; I don’t even try out the other girls. Aravind is offended, Sreedevi was his last preference, he said. Knowing him, I guess he had a grudge on her, may be because she wouldn’t have been as receptive to his flirtatious solicitations.

November 20 2008: I had a long talk with Sreedevi. We went to the temple pond, sat on the steps and talked. I explained to her the whole script, told her about Bhamachitta. All those memories that I had of her – everything – from the first swim I had in this pond with her to guide me, the way she played the Veena, the way she chose not to marry saying that she never wanted to experience labor pain…

She didn’t blink. She just nodded on, looking at me, her face cupped in her palms as she kept tossing pebbles into the pond. I went on…about Sunil, her student…how close Bhamachitta was with him, how innocent the relation was…how my people, my parents and grandparents included, misinterpreted it to be an illicit affair…

When I finished off, there was a look in Sreedevi’s eyes that I’ll never forget. Then I realized why, right from the beginning, I had felt that overwhelming similarity with Bhamachitta – both had the same set of eyes.

December 22 2008: I haven’t been writing the diary for a while; as I have been too busy with the shooting. I hope to wind up everything up by mid-January.

Sreedevi has been a revelation and has already got an offer to play a lawyer in my friend Sibi’s yet-to-be-titled film. She has transformed herself beautifully into the character of Bhamachitta. I have been lucky to get Kailas’s – widely touted to be the next superstar – dates too to play the character of Sunil: but somehow he does not rise up to my expectations. Seems a tad immature, but okay.

Sreedevi though, is covering up all the flaws with her superbly mature, restrained acting. In the traditional set-mundu she, though starkly different from Bhamachitta, exudes the same charm as her, I feel. Aravind agrees, though a tad unconvinced.

I feel I couldn’t be more right in choosing the character to play Bhamachitta. Once more, after that conversation with my boss, I congratulate myself. God, I don’t want this film to fail. I feel it won’t.

We have decided to shoot the indoor scenes at our old Tharavadu itself. It gives me a high, shooting here. Since coming here, I am able to make alterations to my script, some of which I wonder why had never occurred to me previously. I rewrote some of the dialogues and now they look better, more authentic. The relationship between Bhama and Sunil looks much better on the screen than I had expected. (After much thought, I have decided to retain the names of the original characters in my film)

************************************************************************************

No announcement yet. I open the pack of Lays and sip my coke. I open my laptop and check for mail – no new ones – I come across an old mail that I had sent to Aravind. It was in March last year. It read:

> From Prasad Siva godfader@gmail.com

> To”Aravind” aravindqzd@gmail.com

> Date Thu, March 3, 2008 at 11:17 PM

> Subject: Macha… read this mail…

> Macha! How are you? Have something to tell you!

> I have an idea for a story in mind…Have started working on the script as well, it’s almost complete…

> You remember Bhamachitta? My mother’s cousin…? I’ve told you na?

> I came to know she is in Ahmedabad now. Anindita met her it seems on one of her trips to Baba’s Ashram. Ani is sure that it is her…

> We all had no idea where she went after she was discharged from hospital after that attack of depression…

> I can’t stop thinking of her for the last one month…

> After shooting, I’ll go and meet her in Ahmedabad. I will watch my film with her…I hope she agrees to meet me…

> Man, I think I know how she got that attack of depression…somehow I feel it…That’s what my film is about.

> She will never do such a stupid thing as to get into an affair with her own student.

> Maybe through my story, I could do away the wrong that our people did to her… Bring out the truth…

> Call me back when you see this mail. I’m feeling so inspired…I might take a long leave from here very soon…

> Be ready…ciao…Bye.

I shut down the laptop and go back to my diary. I read the next entry, which was on Christmas Eve. As I read, I can almost hear the drum beats, the Kathakali song, the prayer chants from the temple, and the same sick feeling rises up in my stomach…In spite of which, I read on.

*******************************************************************************

December 24 2008

‘Nalacharitham’ is being played on the stage. Damayanthi is at her sensous, romantic best, sharing the stage with Nala…

I am sitting in the corner of the temple compound. Sreedevi sits a few paces ahead. She is wearing a rose petal in her hair, sits inclined with a palm planted on the ground. I feel it is Bhamachitta herself is in front of me. Kailas is by her side.

Then suddenly I spot it. Her hand is in his. He looks around, makes sure no one was seeing and pinches her. A giggle escapes her mouth, which she suppresses consciously. Then he gets up, walks away into the darkness. A while later she disappears into the same corner.

Ever since I met her, Sreedevi’s each action had seemed so familiar. So soothingly familiar. She always evoked a sense of respect within. But the expression on her face now is strange to me. Nauseating. Clandestine.

I feel defeated. I curse the moment when I felt like going to the temple. I have returned to my room and decide to go early to sleep. But I stay awake late into the night. There is nothing much I can do, but I realize what has begun to crash down within me.

December 31 2008

I am back from the hospital. Sreedevi is pronounced out of danger. It was an overdose of sleeping pills. I should have guessed this was coming. I didn’t, though. The crew has packed up and left. The producer is livid. I’ve asked the old rascal to come tonight; I’ll throw his money back at him and tell him to fuck off.

Ever since Kailas left after completing his scenes, Sreedevi has never been the same. She has lost that aura around her, I felt. She constantly stands in a corner, punching keys on her mobile and setting it aside in frustration. She just sleepwalks through the scenes. Before she took the drastic step, that is. I don’t know more details and I do not want to know. It is immaterial.

But somehow, I feel I know something else now. About something which had happened years back. About something which had driven Bhamachitta into despair and out of our lives…

I have cancelled the ticket that I had booked to Ahmadabad. Feel I could make it next time. Now, I need some time to myself. The ticket to Goa is okay. I am leaving today. I plan to take a further three months off.

***************************************************************

The announcement has come. My flight has arrived. I close the diary and put it inside, then get up and walk briskly towards the check-in kiosk. On the way, a red penguin, with its beaks open and holding a ‘USE ME’ board smiles blankly at me. I open my bag, take out my script and stuff it into its mouth.

And I move forward. It’s back to Texas. It’s back to work.

(Originally posted in www.passionforcinema.com)

A Culinary Conversation!

2010-06-28T11:09:00.004+05:30

The lady in question is one with I have been working. I see her at the shopping mall, on a Sunday. And walk up to her at the shopping mall.

We had never shared a good rapport, so I am slightly apprehensive. Surprisingly she fires the first question. Catching me off guard. By the way, she is the one talking in italics. No special reason for that, but still.

“So what’s up this weekend?” Says the damsel.

“Hey nothing much, I need to clean the house. And cook.” I curse myself for involuntarily portraying myself as the unfashionable, slogging male who cannot afford McDonalds and Pizza Hut.

“Cook! Wow! So you cook yourself?”

I can tell that the surprise on her face isn’t exactly natural. “Yeah I do. I cook myself.”

“Hey, that’s cool. What you gonna cook?”

“Yeah, today is Sunday, right. Thought I’ll cook something special. Planning to make vegetable fried rice.” At least I said something catchy. I feel happy. Thank God I didn’t tell curd-rice.

“How did you learn to cook?”

She doesn’t know cooking. It’s evident from her fluttering eyelids. “I’ll tell you later.” The ball is on the borderlines. It might slip into my court now. I tighten myself.

“Oh hey, are you a veggie? "

What if she is a veggie? What if she is not? I decide to play it safe. “No not exactly. But yeah, a forced one. Forced vegetarian.” Wow!

“Forced vegetarian? What’s that?”

Great, I have managed to stroke her intellect. And interest. “Yeah, my mouth does water at the sight of non-veg food but my stomach revolts when it tries to digest the same. So forced to don the veggie garb.”

“Ha Ha, that’s funny!" Its a fantastic feel when humor clicks.

I thank my english teachers and the books I have read. Words never fail me.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll make my fried rice in lots of ghee. It’ll be quite tasty then…”

“Hmm, you can afford to make things in ghee and oil, I can’t.”

“Hey why? Why can’t you?” I act concerned.

“Coz, I am trying to slim down. Need to shed some kilos. So no ghee, no oil for me.” There’s that petulant look on her face, the one which girls put on while they get self-indulgent.

I think I’ll cheer her up. Time for more humor. Along with a slight dose of flattery.
“Hey you look alright though.” I ignore the few evident extra pounds.
“Any way that’s sad. I’ll tell you a technique by which you can lose 7 kilos in a week. Just four thousand rupees.” I say.

“That’s awesome. 4000 and 7 kilos in a week? That means 28 kg in a month? WOW!”

Jesus! Some mathematics! “Yeah it sure is. Don’t try it at a stretch. Split it up across four months. Okay?”

“Yeah sure, tell me.” Fluttering eyelashes. Nice.

“Go to hotel Sea queen; eat Non-vegetarian thaali meals for four days at a stretch. You can try other dishes too, but then I can’t give a guarantee for that.” I take care to put on a poker face.

“Ok, what the hell does a hotel have to do with it?” Good going, I have her hooked.

“Come on. Don’t jump the gun.” I am still poker faced.

“Ok, am listening. Go ahead.”

“Ok, you eat that stuff…what was it that I told?” Memory testing. Beep Beep. It’s good to test your own performance in holding the interest of the subject

“Non vegetarian thaali meals, right?” Good. She is listening.

“Yeah you’re bright. Eat it for four days. Fifth day, in case you’re alive, you’ll be down with diarrhea. If you’re really lucky you might get vomiting as well.”

“What? What the f**k?” She sure is shocked at the dismal imagery that I have conjured up, if the four letter word which sputtered out is any indication.

“Listen. Then get yourself admitted in PM Hospital, Adayar. They will treat; rather ill treat you like hell. “ I turn it on. “And bingo, within a week you lose 7 kilos!”

“Ha ha, you’re ultimate.” Big grin on the pretty face.

“Now you know why I learnt cooking, don’t you?”

“Yeah, got it. Ha Ha. Too good” . Now she is laughing.

I shed the poker face and grin. Operation success. “Yeah, purely out of desperation. Nothing else.”

We walk together out, smiling and grinning.
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
That’s all. A blow-hot-and-cold relation has now changed into a much more warmer and fulfilling one, thanks to a hospital stint and a timely dose of humor. We talk more frequently now.
Strange are the ways of life.

May be this is what Lord Krishna said in the Gita, “Whatever has happened is for your own good”.

An artists afternoon...

2010-05-19T18:32:00.001+05:30

OVERVIEW: This is a story, which takes place on a hot Chennai afternoon…

With great care, Anwar bent forward and adjusted the ear-ring on her left ear. He hoped she would smile at him, but she didn’t. Instead she kept staring ahead, a cold expression in her eyes, lips set in a tight line.

He gazed admiringly at her pink cheeks, the full lips and the dark eyelashes which gave her face that dreamy, just-been-kissed look. Then, after a couple of idle minutes, suddenly conscious of the task at hand, he dabbed deftly below her chin and under the ears, smoothening the layers of face-paint. And as he moved his cotton sponge over her lips, he felt the admiring eyes of the crowd on him.

The pride swelled within him. After all, who wouldn’t admire him, who wouldn’t envy him – painting the lips of Divya Malini, the goddess of the South Indian film industry?

His mind started to wander. Even as his hands moved adeptly in their trained trajectories, he slowly became engrossed in his own thoughts and memories…

It was around ten years ago, he remembered, though not entirely sure of it. An entire film crew had landed in his village in Ottappalam. The news had trickled down to his school, on a sleepy summer afternoon, the air pregnant with ennui. The news suddenly transformed the day; he dashed across the school compound, jumped over the wall to escape the blue-suited, betel-chewing school-peon, scurried through the lush green paddy-fields and reached the Panchayat president’s huge bungalow where the shooting was planned.

There were two remnant memories of the day…

The first – he had had a bloody shoulder, the result of jumping over a barbed fence. He had cut himself badly. Anwar stopped applying the make-up and felt the scar on his right shoulder. It was still there, just above his polio injection mark, the skin there having hardened with time.

The second – there was a half-sari clad, debutante girl of fourteen who was playing the heroine’s childhood. She hadn’t become Divya Malini yet; she was some young girl, whose only claim to fame was a photograph of her which had appeared on the cover page of a local daily, which, fortunately for her, the director had found time to peruse through.

Few had expected her to be christened Divya Malini in five to six years (after the runaway success as a heroine, she was named after the yesteryear super-heroine of the same name), fewer had expected her to become the highest paid heroine in the whole of South India. Anwar hadn’t too.

Neither had he imagined these, nor had he imagined that he would be brushing her cheeks with his fingers on a similar hot summer afternoon, ten years later.

He could still remember the pangs of envy which he had felt towards the boy, of his same age, who played the childhood of the hero. They had a song together, in which they ran across the paddy fields, chased each other around trees and most irritatingly, the guy would sit with her on a swing and lip-sync for a song which blared away in the background.

For one month, he had kept on skipping school with more regularity than he had ever attended it, bribing his sister with stolen ice-candy so as to not tell his misdeeds to their mother. He loitered around the shooting premises, stealing furtive glances at the girl in the arc lights, fruitlessly imagining that she was doing the same at him too. While at the same time, his classmates at school were busy submitting their tenth standard exam applications and devouring their text-books like crazy.

As for Anwar, he was bitten by the film bug. He wasn’t sure whether it was the arc lights or whether it was Divya Malini, but he was bitten alright.

He didn’t write the exams that year. And for that matter, he didn’t ever since.

Anwar looked at her face again. She still had the same expression on her face, though her cheeks were slightly more illuminated by the sun which was now at its highest and hottest. With his sponge, Anwar carefully brushed away the specks of dust which had gathered on her forehead.

It could be nothing but a coincidence of the extreme degree; Anwar thought to himself, that at all the critical junctures in his life, this girl should always be present.

After his skipped tenth-standard examination which effectively dashed the dreams of his mother that her son would acquire a good education and would relieve her of the hardships of her labor, he had spent two worthless years as a painter and makeup man in a drama troupe, which spent much more than it earned. A born artist, he perfected his craft at the troupe.

But, the troupe-owner went absconding one fine morning, leaving his employees and money-lenders alike, agape in dismay.

Then he had boarded a train to Chennai, loitered around Kodambakkam, the Tamil film hub, doing this job and that, for quite some time. He had work on one day, and none on the next two, but something, maybe the proximity to the film world, kept him afloat. Life had been going on in this fashion when the shooting of the movie “Kondayil Thazhampoo” commenced in Kodambakkam. The movie starred the reigning super-star with a new face as the heroine. His heart jumped into his mouth when he saw the heroine; the girl had now become a woman, a far cry from the starry eyed fourteen-year old who had come to his village years back.

His heart had fluttered a bit more than normal, maybe because of the habitual drinks he took that morning – there was a scuffle as he tried to break the ring (for what, Anwar couldn’t comprehend later, in hindsight). The end result was that one of the security guards sustained a flat nose and a black-eye. It didn’t end there; Anwar landed four months in jail for assault with intent to murder. The law enforcement wasn’t as strict as it would usually be, because of the timely intervention of a priest whom Anwar had earlier befriended at a drama in the city.

What it eventually did was that, no one was interested in employing him anymore. The once in three days work cycle dwindled to once in a month or even less, and it was a miracle that he kept himself alive.

It must be third-time-lucky, Anwar now thought to himself, as he neatly touched up her hair, done up into a parrot-shape at the back of her head, the eyes of the parrot adorned with golden beads. This new job was the courtesy of an old time friend from his village who had struck gold in Kodambakkam, who had a major share in a film production company and even owned the franchisee of the biggest jewelry group in the state. He had hired him, on the promise of no further misbehavior. After a few minor touch-up works, this was the first stand-alone assignment that he got his hands on.

He had done a neat job, he reckoned, but the persistent dissatisfaction on her face kept on rankling him. He looked askance at her, with a critical eye, and then with a sudden glitter in his eyes, picked up his brush and sponge. Bending down on his knees, by her side, he did a sudden, expert waft at the sides of her either cheek. He stood up victoriously – Divya Malini was smiling now, though haughtily, her eyes affixed far away.

Then, turning back, Anwar nodded at two lean, dark men who had been standing impatiently beside him all the time, smoking.

As they came near, Anwar backed away, and, as he watched, Divya Malini slowly rose upwards, steadily, towards the sky.

Packing up his tools, and slinging them over his shoulder in a grey duffel bag, Anwar walked back slowly, pocketed his fees – five hundred rupees – which was the highest that he had received in quite some time.

The two men on the ground, who were standing beside him all this while, looked upwards questioningly, the muscles on their forearms straining as they tugged at the ropes which hoisted a blue billboard upwards, as two men from the top of the scaffolding shouted back – “Enough, Enough.” Then they affixed the billboard with ropes, on top of the scaffolding.

A wistful smile played on Anwar’s lips as he looked upwards over his shoulders at his just-completed painting – Divya Malini, smiling, sitting smugly atop a blue billboard, which advertised “Lakshmana Jewellers”, the biggest jewelry group in the state.

I dedicate this to: All the underachieving artists out there…

(Originally posted in www.passionforcinema.com)

For all the unlucky Pinkys

2010-04-19T18:26:00.001+05:30

Prologue:

This year, Smile Pinki (by Megan Mylan) got an Oscar for best short documentary. It was about a poor girl, Pinki, who got her cleft lip surgically corrected, thereby saving her from a lifetime of ridicule and ostracism.

http://passionforcinema.com/smile-pinki-2009-and-dr-murari-mukherji-a-pioneer-of-cleft-lip-and-palate-surgery-in-india/

Though I had felt incredibly happy for Pinki, I couldn’t help feel for similar people who are less lucky, being born with such a defect and having to live their entire lives with that tag attached to them.

The stronger ones survive and even become success stories but the not-so-strong ones, sometimes fall by the wayside. I have tried to capture one such story here, in the format of a short film. A ten minute one may be.

[scrippet]

Scene-1

It’s dark inside the room. Early dawn. A siren goes off, somewhere in the distance. Roopa sits up, her hair all ruffled, eyes groggy.

The mini-calendar on the wall says 24^th June. Her eyes fall on it and a forlorn look creases her face.

She reaches over and takes the mirror, and looks into it. While looking, she runs her finger over the mirror, over her reflection.

The finger moves, slowly, over the mirror. Over the eyebrows, the nose, the cheeks, finally coming to rest over her lip.

It’s a cleft lip. And it looks hideous. She tosses the mirror away with a violent sleight of the hand and then falls back onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling fan.

The camera zooms in onto her face. Then the frame fades out.

Cut

Scene-2 A

Intended to be a flash-back. To be shot accordingly. In a sepia tone, maybe. Scenes 2A,28 and 2C need to have a smooth transition between them. I’d need to work on that .

A school assembly. Around five hundred children sit on the steps of the assembly court, looking at a cleft-lipped girl standing in front of the mike, making a speech. She is extremely self conscious; her hands occasionally come up to shield her lips. She forgets the speech, and fidgets around clumsily, evoking stray laughter from the crowd.

The laughter ripples louder as she says “Thank you” and walks off, inadvertently tripping over an electrical wire.

Once out of sight of the assembly ground, she runs off to the bathroom, covers her face in her palms and sobs uncontrollably.

Scene-2 B

Again in flash-back. A wedding function. A noisy song blares out in the background. People scurry around busily.

The frame focuses on a photographer, moving his hands animatedly, and instructing people to stand in place. Roopa is one among the group of brightly-attired, bubbly, adolescent girls who pose for the photograph. Rustle of silk. Jingle of bangles.

A middle aged lady, her mother, watches from the side, along with some other women of her age. Just when the kids are all set for the shot, she gesticulates to Roopa vigorously : Not to smile too much, so that the lip remains inconspicous.

The other girls glance at Roopa and suppress a giggle. The smile vanishes from Roopa’s face. She self-consciously bites her upper lip, so as to hide it from view. Now she looks normal. Painfully normal.

There is a camera click as the scene freezes in a photographic frame.

Scene-2 C

This is the last flash-back scene.

“I don’t want to marry him” Roopa shouts tearfully. “I will stay here. I don’t want to get married.”

Then she storms into her room, slams the door behind her and throws herself onto the bed.

From inside her room, she dejectedly listens to a conversation. Her Mom and Dad are talking.

“She is right. Isn’t the man too old?”

“So what? There is one more girl younger to her. Shouldn’t we be thinking of her too? Listen Indira,” her Dad says, lowering his tone to a hush, “we won’t get many better proposals. Let us go ahead with this.”

“My daughter’s plight, my God…” Mom was wailing now, trying to keep her voice down.

Roopa buries her face into the pillow.

Cut

Scene 3

Back to Roopa’s room. Camera once again focuses on the calendar on the wall. Daylight has now started peeping in. Roopa is still asleep and now holds a framed photograph which she hugs close to her chest.

She hugs it tighter and starts crying. “I am happy for you…” she says, sobbing, eyes still closed.

The sobs become louder by the minute. And soon becomes hysterical.

A woman comes up to her and shakes her.

“Roopa, get up” she says, looking around cautiously, shaking her shoulder in the process. The hysterical wailing continues unabated.

Then there is a creak, the sound of the door opening. The reverberating tap-tap of high-heeled shoes is the only sound now. The woman standing near Roopa now tiptoes back to her bed, with furtive glances to and fro.

Two sets of hands hold Roopa by the shoulder and press her down.

A syringe needle slowly presses into her veins as she slowly becomes still, as the tap-tap of the shoes slowly fades away. The camera stays on Roopa who now lies still, with her back to the camera.

Cut

Scene 4

The tapping of the shoes is still in the background, connecting this scene to the previous one.

Two uniform-clad nurses walk together in a corridor. It is clear now that they are in a ward of a hospital. One nurse is middle aged while the other is young and evidently new to the service. She is obviously curious about Roopa.

“That lady, what’s her problem?”

“Chronic case of depression. She was admitted two years back.”

“Oh…”

Cut

Scene 5

The interaction between the nurses, their conversation continues in the background.

The camera is trained on Roopa. It focuses first on her, sleeping, unconscious.

“Today is her kid’s birthday”, says the middle aged nurse.

“Where is the kid now, is it a boy or girl?”

“It was a girl. She tried to kill herself, along with the kid…but she alone survived. ”

“Oh, God…”

“It was then that her family had admitted her here. Poor thing.”

“ Ok, it’s time for me to go home. See you tomorrow evening then.”

“Bye.” They bid good-bye, their footsteps go distant…

Scene 6 A

Then the camera focuses on the photograph that she is holding. It is the photo of her baby girl, taken when it was around two months old.

The camera zooms on to the photograph. The film ends with the baby’s face in the frame.

The baby too, has a cleft lip.

Cut

Dedicated to all the unlucky souls forced into a lifetime of insult, self-pity and depression by the thoughtless comments of the society on disabilities that they are born with and can do nothing about.

(Originally posted in www.passionforcinema.com)

A tale of two women

2010-02-02T18:24:00.001+05:30

Intro: Female centric plots fascinate me. Unfailingly. So, when I landed this idea, about the chance meeting of two women, courtesy a conversation with one of my lady friends, it was irresistible. So much so that, I wrote it down, straightaway. It was then that I wondered if it couldn’t be made into a short film, and hence this article…

A disclaimer: This isn’t the script. It’s a write-up as to how I visualize the whole episode in mind. It would take some real good acting from the lead actors to bring out the emotional turmoil within…

How I visualize the plot, if it’s filmed: Indu, thirty-five, a mother of two, recollects an unforgettable experience to Athira, one of her close friends, as they take a walk together. The story would unfold in a flashback. The linear narrative would be occasionally punctuated by voice-overs, as the thoughts in her mind – the judgments and observations that she makes (or had made then) – are aired out aloud, in conversation to Athira.

Over to Indu, and as she starts the narration, triggering off the flashback.

The narrative: I tapped on, incessantly, at the call history button on our telephone. She had called around afternoon on the previous day, I remembered. I wasn’t fully sure that it was her, but I had got a hunch, as I listened to my mother-in-law talking over the phone. Gaurav’s granddad had passed away the previous week after a prolonged illness, and she was attending a condolence call from someone, in response to the obituary news in the local daily.

Should have been a local mobile number, I thought to myself, squinting, poring over the caller-id list on the telephone. One number caught my eye. Local, mobile number. I dialed. A guy with a deep, booming voice picked up the phone and snapped at me, in response to my question whether I could get Maya on the line. Slamming the receiver back onto the cradle, I continued my search.

Soon, I found another number. This had to be it, I realized; there weren’t any other calls received the day before. I noted the number down, and dialed, this time from my cell. For quite some time, the phone kept ringing.

The fact that I was getting tense surprised me. Then, a soft, mature female voice answered.

“Maya?” I asked. There was an unmistakable tremor in my voice.

“Yes. Who is this?”

Confused, still pleasant. I could feel the smile in her voice.

“It’s Indu”, I said. “Indu, Neryamangalath.” I was sure that our family name would ring the right bells.

“Oh!” The calmness suddenly disappeared. Then a stunned silence. A barrage of questions ensued.

“I can’t believe… How did you get my number? Where are you now? At home? Or at Gaurav’s place?”

“Am at Gaurav’s”, I said, “Maya, could we meet up?” I hadn’t planned on that, but somehow, it was my heart which seemed to be talking.

“I…” she stammered, “No Indu, I am a bit busy, have to fetch the kids, maybe another time…”

“Oh Maya. Just take some time off can you? I will wait for you.”

She mumbled incoherently in reply, vacillating for a while.

“Ok, I’ll wait for you, at CCD.” I said.

“Which CCD?”

“The one near the bus station. I will wait for you. At Three in the evening.”

“Ok, I’ll try to come. But I can’t be sure…”

I hung up and called Vinay and Anuja who came bounding up towards me. “We are going out, kids. Get dressed up.”

“Where to, Mummy?”

“We’ll go have ice-cream”. I called out to the kids who were already running off to their room, eager to go out, “Get ready fast. And don’t care to explain to anyone where we are going or whom we are meeting.”

“Ok Mummy”, they shouted back.

******

A five minutes drive and we were waiting at Café Coffee Day, the three of us. To my surprise, I found myself perspiring, in spite of the cool evening air; a strange tension seemed to hang in the air. The kids sat next to me, oblivious to my mental escapades, contentedly munching into their Chocó bars.

I kept watching out of the window, wondering how she would look like, trying to picture her in my mind. I had never seen her yet, not even a photo. I was even thinking whether she would go back on her word, when my cell phone rang.

******

It was Maya. “Indu…I have reached here. Am standing near the door.”

Just as we were talking I spotted her. She should be around forty, I guessed. One or two stray strands of hair stood out on her scalp. She had aged gracefully. Even in the chiffon saree, which though very plain, was meticulously wrapped, she looked graceful. I wondered how she might have looked around ten years before. She should have been strikingly beautiful, I realized.

Then both of us looked away, involuntarily. It was becoming more difficult than what I had expected; even to look at each other. She came up and sat beside us, self-consciously pecking the kids’ cheeks, asking them their names. As I watched her, I couldn’t help comparing myself with her – it’s something that I never do, but somehow, I found myself doing just that. And I felt a pang of jealousy whizz through me. I rebuked myself.

The kids wandered away, leaving us alone at the table. She was looking at me now.

“Indu, how did you get my number?”

“I guessed it might be you. I was in the room, while Mom was attending your call. It was a hunch…”

“I feel so happy now…”, she started off. The voice held a lot of poise. “I never expected we would talk. Ever. I really don’t know what to say.”

I smiled back. “I never really thought you would turn up too. Calling you up was a spur of the moment thing.”

“How are your parents doing?” she asked.

“They are fine. Just some age-related problems.” I said. “You have a daughter, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and a son”, she said. “Anuja looks just like Gaurav.”

I smiled. “He says she looks like me.”

“Where’s he now?” she asked. “Is he at home?”

“No, he is back in Oman . He couldn’t manage to extend the leave, so had to go back last week.”

There was a pause again. We just sat facing each other, unsure of what to say next.

“Maya”, I said. “Keep in touch. Will you?”

“I wanted to. I always think of that, but somehow, I could never bring myself to call you up. I am sorry. Maybe we’ll see each other more, from now. Maybe this is a beginning.”

“I don’t have many friends here. I really hope we will keep in touch.” I said. And I meant it; being born and brought up in Bangalore, I didn’t have many close friends worth mentioning in my native place.

Then she shocked me. “Isn’t it Gaurav’s birthday today?”

“Yes, it is”, I said. “And yours is day after tomorrow, isn’t it?” Now it was her turn to be stunned.

“How did you know it?” she asked, the surprise not leaving her eyes. Then she turned, looked out of the window, the sunlight painting patterns on her cheeks. She looks amazingly beautiful, I thought.

“One second, excuse me”, I said, as I got up from the table. She didn’t seem to notice, and continued staring outside, lost in thought.

******

Then I rang up Gaurav. “Gaurav, where are you?” I enquired.

“Am in office, where are you? Somewhere outside? Vinay and Anuja seem to be there with you…?”

“Yes they are here with me. We are at Café Coffee Day. By the way, Happy Birthday!”

“He he”, Gaurav laughed. His typical, lazy, laidback laugh. “I just forgot all about it. Thanks Indu!”

“As if you remember always! You would never remember if it wasn’t for me”, I said complainingly. “And guess what? I have a surprise for you today.”

“Hmm. Surprise? What’s it? Now Indu, don’t kid around, tell me fast, I’ve got a meeting coming up.”

“Someone is with me now. Just a minute.” I said, trying to keep the bubbling excitement out of my voice.

I suddenly handed the phone over to Maya, who, was now totally taken aback. She took the phone hesitantly from me, pressed it against her ear and muttered weakly.

“Hello… Gaurav? It’s me.”

There was a long pause at the other end, I guess. Silence. Maya sat looking at me, blankly. Then she handed the phone back to me.

“He didn’t recognize my voice”, she said with a smile. But though she smiled, I could see and feel the hurt which simmered beneath.

I took the phone from her. “Gaurav, it’s her. Maya. Maya Devi.”

Silence again. There was a sudden spurt of questions, breaking the silence, as the recollection dawned upon him. “What? How on earth…” He was now fumbling for words, unable to cope with the sudden shock. Then I gave the phone back to Maya, who now was even more hesitant than before.

“Come on, speak, he is still on the line”, I said reassuringly.

She just sat there, pressing the receiver against her ear, her hands trembling visibly. I smiled as I pictured Gaurav, sitting in his office, his typically deadpan expression disturbed by this sudden, unexpected turn of events.

Gaurav had told me about his love affair with Maya even before our marriage, during our courtship days itself. Though Gaurav’s family was more or less ready for the marriage, her family wasn’t ready to give her in marriage to a businessman and that too, one who was abroad. Instead, they had married her off to a college lecturer, who was ten years older than her.

It used to irritate me to no end, I remember. The passion with which Gaurav spoke about her. The unintentional excitement which used to ripple in his voice then. That sickening, sickening feeling that I was the second love would never leave me, in spite of however strongly Gaurav rubbished the idea. But slowly, as the years wore on, I had grown to accept it. That it would never affect us, and that it was indeed a closed chapter.

As I watched, both of them slowly recovered and finally managed to put some perfunctory greetings together. The tension which creased her face relaxed. Then as they hung up, I noticed her voice crack, ever so slightly.

She then handed back the phone to me and got up, glancing nervously at her wrist watch, hurriedly adjusting her saree pallu. She bid a quick good-bye to us, affectionately patting the cheeks of Vinay and Anuja in the process. And as she walked out of the coffee shop and turned back to face me, smiling, I saw a stray tear brimming over in her eyes.

I still cannot explain what exactly I had felt then. I was overwhelmed. Words came up, choked and died in my throat. A heavy cloud descended over my chest. But nothing came out. In spite of all that raged within, everything about me would have appeared perfectly normal, I believe.

And all I did, as she left from the coffee shop, was to just smile and wave her good-bye, and watched her walk away, hurriedly cross the road, tugging at her saree and disappear into the madding crowd.

******

PS: I dedicate this post to the one and only Padmarajan, and the trio of Jayakrishnan, Radha and Clara, from the timeless classic, Thoovanathumbikal.

(For more info on Thoovanathumbikal, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoovanathumbikal)

Originally published on www.passionforcinema.com

Randamoozham - Bhima and the lady characters in his life..

2009-07-19T09:29:00.002+05:30

Prologue: I recently finished reading Randaamoozham (The second turn) by the celebrated author, M.T.Vasudevan Nair. Narrated from the perspective of Bhîma, the book shatters many age-old myths that we have grown up hearing. Though MT hasn’t tampered with the story-line, he, as he himself said, has tried to understand the pregnant silences that Vyasa had left behind without explicit explanation. I have read the book four times in all, and it leaves me stunned to bits, every single time.

M.T.Vasudevan Nair has also penned the script for the national award winning ‘Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha’ which received both commercial success and critical acclaim. In that story too, MT glorified the character Chanthu, who, in Kerala folklore, is a most treacherous and despicable villain, who defies the very ethics of warfare with his cunning treachery. With MT’s unique treatment, myths were shattered and Chanthu was transformed to a chivalrous, tragic hero, with his own tragic flaws; his much maligned actions now presented in a hitherto unseen light. The effort was supplemented by a brilliant performance from Mammootty, who too won the national best actor award for his portrayal of Chanthu.

Similarly, Bhîma, the more ridiculed and unsung among the Pandavas, receives a heroic shade to his character in this book. It’s through his eyes that each character is presented. The characters are humanized a lot more; they become ordinary mortals, shedding the supernatural shades that are attached to them in the stories that we have grown up hearing.

I recently wondered why Randaamoozham too, couldn’t be made into a film. Such an enormous epic to be fitted into a two and half hour movie would take some planning. The casting, with each role requiring tremendous histrionic expertise, would also have to be spot on.

What I have tried to do here is to draw a sketch here some scenes of Bhima, with the main lady characters, their relationships with him being the common thread which binds the story together. This article is just intended to give the readers a feel of the whole theme; of the unique ambience which is created in the novel.

Draupadi: An extremely beautiful and strong willed heroine, whom Arjuna wins over at a Swayamvara. Though she is wife to all the five Pandavas, her first passion has always been Arjuna. We see this trait of her character through Bhima’s observations - whenever her eyes light up at the very mention of his name, one such scene being that of her first night with Bhima (The day when his turn, the Second Turn, begins).

Bhima looks on, ready for the first night of his turn, very modest decorations done at his abode, after Draupadi’s year-long honeymoon with Yudhishtira, the eldest of the Pandavas, has come to an end. That night, the Pandavas and Draupadi sit around the bonfire, as she listens wide-eyed to Arjuna, who incidentally has come home that evening after a brief hiatus. Later, at night, when Bhima moves close to her in bed, lust rippling through his veins, she dreamily mutters Arjuna’s name, lying sleepily by his side. Bhima, then gets up, goes out and makes his bed on bare ground and lies down, staring up at the star-lit sky. He would have none of her cold body tonight, Bhima decides, when her mind dreams about Arjuna, even while she is beside him in bed.

On yet another occasion, she mentions her desire to wear the Sougandhika flowers, famous for their heavenly perfume, in her hair. Though Bhima gets the flowers from a heavily guarded pond after a minor adventure, he gets caught and is kept captive by King Kubera. It’s only after the arrival of his brothers and Draupadi that Bhima is released. Though it is an occasion to be embarrassed, Bhima proudly hands out the flowers to Draupadi, but she tosses it away disdainfully and later, when they walk past, the Sougandhika flowers lie, soiled and crumpled on the ground (This is purely the author’s innovation), a beautiful symbol of rejected love.

Draupadi always looks up to Bhima as a protector and someone who would grant even her extreme desires. Bhima realizes after a rare romantic rendezvous with Draupadi, when she pleads him to go instead of Arjuna to fight King Jarasandha, a formidable opponent, in a wrestling bout, that the lure of romance was just a bait. To her, Bhima is always the man who loves her unconditionally, someone who could be emotionally swayed with the slightest gesture of love.

Her pledge to let her hair loose, till it becomes wet with Dusshasana’s blood is yet another indication of her trust in Bhima. It is a trust which borders on the attitude towards a devoted servant. Bhima, during the war, tears open Dusshasana’s chest, in an action unbecoming of a Khshatriya and returns to smear Draupadi’s hair with his blood. Could there be any more that a lover could do? Could there be a sweeter revenge? Yes, it had to be Bhima, when it came to satisfying Draupadi’s most unreasonable whims.

The whole relation is captured in a nutshell, in the final scene, during Swargarohana, when the Pandavas ascend the path to heaven. They walk, in the order of seniority, with Draupadi behind them. Then Bhima hears a rustle of clothes, a sigh and a faint thud behind. Draupadi has fallen by the wayside.

Then Yudhishtira says, “She has sinned, she has loved Arjuna the most amongst us, instead of seeing all her five husbands with the same eye. That’s why she has fallen. Do not turn back, do not fret, and keep walking. Erasing worldly memories is a prerequisite for attaining heaven.” All of the brothers obey him, not turning back to look at their beloved wife.

Now comes the author’s classic intervention, a detour from the original storyline, raising Bhima’s love to a feeling bordering on ultimate, selfless submission. Ultimate submission, they say, is the highest degree of love; which is why; in poems and songs the woman whom one loves is often compared to a Goddess.

Bhima stops, ignores his brother’s wise words, turns back, walks up to Draupadi, bends down next to her and cups her face in his palms. She looks up at him, smiles, turns her head away and breathes her last. Peacefully. In Bhima’s arms.

Hidimbi: First wife to Bhima, the sister of Hidimba who was a Kiratha (a primitive aboriginal tribe, with enormous physical strength, who inhabit the jungle) whom Bhima slays in a jungle duel. Dusky, voluptuous, tall and bold, Hidimbi brings with her, womanhood with all its wild, unbridled sensuality.

Her character is brief, but in the context of what is to unfold, assumes immense significance. Bhima’s first taste of a woman, like many other Khshatriyas, is a devdasi in their palace, but the encounter leaves him unmoved. He even wonders aloud whether the much celebrated Bhima cannot satisfy even a mere woman.

But when he meets Hidimbi in the jungle, gets to know her and subsequently makes love to her, he is aroused to a degree which he has never thought himself capable to be. Bhima wonders whether the existing definitions of a woman’s capabilities in bed wouldn’t be enough to describe the fire of passion that Hidimbi aroused within him. He later marries her and introduces her to his mother and brothers. He then sees a glint of shock in Kunthi’s eyes, a shock which he alone notices. (This scene, the shock in Kunti’s eyes, is also a detour from the original storyline, but in hindsight, is one of the scenes in the whole novel which is plotted with inimitable foresight.)

They live together for a few days, after which Bhima and Hidimbi part, when the Pandavas have to leave the jungle to a nearby village. She is pregnant with his child, Bhima’s first child, Khadolkacha who arrives years later as their savior during the Kurukshethra war. They part, with Bhima kissing Hidimbi’s forehead in farewell.

Years later, Bhima does come in search of her into the same forest in the pretext of a hunting trip, but never finds her. Though a Khshatriya by birth, Bhima’s first wife, his first orgasm, his first child has all been from the lowly Kiratha tribe. It is this attribute of his character that Hidimbi so beautifully symbolizes.

Kunthi: The mother to the Pandavas, she is often portrayed in stories as a weak woman, but here she comes across as a wise, shrewd and calculating lady. A frail, non-descript woman; she always takes Bhima by surprise with her quick thinking.

When Vidura, uncle to Pandavas, who is always much concerned about the welfare of the Pandavas, sends an encrypted message to them while they stay in a castle made for them by the Kauravas in the jungle, Kunthi is the one to decipher the message and sense that the castle is made of firewood and could be set fire in an instant. And later, when a Kiratha lady and her five sons come begging, on the night when the castle would be set fire to, while they plot their plans of escape, she amazes him again by welcoming the beggars in. Her untimely urge to serve the visitors with food and liquor irks her sons, but when they question her, she coolly quips, amazing Bhima to no end: “When they search for our bodies tomorrow, the charred bodies of this Kiratha lady and her five sons would mislead our enemies into thinking that we are dead. What can these visitors be, if not God’s gift in disguise?”

Later, when the Pandavas return home with Draupadi after Arjuna’s victorious Swayamvara, Yudhishtira shouts aloud to Kunthi who is inside the house. “Mother, see what bhiksha we have got today!”

She shouts from inside, without looking out, “Whatever the bhiksha may be, my children, you must share it among yourselves equally.”

Yudhishtira, who is always inclined towards dharma, suggests that they must not disobey their mother’s words, and hence Draupadi becomes destined to be the wife to all of them, from the eldest to the youngest, the turn changing with each year.

Later, Kunthi says to Bhima, who was vehemently of the opinion that Draupadi must belong to Arjuna and not to the five of them together: “I knew that the bhiksha was Draupadi. I saw lust in each eye that looked at her, even in the eyes of the youngest Sahadeva. My sons must never quarrel over a mere woman, hence my words.” Bhima struggles to look Kunthi in her eyes again during that night, wondering whether his mother could have spotted lust in his eyes too.

But the real bombshell comes after the Kurukshethra war, when Kunthi asks Yudhishtira to perform the last rites for Karna, who, she reveals, was her first son. Karna knew it, but the Pandavas hadn’t and Arjuna had killed him in the war. The Pandavas sink to the ground in despair when they hear the news, the most distraught being Arjuna, who had killed him using unfair means. Yudhishtira even curses womanhood as a whole on this occasion that they can never keep a secret to themselves again.

A visibly angry Bhima shouts at his mother, deriding her decision to keep Karna’s secret from them for so long. He recollects aloud his umpteen encounters with Karna, in each of which he had insulted Karna in public, by calling him Soothaputhra (Which means, son of a charioteer. It was a humble charioteer, Adhiratha, who raised Karna, after he was abandoned at birth by Kunthi. Karna has to hear this insult many a time in his life, at various critical junctures in his life, the most important one being Draupadi’s Swayamvara, when, on the verge of being successful, Karna was expelled from the Swayamvara because of his
parentage).

It is now, that MT pulls off another magnificent, stunning and the most important deviation from the epic’s original story-line:

Kunthi looks at Bhima and to his consternation, remarks, “Karna was a Soothaputhra indeed.” She continues coolly, “At sage Durvasa’s ashram, amongst all the hardships that I suffered there, it was a handsome Sootha (a charioteer) who showed me some care, some love. Karna was born to him.”

A stunned Bhima listens as she goes on, “Listen. Dharma is Vidura indeed. And Vidura is Yudhishtira”, thereby breaking the secret of Yudhishtira parentage too, which is attributed to Dharma, the God of Justice. When Bhima shouts in despair, “Then tell me! Who am I?”, her reply is similarly icy cold.

“I wanted my second son to be strong. Strong like an elephant. Then he came to me, from the deep forests. Like an unbridled, violent wind. A Kiratha with the strength of a thousand elephants. Bhima, you were born to him.”

To Bhima, who has grown up, muttering silent prayers to Vaayudeva (the God of Wind) who was said to be his father, by Kunthi herself and also by all the paean-singers who sang praises of the royal families; this was a shock which was too much to bear. His life-long arrogance at his physical strength, his confidence in Vaayudeva, who he has always believed would incessantly keep guarding over him, all becomes meaningless myths when faced with this cruel, humbling reality.

It is then that everything falls in place for the viewer. His first marriage with Hidimbi. The shock in Kunthi’s eyes when she first sees Hidimbi. Khadolkacha, his first child. His first hunting success, which unconventionally comes in the form of slaying a wild pig. His forays into the forest, which is a second home to him, unlike other Khshatriyas. His obsession with wrestling, considered to be a low-grade war form. His wild, animal instinct which comes to the fore when he tears open Dusshasana’s chest during war and even drinks his blood. Uncle Vidura’s obsessive attention towards the Pandavas. Everything. The legends that we have grown up hearing now lies astray, shattered into pieces.

Final thought: It is through these three women, that Bhima knows life. Every emotion that a man needs to know comes to him through them. Love. Romance. Despair. The layers of superhuman facets, attached to him and his fellow characters through age-old mythical tales peel off, gradually, during his interactions with them.

What we see in this adaptation of Mahabharata is not a legend that we have come to see many times on the small screen, but a group of beleaguered ordinary mortals, Bhima included, forced into helplessness by the cruel turns of fate.

There are a lot of other characters – the other Pandavas; Balandhara, his second wife; Visoka, the trusted charioteer; Karna, the wronged brother, Gandhari and Dhritharashtra, all of whom play more than significant roles in the story. Bhima comes across as a worthy central character, a fulcrum around which the whole tale can be woven. Maybe I could write a sequel to this article to elaborate on the other characters as well.

But the greatness of this adaptation by M.T is that it simplifies the Mahabharata. The characters and their actions are no longer arcane and mythical; their motives and secrets become clearer and more justified now, thanks to the unconventional genius of M.T. And this is the reason why, this adaptation could, and should, be made into a film. A film which would transform these characters into mere mortals, which would demystify the legends and which could alter the common man’s perspective of this magnificent epic. Maybe, for ever.

PS: Malayalees, who have not read the book yet, go get your copy of Randamoozham straightaway. Non-Malayalees, try to get the English translation of the book, titled ‘The second turn’ or shop for it online at:
http://www.amazon.com/Second-Turn-M-Vasudevan-Nair/dp/0333923243

SOME LUCK!

2009-05-30T09:00:00.005+05:30

orginally published in www.passionforcinema.com

http://passionforcinema.com/some-luck/

A quick idea which came to me while slugging it out in office...

Scene 1
4:30 PM
Sreehari’s Office

Sreehari sits facing the computer, tense, veins distending on his forehead, sweating in spite of the air-conditioning. The problem reported in his code had huge impacts and could incur huge financial losses for the client of the software firm for whom he was working for.

The client was one of the biggest privatized banks in the country.

The bank people had already kicked up a huge ruckus. The issue had already been escalated to the top management of the company.

And he was solely responsible.

Damn. What a horrible time for the issue to crop up, he thinks, with just a month more to go for the probation period to get over. The whole thing could even affect his confirmation.

Then, the cell phone rings. It’s Mom.

“Sreehari”, says Mom, endearingly. “That girl’s mother hasn’t responded yet….”

He was already into his third unsuccessful year of girl-hunting. This one suited him to a T; the horror-scopes gave in too. He wished her family would be as interested as he was.

Horrible day.

“Too bad. I’ll call you later Mom”, he tells. “Very busy now.” He disconnects the call.

Then, he nose-dives into the task at hand, frowning at the monitor, taking occasional sips of cold water, and furiously massaging his aching temples.

Scene 2
6:30 PM
Sreehari’s Office

Two tense hours whizz past, in a flurry of intense activity.

Then Sreehari goes out, has a smoke, comes back and strides confidently towards his Manager’s cubicle.

There is no tension now. Cool and composed, with an air of a person who was unjustly convicted, he starts to speak.

The issue reported has nothing to do with his code, which is working perfectly. Pucca.
All the fuss was a result of a mistake by some ignoramus dealer at the bank, who knows nothing about software. God help these fools!

The manager is happy. He realizes that he wouldn’t get the firing that he dreaded, congratulates Sreehari profusely and rings up the client, the Bank.

The manager waxes eloquent on the quality of his product, and on how unlikely it was for bugs to be found in the system.

Buoyed by Sreehari’s discovery, he even audaciously suggests to the bank that they employ people who are better trained so as to prevent such confusion in the future.

To which, the bank agrees and they also furnish their embarrassed apologies.

In the meanwhile, Sreehari packs his belongings and starts to leave home. The girl’s family must have called Mom by now, he hopes.

He rings up Mom, she doesn’t pick the phone. Must have gone to the temple, he guesses.

Feeling relaxed, he switches on the car stereo, and drives back home.

Scene 3
8:00 PM
Sreehari’s Home

A bit of shopping and Sreehari is back home. Mom has reached back as well.

“Did they call, Mom?” He asks.

Mom answers in the negative.

“Why don’t we call them up?” He pesters.

“I will call them now, then.” Mom consents, looks up the number from the directory as Sreehari waits by her side.

She finds the number and proceeds to dial.

Scene 4
8:05 PM
Sreehari’s Home

“We had come across your daughter’s profile in the matrimony site...” she says. “Wanted to know your reply...”

There is a click at the other end, and then the line goes dead. Mom places the receiver into the cradle.

“The girl’s brother says they are not interested.” Mom says with a tinge of sadness in her voice.

She feels for her son. She knows that her son had really wished that this proposal would go through.

Sreehari has a cup of tea, a quick bath and then climbs upstairs into his room, hiding his disappointment. He tries to get it out of his mind, but cannot.

He wonders what could be wrong, but he is not able to figure out.

He then locks the door, plays his favorite movie on the computer, and sits idly, smoking, cigarette after cigarette.

Scene 5
Ten Minutes Ago
Lakshmi’s Home

Lakshmi and her Mother looks up at her brother Vimal, who has come back from work.

He looks distraught.

They anxiously enquire and come to know that he was fired by the bank for which he worked as a contract employee.

“Initially I thought that it was the mistake of the software people”, he said, wiping the sweat off his brow. “Then they realized it was my mistake, and my contract was terminated.” He sinks into the chair, devastated.

The three of them sit around in a circle, immensely worried, pondering over what could be done. The job loss is a big blow. More so, in these times of recession. And he being the sole breadwinner in the family.

Scene 6
8:05 PM
Lakshmi’s Home

Then the phone rings, its shrill tones cutting through the silence of the room. Vimal gets up, and picks up the phone.

At the other end is the mother of the guy from whom Lakshmi had received a proposal last week.

“We can’t proceed right now”, Vimal mutters into the phone, in a dejected tone, “We are sorry.”

Then he disconnects the line.

The IPL - Love it or not ?

2009-05-16T15:59:00.001+05:30

Browse for the IPL on the web, and you get a whole slew of posts on it, on cricket websites, on newspapers, on blogs. But there are not many columns which would make the Mr. Lalit Modi beam with pride - excluding those by the players and commentators of course.

Every second writer that we come across on the net lambasts the league. Viciously. The criticisms are, by and large, uniform. Here we go.

- Sixes are now DLF Maximums, every turnaround in the match is a CITI Moment, every also-ran, under-23 kid is now in contention for the CITI Find of the Tournament award, and Vodafone, as if zoo-zoos are not enough, keep on inventing outrageous ‘ultimate’ guessing games, which only leave you puzzled.

- If time-breaks in a match were an absolute no-no, we now have a compulsory time-out, every game. Not once, but twice. Yeah, and we are not counting the innings break.

- We all grew up eating, drinking and sleeping cricket. Cricket was religion, they said, and Sachin was God. Now, Ravi Shastri, addressed as an ‘overblown commentator’, is said to have offered the throne to The Commissioner himself. Shastri had gone on record, addressing Modi as ‘Moses’, it was said.

- The whole thing could be fixed. It might could even be a pre-planned script.

But this entire hullabaloo, does the average cricket fan care for? If I were asked, I would have simply quipped that I couldn’t care less.

Accept it, after the Kerry Packer revolution; IPL is the next biggest thing to hit Cricket. It is heavily commercialized, agreed. But in this age, what isn’t?

An average cricket fan could only dream of matches where a Shane Warne would bowl to a Matthew Hayden or Sachin taking guard against Anil Kumble. Most of the lineups in the IPL would even bear striking similarities to the World XI’s released by the ICC annually. And these guys, happily retired, wouldn’t consent to take part in a competition, if they are paid peanuts. The mind-blowing auction which preceded the tournament, with its sky high price tags only goes on to reinforce the same.

Adam Gilchrist once said he felt like a cow for sale, in a market. It is another matter that he joined IPL, and in the second edition is leading a side as well. Kevin Petersen, Andrew Flintoff and JP Duminy were left gaping, open mouthed at their astronomical price tags. They needed no further invitation to join the lucrative league.

Where does all this money come from? You can’t expect Lalit Modi and the franchisees to pump in millions just to enjoy the whole spectacle. Modi could be as much attracted to cricket and its nuances as Sonia Gandhi would be to the BJP. Money rules, that’s it. If tomorrow, Kabbadi suddenly shoots up in popularity, don’t be surprised if Modi starts endorsing a Kabbadi league even more passionately.

If he has pumped in Millions, he would want to rake in the moolah by the Billions. All of the franchisees would be listed on the stock exchange in a short time, and hence, the market value would be of prime importance. All the glitz goes on to increase the market value of their sides. In spite of their dismal record, Knight Riders are said to have the highest market value. So who can blame the sponsors and the franchisees, if they go overboard in raising money?

A rose is a rose is a rose, so goes the saying. A Six is a six is a six, whether we call it a six or a DLF Maximum. A turning point is a turning point, even if it called a CITI Moment of success. And what if sponsor’s logos adorn the entirety of the team outfits? Let them advertise, folks. Let them get a more than fair return for their investments. We wish to see this spectacle again in the coming years too, so let them.

The players don’t give each other an inch in the matches, and the average cricket fan isn’t complaining.

Who could complain? Most of the matches, barring a few, have gone down to the wire. At the business end of the tournament, six teams are battling it out for two semifinal spots. What more can you ask for? The intensity levels are simply amazing. The carnival atmosphere, with the music, film stars and the cheer girls wouldn’t please the purists for sure, but what do the purists have to show?

Test cricket is facing a stern test. Most One day internationals are starting to be tedious, drab affairs. We see test series played out on flat pitches, with teams trying to bore each other into committing mistakes. Draws seem to be order of the day, with an occasional three day test surfacing, which is most often a result of inept batting. Unless there is an Australia, or a South Africa or an India playing, there isn’t much international cricket worth watching going on. Even they can’t guarantee entertainment these days.

Two years back, we happened to see a certain tournament called the World Cup, with inconsequential, one-sided matches played day in and day out, and an extremely dominant Australia winning for the fourth time in a row. How we wished we would have a second division, a la the EPL, where we could delegate insipid teams like the West Indies and Zimbabwe! These teams were almost non-existent, simply serving to boost the averages of players from the top sides. Not to speak of Bermuda, Holland and Kenya.

Instead, here we see the likes of Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Fidel Edwards, Ross Taylor, Dirk Nannes and Ravi Bopara, arguably from countries in the bottom rung of the test ladder, setting the stage alight with their performances for their respective teams. And their performances counted, because all the teams were evenly matched. And such contests were starting to become as rare as a white elephant, until IPL caught cricket by storm last year.

And Indian Cricket! Shouldn’t we be welcoming the IPL with both hands? Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Irfan Pathan – all these players, either emerged or came back into reckoning in the IPL. For long, we have been lamenting the non-emergence of young players and suddenly, the selectors seem to be spoilt for choice. There are several other young players too – Pragyan Ojha for one, who seem to give the senior pros a real run for their money. RP Singh and Ashish Nehra have been revelations as well, and have done their prospects no harm.

But honestly, what could have been dispensed away with, are the anchors on Sony MAX. Gaurav Kapoor and Samir Kochchar sound so clichéd that we keep wishing that the Extraaa Innings would get over as soon as it began. It’s a big glitch. Better not to talk of Mandira Bedi, it seems Sony MAX cannot find prettier girls who could articulate better. Let us wish MAX better luck, which I guess they should soon find, with the innumerable reality shows budding forth daily, on Indian Television screens.

And Bollywood seems to be driving the critics to exasperation. But let’s face it, television ratings are surest shot success meters and the SRKs, Zintas and Shettys would woo in audiences who aren’t too keen on cricket. Why should their presence dilute the cricket? Sure, one gets irritated at Priety’s chronic hugging and jumping, and SRK’s high handed talk, but why care, when you have such gorgeous cricketing action on view?

Maybe we should draw a line, between international cricket and the IPL. We watch enough commercial pot boiler films and we queue up at theatres, braving the Sun and the rain, to watch our favorite stars act in mindless comic capers. We have no qualms about leaving our brain outside the theatre. Even for a few of us who don’t really enjoy, we don’t really have a choice. Then why all the fuss about the IPL?

It’s a cocktail, the IPL. A heady mix of some really good cricket, a hell lot of money and glamour. With a shot of senselessness thrown in as well. A wholesome, palatable, pot pourrie.

Let us pardon the Commissioner for his greed.

Let us pardon the sponsors for putting their money over our cricket.

Let us pardon Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, Harsha Bhogle, Robin Jackman and their tribe for their subservience. They have been fantastic commentators and they would continue to be so.

Let us pardon the perpetrators of the strategic time out. Let the sponsors make hay, as we walk around a bit, to exercise our lazy spines.

After a few weeks, we would be back to calling a Six a Six, a catch a catch and a turning point a turning point.

Maybe, the Khans, the Shettys, the Ambanis and the Zintas would be back, doing what they do best.

Maybe, we would be back to seeing Australia thrash a insipid New Zealand and South Africa maul a listless England. Smacking our lips at the prospect of Sri Lanka taking on the never-improving Bangladesh in a three-test triple whammy.

Maybe, we would be longing ruefully for the sight of Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne or Sanath Jayasurya, out on the playing field displaying their ageless guiles.

Maybe, we would miss IPL then. We can’t be sure. Cricket is such a funny game, they say.

But for now, grab some thing to eat, something to drink and settle down into your couch. For a month, leave the cynical half of your brain in the cold storage. Try if you can get the entertainment that they claim is guaranteed.

Happy viewing!

Tryst With Destiny

2009-04-30T20:52:00.004+05:30

It was the wee hours of a cold, December morning. The mathematics examination loomed ahead, inching closer with each passing minute, like a lumbering leviathan. The main ingredient of the day’s examination would be Geometry, and the very thought of Geometry, I remember, had always given me the shivers. Showering curses on Pythagoras and his ancestors, I staggered onwards, trying in vain to memorize the countless formulae, which were strewn amidst the broad, pale-colored, unappealing pages of the textbook.

Overcome by fear, I sat sweating, near the window, praying that the morning would never arrive; the dividers and set-squares resting shakily in my fingers, as a spoon and a fork would rest in the unaccustomed fingers of a villager at an expensive buffet.

I wished I could know the result of the examination beforehand. Could have saved me all this effort, I thought. Not an uncommon wish at all. After all, it is man’s obsession with the future which fattens the purse of many a fortune-teller - the obsession to know, change and subvert God’s will through countless prayers and rituals.

In those days, I had this curious little habit, which I had picked up from one of my classmates at school. Whenever I found it impossible to resist knowing the outcome of something, whether India would end up on the winning side of a close cricket match or whether we would land a ticket for a new film release, I would toss a coin.

Up, high and handsome, the coin would soar. The coin in the air, my heart in my mouth. The coin would eventually end up on the ground, with one face upwards. Each face would symbolize a result, and the business of tossing the coin would give me a temporary respite from restlessness.

The entire ordeal which I had endured, the unbearable anxiety as to whether I would pass or fail, had enervated me enormously. I felt like a convict at a jail, waiting with bated breaths, for the dreaded moment when the executioner’s noose would tighten around his unlucky throat.

No more of this business, I made up my mind. Bring the coin!

I never used to have a lot of pocket money. Unfortunately, I did not have a single coin with me, on that wretched morning, rummage as I might, all over the room. And it wasn’t entirely normal to go fiddling in my Dad’s pockets in such unearthly hours; and if I did, landing a scolding seemed more probable than landing a coin.

That’s the way of life. When you don’t need something, it sits there, right before your eyes. When you need it so badly, as if your whole life hangs on it, the thing is nowhere to be found. A gentleman named Murphy, I heard realized this fact, centuries before I did, and formulated his own law, which was called Murphy’s Law. I couldn’t agree more with Murphy then.

How on earth, with what on earth, could I toss?

I took a bit of paper, wrote ‘Pass’ on one side and ‘Fail’ on the other, and tossed it. The paper flew away in the ceiling fan, landing expertly at an inaccessible corner of the room. The paper bit would have put an airplane to shame with its airborne antics.

Dejected, I had given up the plan of predicting the future and had gone back to the futile exercise of nibbling at my textbook, when my roving eye caught something.

Lying inconspicuously in my instrument box was the Protractor. An essential tool in a mathematics examination, the Protractor is a semicircular, plastic piece, with the angles from zero degrees to one-hundred-eighty degrees marked on one face, in a slew of closely spaced lines and semicircles. The other face is blank.

My sagging spirits soared; the situation wasn’t hopeless at all. I could use the Protractor for a toss. I took huge pride in the hidden justice that there was in it - what better way could be there, other than using a mathematical instrument itself to guess the result of a mathematics exam?

So it was toss time. Again.

I sat back, temporarily forgot everything about the exams and basked in my newfound glory. With experience, we had figured out a unique way to check if the outcome of a toss was reliable or not. Put the toss and check whether it predicts the outcome of an event that already happened.

Incidentally, I had passed in the previous mathematics exam, with a paltry forty-five percent score. I tossed the Protractor up in the air. If the side with the degrees marked on it falls, it would mean Pass and hence, the toss could be trusted, I presumed. Three times out of three, the marked side fell.

Fantastic. You could bet your life on the Protractor, I thought.

Now, to the big toss. I braced myself and tossed the Protractor up again. It soared up, did several somersaults in the air and landed on its blank side.

My enthusiasm dipped. God, would I fail?

One more toss. More airy somersaults. But again, it landed on the blank side.

Now the world came crashing down. The prospect of failure looked likelier than before. But I picked myself up quickly and thought over it. I would toss it five times in all, instead of three. So in all the remaining throws, the face with the degrees marked on it would have to fall, for me to pass in the examination. I muttered a few prayers and tossed it up again.

Up. Higher. Flipping in the air. Amidst thumping heartbeats.

I stared, anxious and open mouthed. God, It had begun its descent, and was hurtling down, right towards my nose. I backed away, just in the nick of time. The protractor brushed my cheek, diverted from its path of descent, and went sliding, nonchalantly, right out of the window.

Peering out, I found the protractor, lying forlorn, on the sunshade. Looking up at me, as if blaming me for its plight. Worse, it had it's blank side upwards. Failure guaranteed ?

I tried coaxing it down from the sunshade with a broom, but Life seemed to have chosen to teach me all the tough lessons on that horrible, chilly morning. The broom was just an inch too short for me.

Mom came in at the stroke of dawn, with the morning tea and found me, to her extreme astonishment, broom in hand, sweating all over from head to toe. She tried her hand, gave up and called Dad, who immediately took over control of the situation.

After half an hour of pushing and prodding, Dad managed to coax the Protractor from the sunshade, onto the ground. All the while, he had seemed to get madder at me with each passing minute. It was seven in the morning by then. Almost school time. Without any further preparation, I trudged off to school, ready to meet my fate.

Anyways, the toss was spot on, I must say. The day got more horrible as it progressed, especially inside the examination hall. Equations and formulae arranged themselves, deftly, into indecipherable jigsaw puzzles inside my head, and drove me crazy.

Eventually, I ended up with eighteen marks out of a hundred. For once, I remember, the marks where fewer in number, in comparison with the number of beatings I managed to get from home.

If my memory could be banked upon, it was the last time that I ever tossed a coin in my life.

2009-03-29T07:41:00.005+05:30

To Be or not To Be

2009-03-19T07:00:00.010+05:30

“To Be or not to Be.”

Thus cried out Prince Hamlet in great anguish, as he started off his tirade; a fierce debate raging in his mind, whether to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or to “take arms against a sea of troubles by opposing end them”.

[William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Act three, Scene one. The essential purport is that his state is so wretched that death would be decidedly preferable to it. So Hamlet wonders eloud, in his dilemma whether to Live on or to commit suicide.]

One of the best soliloquies ever penned by the Bard.

Our English lecturer, I heard, did quite a wonderful job in teaching it, but sadly, I never could empathize with our hero; felt that the whole display of dilemma was unnecessary, unjustified and highly theatrical. I eventually ended up staring wistfully at the boys, who, without a care in the world, played basketball on the courts outside while I slugged it out in class. It seemed highly unlikely then, that I could ever relate to the plight of our prince. It is another matter that I did relate, rather strongly, in the most unrelated circumstances.

It happened while I was standing at a crossroad on the way back from office. I was quite tired, after a stressful day at office.

The road which went straight would lead me home. The road which went left had a rather non-descript looking building at its fag end. The building, in turn, had a translucent, diamond shaped name board on top of it. The name board was white, was fiercely illuminated by a bright, white neon bulb which shone inside it. Three letters of the English alphabet were inscribed boldly on it in blue.

'B', 'A' and an 'R'.

BAR.

It was New Year, and I was still fresh from my New Year resolution which forbade me from drinking again. The new-born teetotaler and the age-old beverage connoisseur inside me (sorry, I hate the word drunkard – it is so degrading and commonplace), engaged themselves in a duel. One pushed me forward. The other pushed me to the left. To the road where the bar was. A whole avalanche of ideals, concerns – both health and monetary, ennui and stress, weighed in to add spice to the duel.

It is tough to stop an old habit and tougher to refrain from it once you have stopped it. But it is toughest; when you have stopped unwillingly, and a chance to resume the habit comes up and there no solid reason to let the chance go.

The dilemma was all-pervasive. If I were not on the road, and if my creative instincts would have backed me up, I would have broken into a thundering soliloquy of my own, right then. Maybe Shakespeare, if he was alive and had seen me, would have needed no more inspiration to repeat his magnificent feats.

I stood confused, scratching my head. An epitome of uncertainty, very much like our Prince Hamlet. The board stood in the distance, a titillating sight to my weary eyes and stressed nerves.

It is such a lovely place, the bar. With its mysterious dim lights and its smell, which is a curious mix of alcohol, tobacco smoke and human sweat. You walk in, and somehow feel suddenly at home. The sight that greets you is that of a whole group of men, each at varying degrees of inebriation, staring dreamily at each other.

You never find such a relaxed group anywhere else - I’d swear by that. Some would be laughing, celebrating something. Some would be unwinding, after a tiring day at work. Some would be hunched close together, and sharing a secret or two. Overall, the air is of genuine relaxation. It rubs off on you, and once you have had your share, you blend seamlessly into the laidback air that seems to hang over the room like a comfortable woolen blanket.

The ambience and the drinks encourage you to wear your heart on your sleeve. How else, other than under the influence of the Divine Drink, can you give someone a piece of your mind; still walk up to him the next morning, and seek forgiveness, under the ludicrous excuse that you weren’t in your senses?

Of course, there are killjoys. Sparingly though. They throw tantrums, spread destruction, get into brawls and spoil the fun. Thankfully, they are just a minor aberration. Let us ignore them.

And then, there are the waiters who never cease to amaze you with their power of recollection. Walk in a couple of times into a bar and if you are consistent with your choice of brands, be sure the guy would not need to take an order the next time. So good, so reliable, are their retentive abilities. And not just in the matter of remembering the brands.

Once, somehow, I forgot my belt in a bar, and went in search of it the next morning. I struggled to find the waiter who had served me, and was trying to find him out from the assembly of white-and-white clad men who roamed about, when the guy came out running with my belt and even enquired what happened to the car that I regularly drove. Incidentally I had come in my friend’s car on the day.

These waiters; their case is a study in irony. They busily scurry around, catering to the calls from every corner of the room, handle the most liquor in the bar but eventually end up consuming very little of it. Very much like male bees who do all the donkey work for the females to feed on.

Speaking of males and females, there is one thing which is thankfully absent in bars as long as you are in India. Women. With the result that you don’t get an inferiority complex seeing amorous couples sitting hand-in-hand; you don’t damage your ear-drums by exposing yourselves to the high-pitched chit-chat and gossip. And most importantly, you don’t get distracted from the task at hand. Finally, you end up agreeing with the oft-disputed theory that the world would have been a much better place if it was not for the fairer sex.

You get such a lot of wonderful insights, few of which I have mentioned already, while you are at the bar, that you don’t realize how quickly time passes.

By the time you finish your drink, the bill comes. Figures typed out by a dot-matrix printer, on cheap quality paper. It comes, most often, in a porcelain plate with a bunch of Jeera thrown atop it. If you feel that the drinks leave a bad taste in the mouth (literally, not idiomatically) you could always take a handful of the Jeera and pop it into your mouth and masticate to your heart’s content.

The bill is often quite steep and leaves a medium to large sized hole in your pocket. But the beauty of the whole thing is that, as you stare at the bill, swaying on your feet and struggling to keep your eyelids open, you don’t feel it is expensive. You even go on to tip the waiter generously and his thankful smile and his barely perceptible bow seem to make you incredibly happy.

Now, that’s yet another thing that I have always noticed with people who drink. We don’t cringe over money. Over the little trifles that a human being is bound to loose, time and again, in this cruel, mad, insensitive world. We don’t bring money with us when we are born, nor do we take it with us when we die. Do we?

So much for philosophy. Unless exorbitant, every sum lost is equated to the price of a peg or two, or to the price of a cigarette pack. This helps us a great deal to reconcile to the loss at hand. And to drown the little sorrow that remains in even more drinks.

Okay buddies, I forget that I am still on the streets, staring at the lovely name board, perched atop the building, which bathed in twilight, now seems prettier than ever before. The teetotaler in me, I realize, has sunk away and no longer troubles me by pushing me into indecision. I ache for a drink, curse the wretched moment at which I made my resolution, and walk with firm footsteps towards the building which stands ahead and beckons me.

I am amazed that I needed so long to take such a simple decision. With due apologies to the Bard, I rechristen the fierce dilemma that I endured over the past few minutes.

With a couple of extra ooz’s thrown in between.

With the soul of the soliloquy quite intact.

“To Booze or not to Booze.”

Vicissitudes

2009-03-05T22:40:00.004+05:30

The sun had begun to set on the temple town, shooting fountains of color from the horizon upon the streets, mingling with the neon light of the street-lamps, lending the town an ethereal look. Hari alighted from the bus, mulling over the uncanny coincidence of the day's events which had brought him back here – to this place which once had been his sanctuary, his second home.

Five years. Five long years had passed, Hari realized, since his last visit. Life had come full circle since then. He had seen it all. But the place was still the same. The calm, cool air. The occasional, high pitched toll of the temple bells. The wafting aroma of incense. The mumbled prayers of the dhoti-clad, busy looking priests and passers-by. Even the lodge still looked the same, though it looked a shade younger in its new coat of blue which had come to replace the faded gray color which had once characterized it.

Time seemed to stand still here. On this street, where he had once set foot on, as a twenty-five year old who had nothing to lay claim to, other than his own dreams, unbridled confidence and fingers which could weave magic on canvas with every stroke of a brush. Hari ran his hands through his unkempt, browning hair, wishing ruefully whether he could go back in time, and be that impetuous, prodigiously talented young painter once again.

No. It wasn’t to be. There was no way back. His shoulders had drooped from the agony of repeated failures. The eyes had sunk deep into their sockets and had black patches round them, lending him an appearance which would have suited a man who was double his age. The truth that he himself was accountable for his current travails weighed him down even more. In the frantic, mindless race to the top, in those years which sped dizzily under the spotlight, amongst the ubiquitous accolades and encomiums, he had never known what he had been losing; and when the realization finally dawned on him, everything precious in life had been lost.

Everything. Destroyed beyond redemption. Like dainty flowers trampled down into the sand by a firm, ruthless boot.

He stepped warily into the lodge, feeling a slight apprehension about meeting someone who knew him. In the very next instant, the sheer meaninglessness of his fear struck Hari. It was years since he had faded away from the spotlight and from the public consciousness. It was foolish to think that anyone would recognize him. His parched, tobacco stained lips cracked into a wry smile at the thought.

Hari was not fully in his senses, even as he signed the guestbook, pocketed the key and silently followed the room-boy to the room allotted to him. He was shocked into his senses, only when the boy stopped at the room numbered two-zero-six on the second floor. The boy unlocked the door which opened with a creak.

The familiar, faint, damp smell greeted his nostrils, as he stepped in. As he locked the door behind him and opened the window overlooking the temple, the golden flagpole of the temple gleamed in the distance. When the door which led into the balcony was opened, the cool night breeze rushed in like a playful, rogue child; bringing with it a whole deluge of memories. The past, with the aid of the day's numerous coincidences, seduced him, like a temptress.

The memories of a similar evening, in the same room, overlooking the same golden flagpole, floated up in front of his eyes. Hari stretched out on his chair and poured himself a drink. It had become his habit of late, to drown himself in drinks. Drink and drink till he faded out into unconsciousness, till memories no more troubled him.

But today, each peg that he downed only served to accentuate the memories of that evening. And about the woman who had been with him, that day.

Arundhati.

Her smile. With the warmth of a thousand flames.
Her touch. With the coolness of a mountain spring.

It had been on a similar evening, that he had made love to her for the first time. In this same room. Though it had been on impulse; as they lay in bed afterwards, spent, both of them had felt that they had never done a more natural thing to each other.

Hari had met Arundhati for the first time at one of his painting exhibitions. Then, she had flitted about him, like an insect around a candle flame. Blind in her adoration for the upcoming, brilliant, painter. That was just the start. He became besotted too, with her beauty and her vivacious self. The relationship grew. It was he, who then took the initiative. He had given her all the attention he could, so much so that, it flattered her; and had found time to be with her

She had been an elixir, an obsession. In her presence, his brush seemed to move as if in a trance, his works transcended the ordinary. The very sight of her inspired him. Life became beautiful. It was her prayers that drove him on. When, like a typical greenhorn, he was distraught at a failure, she would lend him a shoulder to cry, would fuel his optimism. When one of his works had not hit the right notes, she would come up, with prompt criticism.

Each of his paintings drew a thousand admirers. Awards and accolades seemed to chase him around.

But Hari could not recollect when the fame had started to get to his head. With each step up the ladder, his mind had grown narrower. Overconfidence and arrogance pulled blinds over his eyes. He had lurched mindlessly ahead, towards the beckoning glory. Like a firefly which rushes into light, unaware that it would only end up burning its wings.

And he did burn his wings indeed.

It was a dizzy ride to stardom. He toured worldwide, held painting exhibitions everywhere. The group of admirers grew; and he forgot himself amidst the paeans that they sung to him. Arundhati faded away into oblivion from his memories, just another forgotten one, amongst the bevy of starlets who now chased him around.

Like a hurriedly snuffed out candle flame. Little had he known that without this little candle flame that he snuffed out, life would plunge into darkness.

The last time she had come before his eyes had been at a public reception arranged for him. She had made her way, painfully through the crowd towards the dais, and held out a piece of paper on which she had scribbled her address. He never had heard, rather had chosen not to hear, the muffled sobs and tears. He had been too busy to think of the past. In the ensuing hubbub and the flash of camera lights, Arundhati was forgotten.

Only to resurface again at an obscure corner of a local daily. In an obituary report. It had been a suicide.

That was the beginning of the end.

He came to know of it only after a while, from a friend. The news shook him. He could not concentrate on anything, anymore. Unable to do anything to atone for what he had done, the magic, slowly but surely faded away. The fingers which once wove poetry on canvas were now numb and paralyzed by guilt. The colors and once elegant brush strokes now made only a fleeting appearance. The paean-singers left too, one by one. A permanent pall of darkness descended upon his life. The clutch of the past grew stronger, and had pulled him down, deeper and deeper into abyss.

He set up the canvas at a corner. He did it every day, a meaningless custom, in spite of the fact that he hadn't done a worthwhile painting in over two years. Sitting in the room, Hari drank hard, staring blankly out of the window at the crimson sky, which seemed to reflect the cinders which smoked within. Usually, no amount of drinks, no amount of drugs could free him from the memories and the guilt.

Ever.

But, now, in the same hotel room, in which they had lain together for the last time, looking into each others' eyes, each of their bodies pressing snugly into the grooves of the other’s body; the pall of gloom slowly seemed to lift steadily and he felt a rare lightness in his chest. He felt dizzy, and tried to keep his eyes open.

Then he felt as if Arundhati stood before him. Her hands outstretched, beckoned him. With the same bewitching smile.

Then she came close, and ran her fingers through his hair. The sights around grew more and more blurred. The sounds around became less and less audible. Tender fingers lifted up his chin, gripped his fingers and guided them, across the canvas. Slowly, but surely, he felt the magic return.

Bit by bit. Like the moon waxes from behind the clouds.

Lines and shades started to fall in place, as he drew on, still in a trance. She held him close as he drew, pressed her soft, luscous lips to his forehead as he applied the finishing touches.
Then Hari saw her drift away, as he closed his dreary,careworn eyes.

He woke up in the morning, feeling the warmth of the sunlight on his cheeks. He reached out for the whisky, and found the bottle broken, at a corner in the room. Then his eyes fell on the painting. It was perfect. The delicately carved temple walls. The crimson skies. The busy street. All were perfectly etched out on the canvas.

With tearful eyes, he walked out, to the temple pond ,stepped into the knee-high water and dipped his head into the pond and rose up. As the cool water trickled off his hair and bare back, he felt the burden of guilt wash away. Then he looked up towards the sun, closed his eyes and prayed for Arundhati's soul.

The Final Good-bye

2009-01-27T20:52:00.012+05:30

"Dear Gomez", Moorthy scribbled, in his shaky handwriting.

“Heard you are in town.
Enjoy your birthday.
You will never hear from me again.
Good-bye
J.M.”

With trembling fingers, he scribbled the note, folded it into two, and enclosed it along with the gift in the cardboard box. Then he covered it in a gift-wrapper, hired a cab to the Hotel Presidency and handed it over at the reception, avoiding the suspicious glance of the hotel clerk. Afterwards, Moorthy went back to the run-down stingy apartment which he had rented for the day, poured himself a couple of drinks, walked across the damp floor to the window and looked down, watching the street which had already begun to darken.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back at the Hotel Presidency, Antony Gomez, fists-on-hip, dressed in all his royal finery, flanked by suit-clad secretaries, surveyed the elaborate arrangements made at the plush roof-top restaurant for the grand birthday celebrations.

"Good. Excellent" ,he said nodding his shiny, bald head, reclining on the couch, grinning to his henchmen who flanked him, heads bowed in polite affirmation. The artificial golden tooth glinted menacingly, reflecting the yellow light of the chandelier.

"Is the guest roster finalized?" ,Gomez enquired.
"The Governor wont turn up" ,one of the men said, stepping forward.
"The old bumpkin", Gomez pounded his fist on the table. "Let him rot in hell. And the others?"
"All the rest will turn up on time."
"Good."

There was a knock on the door, and the hotel boy came in. One of the men walked up to the boy, collected the gifts and handed over to Gomez who would take a look and proceed to toss them, one by one, onto the pile of gifts that was stacked at the corner of the room.

The shaky handwriting and the initials scribbled on top of one of the packets made Gomez sit up and take notice.

“J.M….Oh..It’s from old Moorthy!” , exclaimed Gomez, slicing open the packet. “I thought the old fool was still in jail.”

“Heard he was released a month back”, said Johnny, one of the secretaries.

“My, there is a letter inside”, Gomez grinned, handing over the letter to them. “Read it for me, Johnny.”

Johnny read out to him, and looked puzzled. “What does he mean” ?

“To hell with what he means. Good riddance”, Gomez said, wiping his sunglasses on his shirt and replacing them back on. “If I hear from him, it is always the same, the same ‘I have no money’ story.”

Along with the letter, there was another cardboard box inside. As he opened, Gomez gleamed. A bottle of beer was inside. “Tiger Beer”, he said, grinning, “the old rat, he still remembers my taste.”

Johnny smiled weakly. “But boss, don’t we owe him some money? The man must be broke, the letter looks like a suicide note”, he said apologetically, almost as if he sensed the outburst that would follow.

Gomez stood up, glowering. “Bullshit, Johnny, Bullshit!”, he shouted, downing the beer in large gulps.

“This business, this business of ours”, Gomez went on, “is not for the sissies and the weak-hearted. It’s for men. Real, tough, men. The fool would have lost money anyway. If not for me, someone else would have swindled him of his money. Even if it was not for him, I would have still reached where I am now. Do you doubt that, Johnny? Don’t people always get what they deserve?”

Johnny nodded his head, remembering with a tinge of guilt about how they had deceived the unsuspecting Moorthy into signing a deal with them. The deal was an underhand one, and had Moorthy’s signature on it, leading to his arrest and a seizure of all his assets.

That had been the start Moorthy's decline and that of Gomez’s meteoric rise.
Johnny could do nothing. He shrugged his shoulders.

Gomez continued, “Let the fool go and die, that is best for him. This Brahmins, they are not made for business. We jews, we have it in our blood, don’t we, Johnny? You drinkin’ some beer?”

Johnny declined. Gomez finished off the beer, kept it aside, and reclined in his chair, muttering curses under his breath. “Let him go and die.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in his lodge room, Moorthy stood still near the window, watching the dark street. He paced back and forth in his small room, and stood near the window again, wringing his palm. Then he saw a sudden burst of light and traffic through the dark street.

Two vehicles were rushing across towards the Hotel Presidency. He sensed what had happened, picked up his duffel bag, paid the lodge bill, tip-toed out and walked with firm steps along the dark road which led to the railway station. The train was scheduled to arrive in fifteen minutes, and would take him out of the state.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few minutes earlier, Gomez had got up from his chair, clutching his stomach, his face contorted into a grimace. As Johnny looked on clueless, he staggered a few steps forward and had doubled over, headfirst into the wash-basin.

The guests, who had arrived and had started to help themselves to the feast, looked shocked and ran helter-skelter.

As someone rung up the hospital. Johnny ran upto Gomez and lifted him up from the wash-basin.

“The bastard, it was the beer, it was the beer”, Gomez had mumbled incoherently, before his body became motionless.

A Love Story

2009-01-07T09:03:00.006+05:30

Leaning back on the bench, unsteady from the pegs of whisky he had downed, Walter watched Mary, standing with her back to him. The hair was unusually done up into a bun at the back of her head, and was adorned with golden beads arranged in a circular pattern. The yellow window-glass imparted a distinct hue to the beam of sunlight which trickled in through it and illuminated her ear-stud and her flushed left cheek.

And for Walter, who watched her, the sight turned the clock back, to four years back, when she had joined their office.

They had joined together, four ladies, and among them one would never notice Mary, unless he looked a second time. Lips set in a tight line, gaze fixed at her toes, hip-long hair braided plainly and unfashionably, there was some unsettling about her. He had liked her understated beauty initially, Walter recollected, but he couldn't remember precisely when he had started falling for her - but a similar sight, on an early June morning was still fresh in his memory. On his twenty-fifth birthday.

Mary and himself had been the first to reach office that morning. Her hair was wet, and was uncharacteristically let down, cascading to her hip and the sunlight had fallen on her cheek, spreading golden dust on it and lending it a cherubic charm, as it did today. She had come up to him, a rare smile playing on her lips, and wished him a happy birthday. He never had a way with women, did Walter, and the moment - her abrupt beauty and the unexpected birthday wish - had completely swept him off his feet. It was since then, that he, neither at ease with girls in general nor particularly handsome, started trying to catch her attention, albeit unsuccessfully. Mary went back to her normal self and seemed genuinely unaware of the affection that her colleague secretly harbored within.

For the smitten Walter, expressing his feelings for Mary was a struggle. He would rehearse conversations at home and reach office prepared, and either would end up deciding against it or would burn with envy at the sight of someone else talking to her. Almost a year passed before he decided that enough was enough, and come what may, he would go ahead with a proposal. Three tense days and two tossing-around-in-bed nights and a hell lot of deliberation, Walter remembered, was what it had taken him to summon the gumption to let her know.

He smiled to himself and craned his neck, looking over the tall man who sat in front of him. He could see Mary better now. She had turned sideways, her profile visible to him.

"Are you already engaged?", was what he had asked her then.
"Yes", came the reply.
"You know why I am asking this, I hope?", he had asked her, hoping that she knew all the while.
"No, never", she had replied, her eyes widening. "I never saw you that way, Walter. You have been a good friend. Always."

Since then, they grew closer. Walter found himself talking more freely, once he had let out his feelings for her. Mary too, when she talked to Walter, dropped the unapproachable air that seemed to surround her like a shroud. They found themselves talking to each other much more, and in one of their conversations Mary had told him something.

She wasn't engaged, she had admitted, and was smarting from a broken love affair. She had been in love with a guy, for three years, and had planned to marry him, but being unable to convince his parents, the guy had backed out of marriage. She had vowed never again to venture into an affair, she had told Walter and that she could never recover from the blow that the experience had given her.

Even then, he couldn't love her any less.

Instead, with each passing day, his obsession kept growing but he could never bring himself round to broach the topic again in their conversations. Status quo remained, till one day, he, excessively drunk and spirits buoyed by his drinking-mate’s tale of how he had won his girl over with his persistent proposals, had telephoned Mary late into the night. After a breathless drunken speech, he expected reproach from her, but the answer that she gave stunned him.
"I am okay with it", she had said, "but I need to talk it over at home". She wanted a week to talk it over, she said.

As the week passed on; Walter had waited, his own optimism both exciting and scaring him. He tempered his optimism with his own fears about how her conservative family would react to his proposal, and waited.

The bad news came soon from Mary. Her family wouldn't even consider taking up his proposal and spurred by it, had started arrangements to find a suitor for her at the earliest. He had tried to convince her, persuading, coaxing and cajoling but she wouldn't act against her family's will. He had given up, but still felt queerly contented. At least, she was ready he consoled himself; it was just her family who stood at loggerheads. If not for them, she would have been his girl.

He had been downcast for a few days, but had started to recover and life was getting back on track, when he had decided to pay a visit to Mary's apartment. They had tea together, and he loitered round the apartment, when a leather-bound book, with a pen kept inside to mark the pages caught his eye. It was her diary and he flipped through the pages. And a small note, scribbled on one of the pages, had left him shell-shocked.

“I like Walter.” Mary had written. “But I would never bring myself to marry him. I can't love anyone else in my life again. But I just can’t disappoint him anymore. After a week, I will tell him that mom and dad couldn’t agree to his proposal. So yesterday, I lied to Walter. I told him that I was ready to marry him, if Mom and Dad allowed me to. But I didn't. I know, anyhow, that they wouldn’t agree. Sorry Walter.”

She had written it on the day after he had made his drunken proposal. He had felt sick, and his mouth went dry. He hurried out quickly, bidding a quick good-bye to Mary, making it quick so that his face would not betray him. He never let her know that he had seen the diary, never when they talked afterwards.

He had felt cheated. All the way, she never intended to marry him. And even if it was for those few days, he had made castles in the air, day-dreamed; all for nothing. He had felt an intense loathing for himself. Slowly, he shook off the disappointment, and later, when she had invited him for her marriage, he had wished her good luck in the cheeriest way he could. She had to give in to her parents’ pressure, she had said.

Remembering all this, Walter smiled. Still, he realized, he couldn’t love her less.

Mary stood ahead on the dais, now facing him. He fought off the whiskey-inspired urge to walk up to her and proclaim his love once again; and instead clutched the armrests of the chair and remained seated.

The hitherto seated crowd now got up on their feet. The priest finished his prayers and the bespectacled, suit clad guy, who stood beside Mary slipped the wedding ring onto her finger. As the wedding bells tolled, he watched the old lady next to him; her eyes closed and lips quivering as she said her prayers.

Then, Walter got on his feet, crossed himself, closed his eyes and muttered. “God Bless”.

Twin murders and a kid's penance

2008-11-05T08:32:00.029+05:30

That Sunday afternoon was a typical one, the two-day-holiday cushion diluted by the impending Monday blues. I squatted on my haunches in our compound, all my attention focused on the green, shiny skinned grasshopper, sitting motionless on our home’s whitewashed wall. Only the two antennae on its head moved. That too, ever so slightly. The rest was still.

“It is not moving. You sure we can catch it?” six year old Winnie asked, watching excitedly by my side.

“Shhh…” I hissed, pressing my index finger against my lips. “If you make any noise, it will fly away.”

Silenced, she squatted by my side, pouting, as I stealthily moved my fingers around the grasshopper. She let out a squeal of delight, when it was between my fingers, trapped, struggling, legs flailing and wings fluttering wildly.

“Hold it tight, Yippee!!”

Paying scant attention to her, I methodically removed the two antennae on its head. Black blood trickled out, and stained my fingernails.

“Oh poor thing! Why do you do that?”

“To make it obedient”, I said. “They will jump away unless you take their horns off.”

We had kept aside a translucent lid of a cough-syrup bottle, with the letters ‘Cipla’ on its top and ounce measurements on its sides, to enclose our prey in. The lid lay on the portico, its Cipla side upwards. As Winnie gingerly lifted the lid, I put the insect inside, and replaced the lid in a flash.

The trapped grasshopper stood inside, as if ruminating over its Cipla cage and the lost antennae.

“It looks lonely.” Winnie said.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t we catch one more? So that he’ll have company?”

Then we set off, to find another one, squatting down again, waiting, like hungry lizards do on walls and rooftops for their prey. Several would-have-been prisoners came and went, and all were either very smart or very lucky, until one finally fell in our trap. He was brown, the color of dead wood, and had an ugly mottled design over his back.

“It is so ugly”, she screamed. “We can catch another”.

“It’s tough to get another, Winnie”, I said, carefully plucking off the antennae from the new grasshopper’s head.

We got him too under the Cipla cup.

“They won’t be friends”, Winnie was still complaining, “They don’t match at all.”

“They will fight”, I said. Winnie’s eyes widened. Fights always thrill children. We weren’t any different.

“They will? Really?”

“Yes. They will. You just wait and watch.” I said gravely.

“Who will win?” She continued to chatter.

I had not thought of that, but then, the conventional filmi wisdom must have come to the fore. The good looking one should be the hero and the ugly one, the villain.

“The green one.” I replied.

A handsome hero. A loathsome villain. The stage was so nicely set. Both of us knelt down, elbows resting on the floor, faces cupped in our palms. Two pairs of eager eyes glued fast to a Cipla lid.

The grasshoppers transmuted into sparring gladiators in our imaginations. One armored in brown and the other in green. Raring to go at each other. The Cipla lid became a Roman amphitheatre.

But the insects, trapped, together in their misery, had other ideas. They faced away from each other, desolate, showing no intention to fight. They didn’t even move an inch, and stood there, bottoms pressed against each other’s and the antennae-less noses rubbing against the lid’s inner walls. Having watched for sometime, Winnie lost patience, got up and walked away.

I still waited, hoping for something to happen. For quite some time, nothing did. Exasperated, I took a round pebble, lifted the lid, and smashed the pebble down twice onto the brown grasshopper. Our supposed villain.

Snap snap. Broken wings. Cracked head. Black blood. Gnashed flesh. It briefly slashed out with its frail legs, before dying a quick death.

I chose to subvert reality: ‘The green one killed the brown after a fight’. Then I yelled to Winnie, to come and see for herself, how the fight and the result had panned out in exactly the same way as I had said. But contrary to my high expectations, Winnie found the scene too gory, and stomped off. Unimpressed and queasy.

Not having got the adulation that I expected, I disposed the dead brown one, forgot about the green one sitting alone in the lid, and kept myself occupied with other similar, silly games. It was an hour later that I set my eyes on the Cipla lid again.

I had not replaced the lid properly: A part of the green grasshopper’s legs stood outside the lid; so did a part of the feathers on its rear-side, and the weight of the lid pressing down on its body had enervated the insect rather badly. Almost fatally.

I took the lid off. The insect could not move. Feet crushed under the weight of the lid, it was crawling on the floor. The wings had been broken too. I tried to set it free, but each time it started to fly or to jump, it landed back on the floor with a dull, sickening thud. I felt sick. After a few moments of deliberation, sure that it could not survive anymore, I put an end to its suffering – in the same way which I had done with the other grasshopper. With a pebble.

For the entire afternoon and the night, the dead grasshoppers flitted about in my consciousness, stirring up guilt and remorse. I just could not shake it off. By the next morning, I had almost forgotten about the incident, preoccupied with thoughts of school, when I saw something – a fleet of ants, as if in a funeral procession, carrying the rotten carcass of the green grasshopper across our compound. The insect ghosts started to wake up once again within me.

I had come to know recently from Mom, that God forgave sins till kids were seven. Beyond that age, the sins would be recorded in ChitraGupta’s register, and depending on the intensity of the crime, we would roast in hell, in stygian furnaces of varying temperatures. Greater heat for greater crimes. And I was nine years old. Two more than seven.

Starting to feel sick and guilty again, I skipped breakfast, slung the schoolbag over my shoulder and walked off, ashen-faced, to school. I walked, absent-mindedly, the hellish fires in my mind and in my eyes, tripped over a rope and fell down. My knees landed on a rocky ledge, and got badly bruised. Blood ran down my legs, soaking my white socks and canvas shoes in red. My parents came running over, lifted me up and carried me home. I stayed at home that day, wounds bandaged and dressed.

For the entire day, I was confined to my bed. But, even as the searing pain crept up my thighs, even as the vitriolic antiseptic burnt its way through the wound, even as its strong pungent smell crept up my nostrils; what I felt was not pain. There must have been pain, but more than that, what still stays etched in mind was the queer sense of relief that I felt then. Of justice being done.

Perhaps, this could be how I had to atone for my little sin. Moreover, ChitraGupta might pardon me and score my name off his dreaded register – I had already served my punishment. Thankfully, the flitting, restless grasshopper ghosts never reappeared again to ruin my dreams.

I remember, it was then, as a kid all of nine years, that I got my first idea of penance. And as a matter of fact, I haven't played an insect torturing game ever since.

NumbSkull Country Goose

2008-10-14T20:43:00.005+05:30

We had a bit of trouble locating Vinayaka Nagar.Several of the bylanes in our locality had recently been re-tarred, renovated and renamed, and once we had located it, I realized with amusement that, it was the road which led to our school, the same road through which we cycled every morning, right from my fifth grade to my twelfth. House-number Ninety-four, we were told. We had to meet the old man who stayed there, we were told, offer him financial help, and an admission to the old-age home nearby, on behalf of our charity organization, Jyotis.

Finding Nintey-four was easier, and took us just under five minutes. It would have been even easier, if I had known that it was NCG's house. But, what I saw stunned me. The house looked like a ghost of what it was ten years back. The bricks on the walls were chopped at the edges, with cracks running criss-cross, covered by green, sticky moss all over. The old electric post beside the house, which used to present a striking, stark, ugly contrast to the spotless cleanliness of the walls, now seemed to blend seamlessly with the dirt which covered them. The post, in comparison, now looked cleaner and better groomed. The granite name board, which read " N.C.G.Panicker ", swung from a screw at it's one end, like a disoriented pendulum, with a hole at the free end where the other screw which had held it against the wall.

It took a while for NCG to answer our knocks at the gate. And when he did, it gave me an even bigger shock. Everything about him had changed. As the three of us sat with him on the run-down verandah, NCG recited ruefully about how he had lost his job as an insurance agent and all of his wealth in unending litigation, over a property dispute, with a construction firm. Even the house and property was under mortgage, he said.

I observed him, making sure that there were no signs of recognition on my face. He seemed to have degenerated, as his house had. His skin had sagged, and hung like loose sausages from his neck and cheekbones. The once-black, perfectly manicured sideburns and moustache had grayed and were overgrown, merging with his long and untidy beard. Only one thing had withstood change; the ever-present scowl on his face. It was with this trademark scowl, that we saw him for the first time, at a Resident’s Association function, while we were still in our school-going years.

My friend Naveen and me, had watched intently as NCG sat by our side, during the function, reading his magazine ( His initials were printed on the cover of the magazine, in clumsy, roundish letters).He had been comparing the results of a lucky draw, and both of us stole surreptitious glances into the magazine and the paper-bit which he held in his hand. As he compared the numbers, his scowling eyes moved from the paper-bit to the magazine, and back again. He realized that he had lost the draw, and angrily crumpled up the paper bit, and threw it to the ground. The violent reaction tickled our funny bones, and though I managed not to laugh, Naveen couldn't, and first let out a loud squeal, and then a giggle.NCG's quick fiery glare, blood-shot eyes from beneath the thick eye-brows and sideburns, had then subdued us into silence.

As I noticed my mates from Jyotis trying to convince NCG about the nobleness of our intentions, and into accepting our help and joining the old-age home, I remembered how our paths had crossed once again, while we were still in school.

Both of us used to play a game, while on our way back home; we would pick pebbles and aim them, five in a batch, one by one, onto the dirty post adjacent to NCG's squeaky clean walls. The post was squarer, and a good two-inch wider than the usual electric posts, making it a perfectly aimable target. None of us had a particularly good aim, and on average, atleast two out of every five missed the post, eventually creating a spotted design on NCG's super-clean walls, stretching his wafer-thin patience to its limits.

Getting proactive, NCG soon started a daily-evening vigil on his verandah, with his scowling eyes fixed at us, bringing our game to an abrupt end. He just glared, never uttering a word to us, and the one who talked, as if on his behalf, was the lady who stayed next door, in a curious mix of English and Malayalam. We had assumed then, that she was NCG's wife. “By chance, Aarude enkilum thalayil kondalo*?” she had asked, sounding concerned. The heavily accented English words struck a jarring note, followed by her rustic, local Malayalam. We instantly nick-named her By-chance.

Christening NCG took us a bit longer. I contributed Country for C and Goose for G, but we needed something catchy for N. It was then, that Naveen, the founder of the stone-throwing game, seething with anger at his game's sudden demise, finally came out with his masterpiece. NumbSkull for N. Thus, our bitter enemy stood baptized. NumbSkull Country Goose.
Mr Numbskull Country Goose and Miss By-chance. The nicknames stayed, and the names became a big joke among all our schoolmates who stayed nearby. We laughed behind their backs, invented funny rhymes about them, leaving them puzzled and irritated. We would regret our prank, sooner than we imagined, on a rainy June evening.

The rains had come lashing down, catching us off-guard, on the way back from school. We had no umbrellas, and as we stood, bedraggled, struggling to get our feet out of the way of the brick and logs which came hurtling down the slope along with the gushing water, we saw Miss.By-chance running towards us with an umbrella. NCG watched from his compound. We had gone in, along with her, and had a tea which warmed our shivering insides, thanked them and left, once the rain had subsided. We felt guilty and our relationship then grew better. Though NCG still scowled and never talked, By-chance gave us an occasional smile, and our paths rarely crossed.

I had been lost in my thought for quite some time, when I realized something. It was the first time, since I first saw NCG, that I ever heard him talk. I started listening, as his frowning face surprisingly softened, and eyes grew tender. He was talking about his sister, whom, he said he had lost to cancer. It took a while for me to realize that he was talking about By-chance. For us, she might have been his wife, or his servant, but it had never occured to us that, she was his sister.By then he had decided, after his hour-long conversation with my Jyotis colleagues, to join our old-age home, and had started to fill in the admission paper.

I stood by the side, watching him filling the papers, when he stunned me, still looking down into the paper, by asking where Naveen was now. I hadn’t expected the least that he would recognize me, was wonderstruck that he still remembered us. I let him know our present whereabouts, to which he nodded in acknowledgement, still looking into papers. At the end, as he was about to fill in his full name, which I watched curiously. I even half expected him to write Numbskull Country Goose Panicker, as I watched him fill in his name.

As I stood beside him, peering into his papers, he wrote, in his clumsy, roundish letters, which like him, appeared to have withered with age as well – ' Naledathu Chandra Gopan Panicker '.

PS:
By-chance's dialogue meant :- * what if the stone hits someone on the head? "

The Second Coming

2008-09-11T22:24:00.013+05:30

I woke up, to the shrill railway siren and loud cries of the vendors and hawkers on the platform, as the train slowly ground to a halt. We had moved into Kerala, I realized, leaning my head against the train's window sill, trying to sniff Onam* in the air, looking out eagerly for the flowers that bloom just for Onam and trying to pick up notes of Thiruvathirakkali* and Onapattu* . This year though, I was alone, as Krupa, my eight-year-old daughter couldn’t come along, as she had gone with her father, for a scholarship exam near our house in Nagpur.

My attention was diverted by the voice of a young boy, around ten years old, singing an old folk song. I watched him, with his hollow eyes and emaciated frame, hobbling on his one normal leg and his other polio-crippled leg, as he made his way through the compartments. He tapped with his fingers on his aluminum vessel, providing musical accompaniment to his song; and extended it towards each passenger as he sung, to which very few people obliged by dropping a coin or two.

The sight of him awakened something in me. Memories I believed were buried beyond recollection. Around thirty onams ago. The same hobbling walk. The same malnourished body. The uncanny facial resemblance. Way back, when I perhaps, was as about old as my Krupa, or even younger.

I first saw Murali, on a similar Onam morning, while my mother was attending to him, putting a soaked cotton cloth on his forehead. He had sought shelter under the huge teak in our compound, during the heavy rains of the previous night, and mother had found him in the morning; drenched, feverish and unconscious. My mother had lived like a queen, in the midst of luxury, till my father, who was a premier liquor contractor, had passed away when I was just one. Even years afterward, mother couldn't refuse if someone came to her for help - even in times where she and us, her three daughters, struggled to manage three square meals a day and had to satiate ourselves with the meager supply potatoes and tapioca that we cultivated in our compound.

Murali stayed on with us, running errands, tending to cattle and helping mother with her household chores.Radhachechi* and Padminichechi, my elder sisters and their circle of friends paid no attention to him, not even as much attention that they would have paid Veeran, our dog who sometime back, had died of a snake bite. They used to go after the hobbling Murali, teasing him with chants of “Uruli* ! Uruli”, all of which, Murali would suffer in silence. They never used to include me too, considerably younger, in their games, with my thick lips and short hair being their most common object of ridicule. Inevitably, being birds of the same feather, Murali and I befriended each other.

The Onam season that followed, still, remains the most unforgettable one of my childhood, for reasons more than one. Murali and I would sit together under the trees in our compound, telling each other stories, our fears and our anxieties. He told how he and his twin sister had no mother; and they just had a cruel uncle who would beat him up daily. When I told him that every child has a mother, and that all my classmates had one, he disagreed and maintained that they never ever had a mother. I used to tearfully tell him, how my sisters would never let me play along with them, and how my birth was told to be a bad omen that had led to my father’s untimely death, which in turn, led to our family's current plight.

We had our moments too, though.Murali would seat me on a tree-skin and drag me at a great speed through our compound as if he were operating a speed boat, would pluck ripe fruits for me before the crows started nibbling at them, and would make tiny, cute trinkets for me from cardboard shreds and coconut leaves. I thoroughly enjoyed the looks of admiration from the other girls, when Murali, would stand with me on the swing, describing huge arcs in the air and would bite off the edge of a leaf from the adjacent mango tree when the swing began its downward journey, from mid air. My sisters, by then, had dropped their high-handed air and would plead Murali to do the same for them too, but Murali wouldn't agree, unless he got my nod of approval . I became an instant celebrity, so did he.

My short curly, un-girlish hair had been the thing that I most disliked about myself. Sometime back, before Murali's arrival, I had once met old Ramla, widely rumored to be practising chathanseva* .Though my mother had forbidden me from talking to her, I asked her about how I could grow long hair in a short time.Ramla pointed to a lotus at the centre of the pond. The stem of the lotus which grows right in the centre pond had to be taken, and kept for a full night between your hair, for the hair to grow thick and long, said Ramla.

This, had then seemed unattainable, but with Murali around, nothing seemed impossible. I went in search of him, and found him sitting in a corner, and was to my surprise, crying. He had dreamt that his sister was sick, he said, and he wanted to go home. No one should know, he said, he had to leave in the night. Our little heaven had lasted for a few months then, and as all good things do, it had to come to an end. And it did.

I wondered whether he had the money. Of course, he had'nt.Then we made a deal. I would give him my gold bangle in the evening, and he would pluck me the lotus from the middle of the pond.

There is a special sanctity to it, when pacts are made between children. Under no conditions, is the pact expected to be broken.

As decided, we met at the pond that evening, unaware of the dangers involved, and as decided, Murali dived into the pond and swam for the lotus, as I waited at the shore, my heart thumping furiously. Things happened far too fast. Murali missed a trick, and was soon drowning. I ran to my uncle, who immediately ran back to the pond with me and pulled Murali out. He lay motionless, as my uncle pulled him out of the pond.Sometime then, I fell unconscious.

When I woke up the next day, I found the anxious faces of my mother, uncle and sisters looking down at me. I enquired first about Murali, to which my uncle replied that he was alright and had gone home. I insisted that I wouldn't believe it unless I saw Murali, and was in tears again. He had funded Murali's trip, uncle said, and he off to see his sister. Finally,I trusted uncle.We would never hear from Murali again.

As the memories came up, tears welled up in my eyes. The surprised passengers looked on, as I hugged the stunned boy and pressed a hundred rupee note, into his hands. Staying close to me, he let out a smile.The smile gave me a shock. Something made me feel that Murali himself was standing right before me. Two front teeth in the upper row were broken, leaving a triangular gap in between. Exactly in the same way, that Murali’s teeth were broken.

At my age, I don’t give a thing for talks of rebirth or reincarnation, or any such superstition. Maybe it is due to my experiences in life, or my education, or my ten-year old relation with my husband, who is an atheist. But when I saw the smile, I, somehow, felt convinced, my worst fears confimed - that Murali wasn’t alive, that he never survived that night. Each passing moment ,with the boy in front of me seemed to reinforce the same.

The train started to move again, he released my grip, ran and hopped off onto the platform. As the train picked up speed, and as the boy on the platform faded away from my sight, I buried my face in my lap, and wept.

PS: For non-Mallus . I felt obliged to use these in my post, mainly because this is Onam time !
-onam is the national festival of kerala
-onapattu means onam songs
-thiruvathirakali is a kerala dance form,performed during onam
-chechi means elder sister
-uruli is a round vessel,sounds phonetically similair to murali
-chathanseva is devil worship a.k.a witchcraft

Sita

2008-08-22T22:30:00.010+05:30

I took some toothpowder in one palm and a steel mug in the other hand and walked out into the courtyard, sucking in the cool, fresh, invigorating village air. Mom and aunt were near the well, involved in an animated discussion, glancing occasionally towards a shack which had been propped up just outside the farthest end of our compound. I walked up to the well and half-heartedly listened to their conversation, while cleaning my teeth.

"She surely deserves this ", Mom murmured through clenched teeth.

"Quite true ", seconded Aunt,” After all the miseries she put you people through."
Mom nodded, in agreement.

" I treated her just as a member in the household, just like one of my kids. And what did she do to me? ".She fumed."Not even a word before she left the home. And to think of all the events which followed."

“These kind of people, sister, you should keep them at a distance”, advised Aunt. “And at the same time, keep an eye on them. Never trust them.”

“Let it pass”, said Mom, shaking her head with an air of resignation.
“Let her suffer. Who cares?”
With that, both of them turned back, cautioning me to stay away from the well's sides, as it was slippery from the heavy rain which had fallen last night. Them gone, I stood, index finger stuck between my teeth and cheeks, wondering who the 'she' was.

Every time I visit this place, where my dad's family lives, I make it a routine to brush my teeth and then go cycling through the un-tarred, dusty roads with paddy fields, plantations and scattered tenements on either side. This time though, I went the opposite way, bisecting the courtyard, jumping over the fence into the road. I walked down the road, towards the shack and was no farther than ten meters from the shack, when a clay pot came hurtling out through its front door and landed on the road.

I moved to behind a tree and watched. The clay pot was followed first by a steel plate and then by a dark, swarthy, red-eyed guy. Obviously drunk, he had another clay vessel in his hand which he promptly smashed to the floor, shouting loudly at someone inside. A woman, around thirty, apparently his wife, appeared at the door, carrying a frail, sick boy, perched on her frailer, sicker frame. There was more bellowing from him, murmured apologies from her, and then a resounding slap which struck her square on the cheek, after which he stomped out of the place. The mother and the son sat on the doorstep, weeping.

It was the first time I ever saw Sita in tears. Ever since she had come to our house as a seventeen year old, to help Mom with the chores and to take care of me and my sister( as Dad, undergoing treatment for asthma, was then in hospital), she was always bubbly and cheerful. And pretty too - in an innocent, village belle sort of way - with dark honey colored skin, an uninhibited smile, twinkling eyes and long hair reaching down to her hip. I still remember my sister and me, returning from school, each of us holding Sita's hands on either side, each of our school-bags slung over her either shoulder. She was our main playmate, teaching us games that they often play in villages, and was our constant companion in watching movies, and recollecting excitedly the action sequences and punch lines in every movie that we saw on television.

Being bought up in a village, I guess she got too enthralled by the amorous ways of the city. While returning from school, clad most often in her bright yellow duppatta, she would respond encouragingly to cat-calls of "Manjakkili"* from guys perched on roadside walls, and in the evenings, she would communicate eagerly with her hands and eyebrows to the overtures of guys who stayed at the Law-college hostel, opposite our house.This, I remember was a problem that Mom had to address with an iron hand. It was something which she thought she did well, but it ended up with mixed results,as we would soon realize.

And one fine Sunday evening, while Sita and me were returning home from the flour-mill, she stopped by a shop, and bought me a toy-jeep,one with a steel chassis and shiny wheels,and asked me to go back home, adding that she would be back soon. It became my favorite toy, and I remember I played with it, pushing it around the house for almost two years since then. Thrilled by the toy, I obliged, and ran back home. We didn't realize then, that it was a farewell gift, till nine in the night, after the Sunday evening film on television. We noticed then, with considerable alarm, that she hadn't returned.Sita's home and my Dad were informed, and Dad took a forced discharge from the hospital.

If there ever is something called hell, I guess the week that followed would come closest to it.Sita's relatives chanted slogans and squatted on our courtyard, demanding that we return their daughter without harm. Policemen questioned us in and out.Dad, whose health kept worsening, exerted considerable governmental influence to keep us from being put behind bars. With police investigations going nowhere, we hired an advocate, a shrewd old man who peppered everyone endlessly with questions. Having got nothing of interest from my parents, he turned to me. His eyes gleamed with interest when I told him about Sita's dilly-dallying with the guys-on-the-roadside-walls. He thought a child's testimony would have enough innocence to convince the police about Sita's immorality and wanted me to recite the same to the police, with a few additional Sita-maligning inputs from his end.

I had learnt his testimony by-heart (as thoroughly as I would learn a poem at school) and had reached the police station with him and my parents, when we got the shock of our lives.

Sita stood there, all smiles, in full bridal attire, accompanied by the man with whom she had fallen in love and had eloped ,the same man who would be beating her to pulp everyday, a few years later. They had registered their marriage and the police got the news from the response to a man-missing ad that we had filed in the newspapers.Sita looked composed, having defied my Mom's iron hand, Mom and Dad stormed off in a rage, and I, sad at the realization that she would never return home, turned back tearfully, and met her endearing smile.

I watched him walk away, and stood there,unsure of what to do.A part of me wanted to go up to her and offer some help,though I didn't have the faintest idea about what help to offer.The other part of me didn't want to embarrass her in her current state of decrepitude.I thought I would walk away, but by then she saw me .I felt I saw a small sign of recognition,but could never be sure,because,as soon as she looked up and saw me,she picked up her son, turned back, went inside the house, and slammed the door shut .

*Manjakkili : A teasing expression - 'Manja' means yellow in Malayalam and 'kili' means bird

Asthmatic Aunty , Respiring Roomie

2008-07-27T00:32:00.019+05:30

I wondered why she was here,in the exam hall,of all places.At Seventy-seven years,she was the last sight I expected here,inspite of the fact that she is my own Dad's,own Auntyji.There she was,right in midst of several other candidates,upright on a chair,pencil in hand,looking thoughtfully into the question paper.

It being an objective choice,fixed time exam,I didn't have much time to waste,pondering over why she was writing the exam along with me.Ignoring the absurdity of the situation,I buried my head into the question paper,picking my choice among the various answer choices,and darkening the appropriate ovals on the pink colored OMR Sheet with my pencil,nervous about whether I would end up gaining or loosing a mark with each darkened oval.

Meanwhile,I stole a sideways glance at Auntyji,out of curiosity to see what she was doing .Her posture had changed now.Sitting sideways on her chair,hunchbacked,she now had slumped,her head touching her knees.I could sense what was coming up next.She was about to get one of her bouts of asthma.And she did.

Auntyji started taking in deep breaths,each breath emitting a sound,which appeared something like a cross between the bay of a sheep and the croak of frog.Bay-croaking , let me call it .It came forth,in frequencies of such amazing regularity.Two breaths in a second,one hundred and twenty in a minute,seven thousand two hundred in an hour.Nothing more,nothing less.

You had to be either Superman or RajniKanth to concentrate on your examination in the midst of such unadulterated pandemonium.Sadly,I am,and was,neither.

Things where fast driving me to exasperation.The questions were'nt too tough and I was positively confident that I would crack the exam.But right then Auntyji had materialized,threatening to blow the whole exam with her asthmatic exploits.I just could not get myself to focus.

But what bemused me more was how unaffected the others in the room were.They seemed to have earholes plugged with cotton chunks.I turned and peeked into the ear of the girl next to me.Surprisingly,there was no cotton.

The bell rang. End of Session One.

There was a brief interval,and then my Mom came running,holding a glass containing a plain honey colored liquid,which looked and tasted like apple juice;the kind that we often get at HPMC centres in railway stations.But strangely , she referred to it as Pineapple-juice .Auntyji was offered just a quarter glass of the same.I felt a pity for Aunty,and wondered whether Mom's senses of hospitality had left her,just like the ability to distinguish apple juice from pineapple juice had deserted her,a few minutes back.

Things were already happening too topsy-turvy from my perspective.I emptied the glass in a single draught and decided to keep my mouth shut.

Sure that I had messed up the first half,I glared fierily at Auntyji.She was slumped in her seat.The asthmatic bouts seemed to have subsided.The quarter glass of the pinapple-juice-which-looked-like-apple-juice stayed there,untouched on her table.

The bell rang again. Session Two.

The exam restarted in a few minutes.Five minutes went on peacefully,and I felt I was getting into my groove again.Right then,the sheep bayed again,accompanied by the frog who croaked in unison.The last reserve of patience exhausted,I got up,shouted,and lunged menacingly at Auntyji,determined to get her out of the hall.I guess I tripped then, and fell down in the process .

Startled awake,lying flat on my back,I waited for my eyes to get accustomed to the darkness.As the pupils dilated,I first saw the ceiling fan,rotating laboriously overhead.The flourescent time-piece needles read Three A.M , while the alarm needle threateningly pointed to Five. Auntyji and the exam,it had all been in dreamland.

But something was still wrong.Still out of place.Yes,I realized -the bay-croaking.It was still there.Loud,rhythmic and unbearable. Confused,helpless and groggy-eyed I turned three-hundred-sixty degrees,my back facing the ceiling fan and buried my face in the pillow.The sound would'nt disappear.

Summoning all my consciousness,I got onto my feet and looked around.Right then I figured it out.Arun,my room-mate was lying beside my bed,covered head to toe in a black blanket,totally inconspicous,sleeping peacefully,snoring away to his heart's content.I picked up my bedsheet,the time-piece,my dishevelled clothes and trudged off to the next room.

For the next two hours,till the alarm went off,I slept in peace,neither seeing Auntyji nor hearing her bay-croaking.

Mrs.Cattie's nose-ring

2008-06-22T22:54:00.026+05:30

Once upon a time, long long back, there lived one Mrs.Cattie Black,who,with jet black skin and nimble feet, was the toast of the town and was the best rat-catching cat that ever lived. She would stealthily melt into the darkness and pounce on the unsuspecting rats, catching them off guard and would bilch away fish with consummate ease, from kitchens where they were either cooked or kept aside to be washed. Never was she caught, and there wasn't a single family who wasn't jealous of the fleet-footed Cattie and her never-hungry kittens.

But Cattie was always unhappy, always jealous of the colorful feathers of Mrs.Bluey Feathers, the peacock and of the dazzling green skin of Miss.Greenie RedBeak, the parrot; both of whom stayed on the same street. She would always despair of looking at her pitch black skin in the mirror, sighing and wondering how she could ever get herself to be as beautiful as they were.

Once she had stolen enough fish from a nearby courtyard at night and had kept them aside for the next day, when she spotted the goldsmith walking across the street. She tiptoed upto him, taking half the fish with her, and placed them at his feet.

"I am so sad.. ", she whined.

"Why should you be sad, Cattie?", asked the goldsmith. "Don't you have more fish and rat meat than any other cat in the town?".

"Yes", Cattie was still whining.

"Then what is the problem?".

"I am ugly. I want to be pretty. Pretty like Bluey, pretty like Greenie ". She muttered, gazing despondently at her black feet and claws.

"You are perfectly fine, Cattie", pacified the goldsmith,"You can so easily blend into the dark with your dark skins, and you and your kittens would never starve."

Cattie would have none of it. She badly wanted to look pretty, and she had already thought of how she'd go about it.

"I need a golden nose-ring,with a bright diamond on it", ordered Cattie.

The goldsmith found the idea of a cat wearing a nose-ring quite strange and tried to dissuade her. But Cattie had already made up her mind and wouldn't let anyone drive sense into her head. Within a few days, Cattie had got her nose-ring,and she would strut around flaunting it, evoking gasps and looks of astonishment from Bluey, Greenie and all others on the street. For days on end, Cattie sat in front of the mirror - her narcissistic senses stroked awake by the shimmer of the sun on the diamond - admiring her own beauty, blissfully unaware of the approaching winter and the diminishing stock of food at her disposal.

And then, one fine evening, winter had set in and there was no food anymore with Cattie. She had still not had enough of admiring herself in the mirror, but the hunger, incessantly gnawing away at her and her kittens' intestines, forced her out to brave the biting cold. She was rusty, her feet not moving as nimbly as they did, thanks to all the days spent in front of the mirror. Yet she ran, with all her might, trying to pounce upon the rats, who now found it ridiculously easy to outwit their nemesis, the glint of moonlight on the diamond ring visible from a mile away.

Cattie couldn't fathom how the rats managed to spot her from so far. Undeterred by the unexpected reverse, she turned her attention to the kitchens of the houses nearby. She had gone no farther than the kitchen window sill when a blow struck. A stick landed right on her back, then on her legs and within minutes she was beaten black and blue by the townfolks.

She ran back wailing and was soon licking her wounds, staring at the reflection of her and her bloodied diamond-affixed nose in the mirror, remembering the words of the goldsmith. Her once coveted possession, the diamond studded nose-ring was her bane now. Smarting from the wounds and her hungry stomach, she set out in search of the goldsmith to get the ring off her face. But the goldsmith was nowhere to be found. He had left the town and a distraught Cattie was left with no option but to wail and curse her fate. Body aching from the beatings and the diamond-ring soiled, she trudged back home inconsolable, with tears rolling down her cheeks.

We still hear her in the streets and the alleys, wondering how she would feed her kittens again, how she would ever get the nose-ring off, crying and crying, desolate and inconsolable - "Meoow!!!! Meoow!!! Meoow!!"

Thanks to :
Chunakkara Ramankutty,malayalam film lyricist,whose one creation served as the inspiration for the above post.
Krupa,for finetuning the post, adding appropriate punctuations and correcting errors induced by late night sleepiness and my inherent carelessness.

Sugreeva,Mr.Bali and the Airhostesses

2008-05-12T19:04:00.010+05:30

For those who are yet to be initiated into the awesome epic of The Ramayana, I have a small piece of information to share.Rama,during one of his sojourns, met Sugreeva,a vanara(the same genre as Hanuman) who was tormented endlessly by his brother Bali,upon a misunderstanding.Rama took it upon himself to free Sugreeva from the torments of Bali and slayed Bali after a mini-battle.

By the way,I had gone on a trip to Bangalore last week,partly to relax after a hectic month of work and partly to do some shopping.I had finished my shopping for the day and were walking down Brigade Road,when i spotted a rotund,pot bellied guy,trudging lazily towards me from the other end of the road.The gait and figure was so familiar but I couldn't place him even after racking my brains trying to figure out where I had seen him.But as soon as he passed us,it struck me.A few extra pounds ,a moustache and a straggly beard were the main reasons why I had'nt placed him yet.

"Sugreeva !!", I yelled.

He whirled round,shocked at hearing his college-nickname called out,at the most unlikely place. His shock quickly turned to a pleasant surprise as he saw me(it was four years since we passed out of our college,where we were classmates)and soon we were hugging and getting each other posted with the events which had taken place in each other's lives in the past four years.Our discussion soon veered to incidents at college,which we never get fed up of reciting, inspite of the number of times we do so.

At college,he had been an ardent fan of certain B-Grade magazines which published tiltillating stories mainly aimed at adolescents.Once we had caught him red handed,reading one such book,and the story which he was reading,had the main protagonist with the name Sugreeva.Though he never owned up to buying that book ,the name quickly caught on,even among girls,who fortunately never knew about the origin of the name.It had infuriated him to no end,and he would fume at anyone who called him by that name.

And one day,after we had completed our freshman year at college,we decided to meet up with the new joinees at our hostel.We marched in and out of the junior's hostel rooms,Sugreeva being one of the main scare-leaders.In one room,there was this boy,bespectacled and geekish, his head buried deep into his Mathematics text,and feverishly working out his assignments.I snatched the text from the guy. Our first-year Mathematics text was written by one Mr.Bali.

I had already intimidated the boy with a couple of questions when my Ramayanic awareness was awakened by the author's name.

I said,"Hey,why the hell do you study from Bali's book? It's too tough.You should try Sugreeva's book".

The boy,already about to piss in his trousers,never sensed the humorous side of my question. "Where can I get that text from?",he asked,innocently,his big,round eyes staring at me from beneath his spectacles.

That was when I got my brainstorm. I pointed to Sugreeva,who was already spreading fear throughout the hostel,terrorizing each and every soul who came his way. "You can ask that guy".

The boy hesitated,but one stern glance from me,and he was off to Sugreeva and had asked him for the "Mathematics text by Sugreeva". We watched joyfully as Sugreeva flew into one of his rages,scared the boy out of his wits.He never again could summon the courage to look Sugreeva in his eye, until they met each other time in a less hostile and more professional office environment and a Sugreeva having mellowed down quite a bit by then.

We were laughing at how scared the boy was,when Sugreeva surprised me when he told me that they shared the same apartment as well,as they worked in the same company now.

The mention of the apartment reminded us of another incident involving him.Our apartment,during college was in a posh residential area with its kitchen window facing a house ,which was rented out by a dozen pretty airhostesses.Inspite of repeated warnings from each of us,Sugreeva could never resist the temptation to peek at them from our kitchen .One day, the apartment bell rang.Two of us answered the bell.To our pleasant surprise ,one of the airhostesses was at our door.We weren’t allowed to entertain any new hopes as she snapped angrily.

“Your cook is such a nuisance ! Will you ask him to stop staring at girls all the time”.

Cook ???’’ ,We asked in unison,flabbergasted. We never had a cook at our apartment. It just needed a split second to realize who the cook was.We assured the girl that it wouldn’t repeat again,slammed the door and before the half asleep Sugreeva knew it,we had landed blows on all exposed parts of his body.

We were laughing again,when Sugreeva surprised me once more. He was in love with a girl in his company and they were getting engaged in June. I started jumping up and down for a treat and insisted that I wanted to meet his girl in person. He okayed the idea of a treat,but would never let me see the girl in person.He relented,only when he had sworn me to secrecy upon God , that the above incidents would be kept a secret from her,atleast until they got engaged to each other. I agreed and was rewarded with a sumptuous dinner the next day, before I left Bangalore.

2008-03-23T23:14:00.013+05:30

Professors - Unplugged !!!

2008-02-24T21:44:00.006+05:30

Last month,there happened to be an alumni meeting at our alma mater ,Loyola School.We passed out of school nearly 10 years ago and I haven't quite been a frequent visitor at school since.The school had changed a lot and while we passed the staff room,there weren't many familiar faces there too.I hoped I could see atleast one of our teachers,but couldn't.They had been real special and the staff room bought with it some memories of some truly magnificent teachers that we had.

The first one has to be Jacob Mathew Sir,our chemistry professor.He was around 60,almost always impeccably dressed,in pucca formals,and seriously,if he gave a modelling career a thought,Raymonds and Peter Englands would be at his doorsteps the next day,vying with each other to woo him.Such was the charm he had,and add to it a level head with a toungue that could never utter something unless it was absolutely necessary and appropriate,he was the complete package - a gentleman,head to toe.And we gave him one of the cutest nicknames one could ever think of - Jams - a short for Jacob Mathew sir.Once he was giving a class test and underprepared as we were,malpractice was a foregone conclusion.The thing was not in commiting the sin,but it was in doing it as stealthily as you ever could.One of my classmates,Shivaji,was not very good at being inconspicous,and in a moment of desparation,resorted to peeking into the book of the guy sitting behind him and could not escape Jams's probing eyes which picked him out almost immediately.Normally in such situations,the guy is made to stand and undergo a dressing down right then.But Jams's response was a classic.He reached over his shoulder,looked at Shivaji and gently quipped,
"Shivaji,dont strain too much .You will break your neck ".
There was a delay while the joke sank in,and then the class roared with laughter.

Then there was Gayathri Manohar,our english professor till class Ten.She was the iron lady,with a heart of gold,and with her stern looks and imposing presence,could glare down even Mike Tyson with ease.The only time I remember her soften was at the funeral of one of our classmates,,while we were in class Ten,during which she was uncontrollably in tears.With her,there was no messing around,no half-measures,no pranks and she was the ultimate taskmaster.Her nickname too,almost went wonderfully in tune with the terror that she generated.Gayathri and Manohar got truncated identically to leave Ga and Ma,and the name GaMa just stuck.Once she was about to teach an act from The Merchant Of Venice,by William Shakespeare,when she asked for a copy of the book from one of us.One guy,Boney stood up in a trice and proudly took his book to her.There was reason for him to be proud,as he was one of the guys who came under constant chiding from GaMa for not coming to class with a proper text book.Moreover the book was neatly covered.But for some strange reason,instead of writing the full name-"The Merchant Of Venice"-on the cover,he inscribed just the first letters of each word.
As a result,the book cover read "T.m.o.v".
GaMa took one close look,frowned,then let out the rarest of smiles and said,
"Boney,I dont want the Russian version.Could you please give me the english version instead?".
A bewildered Boney,all his enthusiasm evaporated,was left struggling for words.

Another incredible teacher was Deepa Pillai,alias DP,our English teacher in the Plus Two course.Pint sized and frail,her appearance belied the energy and enthusiasm which she carried within.School days,dramas - whatever cultural programme held at school- the strings were and had to be pulled by DP herself.I haven't seen a better english teacher,and for each verse from Shakespeare's classic tragedy,Hamlet,she would enthrall the class with its hidden meanings,puns and umpteen connotations.And she was very concerned with the grades that each of us were managing to get in each exams and was particularly exasperated with the performance of one of the boys in our class,Harish.He was a gifted hoopster,the school general captain and one of the top athletes in the school,and had then taken to playing the jazz drums for the school choir.Inspite of being an extremely intelligent guy,his grades at school had plummeted badly,and DP badly wanted him to focus more on studies and less on drumming,and one particular day,while distributing the mark sheets to each student,Harish's grades drove her to despair,and she exclaimed,
"And Harish,will you please STop BAnging away at those BLessed DRums?".
The sentence was so magnificently accented and delivered that it came close to resembling a drumbeat sequence in itself.We all stared,impressed at the verse,as DP acknowledged our open mouthed admiration with a sweet little smile,and nonchalantly continued with the distribution of the mark sheets.

There are still much more about school,about which I could go on writing forever.It is great fun recollecting them,and saves me the trouble of reciting boring events,which seem to have "happened" in every school,every year,every batch like how the chemistry professor asked to "take an iron rod of any metal" or how the drill master instructed to open the windows to "let the air force come in".

Teachers at Loyola,take a bow !!

Glassy Recollections

2008-01-21T19:03:00.000+05:30

Last week,taking the cue from one of my friends,I decided that I would undergo laser treatment to my eyes.It was easy,he said,just a half an hour at the doc's,and your eyesight would be back to normal and you could dump your spectacles for good.The talk about the specs took me for a walk down the memory lane,with my glasses by my side.

They had come, the light of my eyes, neatly wrapped in a shiny plastic case with the name of the shop neatly embossed on it, in golden italic letters, and a yellow satin cloth inside to wipe them clean.

They were initially taken off before sleep, carefully with both my hands , wiped clean with the cloth and tenderly placed back into the box. As time went by, I would whip them off and toss them on to my table. The cloth, replaced by the loose ends of my shirts, disappeared first, followed by the box, which ended up covered in dust, at some forgotten corner of my wardrobe. As a result, within weeks of purchase, they invariably end up with one leg pointing towards London and the other towards America.

They made the text on billboards and films on television clearer, and saved me from the wrath of many who would smile at me from far away, only to meet my blind, blank stare. They have emboldened me to look people in the eye, as I know it wouldn’t be very easy for them to see my eyes, through the glasses.

They contrived with my then awkward gait, to give me the geek look, but the competition from my miserable grades right through school and college was too much for them and ultimately the grades won, hands down.

They made me very appearance-conscious, and despite instructions from the doctor to wear them permanently and persuasion from my parents, I always made sure that they rested in my pockets till I crossed the row of shops on either side of the road, which preceded the rather deserted path which led to my school.

They ruined an otherwise good looking photograph of mine--which honestly speaking, is quite a rarity--by reflecting the studio lights with a vengeance. Despite the best efforts from me and the photographer, neither the good looks nor thankfully the glare, repeated itself again.

They once silently rested on my nose, as if mocking at me, while I ran desperately all around the school, searching playgrounds and bathrooms thinking that I lost them. I realized they were still with me, only when, temporarily forgetting that I had "lost" them, I involuntarily readjusted their position on the bridge of my nose.

They have evolved from brown to black, oval to square, from biggish to smallish, the evolutions being triggered by wear and tear or by the latest fashion trends. But the demise of the first pair was the most tragic.
“They were in the pocket of my shirt,
The shirt was hanging on the door,
The door was then slammed tightly shut,
They were smashed and crashed to the floor.”
Nice rhyme, but such a cute piece of poetry occurring to me while speaking of this incident seems quite an anticlimax, as the sight of them crushed to a hundred glass pieces, jammed between the door and the wall, had been too much to bear. I got a sound thrashing from dad that day and a brand new pair on the next.

They have reduced RayBan and PolicE brands to utter irrelevance as far as I am concerned, as sunglasses don’t come with provisions for the visually imperfect, and wearing sunglasses over your eyeglasses isn't exactly what you call sanity.

They haven't been a permanent fixture on my nose of late, and they come up from my pocket only in the event of something interesting (read beautiful) cropping up before me. While at college, me wearing them and looking in a particular direction was a sure-shot indicator of a pretty someone walking past, and scores of hopeful adolescent eyes would soon follow mine. The flip side of the whole thing was that even some of my innocent, unassuming glances were quite often grossly misunderstood.

They get deposited by me, at the oddest of places, on bathroom window sills, on living-room cushions, in trouser pockets and many such unlikely places. I go mad hunting for them, and keep everyone around me on tenterhooks as well. They do resurface at the end, leaving a sheepish smile on my face, but the resultant mess-the upturned cushions,malaligned furniture,rummaged wardrobes- takes at least another hour to get cleaned up.

With the surgery imminent,my glasses wouldn't be staying with me for long.Even with a perfect 10/10 vision,and free from all the fuss which accompanies them,and the fact that I can spot a RayBan without bothering about them,I realize I would miss them ,and miss badly - my unsung companions,their reassuring presence,the desperate spectacle hunts - and the more I think about them,the more second thoughts am I having about letting them go.

'INVITATIO'Nailed !

2008-01-14T15:39:00.000+05:30

They say marriages are made in heaven. But outsourcing being the order of the day, it seems marriages too have been outsourced from heaven nowadays. The quintessential marriage broker and marriage bureaus have taken a backseat as more and more get to find their better halves by themselves. Though largely unsuccessful so far, I have put in quite a number of efforts to this end myself.

The main bottleneck has been the shortlisting.Talkative girls don’t make the cut, so doesn't the fashionable and the over-socializing ones. No mirror cracking materials please, as she would get soon get bored going about cracking mirrors without my company. But long hair and intelligence are an absolute must-I still have my demands, you see. If at all some lady meets all the criteria she would have to still have to get acquainted with me and at least pick up a friendship with me. Sounds wishful thinking, but let me tell you, there has been more than one on my list so far. To be precise, six of them.

Now the twist in the tale. Of the six, two were already married, one was engaged, another one was already in love and the last two got engaged within a month of me meeting them. Call it pessimism or whatever you want, but I formulated my own theory about girls and me. Bring any girl who is struggling to find her match, due to reasons ranging from domestic to monetary to horoscopic, get me to like her and within a month, her cup of matrimonial woes would be empty and mine would be that much fuller.

Then I happened to switch my job. Quite often a change does you a world of good. Sometimes a change is what makes Lady Luck to cast her benevolence on us.Atleast that was what I hoped when I joined the new job. My hope wasn't out of place at all, when within a week I spotted what was to be the next entry on my growing list. She had joined recently and sat diagonally opposite to me. There was everything, the charming smile, long hair, simple dressing and calm demeanor and the fact that I didn’t even know anything about her couldn't put me off at all. Before long, glances and smiles were exchanged, and my brain worked overtime to correlate the smiles and glances to something like a mutual liking. Except for the smiles and glances, we never talked to each other. From my past relationships one thing which I had learnt was instead of being pushy,it was always better to be patiently bide my time and wait for the break.

So far, so good. By the way, I am not in a position to reveal the name of the girl, so let me call her Miss. DreamGirl.I needed to find out more about Miss. Dream Girl, starting with her name. The problem here was that since both of us were new at the office, there weren’t many whom I could ask for such sensitive data and there wouldn't be many who actually would know the details. That was when one day, luckily, I met this particular guy at our pantry. I will call him Mr.GodSend.Mr.GodSend was a talkative fellow, and since then, we used to talk occasionally over coffee. The talk was pretty much the boring crap - about the latest bank interests, housing loans, worsening condition of the roads of Cochin, train timings - the topics which come to your rescue when your interests doesn't match with someone and you still have to pick up a conversation. Though he was quite good at gossip-mongering, I was apprehensive about asking Mr. Godsend about Miss.DreamGirl as his chat never veered to "girl-topics”, as we call them. But his furtive glances and knowing smiles at me whenever a pretty, well-endowed female walked past us made me feel confident that he could be my man. I went ahead and managed to get her name from him, and also came to know that even her native place was the same as mine.

The signs were pretty bright and I sat down and formulated my plans. I methodically rehearsed our first conversations and the questions that I would ask her and so on. Meanwhile the glances continued, the smiles grew wider and the occasional one line conversations started to flourish too. Things were slowly picking up pace when after some days our Mr. Godsend came up to invite me for his marriage. He handed me his wedding invitation.DreamGirl was invited too,and was attending,so I made up my mind that I would attend too, and I joked to him about how me and Miss.DreamGirl would come to his seat to invite him to our marriage. He departed, and I folded the invitation and put it into my table to find yet another invitation there.Out of sheer curiosity I opened it.

I would have admired the card, with its silver background and embossed golden letters, if it was not for the content. I read the card again, hoping that I had read it wrong. But I hadn’t. The bride happened to be our Miss.DreamGirl and the saddest part was the date of wedding-it had happened a good two months before. I couldn’t help cursing her for not sporting at least an obvious Sindhoor mark on her forehead.

Months have passed,Miss.DreamGirl was promptly rechristened Mrs.DreamGirl,she is expecting a baby in a few months, Mr.Godsend is happily married and I am still drawing up lists and cutting the entries off with a speed that only my fast-running-out optimism can match.

A Tale Of Two Poems

2008-01-06T00:26:00.000+05:30

Some years back,I took a sudden fancy to poetry.I jotted down some,and honestly speaking you couldnt spot even a trace of a rhyme or poetic beauty in most of them.They where just plain prose,with line breaks coming in at absolutely unnecessary places.The titles too,werent any great,and it wasn't long before I gave up on my latest fad.
Recently happened to come across two of them after a long time.These two seemed to be better,and though I could not find a better title for the second one,I thought I'll share them with you.
The first one seemed to have been inspired from the initial days of my then hectic software career.

TECHIE'S TRAVAILS

Monday comes along
Sunday slips away into the past
Friday waves from far away
And I am in bed,half conscious.

The alarm goes off. Damn it!
Damn me rather for setting it to go off at such unearthly hours.
I hope against hope that something has gone wrong .
Alarm might have been set to 4 AM by mistake,instead of 6.
But the sunlight peeping in allays my doubts .

Well,it's monday morning.
I sit up,groggy-eyed and drowsy.
Mom calls from downstairs
I wonder where she gets all this energy from .

Well,I must be off now,I realise.
Sheer will takes me to the shower.
I dress up,
The feeling of the darned tie wrenching my poor neck says it all.
The sight of equally unlucky souls at the office cheers me up.

Just 5 days like this,I tell myself.
To be back in the lap of that glorious feeling of nothing-to-do.
The same feeling,which made me sick,in those horrible jobless days.
This is much better,I console myself .

The thought of salary is vaguely comforting .
And as I get philosophical,the realisation dawns.
And I realise how lucky I am,to be here in this seat at Office.
A little chill down my spine
As the thought of the umpteen unsuccessful tests and interviews races back to mind.

I say a little prayer,and stare at my PC ,
Trying to figure out a pattern in that junk before me.
A curse for the (wretched) soul who created such meaningless(?) piece of material.
I say the prayer again,the junk gets more imposing .

Tea-vending machine is more humane,I feel .
At least it works when you want it to .

A cup of tea,and I am back to my seat,
With the software junk for company.
Two hours of mental wrestling,
Half my hair is strewn across the table.
At last it gives way(the junk,not my Hair) and I smile to myself.
You need to be brainy to crack it,and I feel good.
Wonder how I got the gumption to call it Junk.

Come On ! The day is not so bad ,after all.

Lot more junks,more e-mails and chat .
The days whizz past,great news!
But the deadlines too whizz past along with them ,bad news !
Desperate attempts to catch up,to no avail .
I start believing in miracles more and more.

Soon,Friday comes up,and another weekend .
Its party time.
Celebration of life,nothing less.
Absolute bliss,till the ill-fated alarm goes off once again

Such is life ,
Little disappointments,struggles and some joy at the end of it all.
A saying comes to my mind .
When you are about to fall from the edge of a Cliff,
God either rescues you,
Or He teaches you to fly.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second one was inspired from a movie I saw,where the protagonist was a poor guy in love with a blind pretty girl.The guy just sells out the his guitar( his most loved possession, sob! sob! ) to raise money for his love's eye surgery.The surgery is a success and the guy is scared whether she would like him when she sets her eyes on him.The poor guy feels she would not like him,and out comes the poem.

THE SYMPHONY OF LOVE

The earth was bathed in moonlight ;
The sky,a hazy blue .
The leaves were sprinkled with silver ,
And the moon smiled from behind the clouds.

The cool wind blew ,
With breaths laden with dew.
And she lay on my chest ,
Lips parting into a smile,and eyes locked with mine.

She never saw me ,
She never saw anyone ,
But all saw her,a true marvel.
I sang to her,odes to her and her everlasting charm .

She lay,savouring my words.
As the wind soothened our tired nerves.
I was numb then,frozen with anxiety,
Even in the midst of the song and the moonlight.

Before the sun would bend down to kiss the oceans again,
She would open up to the world,
My asinine countenance and haggard frame would have to be the last thing to welcome her. The realisation shook me.

As the night melted away ,and sleep soothened our tired souls.
The day barged in.
And bought with it a hundred fears.
All about to materialise as shadows do from a lamp.

Her eyes were closed as she lay,
Wrapped in a serene charm .
And as I watched she opened her eyes ,
To the world ,which she had never seen.

I hoped the earth would swallow me,
The gale would blow me off,
But they were kind,and there I stood,
Facing the moment,the dreaded one.

Eyes closed,tears overflowing,I stood.
As her soft hands lay on my shoulders,
As dainty fingers wiped away the tears.
I opened my eyes,and stared blankly.

My misplaced fears vanished,
She had seen me with her mind,
Which had been a secret jewel-box,
Which I could never unlock,with both my eyes , and my ever so shallow mind.

Love overtook us,
As we stayed close, hearts beating in rhythm,
Whispering to each other,
Sweet nothings,from ear to ear.

The greatest music was born then,
Melting with the wind,lilting through the souls,
The loveliest symphony,
That the Universe ever listened to.

The symphony of Love.

Through the eyes of terror

2007-12-27T19:00:00.000+05:30

Through his suicide note, I tried to see the world through the eyes of a bright and soft spoken Muslim student, who carried out a shocking suicide attack on a campus in the United Kingdom, killing and injuring many. When I tried to imagine the reasons which would have prompted him and maybe some others too to take such drastic measures, I felt that there might be more to such events than mere fundamentalist idealisms. The event and the character are purely fictional .The opinions mentioned here are just intended to serve as the thoughts of the characters present in this piece, and are not intended to hurt anyone or their religious sentiments.

24 – December – 2007
London
It was Allan's birthday party today. I badly wanted to attend and would surely have gone if not for those gang of poker-nosed snobs. I wonder why they act so important. I just hate that smirk on their face when they see me at college. Hollow blonde skulls and pink cheeks are not anything to be so high-handed about.

What does it matter to them if I don’t shave and I dress up the way I do? It’s perfectly fine if they think that I dress up like some cartoon character with an odd name(I must confess I have never seen that cartoon),and that my beard looks like a beehive, and that the 'resin' on my forehead looks creepy, and that every bearded and traditional Muslim is a terrorist, but there is no reason why they should be telling it in front of so many other people in the room, people with whom I would have to study for three more years, right through my graduation.Are'nt they changing the way those people would look at me?

There are far too may wrong impressions based on appearances in this world and it is nothing short of a criminal offence to force your own malformed judgments upon someone else's conscience.

They would never understand why I look or dress up oddly or why I am a "loner", as they call me. Like my father did, I wear kurtas, the ones which my beloved mother stitched for me. The satanic mark on my forehead, as I heard one of them saying, is the mark of every pious and proud Muslim who grinds his forehead into the ground during the daily Namas.And I skip parties, as I feel it is not exactly a very good idea to be at a place where you know you would doubtlessly look like a startled wet kitten. And moreover, parties are not a thing which someone, who has his own and five other mouths back home to feed from his meager monthly stipend, can afford. And speaking about terrorism, aren’t the unending wars that are waged by these governments terrorism? Didn’t they take lives of thousands of innocents? Does not the terror that they claim is unleashed in the name of Islam, pale in comparison to the widespread destruction they have unleashed, in almost all parts of the world, during the major part of the previous century? And is not wooing hungry innocents with food and money to join their religion and embrace their faith, a kind of soft terrorism too?

Don’t these damned fools realize that they, with their unwhispered-to ears, unshaved heads and uncut foreskins, would similarly appear out of place and ridiculed upon in our homeland, the sacred land of God, The almighty Allah, the compassionate and the merciful? Why do they suggest that I should change, when I and my family have lived this way for all this years? What I do and what I should be doing should be none of their business.

Not that any of those taunts would affect me. Like hell it would. But what disturbs me most is the absurd and unfair set of laws, on which life runs here. Half the assignments and project works in our university are group activities, and by the time the groups are assigned, I along with another guy with a similar fate as mine end up together, forming the only team with two members among many other teams with five. We are so unwelcome in most quarters here that even getting a part time job seems next to impossible. In spite of our best efforts, it is not possible to match the efforts of bigger groups, solely due to the lack of funds and access to costly books and study materials. We end up getting the least grades in majority of the group assignments, and by the time job offers pour in, we would be the ones who land the last and least desirable ones. For none of our fault, we would continue to be second-rate citizens and maybe father underprivileged generations, one after the other.

I now realize that it is payback time. Sometime back, I happened to read a teaching by Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini from The English Translation of Pak Sar Jamin Sad Bad. He said-" "Kill all the infidels, as they want to kill you. Kill them, stab them right into the heart and slice them into pieces. You cannot control people without using sword. Therefore, we need the sword. Swords are the keys of heaven. Those who do not want to be involved in Jihad, the Holy Terror, but want peace instead, I want to spit on their face." I could not, and still cannot agree with the underlying thread of severe violence and cannot justify the bloodshed in the name of Allah, but now, I do see a tiny percentage of truth in it. I still don’t think that killing in the name of religion would take one closer to Allah.

But nevertheless, I can’t help feeling that the world would only be purer with the blood of these hypocrites. My fellowmen would have that many less people to contend with.Insha Allah, I have decided that by tomorrow when the sun sets, the world shall be purer, and the hands that shall do the cleansing would be mine.
Afzal Muhammad

The taunts from his classmates might have been more of a constructive criticism, except for the occasional ridicule. Maybe he had taken it a bit too much to heart. When we pass judgments on others we have to be careful so that it never affects their self-belief, and never leaves them feeling left out and depressed. It is much worse if it wounds their religious psyche, in which case the consequences could be even more fearful. Also religions, instead of concentrating on matters like strict adherence to their beliefs, laws and customs, must help people realize the importance of less of provocation and more of tolerance.

Of broken china, cracked tiles and unwelcome bygones

2007-12-17T20:14:00.000+05:30

Today morning, as usual, I was sipping my morning tea and pacing around the living room, preoccupied with some pending tasks at office. I walk around pretty fast, so much so that, when my mom entered the room, holding some washed porcelain cups and saucers, I collided head on with her. The cups and saucers went straight down, and in a second, the two hundred and fifty square feet living room was strewn with all kinds of broken bits of china. The scene, inspite of the mess it created, seemed quite beautiful to me, as beautiful as a floral carpet, maybe because it was solely my handiwork. The bits came in all sizes-plain and white, plain with flowery patterns, some slightly discoloured, some exquisitely shaped as if by some strange design, some clumsily, some with their insides out, some big, some small, some nearby, some at the far corner of the room-and as if to add to the china's paisley design, there where cracks in the floor tiles too, cutting a criss-cross pattern across three or four of them.

Mom was palpably angry, the china being new and quite expensive and the floor tiles relatively newly laid. But I was so immersed in the spectacle, that her high octane tirade went in through one ear and straight out through the other, just as a superfast express train would cruise in and then out through a tunnel. Instead, what struck me then was a sudden idea, something I felt I could write down somewhere, without getting it into end up in the waste bin. I am someone, who loves to write a bit, but quite often my imagination lets me down, it does not get aroused as much and as often as I would like it to. That is why I adore and am even slightly jealous of those who successfully churn out one novel after other, each set in a different milieu, with different characters and storylines.Unfortunately, most of my such ideas, spark off literary endeavors which mostly end up as ill-fated works with a more than lavish sprinkling of unintentional plagiarism. Though unintentional, this instantly dawns on one of my friends who gives it the first read, and makes sure that the piece never gets to see the light of day.

The broken porcelain, I felt, drew a parallel to our memories, scattered across our consciousness, some of them vivid and could be gathered with minimal effort, like the bits of china which had fallen near my foot. Some of them, faded like an old sepia toned photograph, are hidden away deep under layers and layers of the past as the pieces, hard to recover, just as the bits which had fallen to the deep corners of the room were. There are colorful recollections as there are pretty broken pieces-the anticipation on holding a wrapped birthday gift, the pure joy as a kid on the homebound journey after the examinations with a long awaited vacation ahead, the mindless indulgence of first love, the first smile from your newborn kid on his hospital crib. And then we have the painful and less pretty recollections like the oddly shaped discolored pieces of porcelain-the memories of separations, of bereaval, of rejection and failure, of being left out, of taunts and ridicules, of the many tears shed in loneliness-which leave wounds in the mind even more prominent and lasting than the cracks on the floor.

The short philosophical mood was cut short by a few more extra decibels from mom, and the whole thing had to be cleaned up soon. The fountainhead of my imaginative juices were cruelly swept away, gathered in a dirty, crude sack, and dumped away in a remote corner of our courtyard. Some time later, when I spotted the sack, sitting desolately in a corner, I felt it had another story to say. Maybe memories, aptly symbolized by the porcelain rubble, be it good or bad, happy or sad, are always a burden, an unwelcome and heavy baggage. Every thought about the bygones takes our time-be it mulling over missed opportunities or basking in the glory of one's achievements which might be as old as the hills-we loose an opportunity to savor the present.
Maybe it is best to dump the past, never dwell on it, and manfully try to live totally in the present.After all,today is a gift, that is why it is called the present.

The Wallet with a Hole

2007-12-06T20:06:00.000+05:30

On my last birthday, I happened to get a wallet and a shirt along with some other tidbits as a gift from my colleagues at office. The wallet reminded me of one incident on my last visit to Bangalore.

Ah! Bangalore. There aren't many souls alive who could resist, when the garden city, with her myriad colors and seductive charms welcomes him, with outstretched hands into her lovely cosmopolitan bosom. Sadly, as is the way with any other pretty mistress, too much indulgence with her gifts could leave you a poor old pauper. More so if you're still a student tugging at your parent's purse strings for subsistence. This precisely summed up my plight then, leaving me with few alternatives to ogling and window shopping. Still, too much of the same thing would be boring. Having had enough of the pointless strolls through umpteen shopping malls, I picked my spot. A worn down shop at the end of the road - they sold leather goods.

I was feeling very important. Clad in my odd rainbow colored shirt and tattered jeans, I would have been far from being a fashion statement. I am not telling you that it would be much better if I had worn perfect-fit suits tailored just for me from Suavecito’s. It wouldn’t have been any better. But somehow, I just feel that way on certain occasions-On the walk back to the bus stop after watching a stylish Mohanlal performance in a movie, or after watching a sizzling innings from Sachin Tendulkar, or a jaw dropping dance number from Michael Jackson-the infectious energy of the hero sort of rubs off on me, and it translates into me feeling important and my walk metamorphoses into a SRK-sque swagger. Quite often such idiocies of mine do not last much long, and they end up rudely jolted by some "external entity"(Mostly a reflective car window glass or mirror) and my swagger mutates back into my usual commonplace walk.

So, I swaggered in. I expected to be ushered in by the archetypal fawning salesman, who makes you feel as if you don’t dissuade him immediately, he would bend down and lick your boots clean, then and there. Instead there stood a guy, brashly confident and with a couldn’t-care-less look on his face. And boy, he had killer looks too, with wavy brown locks, hazel blue eyes, red blazer and faded jeans looking every inch the fashion statement that I was talking about,above.And he happened to be my "external entity" for the day. I didn’t even need half a glance at the guy to decide that I would hate him for the remaining part of my life.

Listen, you self-assured and confident ladies and gentlemen who think highly of yourselves, I despise each one of you. You make me feel cornered; you make me stammer for words, you make me nervous like hell, and you stroke the most primitive of complexes in me. If I can afford to, I intend to give you the cold shoulder, nine times out of ten.

"What do you want?" He barked, interrupting my thoughts. Damn me. I hadn't decided upon what to buy, totally lost in my thoughts and my seething hatred for him. I took a glance around, and decided that I would buy the smallest thing there, a wallet.
"A wallet", I blurted out.He took me to a corner and showed me the wallets. He did that with such grace, elegantly flipping the wallets one by one for me to see. It was a sight, when with slender, strong fingers; he took each wallet, placed it back onto the table and took the next one, and all in one single smooth motion of the hand. For each one he quoted the price with a chaste English accent which would have made any convent educated snob go green with envy. I felt a grudging admiration for him, and hated him even more.
"Three hundred, Four hundred, Two hundred fifty..." he rattled off.
I realized I couldn't buy a wallet, unless I decided to take to the pavements with my new wallet for company. I just stared at him, expecting myself to look like a seasoned bargainer, waiting for him to finish.
"Too high". I said, shaking my head in displeasure.
"Three hundred fifty, Four hundred...".He went on, as if he had better business than paying attention to me.

Meanwhile I just took up one wallet and scrutinized it. And I discovered something! There was a hole right in the centre of the wallet, a big gaping hole. Even a blind man would not miss it. And the crook was trying to sell it for Two-hundred-fifty bucks!
"How much did you tell this one costs?" I asked. My tone was so victorious, foreseeing the way the arrogant fellow would be stammering, profusely apologizing and trying to find a hundred excuses when I would show him the hole.
"Two-hundred and Fifty ".
"Won’t go down?" I asked, mockingly.
"Pure leather. Fixed price." He snapped as if he was reciting some ad catchword for the wallet he was holding.
"Ok."

Yes. I was going to flatten him now. I braced myself for the moment. I brought up the wallet to his eye-level, flipped it open and thrust the hole right in front of his eyes, all in slow motion. I congratulated myself. I had seized my moment like all great people do, acting rightly and at the right time, aided by a lavish dose of luck which gave me this opportunity.

"Hey Mister, what’s this, then?" I asked, sneering, pointing animatedly at the hole in the wallet. It was my turn to snap now.To my horror, the bastard didn’t flinch. He continued staring at me as if I was crazy.
"What's this hole? And you want to sell this for two-hundred and fifty rupees?" I stressed the words fifty and rupees, deliberately rolling the ‘f’ and the ‘r’, so that I could sound more menacing. Seeing his reaction, I was angrier and less confident, but the thought of the impending victory pepped me up.

I looked him, in the eye. I couldn’t read the expression on his face then. It might have been contempt, pity or maybe as if he had given up on me. He took the wallet from my hand and placed it down.
"I guess you've never seen a wallet in your life". He said, and with the same dexterity with which he had done earlier, he passed all the wallets through his hands once again, flipping each of them open in the process. I couldn’t believe my eyes. In each one of them, right in the centre, there was the hole.

In every wallet there is a hole in the centre, I came to realize later, so that before stuffing the wallet into our pocket, we can wrap it into two, around that hole. I hoped in vain, for genies, to materialize out of nowhere and swallow me up, for the earth to crack open and pull me down into its bowels. Nothing of that sort happened. Somehow, I managed to mutter something like it was too expensive or the quality of the wallet was abominable, I don’t remember what. With a lot of effort I dragged my feet out of the shop, going through what seemed the longest two minutes of my life, pretending not to hear the peals of laughter erupting behind me. I had just discovered a novel method to make a fool of myself.

Later, with my friends, I recounted this incident and we had a good laugh over it. Even now, when we friends get together, and recollect things ranging from old blunders to sweet old love affairs, over bottles of beer and champagne, this still remains one incident which leaves us all grinning from ear to ear.

Wired Jaws and Great Lessons

2007-11-14T10:24:00.000+05:30

It was shaping up like just any other weekend. The only blemish was a late-than-usual half past four start from office. Usually Fridays warrant a 9 AM - 4 PM work day, which more often than not, shrinks further. The particular Friday instead expanded out to half past four. That would mean that I would have to take an auto to the railway station , instead of the usual and cheaper bus ride.

What followed was an hour of absolute pandemonium.The autowallah chose to go with Robert Frost when he took the road less traveled by, but Murphy was not to be left behind. The road less traveled by happened to be more crowded than usual, coming close to resembling a theatre screening a new release. Far from being disheartened by the race against time that we were loosing hands down, he bustled through the traffic and by the departure time of the train, we were a good two miles away from the station. I gave up all hope when the last nail was hit on the coffin - the auto overtook another on the narrowest of roads and promptly ended up with its front wheel onto a drainage slab which immediately gave way, leaving it positioned awkwardly at an obtuse angle to the ground and also toppling my suitcase onto the road. I managed to hang on for dear life .Normalcy was soon resumed and more road rash ensued as we reached the station to find the train just leaving, ten minutes late. I just about managed to hop onto the train without falling off.

If not for the daring driver and the late departure of the train, I would have had to take the bus instead and would have reached home way late into the night.
God's Grace so far. I didn't thank him though. We just do not thank him often.

Soon I was in my room, trying to switch on my computer. It is some computer - seems to have a soul of its own, and chooses to turn on or off on it’s on accord. Usually in such moods, it does not respond to the Power ON button, but today it did. Things seemed fine again, but soon it turned itself OFF. More tries from me, less would it budge. Being pretty used to such behaviour, I hit the sack without bothering much to coax it to turn ON. Late night browsing is the norm on Fridays, but it did not quite work out that way .

The ultimate outcome of my computer's insolence and the drivers daredevilry was that I got up unusually early for a Saturday and even woke up every one else at home. The weekend continued to be unusual, as I accompanied dad to market on our scooter, early in the morning. Another autowallah made an entry into the picture, as he tried to wedge into a gap between another car and our unsuspecting scooter, knocking us down. I crash-landed on my jaw, breaking it into three pieces.

Admitted to hospital, I came to know that there was a surgery to fix the jaws and the jaws had to be wired together for a month, during which period I could take only liquid food and could not speak too. This information drove my family to tears, but first thing that came to my mind was the positive side - was happy about the one month rest and the fact that I could watch all the matches of the Indo-Pak cricket series live on television. Though I am not a born optimist, the initial surge of optimism has never receded since -
even when it was a struggle to talk,
even when it was a struggle to sleep lying upright on my back,
even when it continues to be a bigger struggle to chew and am forced to grind the food into a paste before taking it in.

Such little experiences teach you certain facts in life.
-Never spurn the concept of fate. It uses queerest of routes to direct us to the inevitable. The way it joined hands with the driver and the computer was ample proof for me.
-In response to our anxious queries as to whether the jaw would heal perfectly, the doctor had replied that they would give their best but there was no substitute to God's perfection. I realized it was true.
-When I struggle to talk and eat, I understand the importance of even the minutest of functions that our body performs. Even when one of them fails, the effect it has on the entire system is huge.
-Whenever you feel beset by problems and pains, the best thing is to visit a hospital. Take a look around and it would not take long to realize that there are profusion of unluckier souls around. Be happy with whatever you have.
-I could not smile for the first few days. An involuntary grin or smile would soon end up in a grimace as the skin stretching would cause too much pain. Being able to smile is such a precious gift of God. So whenever we can, smile a lot.

Even now I have not recovered, with eating still remaining the main problem. But I am able to move around, read a lot, browse, spend valuable time with my family and most importantly feel happy in spite of the whole thing. I feel incredibly lucky that nothing else happened and my body bears no visible consequence of the whole episode, save a tiny stitch mark on the chin.

This time I do not forget to thank the Almighty for giving me that ounce of optimism initially. It is the initial outlook that you get about a problem which persists throughout,and decides how well you handle it. As Paulo Coelho mentioned in one of his works , I once again thank the Almighty for helping me believe that :-
"Whatever has to happen has happened, but nothing did".

Welcome folks, and thank you James.

2007-08-26T10:49:00.000+05:30

An elegant
tapestry
of quotations,
musings,
aphorisms,
and autobiographical reflections..
So said James Atlas.

Dont ask me who he is . I do not know.
I thought quoting it here would give it a contextual beauty.
Is'nt that a nice excuse for a small bit of plagiarism?
Anway , Thank you James.

By the way ,
Welcome folks.