(..tales of all sizes..)

Postcard

2011-12-11T13:27:00.001+06:30

The sea breeze kisses the walls of old familiar buildings – you could tell by the flakes of hanging paint, the breeze doesn’t stay to exchange pleasantries, it carries on – for it seems to be across the street as well, teaching drying clothes how to fly. It is getting to rain lightly; there is that thing in the air that seems to foretell beginnings. The candy store is closed for the day, the little boy looks at the buttons on his shirt as he is walking away holding his father’s finger. There are two new dogs licking the pavement, one is brown, the other rabid, the local dogs have surrounded them and a cacophony of barking is in progress. Old men by the tea shop are looking up from their newspapers and shaking their heads. One fair lady under an umbrella, trying hard to hold onto her heavy grocery bag, was holding a mobile phone in the other hand - about to answer a call, or not. One sleek car – speeding into the wind, leaves a blur of man and machine on the far corner of one’s memory. The young man in his pajamas – standing on a balcony, looking into a hand held mirror was picking his teeth with his bare hands. A puddle on the road below that had been left filled by the rains of yesterday looked disturbed again as drops of rain shattered the peace on its surface. Up in the sky there are few things of note – the gathering clouds over the ocean in a huddled conspiracy of some sort, the barely visible airplane making its way into turbulent free skies, a little lower the amicable birds flying in formation, there were a bunch of balloons rising into the air – flanked on both sides by skyscrapers. The setting sun makes it possible to see the lights far out into the sea; the ships are standing still, making up their minds, waiting for their time to come. One monolith juts up into the skyline; an old red and white lighthouse, its eye had just begun to sweep the neighborhood. A little boy was selling boiled groundnuts to a couple under an umbrella; their bike stands on the pavement in style waiting for the rain to clean it up. You could faintly make out that someone had lit a match near the shore – just about to light a cigarette, his next breath would be a cocktail of life and death. On the other side it said "If you look closely, maybe you will see me"

ITEM NUMBER

2011-12-01T12:40:00.001+06:30

In a wallpapered hotel room thescent of whiskey was beginning to knock on the windows. The air conditioner washumming a positively rickety tune, there were chicken bones drying on a plateand the stench of the four self-important egos inhabiting the space along withhim was beginning to suffocate Mujeeb – the old fart who knew nobody awfully famous.

Zaareen yaadon keboondon ko tanka - Kameez ke aastien mein sapno se joda –
Din mein chamke...Raat ko chube...Girtesambhalte bigadte gaye –
Maile kapde dhultegaye – Umr badti gayi…Kisse bhulte gaye..

Jamaal was fiddling with his tabla,seated next to him, Kamaal was staring blank into empty space hoping that someflash of genius would strike and he could strum up another ‘Bihar ke Tamatar…’ that had shot theJamaal-Kamaal brand name into the orbit five years ago.

“let us start, let us start” saidMurli Shankar clapping his hands; understandably as it was his money that waspaying for the room, the chicken and everything else and it was his son whowould be making a debut with this magnum opus and it was his younger brother - thebearded pseudo-something sitting on the floor next to him - who had directedthe movie.

‘Dono Jahan Tere Kadmon Mein’ or DJTKM as it was being brandedwould be hitting the screens in a month’s time and all its songs were alreadymaking waves on FM. The romantic melody - ‘Majboorkadam kheenche chale aaye’ and the foot-tapping ‘Zubaan se khele kabbadi…’ had already created a curiosity in theindustry circles. The promos cut out at jaw dropping prices were clogging upthe airwaves. The marketing campaign was in full swing, the buzz was in theair, and somebody happened to whisper into Murli Shankar’s ear that an itemsong for the last leg of promotion would not be a bad idea. Simple enough, oneday to write and compose, recording the next day and shoot for a couple ofdays. Rakhi’s dates were blocked, and a southern choreographer claimed toalready have the routines on paper – for the right money of course.

“What is the situation?” asked MujeebKhan, eager to be on and done with the blasphemy.

The magnitude of the questionbrought the room back into current time. Suddenly divergent thoughts zeroed inon the issue at hand and faces looked at faces. “After the first fightsequence?” suggested Murli after a bit of silence, looking around for approval.Mani Shankar – the floor dweller - shook his head, “We should have it after theinterval, in the middle of the sentimental scenes we have, first the heroinegets married to someone else, then the hero’s father disappears, both are sadscenes, I think we should put this item song just before the father disappears duringthe terrorist attack confusion – So there is this mazedaar song that is goingon – although the hero is heart-broken – but suddenly when the song ends theterrorists attack the city” Everybody seemed to agree, and nod their heads,words and tunes were floating into the room already. “We can have the herogetting drunk somewhere, his girlfriend has married someone else, it will looknatural – so after this song when he is faced with his father gone missing – wealready have a super scene of him angry running through the police security andtrying to get inside a burning building which the terrorists have occupied – Thesong will increase the effect of that scene”

“Yes, but it should suit Rakhi’s image, it can’t be a herocentric song” Murli was clear on what he wanted. He was not one to forgetpromises made for favors already received. Honorable man.

“Yes, but lets us weave thebroken heart idea also in” suggested Mujeeb Khan, trying his best to find meaton the back of a run-down mule. Having won many noteworthy yet unknown awardsfor his collection of poems and having graced many prestigious Durbaars withhis Ilahabadi topi and soul stirring Shayari – Mujeeb had finally been elevatedto as a dime-a-rhyme lyricist through his infamous words of drunken stupor – ‘Burkhe mein chupaani, Meri naazuk jawaani..’ - That had created such a stir thatparliament sessions stood cancelled one whole winter.

Will they not serve him his supper today for the ‘Apko Niyyat mein rakhoon, tazbi meinginoo…’ that used to elicit a chorus of ‘Wah!Wah!’ ?

“We need a name that will resound with the masses” saidKamaal, “Something like Shiela or Jalebe bai… or Munni …somethingcatchy…remember Billo Rani?...legendary stuff man…legendary…”

“How about ‘Ruby’?” The producer added, again lookingaround, hoping that his nincompoop of a brother wouldn’t shoot him down again.“I mean, it is a catchy name, and rhymes with baby, maybe you can makesomething of it” – pretty pleased with his creative input, he leaned back inhis chair.

The man on the floor shook his head again, “It sounds like aChristian name, minority sentiments will be hurt, the name should be neutral….Shiela,Billo, Munni, - all neutral names, and everybody eats jalebi..all India name socho, something nobody can have aproblem with”

“Sir but, thoda controversy will not hurt no?” imploredJamaal “I mean DKBOSE DKBOSE karte karte they broke even in the first weekitself, we need something like that, till now it has been normal and quiet, weneed some kind of dhamaka,”

“Lets us call her something that everybody uses, like anobject, something that is easily available, you know what I mean” Kamaal wasclearly headed his own direction, “like a mobile phone, we could write a wholesong using mobile related words”

“Mobile Baby!” Murli exclaimed, “Perfect!”

The man on the floor remained silent, signaling hisapproval.

“Listen to this …te te tadane tadne tadane… te te tadane tadnetadane…” Kamaal began his misuse of the tabla. “Write something Mujeebbhai” … “te te tadane tadne tadane… te te tadane tadne tadane”…

To Mujeeb it came easy these days, and it scared him moreso.

“First Male voice, the hero is sad and drunk…”

There was no wrong! No wrong atall, sorrow, grief, joy, these are colored by the ones who feel it – colored intheir own inimitable shades. He too had fallen hopelessly in love once, he hadlooked into those eyes that peered out from a silver veil and he had lost hisbearings for whole years to come. Amidst mistaken glances and half smiles, thosedays had lingered in time unbound. Now he can’t remember which those days were,did he meet her before she became a movie star? Or did that time even exist?

Behti nadi ke tan pe -udte parindon ki parchaiyan jaise –
Aise pal guzaare thehumne - Yun the bhi aur nahi bhi jaise...

There were then those bitter moments in the grip of angerand acrimony when she would return his letters unread – he would crumple itthrow it out the window, and then go chasing after the letter in the streetslike a mad man.

“Uska Signal …Mila Na…Number…Mila Na…Signal …Mila Na…Number … Mila Na”

“Magic Mujeeb bhai…absolute magic…!” - Kamaal

“Connects beautifully to the girlfriend who has left him” –Mani

He spent three weeks in a cinemahall watching all shows of her latest musical, weeping through the parts inwhich she smiled, and screaming bitterly into the empty hall of the night showwhen she held the hero’s hands.

“Connection tod-diya…Zalim Haseena… Signal …MilaNa…Number … Mila Na”

“Wah Wah…brilliant!” the tabla men were getting into full rhythm, connecting the dotsand recommending proper ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ to smooth out the edges….

These had become the laments oflost love, these oohs and aahs of vulgur tones, these uncouth, uncivilizedspiced up servings of broken hearts garnished with oomph. Mujeeb broke a littleinside, prayed a little and labored on. There is nothing wrong!

“After this, Rakhi must enter” – the money man was losingpatience.

And how shall a lady enter? Andhow shall she be described? And how shall one even begin to fathom the rays oflight she is and the shades of night she is? Is the balm of her presence alsonot the pain of his being? There is no measure to the hurt he had felt, nomeasure to the melody she was, and yet he had survived. In spite of the depthsto which he had stooped, in spite of living the lie he was living.

“Uska Signal …Mila Na…Number …MilaNa…Signal …Mila Na…Number … Mila Na”

“Connection tod-diya …ZalimHaseena… Signal …Mila Na…Number …Mila Na”

Rakhi Entry -

“Bhool puranaringtone…Choole mera touch phone…ichphone…uch phone…”

Whiplashes! Those memories of finger-nails grazing skin, a foreplaymade up of words, words that had descended from heaven to preside over aglorious night, words that he summoned from the lost passages of Rumi, wordswhom he now keeps buried inside his other self.

Jamaal suddenly came to stop. “Mujeeb Bhai…lets add some sufi elementalso no? … we will take this song to the next level…”

“but janaab this is item number….its happenening in a bar…” protested Mujeeb.

“Jamaal is right” announced the director, “it’s a sure hit these days,but then whats the difference?.. Bar? drunk?..In a trance..Sufi element fitsperfectly”

Mujeeb had sung with them too, those pot smokingsufi saints who grew beards and chanted till his kingdom come and his will bedone in this Allah forsaken world. Amidst those dry leaves of the Dargah lawnhe had spent many an evening ruminating on that shakespearanly futile questionof being and not being. There had been heartbreaks on either side of those daysand yet those days, in retrospect, had been the most memorable. For once he hadbeen the gardener, nurturing the ganja and then he had been the lover, inhalingits essence, and as the smoke rose up from his lips - Sulaimaan Dastagir’s deepvoice would rise up too. It still lingers there somewhere amidst the stars –

Ekghoont noor ka... Ek nawala zindagi..
TereDar pe ...Ghutno pe...Yeh dua hai maangi...
Ektakiya khwabon ka…..Ek chaadar neend ki..

“Bhool purana ringtone…Choole mera touchphone…ich phone…uch phone…”

Sufi enter – male voice

“Kaise ab bhoola kare…unko jo……bhoolgaye….

Jo Akela ho gaya….kho gaya…uskaab kaun hai…

Sufi enter – Mobile baby –

“Dar pe mere aaye ho…hass bhilo…khush raho…

Jo Akela ho gaya…who yaha…hummeinse-hi ek hai…”

Sufi close.

“Bhool purana ringtone…Choolemera touch phone…ich phone…uch phone…”

“Let me call up my contacts in mobile industry, I am sure I can getsomeone to partner for this song” Murli’s money mind had suddenly woken up. Ina jiffy he was out in the corridor making calls “Sure Shot next zandu balm typesong boss, I am sure India wide campaign you can do”

Inside the circus carried on – “We need to announce her name, remember?Mobile Baby?”

“Slim phone sa jism mera… Stylebaby….kehte hain mujhko…Mobile baby…”

“All set” the director looked happy – “Now we mightneed to shoot the last part of the song near the Marine drive, will be perfectlink to the terrorist attach that will happen after the song – in between thesong we can show shots of some terrorist boats sneaking into the harbor area “–mostly the man kept talking to himself unmindful of the sycophantic nods ofapproval.

“What do you say Mujeeb bhai? Will look realisticno? You have seen the scene – waise one important thing I wanted to ask you, weneed some lines to put into background in the climax scene, as we show all thecity coming back to normal, will be powerful scene….just like the ZNMDending….likh lenege na aap…bas one two lines…we will get that radio guy to sayit…that RJ who is popular these days…whats his name?”

The days when he used to move in important circles wereover, these days he had to pay rent –

“Dekhta hoon -
Tezaab se jala chehra ...fir se muskuraneki koshish mein laga hai...
Baahein khol mera sheher ...fir semehmaan-nawaazi mein laga hai...
Dhoke, Pochke, saaf kardiya hai farsh -ab chehre dikhne lage hain usmein
Marammat ho chuki hai cheezon ki...fir selog lag gaye hain rozi mein
Phirse waheen roti todne lage...waheenjaam chalkaane lage...hasee mazaak waheen...waheen namaaz-pooja karne lage...
Dekhta hoon -
kahien koone mein ek tinka khoon ka abhibhi sook raha hai...
Goliyon ki nishaan dikhake deewarein kuchpooch rahi hai...
Dekhta hoon -
Gehri raat ka samundar ... khaufnaakkarvaton se lipta...bechain hai bada...”

As the evening wore off, the song was polished and made ready forrecording. It was past midnight as the group dispersed. There was a smile of content on everybody’sface, a hard day’s labor had borne fruit, with the grace of the gods the songwill be a hit. Tomorrow the kids in the road will sing it too… “Slim phone sa jism mera… Style baby….kehtehain mujhko…Mobile baby…”

“Marhoom lafzon keroohon se maafi chahta hoon, Ae Allah! Is zillat ke karnaame se roti kamatahoon..
Mujhpe ehsaan-farma AeAllah! Maine tehzeeb gavai hai….Mujhse meri Urdu cheen le…”

Quintessence of Dust

2011-11-25T00:46:00.001+06:30

We were all shocked when thealiens showed up in their huge flying machine. It put an end to a millionspeculations all at once. Imagine the disappointment, they had actually chosenour small little town for their spectacle, not some capital city or populatedmegacity of some developed world, no, they were hovering over our lazybackyard, peering down into out boring lawns, our simple lives. They hadbrought out their giant screen, we had erected our own, and for months we hadflashed images at each other, the experts had formed and reformed opinions,there were side debates on street corners and closed boardroom discussionsinside the school auditorium. I was at home, yes, the schools had been closedfor summer when they arrived, and we have decided not to reopen them as of now,what if there was no point to it?

Being an English teacher is not aglamorous profession, but it is a life I have chosen for myself, a dull lifethat I have tried to find meaning in. Hoping that the poetry of these lovelywoods might inspire a child to go miles; maybe golden daffodils in our gardens wouldteach a generation that all is not gloomy, and maybe, just maybe, they mightthink twice before choosing to kill the albatross.

In those days, when we ran thesedusty roads as kids, for some strange reason, little boys were beingslaughtered in the woods. We were told not to speak to strangers, to report anystrangers who approached us, and to scream and run away if someone tried tohurt us. We were to be in groups of three or more at all times, and to bewithin earshot of adults. The misery of homes struck by evil floated like apungent smog over the town. Men wearing animal skin masks were preying upon smallchildren. Three bodies had been found in the last six months, three bodies insixteen pieces.

We were ten years old, the six ofus, we called ourselves ‘the heroes’, Achy, Hercy, Thesy, Ody, Atlanta and I - Uly.We hung out on Achy’s terrace, he lived on the only residential apartmentbuilding in the town and the view from the terrace was princely. We made ourown games and got lost into them for hours on end. When the night drew darkerwe ended up on the terrace, climbed on top of the water tank and sat therelooking at the stars in the sky. Ody would whistle tunes out of his mouth organ,beautiful searching tunes and with our eyes among the stars we would all listento Ody weave a web. His father had become a sad man ever since his mother ranaway, and so he drank and sometimes beat Ody, although Ody claimed it wasaccidental, and that his father loved him and he loved his father. Maybe that wasthe reason for the sadness in Ody’s tunes, like he was searching for somethinghe had lost. That summer night, some thirty five years ago, he suddenly stoppedhis tune midway and pointed at the sky in the horizon “Look!” he saidexcitedly. We all stood up and sure enough we saw what he was pointing at. Farahead, where the town lines disappeared, there was a faint new star on the horizon;and it was moving.

After months, there was finally abreakthrough. I was sitting in my living room and it seemed as good a time asany to revise my Shakespeare. I was deep into Hamlet when the stream of news onTV caught my attention. The visitors had a proposition; they would answer allour questions if in turn we would grant them something.

The smartest people from acrossthe planet were dragged in front of the computer, and the united military beganthe largest conference in the history of mankind. These faceless people fromgod knows where were setting up a test for mankind, and it was thrilling,scaring, tantalizing us to bits. Out of nowhere the phone began to ring, I putdown the book I had been reading, muted the TV and lifted the receiver.

We all had bicycles, mine wasbrand new, Achy loved his old one, he had two new ones but he favored the oldone, he called it ‘the climber’, it was a tough bike. I had my dad buy me onejust like that, but I liked his better, it was dirty and beautiful. Atlanta hada girl’s bike, it did not have a lot of gears, but Atlanta was the best rider,she had strong legs, she ran for the school athletics team, she even hadmuscles on her legs. Thesy and Hercy’s father had gotten them identical bikes,they had a lot of things matching, except Hercy was stronger, and although wedid not know it then Thesy was the smarter one, way smarter than all of us, he wenton to become a physicist. Ody used his father’s old bike, he never raced, healways came in last, and sometimes he’d just stop just like that to lookaround. It was pretty dark, and Achy’s parents thought we were camping on theterrace for the night. We had snuck out quietly, Ody had pointed out the newstar that was slowly moving, and it seemed to disappear over the hill on theeastern side of the town. We had never gone there before, there was an oldjunkyard there; it was a place where cars went to die. We cycled fast throughit, even Ody kept up with us; we were pumped up with excitement. Achy had believedthat it might be a plane crash and he felt we should go out to help. Atlanta liked Achy, she had a glitter in her eyesevery time he spoke, like a purring kitten, but I liked her when she got allangry -- filled with conviction, she would speak with such speed and fury thateverybody would just shut up. She got us all to agree that we should go andhelp the crash victims, but we should not wake our parents just in case it wasnot an airplane. It was Thesy’s idea to carry cricket bats and stumps, he saidit might not be an airplane from earth, and that it might be an UFO, Hercy didnot even know what an UFO was, I explained it to him. I remember that night likeit was yesterday, each turn we took, the density of fog in the air, the rush ofchill as we peddled hard, Atlanta’s skirt ballooning as she rode in front ofme, her strong legs, the supple moon in the sky and the falling stars.

“Hey it is me” she said. It hadbeen years but I instantly knew it was Jannat. Last I heard she had married somecomputer engineer in the city and they had moved to the States.

“Hi, must be morning there, is itsnowing?”

“How are you? I am sorry about what happened,we heard” there was true sadness in her voice, and I could not have asked herwhy she never called, not even when I lost my mom and dad, I know she did itfor me. “I wanted to call you, I really did, I am not mad or anything you know,but calling would have been …you know… “

“I know” I said, I did. “But youcalled now”

“Yes, I had to, I just couldn’tsit back anymore, I have been thinking lately…”

“Since the spaceship came?”

“Yes… since the spaceship came, Imean at first it seemed so unreal… like it was some movie…but then” Theconversation was fast becoming a bad idea. “I can’t believe you still…”

“Have you forgotten? Have you? Weknow what we saw, we know what he meant. It isn’t just me you know, Krishcalled a week back, he sent me some articles and books to read, and that iswhat I have been doing, reading those papers, and you know what, you wouldn’tbelieve” fact of the matter is that it was hard these days to say things like‘I don’t believe this’ – “I wouldn’t understand them anyways, it was you andKrish who did science remember? I am a Doctor of Literature, Shakespeare, asfar from science as it gets”

“These writings are not scientific;they are closer to literature than you might imagine - more like historyactually. I am emailing them to you, promise me you will read them tonight, andcall me tomorrow, take down my number, I will be waiting for you call, and forgod sakes don’t quiz me again about snow, I live in the freaking desert” Nowshe was speaking fast again, sending my senses racing back into the past and itbrought a smile to my face, it had been quite a while. “I am sure you aresmiling now, but hey, what are friends for?”

We reached the base of the small hilland immediately realized that our cycles would not be able to take us to thetop. In retrospect the hill was not too steep; it was just that we hadn’tacquired the skills yet. The light from the other side of the hill could beseen clearly now, it rose up into the sky in the form of a beam. For a minutewe all stood there in silence and just stared at the column of light. Achy saidthat we would have to leave the bikes behind and climb up the slope. Thesy washesitant at first but Hercy convinced him by threatening to call him a girl.This angered Atlanta who challenged anyone to race her to the top. Achy took upthe challenge and they both began running up immediately. Thesy and Hercy werenext to follow. I looked at Ody who did not seem like he wanted to climb up.“I’ll stay back and watch the cycles he said”. I began climbing the hillslowly, Ody began playing the mouth organ; I turned back and told him to cut itout. That was the last we saw of Ody. By the time I reached the top the otherhad reached the bottom of the other side and were sitting around the source ofthe light. It was man –made, and other men were erecting more such lights. Therewas a crash site a couple of hundred meters ahead. Debris, smoke and pockets offire were to be seen. One man was speaking into a mike and others were rushinghelter-skelter to meet his demand. ‘What is this?’ I asked as I reached the others.‘Movie Shooting’ said Achy with a little disappointment in his tone. A famousactress wearing tattered clothes came out of a vanity van, she had make up onher to make her look part of the crash scene, but it hardly fooled us – forthose were the eyes and lips that we had seen light up the silver screen. Someonewas trying to put out a fire. The star sat down on a chair while the scene wasbeing set. She looked like she did not care much for the people around her.Slowly a people from the towns nearby began arriving to lay eyes upon amiracle. A star had indeed come down from the skies.

It was a far reaching tale offantasy and conspiracy. The documents pointed in many directions, they spoke ofaliens who had visited us in the past, long before we knew of the stars. Therehad apparently been a recent discovery of some drawing in an Egyptian crypt,something about a flying vessel carrying gods. Atlanta had also sent somepictures of these drawings, there was no way to corroborate the authenticity ofthe drawings; experts were still studying them. There was some mention of cats,fierce cats, cats that stood on two legs and spoke aloud like men.

People assumed he had run awaybecause he missed his mother and his father beat him up, others feared worse,the masked men were still at large, but Ody’s body never turned up. He wasfound five days later, in a town not far from ours, the good schoolmaster hadbeen to visit a friend and recognized him sitting all by himself near the publictoilets. He seemed to remember nothing of the night he went missing. He lookedat us like we were strangers, like he remembered our faces but could notunderstand why he remembered them. His father was the hardest hit, it was likehe had seen some light, the fear of losing the only family he had sobered him up,and with the help of the good townsfolk steadied his life. The son’s returnmade him a firm believer and he set about to redeem himself by taking his sonback and loving him like he ought to have from the beginning. Ody spent moreand more time alone, he drew things, wrote some kind of garbled poetry thatonly he understood. Sometimes in the dead of the night he would wake up and startcrying – I once heard his father crying about it to our teacher. We had growntired of asking him what had happened that day. The doctors had failed intrying to get him to talk but they had found cuts and bruises all over hisbody, he had internal bleeding and what the doctors then told his father madethe huge bulky man fall to his knees and weep like a child. The cops had triedtheir best, but all he gave them was a drawing of two tall men wearing atiger’s mask. If the masked men had taken him, and if he had somehow escaped,that explained why there was no more killing after that. Perhaps the killershad been frightened and had fled the state.

One evening as the fog came intothe town as the sun was going down, I saw Ody standing at the edge of the woodswith a knife in his hand. I walked upto him and stood beside him, people hadgrown a little scared of him lately, but not me, this was Ody; Ody with themusic in his soul. He was shivering, I took hold of his hand and he looked atme like he was relieved. There were tears in his eyes and he fell down to hisknees sobbing, I took the knife away from him and he let me. “What happened” Iasked, he was still sobbing “They did bad things to me, they hurt me for days,they tied me naked to a wooden pole” “Who were they?” I asked, He did notanswer, he just continued to cry. Next morning his father was the first to findhim; he had slit his wrists, and bled himself to death.

Atlanta called me the next day, “So, did youread? Don’t you think its all falling into place?”

“No Jannat, this is somethingabout the cats and dogs that the Egyptians prayed to, this has nothing to dowith the Aliens”

“But don’t you remember? DintSashi tell you before he killed himself? The men with tiger masks, it allfigures, that night there was a spaceship we saw in the sky, I know we got allcarried away by the movie shooting, but we did see something in the sky, and itis perfect, these aliens have been here before, they have been studying us fora long time, they took children to run tests on them, and threw their bodies inthe woods.”

“So how come Sashi escaped?”

“Well he found a way, somehow”

“Escaped from a spaceship? ReallyJannat?”

“That is the only explanation, ‘themasked killers’ is just a sham, it’s a cover-up, the government knew of thisall along, how come the killers dint strike again? I’ll tell you why, becausethey got onto a spaceship and flew away, thats why”

“You are getting carried awayagain Jannat”

“Don’t you see it? My God! Youdon’t see it ! Krish and I agree on this, I don’t think these aliens are herewith peaceful intentions, the sooner we get this out the better”

“We are all carrying the guiltJannat, we were told to stick in groups of three, but we left him behind, weshould not have, but we did, it’s been thirty five years, and I haven’t once beenable to forgive myself.”

She grew softer, like she hadbeen hurt “These aliens hurt him, I know we should not have left him behind,but it is they who hurt him”

“Ok, you can do what you want to,but I don’t want to get involved”

We then exchanged pleasantriesand ended conversation.

Humakind was ready with all itsquestions. The smartest scientists and the most well learned religious expertssat in a room facing a camera. They had too many questions to ask, but firstthey wanted to know what it was that the visitors needed.

The Aliens for the first timeappeared on the screen, they were tall, and stood on two legs; they wore whatlooked like a flowing robe. On first observation theirs seemed like a noblerace as opposed to a military one. It was their cat like faces that seemed tostartle people.

Immediately the phone rang, itwas sure to be Jannat, but I let it ring.

The visitors had a simple enoughrequest, “We would like to stay in your planet for a while”

“Why?” we asked

“Because we have discovered thatfor some reason, on your planet, it was possible to stop living ….. naturally”

The cat people had figured outthe most important question of all; the only one that an intelligent specieswith all its flaws must deign itself to ask. Ody too had figured the question andhad wandered away in search of an answer.

I let the TV run on mute, ignoredthe ringing telephone and reached out for my Hamlet.

Roots and Ropes

2011-11-09T18:14:00.002+06:30

“Hold on!” he cried, himself hanging by the root of a tree, dangling there, as if waiting for gravity to pluck him – but concerned only about Mij – Mij the sure footed, Mij who had no need for another’s worry, Mij who could save himself. Mij looked down and his eyes did not see the depth to which the cliff fell, no, a bird is what he saw, sitting on top of a tree a little way downhill, wings spread over a nest, and if Re were to lose his grip and plunge he’d wreck the nest for sure. Mij was one beat away from being safe, he stretched out and caught hold of the rope that Leh had put out for them, first one hand, then after a few labored breaths the other. Leh began to pull, her fragile body bending to the immense task, bending but not breaking. “Climb, Mij, get up there!” - Re was never the one to give up on Mij, Mij could die and he’d bring him back to life, he could murder for him, anything.

A rock crumbled under Mij’s feet and sent apple sized boulders flying into Re’s face who was caught off-guard. Otherwise sharp on reflexes, Re was in poor form this moment, he caught one on his left eye and another dropped like a hammer on his right shoulder. Blood immediately gushed out of his eye, and his right hand let go of the root, momentarily the world spun around him, his balance shifted and his body crashed - back first into the hill’s torso. A sharp piece of rock stung into the back of his head causing him to screak in pain. Amidst all this his left foot swiveled on the protruding slab it had rested on but never slipped, and miraculously his left hand still held onto the stubborn root. Re’s scream of agony brought both Leh and Mij’s hearts to a halt, Mij slipped back a notch to where he had been moments ago, Leh’s palms felt the burning heat of the slipping rope, and a falling stone landed square on the wings of the bird below – the thin branch shook as the bird gathered all the pain – the boulders continued falling down heading for the comfort of the river bed below.

“Are you alright dad?” shouted Mij, he could no longer see Re in his line of vision, he knew his dad had been hit bad, but he was still holding on for sure, he could see the root hanging on his left go taut, there was hope in the strength of an old tree. “Come on Mij, climb!” cried Leh, the rope was secure around the trunk of the old tree, but the tree was not going to do the pulling. Mij looked up and the overhead sun had just moved behind his mother, replacing her face with a dark eclipse of the sun. Mustering all the strength of his youth, Mij took his next deliberate step and placed a confident foot on a solid piece of rock, one more pull and he could see his mother’s face. Leh fell back in a stagger as Mij came up on solid ground. He immediately rushed to her side and picked her up. She was weak, spent, and her knees and elbows were red with blood. “Your Father” she said, and her eyes widened in fear, she tried to get up but failed. Mij turned around and threw the rope along the root. “Dad!” he shouted, “Hold the rope!!”

After a few seconds of disorientation, Re gathered himself to sanity, he looked down and the depthless threatened to make him dizzy again, he could hear his son cry out from above, and then he saw a snake of rope come slithering down his side. As soon as he realized what was happening he caught hold of the rope with his right arm, the sudden action sent a sharp pain up his injured shoulder, the rope slipped away from grasp. A moment later he made a second more determined effort to reach out to the rope. Slower this time, more aware of where he was and what he was doing. The rope was in his hands, but he stood there in a very peculiar position, one hand caught onto the root that had held him so far, and another clasping in its palm the rope that could take him closer to his son, to his family. If he let go of the root it could shift his balance, it could cause him to lose his footing - a delicate little maneuver was required.

Leh had dragged herself to the edge, and she was lying face down, peering into the abyss “Let go of the root Re” she said, it was a soft whisper, a calm and composed plea, as if the gentleness in her voice could convince him of the prudence in her suggestion. His one eye - drowned in blood, was turning blind, pain had made his body go numb, he could hear voices from above, but he could not decide what his next step should be. Fear was coming over him now, fear of one’s own life; fear that one wrong slip could be his last. His free right heel scratched against the rocks to find a firm hold, sending more pieces of rubble bouncing towards the tree that the old bird had made home. The bird made no fuss, not even a flutter; the stones just bobbed off its frame and gave up. The heel finally dug into some space and made room for itself on the surface of the hill.

Fear of losing his family led to panic, and in panic his left hand let go of the root and grabbed the rope. The sudden shift of weight – transmitted by the rope, rushed up and gave Mij a frightening jolt. Mij dug in and began to pull, Leh was on her feet now, harnessing god knew what will, the two began pulling. For a few seconds Re let himself get pulled like dead weight, but once the angle brought him face towards the hill he began to pull himself up the rope. Soon his feet began finding merciful holds and his numb shoulder began responding to suggestion. It took long seconds, long laborious seconds, heart stopping – spirit depleting seconds, but at the end of it he took his final step onto the blessed top and collapsed like broken twig into the arms of his loving son.

They hugged and kissed each other, they tended to each others' wounds, they cried and sobbed and thanked god, they each had a lump in their throats – a lump of joy and love.

Down below the bird shook back into life, stretching its wings, revealing an empty nest. The eggs long hatched, the hatchlings long taken to flight, but the pile of straw perhaps still worth protecting.

2011-04-19T23:14:00.001+06:30

STAR OF MY LIFE

There was excitement in some quarters and unmistakable was the sense of doom in others. Disaster management task forces were being set up and military response mechanisms were being put into motion, just in case. Finally after months of speculation about the object that was getting closer and closer to us it became amply apparent that in fact it was a space ship. Science fiction had become an eerie reality, it had become non-fiction. There was no booming announcement from the visitors; in fact we had no clue as to what lay inside that huge space ship that had parked itself over our little forgettable town. Scientists and fanatics from all across the world were heading to our town. Military reinforcements were sent, and camp sites grew up across the town overnight.

The first contact was visual – to those who could strain their amateur telescopes in the direction of the spaceship, a huge screen was visible on the outside. A series of images were being flashed on it. The first set of images were - one circle, flash, two circles, flash, three circles, flash, four circles, flash, five circles, flash, six circles, flash, one circle and so on the cycle continued on a loop.

“What are they saying?” I asked my daughter, she had been sitting all evening on the terrace, watching the spaceship through her telescope. I handed her a cup of chocolate as I took a sip from my own.

“I think they are telling us that the language of communication will be mathematics” she said, still peering into the scope. At fourteen she was as smart as they come, she had the focus and beauty of her mother, the more I saw her, the more of her mother I found in her. We had met twenty years ago and now she has been gone for five years. When we get nostalgic, me and my daughter we sit on the terrace and look at the stars. I tell her stories of how I and her mother met; she loved to hear it again and again. The banyan under which I saw her for the first time, she had been reading a text on Plato’s Republic sitting on a bench under the tree and I was smitten all at once, she would sometimes push the strands of hair off her face and tuck them behind the ear without looking up from the book. I had an Asimov opened in front of me, but Asimov’s foundation had no meaning for me, it was my own foundations that were being shaken. I moved from where I had been sitting, over to her bench. She wasn’t even aware of my presence. “Plato was quite a romantic wasn’t he?” I said, she looked up at me as if I was an idiot, and then she got up, gathered her books and walked off.

The images on the screen were changing, now it had one circle and a symbol next to it, the next image did not have any circles but just a symbol. The two images began flashing one after the other. I looked at my daughter and said “Of course, now they are establishing the binary system, the simplest form of communication, these symbols for one and zero aren’t they? So that we know how they say ‘yes’ and ‘no’”

“Mmmhmmm” she said and continued to peer into the telescope, now and then she scribbled on her notepad, taking notes. “You don’t have to break any codes you know, these aliens are treating us like primary kids and keeping things very simple” I teased her. She did not respond. She does this sometimes, acts like I am not there, she gets it from her mother, and it drives me absolutely crazy. There are times when I would be driving her to school and she wouldn’t leak a word during the twenty minute drive, then she would get down near the school, walk up to the gate, turn back and smile at me, a true smile, one that comes straight from the heart. I never managed to fully understand her mother, never learnt to anticipate her moods and the daughter was much the same.

The next day was the first day of the second year in college and I learnt that the girl under the banyan was new in town. She had transferred from the big city and she had those airs about her. She dressed like a movie star and spoke impeccable English. During the break I saw her light a cigarette and smoke it casually as she spoke to a couple of girls, the smoke twirled itself into knots and travelled skywards, I was sitting on a stone bench not far away, and I remember wishing I was the cigarette, I would readily burn to ashes at her behest.

The TV informed us that a huge screen had been set up in the play-ground; it looked like we were going start talking as well. We began by flashing our first message which was a series of dots instead of circles, dot, flash, two dots, flash, and so on. Then we showed them our symbol for zero and one, establishing the fact that thus far we were on even ground. The mathematical exchange went on, they too had place value notation but used a duodecimal counting system. “It makes sense, 12 has more factors than 10 and is more convenient when it comes to calculations and geometry” I said, I wasn’t expecting her to respond to this, and I got none, she was busy making notes – it made me a little nervous to say the least.

A month later was her birthday; I had learnt everything about her, as far as one could without talking to her. She was sophisticated, read French poetry, knew how to speak Arabic and often quoted in Latin before she translated them for lesser mortals. She swam for an hour each day, and loved to spend time with her violin. She was a paid guest in the house of a girl I had known since childhood. They were having a party at her place and i got her one of those music boxes with a couple ball-dancing. It was a corny thing to do, but I was a kid with an air-bubble in my heart and I felt it would burst any moment. It was a strange otherworldly feeling. After the cake-cutting she inched away into the balcony and stood there staring at the stars, I could have walked up to her then, but I was not courageous like that. I scribbled a note, folded it and stuck it on the gift-wrapped box and left. The next time we met, she was the one who spoke first.

From the kitchen I could hear the continuous commentary on TV of what was happening. The two races were exchanging mathematical symbols and notations. Simple operations were being flashed on the screen, both were learning quite fast. I put the dinner on the table and called out for my daughter to join me. She wanted to eat on the terrace, so I filled a couple of plates and took them to her. I sat next to her and began digging into the meal, I was halfway through when I noticed that she hadn’t touched her plate yet, “what is wrong?” I asked her. “It looks so easy doesn’t it?” she said, “what does?”

“We are already communicating, you would think that an alien species would take more time to grasp our language and we to understand theirs”

“But it is mathematics they are talking; it is supposed to be universal”

“The possibility of that is not so cardinal, our basic arithmetic is based on the perception of discreteness, it needn’t be the same for others, what are the chances that two intelligent species that exist thousands of light years away have the same mode of perception. Our math is the result of not just what we see around us, but how our mind perceives it. But to assume that even they perceive the universe like us, is pushing it.”

Two years into our marriage I had begun doubting her fidelity, she would vanish sometime in the middle of the night sighting work reasons. She worked for a legal firm, and at first I thought she was overworked. The doubts got the better of me, one night I followed her and saw her get into a house. I found out that the house belonged to her colleague at the firm. I confronted her and she confessed. I expected her to walk out of my life, but instead she surprised me by begging for forgiveness. She had been the prize; I was just an adequate partner. I loved her too much to watch her beg, her tears were real, they were for me, and it melted my anger and my loathing. She sat crying in the bed all night and I lay beside her sleepless with a heart full of love and pain, the next morning we decided to have a family, she quit her job and we started again. When I returned from an official visit one summer morning I found her sitting on the doorstep with a packed bag. “It’s time to go to her hospital” she said, one hand on her enormous belly.

I thought for a moment, and then said “but what makes you think they would have a different mode of perception?”

“I agree it is difficult, for example some people are color blind and hence their perception of the world is different. Now similarly, if I see a fish in the bowl, I’d say ‘there swims one fish’, but what if my cognition is conditioned to consider the fish, the water and the bowl as one, maybe I am seeing blurry, all hazy at once, what if I see no differences between the things and the spaces in between them, now if I can’t see the fish as a separate entity, then to me ‘no fish exists’ – so then since my perception is different I would evolve a non-discrete intelligence”

“So you are saying that you find it fishy that the aliens were clear sighted like us”

“But you see we are all blurry eyed beyond our scale of perception, Only within our scale of perception are we clear sighted and are able to declare discreteness – although it is not an absolute discreteness, but the fact that even they are clear sighted within the same scale of perception is fishy indeed”

“You think they are similar to us?”

“Either that or they have been at this a long time, adapting their thought to the way we perceive reality – learning our way of thinking”

“Why would they take all that pain?”

“So that we wouldn’t think of them as freaks and scare ourselves enough to perceive threat, you must admit, this celebratory exchange of arithmetics has a calming influence; we have seen all this before, in books and in the movies, we feel comfortable, even the way their space ship looks. There is always a danger that threat could lead to confrontation. Each time in history two cultures have met for the first time there has been violence, and I suspect they know our history as well as we do”

When she was diagnosed with cancer we spent a year moving in and out of experimental treatments – different doctors, different hospitals, and different cities. Those were days filled with heart-burn. Our daughter was old enough to realize what was happening, and I had no way of shielding her from reality. The day she died we behaved like everything was normal, we went home from the hospital, showered, had breakfast while we watched the news, took a short nap, and were back at the hospital to do the formalities. She had donated her body to science, it was news to me, but I did not want disrespect her last wish. Some young doctors would study her body to learn what the cancer cells had done to her; there was some good in that. We held a mock funeral and invited everyone we knew. Her colleague from the firm showed up as well, I did not create a scene. Before leaving he leaned close to me and said “She said you taught her how to love”. It did not console me, instead it made me angrier.

“How do you think they managed that? to learn ou way of seeing things?” I asked her

“Who knows” she shrugged, picking up her dinner plate, “Maybe they have walked among us, looking like us, posing like us” she said in a tone that was mock-ominous. After doing the chores I checked on her before heading to my room. She was asleep, calm and quite. I loved her from the bottom of my heart, and I could only hope that she would continue to love me. Books tell me that me that she is about the age in which she would begin rebelling, thinking of me as a freak and hating me for no reason. That would be a tragedy, how long would it take to turn love into hate? How long would it take to blink once?

After we buried an empty coffin, I sat in our bedroom for a long time going through her things, tucked away in the corner of a small drawer I found the musical box I had given her, the gift wrap and the note were there too. The note said –

“Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned; Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes” – Plato, the romantic.

Tonight the stars were shining bright.

2011-04-19T23:12:00.001+06:30

NIGHTMARE

They have discovered who I am, as have I. They are not sure what to do with me, but they have locked me up in a room with no windows. I can't wait to get out.

A few months back I began having strange dreams, you could categorize them as scary, but the rush began to grow on me, and I began craving these dreams. I would go to bed at night after watching a horror show, hoping the some of it translates into interesting dreams. Let me tell you this, dreams are be best entertainment, they lack predictability and will always succeed in surprising you. Everything from snakes to dragons dropped by, there was murder, mayhem and madness. The episodes repeated themselves frequently, and each day I would wake up sweating and panting. Turmoil and chaos seemed to rule my nights and I was at peace with the violence in my head. The bloody action has now begun dripping into the waking reality. Today I woke up and found a dead rat next to the bed, surely it had been bitten into and surely I could taste blood on my tongue. I had a strikingly similar dream, in it I was being chased by a predator and there was fierce action involved, there had been jumping, scratching and biting. I had woken up from one nightmare and I was facing another. I was so scared that I sat frozen on the bed for a long time. In my mind I was screaming and shouting and asking to be let go, but in reality no one was holding me down, it was just me. After a while I stood up and walked up to the mirror and what I saw both scared and excited me. There was blood all around my mouth, I suspected that I must have really enjoyed what I did; there was no other reason to indulge like I had. To my surprise I was smiling in to the mirror, my bloody teeth bared to mock someone behind the mirror. The tongue came out and licked the blood on my lips. I looked down and my hands were all bloody, it then struck me, the rat would not have had enough blood for all this mess. One side of the bed was soaked in blood and the carpet looked blood wet near the bed. I immediately realized what had happened, I ran out of the bedroom and there she was – my wife, dead for sure. There were bite marks on her neck and stab wounds all over her body. I sat down and began weeping, but there was a hollow laughter in my voice, it was incoherent, I felt grief but I could hear myself laugh. That’s when they walked in and found me. Someone must have tipped them off; they dragged me away and locked me in the store room. What they would do to me I did not know, but somehow I knew it would not be pretty, I could sense it, pain was ominously close at hand. There was panic now and I could feel my heart beat, crazy mindless beating, like it was about to burst.

I cannot wait to wake up.

2011-04-19T23:10:00.000+06:30

SWEET WORDS

This sort of thing happens in stories, tales that are fictional, products of a fertile imagination, and it makes me wonder.

I was taking out the garbage when I spotted a cocoon transform into something beautiful. Superheroes have no wings and yet they seem to be able to fly – that sort of things tends not to confuse the daily mind – because of course it is packaged as fiction and fiction is harmless. But when wide open eyes, in the light of the morning sun, backed by the wits of an average human – see a spectacularly colored creature take flight into the blue – my heart skipped a beat – for I could swear on the grave of some very important people – that it fluttered close to my right ear and whispered something so sweet that it smelt like a lie at first.

I admit that I do have a disposition towards sentimentality and it has had me gut-punched and knocked to my knees now and then, that being said - even I am made to wonder – not blindly believing in first instance, but by the grace of the lord – doubting!!

The summer had been awfully disappointing, what with the newly filled graves, the sudden quiet at home and the hushed ‘poor chap’ that echo in my vicinity. My dry cheeks baffle them further; they sit beside me on park benches and fidget about like clueless toddlers. Fat old ladies hold me and hug me and cry more than they need to - generous bosoms out to suffocate me.

Inside the four walls of my head I can safely question my sanity, I can do that, wonder if I am going mad – but it is this act of contemplation that has me believing in my wits, I am after all capable of questioning my sanity, contemplating my contemplation, and thereby peeling off the layers hoping to discover a rational thought.

The college Principal had to put down the guard for once, he actually decided to speak like a normal being, it was touching to see that there was something human inside of him. Neighbors were the worst, because you had to face them all the time, they decided to take turns to keep me company – good fences notwithstanding. I on the other hand was confused, poor me, with all this loss that I had to handle, the emptiness that I had inherited, this fortune of loneliness that was bestowed upon me, what to do with these? Whiter do I expend them?

I suppose I ought to hold all this against someone, but I see none in sight, I am afraid to look into a mirror though, frightened I’d spot the culprit and be incapable of hating him. That is the fear I have been dreading these days, those fingers that might point in my direction, my own fingers, my own wretched face.

Friends have a way of making you do things, you do them anyway, you join a pack and become anonymous, you joke around and you have a ball. The loud laughter and the backslapping, these are just sounds, but they sound so much like music at times. The music had begun to jar these days, empathy felt fake, sympathy was cringe-worthy and the worst was nonchalance – hey! Do you want to grab a beer?

Mishaps come and go and with them sometimes things, people and dreams go too. The loss of connections is the worst of all; it leaves you hanging in space, floating like an unwanted mass – loose ends of the chains reminding you of what once anchored you to purpose. Fire is one thing at once beautiful and ugly, powerful and powerless over itself – in danger consuming itself to the point of extinction. Never one to feed on its prey slowly – it rages with an unknown fury, burning down hopes and prayers to ashes.

Purposeless now I began to think of wild things, I was consumed by these thoughts, these ideas of letting go and flying off to some wasted land. I was weighing options, like one sits in front of a computer screen pondering which airline to fly. There were many roads that led to where I wanted to be, they each demanded a different kind of courage, and I lacked every kind of it I suppose, that is why I chose something else entirely – I chose to deny myself the luxury of grief.

I put my pennies in a small cloth bag and I dropped it into an old tin jar, I folded my clothes and packed them neatly into a travel bag. There were a few things in the closet that I had to lay out in the open, and so I arranged them in the living room. There were framed pictures on the walls and they were filled with happy faces, smiling eyes and a sense of promise – they all felt a bit out of place, out of time. All those pieces of misplaced furniture needed to go, packed into garbage bags and left at the doorstep for the garbage truck to carry way. My stamp collection was there too, all the places I had never seen, countries and continents filled with little people with little families who dared to dream big - all those people went into the garbage too.

And there amongst the filth of the neighborhood I happened to spot a cocoon transform into something beautiful – heavenly in fact, a spectacular sight to say the least. A misty, effervescence seemed to bubble about in the air, a magical idea bursting at the seams of reality, a flutter to heal the world entire. In some unknown dialect of an unknown language the angel muttered words into my ear that felt like silk, tickling my senses so gently with musical thoughts and fragrant ideas. As its wings took the messenger higher into the sky, I looked up and saw the first dark clouds of the monsoon climb overhead and rumble. I closed my eyes and felt the drops of rain and tears wet my tired face. It was that time of the year when things began to feel alive again.

2011-04-19T23:09:00.000+06:30

LOVE

I love you, but that does not seem to be enough, I don’t understand this one bit.

I have turned on the timer now, its ticking away on the night stand right there, counting off on to something. I know you would scream if you could, but that is precisely the reason why I have gagged you, your screams are in my head already, I can hear them, melodious and touching, the opera has begun. The reason I am sitting on top of you is that I am heavier than you, and your kicking and pushing is not going to help one bit, these ropes are strong you know and I can tie a mean knot.

I was hoping to see this very look on your face when I showed you this side of me, this beautiful face that I hide behind a mask. Don’t look shocked, this is the truth, and sometimes the truth makes you want to look away, like a sharp stream of sunlight. And when you chose to leave me did i not look into you eyes? those lying black holes! Don’t look away from the simple truth! Look at me! Look at my eyes, look into them, don’t you see love? Don’t you see an ocean of desire for you? I came for you, I picked you out from a crowd, and you walked with me – that is something isn’t it? That you walked with me, holding hands along the river bank. In only a month you had begun to trust me, to love me, to need me. But I have my needs too. I am not an ungrateful lover, I loved you to the best of my ability, and I still do, although I understand how that might be hard to believe.

Here we go; these are the very hands you held, the very hands that held you, now you can feel them on your neck, and if you cared to notice they are steady, no sign of nervousness or indecisiveness, that ought to kill your hopes, but the pain is too much and it clogs your judgment, that is why you still resort to struggling. I can see your eyes are wide open; these are the last few images they would see, so open them wider now, and see all that you can; it isn’t such a bad world after all.

If I remover you gag and put my ear to your lips, will you tell me how this feels? Will you be able to calmly report these moments of absolute ecstasy? I guess not, I guess you would scream for your life, or worse bite my ear off. But I have a fertile mind, thank goodness, I can imagine your thoughts, I can see that you are thinking about your family, about how you should have listened to them and made good of your life, of how you let them down, you are angry and you are frightened and you feel helpless. Strangely none of your thoughts are about me, now that just is not fair. I was by far the only person who truly loved you for who you were, I never asked for you to change, I liked you just the way you were, that is why I picked you, because you were perfect. Now in these last moments you choose to abandon me, banish me from your thoughts, and you don’t even look at me, instead you look at the ceiling, looking for god are you? He is not about to save you, he knows your sins.

I remember the day when I was three, I was waiting by the door, I had woken up an hour ago, and I was hungry and I was crying. It was getting dark and the rain was coming down hard, people were rushing to their homes to be with their families. That day is etched in my memory, waiting for you to come home and give me something to eat. I wanted to be in your warm embrace and I wanted you to finish reading me that book we had started. I wanted to look at your face again, wipe those tears off your cheek, and hold onto your hands as I slept. I grew up hearing all sorts of things about you, but I loved you still, and yet you never came back even once to visit me, not once! You abandoned me, but I couldn’t forget you, I loved you too much, hated you too much and needed you too much.

And here we are; it breaks my heart to see you choking now, in a moment your life will be over, snuffed out of your body - just like that. Now you feel like how I have felt all my life. I hope you feel sorry before you die, I hope for the sake of your soul that you beg for forgiveness. The timer says three minutes four seconds, not the fastest, not the slowest, but way better than twenty two long suffocating years.

2011-04-19T23:08:00.001+06:30

MIRAK

In so much heat and loneliness the creatures that had once crawled the surface now burrowed through layers of silt and sand in search of trifle comfort and momentary company. They sought a patch of soggy earth that had not dried up yet, they sought the company of creatures they had never cared for. The rocks on the surface had grown inhabitable, hissing at the very hint of moisture, paying homage to the obese giant and sitting tight lipped in response to the tyrant’s lashes – in all the sky was filling up with fire and the earth was cooking life for supper.

Let him be called Mirak, this earthworm like creature who now crawls pointlessly across the limitless. His many legs are weak and his little body dry. He is alone, homeless and by the wrath of gods – alive. Little boulders her encounters and by employing ingenious means he circumvents them, and small crevices he skirts using the art of eighteen feet. His march though seems nobly purposeless and accomplishments seem to inspire none. Yet he pauses no more than to rest, and across the bed of a long dried sea he marches, his tiny feet leaving no trace of his passing by.

Through the long years of his march the hills in the horizon had moved no closer, the seething heat of the sand had grown no lesser, and the gods that be had snored no quieter. For ages that he had wandered, the skies had not clouded, neither had the springs erupted. The hot winds though blew like a message of doom, carrying dust and thorns and pain.

It is this world that Mirak had seen, and this one alone, but someone cruel had once told him of another, when and where he remembered not. And so he walked like a possessed soul, little feet of invisible progress, tiny steps towards the sky. While his peers burrowed trough the sand and found pockets of fleeting habitats in the deep, Mirak had remained on the surface braving the hungry Sun, and riding the burning heat – fooled perhaps by a whispered tale, perhaps illusioned by a cruel lie.

To comfort the parched earth, the night arrived with the splintered moon. The ball of cheese split into two, separated by a gruesome gaping void. In the days since Mirak’s march began, something strange was abound in the orphaned skies. The void was no more a void, the halves of the moon both now looked upon a new star – the ill begotten daughter of night.

Mirak now rested near an abandoned anthill, the screams of its occupants had long since echoed out, the castle of their labor stood still though, long after the structures that blotted the sky had vanished. In rest there was no shame, no insecurity – Mirak went belly up, letting his tired feet hang in the air for a while. His two weary eyes held the shattered sky; his bare back felt the weeping earth.

The images were haunting; they came like waves of arrows tearing through the sky. Hunger became greed and greed devoured the skies and it gulped up the ocean. The tales had been passed down and Mirak had heard of them and had seen others weep in self pity – he detested their fragile spirit. He now curled himself up into a spiral and slept for a brief while. Piles upon piles of used up things filled his dreams, and when he looked up he saw a moon that was eerily full.

The red of the morning sun saw Mirak on his journey again, walking towards the hills that never drew closer. Someone cruel had once told him that beyond the hills of the horizon, there was bound to be ice.

2011-04-19T23:07:00.001+06:30

THE LEGEND OF FATHER JOSEPH

In the quiet month of December, day twelve, Father Joseph was busy packing when he heard the door open. The noon sun was burning the road outside; the birds hadn't made a sound for they may have been resting in the shade of the leaves. Father Joseph looked up from his chore to find Anita standing in the doorway. He met her gaze, and instantly understood what she had in mind, and having no more to say on the subject he went back to packing.

"So you have decided to go?" she asked him, hands on her hips.

"Yes" said the Father, without looking up.

His nonchalance irritated her further "You must be crazy Padre, it is not as easy as you think you know, in the City maybe, but taking your bible and that white skin of yours into the woods is like walking into death"

"I know what I am doing, and I want you to take care of this place while I am gone, I will be back before Christmas Mass" he said

Anita shook her head; she knew there was no point in trying to dissuade him. For the very same reasons she admired him as well. She had seen him stand defiant beside the people of her town against his own countrymen, only because he was sure which the right side was. That stood for something, some strain of character that is hard to come by. He held in his one hand the bible and in the other the respect of townsfolk. She would have been just a common whore if he had not taken her in and opened his Kitchen to her, the kitchen that fed the hungry in the cold of the night.

Father Joseph was a tall man, his health was in perfect condition, and he was always dressed in impeccable white. He slept for four hours each day, and devoted the remainder of his hours to the work of the lord. His conviction in the goodness of men endeared him to the pious and the sinner alike. It was this conviction of his that was now taking him on this journey now.

The first few trickles of information had come in some twenty years ago. A man, clothes in tatters, and blood all over his body had wandered into the town in a daze. He told the most terrifying story the people of the town had ever heard. His traveling party had stumbled upon some kind of tribal sect in the Jungle. The site of a tribe that lived in complete nudity and spoke some ancient language had paralyzed them momentarily. Before they knew it they were hunted down by arrows. Most of his companions had died or had fallen unconscious. The man then spoke of how he had two arrows lodged into him, one in his right leg and one that tore through his right shoulder and pinned him to a tree behind him. Thankfully he was out of their sight when the tribal folk came in to pick up the dead. The man then narrated, to the disgust of many, of how the tribal folk skinned and cooked his companions. After seeing this, the man overcome by a will to flee pulled out the arrows with his bare hands and began running. That was one week go, he said.

After this incident, the stories came in steadily, it was rumored that the cannibals liked the white skin more than the local variety, and that is why the battalion had not ventured into the woods to eradicate the menace. Legends built around the cannibals of the forest to such an extent that Satan worship, demon catching and many more gruesome tales came to be heard. One summer some ten years ago Rizvi Ahmed and Veerapandi of the 4th Battalion, 16th Regiment of Madras Native Infantry, both seeking vengeance for their kin who has allegedly fallen at the hands of the cannibals, decided to finish this once and for all. They loaded themselves with ammunition and went into the forest. Fifteen days later only Veerapandi returned and he was carrying on his shoulders a naked, injured man who he claimed can give the people valuable information to take down the cannibals. In a few days Veerapandi succumbed to some fever he had caught in the forest. The Rage of the townsfolk new no bounds and they would have surely killed the injured man, had not the new Priest intervened.

For ten years Father Joseph had worked relentlessly on 'Peter' - as he christened him, teaching him the ways of the lord, and right from wrong. It wasn't easy, it took weeks to get the man to respond, to get through to him took more than a year. The Father taught him to read and write and communicate. Years of eating the human flesh and living in the shadow of gore had stunted Peter's ability to grasp new things.

Initially when the townsfolk continued to demand that he be killed or better yet set on fire while alive, Father Joseph took Peter to see the headmaster of the school - a man well respected in the community. Bathed, Clothed, hair cut to its appropriate length, and beard shaven clean, Peter presented a picture of civility. Father Joseph pointed at Peter and asked the Headmaster "Do we not owe him a chance to redeem himself? I am not telling you to listen to the Church, I am asking you to listen to your on conscience" With the backing of the Headmaster, the Father devoted himself to the cause of Peter.

Now, ten years down the line, Peter had endeared himself to the town, he had helped in communicating with his tribe and over the period of years he had succeeded in bringing civilization to his kin, by supplying them with food and clothing and medicine, every two months they would go into the woods, and with Peter's help Father Joseph would deliver a sermon. In moderate portion they introduced the cannibals to Jesus, and more importantly they introduced them to sanitation and basic hygiene.

Now it was time for them to venture deeper into the forest and get in touch with the tribe on the other side of the Hill, the last of the cannibals in the province of madras.

Anita and Peter loaded the packets of food and the other things that the Father had packed into the carriage. Initially the Father refused to carry a gun along, he was later, on account of animals in the forest convinced to take one along. "Lord help me, for I take this weapon to preserve myself from beasts and not men" he declared. Father Joseph and Peter climbed aboard the carriage and rode off.

It took them six days and six nights of travelling through thick forest to reach the other side of the hill. After the first day they had to abandon the carriage and take the rest of the journey by walk. They carried the heavy baggage by day and by night they took turns keeping watch while the other rested. On the sixth day, a few hours before dusk, they reached the small rivulet, by which Peter claimed that the tribe lived. They walked more carefully now, without breaking twigs on the ground. Peter kept an eye out for traps and shooters perched among the leaves.

The Sun was setting quickly, the sounds of the night time forest were about them, it was at this time that they spotted the cannibals. Huddled around a fire were six small shelters made out of wood and leaves. On the one side there was fire on which a deer was being roasted. All the cannibals were gathered near one of the shelters and there seemed to be some kind of hushed activity going on.

"What is happening?" the Father asked Peter as softly as possible.

"I don't know, but let me go down there and find out"

"Are you sure you will be safe?"

"yes, they will not kill me once they hear me speaking their language, and then I will tell them about you" with that Peter slipped out of his clothes and started walking towards the shelters.

Initially the cannibals were startled by the appearance of another man, but they calmed down once he started speaking. After what seemed like eternity, Peter turned to where the Father had been hiding and motioned him to come down. Father Joseph collected his bags and descended the small slope to join Peter.

"Its alright Father, they will not harm you"

"And why is that?" inquired the Father not taking his eyes off the cannibals.

"Because they have a sick child, she is dying, and I told them you could cure her, and that you have occult powers" said Peter looking down.

"Oh Lord!" muttered the Father and said "Can I look at the child?"

After a short exchange, Peter led him to one of the shelters where the little girl lay, she was very young, perhaps a couple of years old and she was sweating in spite of cold that had come upon the forest.

"What is wrong with her?" the Father inquired.

"It seems she that her body has been hot for a few days, and that she spews out all that she eats, and passes liquid refuse all the time" said Peter.

"Go and get my medicine chest, it must be in my bag" said the Father as ke knelt beside the girl "And tell them to stay out of the shelter, she need air"

Peter rushed back with the medicine chest.

The Father examined the girl's eyes and then began mixing powders and potions.

"What is wrong with the girl Father?" asked Peter.

"She has poison inside her, I think it is from the meat that has not been cooked properly, we have to get it out soon" he said as he continued his chore.

"Can it cause death?" asked Peter, because he was beginning to worry now, for he had told he cannibals that the White man possessed powers that could cure the girl.

"It is known to have happened" he said and poured the liquid into the girl's mouth.

"What is that Father?" asked Peter

"It’s an emetic made of mustard, it would help is getting out the poison from her through her refuse." With that said Father Joseph sat next to the girl and began reading from his Bible. His rhythmic chanting caused the cannibals to move further away from the shelter, for they were now convinced of his occult powers.

Soon after the girl passed refuse where she lay and the father moved up and cleaned it using leaves, he asked Peter to bring in more leaves. As the night wore on, Father Joseph continued to give the girl little potions of the medicine and kept cleaning her refuse with water and leaves. Every now and then he would give her a few spoons of whiskey so that she may have strength to face the ordeal. At the break of dawn the fever finally wore off and the girl fell into deep sleep. Father Joseph continued to read the Bible and pray.

As noon drew close the girl opened her eyes, Father Joseph thanked the lord and moved out of the shelter "She is well" he announced. Peter relayed the information and a young woman who might have been the mother of the girl rushed into the shelter. Father Joseph was washing his face with water when Peter drew close and said "Father, there may be a problem"

"What is it now?" he asked swivelling towards the shelter where the girl lay, just then a group of cannibals pounced on him and he was brought down. As he tried to fend away the crushing blows to his face and guts he cried "What happened? What happened?"

They then dragged him and tied him to the bark of a tree.

"What happened?" he asked Peter who was kneeling on the ground some distance away.

"It is my fault Father" he said and began crying "They think that by eating you they can inherit you occult powers, I tried to tell them that is not true, but they wouldn't listen. They think I want to eat you myself and get all the powers"

"Oh Lord!" the Father cried, then he regained composure and said "Don't worry Peter, you said what you had to, to save that little girl's life, the Lord understands"

"But now I have endangered your father! And I am as bad as they are" and again he covered his face and wept. Then he looked back up and asked "Father, where is the gun?"

"No!" he shouted, and immediately began gasping for breath, his broken ribs hurt him every time he breathed, and even so he continued "We are permitted to kill a beast, not men"

"But they are worse than beasts’ father! They eat their own!" cried Peter in disgust.

"You were not very different from them ten years ago, and yet here you are trying to save a man's life. You got an opportunity that was denied to them, an opportunity at redemption, don't condemn them for it" said the Father.

He had taught Peter well, for Peter did not go looking for the gun, instead he went looking for the Father's Bible. Under the watchful gaze of the cannibals he enetered the shelter of the little girl and found the Bible next to her. She looked up at him and smiled.

Peter knelt down beside the Father and began reading the Bible. The noon sun lost steam and began descending.

"What will they do to me Peter" asked the father interrupting Peter's recital.

"No!" said Peter defiantly.

"Confess to me the sin they are about to commit Peter, so that I may pray for their forgiveness before I depart" said Father Joseph, his face solemn, and mind at peace.

"They will slit you throat Father, they will collect you blood till you bleed to death. Then they will celebrate their good fortune by drinking your blood. After which they will begin the ceremony of skinning the body. They will separate your internal organs, each is considered to have different powers. They will crack you skull..." Peter could go no further.

The father closed his eyes and in prayer said "Father in Heaven, forgive them their sins, and lead them in your way, so that come Judgement day they may find you. Amen"

They came towards him now, with the scared knife.

Peter began edging way, he wept like he was about to lose his own life, with his palms he repeatedly beat his face. Then he looked up into the darkening sky and cried "Oh Lord, please have mercy, do not forsake your servant" then he shifted his gaze to the Father, who was looking at him with pride "Father, is this not the time for a miracle? is this not the time for the Lord to come to our aid"

They slit his throat, Father Joseph began to bleed, but his gaze never left Peter, he kept looking at him, into the eyes of this monster turned into man, this miracle of the Lord.

Peter crossed himself and said a silent prayer, committing the Father's spirit to the lord. The confusion of blood drinking that followed, he sneaked into the shelter, picked up the girl who made no sound, and disappeared into the woods.

2011-04-19T22:59:00.000+06:30

TO SHOO A BIRD AWAY

Rosenthal is a character that is part inspired by Harper Lee and part plagiarized from Salim Sinai :)

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It had been twenty five years since she wrote that book, and little short of twenty five years since she fled for her life. A supposedly tolerant democracy had made her flee, she took pity on those fighting injustice in dictated states. She had now grown used to living away from her twin sister. She had to make do with reading about her in the papers. A few things that she read angered her but most of it was quintessential Israeli. She had always regarded Israel as her twin sister since both of them were born on the same day. Alas Israel had become Cain, and Rosenthal had to flee or die. On May 14 1948 she was born in a land that had just proclaimed itself as the independent state of Israel. On the days and weeks that followed a physically weak Rosenthal battled death and struggled to stay alive while her sister fought with the Arab nations that were hell bent on destroying the new born baby. It was almost miraculous as in how little Rosenthal's life was similar to the nation in which and with she was born. The cease fires represented the slow return back to health, but then again the regrouped attacks were symbolized by her sudden violent illness. It was a unique case wherein the sister's suffered together. Then after a ten day illness she began to recover again but this lasted only until the next attack began. It was when sister Israel took to cleaning up the Palestinian villages surrounding Tel Aviv and ridding the Israeli state of Arabs that the color of life returned to the cheeks of Rosenthal. Her remarkable journey had just begun. The relationship that the sisters would share would be one worth chronicling.

When Rosenthal was eight years old she learnt the most important lesson of her life. She and her elder brother (who was a couple of years her senior) used to spend most of their free time playing in their backyard. There used to be a tall tree that they used to always depend on to invent new and ingenious games. On one Sunday they decided to play a very exciting game. It was a game that her elder brother and their summer friend had devised together. When she told them it could be dangerous and that Father may not approve of it they told her it was a boys game and that she need not participate. This always seemed to work, whatever was told to be beyond her means she always wanted to do, whatever was told be not her forte she wanted to conquer. So she decided to play along.

"First I will climb the tree, one branch at a time" her brother said as he and the summer friend on who Rosenthal had an eye charted out the best possible way to climb the tree.

"Then Ron would climb up behind me until he has reached right next to me" then he turned his attention towards Rosenthal and said "Rose this is your last chance to back out"

"I am ready" she found herself saying.

"Ok, after us both our in our places u will pass us this stick “he said handing her a long pole that was used to pick up clothes that fell onto the sunshade when put out to dry. She struggled to hold it properly. She must have looked like a Lilliputian pole vaulter. "Once I have shooed the birds away from the nest I will pass down the eggs to Ron who will give it to you and you should gather them in the basket" he concluded. Everything was set, the boys were on the tree, and she was about to hand over the stick when their father walked into the backyard to check up on them. Rosenthal immediately dropped the stick and went running to her father crying "Pappa! they are trying to shoo the birddie away pappa!".When they were all down the father made them sit in the backyard and gave them a lecture on the cruelty of what they were attempting. He made them realize how much pain they may have caused that little birddie, and how they were going to deprive the little ones of their mommy. Somehow this made Rosenthal cry. At once her father took her in his arms and began comforting her "remember" he said " there is no sin greater than to Shoo a bird away from its nest, because the bird does no harm to you, if you want to keep your home, you must let others keep theirs" he added. That day, had remained etched in her memory. At the end of that summer, in the month of October, unknown to Rosenthal, her father took part in the planning of the Sinai Invasion and the capturing of the Mitla pass. Much later when she asked if the reversal of the Suez Canal nationalization was kosher she was treated like a traitor. The act of shooing a bird away from its nest was apparently not something her sister hesitated from doing.

When Rosenthal was eighteen years old, she was getting ready to go to Geneva to pursue her education in Journalism. That is when her sister faced her biggest challenge yet. Earlier Arafat had called on an all out attack against the 'non- existent' state of Israel, he called Nasser of Egypt as tame, making the prince of Egypt look more like a coward. So the Egyptian formed the PLO which was but a softer shadow of the Fatah founded by Arafat. Fatah was in fact a later more purposeful movement than the previous Futuwwa that Arafat was a part of; Its initial official name was Nazi scouts. On one hand Israel and Jordan were sleeping secretly in the same bed sharing the waters of Galilee, while on the other hand Syrians funded terrorist actions against the state of Israel and attributed it to the Fatah in an attempt to take control of the Fatah. After all the talks were talked and all the selfish leaders agreed on their booty, the Arab states planned to invade Israel. The states of Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria stood poised like girls in skirts waiting for the blow of the whistle to start their race. Even before they could say 'Attack' the wind blew in and blew their skirts away. For six days the girls flapped and pseudo-kicked, and at the end of it, Israel had grown bigger near the Sinai desert, the Golon heights and the West Bank. It was with this victory in the air that the sisters parted. She stood in the Airport waiting for her brother to arrive before her flight could leave. She was excited about joining Ron in Geneva.

"I can’t believe we have agreed to return the captured territories back to Egypt and Syria" her brother said as he arrived panting, she couldn’t help but admire the way he looked in the military attire. "It is for peace, Jacob" she said placing her palm on his shoulders.

"There is no peace with war mongers Rosen, this would all be theirs if they had their way" he said spreading his arms wide.

"You know something Jacob, if you leave alone the leaders, there are people just like you and me on the other side too, peace lovers, people who want to live a war less life, and people who want to live in their homes, just like you do."

Jacob sighed, then said "This is no topic to be discussing at this hour, when is your flight?"

"In an hour" she said.

"So, will Ron be waiting to receive you?" he asked with a slight teasing smile on his face.

"Yes, he just called" she said trying to mask her feelings.

As the plane flew higher and higher, she looked down from the window and she could not spot where Israel ended and where the Arab world began. It all looked the same. May be that is how it was meant to be. Maybe.

In Geneva the seasons had an uncanny knack of being just perfect. She was happy to be where she was, doing what she was doing. Ron filled her life with joy, their childish awkwardness had vanished and they had blossomed beautifully enough to please each other passionately. At the end of the college she took up an internship offer from an international news agency. Soon that internship became a fully fledged job and her stint of investigative journalism in Palestine changed her life forever. She lived under cover and completed a documentary about the life of Arabs who had been driven out of west bank during the Israeli invasion. She broke bread in the house of an Arab, she listened sincerely to their problems, she played with their kids who had games much like the ones she used to play as a kid, and she cried when a little one died in an air raid. She went back to Geneva and researched the Israel-Palestine conflict thoroughly. She could now judge it from an outsider’s point of view. She not only shared her birthday with the birth of Israel, but also shared it with the birth of tension in the Middle East. If she was kin to one's existence, so was she a kin too to the other's problems. That was when the idea of the book struck her. That was when she began re writing her fate.

The book told a simple story, it was a small book easily under estimated. It told a story of a widower and his only son, and yet it told much more. The wife has been dead for some years but the lives of the two have been in balance for some time. There are of course some shattered dreams and some undeniable regrets, the world is not perfect but at the same time not unbearable. The boy spends his free time playing in the streets with the other boys his age. They play pranks on the neighbors and challenge other street boys in various games. When it came to education the boy is not very good but the father has by practice learnt to overlook this. After the death of his wife his only objective was to keep the son happy, which he did. But one could not expect the man, aged only about forty to spend the rest of his years in caring for his only son. Like the inevitable that occurs as a consequence of Murphy's Sin, he too one day chanced upon meeting the woman perfect for the second half of his life. She was smart and well educated, beautiful and attractive. Her charm so attractive; that no man could deny or refuse to fall prey. She it seemed was divorced from an unhappy marriage. They spent long hours of their courtship revealing to each other their problems and discussing how they should go about solving it. Her desire to become homemaker setteled things. She was able to relate to his problems because she too had a son of her own. A son who had spent last six years of his life in different hostels around Europe because of the nature of the job that the mother kept. They decide to get married and move in as a family. Now the problems begin when the two step brothers are asked to share a room. No matter what the parents tried the problems only grew. The frequent quarrels between the step-brothers drove the whole neighborhood mad. Soon the father found a job in England and moved there promising to buy a bigger home there and take them there soon. With the father gone the son felt abandoned and grew more and more rebellious against his step half of the family. He took the help of his street friends to bully the step brother, but the new comer had the mother's backing and was in fact smart enough to wiggle out of issues. His well educated manners caused him to become the beloved of the elders in the neighborhood. Till finally one day the boy who used to live happily in the streets dies a bully's death while the new comer ends up with the full room.

The symbolism of this dark tale did not go unnoticed. Were the father and his decision to get married not the British mandate? Once the symbolism of the book had become apparent the Arab world too needed to get into action, they immediately branded Rosenthal as the prop of the Zionists who were trying to signal the end of the Arab world. 'We will not let this happen' the proclaimed. She had written a book. She had earned an exile. She had lost a sister.

The book was critically acclaimed for its prose and the way the characterization was handled. The way in which the author had captured the innocent games of the boys and their carefree existence in the beginning of the book and the equally proficient way in which the growing darkness seeped into the narration were well received. On one side the longing of a young boy for a home of his own after having lived years in hostels tore through to a reader's heart, on the other hand the anguish and pain of one whose home had been invaded by another evoked empathy in a reader. Rosenthal was credited for the unique way in which she had framed the struggles of nations into a common household. When they gave her the Pulitzer she said "I was only trying to explain to the world a lesson I had learnt from my father, I was just trying to tell that to shoo a bird away from its nest is the greatest sin one can do, although the irony of my exile too is not lost on me"

2011-04-19T22:57:00.000+06:30

WAITING ROOM

These days Kabir had been meeting a young woman in her late twenties, a librarian, every fortnight or so they'd meet at a hotel, he would remove his wallet and keep it in a drawer before he got into bed. Next morning, while slipping into his pocket the wallet that held the pictures of his wife and sons, he would feel remorse to its minutest degree. He would wash it down with a drink of whiskey, and that would be that. Today morning he had no time for a drink, the call to his mobile had come in at 4:15 am, his wife had gone into labor.

At the hospital he met the maid who had rushed the madam to hospital in a taxi, she had left the boys at the neigbours. He thanked her sincierly, and said he could take it from here on, she could go. Back in the waiting room the doctors gave him forms to fill and he got on with it. The doctors said all is well for now, and that they'd let him know when there is news. After a hour he got up to get some coffee, that when he noticed the nervous looking young man sitting behind him. The chap reminded him of himself, some 8 years ago, when Samir - his first son, was on his way.

"First time?" He called out.

The young man looked up, and then shook his head in affirmation.

"Come on, lets get some coffee and grab a bite of something" said Kabir, waving him towards the food counter at the end of the hall. The young man looked hesitant, as if it was sacrilage to think of eating while his wife was inside trying to push a whole baby out of her. "Come on, you would need the caffine and energy to last the night" said Kabir. This got through, and the man walked up to join Kabir.

"Kabir" he said and held out his hand.

The young man shook his hand, "Mehboob Khan" he said, his grip was suprisingly firm.

They got coffee and some spinach sandwiches and walked back towards the waiting room.

It was Mehboob who spoke now "I am guessing this is not your first time"

"No, I have two sons, eight and six"

"Ah... My first, as i said, and right now I dont know how to feel" Mehboob was still a bit nervous, and he held the coffee cup with both hands, as if the heat would drive way his shiver.

"It gets easier" lied Kabir, "You wouldn't know where the time went and before you know it, you would be here again"

Mehboob laughed and shook his head "My God, I am behaving like a child, of course! of course!"

"So what do you do?" asked Kabir.

"I am in the Police" said Mehboob, Kabir detected a hint of pride.

"Good, so is it Inspector Mehboob Khan?"

"No, SI" he said, "but I will get there soon, God knows I would need the money, what do you do?"

"Movies, production side of things, we are what they call executive producers"

"Oh, so you get to meet these movie stars and go to those happening parties and all right?". Talk about movies always brightened up the person Kabir was conversing with, they imagine the glitz and the glamour and they think of him as grander than he held himself deserving for.

"Yeah, I do" said Kabir, was that guilt coming on again?

"You worked on anything I might have seen?"

"Hmmm.. have you seen 'Masjid Mandir'?"

"Wow, you worked on that? I mean that was a great movie, controversial, but great"

"Thanks" said Kabir, never give them the name of the movies that bombed, "your work must be interesting as well, and more important i must say"

"I dont know how much good we do" said Mehboob looking down "I mean no matter how much you do, there is always something worse waiting, but I love this job, and mixing with low life and doing some despicable things, it all comes with the territory, but now I am scared you know, for my wife and ...and the baby... I just want to do good by them"

Kabir was looking into his cup "Look, I get it, its a bad world, and you have to do what you have to do, there is no use letting these things get to you"

"I guess" said Mehboob, crushing his empty cup, "We get our hands dirty at work, but we must wash them before we hug the kids" - that's what the Inspector told me on the first day.

"He is right" said Kabir, he had never been an honest husband, but he had been a good father and a good provider. The minor 'detours' - as he liked to refer to them, that he took occasionaly, were just that, minor. There could be no harm as long as things remained discreet. His wife and kids were taken care of, she got all that she wanted, she loved him, he loved her, the kids were great, and they were about to move into the new house. Whats more, Mira had just gotten pregnant in the begenning of this year, they both wanted a girl this time, two boys were more than a handful. Things were good, things were fine - he told himself.

A long period of silence ensued, Kabir flipped a magazine and Mehboon pretended to read a newspaper.

After some time, Mehboob stood up and looked at the corridor that led to the maternity ward "I hope things are alright, I mean they haven't given us any news as of yet" he said.

Kabir was happy to change the subject, he leaned back, crossed his legs and said "It takes time sometimes, there is nothing we can do, sit down"

Mehboob spotted a nurse and called out "Nurse! is there any news yet, Mrs Khan, Maternity ward"

"Any time now sir, we will let you know" with that she dissapeared into the corridor. Mehboob sank back into the chair.

"You know" said Kabir after some thought, "It helps you grow up, the prospect of becoming a Father" Was is that guilt again? "It does ", he said again, mustering fake conviction, some men have found it possible.

This sent them into silence again, there was nothing more to be said here.

The Nurse was back with a beam on her face "Mr Khan, congratulations, you are the father of a healthy boy, and your wife is doing well"

Mehboob was on his feet, "Thank You! Thank You!" he said to the nurse, he was standing palms clasped, waiting for someone to tell him what to do.

"Go on" said Kabir, temporarily getting carried away with the joy of a stranger. "Go be with you wife and son"

"I know" he said, laughed, wiped his tears, looked up at the cieling and then he looked and Kabir, "You know what, you are right, somehow my work has meaning now, I mean I can never clean this world, up, but I must try, for my child I must try,...don't you think so?...Look I don't know you that well, but I am telling you now, I am gonna be good, I going to make this work?" The optimism made Kabir shudder, the conviction unsettled him, it had been quite sometime since he had made promises like these. Samir's birth had sent him into a brief period of chastity. He shrugged it off.

"You are alright man, you'll be a good father" he said patting Mehboob's back. "Just remember to wash your hands". Mehboob laughed and ran into the corridor.

After half an hour Kabir learnt that his daughter had been born healthy, mother and child were fine. He walked into the room and kissed his wife on the forehead.

He lifted his daughter into his arms, she was small.... too small for this world.

-------

Inspiration : Mad Men

2011-04-19T22:53:00.000+06:30

HIS OWN MAN

The year Jehangir's first book was published, his father was awarded the National Book Award. The shadow was too large to escape and he feared that he would never stop being his father's son. He had picked up writing in spite of his father's towering image in the field. His love for the written word was cultivated away from his father's critical gaze, under the dim light of a lamp, where he devoured all the books that he could lay his hands on. While his father busied himself pouring nights without end into one master piece after another, Jehangir was lost in the world of other's imagination. With his father burried in a room filled with cigarette smoke and the sounds of a typewriter, and his mother dead for years, Jehangir searched for friends in books fat and thin. He was full of ideas and opinions about anything he read. He spent long nights on the internet reading about anything under the sun. He spent considerable time reading about literature is specific. He took up English Literature in college and interned for a while with a literary agency where he spent his days going through the slush pile. When he finished his masters in Literature, he took up teaching in a school.

His first story was published in an online magazine, it was about an online writer who makes it big, and it got a lot of hits. When he began writing, he could hardly stop himself. He produced short stories by the ton and they began appearing in all sorts of online journals. He started a blog and kept putting up small pieces on it. The blog grew in fame and he made some money for himself through ads.

"What is the meaning of what you are doing?" His father asked as he dug into his breakfast.

"What?" asked Jehangir, he had just then been thinking about a scene.

"This thing you are doing on the internet, why would you put up something that has no class? I mean there is such a thing as self censorship" said his father.

The rest of the breakfast went over quietly. That is when Jehangir began taking writing seriously. He wanted to show his old man wrong so badly that he decided to stop writing little pieces and begin work on a book.

He spent the next six months in seclusion, and when his first draft was completed he did not know what to do. He had no one to whom he could show his work. So steeling himself he approached his father, after all, like all his father's books his first was a political novel as well. His father took the manuscript and put it away. When Jehangir asked him for what he thought later, his father responded with "Its been done before"

It so happened that a publisher of not much note, decided to give it a moderate run. The book did not make much of a splash, and in the days to come Jehangir kept an eye out in the papers for reviews. Most reviews were bad, but there was in parrticular one which tore his book to tatters - written by Dhruv Narang. Jehangir went online to look up the reviewer and found that the only presence this man had was a blog where he wrote short book reviews. In the archives he found one review of his father's latest book. It was a glorious review, a four and a half stars out of five, it was tribute to its hilt.

After a few drinks he read the review again - "...Jehangir Salam writes under his father's shadow, he tries hard to write like him and fails miserably...Akbar Salam might want to give his son a piece of advice....as for me, I would say....'Son, stop writing!"

It took two years for Jehangir to begin writing again, he moved out and rented a smaller place for himself.

"What is it? insecurity?" his father asked as he lit up another smoke.

"No, i am just tired of second hand smoke" he said and continued packing

This time he wrote a smaller book and chose a subject as far removed from the themes his father wrote about. It was about two friends who get lost on a hunting trip. It was a tense piece layered with hard hitting human drama and emotion. The publishers liked this one better, and the book had a decent run off the shelves. The reviews were kinder this time. Dhruv Narang reviewed it two weeks after its release.

"...The emotions are solid, but Jehangir Salam finds himself guilty of telling and not showing... The tale loses steam midway untill we are woken by an ending that if not lame, is certainly predictable....One gets the impression that the character's are puppets and Jehangir is the puppet master, he refuses to give them life and voice..."

One year later his father's tenth novel hit the scene, it was a tome of absolute greatness, it broke records and garnered praise from all quarters. Dhruv Narag called it a 'Milestone in English Literature', he also claimed that it was time to add the 'Sir' in front of Akbar Salam's name.

Jehangir spent the next few months reading all the other books that Dhruv had reviewed and had to bite his tongue agree with each on of them. The only place where they differed was the review of his own books. Regardless he took into consideration the points in the review and worked on his third book with more care. This time it took him close to a year to complete the first draft. The publishers loved it even more, and the book hit the stands in eight months flat. It was a hit, and he would also manage a minor award for it later in the year. The reviews were kind and he waited with anticipation for Dhruv to write again.

"One thing has to be admitted, Jehangir Salam is a good student of the art, he learns from his mistakes. Unfortunately though, he keeps making new ones. His story about a cop on the trail of a serial killer who kills homeless beggers in the night, has its moments. Where the book falls a little flat is in the authenticity department. The police investigations look a little botched up. One word of advice to Mr. Jehangir Salam - 'Research'....". Jehangir took note of it, and realized that Dhruv Narang was slowly becoming his guide. He got in touch with the editor of the news paper that publishes Dhruv's reviews and was told that they had first read Dhruv's reviews on his own blog and had contacted him through the blog. From then on all the correspondence had been online, payment were made to an account number. Jehangir asked to pass on his message to Dhruv asking if they could meet. He got a response that said 'Thank you, but I would have to decline'.

In the next six years, Jehangir and his father Akbar added two books each to the shelves of book stores. Akbar Salam went on to win the Man Booker Prize for fiction with his 12th book "The Army From Hell" - it was fiery book about the peace keeping force that was sent to Sri Lanka, told through the eyes of a thirteen year old Tamil boy. Jehangir first was an attempt at philosophical science fiction called 'A booming voice from the Sky' - set in 2092 India, centered around contact with an alien species and its implications for the human race. The book was met with confusion, and Dhruv called it 'A book that does not know what it is'...."Jehangir gets most of the science right, but his philosophy is garden variety". Jehangir took note not to write about anything that he was not conversant with. His next book - 'Z' told the story of a writer in trouble because he has hit the end of his reserve and can write no more. Dhruv wrote "Jehangir Salam strikes too close to home, so much so that he shoots his toes off..... the writer in his book resembles Jehangir a lot, which is not bad, but the reader is not drawn towards him. It was intended to be an intimate tale, but it ends up being an anecdote"

Jehangir's last two books had raked in enough money for him to quit the day job, and concentrate full time on writing. His next book was a home run. It took three years from conception to publishing. 'School Road' set in a normal city school told the story of four friends who overcome problems at home by having fun at school. Jehangir had poured his heart and soul in to the book. His experience as a teacher came in handy and as a result his characters were more real than ever. The reviews were rave, and suddenly they were looking at him as a writer who had finally stepped out of the shadow. Dhruv Narang was wrote his most tender for Jehangir yet - "I must admit that it brought a tear to my eyes. The principal characters were alive and you could touch and feel them......the only flaw was the wooden rendering of the parents, the brief period in which we see them we do not get time to understand their motives, which is disheartening for such a good book. I hope Mr. Jehangir continues to get better". After reading the review, Jehangir tried again to get in touch with Dhruv Narang, by leaving a message with the Editor of the newspaper. This time he recieved a response 'Nice work, but I am sorry to decline again'. Jehangir was too caught up in success to let this affect him. For the first time he went on a book tour, bollywood gave him a ton of money to adapt the book to film.

His next book was a sequel to School Road that sank like a rock. The book sold decently, but the reviews killed it. Meanwhile Akbar Salam came out with his much anticipated 'Neighbors Eating Neighbors' it had taken him four years to write, a gut wrenching tale of loyalty and betrayal set in the partition era. The book attracted controversy from the word go. The reviews were all tributes and ran like advertisements. Dhruv wrote a review of both books on the same day. He could not have been more cruel to Jehangir, "Jehangir sticks to his comfort zone and almost chokes himself on the comfort" Wrote Dhruv. "....Father eating Son." ended his review.

Jehangir went back to the drawing board, you are as good as your last book, he told himself. The story came out of the newspaper. He read the story of an honor killing in a village. He packed his bags and moved to the village. He stayed there for the next two years piecing together the details that would make up his next book. He spent another year in the city re-writing a third and fourth draft. 'Love and Honor' hit the stands in August and within weeks was picked up by international publishers. It flew to book fairs around the world and Jehangir flew with it. He made it to he Man Booker Long List and all of a sudden Jehangir Salam had arrived as a writer worth watching. He was in New York when he went online to check what Dhruv had written "Magnificently potrayed, the economy of words strikes the right balance, as Jehangir fills page after page with images that bring to life a world that we see only fleetingly in the evening news.....He is now an author of authority and with a works like these he can expect to be his father's equal"

Back in India, he shot another message off through the newspaper. This time the response was 'Only when you become your father's equal'. The year following that, Jehangir began writing 'Minor Murder' it was a story about a eleven year old boy who killed his parents and gave the police a run for their money while they tried to nab him. jehangir picked up the case again from newspapers and followed it like a blood hound for two years. He hit the stands running, the book was was another home run. Dhruv wrote "...exceedingly bold and immensely beautiful..." This time with not many strong contenders, the booker was his to lose.

His father called him up to congratulate, "Never thought you had it in you" said Akbar

"I am sure you did" retorted Jehangir.

The rocky conversation lasted no more than two minutes. Jehangir's had always liked the way his father wrote, but he had grown out of respect for him as a father. The insatiable fire in his belly to be better than his father knew no bounds. It had taken him years and now he was his own man. The only person whom he had any respect for was a faceless man.

Jehangir asked to meet Dhruv again, this time the message was 'Monday, 6pm, Maria's Inn' it was his favorite place as a kid. Jehangir was there on time. He waited for over a hour for Dhruv to arrive. He walked out and stood staring at the traffic for a while. Then, the most curious thing happened. Because he walked back in, approached the man behind the register and asked "Dhruv, to see Mr. Jehangir Salam".

2010-12-22T13:45:00.002+06:30

MONSTERS

The kid screams now, in panic, in desperation, in an attempt at amplifying his communication. He hasn't started speaking yet, but he can stand up on two feet, he falls back to the ground without taking a step, landing his year old bottom on the soft living room carpet. He can crawl alright, and he was doing just that, crawling across the living room pushing his toy car on the floor, and stopping once in a while to look at the TV that was throwing colorful images.

But he screams now, in response to their screams. An hour back he was sitting with them in the lawn and trying his best to walk, but he had landed on the grass. Now they were screaming at each other, and she throws a shoe in his direction, and he dodges and makes a face like a monster. The kid doesn't know what to do, he screams back at them, kicks his legs in the air, and then suddenly he stops and looks at the TV Screen.

She makes faces as well, angry morbid raging faces, and she throws papers at him. He removes a bottle from the cabinet, pours himself a drink and swallows it whole, he shuts his eyes and makes a face like he has been fed thorns. Then he opens his eyes and they are as red as hell. The kid is scared now, and he stops crawling, he has a toy in his hand that he beats on the carpet and begins to cry and scream.

They both look at him now, but they are still screaming, and while they do that they point fingers in his direction. She starts crying now and she throws her hands in the air as she shouts on top of her voice. He sits on the couch and wears his shoe, its always a sign. She is holding her head and weeping like someone had died. He gets up, looks at the kid, the kids stops everything and looks back at him. Then he turns away, heads out and slams the door shut behind him.

She carries the kid into the bedroom and puts him on the floor beside the bed. She spreads his toys around him and then sits on the bed and just watches him. He removes the toy superheroes, holds them in his hands and teaches them how to fly. She turns away and begins weeping again, then she falls asleep.

The kid had not screamed in a while now, not since they had quit throwing things at each other and slapping each other and shouting on top of their voices. Tomorow they would quietly begin the process of cutting him up into two pieces. The kid stands up all of a sudden and takes a couple of steps to the bed, mumbles something that nobody hears, he is outside and she is asleep.

2010-12-22T13:44:00.000+06:30

TO THE MADNESS

I entered the bar and spotted him sitting alone at a table on the far right hand corner. I walked up to the table and took the chair opposite him. He did not look up, he was staring straight into the glass he was holding, waiting for god knows what to happen.

"Hi" I said. He looked up and there was a faint glint of recognition. A difficult smile appeared on his face. "Hi" he echoed back, without much conviction.

"I thought I might find you here" I said "Your wife has been going shit crazy all evening"

"I know" he says without looking up, "Crazy Bitch"

"Look, lets finish this drink and I will drive you home" I tell him. I turn around to the bartender and order a beer for myself.

"You finish your drink and you go home" he says.

My Beer arrives. He notices this, lifts up his glass and toasts "To the madness!!" he declares and downs the whole glass. He has been drinking dark rum and Coke. I dont know how much. He motions for the bartender to get him another drink, I try to call it off, he would'nt have it. "My sanity is not for sale" he reasons.

There is silence, as he focuses on his next drink. Meanwhile I signal to the bartender asking how many my friend here has had. He shows me six fingers. Shit, I mutter under my breath.

"Scumbags all of them, each one each other's whore, like a bloody roman romp in the cathedral, no love, nothing" he says. He speaks slowly, trying hard not to slur. He stops because he can sense his voice breaking.

"What happened?" I ask him, i try to be sinciere. We haven't seen each other in a couple of months. I had been out on business. And I had'nt had a drink with him in a year now. Over the year we may have met a couple of time at his place. Once on his anniversary and once on his son's seveth birthday. I have no idea what has been happening in his life in the last two years.

"Have you seen a new mall in our neighborhood? Have you seen that piece of shit?" Now he looks up and meets my eye. I feel slightly guilty that I havent seen it. I had moved away from neighborhood where we spent out childhood, I live close to the business corridor now.

"No I havent" I admit.

"Its a savage piece of concrete, that is what it is, like a blob from some meteor, remember that Bruce Wills movie with the meteor? its like that, ugly piece of rock! we had gone there the other day, my son wanted to learn how to fly a dragon, and so we went to that multiplex, there was a young couple there, they were laughing and teasing each other and having so much fun, he was holding the popcorn bucket and she kept picking up popcorn and tossing them into her mouth, and the guy, he had eyes only for her. It was beautiful, so beautiful." He says this last line shaking his head in bewilderment, like he had seen some angel.

"Thats nice, you went out with your family then" I tell him, still unsure if what he was making sense, or if i was making sense.

"You can always smell it you know, the stench of it is unbearable, its like a dead rat in your cupboard, every morning you wake up and look out of the window, and somebody is begging on the streets, the train is rumbling through the station, the church bells are ringing, the garbage is being burnt, and you stand there, taking this all in with those morning eyes. What do you expect? What can you do?" Gulp Gulp, glass is empty, and he calls for another. I am begenning to feel uneasy. "Nothing, Zero, Zilch, its like you are doomed to die the moment the condom burst, its that predictable. Have you thought about it? I am telling you now, this is going to start smelling really really bad, very very soon, the gods are farting"

"I think you have had enough, I think this should be your last" I tell him, but let me be honest, he was begenning to get to me, although I cant say I was getting anything he said.

"I have had enough, that right, we have all had enough, remember we used to play cricket in that huge ground? that one beside the lake? rememeber any of those days? or are you too big for that, I had fucking held your hands and thought you how to play, your elder brother wouldnt let you near the pitch, and I gave you a bat and let you play"

"I remember" I tell him, that had been the first time I met him actually, he was my brother's classmate, and soon he became my godbrother, and before you knew it we were friends.

"I remember, and if you dont, let me remind you that I introduced you to Uma on that very ground" I tell him, my second beer was opening up my tongue. Uma had been new to school, she had come over because her father had joined my father's company. While the parents spoke, me and Uma went to the ground and thats when I introduced Uma to my older friend.

He nods recollection, "Crazy bitch, could never stop loving me" As i knew, neither could he, but I wasnt going to bring it up. "what can I say, we are all each others angels and demons, and she was my angel and I was her demon, we are that fucking perfect for each other" he says, I wonder if he has picked this line from somewhere, but it doesnt matter.

"She worries about you, you know?" I tell him seriously

"I am sure you messaged her that I am fine, that is why phone is'nt going off like crazy" he says. He takes another sip.

"So why the drinking session? You have a fight?"

"We been having fights for the last 10 year now"

"So whats the problem now?"

"You met your wife at my wedding you know" he says. Its true, our lives have been inter-twined like that without being obviously so.

He downs the whole glass, and begins retching immediately. Its over, I pay the bill and take him to the car. Outside his wife is wating, it 12 am and she is waiting at the gate. Some marraiges are meant to last a long long time. We make him sit on the chair in the verandah.

After promising to come by soon with my wife and daughter, I take my leave.

"No bloody use of coming by, your kids and my kids are not gonna be playing in the ground like we thought, fat chance! Goodbye my friend, its the end" . His wife asks me not to worry.

One my way back I notice the Mall they have built on our ground. He was right, it was one ugly rock.

2010-12-22T13:43:00.002+06:30

AN EMPTY HALL

There is such a thing as the sudden loss of will, the sharp dip in the graph, and you can reach out and touch the point of change with the tip of a needle, it is that precise. It marks the end of despair and it represents the tossing of hope into the the river deep. There is such absolute liberation to be had from such a circumstance and it is a shame really that one does not see it untill one is there. Ever seen a bum on the road? Unbathed, Uncared for and most enviably unnoticed? That is a gift if ever there was one, let it be known now, that there is only misery in the seeking of what you seek, the journey and the destination both wrought with a hundred desires and emotions that choke the sesnse of being out of existance. These aspirations that have led us to conquer shores and fly across the skies, these are the undoers of purposelessness; that sweet state of being that we lost to civilization. Now we chase dreams and look for frontiers to cross; such foolhardiness.

The most tiresome of it all, the prospect of finding someone to share your life with, in all its selfishness, such abject abyss of the human falacy. This is no pontification from a pedestal, but a mere recording of disillusionment. The waking up of a mind, and it took death to make that happen. Like the mortals that we all are, I spent my life chasing mirages and hanging onto that crutch they call hope. I lived, loved, laughed and when it came time for the moon to shine alone in the night sky I too like the seekers of a destiny have curled up in a sweaty bed and wept to childish heart's content. I won, i lost, I gave and I recieved, and then suddenly it was over.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the earth, as blue as it had always been, right from the time it came into existence, when it used to celebrate virginity as one of its virtues amongst others such as beauty. Now, though tarnished by life and deprived of its celibacy, it continued to define beauty in its being. I loved this piece of rock that I watched whilst i floated in timeless space. The blue expanse filled my vision, it felt as if i could reach out with both my hands and hug that huge blue balloon in a manner not unlike a child displaying affection for its newest toy. I squinted hard to check if i could spot my home, but then again on that rock that is but a spec in space, it remains a spec itself, like i am in this sea of time, a trifle heartbeat.

On the top right corner of my vision; where the blue curved into the depths of an invisible side making room for a sectoral view of the dark spaces beyond, i saw the birth of a cyclone. The white foam-like substance looked less a substance and more a being, for it seemed to be governed by its own moods, moods that caused it to swell and shrink in an unpredictable fashion. The relatively thinner edges of the spiral giant curled themselves up and grew into thicker, denser regions at the center, forming something like an eye. The anger in the eye looked all the more ominous as it flashed time and again spewing out lightening which danced to the beat of a thunder (perhaps, there is no sound here, but a trained mind is subject to imagination, and so I fill in the blanks) that seemed to sound the arrival of the giant itself.

Somewhere below that huge cloudy expanse, in the vision of that unmerciful eye, some lives were being uprooted; they would have to be relived, and some others were being ended altogether without so much a cursory announcement to the effect. From where I floated, the act ran on uninterrupted as if in mute. The spaces beyond the earth's atmosphere were calm and cool. Order or chaos or whatever maybe the ruling party, continued to reign. The destruction of life and its rebirth seemed inconsequential to the whole process. Life was not the process- I thought. It was more a harmless by-product. The thunderous celebration of death by the giant cyclone was being ignored too, its lightning smiles relegated to the background by other more glorious fireworks; the masters of our destiny were, it seemed, equally unimportant. For all our chest-beating about being a glorious civilization, having the benefit to exist at 'this' spot in space and during 'this' interval in time, of having been blessed with the most immaculate of tilts of the earth's axis, of having been granted the absolutely perfect proportion of Nitrogen and Oxygen in the atmosphere and on and on, we were, it seemed, after all a bunch of circus buffoons without an audience.

The philosophical ponderings of generation after generation of thinkers had sometimes in written and sometimes aloud, voiced this very idea, but I had been granted its conclusive evidence. I had been given the key to all scientific and mathematical dilemmas. The answer had been delivered to me in the silence amidst which i floated and the answer was the silence itself. The non-vocal manner in which the rest of the universe reacted to our little spec was indeed speaking of a monumental concept. A concept of our utter irrelevancy. Finally! as a small time writer in search of the 'big' idea that would spark his career, I had found my magic concept. It was just a tad too sad though, that it arrived moments after my untimely demise from the planet that I now watch in mute sorrow.

Floating there in space, reduced to humble rubble by the magnificent performance around me, I had the desire to rush back into earth and hide beneath a boulder somewhere in Africa; to hide from the image of me that I had discovered. A shadow so acutely small as a consequence of the colossal flame that burned behind me, that it existed in the regions of invisibility. I wanted to be gone. I wished for this knowledge to be taken back from me. An ignorant life of a mere ant would do, to walk the sands in heat and climb the trees in rain, to work tirelessly and to rest peacefully, to not ponder nor question, to be and yet to be not. To not be curious seemed like a boon then. 'What if i could look at the skies and not wonder?' I thought. What if man never thought of beyond his little abode? Never harbored a dream to fly among stars? That would have been the most beautiful thing.

But alas I am dead, and you are alive, and while such is the case you will continue to chase a future, and the past would continue to chase you, life will give you up, and death will own you.

2010-12-22T13:43:00.001+06:30

DROWNING

I kept looking at her from far, she was on the opposite side of the main road, may be twenty thirty feet ahead of me, facing in a direction of about sixty degrees to the line that joined her to the point I was standing on. There is a reason why I was standing still, although I needed to be somewhere soon, I was standing because my ability to move was suddenly gone, I was standing still because there I was after three years of mourning the death of my wife seeing her in front of my eyes, in flesh and blood. With a start I jolted back to life and decided to cross the road, the dust and smoke was heavy, but my eyes would not be fooled, I dint leave sight of her, not even while I crossed the road. What mockery! What absolute mockery of the trust that I once had for her. She must have made it look like a drowning, no wonder her body wasn’t found. I knew she had run away with that bastard, my best friend. They said he dived in to save her, they found his jacket a few miles downstream. I was about fifteen feet away when I saw the bastard walk up and join her. My blood boiled and suddenly the two of them turned and looked straight at me, the anger in my eyes could have burnt holes in their bodies. When I got near them they somehow seemed at ease, and the bastard said “I am sorry I wasn’t able to save her”. I turned to look across the street, there was some kind of commotion.

2010-12-22T13:41:00.000+06:30

ILLUSION

This does not happen daily, in fact it had never happened before, this cold wind freezing rain drops in mid air, causing ice bullets to shatter windshields, turnig the blessing of gods into a curse. My new maroon umbrella was ruined in seconds, and my twenty six year old scalp came under puncture wounds. Instinctively i covered my head with my hands and began running. By the time I made it to the nearest shelter my knuckles were bleeding into the sleves of my fine blue suit.

I settled down on the stairs of an abandoned building and attended to my wounds. My bruised scalp hurt, but the wounds were just scratches and the bleeding had stopped. I shifted my attention to my hands now, I used my white handkerchief and my black tie to clean up the blood. The cacophony of ice pellets playing monkey with tin drums and asbestos sheets hadnt ceased yet. The streets had been abandoned and the traffic signals were talking to each other wordlessly. The dogs in the street had taken to barking at whoever was throwing cold stones at them. The day came over me and with my head on my knees I slept.

I dreamt of a sandy beach and a silky moon in the night sky. There was a touch of cloud sprinkled around the stars, and there was a hint of jasmine in the air. The shoreline curved back and forth and the waves stretched and leaped for the sand. I saw the edifice rise out of the water and the water made splashing shapes as it rose and ebbed around it. I felt outside my body and I saw myself bend low kiss the solid mass with reverence. Again there was a shooting star and when looked back at the scene there were a million heads bowed to the great edifice that ruled the ocean. Not a sound, i watched all this as if the volume had been unplugged, and a bitter bitter emotion swelled in me and I was hating the people in my dream.

Must have been an hour in which the eardrums had grown used to the smashing and crashing that when it stopped, all of a sudden, there was this earth shattering silence that shook me awake. The dogs had vanished, their barks sucked out of their throats and pumped into some wormhole far away. The ice on the ground, on the roofs and everywhere had melted into water, such were the temperatures harboring the city. There remained no evidence of a cold wind that shattered windshields. Only carnage remained, and a faint echo of a tin ring.

I then started walking slowly, careful not to step on broken pieces of glass or slip on a patch of water. My heartbeat was getting back to normal, and i could actually hear the sound of hot blood being pumped. The warmth inside me made me feel alive again, and cold wind it seemed had departed. Against the logic of reasoning I began to feel claustrophobic in my suit and as I walked in the middle of an empty road that was being presided over by a cloudy night, I stripped to my skin and began running the streets aimlessly.

2010-07-17T21:55:00.000+06:30

SURRENDER

He had set his past on fire, like a pyre of a pariah it had burnt all night long, breathing smoke into the lonely night. He had thrown away his possessions, discarding objects of love and his love for objects both into the piled up garbage outside his house. He had removed himself from all her memories but failed to remove her from his, tried and failed. The scent of alcohol in his breath had sent her away once and for all, but the alcohol in his blood refused to let her go. His heart a cinder of charred remains, his mind a deserted temple in ruins – he ran. He had run away from hope, away from the mirage of it, away from the sunrise that kept a sunset in waiting. He found a friend in a bottle and stuck by him loyally. He surrendered to the idea of surrender, he let go and gave in. A week is a long time and a year had many of them, each one went by like a year and each of them was a dream. Sometimes the bump on a pavement would wake him up; sometimes it would be the afternoon sun. The rest of his time went by in dreams of a life past; a series of images turned to ashes. He did not remember much of it, and he cared less for it. His days spent in a bar drinking, his nights spent in a room drinking. He found less and less time to fuck, and he was getting pretty bad at it. The scent of anything good was anathema, the breeze in his hair was anathema, and the breath in his lungs was anathema. Mind caged in a box for fear of facing the memories; he sat stubbornly stitched to a bottle. Muscles moved to reach for the liquor, feet moved towards the refrigerator, and eyes met the sparkling liquid falling haltingly. He had ears for clinking of ice cubes in a glass, he had taste buds to feel the burn of whiskey on his tongue, and he had time to give in to a crazy fever that left him shivering all night long. Thus began the life of a drunkard, and thus they say it ended.

2010-07-17T21:54:00.002+06:30

BAU

Welcome.

Ideas are not allowed here, they filter them at the gates, turn you upside down and shake you till they drop like small change, coins from another age.

What brings us here? It is a random flutter in the hearts; it comes and goes as it pleases. The moonlight is silver, the sunlight is golden, the rivers full and bending on slender hiplines. And then there are the dark clouds, the lonely starless nights, the cigarette smoke in the air and the stench of dead dreams. Beginning with slow, jittery advances, or may be you were the slow kind and saw it coming only after it did, but your place is there all the same, amidst the fools we all are.

There is a heavy air where we live, it settles at knee level, you have to bend down and crawl on all fours to be able to breathe in it. There are invisible lighthouses and we keep bumping into them, ramming our heads into colorless concrete, and again and again, till blood and senses depart, in such pitiable quarters we are quarantined, in such agony we exist.

Our days have a way of not arriving, our nights know how to stifle, you are allowed one thought a day and it is the same one everyday. In other people’s memories we try and make room for rent, we live there unremembered, as memory discarded, there but un-fetchable. Learn to hope but, that is my only advice, learn to hope, learn to make that hope your one thought and learn to think it in earnest.

In here there are thieves who might rob you of the sanity you come with, they scheme and they plot, in your dreams you are likely to face them, you can recognize them by the colors they wear, blue and green. All around you, like in the sea, like in the trees, they lie in wait and when you pass they dive into your dreams deep, very deep, where you have buried yourself. And there, in the deep of your being they trick you into submission and rob you of your sanity, but hope? hope is insane, un-robable. So learn to hope, that is my only advice, learn to hope.

Sometimes it happens that one us would find that metaphor he has been looking for, he would climb aboard and on borrowed meaning make his way out, we would crawl to the gates and sing in joy like idiots. Let me tell you, it is terrible on those days, seeing someone fly away; it grinds your spirit and sends it down your spine, to sulk and fade away. I have been there done that, from the flutter to the gutter. But don’t let that hot air in your lungs fizzle, take it and pump it down your soul, and count your fingers to make sure they are all there, and them fold them into a fist and on you go scrapping your knuckles on the ground, never mind the stones or the rain or the heat, crawl.

Eyes have a special power, no one would acknowledge it, but it is true, eyes can kill you if you look into them too long, so don’t do that, don’t look into eyes, not even your own in the mirror. Look at the ground, littered with the rain-wet leaves from the windless trees, it is just as well that we have to crawl, nothing here to see but the bland litter. Make that mistake of looking up and meeting eyes, and you are doomed, to be lost in those shiny glittering spirals of deep black.

You are allowed to grow fat, bulge with sloth and feel like you are rising like a balloon, but not really, you are only crawling mind you, and the knuckles scrape harder with weight. Sometimes a fat one grows tired and goes plop over his back, arms and legs hanging in the air, and in that frog like state it dawns, the sky is still overhead and the wings of Icarus melted, the molten wax burning his flesh, the scent of the wax and burning flesh producing a phenyl odor that stings the senses. Unbearable the agony of it, but passersby crawl on, they see but a wisp of smoke, the stench is uninhabitable and they cover their noses and move on.

So that is my lesson for you, stay here till the meaning comes to fetch you, stay here till the vultures come for feed, stay here till you have forgotten how to walk upright and have lost use for that spine of yours, stay here till the senses forsake you and the only thought is hope, after that? After that you await your flight. These will be your days here, how many? I don’t know, hell, I have been here far too long, and my moon clouded forever, and I can hardly remember that day when the river disappeared into a magical cleavage. I have forgotten that day, and that day has forgotten me, but I have a hope, I believe I do.

Again, welcome.

2010-07-17T21:54:00.001+06:30

TWO DECADES

He,
I saw her for the first time when I was fourteen, she was beautiful, back then that was the only word I knew that described her, and heaven knows I loved her. For a second our eyes met, or so I thought and then she looked away. There was a sense of edginess about the way I felt. It hadn’t happened before; it was both nice and frightening. The next day, with a flower in my hand I had run to catch up with her, she stopped when she saw me, I gave her the flower, and she took it and left. No smile, no thank you, no sign nor gesture, just the bob of her open hair to the tune of her pace as she walked away. Two weeks after I first saw her, I heard that she was new to the locality and would be joining our school. That summer was perfect, I would walk by her street and stop under her building, and she would come out on the balcony and bless me with a glance. After a week of giving and receiving glances I decided enough was enough, I waited near the grocery store down her street; it was an hour before she came out for an evening walk. She stopped on seeing me, “No flower?” she asked. “No” I said “I did not think of it”. “You should have” she said and walked off. “I’ll get you a flower tomorrow” I called out, she kept walking away. I stayed back, it would not have been nice to talk to her too much, not near her home and not while people were looking. Next day when I reached her building I learnt that they had left in the morning, after a telegram had arrived late last night. Some close relative had passed away. When she did not turn up in school the following month I did a little digging and found out that her family had permanently relocated. The dead relative had passed on a fortune and the fortune needed babysitting. A sickness enveloped me and settled like gloom around me after her departure. In time, there is magic.

She,
My heart skipped a beat, it had been two decades but I could swear it was him. He was older now, with a family, a wife and a boy. Just as handsome as he was back then, I stood there in the corner and watched as the kid climbed up on him while he and his wife walked up to the shore. The sun was setting and the beach was wonderful. I had come here two years ago with my husband and I had thought that this visit would be the perfect way to get over the fact that I had become a young widow. For a year I had been miserable, but then time helped, friends and family helped. I decided to move on, and decided to take a vacation to pay my love a finale farewell. So here I was at the beach and here he was, like a ghost from the past. How I had pinned for him after we had left. I saw him moving away from his family and walking towards an ice-cream stand. Slowly, without my knowledge my feet began moving, in a direction that would ultimately meet his path at the ice-cream stand. He looked at me when I placed my order, for a second I thought he recognized me, but he just gave a polite smile and a nod. He collected his order and began walking away. I desperately wanted to do something, but in the moment I could think nothing and I kept looking at him walking away. Then he stopped, turned around and looked in my direction. I did not look away, I did not even blink. I could see the look of recognition in his face, and then he turned and continued to walk towards his family.

2010-07-17T21:50:00.001+06:30

RUNNING AWAY

Jogi walked into the tall grass, his hawai slippers making dull splashes in the mucky, stagnant rain water. With his left hand he had his loongi hiked up to his knees and in the right hand he carried well water in an old paint bucket. He stopped where the grass brushed his shoulders, laid the bucket down, hiked his loongi further up, pulled down his striped drawers and squatted as the sun rose above the fields. From his shirt pocket he pulled out a pack of chota kings and lit one stick up. The morning’s first drag sent a blissful shiver down his spine and the laxative exhale eased his bowels into motion. As the sumptuous meal of the night before bid him farewell after having completed its chore; Jogi felt a kind of happiness that people had to squeeze out of small things. In truth, he was someone else. Across the fields was a railway track, and a goods train roared by on it, it’s shrieking shattering the durbaar of the buzzing insects. There was oil or coal or other supplies being rushed off to where it was needed urgently, it was on its way, in most cases late by an indecent margin. In this country of hurried progress, of a perennial chase of something elusive, of an impatient gallop over bodies, things were required to happen yesterday; today had arrived far too late. And yet Jogi seemed to have time; time to squat in peace among insects and snakes, time to escape the drudgery and remain cocooned in the simple act of a nature’s summons. At length he stubbed out his second chota and reached for the old paint bucket. When he was done cleaning himself he stood up and looked at the sun for the first time that day. Then he looked down at his refuse and the color of it and the stench of it made him gag. This was what was inside of him; with his slipper clad feet he kicked some of the rain wet mud to cover his shit. He picked up the empty bucket and walked back towards the tent he had pitched for himself some time ago. Civilization was far away, and Jogi had left it behind because he had grown tired of the civil pretence, of the ceaseless scramble, of the mindlessness of it all. Those things wouldn’t find him here, here in the backest and beyondest of the nomansland, here in the patch of a mucky island surrounded by tall grass on all sides, here in the heart of a time standing stubbornly still. His day was divided into parts, parts where he ventured in the nature to hunt for game, parts where he retreated to his island to feed himself and wash himself, parts where he looked up into the clearest of skies where the clouds conceded, and thought about things he had never thought about and parts where he walked for miles to find a small shop sold cigarettes – because had walked through the marshes and the blood sucking leeches stayed glued to his flesh. These were the parts that made him, he had left pieces in the past, and he was working with substitutes – utterly fallible and chasing a life as elusive as the motives behind the mad rush of the world out there. Jogi smelt the flesh of some animal as it hung from a piece of wood while he stirred the fire beneath it. In a few days, he thought, in a few days I shall head to the hills on the other side of these ghostly grasses. Some place farer from the railway line, some place farer from any other crazy beating heart. Because once you have decided to run away, then that’s the thing you do. Far away there might have been someone who maybe had missed him for a while then, but he was pretty sure the world had continued to spin, because from where he stood he could see that the sun rose and set every day.

2010-05-27T13:01:00.002+06:30

CROWS

He stood staring intently at the lone painting that adorned the white walls of the room. The intent he possessed was that of a desire to understand the meaning behind the work of art that, to him, looked so out of taste that he even doubted the sanity of the man who had hung it there, not to mention the one who had conceived it in the first place. This looking at things and wanting to understand the meaning behind them was a quality he had acquired not by virtue of education but by the chancing upon of a period of solitude at the expense of the government. Time it is said, is the greatest of teachers, and its lessons timeless. It was indeed time in a small barren cell that had taught him the value of thought, and surely it was a lesson he had learnt well. The painting on the wall had a grim emotion painted over it, it dripped with malice and seemed as though it had been part of someone's fearful nightmare. He knew what it meant, for he had been once someone's nightmare, and it had taken him 20 years to understand what that felt like. The setting was a scorched desert, empty it seemed, but no desert is empty, its tempers though invisible to unaccustomed eyes were but there, in all their infamous glory. In the foreground was a grave - just a curved shaped dune, so shaped as to convey that it were man made. Four mean looking crows, with beaks and paws were digging away at the grave. His story would be one for the critics and awards and reprints galore. His life would be a lesson less - maybe even not, but a quotable anecdote in parlors and parties for sure. His hands picked up the pen on the table, after the slightest of pauses he signed the contract. The money will help him start a new, atonement. To die would have been easy, to have endured the daily pillage of his body and soul in dark corners of the state prison, and to live with that memory - that is the only way out. For he had once pillaged too. Before he left the room, he stole one last glance at the crows. What they would find, those fearsome birds, save for the bones of a once thirsty traveler, he could fathom not.

2010-05-05T17:12:00.002+06:30

This week has been one for the books.

First was a collection of short stories by Franz Kafka

I must say that although stories like 'The Judgement' and 'Metamorphosis' did not fail to mystify me, the story that got me by the roots of my being and made me actually think was 'A Report to an Academy'. The story is told in the form of a report written by a smart monkey that has been brought up socially to the levels of an average European by the relentless efforts of the scientists, linguists etc. The report makes one wonder what it is exactly that we had to give up to achieve this status of a 'social being'. I highly recommend this one, its much better to read and meditate on this, rather than discuss.

Next was a George Orwell double decker - Animal Farm and 1984.

Animal Farm was a one sitting read, and book that condenses the story of socialist Russia in a small capsule and then forces it down the reader's throat with all the added humor, irony, cynicism and satire that Orwell can muster. 1984 is much more scarier, written in 1949 it is an unforgiving view of a 1984 that has not happened, and yet the scares are so real. The books makes one marvel at the capacity of writer who could envision an entire world that is so far way and yet in some sense so plausible. I am still haunted by a world in which the past is complete, in the sense that it is revised to the extent that it might be non-existent, and a future that is always predictable - inescapable.

Following this I managed to finish the mammoth '2666' by Roberto Bolano

A stunning display of literary prowess that leaves one short of breath every few pages, so much so that the reader is forced to read another author's work every few hundred pages to escape Bolano's sorcery. The 900 page magical ride talks of a decade long killing of 300 odd women in the Mexican city of Santa Teresa. In the first 300 odd pages the reader is lead through the lives of different people who land up in Santa Teresa and take interest in the killings. Then follows the most astonishing account of murder in the history of literature. Page after page of unflinching narration of murder scenes. The gore is absolute, and Bolano goes on and on with the style of a reporter transferring visual observations into text. Reading 2666 is both an ordeal a pleasure, both unmatched.

Today I begin Women in Love, by D H Lawrence. Will post soon about it

2010-02-01T10:31:00.003+06:30

I WANT TO WRITE

I want to write something, anything, some gibberish that can be read if not understood, that can be claimed to be authored if not comprehended, that can remain if not reign. I want to write today, like I had been able to a few years back, like I had wanted to last night, like I am trying to right now. But I cannot find words that fit ideas, I cannot find ideas that can fit into words and I cannot think thoughts without these words and I am at loss.

And I want to write unmindful of grammar, unmindful of what my English teachers would think of it, unmindful of what wren and martin would think of it. And I want to begin sentences with conjunctions and I want to end them without fullstops

I have always wanted to write, ever since I first saw a clean new slate, ever since I heard the terribly irritating scratch of chalk on a black board, ever since I laid my eyes on a sharpened pencil; virgin and smooth. I have always wanted to write, to match a bird's chirping, to match the a fish's swimming, to match a god' creation.

I want to write another universe into existence and write this one into oblivion. I want to write like a liar, with words that don't exist, and whose meanings are not known. I want to write like an author whose works will be lost in a petty raid only to be discovered millenniums later by an alien species and studied as the only remnant literature of a race long gone.

I want to write a monk's prayer, I want to write a nation's anthem, I want to write a little child's rhyme. I want to write the daily news before it happens, and I want to be able to re-write it after it happens. I want to write a scathing review of the Bible, I want to append the Quran with a disclaimer from God, and I want to include the death toll of the Mahabharata war in the Gita.

I want to write, but for now these dots should do ....

2009-10-07T11:46:00.004+06:30

I was once a sperm who undertook that monumental journey, that swim that would defy gargantuan odds, that long tedious battle that would make me who I am. My memories come back to me, they remind me of what could have been, they question the need for my existence, they ask me who I have become, and I stand mute, without answers, without shame, without remorse. It is perhaps warranted that we men should not remember too far back, for the memory of that journey is cruel, its crushing, but it is worth holding on to.

I was far back in the pack, I was shouldering the little ones, and I was being shouldered by the bigger ones, the rushing streams made it hard to look at their faces, but every now and then I caught a glimpse; a face that smiled more beautifully, a body that looked more healthy, a heart that was more giving, a mind that was cleaner, and then there were the others, the cruel eyed, the bitter spoken, the weepers, creepers and sleepers. I was somewhere there, more deserving than a few and undeserving in the light of others.

I met that man who was on the way back to life, that man who called men - sheep and wine -blood, I met him at a crossing that was wide enough for just one. In that infinitely short moment in which our eyes met we remembered the past. He had been bleeding, it had begun to drizzle a bit, he was begging for death, after what seemed like an eternity death came, and when the last breath left his lungs, its heat caused a massacre, many of my ilk died that moment. I stood there and demanded that he let me pass, he let me take the path ahead of him, always the large-hearted.

Then I met the other one; the horse riding, sword wielding poet. I reminded him of the one time when he had taken to breaking the idols in a temple. I reminded him of how I was but an insect whose home was a clay doll that had traveled many miles to be worshiped in that temple. I reminded him of how one of his less vehement strikes had crushed my back and squashed me to death. Millions had taken to praying whilst they faced the spot of my death, but I was not the forgiving type. My claim to life won over the remorse of a prophet, I was given passage.

Many more I met, fiends claiming to be saints and liars claiming to be messiahs, some yielded, some were made to, until finally I had sealed my place in this world. I had done good, I had made sure that there would be no mistakes this time. There would be no more bloodshed in the name of a god or a book or a prophet. I had made sure that tomorrow we shall not have one more god to pit the old ones against. I stand mute, without answers, without shame, without remorse.

2009-08-20T12:07:00.002+06:30

Its hard to imagine a life without patterns, its impossible in fact. If night did not follow day, If death did not follow birth, If birds did not migrate, It summer and winter did not alternate, our sense of logic would crumble and our lives would not make sense anymore. And so, man lives many lives in one, and many times he lives the same life. The iterations are not one better than the other, for that would ruin the sense of logic established by a pattern, instead the iterations are more of repetitions, they are re-enactments of the same script, or rather adaptations, one no better than the other. The protagonist does not change and so the script remains one that is in the vicinity of his comfort zone, the other characters are replicas of the previous episodes, one differently bearded friend , one differently spoken friend, all wearing different make ups to play the same part. And there you are, with the same dagger in your hand, with the same swagger in your walk, with the same enemy to slay, with the same lady to win, and with the same grave to tumble into. Each time you give the exact same commitment to your part, and pull off the same killer performance. Each time the credits roll, and each time you are left wanting for more. Bye Bye life, Hello Life.

2009-08-20T12:02:00.001+06:30

I once had a lot to say, but these days the lack of words seems more beautiful. Not too long ago a career in writing beckoned, but these days a few meaningless lines seem to bring more satisfaction. I have spent too long a time thinking about too many things, I haven't really gotten anywhere.

I have rejected so many ideas that ideas seem to reject me these days. And yet, without thoughts, without words, without inspiration or imagination, I oddly feel more at home in this intellectual lull. There is a sanctity associated with thoughtlessness that seems strangely welcoming.

One other thing, there is a huge elephant that has taken to living with me, it goes with me where ever I go, and yet I do not refer to it. In attempts to offend the old beast, I try my hand at nonchalance, but wordless disregard seems to only feed its huge ego and make it all the more adamant. This battle would take some time.

And then there is the world around, a world that is preoccupied with its own little worries, its inconsequential sorrows and its silly joys. It matters less and less and it matters more and more. Callously imagined and frivolously peopled, its emotions seem alien, and I find myself in a world I cant recognize. To me I seem to stand out, to it I am but another.

I am at loss for words again, at least for now.

2009-08-20T12:01:00.001+06:30

They hold torches for us, we climb in silent obedience
There is a reason why we have worn this blue suit
Trembling feet make their way through thorn filled bushes
There is pain to be felt before the sharing of the fruit

Falling rain has its moments of anonymity and dramatics
The horn in the distance makes for a warning welcome
And the little boy slips and lets go of the plastics
Its a steep fall and there is not time to go back to old stories

The possibility of sorrow makes me cry
Only truth is to be blamed for the fall of the lie
Give me the loose end of the string, make me sing
Take this broken heart and present it to the king

It is me going home to torches
I am walking alone now, And it is just my trembling feet
It is me in the blue suit and it fits me well
It is I who has been through pain, and it is my fruit to eat.

2009-08-20T12:00:00.002+06:30

Between today and tomorrow I am another man, I have seen yesterday and I am ready to face tomorrow. Today will be a lesson too, of small heartaches and silly hopes, it would be a small step for mankind, but a mighty leap for me.

I have always been taught to doubt people, to doubt their intentions, to question their motives, and so trust was never a core competency, so to say. I had lost faith in man long before I lost faith in god, my anchor is my doubt, the only thing that seems not to betray.

I have reason enough to doubt the general prevailing reason, I have sanity enough to question the concept of it, I am tortured by the faith people show in others, and I am convinced that the general population holds a sample of all humankind at different stages of moral maturity. I believe that the highest moral stand is that of doubt, it is the only answer that answers all questions, a 'maybe' is more powerful that any god.

I have known what they call love, maybe I have seen it somewhere, but it was a fleeting moment, and I caught no more than a whiff of it. It is a smoke screen that fools intellect, it sets passions on fire and leads the conscious down a path to misery, it is the opium of the morally superior. It conveniently allows one to maintain a easy stand, that of faith in another, without so much as admitting to the lack of strength to doubt. It takes courage to stand up and ask why, it takes strength to admit that all we want is pleasure.

It takes a wise man to proclaim faith, and an earnest one to proclaim doubt.

2009-08-20T12:00:00.001+06:30

I have never been to England and I have never met the queen, but I have known some very nice people in my modest life, and I have learnt some invaluable lessons.

Balu Anna - The Rickshaw driver who took me to school from std1 to std 2 the man who used to stop on the way to buy flowers that he used to pay homage with at the small temple next to our school. The young man who toiled hard for a living, who never failed to smile, who always spoke kindly, so much so that i never once remember anyone disrespect him on account of his social standing. From him I learn humility and the dignity of labor, I am but an instrument.

The Maths Teacher whose name I forgot - Every time I think of school, she is the face that comes to mind, she loved numbers as much as she loved teaching. She made us smile in a classroom, she taught us how to count. I saw her again last summer, she is still teaching children how to count, she is still in love with what she does. The maths teacher whose name I still don't know, but from whom I learnt that life is measured by the lives you can touch positively.

The Neighbor uncle (Indu Appa) - The one who was old enough to be my grandpa, the one who served for years in the police and retired reluctantly. The man who told me tales of how he caught criminals, and how crime never pays. His Chartered Accountant son and him librarian daughter, they live their lives by the principles he espoused and the discipline he inculcated in them. Me though, I think of his often enough to remind myself of what is right and what is wrong.

The old man from god's own land - In 2005 I happened to meet an old man, he was 95. In his 50s he had lost a part of his family and a hand in a train accident. A devout Muslim till then, he found his faith dwindling. And so he began his walk, he started from Kerala and walked for 5 years, stopping for rest and earning some money along the way. He traveled all the way by foot and reached Mecca. His faith forged, he returned home to serve the community. At 80 he lost his eyesight. At 90 he could see again without the help of an operation. At 95, when I met him, he was strong as an ox and still serving the world.he Old man died a few months later. The important thing is he did not die when he lost his family, he did not die on his way to Mecca, he did not die when he was blind, he died only after having conquered all odds. From him I learn that life is one long walk, and I have just begun taking baby steps.

So hold on heart, there is more to life than grades and placements. There are people to meet, lessons to learn, and if time and modesty permits ...some lessons to teach as well

2009-08-20T11:58:00.000+06:30

There is no joy,just a pretense of it.
There is no togetherness, just an image of it.
There are no faces, just masks.

Hearts break all the time, tiny inaudible bursts of pain, there is a screeching tearing sensation, it is but local, the air in the lungs couldn't know of it, lest it carry the information out. There are words thrown about, irretrievable ones, ones that disillusion people, slowly, but surely. There are smiles, just creases, intended misdirections. There are celebrations, momentary distractions, glimpses of a world unreal. There are friendships, convenient associations, one fooling oneself. There is love, the subhuman transactional kind, filled with exchanges and formalities, an anti-thesis. Hypocrisy is underestimated with regards to the extent of its presence, people are underestimated with regards to the depths to which they can fall. Callous accusations, careless remarks, false narrations and a pretension of remorse. Trust is notorious by its absence, replaced with deceit, wounded and slain in a battle with misplaced pride and foolhardy arrogance. There is a scent of duplicity in the air, and everybody breathes in it.

2009-03-27T17:45:00.000+06:30

EVENING

It was evening in Chennai, there was a possibility of rain later that night, but right then it was just pleasantly breezy. Suresh was walking out of school after having finished his athletics practice, he was twelve. Suresh loved to run, one of his fantasies involved being given a vast endless track with savannas on both sides of it; to run, like the breeze itself, worrying about nothing, just blowing away far into the sunset. He was sweating like a thief on the run, the cool breeze was soothing, with the spikes in his hands he made out of the gate at the exact same time as on rest of the days. As if by instinct he headed straight for the juice shop opposite the school. The juice shop owner; Mari Anna smiled at Suresh as he walked into the store and ordered his usual lime juice, as usual he declined to eat any on the puffs, or samosas or the other oily stuff. All that was on his mind was the APSCE meet in one week's time; he was running for gold in the junior’s category. At that moment, like on all days Anisha walked out of the school gate.

Suresh had always been a poor student academically, but on the field he was a little short of god himself. Be it on the track, or on the football field he thrived hard to be the best, and more often than not he was successful. It made him feel as if he belonged to this school, they held him like a priced asset, and it made him feel worthy. So no matter how hot it was or how breezy it was or how cold it was he never missed the practice sessions in the evenings. He ran alone sometimes, company was not something that kept him going, it was something else, the drive perhaps to be the best at something.

He was the last son to his parents who parented in all five children. Being younger to two brothers and two sisters was no easy task; many in the past have suffered through these pressures, Suresh had unwillingly joined that list. His suffering was not in the treatment, but in the expectations. His brothers were in engineering colleges, one sister was a practicing doctor, and another was a brain asset doing her tenth standard in the same school. Under the circumstances Suresh's love for the world of track and field was quite a disappointment for the family. They let him do as he pleases, but they dint love it. They dint celebrate his winnings and dint console him during his defeats. Suresh was living a life that was to his family, in a large sense purposeless.

A quiet blush sneaked past behind the skin of his face as he saw Anisha walk out of the gate and cross the road towards the ice-cream store next to the juice shop. His eyes stayed on her as she made it into the ice-cream store. Quickly then he finished his juice, paid, and went off to take his position. He walked a little distance away from the school and crossed back to the school side of the road. He smiled at the pav bhaji wala who smiled back at him. The one rupee that was remaining he tossed into the plate of the blind beggar who sat on the other side of the pav bahaji cart. The blind man smiled and said "So running over today?” Suresh replied affirmatively and began chatting with the old blind beggar as usual. After sometime he noticed Anisha walk out of the ice cream shop, cross the road and take up her position a little way away from Suresh's own standing spot. She was waiting for her dad to come by and pick her up. He was waiting for her dad to come by and pick her up. It was the best part of the day for Suresh as he chatted with a stranger who felt more close than family and as he looked at a girl who looked more like an angel.

"Did i tell you that long ago, before i was blinded in the factory accident i used to play hockey?"
"yes, and you were bloody magnificient" Suresh confirmed. The pav bhaji wala smiled and shook his head, the reaction of a man who had heard the story one too many times.

"The ball used to stay stuck to my hockey stick as if it was attached with some glue, and magically it would leave the stick to fly into the back of the goal net..."

The blind beggar went on to narrate the other fine achievements of his sighted self. Suresh knew the tales by heart, so he kept the blind man talking by adding a 'oh' or a 'ok...’ at the right moments. His eyes though were on Anisha who was standing a little to his left and a little in front of him. Every now and then a bit of what the blind man said would be loud enough to carry to her ears and she'd turn back instinctively to catch Suresh looking in her direction- uncomfortable seconds.

In class he was one of those quiet ones who sat minding his own business in the far corner of the class. Once in a while he'd look in the general direction of Anisha and catch a glimpse of her earring. She had a unique set of earrings; it was designed in a very different manner. Not that Suresh knew a lot about earrings but he liked this one. Two things he liked about her actually, the only two things he even bothered to study. One was the side of her face with the earrings (left, right, whichever his position bestowed), the other -the part of her legs that began where her skirt ended and ended where her socks began. He was in love with both of them. And that is all it was, a slight earring-leg crush. He never told anyone, he was one of those guys people don’t normally associate with people.

Once there had been an incident that had caused him to get into the limelight, and it wasn’t a very good experience. Sudheer had gotten into an argument with him regarding a very silly matter. Sudheer had just fought with Rajneesh and the whole class agitated about it except of course Suresh. Sudheer and Rajneesh used to sit next to each other and after the fight that wasn’t possible so Sudheer decided to go back and take Suresh's place. When Suresh returned it irked him that his earring sighting position was being taken away from him. When he refused to move and tried to create a scene instead he got a proper thumping from Suresh. The fact that Anisha had a crush on Sudheer made Suresh once and for all the bad guy in her eyes. He did not care. He was still in love with her earring-leg combo.

All of a sudden, while the beggar was still talking about the league quarter final match where he scored the crucial goal, the clouds decided to give way and it began drizzling. The pav bhaji guy began closing his cart, the people on the roan rushed to the shade of the road side shops, Anisha headed for the juice shop and Suresh had a mind of following her. Suddenly he realized that the old blind beggar had no idea what to do, so he rushed back to the supposedly ex hockey hero and helped him get up and get into the shade. When it started raining heavily Suresh rushed to get the plastic sheet on which the beggar had been sitting so that he could use it to cover the beggar’s head to help him stay dry. As soon as Suresh left the beggar’s side, the beggar thought Suresh was gone and he too stumbled to reach his plastic sheet. It was at this moment that a bike skidded off the recently wet road and ran straight into the beggar who collapsed in a heap. Everyone present rushed to the spot, Anisha included.

"Stop a vehicle, get him to the hospital!" people were crying. As if sent by the gods a car screeched to a halt next to the crowd. Suresh recognized the car to be Anisha's. Immediately he began calling for people to help him carry the beggar to the car. Anisha was explaining something to someone inside the car. At last she then turned back with an apologetic look on her face. Within the next few seconds she got into the car and the car sped away leaving the beggar carrying crowd wondering what was happening. Suresh had never been so angry as he was when he drove along with an auto driver to the hospital with the beggar in the back seat. He was fuming. Anisha would die tomorrow.

The storm that came was the worst that Chennai had faced in a decade. Roads were filled with water. Every natural and manmade pot hole was leveled out by water. Government declared the next two days as holidays for schools and colleges. After the two days there was the weekend to follow. Four days Suresh spent in his house analyzing and re analyzing what had happened. He wondered what happened to the beggar whom he had left in the hospital. Thinking hard he realized that what happened was in no way Anisha's fault. She did not even know the beggar, an yet she had tried to persuade whoever it was inside the car to help the poor blind man, and when she had to give in to the selfishness of the car owner she had such a sorry look on her face that it made Suresh feel ashamed now that he had felt anger towards her. That sorry look came again and again in front of his eyes for those four days. The focus had shifted from the earring-leg to something in the eyes. He thought more and more about the shame in the helpless eyes, the care in the clueless face and the heart that housed all these feelings. Some queer thing was happening to him. It was both nice and frightening.

Sunday evening when the rain abated, Suresh headed to the hospital to check on the beggar. They told him he had become fine by that morning and had chosen to leave. They also told him that they guy who had hit the beggar had settled the hospital charges. That night he lay in his bed wondering where the beggar might be, and if he would see him the next day. Then his thoughts shifted, and he saw Anisha's face again.

Monday morning as Suresh rushed into the school in the last moment, he noticed that the beggar was not there. The whole day he was restless. When he looked in Anisha's direction he felt a lump rise up to his throat. Once when both their eyes met he felt something he never felt before; fear.

In the evening Suresh was standing and looking at the spot where the beggar usually sat. In his place was the blue plastic sheet. There was some stagnant water on the sheet. On the puddle were a couple of leaves dancing around each other. He was staring at the absent beggar when he heard a voice from his back say "how is he?"

He turned back and his legs almost gave way when he realized it was Anisha. It was the first time ever that she had spoken to him. "I don’t know" he said. She looked at the plastic sheet as she said "I am Sorry" carrying the same apologetic look on her face that had haunted him for the last four days.

"It is ok" said Suresh. It was that time in the evening when the soft wind consoled the broken leaves and carried them away to some place better.

2009-02-15T07:03:00.002+06:30

I have heard orators inspire a million,
but I haven't heard a singer yet,
I have read lines that have smelt of flowers,
but I haven't met a poet yet,
I have seen a thousand painters color the sky,
but I haven't seen an artist yet,
I am a stable boy in a drunken slumber,
I haven't loved the princess yet

2009-02-02T10:48:00.002+06:30

Smell.
Touch.
See.
Hear.
Taste.
&
Forget.

I see rocks now, I feel cold.
I play dumb now, I act plain.
I try to hide now, I disappear.

Let me be. Let me be.
I can take more, but let me be.

2008-10-21T21:20:00.002+06:30

I am not what I used to be, maybe I have grown used to this now.

I had always been a decent student, I gave studies as much importance any other kid would. I used to play, but when it was time to study I was always sincere in my efforts.

I wasn't gifted enough to have maths or science fall in love with me. I always knew that it was my effort that would matter in the end. I thought maybe if I tried hard enough and loved my studies sincerely, then one day, in spite of my mediocrity, the subject would smile back and maybe love me a little.

I am after all destiny's orphan, I am not resorting to self pity, but am stating the facts as they are. I continue to toil with my inadequacies and continue to labor under my fallacies, without knowing what they are and if i was born with them or managed to somehow acquire them through the course of my cursed life.

I have learnt to live with it and not question it, I have resorted to being happy in my losses.

I have learnt that people are loved for what they are and not who they are.

2008-10-08T20:26:00.003+06:30

I have my flaws, for I am human,
I seek pleasure, for I am an animal,
And I want to be loved, for I am alive.

Do not blame me for my hesitation,
Do not look at me like a mirror does,
Do not expect miracles out of me,
Do not despise me for my weaknesses,
And please Do not take me for a granted.

I am not answerable to anyone, even if I love them.
I am not to be judged by another, even if I befriend them.
I am not anyone's social service project, even if I decide to heed them.

I am me, I have no apologies to make.

2008-09-03T20:47:00.002+06:30

SO HELP ME GOD

Ramadan has begun, and I am yet again reminded of my lack of faith. Another year has gone by since that fateful day when I refused to go to a mosque, since the day I walked out of religion and proclaimed doubt, since the day I disappointed my family maybe but made myself proud. I am not a hypocrite and I cannot follow a religion in pieces. I am either infidel or hypocrite and I chose the lesser of the two evils. I cannot get myself to follow practices I don't see reason in, I cannot do wrong by my education and my sense of thought. I am happy being directionless, I'd rather be lost in the savannas than stay firm on a road that has no purpose. When I die I will not have to chose between heaven or hell, for I shall have been buried and reduced to worm food. I shall not be fooled by grave warnings or sumptuous offers, I shall not be frightened or cajoled, I choose not to be led. I believe that through the course of one's life one ought to do two things, the lesser being find meaning in one's being and the other more purposeful one being learning to love. I have faith too, in the all conquering love, in the unconditional version of it, in the untarnished sense of it. I have roots too, in the warming embrace of my father, in the loving eyes of my mother, in the uninhibited care of my siblings. Once as a 8 year old I had adorned a prayer cap and with little folded arms had stood head bowed in front of the all-knowing benevolent almighty, to beg to be able to once again see the loving face of my mother. On that fateful day God abandoned me, 12 years later I abandoned him - Life has convinced me that he exists not without, but is within the heart that learns to love. I chose not to be bitter for the losses I have endured, and in doing so I have become better than any egoistic god can claim to be. I have let go of religion with a smile, I have let of my go of my crutches after a while. i have finally started my long unassisted walk through life, So help me God.

2008-09-02T23:18:00.002+06:30

Dear Gudiya,

I have, after long hours of sleepless pondering, come to a consensus with myself, that you should indeed be blind as a bat. For even a colorless sight like those of a few ungifted beings would have enabled you to see in black and white what you have missed altogether amidst the colors you are dreaming of. Simple truths gudiya, simple unglamorous unambiguous unassuming truths, like the mountains that stand tall, or the clouds that rain slow- simple truths gudiya, and you miss them. I cannot blame you but; blame is for the less caring not for the careless, blame is for the eyes that are closed not for those that are blind. Let me paint you a picture gudiya, close those blind eyes and let me help you see gudiya, for a change let me paint this one on a black canvas, let me use words for brushstrokes and ideas for background. Far off in the distance the bright moon against the black sky lies awake to gaze upon the silver shimmering lake. A silhouette, a lonely boat and its occupant, a humble fisherman you say- a proud dreamer I claim, a fishing net in his hands, flung high and open, to fish you may think - to catch the moon I insist. No gudiya, we aren't in the picture, you are but unique enough to avoid being the cliched moon and I am too modest to be a moon catcher. I merely paint and you are being invited to view. I merely perform and you are being invited to see. So open your eyes gudiya and grant this orphaned show an audience in the least.

yours
the painter

2008-07-16T19:30:00.002+06:30

Spirited Glass

Mind shattered in day's abuse,
I gather myself to amuse,
A spirited glass at hand,
I let myself go loose.

From very far away somewhere,
Flies my way an angel fair,
She then takes hold of my arms,
And no more do I care.

I take flight wrapped in wings,
I see plenty wondrous things,
I feel the wind against my face,
And I listen as my heart sings.

A slight ache in my head,
The morning lies ahead,
I have sweet memories now,
I am happy to leave the bed.

2008-07-11T14:04:00.002+06:30

This post owes its existence to a stimulating conversation I had yesterday with a friend on campus. We, as self serving intellectuals were, brooding as to how unimaginably marvelous is the world of the simple minded who can go on with life without ever questioning it or trying to understand it - maybe they dont really want to know - and there within lies the secret of thier harmless existence. indeed as my friend reminded me, it is simple to be difficult and difficult to be simple - and so I find myself increasingly jealous of the anyone who can exist without wondering why.

We were discussing a major election on campus, which caused me to comment on how ludicrous I thought it was that people can really allow themselves to be affected by such frivolous pursuits. But then we soon realized and agreed that pursuits are different for different people. It can be entirely possible that someone may consider the pursuit of love as frivolous while I consider it to be the most noble of pursuits. In essence i believe in the policy that any other mortal goodness need be pursued until one comes across the one soul that one would like to become one with in all ways possible. And when that person is in sight all earthly pursuits ought to be shunned and the one at hand should be given complete attention. For once intellectual compatibility has been discovered, one has actually experienced the orgasm of life, after which every other kind of orgasm is but a cheap unloving jerk off.

Then again I may appear as a no-gooder doing what I believe is the goodest of goods.

2008-06-28T04:41:00.002+06:30

And she has eyes like blackholes...
drawn i am...into depths unimaginable...pulled in by a force so overpowering that i lose identity...i lose awareness and then...as i begin to understand...i lose myself....
can i feel ?
can i be ?
can i know any longer...?
memories float around me... there is sweet pain in my senses....there is a soothing fire setting my spirit on fire....

And she has a smile that cracks my world..
shattered i am...into a million pieces...spread across the far reaches of the universe....becoming one with the cosmos....i travel eons...and then....as i begin to wonder...i find myself...
i can feel...
i can be...
i can know...and i do...
she knows does she not? ....that perinial emotions drown me at her mere sight....setting in motion another tale worth living through...

2008-06-22T21:45:00.003+06:30

This people, is one of my earliest stories. The mere fact that the story deals with a court room scene makes me incompetent to tell this tale within the accurate perview of the law. Hence I have take liberty in a lot of places, the tale demanded it. I hope its the idea that gets across, and more than anything I hope you find it worth your while reading this piece.

MY BEAUTIFUL WORLD - By Hameeduddin A

I still remember that fine sunny day, the soft breeze carrying the fresh scent of a far away spring. A clear blue sky welcoming me, a whole new beginning was in store, unknown to me. The men in the uniform, the police of my city, kind and loving folk, led me from the van to the steps of the court house. A huge crowd had gathered, looked like the whole town was there, the atmosphere was carnival like, and they were all having fun. Some of them where shouting out slogans, and yet others had them written on huge banners that they displayed proudly. Real creativity was at display, each banner more colorful than the other. One in particular caught my eye, for it had my name on it, it said
"WE WANT ARNOLD OFF OUR STREETS!!” not that I did not appreciate the concern shown by the old lady holding the banner, but I wanted her to know the truth and so I had to shout above the happy slogan calling to say "its ok ma'am, I don't live on the streets, I really don't, I lived with my mother until a few days ago, but even now I am safe in the prison, the police are nice too" this seemed to cause the old lady and those around her to cringe, and I had to unnecessarily smile to make her feel comfortable, at which I failed. In a hurry the police led me up the stairs, where my mother was waiting for me.

I loved my mother, that was the absolute truth in my life, the absolute meaning of it, and the only thing worth about being me, one that more than made up for the shortcomings in my life. The police let me speak to my mother for a minute, she smiled and I saw beautiful colors, she spoke and I heard magical music "you look handsome in that coat Arnie" she said, and I bowed my head in a blush, "now don't let all these people frighten you, mommy will be in the court room all the time, so its ok" she added seriously, and I nodded yes, "don't worry mama, I am a grown man now" I said standing as tall as I could, she seemed to grow sad at first but then she Smiled before saying "I know", my time was up and the police led me inside, 'The People vs. Arnold Benjamin' was about to commence.

For about half a day, both my lawyer and the opposition lawyer made long speeches. The opposition lawyer claimed that he would conclusively prove that I was a murderer, and that I had murdered a poor handicapped boy named Russel Thomas. My lawyer said that he would conclusively prove that I was mentally challenged and that I was incapable of making sane decisions. I began harboring serious doubts about who was on my side.

After lunch, the first person to be questioned came into the witness box; it was the tall police officer who had stormed into Russel's place that day. I still remember how funny that whole episode was. I had been sitting in the drawing room of Russel's home, with Russel all around me, his legs on the sofa, his hands laid by my side, the head dramatically kept on display on the tea-poy. There was blood all around us, most of it soaked into the carpet. I had been working on his ribs, trying to wrench them apart, the beautiful song 'change the world' by Eric Clapton was running for the hundredth time, that was when the police had stormed into the house. The tall guy immediately pulled out his kerchief and put it to his nose, and others followed suit, that's when I realized I hadn't taken a bath since the morning of the day before.

The next on the witness box was my high school teacher Mrs. Dustin, she was that uppity kind of a lady, maybe it was because she was good at what she taught, and she taught Biology by the way. The opposition lawyer was asking her about an incident that had happened when I was in school, of how I had with my bare hands torn apart a lab specimen of some unknown animal's unknown part. It had all happened because Roomy had challenged me to do it. I refused to share credit with him later, not even when all the fuss came about, no sir! It was all my raw strength and nothing else, when they asked me how I could do such a thing, I acted all humble and said “Get me another one and I can show you how, it quite simple actually” and this had caused everyone in school to look at me in awe.
Once she was done I had to overcome my lawyer's restraining me, to stand up and thank her for taking the time to come here on my cause. To this she took no notice, perhaps she had other more important things on her mind.

The next day came, and was equally beautiful, somehow the carnival had grown more quite, more somber, the people with the cameras were there though. While I made my way into the court, one of them asked me if I liked tearing people apart, "I cant tell you that conclusively mister, I have torn apart just one person in my life so far" I said truthfully, he and the others were asking more questions but I had to rush in.

They all came, the landmarks of my life, one by one swearing to tell the truth, and telling of how evil my ways were. It was quite hard to notice that all those I held in high esteem were talking about me being unfit to be a part of society. My heart pained at their statements, and what hurt me even more was that they refused to acknowledge my smiles and wishes, choosing instead to look the other way. I almost began believing them, when no one holds on to your word, I guess the only choice is to hold onto someone else's; lies as they may be. But how could I accept a lie for my clutch? I turned around, frantically sought my mother's face; there she was, smiling at me. My tears and her smile began to argue, her smile won. I wiped my tears and continued to concentrate on the proceedings.

That evening I told my lawyer "I want to speak to the judge and the jury" he seemed to laugh at first, then realizing that I was serious he said "I am not putting you on the stand, if that is what you mean". Now I was sure that he was not on my side at all, he was with all those people who laughed when I spoke of my theories, who snickered at my dreams of winning a Nobel prize, who passed wicked comments when me and my mother walked down the street. "But I have a right to speak in my own defense, I do! And you cannot stop me from doing so, not now, not ever!" I said in as loud a tone as I could muster, and with that I stormed out of the meeting room and went to my cell. As I went out I heard his assistant tell him "maybe that's the solution, let him prove how loony he is by babbling on the witness stand". Not all people had good mothers.

Mid way through the next day the opposition rested its case. It was the turn of my lawyer to organize the show henceforth. First he called Dr Graham, the old grandfatherly kind of a loving man. He was the same person who had spent hours with me in preparation for this case. On the witness stand he was talking about how he had initially found me to be as normal as any other 21 year old, my choice of music, my love of sports and my opinions about things, all pretty normal he said. Only slowly and after much conversation, he claimed, he saw that I was different. It was true, I had long conversations with him, and I told him about all my ideas. He seemed like a man very much interested in my theories, for he wanted me to write them down on paper a clearly as possible for him to analyze.

He seemed to be holding one of those papers now, reading from it for the court's benefit, I remember that paper, and I had written it to explain if the Sun is over-rated or not and why, it went something like…

"If you want to make all the stars visible in the day then the sun would have to disappear, then it would become a night and would no longer be a day, so technically you cannot have all the stars visible in the day except the sun, which is so bloody unfair! But then is sun really a star? They say the sun is a star with a name that's all! So what’s so bloody special about it that we have to tolerate it all day long? About sun being such an over-rated celestial object, why is that so? Who says so? And are they right in saying so? Now then, for answers, 'because I say so', 'I say so', 'yes', obviously! Otherwise why would I say so? Now then for an answer, 'because it is right'. Now you can take the risk of asking 'why is it right?' and just in case you had the mind to do just that (which I doubt (because that's what I do(doubt)) extremely (in this case)) I ought to have the smartness to leave you with an answer, Now then for an answer, 'because I said so'. Since we are now a little clearer (because we can't be 'clearest' (since that is a totally wrong presumption (being clearest))) lets carry on with analyzing if sun deserves to be as over-rated as it is.

To do just that (prove that the sun is an over-rated celestial object) lets take for example an imaginary being, in an imaginary planet, in an imaginary solar (for lack of a specific name) system, which is a part of an imaginary galaxy, which is floating millions and millions and zillions of light years away from our galaxy (which is not imaginary but is real!!(it is called 'the milky way')). Now then where were we? Oh yes! We were imagining an imaginary being, in an imaginary planet, in an imaginary solar system, which is a part of an imaginary galaxy, which is floating millions and millions and zillions of light years away from our galaxy. Now what would this imaginary being say about the sun being an over-rated celestial object? 'I don't really know, go ask him/her/whatever' is what you would say, but that's not necessary, because our imaginary being is not there to answer the question after all, because he/she/whatever is imaginary after all, so we can (very conveniently) answer the question for him/her/whatever and the answer would be, 'no the sun does not deserve to be so over-rated as I don't even know if it exists or not', that being him/her/whatever's answer would also stand good for us because of the (by now famous(to the extent of being household)) theory of relativity.

"It is very clear from the text you honor, that Arnold has no problems explaining his ideas, but it is his ideas that are, well, quite different from ours. They are not thoughts of violence, there is no cultist theme in here, and there are no praises of Hitler, if for a moment, the irrelevancy of the problem being solved in here is disregarded, then what we have here is a normal human mind exercising its reasoning faculty for the purpose of problem solving. The numerous nested brackets show his willingness to deal with complexity, but they also emphasize the confusion, unnecessary at times. His confusion and at times his curiosity about what we may call petty things, may lead him to take decisions or make choices that you or me wouldn’t. One thing is for sure, he cannot be intentionally harmful, I don’t see that in him" the Doctor finished with those words. I was quite thrilled I must admit when the judge was looking admiringly at my theory and add to that the Doctor even waved goodbye to me before he left, I turned around and sought my mother's face; there she was, smiling at me. My excitement and her smile began to argue, her smile won. I settled down and continued to concentrate on the proceedings.

The next person on the witness box was my classmate in college and also my neighbor Jammal, he and me, we were thick friends, as thick as they come. In the beginning when we were in school he was one of them, who made fun of me and treated me like scum, but once when they were playing cricket, he ran a quick single and crashed into the stumps, he was in terrible pain. Looked like he had cracked a bone in his leg, I was as usual not allowed to play but only pick up the balls that went out of the field, so I was quite far away. I had run into the field quickly, I pushed everyone out of the way, and with my two hands I had carried him to the hospital two blocks away. From then on we were inseparable, I was even allowed to play in the team, and it all had to do with the stamina I displayed on the two-block run.

He was now telling of how I had helped him, and how we had become great friends. He even told them about all those cricket matches that we played in the colony and how I was one of the best in the field. I remember how many glasses I had broken with my huge sixes. Even Mr. Thomas's window did not escape, though Russel always used to boss me around he never let his dad know that I broke the window, he hated his dad more than he hated me.

I turned around and I spotted Mr. Thomas in the front row, and almost instantaneously I think he felt my eyes on him and he turned and stared into my eyes. I must admit I was terrified, I remember that look in his eyes when he used to stomp out of his front gate with a ball in his hand "Now, who was it that broke my window? Don't you children have anything better to do? And you Russel! What do you think you are doing? The fucking polio should have eaten both of your legs! God know why I stand you! Why don't you just die? Let me just know who broke my window and you will see what happens" with that he would go back inside, every time he came out of his house, broken window or not, he would say a different version of the same thing. It never took more than five minutes for us to cheer Russel up. But now looking into Mr. Thomas's eyes I somehow got the feeling that Russel had told him the truth; that it was me who had broken his window, petrified I turned around.

Jammal was now telling the court about how Russel hated his dad, and how he used to always talk about ending his life. "But Russel was a strong person, he always recovered after a short spell of self pity, we used to have a great time the three of us, and Arnie was the nicest of guys, I don't believe he meant what he did, I don't know why he did it, but I wouldn't go blaming him of violence" after he was cross-examined by the opposition lawyer Jammal stepped down and smiled at me before he left.

That night me and my lawyer had another tiff about me getting on the stand, finally after he consulted with my mother, he consented, he was not that bad after all, but just hell bent on proving I was insane. Next day my mother took the stand, she spoke about how nice she thought I was, in her own sweet way she explained why I may seem different, but how I was in more than one way pretty much same as the rest of them. In some ways she claimed I was better. The opposition lawyer, not understanding the characteristic of the present mood, decided to question her about my dad. It was a touchy topic; one that no one was supposed to start, I should have warned the opposition lawyer, the poor man unintentionally caused my mother to cry on the witness stand, and then had to part with his hand kerchief. I couldn't concentrate on what she was telling between her sobs, how could I? My angel, my mother was crying, "stop this!" I cried in desperation, but no one seemed to heed my call, they just told me to sit quiet and carried on making her cry. "He may have murdered those girls or he may not have, but that has nothing to do with Arnie, he is my son, he knows how to love, and that's all he knows!" she said before leaving the stand, I kept looking at her hoping to catch her eye, hoping to pass her a smile, she was in need of one, but she covered her face with the nice lawyer's hand kerchief and moved out of the court room. I was next on the stand.

It looked like the whole world was there to listen to me, the men with weird expressions, and the others with no expression holding pens and notebooks. My lawyer asked me about the evening it all happened and I told them the whole truth. Of how Russel, Jammal and me were sitting in the playground, "Russel was telling us about how his dad had decided, to get married again, 'He wants me to go live in the college hostel, so that he can ruin all my mother's memories with his insane fucking around the house' he was saying, Jammal was trying to calm him down because Russel had grown all agitated, 'I tell you I will kill him if he brings any bitch into my mother's home! I sure will!' he said and tried to get up, it was quite funny with his crooked legs, but I controlled my laugh and helped him get up. 'Hey Russel how come we did not study in the same school?' I asked, it had been a doubt that had been eating into me for a long time, 'That's because my dad put me through a special school with my smart brains, while you dumb ass went to a normal school, and led a normal fucking life!' he said, it was quite confusing why he was angry, it was him after all who gone to a special school, 'what makes you so special Russel? Is it the special shape of your legs?' I asked, for a moment anger flashed across his face but then he calmed down and seemed to laugh to himself before he said 'No idiot, it is what is inside me that makes me special not the way I look' That confused me further, but before I could ask him anything he was opening the gate of his home, so we told our goodbyes and left.

I couldn't drive the thought off my mind, I couldn't sleep, and so I got up and went to Russel's home. When I reached there, I saw Mr. Thomas leave in his car, so I thought it was safe after all to go inside. Inside in the living room I found Russel sprawled on the floor, I tried my best to wake him up, but he just wouldn't wake up. I thought this is the right opportunity, while he was sleeping to find out what was so special inside him. So I found the Knife from the Kitchen and went to work, I must convey here that Russel did not mind in the least, he dint even stir, And I don't know why you people are making a big fuss about it, and causing my poor mother to cry. You must all be ashamed!!" I said, there was stunned silence in the court room, and while I took a breather my lawyer got up and said "clearly you honor, my client is insane and incapable of making decisions" this really put me off and I said "clearly your honor, my lawyer is conspiring against me" this, caused everyone to laugh.

I think by the end of it the Judge agreed that I had not murdered Russel, and I think he also found me smart and articulate, because he was recommending me to some institution of higher studies. My theories must have impressed him. I thanked him before he left.

Outside to a group of people holding mikes my mother was telling of how the whole affair was insane, and how her son could never hope to live in a world where people were judged based on their actions and not their hearts, and how we were all victims alike. But I tend to disagree with her; I think we all came off better in some way or the other. Russel had never woken up from his peaceful sleep, and so his dad was free to marry anyone he wanted, my mother was relieved of her burden; her son, and I had gotten an admit into the institution.
**************
I live in the institution now, its peaceful here. Jammal and mommy visit me often, I miss Russel though, and I only wish I knew how to fix him up. I am working on a new theory, to explain which came first, thought or sight? I am not telling it out yet, it's all hush-hush.

2008-04-25T22:40:00.002+06:30

Here is a short story I had penned sometime back. Stories are of no use if they are locked up. So time and again, I plan to let some of them showcase themselves here.

THE LONELY TRAVELER - by Hameeduddin A

The slate she held in her hand was old. Her squinting eyes could just about make out the markings of the alphabet Z on it; scrawled perhaps twenty five or so years ago. It had been a big moment in her life; the first alphabet that her son wrote, his first say in this brutal world, his small tiny fingers guided by her loving hand, a sharp peak cut in half to make 'A', unforgettable. She put the slate aside and looked around at all the things that lay around her. A single sock caught her eye, no more than the size of her thumb, next to it a tiny teddy sat smiling. As her eyes moved around the room, she realized how these small things had all of a sudden assumed so much importance in her life. Too many small things, and yet there remained too big a void to fill.
Mrs. Chauhan wiped a streak of tear from her cheek, got up and left the room. The room would have to be visited later, perhaps when she felt a little more stronger. She found Mr. Chauhan in the sitting room watching the news on TV. It was the first Sunday after their son's death, the house had been filled with people until last night, but now the mother and father were left to be by themselves and pick up the pieces. The world had its own schedule to keep. Last Monday Sunil Chauhan's suicide was news, in the Mondays to come it would be relegated to the archives after having been polluted by views. She sat down on the sofa without realizing that Mr. Chauhan was now switching through channels at the rate of a channel per second. Slowly her tired eyes closed and she fell asleep, unmindful of the flickering TV screen.

"When are you going to get up from there and get me my tea?" Mr. Chauhan looked agitated. It took some time, but slowly Mrs. Chauhan wandered out of sleep and realized what was being asked of her. "Two minutes" she said and moved off towards the kitchen. They had been married thirty-two years now. It had been a cordial marriage, one with many discussions and no arguments, one with few disagreements if any. Mrs. Chauhan sniffed a couple of times while Mr. Chauhan sipped his tea. "What? What is it now?" Mr. Chauhan asked, as if nothing was the matter. Mrs. Chauhan looked up hurt; she could not understand how her husband could be so heartless. "Look, I don't want all this crying in my house, if you want you can go stay at your sister's for a while, but no crying in this house" with that he got up, gathered the scattered newspaper and left the room for the verandah, leaving Mrs. Chauhan to gather herself.

Mr. Chauhan had always been a stern man, disciplined - was the word. He liked things in order. Business or personal, everything needed to be organized properly. It had taken some time, but Mrs. Chauhan had finally come around to understanding the way things worked in Mr. Chauhan's world. By the time Sunil was born, she had mastered the ways of that world. It was not that Mr. Chauhan was hard hearted, once during the early days of their marriage his wife had fallen violently ill. She had asked to be left at her mother's so as not inconvenience her husband. Mr. Chauhan had disagreed, he had taken days off from work, and had stayed beside her all the time, till she had recovered completely. "And no more business of running off to your mother's place for silly things anymore" was his stern remark upon her recovery. That had convinced her that her parents had indeed chosen well, not that she declared anything to anyone, but that was when she first fell in love; six months after marriage.

No, she would not go off to her sister's and leave him to deal with this alone. Though he sometimes acted heartless, Mrs. Chauhan knew that her husband was perhaps hurting as much as herself and needed her presence as much as she needed the sight of him. She got up and switched off the TV that Mr. Chauhan had left running, she then moved into the verandah to join her husband. Sitting beside him she gazed at the garden that she had until recently tended to so lovingly. The plants hadn't been watered for a few days, in other times this would have been tantamount to sacrilege, but now it seemed unimportant. She thought of the days when she ran among those flowers immersed in some game with Sunil, invariably the little devil would trample and destroy a few flowers, but the game wouldn't stop unless what he stepped on were thorns, then all hell would break loose, Mrs. Chauhan would become so worried that she'd bring the house down, aided amply by the sensitive little Chauhan and his loud cries. Order would be restored only when Mr. Chauhan came out of his study and took charge, dismissing Mrs. Chauhan's worries and little Sunil's cries with a "Grow up idiot! Its Just a thorn, not a snake!" Dettol would be used mercilessly on the bare wound, band-aid pasted and that would be that.

Time and again Mrs. Chauhan would be driven to think that her husband for some reason held a grudge against her beloved son from the very beginning. Then again, at times his display of love would be so obvious that she'd chide herself for her thoughts. Once, he had gone bezerk on the issue of what he called 'Sunil acting sissy'. This, Mrs. Chauhan did not like very much, granted that their son took a liking, unlike his peers, towards activities like rangoli and mehendi, 'but that did not make him a sissy' she thought, whatever the hell sissy meant. Mr. Chauhan though, thought that by not taking a liking towards football and chess the boy would end up with neither brawn nor brain, "A good for nothing girl is what you have given birth to! and in ten years he'd even have a Mr. before his name, what a joke! and Mehendi for god sakes!" he'd laugh that mocking laugh that would hurt her all night long. She'd spend most of the night sitting next to Sunil as he slept peacefully. "But I love drawing and rangoli Ma" the little boy would tell her the next day after Mr. Chauhan had left for work, and it would melt her heart. "Is it wrong?" he'd ask and then look at her as if his life depended on what she said. "No, its not wrong" she'd say. Was it? she wondered now, had that been the start? Or as her son claimed, had it nothing to do with her at all? "Its just hormones Ma, nothing can be done" he'd say years later, causing her whole world to crumble.

On the eighteenth birthday of his son Mr. Chauhan had bought his boy a bike, Sunil had simply loved it! It was the very bike he had taken a liking to after seeing it on a TV ad. Mr. Chauhan had been delighted to have spotted what he claimed a 'manly craving' in his son and had decided on the bike immediately. During times like these Mrs. Chauhan felt truly happy, as if she herself had orchestrated this bonding between the father and son. Mr. Chauhan seeing his son ride out on the bike for the first time had stood proud at the gate as if sending off a warrior son for battle. But soon the bike itself became a cause of yet another sour episode, "I don't see him taking any of his girlfriends on the bike" Mr. Chauhan had remarked out of the blue one day. "In fact I don't think he has any girlfriends at all" he had added. Mrs. Chauhan found it amusing that her husband looked worried as he said those words "but our son is very decent in those matters ji, I don't think he has any girl friends or so to speak" she had said. "Of course! Sissy bloody fellow!" Mr. Chauhan had said sounding unreasonably bitter, she had thought. "Now, thats not true, of course he has a lot of friends who are girls, they have even come home once or twice, one of them even said that Sunil is very ..Er...very sweet" she had said, thinking of how odd it had felt to hear it from the girl, she had not known weather or not to feel proud, it had been quite odd indeed. "Sweet!" Mr. Chauhan had laughed that cruel laugh again causing her to lose another night's sleep.

Sunil for his part did very less to make sure that peace prevailed. When Mr. Chauhan had stood against his son taking up literature after school, Sunil had blankly declared "In that case, you'd just have to be content with having son who never went to college". Mr. Chauhan though disappointed at his son's stubbornness finally relented. Mrs. Chauhan, who had lived all her life far from the world of books, found herself brimming with pride watching her son read so many fat books. Once in a while she'd sit down and demand that he tell a story or two from the books he read. Most of those tales she forgot, except the one that she thought she had forgotten, but which came back to her memory when her son died, some sad tale of a philosopher who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge. She found herself cursing those books, cursing those greats who Sunil had claimed, thought him to keep an open mind and think differently. Suddenly she got up and decided to go back into Sunil's room, his permanent absence was hard for her to accept, it would take some time, until then the room would have to do.

Sunil had not lived in that room for the last three years of his life, but Mrs. Chauhan had let the room remain as it was, for the times when Sunil would come home visiting. In the last year those visits had become less and less frequent, and the more it refused to rain the more harder the soil became; Mr. Chauhan had learnt to live like he had no son at all in the first place. She still remembered the day Sunil had decided to leave the house. It was a summer morning three years ago, by then there had been a lot of talk around about Sunil having, as Mr. Chauhan put it ' a liking for men! Do you hear me? A liking for men! Dint I tell that? You gave birth to a girl!' First to bring it up was the College professor, who had gathered his information from the tid-bits around the campus. He had come home especially to deliver the news. Mr. Chauhan had grown wild "get yourself out of here! or I would have to call the police! I would too! If you go around telling people these imaginings of yours". The professor, a decent chap otherwise, got up and left, but not before saying "Call the police sir, that would be the right thing to do, you know that sodomy is a punishable offense, don't you?".

Those words kept crashing within the walls of Mrs. Chauhan's head. When Mr. Chauhan had questioned his son that evening, though not in very direct terms, all he had gotten was an evasive answer, that, aided by the blindness that inhabits every parent caused Mr. Chauhan to believe that it was merely a case of youthful confusion and Mrs. Chauhan to dismiss the matter entirely as pure misunderstanding. But by the time that clear summer morning arrived, things had become fairly conclusive, and the matter refused to be either mitigated or dismissed but in fact demanded to be dealt with. Sunil had been straight with his words, being gay did not mean one could not be straight with words, in fact being gay had nothing to do with anything else at all, "Its just the way I am pa" he had said. It had been too shocking for Mrs. Chauhan to remain standing any longer, and too light-hearted an answer for Mr. Chauhan to remain seated any longer. The father had leapt up and slapped the son as the mother sank onto the sofa clutching her chest. A different sort of clutch held her heart now, as she moved again into Sunil's room. She had removed all his stuff from the wooden chests last night, now it all lay scattered across the room, the living pieces of her dead son.

She spotted a pile of Sunil's old drawing pads. She dusted them, and began leafing through the ones on top. The drawings were all quite beautiful; he had always had that touch in his work, one that attracted the viewer on first sight, much like his personality- reflected Mrs. Chauhan, rather sadly. She took all the time in the world, those markings on paper were the only tales her son could pass onto her now, and unlike the tales he told her while he lived, these she would never forget. In one of the pages was a drawing- a sketch of a headless man, actually his head was where his penis should have been, and the man seemed to be plugging his ears with the index fingers of his hands, the head was though seemed to be laughing. In the bottom of the page was a scribbled line "I laugh at you, for you are all the same". She did not understand what it all meant, she moved onto the next page, and admired for a little while the sketch of a long desolated road on which walked a man with a sack over his shoulders and his back to the viewer. She felt an urge to look at the man's face, she did not know why, perhaps to find out if he was happy or sad about the journey that lay ahead. There are some questions in life that have no answer, like 'how was Mr. Chauhan feeling right now?'- No one knew, perhaps he was feeling a bit lonely. Mrs. Chauhan, torn between the choice of sitting by the side of her living husband or sitting surrounded by her dead son, found it quite hard to do anything at all. This was her life, it had always been this, torn between father and son, divided, partitioned, and now abandoned. She was never a strong woman, but life had always been easy on her, it had been thoughtful enough to provide her with just about enough strength at each turn. She got up now and shuttled back to the verandah.

She stood behind her husband who was sitting on his easy chair. Looking down she realized that Mr. Chauhan was not looking at the newspaper in his hand, but was looking straight ahead, she followed his gaze. On the road the eldest son of the Maliks next door was teaching his little son how to ride a bicycle. She looked down again and noticed this time a few drops falling from Mr. Chauhan's eyes and wetting the dry stories on the newspaper. She placed her hand on his shoulders, that did it, Mr. Chauhan who had grown older by ten years in the last week, broke down completely. There was no stopping him now; he curled himself up and cried loudly like a baby .Only once before had she seen her husband in tears. Mr. Chauhan had been out of town on business when she had gone into labor. He had arrived too late to be by her side during the birth of his son. When Mrs. Chauhan had woken up dreamy eyed, she had found her husband standing next to her, still in his business suit, in his hands was his trophy; his son, and in his eyes were pearl like tears. Now she sat on the floor beside the easy chair consoling the little baby who had just been robbed off his trophy. Wherefrom she got the strength was not important, the important thing was that she had it. She would need it too, when she'd learn of how someone had informed the police of 'all this homosexuals in our good localities corrupting our little kids'. She would need it too, when she'd learn of how the SSP (Sanskriti Suraksha Parishad) had taken a vow to rid the motherland of these sodomizing homosexuals. God knows! She'd need enough strength to hear of what happened in the police station, and of how upon returning from the station Sunil had taken those extra pills that left him dead. Right now though, she struggled hard to make sense of all this misery that had descended upon her life. Who had been wrong? Was it she with her immeasurable love for her son? Was it her husband with his unceasing worries about his son? Was it her beloved son himself with all his stubborn desire to be different? She saw him again, her little son with mehendi on his palms, asking her "Is it wrong?" and looking up at her as if his life depended on it. Did she have the heart to say "Yes" now? Did she? No little boy was ever wrong. Especially not her little one.

In his unabashed exhibition of sorrow, Mr. Chauhan was now calling for his dead mother, invoking the memory of her tenderness to comfort his shattered heart. Still engulfed in sobs he got down from the easy chair, and rested his head in the lap of his wife, there he began to grow calm as she patted his head and wiped his tears, his lips kept calling for his mother, "I am here, I am here" she kept saying. "I killed him you know" he said amidst sobs "I killed my own son". "Its not your fault" she said trying in vain to bury his growing guilt. "Its a sin!" he had cried in fury at his son, "No its not" Sunil had shot back, "you'll burn in hell!" he had cursed him then. Now he wept harder, his son had been burnt to ashes And it was he who was in hell- ironical life. He hugged his wife tighter, that weak little girl he had once married, befriended and grown to love was his pillar now, and he hugged her tighter than ever. She felt weak in her limbs, but she held up somehow, to breakdown now and cry would not be proper, she'd have to wait till her husband was done, when there is no one left to console it was always wiser to take turns with sorrow.

In the evening after she had cooked the dinner she opened her cupboard and brought out a visiting card that her son had given to her once. "She is Dr Sunitha, look, you can talk to her, she'd clear all your doubts about me, you can ask her all that stuff that you perhaps are not comfortable asking me" he had said. "But I don't understand, is she trying to cure you of this?" she had asked in her ignorance. "There is no cure ma, its no disease, its ....its just that I am different, its all hormones Ma, nothing can be done" Sunil had tried to explain to her. "Look, Ma, I want you to understand, I know daddy can, he is well read, but he just wont accept the fact that's all, but I don't want you to accept what I am without knowing what I am, I want you to know me ma". "Alright! Alright!" she had said and put the card in the cupboard.

That night she lay still beside her husband. Mr. Chauhan after having spent five sleepless nights staring at the ceiling with questioning eyes, now lay asleep, lost in some haunting nightmare that would soon leave him sweating and sleepless again. Then he would snuggle upto his wife like a child seeking his mother, and he would lay there in her embrace till dawn, both of them too frightened to sleep and too heart-broken to speak. Next morning, Mrs. Chauhan armed with a visiting card would be gone to see a certain Doctor Sunitha while Mr. Chauhan would enter the room filled with the remains of his lost son. Each would embark on a journey towards rediscovering their son. Each would learn that it required no extraordinary strength to open a mind, and that all one needs in the end, is enough strength to remember the past and enough courage to face the future. Then perhaps, they'd finally get to see the face of the lonely traveler and find out if he was happy or sad.

2008-04-17T21:23:00.004+06:30

NOSTALGIA

You arent forewarned, No! no intimation whatsoever. It just stikes you during a conversation, maybe its a word, or a picture, or a smell, or even a movement of some sort, the trigger could be just about anything, and behold! you are sent hurtling across the memory highway. Those days, they just arent forgotten. Sitting in Ammi's lap and hearing her read "Tintin" to you. Climbing up the Guava tree and picking up some ripe ones. Rushing into Abba's arms when he returns from office, and getting lost in the jungle fight with your little brother. Memories die hard, and so make good ones- is all I say.

While I am at it, let me recount a few more of those.. innocent sunday mornings greeted by Rangoli, followed by some tamizh serial and then Mahabharat. Then off it was to the streets to play cricket. Lunch would be ready, hot and tasty, follow it up with a sweet nap and then sneak away to the ground while your parents are still resting. Come home drenched in sweat and mud, duck some scoulding, wash up and drink that complan. It was time to check if all homework was completed. Dinner would be listening to dad tell mom about happenenigs in office. Sleep would be listening to dad narrate the story behind a face that launched a thousand ships.

To come running home from school and find your mother rustling up your favourite snack, boy! will I ever be that happy again? Ever?

2008-04-11T00:10:00.004+06:30

Havent posted here a lot lately, would have to blame it on something. Lets see, ..hmmm..Oh yes...I have been preparing hard for that dreaded exam called CAT. Did end up giving it in november 2007 for the fifth time in a row. Like a friend said, if not anything else, it has made me an expert on shading ovals. Anyways, adding cream to the excuse is the fact that after loads of exams (read cat, snap, jmet and xat) I had a few interview calls from a few good b-schools from around the country. Finally I did make it though to XLRI. So all that not posting here has been of some use, so to say. Besides i have been updating my blog novella (link in below post), and oh yes...a new blog was born, thanks to my making it to XLRI. Lets hope its the begennings of a good blog, one that I can be proud of, in lets say 10 years.

Can't keep a blogger away from his world for long, now can they? Like a house fly attracted to shit, here I am again. This blog will stay alive too. Will keep adding arbit verses of poetry and loose strands of prose. Untill another worthless, unsellable idea that can only be stashed away here- comes my way, adios.

2007-07-09T21:27:00.000+06:30

I have begun posting a tale split up into a series here. Happy Reading. Comments Welcome.

2007-07-04T00:33:00.001+06:30

please make no sound o falling tear
for my beloved rests here

as long as she lived
i dared to smile
but today all the good
looks cruel and wile

suck the air out of here
so no sound may travel
shoo the birds out of here
so no tune may unravel

let it rain,
but not pour down hard
let the sun burn,
but spare this part of yard

let the seed that i now sow
into a huge banyan grow
let the branches be long made
so my beloved may rest in shade

For as long as she lived
i agreed with her
but now that she is dead
this is my last prayer
Amen.

2007-06-24T22:19:00.000+06:30

HOLES IN THE SKY

He shoots into the sky, into the darkness he has come to hate. The bullets puncture the sheet of space-time and leave holes of freedom, light gushes in through them. The bullets have gone where he dreams of being, he wants to leave here, but his wings have been clipped like everyone else's. The world looks up at the holes and their desire kindles a new - everyone wants to escape. Every night they look at the holes and dream of the bright light beyond, just like he does. In the morning he says "bah! they are just stars" and goes about his work. He looks around to see if anyone has read his mind- no one, everyone is busy speaking in their minds, telling themselves there is nothing beyond here.

He has become everyone.

So what?

2007-05-05T21:46:00.000+06:30

NEW LOVE

A new place can be a toss up for what its gonna be, maybe not many have left here happy, or maybe they have been in love here too, and left in tears, with fears of the new.

I came with apprehensions, i came with the fear of finding a lose she. but she wasnt any of my fears. She knew i was frightened, and she teased me into easing. She gave me a little everyday, too much love can be spoiling.

She undressed slow enough to keep me interested and fast enough to excite me. I have loved each part of her. The comforting lap of a chair, the smooth hip of a desk and the mesemerizing face of a monitor- all making me feel t home.

New place, new start.

2007-04-09T09:02:00.000+06:30

LIKE LEAVING LOVE

Its true ! yes!
More comforting can be this chair,
Than the sight of her finger running through her hair.
That scrible board can be more soft in its babelic poetry,
Than the song she sang with a heart so free.
Those post-it-notes, and the words on them.
Each pregnant with a story.
Smooth motherly table, more homely than her embrace.
Its not just a place where I worked from.
Its where I lived a second life from.
Yes! A place can be drearer than a face.
And leaving hereis like leaving love.

2007-02-08T00:28:00.000+06:30

Shoe Shop Tale

A shoe shop owner
Lived the life of a loner
Unitl one summer day
A young man came that way
Leecoopernikepumabata
One purchase then tata
Heart fixated on the visitor
The owner hoped to see him later
Days went by, yet no luck
Life sure can sometimes suck
Just when you begin to repent
Sometimes though heavens can relent
And so it happened or so they say
Like in tales of glory of the olden way
The visitor returned, all well dressed
And of his love he spoke and confessed
Smiles and blushes made a return
It was time for kissing and more fun
A happy tale! but not a gay one
The shop Owner afterall was a woman!!

-Hameeduddin

2007-01-26T20:42:00.000+06:30

Sweet summer breeze carrying my sight,
beyond seas and hills,
painting a face.
Sweet summer breeze playing messenger
repeating diminished signals,
amplifying love.
Sweet summer breeze acting musician
remixing my heartbeat,
singing melodies.

Sweet summer breeze....tell her its true,
I am a stone in waiting.
Unmovable untill the river comes this way,
To bend by my love.

2007-01-16T18:46:00.000+06:30

Aspiring Ordinariness

The new year has come, its been a couple of weeks. Who ever says that we grow up gradually? Growing up isn't giving up. Growing up means understanding what you need. If you give up on something its more because you dont need it, rather than by virtue of a sacrificing attitude that one develops as a result of growing up. Its a matter of choice. Only choice teaches you what you love. What you end up giving up onis the one you loved less.

The new year has brought a certain grimness in attitude, but I have never been so happy to be grim. There are moments in life that take away the innocence you believed in and wake you up with a bone crunching thud of reality.

There is infact no room for optimism. To heal, one would have to restart the journey, re-establish the goals, and re-live life in a more unselfish manner; ie one would have to aspire ordinariness.

2006-12-25T17:28:00.000+06:30

AT LONG LAST

After a long time I find time to blog again, more out of desire than compulsion. Inspired by the works of Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi, these words demanded to be written.

At long last I see her again.
I exchange one pain for another.
I have suffered her absence.
Now its her beauty I suffer.
Light streams in her hair.
Blackholes in her eyes.
I just watch and watch and watch.
Those full lush lips
They move like butterflies.
Telling tales of another land.
Of places I have never been.
Of colors I have never seen.
While she was gathering memories.
I counted days and nights.
Now as she recounts, I gather memories.
Soon she would take wind, like all birds do.
Then I would begin counting again.
Replacing one pain for another.
Finding comfort in stored up movements.
Keep talking dear.
Keep me alive.

-Hameeduddin

2006-12-10T18:42:00.000+06:30

EXCERPT

Novel Excerpt Read out during the Caferati Read Meet -Dec 9 2006

Just then he heard a sound and saw Kumar walk in through the door. Kumar was a student in the nearby university; the kid was a hard working student and had to work weekends in Poco’s store to earn his tuition fee. Poco always had a soft corner for the kid, ‘It is for people like him that I am living!’ he would tell himself whenever he saw Kumar. “Good Morning Mr. Poco” said Kumar in his weekend style. “Good morning indeed” said Poco, Kumar came up to the desk and said “I have brought back the book I took yesterday Mr. Poco, and it is mighty kind of you for letting me take these books for free” , “Oh that’s ok” said Poco. “By the way Mr. Poco it is the same old courtroom drama, like his earlier ones’ I skipped a few chapters and still dint miss anything” said Kumar. It was the usual, the boy would be the first to get a copy of the latest book to release, and he would read it that night itself and give a short review to Mr. Poco the next day. Mr. Poco had long since lost the passion of reading a book, but he still managed to read a few here and there and he also enjoyed a few heartless reviews like these very much. He loved to read those reviews in the paper that tore the reputation of a new author, especially when the reviewer himself was a pathetic no one, the irony of it made him roll with laughter. The last great book he read was ‘Catch-22’ and figuring out the ironies of life that was filled with Catch 22’s became his other activity of interest. “What else did you expect my dear boy? That after seven bestselling courtroom dramas the chicken shit would gather himself and decide for a change to write a book? Not a chance in hell! Not after he had seen the money he had seen” he said putting the book back in the rack after checking it for dog ears. “Always remember, only a handful of bestselling authors have ever written books! Most of them are just crooks! Now get down to your work” said Poco and went back to the newspaper.

Dawn’s face in the paper caused him to think back about those years he had spent in the United States of America, the days before he had started hating it with all the vehemence he could muster. Once he had been in love with the nation of dreams, he had lived and cherished it there. He had been shit crazy about the baseball games and the Hollywood movies, the cheese burgers and the porn magazines, gosh! How he had enjoyed it there, until she had come along and had made him see the things he hadn’t seen, and think the thoughts he hadn’t thought. Now he hated the guts out of that country, everything from the gay life on the Brokeback Mountain to the wild Bushes in Washington. A lot many things in his life weren’t the same as they were before he met her. That had been a long time ago, a really long time ago; ‘she isn’t even alive anymore, damn! She isn’t even dead’ he thought.

He had met her in Harvard where he had been teaching Mathematics; he had loved numbers and everything about them, anything about them. It all started when as a little boy he was breaking his head over the proof he had just written; a proof to prove 2=1, it was wrong of course but how? Gosh!! He was a genius he had thought, until his ma’am had pointed out the flaw in his ingenious attempt at shaking the immovable pillars of the world of mathematics. That’s when he began realizing that if there was anything that was ever constant it was the rules of mathematics, and inside it somewhere are buried the key to all questions. Mathematics was one thing that was worth pursuing, the one thing that was worth loving. It was an affair that would last a couple of decades ending the day he met Safiha, but that was still 20 years away, twenty years that he would give to the world of numbers, numbers so huge that they measured the volumes of the galaxies, and numbers so small that they dropped like pearls out of the budlike lips of a two year old. That day, after his ma’am had pointed out his naivety, he had stayed the whole evening and night completely awake, spending the dark hours in the refuge of a tiny lamp reading the rules that ruled the world around him.

Twice his mother had woken up and had asked him to go to sleep, but he hadn’t. Next morning he was scolded for getting up late, ‘how unfair is the world that expects two intimate lovers united for the first time in the cloak of the night, to go to sleep rather than spend the night exploring one another?’ he asked himself, and found no answer; alas the unfairness of the world knew no bounds. Much later in life he’d spend countless hours reading books, it would become a frenzied mania after Safiha’s death. It would be then that he would read every damn book that he could lay his hands on, turning page upon page frantically searching for a glimpse of Safiha; he’d find her intellect and smartness in the witty lovable classics, he’d find her erotic touch and her raunchy moves in the cheap bestsellers. What he left buried in the graveyard he’d hope to find in the shelves of a local bookstore, he’d find her moods but not her.

He sure was old! He had just gone all the way from Dawn to Safiha to Mathematics to Safiha again in one train of thought, his ability to focus was dying; but thankfully his other abilities were still in order, enough to keep the women coming into his life. ‘You can have women come and go in your life’ he thought, ‘but never let one stay, for if she stayed she’d stay past her death too. She’d rule all that you think and feel, she’d make you cry and repent for ever having loved her, her sweet look will haunt your nights, her saucy walk will stay in your vision clouding your judgment of the world in front of you. Someday you would pick up a plump whore and would climb atop her to do your duty and quite suddenly the wide swaying hips of your long lost eve would rise from the dead to reincarnate themselves in front of your eyes, guilt would rise and your hunger would die. Hell!! She won’t be alive to hold you and make love to you and damn!! She won’t even be dead for you to forget her, cruel world!’ he cursed in his thoughts shaking his head, for those who saw him he’d look like a man disappointed at the news in the papers

Reviews are Welcome

2006-12-08T23:57:00.000+06:30

LITERATURE MATTERS 11

Mistress Quickly

She is the Hostess in Shakespeare's Henry IV and Henry V, she is everybody's messenger. She goes to falstaff bearing word from Mistress Page and Mistress Ford. She lends falstaff money falling for his ways. She recovers then and accuses him of fraud, only to fall again for his fraudulent ways. She in fact, at one time speaks to Anne page on behalf of all her three suitors.

She carries with her an amusing trait of mis-hearing or mis-understanding what someone has said. Oftentimes she seems to have heard a sexually charged conversation where there seems to be in fact no indication towards the obscene. At other times though, her own lines seem to carry a sexual implication while she herself remains comfortably unaware of any such thing. On the whole, despite her being a moinor character who apprears repeatedly, she does leave an amusing memory with the reader- or viewer.

Falstaff's Prose

One obvious difference between the language Shakespeare uses for falstaff and for everybody else, is that for falstaff he employs prose where verse is used for the other nobles. But of-course Prince Hal does switch back and forth between prose and verse.

The question is , If Shakespeare's audience loved his turn of verse, why then did the master resort to prose at times? Well, the reason could be that verse is often dense in meaning and conveys a sense of nobleness, whereas prose seems the language of the layman and yet it provides much scope for wit and sarcasm. Shakespeare uses the power of both verse and prose to good effect in all his plays. And in this case Falstaff's wit and play of words filled with timely puns come to the fore and sparkle in Shakespeare's prose. Not only does this make the character stand out for his characteristics but it also makes the class difference between him and the others stand out as well.

2006-12-04T15:41:00.000+06:30

A POEM

Hosting Anger

Guns Tanks Bullets and Shells
Wounds Cuts Burns and Swells
Spilling blood, Hosting Anger
A crazy man, in me dwells.

War Terror Anger and Rage
Hurt Caught put in a cage
Spilling sense, Going crazy
Hoping to turn the last page

Love Family Freinds and Foes
Hate Hate from head to toes
Firing bullets, Killing people
There There the Paradise goes.

Top Bottom Right and Left
Beauty lost to mindless Theft
Snow melting, Washing blood
Fight Fight for what is left.

- By Hameeduddin

2006-11-27T22:28:00.000+06:30

LITERATURE MATTERS 10

How happy did it make Shakespeare?

If critics have commented about how happy it made Shakespeare to save 'the creatures of the sun' (bassanio, Gratiano and co..) from something as real as the "vile" old Shylock, then they were both right and wrong in doing so. For one, even if Shylock and his drastically macbre demand of three pounds of flesh for a payment of loan that had gone beyond its due, was something that was 'really' vile, it does in no way provide for any sort of sympathy for a jew ragging Bassanio and his company. On the other hand, it is indeed true that it was finally left to shakespeare to come to the aid of these heroes of the time by way of Portia and her smart lawyering.

They(Bassanio and company) had to be saved from the consequence of their own earlier mistreatment of Shylock, for the appeasement of a crowd; the majority of whom were the Bassanios of the period in flesh and blood. Shakespeare, more than anything, needed a smart way to turn the tables on Shylock who had by all means legal cornered the 'righteous' ones. Then comes the smart argument that outdid the vile Shylock, who it seems, in his intention to be vile, forgot being smart for a while, and paid the price.

The Jew of the time was considered not just mean but also cunning( read smart). More than the fact that he saved Bassanio and Co from the vile Shylock, the fact that he helped them outdo the mean jew in his own department of 'cunning' must have given Shakespeare (and as a consequence his audience) a lot to celebrate. It is not Shylock's defeat, but the manner in which it was achieved that the anti-semetic audience of Shakespeare loved.

2006-11-20T19:13:00.000+06:30

EXCERPT

The Dancing Duo

"You and me dance dont we?" asked Josh licking his knife.

"yes, like em people on the ice they show on the TV" replied Rosy, her eyes glued to the TV."yeah, something like that" he says.

He squints hard at the knife again, then he alligns it in front of his head and takes a look at the relection of his bald head in the knife."you checked the refirigerator?" he asks getting up."Nope" she says, now she increases the volume and gets closer to the TV set.

"I am gonna check, you want somethin?"
"yeah, milk and some biscuits"

He leaves the room, and walks gingerly over to the adjoined hallway. " There is a whole lot of work to do" he shouts back on his way. "we still have twenty minutes" she calls back, not missing one frame of action.

Twenty Minutes Later

He sits crouching behind the door while she stands stark naked in the living room as the door to the apartment is being unlocked from the outside. Both Mr and Mrs Schmidt walk through the entrance and stare in astonishment at the naked woman in their apartment. Josh is quick, one blow each to Mr and Mrs Schmidt from the behind and they are both unconsious instantaniously.They never would see, or fell what happens next. Josh and Rosy are not sadistic killers, they liked to be called artists. What met the eyes of a crime scene investigation unit each time was a piece of art, Josh and Rosy made sure of it.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever" Josh would quote each time he laid out the crime scene.

"Aint I a joy forever?" Rosy would ask as she touched herself, she wouldnt bother that josh never replied to that, she'd ask it anyways.They neatly cut open the bodies, they drew patterns on the ground with the blood. They carried readymade plastic patterns with them that they used often. Sometimes Rosy tried to improvise, but Josh did not like that "Bad girl!" he would admonish when he saw Rosy adding her feces to the pattern. "It adds color honey" she would defend her art. "Hmpfff..." he would frown and go on with what he had in mind.

"You and me, we dance dont we?"
"yup"

"Lets not make this one like the last two" she insists.
"Hmm... why dont we try the rainbow?" he suggest, hands on hips, looking down at two corpses. Mr and Mrs Schmidt; normal people who spent their days in the quiet of the post-retirement silence, were about to be given an artistic farewell.

"Its the idea of making death as beautiful as creation" Josh would say reflecting on his rather unique profession.

2006-11-15T00:10:00.000+06:30

LITERATURE MATTERS 9

A Dignified Shylock? A Comic Shylock? Why not?

In an age like our own, far removed from the days of shakespeare and his plays, if one experiments with a centuries old character and adds a flavour or two of the times now, then, although a few raised eyebrows are unavaoidable, the general view ought to be one of enquiry- into the effectiveness of the new flavour arrived upon thus. A villain today is less emotional and more cold, more in contrast with the hero of the age who is expected to be full of heart and exhibitionary emotions.

Watching a character being played in the same fashion many times over can get a little too tedious and a change in such a circumstance is most welcome. A reader may have a certain image of the character as influenced by the mind. But when he becomes a viewer and sees the part being performed in another style, there could be two reactions. One wherein the viewer is open to the idea of change and views it evenhandedly, trying to ascertain the effect of such a change, Or else the viewer may be repelled by the idea of seeing his/her image of the character being shattered.

Personally I believe there is no wrong in a little experimentation. An overtly vile shylock would'nt sell in these days, and yes a bit of dignity for a man who merely sought to avenge his mistreatment (albiet in an altogether cruel manner) would do no harm, and a bit of comic sense would certainly make him memorable for more right reasons than those he is remembered for.

2006-11-07T01:15:00.000+06:30

Random Lines From A Book In Progress.

"Undercover of sheets, Undercloak of darkness, Underspell of passion, Under starlit skies- there was a moment to behold. A moment that moulded fantasy into a red hot burning rod, and drove it right through the heart of reality. I was her, she was me. A jig-saw puzzle fitting to the T. A mystery unvieled. "

"The world of mathematics lay before him, inviting the little one with wide open legs. He began revelling in the magic of numbers, utterly fascinated by their unconcquerable certainty. The numbers would grow up with him- Numbers so huge that they meassured the volumes of galaxies- Numbers so small that they fell like pearls out of the bud like lips of a two year old."

" She stood up and declared 'you know what ? my chubby one! you should write a book someday! you know, a solid piece of literature, something worthwhile.

'A book?' he asked sounding amused.

'yes, a few drops from your ocean, for the world's sake'

'yeah sure, why not' he said as his belly chuckled.

The world of books had always been alien to him. Soon though, be would be plunged into its madness, never to recover. After she dies he'd read every damn piece of shit he could lay his hands on. Searching the pages of cheap paperbacks and classic hardbounds for a glimpse of her. He'd find her intellect in those timeless classics, and her raunchyness in the sleek swim-suit action books. He'd find pieces of her. But not her."

2006-11-04T20:34:00.000+06:30

A Short Story

ELEVEN JEWS AND A JIHADI

-by Hameeduddin

As soon as the blast occured Ibn Ishaq the martyr and Emmanuel Stern the scholar-jew along with ten other random unconnected people tore through their tattered bodies and began flying in the skies above the Gaza strip. Among them only one seemed to be smiling and at peace with himself, Ibn Ishaq had achieved what he was supposed to and he was revelling in his victory as they flew past the clouds and began entering the oxygen free region. Emmanuel Stern the jewish scholar was the last of the pack and flew in what one might venture to call a sad mystic fashion. He flew last for he had consumed much time waiting to say a proper goodbye to his shock dazed family which was alas denied to him. Those in front of him had all tears in their eyes; tears that flew backwards as they all soared through the stratosphere in Mach six speeds, their sonic booms sounding like pitful moaning, except of course Ibn Ishaq who was flying at a blinding speed ahead of the pack in anticipation of the seventy virgins promised to him.
As they cleared the realms of the airs and entered the space of nothingness, eleven souls lingered for a moment, turned around and gazed mournfully at the planet where their loved ones were experiencing unimaginabe loss. Ibn Ishaq went into high gear and floored the accelerator as he began flying at beyond light speeds, hoping perhaps to reach his paradise like the blazing light. Emmanuel caught up with Ishaq and began amidst hysteric cries asking him 'why! why! did you do this? what wrong did i do you?' This came somewhat as a shock for Ishaq, only now did he realize that the Scholar-jew was behind him, also he realized the other random innocents were too, not far behind. 'why? you are a Jew thats why!' he shouted back and accelerated further. Emmanuel too speeded up and was beside him again, 'I have children and a family you know' he said in a softer tone, then he added 'had'in an even softer tone .

'Nonsense! you are sinners you all, the condemned!' cried Ishaq, he tried turning left and right but soon found that the eleven jews kept following him. Each in turns caught up with him and asked him 'why?'. Round and round in circles he flew, and yet they were there, the eleven jews 'I am a shopkeeper, i have five children' said one, 'My new born girl is left with no one to breast-feed her' weeped a lady, 'What is the name of that star?' asked a small curious minded jew boy, and on and on they spoke to him, his ears overflowing with the words they spoke into them. He kept flying one way and another, in search of his paradise, in search of his seventy virgins. Every where looked the same, and the jews were driving him mad. 'Shut up! shut up!' he shouted, then in tones of pity he pleaded for his all compasionate God to intervene. Only black dust and meteors came his way. His prayer bounced back off the planets to came back in the form of an empty echo. Far away somewhere Judas felt the same as Ishaq, eleven jews following him. Asking him 'why?'.

Time passes slowly at the speed of light, in fact it ceases to exist.The mindless jews never spoke among themselves but only to him, at first they questioned and soon he ran out of smart answers, then they cursed, after which they cried, then they returned to normalcy and questioned him again 'why?' they kept asking. He wished for being deaf. He wished for being alone. No more a longing for paradise. And then suddenly the jews vanished, into thin space, phoof! just like that! Wow!! his prayers got answered he thought. Out of nowhere came eleven other jews. Skull caps, david stars and all. The chatter resumed. 'Where are my eleven jews?' he asked. 'They have gone to where they belong, now we are your eleven jews'they replied. In that moment he realized his destiny. If they had gone and he was here, then this was his eternity. Not with seventy virgins, but right here, flying in literally 'no time', forever. No virgins here, just eleven jews, asking him 'why?', never letting him forget. Never.

Reviews are welcome.