Diet Moksha

I’ve made many a discovery over the past few weeks. They’re either the result of my superior intelligence or of excruciating boredom.
The product of whatever, my recent learnings will stay with me awhile till I gain more from my pointless ponderings.

They (^*‘They’ here being me and whoever else will say it next) say that intellect and idleness guard either sides of enlightenment. When you thieve through both barriers, you achieve bouddha. You bathe in the torrents of the waters these banks give shape to.

You attain Salvation Light, a mild attack of moksha.

Everyone has different enlightenments and different ways of getting to it. Meditation, tantrik yoga.. Thus, everyone is a guru in hers/his own rights.

My guruism came to me when I least expected it, in the dark of the night, while I bolted the main door before I retired to bed. That was my meditation, my single focus – the lock on the front door.

That’s when it struck me. The whole world, the segregations, the living, the dead, second life, every way we’ve tried to tame and learn, contain her.. they’ve all been pointless!

I’d cracked it! The world.. the universe, the multiverses, time, space, time-space!

Nothing could define it the way my new theory could. It was simple and profound. Just like enlightenment usually is.

The world is divided into two parts.
The one you’re inside, and whatever is outside it.

You’re not excited. Let me explain.

It was 10 p.m. when I came home. I saw my neighbour, the kind man who brought me food when I was sick and whose wife offered to let me watch T.V in her house. There was kindness and trust outside, there was temporary company and temporary love outside. Then, I walked to my door.

When I opened it, I walked in to a dark, musty room smelling dimly of fungi. I thought awhile before the lights came on to crush any larger than life for his own good cockroach that tried to run past me. There was the dark inside, heavy sighs inside, silent, angry prayers inside. There was a chunk of old loneliness and self-talking inside.

When I shut the door and bolted that lock, I was in a new zone, a z + 1 axis. There was no night any more, no light anymore, no friendly neighbour, no terror attack fright, no civil war over water, no global warming, no consumer research, no independence day anymore.

It didn’t matter what time it was, except if it had to do with proceedings with the outside world.
I didn’t shut a door, I had closed a portal.

When I realized this, I dropped my jaw. There was a mad urge to sleep with the door open, be connected with the rest of the planet.

I was overwhelmed with my new found knowledge, yet scared that my front door is a vacuum, when I figured everyone has that bolted front door that they’ve shut themselves into without realizing they’ve actually shut themselves out.

But being inside gives you protection, the sense of a safe place, possession and freedom. How ironic! That’s what we do with emotions too, I suddenly realized.
My enlightenment done, I paced around my house divinely with my bright retro halo tagging along behind me.

I was free. I had attained mild internal salvation, diet moksha.

Then came my second intense discovery.
I need a television. Either that or inferior intelligence.

I'm sorry

When I’m 122 years old, I will not be apologetic anymore.

I will stop being apologetic for caring more for the happiness I find in sunshine than in the pain of a hurricane than will one day destroy the world.
I am heartless, I am told.
With such poetry, I am to choose between my fears and my hope. I bleed with all the anger and hatred my exiles have nurtured me with and pour, gracefully, of course, to my feet for your dreams to come alive.

I will stop being apologetic about crying for the miniscule lives that live within me, so I can resurrect your lost castles and empty dungeons. They have no promises for you, or for me, but I will love their cellars like they are my only home.

I will stop being apologetic about your incapability to hear my screaming, the rape of every one of my nightmares you bring to life with your magic wand, and my not being able to tell you to stop because I choke with fear that you will think me a child.

I will stop being apologetic, when I am 122 years of age, because I will be back in my exiles, which have nurtured me with hate, distrust and crimson anger. I will bask in the familiarity of the burning sun on my pale dead skin and I will cry out loud because you can finally not hear me.

I will stop being apologetic for wanting to give, provided I don’t grow shapeless from giving,
Wanting to live, provided I am not waiting for death,
Wanting to love, provided I can retain my pride,
Wanting to dream, provided I can choose to remember or forget them,
Wanting to cry, provided I don’t have to stop
Wanting to laugh, provided I have no reason
Wanting to make a choice, provided you need no explanation.

When I am 122 years old, I will stop being apologetic for being ordinary and for loving my invisibility.

99 years will pass soon.

Life and Filth

Its a scene of crime, really, I haven't moved anything.
The windows are still shut tight to keep in all the din.
The waste basket is still full and the lizards are now rotting;
Everything's just the way we left it, the way its always been.

The sheets are still crumpled, and dirt tracks run around
From the kitchen to the bathroom and spill into the lounge.
Abandoned webs are threatening to fall onto my head,
onto the picture frames and the stereo and on the unmade bed.

Our clothes now have little patches that appeared from nowhere.
And the drinking water we left, remember? Its still lying there.
The water tank is empty and the pantry shelves are bare.
The plague just ran out the hallway, even epidemics are scared!

I missing you like mad, honey, come back before I die.
Its as unclean and unhygienic as hell in all its might.
I won't yell again when you don't put the clothes to dry.
if you're reading this, please... PLEASE........
COME BACK SAKKU BAI!!!

KING DOUBLE METER ALTAF

6 p.m., Sunday,
M. G. Road, Bangalore.


“Double meter.”

Twenty-two auto rickshaws faithfully stand in a line. Their twenty-two Altafs, Ravis, Asifs and Suryas of unpronounceable Pallyas rest inside their three-wheeler cars, uninterested in their jobs, in life, in the border wars… everything, awaiting the bane of their lives, commuters of public transport, to come, beg. The Arjunas of very many vast middle class categories humbled, plead, making sad faces holding onto the yellow-black chariots, looking earnestly into the eyes of the indifferent, cold Krishnas in khaki, timidly pronouncing their destinations.

“Tch.” A very definitely IT Arjuna hears, from the seventh rickshaw he has handed his ego to. Imitating several others like myself, he approaches the eighth with a sincere, almost intense desperation on his face and when turned down, immediately looks up, walking down the pavement, ignoring rickshaws nine and ten through twenty two. Like all of us Arjunas, I observe, who beaten and angry, quietly assume glorious statures of valiant losers thinking, “Fuck them. I’ll walk.”

I instantly remember Ramanand Sagar’s “Ramayan”, the episodes of adolescent Rama and Lakshmana with their never aging guru, Vishwamitra training them to be kingly and yet humble. Shaved little heads, clad in saffron and yellow, they bowed before each house in the neighborhood, juvenile beggarly princes crying, “Bhikshaamdehi, daata bhikshaamdehi!”

As I stand there, rejected by all twenty two khaki charioteers, hoping a twenty third will pass by me and discover a human heart pounding beneath his license badge, I wonder how this business thrives, what the ethics of this work culture are, the ethics of this reverse feudalist culture. How does King Altaf of public transport live off a career driving around a small section of town aimlessly, filling gas at his expense, and refusing every ten in twelve people who ask him for a drop?

Thus goes his working day:
King Altaf religiously gets out of his house at 4 a.m. and rides to a bus stop awaiting tourists, wanderers and travelers from afar. He does this with dedication till 8 a.m. demanding a 1 ½, double or even triple on the meter. From 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., he rides around in circles, stopping at every chai-cigarette shop he sees and when he’s acidic enough with tea to burn a hole through his intestine, he looks for a well-endowed tree and climbing slowly into the back seat like his bride awaited him here, he sticks his feet and Paragon slippers out to the world and goes to sleep.

When he’s woken up to need more chai and a cigarette, he rides around again, and then again, stopping for lunch. No one daresay waste his time asking for a drop now, a man’s gotta eat when a man’s gotta eat. Later, if it’s a hot day, another evil, knowingly full, seductive tree will possibly entice him to take another nap. A man’s gotta sleep when a man wants to sleep.

By evening, King Altaf is so bored by his day, all he wants to do is go home, or meet a friend, visit the local bar, do a couple of joints and relax. And so begins the riding around, looking for that one blessed individual on the face of this city who wants to go to Murphy Town, which is on the way to his home in Babueswar Palya. That too, he will only trade his privacy if the stranger begging for a ride in his blessed little caravan is willing to pay double the fee the meter says he should.

As I grind my teeth, inspired by these thoughts, rickshaw No. 23 passes me by. I wave frantically and exasperated, he stops.

“Ulsoor?”

He thinks a bit.
“Ulsoor mei kidhar?”

Putting on my best poor kitten in a wet blanket face, I reply. “Lake ke paas.”

He begins to think. I begin to pray.


6:40 p.m., Sunday,
M. G. Road, Bangalore.

“Double meter.”

I sigh. Making appropriate noises, I begin to carry my bags into the benevolent rickshaw, deciding King Altaf is not my most favorite man in the world. As I see his arm acrobatically turn back to turn his meter on, I begin to calculate the fare when my mind is suddenly confused by the familiar dreading sound we Arjunas hear so very often by our free-spirited Krishnas.

“Tch.”

My one foot in the air and outstretched arms with bags before me, I am left behind as King Altaf yanks the start lever and zooms off, his auto roaring at me and road it has left behind.

Angry, tired and feeling betrayed, I scorn, cursing in my mind the most truly malicious curses I’ve flung at anyone besides my seventh grade math teacher. Groceries in both hands and shoulders humiliated by a heavy bag, I begin to walk.

“I will never take an auto again!” I foolishly declare within my head, and a couple of voices in there smirk.

The calm, smiling face of actor Arun Govil who played a magnificient Rama in “Ramayan” appears in my head and I want to ask him what he would have done if his daatas behaved this cocky. Not one, not two, but all twenty three he’d begged that Sunday evening.

“Liftaam dehi, daata rickshawm dehi!”

Goodbye Max

Two years back, somewhere in the dusty alleys that run around Johnson Market, an egg hatched.

A little blue parakeet-ling stuck his head out and smiled at the world he was to share with the rest of God's funny imagination. I'm sure as hell that as soon as he broke out of his shell, he tipped it over and poked it with his nose, finally liking it enough to put his foot on it, holding it tight, like to say, 'Mine!'

My aunt picked him from a pet store in this bustling loud marketplace that brimmed with activity. She was looking for a little one. In a crowd of over ten little parakeets, she heard a tiny blue scantily feathered little chick yelp, pushing through the rest to chase a ball of hair.

She named him Max, and brought him home. Max was love at first sight for anyone who he met. He was playful, he was insane, and Max believed he was human.

A year back, Max was given to me to look after. I remember being extremely worried about my new responsibility and feeling very guilty everytime I stayed out leaving the blue wide eyed bird to stare alone into darkness the night through.

I decided to not love him. He was a bird. I mean.. not a dog.. not a cat.. a bird. And a micro tiny one at that. Max proved me wrong very soon.

One day, he sat on my head as I fed him. The next, he slept on my chest as I read.

Max did many things to show me it didn't matter if I didn't love him, because he did, regardless of whether I forgot to feed him, or change his water.

Max died today. I don't know how or why, but he was dead in his cage on his way to meet me after a long vacation I came back from.

I wish I could have him drink coffee from my mouth just another time. But I figure Max needed to go. He won't sleep on my chest again. And I'll miss that and him.

Goodbye Max.

Locked In the Attic

There's a little girl up there. She's very little, and she's very scared.

The Attic isn't too big. Its dark and dusty, and she doesn't like it in there, though she's never been beyond it. There are many trunks of different sizes and she's stored many memories there, locked them up. But now, she can't remember where she put the keys. They're probably in other trunks, but she's lost their keys too.

She had a friend who lived on the other side of the cobwebs. She was bigger, stronger and she was very angry. Atleast, most of the time, she was. She had no trunks, no keys, no boxes and no memories to store, either.

Once, a five year long discussion took place in the Attic. The older girl and littler girl sat down on either sides of the cobwebs and decided to bartar their belongings.

"I have many memories." The little girl said.
"I've none." The older one said.

"I can share one with you, but you'll have to look after the keys then", the little one added.

The older girl smiled for the first time in eons. She was thrown a bunch of glittering keys in iron and malted gold. The little girl pointed towards an old large trunk and the older girl watched as it dragged itself to her side of the Attic.

She ran her fingers around the trunk, and pushed the keys in. She heard a click when the keys turned and wide eyed, she opened the trunk. She peeked in and excitement poured a drop of bravery in her chest, and when she brimmed with the courage only curiosity brings, she climbed in.


For a long time, the little girl looked for her friend, but never found her. She called out in pain, she cried and she wept. She couldn't find her friend and she didn't have the keys to her memories either.

She's too little to crawl across the other side of the cobwebs, the curtain between her growing older and her infancy. She knows her memories are in there, and her future's drowned in them. She wishes she could save her friend, but she is, only, the litle one. There's not much her mind allows her to do.


So there's a lonely little girl in the Attic upstairs, sitting amidst many locked memories. She knows the keys are right behind her, and she can remember whatever she wants to. But its too dark in the other side of the Attic, where her friend disappeared some lifetimes ago.

I hope one day she'll have the courage to remember. And I hope when she does, she's still a little girl.

KKare for Dinner Time Stories?

I've been watching TV and I've been very konfused.

7:30 p.m.

Neeraj loves his wife Archana. (The names have been changed because I don't remember what they really were.) She loves him back, but loves herself more.
Archana is, what I presumed from one episode that I dared to watch, a doctor. She is characterised with long rebonded hair and oodles of makeup. She wears only striped sarees and heels. At home.
Neeraj, is ugly. No, really. UGLY.
And, if he's at home all day following his wife from bedroom to living room to fight with her in a blue tie-dye kurta that does NOT suit him on how she is NOT the ideal wife, I also presume he is unemployed, but rich.

Now, cut to a kid in school, an oily kid with oily plaited hair who is supposedly cute. Her father, who looks like he needs babysitting himself has a crush on her teacher.
YEESH!

Cut to the teacher. She dresses to school like its the Principal's Bar Mitzvah. She's barely twenty two, and is very mature and loving and has failed in love. So obviously, oily kid's diaper bearing father doesn't interest her. She loves only the one she lost - NEERAJ!!!!!

Back to Neeraj in his blue hideous kurta. He tells his wife their kid is the head of the football team in school. She thinks that's ok, but what really rocks is she's going to London for a conference where only 1 in 1000 are selected to attend. Neeraj is upset, and tells her she is not the ideal wife/mother and even her hair's fake.

8:00 p.m.

Uncle's got some 200 sons. They all live together under the same darned roof. All his sons are married but only one of the sons is the reincarnation of Lord Ram. His wife, as you've guess by now, is the clone of Sita.
Uncle comes back one day with a new wife, who's not really his wife but a prank on the family because the women in the household are too liberated.
Aunty is scary looking, but is apparently the world's best mom/wife. Why so? Because she accepts her husband bringing in the new wife who really reminded me of my headteacher in 6th grade. She even.. sob.. GIVES HER THE KIJORI KI CHAAVI!!!!!!
Obviously, Aunty #2's a bitch.

8:30 p.m.

Raj (name changed for lack of memory) looks like seventh grade drop out. He's RICH so hell cares. He's apparently a spoilt kid (duhh!) and has recently been resurrected from the dark side of anti-tradition and all because he's in love. With a hooker. With a hooker who last seen, dressed like Akka Maha Devi.
He wants to marry her. Samskruti/Samskaar/Maa TV fan club head, his mom, will castrate him if he does so. So he thinks of the most brilliant plan in the world.
He tells his mom his Vivian Ward is a princess.. No kidding.
His mom falls for it. She wants her son to marry her.

9:00 p.m.

A good man has impregnated his wife's sister's neice's mother-in-law's uncle's step grandmother and has lost his memory.

9:30 p.m.

An evil man has impregnated his wife's sister's neice's mother-in-law's uncle's step grandmother and is dead.

10:00 p.m.

The rebirth of a fire fighting woman has come back into the same household and will take revenge on the family because she died 20 years back and remembers even what color underwear her daughter, now aunt wore then. According to logistics, the woman who was her great grandmother in her last birth who is still live, kicking and making parathas should be atleast 178 years old.

10:30 p.m.

Grand daughter who once insulted her father not knowing he was her father realises her father was really her father and wants to take revenge on her grand mother because the director said she should.

11:00 p.m.
I yanked out my cable connection.


I wish my life was half as interesting.
Actually, maybe not.

It'll take me a while before I pay attention to my life again. I'm still gloating over poor Hot teacher's lost love with color blind unemployed man and bad grand daughter who has no clue how the rash on her back has anything to do with going to bed in sequin saris with the lights on full blast.

Sigh.

KKuch KKeeda hai.

Photographs from A Vacation

I’m back from a brilliant vacation and I can’t believe it’s over!

The beauty of this trip back home was it came after 8 months of not seeing my parents and finally being there, I was thrown off balance with the amount our relationship had changed, or evolved.. as I like to believe it did.

I coincidentally got in touch with a friend I haven’t seen or heard from in seven years. We studied together from the time we were six till the time we were seventeen. Somehow, though we shared nothing of our lives or feelings with each other, had nothing in common, not even basic value systems, we called each other best friends.
Childish incidents and years later, we finally fell apart, probably for our own good.

Seven years later, I met her, this vacation and we talked just the way we did when we were in second standard, or in fourth.. or pre university.. and we still contained the same childlike comfort levels.
She still asked me uncomfortable questions and I still gave her with non committal answers.
Her voice was still the same, she still looked the same and trust me, I couldn’t believe anyone could still be the same person seven years later. She hadn’t changed in thought or soul.

Which set me thinking.. maybe I hadn’t changed either.


My mom took me to an ancient temple her family had just discovered in the outskirts of the outskirts of the outskirts of a wannabe city-but-really-a-cool-looking-village.

I walked in and realized what they mean when they say you can’t breathe when you see something this beautiful.
The temple was rock carved, ancient and virgin, and was the birthplace of two warriors who were now worshipped as demi-gods in the village.
A forest grew around the temple and you couldn’t possibly imagine something this beautiful could stand in a jungle of thorns and everyday weeds.
I heard overwhelming stories about how these two very great men attained god-ship and the Brahman in the temple showed me the dried lake they bathed in, the old wood cradles they slept in as infants and the weapons they carried.

A few days later I left my parents and the home I grew up in for an extension of my holiday. It felt strange because the house too seemed like my mother now – beautiful, affectionate, once mine, and solely mine. Today, they were both other entities besides being just my Amma or my home.

Anyway, mush apart, Hampi was terrific!

A vivid description of the history and archeology and shopping, you’ll get on Lonely Planet, so let me get down to what REALLY got me kicked.

The morning my friend and I left Hampi, we sat down to savor the last of our free identities and freedom here.
Over a Tibetian breakfast in a little shack there, we listened to the birds, the river and a bunch of stoned firangs singing off tune.

Just then two people entered the shack.
The woman, atleast sixty, was Israeli and her British companion, an excited little man of atleast seventy led her in.

We couldn’t help but notice how excited the two seemed and they sat down discussing how the hash brown potatoes were nothing like hash brown potatoes here for the next fifteen minutes. The chemistry between them was so charged, I felt much older for a while.

Then, we eavesdropped. (Sorry, Mrs. Beautiful Israeli Woman and Mr. Handome Brit Man)

We learnt the two were once seeing each other, thirty years back. For some reason, they went their ways then. He got married, she was too, and somehow, six months back they got in touch, probably on the internet.

They decided to meet, here in Hampi on a decided date. The two came alone, leaving behind their families, but once here, didn’t know how to contact each other. Mr. Handsome Brit Man went all over the place to every inn asking them if Mrs. Beautiful Israeli Woman had checked in and a week later, he found her, and instantly recognized her.

We sat there listening to the two so lost in their past and so oblivious to the world around, suddenly snapping back into the present, feeling awkward, and then gliding back in, lost in memories.

I wish I’d stayed longer and been evil longer enough to know what happened to the two after that Tibetian breakfast. But we had a flight to catch. So a silent prayer said to the couple, we picked our bags and departed.

I’m back now, and my ex-best friend, the warriors and their history, home and the inter-nation lost love story all are part of memory, a past vacation and old photographs.

Hopefully, life will seem interesting enough now on!

Cheers!

Stillskin... Rumpelstillskin

Come now. Everyone needs a surname.

Or do we?

I've a strange one, to most ears that don't belong to the village our clan's named after. "Tonse".
Rae Tonse.

I've been called Thomas, Tonsils, Tonez, Tonnes and what not by waterhogs and teacher waterhogs in school. How difficult is it to say Tone-say?
Atleast it means nothing.. as in, the godly portal of all knowledge by and for man, and any animal that would remotely be interested in synonyms, phonetics and definitions and the capability to handle the internet says it means nothing.
Atleast I'm not Timothy Allen Dick.

But again, must we carry our names over and over generations, pass them onto our children? Is it an absolute necessity? A friend told me its so his father's name is not lost.
I don't think his child would ever refer to his grandfather by name.
And how much can I glorify the past of my predecessors, endorse their existance, keep alive the memoirs of their lives by carrying around the name of the village they decided to inhabit?

Heck I didn't know what my father's name was till I was four.
I thought his name was Daddy.
I also wondered how my grandparents could be that uncreative.
All my friends' fathers' name were also Daddy, or variations of the same!

Tonse.

Rae Tonse.

Ah well. It's better than Rae Daddy.

Waking up to Dream

Every once in a while, you meet a guide.
I had met mine two years ago, in a gathering of many like minded people. We were all hooded men, women, and children who attended a convention meant to burn down fear. We had different fears, we were different people, but we were all like minded men, women and children because we decided our fears needed to burn.

Of the many people, a man stood hooded, too. By the end of the ceremony, when everyone shed their fears and ripped down their hoods, I remember standing at the gates when I turned around to say goodbye. I wore a mask, as I always did, and was pleased no one had noticed. I wore a mask of stark nakedness, and many believed I had shed my hood, flung my fears into the fires among the many first.
But as I turned around to leave and say goodbye, I noticed a man far behind me, holding onto his hood, shielding his face and holding onto his bag of fears. He had saved them, and the pain of seeing his fear turn to ashes gleamed in his eyes. I was touched.

As our brothers and sisters left, I said goodbye to the hooded man, but I knew I didn't mean it.

Within half the year that followed, we met many times and in those meetings, I wore different masks of different colours, shapes and sizes, and I felt silly because he still wore his hood. A wry smile, though, always peeped through that fibre, and we both knew the truth in our lies.

We never fought about our hiding from each other, and for some reason, found comfort in our anonymity. He or I, never questioned our lies, and when the truth produced itself, we swallowed it without trying to taste it.
Together, we built a dream.

To realise our dream, came some clouds, some rains, some love, some pain. Some friendship, some heartbreak, some hardship, some mistakes. And together, we began to construct. Sometimes losing authority, sometimes having too much.

Two years later, after falling apart, misunderstanding things that never were understood, forgiving, forgetting, building and rebuilding, failing and falling, we let ourselves go.

Our dream has realised. Its probably not the best vision in the world. Its probably not the best story ever told. But to me, I have my guide and our clouds, rains, hurt and friendship, love and our dream before us.

Today, I watched as our dream, my dream unfolded. I cried in my heart because I couldn't believe I had finally woken up. And when I did, I found my masks gone. It felt light, and I am happier without them. As I turned around, ready to burn my masks and the fear of my face, I smiled at my guide. I realised then, that the pyre stood high, and his hood was long gone.

Thank you for letting me dream, dada.

Thank you, my friends, for giving me my dream.

Christmassy Overpourings

Ho! Ho! Hahahahee.

It's Christmas Eve. Its also a friend's wedding, another's third exam day and one far-off inconsequential pretend-relative's death anniversary.

But Ho! Ho! HO!

Its also a friend's bithday eve. He's going to be 2039 years old, I'm presuming.

Jesus is a good friend. he's not like Kris (Krishna) is to me, the high-five, butt-smacking, fart contest kind of friend, but Jesus is a special friend, nevertheless.

His last birthday, I had put presents under a tree, made cards for others, recieved cards, drank myself silly and said a brief 'Hi' to the stars, hoping my poetic gesture would convey my regards to the resident of the heavens.

At dot twelve, I ran to the tree with my Christmas spirited friends and we all hugged and sang, "Merry Christmas!" like indisciplined children and opened our gifts in a frenzy.
"This is the best Christmas, ever!" we chimed in synchrony.

Then, I realised.

There was a gift was Renee, there was a gift for Max, Tory, for Kari, for Dada, for Stiffy, for Daisy, for Dolly and it made the tree very full and its decorators very happy.

There was no gift for the birthday boy.

Jesus was right there. I couldn't see him, but I'm sure he was, next to every Christmas tree or every well deserved corner for one in the world. I'm not sure if he smiled an 'Its ok!' or showed me the finger, but it stayed with me.

This Christmas, I'm excited. VERY EXCITED!
I've got my decorated tree, and I've presents under it, too. Amongst the lot of little boxes of gift that will be lost by the 25th December, 2007, there's a little chit I know my reciever will never lose.

It says,

"Dear Jesus,

I'm sorry I get carried away with the reds, greens and carols of celebrating your day every year. I know you wanted nothing from us in return for the love you've given us, too. But this year, I want to give you something. Not much, but a trinket of my appreciation for being who you are. I'm going to give you my trust and my love. I promise you that everytime something goes wrong, I'm going to do the best I can to better the situation, and then I'm going to believe in my love for you and trust you will tell me what to do next. And if I go wrong, I will not be angry with you or God.

Happy Birthday, Jesus.

I love you!"

I'm sure he'll love my present. And the poor guy really should get more.

Merry Christmas, everybody!!!!

Anoxia

I've got irrational fears, too, you know.

For instance, I've always felt the next moment, I'll plop. I'll be dead. For no reason.
Just.. Game over.

I've tried to visualize what people behind me would do then. A gazillion tests, autopsies.. but no one will know how I died.

That's the fear. But there's more.. Probably a death wish.

I've always been fascinated with the sound the air makes, especially when you're racing down a highway at kill or die speed, and you can hear nothing but the wind spiraling into your ear.

I wonder what the air would've been like if it was human.
If she was human.
Air's definitely a she.

Why else would it come rushing down on you when you raced into it and play dead when you don't make a move towards it? Why else would it be ready to be inhaled knowing well it'd be exhaled, would fill a room and leave too, entering every time the doors opened, keep streaming in through spaces, in and out, out and in, and after all that ruckus, still be there all the time?

I've always believed I will be the air, someday. Not in its frantic indecisiveness, but in form. The former I've quite successfully achieved, without trying too hard.

The concept of death, is somewhere, too in your face. It just happens. BANG! POW! SWOOSH.... rigor mortis. How unvaliant!

For all the havoc I've created in others lives and in my own, the end of me can't be just froth and stiff veins.

So, I've decided I will not die.
I will just cease to exist.

Sometime, any time now, actually, I will just dissipate, evanesce into thin air. Like Maya memsaab, I will not die. I will just evaporate and I will float around for ever with no form or shape.

But then, I'll miss being an individual. And if I'm around floating about and no one really tries more than one autopsy, I'll be shattered. I'll feel extremely insignificant and unimportant, forgotten in the chaos of everyday life and worries. I guess that's what its like for the air, though.
But I'll still be around. I'll come rushing down on you when you race into me and play dead when you don't make a move towards me. I'll be inhaled knowing well I'll be exhaled, and will fill a room and leave too, enter every time the doors open, keep streaming in through spaces, in and out, out and in, and after all that ruckus, I'll still be there all the time.

You know what?
The air and I'll do just fine.

Ok, death! I'm ready!

Nothing means Nothing

Have you ever wondered why women say 'nothing'?

You're at dinner, you've had a nice day, you give bits of your experience to her. She seems down, uninterested and is torturing her dead chicken with her fork.

"You ok?"
"Yeah."
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."

Uh oh.

The moment a woman says 'nothing', you know the red naked man downstairs is polishing his pitchfork, kicking at his cauldron in ecstacy.

Nothing, is not even a real word. But how true is any other word to its derivation!'Nothing' means nothing!

But then again, do women mean it that way, really? I'm trying to find out myself, actually. I know women don't find it necessary to tell a partner or a potential anything about how they're feeling, unless it is the object in question that has donated in any way to the change in natural state.

And women can hide, if you think they cannot. A woman can show you, you are of no consequence to her moods, day, evening or life and go home and unconsciously run head on to the mirror to see what you last saw of her. A woman can show you she is troubled and know that frankly, its nothing she can't handle, though more often that not, its the other way round. (Sorry sisters, i didn't mean to spill our beans.. i'm just curious myself)

So theoretically, the object is disturbed and she has decided to show the object she is disturbed. A woman is always sure of herself. Once she has decided she cannot hold back, she will not. But to ensure the object is genuinely listening and genuinely cares, she has decided she will eventually, after a compulsary push that the object must deliver, speak.

"Nothing".

Nothing?

I also seem to have found a theory to that.

Situation 1:

Man and Woman in a restaurant.

Man: And then I... Are you ok?
Woman: Yes.
Man: Not again.
Man: No, you're not. What happened?
Woman: Nothing.
Man: Be calm, take a deep breath, ask again.. she'll tell you.. its inconsequential.. but she'll tell you..
Man: I know something's wrong, tell me.
Woman: Nothing, I told you.
Man: Ok. if you don't want to tell me, I'm fine with it.
Woman: What?!
Man: Well, you don't want to tell me..
Woman: No.. I do.. but..
Some mushy sounds
Man: Well, tell me.
Woman: I.. didn't like what you did last summer...

Result: Woman's got it off her chest. Man's glad she's gotten it over with. Goes back thinking - Woman! How unpredicatable!

Situation 2:

Man and Woman in a restaurant.

Man: And then I... Are you ok?
Woman: No.
Man: Wha...?!
Man: Oh. Eh.. What happened...?
Woman: I.. didn't like what you did last summer.

Result: Woman's got it off her chest. She's also mad. Man's glad she's gotten it over with. He's also mad.

I have no clue if I'm right, but I've tried both ways. And its not the women, I figured. Woman adapt, and say what they will knowing exactly the effect it will generate. I mean, seriously, women don't do that with other women! They get right to it!

Its the subject!

Or probably just nothing.

I hated everyone at 14

The world will tell all,
Yet will never be told.

Deeds will be forgotten,
Your sins carved in gold.

Don't tell a broken heart to heal when it can.
None know a broken heart but a broken man.

They shall pour till they cannot,
And their tears, they will dry.

They will build a tower of rage
And keep their fire alive.

Don't name their murder for the poetry of angst.
None but them know the words they had sang.

Anti, Matters.

I am very anti-drunk.
I hate their guts and the fact that they let themselves lose their mind over an inanimate glass of foul smelling rotten staple food of some third world country.

I hate the way they talk. How they develop an extreme urgency to let the world know who they are. How every sentence after Peg #3 and Excuse #57 must begin with "But, I.." And how every "I" will and must be stressed, italicized and underlined every single time because the listener must and should know who he/she is listening to.

I hate lone drunks, too.
I hate how they ridicule their existence by getting drunk staring at their ceiling/television/feet/computer screen/pets feeling miserable for needing to get drunk to kill time and find hope or scope for thought in being drunk staring at their ceiling/television/feet/computer screen/pets.

I'm probably also racist.
I am very anti-fairness cream advertising.
I hate how the dark girl is always rejected by the geeky looking, formal clothing clad bastard because she thinks he believes she's too plain. And he always looks like he'd rather marry her father. Or being fair to him, he probably hated the copious amounts of oil the director smeared on her face. Who'd want to marry an exhausted Arab oil ring?

No, that doesn't make sense. I'm very anti face wash.





I've just realised, I'm very anti, right now.


*Hic* to that.

My Lord in the attic.

"We'll manage." they apparently said, six years before my birth, when my grandparents asked my parents what they'd do about their unborn, unplanned (and yet unconcieved) child's to-be religion.

Ms. Mom and Mr. Dad belonged to different belief systems, and each was more in love with their respective religions than the other. Also, their measurement of love for religion was directly proportional to how much they hated the other religion they were marrying into.

When I was eight, every Friday, Dad dropped me at a large creepy gate which led to a narrow staircase to an old blue room where children moved rythmically to noice and reading what they didn't understand. "What does this mean?" I asked once, the result of which was one week of aching knuckles and bamboo ring marks. I blindly followed and believed.
On Saturday, mom dropped me to an organization dedicated to drowning children in undecipherable, sing-song chanting. "What does this mean?" I asked again, and recieved a horde of coded expletives and a letter to my mother, which resulted in losing out on my favorite side dish at dinner for a month. I blindly followed and believed.

Every Sunday, I was confused.

One day, at school, I was introduced to moral science class, where my teacher, a woman with angelic wings on her shoulders and a forked tail in her backside asked me to tell her what God was to me.

Oh, man.

I told her I knew there were two Gods who switched roles on Fridays and Saturdays. And on Sundays he was off duty.

The girl sitting next to me, who once a while treated me to her lunch, then invited me to attend a spiritual gathering on Sunday at her place.
I went.

They gave me sweets when they were done moaning.

MAN!

I blindly followed and believed.

So now, there was a different God for every weekend and weekly holiday of the Gulf. Also, everyone reiterated there was only one God.


One day, when I was sixteen and confused, I decided, "I will have a religion".
I discovered marijuana.

You know what? Ms. Mom and Mr. Dad were right.

They managed.

'Mama' Calling

I wish the Caller ID technology had never touched my life.

(Some polyphonic tone, would be lying if I said Tring Tring)

'Mama calling', my phone read, blinking at me brightly like a psycho killer would, I'm guessing.

'What did you eat?'

I knew that was coming. It came five times a day, everyday, for the six years I've been living away from my parents.

Probably, I wouldn't be this irritant if I didn't know who was calling. I'd just give into the call like you give into fate.

Look, don't get me wrong. I love her, I mean, its a biological liability. You can't help but love your mom. She'll nag, she'll bug, she'll even rearrange your furniture, but well, she's Mummy.

“What did you eat?'

I will not answer that phone. I will NOT answer that phone.

'Mama calling'
My phone was still blinking at me brightly like a psycho killer would.

I've tried to talk to her, you know.

I've said, “Mama, I'm not a kid anymore.. I mean.. I know you think I am.. But trust me, I can look after myself.. You needn't keep calling to find out where I am, or what I'm doing. Or what I ate! You've gotta trust me!”
“Okay, okay. I know. You had food?”

Once, my mom said, “You know, Rae, our phone bill's gone too high this month.”
MUHAAAHHAAAA!!!!!

“I know, Ma. You know what? Don't call me five times a day. Call me once. Or twice. Maybe in the morning and then once at night to begin with.. then we can cut down after that?”
“Why?”
“Your bill's high 'cos you keep calling me..”
“So?”

“No, mama, I mean we can cut on costs.. I mean, Even I can't pick your calls all the time.. I'm in a meeting.. or at work.. so, we'll speak twice a day..”

“Hmm.. What did you have for lunch?”

There comes a time when you realize you've moved on. You still love home, but its now your parents'. Mom and Dad are now individuals, they have names besides 'Mom' and 'Dad'. And you begin to consciously see how you are pretty much like them in many small, significant ways, whether you like it or not.

In case you're wondering, my phone was still blinking brightly at me, like a psycho killer would, probably.

Its sad. Sad for her because she loves me so much she can't let go. Sad for me because she loved me so much I realized I can love myself more. Sad because she's holding onto me so tight, I can't breathe anymore.

But, dammit, I love her. I can't stand giving her details of what my digestive system has been through since morning, but, maybe I should tell her she means a lot to me, and if she wants me to be the grown-up she keeps idolizing, she needs to let me grow up, by myself.

“Hi, ma.”
“What took you so long?”
“I didn't see my phone ring.”
“What nonsense! You didn't pick my call even in the afternoon!”
“I didn't see it.”
“Rae, you're being very careless with your excuses. What were you doing?”
“Nothing, mama.”
“Talk to me, Rae! You don't talk to me anymore!”

Damn.

“Mama, how many different things can I tell you in a span of two hours everyday? You call me five times!”

Shouldn't have used that tone.

“Sorry, mama. Just worked up.”

I was glad she'd probably ask me something else now. But NO!

“Hmm. You handle your issues. You're too big for me to tell you what to do. What did you eat?”

I hate the Caller ID.

I miss me

Today, I sat alone at my regular old coffee bar. By my table, was the one more often than not occupied by haunted children who never grew to be men, for over a year now.
I am usually accompanied by three friends and four coffees in my regular sessions that last for over three hours.
Today, I sat alone at my regular old coffee bar.

ordered my coffee before discovering it was already smiling at me with all its pleasant filtered aroma. I watched the froth of the morning's milk brew into my hot cup of caffeine and puzzled, I stared into the little hot bubbles that brimmed to the sides of the chipped ceramic cup. I counted one hundered and twenty two bubbles before I was bored. Again.

This place was familiar; my table, my cup, my broken chair, almost like how you carefully stepped to your right, groping in the dark or you knew you would bang into the red couch you insisted on having in the centre of the room, even when the lights were off.

I was comfortable, but uneasy.
I decided I had to stay to find out why. I am used to being alone in coffee shops, in bus stops, at home, in my head.. this was least different.

I realised I was missing something. I was missing someone. It wasn't my friends, those who accompany me and my four coffees everyday over arbid conversation. It wasn't the air, the sleeplessness, it was me. I missed myself.

The other side of me had gone off on a vacation with my ambition, my passions, obsessions for over a year now. I realised I missed my reason to be, who was off praying by a lake enveloped by mist by the stone of old temples.

What remained, was longing, life, and a chipped cup of now lukewarm coffee.

Kabab Magic

Five years ago, I washed into this city, lost in new freedom. I had no idea what it was going to be like from here on, and I was aware of the fact that I was never going back to what I thought was home. I remember walking down this dark street in Mohamaddin Block, canoped by trees and wires of light poles infested with bats, trying to find the main road, thinking to myself that the light at the end of this tunnel must belong to civilization.

It was seven, or so, and as I reached my destination, the light (which was far from blinding), the air around me suddenly smelt different. It was full of this divine aroma.. of my mother's pampering, somehow. What was it?! Oh, how my mind hath turned with no will! What was this smell.. the scent of love.. or life.. of GRILLED CHICKEN!

Like in a Disney movie, I turned around, I remember, flabbergasted something this heavenly could land right before my being on this dark and lonely evening. I can't remember what I was thinking.. but I walked to the establishment on my right. It was like a doll house. An open restaurant, with plastic chairs and tables set on the road, with nothing around it. Not a house, not shops, not another hotel in that space of 100 metres around. "My very own presonal oasis!" I thought, as I looked up to catch the neon sign that flashed in my eye.

Kabab Magic.

Like in a trance, I let my nose lead me the way in. I followed everyone around me to precision. I hypnotically checked the menu and registered the first thing I read. Then I hypnotically went to the counter and paid my Rs.25 for a Shavarma. Then I hypnotically went to my table, holding onto my little white coupon like it was my pardon from life imprisonment.

I watched in awe as the guy with a weird chef's hat flung the dough in the air, twirling it aroung, as it grew massive in size to plop onto a round cooking pan. It flew in the air, swirling like a space ship as everyone around watched him perform his dough-defying stunts.

When his naan/khuboos (still no idea what that was) cooked, he flung it to the guy next to him, and it landed exactly, I have to add, at the spot he most wanted it. This next man began to slice like a conductor in a concert, at his tandoor with two sharp, long knives in a frenzy, and chunks of meat, supple and fresh with green lime and hummus dropped onto a silver disc.

My shavarma brought to me, I hypnotically bit in. And then, i broke out of my trance only to land in a higher state of unconsciousness. It was an orgasm!

My memories of what happened after that, are very vague. I think i just went back home, content with not doing whatever I was supposed to and just surrendering to my nose and rumbling stomach.


Today, years later I passed by my haven for one night five years ago. I felt funny and I didn't know why, so I stopped by to figure. (Wallah! A poet is born!) Nothing much had changed, except that, the guy at the tandoor grew a white stubble now.. or was it always there? The trapeze artist didn't play with his dough like he did that night, either.

I followed the same ritual of buying my coupon (it was now for Rs.30) , and thenI took my prized roll and walked down the dark lane I once lived on. Trying hard to recollect what my thoughts must have been like that night, I realised with a smile in the dark that I was now free.

Walking down the lane to nowhere from nowhere, I had grown up, in some ways, perhaps, from that seventeen year old confused glutton to a twenty-two year old sure glutton. Home was where I wanted it to be, and right now, the canope of old trees and poles infested with bats suited me just fine.

Dark Chocolate

The most romantic of presents was always dark chocolate. I don't know why, it just was.
I decided when I was fifteen that I would fall in love with someone who gave me a box of assorted dark chocolate. I wonder why it would be assorted if everything in the box was dark chocolate.
I will turn twenty two in ten minutes. A ritual I've followed for years, I go twenty one years, twenty three hours and fifty minutes back in time.
I went past the first day of school when mom stood by the window and waved, wondering if I would cry in the school bus while I looked at her through the greasy window of the bus, excited about my new yellow lunch box.
The time dad bought me a new pink bicycle.
The time I sold its wheels so I didn't have to ride it.
My first crush.
My first kiss.
First job.
First love.
Second love.
Thi..
And so on.
I went past the time I stared into space last year, on my twenty first birthday. When twenty one years seemed a life lived long enough – I had nothing more to unlearn, nothing more to lose. I sat alone, stared blankly at my TV screen in the dark. I liked its play of light on the wall.
It was my birthday. I was alone, and it mattered. I didn't want people(come to think of it, there were no people) barging into my living room with streamers and pineapple cake, and I switched off my phone in all my senses because I wanted to be the first one to wish myself. Maybe I feared no one would call.
But suddenly, I didn't feel that way any more. I wanted another voice outside my physical self to say “Happy Birthday, Rae.” And it would be a generous topping if he also added, “I love you.”
But I loved no one, and that hurt more than no one loving me.
I switched on my phone. This year, someone was going to wish me. His voice would ring from outside my mind, outside my body. I sneered at time and jeered at the year. I had won! I'd conquered! I am a victorious twenty-two year...
Tring-tring!
“Hello?”
“Rae?”
“HI!!!” He remembers!
“What you doin'?”
“Nothing....!”
“Oh.”
Then he said he was in love.
I listened, as I imagined him with a ribbon and a bow around his neck.
Time and the past year came closer, fell on their backs, rolled on my floor and laughed, snorted and farted in ugly mockery.
The clock struck twelve. I was twenty two.
“Kay is so amazing!”
“Yes. I know.”
“She's.. Rae, God bless you for bringing her to me!”
“Hmm..”
“You seem sleepy.”
“Ah.. Yes.”
“OK. Good night then. And Rae, thanks. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! LOVE YA!”
Click.
I put the phone down, very slowly, almost carefully and reached for the remote control. I switched on my TV. I'd stored Cartoon Network on 11. The Brain told Pinky he had to concoct a potion to put humans to sleep so he could rule the world. He said he would mix the potion with ice cream so it would be lavishly consumed all over the planet.
I am still thinking, dark chocolate.