Reflections

Bizarre

2011-12-31T20:16:00.021+05:30

I only wish pigeons start pooping on the window sill instead of the Air Conditioner. My only new year hope. So it’s that time of the year again, when people make bourgeois list about bourgeois things that happened or wish hadn’t happened or those who got searched the most on internet. Interestingly, Bieber is the common denominator in almost all. I despise most of it. It is befitting then to alleviate and raise the decibel of my self-hatred through a list of my own. An endeavor at picking a few out of the ordinary / bizarre stories I heard over the years and bring them to the kind attention of my 3 readers – I, me and myself. (Bite me Salman Khan). Here are my handpicked 8 stories. Someone raised a question though. Why 8? 10 is a decent number. The professor can tell best.

Story 1

Enter Computer Lab, Basement. Final practical, MATLAB. One glance at the question problem asked, you know it. That you don’t know it. Could you care any less? Perhaps not. But you never cared much about a middle market college degree anyway. Funny thing, you didn’t set it, but even the screensaver says so. “I-Pee-University”.

Bizarre? Almost. Funny? Heck yeah!

Story 2

Year 2010. Enter a pretty young sassy thing seeking directions in Commonwealth Games Village. Can you resist? Duh no! Small talk and a minor erection ensue. She thanks you, exchanges number. Somethings off, she’s laughing. A LOT. I know I am not THAT funny. What is it then.

Zipper? Check.

Bat poop Deo ? Nope.

Grey hair? Hell yeah. Maybe she saw my bad side, left.

Cut to Lunch. She’s new, wants someone to keep her company during lunch. Small talk is rather random. VERY random. You leave her back at her workstation, pinky swearing to meet at the end of the day. She asks you to stay. Asks, um, Have you heard Kash koi mil jaye?

Neh.

You should.

4 Minutes later. Rounds of laughter. Ridiculing the poor guy. For all I know, I could have just as easily been the composer. Anywho, something’s off again. She’s laughing SO much.

Um. Are you okay?

She nods

Why are you laughing so much?

(She laughs again. 2 minutes later)

Nipun, its my that time of the month.

(Inside my head) WHAT? Menstruation and excessive laughter?

Nipun, its my that time of the month. (Head rewinds to conform the diagnosis.)

Bizarre? Check. And Check!

Story 3

Vile. Arrogant. Genius. Delirious. This species is really very fascinating.

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Damon. Just a few needles in the haystack.

A Harvard dropout.

Not many have met or known any offspring of the aforementioned species. I see the Halley's comet and my life shall be blessed. No, seriously.

Anywho, had the good fortune of meeting a Harvard dropout, now a writer. All at the tender age of 21. Tender, Yes!

The guy X has signed a book deal with company Y. X&Y, you shall hear in due course of time. Coincidentally, also my favorite Coldplay Album!

Bizarre? Neh

Intriguing to find out if he turns out to be another genius? YES!

Story 4

How one is reminded not to believe what they see.

For if my mom were to see my Google search History, she'd find "Metallica cancelled" and "Psychosis/ Depression" (Thanks to House M.D.) in the most searched column.

Story 5

I wouldn’t know if it’s blind, mute, deaf, or if it suffers from Brain aneurysm. I do know, it is quite fascinating. Love.

Heard my sister’s college besties are now marrying each other. Maybe not bizarre. But since I find myself at the cusp of my college life, heart warming it is to have seen them in their first year and to see them happy and engaged now. I find it difficult though to comprehend how they made it work for nearly five years. What is more surprising is they lived away from each other for sometime.

As a friend would put it:

As it was, then again it will be and though the course may change sometimes, Rivers always reach the Sea.

Witnessed a cliché of college friends marrying each other? Check.

Story 6

"He is dying. There is nothing we can do." says the doctor.

Anaphylactic seizure.

“I love you” she says, holding onto his arm.

“Shh. Don’t say.” He says.

“Words are the single greatest source of misunderstandings”^*

Story 7

I think it was a MUN I was attending, or some fancy conference. I ran into this professor. Fat, Burly, grey hair, not many hair, thick lenses. The usual. It is however amusing to see grown ups consumed by a single idea. The professor, through his 8-10 years of research had concluded that the only thing that has been common to mankind is the will to organize, thus in order to be different or to be remembered, challenge the organization. He illustrated further how we were building this organization, ala Matrix. Humans made the calendar so they could keep track of all important dates. They remembered their birthdays, death days and important events. Then, they also kept their Names, so as to be trained to know which name to respond to. Would the early man have bothered to do so? We started wearing watches, started making Maps, putting everything we knew into books and stored them in a Library.

It is then most unusual that people we adore are non conformists. Rock bands, ever since the Beatles in 60s to U2 now, seem to be everyone’s favorite. The agents of chaos are most revered.

I don’t know if he’s right or wrong. What I do know is: Grown ups are odd. Very odd.

Story 8

Ahemdabad 2009 I think, local flea market. I see a woman in distress, she’s well dressed. Maybe in her 30s. She has a kid, who is not at all flustered. Grown up’s always have something to worry about. If you told the kid he has lymph sarcoma of the intestine, he’d still be playing and cheerful. Grownups are strange. Very strange. That’s not the point though. She is worried how she’ll go back home. So she asks this another woman, a complete stranger, for her cell phone. The other woman is tanned. Judging by the cross around her neck, she’s Christian. Now when was the last time I saw Christian in Ahemdabad, cant recall. The tan says something. Goa I’m guessing. She has a backpack which still has an airplane tag. Maybe a transit flight, but why would she come to a flea market. Maybe just for kicks. So anyway, she takes her time examining the borrower, like a bank scrutinizes your cash flow. She is convinced in two seconds and out comes her high end BB. Hmm. I wonder if she had given it to her if she was wearing something bought from the very flea market she was standing in. Intriguing nonetheless, that a tourist is willing to lend her highend phone. Perhaps all is not lost. If the doomsday prophesy does come true next year, maybe she’ll lend a few bucks to get an unknown a ticket on the Noah’s ark. Humanity may prevail.

* Source: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Sun Signs

2010-05-28T23:15:00.001+05:30

The harried soul wanders within and without. Anxious, he desists thinking what may unravel before him. Like a fugitive, he runs, he fears, he is uneasy.

He turns the key to his old white ambassador, as he steps outside his office. Three failed attempts and a jump start later, the engine starts whining. His thoughts and car are now running in opposite lanes.

Harshit Sharma was a sharp, quick-witted and suave minister in the cabinet. The kind who go to fancy French restaurants to eat Foie gras or Foie de veau, learning the phonetics of which, is an art of its own, billing it under the government was another art he picked up along the way. He was an optimist too, or so it seemed from his statements to the media, one being “A stopped clock is not right twice a day, it is right throughout the day. It tells you the time of every country in this world, once” on the recent embarrassment when a clock tower was not working, where foreign officials were inspecting preparations for Commonwealth Games. The failing of the clock was rather ironical, given the CWG Committee was running behind schedule, way behind. Opportunism, however, was his piece de resistance.

Harshit checks the time in his Rolex Cestello. Seven P.M., as he misses the clutch again. He tried best to allay his wife’s myriad fears. He was doing a shoddy job at it. Clutching the wheel tight, he thinks of all the good times he spent with her. The unerring choice he thought he had made. How they would live happily ever after, the delight with which he applied vermilion on her forehead the first time. He clutches his chain, with the picture of him and his wife. Sudden outburst of angst engulfs him; he stops, near a field.

The sun in the background, paints the sky orange, retiring for the day, tired and gloomy. Harshit stares pensively at the dwindling sunrays, trying to find the answers. Meanwhile, Sorghum dance to the tunes of his confusion, next to his feet, tickling him uncomfortably, much like his vile and malicious neighbor Member of Parliament, Mr S.V. Verma.

He looks at the sun again, watching it set. A wry smile shines upon his face. He hears the sound of wind gushing, and watches the birds flying hastily back home, the ever changing pastel colors, red, orange and now violet like a developing photograph, it switches colors. The emulsification not just restricted to the sky. Cartwheeling perilously between good and bad, he is lost. Estranged memories from the corners of his cerebellum now crawl slowly in.

1984. Around that time, Harshit was a young blood. His kurta, clean,well creased and crisp, much like his character.

“Why waste the youth growing up?” He used to chuckle.

He was rather unworldly, in that sense.

13^th June – His father was assassinated. In a rather unfortunate turn of events, right after he had stepped down as home minister, an Indian made rifle’s bullet found its way to his heart. The panic after the riots had barely receded, when his sudden demise, the second shockwave, hit the country. The storm hit Harshit hard; the sudden transition was exemplary, as he took baby steps into manhood, becoming the only breadwinner in the house. Once in bed till late evenings, he now saw the first sunrays every day.

Over the years, he became worldly wise. Numerous opportunities came knocking on his door, even if they didn’t; he made them knock on his door and his door alone. He was a quick learner too. He grew self reliant, self centered in many ways. Entering politics, thus, seemed like a foregone conclusion.

Back in May ’82, he married his father’s friend’s daughter, Gita. Gita was earmarked for a glorious husband. She was pretty, educated and polite. Harshit would go on rallies all over the country, accompanied by his wife. Over the years, though, they grew distant. She suffered a miscarriage in ‘87, through which Harshit was busy working on political campaigns. She stopped accompanying him after that and he wasn’t bothered either, as getting ahead in career was the focus of all his energies then. She, however, did keep a dignified silence throughout.

Awoken by a cold wind, swishing past his ear, he gets up and shakes his head. He collects and arranges his thoughts and gazes at the sun quickly, as his brain starts talking again.

“The funny thing with the sun is that it never really sets. It just moves from one place to another. Sunset is a misnomer, in that sense”

“It is never loyal to anyone in particular.

If it were to be loyal, it’d burn him.”

Sudden rush of blood, brings him back to his usual unequivocal, devilish self. In a jiffy, he buttons his shirt, hand combs his hair and pulls his pant up, although not necessarily required.

“Fidelity is so passé”. He laughs heartily.

Empowered by his ruminations and the deeply fermented drink, he lays all his fears to rest, peacefully. He runs to his car, rummages through the pile of clothes, papers and tools, to finally unearth the finest bottle of Single malt scotch whiskey. One of his idiosyncrasies was drinking only Single malt scotch, it made him feel rich and powerful and part of the crème de la crème of country’s riches. After a couple of mouthfuls, he places it back, opens his collar button, and folds his sleeves in repose.

He smiles in silent lucidity, his thoughts clearer than ever before, his vision not so much. A light shines up on his face, as he sees before him a knife placed callously. .

“It is incumbent upon me to kill her.” He says in his coarse voice.

He turns the key, the engine moans and starts, without needing a jump start, this time.

A man with deep seated issues, when he gets into deep deliberation, he rarely notices what’s in front of him visually. He fails to see a speeding truck behind him. It hits his car once, twice, he growls, shouts. The ‘99 make Ambassador twitches, meanders and slows down. He tries to start it again, confident that it will. It hits him again, and the car is crushed.

A lady jumps out of the back, salivates money to count it. Ten thousand.

She is relieved, Harshit’s fate was sealed by the negatives of him and his secretary together, she positively felt. She drops the photographs and the necklace with Harshit’s and her picture in it carelessly, but then picks it up quickly. Rejoicing the deliverance from misery, she looks particularly happy.

The sun is completely set, and the moon begins to smile nefariously.

10 Things about Rakhi ka swayamvar

2009-08-02T23:41:00.004+05:30

1. The only thing real in this reality show was Elesh's stomach and Rakhi's tattoos (arm and abdomen).
2. The shortest fairy tale was also created - Two Princes by the name of Manas n Chittiz came riding on horse and asked Rakhi to marry them, she said no to both, they lived happily ever after.
3. Rakhi sawant is 30 years old and a virgin.
4. She agreed for 3 item songs in see-through bikinis for the parivar, as dowry.
5. She does not like to be touched, nope, not at all.
6. Rakhi sawant is extremely well cultured and she never uses hindi cuss words.
7. She succeeded in looking more beautiful than Aishwarya rai.
8. In the original format, the audience vote was to fully decide who Rakhi's husband would be.
There was another idea doing the rounds, that Lord Jesus was to appear when she asks Lord for help and tell Rakhi who she should marry. Farah khan threatened to sue NDTV, on the grounds of lifting her ingenious and groundbreaking idea, she had used in Om Shanti Om.
9. Application for swayamvar 2 are now open, less than an year for the 1st marriage to end, Rakhi is miffed, "What? an YEAR? Cant it be a month? better still, a night?"
10. With the section 377 now revoked, NDTV is keen on Karan Johar ka swayamvar instead of Rakhi part 2. Bobby darling(subject to sex determination test) tipped front-runner.

Found and Lost

2009-07-25T14:20:00.016+05:30

A quick driver, a slow flame

A loud whisper, a silent shame

A misspent youth, a magnificent crash

An ill-fated teenager, a nipped-in-the-bud brash.

A silence, screams for a voice

A touch, benumbed by wrong choice

A smell, intoxicates my sense of clarity

A vision, blinded by sudden calamity.

The Devil conspired with a truck one day

Twelve years of amity ended one day

I searched the house for my toys that day

I play with them since that day.

(PS - His house used to have this peculiar smell, even after entering his home after 7 years I could recognize that smell, that is why "A smell" in the 7th line)

"Wrong choice"(6th line)

A Heartless Father

2009-07-18T15:11:00.003+05:30

I must have been twenty two at that time, when a tragedy befell a mother in a sordid town everyone knew to be Rampur. There were many pieces of evidence collected from the scene, yet none was more compelling than the letter my friend Ravi had written to me.

“Yo, the hideous fatso bhaiya is here”. The usual baritone of Ravi. The stink eye assassinating any attempts of a warm pleasantry. His entourage giggling, some distastefully laughing. The sort you hear in cheap sitcoms after every joke. Most of the times, the surrogate laughter was funnier than the joke itself.

“You know you can almost lactate. But tell me, is your libido as big as your diet?”

He was obviously not big on euphemism and subtlety. Laughs that ring your ear followed, like a bat screech. Admittedly, the joke was good. Yes, I was fat, hideous. He was always mean to me, especially when with his entourage, yet he was my best friend. The sort of paradox that could only be compared to let us say a pimp saying he is on the verge of misogyny. Unsullied by his remarks I gave a wry smile, I wasn’t really good at comebacks.

Ravi was a charming, handsome youth. The sort who was “very good marriage catch”, as the town matrimonial center would say. Yes, in a town where you could hear the second’s hand tick all the time, if you were twenty two, marriage front-paged parents’ n towns’ minds. Although he was quite handsome, his nose quite bemused me, a big nose on a rather petite face. It almost seemed like putting a nose on his face was a mere afterthought – fixed right there.

He had a younger brother known by the name Kishan in the local government school. Ravi liked to call him his parent’s “Stepney” (a spare tyre), cause he was only ever asked to do household chores when Ravi wasn’t around. Funny, he was. The sort whose company you quite cherished.

“I’m a little scared, what will happen now. How will you marry?” he said, while he was counting money one day in our secret hideout, drenching his index finger in saliva, perhaps he quite enjoyed annoying me, I hate that habit.

“Quit doing that, dufus! And give me some pie”.

“You know a bald head would work magic with your huge stomach” he said and started chuckling.

Nonchalance was one way of extinguishing any verbal war, so I learnt. After he was done counting, he gave me half of his share. On good days, he, like his mother, could be generous to a fault. Invigorated by his gesture, I tied a friendship band I was carrying, around his wrist; yes “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” was running that time and was clearly a crowd-favorite.

He was a man of decisive action and adventurous disposition, the kind who wouldn’t discount making love in a cemetery. His adventurous streak did once take him to a cemetery, only alone. He frets talking about that incident, if he said something was scary, it really was scary. Perhaps it was his sense of adventure, more than his patriotism fervor, that took him to the Indian Army. He talked highly of the equipments, the early morning drills and ofcourse the nurses, to whom he feigned injuries to prolong his stay at the hospital. I only listened to the last part intently, honestly speaking.

Growing up with my neighborhood pal was much fun. Yet, as astonishing, as it may seem I was never ascertained I really knew him very well, one such incident shed light on the aforementioned allegation.

On a sultry August evening, the newly-teen-aged clan was sitting in the common playground, when a certain Shiv mentioned about kissing and hugging his father when he promised to buy him a remote controlled car toy on his birthday. Enveloped in anger, Ravi hastily left the place.

He disliked his father, he told me later. Never had he kissed and hugged him. He was emotionally barren, bereft of any meaningful relationship with the man he understood to be his father. Privately with me, he used to call him an ATM, money he would give Ravi in abundance, which was puzzling in the sense that his father himself led a frugal life. Ravi summed it up in his own dictum: If you let a dog keep a bone in between his teeth, he won’t bark at you. The dog, he explained, was him and his mother. Later on, he shared many of his father’s shenanigans. One of which was buying a television set in order to make his eyes weak and make him ineligible for army’s test.

Ravi’s father, as I knew him to be, was a shrewd shopkeeper .The kind who will give you four local brand candies, if you gave him sixty rupees for a bill of fifty six. There were better odds of me doing a full leg split than him having change. He obviously wanted his son to learn the tricks of the trade, but laundered in the exuberant air, with coltish legs and manes of sun kissed hair, Ravi never thought a job as a shopkeeper would quite resonate with his appearance. Instead, army seemed a better prospect.

I remember that war quite clearly, he wrote a letter once a week. Sandwiched between a sense of loss and gloom for the soldiers who died and sense of responsibility to fight for the country, he grew weak, he penned. His letters I saved for a long time.

I also started reading newspapers those days. The F-16s, the MIG’s, the large tanks and numerous missiles suddenly started making sense to me, as I rummaged through pictures in the papers.

I hadn’t heard from him for two weeks now. In the war, they said, a lost man was akin to a dead man. My heart sank, espousing grief, I stopped reading.

Quite clearly I recall, four weeks after I last heard from him, the war was over; both India and Pakistan had reached an agreement. For me, my mind had already reached an agreement with my heart. Still camouflaging the obvious gloom, I tried to look hopeful.

And the next week, I started sniveling.

Conjuring past memories, I saw his handwriting on the envelope, worse than even a kid who had learnt writing alphabets a day ago. I started crying like a baby even before I opened it. The envelope didn’t disillusion me in any sense and I had accepted the bitter reality.

I opened to find it strangely smeared with blood and found the friendship band I once gave him. I started reading it. The letter contained a phone conversation between him and his dad.

“Hello!”

“Hey!”

“I’m all good here, dad. Thought I should give a call back home since the war is over today. I’m fine. Is ma around?”

“Na, she’s asleep, she hadn’t slept for 10 days.”

“Oh, then let her sleep. Dad, I have a pal here. He was badly injured in the war. Lost his right arm and right leg in the war and does not have a place where he can go. I’m bringing him with me”

His handwriting was beginning to irk me now; I barely could decipher a ‘c’ from a ‘e’.

“What a scumbag. Don’t you see, even his parents don’t want him now. Who would want to keep a leech like that and watch him rot everyday, whilst feeding him and ferrying him to the toilet 10 times a day. Who would want to marry him? What a leech. I can understand why his parents no longer want him.”

The letter ended there.

The day before I received this letter, a body was found blood-bathed near the army base camp in Srinagar, it had no right arm, no right leg. In the same handwriting that made me cry when I saw the last letter he sent me was a small piece of paper around his left arm, that read, “It was me, not my friend”.

To assuage his father’s grief (if any) the body’s vital organs were all working. I wouldn’t be startled if he had already talked to potential buyers for his organs.

Why his father was like that, I thought about a lot, perhaps he took it upon himself to show him how the real world was. But, if you keep striking the knee cruelly and incessantly, you break it, you don’t strengthen it.

Ravi always used to crack me up. He explained to me the meaning of oxymoron by giving examples – slim Nipun, handsome Nipun, well I found another after the incident – A Heartless Father.