Mr. Fairfax

Pointed like a compass,
In an awkward geometry of time;
Brownian in its motion,
Calculous in its crime ~

_

69 cures colds

69 cures colds
threesomes help with loneliness
blowjobs work wonders for the flu
It’s hard to believe but it’s true
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

priests says no
feminists say way to go
mother might misconstrue
it feels so bad but feels good too
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

is that your ex
with her new banker friend
you’re sitting there crying, you can’t move
could have been anyone, could have been you
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

when a cigarette’s too distant
alcohol’s too expensive
and a j’s too enthoo
nothing’s better for your decrepitude
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

what they taught you was wrong
biased
untrue
this is the option, the in lieu
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

your job sucks
she’s not here
you spent the whole day in a queue
look at the camera baby, close your eyes when he shoots
porn is, porn is, porn is good for you

Dehydration

A troupe of tap-dancers did their hoppy thing. Their feet were a blur of shamrock green. The smile on their faces belonged in tourism brochures. They made an amazing amount of noise - clattering, clapping, tapping, stomping. Their feet beat out a tattoo which which found an echo in my heart, and quickened its beat. The camera panned out a little, and I saw that there were only ten of them, not the two hundred they sounded like. Then the camera panned out some more, and I realised that they were not really dancing in front of me. They were in my head. Or on my head. I can't be sure. Everything's strange this morning.

The morning brought with it memories and memory loss. It also brought with it turmoil in the stomach, eyes that wished the sun would turn itself off and inexplicable shooting pains down the length of the arm. It forced you to hydrate, but to hydrate one has to move, and every step was a small death. It forced a music change - rock 'n roll for violin strains that seemed to waft down from heaven. It served to remind me that somewhere in the world was goodness and beauty, and if I survived this morning, I should dedicate the rest of my life to searching it out. If I survived.

Bad hangover. Bad fucking hangover.

_

Squirrel semantics:

Art of a maniac,

Sloshed in shame,

Robbing realities,

Fermenting for fame.

Magic in the making,

Molotoves in the mind,

Milf on the desk,

May he find.

House of a hag,

Hats of a hound,

Hire for hire,

The harrowing sound.

Tease of a fly,

Tart of a tamarind,

Toss of a coin,

Tap of the wind.

Wailing willows,

Waiting windows,

Wafting wants,

Whiling in woes.

Calculus colours,

Crafting cold,

Curious cats,

A clean fold.

Leaning lights,

Laurels of lac,

Lieing lepers,

Lying on their back.

dusts of sunshine

doing of a deed

doling daisies

Deep in weed.

Sighing in silence,

Severed in swoon,

Sliced up in dices,

Feathered to be soon.

Angry Tree

There was no fall for the leaves that day,
sunning their way, the prophets of end and a half,
the angry tree bellowed and burned right to the ground.
His was the sun, his were the waters below,
yet he wore no tears, might they moisten
his arson dream
Mostly muttering and sometimes whispering with intent
the wrinkled priest followed suit;
burning his altar to the ground and then his dream of god,
his jesus slowly falling from the worm-eaten crucifix.
Looking down from way above the bluest skies
and the darkest cloud, there he was,
my god with sunken, reddened eyes, sloshed
on one prayer too many.
My eyes were mirror to the all the apples on fresh
dew,
which were once in his eyes like I was in my father's. Perhaps.
Wide awake with his flaming lips, he spoke to my eyes,
'smother some mothers, steal all the clocks and watches you can,
sell all your dreams until they reek of the same, till they smell
like the decade old bible your hands clasp'
And all the while there was a wooden stairway,
many falling on their way to heaven to
descending upon this land as a milkshake
of a cupid, a jesus and silence.
White clouds came pouring down,
grated like cheese upon earthy bread, flowers all
deranged in fragrance.
The wind came down, caressing the old man
with iron claws,
He was finally going to make the grave. The one
he drew on asymmetrical toilet paper as a child, with
crayons and blood,
he had his way; persuading the molehills to adorn
cloaks of snow-tipped mountains, their beaks all
piercing the cotton sky, his pen with him sat meek.
And there was day!
The wooden jesus shriveled into a smile and forgave
all in a day's work while the shredded clouds
fell upon these pages praying for endless neon night.
Bringing the moon to the sun, burning to the ground
cotton-fields of the boldest hue and cry,
the angry tree churned embryos in his dreams
into a fine thin thread of silk;
dubbed silence.
In repose, looking as the angry tree narrated his
familiar story of being a worm-eaten wooden jesus in a past-life,
the haggard, hungry silence spoke;
of a time when he was never born, never needed,
just like eye do.

harami c******* waale/dear diary

recently the c******* people announced a 'flash writing competition' or something of the sort offering unimaginable quantities of wealth as prize for a 500 word story. it was a tie up with some l***journal place and required you to register before you entered the competition. in a fit of naivete, i did. also, the topic, as presented by the c******* people, was journal (read corporate sell out). the whole affair was touted as a special sort of thing because they had extended the deadline by a day (because of the overwhelming response, i'm sure), giving the whole thing a garb of destiny. so after i was done with the 'formalities', i pressed the next button and VOILA! 'the page cannot be displayed', which was followed by 'the page cannot be displayed', 'the page cannot be displayed' and 'the page cannot be displayed'. also, the slimes censured a line of encouragement (cleverly diguised as a marriage proposal) for a fellow writer. so BAH! in fact, double BAH! anyways here's the story.


Dear diary,

I fucking hate you.

Dear diary,

What’s with you?

Will you please stop stalking me!?!

Dear diary,

You’re a drug. You’re a bad fucking habit. You do nothing for me. You’re tearing me down, one fucking blank line at a time.

Dear diary,

You’re killing me. I don’t need to need you. I don’t need to be different. This is catharsis. Nothing more. I’m using you. I’m banging you like a cheap college slut. This relationship means nothing more. Now turn the fuck over.

Dear diary,

In a perfect world, we could have been together. In a perfect world, we could have been possible. In a perfect world they would have heard us, loved us, revered us. Well guess what bitch, the world isn’t perfect.

Dear diary,

It’s just you and me. No one else. No one else. No one fucking else.

Dear diary,

I can’t pimp you. I mean, I could. I’d write about engineering colleges, middle class wet dreams and happy endings. But that wouldn’t be real. That would be like everything else.

Dear diary,

Was Jack Kerouac fucking D******** Bank Vice President, was he, huh, huh? Was Brett Easton Ellis an IFS officer? Do I write, do I eat, do I write, do I eat, do I write, do I eat? Middle path, everyone’s talking about some fucking middle path, tell me, look me in the eye and tell me, where is this fucking middle path?

Dear diary,

What am I supposed to do? Tell me. Retards, the fucking bottom of my class makes more than I do, there’s apology in my mother’s voice when she tells people what I do, everyone sits with me and gives me advice (if you met IIT scholar, MBA, Management Trainee in fucking G****** S****, will you give him advice, no, you save advice for those you pity, you save advice for me), the software engineer next door went to London, what did I do? Is being talented a sin, is wanting to write a sin, is there a problem, hello, I’m talking to you Mr. everyone, is there a problem?

Dear diary,

And it reflects in us. A nation’s literature is a nature’s consciousness. N******* M*** rapes and kills women and children in G******, R**** T*** orders murder in W*** B*****. And we, as a nation don’t get it. M*** is re-elected. T*** is an icon. Why? They got the numbers. G****** has one of the highest growth rates in the continent. T*** contributes so fucking much to industrial GDP.

That’s because our nation only gets numbers.

There’s no literature around to get.

Dear diary,

This is it. Our liaison ends here. I’m going to go do an MBA and work in a bank and make pots of money off an extracurricular career writing about some freshman’s first blow job. You’re going to be left here, on a bench in an underground train compartment.

How does that song go, yeah, ‘just that the time was wrong, Joo-leee-et’

ding di-ding ding ding ding ding di-ding ding

For me who loves this garden:

For me the beautiful garden is real. It’s not imagination.

For me watching the beautiful wisteria first thing in the morning is magical.

For me waking up on a rainy day is peaceful.

For me imagining blossoms on the bare cherry blossom is easy.

For me the Christmas cactus is snow.

For me the Gooseberry is drama.

For me the spring is life.

For me being laid back is being purposeful.

For me the clouds and the gloom is sleep.

For me being an idiot is being home.

For me being nothing is being me.

For me being me is being worthwhile.

love

What are we supposed to do
After all that we've been through
When everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone ?

love is gone

What are we supposed to do
After all that we've been through
When everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone ?
There is nothing left to prove
No use to deny this simple truth
Can't find the reason to keep holding on
Now that the love is gone, love is gone

Now that the love is gone, what felt so right's so wrong
Now that the love is gone

I feel so hurt inside, feel so hurt inside, got to find the reason

What are we supposed to do
After all that we've been through
When everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone ?
There is nothing left to prove
No use to deny this simple truth
Can't find the reason to keep holding on
Now that the love is gone, love is gone

Got to find a reason, got to find a reason,
Got to find a reason to hold !

Love, there's nothing left for us to say, yeah !
Love, why can't we turn and walk away ?

What are we supposed to do
After all that we've been through
When everything that felt so right is wrong
Now that the love is gone ?
There is nothing left to prove
No use to deny this simple truth
Can't find the reason to keep holding on
Now that the love is gone, love is gone

Love is gone !


couples dance to this in gurgaon.

Cowasjee

it was a joke when zubin dara cowasjee ran his car into a cow.

in the wake of the great real estate boom, the farms in gurgaon had turned to vast wastelands punctuated by giant yellow machines, giant embryos of rusty rod and concrete and roads.

the roads were beautiful - large, steeled miles of flashing concrete befitting the superstructures they were access to.

it was all so beautiful.

not for the cows, though. the cows got jacked. the new roadmap failed to register in gurgaon's thick bovine mindset. bessy, martha and june would cross the wastelands to the roads, their minds, given a genetic conditioning that had come to pass over the last three hundred years or so, would register 'cool shade of a tree next to acres of wheat crops' and they would sit. the concrete, burnt white by the sun, would scald them, there would be horns, traffic blockages and the occasional violent driver, but to them these were just hallucinations, paranormal intrusions into their conception of reality, material for a bovine x files.

therefore, for the cow that zubin's car ran into this would have been a UFO attacking.

for zubin, on the other hand, it meant 5 lacs in dead loss. the car had just been bought a couple of days ago. even the license plate said a/f. and then there were the jokes, how cow had gotten a cow, instead of the much deserved (in zubin's opinion that is) motions of pity, sympathy and offering to help with the dead loss.

the event, like all such events, was forgotten. buried by the cumulative of his first lay, promotions, new cars, children and a new cupboard for the living room. then, there was also the invasion.

the z'entradi invaded earth in large airborne fire spitting spaceships.

'we've persevered worse', said president obama, now serving his fifth re-election, 'we had to beat the apes and we invented fire, we had to beat the neanderthal and we invented the wheel, we had to beat the romans, and we invented the huns, we had to beat the british, we invented industry, we had to beat the soviets, we invented hollywood, we had to beat the orientals, and we invented globalistion. now it's all a question of waiting till we invent something to beat these guys.'

that was three seconds before a z'entradi footsoldier pushed a little yellow button and destroyed all of america.

the rest of the world quickly surrendered.

the z'entradi wanted slaves and land for industry. all of humankind, therefore, found itself gainfully employed, and all of earth found itself industrialised. outsourcing entered its intergalactic age.

as it worked itself out, earth found itself divided into large industrial sectors - factories the size of countries, connected by superhighways to ports where spaceships would fly to the z'entradi homeplanet with the produce. mankind resolved itself to slums around these roads.

in a little shack by one of these roads lived the cowasjees.

zubin, wrinkled, hunched and old, had been put in a closet. he had been driven to madness by the destruction of his house (while his wife was still in it) by the z'entradi. it was nothing personal, the aliens were just working on the superhighway, the cowasjee residence had been one of the thousands destroyed on that particular drive.

an asylum was now a luxury. and zubin was too much of an embarrassment to be kept in the room. so he knocked, cried and hawed in there while the others got used to it.

one day, zubin was unusually silent.

'is he dead?', asked young nauzer.

'my god', said zenobia, 'he's gone.'

the house hadn't in fact been destroyed, thought zubin as he tramped through the slums, this is all a big ploy to trick me.

he walked discreetly through the slums.

this is devendar vihar, sushant lok 4 should be a couple of miles in that direction.

the people looked at the old man strangely. there was something weird about him and someone ought to have stopped him and reported him to the marshals. people, however, are busy.

barack's going to be the first black american president, thought cowasjee, the world's going to the dogs. he wondered how his nephew in california was. he wondered whether he might go visit him.

suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks.

he saw his wife in the garden, putting out his clothes to dry.

with whatever life was left in him, he ran.

she spotted him and smiled. she dropped the clothes and ran to the gate.

he leapt forward, when suddenly he felt the soles of his feet melting. in the minute of sanity that pain affords, the heat on the z'entradi superhighway jolted zubin out of his delusion. the house and his wife faded. he saw himself in the middle of a great road. he sank on his haunches, trying to bring back the house, trying to bring back his wife.

he sat there, praying for an illusion.

he sat there, waiting.

Zombie Zoo

Zombie Zoo

By Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne

All down the street they're standin' in line
With white lipstick and one thing on their mind
Hey little freak with the lunch pail purse
Underneath the paint you're just a little girl

Dancin' at the Zombie Zoo, dancin' at the Zombie Zoo
Painted in a corner and all you wanna do
Is dance down at the Zombie Zoo

Cute little dropout, how come you pack a rod
Is your mother in a clinic? has your father got no job?
Sometimes you're so impulsive,
You shaved off all your hair
You look like Boris Karloff and you don't even care

You're dancin' at the Zombie Zoo
Dancin' at the Zombie Zoo
Painted in a corner and all you wanna do is dance down at the
Zombie Zoo

She disappears at sunrise, I wonder where
She goes until
The night comes fallin' down again she shows
Up with her friends half-alive

You can make a big impression or
Go through life unseen
You might wind up restricted and over seventeen
It's so hard to be careful, so easy to be led
Somewhere beyond the pavement
you'll find the living dead

dejavu too

...and as if that weren't enough six years after they blurred the line between noise and alternative and a catchy tune the white stripes were driven into the streets bloodsucked and betrayed by the indie crowd which had nurtured them.

the verve put their soul out to dry. but the neighbours kept stealing little bits of it. everyone who missed the total compete pain in the bittersweet symphony video which is everyone at the time period can hold themselves responsible. but its ok. no one's coming to collect.

and somewhere between these two events chris martin delivered the most honest line of his career. revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver plate. he knew.

Fiction

my mum tells me a story.

if it were yours, she says, the girl would end up raped and dead.

in terms of the fiction’s semantics, i’m holding a gun to the face of the happy ending. the happy ending, wearing a tropical Hawiaan shirt is pointing a gun back at me. also pointing a .45 at the happy ending is roger ebert, film critic for the chicago times.

me: Now I'm thinkin', it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. .45 here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or is could by you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin'. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.

(puts the gun down on the table)

to the tune of a dejavu

michael stipe’s excursion for resonance was successful. and its importance in a dissonant world will go unsung. and he will fade away. while britney spears and jay z will represent our time.

while thom yorke sings karma police and quietly starts a revolution on his laptop between playing ball with his son and taking him out to a natural history museum. his rebellion will be marlowe to a hip hop shakespeare.

the alternative space is no space. history says ‘all or nothing’, always.

THE ADVERTISING PSYCHOLOGIST

“So tell me from the very beginning.”
“yaaa… I couldn't get any sleep last night.”
“I said - from the very beginning.”
“But wouldn’t you like to listen to the reason that made me come to you.”
“Ok, go ahead.”
“Well, I spent the entire night thinking about whether to use “Here’s the most exciting offer...” or “Tata Indicom presents the most exciting offer…”
“Then what did you use?”
“It’s not about what did I use. It’s about why did I think so much about it…”
“That’s what you are paid for, right?”
“Yaaaa…but you also get paid for scratching out shit stuck in commodes.”
“That’s another debate….let’s stick to your problems. Tell me what worries you the most?”
“Every night I dream that I’m a fish.”
“And what happens then?”
“I’m always in a small pond and there are these other fish that smell exactly like me.”
“Can you really smell them in your dreams?”
“Of course, they all smell like fish…Actually they even look like me.”
“Ok, so they are the same species.”
“And there’s no other species, not even frogs… no alligators… only fish.”
“Must be a small pond.”
“They even sound the same.”
“What do they say?”
“Nothing they just open and close their lips.”
“Ok tell me about your friends.”
“yaa…. That’s an interesting topic, I have lots of friends.”
“Tell me about your best friends. What do they do?”
“One is a copywriter, the other is a copy supervisor and another is a creative supervisor. But I’ve left them all in Delhi.”
“Do you have many friends here?”
“Lots of them.”
“What do they do?”
“Let me think… ya… one is a senior copywriter, the other is a junior copywriter but some of them are still trainee writers.”
“Quiet an interesting variety. Don’t you have friends in other professions?”
“Nope… the marketing guys are so boring. They don’t watch the same movies that I do.”
“And what kind of movies do you watch?”
“My friends have quiet an interesting collection that I can choose from.”
"There must be more."
"yaaa...but...well, all that my friends in sales talk about is the slight increase in Katrina Kaif's breast size since she started sleeping with some new dickhead. hey... by the way did you know that there's a scene in that movie 'Boom' where Katrina pushes Gulshan Grover's head into her boobs...wow... I still haven't checked it out.”
“Ok, tell me about your job.”
“I don’t feel that excited about it, anymore.”
“Go on.”
“I once used to think of it as a noble purpose that one could abandon everything else for. But now that I know that I won’t become a martyr, it’s really hard to carry the same enthusiastic smile. The fact is that Ill only be slaughtered like a sheep and hung upside down. A butcher will chop me off piece by piece to sell each one for a profit and the young lambs will watch in amazement.”

“Im afraid son, we’ll have to continue this some other time, your time is over. That would be 700 rupees.”
“Hey but you haven’t yet given me any expert advice… what are the 700 bucks for?”
“I listened to you.”
“No one gets paid for doing nothing.”
“I’m sorry but the board outside says ‘Advertising psychologist’.”

Equation of line

on conception it is a straight line, drawn with pencil on a blank sheet of paper. it breaks into four in cursive writing notebooks, moves to criss-cross squares in math copies, moves to double lined copies, and finally pauses at single lined copies trapped in a paper hall of mirrors.

the single lines then move to rough registers, fancy hard bound notebooks, a4 sized sheets in file covers and resolve themselves to mini sized notebooks carried around with cellphone, cigarettes and ballpen.

done, the line drops down from single lined trouser and double lined denim pockets, bounces on the footpath and becomes a divider traveling the length and breadth of cities worldwide, where it travels till night becomes day. jumping across, back on some footpath, it does a tarzan from person to person in a queue and is next seen on the DJ’s console in parabolas and ellipses. a haze reveals a bathroom door behind which it is seen, white, powdery on a closed commode seat, disappearing up a nose, vaporopus.

appears, to the tune of ‘one, two, three, again, one, two, three, again’ on a cardiogram where electrical pulses menace it up, down, up down, in tiny screeching desperate movements that take it down, take it down, take it down till it’s that straight line again.

fever

the song. my cue.

everyone’s off. streaming sunlight through glass walls mention cathedral. people smile as they move from side to side.

there are no deadlines that need attending. there are no phone calls on hold.

after loses meaning. before hums along with the song. the tide is past. my palm rests placid on the sheet of the sea.

the virus is done. i wipe my nose. i sit and stare at the monitor.

so long, i write, and thanks for all the fish.

SORRY

After a week of shameless intrusion into the married life of two of my friends (married to each other of-course) I thought I should now try finding a new accommodation. Being new in the city won’t be considered a respectable excuse for long. Especially for a guy like me who’s best friends hate to introduce him to his girlfriends. Let alone girlfriends, keeping me close to any of their female acquaintances is considered like an invitation to a dreadful calamity that will ruin their lives and careers for eternity. Maybe these particular friends of mine helped me because they kind of expected the wiser side of me (surprise! surprise! I do have a wiser side) to camouflage the weirder one, in face of such generous attitude.
Ok, forget all that, I was about to tell you a nice warm story about a nice warm (I guess I shouldn’t use this British expression in a hot and humid city) rather nice cool apartment. Luckily after finding a room-mate and shelling out 50,000 bucks for just half of my share I became the proud co-owner of a one bedroom, hall and kitchen apartment. It’s got a fridge and an AC (All my life I’ve never had an air conditioned room, because of the disrespect it causes to our middle-class family values). Although my share in the room’s rent came out to be around one third of my meagre salary, I thought this flat would be really comfortable to get a pretty Ukrainian whore home and lose my virginity after 25 years. And also I wouldn’t have to shell out any money to buy ice for the weekly parties at my flat with half-naked girlfriends of my friends spread around.
Anyways, I started staying at this new flat with this wonderful AC which always buzzzzzed me to sleep. And automatically woke me up after chilling me to the bone so that it can be switched off. Mornings seemed to be difficult at first because I had to take a detour around all the buildings of the colony and then reach the main road. One day I tried to experiment and started walking in the opposite direction and wallah! I discovered a shorter way. Later I realised that it wasn’t actually a shorter cut, In fact it was stupid of me to take a de-tour when the way to the main road was in fact the same one that I thought myself a genius to discover.
Now that I had discovered the way out it was always a confusion to find the way back in. Then I discovered this big bold ‘sorry’ banner that had been tied on a tree at the turn towards my building. For the first few days I didn’t think much about it other than the fact that it was there to help me find my way back home.
One humid evening, when my T-shirt was sticking to my back, and I had fucked up the first brief I was given in my new agency, I looked at the ‘sorry’ and felt really good. It was as if the world feeling apologetic for my all fucked up existence. The question that why I had a fucked up existence in the first place flew across my mind, but well... it flew fast and was nowhere to be seen after a few seconds.It really was a refreshing message for me.
To me it meant - Sorry, for not letting you have a phone number... Sorry, for not letting you have a bank account which can get you a phone number... Sorry, for not letting you have a billing address that can get you a bank account... Sorry for not letting you have a passport which can give you a billing address... Sorry, for not letting you have a pan-card which can get you a passport... Sorry, for not letting you have a valid license that can get you a pan-card... Sorry, for not letting you have money to go back to Delhi to get your license validated and Sorry, for not letting you have a bank account which can get you money.
That ‘sorry’ never seemed to be solving any of my problems but still it was a relief. When I managed to come out of this existential-angst cycle, I looked around and saw that the apartment windows of the opposite building were facing that ‘sorry’ banner. I figured there’s a nice pretty girl staying in one of those apartments and her boyfriend must have tied that ‘sorry’ banner right opposite so that she can forgive him for tearing her new Tommy-Hilfiger T-shirt during one of his animal urges. Although I hate love-stories, I thought this one was cute enough to warm my depressingly cynical heart.
A few days later when I had stopped looking out for the ‘sorry’ banner (although mostly it was hard to ignore) to find my way back home, I saw the reply that was etched out across the banner with a blue pen “It’s ok, Rahul” or was it “It’s ok, life.”

Old white T and Baby blue jean:

I’m sitting on a beach. It’s more of a fjord, actually. Blue lagoon, sailing breeze, and the swashing sea. My feet are all sand and my head is all shine. And evening quietly falls in as if not to disturb me even a bit. I have lost all my void, my articulation, my well versed lines and my reserve. I am holding my long cast Shakespeare but I’m not there. Not at all.

It’s been a quiet sometime now and I haven’t caught anything. But that doesn’t matter. Not even a bit. My head is stone and my heart is sleeping calmly. Now the moon is out, glimmering beautifully in the still waters afar. And my gaze just shifted after a long long time. It is still now, though. I’m casually losing my alphabet, phonetics, and my grammar is wearing out, as if it were bio degradable.

I stand up slowly and put aside my rods, my plugs and my spinners. Gathering a few bits of twigs I start a fire. And looking at the stars I lie down on the ground.

She turns around and hugs me in her sleep. Sigh~

Deshu in Mumbai

Dilli waala

“arrey saab saarey mumbai me paani bharela hai… 750 lagega.”
“Meter se chalo.”
“Meter se nai jayega, paani bharela ai.”
“Lekin Mumbai central se Andheri 750? 600 doonga.”
“(dilli se aaya lagta hai chutia, meter se to 200 hi banta hai.) accha 700 de dena… jaldi chalo.”
“Accha ttheek hai, lekin 700 se ek paisa zyaada nahi doonga, chalo chalo.”

Shock

“Bhai yahan mere dost rehte hain Neeraj or Ira.”
“Kon Neeraj Ira.”
“Yahin 2nd floor me rehte hain.”
“Dilli se aaya tum?”
“Haan.”
“Wahi log jo bhada pe rehta hai?”
“Haan haan wahi.”
“Vo aaya nahi teen din se ghar.”
“Kya?.. lekin…par… bhai par mere paas 6 bag hain. Ab kya karoon kahan jaaoon.”
“itna samaan kaye ko leke aaya Mumbai. Phone karne ka tha na un log ko.”
“vo phone nahi uttha rahe. Please mera samaan rakh lo. Mein kahan jaaoonga?”
“koi leke gaya to?”
“bhai le ke jaane do ab. Kya kar sakta hun? Kucch important bhi nahi hai. Bas rakh lo.”
“ttheek hai… ttheek hai… rakh do seediyon ke neecche.”

Homeless

“yaar loki mein aa gaya.”
“to bhosdike ehsaan kia agar aa gaya.”
“yaar Neeraj Ira ghar pe nahin hain, mein kahan jaaoon?”
“bhenchod phone karma than a pehle.”
“yaar teen din se vo phone nahin uttha rahe.”
“to bhosdike bina phone kare aata hai kya koi Mumbai.”
“kya karta yaar. Accha mein tere ghar aa jaaoon?”
“yaar mein coffee shop me baitth ke coffee pee raha hun. Ek ghante tak pahunchoonga.”
“ttheek hai mein apna samaan leke pahunch jaata hun.”
“bhosdike samaan wahin cchod de, mujhe flat khaali karne ka notice mila hua hai.”
“yaar lekin mere paas 6 bag hain.”
“gandu koi 6 bag leke aata hai kya Mumbai. Mein jab aaya tha sirf ek bag leke aaya tha.”
“ab kya karoon yaar.”
“Itna samaan leke aayega to gaurd dande maar ke bhaga dega, vaise hi sulga hua hai mere se, Samaan wahin cchod de or aaja ghar.”
“ttheek hai.”

Introspection

“Why did you even think of moving to Mumbai in the first place?”
“…because… well…I wanted to experience something… I don’t exactly know what.”
“And you got your share the day you landed.”
“Looks like it...”

Part I: El Silencioso

On the way back, he replayed the conversation in his mind. He remembered every pencil fumble. Memory was the least of his problems.

“Ah yes. Come in. How are you?”
“Fine sir”
“Good. I hardly see you now days.”
He smiled, but kept silent. He generally preferred to remain that way until someone asked him a question.
“I wanted to speak to you for some time now…” his boss continued “…but something or the other kept coming in the way. You know how it is here…”
“Yes sir” he said. He did know how it was there, in fact, and it affected him a lot more than people realised. He wondered what was making the man who had single-handedly set up the firm they all worked in some thirty years ago so nervous.
“So anyway…here we are now…”
“Yes”
“You joined two years ago”
“Two and a half sir”
“Right. Right. So, how are you finding things now days?”
“Good Sir, fine. Lots of business coming in…” he started, but saw the silver-streaked head before him shaking and stopped.
“Not like that. I meant how are things with you today, after this much time with the company”
He knew what to say. Anyone who had done an MBA knew what to say. “I feel much more involved today sir. I think I’m beginning to understand my job and my role in the organization a lot better now”
The Living Legend tapped his pencil and looked worried. “That’s good. Though to be honest I was expecting you to say something else …if you do have any problems you can tell me…”
“What sort of problems?”
“Anything. We are completely open door. If there’s anything about your work that’s troubling you…or the office…”
“I love my work here”
“Are you sure? Don’t you find it difficult to have to talk to so many new people? Every day. With your condition…”

Sometimes he remained silent even when someone had asked him a question. This was one of those moments.

“The eloquent young pilgrims pass, and leave behind their trail, imploring us not to fail”

“Its nothing to be ashamed of…”
“I know”
He knew that. Sort of.

After a long uncomfortable silence, the boss asked him a series of questions. Had he thought about his future? Was he interested in pursuing other lines of work (because they could help him, get him started off, put him in touch with the right people)? Did he see himself doing this job in five years? Did he sometimes feel his talents lay elsewhere (not that he was not good at this, he was, but its all about human potential, isn’t it)?

He finally understood. He thought of asking if his Team Leader had complained. But he knew she wouldn’t have. She didn’t mind him. Neither did the others actually, he just wasn’t one of them. He remembered his first week. So many people had come up and asked him if he was always this silent, until he finally decided he would adopt it as an identity.
Lord Silens.
Monsieur Silencieux.
El Silencioso.

Every office has a quiet guy.

corollary

a corollary to Physiology, dated sometime 2007.

the elves have, of late, discovered commerce. sidhe theorists (and there are few of these) argue that it was only natural, especially since the invention of the air conditioner ('fuck morning dew and the sweet flavour of a virgin's pure soul' says Lord Hardburrow of the Kingdom of the Abandoned Twig 'nothing's as good to a proximity to the little air throwing vent of the air conditioner tuned to very very cool').

so how do they manage, you might wonder, given their incapacity for organisation and a fundamental inability to operate any machinery more complicated than an 8 in 1 brick game.

the answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind. to be more specific, they catch air skippers - slithery and perdominantly vapourous ectoplasmic worms that travel through the air, moving through the goblin and dervish population, entering through ear lobes, grabbing whatever thoughts might be around and getting the fuck out with them (leading to the phrase 'just skipped my mind darling).

djinss set magical nets to catch them (someone once described them as giant cobwebs in the sky). the day's catch is then distilled to remove useless thoughts (keychain locations, deadlines, coffee appointments, etc.) from the good ones (symphonies, plots for films and books, ideas for enterprise, etc.). the good ideas are then used by the djinn in question (the one who's caught the skippers) to generate revenue and buy air conditioners.

and here's a piece of trivia to reward your patience. once in the early twentieth century, a senior cricketing captain (whom we shall not name here) was given the assignment of coming up with a better term for the generic 'captain'. the man, close to the fag end of his career, chanced upon the perfect word ('like finding a diamond in the rough', he mentioned to a bystander upon his discovery). the man kept it to himself, hoping to present the word at a public meeting to make sure the credit didn't spill. this was when a particularly egoistic skipper happened to cross his mind and, in what's clearly a sui generis event, replaced the word instead of just taking it.

transplant

and instead of a heart, i've got this super dense object with infinite gravity (often referred to as a black hole) that keeps sucking and sucking.

no wonder nothing comes to mind.

Silence of the semantics~

Finally, i feel it's over. Sigh.
Crash................. Maybe not. Whew.
But the worse that cud've happened has happened. Shit~
And so i delight in whatever is happening. Hah~
I've burnt down all the harrowing halls of semantics. Phew.
Now, the only thing left is a civilization that needs a thorough archeological explanation. Hmm~
For that, there're the hallowed experts. Honours~
A newer soil. a newer settlement. A newer stranger. A newer sun. A newer sanctity. Well~
Tulips. Geraniums. Wisterias. Willows. Lilys. Linchesters. Lilacs. Wow.
"For how long?", smiles Aphrodite as she flaunts her genius to me. God!

Necessary

It was necessary. He stepped away from her. But the voice kept coming at him, through layers of nitrocellulose, saying 'How do you feel now?'. He felt terrible. His eyes were bloodshot after fifteen hours of no sleep. It was so tempting, walk away, forget the whole thing. But it was necessary. Not only for himself, but for all of them. She was too dangerous. He knew it the moment he heard the news. It was unreal, and for a moment he managed to find it in his heart to give her some credit, something he hadn't been able to do for years. But then he saw the papers, and the TV, and the court order, and closed his eyes.

Closed his eyes and pointed.

The revolver.

Straight ahead.

At the TV.

"DAMN YOU EKTA KAPOOR", he shouted, and fired.

But something there was made of stone and the bullet richotted off it and lodged in his chest. That surprised him. He was so surprised that he forgot entirely whether his heart was on the left or right side. As the inept Noida police made their entry, he died, uttering the famous last words that would fire a generation, 'Damn you Ekta Kapoor...'

X-cuse me

Zero is where he was. As he realised after he'd shunned all books, music, news, friends and family. A series of events of a single variable x.

where x=0 and x is not a fraction.

whatever it means.

Happy Ending

born in the bylanes of patparganj east, mookase was delivered to hazrat majoomdar to have his micro palms read and destiny foretold. protocol involved the hazrat suggesting a clipping of the foreskin under distraction by steel bird, followed by gleefull approval by the mohemeddans and sudden denial by the hindoos (as in mookase's case), which led to the wise old man reading the child's palm and exclaiming in surprisingly fluent english 'a happy ending! this chap has a happy ending in store for him!' to which the assembled screamed 'angreji!' in joyous tenor and carried the child back home sure, albeit for only a few hours or so, that the child wouldn't rot and die here. for mookase, however, hazrat followed the reading of the palm by a grim face, followed by a handing of the bawling baby boy back to the mortified mother. 'a happy ending!', he said darkly, 'this chap has a happy ending in store for him!'

approximately forty years years later, we fly past the tangled electric meshes of chunktown past teedees ('quench your thrust' over the drinks menu) down into the lanes which cars can't enter and wouldn't want to either in a small wooden shack with a plastic window and with no signboard and a rusty bajaj chetak with hazel filing her nails (bright pink) at reception against a save tibet and an 80's sanjay dutt looking at the world with ugly sunglasses and the cheap cosmetics display unit with bright pink nailpolish and cobwebs and slither under the door to see hairy mookase under a towel being oiled vigorously by obese and heavily made up victoria in black spaghetti top with pink bra straps clearly visible like in foreign xxx film. 'happy ending?', she asks expressionless as her hands move to oil the erogenous, 'extra two hundred bucks'. mookase, in turn, laughs quietly to himself before nodding a yes.

Monday

He was disconsolate, demotivated, mechanical. He left at 9:15, but it could as easily have been 8:53 or 9:24. He glanced at his watch, but saw only a wrist, so he fished out his cell phone instead. The screen displayed a picture which had once meant a lot to him, but he wasn’t sure now. He reached the gate of the colony, hoping to see an auto waiting there. There wasn’t any, he had forgotten not to hope. He eventually found one, thought about haggling but abandoned the idea. I’ll just eat less, he told himself, and grimaced inwardly because that really had nothing to do with it.

He glared at the oncoming traffic accusingly. I am not one of you, his gaze seemed to say. I am not a worker ant. “Givesignalmotherfucker” yelled the auto driver, looking back for approval. He showed no expression, put on his headphones instead and started turning dials. “You are my theme for a dream my fair and lovely…sapnon ki duniya mein I’ve been waiting for you baby…GIVEHANDYOUSONOFADONKEY…mera jeevan...DOYOUUNDERSTAND…kora hi reh gaya…ORSHOULDICOMETHERE…back in black hit the sack”. Monday seemed determined to remain a cliché.

Reincarnation

after she slit her wrist, she sat still on the floor by the wall.

the blood, forming a thin film, spread over the floor. this would be the evidence. mahesh would never question her love anymore.

it hurt a bit as the blood slowly gushed out. pulsing, draining out of her. there it goes now, she thought, under her third year history books, the katoree cum ash ray, the tarantino soundtrack cds, the rug and finally the doors. she imagined the blood going under the shoes kept out. or did they? she thought, did they just go really close and maintaian a micrometre of clear space, fimd imsignificant passages of space through and beneath the soles. she saw a picture of a shoe levitating on that clear space over a pool of red.

how will things be with mahesh, she asked herself. would he start dating someone else? would he start fucking her right away? would they wait? for a year? for a month? for a week? for a day? would he be shattered? would he finally stop doubting her? would he kill himself too? would he by lying here too? would he be thinking what she was thinking?

it's been a minute, she also thought, and i haven't blinked.

she blinked.

she was in a forest. a forest with large rocks of mud. the sun, a morning sun, stole in through the leaves.

no they weren't leaves. in fact they weren't even trees.

they were giant crops. towering green strands fifty times her.

and there in the clearing was mahesh.

she knew him by his shorts, his running shoes, his t-shirt (she'd worn it on numerous occasions), his old tape playing walkman that he insisted on not replacing.

i was him. it couldn't be anyone else.

she ran.

she ran to tell him what she'd done. ran to hug him, to hold him close, feel his beating heart thud next to hers.

closer and closer, she realised something was amiss. he was large. he was way to large. he was a giant.

with everything she had, she screamed out his name. busy at his crunches, he was too busy to notice.

she jumped and crawled up his hand.

in an instant, she knew what to do.

she'd get to his eye, peer in and grab his attention.

mahesh, she would say, i love you.

hopping on to his shirt, she rushed across his t-shirt to his neck.

up his chin, moving slowly to his chin to his nose, to his ey...

mahesh smacked his cheek, pulling off the twitching ant that had made his way to his eye.

fuck, he said, as he crumpled what was left of the ant and threw it to the side, that almost got me.

Stark Raving Man

It's almost here babe!

May 2nd, 2008. Cinemas everywhere.

.

apprx.

Trying to figure out the approx dimension between 4.87 point size comma n larger than life inverted commas.

_

Peace

Fishing somewhere between the marmalade skies and the tangerine lakes. Silence. Ploop. 

Notes from a free fall

Yeah I'm free. Free falling.

two deadlines gone and gently cruising over another

this, you and me.

tomorrow we'll just be part of a giant fading cumulative.

_

The Giant Eagle

It’s been a month since the ‘giant eagle’ first descended on the M.G. road. It’s no longer the same bustling, traffic clogged road. The threat of the ‘giant eagle’ has left it abandoned and deserted. The few who dared the threat for the sake of convenience have quiet conveniently settled in their graves by now. It’s not known whether they received a proper burial though. The ‘giant eagle’ has already marked its territory on the road and carries off anyone who trespasses. Where to? We can only guess.

The Metro rail line project that was supposed to connect Gurgaon to New Delhi has since been stalled. They say it was only a few months away from completion. Commuters had high hopes on the metro project. It was supposed to ease the traffic on the M.G. road.

The traffic did ease eventually, rather stopped altogether for different reasons though.

You can still see the pillars standing from the nearby elevated lands. A wandering Gujjar recently reported sighting a giant nest on one of those pillars. Or was it just a cheap rumour? Depends on how you take the stuff they show on news channels these days.

The pillars stand alone, some joined by a bridge at the top and others lonesome.

The machinery, the cranes and the giant bulldozers lie rusting. So do the last of the trucks that went to bring everything back to their rightful owners.

The road I guess is relaxing after a long period of servitude. Ensconced in an undisturbed layer of concrete it’s enjoying its time off before the civilisation claims it back.

Current circumstances make it highly unlikely for the civilised world to ever claim the road back again. Maybe one of the prerequisites of a civilisation to exist is that everything needs to be under its command, to follow a certain pre-approved pattern that it considers right for all things living and non-living to be on.

The road no longer follows the pattern. It no longer contributes anything to the value creation. It has ceased to serve the noble purpose of progress which the modern society is aimed at.

The road is now rebel territory - A kind of rebel that has since ceased to pose a threat. And therefore it no longer deserves attention.

The civilised world has now got used to not using the road. It conveniently bypasses the road trying to ignore the shame of its defeat.

The ant rows of cars following other cars have now moved away from the road towards the National Highway no. 8.

The bus-stops are no longer the centre of all human anxiety and impatience. Even the toll gates have stopped waiting in expectation.

Dark green coloured ever-expanding creepers have claimed the fallen buildings that lie in between. Its sure better than the fate they were left to – crumbling under their own weight , dying a slow death. Those creepers at least seem to nourish the fallen concrete structures with a kind of after-life that none other lifeless structure is destined to have. The trees no longer claim accidents and neither do they feel out of place in the middle of the road. Every undesirable vegetation flourishes on the road.

The M.G. road has become a refuge now for all undesirables of the city. But there’s a difference between undesirables who don’t consider their lives insignificant and those who do. Mostly the latter ones come to the road never to return again. People say that they camp out on and around the road for a few days before the ‘giant eagle’ claims their lives and devours their bodies.

“It’s beautiful to die out here on the M.G. road.” The wandering Gujjar on his second visit reported seeing this statement scribbled in bold letters on one of the pillars besides a deserted camp of one of the many refugees.

Pilot

day1:clipper

at college, a few gained popularity while the many suffered it. to name a few, there was prick, ace debater and national level swimmer, neil, thespian, wild child and overall sex god and clipper, writer, prankster and head of close to a dozen spurious inconsequential societies.

shortly after, prick went to oxford, won presidentship of the union by the highest majority in oxonion history and was later dismissed for his skin being too brown, neil went to new york and joined juliard, the world's best acting school, to pursue a course in future unemployment and clipper went to saket for a snack, after a late night in office.

the major part of his evening spent in writing headlines that would get the brands he wrote them for no attention at all, clipper bit into his chicken hot dog and spilt the mayo and cheese on his silk cravat.

at a distance, he saw a couple sitting under a tree smoking. he thought it horrible that two could mutually consent to such a mass destruction of lungs (four in total). he also thought it quite cool.

he also wanted to smoke, but didn't for health reasons. however, because of the nascent urge, he bought an expensive blue clipper that he used to light in his darker moments. that's where he got his name.

destroyed, at the random mutilation of the cravat, he reflected amidst a set of cultivated profanities (damn, bugger all, shite) on how life had fallen to shreds. it was close to 1 am and he was supposed to be in rural botswana, managing an infant rehydration programme, not recuperating after an evening of professional mediocrity.

lamenting the loss of aestheticism, he went back in to ask for a napkin, wondering throught the haze of memory what he had to do with the boy sitting with the girl smoking under a tree. he appeared closer, in memoriam, holding out his hand.

it's all gone pete tong, he muttered to himself, completely unaware the missing plastic rectangle in his right trouser packet.

day1:desh

the lights blind him.

'can i wear sunglasses?'

'sure', goes jay leno, 'can i get you something cold to drink, thums up, limca, musammi ka joos?'

jay leno's face falls off to reveal a very mongolian renu, with the rejoinder,, 'jaldi shaab, peeche line hai, line.'

desh moves forward slow. this is his dinosaur syndrome, with no hallucinogenic at all. he is slow. one of his feet is shorter than the other. etc. etc.

he moves disconsolately moves to a table that gives him, call centre grade 1 at inoks, a kingly view.

this is breakfast, after the night shift that begins 2 in the night. this is his life, monday to friday. he can't sleep weekends. he lives alone at the top of an asphalt tower (barsaati otherwise, it's probably on the fifth floor). he has no friends except his books and this chick he's hitting on over the internet. the mass hypnosis of sex has a stranglehold over him. film posters, ads on his second hand onida, spaghetti tops, sweat on white female skin, all join in a frightful chorus saying 'fuck, fuck, fuck.'

after jacking off, he amuses himself with notions of literary fame, when he will have millions around the world discussing his work, be, at once, the toast at oprah, new york and the playboy mansion, where he will be snorting coke off a b-movie actress' ass (here he considers going to jack off again).

he does this on weekends, when he isn't sleeping. he is a daysleeper.

weekend nights, he also goes to city squares that wake where he smokes and waits to warm his eyes on white female flesh.

as he smokes, under a tree, he notices her reefer go off. she is high. she also has the face of an angel.

maybe we could get talking he thinks to himself, he contemplates true love for a few minutes. he leaves her with his lighter, a souveneir of perhaps the only unadulterated love on the planet.

it's monday tomorrow.

on the jay leno show, she's in the front row. she's there for him.

day1:ank

stoned, after her morning sulk that lasts the afternoon and through half the night, she wanders down to the 24-7 at the cinema square. the air is cold and her t-shirt and shorts leave her naked, she has visions of a red brassiere hanging on the insides of her bathroom drawer where her roommate is, while sitting on a closed toilet seat fellating the ball of acne, fat and cum she calls Boyfriend.

she sits there, as the light on the reefer twiddles to nothing, she holds it down and looks at it for a few minutes, taking in the fact that the light won't come back on, that the grades on her last semester papers won't change (could she fuck her way through...what about the women, damn, too many women), that there's a bunch of school kids looking at her like she's a slut.

'light', says a voice next to her. she turns to see that it is a gargoyle, misshapen, holding up a lighter in a hand with an extra thumb.

'thanks', she says, and lights her baby.

she has visions of him on her with his pants down, moving in hard and clumsy fits. it is moist there. she'd do it for the sheer hurt of it.

as she recovers, she notices he is gone.

his lighter, still in her hand, says clipper in a cheap blue plastic case.

relativity

Time and again something pops up and forces the issue. Like when I had made myself cozy in the bed with a book and a hot cup of coffee for distraction. The time table was getting annoyed and was threatening redundancy any moment. Hours turned directly into years and the calendar resting on the table didn’t know what to do. Out of boredom it started repeating itself. Month after month till it lost count too. The book refused to end, the story hadn’t even unfolded and the author was still elaborating on the preface. Of course the pages had turned brittle and yellow. Some hundred thousand pages later, the book’s first chapter starts. But it was one hell of an effort to lift that amount of pages to reach that stage. It was getting easier, as one progressed, to lose interest in the book even before the characters took shape. The story goes something like this; someone had started writing this book on some BC. Till date no one knows who the person is. Generation after generation had been penning down to make a book out of it, complete with paperbacks. It’s believed that soon after someone is born into a family, he/she started writing taking only the necessary breaks in between. The end result being, the book devoured some dozen generations and a two storied apartment.

Kaka's Metamorphosis

godspeed

old man on walking stick crosses bus moving at 3.25 km/hr.

inside the bus, tall gentleman with spectacles: dost, ye bus itne dheere kyun chal rahi hai.

conducter guarding entrance: abhi itni tez chalegi, rone lagoge.

Evolution my arse.

Adam: I wish there was something more to...
God: Psst.
Adam: Huh?
God: Psst. Psst. Over here.
Adam: Where? Who? What?
God: Over here you moron. Here. Here!
Adam: Who... what are you?
God: Dude, it’s me, your creator, the Supreme Being, the guy in-charge.
Adam: I don’t understand.
God: Screw that. Listen, I came up with something really kewl last night. It’s still just a prototype but I think it kicks arse. Check it out.
Adam: What is it?
God: I call it... an apple!
Adam: What does it do?
God: It... well... uh... I don’t know actually. Maybe you should eat it or something.
Adam: What? Why would I do that?
God: Because I command you to! God damn it, I’m the friggin’ higher power here and you’ll do what I tell you to! Comprende?
Adam: And if I don’t?
God: Then... uh... see that big mother of a serpent over there. I’m gonna command him to crawl up your $%@#!
Adam: Fine. I’ll do as you wish.
God: Good, now eat the bloody apple.
Adam: But what about Eve?
God: Fuck Eve!
Adam: Okay.

Ta Daa!

_

Barracuda blues~

I'll be gone. One fine day. Swoosh. Mysteriously vanish like a dying bird. Into the blind spots of the more complicated than the invisible - the visible world. But when? God take me away. For I'm wearied. Torn. Tattered. Utterly destroyed in the dynamics of modern mechanics. The depths swollow me. And the shallowed lot keeps shouting in through the dark hollow of my well. Modernity demands a healthy diet of the Orient - The mystery machine. Men accomplish things faster than the speed of light. And woman cast orgasmic spells in mushroom proportions. And the humans die like cattle on the arid of the arroyo. I'm there too. Living on the parallel universe of the choices i chose not to choose. 'Bourgeois', exclaims God having just woken up after dehydrating on acid for three long days. Cough~

Stipe in Spite ~ As demonstrated by his art parter

A second life…

What if you woke up from sleep and found yourself in a place you don’t recognise? You know everything about the present but have absolutely no clue about the past? You know who you are but have no idea about who you were just a few hours ago?

Would you be bold? Or afraid? Or curious? Or indifferent? Or thrilled? Or distressed?

And then the sun came up and you realised that you were having a dream within a dream? What would be on your mind then???

Would it be the realisation that you were just a wee bit more high than the usual? Or would it be something else?

_

The rest of our lives

"Hear this song. It’ll change your life” said the unsettlingly beautiful Natalie Portman. I finally managed to, yesterday. You should hear it too. 'New Slang' by The Shins.

For a while, there were just the two of them. He use to swear and she hated that about him. But otherwise they were happy. It seemed natural that they would grow old together. She convinced herself it was just a matter of time.

He never lost control of himself. Even when he was drinking, he’d just grow quieter and quieter. ‘Dance’, she would say, ‘Its only me...’ ‘I can’t’, would be the unvarying reply. She used to say the only time his feet left the ground was when he was climbing trees. He loved to climb. He said the view helped him to see things more clearly.

He must have started to see things a bit too clearly because he developed what they call a mind-set. I guess you could just say he set his mind on certain things and there was no looking back from then on. And like so many people with no particular dream besides the humble desire to remain in the company of the one they choose, the sight of someone else so inspired filled her with a deep emptiness. She began to question whether he needed her at all; when he laughed and said he didn’t think it necessary to answer, this belief hardened. Finally one autumn evening, she left for her parents' house and did not return.

In the months that followed, people would stop by and ask him how he was, but he would just look up slowly, curse the town, and get on with his work. He worked through that winter as if lit by a fire no one else could see. It must have been a very unforgiving fire, for though his manner reflected heat, there was no sign of warmth.

Years went by, and the only word that was used to describe him after a while was ‘constant’. He never was as successful as he thought he would be. But he never stopped working. It was as if he had been sentenced to a lifetime of hard labour, except he wasn’t in jail. Or maybe he was, in a way.

Then something strange happened. One autumn evening, he had a surprise visitor. Time had etched some surface changes, but he could have recognised her by her footsteps, her breathing. She looked so familiar he wondered if it was just his memory playing tricks. He had aged considerably. ‘Old and bony’ was how she described him later.

‘The moment I saw her I realised I was looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find. I wanted to say so much, but my mind was full and I didn’t know where to start. In desperation, I asked her if she was hungry. She said yes, so I went into the kitchen, but there was no bread. In frustration I shouted ‘God speed all the bakers at dawn, may they all cut their thumbs, and bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.’ When I came out and saw her, there was a strange look in her eyes and I knew I had upset her, just like before. In desperation I started speaking and the words just kept flowing from me...'

She would later tell us what he said, word for word. ‘Am I too dumb to refine? Look at me now… I’m old and my head's to the wall and I'm lonely… All these years I just kept thinkin’, what if you 'a took to me. If you’d 'a took to me like a gull takes to the wind…well, I’d 'a jumped from my tree. I’d 'a danced like the king of the eyesores. And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well, of that I am sure…’

Me'nage A Trois ~

R.E.M.

huh…..escapes life with the last breath of silence.

The Elysian garden of the Flowering Peach is plagued by a random gust of Brownian chaos. Asthmatic cough keeps blinking into oblivion of disorder. Eventually, chaos disappears into the Machiavellian foxholes of evil deceit.
Behind the colourful bushes two men murmur in warm gulps of caffeine secrecy. The jackal pauses on its silent paws. Vainly looks at them. And violently dashes into the dimensionless room. Markus, half awake, is peering into the clandestine wilderness that looks out of his windows. A ragged man runs down the rough hillside causelessly holding a white flag in his hand. With a fluttering swiftness he disappears behind the frame of right window leaving behind a shrieking shout of silence. To quickly appear on the left one that generously features the rest of the dirty blue landscape. Eyes of stillness chase him down the hillside till he disappears into vanity. Lemon green vignettes blow away the sepia one with a sudden gust of a chilling breeze. Pastel curtains pitter-patter into huge halls of human hubbubs. And the hubbubs blend into an accordion tone of spendthrift delight. A glint in the jackal’s eyes trigger voiceless conversations. Homer, half naked, is flaunting his genius in front of the silken woman who keep bursting into moans of lustful laughter. In the adjoining room, soft reeds of velvet music buoy in the fragrance of the Lilac enchantress. Each passing whiff open like fresh new buds redolent with the temporal essence of material acquisition. An oaken door is left open with a nonchalant demeanour of passionate love making. And inside it, Nietzsche lies peacefully submerged in the tart waters of lemony liaisons.

Blue Notebook No. 2

Once there was a redheaded man without eyes and without ears. He had no hair either, so that he was a redhead was just something they said.
He could not speak, for he had no mouth. He had no nose either.
He didn't even have arms or legs. He had no stomach either, and he had no back, and he had no spine, and no intestines of any kind. He didn't have anything at all. So it is hard to understand whom we are really talking about.
So it is probably best not to talk about him any more.

Born in St. Petersburg in 1905, Daniil Kharms was one of the founders, in 1928, of OBERIU, or Association of Real Art, an avant-garde group of writers and artists who embraced the ideas of the Futurists and believed that art should operate outside the rules of logic. In 1941, he was arrested by the N.K.V.D. for making “defeatist statements”; sentenced to incarceration in the psychiatric ward of a prison hospital, he died of starvation the following year, during the siege of Leningrad. For more of his absurdist stories visit http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/kharmseng.htm

Citizen Wood

Waiting For Gold

Proving once again that all good things are meant to be stolen, mangled and recycled… including Mr. Becket

Art: Nothing to be done

Copy: Try something new

Art: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Art, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. Try something new. And I resumed the struggle.

Copy: Am I reasonable?

Art: I'm glad to see you back. I thought reason had left the building.

Copy: No, I’d just stepped out for a smoke.

Art: Together again at last! We'll have to celebrate this. But how? (She reflects.) Roll me one. I’ve had it with this Great Depression.

Copy: After you finish the layout

Art: May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?

Copy: With the client

Art: The Client? Doing what?

Copy: Getting debriefed.

Art: And they didn't beat you?

Copy:Brief me? Certainly they briefed me.

Art: The same brief as usual?

Copy: The same? I don't know what’s same and what’s different anymore. Everything different has been done so we might as well stick with the sameness to be different.

Art: (smoking up) When I think of it . . . all these years . . . but for me . . . where would you be . . . (Decisively.) You'd be nothing more than a little heap of words nobody bothers to read including the client, no doubt about it.

Copy: And what of it?

Art: It's too much for one person. (Pause. Cheerfully.) On the other hand what's the good of losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, like in the nineties

Copy: Ah! Stop blathering and do the bloody layout

Art: We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They only let us do scam stuff. (Copy tears the layout) What are you doing?

Copy: Tearing up your layout. Did that never happen to you? Layouts must be torn everyday; I'm tired of telling you that. Why don't you listen to me?

Silence for 60 seconds. Art sits in front of a blank screen. Copy stares at it hoping she will start doing the layout

Copy; Well?

Art: Nothing.

Copy: Show me.

Art: There's nothing to show.

Copy: Try and do it again.

Art: There is no change in what is to be said?

Copy: No

Art: Yet I must show something new

Copy: In one word. Yes

Art: What if I don't?

Copy: Don't what?

Art: Don't do the layout

Copy: (laughs) that is not a wise choice

Art:What will you do?

Copy: Nothing to be done.

Today

There once was a spectacled geek in New Delhi
Who put over 19 NFC shawarmas in his belly
And then let out this cosmic fart
That ripped time & space apart
And now the entire bloody universe is smelly

Primetime

_

The Facebooker

Wind, water, whim. All fall still.

Hector receives an anonymous post while he's about to sip the last bit of his hot chocolate -

"Hey, can you please send me a yellow cab near Fun Wall terminal?"

Before he can reply back, a pack of Werewolves sitting on a table beside him come past and bite him. One after the other at his throat.

Another anonymous post Teet-teets in his Inbox -

"can you hurry, there're a thousand requests after me"

Hector, bleeding heavily tries to reach out to the nearest Super wall booth. The run-amocked werewolves disappear down 5th X Me avenue. Gargling hot blood Hector picks up the receiver, dials anonymous post and tries to tell him something...

"Hurckle, hurckle, bloouup".........Hot blood mixed with hot chocolate spills thick into the virtual catacombs..."Hurckle,...."

Nearby, on the street, a snazzy new Double Dare collides head on with a 1984 Superlative. And with seconds of slo-mo turns in the air, comes down with a clamouring clatter, crashing upon Hector.

Anonymous post logs out.

All beings look up in a virtual delirium. Orkut sparkles in the dusken skies.

Prudence

close to 11, i clear out of a meeting (my head hurts) and i head to a friend's farewell. the bash is over and a man in a bowtie is clearing up the leftover curry and the plates.

beer says my friend. i disagree and we go back up to the 8th floor to get my bag (for no apparent reason) and walk back downstairs becuase i'm afraid of the lift.

downstairs, past a fence, a man is frying eggs on his cart and three men are standing by. a rickshaw is parked in the foreground. drunk, my friend starts crying out to the cold suburban wind demanding a negotiation. one of the men at the cart responds and quotes forty. in a frenzy of post mortem jubilation, my friend agrees and we board the rickshaw.

five minutes past, at wondering why the fuck we aren't moving and where the rickshawpuller is, we turn around and see the man being pummeled by one of the other men at the cart. the other has brutally kicked him at his knee and has taken him down. now he is is kicking at his throat. a man is watching eating bread with devilled eggs. another is frying another egg.

in a whisper, my friend is in the situation. he pushes the man aside and slaps the other in an effort to discipline him. he slaps him again.

i sit back and enjoy my friend's efforts in the direction. when, in what is clearly an unexpected turn, the man gathers forth all the simmering hatred of native gurgaon at the intrusive metropolis and shoves my friend back. i'm quick to be on my feet.

after a furter altercation, more verbal than physical, the man grabs my friend by the muffler. the rickshaw puller disappears to go beckon a security guard. the other man, his snack over, is saying placatory things in a language we don't understand. the vendor is standing idly by his frying pan.

i intervene. i believe i have a gift for sorting such matters. maybe i am an angel in human guise sent down from the heavens to dispatch dispute.

momentary ceasefire.

the rickshawman is back. he has a security guard with him. the security guard clay like stands still with an air of no authority at all. the aggressor, meanwhile is attempting to manually elevate a large boulder of no insignificant tonnage with the express intention of putting it on my accomplice with violent force.

quick, i say, let's escape back to the building.

no, says my friend, let's sit on the rickshaw instead.

we immediately sit on the rickshaw and the driver boards as well, pushing the rickshaw forward in a frenzied but slow manner.

meanwhile, the man with the rock is moving as fast as he can with the boulder behind us, this being a 3.25 or so mph speed on account of the additional weight. he is also letting out some bloodthirsty screams in the process.

we don't look back.

his screams follow the chi curve of getting louder and then receding into quietness. onward ho, we stop at a cigarette shop and my friend acquires four classic milds at the price of three.

everyone in gurgaon is drunk after 11, he says.

we stop before a mall. no one has change. i give the rickshaw puller a fifty note expecting him to demand change from his brethren. in response, he boards a fat well to do looking family and departs at mach speed.

we sit at buzz where they play bollywood loud on imported bose speakers. my friend orders red bull for me and rum for himself. i am infatuated by a girl who has large hoop like earrings, a black top with a pink and a red flower and looks like the bastard love child of carmen electra, bruce lee and robert downey jr.

on our way back, we find an auto who quotes hundred. drunk, my friend agrees. he drops us back at our office.

as he leaves, suddenly, we see the enemy leap out of the darkness and throw his boulder and the auto, instantly smashing and upturning it. we see him pull the bloodied mess that is the autowallah and start pulping him with a fierce intensity.

we hurry into our building, thinking it prudent not to intervene.

the next morning i dream of my school. i'm back there and meeting all my juniors. we're preparing for a party in the sunlit auditorium that was spence hall.

Big Brother: A morality play in three acts

OR
“I can see some words like ‘fuck’”

Act I
Me: Listen, there’s this blog I contribute to. It used to be accessible before, but now there’s some sign saying its blocked because of {Sex}. It says that in brackets…
Lower-level IT Division Corporate Stooge: Is it for work purposes?
Me: Huh? Excuse me?
Stooge: Does you need this blog for your office work?
Me: No no. The opposite, actually. I use it as an escape. You know, to relax, unwi…
Stooge (piercing look): I can’t help you. You’ll have to write to Corporate Systems
Me: Who are they?
Stooge: They are in Mumbai


Act II
From: Uday Bhatia
Sent: 03 January 2008 10:43
To: Corporate Systems (MUM/IT)
Subject: block

Hi,
This is Uday Bhatia from Delhi. There is a blog which I contribute to called http://newfriendscolony.blogspot.com/. This used to be accessible before, but is now blocked due to content problems. I can assure you that there is no offensive content on it, and would invite you to verify that. If that is the case, I would request you to please un-block it.

Sincerely,
Uday


From: RR (MUM/IT)
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 12:36 PM
To: uday.bhatia
Subject: RE: block

Hi,
This site has 79% sex contents which is not allowed, can you recheck the site and find sex related pics/words etc.

Regards,
R


From: Uday Bhatia (DEL)
Sent: 03 January 2008 12:52
To: RR (MUM/IT)
Subject: RE: block

Dear R,

I find that very tough to believe. It’s just a normal blog. As before, I would urge you to have a look at it. However, if there is nothing you can do, then I appreciate your looking into the matter.

Thanks,
Uday


From: RR (MUM/IT)
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2008 12:36 PM
To: uday.bhatia
Subject: RE: block

I can see some words like “fuck”.
Time being I have allowed this site but it could be blocked in future again.

Regards,
R

Act III
Me: Hey, listen man, they seem to have blocked the blog at my office. They say its 79% sex. Could you do me a favour and remove the cartoon with the semi-nude girl and the dwarves. May just work.

2 hours later…

Udayan: Ok, its gone. Did it help?
Me: Nope. Damn. What should I do now?
Udayan: Write about it.

_

There is a great message in the end

Happy New Year

It was New Year's Eve. He sat all by himself. Downing one drink after the other. Drowning his anguish, he drank until he lost count. And lost direction till he had to drag himself to bed. His head spun like a roulette wheel but his stubborn mind managed to somehow apply the brakes and he drifted into slumber. Five minutes later, he shuddered out of it. He put his senses together to figure out that the Haryanvi Jaats living upstairs were creating a ruckus, reveling in the joy of having survived another year in a place that they didn't belong to. 'They belong to hell', was his verdict. He went upstairs, rang the doorbell and out popped a character in a leather jacket embellished by a hundred zippers and a hairstyle that looked like it had been snipped in haste by some timid barber under the shadow of the Jaat's well oiled Lath. He explained the Jaat with all the calm n guts he could gather that he was being rendered sleepless due to their merrymaking. It took him three back to back explanations to get an assurance that they would cut down the volume and confine the mayhem. What he also got was an invite to join in the celebrations but...
He dragged himself to bed again. And tried to get some sleep.
But the Jaats had more obstinacy than alcohol in their blood. The promise was broken.
He locked his apartment and climbed the stairs a second time. And with the help of his jacketed friend, he joined in the celebrations. All the Jaats drank more and more, welcoming the outsider into their home. And he drank more and more, to send the Jaats to hell, to where he thought they actually belonged. He went slit chop split through seven throats with the demeanour of a gunjee & lungee-clad kasaai. Ironically, it was the very music that they were dancing to in their two room barsaati that brought them their death & silenced their screams.
Then he heard a thud. And suddenly felt a throbbing pain at the back of his head. With a dissolving vision, he saw a man with a Lath in hand. The man was drunk and had been lying unconscious in the other room. The man was the grief stricken, timid barber who had just lost seven precious customers on the dawn of a new year!