I

I decide to walk to the station instead of hailing a cab. I agree I do carry a heavy load but that’s all right, I’ve become so used to this baggage that it doesn’t hurt me anymore. I feel like it has become a part of me of late and to admit the truth, there is something spectacular about ambling along the alley and absorbing the bustle of the market place that makes you forget you’re carrying a rather uncomfortable burden. I haven’t lived a long life, thirty-five is just a start if you ask me, but whatever wonderful time I’ve spent in my village for half of my life, nothing comes even near in comparison with how a big city can make you feel. I love the pompousness and glitterati that can make one feel important. I am important.

I have about a few hundred rupees left in my pocket and more than an hour left to reach the station. I am sweating profusely and my back is soaked. I think part of the problem, apart from the baggage, is also this tight fitting dress; darn thing sticks to me like gum. I wish I could buy something better and change somewhere but that doesn’t sound like a good idea. I would waste too much time in selecting one and by the time I am done selecting in a big city like this, the train would have left. I wish I’d been early. I am early.

I don’t like people who talk loud. I also don’t like people who stare at me like I am about steal their food. I am not a village idiot to not understand city mannerisms. I drink and eat without spilling, walk without stomping, talk without spitting, shit without stinking and lie without blinking. I am everything and anything they’d like me to be and they still think I am not. I walk past them like I don’t exist while I am still in all flesh and blood. I want to scream at them but I don’t want to. I scream within me. I am silence.

I stand in the middle of the crowd and there is a lot of tension when the train arrives. I am on time. I push my way through the throng and now stand in the middle of the compartment. I don’t think they understand how important I am to them and vice versa, else there is no reason why they’d be here with me. I wish to share how glad I was to be the one who’d absolve them of their mediocrities, limited as they can be in number. I decide that such a parting speech would only scatter the herd than form one. I foresee a time when they’d wonder who was responsible among them and they’d know it was me because I was the only one who was important, early and most of all silent in this ever so noisy compartment. I am I.

The Memorial

While remembering the contribution of the worker ant in his commemoration, the entire colony stood still in complete horrific silence as the Queen ant made her way to the center of the crowd where the lifeless body of their fallen compatriot was laid, the first time she had ever consented to grace such a public function with her esteemed presence, all thanks to the glory of the departed, his dead face tilted to the right so as to keep in line with the century old tradition of not meeting the Queen’s eyes directly even in the event of death, and the solemn moment reached its pinnacle when popular workers of the colony viz. MJSNCO2909X and QWQDMD0-3C lifted their dead mate above their heads for everyone assembled in the bright morning hours to see for one last time the lasting image of their fallen hero, a time tested expert in the field of nesting who commenced working immediately after emerging from his pupal casing and continued that trend tirelessly for the next 93 days until today when he collapsed to the ground for no apparent reason (old age – a plausible connection) thus giving his community no other option but to hold his funeral in grandeur with the noble presence of the Queen herself, who was obligated to initiate the proceedings and at the end of the memorial service thought it wise to march over his body, plucked his abdomen apart with no discernible provocation and called upon her worker class to begin feeding their fallen compatriot to the young for better days to come before leaving for her palace.

Abduction By Hand

One fine Tuesday, I suddenly felt uncontrollable spasms terrorize my body and I couldn’t bring myself to believe the changes I witnessed in my hitherto serene habitat. A sudden rush of shattering sounds ensued and all I could think was to hold onto wherever I was and not make any sudden movements that could make me look conspicuous. Once that ended, a small shaft of light slowly crept in dissipating the darkness and that’s when I saw those huge gloved hands moving toward me in swift motion. I froze in fear and surrendered myself completely to those hands that held me by my head and dragged me out of my place with monstrous impunity, and all I did in fright and shame was cry inconsolably until I saw my smiling mother and heard her say her first words to me, “My baby!”

P.S: Well, this was my entry for a Penguin-Hindustan Times contest to describe one amazing thing in my life in less than 150 words. Thought it was worth a post. Happy weekend, folks!

She Is Beautiful

She is beautiful. She is dressed today in a lovely white frock charmingly printed with designs of exotic flowers. She is playing hide-and-seek right outside the park with four or five others of her age group. She does seem to enjoy the game quite a lot today, as the excitement on her face is quite apparent. She sprints from one end of the park to the other looking for a good place to hide while the countdown of the seeker in the game rapidly comes to a close. She furtively glances around and hides behind a bush just in time.

She slowly peers out of the bush and watches the seeker begin the search with a few good finds. She tries to control her giggling by crossing her palms on her mouth but that’s not good enough to conceal her sniggers. She realizes a few moments later that she is the last one left unfound after what seems to be quarter hour of play. She, with the help of her friends, who give out the seeker’s imminent moves and positions each minute, crawls from one bush to the other in swift clandestine shuffles, brilliantly evades capture and in time moves to the south end of the park.

She frets thinking that she has been cornered with no more ends to move without being noticed, but fortunate for her she is now being helped by an elderly man sitting on the park bench who suggests a good place to hide. She duly follows him to the safe zone by mimicking each of his moves and now they are at the far end of the park where she is secure. She has been pricked and scratched by thorns on the way, a couple of which still cling onto her dress. She hisses in slight pain while the man slowly removes her dress and picks the thorns from it with diligence so as not to spoil it. She scans around the bushes for any movement from the fear of being found while he gingerly cleanses the dirt off her hands and legs and continues to charter areas private to her and rightfully belongs to hers and hers alone.

She feels an oddity arise in her mixed with a peculiar feeling of invasiveness, a form of offense and guilt at the same time. She is unable to express this feeling of trepidation as clearly as she wishes to and only thinks about ending this new found association by running away as fast as she can. She is pinned down to the ground in one swift motion with his hands covering her mouth the very next moment. She mumbles words of escape and forgiveness to no immediate effect and now new meanings of fear and being a subject of unfair control gradually dawn on her. She is unable to dispose the huge mass that has imposed itself rudely upon her, which has now started making awkward motions by sticking its body closer and even closer to hers. She finds the cruel meaning of those motions moments later when the pain climaxes and the body above her slumps to the side in exhaustion.

She is unable to find her voice again while her naked body shivers on the grass. She can find her spotless white frock and tattered inner garments lying a few feet away but she doesn’t find the will to rise to her feet and gather them. She doesn’t feel anything except the stinging pain in her abdomen. She watches him settle his pants and walk away, and half an hour later she gathers her dress and walks out of the park cautiously wishing none of her friends would still linger around. She is ten years old and she is beautiful.

Once Upon A Evening

My father and I wait for the bedroom door to open any second. A small murmur is heard in the backdrop, nothing more than feeble whispers. Damn, tension grows each minute. The anxiety is clearly visible on our manly faces. Dad seems to have gotten rid of all his nails and right now he is peeling the skin off his fingertips. I also seem to have chewed my nails in the past one hour. Dad and I are unable to make eye contact with each other. The second our stares meet, we skillfully divert our attention to the door. In those fleeting glances, I do realize that he is lost in his own train of thoughts: quite understandable given the situation. This was the first instance he was about to witness such a thing in his lifetime. Grandpa is watching TV. He is kept unaware of all that’s happening. Truth be told, neither of us dare to explain things to him as it would most certainly jeopardize the evening’s plans. The old man demands to know now and then why the bedroom door is closed for such a long time and why both of us are standing right outside it the entire time. We say in unison its nothing. He continues to watch TV. The 8’o clock news is on. That gives another half an hour until grandpa’s attention is diverted and his suspicions rise again. My sis and grandma are inside with mum. It’s almost been an hour since all this started, yet no word from them yet. Father knocks the door with growing impatience. What’s going on, he demands to know. We’ll be out in a minute, my sis shoots back from inside. A tinge of concern is concealed in her voice and a little excitement too. Five minutes later, the door opens. Out comes my sis first, she is all smiles. Next, grandma walks out all coy. And there she was, mum at the door! I turn around to see dad in complete amazement for the first time ever! Sis and grandma unable to control their emotions anymore give out a wild shriek! This catches grandpa’s attention, who in the middle of all things is now giving a standing ovation. And I can’t stop myself from jumping up and down in unexplainable joy! She did it! God, my mum looks so young in a chudidhar she could pass off as my sister!

P.S: Time for me pass on the Blogger Buddy award I’d once received from Karthik. I don’t know if the rules permit me to pass it onto two at a time. Yet, I’d like to pass it to Archana & Anupama. Cheers folks! Keep writing!

A First of Firsts

My breathing turns heavy every second while I hold on to his neck with all the might I can muster, my strangulation forcing his eyes to roll up and down as I watch him choke and heave yearning for a release from my firm clasp but I wouldn’t budge, not a chance I could let him live after this day after his vicious backstab, an equivalent of hundred bullet wounds I could sustain any other day just after this deed is done but not fulfilled, not quite yet, almost on the brink of it, just a bit more further I’d have his neck I think, but hey, hold on, no no nononono, wait a second, he can’t die either, he stole my idea of death, agreed,  a valid ground for a remorseless execution of a traitor who suddenly regards the thought of a distant lunar death as his own, possibly a first of firsts in a exotic place nothing less than the Moon itself, can you believe it, a task which is obviously beyond comprehensible poetry that, a mission designed exclusively with the express purpose of performing an unattained death in the history of humanity while I was still a tiny tot for god sake, but now being denied that chance in the fag ending stages by a once trusted friend who has now made plans of his own, stealing my thought shamelessly, dying in my very own hands thus completing his treachery in a high note and I can’t give it to him, I need to kill and be killed at almost the same time, but how I do not know, and I helplessly proceed to tighten my noose in pure blind rage and that’s when something breaks between my fingers and a life departs and I place his corpse in the shuttle scheduling it to launch him back to where we came from, a distant earth far removed from where I am, where his ashes would still remain despite his devious last minute plans, and I remove my oxygen mask in victorious delight awaiting the time I’d rot and meet my maker for once and for all.

P.S: Thanks Karthik for the blogger buddy award! Respect, machi!

P.S 2: My short story The Sea has been selected for publishing by Forward Press Ltd, UK in their short story anthology “Days Like These” releasing this June. So, yayyy!!!!

In Search For Empty V@niTy

I hate this blank white page. I hate it from the bottom of my heart. Its stare enters the very core of my silly heart and hurts badly. I’m under no compulsion here; I am just brutally forced, propelled, driven by my mad desiring conscious to come up with these words of hatred. It is quite unusual of me to actually slur and make a blog out of it, but tonight I’ve got to make this exception.

Let me present my case with a clear premise that would surmise in a trice the price of being a novice. DO NOT be deceived by the imperceptible guile this whiteness conceals in its hindquarters. The lure to declare fairness and purity on first glance is understandable, but let me warn you, there is an episode of travesty awaiting your unfortunate fate once you decide to do so.

I do foresee a time when this article could be judged as to not worth the paper it is written on, but that is the kind of fate this writer has constantly known his writings belong to anyway. And that’s also the reason why I decided to spurt my vicious black poison all over this white masquerade. My fingers know not the pain I make them undergo now as I type this passage in pure frenzy with no regard to spelling or grammar auto correct! This exercise is in search of that blissful peace that awaits me once I post this blog (That is so cheap. Speaks meanly about one’s character. No one can be so desperate. There are better things to write about. The whole world is in a war right now. I know. Two words. Shut. Up.)

All this anger actually stemmed elsewhere and has carried itself forward to my writing desk. It began in the morning when I forgot my e-banking password. It’s as simple as that. But it didn’t end there. I had to reset it about a week ago and in the mean time I had created logins to four new social networking sites, each with its own unique login name and password. And I would have dreamed another hundred passwords in the past few days. In this entire melee for uniqueness, my e-banking suffered a setback, that too in a moment of personal emergency. Now it was time to reset it.

In an age of rampant identity theft where even shadows need to be checked once in a while for ownership, the option of using a familiar password is ruled out. I am extra cautious about these sorts of things. This is something you need to know about me. Now I needed a new password. Lords of creativity helped me figure out one. I enter it. Judgment was passed as I typed. It was weak. Combinations of lower and UPPER cases needed to be conjured. Trickery was performed in a matter of seconds. Judgment was passed. It was good. I’d jumped a step above. But I can’t be just good. I needed to be exceptional. Tension soared. There is a clock ticking and this page would expire soon. Think! Think! A few numbers needed to be introduced. Done. 9 and 0 selected among the number system. Now what? Judgment was passed. It was ok. It was a ‘what the hell’ moment. Special characters were needed now. That was the missing link. Once that was done, my connection would be secure like that of a Na’vi’s pigtail to his monstrous flying predator. But there are restrictions in this game. No exclamations, no brackets. Oh all right. I chose one. Judgment was passed. It was strong. Finally! I did it! I now belonged to that exquisite league of the geeks who could pride themselves with superior skills of password fabrication. I now belonged to the league of those extraordinary gentlemen. By evening, I forgot what I’d entered in the morning.

Now, I’ll request for a password reset again and the e-mail with the link that would take me all over its burrows for another tour of intellectual squabble would arrive with the stamp of my epic failure exquisitely pasted all over it. This time I’d choose a weak one. Maybe my name, yes, that’d do. It’s all right. No more of these vainglorious attempts to attain empty vanity. I am absolved of mediocrity now. Please go ahead and do whatever you were doing. I feel much better now. Thank you.

A Tarry Sojourn

While traveling through the prism of time, all that Allen wished was to not meet somebody who was going the other direction. The journey wasn’t as swift as he hoped it to be. There weren’t any obstacles as such. But the entire concept was still weird to him and it took a while to get the hang of the entire deal. He was intrigued by the design of the prism of travel; a pentagonal construct with divisions, like the cross section of a ladies-finger, to accommodate other time travelers who were destined to their own preferred landing times. He was traveling from 2010 AD to 1984 AD, a miniscule fraction considering the totality, yet it was all that Allen could ask for.  Stupid of him to not have asked for a more exotic time to go back to you’d think, yet when the question of his choice of landing zone arrived, he could think none other than the year of his birth as the answer. He had no specific reason for making that choice, just a stupid answer to a stupid question, as far as he was concerned. Who was to know the travel would happen for real and the question was not a rhetorical.

The rest five of his companions that day had made different choices and some had even brought their own tools too. The priest carried a camera to record a serpent talk into making a nude lady eat an apple and ruin paradise forever, the holocaust survivor carried a handgun to shoot Hitler in his bunker, the scientist carried an ink marker to erase the history of time and publish her own journal of evolution, and an Alzheimer patient who always forgot he was traveling to a time when he didn’t have the disease carried his false memories.

As soon as the travel commenced, almost miraculously, the Alzheimer patient seemed to have been cured of his disease. He recounted all his childhood days and recited his favorite nursery rhymes without missing a single note. Convinced that he’d reached his destined time, he was alighted from the ship. Unfortunate for him, he had traveled a little further into the past to a day where he couldn’t transpose himself. He had reached when he was one day old and thus was left unable to convince his mother in the hospital that he was the same as the one-day old baby in her arms, just that they were separated in time. Unable to comprehend this bitter truth, the mother died of a heart attack an hour later, leaving the baby orphaned and left to be forcibly adopted by the time traveler.  The time traveler made sure the baby received treatment early in his life to not contract Alzheimer in the future and also, in later days, sent him to London to be trained as a doctor to cure people of Alzheimer. That way, the time traveler lived with a younger himself for the rest of his life and was cured of Alzheimer forty years later without having to travel in time.

The holocaust survivor for all his preparations forgot his handgun in the time machine. Reciting his experiences of the time machine to Hitler in his bunker, he found a true fan in Hitler who was mesmerized by the story, to say the least. Hitler gave up his suicidal plans and called in all his Generals from every squad to attend a get-together that evening where the stories of the time traveler about the future would be recited by the time traveler himself. Overjoyed by the Fuhrer’s response and the adulation he received, the time traveler decided to prepare himself for the presentation. He jotted down notes and rehearsed endlessly. When the time arrived he climbed up the dais and was shot down by the Generals mercilessly. Hitler then went on to instruct his Generals about possible survivors who could one day time travel to recite ugly stories about his regime and ordered them to annihilate every possible survivor in the next 24 hours. As planned before, Hitler then went ahead and committed suicide.

The priest while recording the whole conversation between the nude lady and the serpent couldn’t help falling in love with the lady. He quit recording the video, put the camera aside and barged into the scene. No wonder both Eve and the serpent was shocked. The good lord himself couldn’t believe that a priest from the future could come into the past. The priest credited the Lord for having the potential for blessing humans with such a power later in his career and described the achievement as a feather in his cap. This being a time when the metaphor hadn’t gained resonance among those present went flat. He later talked the serpent into killing Adam, the Lord into leaving paradise and Eve into marrying him for a happy ever after.

The scientist after having landed in Charles Darwin’s time found it difficult to spot him. Since this was time when all men sported beards because there was no Gillette, it was hard to pin point his identity. Darwin being a proponent of a theory that contradicted popular beliefs of the time, was under constant threat and had to use body doubles for safe existence. After a fruitless three-year search for Charles, the time traveler became desperate. It was then she met a Voodoo specialist who killed people by inserting pins into dolls. She quickly learnt the trade by practicing day and night under the supremely trained eye of the specialist. After the specialist had gone closed her eyes while sleeping, she killed him and ran away with his dolls. She then killed Darwin and his body doubles and also self-tutorialed on the Voodoo globe, which she spun to make the whole world spin around like crazy. This continued for a good fifty years when finally two explorers named Frodo and Sam finally found the Voodoo and destroyed it in the fires of Mount Mood, the story of which inspired a writer of Allen’s previous generation to write a famous 1000 page novel involving a ring.

Allen decided he didn’t want to get down at 1984 AD for no specific reason. He kept postponing his departure and bid farewell to all those on the ship. He preferred to go even further into the past. Every minute into the past revealed phantasmagorical images of serene explosions and juggernaut confluences. His march into a certain beginning prodded him into travel further into the next beginning until the many beginnings lead to no more logical endings and trapped in time and space was the traveler, who wandered the whole of next day uncertain of his place’s latitudinal presence and position in the past with no damn concern for the near future.

Apologies, my friend

Dear Blogspot,

Before you begin to get all worked up and pass on the word around the world that I’m back to my home page with this lousy apology letter as a gateway to express (show off, is what you’d substitute the following with as soon as I post this, you bastard!) my creativity, let me begin by telling you that this whole time there was none, other than my family and my work and my TV and my movies and my, hmmm let me think ya that’s it, life basically kept me away from you. I know it sounds like ant crap to you but that’s the truth. You have to primarily understand that Antbrain was my only brilliant brainchild and I orphaned him mercilessly in pursuit of higher echelons of literary glory, the pain of which has lately begun to itch unbearably. As a responsible parent, as most parents aren’t, I’ve come to claim my child again. And not without just love and compassion but also with express regret and shame, which I’m willing to forego as soon as you are done reading this. Everything is time bound in the world of the watchmakers and I’m concerned about it even though I’m not one. Despite its frivolity, I’m compelled to use this time-tested metaphor in order to drive home my point. Which is that, Antbrain is a religion to me. Ok, that’s saying too much. I need to make a seamless transition from a bitch to a Madonna of the Africa. Allow me to try again. To me, Antbrain is an identity. An identity so important to veil my true self as the identity of Batman is to Bruce Wayne. The domains of our expertise differ, yet we are both crusaders and that’s what matters. This again was metaphorical.

Now, you might wonder the reasons for this letter and its intended subsequent repercussions. Last week, as you might know from my updated Google profile, was my birthday. (All those cunts who didn’t care to wish me; this might not be too late a time to send your belated greetings!) I turned 27. And I didn’t know that. I still had a naïve belief that I was married at 25 and I would turn a maximum of 26 that day. But as fate would have it, I was denied that chance. I realized that I’ve wasted another year of my life doing nothing worthwhile. My name still isn’t associated with anything credible or original and whatever I’ve done till now could be pinpointed to a certain source as inspiration. The target of being a household name by 25 has eluded and my funeral wouldn’t possibly witness the largest turnout in the history of the country. It is still a long shot, but something tells me it is still attainable. I know when I say this all the wasted 28-year olds are going ‘yeah right’ with complete apathy and all the wasted 45 year olds are cursing their last 20 years and all the wasted 90-year olds are thinking about time traveling. Worse, the dead are giving my dead grandparents their coldest stares and shoulders. It is still not enough to chill my spine but good enough for my grandda to appear and plead in my dreams for quick action asap. I did not intend this. I told him that. But he’s in no mood to listen. Good man.

All that said, my true intention has always been to write original content. The true high one could experience out of creating one has remained a motivation to me for so long that I tend to forget my age sometimes. In this four months’ time of solitude and desperation, I have partially realized the true power of the written word. Concepts of simplicity and perspective have gained resonance in me. Molecules of tipping points have gathered to form a consolidated mass. And words, and words of words, and so on have finally held hands and arrived at my tollgate of creative dispense. The need to fulfill this long-standing obligation has trickled down to my conscious and now I know the path my footsteps need to leave an imprint on. And you my dear friend! How do I thank you for your generosity and kindness even in our times of turbulence! Now, don’t get all hyper-excited and think supremely of yourself. You have your own flaws like I do, lets face it and agree upon a common ground of individual self-respect. My gratefulness is for keeping my blog space intact and it feels so truly good to be back again in my realm of unitary self-gratification. Lets end at that.

So, beginning today, after this process of adoption has been carried in due accordance to all the ritual traditions of blog handover and takeover, I pledge to carry out thy will wholeheartedly. May the force be with me to wheedle words of appropriate importance and allow them to mould in their positions of significance to singularly convey my message with unforeseen clairvoyance. Simply put, lets stop this bullshit and start working. Thanks for the pardon already.

An Unexpected Delay

The delay of my train by five hours in midnight was unusual and it prompted me to find the station master to endlessly question him until he bled from his ears hearing my tirade, but nowhere was he in sight nor were any other passengers waiting to board the train to Sikhri with me, leaving me stranded in the biting cold of the night, and when sleep began to sway me unknowingly between different realms of consciousness, an unexpected gush of wind blew with a severe might good enough to roll the hut of the station like a dice, carrying paper sand toothbrush forks mice plastic along with it in its belly, and from it rose an apparition holding a tiny dressing table in his palms with pictures of me placed on it neatly, various frames taken during different phases of my ninety year existence, but curiously the reflection in the dressing mirror wasn’t me with my wrinkles or beard but a much younger me, and crowded around me were everyone I’d known until that day, who were now fast receding into their respective distant pasts and unknown futures, their distorted images fading in a whirlpool of muddy mess, instilling in me an unknown fright and lessened being, forcefully awaking me into the real to find my long awaited train depart and fade in a distance, obliging another day’s wait for me to reach godforsaken Sikhri.