Shelter from the storm

2012-01-30T08:52:00.000-08:00

Helter Skelter

Frog told me that he would call me. I am waiting for that god damned call. The spot light's on me, I know. I am on stage- the chairs in front of me bereft of an audience. Wood panelled rough huge stage, with me- alone -facing a red phone that's off the hook bacause that's how twisted our love story is. We have bizzare conversations in our heads this phone and I, playing out tapes of our life's little pasts and futures and we look at each other with such remorse and sadness and fucking happiness on how it's all over now. And we want some more. Most times we don't make sense. So screw you Frog. I am waiting for your call which will never come, like it never does because the phone's off the hook. And you make me believe that our love's so cool and special that we can will miracles to happen. You conned me there. So I am reading out this letter of love and hate for you because we are done. Done with each other. Never more.

Dear Frog
My heart explodes with such love for you that the four letter word is lava not love. You however do not deserve it. I wish I could drain you off my memories and shed away the blue ink into a bottle and throw the bottle into the sea and lose the bottle. Good bye.
Love
Laloo

That's beautiful isn't it? It's succinct and tells you how I feel about Frog and why this is over. I have this vague feeling growing stronger as I read it loud once more, that he is too dumb to get it. At the expense of artistic brevity and poetic justice I insert more lines. I thought of some great lines yesterday for this but they seem to evade me. I shall make another attempt at it now.

Frog
I believe love operates on five principles and I think you work outside all of the below and above. I will make you understand this by stating these rules and using ample examples from our life so far to illustrate how you are such a screw up.

Rule 1
The loved is not greater
The lover not smaller
For sooner or later
You are one or the other

I think the word I am looking for in the second line is lesser, but you get the point.

Rule 2
A man speaks to woman
He asks of her
Is love a shadow
or Strange light.
In the morning she leaves

Now this will need explanation, although I hate having to explain myself to you all the time. And I think that's the message, so there.

I am interrupted here by the cleaning lady walking into the hall. I am mistaken.She walks in from the exit door at the back of the empty hall, a hundred rows of empty chairs away. Some one has bought a ticket for the show. Poor Soul. Maybe I should tell her that there's nothing on right now. I can see her. She is all legs and blue short skirt and can't be true. My mind's playing tricks with me because Love is such a wretched thing. She is here for real. She sits in the front row, cross legged, blank and inviting. Will she take me home if I put on this show for her? Frog? What Frog?Time to churn on the charm.

Did I see that phone shiver a bit like there was someone on the other end? I pick up the red smelly receiver and I hear the dead buzz.

Rule 3, Frog, is that you do not let love lose its way like a complete unknown , you know, with no direction home...you feed it, nourish it, you nurture it and water it everyday. The neglected heart wanders. And you turned me, the super girl of your life into wander woman. I hate you for that.

Look! If you think that it's turning insipid you are right. What do you expect? Here I am torn between eternal love breaking to pieces and tall slim infinity blue skirt there of the long face red pout slender curve and warm warm body. It's not easy. But life's not easy is it? Speaking of which,

Rule 4, Frog
If x is > y and y is < z are prevaricates and by axiomatic assumption we know that x^2+y^2 is < z^2 then how does one prove in five easy steps that x+y may or may not equal z+x given x,y,z is >0 for all x,y,z ?, Try solving that you self important practical headed son of a bitch.

A man has moved in while I was busy challenging Frog on an intellectual level. He is sitting next to that impossible girl and he is tall and well built with a head full of long hair to tell me she is out of my league. Of course she had a date and she chose to date here.

I can hear Frog. Sweet sweet little bastard actually decides to call me. I prance wildly on stage, possessed by his voice croaked by the ten thousand hundred and five cigarettes, the dull beautiful smoked and aged and matured to woody perfection sound to which my heart beats. The date couple blink at my performance and exit stage left.

You called, I say, joyful. I can hardly hear him speak. He makes no sense.He warbles and mutters and yodels and croaks and chokes and recites two lines. He cuts the line and I am back to staring at that red fucking phone below a spotlight in an empty stage in a silent hall.

Dear Frog

I can't think of another rule because it is you who rules my heart.

I miss you so much

Love
Laloo

2012-01-17T20:25:00.000-08:00

A Hard Day's Night

He sat facing the wall in a blank empty white room, his chair turned against hers, eyes peeled wide at a screen. Her perfume was of dried orange peels soaked in vanilla essence. The sickly sweet smell invaded his nostrils and his ears were gently tortured by the rustle of her clothes and her deep breathing. Net result: he retained nothing. Or next to nothing: Step 1 Press O five O four Five hem (?) Step 2 No clue. Step 3 Thoughts on how if they survived what ever they were going to be made to go through he might find true love -assorted feelings on abject nature of current existence, reality shows, never remembering how he got there and the fine bust line of the game show hostess and cut red and blue wire. Step 4 Cut green and red wire. Step 5 And Welcome home you happy couple.It would turn out to be farce executed to perfection.

The lights turned bright yellow and hot. He blinked thrice. The cameras whirred and zoomed and panned and trolleyed. He was facing her. That’s one way to look at it. He was staring at her large invitingly exposed cleavage coiled and wound and caged within a dark green brassiere whatever. Her face was the not disappointing Caucasian blandness of white skin and blond hair, whose features were sexily masked by large over sized sunglasses.He took deep breaths to look calm and collected. He conjured a dull uninterested sneer to convey to the larger audience how his life could go ahead unfazed by such brazen sexiness. Should he pause to register what she thought of him? That would break his heart surely. He looked cool and ignored her, slyly letting his eyes roll every twenty fifth second over that copious vastness within the green stretched cloth.

When he tuned back in, they were in the white room on their knees. On the wall facing them, was a large black hole and she on all fours trying to peer through it. She had this beautiful accent which sounded so right and was asking him . … “ go first?”

“Do you want to go in first?” looking up at him, bent over that hole.
“Aren’t we supposed to make conversation for the first five minutes?” he asked eyebrows knit to show confusion. The rules changed so fast that he could make them up as he went and all would be Calvin Ball. “Of course” she rolled her eyes and feigned disappointment.

“I am Laloo”, he told her helpfully. “I have eliminated five unbelievers so far in games of might, wit and random suggestion”
“Hi!” she drawled, her upper lip and bosom beaded with little droplets of sweat from the heat of the lights. He blond curls covered and uncovered her ears. “I am Lana Marn. I am a blacksmith. I run a charity organization called Bang’d and Nail’d.”

With puns like that, she had to be a call girl-a high class one, or a porn star. He played cool. “And what do you do in the evenings?” the laughter track in his head, the audience and the gentle hostess tittering in unison. “The five minutes are up love”, she winked. “We have thirty minutes to save our hides. You go in first?” “After you”, he said, ever the gentleman. She crawled into the hole and he followed her, safely behind that tightly draped behind that looked like a challenge to his male virility. A voice in pre recorded tones of robotic precision said “you have twenty nine minutes to diffuse the bomb. Good luck. Click”

This must be the final round. The do or die or was it do and die?, he wondered. The subtleties evaded him. The objective was clear. They had to diffuse the bomb in thirty, twenty nine, twenty eight minutes through a five step procedure, which the wall had briefed him on in accentuated exhilaration conditions. He had to remember the guide and follow it step by step to safety. Television ratings do well with a death on air.

The end of that singularly well crafted hole was a stainless steel floor that curved around them- just enough space to accommodate their crawling bulks. She stretched her legs lay down on her back, facing him up from below, green largeness first.

"Look", she said, her pretty face pouting red lips to show concern."We should call the number (said in a panting significant hushed tone) for help. Do you remember the number?"

“Ah Step One…Zero Five Zero Four…”
The dialing panel appeared magically in green fluorescence on the steel curvature above her. He heard the camera, enclosed cleverly to cover all directions, zooming in, straining , giving those tantalizing assets of hers the stardom they deserved. She looked at him admiringly like such intelligence deserved a favor returned. He knew that look. She took one gently filed index finger and nail and punched the numbers. “Hey wait”, she said. “It’s asking for a five digit number and you gave me four” It was a delicious little whine- confused, funny, sexy.
“Hem” he muttered. That was amplified- laughter track inserted. Somewhere.
“Uh?”
“Five”
“Okay” she nodded, her chin moving up and down. “Yeah! That was right you were boy!” she said. “Now to look into the plumbin’” she whispered in fake huskiness
He knew those lines by heart. Bang’d and Nail’d indeed.
“What seems to be the problem ma’am?”
“You know... it keeps gettin’ very wet at the drains”
“Oh well ma’am you need a new shaft and maybe some drillin’”
“I was thinkin’ more about somethin’ to do with the pumpin’”
He can’t get a line wrong. Else boom.
“That’s hard work ma’am”
“Why don’t you go down and take a look?”
“I’ll be darned ma’am it sure is wet down here”
“Well you ain’t licked are you?”
“A screw there, some hammerin and some nailin here and we should be alright ma’am” (applause)
Credit worthy applause that was. He had played it well. They had filled in ten minutes of solid air time. He had taken his time and seen it through.

Lights off. Steps 3 and 4. The air around them cooled. It was cold, the touch of stainless steel against skin. Two little panels opened gleaming eerie orange light into their faces- one from over her face and another just behind her head-on the steel floor. Each had a set of three wires-red, green and blue- thin plastic wires that looked so small to terrify him.

Her face was heart wrenching childlike concentration- on a figure modeled sculpted and refined for child bearing.
“So I’ll cut the ones on top and where’s the other?”
“Behind you”
“You get them…Thiger!”
Fine. He stammered here. The obvious did that to him. If they had scripted everything so far, then they got him where it hurt.

He crawled over her and eased himself into that soft, welcoming flesh that softened just a bit like a pliable pillow and warmed him. This was monstrous. He cursed and he shivered and grew. He had no clue which panel went first. Blue and green and then red and blue, seemed a good possibility. His mind clogged as blood drained and rushed to the one part of his body he did not need to preserve his life at that moment. He tried to think of ridiculously boring entities- differential calculus- but that reminded him of his lady maths teacher. World War Two helped until she heaved below him and the thought dissipated. He surrendered to his worse nature.

The mechanical voice reminded him that they had ten more minutes to doomsday. That was unhelpful, because the fright strengthened the hardness.
“Cut the crap and cut the wires you fuckin idiot” she shouted, the sweetness drained out of that husky voice. “And tell me which ones to cut on mine”
That cursed laughter track. Close ups of his face and hers.

“You cut the green and red” he said, shuffling, slowly moving, thrusting slyly despite himself, facing death.
The orange glow above her face deepened and there emerged a Goddess, descending from it slowly, like She was suspended through thin steel wires. The Goddess told him that he had passed the test, grasped his hand gently and lifted him up and above- floating up through dark skies, milky ways, star bursts and tremors. Below him the explosion filled everything with fire and brimstone and tore her flesh apart.

He woke up. His head protested wanting more sleep. His eyes focused. The strange taste in his mouth turned to sawdust. He thought he was alone in some darkness of the middle of the night saved from a nightmare. He was wrong. A soft feminine voice on his left , tender gentle touches to the left, right and centre that went “There, there, there…” He slipped back into the loving embrace of those heavenly virgins and slept.

2012-01-02T00:30:00.000-08:00

Record Label

He heard the question floating up to him from around two and three fourth’s feet above the ground, way below his accustomed line of vision. Caught off guard, he took his eyes of the heavy white and blue led light of his Black Berry. File boards, screens and passing men and women jolted upwards and out of the tilting frame and his eyes focused on this mess of black hair and wide earnest eyes.

"You are Laloo aren’t you?"

The voice was deep and masculine, like that of a rounded joyful tenor who was puffing up to introduce himself as the cool hairdresser of the town. Laloo tried apprising the situation with a lazy uninterested look, couldn’t sustain for it more than twenty seconds and asked, muttered, mumbled, whined “Yeah…and who are you, kid?”

“I ain’t no keed” The face contorted into an angry redness which made the upper lip perspire. Laloo noticed the first emerging line of a shaved moustache now, but thought it would be cool to continue in the condescending adult vein. “Where’s your mommy?”

Somewhere between the “mom” and “ee” Laloo realized the not very ordinariness of the situation. That unpleasing stark yellowness with dull leaden carpeting that he came to every day, to work amidst busy people who typed and called and walked around looking very busy, was not the kind of place where dwarves/midgets dressed like Figaro walked up to you from nowhere, distracting you while you were getting yourself set for a con call. The “?” was hence sounded out with a hesitating hushed whisper that indicated respect, confusion and slight fear.

The Dwarf caught that change, being used to such tonal fluctuations. They were every day occurrences in his interaction with human life and where he came from they had a word for it, which could roughly be translated as “time to cut the carp and get down to it”, although that robs the poetic beauty of the word and its rough sexiness.
“I am heere to help you deesign that beeer label. Shall we start?”

This was cosmic stuff. Two nights back, two of the Gods Laloo worshipped had brewed amber and gold, chilled and frosted, in his dreams. It was the purest Belgian beer, spiced with olives and cardamom and chestnuts, the color of oranges in warm sunshine, that tasted like a fruit market gone deliciously wrong. They served it to him in a large silver chalice that was polished so well that it reflected the liquid within outside and glowed in the warm bright amber. He sipped the cool froth and liquid from it as Athena and Horus looked on and smiled beatifically. From then on the dream twisted into something strangely unmemorably sexual and he blushed at the lost recollection of it.

And now here was the sign that all that was not in vain. There was a purpose to his life after all and the Gods did exist outside of dreams and books and vases and museums.

They started walking back to his desk, Dwarf and Man, with the Dwarf taking long strident steps to lead the march. Laloo tried making conversation. “So what’s your name?” “Are you a friend of Athena’s?” “Are you allowed to drink?” “How old are you?” “Are Dwarf women also called Dwarfs?” “Where’s your beard?”

The Dwarf walked, head bent down as if in deep meditation and arms folded thoughtfully around his chest with the chin almost resting somewhere close to the neck. He had a placid growl, if that could be the expression to be used, that unnerved Laloo and made him ask several meaningless questions in a go.

When they reached the glass cubicle where Laloo stored his coffee mugs and laptops, the Dwarf deigned to answer a few questions. “My name is not important, I dated Atheena a long time back, I am older than the rock your beelding stands on and I can drink you down man to Dwarf any night and take you home to your momma” Laloo ignored the taunt and focused on what was most relevant. “Dated?”, he asked.

“Let’s begeen” said the Dwarf with the unimportant name. He said “begeen” in a mind numbingly awesome deep voice that exuded strength of purpose and the gravity of the said purpose. He also muttered two short sentences that sounded like four short sighs that indicated a prayer to the Gods.

“Have you configured the bottle?” he asked looking around as if he expected to find the bottle on the table there but knew better of Laloo’s incapability at doing anything great, not to expect it. That grated. If there was one thing that set Laloo off on missions no one could stop him from, it was when someone acted like they knew better and expected nothing less than ineptness from him. That was perhaps the only thing that could rouse him into marvelous action and fabulous feats of power and creativity. He did.
“Here’s your bottle.”

He took up a pen, flipped over a magazine that carried an inviting picture of Wonder Woman on its cover and drew rough blue outlines of various beer bottles. He craftily drew one that looked like a well endowed woman. Two, in fact. Three were stout, short dwarves, three linear elongated conicals and two which paid tribute to mount Olympus. The Dwarf made an annoying sound with loud breathing at each design and finally nodded at one of the conicals. “That looks bad but I can make that good.” He paused and added helpfully “The rest are reelly bad”

The Dwarf with the unimportant name attacked his design with a religious fervor. He produced a clean white A3 paper and made Laloo draw a neat larger outline of the bottle. This done he proceeded to cast it on the floor, went on his knees and bending over it like a five year old in a crayon company sponsored art competition for world peace, worked his magic on it. He filled it with a ring of runic letters that were finely etched at the foot of the bottle. He gave the front label a beautiful dome like shape that reminded Laloo of the evening sky over the Bay of Bengal. Creepers and mythic creatures filled in the spaces. He blended black and green and yellow and cream to create a color that looked like amber but was infinitely sadder, darker, peaceful and tempting. And that was the color the dome took. In it he poured his infinite creativity, his power, his will to mine and craft and admire. Tears filled Laloo’s eyes at the sheer beauty of it all. The hands worked like two inebriated lizards, swishing here, curling there and creating a silent racket like a mating ritual. In dark blue bold letters that curved around themselves he wrote the name of the beer on the label- Calebras- that looked, sounded like an invocation and the very reading of it made Laloo fall on his knees with a prayer for forgiveness. Having written 5% v/v and 700 ml in small delicate cursive font and shaded the entire bottle a golden amber to indicate the brew inside, he looked up and gave a proud, happy sneering smile at Laloo. “Now it’s good!”

Laloo had to find a fault and rather unconvinced himself muttered “Calebras” and then said it twice a little louder to make it look like he was tasting the word in his mouth and looking very omniscient said “ Can we look for a better name?”

The Dwarf snorted and walked out of the glass cubicle. Before Laloo could try stopping him, he had left the office and disappeared to wherever he was from.

Laloo took up the paper and looked at if for five whole minutes. He could discern little stories playing themselves out there. He could make out thinly disguised Gods and demons at war and at love and he could even see himself in that tapestry with almost all creation, busy getting drunk in their own unique way, all blissfully happy and satiated.
If there ever could be a message from the Gods, then this was one to him.

He clasped it to his chest and rushed out of his office into the open to find the Dwarf with the unimportant name and thank the Gods for this beauty. A lightning thereby struck him from the blue sky and burned him to a crisp.

Cult Film Club

2011-12-29T00:28:00.001-08:00

2011-12-06T09:04:00.001-08:00

The Who Sell Out

Is there a smilie for love?

It goes like this <3.
It’s not difficult to learn: It’s less than three because it takes two or one or none.

She plays out this nostalgic little jazz tune here. Appreciative audience clink their glasses and jewelry. Deviant artists hungry for the jewelry, act like they are above it and take in large proportions of ego, praise and brokerage deals.
She praises the lord that she is not dead yet, driving at two hundred miles an hour without the keys to the highway, drunk on venom and self loathing.
She realizes that <3 can correct itself to a straightened out red, if she uses the right software.

She is making up a story for the kid. It’s dreadfully boring and he has that vacant look in his eyes. A few minutes on they turn bright-those dark, restless eyes- with his imagination burning bright. He tears her meager efforts into shreds of useless storylines. She faces probing questions, mystified judgments and confused denials. Her story is forgotten or dumped in the bin. He wants his story again-the one where they live happily ever after.
She tries her best to read it like it is new to her. Girls sweeping floors for wicked step mothers hold her in thrall like never before, again. He falls asleep and she stays awake.

She fights away remorse and dread and the painful load of unambiguous failure. She is calling that number again. He does not pick it up. If he does, he yells at her for not letting him be. She texts him instead. She wonders if there is a smilie for...

2011-11-23T03:58:00.001-08:00

Tinderbox

Choose a place. Theo is in his bed.

Choose a time. He is waking up, his body struggling against the alarm beeps of wakefulness, grabbing out and reaching for the sheer webbed strings of fast fading sleep. They vaporize, leaving behind a head ache, sand speckled mouth and dying embers of a bad dream. He clings to his blankets seeking comfort and warmth in its dull darkness and soft smug caress. It reeks of an unwashed moistness that has never felt the curative light of sunshine. He is awake, full of despair and annoyance at the prospect of facing unchanging, repetitive life for another day.

Choose a miracle. He passes it by, not noticing much. He is eager to get to the blank dirty whiteness of his bath, to look away from his reflection in its stained cracked mirror. He does not know that there is a God below his bed and another in the corner- the darkest unlit part where the brown paper wall meets a cupboard at the bend.

There are two Gods in one tiny room in an apartment that is falling apart with chinks of ceiling, wet bloated seep cracks and unexpected iron rods poking out of the unpainted cement work. They are guests in a room with one window, whose panes rattle at the sound of passing trains every fifth minute and filter in whistles, grunts, laughter and honks from every direction that is faced. The Gods will stay on for a while, flexing their Godly muscles, carrying out the duty of divinity and the incalculable precision work of mind numbing micro management. They are here for the regulation of universal laws and natural function.

Choose an identity. You can name the Gods as you please. You can call them Iris and Osiris. Hera and Heracles. Ra and Petra. Indra and Kama. They can play the part that you like. They can have the curve or the bulk, carry the weapon of choice and narrate a back story of love and lust or a moral play on the tragedy of men. They will dissolve into the light and reappear as darkness and sleep. They stay on long after the end of this story, in that same corner, doing what they do best- giving no meaning to life and pretending that there is one.

Choose another place. Theo is at a McDonald’s. He is waiting his turn behind two boys and a girl. He is alone. He is in a city that does not speak his language. Around him is the whirring dull noise of chatter and the bright blood redness with glass boxes and slippery floors. Enlarged pictures of food look down upon him like Gods from the altar, in accentuated colors and slick stylized frames. He is vaguely attracted to the girl standing ahead of him. Her perfume distracts him-heightened by the exposed skin of her neck with a dull green butterfly tattooed in. She can be the love of his life that he will never meet or speak to.

Choose another time. It is Saturday evening. The city is buzzing with young people full of life and loud joy. They come in pairs and groups of girls and boys in stylish clothes and waft around in mingled sweet smells and restless happiness. They have filled up the McDonald’s, tucking in fries and shakes and burgers from white paper folds, before they hurry away in their painted chariots with loud pounding music to the congregation of youth and the now.

Choose another miracle. The girl smiles at him. She has walked up to his table near the glass box with the kids-meal plastic toys of cartoon animals. He has forgotten her, easily abstracted by the sense of his loneliness and the sight of several young women in beautiful attire. She asks him if it’s ok if she sits at his table. She is from the music class he goes to. She is new to the city and she wonders if he could show her around sometime, if he is doing nothing else. They converse freely in five minutes. They discuss people in the class, their cities; they show off, they immerse themselves in the exercise of self exposition. They do it very well- the thrusting of voluntary ambiguity into descriptions of their mundane lives- adding sheen and color and polishing in, through words, looks, gestures and smiles, that all important attractiveness to themselves. Soon, they will be in an explosion.

Choose another identity. You can choose to be there yourself, eavesdropping into their chatter. You can let somebody write it for you as a story and shock you with unexpected twists and ends. You can marvel at the self-satisfied arrogance in tone and the assuredness of the touch. You can opt for the omniscient voice.

2011-10-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

Digging Deep-1

When she met him last, he was into politics. He talked knowingly of economic policies, poverty, village upliftment and cross subsidies. He held her spellbound with mind numbing eloquence from across the coffee table. He wore a black t shirt which riffed on the theme of 60s British Rock bands- Cream and The Kinks Live, it proclaimed. Hair on his head mostly askew, nostril hair untrimmed, stubbled face, thick black framed spectacles through which his eyes looked larger than they were, unwashed blue denim trousers and a pair of dirty brown floaters- all of twenty two years old with that remarkable disdain for the present and the future that only the young are allowed to have. And she was falling in love with him.

Her heart filled up with this strange cross wiring of motherly affection and a lust driven inability to speak to him. She pictured herself sitting there, looking like a tongue tied, smiling cow, losing control of all self respect and maybe even the will to move facial muscles into any other emotive shade or shape.

"You look tired", he said, pouring himself his fifth coffee of the last forty minutes, into the saucer. He would let it cool down into a dull tepid brown before he poured it back into the cup. He was not even looking at her when he had said that . She seized remarks that had personal relevance, far and few though they were, to turn them away from rants on the macro economy or rock and roll.

"It's been a long week", she sighed.

He wasn't listening. He had two thumbs and an index finger on to his mobile device, furiously typing out replies to perhaps another fifty more like him, who were sitting uninterested in their surroundings, agonizingly enraptured by comments and jokes that were not funny or sensible.
She looked at him blankly all the while trying to understand where her life was heading. She was spending time with a boy eight years younger, whom she had met in a night club, both parties drunk. It was obvious that her life was meaningless. If she thought hard, the lack of meaning seemed to be a vital component of life on earth- a reason to exist, a catalysing necessity. The trouble seemed to be that the other necessity for life was this heroic effort required minute after minute from the living, to imbue life with some meaning so as to counter the obvious void.
Animals and children had it nailed that way, she thought. They could endlessly obsess over the daily routines of survival or stare fascinated at the common place, though if they went as far as to fix meaning to signifiers, she could not be sure of. Perhaps, that was why she was attracted forever to these younger men- hoping that they would share with her their secret of escaping knots and traps by just not being there. She must have known it too once, like every on who was young once, but the curse of life seemed to lie in the forgetting.

She wondered where they got the time to read if their lives were filled with an endless stream of meaningless minutiae. Perhaps it was all a farce. If she actually listened to his discourse on anything and pushed him a bit, he would spout internet garbage. She had tried it once. He sulked, became vociferous and reiterated a hopeless point, with greater force every time.

"Dee is such a funny guy", he laughed, looking up at her, eager to share some fascinating trivia from his life. She signalled earnest interest by leaning in towards him a bit. The movement seemed to distract him away from the story and incited dreamy eyed staring at her chest. She leaned back and asked him about Dee. He had lost interest in the topic already and gave her a dull and bland summary.

"Deep -we call him Dee...Dee's sis pinged her friend, who likes Dee and asked her to join them at the party that evening. So Dee went "yay" and posted some pics on his page with him and his sis and all in this wild party saying "cool sis" and he looks so funny in it" The thought seemed to give him much merriment.

She forced herself to smile like she was in the joke, leaned forward a bit and let the staring continue, for she couldn't care about it any more now. She couldn't care if the world ended this way, either.

2011-07-02T04:46:00.000-07:00

Cover Story
We were hungry that evening.
It was close to midnight. She had come to stay with me after much deliberation and heart ache. There had been fights with her dad, sly footwork with mine, deception and lies. She had flown down from Delhi or somewhere far off. It was a long time ago.
We were meeting after some months. Our stories together, together in the same points of time and place, were few any ways. We had kissed once on a brightly lit, lonely staircase in a public library. We had exchanged undying promises of love a few times through hasty telephone calls and sweaty, immature letters written on blue green paper soaked in fountain pen ink. Most of the sentimental talk was, as would be expected, instigated, dwelled upon, lingered on and flogged to boring predictability by your humble narrator. She never spoke too much about love. She found my fascination for that topic strange and absurd. She could talk about several other things though in some twenty voices, all at once, interspersed with glints and glimmers of the eye, curl around the ears and smiles, all imagined vividly but strained out faint through the invisible pores of crackling telephone lines.
It was a love affair of distances, with promised encounters being so far and few. Every day efforts at reaching out to the other stealthily drained the infinite magic from all the love. She promised to come down once, just once, to meet me in that dump I called home. She made it out to be an adventure of startling magnitude. The secrecy and the conniving added to the thrill of misplaced guilt. Again, it was I who ended up with the romance in the head. She descended on Bangalore with a steely view of what was to happen, and what will and what the limits would be. She acted like she had rehearsed it all in her head and whatever it was that unfolded was taken in, with large strident steps: all, but that untimely hunger.
We had spent about three hours together till that point in time. The first was spent cuddling together, with exploratory kisses but a firm rejection of any bold behavior. The firm rejection led to a second hour of rambling whines on the state of our relationship (me), work life (her) and sulking (me). The third hour was spent by her in the bath, while I tried out a few Sade songs on the desktop stereo, hoping it would set the tone for the rest of the night.
She stepped out of the bathroom with beads of water in her forehead and a whiff of hibiscus and jasmine. She looked beautiful enough to get me into love proclamation mode any moment, if I got such a moment again. And that's when she looked at me with that look that conveyed annoyance, grief and helplessness with a certain difficult to define tone. She said "I am hungry". So was I.
I had a small kitchen filled with empty beer bottles and mice. The refrigerator smelled of a week old tomato and semi rancid butter. I had forgotten about the food. There was disappointment in her tone- an emasculating annoyance that could have made me go on my knees to please her at once. I wished love would conquer all. She would forgive this transgression, forget that hunger and spend a blissful evening slumbering peacefully wrapped in my arms. That of course was not to be.
“I am tired", she said with resignation, like the limits of patience pulled hard at the fragile fiber of her love for me. "I have had a long day, sweetheart and I need food".
She had called me sweetheart. That was love wasn't it?
"We could eat out", I said helpfully. I was lying, hoping for the impossibility. The city shut its restaurants at midnight- government regulations -and it was already ten minutes past.
We went out in my green old beaten car. The brakes wouldn't work too well. She wasn't talking to me any more. She stared out of her side of the car, into the dying lights and amber street glow of the city. We drove around silent construction sites and dark sinister parks out into the main deserted roads of my city. The silent facades of long closed restaurants passed us by. Wait staff cycled out of one South Indian restaurant. A drunken bunch of college kids took turns to puke out of a Beetle.
I took the smaller by lanes hoping for bird feed from some late operating cigarette vendor. A police van stood instead in such habitual places. I asked her for the time. "One" she said in the same tired soft voice and continued to look out.
It was all going wrong of course. I pushed in the Dylan mix tape in my car stereo to break the sad uncomfortable silence. It refused to play once, twice and after receiving some button pushing and left fisted banging, it burst out into Jokerman. She was unmoved. I loved that song. I still do. I hummed along with it and joined in every time with the bird flying high in the light of the moon chorus. I thought I could spot a smile on her face.
We drove for twenty minutes with little success. She gave out a sharp little frustrated groan and looking almost fierce said “I will kill for food now”
That was cute; I tried to give a broad indulgent smile. I turned to see a set stony face, all the prettiness frozen into a threatening emotionless mask.
The fear of loss that it inspired set my brain into flash alert. It responded with a wave.
“We can try the airport”, I said. They have a coffee shop right outside which ought to be open twenty four hours. She said nothing, so I speeded up towards the main highway. The airport was some twenty kilometers away. I decided to reach it before the end of the next song.
She got out of the car, before I could turn off the engine and walked with still purpose towards the coffee shop. An uninteresting girl in a black cap and red t shirt looked at us sleepily.
“Two sandwiches please,” I said.
“No sandwich. We are closed”
“No you aren’t. You have a sign saying 24 hours right over your head”
“No Sir. Cash Machine is problem. No billing”
“We drove forty kilometers to get here. Give us something” I was trying out my charming face and persuasive tone here.
“No Sir” The girl turned away from us and fiddled with some coffee machine at the back of the shop. She was ignoring us.
That was when the love of my life gone by, smashed the glass of the temperature controlled food display counter with her bare fist. She was running towards the car before I could understand what had happened. The counter girl was screaming for help. I ran in panic towards the car. She was already in the driver seat when I reached it.
“Get in” she said flinging open the door on my side. By the time I was in and closing the door, the car was already moving at some 1oo km per hour.
The stereo was turned up to full blast and she choked Dylan out with her left fist.
She was driving badly. The car jumped several speed breakers. She switched to second gear for no reason and jerked us clean towards the windshield, made it up by accelerating further and got the fifth gear on just in time.
“There’s no one following us”, I shouted, my heart still pounding. “Let me drive”
She slammed the brakes on the fifth gear and the car skidded noisily.
“Here”, she said as she walked out of the driver’s seat and claimed for herself the seat behind me in the rear. I turned to look at her. She was surrounded by six shrink wrapped sandwiches and two small Crystal Magick water cans. How she managed to steal so much in the blink of an eye I would never know.
“Are you ok?” I asked
She showed me her right hand, moving it around in some front-back-front dance routine. It had a small cut under the thumb. It looked small, white and pretty. She was smiling, her eyes gleaming in pride. She stripped the plastic off a sandwich and passed it over to me.
“Here” she said in that soft cuddling tone, that was a caring caress. She loved me again I told myself. I took a bite into the cold bland brown bread sandwich that smelled of some pungent spice and tried to look happy.
She wasn’t bothered too much though about my feeble demonstration of perfect love. I could hear her munch through the sandwiches and click open the can as I drove back to my place distracted by the sharp blinding head lights of the trucks that crossed us. She started talking only when we were almost home. She talked about the weather in Bangalore. Before she could complete her monologue on the rains in the city, we were there. I stepped out and opened the rear door for her. She clutched a ball of plastic wraps and a crushed water can, which she flung into the dustbin near by.
She handed me a can and walked up the stairs to my house. There weren’t any sandwiches left, of course.
The moment we entered my home, she headed straight to the bedroom and flopped over on my bed, kicking her shoes out. As I walked out of the room with my pillow to the couch outside, she turned her head towards me sleepily and said, “That was fun…”
I had to agree that it was.

2011-06-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

Film Maker

The bass brings in the count. Some one’s on the ivories, playing that quiet measured beat out. It’s cool, languorous, and indulgent. There’s so much smoke around. I feel like have walked into a movie that's playing a dream sequence in black and white. I expect to meet the love of my life here. Painted ladies, smiling sweetly, walk around me to meet some expectant short term paramour. I don’t belong here and they sense it. I guess the denim matched with a round neck t shirt and a coat, don’t fit their idea of a regular. Good for them too, because I am broke.

I ask the woman rushing around with a glass of water on a silver tray, for table number five. She points in the general direction of the washroom at the end of this sad little restaurant that must have been cool in the 50s or 60s or whenever such things were in fashion. It’s a place for tragic old men now, sitting in groups or alone with fancy glasses full of gin and tonic or whisky and soda. It swarms with the slime of the city and those who profit of it, all full of pretend sophistication and badly faked refinement. The man on the piano starts to sing an Elton John song. He doesn’t really fit in here either: he is too young, too handsome and too full of life to be employed by this time capsule seeping in slow decay through the cracks where reality could access it. I am mistaken. All that heaved out smoke has blinded me. It’s a girl, dressed like a man, with short cropped hair and no make up at all. He looks like one at least.

Table five is the smallest in the restaurant. It can seat two and occupies a minute space triangulated with the washroom in the same corner, and the band and a wall. It has not been cleaned yet and someone’s half eaten burger lies amidst several paper napkins drowned in green mayonnaise. Did that man-girl at the piano look at me a little too long? I look around to get someone to clear the table. The silver tray woman passes me twice, giving it little attention. The song’s over. The bassist yawns. The singer walks towards my table, smoking this big lean cigarette. It’s a woman alright, the curves hidden away in some ridiculous checked shirt that’s at least three times too big for her.
“Why are you trying to get rid of my burger?” she drawls out. She does not fit a single word, line or sentence in that letter I was carrying folded and creased, in my pocket. I imagine her face super-imposed on the letter reading out the lines with that blank expression they have when they look straight into that camera. Not her.
I shrug and give her my apology “I’d asked for table number five and that lady pointed me here”
“This is table five alright”, she says, letting out a cloud of smoke through an unpracticed O of the mouth. “You got my letter. You are late” I am falling in love with this woman already. That drawl of hers sends old memories shivering up my brain cells.
“Care for a drink?” I ask. She nods shrugs and sits at the other end, chewing down the burger quickly. She looks around at her band, as they unwire, coil and pack. There are two boys there, one on bass and the other on guitar. They wave at her, unsmiling and she ignores them, turning back to concentrate on the fries on the table. I ask the man in the stained white shirt who takes the orders, for a beer and ask her for hers. He’s already gone. He returns with a can of Budweiser and a glass of whisky with a cube of ice.
I let the can fizz and try to do the “Cheers!” bit, but she’s on her second sip anyways.
“So what do you suppose I should do?” she asks
I snap out of my fancies. I like this part of me that can talk business to even the prettiest of women dispassionately.
“I charge twenty five hundred a day plus expenses” I ask her.
“Of course not”, she says, blowing out smoke away from me, turning her face to show me a beautifully intricate ear surrounded by dark curls, tiny nose and thin stretched lips. “If I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t be working here would I?”
I continue drinking my beer.
“I will give you twenty five hundred all inclusive”
“Not if it involves too much gas and leg work.”
“I can afford you for three days. You have to find a man. He made off with my thirty thousand or more. I was stupid to have kept it all at home. He is a good looking fellow though and got me this job thinking I would sleep with him out of gratitude.” She exhales smoke with a grace I never knew a smoker to have. Women smoke to exhibit some sense of power to men and this show of control. Men smoke out of boredom and for company- Never a woman.
“Where does he live?”
“He lived some where around the Presidency. He worked here as a bartender. He hasn’t turned up, of course” She wrote out the address on the paper napkin and drew some intricate geometric patterns around it as she spoke.
“How do you know it was him that took the money?”
“The money disappeared with him. He’d slept in my place the night before.”
“Sixty hundred all inclusive no matter how long I take,” I tell her. “I need a thousand now and three days time”
She takes five hundred from her denim’s back pocket and gives me the crumpled unrecognizable mess along with his photograph. It’s a picture of the two of them against the Taj Mahal. He took her to quite a few places before he got her the job. She looks three years younger in it and he looks like filth.
“That’s all I have. And we’ll make it Fifty hundred more when you get me the money. Got to go play my solo piece now” I nod and give her the card I have printed with my own number on it. She takes it and walks back to the piano.
Her band is long gone. She starts singing “Hey Jude”.
A decrepit disaster of a man obstructs the view as he starts slow dancing with one of the painted women, who is all fake embarrassed laughter and encouragement.
I ask for the bill. The man charges me for the burger, the double Imperial scotch and beer.

I start at the address she scrawled into the thin napkin. It’s late and the street is empty. Every one’s home by now: they are watching soaps on the TV, arguing over dinner, making love or expecting rain. He lived in a dirty government built shack. I pass the balconies with clotheslines. They are grey, unpainted and over look a fly over on one side. They have barred windows, curtained out with dirty towels and underwear. I step over five scrawny children who fight loudly, unmoving on the stair case. Three flights up I reach his door, one of five tightly shut crevasses that somehow all manage to face each other. I knock five evenly spaced times. The fifth time, I hear shuffling of feet inside and a drunk with an unintelligent face opens the door. His grey head contrasts the red alcohol soaked eyes. I tell him the name of the man I am looking for.
“Why?’ he asks, suspicious.
“He owes my boss some money”
He is happy to hear that. He gives this wicked laugh, amused at somebody else’s troubles.
“Tell your boss that his man has made the run for it. He packed all he has three nights back and disappeared. Ha ha ha!”
I put on this tone of menace and ask him if he would like to pay on his friend’s behalf, uncle. That sobers him up some. He gets annoyed and then scared and then sulky. It takes him three minutes to swing between these emotions.
“Why don’t you go get if from his brother, if you have the guts?” he spits.
His brother runs the local liquor joint. They are closing by the time I reach it.
When I ask for the boss, the boy at the counter tells me to meet him at his office tomorrow. The office is in the ground floor of the same building. I ask him for two cans of beer. He charges me twice the rate. When I start to complain, he takes them back, asking me to find another this late in the night. I pay up and finish off a can standing there. I take the other home, read her letter again and watch late night crap on the television, beer in hand. I think I am in love.

The telephone rings loud, uninterrupted to threaten me out of a dream. The television beams colorless glowing static and the sharp naked yellow electric light makes me feel lonelier than ever. The darkness outside my window is silent. The phone grates loudly, troubling me, filling me with a sense of dread. I answer and I know it’s her.
“I had to call you now”, she says in a small scared voice. “I am so sorry to wake you up. I am fine. I don’t want you to go after him any more. You can have the five hundred I gave you. Please”
“Why?” I ask. I get the dull beeping tone of a line gone dead on the other end.
Two Fifty Am. I am sleepy, scared, wide awake and faintly alert. My mouth’s dry and I can hear myself breathe harder.
I play her voice back in my head. I play back the sounds in the back ground, the static hiss-the small voice that had sounded so distant. Why did she say that she had to call me then? Was she being threatened?
I don’t know where she lives. I decide to go now and find her. I ask myself if she is worth it and feel embarrassed by the thought. I think of her fingers around the cigarette. She had tried to look so cool in the evening. Beneath all that was this sad scared little woman. I have to protect her, shield her. I love her. I hate myself for not knowing what to do. I hardly know the woman.

I step out into the heavy night that radiates heat. Three dogs chase me barking with blood lust and give up when they see my face. The streets are filled with yesterday’s garbage and vermin. Two street lights flicker like the shadows of ghosts. Where am I going? I don’t know. I am scared of the night for no reason. I tuck my right hand into the pocket that carries my gun. I decide to walk to the bar she works in.
When I reach the end of my lane and start walking up the main street, I hear a voice behind me. It’s a slurred, whining whisper “Where do you think you are going?”
I turn around quickly to land my fist on his face, but there are two of them there. A heavy built shadow that towers above me by some five inches hits me on the head with something like iron. I hit the pavement, break my nose, bleed and pass out.
I wake up eyes to the hard biting stones of the pavement, to the first sound of the milk van passing me by. He moves on, pausing for all of three seconds, classifying me as too drunk or as a police case- some body else’s problem. My head can explode any moment. My nose is cut. My gun is cold to the touch, intact. They could have killed me if they had wanted to. They had just wanted to teach me that old lesson. Where was she?

I am mad. I have nothing going on my head. I have no emotions. I am blank. My head aches so bad I scream once. The dogs bark. A couple of lights turn on in the distant apartments. No one else bothers. Day light turns off the street lamps into dull white tubes and glass baskets. The morning air is unmarked- new. It hurts the cut inside my nose.
The liquor joint is closed and shuttered. I kick it once, twice, thrice, countless times. I call her name. I call out to him. I haven’t noticed the small door next to it that within its entrails holds the dark and narrow staircase bound tightly within old walls. It opens and this dull short dark beast walks up. He wears nothing but tiny tight red trunks. The rest is muscle, well oiled, glistening in hairless skin. He is bald and might have a genial look- if he wasn’t trying to have an angry scowl, like he did now. He seems irritated to see me. I ask for his boss. He says something that could have been smart in his world but makes no sense to me. He slaps the back of my head twice. It sets it all loose. I take five steps back and draw the gun. He stops: freezes. That genial look comes in. He tells me not to get so serious and get myself into trouble I will not understand. He looks terrified. He is not sure if he has to be the man he would like to be or admit that he is afraid. I walk back facing him to the end of the street and run. He shouts at my back. He tells me that they know where I live.

I run fast enough to stop thinking. I need a drink. Seven AM. My room is lit by pale morning light. I have stashed away a bottle of Glenlivet for that special occasion. I had bought if when I turned twenty five- several ages back. I wasn’t so alone then. I was. It was for the day when I meet the girl of my life. It’s all down the drain now. The bottle opens with a pop that could have been cheerful. It’s stale old air escaping. I pour myself half the glass and I drink it up in five parched sips. It’s beautiful and smooth and unforgiving. It fills my nostrils and throat in sweet little fumes. I cannot sleep now, I know. I latch the door, push a chair against the knob and wait. The alcohol has done nothing to my pain. It lulls me into weird thoughts of her placed in my childhood situations and daily life. Why am I thinking about her so often? I see her imperfections now- the mole on the tip of her nose, two worry lines starting on the forehead, the age showing in her hands. I am fascinated. She plays the piano and sings so softly. The blood from the nose starts flowing again. I pinch it hard. I am too numb to feel anything now. I catch myself nodding off twice.

They are here.
They knock the door back by the count of five. There are five of them. The short ape and the giant choose to stand at the door. The scene also features the drunk, a respectable looking man with grey hair and him.
The drunk lumbers up aimlessly to the toilet door and stands undecided. The respectable looking man looks for a place to sit and chooses my table and looks on silent.
“You’ve been looking for me?” he asks
I get up and hold out my hand for the shake. He is more interested in playing the- cool gangster who can wreck your life this moment- stereotype. He has got the frown, the tone, the posture- modeled after some cheap villain with a two minute bit part in countless movies. The drunk eyes my Glenlivet.
“Lay off!” he enunciates slowly in that tone that sounds very deep and meaningful.
I am lost here of course. I have no idea who these gentlemen are and what it is that they are so worried about protecting. I don’t like them. I ask the only question that comes to mind.
“Where is she?” I ask.
This amuses the grey wise man. He guffaws heartily in a deep male voice that can sound like the father I have never heard for a while. Ape and giant join in like movie acolytes.
The drunk opens the bottle and sniffs it and whines “Scotch” appreciatively.
Their laughter gets to me. It reminds me of everything that is wrong with my life- taken for granted, worthless, unloved, a subject for ridicule or non concern. It tells me I am a wage earner in a country of the newly rich and the dirty. They laugh so hard at a loser. They know that the best I could ever be is a cheap hit man for a security agency, cheating my boss out of work to make a little more money. They know I have read a letter unaddressed to me. I pull my gun. They are expecting this. But the drunk screws it up. He rushes unplanned at me, trying to dash my bottle against my head. He distracts everybody. I shoot the right lung out of my target. The bottle becomes useless pieces of liquid and glass against the Wiseman’s face. His pain fills the room in shrieks as the alcohol burns the blood. Ape and giant are confused and look at the drunk who collapses sobbing. I run out. It’s dark again outside. It’s evening already.

I cannot run so well now. The air cuts into that still-bleeding nose. My gun is warm. I realize I am holding it out for every one to see. I throw it away. I fling it as far as I could into that garbage dump with dogs. I have to get away. I have to find her and get away. I am not thinking too well. I think I stopped doing that well a long time back. Where do I go now? They will find out about this soon. Somebody would have heard that shot, even in that desolate no man’s land I call home. I have messed it all up. All I had wanted was some stealthy little money. Now I was wanted for murder and was in love with an unknown woman gone missing. She is so beautiful. I will kill two more to kiss those lips. I can get a bus to Town, take the train to the Beach and bribe my way into a boat off the country. Will she come with me?

I am here at her place again. She is there alright. She is alone on the piano. She is singing a Dylan song. “How does it feel?” she sings looking at no one in particular “To be unknown?”
There is hardly any one around. It’s too early for the sweet old whores and their genteel customers. She looks up from the piano and sees right through me. It must be the light I think.
I walk in to go to her. Someone taps me on the back. It’s that dumb new office boy.
“Boss has been looking for you” he tells me. “Boss found the letter and thought you would be here. He says you are fired and it would be great if you can meet Boss though now for your own good.”

It’s a set up. It always was. I have seen this movie too.

2011-05-10T05:33:00.000-07:00

Mushroom
You would have spotted us if you were an angel. We wouldn’t have been very visible, I admit. You would have seen two sad yellow lights streaming ghostly yellow dying beams on the darkness below- on that bottomless blackness of a sullen unforgiving sea.
You would have spotted, this way, my boat, alone, leaving a trail reminiscent of the undead. You would have wondered for a second or more on what a boat might be doing alone, so far away from land, in such dull darkness and then you would have gone on. We would have continued with our existence below, undisturbed.

There were three of us. He, I and the almost dead remains of the man whose name I do not remember. I would find out his name, remember it all over again, when all this is over. Perhaps, you would know it, if you find this piece that I am writing now, ahead of the time I intended it for you. Because that would indicate that circumstances and fate lead me nowhere, despite everything else. That would be unfair. I do not wish such an end on myself.
I cannot remember well how we made our way into this glorious tale. I remember its origin can be traced to a myth that predates our civilization.

It was in those times that there lived the followers of Dionysus. They traversed the earth with him all the way to India and back. He had evil women with him, that God, who called themselves the Maenads. I imagine them as these ladies of fabulously well endowed upper halves, unashamed to let them be seen and admired, if anyone dared to that is, with whip like strands of dark hair, wet with lust and such exercise. Their eyes were red, teeth a little yellow and lips too red, with the foul breath of the continuously drunk. They ran with terrific purposeless energy draped in loose streaming strands of cloth tearing apart Greek children found wandering the streets en route. Women who did not pretend similar liberated insanity would also meet the same fate. Such was the following that Dionysus had and they roamed the earth and conquered everything in their path.
I am raving here myself, distracted from the story I set out to put down, but such is the power of the God, I describe. Bear with me. Tales of wondrous feats keep my mind away from the despair and depression that stare at it unblinking eye to wavering gaze.
Dionysus conquered India with this insatiable squadron and returned home after many an exploit, rape, pillage and squalor. They had imbibed of the essence of a mushroom, the God and the devotees, which gave them such powerful lunacy and the complete loss of self and reality. Many believe that the potion was but wine, but I know that it was not so. It was a humble mushroom – a dung mushroom to be precise- that imparted such unspeakable prowess over the mind, setting it free of limitations and filling it with the most enjoyable hallucinations. But the cursed product had an after effect. It enervated the body and soul, making the men, who had feted its magic so recently, feel as impotent as the dead, when its effect faded. So it happened that the Great Dionysus and his hoards were annihilated in battle the moment they returned to their homeland, unable to will their bodies to move –a will suddenly sapped of all energy.

I sought this mushroom. I had read of these tales so often, from so many sources. Legends of its magic had passed through many generations and its genus and origin had long been identified. For decades I quested after this piece of magic. It took over my soul. I abandoned all sense of purpose and ambition. I know not what happened to those that I loved before, before my mind was invaded by this divine herb. Why would I be so infatuated with something so obviously a creation of barbaric minds- a footnote in mythology’s obvious lies? I do not know; maybe because I have read accounts from trusted intellectuals and experts of the existence of such a species. It granted me deliverance from my own obsessions: the single object for my life that made everything else that I undertook a shadow-ephemeral and insubstantial. So I hid myself away from them who loved me. I deserted my vocation, my tribe and my country. I roamed the streets of Greece as a fruit seller and at night continued my obsessive search. I found sources. A few cultivated it and traded in it discreetly, with only those whose wealth and power could afford the responsibility. They were unreachable. Their footsteps led to labyrinths that ended in vortices of pain and hazardous poisons. However, there will always be vice to find a profit motive and break any circle of discretion. In this case, there were two. One was Him.

He sits now in one corner of the boat, hearing me debate with myself if human sacrifice would be forgiven in a court of law, given the circumstances. He sits there, absorbed in thought, although his tall athletic body with musculature resembling that of a God’s, misleads one into judging him as a man less of thought and more of beauty. He is fearful to look at and his countenance, though handsome, has a hint of anger. He is weakened of course now, but it does not show. I would love to stand close to him and feel the fear rush through my blood, pondering on the next possibility of him raging, frothing and attacking me. I would fall at his feet and pray to him, like I would to a God.
He had never used it on himself. He did not need it. His life, He told me, on one occasion when He deemed to speak to me in a tone that could hint at friendliness, was stuffed with enough excitement as it was. I met him alone, near an abandoned railway station, on a hot dusty afternoon. It was not difficult to recognize Him although I knew him only as instructional replies to my sweaty, devious wanderings through the squalid side alleys of the internet. He had been curt, professional and promptly responsive to my amateur queries and lurid doubts. He was patient with my ignorance and forgiving of my lack of the same virtue. He seemed to see only one motive in a dealing-profit. Such is His impious sense of mischief. He pointed a gun at me and made me walk into a foul smelling asbestos shed near by. He wanted to be sure that I was the one I pretended to be. He patted my bag, found the wallet and relieved it of the money I carried for Him. He flung a small plastic packet with five dark dried mushrooms at me and cocked the gun. He acted as if we were being followed. He made to move out, leaving me behind with my stash. I opened the packet with unseeming haste and nibbled gently at one mushroom. He ran back into the shed and closed the door tight, immersing the hell hole into darkness. Footsteps and loud male voices ran around us. A shot was fired. I swallowed.
I sank to the ground, my body gripped by unspeakable pain. I was drenched in sweat. My eyes shut by themselves and my teeth bit my tongue as if to severe it. Tremors seized by body. A lizard fell on my right foot and writhed its way up my leg. Its cold slithering feet made me want to scream out loud. I did. He kicked me in the abdomen. The pain was in my head. The lizard moved up and rested on my forehead. I could see the tip of its tail on my eyebrow. It made a clicking sound that seemed to speak of death. The footsteps quickened as men spoke in an unknown tongue laced with menace. They were now pounding the door with their hands. They laughed. I thought there were worms in my brain- small, purple wretched creatures that curved their bodies through the blood stream into my thoughts. I spat one out. It came out as white foam.
The door opened streaming bright light in and I rolled out. I had never realized that it stood on four immense wooden pillars. I was falling head down, facing these scratched, mud brown, somber structures. My brain shut down to meet the inevitable. The wind rocked my free falling corpse. I realized I was on a boat, wet with lashing sea water, in the middle of nowhere. He was standing over me. He cursed me for being so old and useless. I protested. He smiled at my confusion. I realized it was His divine humor. My eyes saw him for what He really was, at that moment, as his well crafted frame towered over my supine useless one. I had been blessed. It was Him, not a dark, shifty, dangerous, and unknown denizen of the internet, with no glory or divinity. My mind was overcome by a clarity that I can never put in words. To me, this old man of no consequence, had been revealed the Answer; and by none other than the God I had sought all my life. I felt exhausted, yet exalted. His omnipotence filled me with an energy that would have made me lift a planet on my shoulders, if He wished it to be so. I was connected to everything and to Him, in ways I never understood before. I ran towards Him. He stepped away in playful disgust. Behind Him, stood another, uninterested in what was going on. I seized him by the shoulders and tried to tell him to see the Light. He was bleeding from the right shoulder and seemed too much in pain. He was singing out loud. He told me, in his thunderous deep voice, not to touch him, unless I wanted myself framed for murder. I danced ecstatically around the dying man, to release his Soul to the God. He slapped me hard on the back of the head and I collapsed from the blow. I hit the hard wood of the boat and slipped into darkness.
We’ve been on this boat for three days now. So He tells me. He tells me we have been left here to die, by the men who wanted the secret, the Truth, to disappear with us. They had set us afloat in the middle of nowhere. It would take us thirty more days, if we were lucky, to spot a glimpse of land. He told me I had been through a seizure and was now a raving lunatic. He said this with no sympathy or anger; as plain fact. Who was the third? A man, He had wounded in the quick pointless battle. He had been left adrift with us to add excitement to our lives by those treacherous souls.
My mind is tortured by the clash of voices within me. I know Him to be the God I seek. And yet, there He sits in silent contemplation, impotent. I anoint his feet with my tears, but he kicks my face away, when I try to kiss them, calling me an old fool. I catch him staring at me, now and then, as I write this on these currency notes, I found on the dying man. His stare tells me nothing. Is this a trial, I wonder? How do I succeed? And if I do, what do I gain? I have already been given a glimpse of the knowledge that I sought, the sweet poison that opened my mind and revealed Him to me. What more could this soul need?
There is the heat: the unforgiving sun blinding me and scalding my skin. The water grates the throat and smells of effluents. The stomach churns up acid and burns holes through the linings. What more should I do? Should I stand on one leg in a yogic pose, arms stretched above my head and pray for waters from above. I tried but I collapsed week and feeble, in a minute. He saw me in my futile effort at a penance and laughed scornfully.
The dying man has started singing again. He has been singing for ever it seems now. Death does not visit him in a hurry. So he sings paeans to his Gods. He has a deep voice that seems to originate from the depths of his body. Gurgles of blood in the throat and rasps of an injured lung impede the flow, giving the songs a ghastly turn. His songs turn my empty stomach, reminding me of my thirst, the merciless heat and the death that awaits us. I do not understand what he sings of, but they seem to be invocations of not mercy but vengeance on us. His eyes stare at me in mockery and hate, fixed upon me. He goes silent, every time He makes a move. His moves though are no longer the graceful dance of masculine ability. This emboldens the Demon. He sees me writing these words and spits out his venomous prayers.
His voice reminds me of my dark sins, worms, defecation and lust. I scream vengeance.
A hundred female forms seek to invade my thought and pillage my body. They are crones, hags, lustful dirty whores and pestilent diseased. They moan in pain and covetousness. I feel them within as the song and its wretched words invade me. Their fingers claw at parts of my body that a woman has not touched for decades now. Were these the Maenads? Or were these the Furies unleashed? They take shapes most repellant-reptiles, amphibians and arthropods, kissing and caressing my body with cold long tongues and hairy limbs. Their faces scarred and scaled by a thousand wrinkles pressed against mine, watery dull eyes filled with bad intent. I begged them to stop. I grew despite my shame and repulsion. He was watching it, distant. I cried for mercy, for help, for release.
I stopped the singing. I killed it forever. Where lies such rage and power in these old limbs, I do not know. I tore him apart and fed him to the sea. He stopped me from throwing it all away, asking me if I would rather take his place. He has placed his head on top of the boat, spiked, for good luck. He looks at me with eyes that tell me nothing He says He is glad I did the dirty work.The day has ended and the full moon rises. The night is dark and lonely yellow blackness surrounds us again. I am ecstatic. He has promised to throw me out with my precious scribbles into the sea, for I looked too sick to keep Him alive. I tell Him that it is of His glory that I write. He makes to grab this humble offering. I give it willingly.

2011-05-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

Tuesday
It was a day for missed flights. He was at the air station, suitcase in hand. He was told that the flight had left an hour back and he could have his money back please minus the cancellation fee of course. He had felt that something like this would happen the moment he had woken up that morning; the newspaper was not folded right when he had opened the hotel room’s door. The news print was too dark, facing up and the picture side was down, pictures kissing the dark grey carpet floor. He often did this, attributing portentous reasons, to every day coincidences, like a Hero, living a myth in his own universal microcosm.
Now he was here at the crowded unwelcoming stark whiteness and steel of the airport, with not much to do. What happened now, now that he was stuck in point A and not B? Had life moved on while he waited behind? How much further? Had his incompetence changed the world and turned it in a new direction, an unplanned unintended direction, by a couple of hours? A day? Forever?
Images rushed through his head, as he darted from the counter to the next, to get himself on to another flight: mother waiting for him at the airport, long clean white legs of cabin girls, bland sandwiches in cold plastic wrap, Penelope Cruz.
Penelope Cruz? Why on earth would he think of her now? What relevance did she have with anything that could be related to his current situation or the sagely contemplation he was indulging himself in, in the midst of the anxious pursuit of a ticket?
This was not the first time, this had happened. She popped up like this once too often, unconnected to trains of thoughts or fruits of actions.
This time though, the way she made her appearance, as if wading through a coalesced glue of uncalled for memories, made him pause a bit. There were certain physical repercussions to this mental appearance that were now not extremely appropriate or impossible to manifest, being as he was in between flights and ticket counters. He would need to make his way to the nearest washroom. It was late enough for the washrooms to be empty. There in one washroom, he looked at himself in the clean mirrors that projected his image against white walls, plastic paper holders and antiseptic smells. Unshaved, unwashed, with his thinning hair out of place, he did not like what he saw. He splashed water on his face and found that the paper left forty two white specks in its path to self destruction, against his stubble. He wiped them off with the sleeves of his shirt and ruffled his hair with some dry paper. Having done this he felt more confident of facing a world outside that was uninterested in him. Then, he saw her there.
The sight of a woman passing him by, nonchalantly, within the confines of a men’s washroom did not strike him as extraordinary at first. When the incongruity struck him, he realized it was her, Ms Cruz. His mind raced on. He stared at the passing female image, with that impotent stare, often mistaken for lechery, but what was actually a feeble, admiring gesture that was also despairing at the inability to act. He wondered what he could tell her. Should he walk up to her and tell her how much he liked her in that movie where she sang and cooked food for film crews, low plunging neck lines revealing her sweet beauty? Would that be effrontery? Should he ask her how it felt to make out with that callipygian actress in the Woody Allen film? Trivia. She had dated Tom Cruise and played whatshername to his Dylan memory like the album cover of Free Wheelin’. She was a vague definition of beauty for him, startling yet at first look, ordinary.
When he decided that he would approach her like a gushing fan and make a fool of himself, saying something like “I love your work”, she had disappeared.
She had never been there. Of course, he knew that all along. It was the lack of sleep, he told himself, the result of early morning cold taxi rides to missed flights with the promise of fitful sleep, strapped to a chair, a thousand feet above sea level. He tried ruffling his hair into a better pattern, once more, and walked out of the washroom.
The best thing to do now was to get a ticket for the next day and go back home. He could if he hopped counters some more, get himself a ticket on a flight some five hours later. But that would involve hanging around in the airport, in its cool aseptic afternoon quiet, trying to read a book and longing for company. Or sight Penelope again.
The best the woman behind counter number five could give him was a flight at nineteen hundred hours which would cost him fifty nine five hundred. He would land the next day.
Eight hours at the airport, then, and reaching Point B twenty four hours late. He made three quick phone calls to salvage the situation a bit and made his way to a recliner facing the landing bay.
“Who knows what tomorrow brings”, he sang, a little too loud, loud enough to wake up the snoring obese gentleman on the seat next to him.
Pretending to read a book, he started counting the seconds, the minutes and the hours till he finally closed his eyes to sleep.

2011-04-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

Carte Blanche

The elevator was jammed. They had to walk up five floors to find out that she did not have the keys to the apartment. He walked down to the Concierge to get the spare and up again and by the time he did, the door was opened, the elevator had started working again and she was in singing a saccharine little love song.
The apartment was small and like most girls apartment’s messy. At least like the apartments of the ones who seem to be inclined to have him over. That was a thought. That was one of the key jokes to the understanding of how the gods who controlled his life functioned. He looked around for a place to sit, found a rug on the floor and tried to read a newspaper. The newspaper distracted him easily with photographs in exaggerated newsprint colors of Kim, Mellie, Ray and such starlets. It spoke of them as if they were famous. He felt old and left out for he did not seem to know of any. He could only stare at their full bodies and tanned skin and feel terrible about himself. He also managed to feel guilty that he was indulging in such lechery in a girl’s apartment. He kept the paper back on the floor, feigning disinterest, although there was no one around to notice it. She was in her room, locked in, ‘washing up’.
She came out, in a loose shirt and jeans, smelling of watermelons, with a warm smile.
Would you like some tea, she asked him.
Yes please, he said.
What kind?
Would you have green tea?
I do. I love Green Tea.
He smiled back at her thankfully and asked her if he could use the washroom.
You can use mine, she told him, if you promise not to notice how filthy my room is.
Her room was clean and tidy, with some clothes strewn around on the bed. It was dark though and did not seem to get too much sunlight. He wasn’t sure if he was being watched through the crack in the door and went straight into the washroom. The mirror shelf was crammed with small bottles of hair moisturizing cream from some hotel. He was surprised to notice, that there wasn’t much else in the lotions and creams range, something he would have expected in any woman’s washroom. Just the basic shampoo bottle, soap, toothbrush, cream…he was guilty again, this time for spying around needlessly and exited as soon as his business was done.She had the tea ready. There were two cups on the table, each carrying the Manchester United Logo.
She was sipping on hers with great contentment. He took his. She had added sugar to his green tea. Should he tell her that he liked green tea without sugar? Should he politely sip and finish it off, gulp down the sickly sweet green fluid smelling of lemon and honey? Should he wait for her to ask him whether he liked it and tell her of his preference? That seemed the right thing to do.She never asked though and started talking to him about her work. She worked as an engineer in a technology firm. Two sentences down, he was lost in a stream of jargon. Her work seemed very complicated. Even the way they worked was quite a maze for him as words like groups and teams and protocols and work meets filled the space.

So what do you think I should do?, she asked him.
That confused him. He hadn’t paid too much attention, of course. She looked tired and she hadn’t narrated the story to him with great enthusiasm. So he took the risk
You need a break.
That seemed to please her immensely.
I would like to go to South Africa, in May. They have beautiful cities there and mountains and such a vibrant night life.
They do?
Yes. They have fabulous night clubs and strip clubs in some city.
Strip Clubs?
Yes. They have some super hot men and women there and there are people from every where. It’s a crazy scene there.
There was something strange about this conversation. She smiled with almost open innocence and genuine enthusiasm as she elaborated on her image of a crowded strip bar in South Africa . It wasn’t very pornographic-the imagery- but it sounded strange to hear a woman he had know for all of twenty days spout sentences that contained references to items of male and female underwear and occasionally, the anatomy.What should he do now? Should he interrupt this steady flow? She was now detailing the dance moves of a lap dancer and the experience of a male friend in London . Her fingers twirled on the table and head swung slightly in ways as she tried illustrating them. This was a funny story, he presumed, because she laughed every time she mentioned the guy whose lap was being danced upon in the recounted scene. Maybe he was her boyfriend?
He closed her out and inspected the drop of green tea in the bottom of the mug. He tried memorizing the color of the table top and the rug beneath his feet. He wondered if his watch was running fifteen minutes faster, again. Her laughter snapped him back.
You are blushing, she peeled laughter.
He wanted to refuse. He liked the way she laughed though and hence smiled.
So when do you go to the strip bars of Cape Town ?
Soon, she said and then looked extremely sad.
I have no money to go there, she said. I never save much and it’s all gone now. I am broke.
Do you really want to go there?
I sometimes wish I can just go there and never come back
What would you do there?
She looked startled by his stupidity, Become a lap dancer of course! Duh!
He hated that word. He hated the sound of it and the way girls four years younger than him used it. It was an alienating sound reeking of youthful arrogance, beauty, modernity and technology; everything that had passed him by without waiting to take him on board.
So how much would it cost you to get there?
I don’t know. May be around an eighty thousand…would you lend me some?
Twenty thousand?
I am sorry for asking you so shamelessly. I will repay you in a month’s time.
What had he got himself into? What would this favor earn him? Love? Could he afford so much? Even if he could, would she actually return it? Or would it just be forgotten with her disappearance? How much was she worth? The risk of money not coming back but the bonus of earning some love, adding a point to his starved life… at the cost of a dent he could afford to paint over?
I don’t know I will have to check, he said. I would love to help of course…You will come back though some time right? Ha ha!
That laughter was faked, badly. It sounded dry like a throat clearing cough.She smiled warmly though. Her lips stretched across her face like a pretty version of the Cheshire cat.
I understand. It’s so nice of you to even consider it. You hardly know me right?
That’s nothing. Do write to me when you get to Cape Town . It would be quite cool to receive e-mails from a lap dancer, I think
She laughed.I will send you postcards, too.
Even better!
He returned home soon. He never really bothered to go out of his way to meet her afterwards. He received a mail from her once and she forwarded messages wishing happy festivals for a while.He never found out if she ever went to South Africa . He had missed his chance in life to receive a post card from a lap dancer.

2011-04-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

Love at first feel

Frog and I were listening to AC/DC in my car.

I need to write that sentence again. The word "Listening" indicates a prolonged continual stage in the past through which Angus and Scott played loud rock music and we pay them the rapt attention that they deserve. That was not how it was.

So, I start this story at that particular moment in time, where our conversation stopped, after a few variations on the theme “I wonder what ever happened to/ Do you remember the time”. We upped the volume, after 4 great songs had passed us by, to a bluesy, slower number. And then, we did what we actually did best, way back then: we listened.

“You know… I am sure AC/DC was a blues band at heart”he said.

Those were my lines. He had beaten me to it, stolen the speech bubble away from my mouth, beofre the words could form. In the days of my youth (and his) we did this often to each other. It spooked us. It screwed up our heads.

“They have the most inane lyrics ever and they get away with being absolute crap.” I said. I was trying get back at him, feeling a little peeved that he had stolen my great rock insight moment.

“...And you just love them for bringing it all down, tearing it down to some core unintelligent rock and roll essence and that’s so cool!” said Frog.

My line again! Not really. I was being resentful. I wouldn’t have said that even if that’s exactly what I had thought. I conceding defeat to the one reason- the reason why we were friends, we who had always thought alike.

And then, we shut up. The bass line pounded the woofers on the back of my car, making my rear view mirror do wondrous leap tricks to the cars behind us. Angus and Malcolm traded great lines with each other. Frog was reading the booklet in the CD pouch, smiling at the ridiculous cartoon inside featuring Angus and some big and busty Flora and Fauna.

The rain had stopped and the parched dusty lands of Delhi seemed to have sponged away all traces of such an event. We didn’t realize it then, but I was driving way too fast for those slippery roads, their dirt and craters hidden by the last remains of the treacherous warts of small mud brown pools. It was the music that was making me do it. Who am I fooling? It was just a sheer sense of recklessness that I was trying to channel through his presence there in that car.

"What now?” Frog asked me. He was rotund now, with fat around the cheeks, chin and belly- something that age and hard drinking seem to produce in all males. The neat curve of his head, which gave him that boyish look from a distance, was grey in many parts. I had seen him last, when we I was twenty five and now here we were meeting after six years, pretending to each other that little had changed

"We can go get drunk somewhere”, I suggested. That didn't sound right. I was hoping that he would propose something else and help prolong the illusion I was constructing so well in my head-of times when we could be eccentric, cool and fun, needing no additives or artificial flavors. Liquor had been our first step towards this relentless, slow, frustrating process of aging; our collective renunciation of innocent madness and embrace of the mundane and non essential. Now that we both needed it to continue our lost myth, I realized that I was just kidding myself. My wisdom though lasted for five minutes. The guitar was far too loud and my driving, far too angry, for any wisdom to last leaving traces. I drove towards the Roxotica –a pub in a near by shopping complex with live rock concerts on Fridays.

That was when the car in front of us decided to swerve right without warning. The road was relatively empty at that time of the evening. I tried to make a dash to the left to avoid the collision and narrowly missed the road divider. I rolled down the windows and we cursed the fuck at the car as we over took them. Frog was more vicious than I and accompanied the obscenity with a series of clenched thumps in the air aimed at the driver. We had to do it at the top of our voice though, to be heard above the last track on the album.

Something we did sparked off the reaction. The man in the other car turned back in to the road and started speeding. He made to dash our car sideways. He had two companions in the back seat, all round, dark, with red eyes and drooling mouths. They wanted us to stop. They screamed abuses in Hindi which were beyond our common knowledge and cultural grasp. I, much to Frog’s disappointment, jammed the accelerator to avoid the confrontation. They were faster than us, though. They cut in and forced us to stop. This seemed to release the maniac within Frog. He reacted like lightning, opening the door and leaping out before I could make up my mind on what was the reasonable way of handling said situation. The three men were walking towards us with unsure, slow, drunken menace, their white shirts clinging to their paunches and gold chains. I got out. It seemed the perfect way to round in this great story of youth recaptured.“What’s your problem?” I asked. They did not like English. They were displeased terribly at the use of this alien tongue. They wanted to know, who it was that I had exactly in mind, when I cursed some one’s mother in their general direction.

“You of course", proclaimed Frog helpfully.

The slimmest of the trio, spat at my face and missed. One of the not so slim ones grabbed my collar and attempted to land a slap on my head. Frog intervened. I blustered. I admit that I was terrified. The last time I had been in a fight was in school- junior class. I plunged in, screaming tears and vengeful survival lust. My first wide atrocious swing at one of the fat men told me that this was not going to end well. His dark, sweaty body, moved away with little effort and he with his breath smelling of alcohol and tobacco, hit me in the stomach, hard. I was initiated thus, into the rite of the violent pain, to feel a corporeal presence that was me, brought suddenly into existence through the awareness of death. I wanted to scream but it came out as tears and a muffled “Aargh!” that seemed to convey blood thirsty intent and not surrender to those men of murder.

I am sure that the friend of mine must have chipped in some where, but I seemed to draw all the attention. I had hit the pavement hard, flipped over on my back, somersaulting in the air, much to Frog’s later amusement and derision. One of them held my neck and dashed my head against the road, the hard small protrusions of the surface tearing the skin on my face.

Frog escaped unscathed, almost. That forehead of his, that so unfairly made him look so much younger than I, had a deep long cut, that would need to be stitched up. I was immobile. I had landed on my head and the shock had sent painful waves through my body. My left elbow was definitely broken. I felt a deep pride within that I had managed to make two of the fat ones bleed. The slimmer one was the one that had wreaked havoc upon us, his body a hard rock against which no violent effort seemed to be of any use. He had made me wish death on myself with strong grapple holds and unrepentant knocks to the head, over and over again as if it gave him enormous pleasure. The thought of him made me rage uselessly. There was no shame though. Not at us, valiant men of small might.

I couldn’t drive. He opened the door of my car and I flopped over, as if I was drunk. I felt the pain but numbed myself. I can remember some one saying “the biggest balls of them all”. Brian. No Scott. Fuck Knows. I passed out.

We are here now in some hospital bed, washed white with dirty yellows and cream, smelling of shit, piss, antiseptic and damp air. I am drained and can hardly write. No one knows that we are here. Only Frog does, who told them I had tripped down two entire floors of unending concrete steps. They bought the story or they weren't bothered.

I don’t know how long I have been lying here. I am writing this tale to remind me of what I am doing here in the first place. They seem to have got me in a daze with dripping medical aids and regular shots up the ass. One of the nurses is cute and could have starred in any porno she chose. That’s not my opinion- that’s Frog’s. He tells me I am having nightmares all the time. I can’t remember any. The only ones I remember feature me sleeping or being bored or being beaten to pulp by a hard breasted school teacher with fangs. He puts his cool hands on my forehead-I don’t think we’ve ever touched except through slaps on the back and the occasional male friend signifier of hand on the shoulder. He says he has called my cousin. I don’t who he refers to because I can’t think of any. The hot one, he winks. I feel guilty because my mind tricks me with an image of a girl I dated when I was sixteen. He says my condition reminds him of a song. I know. I know!

The nurse tells me I shouldn’t write so much. She is hot. I am giving this up to Frog. He will complete it when he thinks fit.

I sign out.

2011-04-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

Roll Over Mystery -2

They were made to sit down on the road, in two neat rows. Rahab was in the back, between the boy and Mars. Around them stood thirty silent adolescents.They parted way for an older man, bald, with a round middle. He was dressed in a tight black shirt, bright green denim coat and trousers. He carried no weapons but an air of authority. There was a broad smile on his face that was warm and friendly. He stood facing Gahib and the rest, while his hoard surrounded them in a tight circle. He spoke in a quiet, clear voice.

“Our life takes us in roads that we sometimes do not intend it to take. This is one such road for you. We have blocked this road for three days now and we have allowed none to pass it. We will of course, one day, when our voice is heard and peace sets in again in our Great Land. Your humble lives will join the gushing torrent of history and your contribution will not be forgotten.”

His eyes rested on each of them as he went through his speech. It sounded rehearsed. His eyes lingered on Mars’ bosom and settled on Rahab's head. He recognized him.

“We have a star amidst us” he said. “We have poetry and skill and talent unwanted in our time of hope. We have Rahab Gahib”

There was a quiet hum of recognition that died immediately. The bald man laughed out loud.
“What providence! This must be what they call Divine Intervention. Our Revolution is blessed!” There was delight on the man’s face. “Now our little execution gains significance. It transforms from press article to cover page news. The voice that started a revolution lays its life for a greater cause”
He was hamming. He was acting up to a two-way audience comprising of his own zealous non starters and the cowering eleven from the bus, squatting uncomfortably on the burning road.
“Rise up, man of our moment. Music’s lost hope!”

Mars clung to him with bony fingers and dragged the back of his shirt, as he stood up. All guns now pointed at him. She whimpered and let go, for death to carry him away.

“Come here”, he said, gun still pointed towards his chest, with a finger beckoning him lazily. “Come here and kneel at the altar of the revolution.”
It was an odd gang of the wasted and unwanted armed with frightening steel and guns.

“They call me The Riddler, these young rascals, whippersnappers. You know why? They named me after your epic song of revolution.”
His mind blank seemed to fill up with the chords that made the chorus.

“You thought no one would get through the static to figure out what you were mumbling there. You thought the chorus would sell the song for you to all the tone deaf, swarming little dribblers, who you thought were your fans. That’s a line from your song isn’t it? Swarming dribblers…the greatest rock song ever and it was a slap in our faces.”

The Riddler snatched a semi automatic from a girl standing behind him and pointed it at Rahab’s head. Rahab clutched at the newspaper he had been carrying along all the while, uselessly.

“What’s that in your hands? A newspaper? How interesting! Let me see that! I never thought a Star read the newspapers. Do the sordid details of the dribblers’ lives even interest such great souls? Or were you looking for your name there? Do you miss it these days? Do you see that no one cares about you any more?”
He gave him the crumpled mass of paper.

“You have been solving a cross word puzzle. How apt. How full of significance. How stimulating…How did he know?” He turned around to his gun wielding audience to add effect to the rhetoric. Some of them smiled back.

“J here is our executioner. We also have Vee, Gee and RK. They will now be given the wonderful task of being judge, jury and executors of the Law.”

Three white boys with blond hair, shirtless, stepped in from the back and walked up slowly. Each trained his gun at a different target- the mother, the driver and an Indian.

“So the rules are simple. I live up to my name and you to yours. We solve the crossword together. I give you the clue and you, Master of the Rock Word, will answer. You answer wrong we shoot the victim and move on. You answer right we spare the life. Let’s start. This looks like a good one- Dilemma in the paths of anger. Five Five. I count till ten. Solve it song writer extraordinaire else Vee gets this lady here…”

“Cross roads” He had solved this one already. Hope stilled his quaking body. He was sweating profusely. He was burning up. He kept imagining a bullet ripping through his head.

“That was easy wasn’t it? Cross roads- the story of our lives and of the revolution, if you ask me. Run away lady. You life is spared. Oh! She won’t go anywhere without this boy? So mama and boy at stake now, Gahib! Classic Stone Centre piece in Evil Circle’s Menu …Five Four Four."

His mind raced. He threw out the self pity and the fear and resolved to play along, desperately. The clue meant nothing. He wondered if it could be something to do with menhirs or Solstice. The menu hinted at food. He was sure it was an anagram of menu or of evil. An anagram of evil could be Live.Druid was a five letter word…

“Three, two, one and out”

They fell without a sound- mother and child.The bus driver’s cries were incoherent.
“Not into Classic rock are we? Here let me draw the answer for you.”

He dipped his gun in the blood and drew a circle and a five pointed star within.
“Centre piece, in evil circle, my friend is the goat head!”

He should have solved that one, no matter how badly constructed the clue was. The Stones music was dead and gone. Two lives were lost and he could never go back.

“Let me go!” he pleaded aloud.

“No…next one… A small family of the atom heart mother . Seven letters. What is this a rock crossword he asks? My clues, henceforth my friend. After all am puzzling a rock quisling. So who’s next? Ah! The bus diver. Your time ends now…ten, nine”

He turned to look at Mars. She was staring at him in blank fear. She was hoping he would take her through it all. He could see no end but death. He did not want to give up on it. He trusted life to find a way over.

“Nuclear?” It was a clever compact clue, but perhaps he could see this through.

“Well done! You are not just a pretty face are you? Run away little bus driver. Leave your bus and run.”

The driver rolled, crawled, stumbled and ran panting away into the highway’s distance.

“You saved a life Gahib! Your first greatest truest achievement in your life this can be. Now that we have you warmed up, let’s increase the stakes. You solve the next one, I release two. Else I shoot three. These two Indian creeps and this old man here. Gahib…what kind of a name is that? You are an Indian too aren’t you?”

He kept his head down. He would do better if he thought of nothing else.

“Here goes nothing. A wise word in these commercial times. Five letters”

“Adage”

“Great! Am I getting worse or are you really good. We let go of the old man and one dirty Indian boy. Shoot the other one for luck”

They shot one boy and the other screamed his life out. The old man plunged at Vee’s gun. Gee butted the old man on the head and shot the other Indian boy in the face. Mars sat there unmoved amidst all this, frozen, still.

“What a waste? Here I was ready to spare two lives and they all die! A wise word in these commercial times, my friend- take nothing for granted! So what have we now? An old woman, two pretty women and a black man. Who do we go for now? I think the old woman is feeling lonely, don’t you? We might as well get it over and done with her then. Shoot her. Good. Now we play for something real. The father and daughter, I presume? You good sir and your daughter should join our forces. This is after all your revolution. If we spare your lives that is and that depends on our friend here…ready? Something inspired by his pretty daughter- Slaves say, like the thousand launched for her beauty? Seven letters”;
He was thinking of Mars now. He couldn’t really be bothered about any one else. He was certain they would kill her. If they did would he find another one like her ever again, he wondered. He had heard people say they would give their lives for the ones they loved. Was this what they meant? He could see her holding his hand in bed and loving him, like no one had ever in his life.

“Vessels” he said aloud, unthinking.

“Too late! Slip of the tongue can cost lives. Bang! Bang! Pity! I liked that girl. So we come to the two of you little lovers. Oh yes don’t think I couldn’t find out….you love this one don’t you? And she thinks of you as a hero, whose intelligence is beginning to amaze her. She wishes she could be with you there and protect you. Let’s make things interesting though. I will give you a choice. You can have a difficult one and if you don’t get it I kill the two of you. Or you can have an easy one and you can choose which one dies. I spare the other. What would you want?”

It was not a decision to make. He took no time to reply. “The easy one”, he said.

He caught Mars’ eyes. They were cold.

“Great”, said the Riddler, “The eccentric unloved is Ophelia’s end. Five letters”

2011-04-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

Roll Over Mystery

He was riding the bus to nowhere. The girl he had been sleeping with for two weeks, was sitting next to him, snoring. She was blond and pretty with a small frame. She had big motherly breasts and that pleased him. She was a devotee at just nineteen. She pretended to know things in bed that she obviously did not,full of the curious power that virginal women tasting freedom had. He had started caring for her and wondered if he was good enough for her.

Rahab Gahib was a star and all he ever wanted to do was to write the greatest rock song.

The rock press loved him. To them he was God. They invented the phrases “surreally perceptive” and “exhilaratingly transcendental” to describe his sound and style. Most music fans, if there were any, were convinced that he was the last great hope for rock. One day he would rule the world that they inherited. At thirty, he was at least ten years older than most of them. He fed on their youth and adulation. He preached to them the things they lusted and fucked for and they worshipped him with inchoate amorphous grunts and squeals.

His beginnings were poor. His mother was dead and his father was conveniently forgotten. He came from a city nobody cared to remember. He was the City’s own, ever since anyone who professed to know him could remember. He had dropped seventh grade. Once, he had seen the Ones live in concert with Buddy for back up. That was way back then, some fifteen years ago. The sight changed him. He had seen the prettiest wildest girls there, and they seemed to like what was going on. He had pretended to be a part of it all. He had an evening of fumbled kisses with a drunken girl after the concert. She insisted in calling him Buddy, but he couldn’t mind. The next day he stole a guitar from a kid at school after beating him up. He dropped out of school. He ran away to the nearest bus stop, paid a dollar for a ticket and bummed his way through for a year towards the City.

He thought up a vague rhythm that was jagged and unpleasant. It was remarkable enough to make the cut one day. He was not sure what the girl’s name was. He was calling her Mars because that’s what he thought he had heard when she had leaned across and shouted her name out to him from behind the bar. She was in a low necked white shirt that hung loosely all over her top frame. Her black dark hair fluttered all around the exposed skin at the neck. He caught himself radiating warmth towards youth sleeping blissfully,head rocking to the rhythm of the bus.

The newspaper on the seat next to him was talking about war. The war was every where .The kids and their flags had all seemed frivolous when it started. It was a show by a bunch of well fed adolescents who had nothing to lose, to whom playing heroes was cool. They were ubiquitous, walking around with candles and banners and photographs and flags making up inane rhymes that sounded worse when said out so loud in unison- as if the old order will vacate their seats and run for cover, retching at the revolting doggerel.
The band and the record label wanted a song to go with the scene. A song that every one would go about marching and singing freely: they would have placards quoting it and wave photographs. It would make a packet. He wrote them a sardonic little song with a stupid two chord chorus that rhymed real revolution with blood carnation. He drowned everything else in warm loud guitar fuzz and spewed vitriol on the kids. The song was a hit. They played it along with their Dylan covers during the demonstrations.

A year on, it had become a war. There were shelling and tear gas strikes. Neighborhood gangsters joined in with free guns and bullets to their faithful. It became dirtier every day. His studio was destroyed in a fire. The drummer lost his wife and kid in a shooting. The City was no place for rock and roll bands. It was no place for any one any more. That was why he was escaping it all with a young blessed woman called Mars. He leaned across and kissed her on the head. She smiled sleepily. He clung to her love now. Her sweet innocence seemed to give him some hope in this hard cynical time. He would protect and keep her forever. He would find a place to settle down, away from all this mess. Maybe he would end up in Paris, where everything was still alright. They loved him there too and he could start life again with Mars, who loved him. He wondered if he had been good enough for her in bed.

He looked out. They were on the State Highway. There was no one around. He missed the endlessly honking trucks and the tourists who once jammed these roads. It had rained the night before. The bright green of the passing countryside lifted his soul. He started solving the Daily Crossword on his paper. Words came easily to him. Their beats and rhythms were what he was tuned to.That, not his guitar, was the secret of his magic. He solved the first few clues with little effort and stared absently at the burning skeleton of a bus that passed by on his window. A lady behind him screamed. He turned around to look at her. There was hardly anyone else on the bus- the lady and her little boy, a dozing old white couple, a black man of around fifty and his strikingly pretty daughter and on the other aisle were two young men, who looked Indian.

Panicked at the sight of the flaming iron frame,the bus jerked to a halt. They were surrounded by men and women who poured out of the dense vegetation around. Each carried a menacing gun and wore white dirty t shirts with the red blood mark of the Revolution on the chest. They were quiet. Ten of them boarded the bus, wordless. They got them all down with a wave of the guns. The screaming woman knew better and followed them out in quiet acquiescence as did Gahib and the rest. Mars cried silently and clasped his right hand. He stroked it with his fingers and whispered that it would be alright soon.

2011-02-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

Song for Ludmilla

I met ten nights in Cuba
They were looking for us
So were several old queens and kings
And little rodents in spiral nests

They are all waiting for us
We, who might never be there,

They would want us to touch the frigid glow
Of a cold evening in Paris
Or drown ourselves in advertising signs
In memory of poems forgotten

They would like it too (I think)
To hear a song in our gusty unison
From voices trained in gin and beer
Or soaked in some unaccustomed rain
(That’s us)

We are
Suspended words in a written page
Well written
Unfinished
Printed, Published
Reviewed and Sealed

2011-01-02T12:23:00.000-08:00

Rush Hour

It wouldn’t have made a difference but he opened his eyes anyways. They were strapped in, in that impenetrable darkness. The damp dull soaked-paper stench stuffed him. He wanted to stretch out, dangle a leg, jump up or scream, but the jutting arm of the man next to him- body spilling out of the seat in both directions-tore down his rushing insanity into shreds of silence. It was full, the array of rows and columns of strapped humid human bodies, unbefitting of its rather luxurious generic name of Starship. He had to think of death here, of course. What if this entire thing burned and crashed now, he thought, or better still in the next few minutes, after giving him last moments of physical stuffed in agony? If it blew up , this "Starship" would get nowhere and drift endlessly as molecules in space. Or time?
He had never bothered about the physics of it and his grasp was so slight that the thought evaporated before it could take a grip around that cold sweaty mind of his. The woman in the back seat belched sour onions, swollen mushrooms and blocked drain pipes. The man next to him snored.
They had turned off his personal device and he couldn't read or talk. He had no one to talk to any way; to invite in or to place a call. That was of course the reason why he was there. The reason why he tried so many times, traveled so often.
It would make sense to sleep so he tried to. He had never succeeded ever and he knew this time was not going to be different. He let the memories stream in. This happened to every one when they subjected their brains to sleep efforts in this sort of travel. He had read that some where. No. A doctor had told him of side effects and potential damages when he went to see one, sure that he had a cancer of the stomach. The pain had been too often and too much and this one was sure it was because of the travel he did. ‘You subject yourself to this like a monkey in a research cage’ the wise doctor had told him. Monkeys in research cages are subjects with no free will, he had thought, but kept it to himself. She would have liked it though, like she did when they joked around on a swing at the science park. He had work to do, he remembered. He could choose to let go later, but chances were slim. Thoughts now randomized themselves. Steady flow of images, words, sorrows and painful lost happiness thudded in beat by beat despite the chaos of random recollection. They were all filling him with that same sense of loss that he was now so used to. No way out.
He could feel the tension in the straps. There was the slow, languorous drift of the darkness below his feet, like the drag of wheels on a surface, only that in this case it was an illusion created by some engineering marvel to code in movement ( faster movement, to be scientifically precise) through time. A single red light, too thin to notice, too focused to miss, blinked thrice next to that first row of seats, almost half a mile away from him. Few would have noticed, though. The universe seemed to have the gift to sleep in these boxes, but not him. This was the moment he dreaded every time. That useless, inert, going nowhere feeling of being trapped and strapped and violated by restrictions and rules while he let himself and his body be shipped across through a science he did not know about, a science that could fail so often, directed by flawed human hands and minds that were infallible if he calculated the numbers, but he couldn't because he did not know the statistics…They were off.He could hear her now. He was there. In that vague time frame with no markers, all removed, for the safety and comfort of the passengers by Starship Inc. USA. He hated their thoughtfulness. But it was no time for hate, all puns intended. He laughed at his own meager joke. There she was waiting for him. At a book store this time. When was this? She looked twenty four. What was she wearing? He can mark the time by how she looked and what she wore and what she smelled off. But that was then and now so much had gone. He thought he knew them well, those memories, but he was wrong every time. She looked startled. He had arrived too soon. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. The timing was of the essence and it had gone awry. She smiled. She was surprised, that’s all. This was the auto correction full guarantee package see? They couldn’t have got it wrong. Bliss.
Close your mind and think of me, she said
You mean my eyes?
No your mind, silly. It flows too strong.
It doesn’t.
It ebbs and flows all the time around me.
Like the sea, see!
You would be a sea monster then! She smiled
This was nonsense. They had never exchanged such metaphysical blather ever. It was a functional relationship, theirs. That was its flaw, if there ever was one. His mind was playing tricks on him. He was recalling scenes from a movie for sure. Else, it was his fanciful imagination at work. Why would his mind conjure this achingly tender, sublime, love scene that belonged to an art house Swedish film?
Like the Loch Ness, he said unable to control the flow, now that it was all set.
Nessie can’t talk, she replied
Says who?
Says I
How would you know?
I just do
Like you know everything else
Yes
Like your mind, your reasons, your way, which I will never understand and ask you the wrong questions at the wrong times that make you feel angry and me so lonely
Ah poor baby!
He wanted to shout this thing down to a stop. It was all wrong. This couldn’t be his mind. It was never this poetic, to his best of his knowledge and ability. It was an exciting little whirlpool of frustrated desires, deep sexual longing, inane mathematical equations and a dark vengeful competitive attitude towards even the people who loved him. Some one was screwing up badly, somewhere. He needed his money back. Also, the effort and the time; he could let them keep the time. While this went on in his head, there he was still talking to her.
What color am I?
Yellow. Golden Yellow
And You?
Blue
You said I was Blue once
Now you aren’t. I am.
What does Yellow mean?
Same as Blue, I think. But sadder
I am not sad
No you aren’t, she said.
Do you love me?
This was it. He had had enough of this drivel. However, little could be done. This was turbulence in the time stream, with some one else infecting his for sure; Onion breath or snoring fat man, most likely. He couldn’t believe either of them could be this poetic. He couldn’t get off it of course. He was doomed. What if this went on like this forever? What if he was stuck in this alternate cinema shit, that his time line was giving him? Maybe they were all doomed, the entire lot of them, strapped together in that machine. That would be some solace, like going up in flames together. Wait! This had happened…
You are early!
Am I?
Yes you are! You are! She squealed.
Are you still the same, Love?
What do you mean?
I have traveled so much and am really tired. I spout nonsense. Don’t you mind!
No you haven’t! You have walked for five minutes!
Have I?
Yes you did. She laughs.
Like coins shaken inside a tin box.
What?
Your laugh!
Let’s get an ice cream
Why?
Because.
She says his name five times. In quick succession…like she wanted him, his soul, his life. This was more like it. He felt like screaming his love out, but that would be different from what happened. A little too different and trigger the dissonance. Dissonance? How could love cause dissonance? It breaks the temporal loop, because she would figure out an intrusion. Not consciously, but somewhere in the back of her mind. At best of times, it would turn up as a headache and loss of interest, which would only mean that he loses the action for the moment, but gets back home safely. Or he would slip in completely. It had to be regression or dissonance. Nothing else could happen. They had programmed tragedy and farce so well in with this. It was not their fault; it was just the universe fucking up. That was what the Caveat Emptor fine print told every passenger about. They knew it well. They tried nevertheless. It was part of life now. Before he could figure out what he could do, he heard her say
We thank you for minding your safety. It’s a privilege to serve you And we hope to see you again Leave now, Sir!
No.That wasn't her.
It was bright white and empty. The seat next to him was wet to the touch, with the sweat of the snorer. The air was lighter with the open exit door letting in the cold night’s winds in. Most of the passengers had walked away, filing slowly out through the winding aisle, weighed down by their own reasons and tragedies. A few chattered, seeking an impossible release through feeble efforts; like returning together. Their chatter was muted whisper though. Everyone was up and leaving. They had lives to return to, unlike him. He was back again, feeling alone and abandoned, stuck to a chair in the middle of nothing. Like every other time.
When he unstrapped himself, the last of them had disappeared through the exit door. That must have set the alarms off and She came, starch white, trim, friendly and distant like the law. She asked him with polite reserve if everything was alright. He said it was fine and he got up to leave. She was beautiful enough to be his redemption. He would meet her again, soon.
He had done this so often that he had their Eternity Platinum Card Triple Plus. If She knew of his special status, things would be easier. If not, he might not make the effort and slip into his guilt stream again. If there was one surety in that entire temporal mess, it was the fact that he would not make that effort. The fact that he would be back again; that the exit door would just loop itself back in to let him in again. To strap himself and travel, through unclear and unsteady science, back to where nothing waited and in indescribable ways, happened the way they always did.

2010-12-22T11:07:00.000-08:00

Loretta
"She is not what she appears to be, dude" He said this attempting that meaningful look again after some nine earlier attempts. It involved lowering his head down, looking up at me from around sixty degrees and arching his eyebrows, while the eyes narrowed down as if they were exposed to radiant violet light.
"Oh?" I was busy looking else where. May be I was thinking about how I needed to get my love life back on track. Most likely I was texting back someone who wanted to do business with the company I worked for.
He looked disappointed by my reaction. I felt compelled to add, “You think she is cheating on you?"
"No"
"She doesn't love you?"
Eyebrows arched. Eyes narrowed.
"That's not the point"
"Oh?" I had to text back to the texted reply.
"I think she is spying on me!"
“oh...what?"
"She is a spy, dude. I am sure of it now"
I needed to avoid the eyes and eyebrow bit to understand what was going on.
"Like Mata Hari types? The sexy female spy who can be lethal if she wanted to be...prick you with the tip of her poisoned heel into eternal damnation! Wow!"
"No"
"Then?"
"Like a terrorist bomber...Manisha Koirala in that Mani Ratnam flop show"
"Dil se...She wasn't a spy in that one...was she?"
"Haven't watched it...but I think that's how it went...any ways dude, this one's dangerous!"
"Why would she spy on you?"
"What do you mean?" He looked indescribably hurt.
"You are not a spy target. Putin is. Obama is. Hillary is. May be Castro still is. You work in a soft ware company. You have been there for seven years. Who could she be spying on you for? Pakistan? You have known her for seven odd years now"
Exhausted by this gush of advisory flow, I looked around for the waiter to order another pitcher of beer.
"In Bangalore, life is what happens to you between two beers” said the head looking up at me from sixty two degrees.
That was profound. I had to concede that to him. "Indeed. Indeed. Well said!" I acknowledged. It sounded like a Lennon song though...

"She is spying on me on behalf of the competition. I am precious to this company dude. Without me they are nothing. My team is the brain behind it all. If she understands what I am up to...then she knows where my company wants to be"
"She is a school teacher!"
"By day!"
"Precisely! Standards one to three… eight a.m. to five. ..when would she spy on you?"
I have to admit there was potential for self improvement here. This was one was cute, intelligent and cool. If he was going to desert her for some vague reason, I could move in. So what if she was Mata Hari, or Anna whatever.
"Then why does she hack my e mail id? Why does she want to befriend every friend of mine on Face Book? Why would she leave anonymous comments on my blog? She is tracking me. She even figured out the password to my lap top. I caught her twice!"
"And?"
"She looks below the bed every night to check if there are monsters. I thought it was cute. But now I know it’s a microphone she switches on every night."
"Porn! Porn!"
"Fat chance..."
“How did you figure out it was a microphone?”
“ It’s not really a microphone. I think she drops her cell phone there after dialing the number.”
“Ooh…but dude, you end up paying up here phone bills most times. You can find out who she is dialing.”
“I tried. But there is no indication”
“May be she switches the SIMs” I helped. It was hard to resist. He was going mad or I was starring in a cool Hollywood thriller. Either ways it worked.
He had thought of that already though it seemed.
“So have there been any tangible causalities of her spying on you. Lost market shares? Super agile competition?”
“Not much…I don’t think she has got any where so far”
There was silence for the next five minutes as we poured ourselves our mugs of beer and sipped on the fresh froth in silence.
The beer’s yellow luminescence added a touch of mystery to our table to the viewer on the cinematic screen. If we were in a movie, that is, and somebody had paid money to watch us.
We burped in unison after the silent contemplation.
“So what do you plan to do now?”
“I think you should start dating her dude. I will act mean for a while and break up with her. You move in with the friend in need routine and everyone’s happy!”
“You are pimping your girl friend to me?”
“I am extracting myself from a difficult situation and helping you out as collateral”
“I am alright. Thank you!”
“You need female company dude. You will be thirty soon and you need to find yourself someone”
“Yeah. But I don’t need a spy!”
“She is a school teacher”
“You said she is a spy!”
“And a teacher too…she satisfies two major male fantasy criteria in one shot”
“Get her to join a nursing school for an airline company and she will be complete”
“All yours, dude!”
“Why would she let you go? If she was spying on you, she will find a way of keeping you…wouldn’t she?”
“That’s where you move in. You keep her too busy to spy”
“Maybe her boss will move her out with a black mark for ‘failed mission’”
“Great!”
“So what happens to me?”
“Why would you be serious about a spy anyways?”
“I think I am calling for the cheque. This conversation is going nowhere.”
We wrote crap in the air very fast in cursive font, in the direction of the waiter. He interpreted it, as intended, as a request for the bill.
We split the bill through complicated mathematical techniques.
“So what’s the plan now?”
“I am going home” I said “Got to finish this book…you?”
“She is here now. We are going to watch a movie at Rex”
We stepped out of the humid darkness of the pub into the crisp cold evening air.
She was there alright. Beautiful as always, looking just a little lost. Almost timid. A touch lonely. Gracefully slim and just right in height.
She smiled at me as she grabbed at his arm for support.
“Can you pick up the phone please? She asked, pointing at the phone she had just dropped.
I handed it over, waved good bye, turned around and left.

2010-11-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

News of the world
Any passer by would have thought of them as one more lovelorn couple snuggling cozily in a public corner.

They were not snuggling. They were not cozy. And he had not thought that the hole in the wall Delhi restaurant with a really bad rock band from Manipur ‘entertaining guests’, could be described as a public corner.

Also, they were not a lovelorn couple. It was worse. She was telling him why he couldn’t write any more.

He was not some one who could bring himself to asking questions of this phenotype. He could, at the best of times, lecture you, badly, on rock history. Some times, but rarely, he could be really good at making self deprecatory jokes about his past loves. Most times he could do a great psycho analysis of himself for free, if you are interested.

“You cannot write, because you are being dishonest”, she said

“What?” This was an uncharacteristic squawk he had acquired from another friend.

“Yes! You write when you have honest feelings to express. When you look at the world around you and you want to convey a sense of longing, loneliness or bemusement at the absurdity that surrounds you…You cannot force yourself to write something. That would be junk.”

Her look conveyed “QED”. "This is what happens", he told himself, "when you date women you bump into in the literature sections of book stores. And you chose the one reading the back cover of a Murakami."

In a tone which to him indicated unerring resolve that she was wrong, he asked, “You think so?”

“Of course!” She pulled one loose hair strand behind the left ear. At some point in his life, he would have been irritated by such actions. He would have wondered why they can’t pull up their hair right. Now that middle age beckoned, he found it pretty.

"I am slipping" he told himself. "Here I am listening to a woman I do not know, in a city I hate, trying to be every thing I am not."

“Your problem I think is that you are not sure who you want to be. I have read your blog…”

“You have?”

"Try to make a joke", said the voice in his ear, "Point to a funny story..."

“Did you read the one about the frog?”

She smiled. “That was nice”, she said. The Smile disappeared.

"That’s it?", he thought. "I am with the wrong woman, again…"

“It’s all over the place. The Story for Children was brilliant though…”

"God! That wasn’t even written by me…or was it?", he thought

He tried his oldest method of distraction. “Have you had the coffee here?”

“It’s really bad.”

“Even the filter coffee?”

“That’s a fraud. I can make better filter coffee than that…”

“You can?”

“Yeah. I learnt it from my grand mother. She makes fabulous coffee in the afternoons.”

The conversation had reached a dead end again. He had never had his grand mother’s coffee to compare and contrast.

“So do you write?”

“Now and then, yes. Would you want to listen to a poem I wrote?”

“Yeah!” He was sure it was going to be bad. It had to be.

She took out her I-pad. Or was it a Kindle? He gave her a minus one in his head for being technologically competent

“It’s called a dream of love.
Man walks to the end of light
Takes five steps
And
Returns Free”

She put back the Kindle or what ever it was, into her hand bag and looked up at him.

He should have said it was beautiful. He should have smiled radiantly like a radio active being. He should have reached out and tried groping her fingers, moved by the poetry. He should have fallen in love right there.

“So what does it mean?” he asked.

2009-11-23T01:13:00.000-08:00

Beatlejuice

A week or so back, was involved in a Beatles Tribute by a band at Bangalore. One of the features of the event was a quiz where in Remasters of Revolver, Abbey Road and Rubber Soul were given away to the winners.
Predictably, the people who were supposed to conduct the quiz had everything but the questions to ask.
The task of setting ten questions in five minutes was soon deflected to me.

Thought I'll share the churn out here

Here goes:

1. Which Beatles song was actually written as a single for the Rolling Stones?

2. What do the following people have in common- Hitler, Gandhi and Leo Gorcey?

3. Which song was actually written as a campaign song for Timothy Leary?

4. At some point in time of the other all the people in this list have enjoyed which informal title?
The list: Brian Epstein, Neil Aspinall, Derek Taylor, George Martin

5. Which Paul Mcartney song was addressed to Lennon's son?

6.Which Beatles song addressed to Lennon's mother has lines inspired by Khalil Gibran?

7.Which mock-Beatles band has hit singles like- Ouch!, The Fool on the Pill and
W C Fields Forever?

8. Which Beatles song, originally intended for Joe Cocker, was hailed by Sinatra as "the greatest love song ever"?

9. Which Beatles song is supposed to have been parodied by Bob Dylan in his song "4th Time around"?

10. Which movie ends with a dedication to Elias Howe who invented the sewing machine?

2009-04-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

A for Adult Story- Chapter 2

Que Sera Sera (Whatever will be will be)

V is willing himself into one struggle with evil, for life. His life took swerves, turns in conjunction, post the brief moment of innocent bliss with Bob's sister.
Never will I forget the little girl, oh sister, he proceeded to expound in defense of his right to survive execution, to the Jury.
The Jury consisted of several bus drivers, industry union members, post communist free thinkers. None were disposed well to V. The enquiry was stilted= mockery.
Childhood is long gone. Depression seized the soul to turn it north of noble thought.
The world is obsessed with horse riding or liquor bottles, well fed on celebrity obsession, where everyone with you is one! famous!
The french seized control of musical thought.
Roxy! ! sighed V in front of the Judge.
Who would Roxy be? pondered the Jury
The red lights were turned off. Everywhere noir, great noir, the tune went.
Turn it off! Turn it off!
Memories of the little girl gently drifted through the wind. The wind is breeze from revolving rotors fixed to the ceiling.
Liquid excrement flows from the skin pores, only to turn into wind in the rotor breeze. The Jury with Judge silently excrete like I do, in dignity, as winds thieve our guilt.
You will see no light, is the verdict
Not right, the little boy thought, protesting.
Someone was listening.
It will be when it will be, she told him,misquoting
The future dimmed. He opened his eyes.
The lips were still there in frozen time. Bob' s sister.
I will be turned in but you turn me on, he told her.
Come in, she told him.
The storm shelter is torn down.
The little girl is lost.

2008-07-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

Story for Children - Chapter 5

A for Adult Story - Chapter 1

The night little boy, V, witnessed, in person, the philosopher Bob expertly woo his six strings, he knew he would lose much sleep. The following nights were spent in pure torment. Drenched in soulful melodies rendered by Bob, V found himself violently thirsting to meet this myth, kiss his feet, serve the legend. Thus is the birth, the genesis of obsession. V could think of nothing else. Bob everywhere. Bob in everything. Food, delicious or otherwise, reeked of Bob. Routine work reminded him of Bob. Mindless gossip distilled to impromptu soliloquies on Bob. Sex, Bob. Wine, Bob. Music, Bob. Books, Bob. Bob, Bob, Bob, for eternity.

His friends were, not surprisingly, quite worried. "He's slipping to the sky," they would hwhisper. "Bob possesses the eerie power to set his lovers upon the route of no return, where no destiny exists to stir hope in the bosom. If V persists in this destructive love, we will lose him forever to the sky."
They spoke gentle words to him, offered gifts, tried diverting his mind to more fruitful hobbies, like horse riding. Their efforts were hopelessly doomed from the beginning. By the time they got wind of this insidious, one-sided religion, V found himself swirling, puppet like, in the rough storm unconsciously inflicted by Bob.

V spent more time with himself. Energy, he thought. This god brings me energy, while being curiously tiring, too. He slipped into endless worlds of mirrors. He met fellow Bobists living in his reflections. He needed no one else in his life.
"I need..," murmured V to himself softly. "Olive oil, mint, pesto, rice, herbs…""Excuse me… oh, I'm so sorry… Let me help you…"

V frowned. Stupid little girl, fucking bitch, he swore. Feet drenched in sunflower oil, he did not feel very forgiving.
The little girl stopped, suddenly, noticing his choice of music. "You listen to Bob!"
V nodded curtly.
"Whoever thought my loser-brother's music would be followed this wide!" She chuckled.

V froze. His blood pumped furiously through his veins. Bob's sister… he felt the urge to press his lips to the girl's. He felt himself grow. He fought the urge to lose himself in her tresses... He turned to the girl for the first time since their meeting.
Petite, with curly tresses, the little girl stood before him, glowing. Her eyes were liquid green, her lips cherry red, her skin toned down brown. The fingers were thin, lined with cuts – the gift of loving the six-string.

2008-05-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

Story for Children- Chapter 4

And so it all began. The little boy would religiously wake up at 4 o clock each morning and begin his holy rituals, starting with the ablutions and ending with prasad. He was careful not to wake the little girl, though. She would wake up at 8, drink her tea and leave for office, only to return at 10 pm.

The little boy spent all his time meditating in front of the altar, of course. In his mental and spiritual absence, the little girl took care of the house; she swept, washed and cooked like before. As days went by, the little boy began to see progress: he began to understand what the bottles were discussing. Strangely enough, the discussions seemed to be a seamless loop, like thus, barely discernable because of the slurred voices:

"The Queen it is, with her glittering diamonds." - This was a rough, Russian voice.
"And the jester by her side." - French.
"Oh, I say, seven for heaven!" - British, of course.
"Why, you.." - Angry chorus.

After which it deteriorated into dreadful, angry buzzing, like flies. After the buzzing died down, the conversation picked up from the beginning all over again.

The little boy simply did not know what to make of it. This was going to be a tougher ordeal than he ever imagined.

2008-04-27T00:03:00.000-07:00

Story for Children- Chapter 3

"Did you know, tortoise, that polar bears are actually nudists evolved over the years?" The yellow tortoise bobbed at her feet, clearly startled.

"When early man introduced the concept of clothing, there was a section of society that begged to differ. The nudists set up a colony in the Arctic, far away from their hitherto fellow men. As time passed by, the nudists evolved into creatures with heavy fur to protect themselves from the biting cold. We know them as polar bears."

The little boy, who was following this carefully, was flabbergasted. The little girl was either clearly mad, or sagely beyond her years. The little boy could glimpse the Bottle on a shelf nearby, and tried to softly make his way to It.

SQUEEEAAAK!

The little boy looked around, startled, and realized that he had stepped on a blue giraffe near the door, which had squeaked loudly in turn. He sheepishly met the little girl's mildly surprised gaze.

"Hello, there," he ventured. And, feeling obliged to render an explanation, "I came in through the bathroom window."

"Wasn't it dreadfully slippery with all the moss growing on the walls?," she asked, in mild concern.

"Oh, it was OK, I managed quite alright."

The little girl smiled mildly. She was turning out to be a very mild person.

"Can I help you in any way?" she asked.

The little boy narrated the entire story to her, with some passion. The little girl listened sympathetically.

"So, you came back for the Bottle," she said. "You're welcome to be my guest to have it."

She led the way to her living room, where all the Bottle stood in resplendent splendour in the midst of the other bottles. The little boy stood before the holy scene for awhile; he could not be sure, but he thought he heard conversation from the altar, from the bottles themselves!

"Can you hear anything?," he asked the little girl.

"Why, no! Do you? I expect it's the neighbors. They do carry on so. Their parents were recently married, you see, and are on a honeymoon. When the cats are away, the mice will play!" she ended wisely.

The little boy fell silent. He knew what he must do. He mustered courage.

"May I stay at your place for some time?"

The little girl cocked her head mildly and looked seriously at the boy. "You're welcome if you want to," she said. "I'm gone most of the day - I work in an IT company, you know - so you should find it comfortable here."

"What work do you do?"

"I am a Self-Motivations Catalyst. I help people stay motivated in their work, and help them see a future in the company."

2008-04-18T00:45:00.000-07:00

Story for Children -Chapter 2
The alcohol shopkeeper was in good spirits that day. He was always happy when the little girl paid his shop a visit. She was, in many ways, a divine sign that alcohol was his true calling. You see, once upon a time, the shopkeeper had been a sweets vendor, and had owned a famous bakery chain called 'Iyengar Bakery.' Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, the shopkeeper woke up one day to find the the Key opened the door no more. He made do with what he had, and became an alcohol vendor, owner of the famous alcohol chain 'Iyengar Bar.' His is a different story however, and we shall discuss him another day.

The character we are concerned about, at the moment, is his son, the little boy. When the shopkeeper got back home after a hard day's work each day, he would bring a gift for the little boy: a vintage alcohol bottle. He would often tell the little boy the story of the lost Key and the mysterious, divine circumstances that led to his being an alcohol shopkeeper. To his mother's consternation, the little boy listened very devoutly to these stories, and soon began to equate alcohol with the Divine presence in his life. He would religiously store all his father's daily gifts and then perform an elaborate ceremony involving flowers, incense, and empty alcohol bottles.

After many days of austere practice, the little boy was gifted with what he considered a divine vision: a vision of the Bottle that would save humanity. The Incarnation, he saw, would be in the shape of a Happy Buddha carved out of translucent green stone. When his father received his gift from Korea, a cheap arrack in the form of a Happy Buddha and carved from translucent green stone, the little boy was awed. The Bottle had chosen his humble home as its Headquarters to work It's magic from! Under the watch of his apalled mother, the little boy intensified his rituals and meditated upon the Bottle constantly.

While meditating one day, the little boy felt a disturbance in the divine aura surrounding him. He opened his eyes to see his father sell the bottle to a little girl. Distraught, the little boy surreptitiously followed the little girl home to try and coax the Bottle back to It's abode.

When they reached the little girl's home, the boy was startled for a second. The house was crooked so he had to crane his neck to make it look alright. After the initial moment of confusion, the little boy climbed up the pipes and entered the house through the bathroom window. He slowly made his way around, when he noticed the little girl in the bathtub with her back to him.

The little girl was dressed in a bright pink bathrobe and had a yellow tortoise floating near her feet. She seemed to be narrating a story to put it to sleep.

2008-03-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

A Story for Children

There was once a little girl who lived by herself in the city. She lived in a strange, lopsided house, which made you want to crane your neck sideways to correct its defects. During working hours, the little girl was a successful businesswoman, but after work, she was the most meticulous collector of alcohol memorabilia as a little girl could be.

The interesting part was that she never drank a drop of alcohol herself. Oh, no, not she. She simply loved collecting her beloved bottles and stacking them on the shelf so that the sun rays passing through would soften the whole house in an amber tone in the mornings. On weekends, she would sit in her rocking chair and watch her clothes dry in the sun, content, while liquid amber sunshine washed over her. Unfortunately, this meant that the bottles themselves were always drunk, bring full of alcohol all the time. They tended to quarrel a lot among one another and delve into deep philosophical conversations, talking the most horrid nonsense you've ever heard.

One evening, the little girl went to the nearby alcohol store to see if there was an alcohol antique she could buy. The store keeper was joyous to see her. He considered the little girl a valuable, if scandalous, customer.

'Why, hello little girl! What will you have today?'

The little girl surveyed her options, a little disappointed. She realized that her collection was quite extensive, and it was becoming harder and harder to find a fascinating bottle of alcohol.

The store keeper saw the chagrin on her face and thought hard. He then quickly ran in and brought out a queerly striking bottle of alcohol, shaped like a happy Buddha. It seemed to be carved out of translucent orange stone, with the features beautifully defined. The little girl could not take her eyes off it.

The store keeper smiled benevolently and named a price thrice the cost of the cheap Korean packaged arrack he had received as a gift the same morning. The little girl bought it, thrilled, unable to believe her luck at having obtained what was clearly a rare piece of alcohol art.

She took the happy Buddha home, and placed it among the rest of the bottles, in the center. The others were immediately suspicious of a new comer who resembled the unfortunate union between a family member and a pot.

The happy Buddha smiled at them happily. 'Hello there, pleased to meet you,' he greeted them politely. He did not seem to be inebriated.

To be continued...

2008-03-04T05:54:00.000-08:00

How to Avoid Cancer
or
Frog Fiction

We were at the tail end of the queue in a grocery store within an overcrowded Bangalore mall. It was Sunday and she had offered to 'teach' me how to make good pasta. The severe dearth of female company for several months had made me accept the offer and renounce my curd rice-pickle for that evening.

A couple from the northern part of the country made amorous hindi cooings with semi make -out moves, in front of our trolley. The man at the adjacent counter subjected the billing assistant to complex mathematical calculations involving his sodexho coupons.

"So", she said, " you love rains because it brings out the frogs..."

"The rains in green fields, hostel campuses and the rains at home...not the ones here in Bangalore..." I was busy watching the coo couple in front of us. Their turn at the billing counter had come, which gave temporary relief to the groping.

Our turn at the counter arrived.
"You forgot the olive oil!"
"No, I didn't. It's expensive..." I tried to explain
"You can't make good pesto without olive oil"
"What's pesto?"
She looked irritated by my ignorance.
"Go get the olive oil..." she whined

I ran across the queues and the aisles and plonked a small bottle worth 150 rupees at the counter. She looked pleased.
The bill exceeded 500 rupees. Hidden costs.

We were walking home.
"I love the way they hop," I said
She raised one eyebrow in incomprehension.
"Frogs..."
"Oh!"
It was a topic which had ended at the queue, I realized. I felt quite silly and remained silent.
"Go on..." she gave her indulgent smile.
I felt encouraged. I put on my "lecture time" voice.
"There are so many creatures that walk, run, go on all fours, fly...but these are the only guys who do that cool hop thing"
"Okayyy..." she drawled
"And also when we dissected frogs at school in biology classes..."
"You guys used to cut up frogs at school?" she winced
"Didn't you?"
"I took up accounts just because I hated this dissection stuff..."
"Anyways...we had to nail the drugged up frog to this small wooden board and every time I did it I felt like I was crucifying a saint, a prophet..."
"Perhaps the only guy who associates the frog with religion...and I am cooking pasta for him!"
I gave a grateful smile.

She made pasta in some white-green sauce which tasted terrific. She ordered me to help out with a few culinary procedures, but when I goofed up on the first few simpler orders she let me watch her do the cooking as the honored spectator. She was graceful and quick and efficient.

"So do you like the pasta, frog-worshiper?" she asked
"Gastric orgasms shake my body and soul!" This was an old "funny line" of mine.
She seemed to like it.

When the pasta was over and we sat in awkward silence, I continued " Sometimes, I think, I am this frog prince in reverse"
I was feeling particularly good about the evening and she was a pretty girl. Also we were having my reserve Jacob's Creek.

"There are these frogs in fairy tales which turn into princes when kissed...while I am a frog that somehow has turned into a man and will turn back into a frog sometime. Hence the fascination with my kin"

I realized I was drunk. I should be trying to get a kiss out of this entire deal, I thought, not talking rot about frogs.

She smiled and went "awwwww".

“Maybe you need a kiss to turn into a frog!"

"Yeah from my true love, where ever she may be"

She looked at her watch. She told me it was getting late and she better be leaving. I thanked her for the pasta and opened the gate for her and waved goodbye.

She hadn't bothered to wash the dishes. I got out my dish washing soap and turned on the tap at the kitchen.

2008-02-21T09:17:00.000-08:00

Brand Awareness- A tale of horror

(Here's a short story I wrote a while back...one couldn't avoid the semi-autobiographical touches!)

He realized all was not well with him when he caught his parents staring at him incredulously. In fact mother looked very worried.
“ You skip programs on TV to watch ads,” she said.
“Marketing ma,” he said. “ I need to know what’s happening in that free for all chaos called the Indian market. There is a paradigm shift happening in it that necessitates value added marketing to overcome its constraints …”
“You worry me,” she replied quietly.
He couldn’t understand it. After all his entire undergraduate life had been punctuated with pithy little sarcasms from these parents on his passion or rather lack of it, for academia.
Now, when he finally seemed to be doing something in that direction-there was cause for worry.
So he called up his friend and asked him if there was anything wrong in watching advertisements. He explained why he felt there was no cause for alarm and gave him some statistics on how American kids always preferred ads to TV programs and how they all happily turned into rabid compulsive spenders.
He also added helpfully that there was a marketing term to describe such behavior.
“You worry me,” the friend said.

He realized it was time for some deep introspection. It was true. He was in the cold steel grip of some terrible disease. He decided to take a walk alone and sort out things for himself. His head was spinning. At odd moments in the night he could hear voices whispering long convoluted sentences into his ears. The stench of management jargon assailed the nostrils.
Realigning core competencies, asynchronous transitional, said the evil voice in his ear. The only way to drown this diabolic drone out, he figured, was to spend some time at the little bookshop round the corner.
On his way, a pretty girl passed him by- his neighbor’s daughter. She smiled at him. She stopped. “ How are you?” she beamed.
Here, he said to myself, is a customer of the future. A young woman who will consume, spend, watch ads, rear children that are brand conscious morons – he needed to target her, segment and then position for her types. He needed to get into her mind.
“Hello”, he said with his harmless type smile. ‘You needed to get them to lose their guard before you get down to the research part’ said a voice in his head
“Where you going?” she asked
“To the bookshop”
“Same here…mind if I tag along!”
“Sure”
An eager research subject-every marketer’s dream. His spine tingled. Maybe he should start, he thought, with her food habits. He had read somewhere that women are what they eat.
“You’ve seen the new restaurant down the street?” he asked her…
Soon lovely brown eyes were telling him her preferences in fast foods, service quality expectations, spending habits…great control had to be exerted over himself as customer insights filled his body and soul.
He gave a huge moan of delight that must have sounded to her like a cry of great pain. She stopped talking mid-sentence about the way rotis are made in restaurants and stared at him… blank.
“You all right?”
He excused himself. They had reached the bookshop. He needed to be alone with the books, to get his mind off his affliction.
The bookshop was crowded with people busy browsing their way through the latest best sellers. Point of purchase advertisements for music CDs and computer games beckoned the unwary. Clever and strategic placement of ads he told himself...perfect eye level placement of products.

And then it happened.
He found himself dragged by an invisible force towards the shelves where the management books were neatly arranged.
Consumer behavior…he carelessly skimmed through the pages of the first book he laid his hands on.
“Indicative of future prospects, failure to enter solution mode interfaces brand equity” it told him.
Not many would have understood that. But he did. It was obvious. There was a message in all of this and no one seemed to know about it.
He took out another book and read the first line his eye fell on. Kotler…“ Premier Customer experience helping markets focus on immediate objectives…” Glorious! It was a jig-saw puzzle just for him and the pieces were all falling in together on that momentous day.
He went from book to book and hungrily turned the pages for those meaningful lines.
He had to tell some one the deep secret he had suddenly uncovered.
There she was, his very own pretty brown eyes. She caught the mad gleam in his eyes and asked “You sure you alright? You worry me!”
He told her about all that he had discovered, of his great revelations.

Segmentingtargettingpositioningcustomerdelightbrandidentity

brandperceptionmatrixdesireactivationmodelmarketskimmingparadigmshift….

The words flowed like an endless torrent as he shared his enlightenment with the world at the top of his voice.
She screamed.

The doctor and the nurse were smiling at him. He had been there for three months. The nurse held out two little pills in her hands. Choose one…he chose the red pill and studied her reaction. Cunning method of finding out the subject’s color preferences he told himself. Could be useful in packaging studies to develop optimal marketing mix…

2008-02-01T10:19:00.000-08:00

Biograph

History- Personal

I was 18. I was on one of the then obligatory 'family temple tours'. These temple tours were dreadfully boring exercises in ‘holidaying’ which involved traveling for almost a week, up and down the Tamizh state as a familial group in a cramped up wagon. The few times you got to step out of the vehicle, you were ushered in to a crowded place where you elbowed everyone to try to get a glimpse of a dark idol wrapped in dhotis and/or silk saris, lit dimly by the flicker of the aarti of a money grubbing priest.

On this particular trip, I was in the midst of teenage existential angst and rebellion. I had decided to sulk through the entire trip by sleeping in the back seat when all at once the vehicle passed by an old and semi abandoned temple standing uncared for, in the middle of a non descript village.

This ruined and abandoned affair which I had to convince the entire family to pop in by, turned out to be Gangai Konda Chozhapuram. There was hardly anyone there amidst the gargantuan ruins and the sole priest/ in charge narrated the history of this ruined city. I fell in love. To my mind, forever fixated on the romance of ruins and ancient stones, this was my own paradise.

I must have run around the place with my jaw down for a long while, until I was pulled out to fight out the next crowded temple. I promised myself that I would keep coming back.

After 10 years of dreaming about it, I managed to get back again this week. After the same ten long years my mother tricked me into a temple tour again. But this time, I fixed the itinerary (Chennai - Pondy- Chidambaram- Sri Rangam ) and made sure that it included Gangai Konda Chozhapuram. And to be doubly sure, I volunteered to drive the 650 odd kilometers involved, in the two days of leave I had from work.

On the breath taking-ly picturesque rural ‘by-pass way’ dotted with sunflower fields, lotus ponds and Village deities from Chidabaram to Trichy I drove by a curiously lonely temple in the midst of one more of the hundred odd villages on the way. I had stumbled upon Gangai Konda Chozhapuram again!

History

Gangai Konda Chozhapuram is a proclamation of an astounding victory. The ruthless Chozha armies had conquered all land till Bengal under the reign of Rajendra Chozha. The Chozhas, thus, controlled quite a huge territory around 800 AD from Sri Lanka in the South to Orissa and Bengal in the North- East.

To celebrate this victory, Rajendra shifted his capital from the traditional Tanjavur to the new city that he built for the “Conquerors of Ganga”. This city of Gangai Kondan continued to be the Capital for close to 8 generations of the Chozhas. All that remains of it now are some scattered ruins and this magnificent temple. The temple itself was built to rival the great Brihadeeswara at Tanjavur, built by Rajendra’s father Rajaraja. Gangai Kondan’s imposing tower is shorter than Brihadeeswara’s but wider. Rajendra was inspired by the Sun Temple of Konarak, newly under his realm, to incorporate design elements of the ‘Chariot of the Sun” prototype.

No one is quite sure how such a great city fell to ruin. Most attribute it to the vengeance wreaked by the sudden but brief resurgence of the Pandyas; some others to the usual earthquakes and disasters. It seems that almost all of the existing houses in Gangai Kondan were built with ancient bricks pilfered from the ruins- a still extant practice that has been on for centuries!

Religion

The imposing sculptures all around Gangai Kondan are an intoxicating mix of religion with personal history.

Sample this piece representing the crowning of Chandikeshwar. Who posed as Chandikeshwar here is anybody's guess.

The most awe inspiring sight for me in all of Gangai Kondan is the Shiva Lingam in the inner sanctum. Alone in its gigantic presence, the prismatic form of the idol is unspoiled. With less than 5 people around at any given time, the imposing figure resides in an ancient stillness. I offered the priest the white lotus my mother had plucked at a nearby village pond. The flower sat alone on the cusp of the Lingam as its sole adornment.

2007-12-13T03:54:00.000-08:00

Working Class Hero

The Peanuts Mastermind

I have always wanted to appear on the Mastermind show with Peanuts as my Mastermind. As this will never happen, here's my own 10 question round.

1. What is two times two?

2. What do real alligators never do?

3. Who owned Snoopy before Charlie Brown brought him home from the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm?

4. What did Andrew Wyeth's work replace?

5. What do you wear if you have amblyopia?

6. Happiness Ist Ein Kleine Kaput ___________?

7. What color is the security blanket?

8. Rerun prefers drawing what to flowers?

9. Kite eating trees have soft stomachs. True/ False?

10. What does the Red Haired Girl do to her pencil?

2007-11-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

Song for Winners
You are a hero now
Everyone loves you
Your body is toned
Your hairline wavy
And your smile a glow

They hang by your words
Laugh at your jokes
(the women find them hot)
They wish they were you

You can do great feats
Like holding your breath
For ninety nine seconds
You make them take odds
In the washroom there
And hope they do lose the bet
To get into your bed

You can pose for the photograph
And drive a fast car
You are so good at it for sure
Whatever it is you do

They want to know your secret
And you can give it all away
You pretend like its nothing
You are freezing into a smile

2007-10-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

Footnotes to Mythology

I don't know how many people listen to albums in their entirety these days.
Surely, the concept of an 'album' barely exists in the age of play lists.

Being a cassette-era relic, I am yet to get around to even downloading music ...free or illegally. I refuse to go the i-tunes way because, for me, the album-experience is incomplete without a sheet of printed paper in my hands.

I still believe in liner notes and album art. I believe in sides A/ B and concept albums.

Anyways, while listening recently to Pearl Jam's self titled album and its magnificent album-ender, "Inside Job", I started thinking up my list of great album-enders.

What I call a great album ender:A great album enters mythology only when it goes from great song to great song and ends with an unbelievable orgasm. (Note: If the album is one sustained orgasm the best end it can have is a dreamy finish.)

What is important, though, is this: A great album ender can be enjoyed alone (on a play list) but you appreciate it best only when it is reached via the journey of the album's entirety.

Here's my list:
A Day in the life (just about edging out the B side of Abbey Road)

Moonlight Mile

The Rock/Love rain on me

Thorn Tree in the Garden

When the Levee Breaks

Desolation Row

The End

Eclipse

Bohemian Rhapsody

Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

Locomotive Breath

Slim Slow Slider

Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)

Release

---------------------------------------------------
Talking about downloading albums, I do hope you have visited Radio head's website of late. If you haven't read this first!

2007-10-22T04:12:00.000-07:00

Moon Bathing
After several months of inactivity, pointless hard work and general restlessness, I decided to bring down the hung boots and go for a trek with our old friend Akshay (The Comrade) Gupta
Being completely cut off from the scene for more than a year now, I was glad to let the Comrade work out the trekking route, the way to get there and all the minor details except the booking of my tickets.
Through a rather stunning move from the Mothers Inc, which has been having quite a field day in these troubled times, Bala was plonked in quite unwittingly as the third member for this great expedition
If you ever want to go on the same expedition here’s a useful map

We drove from Delhi to Shimla on Day one through some amazing 4 way “express” lanes, great dollops of makhan on several paranthas, Kurukshetra and mild headaches after 4 hours of night driving up the mountains
Day two was the drive through a wide array of four wheeled wonders- bull dozers, cranes, several cars, trucks and one armored vehicle through a road left undone by a Chinese company.
The road to Rohru needs completion badly to make the trekking route as popular as its other Himachal cousins- but it’s adequately motor able nevertheless
At Rohru, a dusty, polluted, buzzing town, that belies the beauty which lies just a kilometer ahead of it, one will need a place to stay – we recommend River View Hotel (Rs. 300/- per night) , who can also arrange avoidable expensive treks.
At Rohru, our savior and guide was a gentleman from the “trade” thanks to some deft salesmanship and corporate leadership by yours truly.

These gentlemen, as is unique to the trade, showered our unholy trio with hospitality we were frankly quite unworthy of- introducing us to several guides and trekking options in a town where the concept sounded quite hilarious to many
“An why would you drive all the way to Delhi so that you can walk 30 kms up hill?” was one of the few existential questions shot at us by the guffawing helpful gentlemen

Day one of Trek:
Drive up to the village of Dharmwari, 20 km from Rohru, along the banks of the River Pabbar.
Contact the well experienced and yet quite young Mr Pankaj Neigi, trained at the Mountaineering Course at Darjeeling (as was The Comrade) and the porter of his choice
Stock up on Maggi, rice, dal, masala, salt (we forgot that!) and some candies and park your car in the unlikely zone offered by Pankaj Neigi’s uncle/shop keeper
Take a Jeep ride to the closest motor able path to the village Janglik
Start the trek
Cross a sheep’s bridge across the Pabbar on the way up, through huge sheep and goat traffic jams , an act that might sink the bravest in an existential quandry
Climb steadily up for one more hour to reach Janglik
At Janglik rent your tents (250 a day) and your sleeping bags and resume the trek
Do indulge the request for photographs the numerous kids of the village
Reach an abandoned Gujjar hut after another 2-2.5 hour trek, pitch your tents in the wilderness and wonder at the number of stars a clear sky can reveal
Chop enough firewood from the nearby woods to ensure you can cook some food and keep your rear end warm as the temperatures dip to zero
Make sure you get your salt or else cook the dal in Maggi masala (TM to loonatix.com) and get yourself into a sleeping bag faster than you can say frozen balls
Day two of the Trek:
Wonder at the frozen bottle of water you left outside the tent
Disappear behind the bushes
Have sweetened rice for breakfast
Trek for an hour through some scenic woods and meadows
Reach campsite two in a meadow infested with wild horses and buffaloes
Pitch tents and resume trek
Four hours on through more woods, meadows and some climbing along the Pabbar leads to the seven lakes of Chandra Nahaan
Have the packed lunch i.e. Maggi noodles in a pressure cooker for Lunch
Trudge back to the camp to realize that you have a snow peaked mountain just a kilometer over your head
Chop more firewood for the kitchen and general well being
Sleep out to warm the cold bones in some sun light, soothed by the sounds of gentle mastication of the grass by nearby buffaloes

Day 3 of Trek:
Go all the way back to Janglik and realize that you really have walked up quite a bit
Watch Bala leap and stroll like a mountain goat in the hope that the entire thing was finally coming to an end
The Mountain goat:

Watch Bala struggle again

The struggle:

Marvel at great feats and miracles by the Grey Wizard
Reach Rohru back at around six in the evening
Do your round of thanking the various people who sniggered, advised and accommodated weird requests from The Comrade for warm underwear

Day 4 of the Trek:
Drive down to Delhi from 9 am to 3 am singing along to various Stones, Doors and Beatles Remasters albums

2007-09-23T00:23:00.001-07:00

The Happiest days of our Lives

".. The newspaper stories were like bad dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others. How awful, we would say, and they were, but they were awful without being believable. They were too melodramatic, they had a dimension that was not the dimension of our lives. We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edge of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories."

From The Handmaid's Tale

2007-09-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

Arthur & George

On George

Did xenophobia enter main stream taboo status only after WW 2?

From the Fear of Muslims to Neo Nazis beating up Indians- so many instances pop up now in the media fairgrounds and bask in the sunshine of public dissent and opinion.

Racism of course, will continue as long as there are dark and pale humans around and as long as they both continue to procreate.

I do not know of many examples of well publicized racism in the pre world war era.

All of colonialism was indeed racist and hence I assume it was part of the accepted scheme of things. After all, when a Gujarati got thrown out of a train in Pietermaritzburg for 'darker' reasons, in the pre-war times, the news came to the 'civilized' world almost a century later, as the first scene in a Hollywood blockbuster.
----------------------

Barnes' depiction of George is so much more beautiful than all the 'tales of displacement' being churned out every other year for Booker that and Pulitzer this by our women writers.

Maybe that's the difference between hype and art.

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On Arthur

Like everybody else I believe in Holmes…and Watson. The cocaine, the violin, the most quotable of eccentric lines, the women (or the lack of) and the impossible chivalry…life’s so much better when we believe that Holmes did exist.

Along comes along Sir Arthur full of cricket and waxed moustache, championing Spiritism, playing the consulting detective, stewing in Victorian sexual paranoia…Holmes and Watson did indeed exist!

----------------------

Arthur & George

The days when Sir Arthur played cricket were so different- his cricket is full of English snobbery, impossible Victorian chivalry and stiffness, with corseted ladies watching some very confused men, from sun drenched boundaries.

W G Grace c Storer b Conan Doyle 110

Arthur’s game has now been completely usurped by George’s people- it has been imbued with their boisterous colourful chaotic culture. How would Sir Arthur react to that?

------------------

Sir Arthur’s obsession with Spiritism is funny yet…disturbing. A hall crowded with thousands of people waiting for Sir Arthur’s séance appearance reminded me of Herge

I now understand now, what Herge seems to be poking fun at.

All of Europe, before the war, seems to have been obsessed with the business of Spiritism and Clairvoyance...

Not just Sir Arthur, but almost a good fraction of the world was searching for a way to conquer death. They seemed to believe that if turn of the century science could suddenly throw in so many miracles at the most breath taking regularity, death would be explained away soon too.

After the death of 100 million people in just some six years- I think our race has given up on the what-after-death issue- at least for a while.

-----------------------

On Arthur

I wonder what Sir Arthur would have to tell the new-age terrorists

--------------------------------

2007-08-27T04:27:00.001-07:00

Holy Shark Repellent Batspray Batman!

2007-08-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

2007-07-26T03:51:00.000-07:00

Bean me up!

-Within the first five minutes of my auto voyage into Bangalore, as a settler, I was stalled at an endless traffic jam. The driver of the car beside me took out a tiffin box and shoveled spoonfuls of upma into his mouth. An over-full drain relentlessly spilled out its contents on the other side of the road
-Ten hours later,I went out into the market to get myself the essential settler’s kit of mattress-bucket-mug-pillow. I thought I would be the only one looking for stuff like that…I spotted at least five more. Every day I spot at least one person on the street with a tub/bucket/mattress

-My home is right next to a mall. It takes me five minutes to cross the 10 m wide road
over to the mall (any given day, any given time)

-You can find Harry Potter, The World is Flat and The Google Story with every road side vendor selling pirated literature

-You pay 10 months advance on your house-rent, no matter what the degree of resemblance the apartment might share with a rat-hole

-The probability of you spotting a ‘pirated DVD” platform vendor is one ( anywhere you go)

-In Bangalore you have 15 options for Italian food, 5 for Greek, 10 for “Mediterranean”…Plus some 20 for “Boutique”, 10 for “Fusion”…

-Many auto drivers are of the prototype “the Lone Ranger”- they would rather explore this wide world on their own. Some are enlightened-many self-actualized

-Everyone knows what a Sangria is and also where the next party (serving free flavored vodka shots to the women) is happening

-The first time I visited Bangalore alone I was in love. That was almost ten years ago

2007-07-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

Death of a Salesman

Revisiting works I read as an adolescent seems to be taking up most of my 'book time' these days, but the returns are always rewarding.
When I first read the play I must have been 18...I found it very sad and I couldn't stop wondering why someone would be so full of angst that he hasn't made much money (those were the days of lost ideals you see...)

I am not sure how many of my friends at college (where I was at 18) understood it either, where it was even staged as a semester-play ( in Hindi as "Ek Sapney ki Maut"?)... Somebody must have I guess, if they were moved enough to stage an almost professional version of the play... but the chap who played Biff Loman went on to become a MBA in real life...

Now I read it as a Salesman myself...

The portrait of the Salesman as a man who has believed his own advertisement is a little off-target (having been written by an intellectual with a third-person view) but his struggle with failure seems so true.

Locked in with a society which would never admit its failures, the Salesman struggles to keep himself afloat in a sea of lies that he hopes to sell to the world and to himself. His only ambition is acceptance into a mythical realm of winners,which he hopes he could grasp by the successful sale of lies...

But the very act of sale is a lie...to sell the lie you have to believe the lie yourself-the lie that a sale of a lie is a shot at immortality.It doesn't take much to see that there is no glory in the sale-two large pegs can tell the Salesman that...but once he is into it there is no turning back. Nor are there second chances...

The tale of the Salesman's family is worse. They inherit the lies and take the baton even as they see the lies fall apart. Their doubts will soon be blown away by the society they live in. The wife weaps cries of freedom at the grave of the Salesman on the payment of the mortgage...a sign that the race with no end is on again.

My Penguin book's introduction says that someone called the play, on it's opening night, "a time bomb under American capitalism"

This was Arthur Miller's reponse- "...or at least under the bullshit of capitalism; this pseudo life that thought to touch the clouds by standing on top of a refrigerator... waving a paid up mortgage at the Moon, victorious at last..."

Got to go now! Client on the phone!

2007-06-03T03:06:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the vicinity of 2: 30 pm of the Sunday afternoon of June 3,2007 a familiar voice called me up to announce - "I hold in my hands as I speak to you,number 21 in the series of 42 ..Arjuna in Indraloka"

It seems ages ago...

The beginning of every month, in those long ago times, entailed an evening visit to Mylapore with my grandmother. The idea was to buy a pair of bananas and a coconut and offer it up to a god -the first expenditure of the month...the month's second expenditure invariably turned out to be a book for me (through sheer pester power) These book buying expeditions took my grandmother and I to the seemingly endless numbers of magazine/devotional books/college school textbook shops of Mylapore.

I must have been around six years old when I kicked off this Amar Chitra Katha Maharbharata obsession of mine, almost by accident. I bought a book called "Enter Karna' at the magazine shop just across the Luz Terminus Bus Stand, for Rs 4.50- the entire book budget for the month (I could have borrowed some 2 Enid Blytons with a bunch of Tinkles to boot, for that much money at my 'lending library')

I kept it back but my grandmother, for once in her life, was actually ready to give me so much money because Karna happened to be her favorite character in the story. ( I later figured out that Karna has the largest female fan following in India when it comes to mythological characters...if any one remembers them anymore that is)

Like most things that I am obsessed with for a lifetime now, I hated the Amar Chitra Katha Mahabharata at the beginning. The illustration was very different from those of the friendly cartoonish Tinkle. The language was a bit abstruse at times and the style given to slipping into poetry now and then. Worse, there were so many characters I had no clue about...(Chitrangadha?)

I couldn't figure out what on earth was going on but one image haunted me ... Indra clouds out the Sky as he watches a young Arjuna perform amazing feats and the stadium is dark and foreboding- a little patch clears up in one corner of the frame and sunlight streams through, shining on one man alone- Karna... I was hooked! I was doomed now to an obsessive search that broke completely loose when Doordarshan, as if by wilful intent, started off with it's Mahabharat series that very year (or was it the next?)

Gita Devotional Books Stores1 and 2, Vijaya Textbooks, Baba Bookstore, assorted book exhibitions...all endured monthly Rs 5 budget visitations from the two of us (later upped to Rs 10 and Rs 15 as the obsession reached its peak and the search for every successive title became more and more difficult). Obviously the books were bought in no real order and any that wasn't part of the collection yet was grabbed at -so what if one was "Enter Drona" and the other "Drona in Command" (the one where he dies i.e.)?

The Maharbaharta, hence, unfolded for me as a jigsaw puzzle put together by the finding of numbered pieces in endless heaps of "Devotional Books" every month ( If not for the possession of some prior knowledge transferred during bed time stories by various people, I am sure my interpretation of the Mahabharata would have been very modern and Tarantinoesque)

So it continued for almost 4 years...I now had 41 of the 42 issues -there was one missing- 21 of 42- Arjuna in Indraloka...I tried very hard to find it...but none of my usual sources had it (one offered to get me the tamizh version)..all in vain!Anyways, I knew what happened to Arjuna in Indraloka ( he gets cursed) so I resigned myself to the futility of the search.

The 41 volumes were bound together as 4 volumes (in order) and I got to read the great story for the first time in the chronology it would want its reader to adhere to.

A little later, Amar Chitra Katha stopped bringing out Rs 5 titles and decided to reinvent itself as a glossy Rs 2o (plus?) series composed mainly of its 'bestsellers'. The Mahabharata definitely wasn't one of those... (I can't think of too many people hunting around for all 42 like I once did)...and so all hopes of getting the elusive 21st were given up with a sad finality...

Now I have all 42...20 years after!

PS1. This is ACK's website updated for the modern times with all ACK idiosyncracies intact -where dark skinned people are purple in colour and even rakshasas talk poetry

Ps2. The Mahabharata, Arjuna, Bheema...as you can see I think of these neither as Arjun, Bheem etc nor as Arjunan, Bheeman etc...don't know how many exist this way- belonging neither here nor there ('there' being a huge majority which claims cultural superiority for the 'article free' versions of these names). My love affair with these names however continues defying all cultural anchors!

2007-05-01T01:03:00.000-07:00

Exercise in Poetry Appreciation (or) Whosurdaddy

The Name is an Incantation;
An exclamation on the face of ancient men,
Looking up at thundering skies
Whispering dark secrets from
The god to ear to the ear of the Priest,
Who wonders in mute amazement,
At the will of the demons...
His heart beating faster,
His legs drenched in the golden rains
That the Name evokes.

It is an ancient secret, this Name;
That travels through souls in the kiss of lovers
Entwined in amorous touches.
In wide eyed dreams of unknown lights,
Like the light of the setting sun
Embraced by darkness,
As the God Queen follows
In her large wooden boat,
Sails filled with the eastern wind
Down the western abyss
Off the river, Off the sea
Off the horizon, Off the flat
End of the world,
Off the waking edge of her eternal sleep
As She follows the Sun down and down.

The black knight knows,
The Red Queen wonders
At her ancient quest
Her sacred lust;
Among visiting heroes
And snake bitten lovers...
Among shadow ghosts that once had lied
And sinned between husbands;
Moaning out loud

In the very depths of love,
Never looking back
Aided by a clue
She searches for the Name
And whispers its power...

And says it again;
Like the sound of fire
A warning for approaching death
Fearful of what dreams may come
At the misty headed glimpse
Of the cavernous dark
Sticky black pit
Of after-life;
Like the mouth of a monster
Beneath his bed
The Name...
She says

Into ears that are far away
Hearing him breathe
Hearing the silence
Revolving around him...
Listening to the quiet stillness
Of a sleeping love
Engulfed by the illusion
And whispers...
The stillness responds
She grasps the illusion
And descends into
Comfortable sleep
Like a serpent’s tongue
In the blades of grass

2007-04-12T02:14:00.000-07:00

“Grindhouse” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Tell your mother you were over at your friend’s house doing homework, and be sure to tell your friends at school about the severed limbs, the exploding heads and the naked you-know-whats.

More reasons to love my daily dose of NYT on the mail! Seen above is the way they end their review of the Rodriguez-Tarantino B movie tribute.

The movie might never get released here- but doesn't a movie like this beg to be seen on a pirated DVD made from a stealthy camera that is very often inflicted by dark shadows of people getting up and moving around?

That's the modern equivalent of Grindhouse movie watching isn't it?

Ironic?

2007-02-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

Caller Tune

What happens to sentences and jokes
Word interplay and phrasings
Puns and unusual occurrences
News propagated from ear to ear
Gossip Green and Utterly Blue
Feed and static
Angst and Anxiety
What happens to Words
Unuttered
When the phone is unanswered?

2007-02-22T23:20:00.000-08:00

Radio Gaga

Since January, I have been working as a ‘casual announcer’ for the rather quaint All India Radio, FM Rainbow, Goa.
They had advertised for RJs on their channel and I happened to hear one such announcement by chance and I applied. After auditions, written tests and the payment of a training fee I became what I had always longed to be- a government employee!

AIR, Goa is a charming old fashioned place, as laid back as the place it is in and caught in a time warp from the late 70s. Its RJs still play most of their material from LPs, the advertisements come in long twisted tapes and the top 10 artists played through the week –every week-would include such Billboard Superstars as Engelbert, Cliff Richard, Lobo, MLTR…

Program nomenclature is quite unique too-Siesta Time (I have Rjed this one!), Jazz hour, Retro Choice, A Hard Day’s Night, Mid-day Magic (and this one!)…you get the gist!

Like everything else in Goa, AIR Panaji, has precious little that is in common with the rest of the country… with the exception of an umbilical air wave connect to AIR, Delhi which they link to during cricket matches and siesta/sleep hours. They are absolutely non commercial when it comes to programming and the RJ is given complete creative freedom to play his/her material. (The reason why I get away with playing more Bowie than Blunt for the past one month)
At the same time they are stuffed with request programs and diligently hunt out every song that is requested for and play it. However Goa being Goa, the requested songs fall 99.9% of the time within a collection of around 25 albums that are kept ready in the duty room (refer to Lobo, MLTR, Engelbert …)

In this idyllic environment, some ‘demon-heads’ are slowly peeping in. There’s Ad Labs and Radio Mirchi setting up world class studios (they have more CDs than LPs!) and there are rumors of at least one more Big player coming in very soon.
These stations will be unabashedly commercial as they have always been and will in addition be ruthless, greedy and well,professional.
They have already poached on AIR’s announcers luring them in with packages these people had never dreamed of. Needless to say, some of the announcers fled straight back to AIR after a bitter experience with the new payola led economy these players were ushering into Goa. One announcer told me he found the new players ‘unethical’.
What is most ‘objectionable’ about these players is that they want full-time employees’ not casual announcers (boo!)

What does interest me though is that with so many new players what would become of the Goa radio scene. There are few locals who drive around listening to the radio and the tourists are stuck to taxis and the two-wheeled ‘pilots’ as far as travel goes and would, if in their right minds, rather party at a beach than listen to radio commercials. Maybe, a company like Adlabs would fit every taxi with a radio and tune them onto Adlabs 24*7…

The reason for the advent of these players lies in the history of FM station licensing to private players. The license obliges them to open FM stations in every A, B, C,D city in sequence. (A class includes the metros etc, while Goa is a D class city, with population less than 2 million). Now that these channels operate in all the A to C cities they Have to start off in Goa and it's euqivalents.

Maybe, the much maligned 2011 plan for Goa,is what the likes of Adlabs are betting on- the real estate boom to get them the right consumers from nearby Mumbais, Punes and Bangalores. Everyone's yet to find out…

As far as ad revenues on radio go, FM Rainbow, Goa, struggles to make more than 20 lacs a year while even a nearby Kolhapur makes close to a crore.

Whatever their plan is AIR, Panaji is not too bothered yet. They still have the old LIC ad to play followed by the new Twist tonic water ad.

Coming up next is Cliff Richard with “Summer Holiday” requested by Maria, John and their friends and you are listening to the FM Rainbow Service of All India Radio Panaji…Stay tuned!!!

2006-05-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

Have I got the Romance Novel formula right?- An experiment

As she waited out the signal, in the stifling heat of a crossroads at New Delhi, her ears filled with the incessant chatter of a radio jockey, Neha Shindey realized that this was perhaps going to be the most important day of her career. For three long years after her MBA, she had battled it out with the wiliest and the shrewdest businessmen, retailers, stockists and their ilk, growing her father's small soap firm to an adequately well-known name in the Delhi suburbs. The journey hadn't been easy but she felt like a champion nevertheless.

She pushed back her soft black hair behind her ears and scrutinized herself in the rearview mirror. Petite and pleasant looking, Neha Shindey had large brown eyes and a doe like complexion. While women her age were busy tending to their role as housewives, she had remained resolutely single, and, to the perplexion of her parents, happy.

But behind her petite looks was an iron resolve to make the world her own. She loved a challenge and the bigger it got the better she felt. Perhaps, that was why she refused offers from consulting firms and huge banks that her colleagues at B School would give up worldly existence for. Instead she chose her father’s small factory. Now, after three years, she had no regrets. Most of her B School friends earned every month what was probably quite a good part of her small firm’s quarterly profits- but she was working for no one but herself and that made her feel like an achiever.
She had just finished parking her faithful Maruti in the company lot when her mobile rang.
"Good morning, Madam. A Mr.Rohan Patel has been waiting in your office to meet you for quite some time and wanted to know if you would be coming in soon". "I'll be right up, thank you Anita", she answered. As she strode into the building, respectfully greeted by her employees, she wondered what Rohan Patel, marketing manager of the most powerful players in the industry would want with her. She nodded at her secretary, Anita, and entered her modest office.
A tall, dark gentleman dressed in an expensive Italian suit rose up to greet her. "I'm sorry for having kept you so long", she apologized. "I was held up in the traffic".

She caught Rohan looking around her little office with an amused eye. Maybe, she thought, he was wondering how an almost insignificant place like this could throw up any sort of challenge to a big league player like his company. After all, she had quietly eaten off close to 2% of their market share in just 15 months.
“Let me get to the matter right ahead Ms Neha”, he said as he sat down in the chair opposite to hers in the small cubicle. “We have been observing your company’s growth for a while now and we would be extremely interested in a strategic partnership that would help us both grow together.”Neha was intelligent enough to figure out what that meant. They wanted to buy her out.

2006-04-22T23:04:00.000-07:00

Cleopatra’s bath

A few months back, while browsing through a rather quaint collection of historical essays at a library, I came across this probably incomplete but most definitely amusing piece by a famous Egyptologist. The subject of the essay being of common interest, I thought it would please you to see this essay here. Here goes…

“Cleopatra was born in 69 BC, in Alexandria, Egypt. People say today, that she was glamorous and beautiful, but she was far from it. In her early years she has, as shown on ancient forged coins, an extraordinarily long hooked nose and features that would have been noted by any great poet as close to masculine. She was also overweight, quite short and she never trimmed her finger nails.

(Now you ask me a very pertinent question –“If she was NOT as beautiful as everyone else wants us to believe she was, then, how on earth did she manage to do all that she so ably did?” “She was clearly a very seductive woman”, you tell me, “Caesar and Antony would vouch for that. She had a really pretty nose–what with Bacon’s famous nose quip and...then of course... there’s Shakespeare and Elizabeth Taylor not to discount the lavish praises of a venerable Gaulish druid.”)

Now for some more facts…again this is completely historical. She had a beautiful musical voice. It is also said that she was highly intelligent. She spoke nine different languages, and she was the first Ptolemy pharaoh who could actually speak Egyptian.

(Better? Not quite I see... The fact that despite all this, I was bold enough to state that she was ugly, rankles... Well, history is faulty because no one believes in the role of magic in history. Or of Gods or of anything else that they cant be explained away using cold rational logic and shards of broken pottery and ruins of ancient toiletries. So I beseech you to remain patient and listen to my story. At the end of it, I promise you, all will be well).

She ascended the Egyptian throne after her father, Ptolemy Xll Auletes died in 51 BC. Cleo, who was seventeen at the time and her brother Ptolemy Xlll, who was twelve, were married because of the terms of her father's will. In the third year of their reign Ptolemy’s advisers told him that he should rule Egypt by himself. They felt that their King and Queen, who were both quite heavy as such, were consuming too much of the great Nile’s yearly produce all by themselves. So the little fifteen year old good- for -nothing resolved to drive away his twenty year old wife or whatever it was that he called her. Result- Cleo was exiled and being the resourceful twenty year-old that she was, she escaped to Syria.

So far so good…now come the unbelievable parts i.e. the parts that are unhistorical, unproven, and inexplicable- hence –the truth. It was in Syria that Cleo took the first of her historical baths. The Cleopatra Bath, as it is often called.

During the fourth week of her stint at Syria, an old crone visited Cleo in her dreams. On her bent shoulders she carried a sachet of camel’s leather. For a full five minutes she pillaged within the sachet muttering and cursing all the while in some barbaric language. Kanathos, she kept saying as she continued in her mysterious search. Finally, she found a flask of clay which she kept quietly on the table beside which Cleo slept. “Kanathos of the reborn virgin”, she said, “shall change history again”.

Cleo woke up at once. Like every hero of every great tale she knew at once that her dream was a holy one. She looked around her. Sure enough, there beside her bed on the ivory table was the flask of clay. On the flask were engraved some careful instructions

“Spring of Kanathos TM- User’s instructions
· Use ONE drop (10 ml) of Spring water TM with your bath water
· Soak in above mix for one hour
· For best results repeat procedure next day, every day
· Keep away from children, Romans, Gods, immortals, other women and the Sun
· Store in a cool place”

Twenty servants were immediately summoned and some assorted slaves filled a tub large enough and deep enough for the youthful queen to splash around in her enormous bulk. In she went and 10 ml of Kanathos was added…

Cleo then returned to Egypt with an army. Ptolemy sent an army to meet her. At this point, Julius Caesar of Rome arrived in pursuit of his enemy, who was seeking help from Ptolemy. So Cleo took a small boat, and one only of her confidants, Apollodorus, the Sicilian, along with her, and in the dusk of the evening, rolled up in a Persian rug,

Cleopatra was delivered to Caesar. "Greetings to Caesar from Egypt!" Cleo saluted Caesar. Cleopatra provided Caesar with ample time to observe and admire her scanty, tight, black, shiny dress revealing her full arms, abdomen, hips, back and legs, where the large slits parted...

Cleopatra's body language and clothing were obviously sexual. With her sleepy, alluring eyes she leaned back and laughed seductively. She sauntered as she walked in front of Caesar, she walked behind his seat and leaned towards him, all the while smiling slyly as if she disclosed some little secret…

(“Hold on a minute!” you shout “Just a few paragraphs back this woman was anything but full arms and abdomen…she was well rounded to say the least and there were bits about her nose being too long etc…You mean to say that silly dream with a Kanathos flask did all this to her?”

All I can say is I am narrating history as it is. Maybe somebody tore out quite a few pages in between in the chapter.

For all you know the time period between the bath and the carpet banging is almost a year or more and a well rounded woman would have after some good aerobic training come around to be exactly the kind of abdomen any man wanted.

But then, there are accounts that Cleo’s stay at Syria lasted for all of two months which would then negate my above hypothesis... So history is as usual confused here and the secret most definitely lies in the myth of the Cleopatra Bath. Anyhow, after this key incident every one seems to drool infinitely about Cleo, while of course, before it, its all about how poets were just so wrong about her infinite variety-infinite maybe yes, variety no way…etc)

Afterwards, in 47 BC , when Ptolemy Xlll drowned in the Nile while trying to escape the armies of Caesar and Caesar restored Cleo to her throne, Cleo and Caesar went on a two-month cruise on the Nile. (She later gave birth to a son. His name was officially Ptolemy XV Caesar, but he was popularly called Caesarian.). Now it is during this cruise that the myth of the Cleopatra Bath spread to the Roman world and gained its legendary status. Accounts by slaves that have survived the ravages of time, much like the legends of Cleo’s beauty, give us a glimpse, though perhaps apocryphal, of the modus operandi of the Cleopatra Bath.

“And soaked in the light of mirrors with that mystic drop from Kanathos
She waddled and splashed, gaily she thrashed
Pearls and oysters, clay mud and sud
Sacred baubles and bubbles as in the bath she gurgles”

(This is just a little bit of what is legible in the books of the ancient Slave rhymes, found later in the most appropriately titled compendium “Favorite bath time ditties of the ancient world” by philanthropist, slave trader, banana baron, dreadful gambler, the Lord Kashnen of Eckleburry woods, Surry, England, 1835-1899.)

So much for the Cleopatra Bath- after this point in history the details are murky and mixed up and the Bath never features again prominently anywhere-except once. The role of the Bath this time is just as pivotal, life affirming, mysterious and ridiculous as the previous times –only now it’s also extremely tragic.

On March 15, 44 BC a crowd of conspirators surrounded Caesar at a Senate meeting and stabbed him to death. Cleo, who had been living in Rome for a year then, knew that she was also in danger. So she quickly left Rome with her protectors. Before or immediately after their return to Egypt, Ptolemy XIV died and she then made Cesarean, her son, co-regent.

Caesar's assassination caused lacking in a ruler and civil war in Rome. Eventually the empire was divided among three men -Caesar's great-nephew Octavian, who later became the emperor Augustus, Marcus Lepidus and Marcus Antonius, or better known as Mark Antony.

In 42 B.C. Mark Antony called for Cleo to Tarsus, to question her about whether she had assisted Caesar’s enemies. The Lady arrived in style on a barge with a gilded stern, purple sails, and silver oars. The boat was sailed by her maids, who were dressed as sea nymphs. Cleo herself was dressed as Venus, the goddess of love. She reclined under a gold canopy, fanned by boys in Cupid costumes. Antony was hooked.

The story that ensued is quite famous-how Antony became a useless wimp who did nothing but lie around with Cleo, how Cleo thought that they were both Divine, how the people of Rome got disgusted with the entire concept of their best general tottering around with some black chick…and of course how the clever Octavian schemed it out to be his best bet to make it to the top of the roman hierarchy.

So, in 31 B.C. Antony's forces fought the Romans in a sea battle off the coast of Actium, Greece. Cleo was there with sixty ships of her own. When she saw that Antony's cumbersome, badly-manned galleys were losing to the Romans' lighter, swifter boats, she left the scene. Antony abandoned his men to follow her. Here, the Cleopatra Bath makes its tragic final appearance- disappearing forever in the mysteries which shrouded it forever.

Antony ran after Cleo, stormed into her palace, into the private chambers, in to her bath…

Through red death, and smoke,

And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode,

Till the still innermost chamber fronted him.

He swung his sword, and crashed into the dim

Luxurious bower, flaming like a god.

So the slave accounts read. And what do you think he saw there?

In the bath sat dark Cleo, lonely and serene.

He had not remembered that she was so square,

And that her neck stumped down in such a way;

And he felt tired.
He flung the sword away,And kissed her limbs, and knelt before her there,

The round Knight before the rounded Queen

Well there you go…Cleo’s bath in fantastic verse and a description of Cleo to spare. Oh yes, as usual the written words are quite unkind to the beautiful lady’s physical appearance…

Anyways by 30 BC, everyone involved in the story was dead, Octavian swore never to talk about this mess and Cleopatra and everything associated with her faded from reality to the realm of legends, myths and fanciful poetry. There hence lies no means of finding out anything ‘real’ about the queen or her bath-time after the era of Antony.”

This is where the essay ends (rather abruptly, I felt).

Good night!

2006-04-19T22:50:00.000-07:00

Exile on main street -a trip to memory motel

As I type this, the Rolling Stones are playing in my room- their latest- A Bigger Bang ...Jagger launches into a blues song…”I can read it like the back of my haaand…” Patent Stones blues…and sometimes one listens to the Stones for the sheer joy of hearing them play.

And I started wondering…if there ever was one band -just one band that is me....it is the Stones

I discovered them quite late…but they have stayed on

Surprisingly, The Stones, I guess, were never a big thing in India.

I never met a Rolling Stones fan while in college or even later (and my college was brimming with rock fans who knowingly discussed why RUSH just did not sound like a three piece band and how Deep Purple Mach 1 was the father of prog rock... these were highly knowledgeable people who awed little college uncools with their rock and roll snobbery).

Rock and roll was during my times at engineering college the ultimate expression of intellectual rebelliousness (I Am sure it still is somewhere or the other).

Still...no one was a Stones fan... The Stones were considered wierd rebellious good for nothings who roamed around in leather jackets, had sex all the time and were the corrupting influence on ‘good music’.

I was one of them for a long time. I avoided the Stones for most of my early rock years trying so hard to belong to this and that-my tastes and opinions swaying with every album I heard and every review I read

Then one day after some three years of this rock and roll apprenticeship- I picked up this cassette with an odd cover- scrawling on an yellow dirt wall -scrawling I really couldn’t read cause the picture was too small on the cassette cover- Beggar's Banquet said the graffiti on the wall.

Let’s give this band that no one listens to a chance...So enter cassette into my music system. The room door closes for a ‘listening session’. Volume turned high enough to get the “nuances”.

“Pleaaaased to meet you hope you get myyyyyyy name” threatens this quaint voice with a really weird accent as the band goes ‘woooowooooo” endlessly in the background and a guitar that sounds as weird as the singer churns out some ominous sounding sounds…

Haunting harmonica at the end of one dirty number asking a parachute woman to land on the weird voiced gent…bursting into a mix of sitar, twanging guitars and vague percussion aimed at a street fighting man…and people don’t like this band???

I start hunting for Stones albums. An 'American 'cousin gets me Exile on Main Street. An 18-song album with a collage of strange black and white photographs on its cover -The album sounds like some one very drunk had recorded it. You couldn’t hear anything right. The whole thing's a confused mess of the weird sounding voice and guitars and trumpets and saxophones. Everyone around me hated it. I LOVED it.

“Stop breaking down, mama, please, stop breaking down!!!” ... those guitars and the 'feel' of two very drunk guys screaming old blues lyrics …

Well after that it was a journey...my musical tastes expanded and changed and changed back ...The Stones remained while many bands fell off as adolescent indulgences.

The Stones just stayed on.

They can be world-weary and lecherous, misogynist and drunk, wise and raucous, incoherent and brilliant-all at the same time and could rock you like nobody else could or can...this was a band that played MY music-that appealed to ME . And what with so many people around me still remaining Stones-averse they soon became My Band.

That tired voice that sings the blues and filth with equal ease, that guitar that shimmers and moans , that golden age when Taylor was around, that trumpets and the saxophones that blare every time a brown girl gets whipped,that Jazz obsessed drummer, that dead band member whose genius no one refutes and whose departure no one mourns, that one band that makes you believe in them- that they don't play to make a hit but because they are what they are...and you listen to them for the sheer joy of hearing them play...

The CD has come to an end-time to press repeat...