Mickey

 

Mickey at 28  Lies there in wait To discover his mate. But Minnie's not in sight. She's at her work place, onsite And works there right through the night In the morning, she sleeps to make it alright But Mickey is fortunate to not share her plight He is not living a life filled with struggle and fight. There he stands at a crosswalk, on a day that's bright With his stomach filled to the brim on his sumptuous diet A man comes by donned in a pair of shoes of colour blue light Looking up, Mickey finds the man extending to from him to heights, infinite But Mickey did not know the man was nothing but an empty shell of size finite.

Ice-capades

Left, right Don't slip Get a grip Left, woah, right Stop, that was close  Wait,  wait, wait Weigh your next step Where's the spot? Spotted it! There! Left... Nooo, right.  Oh no! Thud! My ass' on ice Cold seeps to my genes Right through my jeans Should get up But how? Maybe, just maybe That rock can help Slide, slide, slide Hold the rock. Rise, rise, woah, rise Hold that rock Left, right, left Oops, right, woah Nooo, thud There goes my ass Kissing the ice For the fifth time 

Salty cooks

 He picked the call and said "Hey, what a surprise!" She responded "I need blood." He did not quite know how to respond. So he asked "What, you are turning into a vampire?" She laughed  and said "Last weekend I was watching Lokah and I had a premonition that I will be hungry for blood." He responded "Oh! Shouldn't I be concerned about this. What happened?" Once again she laughed and said "No, it's best to keep it light.  The baby sucked off a lot of my blood and now i am hunting the blood banks for O positive blood."  He laughed and said "Oh! O positive like Neeli." She corrected him "Neeli preferred O negative." He said "Ah ok! I don't remember. Hey, BTW I am O positive. Which hospital should I come?" She asked "What did you drink last night?" He responded promptly "Scotch, four pegs, on the rocks." She said "Oye bevde! I don't want my baby to be born drunk. He will be like Obelix, only high, not strong." He felt disappointed "Damn! You should have informed me yesterday then ..." She interjected "Listen I did not plan this shit, ok? My maid found me unconscious on my bed this morning  and brought me to the hospital." He felt shocked. He asked "Why can't you stay with your mother? This is dangerous." She responded "No. Just two more months. My parents will eat my head if I go there. This is fine. My maid will take care. Before I forget, please send your non-bevda trustworthy O positive friends. I need blood." He agreed "Ok. Send me the hospital's address.  I will come by." "Sure, sure. Ok. Gotta go" she said before cutting the call.

He shook his head and said "That girl will kill herself if she does not watch out." He looked up and saw the cook add a small spoonful of salt into the vessel of sambhar. He spontaneously shouted "Be careful with the salt." The cook turned around and looked at him menacingly. She said "Why are you telling me that? Are you telling me that the food I make is salty." He cursed silently and said " No, no. That is not what I meant. It is good to be careful with salt." She protested "I know that and I am always careful with the salt." He had no choice but to back off further "I don't mean you add too much salt. I am just asking you to be careful." She did not let go of the topic. "Do you say this to that cook who comes in the morning?" He became defensive " Of course, I told her the other day when she was making the kootu kari." She was livid by this time. "Have you seen the way she cleans the vessel? Look at this." He felt nervous seeing her walk toward him with a knife in hand. He said "What is it? Why do have the knife?" She extended a cooker whistle and started poking it's insides with the knife. She took out the knife and extended it toward him saying "Look at this. Rice! How old do you think this rice is?" He could not help but ask "From the Sangam era maybe?" His wife, who was observing the scene from a distance reminded him "This is not the time to act smart. She has a knife in her hand." She then looked towards the cook and said "It is ok ma. We will ask her to the wash properly tomorrow." But the cook was not convinced "She will not wash well. She is always in a hurry. I will do it."

Thirty minutes later she brought each of the washed vessel to him for inspection. Every time she said "See how clean this is? Does she clean like this?" Every time he said "It's clean, it's clean. You don't have to show it all to me." But she spent nearly 15 minutes showing each vessel and he had no choice but to inspect and comment on each of them.  When she had displayed all her achievements, she left abruptly. He looked at his wife and asked "What's wrong with her?" She responded "Well, she proved her worth with salt." He said "I don't understand what you mean." She agreed "Nor do I."

The next morning, he was reading the morning newspaper when his wife walked up to him holding a small flower vase. She asked "Where did you get this?" He responded "Your mother gave it saying that it was a gift you received from a friend. She discovered it when she was cleaning the house." She looked at the vase with disgust and said "Friend! What friend! The fellow was trying to propose to me." He put down the paper "What? Who? When?" She said "Relax! This happened in college many years back. He was junior. I told him he is barking up the wrong tree." He felt irritated "Barking up the wrong tree! Where do you get such phrases from? Its all those P G Wodehouses that you read." She clarified "I mean I said I was not interested." He said "I know." She said "You don't have to bring P G Wodehouse into this." The door bell rang before he could respond. She opened the door and the morning cook walked in angrily.

The cook stared angrily at him and asked "Why are you telling everyone that I cook badly? You could have told me directly if you had an issue." He looked at her blankly and said "I did not tell anyone that you cook badly." She countered "The watchman told me." His confusion increased "I have never talked to the watchman about your cooking." She said "He told me just now. He was supposed to get me a new job but he said that he will not as you said I don't cook well." He protested "I have never talked to the watchman about you or your cooking." She persisted "But you told the evening cook that and she told the watchman." 

"I have never talked to the evening cook about your cooking."
"You did yesterday."
"No, I did not."
"You did. The watchman told me."
"Now, how can the watchman know that?"
"Well, he told me that the evening cook told him that you told her that I cook badly."
"What! There are too many tolds in what you said. Explain clearly who said what to whom."
"What?"
"What exactly did the watchman tell you?"
"He said that you told the evening cook that I cook badly."
"I did not tell her that. End of story."
"But you said I put too much salt in the kootu curry."

He struck his palm on his head in frustration and asked "Why did you not tell that earlier?"
"Ah! So you did tell her that?"
"No, I did not!"
"But you just said you did."

"No, I did not. I asked why you had not said so earlier. That does not mean I told the evening cook that you added too much salt to the kootu curry. Wait, let me tell you what happened." He spent the next minute in recounting the incidents of the previous evening. He wisely left out the part about the evening cook complaining about the morning cook's inability to wash vessels properly. At the end of the narration, the cook said "So, this is what happened! That evil lady changed the whole story. I will not let this pass. I am going to give her a good shouting. Wait! I will get the watchman. You tell him the story. Please, I want that new job." She walked out of the house to get the watchman. He looked at his wife who was laughing at him and said "Don't laugh!" She responded "But this is funny. You have to talk to the watchman and in the evening you have to talk to the cook who will once again talk to the watchman who will talk to this cook and this story will never end." Once again he struck his palm on his forehead and said "What nonsense is this! Let us get rid of all these cooks. I will cook from now on." She agreed "That is a good idea. That way you can control the salt in the food."

Taps!

Tap, tap, tap
Who taps?
Taps!

Who taps?

We Taps!

Tap?

No, Tap, Tap and Tap.

We Taps!

Oh! Ah! Taps!

Yes, Taps!

But here?

Yes, here.

Right here?

Right by Target. 

Taps?

Yap, Taps.

But, what you doing here?

Tap-tapping you.

Can I tap you back?

Yeah tap us.

But, I would rather pat.

Not too hard we hope.

A little hard?

No!

If not, pat becomes tap

We are Taps.

So?

So tap and don't pat.

Tap, tap, tap!

In my head

I don't remember why... No! I remember now. We were talking about having an AI/Tech themed Halloween this year. I wondered how it will be to have a poster of a robotic skeleton rise from its grave. Now, that we live in a world where imagination is not limited to one's head, I immediately realized this thought on 'paper'. I opened ChatGPT and asked it to create an illustration on this theme. It thought for a few minutes and came up with an illustration.

It was not bad but it was not impressive. It looked like a version of terminator. Inside my head I only had the picture of a metallic skeleton arm protruding from a grave marked by a grave stone. This illustration did not even have a grave stone. I was disappointed but was not interested in refining the illustration. Interestingly, something else caught my attention.

Underneath, the illustration ChatGPT volunteered to provide captions. I accepted the offer and soon, ChatGPT gave captions in the following flavours.

1. Dramatic / Cinematic
2. Philosophical / Futuristic
3. Minimalist / Chilling
4. Tech-Horror Style
5. Poetic / Symbolic

The captions sounded interesting. They seemed poetic. It reminded me of lines from the song 'Iron man' by Black Sabbath. I looked at the lines for a few seconds and rearranged them. The resulting lines looked like this.

Born of metal,
Buried in silence,
Awakened by code.
When machines learn to defy death,
Even the dead circuits remember their code.
From the ashes of silicon, it rises again.
Resurrection: Version 2.0!

A few days later my dark life turned darker. No, that's not it. My life's not dark. There is much to be hopeful for but large parts of it was filled with darkness. Usually light eats into darkness but inside my head darkness chews into the light. So at all points of time happiness and excitement gets shadowed by darkness. 

After a good day, I woke up the next day to a set of painful reminders from the great beyond. I felt so frustrated and tired that the ghost of Layne Stanley got into to me. This probably resulted in the following lines. 

I am in the dumps 

And yet i laugh

Being silly

Making others laugh

And through it all

I remember

My life's a dump

With unknowns

Popping in all the time

And knowns turning

Unknown all the time

Isn't it a joke? 

Isn't it funny?

- Chained Alice 

Chippy chirps

Note from the writer: The views presented below are not the writer's. The writer is only recording some of the traumatic words that he underwent a few days back. Of course, not everything mentioned below are uttered by the utterer but some of them are. As a result, the writer believed that these words had to be saved for the posteriety to remember that such people existed. The writer wishes to add that such people existed, they exist now and they will continue to exist. So don't be traumatized by their words!

Once I was sitting under a tree. What? No, it was not a mango tree. This is US, not India. There are no mango trees here. What you mean there are mango trees here? Oh! Never mind. I mean I have never seen a mango tree in America. So, no it was not a mango tree. What? What do you mean which tree? I have no idea which tree it was. This happened 15 years back. So even if I knew which tree it was, I would not remember it. Besides I am not a zoologist. What now? What do you mean zoologist study animals and not trees? I mean isn't that what I said? I am not a zoologist. You saying the same, which means we agree. Why are you interrupting me? I am saying something important here. Something meaningful. Do not interrupt me. Let me go on, ok? Ok.

As I was saying I was sitting under a tree. Maybe it was an oak tree. What? I should not guess the tree. Ok, I won't. Ok? You happy? It was a tree, some tree, any tree, ok? Ok. Anyway, I was sitting under a tree. Actually more like lying down when a thought struck me. Not literally. I mean it was not like a ball striking me. It was just a thought that occured to me. From out of nowhere. Literally out of nowhere I got the thought that I prefer to work with Tamlyans. They are better to work with than any other people on this planet. You want to know why? Yes? Say yes, ok? Ok. You know why I prefer to work with Tamlyans? Because they are not troublemakers.  I trust those Tamlyans. You know what they say about the Tamlyans in this country? You don't? I will tell you what they say. They say "We trust the Tamlyans as they will not steal our land, our money or our women? We trust them." They don't trust no Punjabi hunks like me. But they trust the Tamlyan. That's why I too trust the Tamlyan. 

Yeah, ok? OK! Let us talk about business now. Blah, blah, blah, cost, blah, blah, blah, skill, blah, ...

Wait a minute! I got to tell you this. The Prime minister of India sent my wife a Happy Independece Day email. But he did not send it to me. I know, I know, I know he did not send it personally. It is sent by one of those Indian Government departments but it is signed Narendra Modi. He sent it to her and not to me. What? I have no idea if she signed into some Indian government website or not. But how can it be dependent on signing up in websites? I am as much as Indian as she is. So I should receive the Happy Independence Day mail with the prime minister's signature too. I know, I know, I know we are American citizens but we are Indians too. So, it is my independence day too and I should receive the mail too. It's unfair that only she got it and not me. Oh! Never mind, let us get back to business.

Blah, blah, blah, ...

So, guys send me the information about your company and I will see how we can work together. I know a lot of people at high places because they all belong to a particular religion. You know what I mean. So, I will go to the people in the high places and make sure you guys get a lot of business. I love you guys. I really want to work with Tamlyans like you. Yeah? OK? Cool! You guys have a good one. Take it easy! 

A series of thoughts and events

I don't like sitting through meetings. Meetings have too many people talking for too long on matters that don't deserve that much time. I once asked a professor why he chose to be a professor. He responded "I guess I like to hear me speaking". That is true for people who speak regularly during meetings. I once wrote about a person who starts speaking 5 minutes before the planned end time of the meeting and went on for 20 minutes. I guess he was obsessed at having the last word. Unfortunately his last word contained too many words and most of us did not listen to a word of what he said. It gives me great happiness to say that I no longer work with him. 

This write-up took birth in a meeting. As is usually the case, 10 minutes into the meeting, boredom set in. It was an event where emotions were flowing around profusely and it would have been rude for me to look at social media on my mobile. So I opened the small notepad that lay in front of me and scribbled some words. This usually is good tactic as people end up thinking I am noting down points from the meeting itself. I have used this technique successfully for many years. At the end of the meeting a friend looked at the writing pad and said "What is this? This does not make sense. I thought you were noting down point for your own talk". She did not realize i did not need pen and paper to talk in front of a disinterested audience who had no choice but act interested in the nonsense I spoke. But that is not the only mistake she made. The words on the paper did make sense. I tried and the words in such a manner that they made sense. Well, you can check it for yourself a little later. 

I wrote those words down in the form poems. Here, I think it is good to make clear my definition of a poem. It's a piece of writing which does not involve sentences or grammer and has a fair bit of jumbling of words. After writing it, I review it and modify it by chanting or singing it in some rythm. When the rythm satisfies me, I declare that piece of written work as a poem. I have written many such poems to no acclaim!

The first two poems were written on the writing pad during the meeting. Of course, they have changed a bit since as a result of the review process mentioned above.  The thought behind this first one is the frustrating repetetiveness of life. 

When the sky learns

That it can't fall

It starts looking up

But what does it look at?

It can't be the sky

For how can the sky

Look up at the sky?

But think about it

Maybe it is the sky

That the sky looks up to

For what exists above?

Isn't it the sky?

So what can be concluded?

Even if it is the sky

Only sky exists above

Sky above sky above sky

That is how it is.

I wanted to play around with words that sound the same but have different meaning. I think this poem is inspired by Crazy Mohan's line about meen/mean in Michael Madana Kama Rajan. I wrote 7 lines of this poem in the meeting, the last 3 of which was absolute nonsense. So I removed them and filled it up with other lines later. I referred to the internet to find the set of words that sound the same. Such words are called homophones.

Maybe it is not right to write

Words that mean mean

For it can be seen as a scene

Best avoided to not lose a piece of peace

Best avoided to not find yourself fined

For you might end up feeling the fare is not fair

Similar to the the pain of walking through a pane

Where the rain of glass bring a reign of terror 

Making one to pray to not be a prey

And bear it all with bare guts

Till I wear a "where am I" look

For I can only see a sea of glass pieces

As I peek down from the confusing peak

Turning my face red as I read

All that I write that's not right

I better stop this course in coarse

Everyday, I drive by an open graveyard as I go to and come back from my office. I love graveyards. One of my fondest memories from my school days was walking through a graveyard on my way home. This one is not that memorable but driving through that road in the night always gives me ghostbumps. I once wrote a story about meeting a ghost during a ride back home. I am hoping that would be the climax for my first novel. This small poem is dedicated to the freshy laid road by the graveyard.

The road through the ghost land

Is laid fresh and black

Reflecting darkness of the ghosts around

White lines adorn the road's sides

Reflecting light go keep the ghosts at bay

For reasons beyond my comprehension, I am considered to be a person of immense intelligence by many around me. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I am annoyed by this. Out of this annoyance was born this poem.

I realized suddenly

That I am bright,

Profusely intelligent

As a result I thought

A thought about the moon

I am considered to be so bright

That if I were to say

That the moon

Is made out of butter

And not cheese

Everyone would agree.

They would say

Cheese! Please it's not cheese!

If it were cheese

Moon would be 

The house of mouse

But it's known to all

That no life exists

On the buttery moon.

But I would never say so 

For if I do, people would believe it

Causing confusing

A big problem

For on a sunny day

When it's really hot

They would wait

With buckets in their hands

For the butter to melt

And pour down as ghee

So, I play it down

Stay below the radar

Linger near earth's surface

Avoiding notice of people

To avoid being identified

For my brightness

And my intelligence

Yet not being identified

As unintelligent

Just existing by being invisible.

There is an element of suspense in the next poem and so I have decided to introduct the poem after the poem. In this case, I guess I have turned the introduction into a post-production!

Should I say yes

or just say no?

Too late to ask

I said yes, many years back.

Was it a mistake?

Should I have said no?

Maybe yes but maybe no

Floor 12 could have been worse

Maybe I would have jumped

Instead of wondering if I should 

Stop that cat

Let it not cross my path

But no one did anything

No one was listening

No one could hear me anyway

For I did not say it aloud

It was running in my mind.

That cat is not black

But its white with black

Or maybe black with white

Either way, it's got black

Is any black unlucky 

Or should it be all black?

Should I turn around?

I can't afford bad luck any more

But it just got worse

It's not a cat or a dog

Nor a mouse or a bandicoot

I wish it was a bird

Or a simple earthworm

But it was none of that

It was that wriggly creature

Moving across my path

As a sequence of S's

No wonder they are named ssssssnake

This small one wriggled

Right in front

Escaping from the folds of here

To the greens of there

In search of what I know not

But a question rises

Is a snake crossing my path

Considered lucky?

If not, how unlucky is it?

Will I survive the day?

Will I survive the humans?

Will I be able to write this?

Will I be able to publish?

All question and unsurety

On this day, this morning

When a small snake 

Crossed my path

Most unexpectedly

I go for a walk around my complex everyday. At two places, the path lies between the entry/exit of the basement car park on one side and plants on the other side. I always walk through that path nervously, wondering what I should do if a snake appears in my path. One morning, that snake appeared a couple of feet ahead of me. But before I could jump out of my skin the snake slid away into the bushes to my right. I can't help but mention here that it is the snake that usually jumps out of its skin and yet in this case I jumped out of my skin or didn't. Anyway, the snake crossing my path made me wonder if this too is considered to be unlucky like a black cat crossing my path. I mean, I don't care but I wonder still.