When a snake converses with an eagle...

As I walked back from the dining hall, the song "Paramasivan Kazhuthil irunthu" played in my head. I am not a fan of old Tamil songs. I attribute this dislike to T.M.Soundarajan whose voice I dislike; this song and a few others are exceptions. The reason for my liking this song seems to be Kannadasan's lines. Kannadasan is a tremendous poet and his words tend to break through my dislike for TMS. In this mentioned song, I simply love his reference to the snake circled around Siva's neck conversing with Vishnu's vehicle Garuda. I love the line "athil artham ulladu" which means  "there is a meaning in what was said". As is usually the case when translating Indian words, like dharma, artham probably has more to it than the meaning.

I hummed the song in my head as I walked up the ramp to the art block. As I turned onto the veranda outside art room I saw a crowd standing around the jack fruit tree. I approached the 17 year old who is considered an expert in insects and reptiles and asked him the reason for the crowding. He said a few people had seen a snake near the tree. I asked him if it was poisonous. He said he did not know for he had not seen the snake himself. I became a part of the crowd for a few minutes. He looked towards me and said "there is no point waiting here. The snake is too scared to come out. Besides it would have settled down comfortably in some nook and has no reason to come out." I believed the guy for he knew more about reptiles than humans. I walked away. Later that evening, I asked him if he had seen the snake. He said "Yes! Its was a harmless bronzeback."

I don't think I will ever forget this boy. I find his passion for reptiles and insects unique. He and a few of his friends can be seen looking underneath stones and rocks in the campus in search of reptiles. When one sees him running through the campus, one can be sure that a reptile has been spotted in the campus. I hear the phrase "in him, snakes have a knowledgeable teen-aged individual" when I think of him.

Across worlds

I am not sure where I am. Everything around seems familiar and yet I am unable to identify my location. I think I know what is happening but I am not sure. As is usually the case, I have very little control of the events taking place but somehow it seems the events are beyond my control. Just the previous day, my spectacles frame decided to break without any warning. One of the screws decided to disappear without trace and I ended with two pieces of the frame and a missing screw. The situation landed in my life out of nowhere and I looked up at the residence of Gods and poured out my feelings as abuses. But I could find a resolution for the situation quickly. But this is different  for I am unable to resolve anything and somehow my life seems to be in a spiral. Suddenly I am surrounded by darkness and the I hear the sound of the rain outside. I realize that I was dreaming; a dream that I no longer remember but something that was not pleasant and yet not unpleasant. 

I realized at that moment, that during the dream I was awake in another world and as soon as I woke up I came back to the real world. I did not hear the rainfall in my dream. I woke up suddenly and almost instantly I heard it. It was disorienting and shocking.

A teacher's tale

I have come to realise that the teaching community thinks of itself as a large family. For the past two years every time a teacher gets to know that I teach in a school their respective faces brighten and they say with a bright sparkle in their eyes "oh! I am a teacher too". Two years back I did not know what to do with this information and ended up exclaiming with a sheepish expression "Oh! Ah! How interesting!" Now I have a better response for this situation. Depending on the gender and age of the teacher I look at him/her as a brother or sister or uncle or aunt. I let the feeling of the warmth of the new found relationship run through me prior to asking something about them. I usually end up asking them about the school in which and the subjects they teach or taught. At times, the responses contain teaching experiences and anecdotes. This evening I ran into one such experience.

We walked into someone's house and the someone welcomed us by saying loudly (not to be misunderstood with shouting) "I hope you did not visit that house". We were taken aback and did not respond. He changed the statement to a question "did you visit that house?" One of us responded tentatively "we did". He moved his head back a bit, covered his forehead with his palm and said dramatically "why did you go now? Did you not know that there is a death in the family? I mentioned the news to you this morning and yet you did not realise. I only got to know later that you planned to visit this afternoon. I tried calling your mobile a number of times but your phones were not reachable". We could say nothing more than "oh!". He continued ranting "now I don't have a choice but to keep away from him for the next few days". 

Soon, the mood of despair changed and the topics of discussion became agreeable. He started discussing about the dramatic events preceding the aforementioned death "though she was in the hospital she was conscious and interacted with others. As a matter of fact we were chatting with her on Whatsapp when she suddenly stopped responding to our queries. We saw that she was online and yet did not respond to our chat. Five minutes later we got a message on the chat which said that she was no more. She died while chatting with us." We looked at him aghast. He shrugged his shoulder and moved on to other family topics.

A little later, the man's brother walked in and sat on the chair besides mine. As is usually the case, he asked me what I did. On hearing my response, he beamed and said "I too am a teacher".  I looked at him closely and realized that he did look like a teacher. Over time I have realized that in such situations the appropriate question to ask is "what do you teach?" but I was not interested in the "what" question and so I asked "where do you teach?" I had expected him to name one of the Government schools in Kerala and I was readying myself to ask the next question "where would that be?" But his response took me by surprise. "I have taught in many places but I retired as the principal of a school in Brunei". My brain froze. All systems in my body looked at each other in confusion. They did not know what to do next. My heart took the lead and gently nudged my brain back to normalcy. I was trying to digest the name Brunei. When a Malayalee utters Brunei, it can only refer to one place. At many times in my growing up years I had heard Brunei being uttered in my family with utmost respect. I had even met a family who had lived in that place for many years. This person sitting besides me did not seem anything like them. Thus my surprise forced me to utter "In Brunei!" The man responded "For fifteen years". I could not contain my curiosity and asked him to tell me about his teaching journey. 

"I worked for a few years nearby for a few months when I got an opportunity to teach in Kenya. I grabbed it and accepted the offer. I taught in  a few Kenyan schools for nearly six years. At that time, South Africa was moving away from the apartheid policy and many Indians teaching in the African continent considered it as a land of opportunities. So I moved to South Africa when I got an offer and started teaching there. Within a few years I got an opportunity to teach at Brunei. Brunei seemed like a land of milk and honey and I moved to there, quite unnecessarily. I had a good career at Brunei monetarily and professionally. As I mentioned earlier, in the fifteen years I spent at Brunei, I became the principal of the school. But I should not have left South Africa.

At around the time I left, the South African government wanted the teachers from outside the country to leave. They did not want to pay the outsiders and thought that the opportunity should be provided to the locals. The teachers went to the court and filed a case against the government demanding a severance package for the separation. The teachers won the case and the government was asked to provide the appropriate severance package. When the government calculated the package, it turned out to be a significant amount. The government, quite rightly, thought it foolish to pay the existing teachers and to spend money additional budget on the new teachers. So they backed out and let the existing teachers, many of them Indians, continue. 

So my colleagues continued residing in South Africa. They became permanent residents and bought properties in good neighbourhoods; properties that the whites leaving the country were selling. Over time, the value of the properties rose. When they retired they sold these properties for a healthy value and returned to India with a more than healthy bank balance. As they were working in Government schools in South Africa, they receive a good sum as pension every month. In most cases, both husband and wife worked as teachers and together they receive nearly Rs. 80,000 every month, which is more than comfortable to live in Kerala. Also they have the big balance to live in luxury.

It is not like I am terribly unhappy or I had a bad career but the decision to move to Brunei was unnecessary."

Everyday journey challenges

The Flaming Lips are not an easy listen. The music can be cacophonous and the singer loves to sing or can only sing off key. But I find the songs catchy. How can one not love songs with words like "this here giraffe, laughed". There's also a terrifying version of the song "What a wonderful world!". Ardent lovers of the original by Louis Armstrong would definitely hate The Flaming Lips for having sung the song thus. The out of tune singing and feedback drenched music makes it an ideal end-of-the-world song. The past week, I decided to play the entire Flaming Lips discography during my ride to and from work.

The winding roads were not tough to maneuver but the cows residing on the roads made the drive challenging. I had driven over mud roads earlier but not over such maad roads. The cows did not care about the traffic. They lay on the left and right side and the centre of the road chewing their cud. As the vehicles approached them, they looked at the vehicles with disinterest and continued chewing. Many times, I tried to decipher their thoughts but they maintained a blank expression. I am sure the Zen monks can learn a trick or two from them. Usually the cows left just enough space for a car to squeeze through them. But they ensured the vehicle had to swerve to the left or right once they get through the gaps. The bigger vehicles did not have this choice. They stopped and honked but the cows were not affected. The driver honked some more. They slowly pushed up their hind legs and remained in the resulting right angle triangle pose for a few minutes. The driver, by now, was desperate and honked with all his energy. The cows pushed up their front legs and stood looking like a chewing rectangle. By now, the driver was hurling abuses about the cow's parents. The cows' love for their parents usually resulted in their moving away from the path of the vehicle. 

At many points during this journey, the dogs take objection to my car and chase it while barking. I have been tempted, sometimes, to stop the car and ask them "why?" but was not sure if I would understand their response and hence usually drive away annoyed. Once I saw a lone boy walking along the side of the door swinging his badge above his head. He soon started skipping along the road twirling his badge above his head. I couldn't help but wonder at his joy this early in morning as he walked alone to his school. The road winded towards the red coloured buildings of the law college beyond which lay the forest. By forest, I don't mean the thick wooded evergreen tropical forest kind of forest but the sparsely populated scrub jungle. I have heard that the forest is home for a few animals.  Not the tiger and lion kind of animals but the deer and mongoose kind of animals. Once i had seen seen a mongoose standing on its hind legs in the centre of the road and look into the horizon at the approaching vehicle; the car I was driving. As the car got closer it probably realized that it was a car, which could squash it and ran away. One morning when the music was not blaring out of the stereo and the window panes were down I heard the songs of many birds emanating from the trees. I decided to drive with no music since then but have forgotten about it since. I am sure I will not remember it the next time I drive through that stretch of the road.

The road curves to the right and the forest lands on either side give way to the bund of a big lake on the left and a smaller lake on the right. I remember hearing that the road did not exist eighty years back and the area was a large lake. As in other places, humanity decided to disturb the lake by constructing a road through it. I marveled at the foresight of the set of people eighty years ago who decided to construct this road for my convenience. I did not thank them for I believed it was their destiny to do so. A garbage dump existed on the right; between the bund and road. On most days, foul smell did not emanate from the dump but recently bulldozers started clearing the garbage and the stink from the decomposing waste that lay underneath the fresh waste became unbearable. Actually, nearly unbearable for I did not raise the windows as I passed it; I held my breath for a few seconds instead. The clearing was not done properly and the road by the dump was littered with garbage. I understand the reason for humans not treating garbage with respect but not the way the place with the garbage is treated. I don't think we truly respect anyone or anything.

The road became messy within a few hundred metres. A few months back the potholes lay beyond a speed breaker but now there were a few prior to it too. I changed to the second gear and swerved the steering this way and that to avoid the potholes. It was a futile effort but I indulged in it every time I passed the stretch. No part of the road existed without potholes and at all times at least one of the wheel found itself within a pothole. Many college and school buses plied on this stretch of the road and a few of the driver were impatient oafs. They got their large buses right behind the car and honked vigourously. Sometimes the oafs yanked their large vehicles to the right and overtook me. Usually I ignored them and focused my attention on the potholes. But a few day existed where this behaviour annoyed me enough to mouth words that I should not.

Soon I reached a location that presented the most challenging situation in my life. I am not sure if I will ever resolve this challenge. I wish I had a Parthasarathi who would help me differentiate the right from the wrong of this situation.

Beyond the bad stretch of the road, I had to take a right from a four road junction to reach my destination . Near the middle of the junction stands a tall lamp post. It is not at exactly at the centre of the road but is slightly to the right of the road. The police have placed a barricade from the post to the centre of the road. The reason for the existence of this barricade is not clear. In India, we are supposed to keep to the left of the road. But at the intersection none of the vehicles taking the right keep to the left. Instead they go as the water would flow. I hate doing that. I cross the lamp post and take the right turn keeping the post on my right, that is, on the left side of the road. This confuses everyone at the junction. The person coming from the opposite side thinks that I am going straight as I did not turn prior to the lamp post and so does not slow down. The person coming from the road on the right side taking a right does not expect me to come onto his path and so does not slow down. The person behind me does not expect me to take a right as I have crossed the post without taking a right and so does not slow down. The person coming from my left going straight and the person coming from the opposite side taking left down do not slow down anyway as they want to get ahead of me. All these persons, ignore the fact that the right indicator on my car is blinking. Usually I let everyone pass and then take the right. But I wonder if I should do what others are doing and not do what I think is right. How can I be sure I am right? Parathasaratheeee! Where are you when I need you?

Aravindante Athidhikal

Though the movie "Aravindante Athithikal" begins in sadness, it proceeds to humourous terrain quickly. Srinivasan, Vineeth Srinivasan, Aju Varghese, Urvashi, Premkumar and others make the middle portion of the movie funny. But the last half  an hour turned out to be a bore. I did not feel good about the feel good ending. Through the movie, the ending was hinted by many characters and I watched in dread as the movie went through the expected zones of twists and unsurprising surprises. The two high points in the movie are 

1. The song "Rasathi": I love this song and the way it is taken. I like Vineeth Srinivasan's singing in this song as in many other.

2. The "24 hour running hot water" sequence. I am not sure if this scene has already appeared in another movie but I found the interpretation of the phrase "24 hour running hot water" funny. I will watch the movie again just for the sequence.

Ēkaṭi rēla yātrā

Though I had slept late the previous night, I woke up earlier than I wanted to. Fortunately, it was later than my usual wake up time. I decided to get up and take care of the morning duties. The Indian style toilet resembled the Indian roads during monsoon. So I had no choice but to use the western style toilet. I stepped in with the mantra that I have repeatedly evoked while facing disgusting situations -  "disgust is nothing but a feeling". Composting has helped me assimilate this mantra by making me understand that the disgusting and smelly decomposing vegetables ultimately turn into beautiful manure. I walked into the toilet and did the job I had to do. There was the minor complexity of the mug being fixed to the wall using a small chain on my left hand side but I believe I handled the situation dexterously.

On getting back to my seat I realized everyone was asleep still. I went up to my berth and went back to sleep. I woke up when a fellow passenger's phone rang. From the previous night's events I had realised that the fellow was quite a fellow and he lived up to being a fellow by attending the call on the speaker. A young voice asked him what he was doing. The voice sounded shocked when he said that he was sleeping. She exclaimed "but it's 10 o clock".  He responded with a nonchalant "yes, we slept late last night". Now it was my turn to be shocked. I looked at my watch and found that the time was 9:05 am.

I find it interesting that I write these words about the fellow sitting right next to him. 

In a few minutes, every one got up and the middle berths came down. Everyone sat down and started staring and meddling with their mobiles. I took out my headphones and started listening to songs as I looked through my Facebook wall. Ian Gillian was struggling to sing "Black Knight" to a bunch of screaming audience. I started watching the aisle at intervals for breakfast. The choice for breakfast was limited - bread omelette, bread cutlet and upma-vada. The pantry car was manned by people from the north of the country, who found it difficult to pronounce upma and vada let alone make it. Bread and cutlet seemed an awful combination. Years of eating cutlet has helped me realize that the quality of a cutlet can either be good or bad and in most cases it is bad. So I waited for "braidomlate" to arrive.

Opeth's Blackwater park came on and suddenly and quite unexpectedly a feeling of bliss came over me. It was raining outside and most lights within the compartment were off. Water droplets ran down the window drawing zigzag lines; fortunately on the outside. The bleakness of the song matched the bleakness around. I decided to listen to the whole album. As the songs came on, a chaiwallah came by. The co-passenger ordered for "two teas". When he received the cups, he looked at it with disdain. He asked the chaiwallah "why only half a cup? Why don't you fill it up?" He did not get a response. He gave back one of the cups and said "this is too little; fill it up". I too got a cup of tea. As I sipped the tea, I realized that it was not tea but masala chai. As is usually the case, the masala chai tasted like everything other than tea. But I was happy to let the warm liquid travel to my gut. 

Finally, the food I was looking for arrived. My travels over the past few months have made me realize that bread-omelette is served differently in different trains. In one case, it contained two slices of bread and an omelette. During the onward journey, I was surprised to find three pieces of oily potato fries and a seven small green balls that looked like peas. On that occasion I had stuffed the omelet, potato and peas within the slices of bread and chomped them. This time they had thrown in a small pack of butter to the contents mentioned earlier. I looked at the butter pack suspiciously. It carried the name of a popular brand on it but the package looked suspiciously thin. It opened easily and I spread the butter on one of the slices. The butter looked surprisingly genuine. Asian paints could have used the yellow of the butter to represent "mera wallah yellow". I tasted the butter; it tastes genuine. I reached the conclusion that the butter was fake. The other items were not branded. Here I forget the packet of ketchup which is also usually provided too. I have never understood the Indians obsession with ketchup. We like to immerse everything in ketchup. Omlette - ketchup, bread - ketchup, Hakka noodles - ketchup, puffs - ketchup, pasta - ketchup, samosa - ketchup. Personally I can never forgive people for murdering the samosa in ketchup.

I placed the omelette on the slice of bread with butter spread over it. I placed sad pieces of potato and peas over the omlette and enclosed the mess with the remaining slice of bread. I bit a corner of the gruesome sandwich and enjoyed the different flavours running around my mouth. At that moment it did not matter to me that most of the ingredients could be adulterated or fake. I think we have to accept that human beings have moved to the next phase of evolution. We have now the ability to live on absolute crap. We eat crap, breathe crap and drink crap. This does not bother us for we can exercise and pop some pills into our mouths.

The man besides me asked a lady co-passenger "are you a Nepali?" She looked at him for a moment without answering. The man persisted. "Where are you from?" She hesitated for a moment before answering "from Jharkhand". The man seemed perplexed as he said "from Jharkhand!". By now, another lady co-passenger started sharing family gossip with someone over the phone. Her husband listened intently and occasionally provided information that she had missed. From time to time she said "we are Brahmans" or "at least the boy was a Brahman". The curious man's wife observed the conversation keenly and when her husband asked if she wanted fish for lunch, she refused by saying "I will not have fish in front of them. Did you not hear her speak?" She had eggs for lunch and complained to her husband about its tastelessness later.

The train's running late by three hours and it is refusing the make up the delay. The 27 hour journey promises to extend by another 4 hours. 

A rainy day

As the bus passed the group of shops a small board caught his attention. It announced "Best clinic wanted doctor". For a moment, he wondered if the best clinic had found the wanted doctor and the reason the doctor wanted for. The clinic did not seem much like a clinic and to top it it did not have a doctor; that too in the past tense. So how was it considered a best clinic? He let the silliness of the moment pass. He heard the little girl in pink call his name. He looked around and found her smiling at him. She pointed at her friend and said "In the mornings, I sleep on her lap and in the afternoons she sleeps on my lap". He smiled and said "That's nice! There is no better place to rest your head than on a friend's lap." The little one changed the topic abruptly by saying "Look! Her bag's pink and so is mine." She and her friend spent the next few minutes identifying every pink object near them. He listened to them with a smile on his lips and provided the concluding remark "So much pink! I think we should call this bus 'the pink bus'". The two of them giggled with happiness and repeated "pink bus" a number of times. He smiled and looked out of the window at the wet landscape crawling past.

That afternoon, he sat in a corner of the classroom and looked at the centre of the campus through the windows. The centre being the centre was the lowest point of the campus and hence rain water from different parts of the campus congregated there. Two sequences of stones, each perpendicular to the other peeped out of the water. These small islands provided limited amount of safety from water for the human feet and the slippers that adorned them. The children had been warned of the ill effects of rain. They were reminded to wear rain gears and to keep themselves off the outside. But as researchers have found some of the children possess a complementary circuit between their ears. So they indulged in the exact opposite. 

A set of seven years old walked up through the water before turning around and walking right back. They turned right, walked a bit, turned around and came back. They, then turned left, walked a few steps, turned around and came back. They continued such maneuvers for many minutes. At all times, they took care to keep their feet submerged in water and when they took a foot off the water, they ensured if re-entered the water with some force. They squealed and screamed as the water splashed about. The rain fell on their heads at a steady drizzle. A girl, unlike the boys, used the stones to walk across the stones. She took care that that the water did not wet her red shoes. When she reached the last stone she stopped and looked at the water-less ground for a moment. The ground was just out of reach for her. She took the longest stride she could but could not cross the water. Her red shoes landed on the water with a sploch. She waved her right hand in annoyance and walked looking at her wet red shoes.

An adult followed the girl. She walked briskly from stone to stone with an umbrella held above her head. When she reached the centre of the path, she paused abruptly and as a result nearly lost her balance. She turned unsteadily and decided to use the path perpendicular to her initial path. The stones of this path were placed at some distance from the stone on which she was standing. She stretched her right leg and managed to land her foot on one of the stones. Almost instantly she lifted her left leg off the stone and placed it on the stone ahead of the stone on which her right left was placed. She had changed her direction of motion successfully in a matter of two seconds. 

The boys continued playing in the water unaware of the complex maneuver attempted by the children and adults walking on the stone.

Dining hall dreams

"Today being last working day of the term we will have vada for breakfast and gulab Jamun during lunch".

An excited buzz passed through the crowd. The people on the periphery listened to and watched the crowd with smiles across their lips. The announced had to shout a few demands for silence before the crowd quietened down. Their voices went silent but their minds chatted quietly through eyes and smiles. It was not the vada that generated the excitement. Obviously! 

As they walked into the dining hall they were to shocked to find that the breakfast consisted only of vadas, They loved vadas but only when it was placed besides idly or pongal. Vada by itself did not seem like a breakfast. They stared at the plates consisting of three vadas being threatened by a growing pool of chutney. One of them said wryly "Whadda breakfast!" A little later, another voice raised a query tentatively "If breakfast consist only of vada, will the lunch only consist of gulab jamuns". The surrounding faces lighted up for a moment.

Am I old? Yes you are

A link to a news in Tamil appeared on the college mates Whatsapp group. The headlines said "Old woman dies in elephant attack". The Tamil word used for the old woman was moothatti. Underneath the news link, the sender had written "did you notice the moothatti's age? It is about time for you fellows to act your age". I opened the link and found that the moothatti was an year older than me. Though I proclaim valiantly to many that I am old, the reference to people of this age group as moothatti seems ridiculous. We have not touched half century yet. 

Change in identtity

He realized that he and I shared a common mother tongue. Every time, he saw me he called out to me regardless of the distance that separated us with his loud voice asking for my health in our mother tongue. I, in an attempt to hide my embarrassment, responded back to him in a equally loud voice. The people around looked from side to side at the two of us in amusement. This continued for an year. During the course of the year, a few of his friends, who did not share our mother tongue, also started asking for my health in my mother tongue. As embarrassing as the situation was, it was also sweet and I quite liked the attention. So I let it be.

I did not see him during the two months of vacation. I greeted him from some distance on the day he returned from vacation but he did not respond. He looked through me and walked away. This happened two more times. I did not bother to find the reason for this change in attitude. One day, I found him sitting with his friend. The friend asked something and I responded. He looked up at me shocked and said "oh! It's you. I thought you had left during the vacation. You have shaved your beard and I am unable to identify you".

He does not greet me anymore. The loss of my beard seems to have changed something within him. To his young eyes, I am no longer the person I was.

It is better for me to be me!

I wish I cared about things. I do care but unfortunately not consistently and definitely not long enough. By things, I don't mean people, I mean things. Damn! This morning my ability to say anything with clarity seems to be marred by the usage of the word things. Let me try once again - By things, I mean issues. By issues, I mean

"Save the World"

"Vote for the Walruses"

"Stop obliteration of our Ozone"

"Don't mar Mars with human exploitation"

"Treat Trees tremendously"

"Antarctica is for Penguins"

"My language is the mega language among all languages"

"Don't impose your language on my beautiful language"

"For creatures walking on four legs"

"To eat a fin is a sin"

"Let us not choke the world in smoke"

"Cows can camp in the centre of any road"
"Let's wow the whales"

So many movements! Millions passionate souls display their uncontrollable passion in these movements. Yet none of them interest me. I look at them with disinterested half closed eyes, make a sound that sounds like "Gnaaah" and move on. I am very disturbed that I am not interested in any of these. What disappoints me is that I am not even interested in declaring myself to be a staunch supporter of any of these issue even if I don't care about it.

For example, why can't I declare that I am a staunch supporter of secularism. I could throw some acidic statements at people who claim that something written in 20000 BC in India talked about Black holes and the General Theory of Relativity. That would be fun. But I am not even intelligent enough to hate our current Prime minister and his party. While I am surrounded by people who have no hesitation in shouting out from either sides of a microphone about the unfairness meted out by Indians (which probably includes them) on Kashmir and its people, I listen to them with disinterest. Sadly, I don't fit into the other end of the spectrum either. I am not a staunch right wing religious fanatic either. Actually, I am not even religious. I almost follow nothing that any religion recommends. I have no qualms about doing things that the religions prohibit. I make promises to God but do not keep them and when it seems that the respective God is punishing me for not having kept my promise, I look towards the sky and throw abuses at him/her. That said, I am not an atheist or satanist either. I don't go around the world announcing "God is phony". I actually love visiting temples - not all them but certain temples. So I don't fit there either.

Thus I feel I am a misfit in this society. Anytime I find myself stuck in the company of people who are passionate about some cause or the other I look at them in wonder and say "Why can't I be like him or her!" But as the discussion proceeds I invariably end up feeling "Why can't they be like me!"

Many years ago, I was having a dining table discussion with a person whom I considered a friend for three months. He thought he was expounding the value of vegetarianism. In reality he was busy abusing non-vegetarianism by talking for many minutes about the cruelty of being a non-vegetarian. I had no intention of becoming a vegetarian for I loved meat. I also loathed the saintliness projected by some of the vegetarians. This temporary friend was one of finest specimen belonging to this category. I humoured him for sometime by letting him recount the goodness of being a vegetarian before letting him know "I do not kill animals and I only eat animals that are dead. I give meaning for their death for they would continue to live through me". As stupid as that argument sounds, it was sufficient to quieten his vegetarian frenzy.

With the advent of vegans, vegetarians got a taste of how non-vegetarians felt when they preached about the cruelty of being a non-vegetarian. The vegans made the world believe that milking the cow is as cruel as killing it for through milking you are affecting the cow and its calf too. So consuming curd or paneer is as cruel as consuming meat. Ha ha ha!

Even now I feel amused when I remember that fellow who tried to convert me to a vegan! Ironically, he did not last being a vegan himself for much longer for within a few months he degraded his status by mixing ladles of curd with rice.

All this took place prior to 2014 when the party ruling the country decided to save the cows for they considered the cows to be more sacred than Gods themselves. At many places consuming meat in public was considered suicidal. It went to the extent that one had to be careful not to lick one's lips while uttering the word cow. Thus the life of the beef-lover became miserable. I was thrilled for I only had to consume beef to feel like a revolutionary. For the first time in my life I had an opportunity to be an anti-establishment person. All I had to do was walk into a thattukada and order "porottayum beef fryum" and imagine being surrounded by millions waving red flags while bellowing "inquilab zindabad". Che Guevara and Karl Marx showered flowers on me from their respective heavens.

The world is a funny place. In a matter of decades, vegetarianism and veganism has moved from being benevolent to being oppressive. Many are now trying to convince the world that beef eating represents the culture of real India for the tribes have always consumed beef. We are told that they have been oppressed by the powerful vegetarians. You cannot wave the flag of vegetarianism proudly and you better not preach its benefits to all and sundry for you will then be considered an oppressor. As Bob Dylan has prophesied in 1964.

For the loser now

Will be later to win

For the times they are a-changin'

Such is the whimsical nature of the world as far as passions and their related movements are concerned. So how can I even act passionate about an issue I don't really care when I would be considered an idiot for having supported a trivial or harmful issue within a few years? Should I not be thankful for being a cynic and look at the noise makers with benign tolerance as they scream throats out believing they are saving the world?

Pat,pat,pat....
Tchh, tchhh, tchhh,...

Little talks

As the teacher walked in, the little girl in pink ran to him and said loudly "She fell because of him" pointing at her friend . "What did he do?" asked the teacher. "He blew the whistle so loud that she fell." came the reply. The teacher was perplexed and asked "Which whistle?". The girl pointed to the whistle attached to her pink umbrella and said "He wanted to see it. So I gave it to him. He took  it and blew the whistle very loud and she fell." Oh!" said the teacher "your umbrella come with a whistle. How interesting!" The girl proudly held up her umbrella and said "Yes! My father bought it. I love it." "It is a pretty umbrella" said the teacher. The girl who had fallen spoke "I have an umbrella from Canada". "Oh! From Canada is it?" asked the teacher. "Yes! My father bought it from Canada. It is a red and white umbrella." The teacher tilted his head, thought for a moment and asked "Is it red and white or white and red?" The girl responded confidently "it is red and white umbrella. It has red leaves on white." "You mean red leaves on white mean it is a red and white umbrella is it?" asked the teacher. The girl in pink interjected "Yes! Red leaves on white means it is red and white".

The girl who had fallen changed the topic by asking "Do you know I have a little brother?" The teacher responded "Yes, I do. You told me last week." She continued "he's so small. He's tiny."  "This tiny?" asked the teacher. The child did not agree for the teacher's tiny was too tiny. "This tiny. He is four months old. In two months he will be six months old" she said. The girl in pink butted in with "I have a six month old baby brother. He was sleeping on the cot the other the other day. He kept rolling around the bed and fell out of the cot. So my mother placed a smaller cot besides the cot on which he was sleeping but he fell from the cot on to the smaller cot and cried." The other girl cut in and said "my baby brother does not let me sleep. He jumps on me and tries to open my eyes. I slept late that night and was sleepy the next morning at school". The girl in pink walked away. The other girl continued "You know my baby brother has been named". The teacher asked with interest "What's his name?" The girl responded "I don't know". She noticed the disappointment on the teacher's face and tried to assuage him by saying "You can ask his name to my mother when he is ten months old. But you will have to come home to ask her." The teacher nodded in agreement.

******************

The teacher was talking in Hindi with the art teacher when the girl in pink walked by. On hearing him talk in Hindi she turned around and asked "Aap hindi mein baath karte ho?" He responded "han baath kartha hoon!" She said "Mein bee ghar mein hindi mein baath karthe hoon" and walked away.

******************

The children came running to him. One of the girls held something in her hand. As they came closer he realized it was some kind of snack. The girl handed him a cracker with vegetables and cheese stacked on top and said "We made it! We made it! Have this canopy and tell us if you like it." He looked at it joyfully and said "It looks inviting. I will eat it in one month". The children squealed in anticipation. He opened his mouth wide and pushed the loaded cracker into his month and started chomping it. The children clapped their hands and squealed in happiness.  

This isn't ridiculous!

As is usually the case, I slid to the status screen of WhatsApp. I saw two messages from a stranger who had crossed my path at a miserable phase of my life. It seemed I did not wish to remember them and so I have forgotten about them. But the contacts application in my mobile phone has a mind of its own and so continues to remember them. Status message containing sayings and quotes are usually puke worthy but I like to test the strength of my mind and stomach by reading each of them. I am glad to observe that even the worst of these messages have not affected my insides. So I continue to read them and end up with the feeling of a finger poking down my throat. 

These messages were different. They were like a pendulum that swayed from puke worthy to ridiculous through profoundness. I have not been able to decipher the category to which they belong but record it here to ensure they are not lost in the eternity of time.

A racoon crooning in at a coroner's office sounds cryptic for a circumspect mind - Dr. Tacor Oner

If ducks could run, they would have run and that would have been unfortunate for the ducks. You know what I mean - Anonymous

I love watching T R Ramachandran movies. In one of the movies, he finds a baby in the back seat of his car and says "Adada baby!" in the most endearing manner. His ability to appear foolish on screen has not been surpassed by any. Recently, I saw his 1941 movie "Sabapathy". He was brilliantly funny in the movie. His essay about a train journey, written in Tamil, left me in splits. Ironically, the funniest episode of the movie was the result of a literal translation in the subtitle. This occurred when one of the characters mentions

"siru villayattu Pillainu ninaikatheppa"

Promptly the following subtitle appeared underneath.

"don't think I am a small playboy"

Wierd beard

She looked high and low 

But did not find him

So she decided

To look low and high

And yet she could not find him

So she left it all

She gave it all up

For she decided

To go up the mountains

In search of a long and dark cave

She found such a cave

With an underground stream

Which helped her decide

To spend her life in penance

As she went in search of herself

At the moment, he appeared

With a beard long enough

To touch her heart

But she was long gone

From the spot where he appeared

And so they remain still

Separated by miles 

Though their thoughts match

They are not destined to meet

As she no longer searches for him

Aim, focus and direction

As he walked into the toilet, he saw the small twelve year old with a big mouth walk out. He smiled at he boy and said "You spend a lot of time in the toilet". The boy responded with an amused "so do you!" He smiled at the boy and walked to a urinal. He was shocked to find the boy turn back into the toilet and walk towards another urinal. Based on his previous interactions with the boy he decided not to question the boy further. But the boy was in a chatty mood. He said "I have a question". The boy kept one of his hand on his hip and asked "How can you keep both your hands on your hips like this and use the urinal properly?" For a moment he was at loss for words. He thought and gave the boy a few words that could prove useful both inside and outside the urinal.

"You should have aim, focus and direction."

As he walked out of the toilet a colleague waved him down. As she walked up to him, he noticed the agitation in her step. As expected, she delivered an unpleasant news without missing any piece of the gory details. He listened to her rants with his right hand on his chin. At the end of her monologue, he gave  her a noncommittal "I will take care of it" and walked away. Within a few step, a set of girls surrounded him and gave a different version of the unpleasant news. Actually, it was not different version but a small part of the unpleasant event, like the part where Bheema met Hanuman in Mahabaratha. Once again he responded noncommittally. Within a few paces, a group of boys surrounded him. These fellows had an entirely a different version of the news. They were the purported creators of the unpleasantness and their view of the events were different from what he had heard earlier. He was reminded of the stories of parallel universe that the scientific philosophers loved to talk and write about, He responded with a grim "I will talk to you fellows later" and walked on. But one of the boy did not allow him to go far. The boy blocked his way and started providing proofs of innocence for an unpleasant event that had not reached his ears yet. He waved him away and walked on. 

At the lunch table, he met a boy whose teeth were in constant danger of being broken thanks to the annoying smirk on his lips. As is usually the case, the boy was at a table that was not assigned to him. He snarled and barked at the boy. I am unable to hide my appreciation for the quality of his bark and snarl. I am sure he could teach German Shepherds and Rottweilers a thing or two about snarling and barking. The boy jumped up and cried out for justice as Louis XVI had done in front of the guillotine a few centuries earlier. As in the case of Louis XVI, he only received a "GRRRRRR!" and "WOOF! WOOF!" in response. The boy walked away shaking his head. He sat on the table and was about to place a handful of food into his hungry mouth when a colleague walked in with a "I have to tell you something about what happened a few minutes back when I was dealing with that set of boys who did not act in a proper manner and caused a lot of issues for others and in the process delayed our work and caused us a lot of problems, which resulted in our work being unsatisfactory and also in delays, which could have been avoided if the fellows had not caused the trouble which resulted in a lot of avoidable problems..." He put up his hand and at first said "GRRRRR! WOOF! WOOF!" and followed it with another "GRRRRRRR! WOOF! GRRRRRRR! WOOF!" She took heed of the words uttered by hi, and said "OK! You finish your lunch. I will talk to you later."

He looked at the food in his hand and said "I should have aim, focus and direction."

Stormbringer

They convinced him that the view from the thirteenth floor would be spectacular. They coaxed him to pay extra for the sea view. They were not lying for a line of blue was visible close to the horizon and on a clear day the thought the sea existing at a visible distance brought peace to his mind, which loved to be in turmoil at most times. The view, as they had said, was spectacular but not on this day. This day the sea was in turmoil and it exchanged angry words with the air above. They whooshed and swooshed at each other and wooooo of their exchange sounded eerie. The thirteenth floor seemed lonely and naked. At some point, the wind, as is usually the case, got emotional and started weeping. Anger merged with sadness resulting in tears. A blanket of wetness covered the earth. As droplets of water settled on the glass door, his view was obstructed. He opened the door and walked outside. He let the door remain open. The ever curious droplets entered the house and started running everywhere touching everything on its way. 

He stared at the wildly swinging trees below. They seemed to hypnotize him for he too started rocking back and forth to the beat of the swinging trees. His mind started wandering and he felt a slight breeze blowing at the back of his mind. He heard Perfect Circle's "Freedom of choice" in his mind.

Freedom of choice

Is what you got

Freedom of choice!

He preferred Perfect Circle's version of the song than the version by FuManchu or the original by Devo. The pleasantness of Maynard Keenan's voice did not hide the pain, anger and sadness. He wanted to go back and listen to the song but the swinging trees captivated him. He could not move and so he did not move. The breeze inside his head strengthened steadily. The song had not sneaked into his head out of nowhere. The seeds of the song were planted during the annoying two hour long meeting at his work. A circle of people talked about "Freedom". He did not take part in the discussion - neither did he talk nor did he listen. He heard voices and words but he did not have faith in most of them as he believed his colleagues had more regard for words and diction than their inherent meanings and actions. To make matters worse, they were discussing about the abstract and non-existent concept called freedom. He had struggled with the concept of freedom for many years. The many combination of beautiful words and sentences by men and women of greatness did not mean much to him. He could not determine freedom's meaning in the absolute sense and hence had thought it pointless to think about it. But the discussion that day brought it back to the fore.

The slight breeze in his mind had strengthened. He could not ignore it anymore. The winds were threatening to rake up a storm, inside and outside. The winds were now strong enough to push him away. He held onto the railing to maintain his balance. His eye hurt due to the impact of the droplets. He closed his eyes and listened to the strength of the wind and water. It cried and howled. Maybe it was trying to tell him something but his mind was busy minding the storm building inside. In the background, he realized that the song hand changed inside his head. John Garcia was chanting "Freedom Run" in an infinite loop. He let the chant continue and his mind latched on to the word "freedom". Words started flowing in. No! That's not right. Words started rushing in; if his mind was not preoccupied he would have been reminded of the song "Rosetta stoned".

Freedom is nothing but a word that like many other words have different meanings for different people at different times. All organisms on this planet is dependent on each other and on the planet itself and thus it is ridiculous to think of physical freedom. Pressure and gravity are the greatest enemies of physical freedom. Unfortunately, our existence depends on these two entities and so we have no choice but to accept our physical bondage. Freedom of the intellect is more complicated. Humans really do not understand what constitutes intellect and thus it is ridiculous to talk about it and its freedom. Ironically, freedom can only exist within the four walls of the intellect. We can think what we want without worrying about right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, black and white and similar opposites. I have the freedom to think what I want. In theory, no one has the power to stop me from thinking about anything. But reality is never so straight. Humans quickly realized the danger posed by the freedom of intellect for they guessed, rightly, that freedom of action would follow and this would result in people doing what they want. To counter this possibility humans created organizations - kingdoms, castes, professions, religions and educational institutions. These organizations are all based on control of thought. We are made to believe that there are good thoughts and actions and bad thoughts and actions. The organizations help us to move away from bad thoughts and actions and in the process make us good. We end up believing that it is a sin to even let certain thoughts enter our heads. We end up controlling our own thoughts and force us to restrict our own freedom.

The winds had pushed him away from the railing. He carefully walked back to the door. He entered the apartment and closed the door. Everything in the room was wet. He looked out and through the wet glass noticed the fallen trees. The winds carried leaves and other debris everywhere. The peace and calmness of the land was lost. The storm continued to rage and it seemed it would never end. The glass on the doors shook vehemently. They seemed to screaming "We can't take this anymore. We will give in for sure. We cannot take care of you any longer". He did not hear the scream. Unlike the storm outside, the storm in his brain had subsided. It had scattered debris across his mind. Old and hidden wounds lay exposed. The storms made his head hurt. He sat on the wet sofa and let the cold and wet seep in through his cold and wet clothes.  He held his aching head in this palms and thought.

When a storm passes through a town it is left in shambles. A brainstorm has a similar effect on our mind.

Missed the bus

His father was surprised to see him stomping back home. He called out to his son "Why have you back?" The boy stared at his father angrily for a moment. He said "Stupid bus! Did not wait for me!" "Were you late?" inquired the father."Yes and the stupid bus did not wait for me." came the annoyed response. The father tried to settle his anger by saying "Hey! Take it easy. You mother will drop." The son's anger did not reduce. He said "Stupid Mom!" The father was perplexed "What! Why do you call her stupid?"

"I will be late to school thanks to her now!"

Toilet haven

The boy's toilet has became a place to get away from classes. The physics teacher felt that the boys requests for toilet breaks are periodic and precise than the emissions of radio waves by distant Pulsars. Maybe some day someone would publish a paper on this possibility. It could result in the most accurate measurement of time. Of course, the boys do not really use these breaks to eject liquid waste from their body. Instead, they spend it on taking the most circuitous route to and from the toilet and to chat with whoever is present in its environs. I think Nature magazine had published in 1992 the results of a study conducted by some prestigious university in the US. According to the study, if water leaves a human body every time the boys request for a toilet break, they would end up looking like a dried raisin within two days. 

The boy's toilet was conveniently located away from the classrooms and provided a safe haven for the children to sit and chat. They sat on the wall outside the toilet and chatted for a few minutes. They had poor impression about their teacher's ability to determine the passage of time. They usually spent more than double the time required to walk from the class to the toilet, process their output and walk back. On getting back their faces donned expression of utmost sincerity as they attempted to convince the teacher that the time they had taken was not a second more than the time required. The teachers usually did not bother to argue and prove that the fellows took more time they required. Calculating time taken for visit to a toilet was never a part of their life's ambitions and their energy to argue on such topics had trained within a year or two of teaching.

That day, the teacher found two ten year old children playing with mud around the toilet area. As he started talking to them a small twelve year old with a big mouth walked by. He threw a "What's up!" to the teacher who looked at him with amusement. He watched the teacher helping the two younger children in cleaning the entrance to the toilet and said with an evil glint in his eyes "I want to show something to you" He finished his job within the toilet, walked out and pointed at a mud ball pasted on the wall above the doorway and said "I don't know who did it!" The teacher looked at him suspiciously. The two young boys said in unison "we know who did it". "Who?" asked the teacher. "We will not say" responded the boys. "Come on!" said the teacher. One of boys decided to give a clue "its someone from class seven." The teacher looked at the older boy suspiciously while persisting with a "Who?" "He" said the two young boys pointing at the older boy who watched the teacher with an evil grin. The teacher "hmmmm"-ed and asked the three of them to get back to the class. 

The elder boy laughed and ran back into the toilet saying "Wait, wait! I have to use the toilet." The teacher felt perplexed and asked "but you just used the toilet". Pat came the reply "I have loose motion." The teacher said with annoyance "Your loose motion is the wrong direction". The boy agreed "Yes! I have loose motion in the front side". The teacher walked away shaking his head.

An incomplete apology

The cyclist was not exactly riding at the left edge of the road. He had left some space for the pedestrians who did not like to use the pavement. He cycled along at a relaxed pace. Right behind him an impatient young fellow, who seemed like a new generation punk was trying to satisfy his "need for speed". As is usually the case he tried to twist and turn their Honda Activas through the traffic. The guy had reached the left edge of the road and was feeling trapped behind the cyclist. He considered applying the brake but it went against his code of conduct on roads. So he twisted some part of his body and the bike changed its direction to the left. He started to overtake the cyclist from the left. As he crossed the cyclist, the cyclist felt an irresistible urge to spit. He, being a sensible person, did not want to spit to the right on to the oncoming vehicles. So he spit to the left. To his utter shock a Honda Activa appeared as soon as the spit left his mouth. He tried to suck his spit back into his mouth but could not do so. So the spit flew and landed on the headlights of the bike. The young punk was shocked and half twisted his body to stare at the cyclist. But he remembered his code of conduct on the road and let the incident pass. He did not stop his vehicle but sped away. The cyclist lifted his hand in apology but he had no one to receive his apology.

Let's talk about the journey

This is what happens when you have 37 km separating you from the railway station. You get into the cab two hours ahead of the train’s departure time and spend the next one hour and forty five minutes wondering if you will make it to the station on time. Google map advised "take the lengthier 45 km route as it will get you to the station in one hour and thirty minutes. But the cab driver pooh-poohed the map's recommendation. He claimed he had inside information about Google's nexus with the cab companies. He said that Google misinforms its users to help the cab companies can make money. I did not believe him. My experience told me that the journey usually takes more time than Google's estimate. But I did not argue with the driver as I would probably end up listening the driver's complaints about the traffic and how Google maps should never be trusted for rest of the journey. Besides the driver assured me he was aware of the shortest route to the station. An hour later, we had covered a great distance but many kilometres of city roads separated the cab from its destination. The driver, in between his constant chatter, inserted the statement "the roads are too crowded at this time of the day" surreptitiously. I did not miss the statement and inquired in a tension dripping voice "will we make it?" He responded in an accusing tone "you should have started two and a half hours earlier but let's see."

The cab driver loved to talked. He talked through the journey about the various hardships faced by the Indian middle class. I listened to him with a small part of my brain. I let the remaining parts of my brain remain in anxiety. Google map promised that the cab would reach the station with fifteen minutes to spare. My eyes spent most of the time on the estimated time of arrival. Sometimes it went higher and I felt my heart pound inside my throat and at other times I let a smile play across my nearly non-existent lips. With twenty seven minutes to spare, the cab arrived the last signal prior to the destination. If I were to use Malayalam I would have said "athoru onnonnara signal ayyirunnu" which means "that was a one - one and a half signal". The cab driver took his hands off the wheel as it halted the cab behind the 167th vehicle from the signal. He complained "this is a terrible signal. It would take some time to get through this signal. You see, people cross the road when the vehicles are taking the left and the traffic gets blocked. These fellows don't use the pedestrian subway that runs underneath their feet instead they run across the roads. Most of these people are below 35 years. Their laziness in using the subway has resulted in us being stuck at this signal for so many minutes. You see an average Indian spends 40% of his life travelling. It does not matter whether he is rich or poor or whether he is traveling by Maruti or BMW. He spends 40% of his life travelling. What a waste!" By the time he reached this point of his monologue the signal had turned green twice and we were manoeuvring through the crowd of people trying to cross the road. We reached the station with twenty minutes to spare. I walked at a comfortable pace to the train and boarded it ten minutes ahead of its departure time. The train left at the designated time.

We were on the look out for a White Scorpio in the parking lot at the Pune station. The search turned out to be easier than I expected. There was only one Scorpio in the parking lot and as expected it was white in colour. As the Scorpio started its journey, I noticed the words “Syrup Xerox” on a LED display at the front of a shop. I was perplexed and tried to understand what “Syrup Xerox” meant. I realized that the words were displayed outside a grocery shop that also let people photocopy. So the syrup came from the grocery section of the shop and the Xerox came from the photocopying part of the shop. The absence of a comma between syrup and Xerox added the intrigue to the display. 

I did not notice enough of Pune to form an impression. But as the car left the city, I noticed garbage strewn by the sides of the road. This was not everyday garbage thrown by the people in that area but large amounts of garbage dumped systematically. I came to the conclusion that the Pune remained clean by dumping its garbage out of the city. As the Scorpio proceeded further, the sides of the road got cleaner. Many villagers walked by the side of road purposefully. All of them wore simple white pyjama–kurta with a traditional white cap over their heads. One of the villager wore a large multicoloured turban over his head. The colours on the turban were neon bright and did not fit his remaining attire. His brisk walk reminded me of Gandhi’s walk to Dandi.

An hour into the journey, the driver asked if we would like to have a cup of tea. We were not really interested but out of politeness said “hmmmm aaaaaaa”. The driver persisted by saying that we should try the tea as it is the speciality of Pune. We gave in with a hesitant “OK”. As we got off the Scorpio, the driver said “it is good to have a tea during these long drives”. The tea shop was called “Yevala Amruttulya”, which as per the driver had around 90 branches across Pune and its suburb. They did not serve anything other than a single type of tea in their shops. The shop by itself was an average sized place with a big white board containing the shop’s name written in red announcing its presence. 

As I walked into the shop I noticed the brown coloured liquid boiling in a large vessel. A person was attempting to take out the last drop of tea trapped within the boiled tea leaves by relentlessly tightening the cloth that held it. Each cup of tea costed ten Rupees. It tasted as I expected it to taste. Milky and sweet with a strong flavour of cardamom. Though it did not have any flavour of tea, I loved it. It reminded me of payasam. The journey lasted two and a half hours. I spent the next three days with a mobile phone that could only be used as a paper weight. 

The Pune station was crowded beyond description. Fortunately, we had decided to spend the two hour we had in a café and not the station. We watched the India – England world cup cricket match as we bit into our respective sandwiches and sipped our coffee. We stayed at the café for longer than the time required to eat a sandwich and drink a cup of coffee. The large café was practically empty in the afternoon and for that reason, probably, we were not asked to leave. Sports does not interest me but being an Indian cricket stays at the periphery of interest. That said, I usually don’t watch cricket and so I did not really enjoy Roy and Bairstow smashing Indian bowlers. I only enjoyed the two wickets that fell a few minutes prior to us leaving the café. 

We continued to track the score as we got into the train. As we sat and discussed about the match, a middle aged woman sitting beside me asked in a mix of broken Hindi and English “Is Bairstow out?” I said “No”. She let out an annoyed “Paradesinge!” A fellow passenger started streaming the match live to satiate his fellows passenger’s interest in cricket. The lady was thrilled. She was completely immersed in the match. Every time the English batsmen pounded the Indian bowlers she hurled abuses at the Indians. When Bairstow got out she knew who should come in next. But to her utter contempt someone else walked in. She half screamed “this fellow is a waste. They should have sent the other fellow”. Sure enough, the new batsmen walked back to the pavilion in a matter of minutes and the other fellow, whose name I don’t remember, walked in. Much to her annoyance the match went as per her prediction and she hurled curses and abuses at the Indian bowlers. She went to sleep at around the time the Indian innings started. Next morning she asked to me in Tamil “what happened to the match?” On informing her the result she said “Waste fellows! They should not have let them score 300 runs.”

Little excitements

She gets into the school bus at 6:40 am. The bag on her shoulders, though not big, reaches half her height. She walks slowly down the aisle and chooses the second seat on the left. Sometimes, she chooses the third seat on her left. She does not bother to remove the bag off her shoulders and rests her back against it. She looks out of the window as the bus passes through various places that look familiar. Sleep hovers right behind her eyelids but she holds it back by keeping her eyelids open. The bus stops at a few other stops and she looks at the children getting into the bus with disinterest. Neither she nor the new entrants bother to greet each other. They had only known each other for a few days. Besides it was too early in the morning to greet. As the bus approaches the final stop, she moves towards the aisle side of her seat, cranes her neck and looks through the windshield. She sees a white Honda City with a father and daughter standing beside it. Her face brightens up. Suddenly, the sleep that was hovering behind her eyelids vanishes. She, unable to contain her excitement, jumps in her seat and as the little girl gets into the bus starts chanting “Subbu, Subbu, Subbu,…”. The little girl walks up to the her smiling shyly. She is welcomed with a hug and a series of tickles. They laugh and chat for the remaining part of the journey.

In the evening, the two girls wait for the bus to commence its journey. They talk about the day’s activities as they wipe away the sweat from their forehead with their arms. As the bus starts moving, they become quiet and start observing the sights that pass them. Occasionally, they start a conversation but it does not prolong for long. When the bus approaches the second stop, the little girl who had got into the bus at 6:40 am cranes her head to look through the windshield. She sees her mother waiting for her at the stop with her baby sibling sleeping in the pram. She, unable to contain her excitements, jumps in her seat and starts chanting “Mama, mama, mama, …” As soon as the bus stops and the doors open, she runs through the aisle, down the steps and out of the door into her mama’s arms. Subbu looks at the scene with a smile on her lips. As the bus starts moving, she rests her head against the back of her seat and goes to sleep; a sleep so deep that her father has to carry her to the car when the bus reaches her stop.

Perfect days

I was stuck in an apartment for four days hoping without much confidence for some unknown people to walk in. As expected, no one came and I had plenty of time to spare. So I lay on the couch, dragged a chair besides me, placed the laptop on it, switched it on, plugged the headphone jack into the laptop and placed the headphone over my ears. That was the beginning. Ten movies in four days. None of the movies can be called classic. Many of them had a B-grade feel to it but except for one sentimental nonsense I loved watching each of them. For the few hours the movies held my complete attention and all my worries could not cross through my thought horizon. The movies went thus.

1. I always thought this monster destroyed humans. I was surprised to realise that it is a friend and saved humanity from massive destruction. Poor SFO and Golden gate got destroyed in the process of saving humanity. None of the set of monsters cared about the human beings through the movie. They were more interested in each other. 
2. There are no Bruce movies that I have disliked. I confused this with another movie, which was a mega flop. Turns out that the movie was a hit and was also liked by the critics. It was a gripping movie that went nowhere. I mean the situation at the end of the movie was same as the beginning. I don't think I have seen too many movies like this.
3. I have seen the trailers of this movie when it was released and was keen to watch it. But I had watched another movie which I thought was similar to this and hence decided to give it a skip. Thursday morning after my breakfast, I settled into the couch to watch this heaven and hell movie. It was amazing. I still think it was similar to the other movie but that doesn't reduce the fun one bit. A dark movie dripping with eeriness. It lingered in my mind for a few hours.
4. I had not heard of this movie but got interested when I realised that it was about a famous serial killer. The feel of the movie was great but the big revelation towards the end was disappointing. It was too ridiculous for expectation and acceptance. That said I liked the way the movie ended. The movie stayed with me till late in the night when the lonely darkness of the apartment made me uneasy.
5. I have always been comforted by the presence of Matthew Mcconaughey in a movie. When I see him on the screen I get the feeling that the rest of the characters are safe. The only issue with this is that Matthew Mcconaughey ends up being Matthew Mcconaughey in all his movies. While this would be a weakness with other actors, it’s a strength for Matthew. But even Matthew could not save this movie. It is a boring real life based sport movie. The first half of the movie was reasonably engrossing but the second half was a bore. By the end of the movie I was browsing Wikipedia to determine its accuracy. The second half was not very accurate. 
6. I have never heard of this movie but found its name interesting. Also it had aliens in it and I was in an aliens kind of mood. The internet claimed it used the concept of aliens to talk about the segregation that exists in our society. The movie began well. The documentary style was done well. The humour and the ridiculous situations were brought out well. The main character played his role well. Towards the middle, the makers started struggling to maintain the documentary format. So they dropped it and the movie for few minutes turned into a mundane aliens movie. The movie ended in an interesting manner though.
7. I was young when the original movie was released. I was old enough to watch that movie but I was not interested. So I let Schwarzenegger and his gang fight the invisible aliens. Many decades later, I decided to watch the reboot version of the movie. It turned out to be one of those movies that captures one’s attention as long as one lives through it. At the end of it I felt a disinterested “Myaaah!” run through me.
8. This movie was the only funny movie among the ten. Four old men biking across the country behaving like leather rebels when in life they are losers in one manner or other. Definitely not a great movie but I laughed a few times and felt amused during a few others.
9. Tom Cruise is the emperor of action movies. At some point of time, when I look back at the Tom Cruise movies I have seen, I would not be able to separate one from the other. Most of his movies are similar. I mean they all have Tom Cruise in them and regardless of the name of the character he is enacting he always is Tom Cruise. This is a good addition to that list. The one slight twist from his usual movies is that this one has aliens in it. It seemed like an action and aliens filled version of Groundhog’s day. The movie had the ability to capture my attention and that makes it a good movie to watch.
10. This movie was not in the list of movies I was planning to watch. I had a few hours to spare and I had already watched half of this two hour and forty five minute movie. So I closed my laptop, pushed it back into the bag, fished out the mobile from my pocket and continued watching it. Under normal circumstances I would not have watched this movie. But I was in a mood for utter nonsense and this movie provided it in ample amounts. Mamooty and Suresh Gopi screamed every word they uttered; many of them in annoyingly polished English. Suresh Gopi acted as a top cop and Mamooty as an IAS something who had enough power to call the home minister of India a bastard and land a kick on his chest while the minister’s Z-level security watched the fun with their guns held safe in their hands. The movie was released in the first decade of 2000s and one could easily identify all the politicians of that time in the movie. The best dialogue in the movie landed from Suresh Gopi’s lips, which probably exists underneath his thick moustache, when he admonishes one of his subordinates for mistreating a Muslim man. The golden words when thus “You treat this man so badly because of this cap he is wearing.” A wonderful movie that made me laugh every time I should not have.

Alibaugh

A few months earlier, I decided to like a few BBC pages on Facebook not with the intent of keeping abreast with the happenings across this bloody planet of ours. I found their humour interesting, especially the bits and pieces of the Graham Norton Show. I have not seen an entire episode of this show yet and don’t believe I will ever do so either. But I love watching the three to five minutes snippets available on social media.

Every day, the BBC pages threw some wonderfully humorous entries at me. Some of them actually made me laugh aloud. Soon a name started standing out from among these entries. At first I ignored it but soon my curiosity got better of me and I typed the name Fleabag in the Google search bar. Google came back with the image of an actress whom I had seen in one of the Graham Norton snippets. I understood that Fleabag is the name of an acclaimed series on BBC. I was also thrilled to see that the series was available in Amazon Prime. The various sites also cautioned me that contents of the series were of sexual nature and fathers of teen aged children should preferably watch these episodes behind closed doors else they would not have an opportunity to talk to their growing children about bees and birds.

I watched two episodes of the series one evening and was unable to digest the amount of bees and birds the episodes served. I decided to give the series a break for a few days and come back afresh. Two days later, I sat in front of the television and completed the two seasons of Fleabag within two days. I would not say I was blown away by it (Hmmmm!) but I found it interesting. Fleabag conversing with audience verbally and visually is the star attraction of the series. Phoebe Weller is so good at it that at times I felt I was actually observing a friend’s life. Would it not be great to have a friend like Fleabag! I mean not an intimate friend but more like a neighbour you know for a few months. So you know her well enough to know the happenings in her life and yet have not known her long enough to be attached to these happenings.

Maybe we should make something called Alibaugh about a desi Fleabag who lives in Alibaugh. Of course, since she is a desi in her thirties she would be married. Her marriage would be six or eight years old, which is just enough time for the husband and wife to be tired of each other and yet not long enough for them to ignore each other. Being a desi couple from Alibaugh they would not dare to break the conventions of the society and walk away from each other. The tussles of a Fleabag like character in such a situation would be interesting to observe. 

On the road again

The road curved to the left. Much to my surprise, the pavement to my left seemed good enough to walk. I pulled up my pants and climbed the pavement. As I reached the curve, I saw a fat cylinder bodied dog coming towards me. It froze on seeing me. I could see an expression of discomfort on its face. It looked left, right and finally at me. The worry in its eyes had doubled. It turned around and walked away from me. A few metres later, it turned around and was once again disturbed by my presence. It seemed to me that it had hoped that I will turn around and walk away on seeing its discomfort. It did not wish to proceed further in this manner. It ducked into an opening on the side of the pavement and disappeared under the pavement. Soon I realized that it had disappeared into the rain water channel underneath the pavement. I wondered the reason for the dog’s discomfort at my sight. I thought I had imagined it. Many dogs had crossed my path earlier. Almost all of them did not even care to recognize my existence. So I wondered why this dog, as strange as it was, reacted to me thus. I turned around to check if the dog was still hiding under the pavement. I saw that it had emerged from under the pavement and was walking confidently away from me.

The road continued to curve this way and that. At times, it crossed crowded roads filled with impatient people and vehicles. At certain places, houses occupied both sides of the road. At other places, swanky glass walled office buildings lined its sides. At one place, I found a vacant land to the left side of the road. As is usually the case, the land was filled with garbage. Among the garbage was a laptop bag with the picture of a lady printed on it. The lady now lay a few feet under the ground, surrounded by the sound of the sea in a neighbouring state.

I continued to walk and reached a crossing. The signal turned red for the vehicle coming from my right. A scooter with a rider and an elderly lady in the pillion came to a sudden halt with its fore wheel beyond the stop line. Another motorbike with a young lady in the pillion stopped behind the stop line. The lady called out to the person driving the scooter and curtly directed him to move behind the stop line. He clumsily  moved the scooter behind stop line. I waited for the signal to turn green for me to cross the road. As I crossed the road I noticed the name of the shop across the road. It read "Cocks, the complete men's shop"

As the cab reached the top of the flyover my eyes were level with the name board of a hotel. Underneath the name, the location of the hotel was written as “Silicon Valley, India”. My attention was disturbed by a Thunderbolt that zipped past us. The rider seemed to be a twenty something. He wore his helmet as a bracelet on his left arm. He guarded his head with a JBL headset. As the flyover turned towards earth, he slowed his bike a bit. He took both his hand off the handle bar, removed the headset off his head and wore it around his neck like a large necklace. He removed his helmet from his arm and placed his precious head into it. The process took around ten seconds and during this time the Thunderbolt took care of its direction on its own. His hands were back on the handle bar by the time the bike stopped at the signal beyond the flyover. In a matter of seconds, the rider’s personality had changed.
I looked at the beginning of the lake through the cab’s open windows. I had seen it a few times earlier but only noticed the half submerged mandapam right at the beginning of the lake now. I don’t think it was an ancient mandapam but in my mind I imagined a young princess splashing the water lightly with her feet as she impatiently waited for lover. The imagination was disturbed by the stink of garbage. A garbage truck stood on the road besides the lake surrounded by a number of garbage push carts. A few uniformed person were sorting through the garbage and segregating them into plastic covers. The stink of the garbage remained strong for a few minutes. The scene turned to worse with open drains and garbage from the drain strewn around. It took two hundred metres for the scene to change and by this time the cab turned away from the lake and I was once again surrounded by concrete.

The delivery man rings twice

The doorbell rang. I looked at the door surprised. I was not expecting anyone. I went up to the door and opened it. I should have looked through the peephole but I did not have the habit of doing so. Besides the lens on the outside of the peephole was scratched and I could not have seen anything anyway. As soon as I opened the door, I found myself staring at a paper bag. The bag was held by a person who said “Your delivery sir”. I felt confused and said “what delivery?” “Your food sir” was the response. I was perplexed. “But I did not order any food.” “Isn’t this 206?” he questioned. I felt disoriented and looked at the number plate on the door. It said 206 and so I had to admit “yes” but I was also force to add “but I did not order any food”. He was perplexed and shoved his mobile at me as he said “look at the address sir. It says 206.” He was right. It said 206 and then I realized the mistake. “Not in this building but the next one.” I said in a sympathetic voice. Embarrassed he looked at the address and asked “Is this not Raj-something?” I said “No! This is Raj-something-else. The next building is Raj-something”. He apologized sheepishly and walked away.

I had targeted watching nine movies in four days. I mean I did not target it at the beginning but it became a target at some point of time. I was in the middle of the eighth movie when the doorbell rang. I looked at the door surprised. I was not expecting anyone. I went up to the door and opened it. I did not bother to look through the peephole. As soon as I opened the door, I found myself staring at a paper bag. The bag was held by a person who said “Your delivery sir”. I did not feel confused and asked “Can I check the address” He showed his mobile phone to me. I smiled as said “This is Raj-something-else. The next building is Raj-something”. He did not understand and asked for clarification “but isn’t this 206?” I explained patiently “This is 206 but this apartment is called Raj-something-else but you have to deliver this package at 206 in apartment Raj-something, which is the next building. “The next building is it?” “Yes, the next building.” “Sorry!”

Ride in a metro in a metro

She took care of my career with a lot of affection during its early days. I was fresh from college and had little patience for the company methods and processes. She used a combination of coaxing and threatening to guide me through those heady days. Six years into my career she helped me take an important decision. It took me years to look back and be convinced that she had helped take the right decision. Without doubt she had an annoying side too and I did not agree with many of her points of view. But those don't seem very important today. I talked to her after a decade two years ago when I switched my career. Yesterday, I called her again and decided to meet her. She said “why don’t you come over now? There is a direct train from your place to mine.” 

The metro ride to her house was quick and without incidents. I got down at her stop and in a short time found myself in the mall that separated her apartment complex and the metro station. Not for the first time, I found getting out of the mall a challenge. Once I parked my car in a mall that I had visited earlier. When I went up the escalator, I realized that I had landed in the newly constructed extension of the mall. This extension was not connected to the older one and its orientation was very different from the older mall. I walked down the length of the extension for many minutes but could not find the mall's exit. The signboards in the mall that directed people to washrooms, fire exits and shops but not the exits. Since I had entered the mall from the basement, my sense of direction felt disoriented. As I walked searching for the exit my annoyance increased. The lethargic walking of the shoppers added to my annoyance. It took me twenty minutes to get out of that mall. Though not as annoying, yesterday’s walk through the mall contained similar elements of annoyance. As I walked into the mall from the metro station I did not know the floor I walked into, if I should go right or left to find the escalator and if the exit was to the right or left. Using my immense brain power I guessed that I had walked into the first floor of the mall, the escalator was to my left and the exit was to my right. I was right about the first and third point. But the second point had a problem, there was an escalator to the right too. 

As with most apartment complexes of today, this complex was covered with a maximum security cordon. As I walked in, the security personnel whipped out his mobile phone and asked me for my mobile number, which is probably more important than one's name these days, and my name. He clicked on an application on his screen and waited. He waited some more before turning to his colleague and complaining in a frustration dripping tone “Arre! Yahan mobile tower tho milta hee nahin hain!” He moved two steps to his right and the application opened. He asked me for the details again. I responded patiently. He asked me for the number of the apartment I was planning to visit. I responded with an alphabet followed by three numbers. Interestingly, this seems to be becoming the Indian standard for numbering apartments in apartment complexes. An alphabet referring to the block number followed by floor number and the apartment number. I am proud to say that the apartment complex I stay in is different. In our case, the first digit stands for the block number, the next two numbers for the floor number and the last number for the apartment number. What I like about this number scheme is that the apartment number also has a numeral and an alphabet in the front, which none of us use for we have no idea what it means. I like this element of mystery. If I want someone to get lost within the complex I can add the mysterious information and the person would walk around the complex trying to find an apartment that fits the complete information I have provided. He/she would never find me. Of course, I am assuming that this someone is not very smart.

When I provided the apartment number to the security personnel, his faced lighted up. He said “Oh! Mr. so and so’s apartment.” At that moment, I realized that I did not know her husband’s name. The security personnel was ready to escort me to the apartment but I convinced him that I was smart enough to find the apartment if he can inform me whether I should go right and then left or left and then right. Apparently, the latter was closer to reality with an additional right at the end. As I walked through the complex, I compared it with the complex I stay in and declared… No, I should not display my arrogance. 

It was a pleasant evening. We talked about events that took place couple of decades ago. We remembered all those forgotten names and faces. We thanked that we no longer had to deal with some of those names and faces. She served me a dish that I had not had for sometime and had forgotten about. I thanked her profusely for her kindness and walked out happy. Though we parted with a “we will be in touch”, I felt the words will not come true. 

The maneuvered the way back to the metro station professionally. As I walked down the stairs to the metro station, I saw a train pull into the platform. I considered running and even took a step. But I realized that the granite floor was too smooth for me to run on. I was barely able to walk without slipping. I walked to the platform and sat on a chair. I took out my mobile and called one of my ex-colleagues. The fellow did not believe in mobile phones and could only be reached through a landline. His sister picked the phone and said he was not home yet. She said he will ask him to call back. He did not call back and I think it is time for me to drop another piece of luggage from my life.

All the seats in the train were occupied. I stood at in the open gangway connecting two of the coaches. Soon, the person sitting in the seat besides me got up. I looked at the seat and was suddenly reminded of a social media video. I looked up and realized, as in the video, the seat was reserved for the elderly persons, pregnant women or people with disability. No one fitting these descriptions were present in the immediate vicinity and so the seat remained unoccupied. I wondered if I should occupy the seat but hesitated. By this time, a person from behind me pushed me aside and occupied the seat. Once again I was thankful for someone else taking the decision on my behalf. 

The train stopped at the next station. The doors opened, a few people got out while others got in. The doors closed and the train started moving. A lady went to the person who had just occupied the seat and stood in front of him. She pointed at her growing belly. He looked at her sheepishly and got up. I looked at the scene with a growing sense of satisfaction and leaned back against the wall of the gangway. Like most metro coaches, this one was also filled with discomforting whispers. My eyes roamed around the coach but was soon arrested by a small breakage near the top. The metro lines were not smooth and the carriages jerked up and down at many locations along the route. This motion resulted in a tear at the top gangway as it slammed against the ceiling of the coach. I looked at it and wondered the cause of the issue. Could it be the bad design of the coach or was the laying of the tracks at fault?