Just another working Saturday

The aroma of upma wafted through the air. I removed my slippers and stepped into the dining hall. The sight of the empty serving table disappointed me. I walked towards the kitchen and asked the person sitting on a table chopping beans "isn't the breakfast ready?" She responded "9:00 AM". I looked at the watch and realized that 9:00 AM was 30 minutes away. I went back to my desk and stared at the image on my desktop. The Microsoft Windows logo was not unattractive but it was not attractive either. But I stared at it for the aroma had numbed my brain and only the upma can get it out of this numbness. At that moment, I saw the boss walking by and to distract my mind off the upma decided to discuss matters of utmost importance with her. At the end of 15 minutes our discussion was disturbed by the words of protest emanating from a senior colleague. My thoughts went back to the upma. But I could not leave the animated conversation immediately and so listened to it for a few minutes. As the heat of the conversation subsided, I slinked away quietly. 

As I entered the dining hall, I saw steam rising from a large vessel that was placed on the serving table. A line of people stood patiently as the person at the table served them dollops of upma. I stood at the end of the queue and waited patiently. Soon I was standing beside the hot vessel with a plate in my hand. The person at the counter served me two large servings of the upma. I looked at it and asked her "What is this? This is not rava upma". She responded "This is samba rava upma". I smiled for I liked the samba rava upma more than the normal rava upma. I sat at a table and started recounting for the millionth time about the incident that changed my feeling towards the upma.

Damn! I am unable to control the urge to not recount the incident for the million and one-th time.

I was in an Indian Airlines flight from Bombay to Bangalore. I had spent the previous night awake and was on the verge of sleep when I heard a voice utter "sir" sharply. I opened my eyes and saw a food tray staring at me. I took the tray, placed it on the table and took the cover off the tray. The whole of my respiratory system was attacked by the delicious smell of upma. I had spent the past three months eating corn flakes and bread for breakfast in a foreign land and had forgotten the existence of this dish. I felt annoyed when I saw the spoon was wrapped safely within a paper napkin and placed even more safely within a ziplock cover. Five minutes later, I found myself staring at a spoonful of upma. I placed the spoon with its content in my mouth.

Heaven... I'm in heaven,

And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.

And I seem to find the happiness I seek,

When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.

Heaven... I'm in heaven,

And the cares that hung around me through the week,

Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak,

When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.

(I am sure that no one will think that the last eight lines are written by me. I heard this song in the soundtrack of the movie 'The English Patient' and it has stayed with me since.)

Getting back to the morning. A few minutes later, I found that the plate was bereft of the upma but a blob of the groundnut chutney remained. "Damn" I thought "I need some more upma to finish the chutney". A little later I found that the plate was bereft of the chutney but an average sized lump of upma remained. I went back to the counter and got some chutney. Soon, I was back to the earlier state of upma: 0 and chutney: 1. I was about to get up and go back to the counter to get another helping of upma when I heard my stomach shout in protest "Stop! What the hell! I only have space enough for a mug of tea. No more upma". I took my stomach's protest seriously. I could not afford to mess with my stomach for I had a morning filled with meetings. 

A few minutes later, as I was washing my plate and mug at the sink, a young colleague washing his plate besides me asked "Hello, how are you?" This question has terrified me for a long time. I realize that I am supposed to respond "good" but that would be a blatant lie and there are times when I don't like to lie; definitely not for something as banal as "How are you?" I can't respond "bad" for that would not be right either. So I usually end up saying "Ok". But, over time, I have realized that this was not considered different from "bad". Thus, I have come to the conclusion that the best response for the question "How are you?" is "good". So, I smiled at him and responded "Good. And you?" I did not bother to listen to his response as I already knew what it would be. I shifted my focus back to the mug that I was washing when I heard him ask "Did you have breakfast?" I was stumped. I thought it was obvious that I was washing the plate and mug after having my breakfast. Apparently not! So I responded "Yes. And you?"

About five years ago, I was diagnosed with a mental condition that possessed an unpronounceable name. Due to this condition, I felt waves of intense restlessness pass through my entire body when I heard voices talk one after the other for more than fifteen minutes on a topic that only deserved five minutes of talk time. I have been under medication for the past few years to alleviate this condition and usually exhibit normal human-like behaviour during meetings. Unfortunately, the medication has a severe side effect. I hear John Fogerty sing, non-stop, the lines 

Oh, susie q, oh, susie q

Oh, susie q,

Baby i love you, susie q

I like the way you walk

I like the way you talk

I like the way you walk

I like the way you talk, susie q

Usually, I keep my body under control as the song played in my head but that morning I must have ended up grooving to the song. The chair person of the meeting noticed it and thought that I had something to say.  She said "Yes. Go ahead." I was stumped. This was happening for the second time in the past month. Maybe I should go back to the doctor and ask him to prescribe a medicine which will change the song to "Stayin' Alive" by BeeGees. No! That would be a disaster. I might end up trying to do a John Travolta step during a meeting. 

Anyway, being aware of the meeting's subject, I recounted an incident from my teenage years that involved me getting humiliated in the class regularly for not submitting the Malayalam homework. I tied the situation neatly to something I don't like doing these days and ended my contribution to the meeting. Almost instantly, many hands went up and for the next hour many voices said many words, none of which entered my brain. 

Din thaka din thaka din thaka. Tun toe do twang twang twang ta ta da da. Oh, susie q, oh, susie q. Oh, susie q. Baby i love you, susie q. I like the way you walk...

At the end of the first part of the meeting, I was the second person to get out of the room. I rushed to the dining hall, to have some tea. When I got there, I was disappointed to see that the people in the kitchen had transmogrified the tea into a soup. Not just any soup but a soup with vegetables. Someone mentioned that the soup would have tasted better if it had cornflakes in it. Another protested by saying that the corn flakes would reduce the healthiness of the vegetable soup. But I did not care about either of these ingredients, I only wanted a cup of tea. As I washing the cup, a colleague referring to what I mentioned in the earlier meeting said "There are many such strong dislikes in you". I responded "everyone does. I talk about it openly; others don't". She did not have a response and so I left. 

The second part of the meeting involved discussions on functional matters. I could not risk missing points of discussion in this meeting and so asked John Fogerty to shut up. A few minutes prior to the start of the meeting, a colleague got into the room in a hurry and chose a spot to sit. Seeing this, the two persons sitting beside the spot picked up their chairs and moved it to make space for her. As I observed the scene, the names "Thomson and Thompson" came into my mind. The two of them had no similarity with Thomson or Thompson. As a matter of fact, the two of them had no similarity with each other either; except for their chest long beards. But the synchronicity of their actions reminded me of the two characters from Tintin.

The meeting started calmly. Discussions proceeded gently and at one point I was worried that all this calmness would lull me to sleep. But the fact that I had an announcement to make right at the end of the meeting kept me agile. Seconds passed into minutes and minutes into an hour. Finally, I heard the chairperson call my name. I cleared my throat and made my announcement in an emotionless tone.

Kaboom

We didn't start the fire

It was always burning, since the world's been turning

We didn't start the fire

No, we didn't light it...

Five years

One morning, I received a phone call from my friend. "You have to come to the college" he announced frantically. "10 AM Ok?" When someone puts a request across that dramatically, you have no choice but to respond "Ok". Besides, I had no reason to say no. I was in the middle of a long and relaxed summer vacation. Most days I had nothing to do and that day was one such day. At that time, we had known each other for four years. The last of the four years was spent in a hostel. 

As I reached the college I saw him waiting for me with another friend near the cafeteria. Here, I would like to pause to give a piece of expendable information. We had passed out of this college with our Bachelor's degree about a year back but continued to look at it with needless fondness. "You stay the closest and yet you arrive late!" he said menacingly. I realized that I had tested the guy's patience to the limit but did not feel like apologizing and so I said "I didn't realize you will reach this early". I got "nonsense" as the response. We walked into the cafeteria, picked a cup of tea each and sat on the verandah outside. 

He sipped tea from his cup and looked into the distance. By distance I mean at the building right in front of the cafeteria. The two of us waited. He did not say anything but took another sip from his cup. I grew impatient and asked "Well! What is it?" He looked at us with a smile on his lips and said "You guys are not going to believe this. I am in love". He was right, we did not believe it and exclaimed "What!" in unison. "Yes guys! I am in love". I still could not believe it. The summer vacation was only three weeks old and prior to that we had spend almost all our waking hours of the previous year together. The question popped in my head "when did he fall in love?" He spent the next few minutes in giving the details of his love story. 

By the end of his narration, his stature had risen manifold in my eyes. If I had the right to do so, I would have built a temple around him and dedicated the temple to 'the god of love'. A moment later, I started wondering if I can be bold enough to call him my friend any longer. At that stage of my life, I had not even had a "Hello, how are you?" type of conversation with a girl (who is not related to me by blood that is). The few times I have tried to start a conversation with a person of the opposite sex all I said was "gluck" and that too inaudibly. Needless to say, no girl ever showed any intention to talk me. So how could he who had professed his feelings to a girl be my friend?

The feeling did not last for long and the thought to build a temple for the "God of love" was forgotten. The next three years were probably the happiest years in his life and as it turned out, the most interesting years in our lives too. Watching him go through his schedule for the day itself gave us joy and was a topic of discussion for many hours. At the end of three years, we were out of college with a job in our hands. A day before I joined work, he got married. The first person in our batch to get married. The girl he has fallen in with with became our friend.

So why am I going on a nostalgia trip, this afternoon?

As I was driving to work this morning, a thought struck me "They should have been married for many decades now". I counted the number of years and realized their marriage was only five years longer than my own. I was shocked. I counted the years again and realized that were only married five years ahead of my own marriage. At that time, the five years seemed long but now five years does not seem long at all.

Thoughts

Privately thinking thoughts irrelevant to the current situation

Acting as though the thoughts have relevance to happenings around

In reality, caring more about the thoughts that are happening within

Not caring about other's thoughts that weave through the air

The fabric of thoughts, too thick to be worn comfortably

The fabricated thoughts too dense to enter my head

Thoughts that envelop me, suffocate me, till I find it difficult to breath

Empty thoughts gift wrapped in colourful words

Mean a lot to people who prefer colour over thoughts

But I care neither for words nor for thoughts

I wonder how Ip Man attempts will save his son's school? 

Wordsworth-less

Words words words words words words

I am surrounded by words 

That conveys meaning profound to all

They exhibit their appreciation of the words

By bobbing their enthusiastic heads up and down

By tilting their heads to the left 

And in some cases to the right

Thus easing the passage of the words 

Into their intelligent heads

Their eyes glued to the screen

Watching every movement of the utterer

For they can't stand the thought

Of missing even a syllable

Fortunate enough to emanate from 

The speaker's divine lips

The words, in some cases, 

Find their way to books and notepads

In the belief that the written words will be of useful

In establishing their mettle in the increasingly cynical world

And in the midst of such intelligence

Sits I

Writing another set of words

Attempting to make a point 

That is as hazy as the sight of a myopic

For a few moments, the words let out 

Some of the boredom that I feel inside

I wonder how I ended up here.

In midst of the this intelligent crowd

I started off in a world lying between intelligence and dull

And then something happened

I did something that made me seem intelligent

Soon I found myself amidst intelligence

Today, I realize my folly

I don't belong here 

I have to escape from this sewer of words and intelligence

How how how how how how how how?

Possession

Once, I had a prized possession

Oh no! I committed a mistake by saying "had".

For I still have it with me

But I can't refer to it as "prized"

For it is no longer prized

So, I would rather to refer to it as possession

Last week, I took it in my hands

And looked at it for a while

It had not changed in appearance

Yet I could not perceive its sheen

A question popped in my head

"Where is it's sheen?"

I searched in vain for the sheen

But gave up when I heard the response 

"Oh, who the hell cares!"

I decided to fling it away

But held back a moment before it left my hand

The sight of the possession

Brought back fond memories

Of simpler days from my past

When possessions were prized

Tomorrow's goals comprised 

Of getting newer possessions

Today's grown complicated

I lose more than I gain

Yet I continue to strive towards gaining

Not with pleasure, nor pain

Just working towards those goals

That don't matter anymore,

That I am not even aware of

I looked at the possession once again

I tried to evoke some joy in my heart but felt none

I kept it back in the draw, locked it

Though not prized I will still keep it

For a day might come when all possessions

Small or big might be of immense value

For my forgotten self.

Aqualung is 50 years old

I am watching the live stream of 50th Anniversary of Jethro Tull's Aqualung. I remember buying the 25th anniversary edition CD of this album in Bangalore. So many years have passed since then. This is a great album to listen to. One song better than the other. Of course, the album contains the two of the songs of Jethro Tull I listened to first, Aqualung and Locomotive breath. 

The live stream has Ian Anderson talking about each song in the album and he speaks so well. The 25th anniversary edition has an interview at the end, which I love to listen to. Ian speaks so well and obviously his voice is heavenly. Good to keep track of this recording forever.

 

Head line

I started hating my hair during my teenage years. As ugly as I was, my hair, I thought, made me look uglier Note: I use "was" and not am as I was uglier during my teenage years than I am or ever was. When people see my photograph from those day, they either faint or laugh hysterically till they faint. For this reason, I started enjoying my trip to barber shop from that time. One more note: For many years, I used the phrase "barber shop" but then I realized that people treat me like a barbarian when I used the phrase "barber shop" to refer to a barber shop. So, I shifted to the phrase saloon though I did not want to. I don't like to refer to a barber shop as a saloon. I mean, isn't saloon a place that one goes to, to drink? When did that become a place one goes to, to have a haircut? Yet another note: That's the first time I have used two to's right next to each other. I am not sure if the statement is grammatically correct but I thought "to hell with it, I will leave the two to's right next to each other as an excuse to write yet another note". 

By now, it should be clear to all those who are used to procrastinating that I don't have much to say but I am trying to keep away from work. So, I am trying to expand the two lines I have in my head to two hundred and twenty two lines. Of course, I might not reach two hundred and twenty two lines but I am sure I will get to two hundred and twenty two words. Incidentally, two hundred and twenty two is highest score made by Gundappa Vishwanath in test cricket. If I remember it right, that was the highest score made by an Indian batman for a long time. 

Nice! Twelve irrelevant lines but at least I brought out the fact that Gundappa Vishwanath made two hundred and twenty two runs in a test match and that this score was his highest score and possibly the highest score made by an Indian at that time.

When I was young, I used to dread going to the barber shop. Those days they used a manual trimmer to remove the hair from the back of the head and this trimmer trimmed in a painful manner. But by my teenage years, the use of this equipment had stopped. Of course, the expectation of seeing my face without the ugly tuft of curls above it made me look forward to my visit to the barber shop. There was a problem though. I only visited the shop once in two months. It never struck me that I could visit the shop once a month and thus avoid having the curly nonsense on my head. To this day, I only visit the saloon once every two months. Now, I am busy imprinting the imperceptible significance of visiting the saloon once every two months to the next generation.

All that changed when Covid struck. The barber shop experience being an intimate one is best kept off our Covidophobia-ed lives. I am sure the concept of social distancing maintains a good 20 feet social distance from the barber shop. So bought a trimmer and started shaving my head by myself. For the past 10 months I used the trimmer once every three weeks and maintained my hair at size one. It was very convenient; I did not have to dry my hair after bath. As an additional benefit, I had the pleasure of gently placing my combs in the dustbin. I felt liberated. As is usually the case, I got bored of this look and about a month back decided not to shave my head anymore. This led to a crisis last weekend. 

I had to trim my hair and I have no idea how to trim my or for that matter anybody else's hair. So, a visit to the saloon seemed the only option. I heard some people say that Covid was on the decline and decided to keep my faith on their words. On Saturday morning, I found myself walking towards the saloon tentatively. The "PUSH" sticker on the door had been reduced to "US" in the last ten months. I walked in and headed straight to the hand sanitizer bottle. I sprayed the liquid onto my palms liberally many times. I applied the liquid all over my hands and face. I rubbed my palms, nose, ears, lips, eye lids, forehead, cheeks and chin for twenty seconds each. One last note: For the past few months, I have been able to estimate the passing of twenty second without singing the happy birthday song. I completed the cleaning process by pouring the liquid into each of my ears. I let the liquid gush around my ears for a bit before pouring it all out. I was now ready for the haircut. One final last note: I hope people don't consider me irresponsible for mocking the safety procedures related to Covid. People who know me well will vouch for my irresponsibility. Don't believe them. 

One of the saloon personnel asked me sit on one of the empty chairs. I sat down and waited. I took out my smartphone and started playing the stupid game that has captured my attention these days. My concentration was broken by the fellow in the next chair placing a video call to his wife. The conversation started with him asking her "How is it?"

"How is what?" asked his wife.

"My Frenchie"

"Your what?"

"Frenchie. French beard!"

"Don't they call it a goatee?"

"That is the local name. In France, they call it Frenchie. How is it?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"HOW DOES IT LOOK!?"

"I have seen you with such a beard before. So what's new?"

"I think it looks good."

"Ok, ok. Get back home quickly."

The guy gave the phone back to his daughter and looked at the mirror for a few seconds. He informed the French beard stylist in Hindi "Acha hain! Chalo, finish kar do". By this time, my own hair stylist stood beside me. He looked at the top of my head in confusion. I resolved his confusion by mentioning that I only wanted to trim my hair and I added helpfully that I wanted to comb my hair with a line parting my hair on the left side of my head. In Malayalam I know it is referred to as "vaga" (as in "vaga eduthude kutti?") but I was not sure how to translate "vaga" into Hindi and so I referred to it as "line", which I realize is technically not Hindi but I used the Hindi version of line (as in "eyyyy! Laine mein aana"). 

The man went about his business with trimmer, scissors, comb and blade. I sat back and closed my eyes. After a few moments I was brought back to the world by the realization that he was scratching a line on the left part of my head with a blade (not bloodline, only line). I realized that vaga did not translate to line in Hindi. I wanted him to stop but it was too late. He had crossed the half way mark. So, I had no choice but to let him continue scratching my scalp. By this time, I felt curious to find the result of this experiment.  In a few minutes, he had completed his job and was waiting expectantly to hear my verdict. I looked at the top of my head and smiled at him approvingly. To my eyes the line looked nothing more than a pronounced vaga. I came back home and was happy to realize that no one said anything about the line on my head.

Next morning, I woke up at 7. I walked into the bathroom and looked at the mirror. The hair on top of my head was unkempt but I saw the line clearly.

Get me that green hat

The English teacher sent me a mail. She explained that she was setting an exercise on creative writing for her students and since I dabble with creative writing I could become her student and be a part of the exercise. I responded with an enthusiastic "yes". I got a mail with the instructions for the exercise. The mail asked me to take a photograph and write a poem that consisted seven of nine words that she had sent. She had sent me two sets of words and asked me to choose one set. 

The task seemed interesting and I jumped into it. I went out to the balcony and clicked a picture of an old cot, which I believe is my grandmother's death bed. 

I picked both the sets of words and came up with the following poems. 

Lingering on

Beginning a life at the end of a life

While continuing to live without life

Wet and dry beatings taken in light and dark

Crumbles this lifeless life like fragile pieces of paper

Lone listener to the final words uttered verysoftly

By an old grandmother as she stared at the humbling darkness

A hundred seasons of rain have passed

And yet she stares steadfastly at the horizon

While expressing refusal to leave this world

Before hearing you confess your

disappointments and wrongdoings.

Iron Gates

Beyond the iron gates lie a world

Where the greens make way for the greys

My idle head resides in domains more ideal than real

Where childhood’s flowers swayed

To the tune of laughter straight from one’s heart

Where living to a hundred and fifty

Makes none utter “look at this miracle”

Where particles hold hands in harmony

Rather than maintain six feet from each other

Where iron gates cannot stop me

In my attempt to fly away from the constraints of reality

I sent her the poems and waited anxiously for her feedback. The poems did not turn out to be greatest pieces of creative writing that she had seen. Yet she only had issues with a few sentences in the poems. Apparently, the lines seemed too convoluted. I read my poems and sure enough the lines seemed convoluted. I sat in front of my laptop and chewed the top of my imaginary pencil. In a few minutes, I changed the poems to the following form.  

Lingering on

As in life, in death too she offered help

To all who felt the need for rest

Waiting like a piece of paper

To record scenes of happiness

Interspersed with tears of sadness

Lone listener to the final words uttered very softly

By an old grandmother as she stared at the humbling darkness

A hundred seasons of rain have passed

And yet she stares steadfastly at the horizon

While expressing refusal to leave this world

Before hearing you confess your

disappointments and wrongdoings.

Iron Gates

Beyond the iron gates lie a world

Where the greens make way for the greys

My idle head resides in domains more ideal than real

Where childhood’s flowers swayed

To the tune of laughter straight from one’s heart

Where living to a hundred and fifty

Makes none utter “look at this miracle”

Where there is a moment of happiness

That exists without a shadow of guilt

Where iron gates cannot stop me

In my attempt to fly away from the constraints of reality

I sent back the modified poems and waited eagerly for her feedback. 

Six months later, I don't have any hope of her responding. I looked up at the moon and said "She's probably finds it difficult to accept that an engineer can be this creative. What to do, what to do. Such is me!" 

Moving on

Mornings, not like afternoons

Afternoons differing from evenings

Evenings changing into nights

And yet ...

All mornings seem the same

So does the afternoons

As are the evenings

… and the nights

I seem to be stuck in a day

Like Bill Murray in Groundhog’s day

 

Frozen in time

Ever waning enthusiasm

Aware of the ticking counter

Revealing morbid tales

 

The environs don’t seem different

But my eyes disagree

The air has remained the same

But I don’t trust it anymore

My fingers yearn to touch my face

But the nose peer at them suspiciously

I wet my hands and reach out for the soap

But my hands stop midway

The liquid soap has won my confidence

But what if the virus thrives on the bar of soap?

I look at it keenly

But the virus is too small to be seen

I wash away the top layers off the soap

But wonder if this precaution is sufficient

Many have talked to us about sanitizers and liquid soaps

But I have heard nothing about the soap bars

It should have been a five second affair

But now every person born on that day get a happy birthday song

 

Forecasts predict bleak times ahead

Even clean hands might not stop

Affectionate creatures from

Reaching my insides

 

I know how to keep away from the virus

But does the virus know how to keep away from me?

The potatoes look healthy from the outside

But did the virus think so too?

Onions bring tears in my eyes

But the virus has no eyes

I love the smell of the sanitizer on my palms

But my tongue protests as the food reaches it

I know how to be clean

But being clean is no longer enough

I latched on to the word enough

And decided to go back to 1984

 

Never in my life will I be

Overly concerned about the virus

For I don't care about these small creatures

Even when the doctors yell

About its existence among us

Reaching out to us constantly. 

A momentary lapse of memory

The brothers loved to hang around with him and his year old son. They loved to push the stroller around the compound and talk to the father and son on various topics. For many days she had observed this unusual group. One day she walked up to them and started talking. After a few moments, she asked the older brother "which school are you studying in?" The boy looked at her confused. She thought he did not understand the question and repeated it. The boy's expression did not change. He continued to stare at her confused. The father of the toddler teased him with a smile "have you forgotten your school's name?" The boy did not respond. She was shocked "have you forgotten?" The boy did not respond. "Do you remember which class you study in?" The boy responded promptly "I am in third and my brother is in first". She continued to probe " ... and the school?".

Silence.

The father of toddler asked "which mobile do you use?" He responded "I use a laptop, Lenovo". "Ah! You remember that but not your school's name is it?" The boy's face brightened and he mentioned his school's name. The two adults in the company seemed surprised. It was the name of a popular school in the neighbourhood.