Monday, December 27, 2010

2011




Totally innocent guy no. 1 standing on the road:
It's a bird
Totally innocent guy no. 2 standing on the road:
It's a plane
Real smart guy who knows everything about superheroes and who happens to be standing on the road beside the above two:
It's a blog post, man.

Time for some year end bullshittery.

Abstract:
Number of human casualties = 0.

Content:
Q. You know what I eagerly look forward to in the next year?
Ans. The year's first episode of naruto which is going to be about the seven swordsman of the hidden mist.

Q. Is it sad?
Ans. Yes. But who gives a small, brown, fuzzy, not at all cute, nibbling rodent's ass.

Before I open my completely exclusive, totally secret, immensely awesome humor newsletter (yes, it is a paid service) to find out what nothing to write in this post it might be a good idea to take a minute and look back at the glorious year that went past.

60
59
...
2
1

Moving on.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Samay ki ret

There is that always nagging guy yelling incoherently at you, again, when you see the empty theatre. And there is that other isomorphic guy, who always gets you into embarrassing situations, nonetheless is always more convincing of the two, who calmly says, "Who watches english movies nowadays?" You beam proudly at the great wisdom your uber smart brain was able to conceive without a hint of contemplation and sit majestically in the best available seat. Rajneeti, "Katrina yay," raavan, "Art film :?" red bull - flying curvaceous girl in red and a bull, "Very intelligent, this ad has totally convinced me to buy red bull, way to go ad-makers." Half asleep. Relishing the mesmerizing ac in the decently comfortable i-move-with-your-ass chair dreaming of katrina and the curvaceous girl in red. Your friend pokes you for the national anthem, "Finally. Take that Holiday, you can’t get me now. I am seeing a movie with my friends. VICTORY!!" Still gloating you read the title on the dull yellow screen, "Hahahaa, Prince of Persia(Hin …     -_-'     H,i,n,d,i, nahiiiii, maa ki aankh, booking kisne karai thi yaar."

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The night it all began

The city was cold tonight. It always is nowadays. Cold made the road wet, made everything wet. Moon shone bleakly through the dense smog. Dilapidated buildings loomed ominously over empty streets. Lamps lit silently along the roadside illuminating the roughly edged pavement with its lines and its hexagons, beautiful symmetries lying unappreciated in this ignorant neighborhood. The cold prevented any wasps. Every yard or so a tile had been broken from the pavement, wounds from an angry past, requiring a person to be careful while walking.

My tired breath formed smoke in front of my mouth as if I were a trained smoker. I never smoke, too proud for that. Tilted hat and raised collars tried to hide my face from both the obstinate cold and the onlookers, if any; this wasn’t a friendly neighborhood after all, not now. The ochre overcoat hung limply over my sagging shoulders. Gloved fingers unconsciously wrapped tightly over my work briefcase, it was my only prized possession. The gumboots led my feet through the puddled pavement; the dark pathway wasn’t much visible, not even beneath my feet, except beneath the yellow lamps, so I let them have their way.

Tiny beads of perspiration formed at the roots of my hair even in this cold. The hat stuck tightly. Every night from work to home my heart would beat faster lessening my lifespan. Once inside my four walls I had to take pills for my blood pressure. Every night I feared would be the last night. I would change paths, no path was traversed too frequently, sneak into unlikely boulevards, even run into a nearby basement when fear took the better of me. I thought the fear would subdue eventually, that I would get used to it but the fear of death never weakens.

The neighborhood was not always like this. The city was not always like this. It was a small town, brimming with integrity. For some reason it stayed underdeveloped the way it was while the rest of the country flourished. There was neither oil to be found nor croplands to be tilled. Some inertia prevented it from growing but people were happy in this low lying island of a town. But it made the people hollow. Men cannot live without pride, without winning, without sin. Unblemished happiness does not last long. Men started imitating their neighbors, tall buildings were raised but never completed, inefficient industries polluting the river stole the scenery, laws were compromised and when needed broken, rich people without consciences who would earlier be not even allowed to step in the town were now worshiped. The city lost its soul. People became happy, then irrational, then scared. Started living together in small well-knit colonies. Whole neighborhoods were left to slums and gangs. I saw it all happening.

Why did I live alone then? Why did I not choose the life of compromise, the life of safety that everybody else chose? Why did I choose to live in my childhood home? May be it was childish stubbornness. May be I could not live like them. May I could not let them hurt my childhood memories while I was still alive. May be I cherished them more than my life. My hair was growing grey prematurely, but I would stay here till my heart would allow. Every night I reached home I rejoiced, it was a night I won and they lost. I lived for winning. Life was meaningless without resistance. It gave me reason, it gave me purpose. Or may be I was plain crazy.

I was one turn from my home. I had almost won tonight, just when tires screeched, someone had turned the steering to its full potential. A small car, what it was I could not tell in the darkness, materialized in front of me. Its headlights made my pupils contract to pinpoint and it still hurt. I could see the devil grinning. Today he would win. I heard gunshots, not one or two but many. The devil was celebrating with great cacophony. It hurt my ears but my arms would not budge, my legs became a part of the pavement, my heart pounded heavily against my chest wishing to beat for a more rational being, my soul had left me long ago. I stood still awaiting the end.

Just then something flickered. I heard fluttering of cloth nearby. Someone had been watching us. I felt angry and humiliated at being witnessed by someone in my weakest moment but then another round of gunshots and fear dethroned anger. But something wasn’t right, why wasn’t I shot yet? They hadn’t seen me in the darkness; the gunshots were not for me but for my spectator. Or was I the spectator now? And in the headlights I saw him for a moment before he melted into the darkness again. He had flown, yes flown like a bird in front of the car. He was tall, eight feet, no ten feet tall. He was a giant. He could not be human. It was as if the night had had enough, had condensed itself to take revenge. The bullets could not touch him he was too fast. Fear was afraid of him. And then the car toppled, huge hands not hands but machines pulled the doors apart. Even from the distance I saw the fear in their pale eyes, there were three of them, they had seen the devil. I smiled; the devil had not come for me but for them. He blocked my view again. I saw nothing but unending darkness. Even the night was pale in front of him. And then they all vanished leaving behind the debris of an overturned car. I was afraid he, no it would come for me next but nothing happened.

My legs regained sense and I ran for my place not looking back once. I took double my pills tonight. I had seen the grim, no I had lost my faith in god long ago, it was no grim, it was a human, he was a human, just like me. I was not alone, he was with me. He too could not give up. He too was crazy like me. Together we would fight, shoulder to shoulder. We would fight for the city, we would fight for the people, we would fight for ourselves and we would win each time. I knew that he knew that I was fighting, it made me happy, made me young again. I threw away the pills, I no more needed them, they did not suit a warrior, he would not like it. The fallen angel had arisen and this time he was human. Death itself was with me, I never felt fear again.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning

There was once a time when I thought it would never end, I would live this life of righteous orthodox banal servitude till I become of them, till I forgot who I was and became what I was supposed to be. But now I can see the terminal, flimsy though it might be but it is there nonetheless. Goody bye cynicism. Optimism’s the new way of living. As they say, this is the beginning of a new end.

The tracks are old and rusty. The wagon creaks beneath me. As I rush past the old stations the poor graffiti on walls remind me who I was. Light floods now and then through the dirty tinted windows enlightening the faces of my silent fellow passengers. We all know the culmination is near. It has been a long journey. As I sit on the worn out seat looking out the window at the water droplets spilling out from leaking pipes and kissing the window now and then, enjoying their freedom, relishing their evanescent existence, I dream of all the places I had seen on this seemingly interminable journey. The cocoon is breaking, metamorphosis is near ...

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Love thy neighbour, I mean really really love thy neighbour

This is the inferior vena cava speaking. The blood that flows through me goes all in vein. Life is so depressing. All I ever get are dull red blood midgets. And I have a very dumb name. Everybody is always making fun of me. No poems named after me. According to the time 2010 poll I am like the second least romantic organ in the body (first obviously being medulla oblongata, without doubt, unanimous decision, very uncool). And why the heck do I get to be inferior. Blatant apartheid!!

Nah just kidding, this is still the brain. I like making fun of other organs, part time hobby of mine. Sorry for the poor jokes though, can't help it. You should see what it's like up here. Tightly packed inside a nutcase, poor ventilation, bad lighting conditions. It's like living in kanpur but outside iitk. Imagine not getting your back scratched in a hot april afternoon. Sometimes I just ... hey I am speaking bro ... wtf ... hey ...

The subconscious's speaking. Hate that smooth talking rat. Gets on my nerves sometimes. Dude's got control of the whole organism most of the day and hasn't been able to copulate for over a full two decades. Tag and shag bro, how hard can it be? But no, just keeps on pushing more and more desires into me, like I am some kind of an external 1TB hard drive. They should let subconscious's control the masses. Much better place the world would be.

Oh and sea food. Haven't eaten good seafood from aeons. They used to make melt-as-soon-as-you-put-in-the-mouth fish tikka here. Whenever I see pictures of those prawns and oysters and shrimps makes me wanna eat the paper itself. No demarcations though. The mind part here is quite broad by itself. Lambs and pork chops and bacon and french food, especially the deserts and champagnes and vintage wines, italian cuisines ... getting a bit light-headed. When I get hold of that money, there's gonna be a big coup and I am gonna make sure there's no dish in the world I haven't tasted.

But food's not the emergency. There's a whole bunch of organs yet to gain full functionality. Two dimensional images are fun at first but eventually you need to add a new dimension to your perspective. No need of being choosy either. Sometimes when you see all the bouncing and squishing and pressing and tearing and sweating and moaning and shouting and tying up of things and maple syrups and vegetables and telephones and ginormous vagi...

All right, sorry for that, heh heh, think I am back, testing 1,2,3, yep, as I said, its all rickety up here, can happen to anybody, mind wanders sometimes ...umm ...urm ...umm guess I need to go and eat ... sheesh, that was close, need to make sure that doesn't happen again ... bye.

(Evil subconscious laughs a sinister laugh in the background, but is not heard because of a lack of mouth. His imaginary eyes glow green and dude's got an evil looking hairdo. What secrets does the future hold?)

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Gentle now, A tender breeze Blows

Whispers through, A Gran Torino
Whistling another Tired song

Engines humm, Bitter dreams Grow
Heart locked, In a Gran Torino
Beats A lonely rhythm, All night long



Oh how much I wish I could take a car and ride on a long long road, looking at the milestones passing by. And keep going till the nightfall, while the world moves behind me. And when the sun goes beyond, I would park my vehicle outside the road and stare at the stars in a clear crystal sky, see them moving as I stand still.

Stillness. That's how the campus is now. Not a breeze is moving. Outside my third floor balcony a young mango tree stands guarding a football field, holding its breath, waiting for something. Every now and then a leaf or two shivers from the adamant cold.

No classes today. You can walk through the lecture hall complex without seeing a soul. All humans were eliminated miraculously and you are the sole survivor, looking at the empty corridors, sleeping in dew sprinkled lawns, watching the still working fountains. No frogs leap beside you, no flies trouble you. There aren't any left. Just you and the red buildings.

If I could fly I would fly to top of the tallest building or go above the clouds where no planes fly, where howling winds blow. There you can see the sun and the stars together. You can see the clouds forming and dying, like all living beings do. I would stare at the blue rock in the breathtaking universe. I would go farther above, beyond the satellites, beyond the earth's siblings, beyond the galaxies, into the emptiness.

I stand still as time flows against me.