Chapter XXII: Does That Make Me a Bad Person?

If I can choose one word to describe how I've been feeling lately, it'd be "distracted". I've been no stranger to feeling like a scatterbrain all the time. My attention span for things unrelated to me is as short as my emotional range. So watch out, I have that "air of elsewhere" while you are confiding in me the darkest long-held secret from the shady nooks of your weary heart. I sure am nodding along, brother, but I'm really thinking about why the new Coldplay single isn't mushy enough to make me cry. Thankfully, the good part is that you'd never, for one lonely moment, imagine that I am not interested in God-Knows-What story you are narrating to me. That's my crown. I would still seem deeply engrossed and you'd think that I, perhaps, was the best listener to ever walk the face of this Earth. Well, thank you. But, tell me, does that make me a bad person?

I think the world is celebrating the wrong kind of people. Because I still am amazed that there is no award for ironing a cotton shirt to perfection. Not one! No trophy for the copious amount of time you spend on Facebook stalking people you have no chance of bumping into. Negligible recognition for forwarding cheeky pictures from Cyanide and Happiness on Whatsapp. Brother, now a lot of effort goes into these things as well, but they go as unnoticed as my entire week's hard-work does in the weekly status calls at work.

Now you might think that I am as committed to my job as my mother once was to Tulsi Virani, but the truth is far from it. My distractions are my demons, they are too well-ingrained and deep-rooted. I am certain that my onsite lead thinks that I attend all status calls heavily sedated because I always, ALWAYS, have to ask him at least once to repeat what he just asked me. Why? Because I was cribbing (Yes, I do that a lot, sometimes 18 hours a day) about being stuck at Level 96 of Candy Crush Saga while he was delegating some "important work" to me. I mean are you for real? You give me work when I was befuddled deciding which Facebook -friends wouldn't mind getting deluged with Candy Crush Saga Request Notifications to send me one life. Don't you know how huge that is? I don't appreciate your ignorance, dear bosses. When I can overlook your grammar errors and your obscene variations of spelling the word "come", this is the least you can do for me. I think my Appreciation Award is long overdue, messrs! Let's call it You-Got-Your-Priorities-Just-Right award.

Actually, the trouble is that motivation has never been too friendly with me. Abandoning me long ago, it's been only visiting me sporadically, injecting me with shots of unrealistic ambition that have gradually faded to ashes, yielding nothing. Motivation, you are even worse than Lupita Nyong'o's Oscar Acceptance speech. You and your cogent arguments at making me believe that my dreams are valid have begun to get my goat lately. What does it take for a man to take life at his own pace and not have you, with your inane expectations, pushing him around? Quit playing with me and feeding me your half-baked ideas. You are nothing more than a blinding force and it's extremely difficult to maintain friendship with you. I am better off alone, hanging around with my current best-friend Distraction, in my cocoon, smoking cigarettes and reveling in mediocrity. Whilst you leave, also take Guilt along with you.

Guilt is my nosey neighbour that keeps visiting and says things that leave a bad taste long after it has departed. Now the question is: What could I feel guilty for?  Skipping the first birthday of my adorable nephew, who each day is growing into this inexplicably cute baby polar-bear walking around the room taking such tiny jumpy steps. I tell you, my sister has put a lot of pressure on me. Now, this self-professed war to make the cutest kids in the family is something I take very seriously. But the competition is killing me! One look at Neil, and I know I better settle with being second to best. Because, let's face it, the odds are not in my favour. To me he is the cutest. About winning that war, my chances are slim. Grimly slim.

More guilt is seeping in from the fact that I haven't read something exceptional in a very long time.  That feeling is worse than what I felt after my sister took digs at me at my Adlabs Imagica trip this January. You know, how you mock those people onboard for being such loud wimps only until you sit in one of those rides! I cannot clearly recall the experience of the first ride that I took because I had my eyes shut for the entire duration of 90 seconds and I felt as if I had defecated in my pants. In that moment it dawned on me that those loud people were loud because they were enjoying the ride and I figured who the real wimp was. It was like either my vocal cords suffered a complete failure  or there was a giant lump in my throat suffocating me. But let me assure you that my insides were screaming the loudest. Finally, I did loosen up after three-four rides but in those pictures they take in the roller coasters just before the steep plunge, I looked like I had seen The Grim Reaper. I remember how my sister's kids would run to the screen to look at their pictures and I would excuse myself with "Hey, I suddenly feel thirsty, where's the nearest water cooler?" See, I run away from problems instead of facing them.

I have at least a dozen more issues. Somehow shutting the world out comes easy to me. When my parents want me to call them twice everyday without fail, I don't see the love hidden beneath the request. I see it as something binding, which is what irks me. I feel stifled whenever someone asks me to do something. Especially when asked repeatedly, there's a buzzer that goes in my brain. Loud deafening beeping! It's not healthy. Then, my friends are the best I can ever have, and I am lucky to have befriended them because they have to deal with a mercurial, foul-mouthed and perennially-unhappy grown man who would act over-jovial one minute and then soon would be cursing the concept of living and spewing acerbic comments about everything. Hi, that's me. I could be an undiagnosed bipolar.

So remaining in context, shutting out comes really easy to me. I could be telling you about my life's story yesterday and I would quit talking to you starting today thinking I had divulged too much or that I find your company restricting in some way. I have this insurmountable urge to break free and I then cease to imagine how this impulsive crack-head decision of mine would affect you. I am supremely cold and I never get to thinking that far in my quest towards my "freedom".

You know, after my very good friends left Hyderabad and my old flat-mates and I fragmented, I learnt to do everything all alone. I call that part of myself as Dora The Explorer. I travel alone on weekends, take wrong bus routes or get off a few stops before I should have just to be somewhere new and then walk to wherever I was supposed to go. Travelling alone has led me to meeting quite a handful of interesting people whom I would have never struck up a conversation with, had I not been travelling alone. Conversations with strangers are always charming, until you tell about them to your mother. Then they suddenly turn deadly and dangerous. Mothers have an innate behavioral pattern of assuming that if there's anything devastating that can happen in the world, it will happen to her child far away. How I just love mothers.

From watching movies alone, to going for dinner, to shopping, to discovering roadside dhabas, to baffling security guards when I give them a disarming (I take the liberty to call it that) smile or to exploring new parts of the city- I do it all alone. It amuses me how an innocuous  smile would bewilder them and only rarely get reciprocated whereas avoidable things like a useless altercation on a traffic signal with an auto-rickshaw driver would go on and on.

And if I may say, the movies that I have gone alone for have been the best times I have spent in any movie hall. I prefer alone, because that eliminates the overhead of asking everyone you think is tangentially interested, then get tickets booked and finally call it " the plan". I detest that kind of dependency of my plans on someone else. Or disruption of my routine, however worthless, by someone else's presence. It's not something I am particularly proud of. I can foresee the consequences but it's too hard to change, and I haven't got a reason weighty enough, as yet.  

This is why my friends have christened me Desi Sheldon for this weird obsession with having control of everything I do. It's very wrong and petty that if something belongs to me, I cannot tolerate that thing to be around someone else even for a nanosecond. I don't care if it is my water bottle, an A4 sheet I just got from the stationery or my reclining chair at work that I adjusted just to suit my needs. At that moment, you might tell me that I won a free trip to NASA but all I'll be thinking about is my water bottle that shouldn't be on your desk!

I am emotionally constipated or unavailable or whatever you call it because I couldn't care less. Nothing comes close to how I feel when someone touches my plate. That instant indescribable disgust! Brother, while you reach for the crispiest edge of my samosa, let me tell you that you are inadvertently pushing my mind off the edge of good behaviour and sanity. You are pressing all the wrong buttons, unknowingly. If you want it that bad, go get it, the world is full of crispy samosas. It's simple, there's no abracadabra to that!

I often like to think of myself as a Holier-than-thou soul who has a cutting opinion about everything insignificant, pretty much like that protagonist from the Catcher in the Rye. I am an ever-grumbling, insensitive garrulous load of horse-excreta. Undoubtedly, I have a wild list of things that get my goat and I may be acting all judgmental about them right now but I am sure I have participated in them once myself. One of those things is "stereotypes".

Stereotypes kill me. They really do. Whenever people say that they couldn't figure that I am a Punjabi, it kills me. Mister, you sound like a narrow-minded sexagenarian. And what do you mean I am not a Punjabi? Oh, I see. Of course, I am no Punjabi. Because I am calm and too hard to provoke. There's no Punjabi without a temper. I can't fight or own a "Bult" or be a gymnasium enthusiast. My arms are stick-thin and not the size of your thighs. My built screams of the dearth of Desi ghee that should have gone down my throat. My paunch isn't quite up to the mark. I doubt if anyone's ever heard me yell. They can't even hear me when I am over the phone. Go figure! I am not an overly jovial personality with a tongue that has expletives on its surface, ready to be dropped like bombs. I can't even talk in Punjabi without sounding like someone from Bihar attempting it. My nickname is nothing similar to Bunty, Shunty, Billa, Shampy or Pinka. In fact, I don't even have a nick-name. My grammar and diction are pretty tolerable and do not evoke laughter. I eschew drinking, so that eliminates any chances of getting me drunk at a party and on account of my "drunk behaviour" me being the butt of jokes at all the parties after that. It's just that I am Punjabi, but I'm just not fun.

I don't appreciate these labels. Stereotypes. They are confining and suffocating. Who let you decide? I am not trying to conform to an ideal. I am unfazed and unapologetic about it and way more comfortable in my skin than I ever was. To the world: Go ahead and judge me. I'm unapologetic about it because that is who I am. And honestly, I find solace in them christening me Sheldon (although I barely know who he is or whether his antics are as infuriating) because it makes me feel that I am not the only one. It's a validation. I have lived my life seeking validations for my actions and behaviour. I never understand why. 

There are some questions that are not so straightforward to answer, like what reason can you attribute to men's irrepressible urge to spit out in the urinal after they are done. It's inexplicable. Similarly, does all of that make me a bad person? That's one question that I often keep asking myself. It's inexplicable too. For all I know, even if I end up alone, I will still be in the best company ever. For one can never find anyone as companionable as oneself.

Chapter XXI: '13's out

Whoever said imperfections make you beautiful is a liar. I instantly understand that you say it because your own imperfections are FUBAR. I get it well that you are one of those betel-chewing uncles who sit by the hallway discussing AAP versus Congress versus BJP day in and day out. Because you got no cares, you got no worries. You are so content with your own self that I’m jealous.

Now tell me, wouldn’t meeting someone after long and having them tell you that the first thing they notice about you is your ridiculously rounder tummy set off a panic alarm in your head too? There goes my love of medu-vadas out of the window. Blame me? Rethink! I blame my stupid job that requires me to keep my arse glued 10-12 hours daily. This duration includes frequent trips to the food-court where I tend to indulge in fried offerings. Every morning I pledge myself from having a certain “unhealthy” dish, but the moment it’s my turn at the counter I just subconsciously blurt out what I shouldn’t have. Then I spend the next two hours whining. [I am such a girl!] And joining gym would only be an option if the world was ending tomorrow! Gym is for the insecure, my sole argument.

More hard-hitting was the revelation that I had long been condoning. It was the appearance of a slight patch of my hairless scalp near the crown area. After posting an attention-seeking picture on Facebook, I was flooded with ideas, some as comments and other personal messages suggesting how to nip it. It’s like asking Kim Kardashian to pick a black dude she had the most fun sleeping with! Won’t anybody be confused with so many options? So I’m back to square one. I dump blame, for this one, on Soni genes! Reading about it is how I spent my birthday evening. Science calls it “Alopecia“. One of the reasons listed is Stress. But stress can’t cause hair loss, brothers. And why would I be stressed? I ain’t no sole witness of some murder on a highway. It’s in my genes. Yes, some chromosomes playing bad. Born in a khandaan that loses its tresses by age 35, I was never really aspiring to audition for an advertisement for Fructis at 40, but at least let my twenties go by safe! Wow, I have aging issues worse than Donatella Versace, don’t I?

So now with two panic alarms ticking off and about to implode my mind, I shrugged thinking to myself, “Give the inner drama queen a rest and just enjoy the meal!” Having just settled in our seats, (me in a deep-sinking couch that made me weigh chances of my BMI surpassing the overweight limit) I was struck by proverbial lightning again, another blow that I withstood with a smile. Apparently, I had started to look much older than my age. At 23, I somehow could pass as a 30 year old with ultimate ease, an opinion that evokes a rather ambivalent reaction from me. While I like to be seen as a mature, charming, decent guy that girls go gaga over but I am fully aware of the lethargic laid-back impression I leave does portray me as a tired half-dead prick. Pre-birthday realizations, I say.

Now this is something utterly silly: Born on the 13^th day of December, I was naturally drawn towards number 13 and the preposterous stigma of ill-luck it holds. I tend to thirteen-ify everything around me. Summoning simple calculation logic and taking care of the leap years that lay between 1990 and 20THIRTHEEN, I turned 8401 days old on my 23^rd birthday, which coincidentally sums up to 13. What an utterly rubbish realization! Don’t frown, I’d be retreating to my burrow soon!

The end of ’12 whispered in my ear that ’13 will be good. I had always had an inkling because 13 is my number. And with ’13 almost about to finish, I am certainly not complaining. It indeed was good. Birth of my nephew, good riddance from a rotting relationship, a few goodbyes to friends who left in chase of their dreams, some self-discoveries, a more mature outlook towards life, and lastly, blessings aplenty from my parents.

In the village I live in, although I had less number of lonesome late-night meanderings this year, and was majorly as thoughtless and messed-up as Paris Hilton would be at an aptitude test, I did discover a slew of things about myself. It also included coming to terms with some of them that I would usually eschew as jokes. Confrontations, people. Growing up is a trap, take it from me kids! Never give in. *coughs a dry cough* So lately, I have learnt the art of gauging people’s intentions, interest and all that jazz. No, I didn’t attend any mind-reading classes or practise clairvoyance, it’s just that I may have grown up a little. There I said it! Ha! [The reason I am typing it out here says that I really haven’t learnt anything at all] It has helped me see beyond what they say and reason out why do they actually say it. It’s like a quest to unveil some ulterior motive, I feel like an undercover agent giving them a wicked smile thinking “I see through you, mate!”

This “growing up” brings about similar feelings that you feel when you read your Facebook Wall from last year. Yes, the one that makes you hit yourself with a brick till you bleed. “Man, was I drunk?” “I couldn’t have acted that way!” “Why would anyone write that unless they were on class-A drugs!” “No wonder everyone thinks I suck donkey balls!” “Hell No!” “Ouch, that must have hurt.” “How insensitive and foolish! Thank God I don’t do that anymore” But we will do it all again, and repent over it the following year.

I also realized that I have hyderhidrosis, for it wouldn’t be for no reason that my hands start leaking holding a mouse. I tell my hands “Relax there girl, the mouse ain’t no Ron Jeremy you getting all worked up and wet for!” And if, by chance, I get a little nervous or excited or perplexed (that I always am), my palms indulge in their very own Niagra Falls that leaves me red-faced when someone suddenly turns up for a handshake. I wonder, if for them, my handshakes usually result in handwipes too!

Why just hands, no matter if it’s cloudy, rainy or cold, there’s no way I can avoid getting those unwanted wet-patches on my shirts. It’s as if some water balloons in my armpits somehow exploded. I always feel hot! My passport should read my middle name as Swine. Thank god I only work with douchebags, otherwise entering office with those patches would embarrass me as much as Tom Daley’s ex-girlfriends would have been after they found out he swings the other way. And believe me you, these anti-perspirants are a ploy to mint money from helpless people like me. Nothing seems to work on those glands of mine. Why this awkward abundance and not more hair on my scalp instead, or perhaps a bigger piece of sound mind!

Also, I undertook a couple of color-blindness tests online. And I’m afraid it does not look good. I may not be able to pin-point about what type of color-blindness I have but I can certainly not recognize brown, green and some shade of red. I think it’s called Deuteranopia, a type of Dichromancy. Yes, I know the consequences. My friends have voiced them a million times. Isn’t it sad that I call all the candies in Candy Crush Saga by their shape and not color! If there were no multi-shaped candies in Candy Crush Saga, my addiction would not have become so maniac. Also, walk a mile in my shoes to discover the near-impossibility of me now ever becoming a pilot or an astronaut (which after watching Gravity I’m sure all girls would want to become, hoping that when they are all stranded and in distress their Mr. Clooney will appear and give them hope. Hallucinations, ladies!). For my state: Damn you, cone cells!

With enough revelations for girls to rethink my case (read: toss out in the trash), I’d end this long long post with things I am grateful for. I’m grateful to be able to spend my Diwali at home with my parents and my sister with her baby Neil.  Without further endlessly prating and making a big deal of all the little things, I come down to my November. I call it November with Neil, like a redolent episode of Rendezvous with Simi Grewal. The youngest in family have a charm about them. No matter what they do, it has to get reciprocated with a smile, be it breaking your favourite vase or flitting the TV remote up in the air like it’s a fricking balloon.

My father would jump clapping around in order for Neil to notice and imitate him, like that cymbal-banging monkey toy only without the cymbals. How Neil would forget everything and rush to my mother whenever he catches sight of her talking over the phone. It’s impossible to not call out his name to get his attention and ask him repeatedly to say “Mama” in that irritating baby-talk language. The stress that’s making my hairline recede and hair fall like lovers just evaporates when he nibbles on my forehead trying to show he’s mad. I wonder why he gets tired at all. He wakes up, poops, eats, sleeps and repeats. To see him crawl from room to room, walk with the support of table edges or bed-rests, circling around our maid like paparazzi to Lady Gaga, to hear the high-itched laughter that echoes in the hall, his speeding walker in the verandah, that restlessness to reach things higher than him when I held him, the impatience at the delay in his next spoon of oatmeal to arrive to his mouth…

You know there are things like puppies that always demand love, Neil is one of those things that you wish you could sleep next to, see him breathing with his tiny hand folded as if holding an invisible unicorn horn and dreaming of floating in clouds with white-garbed angels fanning him with huge feathers in slo-mo. He’s the Hugh Hefner and the angels his Playboy bunnies. He’s the man!

It’ll be at least 5 years that I’ll see him again. Skype doesn’t count as “seeing” someone. I hope our lives change and become grander, bigger in these years and the next time I meet him he is big enough to pull my hair and kick me in the crotch saying ,“Is that all you got, uncle?“

Until then, much love.

Chapter XX: Internal Monologue

He asked, "Do you see the Big Picture?"

No, hard times have impaired your vision and enfeebled your defenses, haven't they?

You can't see beyond this dump of self-inflicted sadness?
I think you're in love.

With? With that state of unhappiness.

You've fallen for this idea of morons.
Why in the good lord's name?

Own up!
Quit this masochism.
Stop looking for excuses to be unhappy.

Just give me a reason.

Did you mess up?

Perhaps that's why you pull this droopy face.

Is that why the drained spirits?

Petty little man, you!

Why do you think you're the only one?

Don't.

What are you going to do? Whine?

Nobody's coming to sew your pieces back and put it all up together.

Understand that the chips are down.

Face it. Accept.

Don't whine!

Forget your mistakes.

Learn from them and then bury them under that willow.

You have to let go of them.

They shouldn't keep weighing you down forever.

You can't stay afloat with iron balls tied to your ankles.

No flight if you're caged, no soaring if shackled.

You built those walls, didn't you? Wreck them.

Let go.

Stop dwelling on how it's all slipping out of your grip.

Control what you can.

Be responsive, not reactive.

Unclog your mind. Empty that space occupied by thoughts that hold you back.

Move them out, throw them away.

Let go of the past.

Make new space.

Let the universe enter your mind.

Surrender. To its vastness. To this freshness. To the newness.

Feel light. Like gravity's gone.

Don't forget the Big Picture.

Even that dark cloud raining over you has a silver lining.

Think about it.

Think good, if not grand. Many tiny positive thoughts.

Cultivate them. Breed new patterns.

Don't live so constrained.

You'll miss out on all the fun.

What bothers you? Failure?

Face your fears.

Don't let them in up there.

You know who Failure's best friend is?

Self-doubt. Don't let it in either.

Shut it out.

Because if you don't, just know that it feeds on self-loathing.

Don't give it a chance.

Love yourself.

Be grateful. Be great.

Why let their machinations bother you?

Hunt them down. Block them out.

Do you know what really bothers Fear?

Hope. Yes, Hope.

That's the one thing Fear is fearful of.

Hold it close to your heart.

Never lose it.

It will repair your marred vision and strengthen your defenses.

You just have to let it fix you. 
Let it in and you'll see. 

It will dissolve those dark clouds of bewilderment.

It will make you believe in the Big Picture again.

You can count on it.

 

Chapter XIX: The Lousy Law of Attraction

I open with an observation. There's not a better way to wake up than an out-of-control bladder pressure. The last 25 days have taught me that. How?

So I have been travelling 110 Km daily to and from office after I was finally looped in a project which wanted me to function from the STP Campus. It was quite a conundrum when it all began. After a drought of 9 months, I was being offered something. But it required me to travel very far or even consider evacuating the house and the housemates whom I have eventually fallen in love with, to go live in the heart of Hyderabad and out of this village. It asked for a lot of weighing in but I decided to go with the flow. There's a strange kind of optimism about accepting things as they unfurl, isn't there? 

So now my days begin at 6am and end at 11:30pm and the safest bet on waking without relying on my phone alarm is to drink loads of water before hitting the hay and let the nephrons in my kidneys do the magic.

About the project, I did seize the opportunity thinking it'd be cool to finally start working! The thought of travelling 4 hours daily excited me. I am a loony chap, after all. Incontestably. If one is receptive enough, travelling can teach you a lot many things:

1) You learn to sleep in uncomfortable seats, in which your long legs hardly fit and you swear at the thought of getting knee caps each time the brakes are hit. But believe me you, that episodic sleep is the sweetest. You wake up smiling and can even see the angels flying away with their harps slowly into the light.

2) You realise that you repeatedly skip your favourite songs from your music library and have started to enjoy some utterly meaningless music like Dilliwali Girlfriend. Travelling at night by office cab also involves singing the same crappy songs out loud when among your equally weary chums.

3) You accept the unexpected! Your body starts cheating on you; something that you never imagined! No matter how lively and energetic your inner child is, to your body that means nothing. ZERO! The next thing you know is you are buying pain relieving spray for your back that's gone so bad that you can't even bend in a way to see what area of the urinal you are aiming at.

4) Talking of urinals, travelling made me realise that even in pain, roadside signs provide too many reasons for you to smile. At Secunderabad, my bus daily runs parallel to walls that have "Don't Pass Urinals" and "Don't Uring" painted in black on them. It is in that ephemeral second that I forget the work worries and the pain in my back. It's at moments like these when I start believing in the existence of God.

5) Travelling's taught me that the probabilities of two events happening in my life are same and close to zero. E1 : Not having a migraine as the day progresses. E2 : Having the only hot chick you spotted waiting for the same bus to be seated with you. Slim chances! I've given up now and have got accustomed to sitting with a sweaty bloke and to our broad shoulders not allowing either of us to sit comfortably.

So like every morning  as music gives me company (and sometimes strangers complaining about the distance and the effect it has on their lives), it was on one fine day that I couldn't get The Secret documentary out of my head. I drifted into imagining what I really wanted.

 

 

Thought 1: A new phone, a replacement to my grossly old Nokia E72? Wouldn't it be fancy to shift to some OS that is not from the biblical era? On second thought: No way I'm blowing up my money on a phone, I'm all fine with this aging one. So what its keys have lost their markings! So what it's endured many falls! It still serves the purpose, does it not?

Thought 2: A large library with every book I ever wanted to buy? Oh the smell of new books is like an orgasm! On second thought: That could wait for a while, if I get it fulfilled then who'll buy me time to dive into them because even Dumbledore's dead!

Thought 3: Pet a dachshund and a Persian cat. On second thought: Oh well, who am I kidding!

Thought 4: Sorcery to prevent everything I eat from accumulating around the tummy that only makes me look like a kid with Kwashiorkor? On second thought: A girl who would only fall in love with that body and not my beautiful tortured mind will be no good anyway!

Thought 5: A piece of somebody's mind? Somebody who's exceptional! On second thought:
More than that, I'd value peace of mind. I'd really want a family reunion - my sisters, my parents and I - under one roof, the small Rajpura house becoming one big boisterous circus.

Every morning eying my parents from the window inside, sipping the first round of their early morning tea-marathon in the verandah sitting in the breeze by the plants, with my father going through the newspaper and my mother feigning interest in whatever news he would begin to narrate. 

How he would inundate me with investment ideas and drag me to post office and banks every day I stay without fail. You can tell that punctuality is what I've got from his side when I hear him say my name at 7am to start getting ready for bank that opens at 10. He'd inject me with confidence when all walls close in. He doesn't know how comforting it is when he'd say over the phone that he's got my back, that I should quit worrying and have fun, eat well and forget about everything. Nothing assures me more. He's a hero.

I can't wait to taste food cooked by my mother even if it's something as simple as  Khichdi. I am totally tired of what I get here. Even the STP campus is no good. I want to witness the hell broken loose in the kitchen with my eldest sister managing everything single-handedly which is quite a sight to see. Then try asking the sister number 2 a yoga asana for pain-relief and she would run the entire gamut teaching you as long as you don't tell her to stop. Passion truly is blind. I also just can't wait to hear my youngest sister address Papa like only she does, observe her taking on with the job of a new mother, witness her changing nappies and talk in that irritating baby-language,  to hear her nonpareil commentary on events and the residents of our colony.

 

What fun it'd be to take dad's case ganging up on him with all my brothers-in-law.  I want to see my father become a child again when it comes to having dessert. It's funny how he'd argue relentlessly on having tea without sugar but then unflinchingly welcome another serving of ice-cream. 

This is what I want with my family

I want to witness the fights the kids get into waiting for their turns on using the internet on my ancient laptop. The high-staked games of cards, the sleepless nights playing Tambola, getting in a one-on-one 'Where are you going on with your life?' discussion with my sisters separately (and my father snubbing me with 'He just doesn't listen, I have just stopped bringing the topic up' in between while my mother defends me at every stage further infuriating my old man). I crave the chaos.

But nothing overpowers my longing to hold my youngest nephew in my arms and teach him a word or two. He'll be able to crawl when he'll come see us, and I can't wait to follow him around from room to room. See him smiling in real and not just through Skype.

I'd also want to go catch a movie with my sisters (sans the kids). Since that's like a snowflake's chance in hell and I'd later come to terms with that. Everything that I have envisioned above will undeniably require a LOT of 'coming to terms with'. Because here we are all, in different cities (and some on another continent),  entangled in our own lives.

Ain't no reason to worry about

And my project release requires me to stay in Hyderabad for Diwali (till November), which means that I can only see my parents (and my nephew) in December. After 13 cruel months. Dramatic sigh! Boo!

I know it's the kind of love I'll never lose but this separation in time and distance is a bitch. I'm assured that time will fly. It always has. So I won't stop dreaming these dreams because it's the love for each other we got wrapped around our hearts that keeps me wool-gathering. Why quit running all those images in my mind over and over again till they really happen? It gives me a reason to look forward to something, whenever I find myself cornered by work and hectic hours. 

The Secret professes to "Ask, Believe, Receive". I think that I've done two-thirds of the job well, and the remaining is not in my hands. Hey Universe, better start conspiring to make all that happen already, you! I'm counting on you.

Chapter XVIII: The Dark Is Light Enough

One of the handful advantages of living in a village is that it gives you space. To breathe. To ruminate. To absorb. To be. After a mind-numbing day at the office and fearing getting buried under the rubble of "busy life", I usually go for a stroll with restless thoughts waiting to be extracted, like pearls from an oyster. 

Most of my meaningless meanderings have been around night time. There's something absolutely enigmatic about it. About the disdained darkness. About the mystique surrounding the Dark. The Night represents the Dark. It smoothens the kinks the Day accentuates, blurs all the rough edges. Under the blanket of darkness, many levities are accommodated, multiple details bent. It diminishes the Day's vividness, it gobbles up its vivacity and morphs into something serene, tranquil and calm. The calmness only contested by the bats' failure at finding the branch they'd head-stand mid-air on. The calmness reassured by the breathy humming of insects consumed by the dark.

The Night is also a thief. It steals the Sky's colour from the Day's palette. The magnificent Light Blue. But it is smarter. Like any plagiarist, it tweaks it up a little. Makes it darker. Bolder. More azure. The Stars are the splatters of protest the Day puts when the Night comes crawling in trying to filch the latter's identity; they are the white lines, the broken pieces and the pictures found on the crime scene; the reticent witness of the amusing storm. Infinitesimal Yellows on the wide Dark Blue. 

The Night has an array of characters seeking recognition, expecting that nod of acceptance, awaiting their meaning be unfurled, like words of an old Ghazal. For example, there are fireflies that envy the stars. They want to be like them. Twinkling. Yellow. To hold the onlookers in awe. They fly behind bushes in the dark, glowing. Like incinerated on will. Even the trees sing another tune. The blue moonlight anoints the burns they bear all day. It heals their hurt. It fixes what the day defiled. Its soft touch makes them gay. Makes them sway. Thus the breeze is born.

The Moon is the Night's accomplice; it's a trap to make you fall in love, to surrender to its glory.

The Moon is just like a woman: Unstable. Indecisive. Uncertain. Ever-changing. How else would you justify its not sticking to one shape? Insanely experimental? Attention seeking? Overly moody? Ask it why and without batting its celestial-eyelid, it will blame it all on the Earth's Rotation Cycle and then angrily disappear for a few nights, fuming. Poof! Will go mum. Awaiting apologies. Until the admirers learn a lesson. Until their audacity is burnt to ashes. Until the realization dawns.

The Moon's light sieves its way through the Clouds (that float drunk on beauty). The Clouds are adrift on a mission of their own. They are what every man can relate the most to. Despite their numerous attempts to do good, they are dismissed as cold, uncaring and heartless. All this time they only intended to conceal the Moon's blemishes. The flaws they know, but wish others not to see. So they flow over the Moon, like mastered fingers on a golden harp emanating a heavenly sound. Adding more beauty and meaning to a gorgeous night. 

The Moon's intolerance is like a woman's too. According to it, every night is a Vegas show. It cannot stomach the Clouds hogging the limelight; it cannot digest the blockage; it cannot share the praise. Because that is what it survives on. Nobody ever sings anthems about how the Clouds multiplied the Taj Mahal's beauty, because that is what the Moon does impeccably. It's its territory and encroachments infuriate it. So the Cloud's intentions, however non-malevolent, mean a giant naught. The Wise-cum-Lone Pole Star eyes the Moon's dismissal of the coquettish Clouds. I wonder if that's the reason why it chose to settle much farther from the ever moaning Moon?

Soon the Sun would wake and it would then be the Dark's appointed time. All the drama would evaporate. But no matter how many times the Sun rises, no matters what wattage of light bulbs you aglow, the Dark has set its royal throne. Inside. For good. Don't be afraid. The Dark is as crucial as its antagonist. Be in the Dark with eyes wide open. Let it rob that glint from your eyes, take a dip in its stillness. But do not let it unhook you from your virtues. Hold on to them and look underneath the rubble of destructive memories, of distorted thoughts, of disturbing musings and find your saviour. It'll be right there! Waiting to be exhumed. To be resurrected. You have to dwell in that darkness, to finally see the light. Light wouldn't mean much if you've never interred yourself in the dark at least once.

The Dark flows through each corner, growing bigger, under every leaf, in every furrow, between all crevices. On anything that welcomes it. An indisputable conquest. Just like its rival, the Day's. Both of them brimming with greed to fill the world, like poison spreads in the veins. The Dusk unleashes the Dark. The Dark, like a hungry hyena, swallows every lux of luminosity; it bites and chews every sliver of that fleshy piercing light. Until the brightness is buried. Until only the Dark prevails. But soon it'd be the Sun's turn. It's a game of Snakes and Ladders. The Day clambers a ladder, the Night is stung by the serpent and when the Night progresses up, the Day has venomous fangs stuck in its neck.

Who doesn't have a few skeletons in their closet? No one is unstained, not one soul pristine. No pure white. The Dark is a part of everybody. It's a shade of grey. And it is quite alright.

"If you don't have any shadows, you are not standing in the light. " 

The mistakes you make mark you on the right path. It may be your darkest. But it is all yours. Yours to claim. Yours to erase. So hold grounds. Revel in it and the aftermath. Absorb it like a sponge. You falter because you got your hands on something not meant for you. Let the Dark be that optimizing force. Let it show you what is odd. Let it reflect the things you would never want to dig teeth in again. Begin to like the Darkness. Let loose and let it drive you to light. It will. It will drive you to the tunnel's end. Gradually. But you will have to be inside the tunnel first!

Chapter XVII: The Charminar Memory

“Shouldn’t have I grown a little wiser?” The question rose from the abysmal unclean nooks of my mind like the dungeons where Gollum in the Hobbit dwells, and splashed itself across the foreground. Never had I before caught a speeding bus whose route I didn't know. Never had I not known what to tell the conductor as he approached me with his sheaf of tickets, a metallic puncher to mark my start/end-points and a ubiquitous black bag that conductors all across carry. It’s the bag that always has enough change in it that, sadly, the conductors never have enough courtesy to shell out.

As I let the question immerse itself back to the gloomy waters from where it had emerged like an assuaged sea-beast, I gulped loud. I had been in the middle of nowhere having just dropped my friend for an exam by taxi at some college whose name is like Harman Baweja  . Utterly forgettable.

The nervous lot of examiners began fluxing towards the just-opened gate, and as I cut heroically through the multitudes in slow-motion, I caught sight of an APSRTC bus emitting dark smoke out of its rear pipe, all ready to leave. I told my mind to shut up and I entered it.

But I also had a choice. We always have a choice, don’t we? But mine was as dull as a dry-day. It was to stay in the vicinity of the college that bragged of the plethora of IT companies that visit it by putting four big boards of the number of students placed on its entry wall, along with whistling emaciated guards and a few surrounding shops that only bluebottles flitted around. Now hanging three hours at a place that reeked of urine was hardly anyone would want to spend a Sunday like.

Gaining consciousness, I realized that the conductor, not used to meeting puzzled passengers of this degree, was beginning to lose patience. I, myself, was at a loss of thoughts. His piercing stare, repeated enquiries and my fit of haste finally found words. I asked him to drop me on the main road, out of the village that the college was in. From there started the first of the many auto-rickshaws we slid our behinds in and out of. 'We' is me and another friend who got in on the bus with me, clueless. 

It all made me slightly happy inside. I was silently beaming. This tiny adventure of roaming around some rural area of Hyderabad on my own was giving me a high. I was adrift, gloating in the new-found high. Suddenly my stomach made noises which could no longer stay unnoticed in the rickshaw now. My hunger grew just as high as the high I was feeling.

It was 9AM and all the false hopes of finding a good eating-joint in the middle of nowhere worsened my towering appetite. After a few futile calls to Just-Dial and a stroll across the cross roads, my heart beamed with glee as the letters KFC in red stared back at me. My legs could outrun an antelope then, I tell you. It was my oasis in the middle of a desert. And just like an oasis, my wish to eat there disappeared. It was an illusion. A mesmerizing mirage. Its shutter was down and my fast-beating heart sulkily sank in my empty stomach with a thud.

I again had a choice. We never run out of choices, do we? Hotel Sitara’s restaurant was on the floor above. And was OPEN. "It's better than the dusty putrid surrounding of that college", I comforted myself. The restaurant’s ambience was better than the notions I entered it with. The religious Telugu soundtrack filled the air, and a group of varied-shaped people crowded the breakfast counter.

We both sat in more quiet area. The manager, who could easily be cast as one of the rogues in Home Alone series, welcomed us and asked how many plates we would use. Another question! This one awoke the monster from within the green lake of cheapness, a trait too typical of Indians. Frugality? Practicality? Whatever! The eight-legged monster’s tentacles never easily part with cash, do they? My semi-conscious immediate reply was “Just ONE will do”. 

A good read and you never feel alone!

The waiters witnessed me re-appear at the counter the most number of times, perhaps. I ate ravenously like the shark from JAWS, relishing all the famed South-Indian breakfast. I refilled. I re-ate. We shared. The remnant of the time till the exam ended was passed at the restaurant with our respective books. It was there where I dived in “magic realism” of  Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. And it has still got me engrossed. The other was Jane Austen's Emma.

Borrowing from Rediff.com’s review of Deepa Mehta’s film by the same name “I've come to know two kinds of book lovers. The first kind constitutes of ardent fans of Salman Rushdie who have, over the years, devoured his novels and short stories -- deconstructing the liberal dose of magical realism in his stories and inhabiting the extraordinary worlds of his protagonists. The others have despaired endlessly over not being able to read through any of his books (Rushdie is widely known as one of the most complex writers of his time).”

It’s a delight to read his words and the worlds of the characters he conjures. Far more delectable than the combination of colourful chutneys I had just gorged on.

As we got ready to leave, the manager well acquainted with our "plan" now told us which way was the EXIT. Damn! Some might find that rude, not us. We didn't take offence. While paying the bill and not dishonoring the ingrained cheapness, I extracted the exact change out from my pocket. No tips, that means? This made the manager ejaculate “Change bahut hai sir ke paas!!” with a sinister lifeless smile. This blow too I sidestepped with an equally  lifeless smile. Why? Because eating for three, paying for one – it was like a small mission accomplished. My healed heart and stuffed stomach remained unaffected by his words’ acridity. They just cared not.

Finally, the trio reunited after the exam and headed on to Koti from where we’d catch an auto-rickshaw whose driver was too generous with the advices. “Keep your phones held tightly.” “They aim at your wallets.” “It’s gonna be crowd-y.” “It is no Taj Mahal but it is not no-good.” He was referring to my reaction on seeing the Charminar for the first time ever. Because what my eyes saw and what my eyes had imagined did not quite conform to each other.

Before embarking on getting to Charminas’s top, we stormed the busy street to buy Hyderabad Pearls instead. My friends were leaving for Punjab in two days (something I envied and took eons to stomach) , so getting pearls for their family seemed rosy.

At first, we got duped by a Sardar traffic-cop who used the Kada in my wrist to establish kinship among us and then in his pleasant Punjabi-less tongue directed us to a pearl shop that had rather prohibitive prices. Instead of helping us get to genuine pearls, he used us as bait to bilk extra rupees. Perhaps, his getting born and brought up down south has snatched away every ounce of being a big-hearted “Punjabi”.

I am what Greek princesses must look like.

But then I really got victimized! What was promised to not last longer than 30 minutes, took them 3 hours of selections. T-H-R-E-E! God tell me, how difficult is it to choose from things that all look alike? This time, just like the conductor, my patience withered out. My heart bruised again, all its excitement drained out. My stomach grew noisy again!

But another look at the Charminar made me forget the unease all my organs were at. Its beauty ousted the hurt, its magnificence silenced the noises. One would want to remain immured forever to its timeless beauty. The deafening noises, the outrageous honking and the beggars incessantly pulling on your t-shirt asking for alms, all ceased to exist. We were confined to its sight!

Through the long queue for tickets to see the monument from inside, we started to climb. Right in front of us was a Firangi couple. After having shamelessly displayed the cheapness at the restaurant, we were up for another effrontery. Some of our antics included:

A)Ogling

B) Talking loudly as if we are the only English-speaking Indians

C) Disparaging the monument that had us spell-bound a few moments ago

D) Grimacing at the graffiti

E) Belittling anything Indian that was mentioned

F) Sighing with pleasure at every breath the Firangi girl with skin like egg-white breathed [for me]

G) Sighing with pleasure with every step upwards the big guy with big pecs took [for the girls]

And to our luck, we had a corpulent aged lady before us who was climbing really slow. So all of our drama did get its run-time, but perhaps never got acceptance. I know we need to get a life! Well! After that lady fell once, we resumed the rest of the drama in a gripping fear of falling like dominoes and collapsing under her shapely posterior. Then we concluded that Newton’s rather questionable III law is not as universal. Our foolish actions were not bearing any fruitful reactions. Not even one Firangi glance.

 Interestingly, the fruit that our actions really bore was rather unwanted. And gross! After getting insane pictures clicked at Charminar’s top when we descended to the ground, we had one pigeon leave a little treat on one of our heads. I wonder if that pigeon was observing our silly machinations! Had Newton’s spirit conspired with the pigeon? This time my stomach hurt and my heart was inundated with the echoes of laughter. It was quite a scene. The victim seemed indecisive, confused whether to laugh along or weep right after strangling the fucking bird.

Thus we amputated the rest of our trip to the nearby palaces and a museum. After all the drama, our stomachs had grown noisy again. We hunted the city changing bus-after-bus to find the nearest Mc Donald’s. Looking a little worse-for-wear, we ate the day’s second meal amidst noisy kids and pretentious teenagers, before returning to Pocharam Village.

That was one weekend that’ll stay in my memory for quite some time. 

Presently, besides the extremely exacting job (sniff sarcasm here!), Midnight’s Children is also keeping me busy. It's pulled me under its gossamer of beautiful expression and inspiring style of writing. All I need to do is put on a jazz record like the one below and vanish in another world like smoke in the air..