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..

                            

Chapter XVI: Love, Faith and Resentment

This dates back to the first week of January '13, three days after our tiny torrent of joy arrived. My youngest sister's baby boy. I was visiting my parents who were staying at my elder sister's. I had to see them and share their happiness. 

The crescent moon raced along my window seat, battling all the gnarled leafless branches that tried to bar the magical conversation it was having with the tiny white eyes gazing right at it.

I was in the mini-bus I had hopped in at Paradise Circle, Secunderabad with two bags placed carefully in my feet. One big and one small. It was taking us all Mumbai-bound passengers to its multi-axle bigger sibling that would consume us all and belch us out in Maharastra. In about 12 hours.

The  smell of sulphur dioxide carried by the gust of wind that sneaked in from the thin rectangular opening in my window pushed its way through the thick strands of nose-hair that only recently had started playing peek-a-boo with every eye that held sight of them. The mini bus has braved it all for years. Everything. The Smell of SO2. Getting hustled by puny species of automobiles. The Pollution. The Rush. The Rage. The Madness.

Inured to the sameness, the less-luxurious, younger sibling honked its way through a sea of automobiles, semi-constructed pillars that will in near future bear the burden of speedy metro rails and some auto-rickshaws that scurried impatiently like a rodent. These auto-walas racing against someone only they can see, sharply cutting through other seemingly invisible vehicles, making space wherever they can penetrate the front wheel of their only source of income are so  accustomed to the surrounding rage that they evoke a mouthful of foul language from the other commuters so effortlessly.  My mini-bus gaily overtook them. The autos made her seem less "mini". Regaining confidence, it sped smoothly through the undying spirit of a big city and the restlessness at its heart. The smoke, lights and noise that usually define a club's dance-floor filled the very old, uneven roads of Hyderabad. These roads were the city's own dance-floor on which many come and go, some dance well and safe, some aggressively as if trying to prove a point while others too drunk to hold composure jostle and crash, taking an innocent dancer down with them.
 

The mini-bus presented us just out of Hyderabad on a gas station where its older sibling's womb was getting loaded with everybody's baggage. I submitted my bags too. One big and one small. Then I sank in my seat, letting a sense of complacency take over. And bam! It dawned on me. Having bragged about my organizing skills umpteen times to my pals here, I let them have the last laugh when despite the multiple lists I made (about the things to be packed or the food that had my tongue wagging), I forgot something they know I have a tough time without. My Earphones! Yes, the garish blue Panasonic ones. 

The moment I settled in the bus to Secunderabad, they visited me in my mind, a vision of them lying quietly on the edge of the centre-table, lonely and submerged in their own futility. The hands that usually after untangling them would make them part and stick each of them in a dark hole that they vomited unlikable noises in. Yes, those hands were now covering my ears to save me from the destruction Bol Bachchan could have caused. The conductor found it appropriate to entertain the lot with the movie but that callous prick failed to acknowledge the only passenger brooding in the front seat, refusing to let a laugh out for the loud, utterly-predictable, pedestrian humour. It's amazing how all Rohit Shetty movies have his stamp on them and how equally and immensely I hate them all.

Right when the credits rolled in, I began to prepare myself to recover from the damage done by the effeminate out-of-work Abhishek, the cringeworthy Ajay, the very manly Archana's veshya act and  Asin's innate ability to look and sound irritating in every movie without putting in much effort. 

I had never missed my blue earphones that bad. I pledged to never be apart. I cursed my stars. I cursed my carelessness. I cursed the conductor. I cursed his choice. I cursed Piracy. I cursed the first person who ever thought of bringing televisions inside buses. Soon I had in my face Salman who sported a moustache and performed bollywood-action so convincingly beating the bejesus out of every crook in the frame. Thankfully, my winks of sleep protected me from witnessing the downfall of a dangerous villain ironically named 'Bacha Bhaiya'. 

The few days I had to spend with my parents and sister's family in Mumbai flew by faster than a whizzing flock of busy honeybees that fly for a bed of flowers full of nectar. I'll remember this visit for the eye-opening, faith-shattering trip to Shirdi and Shani Shignapur that extracted every sliver of feeble faith I had, absorbed it, trapped it in an abyss and eventually purloined its life.

We had the online passes meant for those willing to shell out money, which would grant us the chance to be a part of the prestigious 'aarti' of a milky-white idol of an aged man adorned with a golden crown. 

He was like a rock band’s lead vocalist. Only carved in stone and lifeless. With his own posse of portly pandits as his back-up singers. The hysteria grander than that of the Rolling Stones. The mute rockstar and his super show, fed on faith of his frenzied fans not balling their fists up in the air with excitement but clapping synchronously to the notes hit by the backup singers. The fans sang along. For them the hymns were the greatest record ever. Unbeatable tunes.

It was his show and HE was the audience too. He just sat amidst the clamour. At peace. Full of himself. Silently snickering at the hullaballoo. Mocking everyone consumed in the menial earthly tasks of winning him over. Deriding his back-up clan from whom he stole the show without parting his lips, who sang their lungs out but only he garnered the credit.

The hymns were sung passionately in an unknown language, as if the passion would bring the old man to life; as if it was their first performance ever and their only one to please the old man and ask for his forgiveness. Forgiveness because they had bartered their souls for something that the entire world is slave to, something that is as omnipresent as their god- it's the greed, the filthy power of money. Big idol, big benefits.

I somehow like the smaller bands better. The ones in which the same mute lead-vocalist performs the routine without moving a muscle in a much much smaller room. And the big posse is replaced by a tired-looking pujaran beating the soap out of her husband’s frothy mundu in front of a dingy room which is all she can claim to call her home. Small idol, small benefits.

The solace here is unmatchable. There’s no big production show, just a silent tête-à-tête with the mute rockstar’s minute version.  The big production only causes discord and dislike. The real essence is here. It lies within. The essence that the histrionics of the big-production show overshadowed, rises here and fills the heart up. Now takes place what the big show couldn’t spark. An effective dialogue.

The big shows tire me. Because it's all become a nasty business, a way of milking money off someone's faith. Faith so testing that some even start by foot kilometres away towards the temple. What do they intend to obtain from it? To whom are they proving a point? Is enduring pain the only way to mend oneself? Masochism for salvation? Are they doing it for redemption? Is this what they think would erase their array of misdeeds and give them a fresh start? No, this pain and discomfort won't even win them a look longer than a microsecond of the lifeless idol crowded by crazed fans of someone they've only heard stories about. Crazy!
 

Talking about crazy, Shani Shignapur has Lord Shani's vigilant eye over the village that
should be more famous for its sugarcane production. There are no locks anywhere, not even in the banks. Everyone sleeps with open doors, unlatched rooms, unbolted verandahs of their unguarded houses. For whoever dares to deviate suffers his wrath. Faith so strong or faith gone wrong?

The only thing good that yielded out of the trip were my mother's clear pearly tears when I dedicated Rahman's Lukka Chhupi for her. After the six minutes of Rahman and Lata exchanging verses, we both were left sobbing at the thought that how can all the words freefalling in our heads for months be sung out to us by someone else so beautifully.

Right then in the rickety hired Toyota Innova, a mother and her son had their moment. A moment that no one else paid heed to. A moment that went unnoticed.

That hammered their hearts. One young and one old. 

That resonated with their love. So selfless. 

That mirrored her worries. Resurfacing fears. 

That reflected her concerns. Of his well-being. 

That depicted his helplessness. The catch-22. 

That spoke of his respect for her. Deserved and undying. 

That lay bare the hole in his life. Stark naked. 

That conveyed his acceptance of the new turn of things. Its ugly truth. 

That created ripples in the wild ocean that time had tamed. Made it restless again. 

That hummed the symphonies of their hearts out. One young and one old.

A moment that in his make-believe world he lives every moment. A moment ephemeral but for eternity would last.