Storifying

#Courtesy: Waltz with Bashir. Daniel Kahneman. Some random articles. And, what I always love doing. Talking and catching up with people face-to-face.

It was almost dusk. Two old friends were sitting on the grassy lawn of that beautiful park. It was evident that they had been sitting and chatting for quite some time. About things that happened long back when they were together as well as things that happened afterwards.

"Do you know that famous experiment involving childhood memories? " Nihal asked Liz.

"Which one?"

"So, they conducted an experiment in which the subjects under study were shown 10 photographs of their childhood. One of them was fake with their selves superimposed on a background of say, an amusement park. They were asked to recollect their experiences after being given those photos."

"And what happened?"

"80% of the subjects actually 'recounted' experiences surrounding those fake photos. They were able to build stories around it."

"Memories abhor gaps huh? This story telling, I understand somewhat though. The mind, I guess, would have a tendency to fill gaps by making up something that would ensure that it's a part of a coherent story. In fact, I have read somewhere that it is difficult for human beings to think of their lives as something other than stories. Think of it. Our lives are actually anything but stories. It's a collection of totally random incidents, one bearing little relation to another, except for the relationship that we want them to have. And, yet we insist that our lives are like a progression. A sequence with one event connected to another."

"Hmm. But, Liz. Our lives are stories. Each time something happens, it changes us a bit. So, the next time we face something or make a decision, we would do it differently."
"Maybe. But, there is no sequence. Whatever happens, happens randomly and individually. We storify it in retrospect. In retrospect, we believe that it couldn't have happened any other way. It makes perfect sense. However, the problem is that it makes sense only because we have experienced it and we make a story out of it. We haven't lived out the million alternate versions and those are not as real to us. "

"That reminds me of Kahneman. Ever heard of him? In a famous TED talk, he actually compares experience with memories. He talks of patients going through an endoscopy surgery. He compares patients who have had a short period of painful surgery and also patients who have had a long period of painful surgery which ended on a gradual note with the pain decreasing towards the end instead of being constantly high like the former. The latter actually had a worse experience but ended up with better memories of the surgery than the former. "

"All that we talked about adds a different perspective, doesn't it? All of us meeting up together long after schools, college and all that. What are we meeting up for? Nostalgia? But then, that's different for each of us. We look back and each of us have our own perspective. Even what we underwent individually afterwards, influences the memories we look back at. The way you remember things will be totally different from the way I remember it because we went different ways and lived different lives afterwards."

"And yet, we meet. We end up feeling a certain sense of relief as well as comfort in meeting and we hope to rekindle our relative memories of our experiences."

"And sometimes after all those years, when we meet up and talk, we realise that we idolised some people and experience because of who or what they were to us. It's when we talk, compare notes and allow our mind to accept the various perspectives and versions that we are finally able to understand and comprehend. Even if a person was not lying or an experience felt awesome, we realise that what we thought at the time was just like copy-paste. We missed out all the nuances of the person or the experience because we thought without actually thinking by ourselves."

"Hahaha. Liz. So, in the end, all this meeting up and nostalgia is faltoo. It's like what somebody once said. New is always better. Never anchor yourself in the past."

"Naaaa. I think I would like to understand the past me, the past you and the past everybody. I also like tracing how all of us grew up."

"Storiiiifying, Liz. Double standards, you have."

Liz laughed. "Maybe. I never said that I don't indulge in it. I do because I need to make sense of it. I am not narrow minded enough to think that the way it played out is perfect. However, those stories often help me understand who we all are and to understand why each of us have changed. From those same stories, I derive my sense of identity and belonging."

"Mm. Yes. And there is no right or wrong. Just all the stuff that happened."

"Exactly."

"I have definitely missed you a lot, Liz. Hmm. You reckon that it'll always be the same between us even if we keep in touch only infrequently?"

"That depends on what you decide to tell me and what I decide to tell you when we do meet. Also, you need to ensure that you buy me the best ice-cream around here when we meet up. "

Nihal got up from the lawn, wiped his jeans and extended his hand towards Liz.

"That's a deal."

Our Holy Potato

Greetings to my fellow human beings.

I am a follower of YoYoism and I want to talk to you about the immense amount of disrespect that is being shown to the Potato, the living and magnificient symbol of our religion.

YoYoism started in 10000 BC when humanity was far more advanced. In those days, everyone flew from every place to every other place by attaching biogenetically engineered crows to their feet. Humanity has fallen much afterwards but we still maintain vestiges of that greatly civilised era by being ready to kill one and all in the name of our great God, YoYo. We believe in YoYo because he keeps sending his bearded sons and daughters and hot secretaries once in a while to the Earth to teach us the YoYo way. We hope he sends one right now. We desperately need it.

But, back to the potato. You see the potato is different from your tomatoes and brinjals. It shouldn't be eaten. Our holy scriptures say that it is our daddy. We mostly believe so. The most exalted, YoYo, constantly carried the Potato around with him. The moment the most exalted YoYo felt bored, the potato would fly from his pocket and randomly smack some lesser God's head much to his delight. From the potato, comes life, goodness and all things nice.

You scientific pricks. You do not believe us? Jagdish Chandra Bose, the great Indian scientist, once proved that plants have life. They can feel pain. Don't you get it? The Potato has a beating heart. And, yet you skin it. Boil it. Kill it. And, eat it. Our holy symbol. Our giver of life. Skinned. Boiled. Killed. Eaten.

Our blood curdles when we think of that. We feel like stoning you all. We want legislations and court judgements banning people from eating the Potato. We feel offended and abused. What food chain are you talking about? No. No. We don't really care if you gently kill the potato and then eat it. We don't really care about brinjals, radishes, bittergourds and all such other vegetables. We only care about potatoes.

 All potatoes have a right to live. In fact, all potatoes have more of a right to live than human beings. Potatoes can shrivel and waste out slowly but they shouldn't die. And, those who dare lay their teeth on the potato should be lynched. Traitors!Cold Hearts! We don't care about age or gender. They should all die a slow, painful death.

Hail Potato Daddy..

Indian Government, you hear? We expect potato laws to come in soon

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop.

Greyish skies, monochrome people, slanting rainfall,
A strong chai by the roadside, an assortment of bajis to eat from.
And, a city inside this city, that has to be pulled up,
that had been kept deeply buried in woolly memories.

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop.

Brightening and simmering headlights with prancing droplets between,
Bobbing umbrellas and running people and confused street dogs,
Warm-hearted Malayalis dipping their noses into businesses, big and small.
Always prying, advising, policing to preserve a once-tremendous-culture.

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop

Seven cents of land with your name marked on it.
With tapioca and bananas growing in it, to keep the soil wet.
For that time, when you will return bearing all that dust on your face
North Indian dust and if-so-happens, American and European dust.

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop

Two parents, growing old together and wide-eyed waiting,
for the shorter-than-seconds moments together
With rasam, murukku and paayasam.
And the separation growing longer and longer and longer

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop

As dreams sour and stale and become cliched,
Paths become murukky loops and you dance on the border of your equilibrium,
The steamy chai and the watered air conspire and moist your glasses
To blind you to the apparitions walking around from your memories.

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop

Apparitions and their mirrors in reality, the change and contrast,
the ageing, the greying, the clouding, the water-exposed wrinkling,
the maturing, the 'practical'ising, the wearing down
Apparitions of connecting webs, still lingering from the past.

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop

Against that all, an animalistic love is let loose into that bulky air,
A-class Malayali love,  dusky, bubble-gummy,coconutty,
A love to the faded and the beaten and the average and the struggling,
To the lonely, to the distant, to the separated, to the long-lost
To the oily, unanswered prayers and the unheard, fresh-smelling archanas
It balloons and wafts and floats and sinks
And lights a fire in those dying scars

Plitter, Platter, Plop, Plop

The sense of being an Indian.

The metro doors slid open. Dark brown, scraggly skinned, wide eyed and reddish-yellowish teethed people with dirty clothes entered. The first time, that they were travelling in a metro. People moved away since there was a chance that they might be carrying harmful bacteria and other microbes. Ey Shiva! There is a good chance that they might also be robbers or gangsters. Of course, you can never trust the CISF checking. It isn't effective enough. The well-dressed, well-brushed gentlemen and ladies should always stand 3-4 metres away from such crowd. That chasm shouldn't be crossed.

"Why do you not speak Hindi?"
"I come from a place where it is rarely spoken."
"But, it is the national language, no?"
"There are around 780 languages spoken in India. 22 languages have been recognised by the constitution. The question should be whether any language should be made a national language."
"But, a vast majority of Indians speak Hindi."

Majority. An India as defined by a majority. A sanskaar to which everyone has to pay homage. A ruling government which has decided to define Indianness through its own ideologies and religion. See, if you don't accept our beliefs, why don't you go to Pakistan? Because, only our beliefs and our thoughts are Indian thoughts.

The shrewdness of Sardar Patel as he made 547 princely kingdoms accede to the Indian Union, in addition to British India, which was already diverse beyond measure. An iconography of an Indian Flag, an Anthem and a Pledge to create oneness in them. A Republic Day. An Independence Day. Freedom Fighters. A storyline. A Father of the nation. And, minorities who resort to ghettoisation and sometimes violence to fight back against that imposed identity. Hey, nobody consulted us before making us Indians?

It's the same set of questions that we have to ask ourselves today. What is this sense of being an Indian? Do the dirty, blind, shrivelled and the downtrodden living on subsistence possess the same kind of Indianness as the average middle class? Does this Indianness flower suddenly on specific days like August 15th when the wide array of iconography like our flag and our anthem is put on display and speeches made? Does this Indianness pervade beyond our "Love laws" as dictated by a society which states who shall love who? A Hindu shall love a Hindu. A Brahmin shall love a Brahmin. A Tribal shall love a tribal.

He decided to take a train from Delhi to his home state. Since he hadn't booked in advance,he had to travel in the general compartment. 
"Why did you come in the general compartment from New Delhi? You could have waited. The journey must have been difficult."Amma asked him, when he came out after a bath. 
"It was all right, Amma."
His Maami did not keep quiet though. "Chee. You were smelling when you came here. Those compartments are dirty."
"Yes. Maami, most of the others in the compartment were seasonal workers coming here. And, it was tightly packed. I could hardly move. "
"Of course, I knew that. You should never travel in general compartment. It's full of such people."
"Maami, such people also ensured that I always had a seat by not allowing anybody else to sit there. They also shared their food with me, inspite of not having much for themselves."

Such people. Us and them. The touchables and the untouchables. The ones to be pitied at from a distance. The ones from another religion. The right religion and the wrong religion. The enemy religion and the friendly religion. The ones from another caste. Another class. Another strata. Another language. And, we take our bath on August 15th mornings, stand under flags, distribute sweets, sing songs and celebrate Independence day while our differences bubble up inside us, egged on by our "Indian" Society. And, we all feel proud to be Indians.

Petrichor

The smell of lashed, wet earth leaking through the cracks of that mud wall. The white ripples on the surface of puddles amongst the grassy fields. The wet, wrinkled hair of the wild-hearted village women. A single drop flowing down the long ridge of her nose, slowly and dramatically. And the way, it stops and hangs at the bottom edge. Not collecting enough of courage or itself to fall down. Hanging like a nose ring. Broken bangles, bits and pieces, bouncing on the water polished rocks.

The way, the slim legged stork, prances about in the watery, green fields. The way she slightly lifts her lehenga, to reveal those nimble feet and glistening silver anklets, as she takes a hop over the muddy path in between the fields. The great big cumulonimbus overhead. Thunder and lightning as it slowly billows and blows over the Indian sub-continent. And, she looks up to see its coming and passing. Travelling from the south, bearing the aspirations of the dirt-stained, plough bearing farmers of varied language, clothes and customs.

She wonders whether it'll wash away the grime in the pans and pots inside the darkness of that thatched hut or whether it'll sweep the veil covering her unseen eyes. Or, whether it'll lighten the burden that she has become to her father, by reaching the age where she could bear a child.

The thunderclouds bellow. The anguish of the lowly and the downtrodden. Of the men and women, nearest to the soil. Yet, the rains bring a new hope. A new harvest. A new yearning.

Kilometres.

Near the top of the mountain, on those winding tarred roads, near one of those many yellow-white milestones, he stood with his messed-up morning hair, staring towards a far beyond looking into himself as much as into the Himalayas. He smelled of unbrushed teeth, of dried and scaly skin which had not seen a bath for some days and of long, repressed memories. And, there he stood drinking tea in that misty mountainous morning.

An overwhelming freedom seem to have enveloped him. It's not that he hated humanity, it's not that he hated bonds and people. But, there was something about solitude. There was something about a traveller's bag on his back and the worn-out shoes on his foot. Indeed, there was something about trying to fork those Frost-ian paths, which interestingly is on the verge of becoming clichéd. Miles to travel and all that.

Humans live many lives in their one life. And, at different stages, they turn to different things for solace. Friends who they can drink with. Relationships onto which they'll lean everything onto. Religion which promises them heaven, paradise, moksha and so on. Gods which bless them provided they paid their fees in prayers and cash deposits. Families so that they can beget children and see their dream happen through them.

But, it did him little good whether he cared little about the worldly or the heavenly. So, that's when he purchased a travelling bag, a pair of good shoes and just went to the nearest railway station. A journey to see India and maybe eventually the world. He wondered whether he was an escapist. Someone constantly on the run, especially from how life is to be lived. On schedule and with ties, purchasing diapers.

He suddenly heard the footsteps coming from the opposite side of the road. The village woman were coming down the narrow, dusty and grassy footpaths carved perpendicular to the mountains. Wrinkled skin and big nose-rings. Paan-chewing lips. With load on their shoulders and half naked kids by their side. Their lives untouched by time and seeping modernity.

How far can human beings run? An average person walks roughly half of equator's length. He can never circle the entire equator. Some say that it proves the fact that he needs somebody else to cover the rest of the equator. But, he surmised that it was to challenge the human in him, to persuade him to get out of this maze of regularity and to seek the extraordinary. The extraordinariness of a hot cup of steaming team on a mountainous early morning. The extraordinariness of observing the untouched and touched lives. The ability to freeze the schedule and the timetable on which the world runs so that one could take a leap towards undivided time, where the sun rose and set without counts.

That revolt was his raison d'etre. As he sat down on the muddy side, metres away from the precipice, all the faces that he knew passed through his memory. He smiled. Indeed, he had to find out. How far can a human run? From familiarity? From money?From schedules?From bonds? The steam from that hot plastic cup made his spectacles misty. He wiped it. He then took out a pen and a small pocket diary from his pocket. He began scrawling like he always did. The kilometres left and the places and the humans to be seen.

Ivan Yaaro

It can start with our hero walking backwards with his eyes closed, with his arms extended outwards. His shampooed hair ruffled by the light breeze in the campus. A dimpled grin on his face. At that precise moment, the new girl would be standing together with a bunch of her newly found friends talking very seriously but the conversation getting muted by that light romantic melody floating in the college campus. Her frizzled, wet hair strewn all over her face. Kajal-ed and big round eyes. And, then it happens. They collide.

Wait. Rewind the tape. Everything happening backwards in a very fast manner. Stop and start again.

Our man comes on a bike, roaring through the crowd. Heads turn. The new girl is totally oblivious to the sound, of course. He sees her first. She still doesn't see him. His head turns slowly. Two centimetres per second. The bike slowly veers off course and hits the stout tree. The melody still playing.

Naa. Rewind the tape. Backwards. Backwards. Quick. Quick. Staaaap.

The well muscled and sweat covered boy is playing football/badminton/cricket/hockey. It's the deciding last minute/shot. He wipes his forehead with his thumbs. He goes for the last kick/shot and out of the corner of his eyes, sees her. The rest is history. The match is lost. But, our sweaty, well muscled boy is oblivious to that. BGM is a must obviously.

Not quite right. Rewind the tape.

Rains. Aaah. The atmosphere creator. Not torrential, of course. Drizzle. Just enough for either the guy or the girl to dance. The feet should jump and kick muddy water all over so that the other can stand and gawk. You know the drift right now. Humming music all over the place.

Still not novel enough. Rewind the tape. Screeeeeeeech. Halt.

Bharat Matrim..Pftoooo. Faceb...Pftoo Pftooo. Blatantly unromantic. 

Rewind the tape. Get better. Un-cliched.

The calender pages swivel upward quickly. The digits in the years change rapidly. Hairs start greying. The unsatisfied, the cynical and the impatient settle over fire, flowers, the yellowness and illogical stars in crowded places to become plumper year after year. The satified ones, too. Skins sag. The camera zooms through time and space to our hero sitting at a bench in one corner of a park. Countless recognisable faces and lips and curves and conversations and arched necks in the contours of his memory. Reading a newspaper. She comes and occupies the other end of bench at the end of her long jog. Bags and baggages are placed underneath that bench. She sips a bit of water from her bottle and looks at him, gives a slight smile. 

Yes. That's when the music starts.

Alla, pinne.

The wanderer, he was.

A big, black balloon.
Millions of pinpricks and one big hole.
In that night sky, he saw himself.
But, then moonlight streamed around
And the stars twinkled.

He lay on the grass and looked up
They say that light travels slow
Too slow where the distances are infinite
That the night sky is the past.
Thus, the memories were preserved

The curly winds brushed the monochrome leaves
It's gentle sound, the very sound of life
In that gentle breeze, he drew new constellations
After that, he got up and put on his backpack
And then started his meandering walk

The wanderer, he was.

On the Velocity of Life(Jimmiki Kammal)

It was dusk. The starry sky and KSRTC night bus noises(they have a different noise at night) invaded Trivandrum. The call of the conch rose from a nearby temple. Moonlight streamed through the long, narrow leaves of the surrounding coconut trees onto that terrace. Seated on a mat there, were Raghu, Isha and Nair eating sandwiches.

"Nair-ey, you are so stuck up in your past and so stubborn to changes that you are letting go of the new memories that you could have made. Don't keep whining about not belonging. For you, that belonging came after you went neck deep in water. " Sneha remarked.
"Yes. But, I still want to savour the things that happen to me. You jump too fast and get tired too easily."He replied.
"Savouring can wait. Until, old age comes."
"And, when is that?"

"...Hold it."Raghu interjected Nair's dreamy narrative."So, all this is over a clash of opinions. Slow-mo and laid-back versus let's-conquer-the-world."
"That's simplifying it a bit. There were other reasons. But, at the heart.."
"..You were very different people to begin with" Isha finished the sentence for Nair."But, you people did carry off it with flair. I do not understand why your friends think she is to blame though."
"Because, they are our friends"Raghu replied.

"Don't do that bro-thing to me, eh. You Malayalis and your perversion towards simplification. Naive-and-simple-hearted-guy-in-the-gang faces breakup. The girl must be a bitch."
"Simple-hearted-guy can't be the dog."
"I did not say that. But, please eh? You knew Sneha before. You think she can be stereotyped into a black-white continuum? Bitch, my foot. People should reserve their opinion when they do not have adequate information."

"Raghu, you know. First time, I am seeing people eating sandwiches and getting angry."Nair grinned. "But, she is right. It was a slow and gradual attrition. To blame it on either of us, would be injustice. Anyway, that is not important. What's your opinion on the savouring part?"
"Hmm. Potayto. Potahto. Different people. Different ways."she replied.
"What is there to savour so much, around here anyway?"Raghu asked Nair.

"I don't know. This has always been a sleepy town, Trivandrum. And, now its slowly becoming a melting pot for all the different stereotypes. Khaki-and-mundu-wearing opinionated auto-chetans and jasmine-wearing churidaar chechis. Curly haired, thick-specs intellectuals in kurtas and sometimes marley t-shirts. Jeans-wearing college girls who get ogled at. All the prim and proper Catholic schools. Thattukadas. Strong chais. Temples and Mosques. Extreme conservatism fighting against a  new liberal generation. Alavalathis in superbikes. The pub culture slowly trying to seep in. Our sexual contradictions. I like this sleepy town. We work our asses off in other states and countries so that we can come back and let go here. "

"Haha. Like on this terrace, yeah. Eating sandwiches and toasting ourselves to the moonlight."
"Exactly. I mean you come to this place. And, your heart slows down a bit. You offload all the work. Have some good old communist, philosophic thoughts."

"KOBAYASHI MARU." Isha burst into the conversation.
"Huh?"
"What?"
"That's my opinion. Kobayashi Maru. It just struck me. Let me explain. Kobayashi Maru is a term from Star Trek."
"Aah. Star trek."
"Shut up. So, Kobayashi Maru is a simulation game that the Starfleet cadets have to undergo in order to complete their officer training. It's a no-win game. You cannot win that simulation and it's designed to test how the officers face defeat."
"Er so??"
"If you read all the philosophers, writers and religious gurus in the past. Camus. Buddha. Sartre. Fitzgerald. They all say the same thing. Life's rigged towards losing. People are too greedy and horny. They long for all sorts of stuff. They don't get it. They lose. Every one of us."

"Cheers to that."Raghu raised his sandwich.

"If so, what's important is we lose in a style comfy for us. I mean, we do it our way. We lose in a way that reflects us the best. For you, that means something slow. Dipping yourself in nostalgia often. You are the wine guy. You sip. You savour. You toast. You have sandwiches with friends on a beautiful moony night. You fall in love with a land that has so many assholes and as many sweethearts. A place with contradictions that is a reflection of you."

There was absolute silence for a while. Then, Nair spoke up.

"So if I am the wine guy, she must be the tequila woman. All shots. Lapping up new experiences, one after the other. Always on an adventure. "
"And both give you a hangover in excess. "Raghu quipped and winked. "But, Isha, this also seems like an excuse to mediocrity."
"Agreed. People should not make such a reasoning an excuse towards mediocrity. The whole point is they should chip at stuff they love and chip in a way they love because at the end of the day, nobody is really a success story. We all bob up and down in sine waves."

"So, the lazy going, mundu-wearing, beedi-smoking, philosophy-chewing and philosophy spitting commie uncle is doing it in style as well."
"Oh yes, he is. As long as that is the life, that satisfies his soul. "

Nair went to the edge of the terrace. He touched his phone and suddenly pink floyd filled the air in a subdued volume. He flicked his sandwich away.
"Haha. Isha. You and your theories."
"Sweethearts, both of you know one thing. I am always right."

Towards a new Sun

NB:- I hate poems and poets in general. Because most of the time, poetry is what people do when they feel lazy because prose requires sharper words, more number of words and more thought. Of course, some poems are an exception to the above and a class apart. This one below is not. 

Move aside.
Move aside, garlands, symbols, imagery and image-less.
To the side, beards and ashes.
To the side, rahu and ketu and shaitan.

And the old vultures encircling the bleeding carcass,
And the false red flags on the battlefield,
Burn.
They are here.

Destroying the gates, walls and the useless legends.
And stories that tell you what needs to be done.
Dusting the antique to see its worth
Wisdom, courage and humanity.

Hear them, descending down the mountains.
Each prisms of their past.
And yet lightly packed on their horses.
Each deciding the quantum they will bear.

Firm but light steps.  New rules.
Deep roots into a soil that sustains.
And yet winged to rise.
A lump of clay shaped by words.
Words that are blind.
Onwards.
To a new sun.

A stranger and his land.

So, today, I came back home after some time(The coming-back has become a rarity). I got out of the airport.

Random cab-driver: Taxi veno?
Me: Nahi.
Both of us: *pling*

So, I ended up replying in a language that I never used to like in my hometown to people who never really understood it either.

A little later, my dad comes to pick me up because of the luggage. On the way, I see that he is fumbling a bit with the driving. I duly inquire. "Mon, it's becoming a bit difficult to see in the dark." Age. Time slowly ticking away.

Time. These days, whenever I meet up with old friends, the topic always comes to how time has passed. It doesn't matter that we are all 20-somethings. Our faces wrinkle and asses elongate under the baggage of the experiences 20-somethings go through. Emotional disconnects. Flailing relationships. Career question-marks. An "Ayee Machaa..?" does not as easily bring back people as it used to do. Lost chances, love, success, opportunities.

People. A generation grows up. Little kids on sports bikes burning tarred roads under the hot sun. A far cry from cycles and muddy, dusty roads and shady trees. Succeeding generations coming to know what addiction is, one quantum of time before the previous one. No, it's not a criticism. To each generation, it's own.

The dilution of the left-liberal view of a society into a bunch of pseudo-leftists who create a heap of smoke and no fire, disruption and no solution. The creation of brand new hindutva, christitva and islamtva. Feeding a new generation into seeing only a quarter side of the coin. And the churning of bank officers, IT professionals, Yem-Bee-Ayes without rhyme and reason. Cliches.

 I pick up my old diaries, writings and thoughts and I feel like a stranger and a misfit in my own land. Like in the poem by Frost, where at the fork in the woods, my land took one way and I took another. And, neither one of us can decided which is the less threaded one.

Discontent. Pitch-black discontent.

At our greying society and lost ideals and 100 pavan gold at weddings.

And becoming a wanderer eating aloo parantha and pyaaz parantha, with no place to call one's own.

Of looking forward and back.

The three wheeled auto screeched through the newly and unevenly tarred narrow lanes, still slick with oil. It eventually halted where the oily modernity halted. A 6.5 cent plot of land, enclosed by a cement wall, with a mini-jungle inside. It was noon and two dishevelled individuals got out of the auto. A middle aged gentleman and a young kid. A trolley-bag followed.

"Why do you want to go to India, Kishore?"Anu sounded annoyed. 
"It's been some some time. I want to check the property, once in a while." He replied. 
"Why do you hang on to that small fragment of land? It's a small plot. And for that, you want to go every one year. I don't mind your trips but you are wasting a lot of money and time."
"Come on. It's Rahul's vacation as well. Let him see his extended family."
"Really now? You have never bothered to keep in touch with them, except for your uncle and you want him to see all of  them?"

"Ahm, Dad? Are we supposed to camp out here?"
"No, kiddo. Your great-uncle lives nearby. We'll be going there."
He took a look around. Three years had passed, since he last visited this plot. Things had already changed a lot. The lane had been re-tarred. New houses had come up and very few vacant plots were left in the area.

"Awesome. Now, we both get to go to the US of A. And, that too, jobs in the same city." Anu could hardly contain her excitement.
Kishore smiled. 
"You don't look too happy, Kis-o?"
"Nothing. You do know that I have a thing for memories. It breaks my heart to actually leave this place behind."
"I know." Anu came closer and gently kissed his forehead. "But, it's a necessity. You are lucky to have a supportive family. I need to be away from mine for some time."
"Yes. Yes. I know. And to add to it, you want to look towards the future and leave the past behind."Kishore winked.
"Haha. Yes. I do. There are a million things out there. Miles to go, no? Nostalgia can wait until we loose our teeth and wrinkle our faces."

"Daad, I am hungry."
"Whaat? You just ate like half an hour ago."
"I spent it all on that autorickshaw ride."
"Pinnaee."Kishore grinned as he waded through the weed that had grown around. He inspected and uprooted a plant. He had asked his cousin to plant some tapioca there. His cousin had took his words to heart. This one had been planted recently and the result was nothing short of spectacular. He suddenly heard some joyful shouts from across the neighbourhood. Rahul went and peered through the cracks in the wall. Kishore moved towards him.

"Haha. So you. To come here after, exactly 10 years."Anu remarked.
"Big attitude eh? Why did you tag along then?"
"Aah, Kis-o. Chekkane kandu veenu poyille. Pyaar, mohabatt and all that. What can I do? I have to tag along."
Anu shoved Kishore and ran. 
"Aha. Who exactly is the kid here?" Kishore shouted as he ran behind her, along the Rajpath strewn with dried leaves.
They had both studied at REC-Calicut. Today, it was called NIT-C. But, he somehow felt that  things hadn't changed much around there.

Colours were flying around. It took Kishore by surprise. Holi. That's one festival he did not expect to see, being celebrated with gusto in this neighbourhood. He wondered whether there were any North Indian families settled around here or whether India's heterogeneous cultures were seeping in and mixing together just like he, at the heights of his idealism, believed it would.
"What's happening, Dad?"Rahul asked. His big eyes widened at the sight of all the colours.
"They are playing Holi. It's an Indian festival. I'll tell you the story behind it later. You go play with them."
"But, my clothes?"
"I never liked your mom's selection anyway. Now, go. Shoo"
He gave a friendly wave to the other kids. They waved back.
Holi. His mom was a Gujarati while his dad was a quintessential Mallu. This meant that he usually celebrated more number of holidays than the average kid around in Trivandrum.

"And, so I fell in love with Trivandrum and your dad. "his mom finished the story for the umpteenth time. He did not mind the repetitions. He loved seeing the way her eyes sparkle as she recollected the bits and pieces. She was watering the anthuriums that she had planted in the plot. 
"You know. We bought this plot for you because you wanted to come back here one day."
"I know, Amma. You needn't have. I would have bought a plot of land myself later. There was no need for you to have bought it now. "
"Land prices will shoot up eventually. Maatramalla, it's something from your dad and me to you. We have always loved this place so much."

The land that his mom and dad had loved that much. He had been reading some of the Indian newspapers early morning in his flight to Trivandrum. Rapes. Hindutva. Jihad. Oppression. Poverty. It reminded him of Hirschmann's theory of voice or exit. People like Anu shunned the bad and the good memories and went away in search of a better future, never bothering to look at their painful or maybe uninteresting or even a happy past. He had a different perspective on that past versus future debate. He wasn't sure whether he was right. Sometimes, he stubbornly resisted change. He wondered why he came back. Maybe, it was because he was an optimist. He believed in voice. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Rahul and the other kids running towards him with buckets. They were soaked in mud.

This land, where he found friends that lasted for a lifetime, where he fell head-over-heels in love and then ended up with a bitter heartbreak and then found love again in an old friend. This land, which made him a communist, with scant respect for oppressive traditions . Yet, this land, which made him fall for outdated and heart warming ideals. This land, that his dad and mom loved with all their hearts.

Rahul let out a yell and threw the mud at him. A small and high-pitched yell. The voice of a new generation, who should be given the choice to develop their individual stories in a land that they could call their own, despite its imperfections.

The mud ricocheted off the cement wall and splashed all over his polo t-shirt. He grinned, jumped over the wall and ran behind the kids who broke off in different directions.

Jimmikki Kammal - 3

# Do read the two previous posts in this series. Oh and how many times do I need to tell you? It's fiction, dei. :D

The sea brushed itself against the boulders and destroyed itself into a white spray fountain. The salty, water-laden winds made a mess of Raghu's hairs. He was sitting on top of one of those random boulders at Kovalam. The sun was dissolving in the sky, spreading itself into an orange haze.  The divorce procedure had been completed. He would get to see Nihal, once in a week, as per the court ruling. So, that was that. His idealism and her pragmatism had finally decided to quit after what seemed like a lifetime of struggle.

He did not exactly know whether Isha would marry again. She would probably do what was best for Nihal. And at that particular point of time, neither of them knew what that meant. A young couple clambered up the boulder that he was sitting on like bees attracted to each other and the honeyed horizon, gently buzzing into his thought processes without meaning to. His thoughts took a brief pause to survey them and then drifted onto relationships and solitude. There were so many questions that he had to answer so that he could move forward. And, there were others he were simply curious about.

For instance, now what? Indians tended to treat divorce as an anathema. Something to be done, when the relationship bordered on abusive or when the extra-marital quietly intruded. Theirs was simply dysfunctional. Of course, there might have been some guy somewhere. But, it was more often than not true that in case of relationships, a character can enter only when there is a vacant space. He wondered how that vacant space got created. Not that it helped, of course. But, his mind always wandered. This time though, he purposefully brought it back. Now, what? How do you move forward from a dysfunctional relationship? A court order would take care about the legalities. But, what about their psyche and their son's? Would he eventually fall for someone else again(Ooh. Anathema. Anathema)? That was something difficult for him to imagine. For one, he firmly believed that relationships took time to build. One of the many reasons why he never understood mechanical arranged Indian marriages, which was equivalent to playing Russian roulette. The secondary research never increased your probabilities enough.

Time might heal things. But, it did take someone genuinely out-of-the-world to replace Isha. He wondered whether he was suffering from a modified version of Stockholm syndrome. The last few months had been very difficult. Yet, looking back, everything just seemed to glow. But, he wondered whether it was just the fact that Isha was one of the very few girls who genuinely got him and now since that narrative was over, it was difficult for him to push himself back into the market. Not to mention the fact that at mid-30's, he was balding, happily obese and still tended to run around like a wild goose when it came to career. He smiled to himself. Too pessimistic. Of course, finding somebody again was not something easy. His psyche itself wouldn't allow him to make any active effort. However, he resolved not to let not to shut himself out. Love is not rocket science. If that one-in-a-million person or who he thought was somebody like that came again, he would give it a fair shot just like he did with Isha. Otherwise, solitude would be fine. Fuck society. He knew that no relationship of his could dissolve his bonds towards Isha and Nihal. He would always be there for them.

He took a cigarette out and lit it. The bright red spot gallantly stood and opposed the encroaching darkness which was munching on the orangy sky. The rhythmic sound of the waves made him think about solitude. He knew that there was a high probability that he would have to go solo. He would definitely have to make a bucket list. As Camus once said, one must imagine Sisyphus happy. True that, nothing had exactly gone his way. Most of his career dreams had crashed out pretty badly. His one source of solace, his marriage, had also miserably failed. By every definition of the society in which he lived, he was a loser. However, to become a bitter old man was unbecoming. He had to learn to shake off his fears and nightmares and launch himself back onto the ceaseless struggle to do what he believed was meaningful. He had to pursue happiness and meaning, even though it would have every chance of ending up meaningless. Because, even if the end was a failure, the journey would always be meaningful.

Looking back at his marriage, he knew that it was exactly that. Meaningful. Because even in the dying stages, there were those moments of extreme happiness and intimacy. Yes, he must imagine Sisyphus happy. He took the last drag, threw the butt onto the sea and got up. He wondered how the world look at a "failure" like him, philosophising about a brave new world and messing up his already his messy life. It was in these moments that he loved being human. These weird moments where he could back at life, the highs and lows, with a tinge of haloed nostalgia and be thankful.  He turned his head and saw the young couple going back to the nearby parking lot. Their intertwined footprints were etched on the sands. But, the incoming waves were slowly eroding the prints. A clean slate. Suddenly, the sea winds began to blow at full force, before dying out, to herald the arrival of night. His eyes, nose and lips grinned through his salty-moist spectacles.