Scattering

You touch this Earth with your palm
And a whirlwind happens
That turns into dust
the many shadowy strangers

And at the dead centre of it,
you carve out a new world.
From out of the void.

But, what can be made out of emptiness?
Except emptiness.
And, you have opened one more eye
There is no more sieve.

It all falls down.
The good. The bad. The irrelevant.
That new world.
Frightening.
One pair of footprint trailing behind.
Multiplying into many.
All of which disappearing under the dusty winds

And, the tempest you made refuses to die down,
Stirring up so much dust
that you can't see ahead.
And, your feet walks slower.
It gets colder
And, the dust piles up.
And your feet walks slower.

Drags.
And, then it too turns into sand.
As the whirlwind preys on itself.
You scatter yourself,
ever so slowly.
You comprehend and understand
that you have slowly become your world.

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.