Fabrics of Fantasy – V

Morning hour, birds chirping, the rustling of grass – the perfect atmosphere to sit and write a short story and so I began…

I had hardly written the first sentence, when a stronger burst of wind, caused the branches to creak and me to look up. It was a lovely morning, pleasant enough to meditate on the story that was forming in my mind.

My first story. It gave me a certain thrill that you will know if you are a writer yourself. Like the creation of a baby. No, even more than that. A baby is created and born and then lives it’s life. A story, or any artistic adventure is different. Once created, it lives you. It still breathes the words that you offered it. Still enamors the idea that you poured into it. And it is a thought-print of you. Something that you leave behind in the sands of time, in the waves of space.

I was feeling like Shakespeare. No, Like R.K. Narayan. I was feeling all Indian. My story was to journey through the heart of India. Through my heart, my thoughts and through my eyes. My perspectives idealized the foundation of my though-print. Does that now sound distant? My baby then. My brainchild.

I would publish it myself. Start a publication house, maybe. But that is a bit far fetched, even to myself. I will sell it to my friend, free of cost. That is not called selling, then. I will offer it. And since I am sure that it will be a best seller, I will take profits later.

I was now suffering from both day-dreaming bouts and from the writer’s block. I was stuck with the first line. Why was nothing surfacing?

Frustration surfaced. and I slowly got up. Why was every thought fleeting past my mind? Why could I not catch onto one and fix it in my consciousness? After all, I had clearly thought out the basic frame of the story already, and why could I not resurrect it now?

My first story. My first line. Was not this what I had wanted to do all along? Create my own world of words? And now…

At 70, delirium and memory are tough battlefields to fight in.

[ As started off by Vivek. You wanted it short, did you not? ]

Fabrics of Fantasy – IV

“You better be good!”….

Shriya grabbed the crystal curved vase and threw it at his head. Straight hit. He tried to dodge, missed and reeled backward under the impact on his forehead. Shriya shrieked at her own violence. With a maniacal look, and blood oozing down the wound, Krish lunged forward, right at her.

She was sweating. Sitting ramrod straight, hands shaking, she clutched the form next to her. Krish groaned in his sleep, and turned, switching on the bedside lamp. He opened sleep rimmed eyes and stared up at the fear and craze in hers. His eyes widened and he reached out to her.

“Shri ? Anything wrong?” Comprehension arose, as he queried, ” Nightmare?”

She was gazing at him, trying to forget the image of his mock, blood and that look. It was not real, she convinced herself. This was him, Krish. Not the one in the dream, how could she have done that?

Krish was panicking, at the wild look in Shriya. He tightened his grip on her arms and asked gently, “Shri, it was a dream, relax. Whatever it was that you dreamt…. ” He had tried to embrace her, but she fought back. Pushing him away, she tried to get out of the bed. She almost staggered on her feet, but stood and looked at him. In the yellow dullness, her confusion and anger silenced him. Anger?

“I want a glass of water. Am going down.”

“Shall I get it for you Shri? You stay here…” He spoke too late. She had already gone downstairs to the kitchen.

The water made a swishing sound against the glass tumbler. She brought it to her lips, stopped and stared. A crystal glass. She shuddered.

“What is wrong Shri? ” He was leaning against the doorway, hands folded across his chest, confusion and anxiety portrayed in those light brown eyes of his. She had to look away, but she could not manage. She appraised him, to keep herself from getting reminded about the dream.

Tall, tall Krish. Six foot two. Broad shoulders. Dimpled in the left cheek, very prominently when he smiled. Three cornered grins. Those expressions in those eyes could flicker and change as and when they wanted to, making it tough to ever decide what he was feeling while looking into his eyes. Her husband of a year and a half.

“Well, Shri, feeling fine already? What are you staring at me that way for? Am sure you are not feeling naughty. Your eyes don’t shine, like they always do,” he was smiling at her, trying to make her feel relaxed, blend her into reality.

She drank down the water in silence and took a second glassful. She refilled it a third time, decided against drinking and threw it down the kitchen sink. Switching off the light, she strode past him up the stairs, and into their room. He followed, anger rising in him. Before she could reach the bed, he pulled her by the arm and made her face him. “What is wrong, Shriya? No, I don’t mean this dream or nightmare or whatever. There is something else happening here and I don’t quite understand. What have I done that you can ignore me so?”

She shrugged him off and sat on the bed. Before she slept, she spoke, “Nothing is wrong, Krish. Nothing. You don’t need to worry. ” It was a long time before either of them slept.

Morning was like any other morning had been. Both of them rushed through, getting dressed for work, stuffing in a light breakfast bite, and there was not much to be spoken in the hurry. They worked for the same investment bankers, both in the Financial Engineering Department. Shriya was an analyst, with Krish being her executive manager.

It was always a reason for much voluble bantering among their friends. They had been college mates, Krish a couple of years her senior. Still, they had hardly come across each other until that fated mountaineering trip that they had enrolled in at college. They were members of the Hobbies Club, and around 20 of its members, including our Hero and Heroine, had taken up a fancy to explore the delights of the Satpura Ranges in Central India. To cut a long, romantic story short, as if to demonstrate that their love was eternal and historical, they had fallen madly in love near the Pandava Caves at the Pachmarhi National Park, among tigers and foxes, hornbills and peafowls, sal and bamboo and a broken tree house stair, from which Shriya had slipped and Krish had helped.

Madly in love, yes. Shriya thought warily. It had been a celebrated coincidence that they both got recruited at the same concern. A whirlwind courtship later, it had been marriage. She winced. It was all confirmed madness.

At work, things were different. One could hardly see the factor that the two were a couple, if one did never know before. They followed the strict code of superior-assistant relationship, at least Krish stuck to it, while Shriya resented.

It was not fair, was it? How could Krish act so indifferent at work and then expect them to be total lovey-doves at home, just a few hours after insulting her for her sub standard work. She checked her anger, her work had not been exactly appreciable the last few months, but that was because of him too. Him and his newly recruited vamp of an analyst. What a name that girl had! Viral. Shriya had wondered aloud what the name meant, and Viral had quite firmly cleared the doubt. “Viral means precious, in Sanskrit origin. It is generally a boy’s name, Shriya. My parents expected a boy and chose this name, but I landed unexpected. They were in love with the name that they named me by it.”

Yes, she had landed unexpectedly in the middle of the souring relationship between Krish and Shriya.

Weird parentage, by the way, which set of self-respecting, child-respecting woman and man could call their child Viral? Kind of described the character, Shriya fumed.

It was not true that Krish had been all attention to her before Viral, but there was even more distancing now and she was sure that she was not imagining it. Viral was not strikingly smart, nor pretty in Shriya’s critical eyes, but she had a certain oomph factor that irritated. She was like ‘all girl’, that had men around the floor getting floored.

Her cubicle was so near Krish’s cabin. It was not coincidence, it had been alloted to her by Krish himself. Shriya was almost at the other end of the floor, with not so much as a peek view into his glazed glass workplace. Again, Krish’s deputation.

Something in her flared. What had gone this wrong between them? Why did he hate her? He must, else, at that meeting….

Last month had been a reality-nightmare. Or day-mare, whichever. They had all been present at the quarterly performance analysis meet, with conglomeration of the various managers and sub level executives. Krish had been one among them, and for some proud moments, Shriya had positively glowed with satisfaction seeing him there. Catching his eye, she had winked with a wide smile, and been rewarded with him reverting his attention back to the papers in front of him. He did look downright handsome in that light gray suit, and she could not look elsewhere. She did not bother too, about anybody watching her. After all they were married and could not a wife stare at her husband ?

It was somewhere in the middle of this preoccupation that she had heard her name being called. She smiled, and sorted out the papers in front of her. She was to give her report of the industry research and pitching that she had carried out. She had started out confidently, and spoke her way through the brief two side summary in her hand. She smiled as she finished, more at Krish than at anyone else. But something was wrong, they were waiting, not saying anything. She had looked around the group, gesturing with her hands that she had finished.

“Where is the merger modeling for Sun Systems, Shriya? ” This was Krish.

She had been confused, and with rising panic, “Merger modeling? I did not… uh, I did not know I was expected to present it…”

“Did not know? I had sent you a mail regarding that, and I am sure I did give out a list of things that had to be taken care of before this meeting.”

“No, I… It was not on the agenda,” she had accused.

“When did analyst’s reports feature in detail in the agenda? This is sheer ignorance and indifference.”

She had been startled at the hardness in his voice. Tears threatened their way out, and she sat in mortification, in front of a crowd of 25, humiliated and ashamed.

The Finance Manager, as affable as ever, had broken into the silence that had prevailed and addressed Krish. “It is maybe ignorance, but I am sure that the young woman was not indifferent, Krish. She will make up, am sure. ” He turned to Shriya, and had continued at her bowed-down head, “It is okay, Shriya, as long as you make good the lost time and submit individual copies to the executives and common information sheets to the departments. Okay?”

Shriya had nodded, grateful at the suggestion. Things might have been salvaging, and she could have almost smiled, when Krish spoke with controlled anger, ” That modeling is important and will have to be the final draft. You better be good.”

It had rang out all around her, stressing his warning and rage, amplifying it, in front of people who mattered in the organization, weakening her as if she was but an incompetent novice who could not tell an A from a B and failed miserably in routine work.

She cleared her mind now, recalling herself to the present. It had to be so, just as she was sure it was. Krish was interested in Viral, and trying to keep Shriya away, if possible, permanently. What else could explain the long hours that Viral spent with Krish, discussing work, glowing with the pride of important assignments, while Shriya practically withered with all the book keeping and excel-sheet stuff ?

That evening found them at home with hardly a word and some coffee to share.

“Want to go out for dinner?”

“No.”

“Why Shri, there is this new Italian eatery down the next street that has picked up quite a good reputation…”

“I know. I don’t want to go. I am not hungry,” she added, as if in explanation.

His eyes shadowed over and as if in exasperation, he confided, “I am quitting the job, Shri.”

“Quitting? Why suddenly? Lost interest? “

He smiled, a sad smile. With some difficulty and after a pause, he continued, ” Lost interest? Not at all Shri. Just that… it is tough carrying on there with you around. I have to make an extra effort to not keep glancing at you from time to time, not keep staring. I have to keep reminding myself that at work, we are committed to the company and have to give our best, and not, er…, flirt around. It is tough you know, even at meetings, not to keep staring at you across the table, it is silly in fact. I over reacted last month, and have been feeling guilty. I could not talk it over with you Shri, it hurt to remember the tears that day in your eyes. I had to show I was not affected, after all it is a corporate world. Viral bears most of the workload, again my overdoing, because I did not want people to assume favoritism, if I assigned you to it.”

“Is that why you put me at the other end of your cabin?”

“So that I could work without giving in to the urge to sneek glances at your through the glass? Yes.”

“Krish…”

“Sorry Shri.”

“K, you could have told me things. I imagined worse than you could have thought possible.”

“Like, maybe that I was interested in or involved with Viral?” he asked with the tease returning in his eyes.

“Yes, but,… Monster, you knew it all along!” she gave him a hard punch in his arm.

“Hey, hold it. Of course, I knew it. Added to the jealous effect in you that we men so love to see in our girls.”

“Maybe it is a good idea you are changing jobs, K. I could have kept punching you at work now that you have ‘enlightened’ me.

“Nah… You would have changed places with Viral, and kept making eyes at me, looking irresistible though the cabin glass, with poor me all heated up…..”

“Stupid, stop supposing things…. want to eat out?” she blushed, hurrying to stop him making her feel, well, feel all womanly.

“No we can order out.”

“And have a candle lit dinner at home?”

“Great idea, want me to invite Viral ? Maybe you can act the perfect waitress and serve ….,” he laughed and dodged the plastic vase that she threw at him….

[Aparna, Just could not think of making the story any other way, since it was your start line Maybe next time Appu, I will make it more Mills and Boons - ish ]

Fabrics of Fantasy – III

 “I woke up to the excruciating pain in my shoulder.
My eyes still closed, i groped for the gun.
Nothing !
With some effort, i opened my eyes to see a dull yellow bulb, dangling from the ceiling,
when a huge shadow fell over me …”

“What are you doing, sitting there staring at the paper ? Come over and do your homework! “.

I tore my eyes away and looked over my cousin’s shoulder into the hall. My mom was cutting vegetables, standing at the kitchen counter overlooking my bedroom, glaring at me with disgust.  My cousin giggled. Silly girl, who wanted to pore over the homework of a five year old, giggling, picking-her-nose kid anyway? I had to, no choice. And I had to also complete my homework. Aaaargh! Life disgusted me, well, more than I disgusted my mom.

“Writing my diary, ma. Updating my day’s….” She did not want to hear the rest of it. “Get up, Rishi. Write your chemistry record. I know, you did not yet complete it. Draw up those diagrams that you had to in your physics one. Do your math then, I know you have your exams round the corner and you don’t seem to mind. I don’t want your average scoring in this term, at least. Try to rank within the top five. If Hari can do it, so can my son….”

I fled the room and ran up the stairs to the attic. I would never hear the end of it, and did not want to hear anything. I had my books bag with me, my pens, some pencils and well, my diary that I had sneaked out. My parents were the typical my-child-should-be-the-best typos. As conforming to the standards as they went. They compared me with any child they could come across, including my five year old cousin, compared me with children who had grown up and achieved, including Dr. Kalam, they compared me with the unborns too, including the still unborn cousin, who was supposedly giving no carrying pains to my aunt, unlike the torture I had been to my mother. They got disgusted with my marks, my looks, my slow physical growth, my handwriting, my non-existent sports life, my penchant for getting into tiffs with classmates and the skill with which I brought on that more-than-disgusted looks on my teachers.

I was proud of all these.

Which other kid who had lived or will live will ever live in such a beautiful world of imagination and pro-creation that I live in? Who will experience the magic of a million magics? The worlds I live in are far far exciting than the world that my parents thrust on me. No, my worlds were out-of-usual-imagination scales.

I took out my pen. It was a beautiful golden green fountain pen, that I had received as a gift from my father before my tenth standard board exams. It had been instant love with the idea of creating words with that beauty. Who wanted to waste the majestic gleen of the pen and nib by writing all those harrowing exams?

I sat down to regurge the happenings since this day morning. I had woken upto the pain in my shoulders. Effect of the huge thump that my uncle had ‘very affectionately’ given me. I groped for the water-gun next to me that I always slept with, fully refilled. It was meant to be ‘pichkooed’ out on the person who woke me up every morning. Heard of reverse effect? It was a revenge mechanism with respect to what had been tried on me – waking me up with water sprinkled on my face. And well, my uncle had removed it from my side this dawn. Oh! they learn from experience.

And the dull yellow light? It was for some added effect in my record of events. Unless you could count the sunlight streaming in from the windows as any light effect. But a huge shadow did loom over. My uncle’s. He was the kind of man who woke up early in the mornings, and set about gardening. He gardened and gardened and gardened. My aunt was the kind who even now, I suspected, was at some horticultural display or sale. They prided on being people with green fingers. Green fingers? More like stubby short ones with soil and dirt under the nails. Yuck! I know, I know. They disgust me.

Their son was an achiever. Engineering at IIT and MBA at IIT. I was secretly happy over the fact that he had tried IIM and missed it. “Only by a few decimal points, ” he pointed out to all those who stopped by to awe. He was even proud that he had missed by just a few points than a out of shot value. I would have been struck with frustration if it was that way. Not that I have any regard for the degrees, but just that to have so desire something and miss it so closely?

The rest of today had passed by without any worse events. I had stood humiliated before the family as I lost in the chess game that my 5 year old pest of a cousin had challenged me to. But, that is hardly a matter to be written in to a diary, isn’t it? When all you want to remember are the things that were glorious, or the things that might have been glorious. Who cares whether it happened or not.

My people wanted me to become an engineer. And then a MBA. They plan the same course for everyone of my generation, just like the previous consisted of CA’s. My father was a CA. And so was my uncle. They were willing to pay my way through any successful university for the degree. Money had never been a problem at home. The family would somehow manage to find ways to earn and share. I had so many various uncles and aunts and cousins that I did not bother trying to remember names and details. They prided on being a family with strings so attached that they were a mini Indian Mafia, in terms of family affection and protection. Mafia indeed! Silly …..

All I wanted to was to dream on. Do journalism and English studies. Write, write and dream. But who bothered about personal preferences when clan attitudes were bred from infancy? I was the white sheep in a black goat family. Naturally, they wanted to goad me into believing that I was, after all a goat. No, not after all, I was a superior goat that could keep goating and gloating, whatever that felt like.

So here was I, in my eleventh standard, in the computer stream. Been subjected to hawk eyed supervision to check if I was on the right track, which am normally not on, and then subjecting me to mass critiscism that had me wishing I could get swallowed into a different world in front of their sly eyes and drawn away into magic. Whoever gave second-cousin-removed-third-cousins and a distant-uncle’s-grand-aunt’s-niece’s-son’s-wife’s-brother rights to chide me? In my family nothing is given, including freedom. Everything is grabbed hold of, including a meek 15 year old’s right to dream and try to live the dream.

“Rishi?”

‘Yes, dad.” My dad was this short stout man, who fitted most pictures of the ideal family man. My mom was the short, thin woman who fitted the perfect mould of a self-sacrificing housewife. But the similarities stopped there. In all manner, the person who managed the household and the out-of-household was my mom. Dad was just a perfect foil to the world.

“Finished homework? ” Why could they not get out of calling assignments as homework? I felt like I was a 5 year old chalk-eating, nose-picking, drooling-while-sleeping kid !

“Yes dad…er…almost”

“Finish it, but do it downstairs. “

“Okay”

“And Rishi, today your grandfather and your granduncle are going to drop in. Try to appear smart. That uncle is the registrar in the Goverment University and he has promised to clinch a seat for you in Computer Engineering. Don’t lose the chance.”

I paled. “Dad, Engineering….”

“Yes, of course we want our only son to be the man of our dreams right? Do engineering. It will place you above everything else. Everyone else”

Like maybe place me on top of, say, the university, and make me take the plumment down to commit suicide?

“Okay, dad”

He climbed down. So did I. My diary lay forcibly forgotten in the attic. Record books in hand, I sat down to write. My dreams lay scheduled to nights. I was already doing it. Turning into a mundane machine. The stuff of which engineers are made.

 

[ On the lines on Manoj. Manny, you gave me the lines in quotes, so I used it that way, to symbolize words, either written or spoken . Thanks, Manny ]

Fabrics of Fantasy – II

I could hear the sound of guns firing.I was in the middle of a war…

“Stop it, Sammy! Don’t let that monstrous sound echo. It gets on to my nerves.” No effect. I shook my head to clear the hopeless feeling of war and stopped, and shook it again. After around a minute of that insane bulleting, it was switched off. I sighed. Bad idea of having to agreed to direct a film on the meaninglessness of a regional war. And even worse was the idea of signing up a totally disobedient first time assistant to manage things around. All that he managed was to successfully irritate and fire me up. Like now, by trying to sound edit and sound check the recorded firing noise, a day before the film was to commence, when I wanted to lean back against the artificial fountain that had no sane connection to the story, and signal the end of a hard day of supervision, and swear at the skies and whichever Gods inhabited it.

“Sorry Girish, wanted to make sure things were normal.” He was standing next to me, pulling near a chair and flopping himself down into it. I groaned, not without exaggeration. “Normal? Nothing around here is normal, with you getting all eager about something totally grovelling. Something that is going to be insignificant and a major box office flop. Sagar, the movie is going to be written off as on-the-spur rubbish by critics. Or on-the-spur violent rubbish,” I emphasised on his proper name to show that I hated calling him by the pseudo with which he was addressed by others.

He smiled wanly at me. “I guess you must be totally tired, with the planning and organizing. Don’t worry Giri, chill and relax. Things will go fine. Don’t get all pessimistic with the strain. Nerves, man, nerves.”

I forced a mock guffaw at him for having suggested that I was nervous and shortened my name, but accepted the refilled glass of beer. There was silence till I drank it down and then I turned to him, to find him grinning at me. He hardly drank, except at group gatherings and on occasional saturdays and that was another thing that I found irritating about him. Yes, and also the fact that he was somehow discernably more matured than me.

“It is all a fantasy idea, Sagar. Violence does attract masses but those are of the thriller genre. Not war. War represents whole communities and countries of sufferings that none want to be reminded about. It is not that brilliant an idea to shoot stories based on war.”

Sagar had stopped grinning long back. I watched with appreciation as his hands reached for the beer bottle and he took a long direct swig. I then checked my appreciation, he simply could not have the privelege of my approval on anything.

“Girish, The world is too small for any of us to ignore events that happen in our backyards. We can’t sit in India, relish freedom and liberty and sigh with pity on the Sri Lankans, tut-tut on their fate and carry on with our frisk bee-ing, can we?”

“Is the only solution to awaken people, the filming of the craziness? With artificial sets and locations? How do you think we can manage to convince people that we are shooting in Sri Lanka when all that we are doing is wasting precious precious money on those so-natural set ups? And of course, to think about those shots to be done in Sri Lanka, by the ocean….” I faded off, and then raged, suddenly flamed, “You think we all want to glorify ourselves for the daring at having braved living in that pain-riddled land till the completion of the filming, in the middle of that stupid war? Money, man, money. That is plainly why I am working on this. The money the producer suggested. Wonder why this craze on his part!”

The beer bottle in Sagar’s hand was now empty. But his eyes had taken on a shine. I was sure that it had nothing to do with the alcohol.

With some shock, I realised that there were tears in his eyes. I swallowed. “Sagar, boy, are you alright?”

I expected him to nod and do away with whatever he was emoting, but he shook his head with a “No, not alright.” I frowned, now I had a problem. I should have shut up along while ago, but it had been frustratingly irritating to have been involved in a project without a passion and anyway, now the damage was done.

“Sri Lanka is one of the most beautiful places on the earth, Giri. One of the most  beautiful and the most admired for its rich beauty. The whole encasement of the glorious lands by the seas, like it is a priced possesion to the earth. Endowed with the natural blessed bounties by the soil, sea and the sun. And the pride of its inhabitants. Lanka, with its history and beauty to match, the land by itself is an enigma to the world.”

After a long pause, he continued, ” I belong there. I was named after the expanses of the sea, that had fascinated my mother when she was yet a child. Still,my parents had been driven out of their home, on the order of not belonging there. I was born here, in India. I learnt about my homeland only from books and pictures, my parents never had the will power to talk about it for more than a few minutes without getting upset. It was my dream to go on there, like a child searching for the comfort of its mother.”

“And now, they are raping those virgin sands with all the blood shed from my kin. From the lonely, frightened hearts of the people of the land to which I belong to. From my people.” His voice was merely a whisper and it cracked as he finished.

“You call the media as the most powerful tool to invoke in people images of reality and illusion. What is then wrong in using it to portray the reality that is happening so near us? If that reality is something to be ashamed of and stay away from, haven’t we already lost the battle? Should we not be ashamed to call ourselves civilized and global players and turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the drum beats of death and the even-too-painful to mouth screams of wanting to live?”

It had come out in a wild rush from him. I had not been looking at him, my head bowed in extreme shame at humanity and its weird ways. Sensing this, he lowered his voice and reasoned gently, “Over all this, can we not arouse some care in people and make them at least whisper words of condemnation at what their neighbors are experiencing? I mean, should we turn mute too and exhibit the classic ‘my-neighbor-is-in-pain-and-I-am-celebrating syndrome?”

He lighted a cigarette and continued, “It will be the first time that I will set foot onto my land, and yes, I am savagely excited about it. If some of you people feel awkward about it and want to cancel out the shooting there, I would have to move on Giri. By no means am I going to stay back here, when my soul calls out to me, deepening my sense of guilt at leading a no worries life while….”

I had not been speaking for a long time. My mouth felt dry and I shook my head slowly. Strange images of India and suffering blended and I was slipping into the subconscious land of imagination, where my India replaced Lanka….

“Giri ?”

I flickered back to now. My eyes met his and there were strange,pure mutual tears in the two pairs of eyes holding each others gaze. “Not at all, Sagar. We will go on with this. With all the passion that we can put into to bring truth to fore. Infact, as the producer suggested, we might even try to shoot a major portion over there in Lanka…”

He shook his head in negation. “Not after these elaborate settings, man. We will finish with all the shots we planned here and then move on to Lanka for the remaining and wind up.”

I wanted to suddenly ask him to work with me further, after this project, but I felt that he would not be returning to India after the completion of the movie. It would mean a home and he was a man, who would rather be at home, than anywhere else, in Lanka.

I wanted to invite him home for dinner, but I did not. I got up, brushed,unnecessarily, my shirt and cleared my throat. ” Goodnight then, boy. See you early on tomorrow morning, don’t be late. ” Unnecessary addition again. He did not seem to have any ideas of leaving the sets for the night. I added again, “We will start on full swing tomorrow, boy, and finish it with vigour. And passion.” I added.

He nodded. At what, I did not know, for he seemed far away. I walked away then, leaving him gazing at those eternal stars and the evidences of history that they held.

It was going to be a long night, but I hoped dawn would break sooner, for me and for Lanka.

 

[On the lines of Vivek. Thanks Vivek.]

Fabrics of Fantasy – I

The hour was late.Thunderclouds were passing over head.The air was heavy with humidity, just then a shrill voice filled the noiseless atmosphere…

I sighed. Just like my doggy to bring attention to himself  when all I wanted was to be solitary. The whine got on to my nerves. I wanted to go stare at him and shout back, order him to shut up. But, I was tired stiff in my bones. It would take me a great effort to try to get out of the recliner and walk around, and I was anyway fascinated by the cloud patterns to go over anywhere and miss the celestial catch-me-if-you-can.

I felt the wet lick on my hand. Just like him to also try and get me into a better mood when he sensed I was gloomy. “Keep down, Tiger. Lie down and gaze at the skies”. All he did was gaze at me. I tried to avoid those molten chocolate eyes and the emotion in them and instead concentrate on the stupidity of having named a raven black dog as Tiger. One of the lightening strikes of my brother. I sighed again. The clouds were shifting, gathering.

My mobile beeped. It was a call from God. No, nothing wayward about it, I had just worded that as a substitute for the name of my cousin. It stopped before I could answer. I did not bother calling back. It must be about the loan he had helped me get, and it was this reason because of which, in a moment of dry humor, I had christened him God. But like God, he kept reminding that he had extended a favor that I had to repay, and repay as and when he likened.

It was not going to rain, was it? I could enjoy a shower of those pure droplets of water, but not now. The clouds were anyway clearing.  I took up the letter next to me, up from the antique rosewood table against which my hand brushed and remained so for a time, and reread it. I could accept the offer, and trans-locate myself or I could stay back. Staying back meant slogging through life, a mere accountant with a pay not meaning much. Moving on meant accepting to be the finance head of a newly established concern at London, though a small enterprise, I was clever enough to see the potential and the latent scope for expansion.

It was easy to decide now, somehow with Tiger warming my feet with his head against it. It meant a lot to me, like the security that I would have got but had lost. Lost without any sane reason, just a wrongly timed whim of Fate. I chose to stay back.

I got up. At 30, it felt like I had lost my life, my verve, my smile. I motioned to Tiger to get up and come with me. He hesitated, knowing my sudden wish to go, to reach the place I had been reaching the past month. I waved a wrist at him and climbed down from the terrace. He made a sudden decision and followed, as dutifully as he had in the past.

Down the street and around the left. And down the long winding road to the county cemetery. And on to the grave of the man who had been a swift storm, a gentle breeze and a loving companion in my life. And then, he had departed with the gale of time. A very very short time. A friend, and so much more. I knelt down and stayed that way for a long time. After what seemed an eon, I started back home. It was raining by then, cold drops that warmed against my skin, that made me comfortable. A lonely girl and a faithful old dog, we walked on home, memories within, and the promise of comfort and life at the one town in the world that had been home through it all.

As I reached the house, I stopped. I saw someone at the gate. An old small woman. Standing at the other side and waving at me. A dog by her side, wrinkled and very old, but grinning. And controlling the urge to whine as she waved at me. They seemed ethereal. I shook my head.

I stopped again. There was no one there. Strange the way rain and thunder, night and nostalgia can make you see future, future as future would be. I nodded to Tiger. He understood and rubbed against my leg.

We will be safe, Tiger. Safe in the world of ourselves where I found love and lost it, and where you stayed on to be a friend. We will be safe.

[A story continued on the lines loaned by Vivek. Thanks Vivek. Hope it was not that disappointing. ]

Fabrics of Fantasy

Fine, going to start a little fiction warp here. I would like people to put up a single line, that could potentially serve as the start of a story. I will try and spin imagination around the start lines.

Go on, give me leads.

Peek into a dream

How perspectives change !

I was very convinced that it had to be a graduate study in Aeronautical Engineering that would lead me up to my dreams. Some time later, I discovered that I would most likely choose Astronautical over the former, as it was closer to my love for the science behind the study, rather than the technology behind it.

And before I realised, I have found that Mechanical Engineering is my calling, at the Masters level. A science degree in Mechanical Engineering. Why? Simply because I have always been a physics person. A child who was fascinated with the matter around me, the physical tangible mass as well as the ethereal science founding it. Chemistry never fascinated me, to me it was dry facts and suppositions, without any fun of imagination. Biology to me was all the more dry, who wants to delve deeper into the anatomy when all that matters are means of getting out mentally and exploring.

I was crazy about Physics. I still am. Life to me began on a very imaginative and curious note, with fascinations with the stars, the sky and the space. I was strangely attracted to light, and the absence of it. Sound and its science was not on the top list of interests. As I grew, I learnt more about Chaos and Plasma, Quantum and Classical, Optics and Motion, Nano and what not. I knew since long that all I wanted was to be a complete physics person. A scientist, like those with that constant queer look, absentminded eccentricities, a telescope in front of me, papers all around, books and more books, a look of scholarly intelligence and genius, and a simply brilliant mind.

Kiddish? Maybe not at all.

Practicalities took over, still. A science degree in Physics slipped out of scope after huge discussions and tantrums at home. I was advised to take on something more stable, with more promises. I took on Mechanical Engineering, because of its closeness to Physics. Electricals had never held my interest, biology and life sciences was safer stayed away from. Though I was a Computer sciences person at junior college, I had found in those 2 years that it did not have much to interest me with. Like my dad says, computers are tools to aid, not domains. And well, I knew I could catch up and learn them when I had to. Basic sense and logic was sufficient. My fascinations were elsewhere.

Again, sometimes, I miss the feel that Physics could have shared with me, speaking of it this way brings it closer to the heart. It was so enticing, but just so out of reach. It is a regret that may live on within me, but something that has been subdued due to partial compensation by my choice of undergraduate studies.

A degree in Physics could have led me on to Astronomy. And a second major in quantum. Optics too would have still held interest. Of course they still do, but the walk is going to be through a different lane. I am convinced now that even Astronautics is not going to quench that thirst for science. It is going to have to be Mechanical, with specialisation in Thermal, propulsion and energy studies.

When I move on, I believe that I will catch up onto what I missed.

Till then, my prayers are that dreams, if not all, the most important at least, should materialise.

Just bored again

Somehow, the feel of the weather has caught onto me. I go mellow during monsoon. This is just the onset of the rains, and may pretty well be the curtaining too, considering it is Chennai (though I pray not). But today is dull dull dull. And has aroused some pretty strange feelings in me. I feel very… hmm… gloomy about life. Not mine, but of some others around me.

So many people lying around, taking shelter within makeshift tents on the roads. How can we pass by them, and not be struck by the way they cringe around each other trying to escape the holes in the fabric? So many kids playing in the slush… what promise of the future do they hold? What promise do any of us hold?

I came across some affecting news this month… A junior from school, who had succumbed to a brief illness due to delayed treatment. A unknown girl, at the other end of the country, who had taken her life, because her boyfriend ditched her. Is the value of a life going to be determined by others? Disturbing, but it happens.

I am upset with the world, my world as I see it. Something very harrowing has settled in. My mind seems possessed. Like I told a friend, I feel frustrated and foolish. 21 years of no big deal in a mundane melancholy life. 21 years of no major change in anything around me. 21 years of watching the world through gray and faded lens.

Hey someone, have something rose and tinted with you? Better if its a pair of glasses or lens. Would like to try them on.

Yeah right, Moving on…

Came across a newspaper article today. A round up survey conducted on the female species between ages 20 and 60 in Chennai on their preferred attire for Deepavali. I do not yet know whether I should be guffawing, rolling on floor laughing or sitting stricken, sadly contemplating the screen. I chose to choose the last inevitable option – blog on it. Since it was inevitable, there was actually no choosing that was done anyway.

The ‘ladies’ in all the true sense, you know those ‘drumstick-and-wafer-thin “girls” and the plump-pumpkinny “girls”, all of them preferred “traditional” attire on this festival. You call a saree traditional? I mean has Chennai, stressing again, Chennai become that cosmopolitan-metropolitan-whateverpolitan that it feels like sarees are ancient, yet traditional dresses, while the usual wear became skirts-pajamas-capris? Say that about any other place, but Chennai !?

I have always been living under this impression that I was close to heart at being dravidian-aryan-Indian as I was comfortably cushioned in Chennai, the capital of the “Temple State” of one of the most ancient and culturally most advanced nations in the world, and here comes the poke rite in my butt. Ok, maybe not butt, but surely where it hurts.

And to add intensity, the “girls” ( I can’t get over that, girls at 60 and talking about clothes for their 80 year old parents, again them being girls and boys, I guess ) could not wait to tell those who would be stupid enough (yeah, like me) to read, about all the heavy accessories that they can’t wait to wear. Heavy? Maybe made of granite, limestone, iron and carborundum. Am bemused, can’t get that many heavy stuff into my mind to suggest. Guess, I will leave that to the commentators.

Forget even the traditional crap, but can’t you get something intelligent to say about the most widely celebrated Hindu festival in India? How about vowing to keep off crackers, or at least crack less. After all, all they do is add to the pollution, frighten street dogs and scare motorists. How about vowing to eat less on that day. Come on people, how many kinds of sweets can you all eat on that one day? And come off that shopping-shopping-!@!#$ attitude.

For a change, give something this Deepavali, than take. Share. Smile and yeah, sleep. Even with all that noise, sleep and dream. Dream of bursting crackers, stuffing yourselves with sweets and what not, dressing up, dressing down, whatever. Just dream, don’t do it.

Know what, I just thought about the post-last option to my reaction on reading that article. I should not have bothered my already muddled mind about it. I should have moved on. What’s my problem anyways, right?

Moving on.

Astrology, as I see it

There is always something fascinating with astrology. Life is dynamic and fun and also, as it is believed, life can proceed the way you want it to. Its hard work and all energy, but still, that energy can be channelized in the most positive way. That is what is astrology.

Accordingly, astrology is a lot of things. To the uninterested, it is crap. To the superficially interested, it is predicting life, to the conformist, it is a science that delves into karma, life, death, reincarnation… and a lot more on the soul level.

To me, astrology is exciting. Just like magic is to some. Astrology and the art of magic is actually much more related than we care to note. Magic in astrology is the manifestation of miracles. And miracles are brought in from the ethereal to the real by faith. Not necessarily faith in any deity. In essence, it can lead to complete mis-interpretation of the concept of faith. Astrology and ‘miraclization’ denote faith in the Self. In the complete wisdom and knowledge of the Self, through the lesser self. Puzzling, but Self here calls to each one’s personal Higher Self, existing on a different level of consciousness, called the Supraconscious. It is akin to the concept of Godmothers, only truth being that your ‘godmother’ is your own higher conscience.

Palmistry, Numerology, Zodiac, and what not, manifest as tools to uncover some facts about the way you are fashioned. I personally am interested in just the three mentioned above, in exact reverse order.

Somehow, I just cannot take in that there can be much truth in periodic predictions. Heard of daily and monthly predictions? I mean those. They are sometimes such absolute crap that I feel they are making savage the whole realm of the ‘looking into the unknown’.

This may present a small intro to what I would like to share with people out there, who might be interested in this “happy science” (as Linda called it). Even the critics, I would like to look into your arguments and reasonings too.

Meet on later sometime, with a post on the Science and Signs of the Zodiac.

Keep Star Gazing.