Ramblings...

Moment of glory has a way of its own to enter human realization space. It often makes way in the culminating moments of actions, riding on horses or BMWs, depending upon which school of thought you come from and how many Clint Eastwood movies you have watched, driven by the dare-fluid ebbing in the scrotal sac. It comes rushing in, like a bullet or a flying arrow(s), again depending upon which school of thought you come from and how many Hindu Mythological epics you have watched, and has varying life spans.

Sometimes it lives a lifetime-the cocky man! And sometimes its evanescent - the humble man.

In the current Somalian struck days, for a beggar, this feeling can be engendered by his success at earning just one Rupee more than his average mean earnings for the day.

Hold on! Did I just say Somalian struck days?

Oh yes, I did! Have you evah heard of Somalia striking? You know, mmm… like you hear or read or breathe or fart or …woof…woof…USA striking!

Now, that’s what I call glorious!

Would that country, full of people who will never see me, never hear of me and would neither care a damn about it, if not for me, ever have had the good fortune of having the word ‘strike’ as its by standing neighbor in the milita…err…literary space?

Difficult!

Because by the time they come even close, after they have managed to kill most of their population from hunger and co and have brought the ratio of their population and the resources available in their country, to a healthy level, the rest of the world would be paying a whopping amount to the US of A for usage of this most solicited word, as the case would be and Nostradamus would agree, under the international patent law.

But I can bet that even Nostradamus’s calculations of the magical figure at which the patent can be won, which is derived from the number of times a nation / outfit/ group/ force/ etc (as innovative as a team can get) has, on merit, given the due honor of juxtaposing itself with the word in the form of sound or ink, would look like a spec in the air under the stellar performance of the Big Brother.

Irrespective of this futile delving-into, as our nuclear netas would protest, the power of this feeling is undeniably immaculate. You say you disagree! Well, I thought it was this very power that turned a normal human heel, which I thought is the same piece of bone fixed on most of the human bodies that I have seen, unless of course I have been imagining, into Achilles heel. Branding since the troy days you say, eh? Why just branding my dear friend? I say farting through the Troy days! Too long a fart to last, you say again? Hmmm…may be. But I can smell the stink brother!

We live in a modern world today. And if I were to ask you, ‘what is it that comes to your mind when you hear the word modern?’ most would say technology. Of course when I say most, I bring to speech pictures of strange looking robots living in the modern definition of parks (building for trees, swimming pools for lakes etc), who I have always imagined as having a wire at the rear end for the pre evolutionary tail, walking the streets, creating and breaking imaginary codes in the air.

Then there is another group, who would disagree with the above stated hypothesis. They would holler at the top of their voices, another entity that cannot be denied at least a mention, while talking about modern. This entity is slightly more evolved than a personal computer (in the way they look, I mean.). But it gets certainly more personal than its counterpart. It’s the modern woman, fellas! No prizes for guessing that. Come on. Don’t we see them E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E (dare you scratch out the loo or the top of the tree from that list!)? You dare not say ‘no’ if you aren’t one yourself for you might be convicted of supporting discrimination on grounds of jealousy or insensitivity or even a conspiracy.

Now, having successfully sacrificed a slice of my rear end at the altar of the fair end, I will continue talking about the other ubiquitous subject of consideration- the internet

For most part of my teenage and a good part of the subsequent pain-age, I always looked upon people surfing the internet as somewhat fishy. Believe it or not, but the first thing that would fly into my mind when I heard the term internet, was porn. And I strongly thought that everyone surfing the internet was doing so in order to watch porn. (Thank good heavens my father still doesn’t know how to use one!). Even now, in the second stage of pain-age, sometimes I still have that questioning look on my face when someone tells me that he was surfing the internet; especially if I he tells me so at 2:00 a.m. That raised left eye-brow look! And the desire to take a peek into the computer screens of others surfing the internet is irresistible. The joy of catching a friend chatting with ‘hot4u’ or ‘sizzlingbrownie’ and various such strangely named characters, is extraordinary. I agree that sometimes parents are harsh while naming their kids. For instance a guy called Dick should be protected and allowed by law to drag his parents to court when he realizes where his parents spent their creative energies. Look now how the torture pushes people to rechristen themselves with such luscious details about their good health! Tch Tch…

Coming back to the act of peeping into others’ computer, it is all about deriving comfort from knowing that you have company. We are but social animals, as is proved by a zillion members of the intelligentsia. And we seek company in whatever we do. Where do you think the concept of Orgy comes from? Exactly! See, you too can light a bulb even though your name looks nothing like Edison. You could be Muthuswami Krishnaswami Aiyangarswami Sivarman Venkat. But it is just about getting the right clue at the right time. Are you to blame for lack of ideas if you were born after everything was already invented? We should never worry about things that are not under our control. Like they say, keep doing your karma and never expect for results. Lack of ownership since the mythological days, I say!

We humans are a class apart. We know exactly how to safeguard our interests. And most of our interests lie in taking back life to the state of idleness.

and the Oscar goes to...

It’s a warm night with a thick cloud cover making it unbearably humid. The clock chimes ten in the distant tower that Oscar can see from his window. He stands there wearing only his bathing towel, wrapped around at the waist. His arms are stretched across the width of the window over his shoulders. The street lights are bright orange giving the road a surreal sunset feel. The smoke from the vehicles on the road is adding to the ugliness of the moment.

Just when he thinks it opportune to open a bottle of beer to beat the heat, his door bell rings.

“Comiiiing…”

He looks at the wall clock across the room on the opposite wall.

“Who has come visiting at 10:10 in the night?” he wonders.

“Ah! What a pleasant surprise Mahesh. I was just going to help myself to a bottle of beer. You would love to have one, at this most unpleasant moment. Won’t you?”

Mahesh enters without uttering a word and seats himself on the couch. He immediately jumps and walks up to the window where Oscar was standing a moment ago.

The house is very small with only a hall and a kitchen. The loo is to the left hand corner of the hall if you have just entered the house. And the kitchen has no door. It is like a triple sized closet sunk into the wall right opposite the entrance door.

Oscar goes into the kitchen and emerges with a bottle of beer and two mugs.

He slowly pours the beer into the mugs with perfect veteran’s comfort with the skill. After he is finished he lifts the mugs and walks up to Mahesh who is still standing at the window.

“Cheers my friend!” And he hands over one mug to Mahesh.

Mahesh turns, looks at Oscar for a second in the eye, takes the mug, raises it and nods his head with a raised eyebrow. He then starts looking out the window again.

Oscar walks up to a small, broken, wooden center table in the hall. He lifts his packet of cigarettes and lights one. The sound of the match scraping the strip of the match box fills the room and soon smoke follows suit.

“Would you like to have a fag?” he asks Mahesh.

Mahesh doesn’t reply. He just keeps looking out the window.

“What happened to you today? Why are you so unusually silent?”

Oscar walks up to the window and stands next to Mahesh. But he still doesn’t answer.

“Ok. Enough of dumb charades! It is getting irritating now. What happened? Did you see a ghost on your way or what?”

Mahesh turned slowly to face Oscar.

“But you don’t believe in ghosts. Do you?”

“Of course I don’t. But if you tell me that that is what it will take for you to talk tonight, I will. But only for tonight.”

Mahesh sits on the couch and keeps his mug on the center table.

“Now now now. I know that look on your face. It is veeeeery veeeery familiar. Please don’t tell me that you actually saw a ghost on your way here, yet another time. Just yesterday we spoke about this Mahesh and I told you in clear terms that if you ever tried to convince me on the existence of ghosts, I will simply switch off and never see you again”

Oscar takes a long drag after saying this and gently buffs the ash in the empty Kingfisher beer can he uses as ash tray. Mahesh still doesn’t speak and simply stares at Oscar.

“I can’t believe this! You have been here thirty minutes and you have only spoken eight words, out of which one word is ghost. Ridiculous! Don’t you think you are taking this ghost thing too far now?”

“Oscar, sometimes we see but we don’t see and sometimes we don’t see but we see.”

“Oh my god! Look at the philosopher talking. Sigh! At least it is better than your stupid apparitions. Go on!”

Oscar guzzles the remaining beer and rises to fetch himself another bottle. When he returns he realizes Mahesh has not eve touched his beer so far.

“What the heck man! Why aren’t you drinking? Are you alright?”

“Oscar, life is so cruel to people sometimes. Just when you think you are getting somewhere, everything changes. The entire map is re-drawn. You lose direction. The place you were going to is not there anymore. It’s in some other place. And you have to re-work from scratch!”

Oscar stubs the butt and lights another one immediately. He drinks his second mug half and wipes his lips with the skin on his arms.

“Mahesh I think you need to visit a doctor. You are getting sick by the moment. I can’t see you this way anymore. I guess I will take you to a psychiatrist.”

“I won’t need a doctor anymore Oscar.”

Just then Oscar’s mobile phone rings. The sound is traveling from the kitchen. Oscar gets up and walks to the kitchen to fetch the phone.

“Hey! Naina, How are you? And what makes you call ME so late? Your guy is sitting here with me and we are having some very interesting conversation.”

“Hello…hello…Naina? I can’t hear you clearly. Hello? Are you crying Naina?”

“Os-car, today Mahesh asked me to marry him. It was the most beautiful moment of my life. I was so happy. I said a yes and accepted his ring. He was so excited he wanted to go and give you the news himself. So he dropped me home quickly and rushed towards your house.”

“If I heard you correctly you said that Mahesh was coming to my house? I know of it because he is right here. But why do you have such a hurried and troubled tone?”

Oscar walks out of the kitchen but doesn’t find Mahesh sitting on the couch. He thinks he must have gone to the loo.

“Naina can you hear me? There is a lot of disturbance in the line?”

“No, I cannot hear you very clearly. But Oscar, I called to tell you that Mahesh is dead! He died… i..n a..n accident. On the way to your house… I just got a call from the police. They got my number from his dialed numbers log in the mobile. I am so s-h-a-t-t-e-r-e-d Osc…………………”

Oscar freezes! Everything stops.

The cigarette drops from his mouth just as his body does to the floor. The cell phone slides out of his hand on to the floor and he falls on his face.

“Hello…hello…Oscar…can you hear me? Oh shit! I was kidding Oscar. He is not dead. We were playing a prank on you. Mahesh is hiding in your loo… Hello…Oscar, are you there??? Hello…hello…”

Oscar lay dead on the floor!

29th Feb, 2008

It is such undiluted pleasure, to feel satisfied. And I realized its true value only today. Just when this term was losing its absolute existence in my life-book, it came knocking at my door step. Needless to say I welcomed it with open arms. And it flooded me, this sweet poison. I willingly drowned myself. I was overcome with this most divine feeling to such excess, that it is hard to express. I felt like Will Smith in the last scene of the movie, In Pursuit of Happiness. Even with hundreds of people around me on the road, as I walked to the restaurant to have dinner, I knew I was the one with a difference at that moment. And I knew I had made a difference to be knighted with it.

It felt as if I was being watched from somewhere far off. Some place where the entire universe is controlled from. All the spot lights were on me. And it was my turn at that moment to be bestowed upon with this most rewarding feeling. I bowed and embraced the honor.

I was suddenly scared I wouldn’t absorb every drop of it and the thought killed me. I couldn’t let it go; any of it. Especially when it came to me after one and a half years full. So I rushed to my apartment and sat in silence in the still of the night. I did not put on the fan and I put my mobile phone on silent mode. Because I wanted to hear it breathe inside me. With every breath I exhaled I thanked it for healing my soul. Nothing could have been better company in those moments.

What makes satisfaction so overwhelming is the mix of so many positive emotions- of joy, pride and relief, that it brings to us enveloped in one. It is this envelope that I wait for more than my pay cheque. And it’s rarity makes it even more desirable, almost obsessively. Its warmth will put me off to a beautiful sleep tonight. Of that I am sure.

And I guess now is the right time to allow myself to be lullabied. To feel it’s soft fingers ruffle my hair.

Peace, here I come.

Cleave on...

In the corporate world, everyday, there is a new erudite bunch of Adams that joins the elite group of unfortunate men who wish God gave them breasts. As for some, their well fed upbringing at least gets them wishfully closer to this yearning; of course with some natural and hideous disorders of… ummm…you know…those…err… follicle like things and all.

But just imagine; how much simpler it would have been if both the genders were endowed with this most fascinating part of human flesh which has enslaved the creatures from Mars to its charm; to as far as time can take us back. Even from a utilitarian perspective, men would have been able to share the burden of breast feeding. Women would have come inches closer in their eternal pursuit for equality; also in terms of seeking pleasure. And above all, we would have made way for some sort of Meritocracy which seems to largely live in the Indian corporate graveyard with its tombstone reading: I never existed.

Women’s sexuality has always been a man’s grave. And there is none but the man to blame.

So all those daggers waiting to slice my neck may please go back inside their sheaths. Because neither am I questioning a woman’s ability to excel at work. I would be foolish to do that. Nor am I taking away anything from women who have climbed the corporate ladder after toiling hard, much to their merit.

But if truth be told, the plunging neck line seems to be hitting the career graphs of many a men under the belt. I would map it on a 3 dimensional graph: Lower the neck line- higher the learning curve- deeper the grave.

I pity these victims who are falling prey to the booby-trap. It’s not funny, how so many times the company of a full fledged, flesh and blood male next to a man doesn’t even stir the air between the two. But the tap of a pair of stilettos, twenty feet away, turns the air so benign as to move even the inner most nostril hair of our gentlemen to come out and take a peek.

If one saw a few men staring into their excel sheets at work place, they would immediately know that the only thing that turns those men on, is that virtual page in front of them. But even these men don’t seem to mind a version 36.26.

Truly speaking it is getting amusing at work place now; how much that little peek into the valley of desire, which all men crave for, can change. I absolutely conform to the view that it is wonderful to have a beautiful co-worker from the opposite sex. It is the best incentive to offer to a man. It is far more motivating albeit it may be little rewarding. Because men also tend to completely redefine their area of expertise and focus in beautiful company.

But they suddenly do not mind the late hours or the early morning meetings. In fact they don’t even mind forgetting the concept of a week end which otherwise is the single motivating factor for them to see through the 5 eternally long weekdays.

Now all would agree that most of the times companies take the services of ladies for tele calling. Be it banks, financial firms or marketing biggies, they all employ the same tact. Why would they do so if it did not make a difference? It is a natural reaction for most men to keep the line running if it is Ritu on the other end. But if it is Rakesh, he has had it! Even the otherwise quite chap tends to hurl a few abuses at our poor friend.

I was speaking to a friend recently and he told me that the difference between the sale figures of all the men put together vis-a-vis all the women in his organization reflected this glaring reality; much to the anguish of our men. This was simply because men in this organization could not fetch as many appointments with clients over the phone as their beautiful eves.

But the law of change applies to the law of motivation as well. And someday, we shall overcome…

As for women: Enjoy it while you get it!

P.S. the content in this article holds no intention to offend anyone.

Phone call...

The mobile rang again and I picked it up after letting it ring for a few seconds.

“Hallo”

“Hey dude…you home yet?”

“Ya man, just came out of a shower.”

“Guess who I spoke to just now?”

“Well….p.p.p.p.p.p.p.pata nahin…”

“Preeti man…”

“Oh…good man…”

“Yeah man…spoke for half an hour dude…”

“Wow, that’s neat!”

“And guess what…she didn’t even hang up on me!”

“Now then… someone is going places…I hope you didn’t make her cry?”

“No dude, I didn’t…we not in the same town na…he he…but she said she is very lonely ever since I left…and cursed me for not being in touch…”

“Oh! How little she knows you bro. I am sure she wouldn’t have said anything even close to what she said if she knew you well enough…especially the ‘keeping in touch’ bit…”

“He he…you know me so well man…”

Before I proceed I must tell you that it is always a great moment in the life of my friend if he manages to speak to a girl for that long without the girl hanging up on him. Our friend has devised a simple, easy to execute and wallet friendly strategy to hook up with women. He doesn’t indulge in any of the regular practices of complimenting the woman of his desire or taking her out for dinner or getting gifts for her and the works. He would first simply make her cry by either mocking her lesser intelligence (as our man believes every woman is born with) or by making a nasty remark at her being so “girly”.

Well, as we can see my friend doesn’t quite understand the obvious fact that a girl WILL act ‘girly’. Nonetheless, let me not deviate. So, once he is convinced that he has hurt the girl enough he would then ask her out for coffee to make up for what he had said and done. Most of the times women have agreed to go out with him, for our man does, by the stroke of rigged fortune, although a sheer waste, have the sweet charm that endears women. However, it would be worthy to note that they have often returned feeling more terrible than before.

“I have had seven…errrr…eight drinks man…”

“Hmmm…”

“Okay…I agree I had just four”

“Or is it just two dude?”

“He he…you swine…”

“He he he…”

As is with most men, the number of drinks our man can have somehow seems to be symbolic of his sperm count- higher the capacity for alcohol higher the count. And after he finds himself in high spirits, he almost immediately also finds himself making telephone calls to, as he calls them in a more generous mood, “women from past”- which is an extremely polite reference to the women our friend has either shared intimate moments with or has had a desire to do so with. It is like a standard operating procedure (SOP-are MBAs listening???) after an alcohol bath. Ask him the next day what he spoke about and he would probably ask you back what your plans for the day are. And don’t even make the mistake of asking the woman in the context about it, for you might reap what your friend sowed the previous night.

“But it really felt good talking to her dude…I immediately went and …well…gave myself a release after the conversation”

“Ha ha ha…dude…you are so crazy man…I know what felt nice!”

“No man, serious. It felt really good talking to her”

“What did you talk about?”

“Dude, how was your day man?” (See, I had told ya!)

“well…the usual…quite dry…nothing as juicy as yours”

“Fucker…this is juicy you think. Saala the curse of being lonely…a girl is required dude”

Our dude here has an impeccably roving eye for engaged/not-available women. With cent percent success rate he carefully yet unknowingly selects a girl who is already taken and then curses his fate for having tricked him - yet again!

“He he…yeah…so hows Ralph?”

“He he…he is in the same boat…fed up of his job…wants to quit”

“Hmmm…was he not preparing for GMAT?”

“No dude…that was all bull shit!”

“He he…hmmm…”

“Dude I am so surprised about Aniket…how did he sacrifice everything to go back home man?”

“Well…how do you know it’s a sacrifice?”

“Dude…he has lived away from home for twelve years man…that too in a place like Bangalore”

“So? That does not necessarily mean he made a sacrifice. May be he wanted to go back. How do you know that is not what he wanted?”

“I feel like it is a forced choice…”

There is another interesting fact worth mentioning about our man. He thinks he can read minds. He is almost convinced about the reason for someone else’s decisions even when the decision has not been made. He also believes in sharing this information, as if it was from the horse’s mouth, with as many people as possible. After all, sharing is caring!

So the moment someone known to our man does make a decision, he has to only wait for an hour before some Tom, Dick or Harry tells him how he heard about the reason for his decision and feels extremely sorry for him.

“So hows is hemant?”

“Dude I didn’t tell you about it man…”

“What happened???”

“He was going through a pretty tough time in his personal life…So they called it off and now our man has taken it upon himself as his moral responsibility to get her married to someone else…”

“What???”

“He he…yeah man…thoda filmy ho gaya…”

“He he…thoda???”

“Yeah dude… but good such responsibility never came upon you man…your ex went and got married herself…he he”

“Ha ha…yeah dude…she knows how I hate responsibilities…”

“Ha ha…so have you heard from her?”

“Nope! Not in over four months now. I didn’t give her my new number.”

“Do you think about her?”

Another thing worth mentioning about our man is his yet another impeccable knack of asking the wrong questions at the most unexpected times.

“Well… not really…not at all. Sometimes she occurs to me and I wonder if she is doing fine. But that’s about it. I dismiss the thought at that point…”

“Hmmm…it would be so weird meeting them again man…”

“ya dude…just imagine this. You are going up the elevator in a mall and there she comes, stands next to you on the same step with her guy…”

“Screw you dude…that is scary man…shit! Don’t scare me like this man…”

“He he…no dude… I have often thought about such awkward situations…just imagine this happening to you dude”

“Holy crap! Its even worse for you because you are alone …this is why I say you must always have dummy girls to roam around with…that too real good looking ones you know…”

“Ha ha…ya dude… ha ha ha…”

“It is going to be so weird man if this sort of a thing ever happens…”

“Dude a woman never loses her sense of right over her men from past. No matter how long the break-up…they will still feel jealous at the sight of their ex with another girl”

“Hmmm… words of wisdom…guess its time to crash…”

“Alright dude…good night!”

beep-beep-beep-beep.

Nasik to Aurangabad

I jumped out of the rickshaw and sprinted to platform number one. I was late for my train at 5:10 p.m. I took out my mobile from the left pocket of my denims and checked the time. It read - 5:10 p.m.

“bhaiyya, jan Shatabdi chali gayi kya?”; I asked the coolie.

“nahin nahin…abhi nahin…”

“kaun se platform par ayegi?”

“ek number pe…”

“Thank you!”

I heaved a sigh of relief and placed my bags carefully on a clean spot of the railway platform. I looked around to find the station very crowded. There was quite a lot of noise around.

I took out my train ticket from the shirt pocket and held it straight under my eyes. My eyes went to check the departure time. I was right about it. I then looked at my seat number. C 57. As I folded the ticket to replace it in my shirt pocket I suddenly recalled something. The seat allotted to me in the same train five days ago when I was coming to Nasik was exactly the same- C 57

“Strange…”; I told myself.

It went back five days to travel back from Aurangabad to Nasik. It occurred to me that I had changed my seat for a more comfortable one (read-spacious) after finding half the train vacant. I was suddenly pulled back to the present by my ringing phone. I must have spoken for about fifteen minutes when the train arrived. I hung up and got ready to board the train. I lifted both my bags one by one and hung them by their belts on my shoulder.

Once the train stopped I moved into the crowd and reached my berth soon enough. I placed one bag on the over head shelf space provided for luggage and sank in the discomfort of the seat. I had booked myself a ticket in air conditioned chair car.

The train moved in about a couple of minutes and I was traveling yet again. In the seat next to me was seated an old gentleman who looked busy doing something with the news paper. After looking harder I discovered that he was solving the English crossword. I was impressed immediately for the old man had almost finished solving the crossword with only a couple of words left. I decided to give company and stared really hard at the cross word, nearly solving it by the gaze itself.

“You want to do it?” he offered. I am sure i had made him uncomfortable.

“Yeah…” I answered and nearly snatched the news paper from his hand in excitement. It was a sort of pre-success excitement. The thought of completing the cross word which an old man was finding difficult to really got me anxious. After spending about ten minutes on the cross word and realizing that I wouldn’t even have made it this far had I worked on it afresh, I stealthily looked for some other content on the paper to read. i tried to see if the old man was looking my way by trying to almost zoom out my eye balls from their sockets around the corner of my eyes.

Thankfully a cartoon strip was right next to the crossword and I felt like it had appeared just to rescue me from experiencing a really embarrassing moment. All along, I had thought that the old man was looking at me while i tried to solve the crossword. But I realized how wrong I was when I turned to look at him, expecting to catch his condescending glance, and saw him lost in thoughts and looking the other way.

Relieved, I started solving the Su-doku on the paper. After making a thorough mess of it for half an hour I turned to look at the man once again. He pointed at something he held in his hands. He had another newspaper with Su-doku on it. But the difference between his mine was stark naked. He had solved that horribly de-motivating game completely. As if the numbers had found their place in the boxes at the neat command of his fingers.

I meekly showed him my sheet and softly said with a little shrug, “I made one mistake somewhere”; stressing really hard on the word ‘one’.

He smiled an enigmatic smile and placed his newspaper in the pocket provided at the back of the seat in front of him.

“Where are you going?”; he asked.

“Aurangaabd”; I replied.

“Do you study there?”

“No I work…with Titan Industries…currently with Tanishq”. I was flattered at the thought of looking young enough to be a student still.

However he looked a little bewildered so I spoke again realizing the reason for his quizzical look. “Tanishq…the jewellery brand!”

“Ah! Yeah yeah… so who do you sell to?”

Finding the question very strange initially I took a second longer to answer his question. “Everyone… It is for...mmm... all”; sounding a little irritated at the question

“Oh…okay…so what do you do?”

“I look after marketing and sales for Tanishq in Aurangabad and Nasik”

Smilingly he said, “that must be interesting!”

“Well it is, as a fact. It is a very dynamic business…Now, when we talk abut gold ..........blah blah blah…......blah blah....more blah.....”

I must have spoken for five minutes non-stop. After satiating the marketing man in me I looked at him with sudden silence. It seemed like everyone in the train was listening to me for there was not a sound when I stopped speaking. It felt as if the train had fallen in a vacuum .

“What is your USP?” he asked. breaking the silence. I quietly lauded his brave attempt for giving me another chance to open my gob. Self-infliction seemed like his sport for the moment and I didn't mind being his guest. So i began...

“Purity.”

Again there was that vacuum like silence. I realized at that very moment that I had set pretty high standards for myself in the past. So my current poverty struck performance had rendered quite a surprise at my audience. The spell of surprise was dispelled in a few seconds when the old man spoke.

“24 Karat?”

“No…we make jewelery in 22kt. Jewelery cannot be made in 24 karat. The reason being that………….blah blah blah”; I went on another word trip.

Once I decided to take a quick break from the rapid fire, I found that the old man had adapted himself well to the situation already as he immediately jumped at the opportunity of stopping me from - Act 2 Round 2 .

“I am an engineer by profession. I passed out of IIT, Madras about forty years ago. I didn’t do an MBA even though I had call from IIM Calcutta. I found it real fake”; he said smilingly.
“I don’t mean to offend you. I just thought I wouldn’t do justice to my engineering if I ended up selling tooth paste and shaving cream”; he concluded.

“He he … I agree. Not many think like that now days.”

I immediately thought of how much easier it would have been to crack that dashed CAT examination if all engineers thought like him. At least there wouldn’t have been the peer pressure of performing well in the quantitative section.

We continued talking for a while and I realized that I had taught the old man something. He was now talking as much I did when we started conversing. the preamble was irritatingly long and the real stuff was yet to arrive. I smiled at my success and appearing to be attentive I drifted to thoughts about this and that whle the old man continued to binge on alphabets.

“What do you think?”; he spoke and looked straight at me.

Those words hit me like a bullet and his stare was like the blazing sun in my eyes. My heart curled like the touch-me-not plant as I stood at the verge of a terribly embarrassing moment. I gave a guilty smile to him as I tried the impossible task of fetching his words from my sub-conscious mind. i couldn't break the sticky glut it had formed in mind .

Fortunately my rescue team arrived again and this time in the form of a pantry man, sugar, coffee powder and milk. I really needed this army to pull me out of the trench and the timing couldn’t have been better. Another rescue comrade appeared from the mouth of the old man as he spoke- “you care for some coffee?”

How I wished to tell him that the only thing I cared for at that moment, from the cockles of my heart, was coffee.

“Sure! Do cup please” ; I said to the pantry man with as calm a voice as I could possibly keep.

“Ek strong”; the old man demanded.

“Let me pay”; I said after we had received our respective cups of coffee.

I handed over the money and gave him a huge smile with BIG thank yous written all over my face. I think he got the point because he gave me back a very strange look, the one you wear when you try very hard to understand what the other person is trying to say but just can't. He nodded his head, gave me half a stifled smile and hurried away.

Soon after we finished our coffee we got talking again, the old man and me.

“You must do what you really feel like. We Indians are never taught to be adventurous and creative by our parents. But we must follow our passion.” He had said this in a jiffy and I felt like he was reading my mind. Just before he had spoken I was thinking about my guitar which I dearly miss and his words came like my own. It was spooky and it was now my turn to be surprised. I turned to my right to look at him and found him staring at me. I held his stare for a couple of seconds and looked away with a jerk.

Silence fell upon us and I fell into a deep thought about this and that.

The air was suddenly full of noises of feet scraping the floor and bodies shifting into a different arrangement. I looked out of the window and saw some street lights. I could also map indicators of capitalism and I realized that a station was approaching. Or should I say, we were approaching a station!

I rose to my feet too and so did the old man next to me. He asked me to pull out his bag from the over head shelf and I did so. I enqued myself in the aisle and moved to pull out my bags from the over head shelf of the front seat, where i had placed them. The train stopped and I almost simultaneously pulled out my bags.

I turned to find the old man already gone. Initially I thought my eyes were duping me but soon I realized they were not. The old man was just not there while everyone else was still in the que and moving. Few people, who were sitting in the adjacent column of seats beside me, were staring at me as they walked out of the compartment. I walked out feeling cold. Once on the platform I looked for the old man everywhere but there was no sign of him.

I just ambled to the exit and took a rickshaw home.

amchi local...

How often have you been nestled between sweat and arses? I don’t think an average guy undergoes this most innovative torture too many times. But if you ever happen to experience this more than twice in a single day I guess you wouldn’t exactly call yourself fortunate. I fell prey to this monstrosity thrice in a single day in arguably the most overly populated place in this world, the Mumbai local train. After the great wave of people got me on to the train with little effort of my own I wormed through the rubble of hope to get myself half an inch of space to sit. Luckily I did find some place on the last berth and quickly plonked myself on it; needless to mention the hanging portion of my body in the air.

There is a tacit understanding amongst the travelers of local train in Mumbai. Irrespective of the fact that the seat that is made to host just three average sized arses you must attempt to make space for every extra feature that comes along requesting. So every time someone came close to the seat with a glimmer of hope in his eye and the swift requesting movement of the hand to make some space for him to sit, all of us on the seat would try to push the last man sitting next to the window out of the train with collective and well coordinated force. After attempting this gang murder for a few seconds at every new request and realizing much to the chagrin of the hopeful Charlie that the task is beyond the cumulative bench strength, we would simply turn to him and nod our faces in a left-right movement communicating our failure. Disappointed, the gentleman would merely hold fort of the 2 square inches of space that he had managed to win and was standing on. The space that each man occupies in the train comes under constant challenge by the new comers who try to snatch some of it every time the train comes to a halt at stations. This battle of travel space reminded me of a statement that I had read somewhere- “all of us are at war all the time”. “How true”; I softly told myself.

So, sitting on the berth I was bending forward and looking down for a while, facing the floor of the train. I don’t remember what caused me to look up but whatever it was had to be coming from the devil’s den. I looked up to brush the tip of my nose against a gentleman’s arse. His arse was at kissing distance from my face and he could well be saying in his mind; “Kiss my arse!” I carefully turned to my left hoping to get a better sight when I realized I was successfully ambushed by posteriors. I felt like a prisoner of war caught in foul space and I strangely thought of the term callipygian. Now don’t ask me why. Ok, I agree I had read Norman Lewis’s Word power made Easy. But that was long time back. Four years if I am not mistaken.

Anyway, my face only had a cubicle like space to breathe in. I commanded my olfactory nerves to retire for the day; at least for the moment, to prevent a casualty in case either of the gentlemen decided to let go. A thick film of sweat took birth on my forehead and a stream had already begun to slowly flow in a straight line formation on my back. I was feeling miserable in my new found confine waiting for a divine rescue when suddenly the train stopped and my prayers were answered. Dadar station is where the biggest exchange of travelers happens. It was my destination too and I was happy to get out of the train to lose myself in the swarm.