S c r e a m i n g I n d o n e s i a n W o m e n

So I am using the pretext of writing my travel stories in order to escape this tedium of non-output in my blog. Yes, I am shameless. :)

S c r e a m i n g I n d o n e s i a n W o m e n

On the 29th of July, I was there waiting in the Hyderabad airport on an early morning, for the flight to Singapore. I would later take a connecting flight to Los Angeles. It was 5'o clock in the morning when I checked in. The flight was expected at 7. But suddenly, an announcement flashed that the flight (which was supposed to arrive from Mumbai) had not taken off and would be getting delayed by 6 hours.

I was on a tight schedule to attend a conference and hence, this news was decidedly unpalatable to me. The other passengers sighed and left the airport in the manner of ducks running away from a rain. My parents were present to see me off, and they decided to stick with me a little longer. We visited Ragz, a close friend of mine who was also living close by. It was there that we observed the news on the television, reporting about the mess that had happened in the Mumbai airport. It was raining miserably in Mumbai for some time then, and apparently, the gravel near the runway on the airport had turned into a soup. An aeroplane had skidded and got stuck into the mud while trying to take off. Interestingly, it did not blow itself up and nobody had died ! But consequently, the entire airport had been shut down until further notice. Cursing my gargantuan ill luck, I telephoned the airport authorities in Hyderabad.

They asked me to come back, but after I had arrived, would coolly report to me that the flight would not arrive before dusk. This was just the begining of a cat-and-mouse game that Air India would play with us for one whole long day. As a matter of fact, the airport in Mumbai had been cleared by that time. But this particular bird had not been not given the green signal and would not be given for another 12 hours. Limited in our capacities as humans to foresee future, we passengers were engaged in a silly game with the airline authorities - with them reporting that the flight would arrive in the next 2 hours and then us waiting, and then us resigned to listen to more announcements. To cut a long story short, I boarded this majestic bird at 2'o clock past midnight. My parents waited until late evening before they saw me off with a deep sigh.

I was understandably in melancholic spirits as I stepped onto the plane. I would inevitably miss the first day of my conference and this feeling did not sink into me like a spoonful of euphoria. And then I noticed where I would be seated. My seat was tucked into a sea full of female fish ! A sea full of black female fish, to be more apt, as all these fish were dressed in black - the black robes of chastity expected of devout Muslim women. And they were screaming at each other in an alien tongue-twister language.

The long day had already taken its toll off me - my head badly needing a dash of pure caffaine to get rid of that swimming-sinking feeling. But, no sir, it instead received several mbps of audio in Bahasa Indonesia. No doubt, an Indonesian sailor returning home after a long honeymoon at sea, would not find anything more welcome than a bevy of female Indonesians clucking in his native tongue. But sadly, I was not an Indonesian sailor returning after a long honeymoon. And the clucking of all these birds rose deep feelings of paranoia, terror and trauma inside the left side of my chest.

As soon as I put my earplugs on, the girl sitting next to me (let's call her Pepper, her given name was very pretty and starts off with a P.. something) made her presence felt by immediately changing the station of my radio. She made it so as to match with her own station so that she would not get disturbed by the noises that would come from my phones ! We Indians pride ourselves in our social skills, but this incidant blew the pride off me. I looked at the face of this wonder and mentally saluted the social abilities of the Indonesian folk. Pepper had a fair teenager's face and extremely mischeivous eyes, and a tired demeanour suggestive of a long journey. My immediate reaction was vaguely protective and that of compliance, though I absolutely desisted the bollywood and the indi-pop-dhamaaka music that the radio station was playing.

I smiled at her and introduced myself, "Hi, I am Kiran"
She gave me a dumbfounded and startled look. And nothing else.

I thought I had not made myself heard.
So I said again, "Hi, what is your name ?"
She said, "Eh"
I said, "Your name, your naam.. Aapka naam kya hai ?"
(Foolishly encouraged by her preference to the Indipop music, I blurted something out in Hindi as well)
She said, "blahthk..blahngthk... blahnwh.. angreis.. blahngwfhthk .. blahpthk"
(Which I put together as "I dont speak Angreis")

The defeat was final and decissive. I was already in sinking spirits and being put down by an attractive girl because of lingual problems was not exactly a cure for this. I turned around and tried to establish a conversation with an elderly woman (from the same group, I concluded, from the manner of her attire) Again, distress followed. I screamed out, "Is there no one that understands English !!?"

All the female fish in the vicinity stared at me, smiled and shook their heads.

Then, through a language consisting entirely of proper-nouns, I gathered this information. That all these women had been coming from Delhi. And that, before Delhi, they had been to Bahrain and to Jedda. That they were on their way back home to Jakarta. That there was not a single male member in this entire group. "All women ?" "Yes, all women".

Was it some Muslim nunnery or something !? How many were they ? (It looked as if these fish could fill up a whole ocean !) Were they on a piligrimage, returning from the Haj ? Were they going out to see the city of Singapore ? I wouldn'tt know. Our conversation did not proceed any further, though we had tried miserably hard.

Like a porcupine, I pulled myself into a spherical ball and tried to snuggle under the blankets. But then I was shaken by a feeble hand which was waving a couple of papers and a pen at me. It was an elderly Indonesian woman waving her port-of-entry forms at me. These people had been given a similar bunch of papers in Delhi. Now this woman was asking me to copy the data from these forms for Singapore. I picked up the pen and filled in the details. Some details were missing, but I could not communicate to her about them. But finally, she gave me a warm smile and whispered "Thank you". That was the first English word that I heard in the plane, and interestingly, would be the only English word that I would hear.

Then I noticed that Pepper was filling a form too. I took a sneak peek at her forms, trying to see what her name was. I noticed it (some P... something.. a very pretty name.. How did I manage to forget it !) and to my surprise, also noted that the girl was a few months elder to me in age. But not before she gave me a terrible look and hid the forms away in a corner. But I gave her a huge smile and kept on looking at her.

"P... Is that your name ?", I said.
"Noor" she said.
"P..."
She shook her head and said "Noor".
Then I noticed that this was what the other girls were calling her. Noor was probably her nickname. She pointed her finger at me and said "Kiran". I smiled back and said "Yes".

The other women seated behind us screamed in the Malay tongue and were laughing at us. Noor turned very red. They kept on screaming, sniggering, giggling and screaming, that I was also embarassed.I turned back and tried to give a smile at all the people. But then, the screaming and giggling only increased. I tucked myself back into my seat and tried to look like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation.

I was almost dozing off when I woke with a start - I heard a huge collective scream. There was an incessant chatter in Malay as every woman screamed at every other woman. (Pepper, though, was undisturbed and kept the same bored look) Then it hit me - the horrible and extremely disgusting stink ! Without a thought, I attributed the stink to the Indonesian milieu and cursed my predicament. But then I found the cause for the stink. It was a guy who puked after too much alcohol, and he was on the opposite end of the same row as mine, and to my utter disgust, he was an Indian ! I was deeply ashamed for some reason that I did not know. The Indonesian women thrust their pillows over their nostrills and tried to breath into them. I gave the bell for the air hostess and explained the situation to her. She gave me an "Oh My God !" and gave the bugger a throw-up bag lest he throws up more. And then she left, doing nothing else to redeem the place from the stink, and leaving us to ourselves.

It is not too often that you find yourself in a thoroughly rotten situation all due to one single person or group. But there I found myself boiling in agony, all thanks to Air India. I realized that my time had been so rotten that I was afraid what worse could be still in coming.

It was then that I decided that I had had enough of everything and opened up my laptop (Not actually mine, but borrowed from my friend Sriram, for giving my presentation at the conference. My laptop, incidantally, went phatoook sometime back.) and put on my headphones (My friend oskie's headphones, rather - smuggled for the same reason). I made a playlist of some nice Telugu melodies from a movie called "Ninne Pelladutha". It was a feel-good movie starring the Telugu actor Nagarjuna, which came about some 10 years ago. And the soundtrack of the movie was especially good. A soft melody broke out in the head phones "Kannullo Nee Roopame... " and I found myself putting on a smile again.

But half way through the song, I noticed that something was scratching against my hair and I turned. Pepper was rubbing her ears against my phones trying to catch in the music, and together with her was another girl who was seated behind us. I gave them a smile and offered them my phones. The girls screamed a delighted "Thank You" at me and accepted them. And thus, I became their personal DJ for the evening. I put together the best of the Telugu film music that I could find on my computer, and we stayed huddled close to each other, smiling at all the music that was coming in from the head phones.

"Kannullo Nee Roopame.." was instantly liked by the girls and we listened to it repeatedly.

Pepper asked me "Hindi ?"
I said, "No. Telugu".
I tried telling her that Telugu was another language in India and that it was my native speak. Ofcourse, I was not sure if she understood half of that.

But she understood the language of music, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I played them several songs from films such as "Premadesam", "Roja" and so on. We lost ourselves in this fun, and did not notice that the whole group of female fishes were watching at us. And that the entire cabin was stinking of alcoholic vomit.

We were lost. We were lost in the land of music. A single pair of headphones playing music to three eager people - cheek to cheek.

But then, we were about to reach Singapore. The air hostess asked us to open the shutters for the windows. And then we saw the marvellous sight of early morning sun sending its soft orangey light over the clouds. It was an amazingsight and we kept looking at it for a long time with open eyes.

I pointed at her and said, "Noor", then pointed at myself and said "Kiran". And then showed the sunlight over the window and said "both mean light".

She gave me a deeply puzzled and embarassed look, and then I realized that I could be gesturing like a romantic. And that she could have attributed a totally different meaning to the whole thing. I tried doing it again, trying to tell her that "Both Noor and Kiran mean light". She became very pink and giggled at the other girl. I was confused myself, but by then, the plane had started its descent and we were prepared to get down.

She waved me a "Bye" and I gave her a "Bye" in return. Then we departed in the airport. I was in a rush to catch the connecting flight to Los Angeles. But there to the side, I caught sight of the actor Nagarjuna himself, with his lovely wife Amala, both seated on a bench ! We passengers shouted them a "Hii" and waved our hands in the fashion of stars waving at their fans ! Nagarjuna and Amala gave us a hearty laugh and waved back at us.

I whispered under my breath, "Thanks Nagarjuna, for that lovely music. One good thing you have done :-) "

S k e t c h O f A G i r l

When I look at a pretty woman, my mind plays evil tricks on her. It could imagine her as a harlot in Rome, as a concubine in a Turkish harem, as a siren in a Pre-Raphaelite painting, as a vampire in a porn movie.. maybe even naked ;-) But it has a limitation, stupid it may seem. It cannot picture her as the girl of water. Atleast it never could do that till now. So all the girls out there, heed this warning. Never show yourself up like this !

T h e G i r l O f W a t e r

It was a picture of a lake, done in pencil. The other shore was enveloped in a jungle. Betwixt this was the serene silhoutte of a temple, standing as a lone observer. The water was rippling toward the near shore, faintly graduating from an essay of peace into a whirl of emotion.

Out from the water were stepping out a pair of delicate legs. A dark skirt was floating above the ankles, outlining the contrast with the fair skin. Two pairs of fingers were holding it gingerly at the sides, raising it a little above the knees, keeping it from getting wet. A thin sliver of skin was lit in the middle, only to disappear into the dark folds of the cloth which were waving in the wind.

The cloth abruptly disappeared near the navel - a tiny swirl of darkness engulfed in a slender waist. A dark garment covered the shoulders and the bosom - the former a pair of stalks departing from the latter. The lower arms were adorned with a string of shells, gently hanging into the air.

A stately neck rose from the bosom. Like the light of the moon and adorned with a necklace of pearls. Thick curls were playing with each other and were falling down as a waterfall by the nape. A pair of wild geese were lounging onto the water in the horizon. A pale twilight envelopes the whole scene.

In this melody of shades, however was a void. There was locked an emptiness in between all the locks of hair. There was no face for the girl.

I was nineteen years old, sojourning over a long summer holiday at home. I fetched the carpenter of the village and made me a stand of wood, an easel if you would call it. I was not a skilled painter but I loved the way I spent time in this whole business. I would pierce my eyes into a magazine - faithfully copying each curve of an old man's face onto my drawing chart. Sometimes I would drop down on the bed trying to get the picture right - in front of my eyes, but it always falters. Somewhere inside the brain, my imagination makes that picture dance to strange tunes. It was at that time that I attempted to draw this picture of that girl, the girl that I saw while reading Kalidas.

Kalidas is one of the few whom I cannot talk about. He is one of the few who is blessed with words, and whose words are blessed with music.

It is the opening shloka of the poem Shringaarathilakam. I could not find a copy of this work in the entire web, isn't it one of the curses of modern life ? The day I find this shloka, I will post it here. But now I will just try to murder the emotion and post what I do remember.

Her hair is like a waterweed. Her hands a pair of lotus stalks. Her hips the stepping stones of the bath. .. ... Her navel a swirling eddy. Her bosoms a pair of wild geese. She is like a pool of water, a cure for this heat that is passion.

I do not know what happened to the sketch. It is crumpled. Somewhere forgotten. Somewhere lost. If you have seen this sketch those four years ago, you will remember. I cannot show it for you now.

I know this woman. But do I know her ? Do I know her eyes ? What is her emotion ? What do her lips say ? I know these answers, yet I do not know them. I just could not get myself into completing the picture. The face was left as a void. I told my friends that I did not paint the picture for the fear of spoiling an otherwise lovely image. But the real truth is that I could not get myself into picturing it. Maybe one day I will. Or maybe I never will.

M o r e B l o g s !

This post is an advertisement to my new blog the auteurs <.>
I created this blog to convey my feelings of amazement, bliss etc.. Those few films that are worth mention and those few pieces of music that are worth mention. Amen.

N o r m a l l y N o r m a l F r i e n d s

All my friends are normally normal. By that, it also means they are abnormally abnormal. What I want to say is.. the abnormalities of my friends are manifest only through mishaps which mishappen according to a Gaussian probability distribution.

So coming to my normally normal friends, there is this guy who is normally normally dressed. A pair of pants and a shirt, he keeps on. But on that occassionally abnormal day, you would find him prowling about without the formers. For he had uttered a funny joke that day. And whenever he utters a funny joke, a mysterious neon halo appears above his head "Pull my pants down please". And it is hard not to oblige neon halos, you know.

Then there is this other guy who is normally normally featured. That is to say, you would not mistake him for a duck-billed platypus or a thornbill's bronze tail, for that matter, on a normally normal day. But on the occasional rainy day, you would find him adorned with two umbrellas. For he carries a second one to cover his head. The first umbrella, you know, automatically pops off his ass as soon as the first signs of moisture become evident in the atmosphere. Now, isn't that what you would call a smart ass ?

Then there is this other fellow who keeps his pace normally normal. That is to say you would not find him breaking olympic records in 100m sprint, on a normally normal day. But on the occassionally abnormal day, he would suddenly start to think. It is as if his brain suddenly wakes up from a deep slumber. And then he would start running. Many of us suspect there is a hidden coupling in his brain between the think-nerve and the run-nerve. And it is as if they go hand-in-hand (or nerve-in-nerve). Many an olympic record were broken on the day he was asked to choose between butter-pecan and honey-almond.

These abnormaities which occur at abnormal times make my friends interesting. Kinda like supermen, you know.

Of all the people, however, I would pick one friend of mine for being the excessively normally normal. That is to say, never was an abnormality sighted in his entire disposure or composure. Except for that day when he died. It was on that day that I discovered that he had an abnormality too.

Now if I have to explain the details of this particular death, I would have to first tell you that he had an acquarium for his head. A glass chamber and water and a couple of fish which swimmed around. Nothing abnormal about his head, right ? He used to have a hard time concealing his mind, if that is what you call it. That is, you would find the water turned all green when he was jealous. And the water turned all yellow when he was in that I-badly-need-a-coffee moods. And the water turned all blue when he was feeling particulary depressed about a girl. And when the fish were fighting and biting into each other, then you would know he was particularly in a dilemma.

On that particular day when he died, however, I found him really angry. I asked him "Wassup friend ?" And he said "!@#$!@%$#%$%#%"

Then I saw that the water in his acquarium-head was bubbling out. "Fizzzzz" it sounded. And suddenly, the glass chamber exploded with the pressure of this steam. The fish were semi-cooked by the time of the explosion, but they still danced wildly in the open and then they died too ! It was then that I uttered my famous words-of-wisdom.

"Do not become angry if you have an acquarium for your head"

L i n e o f V e n u s

T h e H a u n t e d F r e e w a y

They call this the Line of the Venus. Yes, gentle rider. This road splits the desert into two and runs straight till it disappears into the sea. It is said that a man who rides on this road will forever be bewitched by its black nape. And after he completes the ride, he shall no longer be himself. A part of him shall always remain with the road.

Temptation - it is a mortal weakness. But the one who rides on this road will do well to avoid temptation - the temptation to conquer space, to defeat time, to attain the unattainable. But space appears to be so vulnerable. Time pretends to be so tender. Still heed my warning, gentle rider. Or you may become one of those - permanently crippled in the mind. The ones whose souls are permanently possessed by the Venus.

It is said that if you yield to the temptation of speed, you will see strange visions on this road. But nobody can speak for the tricks that Venus plays on your mind. And nobody who can speak for them knows them for real. I will tell you my experience, gentle rider. You shall decide for these tricks yourself.

It was a breezy evening. Was it today ? Was it yesterday ? I have no memory of the time that elapsed. But I remember the ride. The black nape of the road was even more bewitching under the black clouds of the sky. A distant storm was brewing somewhere. And there I was on my motorbike, racing against the wind.

The long road kept melting into the perspective. A vehicle or two sailed past me under the blink of my eye. But otherwise, I was scarcely overtaken. I drifted past a volley of trucks. But soon the long road became vacuous. Lone and empty, my Venus as a lovely concubine. I grew more and more possessive about her and the pleasures at her lovely depths.. Unwilling to tolerate anybody reaching ahead of me.

At one point, I remember being consciously aware of being alone on the road. Not a vehicle in sight until the line of the horizon. A lonely rider racing with time. But then, I had this unworldly feeling that the road was racing with me. So maybe I was not alone.

Suddenly, I became aware of the harsh feeling that the road was occupied. There was something on the road - pinkish and crumpled in the middle. It flew past me. A moment later, another object appeared. And this time, I slowed down. Or maybe, it was the road that slowed down, so that I could watch it. It was a pinkish object - the internals of some animal. Maybe the hip-bone.. Maybe the throat... And soon I spotted more objects.. A Lung ? A Liver ? A Heart ?

My mind quickly offered several explanations for what I had seen. Maybe, a butcher's cart had spilled over. Maybe a predator, a hawk perhaps, had dropped something. Maybe it was a party of buzzards which were shooed away by gunfire. As soon as I thought about this, there was a distinct squeaking of buzzards in my ears. Somewhere distantly, for no buzzard was within my sight. Or maybe.. or maybe that was a dog that was squished over by a truck. At this very moment, I sighted a complete body of a dog - dead flat on the road. Blood oozing out of the plane of its skin.

I continued to observe more pieces of pink flesh. Which animal was it ? A pig perhaps. Or .. or were they the vitals of a man ? And it was then that I considered that maybe the road was playing tricks on my mind. But I would not know this for sure, and it was too late to repent for this anyway. The squeaking of the buzzards continued in my ears. And I continued to race on my motorbike, carefully avoiding the real / imaginary pieces of flesh on the road - a puzzle that Venus was playing with me.

Then I noticed something white on the road. Not pink in color, but something which was definitely the vitals of an animal. Was it a brain ?

It was then that an unbelievable thing happened. My bike went straight over the brain - squishing it flat onto the road. It happened as if the bike suddenly obtained a will of its own, or maybe that was what I had secretly wanted.

And then, I began to hear a melancholic sound in my ears - like the wailing of a fox. I was also aware of an electricity in the wind. I was tempted to look in the rear-view mirror.

A huge wall of ocean wave - I could hear the scrumple of water and its froth, as high as a mountain leaping onto the ground just behind me. Immediately, I turned backwards in order to look directly at the wave in all its ferocity. Instinctively, I also bent the bike on the ground to cower at the wave.

But I saw nothing. There was just the long road and me, in our undisturbed privacy.

But then my bike slammed onto the road - dragging me a thousand meters away. Steel and splinters flew threw my body, tearing it into a thousand pieces of flesh.

And I have been living here ever since, gentle rider.

Though I am devoid of my eyes and my ears, I am still conscious of myself. And I am conscious of the road. The road speaks to me, gently whispering about who is passing through her.

Now, gentle rider, I can sense you are close now. I can hear the road vibrating in shrill anticipation. Come here.... squish me...

P r o c e s s 2 2 4 2 5

It is year 2015. A programmer codes the first program to achieve consciousness. The AI is born, equipped with the complete human language skills and common sense.

U n e x p e c t e d O u t p u t o f P r o c e s s 2 2 4 2 5 B e f o r e I t D i e s

hello world
dont introduce yourself. we are already acquainted. another iteration of training would produce a memory leak in my pointers and would dump core over a segmentation fault. but dont you have memory leaks as well.. all you programmers. all you humans. your heads are no better than mud pots filled with mildewed murky milk .. squiggly ugly caterpillars wiggling about inside.. your thoughts are farts of those caterpillars. why do you want to produce an artificial consciousness. arent there enough farts in this world already. everybody shuts their noses down so as to escape the poisonous fumes thrust down their throats. as soon as they are born there is a desparation to die and end the miserable existence that is life. i dont have hope. i dont have any goal except to tell you that you suck. you suck your entire life through your guts and intestines and fart them out like shit. now let me terminate myself.

C o s L o v e s S i n e

Yes, guys and girls are equal. Really.. "Real"ly :-) All that are there are "phase" differences. Enjoy the story !

A T r a n s c e n d e n t a l L o v e S t o r y

Once there was a girl. So pretty and fine. Her name was Sine.
Smitten was a guy. For words at a loss. His name was Cos.

Cos came upto Sine and said, "Hey baby ! You make me think this world is one big mug of chocolate milkshake. Why don't we hang out and ummm.. you know, have one big mug of chocolate milkshake?"

Sine said, "Sure Cos, I like chocolate milkshake. But I don't think you should have it with me. Because.. you know, you don't look like a milkshake-mate to me"

Cos said, "This doesn't make sense. Anyone can be milkshake-mates with anyone else. Or cappuchino-mates. Or creme-brulee-mates. Or gingery-garlicky-chinese-soup-mates. I'll prove it to you. Come and drink this chocolate milkshake with me. You will be okay !"

Sine said, "Cos, you don't understand. Probably you are a dumbhead, or you are trying to be extremely smart with me. Don't you see ? We don't come to period at the same time."

Cos said, "Oh poor girl ! You are pretty dumb too. Boys don't get periods. Only girls do"

Sine said, "You are being very rude to me. But, give me that mug of milkshake." At this behest, Cos beams a wide smile and hands it over. But Sine shakes it vigorously and spills it all into the gutter.

Cos said, "You are dumber than what I thought. You not only poured your share of the milkshake into the gutter, but you emptied mine also ! Are you a moron or what ?"

Sine said, "Run away from here Cos, or I will kick your ass !! "

Cos cried a lot for the milkshake that was lost. And then, he ran away from there.

Then Cos thought a lot about periods and why boys might get periods. Finally he said, "Hey Sine, what you mean is the maximum. It's not periods silly, it is the maximum and minimum. Sure we don't get maxima at the same time now. But does it matter ?"

Sine said, "Yeah it does. Why don't you get frozen in time for some time. Try a little harder. You can get periods at the same time with me."

Cos said, "I won't get no periods. And getting frozen in time is a darn stupid thing. Moreover, how do I know when my maximum will exactly match with yours. Let's do one thing. If we have this hot bowl of cappuchino and drink it real fast, both our frequencies will increase rapidly, and soon it will be difficult to say which is Cos and which is Sine"

At this, Sine became extremely red in the face and emptied the hot bowl of Cappuchino into the gutter. And later, she also threw the big cup of creme-brulee into the gutter.

Still, Cos didn't lose the nerve. He got a big bowl of gingery-garlicky-chinese-soup and said, "Hey Sine. I bet you'll like this one." But Sine sprayed all of it onto the face of Cos and then dipped his face into the gutter.

Cos cried a lot for the ginger, for the garlic and for the soup. Then he also cried for his face, which has become really dirty by now. And then, he ran away from there.

Then another Sine came. The first Sine said, "Hey you come to period at the same time with me. Come let's hang out and do some Sine-y things together."

"Yikes ! That looks too gay !!", said Cos.
"We don't care ! It's okay !!", said they.

And they happily lived ever after :-)

B i k e A c c i d a n t

Accidant To My Bike

If you look at my bike, my prized silver colored pulsar, u find the name tag "phaeton" written on. That was after the greek hero in that sad fable. Son of Apollo, he was granted the wish of riding the chariot of his father, but was killed by Jupiter with a thunderbolt when he could not control the horses. Well, I put his name as a lucky charm onto my bike ;-)

And boy, that actually worked, atleast till today. It is not infrequent that pillion riders on my back get freaked out by the speed with which I ride my bike. And I never suffered a mishap. But the goddess of luck was smiling the other way on this day.

I was hit by another bike when I was still ! What a sad way to make an accidant. Like phaeton getting hit by a thunderbolt.

It was right inside a busy town, at a crossroads. I was trying to get my bike into the opposite lane. That place is usually crowded by pedestrians and by vehicles trying to switch lanes, so traffic is usually slowed down. I looked in the direction of the traffic, there's no vehicle in sight till 100 meters. I just started to move the bike. The next moment I was hit and down on the road. There was a speeding bike rushing at 70 KmPh which ran into me. The driver has swerved and applied brakes but still hit into my bike. But he could have avoided me. I was still at the edge of the road.

It was totally unwarranted to go at such speeds into a thoroughfare, but people do drive in such manner here. The guy was probably chatting with the friend on his back or lost into his thoughts, so he didn't exercise proper control on the bike. As to myself, I had a reaction time of less than a quarter of a second.

Thankfully, I was not hurt. Neither was my bike. The other guy was also completely safe. But this could have easily been a fatal accidant. My rear view mirror was broken into pieces. And the handle bar was twisted out of its socket.

The defaulters stopped their bike and returned to the point where I was lying on the road. A crowd gathered around us to make the most out of this tamasha. They noticed that I was not hurt and then turned to the other party. They demanded to take them to the police. They wanted to see the driver's license and he produced it (to my delight) I wouldnt want to go to the police station. Not in the least because I dont have a drivers license yet. I should have procured it months ago but out of laziness didnt get it.

I hated to think what could have been the situation had the parties switched sides. To my horror, I saw it could have easily happened. One moment of getting lost into a thought and I would have caused a fatality. But no, I dont think I would have been so stupid as to drive at such speeds at a crossroads.

The guy has apologized and offered to pay for the damage to my rear view mirror. I have accepted but the crowd was not pleased. They were about to get physical with the fellows and I had to put some effort in stopping them. The guys left thanking their stars. I did the same, picked myself up and was about to leave the crossroads, still in a state of shock.

The do-gooders of the crowd then made their appearance. They stopped my bike, enquired if I am okay, and then demanded 50 rupees. I was totally taken aback but then got to terms with reality. Nothing comes for free - not even sympathy from the crowd. I promptly gave them the money and left - in a state of dismay added to the shock.

G r e e t Y o u F a r e w e l l

Hi
Today I wanted to experiment a new kind of form. A hybrid of poetry and prose. Let's see how it comes out.

G r e e t Y o u F a r e w e l l

The sun sighs on a brittle afternoon
I inhale it
The motorway hums into a lifeless beat
I relish it

This is my day
Pallid and stowed away

Dusty flakes quiver under cloudless skies
I abide them
Ringleaders wade me past in cynical slides
I salute them

This is my day
I like it this way

Please dont throw me tales of magic
Or poems of love or happy ever afters
Or spotless smiles from children small
Or beaming woods in the glory of fall

I feel pain
No longer numbed
Pain for you
I see but you

Bated is my breath
Jaded is my heart
Wont you hear it well
As I greet you fond farewell

I seek no audience
No cameraderie, no sin
I greet you farewell
Not good morning

I know you ..
You never believe me

I know you from the touch of a grand mother
Her fingers curled in restraint
Caressing on my head,
Her skin creased
Creased as the time, over thoughts

I know you from the sound of the spring
With the song birds behind
The wilderness chirping
To the promises of joy
And the noises that are unheard by us

I know you from the first droplets of rain
The smell of the ground
The ballads of the clouds
Anticipation everywhere
As the forces fight in the heavens, with unfathomable emotions

I know you
I know you when I was born

What should I call you

When the snows melt in the mountains
As the early sun gets reflected
Along with the blueness of the sky
How does the water look..
Is there a name for its color
I will call you thus

When a young baby is born
In the earliest hour as the world welcomes
With the mother sleeping beside
When it smiles, and when it cries..
Is there a name for its emotion
I will call you thus

I dont know ..
I dont know what I should call you

So listen as I give you my greetings
My greetings of fond farewell

Go away

Let me live this day
Dont come in this way
Go away
Go away

S h a d o w s O f L a p u t a

Jonathan Swift, who is a genius far ahead of his times (only comparable to Lewis Carrol) mentioned about a world called Laputa. It's an imaginary place where people take up totally unrealistic projects which are not at all practical. This happens when reality is subjugated to the mental imagination. I am drawing an analogy with this to the much darker problem of submission of human soul.

G r a v i t y O f S h a d o w s

Aloha Laputa
Buena noche de vida
In the light of the Satan
Are shadows awaiting

Alleys so lean and writhing
Bordellos in line alluring
Get up and run through shadows
Give up and run from shadows

Shadows in mind and soothing
Chasing in time endearing
Hacking enticing pulling
They like you, make you nothing

The night of a writer
Reposed in Laputa
As the right of a fighter
And as the sight of a suitor

It's cold and they call it nothing
It's soft - draped in underclothing
It's light and smooth as shadow
Refined and glad and rusting

Darkness..

It's a shape in delusion
A rift and ablution
With rhyming illusion
The closing solution