Fyodor Dostoyevsky like roving madman in town.

               

I am lost. Hopelessly lost. I have broken off and gotten detached. No more cohesion or uniformity. The sense of absurd is growing more than ever, and every day I can feel myself falling into the bosom of unfamiliarity, of incoherence and of randomness. Wasn`t it just yesterday, that I had felt so particularly lost when she'd asked me if I loved her? I could produce no certain answer, my conscience twisted and turned, trying to muscle out an answer, just a simple yes or no would have been fine, actually perfect, but then simple yes-no answers are the most difficult ones I guess, and I could only mumble something incomprehensible in a very low bass voice, turning scarlet with embarrassment.

                         But now, as I sit here, I think I know the reason for my indecision then, it was this lost state I am in, so perfectly lost that I have no inkling of what`s happening around. Every passing minute seems to me like a half awake dream, a dream as unsettling as it is uncertain. Though I wasn`t like this for ever. I used to be a fine man, a man of aim, focus and hard work, a man who wore his responsibilities around him like a prized piece of jewelry, I knew what I had to do and how to do it, most of all I was sure of myself and believed in myself, but then something happened, rather I should say I fell in bad company.

                           I met him every day, sometimes even twice or thrice, in my bathroom. He always remained in the same position, not moving, just its antennae wiggling solemnly. He was a fully grown male cockroach and he had my acquaintance, a proof of which was that he wasn`t scared of my presence, but rather greeted me with moving his antennae more vigorously. Even I liked him. He was a piece of beauty, his oily brown wings hiding the pink knotty body, a white ring separating the head from the abdomen, but what I liked most about him was his unpretentious beauty, which wasn't like a photoshopped picture or an ad, but was simple and plain.

                      He, that fat fully grown male roach, is the reason I am so lost that I can't separate one from two, can't get a grip, he and he alone is the reason for my misery, my pain, my suffering, for he was the one who planted those ideas in my head, which have troubled me since, giving me sleepless nights. He enticed me with his beauty and then left me upside down.

                            I used to stand near the shitter and admire him for hours, and sometimes when he was in the mood, we'd talk. He was quite a wise follow for his species. He told me that he has been around for the past billion years or so, a thing which I did not believe initially, but when he told me stories about the first humans, the Australopithecus taking a dump next to him in stone age, about Lucy giving birth to a strange Homo Sapien child, about the fall of Mesopotamian bronze age and the rise of the Greek iron age civilization, I was quite taken aback. Although I could not believe that a simple cockroach could know so much, in the face of his stories, I had to concede.

                          I remember clearly, ah! how excited I used to be about the whole thing then, I used to run to the university library, to cross check his stories, and it is incredulous but he was always right, down to the minutest fact. It was all etched on his amazing memory, and an amazing memory he did have, remembering things from the depths of history, no, rather depths of consciousness. We talked about the slow evolution of various species, there division into different branches and how cultures developed and I was so flabbergasted, so astonished, when the insect told me he had helped Darwin in his research and helped him give shape to his ideas, that I was ready to kiss his feet, or whatever closest counterpart of them he had, but he told me to not stand on ceremony.

                      For many days the roach was my best friend. He told me stories and I gave him bread crumbs to feed on. I spent hours in the bathroom with my friend and didn't bother to get out. But how happy I was before that troublesome creature came to my life and how easily he destroyed everything, how easily he took my calm, my peace of mind and left me a roving madman,  completely oblivious of his surroundings.

                          One day she had come to meet me, at my place for I had stopped going out altogether, but I spent the whole time she was there, in the bathroom, with my new friend, chit chatting. It was soon after that, that she left me, screaming at me then, what I know only too well now, ' You are fucking lost!!!Get a grip on yourself or you are gonna shatter!'. Yeah right, I thought to myself then, and I still do, though in a more acknowledging tone.

                    Then I didn't see him for a few days. He disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared. The bathroom became empty and I lonely. Instead of the bathroom I started spending time in the study, more or less forgetting the old cockroach, which was no less than a tell tale china man. I had expected him not to leave without saying goodbye and that's what happened. After a few days absence, the roach was back again with the solemn wiggle of his antennae. He told me he had gone to mate and soon he will be a father, if everything went well that is. But he didn't seem happy about it, and when I asked the reason for his sadness, he said he felt tired. ' I have been doing this for so long, old friend, that I am tired of this all' he said and went on, ' and anyway the world has lost its charm, there was a time when I witnessed wars, plagues, epidemics destroying a civilization just to see it rise again as a phoenix, reborn, reincarnated. Change used to be such a big part in the scheme of things, but now, everywhere there is a lull, a stagnation, it's like the human world has reached a plateau, it has achieved whatever it had to achieve and now it has hit still water, maybe the only thing changing is technology, else everything has reached a mark which can't be crossed.

                           I was taken by surprise by this attitude of my pal and tried to console him saying, ' history is always in the making' but he didn't want my sympathy. ' The history we are making today, dear friend, is that of how well we survive our own created horrors, or how well we digest our food or take in the shit that's been thrown at us from our television sets. The world isn't what it used to be.' Not knowing what to say, I went out , but his words kept echoing in my head, for even I had felt the futility of existence and the only reason I tried to argue with the roach was to prevent my own sense of hopelessness from taking over. Gauguin had asked all the right questions and we are still seeking their answers.

                        Although I did feel the impact of the conversation, I wasn't much troubled by it initially, for I believed there was hope, there was still a possibility of revolt, of resistance, of constantly striving to achieve nirvana, utopia, but slowly, even that left me. Think a Trotsky in his exiled home in Mexico. Think a fat uninspiring Castro of his 70s. An ugly dead Che with a bullet hole in his head. That was me, all hope in humanity gone, dead, corpse like, and then as later happened, lost, neatly, impeccably lost, like a tiny minute detail in a framed old photograph.

                          By then the rain had set in, and we were slowly launching into a wet, sticky season of erratic rain, sludge and dinge. One day I came in all drenched and doused in rain. I did not go to meet the roach, the truth was that by then I had already started developing a certain repulsion for him, a certain strong dislike, which prevented me from meeting him. I spent the day in bed, thinking about Paul Gauguin`s painting, Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? and finally when the day turned to night, and I really longed to talk to him, I couldn't help myself going to the roach, for apart from our friendship, I was his patron too, and without me, the old lazy bastard would be going nuts with hunger. So with a few bread crumbs juggling in my pocket, I went into the bathroom. He was at his same spot, wiggling those ugly projections on his head, and in the same senile mood. He told me he was a father of five now and asked if I could spare some bread crumbs? I gave him the bread crumbs and before he could say anything, went out. Though I had left him, he stayed in my head, his frustrating idea of a bleak meaningless world, a charmless world where there is no inspiration, no motivation. And soon things got so bad that I became partly suicidal. What was the purpose of my existence? my life? was it worth living? and the world around? it did not hold any charm for me, for my heroes were all dead or dying, even decaying. Gone were the days when the hippies roamed naked on the streets, or black Negroes played mind-blowing jazz, gone were Dostoevsky and Ginsburg and all we are left is with their memory, which in itself is a burden. I became so engrossed in such introspection that my personal life began to suffer, my grades in university started sinking low. It became my habit to aimlessly haunt the lanes of the city while rain pelted on  me from above.

                    And it was then, while getting soaked in the sticky rain of Delhi, one evening, that I came up with that horrible idea, for which I cannot stop admonishing myself, and to tell the truth, if today I am in this way, lost, miserable, suffering, it's not just because of that roach, there is my involvement in it too, for during the sleepless night which followed, I went into the bathroom and squashed my friend, who died just like any other cockroach, with a crunch, his antennae for the first time wiggling frantically, for a full half a minute after the body being crushed, and I went outside, in the rain, lighting a fag, towards her house. 

When its done(I promise)

When its done,
I wont turn on the light,
Satisfied or not
I promise I will stay by your side.
Thinking, hoping, wishing,
That you would look at me,
Bite at my arm with complaining eyes,
Nibble at my stomach,
Silently saying, "I want more, I want more. "
When its done (I promise)
I will take your arm and
Pet your hand,
Telling you stories of the nine,
And their plans.
Thinking, hoping, wishing,
That you 'd laugh and hold back my hand.
When its done (I promise)
It will be easy, like the rising of sun
Or its setting,
Like the simple flowing of events,
Harmless and mundane,
We will go our separate ways.
And I would sit,
Thinking, hoping, wishing,
That you would remember me,
Think of me, I wont be lost,
In this ugly shuffle of events.
When its done (I promise)
Whatever it would be,
Seven seas or seven miles,
It wont be the end.

The sad demise of Dr Mohit Ansari

The term necrophilia is mostly used as a psychiatric expression for a pathological sexual attraction to corpses. It is a very rare and poorly understood phenomenon. In his seminal 1894 work, Psychopathia Sexualis, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, one of the first psychiatric writers, called it a horrible manifestation of sadism.
Nights were never lonely for Dr Mohit Ansari even though he was about to step into the 62nd unscrupulous year of his life.
For 30 odd years he had worked at the hospital night shift. Slowly rising in the hierarchy of the institution, been promoted several times , Dr Mohit Ansari never, for some reason left the night shift. People came and went like passing days and seasons, some stayed longer than others but no one ever outstayed Dr Ansari, who stood like a rock or a tree in the hospital. Everynight, one after the other, each week, each month, each year for the past three decades Dr Ansari served the institution singlemindedly and with dedication.
Tonight is a special night in Dr Ansari's life. Its tonight that he would turn 62 and enter the last year of his service to the institute. Its a night about which the night staff has been speculating for days. Will Dr Ansari do anything apart from his normAl routine on his birthday or Will he come five minutes before his shift , like always? Will he take a leave or will he spend the his time looking at patients ? Will he( well not throw a party) but organize a little ceremony or Will he spend his time walking around the corridors ? These were a few questions in everyone's mind.
Figuratively, the term "necrophilia" describes an inordinate desire to control another person, usually in the context of a romantic or interpersonal relationship; the accusation is that the person is so interpersonally controlling as to be better-suited to relationships with nonresponsive people.
In fact, Dr Ansari himself was feeling a bit out of ordinary about the oncoming night. He had lived once with his wife but now she was gone. "You don't deserve a human, you deserve a servant, someone who doesn't talk back, has no needs ,desires an unresponsive corpse!" she had screamed at him once before leaving.
It was something which Dr Ansari has always remembered since and has tried to do the same.
Nights are never lonely for Dr Mohit Ansari, since after a year of his separation with his wife the dead of the mortuary became his friends, the dead in the dead of night never let him think of anyone else. There was everyone there, Suzy, Sam, Samantha. Anyone who could possibly please Dr Ansari in anyway. There always was a Suzy about whose tits Dr Ansari could joke, if not that then there was always Sam to chide and rebuke for something or the other and last but not the least Samanthas, young and inviting , though Dr Ansari resisted the temptation till now. But tonight, the night of his 62nd birthday be decided to succumb to the temptation.
Nights were usually empty and silent at around the mortuary area in New Rockland Hospital, Ladusarai. If they were disturbed it was by the incoming of a new arrival, One of the Suzys, Sams, Samanthas. But that night, the night of Dr Mohit Ansari's 62nd birthday, something else horribly broke the silence in New Rockland Hospital mortuary area. It was the screams of Dr Ansari who was later found dead in a copulating position with one of the newly arrived female corpse against one of the walls of the mortuary while the corpse's hands somehow circled around Dr Ansari in a lock.
It was later found that the act of intercourse had somehow inflated dead Samantha 's body due to which her hands got entangled behind the doctor in an unopenable lock. The night staff heard the screams and had come running to the mortuary only to find the doctor dead of a stroke.

Legacy

Legacy. Our own personal inheritance from our predecessors. Isn`t it wonderful to have your own personal gift to avail when you enter this world? 

Imagine a proud father looking at his son showing traits of his own profession. Imagine a proud painter looking at his son dabbling with paint. Imagine a journalist looking at her daughter reading Communist Manifesto.

The gray haired, middle aged man sits on the pavement of the parking lot, looking, with weary eyes, at the other end of it, as still cars stand in rectangular patterns all around, where a kid is playing. 

Imagine a mother teaching her son for the first time to make chai. Imagine your father when he taught you how to ride a bike. Imagine, say, those moments, moments you may find in the hazy recollections of your memory, when your mother saw you draw the first letter of English language legibly. 

The look on his face was neither happy nor sad, it sort of transcended these basic emotions. He just was, looking at the kid play with a broom. The only thing palpable from his face, actually his eyes, was an acute sense of tiredness. 

Now imagine this, a sweeper seeing his kid, the light of his life, the apple of his eye, play with his broom. 

Hilltop stories 2

If I say eyecool, thousands of people around the world would inevitably imagine a long cylindrical orange white bottle with a bright white cap. It’s a normal thing for them. And if I say eye cool, they would also know what it is used for.
Psycho boy was sitting on the hill as usual.. Deep somewhere in his own mind, somewhere in the guts of his subconscious, when he habitually picked up the orange white bottle and undid the white cap. It was all very everyday for him. He knew these rituals like the back of his hand.
Or at least that's what psycho boy thought, squirming somewhere in the tunnels of his own mind.
The lighter was one of those kinds which gave a straight constant high temperature jet flame not the kind which give a lanky candle like flame.
So psycho boy picked up the orange white eyecool bottle and undid the bright white cap, or at least he thought he did.
The flame of the lighter was like an  orange arrow, going straight, piercing everything.
And if I say eye cool, then thousands of marijuana smokers around the world would also inevitably know that it’s an eye drop.

Dying dreams

"At night, I woke up shivering,
quivering, quirky dreams 
dreaming.
Salty sweat covered my body,
as i lay, lay dreaming of you,
and your death. 

The funeral procession,
an orthodox obsession,
was marked by your dead body
lying on a scarlet stretcher.
fetcher of which were four strong men. 

Your mother, wearing a dead pan expression,
the old broken lady as she is, was heard muttering,
'First my husband, now not my daughter! ' while those who came,
hogged with no bother. 

I remember clearly,
as if I wasn't dreaming, but only,
witnessing your scarlet death bed,
with you, like a pale wilted lotus,
warm and soft, wrapped in your,
white shroud. 

In the midst of all this I found, myself,
bitterly shedding tears and
filled with an acute sense of loss. 
And all hope had gone,
as I trudged through the funeral hall. 

Once outside, I lit a fag,
which from my lips sagged,
as I overheard an old couple say,
that you have gone to a better place.
Heaven, they said, is where you have gone,
but how could that be when,
your heaven and hell were beside me all along. 

As I drew a mournful drag,
from the fag, which still sagged,
a wave passed me through and though,
and I thought, what really could have become of you? 
'We break into a flock of pigeons upon our death '
I remember I had once said,
when we were sitting in that crack,
of that gigantic wall, of Cannaught Place. 
So could it be that you are a flock of pigeons now? Or maybe a colony of ants? A pride of lions, somewhere in japan?

But as the fag finished and I came back,
it made me feel hollow,
that you were dead. 
I could have dreamed more,
maybe to the point of
your coming back,
but I couldn't dream anymore,
the sense of loss was much to bear."
So, he woke up in cold sweat, and wrote,
what came to his head? 

A tree

Eulogizing a brook, Tennyson wrote, 'For men may come, and men may go, but I go on forever '. Same can be said of a tree, though the sense of motion is absent in this analogy.

Like that tree outside my grandmother's house, a tree sees the passing of generations, father to son, son to grandson and so on, even ages, like in the case of those long standing river-bank Banyan trees of Vrindawan where once a naughty Krishna made out with the fair bodied gopis. Yet a tree remains standing still, un -pompous, inconspicuous, fixed to its place, constantly pumping oxygen into the atmosphere.

I don’t clearly remember which tree it was, but what I remember is that it was tall and broad, climbable with big broad thick leaves which bled a white syrup on being broken. I remember it was right next to the main gate of the house and though its foliage wasn't very dense, it gave a pretty good shade.

The tree looked like a straw hat wearing china man and it was fun climbing it. It had a light grey trunk and branches and leaves of different shades of yellow and green. It was very easy to climb, in fact it seemed like the tree was ready to gather one in its lap.

Every time I went to my grandmother's house, it was a ritual for me to spend almost half of the waking hours somewhere in it. I read, dreamed, wrote, even tried to sleep on it, all because there was a sense of security and calm once you climbed the tree. Sitting six feet above the ground I felt safe and secure. It was like after so many years I was being pampered by someone again, by letting me climb in their lap. In that moment the tree was like my father as I saw him in my childhood, huge, strong, serious and invincible. Someone I could run to and find a safe refuge in, in troubled times, someone who would always be there, whether rain or snow, thunder or storm, no one, nothing could stop him from being there, cradling me, protecting me.

Also not absent was the fact that mamma gravity was not working so much on me. I felt free in a certain way, like I was ready to take flight or something. It was sitting on that tree at my grandmother's place, that I first saw life from above the normal vision level, sitting on it, I had a generalizing vision, a vision, a perspective like that of a hawk, say, flying so many miles above the ground, seeing everything small, petty, compartmentalized, like, say, even god, sitting somewhere in the sky, above our heads, spying and eavesdropping, to find the sinners and punish them.

And then one winter, when my grandparents were renovating the house, they cut the tree down. A light grey walkway leads to the house now, with no tree there, and on certain strange days I think I can sometimes spot a big broad yellow leaf in the garden next to the gate somewhere..

http://www.writerbabu.com/post/4226/a_tree/ 

Useless Park Scene

The streetlight shines brightly against a deep blue night sky. Of the five guys present in that corner of the  parking lot,  two are sitting on the stairs, one stands, leaning against a parked car, and two are sitting on the broad cemented table like upward projection, which borders the staircase.

They are talking about love. One of them, to be precise, the one sitting on the steps, is very drunk and is in a visibly bad shape, he looks completely distraught. One of the two sitting on the cemented ledge of the stairs is crushing weed while the one standing is talking animatedly.

"Uh have to believe me on this mate; everyone comes alone, stays alone and goes alone. No one is here for you, nor are you for anyone" then aiming his speech at the drunk one, he said, "If that bitch fucked u over, you should just not give a fuck about her anymore."

A guard, dressed in a combination of blue and black, passes them by blowing a shrill whistle, the guy sitting next to the one crushing weed gestures towards the guard and the one crushing weed stops, looks at the guard, shrugs and seals a nicely rolled slim joint with a swift lick of his tongue.

The one sitting next to the drunken one stares blankly into the space just above the head of the one standing.

The joint is boomed by the guy sitting next to the one crushing, who in turn, sits, looking at the drunken one, who is staring at the ground, intensely.

"She refused to acknowledge me" said the drunken one, still staring at the ground, "you see those people standing there? " he said pointing at a family standing next to their car, at the other end of the parking lot, "she behaved just as they would behave if I went to talk to them, just like total stranger.  "

The guard passes them by,  whistling again; gesturing to other guards, but does not look at them. The joint moves to the guy standing, who now sits between the two guys sitting on the cemented thing.

"You don’t smoke?" asked the guy who had rolled the j to the drunk one, who is now staring at the number plate of a car in front of him on which the guy now smoking the j was leaning previously.

"No mite, don`t make him smoke, he is already too high " he says

"But it`ll do him good " countered the other one, stretching the middle of the word a little.

"No I don`t smoke " finally replied the drunk one, slowly, and with a snigger. 

The j goes to the roller, who takes a long chill 'um drag. Suddenly the one who was sitting next to him previously, stands up, dusts his ass, and says, "Bhai, I am leaving” emphasizing on the ‘I’ and without saying anything else, leaves. The two sitting on the cemented thing, keep looking in the direction of the departing one, while the other two keep their gaze fixed at different things, as before.

The night sky turns into a total black from deep blue and suddenly, getting all sentimental about what was going on around, the one who was crushing weed, says "the point dude is, she is not coming back? Is she? So find a new one. How long can you go on chasing the same chick? One has to move on, one day or the other, so why not now? "I have loved Bhai, I was in love and I am in love still, even when she has refused me " said the drunk in a drunk tone, " and now I will wait for her my entire life, and you know what? " he said with such excitement, that the rest were compelled to repeat,     "what ".

"Now even if she comes back, I won`t let her into my life again, at the same time I`ll not marry or anything, but wait for her."

There was such aggression in his voice that it made his statement believable, the passion in his bloodshot red eyes was enough to square any rebuttal,

"Look at the way he is talking now mite" is all that is produced, "don`t you get mah point bout individuality mite? Not at all?"follows.

Suddenly the silent one, stands up from the stairs, and leaves saying, "nature`s call" grinning.

"He talks?" Says the roller sarcastically, but not loud enough for the answerer of the nature`s call to hear.

The two left on the cemented thing are passing the j between them, while the drunken one sits staring at the number plate as before.

"So we ah goin to this party in Hauz Khas village mite, do uh wanna come? "

"Me? Dude. No. Now? Not possible." Says the roller who is fidgeting with his phone, and finally after making several hesitant finger touches, comes a broken wail of Thom Yorke, moaning,

Don`t get any /big idea / they are not gonna happen.

The one gone to answer natures call comes back. Grinning.

"Let`s go then, mite, towards booze and chicks! "

The drunken one looks up, the ground below is wet. He had been crying. The roller stubs the smoldering roach into the mud, next to the stairs and says, "ok then see you tomorrow " and leaves after shaking hands with everyone. Thom 's voice trailing behind him,

You go to hell for all your dirty mind is thinking.

"Let`s go mite, no point crying" says the only one seated on the cemented thing now and they both climb the stairs and leaves.

The lamp flickers for a while and then holding its ground against the dark, continues shining against a pitch black night sky.

Hilltop Story 1

Nothing much happened. Like always. I sat dreaming atop those little hills like I had done a million times before. The usual winter sun was shining brightly and there was a crowd,  as it happens, usually on such days.
                   Some school kids were hanging around and some old ladies were basking in the sun as were the stray dogs. The chaiwalas and the papadwalas were shunting around screaming from time to time, chai!!! Chai!!!  Or papad!!! Papad! Just like they usually did, everyday in their life.
              There also came a chatpatchannawala. His days were fixed.  But even he was usually there. Almost everyday of his life, screaming his harsh chatpat channa!!! Chatpat channa!!
                    The school kids who were some four five fifth class students, called the chatpatchannawala, who was alredy lurking near them tempting them with the chatpati redolence, his screams reduced to cooing, and a strange twinkle in his eyes. His boni time(first sale of the day), like his usual boni time. After a little childish bargaining that only children can do, they settled on a price and the usual transaction was going to  happen in which the producer, though may not be primary, would get a price for his product by a consumer who shows interest in that product. 
                                       But before this could happen something unusual happened and an older school kid came to them, in fact materialized from nowhere and took the younger kids with him to the school bus.
              Though not usual, or an everyday affair, but not even rare as the northern sunlight, whatever that is, the twinkle in the chatpatchannawalas eyes lingered on for a while and then vanished as he let out his usual harsh screams, chatpat channa!! Chatpat channa!! 
                                           And I sat like I  usually did on  that hilltop where you can find me anytime. Everyday. Where nothing happened.