The Bhabhi Manifesto

We are the Bhabhis. And we're here to take over the world, home by home, street by street, mother-in-law by mother-in-law. There is no escape. You are surrounded by us, and the only way to pacify a bhabhi is an unused credit card. We are in your homes, in your living rooms, in your television sets. We are in your hot cornflakes and breakfast cereal, in your popcorn-flicks and dinner serials, we are the Dhumtana in Kasauti, we are the jewellery in Kahani Ghar Ghar, we are the 20 year jump in Kyunki, WE ARE THE B IN BALAJI.

We are in the street haggling the sabziwala, we're in your lane straightening up your rowdy kids, we're in the market destroying the shopkeeper's dying self-respect, we're in Beautina giving due respect to our bountiful beauty. We are on the park bench discussing Obama and how he loves his wife, we're reading up Sachchi Kahaniyan and we know all the ways men cheat.

Wake up, my fellow Bhabhis. Wake up and make some breakfast and pack the kids' lunch. Wake up and wake your husbands so they can go to their little offices and pretend to be useful. Wake up and run the world. Wake up and gossip. Wake up the driver and go shopping.

You're a Bhabhi, girl, in the Bhabhi World. Come come Bhabhi, lets go Kitty Party.

Wake up, and haven't you heard? There's a sale in Lifestyle! Bhaag Bhabhi Bhaag!

Girl in the City

She won't look at you twice. Her world moves too fast. Yeah she's on foot, and sure the street's crazy crowded, but she's storming through it at her own intense pace. It's not a walk in the park, and it's not a run. It's not the way she jogs in the morning. She's slower than the jog, but stormier. The bags clutched and held close around her being, instead of making her feel laden and weighed down, feel more like propeller mass . She's the one lending them weight, it would seem. It's not hurry, it's just the speed of her life.

When she sits at Barista, peering at other tables, waiting for her coffee, she doesn't look like she's sitting alone, and she doesn't look like someone's coming to join her. Her looking at you is neither intrusive nor inviting. As you're about to realise, it has nothing to do with you.

Lying on the bed at night, a girl has a thousand things to think of. Grossly underestimated numbers those, but it's not a thousand things on this one's mind. It's just those two. Or maybe three. It's what's driving her life. It's what she's building her life to be. Day by day, hour in hour out. Her stormy walk through people and things yet touching none, her laser focus on things around her, her last few lingering minutes on the bed before she gets up in the morning, they are all reflections. Reflections more of this time in her life, than of her. This is the time of sweat and hair damp with sweat. This is the time when you either make it, or you settle. And she's not settling. Not yet, not now.

And yet, she has those moments of aberration. Not long-lived, not emotional. As logical as any. And yet, aberrational. Irrelevant, but only temporarily. Demanding, but only if she lets them. Visions of future, and glimpses of uncertainty. Blurred, future-tinted images asking to be cleared. Irrelevant, as I said, but only temporarily. She won't compromise, not now with the present, and not then with the future. One thing at a time.

A coffee shop is an amazing place. There are people, and there is coffee. And it's one of the few places where you don't really need company. Not that she lacks company, just that she has had much better. It's alright though. A coffee shop is a coffee shop.

You should see her shopping. It may not sound like much, but she's at the top of her game right now. She's the Major General of shopping. Her eye is sharper than ever, and her tastes severely exacting. She always understood money, but now it's her own. It's a whole different ball game.

Her new friends are mighty impressed with her, just like they've always been. Her bosses would count as friends if they weren't her bosses on the side. Her problems are real, but life's doing well. At least it makes sense now. It kind of always did but at least things are moving now. They kind of always were but at least now she knows what she's after. Not absolutely completely, at least as much as she does anyway. It's good, it's fine. Not half as bad as she would have imagined.

Look at her walk on the sidewalk. Bags and folder in hand. Cutting through the crowd, pupils dilated in thought. All systems running, all engines at go. She could be lost, but not today. Maybe tomorrow, maybe when she can afford it. For now, she walks. At just the speed of her life.

Cars

Cars are really funny things. The way they carry themselves, it can be very amusing.They've got all the kinds.

The confused, the quirky, the drunk, the toddler, the honking socialist, the one with the shortcuts, the clumsy one, the rich and proud, the smoothie, the ambulance, the messed-up petrified one, the whore that will let anyone in, the jumpy one, the one with a winking disorder, the pink one, the virgin everybody wants to make their mark on, the swan that's actually a crow, the office-going suited one, the one with tattoos, the politician, the dreamy, the parking night-guard, the freak, the furious, the one without a destination, the siren, the voyeur, and the one just plain wrong.

There should be a facebook for cars.

The Shoulder Shrug

Part I - News

The hands didn't twitch

The legs didn't itch

for a maniac stride,

tearing the stitch

His eyes didn't jump

The heart didn't thump

He said nothing, but not

that his throat was a lump

Life had dealt again

cards with burns and stain

He looked on at them

with a quiet refrain

He was facing the walls

where breaking nails crawled

It was tempting to imagine

himself on the floor, sprawled

Part II - Future

The bars might explode

into pencils flying slowed

Their black streaks will fill

the eyes, he forebode

There would be a noose

And a limited range of hues

And a cracking floor on the feet

that'll set the colors loose

A uniform will shout

A hangman will out

the shimmering ghost of death

that doesn't fool about

He thought of the sound

that the plank was bound

to make when it cracked

and was no more the ground

He thought of the stretch

that would sure make a wretch

of his neck and his breath

But it looked like a sketch

Maybe the tongue will out

and gasp or flutter about

No, it would just hang

and leer at them no doubt

This prison set him free
Its lock gave him the key
The endless time told him
life was just a moment to be

Part III - Friends 

He had come to have friends

in not people but elements,

friends he need not talk to,

or talk, it all depends

Like Air. The first of them

Comforting, stable and a gem

Never changed or turned on him

No habits or evil to stem

Sometimes she was grim

when she came to him

with the loss of someone loved

whose stench it held to brim

Other times, however rare,

she would buzz with a fresh affair

Someone must've been let in or out

and she'd smile from my ear to ear

Another friend I soon fell for

was Water, though it was much more

elusive and rare to come but when

it did, it made it up damn sure

The stretches that went by

without it made me shy

of the pleasures we'd had

that left me spent and dry

I wish I could bathe more often

But I never asked the one

who came and unlocked the doors

Maybe 'twas the right amount of fun

I could talk about it no end

about the shivers it sends

through me to touch and be touched

by water, its streams and bends

But lets move on to the third

companion of mine, the earth

The solid, still and steady

The friend with no mirth

This friend, I always wondered,

was it a friend or just under

a debt, guilt, an oath?

to hold my weight and blunder

For it never talked, or told stories

Never had a mood, teary eyed memories

to share with me, to let me in

on them, oh no, hard from the quarries

But I give it for a quality rare

It cares for me when I'd care

And slaps me hard when I slap hard

The Ground, my friend, is ruthless and fair

Part IV - Enemy

Life's good, yes, with friends like these

But what is life without enemies

An enemy I'd always had

It was the Bars, the Bars that tease

They stand with backs all straight

In never a mood for debate

Stern, alert, too proud in power

But it's how they're serious I hate

And look how they stand

all formal and grand

in equi-spaced files

Not one freak miscreant

It used to be a distraction

Their stillness waiting for action

Their steely observing gaze

and their judgments showing no fraction

Sometimes their spaces between

would tease me and demean

Surely the escape wasn't through them

And escape I wouldn't, but why act mean!

Part V - Life

My crime in that other world

where Light existed and swirled

had been unforgivable

Some nights I shook all curled

But the new friends had been sweet

Acceptance had turned down the heat

They stood there, let me be

They folded my conscience neat

Life was good.. no wait,

it was just life, zero and sate

No clue how long it had been

without real urge or hate

Couldn't tell when I slid

to peace that respects the lid

on top off my head, now settled snug

that used to blow off when it did

Couldn't tell when I started

to love the caress good-hearted

of the truest mirror, the floor

that still couldn't answer being farted

Couldn't tell when I missed

the third person tone, to insist

on my plight and took on to 'I's

Oh maybe you noticed and were pissed

Part VI - Dream 

Couldn't tell when another

friend of mine, or rather

this secret acquaintance wild,

turned up in metal and leather

I'd met this friend a few times

in moments unguarded, sublime

who left me on the rope when it cracked

invariably, every single time

So you see, this rude friend, Dream

would barely shake hands and beam

trying to introduce me to Death

but me, such a brute, I scream!

They scamper away, hiding out of sight

Dream, the matchmaker; and Death's cold bite

and I'm left panting, blinking, being stupid

caught by the mighty Ground's might

And as I said, I couldn't tell

when this Dream fellow swell

came back one day

with a sin-dark smell

It's like it had purpose, oh sad

It barged in, like always it had

But no, it was different this time

Darker and calmer, not half as mad

The first time ever did I hear the Bars shout

Not all of them but the closest ones i doubt,

the closest ones to metal, and uniform and leather

The three of them came in, calm throughout

The uniform spoke, clearly, slowly

The leather shuffled, the Ground made lowly

sounds of disapproval, impotent screeching

And the uniform said, the same words holy

That this was the day, that I was to die

But it didn't seem as evil, can't say why

They drawled on, didn't run to me

Didn't push me down, didn't beat me or tie

Didn't do anything, except stand and talk

And told me honestly, didn't leer didn't mock

Just stood there, calm, let a bit of silence pass

then turned and left, like breeze would walk

The metal rod, the leather shoes,

the uniform, the Dream whose

previous meetings were awkwardly violent

left this time without tying the noose!

Part VII - Apex

I stood for long and spoke to Air,

had a chat with the Ground bare,

they told me it wasn't Dream at all!

And all I managed was an empty stare

Death was coming, surely, sure,

but not like a bull running through the door

Rather like a calm, honest kinda chum

And somehow, this gore, it didn't feel sore

So my hands didn't twitch

My heart didn't tug

And my legs didn't itch

but my shoulders did shrug

twinkle little stars

 "Do you love stars?", she asked her father. She would talk to him about the stars, and change the topic when he said he loved them too. She didn't think that an adequate answer, because she never said she loved them. She rather loved the distances between them. To her, it was the distances between them that made them so filling. Mesmerising, you could say. And the much reputed twinkle that they held? No she never thought that was any exciting.

"Do you love stars?", he would ask his daughter. Because he knew she did, and was only trying to make good father-daughter conversation. He thought her eyes twinkled when she asks him the same question. He tried to see the stars in them, imagined her to be mesmerised by them. And said, "Yeah, I love them too". Because he wanted her to keep her love for them, and the twinkle, even though he never could see what the said beauty was about. He must be old and wrinkled, he thought. And her daughter gifted and special, to see what he couldn't, and so he would add sometimes, "Aren't they beautiful honey? Look at them twinkle!"

A Queer Tree

Full unedited version:

I am a queer tree. I mean I'm straight but, you know, just eccentric. Like I can sometimes sway opposite to the wind just to confuse the other trees around me. Or start dropping my leaves way before autumn, gives them a real bad scare. And I love it, my eccentricities, my freedom, my sense of self. But, there's another side to me.

There's another side. A flat one. Like its not even there. Its not. Its surprising but it just never was. I simply never had in me whatever I was supposed to, on that side of my personality. Its as if some really sharp lightning just came and cut me in half right down the trunk, and removed the other half clean. It could totally have been so, except I don't remember the lightning. And there's no other side effect that would favor this theory, I'm pretty much normal otherwise. Really. Pretty much.

During childhood, with those other little plants around me, friends and otherwise, all trying to grow and become strong meaningful trees, I didn't even notice. I was too small, maybe. Or there was just not enough information. Whatever, I just didn't know that it wasn't how you were supposed to be. But a little bigger I grew, and I could say that there was something clearly different. Between me and them. Between me and everybody. Everybody else was normal. Ofcourse they had their eccentricities and differences and peculiarities, but they were still, in their basic selves inside, normal. And I somehow, just wasn't. There was one difference for sure that I never clearly acknowledged, but looking back, it definitely was real. I was weak, though just a little bit, but weaker than, say, normal. But I didn't know it then because I was taken care of well without any effort on my part. So strength apart, I still found myself a deviant, and the feeling only rose with years passing. It corresponded one to one with another feeling in me, that too, similarly, grew harder and more real as the years passed. It was the feeling of loneliness.

How I came to realize my uniqueness was actually because of my abilities. These abilities that I showed a flare for, made me known and talked about, and that really made me happy. It satisfied some inner craving for completeness which I knew not the cause of. And hence I tried even harder, and got better and better at them. It wasn't all of a sudden. Like what happened first was that I, in a moody swing one day, started swaying about me, a bit musically lets say. Its not something any tree can do, or does. Its an art, really, and there are trees popular in lands far far away just for their style of swaying. So anyhow, when I was doing that thing, pretty rookily I admit but atleast I seemed like I could do that stuff, I called out to a tree nearby. She saw me, and liked it! I was doing something on my own and somebody liked it! I was excited. So I did it more, and did it well. And kept trying. I don't know how or why, but I was fast. I pick up things fast. Soon I was all poetic in my motion and got pretty popular for it, atleast in the swamp. Trees used to turn to look at me do it when I called out for them, and used to nod in agreement, I was good.

And then I heard someone whistle. I never knew trees could do that. I mean wind made noises, sure, but to trap and move it inside you as you want it to and create those sounds that mean something, that's power. It is easily the most enchanting form of creative expression we possess. Revolutions have arisen out of the whistles of a tormented tree. And I could whistle. Its the most admired of art forms, and I really saw that I had some potential.

So yes, I had a few abilities, and was proud for them. But yet when I looked at someone with a normal, full round trunk with sturdy brown branches coming out of it, I used to feel something in me. Now he can't sway like me, can't wiggle his leaves like I can, isn't intelligent in its sounds and sure can't whistle, but he has something I don't. He is still, in some really basic sense, complete. He is normal, and I'm just not. And I can't for the life of me figure out why.

I saw it clearly somewhere in my adolescence. I saw the difference, right there, sitting in perfect view as if crying for attention. Like a chopped off half, like a joke. And the other half, it was in full bloom! It was all bright flowers and shapely leaves and poetry. But one half, just right there, naked. And I had a hint why. I could guess why I was so because I had seen more of life. Seen more of the others growing up to be normal, seen why they were turning out fine. And I couldn't bloody do anything about it. It was done with, it wasn't in my hands. And I thought what the hell, its alright. I mean I got abilities here ain't I. Show me someone who sways better.

And I saw trees who swayed better. Whoa. I saw some great trees of my time when I grew. Taller I grew, the more wonderful and able the world looked. And taller and taller I grew, for I was making up in height what I didn't have in width. I don't know if my incompleteness made me or I would anyway have been, but I was strong inside. Very much. And able. And I was using my abilities, my flexibility, and the beautiful spread of my leaves on one side, to hide the other flat side. It was awkward initially, it clearly showed, but I got better. I moved like a beauty, I whistled like a philosopher, and I started to atleast look like a perfectly normal tree, from a distance, yes, but yeah. Infact, given my moody sway, my mischievous tricks, my wild whistle, I think I'm now positively hot.

And lonely. I can excite other trees, I can make them want me, touch me, sway with me. I learned the tricks overtime. But I cannot make them love my incompleteness. I cannot counter my uniqueness, only the appearance of it, only temporarily. I can act, sure. But I don't want to. I don't even want to cover it anymore. I only want the company of trees that accept the fact. I want acceptance not without, but with it. I want to be seen in complete exacting truth, and then judged. For I believe, in all totality, given all my cracks and cuts, counting all my scars and losses, I'm still worthy of the pride I hold in myself.

My incompleteness made me what I am. It drives my instincts and makes me want to grow. Its fulfillment is the source of my satisfaction. I wouldn't have fought so much had I not had this reason to. An unsatisfied being, alone, is creative. And though I have not a hair's width of a guess as to how life would have been as a satisfied, complete, normal tree, I can say with all my power of belief, that this one is way more exciting.

And hence it is that I don't blame the seed I grew out of. It was only half a seed.

India TV the awesome

India TV is like those mirrors in amusement parks that make you look funny no matter how repressed or melancholic you may be in real life. India TV is the Himesh Reshamiya of news reporting, the Kanti Shah of film making. India TV is the voice and face of that progressive strata of the public that has the taste, time and need for "fun" over and above the regular trinity of food, shelter and clothing. India TV, incredibly, is both niche and populist. Let me explain how:

You see, the lower economic class watches India TV with interest and possibly restrained belief. The middle class watches it with incredulity, and occasional bouts of laughter. The upper middle class will talk about it with animated hatred and yet stop for a few half-a-lip smiles during channel surfing. And in fact might even use it as a patience test. And finally, the relevant portions of the higher economic class keep a tab on it to understand the genius behind the whole idea of it, and in turn understand its vast audience as a potential customer base.

It is my belief that everything genuinely good basically derives from undiluted honesty. And India TV has to be, deep inside, an honest idea to achieve such a layered appeal. It is funny, without trying to be funny. It is incredulous, all the more so because it seems to not know of the same. It is, basically, for everyone interested, a powerful object of interest. I think that says it all.


(written for a journalism course application)

The Rise And Fall Of The Apple

Apples have been falling on the ground since before humans were mean to each other. Since before the first law of thermodynamics, and even before Archimedes jumped out of the bathtub. But never, I repeat, never was it a problem. Because nobody cared. Nobody noticed. Anonymity was just fine for the apples. And life was good. Falling with a healthy thump, and sticking in the marshy ground with pride, claiming their space and sitting on it fat and plump.

But along came Newton. And ruined it all.

This is a story of an Apple's fight against the Law of Gravitation, the story of one apple's fight against the whole of scientific community, those arrogant windbags who think they know apples.

This is the story of the Apple that hung from a tree branch, right above the crossroads of History, and said "I have a dream".

"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of anywhere.


Thirty two point five score years ago, a stupid man, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, discovered the Law of Gravitation. This momentous decree came as a great blow to the self-respect of millions of proud Apples who had been living their lives with great satisfaction and freedom of choice since the Sixth Day of Creation.

Now countless years later, the Apple is still not free. Countless years later, the life of the Apple is still sadly determined by the manacles of the Earth's mass and the chains of the Gravitational Constant. Countless years later, the Apple lives on a lonely island of determinism in the midst of a vast ocean of unexplained phenomena. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.


In a sense we've come knocking at the educated world's conscience to prove a point. When the man in that garden under an Apple tree wrote those demeaning words of the Law of Gravitation, he was signing a humiliating profanity to which every dignified Apple was hence to be subjected. This law was a belittling generalisation that all apples, yes, small and large, educated and illiterate, would guaranteed fall to the ground same as every other. It took away the Apple's "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Free Will." It is obvious today that the scientific community has taken for granted this really-very-stupid law; and instead of honoring our volition to life, given the Apples a stringent rule, a law of motion through that sacred space between the revered tree branch and the holy ground.

But we refuse to believe that this horrifying generalisation is a law. We refuse to believe that there aren't Apples who don't fall, but jump, of their own accord, in their own free path. Who here hasn't heard of the great lunges of Dapple, the Apple. And who hasn't heard since birth the stories of the daring, the adventurous Red Hot Balls, whose stunts in mid-air were an astonishment to the most experienced of flying apples. And so, we've come to prove a point, a proof that will give us henceforth the riches of freedom and the respect of complexity.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind Appledom of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of predictability or to take the tranquilizing acceleration of 9.8 meter per second square. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate, anecdotal out-of-syllabus boxes in the corner of a page in a physics book chapter to the esteemed befuddling titles of research papers. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of us God's favorite fruits. Now is the time to prove that Eve was right, in choosing us.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in my Branch of Birth.

I have a dream that one day on the colored pages of Resnick & Halliday, the rotund curvaceous apples of a proud red color, and the quarks and mesons will be able to sit down together in the star-marked questions and the Appendices in the end.


I have a dream that one day even the Newton biographies, those books sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into a story of the greatest false positive ever.


I have a dream that my four red neighbours will henceforth live in a world where they will not be judged by the value of their mass but by the content of their character.


I have a dream today!


I have a dream that one day, down in CERN, with its vicious scientists, with its Chief and his lips wet with meaningless words like 'Higgs Boson' and 'Heisenberg's Uncertainty' -- one day right there in CERN, little red apples and enthusiastic interns will be able to join hands and churn out sponsored research papers about fast colliding apples.


I have a dream today!


I have a dream that one day every Apple shall be unique, and every fall and landing shall be eccentric, the Apple's individuality will be recognized, and the Apple that fell on Newton's head will be vindicated; 'and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all carbon shall see it together.'


This is our hope, and this is the faith that I fly down to the Ground with."

Thus another one walked the line, the acceleration, and fast bit the dust, exactly at t=under-root(2h/g).

Open Letter From SN: Laments of an IIT girl

I am from SN, the Hall. And I am here to help.

(Dramatic Pause)

So whats the deal, you say. I'll tell you the deal. The deal is that you are a douche. The deal is that you have no clue in all heavens about me, and you, yes you, are just way too many for anybody's good. And I will today, once and for all, break it down in easy and simple soul-friendly terms in the hope of getting the few of you with brains to atleast understand this... this thing we have between us.

I was a regular girl in school. Had always been, pretty much, though there were things you could say put me away from the other regular girls I knew. And I was happy, pretty much, you know. Life was easy and smooth. Like a nicely flowing river. And then I came to Kgp. (sound of crashing waves and islands sinking)

The first thing I noticed about you, in the first week itself, was that you were mostly a huddle. And that a huddle's voice is lower than the volume of a lone standing specimen. And that that's almost always because, atleast in first year, the huddle is only talking about me, the generalized SNite. In class, in Tikka, Nescafe, lab, even in Toat on SF nights. I mean what is your fixation with me, I'm just a regular girl!

You have eyes, o' boy have you eyes. All of you, collective, are like one big mass with all those innumerous eyes that are always looking, and communicating. And then one day I could see you looking from a distance. You were probably there for a long time, confused. You started walking towards me. I averted my eyes but kept looking angularly. You were approaching fast, but instead of looking at me you were walking as if on a fast-forwarded evening walk in a park, trying to look about casually on both sides and loosening up the walk. You had come close, I was ready to casually turn my head towards you with a casual smile on the face that would say nothing and yet be appropriately inviting. You were looking about more anxiously now, and I don't think you knew that I was watching. All ready for a warm casual conversation with a charming-looking you, I turned my head smoothly to you, you were exactly appropriately close, but still hurried and anxious, and as I noticed, at an angle to your previous direction and still walking. And you kept walking, looking down, as if casually, and walked past me. I was staring at your face and you probably didn't even know. I kept looking intently with wide eyes as you in your nervous hurry, turned an awkward corner somewhere and went away. And I thought, "Whatever man".

It was clear from day one, that even my batchmates were easily 2 or 3 years junior to me. I was more comfortable with your seniors, they talked easy, knew more, and didn't think talking to me casually was a big deal. Or atleast, didn't seem to show it. I was part of a few societies, and I went through the same ordeal a hundred times, of a batchmate trying to strike up a casual conversation. I really don't get why a person has to try to look casual, I mean we're all casual in real life really, aren't we? Apparently not. Real life takes a twisted bend in Kgp.

I loved my Hall. There were these few awesome people I knew and that was enough for me to love it. It was fun, mess table bhaat, secret huddled conversations in packed rooms on matters of no importance whatsoever, bad jokes, Patel bashing, generalising a few people to represent their halls, banda-bandi gossip, hushed slut hating, learning to swear, and the senior guys. The senior guys, the good rare few that is, but in existence very much. They were open, knew stuff, sometimes handsome, sometimes even actually talkable, and mostly bandi-less. Perfect people to casually talk to. And talk I did. The first summer vacations are a wonderful time if you're talking to someone over the phone, very casually only, ofcourse. I mean the actual girlfriend-boyfriend sort of stuff wasn't really for me, if you know what I mean. That's just gossip fun.

The second year started out hectic. I am not a sucker for grades but I, you know, like them in general if I can do something about it. So there was the department, the new people, the irritating batchmates, even weirder dep seniors and ofcourse the few people I was in touch with. OP was fun from this side, not much but whatever. And the gossip! I'll repeat, the gossip! She's going out with him, and he just proposed her, and they're definitely going to break up, though that's not all we talk about, by a long long shot. And then that stupid ridiculous part of the gossip spectrum that actually involved me. I heard of atleast 6 guys who were apparently my boyfriends, and I didn't even know 3 of them, I swear. Then there's the totally-uncalled-for closed room controversial stuff. Things happen, and you take them for what they are. Upsetting, but then... yeah so there are a few catches in Kgp. Fine, move on.

I knew this guy from earlier, I mean I'd seen him around but didn't, you know, really know him or anything. Really nice chap. I mean, really. And we were talking, casually, and I suddenly realised. I hadn't even thought of it you know! How could he, this extremely likeable, actually understanding, seriously decent looking guy, think of us that way! I mean I'm just a regular girl!

Those were happy times. I'm sure I stepped on a few hearts but come on, most of them deserved to be crushed anyway, and the few nice ones, its not like I'm some goddess of some sort, they'll find better ones I'm sure. So I said yes to him, the senior who didn't feel like a senior at all. Happy times. That's all I'll say about it. Happy times.

But it wasn't for long. There was stuff that just wasn't happy as I would have liked. And then ofcourse, Kgp is not the smoothly sailing ship on a mad stormy ocean. Its the ocean. And you're a fish. Things change. People change. But maybe its just that... that fourth year's a bitch.

So it didn't live for very long, whatever it was. I mean I tried, he did too. It just, shit its so cheesy I don't even want to say it, but it just wasn't meant to be. Yeah. And I was alone. You can hardly ever be alone in Kgp, and yet somehow, I was suddenly all alone, in the real sense of the word. So much time with just one person makes you pretty much a custom person. You don't fit the average size anymore. But I had friends. I knew people, I talked to interesting, promising guys. Life tried to fill up again. But nothing ever again will sweep me off my feet I guess. And whatever I do, they just don't gossip like that about me anymore. Sigh.

I noticed you again. You had grown. You were actually different, though I could still see the original nervous, awkward you on a closer look. And you still didn't have a girlfriend. But there was progress. You were more in your element now, as if you were perfecting your act of yourself. You were even talking to girls, casually too I might add. Juniors ofcourse, who would go through the same wave function as I did and so on forever.

I have gone through so much in these last few years that its hard to remember clearly the time before it. So much of life, excitement, and bubble, and then the anticlimax of an absolutely bored final year. Through it all, through all of the tikka and vegies, the chem top and the 2.2, the boredom and the sleep, through cal and shankarpur, and through the Netaji and Kalidas, I lived a full life. And at the end of it, after it was all over and I could look back and wonder, I basically learned just one thing.

That I'm just a regular girl, and you're a douche. I mean, do you even take a bath?

Wait, what? Ah, right right. Umm, what?

I was about to throw the tie down on the bed when the microwave beeped. I got a bit confused due to the suddenness of it all and didn't exactly know what to do, went half way to the kitchen and thought why was I still carrying the tie with me? And in the sudden realisation, to counter the shameful stupidity I had shown, threw the tie down right away. It fell to the floor. I think I felt stupid again but I couldn't stop because of the microwave beeping really loud. It suddenly dawned that despite the repeated sharp sudden sounds of the beep, it really wasn't a matter of any urgency. That the beeps just meant that I was free to come and eat the hot food any time now. That revelation was irritating, now that I had come all the way to the kitchen and with an innocent tie still on the ground somewhere on the way. I felt sorry, and went back to it and picked it up. But now I didn't know what to do with it, because the bed and the beeping microwave were on opposite directions now. I would have to choose where to go first now, and I hate making such decisions, specially those with only two options. I stood there for sometime, thinking about the decision to be made but mostly just stuck nervously in the suddenness of the moment, why did everything have to happen all at once. And suddenly the beeps stopped. That was like god's interference or something, seriously, and suddenly everything made sense. I didn't have to go to the microwave anymore because it wasn't calling for me anymore, and I had the tie right there in my hand and the bed right in my view waiting for me. Everything was crystal clear and I lunged for the bed. I reached it, threw the tie on it with grandeur, thanked the god, and sat down smiling with satisfaction. I don't know what I was intensely contemplating but suddenly a slew of sharp sounds filled in my mind and broke the delicate chain of thought. The microwave was beeping again, o' god what do I do now!

ladai ladai maaf karo, dash dash dash dash dash

("dash" is used as the proverbial beep here, this being a kid channel and all)

Vinayak Pathak, as we all know by now, is totally famous on the internet, totally. Why, he is such a meme! Nevermind the feminine sound of that word.

Now this very honorable subject of our little discourse here has recently been tainted by this man here. This... man, for the lack of a better word, is known to be a ghastly dastly manipulative schemer. A schemer of no better conscience than, say, an evil paper boat. Censuring any elaboration of that inappropriately explicit analogy in public interest, we tell you, in the next few scrolls, the complete truth about the dash son dash dash bitch that is, dash dash dash dash Dash.

He:

1. has an extra ball in the bag [citation needed]

2. is really proud of his humility [1]

3. loves a mouthful of Truth [one day you shall know, one day]

4. has been known to approach men from behind, if you know what I mean, and push them off the cliff, with the final words, "Boo." [true story]

5. has evolved an extra helping hand [just trust me ok]

References:

[1] - Dash: "I'm really proud of my humility."

As were to be the unfortunate events to unfold, our simultaneously cute and sexy protagonist, V, approached, platonically ofcourse, the Greatly Sleazy One, dash Dash, and asked for some utterly innocent, absolutely natural, lifestyle advice regarding the future prospects of, well, so to say, getting a girl. And what followed then is a total and naked display of shameless evil stripping away the last of the camaraderie, the sacred brotherly bond of the user and the used between a senior and a junior, respectively, from the face and chest of the earth. A scheming plot to bring down the chances, the prospects, and the sex appeal, of the Cutest One, that one with the nose proud and long, and the One with the Question Mark burnt on his forehead.

Hence it is that we, in all the sacred spirit of justice, try to bring out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about this victimized angel of manhood.

He, the symbol of male endeavor,:

1. is gentle.

2. is a symmetric kind of a person.

3. can just turn away and run, when optimal.

4. will make a good computer one day. Or a good barber.

5. does have that extra hand on the shoulder. It automatically waves Hi to people on the road. Pretty nifty.

So guys... just keep away ok. And girls, listen up. You have been missing out, really. And you should totally go out with this guy. Trust me.

Marry me, I'm the Batman

A gun walked alone, pointing randomly at shiny glasses and scared cats. A thug nearby, whistling away in a hurry, looked at it with suspicion. How could a gun make the whoosh sound that it was making? Must be the wind.

The gun, ofcourse, took no notice of the bright clothes or the thug in them. It went past whooshing its metal around, and scaring cats. They loved to look that way anyway, that stretched, totally messed up electrocuted look that cats loved to look like. Its like their joke on the things that think they've scared them and feel smug for it.

The thug, now comfortable with the whoosh of the gun, approached it in small steps. So it doesn't scare the trigger into a pull. That would be bad for the cat. The one on the crosshair then. It was the thug's cat.

As this little game of the gun and the cat and the thug went on, there sat on the top of the building, a flowing shiny figure of a worked-up, but calm, body covered in the blackest night. It saw the little game with great interest. It wanted the thug, before the gun got it.

In the nanosecond that passed between when the thug caught hold of the gun, too smug and content at keeping the cat scared, which was doing it so its master could get the gun, and when the cat suddenly made that gotcha face that annoyed the gun greatly enough to flick the trigger in anger, what happened was extremely quick and blurred, as seen by the shiny figure watching from above. What happened was that the gun let out a bullet, but the thug forceful grab moved it away from the cat, and the gunshot hit the shiny figure.

The cat brought its teeth out in an excited smile, and the shiny figure fell with a thud.

This semester

This semester, I floated.
I dived and I gulped and burst and became a balloon and grew.
I understood. I danced.
I fought with an old friend and became one all over again.
I found a new one.
I walked on stage. I walked in glory.
I won. More than mere competitions.
I clapped and shouted.
I stood with my people in anger.
I realised. I was proud.
I walked in windy nights when trees screeched and turned.
I disintegrated with laughter.
I was in peace.
I made a presentation.
I impressed. I worked.
I was unsuccessful. I was happy.
I was funny. I was loved.
I was disgusted in people. I told them so.
I was transparent.
I was busy. And lucky.
I met people. I was impressed.
I acted. I made a movie.
I let things be.
I slept filled with music.
I saw a little boy who drove a motor cart.
I saw his shirt fighting with air while he sped.
I saw crabs. I saw a running shining swarm of big red scared crabs.
I fed a friend with my hands.
I sat on a chair in beach water and read.
I walked in the corridor a whole night in anxiety.
I saw beautiful girls I don't remember faces of anymore.
I saw a girl dance like she meant it.
I saw someone's tears washing away a whole mountain in me.
I saw eyes glazed with admiration. With surprise.
I was confused about the future.
I was happy with how it looked.
I ran. I jumped in water puddles.
I made a radio show in a night.
I was jobless. I was full.
I was jolly.

This semester.
I was so much.

Tomato

A tomato never swears. Just doesn't. So how would you know if its angry. Ofcourse its color is only a lie.

It does something else to signify anger, it expands. Yes. Trust me. So dont eat a tomato that was small when you were looking at it from a distance, and suddenly went fat when you brought it to your mouth. Don't eat that one, its angry.

Its the same with ego sometimes, but we won't talk about them. Egos don't make sense, tomatoes do.

A tomato's best friend is a fridge. They all love a fridge. It makes them look cool, makes up amply for the angry red color.

A tomato makes love.

Balls are jealous of tomatoes. Balls don't get touched so sensually. And they're not juicy. Its important to be juicy.

A tomato has never been born that liked a shopping bag. Shopping bags are concentration camps. Tomatoes like to have their space.

All tomatoes are scared of heights. Unlike coconuts. And ofcourse, coconuts evolved to be so hard only because they had to fall from such heights. And even though a fallen coconut cannot procreate, whether hard or not, being hard can only be a help right.

Tomatoes hate a blunt knife. It makes them look messy. They dream in wet nights of a sharp sleek knife that will come one day, shine against the falling light, make a few flashes here and there just for effect, and cleanly and swiftly swim through the orgasmic tomato to come out glorious and blessed.

A tomato will have reached its destiny, and its soul will fly away, stand in a long line somewhere under the earth, waiting for a farmer to plant a seed.

i like

i like 99 more than 100.
i like it when my hat is just about to blow away with the wind.
i like the feeling of a long-awaited bath.
i like scratching my nose.
i like acting sleepy.
i like being able to tell a mosquito just by feeling it on the skin. (UPDATE: I don't like anything to do with mosquitoes. They suck.)
i like sitting cross-legged on a chair.
i like it to face the wind with closed eyes and walk towards it.
i like it when I'm sitting in veggies and a leaf falls on my table.
i like the fireflies to fly over water bodies.
i like an empty mind.
i like pissing with my hands off.
i like most of the people I say Hi to on the street.
i like trying to listen to a song playing somewhere far off when I'm trying to sleep.
i like it when my head expands to take in a bright and fresh evening.
i like to barely miss the target of my water balloons in Holi.
i like the perfection of just the slightest imperfection.

But I do love him, I'm sure

But I do love him, I'm sure

Though there are things I hate

like integrity, maybe

Oh that's too big a word

Yes love it must be I guess

just not so divine and great

like in story books, nah

its just the real world

But why then did I walk

with you that night so late

and felt in chilling abandon

that I was flying like a bird

You became my freedom that night

from the boundaries of love and hate

And talked, us two, in the clutch of a hug

without a spoken word

My heart was pure emotion,

yours beat with a force too great

The wind that flew wasn't real

it wasn't the real world

I knew I'd have to make

a choice that was already late

between a secure city girl

or the harsh sky life of a bird

And choose him I did over your

rare perfect moment's lure

My love may not be as pure

But I do love him, I'm sure

Song of her life

.
PART1

She wanted to visit
that world in her dreams.
She wanted to breathe
in that scented air.
She needed a long big
lungful of freedom.
She wanted a hand
to filter through her hair.


She always thought
of a long windy beach.
She dreamed of mermaids
and waves and a moon.
She had bright white wings
in her dreams one and all.
And her flowered fearless dreams
always ended way too soon.

Bu when she woke up,
what she saw,
just wasn't half
what she had seen.
The rowdy world
just seemed so raw
... compared to
where she'd been.


She always tried
to look excited.
Always tried to
beam at people.
But she'd seen
a purer form,
yeah she'd touched
a smoother petal.

She seemed to throw
a gazeless gaze.
She seemed to float
just inches above.
She used to unnerve
approaching guys
and she looked not
made for love.

Irony,
at so many levels.
She was living
two different lives.
She opened, in one,
her wings with flourish.
In other,
she barely survives.


PART 2

She did try hard,
yes she did, to keep faith.
She had let open her soul,
to a stranger from this world.
She had let the two worlds merge
she had let him enter hers.
She had loved like none ever did.
She had let her world unfurl.

Those were moments
never forgotten,
but those were
only in her mind.
It was she who
lived alone,
through the love and
later, the grind.

He had, in his
heart of hearts,
never experienced
her dreams.
Hand in hand
they were, yes,
yet present in
different realms.

The hands then
grew apart,
their fingers never
touched again.
For a moment she held
the wet in her palms,
yes,
her eyes did rain.

She saw that blank
smile one day,
his hand held
someone's hands again.
He was happy as much
as he knew to be.
She, as much she knew,
bore pain.

She knew
she was wrong to remorse.
She had nothing
on him to blame.
The guilt was
hers to have trusted.
Him and her lover
weren't same.


PART 3

She grew up
as before,
with her secret
dichotomy.
Yes she had
her share of men,
as her womanhood's
testimony.


She kissed
but never felt,
her heart would
never melt.
She touched
and was touched,
but only
as deep as her pelt.

She loved none,
she hated none.
She wandered
alone in nights.
For the fear of
seeing those dreams
of mountains,
skies and kites.

But then one day,
as it had to happen.
One day
she stumbled and fell.
Fell onto something
that wrenched her heart,
those words
that formed a spell.

She read it
full and through
with eyes
abnormally unblinking.
It was her life,
she'd thought it all before,
she didn't
need to be thinking.

Someone thought just
as she did,
she wasn't
alone it seems.
She searched for the man
who wrote this poem
and talked of the
world of her dreams.
.

The Ghost of the Scooty

Fear o' child, fear o' young minds

Fear the moment when you, he finds.

The boogeyman is running loose in the city

depriving you of your own identity

Insane and insanely dedicated to his duty

It's a bloody ghost, the ghost of the scooty

Not a soul is safe while the guardian abounds

Ala Batman in Kgp, the vigilante on the rounds.

"You don't get it kid, its not your roads to walk

These are not safe times, look at the clock!

Oh no I don't care", "Hell but a Prof I am!"

"Back off mister, I'm the Saviour. And I don't give a damn."

Making Sense Of Nonsense

wrote this for the Inter Hall English Creative Writing. :)

MAKING SENSE OF NONSENSE

"Mr. Walter! Mr. Walter! Come back here I request you for god's sake!"
But Mr. Walter swings his head like a pendulum, apparently to say no and keeps walking towards the huge front gates, staggering and swaying to keep balance. I hold back my urge to shout again and run after him. Moments later, standing and staring into his drooping, yet excitingly childish eyes, I felt helpless like never before. He used to remind me of how incapable I was to help him. He was panting, groping for breath, straining his lungs for some air. Walked too hard for his age I guess.

"Where were you headed Mr. Cherry Head?", I asked him jokingly, trying to smile as I said it. He let his lips widen into a happy arc and leak out a sudden little bout of laughter, hearing the words 'Cherry Head'. His red, although scanty hair were a matter of amusement for all the inmates! Oh how he loved his smooth shiny strands! Mr. Walter had made a lot of friends over the time that he had been staying here, some because of his cherry-red hair, and some with his famous 'bouts of laughter'.

"My daughter! She called me yesterday! She asked me to meet her at The Square.", he said, with a mix of surprised happiness and urgency on his face. I tried hard to nod to him in agreement and said, "Yes Mr. Walter, I know she called. And she is already here today! Waiting for you in the hall! Ah she'll be so happy to see you! Lets walk back, she has been waiting for you for so long." He went merry in a circle with his hands flung up in pleasure and a smile covering the whole of his wrinkled face!

Mr. Walter had been a successful man in his life. A furniture business that spread to nearby towns, a magnificient two storey house with a small garden in the frontyard, a lovely wife whom he had loved more than half his life, and the most beautiful daughter in the world whom he had married off to a young lad from the neighbour town. His life couldn't be more satisfying. But god is a selfish being. He takes away good people for himself. He killed Mr. Walter's daughter. She was hit to mortality in a car accident while with her husband. They were to take her pregnancy report from the hospital. The reports had been positive.

Constraint is possibly the greatest virtue in life. And Mr. Walter was a victim of the lack of it. Time had made him an old man with a weak heart, and the detailed phone call from his daughter's husband proved fatal to his weak pulses. This jolt sucked all sanity out of Mr. Walter. He fell on the floor and went unconscious.

Sleeping on the soft white bed of his hospital ward, he looked perfectly healthy, and his face so resolved of all worries, devoid of any thought or complication. Three days later he was shifted here, among other inmates, who all shared the common trait. He had been declared insane.

We walked together, me and Mr. Walter, towards the compound, where no one was waiting for him, not his daughter, not anyone else. But it wouldn't matter. Before even reaching the compound, he would forget every second of the day that had passed.

These were not mad people, Mr. Walters and everyone. They were just living somewhere else, somewhere inside their minds, far away from the world outside.

And I make sense of them.

m going to patel




here i come