Relativity

It all boils down to choice... Choice, and causality.

You have a choice, you make a decision. The decision is a cause, which leads to a certain effect. Now having taken that decision, it is no right of yours to crib about the effects of those decision.

And when you have a shot at redemption, you want to take it. But the cost of redemption is a blow to your ego. The cost of redemption is the admission that your choice was wrong, you are the cause of the effect that is hurting you. But then, the ego is big. No, it is huge, it is monster sized. So it does not let you accept that you were wrong, that you could have been wrong, that you were the one at fault. So you lose the chance to redeem the things that you pine for, or at least you say you pine for.

It is all relative. The feeling of enjoyment you had when you made the choice was relative, and so is the feeling of sadness you experience now. The fullness then was relative, and so is the emptiness now. The ego you have to assuage is relative, and so are the relationships or lack thereof.

After all, Einstein was not too far from the truth at the time when asked to explain relativity in a layman's words he said, " In the company of a beautiful woman an hour seems like eternity while when next to a furnace and nothing else, an hour seems like eternity."

Politics

It was my last day of this posting in the city beautiful- Chandigarh.

Now, the times were turbulent would be one of the bigger understatements this side of the Big Bang. When a close friend has stabbed you in the back, having some other good friends helps.

It was one such friend, someone who shall henceforth be known as K, who is a central figure in this narrative.

So, K calls me in the evening and asks me what I am doing in the evening. Now a call by a young woman asking my for my engagement inthe evening would be an event in itself, but it was no ordinary woman. It was K. And so it was not a young lady, it was a good friend. And hence I told her that I was tired after all the packing and running around and just wanted to hit the sack early. K being K, told me, "Nothing doing. You're coming with me to watch a movie tonight."

Such being her authority, at sharp 8:15 pm I was standing outside her door with my wellbeloved Thunerbird (not to be confused with the other Wellbeloved, the Geaorge Cyril W. of Wodehouse infamy). She comes out with her helmet and we head across to the PVR located close by.

We watch the movie, and come out at 12ish in the night. By this time, it was pouring cats and dogs. I asked her whether she wanted to go back in the rain or wait till the fury of the rain god reduced. She was game for going back in the rain, and I for one do not mind a bit of a splash at any time. So off we went towards the base.

A red light short of base, I had an idea.

"K, wanna take a ride in the rain?"

"Sure!"

And then we went off. Rode around 40 km. Went at a speed of 100 in blinding rain on the wrong side of the road. Deliberately crossed puddles of water. And laughed our guts out. Decided to have tea. Had tea and sutta by the roadside next to the bus stand. And came back.

Next day, I left Chandigarh. Now that I look back on the two years that I spent there, that is one of the first things that comes to my mind...

PS: K, I know you wont read trash like this. But you were, and still are, as good a friend as anyone can hope for. A toast to you.

Barsaat Ki Baat

There was this guy in Delhi, who was there for a couple of months... Being in a city of large distances and maddening traffic, he had brought with him his first love- his Royal Enfield Thunderbird.

Now he had quite a bit of time spare from work, his work finishing at 11 am everyday. So her decided he would catch up with all his friends in Delhi. And that he did. In the process there was this one girl who became a real close friend of his.

Now this friend had to go to Mumbai one fine Friday evening, to spend some time with her (oh so lucky) boyfriend. And she wanted someone to drop her off at the airport, as she was not too willing to trust a Delhi autowallah (which I take as a personal insult, considering that I am also a part of the three wheeler driver fraternity). So she asked this guy to pick her up from her hostel and drop her off at the airport. Our guy was only too happy to oblige.

So he reached the hostel, right on time.And what was he welcomed with?? Pouring rain. The heavens had opened up, to check the resolve of both the guy and the bike. And it being a Girls' Hostel, he could not go inside to take shelter either. No other shelter around. So he waited, and got soaked to all 206 odd bones in his body. And the girl got stuck in a traffic jam, caused by the same oh-so-welcome September rain of Delhi. So he had to wait some more.

Finally the girl arrives. On the cue, the rain lets up. And they promptly set course for the airport.

Enroute, something happens which is the only reason for this entire blog post.

The guy stops the bike at a petrol pump to fill some gas. The guy was about to take out his wallet when the girl pipes up, "You're going to drop me off, so I'll pay."

Now the guy did not like this, and told the girl as much. And years have passed, and cusecs of water has flown by in hardly moving Yamuna of Delhi, but still the girl does not know why the guy did not like her offer... Any views and/or explanations??

No Peace, Only War

"Saab, ye post clear hai... "
Ah, finally... He thought he was dying.. He would beat the kaafirs, for one last time.. He would not get caught... The blissful darkness enveloping him...

There was a mass of iron weighing heavy on his head. On his head, or in it? The effort to deduce this was too much, and he passed off again...

He did not want light. It blinded him, it made him want to tear his own eyes off... But the kaafirs, they made him look directly into the glare of sunshine magnified by the snow capped mountains and valleys. He was surprised, though... They were treating him well.. Actually, well treating was a relative term.. Getting two square meals a day, fifteen thousand feet above the sea level on a glacier was as good as he could hope to get..

The  destruction at their camp had been total. Even in the pitch dark of the night, the enemy fighters had decimated their posts to rubble. He had overheard that there had been only four prisoners captured alive, rest all were dead. And today, the doc was supposed to check him and report on his progress to the kaafirs...

"He is fit enough to be interrogated. But if you want him alive, do not push him too hard.. You would not want a repeat of the other case, I guess... You were a bit too brutal with him, I thought" The doc was telling the young captain. Bastard, he thought. A 25 odd year old guy, holding absolute power over him.

"What is your name, rank and unit?"
"Company Havildar Major Rahim Khan, 7Infantry Division."

"Ali saab, ye bhi 7 Div ka hi hai. Is ko custody mein bhej do."

One of his own working with the kaafirs? Was it a Godsent signal to try and escape? He could see the hills of his homeland in the not too distant landscape!!

"Ali saheb, aap mujhe qaid mein daalne ja rahe hain."
"Shh.. Dheere bolo."

He was being directed away from the camp. The ravine over there, it would be ideal for his escape. He could not believe his luck!!

Now they were at the edge of the ravine.. He could feel the shackles being removed from his hands behind his back...

"Go!"

He needed no second invite.. He was off into the ravine before the word reached his ears..

"Rahim Khan!"

He turned back startled. Ali had his AK 47 lined up. He did not hear the sound, he felt the pain first... A pain, and a queer warmth spreading over his chest...

"Ali saab, wo naye PoW ko bhi usi ravine mein hi daala hai?"

"Haan sirji"

"Theek hai. After all, no point carrying extra baggage. The bugger even when unconscious was mumbling about Geneva!!"



PS: I know this is a poor effort for the second half of the story, but am just not able to express the thoughts.. All apologies..

War and Peace

War, in the words of General William T Sherman, is hell. He knew that. In fact, he knew that even training for war is hell. But what hell is, what war really is, was beyond his worst imagination.

All of a sudden, a smile came onto his lips. A wry smile, emanating from the conflict of thoughts as to whether or not he will have plenty of time to think it over and philosophise about war. For he knew he was about to be taken as a prisoner of war. His post had been destroyed in the enemy shelling and he was one of the only two men left alive. Two out of a merry company of twenty eight young men!! The Lieutenant was not the best of leaders, but he was still an ok chap... May his soul rest in peace... The only other person alive was the signaller, and he would have been better dead. A radio antenna is not likely to be much comfort to a signaller if the antenna tip is securely lodged in the operator's abdomen, or so he felt... Not that there was anything of the radio left...

And he could see the kaafirs advancing now.. They were treading cautiously, not knowing the extent of damage inflicted on his post. Cowards!! But how would they treat him? A royal welcome was unlikely, he thought and smiled again. He had heard stories of torture and abuse of prisoners of war. Hell, he had himself tortured a pilot who had had to eject from his MiG 21 and had landed in their area. At that time it had seemed fun...

The thought of torture was starting to take root in his mind. Initially he tried to think brave. Let them do whatever, I will not say a word. The only things I will tell is my name, rank and unit. If they try to torture me, I will take the name of Geneva Convention. Hell, how many times did we honour it??

One of the enemy was nearing him now. He thought of committing suicide, but he would require the use of his hands for that... And he did not have those, at least not what he could use...

(to be continued...)

La Belle et la Bête

A Halloween night was not the best of times to give up the familiar confines of Hard Rock Cafe and end up venturing to some upstart lounge bar called Enter The Dragon in Koregaon Park, he decided over a sip of Jack Daniels. Of course, the fact that Celine Deon was trying to be haunting while singing 'Beauty and the Beast' might have had something to do with it. But in his heart he knew he would have enjoyed it, had he been with Pragya.
He kept thinking of their times together. Those knotted fingers, not ready to leave each others' comfort even when an upright septuagenarian of the society would clear his throat loudly every time he passed by on his evening walk. Those stolen kisses, that seemed to start for a moment and lingered on forever.. It was kind of funny thinking of those times in this environment- the romantic images providing a stark contrast in his mind to the visual inputs he was receiving at the moment, surrounded by devils, vampires, death eaters and what not!!
"Pragya!" He called out as a silken touch on the back of his neck brought him out of his trance like state.
"Oops! I am so sorry" This was a woman in a black, off shoulder gown who was dressed up as a vampire.
"It's ok" He muttered as she floated away towards the bar.
This girl was interesting, he thought. She was not really a mirror cracking beauty, though she had an exquisiteness in features few others could have hoped to match. Her cheekbones were the defining feature of her face, or were they? The blue of her eyes stood out in contrast to her fair to a fault complexion. But there was something that struck a jarring note. Her face seemed pale, almost chalk white. But what was the point thinking about her, and he returned to his drink.
"Would you mind terribly if I shared the table with you?" Again the same girl. "There is no table which is vacant, and since you seem to be alone....." She trailed off.
"It would be a pleasure" He somehow stammered.
Now that he had an opportunity to study her, he tried to take her details in without ending up ogling at her. His attention was drawn to the ring on the middle finger of her left hand. The ring was made of silver, perhaps. But it was not the material which fascinated him. He was hooked up by the design on the ring. It was small, yet intricately carved. It could not have been a demonic beast, could it??
"Umm... I am Bella" She was saying.
"Oh! Hi, I am Rehan."
"So you are not really deaf. I have told you my name four times in the last ten minutes..."
How did I end up in this place, he was thinking. As he lay between the sheets after a night of passion, their bodies pressing together, he could really not recollect what led to what and they ended up at her place. What he did recollect, though, was an array of figurines of beasts of all kinds of ferocity in the hall, in the living room and here in the bedroom too..
Now, she was asleep, and he could study her at length. But still, he was fascinated by the beauty of the ring... He took her palm in his hands. It seemed so delicate, so... fragile. He looked at the ring, and the beast in the ring seemed to be looking back at him... It gave him an awkward feeling. Pragya's face flashed in his mind. But he willed those thoughts away.
The ring seemed to glide down her finger as he tried to take it off. She seemed to be waking up. On an impulse, he decided to put it on, knowing it would never fit him. Why, his little finger would be larger than Bella's thumb! But the ring fit, snug!
Bella turned towards him, and gave him a kiss on the forehead. Strangely, the kiss seemed to leave a cold sensation. He tried to speak, but could not.
"Rehan. That is your name, right? I think you would fit well on my R shelf. As such, there are only three of them there."
He could not move, he could not say anything. He seemed to be losing all his senses.
"Thanks a lot for one more year of youth, sweetheart. And you were not too bad in the bed, either!"

Blah

Start writing about something. Stop inbetween. Give it up...

Story of last one week!!

Rants, and Happiness

It was the Halloween party last night.. Something that could get me excited, even after having spent 10 hours in the office on a Saturday!!

So, I called up all the 'friends' around and decided we will leave at 10-ish. And at 9:55 sharp, I was ready. But all the others were busy. Watching movies. Different movies, on DVDs. And after trying to persuade them to pause the movies and go for the party and failing, at 10:30 I decided I did not want to go to the party, after all. I know I was acting spoilt but my grudge was against the others taking their word, and my time, so lightly. Finally I was dragged along to the party at around 12.

Well, I went there. And boozed. And sat morosely in a corner. And finally came back with the last of our guys, at around 5 in the morning. And then, before I went off to sleep, I found happiness...

The God of Small Things

Of late, there has been quite a furore over the remarks of a cerebrally challenged intellectual (of course all intellectuals are cerebrally challenged) regarding India, Kashmir and human rights. So as a thorough believer in making my views heard even when no one else might want to hear them, I decided to speak my mind out here. Or should it be type my mind out here? Well, whatever... I am not an intellectual so I do not bother...

So, Ms Roy says that India has become a colonising power after 1947. Kashmir has never been an part of India. India is trying to take over oppressed people and is blatantly suppressiing their human rights.

People decry her remarks, and call for her to be tried for high treason!! Come on people, have some sense.. The not-so-poor lady is speaking nothing but the truth.

After all, Kashmir has always known to be the oldest democracy on the planet. Come to think of it, it has also been the oldest monarchy, plutocracy, theocracy and idiosyncrasy on earth. In fact, Ms Roy may be trusted to soon call it the only real hypocrisy on earth too... After all, Rahel and Estha do need some history lessons and where else can they get them if not Kashmir?

India is of course suppressing the human rights of the oppressed people. If an oppressed child wants to throw a few stones on a public property, who in the right frame of mind would even think of stopping him? Kids should have their share of fun and frolic, after all. And a guy setting off a bomb or two is a perfectly normal thing to do for a teenager. Come on, don't tell me you have not done it umpteen times in your heydays... And if a few people pick up some guns and shoot a few bullets in air, what is wrong in that? Did I hear someone asking about accountability for the death of innocent people by those shots? Come on, if someone deliberately tries to compete with Rajinikanth and comes in the way of a perfectly harmless innocent bullet, then that blot on the face of the earth deserves to die. You would not call such an idiot an innocent victim, would you?? And killing security forces is of course the favourite means of passing time out here. You would definitely agree with her on this. And when a friendly neighbour is paying for the toys as well as the players too, it is even more fun..

I am sure I have convinced you all about the strength of truth in the two statements expounded above. The third statement, if my memory serves me right, is that India has become a colonising power post 1947. Now this one was below the usual astute standards of Ms Roy. After all, India has always been a colonising power. Do not believe me?? Ask Timur the lame, Mahmud Ghaznavi, Genghis Khan, the Mughals, the British... The list is endless.. So many people have been pounded into submission by the war machinery of India ever since times immemorial that it is not even worth explaining.. And post independence, India took over an independent Bangladesh and colonised it into Eastern Pakistan. We took over a part of the independent Karhmir and converted it into PoK. Hell, we even took over the Aksai Chin and gave it to China to administer and lay railways there, so that Mamta Di gets some competition..

It is my sincere advice to all those villains who have nothing but ill wishes for India to look up to Ms Roy and learn something from her. It is intellectuals like her who will lead India into an era where we will be the most intellectually progressive (and at the cost of repetition, cerebrally challenged) nation on earth...

Let us all drink a toast to The God of Small Things...

Nirvana

I am no Gautama Buddha. I am not even similar to him one bit.

No, I know none of my friends, well wishers or not so well wishers think so. But why I proclaimed my dissimilarity so publicly was because of a train of thought.

Now, as we all know (or believe without knowing), Buddha attained enlightenment sitting beneath a Peepal tree. That I regularly attain enlightenment would give me some degree of similarity to the aforementioned prophet, but for the fact that my enlightenment generally follows a few stiff drinks sitting in the bar, and I am not sure that the one named above (Buddha, not the Peepal tree) would give me a pat on the back for the bar part.

Anyways, coming to the point, I am no Buddha because unlike him, my preferred place for thinking is not beneath a Peepal tree (hey environment guys, see how green I am being in this post) but on top of a toilet seat.

When you are sitting on that most hallowed of places in your home, you feel a sense of ethereal calm. You dissociate yourself from all the shit in the world, and find yourself to be completely clean both within and without. A sense of bliss envelopes you and makes all distractions go away, and lets you into almost a trance. It is in this state that your mind is at its clearest best. Logic strikes you like a flash of lightning every millisecond, and your brain works faster than that of Chacha Chaudhary (blasphemous though it may sound). And of course, not a soul in the world to disturb you. I doubt even Menaka or Rambha would have dared to break the tapasya of Vishvamitra, had he been meditating in this sanctum sanctorum. Not to mention the fact that he could have shaved off a few thousand years from the tapasya, purely because of the tranquility and calm it provides.

And of course, last but not the least, the toilet seat is what introduced me to blogging, and made me meet on of my mostest bestest friends ever... Many more toilet seats to you, Cha...

Yet Another Start...

I had given up this space... For good.. And I cannot say that I was not justified in giving it up. For there were so many connections inherent in int, which had become painful wounds searing right down a troubled soul...

But then, sitting aimlessly I realised today that I was giving up a part of my identity by giving up this blog. So back I am. And to those for whom I had given this space up, well they can GFaD.

Knowing me, I do not think I will be too active at this place. But I will try to. I will definitely make a genuine attempt. Let us see how this umpteenth attempt pans out...

Godspeed to me...