Monotony, a world order

Every evening I look out of my balcony at the creamish-white moon on the backdrop of a deep blue sky. It is surreal; for an instance, life seems almost perfect.

Then I hear a drone in the kitchen. I snap out, as if from a trance. What I thought was the moon is actually a tube-light from a top floor apartment. Reality comes back into focus, complete with concrete walls and high rises, routine schedules and to-do lists.

Over the years, I have learnt that life is just like that illusory moonlight out there, full of quixotic moments and banal realities.

There are those flashes of pure bliss, those seconds when I feel on top of the world. Like when a kind old lady in a car offers to drop me at the taxi stand ‘cos it is pouring like mad, when people I have long lost contact with ping me on GTalk to say that my latest post struck a chord with them, when a group of friends decide to surprise me with a birthday gift I would never have been able to imagine, when my many-day yearning to catch Haji Ali at sunrise is finally fulfilled.

The here and the now, the quintessential elements of my existence just then make me ask, “What if time was to freeze at those moments? What if I could stay with those moments eternally?”

However, the mundane takes over the fantastic, for that is the world order. There are rains and flooded roads. There are days of unexplainable and self-inflicted loneliness, days of never-ending work and piled up responsibilities. There are choice-less times with only one way to take, the tried and tested one way.

Sometimes, I wonder whether it is too much to ask for more than my fair share of stay in seventh heaven, whether moments of serendipity could be stretched into hours, perhaps days, perhaps years. But, then, it would not be serendipity any more. That is why fate doles it out in small doses, like single shots of chocolate every fortnight, not enough to satiate the longing, just enough to crave for more.

A childhood long forgotten

He was 15. I was 10 then. He introduced me to Scrabble, like how he had introduced me to Moneyply and Ludo and Bingo before that.

Those were days when computers still ran on DoS, STD / ISD calls cost a bomb and post offices were stretched beyond capacity. I was an egoistic verbose writer, he was a pathetic correspondent. Letters were not us, neither were postcards. We were not in need of them. He and I, we met once a year, sometimes once in two years, for a brief 10 day period. Our board game was our bond, far stronger than emails and Gchats and Blackberry connectivity.

He was the rules analyst, the Moneyply banker, the game administrator, always. I was just the player, always. I trusted him blindly; his judgment was the last word, his rule the rule of God. He was just.

He knew that I was no sport, that I would refuse to play further if I did not win. He never lost for my sake. He was unwaveringly just. He would coax, tease and force me back to the game, very justly, as was his wont. I would make a jig when I won. He would look on unperturbed, sometimes a tad amused too, as if he was 60 and had seen it all in life.

We were not major TV watchers, he and I. There was nothing much to watch on TV those days. We would hit the Moneyply board at 9 in the morning and be at it for as long as 12 hours at times. Sometimes, my parents would have to literally tear us away from the board to take us to the beach. We would play with the sand, collect sea shells, and eat ice cream. But, we would come back to our board like we had never been away. We would pass through Texas and Dallas and JFK Airport and Boston. We would buy and construct and mortgage and sell. He would keep track of all of it. He was a spectacle-wearing nerd, the kind who should have grown to become a banker in real life.

We would make up words in Scrabble, fair and square. One for him, one for me; one more for him, one more for me. He would note down the scores on paper, doing the additions and subtractions. We would play again and again and again, till we had no more rough paper to note scores on.

He and I, we never made small talk. He was 15, I was 10. We had no reason to make small talk. He would have a book in hand sometimes, a huge academic one. He would read his, I would read mine. And, then we would take a break to read a non-academic one each. He and I, we were not major outdoor players. Perhaps, he thought I would not be interested in outdoor games. I was not. Sometimes, we would play ‘Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta’. I do not remember now what it was. Just that it was played outdoors.

He and I stopped playing board games a decade back. He was 20, I was 15. We had grown up. Perhaps, we had better things to do. I don’t know.

I was playing online Scrabble with a friend last week. I missed him. He is 30, I am 25. The Scrabble sleeps peacefully at home, maybe it misses him and me.

He and I, we never celebrated it. Not when he was 15, not when he was 20, not when he was 25 either. Maybe, in his 30th year, it is time to tell him, “Happy Rakhi dear V :)” A tad too early, so you would say. However, it is a tad too late, I would say. 25 years late in wishing him a very happy Rakhi and a beautiful life ahead.

Desi mentalities

My passport has not seen day light since time immemorial. Oh, well, except on those rare occasions when my myriads of identity proofs fail to prove that I share my face with the one in the photograph. In other words, it has been ages since I set foot upon a foreign land, even the near shore likes of Nepal and Sri Lanka. Before I go into a limbo state where I can revel in an endless dream of all those foreign locales showcased by Karan Johar, let me get to what I was trying to get to.

A few posts back, I had mentioned this term ‘desi mentalities’, coined by Denzil. In all fairness to the general public, considering I am the possessor of a brand new passport which has remained brand new for many years now, I should be the last person to comment on sticky topics like ‘desi mentalities’. However, since I had promised Denzil that I would write about it, I am just putting across a random set of things here, wondering which of these would make it to an actual ‘Chronicles of Desi Mentalities’.

Inputs from holders of no-more-brand-new passports welcome; rather, much in need.

Wait your turn
Long queues? Cutting through long queues? Cutting through long queues imagining them to consist of translucent objects (a la Nearly Headless Nick) with little regard for other queuees’ hands, feet etc.? Doing away with ‘em long queues by running a random sprinting algorithm?

A pack, a cram, solpa adjust maadi
Crowding into trains? Crowding into overcrowded trains? Crowding into overcrowded trains with heavily laden suitcases? Crowding into overcrowded trains with heavily laden suitcases and bestowing murderous glances on fellow crowdees for having occupied an INCH instead of an mm of space?

Dynamic optimization solutions
Hey, random woman out there! I don’t know you, you don’t know me. We are standing in the same queue. If we both bill this together, our combined bill amount of INR 3,000+ would fetch us two free make-over sessions at the make-shift spa out there. What say?

Masala nahi dogi toh life barbaad hogi*
Is Deepika Padukone coming along with the Mallya dude for today’s RCB vs MI match? Forget the match, but what has Octopus Paul got to say about it? Reminded of octopuses, predictions, swamijis, oh damn! I missed the Swami Nityananda video footage on news last night! I am all for ToI, news is represented in such an interesting manner, unlike this boring Hindu.

I convert, you convert, all happy, I unhappy
That dress costs USD 600. Oh my god (chuk chuk tak tak - mind calculator), that works out to INR 29,100. I would not buy something so expensive even for my own wedding (loud thud). Faints!

* Am not completely sure whether masala-attraction is a completely ‘desi’ phenomenon or just human by nature; have added it here primarily ‘cos this was the focal point of contention between Denzil and me.

The train

I sighed. 8 hours left, 8 long hours.

I was restless, excited and had absolutely no concentration on the BGS class (despite the CP* carrot). I had no worries in my mind, at least none that could not wait. The world was sunny, bright, blooming with the spring flowers and inviting in general. I was full of love even for my most detestable adversary, for, in my mind’s larger picture, the cause for such hatred was, at that point of time, as insignificant as having one button missing in an over-buttoned shirt.

As the hours trickled past, my excitement grew further. I had to explain to every single soul I met on the way back from the class to the mess the reason for my glee. Everyone seemed happy for me, or that is all I wanted to believe in.

In the next few hours, I packed and re-packed my bag several times. Did I pack the charger? Did I take my iPod? Does the ticket state the right date and time? Millions of such important (now innocuous) questions were running through my mind as I tried to keep it clear and concentrate on the clock instead. If at all there was any way I could, being the fighter I am, I would have willed the clock to hit 9 p.m. then and there. However, the art of waiting could be a beautiful thing too, I deluded myself into believing.

And, then, the magical hour arrived, when I could finally hail down the auto rickshaw and head towards the railway station. Had I known Eric Cartman then, I would have said, loud and clear, “Screw you guys, am going home.”

This was 4 years ago, when I was still new to the concept of being away from home. Having just then joined B school, I had grown home sick in less than 2 weeks, and in much rush, had booked tickets back home for the weekend.

As I look back at this incident today, I do not have answers to whether I acted overtly silly. Perhaps yes, perhaps all those people who seemed happy for me were actually making fun of my dimwitted behavior. Or, perhaps, it was very natural to actually want to feel like going home.

I tried searching for such a desire a few days back and found myself in want of the emotion. Then did I realize that I miss missing home. I can only hear logic such as ‘Home is where the heart is’, ‘That which has your people in it is home after all’ in my mind the minute I start thinking of home. Net result, I have no strong urge to go to that place I called home for more than a decade.

I am waiting, this time with no eyes on the clock, but with all eyes on my heart, for that train, which would urge me to take it back home and hoping that it would just be a very beautiful wait.

* CP - Class Participation, carrot - marks for participating in class