December 31^st was very angry.

It woke up everyone rudely on its morning, gnashing its teeth, in the wounded hope that someone will give it the due respect it deserves. After all, it believed it was as inclusive and as full-blooded as any other day. Sadly, the only thing that everyone looked forward to on the morning of December 31st was to celebrate its end.

View from the sidewalk

By the time you were born, much had already been decided – The names of places. The colour of things. The names of colours. (Why is red called red and not ‘pefit’?) The twenty six letters. And their symbols. The seven musical notes. And their sounds. The Charter, The Constitution, The Act and The Law. The code of ethics. The rules of grammar. The grammar of love. The figures of speech. The metaphors of life. The aesthetics of realism. That E is equal to mc². The demand and supply theory. The indifference curve. Things that are good for us. Things that are bad for them. The capital of Denmark. History. Pronunciation. Little-known worldviews…

The answers to the big questions.

You arrived in a perfectly baked world. And then as you grew up, you found out how imperfect it is, birthday by birthday, bruise by bruise, promotion by promotion. However, in this imperfection lies our redemption. It comes not from where we align ourselves, or the choices we make from among the universe of things that have been pre-decided for us. It comes from what we do with them.

What will you give the world?

A trail of words?
Sepia toned photographs?
A last name?
A book?
Or a song?
A path-breaking research paper?

Or maybe, the 27th letter of the alphabet?

Last Tango in Orbit

Meanwhile, Moonchild was trying to cup his ears with his hands to shut out a terrible, ghastly noise. A noise he was all too familiar with. There, in the suffocated air between his palms and eardrums, all the memories were trapped. But the noise was the queen of a planet called Obstinate. She found her way (she always does) through his fingers and entered the wormhole of his cochlea.

And then she danced. She tore the cement membranes of his ear apart with her graceful pirouettes. She mangled the remaining vestibule in seconds with her acidic choreography. He felt a dark pain. Darker than the colour of Infinity’s eyes. But he didn’t move a muscle. He stood still and waited for her to finish her dance. And finish, she did. After which she took a bow.

Now that he was clinically deaf, it was time for her to leave. She proceeded to find her way out through the wormhole, oblivious to the fact that a cosmic exit point was as unattainable as Contentment.

The noise got stuck in the throat of the wormhole. And has been stuck there ever since. Sometimes, on certain viscous days, she tries to get up and dance again in the hope of finding a shortcut to the opposite side of the universe.

On those days, the cosmos reverberates endlessly.

Sunshine City

Pune, The Protagonist. Pune, The Paradox.

Turn Pune upside down and shake it hard. The part of the city to fall off first would be its swanky new malls and its recently baptized monuments of commercial enterprise – their glue's still wet. Next in line would be the multitude of students who converged in the city not too long ago with pockets full of hope, in search of that elusive degree and some fresh air. They will be followed in their free fall by the jaded Pune-ite. The one who was born there, went to school, fell in love, took up a job, quit, re-married, had children, opened a restaurant, got a club membership, burnt down a library, changed his name, bought another car and perhaps inaugurated yet another housing society.

Keep shaking.

Gravity’s next prey would be the ones who don’t belong in Pune. (Don’t belong to Pune?) The ones who’re there simply because there was nowhere else to go. For whom Pune’s not home, but a refuge. For whom, Pune’s not a city but a job. Pune, The Profession. And yet, somehow, the city seems to need them more than they need it.

And finally, spiralling downwards reluctantly would be a million hearts. Abandoned by the bodies that once assumed them. Rhombic hearts. Oblong hearts. Hearts of those who might have been to Pune only once. Hearts discarded by those who loved Pune once. Hearts with Pune-withdrawal-symptoms. Longing hearts. Bleeding hearts.

And while you're at it, do shake it one last time. Let me know if you see a handkerchief soiled with cheese and bread crumbs falling to the floor.

Art of Living?

Yes.

Are you sure it’ll work?

Absolutely. Let’s start. Breathe in.

*Sniff*

No. Take a deep breath.

How deep?

Deeper than Thought. Breathe in your whole world.

Are you sure it’ll work?

Absolutely. On the count of three, breathe in. 1…2…

My whole world?

Yes…1…2…

But I’d suffocate.

No you won’t. Do you trust me?

I don’t know. Could we do this tomorrow?

We? WE are not going to do this. YOU are.

Alright. I’ll do it.

Be careful. 1…2…3…Breathe in.

*Inhale*

Good. Now, breathe out. How do you feel?

I feel like going home.

Which one?

The one with tin walls.

Interesting. See, it’s already working.

What’s working?

The Art of Living.

Can we cut the proprietary crap out please?

Alright. Let’s switch to Yoga. Close your eyes and…

I’m serious.

I’m sorry. But I’m only trying to help.

What do I do?

When nothing works, just ask yourself.

But isn't that exactly what I'm doing?

I was walking down the road and bumped into a phrase.
It was called ‘Stuck in Time’.
We shook hands.
Before I could say anything, it turned 12.

Red coloured day

Sundays are different. You know it’s Sunday even before you wake up. Unlike other days, you can feel Sundays on your skin. Even before you squint at the watch to check the number of hours by which you’ve overslept.

A steaming cup of ginger tea. A window. A lone palm tree. Savouring them all. My mind is devoured by reckless thoughts. Sunday morning thoughts.

Breakfast at a filmmaker’s home. He talks passionately about his desire to portray the post-coital Indian film Heroine. Also tries to explain the difference between ‘exceptional’ and ‘present day writing’. His gooseflesh speaks louder than his voice. All this, over a spread of old-world hospitality.

Empty minutes spent in an auto with a colleague. The roads are near empty. I see a blue VW Bug. It makes my day. I travel from the West to the East, but remain geographically numb.

All the shops are shut. Even the ones that don’t sell anything. Except the malls and the fast food joints. What a waste.

Chatting with an old friend. Remembering the old times. Ignoring the Change. Discussing an old school project we once did together. Chromatography? Yeah, something like that. School was good. Science is better.

The Sunday newspapers. Sprawled in front of me seductively. I ignore them. I clean up instead. How could I?

I’ve encountered Sundays of the lazy variety before. I’ve also lived through Sundays of the 48-hour variety and the hung-over variety. But this Sunday was none of those ones.

And something tells me they felt it too. Each one of them. The smiling auto rickshaw driver. The cashier at the Mall. My school friend. My colleague. Neil Diamond. The filmmaker. The guy behind the fast food counter. And the driver of the Beetle.