Divine Creepy Apples

As he drove along the long and weary road, chequered by the street light lit patches, he thought about her. Tree after tree passed him by. So did formless shrubs, encased in earthen pots and lying on the median. Ensnared by the never-ending streak of white paint on the road, he wondered where would she be at that hour of the night. What exactly would she be doing? Probably she was sound asleep, with her face still possessed by that all-knowing look on the face. The look would be the strongest remnant of her awake self. He wondered if she’s tucked in a cozy quilt, oblivious of the kittens biding time outside. Biding time till they wake her up early morning with their incessant cry for attention. He wondered if he was traveling closer to her with every tree he passed on the road. Maybe the trees were pillars of space and time, being vanquished along the journey to hills.

As the car drove up a flyover, he envisioned the flyover magically transporting him through a sheet of mist to the lush green hills. A diabolical acquaintance appears! Reality, the self-righteous watchdog, dispels the mist with no trace of any remorse.

As he dreamily stood in an unkempt elevator, watching the red diodes change pattern in the lift display, his thoughts drifted to the staircase that led to her apartment. He imagined her trudging along the staircase, breathless from the excursion. She stops and turns around, searching for a leopard to kick.

Pot of Gold

"The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of."

- WS

Marco Guptaji

She believed that even the slightest twitch in his body was a result of  intricate motion of countless gears and wheels. His fabrication was perfectly aligned with and governed by facts and undeniable logic. The robot could not feel. He could not emote. He could not express. He fed off his lack of emotions. It was the source of his strength and the root of his downfall.

After meticulous analysis he concluded that the butterfly gathered all her might to stay  unfettered every day of her life. Flapping  her radiant glistening wings, she would take the course set by the winds, no matter where, no matter how unpredictable. Maybe that's why even her creators couldn't identify a sequence or pattern for the course of her flight. If she had her way, she would cover all flora that existed. Sadly, she could not see that her zeal often converted into impetuosity.

The two spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if they were alike. Both thought one's basic structure antithetical to the other's. One not restrained by any boundary, the other devoid of all emotions.

On that fateful day, the robot helplessly saw the butterfly fly away in the subway along an atypically methodical path, as a teardrop rolled by his cheek. Years later, as if in a long-forgotten dream, they would realise that the two were more alike than they ever imagined.

She Thinks Not

Quite often in my life have I, like most emotional beings, felt the euphoria arising from discovery of one’s true soulmate. Subsequently, and almost as often, have I also been utterly crestfallen and forlorn, for reasons that are not difficult to fathom. I think I’ve finally found her. She thinks I’ve not.

This turmoil of emotions is not easy on the good ol’ blood-pumper. The good ol’ basket-of-grey-matter decides to take matters into its own hands (unintended pun alert). The good ol’ basket-of-grey-matter fails to apprehend the onslaught of depressant hormones and a general lack of blood supply from the good ol’ blood pumper. I give up on both of the good ol’ mates and decide to indulge myself with some imaginary violence.

A typical bout of imaginary violence has the same effect as this sequence of events:

1. Break a few ceramic plates and glass …. well, glasses.
2. Scream aloud and do some hair pulling
3. Decide that I don’t give a four-letter f-word
4. Suddenly realize that I am still left with a few four-letter f-words to give
5. Repeat steps 1 to 4
6. Decide to jump off from the fifth floor of a building. Realize that my twisted ankle (or sore joint …. you get the gist) would hurt severely moments before my ultimate demise. Decide to not jump off. Repeat steps 1 to 5
7. Try to convince myself that true happiness lies within. Search for true happiness lurking in some deep corner within. Get acquainted with what truly lies within : forlornness. Exchange pleasantries and all. Leave the rendezvous after many awkward silent moments later. Feel more depressed. Repeat steps 1 to 5
8. Try my hand at poetry. Stop trying my hand at poetry. Try my hand at prose.

2011

On a warm February afternoon in Bangalore, as I retrospect on the year that just went by, a realization surges within me. I realize that I do have the aptitude to perform a more constructive and demanding task than just dawdle. At the same time, I remind myself that dawdling is so very convenient. It’s not very difficult to fathom which of the preceding propositions wins (by a landslide margin, by the way). So, in the true spirit of dawdling and after invoking the true gods of dawdling (*ahem* HR people *ahem*), I dawdle.

2011 Keywords:

Promotion

Anwar’s knot

Ligament Tear (cast on the right leg)

25

Seefay

Deviated septum surgery

Zeroeth Keys

DL6CC2690 (green)

Kaju big-bro’s knot

Jai & Juliet (Bangalore) / Desires Unlimited

Kiran Chaturvedi / KC / Felix

Iris – Butt – Honey

Are-you-sure’s knot

Club club

Tennis elbow

Peace out, man.

After a long hiatus, finally a nightmare-free sleep.

The MOST Intelligent Person on (at least) Earth

Over the last three years of my stay in Bangalore, I have come to realize that I am a highly intelligent and potent sample of the species Homo sapiens. This is the only logical explanation to what has been bugging me all this time; Phlegm.

My nose has been exuding huge dollops of phlegm continuously for the last seven days. This has been a recurrent event throughout my life, sometimes occurring randomly and mostly when I’m trying to impress a girl.

It obscures the clarity and coherence of my thoughts, just the thing a rival country or species from another planet would have wanted. Otherwise, owing to my intelligence and potency, I would have solved all of the problems of humanity. So, phlegm was planted in my body to prevent me from using my intelligence to its fullest – a perfectly reasonable and mostly logical conclusion.

Given below are my phlegm’s properties:

• It’s huge. It grows and occurs in huge dollops.

• It’s not tasteless. It tastes awful.

• It is not odourless. It smells awful.

• It’s not colourless. It’s coloured awful. If there can ever be a general consensus on an awful colour, the awful colour would be the colour of my phlegm.

• It’s thick.

• It’s very thick.

• It’s mind-bogglingly very thick.

• It’s stubborn.

• It’s very stubborn.

• It’s not mind-bogglingly very stubborn, though. It could, however, pass as mind-bogglingly stubborn.

• It has no evaporating point. It does not evaporate. It stays. Forever.

• It’s highly viscous. It could stay put and party in my nose and breathing tract forever sans my body’s efforts to dispel it. Maybe it plays cards all this while in my breathing tract, or does something else to while away all the time (like composing songs for the Indian Coke Studio or drafting US economic policy).

• It self-replicates/reproduces vigorously in my body. Research is underway to replace guinea pigs with my phlegm.

• It was rumoured that Iraq was studying my phlegm to create biological weapons.

• It’s a lot like love. It make one breathless. It makes one stammer. It seems to attempt to fill every void/pore/empty-tract of my body. One can get it from another.

• It’s very irritating. If irritation could be condensed into tangible matter, phlegm would be the result.

• It’s absolutely useless. For example, it can not produce electricity. Otherwise, I could have used myself to charge my laptop. In the process, I would have saved a tree or two, much to Rajendra Pachauri’s delight.

• It’s an obnoxious little twit, much like the HR folks.

• Finally, and oh-so-frustratingly, it’s inescapable. Again, much like the HR folks.

Eff You Phlegm. May you rot in Splitsvilla, or a Paris Hilton's leaked video. Forever.