2S
Techie. Writer. Photographer.
Archive for fiction
March 28, 2008 at 7:10 pm · Filed under fiction
To begin with, the last few days for him have seen a few paradigm shifts, well-aligned with the numbness we associated earlier.
For as long as I can remember, he has been driven by enthusiasm, motivation, and a perpetual appetite to live life to the fullest. For the first time ever in his short life, he now sees himself losing these very things that govern the way he lives. People talk about him being wiser than his years because of skill or experience. Someone suggested the other day that he is a lot more responsible than he ought to be as a result of events that have happened in his life. All that accounts to, and amounts to absolutely nothing. The only thing that’s kept him going and perhaps will is one word: attitude. He lives to win and wins to live. He wants to be excited throughout the day and night about anything he does, and most importantly, he is a die-hard optimist who considers himself sensible enough to bring in pragmatism wherever necessary. For him, pessimism equates to fatality. Until the recent past where he - and this comes as a shock as he admits it here - has simply lost interest in the things that excited him the most from cursing the strays in Bangalore to gulping down coke to table tennis, geeky studies and - shudder - writing.
To say that it’s taken a hit on his relationships with people is an understatement. But incidents have happened, people have changed, and people have either distanced themselves too much or gotten too close for comfort that it’s made him look into the mirror every single day and made him question, ‘why are you not yourself anymore?’.
But today, he didn’t ask that question. Simply because he didn’t need to. He wasn’t being someone else anymore. This is how he is now, and it’s here to stick.
The guy has gotten nastier, a lot more rude. Shallower. He’s not erratic, yet there’s a sense of unpredictability that comes along with him. At times he gets so evil that he perhaps doesn’t realize the impact. There have been formal, written apologies on blogs from people as a result of his anger or wrath, as he remains oblivious to the power he commands and influence he has over his friends and foes. But these aren’t the scary things about him.
The scariest bit, about this particular individual who places himself as the ideal pivot, a bridge amongst people, is his willingness to let go of things he held dearly. For instance, the people he loves, his family, his friends, the girl he’s bonkers about, close friendships, close associations with events, communities, things that he insisted he did for the cause. He’s reached this stage where he gives it up effortlessly and easily, without a hint of hesitation or regret. It’s rendered him lonely, and the best part is, he loves the seclusion. There have been instances where people have tried their best to penetrate through his iron-carpet of silence or humor, and they’ve all failed. Humor is a powerful weapon, but a better shield - and his humor, like Scorcese would put it, was savage, one that came out of a great deal of pain. Those who tried too hard or nearly made it through - he ignored them entirely for an eternity. His harshest punishment is the unsaid, the unspoken, the unwritten.
No longer is he a team player, a knot of sorts. He prides himself on his newfound love - solitude. The intent for the causes will come back. The associations should. The friendships might. The love won’t. The damage is irreparable. The cavity caused, unfathomable. And the future? Unpredictable.
March 3, 2008 at 12:15 am · Filed under fiction
Like every other part of Pune after midnight, even a hyperactive Koregaon Park curls in to bed and goes silent as the clock ticks time off the night. The roads get less busier, there are fewer people and the only life that roams the area past midnight are the strays.
- - -
He walked out of the third lane, with his backpack, puffing at a few David-Offs to keep warm. Reduced to a zombie. Stretching his arm out, he stopped the first rickshaw that came towards him, got into it, and asked the driver to make a U-turn and keep driving. Putting the meter into action, the rick sped off in the other direction, straight on.
Inside the rickshaw, he took the weapon out, and started to sharpen it.
‘Kuthey?’
Nothing. The rickshawaala repeated his question a couple of times, but the passenger had no response at all. He was still sharpening the knife, the fatal metal-meets-metal sound that rung loud in the darkness. By then, the rickshaw driver had enough, and looked back at Sam. He was arguing and abusing frantically now, but there was still no reply.
The driver finally gave up, flipped the meter back to its original position, and as it read ‘For Hire’, jerked his thumb, gesturing for the passenger to leave. It was the end of the ride.
But the knife had gone in.
The ride had ended a lot earlier.
February 19, 2008 at 9:00 am · Filed under fiction
He wasn’t a romantic, roses were a no-no, he wouldn’t dance, and he couldn’t sing - yes, he could strum the guitar and even play Richard Marx all day on the keyboard - but he wasn’t the guy you’d see take center stage. Some said that he writes half-decent, some said that he’s a really neat blogger, and slowly - but surely - he started believing that yes, maybe he IS a neat blogger after all.
But yes, he loved her. Perhaps it’s only fitting that we quote his affection in past-tense. As a result of the events that followed, he went back to his most able shoulder of solitude, something he knew would never let him down. In fact, seclusion is a blessing so divine that even God has left it for Himself - apologies, but it must be awfully lonely up there all alone for you? - and maybe that’s a good thing.
Oops, lest we forget, He has the angels for company.
One of the plus points from such situations is how the heart responds, and as a result, how otherwise unwritten things would go up on blogs such as this. Not that it mattered to him. From day one, from his first lie and his first realization of the truth, he’d been maintaining this separate blog dedicated to her. A collection of random letters, stories and verses that painfully narrate every little feeling that ever stemmed for her.
While the world has been breaking its head to get into SEO and get their blogs listed right up there, he did the opposite. His feelings are private, in the sense, Google cannot index them. Yet, they’re there for the world to see. More importantly, for her to see.
It’s really what it is - a ‘blog’ - a web log - a log of all the incidents that happens, relevant to her and otherwise. It’s his personal diary she has perhaps been craving to read. But she’ll never get to see it, and when she will, he would’ve walked away too far.
Thing is, he’s already walking away. Hardnosed pragmatism seduces men, and empowers them with the ability to move on and out of a dark cavity.
Of course, this does mean that there is a change, not exactly the kinds that Obama’s preaching about, but a change nevertheless. He wouldn’t know if it’s constructive or drastic, simply because it’s difficult to fathom the extent of evolution from within the subject itself. He might have gotten tougher. What he did know was, he went silent. Mum. Zip.
Silence, as they all say, is golden. In that manner, it’s precious. Because silence leaves a lot unspoken, and it’s ironically the unspoken that stings the most, and hardest. But this isn’t just straightforward silence, no. He isn’t the kind of person who can keep quiet for too long. Which is precisely why he has the other blog where he can type away, a race of the fingers against the keys fuelled by desire. It keeps him ticking.
Besides going silent, he also went a bit numb, as the reluctance to react only shot up. In the past few months, joyous things have happened, so much so that, when someone asks him ‘how’s life’, the automatic response is ‘never been better’. Yet, he rarely punches the air in delight, or even intends it. He rarely exclaims his previous ‘yays’ and ‘wows’ and ‘cools’, resorting to the single, dry, unsympathetic, unapologetic and insensitive letter that murders chat conversations, ‘k’. It reflects his actual personality, and more importantly, the change, because here was a guy who couldn’t contain his joy previously. Now, it almost seems there’s no joy left.
It kind of scared him until he chanced upon a Kahlil Gibran quote yesterday, thanks to a helping hand, which summed it all up using real-estate as an example.
The deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Ah, there you go.
Credits:
A little cousin - for enlightening him on how much he’s changed.
FL aka AB - for the quote he had been searching for, who will either (a) curse him at the end of this post b) immediately regret that he shared the quote c) do both.
You-know-who - who’ll one day chance upon his blog when it’s too late for the both of them.
January 7, 2008 at 10:18 am · Filed under fiction
I’m bad at counting people. Either ways, I go by the ear. I could hear them screaming, a crowd of thirty or so, but there’s no way for me to tell. A healthy mix of men and women - it’s not every day that the opposite sex show up for a table tennis competition unless their boyfriends competed - but there were enough feline shrieks around to arrive at that assumption.
The finals. Nine points apiece. I was leading all throughout, but I didn’t middle my last backhand loop. A very light brush in the end, and I could hear the firm contact it made with Karan’s Gergely, decked in a pair of Srivers. I also heard the fatal sound of celluloid striking timber a foot away from me. Too far, and I’d given. We were now equal, and while I knew he was more skilled, it was Karan’s serve, and as a result, his only chance.
I figured I was whispering to myself, more out of comfort than inspiration. ‘Neutralize this serve, and you’re through’
Through the crowd and its hysteria, the commentator - a certain John Cummins whose mouth works overtime like a Korean at an engineering lab - is screaming his head off. Excited, the lad is, and I realized why - the crowd is almost entirely behind the opponent I’m up against. At twenty-four, Karan is halfway there, a nice blend of raw talent, sharpened with maturity and experience from over a decade into the game. He’s one of those frontline attack players that considers a defensive rally to be pure blasphemy. It does seem he’s gifted with a powerful wrist, because he doesn’t really scrape the ball that well on impact, but still manages to get a lot of heavy spin.
The crowd was still screaming, and I thought I’d have trouble taking the next serve until the umpire asked them to maintain silence. Almost as if someone turned the volume knob down, the crowd’s noise slowly faded into silence. Meanwhile, a drop of sweat formed at the side of the forehead, and before I could react, it quietly left me. I needed to keep up my energy, but right now I had only one thing on my mind. The serve.
It wasn’t a killer serve, a little backhand chop just short. I managed to flick it to his weaker backhand, and as a big loop followed I was forced to offer a dead bat to defend. Karan kept looping, but it was neither lethal nor placed well enough to trouble me, until he surprised me with a huge top-spinner to my backhand. I was caught on an awkward position, and in trying to negate the spin, picked a wrong angle to defend. The ball never made it to the other side.
Point nine. The crowd went crazy.
This was it. This was the serve I had to block. It’s nearly impossible to take Karan down in a long rally - he gets his topspins so effortlessly - and I had mentally decided I would attack the service. Premeditated. No merit, no respect. Just understand the trajectory and bang. Very, er, Sehwaglike.
While this raced through my mind, the crowd were all hush again, anticipating a big Karan serve. It came, it was one of those lethally quick ones, the sound of celluloid screaming through the air like a warrior about to plant the finishing blow. I got myself into position and pulled out my best backhand half-jerk. Never made contact, I missed, but during that half-second of half-fatality, I was all ears.
The ball never landed. Karan’s serve was long. A fault. Deuce. I never thought the crowd could go quieter, but it did, save for a few gasps of surprise.
I knew my sister would be there. Shefali was the only one on this planet who insisted that I could be a true champion. If years on the table gave me skill and talent, an hour of pep-talk with Shefali gave me the optimism and courage to go for my shots. And, most important of all, believe that I could really win. And here I was on the threshold. I found I was whispering to myself, yet again.
‘No rally. Third ball attack. Third ball attack. Third ball attack.’
Coach always suggested that, when confronted against a tougher opposition, play to your strengths and his weaknesses. My strength, of course, was the big killer serve I hadn’t yet unleashed. Karan’s weakness was his backhand. Not exactly rocket science, and without thinking twice, I crashed a quick service across the table. It was a lovely angle - Karan might have even stretched a bit to make the return, but it was an easy lob and his forehand was wide open. I waited for the ball to bounce, and when it was chest-high, I put my head down and swung my shoulders all the way.
I didn’t need the officiator’s acknowledgment. That smash went nowhere near Karan, and it pleased me in a sadistic manner. Championship point to me, and John had found his tongue again.
I had to close my eyes then, although that didn’t make any difference, really. Had extended my palm and the ball was already there, waiting to be lobbed for the serve, but I was plotting the next serve. I obviously wouldn’t repeat the killer one, too predictable. I spoke half of the plan to myself, and half in my mind, but it was all clear. A moderate attack. Won’t prolong the rally, but a moderate attack. I had to be careful, but not overcautious. Easy as it seems now, with the adrenaline pumping in the finals I was confused. My mind went blank, and I could only remember what a perfect batsman once famously said.
‘Forget about the match situation. Or the crowd. Or the opponent. Bring your mind to that mental state of purity, and play every ball to its merit. Take it as it comes.’
Quietly mumbling a word of gratitude for the Wall for his timely advice, I served. It wasn’t the best but I couldn’t risk missing a serve at this stage. Karan attacked - he must have had Australian blood in him, only an Aussie would counter-attack in its potential final moments - and I had to push myself back and block. Karan had gone wild - he pulled smash after smash, but focused more on power than placement. I managed to return them with ease, until Karan - driven by either skill of fatigue - dropped one short. I had to lunge forward and managed to tap the ball away to his backhand, barely making it. His backhand counter wasn’t the best and here was an easy volley across the line. I curled the shot so that it spun away from his forehand. It landed on the far end of the table, and I unintentionally struck it with more power than I intended. Turned out to be a smash.
Karan couldn’t reach it. My point. My game. My match. My championship. I won. The King. Emperor.
The runner-up couldn’t believe it, his acknowledgment - a not-so-firm shake - was more out of regret and shock disappointment than sportsmanship. I looked up, as I often do, searching for something or someone I hardly believed in. I ran my fingers through the Mark Vs, they felt smooth, very human. Like flesh. The flesh of a winner.
Shefali came running up and hugged me like only a sister can. I was overwhelmed by her affection, and drowned in my pride. I heard the crowd moving out, slowly but surely, before Shefali broke the silence.
‘I knew you could do it bro’
‘More than I did’
I was smiling now. But it was a bit too silent. Something was missing, rather someone was silent. Ah, the commentator. ‘Where’s John?’
She laughed. ‘He has your ball in his mouth’.
He was coughing and panting, before finally the sound of a bouncing sphere of plastic arrived. John was mouthing all kinds of curses at me.
‘Remind me to ask him how it tastes, will you?’.
She giggled, and though I didn’t want to leave the arena yet, she tugged at me. ‘Come on, let’s go Mr. Champ. You have a trophy to collect’.
True. I smiled, and put the goggles on, picking up the walking stick. With my sister at my side, I slowly felt my way up the stairs. I couldn’t believe it. I had won, the trophy’s mine, I had taken him down with all his five senses intact.
Until this day, I had never forgiven God for denying me the power of sight. But I realized - like He so often does - quietly blesses you with parallel power. I don’t know how or when, but he sharpened my ears to perfection, blessed me with an ability that isn’t entirely normal.
And sometimes, it’s better. Sometimes, Earsight helps you see what the eyes cant.
December 25, 2007 at 11:50 am · Filed under fiction, movies
Statutory warning: If you haven’t seen The Departed and/or The Independence Day, the back button beckons. If you have, this post is strictly for audiences ages 18 and above.
Dean Devlin wrote this brilliant speech from ‘The Independence Day’ - the video is here.
Good morning. In less than an hour, aircrafts from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. “Mankind.” That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interest. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom … Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!” We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!
When President Thomas Whitmore is done, I had the hair standing in pride, occidentalism notwithstanding. Forget the oil, this speech touched me, impeach Bush and bring Pullman on. Moved me, it did.
But, just wondering, what if Marty made the flick instead of Roland Emmerich? And what if William Monahan wrote the dialogue? And, what if Mark Wahlberg was President? Here’s a potential Scorsesian touch.
Good morning, ladies. In less than one fucking hour, aircrafts from all around the fucking planet including this shithole will unite like a million dicks up an alienwhore’s ass. We’ll be shoving a few missiles up the bitch mothership. This is gonna be the largest fucking battle in history. No, we ain’t taking any fucking shit from any dipshits no more. It’s about time you guys wake the fuck up and get your asses and acts together. And hey, bitches, today’s the fourth of fucking July, you Irish lace-curtain motherfuckers? We’re fighting for our freedom. It ain’t from fucking tyranny, oppression, or persecution - nope - but from fucking annihilation. For our right to fucking live. To fucking exist. We won’t let aliens fuck us through our own fucking planet. No fucking way. And should we smoke those motherfucking alien bastards today, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as a fucking American holiday, but as the day the fucking world declared in one fucking voice: “We will not let our dicks go limp and pee into the night! We’re going to live on, you alien fucksticks! We’re going to fucking survive! Today we celebrate our fucking Independence Day!
Let’s nuke the bitch. And if you think I’ll screw up like I did in Iraq, blow me.
Yes, dear reader, I just needed an excuse to curse. Merci, really, for bearing with the profanity. I’ll stop fucking with you.
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