Another feather to the cap...

I see a tiny feather being enamored by the gushing wind... The wind does everything to sway the feather off its course... to sweep it off its feet... to buoy it against all odds... but the feather keeps falling towards the ground... the unwelcoming earth that does nothing to deserve the purity and the softness of the feather.... The feather, although light, has the weight of its past on it... the worry of the future on it... the discontent of the present on it... weight enough to nullify the gushing wind... slowly but surely, the wind loses as the earth wins... the feather lies on the ground... at the mercy of the hooves to trample it, the broom to brush it away, the rain to wash it away and the dust to rob it off all its purity..

I see a tiny feather... and I say... "What took you so long?"

No looking back...

I swear... if i ctrl+A and delete one more time... i'm gonna stop writing!!!...

I wondered all my life what those little pieces of leather around a horse's eyes are called... those little things that prevent it from looking back and looking around... and I wonder why i'd been wondering for so long??!!! There some questions in life which can give you sleepless nights... like... what was the name of that movie?? who wrote the lyrics of that song?? what am I doing with me life? you get the picture, right?? then there are some questions that we learn to live with... we think about it once in while, we make a mental note of trying to find the answer some day... and then we forget about.... What are those little pieces of leather called??

They are called "Blinkers", you dumbass!! a.k.a winkers, blinders etc.... You know why I bothered to google this tonight?? coz i feel like i'm wearing one...

I've been running for quite some time now... initially i kept a count of the number of laps i'd covered.... how many horses i went by.... But after a point, there is no point.... I've lost count of where i'm running, why i'm running, from whom i'm running and towards what?? Some one above me whips me once in a while and i run towards the goal... his goal.... I'd rather run out the race track and into the grass fields in the middle....

Stopping by the Palladium on a sunny afternoon

The buildings are lovely, bright and tall..

My cousin is still not here, I'll ve to call..

The sloth says that he'd be there in 10 minutes..

But knowing him, I'd take that as infinite..

Phoenix mills.. I was here last, when Big Bazaar was a big deal..

Now it is some place where even a kleptomaniac wont steal..

I cant believe how much this place has changed since then..

I feel like a yawning Rip Van Winkle freshly out of his den..

I walk into the Palladium, the AC is good and its apparently Wi-Fi enabled..

Most of the access points are password protected or just don't work.. Does no one bother to look beneath the label?

I see a Diesel outlet..Something that I'd never seen outside Loot Mart..

I had plenty of time to kill, it seemed like a good start..

I walk in.. The store guy takes my proficiency in American English for granted..

And stumps me by asking if I knew what I wanted..

I cant concede that I'm just there to kill time, so I enquire about denims, size 34..

He give a nodding smile... I fear that he's seen blatant liars like me before..

He undertakes an excavation into the shelves, it seems size 34s are not the regular clientele..

All skinny eyes stare at me.. I could drown if only my waist would fit into the perimeter of a well..

I take a good long breath and pull up my pants.. It fits!! It fits!! It fits!!

I casually glance at the price tag safely tugged inside the pockets... Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!

10,795 is what it proudly states... 10,795 in Rupees, not the Rouble..

I carefully get out of 1/3rd of my monthly income.. I don't want no trouble..

I come out with a sheepish smile, the skinny eyes still stare.. I lie that the pants that fit, don't fit..

The wise ass!! by this time, he's managed to find a size 36 as well! but I say that I'm not mentally ready for it..

I walk out wondering how a place so exorbitant could exist..

but then again, with enough resources, how could greed resist..

I make a mental note of coming back some day..

with that much more money and that less fat my way...

but till then if i get the urge to buy a pair of diesel jeans..

Loot Mart, it is! Loot Mart, it is!

of the sea, the rock and the beach

Relationships are like a sea coast. If both partners are like waves.... giving and taking love from each other... crashing into the other at any given opportunity... being alike and being one... then they coexist like a sea... happy in the tumultuousness of their relation... this is usually the beginning of a relationship... the seas have to become calm... eventually... eventually, you will have nothing to give and nothing to take...

Then there are relationships where one partner is the sea and the other is like the rock on the sea coast.... the sea keeps hitting the rock with love... sometimes with rage... but the rock doesn't react.. it stays the way it is... Happy in its solitude... if the sea recedes some day, then probably it’ll find a wave to crash into... perhaps the rock will start missing it as it get baked in the unsympathetic sun... probably it will not... But... had the sea continued crashing into the rocks, some day it’d found a way in.... some day, the rocks would have given in.... some day, some inlet would have been created and the sea could have broken into new grounds... given rise to new life... It is a risk that the sea has got to take...

The third kind is the beach.... the wave comes in with all its love.... it has already been stripped off all its rage, all its frustrations and all its inadequacies... as it comes to the beach, it is lovingly received by the sand.... The beach gives the sea everything that it can... its pebbles, its conches, its castles and footprints.... the weary sea quietly comes and takes away its treasures.... this is what relations are meant to be....

If you are the wave... and if you have found a wave... make the most of now... but remember that someday the tumultuousness has to end... don’t be too surprised if both of you end up finding a beach of your own...

If you are the wave... and if you have found a rock... keep hitting till you can... if you get that elusive inlet, it is your destiny... if not, it is still your destiny... but always remember... the sea is never blamed for receding from the rocks...

If you are the rock... wipe that smirk off your face... some day you’ll have to give in... that is how nature works... don’t be so sure of yourself...

Finally... if you are the beach... you are the best that you can be... keep giving... keep receiving... God bless you...

Gaman

At the very outset, let me pay respect to the 1978 movie "Gaman", directed by Muzaffar Ali (his first movie), rarely has there ever been a movie which is summarized by a single song.... "Seene me jalan aankhon me toofan sa kyon hai.."

I spent 3.5 hrs waiting for a train the other day.... 3.5 eventful hours, if I might add.. It amazes me as to how much you can learn by way of observation... by merely blanking out all your frustrations about the Indian railway's lethargy, about the indifference of the platform announcers and the frustration of not being where you ought to be... If only we would see things the way they are, instead of the way we want them to be... we'd see so much more...

I saw that we are all hypocrites, by nature.... in the comfort of an armchair, we'd cry foul at the way our system is rotting through corruption... but on a platform in Surat station at 1 am, knowing that the train is "indefinitely" late, we wont blink twice before offering a Rs.100 bribe to the ticket checker for a ride on some other train...

I saw the importance of an onion... There was this old guy on the platform that night... Legs too frail to support him any more... by day, he might be a beggar pushing himself around on an improvised cart... by night, he was an inspiration... You see, he'd got hold of this onion from somewhere... and he was trying to keep it safe for the life left in him... in the half hour that I observed him, he must have twitched a dozen times, each time making sure that his treasure was safe in his torn pockets... I'd never know what he planned to do with that onion... but I will surely think about him, every time I waste food on my plate....

I realized a word that pretty much defines the state of this nation... "Adjustment".... I wait for this train (Avadh Express) for 3.5 hours... It finally comes to a different platform (unannounced by the platform announcers)....I cry foul... but I adjust... I board in to see that three guys have already squatted on my seat and enjoying a sleep that was supposed to have been bestowed to me... What do I do? Be a hero and wake them up... show them their place on the floor and climb on to my heavenly abode? Nah...I adjust... I find one more place, that was thankfully vacated at Surat station, and perch myself in.... I hear people talking around me, in dialects I've only heard in the movies... That night, a Tamilian felt as if he were in the middle of Uttar Pradesh, inside that train stationed in Gujarat... and he adjusted quite well, thank you...

I did not see many families that night in the S1 compartment of Avadh express... I saw men... band of brothers.... who had left their families back in the Hindi heartland and were going towards the unwelcoming city of Mumbai.... with a dream of being better than what they already were... with a dream of traveling back to their villages and towns, one day, on a confirmed ticket... Because, not all Tamilians are of adjusting nature inside Avadh express...

Last but not the least, I saw that you cannot stop the human spirit by installing a barricade of parochialism.. You can turn a tide, into a trickle... but a trickle shall remain, nonetheless.... No one can show a man, a promise of a better life... and then prevent him from trying to have it... I dearly hope that Mr. Thackeray reads this...

And after seeing all this.... I slept...