How they got their names

He never had a name. Neither an address, nor a shadow. The silent ghost who walked the lane disturbed none. In the mornings, he would walk the length of the busy lane lined with shady trees, or sit beside one of them, watching the activity about.

He was invisible to many, but for those among them who had time on their hands - and perhaps a watchful eye - like myself, he was a strange and curious sight: an exotic yellow staff, ill-fitting tattered clothes that could have belonged to many, long grey locks and a beard that refused to grow beyond a long spiny stubble.

And yet, he was a regular at the wayside tea shop I frequented. He seemed to have money (a friend had seen a wad of notes in his possession), and bought biscuits too. Perhaps he adored a life of no belonging. This, I repeated to Hamsa one day over a cup of tea, while philosophising about how he expected nothing from the world around him. That he connected to none, and none to him, seemed other-worldly, fantastical, I rambled.

He, on the other hand, stared into the world around him, and not into space, from a perch.

****

It was perhaps a couple of weeks old. We found it scampering about, close to the small shops that lined the road. The evening crowd of executives walked about with their smoke and chai, while Pup tried avoiding their sharp comments and blunt limbs. Callous cars scared him, and so did the voices in the air.   

Reminded of mine own at home, the darling of my parents and visiting friends alike, and brimming with pity at the little one that had no guardian, I ventured to feed him the cheap biscuits that would go well with our daily chai. He bounced away, refused my entreaty of friendship, my extension of love, but did eventually come around.

And then as I placed the biscuits on a newspaper that had screamed days ago, and broke them down for Pup to nibble, a dirty calloused hand moved swiftly across and placed another couple of the cheap bakes. It was indeed him. After a couple of bites, Pup darted across to him, and hid behind his ankle-length olive trousers. That’s where we left them.

Where am I?

I must apologise, to myself. For the span that I've been away, from myself. For I am perhaps the only one in this bright, cozy, cool room from where I can see it rain outside, when I so desire.
I see no cobwebs here, no dust. It is as though I was expected each day, to this room of my own. I am a man, and I too need a room.

I have felt a deep longing for this room, now perhaps more than ever. I will not reveal why. Open the cupboard in that corner and you'll know. But I will not unlock it for you. Let it remain therein.

If there were other inmates here, they would not have recognised me today. I know, because people have told me. I have looked at myself too. There are mirrors here. But I do not know how true they are. So maybe I don't quite know. I am glad this mental institution houses me, and me alone.

Speed kills. Or does it?

The following piece was drafted almost five years ago, but for some reason that I do not recollect, i was never published. But while smartphone technology has progressed a lot since then, and so have internet speeds, this blog post seems relevant even today.

This blog post was spurred, triggered off by something a friend wrote in the morning wherein, she's talking about the keep-in-touch-syndrome,(a term I believe she coined) (http://sayujya.blogspot.com/2010/05/keep-in-touch-syndrome.html ) which I feel is more or less similar to a phenomenon I visited last year (http://blogitmonu.blogspot.com/2009/06/whither-patience.html )
The cell phone and its perceived inevitability is the point of contention. The affordability of a handset, the opportunity to message: thousands of messages for less than a tenth of the number, to call for a pittance, have made many of us compulsive users of the device.
I'm a cell-phone addict myself .I depend on my mobile for sending messages, calls (obviously!), for taking pictures, for listening to music, for checking up the dictionary. I don’t think of the mobile as evil, I think of it as my constant companion—something that satisfies my ‘need’ of staying connected or networked. This is the larger picture. This is what drives a lot of today’s fads including social networking. Like many others of my age, I cannot stand a moment without being updated. I’m restless. I complain about slower net speeds. I want instant access to news. I find myself continually on the refresh button. I cannot do with the stale stuff that was ‘new’ a minute ago.
The hurry of today's life is definitely nauseating at times. Many of us have not enjoyed a moment when all is still—a moment when the past seems never to have existed, and the future seems never to exist, when there seems to be no difference between the two.

A moment when the present moment is all that one can sense, experience and be concerned about. No. We’ve experienced no such thing. We’ve no time for such moments. But the fact is that when it makes people's lives a lot easier, a lot faster, they move at a particular pace expecting others to do so too. It’s like a metro train. It stops at a station, but only so that it can move on to the next one. And in the limited time that it does, one has to ensure that one disembarks, or risk being carried away by time.
Maybe it’s about power relations as well-when people in power move at a pace ‘x’, you're left with no option but to try and catch up.
And then at the other end of the power spectrum, we've the lower classes that’re being empowered because of the cell-phone or other like spin-offs of the 'instant' revolution. Instant technology is being seen as a tool to fight corruption, a weapon against the opaqueness of babudom, as a symbol of transparency—a case in point being the live telecast of proceedings of both houses of Parliament.

I believe (and this is just a hypothesis of mine) it’s the privileged classes who’re more uncomfortable with this democratization of ‘instant’ technology. Instant technology, take for instance the above mentioned example of the live telecast of Parliament proceedings, is breaking through bastions of power, is exposing power being misused, and making those in power more vulnerable to being displaced from seats of power. Thus what is essentially happening is that hitherto underpowered people are now gaining access to things that were the sole preserve of the privileged few. Even those who spout nostalgia about the good ol’days when things were slower are more often than not people who led middle or upper class existences then, for whom the going was never tough, whose lives, unlike that of many others, were never transformed beyond recognition. The rural farmer who, prior to the telecom revolution, was bereft of connectivity of any sort, and who now receives weather alerts, market updates on his phone can never thank the gadget enough.
Although the cell phone industry began operations in India way back in 1995, the telecom boom is a recent phenomenon. A faster, mobile communication system was the need of the hour, what with the economy on a longish bull-run. Thus we warranted the cell phone’s existence. And then, thanks to innovative marketing, smart pricing, plus the numbers that India’s got, the cell phone created space for itself, thriving on the obsession that the urban user with the device.

The Magic Wand (for want of a better title)

Having hogged the headlines for more than 6 months now, it’s an onerous task for a headline writer to come up with something new on Anna Hazare everyday. In an English-language daily, with “millions and millions” of readers waiting to read your paper — yes, even with telly snippets having fed you enough — something new, something big, something instant, is nothing short of a necessity. And “millions” more in slushy maidans and tedious stretches across the stretch of this bewildering nation, are taking part in those momentous candle-light vigils, rallies and demonstrations and sloganeering in support of the man who has made it all happen, Gandhi-reincarnate Anna Hazare, in whose tribute Kiran Bedi famously said, “Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.”

For the “millions” of middle-class India who read your newspaper, Your Time Is Now (as Levis screamed, in an opportune jacket ad, in the ToI). Now, today, this moment, no further than August 30! Middle-class India is so beset with instant action. No “standing committee will take a decision”, but “capitulate to Anna, you morons, you corrupt netas. For heaven’s sake, he’s been on fast for 7 whole days, and lost 5 kgs.”
The magic wand that, in a swish, will end corruption, and flush out the demons, is here. The Jan LokPal Bill. No the Lokpal will not ever be corrupt, neither will the extensive machinery at his disposal.

Rest in next, whenever that will be. Off to work!

Saying No To Liberation

Should i step into the delusive circles of meaning and hope,
Or stand outside amused at what goes on,
Without being,in the least,amused.
These narratives
--of friendship
--of fidelity and faith
--of love, hope, and life itself
are nothing but a
consensus,
without many of us realising.
Now that I think I have,
How can i believe otherwise?
How I Wish I could slip into that vortex,
And never emerge,
How I wish I could delude myself...

To the Unsung, the Ordinary

What can it mean?
I ought to find out.
Does it hold true for everything,
for everyone?
What will become of the world?
Should the path ahead be left,right or centre?
What could be the possible implications of such an eventuality?

But wait,
I am thirsty,
I am hungry,

I see the old woman come and collect the dirty dishes,
She is all smiles,
I've seen her do the same thing for more than a year,
Nothing path-breaking,nothing political,
And yet, the confident smile.

I Won't Be Here Next Year

I breathe in the odours of the morning,
Soak in the packets of sunlight
That filter through the leaves of the tamarind,
Which sway to the laden monsoonal morning breeze.
The sun struggles to pull itself up, break itself free
From the merry clouds that promise
More wet grass, more puddles,
More life coming into life.
I know I cannot be here next year,
To witness the newer nurseries of plants,
And even more life coming into life.
But I wasn’t here to see
The death of the mother monkey,
Or the Loss of the Father Peacock’s feathers,
Or the Buffalo being hit by the Shuttle service
The year before last.
Life consists in accepting the cruelty of ‘moving on’,
Of slogging yourself to newer destinations,
And driving yourself on...
And in telling yourself that this is how
You’ll be a man.
The Sun is out now,
And its the same everywhere.

I DON'T MEAN TO...

A blank white screen stares at me,

Silhoutted against the mirth of darkness,

But the red signals in the distance,

The lively apartment complexes and the busy streetlights,

Appear even merrier,

So does the cacophony accompanying the radio station,

Life, I see, is being built,

The screen is no longer empty,

Darkness has crept in,

And all mankind is happy.