A Conversation

Venue: Sabari Express
Time: 11.00 pm
Among the snores of the smiling Malayalees and the lazy Telugus, three girls lay awake, drenched in lunacy and haphazard excitement. The two 12 year olds lay awake on the topmost berth. The 20 year old lay on the middle berth, listening to the 12 year olds' conversation, and enthusiastically trying to participate in it.

First 12 year old: I wish there was more light in this train. Why can't someone leave the tube lights on? I can't even see my hands properly!

Second 12 year old: Yeah I know! I wish we at least had happydent with us. We could have lit the train with our smiles. What do you say Didi?

20 year old (giggling with amusement): Oh yeah! Why didn't we buy any Happydent? It would have been so useful! I could have even read the book I got along with me.

First 12 year old: Oh yeah! I don't even want to sleep. I'm bored now. Didi, let's talk about how we look right now.

20 year old (surprised): How we look as in?

First 12 year old: I'll tell you how and what your face looks like right now, in the dark. And you tell me the same.

20 year old (hesitatingly): Okay..

First 12 year old: Okay, so, right now, your eyes look huge. Your eyebrows look thin, and your face looks pale. Didi, smile for me once, showing your teeth.

The 20 year old, does as she is told.

First 12 year old: Okay, thanks. So now, the whites in your eyes are whiter than your white teeth. Now your turn.

The 20 year old couldn't help laughing.

20 year old (trying to be very observant): Hmmm, your face looks like one of those dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The first 12 year old giggles and nods. The second 12 year old, who was silent all this while, laughs.

Second 12 year old (suddenly): I can melt icebergs with Happydent!

Both the 20 year old and the other 12 year old burst out laughing.

20 year old (trying to be smart): But then, the world will end that way! It will be sad then. Happydent should be banned.

The two 12 year olds scream in agreement, "YES! Happydent should be banned!"

20 year old: Yeah! Imagine, all the glaciers will melt, Antarctica will become water, all the plants and people will drown, and the earth will become plain blue.

Second year old: That actually sounds interesting. I have always wanted the world to end that way. Everyone dying at once, will be amazing. I will not let Happydent be banned. I will continue chewing it, and contribute to the end of the world.

First 12 year old: Oh my god! You will kill all of us, and yourself. And then, in the next world, when new human species will evolve, after millions of years, they will find out the reason behind the previous world's end. And they will discover that the culprits were you and your Happydent.

20 year old (pointing out to the second 12 year old): Oh yeah. And then, a troubled new human species will participate in the new world's 'Raaz..Pichle Janam Ka'.

The three start laughing in agreement.

First 12 year old: Okay, now let's imagine we are in the show. Didi, you are Ravi Kissen, and I'm the hypnotist. Let's question the troubled girl.

20 year old (excited): Okay!
Namashkar! Main hoon Ravi Kissen, aur aap dekh rahein hain, Raaz..Pichle Janam Ka. Aaj Humaare saath hain, ek ladki, jo apne kayeen kasht ke uttar dhoond rahi hain. Shuru karte hain. Hypnotist ji, shuru keejiye.

First 12 year old (after some introduction, and starting the hypnosis): Toh ab aap kahaan hain? Kya dikh raha hain aapke pairon ke neeche?

Second 12 year old: Mein Antarctica mein hun.

First 12 year old: Kaisa mehsoos ho raha hai?

Second 12 year old: Bahut accha.

First 12 year old: Kya aap Happydent chaba rahein hain?

Second 12 year old: Haan.

First 12 year old: Ab kya ho raha hai?

Second 12 year old: Sab kuch pighal raha hai. Sab log marne waale hain.

20 year old: Aur kya aap muskura rahi hai, Happydent ke saath?

Second 12 year old: Ji haan.

First 12 year old: Kaise mehsoos ho raha hai?

Second 12 year old (with an evil smile): Bahut accha.

And the conversation went on for another one hour fifteen minutes. God bless us all.

Avat(AWW)rr!

There are movies that have made me cry, and there are movies that have made me laugh. There are movies I haven't watched though people asked me to, for obvious reasons. But one movie, left me expressionless. It was a mystery to me, and still is. AVATAWWRR.

It directly begins with a paraplegic man, Jake Sully, on a trip to a planet called Pandora (Yeah, for sometime I was wondering if IMAX chopped off the initial scenes.) So, this guy cannot walk, and is on a wheel chair all the while and replaces his dead brother on a mission to the unbelievably amazing planet. There, some Colonel, whose name I don't want to remember, tells our guy Jake, about some mineral or material (again, I don't care about it's name) which is all over the planet. (Yes, they HAD to go to another planet, just for a fuckingly and awesomely rare mineral!) Their mission is to collect as much mineral as possible, by transferring themselves to into very dirty blue color bodies, that are horrendously tall, to look like the local aliens. Btw, the local aliens are called Na'vis (I don't know why I found that name funny).

This guy Jake, uses an Avatawwrr identity of sorts, and tries becoming friendly with the Na'vis (I just laughed typing that word). He very suddenly and abruptly gets attacked my dinosaur lookalikes, and a female Na'vi (the HEROINE) saves him. (For some reason, I thought Gracy Singh's entry in Deshdrohi was better. I must be mad!) Her name is Neytiri, and she screams for no reason. She is also almost completely naked. And Jake the Avatawwrr falls in love with her! Can you believe that?! It's SO unpredictable!

And there's magic after that. Yes, magic. Jake the Awatawwrr learns the Na'vi local language instantly. He learns to jump, to fly on vibrantly colorful looking creatures, and also to kiss while in the Awatawwrr body, standing next to a tree that can make you hear your ancestors' voices! There are trees that are purple and leaves that are blue and pink. They also glitter at night, and shine like lights when you walk. Isn't that amazing? He also sleeps along with those Na'vis on rope-beds hanging from trees. He very unpredictably sleeps next to Neytiri, who blushes and turns to the other side so as not to face him while sleeping. (Yeah, she totally didn't realise that she is completely and absolutely naked all the time).

And again, very suddenly, the Colonel whose name I don't want to remember, starts attacking the Na'vis to get his precious mineral. He gets into a robotic machine and starts shooting bombs, throws down sacred trees, and also kills many Na'vis. There are jet planes, and mini rockets, and exotic machines (that fly around aimlessly most of the times) designed just to destroy Pandora. After a long war, amidst Neytiri's screams and love betrayal fights, the Na'vis destroy the humans, with the help of Jake the Avatawwrr. The original Jake later goes naked for reasons known only to him and permanently remains an Avatawwrr.

People who haven't watched the movie yet, go watch it! It's just three hours long. If you watch it on a 3D screen, you won't even have an interval in most of the theaters. And yeah, people have loved it so much that it has 4 Golden Globe nominations already! James Cameron took 10 long and painful years to come up with THIS. God bless him, and Pandora.

Acquiescence

You can either fly kites or not fly kites on a festival like Sankranti. I, as usual, chose not to. Somehow, only watching people fly kites fascinated me. My clumsy self never wanted to learn to fly one. I was woken up early that day, thanks to my mother's unending complaints about my chronic laziness and abnormally long sleeping hours. "Today's a festival for God's sake!" yelled my mother. Not that I cared, but I woke up nevertheless, since my body was contaminated with extreme hunger, for food.

Sometimes everything in a day can go intriguingly and irresistibly annoying. My mother had cooked something I had detested since the time my taste buds had started recognizing all the different types of food. I couldn't blame her though. She had to cook too much for the festival lunch anyway. Miffed, I told her I was getting breakfast from outside, and banged the door of my house, shut, behind me.

All I could see were colorful kites lying on the ground, and sailing in the breeze. As I reached the tiffin center, a thick smell of delicious Sambhar filled the air. My stomach groaned. I went in, ordered a Masala Dosa, and waited with my token at the parcel counter.

The quickness in the kitchen seemed interesting. I couldn't help but notice the look in the eyes of the man at the counter. It was the look of terminal confusion, and sadness. It was a look of longing to be somewhere and not being able to. He was packing the food, calling out orders, talking to the customers, but he looked sad. At one point, he looked at us, like we were difficult tasks, testing his patience.

He shouted at one of the workers inside the kitchen, to work faster. He constantly avoided looking directly into anyone's face. I don't know why, but I began to pity him. Maybe he had a family somewhere, waiting for him to come back, and fly kites with them. Or maybe he could not celebrate with them, because of his job. One side of him wanted to take a day off, go home, relax and eat good food, than clean the kitchen and pack the food like he regularly did. The other side of him realized that he has to work, get his pay, and not annoy his superiors. His eyes drooped with the burden of responsibility and face flushed with restlessness.

He continued screaming out orders and packing food. I was handed out my parcel after what seemed like hours. I gave a weak smile and thanked the man. He didn't care. Not that I expected him to. He continued working, and I left.

As I Write This Poem...

As I write this poem,
A woman somewhere is giving birth to her first child,
An old man is dying, with peace in his mind.

A little girl is excited about going to school,
A young girl is taking her life, jumping into a pool.

An employee is desperate for a break,
A homemaker is day dreaming about a job and work.

A husband is feeling guilty about his infidelity,
A prostitute is silently wishing back her virginity.

A student is loving a movie,
A director is regretting making the same movie.

A wife in a mall is spending thousand rupees on a dress,
A eunuch standing outside a mall, is dreaming of social acceptance.

A man driving a BMW is vexed,
A poor kid is touching the car and feeling blessed.

Finally, as I write this poem,
I realize how sleepy I am,
thinking about the unfortunate insomniac.

As Good As It Gets

My computer had crashed last week. My exams got over a week before that. So, for almost seven days, I had no access to the net, or 'good' movies, that I had downloaded with the intention of watching them, while I was at home.The only thing that kept me sane, was reading. I read all night, woke up almost in the afternoons, and read again. At one point, I felt so trapped in my own room, that I realized, I was drenched in ennui.

So, one regular night, that followed a more regular day, with a routine afternoon in between, my brother decided that he had to go to the cybercafe to get some print outs for his school project. I went along with him, on my Scooty. He finished his work early, and I wanted to stay longer to check my mails. I asked him to take the Scooty along, and leave. After twenty more minutes of mail checking, and orkut scrapping, I paid for that hour, and left. My house was almost a kilometer away, which made me want to take a walk.

It was a very still night, no breeze, but cool. There were hardly any stars I could see, but there was a reluctant moon hung up in the sky. It was 9.30 in the night, so traffic was not obvious. A few shops were open, which was the only source of light on that huge road(street lights never liked to perform their duty). I walked slowly, and ignorantly, lost in thoughts. There were so many things running in my central nervous system, that it took me sometime to realize what I was actually feeling at that point. There are a few areas near my house, that always spooked me out, because of the shadows of long trees and its vacant look. But just then, when I walked along that street, nothing seemed scary. In fact, I found the trees beautiful, and the desertedness seemed like a silver lining. Vagabonds, ogled at me, but I felt invincible. Nothing at that moment, could worry me, or make me feel something which I didn't want to.

I walked, taking brisk steps, looking at the moon, that had taken up a weird shape by then. A guy passed by, on a good looking bike singing the new Atif Aslam song, "Teraaaa...hone lagaaa hoooon..." on top of his lungs. I laughed. I liked the state of oblivion, he was driving in. He didn't care who was around, or if someone was around. He just sang, badly, his heart out. As I walked further I saw a kid, maybe 12 years old, with a heavy school bag on his shoulders (read, time: 9.30 pm), talking to a middle aged man about Science, Social Studies and Maths, and how well he did each paper. I didn't know if I wanted to pity him, or feel happy for him. But what was evident, was, despite all odds that he might be facing, the kid seemed proud of himself.

Almost after twenty minutes, I reached the gate of my house, smiling. I wanted to walk past my house, and have one more, thought filled walk, but I decided to ignore that idea. It might have been a short walk, but short is good. Had I continued to make it a long walk, it wouldn't have turned out to be one of the most interesting walks I ever had. It would definitely have got boring and prototypical. As I climbed the stairs of my house, I was grinning. I do not know the actual reason behind what all I felt, or the thoughts that ran in my head that day. But I know one thing for sure. I felt free.

10 unbelievable things most couples do.

I can name 167. But these are the 10 most unbelievable things they do. THE couples. Lovers. Love birds. Nightingales. Parrots. Pigeons. Sparrows. Kingfishers. Okay, yeah, I should shut up. They are unbelievable, ubiquitous, incomprehensible, and audaciously dumb. This is what most guys and girls (sorry 'gals') do when they are 'seeing' each other:

1. Blush at the very mention of their partner's name. The girl will say "oh shut up!" when she is being teased by her friends, but inside, she loves every bit of the provoking (are we redefining hypocrisy here?). The guy, if really committed will say, "She is the one, I can't think of any other girl"(yeah right).

2. They will text each other, all day. And those texts have nothing important, that the world will have to depend upon. They will only say "Hey darl, wat doing?", or "whr r u honey?", "wat r u wearing now?". They will also address each other with homosexually stimulating names like jaan, sweety pie, cutie, baby, baba, chocolate, chickelet (yes, people use that word too), chingu, mingu, tingu, chotu, chweetu, motu, jaanu, monu, SHONA (why can't some one ban that song?). They will also have mushy baby talks, because they think that's what couples do.

3. They will meet at least twice a week, that is, if they don't work or study together. If family knows about them, they will tell at home, and meet. It has to be either Mc Donalds, or Coffee Day (I keep forgetting how many branches these eateries have). And if the family doesn't know about them, they will lie, and meet, and then discuss each others families (I pity them so much, that I want to cry. They don't know what real conversations are).

4. They will have their 'firsts'. First kiss, first fight, first move, first time he smiled at her lovingly, first time she sat next to him in public, first time they said the same word together, first time they didn't text each other, first time they texted each other, first time the held hands, first time they accidentally touched each other, first time they said 'I love you', first time he told her that he pissed on the road, first time she told him she was taking her bath and then she went shopping with her mommy (no seriously, why am I still living?). And ironically, the girl remembers all this.

5. They will start calling each other on their cell phones. When I say calling, I literally mean it. They are always on phone. The conversations generally consist of "Where are you?", "did you eat?", "did you pee?", "did you study?", "When are we going to meet?" "Mc donalds or Coffee Day?", "Nahin baba, that's too late, let's go for lunch?", "which movie? Shall we watch Rab Ne Banadi Jodi, or should we watch Jab We Met on your lappy?" (where is the world coming to?)

6. They will do things for each other. "Do this for me jaan, please." "Wear this dress for me baby, please:)" (yeah nothing more interesting than this). The girls will dress up like it's their wedding every time they meet their guys.

7. They will have anniversaries! They will celebrate it like they won some extremely precious award like say , the Nobel maybe?

8. They will comment on each others photos on orkut and facebook. They will write each other highly unintelligent testimonials, which will only display their so called mushy love for the other. The testimonials will also consist of phrases like 'thanks for making my life so beautiful, love you'. They will also put their pics on these sites, where they are hugging and kissing.

9. Generally, parents will not agree. They will marry nevertheless, and will also upload a 1000 pics on orkut and facebook. Friends will even comment, saying that they are such a 'cute' couple.

10. They will go on a honeymoon to Kerela, or Mahabaleshwar. Oh I forgot, Ooty if possible. Maximum, Simla, Manali, or maybe Rajasthan. They will later have kids, and live happily ever after.

Conclusion: Being single is AWESOME.

The Good, Bad and Destiny

My grandfather died at the age of ninety one. He died of a cardiac arrest, and had a painless death, just the way he had wanted it to be. He had always told me, "Everybody dies one day, my dear. But how you die is important. The more painless your death is, the more closer you are to God. God looks after every deed of ours and passes his judgement. It is all written." At that time, I never thought much about what he said, though I would always love listening to him. He always had a way of explaining things. The best was his ability to describe his favorite food, in such an interesting way, that would even make a food hater salivate. He would tell us cousins every detail of the food particle that he swallowed, and how they felt on his taste buds. One of my personal favorites was his adventures at a temple in Chennai, and the Idly that he loved there. He told me how soft the Idly was, the amount of coconut and milk he presumed, the chef added in the chutney, and the few green chillies that made it irresistable. He told me about the full spoon of hardened butter or ghee that they added on top of each, hot, Idly, and how he watched the butter melt to the heat. As a matter of fact, I have always hated Idlies. But my grandfather made the boring Idly sound so interesting, that I had almost started liking them.

I have never till date met a bigger foodie than my grandfather. Even at his old age, he loved pepsi, and thums up and would always have them with some spicy snack, once in a week. He would enjoy it so much, that I could actually see the childish excitement in his eyes. He had always told me, "Never compromise on food. Food is like an incentive that gives you confidence to enjoy your life to the fullest."

My cousins and I always had some reason to tease him and pull his leg. We made fun of his short stature and extraordinarily huge ears. The most amazing part was, he would sit and laugh with us about it. The kind of twinkle he had in his eyes when he laughed at us teasing him, had a sense of naughtiness and innocence in them. He would tease us back, defending himself saying, "Short people are born intelligent." We would just laugh. As I said, he had a way with words. He was partially deaf, in his old age, and we would often make fun of that too, and laugh with him. He just loved our attention. When we asked him, why he heard so less, in spite of having such huge ears, he would tease us saying, "You people are stupid. You don't know that I just pretend to be partially deaf. I can hear everything." Once, my cousin actually tested his hearing capabilities. He stood far away from my grandfather, and mumbled a few words, and asked him to guess what he had said. My grandfather guessed it right. My cousin kept trying, and my grandfather got all of them correct. Even today, it is a mystery, of how he sensed all of that.

Every night, I would chat with him for hours. He would tell me about his adventures in Southern India, and how he had survived alone, without much money. He had told me those stories almost everyday, and I always knew what was coming next, but I loved listening to them again and again. In those days, he had these annoying black patches all over his back, that would itch all the time. He always called for one of us cousins, to comb his hair and scratch his back for him. I was his favorite grandchild. He would specially send for me, to get a comb for him. He had always told me, that my hands had magic in them, and that one day I will use my hands to heal wounds. I used to laugh it off back then, and there were times, when I would ignore him for no reason. Today, I am pursuing my Bachelor Of Physiotherapy, a stream that indubitably deals with healing the physically and mentally handicapped.

At ninety one, he knew Backstreet Boys, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Shahrukh Khan and could perfectly explain the derivation of 'a+b whole square'. He even discussed politics with me, and would always tell me that children should be given their share of freedom. I remember this one day, when I was in my 8th standard. I had newly purchased an autograph book, which I frantically carried with me where ever I went. Cool autographs were a craze in my school those days. I had asked all my cousins to write something nice and witty in it for me, and sign. I had asked my grandfather to do the same. He had a fractured left hand then. His fingers of both hands seemed almost broken with age, and the skin was so wrinkled that it looked like he had no flesh. He asked for his favorite and the best pen he had, and with a stubborn enthusiasm, opened the book, and wrote "Be Happy", with shivering hands. The writing was matured yet seemed so out of practice. He signed under it, with such pride, that brought a huge smile on to my face. That was the first and last time I saw my grandfather write. He died exactly three years later. As the years passed by, I stopped missing him much, and got used to the fact that he was no more. But whenever I am sad, I always remember the two words that he wrote for me, and immediately cheer up, for him. Such is the effect of just two small words.