I didn’t know you. I wouldn’t have known if you sat beside me sometime at Billoo’s or Chhedi’s. I wouldn’t have recognized you if I saw in the Insti or in the Dep – I wouldn’t even have noticed you. The only time I might have heard your name, I would have been booing at you – coz you would have been playing for LLR - against Azad.
But you were one of us. You belonged to this place, like I do. You were a person who would have spent 4-5 of the best years of your life in the god-forsaken place, just like me. You too would have bunked classes, just like me. You too would have murmured comments about Profs while sitting in class, just like me. You too would have wondered what you will do after you get out of this place, just like me. You too would have spent nights watching movies or in bhaatbaazi with friends, like I do. You too would have uttered abuses to seniors under your breath because they made you participate in events you wouldn’t have wanted to, just like me. And all this would have been sufficient to grow a bond between us if we had met at a future date.
And now you are not with us. All it took was a fall from a rickshaw to take you away from us. Everyone who knew how bad the system was and still didn’t do anything about it is a culprit – including me. I sincerely hope our reaction over the last two days will not peter out to a dead end but will continue till there really is a change in the system. Only then will I be able to redeem myself from the guilt of your untimely departure.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The Accident
I think I have borrowed this idea from some detective serial but since I don't remember which one, i won't hazard a guess.
It had been a good day at office and he was returning home with a smile on his face. His wife would be waiting for him, and his kids. It was past midnight, he had gotten late today but it had been worth the effort. So, now he was enjoying the empty roads at full speed on his bike with the wind in his face.
He was crossing an empty stretch with just trees and rocks on both sides when he saw the car coming from the opposite direction. It was coming straight at him and the driver showed no sign of giving him room to maneuver himself out of the way. The vehicles collided at full speed. The last thing he remembered was a feeling of flying through the air.
It was still dark when he woke up. He was not in pain. He simply felt as if he had gone numb. He tried to open his eyes. He was successful. He tried to move his head around. He found that it was possible to a small extent. But all his attempts failed when he tried to get up. He also found that he couldn’t even cry out for help. “Seems I will have to stay this way till someone finds me. Surely someone would come looking soon-my bike would be lying somewhere nearby. And what about the driver of the car? That bastard. If I see him I will kill him with my bare hands. Just having a car doesn’t give you ownership of the road.” he thought.
He was thinking in this vein when he thought he heard voices. The voices were coming towards him. On listening carefully, he could recognize two voices – a man and a woman. He thanked God that somebody had come to save him. So he lay as he was – listening to their conversation.
Man: Are you OK? Should I get you a doctor?
Woman: No, I am fine. What about you?
Man: I have escaped injuries too. But I guess that can’t be said about my car too. It is going to burn a hole in my pocket.
Woman: What about the guy on the bike? Where is he? How come he hit us? Didn’t you see him coming?
Man (chuckling): I was too busy kissing you to look towards the road.
Woman: You should have been more cautious. What if we had been seriously injured?
Man: Oh come on! It’s just a small accident. That guy might have been knocked unconscious. We’ll find him, wake him up, put him back on his bike and then go home.
It was the woman who found him. Now that he could see her, he realized that she was a quite young. They were a young couple, probably not even married yet. The girl was crying now. She was saying, “He isn’t moving. Is he seriously injured? Is he dead? Oh God! What shall we do?”
He saw the man point a light towards him. He looked at the light. The man heaved a sigh of relief. He said,”Hey, are you OK? Look I’m sorry. It was my fault. I’ll pay for the damage to your vehicle. Do you need help getting up? Come on, I’ll help you to your bike. It is still good enough to take you home. Why don’t you get up? Why don’t you say anything? “
He could imagine the man’s expression changing when, after trying to help him get up, he couldn’t elicit a single response. The man directed the light towards his face again to check if he really was alive. Meanwhile, the girl was sitting nearby and crying quietly. “We have a problem here.” the man said.
They went out of earshot. He could still see their silhouettes against the headlights of their car out of the corner of his eyes. He saw the girl gasp when, as he imagined, the man told her that he could not move. He could see that they were arguing about something. “Perhaps they are thinking which hospital would be nearest.” he thought.
Now the argument was taking longer than necessary – the girl had started crying again. “What are they doing? Don’t they know that if they do not take me to a hospital soon I might die? And then they will have a lot of trouble on their hands.” he thought. Finally, he saw them kiss – as if the man was trying to tell the girl that he would handle everything and that everything would be all right.
The man came back alone. The girl was still standing near the car. In a flash, he understood what was going to happen and the knowledge blinded him. He didn’t know why they were doing it but he realized that he was going to die very soon and that his death would be an accident. Even the blame for the accident would lie on him. And all he could do was plead with his eyes to a face that would not even look at him.
His eyes were saying, “No, I am not greatly injured. Leave me here and go away – I won’t tell anyone anything. I’ll just say that I hit something and fell. Or better, stay here and I’ll take responsibility for the accident. I’ll even pay for the damages to your car. But please don’t do this. Please don’t kill me. Don’t be afraid of me. I will not cause the two of you any harm.” But there was no one to listen to him or look into his eyes as the man lifted a heavy stone and brought it near his head.
In the last moments of his life, his prayer to the man of being left alone turned into a different prayer addressed to God. In the last moments of his life, he prayed for an intelligent inspector.
Inspector Singh, who was the first to reach the spot of the accident, was not very intelligent but he certainly wasn’t dumb. He looked at the dead body lying in a pool of blood and the rock, with blood on it, on which the person, now dead, had hit his head – the cause of death – when he had been thrown off the bike. He looked at the young couple who had called him up saying that they had met with an accident and that someone had died.
He said, addressing the girl, “Every rock that lies on the ground has two surfaces. One that is exposed to the weather and is generally clean. The other side is the one that lies facing the ground – gathering moss and mud. Now, can you tell me, in what way was this person thrown off so that he hit his head on the unexposed surface of the rock?”
It had been a good day at office and he was returning home with a smile on his face. His wife would be waiting for him, and his kids. It was past midnight, he had gotten late today but it had been worth the effort. So, now he was enjoying the empty roads at full speed on his bike with the wind in his face.
He was crossing an empty stretch with just trees and rocks on both sides when he saw the car coming from the opposite direction. It was coming straight at him and the driver showed no sign of giving him room to maneuver himself out of the way. The vehicles collided at full speed. The last thing he remembered was a feeling of flying through the air.
It was still dark when he woke up. He was not in pain. He simply felt as if he had gone numb. He tried to open his eyes. He was successful. He tried to move his head around. He found that it was possible to a small extent. But all his attempts failed when he tried to get up. He also found that he couldn’t even cry out for help. “Seems I will have to stay this way till someone finds me. Surely someone would come looking soon-my bike would be lying somewhere nearby. And what about the driver of the car? That bastard. If I see him I will kill him with my bare hands. Just having a car doesn’t give you ownership of the road.” he thought.
He was thinking in this vein when he thought he heard voices. The voices were coming towards him. On listening carefully, he could recognize two voices – a man and a woman. He thanked God that somebody had come to save him. So he lay as he was – listening to their conversation.
Man: Are you OK? Should I get you a doctor?
Woman: No, I am fine. What about you?
Man: I have escaped injuries too. But I guess that can’t be said about my car too. It is going to burn a hole in my pocket.
Woman: What about the guy on the bike? Where is he? How come he hit us? Didn’t you see him coming?
Man (chuckling): I was too busy kissing you to look towards the road.
Woman: You should have been more cautious. What if we had been seriously injured?
Man: Oh come on! It’s just a small accident. That guy might have been knocked unconscious. We’ll find him, wake him up, put him back on his bike and then go home.
It was the woman who found him. Now that he could see her, he realized that she was a quite young. They were a young couple, probably not even married yet. The girl was crying now. She was saying, “He isn’t moving. Is he seriously injured? Is he dead? Oh God! What shall we do?”
He saw the man point a light towards him. He looked at the light. The man heaved a sigh of relief. He said,”Hey, are you OK? Look I’m sorry. It was my fault. I’ll pay for the damage to your vehicle. Do you need help getting up? Come on, I’ll help you to your bike. It is still good enough to take you home. Why don’t you get up? Why don’t you say anything? “
He could imagine the man’s expression changing when, after trying to help him get up, he couldn’t elicit a single response. The man directed the light towards his face again to check if he really was alive. Meanwhile, the girl was sitting nearby and crying quietly. “We have a problem here.” the man said.
They went out of earshot. He could still see their silhouettes against the headlights of their car out of the corner of his eyes. He saw the girl gasp when, as he imagined, the man told her that he could not move. He could see that they were arguing about something. “Perhaps they are thinking which hospital would be nearest.” he thought.
Now the argument was taking longer than necessary – the girl had started crying again. “What are they doing? Don’t they know that if they do not take me to a hospital soon I might die? And then they will have a lot of trouble on their hands.” he thought. Finally, he saw them kiss – as if the man was trying to tell the girl that he would handle everything and that everything would be all right.
The man came back alone. The girl was still standing near the car. In a flash, he understood what was going to happen and the knowledge blinded him. He didn’t know why they were doing it but he realized that he was going to die very soon and that his death would be an accident. Even the blame for the accident would lie on him. And all he could do was plead with his eyes to a face that would not even look at him.
His eyes were saying, “No, I am not greatly injured. Leave me here and go away – I won’t tell anyone anything. I’ll just say that I hit something and fell. Or better, stay here and I’ll take responsibility for the accident. I’ll even pay for the damages to your car. But please don’t do this. Please don’t kill me. Don’t be afraid of me. I will not cause the two of you any harm.” But there was no one to listen to him or look into his eyes as the man lifted a heavy stone and brought it near his head.
In the last moments of his life, his prayer to the man of being left alone turned into a different prayer addressed to God. In the last moments of his life, he prayed for an intelligent inspector.
Inspector Singh, who was the first to reach the spot of the accident, was not very intelligent but he certainly wasn’t dumb. He looked at the dead body lying in a pool of blood and the rock, with blood on it, on which the person, now dead, had hit his head – the cause of death – when he had been thrown off the bike. He looked at the young couple who had called him up saying that they had met with an accident and that someone had died.
He said, addressing the girl, “Every rock that lies on the ground has two surfaces. One that is exposed to the weather and is generally clean. The other side is the one that lies facing the ground – gathering moss and mud. Now, can you tell me, in what way was this person thrown off so that he hit his head on the unexposed surface of the rock?”
Friday, February 27, 2009
Maybe Someday
Maybe someday I’ll forget you. And maybe someday I’ll forgive you. Forgive you for messing up my life. Forgive you for showing me love and joy and then leaving me mid-way – pining for you and all that you said would be ours. Forgive you for all the dreams that we shared. Forgive you for all the memories that I still have of you, which are like burning embers in my mind – giving me constant agony. Forgive you for all my unshed tears and unspoken words. Forgive you for all the solitary moments I’ve spent thinking of you. Forgive you for making me curse myself, thinking that it was entirely my fault.
Maybe someday I’ll be able to meet another girl and not compare her to you. Maybe someday I’ll not think of you when I see or read a love story. Maybe someday, when I want to share something, I won’t think of you. Maybe someday, if I want to speak my heart out, I won’t expect you to be the listener.
And maybe someday I’ll be able to look at you, talk to you and not feel something burning inside me. Maybe someday I’ll be able to ask you why you did this to me.
But, till that day my love, stay away from me.
Maybe someday I’ll be able to meet another girl and not compare her to you. Maybe someday I’ll not think of you when I see or read a love story. Maybe someday, when I want to share something, I won’t think of you. Maybe someday, if I want to speak my heart out, I won’t expect you to be the listener.
And maybe someday I’ll be able to look at you, talk to you and not feel something burning inside me. Maybe someday I’ll be able to ask you why you did this to me.
But, till that day my love, stay away from me.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Soul-Retriever
Let me tell you that working as a soul-retriever for the God of Death is not very fulfilling. The pay isn’t good and you have to stay at work 24X7 with no leaves. Moreover, it is a thankless job – you can’t expect a god to thank you, even if he is your immediate senior, and no human would ever thank you for snatching away his soul and bringing him to his not-so-heavenly abode. You might find the last part of my previous statement a little dubious given that I work in the Suicides Department. After all, these people have given up their souls voluntarily, so they should be happy when I arrive to fetch them – you would think, but let me tell you that it is not so. In fact, they are the people who rue being brought here the most. This is due to the standard procedure set by my predecessors in this department. I shall tell you an incident when I was just a trainee here for your better understanding.
First let me tell you that the soul that resides inside you is not “complete” in the exact sense of the term. It wasn’t complete even when you were born and has been broken into many fragments since. A fragment of your soul breaks apart when you find someone you love and who love you back and it goes to reside with that person’s soul. It is this fragment that makes that other person think of you and have goodwill towards you. So, since your parents loved you even before you were born, a fragment of your soul resides with them from before your birth. In fact, it has been residing in them since you were assigned a soul. I will talk about the details of soul-assigning some other time – let me concentrate on this part first. So, in short, the no. of fragments of your soul depends on how many lives you have affected in a positive way or how many people love you and the size of that fragment depends upon how much they love you.
When a person dies, we have to collect all the pieces of his soul before we can bring him back. Now, the standard procedure for our department is that we make the soul look for his fragments himself as a punishment for committing suicide (and increasing our workload).
It so happened that I was assigned the task of bringing back the soul of a young twenty-something guy. He had committed suicide by jumping off a tall building because he had been fired from his job for something which he didn’t consider to be his fault. The soul was sitting near the dead body when I reached. He was pretty happy to see me come. He said, “Now I can finally rest in peace.” and extended his hands towards me as if I was going to handcuff him.
“Not so soon son, we still have work to do.” I told him. Then I explained to him the standard procedure to be followed. He was unfazed at this. I took out my pack of cigarettes, handed him the device that we use to guide us to the fragments of any particular soul and told him to get on with his job while I sat and smoked. (I did not know then that I should go along with him – an oversight that almost cost me my training stipend.)
A full 24 hours and two packets of fags later, when he did not arrive I began to get worried. I got afraid because losing a soul on the way invites divine wrath, something I didn’t want to face. So I decided to look for him for a day before I contacted my guide.
To make a long story short (because this is not the important part) I found him weeping quietly in the attic of his parents’ home after a prolonged search. He got afraid when he saw me and started begging, saying, “I know I can’t run away from you. Please allow me to stay here as long as possible, I don’t want to go. I shouldn’t have committed suicide in the first place. Can you please give me life once again? I promise I won’t do anything of this sort again.” and so on. I had to shake him for a long time to get him out of his hysterics. Then I asked him what had happened that transformed him from a soul happy to leave to one that would like to bear the torments of earthly life once again. This is what he told me.
“The first place I went to was my girlfriend’s. She was asleep in her room. Entering that room reminded me of all the happy moments that we had spent there. She was sleeping with a book curled in her hand. I noticed that even while sleeping she doesn’t take out the necklace I had given her as a gift long ago. I also noticed, for the first time, that she has a picture of us tucked under her pillow. Using your device, I could see that she loves me a lot – much more than I had imagined. That was the first time I wondered whether I had made a mistake.”
“After that I went to my friends’ places. Although I found a few people who had only professed their friendship at my face, my friends on a whole liked me a lot. I also noticed that my school and college friends loved me more than my colleagues and this amazed me a lot, given that I had not tried a lot to keep in touch with them. It broke my heart to say goodbye to all of my friends one-by-one. I realized for the first time how much I had been loved and now I was sure that I had made a mistake by committing suicide. Still I would have gone with you if you had come there but you didn’t.”
“I arrived last at this place – partly because it is far from where I lived or rather, died, and partly because I had begun to realize how hard it would be for me to bid my parents farewell. When I arrived, my parents were still awake and they were talking about me. Mom was saying, “But what will he do now?” to which Dad replied, “Don’t you worry. Our son is very intelligent; he will find a better job pretty soon. “
Mom: “But what will he do in the meantime? How will he sustain himself? He is used to spending twenty-thirty thousand every month; he doesn’t have any savings worth mentioning.”
Dad: “Does he know that I get twenty thousand as my salary?”
Mom:”I don’t think so.”
Dad:”OK. Then we shall send him fifteen every month. I think he can manage with that much for the time being. If he asks how much I get, tell him that I get thirty so that he won’t feel guilty about it. We can live pretty comfortably with the remaining but he must stay there and look for a job. If he comes back to this small town, he will never find a job suitable to his qualifications and his talent will be wasted. I don’t want this to happen. We should do whatever it takes to keep him there.”
And with this Dad laid the matter to rest and my parents went to sleep. Mom looked as if a burden had been lifted from her head. None of them said one single word about how they would manage with a meager five thousand a month even when both of them know that half of it would have be spent for Mom’s medicines. It was at that moment that I realized how good it really is to be alive; to be loved and cared for by so many people who are ready to do anything for you; to have someone who will think of you no matter what happens or how low you stand on the social ladder; to breathe in the knowledge that, although it may not seem so, someone is thinking of you at this very moment; to have people ready to sacrifice their comforts for your own. Now I don’t want to die. I wish I had never taken this step. Can you please give me life back? I swear I won’t do anything so foolish again. Please….”
With this he broke into the most pitiable crying I had ever seen. Now, I can’t say I was not moved by his story but there was nothing to be done. I had to handcuff him and carry him all the way to my office while he kept on screaming and trying to persuade me to let him free all the time.
Can you guess why I told you this story? Obviously to help me decrease my workload. What else could the motive have been?
First let me tell you that the soul that resides inside you is not “complete” in the exact sense of the term. It wasn’t complete even when you were born and has been broken into many fragments since. A fragment of your soul breaks apart when you find someone you love and who love you back and it goes to reside with that person’s soul. It is this fragment that makes that other person think of you and have goodwill towards you. So, since your parents loved you even before you were born, a fragment of your soul resides with them from before your birth. In fact, it has been residing in them since you were assigned a soul. I will talk about the details of soul-assigning some other time – let me concentrate on this part first. So, in short, the no. of fragments of your soul depends on how many lives you have affected in a positive way or how many people love you and the size of that fragment depends upon how much they love you.
When a person dies, we have to collect all the pieces of his soul before we can bring him back. Now, the standard procedure for our department is that we make the soul look for his fragments himself as a punishment for committing suicide (and increasing our workload).
It so happened that I was assigned the task of bringing back the soul of a young twenty-something guy. He had committed suicide by jumping off a tall building because he had been fired from his job for something which he didn’t consider to be his fault. The soul was sitting near the dead body when I reached. He was pretty happy to see me come. He said, “Now I can finally rest in peace.” and extended his hands towards me as if I was going to handcuff him.
“Not so soon son, we still have work to do.” I told him. Then I explained to him the standard procedure to be followed. He was unfazed at this. I took out my pack of cigarettes, handed him the device that we use to guide us to the fragments of any particular soul and told him to get on with his job while I sat and smoked. (I did not know then that I should go along with him – an oversight that almost cost me my training stipend.)
A full 24 hours and two packets of fags later, when he did not arrive I began to get worried. I got afraid because losing a soul on the way invites divine wrath, something I didn’t want to face. So I decided to look for him for a day before I contacted my guide.
To make a long story short (because this is not the important part) I found him weeping quietly in the attic of his parents’ home after a prolonged search. He got afraid when he saw me and started begging, saying, “I know I can’t run away from you. Please allow me to stay here as long as possible, I don’t want to go. I shouldn’t have committed suicide in the first place. Can you please give me life once again? I promise I won’t do anything of this sort again.” and so on. I had to shake him for a long time to get him out of his hysterics. Then I asked him what had happened that transformed him from a soul happy to leave to one that would like to bear the torments of earthly life once again. This is what he told me.
“The first place I went to was my girlfriend’s. She was asleep in her room. Entering that room reminded me of all the happy moments that we had spent there. She was sleeping with a book curled in her hand. I noticed that even while sleeping she doesn’t take out the necklace I had given her as a gift long ago. I also noticed, for the first time, that she has a picture of us tucked under her pillow. Using your device, I could see that she loves me a lot – much more than I had imagined. That was the first time I wondered whether I had made a mistake.”
“After that I went to my friends’ places. Although I found a few people who had only professed their friendship at my face, my friends on a whole liked me a lot. I also noticed that my school and college friends loved me more than my colleagues and this amazed me a lot, given that I had not tried a lot to keep in touch with them. It broke my heart to say goodbye to all of my friends one-by-one. I realized for the first time how much I had been loved and now I was sure that I had made a mistake by committing suicide. Still I would have gone with you if you had come there but you didn’t.”
“I arrived last at this place – partly because it is far from where I lived or rather, died, and partly because I had begun to realize how hard it would be for me to bid my parents farewell. When I arrived, my parents were still awake and they were talking about me. Mom was saying, “But what will he do now?” to which Dad replied, “Don’t you worry. Our son is very intelligent; he will find a better job pretty soon. “
Mom: “But what will he do in the meantime? How will he sustain himself? He is used to spending twenty-thirty thousand every month; he doesn’t have any savings worth mentioning.”
Dad: “Does he know that I get twenty thousand as my salary?”
Mom:”I don’t think so.”
Dad:”OK. Then we shall send him fifteen every month. I think he can manage with that much for the time being. If he asks how much I get, tell him that I get thirty so that he won’t feel guilty about it. We can live pretty comfortably with the remaining but he must stay there and look for a job. If he comes back to this small town, he will never find a job suitable to his qualifications and his talent will be wasted. I don’t want this to happen. We should do whatever it takes to keep him there.”
And with this Dad laid the matter to rest and my parents went to sleep. Mom looked as if a burden had been lifted from her head. None of them said one single word about how they would manage with a meager five thousand a month even when both of them know that half of it would have be spent for Mom’s medicines. It was at that moment that I realized how good it really is to be alive; to be loved and cared for by so many people who are ready to do anything for you; to have someone who will think of you no matter what happens or how low you stand on the social ladder; to breathe in the knowledge that, although it may not seem so, someone is thinking of you at this very moment; to have people ready to sacrifice their comforts for your own. Now I don’t want to die. I wish I had never taken this step. Can you please give me life back? I swear I won’t do anything so foolish again. Please….”
With this he broke into the most pitiable crying I had ever seen. Now, I can’t say I was not moved by his story but there was nothing to be done. I had to handcuff him and carry him all the way to my office while he kept on screaming and trying to persuade me to let him free all the time.
Can you guess why I told you this story? Obviously to help me decrease my workload. What else could the motive have been?
Friday, December 5, 2008
My Happy Ending
“50 bucks for your thoughts” I said.
“You should say ‘A penny for your thoughts’. You’ll end up paying me too much” was the reply.
“Since you have been telling the most entertaining stories throughout this evening I won’t mind even if I have to cough up a bit. 50 bucks is anyway much lesser than what your thoughts deserve.”
We were sitting in a restaurant – me and a person I had met for the first time that very same evening on my way home from office. I don’t remember exactly how we ended up in the restaurant together. I simply remember that I had invited him for dinner and so the bill was on me. It was as if he was a professional who specialized in getting very close to a person in their first meeting. In fact, at the time of the above conversation I knew nothing about him except his name. He had been telling jokes and stories all the time. Somehow, he managed to weave all of his stories placing him as the central character. Now he had relapsed into a silence, prompting me to make the query.
His reply was, “I was thinking of another story. Let me tell you this one now.”
It wasn’t a very good story. It wasn’t even funny like his previous stories. The only way in which it was similar to the previous ones was that the protagonist was himself. It was the story of a guy (himself) and a girl who fell passionately in love with each-other. They were absolutely inseparable for a few years, the story went on to reveal, but slowly small misunderstandings started to creep into their relationship – too small to mention distinctly (He told me a few of them and they really were negligible.) and so these things were left unsaid, heaped at the bottom of their minds. However, this heap of unsaid things kept on growing until one day they realized that there was hardly anything left to say. Their parting was a mutual acceptance of the fact that they had let too much come in between them without realizing it or rather, realizing it too late to be able to do anything about it. They went their separate ways assuring themselves that they were still friends and that would be calling upon each-other in the future but, as usual, it didn’t turn out that way. However, somewhere at the bottom of their hearts they still loved each-other and would have liked to have a second shot at their relationship.
He took well over an hour in telling this story – describing all the events in vivid detail. So detailed were his accounts that he might even have told me the amount of traffic overlooking their window or the color of the curtains, for all I knew. He went through all the ups and downs of the relationship in the story as if he were living those events.
At the end of it my eyes were burning from staring at him continuously and I had forgotten all about the food, now getting cold. I asked him, “Where is she now?” and he told me. She was in the same city as we were.
The next day I took leave from my office and went looking for her. She was where he had told me she would be.
I tried a lot to meet him again but I couldn’t find him anywhere. To this day, neither I nor she knows who he was or how he knew our story better than either of us did at that time.
“You should say ‘A penny for your thoughts’. You’ll end up paying me too much” was the reply.
“Since you have been telling the most entertaining stories throughout this evening I won’t mind even if I have to cough up a bit. 50 bucks is anyway much lesser than what your thoughts deserve.”
We were sitting in a restaurant – me and a person I had met for the first time that very same evening on my way home from office. I don’t remember exactly how we ended up in the restaurant together. I simply remember that I had invited him for dinner and so the bill was on me. It was as if he was a professional who specialized in getting very close to a person in their first meeting. In fact, at the time of the above conversation I knew nothing about him except his name. He had been telling jokes and stories all the time. Somehow, he managed to weave all of his stories placing him as the central character. Now he had relapsed into a silence, prompting me to make the query.
His reply was, “I was thinking of another story. Let me tell you this one now.”
It wasn’t a very good story. It wasn’t even funny like his previous stories. The only way in which it was similar to the previous ones was that the protagonist was himself. It was the story of a guy (himself) and a girl who fell passionately in love with each-other. They were absolutely inseparable for a few years, the story went on to reveal, but slowly small misunderstandings started to creep into their relationship – too small to mention distinctly (He told me a few of them and they really were negligible.) and so these things were left unsaid, heaped at the bottom of their minds. However, this heap of unsaid things kept on growing until one day they realized that there was hardly anything left to say. Their parting was a mutual acceptance of the fact that they had let too much come in between them without realizing it or rather, realizing it too late to be able to do anything about it. They went their separate ways assuring themselves that they were still friends and that would be calling upon each-other in the future but, as usual, it didn’t turn out that way. However, somewhere at the bottom of their hearts they still loved each-other and would have liked to have a second shot at their relationship.
He took well over an hour in telling this story – describing all the events in vivid detail. So detailed were his accounts that he might even have told me the amount of traffic overlooking their window or the color of the curtains, for all I knew. He went through all the ups and downs of the relationship in the story as if he were living those events.
At the end of it my eyes were burning from staring at him continuously and I had forgotten all about the food, now getting cold. I asked him, “Where is she now?” and he told me. She was in the same city as we were.
The next day I took leave from my office and went looking for her. She was where he had told me she would be.
I tried a lot to meet him again but I couldn’t find him anywhere. To this day, neither I nor she knows who he was or how he knew our story better than either of us did at that time.
Monday, October 20, 2008
A Letter
She must have been quite pretty. I hadn’t noticed her much in the office but then, I had joined only a week ago. But I had seen her a few times. In fact, I had seen her only a few minutes ago-talking coquettishly to a colleague of mine. But now, all that I could see in her eyes was terror. That, and the reflected glow of the burning building behind my back. But I am getting incoherent again. I’ll try to start at the beginning.
I didn’t know what hit me, or rather, hit us when the fire started. One moment ago we were working peacefully in our cubicles and the next moment there was a fire alarm blaring at full volume, everyone was rushing towards the fire escape, blocks of burning plywood were falling all over the place – adding fuel to the already raging fire. It was a pandemonium I never thought possible. I wasn’t one of the first to get out. Considering my physical fitness, I was probably one of the last people who came out alive of that inferno.
Just when I reached the door, I heard a crash and a scream behind me. It was as if a bulky object had crashed on someone trying to get out. Instinctively, I turned around and looked in that direction. It was then that I saw her. That face will remain etched in my memory for ever.
Her hair was slightly burnt. Her face was black with soot. A pillar had fallen on her left leg and pinned her to the floor but otherwise she seemed unhurt. She was close enough for me to go there. I don’t know what it was that made me go near her-maybe it was my humanity to save a fellow being in distress, maybe it was pure curiosity – I don’t know what it was and never will.
She didn’t see me approach until I got very near. She was too busy trying to release herself from the pillar to notice me. When I reached her, she turned around and I could see the terror, panic and distress in her eyes. What I saw in that one moment can not be described even in a thousand words. It was then that I realized how much we fear death. But the next moment there was hope and joy in her eyes. She must have thought that I would rescue her. And it was exactly then that I suddenly became fully aware of the mortal danger I was in. As I turned to run away I imagined her eyes return from hopeful to panic-stricken. But now there was a new emotion mixed with panic-disgust.
I ran as fast as I could into the safe hands of the crowd and the fire-fighters, imagining the eyes following me and hoping against hope that someone would save her but it was not to be.
The fire that gutted our two-storied office building claimed five lives. She was one of the two women who died. She had been a secretary in the marketing department, fresh out of college. She had been barely twenty-two when she died. I came to know all this through the newspaper and my colleagues.
I frequently think of her. Was she an open-hearted kind person or was she a snob? Did she have some talents no one realized? Had she too hoped of making in big in the world like we all do in our youth? What did her parents do? Did she belong to a well-to-do family or had she joined this firm to sustain her economic condition? How would she have treated me if I had talked to her in the office? Did she have a boyfriend or a fiancé? And most importantly, how would she have reacted had she been in my place and I hers? Would she have run away like I did or would she have tried to rescue me? A thousand such questions keep running through my mind all day. They have driven me to distraction. I forget to have a shower, go to the office-the new office, and even to have food. I wish someday I might forget to breathe and then all my troubles will end, but that doesn’t seem to happen.
Why did this happen to me? Weren’t there other people who left her dying when they ran out to save their precious lives? Shouldn’t they have tried to help her? Is it not their fault also that she is dead? Then why is it me only who has these questions in his mind? Why is it me who is driven to distraction thinking of her? Why is it me who can feel her eyes following me wherever I go? Why? Oh, why?
This is why I have decided to end this. Whenever and whoever gets this letter, let him know that I was a coward who didn’t even try to save a person from death. Maybe I could have saved her and maybe not. But it is impossible to live with the feeling that I did not even try. That is why I am bringing death upon myself. No one other than me is responsible for my death and the girl now dead.
I hope to meet her once before I am consigned to burn forever in hell. I wish to tell her how sorry I am.
-- Abhay
Friday, August 15, 2008
The Wrenching Sadness of a Lullaby
Once again, its an article i read somewhere and liked.
There is something magical about a lullaby. It is almost impossible to listen to one without responding to it with an emotion that one never fully understands. Lullabies soothe, comfort and lull the awake into sleep. They help babies feel protected and cocooned as they slip away into the tender arms of sleep.
Mothers envelop their little ones with a musical translation of the overwhelming love they feel. Why then are lullabies almost always so sad? Why do lullabies tremble with some deep indefinable sense of liquid melancholy? Why do they ache with a nameless yearning for things lost and things that cannot be found? Think of any lullaby and you will be struck by the tinge of sweet sadness that accompanies it.
Think of a nanhi kali sone chali, dheere se aaja re ankhiyan mein, mere ghar aayi ek nanhi pari or Shubha Mudgal’s so ja and you will observe this recurring pattern. Often the words, too, like in the case of the all-time favourite “rock-a-bye-baby” are less than soothing. Across cultures, the lullaby carries traces of sorrow.
The purpose of the lullaby is anything but sad. The baby needs soothing and absolute protection from all sources of fear. The lullaby imitates the rocking motion of the cradle with simple repetitive phrases and a basic melody. But unlike the nursery rhyme where the melody produces little emotional effect, the lullaby infuses everyone listening with a powerful sense of longing. Why is this so universally true?
In some ways perhaps, the musical structure of lullabies in their desire to soothe, come close to those of dirges. The slowness and the tenderness of the tune makes it melancholic. In that sense, it could be argued that sadness is not really intrinsic to the lullaby but merely a musical by-product. The words are not important; just as martial tunes evoke parades and religious songs generate a sense of immersive piety, so do lullabies evoke a sense of quietude that overlaps with sadness.
As an explanation, however, this is not satisfying enough. There is something more at work here. Perhaps, the mother uses emotion to make a deeper connection with the baby; sadness deepens the bond between mother and child, and helps communicate her feelings better.
Or perhaps, the lullaby becomes a channel for the mother’s own sense of incompleteness. Often lullabies have words that talk about a husband who is away or of distance between mother and child and sometimes even about death.
The idea that sleep is a form of little death is a common enough one. The lullaby might be our way of playing with the idea of death. There is a sense of separation and the baby’s going away to distant lands that evokes a feeling of deep sadness that is all the more powerful because it is not real. It is a rehearsal of sadness that must eventually be ours. It allows us a foretaste of tragedy even as we celebrate the birth of the newborn.
But perhaps the strongest feeling evoked by lullabies is that of nostalgia. We yearn for something pure, tender and innocent when we listen to a lilting lullaby. We long for reaching a part of us we never can. It is this realization that perhaps is at the heart of a lullaby’s ineffable sadness. For the nostalgia we feel is the nostalgia for the womb. The mother gently pines for that sense of intact completeness when she sings melancholically for her little one.
As listeners, we long to be complete again but know that we cannot. The lullaby is nothing but the song of the baby being cast adrift ever so slowly on the painfully solitary journey called life. As adults when we hear this song, we are reminded of what we have lost in some nameless way. The lullaby tells us that what is most beautiful and what makes us feel the purest emotions is also the most transient. We see the magic of life only as it disappears slowly from our eyes. The lullaby is a gentle chronicle of a life told in reverse.
There is something magical about a lullaby. It is almost impossible to listen to one without responding to it with an emotion that one never fully understands. Lullabies soothe, comfort and lull the awake into sleep. They help babies feel protected and cocooned as they slip away into the tender arms of sleep.
Mothers envelop their little ones with a musical translation of the overwhelming love they feel. Why then are lullabies almost always so sad? Why do lullabies tremble with some deep indefinable sense of liquid melancholy? Why do they ache with a nameless yearning for things lost and things that cannot be found? Think of any lullaby and you will be struck by the tinge of sweet sadness that accompanies it.
Think of a nanhi kali sone chali, dheere se aaja re ankhiyan mein, mere ghar aayi ek nanhi pari or Shubha Mudgal’s so ja and you will observe this recurring pattern. Often the words, too, like in the case of the all-time favourite “rock-a-bye-baby” are less than soothing. Across cultures, the lullaby carries traces of sorrow.
The purpose of the lullaby is anything but sad. The baby needs soothing and absolute protection from all sources of fear. The lullaby imitates the rocking motion of the cradle with simple repetitive phrases and a basic melody. But unlike the nursery rhyme where the melody produces little emotional effect, the lullaby infuses everyone listening with a powerful sense of longing. Why is this so universally true?
In some ways perhaps, the musical structure of lullabies in their desire to soothe, come close to those of dirges. The slowness and the tenderness of the tune makes it melancholic. In that sense, it could be argued that sadness is not really intrinsic to the lullaby but merely a musical by-product. The words are not important; just as martial tunes evoke parades and religious songs generate a sense of immersive piety, so do lullabies evoke a sense of quietude that overlaps with sadness.
As an explanation, however, this is not satisfying enough. There is something more at work here. Perhaps, the mother uses emotion to make a deeper connection with the baby; sadness deepens the bond between mother and child, and helps communicate her feelings better.
Or perhaps, the lullaby becomes a channel for the mother’s own sense of incompleteness. Often lullabies have words that talk about a husband who is away or of distance between mother and child and sometimes even about death.
The idea that sleep is a form of little death is a common enough one. The lullaby might be our way of playing with the idea of death. There is a sense of separation and the baby’s going away to distant lands that evokes a feeling of deep sadness that is all the more powerful because it is not real. It is a rehearsal of sadness that must eventually be ours. It allows us a foretaste of tragedy even as we celebrate the birth of the newborn.
But perhaps the strongest feeling evoked by lullabies is that of nostalgia. We yearn for something pure, tender and innocent when we listen to a lilting lullaby. We long for reaching a part of us we never can. It is this realization that perhaps is at the heart of a lullaby’s ineffable sadness. For the nostalgia we feel is the nostalgia for the womb. The mother gently pines for that sense of intact completeness when she sings melancholically for her little one.
As listeners, we long to be complete again but know that we cannot. The lullaby is nothing but the song of the baby being cast adrift ever so slowly on the painfully solitary journey called life. As adults when we hear this song, we are reminded of what we have lost in some nameless way. The lullaby tells us that what is most beautiful and what makes us feel the purest emotions is also the most transient. We see the magic of life only as it disappears slowly from our eyes. The lullaby is a gentle chronicle of a life told in reverse.
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