Let the truth be told...

The Lizard on the wall catches the attention. Just at eye level. A tiny thing. Must be no more than 5 days since it came into being. Must be a really unique life, that which is lived in the men’s room.

A gentle blow. And the little thing wiggles up a bit. Its thread-like tail achieving the deception it was meant to accomplish. Now it’s about a couple of feet above the pot slapped against the wall. Perfectly at eye level now. It is pale, and if you weren’t strong in your semantics, you would be tempted to call it transparent. The bones beneath that thin sheath of what is actually skin are almost visible. The eyes. They are almost outside the tiny head.

And then I saw it. Between the two bulbous jet-black eyes, a black spot clearly visible beneath the skin. The brain? No, probably not. But what is that? It must have a skull and if it does, there should be a brain inside it. But this black spot is outside the skull - if there was a skull…..

I was drained. I didn’t mean, ‘tired’, but you know what I mean. I blew a bit at the tiny chap. He wriggled up a bit again. And I could see that heart beat rate get rapid from the throbbing on the sides. Just behind its front legs. Tiny as can be, again. And I could say it was experiencing some level of anxiety. I Blow again. The tail moves first and the chap wriggles up more. And I look down and realize I’ve been standing over the pot long after I’m done.

I come out thinking of the little chap and the black spot between the eyes. A small head and a smaller brain. And that filled to the full with the experiences of 5 days, add to that instincts of over 10 million years.

The experience of breaking the shell from the inside. Hearing it crack and fall apart. Experience of seeing blinding light rushing in through the crack and flooding it from all sides as the shell falls apart.

And the first experience of moving a limb. Comprehending and ‘taking stock’ of the number of limbs and tails. Realizing and understanding the function of each projection of what it now thinks of as its body.

What force of nature makes it realize and think of its body as ‘its body’? That’s another question by itself. The head on my body throbs.

Experiences of stepping into the world. The first pang of hunger, and instantly the instinct of over 10 million years or more comes to the rescue, just as that little insect further up on the wall does. The first prey, the first meal and the first burp of satisfaction.

Whatever happened to the insect’s instinct? Ah! The head throbs again at the thought of this big game of nature. An almost sadistic scheme, if you think about it from one level.

“10,000 ways to get your dinner” – a convenient ROM in the name of ‘instinct’ of 10 million years . And part II by the same authors, “10,000 effective ways of escaping from your predator”.

How long is the life span of a normal lizard? 6 months? A year? I don’t know. But can’t be much. It doesn’t really matter. I think of this chap. This tiny friend of mine with transparent skin. The friend I made in the loo.

Look at his life.

Event 1: – enter world. Even if the fellow’s concept of the world is limited to the wall in the loo.

Event n – exit the world.

What, just what the hell really does happen between the two events? Cumulating personal experiences and implementation of the instinct of 10 million years? Add to the database of ‘10,000 ways to do this or do that’ so the next generation can use them?

What? Why?

Between the two events, how does it matter where the lizard lived? Or what insects it hunted? Or how its success rate was highest on the walls of that loo? Or how it courted its mate? Or how it hurt itself at the hinge of the door? Or how it struggled for a whole week without food? And how it thought it was Gods way of punishing its sins of a past life, while it was just that the loo was visited by the pest-control guys. And how after that week, the sudden appearance of a cockaroach made it think God had answered its prayers?

The futility of the life of a lizard. It’s obvious. Glaring. Almost blinding. There simply is no higher form of purpose that it could be indulging in.

Eat. Sleep Copulate. Fight for life. Eat. Sleep….

And the futility of the life of a frog. An elephant. A giraffe. Man. Its plain clear. There is no spirituality. There is no higher form of life. No higher purpose. No higher meaning. No higher sense of achievement or accomplishment.

Meaning. That there is nothing of.

We kid ourselves. We are as mundane and boring and pointless as that lizard.

I must really wind this up. I have to plan my taxes.

More Pathe

Here I go again. Come here. Sit here next to me.

All of a sudden, I have this overwhelming, overpowering impulse. I want to open my heart to you and share this intense feeling I have right this minute. And I want you to appreciate this moment of mine by understanding more precisely how I feel. So allow me spare a moment to accurately describe how this feeling feels.

You step into a swimming pool at the chest-high-water end. Wait. Not my chest-high-water end. I’m talking your chest-high-water end. I don’t want you getting in at the 3 feet end. That would not give you the feeling I am trying to establish in your prose interpreting mind.

So you get into this pool… and oh yes. I know your secret! Before you got in you knew you would encounter cold water welcoming you in. I know you stood there for a few moments contemplating the water. Then you looked around. Watched distractedly at people, yeah you did notice that fat man with his belly spilling over so much that it almost covered his swimming trunk. One bountiful trunk covering a rather skimpy trunk. Skimpy, perhaps only in contrast. Judging by that ample waistline, it was probably stitched out of an old tent. Not quite out of place for that tent in any case. Because you also noticed a forest just about a foot north, right there on his chest. Then there was this little girl, part of her hair has escaped the rubber band and was falling over her face. 'So cute' how she comes out gasping for air, but encounters more hair than air. 'Awww so cute' how she pushes back that hair in several quick strokes every time she comes out of the water. And then there’s that big man on the diving board. Let me wait for him to jump and swim away, you thought. Will he make the perfect dive? You then looked at the sky, perhaps felt a breeze and thought about the cold water immediately. All that rigmarole. I know. I know.

Damn. This is terrible. I am a disaster. Pull me back, pull me back. I keep derailing.

So……yeah the prarallel I am trying to draw to this overwhelming feeling that i'm feeling.

When you finally do slip into the pool, the water rises to your chest (or you sink down to your chest, whichever you like). And then you give this soft, stifled, silent gasp. Remember that gasp? Remember that feeling?

Remember? That’s it! That’s it! That’s the one!

That’s how I am feeling now. I just got a similar overwhelming wave. I feel like opening my heart to you. I want to throw open its doors and windows to you.

I want to share with you that I have this overpowering feeling to Pathe right now.

Oh! Waitaminnit! Did I just…..?

Oh well, thanks anyway. Now i feel like I just invited someone to my house when they've already arrived. Thanks anyway for being there. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being such a friend.

Sour, because I can’t soar

And then, there is this friend of mine.

Intelligent, witty, clever, wise, kind. And hopeless. Hopeless because he just cant find his niche. He wont take a job. Gives in to an easy state of equilibrium – a no energy state.

If you can’t decide what to do, what do you do?

We all have at least one friend like that. Someone you just KNOW can do so much better, but does not. Who could be better off, but won't be. Who could be in a much better job, but is not. Who could be in a much better career, but is not. Who could be more satisfied, better paid, but just won’t move his ass.

We all have at least one person we know close to us who seems to prefer to drift. Who prefers not to see the truth of the real world, who prefers not to let that truth shake him into action. Who seems to go through life in a daze. A perpetual state of complacence Almost like he took sleepwalking to a whole different level - sleepliving. Who just cant overcome inertia.

And time passes, and the years pass and our friend refuses to change, stuck with that one thought or that one quest or with one desire, and refuses to discard that purposeless thought, hopeless quest, impossible desire, to just get up and smell the coffee. A dream that will never be realized, for he just wont awake from his slumber.

And he drifts.

Like the feather of a bird on the ground. Moving when there is a gust of wind. And settling back gently into a state of rest. Another gust and it rises up twirls a little, dances in the air, shows its brilliance against the light and settles again. And again gives us joy with the next gust with its grace and charm.

Alas. What a purposeless existence. If only it knew its rightful place and stayed there, how it could have made a bird fly, swoop and soar!

Stop Bugging me!

She went to the temple today. She folded her hands and prayed. Her eyes were closed for 11 minutes and 48 seconds. She dropped 30 Rs.5 coins in the hundi. Touched the bronze plate with her elegantly painted finger tips.

She smiled at the security. She scratched her left eyebrow once. That stupid fly. It had no clue the landing strip it chose was in fact, actually the eyebrow of Shetty,Shilpa, The. It sat right over her left eyebrow and troubled the poor delicate skin it sat on.

Those long bow shaped eyebrows that stretch across the forehead all the way to the temple twitched for an instant. The temple, you might have guessed, that is on either side of her forehead. Not the one she was in. The ones that throbbed when a racist tongue waggled at her. Not the one in Prabhadevi. Not Siddhivinayak.

But when one throbbed, the other beckoned.

Ah but Shilpa Shettys eyebrows are as exciting as her visit to the temple. I can’t live a moment not knowing whether she went to Siddhivinayak or not. Times of India said today, “Shilpa Shetty with Bigger Brother”. On the cover page. Right at the Top. Right there In your just-out-of-the-bed face. That’s the news I want to see in the morning. It makes my life meaningful. It gives me a feeling of being informed and ‘clued in’. That’s the kind of news we need to create happy, informed, well read, successful, cheerful citizens who contribute to the society and make this a better, bigger nation. You think I am being sarcastic don’t you? Well, bless you. I am. I swear I am.

Because I’m riveted to news like that. It makes my day. My life as a matter of fact. How can I even imagine one breath in day without news like that? Why do I pay Rs.5, (inclusive of complimentary copy of Mumbai Mirror worth Rs.2), if I don’t get to know about Shilpas visits to the temple, masseuse, that NGO that takes care of the down trodden?

Why do you think we have been served with fifty million words on what happened to her over the last few weeks?

I think the newspapers and the media think we are interested. Maybe you are. You are aren’t you?

Well I hope you are. I certainly am not. But I hope you are.

I rather like the idea that I am being stupid and indifferent and cynical and lead a bored lonely life not caring a hoot or two about such hugely significantly consequential world news. I am too old and disconnected. If no man is an island, it proves that I am not a man, for I certainly seem to be an island. I just don’t like that sort of news. It’s BORING. I just can’t be bothered.

But I hope you are, because if you are not, and if you feel the same way about it as I do, then something is very, very wrong with our world today.

To be fair, I have no clue what happened there. None at all. I am aware Jade said something wrong. As far as I am concerned, what was said was said because a mind came up with a thought that made a tongue move. The mind was wrong, the thought was wrong and maybe the tongue was wrong too. I don’t care. It’s that mind that needs to worry and debate and deliberate and correct itself. Not me. I don’t have to spend a moment more on it than it takes for me to hear it. Granted it certainly is not nice to hear it. Certainly is not nice to have people racially slurring along their daily lives. But I won’t be affected if someone has a tongue that slurs racially. Even if it slurred at me.

I can say “6 million years ago, a lunatic distractedly built a small sand hill on the river bed. Because of some plutonic activity the hill grew and grew and now has become the Himalayas. The hill sucked, and so now the Himalayas suck too”.

Do you feel sad for the Himalayas? Or should you feel sad for me? Will the nation like the Himalayas more for my slur?? Will Tony Blair and his gang meet the Himalayas and fall all over it? Will the queen meet the mountain?

Oh well. I hope I am clueless. I hope I am warped. Cuz if you feel the same way I do, then we are subjected to agony in our lives that we really don’t need. And something is very, very wrong.

But well, the Himalayas are nice and so is Shilpa. I have no comment on her to make. I am just a little troubled the way we all reacted. Oh but that’s how it looks from my island. Do what you like in yours.
And the fly isn’t to blame. But hey, let’s not allow our affections towards Shilpa undermine the fly. This fly lives at Siddhivinayak. It lives everywhere. And has perched on countless people. An endless list of celebs, common everyday people like you and me, thugs, underworld people, politicians, Abhishek Bachhan, Ash, Anuradha paduval, Sachin Tendulkar, and the panwala down your road. That’s really a long list if you have any idea.

Oh what fun to buzz around and sit on the eyebrows, head, hair, nose, ears, and many exciting places on several celebs.

Ok, the fly just followed the forehead out.

Later she bought a new lamp shade. And a new bamboo floor mat to do yoga on. She sneezed twice in the last 3 days and a little speck of dust went into her left eye. I can’t wait for the papers tomorrow.

The fly. A Makki. Makki? koun si makki? kiss Makki? Oh Mika. Kiss Mika!? Oh well, thats another story altogether. Some other time.

The Fly. Sigh. Look closely - it’s really a bug.