Thought Detonation #8 - A Phone Call

Even our firm belief in someone is shaken by petite things. The strongest of bonds are broken over smallest of issues. When faith becomes too finished, with no rough edges in a relation, like still water, and then; a small scratch is enough to dismiss the whole finished art, a slight ripple is like a tempest.

It’s like a dusty road may lead you to the same destination like a marble road would, thought with lesser comfort. But the dusty road is less prone to damages than the marble road. While on a dusty road, you would never care of a new puddle. A new puddle would never be significant in the journey. You would reach the destination as usual and will not notice new damages. Even if you do, would wouldn’t care about them. On the contrary, if you travel on a marble road, each small puddle will be noticed, each small bump would hurt, this journey would be opposite to earlier ones, you would not get the comfort you were used to and expectations would be hurt.
It’s like you don’t bash a mate for forgetting your birthday but breakup with a fiancée for it!!

This short story of mine tells you how little influence mixed with high expectations, can shatter a flawless relation. The more you expect a thing to be perfect, more imperfect it seems.

Thought Detonation #7 - Fakers in Saffron

Today I was a little worried you know. It was nearly 1 in afternoon and I wasn’t able to find something to write about. I don’t want to break my consistency so soon. One article a day is going so fantastic and people are loving me and sharing my work. So basically I was desperately searching for something to write about since my consciences don’t allow me to just forward second hand content. That very moment, “God” came to rescue me. How? Just find out yourself as I turn my encounter with those ‘two fakers in saffron’ into a short story…

…And the door bell ringed. I lifted my face to see the clock in front and shouted, “Nothing today. You can go”. I started reading again, but suddenly realized that the garbage collector had already come earlier. So actually I had treated some guest with the hospitality of the garbage collector of our locality. I jumped from my chair with an “oops” and ran to the main door. I opened the door and saw two men dressed in dhoti and kurta of saffron color. One of them was tall, dark, dirty, and skinny; and looked like bark of a neem tree. His brown-half-broken-and-other-half-about-to-break teeth gave me an impression that he had been punched hard in face. His eyes were yellow and watery; and his neck dipped down in his shoulders like he had no neck. Overall he looked no sage, he looked more of a beaten up street fool. The other one was short, fair and had a decent mid 30’s physique. He was clean and wore a constant smile, apart from his saffron clothes. Basically I was in front of two rouges who were pretending to be sages. The clean guy was the ‘master-mind’ and the stinky was aide. I had a thought of chasing them away but since there was nobody home, I wanted to take a chance, and have some fun.

Thought Detonation #6 - On Corruption

I frequently wonder why people choose to go corrupt. Practicing corruption is something like compromising with one’s dignity, like begging with hands and legs in place. It is actually the worst kind of begging. Every penny that is dropped as bribe is actually like a sweet poison. With a million curses coated with that meekest of smiles be held by the victim. Only the hands giving the bribe actually know what the heart would be yelling when saying “Sir ye le lijiye kharcha-pani”. Moreover it’s ultimately of no use. The biggest corrupts are the victims of corruption themselves. Corruption actually doesn’t differentiate between the commoner and the babu. Is affects all of them the same way. It all ends up in same place. Exactly like in this short story.

…He was a prematurely retired office clerk, in his early forties, with grey-black hair and a dense moustache; Bent a little forward, and thin. He had bifocal glasses on, with black square frame and thick lenses. His hands were dry and wrinkled, and the nail of right thumb broken. He was dressed in khaki jacket and dhoti and wore torn black shoes. He was a prematurely retired office clerk called Sharmaji waiting outside the city police station. His forehead displayed lines of anxiety and discomfort. He was shaking his left foot in impatience and repeatedly looking at his mobile phone, going through his phonebook and recent calls list in nervousness. He was waiting for the constable to “introduce” him to the Station Inspector.

Suddenly the wooden doors flung open and the short, round and dark constable took a step out. He bent towards the wall corner and spat the beetle he chewed, while signaled to Sharmaji that he could come in. Sharmaji rose from his seat quickly which was instantly grabbed by one of the three other men who were waiting for Sahrmaji to vacate. As they both entered the room, the SI sitting right in front of them smiled to welcome them. He had his legs on a chair beside the one he was sitting on and two buttons of his shirt undone. “Bahaut garmi hai sharmaji yaha pe”, the SI exclaimed. Sharmaji dint reply to him and stood there nervously. There was silence for a few seconds. “Accha haan apka kaam yaad hai mujhe. Maine ladkon se baat kit hai. Apka kam ho jayega”, said the SI in a consoling tone.

Sharmaji had been robbed nearly a month ago. He was carrying his wife’s jewelry in a khaki bag when two men on a bike snatched it away. Sharmaji wanted to sell it off at the local jewelry shop. His son wished to do an MBA and Sharmaji wanted him to do that as well. But since the jewelry was stolen now, the fate of the Sharma family hung loose.

Thought Detonation #5 – The black boy on rollers

After my routine jog for a kilometer I went to the center play area of the park, like every day, for those twenty pushups. It had been nearly four months or so since I had the same exercise regime. Neither more, nor less. I had tried a few times to do a little more than that. After all improvement is the basic essence of any work out, isn’t it? I had always failed miserably. Running out of breath in just next few meters after my standard one kilometer. And after this I actually never tried to increase the number of pushups and neither the intensity of other exercises. Since I was building a good body anyhow, I dint feel the need to strain myself further. So basically, today’s jog seemed nothing special, just like other days. One kilometer and 20 pushups plus some exercise. I wasn’t thrilled. My face had the expression of the concrete track below. Flat and non-lively. Well I do look that way when I am shook out of my dreams. But In all this “inactive” state of the world, there was something that was going to catch my attention and detonate a new thought.

I was pushing the ground below while I puffed number 17… damn just three more 18… fu*k fu*k 19… again……..20… I was just about to get up when I heard a dash.

Thought Detonation #4 - Varied perceptions and deficient conclusions

As I sat all cool skimming through today’s TOI & reading about the Ayodhya issue, I felt that all these problems prevailing in our country, mostly related to religious groups, casts and communities, are because each group is “intra-monotone”. Most people within a group have similar kind of thought process and perceptions. Safe to say, they have same paradigms. But when the same group interacts with another group, the paradigms differ. In fact what could be beneficial for one group might be a loss for the other. Inter-group difference reside in the roots of our nation, and in a varied country like India, it is bound to reside in future. A simple version of this thought can be applied to each of us individually. Each of us has perceptions different, and at times repugnant, to a fellow being. In a world which is so intense, these differences in perceptions can prove to be grave. Especially under provocation. The following fictional short story of mine describes how the variance in perceptions formed and the deficient conclusions drawn from them are actually stupid, still they compel us to prepare “most craziest” of overviews.

…It was 8:30 in the morning and I was walking to the nearby shop to by the day’s bread and milk. Shops shutters were just starting to open. There was not much activity in the vicinity. With just a few people, newspaper boys, a few plump women on their morning walk and sniffing dogs. In these passive surroundings, the by footer on the opposite pavement was rather interesting. She was dressed in a red salwar suit, which fit right on her, with a couple of red bangles in each hand, Red nail paint and little silver earrings. She was traumatizing fair than any other thing near-by, which gave her a unique glow. With long black hair swaying loose, she could have killed anyone by her looks. She would have been in her early 20’s. I glanced over her for seconds and then withdrew my sight before it turned a stare. But the guy walking behind me wasn’t sensible enough, or maybe was too excited to decide what was right. He just waved his hand to her and winked. She saw it. I was paused for a few seconds as I was convinced to see a high voltage drama this morning. The guy just stood there like a rogue with his lower lips between his teeth and with penetrating sharp eyes set on her. The girl gave a blushing smile, looked down on the pavement and hurried her steps away from the scene. Exactly at that moment a middle aged man, I guess in his late 30’s and looking quite rural came closer to the girl and started walking with her. It was her father. Now this further convinced me of my thoughts about the high voltage drama and the guy behind me was nearly dead. He quickly got away from the spot and made sure he dint match an eye with her father or the pretty lady. I continued to look at the girl and her father. The girl was still smiling, looking down to pavement. Her father just watched the guy go away, not with anger, not with hate, he dint even respond to the situation. He just had a calm expression on his face, with sober eyes and pale flat forehead. I wondered what made him feel so relaxed when some random guy just winked at her daughter and ran away. What kind of disgusting parent was he? I mean it’s OK for a girl to smile after being winked, but not for her father to look satisfied and contended. I just mumbled “What the Hell. Pimp shit.” in disgust and continued on my way.

Later I was back at my house and it war nearly 10:30 in morning when our maid arrived. She had box full of sweets and looked as happy as never before. She yelled to my mother that her daughter’s surgery was successful and she got her face back. I had once overheard our maid telling my mother that her daughter’s face got burned when she was 5 years old. It was a Degree – III burn and they were having trouble regarding her marriage. All boys in their community had rejected her. And they dint want to marry her to a lower caste boy. She was going gaga over her daughter’s new found beauty as any other mother would. She called “shanti. Aaja”. In her unique accent and a girl stepped up the stairs on my floor and appeared near the door. My jaw dropped. Shati was the girl who got winked this morning. It was she who smiled. It was her father who stood contended. And would he be not? He had every reason to be happy. It was like lightning struck me. These folks had put together each rag to make up the cost of her plastic surgery. And now she was beautiful, beautiful like goddess. Any guy would say yes instantly to her proposal. I wonder how god could give a burn to such a beauty. Did he have no logic? Suddenly all my thoughts got reverted. How foolishly, without knowing the basic cause, or the whole story behind, I just drew atrocious conclusion about her father. How a father could not be contended after all his hard work, earnings and sacrifice earned his daughter her lost beauty. That wink had actually set a seal of success on his hard work. He knew it. Hence he was calm and contended. I did not. Hence I was disgusted.

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